§ 67 Fifth Edition
These incontrovertible truths, which spontaneously offer themselves to our notice and experience, explain to us the beneficial action that takes place under homœopathic treatment; while, on the other hand, they demonstrate the perversity of the antipathic and palliative treatment of diseases with antagonistically acting medicines.
11 Only in the most urgent cases, where danger to life and imminent death allow no time for the action of a homœopathic remedy - not hours, sometimes not even quarter-hours, and scarcely minutes - in sudden accidents occurring to previously healthy individuals - for example, in asphyxia and suspended animation from lightning, from suffocation, freezing, drowning, etc. - is it admissible and judicious, at all events as a preliminary measure to stimulate the irritability and sensibility (the physical life) with a palliative, as for instance, with gentle electrical shocks, with clysters of strong coffee, with a stimulating odor, gradual application of heat, etc. When this stimulation is effected, the play of the vital organs again goes on in its former healthy manner, for there is here no disease* to be removed, but merely an obstruction and suppression of the healthy vital force. To this category belong various antidotes to sudden poisoning: alkalies from mineral acids, hepar sulphuris for metallic poisons, coffee and camphora (and ipecacuanha) for poisoning by opium, etc.
It does not follow that a homœopathic medicine has been ill selected for a case of disease because some of the medicinal symptoms are only antipathic to some of the less important and minor symptoms of the disease; if only the others, the stronger well-marked (characteristic), and peculiar symptoms of the disease are covered and matched by the same medicine with similarity of symptoms - that is to say, overpowered, destroyed and extinguished; the few opposite symptoms also disappear of themselves after the expiry of the term of action of the medicament, without retarding the cure in the least.
* And yet the new sect that mixes the two systems
appeals (though in vain) to this observation, in order that they may have an excuse for
encountering everywhere such exceptions to the general rule in diseases, and to justify
their convenient employment of allopathic palliatives, and of other injurious allopathic
trash besides, solely for the sake of sparing themselves the trouble of seeking for the
suitable homœopathic remedy for each case of disease - I might almost say for the
sake of sparing themselves the trouble of being homœopathic physicians, and yet
wishing to appear as such. But their performances are on a par with the system they
pursue; they are nothing to boast of.
§ 67 Sixth Edition
These incontrovertible truths, which spontaneously offer themselves to our notice and experience, explain to us the beneficial action that takes place under homœopathic treatment; while, on the other hand, they demonstrate the perversity of the antipathic and palliative treatment of diseases with antagonistically acting medicines.1
1 Only in the most urgent cases, where danger to life and imminent death allow no time for the action of a homœopathic remedy - not hours, sometimes not even quarter-hours, and scarcely minutes - in sudden accidents occurring to previously healthy individuals - for example, in asphyxia and suspended animation from lightning, from suffocation, freezing, drowning, etc. - is it admissible and judicious, at all events as a preliminary measure to stimulate the irritability and sensibility (the physical life) with a palliative, as for instance, with gentle electrical shocks, with clysters of strong coffee, with a stimulating odor, gradual application of heat, etc. When this stimulation is effected, the play of the vital organs again goes on in its former healthy manner, for there is here no disease* to be removed, but merely an obstruction and suppression of the healthy vital force. To this category belong various antidotes to sudden poisoning: alkalies from mineral acids, hepar sulphuris for metallic poisons, coffee and camphora (and ipecacuanha) for poisoning by opium, etc.
It does not follow that a homœopathic medicine has been ill selected for a case of disease because some of the medicinal symptoms are only antipathic to some of the less important and minor symptoms of the disease; if only the others, the stronger well-marked (characteristic), and peculiar symptoms of the disease are covered and matched by the same medicine with similarity of symptoms - that is to say, overpowered, destroyed and extinguished; the few opposite symptoms also disappear of themselves after the expiry of the term of action of the medicament, without retarding the cure in the least.
* And yet the new sect that mixes the two systems
appeals (though in vain) to this observation, in order that they may have an excuse for
encountering everywhere such exceptions to the general rule in diseases, and to justify
their convenient employment of allopathic palliatives, and of other injurious allopathic
trash besides, solely for the sake of sparing themselves the trouble of seeking for the
suitable homœopathic remedy for each case of disease - and thus conveniently appear
as homœopathic physicians, without being such. But their performances are on a par
with the system they pursue; they are corrupting.
In homœopathic cures they show us that from the
uncommonly small doses of medicine (§§ 275 - 287) required in this method of treatment,
which are just sufficient, by the similarity of their symptoms, to overpower and remove
the similar nature disease, there certainly remains, after the destruction of the latter,
at first a certain amount of medicinal disease alone in the organism, but, on account of
the extraordinary minuteness of the dose, it is so transient, so slight, and disappears so
rapidly of its own accord, that the vital force has no need to employ, against this small
artificial derangement of its health, any more considerable reaction than will suffice to
elevate its present state of health up to the healthy point - that is, than will suffice
to effect complete recovery, for which after the extinction of the previous morbid
derangement but little effort is required (§ 64, B).
§ 68 Sixth Edition
In homœopathic cures they show us that from the uncommonly small doses of medicine (§§ 275 - 287) required in this method of treatment, which are just sufficient, by the similarity of their symptoms, to overpower and remove from the sensation of the life principle the similar natural disease there certainly remains, after the destruction of the latter, at first a certain amount of medicinal disease alone in the organism, but, on account of the extraordinary minuteness of the dose, it is so transient, so slight, and disappears so rapidly of its own accord, that the vital force has no need to employ, against this small artificial derangement of its health, any more considerable reaction than will suffice to elevate its present state of health up to the healthy point - that is, than will suffice to effect complete recovery, for which after the extinction of the previous morbid derangement but little effort is required (§ 64, B).