§ 118
Every medicine exhibits peculiar actions on the human frame, which are not produced in exactly the same manner by any other medicinal substance of a different kind.
11 This
fact was also perceived by the estimable A. v. Haller, who says (Preface to his Hist.
stirp. helv.): "Latet immensa virium diversitas in iis ipsis plantis, quarum
facies externas dudum novimus, animas quasi et quodcunque caelestius habent, nondum
perspeximus."
As certainly as every species of plant differs in its external form, mode of life and growth, in its taste and smell from every other species and genus of plant, as certainly as every mineral and salt differs from all others, in its external as well as its internal physical and chemical properties (which alone should have sufficed to prevent any confounding of one with another), so certainly do they all differ and diverge among themselves in their pathogenetic - consequently also in their therapeutic - effects.1 Each of these substances produces alterations in the health of human beings in a peculiar, different, yet determinate manner, so as to preclude the possibility of confounding one with another.2
1 Anyone who has a thorough knowledge of, and can appreciate the remarkable difference of, effects on the health of man of every single substance from those of every other, will readily perceive that among them there can be, in a medical point of view, no equivalent remedies whatever, no surrogates. Only those who do not know the pure, positive effects of the different medicines can be so foolish as to try to persuade us that one can serve in the stead of the other, and can in the same disease prove just as serviceable as the other. Thus do ignorant children confound the most essential different things, because they scarcely know their external appearances, far less their real value, their true importance and their very dissimilar inherent properties.
2 If
this be pure truth, as it undoubtedly is, then no physician who would not be regarded as
devoid of reason, and who would not act contrary to the dictates of his conscience, the
sole arbiter of real worth, can employ in the treatment of diseases any medicinal
substance but one with whose real significance he is thoroughly and perfectly conversant, i.e.,
whose positive action on the health of healthy individuals he has so accurately tested
that he knows for certain that it is capable of producing a very similar morbid state,
more similar than any other medicine with which he is perfectly acquainted, to that
presented by the case of disease he intends to cure by means of it; for, as has been shown
above, neither man, nor mighty Nature herself, can effect a perfect, rapid and permanent
cure otherwise than with a homœopathic remedy. Henceforth no true physician can
abstain from making such experiment, in order to obtain this most necessary and only
knowledge of the medicines that are essential to cure, this knowledge which has hitherto
been neglected by the physicians in all ages. In all former ages - posterity will scarcely
believe it - physicians have hitherto contented themselves with blindly prescribing for
diseases medicines whose value was unknown, and which had never been tested
relative to their highly important, very various, pure dynamic action on the health of
man; and, moreover, they mingled several of these unknown medicines that differed so
vastly among each other in one formula, and left it to chance to determine what effects
should thereby be produced on the patient. This is just as if a madman should force his
way into the workshop of an artisan, seize upon handfuls of very different tools, with
the uses of all of which he is quite unacquainted, in order, as he imagines, to work
at the objects of art he sees around him. I need hardly remark that these would be
destroyed, I may say utterly ruined, by his senseless operations.
Therefore medicines, on which depend man’s life and death, disease
and health, must be thoroughly and most carefully distinguished from one another, and for
this purpose tested by careful, pure experiments on the healthy body for the purpose of
ascertaining their powers and real effects, in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of
them, and to enable us to avoid any mistake in their employment in diseases, for it is
only by correct selection of them that the greatest of all earthly blessings, the health
of the body and of the mind, can be rapidly and permanently restored.
In proving medicines to ascertain their effects on the healthy body, it
must be borne in mind that the strong, heroic substances, as they are termed, are liable
even in small doses to produce changes in the health even of robust persons. Those of
milder power must be given for these experiments in more considerable quantities; in order
to observe the action of the very weakest, however, the subjects of experiment should be
persons free from disease, and who are delicate, irritable and sensitive.
In these experiments - on which depends the exactitude of the whole
medical art, and the weal of all future generations of mankind - no other medicines should
be employed except such as are perfectly well known, and of whose purity, genuineness and
energy we are thoroughly assured.
Each of these medicines must be taken in a perfectly simple,
unadulterated form; the indigenous plants in the form of freshly expressed juice, mixed
with a little alcohol to prevent it spoiling; exotic vegetable substances, however, in the
form of powder, or tincture prepared with alcohol when they were in the fresh state and
afterwards mingled with a certain proportion of water; salts and gums, however, should be
dissolved in water just before being taken. If the plant can only be procured in its dry
state, and if its powers are naturally weak, in that case there may be used for the
experiment an infusion of it, made by cutting the herb into small pieces and pouring
boiling water on it, so as to extract its medicinal parts; immediately after its
preparation it must be swallowed while still warm, as all expressed vegetable juices and
all aqueous infusions of herbs, without the addition of spirit, pass rapidly into
fermentation and decomposition, whereby all their medicinal properties are lost.
For these experiments every medicinal substance must be employed quite
alone and perfectly pure, without the admixture of any foreign substance, and without
taking anything else of a medicinal nature the same day, nor yet on the subsequent days,
nor during all the time we wish to observe the effects of the medicine.
During all the time the experiment lasts the diet must be strictly regulated; it should be as much as possible destitute of spices, of a purely nutritious and simple character, green vegetables,1 roots and all salads and herb soups (which, even when most carefully prepared, possess some disturbing medicinal qualities) should be avoided. The drinks are to be those usually partaken of, as little stimulating as possible.2
1 Young green peas, green French beans (+ ‘boiled potatoes’ in the Sixth Edition) and in all cases carrots are allowable, as the least medicinal vegetables.
2 The subject of experiment must either be not in the habit of taking pure wine, brandy, coffee or tea, or he must have totally abstained for a considerable time previously from the use of these injurious beverages, some of which are stimulating, others medicinal.