§ 155 Fifth Edition
I say without any considerable disturbance. For in the
employment of this most appropriate homœopathic remedy it is only the symptoms of the
medicine that correspond to the symptoms of the disease that are called into play, the
former occupying the place of the latter (weaker) in the organism, and thereby
annihilating them by overpowering them; but the other symptoms of the homœopathic
medicine, which are often very numerous, being in no way applicable to the case of disease
in question, are not called into play at all. The patient, growing hourly better, feels
almost nothing of them at all, because the excessively minute dose requisite for
homœopathic use is much too weak to produce the other symptoms of the medicine that
are not homœopathic to the case, in those parts of the body that are free from
disease, and consequently can allow only the homœopathic symptoms to act on the parts
of the organism that are already most irritated and excited by the similar symptoms of the
disease, thus changing the morbid affection of the vital force into a similar but stronger
medicinal disease, whereby the original malady is extinguished.
§ 155 Sixth Edition
I say without any considerable disturbance. For in the
employment of this most appropriate homœopathic remedy it is only the symptoms of the
medicine that correspond to the symptoms of the disease that are called into play, the
former occupying the place of the latter (weaker) in the organism, i.e., in the
sensation of the life principle, and thereby annihilating them by overpowering them; but
the other symptoms of the homœopathic medicine, which are often very numerous, being
in no way applicable to the case of disease in question, are not called into play at all.
The patient, growing hourly better, feels almost nothing of them at all, because the
excessively minute dose requisite for homœopathic use is much too weak to produce the
other symptoms of the medicine that are not homœopathic to the case, in those parts
of the body that are free from disease, and consequently can allow only the
homœopathic symptoms to act on the parts of the organism that are already most
irritated and excited by the similar symptoms of the disease, in order that the sick life
principle may react only to a similar but stronger medicinal disease, whereby the original
malady is extinguished.
There is, however, almost no homœopathic medicine, be it ever so
suitably chosen, that, especially if it should be given in an insufficiently minute dose,
will not produce, in very irritable and sensitive patients, at least one trifling, unusual
disturbance, some slight new symptom while its action lasts; for it is next to impossible
that medicine and disease should cover one another symptomatically as exactly as two
triangles with equal sides and equal angles. But this (in ordinary circumstances)
unimportant difference will be easily done away with by the potential activity (energy) of
the living organism, and is not perceptible by patients not excessively delicate; the
restoration goes forward, notwithstanding, to the goal of perfect recovery, if it be not
prevented by the action of heterogeneous medicinal influences upon the patient, by errors
of regimen or by excitement of the passions.
But though it is certain that a homœopathically selected remedy
does, by reason of its appropriateness and the minuteness of the dose, gently remove and
annihilate the acute disease analogous to it, without manifesting its other
unhomœopathic symptoms, that is to say, without the production of new, serious
disturbances, yet it usually, immediately after ingestion - for the first hour, or for a
few hours - causes a kind of slight aggravation (where the dose has been somewhat too
large, however, for a considerable number of hours), which has so much resemblance to the
original disease that it seems to the patient to be an aggravation of his own disease. But
it is, in reality, nothing more than an extremely similar medicinal disease,
somewhat exceeding in strength the original affection.
§ 157 Sixth Edition
But though it is certain that a homœopathically selected remedy
does, by reason of its appropriateness and the minuteness of the dose, gently remove and
annihilate the acute disease analogous to it, without manifesting its other
unhomœopathic symptoms, that is to say, without the production of new, serious
disturbances, yet it usually, immediately after ingestion - for the first hour, or for a
few hours - causes a kind of slight aggravation when the dose has not been sufficiently
small and (where the dose has been somewhat too large, however, for a considerable number
of hours), which has so much resemblance to the original disease that it seems to the
patient to be an aggravation of his own disease. But it is, in reality, nothing more than
an extremely similar medicinal disease, somewhat exceeding in strength the
original affection.
This slight homœopathic aggravation during the first
hours - a very good prognostic that the acute disease will most probably yield to the
first dose - is quite as it ought to be, as the medicinal disease must naturally be
somewhat stronger than the malady to be cured if it is to overpower and extinguish the
latter, just as a natural disease can remove and annihilate another one similar to it only
when it is stronger than the latter (§§ 43 - 48).
The smaller the dose of the homœopathic remedy is, so much the
slighter and shorter is the apparent increase of the disease during the first hours.
§ 159 Sixth Edition
The smaller the dose of the homœopathic remedy is in the treatment of acute diseases so much the slighter and shorter is the apparent increase of the disease during the first hours.