Organon of homœopathic medicine. / by Samuel Hahnemann.

  • Hahnemann, Samuel, 1755-1843.
Date:
1836
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Organon of homœopathic medicine. / by Samuel Hahnemann. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in curing lethargic fevers with opium. A case of lethargy of which De Meza effected a cure, would yield only to this sub- stance, which, in such cases, acts homoeopathically, since it produces lethargy of itself. C. C. Matthai,t in an obstinate case of nervous disease, where the principal symptoms were insensibility, and numbness of the arms, legs, and belly, after having for a long time treated it with inappropriate, that is to say, non-homcEopathic remedies, at length effected a cure by opium, which, according to Stiitz, J. Young, and others,! excites similar symptoms of a very intense nature, and which, as every one must perceive, only succeeded on this occasion by homoeopathic means. The cure of a case of lethargy which had already existed several days, and which Hufeland performed by the use of opium,§ by what other law could this have been effected, if not by that of homoeopathy, which has remained disregarded till the present time? In that peculiar species of epilepsy which never mani- fests itself but during sleep, De Haen discovered that it was not at all a sleep, but a lethargic stupor, with stertorous respiration, perfectly similar to that which opium produces in persons who are in health ; it was by the means of opium alone that he transformed it into a natural and healthy sleep, while at the same time he delivered the patient of his epilepsy.il How would it be possible that opium, which of all vegetable substances is the one whose administration, in small doses, produces the most powerful and obstinate constipation, as a primary effect, should notwithstanding be a remedy the most to be relied upon in cases of constipation which endanger life, if it was not in virtue of the homoeopathic law, so little known— that is to say, if nature had not decreed that medicines should subdue natural diseases by a special action on their part, which consists in producing an analogous affection ? Opium, whose first effects are so powerful in constipating the bowels, was dis- covered by Tralles* * * § ** to be the only cure in a case of ileus, * Act. Reg. Soc. Med. Hafn. iii. p. 202. t In Struve’s Triumph der Heilk. iii. J See my Mat. Med. vol. i. § In Hufeland’s Journal, xii. i. II Ratio Medendi, V. p. 126. ** Opii usus et abusus, sect. ii. p. 260.