Yet even at this acme of the disease the patient still appears healthy in every other respect; all the symptoms of the internal Psora, now so much increased, still remain covered and assuaged through the skin-symptom augmented in the same proportion. But so great a torture, as is caused by so unbearable an itching spread over the whole body, even the most robust man cannot continue to bear. He endeavors to free himself from these torments at any price, and, as there is no thorough help for him with the physicians of the old school, he endeavors to secure deliverance at least from this eruption, which itches so unbearably, even if it should cost his life; and the means are soon furnished him, either by other ignorant persons, or by Allopathic physicians and surgeons. He seeks deliverance from his external tortures, without suspecting the greater misfortune which unavoidably follows, and is bound to follow, on the expulsion of the external skin-symptom (which hitherto has acted vicariously for the internal enlarged psora-disease), as has been sufficiently proved by the observations mentioned before. But when he thus drives away such an eruption of itch by external applications, he exposes himself to a similar misfortune, and acts just as unreasonably, as a person who in order to be quickly delivered from poverty, and thus as he supposes to make himself happy, steals a great sum of money, and is, therefore, sent to the dungeon and the gallows.
The longer the itch-disease has already lasted, whether the eruption, as is usually the case, has spread over the greater part of the skin, or whether, owing to a peculiar lack of activity in the skin, (as in some cases) the eruption has been confined to a few vesicles of itch* – in both cases, supposing only that the Psora together with its skin-symptom has grown old, the expulsion of the eruption of itch, whether greater or smaller or even as small as you please, is attended with the most destructive consequences on account of the internal itch-disease (psora) with its unspeakable sufferings, which, through its long continuance, has increased to a high degree and then unavoidably breaks forth.
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(* See the observation to No. 86. P.29)
But the ignorance of the uninstructed layman may be pardoned if he drives out the itch-eruption and the troublesome itching by a cold shower-bath, by rolling in the snow, by cupping, or by rubbing the whole skin, or only the skin around the joints, with sulphur mixed with lard; for he does not know to what dangerous accidents and outbreaks of the Psora-disease, that lurks within, he thereby opens the door and ingress. But who will pardon the men whose office and duty it is to know the extent of the inevitably following, illimitable misfortune, resulting from the external expulsion of the itch-eruption, owing to the Psora which is then aroused from the whole organism, and who ought to have guarded against it in every way by a thorough internal cure of the whole of this disease,* when we see them treat the itch patients all in the same erroneous manner; yea, with even more violent internal and external remedies, sharp purgatives, with the Jasser ointment, with lotions of acetate of lead, with the sublimate of mercury or sulphate of zinc, but especially with an ointment prepared of fat with flowers of sulphur or with a preparation of mercury; with which they lightly and carelessly destroy the eruption, declaring this is merely an impurity located in the skin, and must be driven out; then everything will be well and the man will be healthy and free from every ailment. Who can pardon them if they are not willing to learn from the many warning examples recorded by the older, more conscientious observers, nor by the many thousands of other examples, which frequently, yea, almost daily, come before their eyes? Yet they cannot see nor be convinced as to the certain, quickly fatal or lifelong insidious misfortune they bring upon the itch-patient through the destruction of his eruption, as they thus merely unfetter the internal malady (psora), which is laden with innumerable ailments. This disease is neither destroyed nor cured; and so this thousand-headed monster, instead of being conquered, is inexorably let loose against the deceived patient to his destruction, by tearing down the barriers that shut it in.
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(* For even when the itch-disease has reached this high degree, the eruption, together with the internal malady, in one word, the whole psora, may still be healed by the internal, specific Homoeopathic remedies, with greater difficulty, indeed, than in the beginning, immediately after its origin, but still far more easily and certainly than after a complete expulsion of the eruption by mere external applications, when we must cure the internal psora as it brings forth its secondary symptoms and develops into nameless chronic diseases. The itch-disease, though it may have advanced so far, may nevertheless in its entire state be most easily, certainly and thoroughly cured, together with its external eruption, through the suitable internal remedies, without the least local application, just as the venereal chancre disease may most surely and easily be thoroughly cured often by the least, single dose of the best preparation of mercury internally administered – when the chancre, without calling in the aid of the remedy, quickly becomes a mild ulcer, and in a few days heals of itself, so that no trace of secondary symptoms (venereal disease) then ever appears or can appear, since the internal symptom has been cured together with the local symptoms, as I have taught for many years orally and in my writings, and have proved by my cures of this kind.
How can we excuse the whole host of physicians, who, hitherto, after treating this generally spread venereal disease for more than three hundred years, nevertheless remain so ignorant in recognizing its nature, that in looking at a chancre they even to this day acknowledge nothing diseased in the infected patient, but this same chancre, and do not see the syphilis, which was already present within and had been developed in the whole organism, even before the breaking out of the chancre; and so they blindly suppose, that the chancre is the only venereal evil which is to be extirpated, and that this needs but to be destroyed by external applications, in order to be able to declare the man cured; and this without being instructed, by the many thousand cases in their experience, that by the local extermination of the chancre they have never done anything but injury, as they have only deprived the syphilis pre-existing within of its diverting local symptoms and have thereby compelled the internal malady to break out only the more certainly and dreadfully (and in a manner more difficult of cure), as venereal disease. How can such a universal, pernicious obliquity of vision be excused?
Or why did these physicians never reflect on the origin of the figwarts? Why did they always overlook the internal universal malady, which is the cause of these excrescences? It is only when this is recognized, that it can be thoroughly cured by its Homoeopathic remedies, which then cause the figwarts to be healed, without the application of any external means of destruction.
But even if a shadow of an excuse might be offered for this sad negligence and ignorance, and if anyone would claim that these physicians have only had three and one-half centuries, in which to discern clearly the true nature of syphilis, and that they might have learned this truth after a still more extended practice (still I have endeavored, though in vain, to convince them of their error a number of years ago and since then from time to time), nevertheless, that general negligence of previous physicians and, I may well say, their obstinate blindness, are quite without excuse, in that they did not recognize the internal pre-existing malady, the psora, which lies at the bottom of the itch-disease, which has infected men for several thousands of years, and that they ignored in their proud levity all the facts which point to it, so that they might continue the delusion and leave the world in its destructive infatuation that: the unbearably itching pustules are only a mere superficial ailment of the skin, and by their local destruction man is delivered from the whole disease, and has fully recovered.
Not perchance mere medical scribblers, no, the greatest and most celebrated physicians of modern and most modern days have made themselves guilty of this grievous error (or shall I say of this intentional crime), from VON HELMONT even to the latest advocates of the Allopathic medical practice.
By the use of the above mentioned remedies, they indeed usually reached their aim; i.e., the driving away of the eruption and of the itching from the skin, and they supposed in the intoxication of their spirit (or at least they pretended), they had destroyed the disease itself and, indeed, totally, and they sent away the patients, thus abused, assuring them that they were again healthy.
Hahnemann's three major publications chart the development of homeopathy. In the Organon of Medicine, we see the fundamentals laid out. Materia Medica Pura records the exact symptoms of the remedy provings. In his book, The Chronic Diseases, Their Peculiar Nature and Their Homoeopathic Cure, he showed us how natural diseases become chronic in nature when suppressed by improper treatment.