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(* Usually these epidemic intermediate diseases appear in the form of a fever (if they are not the permanent miasms, small-pox, measles, dysentery, whooping cough, etc.). There are fevers of various kinds, a continuous acute fever, or a slow remittent, or an intermittent fever. Intermittent fevers appear almost every year in a somewhat changed form. Since I have learned to cure chronic diseases and maladies by a homoeopathic extirpation of their psoric source, I have found the epidemically current intermittent fevers almost every year different in their character and in their symptoms, and they therefore require almost every year a different medicine for their specific cure. one year they require arsenicum, another belladonna, another antimonium crudum, or spigelia, aconite, with ipecacuanha, alternating with nux vomica, sal ammoniacum, natrum muriaticum, opium, cina, alone or in alternation with capsicum, or capsicum alone, menyanthes trifoliata, calcarea carbonica, pulsatilla, one of the two carbos, arnica, alone or in alternation with ipecacuanha, and with these they were cured in a few days. I would not, indeed, except any one of the non-antipsoric medicines, if they are only homoeopathic to the whole complex of the symptoms of the prevailing fever, in its attack as well as in its apyrexia (see von Boenninghausen, Versuch e. hom. Therapie d. Wechselfiebers, 1833, Muenster), but I would almost always except cinchona; for this can only suppress its type in many large doses in a concentrated form (as quinine), and then it changes it into a cachexy of quinine, which it is difficult to cure. (China is only appropriate to the endemic intermittent fever in marshy regions, and even this can only be rightly cured by it in connection with antipsoric remedies.) Even at the beginning of the treatment of an epidemic intermittent fever, the homoeopathic physician is most safe in giving every time an attenuated dose of sulphur or in appropriate cases, hepar sulphuris in a fine little pellet or by means of smelling, and in waiting its effects for a few days, until the improvement resulting from it ceases, and then only he will give, in one or two attenuated doses, the non-antipsoric medicine which has been found homoeopathically appropriate to the epidemy of this year. These doses should however only be given at the end of an attack. With all patients in intermittent fever, psora is essentially involved in every epidemy, therefore an attenuated dose of sulphur, or of hepar sulphuris is necessary at the beginning of every treatment of epidemic intermittent fever, and makes the restoration of the patient more sure and easy.)
The symptoms of the original chronic disease will, however, always be found somewhat varied after the cure of such a prevailing intermediate disease. Also another part of the body will be found suffering, so that the homoeopathic physician will choose his antipsoric remedy according to the totality of the remaining symptoms, and not simply give the one he intended to give before the intermediate disease appeared.
When the physician is called to treat such a prevalent disease in a patient whom he had not before attended as a chronic patient he will not unfrequently find, especially if the fever was considerable, that after overcoming it by the remedies which had been homoeopathically specific with other patients of this kind, the full restoration to health does not follow even with good diet and mode of living: but incidents of another kind will show themselves (usually, called after-pains or secondary diseases) and these will gradually be aggravated and threaten to become chronic. Here the homoeopathic physician will nearly always have to meet a psora which is developing into a chronic disease, and this will have to be cured according to the principles here laid down.
Here is a fitting opportunity to note that the great epidemic diseases: smallpox, measles, purple rash, scarlet fever, whooping cough, fall dysentery and typhoid, when they complete their course especially without a judicious homoeopathic treatment, leave the organism so shaken and irritated, that with many who seem restored, the psora which was before slumbering and latent now awakes quickly, either into itch-like eruptions* or into other chronic disorders, which then reach a high degree in a short time, if they are not treated properly in an antipsoric manner. This is due to the great exhaustion of the organism which still prevails. The allopathic physician, when such a patient, as is frequently the case, dies after all his unsuitable treatment, declares that he has died from the sequels, of whooping cough, measles, etc.
These sequels are, however, the innumerable chronic diseases in numberless forms of developed psora which have hitherto been unknown as to their origin and consequently remained uncured.
Epidemic and sporadic fevers, therefore, as well as the miasmatic acute diseases, if they do not soon terminate and pass directly over into good health, (even when the epidemic and acute miasmatic part has found a homoeopathic specific which has been rightly used against them), often need an antipsoric assistance, which I have usually found in sulphur, if the patient had not used shortly before a medicine containing sulphur, in which case another antipsoric suitable to this particular case will have to be used.
Endemic diseases, with their striking pertinacity, depend almost wholly on a psoric complication, or on psora modified by the peculiarity of the nature of the locality (and the especial mode of life of the inhabitants), so that, e.g., in intermittent fever originating in a marshy region, the patients, even after removal into a dry region, often remain uncured despite of all their use of china, unless the antipsoric treatment is especially used. The exhalation from swamps seems to be one of the strongest physical causes of the development of the psora latent within with so many persons and this most of all in hot countries. Without an almost regular use of the best antipsoric method of cure, we shall never succeed in removing the murderous qualities of humid climates and changing them into passably healthy, habitable regions. Man may accustom himself to the extreme degrees of atmospheric heat, as well as to the most violent cold, and can live joyous and healthy in both extremes, Why should he not be able to accustom himself to marshy regions just as well as to the driest mountain regions, if there were not a hitherto undiscovered and unconquered enemy of vigorous life and lasting health, lying in ambush in marshy regions, i.e., psora? Wherever psora lies latent within (and how frequently is this the case?) it is developed into chronic diseases of every kind, especially those in which the liver is most affected, through stagnant water and the gases that emanate from damp soil and from swamps; and this is effected more surly, yea, unavoidably by these causes than by any other physical power injurious to health.
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(* When such an eruption appears in any quantity, it is called by writers scabies spontanea (spontaneous itch) – a mere chimera and nonentity, for as far as history goes, no itch has arisen except from infection, and it cannot now arise again of itself without infection with the miasma of itch. But this phenomenon after acute fever is nothing else than the secondary eruption so often mentioned above springing from the slumbering and latent psora remaining within after the repression (or more rarely the gradual disappearance) from the skin of the original eruption of itch. This eruption frequently leaves the skin of itself and it has never been proved that it infected any other person with the itch.)
(Presumably these exhalations possess a quality which as it were paralyzes the vital force of the organism (which in an ordinary state of health is able to keep down the internal psora which always endeavors to manifest itself) and thus predisposes to putrid and nervous fevers.)
The latest symptoms that have been added to a chronic disease which has been left to itself (and thus has not been aggravated by medical mismanagement) are always the first to yield in an antipsoric treatment; but the oldest ailments and those which have been most constant and unchanged, among which are the constant local ailments, are the last to give way; and this is only effected, when all the remaining disorders have disappeared and the health has been in all other respects almost totally restored. In the general maladies which come in repeated attacks, e. g. the periodic kinds of hysteria, and different kinds of epilepsy, etc., the attacks may quickly be made to cease by a suitable antipsoric; but to make this cessation reliable and lasting, the whole indwelling psora must be completely cured.
The frequent request of a patient to have one symptom, which above others is troublesome to him, removed first of all, is impracticable, but the ignorant patient should be excused for his request.
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.