The limb, therefore, on which the solution is to be rubbed in, must be free from cutaneous ailments. In order to introduce also here change and variation, when several of the limbs are free from cutaneous ailments, one limb after the other should be used, in alternation, on different days, (best on days when the medicine is not taken internally). A small quantity of the solution should be rubbed in with the hand, until the limb is dry. Also for this purpose, the bottle should be shaken five or six times.
Convenient as the mode of administering the medicine above described may be, and much as it surely advances the cure of chronic diseases, nevertheless, the greater quantity of alcohol or whisky or the several lumps of charcoal which have to be added in warmer weather to preserve the watery solution were still objectionable to me with many patients.
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(* On the other hand such baths have also inflicted a proportionally greater injury with patients who suffered from ulcers and cutaneous eruptions; for these were driven by them from the skin, as may be done by other external means, when after a short period of health, the vital force of the patient transferred the internal uncured disease to another part of the body, and one much more important to life and health. Thus e.g. may be produced the, obscuration of the crystalline lens, the paralysis of the optic nerve, the destruction of the sense of hearing; pains also of innumerable kinds in consequence torture the patient, his mental organs suffer, his mind becomes obscured, spasmodic asthma threatens to suffocate him, or an apoplectic stroke carries him off, or some other dangerous or unbearable disease takes the place of the former ailment. Therefore the homoeopathic remedy given internally must never be rubbed in on parts which suffer from external ailments.
I have, therefore, lately found the following mode of administration preferable with careful patients. From a mixture of about five tablespoonfuls of pure water and five tablespoonfuls of French brandy – which is kept on hand in a bottle, 200, 300 or 400 drops (according as the solution is to be weaker or stronger) are dropped into a little vial, which may be half-filled with it, and in which the medicinal powder or the pellet or pellets of the medicine have been placed. This vial is stoppered and shaken until the medicine is dissolved. From this solution one, two, three or several drops, according to the irritability and the vital force of the patient, are dropped into a cup, containing a spoonful of water; this is then well stirred and given to the patient, and where more especial care is necessary, only the half of it may be given; half a spoonful of this mixture may also well be used for the above mentioned external rubbing.
On days, when only the latter is administered, as also when it is taken internally, the little vial containing the drops must every time be briskly shaken five or six times; so also the drop or drops of medicine with the tablespoonful of water must be well stirred in the cup.
It would be still better if instead of the cup a vial should be used, into which a tablespoonful of water is put, which can then be shaken five or six times and their wholly or half emptied for a dose.
Frequently it is useful in treating chronic diseases to take the medicine, or to rub it in in the evening, shortly before going to sleep, because we have then less disturbance to fear from without, than when it is done earlier.
When I was still giving the medicines in undivided portions, each with some water at a time, I often found that the potentizing in the attenuating glasses effected by ten shakes was too strong (i.e., the medicinal action too strongly developed) and I, therefore, advised only two succussions. But during the last years, since I have been giving every dose of medicine in an incorruptible solution, divided over fifteen, twenty or thirty days and even more, no potentizing in an attenuating vial is found too strong, and I again use ten strokes with each. So I herewith take back what I wrote on this subject three years ago in the first volume of this book on page 149.
In cases where a great irritability of the patient is combined with extreme debility, and the medicine can only be administered by allowing the patient to smell a few small pellets contained in a vial, when the medicine is to be used for several days, I allow the patient to smell daily of a different vial, containing the same medicine, indeed, but every time of a lower potency, once or twice with each nostril according as I wish him to be affected more or less.
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.