If the cause must at all times be proportionate to its effect and consequence, as is the in nature, no one can see how, after the removal of the causes assailing her health, the resulting ailments could not only continue, but even increase from year to year, if their cause were not in something else, something deeper, so those unhappy occurrences (the miscarriage and the sad tidings), since they both disappeared of themselves and therefore could not possibly yield a sufficient ground for the ensuing chronic disease, can only be regarded as the occasion, but not the efficient cause, of the development of a hostile power of greater importance, pre-existent in the internal organism but hitherto quiescent.
In a similar manner, a robust merchant, apparently healthy, despite some traces of internal psoral perceptible only to the professional examiner, may in consequence of unlucky commercial conjunctures become involved in his finances, even so as to approach bankruptcy, and at the same time he will fall gradually into various ailments and finally into serious illness. The death of a rich kinsman, however, and the gaining of a great prize in a lottery, abundantly cover his commercial losses; he becomes a man of means – but his illness, nevertheless, not only continues but increases from year to year, despite all medical prescriptions, in spite of his visiting the most famous baths, or rather, perhaps, with the assistance of these two causes.
A modest girl, who, excepting some signs of internal psora, was accounted quite healthy, was compelled into a marriage which made her unhappy of soul, and in the same degree her bodily health declined, without any trace of venereal infection. No allopathic medicine alleviates her sad ailments, which continually grow more threatening. But in the midst of this aggravation, after one year’s suffering, the cause of her unhappiness, her hated husband, is taken from her by death, and she seems to revive, in the conviction, that she is now delivered from every occasion of mental or bodily illness, and hopes for a speedy recovery; all her friends hope the same for her, as the exciting cause of her illness lies in the grave. She also improves speedily, but unexpectedly she still remained an invalid, despite the vigor of her youth; yea, her ailments but seldom leave her, and are renewed from time to time without any external cause, and they are even aggravated from year to year in the rough months.
A person who had been unjustly suspected and become involved in a serious criminal suit, and who had before seemed healthy, with the exception of the marks of latent psora mentioned above, during these harassing months fell into various diseased states. But finally the innocence of the accused is acknowledged, and an honorable acquittal followed. We might suppose that such a happy, gratifying event would necessarily give new life to the accused and remove all bodily complaints. But this does not take place, the person still at times suffers from these ailments, and they are even renewed with longer or briefer intermissions, and are aggravated with the passing years, especially in the wintry seasons.
How shall we explain this? If that disagreeable event had been the cause, the sufficient cause, of these ailments, ought not the effect; i.e., the disease, to have entirely ceased of necessity, after the removal of the cause? But these ailments do not cease, they are in time renewed and even gradually aggravated, and it becomes evident that those disagreeable events could not have been the sufficient cause of the present ailments and complaints – it is seen that they only served as an occasion and impetus toward the development, of a malady, which till then only slumbered within.
The recognition of this old internal foe, which is so frequently present, and the science which is able to overcome it, make it manifest, that generally an indwelling itch (psora) was the ground of all these ailments, which can not be overcome even by the vigor of the best constitution, but only through art.)
But even if favorable external conditions should again check the rapid development of a disease that has broken out, true health can not be lastingly restored by any of the modes of treatment hitherto known, and the customary allopathic treatments, with their aggressive, inappropriate remedies – such as baths, mercury, prussic acid, iodine, digitalis, quinine, starvation and other fashionable remedies included – only hasten death, the end of all those maladies which the physician cannot heal.
When once, under the above-mentioned unfavorable outward surroundings, the transition of the psora from its slumbering and bound condition to its awakening and outbreak has taken place, and the patient leaves himself to the injurious activity of the usual allopathic physician, who deems it appropriate to his office and his income to mercilessly assault the organism of the patient (as we are sorry to witness every day) with the battering-rams of his violent, inappropriate remedies and weakening treatments; – in such a case, the external circumstances of the patient and his situation with respect to his surroundings may have changed ever so favorably, but the aggravation of the disease nevertheless proceeds under such hands without any escape.
The awakening of the internal psora which has hitherto slumbered and been latent, and, as it were, kept bound by a good bodily constitution and favorable external circumstances, as well as its breaking out into more serious ailments and maladies, is announced by the increase of the symptoms given above as indicating the slumbering psora, and also by a numberless multitude of various other signs and complaints. These are varied according to the difference in the bodily constitution of a man, his hereditary disposition, the various errors in his education and habits, his manner of living and diet, his employments, his turn of mind, his morality, etc.
Then when the itch-malady develops into a manifest secondary disease there appear the following symptoms, which I have derived and observed altogether from accounts of diseases which I myself have treated successfully and which confessedly originated from the contagion of itch, and were mixed neither with syphilis nor sycosis.
I am quite willing to believe that many more symptoms may have occurred in the experience of others.
I would only add further, that among the symptoms adduced there are also such as are entirely opposed to each other, the reason of which may be found in the varying bodily constitutions existing at the time – when the outbreak of the internal psora occurred. Yet the one variety of symptoms is found more rarely than the other and it offers no particular obstruction to a cure:
Vertigo; reeling while walking.
Vertigo; when closing the eyes, everything seems to turn around with him; he is at the same time seized with nausea.
Vertigo; on turning around briskly, he almost falls over.
Vertigo, as if there was a jerk in the head, which causes a momentary loss of consciousness.
Vertigo with frequent eructations.
Vertigo even when only looking down on the level ground, or when looking upward.
Vertigo while walking on a road not enclosed on either side, in an open plain.
Vertigo; she seems to herself now too large, now too small, or other objects have this appearance to her.
Vertigo, resembling a swoon.
Vertigo, passing over into unconsciousness.
Dizziness; inability to think or to perform mental labor.
Her thoughts are not under her control.
She is at times quite without thought (sits lost in thought).
The open air causes dizziness and drowsiness in the head.
Everything at times seems dark and black before his eyes, while walking or stooping, or when raising himself from a stooping posture.
Rush of blood to the head.1
Heat in the head (and in the face).2
A cold pressure on the top of the head.3
Headache, a dull pain in the morning immediately on waking up, or in the afternoon when walking rapidly or speaking loudly.
Headache on one side, with a certain periodicity (after 28, 14 or a less number of days), more frequently during full moon, or during the new moon, or after mental excitement, after a cold, etc.; a pressure or other pain on top of the head or inside of it, or a boring pain over one of the eyes.4
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(1 While the mind is uneasy, with anxiety and disinclination to work.)
(2 Not unfrequently accompanied with coldness of the hands and feet.)
(3 Usually accompanied with anxiety.)
(4 At the same time a great internal disquiet and anxiety, especially in the abdomen; a lack of stools, or frequent, scanty evacuations attended with anxiety; heaviness in the limbs, quivering in the whole body, tension of all the nerves with great irritability and sensitiveness; the eye can not bear any light, lachrymation, sometimes with swelling of the eyes; the feet are cold; at times attended with dry coryza; often chills, then again a flying heat; conjoined with this, continuous nausea, also at times, retching and vomiting; she lies either as if stunned, or throws herself anxiously from side to side, the attacks lasting from twelve to twenty-four and more hours. After these attacks either great weariness with sadness, or a feeling of tension all over the body. Before these attacks there are frequently jerks of the limbs during sleep and starting up from sleep, anxious dreams, gnashing of the teeth in sleep and tendency to start at any sudden noise.)
Headache daily at certain hours; e.g., a stitching in the temples.1
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.