Let us first say a few words about syphilis, of which Hahnemann writes,”It never becomes extinct in itself. It increases from year to year and assumes new and more dangerous symptoms to the end of life.”
And yet, curiously, Hahnemann looks upon Syphilis as the most easily cured of all the chronic diseases : provided that it is cured in situ, and not cured externally, i.e., driven in to become a “general venereal disease.”
He quotes John Hunter-and others-as to the danger of treating the original local manifestation by external applications.
Hunter says,”Not one patient in fifteen will escape syphilis, if the chancre is destroyed by external applications,”- and again,”The result of destroying the chancre ever so early (and even on the first day of its appearance, if this is effected by local applications) was always the consequent outbreak of syphilis.” And be quotes Fabre’s Venereal Diseases, “Syphilis always follows on the destruction of the chancre by local applications.”…..
And Hahnemann says, “I have never, in my practice of more than fifty years, seen any trace of the venereal disease break out, so long as the chancre remained untouched in its place, even if were a space of several years….. But whenever anyone is so imprudent as to destroy this vicarious local symptom, the organism is ready to cause the internal syphilis to break out into the venereal disease; since the general venereal disease dwells in the body from the first moment of infection… The miasm has already become the property of the whole organism. All wiping off and washing off, however speedy, and with whatever fluid this be done, is too late -is in vain.”
He says that, from the first moment of infection, it is no more local….
I remember that when we were students there was a case (in another hospital) of a surgeon, operating on a syphilitic patient, who wounded his finger.
He had it instantly amputated, but was too late to avoid infection.
Dr. Bach used to say,”How did Hahnemann know that infection was instantaneous? It took us three months, at U.C.H., to demonstrate this during the War.” And he said, if you scarify a rabbit, and take two dabs, one in each hand, of streptococcus and of iodine, and dab on one as fast as your can after the other, you are too late to prevent infection.
But Hahnemann says that, if uncomplicated with psora, he can assert from manifold experience, that there is on earth no chronic miasm, no chronic disease springing from a miasm, which is more curable, and more easily curable than syphilis.
“In the uncomplicated first state, it needs only one little dose of the best mercurial remedy in order to cure thoroughly and forever the whole syphilis with its chancre within fourteen days. That the Chancre in a few days after taking such a dose of mercury (without any external application) becomes a clean sore with a little mild pus, and heals of itself, is a convincing proof that the venereal disease is fully extinguished within; and it does not leave behind the least scar, or the least spot showing any other colour than the healthy skin.’
I can only recollect seeing two cases of primary sores. I have hunted up the notes of one of them. The other, so far as I can remember, was equally dramatic.
Mrs. A. 36. No children. No miscarriages.
May 8, 1918. Complains of ulceration of 8 months’ duration- (on one of the labia minora).
On examination, it turned out to be a typical syphilitic ulcer,”with the characteristic induration.” Dr. Neatby identified it : and the Wassermann reaction was “distinctly positive.” She was given Nit.a.200, one dose.
14 days later she reported “No trouble with the ulcer since being here.”
Another 14 days. “Very comfortable,” she said. An examination was made and the note is, “Ulcer completely healed. All quite soft.” She said no doctor had examined it till I did: and she had had no treatment for it.
A month later she got a second dose of Nit. a. 200.
4 months later, on examining, all was found to be absolutely soft and normal, and the Wassermann examination was negative.
And (5 months after her first appearance) the Wassermann was again found negative.
Here you have a primary sore, of eight months’ duration, Wassermann positive. Four weeks after the single dose of Nit. a. 200, it is found to be “perfectly healed-all soft and normal.” While two subsequent Wassermann examinations proved negative.
Hahnemann’s great remedy for syphilis is Mercury which is, of course, absolutely homoeopathic to that disease, and which he gives in the 30th potency. But “in cases where a second or third dose(however seldom needed) should be found necessary, a lower potency may then be taken.”
