Suppose the patient to have taken cold, and to present, in consequence, a malady which, anatomically, is made up of a pneumonia and hepatitis. It is all well enough, and doubtless important for the purposes of diagnosis and prognosis, to make this pathologico-anatomical analysis of the case. But when we come to regard the case from the stand-point of Therapeutics, we are not surely to follow the plan which Dr. Drysdale seems to sanction, viz., to look among the drugs which are shown by provings to act on the tissues of the lung, and select the best from among them, and then to look among remedies which act on the tissues of the liver, and select the best from among these remedies, and to alternate the two thus selected. What if, as would be likely in such a case, the pleura, likewise, were inflamed? Should we have a third remedy? Or the kidneys also? Should we have a fourth? “Quousque tandem”
On the contrary, we should collect the various groups of symptoms, as well those from which the Pathologist infers that the tissue of the lung is affected, as those from which he infers that the tissue of the liver is affected. All other symptoms likewise would be gathered. We should examine these symptoms, in the manner so often described, for the purpose of finding in them the peculiar characteristics of some particular drug. In thus dealing with the case, we should have this advantage over the Pathologist, that whereas his inferences may lead him astray, since the lung tissue may not be affected as he thinks it is- and likewise the tissue of the liver-we, on the other hand, taking into account only the obvious symptoms, avoid at least one very patent source of fallacy. Our own experience has altogether misled us if we do not find, in the case supposed, that if the lung symptoms give us characteristic indications for a remedy, the liver symptoms not only will not contradict this indication by affording one for some other remedy, but they will corroborate the indication, so as to give us no pretext for alternating.
But another case is supposed, viz., that a pneumonia is present, and a remedy has been well selected for it, and now a hepatitis supervenes to complicate the case. Here, we are told, is a new disease, which can have nothing to do with the previously existing pneumonia, and which must require a distinct treatment, in the way of alternation. This is in no way different from the complication of a burn, of which we have already spoken. If the complication is serious enough to produce constitutional symptoms (as a hepatitis would surely be), it would always (or our observation has uniformly deceived us) modify all existing symptoms. For example, a severe burn would give a typhoid character t an existing pneumonia. We must then make a new collection of the symptoms, and proceed as before to select a remedy.
Under any other plan-if we are to select our remedy according to correspondence of known drug-action and disease-action upon the tissues of the body-not only are we liable to errors already pointed out, but our scope is wonderfully restricted. How could we find remedies for changes of structure, such as we can never expect to see in drug-provings, such as cancer and heterologous growths of all kinds? How, for affections which do not depend on or involve any definite known change of tissue, as intermittent fever, epilepsy, hysteria, and the host of chronic ailments?
The two principles on which alternation has been sought to be defended have been stated as follows:
1st. “Each drug has its own specific sphere and manner of action; hence that remedy acts in a particular manner upon a particular organ or tissue, or upon a particular set of organs or tissues.”
2d. “Attenuated remedies act upon the system only by virtue of their homoeopathicity to the disease by which the system is at the time affected.”
The artificial disease intentionally produced by a drug, and the natural disease which results from the usual morbific predisposing and exciting causes may, for all purposes of argument, be regarded as identical. Principle No. 1 might, therefore, with equal propriety, be expressed thus: “A disease has its own specific sphere and manner of action; hence that disease acts in a particular manner upon a particular organ or tissue, or upon a particular set of organs of tissues.”
A corollary of this proposition is, that, inasmuch as the drug and the disease respectively act in a particular manner and upon particular organs or tissues, they leave other organs and tissues of the body altogether unaffected, in their normal state and performing their healthy functions, and liable to be themselves attacked by some other disease, which may affected them in its own particular manner, and may run a simultaneous and independent course.
This is the argument for alternation which is constructed upon these principles; a certain disease affects in a peculiar way certain organs or tissues of the body, leaving the other organs and tissues in the fulfillment of their normal functions. Attenuated medicines may be administered to cure this disease. Attenuated medicines “act only by their homoeopathicity to the disease.” “They are inert” so far as action on the healthy organs or tissues is concerned. Homoeopathic medicines act only where, says Dr. Drysdale, they find that preternatural susceptibility to their action, which inheres in organs or tissues diseases in a manner similar to the morbid state which those drugs can produce on the healthy.
These attenuated medicines then may be given for the case we have supposed. They will act upon the diseased organs and tissues, but will not affect the healthy ones at all. Now, the, during the existence of this disease, which, as stated, affects in a particular manner certain organs and tissues, and leaves all the rest undisturbed, a second disease may attack the individual (may we call one who may be thus divided up an individual?) acting in some other particular manner, upon some other particular organ or tissue.
To meet this new disease, co-existence with the original, it is affirmed that a second remedy homoeopathy to it may be administered simultaneously with the former remedy. Or rather, since to administer it simultaneously might involve the risk of the chemical reason of the drugs, the remedies may be alternated. It will not interfere with the former remedy, because attenuated medicines act only by virtue of their homoeopathy to the disease (to which they are respectively homoeopathic). Thus each drug “will go to its own place,” like the respective members of a well-trained coach team when they winding horn announces that the coach is ready for the new relay!
Such is the argument for alternation succinctly, and, we think it will be conceded, fairly, stated. In a former discussion of this subject we showed that, assuming natural disease and drug disease to be, for the purposes of this argument, substantially the same thing, it was proving too much to demonstrate that two or more diseases co-existing in the body could not and do not affect each other. This would render a cure of a disease impossible; for in the act of curing we propose to cure a natural disease by creating in the body a drug disease which shall annihilate the natural disease, and shall, in that very act, be itself annihilated. When a certain form of rheumatism exists in the body, we give Bryonia, and our intention is that Bryonia shall so act upon the body (producing, therefore, virtually, a Bryonia disease) as to cause the disappearance of the rheumatism and at the same time not to leave in its stead a Bryonia disease nor any other disease. But if two diseases co-existing cannot react upon and modify each other, how could a cure take place? The proposition is evidently too broad; the argument proves too much.
Dr. Drysdale provides against this objection by limiting the alleged possible independent co-existence of diseases, to diseases which act in a dissimilar manner upon remote or unrelated organs and tissues.
According to this view, two diseases might co-exist and not modify each other, if seated in organs distant from each other, or which is equivalent, a natural disease may exist, and a drug may be given which acts only upon organs remote from those which are the seat of the disease, and (if the doses be strong enough) may produce its peculiar drug disease without at all affecting the natural disease which is already present.
In other words, it is only diseases (whether natural or drug diseases) which are homoeopathically related to each other, that are incompatible and may not co-exist without modifying each other.
Dr. Drysdale and several other physicians, hold these views, and appeal to their own observation and experience. If we may be allowed to draw an inference from Dr. Drysdale;s remarks, (1 Annals of British Hom. soc., No. 17, p. 375) he believes that a hepatitis may supervene upon an already active pneumonia, and that each may run an independent course, and be treated independently by alternated remedies, without modifying each other or blending into one morbid state.
Dr. Dunham graduated from Columbia University with Honours in 1847. In 1850 he received M.D. degree at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. While in Dublin, he received a dissecting wound that nearly killed him, but with the aid of homoeopathy he cured himself with Lachesis. He visited various homoeopathic hospitals in Europe and then went to Munster where he stayed with Dr. Boenninghausen and studied the methods of that great master. His works include 'Lectures on Materia Medica' and 'Homoeopathy - Science of Therapeutics'.