Organon $10. The material organism, without the vital force is capable of the sensation, no function, no self-preservation; it derives all sensation and performs all the functions of life solely by means of the immaterial being (the vital force) which animates the material organism in health and in disease.
$11. When a person falls ill it is only this spiritual, self-acting (automatic) vital force, everywhere present in his organism, that is primarily deranged by the dynamic influence upon it of a morbific agent inimical to life; it is only the vital force, deranged to such an abnormal state, that can furnish the organism with its disagreeable sensations and incline it to the irregular processes which we call disease; for, as power invisible in itself, and only cognizable by the effects on the organism, its morbid derangement only makes itself known by the manifestation of disease in the sensation and functions of those parts of the organism exposed to the senses of the observer and physician: that is, by morbid symptom and in no other way can it make itself known.
It is clear that Hahnemann wishes to teach that it is a disorder of the activities of the internal man, a lack of harmony or lack of balance, which gives forth the signs and symptoms by which we recognize disease. These sensations constitute the language of disorder, i.e., the means by which we recognize disorder and disease. This immaterial vital principle, this simple substance, everywhere pervades the organism, and in disease this disorder everywhere pervades the organism, it pervades every cell and every portion of the human economy. We will see in course of time that the change in forum of a cell is the result first of disorder, that the derangement of the immaterial vital principles is the very beginning of the disorder, and that with this beginning there are changes in sensation by which man may know this beginning, which occurs long before there is any visible change in the material substance of the body.
The patient himself can feel by his sensations the changes, and this is inimical to life, and death immediately follows, for life in its fullest sense is freedom. As soon as the internal economy is deprived in any matter of its freedom, death is threatening where freedom. As soon as the internal economy is deprived in any manner of its freedom, death is threatening, where freedom is lost death is sure to follow.
So it is when there is the inflowing of a simple substance that has the form or essence of a disease. It is in its essence an evil that is flowing into the economy, but it is a simple substance. Every thing is substantial or real, and has in itself operating and perpetuating power the fact that it can operate and perpetuate is the evidence of power, and if it has power it result in something.
Every cause of disease then has form. If it were not in the form, of single substance it could not affect the forms of simple substance in the natural state of the economy. Moreover, it has its association from the finest forms of physical substance to the crudest, from beginning to end, from the inner to the outer. Such changes and activities as result in the very crudest forms are but the results of disease through a series of degrees, coarser and coarser to the outermost man.
Everything than can be seen, that can be observed with the aid of the finest instrument, is but the result. Nothing in the world of immaterial substance can be seen with any faculty that is capable of seeing things in the world of material substance. The employment of instruments of precision will enable us to see the finest disease results, which are the outcome or results of things immaterial, the bacteria for instance, the very finest form of animal or vegetable life; but the cause of disease is a million times more subtle than these and cannot be seen by the human eye. The finest visible objects are but results of things still finer, so that the cause rests within.
The morbific agents that Hahnemann refers to are simply the extremely fine forms of simple substance, or to bring them down to human thought we might call them viruses; but viruses are often gross because they can sometimes be observed by the vision of man, and therefore we must remember that within the virus is its innermost and that this inner most is in itself capable of giving from to the outermost, which is the visible virus aggravated and concentrated.
The coarser forms would be comparatively harmless were it not for their interiors. Disease products are comparatively harmless were it not for the fact that they contain an innermost and it is the innermost itself that is causative.. The bacteria are the result of conditions within, they are, as it were, evolved by a spontaneous generation-literally, that is what it is. Every virus is capable of assuming forms and shapes in ultimates. the causes of ultimates are not from without but the immaterial invisible center. Those things that appear to man’s eye are evolved, just as man himself is formed from a center which has the power of evolving, an endowment from the Creator,. operating under fixed general laws.
It is only when the vital principle is disturbed by cause of a disease character (that is the innermost of a virus in the form of a simple substance) that it gives forth any consciousness of itself
If there were no disturbing influence in the interiors of man he never would have symptoms. As you sit there is your seats in a perfect state of quietude or tranquillity you are not conscious of your eyes, of your limbs, of your hair. You have to stop and think whether you feel or not. When all the functions are carried on in a perfectly orderly way you have no consciousness of your body, which means that you are in freedom. When not in freedom the individual says. “I feel.:”
It is this disturbance of an invisible character which comes from cause, and appears by changes in the activities of the body, changes in sensations, changes in functions. It is in accordance with all-wise Providence that these sensations should appear to the physician who shall be intelligent enough to read them and know what they mean. They are a warning, they are for us, for purpose. No feeling a man can have is without its purpose., as there is nothing in the universe without its purpose, as there is nothing in the universe without its use. Hence these morbid sensations reveal to the physician that there is disorder.
To establish freedom should be the aim of the physician, and if a physician’s work does not result in placing his patient in freedom he cannot heal the sick, for healing the sick is placing the patient in freedom, giving him absolute physical freedom, If the physician causes the pains to cease by a dose of Morphine, can we call that freedom? Is the patient not made stupid beyond the recognition of the nature of his feelings?
The large doses of the old school produce anything but freedom. We must look elsewhere to find that kind of healing which turns disorder into order and makes man free. By removing the signs and symptoms in an orderly way, by converting disorder the signs and symptoms in an orderly way, have a cause (for as we have already seen when when the economy is turned into order it ceases to give forth symptoms), we place our patients in freedom, both physical and mental.
“Only the vital principle thus disturbed can give to the organism its abnormal sensations and incline it to the irregular action we call disease. ” This is totally different from calling the results of disease the disease, e.g., calling Bright’;s disease, cancer, or palsy, diseases. Most of the conditions of the human economy that are called diseases in the books are not diseases, but the results of disease. To call a group of symptoms a disease of one part, and another group of symptoms a disease of another part, is a great here and leads to errors in prescribing that can never be corrected. Organic change is the result of disease.
Morbid disturbances can be perceived solely by means of the expression of disease in the sensation and actions! We would have no means of perceiving the morbid disturbance of the invisible principle except by morbid sensations, and if these were not present we would have no means of putting the patient in freedom.
There are patient so sick that they cannot be put in freedom, those for whom there are no means of cure, and in these, while the internal structural changes are going on slowly, the morbid symptoms are not present. Such patients continually change doctors and change climates, recognizing, as it were, that no one is capable of relieving them. With an incurable change in a vital organ. all or most of the symptoms that existed go away; the symptoms of the disease are suppressed, a s it were, by the tremendous strain upon the system.
This is particularly true of he malignant forms of disease results. The symptoms that existed years ago have disappeared and the patient says.”Oh they did not amount to anything. I had had them all my life.” But those are the symptoms that would manifest to the physician and nature of the remedy, for they give to him the real image of the sickness.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.