Attomyr, in his essay on the Theory of Homoeopathy, (Arch., xiii.1) assigns great merit to Hahnemann for his division of the symptoms of medicines into primary and secondary actions, but he evidently entirely mistakes Hahnemann’s ideas on he subject; for he says, “the primary action is evanescent, transient, and ceases as soon as the medicine has ceased to act, whilst the secondary action that proceeds exclusively from he organism is the proper curative and morbific one. “I have already shown that Hahnemann’s doctrine was exactly the reverse of this. How often does a theorist read in the writings of an of an author the exact opposite of what that author says. For this there way be some excuse when the language employed is obscure and the manner or expression involved. But Hahnemann’s words on this subject are as clear as daylight. According to Attomyr, the medicinal disease is like a parasite which tries to assimilate the organism to itself, and its efforts to do so constitute the primary action, whereas the efforts of the organism to resist this assimilation are the secondary action. What I have said in former lectures respecting the nature of the morbid and the curative process is a sufficient answer to the very improbable theory of Attomyr’s both as regards the parasitical character of he medicinal disease and the part he supposes the medicine and organism respectively to play.
Dr. Kurtz (Hyg., xxii, 225) has treated of this subject at considerable length. He declares that Hahnemann’s division of medicinal action into primary and secondary is not tenable. He founds his views upon the maxim that the rule for everything that is not brought into action spontaneously is, that there shall be variations or wavering in the phenomena of action; from this wavering contrarieties result. All medicinal agents (and the remote causes of disease) belong to the class of external irritant of stimuli. Every irritant as a rule produces in. The organism (provided it be not already affected in the direction of the medicinal irritation) at first an excitation of the functional activities and afterwards a depression of them, provided its action be relatively moderate, i.e., the dose of it be not too strong. If, however, it be relatively in excess, the depression occurs at once; the restoration of he normal equilibrium will in the latter case only take place after the depression passes into excitation; it rarely happens that irritants cause excitation only. Expiration and depression of the functional actions, may be confined to certain organs or parts of organs and thence extend to other parts. Every medicine, says Kurtz, at first involves only some one organ or other; hence it is comprehensible how effects that are propagated from this part shall occur at the later period, and why in various organs even contrary actions occur. Excitation and depression, he says, as the result of a medicine given to a healthy individual, do not depend absolutely on its quality, but -1, on the quantity in which it is given at once or by degrees; 2, on the constitution of the prover, or even on his actual state at the time. Kurtz then shows clearly what I have already pointed out, that Hahnemann virtually abandons in hi slates proving the different kinds of actions on which he at first insisted so strongly; and as regards the narcotic medicines, which Hahnemann sought to make an exception, (Organon, Aphorism cxiii) Kurtz shows that they do not form any exception at all.
Trinks (Handbuch xiii) says :a careful investigation and consideration of all the phenomena produced by the action of a medicine on the human organism, does not allow us to make a distinction of them into primary and secondary actions, but teaches us that all the phenomena produced by a medicine in the organism, without exception, must be regarded as the peculiar effects of the medicine, however long they may last. This is the essential natural signification of every phenomenon that occurs during the action of a medicine on the healthy human system, and we should be opening the door to caprice were we to admits the validity of this distinction, which has no. foundation in nature. There is not a single criterion whereby we can distinguish the medicinal action from the pretended reaction of the organism. The constipation that ensures after the irritation of the bowels caused by rhubarb is secondary action or reaction of he organism, but merely a sign that the action of the rhubarb in the intestines has come to an end. Therefore, “he repeats, :”all cognizable symptoms whatever, occurring during the proving of a medicine on the healthy animal organism, must be regarded as the peculiar effects of such medicine, and on that account registered with the greatest accuracy and fidelity.” Of the so- called alternating actions, he says that they belong to the peculiar actions of those medicines by which they are produced,. and are of great practical importance, because by the every apparent contrariety of their symptom they are adapted to the cure of such disease as are distinguished for a similar alternating state. “These alternating actions, ” he adds, ” are peculiar to very many medicines, just as it is peculiar to other medicines to display their effects in rapid alternation in the most different and widely separated tissues and organs.”
Schron (Naturheilpr. u. Heilm., Aphorism 184-188) takes quite a different view of the primary and secondary symptoms from any I have met with elsewhere. If his ideas were carried out to the letter, the thousand and one symptoms of each medicine in Hahnemann’s Materia Medica would soon be more than decimated. He says the symptoms furnished by a medicine should be divided into two classes; in the first and only important class we should include those symptoms that are common to all the provers (at least all of the same sex); these are the primary, the idiopathic, the specific, the characteristic actions of the medicine; and in the second class, which is of less use to the practitioner, we should put all those symptoms which occurred in but few of the provers; these are the secondary, the sympathetic actions of the medicines, and are of importance, as the corresponding symptoms of the natural disease, in assisting our diagnosis of the medicinal disease. But he would cut out a whole number of the symptoms which might be supposed at first sight to belong to the first class, in consequence of their occurring in all or almost all the provers, but which actually are only sympathetic symptoms, and throw no light on the specific action of the remedy; these are the general symptoms common to almost all provers and all medicines, such as confused head, loss of appetite, prostration of the powers, and the like. No doubt it would be a great blessing to the practitioner to free the Materia Medica from all these and other unimportant symptoms; but where is the skilful pruner what can show his qualifications from the task” if he went on Dr. Schron’s principle, he certainly would lop off some fruit-bearing branches, as well as the rank and valueless shoots;
“For, after all, would puzzle to say where It might not spoil some separate charm to pare.”
Schron, it will be seen, is the reverse of Hearing, who would bind up tares and whereas together. The former, I believe, if his plan were adopted, would sacrifice much good wheat, with but a doubtful chance of getting rid of the tares.
Arnold,(Idiop, Heilverf., 286) characterises Hahnemann’s division of symptoms into primary and secondary actions as one-sided, and neither indicative of a comprehensive observation of the facts nor commensurate with the represent state of medical knowledge A medicinal agent he says, may have been long in contact with the organism, and have produced hangs in it, without giving rise to any perceptible alternations in the health or functions of the body. Thus, common salt may be taken for a long time and in large quantities by a robust individual, without causing the slightest change in the sensations, though the blood may in consequence have lost considerably of its coagulability, etc. The actual effects of a medicine, or the alternation it causes in the organic functions and sensations of the body, present many varieties and contrarieties, which depend on the period and duration of its action, and also on the strength of the dose, its repetition, the activity and endurance in the vital operations, and many other circumstance. Hence it is one- sided to divide such variations and contrarieties into primary and secondary actions; but the stress that some physicians have laid upon the occurrence of alternating actions is quite right. The very same phenomena, he observes, that occur as the secondary action of large doses we frequently notice as the primary action of small doses; thus rhubarb, aloes, and other substances which cause increase of the intestinal evacuations in large doses. followed by constipation, do often in small doses cause constipation in the healthy. Dr. Arnold gives many more illustrations to the same effect, and on the whole concludes that the division of symptoms into primary and secondary actions, as Hahnemann understood them, is untenable, but that alternating actions are common and important phenomena in the scours of medicinal disease. He agrees with Helbig, in believing that the symptoms of a medicine is all the more important for its selection, if that medicine is capable of producing an opposite symptoms in the same part.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon practiced at the London Homeopathic Hospital and specialised in Optics.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon wrote Pathogenetic Cyclopaedia 1839, Cure of Pannus by Innoculation, London and Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science 1844, Hahnemann’s Organon, 1849, Lectures on the Theory & Practice of Homeopathy, 1853, Homeopathic Treatment and Prevention of Asiatic Cholera 1847, Hahnemann’s Therapeutic Hints 1847, On Subaqueous Vision, Philosophical Magazine, 1871, The Influence of Homeopathy on General Medical Practice Since the Death of Hahnemann 1874, Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica, 2 vols 1878-81, The Human Eye Its Optical Construction, 1878, Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, 1880, The Sphygmograph, 1882, Materia Medica: Physiological and Applied 1884, Hahnemann the Founder of Scientific Therapeutics 1882, Hahnemann’s Organon 1893 5th Edition, Prolongation of Life 1900, Hahnemann’s Lesser Writing.