Antidotes common to both schools- Antidotes peculiar to allopathy-Such antidotes rejected by homoeopathy-Hahnemann’s early investigations relative to antidotes-His chemical and dynamical antidotes-Different kinds of antidotes used by Hahnemann-Variety of antidotes for different effects of belladonna-Hahnemann-Variety of antidotes for different effects of belladonna-Hahnemann’s antidotes did not always bear a homoeopathic relation to the antidoted substance-Another dose of the same medicine its antidote, according to some-Rationale of the action of antidotes-Medicinal prophylactics-Antiquity of prophylactics-Charms-Amulets-Abracadabra-Benzoar-stones-Images of gods-Crucifixes-Image of saints-Medals-Rosaries-Vaccination- Inoculation of small-pox-Inoculation of measles-Mason Good’s prophylactic for hydrophobia-Hahnemann’s discovery of the prophylactic powers of belladonna in scarlet fever-Allopathic testimony to this prophylactics of cholera-Preservative power of copper, testified to by Roth and Burq-Prophylactics proposed for measles-Hering’s proposed prophylactics-Croserio’s prophylactic for gonorrhoea-Cronin’s inoculation of the Aleppo-pustule- Winter’s prophylaxis of adults-Gastier’s prophylaxis of infants- Fearon’s prophylaxis of the foetus-His observations on the diagnosis of obscure disease-Importance of prophylaxis- Probability of the discovery of prophylactics for diseases of fixed character-The prophylaxis of children-Diet and regimen- Homoeopathic dietetics misrepresented-Hahnemann’s ridicule of scientific dietists-His case showing the dangers of a too sparing diet-His case showing the need of stimulants in those used to them-He deprecates great changes in the diet-His diet in scarlet fever-His diet in acute diseases-His diet in chronic diseases- His latest dietetic rules-Articles of diet relatively not absolutely wholesome or the reverse-Wonderful digestibility of a reputed indigestible article by a very delicate stomach-Works on homoeopathic dietetics- Object of dietetic restrictions- Occasional necessity of condiments-Impossibility of depriving patients of tea-Tea in England versus tobacco in Germany- Stimulants-Conclusion-Recapitulation of chief subjects treated of-Hahnemann’s system not perfect-What still remains to be done- What is to be avoided.
ONE of the features wherein homoeopathy differs very markedly from the old system of medicine is the search for and administration of antidotes to the medicines that have been administered, but whose effects have been too violent.
I do not, of course, mean to say that in allopathy the employment of antidotes is not a feature of all system, but the occasions for the administration of antidotes, and the mode of their employment, as well as the manner in which they were to be ascertained, differ toto coelo from he practice pursued under the homoeopathic system. The great occasion the allopathist recognizes for the administration of an antidote is when a patient has swallowed or otherwise received into his system a poisonous dose of some medicinal substance. Thus he consults chemistry for the purpose of discovering some agent capable of neutralizing chemically such poisons as acids, caustic alkalies, Arsenic, metallic poisons, etc., and he very properly gives the antidote insufficient quantity to effect this chemical neutralization; under similar circumstances a homoeopathist must equally resort to the same mode of treating cases of poisoning-such antidotes, then, are common to both schools.
But there is another kind of antidotal treatment adopted by allopathist which is altogether disclaimed and unused by the homoeopathist, and that is the plan so frequently adopted of giving along with a powerfully acting drug something calculated to modify the violence of its action, or to obviate some disagreeable symptoms apt to follow its use. Thus the allopathist will put into his prescription, besides some powerful purgative medicine, an opiate or a carminative to prevent hypercatharsis or griping; or he will follow up a blue pill at night by a black drought in the morning, in order to get rid of the effects of the mercury on the system; or, after giving a course of mercury so as to bring the body entirely under the physiological action of that metal, he will subject his patient to a course of iodine, to neutralize the remaining mercury in the system.
Such an employment of antidotes is not admissible and not required in homoeopathy. We do not give our medicines in such powerful doses as to render it necessary to administer at the same time a corrective, as the allopathist terms his antidote; nor do we ever intentionally saturate the system so thoroughly with a drug as to render it requisite to give its chemical antidote for the purpose of effecting its neutralization. yet the choice and administration of antidotes form an important item in the treatment of disease homoeopathically, in the opinion of Hahnemann and of many of his disciples.
Hahnemann early distinguished himself by his attention to the subject of chemical antidotes to poisonous substances. In his work on arsenical poisonous, published in 1786, he devotes a considerable space to an inquiry as to the best antidotes to be used in such cases, (Ueber die Arsenikvergift., Aphorism 175) and it is curious to remark that the antidotes he then recommended are precisely the same as those that have been lately advised by our best toxicologist, (See Tailor on Poisons, p.333) after an experience through many years of the failure of all the vaunted antidotes of arsenic.
In Hahnemann’s elaborate work On syphilis, published in 1789, he dwells at some length on the necessity of antidoting the effects of mercury, when it has been used in excess for the cure of syphilis, and recommends for this purpose the administration of hepar sulphuris, which he believed was the chemical antidote of mercury and of many other metallic poisons. It is curious that in later years (Mat, Medorrhinum, I. p. 355) he recommends this same hepar sulphuris as one of the dynamic antidotes for the inconveniences produced by small doses of mercury unhomoeopathically administered.
In his first homoeopathic essay, On a New Principle, etc., (Lesser Writings, p. 295.) Hahnemann points out the antidotes to many of the powerful medicinal substances whose effects are there registered, and a few years later (1798) he wrote an essay on Antidotes to some powerful vegetable Substances, (Lesser writings, p.374) where he attempts a classification of antidotes. He says, namely, that there are at least four kinds of antidotes, by means of which the hurtful substance may be-A. Removed, and that, 1, by evacuation, as vomiting, purging, excising the poisonous bite; 2, by enveloping, as giving suet where pieces of glass have been swallowed; or, B. Altered, and that, 1, chemically, as hepar sulphuris for corrosive sublimate; 2, dynamically (i.e. their potential influence of he living fibre removed), as coffee for opium. He goes on to relate several cases of the successful administration of antidotes in cases of poisoning; some of these antidotes were dynamical, others chemical.
In the Organon Hahnemann alludes indeed to the necessity for administering antidotes, but he nowhere gives us any rule for ascertaining the antidotes for medicines.
In Aphorism clxvii, to be sure, he tells us that if we have selected for a case of disease an unsuitable remedy, which has done no good to the disease, but, on the contrary, developed a number of its own symptoms, we are to take a fresh survey of the case, adding to the original symptoms to the disease these new medicinal symptoms, and select our next remedy or antidote from the whole morbid picture thus formed.
According to this passage and several others scattered throughout his writings, we find that the similarity of the symptoms present with those of some other drug were to constitute the antidotal character of the latter. And this we might lay down as the rule for the selection of an antidote-as Dr. Trinks (Handbuch, Einleitung, ixvii) says, “the antidotarial influence of medicines on one another depends solely upon the homoeopathic principle’- were it not that we find Hahnemann recommending as antidotes certain substances whose homoeopathic relationship to the medicine they are to antidote is not very clear, and certain others which are antipathic to the medicine.
Thus we find that he recommends camphor as the antidote to an immense number of medicines, to all of which it an assuredly not be said to have a Homoeopathic relationship; and sweet spirits of nitre, the pathogenetic action of which is almost entirely unknown, is said to be the best antidote for the too violent effects of natrum muriaticum. Again, we sometimes find him advising a Homoeopathic antidote to one set of symptoms caused by a medicine, and antipathic one to another set, and for another set some substance that does not appear to have either a Homoeopathic or antipathic relation to the symptoms; thus, to give an example, he says (R.A.M.L., i.14.) opium relieves, in an allopathic and palliative manner, the paralytic symptoms and abdominal pains caused by belladonna, and in small doses it will probably remove the sleepiness it occasions.
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.