Hahnemann’s doctrine of Chronic disease



In Europe, and he believes also in all other parts of the world, there are only three chronic miasms, whence all or nearly all chronic diseases are derived. First, syphilis; second, sycosis, or the fig-wart disease; third, psora, the diseases which has the scabious eruption for its local manifestation.

Psora is, according to Hahnemann, the oldest, most universal, and most destructive, by at the same time most misunderstood of the chronic miasmatic diseases, and it has for centuries been the parent of the thousands of different acute and chronic non- venereal diseases which have afflicted man in every quarter of the globe. The leprosy of the Israelites described in Leviticus was but a variety of psora so were the various forms of leprosy that prevailed during the middle ages, likewise that malignant form of erysipelas that spread throughout Europe in the dark ages, termed St. Anthony’s fire.

Under these forms of the disease its whole malignity seemed to be expended on the skin. By the introduction of habits of greater cleanliness, the frequent use of warm baths, greater attention to diet, and a better regulated mode of life, the external repulsive aspect of the psora was so far mitigated in the course of time that towards the end of the fifteenth century it came to present the form in which we seen it now-a-days, viz., the scabious eruption or itch. In this form the degenerated lepra or psora is much more easily removed from, the skin by means of baths, lotions, and ointments of sulphur, lead, copper, zinc and mercury, but the evil is thereby greatly increased. The leprosy of the Israelites and of the middle ages was much less dangerous, for in this form of psora the disease rendered the skin disgusting that every one fled from the contact of those affected by it, whereas the itch is often quite overlooked, and may readily be communicated without the victim being aware that he is in contact with an individual affected by itch; and it is, says Hahnemann, one of the most infections of diseases.

The fatal facility with which the external manifestation of psora-the itch-can be suppressed by means of external applications (which was not the case with it when it existed under the form of leprosy,) whereby the internal psora is made to develop itself, is the cause of the great increase within the last three hundred years of the chronic maladies that afflict humanity. Hahnemann calculates that at least seven-eighths of all chronic diseases are derived from it, and that the remaining eighth is derived from syphilis and sycosis, or from a combination of some two of these three miasmata, or of all three. Hahnemann alleges that a great mistake has hitherto been committed by all modern medical men without exception, the most celebrated as well as the least celebrated, in viewing the itch as a merely local disease, and using their utmost efforts to drive it away as rapidly as possible by means of all sorts of salves and lotions.

He strongly condemns this treatment, and makes who practice responsible for the evils thus brought upon humanity, and he states that the ancient physicians were more conscientious and better observers, for they perceived the evil effects of driving the eruption off the skin in this way, and they endeavoured to cure the disease rather by internal remedies; with but indifferent success, however, as it would seem. “Repercussion of the itch,” Hahnemann says, “is an erroneous expression, for the psora or itch-disease is already in the body, and the cutaneous affection is its external sign, which, as long as it exists, keeps the internal disease quiet, and makes the internal psora, with all its secondary affections, latent.”

From the conscientious and observant older physicians referred to, Hahnemann now adduces an immense series of cases illustrate the evil consequences of suppressing the external eruption. In this enumeration he includes not merely the itch-disease, but also cases where the suppression of tinea capitis and herpetic eruptions was followed by bad effects. Indeed, he regards tinea, crusta lactea, tetters, etc., as merely varieties of the itch- eruption.

According of Hahnemann, the inoculation or infection with the virus of the chronic miasmatic disease takes place exactly in the same way as that of the acute exanthemata; the moment the virus touches the skin the disease has taken, and all the washing and scouring in the world will not avail to prevent its infection. The whole organism is instantly affected, and after a time it proceeds to attempt to free itself from the morbid product caused by the process in its interior, by depositing it at or near the seat of its entrance into the body. In this way the itch appears on the skin, the chancre on the genitals.

The difference betwixt the acute and chronic miasmatic diseases consists in this, that in the case of the former, the whole disease from two to three weeks, after which the patient is free from disease and healthy. If the chancre or itch be treated only externally, and thereby removed from the skin, the body remains, notwithstanding, syphilitic or psoric; but if the appropriate internal remedy be given, the internal fundamental disease, together with its external manifestation, is remove, and health is restored. If this be not done, the individual remains diseased all this lifetime, and the most vigorous constitution is unable to subdue the malady.

Of the chronic miasmatic disease the itch is far the most communicable. The syphilitic and sycosis viruses seem to require that that skin be rubbed a little before they will take, but the mere contact of the psoric miasms with the epidermis is enough, and the infection may be conveyed from one to another by means of a glove, a towel, a sheet, or even by the physician who feels the pulse of an itch-patient. In order to study the disease we do not, says Hahnemann, require to go to prisons, workhouses, or orphan-schools; it is to be met with in all classes of society and in every rank, in the hermit of Montserrat and in the royal child reposing in cambric in its cradle.

The part of the skin the psoric miasm first touches presents no unusual appearance for the first few days. The nerve first attacked by the miasm instantly communications it to the nerves of the rest of the body in an invisible dynamic manner. The living organism is thus silently penetrated by the infection, and endeavours to relieve itself and silence the internal symptoms by the production of the local cutaneous eruption; and so long as this exists in its original form, the internal psora, with its secondary affections, cannot burst forth. It takes from six to ten days to produce this external cutaneous symptom, and its appearance is ushered in by slight feverish symptoms, which the patient often does not notice, or merely thinks them the premonitory symptoms of an ordinary cold. The vesicles produced contain a lymph or purulent fluid, which is the infecting agent.

As long as the original eruption continues the disease is communicable by infection, but if this has disappeared, the secondary psoric symptoms, like the secondary syphilitic symptoms, are no longer capable of propagating the disease. Whilst the primary eruption continues, the disease is most readily cured by means of the specific medicines. If no remedies be employed, then the disease increases in extent both internally and externally. The external disease increases pari passu with the internal, and silences the latter or keeps it in the latent form. All this time the individual is apparently in good health, with the exception of his external eruption of itch, the intense and intolerable itching of which at length drives him to seek medical aid. The sole treatment of medical practitioners, consists in driving the eruption off the skin as quickly as possible, which is easily effected by means of unguents or lotions; the skin is cleared, but the internal psoric disease, having now no vicarious external malady, has full leave to develop itself in the interior, and this internal psora is the essence of the many thousand forms of chronic non-venereal disease.

The suppression of the itch-disease, while still recent and of very small extent, is not attended with such immediate bad effects as that of a very copious eruptions of long continuance, still the danger is only more remote, not less great, for the small amount of psoric internal disease goes on silently and gradually increasing, until at length it betrays its existence by unmistakable signs, and if not specified cured lasts until the very end of life.

Still the psoric disease, even while latent or slumbering, betrays its existence by many unequivocal symptoms, though not constituting any formal disease. In different individuals these symptoms of the latent disease are different. The following are the signs that betray the lurking existence of the still slumbering psoric disease.

In children: frequent discharge of round and thread worms, great itching in the rectum; distended abdomen; alternate ravenous hunger and want of appetite; paleness of face and relaxed state of the muscles; tendency to ophthalmia; glandular swellings in the neck; perspiration on the head when asleep at night.

R.E. Dudgeon
Robert Ellis Dudgeon 1820 – 1904 Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1839, Robert Ellis Dudgeon studied in Paris and Vienna before graduating as a doctor. Robert Ellis Dudgeon then became the editor of the British Journal of Homeopathy and he held this post for forty years.
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.