In the very next number of the Archiv, Drs. Gross and Stapf relate each a few cases to show the efficacy of the antipsoric treatment, or rather the treatment with those medicines denominated antipsorics by Hahnemann. Curiously enough, Dr. Gross’s cases of antipsoric treatment commence in December, 1826, whereas we learn from both Hahnemann (Chron. Kr., i.6.) and Dr. Stapf, in his notice of Dr. Gross’s death, (N. Arch., iii.3.) that it was only in the autumn of 1827 that Hahnemann imparted to them his doctrine of chronic diseases. Possibly 1826, is, after all, the correct date of his confidence on Hahnemann’s part to his favourite disciples, for several reasons, which I shall not now stop to discuss, as it is of very little importance, except in a historical point of view.
The famous psora-theory of the origin of most chronic diseases having thus been propounded to his faithful disciples and the world by Hahnemann, and testified to by the Damon and Pythias of homoeopathy, Drs. Gross and Stapf, was at first hailed with almost universal applause, and received as an irrefragable truth by the homoeopathic world. Scores of homoeopathists rushed tumultuously into print to corroborate Hahnemann’s statements, and to declare that though they had previously considered homoeopathy as near to perfection as possible, this important discovery was all that was needed to make is absolutely perfect. Careful critical examination of the doctrine seemed for a while to be lost sight of altogether, and several years after the year 1828 each vide with his neighbour in parading his cases of, now no longer homoeopathic, but antipsoric cures. Homoeopathy receded for a while into the background, and the very men who had been incessantly re-echoing Hahnemann’s ridicule of the search for the cause of the disease, had now continually in their mouths the expressions itch-disease, latent itch, masked itch, smouldering itch, etc. Had Hahnemann proposed to have ascribed all diseases under the sun to the influence of the moon, I believe a certain number of his disciples would have started up in ecstasies at the brilliant notion, and testified to it by miles of print, “full of wise saws and modern instances.”
After a time, however, this psora-theory of Hahnemann’s came to be regarded by some in not quite such a credulous spirit, and up to the present time an immense deal has been written both for and against Hahnemann’s views. In fact, I may say that hardly any part of the whole homoeopathic system has been more discussed than this, and respecting none has a greater variety of opinion prevailed.
I could not afford the time, nor could I so far tax your patience, as to give you even a slight resume of all that has been written upon the subject; for this purpose two or three lectures would not suffice. I shall content myself with laying before you the views of the principal writers who have treated of sit, and that in as succinct a form as I may.
One of the most curious essays that has appeared upon the subject is that of Dr. Alexander Peterson of Pensa, in Russia. (Arch., xiii. 42.) He accepts the psora-theory of Hahnemann and the identity of psora with leprosy as established facts, and seeks to trace the ultimate origin of the disease. He collects together a vast amount of interesting matter, and not a few old women’s fables, with a view of to show the cutaneous-disease producing and curing power of the venom of poisonous reptiles, and he seeks to show by analogy that the psor-virus can be only derived originally from an animal poison, and that furnished by a reptile. I need hardly say that this essay is almost entirely made up of conjectures and forced analogies, but it contains an abundance of very interesting and curious matter, though the author by no means furnishes any satisfactory proof of the correctness of his views respecting the origin of psora. Possibly had be known the connection between scabies and the sarcoptes hominis, he would have found in this a strong confirmation of his creed of the animal origin of psora.
In a subsequent essay (Arch., xiv. 1, 67.) he endeavours to make it appear that the Asiatic cholera, of all diseases in the world, is of psoric origin, and his proofs are of the strangest. That it is so frequent among that very itchy-leprous people the Hindoos is a strong argument. Then he seeks to show that each individual symptom of the cholera is decidedly a psoric symptom, and a further argument is that the remedies used for cholera fare essentially antipsorics. This latter style of reasoning was, as I have shown, originated by Hahnemann, and many of his disciples have followed him religiously in this, if they have not done so in other things, so that it is by no means uncommon to hear the cure of a disease by a so-called antipsoric brought forward as a proof that the disease so cured must have been of psoric nature. This is just as if we should say, such and such a disease is essentially syphilitic, the proof of which is the that we cured it with that eminently antisyphilitic medicine, mercury.
Rau of Giessen, who was not a man likely to be blinded towards any of Hahnemann’s doctrines by a fanatical zeal for the homoeopathic system, gives the subject of the psora-doctrine a calm and dispassionate consideration in several of his works on homoeopathy. (Rau’s Organon’ Werth d. hom. Heil system; Ideen zur Wissenschaft) He allow it to be true many chronic diseases may be and really are the result of ill-cured itch. He regards Hahnemann’s psora-doctrine as indicative of an effort on the part of the founder of homoeopathy to supply a palpable defect in the system. By his enunciation of this psora-doctrine, he says, Hahnemann virtually acknowledge the necessity of looking of the morbid condition of the organism for an explanation of the meaning of the perceptible morbid phenomena. The quintessence of the doctrine, he states, consists in this, that it is requisite to take into consideration the internal hidden qualities, and especially any latent dyscrasia that may happen to exist in the organism. The truth of this has, however, long been recognised by medical men. He regards the psora-doctrine in the form that Hahnemann has given it as untenable and hypothetical, and he advises that the name antipsoric, as applied to remedies, be dropped entirely, and eucrasic used instead, in contradistinction to the dyscrasic element of many chronic diseases. In another article he speaks in a similar manner, and considers the truth of the psora-doctrine to consist in this, that the obstinate character of many diseases is owing to derangement in the vegetables life, and that such derangements are frequently secondary diseases of scabies, syphilis, and sycosis.
Dr. Wolf of Dresden, in his remarkable little work, which the designated, in imitation of Luther, Eighteen Theses, (Achtzen Thesen, 1836.) says, in the twelfth of these theses, that a considerable number of chronic diseases are incapable of being cured perfectly by any means. He is not disposed to allow that itch is a cause of chronic diseases to anything like the same extent that Hahnemann claims for it. He looks upon it as, upon the whole, an unfortunate notion of Hahnemann’s, but consoles himself by saying that it has had almost no influences upon practice, which is securely consistent with fact, unless we conceive Dr. Wolf to allude to his own practice; for, as I think I shall be able to show, the psora-doctrine has had a considerable influence on practice, both of a good and bad kind.
Dr. Schron, one of the most unimaginative heads among the homoeopathists, a man of strong sterling sense and great scientific acquirements, has written a good deal upon the psora theory. (Hauptsatze, p. 88.) He undertakes the defence of prae- antipsoric homoeopathy against its founder, and he shows from the homoeopathic records of those very men who are so enraptured with the psora-doctrine, that chronic diseases which would now undoubtedly be called psoric, were cured, and that thoroughly, before the psora-doctrine was invented, and without the use of any of the so-called antipsoric medicines. He conceives the cure with homoeopathic medicines to be due not to their relation to the imaginary psora, but to their homoeopathic harmony with the disease. He admits that this doctrine has had a material influence on practice, because it has given rise to a peculiar method of treatment, namely, the antipsoric, a treatment of the cause, at one time so much derided by Hahnemann; and he agrees with Helbig in thinking that it is inconsistent to talk of a panacea or universal cause for diseases, and to deny a panacea or universal cure for disease.
Dr. Hering carried the psora-doctrine rather father than its founder intended. (Arch., xiii. 3, 32.) He holds that in a case of infection with psora, the infected person gets not merely the ideal general disease psora, but the particular from of it that was present in the individual by whom he was infected; thus if the infecting person was phthisical, the infected would certainly take phthisis though he had not the phthisical constitution. He believes that all epidemic fevers should be regarded as psoric, that many acute contagious diseases are of psoric nature, that even intermittent fevers are of this character; in fact, according to what he says, it would be almost if not quite impossible to tell the difference betwixt psoric and apsoric diseases. Hahnemann says that a person perfectly free from psora would not take ague in a marshy country, nor inflammation of the lungs from a chill or draught of air, but he by no means wishes it to be understood that epidemic or acute contagious diseases are of a psoric nature; indeed, he expressly denies this. It will be seen that to make out all disease to be psoric, as Dr. Hering implies, would be to make all medicines antipsoric, and virtually to do away with the psora-doctrine completely.
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.