To children, he observes, the medicinal solution should be given in this own ordinary drinking-mugs, sweetened, if necessary, with a little sugar. They suspect and refuse anything offered them in a spoon.
In the same preface to the third part of the Chronic Diseases Hahnemann described at length, and recommends the employment of medicines endermically. He had previously alluded to, but not pointedly recommended this method of exhibiting medicines. Thus, in the Medicine of Experience, (Lesser writings, p.531.) he says that the dynamic medicinal power is so pervading, that it is immaterial whether the dissolved medicine enter the stomach, merely remain in the mouth, or be applied to a wound or other part of the body deprived of skin. Nay, he says, the epidermis dose not present an insurmountable obstacle to the action of medicines on the sensitive fibres beneath it, for though dry medicines produce little effect, when dissolved and applied to a large surface of skin they act powerfully. Where the epidermis is thin, as it is on the pit of the stomach, the groin, the axilla, the bend of the elbow, the inside of the wrist, the popliteal space, etc., the medicine in solution acts readily, and its action is much increased by friction of the part to which it is applied. We have already seen that Hahnemann recommended so early as 1801 the application of tincture of opium to the epigastrium of children.
In the last edition of the Organon, (Page 206.) he states, that where the medicine cannot be given by the mouth, whether from incessant vomiting, inability to swallow, or other cause, it maybe applied to the epigastrium, but in that case it must be a stronger preparation of the medicine, and be applied on a large surface. Rubbing it in, he says, greatly increases its effect.
In the last edition of the Organon, (Aphorism 292, note.) however, he discountenances this procedure, an says that “homoeopathy never requires for its cures the rubbing-in of any medicine. ” His opinion respecting this technicality, however, subsequently underwent a complete revolution, for in the last edition of the Chronic Diseases (Vol. iii., preface.) he enjoins the endermic employment of medicines. He there says that the salutary action of the remedy will be much increased, if at the same time that it is being given internally its aqueous solution be rubbed on the skin of one or more parts of the body free from disease (whether exanthema, pain, or cramps). It is best, he says, to rub the medicine in thus:- one day on one part of the skin, and another on another part; and it is also best to employ this endermic mode on the days when we do not give the medicine internally. We must be careful not to apply the medicine to any portion of the skin where are ulcers or exanthemata. As usual, Hahnemann extols, this method, which he had but a few years before denounced, as having proved highly successful in his hands, and he now limits his formerly favorite and universal method of olfaction to weak irritable patients, and he no longer talks about the powerful and long action of the medicine even with them, for he directs that they should be made to smell at a few globules daily, once or twice with each nostril, and each time at a lower dilution; so that, supposing the patient began with the 30th dilution; and only went one degree lower every day, in a mouth he would be smelling at the mother-tincture, under this method.
Thus, then, we observe that Hahnemann’s modes of administering the remedy were –
1. He gave a certain portion of the alcoholic tincture mixed with water, or beer, or the ordinary drink of the patient. (That this mode of administering the medicine was not confined to his earlier career is evident from this, that in the treatment of lunatics he advises that the medicine should be mixed with the patient’s ordinary drink. (R.A.M.L., iii. p. 328, and Lesser Writings, p. 781.)
2. Subsequently his practice was to give the patient one globule dry on the tongue, with a caution not to drink any fluid soon afterwards.
3. Still later, for a short period, he recommended and practised almost exclusively the administration of medicines by olfaction.
4. He returned to his first plan of giving the medicine dissolved in a greater or smaller quantity of water, an employed, in addition.
5. The endermic method of exhibiting the medicines; directing a solution of them to be rubbed upon a sound portion of the skin, in the mode just described.
At that period of Hahnemann’s career, when his practice was to give the medicine dry, Dr. Aegidi, (Archive, xii. 2, 134.) ventured to dispute the advantage of so doing in all cases. A patient came under his care, affected with violent periodical headaches and many symptoms of dyspepsia. He was so excessively sensitive to the action of medicines, that any remedy administered in the usual way caused nothing but violent aggravations. Dr. AEgidi luckily bethought himself of giving the remedy indicated, which was phosphorus, in solution. He dissolved one globule of the 30th dilution in eight ounces of water, and gave of this a tablespoonful every morning. He was pleased to find that its action when thus administered was very beneficial, and the case, which has so long resisted the curative influence of the same and other remedies given in the usual way, rapidly improved when this method was had recourse to.
Subsequently, (Archive, xiv. 3, 78.) Dr. AEgidi, acting on a recommendation of Hahnemann, modified considerably his method of administering medicines in solution. He employed, for the purpose of dissolving the medicine, rain-water, and in cases of acute disease gave a certain quantity of the solution every two, three, four, or eight hours. In chronic diseases his method was quite different. One globule up to one drop (of the 1500th dilution down to the concentrated tincture, according to the nature of the case) was mixed, by means of strong shaking in a bottle, with a certain quantity of rain-water (from a cupful up to a quart and more); of this the patient was to drink, in the morning fasting, the smaller quantity all at once, but the larger in much the same way as mineral waters are usually drunk by the votaries of the healing streams, viz., a cupful (every quarter of an hour, a brisk walk in the open air (where that was possible) being taken after every cupful. Should the patient feel sleepy after his morning’s dose, he was to indulge his somnolent propensity. This plan, AEgidi tells, us, he found eminently successful in some cases, but not in all. Some were so irritable as not to admit of it; a few could only bear the method by olfaction.
Hering (Ibid., xiii. 3, 80.) says that, with Aegidi’s happy invention of administering repeated doses of the medicine dissolved in water, a new era in homoeopathy commences. It is especially useful in the case of very sensitive individuals, also in very painful affections, and in many of the diseases of children. Patients who could not bear the olfaction of a single globule without suffering from it, bore the medicine very well, and were rapidly cured when the medicine was administered according to AEgidi’s method. Hering states that a single globule should be mixed with four or six ounces of water, will stirred, and a spoonful of this given at a time. The dose of such a mixture might be repeated as often as every hour in some cases (or, in very acute cases, even every five or ten minutes). For instance, chamomilla and bryonia might be given every hour, in certain neuralgic affections. Care must, he says, be taken not to stir or shake the medicine in its vehicle too often in case of increasing its potency to too great a degree.
Hahnemann’s proposition to give medicine by olfaction has been much criticised by both the friends and the enemies of homoeopathy. Thus AEgidi (Archiv, xiv. 3.) states, that in some cases no other method can be substituted for it advantageously, but he does not point out what these cases are.
Rau (Werth d. hom., Heilv., 143.) says, however plausible the practice of olfaction may appear, he this in too many instances observed no effect whatever from its employment to put much confidence in it. Nothing, he says, can be expected from its employment in phlegmatic torpid subjects, but some advantages might attend its employment in cases of superlatively exalted sensibility, in neuralgia, in hysterical paroxysms, in versatile typhus fever. The chief indication for its use, he says, is a need for a rapid but transient short action upon the sensitive sphere. If patients are to be treated by this plan, Rau advises that the globules be freshly prepared, and not quite dry.
Rummel (Allg. hom. Ztg., vii., No.3.) says that although he rarely resorts the method of administering medicines by olfaction, he has seen it effectual in painful affections of the head and teeth, and in some disease of the respiratory organs. He is satisfied of the power medicines possess of acting in the form of vapour or emanations, for he has often been seriously affected by the medicine whilst preparing them. Nevertheless, (Ibid., ix., No.3.) he will not allow that it is a universally applicable method, as Hahnemann would have it, and he ridicules the notion of healing a chance by smelling at a tongue of mercurius 30.
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.