Helbig, the philosophical author of Heraclides, makes a few remarks in that work upon isopathy. He starts with the proposition that there is no other method of cure but the homoeopathic, and consequently he rejects this new system. “This pretended isopathy,” he says, “is nothing more or less than a one-sided employment of similarity acting remedies founded upon the cause– an atiotherapia, which must ever be an uncertain method, more uncertain even than that founded upon the symptoms solely (phenomenotherapia), uncertain as that is; for,” he adds, “the symptoms must complement the causes, and the causes the symptoms, in order to make a perfect (homoeopathic) therapeutic system”.
Rau of Giessen (Werth d. hom. Heilverf., 116) confesses that he had at first a great repugnance to the isopathic doctrine, but remembering how fourteen years previously he had written fierce articles against homoeopathy, which he had reason to repent of the following year, he is unwilling to pronounce a hasty judgment on the subject. But granting that the principle aequalia aequalibus is correct and that diseases may be cured by their actual morbid products, he says that the system can only be applied in the case of contagious diseases, that is to say, such diseases as are distinguished by the production of matters, which when brought into contact with the healthy body are capable of producing the same diseases. To this class belong the viruses of chancre, of gonorrhoea, of scabies, the contents of the plague- bubo, the matter of small-pox, the saliva of a rabid dog, the glanders of the horse, and so forth. “It is well known,” he observes, “that the infecting powers of different contagia vary very much. Thus the malignant-pustule contagium communicates the disease whether the virus be applied to the surface of the body, or the flesh of the animal that has died of it be eaten, whereas the hydrophobia-virus appears to have no action on the stomach. A substance that has no action on the stomach, from the stomach must be incapable of producing any curative effect when taken into that organ. I would sooner expect to see a curative action from the hydrophobia-virus applied to a wound. The hair of the dog that bit you, in the popular saying, is to be applied to the would in order to prevent the occurrence of the disease.” He does not anticipate any effect from the employment of other morbid products, such as the matter from carious bones, the desquamated skin, etc. He mentions that one of his colleagues in the neighbourhood had been most successful in the treatment of an epidemic of malignant pustule among the cattle by administering small doses of potentized anthracine, and he suggests that the wonderful cure of a case of jaundice related by Dr. Kuhlbrand, by the patient drinking his own urine, to which he was irresistibly impelled, may be considered an instinctive example of an isopathic cure. He gives the following theoretical explanation of such isopathic cures. “Contagious matters,” says he, “would not develop a general disease in an individual with whom they come into contact, unless they had a tendency to penetrate from the periphery to the interior. This tendency may be denominated expansibility. May not these matters, when introduced into the stomach, exercise this property of expansibility from within out- wards and effect an annihilation of the contagium penetrating from without inwards by reason of being the polar opposite of the latter, just as positive and negative electricity meeting mutually annihilate one another?”.
In a later work (Rau’s Organon, p.324) Rau regrets the introduction of this heresy into homoeopathy, because he fears that if it is admitted as a part of homoeopathy “our Materia Medica will soon be polluted with the most disgusting articles;” and he exclaims, “would that we might cover as with a veil all traces of this aberration!”.
Thorer (Prakt. Beitr., i) denounces the isopathic enthusiasm; he considers cures effected with prepared contagious matters as homoeopathic. He draws a distinction betwixt the product of the disease and the disease itself. This is no case of aequalia he alleges, but of simillima. He will not even allow that the employment of a highly potentized medicine in a disease produced by abuse of the same medicine is an instance of isopathy. Moreover, he contends that these so-called isopathic remedies do not cure better if so well as ordinary homoeopathic ones.
Dr. Dufresne,(Bibl. Hom. de Geaeve (lre Serie), v.37) whilst condemning the name of isopathy, speaks highly of the practice, which he considers to be a development of homoeopathy and one of the most brilliant and valuable discoveries ever made by the mind of man, and a convincing proof of the identity of the conservative and destructive forces, and a corroboration of the opinion that all pathogenetic agents may be converted into curative agents. He details a case of carbuncle cured by anthracine 10, but how much of the cure is due to the remedy, how much to nature, it would be rather difficult to determine.
Moritz Muller (Allg.hom.Ztg., iii., No. 22; viii.No.8.) attempted to incorporate isopathy with homoeopathy and to extend the meaning of simile, so that it should embrace aequale. He acknowledges cures by means of the aequale, and says that homoeopathy must rise from the very similar up to the apparently identical; by doing so it would lose nothing but its ill-chosen name. He proposes to employ in the next epidemic of variola, vaccinine and varioline, the simile and the aequale. Nothing seems to have come of this proposition.
Kammerer (Hyg.iv. 486) declares that the law of isopathy is as correct as that of homoeopathy. He relates two cases where cuprum 30 was efficacious against the effects of copper that had been taken accidentally along with the food, and adduces several instances from popular medicine in support of his views.
J. E. Veith (Hyg.v.446) considers isopathy as stretching the principle of homoeopathy too far. The only isopathic preparation he approves of is auto-psorine; he is decidedly opposed to administering the morbid product of one person to another.
Kurtz (Hyg.vi. 16) has a high estimation of isopathy. He considers the sympathetic cures of ancient times to be referrible to this principle, and quotes largely from the writings of Athanasius, Kirchner, Van Helmont, and other writers who employed isopathic remedies.
Genzke, who in addition to being an accomplished physician has a thorough acquaintance with the veterinary art, is a person to whose opinion on this subject great weight should be attached, as the defenders of the isopathic doctrines referred chiefly to observations on cattle for the corroboration of their views. He says (Hyg. xi. 243.) that the flesh of rabid animals may be eaten with impunity, that the virus of glanders may be introduced into the mouth and stomach of animals without producing any disease. Such being the case, it may be taken for granted that contagious matters, will be destroyed by long trituration and by their solution in alcohol. With these there can be no question of a development of potency such as is supposed to take place with medicines. The only contagious matter he has any faith in as a medicine is anthracine, for the contagious property of the pustula maligna, whence it is obtained, is in many cases not destroyed by boiling the flesh and by tanning the hide. He doubts, however, the correctness of the recorded cures with anthracine, and would like the testimony of experienced veterinary surgeons on the subject. He relates many cases in which he failed, entirely to obtain any action from some freshly- prepared anthracine. Contagia he believes to be animated organisms, which can only be developed under certain conditions, and must be altogether destroyed by being subjected to the same mode of preparation as medicines. Even psorine finds no favour with Genzke. Trinks’s suggestion to prove the contagium of hydrophobia he believes to be quite useless, as this virus has no action at all when introduced into the mouth or stomach.
Dr. J.B. Buchner (Hom. Arzneiber., 2nd edit., p.48) of Munich passes sentence of condemnation upon isopathy. He says there is a wide difference betwixt the semina morborum and the disease thereby engendered; the two cannot be considered as aequalia. He would limit the so-called isopathic remedies to the morbific secretions of contagious diseases, and their employment to the individuals from whom they are taken.
The isopathic diversion originated, or I should rather say raked up from the dust and rubbish of antiquity by Hering, encouraged by Gross and systematized by Lux, after exciting a good deal of attention amongst the homoeopathic body, partially approved of by some, altogether condemned by others, as I have shown, seems to have gradually died a natural death after being a nine days’ wonder, and with the exception of an occasional record of the administration of a dose of psorine, vaccinine, varioline, anthracine, or ozaenine, we hear little or nothing more about it in homoeopathic literature for a long time, its most zealous supporters (al except Dr. Hering, who has from time to time made spasmodic efforts to resuscitate it) seeming to have tacitly united to give the subject swift burial out of sight.
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.