From what I have said and admitted respecting isopathy, so called, it is obvious that I cannot hesitate to admit it to be a method of treatment to a certain extent; not certainly to the extent claimed for it by its ardent supporters, such as Hering, Gross, Lux, Brutzer, and Herrmann, but still as worthy of consideration in the practice of physic. Isopathic agents should, in my opinion, be strictly limited to really infectious, morbid products, and when possible the morbid product of the patient himself should be employed, but when that cannot be procured, I see no serious objection to the administration of the morbid product taken from another individual. Thus varioline, vaccinine, morbilline, etc., maybe employed at the commencement of the respective diseases of which they are the morbid product and the contagious principle. I do not see any force in Genzke’s objection to the dynamizing or diluting of these substances, for there is no proof, as he alleges, that they are organized matters which must be destroyed by any processes of trituration or dilution; on the contrary, I belive them to be quite distinct from the organized matter with which we find them associated in morbid products, and that they can exist independent of any such substratum we have ample evidence from the occurrence of infection or contagion by means of clothes or other foci, and often by the mere emanations from the patient. It is a a well-known fact that the contagious pus, serum, lymph, etc., that have been subjected to the most searching chemical analysis and microscopic inspection, differ in no appreciable manner from the analogous substances of other diseases of a non- contagious character. These facts prove to my mind that there can be no rational objection to these infectious morbid products being treated the same as other medicinal substances. However, as with the latter so with these, I think the suitable dose is the largest we can give without the chance of causing accidents or exciting disturbing effects. A grave question with regard to the employment of isopathic agents, however, falls to be considered, and that is the following:- It is well known that many of these contagious morbid products are only capable of exciting their peculiar diseases when applied to certain parts or structures of the organism, and that they are absolutely innocuous if brought in contact with other parts. Thus the saliva of rabid dogs my be swallowed with impunity, and the bodies of many animals that have died of contagious disorders may be eaten with perfect safety. The matter of a gonorrhoea may be inserted into a wound of the skin without exciting any particular phenomena, and the pus of a chancre may be applied to the mucous surfaces without developing syphilis. Such being the case, can all these and other morbid viruses act by being taken into the stomach? This is a question that experience alone can decide conclusively; but reasoning on the subject, one would think that the morbid viruses would only act by being applied directly to the parts for which they have a special affinity. However, it may be that when diluted, after the Hahnemannic fashion, they may be rendered capable of acting by sympathy or absorption on those parts for which they show their peculiar affinity, the susceptibility of which for their peculiar stimuli is, we know, enormously increased by their morbid state. My own experience of the action of isopathic agents, viz., in the case of varioline for small-pox, would seem to show that the isopathic agent will act and that well, without being applied to its usual seat; but, then, in the case of variola we have a general disease, which involves the whole system, and the mucous membranes of the mouth, whereto we apply the isopathic remedy varioline, cannot be said to be insusceptible of the variolous action, for we know that it is often, if not generally, seat of the pustules of that disease. The case may be otherwise with more purely local diseases, such, for example, as gonorrhoea, the infectious pus of Egyptian ophthalmia, etc.
Before concluding this lecture I may allude to a case which occurred in my practice, before I knew anything about homoeopathy, in which I employed a method of treatment that savours strongly of isopathy or rather, I should say, of homoeopathic by means of a natural morbific virus. When I was in practice in Liverpool, some ten years ago, a girl of about twenty consulted me on account of her eyes. The eyelids were much thickened, and their conjunctiva was thickly studded over with large flattened granulations, which secreted a considerable amount of purulent matter in the course of the day. The corneae were very vascular all over, the red vessels traversed them from top to bottom, and the upper two-thirds were quite opaque. Vision was most imperfect; she could scarcely see to grope her way in the streets, and what aggravated her blindness was the photophobia that attended the complaint, which completely prevented her opening her eyes at all in a strong light. She informed me that her eyes had been bed ever since having the measles in her infancy. She never recollected seeing distinctly. She had been under almost incessant treatment. She had leeches innumerable, blisters uncountable; her eyes had been burnt with all sorts of caustics. An eminent oculist had repeatedly cut off the large granulations on the conj. palpebrarum, and she had used every imaginable kind of collyrium. The eyes were occasionally a little better, but always after each temporary amendment became worse than before. Her state was to her intolerable, and she was prepared to submit to anything for the chance of a cure. The state if her eyes had completely prevented all education, and needlework was an occupation which she could never see to do, not even the coarsest kind of it. Having read Piringer’s book on Ophthalmo-blenorrhoea, wherein he recommends such case to be treated by inoculation with the matter of infectious ophthalmo- blenorrhoea, and having seen a somewhat similar case so treated and with success by this method, under Jaeger of Vienna, I proposed to this girl to treat her in this manner, explaining to her fully the violent character of the remedy. She willingly consented to undergo the treatment, remarking that she might just as well be without eyes as with the useless and troublesome ones she possessed, and proposing to stand the risk for the chance of the cure. The treatment I proposed was to inoculate the eyes with the matter of ophthalmia neonatorum. This disease, which seems to be identical with Egyptian ophthalmia, very often produces a state precisely similar to that presented by the eyes of this unfortunate girl, viz., granular conjunctiva and pannus, or vascular opacity of the cornea. I introduced into one eye a small portion of the fresh matter taken from the eyes of an infant with ophthalmia neonatorum, and in due time this ophthalmo-blenorrhoea set in with the greatest violence. The eyelids swelled tremendously, so that for more than a week I was unable to perceive the condition of the eyes themselves. The quantity of pus that flowed from the eyes was immense; and I confess that, notwithstanding the assurances of Piringer respecting the harmlessness of the process, I trembled for the safety of the eyeballs. I was much relieved when, in due course of times, the purulent flow declined, the swelling of the eyelids diminished, and I was enabled to get a view of the cornea, which, to my delight, looked bright and without a traces of vascularity or opacity. On the complete cessation of the blenorrhagic process, the eyes presented a perfectly healthy appearance, all the granulations of the conjunctiva were gone, and both corneae were as clear and pellucid as if they had never been affected. All the photophobia was gone for ever, and the girl might be said from that date to enter on a new phase of existence. For nearly a year afterwards I had an opportunity of observing the eyes, and they remained perfectly, healthy, and the poor girl, from having been a burden on her friends and a source of constant misery to herself, was enable to learn to read and work, and make herself useful in her humble sphere of life. In this case we have an instance not exactly of isopathy, but of homoeopathic treatment by means of a morbid process capable in itself of developing a state similar to the condition to which the eyes had been brought by means of another kind of ophthalmia. I should have mentioned that the girl had previously been long under homoeopathic treatment without benefit. In this case the quasi-isopathic agent was not given internally, but applied to the seat of the disease; and I doubt very much if any amount of administration of the ophthalmo- blenorrhoeic matter by the mouth would have been of the slightest use in this case, the cure being evidently owing to the intense suppurative disease having, as it were, consumed up all the combustible matter it found in those very morbid eyes, and thus a disease, which when inoculated into the healthy eyes is fraught with the greatest danger, proved innocuous to the healthy structures of the eyes, on account of the great extent of the morbid tissue with which they were united.
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.