Stieglitz, (Die homoeopathie. Hannov., 1835.) who wrote against homoeopathy, understands by the term specific-1. A medicine which, when properly employed, certainly cures a disease in all its stages and degrees, to a certain extent without our being able to tell how; and, 2, one that acts decidedly upon an organ without our being able to tell why. If such be the correct definition of specific, then we may certainly say that homoeopathy is not the doctrine of specifics; and we may also say that there are few, if any, such specifics as those indicated by Stieglitz’s first definition.
The great Hufeland, who wrote both for and against the homoeopathic principle of his friend Hahnemann, considers that by means of specifics a cure is effected by attacking the internal alternations of the vitality on which the disease depends, which is indeed the disease itself, and changing in into the normal state; and he further says, the knowledge of medicines which produce in a healthy state symptoms similar to the disease (similia similibus curantur) may be very well profited of, in order to discover specifics. (Enchiridion, pp. 72, 73). In another place he says: “The aim of homoeopathy is to find specifics for individual forms of disease; and by so doing it may render great service to medicine.(Hufeland’s Journal, 1822, 2nd part, p.64).
Stapf (Archiv, i.1.) attempted to define specifics, and to show not so much that homoeopathy was the doctrine of specifics as that the ancient practice with specifics was a sort of crypto- homoeopathy-that specifics so-called were indeed homoeopathic remedies. Specificity he defines to be the relationship of powers among themselves, as also of disease with the agencies that act upon them. He shows that the idea of specifics in old medicine was of much too general a character; but that this idea, indefinite as it was, contained the germ of a better specific doctrine, which admitted of a much more scientific development and foundation. Homoeopathy alone, he alleges, offers a rational mode of of discovering specific remedies for every case of disease.
J.W. Arnold at one time (Hygea, ii.250) condemned the application of specific to homoeopathy. Afterwards,(Hyg. xviii. 237; and Idiop. Heilverfahren.) however, he sought to define accurately the term specific, and to apply it to the homoeopathic method; and his name is one of the most prominent among those of the so-called specific school. Whilst acknowledging the value of individualization in respect to diseases, he would confine that within certain limits, for he contends that it is the reverse of scientific to carry it as far as Hahnemann has advised. The scientific physician has more to do than merely to note the individual phenomena of the case of disease before him; he has to investigate the focus of the phenomena, the kernel, as it were, of the morbid picture, the seat of the disease in fact, in order at once to restore unity to the scattered features of the morbid picture, and to get a substantial point d’ appui for the treatment; a very excellent thing, no doubt, if attainable, but the success that has attended the efforts to attain it have not hitherto been so great as to encourage us to hope that we shall soon be able, from the ensemble of the symptoms of a case of disease, to make deductions which shall be anything like mathematically correct as to the particular organ that is the actual seat of the disease, the primum movens in the cycle of morbid phenomena.
In order to this, we must presuppose a perfection of diagnosis to which we have not yet attained; but at the same time we must admit that we have made wonderful progress of late years towards it, and it is by no means improbable that we shall make still greater progress, as our means of diagnosis and attainments in pathological science advance. Of course it is to be understood that the same deductions that are to be applied to diseases must likewise be brought to bear on the pathogenetic actions of drugs, otherwise and their seat would not guide us in the slightest degree to a better mode of treatment; and for this purpose, I fear our whole collection of the pathogenetic actions of medicines would avail us but little, and a through re-proving of all would be indispensable.
Thus, for the present at least, Arnold’s speculations and desiderata are somewhat Utopian in their character. Thus much we must allow, however, that J.W. Arnold is one of the most scientific of our school and his labours have done more than those of almost any one else to impart a scientific and pathological character to the principle of homoeopathy, which we night have expected from his previous reputation as a pathologist, he having been formerly pathological professor at the University of Zurich. It is from the labours of such men that we must hope for the future scientific foundation of the homoeopathic principle.
Kurtz (Hyg., iv.241.) says, very justly, that it is not sufficient to know of a specific medicine that it acts on such or such an organ, but that we must investigate what was the primarily and principally affected organ, or part or portion of the organ or tissue acted on, what functions are deranged, and how they are so. He would seek thereby to ascertain the character or characteristics of the drug.
Dr. Roth of Munich (Hyg. vii.) expresses himself similarly with regard to the desiderata for knowing accurately specific remedies.
Schron lays great stress on the necessity of distinguishing between the idiopathic and the symptomatic symptoms of diseases, whether natural or medicinal, and says, it is only when the medicine and disease resemble each other in their idiopathic symptoms that the former can be held to be specific to the latter. It is, he says, in the homoeopathic method only that this resemblance of idiopathic symptoms is attended to, consequently, it is the only true specific method. The specificity required of the medicine, in a homoeopathic point of view, is, he says, not merely a specific relation of the medicine to the disease organ in general, but to the peculiar pathological state of the diseased organ before us, which may be very much modified by the individuality of the patient. This, it will be observed, though expressed in different, terms, is completely consonant with Hahnemann’s views regarding the necessity of individualizing in our treatment; for it is well known that the same disease, in other words, the same affection of the same organ or organs, may be very much modified by the individuality, in other words, the idiosyncrasy of the patient.
Schron cites an example to illustrate his meaning, which shows at once the peculiar distinctive features of the homoeopathic system, and wherein it differs from the new sect recently sprung up in Germany, under the leadership of Rademacher, whose great aim is to discover what they term organ-remedies, in other words, remedies which act specifically on certain organs, to the diseases of which organs they believe they will be specific. “Mercury,” says he, “stands in not nearly so specific a relation to the genital system as secale, sabina, pulsatilla, platina, borax, crocus, petroleum, natrum muriaticum., lycopodium, and many other remedies, but it stands in the nearest specific relation to a certain morbid state of these organs, to their syphilitic affection namely, consequently to a certain form of disease of the genital organs, but not to physiologically healthy genital organs.” (Naturheilprocesse, ii. 212).
Goullon (Arch. xix.1.; and again, Arch., xx.1.), where he reiterates the above opinions, and says that specifics may be divided into homoeopathic and antipathic, according as the are used for their primary or secondary effects. The latter paper is translated in the British Journal of Homoeopathy, vol.iii.pp. 232, 367.) distinguishes two sorts of specific remedies, both of which act, he believes, homoeopathically. The first is that sort that is adapted to certain definite forms of disease that present very slight varieties (species of diseases), including, we presume, belladonna for smooth scarlatina, mercury for syphilis, etc. These he calls the “real, proper specifics;” and from them he separates what he calls the “individual specifics,” which are those remedies that are appropriate for every single case of disease, that seldom or never recurs in exactly the same way. But he will not allow that the terms specific and homoeopathic are identical; for he says there are specific remedies with which we can effect cures, but which do not correspond in similarity of their effects to the diseases they cure.
Now I think that Dr. Goullon is altogether in the wrong, with respect both to his division of remedies not proper specifics and individual specifics, and his distinction betwixt homoeopathic and specific. For, in the first place, there is no disease which is so invariable in its character as that one and the same remedy shall be the appropriate remedy for every case of it that occurs; for although there are some diseases, such as syphilis, scarlatina, measles, etc., where one remedy seems to be specific to a vast majority of the cases, yet the exception will be found so numerous as to prohibit us saying “such and such a remedy is the specific for this or that disease;” thus, with respect to the epidemic miasmatic diseases for example, how often does it happen that two different epidemics shall present such marked varieties in the characteristic symptoms as to render their treatment by two different remedies imperative; and how often, as Schron remarked, does it happen, that the very same diseases, in the same epidemic, will be modified by the individuality or idiosyncrasy of the patient, so that, in fact, all specifics are only what Dr. Goullon would call individual specifics, although, with respect to some diseases of certain invariable character or specific nature, there is a presumption in favour of certain medicinal agents being the most appropriate for them; but, nevertheless, it will require careful observation and examination to determine this. Again, Dr. Goullon offers no proof that there are any specifics which are remedial agents by virtue of any other power but their homoeopathicity to the disease; and as I do not believe there are any such, I cannot admit his proposition of the non-identity of the terms homoeopathic and specific.
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.