The arguments he uses to show the superior strength of the medicinal over the natural disease are not materially different from those of Hahnemann which I have formerly exposed, only they are more scientifically put and better expressed. He says, namely, that the homoeopathic medicine is so far stronger than the natural disease, that it has been virtue of its quality a strong affinity to the special disposition than the morbific cause, but as regards its quantum it must necessarily be weaker than the natural disease, else it would not go away of itself. In effect this is the same as Koch’s notion, only differently and perhaps more happily expressed, but in other respects Widenmann falls into Koch’s error of starting with the attraction of like to like as being the general law of the healthy and morbid life
of the organism, for through by straining a point we may look upon the phenomena of assimilation in the healthy organism as bearing out the supposed law, yet its absurdity is perfectly manifest when we apply it to the phenomena of disease; for what similarity is there between the contagions of scarlatina, measles and typhus, and the mucous membrane of the throat, respiratory organs, and small intestines, betwixt a chill and the morbidly affected pulmonary tissue, betwixt moist air and unwholesome food and the mesenteric glands? What resemblance has belladonna to the mucous membrane of the fauces, what digitalis to the motor nerves of the heart, cantharides to the kidneys, or secale cornutum to the uterus? The action of the homoeopathic medicine upon the morbid process might with greater plausibility be considered an attraction of like to like, as the medicine is capable of exciting in the healthy organism a state similar to this process; but wherefore go out of the way to resort to a mere hypothesis of the attraction of the medicinal agent by the affected organ, when the geater affinity of the medicine to the affected organ has already been proved? Moreover, if we look narrowly at the subject, we shall perceive that there is not a shadow of a reason for alleging that the process of cure takes place here by virtue of this supposed law of the attraction of likes, for the medicinal power, as such, has no resemblance at all to the morbid process, and these are the two factors in the business. The medicinal agent resembles the natural morbific agent in this, that they both produce similar morbid processes, but neither of the two can be said to resemble the morbid process occasioned by the other. John is like Thomas in that both can make a watch, but neither John nor Thomas is the least like Thomas’s or John’s watch. Of course there is no question of the direct action of the medicinal on the morbific agent here, for the morbid process, alias the disease, is the effect of the action of the morbific agent, and not that agent itself. Thus in Widenmann’s views we find the same confounding of states and qualities with concrete things as we notice in Koch’s explanation. The main difference between the two is that in Koch’s theory fictitious living beings were made to perform alternate actions, whereas in Widenmann’s the whole process of cure is a mere act of chemical decomposition. The homoeopathic medicine according to him, represents the stronger acid that decomposes the salt-which stands for the disease-by virtue of its greater affinity to the base (the susceptibility to disease), and its combination with the latter forms a salt more easily eliminable, and expels the weaker acid-the proximate cause of the disease. To this climax of overstrained analogies we may apply the remark of Widenmann himself on another occasion, as the Macedonian appalled from Philip drunk to Philip sober. “When,” says Widenmann-sober,” we have to do with the laws of vitality we ought to stick to the vitality, and leave to natural philosophy to explain the relations of different departments of nature. The mere borrowing of the laws of one department to apply them to the elucidation of facts of another is of no use.”
The doctrine of derivation or revulsion-that favourite idea of the allopathic school-furnished to Dr. Gerstel of Vienna the ground work on which to erect a theory of the homoeopathic curative process, which I shall proceed to examine. “The essence of the homoeopathic method,” says Dr. Gerstel,”lies in derivation. “Derivation as you all know, is the name applied to that practice in the old school where to cure a morbid process in one part or organ another morbid process is set up artificially
in another part or organ. This practice, the utility of which has been attested by a multiplied experience, constitutes a major part, and what has hitherto been held to be the most unexceptionably rational part, of the so-called rational method of treatment. The act of derivation, as it is called, has been variously explained, but the favourite idea is that the irritation set up artificially in the sound organ, by some unexplained power of attraction, derivates or determines the morbid process that was before going on, probably in a vital organ, to that less important organ which has been selected by the physician for the production of his artificial disease. And such is the idea Dr. Gerstel attaches to the term. He accepts the explanation as a fact, and does not trouble himself to make further inquiries into its rationality. This derivation being then the right way to cure disease, we should, says friend Gerstel, “endeavour to apply the derivative irritation in the interior of the organism as near as possible to the actual seat of the disease, i.e., to develop it as near as possible to the substratum of the morbid process itself, which can only be done by means of a medicine capable or producing a morbid state very similar to that we wish to remove.”
In order to support this theory, he contents “that no part of an organ, unless dead, can be diseased in its totality, and that therefore it must always present a substratum for other kinds of action,” for it is evident that derivation can only occur from one place to another. In this Homoeopathic derivation the still healthy part of the diseased organ, whither the derivation can be effected, is represented as not only close to the diseased part, but so close that it may occupy a portion of he same ultimate cell, the sane microscopic fibre. But why should I follow the author further into his transcendental speculations, when it must be apparent to you all that this co-existent morbid and sound state of the same cell, of the same fibre, is utterly unsusceptible of proof and entirely devoid of probability, besides being in direct contradiction to all rational deductions from known facts? Moreover, the very doctrine of derivation, upon which the whole explanation is grounded, is false and untenable. The phenomena that go by this name are not in reality proofs of a derivative, action at all. If a blister applied in pleurisy affected a cure by derivation, should we not expect to see some result from its application different from what would occur from the same blister applied to a person in health. At the very least we should expect to see a much greater amount of inflammatory action ensue. But what are the facts? The character of the inflammation in both cases is identical, and the effect produced is usually smaller in the case of the pleurisy, instead of being greater. We need not therefore pursue Dr. Gerstel’ speculations further. In order to reconcile his theory with the current notions about derivation, he has to suppose such a number of improbabilities, and the doctrine of derivation itself is at the best so unsupported by facts, that there is no use taxing our credulity to believe the former for the unworthy sake of the latter. Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.
Founded also on the phenomena of derivation or metastasis is the theory of cure proposed by Dr., Scheider at the Homoeopathic Congress held in 1852 at Frankfurt. (His paper will be found in the Allg. Hom. Ztg., xliv., No.8.) He starts with the assertion that disease is the manifestation of the action of a morbific agent: a, in peripheral parts of the nervous system; this constitutes external disease, whose tendency is the removal of the morbific agent out of the organism, in other words, a cure; b, in central parts of the nervous system; internal disease, which is as such incurable.
In order, he says, that the internal disease may be cured, it must be transformed into the external disease, whose natural tendency is to a cure. All internal diseases, according to Dr. Scheider, are cured by being transferred to the periphery. This must happen either naturally or by he assistance of he medical art.
The morbific agent, which we shall suppose to have attacked the central parts of the nervous system and thus to have created an internal disease, besides having an attachment for those central parts, has also an affinity for certain peripheral parts, and should its affinity for the latter be strong enough, it is transferred to them and a cure effected by its expulsion.
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.