If, however, the affinity for he peripheral parts be not strong enough, art must step in to it aid. We are to select an artificial morbific agent (a medicine) which has affinities with the same central and peripheral parts other nervous system as the natural morbific agent. When we administer this medicine to the patient, it cannot act upon the central parts of the nervous system for which it has an affinity, for these are already possessed by the disease; accordingly it must act upon the peripheral parts for which it has an affinity, and it causes there an irritation, and as these are the same peripheral parts for which the natural disease has also an affinity, and to which it must transfer itself in order to become an external and therefore curable disease, the natural disease is excited thereby to transfer itself from the central to the peripheral parts, and thus to terminate in cure.
I need not waste much time in showing the improbablility of this theory of he curative process. It is founded on several perfectly gratuitous and untenable assumptions, all of which would have to be proved before the theory itself could become a plausible one. Thus no proof is offered that internal diseases are incurable as such. No proof is offered that internal or peripheral disease before being cured. No proof is offered that the homoeopathic agent acts not upon the seat of the disease but upon the peripheral nerves with which the morbific agent has an affinity. No proof is offered that the irritation of these peripheric nerves could determine the disease from the central nerve to them; and finally, no proof is offered that there is a morbific agent to be expelled. In fact, the whole theory of Dr. Schneider involves so many assumptions of a more than doubtful probability, that we cannot attach and value to
it.
Dr. Trinks, (Handbuch d. hom, Arz., Einleitung, xxviii) who is so favorably known to homoeopathic students for his practical skill, does not, methinks, add much to his reputation by his explanation of the curative process, which runs as follows:-
“The disease is an entity which manifests its presence in the organism by its peculiar phenomena, its pathognomonic symptoms. From these its pathognomonic symptoms we are made acquainted with its seat and its character, but by no means with its essential nature. The symptoms accordingly guide us to a knowledge of its seat and its peculiar character. Therefore, in order to cure any disease, the physician must choose a remedy that not only acts directly but also exercises a very similar action upon the diseased system or organ as displayed by the character of the disease to the cured. The similarity must hold good not only quoad locum but also in respect of the character of the disease to be cured. The action of the medicinal agent indicated must moreover develop a great or at least a greater intensity in order that it should cure the disease, for two powers can only annihilate or neutralize one another completely if they are unequal with respect to the intensity of their action. Hence the medicinal agent must be stronger in its action than the force of the natural disease to be cured; otherwise the struggle would be unequal, and the intensity of the disease would not be broken and annihilated. The Homoeopathic medicine, then, acts not only directly upon the suffering organ but also simultaneously directly upon the disease to be cured, to which it stands in a direct reaction by reason of the similarity of its effects. This (specific) medicinal agent, so similar in its effects to the natural disease to be cured, by its stronger direct action annihilates the weaker natural disease; it is, as it were, the antidote of the disease, and by its influence poisons and kills the life of he disease, something in the manner in which an acid is neutralized by an alkali and loses its corrosive and destructive power. The very great similarity of the effects of the disease and the medicine shows us their mautuao affinity-in their effects upon he another they stand opposed as mutually destructive-the necessarily stronger medicinal power destroys the natural disease which resembles it, just as two poisons which resemble one another in there effects remove and annihilate one another in the organism dynamically and chemically, or as two chemically allied substances neutralize on another.”
This explanation-by which nothing is explained-is, if examined carefully, a mere echo of what Hahnemann said, only more dogmatically put. It contains so many purely hypothetical statements, and the analogy betwixt the chemical neutralization and the curative process is so totally destitute of raisemblance, that we must pronounce Dr. Tiuk’s to be one of the most unsuccessful attempts to explain the curative process we have yet met with. By disease Dr. Trinks evidently means, in the first part of his explanation, the proximate cause of the disease, but the personality with which he afterwards invests it precludes the idea that such is the meaning he attaches to it throughout, for when he talks of the effect of the medicine upon it, it is evidently something foreign introduced into he organism; in other words, it implies the exciting cause of the disease Such is evidently the meaning attached to the word when he says that the medicine acts “:not only on the suffering organ but also in the disease.” Again, I must respectfully dissent from his maxim that two powers can only annihilate one another completely if they are unequal in respect of intensity, for it is well known that in order that they may annihilate one another they must be equal in point of intensity. Thus in order to produce rest or annihilation of motion, the intensity of the motive power we bring against a moving body must be exactly the same as exists in the latter, and so forth. Then Dr. Trinks seems to forget that by his illustration of the neutralization of the acid by the alkali (which we humbly take to be an example of contraria contrariis rather than similia similibus) there is a resultant neutral salt which has to be account for. Dr. Trink’s explanation, if critically examined, amounts to this:- The homoeopathic medicine cures the disease because it acts on the same parts as the disease and because it is stronger than the disease; and it cures it in such a way that it expires in the act of so doing. For Dr. Trinks, the disease and the medicine strongly resemble the two cats of Kilkenny, which attached each other so virulently that not a vestige of them remained after the conflict. Dr. Trinks’s explanation bears a great resemblance to the bad in which those celebrated animals were confined, as it effectually prevents us seeing how the exterminating process is carried on.
Dr. Mayrhofer (Hyg., xvii.131) is among those who consider the homoeopathic cure to the owing to the homoeopathic medicine blunting the receptivity of the organism for the morbific irritation, and the power of the medicine to do this is based upon a maxim of Liebig’s, to wit: – “Greater affinity removes the action of the lesser, and greater affinity is in all cases an equivalent for quantity.” This explanation implies a direct struggle of the medicinal and morbific irritations; but as we know that the morbific irritation may be most transient while the disease it causes is enduring, and as we further know that as long as the morbific cause or irritation that occasions the disease is at work, it is vain to expect a cure from our agents- therefore we cannot logically admit thus to be a satisfactory explanation of the curative process.
Griesselich (Handbuch Aur Kenntniss, etc., p.47) holds to the opinion that the homoeopathic remedy attacks itself to the disposition (susceptibility, anlage), and in the case of prophylaxis occupies this so as to exclude the entrance of the morbific influence, but when the latter has combined with the susceptibility and thus formed the disease, the homoeopathic remedy, by virtue of its greater affinity for the disposition (not its greater strength), withdraws the latter from the influence of the morbific cause, thereby putting a stop to its further advance and allowing the vital functions to return to their ancient course; and what has been destroyed by the disease is thrown off, and thus crises are formed. From a man of Griesselich’s acknowledged critical acumen and experience I must confess I expected a more lucid explanation of he curative process. How the medicinal agent or influence occupies or withdraws from the disease the disposition he does not explain; but if it be by producing in it a medicinal disease and so destroying it, like the blowing-up of houses in a city to present the spread of the conflagration, we should expect to see in every instance of homoeopathic cure a violent though short exacerbation, which Griesselich himself admits is not requisite for the cure; or if it be by protecting he susceptibility as, to pursue the conflagration analogy, the fire would be checked by wetting the inflammable materials, we should them expect that the disposition for the disease would soon be as strong as every, whereas the contrary is the case; and we know that after the homoeopathic cure the tendency to be similar affected is usually much less than had the disease been left to itself. or been treated by other than homoeopathic remedies. Griesselich’s explanation, it must be confessed, is purely speculative and has no foundation in any known facts and no analogues in other processes in nature.
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.