Any explanation to the curative process to have the color of probability, must apply to the cure of diseases effected not merely by the homoeopathic but by other remedial agents. In a former lecture I stated my belief that the morbid state, and particularly inflammation as the representative type of disease, consists not in increased but in diminished vital action; that his condition was brought about by the over-stimulation or irritation of a specific morbific stimulus, which over- stimulation caused at first increased action, and was followed by diminished action in the capillaries, giving rise to those phenomena which we term the symptoms of inflammation. The removal of this state of diminished vital action is conceivable in three ways: 1, the constant supply of the normal stimuli may gradually effect a return to normal action in the affected part; 2, those stimuli, when in sufficient, may be strengthened by sundry hygienic processes, and thereby succeed in restoring healthy action; or, 3 an extraneous irritation may be supplied to the diseased part, which will stimulate the diseased part to increased and healthy action, wherein the normal or natural stimuli will now suffice to retain it. This extraneous irritation may be supplied either (a) indirectly, or (b) directly. The indirect action is illustrated by the processes so much employed in the old school, and termed derivation, revulsion, and counter-irritation.
To give an example of this. A blister applied to the healthy skin will sometimes cure a pleurisy. In this case the irritation of the blister is transmitted by sympathy to the inflamed organ, the capillaries are excited to increased action, to contraction in fact, and the morbid phenomena gradually cease. By those who employ, in their literal signification, the term is derivation and counter-irritation to explain this process, the application of the blister is supposed to act by determining the morbid process to the blistered part in the former case, by withdrawing the irritation in the affected part in the latter. That the derivative or revulsive theory is erroneous is shown by this that the same blister applied to the surface of a healthy individual would produce not less but rather more effect in him than in one in whom inflammation exists, which could not be the case if the theory were correct; and as for the counter-irritation theory, besides the latter objection, to which it is equally open, we know that disease consists not in an excess but in a deficiency of irritation.
Under the head of cures by indirect irritation may be included all those cures which are effected by the application of a medicinal irritant to any part of the body other than that diseased, such as emetics, purgatives, diuretics, errhines, sialagogues, diaphoretics, for the cure of diseases not seated in the stomach, the intestines, the kidneys, the nose, the salivary glands, the skin. Let us take one other case. A so-called “determination of blood” to the head, with symptoms of threatened effusion on the brain, is removed by the employment of a mustard foot-bath. In this case there is vulgarly supposed to be a rush of blood to the head, which the physician sagaciously turns into a rush of blood to the feet. But this determination of blood (so- called) does not take place by virtue of any special propulsion of blood that way, and the increased secretion is not occasioned by such increased flow of blood, for in the natural state every organ receives more than a hundred times the quantity of blood it employs in secreting; this determination is owing to the dilated state of the capillaries consequent on previous over-irritation causing excessive contraction (of which, as formerly shown, excessive dilatation is the necessary result), and the effect of the highly stimulant foot-bath is to excite an irritation which is propagated by sympathy to the brain, and which causes the capillaries to again contract to their normal degree, from which they will not depart until some fresh irritation occurs to make them do so. Were the rush-of-blood theory correct, might we not naturally expect that the moment the effect of the mustard-bath was gone, the blood would incontinently rush again to the head?
But the method of cure by indirect irritation, is necessarily very uncertain, and though it succeeds undoubtedly in a few cases, it unfortunately much oftener fails. The reason of this is that the property of sympathy on which we mainly rely in this method is very uncertain; and further, that the irritation we artificially excite may not be of the proper kind, for all kinds of irritation will not answer equally well. Thus, though the irritation caused by a sinapism may be perfectly adapted to the cure of some kinds of cynanche, it will not cure all, and it would probably have no effect upon the inflamed hip-joint; where- as we know that that caused by the actual cautery is frequently of great service in the latter disease: but our knowledge of the proper irritants to use for inflammations of different organs and parts is far from great, and no guiding principle has yet been discovered to assist us in this matter. The homoeopathic principle must be observed in order that the treatment by counter-irritants should be successful, for unless there is some harmony between the kind of irritation developed artificially and that existing naturally no good effect is observable. There is, however, always this grand objection to the treatment by counter- irritation, that we are unable in most cases to determine a priori whether the artificial irritation producible by an irritant is or is not homoeopathic to the disease we wish to cure.
It is otherwise with the method of treatment by direct irritation. To practise this method we must apply our irritant to the diseased structure or tissue of the affected organ or part. Where the disease is external and accessible, its seat patent and visible, this may be done by touching the diseased part with the irritant, as we see practised in the treatment of cynanche tonsillaris, gonorrhoea, ophthalmia, by irritating gargles, injections, collyria: but unfortunately this is a method which is not so certain in its results as we might at first anticipate; for independently of the irritants commonly used not being always capable of causing an irritation similar to that which produced the disease, those affections I have just mentioned are by no means always mere local diseases, but have often their roots in the system, which of course are not touched by the local applications, and the disease is consequently not cured in its entireity. One of the best illustrations of this treatment I can offer you is the cure of bruises by arnica applied locally. Here we have a medicine that acts, so to speak, in the same sense as the morbific cause, and a malady purely local, the two conditions under which this treatment can be favourably exercised, and accordingly our success is in general triumphant. But instances such as this are the exception not the rule, and we must set about the discovery of direct irritants for those diseases whose seat and whose nature are hidden from us, and which we can know only by the symptoms they present to us. Now, if two individuals present themselves to our observation labouring under the same symptoms, i.e., complaining of the same kind of pains, in the same situation, and presenting the same objective morbid signs, the same derangements of the same functions, and the same moral conditions, it is perfectly logical to infer that these two individuals are similarly diseased in the same organ, system, or structure, and this we should be warranted in concluding even if we should discover that the agencies that produced these states in the two individuals respectively were widely different. We would conclude that there must be a strong analogy, relationship, and harmony betwixt the two agencies to produce such very similar effects; nor should we alter our opinion on this subject, even though the morbid states produced by the two agencies should differ considerably in intensity and duration; we should still be justified in stating that they acted on the same parts similarly, though not identically.
Now, we know that those substances we term poisons and drugs have the power of so deranging the healthy human organism as to induce morbid states very similar to those produced by natural morbific causes. Therefore, in order to ascertain what morbid states similar to those brought about by natural causes are producible by each medicine, all we have to do is to test the action of each on the healthy human body in such a way as to bring out all the morbid conditions it is capable of exciting; and having made a careful register of these, we shall have accumulated a series of medicinal morbid pictures as the result of the action of drugs; and should any natural disease present the same series of symptoms as those offered by one of these medicinal morbid pictures, we may conclude that the medicine and natural morbific cause are analogous, harmonious, and act similarly on the same parts, structures, or organs.
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.