VIGOROUS ATTACKS
SUPPLEMENT 37
DIETETIC RULES, ETC.
Extracts from Bernhard Schuchardt’s “Letters of Hahnemann to a Patient, from the year 1703-1805.” Tubingen, 1886. Publisher, H Laupp. (Page 6I ff; the following letter was written in the year 1800. approx.)
Man (the delicate human machine) is not constituted for overwork. If he does so from ambition, love of gain, or other praiseworthy or blameworthy motive, he sets himself in opposition to the order of nature, and his body suffers injury or destruction. The more so if his body is already in a weakened condition; then what you cannot accomplish in a week, you can do in two weeks. Your customers may not be willing to wait, but they cannot reasonably expect that you will make yourself ill and work yourself to the grave for their sake, leaving your wife a widow and your children orphans. It is not only the greater bodily exertion that injures you, but even more the attendant strain on the mind; the overwrought mind in its turn affects the body injuriously. If you do not assume an attitude of calm indifference, adopting the principle of living first for yourself and only secondly for others, then there is small chance of your recovery. When you are in your grave, men will still be clothed, perhaps not so tastefully, but still tolerably well.
If you are a philosopher you may become healthy, you may even attain to old age.
If anything annoys you, ignore it; if anything is too much for you, have nothing to do with it; if others seek to drive you, go slowly and laugh at the fools who wish to worry you. What you can do comfortably, that do; what you cannot accomplish, do not bother yourself about, for our temporal circumstances are not improved by over-pressure of work. You only spend proportionately more on your domestic affairs, and so nothing is gained. Economy, limitation of superfluities ( of which the hard worker has often very few) place us in a position to live with greater comfort-that is to say, more rationally, more intelligently, more in accordance with nature, more cheerfully, more quietly and more healthily. thus we shall act more commendably, more wisely and more prudently than by working in a breathless hurry, with our nerves constantly overstrung, to the destruction of the most precious treasures of life, a peaceful mind and good health. Be more prudent, consider yourself first, let everything else be only of secondary importance to you; and should they venture to assert that you are in honour bound to do more than is good for your mental and physical powers, even then do not, for God’s sake, allow yourself to be driven to do what is contrary to your own welfare. Remain deaf to the bribery of praise, remain cold and pursue your own course slowly and quietly like a wise and sensible man. To enjoy with tranquil mind and body that is what man is in the world for, and to do only as much work as will procure him the means of enjoyment-certainly not to let himself be harassed and worn out with work.
The everlasting pushing and striving of short-sighted mortals in order to gain so and so much, to secure some honour or other, to do a service to this or that great personage-this is generally fatal to our welfare, this is a common cause of young people ageing and dying before their time.
The calm cool-headed man, who lets things glide softly, attains the same object, lives more tranquilly, and healthily, and reaches a good old age; and this leisurely man sometimes lights upon a lucky idea, the fruit of serious original thought, which will give much more profitable impetus to his temporal affairs than can ever be gained by the overwrought man who can never find time to collect his thoughts.
In order to win the race, speed alone will not suffice. Strive to remain a little indifferent, to be cool and calm, then you will be what I wish you to be. You will see marvellous things; you will see how healthy you will become by following my advice. Then shall your course through your veins calmly and sedately, without effort and without heat. No horrible dreams disturb the sleep of him who lies down to rest with calm nerves, and the man who is free from care wakes in the morning without anxiety about the multifarious occupations of the day. What does he care? The happiness of life concerns him more than anything else. With fresh vigour he sets about his moderate work, and at his meals nothing, no ebullitions of blood, no cares, no solicitude of mind, hinders him from relishing what the beneficent Preserver of Life sets before him; and so one day follows another in quiet until finally advanced age brings him to the termination of a well-spent life, and he rests serenely in another world, as he has calmly lived in this one.
Is not that more rational, more sensible? Let restless self- destroying men act as irrationally, as injuriously towards themselves as they pleas; let them be fools, but do you be wiser. Do not let me preach this wisdom of life in vain. I mean well by you.
Farewell, follow my advice, and when all goes well with you, remember
Dr.S. HAHNEMANN.
P.S.-Even should you be reduced to your last sixpence, remain cheerful and happy. Providence watches over us, and a lucky chance puts things right again. How much do we need in order to live, to restore our powers by food and drink, to shield ourselves from cold and heat? Little more than courage; when we possess that, we can find the minor essentials without much trouble. The wise man needs but little. Conserved strength does not need to be renewed by medicine.
The patient was an educated working man (a tailor) in Gotha, who, in spite of being delicate, reached the age of ninety-two years and did not die until 1851.
HAHNEMANN’S RULES OF HEALTH.
From a letter to Dr. Stapf, of March 24th, 1828 :
If you are trying to put your health on a sounder footing, any non-medical rules which I can advise you to follow consist in : not undertaking more work than your bodily strength can manage, nor trying to accomplish it too quickly.
Combine the two following sayings to the best of your abilities :
“Expende, quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusent.” (ascertain what your shoulders can bear and recognise their limitations-R.H.), and, “Festina lente” (Hasten with leisure- R.H.).
Thus you will attain your object better. Anger and sorrow must be expelled from the bosom of a wise man, he must not allow them to enter. Aequam memento rebus in asperis servare mentem- moriture. (Take care to maintain your equanimity in difficulties- otherwise you will die- R.H.).
From another letter dated October 16th, 1830: One of the most important rules for recovery is what Confucius called the Golden Mean, and which he described in an excellent book as the ” aurea mediocritas rien de trop.” I should advise you to observe the Golden Mean in regard to such articles of diet as have been permitted. ( He had been previously cautioned to avoid as far as possible wine, coffee, tea, punch, acids, acids, spices, especially vanilla, cinnamon, cloves and perfumes-R.H.] I would like you to walk every day in the open air, never to run, and only to ride or drive a little when necessary; to go to bed by ten o’clock; not to read yourself to sleep in bed; not to undertake any mental labour after eight o’clock in the evening; to take your supper before 8 p.m. and then eat but sparingly, and never of meat or eggs : not to over- exert yourself in any way, and to dismiss calmly all disagreeable subjects from your thoughts like a wise man.
In another place Hahnemann recommends marriage, to someone seeking his advice, which he esteemed of great value from a health point of view.
C. Wiesicke Plauen, November 29th, 1831, thanks Hahnemann:
For the last four months all symptoms have disappeared, the last one, a whitish tongue, went after a dose of Sepia.
At the same time he communicates his engagement to an excellent girl. ” ” who has the qualities which you have recommended to me. ” Also in a letter to the young sculptor Adolph Straub Weimar. Hahnemann advises marriage.
The same advice he wrote on September 12th, 1829, to Dr. Schreter in Lemberg :
Dear Colleague,
I wish you much happiness in your marriage. You have done well. Only a sensible and good marriage makes a man of the youth, makes a girl into a worthy woman. Both perfect each other and love, mutual help, warning and advice help us to bear the burden of life easily, and procure for us a condition as nearly akin to paradise as is possible on earth.
Hahnemann to Boenninghausen :
Cothen. March 16th, 1831.
The instructions on diet want more discussion, since the same things are not equally to everybody; though there are some things which each one must avoid. I am not quite clear myself whether dilution helps the good cause or not; whether it is necessary to potentise at all, whilst (and this I have not yet disclosed) the very high X potencies of medicines given in our small doses of x… accomplish what is required, without hindrance, penetrating with all their power and with incredible completeness, strength and purity, whilst they are not affected by any kind of food ( except perhaps vegetable acids, spirits, coffee and tea.). Foodstuffs really contain no antidotes except those above named (in brackets). From this I deduce that the poor thresher from the country, who is suffering from a serious chronic disease, may be cured in a short time ( especially if he has not been saturated with allopathic drugs ) without my having to prohibit his onions, bacon, sausage, bad bread, horse-radish sauce and so forth. (He is too poor to buy coffee or spirits.) Under such conditions our highly potentised medicines act without hindrance. In regard to clothing too, the poor cannot follow precepts and yet they recover incredibly quickly! Even the perfumes used by the wealthy would not trouble me if the patients did not come into our hands with their health already miserably undermined by heroic allopathic remedies, which had already rendered them impervious to treatment. Such obstacles are frequently fatal to our mild system, which cannot overcome the antagonism of strong and useless drugs.
Richard Haehl was also an editor and publisher of the homeopathic journal Allgemcine, and other homeopathic publications.
Haehl was responsible for saving many of the valuable artifacts of Samuel Hahnemann and retrieving the 6th edition of the Organon and publishing it in 1921.
Richard Haehl was the author of - Life and Work of Samuel Hahnemann