In a very few days the fourth edition of the “Organon” will be on sale. I wish that it may have our approval. Do come to see me soon.
Yours faithfully.
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
Kothen, February 10th, 1829.
The projected repertory never appeared in print. Dr. Ernst Ferdinand Ruckert, who from September, 1829, until Easter, 1830, was a guest of Hahnemann, utilised Jahr’s. Rummel’s. Schweikert’s. etc., preliminary work and complete the reference book of about 1,500 pages, in an excellent manner and easy to refer to. It is now in possession of Dr. Rich. Haehl. Arnold the editor, however did not dare to publish it, probably on account of his bad experience with “Chronic Diseases.”
Hahnemann had already in 1817 prepared a repertory for use during his consulting hours. The paper strips, each containing one symptom, are so carefully separated by cutting and then stuck together that they have the appearance of pages written all in one.
SUPPLEMENT 84
HAHNEMANN AND THE ITCH.
Adolf Kussmaul (182201902), Professor of Internal medicine at Erlangen, Freiburg and Strassburg, wrote in his “Recollections of Youth,” on the Itch:
One did not even know the life history, and the condition of life of parasitical insects and intestinal parasites, which are visible to the naked eye, let alone microscopic animalculae; a world which was hardly beginning to disclose itself. The change of generation and metagenesis was described by a Dane named Steenstrup, in 1842. The origin of the itch disease (scabies), then so very much feared, and of which people for some incomprehensible reason are still, to-day, very much afraid, produced by a particular kind of parasitical mite, had long been maintained, but had only been established in the thirties. The majority of the physicians, even celebrated clinical teachers, were still clinging fast to the belief that the disease was caused not by a parasite, but by an acidity of the bodily humours. Hahnemann, and a pathologist of Tubingen named Antenrieth, were relating a fable of an invisible psora inherent in the body, which produced the eruption on the skin, and by the inner degeneration of the organs, produced phthisis and dropsy. We assistants used to laugh at the mythical “psora” and used to catch it with a sharp needle, in the shape of a mite of the acarus scabei; these needles we carried through the skin at places easily recognisable where the mite had buried itself, and where it remains quiet when the body is cold, but with increase of warmth it wakes up to an activity which causes its host considerable discomfort. We frequently cured the disease in a few days without any harm to the patient, with soft soap and lather, after it has been treated, for months and even years, homoeopathically. No disease is better known in these days than this one; the natural history of the mite is clear.
The fact that even Napoleon I, contracted an unmistakable scabies (itch) in Toulon, testifies to the wide-spread extent of the diseases in Hahnemann’s time, chiefly in consequence of the many wars.
That Napoleon was a friend of homoeopathy can be deduced from Dr. Baumann’s writing: “The old and the new method of treatment.” (Memmingen, 1857, Oscar Besenfelder):
When Napoleon was treated by Dr. Maragnot, on the isle of Elba, by the homoeopathic system, for a dangerous form of pityriasis (a certain kind of eczema) and the Emperor regained his health, he made his physician acquaint him with the meaning and advantages of the new art of healing, and called it “the most beneficent discovery, since the invention of the art of printing.”
His plan, “to have homoeopathy taught in all the medical schools of his kingdom” was not carried out; after Elba came St. Helena in the same year (1815).
HAHNEMANN’S KNOWLEDGE OF THE ITCH-INSECT.
That Hahnemann knew the nature of the itch very well, and had very sensible ideas on the mode of treatment even in the days when he practised allopathy can be seen in an annotation (II, 49) from the translation of Monro’s ” Materia Medica” (1791). He writes in it:
If in a recent case of itch, we makes the patient wash himself several times daily with a saturated solution of sulphuretted hydrogen and get his linen dipped in the same solution, the affection disappears in a few days and does not return except with re-infection. But would it not return if it was caused by acridity of the humours? I have often observed this, and agree with those who attribute the disease to a living cause. All insects and worms are killed by sulphuretted hydrogen.
And in the same work, Vol. II, page 441, in an annotation, Hahnemann again says, that the itch is a “living eruption.”
He expresses himself more clearly and with more detail in the “Anzeiger of Gotha,” year 172. Here is written by one “B,” No. 23 and 24, of Monday and Tuesday, the 30th and 31st of July, in the first number:
The itch itself does not consist of emanations or of congenital or acquired acridities, neither is it due to an alkaline or acid condition of the blood; but it has its origin in small living insects or mites, which take up their abode in our bodies beneath the epidermis, grow there and increase largely, and by their irritation or their creeping about cause an itching; and owing to th afflux of humours thereby produced give rise to a multitude of vesicles, which, on being rubbed, or when the thin watery fluid they contain has evaporated become covered with scabs. This is not an opinion adopted in order to get rid of a difficulty, but it is based on experience.
This is then proved and the “quickest and most trusty remedy against this plague” is disclosed. Later on page 190 follows the additional note which reads:
The cause of itch given above is the only true one, the only one that is founded upon experience. These exceedingly small animals are a kind of mite.
Wichmann has given a drawing of them; Dover, Legazi, and others have observed them,. Linnaeus however, thinks that the dry itch has a different variety of mite from that a attending the moist itch.
The itch attacks most readily and most virulently persons in whom the cutaneous transpiration is scanty or weakened, who lead a sedentary life: also, delicate individuals who have been weakened by other diseases, such as fevers, etc., and people who live in impure air.
The mode of treatment prescribed is also right and successful, except that the continued use of flowers of Sulphur has a tendency to cause tenesmus and haemorrhoids. Only external anti-scabious remedies are required, and in very weakly subjects, internal strengthening medicines, such as China, wine, steel filings.
Sulphur ointment has the common but unfounded reputation of driving the itch back into the system. This prejudice will, however, be removed if instead of ointment we employ only a lotion, which eradicates the itch much more effectually and kills the small insects in the skin in a few days. Take half an ounce of (Hahnemann’s) chalk-like Liver of Sulphur, in powder (every apothecary) knows how to prepare it with equal parts of oyster shells and sulphur heated to redness) and the same quantity of cream of tartar, put both into a glass bottle, pour two pounds of cold water on them, and shake for a few minutes. With the clear water that appears when the mixture settles, the patient is to wash himself three times a day on all the parts affected with he itch. In a recent case the itch disappeared, with this treatment, in th course of six or seven days, without leaving the least harmful consequences, in more severe cases within fourteen days, and the obstinate cases will yield within three weeks. This remedy has the advantage, that by its penetrating odour the itch mites in the linen and clothes are killed by the exhalation from he parts washed and all danger of re-infection is thus avoided. In orphan asylums there is no remedy more advantageous because it protects beds, rooms and furniture by its strong smell, from becoming a harbour for the itch-mites, and thus eradicates in a short time in such houses, this pest, otherwise so difficult to get rid of. This could hardly be effected by the ointment. Cleanliness, fresh air and wholesome diet must be imperatively enjoined on the patient.
DR. SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
This shows, clearly that Hahnemann meant something very different by his “psora” from the ordinary itch, with which he had been acquainted for long time.
SUPPLEMENT 85
EXTERNAL USE OF THUJA FOR FIG-WARTS.
Hahnemann wrote Dr. Wislicenus of Eisenach: Kothen, November 13, 1821.
As a specific remedy (against fig-warts-R.H.) I have found the yew tree (read it up in the materia medica and study it); but I have not yet succeeded in making the dose of it sufficiently weak; Thuja still frequently acts too strongly for me… Recently I have best achieved my purpose by applying the evil was completely cured. The outward strong application seems to have acted sufficiently through the sensitive tissues, upon the whole organism to eradicate in this way the whole disease. You may yet be able to procure some fresh Thuja and pound it in a mortar with spirits of wine (otherwise it is too dry) and press out a good juice for this purpose.
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