In the year 1828 Hahnemann published a most important book entitled “Chronic Diseases: Their Nature and Homoeopathic treatment.” It was issued in four volumes, there in 1828 and the fourth in 1830. It deals with the causation of chronic diseases and also with the two deadly scourges Syphilis and Sycosis. It should be noted that the itch disease and its manifestations were known to medical men even prior to Hahnemann. The allegation that Hahnemann posed as an inventor of the itch theory, is absolutely false.
For he himself admits that the presence and manifestation of the itch was known to people before him. He only maintains that he it was that saw the relation of cause and effect between the itch and the other like cutaneous eruptions and the chronic diseases. He maintains that it (itch) is of a miasmatic nature and therefore calls it Psora. He came to his conclusions after watching the very careful treatment of chronic diseases with the indicated remedies which alone were not able to cure the chronic trouble permanently.
The first volume of Chronic Diseases is devoted to a detailed consideration of how they are produced and how they should be attempted to be cured. Hahnemann classes these into three groups: Psoric, Syphilitic and Sycotic, and states as his confirmed experience that the single remedy covering the symptomatology of the case will not in itself be able to cure the disease permanently in its entirety unless the causative miasm at the root is removed from the system.
The second, third and fourth volumes are devoted to the consideration of their treatment and contain the full Materia Medica of such miasmatic (miasm curing) drugs. These books are so valuable as they come from the pen of the Master, that no conscientious homoeopath can do successful homoeopathic practice without their aid.
Here it wont be quiet out of place to consider the posology the master followed in his practice. Previous to 1796 the period at which Hahnemann first gave to the world the discovery of the new law of healing, he used the ordinary remedies of the times, but even then, as we find by his writings he gave simple prescriptions. The awkward multimedicinal combinations were objectionable to his fine and acutely trained understanding. Still he was giving appreciable material doses of medicines. In 1799 he discovered Belladonna as the specific for the epidemic Scarlet fever and further suddenly found out the great use of infinitesimal doses.
(The paper upon this subject was not published till 1801, but the commenced this new treatment in summer 1799). When challenged by Hufeland to defend this new method, Hahnemann only replied to him by citing his experiences but gave no reasons for his sudden change from appreciable to minute doses. Dudgeon in this connection says It was about this time that his persecution by the apothecaries began and it was probably a desire to evade their harassing annoyance that led Hahnemann to try, if diminishing the dose to such an extent that it was beyond the ken of chemical or other research, the medicine still possessed the power of influencing the organism.
In 1805 in the Medicine of Experience he (Hahnemann) says that if the remedy selected be the right one it will act in incredibly small doses. Hahnemann must have continued his experiments in dilution (2) of the doses till about 1819 when he refers to the sixth potency of pure gold for suicidal tendency, in an article on the subject. In 1828 when the first three volumes of the Chronic Diseases appeared he seems to have gone up to the thirtieth potency.
At this time Hahnemann does not seem to have approved of higher dynamisation than the 30th as it appears clear from his letter to Dr. Schreter dated 12th September 1829. Hahnemann says:
“I do not approve of your dynamizing the medicine higher. There must be some end to the thing; it can not go on to infinity. By laying it down as a rule that all homoeopathic remedies be diluted and dynamized upto X (the 30th) we have a uniform mode of procedure in the treatment of all homoeopathists and when they describe a cure we can repeat it, as they and we operate with the same stools. In one word we would do well to go forward uninterruptedly in the beaten path. Then our enemies will not be able to reproach us with having nothing fixed–no moral standard.”
In 1832 Von Korsakoff a noble landlord near Moscow wrote in Stapfs Archiv an article Experiences on the propagation of the medicinal power of homoeopathic medicines with ideas on the mode of propagation in which he advocates that the potentization of remedies might be carried much higher than had hitherto been done. He potentized a remedy to the 1500th dynamization. In answer to this Hahnemann says:
“I must say these procedures seem to show chiefly how one can go with the potentized attenuation of medicine without their action on the human health being Nil. For this these experiments are of inestimable value; but for homoeopathic treatment of patients it is expedient in the preparation of all kinds of medicines to remain stationary at the decillionth attenuation and potency, in order that the homoeopathic practitioners may be able to promise themselves uniform results in their cures”.
It would appear from what Dr. Chapman and Father Everest wrote about the medicine chests that Hahnemann use din hi practice, what he used medicines up to the 30th potency. Whether he thought more favourably of the usefulness of the higher potencies is not known, as the manuscript for the sixth edition of the Organon which must have contained the views he held in this regard prior to his death never saw the light of the day.
[The sixth edition of “Organon”, as revised by Hahnemann after carefully going over paragraph by paragraph, making changes, erasures, annotations and additions, and completed in 1842, was published in 192 by Boericke and Tafel. In aphorisms 278-283 and foot-note to 282, the question of higher dynamization has been fully discussed and settled.–(Ed.)
1829: The father of homoeopathy was now extremely busy with his innumerable patients, who came from both the rich and poor, from all far and wide away places. Moreover there were pupils (doctors) who collected round him to receive his valuable instructions. He had also a very large correspondence with friends, doctors and various other people and on the top of all this, he was still untiring in furtherance of his favourite studies and research in homoeopathy. Under such bright environments his faithful disciples were collecting funds to fittingly celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their masters graduation.
Dr. Rummel undertook the mission of procuring the masters real life–like portrait and a bust for the occasion and happily cleverly managed it very successfully. Others, like Dr. Gross and Dr. Stapf, arranged other items of the memorable function. In short, preparations on a very grand scale were being made for the occasion. On the 10th August 1829 the function was celebrated in Coethen in a manner that befitted the Master as well as his faithful pupils.
As a token of reverence and love for the master who had lived for this art of homoeopathy and successfully proved its superiority to the old school methods, a bust and many others presents were given to him. Dr. Stapf gave him a velvet-lines jewel box containing a gold and silver medal on the face of which was a fine bust of Hahnemann born on 10th April 1755, created a doctor Erlangen on the 10th August 1779″; on the reverse, words SIMILIA SIMILIBUS and the inscription Medicinae Homoeopathicae auctori discipuli et amici d. 10 Aug. 1829. Dr. Stapf also presented to the master a copy of his recently published book, the collection of Hahnemanns Lesser writings.
The Duke of Coethen presented a snuff box with his (Dukes) initials set in diamonds and the Duchess a souvenir. Many other presents were also made to him. The venerable old master made a fitting and feeling reply and thanked God that he was allowed most mercifully to see his lifes mission and labour fulfilled. On the very day with the funds on hand (after deducting the expenses ) a society called “Society for the promotion and development of Homoeopathy” was started which later came to be called The Central Homoeopathic Union, the name by which it is known today.
1830 was rather an unhappy year for Hahnemann in regard to his household happiness. For, in this year Madame Hahnemann breathed her last. She was quite an intelligent lady devoutly attached to her husband and her dear children. She had all the qualities of a good housewife. She had shared with a brave heart all the viscissitudes and privations which Hahnemann had to go through, in his earlier life, simply for the sake of his conscience and the love for the humanitarian a new science for the healing of the sick. She had looked after the needs and personal likes and dislikes of Hahnemann with the devotion that every affectionate wife harbours for her husband.
She had reared the children in the way that every good mother would, to make them good and honourable citizens. In short she had spent her life to make her husband and her children as happy as was possible under the circumstance. It is true that she behaved on occasion with her husband in a commanding manner and reprimanded him for throwing away opportunities of earning well financially. But this can not be called a disqualification, of for it was on her head that lay the responsibility of looking after the needs of the household. She never came in the way of her husband in his pursuits after knowledge and scientific studies.
