Similia similibus Deus adjungit (De Thera ad Pison).
Simile ad sibi similie natura fertur (De Semine ii).
Simile ad suum simile tendit naturaliter (De Util Resp).
Simile est congruum et amicum (De Inaeq.Intemp).
It should be mentioned in passing that Galen influenced medical practice for several hundred years.
Christianity exerted a definite influence upon medicine and being altruistic, the good outweighs the bad. Comment must be made upon three unfortunate effects:.
1. It helped restore primitive theories of diseases.
2. It imposed restrictions upon free thought and investigation.
3. It aroused controversies that practically absorbed the intellectual minds of the day.
The Bishop of Cesarea pointed out that diseases are sent by God as punishments (I. Cor. xi, 30), and that instead of going to physicians, people should await the chastening of the Lord until he sees fit to remove them (Micah vii, 9). Further, that diseases may be caused by Satan with the permission of God (Job ii, 6,7). As indicative of the period, reference can be made to the story of Theodore of Alexander who dreamed in the Church of SS. Cyrus and John that eating an asp would cure him of poison that he had taken.
Without relating the entire anecdote. Theodore quaintly concludes, “Thus saints are cured not contraries by contraries, but likes by the use of likes.” The Arabian school which came into existence at this time rendered an invaluable service to medicine by describing new diseases, new remedies, and writing the first pharmacopoeia. No time will be spent on this important group although the theory of Psora, which is discussed in another paper necessitates calling attention to them.
The school of Salerno is the sole outstanding light of the Dark Ages. For our purpose it is sufficient to observe an item found in the commentaries on the Salernitan pharmacopoeia. “If a man is bitten by a mad dog immediately put some of its hair upon the bite” thus this idea of similars returns to medicine after one thousands years.
The revival of medicine began in the thirtieth century with Arnald of Villanova, seeker for an universal remedy, and Peter the Disputant, and passes through the period of intellectual ferment at the close of the fifteenth century when all things new and extravagant attracted men. The era of Chemical Mystics is the next period which compels us to pause.
Of Basil Valentine, the father of Medical Chemistry, a few words will suffice. “Likes must be cured by their likes and not by their contraries as heat by heat, and cold by cold, shooting by shooting; for one heat attracts another to itself, one cold to the other as the magnet does the iron. Hence prickly simples can remove diseases whose characteristic is prickly pains, and minerals which are poisonous cure and destroy symptoms of poisoning when they are brought to bear upon them. Although some- times a chill may be removed and suppressed, still I say as a philosopher and one experienced in Natures ways that similar must be fitted with similar whereby it will be removed radically and thoroughly if I am a proper physician and understand medicine.”-(De Microcosmo).
Paracelsus, an outstanding figure of medical history, must also have consideration. To him medicine rested upon four pillars.
1. Philosophy not the vulgar type but of the circle of sciences. A division of this pillar is anatomy, not of dissection but the anatomy of essence, an imaginary analysis of man into mystical elements or ingredients salt, sulphur and mercury.
2. Astronomy as exemplified by the fact that some diseases are due to exhalations of the stars.
3. Alchemy an attempt to improve upon natural substances, a foreshadowing of the search for active principles.
4. Virtue of the physician.
Diseases are caused by and cured by the action of the macrocosm (universe) upon the corresponding parts of the microcosm (man). There are five kinds of jaundice, five kinds of dropsy, etc. The duty of the physician is to distinguish the Entry. The immediate cause of disease is not alternation of the humours but in the mystic elements, salt, sulphur and mercury.
From the therapeutic angle there are several important points to be noted. Every disease has its specific arcanum or remedy. Drugs are chosen upon the Doctrine of Signatures. “As a woman is known by her shape, so the medicine,” and the arcanum is recognized by form and color. Thus topaz and celandine are useful in jaundice, but yellow substances are also useful in diseases of the heart, yellow being the color of the sun which rules that organ. The action of the remedy does not depend upon the amount but upon its virtue. (When an attempt is made to trace the origin of the Doctrine of Signatures so many obstacles are encountered as to render this almost impossible and we must be content with the mention of some examples).
Euphrasia, also called eyebright, looks like the iris of the eye, therefore it is useful in diseases of that organ, especially dimness of vision. Orchid root bears a slight resemblance to the testes and is esteemed in the treatment of impotence. Hypericum perfoliatum yields when crushed, a blood red juice and is therefore specific in haemorrhage. The color of turmeric and berberis secured for them a reputation in the treatment of jaundice as did chelidonium. The poppy is shaped like a head (even possessing a crown), therefore its usefulness in diseases of the head.
Ranunculus and scrophularis have roots which resemble haemorrhoids, so that their use is apparent. The red dye from madder is used to promote menstrual discharge while Cassia fistula is shaped like an inflated bowel and is useful in intestinal diseases. Lemon is shaped like a heart. The bile tastes bitter so does gentian. The mushroom, phallus impudicus, was a promoter of fecundity. The branch of the elder tree has a pith like the spinal cord. Lichen pulmonarius looked like a lung, cyclamen like a stomach. Lithospermum possessed stony hardness, therefore its use in stone in the bladder. Examples numbering several hundreds are available but unnecessary for our purpose.
It is impossible to avoid comparing Paracelsius and Hahnemann. The former classed doctors into five classes.
1. Naturales,
2. Specifici,
3. Characterales,
4. Spirituals,
5. Fideles.
The first class corresponds closely to Hahnemanns enantiopathic and the second class resembles the homoeopathic. Paracelsus differed from Hahnemann in that the former thought that the enantiopathic and other classes may cure, that each sect is capable of curing all and the educated physician may choose whichever he likes, while Hahnemann denied this.
Both Hahnemann and Paracelsus were on bad terms with the apothecaries. Paracelsus wrote “So shamefully do they (the apothecaries) make up their medicines, that it is only by a special interposition of Providence that they do not more harm; and at the same time they charge so extravagantly for them and so much cry up their trash, that I do not believe any persons can be met with who are greater adepts in lying”.
Both Paracelsus and Hahnemann used the invective against poly- pharmacy. Like Hahnemann he laughed at the notion of attempting to reduce the diseases to a certain number of genera- “You imagine that you have invented receipts for all the different fevers. You limit the number of fevers to seventy and what-not that there are five times seventy.” Hahnemann said: “The Homoeopathic physician, who does not entertain the foregone conclusions devised by the ordinary school (who have fixed upon a few names of such fevers, besides which mighty nature dare not produce any others so as to admit of their treating these diseases according to some fixed method), does not acknowledge the names goal fever, bilious fever, but treats each according to their several peculiarities.
(Note to the 73d Aphorism). Paracelsus resembles Hahnemann in that he recognized the primary and secondary actions of remedies, for speaking of vitriol he says that as surely as it relaxes in its first period, so surely does it constrict in its second period. They also resemble each other in minute doses. Paracelsus in his “On the Causes and Origin of Lues Gallica (lib. v. cap. 11), states the following:.
“As a single spark can ignite a great heap of wood indeed, can set a whole forest in flames, in like manner can a very small dose of medicine overpower a great disease. As the spark has no weight so the medicine given, however small be its weight, should suffice to effect its action.” Hahnemann states that the dose of the homoeopathically selected remedy can never be prepared so small that it shall not be stronger than the natural disease, and shall not be able to overpower, extinguish and cure it, at least in part, as long as it is capable of causing some, though slight, preponderance of its own symptoms, etc.
(Aphorism 279). Paracelsus also anticipated Hahnemann in the use of medicines by olfaction “They have many rare powers and they are very numerous; there is one, for instance, the Specificum odoriferum, which cures diseases when the patients are unable to swallow the medicine as in apoplexy and epilepsy.” (Parac. Op. Vol. III, pt. vi, page 70, 1589).
