We should note before leaving the subject that Paracelsus pointed out that he who will employ cold for heat, moisture for dryness does not understand disease (Paramirum, page 68). “What makes jaundice that also cures jaundice and all its species. In like manner the medicine that shall cure paralysis must proceed from that which causes it; and in this way we practice according to the method or cure by arcana” (Archidoxis, Vol. III, pt. v. page 18).
In retrospect let us recall that the idea of similars prevailed from the earliest times as in the Vedas. Similars were sanctioned by Hippocrates, for his doctrine of vis medicatrix implies that if the symptoms are due to the efforts of Nature to cure, it is the duty of the physician to promote these efforts by drugs which produce similar symptoms. Averroes wrote “Nature has so arranged that diseased organs are benefited by parts similar to them.”
“In diseases of the stomach the stomach of animals, especially fowls, are useful and for disorders of the lungs use the lungs of the fox.” Albertus Magnus related that it is no secret how every like aids, confirms, loves and acts upon and embraces that which is like it. Arnald of Villanova directed wounded soldiers to drink pepper water since that plant had a stalk and flower which were reddish and leaves are spotted as if with blood. Asarum and Cyclamen resembled the ear and were prescribed in aural diseases, Valentine had taught that diseases like poison may be driven out by contraries or drawn out by similars.
Paracelsus stated “So heart cures heart, spleen spleen, lung lung, not sows heart, not cow spleen, not goat lung, but member corresponding to member of the greater and inner man (macrocosm and microcosm). “The leaves and kernels of the peach are good for wounds, for see now on the fruit of the peach, it is pressed by the finger hollow places remain, so also severe wounds leave hollow places behind, Lizards are good for anthrax and carbuncle as is proved by the color, and the frog is specific for plague, for as plague is disgusting so is the frog.” And thus the similia similibus curantur or vomitus vomitu curantur of Hippocrates became the simile sui similecrat of Paracelsus.
Before passing to the others of the group of the Chemical Mystics, there is one observation I desire to record, which may be valueless but appears interesting to consider. There is one trait of Hahnemann upon which all are agreed. He was an inveterate reader and probably had a wider acquaintance with the literature of his time than any of his contemporaries. In spite of all of the similarities, it is remarkable that Hahnemanns literary researches should have absolutely failed to encounter Paracelsus who possessed so many identical characteristics of ideas and methods.
One cannot be positive and state that there is an undiscovered relationship between the ideas of Hahnemann and Paracelsus, for only a coincidence may exist, but it is at least peculiar that in spite of Hahnemanns erudition, he should have lived totally unaware of Paracelsus.
After Paracelsus came Agricola who, in relating the inability of his fellows to cure cancer, lupus, fistula, or leprosy, said: “If the subject be viewed in its proper light, it must be confessed that a concealed poison is at the root of such diseases, and this poison must be of an arsenical nature or character, this poison must therefore be expelled by means of the same or similar poison.” He goes on to say that if a realagar disease is present it must be cured with a realagar remedy, and with none other.
Arndt (1621) observed “And as physicians sometimes cure contraria contrariis, opposites with opposites, but sometimes the doctors cure similia similibus, likes with likes, poison with poison”.
The third of the group of Chemical Mystics is John Baptist van Helmont. To him all nature is alive. There is no dead matter, but in animals this material life assumes an almost personal form called archeus. Every body structure has a local Archeus and the whole organism is directed by the Archeus influus which resided in the stomach and is connected with the sensitive and rational soul. Disease is not a lesion of structure of function but since disease affects life or Archeus it must have its seat in life or Archeus.
Disease is a morbid idea conceived by the Archeus either through weakness or from harmful agents which cause him to depart from his normal course. There are innate diseases, as epilepsy, as well as diseases due to external causes such as witchcraft. Dropsy is not due to disease of the liver but to the anger of the renal Archeus who has lost his temper and refuses to work. Both contraria contraris and similia similibus are wrong. Treatment is simple and consists of removing the harmful products of disease and pacifying the Archeus by the use of specific medicine.
The seventeenth century developments in medicine are largely reactions to mysticism and partly the result of the teaching of Bacon and Descartes. The latter held that the universe contained two distinct things, matter and mind, a dualism which dominated medicine then as it does in many quarters today. Two schools developed as the result, the iatrochemical and iatromechanical. A typical exponent of the first is Sylvius who taught that bile after being secreted by the cystic artery passed to the heart where it meets the acid lymph brought in by the thoracic duct and vena cava.
The combination produces fermentation, the cause of body heat and the diastole of the heart. If the acidity or alkalinity becomes greater the fermentation increases and fever results, that is to say, diseases are due to acridities. Treatment may be vital, curative, etc., but actually consisted of the correction of the acidity or alkalinity and narcotics. Sylvius deserves mention because he is the last of the great Galenists. The iatromechanical school began with Sancto Sanctorius who discovered “insensible perspiration” and needs no consideration here.
The eighteenth or philosophic century is one of interest since it touches directly upon our topic. The vitalistic system of medicine can be divided into two classes the metaphysical and the scientific. The first held that the body is composed of dead material which is inhabited by an immaterial being called “life” which acts upon the body from without and separates from it at death. The animists identified life with soul while the vitalists maintained the existence of a second “vital principle”.
Stahl exemplifies one group. He taught that life resists putrefaction by keeping the blood in motion. Motion is immaterial and presupposes an immaterial agent, the soul. By keeping the blood, the most putrescent part, in motion and by expelling whatever is beginning to corrupt by secretions and excretions putrefaction is prevented. The proof of this is found in Seneca “You die not because you are ill but because you are alive.” The duty of the physicians is to watch and assist the soul. The school is mentioned here for several reasons, among which is the thought that this represents the beginning of the metaphysical period and the close of the materialistic so far as reactionaries are concerned.
Barthez may be chosen as an example of vitalism. Medical science has nothing to do with the essence of things but is the study of the phenomenon in health and disease. Without discussing the manner in which he arrived at his conclusions, it can be stated that the theory demands the existence of another being than the soul or body, a vital principle. Disease is the effort of the vital principle to resist harmful agency, or it is due to a morbid idea manifesting itself by alterations of sensibility in those abnormal acts which regulate the chemical constitution of humours. Treatment is of three types, the first of which is important for our purpose.
1. Natural assisting nature (or vital principle) in her efforts by giving an emetic in nausea or a purgative in diarrhoea. The physician is to employ this method where the termination of disease is favorable.
2. The analytic due to the fact that most diseases are composed of elementary affections.
3. Empire.
(a) method perturbatrice (Sydenham and Boerhaave);
(b) method imitative by which the vital principle is directed into the path by which Nature usually cures similar diseases;
(c) remedies that have been found useful in certain diseases.
Among the other very important features of this system is the concept of disordered vital spirit. This idea either reduces the number of therapeutic possibilities or necessitates following Stahl in assuming that medicines contain semi-spiritual or “Dynamic” powers enabling them to be brought in direct contact with the immaterial sources of life and disease. We will later have an occasion to note that Hahnemann held that drugs contain dynamic spiritual powers brought to life by dynamization (rubbing and shaking) that rubbing and shaking may penetrate fully into the essence of the drug and so free its more deeply seated medicinal powers, so that they may act in a spiritual manner and cure diseases which are solely spiritual derangements of the spiritual vital force which animates the body.
