INTRODUCTION.
Baron von Boenninghausen, L.L.D., M.D. (1777 t0 1862) was Hahnemanns most intimate friend, diligent pupil and indefatigable co-laborer, as well as Germanys greatest homoeopathist next to the master. In addition to an enormous practice, from nobility to peasant, he managed to write very many classical articles and books on the art of homoeopathy. These were always exact, trustworthy, fully endorsed by Hahnemann, and so voluminous that they alone alone would easily occupy the lifetime of a good man. Among the true followers of Hahnemann, von Boenninghausen is best known for his Therapeutic Pocketbook, Repertory of the Antipsorics, and his last and greatest work, Die Apborismen des Hippokrates, which has not been translated into English, but from which the following excerpts were taken, which contain practically all the homoeopathic “gold nuggets.”–S.W.S.
BOOK II.
APHORISM 3. Slightly inferior food or drink is preferable to superior kinds, if they are more palatable.
COMMENT: Without doubt many physicians have had numerous cases in which there were aversions or cravings toward certain foods or drinks, or where things otherwise agreeing, simply did not seem to be suitable to the patient. These symptoms, belonging to the sickness picture, for there usually is no good basis present, neither physiologically nor chemically, nevertheless demand recognition for the remedy choice.
Homoeopathy aims to gather always more experience along these lines, because such symptoms are often of much value, sometimes indispensable, especially where the sickness picture is poor in characteristic symptoms. At times one such peculiarity decided between several apparently indicated remedies, and rarely is a mistake in remedy selection caused thereby. We know the remedies which are called for when aversion to certain foods is present, e.g., hard-boiled eggs: Bryonia; mutton: Calcarea carbonica; sauerkraut: Helleborus; cheese: Oleander; herring: Phosphorus; beef: Mercurius, etc.,.
and we observe these indications. So also we pay attention to certain carvings, e.g., oysters: Lachesis; smoked fish: Causticum; honey: Sabadilla; cheese: Ignatia; dry rolls: Aurum, etc. All this is important for the choice of our remedy, especially when there is aversion to or craving for sweet or sour, cold or warm food or drink.
It is not less important when certain foods, not injurious in themselves, do not agree with the patient; their number, ascertained by remedy proving or clinical observations, is by far greater than the afore-mentioned conditions. Here also we find peculiarities which have no explanation. To mention just a few examples: aggravation from buttermilk: Pulsatilla; strawberries: Sepia; cucumbers: Acidum sulphuricum; odor from eggs or pork: Colchicum; odor from coffee, even more than from drinking it: Acidum sulphuricum; honey: Natrum carbonicum; herring, peaches and melons: Acidum fluoricum; lemonade: Selenium, etc. Such conditions gain more importance when paired with aversion to the same food or drink.
APHORISM 42. It is impossible to cure a severe attack of apoplexy, and not easy to cure a mild attack.
COMMENT: Severe apoplectic attacks are fatal in a short time. If patient lives till the homoeopathic physician can reach him, then Opium will be the remedy; if pupils are contracted, the pulse slow and full, and the face red; or Lachesis when the pulse is weak and small, and the face purplish-pale. Other remedies may be indicated by a carefully taken anamnesis and by the symptoms present.
The smaller apoplectic attacks can neither be treated after a mold. Here in the presence of an irritable pulse Aconite must first be given, and later, according to the previously mentioned symptoms either Opium or Lachesis. The paralyses observed after consciousness returns often are overcome in a short time by Cocculus or Arnica, indicated by their respective accompanying symptoms; however, a number of other remedies may also come in question.
APHORISM 48. In every exertion of the body, to rest at once when pain begins, relieves the suffering.
COMMENT: Rest can do here no more than what nature in course of time accomplishes, hence rest is not a curative contrarium.
If however such homoeopathic remedies are used, which in their proving show similar fatigue with over-exertion pains, then Arnica in the first named condition, and Rhus toxicodendron in the other, then a cure will be produced much quicker than just by rest.
END OF BOOK II.
BOOK IV.
APHORISM 16. Veratrum album is dangerous to the healthy, for it produces convulsions.
COMMENT: Making the stomach contents liquid by any kind of drink increases the vomiting action of Veratrum album. Homoeopathists realize this is one of its characteristic peculiarities, and that is the opposite of Cuprum, which in many ways can be considered its sister remedy. These two offer us long list of symptoms which run parallel, acting on the same body parts, almost in the same manner, in many serious diseases almost vie with each other. Under such conditions it would often be very difficult to choose the right one of these two grand medicaments if it were not for one characteristic symptom which removes all doubt: the drinking of a cold fluid, like cold water.
If cold drinks aggravate the affliction of the stomach and abdomen: vomiting and diarrhoea (and all other crampy and painful troubles), then they belong to Veratrum; but if cold drinks ameliorate, then they belong to the sphere of Cuprum, and in both instances a cure is assured by proper use of the one or the other agent.
This difference in the symptoms of Veratrum and Cuprum in respect to drinking of something cold is the more important as it is found only in a small group of remedies (Calcarea carbonica: aggravation from drinking, and Causticum amelioration from drinking, these excepted) with such clear precision. Only in Phosphorus we find just the same rare and very characteristic symptom: a drink of cold water brings immediate relief, but only till the water becomes warm in the stomach, when the former retching returns with greater fury.
APHORISM 23. Patients who have been reduced through acute or chronic sickness, or through injuries, or from any other cause, who have a discharge of black bile, or like black blood, die the next day.
COMMENT: Reference is to the “Morbus niger Hippocrates” (melaena) which often ends fatally. The proving of Arsenicum has all the important symptoms, and where indicated has always given sure aid when applied in time, except when damaged internal organs demand other remedies according to symptoms and causative factors.
APHORISM 26. It is fatal if a dysenteric patient passes flesh-like pieces.
COMMENT: In true autumnal dysentery it is not unusual that instead of faecal stools they consist of bloody mucus, then membranes like intestinal scrapings, and finally flesh-like pieces with severe tenesmus. All these symptoms have their simile in Mercurius, a first class specificum. Quick-silver was not known in Hippocrates time, but was introduced by Arabian physicians in the 11th century. However, it is not the only remedy to be thought of, for in the first stage symptoms often indicate: Apis, Cantharis or Colchicum. Hence, the absolute death sentence is not for our age, provided proper treatment is instituted early enough.
APHORISM 27. If patients have lost much blood during a fever, they will suffer from loose bowels during convalescence/.
COMMENT: This experience is also confirmed in our day. China tops the long list of suitable remedies when the symptoms correspond; but while it often acts like a charm, even if not absolutely homoeopathically suitable, one is at times easily persuaded to repeat the dose, or to give a lower potency when the improvement lets up, instead of looking for a real individualized similimum.
APHORISM 30. When fever recurs daily at the same hour, there will be a difficult crisis.
COMMENT: Among most such patients we find many who, in spite of the “never failing remedy,” quinine, keep on suffering for months, even years, till quinine has made them sick in its own way, and the patient now is in worse condition than during the fever itself. The they seek help from homoeopathy, which can cure just such fevers safely by Antimonium crudum, China, Ignatia and especially Sabadilla.
Our remedy provings have given us pointers about periodicity, aggravation and amelioration at certain times of the twenty-four hours or seasons, which must well be considered in the selection of the indicated remedy; some of them have these modalities also with respect to other symptoms. Helleborus niger and Lycopodium clavatum have general aggravation form 4 p.m. till about 8 p.m., which often determines the selection of the correct remedy where many other medicines might also come in question. An allopath may give an extensive report about a typhoid fever patient, which might be practically worthless for the selection of the indicated homoeopathic remedy. We must know the moments of periodicity, aggravation, e.g., evenings, from warmth, every motion (Bryonia), or morning, from getting cold, absolute rest (Rhus), etc. Thus we also treat neuralgias (toothache and prosopalgia) which are the beta noire to the allopaths, where the entire anatomic and pathologic rubbish is useless, yet such cases are easily cured by homoeopathy where the modalities of time and conditions can be found to correspond to one of our remedies.
