APHORISM 56. Fear, yawning and shivering are overcome by drinking equal parts of wine and water mixed.
COMMENT: It is probable that Hippocrates here refers to hypochondriac and hysteric manifestations, and aims at calming such attacks. This is also seen from the fact that all remedies known to us for which wine is an antidote (Aconitum, Agaricus, Belladonna, Conium, Graphites, Lachesis, Mezereum, Nux, Opium, Phosphorus, Phosphoric acid and Sulphur) with the exception of Agaricus, they all, some particularly so, correspond to hysteria and hypochondriasis, and have been used in such conditions with much success. It goes without saying, that wine here is not to be considered a real and lasting cure.
APHORISM 58. In concussion of the brain, from any cause, the power of speech of necessity is lost immediately.
COMMENT: This aphorism does not refer to apoplexy, but only to traumatism. If a cure is still possible, we should study above all Arnica, and only in severe inflammatory states Aconitum, and later Belladonna and Hyoscyamus may come in question. Surgery may be necessary.
APHORISM 59. Florid patients should be starved, for hunger dries the tissues.
COMMENT: While it is evident that patients who are bloated and full-blooded should reduce, yet it is a question whether or not that would be rational and suitable, because practically always the disposition to plethora, as well as leanness, have chronic sickliness as basic factor, which can not be mechanically improved without danger. Excluding dropsical states, which do not belong here, our provings have given us remedies which here are important. Plethoric conditions are indeed as much an important symptom as any other deviation from the normal, and in many cases of remedy selection deserves much more consideration than usually given.
The careful prescriber will, in plethoric patients, choose that remedy which also in this respect agrees with the homoeopathic principle. If this plethora is hereditary, which styles it a characteristic sickness symptom, the physician will consult especially: Aconitum, Ammonium carbonicum, Ammonium muriaticum, Antimonium crudum, Apis, Arnica, Aurum, Belladonna, Bromium, Bryonia, Calcarea carb., Capsicum, Carbo veg., Causticum, Colocynthis, Crocus, Cuprum, Ferrum met., Graphites, Hyoscyamus, Kali carb., Lycopodium, Phosphorus, Rhus, Sarsaparilla, Selenium, Senega, Sepia, Silica, Strontium, Sulphur, Thuja and Valerianum, which are here especially indicated.
Among them we will find a remedy which is also suitable for the other symptoms, and is much more sure of a cure than when he only reduces the patients diet, because he attacks the inner sickness of which the plethora is only a result, and at that not always the worst.
APHORISM 72. It is fatal when in non-intermittent fever the body is cold externally, while the inside burns, and thirst is present.
COMMENT: In such cases these remedies present themselves primarily: Aconitum, Arsenicum, Pulsatilla, Rhus, Sulphur and Veratrum, but also other remedies frequently are indicated according to accompanying symptoms: Belladonna, Bryonia, Calcarea carb., Chamomilla, Sepia and Silica. At any rate the condition is not so hopeless under homoeopathic treatment.
APHORISM 77: Bone necrosis is followed by sequestration of bone.
COMMENT: An allopathic commentator properly indicts his colleagues: “This happy sequestration would happen much oftener, if the condition were not treated with balsamic, irritating salves and injections. The radical treatment of the dyscrasia is fundamental.” This is our opinion also, and without a doubt among their applications preparations of iodum are the worst, as many experiences have taught us. Homoeopathy has many illustrious results with: Arsenicum, Asafoetida, Aurum, Calcarea carb., Conium, Hepar, Lachesis, Lycopodium, Mercur., Mezereum, Nitric acid, Phosphoric acid, Pulsatilla, Sepia, Silica, Staphisagria and Sulphur in such conditions have saved many limbs which had been doomed to amputation.
END OF BOOK VII.
BOOK VIII.
APHORISM 1. Mania after the age of forty is seldom cured.
COMMENT: Experience confirms the statement that phrenic diseases attacking in advanced age are difficult of cure under allopathic treatment.
But it is just as true, that when cerebral fevers have been properly, homoeopathically treated from the beginning, the desired result was almost always obtained. This is especially true when the condition follows a typhoid attack. Our lists prove that all conditions called typhoid are easily cured by homoeopathy. The treatment of such is considerably facilitated by the fact that only a small number of remedies comes up for our choice: Arsenicum, Belladonna, Bryonia, Kali carb., Muriatic acid, Opium, Phosphorus, Phosphoric acid, Rhus, Sulphur and Taraxacum. This is also in favor of the young homoeopathist to give him a reputation in the treatment of typhoid epidemics.
APHORISM 3. It is bad when in quartan fevers nosebleed occurs.
COMMENT: Epistaxis in fevers is most often caused by congestions to the head and belongs to all remedies which have this symptom in their primary action, hence our attention is directed to this, but also in which fever period it occurs, during chill, heat or perspiration.
Our remedies for head congestion during the chill are: Aconitum, Arnica, Arsenicum, Belladonna, Bryonia, Calcarea carb., Chamomilla, China, Digitalis, Ferrum met., Hyoscyamus, Ipecacuanha, Lycopodium, Mercurius, Nitrum (Kali nitricum), Rhus, Sabadilla, Stramonium, Sulphur and Veratrum; during the heat: Aconitum, Belladonna, Bryonia, Carbo veg., Chamomilla, China, Ignatia, Lachesis, Lycopodium, Nux, Opium, Rhus, Sepia, Silica, Squilla, Stramonium, Sulphur and Veratrum; during perspiration only: Bryonia, Causticum, Conium, Nux, Opium, Taraxacum and Thuja. All these remedies, some most prominently, have epistaxis.
But that is not sufficient for the exacting demands of homoeopathy, the character of the bleeding must also be observed, whether light and watery: Arnica, Arsenicum, Belladonna, Calcarea carb., Carbo veg., Hyoscyamus, Ipecacuanha, Mercurius, Rhus, Sabadilla and Sulphur; or dark: Bryonia, Causticum, Chamomilla, Ignatia, Lachesis, Lycopodium, Nux, Sepia, Stramonium, Sulphur; or coagulates quickly: Belladonna, Calcarea carb., Causticum, Chamomilla, China, Ferrum, metallicum, Hyoscyamus, Ignatia, Ipecacuanha, Rhus, Stramonium; and other conditions of the blood must be observed. After all of this, we have here only one symptom, which is insufficient for a homoeopathic prescription. We need the patients symptom totality.
APHORISM 4. It means danger when on critical days sweats occur repeatedly, as also sweats which are cold and stand in large drops on the forehead; such sweats can only come out with much power and over-exertion.
COMMENT: We suppose Hippocrates here refers to the so-called death sweat. This symptom is, to be sure, a bad prognostic sign, but it is not always so. It is most often found in diseases where: Carbo vegetabilis, Cina, Drosera, Ipecacuanha, Staphisagria and Veratrum are indicated. Carbo veg. will frequently save the patients life force from ebbing away when collapse is present. Veratrum is incomparable in severe gastric diseases, and even in cholera, when this cold sweat on forehead appears, and when every drink of cold water brings new attacks.
But where in such conditions drinking relieves, there Cuprum or Ignatia or Veratrum is indicated. Such apparently insignificant symptoms are the more important when the course of the sickness is rapid, and when the perhaps possible saving of life depends upon quick and correct decision. Hence homoeopathy has properly given special attention to them, and is diligently active to extend her therapeutic knowledge along these lines.
How exceedingly important an even apparently trivial remark, added to an original symptom can be, is clear in hundreds of instances, of which we shall only mention one. In Volume V of the German edition of Hahnemanns Materia Medica Pura, page 128, symptom 59, states of Thuja: “While blowing nose a pressing pain in a hollow tooth (sideways).” This “sideways” Jahr left out in his translation, and Noack and Trinks in their work copied it without comment, probably because they did not know what it signified.
To be sure, one must admit that the symptom, with the addition in parenthesis, has not been stated clearly enough, because the “sideways” can refer to the pain as well as to the location of the caries. Only the following practice has shed light on the subject, teaching us that “sideways” refers to the hollow tooth, and that caries is from the side, not the crown of the tooth. That makes it a very valuable symptom, appearing almost only in chronic diseases for which Thuja is indicated.–Of such real golden nuggets there are many in Hahnemanns remedy provings, but they are not considered important, and are swept out by those who “would purify” our materia medica.
APHORISM 9. A black and bloody tongue is not so bad, as long as some of the following symptoms are lacking; in that case the tongue discoloration is a sign of a milder disease.
