“In the introduction of the proving of Rhus toxicodendron (R. A. M. L., pt. ii, p. 358), Hahnemann refers with satisfaction to his success in the treatment of this epidemic of typhus. — “Of 183 patients whom I treated for this affection in Leipsic, I did not lose one, which excited a great sensation among the members of the Russian Government then occupying Dresden but was taken no notice of by the medical authorities.”2
“In a short time, he had won great fame as a good physician, especially by his successful treatment of typhus. The remnants of Napoleon’s defeated army, drifting back from Russia, had dragged with them from the inhospitable plains of Asia Minor the typhus scourge. It continued to rage ever more furiously within the walls of Leipsic, especially after the passage in the spring of 1813 of new army waves over Middle Germany, Saxony and Prussia.”3
“If the supposed seeker after truth is not willing to seek truth where it is to be found, namely in experience, then he may leave it undiscovered; he cannot find it in the multiplication tables.” – S. Hahnemann. (Information for the Truth-Seeker. Anz. f.d. D., No. 194, 1825.)4
It is with great pleasure that I am reprinting this article by Samuel Hahnemann originally written in 1814; he treated patients with typhus without losing a single life! This article was written less than twenty years after his essay in Hufeland’s journal titled, “Essay on a New Principle of Ascertaining on the Curative Powers of Drugs” (1796). By the time of the following article, Hahnemann had gained considerable experience using this method to cure as well as in conducting a good number of homeopathic pathogenetic trials. This article presents us with an elegant answer to the sometimes perplexing question of his references in the Organon’s paragraph 153 advising us to pay close attention to the more striking, singular, uncommon and peculiar (characteristic) signs and symptoms in disease. The descriptions of remedies used here is a very good illustration of his understanding of this principle of “characteristics”.
“In the first period (which is all the shorter the worse the disease is to be) there are present full, increased sensation of the pains usually present, with intolerable bad humour, sensation of heat in the body, and especially in the head, dry feeling or actual dryness in the mouth, causing constant thirst, bruised feeling in the limbs, restlessness, &c.”
Indications for Bryonia alba : “If, for instance, the patient complains of dizziness, shooting (or jerking-tearing) pains in the head, throat, chest, abdomen, &c, which are felt particularly on moving the part…”
Indications for Rhus Toxicodendron : “… if the patient then complains of shooting pains in one or other part of the body, whilst the part is at rest; if the prostration and anorexia are greater, if there is harassing cough or such a debility of certain parts as to threaten paralysis … But rhus is suitable more frequently than bryonia, and hence can be more frequently used at first and alone.”
Posology for the first and second stages: About a 12 C potency prepared (in 0.75 ounces of alcohol) from the tincture in pure alcohol, each potency to be shaken for three minutes. One drop on sugar one time is equivalent to one dose given in the morning, “in preference to any other time, for the fever tends to increase towards night.” As long as improvement lasts, no repetition of dose is necessary, nor is more than one dose rarely needed.
Indications for Hyoscyamus niger : “ … in the second period, that of the delirium (a metastasis of the whole disease upon the mental organs) no complaint is made of all those symptoms—the patient is hot, does not desire to drink, he knows not whether to take this or that, he does not know those about him, or he abuses them, he makes irrelevant answers, talks nonsense with his eyes open, does foolish things, wishes to run away, cries aloud or whines, without being able to say why he does so, has a rattling in the throat, the countenance is distorted, the eyes squinting, he plays with his hands, behaves like a madman, passes the excrements unconsciously, &c.”
Indications for Nitri spiritus dulcis6 (sweet spirit of nitre): “But there sometimes occurs a third state, a sort of lethargy of the internal common sensorium, a kind of half-paralysis of the mental organs. The patient remains indolently lying, without sleeping or speaking; he scarcely answers whatever we may do to induce him to do so, he appears to hear without understanding what is said or without allowing it to make any impression on him (the few words he says he whispered but not irrelevantly); he appears to feel almost nothing, and to be almost immoveable, and yet not quite paralyzed.”
Posology: “One drop of this is to be shaken up with an ounce of water and given by tea-spoonfuls so as to be consumed in the four and twenty hours.” [every three hours or so.]
References:
Table of Contents
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