Organon 6 - 70

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

§ 70 Sixth Edition

From what has been already adduced we cannot fail to draw the following inferences:

That everything of a really morbid character and which ought to be cured that the physician can discover in diseases consists solely of the sufferings of the patient, and the sensible alterations in his health, in a word, solely of the totality of the symptoms, by means of which the disease demands the medicine requisite for its relief; while, on the other hand, every internal cause attributed to it, every occult quality or imaginary material morbific principle, is nothing but an idle dream;

That this derangement of the state of health, which we term disease, can only be converted into health by another revolution effected in the state of health by means of medicines, whose sole curative power, consequently, can only consist in altering man's state of health - that is to say, in a peculiar excitation of morbid symptoms, and is learned with most distinctness and purity by testing them on the healthy body;

That, according to all experience, a natural disease can never be cured by medicines that possess the power of producing in the healthy individual an alien morbid state (dissimilar morbid symptoms) differing from that of the disease to be cured (never, therefore, by an allopathic mode of treatment), and that even in nature no cure ever takes place in which an inherent disease is removed, annihilated and cured by the addition of another disease dissimilar to it, be the new one ever so strong;

That, moreover, all experience proves that, by means of medicines which have a tendency to produce in the healthy individual an artificial morbid symptom, antagonistic to the single symptom of disease sought to be cured, the cure of a long-standing affection will never be effected, but merely a very transient alleviation, always follows by its aggravation; and that, in a word, this antipathic and merely palliative treatment in long-standing diseases of a serious character is absolutely inefficacious;

That, however, the third and only other possible mode of treatment (the homoopathic), in which there is employed for the totality of the symptoms of a natural disease a medicine capable of producing the most similar symptoms possible in the healthy individual, given in suitable dose, is the only efficacious remedial method whereby diseases, which are purely dynamic deranging irritations of the vital force, are overpowered, and being thus easily, perfectly and permanently extinguished, must necessarily cease to exist. This is brought about by means of the stronger similar deranging irritation of the homoopathic medicine in the sensation of the life principle. - and for this mode of procedure we have the example of unfettered Nature herself, when to an old disease there is added a new one similar to the first, whereby the new one is rapidly and forever annihilated and cured.

[John Harvey]

"... according to all experience, a natural disease can never be cured by medicines that possess the power of producing in the healthy individual an alien morbid state (dissimilar morbid symptoms) differing from that of the disease to be cured (never, therefore, by an allopathic mode of treatment)..."
That single sentence from Aph. 70 rules out for all time as conceivably homoeopathic any fancy "medicine", no matter how ethereal or "energetic" or polypharmaceutical, that arouses in the healthy a dissimilar state from that of the patient.
If there's anybody here still unable to comprehend that, let's break it down:
(1) For the method of prescription to be homoeopathic, the medicine must be known to create a state similar to the patient's. (2) If the state it produces in the healthy is unknown, the method cannot be homoeopathic (Aph. 110, footnote 94; Aph. 124; Aph. 144; Aph. 147). (3) If the state it produces in the healthy is dissimilar from that of the patient, then, according to Aph. 70, the relationship, being allopathic rather than homoeopathic, can never result in a cure.
It's as simple as that.
Hahnemann could not have made plainer than he did here that a medicine possessing the power of inducing (in the healthy!) a dissimilar state from the patient's cannot possibly be called homoeopathic to the patient. Yet in Aphs. 273 and 274, he goes further, and states explicitly that a homoeopathic medicine must be a single, simple medicine. He gives several reasons there, including that:
"because even though the simple medicines were thoroughly proved with respect to their pure peculiar effects on the unimpaired healthy state of man, it is yet impossible to foresee how two and more medicinal substances might, when compounded, hinder and alter each other's action on the human body; and because... a simple medicinal substance..., the totality of whose symptoms is accurately known, renders efficient aid by itself alone, if it be homoeopathically selected".
The uncertainty inherent in it of course led Hahnemann to deplore polypharmacy long before he discovered homoeopathy.
Hahnemann gives in these latter aphorisms several additional advantages to knowing what one is doing, but the point is that prescribing otherwise cannot be homoeopathic in method, and prescribing a mixture of medicines cannot be homoeopathic either in method or in result.
The ideal of combination prescribing -- to rid the patient of the "totality" of a single symptom rather than a state of illness -- should in any case ring alarm bells in those aiming at a higher ideal. The covert ideal of combination prescribing, of course, is a two-minute case-taking and a five-minute wonder, with the concomitant possibility of high patient throughput.
The goals of totality, certainty, and permanency remain rather beyond such methods.
Cheers --
John

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Dear John
THANK YOU FOR THIS.
I remember when I first started posting the aphorisms someone said WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS - we all have the book.
But I have certainly learnt a few things or had the points more strongly driven home since I have been doing this.

Regards

Soroush