Organon – The Art of Healing
§ 246 – Sixth Edition
Every perceptibly progressive and strikingly increasing amelioration during treatment is a condition which, as long as it lasts, completely precludes every repetition of the administration of any medicine whatsoever, because all the good the medicine taken continues to effect is now hastening towards its completion. This is not infrequently the cause in acute diseases, but in more chronic diseases, on the other hand, a single dose of an appropriately selected homœopathic remedy will at times complete even with but slowly progressive improvement and give the help which such a remedy in such a case can accomplish naturally within 40, 50, 60, 100 days. This is, however, but rarely the case; and besides, it must be a matter of great importance to the physician as well as to the patient that were it possible, this period should be diminished to one-half, one-quarter, and even still less, so that a much more rapid cure might be obtained. And this may be very happily affected, as recent and oft-repeated observations have taught me under the following conditions: firstly, if the medicine selected with the utmost care was perfectly homœopathic; secondly, if it is highly potentized, dissolved in water and given in proper small dose that experience has taught as the most suitable in definite intervals for the quickest accomplishment of the cure but with the precaution, that the degree of every dose deviate somewhat from the preceding and following in order that the vital principle which is to be altered to a similar medicinal disease be not aroused to untoward reactions and revolt as is always the case1 with unmodified and especially rapidly repeated doses.
1 What I said in the fifth edition of the Organon, in a long note to this paragraph in order to prevent these undesirable reactions of the vital energy, was all the experience I then had justified. But during the last four or five years, however, all these difficulties are wholly solved by my new altered but perfected method. The same carefully selected medicine may now be given daily and for months, if necessary in this way, namely, after the lower degree of potency has been used for one or two weeks in the treatment of chronic disease, advance is made in the same way to higher degrees, (beginning according to the new dynamization method, taught herewith with the use of the lowest degrees).
During the course of treatment and when the disease is in the state of decline, no other medicines are to be used nor the same medicine be repeated. The medicine already administered shows its influence on the vital force and helps curing the disease. In acute diseases, this rule may not apply. But in case of chronic diseases, it is observed many times, that only one dose of appropriately selected homoeopathic remedy has effected complete cure. Sometimes, the progress of cure is methodical and regulated. In such circumstances, the same medicine works for 40, 50, 60 or 100 days and completes the cure. It is agreed that such cases rarely happen. The period of its action may be reduced to half, one fourth or even less depending upon the character of the patient and the efficiency of the doctor. According to my experience, (Hahnemann) if the following regulations are adopted, good results can be obtained.
- a) The drug, which has complete similarity, should be selected with utmost care.
- b) The medicine should be used mixing it in water after proper potentisation. It should be repeated at stipulated or suitable intervals. The potency should be increased gradually. There should be variation in potency between two doses. If it is done like this, there will be no unwanted reaction of the artificial disease. It leaves no scope for the bad effects to linger by using number of doses in the same potency.
§ 247– Sixth Edition
It is impractical to repeat the same unchanged dose of a remedy once, not to mention its frequent repetition (and at short intervals in order not to delay the cure). The vital principle does not accept such unchanged doses without resistance, that is, without other symptoms of the medicine to manifest themselves than those similar to the disease to be cured, because the former dose has already accomplished the expected change in the vital principle and a second dynamically wholly similar, unchanged dose of the same medicine no longer finds, therefore, the same conditions of the vital force. The patient may indeed be made sick in another way by receiving other such unchanged doses, even sicker than he was, for now only those symptoms of the given remedy remain active which were not homœopathic to the original disease, hence no step towards cure can follow, only a true aggravation of the condition of the patient. But if the succeeding dose is changed slightly every time, namely potentized somewhat higher (§§ 269-270) then the vital principle may be altered without difficulty by the same medicine (the sensation of natural disease diminishing) and thus the cure brought nearer.1
1 We ought not even with the best chosen homœopathic medicine, for instance one pellet of the same potency that was beneficial at first, to let the patient have a second or third dose, taken dry. In the same way, if the medicine was dissolved in water and the first dose proved beneficial, a second or third and even smaller dose from the bottle standing undisturbed, even in intervals of a few days, would prove no longer beneficial, even though the original preparation had been potentized with ten succussions or as I suggested later with but two succussions in order to obviate this disadvantage and this according to above reasons. But through modification of every dose in its dynamiztion degree, as I herewith teach, there exists no offence, even if the doses be repeated more frequently, even if the medicine be ever so highly potentized with ever so many succussions. It almost seems as if the best selected homœopathic remedy could best extract the morbid disorder from the vital force and in chronic disease to extinguish the same only if applied in several different forms.
It is not a safe method to use the same medicine again and again without changing the potency. It is absolutely of no use if the same potency is used several times at short intervals. Vital force cannot tolerate such usage of doses and poses a fight. There is a chance of manifesting other symptoms of the drug after curing the disease. First dose of the same potency brings out the required change in the vital force. The second dose cannot approach the altered condition of the vital force (it touches the vital force modified by the first dose). By such practice, the patient is subjected to disease again. Sometimes, the violence of the disease is more than the original condition. The reason is after clearing the symptoms in the first dose, there remain only a few symptoms at the time of second dose. Similarity, therefore, is not achieved. Instead of going towards cure, the disease may become worse. If however, the potency of the second dose is increased, the natural disease declines without any effect on the vital force and the cure becomes nearer.
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