Guide to the progressive development of homoeopathy

- Taken from an old volume in the library of francis treuherz, ma, rshom. fshom
 "As acute diseases terminate in an eruption upon the skin, which divides, dries up, and then passes off, so it is with many chronic diseases. All diseases diminish in intensity, improve, and are cured by the internal organism freeing itself from them little by little; the internal disease approaches more and more to the external tissues, until it finally arrives at the skin."

 "Every homoeopathic physician must have observed that the improvement in pain takes place from above downward; and in diseases, from within outward. This is the reason why chronic diseases, if they are thoroughly cured, always terminate in some cutaneous eruption, which differs according to the different constitutions of the patients. This cutaneous eruption may be even perceived when a cure is impossible, and even when the remedies have been improperly chosen. The skin being the outermost surface of the body, it receives upon itself the extreme termination of the disease.
 This cutaneous eruption is not a mere morbid secretion having been chemically separated from the internal organism in the form of a gas, a liquid, or a solid; it is the whole of the morbid action which is pressed from within outward, and it is characteristic of a thorough and really curative treatment. The morbid action of the internal organism may continue either entirely, or more or less in spite of this cutaneous eruption. Nevertheless, this eruption always is a favourable symptom; it alleviates the sufferings of the patient, and generally prevents a more dangerous affection."
 "The thorough cure of a widely ramified chronic-disease in the organism is indicated by the most important organs being first relieved; the affection passes off in the order in which the organs had been affected, the more important being relieved first, the less important next: and the skin last."
 "Even the superficial observer will not fail in recognising this law of order. An improvement which takes place in a different order can never be relied upon. A fit of hysteria may terminate in a flow of urine; other fits may either terminate in the same way, or in haemorrhage; the next succeeding fit shows-how little the affection had been cured. The disease may take a different turn, it may change its form, and, in this new form, it may be less troublesome; but the general state of the organism will suffer in consequence of this transformation. "Hence it is that Hahnemann inculcates with so much care the important rule to attend to the moral symptoms, and to judge of the degree of homoeopathic adaptation, existing between the remedy and the disease, by the improvement which takes place in the moral condition and the general well-being of the patient."
 "The law of order which we have pointed out above, accounts for the numerous cutaneous eruptions consequent upon homeopathic treatment, even where they never had been seen before; it accounts for the obstinacy with which many kinds of herpes and ulcers remain upon the skin, whereas others are dissipated like snow. Those which remain, do remain because the internal disease is yet existing. This law of order also accounts for the insufficiency of violent sweats, when the internal disease is not yet disposed to leave its hiding-place. It lastly accounts for one cutaneous affection being substituted for another."
 "This transformation of the internal, affection of such parts of the organism as are essential to important functions, to a cutaneous affection a transformation which is entirely different from the violent change effected by means of Autenrieth's ointment, ammonium, croton-oil, cantharides, mustard, etc.-is chiefly effected by the antipsoric remedies."
 "Other remedies may sometimes effect that transformation, even the use of water, change of climate, of occupation, etc; but it is more safely, more mildly and more thoroughly effected by the anti-psoric remedies."
 This latter is altogether an individual opinion; others may have different opinions relative to the same subject; this needs not to prevent us from aiming all of us at the. same end, side by side, in perfect harmony.
 But alas! the, rules which the experienced founder of Homoeopathy lays down in the subsequent work with so much emphasis, are not always practised, and therefore, cannot be appreciated. Many oppose them; cures which, otherwise might be speedy and certain, are delayed; much injury is being done by the, wiseacres who intrude, themselves into our literature and mix with it as chaff with, the wheat. On all this we may console ourselves with the expectation that also in the history of science there will be those great days of harvest, when the tares shall be gathered in bundles and thrown into the fire.
 It is the duty of all of us to go farther in the theory and practice of Homeopathy than Hahnemann has done. We ought to seek the truth which is before us and forsake the errors of the past. But woe unto him who, on that account, should personally attack the author of our doctrine; he would, burthen himself with infamy. Hahnemann was a great savant, inquirer, and discoverer; he was as true a man, without falsity, candid and open as a child, and inspired with pure benevolence and with a holy zeal for science.
 When at last the fatal hour had struck for the sublime old man who had preserved his vigour almost to his last moments, then it was that the heart of his consort who had made his last years the brightest of his life, was on the point of breaking. Many of us, seeing those who are dearest to us. engaged in the death-struggle, would exclaim: "Why should'st thou suffer so much!" So too exclaimed Hahnemann's consort: "Why should'st thou who hast alleviated so much suffering, suffer in thy last hour? This is unjust. Providence have allotted to thee a painless death."
 Then he raised his voice as he had often done when he exhorted his disciples to hold fast to the great principles of Homoeopathy. "Why should I have been thus distinguished? Each of us should here attend to the duties which God has imposed upon him. Although men may distinguish a more or less, yet no one has any merit. God owes nothing to me, I to him all."
 With these words he took leave of the world, of his friends, and his foes. And here we take leave of you, reader, whether our friend or our opponent.
 To him who believes that there may yet be truths which he does not know and which he desires to know, will be pointed out such paths as will lead him to the light he needs. If he who has sincere benevolence and wishes to work for the benefit of all, be considered by Providence a fit instrument for the accomplishment of the divine will, he will be called upon to fulfil his mission and will be led to truth evermore.
 It is the spirit of Truth that tries to unite us all; but the father of Lies keeps us separate and divided.
 Philadelphia, April 22, 1845. C. Hg.
 1 Bibliographical Note: This Preface was first published in 1845 in New York by William Radde, in Samuel Hahnemann's The Chronic Diseases: Their Specific Nature and Homoeopathic Treatment, (5 volumes), translated and edited by Dr Charles J. Hempel. It was omitted from the 1896 translation by Prof. Louis H. Tafel which has a Prefatory Note by Dr Richard Hughes. It is reprinted here without any editorial changes except punctuation. The Tafel translation has recently been reprinted in one volume by the Homoeopathic Book Service of Sittingbourne, Kent, England. This preface has been included at my suggestion. FT.
 Original publisher's note: The following article has been kindly furnished by Dr. Hering of Philadelphia, in German. The Editor, Dr. Hempel, is responsible for the translation
 2 Note of the editor, Dr Hempel: I beg pardon of my distinguished and learned friend for annexing a few remarks to this passage. In doing so I merely anticipate what I intend to express more fully on this subject some other occasion.
 As it would be absurd for a philosophical Christian to reject the doctrine of original sin, so it is absurd for any one who professes to have a clear perception of Homoeopathy, to reject the doctrine of an hereditary morbific miasm. Both these doctrines must stand and fall together; and, as truth is one and indivisible, they both hold and illustrate each other. If we admit with Rousseau that everything which leaves the hand of God, is perfectly holy, then the first created man must have been perfectly pure, and must have appeared in the image and likeness of his maker. It seems to me absurd to suppose that something perfectly pure can, of itself, by its own free and orderly development, produce things impure and evil. We do not know how far God permitted an adaptation to evil to co-exist in the first man together with an adaptation to goodness. But this we certainly know that evil fruits must be the result of evil forces. In a certain moment man, or God through man, permitted the adaptation to evil to prevail in his nature; and instantaneously the forces of evil, be they called serpent, devil, or otherwise, invaded man's nature, engrafted themselves upon it, and have, up to this moment, perpetuated their existence in it. This is relatively speaking, a fall, although, this fall, having been the first necessary phasis of human development, it may, in reality, be considered a progress. Man's destiny consists in reuniting himself again with the Divine Life through the universal expansion of all the faculties of his soul, and the realisation of all the celestial harmonies the germs of which God had deposited in his nature, and towards the construction of which science and art will furnish him the means. The principle of division or dissolution which man had suffered to be introduced into his spiritual nature, must necessarily have embodied itself in a corresponding principle in the material organism. It is this principle which Hahnemann calls Psora. in proportion as man's spiritual nature becomes developed and purified, this psoric miasm will be diminished, and will finally be completely removed from the life of humanity. This complete physical regeneration of human nature will necessarily be attended with great changes in all the external relations of man, education, mode of labouring, living, etc, etc.
 The principle of division or dissolution in the human organism as an established and constituted fact, does not preclude the possibility of this organism being invaded by acute miasms. The psoric principle marks the general adaptation to evil, recognised and inherently received by the human organism; acute diseases are violent and sudden invasions of the organism by the forces of evil-which I have named subversive forces in my preface. Those sudden invasions could never have taken place without man having first admitted the psoric principle to be constitutional in his organism.
 3 It appears to me that this may be the earliest extant version by Dr Constantine Hering himself of what we have learned to call 'Hering's Law', or the 'Law of the Direction of Cure'. FT.