Law of Similia – A search through literature

Dr. Partha P Ray 
M. D. (Hom.), M. Sc. (applied Psychology), PGDGC
Reader (Dept. of Organon of Medicine and Hom. Phil)
Panchasheel Homoeopathic Medical College, Hospital & P. G. Institute
Khamgaon. M.S. 444 303

As we have seen that Hahnemann was first convinced about the law of similia during 1790s while proving China juice by his own. This was his sojourn at Konigslutter, where two articles were written which says about his latest discoveries. One is “On a new principles” and the second one “Are the obstructs to certainty and simplicity in practical medicine insurmountable?”^[1] These days were hectic. In a latter to Hufeland he writes, “For eighteen years, I have been deviating from ordinary practice of medical art. My sense of duty would not easily allow me to treat the unknown pathological state of my suffering brethren with the unproved medicine”^[2]. This no confidence along with his vast study of ancient Greek and Latin literature ushered him the way to think in a different way. Among these great Greeks, Hippocrates is worthy to be mentioned. Here is a short travel to search the existence of the Law of Similia” in pre-Hahnemannian literature has been sited.

A. Existence of Simile in Indian Literature:
This is a very controversial issue because there lies a vast similarity lies between Ayruvedic literature and Homoeopathy but weather Hahnemann was convinced by Indian system of medicine is still a matter of controversy because Hahnemann was not familiar with Sanskrit language.  But this is a fact that the book of Charak, Susrata and Bhagabata was translated in Persian and Arabic language before eighteenth century^[3]. The book of Avicenna (Iba-Sina /980-1037 A. D.) is full of Indian references. Iba-Nadim (987 A. D.) in his book Kitab-al-Fihrist put a long list of Ayruvedic drugs^[4].  This is definite that many of these books on later days were translated in Latin and Greek. Weather these all put a remote effect on Hahnemann is a question.

The reason of close proximity of Greek and Sanskrit literature may be the aggression of Alexander the great, in Middle East and India. Alexander was the student of Aristotle who was further the student of Plato who was contemporary to Hippocrates. Democtrates came to Iran in 412 B. C^[5] when Iranian peoples were close to the Indians. Ticiaran (400 B. C.) and Megastenis (300 B. C.) came to India and surely had taken the glimpse of Indian medicine. Raja Bhawat Singji mentioned that Hippocrates visited India^[6] though not supported by evidences. These may be the reason of closeness of both these systems as a whole. The concept of Prana (Life) is very close to vital force or Anima Vitale and the Tridosha theory is to the concept of constitution of Homoeopathy.

Along the extent of Ayruvedic texts, the “Charak Samhita” by Agnivesha (800 – 600 B. C. ?), The “Sushruta Samhita” by Sushruta (00 – 600 B?) and the “Astanga Hridaya” by Vagbhata (700 A. D.) are recognized as the great trio. The “Charak Samhita” is considered to be the most authoritative and complete because it represents the vastness of Indian system to a massive extent.

Agnivesh in his treatise had redacted, systematized and rationalized the medical knowledge of his time with the help of logical realism of “Nyaya Philosophy”, the “Atomistic pluralism” of “Vaisesika Philosophy” and the psychology of “Sankhya Philosophy”.

Ayruvedic is versed with most comprehensive description on different categories of treatment. It arranges all possible mode of all tomes – past, present and future. Firstly it tells about the two fold methods of treatment and then again subdivided as follows

1. Vipareetha Chikitsha = This means the treatment by opposites. They are again of the following types.

a. Hetu Vipareethum = Signifies the treatment by measures as medicine (Ashudha), Diets (Anna) and life activities (Viharas) which are contrary to Hetu or the cause of the disease.

b. Vadhy Vipareethum = Signifies the treatment by measures which are opposite to the Vadhy or disease.

c. Hetu-Vadhy-Vipareethum = Signifies the treatment by measures which are contrary both the cause and the disease and operate for their removal.

1. Tadarthakari or Vipareetharthakari Chikitsa: Signifies the treatment by sense of similars.  Again they are of the following types—

a. Hetu Tadarthakari = Signifies the treatment by measures which are similar to the cause of the disease and operate for their removal.

b. Vadhy Tadarthakari = Signifies the treatment by measures which are similar to the Vadhy or disease.

c. Hetu-Vadhy-Tadarthakari = Signifies the treatment by measures which are similar to both the cause and the disease and operate for their removal^[7].

The main stay of Ayurveda is Nyaya-Vaisesika philosophy, which takes all things as earth, water, fire, air, ether, space, time, mind andsouls.  Soul, mind, time, space, ether, air and ultimate atoms are not ordinarily perceptible.  The entire universe is made up of “Panchabhuta”namely earth (Soil), water (Apa), fire (Tej), Air (Maruta) and Ether (Sky).

The theory of “Panchabhuta” forms an axis upon which The Indian concept of “Tridosha” (Three Vitalizing agents), embryonic development, body constitution and composition, restricted response of sense organs, composition and action of drugs, seasonal variations and their effects and the five fold classification of matter revolves. The “Panchabhuta” theory is looked upon by Ayurvedic Physician as a law governing anatomical, physiological, pathological and pharmacological functions.

As per Ayruvedic concept the body, which is maintained in a state of equilibrium represents a conglomeration of ‘Dhatus, Malas and Doshas’. All of them are produced during digestion and metabolism of the food ingested. When there is excess or diminution of their qualities, the disease arises.

The above paragraph says that Ayruvedic thinkers of 800 – 600 B. C. recognized particularly two different sets of principles, which, may be stated, as per Westerns as Law of Similia and Law of Contraria^[8].

But truly speaking Similia was also familiar mode of therapeutic application. The Ayruvedic physicians also encountered sever aggravation from their physiological doses as per similar application. This might had compelled Ayruvedic physician to adopt opposite application as a common mode of therapy. Charak, Sutra: chapter: X, Verse: 6 says, “We cure a patient taking recourse to curative measurements: the depleted with implication. We give nourishment to those who are weak and emaciated. We administer reducing therapy to the one who is obese.  We treat patients affiliated with heat by cooling measures. We adopt proper measures, to replenish the deficient “Dhatus” (including Malas and Doshas) and deplenish those who are in excess. We then bring back the physiological state by treating diseases with aetiopathological antidotes. Thus the group of therapeutic measures gives the best results in management of diseases”^[9].

Ayurveda takes notes of the conditions of a patient to adopt any one or more of the following six processes of treatment along with or independent of medicine to be administered.

1.      Langhana = Any thing that lightens or attenuates the excess in the quantity of Dhatus, Malas, and Doshas. It includes four kinds of corrective processes, viz.  Administration of emetics, of purgatives, or errhines or cerebral purgatives and dry enemata, and also the bearing thirst, and winds and the heat of the sun, drinking of medicines called ‘pachanas’ fasts and physical exercise.

2.      Brimahana = Any thing that promotes nutrition and puts on weight.

3.      Rukshana = Any thing that brings about dryness, roughness and paleness of the body.

4.      Sneha = Any thing that leads to secretions of oily matter, softness of the body and increases impurities.

5.      Sweda = Any thing that produces perspiration and destroys stiffness and heaviness and sensation of cold.

6.      Sthambana = Any thing that constipates or stops the motion of such constituents of the body.

There is the provision of bodily diseases without internal medicines. They are as follows –

a.       Application of caustics = In many cases, was considered as a better procedure then surgery. This was recommended in different skin diseases, piles, fistula in ano, abscesses, mouth and throat diseases and etc.

b.      Cauterization = Burning the parts was considered even better than the application of alkalis in certain cases as fistulas, tumors, swelling of testicles, swollen glands, discoloration of the skin, bad wounds piles and other diseases.

c.       Blood-letting: Ayruvedic physicians bled the patients suffering from abscesses, enlargement of spleen and inflammation of different parts of the body applying leeches, by cupping or by cutting superficial veins^[10].

d.      Mental Diseases / Insanity: Insanity is characterized by the perversion of mind, intellect, consciousness, knowledge, memory, desire behavior and conduct.

As per Ayruvedic concept insanity is of five types. They are due to ‘vata’, ‘pitta’ or ‘kapha’ or due to the combination of all these; ‘sannipata’ and exogenous causes which is due to sinful activities of the past life or by disregard or disrespect shown by the patient to the Gods, ascetics, preceptors, elders, adopts, teachers and etc. The first three is curable but the last two are incurable.

The treatment line up is different for the above said conditions. When it is due to ‘doshas’ the treatment includes oleation, fomentation, emesis, purgation, effusions and etc. The treatment of insanity due to some exogenous causes is praying to God, restoring the wholesome regimen and acts as suitable to the misdeeds of the of the individual.

The above-mentioned paragraphs have already made it clear that apart from similia, Contraria was the well-accepted therapy. But obviously paragraphs after paragraphs are offered in support of similia. The Sanskrit writing reads “Samah saman shamayati”, which, when translated means, Likes are to be treated by likes only. Another very old text Bhagvatam Purana (about 3500 B. C.) has a conversation betweenNarada^† and Vyasa^‡, the great philosophers. This runs like the following –

“Amayo  ya seha bhootanam jayata hyeva Subrata

Tedeva hi amayam dravyam napunathi chikitsham

Ta evaatam vinasaya kalpate kalpita parhe”

It means, a disease that is produced in the organism by a drug is cured by same drug itself. Is it not? Like that, the agent the agent for release from fetters by self-immolation^[11].

Great Mahabharata elaborates two kinds of poisons; one is Stabhara means poisons prepared from the roots of plants and another isJangama that is snake poison. This poisons originated from roots are ascending and the snake poisons are descending type. These two poisons nullify the action of the each other. The example of Stabhara poison is Opium. It is repeatedly verified that opium nullifies the action of snake poison.

The conception of mythological God has been connected in this scenario. Lord Shiva has taken the poison of Somudramanthana. The throat of the God turned in to blue. The snake is twisted at this region symbolizing the snake cannot go beyond the level. As the poison could not get down so it should affect his brain. So, in order to cool down the head, Ganges, the holy river, started pouring water and Moon, the God of coldness is placed on his head.

Duryadhana, the eldest son of Dhritarastra, when tried to assassin Bhimsen by giving poison, he received a snakebite and due to its similar and stronger action on the same region he became alive^[12].

Another dictum comes out as “Vishasya Vishmousadhi” that is the greatest medicine for the poison, is poison only.

In Sanskrit poem, called “Shringer Tilaka” written by great Kalidas, about 57 years before Christ says “Shruyate hi pura loke Vishasya Vishmousadham” means it is learnt from the old time that the poison is the only remedy for poisons^[13].

At a sum, the treatment by similia, numerous examples can be as regards medicine   (emetics in vomiting, castor oil in diarrhoea) and external application (Warm fomentation and warm poultices – Upanaaha Sweda) sited to affirm the vast use of similar drugs in the Ayruvedic system of medicine.

Comparison of Ayurvedic with Homoeopathic philosophy:

Though not directly connected with the subject yet a chance has been taken to study both these systems. Not only in the points of holism but at various regards of philosophy homoeopathy bears close similarity with ayurveda. There are many basic understanding paralleling each other either directly or in indirect manner. The basics are tabulated below:

I. Soul:

Both the systems recognize the existence of soul^[14]. But their views of it differ due to their own understanding of nature. Both accept it as an intangible, invisible, omnipresent and all pervading force ultimating as the universe.

In ‘Vaisesika philosophy’, soul in its natural state, is devoid the intelligence. By means of mind, it knows not only the external world but also its own qualities. Though it is all pervading, its life of knowing, feeling and activity resides only when there is a body. Its existence in inferred from the fact, that the consciousness cannot be a property of body, sense organs or the mind. In addition to the qualities of pleasure and pain, desire and aversion, volition and knowledge, the facts of expiration and inspiration, the closing and opening of the eyelids, the healing of the bodily injuries, the movements of mind and the affections of senses are urged as evidences for the existence of the soul. The soul can’t be diseased but mind is. Every thing exists because of it only. Soul gains vitality from five life wind namely prana, apana, samana, vayana and udana.

Upanishad also says; the universe is one vast pulsating life (a concept of Dynamism at least nonmaterial existence). The manifestation of life is not all alike or in one grade. It sleeps in mental. It is awake in plant and moves and knows in animal. It knows what it knows in man and beyond this man there is metaphysical – the spirit. Therefore at one end is pure matter in which spirit is dormant and opposite end there is pure spirit where the matter is dormant.

While differentiating living with non-living Sir Jagadish chandra Bose writes, “In pursuing investigation on the border region of physis and physiology, I amazed to find boundary lines vanishing and points of contact emerge between realms of living and nonliving”^[15].

II. Mind:

Both the systems have recognized mind as a sublet organ separate from the brain. Both of them accept the principle of interdependence of mind and the soul. Patanjali said Mind is an organ. It also says the grading starts from organs ascends through mind (Manas), intellect, cosmic intelligence (Mahat), un-manifested causal state of universe (Avyukta) and then the infinite begins^[16]. So when the man is died, that which carried away is primary and which is left behind is ultimate.

Hahnemann has committed that one must understand the mental faculty of a man. § 5 says, – In these investigations, the ascertainable physical constitution of the patient (especially when the disease is chronic), his moral and intellectual character, his occupation, mode of living and habits, his social and domestic relations, his age, sexual function, etc., are to be taken into consideration. While taking a case the mental state of a patient is to be understood^[17] which is elaborated in detail in the foot note of Section 90.

We find later days Kent said; the organs are not the man. The man is prior to the organs. From first to last is the order of sickness as well as order of cure. From man to the organs and not from organ to man — what is there of this man that can be called as internal man? What is there that can be removed so that the whole that is physical may be left behind?

III. Force:

Both of these systems postulated the functioning of soul as force in every thing of the universe^[18].  Here a small discussion is made:

Ayurveda recognizes the universal force and the force of the body. The universal force by nature is the eternal cause of the universe. It brings in to existence all living beings. It is creator of innumerable forms. It can move everywhere and is responsible for actions and thoughts. It is sublet and omnipresent. It has permeated he whole universe. It causes happiness and misery.

The normal function of this force is the substance of the earth, kindling of the fire, bringing about the compactness of and movement of the sun, moon, stars and planets, classifying the seasons manifesting the shape and the size of pancha-mahabhutas^[19].

Force in the body or ‘Vayu’ in ayurveda. Vayu, in its natural state is responsible for all activities in the body. It, in fact, constitutes the very life of things. It sustains all the organs of the body. It restrains and impels the mental activities. It coordinates all the sense faculties and help in enjoyment of the objects. It promotes speech. It brings together different parts of the body. It stimulates the digestive force and absorbs‘doshas’. It throws out excreta. It moulds the shape of the embryo. It is indicative of the continuity of the span of life.

In an abnormal state it afflicts the body with various types of diseases and affects the strength, complexion, happiness and span of life^[20].

The concept of universal force and vital force is found in the homoeopathic literature is this universal force is named as simple substance by Kent. It is qualitative in nature. It has got no specific location. It is above the realms of time, place or space. It is simple and it is universal^[21].

IV. Time:

According to ‘Vaisesika philosophy’, time is the force which brings out changes in non eternal. All perceptible things are perceived as moving, changing, coming in to existence, and passing out of it. Time is regarded as the independent and real, pervading the whole universe and making the ordered movements of the things possible.

Time is an eternal substance and the basis of all experiences. We do not know what time is in it but our experience is cast in the form of time. Time is one, eternal and indefinite, while its divisions in to pat, present and future, hibernal vernal and autumnal is due to the extrinsic circumstances such as sun’s revolution^[22].

Ayurveda observes a particular season, particular moon phase, a particular week day and a particular time in a day to pick out a substance for the purpose of a drug and to prescribe personal regimen for promotion of health and preventive treatment and to administer a drug.

In homoeopathy the time factor serves two purposes; one for collection of medicinal substances Hahnemann’s clear cut direction^§© and second is the time modality.

V. Space:

According to ‘Vaisesika’ philosophy, space is the general cause of all effects. Space deals with coexistence, time, with successions, or to put it more accurately. Space deals with the visible objects, while time deals with the things produced and destroyed. Tings moves by the virtue of time and hold together by virtue of space. As space and time cover the most comprehensive kinds of relations; transition from place to place, or state to state, spatial locomotion and temporal alternation, they are only formal and imply real things which move and change.

Its oneness is proved as in the case of time, and its apparent diversity, such as east, west, south and north, depends like wise on extrinsic circumstances only such as rising and setting of the sun. Like time, it is one, eternal and infinite.

VI. Akasa:

According to the to ‘Vaisesika’ philosophy’, Akasa is a simple, continuous, infinite substance, and is the substratum of sound. The quality of color, taste, smell and tangibility do not belong to it. All corporal objects are formed and conjoined by it. The atoms unite but not continiously. That which binds together the atoms, though  not itself atomic, is the ‘Akasa”. Akasa is eternal, omnipresent, supersensible and has the qualities of individuality, conjunction and disjunctions. Akasa files the space, though it is not the space by itself, since it cannot affect or operate on things without entering into special relations with them and there by having sound produced in it.

Kent’s conception of cohesion may be compounded with akasa. The purpose of cohesion isnot to disturb or displace the substance that it occupies. The true holding together of the world is performed by the simple substance.

VII. Matter:

Matters are the pancha-mahabhutas what Ayurveda says.

B. Existence of Simile in Egyptian Literature:

Old literature of Egypt reads that in cranial wounds on e should rub at the site and oil secured from the shell of a turtle or the claw of a falcon. The meaning is obvious that the cranium is to be made as hard and resistant as these substances. The guty should bind an amulet from the stag on the foot so that he shall ‘share’ the fleetness of the stag. For gray hair an ointment is recommended which contains the blood of black cattle^[23].

C. Existence of Simile in Greek Literature:

The mythology of Greece says about similia. Telephos of Troy had wounded by Achilles^> and the wound did not heal. Telephos sought counsel from oracle and he was said that the wound an only be healed through that which had caused the wound. After a long time Telephos found Achilles and from the rust of the weapon (A spear) it was healed.

This is very elaborately found in Greek concepts. Empedocles (490 – 430 B. C.) said, “So the sweet grasps the sweet, The bitter strives to bitter, the sharp goes to sharp, the warm unites the warm”.

Also the theory of perception of Empedocles is based on the similarity principles. He states, “Because with earth in us we recognize the earth, with the water, with the air divine air, with the fire the immortal fire, the body with the body, the hate with the miserable hate”^[24].

Plato, the great Greek, also supported simile. In Timaios, while speaking of nutrition, he said, “This filling and emptying is carried out exactly as the movement of all things in the universe in that all related things strive to each other”^[25].

Aristotle also said about the equal, similar and unequal, in his writing, “On the origin and disappearance”. Here he says, “We have attacked the contradictory expressions emanating from earlier writes. The preponderant majority say that all equal experiences no effect because the one is in no way more suitable for being the doer or receiver than the other, because each is equal to the other equal ways. But the unequal and the different are appointed for this by nature, to exert and experience alternating influences. But Democritos as one has expressed another opinion in contrast to the others. He considers that the one and the same, that would be the equal, exerts influences as well as experiences them”.

Disocurides recommended young swallows in different preparations for weak visions. He also says, “The raw scorpion rubbed to fineness and placed on the wound is a healing agent against the stings”. Of the opium containing poppy he writes, “An acctum of seeds drunk with mead of honey softens the tender belly. Honey cake and pastry is mixed for same purpose”. For another kind of Poppy he writes, “The juice it self which is still more cooling, thickening, and drying, acts when taken in smaller doses, of about the size of a pea, as pain – reliving, sleep – producing, and aids digestion. Taken in excess it damages in that it causes lethargy and kills”.

This is definitely come in the literature of Hippocrates. Hahnemann gives Hippocrates the credit for the earliest recorded use of the doctrine of similar. In the Introduction to the Organon he quotes the Hippocratic work, “On the Places and Things”, which regard Man as an example of early homoeopathy. The Old Asclepiad wrote, “Disease is born of like things, and by the attack of like things people are healed”.

Hippocrates studied the nature of medicinal effects deeply and experimented with the use of remedies with similar and contrary natures to the symptoms to be treated. The use of medicines by similars means that the nature of the remedy is analogous to the symptoms of the disease being treated. This would be the use of heating medicines for heat. The use of remedies by dis-similars means to treat the symptoms of disease by opposites. For example, the treatment of hot conditions with cold remedies. Hippocrates closely observed the effects of these similars and opposites on the constitutions of his patients and noted the responses of the treatment on the “vis medica natura, physis”. VideHippocrates, “There are diseases to be treated by similars, others better treated by contraries. Everything is dependent on the nature of the disease”.^[26]

During nursing treatments the Old Asclepiad tended to use the doctrine of opposites such as replacing the dirty with the clean, giving a warm blanket to a cold person, giving water to those who are dehydrated and etc. The Greeks naturalist found that treatments that were physical, supportive and nutritional worked best by opposites while with dynamic remedies the uses of similars are more curative. Hippocrates integrated the law of similars into his Materia Medica of 139 remedies. He says. “The majority of maladies may be cured by the same things that cause them.”

Hippocrates’ approach was very practical in nature and he always stayed away from allowing philosophical absolutes to guide his study of medicine. Hippocrates was most of all a pragmatic naturalist who observed the natural cycles of disease and their relationship to the physis, and tried to assist the natural healing processes. Samuel Hahnemann pointed out in his Lesser Writings that Hippocrates used the single remedy, but his sons, Draco and Thessaleus, and grandson and great grandsons, Hippocrates I and II, began to make ‘Hippocratic’ medicinal mixtures. However, Hahnemann’s deepest regard to Hippocrates is reflected to many of his works¹.

It was not until Providence led Hahnemann to experiment with testing China on himself in tincture that he began to work with medicines again. When the good doctor developed the characteristic symptoms of ‘marsh intermittent’ from the Peruvian Bark, the law of similars was born. In Hahnemann’s study of Hippocrates he discovered that the old Asclepiad did not give combinations of medicinal substances. He used small amounts of one remedy at time. On this basis young Samuel developed his early theories of similars, the minimal dose, and the single remedy. From this time forward Hahnemann started to integrate the use of materia medica into his ‘Hippocratic treatments’ .

Like all the different works of Hippocrates, in “On the place in man” the author made the important admission, that though the general rule of treatment is Contraria but opposite holds good in some cases that is “Similia Similibus Curentur”^[27]. In illustration of the later, he states thatsome substances, that cause strangury, cough, vomiting and diarrhoea will cure these diseases. Warm water, he refers, which, when drunk, generally excites vomiting, will also sometimes put a stop to it by removing its causes. The treatment he advises for suicidal mania is a further illustration of homoeopathic principle. “Give the patient”, he narrates, “A draught made from the root of mandrake, in smaller dose, than will induce mania”.  Curiously enough, in some of his pathological views, this writer also anticipated what has been especially insisted on by Hahnemann.

The author of “De morbis popularibus”, supposed to be from Great Hippocrates, has the following formulae,: “Dolor Dolorem Solvet (Sec. 46)” is equivalent with the popular  law that one strong pain cures the another. In section ii 46, Hippocrates says, “Of two pains occurring together, not in the same part of the body, the stronger weakens the other”. “The cold stomach”, as reported by Hippocrates in the same aphorism, “delights in cold things”. In the same book of aphorisms (§ v. 17) he states that ‘the cold water causes convulsions, tetanus, rigor and stiffness; in another, that effusion with cold water in tetanus will restore the natural warmth” (§ v. 21). Again, “cold things, such as snow and ice, causes haemorrhages (§ v. 24), and yet cold water is to be used to stop the bleeding”(§ v. 23). In another book titled “De internis Affectionibus” he says, when in summer, dropsy is produced the hasty drinking of stagnant or rain water, the best remedy for the patient to drink himself full of the same water, for that causes increased stools and urine. In the book “De morbo Sacro” he says of epilepsy, “Most of them are curable by the same means as those by which they are produced”^[28].

The epistle of Democritus to Hippocrates, in the apocryphal collection, called the “Epistles of Hippocrates”, contains a passage that recognizes the Homoeopathic principle. It is as follows,  “Hellebore given to the sane pours darkness on the mind, but it is wont greatly to benefit the insane”.

D. Existence of Simile in Italian Literature:

Pliny reports one can protect oneself from snake bit if he carries the heart of Vulture because in the living world these two animals are deadly opponent to each other. One believed that as the lizard’s eye can be reformed hence it can be used as the diseases of the eyes. Ailianos said if any one wares a ring having a picture of lizard – can be effective.

E. Scattered Examples Form Empirical School:

None of the schools of antiquity can show so many points of resemblance to the Hahnemanian doctrines as the so-called empiric school^[29].   As this was the school most emphatically insisted on the observations of nature and discontinued theorizing.  We might naturally expect to find some analogy between their practice and that of Hahnemann. We find Erasistratos of Julis (304 B. C.) , who gave some account of actions of poisons, not very satisfactorily, still serves to come to the conclusion. Heraclides of Tarentum wrote a treatise on the bite of poisonous animals.Mithridates, the king of Pontus (124 – 64 B. C.) tried animal and vegetable poisons upon animals   and on himself to see their genuine effects. Attalos Philometer king of Pergamos, experimented with digitalis, hyoscyamus, vetatrum and Hemlock etc. Nicander of Kolophan, a poet and physician, had recorded the physiological action of a great array of animal and vegetable substances in his two poems captioned, Theriaca andAlexipharmica. Among other thighs, this poetical pathogenetic materia medica contains few accounts of several different kinds of serpents, four kinds of spiders, many different kinds of scorpions, toads and poisonous effect of aconite, hemlock, henbane, opium, white led etc. Nicander also recognized homoeopathic, rather Isopathic principle; for he recommended for the dangerous effects of viper bites, the liver or the head of the reptile macerated in wine or river water, and for the poisoning by the toad, called Rana nabeta, the cooked flesh of the toad.

Another of he empirical school, Xenocrates of Aphrodisas, who flourished some ages before Galen, recommended the blood of young goats as the best remedy for haemoptysis. He also recommended the therapeutic value of various excretions of the body as urine, menstrual blood etc., when given in the similar principle. Ecchyomosis, especially of the eyes, were to be treated by local application of pigeon’s blood, asthma by dried and pulverized fox’s lungs, affection of the liver by dried wolf’s liver, diseases of spleen by roasted buffalo’s spleen and hydrophobia by the saliva of the rabid dog or by use of its liver.

Varro, another empiricist, recommended drinking own urine after the bite of a wasp. It was common practice to apply the entrails of a viper to the post bitten and the internal use of the theriac, which contained viper’s flesh as a chief ingredient, was used for the same purpose. It was also a common belief that the poison of spiders, scorpions, lizards’ etc. was most effectively antidote by same poisons of their bodies.

Celsius (29 – 79 A. D.) also says the same words about scorpions. Such facts or beliefs have been evidently gave rise the proverb, “Veneum Veneni Est Remedicum”, a notion that has been sized upon by the author of “Hudibras” in the following lines —,

“As wounds by wider wounds are healed

And poisons by themselves expelled”

Celsus in his work “de medi-cina’ (Book III, chap.9) said, “Even by the ancient physician before Herophilus and Erasistratos and especially after Hippocrates there was a certain Petro, who ordered patients with fever, as soon as they arrive to be covered with many clothes, in order to produce at the same time great warmth and thirst”^[30]. Where he mentioned Petro, he says for creeping fever, ‘During the fever it self drink three of four (conical) glasses full of grape juice or diluted wine in addition to food. Decause afterwards the fever often increases and the warmth then developing removes the previous disease as the same time’. In burning he recommends, “at first moderately corroding and destructive things which initially hinder the formation of blisters and make the skin rough” which sounds like a homoeopath.

Pliny (xxxiii. 23) says that the hydrophobia produced by the bite of a rabid dog is immediately removed by putting a rag dipped in the menstrual blood beneath the vessels the patient drink out of, because dogs become rabid from swallowing such blood.

The things are to be remembered there ware also the proving or getting evidence from the nature itself. The greatest observers of those days found out the curing by nature producing similar Disease State. They found the small pox can produced as well as can cure blindness. These were the accidental simile. It can go without saying that these accidental similes also enriched the list of examples by similar therapeutics.

E. Existence of Simile from Roman School:

Galen (138 – 201 A. D.), the most long-lasting medical phenomenon and the father of antipathic physic, the champion of the motto, “Contraria Contraries Curentur”, may be impressed into the service of Homoeopathy. Many of his phrases reads like the following —  “Similia efficare posse similia experti summus” which is merely a formula or experimental doctrine; but the following are less doubtful acknowledging the homoeopathic principle, “Similia Similibus deus adjungit” (Detheria. Ad. Poison), “Simile ad sibi simile natura fertur” (De semine, ii), “Simile ad suum simile tendit naturaliter”(De util. Resp.), “Simile est congruum et. Amicum” (De inaeq. Intemp). These formulas do not, it is true, refer to the relation of drug and diseases, but they are the acknowledgement of an attraction of likes to likes in nature, which might be extended to therapeutics, and he does not actually recognize the Homoeopathic law of treatment of diseases.

We find regarding “orchis morio” (rag wart) he writes, “This plant is also called ‘dog’s testes’ and has a double nodular root which makes moist and warm and testes sweet. The large nodular root seems to have a certain impure and air conditioning moistness and acts stimulating upon sexual impulses”.

Regarding nutrition Galen writes, “In nutrition that which flows in becomes similar to that which is already there”.

In the treatment of ulcer he write, “ Since frankiness can form granulations in body of a moist nature, but it cannot in the dry, one must know especially of the two differences of the first indication: the one, slow protection of nature and on this account a remedy similar to it is necessary, the other slow removal of tat which is opposing, to nature and on this account something opposite. Because it destroys all through and in the contrary. Now an ulcer which is moist requires so much stronger a drying agent! The nature of the body requires the moisture it is, an agent less drying. For this reason as ulcer which is less drying. For this reason as ulcer which is equally severe in a dry constitution requires a more marked drying agent than that which is needed in a body of a moisture constitution.^[31]”

In the same book while speaking of the treatment of fever he says, “I suppose in instance when two men have fever, who were born and raised in a suitable climate, but did not live there, but the one in a warm and dry, and another in a moist and cold region. Furthermore, one supposes that the two are different in regard to temperament as also in their natures, habits, and age, and that they, I assume, become ill at different seasons and under different weather conditions. The one of the two is warm and dry in nature and has been accustomed to the corresponding way of life, his way of life, moreover is young, and becomes ill in a damp cold region and similar weather; the other moist and cold, and accustomed to a corresponding way of life, his age older than a boy, becomes ill in a warm and dry summer and similar weather. What now are the indications in each of these? The febrile state following is common to the two and requires cooling and moistening agents. Of the other indications there is nothing common. Because if the first by nature and age and a corresponding mode of living, a food of a dry and warm quality is suitable, and this also corresponds to the season, the weather and region, so it follows from this, to employ not the similar but the contrary. For the other, age, nature, habits indicate conformability to similar agent. Because according to age, moderately warm and moist, on account of the nature and habits moist and cold agents, in regard to the region, season and weather however the contrary, which on their side without question stand out as so much more conformable to cold and moist agents. While for the region concerned warm and dry are agreeable. In regard to age, nature, season, and weather when these are agreeable, similar habits and similar agents are always indicated, be the man well or ill^[32]”.

The next name comes as an authority in the medical art that we find distinctly and enthusiastically echoing the homoeopathic principles, is the author, who wrote under the pseudo name of Basil Vatentine, a Benedict monk, who lived about the year 1410.

His words are

“Likes must be treated by likes as heat by heat, cold by cold, shooting by shooting, for one heat attracts the other itself, one cold the other as magnet to the iron. Hence prickly samples can remove diseases whose characteristic is a prickly pain; and poisonous minerals can cure and destroy symptoms of poisoning when they are brought bear upon them. Although some times a chill may be removed and suppressed, still I say, as a philosopher, and one experienced in nature’s way, that the similar, whereby it will thoroughly, if I am a proper physician and understood medicine. He, who does not, attended to this, not a true physician^”[33].

F. Examples form the Mediaeval Medicine:

In the 14^thcentury B. C., we find examples of treatment of “Same by the Same” as ear diseases with ears of some animal, head with the fish head, blindness with swan’s eye and etc.  Applications of this are found in most of the pharmacopoeias until 1800 A. D. Human calculi are given to any one having stone in the bladder. There is hardly one important organ or tissues, fresh, dried or excretions; hardly a well known small animal, dried or incinerated; hardly a large animal, its tissue, excretions or pathological structures, hardly a fossil known to antiquity, which has not been seen employed following this principle. The Egyptians used the blood of a black swan to remove the grayness of their hairs. The Greek said ulcer should be treated by rust of spider, which caused the wound.

The famous Italian G. Cardano (1501 – 1576) in the work says, “So also is the healing through similar fairly clear and simple and actually neither dark, ambiguous nor forced, as has been carried out in medical circles often enough”. Vidius says, “vulnera dum sanas, dolor est medicina dolaris” means, “when you heal wounds, pain is the medicine for the pains”.

Daniel Sennert (1572 – 1637) writes, “Those assert more plausibly who state that the similarity of the substance draws the plague poison into itself”.

G. Magic Simile: Another part of this simile lies in the part of magical practice. This is popularly known as Magic simile. Perhaps the most familiar application of the principle that like produces and cures like is the attempt which has been made by many peoples in many ages to injure or to destroy an enemy by injuring or destroying an image of him, in the belief that, just as the image suffers, so does the man, and that when perished, he must die.  For thousands of years the sorcerers of ancient India, Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome knew it^[34].

The North American Indians, believed that by drawing the figure of a person in sand, ashes, or clay, or by considering any object as his body, and pricking them with a sharp stick or ding it any other injuries, they inflicted a corresponding injury on the person represented^[35].

The island of Nias near Sumatra the wound of a snake bite is rubbed with the brain of a snake.

Smith and Dale report of protection of snake bite by means of the head of poisonous snake.

The Barotse Negros in Zambezi protect the dogs necessary for hunting against the bite of the tsetse fly by bringing pregnant dogs because the mother dog when get the bite, the litter gets protection against the bits of the same. In the same way the eating the flesh of a viper or drinking the urine of the same person bitten by a snake supports the idea.

Indian folk medicine declares the treatment of cholera is taking the stool of another cholera patient^[36].

The offering of the doll of a male or female child to the God in order to get a male or female child or to bring harmony between the marital relationship, tightly binding one a male and a female doll by thread and offering to the God is a practice still prevailing in India.

As an example of Magic Simile, we may draw the example of analyzing dreams. When a lady dream of radish, it is considered that she is going to have a male child. In the similar way when a person dream of snake, it indicates that he is suffering form some sexual problem^[37].

Just as the magic simile, when some extrinsic properties of the object, like its colour, forms, consistency etc. decided the field of utility, in the doctrine of signature also, too, these, and other identical properties, furnishes the clue.  Well known examples are; sharply pointed instruments for treatment for sticking pains, red drugs for the treatment for cardiac and haemopoetic diseases, perforated leaves for penetrating wound, tissues like orchid shoots for arising sexual desire etc. Opium is full of diseases of head as possess a ‘crown’.

Locations also furnished in indication. As per the Chinese doctrine of signature the upper part of a plant is used for the upper part of the body.Schlegal says that Linnaevs subscribed to the doctrine of signature since his opinion red plants would check the flow of the blood^[38].

Early forms of the Doctrine of Signature are to a great extent, interwoven with the magic simile. The greatest representative of doctrine of signature; of the similars was Paracelsus, though he had an obscure predecessor, Cornelivs Arippa, an astrologer.

Theophrastus Von Hoenheim, who is popularly known as Paracelsus was a reformer of much of the same character like Hahnemann^[39].Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastusn Von Hohenheim, was born at Einsiedeen, near Zurich (1490 – 1541 A. D.). He was a son of a well-educated country doctor. He, at the beginning was attracted to mineralogy and chemistry. The he joined to the University of Basel. At his 23 he came out and crossed twelve years of long wandering. In 1526 he had joined as a lecturer on medicine in Basel University.

He alleged that all medicines rested upon four pillars or columns; Philosophy, Astronomy, Alchemy and Virtue. Philosophy, as per Paracelsus is the gateway of medicine and all who entered by other ways are thieves or murders. Astronomy is essential; the path of true therapy was in the heavens. Alchemy was needed to prepare essential remedies. Virtue was most important of all, though it was given to only few physicians to necessary understanding the ways of providence.

By the pillars of philosophy Paracelsus implied knowledge of natural phenomenon, as he was a true follower of Hippocrates. He insisted upon observation and opposed theorizing. He was fond of coining words, and he gave the name “Archaeus” to “the heart of the elements”, the natural revolving and preparative mechanism of the human body. He despised anatomy, and failed to see how any knowledge can be gained from a dead body.

The Astronomy of Paracelsus was not the astrology of his time. Although he admitted that life upon stars influenced the earth. He did not agree that they control the density of an individual or he put his disagreement upon the horoscope.

The Alchemy for him was not a search for the philosopher’s stone rather an attempt to explain health and disease in terms of chemistry. He stated that the aim of life of the alchemist was to separate poison from food, for it this was not accomplished, the poison become deposited upon the teeth of in the organs.

As for the fourth pillar, Virtue was the most potent healing factor of all. The physician must be a God fearing man, for medicine was more then the collection of facts. He believed on the spiritual side of healing.

Once Paracelsus said, “Because through the art of chiromancy, physiognomy and magic it is possible to recognize in the external appearance the peculiarities and virtues of every herb and root by its signature, by its shape, form and colour and it requires no other testing or long experiences – Do not the leaves of the thistle stick like needles? Because herb than thistle against internal sticking. Also the ‘Siegwurz’ (Allium Victorialis, trans.) has a scroll on it like an arrow; that is also a magic sign and has significance in that it guards against arms as armor”.^[40]

Paracelsus also extended his belief on the doctrine of the Signature. This is named as the Paracelsian simile. His examples are vast. The plant Cyclamen used for ear diseases as the leaf looks like human ear^[41]. The yellow remedies used for jaundice due to their resemblance in colour. Hahnemann himself used to believe this as a source of materia medica^[42] and sited a huge number of examples in his literature⁾.

The work of Paracelsus, in many paragraphs opposed the contraria principle. Some of them read like the following –

“It is true that he, who will employ cold for the heat, Moister for dryness, does not, understood the nature of the disease.”

“What makes jaundice that also cures jaundice. The medicine that shall cure paralysis must produce from that causes it”.

“When Antimony is ingested it produces cough, great Hardness of stool, so it will cure the similar condition”.

“Alkali cures oppression of breathing — so it will cure the similar condition”.

About similia he states,

“What makes jaundice also heals Jaundice. This is good ands bad are in the same thing; out of the bad comes jaundice; but if the good separates, then it is the Arcanum (remedy) against jaundice – because the drugs which would heal paralysis must come out of the same which causes it – so that Arcane (healing power) of minerals become understood, so that Gold as a remedy for all diseases of those who seek after it. So also saturnus has its Arcanum which, goes out of lead – what may be damaging in our hands will also be changed through our hands into a drug”^[43].

The idea of drug selection, as in modern simile, by the totality, in place attempted augmentation of a single defensive mechanism; the superficial simile is also advanced, as Paracelsus writes at his work. In his masterpiece a drug disease relation ship is also elaborated,

“So, when you encounter Estioneuum (Lupas), Eaneer, so you know that arsenicus lies on the same place which makes it.  Now it is morbus arsenious, because it is so. Why does it happen that there is this philosophical distribution in a drug, which any physician can learn? It occurs if that is its name, because that is a characteristic of a name. If you know here to recognize arsenic in the body – you know that arsenic heals arsenic”.

Again we see him to write, “The intake of regular makes a dried out lung, which drying changes the air, herewith a gasping also with paleness of face. Also it makes cracks and crevices in the liver, so that as unnatural thirst comes, gnaws and grinds the folds of stomach, which are like the bark on a tree, herewith an oppression in the pit of stomach, a severe difficult digestion. To such subsequently much rushing heat, beating and trembling in the pit of the stomach, accordingly an eruption an all extremities, to such the quinsy and concomitants”.

The most significant amongst these is, “Anatomic is an art by which you learn to recognize the form of everything; because you see, nothing is without form, also diseases are not without form, but they are formed, therefore they have an anatomie and a special man to speak – Now when you know that, so is there further necessity tat you know that, so is there further necessity that you bring together there the same anatomic of herbs and plants in such shape and that you bring together there the same anatomic of herbs and the same anatomic of diseases into an order. The simile gives understanding to healing, according to which you should treat”. Perhaps clearer is the following citation: “You see that all bodies have forms in which they stand. Also have their drugs, which are forms in them. The one is visible, the other invisible, that is, the one bodily, elementary, the other spiritual, sidereal. From that now follows that every physician should have his herbarium spiritualem sidereum, from which he knows how the same drug stands in the form. Because a drug which is taken in, as soon as it comes into the body, so it stands in a form, in the same way, as a rainbow in the sky or a picture in a mirrow.” And so, in the same way, “The anatomic of this external and should be completely incorporated by the physician and indeed so completely that he has not found a little hair on the head, not a pore which he has not found ten times before. Because from this, out of anatomic, goes the physician to the prescription, that will be placed limb to limb, Arcanum to Arcanum, diseases to diseases”.

Paracelsus was not a Veaslius not yet a Harvey but he was honest and even pious in his own way. Though he is interpreted as a medical Charlton but his place cannot be rubbed off from the history of medicine.

F. Examples form the Literature:

The concept of Similia is very frequently backed in various literary works of masters.

Milton^* mentioned its efficacy in his “Paradise Lost” when the Archangel Michel gives it to Adam to improve his vision –

“Then purged with euphrasy and rue

The visual nerve, for he had much to see”

And Shinnston says

“Yet euphrasy may not be left unsung,

That gives dim vision eyes to wander leagues around”.

Poet Langhorne writes,

“Mark, how that rooted mandrake wears

His human feet, his human hands;

Oft as his shapely from he rears,

Aghast the frightened ploughman stands”^[44].

Last but not the least we may remember Shakespeare in this regard. The following lines of Romeo and Juliet say nothing but similia only.

“Tut, man! one fire burns out another’s burning;

One pain is lessened by another’s anguish;

Turn giddy and be holp by backward turning;

One desperate grief cures with another languish.

Take thou some new infection to the eye,

And the rank poison of the old will die.^[45]”

Romeo and Juliet, act i. scene 2.

And in another area of the same drama he says,

“Within the infant of this small flower

Poison hath residence and medicine power.”

Romeo and Juliet, act i. scene 3.

Hahnemann and Similia:

Stephen d’Irsay in his paper on Albrecht von Heller has drawn a mental thread from Linńe to Haller. The author states, “Linńe knew drugs asSapida and Olida, which were capable of influencing the various body substances through their varying consistency. Haller also proceeded from the consistency and the expressions olida, odorata, volatilia, spirantia etc., by means of which these solid, fluid or volatile substances influences similarly constituted parts of the body. Can one not say that homoeopathy had its origin already in the pharmacology of Linńe and Haller?^[46]”

Hahnemann wrote totally different, however is the result when two similar diseases meet together in the organism, that is to say, when to the diseases already present a stronger similar is added. We see how a cure can be affected by the operations of nature, and we get a lesion as to how man ought to cure^[47].  The basic of this thought came in the § 26, which says; “A weaker dynamic affection is permanently extinguished in the living organism by a stronger one, if the latter (whilst differing in kind) is very similar to the former in its manifestations”^[48]. Hahnemann substantiated numbers of examples in footnote 2 of the same section^[49] and the examples regarding diseases came in aphorism 46^[50]. Hahnemann in Medicine of Experience mentioned this maxim in a different manner, say; it is only by this property of producing in the healthy body a series of specific morbid symptoms, that medicines can cure diseases, that is to say, remove and extinguish the morbid irritation by a suitable counter- irritant^[51].

A massive number of examples came in the Introduction of Organon of Medicine. Paragraph 82 of the same reads, “Blind experience some times lead them (The orthodox school physicians) to a homoeopathic mode of treatment and yet they did not perceive the law of nature in obedience to which cures so effected did and much ensue”.  The relating footnote says, “Thus they imagined that they could drive out through the skin the sudatory matter which they believed to stagnate there after a chill, if they gave the patient to drink, during the cold stage of catarrhal fever —- consequently curs homeopathically”. Paragraph 86, 87 and 88 repeats the same story. The footnote of paragraph 86where Mr. Lux has been criticizes for not understanding Homoeopathy. Paragraph 92 says, ‘Later physicians have also felt and expressed the truth or the homoeopathic mode of cure. Thus, for instance, Boulduc perceived that the purgative property of rhubarb was the cause of its power to allay diarrhoea”. We must take a note of paragraph 98 should be studied in this occasion where the name of Stahl has been mentioned as a supporter of homoeopathy, rather, as a supporter of Law of Similia.

The paragraph of fourth edition, which is almost equal to the aphorism 49 of second and third edition of Organon of medicine says, “I am well aware that physicians do not employ in diseases such allopathic medicines not selected according to similarity of action, with the intentional design of giving allopathic and false morbific agents. No! They know whatever about all the medicines they administer, neither weather they are morbific forces similar (and therefore salutary) to the disease, nor weather they are dissimilar-”.^[52]

In the “Essay on a new principle”, the maxim has stated in this manner, “We should imitate nature, which sometimes cure a chronic disease by super adding another, and employ in the (specially chronic) diseases we wish to cure, that medicine which is able to produce anther very similar artificial disease, and the former will be cured; similia similibus”^[53].

And again “Hitherto the diseases of human beings were treated not rationally, not on fixed principles, but according to various curative intentions, among others according to the palliative rule; contraria contraries curentur”.

And repeatedly he mentions, “Directly opposite to this lies the truth, the real road to cure, to which I give the guide in this work: to cure mildly, rapidly and permanently choose, in every case of disease, a medicine which can of itself produce an affection similar to that it is wished to cure”.

We find him writing, “Here I shall spare the ordinary medical school the humiliation of reminding it of the folly of those ancient physicians who, determining the healing power of crude drugs from their signature, that is, according to the colour and form given the testes – like ochis root for the restoration of potency, the phallus impudicus for strengthening weak erections, the yellow tumeric in jaundice, and because of the red sap when bruished, the yellow blossoms of hypericum (St. Jhon’s Blood) is said to be serviceable in bleeding and wounds; but I refrain from taunting physicians of the present day, although traces of this nonsense are to be with in the most modern books of materia medica”^[54]

The Latin formula employed by Hahnemann is frequently written erroneously Similia Similibus Curentur, and as erroneously translated like cures like. Hahnemann was too good a Latin scholar to use verb “Curare” in the sense of to cure; besides he always wrote the t\formula Similia Similibus Curantur, there by giving an imperative or mandatory turn to the phrase. The translation must evidently be, “Let likes be treated by Likes”. In the first edition he calls the phrase, “Guide to the true way of healing” (Anleitung zum ächten eilweg). In the second, third and fourth edition it is the maxim (Satz). In fifth edition this is termed as “The only therapeutic law conformable to nature” (das einzing naturgeinässe Heilgesetz)^[55].

Havoc numbers of examples are sited in the appendix part prepared by Dudgeon. In present edition^[56] this begins at page number 159 and ends at 179.  These are not mentioned here, as they are too exhaustive. The fragmentary examples, we think, are enough to establish Hahnemann’s too much care and attention to establish his first fruit of investigation.

Support of Similia from modern School:

In 1807, Hahnemann published an article-tiled “Indication of the Homoeopathic Employment of Medicine in Ordinary Practice”in Hufeland’s journal Practical Medicine. Volume 26, part 2 it consisted of 39 pages, of examples of the cured performed by allopathic physicians by use of medicines, which acted on the Enleitung (Introduction) of the first, second and Third Editions of his classic Organon of Medicine.

Dr. Hahnemann in his Organon of the Rational Art of Healing (1810) cites the examples of cures performed by practitioners of Allopathy, Eclectic and Empirical Medicines. A part of the examples was retained but the following examples were deleted from subsequent editions.

Linnaeus, the famous botanist approved this law. He said that the red blossomed plants are styptics, the yellow blossomed act upon the bile, the black blossomed arrests haemorrhage.^[57]

Catgut bougies introduced into the urethra of a healthy person always cause a flow of mucus, and due this reason they so often cure old gleets.

Chomel, Grant and Marrigues observed convulsions produced by the excessive smoking of tobacco; and long before them Zacutusthe Portuguese, found syrup prepared from the juice of tobacco a very efficacious remedy in many cases of epilepsy.

The hurtful effects which some writers among other Georgi, ascribe to the use of the Agaricus muscarius by the inhabitants ofKamtschatka, and which consist of tremors, convulsions and epilepsy, acted as remedy in the hands of Whistling, who used this fungus with success in cases of convulsions accompanied with tremor; similarly in the hands of Bernhardt, it acted with success in a species of epilepsy.

The spotted hemlock, [Conium maculatum] now so rarely used, has frequently cured serious diseases homeopathically, as the writings of the best physicians testify If it can cause asthma as Baylies observed, short gasping respiration as Stoerck observed, violent cough according to Lange, dry cough, very severe cough and nocturnal cough again as Stoerck, dyspna and a kind of nocturnal whooping cough according to asthma as Boulard observed, a convulsive cough after suppressed scabies as Stoerck records, an obstinate cough as Viventius emphases, and a kind of whooping cough as Butter, Armstrong, Lentin, and Ranoe experienced. Stoerck’s cure of a dysuria by hemlock is explained by the strangury which Lange and Ehrhardt found to cause. If Stoerck cured a case of amaurosis by hemlock [Conium maculatum] that was because of its power to cause sudden blindness (according to Baylies and Andree), and weakness of sight (according to Gatacker).

As just the application of Euphorbia [Euphorbia lathyrus] juice to the abdomen caused oedematous swelling of the whole body, asScopoli observed, a great number of physicians and common people were able to cure a kind of dropsy with Euphorbia, as Hermann andBoecler assert.

Boecler and Linne emphasize that Rhamnus frangula given internally causes a kind of dropsy. The reason of  this is apparent:Schwenckfeld saw a kind of dropsy producedby the application of the inner bark of this shrub.

Gaterau observed that the use of Taxus caused [Taxus baccata] violent cough, and that is why Perry (Journal de Medicine 1790) was able to cure cough with it.

The properly of the oil of Teribinth (turpentine) Stedman is to cause strangury, a type kind of dropsy, and kidney pain, gave this etheral oil type the homoeopathic remedial property of curing some kinds of dropsy and sciatica, as has been asserted by Home, Herz, Thilenius,Cheyne and others.

Chinese tea is nothing but actually a medicinal substance. It can be found in the Nov. Act. N. C. and in Lettsom’s cramping spasm of the stomach was produce by tea, the latter also mention a pressive stomach- pain caused by tea, which is sufficient reason for the cure of cardialgia in pregnant woman by Buchan. In numerable observations (by Von Geoffory, Von Tode and James, in Lettsom’s work) testify that it has frequently caused convulsions in measles and small – pox (Eph. N.C. dec. 3, ann. I, obs. 1618); it is also an important homoeopathic remedy for the exhaustion caused by over – exertion (Lettsom) only due to its power to cause general weakness, which was observed byLettsom, Whytt and Murray; and its power, to cause drowsiness, observed by Lettsom, enables the Chinese people to cure the somnolence in diseases (Herrmann).

Piso, Huck, and Meyer, and many other physicians assert the power of Ipecacuanha [Ipecacuanha officinalis] to relieve diarrhoea. But how could it do this if it did not have the power to cause purging (Murray)?

The sleeplessness usually kept up by anxiety mentioned by some observers (Blom, Planchon) as occurring on the commencement of the action of henbane, is obviously the sole reason for its great faculty for causing sleep in similar idiopathic agrypnias, in which palliative hypnotic action, according to Stoerck, it is greatly superior to opium. This it did because it excites convulsions very similar to those of epilepsy, (According to EI. Camerarius, Chph. Seliger, Hunerwolf, A. Hamilton, Planchon, A. Costa and others).

Greding saw a spasmodic cough produced by this plant, and this should teach us that it is a powerful remedy for similar cough, as indeedFriccius, Rosenstein. Dubb and Stoerck found it to be. Fothergill, Stoerck, Herwig and Ofterdinger have used Hyoscyamus niger with success in certain kinds of mental derangement. But many more physicians might have used it successfully in such affections had they confined it to the cure of that species of mental alteration which Hyoscyamus is capable of producing in it primary action, viz., a kind of stupid mental derangement, which Helmont, J. Stedmann, Tozztti, J. Faber and Wendt saw produced by this plant. From the effects of Hyoscyamus niger observed by the last-named authors a picture of Hysteria of considerable severity may be constructed; and a very similar one would be cured by this plant, as we find (J. A. P. Gessner, Stoerck) and Schenkbecher would never have succeeded i.e. curing a vertigo of twenty years’ standing with Henbane [ Hyoscyamus niger] if this plant were not endowed by nature with the power of producing so universally and in such intensity a similar vertigo, as attested by Hünerwolf, Blom, Navier, Planchon, Sloane, Stedmann, Greding,Wepfer, Vicat, and Bernigau.A man, affected with jealous mania, was for a long time uselessly teased with other drugs by Mayer Arbomson, when, intending to give a soporific, he accidentally administered hyoscyamus, which naturally effected a speedy cure. Had he known that this plant excites jealousy and mania in the healthy and had he been acquainted with homoeopathy (the only natural rule of theraputics), he would have been able to select hyoscyamus from the very commencement with perfect confidence, and thus have avoided tormenting the patient with drugs which, not being homoeopathic, could do no good in such a case. The mixture of medicines, which was employed with the greatest success by Hecker in a case of spasmodic closure of the eyelids, would have proved ineffectual if some happy chance had not included hyoscyamus, which according to Wepfer,excites a similar affection in healthy persons.

The pains in limbs and joints which A. Richard (according to Schenck) experienced from aconite were of the same kind as those cured by many physicians mentioned by Murray by means of the plant; so that the homoeopathic cause of its remedial power is evident.

“The sensitiveness of the organism amounting to the most intense pain combined with heat in influenza, is quickly removed by camphor, but only palliatively, hence its doses must be always increased and repeated in order that it shall gain the mastery over this acute disease.( § 266)

Strong wine often, as Murray testifies, allays a troublesome heat of the body and the excessive excitement of the pulse- obviously homeopathically!

From the writing of Beddoes and others we learn that the physicians of England found Sour Salt peter of great utility in salivation and ulceration of the mouth occasioned by the use of mercury. This acid could never have proved useful in such cases if it did not of itself excite salivation and ulceration of the focus. To produce these effects, it is not necessary to administer it by the mouth, merely bathing the surface of the body with it suffices (Scott). The same effects have also been observed from its internal administration by Aloyn, Kellie Blair, Luke andFerriar.

Fritze saw a species of tetanus produced by a bath containing caustic potash, and Humboldt by the application of a solution of salt of tartar was able to increase the irritability of the muscles to such a degree as to excite tetanic convulsions. Could the curative power which caustic potash exercise in that kind of tetanus, in which Stütz and other s have found it so useful, be accounted or in a more simple or rtional manner that its effects?

Arsenic, which has so powerful effects upon the human body that we cannot decide whether it is more horrible in the hands of the fool-hardy than beneficial in the hands of the were,- could never have caused so many remarkable cures of cancers in the face, as  witnessed by numerous physicians, according to Gui Von Chauliac, Theodolic, Valescus Von Taranta, Fallopius, Penet Roennow (Cosme), if this metallic oxide did not  possess the homoeopathic power of producing in healthy persons, very painful tubercles very difficult to cure, (as witnessed by Amatusthe Portuguese); deep burrowing malignant ulcerations, [Heinrich and Knape]. The ancients would not have been so unanimous in their praise of the arsenical, so called magnetic plaster of Angelus Sala in plague buboes and carbuncle, if Arsenic did not, [according to the observations of Degner and Knape], give rise to inflammatory swellings which quickly become gangrenous and to black pocks. And whence does it derive its curative power, demonstrated so many thousand of times, in certain forms of intermittent fever (though it was not employed with the caution) and highly extolled for centuries, first by Myrepsus and subsequently by Sievogt, Molitor, Jacobi, J.C.Bernhardi, Jüngken and Fowler, if it were not based on the power of Arsenic to cause a peculiar fever, as almost every observer of the deleterious effects of this substance has distinctly remarked, especially Amatus, the Portugues, Degner, Buchholz, Heun, and Knape? We may confidently believe Alexander, when he tells us that Arsenic is a sovereign remedy in some kinds of angina pectoris since Otto Tachenius, Guilbert, Preussius, Thilenius and Pyl have seen it give rise to oppression of the respiration, Greiselius to a dyspnoea almost amounting to suffocation; and Majault in particular, saw it produce sudden attacks of asthma excited by walking, attended with great depression of the vital powers.

The convulsions caused by Copper, [Cuprum metallicum], according to Ramsay, Fabas, according to Unzar and Cosmier, by the ingestion of things containing Copper; the reiterated attacks of epilepsy which Lazerme saw, result from swallowing a copper coin, and whichPfundel saw produced by copper, sufficiently explain to the reflecting physician how Copper has been able to cure a kind of chorea, as reported by R. Willan, and epilepsy, of which Weifsmann, Pas quallati, Duncan, Russell, Cullen, and others have recorded so many striking cures by preparations of copper.

Poterius, Wepfer, Wedel, F.Hoffmann, R.A.Vogel, Thierry and Albrech have cured a species of phthisis hectic fever, chronic catarrh and humid asthma with tin,[Stanum metallicum] because this metal possesses the power of producing a species of phthisis, as J. E. Stahlobserved. And how could it cure we pains of the stomach, as Geischlager says it does, if it were not capable of exciting a similar malady?Geischlager himself, and Stahl before him, have proved that it does possess this power.

Amelung’s cure of a type of ulcerative pulmonary disease by the internal administration of lead [Plumbum metalicum] indicates to the tendency of this metal to cause a kind of consumption when applied externally, which was observed by Boerhaave. The evil effects of lead, which produces the most obstinate constipation and even ileus as Thunberg, Wilson, Luzuriaga and others observed do they not also give us to understand that this metal possesses a corresponding curative power? Ought not lead, as surely as every other medicine in the world by reason of its disease-causing power, to subdue and cure in a per lasting manner (homeopathically) similar natural diseases? Angelus Sala cured a species of ileus, and Agricola another dangerous constipation by administering this metal internally.

Similia today:

The principle of similars is broadly applied in allopathic medicine, being regarded as one of the basis of therapeutics. The whole development of immunology and serum therapy is founded on this principle, as in allergology.

a. Immunology and serum therapy:

This subject is extensively large but here we will limit ourselves on quoting Emil von Behring, one of the founders of this discipline in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He says, ‘In spite of all scientific speculations and experiments concerning small pox vaccination,Jenner’s discovery remained an erratic boulder in medicine until biochemically thinking Pasteur, devoid of all classroom knowledge, traced the origin of this therapeutic boulder to a principle which cannot be better characterized than by Hahnemann’s word ‘Homoeopathic’ . Indeed, what else cause the epidemiological immunity in sheep vaccinated against anthrax than the influence previously exerted by a virus similar in character of that a fatal anthrax virus? And by what technical term could we more appropriately speak of this influence exerted by a similar virus than by Hahnemann’s word: Homoeopathy.

b. Allergology:

This is another extensive subject and difficult to mention here. The use of pollen extracts, house – dust extracts, etc. to reduce and eliminate sensitivity to these and other substances is clearly an instance of application of similiars and is recognized as such.

c. Use of drugs according to the similar principles:

Many drugs are used homeopathically in the modern branch to day. Here a list has been submitted:

1.      Colchicum has been used since time immemorial in the treatment of gout, produces numerous symptoms in homoeopathic proving as “Rheumatic and arthritic tearing in the limbs, and other parts of the body, esp. in warm weather. Starting, shootings in the muscles, and in the periosteum of the limbs, esp. in cold weather.  Shooting in the joints.  Great weakness, with sensation of lameness through all the limbs and etc^[58]”

2.      Colchicum has proved its efficacy in the fever, G.I. disorder whose symptomatology is found in homoeopathic materia medica.

3.      Homoeopathic proving of Digitalis records huge numbers of symptoms in homoeopathic materia medica related to heart and kidney. The characteristic heart symptom is “Thready, slow and intermittent pulse. Pulse very slow and weak. Irregular small pulse”.

4.      Marijuana has been used in homoeopathy since the mid nineteenth century. It’s proving yields such symptoms as “Pressure from back of the eye forewords. Cornea becomes obscured – cornea becomes opaque – cataract”. And of course, there is much discussion today of the curative effect of Cannabis in Glaucoma and corneal opacity.

5.      In 1920’s a Belladonna derivative was discovered by allopath to be effective, in minute doses, for the treatment of infantile colic. Colic symptoms appear in the proving of Belladonna and it has long been in common use by homoeopaths for treating colic in infants.

6.       The proving of Rauwlfia serpentina shows increased blood pressure with irregular heart beat. This is used to reduce blood pressure by the allopaths.

7.      Nitroglycerine which is known as Glonoin by the homoeopaths is used for angina till today.

8.      Metallic Gold is used for Rheumatic diseases by the allopaths having a good number of joint related symptoms in homoeopathic materia medica.

9.      Veratrum viride has strong action on reducing blood pressure which is used in allopathic school.

10.  The proving of  Stramonium and Lobelia yield many lug symptoms and used by the homoeopathic school.  Some years age the U. S. Food and Drug Administration queried weather Asthmador cigarettes were truly effective in relieving asthma, probably because the mechanism of action of these substances had not been clarified in the allopathic school but also perhaps because of a lingering feeling that no inexpensive medicine can be really beneficial.

11.  The allopathic anti-coagulant drug, dicumarol, is made from spoiled clover (Melilotus), which in its homoeopathic proving, yields a variety of hemorrhages, especially from the lungs. Consequently, in homoeopathy this drug is used to prevent bleeding (Basing upon the totality) and not to prevent blood coagulation.

12.  The ergot of rye – a fungus growing on rye under damp condition – causes the disease known as St. Anthony’s fire: constriction of blood vessels, especially in the arms and legs and progressive gangrene. The clinical proving of ergot yields the similar kind of symptoms.

13.  The same ergot is used in migraine, and homoeopathic proving also lists a good number of headaches.

14.  The hallucinatory symptoms of L. S. D. (an ergot derivative) are prefigured in the nineteenth-century homoeopathic proving.

15.  The homeopathic proving of rattle snake venom (Crotalus horridus) yields many lung and chest symptoms. The allopathic school treats bronchial asthma by this drug. Same thing is truth for cobra (Naja tripudians).

16.  Apis on homoeopathic proving produced number of symptoms of arthritis and rheumatism. This venum with the formic acid (formica rufa)is used in both the schools. But the homeopathic use is more extensive and as per the totality it can be used under any condition with precaution^[59].

These types of examples are thousand to prove the efficacy of the law of similia in curing disease conditions. Probably as per as the modern science is concerned, vaccination might be placed as an example where similar disease is produce by inoculation of the cause of the diseases in the form of vaccine, anti sera in a very low attenuated volume. Still to day the treatment of snakebite is done by anti-venom injection, which is nothing but a higher poison. Apart from this there are so many areas where the drugs are applied in a similar manner with a high level of success.

^[1] Hufeland’s Journal, Vol. 4 Pt. 4 / The life and letters of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann / T. L. Bardford/ B. Jain/ New Delhi/ = 517

^[2] Life of Christian Samuel Hahnemann / Rosa Waugh Hobhouse/ b. Jain/ New Delhi / 1995/ P= 124

^[3] A Compendium of lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand / National Homoeopathic Pharmacy/ New Delhi/ 1995/ P= 277

^[4] A Compendium of lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand/ National Homoeopathic Pharmacy/ New Delhi/ 1995/ P= 279

^[5] Ayurveda Brihat Itahas / Atridev Vidyalankar/ Uttarpradesh Hindi Sansthan/ Uttarpradesh/ 1991/P= 179

^[6] Ayurveda Brihat Itahas / Atridev Vidyalankar/ Uttarpradesh Hindi Sansthan/ Uttarpradesh/ 1991/P= 180

^[7] Essays on Homoeopathy / B. K. Sarkar/ Ibid./ P= 15

^[8] Ayurveda and Homoeopathy / Dr. K. Narshimha Rao / Quinquina Homoeopathic Quarterly/ Summer / Vol.  5, No. 1/ Taliparamba / Kerla / P 7-26 / 1996.

^[9] Ayurveda and Homoeopathy / Dr. K. Narshimha Rao / Quinquina Homoeopathic Quarterly/ Summer / Vol.  5, No. 1 / Taliparamba / Kerla / P 22 (7-26) / 1996

^[10] Ayurveda and Homoeopathy / Dr. K. Narshimha Rao/ Quinquina Homoeopathic Quarterly/ Summer/ Vol.  5, No. 1/ Taliparamba/ Kerla/ P 22 (7-26)/ 1996.

^† A mythological sage given to setting Gods by the ears.

^‡ The author of Mahabharata, a mythological son of Saint Parasar and Satyavati.

^[11] A Compendium of lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand/ National Homoeopathic Pharmacy/ New Delhi/ 1995/ P= 208

^[12] Ayurveda Brihat Itahas / Atridev Vidyalankar/ Uttarpradesh Hindi Sansthan/ Uttarpradesh/ 1991/P= 62 – 63

^[13] A Compendium of lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand/ National Homoeopathic Pharmacy/ New Delhi/ 1995/ P= 208

^[14] Ayurveda and Homoeopathy / Dr. K. Narshimha Rao / Quinquina Homoeopathic Quarterly / Summer / Vol.  5, No. 1 / Taliparamba / Kerla / P 22 (7-26)/ 1996

^[15] A compendium lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand/ National Homoeo Pharmacy/ 1995/ New Delhi/ P = 206.

^[16] A compendium lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand/ National Homoeo Pharmacy/ 1995/ New Delhi/ P = 205 – 206

^[17] “For example, how the patient behaved during the visit – whether he was morose, quarrelsome, hasty, lachrymose, anxious, despairing or sad, or hopeful, calm etc. Whether he was in a drowsy state or in any way dull of comprehension; whether he spoke hoarsely, or in a low tone, or incoherently, or how other wise did he talk? What was the color of his face and eyes, and of his skin generally? What degree of liveliness and power was there in his expression and eyes? What was the state of his tongue, his breathing, the smell from his mouth, and his hearing? Were his pupils dilated or contracted? How rapidly and to what extent did they alter in the dark and in the light? What was the character of the pulse? What was the condition of the abdomen? How moist or hot, how cold or dry to the touch, was the skin of this or that part or generally? Whether he lay with head thrown back, with mouth half or wholly open, with the arms placed above the head, on his back, or in what other position? What effort did he make to raise himself? And anything else in him that may strike the physician as being remarkable’. Foot note § 90 / Organon

^[18] Ayurveda and Homoeopathy / Dr. K. Narshimha Rao / Quinquina Homoeopathic Quarterly / Summer / Vol.  5, No. 1 / Taliparamba / Kerla / P 22 (7-26)/ 1996

^[19] Charak samhita: Sutra Stane: Chap. XII – seminar on the merits and demerits of Vata / Ayurveda and Homoeopathy / Ibid

^[20] Charak samhita: Sutra Stane: Chap. XII – seminar on the merits and demerits of Vata / Ayurveda and Homoeopathy / Ibid

^[21] Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy / Dr. J. T. Kent / B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 1995/ P = 76 – 87

^[22] Ayurveda and Homoeopathy / Ibid

^§ Substances belonging to the animal and vegetable kingdoms possess their medicinal qualities most perfectly in their raw state./ § 266

^© Medicinal plants should be gathered in localities to which they are indigenous. 2. They should be colleted in: (i) fine, summer, dry weather (ii) Early morning (iii) just after disappearance of morning due and etc. / A text book of homoeopathic pharmacy / Mandal  & Mandal / New central book agency / Kolkata / 1994 / P = 26

^[23] Magic of Ancient Egypt / Paris, 1925 / p = 70 – 71 / C. R. History of Homoeapthy / Linne Boyd / IBPP / 2006 / p = 17

^> As per Greek mythology, son of the mortal Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, and the Nereid, or sea nymph, Thetis. He was the bravest, handsomest, and greatest warrior of the army of Agamemnon in the Trojan War. According to Homer, Achilles was brought up by his mother at Phthia with his cousin and inseparable companion Patroclus. One of the non-Homeric tales of his childhood relates that Thetis dipped Achilles in the waters of the River Styx, by which he became invulnerable, except for the part of his heel by which she held him—the proverbial “Achilles’ heel.”

^[24] History of homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid / p = 32

^[25] History of homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid / p = 32

^[26] Aphorisms of Hippocrates / Rupa / P = 34

¹ “We were never nearer the discovery of the science of medicine than in the time of Hippocrates. This attentive, unsophisticated observer sought nature in nature, He saw and described the disease before him accurately, without addition without coloring, without speculation. In the faculty of pure observation he has been surpassed by no physician that has followed him.”/ Asclepius in the Balance

^[27]Lectures on the theory and practice of Homoeopathy / R. E. Dudgeon / B. Jain / New Delhi / 1987 / P = 8

^[28] Adam’s Hippocrates, 857, C. R./ Lectures on the theory and practice of Homoeopathy/ ibid./ P = 5

^[29] Lectures on the theory and practice of Homoeopathy / R. E. Dudgeon / B. Jain / New Delhi / 1987 / P = 5

^[30] History of homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid / P = 45

^[31] Galen, ed. Kŭnn, Vol. X, Methodus medendi, p. 178 / C. R. History of Homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid / 52

^[32] Galen, ed. Kŭnn, Vol. X, Methodus medendi, p. 178 / C. R. History of Homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid / 54

^[33] De Microcosmos / C. R. / Lectures on the theory and practice of Homoeopathy / R. E. Dudgeon / B. Jain /  New Delhi / 1987 / P = 5

^[34] The Greek and Roman practice of Magic / Vergil / C. R./ Dr. M. Singh / Study of  Similia before Dr. Hahnemann

^[35] History of the Ojebway  Indians / Peter Jones / C. R./ Dr. M. Singh / Study of  Similia before Dr. Hahnemann

^[36] History of Homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid/ P = 19

^[37] Dr. Kavur, against the ghost, God and Devil / Anil Publishers / Kolkata /1994 / P = 32

^[38] Early conception of Similia / Asian Homoeopathic Times / 1994/ April / New Delhi / P = 8

^[39] Lectures on the theory and practice of Homoeopathy / R. E. Dudgeon / B. Jain / New Delhi / 1987 / P = 5

^[40] Paracelsus; Books and writings / Husersche Quartanusgabe, 1589 – 91, Book IX, p = 383 / C. R. History of Homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid/ P = 19

^[41] Early conception of Similia/ Asian Homoeopathic Times / 1994/ April / New Delhi / P = 8 -12

^[42] Examination of the Sources of common Materia Medica / Hahnemann / Materia Medica Pura / B. Jain / New Delhi / 1988 / P = 5

⁾ — Who had childishly enough asserted certain medical substances to the remedies of certain diseases merely on account of some external resemblance of those medicines with something appreciable by the sense in those diseases (signature), or whose efficacy rested only   the authority of old women’s tells, or was deduced from certain of their properties that had no essential connection with their fabulous medical power. – The Hypericum is still esteemed as a vulnerary, because the ancient stamped it with this character on account of the trifling circumstances that its yellow flowers, when rubbed betwixt the fingers, give out a blood red juice, which procedure for it the name of John’s blood. Whence to theChelidonium, the Berbaris bark and the Turmeric derive the reputation they only enjoy in our Materia Medica as remedies for Jaundice, but from its, that is formerly it was imagined that the yellow milk of the first and the yellow colour contained in the two last was a sure sign (signature) that they must be useful in yellow diseases. —- Therapeutics have attributed to the stellated anise the same expectorant qualities as are possessed by anise seeds, merely because the later have a resemblance in taste and smell to the seed capsules of the former, and yet some parts of the tree( iliceum anisatum) that bears these capsules is used in the Philippine islands as a poison for suicidal purposes. – This is what I call a philosophical and experimental origin of the Materia Medica. / “On the value of the speculative systems of medicine”/ Hahnemann / Lesser writings / B. Jain / New Delhi / 2001 / P = 502

^[43] Early conception of Similia / Asian Homoeopathic Times/ 1994/ April/ New Delhi/ P = 8 – 12

^¶ When Paracelsus uses the word ‘Anatomic’ with this word he designates the nature of the powers working in the body; also that which the homoeopath would call the ‘drug picture’ of a healthy remedy / History of Homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid / P = 65

^* England’s chief epic poet (1608 – 1674 A. D.). His Paradise Lost is the greatest poem of the kind in the language. Some of his poems include Lyciads, on his blindness, L’ Allegro, etc.

^[44] Lectures on the theory and practice of Homoeopathy / R. E. Dudgeon / B. Jain /  New Delhi / 1987 / P = 20 – 22

^[45] Lectures on the theory and practice of Homoeopathy / R. E. Dudgeon/ B. Jain/  New Delhi/ 1987/ P = 26

^[46] History of Homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid/ P = 218

^[47] Samuel Hahnemann’s Organon of medicine, 5^th. & 6^th. Edition / Redacted Edition by Dr. Mahendrea Singh and Subas Singh / Homoeo. Pub./ Kolkata/ 2004/ P = 278, also Aph. 38 of the 4^th Edition/ P = 116 – 117.

^[48] Organon of medicine/ Hahnemann/ 5^th. & 6^th. Edition / Tr. By R. E. Dudgeon and William Boericke / B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 1996 /40

^[49] Thus are cured both physical affections and moral maladies. How is it that in the early dawn the brilliant Jupiter vanishes from the gaze of the beholder? By a stronger very similar power acting on his optic nerve, the brightness of approaching day! – In situations replete with fetid odors, wherewith is it usual to soothe effectually the offended olfactory nerves? With snuff, that affects the sense of smell in a similar but stronger manner! No music, no sugared cake, which act on the nerves of other senses, can cure this olfactory disgust. How does the soldier cunningly stifle the piteous cries of him who runs the gauntlet from the ears of the compassionate bystanders? By the shrill notes of the fife commingled with the roll of the noisy drum! And the distant roar of the enemy’s cannon that inspires his army with fear? By the loud boom of the big drum! For neither the one nor the other would the distribution of a brilliant piece of uniform nor a reprimand to the regiment suffice. In like manner, mourning and sorrow will be effaced from the mind by the account of another and still greater cause for sorrow happening to another, even though it be a mere fiction and etc. Organon of medicine/ Hahnemann/ 5^th. & 6^th. Edition /Tr. By R. E. Dudgeon and William Boericke / B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 1996 /40

^[50] § 46 : Many examples might be adduced of disease which, in the course of nature, have been homoeopathically cured by other diseases presenting similar symptoms—-Among these the smallpox, so dreaded on account of the great number of its serious symptoms, occupies a prominent position, and it has removed and cured a number of maladies with similar symptoms. How frequently does smallpox produce violent ophthalmia, sometimes even causing blindness! And see! By its inoculation Dezoteux cured a chronic ophthalmia permanently, and Leroyanother. An amaurosis of two years’ duration, consequent on suppressed scald head, was perfectly cured by it, according to Klein. How often does smallpox cause deafness and dyspnoea! And both these chronic diseases it removed on reaching its acme, as J. Fr. Closs observed. Swelling of the testicle, even of a very severe character, is a frequent symptom of small-pox, and on this account it was enabled, as Kleinobserved, to cure, by virtue of similarity, a large hard swelling of the left testicle, consequently on a bruise. And another observer6 saw a similar swelling of the testicle cured by it. Among the troublesome symptoms of small-pox is a dysenteric state of the bowels; and it subdued, as Fr. Wendt observed, a case of dysentery, as a similar morbific agent. Smallpox coming on after vaccination, as well on account of its greater strength as its great similarity, at once removes entirely the cow-pox homeopathically, and does not permit it to come to maturity; but, on the other hand, the cow-pox when near maturity does, on account of its great similarity, homeopathically diminish very much the supervening smallpox and make it much milder8, as Muhry9 and many others testify and etc. / Organon of medicine/ Hahnemann/ 5^th. & 6^th. Edition /Tr. By R. E. Dudgeon and William Boericke / B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 1996 / P = 49 – 50

^[51] The Medicine of Experience / Lesser writings/ Hahnemann/ ibid./ P = 451

^[52] Organon of medicine/ Hahnemann/ 5^th. & 6^th. Edition /Tr. By R. E. Dudgeon and William Boericke / B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 1996 / Appendix/ P = 156

^[53] Organon of medicine/ Hahnemann/ 5^th. & 6^th. Edition /Tr. By R. E. Dudgeon and William Boericke / B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 1996 / Appendix /P = 158.

^[54] Materia Medica Pura / Dresden / 1817, first ed. Book. 3 P = xix / C.R. / History of Homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid/ P = 19

^[55] Organon of medicine / Hahnemann/ 5^th. & 6^th. Edition /Tr. By R. E. Dudgeon and William Boericke / B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 1996 / Appendix /P = 158.

^[56] Organon of medicine / Hahnemann/ 5^th. & 6^th. Edition /Tr. By R. E. Dudgeon and William Boericke / B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 1996 / Appendix

^[57] History of homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / IBPP / Ibid/ P = 19

^[58] Dictionary of practical Materia Medica / J. H. Clark

^[59] Homoeopathic science & modern school / Harris L. Coulter / IBPP / 1986 / New Delhi / P = 69 – 77