Paracelsus and Homoeopathy

Dr Partha P Ray

Brief biography of Paracelsus:
Early years:  Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim popularly known as Paracelsus was born Nov. 11 or Dec. 17, 1493, in Einsiede. Paracelsus was the only son of a somewhat impoverished German doctor and chemist. His mother died at early of his age and his father then moved to Villach in southern Austria where his father taught chemical theory and practice. Youngsters were trained at the there as overseers and analysts for mining operations in gold, tin, and mercury, as well as iron, alum, and copper-sulfate ores.

The young Paracelsus learned from miners’ talk of metals that “grow” in the earth, watched the seething transformations in the smelting vats, and started thinking that one day will discover how to transmute lead into gold, as the alchemists sought. Thus Paracelsus early gained insight into metallurgy and chemistry that, doubtless, laid the foundations of his later remarkable discoveries in the field of chemotherapy.

In 1507, at the age of 14, he joined the many vagrant youths who swarmed across Europe in the late middle Ages, seeking famous teachers at one university after another. During the next five years Paracelsus is said to have attended the universities of Basel, Tübingen, Vienna, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Heidelberg, and Cologne but was disappointed with them all. He wrote later that he wondered how “the high colleges managed to produce so many high asses,” a typical Paracelsian sneer.

Traditional education and Paracelsian disagreement:
His attitude upset the schoolmen. “The universities do not teach all things,” he wrote, “so a doctor must seek out old wives, gipsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them. A doctor must be a traveler . . . Knowledge is experience.” Paracelsus is said to have graduated from the University of Vienna with the baccalaureate in medicine in 1510, when he was 17. And received his doctoral degree in 1516 (university records are missing for that year). At Ferrara he was free to express his rejection of the prevailing view that the stars and planets controlled all the parts of the human body. Here he began to use the name “para-Celsus” (above or beyond Celsus) at about that time, for he regarded himself as even greater than Celsus, the renowned 1st-century Roman physician.

Clearly a man of this type could never settle for long in any seat of learning, and so, soon after taking his degree, he set out upon many years of wandering through almost every country in Europe, including England, Ireland, and Scotland. He then took part in the “Netherland wars” as an army surgeon, at that time a lowly occupation. Later he went to Russia, was held captive by the Tatars, escaped into Lithuania, went south into Hungary, and again served as an army surgeon in Italy in 1521.
Ultimately his wanderings brought him to Egypt, Arabia, the Holy Land, and, finally, Constantinople. Everywhere he sought out the most learned exponents of practical alchemy, not only to discover the most effective means of medical treatment but also—and even more important—to discover “the latent forces of Nature,” and how to use them. He wrote: ‘He who is born in imagination discovers the latent forces of Nature. . . . Besides the stars that are established, there is yet another—Imagination—that begets a new star and a new heaven’.

At his peak:
After about 10 years of wandering, he returned home in 1524 to Villach. At his age 33, had been appointed town physician and lecturer in medicine at the University of Basel and students from all parts of Europe began to flock into the city. Pinning a program of his forthcoming lectures to the notice board of the university on June 5, 1527, he invited not only students but anyone and everyone. The authorities were offended and irritated by his open invitation. Ten years earlier Luther had circulated his Theses on Indulgences (Probably not true). Later, Paracelsus wrote: “Why do you call me a Medical Luther? . . . I leave it to Luther to defend what he says, and I will be responsible for what I say. That which you wish to Luther, you wish also to me: you wish us both in the fire”.

Three weeks later, on June 24, 1527, surrounded by a crowd of cheering students, he burned the books of Avicenna, the Arab “Prince of Physicians,” and those of the Greek physician Galen, in front of the university. Despite his arrogant mistakes, he reached the peak of his stormy career at Basel. His name and fame spread throughout the known world, and his lecture hall was crowded to overflowing. He stressed the healing power of nature and raged against those methods of treating wounds, such as padding with moss or dried dung, which prevented natural draining. The wounds must drain, he insisted, for “If you prevent infection, Nature will heal the wound all by herself.” He attacked bitterly many other medical malpractices of his time and ridicule mercilessly at worthless pills, salves§, infusionsY, balsamsX, electuaries, fumigantsu, and drenchesw, much to the delight of his student-disciples.

Paracelsus’ triumph at Basel lasted less than a year, however, for he had made too many enemies. By the spring of 1528, he developed rivalry with doctors, apothecaries, and magistrates. Finally, and suddenly, he had to flee for his life in the dead of night. Alone and penniless he wandered toward Colmar in Upper Alsace, about 50 miles north of Basel. He stayed at various places with friends. Such leisurely travel for the next eight years allowed him to revise old manuscripts and to write new treatises. With the publication of Der grossen Wundartzney in 1536 he made an astounding comeback; this book restored, and even extended, the almost fabulous reputation he had earned at Basel in his prime. He became wealthy and was sought by royalty.

Demise:
In May 1538, at the zenith of this second period of notoriety, he returned to Villach again to see his old father, only to find that he had died four years previously. In 1541 Paracelsus himself died in mysterious circumstances at the age of 48 at the White Horse Inn, Salzburg.

His philosophy:
Philosophy to Paracelsus is the knowledge of nature, in which observation and thought must be co-operate; speculation apart form experience and worship of the power of wisdom leads no result. The world is a living whole, which, like man, the microcosm, in whom the whole content of the macrocosm is concentrated as in an extent runs its life course. Originally all things are promiscuously interlinked in unity. God created “Prima materia”. To reach individual there is, “ascribed a vital principle “Archeus” an individuating general force in then nature, “Urecanns”; so also to man”. This part says some thing regarding Vitalism but the concept of three worlds, which stands in relation of sympathetic interaction, there corresponds in man, the body, which nourishes, itself on the elements, the spirit, whose imagination receives its food, senses and thought, from the spirits of the stars and finally to the immortal soul, which finds its nourishment in the faith of Christ – puts him away from scientific as well as experimental reality.

Paracelsus took, as the basis of his physical speculations, theosophy; that is, a direct communication of the soul with God by means of illumination (enlightenment). God, who is life, has diffused life everywhere; all parts of the universe are full of souls, who, however, have not been gifted with intelligence, the privilege of man created in the image of God. Souls are enveloped in bodies or matter, which is in it a dark and dead thing: between souls and bodies exists the spirit, a sort of fluid, which is the physical means of the universal life. The soul, the fluid, the body: such is the trinity of nature, which in some respects is a counterpart of the divine Trinity.

In the same way man contains in himself three principles, three worlds, three heavens: the soul, by which he communicates with God, or the archetypal world; the material body, which puts him in connection with the elementary world; and the spiritual body, which, being formed of ethereal fluid, is in perpetual communication with the angelic-astral world. This spiritual body, the fine envelope of the soul, re-minds the person of the Sankhya philosophy,.

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.

On Medicine:
His medical achievements were outstanding. In 1530 he angered the city council of Nürnberg by writing the best clinical description of syphilis up to that time, maintaining that it could be successfully treated by carefully measured doses of mercury compounds taken internally.
He stated that the ‘miners’ disease’ (silicosis) resulted from inhaling metal vapours and was not a punishment for sin administered by mountain spirits. He was the first to declare that, if given in small doses, “what makes a man ill also cures him,” an anticipation of the modern practice of homeopathy.

Paracelsus is said to have cured many persons in the plague-stricken town of Stertzing in the summer of 1534 by administering orally a pill made of bread containing a minute amount of the patient’s excreta he had removed on a needle point (Minimum dose).
He was the first to connect goiter with minerals, especially lead, in drinking water.
Paracelsus, in fact, contributed substantially to the rise of modern medicine, including psychiatric treatment. Carl Gustaf Jung, the psychiatrist, wrote of him that “We see in Paracelsus not only a pioneer in the domains of chemical medicine, but also in those of an empirical psychological healing science.”

Homoeopathy and Paracelsus:
The different concepts, put forward by medical as well as philosophical legends, ultimately got a definite shape in the hand of Hahnemann. He joined together many concepts under a single umbrella and used the word Homoeopathy. The basic doctrines framed for Homoeopathy were the similar medicine, Single medicine, Minimum dose, Drug proving, Theory of Vital Force, Chronic Diseases, Potentization, Holistic concept and the Individualistic approach to case. It is very astounding that Hahnemann used a long list of references, foot notes, bibliographies in his articles but no where the name of Paracelsus came though, if it is not known from before, it is difficult to understand who had commented Paracelsus or Hahnemann.

The previous paragraph says that law of similia was anticipated by Paracelsus. We can site numbers of example form literature of Paracelsus. We may site specimens of the mode in which he ridiculed the practice of the day, whereby one may judge of the resemblance betwixt his writings and those of Hahnemann.

1. On qualities of Physician:
a. “Suppose,” says he, “the case of a patient sick of a fever, which ran a course of twelve weeks and then ended; there are two kinds of physicians to treat it, the false and the true. The false one deliberately, and at his ease, sets about physicking; he dawdles away much time with his syrups and his laxatives, his purgatives and gruel, his barley-water, his juleps, and such-like rubbish. He goes to work slowly – takes his time to it – gives an occasional clyster to pass the time pleasantly, and creeps along at his ease, and cajoles the patient with his soft words until the disease has reached its termination ….. and his work is limited to one part and a half .”

b. “That man is a physician,” he goes on to say, “who knows how to render aid, and to drive out the disease by force; for as certainly as the axe applied to the trunk of the tree fells it to the ground, so certainly does the medicine overcome the disease. If I am unable to do this, then I acknowledge readily that in this case I am no more a physician than you are.”

2. Classification of mode of treatment: Hahnemann, we know, classified all the methods of treatment under three heads, enantiopathic, allopathic, and homeopathic. Paracelsus divided doctors into five classes, under the names of naturales, Specifici, Characterales, Spirituales, and Fideles. The first class corresponded to Hahnemann’s enantiopathic, the second more closely resembled the homeopathic; but Paracelsus differed from Hahnemann in this, that whereas the latter denies that the enantiopathic and allopathic cure at all, Paracelsus says that each sect is capable of curing all diseases, and an educated physician may choose whichever he likes.

3. Relation with the pharmacists: With the apothecaries¥ Paracelsus was, like Hahnemann, on very bad terms. He says, “So shamefully do they make up the medicines,” he exclaims, “that it is only by a special interposition of Providence that they do not do more harm; and at the same time so extravagantly do they charge for them, and so much do they cry up their trash, that I do not believe any persons can be met with who are greater adepts in lying.” Hahnemann himself had not a greater horror of hypothesis in medicine than Paracelsus.

4. Against Galen:
a. To the theorizing adherents of Galen, he cries: “You are poets, and you carry your poetry into your medicine.” He calls those authors who indulge in their subtle theorizing; “doctors of writing, but not of the healing art.” He ridicules the idea of learning diseases or their treatment in books.
b. “That physician,” he says, “is but a poor creature, who would look to paper books alone for aid.”
c. The Galenic maxim, contraria contrariis, finds no favour with Paracelsus. “A contrariis curantur”, he says, “that is, hot removes cold and so forth – that is false and was never true in medicine; but arcanum and disease, these are contraria. Arcanum is health, and disease is the opposite of health: these two drive away one another; these are the contraries that remove one another.”
d. In another place, he says something similar: “Contraria non curantur contrariis”; like belongs to like, not cold against heat, not heat against cold. That were indeed a wild arrangement if we had to seek our safety in opposites. Again: “This,” says he, “is true, that he who will employ cold for heat, moisture for dryness, does not understand the nature of disease.” (Paramirum, p.68)

5. Classification of diseases: Like Hahnemann, he laughs at the notion of attempting to reduce all diseases to a certain number of classes and genera. “You imagine you have invented receipts for all the different fevers. You limit the number of fevers to seventy and not that there are five times seventy.” This is like Hahnemann.
6. On basic philosophy: Paracelsus said “God does not make clothes for men, but he gives them a tailor.” The “clothes” Paracelsus alluded to are, of course, the forms, or bodies, which our spirits are dressed in, and by the “tailor” he meant the constructive powers in Nature. The form of each man is the vehicle of his spirit and of all his powers, and it is this high function which makes it worth spending a life’s devotion in the work of keeping these forms in harmonic working order, or health. A man’s body is not only his spirit’s vehicle, it is his “Signature.” Like man everything else in nature has its signature, and Paracelsus has something very striking to say on this head which bears on the work of Hahnemann.

7. On law of Similia:
a. The homeopathic principle is still more completely set forth in his treatise, Von der Astronomey. He there says: “The nature of the arcana is, that they shall go directly against the properties or the enemy, as one combatant goes against another. Nature wills it that in the combat stratagem shall be employed agonist stratagem, etc., and this is the natural case with all things on earth; in medicine also, the same rule prevails. The physician should let this be an example to him, As two foes go out to the combat, who are both cold or both hot, and who attack one another both with the same weapon: as the victory is, so also is it in the human body; the two combatants seek their aid from the same mother, that is, from the same power.”

b. Still more distinctly, he enunciates our principle in these words: “What makes jaundice that also cures jaundice and all its species. 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”In like manner, the medicine that shall cure paralysis must proceed from that which causes it; and in this way we practice according to the method of cure by arcana. (Archidoxis, vol iii, pt.v. p.18).

c. Paracelsus’s system was eminently a system of specific medicine, and in many points his therapeutic rule resembles that of Hahnemann, when he says, “likes must be driven out (or cured) by likes;” but the meaning of this, in the Paracelsian sense, generally comes to this, that the disease of the brain, the heart, the liver, etc., must be expelled by that medicine which represents the brain, the heart, or the liver, in consequence of its specific action on one of these organs. Thus he says: “Heart to heart, lung to lung, spleen to spleen – not cow’s spleen, not swine’s brain to man’s brain, but the brain that is external brain to man’s internal brain.” “The medicinal herbs are organs; this is a heart, that a liver, this other a spleen. That every heart is visible to the eye as a heart I will not say, but it is a power and a virtue equivalent to the heart.”

d. “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”.

e. 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”.

f. 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 mirror.” 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”.

8. On minute doses: Apart from the previous example another point of resemblance between them is seen for extremely minute doses. In his book On the Causes and Origin of Lues Gallica (lib. v. p.11), Paracelsus compares the medicinal power of the drug to fire. “As a single spark can ignite a great heap of wood, indeed, can set a whole forest in flames, in like manner can a very small dose of medicine overpower a great disease”. “And,” he proceeds, “just as this spark has no weight, so the medicine given, however small may be its weight, should suffice to effect its action.” How like this is to Hahnemann.

9. On olfaction: The following passage shows that Paracelsus anticipated Hahnemann in the employment of medicines by olfaction. Speaking of specifics, he says: “They have many rare powers, and they are very numerous; there is, for instance, the Specificum odoriferum, which cures diseases when the patients are unable to swallow the medicine, as in apoplexy and epilepsy.” (Parac. Op., vol. iii. pt. vi. p.70. Basel, 1589)

10. On doctrine of signature: 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. The yellow remedies used for jaundice due to their resemblance in colour. Hahnemann himself used to believe this as a source of materia medica and sited a huge number of examples in his literature. “Magic inventrix,” he writes, “finds everywhere what is needed, and more than will be required. The soul does not perceive the external or internal physical construction of herbs and roots, but it intuitively perceives their powers and virtues, and recognises at once their Signatum. “This signatum (or signature) is a certain organic or vital activity, giving to each natural object (in contradistinction to artificially-made objects) a certain similarity with a certain condition produced by disease, and through which health may be restored in specific diseases of the diseased part. “This signatum is often expressed even in the exterior form of things, and by observing that form we may learn something in regard to their interior qualities even without using our interior sight. We see that the internal character of a man is often expressed, even in the manner of his walking and the sound of his voice. Likewise the hidden character of things is to a certain extent expressed in their outward forms. As long as man remained in a natural state he recognised the signatures of things and knew their true character; but the more he became captivated by illusive external appearances, the more this power became lost.”

Paracelsus’s system, as far as we can learn it from his works, was a rude homeopathy, an attempt to discover specifics for the various diseases to which man is liable but it was not equal in value to Hahnemann’s system, for an uncertainty almost as great as that of the old system attended it.

Afore said examples are enough to substantiate that vast resemblance lies in some passages of Organon and in the minor writings of Hahnemann. Some parts of Paracelsus’s works is so very striking, that it is difficult to believe that Hahnemann did not take them from Paracelsus; and yet had he done so, would he not have acknowledged the fact? The reasons may be two. The first is Hahnemann tried to keep homoeopathy away from all controversies attached with Paracelsus. Paracelsus, in spite of all his genius, is considered as one of the greatest medical showman who’s any theory could not be able to self explanatory. So, attaching his name in this newly developed medical theory may hinder its acceptability. And the second is the Greats of the world; say Goethe called Hahnemann ‘This new Theophrastus«’ that is identified him with the old Greek Master. So, he may not felt to bring back Paracelsus again. Moreover there remain vast differences of opinion between Hahnemann and Paracelsus which led Hahnemann to restrain using his name. But whatever may the fact be, the smell of the basics of Homoeopathy is potentially present in the text of Paracelsus.

Alchemy is considered as the chemistry of the Middle Ages and the 16th cent.: now usu. connoting the pursuit of the transmutation of baser metals into gold, and the search for the elixir of life, etc. (Oxford Dictionary)
City in northern Italy, capital of a province of the same name
German priest and scholar whose questioning of certain church practices led to the Protestant Reformation
Iranian physician, the most famous and influential of the philosopher-scientists of Islam. He was particularly noted for his contributions in the fields of Aristotelian philosophy and medicine.

Greek physician, writer, and philosopher who exercised a dominant influence on medical theory and practice in Europe from the middle Ages until the mid-17th century. His authority in the Byzantine world and the Muslim Middle East was similarly long-lived.
) Sentence to exclusion from the Christian sacraments or from communication with the faithful; expel from a religious society or community.

Encyclopedia Britannica 2007
History of Modern philosophy/Richard Flackenberg/ Progressive publisher/Calcutta/ 1962/ P = 27
Any of various systems of belief which maintain that a knowledge of God may be achieved by spiritual ecstasy, direct intuition, or special individual revelations
Rooted in the Upanishads are the six Hindu systems of philosophy (Vedanta, Yoga, Mimamsa, Nyaya, Sankhya, and Vaisheshika) and their abundant writings. Grammar, etymology, lexicography, prosody, rhetoric, music, and architecture each have a technical literature. / Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia / 1993-2004

Saṃkhyā adopts a consistent dualism of the orders of matter (prakriti) and soul, or self (purusha). The two are originally separate, but in the course of evolution purusha mistakenly identifies itself with aspects of prakriti. Right knowledge consists of the ability of purusha to distinguish itself from prakriti. In Saṃkhyā there is belief in an infinite number of similar but separate purushas (“selves”), no one superior to the other. Purusha and prakriti being sufficient to explain the universe, the existence of a god is not hypothesized. The purusha is ubiquitous, all-conscious, all-pervasive, motionless, unchangeable, immaterial, and without desire. Prakriti is the universal and subtle (i.e., unmanifest) matter, or nature, and, as such, is determined only by time and space.

An Epitome of The History of Philosophy/ by C. S. Henry/ www.archive.org
Paracelsus; Books and writings / Husersche Quartanusgabe, 1589 – 91, Book IX, p = 383 / C. R. History of Homoeopathy / Linn J. Boyd / Ibid/ P = 19

The word Homeopathy was derived by Hahnemann by some years later from the Greek words, “homoeos” – similar and “pathos” – diseases thus “similar diseases” or the treatment of like with a like. Though the name homoeopathy was not supported by number of homoeopaths on later days, as it cannot bring the basic essence in light. The names like homoeosympathy, homoeodynamics (Dr. Wiss), idiopathic mode of treatment, dynamo-therepy, homoeo-therapeia, Hahnemannianism, homoeo-pharma-copathy and etc are proposed. But Hahnemann used this term. This word appeared for the first time in the essay entitled “Indications of the homoeopathic employment of medicines in ordinary people” published in Hufeland’s journal in 1807/ Samuel Hahnemann, His life and time / Trevor Cook/ B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 2001/ P= 79
Burnett used to say that Hahnemann did not give to Paracelsus as much credit as was his due/ Hahnemann and Paracelsus / J. H. Clark
‘His mission is not, however, to construct so-called systems, by interweaving empty speculations and hypotheses concerning the internal essential nature of the vital processes and the mode in which diseases originate in the interior of the organism ….’ / Footnote mission Section 1 / Organon of Medicine/ VI th. Edition
R. E. Dudgeon/ On the Theory and Practice of Homeopathy
¥ A pharmaceutical chemist
The homoeopathic physician, who does not entertain the foregone conclusion devised by the ordinary school (who have fixed upon a few names of such fevers, besides which mighty nature dare not produce any others, so as to admit of their treating these disease according to some fixed method), does not acknowledge the names goal fever, bilious fever, typhus fever, putrid fever, nervous fever or mucous fever, but treats them each according to their several peculiarities./ Foot Note 73/ Organon of Medicine
Hahnemann and Paracelsus / J. H. Clark
Early conception of Similia / Asian Homoeopathic Times/ 1994/ April/ New Delhi/ P = 8 – 12
R. E. Dudgeon/ On the Theory and Practice of Homeopathy
Here comes his great theory of Signature, means there remains some resemblance between drug and the disease.
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
…..the dose of the homeopathically selected remedy can never be prepared so small that it shall not be stronger than the natural disease, and shall not be able to overpower, extinguish and cure it, at least in part as long as it is capable of causing some, though but a slight preponderance of its own symptoms over those of the disease resembling it (slight homoeopathic aggravation, (§§ 157-160) immediately after its ingestion./ Section 279/ Organon of Medicine / VI edition
Early conception of Similia/ Asian Homoeopathic Times / 1994/ April / New Delhi / P = 8 -12
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 the Chelidonium, 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
Hahnemann and Paracelsus / J. H. Clark
R. E. Dudgeon/ On the Theory and Practice of Homeopathy
Ibid.
German poet, novelist, playwright, and natural philosopher, the greatest figure of the German Romantic period and of German literature as a whole.
Greek Peripatetic philosopher and pupil of Aristotle. He studied at Athens under Aristotle, and when Aristotle was forced to retire in 323 he became the head of the Lyceum, the academy in Athens founded by Aristotle. Under Theophrastus the enrollment of pupils and auditors rose to its highest point.
« Hahnemann and Homoeopathy/ Peter Morrell/ p = 178

Dr. Partha P. Ray
M.D. (Hom.) M.Sc. (Applied Psychology) P.G.D.G.C.
Dept. of Organon of Medicine & Hom. Philosophy
Panchasheel Homoeopathic Medical College, Hospital & P. G. Institute, Khamgaon
Email : ddithi31@gmail.com