Before understanding the use of the external application and its contraction in local maladies let’s just understand the local maladies first. Local maladies also known as local diseases are one-sided diseases, where changes and ailments appear on the external parts of the body. Local maladies are not purely local but the rest of the body also participates in the development of the disease process. All parts of the organism are interdependent; no symptom will develop exclusively independently.
Some disturbance in one part may generate changes in the other parts of the body. In every disease, the entire organism reacts as a whole. So the local diseases are not truly local. Local maladies can be from an external cause or internal cause. The allopathic physicians consider local maladies as purely local problems. They try to destroy the local symptoms through corrosive or desiccative external applications.
Such a procedure removes the local symptoms but makes the infection worse. This is because, with the removal of external symptoms alone, the chief complaint has been removed. When the external complaint is removed, identification of the internal suffering becomes very difficult (§ 199).
In cases where the external complaints are removed by the ointments, it becomes difficult to decide whether the cure has taken place or not, as the external visible complaint has been robbed of by the external applications (§ 200). The vital force produces local symptoms in order to smooth the internally well-developed miasmatic disease.
As long as the local symptoms are present on the skin the inner parts of the body are safer but the vital force is not capable of curing itself from the miasmatic disease without the help of the homeopathic remedies. As a result, the disease progresses internally (§ 201).
The old school physicians (allopathic physicians), by their cruel methods like issues and setons, tried to keep on draining the material discharges from the external ailments. They do this in the name of following nature. They always believed in the materia peccans. But such practice will never cure the disease.
On the contrary, prolonged use of violent procedures like issues and setons will make the patient weaker and weaker (§ 201-202). When the old school physician tries to destroy the local symptom by violent procedures, the nature tries to increase the internal disease. Procedures like applying ointments on the psoric eruption, burning off the chancres by caustics, and destroying the condylomata with the knife, ligatures and cautery will invariably increase the internal miasmatic diseases. These procedures can be termed as the main sources of innumerable number of named and unnamed chronic diseases of today (§ 203).
Local/ External application in homeopathy is not allowed by Master Hahnemann except in some special conditions mentioned in the 6th edition of ‘Organon of Medicine’, from Sec. 284 to Sec. 285.
§284: Besides the tongue, mouth and stomach, which are most commonly affected by the administration of medicine, the nose and respiratory organs are receptive to the action of medicines in fluid form by means of olfaction and inhalation through the mouth. But the whole remaining skin of the body clothed with epidermis, is adapted to the action of medicinal solutions, especially if the injunction is connected with simultaneous internal administration.
§285: In this way, the cure of a very old disease may be furthered by the physician applying externally, rubbing it in the back, arms, and extremities, the same medicine he gives internally and which showed itself curatively. In doing so, he must avoid parts subject to pain or spasm or skin eruption.
