Many examples might be adduced of diseases which, in the course of nature, have been homoeopathically cured by other diseases presenting similar symptoms, were it not necessary, as our object is to speak about something determinate and indubitable, to confine our attention solely to those (few) diseases which are invariably the same, arise from a fixed miasm, and hence merit a distinct name.
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 (Note: Traite del' inoculation, p. 189.) cured a chronic ophthalmia permanently, and Leroy(Note: Heilkunde fur Mutter, p. 384.) another.
An amaurosis of two years' duration consequent on suppressed scald-head, was perfectly cured by it, according to Klein. (Note: Interpres clinicus, p. 293.)
How often does smallpox cause deafness and dyspnoea! And both these chronic diseases it removed on reaching its acme, as J. Fr. Closs (Note: Neue Heilart der Kinderpocken, Ulm, 1769, p. 68; and Specim., obs. No. 18.) observed.
Swelling of the testicle, even of a very severe character, is a frequent symptom of smallpox, and on this account it was enabled, as Klein(Note: Op. cit.) observed, to cure, by virtue of similarity, a large hard swelling of the left testicle, consequent on a bruise. And another observer (Note: Nov. Act. Nat. cur., Vol. I. obs. 22.) saw a similar swelling of the testicle cured by it.
Among the troublesome symptoms of smallpox is dysenteric state of the bowels; and it subdued, as Fr. Wendt (Note: Nachricht von dem Krankeninstitut zu Erlangen, 1783.) 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 homoeopathically, 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, homoeopathically diminish very much the supervening smallpox and make it much milder,(Note: A new foot-note is added here in the sixth edition.) as Muhry (Note: Willan, Ueber die Kuhpockenimpfung, aus dem Engl., mit Zusatzen G. P. Muhry, Gottingen 1808.) and many others testify.
The inoculated cow-pox, whose lymph, besides the protective matter, contains the contagion of a general cutaneous eruption another nature, consisting of usually small, dry (rarely large, pustular) pimples, resting on a small red areola, frequently conjoined with round red cutaneous spots and often accompanied by the most violent itching, which rash appears in not a few children several days before, more frequently, however, after the red areola of the cow-pox, and goes off in a few days, leaving behind small, red, hard spots on the skin; the inoculated cow-pox, I say, after it has taken, cures perfectly and permanently, in a homoeopathic manner, by the similarity of this accessory miasm, analogous cutaneous eruptions of children, often of very long standing and of a very troublesome character, as a number of observers assert. (Note: Especially Clavier, Hurel and Desmormeaux, in the Bulletin des sciences madicales, publie par les members du comite central de la Soc. de Medecine du Departement del' Eure 1808; also in the Journal de medecine continue, vol. xv, p. 206.)
The cow-pox, a peculiar symptom of which is to cause tumefaction of the arm, (Note: Balhorn, in Hufeland's Journal 10, ii.) cured, after it broke out, a swollen half-paralysed arm. (Note: Stevenson, in Duncan's Annals of Medicine, lustr. 2. vol. I. pt. 2, No. 9.)
The fever accompanying cow-pox, which occurs at the time of the production of the red areola, cured homoeopathically intermittent fever in two individuals, as the younger Hardege (Note: In Hufeland's Journal, XXIII.) reports confirming what J. Hunter (Note: On the Venereal Disease, p. 4.) had already observed, that two fevers (similar diseases) cannot co-exist in the same body. (Note: The examples adduced in this place, in the former editions of the Organon except the last, of chronic maladies cured by the itch, (a) can according to the discoveries and explanations I had given in the first part of my book on Chronic Diseases, be looked upon as only in a certain degree homoeopathic cures. The great maladies which thereby disappeared (suffocative asthma of many year's standing and pulmonary phthisis) were themselves originally of psoric origin, widely spread life-threatening symptoms of an ancient psora that had been fully developed in the interior of the system, which was again transformed into the simple form of the primitive itch disease by the cutaneous eruption resulting from the new infection (as always happens in such cases), whereby the old malady and the dangerous symptoms were made to disappear. Such a transformation into the primitive form is therefore only to be considered as a homoeopathic healer of these extensive symptoms of highly developed ancient psora, in so far as the new infection puts the patient in a much more favorable condition to be cured of the whole psora by anti-psoric medicines).
The measles bear a strong resemblance in the character of its fever and cough to the whooping-cough, and hence it was that Bosquillion (Note: Cullen's Elements of the Practical Medicine, pt. 2, I. 3, Ch. vii.) noticed, in an epidemic where both these affections prevailed, that many children who then took measles remained free from whooping-cough during that epidemic. They would all have been protected from, and rendered incapable of being infected by, the whooping-cough in that and all subsequent epidemics, by the measles, if the whooping-cough were not a disease that has only a partial similarity to the measles, that is to say, if it had also a cutaneous eruption similar to what the latter possesses. As it is, however, the measles can but preserve a large number from whooping-cough homoeopathically, and that only in the epidemic prevailing at the time.
If, however, the measles come in contact with a disease resembling it in its chief symptom, the eruption, it can indisputably remove (Note: Or at least that symptom was removed.) and effect a homoeopathic cure of the latter. Thus a chronic herpetic eruption was entirely and permanently (homoeopathically) cured by the breaking out of the measles, as Kortum (Note: In Hufeland's Jouranal, xx, 3, p.50.) observed. An excessively burning miliary rash on the face, neck, and arms, that had lasted six years, and was aggravated by every change of weather, on the invasion of measles assumed the form of a swelling of the surface of the skin; after the measles had run its course the exanthem was cured, and returned no more. (Note: Rau, Ueber d, Werth des hom, Heilv, Hedielb., 1824, p. 85.).