CLARKE JH, Homoeopathy Explained - Classical Homeopathy Online

Opium will prove the remedy most like to the case.
These are a few of the points of “likeness” which the homoeopath must look for if he is
to make successful prescriptions. This is the “likeness” which Hahnemann referred to
when he formulated his law that “Likes cure Likes”. To the unprofessional observer it
might seem a more desirable thing to find pictures of entire diseases, and thus find a
remedy for each; but in practice that would not work so well. Hahnemann has by the art
he revealed liberated the Materia Medica and the prescriber. Any remedy is thus available
for use in a case of any disease, and the prescriber is free to select his remedy throughout
the entire range.
Serum therapeutics and nosodes
It can hardly have escaped the notice of intelligent observers that the recently introduced
treatment of diseases by “serums” and “vaccines” is a species of homeopathy – of likes
curing likes. This was, indeed, admitted by Dr. Roux, one of the discoverers of the antidiphtheritic
serum. 1 The process by which this serum is obtained is by diluting the
original poison by introducing it into the blood-current of the horse. The blood drawn
from the horse after such treatment correspond to a homeopathic attenuation of the
original virus. The method of administering the serum – by injection under the skin – is
not a method much in favour among homoeopaths; but the treatment is certainly on the
like-to-like principle.
Homoeopaths, as I mentioned above in my reference to Tuberculin, have recognised the
possibility of making remedies from the viruses of diseases themselves, in the same way
as they have tamed for therapeutic use the poisons of serpents and stings of insects.
Hahnemann himself was the first to recognise this possibility. Only, in homoeopathy, a
diseases-remedy must be used like every other remedy on the indications afforded by its
effects. Take Tuberculin for an example. Tuberculin will not cure every case of
tuberculosis; whilst, on the other hand, Tuberculin will cure many affections which are
only remotely allied to tuberculosis, or which are not tuberculous at all. Tuberculin and
all other “nosodes”, as they are called in homeopathic terminology, must be studied like
all other remedies in their effects on the healthy. To this end they must be proved, and
proved in the high potencies. This is rendered possible by the homoeopathic method of
preparing the potencies, and by the existence of persons sensitive to agencies in this form.
Hahnemann made the first proving of a nosode, namely, the nosode of Psora, named
Psorinum is one of the most trusted agents in the Materia Medica, answering curatively in
any case in which its leading features are prominent.
It has been contended that this is not homoeopathy – cure by “likes” – but isopathy –
cure by “identicals”. Hahnemann met this objection by showing that the
homoeopathically prepared nosode is not identical with the original virus, but only like it,
the process of preparation having altered it. “I call Psorinum”, he says, “a homoeopathic
antipsoric, because, of the preparation of Psorinum did not alter its nature to that of a
homeopathic remedy, it never could have any effect upon an organism tainted with the
same identical virus. The psoric virus, by undergoing the processes of trituration and
shaking, becomes just as much altered in its nature as gold does, the homeopathic
preparations of which are not inert substances in the animal economy, but powerfully
acting agents.” (Chronic Diseases, vol. i., p. 196.)
The value of nosodes in homoeopathic practice is becoming every day more and more
apparent. The late Dr. J. C. Burnett did more than any other single observer to develop