The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 431 of 653tion of the acarus or some other coexisting agent is the cause ofthe disorder. The doctrine has been started that acari, like Cantharides, contain some corrosive poison which is communicated tothe skin and becomes the origin of a chronic itch-dyscrasia. Butmany other irritations of the skin produce the same symptoms asthe itch, without a virus having been their cause ; we notice, moover, that the itch is always confined to the localities occupiedthe acari; that it spreads in proportion as the acari increase innumber, and that it ceases to spread as soon as the acari are destroyed. In such a case the consecutive cutaneous phenomena mayremain for some time, but the same thing takes place in the caseof eczematous eruptions occasioned by other cutaneous irritants,and which, in the long run, had assumed the character of independent diseases. There is not a single symptom connected with thewhole course of the itch, that might lead us to think that the cosecutive phenomena in the case of the itch differ from those manifested by other kinds of vermin, such as lice or fleas. If we areasked whether all the old doctrines about the terrible consequencof the itch are false, we answer that we partially admit and partially reject them. They are unfounded in so far as they originatin the hypothesis of a specific itch-virus ; on the other hand, tare founded in so far as the itch, especially if the disease remafor a long time uncured, and more particularly as it used to bemanaged in former times, may superinduce consecutive diseases.If the body is rubbed for a long time with ointments containingnoxious substances, the organism undoubtedly suffers in consequenof such a proceeding, and no homoeopalh would want to deny this.The absurd bathing for hours, sweating for days in overheatedrooms, and other similar measures, may make the healthiest personsick, and develop germs of sickness in an apparently healthy individual. Even the continued disturbance of the cutaneous functionsby the itch may cause sickness, the more so, the more coexistingconstitutional disturbances affect the exanthem unfavorably andvice versa.The best proof that the itch is not a constitutional disease, iaafforded by the circumstance that, if the destruction of the acamScabies, Itch. 511is effected with all due caution, the equilibrium of the organismnever disturbed by such a proceeding. This view does not upsetthe formerly entertained doctrines of secondary diseases resultinfrom the suppression of the itch. Only if such secondary affectioresulted, it was not the itch but prurigo. Those who had no knowledge of the acarus, must necessarily have mistaken prurigo for thitch, and it is the suppression of prurigo that leads to the mostdangerous constitutional diseases and more particularly to tuberculosis.After these remarks we need not say what we think of Hahnemann's theory of psora and of Psoricum as a medicinal agent.Psoricum might have had something in its favor, if it had beenprepared from the acari themselves.Treatment, Although we have tried in the course of thiswork, to be in accord with our homoeopathic Colleagues in mostthings, yet in the matter of scabies we have to differ with manyhttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt