In order to show the axiom, similia similibus curantur (or like is cured
by like), to be the basis of the healing art,--"the sole law of nature in
therapeutics,"--it is necessary,
1. That the symptoms produced by drugs in healthy persons should be
faithfully studied and recorded.
2. That drugs should be shown to be always capable of curing those
diseases most like their own symptoms.
3. That remedies should be shown not to cure diseases when they do not
produce symptoms resembling those presented in these diseases.
1. The effects of drugs upon healthy persons have been studied by
Hahnemann and his associates. Their results were made known in his
Materia Medica, a work in three large volumes in the French translation,
published about eight years ago. The mode of experimentation appears to
have been, to take the substance on trial, either in common or minute
doses, and then to set down every little sensation, every little movement
of mind or body, which occurred within many succeeding hours or days, as
being produced solely by the substance employed. When I have enumerated
some of the symptoms attributed to the power of the drugs taken, you will
be able to judge how much value is to be ascribed to the assertions of
such observers.
The following list was taken literally from the Materia Medica of
Hahnemann, by my friend M. Vernois, for whose accuracy I am willing to
be responsible.
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