This document summarizes key points from Samuel Hahnemann's "Spirit of the Homoeopathic Doctrine of Medicine". It discusses several of Hahnemann's fundamental beliefs about medicine and disease, including that the internal nature of diseases cannot be known and it is absurd to frame treatment on hypothetical assumptions. It also discusses Hahnemann's view that life can only be known empirically, derangement of vitality causes disease, symptoms must be cured dynamically by agents that produce similar symptoms, and the smallest dose of the most potent remedy is needed to achieve cure. The document aims to highlight the important principles of Hahnemann's homoeopathic approach.
4. • The German original was first
published in 1813 and again in
1833, in the revised second
edition of the Materia Medica
Pura.
• Translated and edited by
R. E.Dudgeon, 1852
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5. ✣ It is impossible to divine the internal
essential nature of diseases, and it is
absurd to frame a system of treatment
on such hypothetical assumptions.
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6. ✣ It is impossible to explain the
medicinal properties of remedies
from chemical theories or smell,
colour or taste, and it is absurd to
attempt, from such assumptions, to
apply to the treatment of diseases.
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7. ✣ Life can only be known empirically from its
phenomena and manifestations. What life is, in its
actual essential nature, can never be ascertained nor
even guessed at, by mortals.7
8. ✣ Life – not just a mechanical
action of body (like hydraulic
machines)
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10. ✣ Healthy state of an organism lies in
vitality that animates. Derangement of
this vitality is termed as disease.
(giving rise to pathology)
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11. ✣ The exciting cause of a disease acts on
life dynamically 1st, giving rise to a
pathology
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12. ✣ Then we perceive the dynamic
derangements of vitality from head to
foot as symptoms (objects to be
cured).
✣ When symptoms disappears health
remains
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13. ✣ Dynamic derangements cannot be
cured by it selves, so has to be cured
virtually and dynamically by agents
capable of producing similar
derangements (remedy).
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