Commentary on Organon of Medicine: Aphorism 8

by Dr Prasad Arvind Rasal

APHORISM: § 8 It is not conceivable, nor can it be proved by any experience in the world, that, after removal of all the symptoms of the disease and of the entire collection of the perceptible phenomena, there should or could remain anything else besides health, or that the morbid alteration in the interior could remain uneradicated.(5)

FOOTNOTE: 5

When a patient has been cured of his disease by a true physician, in such a manner that no trace of the disease nor morbid symptom, remains, and all the signs of health have permanently returned, how can anyone, without offering an insult to common sense, affirm in such an individual the whole bodily disease still remains in the interior?

And yet the chief of the old school, Hufeland, asserts this in the following words: "Homoeopathy can remove the symptoms, but the disease remains." (Vide Homoepathie, p. 27, 1, 19.) This he maintains partly from mortification at the progress made by homoeopathy to the benefit of mankind, partly because he still holds thoroughly material notions respecting disease, which he is still unable to regard as a state of being of the organism wherein it is dynamically altered by the morbidly deranged vital force, as an altered state of health, but he views the disease as a something material, which, after the cure is completed, may still remain lurking in some corner in the interior of the body, in order, some day during the most vigorous health, to burst forth at its pleasure with its material presence!

So dreadful is still the blindness of the old pathology! No wonder that it could only produce a system of therapeutics which is solely occupied with scouring out the poor patient.


Prasad Rasal:

After explaining the Importance of the Totality of the Symptoms, Dr Samuel Hahnemann wanted to explain that removal of the Totality of the Symptoms means the removal of the disease in its full extent. Because, Totality of the Symptoms is the expression of the internal dynamic disorder of the Vital Force. If this totality disappears in toto, naturally the internal disease disappears.
Already, James Krauss has explained this concept in his Introduction to the Sixth Edition of the Organon in the sentence: Cessat Effectus Cessat Causa means remove the effects and you remove the disease, the cause of the effects.

Foot Note: In this foot note, Dr Samuel Hahnemann mentioned the criticism done by Hufeland, the chief of the old school during his time in the following words: "Homoeopathy can remove the symptoms, but the disease remains." Dr Hahnemann explained the two reasons behind the criticism of Hufeland.

1. After understanding the dynamic concept of the disease, Hufeland might be thinking the cause of the disease is material. For e.g. If a patient of Enteric Fever or Typhoid comes towards a Homoeopath, naturally his Widal Test is positive because Widal Test measures the titre of the antibodies against the Salmonella antigen. If the titre is above 1:80, it is considered as a positive test and a person is labelled as a typhoid patient. After prescribing him the Homoeopathic medicine, naturally due to the dynamic stimulus, his immune system starts reacting in a natural manner producing more antibodies against the antigen. His complaints disappear after the medicine, but the titre increases as the antibodies get increased. As the old school measures the disease in the material form, according to their concept it looks as if Homoeopathy can remove the symptoms, but the disease remains. This is only because of a wrong concept and logic was used by the old school.
    
2.  The second reason explained by the Hahnemann was that Hufeland might not had ever liked the progress of this dynamic homoeopathic science. But, I personally, don't think it so. It's definitely due to strong hold of the Materialistic Concept in Hufeland's mind.

At the end of the foot note, He again criticized the Materialistic & Pathological aspect of the Old School.