CHAPTER V.
HOMŒOPATHY CONTINUED. OLFACTION—EXTRACTS FROM PROF. SIMPSON—CONSIDERATIONS, ETC. ETC.
In his Lesser Writings, page 822, Hahnemann describes the manner by which simple globules, composed of nothing but sugar and starch, are to be medicated and prepared for use. This is done by shaking one medicated globule with several thousands of unmedicated globules. "This much (he observes) is deducible from experiments, that a single dry globule, imbibed with a high medicinal dynamization, communicates to 13500 unmedicated globules with which it is shaken for five minutes, medicinal power fully equal to what it possessed itself, without suffering any diminution of power itself." And he continues to say, "It seems that this marvellous communication takes place by means of proximity, and contact, and is a sort of infection, bearing a strong resemblance to the infection of healthy persons by a contagion brought near or in contact with them." Here one might suppose that Hahnemann had arrived at the acme of his fanciful speculations, and had taxed the credulity of his followers to the utmost of their endurance. But not so; he goes further. You are not allowed to swallow even these infected globules, but only to smell of them. This process he calls olfaction. The following is from a work by Prof. J. Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh, entitled "Homœopathy: its Tenets and Tendencies," page 74-77.
"Writing in 1833, Hahnemann observes: 'All that homœopathy is at all capable of curing (and what can it not cure beyond the domain of mere manual surgical affections?) among excessively chronic diseases that have not been quite ruined by allopathy, as also among acute diseases, will be most safely and certainly cured by this mode of Olfaction. I can scarcely (he adds) name one in a hundred out of the many patients who have sought the advice of myself and assistant during the past year, whose chronic or acute disease we have not treated with the most happy results, solely by means of this Olfaction. During the latter half of this year, moreover, I have become convinced of what I never could previously have believed, that by this mode of Olfaction, the power of the medicine is exercised upon the patient in at least the same degree of strength, and that more quietly, and yet just as long as when the dose of medicine is taken by the mouth; and that, consequently, the intervals at which the Olfaction should be repeated, should not be shorter than in the ingestion of the material dose by the mouth."—(Organon, p. 332.)
"Dr. Gross, using, as we have seen, medicines of the highest potency, 'often contented himself with allowing the patients to smell the remedy—whether with one or more globules at one time I am not aware—waiting patiently for four weeks or so, for the completion of the cure, not even permitting a second smell or dose, so mild yet certain is the remedial action.'
"Hahnemann appears to have employed the exhibition of his infinitesimal drugs by smelling in two different ways, viz.:—First, By sometimes making the patients smell a dried decillionth globule;—or, Secondly, By dissolving a globule or two in water and spirits, and making the patient hold his nose over the surface of this solution of it.
"In relation to the smelling of dried globules, Hahnemann observes, 'A globule, of which ten, twenty, or a hundred weigh a grain, impregnated with the 30th potentised dilution, and then dried, retains for this purpose (of olfaction) all its power undiminished for at least eighteen or twenty years (my experience extends this length of time), even though the phial be opened a thousand times during that period, if it be but protected from heat and the sun's light. But (he continues), should both nostrils be stopped up by coryza or polypus, the patient should inhale by the mouth, holding the orifice of the phial betwixt his lips. In little children, it may be applied close to their nostrils whilst they are asleep, with the certainty of producing an effect. The medicinal aura thus inhaled comes in contact with the nerves seated in the walls of the spacious cavities it traverses, without obstruction, and thus produces a salutary influence on the vital force in the mildest, yet most powerful manner. And this (he adds) is much preferable to any other mode of administering the medicaments in substance by the mouth.'—(Organon, p. 332. )
"In a note of Hahnemann's, translated by Dr. Dudgeon in his 'Lesser Writings,' the founder of homœopathy states—'A globule of this kind—for example, of staphisagræ, of the 30th dilution—which, in the course of twenty years, has been smelt several hundreds of times, after opening the bottle in which it was, for a certain symptom that always recurred of the same character, possesses at this hour equal power as at first, which could not be the case did it not continue exhaling its medicinal power in an inexhaustible manner.' Hahnemann further states: 'It is especially in the form of vapor, by smelling and inhaling the medicinal aura, that is always emanating from a globule, impregnated with a medicinal fluid in a high development of power, and placed, dry, in a small phial, that the homœopathic remedies act most surely and most powerfully. The homœopathic physician allows the patient to hold the open mouth of the phial first in one nostril, and in the act of inspiration inhale the air out of it, and then, if it is wished to give a stronger dose, smell in the same manner with the other nostril more or less strongly, according to the strength it is intended the dose should be.' — (Organon, p. 331.)
"Dr. Crosiero, of Paris, in a communication published subsequently to Hahnemann's death, gives some more particulars respecting the practice of Hahnemann in the last years of his life, of which he assures us he was often a witness. 'Hahnemann,' he writes, 'always made use of the well-known small globules, which were generally impregnated with the 30th dilution, both for acute and chronic diseases. . . . . . He latterly employed olfaction very frequently. For this end he put one or two globules in a small medicine phial, containing two drachms of alcohol, mixed with an equal quantity of water, which he caused to be inhaled once or twice with each nostril—never oftener. My own wife (says Dr. Crosiero) was cured by him in this manner of a violent pleurisy, in the course of five hours. In chronic diseases, happen what might, he never allowed this olfaction to be repeated oftener than once a week. And he gave besides, for internal use, nothing but plain milk-sugar. And in this manner he effected the most marvellous cures, even in cases in which the rest of us had been able to do nothing.'
"According to Hahnemann, even the olfaction or smelling of substances, which have no smell, may produce immediately direct and decided therapeutic effects. 'If,' says he, a grain of gold leaf be triturated strongly for an hour in a porcelain mortar with one hundred grains of sugar of milk, the powder that results (the first trituration) possesses a considerable amount of medicinal power. If a grain of this powder be triturated as strongly and as long with another hundred grains of sugar of milk, the preparation attains a much greater medicinal power, and if this process be continued, and a grain of the previous trituration be rubbed up as strongly and for as long a time, each time with a fresh hundred grains of sugar of milk, until, after fifteen such triturations, the quintillionth attenuation of the original grain of gold leaf is obtained, then the last attenuations do not display a weaker, but, on the contrary, the most penetrating, the greatest medicinal power of the whole of the attenuations. A single grain of the last (quintillionth) attenuation put into a small, clean phial, will restore a morbidly desponding individual, with a constant inclination to commit suicide, in less than an hour, to a peaceful state of mind, to love of life, to happiness, and horror of his contemplated act, if he perform but a single Olfaction in the phial, or put on his tongue a quantity of this powder no bigger than a grain of sand.'—(Lesser Writings, p. 821.)
"But what in reality is the quintillionth trituration of a grain of Gold—a single olfaction of which, Hahnemann, in the preceding paragraph, declares to be capable of restoring a morbidly desponding individual to a peaceful state of mind, etc.? To reduce a single grain of Gold, in accordance with Hahnemann's own rules, to the quintillionth trituration, a mass of sugar, not only higher and broader than the entire range of the Alps, or of the Andes, or of the Himalayas, but as large, at least, as fifty globes or worlds the size of the entire Earth, would be required. Yet Hahnemann avers that one single grain of Gold, distributed duly and equally through such an inconceivable mass, or series of masses, of sugar, would invest every single grain of these masses taken and put into a small clean phial, with a power of restoring a 'morbidly desponding individual, with a constant inclination to commit suicide, in less than an hour, to a peaceful state of mind, to love of life, to happiness, and horror of his contemplated act, if he perform but a single olfaction in the phial."
The method of treating diseases by what Hahnemann calls olfaction, seems to cap the climax of his great discoveries—it was the culminating point to which he finally arrived after long years of laborious investigation. He fixed upon this as the safest and most effectual method, and gave it his last approving touch. According to this idea, the insensible evaporation that is supposed to pass off from a few minute globules, which afford no sensible evidence of any thing more than starch and sugar of milk, is efficacious in removing disease. This was not a hasty scheme, or mere theory, with Hahnemann, but a method deliberately formed and adopted, and to which he conformed his practice for many years towards the close of his life; and it seems to deserve at least a brief consideration.
When we look around us, we see that both the animal and vegetable kingdoms are undergoing continual change. All organic matter is subject to decomposition, and the common atmosphere is the great sewer into which all the light particles of effete matter are thrown. With these the air around us is always charged, to a greater or less extent. We imbibe these matters by every inspiration. Sometimes the air which we breathe is highly charged with the delicious aroma of fragrant blossoms—at another, with the foetid effluvia of some filthy receptacle. At one time, we inhale the delightful flavor of the rose or lily; and at another, the noxious exhalations of the hemlock or deadly night-shade. The common air is always much more highly charged with medicinal substances than any of Hahnemann's smelling bottles ever were or ever could be. We seldom if ever breathe pure unadulterated atmospheric air. In crowded places it is laden with all sorts of animal exhalations, and we cannot live in the vicinity of the hemlock or henbane, without imbibing more or less of their poisonous emissions. Every peach blossom imparts to the surrounding air hydrocyanic acid, and every poppy exhales opium. And the doses of such things which we daily and unconsciously receive into our systems, exceed, by millions and millions of times, any amount that could ever be administered by Hahnemann's method of olfaction. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the air which we breathe every day, brings on the wings of the wind, from the noxious plants of India, and the venomous serpents of Peru, poisons, which after their thousand attenuations and succussions, would be sufficient to destroy all mankind, if there was any truth in Hahnemann's doctrines. The poisonous fumes of smelting ores in Illinois and California, would reach and cut off the farthest tenant of the globe, if succussion and attenuation increased instead of diminishing their intensity. These considerations might well lead us to inquire whether Hahnemann was so monstrously deceived himself, or only sought to deceive others? This question I shall not attempt to decide, but will leave it for his disciples to dispose of as they think proper. One or the other of the propositions must be true—Hahnemann was either a monomaniac or a great deceiver.
But I am told that homœopathic practitioners no longer treat diseases by the method of olfaction. That may be true, although it was the very essence of all Hahnemann's pretended discoveries. This I do know, that, not many years ago, I attended a very respectable lady, who previous to my attendance had been under the care of a homœopathic practitioner. Her cottage was situated in the midst of an immense flower garden, at that time in full blossom, and the air all around, in and out of doors, was fragrant with the aroma of a thousand flowers. This lady patient informed me that at one time, when her homœopathic attendant came in, he found her with a common red rose in her hand, and said to her, "Mrs. , you must not smell of roses, for, if you do, my medicine will not have any effect upon you!" I told her that the homœopathic practitioner had probably told her the truth, once at least; for if his medicines were genuine homœopathic attenuations, they would not have any effect upon her, whether she did or did not smell of the rose. The brain of this man probably retained some glimpses of the power of olfaction.