Dr. Hahnemann was not satisfied with imaginary
relationship between color, odor, external features etc. to know and use the drug substances for the treatment of patients. The reason behind is we cannot understand the correct and complete action of any drug substance by such limited concepts. Dr. Hahnemann call it as haphazard prescriptions. Let’s see
some references from Hahnemannian original writings.
- Materia Medica Pura:
He starts the preface with following – “It is impossible to divine the internal essential nature of diseases and the changes they effect in the hidden parts of the body, and it is absurd to frame a system of treatment on such hypothetical surmises and assumptions it is impossible to divine toe medicinal properties of remedies from any chemical hypotheses or from their smell, color, or taste, and it is absurd to attempt, from such hypothetical surmises and assumptions, to apply to the treatment of diseases these substances, which are so hurtful when wrongly administered. And even were such practice ever so customary and ever so generally in use, were it even the only one in vogue for thousands of years, it would nevertheless continue to be a senseless and pernicious practice to found on empty surmises our idea of the morbid condition of the anterior, and to attempt to combat this with equally imaginary properties of medicines. Appreciable, distinctly appreciable to our senses must that be, which is to be removed in each disease in order to transform it into health, and right clearly must each remedy express what it can positively cure, if medical art is to be a wanton game of hazard with human life, and to commence to be the sure deliverer from diseases. I shall show what there is undeniably curable in diseases, and how the curative properties of medicines are to be distinctly perceived and employed for curative purposes.”
- Aph. 110: I saw, moreover, that the morbid lesions which previous authors had observed to result from medicinal substances when taken into the stomach of healthy persons, either in large doses given by mistake or inorder to produce death in themselves or others, or under othercircumstances, accorded very much with my own observations when experimenting with the same substances on myself and other healthy
individuals. These authors give details of what occurred as histories of poisoning and as proofs of the pernicious effects of these powerful substances, chiefly in order to warn others from their use; partly also for the sake of exalting their own skill, when, under the use of the remedies they employed to combat these dangerous accidents, health gradually returned; but partly also, when the persons so affected died under their treatment, in order to seek their own justification in the dangerous character of these substances, which they then termed poisons. None of these observers ever dreamed that the symptoms they recorded merely as proofs of the noxious and poisonous character of these substances were sure revelations of the power of these drugs to extinguish curatively similar symptoms occurring in natural disease, that these their pathogenetic phenomena were intimations of their homeopathic curative action, and that the only possible way to ascertain their medicinal powers is to observe those changes of health medicines are capable of producing in the healthy organism; for the pure, peculiar
powers of medicines available for the cure of disease are to be learned neither by any ingenious a priori speculations, nor by the smell, taste or appearance of the drugs, nor by their chemical analysis, nor yet by the employment of several of them at one time in a mixture (prescription) in diseases; it was never suspected that these histories of medicinal diseases would one day furnish the first rudiments of the true, pure materia medica, which from the earliest times until now has consisted solely of false conjectures and fictions of the imagination – that is to say, did not exist at all.
- Chapter "Examination of the Sources of the Ordinary Materia Medica" from Lesser Writings of Dr. Hahnemann
- Introduction to the remedy Chelidonium from Materia Medica Pura: The ancients imagined that the yellow colour of the juice of this plant was an indication (signature) of its utility in bilious diseases. The moderns from this extended its employment to hepatic diseases, and though there were cases where the utility of this plant in maladies of that region of the abdomen was obvious, yet the diseases of this organ differ so much among one another, both in their origin and in the attendant derangements of the rest of the organism; moreover, the cases in which it is said to have done good have been so imperfectly described by physicians, that it is impossible from their data to tell beforehand the cases of disease in which it must certainly be of use; and yet this is indispensably necessary in the treatment of diseases of mankind which are of such serious importance. Hence, a recommendation of this sort (ab usu in morbis) is of but a general, undefined, and dubious character, especially since this plant was so seldom given simply and singly by physicians, but almost always in combination with heterogeneous, powerful substances (dandelion, fumitory, water-cresses), and along with the simultaneous employment of the so-called bitters, which vary so much in their effects. The importance of human health does not admit of any such uncertain directions for the employment of medicines. It would be criminal frivolity to rest contented with such guesswork at the bedside of the sick. Dr. Hahnemann, clearly deny to speculate about the action of any drug substance by mere smell, taste, color of juice, shapes or external features and appearances etc. as we get very limited data about the action of any drug substances when the same drug substance if thoroughly proved gives number of signs and symptoms, which helps us to cure many disease states. It is impossible to know about the dynamic action of drug substance by limited relationship of above doctrine. Dr. Hahnemann, discovered the unique method of drug proving on healthy human beings to know the enormous healing capacities hidden in latent state of any drug substance which are activated by the process of dynamization.
Some of the materia medicas of ancient times were not knowing any method of judging the healing powers of drug substances, so they tried to know action & healing capacities of drug substances by mere guesswork which leading to more harm than usefulness. So Homeopathy physicians should not limit themselves by this concept of Doctrine of Signature. Let’s understand the uniqueness & superior method of judging action & healing capacities of any drug substances through proving data of our original materia medica for the benefit of suffering humanity at large.
