HUMOCCE'LA. See Ultra:Lk.
HO f ront ho of feeling. from Stillieet to like feeling, from invm,s. bomOios, mithos, feeling).
dist inetive system of medicine elaborated by Samuel Hahnemann (q.v.) upon the suggestions of a min bog of predecessors. and published in 17911. Ilk chief dicta enunciated al. that time were as follows: "Every powerful medicinal snbslonce chives in the human body a peculiar kind of •ase: the more powerful the medieine, the more peculiar. marked, and violent the disease." "‘Ve .l)onlul imitate nature. which sometime: (-tires a chronic disease by supera Ilding another. and ploy, in the disease we wish to cure, that medi cine which is able to prodnee another very lar artificial disease, and the former will be Ile was brought to this coneltision through the toxic fects of drugs, as reeorded in the various works on materia medica, which lie was translating from English into German. and by experiments made upon himself and others in corroboration. It is not claimed that Hahnemann first noted similarity of drug action and diseased condition, fur many times in previous medical history had isolated instances been noticed; but lie was the first to urge a general application of his principles and to state the propositions upon which were based the new treatment. In 1SOG. in a treatise entitled The Medicine of Experience, he indicated the name by which the new system of treatment should be known. and thenceforward Homicor designated the science and art, as did 'homeopathic' the practitioner.
In 1810 he published the Organon of Rational Nedieine, which became and remains the em bodiment of the fundamental methods of bonne opatliy. These fundamentals may be stated briefly thus: (11 Proving of medicines upon the healthy.
(2) Selection and administration of medicines according to the law of similars.
(3) The single remedy.
(4) The minimum dose.
A medicine is 'proved,' according to the homeopathic method. as follows: A fluid ex tract or a tincture of a drug is selected for `proving.' Of this medicinal preparation a dose of one drop. two drops, or five drops is given to a healthy person at certain intervals, during which the person notes his symptoms. Gradually increasing doses are administered until the ex perimenter is satisfied and a set of tables of symptoms, believed to be caused by the drug in the healthy person. have been compiled. These tables of symptoms are then compared with symptoms noted in various diseases. rpon dis covering that a disease presents a similar set of symptoms to those noted, by the healthy person. as caused by the test drug. the honneopathist argues that this drug will be the remedy for this disease. His method of reasoning is that if a drug produces certain symptoms in health it will cure a disease which causes similar symptoms. Upon this basis lies the fundamental 'law of similars.' generally stated in Latin, similia simili bus eurantur.
In the way just described. Hahnemann proved upon himself and others more than ninety drugs.
Societies were formed for the purpose; and since his death many medicinal substances have been tested to learn toxic, pathogenic. and curative power. if any. Thus each drug had its patho genesis or 'picture.' and the one corresponding to the totality of diseased symptoms as elicited from the patient by the physician, if adminis tered, would, according to the homeopathic clafin, result in a cure. No two drugs having precisely the same picture and no two patients the like totality of symptoms. lie therefore in dividualized his cases, and declared that a single remedy should be given. Later in life he modi fied this to some extent. and. recognizing the genus epidemieus, prescribed without seeing the patients, as in the cholera epidemic of 1S:31.
When lie began prescribing according to his law. he gave massive doses; but. believing that the human system when diseased is much more sensitive than in health. he gradually lessened the quantity. Then it was that he wrote the Spirit of the lionuropathie Doctrine. in which lie argued the morbifie cause of disease and the dynamization of remedies. In regard to disease, Hahnemann recognized the morbifie Cause, which, acting upon the morbid properties in the tissues, developed disease. Therefore, lie argued, disease is a morbid prop.-my developed into an active pathological state by the influence of a corre sponding morbilic force. Likewise regarding drugs. His idea was that the drug forces are cosmic principles or agents of the same order as the disease-developing forces: the germinal principles inherent in the plant corresp. nil w ith the morbid properties in the tissues, and drugs correspond with the fully developed II isc axes believed that the morbific cause is in closer af finity with the drug than with the tissues Of the organism, and this union secures the restoration of the organism to a state of physiological har mony. Ile said. "As the human organism. even in health. is more readily influenced by drugs than by natural morbifie agents. this influence is felt in the highest degree by an organism which i • properly predisposed by disease, provided the artificial drug disease is honnropathie to the mutual malady. Hence the smallest dose of the remedial agent is sufficient for a cure. for the spiritual power of the medicine does not. in this instance, accomplish its object by means of quantity. but by potentiality and quality; a larger close might be injurious, for this reason, that a larger dose does not only not overcome the morbid affection more certainly than the smallest possible dose id the honacopathically ad ministered agent. but likewise imposes a complex medicinal disease, which is always a malady, though it runs its course in a shorter time." Herein lie the doctrines of small doses and 'medi cinal aggravations.' From this mode of account , for a cure in accordance with the law 'Simi lia similibus.' there naturally followed the 'po tentization' of drugs. according, to Hahnemann.