Prefatory note to Materia Medica section.

I have been desired, by the publishers of this new translation of Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases, to exercise a certain editorial superintendence over that what may be called the Materia Medica section of the work. I shall do this mainly by notes appended to each pathogenesis ; but in the present place I desire to state what is known in a general way about the symptom-lists in question, [*] and what I propose to do for them as they severally appear in the following pages.

[] The information we have on this subject is fully given at page 31 of the latter editions of my Pharmacodynamics*. My present statement is based upon what is written here.

Ammonium carbonicum, Baryta carbonica, Calcarea carbonica, Graphites, Iodium, Lycopodium, Magnesia carbonica, Magnesia muriatica, Natrum carbonicum, Nitri acidum, Petroleum, Phosphorus, Sepia, Silicea, Zincum.

The pathogeneses of the foregoing (I assume them to be such from the analogy of the corresponding symptom-lists of the Materia Medica Pura ; but they are not avowedly so) appear without a word of explanation as to how the symptoms were obtained, and without acknowledgement (as in the previous work) of fellow-observers. The absence of any co-operation on the part of others is further to be inferred from what we are told of the first announcement of the work. After six years of solitude at Cœthen, Hahnemann "summoned thither his two oldest and most esteemed disciples, Drs. Stapf and Gross, and communicated to them his theory of the origin of chronic disease, and his discovery of a completely new series of medicaments for their cure". So writes Dr. Dudgeon. [*] This was in 1827. That he should now first reveal these new remedies, and in the following year should publish copious lists of their pathogenetic effects confirms the inference to be drawn from his position and from his silence as to fellow-observers. He was himself between seventy and eighty years old, and it is hardly likely that he did anything at this time in the way of proving on his own person. We are compelled to the conclusion that he drew these symptoms mainly -if not entirely- from the sufferers from chronic disease who flocked to his retreat to avail themselves of his treatment.

[*] Lectures on Homœopathy, p. xxx.

The prefatory notices to the several medicines still further substantiate this view, and throw some light on the doses with which the symptoms were obtained. He recommends all the medicines to be given in the dilutions from the 18th to the 30th (save Magnesia muriatica and Natrum carbonicum, of which he advises the 6th and 12th respectively) ; and repeatedly makes some such remark as this : "For a long time past I have given the 6th, 9th and 12th potencies, but found their effects too violent". Occasionally, too, he must have used the second and third triturations ; as he speaks of having begun by giving a "small portion of a grain" of these, but, as this was an indefinite quantity, having subsequently dissolved and attenuated them. He mentions cases, moreover, in which he treated itch with Carbo vegetabilis and Sepia of the latter strength.

We may conclude, therefore, that it is these "violent effects" of the attenuations from the 2nd to the 12th, experienced by the sufferers from chronic disease who took them, which make up the bulk -if not the whole- of the symptoms of the first issue of the Chronic Diseases.

In 1830 there appeared a third volume (making the fourth of the first edition) of symptom-lists, appended to two more new medicines -Kali carbonicum and Natrum muriaticum, and to five others- Carbo animalis and vegetabilis, Causticum, Conium and Sulphur -which had already found place in the Materia Medica Pura. Of the new ones we are told that two persons co-operated in obtaining the pathogenesis of Kali carbonicum and three in that of Natrum muriaticum- in the case of the latter the symptoms being obtained from healthy persons taking globules saturated with the 30th dilution. [] Fresh associates are also acknowledged with regard to Conium. A new character is thus imprinted on the symptoms standing under the names of the several medicines, and it continues with respect to those contained in the second edition of the Chronic Diseases, published 1835-9, which is that here translated. Besides the twenty-two medicines of the first edition it contains twenty-five others, of which thirteen are new, and twelve had already appeared in the Materia Medica Pura*.

[] A specimen of these provings may be seen in the Monthly Hom. Review* for 1889, p. 517.

The new ones are :

Agaricus, Alumina, Ammonium muriaticum, Anacardium, Clematis, Cuprum, Euphorbium, Mezereum, Antimonium crudum, Borax, Nitrum, Platina, Sulphuris acidum.

The old ones are :

Arsenicum, Aurum, Colocynth, Digitalis, Dulcamara, Guaiacum, Hepar sulphuris, Manganum, Muriatis acidum, Phosphori acidum, Sarsaparilla, Stannum.

Those pathogeneses which had already seen the light have (generally) large additions ; for all Hahnemann acknowledges contributions from fellow-observers, and for many cites symptoms from the extant literature of his day. The total number of these last is 1742.

There are, it is evident, fresh features in the pathogeneses of this second edition ; and there are more than appear on the surface. Hahnemann's own additions, indeed, must be of the same character as his contributions to the first ; i. e., they must be collateral effects of the drugs observed on the patients to whom he gave them. They must all, moreover, be supposed to have resulted from the 30th dilution ; for since 1829 he had urged the administration of all medicines at this potency. The same thing must be said of the contributions from Hahnemann's friends to this edition. They may fairly be conceived to have been provings on themselves or other healthy persons, save where, as in Wahle's symptoms of Mezereum and Hering's of Arsenic, the internal evidence is strong in the contrary direction. But they must in all cases have been evoked from the 30th dilution ; for in the edition of the Organon published in 1833 Hahnemann recommends all provings to be made therewith, as yielding the best results. We have seen that the symptoms of Natrum muriaticum contributed by others to the fourth volume of the first edition were so obtained ; and we may fairly extend the inference to all provings subsequently made. It is otherwise, however, with the provings first published in the Materia Medica Pura, in the present edition so largely incorporated with those of later origin. These seem, from the scanty information we have, to have been made with mother tinctures and first triturations - repeated small doses being taken until some effect was produced. Hahnemann was further able, at this time, to draw upon independent sources of drug-pathogenesy. Hartlaub and Trinks has published a Materia Medica of their own. Stapf had begun to issue his journal known as the Archiv, and many provings adorned its pages. Lastly, outside the Homœopathic school, Professor Joerg, of Leipsic, was following in Hahnemann's track and proving medicines on himself and his students. Of all these materials Hahnemann availed himself in the present work, which thus presents a complex whole, made up of very heterogeneous elements, and needing analysis that it may be appraised and used aright.

II. It is the giving such analysis that will constitute my editorial task. It will fall into the following categories :

1. In the preface to each medicine Hahnemann gives a list of names of "fellow-observers". To this I shall append a note, stating whether these were provers of the later or earlier times, in which case the manner of their experimentation is to be learned from what I have written above ; or whether their observations already existed in print, and what information we have respecting them.

2. In the pathogeneses themselves, the first time an author is cited I shall state the nature of his contribution to the subject (supposing his work to have been accessible to me). Then -having examined his symptoms in situ- I shall append to each one that requires it such explanation or correction as may be necessary to set it forth in its full meaning and value.

[*] See, for instance, notes to S. 114 of Colocynth and to S. 82 and 85 of Lycopodium.

RICHARD HUGHES, M. D.

Brighton, England.