History of homoeopathy : its origin, its conflicts ; with an appendix on the present state of University medicine / by Wilhelm Ameke, M.D. (of Berlin) ; translated by Alfred E. Drysdale ; edited by R. E. Dudgeon.

  • Ameke, Wilhelm, 1847-
Date:
1885
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of homoeopathy : its origin, its conflicts ; with an appendix on the present state of University medicine / by Wilhelm Ameke, M.D. (of Berlin) ; translated by Alfred E. Drysdale ; edited by R. E. Dudgeon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    science to which the name of the Science of Nature was soon given. According to this every human being possesses a greater or less degree of irritability. Health depends upon the possession of just the right amount of irritation. Disease is produced either by two much irritation (sthenia) or want of irritation (asthenia). The task of the physician was simply to moderate the excess of irrita- tion, or to strengthen the too weak irritation. Thus all diseases were divided into two classes and also all remedies, these were sthenic and asthenic. In affec- tions depending upon too much strength, irritation diminishing drugs were employed, which in the order of their efficiency, were bleeding, cold, emetics, purgatives, diaphoretics. In the asthenic forms of disease, sthenic remedies were employed, which, in the order of their efficiency, were meat, heat, prevention of vomiting, purg- ing and sweating, by meat diet, spices, wine, exercise; in the more severe cases of disease, volatile stimulants: musk, ammonia, camphor, ether and opium.* Cinchona was first added by the followers of Brown. Knowledge of the structure and functions of the organism was only of minor importance, for everything depended on the irritants and the degree of irritability. So great, says Brown, is the simplicity to which medicine can be reduced, that a physician when he comes to the sick-bed will only have to elicit three things. First, whether the disease is general or local ; secondly, if general, whether sthenic or asthenic; thirdly, in what stage of irritation it is. When he has satisfied himself on these three points, nothing- remains but to settle his indications and plan of treat- ment, and carry it out by means of the corresponding remedies.! The diagnosis was only of minor importance. Contemporaneously with Brown, the natural philosophy founded by SchcllingJ made its appearance and quickly * Comp. B. Hirschel, Geschickte des Browrischen Systems. Dresden and Leipzig, 1846, p. 37. f K. Sprengel, Geschichtc der Heilkunde, Halle, 1828, V. I., p. 455 X First edition of his System der Naturphitosophie, Jena u. Leipzig 1799.