Specific medication and specific medicines : revised, with an appendix containing the articles published on the subject since the first edition : and a report of cases illustrating specific medication / John M. Scudder.

  • Scudder, John M. (John Milton), 1829-1894.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specific medication and specific medicines : revised, with an appendix containing the articles published on the subject since the first edition : and a report of cases illustrating specific medication / John M. Scudder. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    to the person—symptoms. If an agent directly and uniformly produces an influence upon a particular part, it is more likely to be used as a remedy in dis- ease of that part than another which does not influ- ence the part at all. Remedies are, therefore, those agents which directly and uniformly influence an organ, part, or function. The question then comes up, are they remedies because they will produce a similar state of disease, or because they are opposed to diseased action ? The Homoeopaths will not admit any explanation of their law of similia. The remedy is a remedy because it will produce the exact diseased condition, or at least the exact symptoms of such condition. I contend that a drug is a specific remedy: first, because it influences uniformly and directly the part or function diseased; and second, because it opposes such diseased action. I would, therefore, write the law of cure, contraria contrariis opponenda, instead of similia similibus. I find a late authority in Homoeopathy agrees with me in this. Dr. v. Grauvogl, in his Lehr- buch Der Homoeopathy, says :— The conception of a specific remedy expresses the mutual relation existing between it and parts of the organism, which has to be ascertained empirically by physio- logical provings of drugs. For some part of the organism is in a relation of immunity, for other parts of attraction, for others again one of repulsion, and always vice versa. For instance, there is a spe-