To the latter category belong the so-called idiosyncrasies, by which are meant peculiar corporeal constitutions which, although otherwise healthy, possess a disposition to be brought into a more or less morbid state by certain things which seem to produce no impression and no change in many other individuals.
1 But this inability to make an impression on every one is only apparent. For as two things are required for the production of these as well as all other morbid alterations in the health of man - to wit., the inherent power of the influencing substance, and the capability of the vital force that animates the organism to be influenced by it - the obvious derangements of health in the so-called idiosyncrasies cannot be laid to the account of these peculiar constitutions alone, but they must also be ascribed to these things that produce them, in which must lie the power of making the same impressions on all human bodies, yet in such a manner that but a small number of healthy constitutions have a tendency to allow themselves to be brought into such an obvious morbid condition by them. That these agents do actually make this impression on every healthy body is shown by this, that when employed as remedies they render effectual homœopathic service2 to all sick persons for morbid symptoms similar to those they seem to be only capable of producing in so-called idiosyncratic individuals.1 Some few persons are apt to faint from the smell of roses and to fall into many other morbid, and sometimes dangerous states from partaking of mussels, crabs or the roe of the barbel, from touching the leaves of some kinds of sumach, etc.
2 Thus the Princess Maria Porphyroghnita restored her brother, the Emperor Alexius, who suffered from faintings, by sprinkling him with rose water in the presence of his aunt Eudoxia (Hist. byz. Alexias, lib. xv, p. 503, ed. Posser); and Horstius (Oper., iii, p.59) saw great benefit from rose vinegar in cases of syncope.
Commentary:
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Any personal way of
behaving, reacting or thinking; a personal peculiarity or eccentricity. |
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Medicine. |
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A peculiarity of constitution or temperament : an individualizing characteristic or quality |
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Individual hypersensitiveness (as to a drug or food) |
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Characteristic peculiarity (as of temperament); broadly |
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Idiosyncrasy comes from Greek ιδιοσυγκρασία "a peculiar temperament," "habit of body" (idios "one's own" and sun-krasis "mixture"). It is defined as a structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. |
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The term denotes a non-immunological hypersensitivity to a drug, without connection to pharmacological toxicity. |
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HOMOEOPATHICALLY Idiosyncracy is an effects of drugs on individuals, either would react differently, or not at all, and that the reaction is an individual one based on a specific condition of the one who suffers it. |
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Stuart close has given the definition: By idiosyncrasy we mean a habit or quality of the organism peculiar to the individual. It is the peculiarity of the constitution , inherited or acquired, which makes the individual morbidly susceptible to some agent or influence which would not effect others. |
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Rice "The fundamental cause of every idiosyncrasy in morphological unbalance; that is, an organic state in which, through excess and defect in development there results excess and defect in function, with a corresponding degree of hyper-excitability or nonexcitability." |
Lets recollect some of the aphorism in which Hahnemann says that medicines act unconditionally before we look into idiosyncracy
In aphorism 30, Organon, Hahnemann says that medicines appear to have a more powerful influence in affecting the health of the body than the natural morbific agencies which produce disease,- inasmuch as suitable medicines overcome and cure disease.
In paragraph 31, he comments that natural disease-producing agencies have only a conditional power of action, depending upon the temperament and degree of susceptibility of the organism. They do not act (noticeably?) on every one at all times. Of a thousand persons exposed to smallpox, for example, perhaps one or two would be infected, and these only if they happened to be in a susceptible condition at the time of exposure. He connotes that the remainder are altogether immune by merit of natural resistance.
In paragraph 32, he somewhat unguardedly maintains that it is otherwise with drugs; that they act unconditionally. Every true medicine, he says, acts at all times, in all persons, under all conditions producing clearly perceptible symptoms "if the dose be large enough-" He here demonstrates at last one condition. No man in his normal condition is entirely or absolutely immune to a dose of arsenic, or strychnine or quinine, nor to the bacilli of cholera or tuberculosis. The extent of its action in, all case is conditional. The violence, extent and duration of the effects will be proportionate
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to the size of the dose and |
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the susceptibility of the individual as influenced by constitution and environment, but it always acts. Strictly speaking, every action in the universe is conditional. |
One of the problems that frequently faces the homœopathic physician is how to deal practically with those special and puzzling cases which present the phenomena of what is commonly called idiosyncrasy.
To the ordinary physician idiosyncrasy commonly means merely an over-sensitiveness to some drug.
Stuart close has given example "He is called upon, for example, to treat a case of intermittent fever. After giving what be regards as a moderate dose of his favorite quinine he sees his patient quickly become violently delirious; or perhaps develop a violent attack of vomiting and go into collapse; or have a hemorrhage from the kidneys, or lungs, or into the retina. All these grave conditions have been reported of quinine and some cases with fatal results; or what is nearly as bad, with permanent loss or impairment of function, as blindness, or deafness."
In the second example close gives " Again he meets a case which seems to require opium. He administers the usual dose and sees it produce dangerous congestion of brain, lungs or intestines. He explains such experiences as being due to idiosyncrasy, substitutes some other drug and lets it go at that. Such experiences do not teach him much and he goes on in the same old way afterward; but there is much to be learned from such cases, if we view them aright."
Morbid susceptibility to agents and influences not classified as medicinal.
For example, a person can not eat some common article of food without suffering. Apples, peaches, strawberries, fish, shell fish, onions, potatoes, milk, fats or butter, etc., affect certain people disagreeably in a most peculiar fashion. Then there are the idiosyncrasies of smell. We cannot bear the odor of violets; another of lavender; another of any flowers when he is sick.
Stuart close gives the example "One of my patients always gets an attack of hay fever and asthma if he rides behind a horse. The odor and exhalation from a perspiring horse and noxious to him. A woman hay fever victim has a fit of violent trembling and aggravation of all her symptoms if she comes in proximity with a cat. These examples of idiosyncrasy are quite distinct from hysteria and the general over-sensitiveness found in neurasthenics and broken-down constitutions, where every little annoyance seems a burden too great to be borne, and every sense is painfully acute."
Viewed as modalities, these peculiarities, which are merely vagaries to the average practitioner, take on a certain degree of importance as indications for a remedy. Properly interpreted and classified, they sometimes rank as "generals," expressing and representing a peculiarity of the patient himself of the case as a whole. They assist in individualizing the case and differentiate between two or more similar remedies.
Stuart close gives a puzzling case "the symptom, "aggravation from onions," discovered only after the case had baffled me for several weeks, led to the selection of Thuja, which cured the case."
Idiosyncrasies are inherited and acquired. They represent a morbid susceptibility to particular drugs or agent or influence. Of their causes except that the drug idiosyncrasies, both inherited and acquired, appear sometimes to be due
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to the previous abuse of the drug, to which a morbid susceptibility now exists. example |
In Rhus tox., poisoning those that have once been affected by handling it are so sensitive to it that if they go within a quarter of a mile of the vine, though they cannot detect it with the nose, yet in a few days they will come down with a case of Rhus poisoning.
A very high potency of Rhus will sometimes remove that susceptibility and a dose of Rhus c.m. or m.m. will often check the acute poisoning from Rhus : but if you find that the patient has been born with a sensitivity to Rhus, while Rhus may palliate a few times it will finally cease to help him.
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the psoric constitution. Example: When one is born with this sensitivity it is very tenacious and will sometimes persist, in spite of our best endeavors, to the end of life. If eradicated at all, it requires an antipsoric to get to the bottom of it. Hay fever is brought on in the fall and is supposed to be caused by the patient's over-sensitiveness to irritants that develop about that time ; sometimes it is attributed to the hay that is curing in the fields at that time, sometimes to the different weeds that grow up then. Such patients have often been able to remove out the thing that they are susceptible to.But psora is at the bottom of all these troubles. |
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Anaphylaxis:
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An example is the susceptibility to Rhus or ivy poisoning of those who have once been poisoned, especially if their initial attack was treated topically, by external remedies. Such persons are poisoned by the slightest contact with the plant, or even by passing in its locality without contact. In such cases the disappearance of the original external manifestations of the disease is followed by the setting up of a constitutional susceptibility which renders them peculiarly susceptible to attack, not only to the particular drug concerned, but to the, diseases to which that drug corresponds homœopathically.
Investigation shows that some cases of inherited idiosyncrasy and morbid susceptibility to drugs are noticeable to the abuse of those drugs by parents or ancestors. This relation has been detected particularly in the case of two drugs, sulphur and mercury. A case of stuart close in which such a violent and sudden aggravation followed the administration of a high potency of Mercury that the patient's life was endangered. He later asked if he had been given mercury, and said that he bad never been able to take mercury in any form. He had been salivated by mercury, in youth, and his father and mother before him had been heavy users of the drug. Cases occur in which even amalgam fillings in teeth cause symptoms of mercurial poisoning, from absorption of infinitesimal quantities of mercury.
It has been held that the homœopathic countless of sulphur to such a infinite number of symptoms and diseases is partly due to the extensive abuse -of sulphur by earlier generations; in other words that the commonly found sulphur symptoms which make it curative in so many conditions, represent a vast proving of sulphur upon the human race, tracked for several generations, which has created a general morbid susceptibility to the drug. The same might be said of many other drugs, but such, an idea, interesting because novel and practically suggestive, should not be given too much weight lest it lead us astray into the realm of speculation.
In the closely related issue of "drug diseases," we are on safer ground. The subject of drug diseases has a particular and constant interest for the homœopathician, because his professional life is devoted largely to,
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the observation and study of the phenomena produced or |
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cured in the human organism by drugs. |
Homoeopathic materia medica what is it?
It appears before him at every point in his career and he, more clearly than any other, realizes its significance. The homœopathic materia medica, from which he originates his knowledge of the remedies used for the cure of disease, is made up, principally of collections of symptoms derived from healthy persons who have intentionally taken small doses of drugs and carefully observed and recorded their effects under the direction of trained observers.
Methods in Homoeopathy
To begin we have to prove remedy on healthy human beings. Every proving is the clinical register of an artificial disease produced by some drug. Every case of sickness involves its analogous drug, which is found by comparing the symptoms of a patient and the symptoms of drugs. For every disease arising from natural causes there has been found, or may be produced by some drug, a similar artificial disease, symptom corresponding with symptom, often to, the minutest details. This similar analogous drug, once found and administered in the proper dose, proves to be the curative. Upon this easily noticeable fact is founded the homœopathic healing art. From this fact was deduced the healing principle, which is the scientific basis of homœopathy.
What Homoeopathic physician should have learnt in order not to repeat the drugs unnecessarily?
Homoeopathic management of cases treated by allopathy
Only very recently has it dawned upon a few of the "regular" profession that the mysterious, indistinct disease from which the addicts suffer is, in each case, a definite, specific drug disease, caused by and constituting the action of the particular drug to, which he is addicted; that the opium addict suffers from the opium disease, the "coke fiend" from the cocaine disease, etc. Drugs that modern allopathy today also produce such drug disease. Aspirin can produce aspirin disease, antibiotics can produce corresponding antibiotic disease etc.
Homœopathy should have taught them this long ago. Few seem to comprehend that a very large part of the disease met with in daily practice is the result of what may be called involuntary poisoning. Symptoms are constantly appearing in our clinical records which are the product of drugs, either self-dispensed or ignorantly prescribed by that class of physicians who are forever prescribing for the results of their own drugging without knowing it. There are many, even in the homœopathic school, who do not realize this fact and who fail to see that the problem before them is as often one of antidoting a drug as of curing a true natural disease. This has a very practical impact on the case, for the first step in such cases is to seek out and stop the use of drugs and antidote them, rather than to blindly continue to give more drugs. Nature unaided will often remove many of the symptoms in such cases if the dosing is stopped and a little time is given. The remainder becomes the foundation of homœopathic prescribing under recognised homœopathic principles, and the case as a whole affords an opportunity for the judicious physician to instruct some wholesome instruction in the rules of right living. In the same context Hering said: "The last taken drug affords the best indication for the next prescription." The experienced homœopathic physician therefore, gives particular attention in the examination of cases to ascertaining what drugs have been previously used, with a view to stopping their use and antidoting such as have been most influential in producing disorder, as revealed by a study of the symptoms."
Stuart close says "Over-dosing and too frequent changing of remedies in homœopathic practice often leads to the confusion of the prescriber and the damage of the patient. This was exemplified in a case by me in consultation with a young physician. The patient was an infant about eighteen months old who had been under treatment for two weeks. The diagnosis was indefinite, because the nature of the initial disease was obscure. The case did not at first seem serious and probably was not; but the child was now obviously very sick and there had been no signs of improvement. The young physician exhibited his up-to-date card record of the case, very neatly kept. It contained the symptoms of the first examination, quite fully and clearly taken, with temperatures, pulse and respiration carefully charted. The first prescription was Belladona 3x, which manifestly as to remedy, if not to dose, corresponded closely to the symptoms as recorded and was a good prescription. But the record showed that on his visit the following day, finding his patient slightly worse, he had changed the prescription and given two other remedies, also in very low dilutions, in alternation. From that time on the prescription was changed almost daily, two remedies in alternation being given each time and presently, palliatives and adjuvants, cathartics, stimulants, etc., began to show on the record. In the two weeks of treatment some twenty different medicines had been given, in strength ranging from mother tincture to 3x dilution. The result, of course, was inevitable. Given the sensitive organism of an infant, acted upon by such a number of medicines but slightly removed by dilution from the crude state,. each one being capable of exciting more or less toxic reaction, and. one could surely foretell the result-"confusion worse confounded." Every drug given had produced some effect, if not the effect desired. The resulting symptom picture was of the well-known "composite" character, blurred and indefinite, with little or no character. Hardly one clear-cut, definite symptom could be found-much less that group of consistent and co-ordinated symptoms which is required in making an accurate homœopathic prescription. It was a clear case of getting lost in a very small patch of woods. If the doctor, after making his first prescription to Bell. 3x had known how to rightly interpret the fact that the patient seemed somewhat worse the next day instead of' better, as he had expected; if he had then discontinued the remedy without giving anything else except placebo and awaited the, curative reaction, he would have found his patient much improved on the following day. Without knowing it he was then witnessing that "slight aggravation of the symptoms" following the exhibition of a well-selected remedy of which Hahnemann warns us. Better still would it have been if he had given the Belladonna in the thirtieth or two hundredth potency in the first instance, instead of be 3X. There would then have been no aggravation, the patient would have been better on the second day, and would probably; have gone on to rapid recovery. Instead of this, however, the doctor misinterpreted the facts, thereby doing himself, his patient and homœopathy injustice. Believing that he had made a wrong prescription, he changed it. In his beginning confusion be further departed from sound principles by giving two medicine in alternation, thus multiplying the sources of error and confusion. From this point on, like a man lost in the woods, he was simply "walking, circles around himself "-hopelessly lost as far as his own efforts were concerned, until somebody came and guided him home."
COMPLICATIONS OF ALLOPATHIC DRUGS
The toxic effects of drugs prescribed in the ordinary routine of practice are commonly overlooked. Today, as in the dark ages, there are physicians who give drugs as if they believed that each of them at their command, would find its way through the devious channels of the body and perform the exact task as signed to it.
If the patient recovers after his dosing all is well and the doctor is reasserted in his faith. If the patient gets worse, or fresh symptoms arise, all is still well, medically speaking. It is merely a "complication" for which he has a ready name and appropriate pathological classification. If the patient dies there is no deficiency of causes assignable on a pathological basis. His faith in drugs is not shaken.
Rarely does it occur to the prescriber that the "complication" is but the symptomatic manifestation of the drug or drugs he has previously given. Sometime he does seem to have faint glimpses of -that unpleasant truth, as when tetanus, trismus or acute Bright's disease speedily follow vaccination; or when hemorrhage in lungs, kidneys or retina quickly follow upon the administration of massive doses of quinine; or when he happens to recognize one of the "puzzling eruptions" said to be caused by one or more of the twenty-nine drugs named by Glentworth Butler, in his work, "'The Diagnostics of Internal Medicine" or any other allopathic drugs of modern day produce its own disease in the body. But such flashes of insight are rare and accomplish little in haulting the tide of drugs which is engulfing so many victims. The most common of all causes of disease-the preceding drug.
In the file of medicine the old ideas on pharmacology still obtain, in spite of vaunted progress. A drug, or combination of drugs, when administered to a patient, is supposed to have no other effects than those assigned theoretically to the class to which it belongs. The "other effects," which are sure to arise, are attributed to the natural progress of the disease or to some theoretical "complication."
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes wittily said: "If all the drugs in the world were dumped into the sea, it would be better for mankind and the worse for the fishes."
This phase of the subject is important from a practical standpoint. Cases will frequently demonstrate themselves which are puzzling, and resist all efforts to cure until they are recognized as "drug cases." The trouble may be entirely due to drugs, or there may be a combination in varying proportions of drug and disease symptoms.
You should be a regular during making first examinations, to ascertain what drugs have been used.
In chronic cases this investigation should extend back through the whole life-time of the patient. The following points should be considered in the investigation
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The diseases from which the patient has suffered, and |
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The drugs used in their treatment should be ascertained if possible. |
The patient may not know all, but he will usually know some of the most common and powerful drugs he has taken, and a search of the druggists' record may reveal the rest. The key to a difficult case may be the drug or drugs which have "cured" some acute disease perhaps early in the patient's medical history. Antidoting the drug clears up the case.
Management of chronic disease suppressed by allopathic drugs.
It is not uncommon in our clinical practice we encounter patients who have been in allopathic drugging for years. Such drugging certainly produce symptoms of its own in addition to the symptoms of the disease he is suffering from. Two points to remember with regards to those taking allopathic drugs.
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stop the drugs he has been taking which makes the disease symptoms more and more prominent upon which we can prescribe. |
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Antidote the allopathic drugs. Following which original disease become more and more distinct upon which we can prescibe |
Stuart close demonstrated two cases
CASE I "Frequently, for example, will some chronic disease of the liver, kidneys, spleen or lungs be traced back to an initial attack of malarial fever checked by massive doses of quinine or arsenic. The patient has "never been well since." The seemingly indicated remedies do not act. A few doses of the appropriate antidote, perhaps Arnica, or Ipecac, or Pulsatilla, or even of Arsenic or Cinchona-the abused drugs themselves, in high potency-will clear tip the case and either cure or render it amenable to other symptomatically indicated drugs. It is a fact that the high potency of a drug is sometimes the best antidote for the effects of the crude drug. It is not unusual in the treatment of such cases for the original symptoms to be reproduced. I have seen a full-fledged, typical attack of intermittent fever reproduced in a case which had become tubercular, within a week after the administration of an antidotal dose of Arsenic in high potency. The patient made a rapid recovery. The initial attack of intermittent fever, in the case referred to, was five years before."
CASE II In a case variously diagnosed as "chronic gout," "chronic articular rheumatism," etc., unsuccessfully treated by many physicians, including European specialists, I witnessed the reappearance of a discharge from the urethra fifteen years after the original gonorrheal discharge had disappeared under the influence of astringent injections. With the establishment of the discharge the patient's "rheumatic" symptoms began to rapidly improve and a perfect cure resulted. This was a case of chronic gonococcic septicemia, or so-called "gonorrheal rheumatism," in reality, metastasis of the original disease caused by the use of injections. The key which unlocked the door and released the imprisoned disease was Thuja, the typical "anti-sycotic" remedy of Hahnemann.
Drug symptoms and complications often arise in the most unpredicted and surprising ways, and amaze all but the most acute and experienced examiners.
Hair dyes
Tonics
Complexion beautifiers, perhaps whole of the make up kit- lipsticks, talcum powder, face and hair creams, perfumes etc.
Dentifrices
Medicated soaps,
Antiseptics; borax in baby's mouth to prevent sprue (stuart close), and carbolic acid in mama's douche to prevent babies (stuart close);
Ointments and lotions;
Numerous patent and proprietary nostrums.
Allopathic drugs
All these that fill the shelves of the corner drug stores and find their -way "down the red lane" into the human system, all play their part in creating morbid susceptibility, idiosyncrasy and drug diseases and in making work for the doctor.
These are some of the things to look for among the possible causes of a disease. They are things very generally overlooked by that type of physician who either
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does not know their importance |
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will not take the time and pains to find out |
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or does not care. |