Aphorism 39:
The Artificial Suspension: Understanding Aphorism 39 and the Failure of Allopathy
In Aphorism 39, Samuel Hahnemann applies the natural law of suspension (discussed in § 38) to medical practice. He critiques the “ordinary school of medicine” (allopathy) for ignoring centuries of evidence that dissimilar diseases cannot cure one another, yet continuing to treat chronic conditions with drugs that produce unrelated morbid states.
The Mechanism of Suppression
Hahnemann explains that aggressive allopathic treatment acts by creating an artificial disease that is stronger than, but dissimilar to, the patient’s natural suffering. This new, drug-induced malady does not address the internal derangement; instead, it:
- Holds the original disease in abeyance for as long as the medication is active.
- Suppresses or suspends the primary symptoms while the patient’s system is preoccupied with the “factitious” medicinal disease.
- Fails to cure, because as soon as the patient’s strength fails or the treatment stops, the natural disease “must return”.
The Consequences of Violent Treatment
When powerful medicines are used in this manner, the patient often ends up in a worse state than before treatment began. Hahnemann highlights several specific outcomes:
- Aggravation: The chronic disease often reappears with increased intensity or in an aggravated form.
- Added Suffering: The patient must endure the original disease plus the “misery of a painful ruined digestion and impaired strength” caused by the drugs.
- Complication: Long-term use of these dissimilar agents adds a new morbid state to the old disease, making the patient “doubly diseased” and harder to cure.
Illustrative Examples
To prove his point, Hahnemann provides common clinical examples from his era:
- The Itch and Purgatives: Violent, repeated purgatives may cause a skin eruption (itch) to disappear from the surface. However, the internal “psora” remains uncured, and the eruption returns—or internal symptoms worsen—as soon as the patient can no longer tolerate the “factitious disease of the bowels”.
- Epilepsy and Issues: Physicians often used “issues” (artificial ulcers kept open on the skin) to treat epilepsy. While the pain of the ulcer might temporarily suspend the seizures, the epilepsy invariably returned in a more severe form once the issues were allowed to heal.
Conclusion: The Path of Debility
Aphorism 39 serves as a warning that strength without similarity is merely an “exhausting mode of treatment”. Hahnemann concludes that customary prescriptions of unknown ingredients “do nothing but debilitate” the sick. He argues that true healing is impossible through this “inappropriate, false path,” and that the “miserable results” of such treatments should have long ago led physicians to the only salutary method: the Law of Similars.
