APHORISM 11
by DEBRA LEROY
From Organon of Medicine 6th Edition translated by William Boericke, M.D.
Copyright ©1998 Debra LeRoy
All Rights Reserved
Aphorism 11
When a person falls ill, it is only this spiritual, self-acting (automatic)
vital force, everywhere present in his organism, that is primarily deranged by the dynamic
influence upon it of a morbific agent inimical to life; it is only the vital principle,
deranged to such an abnormal state, that can furnish the organism with its disagreeable
sensations, and incline it to irregular processes which we call disease; for, as a power
invisible in itself, and only cognixable by its effects on the organism, its morbid
derangement only makes itself known by the manifestations of disease in the sensations and
functions of those parts of the organism exposed to the senses of the observer and
physician, that is, morbid symptoms, and in no other way can it make itself known.
Footnote for Aphorism 11
What is dynamic influence,--dynamic power? Our earth, by virtue of hidden
invisible energy, carries the moon around her in twenty eight days and several hours, and
the moon alternately, in definite fixed hours (deducting certain differences which occur
with the full and new moon) raises our northern seas to flood tide and again
correspondingly lowers them to ebb. Apparently this takes place not through material
agencies, not through mechanical mechanical contrivances, as are used for products of
human labor; and so we see numerous other events about us as results of the action of one
substance on another substance without being able to realise a sensible connection between
cause and effect. Only the cultured, practised in camparison and deducation, can form for
himself a kind of supra-sensual idea sufficient to keep all that is mataerial or
mechanical in his thoughts from such concepts. He calls such effects dynamic, virtual,
that is, such as result from absolute, specific, pure energy and action of the one
substance upon the other substance.
For instance, the dynamic effect of the the sick-making force influences upon healthy man, as well as the dynamic energy of the medicines upon the principle of life in restoration of health is nothing else than infection and so not in any way material, not in any way mechanical. Just as the energy of a magnet attracting a piece of iron or steel is not material, not mechanical. One sees that the piece of iron is attracted by one pole of the magnet, nut how it is done is not seen. This invisible energy of the magnet does not require mechanical (material) auxiliary means, hook, or lever, to attract the iron. The magnet draws to itself and this acts upon the piece of iron or upon the steel needle by means of a purely immaterial, invisible, conceptual, inherent energy, that is, dynamically, and communicates to the steel needle the magnetic energy equally invisiblly (dynamically) The steel needle itself becomes magnetic, even at a distance when the magnet does not touch it, and magnetises other steel needles with the same magnetic property (dynamically) with which it had been endowed previously by the magnetic rod, just as a child with small pox or measles communicates to a near, untouched healthy child in an invisible manner (dynamically) the small pox or measles, that is, infects at a distance without anything material from the infective child going or capable of going to the one to be infected. A purely specific, conceptual influence communicated to the near child small pox or measles in the same way the magnet communicated to the near needle the magnetic property.
In a similar way, the effect of medicines upon living man is to be judged. Substances, which are used as medicines, are medicines only in so far as they possess each its own specific energy to alter the well-being of man through dynamic, conceptual influence, by means of of the living sensory fubrem upon the conseptual, controlling principle of life. The medicinal property of those material substances which we call medicines proper, relates only to their energy to call out alterations in the well-being of animal life. Only upon this conceptual principle of lefe, depends their medicinal health-altering, conceptual (dynamic) influence. Just as the nearness of a magnetic pole can communicate only magnetic energy to steel (namely by a kind of infection) but cannot communicate other properties (for instance, more hardenss or ductility, etc.). And thus every special medicianl substance alters through a kind of infection, that well-being of man in a peculiar manner exclusively its own and not in a manner peculiar to another medicine, as certainly as the nearness of the child ill with small pox will communicate to a healthy child only small pox but not measles. These medicines act upon the well-being wholly without communication of material parts of the medicinal substances, thus dynamically, as if through infection. Far more healing energy is expressed in a case in point by the smallest dose of the best dynamized medicine, in which there can be, according to calculation, only so little of material substance that its minuteness can not be thought abd conceived by the best arithmetical mind, than by large doses of the same medicine in substance. The smallest dose can therefore contain almost entirely only the pure, freely-developed conceptual medicinal energy, and bring about only dynamically such great effects as can never be reached by the crude medicinal substance itself taken in larger doses.
It is not in the corpreal atoms of these highly dynamized medicines, nor their physical or mathmatical surfaces (with which the higher enegergies of the dynamized medicines are being interpreted but vainly as still sufficiently material) that the medicianl energy is found. More likely, there lies invisible in the moistened globule ir in its solution, an unveiled, liberated, specific, medicinal force contained in the medicinal substance which acts dynamically by contact witht the living animal fibre upon the whole organism (without communicating to it anything material however highly attenuated) and acts more stronly the more free and more immaterial the energy has become through the dynamization.
It is so utterly impossible for our age celebrated for its wealth in clear thinkers to think of dynamic energy as something non-corpreal, since we see daily phenomena which cannot be explained in any other manner? If one looks upon something nauseous and becomes inclined to vomit, did a material emetic come into his stomach which compels him to this anti-peristalic movement? Was it not solelt the dynamic effect of the nauseating aspect upon his imagination? And if one rises his arm, does it occur through a material visible instrument? a lever? Is it not solely the conceptual dynamic energy if his will which raises it?
GABY ROTTLER COMMENTS:
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Organon der Heilkunst, 6. Ausgabe Aph. 11 Wenn der Mensch erkrankt,
so ist urspruenglich nur diese geistartige, in seinem Organism überall anwesende,
selbstthaetige Lebenskraft (Lebensprincip) durch den, dem Leben feindlichen, dynamischen
(*) Einfluss eines krankmachenden Agens verstimmt; nur das zu einer solchen Innormalitaet
verstimmte Lebensprincip, kann dem Organism die widrigen Empfindungen verleihen und ihn so
zu regelwidrigen Thaetigkeiten bestimmen, die wir Krankheit nennen, denn dieses, an sich
unsichtbare und bloss an seinen Wirkungen im Organism erkennbare Kraftwesen, giebt seine
krankhafte Verstimmung nur durch Aeusserung von Krankheit in Gefuehlen und Thaetigkeiten,
(die einzige, den Sinnen des Beobachters und Heilkuenstlers zugekehrte Seite des
Organisms), das ist, durch Krankheits-Symptomen zu erkennen und kann sie nicht anders zu
erkennen geben.
(*) Was ist dynamischer Einfluss, dynamische Kraft? Wir nehmen wahr, dass unsere Erde durch eine heimliche, unsichtbare Kraft ihren Mond in 28 Tagen und etlichen Stunden um sich herumführt und wie dagegen der Mond unsere noerdlichen Meere abwechselnd in festgesetzten Stunden zur Fluth erhebet und in gleichen Stunden wieder zur Ebbe sinken laesst (einige Verschiedenheit beim Voll- und Neumonde abgerechnet). Wir sehen diess und erstaunen, weil unsere Sinne nicht wahrnehmen, auf welche Weise diess geschieht. Offenbar geschieht es nicht durch materielle Werkzeuge, nicht durch mechanische Veranstaltungen, wie menschliche Werke. Und so sehen wir noch viele andere Ereignisse um uns her, als Erfolge von der Wirkung der einen Substanz auf die andere, ohne dass ein sinnlich wahrnehmbarer Zusammenhang zwischen Ursache und Erfolg zu erkennen waere. Der kultivirte, im Vergleichen und Abstrahiren geuebte Mensch, vermag allein, sich dabei eine Art uebersinnliche Idee zu bilden, welche hinreicht, um, beim Auffassen solcher Begriffe, alles Materielle oder Mechanische in seinen Gedanken davon entfernt zu halten; er nennt solche Wirkungen dynamische, virtuelle, das ist, solche, die durch absolute, spezifische, reine Macht und Wirkung des Einen auf das Andere, erfolgen. So ist z.B. die dynamische Wirkung der krankmachenden Einfluesse auf den gesunden Menschen, sowie die dynamische Kraft der Arzneien auf das Lebensprincip, um den Menschen wieder gesund zu machen, nichts als Ansteckung und so ganz und gar nicht materiell, so ganz und gar nicht mechanisch, als es die Kraft eines Magnetstabes ist, wenn er ein, in seiner Nähe liegendes Stueck Eisen oder Stahl mit Gewalt an sich zieht. Man sieht, dass das Stueck Eisen von einem Ende (Pole) des Magnetstabes angezogen wird; aber wie es geschieht, sieht man nicht. Diese unsichtbare Kraft des Magnets bedarf, um das Eisen an sich zu ziehen, keines mechanischen (materiellen) Huelfsmittels, keines Hakens oder Hebels; sie zieht es an sich und wirkt so auf das Stueck Eisen, der auf eine Nadel von Stahl mittels einer reinen immaleriellen, unsichtbaren, geistartigen, eignen Kraft, das ist dynamisch, theilt auch der Stahl-Nadel die magnetische Kraft eben so unsichtbar (dynamisch) mit; die Stahl-Nadel wird, auch wenn der Magnet sie nicht beruehrt, auch schon in einiger Entfernung von ihm, selbst magnetisch und steckt wieder andere Stahl-Nadeln mit derselben magnetischen Eigenschaft (dynamisch) an, womit sie vom Magnetstabe vorher angesteckt worden war, so wie ein Kind mit Menschen-Pocken oder Masern behaftet, dem nahen, von ihm nicht beruehrten, gesunden Kinde, auf unsichtbare Weise (dynamisch) die Menschen-Pocken oder die Masern mittheilt, das ist, es in der Entfernung ansteckt, ohne dass etwas Materielles von dem ansteckenden Kinde in das Anzusteckende gekommen war, oder gekommen sein konnte, so wenig als aus dem Pole des Magnetstabes etwas Materielles in die nahe Stahl-Nadel. Eine bloss spezifische, geistartige Einwirkung theilte dem nahen Kinde dieselbe Pocken- oder Masern-Krankheit mit, wie der Magnetstab der ihm nahen Nadel, die magnetische Eigenschaft. Und auf aehnliche Weise ist die Wirkung der Arzneien auf den lebenden Menschen zu beurtheilen. Die Natur-Substanzen, die sich uns als Arzneien beweisen, sind nur Arzneien in sofern sie (jede eine eigne spezifische) Kraft besitzen, das menschliche Befinden zu aendern durch dynamische, geistartige Einwirkung (mittels der lebenden, empfindlichen Faser) auf das geistartige, das Lehen verwaltende Lebensprincip. Das Arzneiliche jener Natur-Substanzen, die wir im engern Sinne Arzneien nennen, bezieht sich bloss auf ihre Kraft, Veraenderungen im Befinden des thierischen Lebens hervor zu bringen; bloss auf dieses, auf das geistartige Lebensprincip, erstreckt sich dessen, Befinden aendernder, geistartiger (dynamischer) Einfluss; so wie die Naehe eines Magnet-Poles dem Stahle nur magnetische Kraft mittheilen kann, (und zwar durch eine Art Ansteckung) aber nicht andere Eigenschaften, (nicht z. B. mehr Haerte oder Dehnbarkeit, u.s.w.)
Und so veraendert auch jede besondere Arznei-Substanz, durch eine Art von Ansteckung, das Menschen-Befinden auf eine, ihr ausschliesslich eigenthuemliche Weise, und nicht auf die einer andern Arznei eigne, so gewiss die Naehe eines Pocken kranken Kindes einem gesunden Kinde nur die Menschen-Pocken-Krankheit mittheilen wird und nicht die Masern. Dynamisch, wie durch Ansteckung, geschieht diese Einwirkung der Arzneien auf unser Befinden, ganz ohne Mittheilung materieller Theile der Arznei-Substanz. Auf die beste Art dynamisirter Arzneien kleinste Gabe, - worin sich nach angestellter Berechnung nur so wenig Materielles befinden kann, dass dessen Kleinheit vom besten arithmetischen Kopfe nicht mehr gedacht und begriffen werden kann, aeussert im geeigneten Krankheits-Falle bei weitem mehr Heilkraft als grosse Gaben derselben Arznei in Substanz. Jene feinste Gabe kann daher fast einzig nur die reine, frei enthuellte, geistartige Arznei-Kraft enthalten, und nur dynamisch so grosse Wirkungen vollfuehren, als von der eingenommenen rohen Arznei-Substanz selbst in grosser Gabe, nie erreicht werden konnte.
Es sind nicht die koerperlichen Atome dieser hoch
dynamisirten Arzneien noch ihre physische oder mathematische Oberflaeche (womit man die
hoehern Kraefte der dynamisirten Arzneien, immer noch materiell genug, aber vergeblich
deuteln will), vielmehr liegt unsichtbarer Weise in dem so befeuchteten Kuegelchen oder in
seiner Aufloesung eine aus der Arznei-Substanz moeglichst enthuellte und freigewordene,
spezifische Arzneikraft, welche schon durch Beruehrung der lebenden Thierfaser auf den
ganzen Organism dynamisch ein wirkt (ohne ihm jedoch irgend eine, auch noch so fein
gedachte Materie mitzutheilen) und zwar desto staerker, je freier und immaterieller sie
durch die Dynamisation (§ 270) geworden war. Ist es denn unserm, als so reich an
aufgeklaerten und denkenden Koepfen geruehmten Zeitalter so ganz unmoeglich, dynamische
Kraft als etwas Unkoerperliches zu denken, da man doch taeglich Erscheinungen sieht, die
sich nicht auf andere Weise erklaeren lassen! Wenn Du etwas ekelhaftes ansiehst und es
hebt sich in Dir zum Erbrechen, war da etwa ein materielles Brechmittel in Deinen Magen
gekommen, was ihn zu dieser antiperistaltischen Bewegung zwang? War es nicht einzig die
dynamische Wirkung des ekeln Anblicks auf Deine Einbildungskraft allein? Und, wenn Du
Deinen Arm aufhebst, geschieht es etwa durch ein materielles, sichtbares Werkzeug? einen
Hebel? Ist es nicht einzig die geistartige, dynamische Kraft Deines Willens, die ihn hebt?
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DIFFERENT TRANSLATIONS IN [ ] BY GABY ROTTLER:
Aphorism 11
When a person falls ill, it is only this spiritual [spirit-like, GR],
self-acting (automatic) vital force, [self-acting vital force (vital principle), GR]everywhere present in his organism, that is primarily deranged by the dynamic influence
upon it of a morbific agent inimical to life;
[that is primarily mistuned by the dynamic influence, inimical to life, of a morbific agent. GR]
it is only the vital principle,deranged to such an abnormal state, that can furnish the organism with its disagreeable sensations, and incline it to irregular processes which we call disease; for, as a power invisible in itself, and only cognixable by its effects on the organism, its morbid derangement only makes itself known by the manifestations of disease in the sensations and functions of those parts of the organism exposed to the senses of the observer and physician,
[...makes known its morbid distunement only by manifestation of disease in feelings and activities (the only side of the organism exposed to the senses of the observer and artist of healing) , GR]
that is, morbid symptoms, and in no other way can it make itself known.
Footnote for Aphorism 11
What is dynamic influence,--dynamic power? [We perceive that....GR] Our earth,
by virtue of hidden invisible energy, carries the moon around her in twenty eight days and
several hours, and the moon alternately, in definite fixed hours (deducting certain
differences which occur with the full and new moon) raises our northern seas to flood tide
and again correspondingly lowers them to ebb.
[...lowers them to ebb. We see that and are surprised , because our senses don't perceive in which way this happens. Apparently..., GR]
Apparently this takes place not through material agencies, not through mechanical contrivances, as are used for products of human labor;
[Apparently this takes place not through material tools, not through mechanical contrivances, like human works. GR]
and so we see numerous other events about us as results of the action of one substance on another substance without being able to realise a sensible connection [ sensorious perceivable connection , GR] between cause and effect. Only the cultured, practised in camparison and deducation, can form for himself a kind of supra-sensual [transcendental, GR] idea sufficient to keep all that is material or mechanical in his thoughts from such concepts. He calls such effects dynamic, virtual, that is, such as result from absolute, specific, pure energy [power, GR] and action [effect, GR] of the one substance upon the other substance. For instance, the dynamic effect of the the sick-making force influences [morbific influences, GR] upon healthy man, as well as the dynamic energy [force, GR] of the medicines upon the principle of life in restoration of health is nothing else than infection and so not in any way material, not in any way mechanical. Just as the energy of a magnet attracting a piece of iron or steel is not material, not mechanical. One sees that the piece of iron is attracted by one pole of the magnet, but how it is done is not seen. This invisible energy of the magnet does not require mechanical (material) auxiliary means, hook, or lever, to attract the iron. The magnet draws to itself and this acts upon the piece of iron or upon the steel needle by means of a purely immaterial, invisible, conceptual [spirit-like, GR], inherent energy, that is, dynamically, and communicates to the steel needle the magnetic energy equally invisibly (dynamically). The steel needle itself becomes magnetic, even at a distance when the magnet does not touch it, and magnetises other steel needles with the same magnetic property (dynamically) with which it had been endowed previously by the magnetic rod, just as a child with small pox or measles communicates to a near, untouched healthy child in an invisible manner (dynamically) the small pox or measles, that is, infects at a distance without anything material from the infective child going or capable of going to the one to be infected. A purely specific, conceptual [spirit-like, GR] influence communicated to the near child small pox or measles in the same way the magnet communicated to the near needle the magnetic property. In a similar way, the effect of medicines upon living man is to be judged. Substances, which are used as medicines, [which prove to be medicines for us, GR]are medicines only in so far as they possess each its own specific energy to alter the well-being of man through dynamic, conceptual [spirit-like, GR] influence, by means of of the living sensory fibre upon the conseptual, controlling principle of life [spirit-like, life-managing principle of life. GR].
The medicinal property of those material substances [substances of nature, GR]which we call medicines proper, relates only to their energy to call out alterations in the well-being of animal life. Only upon this conceptual principle of life, depends their medicinal health-altering, conceptual (dynamic) influence.
[Only this spirit-like principle of life is covered by its , altering the state of health, spirit-like, dynamic influence . GR]
Just as the nearness of a magnetic pole can communicate only magnetic energy to steel (namely by a kind of infection) but cannot communicate other properties (for instance, more hardness or ductility, etc.). And thus every special medicinal substance alters through a kind of infection, that well-being of man [the state of health of man, GR] in a peculiar manner exclusively its own and not in a manner peculiar to another medicine, as certainly as the nearness of the child ill with small pox will communicate to a healthy child only small pox but not measles. These medicines act upon the well-being wholly without communication of material parts of the medicinal substances, thus dynamically, as if through infection. Far more healing energy is expressed in a case in point by the smallest dose of the best dynamized medicine, in which there can be, according to calculation, only so little of material substance that its minuteness can not be thought and conceived by the best arithmetical mind, than by large doses of the same medicine in substance. The smallest dose can therefore contain almost entirely only the pure, freely-developed conceptual [freely revealed, spirit-like GR] medicinal energy, and bring about only dynamically such great effects as can never be reached by the crude medicinal substance itself taken in larger doses. [...even if taken in large doses, GR] It is not in the corporeal atoms of these highly dynamized medicines, nor their physical or mathematical surfaces (with which the higher energies of the dynamized medicines are being interpreted but vainly as still sufficiently material) that the medicinal energy is found. More likely, there lies invisible in the moistened globule in its solution, an unveiled, liberated, specific, medicinal force contained in the medicinal substance which acts dynamically by contact with the living animal fibre upon the whole organism (without communicating to it anything material however highly attenuated) and acts more stronly the more free and more immaterial the energy has become through the dynamization.
[ It is not in the corporeal atoms of these highly dynamized medicines, nor their physical or mathematical surface (with which the higher energies of the dynamized medicines are being interpreted but vainly as still sufficiently material) , rather there lies in an invisible way in the moistened globule or in its solution, a specific medicinal force possibly unveiled and liberated out of the medicinal substance which acts dynamically by contact with the living animal fibre upon the whole organism (without communicating to it anything material however highly attenuated thought) and acts more strongly the more free and the more immaterial the energy has become through the dynamization (§270). GR]
It is [Is it ..., GR] so utterly impossible for our age [aera, GR] celebrated for its wealth in clear thinkers to think of dynamic energy as something non-corporeal, since we see daily phenomena which cannot be explained in any other manner? [!] If one looks upon something nauseous and becomes inclined to vomit, did a material emetic come into his stomach which compels him to this anti-peristalic movement? Was it not solelt the dynamic effect of the nauseating aspect upon his imagination? And if one rises his arm, does it occur through a material visible instrument? a lever? Is it not solely the conceptual dynamic energy if his will which raises it?
[If you look upon something nauseous and you become inclined to vomit, did a material emetic come into your stomach which compels him to this anti-peristaltic movement? Was it not solely the dynamic effect of the nauseating aspect upon your imagination? And if you raise your arm, does it occur through a material visible instrument? a lever? Is it not solely the spirit-like dynamic energy of your will which raises it? GR]