On the title-page of the First Edition we read:

"Organon of the Rational System of Medicine, by Samuel Hahnemann"

Then a motto from the poet Gellert, which may be thus translated:

In the Second Edition the title and motto were changed to what we find them in the first edition.

The First Edition had no table of contents.

Notes to the Paragraphs

Note To The Introduction:

The portion of the Introduction, to "homoeopathy"p. 38, appears first in the fourth edition. A few sentences have been added and some unimportant variations of phraseology appear in the fifth edition. The heading of the Introduction in the fourth edition is simply "I. Review of the Allopathy of the Old School of Medicine." The portion of the Introduction containing the instances of homoeopathic practice in the oldschool is "II." This part is omitted from the fifth edition. Hahnamann invariable uses the word "allÏopathy," derived from (Greek.????). His followers have generally adopted "allopathy", derived from ( Greek???). The meaning is the same, the more usual form has been employed in the translation.

246

If this improvement, which has up till now only gone forward but not yet attained to perfect cure, now comes to a stop, we shall then, on careful investigation of what remains of the improved disease, discover some though perhaps small alteration in the group of symproms, for which a fresh dose of the hitherto effacious medicine is no longer homeopathically suitable, but some other will be more apropriate for these remaining symptoms.

Foot note To Paragraph 246 note:

* This note, with the exception of the last paragraph, forms part of the preface by Hahnemann to Bonninghausen's Rep. der Antpsoric Arz. 1833.  The remainder of the preface is in the note to paragraph 288.  It is only found in the fifth edition.

Hahnemann's latest practice with respect to the administration and repetition of the medicine is ths described in the preface to the Third Part of the Second Edition of his work on Chronic Diseases, published in 1837: p155. The mauscript for the 6th Ed. of the Organon was completed in 1842.

    "Since I last addressed the public on the subject of our system of medicine, I have had opportunities of making observations, amoung other things, on the best possible mode of regulating the doses for the patient, and in here communicate what I have found to be the best plan in this respect."

"If the small globule of one of the highest dynamisations of a medicine laid dry on the tongue, or moderate olfaction in a phial containing one or several such globules, shows itself to be the smallest, weakest dose, of the shortest duration of action (though there are plenty of patients of such and excitable nature as to be affected thereby to a sufficient extent for the cure of slight acute diseases, for which the remedy has been homoeopathically selected), we can easily understand that the incredible variety in patients as regards their exitability, their age, their mental and corporeal development, their vital force, and especially the nature of their diesease (which in one case may be natural and simple and of recent origin, in another natural, simple but of long standing, in another complicated - the union of several miasms -  in another, and in this is the commonest and worst case, ruined by wrong medicinal treatment and burdened with medicinal diseases) demands a great variety in their treatment, as also in the regulation of the doses, of medicine needful for them."

" I must limit myself in this place to the latter subject only, as the others must be left to the accuracy, diligence and judgment of the practitioner who is competent and a master of his art and cannot be arranged in tables for the benefit of the incompetent or careless."

"Experience has taught me, as it has also, doubtless, the best of my followers, that it is more useful in disease of any importance (the most acute not execepted), and all the more in the subacute, chronic and the most chronic) to give to the patient the powerful homeopathic medicinal globule or globules in solution only, and this solution in divided doses; for example, a solution formed with from seven to twenty table-spoonfuls of water, without any addition, given to the patient in acute and very acute disease, every six, four or two hours, and when the danger is very great, even every hour or every half-hour, a table-spoonful (one or two teaspoonfuls)."

(One table-spoon = 15ml, so from 105ml to 315ml. So a 200ml bottle could contain 13 doses, being 180ml water and 15-20ml brandy. g.w.)

"In chronic diseases I found it best to allow a dose (to wit, a spoonful) of such a solution of the appropriate medicine to be taken no seldomer than every two days, but more generally ever day."

"But as water (even when distilled) begins to spoil after a few days, whereby also the power of the small quantity of medicine it contains is destroyed, the addition of a small quantity of spirits of wine or where this was impracticable or could not be borne, I allowed instead a few small bits of hard-wood charcoal to be put in the aqueous solution, whereby my object was accomplished; only in the latter case the fluid becomes after a few days a blackish colour, from the shaking, which is necessary before taking each does, as will be presently be seen."

"Before going any further I must make the important observation that our vital principle does not well admit of the same unaltered does of medicine being given to the patient even twice, still less several times in succession.  For then either the good effects of the former dose will be partly done away with, or there appear new symptoms and sufferings dependent on the medicine, and that were not formerly present in the disease, which obstruct the cure; in a word, the medicine, through it may have been chosen accurately homeopathic, acts awry, and attains the end in view either imperfectly or not at all.  Hence the many contradictions of homeopathists among themselves in respect to the repetition of the dose."

"But if, for the repeated administration of one and the same medicine (which is indispensible in order to obtain the cure of the great chronic disease), the does be each time changed and modified, although but slightly so, in it's degree of dynamisation, the vital force of the patient excepts quietly and as it were willingly, the same medicine, even at short intervals, and an incredible number of times, with the best result, and each time to the increased advantage to the patient."

"This small alteration of the degree of dynamization may be effected by shaking the phial, in which is the solution of the single globule (or even several of them) with five or six smart jerks of the arm before each time of taking it."

"When the physician has allowed the several table-spoonfuls of such a solution to be taken successively in this maner (yet so that when the remedy has one day produced too powerful an action, he lets the dose be ommitted for a day), he then, if the medicine continues to show itself useful, takes one or two globules of the same medicine of the lower potency (e.g.) twenty-fourth), dissolves them in about the same number of table-spoonfuls of water by shaking the bottle, and again adds a little spirit of wine, or a few pieces of charcoal, and allows this solution to be used to the end in the same way or at a longer intervals, and even somewhat less at a time, but each time only after shaking it five or six time, as long as the remedy continues to effect improvement and no new symptoms of the medicine (never experienced by other patients) appear, in which case another medicine must be employed.  But if only the symptoms of the disease appear, but increased considerably under the continued and even moderated use of the medicine, then it is time to discontinue for one or two weeks or even longer, and we may expect to see striking improvement from it."¹

"After such a portion has been taken and the same medicine is still found to be necessary, if the physician wishes to prepare a fresh portion of the same degree of potency for the patient, it is requisite first to shake the new solution as many times as the number of succussion given to the former one amount to, and a few times more, before the patient  takes the first dose of it: at the subswquent doses, however, only five or six times again."

 In this manner the homeopathic pahysican will obain all the benefit from a well-selected medicine, which could be expected for this chronic disease by giving it by the mouth."

But if the diseased organism be acted upon by the physician with the same medicne at the same time on other sensitive parts besides the nerves of the mouth and alimentary canal - if, I say, the same medicine, which is found salutary be at the same time rubbed in externally in an aqueous solution (even in but a small quantity) on one or more parts of the body, which are most free from morbid affecton (e.g., on an arm or leg or a thigh unaffected by an skin disease, pains or cramps), by this means, the salutary action will be much increased; the limbs to be rubbed in this manner many be, moreover, changed.  In this way the physician gains much advantge from the homeopathically suited medicine medicine for the patient affected by a chronic disease, and can be cure him much more rapidly than by merely administering it by the mouth."

This mode of employing the medicine (that has been found useful internally), by rubbing it into the skin of the surface of the body, which has been very much tested by me and is uncommonly efficacious, and is attended by the most strikingly happy results, explains those rare miraculous cures, in which patients with a sound skin, who had long been cripples, recoverd rapidly and forever by bathing a few time in a mineral water the medicinal constituents of which, were by accident homeopathically suited for their chronic disease."²

1. In the treatment of acute disease the homoeopathic physician goes to work in a similar manner. He dissolves one or two globules of the highly potentized well-selected medicine, in seven, ten or fifteen table-spoonfull of water (without any addition) by shaking the bottle, and lest the patient, according as the disease is more or less acute, more or less dangerous, take a whole or half table-spoonful (or even less if it is a child), every half, whole, or even two, three, four or six hours *after well shaking the bottle each time).  If the physician observes the occurrence of no new symptoms, he goes on with it at these intervals, until the symptoms at first present begin to increase; then he gives it more rarely and in smaller does."

In cholera, as is well know, the suitable remedy must often be given at much shorter intervals."

Children should get these solutions always only out of their ordinary dinking mugs; a table or  tea-spoon for drinking with is something quite unusual and suspicious to them, and for that reason they reject this tasteless liquid.  Some sugar may however, be added to it for them."

2. "On the the other hand, they were proportionately injurious to patients who suffered from ulcers and cutaneous eruptons, which, as happens from other external remedies, they repelled from the skin,  whereupon, after a transient restoration of the patient's vital force,  the internal, uncured disease settled in another part of the body much more important for life and health, so that in place of these affections the crystalline lens grew opaque, the optic nerver became paralysed, the hearing was lost, pains of countless kinds tormented the patient, his intellectual organs suffered, his spirits became affected, spasmodic asthma threatened to suffocate him, a fit of apoplexy (CVA) carried him off, or some other dangerous or intolerable ailment appeared in their stead.  Hence the rubbing in of the homeopathic, intenal medicine should never be employed on spots that are effected by an external disease."