Nowadays, in era of degenerative diseases and complex pathological phenomena, many physicians are trying to get some knowledge about Organopathy for successful case management. 

Organopathy is very nearer to Homoeopathy. Just a small thin line is there between them that separates Homoeopathy from organopathy. So, let’s take some glimpses on very nearer sibling of Homoeopathy i.e. Organopathy; Its development and relation with Homoeopathy is still a controversial matter among medical men.

Change is constant and& this rule is also constant in the world. This rule is very well applied to medical science. Medical field is vast one and continuous advancement makes it more updated and glorious. Successful establishment of any system is only possible through the dedication of its members. As we all have knowledge about Homoeopathic healing system and great efforts of our pioneers for development Homoeopathy as emerging healing field. Homoeopathy is considered as huge outcome of keen observations and dedication by Dr. Hahnemann and on other hand, Organopathy is a fruit of analytical mind of Paracelsus. After that, Rademacher and Burnett were all set with their hard-works and honest efforts to keep this method alive in medical field.

Paracelsus, Rademacher and Burnett were three geniuses in their respective eras who gave huge contributions to establish Organopathy in Medical Science.

Definition

“Organopathy” as name suggests it deals with the organ specific remedies and their role in treating the diseased persons. Like Homoeopathy, organopathy had also proved itself successful in occupying its own unique role in medical field.

It is a treatment practice where case-taking focuses on locality and remedy selection on the symptoms of organs or organ-systems. This approach implies that the vital force creates disease in the organs and that organs and organ-systems are interactive parts of the whole.

History and Development of Organopathic Concept

The organopathic treatment approach is much older than classical homeopathic prescribing. Beginning in folk medicine, it was common practice to prescribe by interpreting similitude of a healing agent to indications of internal organs. That which originated by Paracelsus and was regarded much as an earlier notion of the Hahnemannian understanding of similar, was further developed by Rademacher as an independent pragmatic medical art. It was refined and defined by Burnett in the 1900´s as organopathy.

Paracelsus (1493-1541), 200 years prior to Hahnemann (1755-1843), pointed out that “similar must be compared to similar”. He referred to plants as ‘external’ organs and was the initiator of the idea that a “disease is cured with a substance which has the same essence.” It was Paracelsus who first spoke of the idea of Similars. But his understanding was not the same as what Hahnemann later incorporated into his Law of Similars. The difference between the Paracelsian view and the Law of Similars is of a pharmacological nature. To Paracelsus, ´similar` meant that the internal organs of an organism had an herbal counterpart in nature that was similar to the organ’s specific disturbance. For Hahnemann, ‘Similar’ meant that the symptom picture expressed in an ill individual had to be similar to the symptoms experienced by a healthy person upon ingestion of a substance, in order to cure.

Hahnemann as described in Aphorism 18, saw only the totality of symptoms expressing the ill state and cure therefore should only be possible matching a remedy to the given totality.

Rademacher (1772-1850), who was a contemporary to Hahnemann, introduced the identification of the pathologic organ as origin of an illness. Paracelsus and Rademacher alike understood an organ to express the state of the whole individual and the curative action of a remedy on the diseased organ should heal the entire individual. Hahnemann refined this by taking into consideration specifics about the character of the indisposition and by seeking a comparative system of mapping remedial action identified in a healthy individual, with the symptom pattern of a disease.

It was in the late nineteenth century that Burnett (1840-1901) sought to combine the Paracelsian view of the curative effect of remedies in nature, with the physical aspects of diseases that Rademacher had identified and aimed at unifying this with the philosophy of the homeopathic treatment approach. He thereby introduced a new joint approach to healing described as organopathy.

John Gottfried Rademacher MD was born in Goch, a town in Germany. He was a keen observer, follower and admirer of Paracelsus. His work “The Universal and Organ remedies” was published in Berlin, two volumes, 800 pages of each (1841). This work was based on Paracelsus’s medicinal concept and restates the idea of correspondences and signatures between organs and the disease states of the body. Its German title is rather lengthy, but it is generally quoted in short as Rademacher’s Erfahrungsheillehre.

He decided to thoroughly study Hohenheim; he had not read his works long before he came to this passage, that “the practice must not proceed from the theory, but, on the contrary, the theory must proceed from the practice.” This is precisely the standpoint from which we must view all sciences. He was not born Homoeopath, but in many respects his ideas inspired Dr. Burnett. 

Burnett’s idea of Rademacher’s Remedies was the revolutionary step in Advancement of Homoeopathy. “Totality of symptoms by just matching on symptomatic level is not enough for a successful Prescription.” Importance of similarity between disease and drug pathogenesis was one of the significant teaching by Dr. Burnett. His pathological perspective in Homoeopathic prescription along with Homoeopathic principles was a significant idea in this Gentle Healing Art.

Burnett was member of the legendary Cooper club, where Skinner (1825-1906), Cooper (1844-1903), Burnett and Clarke (1853-1931) critically investigated the old and new theories of homeopathy. Whilst Skinner and Clarke were advocates of high potency prescribing, Burnett and Cooper were users of un-potentized tinctures and low potencies. During the time of the Cooper-club, these four investigated treatment approaches and remedies and expanded the use and diversity of nosodes, (preparations derived from pathological cultures or secretions). Burnett made use of organopathy and the miasm theory, with the prescription of nosodes, especially in his treatment of cancer.

Homoeopathy and Organopathy

This curious matter was better described by Dr. Burnett, through his remarks on the therapeutic methods. Where he describes this beautiful relation with following words: 

“Hahnemann founded his Homoeopathy, Rademacher founded his Organopathy (the re-discovered Medicina Paracelsica really) practically contemporaneously with one another and both may be said to have been in full development in the forties of the nineteenth century. The specificity of seat of the Medicina Hahnemannzca (i.e., Homoeopathy) and the principle of the remedia appropriata of the Medicina Paracelsica (sometimes termed Rademacherianism) practically coincide. Hahnemannic medicine in its pristine purity is based on pure pharmacodynamics; it is in fact therapeutically applied pharmacodynamics; its first and deepest ground-work being the principle that given drugs affect given organs (parts) by self-elective preference. Therefore, up to this point Paracelsic medicine and Hahnemannic medicine coincides.” 

Later on, he added about “DRUG PROVING”, which was a one of the main pillars of Homoeopathic science that helps to differentiate both healing methods. Drug proving is nothing but a technical process by which actions of drugs were noted then and then only they were used as a medicine in Homeopathic science. While in this organopathy, doctrine of signature is the key factor in understanding the drug action. 

Dr. Burnett mentioned about the adoption of this drug proving process was helping Rademacherian organopath to established themselves as a Homoeopathescents. This adoption was the main reason for slow but significant effort in eradication of the line between Homoeopathy and organopathy, Organopaths and large dose-specificity -of- seat homeopath were united in one principle for using material doses and prescription of the specificity of seat of drugs (curability of tumor).

Organopathic prescriptions are made based on the Paracelsus principle that the given drugs affect given organs (parts) by self-elective preference. Many doctors like J H Clark, R T Coopers, Boger and Burnett, have given in their experiences on the importance of selection of Organopathic remedies and their usefulness when other guiding symptoms, causations and Miasms were rare or not available.

From their experience, these experts have identified the special affinity of these medicines on special organs and used at random for affections. These are usually prescribed as rejuvenators of the organ.

View of Different Stalwarts 

Boenninghausen, in his grand essay ‘A Contribution to the judgement concerning the characteristic value of symptoms’ reminds us:

"The seat of the disease ... deserves to be more particularly emphasized, as it frequently furnishes a characteristic symptom, since almost every medicine acts more and also more decidedly on certain particular parts of the living organism."

Richard Hughes wrote, in A Manual of Pharmacodynamics:

"Dr. Drysdale also has laid much stress on what he calls "specificity of seat," connecting it with the special irritability displayed by the various parts for their natural stimuli and for causes of disease and extending it to the minutest localities or nerve-branches which have anything independent and special about them."

Burnett adopted Drysdale's concept of "specificity of seat," and used this term and concept liberally in his writings.

Burnett in Diseases of the Liver mentions:

"That the organ in the organism does indeed possess not only autonomy but hegemony, i.e. the organ is an independent state in itself and in and on the organism exercises an important influence."

James Tyler Kent speaks to this in his 1912 article, Remedies related to pathological tissue changes. Disease may exist and remedies may act, on the dynamic plane; but there are clearly observable patterns in which these dynamic disharmonies manifest and eventuate in the tissues. The medicinal disease of Lycopodium and those natural diseases bearing similitude to Lycopodium, exist in the dynamis and not really in the gut, the liver, or the right side of the body; yet these dynamic diseases preferentially manifest in these tissues. It would be difficult to describe Lycopodium without referring to its specificity of seat in the gut, the biliary tree and the right side of the body; and it would be difficult to prescribe this remedy in a case where disharmony was not expressed in these localities.

Scope of Organopathy

A patient with hypertension, diabetes mellitus and COPD may express multitude of symptoms common to each of these diseases. Based on the clinical findings and diagnostic evidences, he is considered as a patient of hypertension, diabetes and COPD. Such a concept necessitates different prescriptions to balance the patho- physiological changes in the patient’s health. 

Rademacher identified a disease as organopathic if the primary seat of the disease was the localization of pain in that particular organ. This ‘specificity of seat’ was recognizable if in the acute flare-up, pain was felt longest in the organ of primary affection. This did not mean however, that 

the symptom manifestation in an organ, necessarily identified the disease as confined to this one particular organ.

Underlying this, according to Burnett, was the idea of a pathological perspective of homeopathy, where the simillimum selected is that of the disease and not just that of the symptoms. He believed that behind the holistic symptom expression is a more distinctive, a more precise symptomatology that identifies the “true pathologic simile”. To Burnett there existed different types of simillimum, namely the ‘pathologic simile’ reflecting the development of disease, the ‘simple symptomatic simillimum’ taking into account the totality as proclaimed by Hahnemann and a ‘simple simillimum’ that has a superficial correspondence to symptoms expressed.

Organopathy has given a new approach to remedies and their prescribing. The organopathic remedies are selected by knowledge of their pharmacological activity on the local expression and their linkage to an organ and its pathology. There is a ‘doctrine of signature’ perspective in organopathic prescribing; where characteristics and structure of plants resemble organs of the body and have a therapeutic effect on the disease expressions in an organ. “The healthy force from the plant can be utilized against the unhealthy force in the diseased person”. This reflects the parallel to what was understood as the Paracelsian law of Similars and is difficult to combine with the philosophy of Hahnemannian homeopathy. Paracelsus was a firm believer that in nature there existed an herb for every ailment.

There are diseases that have no totality encompassing symptomatology, where the pathology is organ specific, organ symptomatic and confined to the locality of a specific organ.

Burnett was constantly aware and deliberate of retrieving the most ‘similar’ remedy for a disease, but recognized that organ diseases frequently required only organ specific healing. Burnett’s emphasis was, that there was a requirement for well-reasoned multiple prescribing and administering of remedies.

Another indication for the use of an organopathic treatment approach is found in the methodology that is described as drainage. Here the aim is to select remedies that lead to a detoxification of the body. Maury, ascribes a dual role to drainage; that of organ stimulation and of excretion of toxic products that have been bound in the diseased organism. He postulates a three-fold benefit to the methodology. There is a benefit to the patient in that the detoxification of the organism will avoid an interaction of toxins with the remedies that are subsequently administered [1]. The treatment of the excretory organs prior to remedy prescription may result in a more rapid onset of the effects of the remedy that is to follow detoxification. As a consequence, the homeopathic treatment will be experienced as a rapidly acting methodology without any aggravation. A further indication for the use of organopathy in organ support, as Runcie, points out, is to eliminate possible aggravations for patients who are sensitive [2].

According to Blair’s, article, Burnett found Hahnemannian homeopathy too limiting, as the Law of Similars only permits one interpretation of a simillimum and is therefore restrictive in finding the specifically matching prescription. Burnett pointed out that organs are individual systems within the organism, the bigger system, which have individuality in terms of their functions and their diseases. He indicated that if an organ autonomously suffers from disease it can be cured by treating organopathically [3]. If on the other hand the organ is impaired due to the whole organism’s suffering of a chronic, miasmatic impairment, the organopathic remedies will act solely as palliatives and the great anti-miasmatic remedies have to be prescribed. This becomes evident in Burnett’s treatment of Tumors in Cancer.

Limitations of Organopathy

The general concept in Homeopathy towards treatment of the sick is Treat the patient not the disease. On a superficial sense, this may be preposterous, but in a deeper sense it conveys its holistic concepts towards the patient.

Burnett had to acknowledge limitations to organopathic prescribing. A health impairment on a constitutional level lies beyond the range of activity of organ remedies. Burnett saw this as the “inherent defect of organopathy”.The holistic organism is left unaffected by organopathic prescribing, only the interaction of organ and organism may be influenced positively.

Books on Organopathy

Burnett’s-Diseases of the Spleen, Diseases of the Liver, Enlarged Tonsils, Cataract, Consumption, On Fistula, Gout, Diseases of the Skin, On Neuralgia, Tumours, Tumours of the Breast, Diseases of the Veins.

Vaccinosis and its Cure by Thuja, Gout and its cure, Curability of tumours and many more of his writings are authentic one in Homoeopathic Science: 

Uterine therapeutics by Minton

Repertory on tongue by Douglas

Burnett also began introducing Nosodes to his organopathic treatment. Especially in cancer this is today common practice as can be noted in the treatment approach to cancer taken by Coulter and Ramakrishnan.

More recently Ian Watson introduced and enriched the organ therapy by the use of Sarcodes, remedies made from healthy organ tissue [4].

Examples of Organopathic Remedies

• Chelidonium, Cardus, Chionanthus, Leptendra, Myrica, Kalmegh, for liver disorders

• Sabal Ser, Ferr Pic for Prostate affection

• Adonis V, Cactus, Crategus, Strophanthus for heart disorders

Ledum, Rhododendron and Kalmia, three members of the botanical family Ericaceae. These remedies display a strong specificity of seat for rheumatic affections of the joints, synovial tissues and connective tissues of the body, seen in the prominence of symptoms in the Head Pain, Back, Extremities and Extremities Pain sections of the repertory [5]. 

Uva-ursi, Oxydendron, Epigea and Chimaphilla, four other members of the botanical family Ericaceae. For these remedies, a strong specificity of seat is demonstrated for the urinary tract, with a preponderance of symptoms in the Bladder, Kidney, Prostate, Urethra and Urine sections of the Repertory.

This is not to suggest that these remedies act directly on or through those tissues - but rather, that the disharmonies with which these remedies are associated manifest preferentially in these localities. And this allows us to have a purely homoeopathic perspective on Burnett's "organ remedies" - Chelidonium is not really a remedy that acts on the body through the liver, but a remedy whose dynamic disharmony expresses preferentially in (whose specificity of seat is in) the liver and biliary tree. Burnett suggested so much himself, when in his Diseases of the Spleen, he wrote:

"I am not maintaining that treating an organ affection by an organ remedy after the manner of Hohenheim, Rademacher and their respective co-doctrinaires, will stand as a medical system in itself, but that it is eminently workable and is largely of the nature of elementary homoeopathy, is, in fact, specificity of seat…

"Rademacher's organopathy (that an otherwise able modern writer appropriates with child-like naivete) is no more and no less than the homoeopathic specificity of seat, with just a dash of a mystic psychic something in the several organs; if we set aside this little particular soul for each organ, it is only local affinity, or elective affinity. And it is quite true in nature and the mind that cannot, or will not, recognize it, is wanting in catholicity of perception; and in practice will often go a mile when three paces would have reached the goal. Whatever else Cantharis may be, it is first and foremost a kidney medicine; whatever else Digitalis may be, it is primarily a heart medicine; and let Belladonna be what it may, it is before all things an artery medicine and just in this sense Ceanothus Americanus is a spleen medicine."

In this manner, Burnett characterized groups of remedies he considered to bear "specificity of seat" in a variety of organs and tissues in the body [6]. His "liver remedies" included Chelidonium, Carduus mariae, Leptandra virginica, Cholesterinum, Myrica cerifera, Chelone glabra, Quassia, Crocus sativus and Podophyllum. "Spleen remedies" included Ceanothus americanus, Squilla maritima, Quercus, Juniperus communis, Oleum succinum, Conium maculatum, Magnesium tartaricum, Rubia tinctorum and Urtica urens.

The significance of this emphasis on Locality, is that the similliumum needs to cover the pathology of the case, not merely superficially match the superficial symptom-expression. This is not at variance with Hahnemann's aphorism 7 ("... it must be the symptoms alone by which the disease demands and can point to the appropriate medicine for its relief ..."). Rather, it merely demands that we be fully observant of the signs and symptoms of disease in the case at hand. In Burnett's words:

"Homoeopathy may be said to be based upon organopathy, for a drug to cure the heart of its disease specifically must necessarily affect the heart in some manner. But the homoeopath specializes and says further: The drug that is to cure the heart must affect the heart, certainly - that is one of the foundations of our whole therapeutic edifice, but that is not enough; the nosological organopathy and the therapeutic organopathy must be and are similar. And inasmuch as we can know disease only by its subjective and objective symptoms (its language), it follows that the two organopathies must be symptomatically alike ... "but to be curative the natural disease of the organ (noso-logical organopathy) must be like in expression to the therapeutic organopathy or drug-action." (Burnett, Diseases of the Spleen)

"Experience teaches me that if we are to avoid false issues in treatment we must start with diagnosing, if possible, where the malady is primarily located. At any rate, I find this the shortest way to curing. If this be neglected we not infrequently cover and cure the symptoms, leaving the malady itself more or less untouched." (Burnett, Diseases of the Liver)

Research Study

A study comparing homeopathic treatment strategies using Constitutional Medicines (CM) or Organopathic Medicines (OM) alone or in Combination (BCOM) in patients suffering from BPH was carried out in Odisha, India. Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy (BPH) is common in older men. 220 men aged 30-90 years presenting symptoms of prostatism, with or without evidence of bladder outflow obstruction were included in the study.

Overall 85% of patients showed improvement of subjective symptoms such as frequency, urgency, hesitancy, intermittent flow, unsatisfactory urination, feeble stream, diminution of residual urine volume but there was no reduction in prostate size. Treatment response was highest with BCOM (38.24%) compared to OM (31.62%) and CM (30.15%). Effect sizes were highest for the decrease in IPSS, residual urine volume and urinary flow rate.

Patients were prescribed with constitutional medicines such as Thuja, Conium, Sulph, Lycopodium, Iodum, Pulsatilla, Mercurius solubilis, Baryta carbonica, Natrum muriaticum, Lyssin, Tuberculinum, Calcarea carbonica, Lachesis, Gelsemium, Lyssin, Tuberculinum, Carcinosin and Staphysagria or organopathic medicines such as Sabal serrulata, Hydrangea., Chimaphila., Solidago, Senecio., Triticum, Ferrum picricata and Picric acid as per their symptoms.

In Homeopathy, the most appropriate treatment protocol is based on the similia principle; however, this may not happen in all the cases. This is because in certain cases there may not be adequate symptom to select the similimum, or in certain cases already other mode of treatment might have been applied and the true picture might be masked. 

There may also be instances the case may be at an incurable stage, which may warrant only palliation. Therefore, planning the course of treatment should not always be on a fixed protocol. Experienced physicians switch from one method to another based on the case, availability of the symptoms also based on his experience. The basic objective is to find out a closest similimum to the patient’s totality of symptom perceived by the physician, through his skill, knowledge and observations. 

Organopathy implies that a defect in an organ should be corrected, by removing the impairing influence. The appropriate remedy is the agent employed to stimulate repair within that organ. Burnett’s methodology is one that complements Hahnemannian philosophy. 

Another method that has complemented the diversity of homeopathic treatment approaches, is Schüssler’s biochemic remedies. Schüssler’s focus of prescribing also lay in the realms of low potencies and was aimed at promoting the regulation of imbalance.

Whether the homeopathic practitioner relates the disharmony of a specific organ within the Hahnemannian totality to the mental and emotional traits of the individual or associates symptomatology to a specific organ, as in organopathy, the only aim of the practitioner should be relief the patient as described in Aphorism 1 of the Organon.

Keller stressed one point about organopathy: “However great the differences may have been in the medical thinking of Hahnemann and Rademacher, in practice we are heirs of both”!

Organopathy is not a new venture of Homoeopathy but it is nicely blended with Homoeopathy. It’s origin and methods are interesting one to study. Organopathy has its own glorious history and developmental milestones along with Homoeopathy. Organopathy and Other complimentary systems like this are helpful for homeopathy to expanding it in a gigantic way. So, this presentation/webinar is intended to explore this lesser known treasure at some extent (Basic idea about organopathy and their founders).

1. Hati, A.K. et al.“Constitutional, organopathic and combined homeopathic treatment of benign prostatic hypertrophy: A clinical trial.” Homeopathy, vol. 101, no. 4, October 2012, pp. 217–223.

2. Mettelstedt, U. “A critical analysis of organopathy in diagnosis and practice.” Hpathy, https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/a-critical-analysis-of-organopathy-in-diagnosis-and-practice/.

3. Taylor, W. “Taking the case: Specificity of seat; James Compton Burnett and the generalization of locality.” Whole Health Now, http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/wt6.html.

4. Tyler, M.L. Homoeopathic drug pictures. B. Jain Publishers, 1990.

5. Burnett, J.C. Best of burnett. B. Jain Publishers, 2002.

6. Mathur, K.N. Principles of prescribing: Collected from clinical experiences of pioneers of homoeopathy. B. Jain Publishers, 2002.