PAP AVER SOMNIFERUM. 93 



" Some of the primitive effects of Opium last but two hours, 

 but others, especially those ensuing from strong doses, continue 

 longer, though perhaps they may not prove fatal. 



u Opium is a medicine whose primitive effects are seldom 

 employed homoeopathically in human diseases." 



Application according to the Homceopathic Prin- 

 ciple. — Noack and Trinks : u Opium shows that its prin- 

 cipal effects are directed first on the cerebrospinal nervous 

 system, then on the ganglionic nervous system, the arterial vas- 

 cular system, on the muscles subject to the will, the serous and 

 mucous membranes ; we recognise further its peculiar effects on 

 organs of the mind, on the power of imagination, the faculty 

 of the will, the memory, on the cerebellum, the liver, and other 

 organs. Hahnemann has very correctly comprehended and 

 pointed out the fundamental character of the effects of Opium, 

 when he says, ' in the primary effect of small and moderate doses, 

 in which the organism suffering, as it were, allows itself to be 

 affected by the medicine, it seems to exalt the irritability and 

 activity of the muscles subjected to the will, but to diminish that of 

 the involuntary for a longer time ; whilst it exalts the fancy and 

 the mind in its primary action, blunts and stupifies at the same 

 time the external senses, common sensation, and consciousness.' 

 As an after-effect, he describes want of irritability and of 

 activity of the voluntarily, and morbidly-exalted excitability of 

 the involuntary muscles, absence of ideas, and obtuseness of the 

 fancy, with timidity, with over-sensibility of common sensation. 

 In large doses, the symptoms of the primary action rise not 

 only to a far more dangerous height, but also pass through 

 each other with great haste, often intermixed with secondary 

 effects, or rapidly passing into these. According to Rau, it 

 is distinguished by excitation of the nervous system in its 

 central points, and by antagonistic depression of the peri- 

 pheric activity of the same. It weakens the energy of the 

 muscles of the mucous membrane ; excites, on the contrary, 

 the activity of the veins ; increases the secretion of bile and the 



