XVII. Knowledge of Substance as a Basis for the Knowledge of Medicaments

We learn to recognize such modes of action by comparing one substance with another with respect to the way in which they continue working in the human organism. Take oxalic acid for example. Under certain conditions it turns into formic acid. The actions of the latter represent a metamorphosis of oxalic acid. Oxalic acid is an excretion of the plant, just as formic acid is of the animal. The creation of oxalic acid in the plant-organism is an activity analogous to that of formic acid in the animal, which means that the creation of oxalic acid corresponds to the domain of the etheric, and the creation of formic acid to the domain of the astral. The diseases which reveal themselves in rheumatic and gouty conditions are to be ascribed to a deficient action of the astral body. There are other conditions which present themselves such that the causes, which in gout and rheumatism stem from the astral organism, lie further back in the etheric organism. In which case there arise, not only congestions of forces towards the astral, which hinder and obstruct the ego organization, but also retarding effects in the etheric, which the astral organization is powerless to overcome. These reveal themselves in sluggish activity of the lower abdomen, in slowing of the liver and spleen activity, in stony deposits of gall and the like. If oxalic acid is given in such cases, the activity of the etheric organism is supported in the appropriate way. Through oxalic acid the etheric body is reinforced; for that force of the ego-organization is transformed by this acid into a force of the astral body which then has a strengthened effect on the etheric body.