Hahnemann’s
doctrine of Psora in the treatment of disease in children.
By William Boericke, M. D.
Presented by Sylvain Cazalet
Dr W. Boericke
It was Constantine
Hering, who said that whatever Hahnemann brought forward as a fact has
been found TO BE a fact, and whatever theory he promulgated remains
still a theory and like the Scotch verdict, is not proven. Hahnemann’s
doctrine of psora includes both facts and theories, and the history of
the school shows that while the former are accepted, the latter are
rejected In Toto by a large part of his followers and by the rest
accepted only as modified by more or less individual interpretation. But
it cannot be denied that Hahnemann’s Doctrine
of Chronic Diseases has exerted the greatest possible
practical influence on our treatment of disease and has led to the
introduction of an entirely new class of remedies and a broader
conception and study of our Materia Medica.My apology for bringing
before a gathering of practical physicians a subject savoring so largely
of theory is this practical side of it, this alone -is its passport to
the general practitioner whose aim should always-be to cure radically
rather than merely palliate. The facts of the psoric conception are
priceless, their recognition is the mark of genius ; the theory
about the precise nature of psora is of comparatively little importance
and may or may not be true.That it is-nothing but
suppressed itch, very few now-a-days admit ; that, however,
suppressions in a wider sense than what is at present-understood by itch
is an indubitable factor in the production of many forms of obstinate
and occult chronic suffering far removed from local skin manifestation
is certainly a frequently observed fact, if not an established truth.
Again, it is a fact that most chronic diseases at some time of their
history have a skin phase or a discharge from a mucous membrane. The
appearance of the morbid state on the skin or mucous membrane shows that
it is located on the outskirts of the body, removed as far as possible
from the more vital and more truly human parts of the organism. The
vital force, in the exercise of its protecting function, has removed the
miasm to those tissues and parts where it can do least harm to the life
of the organism. Therefore forcing it back into the interior by strong
local treatment must necessarily work detrimentally to a radical cure.The readiness with
which skin diseases are treated exclusively by local measures, the
readiness with which we dry up discharges from mucous surfaces, the
immense development of local, mechanical and surgical treatment to the
neglect of purely constitutional and internal medication, the increase
in all kinds of specialists whose tendency is to suppress local
manifestations, has driven the psora within to more vital organs and
regions, has lad, therefore, to the great increase of incurable chronic
maladies that affect mankind. For many of these so called distinct
maladies are but manifestations of this underlying, disturbing factor
which is the real first cause of most chronic diseases.It seems to me that the
underlying facts pertaining to the psoric theory are undeniable. What
are they ?1. In many patients the
even and regular course of diseases is from some cause or other within
themselves, interfered with.2. Remedies apparently
indicated fail to accomplish what, as a rule and according to the law of
similars, they ought to do.3. Frequently the
suppression or disappearance of a skin disease is followed by serious
mischief in more vital organs, as asthma
or other respiratory troubles after eczema. There seems to be a
reciprocal relation between the skin and internal organs.The principal forms of
the psoric manifestation are the
tubercular, scrofula and rachitic diatheses. We are all familiar with
these types as they are met with in children.Often the diseased
tendency develops as a sequel to pertussis, measles, grippe, etc., and
it is in the treatment of these acute diseases and especially in
their convalescence that anti-psoric remedies should be permanent. The
scrofulous diathesis is akin pathologically to tuberculosis and
acknowledges that cases of tuberculosis recover spontaneously.
Why ? The fact is that bacilli may indeed find lodgment, for all
are tuberculizable under special favoring circumstances, but unless the
conditions for their growth and development are favorable by the
presence of psora, which prepares for the germs a suitable soil, the
growth remains local and tends to heal spontaneously. Anti-psoric
treatment changes the soil and secures immunity.
Psora
causes
a vulnerability of tissue, undermines the tissue resistance to foreign
invasion, lessens the germ-destroying property possessed by certain
cells, by the white blood corpuscles, blood serum, etc. Anti-psoric
remedies restore this property and thus guard the organism attacks from
without.One of the most common
manifestations of psora, especially in children, is an abnormal course
run by acute disease ; they run a masked course, and, apparently,
well-chosen remedies fail to act. Diseases will take on sudden, rapid
and dangerous development. The proper way to treat these, according to
the light of homœopathy, is to select our remedy from the anti-psoric
part of the Materia Medica and find the similar here. Frequently,
instead of Aconite, Bryonia, or
other polychrest, so constantly employed, it may be Sulphur
or Calcarea or Lycopodium,
that will correspond not only to the acute from but to the underlying
dyscrasic factor.The little patient will
then not only recover more quickly, but without the tedious
convalescence, and certainly without squeal, that are all too common in
other methods of treatment. Slow convalescence after specific diseases
is always a sign of the psoric influence and a guide for anti-psoric
remedies. The child is reduced by the struggle with the illness, the
latent tendencies come to the surface, and his recuperative powers are
feeble. In short, anæmia weakness,
atrophy, mat-nutrition, are some of
the most marked features of the protean character of this psoric
diathesis, and it may be said to consist of the “sum of all –the
biological obstacles which resist, deface, complicate and alter the
natural course of diseases.” In this wider sense, as indicating dyscrasia,
the psoric theory is true.Now, no matter how
first caused, its greatest evil is that it is made organic and rendered
a permanent factor in the human family by hereditary transmission. It is
this fact of hereditary and the pollution of the vital fluids that gives
it a permanent field for chronic diseases. Hereditary influences the
soil and favors the development of certain bodily constitutions. And
Grauvogl has shown that acute diseases run their course in the track
marked out by these bodily constitutions, and probably our remedies do
so likewise. That psora may
originally have been caused by the suppression of skin disease and by
heredity transmission appear as a polyform pathological fact, finds its
analogy in gout, which is recognized as a food diathesis, but which
becomes capable of transmission from parent to child, and is prone to
receive important modifications in such inheritance.Every practitioner of
experience sooner or later learns, that in order to get a true
understanding of the course of disease in children, the ground, the
bodily organization of our little patients, as modified more or less by
heredity, must be the special object of our therapeutic measures. Here
is the battle-field of the morbific germs from without combining with
the impurities within, and the nature of this soil determines the course
and issue of the struggle. Now, the practical part of our doctrine is
here ; without the anti-psoric remedies
we will never succeed in changing the character of this soil, and will
most assuredly have to rest satisfied with mere palliation.This is the shortcoming
of old-school treatment. It is anti-baillary,
anti-septic. By inhalation, or sub-cutaneously, or directly
into the local lesion, it seeks to destroy the disease-germs, but it is
powerless aside from its influence against secondary infection. The
treatment of homœopathy certainly is more rational. Its anti-psoric
measure tend to improve the soil, free the system of its miasm, and thus
gives little chance for the development of disease-germs. This in
conjunction with all sanitary, climatic, hygienic and dietetic measures,
all of which work in the same direction, promise the most satisfactory
results, and the clinical experience of the school justifies the
correctness of our position. My paper becomes a plea, therefore, for the
more general use of anti-psoric in
the treatment of all diseases, especially in children, where opportunity
to modify inherited tendencies is so constantly offered.Given the psoric taint,
anti-psoric medication, even of acute diseases, alone promises the best
results. A superficial matching of symptoms differs but little in its
results from the palliative measures so popular in the old-school,
albeit without the ill effects of the latter. Anti-psoric
treatment, commencing at the anti-natal period, if possible, is the
special field for homœopathy. It gets at the stream at its
fountain-head before it has gained momentum. Here in the eradication of
chronic disease and hereditary taints, homœopathy promises to the
patient investigator its most brilliant results. Guided by the law of
cure and the peculiar Hahnemannian pathology, we can select medicines of
homœopathy. There is no doubt that such preventive, genuine
homœopathic treatment lessens forever the sum total of sickness in the
world ; lessens the load mankind has to carry from that source, and
tends to make the new generation physically better than the old.
Source :
Hahnemannian Monthly, August
1894.WILLIAM BOERICKE, M. D.,
SAN FRANCISCO.Copyright © Sylvain
Cazalet 2001
