Contents
Studies in the Philosophy of Healing
and others writing including The study of materia medica and taking the case
C. M. BOGER
THE UNDEVELOPED PICTURE
The successive sickness of one individual bear enough resemblance to
clearly show that each human entity reacts to disturbances in its own particular way.
Ordinarily the connection is not self observed, for of all things bodily afflictions are
soonest forgotten. Again the very violence of acute disease tends to obscure the deeper
lying manifestations which best portray the dyscratic outcroppings which are the more
helpful of all the prescriber. After an acute disease explosion these submerged symptoms
again slowly emerge from their hiding, finally showing themselves to be part and parcel of
a deeply imbedded miasm which can only be eradicated by the most careful prescribing. He
who fails to realize this will always be curing but never cure. In his aimless wandering
about amongst symptoms he will only add confusion to the picture, the more so because he
failed to make the right start.Much as we need our acute remedies the prescriber uses them less as he
grows in his work. He realizes that acute excitations of the vital economy may be menacing
enough to demand their employment, but at the same time expects to shortly follow with
others of deeper action. This is somewhat reminiscent of certain allopathic practices, but
entails none of their baneful after-effects; on the contrary it clears the ground,
bringing into stronger relief the indications for the succeeding remedy.The finding of and giving the proper antipsoric has quite a few
limitations. The anamnesis may be unavailable, the status praesens may have few and
obscure symptoms or be loaded down with a multitude of trivialities taxing the ingenuity
of the examiner at every step and unless he is a man of accurate habits of observation he
is almost sure to fail in making correct deductions. Not all physicians have built up
sufficiently their deductive and reasoning powers and must perforce be shown the actual
and close correspondence between the clinical and pathogenetic pictures. Such realists
rarely make homoeopathists of the first rank, largely because of the type of their
previous education which has not been of a nature to arouse their powers of imagination,
for in actual practice there is always something to be inferred in every clinical case.Repeated translations and transcriptions of the materia medica texts
have almost insensibly altered the finer shades of meaning so essential to a correct
understanding of the various remedies. This is not for the best as each record should be
much more than just a bald outline of facts stripped of their vital setting, for it is
this that constitutes the living appeal, as it were, and builds up the ground color of
disease pictures, be they clinical or pathogenetic. The older men were much concerned over
the sifting process of symptom verification, thereby showing themselves fully alive to the
uncertainties of symptom production. Hahnemann himself, although he had through long
application acquired the ability to grasp the essence of each prover’s statements, spoke
of Nenning’s symptom factory, even while admitting many of the latter’s observations to
his own compilation. We now know them to have the highest value.Personally I feel it a mistake to use only educated provers because
some of the most virile and expressive relations come from minds of rather mediocre
equipment, be they patients or provers. A spontaneous expression unmodified by definition
is always the most valuable. This is especially striking in the homoeopathic treatment of
infants an children where self-interpretation is almost wholly absent.What then should be our attitude in general toward disease ? If we
visualize it as a disturbance of the normal vibratory rate of the human entity, starting
in the vital force, that compact of energy which rules our well being, the conclusion is
inevitable that each separate sickness which we must suffer must also bear the stamp of
the whole and must be regarded and treated as such, i.e., from the central to the more
external, from above downward and in the reverse order of its appearance; the first shall
be last and the last first, here also.Whether we realize it or not, we are externalized thought and thought
habits are the surest guides to the indicated remedy. In our thoughts lies the first and
most fertile source of our every attitude; they color the meaning of every symptom, just
as intonation governs the meaning of words, more so in some languages than others.The original Materia Medica Pura of Hahnemann contains but
relatively few conditions of aggravation and amelioration, leaving us to infer that
originally they were used much less than now, although Boenninghausen was quick to add
this helpful factor to our working knowledge of the remedies. Hahnemann himself evidently
depended upon combined symptom expression for his guide and when clear and distinct it
rarely needs the help of the modalities.One more point : the primary elements of a given clinical picture are
ordinarily not found in the same combination in the pure pathogenesis, but must be pieced
together from the symptoms contained in several provings, which means that no one person
can possibly show the whole clinical picture of any one disease nor can he exhibit all the
phases of action of any one drug, but either complex will contain within its scope some of
the essentials of the distress under which it labors.