Redefining
Homeopathy – the Lessons of History
by Peter Morrell
sisterhood June 2002 – Peter Morrell
Redefining Homeopathy – the
Lessons of HistoryIt is useful from time to time to boil homeopathy
back down to its basics and attempt to re-define it. In attempting to
define homeopathy at all we might well begin by saying it is a system of
medicine based upon giving medicines in sickness that cause similar
symptoms in the healthy. This very straightforward definition then
immediately raises the questions of how are symptoms produced in
the sick? and what do we mean by similar? This
introduces the two central aspects of provings and the
concept of symptom totality or true therapeutic holism.
And then we can easily get into complex philosophical terrain over the
precise dimensions of all these central aspects of homeopathy.
A Formal Science
The
whole origin of homeopathy is rooted solely in empirical studies and
experiments. In this sense it is certainly a formal science, that “derives
its knowledge of life from a consideration of the facts of observation
and experience,” [1; 11] Homeopathy was indeed “the
logical and legitimate offspring of the inductive method and philosophy
of Aristotle and Lord Bacon.” [1; 15] Being “founded
and developed into a scientific system…by Hahnemann…under the
principles of the Inductive method of science as developed by Lord
Bacon,” [1; 16-17] and even like “chemistry or physics,
homeopathy is established under the principles of the inductive
method…its elements are: 1. the phenomena of disease; 2. the phenomena
produced by drugs when administered to healthy persons; and 3. the
general law of mutual action…Newton’s Third law of Motion…the law of
similars, which connects the two series of phenomena,” [1; 19].Homeopathy affirms: “1. the totality of the
symptoms of the patient is the basis of medical treatment; 2. the use of
single medicines…[whose] symptoms and sphere of action…have been
predetermined by pure, controlled experiments upon healthy persons; 3.
the principle of symptom-similarity as the guide to the choice of the
remedy; 4. the minimum dose capable of producing a dynamic or functional
reaction.” [1; 22]. All these principles derive not from vain
conceits and wordy conjecture, but solely from experiment, which is
observation and experience, as defined by Bacon. In that sense,
homeopathy is certainly a science in the accepted or formal sense. That
it is, secondarily, a science, which stands in conflict with orthodox
science is, admittedly, another issue.
Knowledge of Drugs and Empathy
A
good homeopath must possess in good measure two special qualities above
all others “an amazing knowledge of the drugs in the
homeopathic pharmacopoeia and their minutiae of difference combined
with abundant sympathy and understanding of the patient,” [2;
133] in other words, knowledge of drugs and knowledge of how to
match them to people. The latter necessarily involves the rare skill of
bringing out all the main elements of the patients case. Homeopaths
must strive to attain the “ability of seeing almost
intuitively a drug picture, stamped [as it were] across the face of any
patient a lightning facility to match the drug for a particular sick
patient,” [2; 135]. Dr Borland “drummed into me,
“learn materia medica” ” [3; 288]. The homeopath
gazes through a maze of symptoms, parts, and disease labels, forever
looking deeper, being “always interested in the whole man, body,
mind and spirit,” [2; 133]. Afterall, in the last analysis “the
patient is the only one who can really tell what is the matter,”
[3; 288]
As
with patients, all drugs have their characteristic features that mark
them out from all others: “the thirstlessness of Ant tart is a
great and important symptom in diagnosing the remedy in, say, a
broncho-pneumonia,” [4; 137]; it is “useless to
prescribe Aconite for a patient of calm and equable disposition, for
subjects poisoned with Aconite are excited, frightened and restless,”
[5; 5]. Patients who need “Nux vomica [are] highly irritable
and bad-tempered,” people [5; 5]. Dr John Paterson always “described
Lachesis as the Garden of Eden the serpent, sex, religion and
jealousy,” [6; 202]. The Arsenicum patient is always
noted for being “meticulously neat in his dress and in his
thinking to straighten pictures slightly askew and being always
prepared in an emergency,” [7; 227] Dr Howard Henderson Patrick
[c.1880-1959] pointed to “the value of Phosphorus before
operation to prevent chloroform sickness, Antimony tartrate to prevent
chest complications and Rhus tox in the immediate post-operative period
of restlessness,” [8; 326]. A similar notion flows from the
observation that “the children who did best on tartar emetic in
pneumonia were those who had as well gastro-enteritis, i.e. presented
more symptoms similar to those of the remedy,” [9; 170].
Detailed knowledge of materia medica is vital. Undoubtedly, it is this
recognition of materia medicas central importance that inspired a
physician like Margaret Tyler to “read a drug each night before
retiring,” [10; 92]Regarding attitude, then the good physician is “utterly
unselfish in thought, word and deed, his actions were based on truth and
righteousness.” [11; 5] Dr Charles Wheeler, for example, was
“a brilliant physician an ornament to any society in which he
moved;” [11; 8] “his whole being seemed to radiate love
for his fellow creatures.” [11; 6] In the case of Dr Frank
Bodman, people referred repeatedly to his “goodness, compassion wisdom
and a great zest for life.” [12; 221] For example, Dr George
Burford possessed “extremely fine feelings and sensitiveness
which lay hidden beneath his outward appearance of reserve.”
[13; 168]Dr John Raeside [1927-72] was “very much a
Scot, with the humanity and humour which characterise them.” [14;
250] With patients he was always “patient, sympathetic, willing
to listen, willing to enter into their problems fully and constructively he
felt that the true impulse of a doctor is the impulse to bring healing
activity to the sufferer [and] emphasised that it is within the
homeopathic tradition and movement that the idea and reality of healing
has a central place which so distinguishes it from orthodox scientific
medicine which really has no concept of the healing forces.”
[14; 250]
Case Totality is Holism
Holism is not just an abstract intellectualism, but a
central concept in homeopathy that demands deeper understanding. As with
Hegels philosophy, the “central thought is, then, that only
the whole is real; the partial fact is only an abstraction, which needs
to be brought into connection with the whole in order to gain validity.
‘The bud disappears in the bursting forth of the blossom, and it may be
said that the one is contradicted by the other; by the fruit, again, the
blossom is declared to be a false existence in the plant, and the fruit
is judged to be its truth in the place of the flower…” [15; 409]
Understanding the central totality of the case can easily become a
stumbling block for the allopathic mind. It means every peculiarity and
deviation of the patients health and well-being; every coarse and
subtle contour of their pathology, mental and physical; every detail of
their suffering, their likes and dislikes and modalities. Surely, only a
mind deeply imprinted with a reductionistic stamp could possibly get
wrong such a detailed inventory of information?
Respecting
the obvious physiological holism and vitalism of the body, and always
seeking by all means to strengthen its innate healing power or vital
force [16; vol. 1, 64, 284, 289], homeopathy does not deny, but
embraces, the subtle differences between individual cases of a
disease, and reaffirms that disease and patient comprise inseparably
dual aspects of one united biophysical continuum. Such a view of disease
as a dynamic derangement of the life force [1; 37-8; 74],
which Hahnemann, and most homeopaths since, would heartily endorse. Such
is undoubtedly a philosophically finer-grained and subtler medical
conception than that of crude drugging.It is interesting that while all homeopaths down the
length and breadth of homeopathy would probably agree with every element
of the above paragraphs, yet many have decidedly variable views about
potency, single or mixed drugs and the rate of dose repetition. And it
is these secondary aspects that even Hahnemann, and every homeopath
since, has never tired of experimenting with. This legacy of intense
experimentation that he bequeathed upon homeopathy [like a poison
chalice, some might say] has meant that no-one can truthfully claim
to have the definitive answer to any of these questions, except by
recourse to the medicine of experience which when roughly
translated means it works for me. What works for me
may not be found in the Organon or might be at variance with what
works for somebody else. This is the root cause of bickering and
in-fighting, and is how homeopathy has come to be splintered into many
sub-sects and warring factions down the years.
The Single Drug
The
use of the single remedy is the general rule. And Cooper never tires of
recommending homeopaths to “give drugs in single doses in
chronic and obstinate forms of disease especially of single doses of
the undiluted juices of plants.” [17; 389] Cooper declares
“glorious results obtained from the prescription of single doses,”
[18; 15]. And he basically contends that homeopathys failures nearly
always arise “from the too frequent repetition of the dose,”
[18; 15]. Thus, “in one dose of a remedy rests its curative
power,” [19; 68] and that “this power does not exhaust
its influence within a short time,” [19; 68], but should “be
allowed to continue acting till all manifestation of its operation has
ceased,” [19; 68].Suffice it to say, therefore, that homeopathy should
be defined as medicine based on single drugs, similars, provings and
small doses [potentised drugs], because this defines how the vast bulk
of practitioners operate. The up side of this definition makes it broad
enough to include every type of practice. The down side of it is that
Hahnemann only used similars to start with and only gradually came to
employ single drugs and attenuated doses. Likewise, he came to provings
via studies of poisonings and to the concept of similars from such
conditions as Syphilis [suggestive of Mercury poisoning] and Scarlet
fever [suggestive of Belladonna poisoning]. Hahnemann observed that
“the symptoms of Mercury poisoning were very like those of
secondary syphilis. That was noticed by John Hunter long before
Hahnemann.” [9; 170].
“Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power.” [20] And he
occasionally used remedies in quick succession and even mixed remedies.
That he also used olfaction a great deal in his later years, and
developed the LM scale, are strongly suggestive that he was addicted to
experiments in order to refine the good tools he had already developed.
Such facts make the homeopathic life somewhat more complex than
classicalists are comfortable with.We have so far omitted to mention several important
aspects about the theory of homeopathy that was certainly of central
concern to Hahnemann and to most subsequent homeopaths. These include
vital force, direction of cure and miasms. Though it is perfectly
possible to be a good practitioner with no knowledge of or interest in
these theoretical aspects, that is only possible on one condition
that one strictly follows the ever-shifting image of the symptom
totality and uses only single, widely-spaced doses of the remedy
that most closely matches this totality, never deviating from this rule
to treat symptom groups or minor conditions along the way.
This turns out to be much harder than it sounds and this is why
Hahnemann and Close, Kent, Boger, Vithoulkas and all the greats have
strongly emphasised a sound understanding of the underpinning
theoretical principles of homeopathy at the same time as being a
good practitioner.The theory of homeopathy, though not essential, was
always seen as the map and compass, the pilot of the ship of practice.
While one can go and discover the world by ship without a map and
compass, and in that sense, the truly experienced navigator can dispense
with them, but for the rest of us, that map and compass are very useful
items of our toolkit, and probably indispensable. Therefore, at some
point all homeopaths have to grapple with theoretical matters. The
subject is also crucial because every aspect of homeopathy has been
challenged, stretched or distorted in some manner, at some time, by
somebody. One therefore has to become aware of the limits of the
definitions of these central concepts so as not to become guilty of
corrupting the subject with unacceptable methods that do not conform to
true homeopathy.
Provings
Returning
to the definitions at the top we can check each one to see how they
might be distorted out of their original shape. Similars, provings,
small doses and single drugs do seem straightforward enough rules.
And it seems likely that “it is not probable that when he
commenced upon ‘Cullen’ Hahnemann had any particular theories, but only
a growing disgust for the medical fallacies of the day.” [21;
43] But Hahnemann had noticed that “a drug imposes its own
disease on the patient and wipes out the natural disease.” [9;
170] He extols the virtues of provings when he claims that “in
the last three thousand five hundred years, not one single physician, to
my knowledge…has come upon this so natural, so absolutely necessary,
so uniquely valid proving of the pure, characteristic action of
medicines…” [22; v.108] He reminds physicians that “there
is no other possible way of correctly ascertaining the characteristic
action of medicines on human health, no single surer, more natural way,
than administering individual medicines experimentally to healthy people
in moderate doses…” [22; v.108] He then establishes the
material of the provings as absolute, fixed and universal truths: “The
evidence of the homeopathic provings and of the efficacy of the
similimum selected from the specific symptoms totality demonstrates the
fact that for every possibility of personality as well as organismic
pattern, hence for every possibility of illness pattern there is also a
substance pattern ‘out there’ which minutely duplicates it.”
[23; 9-10]However, the proving is not always a straightforward
matter as some provers are more sensitive to the drug than others.
Hahnemann found at an early stage that people are “hypersensitive
to the similar remedy,” [5; 7] and it was the avoidance of such
aggravations that first inspired him to reduce his doses. Some provers
may give weird symptoms that come from other aspects of their life; some
may over-emphasise certain symptoms. Provings turn out to contain many
odd elements that may prove unreliable elements of a map and compass.
The materia medica MUST be riddled with errors of this kind regardless
of the care taken to keep proving data clean. Aside from this, we also
have the issue today of dream provings and the blatant use of signatures
as adjuncts to the provings that are deemed acceptable by some but are
frowned on by others.
Signatures
Even when the Organon insists that “the…virtues
of medicines cannot be apprehended by…smell, taste, or appearance…or
from chemical analysis, or by treating disease with one or more of them
in a mixture…” [22; v.110], there are those who are willing
to deviate from this rule and give themselves more latitude. Maintaining
that obtaining such real knowledge of how remedies cure sickness, “is
impossible by provings upon the healthy,” [24; 117], Cooper
then contends that homeopaths should “fall back upon experiences
deduced from acquaintance with disease and its treatment,” [24;
117]. He feels at the outset that “the doctrine of signatures [ought
to be brought] into accord with modern thought,” [25; 265],
especially considering that “the appearance of the roots or
other parts of plants very often serve as a guide to their
administration in disease, owing to [their] resemblance to the
diseases they cure,” [25; 265].In his quest for therapeutic enlightenment, Cooper
personally resolved “to throw aside all provings and repertories
and to rely simply upon the action of the uninterfered-with curative
principle of plants, which I believe to be none other than
growth-force.” [18; 14] Clearly, regarding such clues as gifts
from ever-bountiful Nature, Cooper gives some fine examples. These
include the “virtues of Hydrangea in Diabetes,” [25;
270] which everybody knows is “the thirstiest shrub known,
especially in the act of flowering,” [25; 270]; the leaves of Ledum
palustre are “somewhat spear-shaped,” [25; 270],
and thus its use for “penetrating wounds, bee and wasp stings,
must have been guided by a special morphological feature of the
plant,” [25; 270]. As Cooper questions, such notions could
never have been derived from drug provings upon the healthy.The signatures that plants contain must be seen as “any
feature connected with plant life that suggests the use of such plant as
curative for any form of disease,” [25; 268]. While “modern
thought has discarded it in toto,” [25; 266] the idea of
signatures, Cooper would have us “take advantage of such
knowledge,” [25; 269] and encourage the keen student to “depend
upon his recognition of these sign-boards and his ability to decipher
them,” [25; 268]. Even though such an approach “depends
entirely upon specialised vision,” [25; 271], which keen
students should endeavour to refine, this “should not excite the
ridicule of those whose vision has not been exercised thereupon,”
[25; 271]. In other words, we should be open-minded in our approach to
gaining deeper knowledge of drugs from all sources, including both
provings and signatures.Therefore, practitioners must decide, at some point,
just how puritanical or hard-line their attitude is going to be over
such issues. It is usually when adjuncts become more central parts of
the map and compass that eyebrows tend to get raised over such matters.
Mixed Drugs
When Cooper declares that “all great
improvements in science are made by men who throw off the trammels of
previous teachings and begin by a complete and radical overhauling of
the entire subject,” [17; 389], then he certainly reflects
Hahnemanns bold spirit of inquiry. Hahnemanns original and
gargantuan task had been to “break through the orthodoxy [and]
sweep away the painstaking edifices of their honourable but limited
predecessors who tend to imprison thought within their own tidy but
fatally misconceived constructions.” [26, 72] Yet, much that
flowed from his pen created a new orthodoxy that homeopaths deviate from
at their own peril.For example, various homeopaths down the years have
used mixed remedies. Aconite, Belladonna, Chamomilla or ABC
30 or 200 is an excellent general remedy for non-specific childhood
fevers. In clearing cases from allopathic drugging, some homeopaths give
Nux vomica in the morning and Pulsatilla at night in 30c
for a few days. Gunpowder is another well-tested [mixed] remedy
for gunshot wounds and injuries. We are indebted to Dr Howard Henderson
Patrick [c.1880-1959] “for SSC in septic conditions [Sulphur,
Silica and Carbo veg, potentised together],” [8; 326]. The use
of such combination remedies, though heretical to pure Hahnemannians,
was a feature of the period in UK homeopathy. Gunpowder, SSC, ABC,
AGE and others are typical. Such examples would normally be seen as
contravening the single drug rule. Therefore, on this basis, single
drug and widely-spaced dose are rules that have been stretched
or broken in certain circumstances.
Potency
Dosage and potency have been repeatedly stretched and
mangled by various practitioners down the years. Mother tinctures can be
used in single drop doses for most remedies except the toxic ones like Nux,
Bell, Aconite, Opium or Conium. Most of the early homeopaths,
up to 1860, used low potencies, which means 2x or 3x in the main, with a
few using 6x or 3c. The early UK homeopaths therefore comprised “a
remarkably able cohort of 3x men Yeldham, Galley Blackley, Byres
Moir, Washington Epps, Knox Shaw, etc,” [3; 119]. There was
understandably “opposition from the old guard who prescribed
the 6th potency daily for months on end.” [7; 226]
Very few practitioners used 12c 18c or 30c, which formed the central
bulk of Hahnemanns practice for most of his life. He only used 200 or
1M on rare occasions during his Paris practice [1835-43] along with
Olfaction and the LMs.Afterall, the use of high potencies did not rest
solely upon the crutches of theory. Lest we forget, “Hahnemann
took ten years to test his general rule [similia] before he used
potencies at all the infinitesimal dose is not laid down on
theoretical grounds [he] developed it from experiment alone [which
was] Hahnemanns doctrine and practice throughout his life,”
[9; 169]. Thankfully, there also existed those more enlightened older
British homeopaths who did change their views and embrace new methods:
until “Mr [Clarence Granville] Hey [c.1875-c.1950] came to the
hospital [c.1905] anything above a 3x potency was anathema to Dr Burford [but]
he altered his views and gradually used 6, 12, 30 and 200, and finally
he used the highest potencies,” [13; 172].
Towards
the end of his long life, Hahnemann changed his views a good deal and
seemed to take on fresh inspiration from working with Melanie, leading
to renewed experimentation. “…suddenly he takes a gay Parisian
wife; the monotonous life of the dull country town and the accustomed
seclusion of domestic retirement delight him no longer; and he hurries
off to the capital of the beau monde with his youthful and elegant
bride. This marriage…produced a total revolution in Hahnemann’s habits
and tastes…in Paris, we find him entertaining company frequenting
the opera, and partaking moderately of the dissipations of the gay
capital visiting patients at their residences, like any other
practitioner, which he had not done in Germany for more than twenty
years previously. He seems to have entered on this novel course with
great zest; and his new wife, to judge from his letters and the
testimony of observers, rendered the latter years of his life extremely
happy.” [27; xxxix]However, some early practitioners, such as Korsakoff,
Schréter and Boenninghaussen developed and indulged continuous use of
higher potencies. “Korsakoff was the real original inventor of
the high potencies, for he first conceived and executed the idea of
diluting medicines up as high as 1500. Sulphur, he said, acted better at
that degree of potency.” [27; 351] Boenninghaussen, based his
entire practice on the use of 200 and 1M potencies reporting
consistently spectacular results in both human and veterinary cases. In
that sense such homeopaths might be better seen as trailblazers rather
than heretics.
The Allopathic Meltdown
The issue of similarity between drug and patient is
much more complex than it first appears. One reason for this was well
known to Hahnemann himself in an age when medicine was beginning to
surrender to a domination by theoretical concerns and by the idea of specifics
specific diseases as entities and specific drugs to treat them.
Roughly translated this means that a disease was increasingly seen
as a real thing that invaded patients willy-nilly and caused the
same basic sensations in everyone. These were called communia or
symptoms common to everyone. The more discerning practitioner also knew
of propria, which are those symptoms unique to each case.
Prescribing in the Middle Ages mainly consisted of employing botanical
drugs that would cover both in a patchwork kind of way, fine-tuning the
mix according to each case.As late as “the 1650s, doctors still spoke
largely of the sick mans humors rather than of any particular entity
from which he suffered.” [28; 12]. And even in Hahnemanns
time, the continued domination of medicine by the Greek theory of
humours also gave some sanction to the strong purificatory measures
preferred by all physicians, even extending down to the 1870s. Not until
medicine had liberated itself from such conceptual aberrations, was any
progress away from these dangerous heroic measures possible.Employing mostly “sophistical whimsicalities”
[29] and “looking only through the spectacles of hypothetical
conceits, gross mechanical explanations, and pretensions to systems,”
[29; 426] medicine at that time resembled Galen, that self-appointed “torch
and trumpet of general therapeutics, a man more desirous of inventing a
subtle system than of consulting experience. Disdaining to learn the
powers of medicines by instituting experiments, he gave the bad example
of generalizing and framing hypotheses;” [30] for “in
the boundless region of speculation every one becomes a ruler who can
most effectually elevate himself beyond the domain of the senses.”
[29; 421-2]. Numerous such scathing comments clearly reveal Hahnemanns
contempt for allopathic practice. Speaking merely as armchair
speculators, idly peeling grapes and stabbing the air with wordy
sophistries, such medical theorists gave vent to a “display of
the most fantastic, often most self-contradictory, hypotheses,
explanations, demonstrations, conjectures, dogmas, and systems,”
[31]In Hahnemanns day the fine-tune technique was
being swiftly superseded by more brutal methods and a heavy reliance on
Greek-driven measures like purging, cupping, leeches and opening a vein.
Increasingly, these generalised and brutal methods of treatment were
used on an unquestioning, rote basis for every case, in ignorance of
individual symptom totality; fine-tuning was abandoned. The idea of
specifics came to dominate the concept of disease and the idea of
matching drug such that the previous medieval fine-tuning approach
became eclipsed by crude application of the same brutal techniques to
every case and a medical practice dominated by treatment of small
symptom groups conceived of as diseases using any drug that could
subdue them. The upshot of all this was chaos the dangerous
inefficacy of medical practice and a deplorable explosion of theoretical
nonsense. Speculation was allowed to dominate medical theory at the same
time as barbarity dominated its technique, and for the same reasons
medicine meandered like a rudderless ship. It was this gradual meltdown
of all common sense and gentle methods that made raised Hahnemanns
blood to boiling point.
“In Hahnemann, new and great ideas were coming
to birth. His whole intellect was in a state of ferment; he was in a
condition of complete internal revolution. Dissatisfied with the old
teaching which he had hitherto received and acquired, he was almost
repelled by it, although he had not yet arrived at a clearly
recognized, firmly established and irrefutably sound basis for a new
teaching he was distracted by mental labours, which drove him
restlessly from place to place.”[16; Vol. 1, p.48]
The actual idea of a disease as a separate entity
that invades the patient has grown even stronger with time and dominates
modern medicine to such a degree that physicians are thoroughly
brainwashed with this notion and they cannot even get a sound grasp of
similarity or holism at all. These two concepts form impenetrable
conceptual barriers blocking their entry into the holistic therapies
completely. These concepts lie beyond their medical conceptuality; they
come to them as if words from an alien planet.
Vital Force
Just as Kent hated microscopes and reserved his
greatest venom for the bacteria doctrine, the molecular
theory, and all medical materialism in general, so too Hahnemann
loathed Claudius Galen [c.130-c.201] as the chief person who perverted
medical science by successfully promoting contraries and mixed drugs as
central maxims that wholly dominated medicine for almost 1700
years. Hahnemann, by contrast, saw disease and its correction as
stemming mostly from a “dynamic derangement of the life
force,” [1, 37-8, 74], rather than from externally invading
morbific particles [germs]. If defects in the vital force
are the true causes then that is the arena in which our therapeutic weapons
must act, not on the body or at the material level itself. Hence,
homeopathic treatment always aims to strengthen the innate healing
power or vital force [16; I, 64, 284, 289].
The vital force is another bone of contention for
some. It was the only way Hahnemann could most simply explain how
remedies work to induce change in the case and where symptoms come from.
The vital force is natures best friend and the best friend of the
patient and the homeopath. The vital force literally runs the show
and elicits every change in the case. Hahnemanns central axiom in
homeopathy is that the organism is controlled by the vital force, which rules
with unbounded sway and dominates the organism in sickness and in health
[22; Aph. 9]. Kent then elaborates this further: “We do not take
disease through our bodies but through the Vital Force; likewise with a
true cure;” and “the law of similars is the law of
similars, whether produced by drug or disease. It is the law of
Influx;” and “one who thinks from the material, thinks
disease is drawn in from without, but it is drawn out from
within.” [32]
The vital force is the invisible force that lies
behind the physical body and the chemical reactions of physiology.
Remedies act upon the vital force and cause changes in it. The vital
force is an immaterial entity, invisible and ultimately conceptual, but
it is such a useful tool in all the natural holistic therapies, without
which, we stray in darkness. It is a lamp lighting our path, a lamp that
illuminates every step we take. It is a concept as useful to the
homeopath as the electron is to the physicist.
Because the vital force runs the whole show, so
it is also that which cures disease, not the homeopath and not the
remedy it truly is the innate healing power. We should
always “remember that it is our duty to help nature as far as
possible do her job.” [7; 225] Medicine involves an attempt “to
restore health
an attempt to restore balance,” [11; 1] for
true “health is simply the balanced life.” [11; 4] Sir
John Weir [c.1879-1970] said in an “address: homeopathy
is no
religion, no sect, no fad, no humbug
remedies do not act directly on
disease; they merely stimulate the vital reactions of the patient, and
this causes him to cure himself.” [33; 200-201] Regarding the
remedy, we need to remember, “that the reaction it sets up in
the organism is a reaction which goes on working to the ultimate
dispersion of the infirmity,” [18; 14].
Miasms
When Hahnemann added his miasm theory to the mix in
1828 it was greeted with shock, horror, disbelief, uproar and laughter
by the entire medical world. Even homeopaths blushed with shame; most
completely ignored the idea as preposterous. It was hard to see where
Hahnemann was coming from. The grand scheme of the miasms, so
familiar today, seemed just like words from an alien language. If you
start from symptom totality, then you can just about reach the even
wider concept of a miasm as a grouped entity deriving from hundreds
of cases. But if you start from the familiar allopathic terrain of
disease affecting whole populations, then the idea of miasms as internal
inherited dyscrasias seems very potty indeed! The conceptual
challenge is simply one of width of view. Each individual case, upon
which homeopathy is based, must now be also viewed in the light of
another totality the family legacy of Psora, Syphilis and Sycosis.
We can see that Hahnemann must have got his idea of
miasms through an extension of the very fruitful concepts of similars
and poisonings, with which he was deeply immersed in the original
construction of homeopathy. His mind simply must have been drawn towards
seeing the wider patterns in cases. For example, Hahnemann “suggested,
in 1789, that Mercury
displaced the syphilitic disease by imposing a
similar illness,” [5; 3]. He “had taken his time to
formulate his first intuitive deduction [similia] in fact seven years
[he]
clung obstinately to the everyday world of common sense
and had no use
for the theories of pathology then current
[being, in fact]
dissociated from theories of physiology and pathology,” [5; 4].
The notion of Psora has many facets; for example,
“seven-eighths of all the chronic maladies prevalent’ are
ascribed by Hahnemann to Psora
” [16; Vol. 1, 142] He did not
confine its meaning solely to Scabies; “Psora
was widely known
in Hahnemann’s time, was the general term for a whole series of skin
troubles of the most varied kinds
” [16; Vol. 1, 143] Its
underlying significance was even broader: “To Hahnemann psora is
a disease or disposition to disease, hereditary from generation to
generation for thousands of years and it is the fostering soil for every
possible diseased condition.” [16; Vol. 1, 144] However, it
does not mean that everyone needs to be dosed up with Psorinum, Syphilinum
or Medorrhinum, it just means the broad outline of the miasms
need to be kept in mind when observing the symptoms of a specific case
or family. In a family with some evidence of alcoholism, deafness,
blindness, bone disorders and insanity, one is entitled to believe a
syphilitic streak is present. It does not dominate ones view of each
case, but it is useful background information. It guides one towards
certain remedies, and away from others, but should never dictate
practice. Hahnemann certainly regarded medical speculation as “arid
and obfuscating scholasticism.” [26; 62] and “the
elaborate manipulation of hollow symbols.” [26; 62]. The reason
was its lack of efficacy and harmful practices.
Homeopaths must never allow miasms, like some cuckoo
in the nest, to exclusively dominate its conceptual base in the way evolution
has come to dogmatically dominate biology, or genetics and bacteria
totally dominate allopathy. Such soiling of its nest would be to
indulge a catastrophic delusion, to let the subject be well and truly
hijacked by one idea, and might comprise a lamentable waste of otherwise
objective talent. And to do so would in any case be to abandon the
strong empiricism that powers homeopathy and to surrender to an
unhealthy domination by theory.
Kent makes it very clear that homeopathy has a
vitalistic rather than materialistic view of disease: “the
microbe is not the cause of disease. We should not be carried away by
these idle allopathic dreams and vain imaginations but should correct
the Vital Force.” [32] And that ‘the Bacterium is an
innocent feller, and if he carries disease he carries the Simple
Substance which causes disease, just as an elephant would.’ [32]
In modern homeopathy it is clear that all these
topics and concepts are just as vibrant and as integral to the subject
as they were in previous times. The modern homeopath must strive not
only to become saturated in materia medica, case-taking and the ability
to discern the genuine symptom totality of the patient, but must also
navigate a good course through all the conceptual terrain of homeopathic
theory, which is invaluable as it enriches practice at every turn. Just
as theory has become the lamp illuminating the path, so also practice is
the ongoing empirical force that justifies and informs theory.
Sources
[1] Stuart Close, The
Genius of Homeopathy – Lectures and Essays on Homeopathic
Philosophy, Philadelphia: Erhart & Karl, 1924
[2] Stuart McAusland, Dr
Douglas Borland Obituary, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 50, 1961, 133-135
[3] George Burford, Masters
of Homeopathy: the Persistence of Their Work Through Time II – the Dr
Clarke Memorial Meeting, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 21, Jan 1932,
116-143
[4] A Taylor-Smith, letter
re Dr Borlands Obituary, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 50.2, July 1961,
288
[5] Frank Bodman, Lecture
to Osler Society, Oxford, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 44.2, July 1955,
2-8
[6] Geoffrey Brown, Drs
John and Elizabeth Paterson, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 56, 1967,
201-218
[7] Frank Bodman, Sir
John Weir Obituary, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 60.1, 1971, 224-228
[8] Dr H Henderson Patrick Obituary,
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[9] Dr Charles
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[10] Sir John Weir, Dr
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[11] Dr Charles
Wheeler Obituary, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 37.1, April 1947, 1-11
[12] Dr Frank
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[13] Dr George
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Homeo. Jnl 61, 1972, 249
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[17] Robert T Cooper,
Some Results of Single Doses, Homeopathic World, Sept
1 1894, 389-393
[18] Robert T Cooper, Calcarea
carbonica a Warning, Homeopathic World, 2 Jan 1893, 11-15
[19] Robert T Cooper, One
Dose – One Value, Homeopathic World, Feb 1 1893, 64-68
[20] William Shakespeare, Romeo and
Juliet, act 2, scene 3
[21] Thomas L Bradford, The Life
and Letters of Hahnemann, 1895
[22] Samuel Hahnemann, Organon of
Medicine, 5th/6th edition of Boericke and
Dudgeon
[23] Edward C Whitmont, Psyche
& Substance, USA: North Atlantic Books
[24] Robert T Cooper,
The Dose-Frequency Law, Homeopathic World, March 1 1893,
114-123
[25] Robert T Cooper, Arborivital
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4 1898, 265-271
[26] Isaiah Berlin, The
Sense of Reality – Studies in Ideas and Their History, London:
Pimlico, 1986
[27] Robert E Dudgeon, Lectures on
the Theory & Practice of Homeopathy, 1853
[28] Richard Shryock, The
Development of Modern Medicine, Philadelphia: Univ Pennsylvania,
1936
[29] Samuel Hahnemann,
Aesculapius in the Balance, 1805, in Hahnemann’s Lesser
Writings, edited by Dudgeon, London: Henry Turner & Co, 1895,
420
[30] Samuel Hahnemann,
On The Helleborism of the Ancients, 1812, in Hahnemann’s
Lesser Writings, 592
[31] Samuel Hahnemann,
On the Value of the Speculative Systems of Medicine, 1808, in Hahnemann’s
Lesser Writings, edited by Dudgeon, 489-90
[32] James T Kent, Lesser Writings,
New Remedies, Aphorisms and Precepts, 1926
[33] Sir John Weir, The
Hahnemann Convalescent Home, Bournemouth, Brit. Homeo. Jnl
1931, 200-201