Today I am glad to share with you an important long article on ” Homoeopathy, An Explanation Of Its Principles ” by Sir John Weir, An acclaimed world famous physician which will certainly fulfill our aspirations for higher achivement in the days to come if we apply ourselves after perceiving the principles since Hahnemanniain time in a more judicious, scientific and comprehensive way .Let’s empower with serious study of the 1 st part of the article & 2 nd part will be posted here after for fulfillment.Thanking you,With regards, greetings & best wishes
Dr. Nirmal Kumar Maity
THE HOMEOPATHIC RECORDER DERBY, CONN., DEC. 15, 1932.VOLUME XLVII.HOMEOPATHY, AN EXPLANATION OF ITS PRINCIPLES SIR JOHN WEIR, K.C. V. o., M. B.My first duty is to thank the President and Council of the Royal Society of Medicine for their unprecedented courtesy in offering hospitality and thus affording an opportunity of pre senting to the profession some knowledge of homeopathy. They are thus falling into line with the idea expressed in the British Medical Journal of July 9th, 1932, in the History of the Associ tion, where it is stated:Before the passing of the Medical Act a Committee on Quackery was appointed, which in 1851 presented a report condemning the practice of ho mropathy. In more recent years a wider view has been taken, and it has been realized that in medicine there is no orthodox doctrine, but that when once a man has obtained a registrable qualification in the usual way he is entitled to hold his own opinions on therapeutics.I was reminded recently that when a man is legally qualified it is not only his privilege but his duty to practise in any way which he genuinely thinks will be for the benefit of his patients.This meeting is really the outcome of the expressed desire of several physicians to know more of the principles of home opathy than will be possible in a short paper on The History of British Homeopathy at the British Medical Association on the 29th inst.One feels keenly the honour, but also the responsibility of having to present the subject of homeopathy before such an audience as faces me today. And I am minded (because of the widely prevalent mistaken ideas as to what homeopathy really is) to simply state facts, ab initio.I am delighted to tell you a little about homeopathy, be “A lecture given at the Royal Society of Medicine, London, England, July 26, 1932THE HOMEOPATHIC RECORDERcause it helps me to do some things that I should have believed impossible; and my ambition is, to so interest you, that you may go away and try it.It is only the few who are intrigued by cleverly worded arguments; what the many want is more power; and it is to such that my appeal is addressed today. Arguments leave most of us cold. You cannot learn of homeopathy from arguments as to its possibility. The appeal of homeopathy has always been to experience. Do the works if you would know the truth.Homeopathy could never have been discovered a priori. It is a science, since it is entirely based on experiment. Who was the great chemist who said the only possible way to know how a lump sugar would behave, when put into a cup of tea, was to try? Or, as Hunter said to Jenner, “Don’t think; try.” It is only our experience of homeopathy that has made us ho meopaths. We have all been sceptics; but facts have been too strong for us.It may seem strange to you, but the century old message of homeopathy has a distinct appeal to the men of modern science. Homeopathy has reversed the old saying, “The science of today is the nonsense of tomorrow”; for here, the nonsense of one hundred years is proving to be the science of today. And, as I said, my ambition in coming here is to help my professional brethren to an appreciation of what appears to me to be vital knowledge in regard to curative drug-action-as conducive to a more definite and wider range of usefulness and power. It is a poor creature, who, having found something good, tries to keep it to himself.For, after all, it is power we need. Knowledge of disease knowledge of drug-action. What are they? Nothing!-lacking the essential knowledge, how to pply the one for the relief of the other. There must be the co-ordinating principle-law-if power is to result; i. e., the power to deal curatively, with assur ance and foreknowledge, with the sick individual. And, after all, this is our very raison d’étre, as doctors.Now, it is legitimate, natural and praiseworthy to question and to strive for something better than that which contents other men. Progress would cease if we were merely to accept thatHOMEOPATHY, AN EXPLANATION OF ITS PRINCIPLES861which comes to us by tradition or authority-satisfied with what satisfied our predecessors. And does it not seem the height of to hark back to medical ideas of a hundred years ago absurdity for light on our problems of today? Changes are so rapid in our profession that it has been said, “If a doctor who dies today could come back in fifty years from now, and attempt to take up his profession, he would have to graduate all over again.” And yet there was one great physician of the past who, werehe to come back to earth today, could take up his work as he left it. He would find new and exciting developments possi bilities confirmations; but the essentials would be absolutely the same, because based on law. Moreover, he would find hun dreds no, thousands of doctors in all countries of the world, doing precisely what he did; treating their patients as he treated his; and experiencing, thereby, his astonishing results. How can this be?GENIUSBecause, in the world’s history, there appears from time to time, genius, which instead of moving placidly with the times, leaps far ahead of them. “That man,” we say but we are only able to say it after his death!-“that man was born a hundred years before his time” for it is from posterity alone that such men receive tardy vindication.One such genius was Samuel Hahnemann. Law was revealed to him in one bright flash of intuition and realization the law of drug-action; and to the elucidation and elaboration of that law he devoted his long life. Poverty-bitter enmity-banishment -scorn-were his sorry portion; but nothing moved him. His steadfast appeal was to experience, and to posterity.SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURENTURIn these days I think we all allow that the medicine of Hahnemann’s day (he was born in 1755) was crude and cruel; worse than that, it was harmful and futile. The establishment of issues with venesections-salivations to a terrific extent, coupled with purgings and depletions, were wrecking the health, or costing the lives alike of the monarch on his throne, or the862THE HOMEOPATHIC RECORDERhumble toiler for bread. So hopelessly wrong did all these things appear to Hahnemann (and here time has justified him) that he threw up a flourishing practice, and plunged himself and his family into dire poverty, that he might not, as he says, “any longer incur the risk of doing injury”; and he “engaged exclu sively in chemistry and in literary occupations, supporting his family by his pen, and by his translations from many lan guages,”Then one of his children fell ill, and the sight of her suffering sent the born physician back to his life-work, determined to in vestigate the whole question of medicine in all languages. He set his soul to discover as he puts it-“if God had not given some certain law, whereby the diseases of mankind could be cured.”And while he was diligently seeking the light-suddenly it flamed before his eyes. He was translating Cullen’s Materia Medica; and in one of his characteristic annotations he criti cized Cullen’s opinions in regard to the action of Peruvian bark, and the idea came to him to test the effect of the drug, as to its sick-making properties, on himself, when-lo and behold! they took the form of ague. There could be no doubt about it: qui nine both caused and cured ague. Hahnemann has denounced the abuse of quinine, but it was quinine that revealed to him homeopathy. Observations (accidental) on the prophylactic and curative properties of Belladonna in scarlet fever, were also sug gestive; for are not their symptoms identical? How did other drugs act? He set to work to discover.(It has been observed in confirmation of Hahnemann’s find ings in regard to cinchona, that workers in quinine factories suf fer with a cinchona poisoning resembling ague).His eyes opened by that initial experiment with cinchona, Hahnemann began to realize (and all his subsequent experiments -conducted during some years-confirmed this) that “It is only by their power to make sick, that drugs can cure sickness; and that a medicine can only cure such morbid conditions as it can produce, when tested on healthy persons.”Hahnemann had one of the attributes of genius, “an infinite capacity for taking pains”; but he had more than this. He wasHOMEOPATHY, AN EXPLANATION OF ITS PRINCIPLES 863pre-eminent in intuition in deduction in industry-in research -in absolute self-devotion to truth and to humanity. He was not only great as a scholar-linguist chemist sanitarian physician, but he takes special rank as one of those to whom law reveals itself. For as Newton discovered the law of gravitation, so Hahnemann discovered the law of similars-dimly guessed at, but never realized-never understood-never demonstrated before his day.Hahnemann found the enunciation of the law in the “re markable words Similia Similibus Curentur” (let likes be treated by likes) “in one of the books attributed to Hippocrates,” and be also found its foreshadowings in solitary remarks (which he quotes) in works by half a dozen authors (viz., Boulduc, Det harding, Bertholon, Thiury, Von Stoerk and Stahl). “But,” as he says, “no one had taught this manner of cure; no one had put it into practice.”THE PROVINGSPROVINGS ONLY ON THE HEALTHYThe tendency of medicine has always been to experiment on the sick. Hahnemann experimented only on the healthy, in order to have an exact materia medica, ready and proved, for admin istration in sickness. He soon gathered round him an enthusiastic band of disciples (some fifty of them were medical men) and he and they “proved” (i. e., tested) drug after drug, with all pos sible precautions to eliminate error; and these original provings, carefully and faithfully recorded, formed the nucleus of the ho meopathic materia medica. They are embodied in his wonderful work-his Materia Medica Pura-which is as alive and up to date today as on the day when it was published-and in his sub sequent work, Chronic Diseases. These two, with his Organon on the Art of Healing, are the best known among his numerous works, and embody the essentials of his teaching.The purely scientific bent of Hahnemann’s mind, and the reason why his medical works have survived those of his con temporaries, to be as illuminating and useful today as on the day when they were penned, is seen by the following:THE HOMEOPATHIC RECORDER”A true materia medica,” he says, “will consist of the genu ine, pure, and undeceptive effects of simple drugs”; and again, “Every such materia medica should exclude every supposition every mere assertion and fiction-and its entire contents should be the language of nature, uttered in response to careful and faithful inquiry.”Many remedies, since Hahnemann’s day, have been added to our armoury against disease; but all subsequent work has been done on his lines. It has never been found necessary to eliminate, or to alter. Recorded in the simple language of nature, free from theory, safe from the transient language of succeeding genera tions, they stand for all time, complete and true; while science, in discovering new truths, has never been able to touch Hahne mann’s premises-except to confirm since they are based on law.It is interesting that, in Austria, many years ago, when doubt was thrown on some of the original provings, they started to re-prove certain of the drugs. But, finding their results iden tical with those of Hahnemann, they concluded to accept the rest.For the more exact purposes of homeopathy, experiments in drug-action on animals are useless, as Hahnemann pointed out; and that for two reasons. The proverb, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison,” applies with ten-fold force when it comes to animals. Substances poisonous to man are innocuous to many animals. “Ailments and poisons are convertible, according to the specific nature of different animals, so that ailments be come poisons, and poisons alimentary.” Opium, with us a medicine, is to some eastern nations an alimentary substance.Hedgehogs feed on Cantharides, and take no hurt.Rabbits eat Belladonna with impunity.Morphia makes dogs drowsy and vomit, but excites cats. Styrian mountaineers take doses of Arsenic sufficient to kill ordinary persons; and horses are given large doses of Arsenic to improve their wind and to make their coats glossy. Rats are immune to diphtheria.HOMEOPATHY, AN EXPLANATIONOF ITS PRINCIPLES 865Cats are said to be immune to tubercle, whereas guines-pigs and monkeys are highly susceptible to that infection. By experiments on animals it may be found that certain certaindrugs affect tissues of certain animals. That is all. But more than this, homeopathic provings have to be very ine, very delicate,, and very definite; and the subjective and mental symptoms (all important for our purpose) can only be obtained from humans. It is only men and women who, in provings, could have givenus the mental symptoms, which have led to so many brilliant cures such as the depression to the verge of suicide of Aurum; the insane jealousy of Lachesis; the terror of insanity of Man cinella; the frantic irritability and intolerance of pain of Chamo milla; the suspicion and restlessness of Arsenicum; t of anticipation of Argentum nitricum; the fear of death of Ace terrors nite and Arsenic; the sensation of tallness and superiority of Platina; the sensation of unreality of Medorrhinum; 1 the sensa tion of two wills of Anacardium; the indifference to loved ones of Phosphorus and Sepia-all straight cuts to the curative reme dy, and they can only be got by provings on human beings. Even provings on the sick are not accepted, since sickness modifies the response of the organism to drugs, and from the sick no true drug-picture can be obtained. Remedies also need to be proved on women as well as on men, in order to get their whole range of usefulness. The provings of Lilium tigrinum, for instance, en tailed intense sufferings on the heroic women who undertook them; but they have given us a most useful remedy for the pe culiar suffering of women, in uterine displacements, after mis carriages, etc.As we said, the experiments of homeopathy have always been on healthy human beings. They have always been volun tary experiments. And they have never proved detrimental to health (whatever the immediate sufferings may have been), but on the contrary, they tend, as Hahnemann pointed out, to raise the resistance of the prover. And Hahnemann should know, who, having spent the greater part of his life in proving drugs, lived on, in full possession of health and senses, till only one year short of ninety.866THE HOMEOPATHIC RECORDERTO CURE”To cure mild ly, rapidly and permanently, choose for every case of disease a medicine which can itself produce a similar affection.”The outcome of his experiments is thisHomeopathy is no invention; no theory. It has been ham mered out of hard facts. It is simply a scientific way of discov ering what drugs can do in the way of perverting the health, mental and physical, of healthy human beings, and then apply ing them for the relief of just such conditions in the sick.”Homeopathy appeals,” says Hahnemann, “solely to the verdict of experience. Repeat the experiment, carefully and accurately, and you will find the doctrine confirmed at every step. Homeopathy insists on being judged by results.”DOCTRINES OF HAHNEMANNBut it was not enough for Hahnemann to have merely dis covered power; he devoted a long life to its investigation, and to showing under what conditions it best works. And he has be queathed to us, not only the law, Similia Similibus Curentur, but also what he called his “Doctrines,” which not to obey is to render much of our work inferior, if not futile.May I here point out that these doctrines of Hahnemann apply equally to such homeopathic measures as vaccines; and that, had Hahnemann’s laws been known and observed in regard to vaccine, x-ray and radium therapies, better and more reliable results might, from the first, have been obtained; since those who use them have had perforce to approximate to the methods ofHahnemann.For Hahnemann teaches, not only The like remedy, but alsoThe single drug,The small dose,The infrequent dose,Non-interference with vital reaction, Initial aggravation, andPotentization.VITAL FORCE I think we all recognize, in these days, what Hahnemann insisted on, that cure comes by the reaction of what he calls vital force against disease. We know a little more about the complicated mechanism of such reaction: but it is no longer absurd to teach, as he taught, that vital reactions are evoked by disease, and that such reactions are curative: and that the utmostwe can do, curatively, is to stimulate such reaction. He says that thousands of substances, subversive to health, simulate disease conditions, and can be employed to evoke en hanced curative reaction, where such is the case. For instance who will diagnose belladonna poisoningfrom scarlet fever? They have often been mistaken; or diagnose between dysentery and poisoning by corrosive sublimate? Or be tween ptomaine and arsenical poisonings? Hahnemann contends and demonstrates that substances which simulate natural dis eases can be used, in fine dosage, for their cure. And the most striking homeopathic curative results can be seen when using Arsenic (in infinite subdivision) for ptomaine poisoning, Merc. cor. (corrosive sublimate) for dysentery, or Belladonna for scar let fever. Anyone who desires to put homeopathy to the test, cannot do better than start with one of these.Homeopathy never contemplates curing disease by drugs in massive and repeated doses. Its object is to stimulate the patient to cure himself. Therefore it is never a question of quantity, where the vital stimulus is employed, but always of precise se lection and quality, in the drug employed for the purpose.SINGLE DRUGs to the single drug that goes without saying. For what can be learnt, in provings, or in practice, from mixed pre scriptions? If work is to be exact and scientific, drugs, as Hahne mann contended, must be proved separately, and can only then be used with foreknowledge and confidence, for the cure of sick nesses of like symptoms.THE SMALL DOSEAnd then the small dose-that ancient bugbear-as Hahne mann foresaw, even for his own followers; and for others, a sub868THE HOMEOPATHIC RECORDERject for endless witticisms. No need to apologize for the small dose now! Radium-vitamins ferments ions colloids even mineral waters have done that, and have demonstrated, to some extent, the immense potentiality of the infinitely lit tle. Even chemistry teaches that chemical affinity comes into play only on surfaces, which are enormously increased when mass is reduced to impalpable powder. A lump of antimony plunged in chlorine gas shows nothing spectacular; but powder the antimony and throw it into chlorine, and the violence of the reaction will be almost explosive.By minutest subdivision, energy is liberated from inert mass -bulk-weight; from things palpable and manifest to our grosser senses. We are at last beginning to realize the potentiali ties of the intangible and the imponderable. But the most sensi tive thing in the world is the diseased cell or tissue for the reme dy of like symptoms, in infinitesimal subdivision. And it is with this that we have to deal.Science is bearing Hahnemann out in this, and his small doses present no difficulty to modern biology.Recent research on enzyme action, and the standardization of such agents as Thyroxin and Pituitrin has emphasized the ac tion of minute quantities of all kinds of agents, from minerals to complex organic substances.Romeis states that Thyroxin influences growth and development of tadpoles in dilutions of 1 in 5,000,000,000.Jakoby shows that Potassium cyanide activates the fermenturease in a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000. Reid Hunt has demonstrated that Acetyl chlorine in the strength of a milligram in half a million gallons of blood causes a distinct fall in the blood pressure.’Macht has shown that the uterus of a virgin guinea-pig re sponds to such a dilute concentration of Histamine as could not be demonstrated by the most refined micro-chemical methods.” Cobra venom has been shown to hæmolyse red blood corpuscles in a dilution of 1 in 10,000,000.The addition of 4 parts in 10,000 of copper doubles the rate of toxin production from a culture of diphtheria bacilli. (Locke and Main.)*These are merely random selections exemplifying the action of micro-doses in living cells bacterial amphibian and mam malian.But why this ultra-refinement in the dosage of homoeopathic remedies? Why, when all medicine is concerned with the maxi mum dose, should homoeopathy teach the minimal dose? And indeed such minimal doses as we shall speak of later, when we to describe potentization.comeThe reason is plain. Medicine, hitherto, has been mainly concerned, if one may so put it, with doing violence to the or ganism. It has been directed to cause sweating-vomiting purging, or sometimes to paralyze the action of the bowels. It has been used to deaden pain-to induce a drugged sleep-to modify the action of the heart-to depress fever-to excite appe tite. In all these cases, the dose must be material. We are doing something subversive to the patient, or to his parts. Therefore the dose must be a poisonous, but not a lethal one. It is for this reason that the dosage of official medicine is apt to be the larg est one dare give, to ensure the desired effect.But when a remedy is used, in exactly the opposite manner -croton oil for diarrhoea-apomorphine to control vomiting opium for the coma of cerebral hæmorrhage lead for constipa tion-rattlesnake poison to control bleeding and so on, it is only common sense to give it in the smallest dose that will evoke the desired reaction. Anything more than this will, pro tem, in crease suffering even where the ultimate result is good. And this is why, in the first instance, experience compelled Hahne mann to reduce his doses.Observe! Homeopathy never wants to do anything to a patient; only to stimulate his own reactive powers, and so cause him to cure himself. For Hahnemann, disease was merely the rebellion of vital force against noxious agents, inimical to life; and he taught that cure can only come from the stimulated re . action of vital force against disease.Again, Hahnemann tells us that the smallest possible dose of a homeopathic medicine will operate chiefly upon the diseased parts of the body, which have become extremely susceptible of a stimulus so similar “to their own disease.”THE HOMEOPATHIC RECORDERThis increased sensitiveness of diseased parts is stressed by Bier also, who talks of the “extraordinarily sensitive disease threshold”; and who quotes Hufeland, “There is a reagent which is more delicate than the most delicate chemical reagent, and that is the reagent within the living organism.”As a crude instance of this increased sensitiveness in disease, Bier states that “it requires 250,000 times as much formic acid to produce symptoms in the healthy than in the gouty.”Hahnemann, when applying to hypersensitive diseased tis sues the one stimulus to which they were most sensitive, via, the drug of like symptoms-that is to say, the drug that was proved to irritate those particular tissues-were forced, again and again, to reduce his doses.It is by provings that we discover, in each case, exactly what organs or tissues are affected by different poisons; and when we apply these, as stimulants, to parts (not only especially sen sitive to those particular drugs, but also rendered hypersensitive by disease) the necessity for reducing the dose is manifest.THE INFREQUENT DOSEHahnemann speaks of the dose, whose repetition, depending on many factors, is never a matter of routine, or of the pro clivities of the prescriber, but always depends on the reactions of the individual patient.In acute sickness, without structural changes (I will give you cases), the effect of the first dose may be dramatic, and es tablish such instant and complete reaction that no second is needed.Or, in (say) pneumonia, after a marked improvement all around, the disease may, a few hours later, again get the upper hand; and experience shows that the remedy generally needs to be repeated in from four to six hours for a couple of days, till the temperature not only comes, but remains, down.In deadly and most rapid diseases, such as cholera, Hahne mann tells us that the repetition of Camphor must be in three to five minutes till reaction is established, or with Cuprum or Veratrum every hour or half hour He says that remedieswhich act for a considerable time, have the duration of their ac tion diminished in proportion as the disease is acute. In chronic diseases the call to repeat varies with every case. The symptoms demanded a remedy, and the return of symptoms,modified, will demand its repetition. But there are other factors that come in. Some remedies are deep and long-acting; some superficial and short-acting. Some patients respond actively; others are sluggish and slow in their response. The question of the potency also comes in; since reaction varies with different potencies, and lengthens out with the higher potencies.Therefore experience and observation alone can decide as to repetition; which depends on the individual reaction of the pa tient to the individual medicine.This allowing the remedy to act was one of the great obstacles, as Hahnemann foresaw, to the acceptance of his work.His rule is, that the dose of the carefully selected homeopathicremedy should act till it has accomplished its effect. “Perceptible, continuous improvement, whether in acute or chronic disease, so long as it lasts, counter-indicates the repeti tion of any medicine whatsoever.” He says that every new dose of medicine would disturb the process of recovery.And is not this reasonable? Medicines do not cure; theymerely stimulate curative reaction in the patient; and so longas this is in full swing, it is foolish to interrupt. The call forrepetition is the renewed call of symptoms..Hahnemann says, and we have proved it: “The surest way to hasten the cure is to let the medicine act so long as improve ment continues. He who observes this rule with the greatest care, will be the most successful homeopathic practi tioner,” been found. and one may add, vaccine-practitioner-as hasOne of Hahnemann’s greatest followers has told us, that”More cases are spoilt by the too hasty repetition of the remedy,than from any other cause.”But Hahnemann foresaw the long years in which even his own followers, convinced of the law of similars, would yet doubt his teachings in its regard, and would do inferior work, becauseof the two great stumbling-blocks to its acceptance-the smalldose, and the infrequent dose. He says: “My doctrines in regard to the magnitude and the repetition of the dose will be doubted for years. I do not comprehend it-but facts speak for themselves. The truth of the proposition is demonstrated by ex perience in which I have more faith than in my intelligence. If physicians do not carefully practise what I teach, let them not expect to be successful in their treatment,” And here let me say, that it is the experience of all of us,whose practice is guided by the homeopathic law, that the closerwe stick to the doctrines of Hahnemann, the better our results.INITIAL AGGRAVATIONAnd then Hahnemann’s initial aggravation transient and little noticed in acute sickness, but often very definite in chronic disease; where it may occur during the first eight to ten days. It was the initial aggravation that caused Hahnemann, as we said, to reduce his doses; and which led presently to the estab lishment of the fact, that when remedies are reduced again and again by repeated subdivision into the region of infinitesimals, there is no loss, but an augmentation of energy. And there fore, as time went on, and observation was added to observation, “dilutions” became for him “potencies”; and the 30th dilution (“one in a decillion”) was more correctly named, the 30th power, or potency. Initial aggravation is succeeded by a period of amelioration, Sir Almroth Wright has called it a “positive phase,” which, Hahnemann says, must not be interfered with. Vital reaction has been brought into play, and must be permitted to work itself out.VACCINES HOMEOPATHICuch itial aggravations are only seen in homeopathy and where homeopathic remedies, such as vaccines, are employed. Here they are often very definite, and have led, as in Hahne mann’s case, to the reduction, again and again, of the dose. And that vaccines and disease products used for the cure ofdisease are homeopathic, is pretty widely recognized. Dr. Cabot, a university teacher in New England, said in 1906, “The use of tuberculin is a form of vaccination which illustrates better than any example known to me the approval of homeopathic principles in our school. The poison of tu berculosis, which can produce some of the symptoms of tuber culosis, is here applied for the cure of tuberculosis, through the production of immunity or resisting power in the tissues. Surely this is a case of similia similibus curentur, as homeopathic writers have pointed out. The use of bacterial vaccines recently produced by Sir Almroth Wright is distinctly homeopathic.”Von Behring, the discoverer of diphtheria antitoxin, said: By what technical term could we more appropriately speak of this influence excited by a similar virus, than by Hahnemann’s word, ‘homeopathy.” And of tuberculin he said that its thera peutic usefulness “must be traced in origin to a principle which cannot be better characterized than by Hahnemann’s word ‘ho meopathic.” And again, in regard to immunity in sheep, vac cinated against anthrax, he said, “By what technical term could we more appropriately speak of this influence of a virus similar in character to the fatal anthrax, than by Hahnemann’s word, homeopathy.””It may be interesting here to state that, according to the directions of Constantine Hering (one of Hahnemann’s great followers) in 1830, Anthracinum was prepared from the spleen of animals affected with anthrax; and that, in 1836, the homeo path Weber published in Leipsic a treatise on Cattle Plague Treated with Anthracinum, Also of Men Similarly Affected, in which he claims to have cured every case..In regard to the use of disease products for the cure of dis ease, homeopathy has been using them since the days of Hahne mann; but administered orally-in potency-and after provings have been made; just like any other homeopathic medicines.As pointed out by Dr. McGavack (Homeopathic Principles in Therapeutics), in addition to vaccines, official medicine is now experimenting with another group of pathogenic agents, homeo pathically applied, for the cure of asthma, hay fever, and other diseases of foreign protein origin. The proper pollen is selected, in each case, by individualization.But homeopathy has been treating diseases of sensitizationfor over a century with success; individualizing always, but afterthe homeopathic methods of drug-selection.He says, “Every set of cutaneous sensitization tests contains common oats (Avena sativa), yellow dock (Rumex crispus), plantain (Plantago major), elder (Sambucus nigra), spikenard (Aralia racemosa), etc., etc.” But all these, in provings, produce either hay fever, or asthma, or both, and are therefore capable of curing these diseases and that “long before the laboratorywas capable of demonstrating their power, as antigens.” These, and many others, are to be found in Clarke’s Dic tionary of (homeopathic) Materia Medica, published in 1900 1902.Avena Suffocative attacks at night. Rumex Nose, sudden, sharp tingling sensation, followed by violent and rapid sneezing. Violent sneezingPlantagowith watery coryza. Frequent sneezing, with sudden attacks of profuse, watery, bland coryza.Sambucus Wheezing. Obstructed respiration when lyingdown. Spasmodic paroxysms of suffocation atnight, with great agitation. Great difficulty ofbreathing.Aralia Wheezing: sense of impending suffocation. Immediately on lying down, an attack of asthma.But it is not enough to know that a remedy can cause asth ma or hay fever. The homeopath must know more, in order to differentiate between such remedies. He must know which to choose.Rumex is peculiar in being worse by breathing cold air. Inchest troubles, wants to cover up the mouth. Sambucus has a bluish, bloated face; a great tendency to fright-great agitation during the attack-great pressure and constriction of chest and so on.And there are many others even more valuable, but each only valuable in its place.In coryza, with Allium cepa (the onion) the discharge from the eyes is bland, and from the nose excoriating. With Arsenicum also, the discharges from the nose are hot and excoriating.But with Euphrasia, the other way about, the eye discharge is acrid, and the nasal discharge is bland.875But homeopathy goes much further, and has a far wider field than vaccines, which apply to only a limited number of diseases; whereas substances producing like effects to disease can be used in the same way, or be substituted for vaccines, with great simplification of preparation, elimination of risk, and precision in dosage.NATURAL DISEASES AND DRUG DISEASESHahnemann shows that diseases of like symptoms annihilate, or, as we may say, antidote, one another; and he instances, inter alia, cow-pox and small-pox.. In the same way (he contends) an artificial, or drug-disease will antidote a natural disease of like symptoms. Only that the artificial, or drug-disease, is vastly superior, asa curative agent, to any natural disease; since natural diseases are uncertain in action and leave many persons unaffected; whereas medicinal agents (take arsenic for instance) “act at all times, and under all circumstances, on all living beings, and have this great advantage, that they can be diluted, divided, poten tized to the verge of infinity at the will of the physician, till the result of treatment is seen only as a gentle, imperceptible but rapid transition from suffering to health.”This uncertainty in the employment of natural diseases for the cure of disease is exemplified in the use of malaria for the cure of general paralysis of the insane. A plaintive tale in this regard was voiced recently by Menninger and Fellows in the Journal of the Kansas Medical Society.It is a tale of difficulty and uncertainty; of the damage tocertain organs-liver and spleen; of the risk of spreading malaria by patients under treatment; and of enhanced mortality.POTENTIZATIONThe extreme subdivision of homeopathic remedies hByas been keenly criticized for one hundred years. But, as Hahnemann taught the potentizing of medicines, the thing is perfectly simple and accurate.
Part – 2 of the previous post already introduced for your kind attention, application & acceptance.For Hahnemann’s favorite “30th” or “decillionth” potency, only thirty small vials are needed, and a few drachms of alcohol or water. One drop of the strong tincture is put in a small bottle with ninety-nine drops of alcohol, and this, vigorously suc cussed, is the first centesimal potency. Subsequent potencies are prepared in the same way always one drop of the preceding potency in ninety-nine drops of the attenuating medium, to form the next. And it will be easily seen that, so long as matter is divisible, each succeeding vial will contain a saturated solution of the drug, in finer and finer subdivision, always; activated, and not diluted and rendered less potent. Boyd of Glasgow has recently proved that every single succussion, up to forty, alters the potency; then it remains constant, till further potentized bytaking one drop into a fresh ninety-nine drops of alcohol. But homeopathy makes use of many insoluble substances; be?and it uses them pure, and in tincture form How can thisAnd here we have another of the discoveries of Hahnemann. With insoluble substances-gold, silica, carbon, lycopodium his first potencies are made by trituration (one part of the sub stance in ninety-nine parts of sugar of milk, triturated in an agate mortar for a couple of hours). One part of this first cen tesimal trituration is again ground up with ninety-nine parts of sugar of milk for the same period, to make a second centesimal potency, and a third is made in the same way. That gives the substance, as one in a million. And he shows that after these three triturations all substances become soluble in alcohol or water, and potencies can now be run up in the usual way.The profession now has colloidal silica, etc., but silica, gold, vegetable charcoal, silver, and a host of insoluble substances were bequeathed to us, proved as to their exact role in combating sickness, by Hahnemann, over one hundred years ago.Many, in the past, have called this diluting, and the result ing tinctures “dilutions.” So did Hahnemann, till experience taught him that subdivision (and he never reached its limits) meant more completely liberated energy; when he substituted for “dilutions” the truer term, potencies. And here, again, he appealed to facts and to experience, and has taught us to do thesame; insisting that, so long as a remedy, so treated, can evoke some evidence of aggravation, we have curative power, And our personal experience of some twenty years is, that it is from the highest potencies (provided that the remedy is correct) that we get the most alarming aggravations; so much so that we dare not employ them in advanced disease with much destruction of tissue. For instance, in advanced phthisis, a very high potency of Phosphorus, in establishing too severe a reaction, may deter mine a fatal hæmorrhage.Hahnemann (from years of experience) claims further that, by potentization, not only do insoluble substances become solu ble, but that their medicinal virtues can thereby be fully and even infinitely developed; besides which, their chemical proper ties are so altered that they are no longer subject to chemical laws. They have passed, for instance, beyond the laws of neu tralization… of his day). (Hahnemann was one of the foremost chemistsOPPOSITE EFFECTS OF LARGE AND SMALL DOSESWhile I have been trying to put facts before you, in all sim plicity, a number of confirmatory instances must have occurred to you.For instance, the opposite effects of large and small doses and here the Arndt-Schulz law comes to the support of Hahnemann. For, where large doses of a poisonous substance prove lethal, and smaller doses inhibit, minimal doses of the same poison actually stimulate the vital activities of the same cells.As Bier says, “The same remedy may stimulate a function, when given in small doses, but destroy it if larger doses are administered.”And he says, “According to Schulz, the great bulk of reme dies do not act by neutralizing, dissolving, disinfecting, etc., (i.e., in a metabolic manner) but by irritating certain organs. The latter are thereby stimulated to an activity which promotes the healing process. Since the slightest irritation often produces great reaction, Schulz elucidates the action of the minimal dose; and again, since the symptoms of disease often are merely an expression of the healing reaction of the body, he explains the homeopathic cure by symptom-similarity (the law of similars). Accordingly the remedy merely augments the natural healing process.” But, of course, this is all Hahnemann!The recent Medical Research Council report on radium re fers to “the general principle that has been established with so many drugs, that large doses and very small doses act in oppo site ways.Taylor has shown that irradiated Ergosterol, in small and medium doses, favours the deposition of calcium from blood to bone; but large doses have a reverse effect, and cause calcium to he absorbed from bone into the blood stream.”Duke, in a research on blood platelets, found that large doses of benzol reduced the platelet count to a point where the bleeding time was prolonged, while small doses of benzol brought about an increase in the platelet count. This also held good for a complex substance, such as diphtheria toxin-a large dose caused an immediate fall in the number of platelets, while sub-lethal doses stimulated their production.”It is seen that the same drug may stimulate or depress, given appropriate conditions.But more crude instances of homeopathy, and the opposite effects of large and small doses, are familiar to all. You use Ipecacuanha to check vomiting. Pot. iod. (which Norman Walk er tells us produces skin affections diagnosed as gummata) forgumma; salicylic acid for Meniere’s disease, etc. And Dr. Dyce Brown, some years ago, published a very long list of drugs, used by the official school, homeopathically, and with success. He quotes striking testimonies from prominent physicians and teachers as to their efficacy in conditions causedby them. Among them we find the following: “Belladonna. Its power to produce convulsions is well known,while Trousseau and Pidoux speak in very high praise of its value in epilepsy, in eclampsia of infants, and of puerperal wom en. They say that ‘Belladonna administered in small doses some times produces unhoped for results.’ “On the brain, the action of Belladonna is well known, causing mania, hallucinations, delirium, and general mental excitement ment. On this Trousseau and Pidoux remark-and this quotation is very important from our standpoint: ‘Analogy, that guide so sure in therapeutics, ought to lead us to use Belladonna in the treatment of mania, inasmuch as Belladonna taken in large doses produces a temporary mania; for experience has proved that a multitude of diseases are cured by therapeutic agents, which seem to act in the same manner as the disease to which we op pose this remedy. This is a beautiful testimony to the law of similars.”Rhus toxicodendron. Trousseau and Pidoux, Pereira, and Sanders of Edinburgh, testify to its power to produce a skin eruption exactly like erysipelas, with vesicles here and there, on the hands, arms, face, etc.; while the first-named authors say: This curious action of Rhus on the economy has led the homeo paths to employ this substance in diseases of the skin; but al ready, before them, Dufresnoy of Valenciennes had published a paper in which he highly praised the virtue of this plant against skin diseases, and later, against paralysis. From that time we have found from time to time essays on this subject in the dif ferent periodicals, and many reliable physicians have confirmed Dufresnoy’s experiences.”Stramonium. Trousseau and Pidoux then quote M. Moreau, of Tours, who says, ‘It is especially useful in cases of monomania with hallucinations, founding this statement, say Trousseau and Pidoux, on the fact that Stramonium causes hallucinations; and that mania ought to be cured by Stramonium in the same way as the majority of irritating agents are employed topically to cure irritations. If this is not homeopathy, I would ask, what is?”But one might multiply indefinitely examples, simple and complex, to show the opposite effects of large and small doses of substances medicinal or poisonous.INDIVIDUALIZATIONHomeopathy takes into account the individual, with his personal reactions to environment, physical, mental and moral; his deviations from the normal, and especially from his own nor mal, due to sickness. With Hahnemann, when it comes to prescribing, “we know no diseases, only sick persons,” whose sickness has to be matched in materia medica.And this is only commonsense, since no illness, if we take the trouble to inquire, affects all persons alike.In rheumatism one person, like Bryonia in its provings, has pain on the slightest movement; another, like Rhus, needs to be constantly on the move, to make the pain endurable. One, like Rhus, is always worse for wet and cold; the other, like Bryonia, is more affected by dry weather. One rheumatic patient may have pains intolerable in the warmth of the bed; another, only tolerable when warm. It is the identical symptom-complex of drug and patient that insures a successful prescription.Even in pneumonia, for abortive and curative work, the individual patient has to be considered in prescribing. A number of drugs have caused and cured pneumonia Phosphorus, Bry onia, Nitric acid, etc. But which are we to use since one will not do for the other.The Bryonia patient wants to be let alone-is very irritable; is worse for any movement. Has a white tongue-is dry and thirsty. Cough is dry and painful. The pleura is apt to be in volved with stitching pain, relieved by pressure, worse by move ment-even respiration therefore he lies on the affected side.The Phosphorus pneumonia especially attacks the right base.The patient is unable to lie on the left side. He is very thirsty;wants company, sympathy; there is bright blood in the sputum,or possibly the prune-juice expectoration. The Mercurius picture, in pneumonia, is very different and distinctive. Here you have profuse offensive sweat, offensive mouth, filthy, tooth-notched tongue, with much saliva of horri ble taste. Here Mercurius will quickly cure.And yet, though homeopathy knows no specifics for dis eases, there are certain substances which, in poisonous doses and in provings, reproduce so nearly described disease conditions as to be practically specific for most cases of those diseases.Crotalus horridus (rattle-snake poison) which produces bleedings from every organ and orifice of the body even theof the skin, and which881affects gravely liver and kidneys, etc., is our great remedy for black-water fever. pores Latrodectus mactans, a spider poison, whose bite occasions symptoms not to be distinguished from those of angina pectoris, proves astonishingly curative in infrequent doses, for that con dition. We have recently seen several such cases.Corrosive sublimate poisoning, as said, simulates dysentery, and in infinitesimal doses cures rapidly most cases of dysentery. Ptomaine poisoning, which simulates arsenical poisoning in its agony of vomiting and purging, its deadly anxiety and rest lessness and collapse, is promptly cured by Arsenicum, in po tency.Belladonna simulates scarlet fever; and Belladonna given for scarlet fever ensures a minimal mortality, and freedom from sequelæ. Camphor, whose symptoms resemble those of the early stageof cholera, has proved astonishingly and rapidly curative in that disease; while in the later stages with severe cramps, Cuprum or in collapse with severe vomiting, purging, and profuse cold sweat, Veratrum, have demonstrated to the world, in the epi demics of 1830-1 and 1854, the dramatic curative powers of remedies homeopathically indicated.Dr. Macloughlin, inspector to the Board of Health, wrote in 1854, to one of the doctors at our hospital, which had been cleared for cholera patients, “You are aware that I went to your hospital prepossessed against the homeopathic system; that you had in me, in your camp, an enemy rather than a friend.That there may be no misapprehension about the cases I saw at your hospital, I will add, that all I saw were true cases of cholera, in the various stages of the disease; and that I saw sev eral cases which did well under your treatment which I have no hesitation in saying would have sunk under any other. In con clusion I must repeat to you what I have already told you, and what I have told everyone with whom I have conversed, that though an alleopath by principle, education and practice, yet was it the will of Providence to afflict me with cholera, and de prive me of the power of prescribing for myself, I would rather be in the hands of a homeopathic than an alleopathic adviser.You are at full liberty to make what use you please of this let ter.” It found its way finally into the Parliamentary Blue BookIn those cholera days of terror, homeopathy practically re versed the mortality. For where, under the treatment of the day. two-thirds of the patients died, under homeopathic treatment two-thirds recovered. While, in many places, homeopathic re sults were almost incredibly dramatic; so much so that in Atria they caused the laws against homeopathy to be repealed. All these are the more coarse instances of homeopathy, easy for any one who wishes to make the attempt.For the comparison of the finer symptoms, and for more difficult cases, special symptom-registers or repertories have been compiled, and from these, with a little practice, it is possi ble to work out the equation between the symptom-complex in drug and disease.PRACTICAL RESULTSIn conclusion let me say, that the foregoing may sound toyou plausible or the reverse. But, as practical medical men,your feeling must be, “Does it work?”In order to show you that it does work, I will take a few of the simplest cases, exemplifying homeopathy in some of its phases. I am not going to weary you with details, but merely relatesalient points. An officer invalided home with trench fever. He had beenill for a year.Now Hahnemann lays it down that the mental, the peculiar, and the characteristic symptoms of the patient himself, apart from his malady, are to be especially considered in regard to the choice of the remedy.This man had frightful irritability of temper. His fever started always at 9 a. m.He had the usual pain, restlessness, and jerking of extremi ties; these worse at night.One remedy only, Chamomilla, has just this symptom-com plex, and a single dose of Chamomilla, in high potency, quickly cured him, and sent him back to the line.Here you notice:The like remedy.The single drug. The infrequent dose.The small dose.Non-interference with vital reaction.Potentization,A mother of small children, with acute food-poisoning had been vomiting and purging all night, and was supported down to our out-patient department by her husband, at 2:30 p. m., cold, collapsed, anxious-almost “done”.Her symptoms were typically those of arsenic, and Arseni cum, in high potency, sent her home, a couple of hours later, warm and smiling; and again, well. You see here the rapid homeopathic action in very acutesickness. The more acute the sickness, the quicker and the morecomplete the curative reaction.I was asked one night, at midnight, to see a man who had had champagne and oysters for dinner, and who was doubled up with colicky abdominal pain. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. His only relief was by pressing his hands deeply into his abdomen. He could only answer in a whisper. He felt so ill that he thought there was no chance of work next day. Giv ing him a dose of Colocynth, in potency, I timed him, and in three minutes he gave a sigh, and stretched out his legs and said, “I’m better.” And he went to business next day. Here the remedy had to be Colocynth, not Arsenicum; because Colocynth is the only remedy with abdominal pains relieved by doubling up and pressure.At 10:30 o’clock one night, I was called to a man suffering from urticaria-anaphylactic-after anti-tetanus serum. He was almost beside himself with fear and anxiety; very restless, couldn’t keep still; certain he was going to die. Thirsty, felt hot, great fear of being alone. Very apprehensive. Everything had to be done at once. Rheumatic pains intolerable; said they were driving him crazy.Hahnemann says: “Whenever Aconite is chosen homeopathi cally, you must observe the moral symptoms, and be careful thatit closely resembles them: the anguish of mind and body, the restlessness, the disquiet not to be allayed.”Here Aconite, in the 30th potency, gave almost instant re lief, and in fifteen minutes the patient was quite himself again. This was one of the most dramatic things I have ever seen.I was once urgently called to see a patient acutely ill with rheumatic fever, who was the despair of all who came in contact with him. Nurse after nurse had had to go, and the doctor in attendance was at his wit’s end. A dose of Chamomilla brought almost instant peace; the temperature promptly dropped, and the patient got well. One might multiply such cases indefinitely, and remember,they are common, not to any one prescriber, but to homeopathy. In these days of advancing science, when the foolishness of homeopathy is proving wisdom, and the amazing prescience of Hahnemann is obtaining every day new confirmation, what is there to prevent the most sceptical from, at least, experimenting with the power that has come to us?Those who test homeopathy and make the experiment, do not escape. Over and over again doctors have studied homeopa thy, or have been commissioned to look into it, in order to ex pose it only to become its most enthusiastic adherents and ex ponents.I suppose not one of us has approached homeopathy other wise than with doubt and mistrust, but facts have been too strong for scepticism.Sir Thomas Horder, the other day, spoke of “the present pause in therapeutic advance. He felt it would be broken by brilliant advance in the near future. The things essential to advance were toil, some humility, and imagination. From what part of the scientific horizon the light would come, it was not possible to say; the sky must be scanned in every quarter. Perhaps some promising direction had been overlookedwould the lamp again be lighted by that strange and inexplicable flash of genius, the genius that scouted all science, because it was itself the mother of science. May I suggest that the genius may be Hahnemann; and this the promising direction that has been inexplicably overlooked?Hahnemann antedated science, and his prophetic eye discerned “the dawn that was to brighten into the most brilliant day of medical art.”It was 107 years ago that Hahnemann wrote: “I rejoice at the benefit homeopathy has already conferred on humanity, and look forward with intense pleasure to the not distant time when, though I shall no longer be here below, a future generation of mankind will do justice to this gift of a gracious God, and will thankfully avail themselves of the blessed means He has pro vided for the alleviation of their bodily and mental sufferings.”REFERENCES”Romeis. Biol. Zschr., 1923, cxxxv, p. 141. Jakoby. Biol. Zschr., 1927, p. 181.’Read Hunt. Science, 1930, lxxii, p. 526. Macht. Amer. Journ. Ophth., Aug, 1931, p. 729. ‘Coca. Journ. Infect. Dis., 1915, p. 357.Locke and Main. Journ. Infect. Dis., 1931, p. 419. Bier, Attitude to Homeopathy.”Medical Research Council, Special Report, Series No. Radium, 1931. ‘Harris and Innes. Bio. Chemical Journ, 1931, Vol. Ixv, p. 367.150, Medical Use of”Duke Journ. Amer. Med. Assoc., 1915, p. 1600. “Duke. Arch. Int. Med., 1913, Vol. xi, p. 100.Now, in the cases called chronic, how long should one wait? The answer is plain and simple, WAIT AS LONG AS THE IMPROVE MENT LASTS. But suppose there is no improvement in a week? Well, wait two, three, or even four weeks. It is the general experience that good results fail to appear for many days. The pa tient will say in a week’s time that he is no better. If the correct remedy has been given any interference will irretrievably spoil the case, while if time be given, the original dose often effects a complete cure. Every homeopath of any education can prescribe with fair accuracy for cases of chronic disease, but many still fail to cure simply from ignorance of the proper manage ment of remedies. But where is all this to be learned? says one. In Hahnemann’s Organon and Chronic Diseases.-D. C. MCLAREN,M.D., 1887.