II THE EPITOME OF HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY.
Homoeopathic philosophy may be divided into three sections, the theoretical dealing with how and why remedies act, which is so abstruse that it can best be dealt with by the more advance student; the didactic, meaning the rules and tenets; and the practical, which comprises the art of applying the rules in prescribing for the actual patient, understanding the results, and following through the subsequent prescriptions to cure.
First, let us take a birds eye view of the didactic aspect. Health, to the Homoeopaths, is a state of harmony between the part of the body and also between the person as a whole and the cosmos. In real health the as yet unexplained life force in each person is vigorous. It is usually spoken of as the vital force, which in disease is the true remedy is to stimulate the vital force. The object of hygiene and mechanical intervention is to clear its path of obstructions. No remedy can cure disease, it can only at best enable the vital force to function properly again.
Disease, to the homoeopathy, is a state of disharmony involving at least three different factors, some morbific influence, the susceptibility of the person affected, and the individuality of the patient modifying the form the disease takes. Homoeopaths the form the disease takes. Homoeopaths do not try to cure the morbific influence but to cure patient himself. In order to cure the patient the most similar remedy must be given.
Symptoms, to the homoeopaths, are the language of the body expressing its disharmony and calling for the similar remedy. For prescribing, one must take the totality of the symptoms, which includes the mental symptoms; the “generals”. predicated of the patient as a whole, which included his reaction to meteorological conditions, time, bodily functions, food, etc.; he particulars, predicated of any part of the patient, and the “modalities” of these (that is, what aggravates or ameliorates), and especially such particulars as are “rare, strange or peculiar”; the causative factors, such as ailments from grief, wetting, riding in a cold wind, suppression of menses, etc.; and the pathological symptoms, indicating the elective affinity of the remedy for certain tissues or organs.
Homoeopathy regards acute disease as an eliminative explosion, which, if handled in the proper homoeopathic manner, leaves the body in healthier condition. This does not mean that the acute disease should be allowed to run its course, for if the symptoms are met at its inception by the simillimum the disease be aborted and yet the economy will be purified. No acute case under homoeopathic treatment from the beginning should died, and there should be no permanent sequellae.
Acute epidemic diseases often run to one two epidemic remedies which vary as the disease shifts geographically. In this connection the epidemic remedy is an admirable prophylactic, although the chronic constitutional remedy is always the best preventive. Sequellae following acute diseases are not strictly speaking part of the acute trouble but are flare ups of chronic disease aroused by the acute condition.
Chronic disease is not self limited and shows no tendency to ultimate recovery if untreated. This is the unique sphere of homoeopathy. Practically every one has some symptoms of learnt chronic disease, and to the homoeopath chronic disease if the basis of susceptibility. By taking the totality of the symptoms from birth on, a deep acting, chronic constitutional remedy can be chosen which will aid in fending off future acute disease and remove many inherited and acquired encumbrances to the vital force.
Hahnemann divided chronic diseases into three main categories or “miasms”-psora, syphilis and sycosis, These may appear singly or in combination with each improper treatment. This matter of the miasms is the most difficult and moot question in homoeopathy, but the fundamental thesis of the importance of chronic disease in general is essential.
Having prescribed for chronic disease, if you have given the true simillimum, the symptoms are cured in accordance with Herings three laws of direction: From within outward, from above downward, and in the reverse order of their appearance. This is never the case in chronic disease untreated by homoeopathy, therefore when observed one can be sure that it is the remedy which is curing and that the correct remedy has been found. Herings laws are so important that we will give an example:
A rheumatic fever case, where the joint symptoms has disappeared and the heart is affected receives the simillimum. The heart improves, pains return in the shoulders and elbows, these disappear and the knees and ankles are involved, these in turn pass of and the patient entirely recovers. The symptoms went from within outward (heart to joints), from above downward (shoulders to knees), and in the reverse order of their appearance (heart to limbs instead of limbs to heart).
If the symptoms do not go in this order the remedy is wrong. When a patient on a chronic remedy develops a different symptom, search back on your record or question your patient rigorously to determine whether this is the recurrence of an old symptoms ( a good sign, in which case no further remedy should be given). It it is an old symptom search the pathogenesis of the remedy given. If the symptom appears in the proving give nothing, if not, the choice of the remedy must be revised.
These laws of cure may or may not apply in acute disease, usually they do not. If the picture of a chronic disease includes a suppression, especially if the suppression is due to crude drugging, the chronic remedy acting according tot he third law of cure will sometimes restore the original discharge or eruption. The percentage of cases in which this return is from the original channel is relatively low. With good prescribing, however, some exteriorization takes place even though this may only be a diarrhoea or a coryza.
One of the times when any practitioner most needs a thorough knowledge of homoeopathic philosophy is when, after chronic prescribing, he is faced with such a discharge having more or less acute symptoms. He must then decide whether this is a return of an old trouble in its original form, or compensatory vent, or a new acute disturbance, or an aggravation. If it the first he should wait and give Placebo, explaining the process to sustain the patients morale. If it is the second he should attempt to do the same.
If, on the other hand it is the third, or the second is too annoying to the patient or even dangerous, one should prescribe an acute remedy and give it in low potency (thirtieth or even the twelfth, surely not above the two hundredth). After this the action of the chronic may not even have been disturbed. Often the acute remedy called for will be found among the acute complements of the chronic remedy.
If, in the fourth case, the disturbance is merely an increase in one of the patients complaints, or is found under the pathogenesis of the chronic remedy given, it can be classed as an aggravation and should receive no medicine, except Placebo, unless dangerous as above. If it is so serious as to threaten life, owing to the chronic having been given in too high a potency, an antidote may be in order. The selection of the antidote will be taken up in a later lecture. The great point is not to mix up your case and spoil it by giving unnecessary remedies.
In addition to acute and chronic diseases there are, of course, diseases due to drugging, or to bad hygiene, and there are diseases which ultimated themselves in pathology calling for surgery, and also troubles which are primarily surgical like foreign bodies, fractures, extra-uterine pregnancy, etc.
A word should be said here about pathology and surgery. From the homoeopathy standpoint much of pathology is protective, abscesses, ulcers, tumors are an effort on the part of the vital force at localization and extrusion. Such pathology should not be removed by surgery until after the sick constitution which produced such pathology has been cured. Often in course of cure the pathology will shrink or be absorbed. If not, it remains as a foreign body and is a subject for surgery.
Its removal before the cure of the constitution simply means that, balked at that outlet, the vital force will seek another one, either by recurrence in the same form or by more deep seated trouble. As to surgery, some of the orthodox homoeopathy hold that any surgery that is not merely a mechanical adjustment (such a ventral suspension of the uterus) is a definite bar to cure, the idea being that in the unraveling of the disease it gets back to where the knot was cut by surgery and can go no further.
It request the keenest judgment to decide when a case has gone too far to be relieved by remedies, and emergency surgery is indicated in a crisis. The homoeopathic remedy should always be resumed after the surgery.
In any of these classes of disease where they have been wrongly treated one should include the symptoms of the patient before the incorrect treatment, in other words original symptoms, in the totality.
