We have just emerged from a profitable reading of a review of Dr. Dejusts work under the above caption, by Dr. Milton J. Raisbeck, in the March issue of the J.A.I.H. At the risk of being considered assinine I cannot refrain from saying a word on some of Dejusts findings.
No individual is in a position to render an impartial, unbiased opinion on any subject, if he is not thoroughly conversant with the subject on which he “opines,” as Dejust shows he was not, his opinion, no matter how great his confreres or the public may deem him, is valueless. If he is thoroughly conversant and in sympathy with the subject, he will yield to his prejudices on the subject at issue.
Dejust has given his estimate of homoeopathy from the physiologico-materialistic view, as do all so-called modern scientists. The preachers long ago learned that the modern scientists have yet to learn that “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform”. These wonderful scientists have banded together to compel nature to reveal her innermost secrets and make her laws conform to their own.
In short, they purpose that natures laboratory and the man-made test tube shall be one; that nature alone is wrong; that what does not react in the test tube will not react in the body; that beliefs of others are delusions if they do not conform to their own materialistic beliefs.
We note that one of the first contentions is that: “The briefs for homoeopathy are made up of hollow arguments without orderly presentation,” but, strange as it may seem, these same “disorderly, hollow arguments” are backed up by nature, and if you do not know it now, you will have a rude awakening later to learn that Nature is the court of last resort, not the scientist nor the physician.
As to Hahnemanns “Organon” being a collection of “disconnected paragraphs”, Hahnemann simply wrote them as they arose in explanation of the subject at hand. Evidently Dejust did not read Kents “Philosophy of Homoeopathy” where these same “disconnected paragraphs” were arranged, explained and put in pleasant, easily readable form.
We note that Hahnemann was criticized for “laying stress on securing the history of the patient.” This is the only truly logical course of making a thorough diagnosis. Too many of our present day diagnoses are hand-made instead of brain-made, as evinced by a regular doctor who was called into see a child and could not decide whether the child had pneumonia or worms. Two eminent surgeons were called in to see a man, one claiming that he had a cold settled on his kidneys, the other that he had pneumonia; but the result was death.
Of course, any of us can criticize the dead, but just what had Dejust done for the relief of suffering humanity that will stand the acid test of nature and of time that homoeopathy has? Picking Hahnemann to pieces establishes nothing, for nature smiles and goes right on backing up Hahnemann and confirming homoeopathy just the same. Just place Hahnemannian homoeopathy side by side with Dejusts bacterio-therapy, then ask yourself how many violent and untimely death is homoeopathy responsible for as compared with modern bacterio-therapy?.
We do not believe Hahnemann ever had a thought of foreshadowing all the discoveries of modern bacterio-therapy. We fail to see wherein bacterio-therapy has anything in common with homoeopathy. The serums, vaccines, toxins, etc., only relate to homoeopathy insofar as the results of the provings indicate them, and the provings show that they have the same limitations that characterize all other remedial agents.
The biologist deals simply with the tangible, material end of life, just as the pathologist deals with the material end of disease, both being the exact reverse of homoeopathy, so of what value is their estimate or opinion of a subject on which they know very little, if anything at all? Modern medical science (?) appears to mean simply a change of opinion, nothing more.
We understand that Dejust understands that many homoeopaths hold that we have no real knowledge of the cause of disease. How can they? If Dejust does, let him give us an irrefutable, ocular demonstration. A man who can show the cause of a condition which no sane man will admit of having ever seen, is surely a phenomenal wonder. I would go many miles to see that man. Hahnemann gained his knowledge from constant, careful, critical observation. How does Dejust arrive at his conclusions? If I prescribe Variolinum cc. as a preventive of small pox and Dejust externally vaccinates to the same end, neither victim then “taking” the disease, just how does Dejust arrive at the conclusion that my result was a delusion and his own a scientific fact?
Neither of us knows that his method is correct or no vaccinated person would come down with small pox, but they do. The homoeopathic method of preventing disease is by eradicating the predisposition thereto, quite different from that of the allopaths which consists of merely suppressing that predisposition or turning it into other channels to crop out later in a far more malignant form. Again nature has and is repeatedly backing up and verifying Hahnemanns deductions and observations.
Just what is nature doing in Dejusts observations and deductions, in confirmation thereof? The experiments of Dejust and his confreres are no more logical nor no more convincing than the provings and the applications of the results of those proving of the homoeopaths. All must depend on the decision of that court of last resort-nature, for confirmation.
Germs cause disease if-and that little word “if” knocks cold what the sponsors of the germ theory and bacterio-therapy would like to be-an established fact. The so-called “germ carrier” is one of the best and most the bacteria can do is to light up into activity the already existing predisposition, and back of this existing predisposition lies the real cause of the disease.
As to our potencies and their application neither Hahnemann nor any other real homoeopath claims that the original crude drug retains its crudity in infinitesimal particles throughout all the potencies. As the body contains the animating soul, so does the crude drug contain the spirit like force which through triturating and potentizing is freed from its material confines, mingling with and changing the character and nature of the menstrum employed.
Perhaps Dejust can tell us exactly why after the failure of the thirtieth potency the 10m. should bring about the results so promptly and permanently; why, after the failure of drastic crude drugs and narcotics the highly potentized remedy should bring around the desired result inside of thirty minutes. If he cannot intelligently and irrefutably explain this, his opinion and “Critical Examination of Homoeopathy” are not worth the paper they are written on.
I think we homoeopaths are wasting a lot of time and showing very poor judgment in seeking confirmation of our cause from our enemies. In this we are doing nothing for homoeopathy. One year of through teaching, practicing and educating our patrons in homoeopathy together with rigidly careful proving of drugs would do more for homoeopathy than all the so-called scientific investigations that could be made in the next thousands year, as all these investigations are made on purely arbitrary materialistic ground, and homoeopathy confines itself not alone to the materialistic.
No man should attempt to become a homoeopath whose crude mentality will not allow him to stray away from his purely material environs, for no matter what the opinion of the materialistic scientist nature and nature alone has the last say, as nature has spoken for and in favor of homoeopathy, all scientists to the contrary notwithstanding.
Hahnemann may have been disorderly, but not intentionally so. We offer wonder how orderly Dejust would have been had he had a newly discovered system to introduce, data to produce, compile, garner; translations to make; books to write and review; a large clientele to serve, and last, but not least, to be driven from pillar to post by a set of ignorant, narrow-minded bigots. Hahnemanns position was some different from some of his critics who sit and drone over one subject in richly furnished apartments at public expense with assistants to see that things are “orderly” arranged.
The memory of Hahnemann, his “disorderly arranged and hollow arguments” will roll down the corridors of time long, long after the memory of his critics has been forgotten. Shall we quit and cease to breathe because God, in His infinite wisdom, will not reveal to us the cause of life? Shall we bury the only system that gives results because we cannot ocularly demonstrate the contents of the potentized drug to coterie of men who would not see if they could? Isnt it foolish to refuse to eat bread because we cannot see the force that causes the wheat germ to sprout? In short, arent we an infernally foolish, short sighted set of beings anyhow, in spite of or boasted intelligence?.
