BERLIN SURGEON IN CLASH OVER HOMOEOPATHIC VIEWS


All science is systematic. Every science is a system. Without system there would be no sciences. System gathers up and correlates isolated facts, deduces general principles, forms theories or working hypotheses, conducts experimentation and research, tests and verifies results and finally establishes a science which has individuality and may be given a name. System and Science are inseparable.


Berlin, Aug. 15 (By the Associated Press).-Professor August Bier, Eminent surgeon who performed the operations in the last President Eberth and Hugo Stinnes, has stirred up the allopathic fraternity but not only saying a few kind words for homoeopathy, but also publishing his personal success with the homoeopathic treatment.

At the last meeting of the Medical Society Professor Bier was subjected to scathing criticism, On member declared” Its is nothing less than unethical for Professor Bier to champion the cause of homoeopathy Another asserted:”Homoeopathy is wrong because its adherents regard it as a system rather than a science. It, is, therefore, to be condemned as a system”.

Professor Bier, unperturbed, replied to these and other reproaches with the statements that this problem could not be solved by means of continuous experiments. He declared that after a careful study of the works of Samuel Hahnemann, the originator of homoeopathy, he had come to the conclusion that from these textbooks the greatest wisdom was to be gleaned”.

The reasons for the enemity of orthodox medicine to homoeopathy should now by apparent to any one. It is not, as implied by the perspicacious authority noted above, because homoeopathy is not true, but because “its adherents regard it as a system rather than as a science.” Homoeopathy therefore, might be true in itself, but would, of course, by this standard,m become “wrong” if those who practiced it regarded it as a “system.”

By the same brilliant reasoning the Decalogue and its related laws would be “Written upon tablets of stone by the finger of God” and delivered to Moses amid thunders and lightning and impenetrable clouds on Mt. Sinai. It follows that the American Medical Association would be “wrong” if it were “regarded as a system,” which of course it is. Hence, obviously, the thing to do is never to regard or speak of it as a system. And that makes it right, “sans peur et sans reproach”.

It thus appears that homoeopathy and the Decalogue are all right if you practice them and say nothing about it, but all wrong if you name , or even “regard” them as “systems.” The cat is a wicked mouse catcher, but do not call her a ct,.not her victims mice. Just say she is a scientific animated, mechanical device for catching small, four-legged animals with long tails and an appetite for cheese and let it go at that. It is “verboten” in “science” to create systems, “name names,” or believe in origins. For under the dominant “modern scientific” regime things just evoluted out of nothing without purpose or plan. By this evasiveness there is no allopathy, no homoeopathy, but only “medical science,” which inferentially evolved out of nothing, is nothing and will return (it is to be hoped to the nothingness, from which it came.

From this point of view it is clear that there are no standards of rightness or truth, no fundamental principle, no laws. The rightness or wrongness of a thing depends only on how it is “regarded”; in other words, upon the whim of an individual, or the dictum of the American Medical Association. In short, it is Anarchy.

In this kind of science every man is a law unto himself (until he comes into conflict with “The System”) and every one who disagrees with him is “Unscientific” and “unethical.” It is nothing less than unethical for Professor Bier to champion the cause of homoeopathy,” said one of his critics. And every one knows the penalty for being unethical-ex-communication, professional ostracism and persecution.

All science is systematic. Every science is a system. Without system there would be no sciences. System gathers up and correlates isolated facts, deduces general principles, forms theories or working hypotheses, conducts experimentation and research, tests and verifies results and finally establishes a science which has individuality and may be given a name. System and Science are inseparable.

The Standard Dictionary defines Science as:

“1. Knowledge gained and verified by exact observation and. correct thinking, especially as methodically formulated and arranged in a rational system. 2. Any department of knowledge in which the results of investigation have been worked out and systematized an exact and systematic statement of knowledge concerning some subject or group of subjects, especially a system of ascertained facts and principles covering and attempting to give adequate expression to a great natural group or division of knowledge”.

Under this authoritative definition homoeopathy take its place rightfully as a science and a system to which its followers do not hesitate to affirm their adherence in principle and practice.

What does the world of established science think of a body of medical men, calling itself scientific and arrogantly assuming dictatorial powers and privileges which thus not only flouts science but flaunts its antagonism to and rejection of the fundamental principles which are the foundation of all established sciences?

A better understanding of the situation will be gained by a brief consideration of a closely related subject.

The Inductive Method in Science

If the physician is to be a teacher and a guide as well as a healer of the people, he must himself have been taught and guided into right paths of knowledge. He must know the truth. He must have learned, digested and assimilated his portion of the stored- up knowledge and wisdom gained by the scientific research,observation and experience of the profession. This knowledge, to be always available, must be systematized,for Science is nothing but orderly, systematized knowledge of things that are true. All true sciences (for there is much of what St.Paul aptly describes as “science falsely so-called”) are products of the Inductive Method of Science.

We are all supposed to know something about logic, that is, “Formal logic,” which we use consciously or unconsciously in all our thinking. But how many of us ever stop to think that the science of logic exists in two parts-the logic of form, and the logic of reality or truth; or, technically, Pure Logic and Inductive Logic?.

Pure logic takes no account of the matter of our reasoning, of the truth or falsity of the thing reasoned about. It deals solely with the form of the reasoning. It is the favorite weapon of partisans and controversialists.

Inductive logic, on the contrary, concerns itself primarily with the facts, with reality. Its primary purpose is the discovery and use of truth. Its first requirement is that the premises must be true, the result of true and valid observation of facts, based if need be upon pure and controlled experimentation, and consistent with a basic underlying principle.

Inductive logic does not reason from a theory or a hypothesis, but from ascertained facts. It does not draw general conclusions from a particular group of facts without regard to general underlying principles. It does not “jump at conclusions.” Every step of the process must be verified, every like in the chain of reasoning be complete and jointed to its neighbors and capable of being hooked up to other established conclusions.

Logic may began with particulars and proceed by synthesis to generals, or it may begin with a general concept or principle and proceed by analysis to particulars.

All reasoning is by interference and, in the last analysis, all reasoning is deductive. Induction are simply opposite ways of arriving at the same conclusions. By inductive reasoning we ascertain what is true of, or common to, many different things and infer the laws that given them. By deductive reasoning we do the opposite and infer what will happen in consequence of the laws.

Reasoning a priori and a posteriori are,therefore,not different one of the premises. They differ merely in the point of view. It has been purely formal, partial and largely controversial that modern medicine has arrived as its false position.

We may all rightly orient ourselves and be protected against such gross errors as have been cited by resorting to the means afforded by inductive logic. Guided by its principles we may examine into the merits and results of the whole or any part of any system of thought or practice which is presented to us, and judge whether or not or to what extend it is worthy of acceptance. If the system under examination is true, it must, in its origin, development and application, have conformed to the requirements of the inductive method and be governed by an underlying general principle.

The results claimed for it must be submitted to investigation under the same principles, for much that is claimed to be good, especially in medicine, is undoubtedly had when brought to this test. We are deluded and continually deceived by the specious claims and assertions of men who have, by their own confession, no standard of truth, no general principle to guide fetus they go on blindly experimenting, seeking that which does not, and, in the nature of things,m cannot exist-a “cure” or specific for each general disease without regard to the individual variations from type which always exist.

August Bier