FIRST REMOVE THE CAUSE


FIRST REMOVE THE CAUSE. Your Hahnemannian practitioner should always keep in mind that one of his foremost responsibilities is to seek out and remove the cause-a point stressed by Hahnemann in paragraph 7 of the Organon, wherein he devotes considerable thought to its importance and emphasizes that this must be done specifically and particularly prior to the administration of the similimum.


To a homoeopath, the subject of pediatrics holds more than ordinary amount of interest, because not only are we inordinately successful in the medical treatment of diseases of childhood, but as a medical group, more than any other, have devoted a great deal of time and thought to the influence of heredity and environment, and to many other factors leading to chronicity. We find it hard to believe that eradication of serious disease is to be brought about simply by the treatment of the individual sufferer, but rather to go farther than that and to include his offspring through several generations in order to arrive at a satisfactory result.

Your Hahnemannian practitioner should always keep in mind that one of his foremost responsibilities is to seek out and remove the cause-a point stressed by Hahnemann in paragraph 7 of the Organon, wherein he devotes considerable thought to its importance and emphasizes that this must be done specifically and particularly prior to the administration of the similimum.

Since we have been asked to point up a paper along psychosomatic lines, I wish to emphasize that point of view throughout the rest of this paper. In the minds of most of us, however-partly from habit, partly from habit, partly from previous lack of more fundamental knowledge, maybe carelessness- we have limited our application of this important tenet to a very material, physical cause. We do not pretend this is necessarily a completely new slant to any of you, but sincerely hope it will give us all a point for thought, especially in view of the trend of present-day medical thinking.

The trained homoeopath has from the beginning no doubt felt, as he practiced the principles of homoeopathy laid down in the organon, that no matter what else he may have been doing, he certainly was pioneering in psychosomatic medicine-as partial proof thereof, I only wish to remind you of the importance of the mental symptoms in history taking and in the selecting of remedies.

Now comes the psychiatrist the psychologist and the psycho- analyst who have found, through their methods of approach, how fundamental the teachings of Hahnemann are and have been; and it gives us food for thought and considerable satisfaction to find this confirmation of vital and important homoeopathic principles- in the realm of the mind and its functions-since it is usually more simple to find its substantiation or proof on the material side of our lives.

So the analyst seeks to find “cause”, obtained under questioning and consultative rule, together with the patients recital of various events in his life to date, leading up to a type of confession, or more descriptively spoken of as “catharsis”- a recital either written or spoken. In other words, it gives the patient relief to tell his complete story. What wouldnt we homoeopaths give to find some such simple formula that would so influence our patients recital that he would share that same expected sense of relief.

However, let me assure you that the results are not always obtained as simply and completely as may appear from their writings and reports. You may rest assured that this group of analysts is realizing more and more the need for medical treatment in addition to theirs. It is the writers opinion, based on a reasonable amount of observation through acquaintance and relationships with members of these three professions, that a surprisingly large number of their patients, in spite of having been analyzed, still need homoeopathic treatment.

I would, therefore, at this point like to suggest that we stick to our last, searching for the similimum more earnestly than ever, but emphasizing more and more the importance of our patients mental symptoms, which are to be increasingly valuable, as civilization progresses and our lives become more complicated.

I am sure you will not have any difficulty in recalling numbers of cases that will illustrate the importance of mental and emotional causes, applying this principle to the study of children and their diseases-which may be but a physical reaction to mental and emotional maladjustment in their surroundings, I will only emphasize one or two in order to illustrate the point.

An only child, brought up in a home where one parent, for reasons not always understandable, goes all out in an attempt to protect and shield the child, literally against life itself. This may go on to the point of controlling the childs capacity for independent thought and action which may show itself in a variety of ways. One which occurs to mind: The child was not allowed to dress or undress without the aid of the parent, nor taught to attend to itself after responding to natures needs, with the result that an almost helpless individual was in the making. Fearful; mistrustful of others; impaired capacity for judgment or decision referred all questions to the parent or guardian, making little or no attempt to answer them-and if so, had no confidence whatever in its own judgment.

All this resulted in a markedly malnourished individual of low resistance subnormal in growth and intellect. Gave a history of repeated so-called colds and catarrhal conditions, headaches, various painful symptoms, etc.; found it extremely difficult to make adjustments, both on occasion of an addition to the family, and in the early days of public school attendance. After a reasonable length of time, under constitutional homoeopathic treatment, it was felt advisable to see what could be done to remove some of the emotional causes. The change was effective and most satisfactory.

Then we recall the case of a young boy with a history of asthma, colic, and digestive disturbances. For some reason or other, it seemed difficult to get a satisfactory history, though every cooperation appeared to be offered. But the remedies, which were supposedly indicated, and their action, left a great deal to be desired in the handling of this hyper-sensitive individual. All sorts of tests had been previously made, and there were very few positive reactions to blot his record.

So his parents, as well as the patient, understood the importance of avoiding these troublesome agents. One day, entirely by accident, we learned that the father was having considerable emotional adjustment problems, and was contemplating having an analysis made. We asked to see him, and as a result found it quite simple to follow the causative thread back into the emotional sphere. At no time did we give up homoeopathic medical treatment, but almost from the beginning when adjustments for personality defects were applied, did we find the changes that led to restoration of health.

We came across the following article in the public press just before completing this paper, and because of its unusual character and remarkable adaptation to our subject, we will use it to illustrate the importance of relationships between the emotional and physical child. A one-year old baby girl had a colic dog as a constant companion that always slept by her crib and was always within reach. The family moved from a small town to the city and in so doing, in some way or another, the dog became lost. The child, young as she was so affected by the loss of the dog that she would neither eat nor sleep-in fact her physical well-being was becoming seriously impaired, although the pediatrician who examined the baby could find no signs of physical illness but diagnosed it as “severe emotional illness induced by the dogs absence”.

We trust that you may find something of worthwhile import herein, those of you who are sincerely and earnestly seeking the similimum, and while so-doing being every vigilant in removing causes, non-physical as well as physical, which are beyond the capacity of reasonable remedy action to remove.

Carl H. Enstam