Why homoeopathic research? Since homoeopathy is part of general medicine, why a special kind of research?.
The answer is: General medicine does not know that homoeopathy is part of itself, and therefore, has not devoted any research to its tenets. Homoeopathy is a science of therapeutics and is only incidentally related to any other branch of medicine. The purpose of homoeopathic research is to investigate this science and to facilitate its use.
It must be done by homoeopathists, not for sectarian reasons, but because only homoeopathists understand the factors to be investigated, and because on one else will do it for them.
The Homoeopathic Researcher.
The old masters in homoeopathy were true geniuses at finding the curative remedy. There are geniuses today, in the same branch, especially among those who were trained a generation ago. Their knowledge of the action of drugs in the curative sense is full and is based on the concepts peculiar to homoeopathy. The only thing that survives in homoeopathy is the work of such geniuses, and their talents should be cherished.
The homoeopathic researcher must have this same knowledge and must understand the homoeopathic concept; in fact, he must be a homoeopathist by temperament. He must learn the technique of homoeopathic prescribing so as to be able to concentrate, in his research, on that which pertains to homoeopathic science.
This ought to be self-evident. However, the problems of homoeopathic research are so different from those of the dominant school that the above conveys only an abstract meaning to the conventionally-trained medical researcher.
Consider the usually accepted concept of why drugs are given, based as it is on active physiological response and represented by the nomenclature of drug-classification such as anodynes, sedatives, cathartics, and so forth. Consider the size of the dose, limited as it is b y lethal possibilities. With but few exceptions, drugs are given with no curative intent but for palliative purposes only. Contrast the above with the homoeopathic concept of drug-giving, based on the selection of drug which causes symptoms similar to those with patient has. Also, the dosage, drugs being given in quantities so small as to have passed beyond physical measurements or material understanding. Drugs thus administered are expected both to give immediate relief and to cause actual cure, as well as to so affect the constitution as to remove susceptibility to disease.
Furthermore, keep in mind that the symptoms which indicate the homoeopathic remedy are those that are never considered or, in allopathic prescribing, either are never considered or are deemed trivial, reflect upon the subtleties of homoeopathy.
A man aged fifty had malaria following a vacation with his wife at the seashore. Usual prescribing had failed. He was cured by Staphisagria given from the following deductive reasoning. A middle-aged man, under the double stimulus of release from business cares and bracing sea-breezes, goes back to the conjugal activities of his early manhood, thus lowering the threshold of resistance. A malarial infection followed. Staphisagria causes symptoms similar to the symptoms of sexual excess. It also causes the same kind of symptoms as this mans malaria produced.
A young boy received on the eyeball the full impact of a fall on the knob of a kitchen chair. Local treatment with heat, ice, leeches, and so on, failed to relieve the pain or to reduce the swelling. Aconite brought relief in few hours.
A hard-living man of almost seventy years had stoppage of the urine. All efforts to relieve had failed and he had lapsed into stupor. Operation had been decided on. During the preparation and while waiting for the surgeon. Conium was given the patient and the response was astonishing. First, there was general improvement; next, the urine began to dribble, and then it came in full flow, deluging the bed. The patient lived for several years afterward.
The above-cited cures were made with high potencies. The ability to select Conium for the “old Sinner” and Aconite for the eye injury, and Staphisagria for malaria following sexual excess illustrates the subtleties of homoeopathy.
A homoeopathic researcher must have the same sort of insight as that of the old-time prescribers in order to carry his research into all the intricate ramifications of the finest homoeopathic indications. It is said that such prescribing is an art and not a science. Analysis of any expression of art shows it to be orderly relationship, which is science. The masterpiece in painting represents mathematical relationship among lines, angles and color-vibrations. From the art can be worked out the science. Drug – Proving.
The study of drug-effects was the first homoeopathic research. That which is established by experimental science becomes a part of the foundation of knowledge. This is why the old provings are standard for all time and the homoeopathic materia medica and repertories that were compiled years ago are as up-to-date as though written today. Provings should be under the control of the trained homoeopathic researcher. It is not possible for one without this training to develop the homoeopathic picture of a proving. The laboratory worker and the specialist in diagnosis are not fitted, by temperament or training, for the major control of provings. Their place is important, but secondary.
The most valuable part of a proving is the effects expressed in sensations and such physical manifestations as are obvious to the unaided senses. Such symptoms and observations should be expressed in the simple language of everyday use.
A drug helps to cure because it arouses a reaction against the causes of the disease. These causes lie deep in the constitution of the individual and are expressed by general rather than by local indications. Such symptoms characterize them as are characteristic of the individual constitution. Thus, one patient perspires easily; another does not. One likes physical activity; another, only mental. One is sensitive to heat; another, to cold. The skilled conductor of a proving seeks to discover such general constitutional effects from a proving, for these major modalities dominate all lesser symptoms.
Each age things its own addition to science, but it must be remembered that what is brought is an addition to, and not a replacement of, basic science. There are no better directions for drug-proving than those given by Hahnemann himself. But modern science has added new and improved methods of examination and the best technique of the day should be employed for interpreting modern provings. Alteration in secretions and changes in function can be determined that were not even known about at the time the older provings were made. That which belongs to the modern laboratory only serves to round out the basic knowledge obtained by the original method of Hahnemann. His provings are fully adequate for accurate prescribing. Include in a proving only laboratory-findings and the proving will be of little use for prescribing.
Most of the recent drug-research, under homoeopathic control, has been directed to the effects of drugs on animals. Knowledge gained through animal-experimentation is of but little use in homoeopathic prescribing.
Such knowledge is worth while, nevertheless, for it points out the organs for which drugs have affinities and the pathology which a drug causes. Its value is lost if it limit the vision to these gross effects.
The most important proving-effects are always physiological, Pathological changes represent the end-product-the last stand of nature. Any number of drugs may cause the same pathology, but the physiological effect of each drug will be different. It is contended that a drug, in order to be homoeopathic, must be capable of causing the same tissue-pathology as that from which the patient suffers. The relationship of the homoeopathic prescription to pathology is not settled by the consideration of tissue-pathology alone.
A high-strung young woman, who had had an unhappy childhood, was cured of pulmonary tuberculosis by Ignatia given by a master prescriber.
Another young woman, who had developed melancholia after influenza, grew increasingly worse for a whole year. She was cured by Psorinum.
A researcher who does not feel an intellectual glow of appreciation of the subtlety of these two prescriptions should not undertake homoeopathic research. The reasons for the prescriptions embody the true relationship between the curative remedy and the pathology.
As well set a color-blind expert watchmaker to sorting colors.
New provings have too long been neglected and they should again be systematically taken up. A logical start would be to prove all the known elements. The knowledge gained from the effects of this basic series of entities has far-reaching possibilities, for nature is always orderly and, when factors in any natural group are found to bear a definite relation to one another, such relationship manifests itself in many ways. It is highly probable that the mathematical relation between elements not yet discovered, will show equally striking physiological relationships. In plant drugs, the alkaloids make up an important natural group. The animal poisons also can be grouped. Then there are the bacterial products, the nosodes and the endocrines. It is possible that in a few basic groups will be found all the medicines required for human ills.
