There prevails not only among the laity but very largely among those who practise Homoeopathy as a profession or an art, an appalling state of ignorance about the principles, philosophy and methods of Homoeopathy. Though the Homoeopathic system of medicine is making large strides of progress and is extensively resorted to, its real virtues or its advantages over other systems of medicine are not widely known, dwelt upon or appreciated. There are among all classes of people some very erroneous notions about it which every ardent lover of Homoeopathy must feel it his duty to correct and dispel.
The laity are not aware of the dangers to which they are subjected by improper Homoeopathic treatment from qualified as well as unqualified prescribers. Even among qualified men there are very many who make loose, indiscriminate and unhomoeopathic prescriptions. Dr. J. T. Kent, one of the greatest masters of Homoeopathy, lamented this deplorable condition of affairs and said that this was due to lack of proper training in the colleges. He said that in many cases education had to begin with the physician.
He regretted that the art of Homoeopathy, i.e., the materia medica and other things were taught first, and the science was ignored and the principles and philosophy were never dwelt upon. If the learned master had said that to a gathering of medical graduates at New York, how much more should it be stressed on in our country !.
Let me begin with the humble story of my conversion. Twenty years ago, my mother, aged 50, was once suffering from the tormenting pain of a large boil on her heel. After four days the doctors decided that she should have it opened. But she dreaded the knife and a homoeopathic physician offered to relieve her pain and assured her that it would open without the knife.
I well remember how the family including myself laughed jeeringly at the idea. But he was allowed to try it. And he did surprise us all when a single dose of the sugar pellets had not only mitigated her pain but in 12 hours caused the boil to burst and discharge its contents. But we all felt that the result was due to natural causes. Prejudice reigned so strongly in our minds. We never cared to investigate the mysteries of the sugar pellets.
Then 6 years later, I became a victim of intermittent fever. I resorted to allopathic treatment and was subjected to the worse ravages upon the human system by way of treatment with Quinine until all may sufferings became the product exclusively of the treatment with Quinine. I suffered for nearly fifteen years when some sympathiser suggested that I should try Homoeopathy.
I then looked into some Homoeopathic text-books and there found to my utmost wonder scathing condemnations of the treatment by Quinine and its disastrous effects. I decided to probe further into its mysterious and the deeper I went the more I realised that Homoeopathy, of all systems of medicine, was founded on the most unfailing laws of nature and stands the most searching tests of reason and common sense.
Then after intense and untiring study for years I am proud to tell you that I could prescribe for myself and cure a disease which I definitely thought was ineradicable. Imagine, gentlemen, the love which such a remedial agent would inspire in any grateful soul for all the known and unknown virtues which it represents. This kindled in me a burning desire to do my utmost towards advancing its cause and helping others to make the fullest and most correct use of its remedial virtues.
As matters stand at present, men are having recourse to it for one of the following reasons. In the first place, it economy. A few pellets of almost any drug can be obtained gratis from any of the followers of Hahnemann who preserve a chest for domestic use, even as cigarettes are passed on. One should only hear that Pulsatilla has cured menstrual colic in someone and we soon find bottles after bottles being consumed in blissful ignorance of the fact that it cures menstrual colic only when its peculiar modalities are present and never otherwise.
Secondly, its supposed harmlessness. “It may not do me good, but it certainly does me no harm, why not try?” one would say. Little does he know that a drug which is able to cure a violent disease must be capable of doing great harm if improperly used.
In the third place, it is often used as first aid. We often hear somebody asking, “Can you give me something in Homoeopathy which will stop this cold and save me from the trouble and expense of going to the doctor?” It is assumed that the final cure must rest only with the allopathic doctor. The cure in Homoeopathy is taken for granted to be very doubtful and highly problematical and depending entirely upon some mysterious coincidence between drug and disease. And rightly, too, because of the too many ignorant and pretentious prescribers.
Fourthly, as a last aid. When the body has been punctured with the last thrust of the needle, all available fluids and extracts having been injected and spent their force, and the tormenting agonies of the last hours have not been subdued by morphine or other narcotics, then Homoeopathy is invoked to do what it can.
As you see, all this argues no manner of faith in the curative powers of the system, although wonderful cures are reported, believed and even witnessed. Why? Because of the ignorance of the laity, lack of proper training in the prescribers, and, above all, prejudice and a love of tradition.
I have therefore set myself to the task of explaining some of the principles and laws of Homoeopathy and enabling you to see how Homoeopathy is better fitted to do the noble work of healing the sick than any other system of medicine. This brings us to a consideration of the questions “What is sickness,” “What is the aim of medicine”, “What is the duty of the physician”? It is agreed in all systems of medicine that “the physicians high and only mission is to restore the sick to health”–Organon. When we come to the interpretation of the word sick, allopathy parts ways with the homoeopathic system of treatment. It then behoves us to examine.
WHAT IS SICKNESS ?.
And what is meat by the sick according to both the schools. Allopathy will at once answer that the stomach is sick, or the bowels are sick, or the liver or the heart, and so on. Let us see if this is not entirely wrong and if it is not the man that is sick and to be restored to health, and not his body or his tissues. You will find many people who will say, I am sick. They will enumerate pages of suffering. They look sick. But they tell you, “I have been to the most eminent physicians. I have had my chest examined.
I have been to the cardiac specialist. The eye specialist has examined my eyes. I have been physically examined from head to foot, and they tell me I am not sick, I have no disease.” Many a time is this story told after describing in detail pages after pages of symptoms of suffering. What does it mean? What do all these symptoms signify? “I do not sleep at night. I have pains and aches. My bowels do not move. “Oh, well, you have constipation.” After all the diagnosis has been made.
From the allopathic view the constipation is the cause of the disease as well as the disease. These symptoms are but the language of nature, talking out as it were, and showing as clearly as daylight the internal nature of the sickness. If this state progresses the lungs break down. The doctor says, “Oh, now, you have consumption”. Or a great change appears in the liver, and he says, “Now you have fatty degeneration of the liver”. And so on. Is it not absurd to say that prior to the disease manifesting itself in the liver or the lungs, the patient is not sick?
The sickness is undoubtedly prior to changes appearing in the organs and the tissues, which are the results of disease. The bacteria are results of disease. These microscopical little fellows are not the disease cause, but they come after, and they are scavengers accompanying the disease. The dominant school consider these the cause, but we will be able to see that disease cause is much more subtle than anything that can be shown by a microscope. Then let us see.
WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF SICKNESS.
which manifests itself in such serious changes in the organs and tissues of the body? As for the answer to this question Dr. Kent says, “Look where you will in literature other than Hahnemannian, you will find mere speculation and theory and no practical deduction”. The genius of Hahnemann has furnished the answer in Ss. 9 and 11 of the Organon wherein he propounds the doctrine of the vital force.
“In the healthy condition of man, the spiritual vital force, the dynamis that animates the material body, rules with unbounded sway. . . . .”.
“When, a person falls ill, it is only this spiritual vital force, everywhere present in his organism, that is primarily deranged by the dynamic influence upon it of a morbific (sick) agent inimical to life.”.
Disease is therefore caused when the vital force which rules the material body is first affected by some disease-producing agent which is invisible and immaterial coming into contact with it. Now, we will investigate what is this influence and what we mean when we say that this influence so affects the vital force of mans economy that it causes sickness. We all observe that everything in the universe has its.
AURA.
or atmosphere. Every star and planet has an atmosphere. The suns atmosphere is its light and heat. People are not in the habit of thinking of light as anything, but if it were not something it could not appear and disappear. Light, proceeding from the sun is attenuated through ninety million miles. Yet we can see things from, in, and because of light. But we cannot see light itself. So also every entity. A grain of musk has been kept for experiments sake in a bottle for seventeen years, giving off a perceptible aura, yet without loss of weight. The animals that prey upon their food discover by an extremely intense aura some states that man cannot discover.
