DEAR DOCTOR RABE:.
I was much interested in Dr. Philip Rices criticism of your editorial quotation from, and comment on the same, Sir Archibald Garrods address.
The greatest fault I have to find is, that medicine contains too many loose terms; too many loose definitions; and its practitioners have too loose a conception of these terms and definitions. We have yet to find a physician who has read understandingly even the first paragraph of the Organon. There in that one paragraph Hahnemann definitely and unqualifiedly defines the meaning of the term cure, giving us the following definitions:.
CURE: The complete restoration to health. (The physician who thinks disease essential to human life and happiness and all that is expected of him is to remove temporarily the existing offender is falling wide of the mark of his vocation and taking money under false pretense).
HEALTH: The complete absence of disease. (Until every vestige of disease is eliminated a state of health does NIT exist. Only after the very predisposition has been removed is the patient healthy, all else is mere palliation or a restoration to normal but NOT a cure. A being may be in a normal state for him, yet not in perfect health by any means).
ENTITY: The complete Ego (minus its clothing).
SYMPTOM COMPLEX (or totality): Those symptoms which pertain to the ego from which all disease has its origin and arises (those observed from its clothing being secondary and therefore of little importance in the selection of the true similimum).
MORPHOLOGY: The structural changes arising from that ego, yet bearing the same relation, as the end product of life, as disease does to pathology and therefore of minor importance in the selection of the similimum. (If morphology or pathology could possibly be as important in the eradication of disease the allopaths would have outclassed the homoeopaths long ago, but have they? If the physician does not study the structure and the constitution of his patient he is NOT a homoeopath.
If the does NOT individualize he is still not a homoeopath. If he did neither individualize nor study his patients structural changes how could he either diagnose or find the individual remedy? The statement that the homoeopath does neither is NOT correct. He does both, the reason he is successful any why he outclasses the allopath).
The question naturally arises, is the sole object of medicine the mere pastime of a curious coterie or the “restoration of the sick to health”? If the latter, what have the homoeopaths been doing all this time? In the past forty-two years we have treated several hundred cases of eruptive fever from the mild to the malignant, all recovered and no evil results followed.
We took a case of corneal ulcer where the part was ulcerated to the rim, treated by the best specialists of the Old School and the final decision was enucleation, and restored it to normal. In all those cases we did not find it necessary to make a chemical examination or analysis of their structural changes, but we did find it necessary to find their personal entities or symptom complexes. The question which naturally arises is, would the above records have been any more perfect had their entire anatomies been chemically analyzed?.
Again, how could those cases have been diagnosed had not the homoeopath taken into consideration, in a measure at least morphology? To state that the homoeopath does not take into consideration morphology in making up his prescription is absolutely false, for he does not what is more, he uses only what he finds necessary for his prescription and furthermore unlike the allopath he knows exactly what it means. If the allopath knew what morphology really meant he would not put foreign septic elements directly into a body having no means whatever of caring for the same.
Just what does anyone know about either constitution or disease aside from its outspeakings-the symptoms? Who ever saw a constitution? who ever saw life? Who ever saw disease? All we know or see of any of these are the results. After the patient is dead both morphology and pathology remain and of what good are they? And as “the physicians high and ONLY mission is to restore the sick to health, to cure as it is termed,” he has to get at a more important entity than that covered by-Morphology.
Personally, we do not accept any mans opinion against Natures verdict, and Natures verdict is, by results obtained, that homoeopathy succeeds where allopathy fails, therefore homoeopaths must individualize while allopaths do NOT.
Fraternally yours,.
DR. A. PULFORD.
June 16, 1927.
Editor HOMOEOPATHIC RECORDER.
DEAR DOCTOR RABE:.
The subject broaches by DR. Philip Rice in his letter and which was published in previous issues I believe is quite an old one. I regret that I have neither the knowledge nor the ability to answer it as I feel such a letter should be answered. I even at times wonder whether or not he was sincere in his statement: “that the homoeopaths do not individualize more than do the allopaths,” or whether he made it with a desire of arousing such a vigorous discussion that would in the end make for better homoeopaths.
DR. Rice goes on to say” “No greater fallacy is entertained by the homoeopathist than is the idea that he is disclosing the individuality of a patient in the symptom-complex that he elicits in the course of an examination.” This is quite easily answered. I need only to quote the late Dr. J.T. Kent, who said: “All that is knowable of of disease is expressed in symptoms; all that is knowable of drug action is expressed by symptoms; and those peculiar mental symptoms upon which Hahnemann lays so much, stress, are the directions upon which we select the indicated remedy. A woman has taken a sudden antipathy to her husband, to her children.
What pathological action of the drug and what pathological state of disease is indicated by such a state of mind-by this peculiar symptoms?” What pathological condition is worse from 4 to 8 in the evening, know so well under Lycopodium, and which has led to its use and the cure of patients by its administration? Strange appetite, strange mental state, peculiar, rare symptoms together with the modalities are the guides in the choice of a remedy. I ask Dr. Rice, is this not individualizing?.
In his last paragraph Dr. Rice speaks of the lack of bringing the subject of Human Morphology before the student of homoeopathy. Most of us will agree with him on that issue, for all homoeopaths should thoroughly understand the relation of our remedies to both the normal and pathological temperaments and should consider the temperament of each patient which quite materially aids in the selection of similimum when we are “hard put” to decide between two seemingly indicated remedies.
This is strictly in accordance with the teachings of Hahnemann, for in paragraph 217 of the Organon, Wesselhoefts translation, he says: “The remedy the chosen should exhibit symptoms of the greatest similitude, not only to those of the bodily disease, but also to those of the mind and temperament.” Then in note 117, explanatory of this paragraph: “Thus, Aconite will rarely or never produce a rapid or permanent cure in a patient of a calm and complacent disposition, as little as Nux Vomica will affect a mild phlegmatic; or Pulsatilla a happy, cheerful and obstinate temperament; or as Ignatia proves efficacious in an unchangeable state of mind and inclines neither to fright nor to grief”.
I think it is quite clear that there are two big points upon which the homoeopaths select their remedies and in so doing. “Individualize.” Each pathological condition will present symptoms that are present in a large number of remedies, and out of this group the real homoeopath selects the one that has the characteristic or peculiar symptoms and which corresponds to the makeup of the patient.
Respectfully yours,.
BERNARD J.BAUTE.
1713 West Tioga Street,.
Philadelphia.
