MIASMATIC CHILDREN AND HOMOEOPATHY


That the new world which is in the making may have strong, clear minded spiritually well developed men and women, free from the many inherited handicaps which now prevent effective, constructive work from the majority of our citizens, it is necessary that children be freed from inherited tendencies to chronic disorder.


That the new world which is in the making may have strong, clear minded spiritually well developed men and women, free from the many inherited handicaps which now prevent effective, constructive work from the majority of our citizens, it is necessary that children be freed from inherited tendencies to chronic disorder.

Let the imagination reach out to realization of even some of the benefits to be reaped from such freedom and then let one’s reason encompass the fact that this freedom is practical and not wholly visionary. For the treatment of children by homoeopathy according to the philosophy of Hahnemann is entirely possible now, to say nothing of improvement in such treatment the future might bring to maturity.

By miasmatic children is meant those born afflicted with one or more of the chronic miasms of Hahnemann. Deep, broad thinker that he was, he developed his theory of chronic miasms from over twenty years of constant study of the symptoms of patients coming to him and his disciples for treatment. As these patients returned for cure of one ailment after another, it became evident that the man himself was sick behind his manifold ailments and that each new ailment must have the same basic disorder as all the others. Thus gradually developed three chronic miasms, or perhaps taints, each with its own characteristics.

Also it became evident that a great many people express symptoms of combinations, of the three. In the provings of remedies on healthy people appeared groups of symptoms corresponding to each miasms and also groups of symptoms corresponding to each miasm and also groups representing combinations of them. Since the Law of Similars is the law of cure, homoeopathy is capable of curing the chronic miasms if handled by wise, able prescriber and if environment and care are favorable. Hence the possibility in the present time of curing miasmatic children.

In his studies, Hahnemann recognized groups of symptoms with a syphilitic backgrounds, groups of symptoms with a sycotic background and a mass of symptoms outside of either which he termed psoric.

Future students may name these differently but the group will always exist in the minds of those who comprehend homoeopathic philosophy and use it in practice.

In the limits of a short paper it is impossible to give clear symptomatic pictures of the three miasms. Such descriptions are to be found in Dr.H.A.Robert’s book, The Principles and Art of Cure by Homoeopathy, to which the reader is referred.

Psora has its own characteristics, briefly hinted; functional disorders, not structural changes; inertia; lack of ambition; great weariness; desire to lie down; effects of emotional disturbances; ungrounded fears; great mental depression; anxiety; easy changes in temperament; lack of power to concentrate the mind; keen intellectual activity for a short time but lack of stability and lasting power; great chilliness; great restlessness which spurs on in spite of desire to rest and consequent inefficiency; hunger which never is satisfied; craving for foods which often don to agree; better from applied heat; dry, rough skin.

According to provings of syphilitic remedies, syphilis also has its own characteristics: mental dulness; stupidity; depression which produces sullen silence; fixed ideas; slowness of comprehension; aggravated all night and better all day: restlessness and anxiety all night; headache all night; tendency to destruction of bones and other tissues even to deformity; destructive ulcerations in many locations; several kinds of neuralgias; sudden heart failure without warning; debilitating diarrhoeas; sticky gluey hair which falls easily in spots or areas; eruptions moist, crusty, suppurating; deformed palatal arches and deformed teeth which soon decay; deformed nails.

Sycosis, the miasm which develops after a suppressed gonorrhoea, produces marked anaemia; inflammation of the mucous membranes, especially those of the genital sphere, and these hang on, are slow to cure and cause general indefinite illness. Mentally the sycotic patient is suspicious, jealous, quarrelsome, self-condemnatory and later degenerate. There are various catarrhal discharges often with a fishbrine odor, which relieve mental disturbances; all sorts of arthritic manifestations; rheumatic heart conditions with cyanosis; skin eruptions with proliferation of tissue; tendency to proliferation of cells to tumors, moles, warts, calluses, etc.

Thus it is seen that each miasm has its own general character but it is far more frequent to find combinations of them in patients than to find them distinct in their manifestations. Hence, it is most important for a homoeopathic observer to watch for clear characteristic symptoms of each miasm and for all sorts of combinations. Psora and syphilis combined often produce tuberculosis. Psora and sycosis combined often produce new growths, e.g., cancer.

It is worth the lifetime study of homoeopathic prescribers to be able to recognize these inherited tendencies, either simple or complex, and eradicate them in order to free humanity to develop its highest capacities.

After sober contemplation of inherited miasms we can readily see that freedom from them is almost impossible but that homoeopathy can free the world in the course of time, granted wise prescribing and favorable environment. This includes intelligent cooperation on the part of the patients treated.

Now, apply all this to children and behold! the effort to free them in youth that they may reach full, free development of power, becomes one of the very best satisfying and important undertakings on this earth.

There is nothing so sure to open the eyes of the doubting to the efficiency and value of homoeopathy, as the amazing results of wise, constitutional, miasm-freeing treatment of children.

And there is nothing so important to new, better ages as the development of miasm-free children into the kind of adults who may produce children still more free and therefore powerful.

In order to give the few physicians able to do this work the chance they need, it is necessary to provide homes for such children in favorable circumstances, and in an environment free from interfering influences. As before stated, one’s imagination can hardly grasp the benefit to the medical profession as well as to the patients treated and their descendants, of such Homes for Miasmatic Children.

To envision such a Home, one might enter a building and see first a general office and admitting office, a lounge for visitors

and parents, space for a large out-patient clinic, drawing from all the country roundabout with transportation facilities for the children, then kindergarten room, school room, library, ward sleeping quarters, recreation space for older children with out door recreation pavilion, space for rehabilitation employment, hospital space-and, of course, dining-room, kitchen, diet- kitchen, laundry, storage quarters, bedrooms for intern, teacher, housekeeper, cook, maid, nurses.

From such a setup a Home for Miasmatic Children could develop more directions as need might arise.

There should be a managing board composed of both physicians and laymen, among them a child psychologist and a child teacher- advisor. Medical care should be in charge of a small staff of visiting homoeopathic prescribers plus a resident intern. This intern would have rare chance to study the whole question through observation as well as philosophy gained from books. And he would have advice from older physicians of long homoeopathic experience.

Let us ponder the immense value of such demonstration centers in this country. Let us set to work to raise a small endowment and to plan in detail for the first such Home to be opened very soon after the close of the war.

If any readers of the Recorder are moved to make contributions to such a venture, the treasurer of the American Foundation for Homoeopathy at 1726 Eye Street, N.W.W., Washington use, if possible, or return them to donors if necessary.].

Let us do what we can while we can.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

DISCUSSION.

DR. HAYES: The theory of the great miasms is explained and described by Hahnemann in his great work, The Chronic Diseases, also elaborated and illustrated in J.H.Allen’s Chronic Miasms. Both these books are indispensable as an aid in identifying that remedy which will be most similar in time and relation in chronic disease and, not infrequently, in acute disease as well. It is lamentable that the material of the latter work is arranged in such a state of disorder.

The results of homoeopathic treatment of children are especially apparent, more striking than with any patients except the lower animals. Children respond so effectively that it provides a positive element of clinical propaganda, because people are impressed readily through good work with children.

On the whole though, the gentle familial gossip of adventitious association provides a greater “personal department” for the extension of our peculiar practice than anything institutional. Institutions in this world’s politic-economic set- up are becoming wobbly. They are certain to collapse and the confusion grow worse until people lose their childish faith in governmental systems and set about to discover the natural way to produce and distribute the privileges and things they desire, in other words eliminate that greatest of all stigmata of the race, subservience and poverty.

Julia M. Green