By Aetiology we mean the science or philosophy of causation especially an inquiry into the origin and cause of a disease.
2. Let us, therefore, try to study up the cause or origin of a disease (aitia-cause) because “nature will cure when the origin or source of the disease is removed. The true knowledge of cause supplies the remedy in all cases” (Dr. Barnarr Macfadden).
3. There had been a repeated cry for cause in the days of yore amongst the erudite medical men in order to find out the cause of a disease. Since many, or by far a greater number of diseases are of dynamic spirit-like origin, therefore their cause also is not recognisable by our senses, but it became unavoidably necessary to invent the cause in order to cure a disease.
4. For the purpose of finding out the cause, prudent medical men inspected the parts of the normal human dead body by autopsy and compared them by the same process with the visible changes in the corresponding parts in diseases subjects.
The comparison between the phenomena and functions of healthy life with those of a diseased subject, made them conclude that the endless deviations occurring in countless morbid conditions were but the causes without any regard for the invisible process which is going on in the interior of the human organism and they shaped their conclusions, derived from the pathological changes in the organism as the causes that made the aforesaid changes without going far back for the prima causa morbi.
5. The pathological deviations in various morbid conditions are but the pathognomonic symptoms manifested in the human diseased body and when they are rolled into one, they take a name and an image of a disease which is narrated in pathology. Therefore, the morbid changes or the disease could not, as a matter of fact, stand for causa morbi. As the cause is the background of a disease therefore a disease can not be a cause.
Thus it can be clearly said that the cause of a thing or event, can not be the thing or event itself. The cause brings forth a disease which is a combination of various symptoms manifested in the diseased subject. Those manifestations may be taken, for example, as fruits of a tree. The cause is the invisible tree and the symptoms are the fruits. Thus a tree (cause) is always known by its fruits, the symptoms of a disease.
6. However, the fertile and the scintillating intellects did not stop there the purpose of brilliant discovery of cause and they proceeded further towards the background of the disease wherefrom the disease or the totality of symptoms affected the human system.
7. By the good graces of the Almighty Father, the germ theory was invented by an eminent French Chemist and Scientist, Dr. Pasteur Louis (1822-1895) who discovered the germs for cholera, hydrophobia and other disease and after him Dr. Kopch, Robert (1843-1910), the noted Bacteriologist, discovered the bacillus of tuberculosis, Bubonic plague etc.
The above two seems professed to have discovered the cause of the above diseases which affected the diseased body on account of the presence of those germs, which created the countless morbid conditions in the human system and their presence was taken for cause of a disease. The presence of germs was proved to be the causes of diseases, because men of reason thought and found that they existed there.
8. Microscopic examination of stool, sputum, blood, etc. has since been finding out the cause of a disease and it is removed or cured by the specific remedies, Emetine, Quinine, Penicillin, etc. respectively for Amoebic dysentery, Malaria, Septic fever, Gonorrhoea.
9. The eureka evolving the cause of disease (germ theory) was notably appreciated by many erudite medical men but some of them went far back to find out the spirit like invisible process which is going on in the interior of the human organism as a true source, origin or cause of a disease.
10. The existence of germ in the human organism is recognisable by our senses and it lies in the interior of the human system as a part of the totality of symptoms representing a focus of the disease or the nail on which the wheel of symptoms revolves.
Thus from those symptoms manifested in the physical and subtle body, if we go further back towards the casual body, we can meet the cause, which can be taken for as an invisible tree, the fruits of which are but the symptoms which constitute a disease, the essence (prima causa) of which is not always possible to discover. By removing the totality of symptoms, we can cure the disease and when all the symptoms have been removed, the disease is essentially cured but is is denied by the orthodox school of Allopathy.
11. In pursuing the investigation of the germ, the erudite medical scientists probably observed it as a visible cause, or the exciting cause as we may call it, which brings forth the affection for an acute disease where the principal symptoms are more quickly perceived and recognised and it presents itself spontaneously to our senses but in the case of chronic disease laborious examination of symptoms is needed and its cause if generally invisible.
12. Doctor Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) in his “Organon” published in 1810 and “Chronic disease” published in 1828, expounded his theory of investigating the spirit-like invisible causes of disease which were Psora, Syphilis and Sycosis and they lie in a dormant state in the casual body of the human race. When any disease affects the physical body, the invisible cause lurking within, peeps through the line of influx to invigorate the attack of the disease which thus becomes prominent to the observing physician who can determine the cause as to whether the disease owes its relation to Psora, Syphilis or Sycosis.
13. The exigent attempt to find out the cause or source of a disease led Dr. Hahnemann to a fruitful end and he professed to have discovered Psora as the true cause or the fundamental source of almost all the diseases which are narrated in the books on pathology. Now, what is Psora ? It is a spirit-like morbific power or influence inimical to human life. Syphilis and Sycosis made their seat by the side of Psora.
When the above three causes exist in an individual the disease of the sufferer becomes complicated. Syphilis and Sycosis are called the maintaining cause. The last cause is the exciting cause which is visible and ascertainable by our senses, under the exciting cause, an acute disease is seem to grow, as for example, (1) the existence of same germ, (2) an exposure to heat and cold or (3) an injury due to some accident, (4) overeating or inanition of food, etc. Thus from the above, we get three classes of cause, viz. True, Maintaining and exciting cause.
14. The true cause, Psora, might be called the skin, the existence of which in the human system makes us have our birth on the earth. In the Holy Bible, it is expressed “Thou shall be born again”, because a man with sin cannot get salvation. The presence or true cause makes us susceptible to the attack of diseases which are but the spirit-like morbific agents hovering in the atmosphere and they (diseases) make their way into the human system according to the susceptibility of the individual.
When a disease permeates into our system through the physical body, various abnormal signs and symptoms are found which are recognisable by our senses and those signs obviously depend on some exciting cause visible to our senses, say, the existence of some germ, exposure, injury etc.
But if we tend our intelligence to proceed further back through the line of influx which flows into our body from the physical and subtle to the causal body, we can find out the true or the maintaining cause which is required to be driven back to the causal body after the extirpation of the disease by appropriate remedial agents, with similar symptoms, depending upon an invisible cause (Psora, Sycosis or Syphilis).
Here we can determines as to why the aforesaid exciting cause affects the body of one individual and not of the other because the maintaining cause (Syphilis or Sycosis) subordinate to Psora or the true cause has made the constitution of the affected individual become a field for the manifestations of such and such disease in the system of the affected individual.
The growth of some germ or the manifestation of various abnormalities might be classed under the exciting cause of a disease essentially owing their presence to the true cause, Psora, or the maintaining cause, syphilis or sycosis which are invisible and only determinable by as true intelligence.
15. It has been found in our daily practice that a disease remains imperfectly cured where the invisible cause (Psora, Sycosis or Syphilis) is not regarded as the origin or source of a disease. An attempt to obliterate the exciting cause will not perfectly cure a disease. Emetine injection in Amoebic dysentery sometimes fails to cure the dysentery wholly in some cases, where the patient says that one or two drops of blood are still found with the stool.
