Read before the Annual Meeting of the International Hahnemannian. Association, New York, June, 1925.
The human baby has been considered as a little animal, to be weighed, measured, tested as to digestion, stools, relative size of organs to those in adults, etc., etc.
An exhaustive study has been made of the artificial feeding of infants.
The baby has been studied as a potential business asset and as a financial burden to its family.
Criminologists have measured the babys head and published statistics concerning its probable social status in adult life. Babies have been the basis for many studies of the psychologists and educators.
Homoeopathically considered, these precious bits of humanity have not made a bow to the world at large, however important they are to a small group of physicians.
In contemplating what the baby means to the homoeopathic physician, his relationship should be divided into four periods- before birth, during babyhood, in adolescence and in adult life. First, then, before birth: Every baby has the right to be born of parents who are healthy, homoeopathically speaking, but most children are not so born. Homoeopathy can watch the pregnant mother, or, better still, it can take in hand both parents and prepare them to produce a really homoeopathic baby. It can prescribe for the mother during labor and thereby help greatly in preventing birth injuries to the child.
Second: In babyhood it can prevent or abort ophthalmia neonatorum, overcome the effects of birth injuries, if any, help establish respiratory and eliminative functions properly, cure breast troubles in the mother and thus insure a good natural milk supply, help greatly the troubles of dentition, cure tendencies to malnutrition, help produce strong, straight limbs and good digestion; also it can overcome tendencies to the nervous troubles of infancy and skin troubles.
It would be mighty interesting to be able to gather together the babies born of parents homoeopathically treated for several decades, born and reared under homoeopathic care, and compare these with a similar group of babies not so blessed.
It would be more interesting to bring these two groups face to face at intervals of a few years until adult life. Publication of the observations made in such a study would be valuable to medicine and to society.
Third: The results of inherited tendencies to chronic disorders, combined with drugging in early childhood, show out especially in adolescence. The trained observer can often determine, without a word being said, whether the youth brought to him has been a victim to suppressive and superficial treatment in babyhood or has had the advantage of the philosophy of homoeopathy.
Fourth: How many of the patients coming to the office of the homoeopathic practitioner tell the doctor of their own accord, that they have never been strong, that they have always been very nervous, always been constipated, had facial acne ever since puberty, had all sorts of eruptions and catarrhs, tendency to suppurations, to migraine, insomnia, etc., etc.?.
How many times this sort of thing is traced back to wrong treatment in infancy? The mother has used salve on the scalp eruptions. She has given castor oil for acute digestive disorders and a mild cathartic every time a day passed without a copious stool. She has had the tonsils removed early.
She has used nasal sprays and cough drops. She gave spirits of nitre for fever and perhaps quinine or camphor for colds. She has cared for her baby with tender solicitude, giving it the very best she knew-and she has prepared the way for the ailments mentioned above, which, if still further suppressed, lead to organic disease in middle life or later.
Therefore, the baby homoeopathically considered, means ones whole life homoeopathically considered. It means better parents, healthier children, and finally new generations of health and vigor compared with the present average physical condition.
To consider babies homoeopathically in the largest possible sense, is the most important work in medicine.
