***WE are told that light waves travel in a certain direction until they meet some obstacle, when they are deflected at an angle proportionate to the angle of interference. We are told that our remedies are curative in conditions closely similar to those produced by the remedy in healthy human being.
The science of optics can give us, with a very small percentage of error, the measurement of the light waves, their angles of deflection and the measurements necessary to correct vision or to utilize the light waves in some practical manner. In other words, there is a definite measurable approach through known laws to the application of light waves to our modern needs; and we may be assured that with a growth in our needs, and a greater understanding of those laws and measurements, future generation will be able to utilize light waves to a far greater degree than is thought of at the present time.
The homoeopathic laws are fundamental; we understand many of them; we utilize them. Unfortunately, we have no such instruments of precision by which we can measure the obstacles to the curative waves of our remedies. Therefore we have no uniform results from our remedies such as we might expect from the vast armamentarium of remedies and the compilation of knowledge and experience garnered by successful homoeopathic students since the time of Hahnemann.
Some of our confreres will say, at this point, that such instruments of precision are being used by homoeopathic physicians at the present time; that they are daily being perfected and that the results are increasingly satisfactory. No doubt all of this is true; yet for the average homoeopathic student we feel that such means are not yet available, or if available, the technique has been sufficiently mastered by the average physician to be handled with accuracy; or perhaps the degree of perfection (or imperfection) of such instruments interferes with capable usage.
However this may be, our thesis has to do with the average homoeopathic physician, and may be reduced to that all too well known question : Why are our results not uniformly satisfactory? *Why doesn’t the seemingly indicated remedy always work?
Of course there are the answers known to every physician of whatever school, and some that only the homoeopathic physician recognizes.
One obvious reason is that the pathological condition of the patient. The roentgenologist and the surgeon are more apt to know about such pathological obstacles than is the homoeopathic physician but they so lack the means to cure that their knowledge teaches them only to remove offending tissue; perhaps the patient recovers by the aid of beneficent nature. It is true that more mistakes are made by not looking than by not knowing.
On the other hand, there are serious homoeopathic students who have come to believe that treatment of pathological conditions by X-ray or radium dissipates, rather than cures, the pathological tissue. Certainly we have seen the results of over-exposure to such treatments, with the insuperable obstacle to cure that has been thus raised. Destruction of normal tissue, under such treatment may prove as dangerous to the patient’s health as lack of treatment; and the relation of metastases to surgery, X-ray or radium treatment is still an open question in the minds of many close observers.
Then there are the states which arise from mechanical obstruction, non-pathological but the actual presence of a foreign body, which gives rise to reflex symptoms of exceedingly troublesome nature. Of course the remedy does not and cannot cure such symptoms so long as the causative factor remains. Persistent earaches or coryzas in children who have inserted small objects into the ear or nose have their counterpart in the suffering of adults, often from unusual minor accidents.
Psychic trauma, emotional stresses of varying degrees and ** 271 insistence, are factors that we, as homoeopathic prescribers, should understand and weigh thoroughly in view of the patient’s symptomatology. However, frequently the patient does not consider his private affairs the business of any outsider, even of the physician, and keeps these important items to himself. Or he may be so used to bearing his own burdens that he does not recognize them as having any weight in the case; or he may (consciously or unconsciously) distort the picture of his own mental stress so much that even if he reveals the difficulty under which he is labouring, the whole picture may be of little help to the physician in analysing the case.
It was Hahnemann himself who emphasized the fact that nothing was so deleterious to health as unhappy domestic conditions; that these conditions could, and often did, prove insuperable obstacles to cure. It is fortunate that the *simillimum often can take the additional tension from the patient, or may lift off one series of symptoms; but so long as these strains persist under the surface, one cannot expect cure. Nevertheless, if the physician does not realize that these underlying influences exist, he may fall so far short of helping the patient that he may imperil his own belief in the homoeopathic possibilities of cure, as well as the confidence of the patient.
Over anxiety, worry, constant financial stress, the tension of maintaining speed in one’s work, peculiar industrial demands-all these and many like stresses have developed unusual influences upon our patients during the past few years, and have correspondingly lowered the percentage of possible cures. They have served to deflect the current of cure in whole or in part; and the homoeopathic system of medicine is not at fault in such deflection of cure so long as these conditions remain a vital part of the patient’s life.
Along with such conditions the physician has to fight the increasing use of sedatives, bromides, narcotics, analgesics-all forms of drugging which offer the patient some retreat from the pressure of the modern age or some measure of relief from pain, either mental or physical. Often the physician does not know of the home prescribing of the patient with such products of the pharmacist, but modern advertising keeps these products before the mind of the public to such an extent that they have proved one of the greatest barriers to cure ever known.
In these cases one must know the obstacle to cure if he is to be able to serve the patient with any degree of real assistance; although it is one of the greatest boons of homoeopathy that so many of our remedies have in themselves the power to antidote massive drugs, and so release the vital power inherent in the patient himself, with the corresponding response toward cure.
Cosmetics may prove the obstacle to cure just as surely as narcotics or coal-tar derivatives. Many cosmetic preparations contain substances advertised to suppress perspiration, eruptions, or to remove hair growth. Most physicians see cases definitely traceable to such measures. The suppressed eruptions and their sequelae are endless. We have seen a case of progressive paralysis in a young woman which she herself traced to the use of a depilatory preparation.
An eminent contemporary prescriber reported a case of a persistent Coccus cacti cough which refused to yield-until he ordered the young woman to stop the use of her lipstick, when the cough ceased.
Even the “old school” pharmaceutical journals are beginning to report a great variety of cases which have been traced to perfumes or perfumed cosmetics, and even to cite the physiological action of their ingredients. It is notable that some of these cases occurred, not in users of the cosmetic products, but in those associated with them. The homoeopathic physician understands the power of ambergris, musk, etc., to produce symptoms in the potency. Hahnemann taught the power of olfaction on sensitive patients., Modern medical lore is full of the allergic reactions of sensitive patients to a variety of substances, in the most minute form. When even the dominant school of medicine recognizes this hazard, the homoeopathic physician must never neglect consideration of such a deflection of the current.
Then there is the problem of diet. The so-called soft drinks follow closely the record of home drugging in distorting the case. The modern craze for slender figures, with the unbalanced diets prescribed by the laity, may be an obstacle to cure; not because the physician cannot correct the condition with a proper balanced diet plus an indicated remedy, but because of the psychological barrier-the unwillingness to accept a suitable diet with the corresponding normal weight. In other words. the patient who suffers willingly from malnutrition can be brought back to normal only if his co-operation is gained, or if the case comes to the physician before dangerous physiological changes set in. On the other hand, there is the malnutrition resulting from an unbalanced diet directly traceable to depressed budget; this condition has grown rapidly during the depression years and the effects are still shown in many cases. This has to be met not only with the homoeopathic remedy but with economic equilibrium and a well thought out diet if the patient is to be cured. Here we meet an economic obstacle that is often beyond the help of the physician.
