Vogue has become the order of our daily life. Vogue in dress, vogue in make-up, vogue in food and drink; it is vogue and vogue everywhere and in every facet of our life–in fact vogue has become an obsession with civilised society. It appears that man is a creature of vogue. He will take on any vogue even though his submission to it is extremely painful and harmful.
More in the past than at present, man used to submit his body to the tortures of tattoo simply because someone had created a vogue and others had taken a fancy to it. Women used to wear steel hoops and whale bones round their waists to look very slim. They suffered all the pain and its dangerous after effects simply because some one had said that it was a vogue. Again it was considered to be a vogue for women to have lovely small feet. To attain this beauty of form women used to squeeze their feet in small tight fitting shoes regardless of the pain caused by corns and frequent ankle sprains.
Vogue has taken human society by storm and we are not surprised to have a new vogue in the treatment of human ailments. And this new vogue is Injection Therapy.
The history of medical science makes interesting reading when we come across strange vogues prevailing at different periods of its development. There was a time when application of leeches was in vogue and the patient suffered terribly from all the after effects of the bite of the leeches. Sometimes the wounds became septic and were followed by death. Another vogue practiced at another period was blood letting and cupping. This also was no less painful and injurious but still it had its hey- day. Blistering plasters and skull caps were frequently resorted to by the medical men of old days irrespective of the pain the victim suffered during and after the operation.
Before the advent of the vogue of injection therapy all medicines were administered orally. Even today some specimens of the old stock of medical profession are averse to the use of injections and some use them only very sparingly. I had the occasion to hear one of these old doctors say that the practice of medicine today is no more a humanitarian and noble work; it has demoralised into a commercial art where greed and grab predominate over finer human sentiments.
Doctors find it more paying to give an injection every 3 hours than prescribing a drug to be taken orally every 3 hours for the simple reason that an injection cannot be given by any one else except the doctor, and therefore the doctor has to be called in every 3 hours and that means more money every time to the doctor and the foreign manufacturer but without any benefit to the patient.
Until recently, injection therapy was practised by the practitioners of the orthodox school only. But it passes our comprehension to see that this new vogue has caught the fancy of homoeopaths. Some of them also have started administering homoeopathic drugs and other proprietary compounds by way of injections. It is to them we want to sound a note of warning before it is too late and before they are engulfed by the stream and swept away by the rising tide of this new vogue.
Homoeopathy is still as pure as sacred as it was during the days of Hahnemann but it appears that some of us are bent upon polluting it. They are trying to convert this benevolent science into a commercialised art. But in doing this they are only trying to ape their counterparts of the orthodox school. Probably they feel that practice of Homoeopathy cannot be as lucrative as they would wish it to be. They are overpowered by a feeling of jealousy when they see their brother practitioners of the other school minting money by heaps.
It appears that these homoeopaths have fallen from the high pedestal of noble ideals of the medical profession and have become victims to the prevailing greed and graft mentality of the business world.
Injection therapy was unknown in the days of Hahnemann but our modern followers of Hahnemann want us to believe that they can improve upon Hahnemannian methods and in doing so they take cover behind such high sounding phrases as “Research in Homoeopathy” and “Development and advancement of Homoeopathy on sound modern lines.” But in doing this they forget that they are not only trying to deceive others but are practising self- deception. The use of such phrases as “Research in Homoeopathy” and “Scientific advancement” is simple mockery and make believe. They further want us to believe that homoeopathic drugs are more quickly absorbed when given by way of injection.
Nothing can be farther from the truth than this preposterous assertion. Either they do not know or they can conveniently forget that all homoeopathic medicines are ethereal in their conception; nay, I would say that their very foundation is atomic. No amount of chemical analysis or even the most powerful microscope can trace the presence of any chemical or any other matter in any homoeopathic drug. It is on account of this atomic nature of homoeopathic medicines that they are instantaneously absorbed in the system. Homoeopathic drugs have not to wait to reach the stomach to be taken up by the blood stream therefrom. The atomic stimulus is directly taken up by the various microscopic ramifications of nerves and capillaries.
In trying to imitate the allopathic vogue of injection therapy they completely forget that all allopathic drugs are material in their nature and therefore they cannot be absorbed by the blood stream except through the stomach. The chemist and the microscope will easily be able to find out the presence and nature of any given allopathic drug, howsoever small the dose may be, which is absolutely impossible in the case of any homoeopathic drug.
It is a well-known fact that mind controls most of our actions. For instance if a man is absent-minded he does not hear and see what is going on around him. Thus the working of the mind can stop even our normal physical functions for the time being. In other words we might say that it is the mind that hears and sees. Similarly, a soldier in the heat and enthusiasm of the battle does not realise that he has been wounded in the leg until he falls down or sees the blood gushing out of the wound.
A person faints at the sight of wound and blood or an operation. Another person starts vomiting when he sees someone else vomiting. Fright and fear cause involuntary escape of urine and stool. Shock causes sinking and in some cases even collapse. All such cases are the result of different phases of mind reaction.
It is also known that the normal flow of the secretions of our endocrine glands (ductless glands) and other glands are also affected by our emotions. Mouth becomes dry and parched from fright and shock, i.e., salivary glands stop working as a result thereof. Anger causes excessive flow of saliva which in some cases come out like froth from the mouth. Some scientists put it the other way. They say that our endocrine glands are chiefly concerned in the making of our temperament. There have been cases when an infant has become sick suddenly because of sucking the breast of his mother immediately after she had been in a fit of violent anger.
Faith is also an important phase of mind and if one has faith in the medicine and the doctor he will be doubly benefited, while lack of faith or, still worse, aversion to the medicine and the physician will certainly adversely affect the patient. Thus it is seen that the mind plays a very important part in the making and unmaking of our health.
We presume that all homoeopaths are fully cognizant of the fact that mental symptoms and the state of mind of the patient are of paramount importance in arriving at the right remedy in any given case. Any change in the mental getup of the patient will, in most cases, warrant a change of remedy also. Now let us see what happens in the case of an injection. Suppose a child of tender years is having some kind of pain which is aggravated by movement. The child therefore naturally remains lying quietly in bed. For the sake of convenience we might say that the child is a Bryonia patient. Now see what happens when the doctor comes and brings out his shining syringe.
The moment of the child sees the syringe the whole mental make-up of the child undergoes a violent and sudden change. The sight of the syringe gives a mental shock to the child. Fright and fear take the better of the child who begins to cry. As the doctor approaches near him, he begins to move further away from the doctor and in attempting to get far away from his clutches, the child naturally makes some violent movements and keeps on crying harder and harder with the inevitable result that his pain is very much aggravated. We thus find that, with the coming of the doctor, Bryonia has become changed into Rhus tox. or some other restless remedy, and all this because of the change in the mental make-up of the patient.
Now under these circumstances what would a homoeopath do? Would he still treat the child as a Bryonia patient? If not, should be prescribe on the basis of the new symptoms exhibited by the patient? The whole picture becomes blurred and confused and the doctor is placed on the horns of a dilemma of his own creation. Some might say that the new symptoms are only a temporary and passing phase and therefore of no consequence and deserve no consideration. Very well! We may assume for the sake of argument that it is only a passing phase in the case of only one or the first injection only. But we know that injection therapy does not stop at one injection only.
