WHAT AM I


Psora progress from simple states to the very highest degree of complexity. Medical men have endeavored and are continually trying with all their power, to drive psora from the surface, thus causing it to be rooted deeper, more dense and invisible. How few reach maturity, what an appalling number of infants die largely as the result of psora.


Read before the Annual Meeting of The International Hahnemannian Association, Atlantic City, N.J., July, 1923.

In these days of extreme unrest, tense nerves, civic, religious social, medical and domestic chaos, scepticism, and egoism, is it not well for us occasionally to stop-and ask ourselves the question, “what am I?”.

In these days of vain grasping for specifies, short cuts to health, therapeutic nihilism, sectional bigotry and disfavor, is it not well for us, a body of recognized physicians, to stop and ponder over these questions a little, to ask ourselves the question, “what are we?”.

When I was a lad, in the old Nutmeg State, Connecticut, we used to sing a song: “I have a work which no other can do”.

If I am a unit in this vast universe, with a specific mission to perform, which no other can do; so long as I perform my duty faithfully, “what am I ?”.

Life, health, strength each bright morning, each days task, with its joys and hardships is given me to use for some specific purpose. Shakespeare tells us, “his life was gentle and the elements were so mixed in him, that nature might rise up and say to all the world, this is a man”.

The mixed elements, physical, mental and spiritual, the composite man-represent the ego-something for me to utilize so as to add my impress to the sum total of human achievements.

Hahnemann called it vital force, Coue calls it sub- conscious. Holy Scripture calls it God.

Over five hundred years ago Leonardo Da Vinci wrote “He who cannot do what he wills,

Should try to will what he can do.

For since tis vain to will what cant be.

Compassed, to abstain from idle wishing is philosophy.

Lo all our happiness and grief imply.

Knowledge or not of wills ability.

They therefore can, who will what ought to be.

Nor wrest true reason from the seat awry,

That which a man can, he should not always will,

Oft seemeth sweet which after is not so,

That which I wished when had hath cost a tear.

Now readers of these lines if thou wouldst still.

Be helpful to thyself to others dear.

Will to can always what you ought to do”.

The duty to release, to develop the power within, is ours, is mine. I can. Will do it?.

We assembled here today are a band of reputed specialists. specialists in the art of preventing sickness, of making sick folks well, and that in accord with a definite law. Let us abstain from idle wishing. Let us will to can what we ought to do. If not, let us disembark and get into a boat where we can do our duty, which circumscribes a circle holding all else within it. What am I?

I was reared a most bigoted allopath. I first attended a most rabid allopathic medical school, where homoeopathy was derided, and called fallacious and humbuggery.

Antagonism stimulated a spirit of defense and a desire for broader knowledge, which in time led me to study and embrace homoeopathy. I am proud to say that I believe in and am trying to unfold and develop the principles of medicine as laid down by Samuel Hahnemann, because my experience causes me to feel sure that those principles are true. I believe in the efficacy of homoeopathy and if my results are unsatisfactory, the fault is mine, not in the principles of homoeopathy. The foundation of homoeopathy is grounded upon definite principles. A Hindu legend portrays a father, asking his son to bring him fruit of the tree and break it open. “What is there?” the father asks. “Some small seeds,” the son replies. “Break open the seeds and what do you find?” queried the father, to which the son replied: “I find nothing!”.

The wise parent said: “Where you see nothing, there dwells a mighty tree!” This ancient fable contains most important lesson for us all:- The invisible but dynamic philosophy of homoeopathy.

The dominant school of medicine declares that the practice of medicine depends entirely upon experience. The ever-shifting methods and theories and rapid discoveries and abandonment of the same, fully attest the sincerity of this declaration.

They deal solely with tissue and accept nothing but what can be felt or seen-aided by improved modern instruments. the senses are aided by the microscope and the microscopic pathological results of disease are note and accepted as the beginning and the ending.

Homoeopathy contends that there is something prior to these results. Science teaches us that, that which exists, does so be cause there was something prior, and thus as homoeopaths we are able to apply modern scientific research and trace cause and effect.

“The physicians high and only mission is to restore the sick to health.” In my experience, nothing but homoeopathy can do this. What do we mean by the word sick? Does the house which the man lives in and which is being torn down, or the tissue changes represent all there is of sickness? No, the man is sick! The homoeopathy observes wonderful changes resulting from the use of potentized medicines, which science has already proven to be dynamic. Without vital force there can be no causes, or no relation between cause and effect.

Nothing exists a cause. All sickness is eradicated from within outwards. No sickness was ever cured by crude drugs or local applications.

If we re fully satisfied with out results obtained, we are like a jug filled to the mouth, there is no room left. There must be a desire and some incentive. There can be no reformation in any direction as long as we are satisfied with what we already have. I believe the Holy Scriptures to be our religious and spiritual guide and I believe that homoeopathic philosophy conforms the Scriptural doctrine of original sin, hence I am a homoeopath, because homoeopathy gets down to rock bottom facts; down to the beginning of all things.

A rose by any other name would be as sweet; call the beginning of sickness what you will, but call it something. Until find a better name I am going to call the foundation of all sickness psora. I believe psora to be the prime cause of all sickness and had psora never been and would not now be any sickness. I will go one step further back and assert that had the human race remained in a state of perfect order,there would have been no psora,hence there would have been no sickness.

Psora progress from simple states to the very highest degree of complexity. Medical men have endeavored and are continually trying with all their power, to drive psora from the surface, thus causing it to be rooted deeper, more dense and invisible. How few reach maturity, what an appalling number of infants die largely as the result of psora.

Ben King has it” “Man is the only creature who by choice combats nature.” As the internal is, so is the external and the external cannot be only as the result of the internal. The internal state is prior to that which surrounds it.

If your medicine brings out a rash or redevelops old sores, etc. thank god and take courage.

A typical case of psora: Master G., four years of age, was brought to my office by his mother, who was in desperation, as her son was fast wasting away, pale, emaciated, no appetite and listless, he had a bunch on his forehead about the size of half an English walnut. When the child was six months old it had a rash which was “cured:” by an ointment given by the doctor. Sulphur.

As a result of psora, we have inflicted upon the human race the scourge syphilis. The sin of action.

A typical syphilis case: Mrs. S., thirty-five years of age, had been the rounds of “all the best doctors in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts,so she reported m,, for sores on both legs. these sores had been variously diagnosed as eczema, tubercular, salt rheum , varicose ulcers, etc.

A short course of antisyphilitic treatment according to the laws of homoeopathy cured her.

Three remedies were used, according to symptomatic indications; Sulphur, Mercuries and Syphilinum.

Nothing but homoeopathic therapeutics will absolutely cure syphilis. This statement is equally true of the other miasm sycosis, either acute or chronic.

A typical sycosis case: Mr. C., fifty-eight years of age, consulted me for asthma and rheumatism, from which he had been a great sufferer. He also suffered much from many people, though had always been pretty well as he said; but closer questioning brought forth the admission that he was going to Boston once a month to consult and be treated by a specialist.

He said he was tortured by having sounds passed, in order that he might void urine. the totality of the symptoms called for Thuja occidentalis. The asthma and rheumatism were promptly cured and no further trips to Boston have been necessary, as he is able to pass urine more freely than for years.

I am a homoeopath because I believe that all human sickness is the result of one or all of these three forces, psora, syphilis, or sycosis: I deem it my duty as a man, as a medical man, as a homoeopath, to do all in my power to aid nature in eradicating these poisons from the human race.

I am a homoeopath because the results obtained in my daily practice prove over and over again the truth of the homoeopathic principles. A man, sixty-eight years of age, was troubled with vertigo and had been treated by the latest scientific methods for heart, liver and kidney involvement. the totality of the symptoms called for Conium maculatum, which cured him as if by magic.

Plumb Brown