Homeopathy

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“Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.” —HIPPOCRATES (460—400 B.C.)

“Medical students are not really taught about the healing system. They are taught about disease—how to diagnose and how to treat, but they are not taught how the body goes about treating itself. They will point to the immune system and let it go at that. But healing involves not just killing off disease germs or viruses but the process of reconstruction and repair.” —DR OMAR FAREED

“Whenever a new discovery is reported to the scientific world, they say first, ‘It is probably not true.’ Thereafter, when the truth of the new proposition has been demonstrated beyond question, they say, ‘Yes, it may be true, but it is not important.’ Finally, when sufficient time has elapsed to fully evidence its importance, they say, ‘Yes, surely it is important, but it is no longer new.” —MICHEL DE MONTATGNE (1533—1592)

PRINCIPLES OF HOMEOPATHY

Dunham

(taken,with thanks from http://www.vithoulkas.com/principles-of-homeopathy)

PRINCIPLES vs. PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE

In entering upon the general consideration of any subject involving a number of topics, it is expedient always to seek to obtain at the very outset a clear view of the scope and extent of the subject; to comprehend what it involves and to perceive what are its limits and what its relations with other kindred subjects. Let us begin our course by doing this with reference to homeopathy, the principles of which it is my duty to lay before you.

You all know that by homeopathy is generally understood that system of practical medicine, in accordance with which the physician seeks to cure his patient by giving him a remedy which has been known to produce in the healthy subject symptoms similar to those which the patient presents. It is a system claiming to be the only scientific system of medicine, inasmuch as it possesses a "law of cure" as it is termed; or, as it might be more correctly expressed, a law for the selection of the remedy in any concrete case of illness; the law expressed by the now familiar formula — "SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR."

You will hear also that homeopathy is called the science of therapeutics, and I will add that it is the only therapeusis which exists possessing the elements of a natural science; that it is the only science of therapeutics. Now, by therapeusis or therapeutics, we mean the science of treating diseased persons by means of drugs.

We thus arrive at a view of the limits and scope of our subject, homeopathy. It is a therapeutics. It deals with the science and method of treating the sick by means of drugs. And this is its whole scope. As homeopathists strictly, and confining yourselves to the application of the science of homeopathy, you will perform your entire function when you accurately select and rightly administer a suitable drug to your patient.

But you will go forth from these halls as doctors of medicine. Shall you have no other professional duties toward your patients than to administer drugs to them? Assuredly you will. Then you must be homeopathists and something beside.

The injuries and accidents to which men are exposed, involving destructive injury to limb or tissues, may require the interference of the operative surgeon. As such you will act under the law of mechanics, guided by your knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and governed by the traditions and maxims of surgery. It is true that few surgical cases occur which do not sooner or later involve the entire organism in such a way that the patient's condition demands the co-operation of the therapeutist; and as you will combine in your own person the function of operative surgeon and therapeutist, you, who have when operating, acted outside of your office as homeopathist or therapeutist, will now select and administer a drug suited to the condition of your patient, in accordance with the therapeutic law. You will, thus, in treating this case, act in a double capacity. You will be both an operative surgeon and a prescriber of drugs. It is in the latter capacity only that you will be a therapeutist, that you will practice homeopathy. It is true that your possession of a science of therapeutics will make the intervention of operative surgery much less frequently necessary than it is deemed to be by our allopathic brethren, who have no science of therapeutics. For homeopathy gives us the means of curing many diseases formerly supposed to require mechanical treatment; and in so far your function as homeopathist will encroach on that of surgeon. Yet the two are in a scientific aspect entirely distinct, and may not be confounded, unless you would introduce confusion into your views of the principles of medicine.

So, likewise, as obstetrician, you are called upon to superintend the physiological process of parturition, to prevent accidents or to remedy them; to anticipate or to cure diseases that may complicate the process. Some of your interference will be mechanical, as when you turn the child or use instruments. Such interference does not come under the scope of homeopathy. It belongs to another department of science and art. Another kind of treatment for the abnormal conditions which may supervene during parturition, consists in the administration of drugs in accordance with the homeopathic law. In doing this you are acting of course within the limits of the science of homeopathy, being therapeutists. Thus in the practice of obstetrics you fill a double office; you are therapeutists, and as such, homeopathists, and may also be operative surgeons, exercising another art.

Here again homeopathy puts us in possession of remedial means which, in a great many cases, obviate the necessity of resorting to mechanical interference, because they enable us to prevent the occurrence of morbid states which lead to conditions requiring such interference; and thus the function of the homeopathic therapeutist circumscribes that of the operative obstetrician, as it is laid down in the text-books of the allopathists. And it should be our aim so to develop our therapeutic science as still further to circumscribe its limit and do away with the necessity for operative interference. For instance, if I may venture to spend a moment on this subject, homeopathy, as a system of therapeutics, educating our powers of observation and sharpening our clinical foresight, enables us to anticipate the recurrence of uterine haemorrhage as an incident of parturition, and so to prescribe that we prevent or control it; thus making the mechanical appliances so frequently resorted to by the allopathists at least so seldom requisite that some homeopathists have affirmed that the tampon, etc., can never be required. In the same way and to the same extent of rarest use or absolute disuse has homeopathy brought the entire apparatus of pessaries and supporters and bandages for the treatment of uterine disease. In these cases, as in other similar cases, it will be for you, in the exercise of a sound judgment, to determine whether the best interests of your patient demand that you shall act solely as operative surgeon, or solely as therapeutist, or whether you shall combine these functions. You cannot exercise this sound discretion aright unless you are fully instructed in both departments of science, unless you know all that can be effected by therapeutics from the stand-point of the homeopathist, and know also the resources and limits of operative surgery. The point which I wish to make is that as doctors of medicine you combine in yourselves the functions of therapeutist, surgeon and obstetrician; and that in the latter capacity you do not, cannot, and are not called upon to act as homeopathists, inasmuch as the homeopathic law applies only to the selection of drugs for diseased conditions.

Once more, hygiene is that department of medical science which includes the prevention of disease, and the removal or cancellation of material causes which induce or perpetuate disease. The advances of physiology and pathology, chemistry and natural history, within the last thirty years, have given to sanitary science a scope and importance which were not heretofore imagined. Many epidemic diseases have been shown to be dependent upon the conditions in which the individual, the family and the community live—conditions which by knowledge and care might be obviated, I refer in general to improper drainage of the soil, deficient ventilation, unwholesome food and drink, lack of light and heat, injurious occupations, improper social habits and relations. Surely the doctor of medicine can have no more important business than the prevention of disease by diligent endeavor,—whether as a public officer or as the medical adviser of a family or of an individual,— to modify unfavorable conditions, and thereby remove material causes of disease, and place those with whose care he is charged under circumstances most favorable to health. In doing this you will apply the principles of chemistry or of mechanics or of vegetable physiology; and although fulfilling one of your most important vocations, you, who will style yourselves homeopathic physicians, will not be acting within the scope of homeopathy; will not be applying its law of cure. You will, as hygienists, have nothing to do with homeopathy.

Furthermore, it has been ascertained by modern research, that certain diseases depend for their perpetuation, if not wholly for their origin, upon parasitic vegetable or animal growths, the removal of which by chemical or mechanical means is an essential condition of speedy cure. While you effect this removal by such means, you are fulfilling your duty as those intrusted with the care of the sick, just as faithfully and fully as when you administer, in accordance with the homeopathic law, the remedy which shall so change the vital processes of the patient as that his body shall no longer be a favorable nidus for these parasitic germs. But remember that when you seek the aid of chemistry or of mechanics to remove these parasites, you are not exercising your vocation as homeopathists, because you are acting as hygienists, not as therapeutists ; you are not combating disease by drugs. I lay stress upon these instances. I desire to show clearly, and impress upon your minds the fact, that homeopathy applies only to the treatment of the sick by means of drugs ; because, unless your minds are clear upon this point, unless you perceive plainly that as curators of the sick you have other functions beside that very important and essential one of administering drugs, you may err as many do who strive to apply the homeopathic law of cure to their every action as medical men; and to make it cover not only their treatment by drugs, but also the surgical, obstetrical, hygienic, chemical and mechanical expedients and procedures. They come into the dilemma, that either dreading to prove recreant to their guiding principle, which they cannot perceive to lead them in any of these procedures, they neglect something which is essential to their patient's safety or recovery, and thus fail of their duty as doctors ; or else, resorting to measures which their common sense and experience show to be necessary, they attempt to explain them in such a way as to bring them under the homeopathic law, and. thus make themselves ridiculous and bring ridicule upon the science which as therapeutists they profess and honor.

Remember, then, the scope and limits of homeopathy. It is the science of therapeutics, and concerns only the treatment of the sick by means of drugs. Do not misunderstand me, and think me to say, inasmuch as I am a homeopathist, that therefore I believe diseases are to be treated only by drugs. Being a science, the elements of which are natural phenomena, viz. : those of the sick and the phenomena of drugs in their relation to the living human being, homeopathy takes rank with the other natural physical sciences.

For the better understanding of our subject let us take a general view of the nature and elements of a physical science. The physical sciences are variously arranged. There are sciences of classification, and sciences which are pursued with a view to the practical application of the knowledge they afford us to the affairs of daily life. But all of them deal with the phenomena of the physical universe as we observe them by means of our senses, aided by the resources of art. Let us study for a moment the science of astronomy, the most perfect and least complicated of the physical sciences. It deals with the phenomena of the bodies which compose the universe. We observe these phenomena, which consist of the movements of the heavenly bodies in space and upon their axes; and our observation is assisted by whatever instruments the ingenuity of man has contrived for the purpose, every successive invention enabling us to discover some new feature of these phenomena. In observations of the movements of the heavenly bodies we observe their movements in relation to each other. This is obvious, since the motion of one body is perceptible only in relation to some other body. Our object is to understand the relations of the heavenly bodies to each other in respect of their phenomena, and then to be able to foresee and predict what will be their relations and relative positions at some future time. We accomplish this object when, by virtue of our studies of the phenomena of the heavenly bodies and their relations, we are able to foretell the occurrence of eclipses at definite times, and to indicate, years beforehand, the position of the heavenly bodies at a given time.

I ask you now to notice several facts respecting this science.

FIRST: In all its processes we never think of bringing in the question—What is the CAUSE of the motion of the heavenly bodies? Such a question must present itself of course to every reflecting mind; but its consideration belongs to the speculative or metaphysical sciences, and has nothing to do with astronomy proper, or celestial mechanics, —is certainly in no sense and to no degree a basis of it. Our opinions on this point may be most various; yet this variety will not prevent our perfect agreement in the processes and conclusions of astronomy when considering the relations of, say two heavenly bodies.

SECOND: Astronomy deals with two series of phenomena, viz.: those of the two heavenly bodies, or systems of bodies, under consideration. And this science reckons the effects of one body or system of bodies upon the other in accordance with some law or formula which is general, applying to all bodies, and which expresses the mechanical action of bodies upon each other as regards mass and distance; in other words, their mechanical relations to each other.

THIRD: This law or formula, expressing the relation of bodies to each other, was perceived in a single instance. The mind which perceived it formed at once the hypothesis that it was a general formula expressive of the relation which exists between all bodies. A vast number of experiments and observations having confirmed this hypothesis, it is now universally accepted as the law of the mechanical relations of bodies.

FOURTH: Observe that this law, which is a bare statement that bodies attract each other directly as their mass, and inversely as the square of their distances, is not based upon any theory of the nature of attraction — how it is that one body attracts another. Myriads of hypotheses on this subject might be framed, defended and overthrown, yet this formula would remain unshaken. It expresses the relations of phenomena which we observe, and nothing more—the relations therefore of what we know. For, what besides phenomena can we know—phenomena or things which are apparent to our senses, which may be seen and touched, smelt and tasted and heard. How disastrous would it be if in our science of astronomy the phenomena were limited by a law or formula based upon a theory of the cause of attraction. Phenomena we see and apprehend, and may be said to know, but the causes of them no man has seen or touched. Causes are hidden from our senses. We can reach them only by the action of the mind in hypothetic speculation. It must needs be that with every advance in observation a new hypothesis would spring up, overturning former doctrines of causation, and with them whatever laws or formulae might be based upon them; and if the central formula of the science rested on them, it would be overturned to give place for a brief interval to some as short-lived successor. Progressive knowledge would be impossible on such a basis.

FIFTH: Observe, finally, that one great object of the cultivation of this science is, that it affords us the means of prevision ; it enables us to foretell events within its domain. And this is true of all the natural sciences when constructed on a sound basis. It would, therefore, furnish a test of the soundness of a science so called. For, on ultimate analysis, every natural science (save those of classification) consists of two series of phenomena connected by a law expressive of their relation to each other. Now, in the application of the. science to the purpose of prevision the problem is this: Given one series of phenomena and the law of relation to find the other series of phenomena, to foretell what they will be. This problem is continually applied in astronomy, and the results uniformly attest the accuracy of the method.

In conclusion, then, this episode enables us to state understandingly the elements of a natural science. They consist of two series of phenomena (the result of observation) and a law which expresses a uniform and invariable relation between these series of phenomena. The phenomena must be susceptible of indefinite exploration, study and elaboration without disturbing the law of relation.

The law must be such as will enable us to foresee and predict future events. One series of phenomena and the law being given, we must be able to indicate the other series of phenomena; and this in advance of any observation of them or of any experiment.