Dr. W. E. Reller of Council Bluffs, Iowa, speaking of Psora in an article to the Medical Advance in 1893, says, “none of the writings of Hahnemann have been so reviled and ridiculed as the teaching found in his works `Chronic Diseases,’ and yet any close observer, who will study his writings diligently and apply their teachings carefully and intelligently in practice, will soon be convinced of their genuineness. He further says, “the average Homoeopathic physician does not live up to the privileges he might enjoy, by being fully grounded on the philosophy of Homoeopathy.”
The constitutional or chronic miasms may be either latent or active; they may be so latent that no symptoms may mark a deviation from health or show their presence even to one who is skilled in a knowledge of miasmatics. We observe this in growing children and in those of a robust nature in whom strong vitality predominates. The chronic miasms become active in the presence of acute diseases (such as the diseases of children), also at the decline of life, when the vitality of the individual diminishes. It is then we find tumors, malignant growths and all the pathology that comes through the mixed miasms at the age of decline, from forty years of age and upwards. Such is the history of disease in our works on practice and pathology; the cause always wrapped in mystery and obscurity. It was only after Hahnemann had spent twelve years of his life searching out his hidden mystery, that he set to work to find out the remedies that would cure them.
Quoting Dr. Reller again from the same article, he says, “I had opportunity in one family, to investigate and observe what has already been said to be true. Seven of the children in this family died before they were three years of age; all dying of gastro-intestinal difficulties, and nearly all had symptoms of hydrocephalus; those who did survive, suffered with chronic headaches. Three sisters on the maternal side, I found had died of tuberculosis and one was then in an insane hospital. On the paternal side, a grandfather and two sisters were insane. Is this not a terrible demonstration of Hahnemann’s psoric theory?”
Two remedies may have the same symptoms as to external form, yet the rank of those remedies may differ widely, the one that corresponds to the active, basic miasms ranks the higher. Again, the remedy that acts from within outwards and from above downwards, is a basic remedy. There is still another rule; the remedy should meet the symptoms in the order in which they first made their appearance. In selecting a remedy we are then to arrange the symptoms according to their value, giving preference to those last appearing, for they are the symptoms of the active miasm, and classifying the remainder as belonging to the latent grouping. If these should continue after the first or active symptoms have disappeared, it may be necessary to study them for a new selection. Their order, their value and their latency or activity must be taken into careful consideration in the selection of a curative remedy. Of course if improvement ceases, a new examination must be made. Some times in this grouping, new symptoms appear, or old, latent and forgotten ones come to light. As in the first selection, so in the second, they must be considered according to their miasmatic rank. If an eruption appears upon the skin, and old sore re-opens or a discharge is re-established, matters are often greatly simplified, and the cure follows the law of physiological progression.
A failure to recognize the underlying idiosyncrasy or chronic miasmatic taint, even in the cure of acute diseases, may prove fatal to the patient; it is one of the difficulties of the therapeutic art. We must learn to read between the lines, for the symptoms that are often the most prominent and annoying to the patient, are not always the ones to base your prescription upon, and vice versa. Fifteen or twenty paragraphs of the Organon are devoted to the subject of Homoeopathic prescribing, and in them, the foundation of the art is laid. How often have we given the acute remedies like Bryonia or Belladonna, repeated, or in their different potencies, with no results, when after a more careful analysis, we saw as we read between the lines, the deeper acting anti-psoric, sycotic or pseudo-psoric remedies, to be the ones indicated.
An abnormal symptom is a sign, mark or indication of a disturbance in the vital force, and its clinical or pathogenetic value is the golden knowledge of the physician. Its real value rightly placed, brings forth the true results of the workings of the law. By the parrot-taught Materia Medicist, values are not given sufficient attention, due stress is not placed upon them, and the drug picture produced is correspondingly lacking. If possible, I begin with the mental symptoms and proceed outward to the physical; or from above downwards to the extremities. Pathology, outside of unavoidable surgery, should be an unknown quantity to the homeopathic prescriber, save that he should be able to trace it to its miasmatic source and know its miasmatic dynamis and origin. To Hahnemann, miasms were defiling, polluting, contaminating and soiling; he speaks of them as infectious noxes. Crude drugs, however, may be added to these noxes, for they are a part of the hydra-headed causes that make human beings sick.
Professor H. N. Guernsey, who is called the “father of the Keynote system of Materia Medica,” says we “must be in harmony with the totality.” “It seems like prescribing for single symptoms,” says Dr. E. W. Berridge, “but it is not; it is only meant to state some strange characteristic symptom.” It is these strong keynotes, these characteristic symptoms that denote the presence of the active miasm, and sometimes of the suppressed one, as has already been mentioned. We do not believe in prescribing for single symptoms, we believe in the totality of the existing active miasm, and not in making the “see the case at a glance” prescription.
I believe Hahnemann was the first to make the statement that Sycosis was a miasmatic disease, and no more self-limiting than Syphilis or Psora, running a similar course to Syphilis and having three distinctive stages, whose phenomena and pathology differ from each other as in other chronic miasmatic diseases. Hahnemann recognizes these different stages and further says, “that if the disease is not cured in its catarrhal stage or if its symptoms are suppressed by local means, the disease will become chronic.” This is a history in brief that we have verified many times. We know that after suppression, there may follow an apparent interval of health, but on carefully and closely examining such a patient, we will find symptoms, too trifling, perhaps, to be complained of, but which show the existence of a condition not correspondent to the normal condition existing before the attack.
The slightest symptoms may remain stationary or may increase gradually, according to the stronger or weaker life force which holds them in abeyance. A time will come, however, when the life force loses its strength and tone and becomes undermined either by an acute attack of sickness or from some great mental disturbance, when the sycotic miasm will remain no longer latent, but breaks forth into some form of pathology, often of a malignant nature that promptly takes the life of the patient. The Vesuvius was silent, but a slight simmer and a trace of smoke showed it was only dormant, not extinct. But thanks for the gift of Homoeopathy, it can silence it and remove every trace of its presence in the organism.
Before closing this article, I wish to say a few words about another mode of the entrance of the sycotic poison into the organism, and that is through the vicious method of vaccination, now in vogue. We believe this to be a form of Sycosis, indeed we have no longer a doubt of it. The frequent occurrence of all those acute disturbances, often assuming dangerous forms following the insertion of the virus into the system, cries out in the affirmative. Nevertheless it is but a modification, a potency plus the degenerative animal process it goes through in its preparation. Vaccination causes all the race to be sycotic, and is the father of a multitude of skin diseases such as erysipelas, impetigo, psoriasis, morbelliform rashes, some forms of gangrene, erythemas, roseola, papular and pustular eruptions of different forms, urticaria, eczema, dermatitis herpetiformis, pemphigus of one form, lupus vulgaris and many others that might be mentioned. All cry out “stop the death dealing process of vaccination or the whole race will soon become degenerated.” We believe the people should rise up as one man, and with one voice demand this thing to cease. Every physician should be a zealous teacher, carrying these truths into every home and to every patient who employs him. Let compulsory vaccination cease and no longer let the people and especially the innocent child be led as a sheep to the slaughter.
J.H. Allen was a student of H.C. Allen. He was the president of the IHA in 1900. Dr. Allen taught at the Hering Medical College in Chicago. Dr. Allen died August 1, 1925
Books by John Henry Allen:
Diseases and Therapeutics of the Skin 1902
The Chronic Miasms: Psora and Pseudo Psora 1908
The Chronic Miasms: Sycosis 1908