AETIOLOGY, GROUND TREATMENT AND NOSODES
As regards aetiology there are some nosodes which correspond to the real factors of rheumatism. The most important is psora of Hahnemann, which we see appear again and again. This psora is an important hereditary taint more or less augmented by acquired toxins which follow us and which cause rheumatism in predisposed persons. In an aetiological way, all diluted Tuberculins will therefore be used in persons suffering from rheumatism.
I am inclined to believe that our friend Dr. Martiny will just now give us some notions about pathogenesis and aetiology of this disease in the light of the recent works on biology and I hope that you will not hesitate to take side with his opinion.
The question of Tuberculins play an important part in chronic rheumatism as ground remedies. Medorrhinum, the nosode of comparison, the gonorrhoea poison is of the second importance and syphilis the third in importance. But before speaking of these two entities let me speak of psora first.
Psora may be neutralised by diluted Tuberculins which you will give to the patient after having drained him well, after having prescribed the necessary ground remedies and the functional remedies.
By the side of this classical psora, which can be individualised by the different Tuberculins, we may also fight against this type of affection by the nosodes of Bach, a new product prepared out of the culture of microbes of intestinal origin by Bach, an Englishman.
The toxin remedies of Cahis of which we have said while speaking about acute rheumatism are equally interesting. Cahis usually divided the persons suffering from rheumatism into two groups those who have chronic suppurations of the throat, of gums and those who do not suffer from them. It is necessary we should pay homage to the author who have had the idea before the American authors who have shown the importance of suppuration, chronic or latent, of the cavum, dental infections and infections of tonsils that are capable of producing all sorts of diseases.
When he treats a patient who has no trouble of teeth or gums, he gives Rheumatoxin, ie. a remedy prepared with a drop of blood of the patient suffering from acute rheumatism. When on the contrary the patient has unhealthy teeth, specially pyorrhoea, he gives Pyorrhin. The dilutions are 18th to 5000.
You can also act in this manner by Oscillococcin of J.Roy or by an isopathy prepared from the urine of the patient.
I was saying just now that psora, to which correspond therapeutically different Tuberculins, play the most important part as regards aetiology of chronic rheumatism for homoeopaths. But very often gonococcus is associated with this miasm. Then you have a person who was a tuberculinic while a child or an adolescent because he was in a very unhealthy situation or he inherited tubercular taints from his parents. He is therefore a typical psoric subject of Hahnemann, because he contracts, for example gonorrhoea at the age of 18 to 20 and after some time even if he does suffer from acute rheumatism he may at first have symptoms of sub-acute rheumatism, the chronic rheumatism in which the two aetiologies, the tuberculinic toxin and gonorrhoea toxin are intricate.
Also in patients in whom we have amelioration of rheumatism by the ground remedies and the drainage remedies, we have incorporated in their treatment high dilutions of Tuberculin on the one hand and Medorrhinum on the other and we get clearly superior results.
I open here a parenthesis as regards this touchstone treatment. Perhaps I am wrong to use this term because in homoeopathy as well as in allopathy we have the tendency to think that every time we use a remedy called specific and it acts, it follows that the aetiology of which we are thinking is real. But this is not true. It is possible that Medorrhinum has acted homoeopathically in persons whose toxins are due to diplococcus or gonococcus, but not identifiable with the latter. Cahis has brought a revolution as regards that question in homoeopathy, using for example Meningococcin in the place of Medorrhinum. By giving some nosodes without taking into account the specificity and only according to the similarity or characteristics, one can also get some results if these nosodes are used according to the law of similars.
In the third place, syphilis may play an important part in some rheumatic patients, especially in persons who have articular or bone deformations. But this factor seems secondary and distant in relation to gonococcic or tuberculinic toxins.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.