Aetiology


Aetiology of chronic rheumatism in respect to Homeopathy and the importance of nosodes especially tuberculin in the treatment of ersons suffering from chronic rhematism….


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.

Dr. Martiny is now going to give us some ideas on the biology of this question.

Dr. Martiny: My friend Fortier-Bernoville has taken me quite unprepared. I have not studied the question of chronic rheumatism before entering this hall. It is certain that it is the question of real life and to give a therapeutics of chronic rheumatism is already very difficult and biological explanation is much more delicate.

In the last congress on rheumatism of which the presidents were M. Besacon and Mr. Mathieu Pierre Weil, very interesting controversies took place. Everyone had his classification, his conception. There was no agreement and one had the impression that he knew more while entering than while coming out of the congress. The few clear ideas that one could have about clinical and therapeutic spheres and also rarely on biological sphere, disappeared at the end of a moment.

From the practical point of view, however, in the chaos what surprised me was the fact that one was wrong to call under the name of chronic rheumatism some diseases that have no relation amongst themselves.

As for example if an old man has arthritis of hips it is called chronic rheumatism. It has however no relation with diffused neuralgia from which a young man may suffer, neither with deforming rheumatism.

If one wishes to simplify the problem, it would be necessary to define the known symptoms of chronic rheumatism. It is necessary to differentiate chronic rheumatism from acute rheumatism which has become chronic, i.e. to say from all subacute rheumatism (the subject suffering from subacute rheumatism becomes later on patients of articular rheumatism or rheumatism of articulations.) An infectious rheumatism like gonorrhoeal rheumatism should be reserved only for rheumatism whole cause is unknown.

If one looks at chart of Dr.Fortier-Bernoville, on will find two spheres of the question, the superior sphere and the aetiological sphere. The cause appear to be tuberculosis, syphilis, dental alveolar pyorrhoea. The lower sphere is symptomatic. There one will find the functional remedies, organotherapy and classical homoeopathy. It is the sphere of the ground of the manifestations of the disease. One starts from the ground to arrive at the causes.

Probing into the deep causes we find the organs which are more involved than the others. One can also describe thyroidean rheumatism, the gland being very often involved.

The liver troubles are important. We may also say that troubles of assimilation are among the important causes. As regards the kidneys, I think that the affections are not of the first order like the liver troubles. The rheumatism due to the troubles of the pituitary gland is classical. The patients suffers from pains of all the limbs. Let us not forget also the importance of the parathyroid.

I have left aside the chemical causes, the metabolism of calcium of potassium of alkalosis. The biology or rheumatism is perhaps much more subtle. It is certain that rheumatism has endocrinal troubles, consequently troubles of biological resonances. It is interesting to build the bride between these troubles and those of vitaminosis. If this question is enlarged, we will find more and more the importance of food which will justify to a certain point the ideas of Carton and Bircher.

We must keep in mind as aetiology the idea of sedentarism. It is good to speak about microbes, but the manner in which we live is also important.

Let us keep in mind the relation between psora and tuberculosis. The tuberculous rheumatism of Poncet is becoming more and more important. From the humoral point of view the rheumatism is more related to tuberculosis. Vernes resorcin reaction has a great importance in the appreciation of chronic tuberculous and rheumatic states, taking into account these series of acute manifestations. What brings the researchers to think tuberculosis as the principal cause of rheumatism is that, studying rheumatism humorally, one has discovered sensibilising causes which are related to the sensitiveness to tuberculosis. The tuberculous toxin is very special; it is allergising i.e. secondary. The tuberculin injected in a healthy person does not produce any effect. But it is a secondary toxin, very rich in proteins which helps to relate tuberculous diseases to serum diseases.

It is curious to note that tuberculous rheumatism is very rare in persons suffering from tuberculosis in evolution, and it appears in persons who had tuberculosis, but does not suffer from it any more, which means that arthritis fights tuberculosis.

Mauritius Fortier-Bernoville
Mauritius (Maurice) Fortier Bernoville 1896 – 1939 MD was a French orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become the Chief editor of L’Homeopathie Moderne (founded in 1932; ceased publication in 1940), one of the founders of the Laboratoire Homeopathiques Modernes, and the founder of the Institut National Homeopathique Francais.

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.