HYDROMINERAL AND PHYSIOTHERAPIC CURE
Before proceeding further let me speak a few words about other methods that are taken recourse to for the treatment of rheumatism. We may also use them, that does not mean a treason to our master Hahnemann. We must send our patients to mineral water springs because they are beneficial and they enter into the field to homoeopathic philosophy. It is interesting to classify these mineral waters. I believe that the best classification will be sulphur springs and springs of radio-active waters.
From the clinical point of view what is interesting is to find out up to what point the mineral water treatment is beneficial for a patient who is being treated by homoeopathy. Some persons for example who have got no amelioration during a season in Dax (a sulphur spring station): who were the treated homoeopathically and who have retired to that station, have obtained clear amelioration thanks to the homoeopathic treatment which preceded his stay..
All mineral water stations may be beneficial but they give good effect only after a homoeopathic treatment on condition that physiotherapic treatment has also been done.
Finally it must be said that rheumatism may be cured if the patient wants to be cured. This is the true criterion, he will be cured of chronic rheumatism. The patient who does not wish to remain in bed year in the year out is ameliorated because he fights against ankylosis. Inversely he who is very idle becomes ankylosed more and more. The factor “patient” is very important.
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.