Mr. Chairman and colleagues! Years ago I read an article from the pen of the late Dr. P.P. Wells in which he stated it took him a quarter of a century of close study of the principles and philosophy of Homoeopathy and its Materia Medica to enable him to prescribe according to its doctrine. I had just then begun the study of Homoeopathy. I was familiar with Hughes, and kindred of works, and imagined I knew all about Homoeopathy.
I had heard from respected medical seniors that Dr. Wells was a most able homoeopathy, but knowing our confrere to be advanced in years I considered him in his dotage, and his opinions to be taken at a considerable discount. I paid, however, before his death the tribute of my respect and admiration, acknowledging to him also my previous folly and conceit.
I may further expose my ignorance of those days by the confession that I feared Hahnemann himself must have been afflicted with a similar illusion when he advocated the use of the 30th potencies. It seemed to me the height of absurdity to fancy that such infinitesimal doses could possess any remedial powers; and yet today, like many of you here, I generally use the 200th and frequently resort to even the DMM’s.
Before entering upon the topic allotted me for treatment this evening, I must say a few preliminary words touching the history and principles of Homoeopathy. Previous to Hahnemann’s time, medicine was in a chaotic state, resembling astronomy before Newton’s discovery of the laws of gravitation. Thus, many important isolated facts in therapeutics were known to the world; but all the systems were connected by illusory, illogical hypotheses. No reliable rule existed for the guidance of the practitioner, no safe principles. All was a maze of contradictory therapeutical theories.
Hippocrates, Haller and Strok had already recognized partially that some diseases were cured upon the principles of similars; but the glory of discovering it as the only law of cure was reserved for Hahnemann. To his original and practical genius the world owes the establishment of this doctrine, based upon tradition, observation and experience. After careful, painstaking researches into the action of medicinal substance upon man, Hahnemann become satisfied that drugs had the inherent power of exciting in the healthy subject diseases similar to what they cure. He now pursued his investigations with a rigorous adherence to the precepts of inductive philosophy, and demonstrated theoretically and clinically the truth of the new doctrine.
He then went further, proving the Homoeopathic principles to be in conformity with a universal law of Nature. A complete revision of the Materia Medica Pura, and The Chronic Diseases. His discovery of Homoeopathy was the result of experiment, but his subsequent development of the theoretical and practical features of the system almost approached inspiration. There can be no doubt of the solid and lasting basis upon which he erected his new structure or method of the treatment of disease. As a doctrine it is complete.
It may be wanting in some minor details, but the span of human life is the measure of man’s opportunity, and it is only a cause of wonder that he could have accomplished so much in a single life-time. All the principles of Homoeopathy are logically, systematically, and indissolubly bound together. There is nothing contradictory in any portion of it.
According to Hahnemann, life is bestowed upon the human economy by a power sin generis appropriately named by him, the vital force. This agency starts with life itself, in the original protoplasm, influencing the development of the living tissues, governing and regulating all the physiological phenomena and watching over the preservation of the individual till death.
There has been no better theory advanced of the influence governing the human system. If this vital force be distributed in its harmonious guidance of the functions of the body by some external impression, mental miasmatic, climatic or other, the processes of nature are modified and disease appears.
The vital power is immaterial dynamic in nature, like all natural forces, and can only be affected by similar immaterial or dynamic agents. Aetiological factors, consequently operate and influence this power through their virtuality. These disturbances of the vital forces manifest themselves differently in different individuals, depending upon the peculiarities or original weakness of the patient.
The vital force theory is one of the fundamental principles of Homoeopathy, the second being the application of law of similars and the third the dynamization of the drug. Homoeopathy in other words is founded upon a physiological theory, a system of pathology, a therapeutic law and a related Materia Medica.
