Definition of Recovery. – Recovery is the spontaneous return of the patient to health after the removal, disappearance or cessa1tion of the exciting causes and occasion of disease, or as a result of treatment which is not directly and specifically curative in its nature.
Recovery takes place by virtue of the existence of sufficient integrity of organs and inherent power of reaction in the patient to overcome the disease-producing agency without the aid of the homoeopathic or healing art. Recovery is favored by the application of sound principles of mental and physical hygiene, judicious mechanical or surgical treatment when required, avoidance of drugs used for their “physiological” (really pathogenic) effects, and by enlightened sanitation.
The Expectant Treatment Inadequate.- Nature unaided, however, or with all the aid afforded by the expectant treatment and by sanitation and surgery, is unable to cope successfully with many forms of severe disease. Such disease as cholera, yellow fever, pneumonia, diphtheria, typhus and typhoid fever, smallpox, and many other disease take a heavy toll in mortality, practically uninfluenced by the expectant treatment, except as compared with the much greater mortality under ordinary drug treatment. If diseases are divided into three classes with regard to their rate of mortality, the highest mortality is found among those treated by ordinary drug methods, the next lower under the expectant method, and the lowest under homoeopathic treatment.
The Superiority of Homoeopathy. – Homoeopathy has gained its greatest triumphs in those diseases which are uninfluenced by even the expectant treatment. Of these cholera is a notable example. With a normal mortality of from forty to seventy per cent. under any other form of treatment, the mortality under homoeopathic treatment, but otherwise under precisely the same general conditions, has been as low as four per cent. Substantially the same is true of other diseases, in all of which the mortality is distinctly lower under homoeopathic treatment than under the expectant treatment, which is itself so superior to ordinary drug treatment that the leaders of thought and research in the regular school warmly advocate the abandonment of all drugs except mercury, quinin and morphin in special cases.
It is the duty of every physician to avail himself of all the resources of hygiene, sanitation and surgery, but it is also his duty to put prejudice aside and investigate the claims of a method of medication which can show such markedly superior results as does homoeopathy.
Homoeopathy alone, of all therapeutic methods, can legitimately claim to effect true cures by medication, as distinguished from recoveries; and this it claims, first, because it is based upon a definite general principle or law of nature; second, because it is able to successfully apply that principle to individual cases; and third, because it does actually restore the sick to health, quickly, safely, gently and permanently, upon easily comprehensible principles.
Relation of Cure to Disease.- A true definition of cure must be based upon a right conception of the nature of disease.
The Standard Dictionary defines disease as “any departure from, failure in, or perversion of normal physiological *action in the material constitution or *functional integrity of the living organism.”
This definition rightly focuses attention upon the dynamical aspect of the subject, for disease is essentially and primarily a morbid dynamical disturbance of the vital powers and functions, resulting in a loss of functional and organic balance.
Primarily and essentially, cure is the restoration directly, by medical art, or normal physiological action. Cures do not consist in the mere removal of the external, secondary, tangible products of disease, but in restoration of the dynamical balance, so that the functions of the organism are again performed normally and the patient is in a state of health.
Disease is manifested perceptibly by signs and symptoms. Cure is manifested by the removal of the symptoms. Strictly speaking the removal of all the symptoms of the case is equivalent to a cure, but if symptoms disappear and the patient is not restored to health and strength it means either that some of the most important symptoms of the case have been overlooked, or that the case has passed beyond the curable stage. All curable cases present perceptible symptoms, but their discernment often depends upon the acuteness of the observer.
Cure relates to the case as a whole: A patient may have his haemorrhoids removed and be relieved of his rectal symptoms; but if the symptoms of the heart or liver disease which preceded and caused his haemorrhoids are not removed the patient is not cured; and so of innumerable other morbid conditions. Cure refers to *the patient, not to some symptoms of his disease, nor to what may be called “one of his diseases.” To say that a patient is cured of his haemorrhoids, but still has his heart disease is absurd. Cure means complete restoration to health.
Cure is not affected by the removal surgically nor by any local means, of the external, secondary, pathological “end-products” of disease, such as tumors, effusions, collections of pus, useless organs or dead tissues; *for the morbid functioning which produced those effects often remains unchanged, after such removal.
Cure is effected only by dynamical treatment according to fixed principles, directed to the primary, functional disorder as revealed by the complete symptom-picture preceding and accompanying the formation of the tangible products of the disease.
Cure is not merely the removal of the *primary causes of disease, for even if all the causes of the disease are known and removable, the effects, having been begun, may continue as secondary causes after the removal of the primary causes. Spontaneous disappearance of the disease does not always occur in such cases, and dynamical treatment is required to restore the patient to health.
The End Products of Disease and Mechanical Treatment. – The tangible, physical results of disease as thus defined may and often do disappear spontaneously when the internal dynamic disturbance is removed by curative medication, but they are not primarily the object of homoeopathic treatment. It may be necessary eventually, to remove them mechanically by surgical art. Surgical or mechanical measures become necessary when the tangible products of disease are so far advanced or so highly developed that they become secondary causes of disease and obstacles to cure. In all cases in which disease has ultimated in organic or tissue changes which have progressed to a point where surgical interference is necessary, homoeopathic dynamical treatment should precede and follow operation; bearing in mind always that such changes are the direct result of preceding and accompanying morbid functional changes, and that the patient is not cured unless normal functioning is restored.
The Object of Treatment.- The primary object or purpose of homoeopathic treatment is the restoration of normal functional balance-health.
The basis of the homoeopathic prescription is the totality of the symptoms which represent the functional disorder – *the abnormal process of the disease itself, not its ultimates or “end products.”
The physician who prescribes for a tumor or any other tangible product of disease is misdirecting his energies and courting failure.
Physicians are constantly mistaking the *product for the *process of disease. the product can only be changed by changing the process. Destroying the product does not change the process. Correct the faulty process and the product will take care of itself, so far as homoeopathy is concerned. this defines the sphere of homoeopathy and this is what we mean when we say that the cure of disease is a dynamical problem.
A Law of Cure Implied.- The accomplishment of even one true cure medication implies the existence of a governing principle or law of cure by medication. The occasional occurrence of accidental cures very early attracted the attention of medical men and led them to seek for such a law. Glimpses of the law were had by individuals from time to time down the ages, but it eluded the searches or failed of demonstration until Hahnemann finally grasped it comprehendingly and made it the basis for the therapeutic method which he named homoeopathy.
Many were deluded mistaking natural recoveries for cures. Their attempts to “imitate” invariably failed. Others abandoned the idea of a general principle of cure by medication and denied its existence, refusing to accept the demonstration when it was finally made. That is the attitude of the average member of the dominant school to-day. He denies the existence of a general principle of therapeutic medication. “We do not profess a cure,” he says’ “we only aid nature to bring about recoveries.” In this he is at least honest, and consistent in his use of terms.
The Requirements of Cure.- The first requirement of a cure by medication is that it shall be *the result of the direct application of a definite general principle of therapeutic medication. The result may be accidental or intentional on the part of the prescriber in a given case, but its relation to the means employed must be capable of rational explanation and demonstration by reference to the governing principle.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.