HAHNEMANN’S CONCEPTION OF CHRONIC DISEASE BY M. L. TYLER
We all know the joy of seeing sickness of definite symptoms yield, almost miraculously, to the remedy of like symptoms.
We thrill to the triumphs of Homoeopathy in Cholera-in Dysentery-in Ptomaine poisonings-in Pneumonias-in Broncho- pneumonias-in hundreds of conditions, trivial and severe.
And then we all come across cases which, after apparent yielding to the seemingly indicated remedy, recur, finally cease to respond. WHY IS THIS?
This was also Hahnemann’s experience. But that indomitable Pioneer did not merely shrug his shoulders, and dub them,”Old Chronics ” Neither did he accept the suggestion of his followers that “perhaps not enough remedies had been discovered and proved to cover all cases of disease”…. This he says he “rejected, as mere subterfuge.”
But-he stuck to his guns “In spite of failures in the case of some chronic non-venereal diseases, the Doctrine of Similars has been, and ever will be founded on the unshaken pillars of truth. Facts have confirmed its excellence-yet-if this may be said of human things, its infallible.”
“Why, then,” he asks, “should the continued homoeopathic treatment of the non-venereal chronic diseases have been so unsuccessful? Why should Homoeopathy have failed in thousands of cases to cure thoroughly and forever such chronic ailments?”
For ten years he toiled night and day to discover the reason why the homoeopathic remedies, then known, did no effect a true cure of the above-named chronic diseases, before (fearing that his discoveries might die with him) he “communicated to two of his most deserving disciples, for their own benefit and that of their patients, the most important of his discoveries relative to the nature and treatment of CHRONIC DISEASES.”
He tells us (Org. Par. 77) that, by Chronic Diseases, he does not mean those from constant exposure to unavoidable noxious influences;-habitual indulgence in excess in eating and drinking :-the constant want of the necessaries of life :-unhealthy dwellings;-or those from want of fresh air and exercise;-from over-taxed mind and body;-from continued mortifications and troubles. “All these,” he says, “will vanish of their own accord under improved conditions… provided that there is no chronic miasm pervading the organism. They do not deserve the name of chronic diseases.”
For him,”True, natural Chronic Diseases are those which owe their origin to a chronic parasitic miasm or germ” (or, as we should say, a chronic parasitic micro-organism). He says, they constantly extend; and, not with-standing the most carefully regulated mental and bodily habits, they never cease to torment their victim with constantly-renewed suffering to the end of his life (if left to themselves without the aid of special remedies for their relief). These are.. the source of great sufferings to the human race. The most robust constitution, the best of habits, and the greatest energy of unaided vital force are unable to resist them.
“Hitherto only syphilis was known to some extent as one of these chronic miasmatic diseases, which, if left uncured, will become extinct only with life.
“Sycosis (the condylomatous disease) if left to itself uncured, is likewise inextinguishable by vital force, and was not hitherto recognised as an internal, chronic, miasmatic disease of a peculiar nature, as it undoubtedly is.”
I must leave to others, more learned in these things than myself, to determine what, exactly, Hahnemann meant by his SYCOSIS. It is his second chronic venereal parasitic disease, and he seems to connect it, rightly or wrongly, with excrescences on the genitalia, and with a “kind of Gonorrhoea wherein a fluid, looking like thick pus, comes out of the urethra.’
But Hahnemann found both syphilis and gonorrhoea easily curable, provided they were not complicated, with his third chronic disease, PSORA.
It may be noticed that Hahnemann’s PSORA stands-an Ogre, at the threshold of his Chronic Diseases, and has turned away many from the Temple of Healing.
But we will strive to push past and enter -if only tentatively and suggestively.
Of Hahnemann’s three named Chronic Diseases, his PSORA was for him,”the hydra-headed, most wide-reaching and difficult of all the chronic parasitic microbic diseases.” He calls it “the oldest, most universal and most pernicious chronic parasitical disease… an ancient, smouldering contagion… of incomparably greater significance than either of the above named chronic miasms” (Syphilis and Gonorrhoea).
Where Homoeopathy fails-DOES IT? Does Homoeopathy fails us, or do we fail Homoeopathy?
Probably we, all of us, limit ourselves to half-Homoeopathy, and therefore reap only half-results.
Hahnemann tells us that,
“Chronic diseases, only, are the test of the genuine healing art, because they do not of themselves pass into health.”
“Slight ailments that have come quickly, pass away with or without medicine-evidently by the inherent powers of the organism : though, with medicines, acute diseases must distinctly yield more quickly and permanently than when left to themselves, if what can be called a cure is accomplished.’
“Unless the physician imitates my method he cannot expect to solve the highest problem of medical science, that of curing those important chronic diseases, which have remained uncured until I discovered their true character and proper treatment.”
Their true character, according to him, being parasitic, and-unless homoeopathically cured-a life-sentence.
Realise, that Hahnemann’s greatest discovery was the power to cure those chronic diseases, incurable till he lived on earth and studied them for some ten years before he would whisper them even to his most confidential friends.
He tells us,’All chronic diseases-even those which are left to themselves without having been made worse by wrong treatment- are so inveterate immediately after they have become developed in the system, that unless they are thoroughly cured by art they continue to increase in intensity until the moment of death.
“They never disappear of themselves, not can they be diminished, much less conquered and extinguished, by the most vigorous constitution, or the most regular mode of life, and the strictest diet.”
Hahnemann’s CHRONIC DISEASES was a big pill to swallow for out predecessors, and this most important part of his teaching has not been insisted on :-has been almost ignored. I think not one of the great teachers since his day-even Burnett, who with his Vaccinosis came nearest to it, has grasped its true inwardness.
This is the gist of what Hahnemann has to teach us, and it can only now be fully appreciated.
“All chronic Diseases originate and are based on fixed chronic miasms, which enable their parasitical ramifications to spread through the human organism, and to grow without end.” (Chronic. Disease. 1.2.3).
“The chronic miasms are semi-vital morbid miasms of a parasitical nature, which can only be neutralised and annihilated by a more powerful remedy producing analogous effects.” (Ch.D.1.53.)
And he tells us that treatment must go on till the cure is complete, “for the least remains of a germ may eventually reproduce the full disease.”
Apply this to syphilis-or to gonorrhoea, and it sounds fearfully modern and up to date
Hahnemann was absolutely right about Syphilis and Gonorrhoea. Even in syphilis we are told, with Wassermann negative again and again, the organism may be found after death in heart and aorta.
And that he is correct in stating that Gonorrhoea is “a chronic parasitic disease, based on a fixed chronic micro- organism, whose parasitical ramifications spread through the human organism and grow without end,” I is evidenced by a case quoted by a Dr. Moreira-South America.
GONOCOCCAL ENDOCARDITIS:-M. Moreira relates the case of a man who in the course of two years after infection with gonorrhoea was under his care in hospital on three separate occasions. He was first admitted for gonococcal orchitis, afterwards for acute gonorrhoeal rheumatism, and the third time for endocarditis which assumed a malignant type and proved fatal. The gonococcus was obtained in pure strain from destructive lesions on the mitral valves. (Rio de Janeiro: La Sciencia Medica.)-From the Medical World, December 18th, 1931.
[The above report is extremely interesting as showing the progressive suppression into deeper and deeper tissues resulting from the ordinary treatment of gonorrhoea. External genitals-(>) testicles-(>) joints-(>) heart and death. -Ed., Homoeo. World, January 1,1932.]
The patient was admitted into Hospital for gonorrhoeal orchitis : later for acute gonorrhoeal rheumatism, and a third time for endocarditis which assumed a malignant type and proved fatal. “The gonococcus was obtained in pure strain from destructive lesions on the mitral valves”.
