No person who has studied and practised Homoeopathy has ever condemned it. This cannot be said about the allopathic doctors and their drugs. No man has been more bitter against Homoeopathy than the late Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Yet when speaking of his own allopathic medicines, he said: “If all medicines were to be thrown into the sea, it would be better for mankind and so much the worse for the fishes!.
Orthodox doctors always state that a diagnosis is absolutely necessary before one can write a prescription. But – spelled with a big “B”, what happens when you have made a “wrong diagnosis”? Does it not follow that every prescription based on a faulty diagnosis must be absolutely wrong, a very serious matter, when you are in the habit of prescribing strong drugs?.
The late Sir William Osler (Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University) said that “in forty -five per cent. of obscure cases it had been proved that the diagnosis had been wrong.” Further, Dr. Richard Cabot (Professor of Medicine at Harvard University) which is the head of all American Medical schools, has stated: “that in fifty-five per cent. of cases the diagnoses have been proved wrong on post-mortem findings (!) notwithstanding all the well-known instruments of precision!!!” If you average it that fifty per cent. of obscure cases (make it only of “obscure” cases for argument) are wrongly diagnosed, it follows that fifty per cent. of allopathic prescriptions must have been faulty or worse.
The Homoeopathic doctor always tries to diagnose every case. All British Homoeopaths were trained in the same medical schools as orthodox, before they were converted to Homoeopathy. Therefore they are as competent as the best allopaths. But every Homoeopathic prescription is based solely on the obvious SYMPTOMS of the moment and of every case.
The “obvious symptoms” are uttered by the patient, and they form four fifths of the collected knowledge of every case; they are the pains, sensations, etc., felt by the patient, and all these subjective symptoms could never have been known if but drug experiments had been conducted on animals.
By prescribing on personal symptoms, both those felt by the patient and to be seen by the doctor or attendant, one can be sure of an exact prescription, limited only by the personal equation of the prescriber. The Law of Similia is constant.
If one has to prescribe on mere “diagnosis” there is at once a fifty per cent. element of “guesswork” very often leading to spectacular and unnecessary operations.
It seems to me that I have been recently following some of this “pretty guessing” as reported in my daily London papers. First an appendix was taken away. On a cure not resulting, two other important organs were exercise. Still a cure not being apparent, yet another gland was “guessed at” and removed. I think that “guess” is not too strong a word to apply to the first two diagnoses arrived at.
A plain Homoeopath would have prescribed according to the Law of Similars at the first consultation, based on the exact symptoms provided by the patient and seen by the doctor, when any such patient might have escaped all three operations.
A child had most excruciating pains in and around one ear. The family doctor becoming thoroughly alarmed, because of the prominence of the family, called in two ear specialists, who did not take five minutes to decide that this was a clear cut case of mastoid infection. How could anyone in his senses mistake such signs?
As the consultation was late in the evening very hurried arrangements were made for an ambulance, with an accompanying surgical nurse, to arrive at the house before daylight, to take that “mastoid case” to a metropolitan hospital, when an “op” would be done before breakfast hour. There was no time to lose if the life of the patient was to be saved, as the pus might break into the brain cavity!.
After the specialists had departed, the despairing father, who had been raised on Homoeopathy, smuggled in a Homoeopathic doctor, blame him who dares, the upshot being the discovery of Kopliks spots on the inside of the cheeks (the ear specialists had never thought to open the mouth as the case was so marked), and a new diagnosis was made, it being measles, with a delayed appearance of rash, and covering all the symptoms of the case, a few doses of Pulsatilla were given by the father at ten minute intervals, the patient soon burst into a profuse sweat, the pain lessened, sleep followed, and the rash erupted profusely.
By midnight the ambulance and the “op” were countermanded by phone. By daylight the case was without local (ear) pain, and simple uncomplicated measles had developed.
“All an honest mistake in diagnosis” you will say, and I agree, but all told, how many such wrong “guesses” occur in the course of a year, when many operations have been done without reason, or wrong and futile drugs have been swallowed.
I have seen perfectly healthy and beautiful little appendixes wrongly taken out, when the only trouble was a right ovarian neuralgia or slight monthly congestion. Such ovarian pains are cured every day by Homoeopathic medicines such as Apis, Belladonna, Bryonia, Lachesis, Lilium tigrinum, Lycopodium or Palladium (the metal), the correct medicine to be selected on the peculiar personal symptoms of the patient at the moment.
The laity must see that “diagnosis as practised” is often of secondary importance. I know that the Law demands diagnoses in certain cases. The laity are more interested in a reasonably sure and safe cure. Your “Symptoms” to all Homoeopathic doctors are but expressions of Nature trying to work cure wards.
Taken together they are demanding a certain medical stimulus, and one only. This “Similar” Homoeopathic remedy stimulates Nature on exactly the same lines as your symptoms demand, in order to help cure wards. Never smother your warning “pain-signals” with opiates or other pain-killers!.
My dear allopathic brethren, I know that all your patients dont die on your hands, but you still lose about thirty per cent. of all classes of your pneumonia cases, whilst we Homoeopaths lose but about five per cent. of such cases (for full statistics see November, and December 1934 issues of “HEAL THYSELF”).
This is for our new readers. We know that many of your cases get well in spite of your drugs, taking an unnecessarily long time to convalesce; and a large percentage carry the effects of your strong drugs for many years, with established and so-called “chronic diseases” as sequelae. It may happen that some sickness in your own family will cause you to wish that you had studied our work long before. So study it at once.
