When I considered all this I could not help feeling that Homoeopathy scores because it is a system which assists the body in keeping with its own laws and reactions, guided by symptoms, without causing drug saturation or poisoning of the blood or tissues even in the smallest degree. Coupled with this, detoxication must on the contrary ever remain the sine qua non in treating any diseased condition, especially the so-called “chronic” maladies.
As a descendant of the sturdy Afrikaans Voortrekkers (Dutch Pioneers) I have seen a great deal of the homoeopathic form of treatment amongst the Afrikander people in the Union of South Africa. Even during the Anglo-Boer War in 1899-1902 homoeopathic outfits were practically the only medicaments which our forefathers used. The strong and sturdy physique of our young people to-day, who were then babies in arms, are perhaps practical testimony to Hahnemanns form of treatment.
My aim is not indiscriminate destructive condemnation of every form of allopathic treatment, especially not surgery and substitution therapy, where absolutely necessary. On the contrary every aspect of rationality in any form of treatment is thoroughly appreciated.
Homoeopathic treatment may yet be much more generally acclaimed. Dr. Helmuth Husseryl, a medical man from Vienna, who is considered internationally famous is now in this country and declared in an interview “Scientific medicine, which has often become too academical has recently been given new and powerful impulses by medical outsiders (sic). To-day one hears of nature healing, treatment by laymen, vegetable healing, subjection to different forms of diet (raw food, saltless, vegetarian, fasting etc.) . . . and Homoeopathy.
It is wonderful how many cures are brought about by these methods (which I regard as crystallized common sense) especially in those cases where academical medicine is at a loss real wonder cures which can in no way be explained by the so popular suggestion.” He further refers to the forgotten giants of medical history as ” the neglected Bachs, Mozarts, Haydns and Beethovens of the art of healing, which are now again influencing modern medicine” (Vide The Forum South Africa, August 8th, 1938. Published by Central News Agency, Johannesburg, S.A.).
In conversation with an allopath recently I twitted him by referring to the specialization craze, that it seems as if a specialist is a person who studies more and more about less and less until he knows nothing about anything. He attempted to turn the tables on me by saying that that was exactly what Homoeopathy is. My reply on the contrary was that a homoeopath learns more and more to use less and less, so that he saturates nobody.
Unfortunately Homoeopathy is still largely regarded here as a cult or ideology. That this opinion is prevalent was also the opinion of the late Dr. Robert H. Fallon of Cape Town, who rendered yeoman service in the cause of this art. This veteran homoeopath who had about fifty years experience used to exhort in effect “Dont wait to label or christen the disease, commence treating immediately after carefully considering the whole of the symptom-complex”.
After having explored practically every avenue of various fields of medicine and allied subjects scientifically and in a common- sense manner the law “Similia similibus curantur” seems to me to be a keystone in the structure of the healing art.
