Chowdhuri S M
Ex – member of Homoeopathic State Faculty of Bengal.
(Published in “The Homoeopathic Recorder, July 1254, Vol.LXX No.1.
When I studied and completed the course of Ayurved (India medical system) a friend of mine gave me a copy of Dr. J.T. Kents Philosophy on Homoeopathy. This book gave me much interest and a new idea about diseases. Then I restudied Dr. Samuel Hahnemanns Organon and was converted to Homoeopathy and read the complete course of the Homoeopathic science. As a Hahnemannian Homoeopath, I am in the habit of recording every case from the beginning of my practice from 1932 and follow the principles of Homoeopathy strictly.
In a few years of my practice, I found that I cannot cure some cases with my knowledge of materia medica. I took the help of Dr. Kents Repertory for the selection of proper remedy and consulted senior physicians and prominent Homoeopaths of Bengal. Yet some cases were not cured though those where curable cases. This led me to re – study the science.
After formulating the law of similars and practising a few years DR. Samuel Hahnemann also found that he could not cure some cases permanently. So he worked hard for 12 years to find out the cause of it. At last he found out the cause of it. At last he found out that psora is the root cause of all these diseases and two alien diseases syphilis and gonorrhoea in secondary state mixed with psora forms syphilitic and sycotic miasms respectively.
He, then, classified the drugs according to the different miasms and advised us to administer one of the antimiasmatic medicines according to the signs and symptoms of miasm in the patients when the well selected medicine does not work. Thus in the case of psoric patient to administer sulphur when the well selected remedy does not work is his advice. If we fail even after following his advice, we have nothing to do. One cannot remain satisfied with this helpless condition. So I tried to study the science minutely again.
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann writes in his Organon 130.
“If, at the very commencement, the first dose administered shall be sufficiently strong this advantage is gained that the experimenter learns the order of succession of symptoms and can note down accurately the period at which each occurs which is very useful in leading to a knowledge of the genius of medicine, for then the order of the primary action as also that of the alternate actions is observed in the most unambiguous manner.
A very moderate dose, often, suffices for the experiment, provided the experimenter is endowed with sufficiently delicate sensitiveness and is very attentive to his sensations. The duration of the action of a drug can only be ascertained by a comparison of several experiments.”
Here, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann has given much stress on the importance of the order of succession of symptoms and also declared that it is essential for the proper knowledge of the drug.
Again Dr. Hahnemann writes in the articles 131 of Organon”, If however, in order to ascertain anything at all, the same medicine must be given to the same person to test for several successive days in ever – increasing doses, we thereby learn, no doubt, the various morbid states this medicine is capable of producing in a general manner but we do not ascertain the order of succession, and the subsequent dose often removes curatively, some one or other of the symptoms caused by the previous dose or develops in its stead an opposite state, such symptoms should be enclosed in the brackets to mark their ambiguity, until subsequent purer experiments show whether they are the reaction of the organism and secondary action or an alternate action of this medicine.”
Here Dr. Hahnemann advised us not to rely on the symptoms only and to wait until we observe the order of succession of symptoms in the subsequent purer experiment for the proper knowledge of the drug. But in materia medica, there are masses of symptoms but no order of succession of symptoms.
Dr. J.T. Kent in his “Lesser writing” advises, “The artists studies his model until he feels the lines and shadows in his mind, sees the image on canvas or curves in stone. He builds a model or carves in granite the similars. The student of our materia medica must study a proving until he feels the image of the totality of such feeling of all his provers as if had proved the remedy and felt all the morbid feeling of provers. The doctor that prescribes for symptoms as they took on paper fails to feel the weight of responsibilities of true healer” (Kents lesser writing, Page 431).
Dr. Kent advised us to study the proving to conceive picture of the disease accurately. To prescribe medicine only on the basis of the symptom without the image of the diseases is not the work of the true physician.
I, then procured the “cyclopaedia of Drug Pathogenesy” in 1937 A.D. and began to study the proving of the drug. Here I first observed the real image of the artificial diseases produced by drug. There is an order of succession of symptoms in each drug similar to natural disease. One proving of Arsenic is quoted here. “A large numbers of persons were poisoned at St. Denis by eating bread containing Arsenic, Dr. Feltz had eighty cases under his care, They presented similar symptoms.
Vomiting occurred in 1 to 4 hours after eating, several had diarrhoea at the same time. There were burning pains in the throat behind the sternum and in the epigastrium. On the third day these symptoms abated and were followed by swelling of the face in some, and in others there developed eruption like urticaria. In two women the eruption was of this character. One had herpes labialis; those who had no eruption suffered from intense itching of the skin; in eight of these was at the same time visual disorders, these symptoms continued until the eighth day when the skin affection abated. After that they complained of muscular weakness and debility to an extreme degree”.
In these case firstly they suffered from the disorder of digestive system; secondly from the disorder of a skin sensory function; thirdly from the disorder of motor function.
Thus the order of succession of symptoms – I Nutritive function; II, Skin and sensory function; III. Motor function etc.
By carefully studying the proving of the drug, it is observed that every drug shows the order of succession of symptoms in a definite way.
Dr. Herings law of cure draws my attention about the nature of diseases. He formulated his famous law of cure – “Diseases will be cure in reverses order of their appearance.” This law has been verified by thousands of Homoeopaths all over the world. For more than hundred years, Homoeopaths have observed that whenever the cure of the disease starts, the last symptoms goes first and the other symptoms disappear in reverse order of their appearance.
Dr. Hahnemann, the founder of Homoeopathy, observed in his “Chronic disease” that when a disease begins to cure that last symptom goes first and first symptom in the case of the suppression of skin disease reappears and then disappears. It is a practical fact and truth and there is no controversy about it. Then its reverse must also be true i.e. Every disease has an order of succession of symptoms.
When any intelligent person whether a physician or a layman observes the development of a disease always finds that every disease progresses by deranging one after another function of the patient in a definite order.
Dr. Hahnemann was an allopath and knew well the symptom of the malarial fever and also might have cured many cases of the malaria fever with cinchona bark but it was not known why cinchona bark cures the malarial fever. To find out the cause he proved cinchona bark on himself.
He write “I took several doses of good bark, twice a day. My fingers and other parts became cold and I felt tired and sleep; I got a great uneasiness, a trembling but without rigor, a weariness in all my limbs, then a beating in my head, redness of cheeks and thirst. In short all the symptoms which I had seen in ague appeared one after another yet without any actual chill or rigor. The paroxysms lasted two or three hours and repeated themselves whenever I had a new dose, but not otherwise” (Hahnemanns note in translation of Cullens Materia Medica.)
What did Dr. Hahnemann observe from the proving of the cinchona bark? Firstly he observed that the drug when taken in the healthy condition would produce symptoms like a disease and there is an order of succession of symptoms. What did he observe more specially in the cinchona bark? He observed that the cinchona could produce symptoms in the similar order as was observed in the ague.
What is the cause of the cure of the malaria fever by the cinchona bark? It may be either (i) The similarity in order to succession of symptoms or (ii) The similarity in the totality of symptoms (147 of Organon) or (ii) The similarity in the more striking, singular uncommon and peculiar symptom (153 of Organon). One of these alternatives must be true.
After proving many drugs on himself and conducting proving on others the began to treat patients with proved drugs and cured them. After a few years of practice, he formulated a law known as the law of similars. “A weaker dynamic affection is permanently extinguished in the living organism by a stronger one, if the latter (whilst differing in kind) is very similar to the former in its manifestation (26 of organon.)
This law emphasises that the similarity in the manifestation of the diseases and drug is essential for the cure of the patient and drug must be more powerful than the disease. Every dynamic manifests itself in the order of succession of symptoms. So similarity in manifestation means similarity in the order of succession of symptoms.
Dr. Hahnemann and his disciples accepted the interpretation of the law of similars as the similarity in the totality of the symptoms and afterwards similarity in more striking, singular, uncommon and peculiar signs and symptoms. (147 & 151 Organon).
While reading the proving of drug I find the picture of the artificial diseases. Dr. Hahnemanns remark in his proving on cinchona bark. In short, all the symptoms which I had seen in ague appeared one after another, gave me the impression that the real interpretation of the law of similars may be the similarity in the order of succession of symptoms.
To examine the validity of my interpretation of law of similars of the many cases in which I failed to cure the patient before, I have begun to record the cases again by taking the order of succession of symptoms, and applied a drug which had shown similar order of succession of symptoms in the proving. Some of these cases have been cured by applying medicines on this interpretation. I have been administering medicine on this method since 1939 A.D. where the previous method fails.
