Now, morbid phenomena are deviations from healthy phenomena. How can we recognize the deviations unless we are familiar with the standard? How can we appreciate morbid phenomena save through a knowledge of Physiology, which is the science of healthy phenomena?
In like manner we are able to get a complete picture of the morbid symptoms only by an orderly methodical investigation; and such an investigation is possible to those alone who are familiar with the relations and sequences of morbid phenomena, that is to say, with Pathology. A simple reference to practical experience will prove this. A patient complains of pain in her left hypochondrium, distress and faintness in the epigastrium, vertigo and various symptoms of dyspepsia, but never thinks of mentioning-perhaps is unconscious of- certain evidences of uterine disease to which the attention of the physician is instantly directed through his knowledge of the connection and sequence of symptoms. So of the connection of certain forms of vomiting with disease of the brain or of the kidneys, etc., etc.
Clearly, then, Physiology and Pathology are quite indispensable to the physician, and they speak with little thought who affirm that these sciences are of no value to the Homoeopathist and are disregarded by him. They are the sciences respectively of healthy and morbid phenomena. He cannot take the first step in the study of disease or of Materia Medica save by their aid. But he restricts them to their legitimate function. Pathology is for him not a guide in Therapeutics, but an instrument which he uses in studying those phenomena which are to be respectively the subject and the agents of his therapeutics operations.
Having, by the aid of Pathology, arrived at a complete and comprehensive knowledge of the morbid phenomena, he passes on beyond the confines of that science to a higher and more complex science, whose domain is the relation of the phenomena of which he has thus acquired a knowledge, with other phenomena. Through Pathology he learns to know disease, but it is through Therapeutics alone that he can cure it. And it is quite time that it were well understood not only by the profession but also by the public, that to know the nature and course of a disease is not of necessity to know how to cure it. It may be a necessary preliminary step-but it is nothing more. Nor is this true of medicine alone. My carriage breaks down; I well known where it has broken and why and how; yet this knowledge does not involve the knowledge how to forge and weld the iron that has broken and so the mend it. For that I require knowledge of another sort. The nature of Pneumonia, of Cholera, or Rheumatism is as well known as those of any disease can be; “their Pathology,” as doctors say, “is well understood,” yet this gives no clue to their therapeutics treatment, it is no guide to the special stimulus which must be brought to bear on the diseased organs to lead them back to healthy action. This stimulus must be discovered by quite another method; its discovery is the object of a distinct process.
Thus Pathology, restricted to its proper sphere, is an indispensable auxiliary to the study of the subject to Therapeutics. Its may be further subservient in enabling the physician to group the symptoms of a case in such a way as more readily to marshal and retain them in memory. Nor is generalization of this kind at all repugnant to the letter or spirit of Hahnemann’s method or of homoeopathic science.
The generalization to which Hahnemann objects was to that of disease in general upon nosological hypotheses made on theoretical grounds, and then applied a priori to individual cases. That to which we refer is a generalization made specially in each case, consisting of grouping of connected symptoms under one general term and extending only to such pathological states as are well defined and constant, such, for example, as Anaemia, Plethora, the proportion between the affections of different parts of the nervous systems, etc., under which we may group a number of generic symptoms to the great relief of our memory, while at the same time the individual or characteristic symptoms are not only not obscured by the process but are even brought more sharply into view, as will be evident when we consider this matter more at length under the head of the Study of the Materia Medica.
Dr. Dunham graduated from Columbia University with Honours in 1847. In 1850 he received M.D. degree at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. While in Dublin, he received a dissecting wound that nearly killed him, but with the aid of homoeopathy he cured himself with Lachesis. He visited various homoeopathic hospitals in Europe and then went to Munster where he stayed with Dr. Boenninghausen and studied the methods of that great master. His works include 'Lectures on Materia Medica' and 'Homoeopathy - Science of Therapeutics'.