PARKERSBURG, W. VA.
DISCUSSION
Dr. Donald Macfarlan: We ought to have a philosophy in life, and in medical life,
especially. The three principal things, you might say the trinity, which are most valuable
in homeopathy are the law of cure, in a single remedy, in a minimum dose; and that is just
how Hahnemann developed this system. First dawned upon him the law of cure, and then
in order to expedite cure, and in order to avoid aggravation, he got the minimum dose.
Those three, things have to enter into every correct homoeopathic prescription. They
are inseparable. Associated with them is the frequency of repetition. I believe that the
only way you can skilfully adapt yourself to proper repetitions is through provings,
because you have your hand in making well people sick and, conversely, making sick
people well.
The first thing that enters my mind when I see a sick person is this: What remedy
which you have proven would make this fellow look like that? And, if it occurs to my
mind, say that he needs Phosphorus, I give him Phosphorus.
Dr. Grimmer: Dr. Boger always gives us a splendid paper and this is an
exceptionally good one, even for Dr. Boger. It really is a textbook in a way. He has shown
us the fundamentals, the things that are so essential to keep in mind; first of all, the correct
taking of the case; second, the evaluation of the symptoms—don’t forget that. You can
have pages and pages of symptoms and have no case, and other doctors can give you
three, or four, or five symptoms, and you have the picture of your remedy. That comes
from_ the art of evaluation of symptoms, knowing the symptoms that are really symptoms
of that sick patient, separated from the symptoms of disease, the pathologica1 symptoms,
the symptoms that come as diagnostic indication. They are not so valuable. Many times
they are almost valueless as far as prescribing goes.
Dr. Boger has gone further. He has shown the relationship of these finer forces. It is
the study of these finer forces and their origin that is going to make homeopathy accepted,
and science is beginning-at least the progressive portion of science, consisting of the great
physicists of the time-to pay attention to these very forces.
They have got so far beyond the ordinary sciences that they acknowledge that they
cannot prove some of the propositions. Compton has said that we have to accept some of
this phenomena on faith as it were. He has got beyond the idea of an automatic universe,
not that he can prove from reasoning altogether, but from the higher perception, the kind
of perception that Hahnemann had. He knows there is something beyond all these
material things we see around us, and that is what homeopathy is. It reaches up into other
planes. It reaches up into the mental state, even into the spiritual side of life, and that is
why homeopathy is vital. That is why it cures. That is why it can wipe out inherited
conditions.
Did you ever stop to think why a homoeopathic potency is especially adapted to wipe
out inherited traits? We are told by scientists that a little grain of a cell, among the finest
of ultra-microscopic cells, carries all the germs and the chromosomes of the past. Nothing
can touch that but the homoeopathic remedy, and that is why we can prove it
scientifically.
Dr. Alfred Pulford: The whole thing devolves upon two propositions, the taking of
the case, which is the primary thing, and the next thing devolves on the primary action of
the drug upon the human being.
I have possibly the most complete card repertory that there is in existence, but I have
never used it. Just lately I took three cases and, if I had not been well acquainted with the
primary action of the drug on the individual, I would have spent ample time and possibly
lost the case, but, as it was, the case as taken brought out the indication of the remedy so
plainly that within a moment of taking the case, I had the remedy, gave it in the 1000th
potency, and never had to repeat the dose.
Dr. Bryant: This is one of the papers I came three thousand miles to heat. I don’t
think Dr. Boger rearizes that in the Far West he has many friends and many admirers; in
fact, it is this International Hahnemannian Association that really keeps us men in the Far
West interested and stimulated and inspired.
I have had the pleasure of coming into homeopathy by true apostolic succession. I was
a “regular” and met with Dr. Walter James; I saw him pull my wife out of the grave when
it seemed that nothing more could be done, and then when I knew what it was really all
about, I realised that Walter James had been associated with Adolph Lippe for seventeen
years, and Adolph Lippe was a pupil of Samuel Hahnemann, and I am a pupil of Walter
James: therefore the apostolic succession.
Here is what I want to tell you that Walter James explained to me as having been
handed down by Adolph Lippe, and as now again explained by Dr. Boger: The length of
action of remedies and how we can persuade patients or enable patients to help us know
when the remedy has actually acted itself out and this was the diagram he gave me, and it
is so indelibly impressed on my mind that I thought probably it would be of some use to
you.
First he drew two lines (using the blackboard), this line up here representing health,
and this line disease. It was very difficult for Dr. James to get to me the fact that a remedy
of high dilution can act a long time, and in order to fasten this in my mind, he made this
diagram. Here is your patient here. Now, suppose you are using the 30th potency, he says
if the remedy is properly selected, the patient immediately begins to feel better, which
means he rises toward health. He calls that period the period of primary amelioration.
Perhaps you all know this.
Dr. Grimmer: It won’t hurt us to have a repetition.
Dr. Bryant: Then he explained to me how nature steps in and causes reaction to cure,
and then this takes the downward turn, the period of aggravation; according to the potency
you have, of course, these lines are long or short, but anyway, whatever the patient has
gained here, he is sure to come back to, or he is going to die. If he cannot rise from the
period of aggravation you have a hopeless case, and that is one of the ways in which you
can gauge prognosis.
Then he travels along here until he goes through the same cycle again.
I have used this with patients right along, who did not understand homeopathy, and
didn’t know what I was talking about. They say, “Dr. Bryant, I can’t take the medicine,
because I feel very much worse.” But, if I take the time to explain to them the periods of
action and reaction, they understand that.
I have always kept that diagram and have had many patients I have been able to hold
where otherwise I would not have been able to do that.
Dr. Boger: I think the discussion is worth more than the paper. I frequently tell my
family that you never can see the end of a false action. The ultimate end of a false action
can never be seen.
Dr. Bryant has told us about Walter James. He didn’t know that I knew Walter James
very well. Walter James and I were great friends for a while, up to the time I left
Philadelphia, and all that he says about Walter James and Dr. Lippe is true, and how much
I got through Walter James and Dr. Lippe and he from Hahnemann direct, I leave for you
to guess.
This action and reaction coincides exactly with my experience, that wave of action
and reaction, and most aggravations come from the fourth to the sixth day after giving a
remedy, sometimes the seventh day, and, as Dr. Bryant has pointed out to you, it depends
on how deep the patient goes down in the aggravation whether he is ever going to come
back again. Why is that? That depends on the amount of stored energy he holds. If he
doesn’t have stored energy enough to come back, he never can come back, and every good
homeopathist has been guilty of killing patients right at that point. I don’t make any
exception at all. Every good homoeopathic physician has been guilty of killing patients
right there. He has caused a reaction which destroyed the patient. I have seen it.
What are you going to do about this thing?
There is one very good point that has been handed to us by. Hahnemann. Where you
are suspicious that the action of the patient’s stored vitality cannot sustain the shock, give
the remedy by olfaction; that is good practice, and you will get reaction, but much less
violent. I know that from actual experience, and you will bring out things that you can’t
get otherwise, and you won’t cause such a terrible drain on the patient.
Dr Stevens: You mean in the first place give it by olfaction?
Dr. Boger: Yes, the first thing.
One of the commentators intimated non-action, when you don’t get action from
remedies, and there seems to be no response at all. Non-action simply means you haven’t
touched the cord of harmony; that is all it means, and you always have behind that the
remedies which bring up reaction, such as Psorinum, Sulphur, and so forth. You can’t get
well without reaction, without re-establishing harmony. That holds good in the physica1
world and in the mental world.
Born in Western Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He moved to Parkersburg, W. Va., in 1888, practicing there, but also consulting worldwide. He gave lectures at the Pulte Medical College in Cincinnati and taught philosophy, materia medica, and repertory at the American Foundation for Homoeopathy Postgraduate School. Boger brought BÅ“nninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory into the English Language in 1905. His publications include :
Boenninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory
Boenninghausen's Antipsorics
Boger's Diphtheria, (The Homoeopathic Therapeutics of)
A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915
General Analysis with Card Index, 1931
Samarskite-A Proving
The Times Which Characterize the Appearance and Aggravation of the Symptoms and their Remedies