During the historical period man has slowly evolved, at a fearful cost, from the intuitive state into one largely based upon a knowledge of the laws of nature. In doing this he has hedged about his own natural freedom on all sides, building up what he calls culture, an artificial thing that materialises his thoughts and finally disintegrates his soul. He builds for himself big cities, lives in close quarters and pampers or abuses his appetites and body. When the inevitable result follows his materialised mind falls down before the fetish of material medicine in the hope that his inherent vitality will carry him safely past the danger point. It is moreover a philosophy not always confined to the laity.
Health, the result of natural living, is almost unknown, because our ignorance and the maddening pace at which we move along is depleting our vitality and reducing the average capability for the larger things of life. By the constant pursuit of the smallest things man’s mind is being dwarfed and his vision is becoming myopic. His sense of general perspective is leaving him and he is rapidly losing his bearings amidst the myriads of minutia daily forced upon his attention.
The great weakness in our educational scheme is that we continually hammer into the student the material view of things; then we wonder that so few of our students finally reach real light. We make moles of them and then throw them upon a world of noonday glaring light. Only one result is possible; failure in ability to cure, and the encouragement for those drugless cults which depend almost exclusively upon the blind recuperative powers of nature. Severely handicapped as these are, they should give the heavy drugger and the nihilist alike food for reflection. The former abuses the already sickened economy, while the latter throws it back unguided upon its own resources. Neither is capable of restoring the natural harmonious equilibrium which belongs to every living thing. This is one of the reasons why specialists and tinkering doctors increase. All of them would like to be known as physicians, but their grounding is such that the few who do venture into the field of general practice rarely become real healers of the sick, except by inadvertence.
In proportion as simplicity develops out of complexity so does efficiency increase, and if we wish to cure safely, effectually and permanently we must be able to grasp the law of cure in a rational and easily understood way; which means that as long as our bodies retain their natural equilibrium, each living cell must of necessity cast out a certain amount of detritus, which cannot be abnormally retained or artificially suppressed unless we wish trouble to. follow. Such secretions are often far from pleasant or convenient. Foul foot or axillary sweats, fetid menses, abnormal discharges and secretions, etc., all belong to this category and must be corrected constitutionally if we wish to cure. The far-reaching effect of autogenous poisoning is but partially grasped, if we are to judge physicians by their daily work. Efforts at elimination are made, of course, but they are crude in the extreme, purging being the commonest instance of how it is at-tempted.
No man who reasons in this way can be a real Homeopath. Do we not see crises precipitated every day by the action of the similimum, when nature demands them in order to establish recovery? Do we not likewise see a re-established equilibrium of nervous energy, when the homeopathic remedy assuages pain? And are there not countless other daily confirmations of the law, which says that all cures proceed from within outwardly, from above downward and in the reverse order of the coming of the symptoms? In other words all cures proceed from the soul through the spiritual body and finally manifest themselves in the physical body. It cannot be, therefore is not otherwise.
The distressed vital force or spiritual body responds to our treatment as best it can, while still endeavouring to hold the physical body in harmonious equilibrium, but when our efforts are crude, inappropriate or suppressive it does the best within its power to still keep the physical body in order. If our efforts are too violent or strongly suppressive it takes refuge in side stepping or diversions in order to turn aside the force of our misplaced efforts and still preserve some semblance of physical integrity. These are the deceptive pathological effects that Hahnemann points out in paragraph 74 of the Organon.
Absolute cure means the establishment and maintenance of mental and physical harmony. Admittedly our recoveries don’t have the highest percentage of such cures to their credit, for the number of times the physician sees the whole picture, mental as well as physical, is not very large, but when he possesses acumen enough to elicit both of these phases in sickness the reward always far exceeds his fondest expectations.
It is a thing to be proud of that Homeopathy makes the essential factors of the cure revolve around the mental manifestations for in them are reflected, as well as out of them come all physical acts, and by acts we get the clearest and most intimate view of what is going on in the mind. In this same category come hallucinations and dreams; if we but know how to interpret them. Both are subconscious thoughts brought to the surface. Lately, in a case of acute mania the patient saw numberless babies, which enabled the prescriber to easily trace a sexual connection in the symptoms bringing out Phosphorus as the remedy, resulting in one of the most brilliant cures I have ever witnessed.
Of the numbers that yearly struggle over the artificial barriers which have been erected about the medical profession precious few finally grasp the real meaning of the healing art. Students are drilled in large classes, taught to look upon disease in the mass and overimpressed with the importance of demonstrable phenomena; thus creating a great gulf between objective and subjective morbid states, when in reality the two are almost invariably conjoined.
It is the duty of the physician to not only find the foci of disease but also to go far beyond, if he wishes to comprehend and cure sickness in its totality. If man is the most tangible expression of his ego, is it not better to get a glimpse of his real self, than to be continually stumbling about amidst the rocks of morbid matter? It is here that we will soon come to see that he is a visible manifestation of the great primordial force which pulsates throughout the whole universe and only as he lives in full conformity with nature’s harmony will he unfold and become healthy. Hahnemann and the early fathers were really constructive builders who accomplished their object by hard work and were by that sign called geniuses, and he who would know the kernel of the homeopathic or natural law of cure must not only learn what they teach, but he must also make the experiment for himself. To do this efficiently he had better read Burnett’s “Fifty Reasons,” Wheeler’s “The Case of Homeopathy,” Nash’s “Leaders,” Farrington’s “Lectures,” the “Organon” and Kent’s “Lectures” which will carry him to the experimental stage when he will need Jahr ‘s “Forty Years’ Practice,” Boenninghausen’s “Characteristics and Repertory,” the “Synoptic Key” and Hahnemann’s and Allen’s Materia Medica’s for constant reference.
His practical work, guided by these books, will inevitably lead him to getting better and better results. Disease will become to him a phase of nature’s way of throwing off those hostile forces which must always remain powerless as long as he retains his quota of vitality.
The things which we use to amuse depressed vital action are homeopathic when they accomplish the cure with rapidity, safety and certainty. To do this in such a manner necessitates similitude. All other methods are in the nature of crude bungling by comparison.
As may be guessed from the above I don’t have much patience with heterogeneous practices, misnamed homeopathic. They confuse the prescriber and mislead the patient, who only too often becomes the martyr of ignorance, laziness or hurry. I tell you our profession above all others needs men who are not afraid of taking time enough to think out the problems which daily confront them, men whose judgement is mature, and who will not be swayed too much or overpersuaded by diagnosis, by pathology or surgery. Men who have the vision to see that only one thing cures or can cure, that is the similimum. Let no one persuade himself that he has seen a cure, until the whole system has been restored to harmonious action; a state in which the sufferer again feels it a joy to live and go forward fulfilling his divine destiny.
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