Every individual has a right to be what he desires to be, above all to be happy. Why is it that so few of us find happiness? Because we reach out for unessentials. There are so many wishes to be satisfied of which few are of moment. If the great desideratum is kept before us, which is to realize the importance of the general good to mankind, and work for this assiduously, with all our hearts and minds, happiness must be ours. Seek for the kingdom to come and all else will be added thereto.
Philosophy and Mathematics. Philosophy has not been without its uses. In the periods when skepticism became the rule and the silliest incredulity prevailed among so-called thinkers who imagined that a doubting mind was in reason, seekers after truth learned, or at least should have learned what measure of truth is contained in the following formula: It is against reason to deny or to pronounce false any affirmation without sufficient proof; it is intellectual weakness to be satisfied with weak proofs; it is plebeian to agree with public opinion when this is carried away by unreason and credibility; in short it is unscientific to declare anything to be false without having put it to the test of strictest experimentation. In a second period, the opposite course prevailed. Many theories were advanced and postulated as truths in natural science, which were accepted and believed without sufficient, which were accepted and believed without sufficient investigation or guarantee that things were as represented. From this the following formula is proposed: It is rational to accept as truths only such as have been subjected to the severest tests and strictest investigation the subject will allow.
In accomplish with life, which is fluctuating, we have the swinging of the pendulum back and forth, in matters of science. The later proposition is the one which should be adopted by the masses. Both the microscope and chemistry have come to judgment, and rightly. There are, however, here as elsewhere, misleading possibilities, which an application of our first formula might prevent. Let us take time to think, and examine, before we take sides.
There are still many among the admirers of the exact method of investigation who lean to the opposite side, which rejects new discoveries before these have had time to ripen and to be confirmed. These come under the head of our first proposition. The tendency to ignore new discoveries is often due to the air of importance men give themselves-the know it all’ kind-who think it clever to reject anything not tried by themselves.
The great progress made in the domain of the natural sciences we owe to the newer methods of observation, which have been more strict, exact, reliable and definite. All of this we owe to mathematics. Philosophy has often proved misleading, mathematics has never failed unless improperly applied. In philosophy one error has constantly taken the place of another, whereas in mathematics, correctly applied, error is impossible. Materia Medica.
A knowledge of drugs is an entirely different field from Physiology and Pathology. We can never cure disease, only sick individuals, for we have nothing to do with abstract things, but solely with individuals. We must individualize cases as well as suffering individuals, likewise the drugs to be applied. Pathological phenomena have an altogether different value and importance in the scheme of posology (dosage) of our day; as also in Materia Medica as effects from drugs. Pathology may be of some use in the study of our Materia Medica, but less so than Physiology. Of paramount importance is that which we can neither explain nor understand under the terms of physiology or pathology, viz, : Mental states and conditions.
Symptomatology. We have comparative arrangements of Symptoms of each particular drug, called comparative Materia Medica. Essential symptoms. Differential symptoms.
Prophylactics. Curatives. 1. Lemon juice intensifies the action of Belladonna and increase its curative effect. 2. Charcoal will prevent yellow fever; given in potency it will cure it. 3. Tellurium given chemically, in tolerable quantities will destroy trichinae. 4. Radiate heat will destroy the poison of serpents and rabies. 5. Cyanide of potassium, a normal constituent of human saliva, is an antidote to smallpox. A mild solution of it is to be used on cloths hung in the sickroom. A remedy is Sinapis nigra. 6. As a preventive, ozonized oil of turpentine is advised in African fevers (Malarial); a drop daily on a lump of sugar; also Terebinth as a remedy in potency. 7. Lac Sulphur, a pinch of it placed daily in each stocking will keep off cholera. Sulphur, in potency, is a remedy.
Memory. It has been observed that old people who have completely forgotten their mother tongue while using a foreign language exclusively through middle life, have recovered the use of their mother tongue, possibly a dialect in extreme old age, while foreign language have completely vanished from their memories,’
Blindness. Psora. Might not many who are born blind or deaf, though in good health, or possibly tainted from suppressed psora have their sight and hearing restored by homoeopathic treatment? Observations of this kind, made by an intelligent physician, would be of great interest, not alone on account of the relief to be given, but the discovery of characteristic symptoms of the remedies employed.
Birthmarks. Has there ever been a case reported of a cure of a birthmark with an antipsoric remedy? (See Guiding Symptoms, Fluoric acid and Calcarea fluorica). I know an epileptic who has premonition of coming attacks by a change of color in a birthmark.
Lycopodium. Wine. Sulphur. Lycopodium is frequently used as an agent in the adulteration of wines. Probably the shaking of the bottles develops dynamic forces in the wine, as is the case with sulphur in alcohol. When wine, thus treated, is used as a common beverage, it would be useless to expect results from prescribing the Lycopodium in potency, and in reverse order, when Lycopodium fails to act when indicated, the reason may be that wine so adulterated is being used by the patient.
Vintners in all countries give their casks a yearly cleaning with sulphur. This cannot materially affect the wine if it is put through the process of fermentation a second time, for this will rid it of the medicinal effects of the sulphur, which might act injuriously in wine not so treated. Sulphur, if dissolved in water, will impart to it a medicinal quality. If sulphur be poured over a red hot iron into water it forms a precipitate containing iron, and the water will be strongly medicinal. This preparation will help serious cases of diarrhoea and dysenteries. I have made use of it, several times, with the best results in cases of the kind in animals.
Clinical Experience. An ideal homoeopathic cure, made according to rule, should exhibit the following characteristics: 1. Limitation of the usual course of the disease to a shorter space of time. 2. Perceptible moderation, or total prevention of pathological products, without arriving at what is usually understood by a crisis. 3. Rapid recuperation of strength and bodily vigor: marked shortening of the period of convalescence. 4. Removal of a tendency to recurrence of the disease, prophylaxis against relapses, even where exciting causes are unavoidable. 5. Improvement in the mental condition of the patient, apparent to the skilled observer from the moment he enters the sick room, by the attitude and demeanor of his patient.
Music. Fairy Tales. In my younger days, I was passionately fond of music and the theatre, and wrote several opera texts and fairy stories. Among the former were Der Arme Heinrich (Poor Henry) which I submitted to the great musician Spohr with whom, however, I could not come to an agreement over details. Also Der Wassermann, a grand opera text in three acts, elaborated according to Eichendorf, German poet, dramatist, and novelist. The hero is a water god, the heroine a peasant girl wooed by a young nobleman from a castle nearby. The chorus is composed of water-sprites and of love with the beautiful peasant girl who comes to the beach to commune with her ideal lover, a young Neptune.
Titles of fairy stories are Peter Mertens, a shepherd, who sees beautiful maidens descending from the clouds on a sunbeam with buckets to fill and carry aloft; the other Doctor Ameise (Doctor Ant) is a romantic story of a father, his daughter and a young enthusiastic lover who listens to the whisperings of angles.
Apparently the writings, though interesting, were too idealistic even for an age in which poetry of a sentimental kind flourished. The writer had his reward in the pleasure it gave him to write as his fancy dictated. What he wrote came from a ready pen, in the best of German diction, and was read with loving interest by his family and intimate friends. Only one of his productions, a short novel, was printed, but, as he was wont to express himself in later life, went for waste paper. While at this period of his life he had a strong inclination to adopt literature as a profession, he was providentially moved to vary his course and devote his talents to medical authorship in the service of Hahnemann and homoeopathy.
In 1878 and 1879 he published 2 editions of his book, Sunstroke and Its Homeopathic Treatment.
Upon Hering's death in 1880 Knerr became responsible for the completion of the 10-volume Guiding Symptoms.
Dr. Knerr wrote 2-volume Repertory to the Guiding Symptoms,