LIMITS AND POSSIBILITIES OF HOMOEOPATHY IN BIOLOGY & MENTAL DISEASES by Dr. FORTIER BERNOVILLE
Whatever we may say about the Hahnemannian method of treatment we must admit that only by this method of treatment we cannot cover the whole field of morbid conditions. Dr. Bernoville has very clearly shown in these two articles what are the limits and possibilities of Homoeopathy or the law of Similitude and its corollary the use of micro-dose.
The fact remains true that since about sixty years medicine has gone through a deep and important evolution. Mechanistic and materialistic view about therapeutics have now become bankrupt. It has not been able to reach its goal.
The theory of Pasteur has received a rude blow. The microbian specificity is exploded out of the field of individual therapeutics. The idea of immunity that this theory preached has been proved to be wrong in consideration of the variation of individual receptivity. The genesis and evolution of diseases have been proved more important than the presence of microbes. The ground has become much more important. It has become necessary to rehabilitate the individuality of the organism and its dynamism with the many unknown factors. It has become necessary to fall back on the vital force and give it a place in the pathological phenomena, relating to many organs, to every function, including the mind.
After the last great war the individual life has become so much complex that individual life has become almost out of gear. Ambulatory sedentarism, speed, paradox of pleasure etc. have made the human organism pathological, as regards the body and the mind.
In modern therapeutics the mind has become much more important in the pathological field of diseases. As a result numerous cases of obvious diagnosis cannot be easily cured without the basis of mental pathology. Numerous diseases are now subconsciously created by the individual according to his own advantage on the different parts of the organism and on different organs.
As for example the right hand of an individual may become paralysed as a metastasis of his morbid mind; he may burn his right hand as a result of a subconscious intention, though apparently it seems to be an accident. It is for this reason the psychosomatic medicine says that “Accidents are not accidental”, they are intentional. I have seen at least two cases of repeated abortions; in both the cases forced in consideration of the critical condition of the patient.
When these two cases were analysed it was revealed that at the basis of these abortions there were guilty feeling which resulted out of unsocial pregnancy before marriage. Such are not rare now. Such cases are but substitutions by the help of which the subconscious mind is relieved of its own morbidity. As regards physical diseases, we homoeopaths are aware of such substitutions, in chronic and also sometimes in acute cases.
Hahnemann has very clearly said that one diseases is generally cured by another new disease if it is more powerful. It has now been proved that such substitution may happen between the mind and the body. You may call it “cure of an illness by another illness.” This is also what we do in homoeopathy according to the law of similitude. The famous Belgian biologist Connan also says “the cause that has created the disturbance is itself the cause to cure it.”
Instinct in human being has so long been neglected. In this regard we are indebted to Pavlov who has reintegrated psychism in the study of the phenomena of life. Starting from the simple facts with evident results, he has proved the value of the `psychic element and though his reflexology has not clarified anything of psychic nature, has at least proved the activity of the instinct and of the mind with a blinding clarity and has traced its frontiers.
After him Metalnikov of Pasteur Institute has shown that the humoral reactions are governed by the psychic factor, while studying the immunity. It has also been proved after rigorous experiments that the psychic factor alone can produce on the body modifications of the nature of phlyctens, paralysis etc. Thus mind always steps in the organic sphere.
The conscious part of the mind is but a minute part of the iceberg which can be seen on the ocean of unconscious. Thus studying the world of instinct psychoanalysis has shown the psycho-organic connection of the subconscious.
One of the instincts of any living being is the “Sense of self-preservation”. It is one of the most complex and most tenacious apparatus of psychological registration. It is supersensitive like a photographic film and marks all the deviations, which are not of normal nature as regards vitality, under the influence of destructive and creative forces which ceaselessly drags the mind to opposite directions.
In a normal individual the multiple influence collaborate with the sense of self-preservation and help to keep the balance of the nervous system, thus helping the individual to become of the nervous system, thus helping the individual to become what HE IS TO BECOME in the future. The experiences that the individual carry in its cells are kept veiled and the individual projects himself towards his proper becoming. SOCIALLY, a heredity, racial, familial, professional, healthy, and above all a conscientious education harmonise itself with these past experiences and helps the individual to proceed towards the future and towards his material realisation.
Individually the human being is always trying to adapt himself to the outward influences with the dynamism of his self-control. But he must have for that at least the minimum of his inward well-being which is indispensable for realising his aims. The sense of minimum well-being makes a man in agreement with himself.
When by the outward influences, are created different problems in the individual life and when the individual is at a loss to find the right solution out of his hereditary documents, received from his father and forefathers. He becomes unrest i.e. he is no more in agreement with himself. The unrest leads to unreason. The individual loses his feeling of inward well-being and self-reliance. He becomes physically and mentally ill, and is thrown out of his luminous path of self- realisation and healthy progress.
In such cases the instinct of the preservation of the self depends on its proper resources and becomes forcibly perturbed and mentally he suffers from anxiety which creates a tension in him physically and mentally. This tension is reflected on the different organic sphere and create tensional or stress diseases such as arteriosclerosis, gastritis, gastric ulcer, colitis, duodenal ulcer, eczema, and several other organic diseases.
So long these diseases are functional the individual has every chance to be cured by a proper therapeutics. But when these diseases become lesional, the individual has very little chance to be cured even by the help of surgery. And this is perhaps the limit where all the fundamentals of medical science fail. But if such diseases are only physio-pathological they may be cured by proper treatment. If they are psycho-pathological the hope of cure becomes very remote Psychotherapy aided by physiotherapy may, to a certain extent ameliorate them.
The anxiety for the preservation of the self leads to inexpressible illnesses up to atrocious apprehension of imminent death and to suicide. This state of apprehension may produce many physical symptoms, it may attack the visceras, the outlets etc. as I have said before. But there may also not be any somatic expression of this imbalance. The imbalance will be diffused in the cerebral centres via the psyche actively or passively.
In the neuro-motor system it will show itself as SPASMS, in the psycho-motor system as ANGER and this anger is nothing but the expression of defence by the help of which the mind tries to neutralise the anxiety of death or the failure to adapt.
The exactly opposite state is also true. The complete resignation, the recoiling of the self-within itself.
These two states may be called HYPERSTHENIA and HYPOSTHENIA. By the hyposthenic method the disease is rooted down in the psyche and create some vicious circles or acclerates vicious evolution. While hypersthenia exteriorises the mental imbalance.
These two states sometimes integrate themselves and the one may be substituted by the other, thanks to the force of imaged exteriorisation. Thus there results a symbolisation of which the strangeness, deformations, complications, often defies the generalisation and analysis. By the help of what we have said above we may classify us the mental polycrests into two groups according to the hypersthenia and hyposthenia.
Predominantly hypersthenic are: Sulphur, Lachesis, Lycopodium, Natrum mur, Iodium, Calcarea phos, Aurum met, Platina, Nux vomica, Cimicifuga, Petroleum.
Predominantly hyposthenic are: Calcarea carb, Thuja, Sepia, Natrum sulph, Mercurius, Calcarea fluorica, Argentum metallicum, Palladium, Ignatia Gelsemium, Graphites.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.