These remedies are to be studied relating the principal psychic character with their somatic expressions, or physio- pathological expressions. This is not an unhomoeopathic method because according to Hahnemann such deviations are but the substitutions of an organic deviation. Thus we may say that Homoeopathy is Somato-psychic. I have already explained how this substitution takes place in the case of psycho-somatic diseases. As substitution of morbid states between body and the mind we can cure such psychic deviations by well manipulated use of our great polycrests.
In cases of somatic-psychic diseases we may easily discern the remedy by studying its pathogenesis if it is complete while in this second case our criterium is much less evident and it should be abandoned to the field of psychiatry. But I must say that the method of psychoanalysis and that of homoeopathy are not really different. A simple eczema is sometime very difficult to cure by some properly selected Homoeopathic medicine until and unless we probe into the deep past of the patient and find out the root cause, the tuberculinism.
In such a case a single dose of the high dilutions of tuberculinum will cure the eczema within a short period. When the same eczema is a substitution of the morbid subconscious mind, the psychoanalyst like a homoeopath, probes into the past of the individual, and floats the root cause which is in the subconscious up into the field of conscious proves to the individual that his eczema is nothing but a substitution of a long forgotten guilt. Thus the individual is cured of his eczema.
Now let us see for example how we can study one of the above remedies:
Calcarea carbonica: Calcium is one of the mineralisers of the living albumin of the protoplasm, indispensable for the fixation of water, the primary element and solvent inseparable from every vital exchange.
Under some pathological influence the power of fixation of Calcium and of absorption by the colloidal micella of water is weakened. As a result the cells becomes charged with water as reaction of defence. So we see that Calcium carbonate or Calcarea carbonica is a remedy of hydric retention. Such a constitution is called hydrogenoid constitution.
We may call it a sycotic condition. The main characteristic of this condition is the sluggishness of the defence mechanism as a result of the torpidity of reticulo-endothelial system. Everything is sluggish in this constitution, physically as well as mentally. Consequently we find in this remedy a deep atony of the mental activity which is expressed by the depressive reaction of fear in the field of the sense of self-preservation. As a consequence Calcarea carbonica has the fear of becoming ill, fear of contagious diseases fear of becoming mad.
Calcarea carbonica is therefore a deficient more than abnormal. His mind is sluggish but not perverted. Calcarea carbonica will therefore suit to a deficient person and not to a schizoid or to a paranoid type or to a hypochondriac type.
In the group of remedies classed under hyposthenia we find that most of the remedies are of the hydrogenoid type. The characteristic of a hydrogenoid type is the sluggishness of the mind and body. Fear is the key in all these medicines.
If Calcarea is a remedy mental atony, Sulphur being its complementary is Hypersthenic and an extrovert. The psychic condition of the fat Sulphur (false oxygenoid) is that of a personality of “unfruitful exaltation, who lives on himself and for himself, and hides under his apparent overactivity which is incoherent, his real deficiency and his progressive failures.
So in the second group of medicine incoherent exaltations is the key. I think that in this connection it is necessary to say a few lines regarding Characterology. What is character? Rene Le Sene defines the character as the “whole of congenital dispositions which build up the mental skeleton of a man.” From this definition it results that timidity, avarice etc. are not always pathogenetic. Timidity may be normal in a man. But due to some pathological conditions this normal character may aggravate.
In such a case, if we apply a medicine according to the physical and mental totality of symptoms, we can ameliorate the aggravated condition of his mind and bring it to normal, but we cannot cure it. As for example, timidity avarice, and pride are the characteristics of high value. They, when seen in a patient, may lead to Lycopodium if the other symptoms are found. Lycopodium will cure the concording symptoms but it will only ameliorate the aggravated condition of the character, and will bring it to normal.
CONTENTS
1. The Value and Limits of Application of the Principle of Similitude in Biology and in Therapeutics. 1-5
2. The Principle of Similitude: Its new applications according to the recent biological research
3. The sphere, the possibilities and the actual limits of the principle of similitude in therapeutics.
4. The possibilities of action of therapeutic agents prescribed- according to the principle of similitude.
5. The limits of the sphere of the therapeutic agents prescribed according to the law of similaris.
6. The limits and possibilities of Homoeopathy as a Therapeutic Aid in Mental Disorders
7. The possibility of Homoeopathy in mental diseases some persons cases
8. Limits of Homoeopathy as a Therapeutic aid in Mental Diseases.
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.