Mental diseases


In some cases homoeopathy will be but an adjuvant and in some other cases it will take the first place according to well precised indications. Incontestably homoeopathy should cede to other methods, its place if these prove more efficacious. …


I am not satisfied only in showing the wide field of action reserved for our therapeutics; I will also show its limits. The strength of the Hahnemannian method is not infinite as is believed by some homoeopaths who cry out saying that it is a crime of high treason against Hahnemann every time when we try to judge impartially the success and failure of our doctrine in comparison to other methods. These limits are due to some other causes.

1. Our incompetency, our ignorance debar us from knowing with exactness what we may expect from homoeopathy in each morbid mental state. As the classical treatments are generally inactive, we have almost always the right to try a treatment with attenuated medicines. We do it but by groping, without any good luck.

2. Medicine must not exclude, hygiene, but must supplement it. As the physical condition in psychotherapy, it is necessary to apply appropriate hygiene, and psychotherapic means, acting on the sphere of morbid troubles, so it is necessary to associate the psychotherapy with homoeopathy. But what sort of psychotherapy has to be selected?

Psychoanalysis? Method of Vittoz? System X or Z? It depends on cases and on our experiences. The most qualified doctors, such as Dr. Allendy with Psychoanalysis, Dr. d’ Espinay, disciple of Vittoz know how to separate in practice the doctrine of Hahnemann with Psychotherapy.

In some cases homoeopathy will be but an adjuvant and in some other cases it will take the first place according to well precised indications. Incontestably homoeopathy should cede to other methods, its place if these prove more efficacious. Limits are variable here. The Law of Similaris is the only law of therapeutics as is believed by the traditional homoeopaths. We do not think so. The most general law, that of equilibrium dominates over it.

Equilibrium of all forces include in life, biological forces, yet imperfectly enumerated, yet unknown, the general effect of which constitutes the VITAL FORCE of the doctrine of the school of Montpellier. Hahnemann himself has said THAT WHICH PRODUCES MALADIES IS THE DISCORDED VITAL FORCE. Law of similaris, law of contraries, law of compensation, law of the least effort, principle of inertia, principle of action and reaction, all these laws may be invoked turn by turn according to the circumstances.

There may even be cases in which a toxin plays a beneficial role, by the reactions that it may cause or by all other actions. The “morbid oscillations”, the transferences, the morbid metastasis oscillations”, the transferences, the morbid metastasis, on which M.R. Allendy, first drew the attention in France after a century of oblivion, should be invoked ceaselessly when it is the question of mental diseases. It is for this reason one cannot deny in certain cases the good action of derivation caused by all sorts of systems, even the uses of toxins in gross doses.

Finally there is a grave diseases in which Homoeopathy should absolutely yield place to a new method, inspired to be sure out of the law of similitude, it IS THE GENERAL PROGRESSIVE PARALYSIS which is sometimes completely cured by Malaria therapy. Nothing can replace it and in many other cases of cerebral syphilis, at least at present, it is necessary to use the official medicine concurrently with Homoeopathy, if one wishes to give to the patient all the chances possible in order to check the lesions of neurological and mental troubles.

Among the other methods, we should not forget the mineral waters irreplaceable complementaries of a well conducted homoeopathic treatment.

At last to fix the last limit of homoeopathy, applied to mental diseases, we must say still something about constitutions.

It is certain that an important part of the mind cannot be altered, it is a fixed region. It is because homoeopathy cannot modify the characters, but to some extent, sadness, irritability, loss of memory etc. that are temporary and recent may be cured by homoeopathic remedies. But one cannot modify a constitutional mental state.

Conclusion. Thousands of well equipped and well organised researchers exist in the Official School, in every country. There are but a dozen of diggers of the homoeopathic ground even in the country where the doctrine of homoeopathy is the most flourishing and widely accepted. Should it be added that the researchers, disciples of Hahnemann, often badly equipped, having no laboratories and hospitals, experience their efforts excessively disparaged by some traditionalist homoeopaths who believe in the necessity of crystallising once for all the complete work of the Master.

However, according to some fruitful attempts of some colleagues though not specialists in psychotherapy we hope for the application of homoeopathy in the mental diseases.

The possibilities are very great. The limits exist it is true. It is our duty to improve them. But the field hardly explored, is open before the practitioners and researchers, who should know to set up a connecting link between the Hahnemannian therapeutics on the one hand and the knowledge of pathology and clinic on the other. THE PATH IS NOW DISCOVERED. IT REMAINS BUT TO BE EXPLORED.

Mauritius Fortier-Bernoville
Mauritius (Maurice) Fortier Bernoville 1896 – 1939 MD was a French orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become the Chief editor of L’Homeopathie Moderne (founded in 1932; ceased publication in 1940), one of the founders of the Laboratoire Homeopathiques Modernes, and the founder of the Institut National Homeopathique Francais.

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.