Let us see how Collet came to Isopathy and how he practiced it: In 1865, while studying Homoeopathy he thought: “If the real medicine should be a similar agent to that of the disease, nothing is more similar to the agent of the disease but the agent of the disease itself because the secretions of a diseased man are full more or less with the morbid elements which are expulsed naturally by the outlets, if one knew how to collect these morbid elements in the secretions, one would have surely in these morbid elements some medicinal substances.” He thus acquired the certainty that the natural or artificial morbid secretions, the blood itself are the sources of medicines.
Thus “By the tears taken from an ill man, and diluted in the 3rd or the 6th centesimal which he used to give to the patient several times during a day, and continued for 2 to 3 days and at the same time he instilled a few drops in the eyes, he cured very rapidly some grave conjunctivitis, some ulcerous keratitis, the nyctalopias, some hemeralopias, some tumors of the lachrymal gland and some epiphora etc…” We are not giving in detail how he treated several other diseases. In this way he cured deafness by the help of catarrh taken from the throat, Diphtheria in the same way, bronchitis, pneumonia by the dilutions of the sputum, gastric troubles by the dilutions of saliva; dysuria, inflammation of the bladder etc. by the diluted urine etc. He did not only use the secretions from the diseased organs but any secretion of the economy, which he said, contained the substances that have caused the disease. He used the lower dilutions from 1 to 6C in acute and accidental cases and the 6th to the 30th for the chronic cases.
Collet had also some failures. He also recommends homoeopathy at the same time and Allopathy in some cases. He said that Isopathy alone cannot sometimes cure all the diseases, because after a long use of a medicine the medicine loses its power. Hering and Lux also said about this fact. In such cases Homoeopathy takes the place of Isopathy. And well adapted remedies are applied and they would be much more effective than if they were used before the isopathic remedies. It seems that Isopathy prepares the organism before hand for being completely cured by homoeopathic medicines “just like a new troupe of soldiers in the battle field, when the previous has become weak, to win the fight.”
We have seen that Rapou criticised this method of treatment bitingly by denying the results and saying that it was perjury against homoeopathy. Rapou’s criticism was really speaking not based on any real reason. It came out purely of rancour against Isopathy and his staunch faith on Homoeopathy. Hahnemann has also criticised this method of treatment but it was perhaps because it goes against his theory of vitalism, which he calls immaterial, while Isopathy was material and had a causal relation with the disease. But was it not a fact that Hahnemann himself has said that the cause of Psora is itch, the cause of sycosis is Gonorrhoea, and the cause of syphilis is Spirochette. He also has said that the specific of Psora is Sulphur, the specific of sycosis is Thuja, and the specific of Syphilis is Mercury. So we may say now that the specific of psora is Psorinum, the specific of sycosis is Medorrhinum the specific of Syphilis is Syphilinum. And we have said long before that Isopathic method of treatment is a specific treatment and a treatment of immunity.
According to Dr. Dano the “Isopathic medicines represent the simillimum par excellence, the faithful image of the morbid state of the moment and may be successful there where homoeopathy, hesitates and even fails with the exact medicine. It is a powerful adjuvant of a well conducted homoeopathic treatment. The possibility of Isotherapic method goes much beyond than that what is thought of. An Isopathic medicine is a perfect image of the person who has supplied its stock i.e. to say it contains the simillimum of which the Materia Medica cannot furnish the equivalent by the application of the law of Analogy. The reaction that it causes is therefore perfectly adapted to the individual. It is somewhat total covering the apparent and the unapparent troubles. Each of us can take account of it clinically, by the equilibrium that it brings on the neuro- endocrinal system on the general functions on the mind and on the local sphere and to conclude it is specially in unattainable affections by other methods that one finds one of the spheres of Isopathy.”
Dr. Dano in his “Contribution to the therapeutic of allergic diseases and of their equivalents builds a bridge between Isotherapy an allergology and prepares the remedy “Poummon- histamine”, dilution of the lungs of anaphylactised Cobaye by repeated injections of Ovalbumine. The lung of the Cobaye is in fact the “Shock” organ of the antigen-antibody reaction and liberates an important quantity of chemical mediators of which specially histamine is one. Poummon histamine is specific in allergic diseases and their equivalents such as asthma, the hay fever, the allergic migraines, allergic dermatitis etc. According to Collet there are three kinds of Isopathy:
1. The pure Isopathy (of which we have spoken so long)
2. The organic Isopathy. It is nothing but our opotherapy.
3. The serotherapic Isopathy or serotherapy.
The direct Isopathy or the individual isopathy i.e. the medicines are prepared from the stock directly supplied by the individual. So it may be called the Individual Isopathy.
According to Dr. Iliovic the isopathic remedy may be related to a pathological cause exterior to the patient. So it may be called indirect in relation to the other three methods.
Another particularly interesting form of indirect Isopathy will throw a bridge between allergology and homoeopathy. It utilizes for desensitising the patient, some dilutions sometimes very high of the allergens which cause the allergy when it may have the identity. The administration of these medicines is done by mouth like the homoeopathic medicines. The method may be applied to different allergens such as: foods, pollens, tinctures, detergents, different allergens may be had from Unda / S.a., Harze, 4071, Rue de Tulip. 2, Bruxelles.
Direct or indirect, and inspite of the ambiguity of its name, Isopathy is a homoeopathic technique which is proved useful. Its therapeutic interests is unquestionable, if it is not used as routine method and without its definite indications. On the clinical and experimental basis it allows to bind together the Hahnemannian conceptions on the ground and the classical works on the magetial and exogenous pathological causes. Isotherapy can give a new outlook to Allergology and Immunology.
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.