I am, therefore, with those who regard dispersion with disfavour, particularly if the boil constituents are poison carries, as I believe they usually are, and that notwithstanding the fact that the boil-constituents were previously body- constituents.
Finally, it seems to me that Kellgrenism is itself contradictory, for while it is contended for it aids Nature to expel the peccant matter or gas, it is also maintained that it aids Nature by dispersing what Nature has gathered together. Both can only be tenable if it be held that the disorder consequent upon the obstructions to the circulation are synonymous with the disorders themselves.
It seems to me that if it be good to help Nature to bring the matter to the periphery and let it out, it cannot be good to disperse what Nature unaided had already brought together in a boil for ejectment. That is in general principle. Of course, if it can be shown that the disorder is primarily stagnation, and nothing else-sky capillary stagnation, and nothing else-say capillary stasis-then dispersion (early enough) and cure would be identical terms.
THE LOCALIST’S POSITION CONTRADICTORY.
The localistic surgeons, who claim that operation is a cure of fistula, tell us that the pre-fistular abscess must be opened to let the matter out, while the fistula must be operated upon to make it close! So, according to this, the essence of the disease in the case of the abscess lies in the fact that Nature cannot, unaided, get rid of the matter; while in the fistula, where she does get freely rid of the matter, the essence of the disease lies in the fact that Nature if helping herself.
The Kellgrenists seem to consider that stasis is the real factor in boils; for me, the stasis is merely a concomitant-just the first necessary stage in effecting an organic lesion of the peripheral continuity to gain an outlet for inimical stuff, be this stuff leucomaine, ptomaine, cadaverine, urea, or even bacilli or microbes.
Abscess is not a disease sui generis; it is a patho- biological process, and we have, in each case of abscess, to consider this patho-biological process by itself, i.e., Nature’s method of turning out an unwelcome guest at a peripheral lesion of her own making. It the guest be one simple innocuous thing or substance, then as soon as that is detruded the matter is ended- the abscess heals.
If the surgeon lances, in such a case, this aid to Nature would under circumstances be rational and sensible. If the stasis itself be the whole affair, then Kellgrenism would be right to disperse, for then an outlet would not be needed, since there would be nothing to let out. In this stasis-abscess, gentle pressive coaxing aid would be the most rational, the “free incision” merely a wood-hacker’s mode of doing the same thing, i.e., getting rid of the stagnation.
But the pre-fistular abscess differs widely from the two kinds of abscess just mentioned. It is not a stasis-abscess, for its stasis is a means to an end, the means being to mortify a bit of tissue to form an outlet; and the end being the detrusion of not a simple innocuous thing or substance, but some organismic morbid product that is being daily and hourly produced, and therefore needs daily and hourly discharge, in fact a constantly open issue, which a fistula in my opinion often is. If I am correct in this view, it must follow that a fistula should not be made to heal up by any and every local means, but the fistula- patient should be cured by internal constitutional treatment.
I find myself quiet unable to believe that causing the fistula to heal up is in any sense a real cure; on the contrary, I believe this proceeding to be bad practice, and very harmful in its consequences for the future health and well-being of the patients. Neither am I able to conceive how any kind of treatment by manipulation could possibly alter the state of one’s constitution : a syphilitic, a strumous, a sycotic, a psoric individual would, so far as I can see, be just as syphilitic, as strumous, as sycotic, as psoric after being manipulated as before.
Burnett was one of the first to speak about vaccination triggering illness. This was discussed in his book, Vaccinosis, published in 1884. He introduced the remedy Bacillinum. He authored twenty books, including the much loved "Fifty Reason for Being a Homeopath." He was the editor of The Homoeopathic World.