However, the great majority of disease conditions remained unclassified. For ten years cases were studied, patients were closely questioned, and even history was called upon to divulge the course of diseases through the centuries. Through endless difficulties Hahnemann traced these hitherto unclassified diseases, and gave to them the name of *psora. This word *psora, which Hahnemann used to denote the third great miasm, is defined by the modern medical dictionary as follows:
1. *Scabies. 2. *Psoriasis. 3. *Hahnemann’s term for the “itch dyscrasia”, defined as the parent of all chronic diseases–skin diseases, neoplasms, insanity, etc.; it was similar to, though of more extended application than, the “herpeti diathesis” of French writers. And the definition adds: p. leprosa, psoriasis.
Funk & Wagnall’s *Dictionary gives: *Psora. 1. *Pathol. *The itch, or some such similar skin disease. 2. *The itch mite. The derivation is Latin and Greek, but it is rather Hebraic in origin, coming through the Greek and Latin, the original word being *tsorat.
Interpretation of this Hebrew word tsorat conveys clearly the thought Hahnemann had in mind. *Tsorat: A groove, a fault; a pollution; a stigma; often applied to leprous manifestations and to the great plagues. It is the meaning of the original Hebrew word that we must regard as the basis for the term covering this constitutional defect.
In the light of modern comprehension of these conditions, classified by Hahnemann as psora, we may not doubt but that the original meaning of the Hebrew word had greater significance than we have understood. *A groove, a fault…. With our growing knowledge of the so-called deficiency diseases we are coming to realize that the lack of certain elements in the system, or the inability to assimilate them from foods, is the great common denominator of almost all the so-called psoric conditions, plus a lack of balance in the equilibrium of health that manifests through a hyper-sensitivity of impressions–functional disturbances and the patient’s recognizance of disturbance that varies from consciousness to neuroses.
The vast majority of the diseases of the earth came under this great classification, which has been called the mother of all diseases; and Hahnemann found that there was a traceable relationship between these chronic manifestations and the many various plagues which had troubled the peoples of the earth since the most ancient times, manifesting themselves in various ways, such as the ancient plagues of Egypt, leprosy (at one time France alone had over two thousand homes for lepers), and the itch poison which swept Europe at a later date. In many instances Hahnemann found there was a close connection between such grave infectious diseases and the patients with stubborn recurring symptoms.
Hahnemann became convinced that these recurring symptoms owed their existence to this chronic miasm which he called psora, and that of itself this condition could never be cured. While the acute manifestations may subside and be quiescent for a consider- able period, the chronic state that causes the acute eruption of symptoms never dies until it is met with the similar remedy.
Hahnemann found that this form of disease was first made manifest on the skin, as a skin infection or eruption; this was its natural place, but here the natural manifestation is susceptible of suppression by many forms of treatment, such as lotions, ointments, mineral baths, surgical operations with the removal of organs, and anything that tends to obliterate the manifestation on the surface by seemingly curing the external symptoms. It is on the surface that it naturally thrives and here it will do the least harm. By suppression this constitutional state becomes more manifest in a train of distressing symptoms, so long as the skin manifestation is quiescent, and may affect any part of the body.
Hahnemann found, too, that many chronic ailments which are enumerated in pathological works under distinct names, originate, with few exceptions, in this widely ramified psora. All skin manifestations and conditions; almost all adventitious formations such as swelling of the glands, sarcomatous and carcinomatous tumours; deformed bony structures; haemorrhagic tendencies; all suppurations; functional disturbances; nutritional disturbances; all of the acute disease manifestations; all these conditions Hahnemann traced to this source and classified under the head of psora.
It is characteristic of the skin in these conditions that there is considerable itching, for psoric conditions always itch. In fact, not only was psora considered the mother of all diseases, but it might well have been considered as the source of almost all subjective symptoms, especially those described by the patient “sensation as if”. In classifying those constitutional diseases which have not run a course through so many centuries, that is, the venereal classifications, it has been noted that their action has been swifter, and while at times more destructive, the subjective symptoms have been present ***in the degree in which psora has been present in the system.
Although fundamental miasms have their period of remission, latent states lasting perhaps for years without showing any manifestations, some sudden crisis in the history of the individual may rouse them to sudden eruption and the patient will become severely disturbed in health. These crises may be in the form of accidents, exposure, some slight infection, indiscretions of diet or hygiene, some apparently simple thing out of all proportion to the serious consequences. In this class come the pneumonias following accidents and exposures; infections from slight wounds; almost all of those grave states roused by a seemingly slight cause.
Here the homoeopathic physician, by making into consideration the psoric background, will bring into play the remedies that are related in their symptomatology to these psoric states, and he will be able to do most effective work.
The development of the similar remedy to meet these conditions led Hahnemann to understand the real nature of disease. He realized that it was the dynamic force of the remedy that met the dynamic force of disease, and that the remedy must meet the disease on the dynamic plane, but that the drug dynamis must be more potent than the disease dynamis if the disease were to be eradicated.
The action of the stigma is to debilitate the life force, to deform the body, to dull the intellect and to upset reason. The miasms are destructive in every way, of both the mind and the body, and they tear at the very spirit of man. It is dis- organizing disease that fills the state institutions of every description, and we cannot meet these conditions intelligently until we reorganize the ancient origin of disease and undertake its extermination on the basis of the miasms.
To classify disease conditions as circumstantial or environmental is to view them in a limited way, and we must recognize the background and meet them on that ground if we are to cure. For this reason it is essential to find the ***simillimum, and to find the remedy for these conditions we must seek a deep-acting remedy–call it an antipsoric if you will–to eradicate the evil. It is only by using the dynamic form of the ***simillimum that we can hope to eradicate the evil.
In fact only the dynamic form of the similar remedy can possibly be the ***simillimum for these cases, since these chronic conditions are so closely knit with every fibre of the patient’s being that they have influenced his innermost dynamis. So no matter how like the symptomatology of the remedy to that of the patient, unless the remedy is in a dynamic form it cannot reach the basic stigma.
