6. God has made known to man the quality of medicines. The Very High has given them the knowledge of them in order that they honour Him by their marvels.
11. Call the doctor.
12. Because it is God who has created him, so that he may not leave you at all because his art is necessary to you.
13. Since the time has come when you may fall in the hands of a doctor.
(If I have understood well the teaching of the Bible, the evil should be at first in man and consecutively in the terrestrial milieu which surrounds him, milieu, considered less in himself than in his relation with man).
In the “City of God” Book IV of St. Augustin emits very judiciously that though which should be mediated by the moralists and applied by the doctors to their patients.
“The worst soul becomes the best in an excellent body Anima, enim, pessima, melior in optimo corpore”.
In learned terms, Desecrated expresses about the same though and indicated by what means one may arrive at it.
“The mind” he says “depends so strongly on the temperament and the disposition of organs of the body, that if it is [possible to find some means which generally make man more wise and more intelligent, which he has not been up till now, I believe that it is in medicine one should look for it “Discours de la Methode.”
The doctor may to certain extent, variable according to the individuals, be able to render the body excellent and consequently make better the moral and intellectual condition; and this, among other means, by the help of medicines. In fact, since 11 years, I repeat, the experimental method has helped me, more and more often, to see that the medicine is a powerful agent of moral and intellectual culture. Bit it is not the only means. There are 5 other agents of moral and intellectual culture i.e. in all six of which the three are immaterial agents: Religion, Education and Instruction; and three material: Medicine, Foods and Climate. After having found this classification I was very much astonished to find it in Galen, who, about 18 centuries ago humanising the traditional teachings exposes the classification almost in its totality. (Works of Galen. tr. by Darmberg, v. 1, p. 90-99, 56-58, 74-80, 80-84).
Comparing in his translation of Hippocrates (v. 1, p. 223) the modern knowledge with those of ancient, Littre was right when he says: “The intuitions generally are as much just as they are more ancient. It is not a development, the most advanced, of contemporary medicine which was found in embryo in the medicine of old. The antic knowledge and that of our are basically identical, as much as they are composed of the same elements. The which was only a shoot has become a robust branch. What was hidden under the bark has developed to see light of the day. In science, as in all other things, there is nothing which was not in the seed.
In another still unpublished work, I have looked for how one may take recourse to these six agents of moral and intellectual culture, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes alternately and finally singly. I restrict myself to speak here about medicine of which the properties have been studied by the experimental method. This what was done by Hahnemann and homeopathic doctors experimenting the medicines at first on healthy man, then on man who has become ill. When, as for example, the healthy man, after having ingested certain medicines in gross doses, or in repeated doses is disposed to use alcoholic drinks, to become intoxicated, then these doctors administering one of the medicines in infinitesimal doses to persons who are habitually drunkard, can cure them in almost half of the cases.
It is thus according to the law of Similia Similibus Curentur, one may be in a position to find and use some medicines which are useful against passions and defects of character or intelligence. On this way I preceded b Hahnemann, Hering (of Phila.), the Count of Bonnevat (of Bordeaux), the Count of Cesoles (Nice), Bourgeons (of Roubaix), Charles Dulac (Paris) and by Valiaux. If I have been able to gather on this question, many more informations than them, it is because I have come last, always trying to complete their work and because, I was the first to find a Psychic Dispensary, the unending source of instructions.
Conforming my practice to the teachings which I have just exposed, I have applied the psychic treatment to a daily increasing number of patients. And in my dispensary exclusively dedicated to the application of this new treatment to a daily increasing number of patients, I was able to give during the first 34 months of the dispensary, 2,1,5 consultations, of which, 1,431 for drunkards and 724 for libertines, jealous, nervous, angry persons, wicked, sulkies, vindictives, egoists, prodigals, misers, thieves, idlers etc.
Having seen that drunkenness is the most widespread passion, I have been naturally brought to make known here even the treatment which has not seemed to me more useful in this case.
After the first publication on alcoholism, I had the intention to speak about the medical treatment of sexual passion, natural and unnatural, a vice equally damaging to the individual, to the family and to the society, in order that my fellow friends may help me to popularise this treatment. In some further publications, I will speak about the treatment of other passions and even some simple defects of character and intelligence.
The homoeopathic doctors seem to accept to-day theoretically, consequently practically, this psychic treatment. One may very well presume if after having read the following extract from Art Medical (Oct.1887, p.303), so prudent a homoeopathic journal as regards homoeopathy, which would not hazard in this new path only after having preceded by allopathic periodicals.
One of the best editors of the Art Medical has thus concluded after his report to the communication made at the Academy of Medicine by Dr. Luys on the effects of medicines placed at a certain distance from the patients on whom they will be experienced.
“The order of pathogenetic symptoms revealed by the experiment of Mr. Luys, is the order of moral symptoms, of which the importance, denied by our school will no more escape any one now. At the top rank of characteristics of substance, the moral symptoms are considered as some of the best indicating symptoms.”
The author should have added: “When the subject to be treated, apparently in health does not have but moral symptoms, evidently the moral pathogenetic symptoms of medicines are the only symptoms indicating each remedy”. And this precisely, is the law that guided me in the application of paychic treatment in some of my patients, and in all consultants who used to come in my dispensary. On this point I only conformed myself to the teachings of Hahnemann himself, teachings exposed in 21 paragraphs of his organon (210-230) and particularly in the two following paragraphs:
211. This holds good to such an extent, that the state of the disposition of the patient often chiefly determines the selection of homoeopathic remedy, as being a decidedly characteristic symptom which can least of all remain concealed from the accurately observing physician.
212. The creator of therapeutic agents has also had particular regard to this main feature of all diseases, the altered state of disposition and mind, for there is no powerful medical substance in the world which does not very notably alter the state of disposition and mind in the healthy individual who tests it, and every medicine does so in a different manner.
Not becoming incoherents, the homoeopathic doctors should conform their practice to the teachings of Hahnemann and then treat equally the psychic symptoms and somatic symptoms, and treat exclusively the mental symptoms when they exist isolatedly as manifestations of a latent morbid state or of the individual temperament. The Knowledge of the psychic effects may, equally be helpful to legal medicine as is shown by the following case:
In 1855 during my stay at Monster, where I was following the clinical consultations of Boenninghausen, the latter one day said to me: “While on a tour to fulfil my duty of the adviser of the state I met in a hotel some magistrates doing an inquest regarding the poisoning of husband by this wife, by Arsenic.
“If you desire, I asked them, to give me the symptoms, moral or intellectual felt by that man immediately before his death, I may probably tell you if Arsenic was the poison used and if it can still be found in the stomach of the dead. The latter, before being dead, had a fearful hopelessness, or a great calmness? A very violent hopelessness, replied to me the magistrates. Then I told them that he was poisoned by arsenic and in such a strong dose that it will be still found in the stomach. This medicine produces a fearful hopelessness by its primitive affect and a complete calmness by its secondary effect, when the organism may react against the primitive effect”.
They found some Arsenic in the visceras after autopsy. In the neighboring parts of Monster, added Boenninghausen a women poisoned 16 persons with some omeletts in which Arsenic was mixed. If the allopathic doctors knew the psychic effects of Arsenic they could have discovered the poisonings before the woman could have killed so many persons.
Gallavardin set up a homeopathic Dispensary for the cure of alcoholics, often working in conjunction with priests, and he wrote several books on this subject.
Jean Pierre Gallavardin wrote Psychism and Homeopathy, The Homoeopathic Treatment of Alcoholism, How to Cure Alcoholism the Non-toxic Homoeopathic Way, Repertory of Psychic Medicines with Materia Medica, Plastic Medicine, and articles for The British Journal of Homeopathy, On Phosphoric Paralysis, and he collated the statistics on pneumonia and other cases for the United States Journal of Homeopathy, and he contributed widely to homeopathic publications.