3.PRESENT DAY UTTERANCES
Let us listen to a few more modern representatives o homoeopathy. We find with them the same picture as Hahnemann’s contemporaries, from abrupt rejection to a more or less conditioned agreement the main idea.
Windelband of Berlin, says:
That the founder of homoeopathy was mistaken in his speculations- “Hahnemann’s conception is across error”-he may well be forgiven for it, he is not the only one in error among his learned contemporaries, when frequently committed far greater errors, as underlying his conception we find a deep intellectual thought. for his error, as underlying his constitutional anomalies, which form the soil for this is, that there are certain constitution anomalies, which form the soil for severe illnesses. We may call them predispositions, cell weaknesses, or anything else and that against these anomalies he has found remedies by means of the Law of Similars. The so-called antipsoric remedies are nothing but remedies, which chosen in accordance with Law of Similars, cure chronic disease.
Zwingenberg of Berlin:
Hahnemann’s immortal merit is his discovery that disease are produces which change, and that he has established an aetiology of disease, in opposition to the scheme of disease picture of his his contemporaries. What Hahnemann meant by psora we can only hold now if we mean by it the condition which causes many diseases to remain uncured, and makes them always re-appear.. Has then Hahnemann missed the mark so much when he taught that, gonorrhoea chancre, itch, are only signs? If one usages to cure then and cure them in the strictest sense of the word, they must not be tackled locally, they must remain so that the condition of he changes in the internal organism may be recognized. If by internal treatment the outward sign disappears we may be allowed to conclude that, a cure has taken place.
Muller-Kypke of Berlin:
To my mind Hahnemann has designated by the word psora, that large group of disease, which he respectively had in his mind, and which the physicians of to-day would recognize as disease of auto-intoxication, which means those which arise from the accumulation of waste matter in the organism. Hahnemann’s therapeutic measure against psora agree with this conception… the unfortunate part about Hahnemann’s doctrine of psora-which otherwise must be considered ingenious and far in advance of his times-is the word Psora itself.
Muller of Elberfeld:
Hahnemann meant by chronic disease, those which last during the whole life-time, and which show outwardly the most varied signs, but have one common cause, the unknown X of the psora teaching. I cannot accept the term, predisposition as equivalent to the term psora… I personally include under the designation psoric-diseases, all those illnesses which are not produced by bacteriological or other easily recognized disturbances of the organism, but owe their onset tot he unknown X, disharmonies of the cells which build up the entire organism. These diseases have throughout a chronic character, a nd show outwardly various disease pictures,. recurrence and exacerbations, and therefore entirely fit into Hahnemann’s system.
Bastanier of Berlin:
Hahnemann meant (by psora-R. H,) all those diseases which were comprehended as dyscrasiae and metastases, and are to-day called, diathesis. Psora is therefore a mixture of deteriorated humours which alters with the course of events (vaccination, syphilis) and which probably continues to alter under external influences (as time of year, climax, age, nourishment, infection and influenza) and the various elements in all probability weaken, strengthen or neutralise each other.
Stuffer of Munich, embraces Hahnemann’s conception of the psora doctrine with the words (Handbook of Homoeopathic treatment, Vol.,11, page 232):
The term constitution is therefore taken in the ordinary allopathic sense, and not in the deeper sense of Martius, not in the sense so much more familiar to us homoeopaths of von Grauvogl (hydrogenoid, oxygenoid carbo -nitrogen constitution), nor in h sense of Hahnemann (psora, sycosis, syphilis). We must, however, grasp firmly, that on the ground of these three basic disease, particularly of psora, every chronic illness is developed. For through the effect of the relative poisonous substances on the organisms the activity of the cells, and the general were unable to find a vulnerable spot, no longer find a natural force of resistance. Therefore a new predisposition to disease has been formed. The ideas of modern investigators (Mobius” “meta- syphilitic disease of the nervous system, “Martius: “syphilismus”) coincide fundamentally with Hahnemann’s views. For us homoeopaths it is firmly established, that the sycosis and psora of this clever observer are equally indisputable facts if we-in regard to psora-do not allow ourselves to be held back by the Acarus scabby; but it deals with a specific alternation of he bodily constitution-whether it be that the soil has been contaminated by the itch mite, or the tubercle bacillus, or another similar poison, on which the constitutional anomaly has developed, which to deal therapeutically with chronic diseases which have developed on the ground of one of these constitutions, we must give the suitable constitutional remedies of Hahnemann should we desire to master it truly and lastingly, whatever form Nature chooses to give this particular disease-in accordance with law which yet remain unfathomable.
Fr. Gisevius of Berlin:
I consider it very important that we should retain the psora conception as this it rightly understood, gives us the possibility, as Hahnemann says, of curing chronic diseases successfully. Naturally the earlier interpretation, as originating from a suppressed itch, has long been abandoned, and with it the actual uniformity of the conception. But in a higher sense it still holds good (this uniformity-R. H). It comprises the parts acquired, partly inherited injury to the cells, y the various irritants, which have partly penetrated into the individual from outside and were to a certain extent congenital. The greatest achievement of Hahnemann was, that far in advance of his time he not only emphasised the predisposition and the principle of heredity, but even taught how to core the diseased constitution. And thus the modern old-School medicine (Martius) as well as those of Natural Medicine (Lahmann) have drawn from his works and those of his pupils, and have partly expressed the same thoughts in another way. Also the X of Pettenkofer belong here; in the fight against one-sided bacteriology psora is the deciding factor.
We intentionally limit ourselves in reproducing opinions of German homoeopathic physicians. It would indeed be stimulating, but it would far exceed the limit of our book, if we gave voice to utterances from, abroad, from America, England, France and others: Kent and Dearborn for the Americans, for the English, Dudgeon, Burnett, Clarke and Hughes, among the Frenchmen Imbert- Gourbeyre, Jousset father and son, Sieffert and others, would certainly have much to say that is of value about the much disputed psora question.
Instead of which we shall find room for a few more german opinions of recent years, as w shall be able to judge from their statements how unmistakably the most modern views have come near to coinciding with Hahnemann’s doctrine of psora in its wider sense, on the origin of disease, to the Master of our art of healing, which was denied him through the short sightedness of his contemporaries.
Infection would not come about without a certain something being presupposed. Not only the question of cleanliness, but also a certain preparedness for disease, the predisposition or increased susceptibility play a not inconsiderable part. This fact is no longer disputed by anyone to-day as far as infectious diseases are concerned. Many physicians admit that it is not devoid of influence in originating parasitic diseases.
Obermedizinalrat Landenberger of Stuttgart, a clinical physician of repute, once said when some patients with itch were brought before him.
It is very remarkable, how much the capacity of infection varies, someone may come in contact with itch patients for a long time, and not be infected, another may be infected in an instant.
Similar ideas are expressed by another man of the medical school, Bulkley, in his book” On the connection of skin disease with internal disturbances” (Urban and Schwarzenberg, 1907, page 5) when he speaks of “obvious constitutional peculiarities” which even predispose to vegetable, hackneyed and parasitic affections, and continues:
It has already been observed further than even animal parasitic affections are influenced by constitutional factors. The course and character of scabies (itch) fluctuate extraordinarily in different individuals, and by no means depend entirely upon their degree of cleanliness; just as frequently can it be noticed that lice and flies attack certain individuals, and that eruptions from (parasites run a different course in different people.
Richard Haehl was also an editor and publisher of the homeopathic journal Allgemcine, and other homeopathic publications.
Haehl was responsible for saving many of the valuable artifacts of Samuel Hahnemann and retrieving the 6th edition of the Organon and publishing it in 1921.
Richard Haehl was the author of - Life and Work of Samuel Hahnemann