DISCUSSION
Dr. Donald Macfarlan: We ought to have a philosophy in life, and in medical life especially. The three principal things, you might say the trinity, which are most valuable in homoeopathy are the law of cure, in a single remedy, in a minimum dose: and that this is just how Hahnemann developed this system. First dawned upon him the law of cure and then in order to expedite cure and in order to avoid aggravation, he got the minimum dose. Those Three things have to enter into every correct homoeopathic prescription. They are inseparable. Associated with them is the frequency of the repetition. I believe that the only way you can skilfully adapt yourself to proper repetition is through provings, because you have your hand in making well people sick and conversely, making sick people well. The first thing that enters my mind when I see a sick person is this: What remedy which you have proven would make this fellow look like that? And if it occurs to my mind, say Phosphorus, I give him Phosphorous.
Dr. Grimmer: Dr. Boger always gives us a splendid paper and this is an exceptionally good one even for Dr. Boger. It really is a textbook in a way. He has shown us the fundamentals, the things that are so essential to keep in mind: First of all the correct taking of the case; second, the evaluation of the symptoms-don’t forget that. You can have pages and pages of symptoms and have no case, and other doctors can give you three, or four or five symptoms and you have the picture of your remedy. That comes from the art of evaluation of symptoms, knowing the symptoms that are really symptoms of that sick patient, separated from the symptoms of the disease, the pathological symptoms, the symptoms that come as diagnostic indications. They are not so valuable. Many times they are almost valueless as far as prescribing goes.
Dr. Boger has gone further. He has shown the relationship of these finer forces. It is the study of these finer forces and their origin that is going to make homoeopathy accepted, and science is beginning-at least the progressive portion of science, consisting of the great physicists of the time-to pay attention to these very forces. They have got so far beyond the ordinary science that they acknowledge that they cannot prove some of the propositions. Compton has said that we have to accept some of the phenomena on faith as it were. He has got beyond the idea of an automatic universe, not that he can prove from reasoning altogether, but from the higher perception, the kind of perception that Hahnemann had. He knows there is something beyond all the material things we see around us, and that is what homeopathy is. It reaches up into other planes. It reaches up into the mental state, even into the spiritual side of life and that is way Homoeopathy is vital. That is why it cures. That is why it can wipe out inherited conditions.
Did you ever stop to think why a homoeopathic potency is specially adapted to wipe our inherited traits? We are told by scientists that a little grain of cell, among the finest of ultra-microscopic cells, carries all the germs and the chromosomes of the past. Nothing can touch that but the homoeopathic remedy and that is why we can prove it scientifically.
Dr. Boger: One of the commentators intimated non-action. When you don’t get action from remedies, and there seems to be no response at all, non-action simply means you haven’t touched the cord of harmony; that is all it means and you always have behind that the remedies which bring up re-action, such as Psorinum, Sulphur and so forth. You can’t get well without reaction, without re-establishing harmony. That holds good in the physical world and in the mental world.
The physical body contains a certain amount of stored energy. When you give a remedy you tap that stored energy through an equalization of its distribution in the body. In that way you restore harmony, just as surely as you can tap electric current by pushing the button.
There is one point I didn’t bring out in the paper, as fully as I should have done, and that is that we can’t all see resemblances as well as we should. Sometimes my mind is fitted so that I can see certain resemblances and the other fellow can’t, and sometimes it is the other way about, and the other fellow sees the resemblance and I can’t see it, even when it is pointed out to me. That is an inherent factor of the mind.
I want to recite briefly an experience I had not long ago, right along that line. A man came to me from a distant city and said he hadn’t had any benefit at all from the treatment he received there. He had generalized eczema from head to foot and those cases are always very difficult. I hesitate to prescribe for them because I am, free to say, my success is not invariable.
I sat and talked to him awhile. He had it so badly that the skin was cracked in places and exuded a nasty, offensive, sweet odor. His face was bluish, and altogether he was a forbidding sight.
The longer I talked to him the more I became convinced that he was an an exact replica of poisoning by Rhus Venerata. I didn’t look up the materia medica for that at all, but gave a single dose of Rhus Venerata MM potency. I said “Don’t take this till you get home, because something is going to happen”. He waited until he got home and took it. The third or the fourth day he began to sweat all over. Then it was confined to the left chest. It had the odor of rotten smoke. He had gout stones in the lobules of both ears. Those both dropped out and he cleared up all over, peeled off all over.
Now that Rhus Venerata didn’t cure him, because after a while it came back a little, but it didn’t come back enough to worry about and I didn’t repeat the dose. I am going to let him ride along and see how much reserve force he has back there to stabilise this thing again.
Born in Western Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He moved to Parkersburg, W. Va., in 1888, practicing there, but also consulting worldwide. He gave lectures at the Pulte Medical College in Cincinnati and taught philosophy, materia medica, and repertory at the American Foundation for Homoeopathy Postgraduate School. Boger brought BÅ“nninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory into the English Language in 1905. His publications include :
Boenninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory
Boenninghausen's Antipsorics
Boger's Diphtheria, (The Homoeopathic Therapeutics of)
A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915
General Analysis with Card Index, 1931
Samarskite-A Proving
The Times Which Characterize the Appearance and Aggravation of the Symptoms and their Remedies