It covers the case of illness in its completeness. Its mental selection compels homage. Mind health and its relation to body health was never so well shown before, nor since. Even if it is conceded that a mans mind is the best part of him, traditional medicine had to receive this emphasis from so-called Christian Science. And now, homoeopathy, whose remedies for disturbed mental health are indispensable, is being told quite seriously that its remedies never reach the mind.
What shall be said then as to the efficiency of those which restore to the mind its poise after fright, grief, anger, apprehension, delusion ? It must at least be admitted that they reach and cure the patient.
The most conspicuous danger or menace to any school of philosophy or practice is assumption. It has wrecked a lot of handsome craft. It is so easy to sail away on a good-looking sea of statements, and then forget all about the old landmarks until we dash into them and meet destruction. It is so easy to believe what we wish to believe.
The extension of the practice of homoeopathy will banish assumption. It will forbid a man of science to put forward his mere belief as anything worth attention. He may be a very good man, and we as patients may like him very much, but that is not to the purpose, the facts back of his or anybody elses belief are what count.
The homoeopathist is one who practices homoeopathy, not one who believes in it simply.–H. C. ALLEN, M.D.
In fact, it is the only system that has compassed all the bodily needs in medicine, having primarily begun its investigations at the foundation of a scientific inquiry.
As a primary truth it may be affirmed that no exact knowledge can be gotten of medicinal power without learning of that power through study of its effect on the normal, sound human organism. All administration of drugs should be governed by this prior information. Safety and success depend thereon.
The range of drug power invites continual study, leading, as that will inevitably, into new fields of enormous area, and unexplored values.
The object of proving, then, is to discover the mode in which a drug affects living tissues, with a view of ascertaining its therapeutic uses. Distinguished men in homoeopath are those who have proved remedies. Those physicians that have had the real sense of medical truth in the matter of healing the sick have almost without exception added to the materia medica valuable material in the way of proven remedies that have added immeasurably to the legitimate armamentarium of the capable doctor. Proven remedies in the school of homoeopathy number over two thousand.
The process of proving a remedy is a very exact one and depends for its value on the keenest observation on the part of the prover or his guide. This means noting whatever symptomatology comes up after administrations of the remedy.
There is no laboratory work in the interest of medical cures that can compare in excellence and value with homoeopathic provings. And this order of investigation is hardly known, not known at all in the ranks of dominant medicine. There, the usual sentiment is, “We know nothing about homoeopathy and dont want to know.”.
This brings us to the main point : Is medicine for the healing of the nations or is it to gratify certain leanings towards “bigger and better” science ? Which reminds of a certain conversation had with a man of academic distinction. In discussing a newly vaunted exploitation in so-called medical science, he was asked, “But what is happening to the neglected sick while this novel idea is being demonstrated, with only a small percentage of benefit, while those not benefited remain sick or die ?”
To which the academic one replied : “That is a point entirely negligible, since good is going to result in large measure when all conclusions are assembled.” This with a complete ignoring of the fact that already homoeopathy provides relief and cure upon the basis of perfected discoveries a century ago, discoveries that are failing of utilization.
Thorough proving of drugs upon the healthy, therefore, was practically a new departure in medicine, and in fact constituted the first of the three grand steps which culminated in the evolution of a new, rational, and scientific system of medical practice. — A. R. MORGAN, M.D.
A deeper, more comprehensive method involves further penetration. In addition to family and personal history there will be most carefully considered every peculiarity, abnormality, and characteristic of the particular individual, and these taken minutely into service for the treatment of the life of the patient. Then and only then can the simillimum be determined, and then it will do its work.
Amongst experimental and laboratory work of every kind, there probably will never be, as there never has been, anything to compare in importance with drug proving upon human beings. From this source has come our most useful knowledge of drug activity that may safely be coupled with its application to the human patient. Not only our school, but all systems of medicine, as well as the lay public, have gained from this teaching what is trustworthy in their knowledge of drug curative power.
And so, undeniably, medicine in the world at large has been directly influenced and modified down to the present day by Hahnemanns reforming spirit. Drugging the sick is no longer tolerated by the best of men of any persuasion, and the domains of the individual remedy if often respected. Furthermore, drugs introduced into notice by the homoeopathic school have to some extent acquired a popular employment that is at least related to the appropriate.
These are facts not to be overlooked, but to be accepted with gratitude in the name of humanity. But such results alone are of slight stature when measured beside those to be secured unremittingly by the physician trained to prescribe his remedies according to the guiding Law of Similars, and also by that physician whose ability and industry place within his vision the Ultima Thule so dear to the exact scientist, so glorious to the human sufferer.
For here is discerned, and perhaps most clearly, the precisely indicated remedy, the simillimum. This is that subtle thing, which, meeting disease, exerts a power, man as yet knows not how, nor where, nor when; but surely, as surely as day follows night, this power is unfolded. It penetrates the hidden chambers of the organism responds to the cry of helpless tissues, meets the need of suffering Nature, and restores to the man and to the world that wonderful entity, which speculation and science may not ignore, but which disease assail, “The Vital Force”.
Hence, the word simillimum expresses exactly the highest desideratum in a prescription. It demands the perfectly indicated remedy, for its meaning is most like, nearest to, most closely resembling, of closest similarity, and our usage of the word implies the drug that will meet the symptom totality–the remedy that in its pathogenesis is most similar to the disease picture. In a word, it is the very drug that is requisite for the cure.
The healthy action of every organ of the body is dependent to a great extent on the normal state of every other organ; and yet the specialist goes to work as if his favorite organ was entirely independent, doing business strictly on its own account.
—C. PEARSON, M.D.
There are two ways of studying physiology. The human organism itself suggests both methods, for not alone is the mechanistic to be considered as embracing what we may know of function, we must also know what may be back of this obvious power. Which does not mean that we can know what is not revealed under normal circumstances of investigation. Perhaps the unending lure of medicine may be properly considered as having to do with mystery, mysterious life processes, about which there may be conjectures only in most cases.
While the means provided for normal digestion and nutrition are obvious and have been so for many years, while all the processes of food ingestion and its disposal are generally recognized, yet back of these trite happenings there lurk innumerable facts unexplained and in many instances incomprehensible.
We may order condition in the field of standardization, so- called, and so meet, perhaps, the requirements of numbers of cases, as far as what seem to be prime essentials are concerned. But these cases will not even include always many of normal character because these delinquents will not react favorably to the measures instituted. Hence, therefore, there must be vital needs, the conditions of which we have quite neglected.
In all efforts toward standardization there is an invariable tendency to lose sight of the important, intangible, invisible agencies and forces. these are the prime activators of our best functions, of the most vital. They must always receive the respect of study and deference for their own identity before we can secure profitable information from the more obvious or the superficial expressions of the organism.
