EDITORIAL


These are the two types of surgery to which the homoeopath is opposed, not the acute and emergency surgery which may often be the only thing to do. But not taking an adequate history and determining beforehand whether or no the trouble is emotional is to perpetrate upon the patient the most damnable type of surgery known. This type is really operating the inoperable.


CONVENTION NOTES.

The writer holds the opinion that Annual Meetings of homoeopathic societies are very much worthwhile, an opinion which his attendance upon all the conventions of the International Hahnemannian Association and of the American Institute of Homoeopathy since 1942 has caused to become irrevocable. There seems to be no sound reasons, other than financial or physical, which could justify absence from the deliberations of local, state, or national homoeopathic organizations. Even those with the recently discovered “inept pseudo-interest” in homoeopathy would find so much that is thrilling in the field of homoeotherapeutics that their interest in the Hahnemannian methodology might lost its “pseudo” character. Why is it so difficult, we wonder, to convert homoeopathy to homoeopathy?.

The recent Annual Convention of the International Hahnemannian Association of Pasadena, California, though poorly attended, was one of the best, homoeopathically, of recent years. Papers presented before the various Bureaus were generally of a very high grade and congratulations are due, not only to the essayists themselves, but to the Bureau Chairman for providing such excellent material for publication in The Recorder.

Not only were the essays of a marked degree of excellence, but they elicited a free discussion representative of the homoeopathic skill and technique of this country’s outstanding homoeopaths. The opportunity of hearing these discussions was in itself a highly instructive experience. When true Hahnemannians let down their hair-to belabour an already overworked expression-something is bound to come out. One might say that these gentlemen are simply lousy with homoeopathy lore! Hahnemann would have found himself in good company.

Many of the I.H.A.’s familiar faces and personalities were absent and were greatly missed so that, in that respect at least, the convention lacked its usual nerve.

The Association was pleased to have as guests many of Southern California’s interested laymen. Indeed, at some of the sessions the laity were better represented than the profession.

The usual conflict in time between the schedules of the I.H.A. and the American Institute of Homoeopathy was more than ever in evidence at Pasadena. In this respect both conventions were poorly organized, and considerable criticism was voiced by the membership of both societies. It is this writer’s conviction that the cure for this perennial headache lies in the use of the device of joint Bureaus and by giving the I.H.A. a four-day instead of a three-day convention.

This was proposed to the Executive Board of the I.H.A. at its meeting in Cincinnati in June, 1949 but, while the proposed was accepted in principle as being a perfectly feasible solution to an annoying problem, no effective effort was made to implement it. The I.H.A. is perfectly willing to cooperate with the Institute in any workable plan to avoid this constant source of criticism. Such a plan has already been presented to the President of each organization, both of whom are anxious to eliminate this annual source of disgruntlement and no doubt will plan the programs of their respective societies with a view to complete synchronization.

-ALLAN D. SUTHERLAND.

OPERATING THE INOPERABLE [Read before Bureau of Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics, I.H.A., July 4, 1950.].

Homoeopaths have long been berated and criticized because of their hesitancy in the use of surgery. They have lost patients who could not wait for the system to right itself. They have gained patients who fear surgery and will go to all extremes to avoid it. Many of the latter have been greatly benefited, while others have had to come to it at last.

The kind of surgery that is most decried is the type that attempts so cut out the emotional feeder back of the patient’s condition. Of all the factors back of an illness, this is the one often most difficult of removal by either surgical or non- surgical means. In a bleeding uterus, stirred up by emotional stress and with nothing more useful than ergot, phenobarbital and reassurance to combat the condition, a state of both despair and desperation arises and off one goes to the surgeon who stops up the leak and throws the pressure back on the individual who suffers all the more thereafter.

The next most decried is the condition depending upon malfunction and usually of a constitutional base. The offending part is removed but the malfunction of the system goes on apace greatly augmented by the resulting suppression.

These are the two types of surgery to which the homoeopath is opposed, not the acute and emergency surgery which may often be the only thing to do. But not taking an adequate history and determining beforehand whether or no the trouble is emotional is to perpetrate upon the patient the most damnable type of surgery known. This type is really operating the inoperable.

Royal E S Hayes
Dr Royal Elmore Swift HAYES (1871-1952)
Born in Torrington, Litchfield, Connecticut, USA on 20 Oct 1871 to Royal Edmund Hayes and Harriet E Merriman. He had at least 4 sons and 1 daughter with Miriam Martha Phillips. He lived in Torrington, Litchfield, Connecticut, United States in 1880. He died on 20 July 1952, in Waterbury, New Haven, Connecticut, United States, at the age of 80, and was buried in Waterbury, New Haven, Connecticut, United States.