Who can explain how Phosphorus produces vertigo, hence, in what kind of a case of disorder of this type it will be effective? How does Leptandrin affect the liver? What effect does this drug have on the biliary secretion or the glycogen content? How does Rhus produce paralysis, and is the action central or peripheral? What is the explanation of the vomiting of Aethusa; is it due to local gastric irritation or to central irritation?
We know that medullary depression is the keynote to the action of Gelsemium, but how is it that similar effects are produced by other drugs? Curare produces a paralysis by paralyzing the end organs of motor nerves, but how does Lathyrus act? Hundreds of similar inquiries are continually suggesting themselves and until we find out the explanation we will be forced to put up with indifferent results because we cannot, many times, except by mere chance, prescribe scientifically.
Is this fact alone not a sufficient incentive to homoeopathic research? If we had laboratories working under the guidance of men of scientific attainment, gifted with a knowledge of homoeopathic theory and philosophy, within ten years most of these things could be found out and then we could cure almost at will. Determining the pathology of either a drug or a disease is essentially the same as making a diagnosis; hence diagnosis is of great importance to the homoeopathic prescriber. We are not so unfortunately situated in this regard as is our allopathic confrere, but in most chronic or obscure conditions at least a proper prescription implies a correct diagnosis.
Acute functional inflammatory disease of many persons, in their incipiency, especially in children, need not have assigned to them a designated diagnostic appellation before a very effective prescription can be made. This is because of the fact that in such conditions most of the bodily functions and tissues are in a state of generalized simple irritation and congestion, which is similar to effects, pathologically and symptomatically, of several of our remedies, but even here we knowingly or unconsciously take into consideration the congestion which is practically a diagnosis, and prescribe accordingly. i have no sympathy with those who would allow a child to suffer and receive no benefit unit a correct diagnosis be made; neither can I entertain the idea that a diagnosis is not of the greatest help whenever it is possible in order that the symptoms may be localized, i.e., the pathology determined, and the suitable remedy selected.
It is an observation of mine that as a rule homoeopathic physicians do not carefully examine their cases. This is a consequence of our being taught symptomatic prescribing without, at the same time, considering causes. If we do not examine cases we make no diagnosis, pathology is ignored and a suitable prescription is an accident. How embarrassing it is to prescribe Colocynth for a pain in the sciatic nerve, and later to discover that the trouble was due to a knuckle of bone in one of the lumbar vertebrae, whose removal by surgical means effected a cure.
There are at least two great groups of conditions to which homoeopathy does not apply, regardless of any consideration of pathology and symptomatology in the prescription, and consequently, if such diseases are treated homoeopathically, the prescribing will have no effect and the prescriber need not be disappointed. No system of medicine or rule of any kind should be blamed for not fulfilling expectations which it could not cover from the beginning. One of the exceptions to the successful application of the homoeopathic principle is the attempt to relieve by it conditions which which are surgical in nature.
The end – products of disease are not cured or removed by any drugs, no matter what rule may be followed in their selection or application. The sooner we admit this fact the better. This is not saying that the incipient stages of many states of many states which may later become of a surgical character may not be cured homoeopathically. But do not let us wait for an ulcer to degenerate into a gastric cancer and then blame homoeopathy for failure to cure it. Neither do I mean to say that surgery cures; it only removes the temporarily offending tissue which later, by metastasis, blooms forth again in a new location and destroys life.
The second limitation to the successful employment of homoeopathic therapeutic occurs whenever any disturbances although at first purely functional, develops alarming or extreme toxic tendencies. An example will illustrate my meaning. Suppose a person be infected with the virus of some disease of bacterial origin and that within a few days he develops great tumefaction in the glands of the neck; the parts are blue, sore, a muttering delirium is present, and he had all the symptoms of an acute and more or less generalized septicaemia.
In the earlier stage of such a condition there is no better treatment than the indicated homoeopathic remedy, and, with occasional exceptions, such a condition may be expected to recover. Now let us suppose that such a case in the terminal stages as above represented is to receive the indicated remedy and nothing else. We should not blame homoeopathy for failure to cure, and our attempts to employ homoeopathically selected remedies to conditions to which they do not apply are the cause for frequent outbreaks of therapeutic nihilism and pessimism. The homoeopathic prescription is an aid in the reaction of the body to overcome the beginning symptoms of injury. It is broader than, but includes immunity since the latter applies only to increasing the resistance of the body to bacterial injury.
In the case we have cited above, in its last stages, homoeopathic therapy does not apply because the injury was not in its beginning. Whenever the effects of injury become of a much greater degree than when present in their incipiency, other therapeutic measures must be employed. Sometimes these will be effective and sometimes they will not. Conditions of this kind should in general be treated as one would treat a case of poisoning – the proper antidote should be given; this may be a drug or a bacterial antitoxin. For many such instances, such a drug or antitoxin has not been discovered; hence the condition is necessarily fatal.
The line of demarcation between conditions which should receive surgical, antidotal or homoeopathic treatment must be drawn by the individual experience of the physician. The separation between the two types of cases is what might be termed the homoeopathic therapeutic threshold.
