From these arise certain tendencies and predispositions to disease and disability. These must all be found, recognized, combated and overcome, as far as possible, if we are to make the best use of our powers and play our legitimate part in life. To do this most successfully we must now have recourse to the new science of Human Morphology as developed by the late Professor DiGiovanni of the University of Padua, Italy, which is soon to be introduced into the United States.
To heredity must be added the influence of unfavorable environment upon our lives. For a long period during the development of modern biological science under the theory of evolution, undue emphasis was placed upon environment as the predominating influence in the development of the individual and the race. Even before the theory of evolution became so popular, back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many philosophers taught that man was a product of environment and education,and that all men were born equal. If they later became unequal they were taught that it was because of unfavorable environment and unequal opportunities.
“The Declaration of Independence,” says Professor Edwin Grant Conklin, biologist of Princeton University, “merely reflected the spirit of the age in which it was written, when it held this truth to be self evident, that all men are created equal. The equality of man has always been one of the foundation stones of democracy. Upon this were founded systems of theology, education and government which hold field today”.
We may add that medicine is still largely dominated by that idea, as I shall presently show.
“It is still popularly supposed,” says Professor Conklin, “that complexion is dependent upon intensity of light, and stature upon the quantity and quality of food; that sex is determined by food or temperature, mentality by education, and that in general individual peculiarities are due to environmental differences”.
Yet none of these suppositions is true, except in a minor, almost negligible degree. Nor is it true that the diseases of men are solely the product of environment, or that they can be thrown into diagnostic and pathological groups and treated successfully as entities, as if all individuals groups and treated successfully as entities as if all individuals were equal.
“Now one now seriously thinks that life can be experimentally produced from non-living matter,” continues Professor Conklin, “nor that we can make species by the process of experimental evolution.
Inherited variations do appear, incipient species arise, but there is very little evidence to show that they appear in response to environmental changes, and at present we have no means of controlling such variations. Belief in the omnipotence of environment for the evolution of the species has steadily waned in of evolution, such as the mutation theory and orthogenesis has increased. The old view that men are chiefly the product of environment and training is completely reversed by recent studies of heredity. The modifications which may be produced by environment and education are small and temporarily as compared with those which are determined by heredity”.
Nevertheless we must recognize that if environment plays only a small part in the evolution of the species, it plays a large part in the modification of the developing and even the developed individual. The organic constitution which man inherits from his ancestors is profoundly modified by the influences and agencies which are part and parcel of his environment. Its character and development are modified for better or worse by his education, his habits, his modes of life and thought, his occupation, his diet, by drugs, by medical treatment, good or bad, and by many other things. By these agencies, consciously or unconsciously to himself, he is moulded and impressed, according to their nature, into the image and likeness of the spirit of the age and community in which he lives.
The form of his body and character of its functions, the relative degree of development of his vital organs and the character of their functional relation to each other, singly or as systems-in one word, his morphology-are all subject to the modifications of his environment, external and internal, for good or evil. Even his mentality and psychical entity, through education and suggestion, take on largely the characteristics of those with whom he is mentality and psychical entity,. through education and suggestion, take on largely the characteristics of those with whom he is most intimately associated. His life is a continuous process of reaction and adjustment to the forces around and within him, a constant struggle between the forces of heredity and environment.
With so may adverse influences; with so much ignorance and disregard of the laws of life and health; with so much that is vicious and vile; with so much sin and crime and immorality, so much selfishness, callousness and greed, so much atheism and infidelity all around him, it is no wonder that mans normal development is hampered and that he so often becomes a victim of degeneration and disease.
But there is another side to the shield. For every one of these adverse influences there is an opposing force which works for good. The struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness, between ignorance and intelligence, in man and in nature, is eternal. Its story is the history of the universe, of evolution and involution in all their endless cycles of beginnings and endings.
Into the dark regions of this great field, to which I have referred, come the forces of religion and science, of philanthrophy and social service, of education and reform, with all their many agencies and organizations for enlightenment, uplift and progress. Into this field comes homoeopathy with a sane, pure, rational philosophy, with a definite, scientific, therapeutic method and a highly developed practical technique, all systematized and based upon a universal principle or law of nature.
Its materia medica comprises, or may be made to comprise, every substance in the three realms of nature, mineral, vegetable and animal, known to have a medicinal action upon the living organism. By its pharmaceutical processes it is able to prepare all these substances, from the venom of the deadliest serpent to the delicate juices of the fairest flower, in such a way that they become true curative agents when called for, perfectly assimilable and absolutely harmless. In its posology and mode of administration of medicine it utilizes only the integrity of any organ or tissue of the body. Infants, adults and animals alike welcome its administration and respond to its healing touch with alacrity.
Now, much that is true of the general science of biology and especially of the changing emphasis between heredity and environment is equally true of medicine, which is one of the biological sciences. Orthodox medicine, to a large extent, still regards all men as having been born equal” and treats them accordingly, although it is changing-slowly. Homoeopathy, on the contrary. has never regarded or treated men as being “equal”. In philosophy and practice it is strictly an individualizing science, giving to each man his just due. For diagnostic and therapeutic purposes orthodox medicine still throws patients into classes, or groups, as if they represented pathological entities, and treats all the individuals composing the group alike.
Homoeopathy teaches that the totality of the symptoms which perceptibly represent the disease process in the individual patient is the only rational basis of treatment.
Symptoms of disease very as much in individuals themselves do in their personalities. As a matter of fact the same disease indifferent patient may present many different clinical appearances. The same cause, be it a germ, a poison, or a traumatism, gives rise to different effects in different individuals, and the same remedy acts differently in different cases. Experiment and observation show that individuals react according to the peculiarities of their constitution, according to the laws of their own being, each one for himself in his own way. This is not saying that individuals do not resemble each other morphologically in certain broad characteristics common to all cases of similar general character; but merely that they all have differences.
Homoeopathic philosophy teaches that in all our dealings with the sick, medically,. we can expect to succeed in curing them only in proportion as we recognize and adapt our measures to those individual differences-a mode of practice which is in perfect harmony with the biological principle which says that “variety is the law of being.” Hence, the commonly quoted but inadequately interpreted axiom which says that “not disease, but individual patients must be treated”-an axiom which, unfortunately, is “more honored in the breach than in the observance.” Hence, also, the necessity for a general principle of therapeutic action, capable of being adapted to the needs of every individual in a rational and scientific manner, which is supplied only by homoeopathy. Without this we are lost in the fog of conflicting opinions.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.