No one will accuse Dr. Morris Fishbein of being friendly to homoeopathy, and yet in his recently published work dealing with medical cults, he remarks that we must not hold against Hahnemann the vagaries and exaggerations into which some of his disciples drifted. Also it is probably true that any criticism which might be brought against Hahnemann in the light of later and better knowledge, apply equally well against a large part of the other medicine of his time. Dr.Fishbeins criticism of the times is well taken.
The speaker has shown that Jenner whose sole crime was the discovery of a benefaction of the human race was subjected to persecution hardly less than that meted out to Hahnemann, and that Auenbrugger was completely ignored for sixty years. We must be aggressive in repudiating all who attempt to foist inanities on our school. Of such individuals it might almost be said that they believe that if a thing belongs to scientific modern medicine, it cannot be homoeopathic. Fortunately these men are very few in number, but as they are militant and aggressive, we hear of then., Let the School be progressive and aggressive.
In assuming that homoeopathy is progressive and scientific, let us place it along with other sciences few if any of which have seen their maximum of efficiency and achievement. General principles are the important factors, and details come later.
the smallest dose that will cure! Who denies it?.
Increased activity of drugs through fine subdivision! We all admit it.
The influence of the infinitesimal !. A subject concerning which we are to learn much.
Admitting the increased activity of drugs because of extreme subdivision let us ask ourselves we the best method known to science to produce such subdivision? Hahnemann method of dilution and trituration was certainly the most efficient of his time; and remember that Hahnemann advocated trituration and dilution the represented detailed work.
His method of potentization was not based upon “bottle washing.” For a number of years now medicine has been interested in the colloids, which class of substances represent the finest practical subdivisions of matter known to physicists. As in line with increased activity with increased and worthy of serious recognition by us? Undoubtedly like everything, the colloids cannot be made to represent the finest subdivision of all matter; but they do represent fine subdivision of some matter; and the best possible fine subdivision of other matter. Hence they are good for us and if we are on an aggressive or constrictive platform of our own building, we must accept them for study.
Next let us consider the question of the infinitesimal; have any if you ever thought of the advancements in modern science that have made Munchausen a god of truth and Jules Verne a prophet? Science has liberated forces unknown. It will liberate others. Munchausen and Verne are in danger of defecation. Is there a greater romance than the development of the radio?
One many now rest in his library and listen to a broadcasting from Alaska with a ten-watt station. with suitable apparatus he may receive waves from London or San Francisco. A turn of the lever but one millimeter will make the difference between reception from New York or Philadelphia. Gentlemen, I am even prepared to admit that some inventive genius may arise to develop or create or discover a ray that carried in an aeroplane over the caravansaries of a metropolis will convert the grape juice or malt extracts on the tables of the diners into delicious wine and beer.
There is a plant called the Budleia variabilis magnifica. Its common name is the butterfly bush or summer lilac. As I see this plant in my dark garden and compare it with the common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) there is nothing in their characteristics appealing to me to show a most remarkable feature of the Budleia. The Syringa is the one possessed of the greatest fragrance by far. With its first blooms to late autumn it is the haven of innumerable butterflies. And yet! Were you to place a Budleia far from the garden and the field in the midst of a great city, conditions for growth of the plant only being demanded for the experiment, you may rest assured that butterflies will find it and swarm about it.
When a member of a Mayo clinic, the apothesis of scientific medicine, the Mecca of surgeons, announces boldly that a dilution of iodine amounting to the part in 80,000,000 (our 8x potency) is sufficient as a preventive of goiter. Shall we ask “Why did not a homoeopath discover that fact?” None of us was sufficiently knowledge; we used iodine in goiter successfully; but we did not have the initiative to bring modern methods to our aid. Still we have the satisfaction of permitting intensive investigation, confirm clinical findings or impressions, which goes to show that clinical impressions are not such bad things after all. The proof of all things medical is efficiency in the clinic.
Now we come to our Materia Medica wherein our progressiveness and aggressiveness are lacking. Improvement does not consist in efforts designed to prove its worthlessness, but rather to determine just what there is within that is good; that which is worthless; and that which requires to be modernized. As it stands, there is a vast amount of material testimony the value of which may be had from many practitioners.
Let us start criticism. Let us say that it consists of a mass of symptoms virtually all subjective not confirmed by objective manifestations. Now for the mass of subjective symptoms, and let us call them irrelevant and incapable of explanation. Permit me now to quote you not from the Materia Medica, but from the American Journal of the medical Sciences the following.
1.Slight queer feeling but food went down all right.
2.A feeling of nervousness on starting to swallow; after. starting food went down without any trouble.
3.A feeling o nervousness in the neck.
4.Vague sensation about the neck, as of something wrong.
5. A feeling of cramp around the neck.
6.A feeling as if my swallow was not working right, but. nothing seemed to stick there until lately.
7.Food sticking in the throat while eating in a hurry; but. it went down of itself all right,and I had no trouble for. months afterwards, though I did not hurry any more.
8.A feeling as of a lump arising in my throat. This latter symptom our author remarks occurred in many cases. In some patients it had no relation to eating: in other patients it occurred at sight of food or thoughts of eating; in other words at the beginning of a meal but disappearing after a new mouthfuls had been swallowed.
Our author is the Nestor of bronchoscopy, Chevalier Jackson, and he was telling his readers the first clinical manifestations, the early subjective symptoms of carcinoma of the esophagus. Incidentally he tells us that many of the poor victims were cast aside by their physicians as uninteresting neurotics, and in consequence were sagely advised “to forget it.” It was not until obstructive objective features appeared that a serious examination was made, but by that time, anatomical changes had advanced to the stage of incurability and the secondary invaders were swarming everywhere.
The late Sir James Mackenzie has for a number of years past been preaching the value of the subjective symptom in the clinic. He tells us that they constitute the first evidence of disturbance that we may interpret them accurately. Furthermore he contends that to wait until objective manifestations appear is to wait until anatomical changes have advanced to the stage of the incurable. To study the value of symptoms, Sir James and a few of his colleagues organized St.Andrews Institute for Clinical Research. Two small volumes emanating therefrom have been published. The beginning is small but the product should be great.
The trend of the times is all in favor of Hahnemanns original proposition, namely that drugs can be used on the sick only when we know their action on the healthy human being, and that the nicest distinctions in clinical symptomatology relate to subjective symptoms; that objective findings are anatomical as opposed to physiologic, and in the main are terminal and of themselves give no clue whatever as to what had gone before.
The study of symptomatology in its broadest sense is the study of the patient himself as the problem the solution of which is the duty of the physician. “It is the duty of the physician to cure the sick; this is the art of healing.” Early diagnosis is demanded. Sufferings must be interpreted. And now comes the relative value of symptoms in the study of the sick. All of us have admitted that a clinical picture is made up of symptoms arranged in clinical perspective. The artist with true sense of proportion arranges them for distance, center and foreground. The physician must treat; he must diagnose. With true artistic sense, he recognizes the value of symptoms for diagnosis and of others for treatment only; for be it generally admitted that symptoms which are valuable for diagnosis are by no means always the ones of most value to us in guiding our treatment.
