“Hahnemanns theory of psora or itch, was essentially so preposterous the it began to be deserted even by confirmed homoeopathists pervaded the body and which ultimately manifested itself on the surface in the form of an eruption, or as a nodular growth, or as some other form of skin disturbance”.
Dr. Fishbein should have read Hahnemanns elaborate, systematic and marvellously clear description of Psora in the light of modern pathology before he thus delivered himself. As it stands, he is not one step in advance of Hahnemanns ignorant and prejudiced contemporaries, who rejected and ridiculed Hahnemanns great contribution of medical science precisely as Dr. Fishbein does, and n almost identical terms.
In spite of the fact that the greatest triumphs and prestige of homoeopathy (contributing largely to its phenomenal spread) were gained in the treatment and cure, with unprecedented success, of such malignant diseased as cholera, smallpox, yellow fever, typhus, typhoid, diphtheria, pneumonia and epidemic influenza, Dr.Fishbein characterizes Homoeopathic pharmacology as “inadequate,” “futile” and “unavailing in the face of serious illness. Carefully complied statistics, official and accessible to all (see Bradford, “The Logic of Figures”) show a mortality in cholera throughout the world under homoeopathic treatment as low as 3 per cent. and upward to about 25 per cent. as against a mortality under “regular” treatment ranging from about 30 per cent. to 84 per cent. Broadly speaking, the mortality of cholera under homoeopathic treatment was only about one-third that of “regular” treatment.
Space forbids further quotation of statistics here, but the statement can be substantiated that about the same ratio of difference in favor of homoeopathy exists in the other diseases mentioned above, as well as in minor diseases.
The Scientific Basis of Homoeopathy.
Hahnemann was one of the first, if not the first, among physicians to apprehend the modern conception of the universality of law. He was the first to introduce into medicine the idea of a definite, general principal governing the relation between drugs and disease, and the first to formulate a practical system for the application of that principle which others had dimly seen before him but failed to make practical. He was the first to put pharmacology and pathology upon a broad, scientific basis, where they could be correlated with other sciences and be explained and illustrated by references to and comparison with their basic principles.
This was made possible for Hahnemann by his discovery that the principle of reciprocal action, formulated by Sir Isaac Newton in his third law of motion, “To every action there is an equal and possible reaction,” is as true and applicable in the animate as in the inanimate world; is as true of the action of drugs in the living organism as it is in any other department of nature.
This is the scientific foundation upon which Hahnemann proceed to build the only system of pharmacotherapeutics governed by definite general principle. The formula “Like cures like” is merely a paraphrase of the Newtonian formula, adding but one word, “To every drug action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.
The Latin form, Similia Similibus Curantur, from which the expression, “the law of similars,” is taken, expresses exactly the same idea. Action and reaction, regarded as forms of motion or processes, are exactly similar, differing only in direction. Theoretically they reciprocally balance or neutralize each other and result in equilibrium, balance, or, in the living organism, health.
Since every disease or pathological disturbance, according to biochemical science, is an intoxication or poisoning, resulting from the biochemical science, is an intoxication or poisoning, resulting from the introduction or internal formation of toxins or other deleterious substances; since drugs are also poisons, giving rise to actions and reactions in the living organism precisely as the so-called causes of disease do and similar forces moving in opposite directions (action and reaction are equal and opposite) mutually neutralize and annul each other; and since the similarity or equivalence between drugs and diseases may be learned by comparing their symptoms; it follows that in the law of reciprocal action, as applied in the homoeopathic system, we have a true and (humanly speaking) infallible guide for the rational treatment and cure of disease.
From Newtons wonderful generalization almost innumerable inferences, deductions and conclusions flow. All sciences are based upon it. The law of Reciprocal Action-balance, rhythm, vibration, compensation, polarity, equivalence-is the one absolutely universal law known to man.
It is easy, when the subject is opened up, to see how this law is applicable medicine. It is easy to trace it in the work of Hahnemann and his competent followers. It is visible and easy to observe in the action of every dose of medicine given. It matters not how many other explanations of the action of a drug may be given, it can always be explained fundamentally by reference to the Law of Reciprocal Action and its corollaries.
Inspired by his conception of the law of similars as the basic principle of cure by medication, Hahnemann proceeded to demonstrate it. Starting with the remarkable and epoch-making experiment with Peruvian bark so flippantly described by Dr.Fishbein, he continued his experimental search for many years, building up, literally creating a materia medica which should contain the symptoms produced by the action of drugs upon healthy human beings; since without such a record of the pure effects of drugs upon the healthy it would be impossible to compare them with the symptoms of the diseased for purpose of finding the similar curative medicine.
Nothing of the kind had ever been done before, although one or two others had suggested it. Hahnemanns labors were Herculean, unprecedented. Although many have followed his example, no man has ever equalled him in the extent, number and value of his “provings.” He was the pioneer, originator and founder of the truest and most scientific system of pharmacotherapeutics ever known to man.
Modern Conceptions of Disease.
Modern science (using the phrase in the all-inclusive sense, not the petty, pseudo-science of “modern medicine”) requires that we shall define all disease and every disease, irrespective of its existing cause, as primarily and essentially a state of physiological imbalance, a dysfunctioning; a loss or perversion of the normal, harmonious action of the living organism; a morbid process; a problem in vital dynamics; hence, a disturbance or perversion of the motive power of dynamic principle of the organism which we call Life-the vital principle. And this is a fundamental principle of homoeopathy.
The exciting cause of disease may be a drug, a toxin, a pathogenic micro-organism, a parasite, a physical or physical traumatism, or any other disturbing agent introduced from without or arising from within the organism. But the morbid process (for disease, strictly speaking, is nothing else) which may or may not ultimate in tangible, structural or tissue changes, is always the result of dynamical or functional changes. This is what Hahnemann, far ahead of his contemporaries and still far ahead of all but a very few of the most advanced physicians of today, always insisted upon as the sum and substance of his pathology. In this he was in perfect harmony with modern dynamical science.
The medical profession, quick to seize upon and utilize many of the results of physics and chemistry, has been singularly dull and tragically slow to grasp the higher fundamental laws and generalizations which are common to all true sciences. With only partial or fragmentary scientific knowledge they then fallen into many errors. Appropriating many of the discoveries of the chemist, the physicist, the biologist or the engineer, often without acknowledgment, sometimes arrogating to themselves the credit of discovery, they use them empirically, without knowledge or comprehension of the relations or of the general laws and principles involved, and very often with serious consequences. to the patient.
Medical men are singularly prone to jump at conclusions. They rush madly off after every new therapeutic agent, device or expedient, and proceed to “try it out” on their patients on the mere ipse dixit of somebody whose qualifications are probably no greater than their own. Presently the new toy is cast aside and something else substituted. And this they call being “modern” and “up-to-date”!.
Even when new measures or means are the product of elaborate and painstaking research, as in the modern laboratory, too often the underlying principles are wrong, the interpretation of the findings erroneous, the object (from the highest standpoint) undesirable, the result pernicious, and the means dangerous. What a series of disasters and tragedies have followed and accompanied the introduction of innoculations and injection of salvarsan, diphtheria antitoxin, 606, anti-rabic and tetanus sera, and many other modern “remedies,” to say nothing of the ghastly aftermath of the older “vaccination” and the ruin wrought by the host of deadly drugs with which physicians have experimented! No wonder that many modern physicians have abandoned drugs altogether.
