Schall looked me over, heard what I had to say and prepared some medicine in a glass. He got even with me for my gibes by refusing to tell me what it was, but I didnt care much just then. I dutifully took the medicine and in a couple of hours was in a profuse warm perspiration and nearly free from pain and dyspnoea.
Of course, he gave me Aconite–in the 2x dilution–as he confessed two days later when I guyed him about his “crude prescribing” and demanded my rights. From that time on we worked out the remedies together. It was a perfectly clear and simple case, as such cases usually are for the homoeopathician. The guiding symptoms stood out clear and distinct. Bryonia 200 followed for two days; then a dose of Kali carb. 200 for “stitching pains in the right lung, with aggravation of all symptoms at 2 A. M.” Finally a dose or two of phosphorus 200 and the cure was complete. It is a simple tale quickly told. No adjuvants were used except a friendly hot water bag.
In ten days from the beginning of the attack my temperature was normal, (it had reached 104 and then dropped as low as 96 in the meantime), pulse normal, sputum clear of blood and resolution complete. During the third week I was sitting up in bed reading detective stories, and toward the end of it was up and dressed. The fourth week I spent in Atlantic City, and at the beginning of the fifth week I resumed practice as good as new, though still a little “weak in the legs.” Since then I have felt and looked better–so they say– than I had for months before my illness.
By a singular coincidence the first case of acute disease I was called upon to treat after I resumed practice was one of pneumonia, in a man of very nearly my own age. He has been my loyal friend and patient for more than thirty years and has implicit faith in homoeopathy as I practice it. He is a stationary engineer, of average intelligence, good physique, regular habits and simple living.
He appeared at my office one morning in an almost fainting condition, breathing with great difficulty and complaining of pain in the chest. “Pneumonia” was stamped all over him. He had not felt well for two days, had taken a street car almost at his door, walked one block to my office and nearly collapsed. He was very much frightened. I gave him Aconite 30, and sent him home in a taxicab. Two days later I gave him Bryonia 200 and later one dose of Phosphorus 45m. It was a simple, typical case of lobar pneumonia. In ten days it was all over except for weakness. By the end of the third week he was up and dressed. He took one weeks vacation and then went back to work.
Here then were four cases of pneumonia in men about sixty- five years of age. Two of them, under “modern scientific treatment,” promptly died. Two others under homoeopathic treatment almost as promptly got well. How about it?.
During the month of seclusion (after the first three days) I had ample time for observation, meditation and reflection, undisturbed by outside affairs. Naturally, having had in my own person such a demonstration of the curative power of homoeopathic medicines in the disease with the highest mortality of all, my thoughts revolved largely around that subject.
As I analyzed my condition and reflected upon it, it became renewedly clear to me that other things besides curative medications (important though it be) make for the successful treatment and cure of a serious case. It had been so with me and with my patient. First, there is the mind–“the man himself.” The state of the mind always stands first with the Hahnemannian, with whom it is an axiom: “Mental symptoms rank highest.” Consciously or subconsciously the mind governs the body, giving form and character to all its parts and functions.
It is the living man as an individual, the finite personification and embodiment of Infinite Spirit-Life-Mind, the “Dynamis” of Hahnemann, who reacts alike to all physiological, pathogenic and therapeutic impressions. The character of his actions and reactions, therefore, is governed by the peculiarities of his mental and psychical, as well as his physical make-up-in one word by his morphology; for he exists and functions as an individual organism. An individual is one, a unit, composed of many vitally related parts.
Every individual is unique in his own peculiar, exact combination of organic degree and type of development, and of his physical and mental traits and qualities. He is united in his constituent organs and parts, united with his fellows, and united with the cosmos by the universal, spiritual principle of Life-and-Mind, which is common to all finite beings, and blinds them all together in mutual obligations to each other. It is a universe of “give and take,” of inter-relation and reciprocity, not only between all individuals and their parts, but between all realms, kingdoms, worlds and spheres, all mediated by the universal principle of mutual action, or similia, formulated by Newton in his third law of motion.
What manner of man, then, am I? I asked myself. Symptomatically similar remedies acting favorably upon me by reason of their affinity for my own peculiar morphological make-up–(favorably because they were similar and assimilable)– plus certain mental or spiritual states, have brought me out, while my friends who did not receive their similar medicines, and perhaps for other reasons passed on into and through the “valley of the shadow of death”.
First, then, as to my mind and its beliefs; for beliefs govern conduct. Conduct influences organic actions and by a universal law of nature, actions govern reactions. Upon the nature and kind of its reactions depends the type and degree of development of the organism and all its parts, plus or minus. Hence, the importance of considering our beliefs in relation to our condition, sick or well.
Well, to put it very simply, in the old-fashioned way, I believe in God. But that apparently trite and simple statement means a great deal more to me than it does to one who has not analyzed and sounded it to its depths. For me it is absolutely fundamental. It comprises my entire philosophy as well as my religion. It includes my philosophy of medicine in general and homoeopathy in particular.
I know it is not customary–is considered reprehensible by conventionally minded scientists–to mix or identify religion or theology with science. “Science” is godless, avowedly and sometimes boastfully so; but not all scientists are godless, nor ashamed to avow their belief and faith in God. Their concepts of God, of course, vary greatly. In this matter I speak for myself alone.
From my point of view, homoeopathy–the science and art of curative medication–cannot be separated from certain fundamentals of theology without destroying not only the unity of its comprehensive and well rounded philosophy, but its real scientific foundation; nor without sacrificing the highest spiritual incentive to loyalty and enthusiasm in its practice.
Homoeopathy is founded on the bed-rock of a belief in and recognition of the Living God, set forth but not fully explained by Hahnemann in the Organon in his doctrine of Life and The Life Force. This statement may be questioned, but I believe it can be substantiated. It is, of course, largely a matter of interpretation of certain passages, some of which are more or less obscure, but clear enough to the initiated.
The doctrine of the “Life Force” did not originate with Hahnemann, as many suppose. In making it the foundation of his system of therapeutic philosophy, Hahnemann identified himself with that great school of philosophic and religious thought which had its origin in Monotheism– the doctrine of the One God of Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, and back of them, of the High Priests of Egypt, from whom, historically, they derived it.
Moses, it is recorded, “was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” among whom he was brought up from infancy as the adopted son of the royal princess. This undoubtedly included instruction in the secret doctrine of the One as the primary Source of all life, all power and all force. Hence the life force, which is the Power in action in all living beings. Hence, the spiritual-vital- dynamical doctrine of Hahnemann and the old philosophers, as opposed to the materialistic or mechanistic philosophy of modern times.
Modern science, in its desire to get away from the theological idea which seems so repugnant to it, speaks no more of “God,” but only of a blind, unintelligent, dead “Energy,” or “Force,” the terms being used interchangeably.
It denies the existence of a “life force” because it cannot identify any force in the living organism which differs in any respect from chemical or electrical force. Constructively it denies the existence of life itself as an entity; that is,as an originating and controlling power or principle; and here is the head and front of its offending. It regards and speaks of life only as a state or condition–an effect for which no cause is assigned–or ignores it altogether. (See any modern textbook of biology or physiology.).
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.