Homoeopathic philosophy teaches that the things which are visible in disease–the tumor, the eruption on the skin, the discharges from diseased organs–are merely the results of disease, not the disease itself. With these homoeopathy primarily has nothing to do. It is concerned solely with the perverted functional or dynamic processes of which they are a product. The mechanical, electrical or chemical removal of disease products, when necessary, belongs to other departments of medicine.
Homoeopathic philosophy does not make the mistake of confusing processes with products, wasting the energy and endangering the life of sick persons by the mere palliation of pain, as by narcotics, the suppression of discharges, or the forcible or mechanical removal of tangible results of disease before it has begun to restore functional harmony to the disordered organism. It strikes first and directly at the hidden source and cause of the visible phenomena and deals with the tangible products incidentally or later if necessary.
Homoeopathy deals with individuals, not classes. It recognizes the differences which always exist between individuals, in disease as well as health. It knows by observation and experience that no two persons are ever affected exactly alike, even when suffering from the same disease or acted upon by the same medicine.
It knows that individual patients cannot be thrown into a class, labelled with the name of a disease, and be treated successfully by the same remedy. It treats each case “on its merits,” as it actually is not as it is supposed to be. It studies and treats each case as a whole, not merely a part or an organ, and it does so logically, consistently and systematically. In one word, homoeopathy is scientific.
Homoeopathy teaches that there are no “specifics” in medicine, no one remedy for all cases of the same disease, be it drug, serum, vaccine or what not. Guided by a definite principle of medication, it is able to select for each patient the remedy symptomatically similar, demanded by his own peculiar and characteristics complex of symptoms and thus, by equalization of similar opposing forces, destroy his disease at the source.
The materia medica of homoeopathy, the arsenal from which it draws its weapons for the warfare with disease, is composed of substances drawn from every department of nature. From mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms alike, it takes these substances, prepares them by simple, mathematico-mechanical or chemical processes, and tests them experimentally in doses small, but sufficiently powerful to excite perceptible action and reaction in healthy, human beings. It observes and records the symptoms produced and then applies them, in still smaller or infinitesimal doses, for the cure of diseases presenting similar symptoms.
Recognizing that disease is the result of a dynamical disturbance of that delicately balanced action of the organic forces which we call health, and knowing how small an amount of force is necessary to disturb it, the homoeopathic physician needs and uses only the smallest doses to restore it.
We have no reason to doubt that a single pathogenic bacterium is capable of originating its typical disease under favorable conditions.
How much does a single bacterium weigh?.
Recall, too, that it is not the mere physical presence and bulk of the pathogenic germ, small as that is, that does the damage, but the almost infinitesimal quantity of its secretions or ptomaines.
How much poison does a single streptococcus secrete?.
Who knows how much of one of the “filterable viruses,” say of influenza or poliomyelitis, invisible to the highest powers of the microscope and capable of passing through the finest filters, is necessary to originate the disease in a subject who is morbidly susceptible to its action?.
With this idea in mind ask yourselves how much of the homoeopathic or similar medicine, would be required to originate in the infected body the counter action necessary to cure it? Only as much, at most, as equalled the amount of the original poison.
I have repeatedly cured the most virulent cases of streptococcic and staphylococcic infections with the 30th and 200th potencies of such medicines as Arsenic, Bellad. and Lachesis.
How much medicine is in the 30th potency of Lachesis?
I will not multiply illustrations. I would have you realize that with homoeopathy you are working in the sphere of dynamics– the invisible realm of force–in which the modern scientist recognizes and deals constantly with the infinitesimal as well as the massive. If your college and university professors of mathematics, chemistry and physics have not inducted you into the higher spheres of these sciences in which such subjects are treated your worthy dean, Professor Pearson, as a chemist, could doubtless do so–if you should ask him, and he felt like it. In any case the works of the great thinkers and generalizers in science are accessible to you whenever you are ready to take them up.
There are many other subjects connected with homoeopathic philosophy which I might discuss, but I fear I have already tired you. My sole purposes has been just to open the door and give you a glimpse of the wonderful field in which the homoeopathic physician is privileged to work, and to indicate suggestively some of the relations of homoeopathy to other sciences and arts. If I have succeeded in arousing or stimulating your interest I shall feel happy and repaid, because I shall expect you to keep the door open, or at least unlocked, and later to go out and explore the field for yourselves.
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.