There is a belief among a number of individuals in general and medical men in particular that modern therapeutic developments have caused the practice of homoeopathy to become obsolete, that it has served its purpose and should be discarded. Nothing could be further from the facts. No one will deny that general medicine has made remarkable advances within the last few years. Typhoid fever, diphtheria and other diseases are diminishing so rapidly that we may expect them to pass into history. The question that confronts us as scientific medical men seeking the truth is, how has all this been achieved?
We answer: sanitation and the development of bodily resistance. Yellow fever, typhus and the plague are examples of the splendid conquests won through the knowledge of modes of transmission. Sanitary measures, public or individual, prevent disease by excluding the cause form contact with the host. The great workers in this field, many sacrificing their lives in experimentation, deserve places in history undiminishable in the march of time. The development of bodily resistance against disease is the chief concern in these remarks.
If we examine carefully into the modus operandi of present-day medical achievements, no high degree of logical attainments is needed to form the conclusion that Modern Medicine Is Really Proving the Truth of Homoeopathy.
Present-day experimentation is directed largely toward developing so-called antigens. These are really similar acting. Vaccine therapy is simply another name for Isopathy, introduced by Dr. Lux, a homoeopathic veterinarian, in 1823. This method was not new with him, however. Xenocrates practiced it in 400 B.C. The prophylactic use of smallpox virus was mentioned in the Athava Vera (1500 B.C.). “Pox-sewing” was practiced by the Chinese in 1000 B.C. Early in history the Greeks, Circassians, Arabians, Africans, Scots, Danes and others practiced isopathic inoculations. All these and the introduction of cow-pox by Jenner are based on the law of similars.
Let us review a little history. Constantine Hering antedated Pasteur in proposing the diluted rabietic saliva as a prophylactic for hydrophobia in 1833. Swan antedated Koch in the introduction of Tuberculinum. Burnett treated cases of tuberculosis with Bacillinum in 1885. Kochs Tuberculin appeared in 1890. Inoculations against typhoid, diphtheria, etc., are purely homoeopathic (or isopathic) in principle.
Therapeutically, the vaccines are not as efficacious. This is due to the fact that an isopathic remedy has not the same curative power as a homoeopathic one (similar but not the same). The nosodes, Tuberculinum, Syphilinum, etc., produced better results when not prescribed for the actual diseases from which they are obtained, but for other conditions presenting a similar symptomatology.
There is no tendency on the part of the “old school” to limit the introduction of homoeopathic and isopathic remedies to the vaccines. We are all familiar with the paper by W.M. Storer, L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S., Ed., “Therapeutic Reform,” read before the Ulster Branch of the British Medical Association in 1905. He gave homoeopathic indications for Ant. tart., Belladonna, Cinchona and Quinine, Ergot (Secale corn.), Cantharis, Terebinth and Arsenicum. He said : “The therapeutic value of a drug corresponds exactly with its pathogenetic, or disease-producing powers.” “The key to therapeutics is toxicology.”
“Every substance which can paralyze or kill cell protoplasm can also act in small quantities (on the other side of an indifferent point) as a stimulus to cell activity.” “The absolute quantities are very different with different substances.” The recognition of homoeopathic principles by such famous “old school” representatives as Bier, Schulz and Rapp is encouraging to those of us who cherish fair play as well as scientific advance.
The entirely dissimilar, like Dr. Morris Fishbein, known by his “Follies,” take a different attitude. Could we expect anything else? “None are so blind as those who will not see.” Fishbein writes: “Before the rapid effects of the satisfactory administration of mercury and 606, measurable by the Wassermann test, theories of psora and similars could not exist.” Such superficial reasoning really helps the cause of homoeopathy. The theory of psora has nothing to do with the principles of similars, it was a later thought of Hahnemann which can be accepted or rejected insofar as Homoeopathy is concerned. Belief or disbelief in the so-called doctrine of psora affect our results as practitioners of medicine, however. Our old friend, Dr. Eugene Nash, well known for his wit as well as his prescribing, expressed himself thus in regard to psora:.
“If you ask me, what is psora? I answer in true Yankee style, what is scrofula? Perhaps psora is scrofula, or scrofula is psora. Call it either or neither. Yet it is present, a something named or unnamed which must be recognized and which complicates so-called acute diseases. Now there is nothing so very remarkable about this. Syphilis does the same. Once contracted or inherited, no matter what ordinary acute disease appears, we are at times obliged to turn aside from its treatment to give a quietus to the enemy before we can overcome the acute affection”.
Let us consider Dr. Fishbeins remarks regarding mercury and “606”. It is inconceivable that any modern physician would deny the cause of syphilis. The existence of the spirochaeta pallida is an established fact. It is also absolutely true that mercury and “606” are capable of destroying these organisms in the body by their direct anti-parasitic action. So far so good, but Dr. Fishbein only scratches the surface. We know, as logical and practical physicians, that disease can be combated in two ways.
By direct anti-parasitic action and by stimulating the resistive forces of the body. The first is extremely limited in its application, few diseases are cured in this way. The latter has a wide range of adaptability. Homoeopathy cures by virtue of its power to stimulate reaction, or, if one wishes to clothe it in modern terms, by the formation of antitoxins by the action of antigens (homoeopathic remedies.).
Examination of the pathogenesis of Mercury reveals the fact that it is capable of producing in the healthy human body, symptoms similar to the secondary manifestations of syphilis. Arsenicum (606), to a less extent, bears the same relationship. The falling hair, skin eruptions, etc., are familiar to us all. Bastedo says: “Yet in most cases (syphilis) they (salvarsan and neosalvarsan) are not completely curative and must be alternated or combined with the mercury treatment.” The remedy (Mercury) possessing the greater symptom similarity is actually more curative than Arsenic (606), which has greater anti-spirochaetic power.
Dr. Fishbein “reasons” again as only he can: “Before such a fact as the inevitable response of the heart to an adequate dose of digitalis, any theory of dynamics and vibrations which called for splitting the dose into decillionth parts was bound to evaporate.” Even those possessing the most superficial understanding of Homoeopathy know that the actual size of the dose, whether it be the tincture, the 30th or higher potency, has nothing to do with its principles. It is simply the smallest dose that will cure. Digitalis was recommended by the celebrated Sir James Mackenzie (who appreciated the great value of symptomatology), for auricular flutter, auricular fibrillation, and cardiac conditions accompanied by dropsy.
It is claimed, and justly so, that digitalis exerts its beneficial action by retarding the impulse passing through the bundle of His, thus giving the ventricular muscle time to rest. This is not all, however. On examination of the toxicology of Digitalis we find that it is capable of producing auricular flutter and auricular fibrillation by directly poisoning the heart muscle. Is this not another example of the law of similars? Dr. Richard Hughes classical description of this remedy in his Pharmacodynamic is worthy of his fine, logical mind and his broad character.
Let us examine still further into modern medicine. Poison ivy antigen (the purified active principle in almond oil as prepared by Ralph Oaxley Clock) is receiving praise as is shown by the following quotation:.
“As a rule, one injection of 1 cc. of the almond oil extract will be found to give relief. In severe cases two or three doses may be required at intervals of twenty-four hours. Usually the subjective symptoms of itching are relieved in twelve to twenty- four hours after the first dose, and local reactions are absent. The author believes any local treatment, even at its best, to be relatively ineffective when compared to the results that have been obtained by the intramuscular injection of the almond oil extract of poison ivy”.
Another point, familiar to all homoeopathic physicians, is brought out in this quotation. The superior curative action of internal medication injection over local measures.
