As witness: It has been reported that “rabbits fan thrive infields of Belladonna; pigeons take 12 grains, of Morphia, dogs 37 grains, and hedgehogs as much as a Chinaman can smoke in a fortnight, and wash it down with as much Prussic acid as would kill a regiment of soldiers. Elephants eat Aconite with immunity”. Then, the toxic and fatal power of the drug lies not in the quantity or potentiality of the contained power of the drug, but in the power of the bodily secretions to act on the drugs physical container thus freeing that power. Thus, then, the proper way of even crude drug antidoting is to so change, protect or render the normal
secretions incapable of acting upon the physical container of the confined drug power that the substance may pass out of the body as inert matter.
The so-called homoeopathic antidoting is an entirely different proposition. It does not neutralize anything, for there is nothing there tangible to be neutralized or opposed. The so- called antidote merely sets up and effect of its won to neutralize, not the preceding remedy, but the result of that remedys action. Should homoeopathy ever be lost to the world future generations will look back on that catastrophe as the result of the most pitiable and dense ignorance of the physicians of these modern times.
PROVINGS AND REPROVINGS.
At almost every convention and gathering of homoeopathic physicians held in the last few years there have been those in the gathering who have voiced the opinion that our remedies should be reproven in the light of modern methods of precision.
Hahnemann and his immediate followers established the process of proving remedies, and the work was carried on very enthusiastically until about the beginning of this country, when, due to the influence of some of the ultra-materialists in medicine, provings were more or less discontinued. The late Timothy Field Allen was probably the greatest individual prover of remedies in the latter part of the last century. He kept a coterie of people for the sole purpose of proving remedies. Within the last few years there have been some noteworthy provings made, Radium, Kali phos., and several minor remedies. There is a very great need for carrying on this work today.
The American Foundation for Homoeopathy and the International Hahnemannian Association are both at work proving remedies. It is to be hoped that sufficiently large endowments to carry on this work more extensively can be obtained, so that we may add to our materia medica positive knowledge of the action of drugs in potentized form. This work needs endowment, for it is expensive work to go into the details that may be registered by the modern instruments of precision.
However, it will always remain true that the best provings will be those which bring out symptoms that are impossible of measurement by instrument of precision, being associated with and an integral part of the subjective symptoms.
The reproving of Belladonna by the O. O. & L. Society a few years ago produced no new symptoms that Hahnemann had not recorded, in spite of the fact that the later proving was registered by the modern instruments of precision that the modern laboratory affords; and many of the finer subjective symptoms were entirely lost sight of. This was partly due to the fact that the recorders of these provings were so intensely interested in the mechanism of the laboratory that they somewhat overlooked the subjective symptoms.
The blood pressure, the registration of the clinical thermometer, the blood count, the chemical urinary analysis, blood chemistry; and sometimes the fecal examination, have their place in these provings; but the subjective symptoms must be carefully noted and their interpretations made very clear, because it is upon these subjective symptoms that we make our clinical applications. Moreover, it is important in recording these symptoms that it be in the language of the common people, for it has a meaning all its own, and it is universally understood; while if the technical nomenclature is used to record symptoms, there is very apt to be a loss of the finer differentiations.
Reproving of some of the remedies is important, and the work should be undertaken with many of the remedies; this is especially so with those remedies which have never been proven in potency, because it is in the proving of the potentized remedy that we obtain the finer shades of the action of the remedy. Of course the provings should always be made upon human individuals, of both sexes and differing ages.
The materia medica we have is a very workable instrument for those who have been trained to use and understand it. It has been noted that most of those who cry for reprovings of the old remedies are the surgeons and the specialists, particularly the surgeons, because of their realization that the technique of surgery has been completely revolutionized, and the changes are still going on and it always must be so; but the materia medica is made up of remedies that when once thoroughly proven by a goodly number of provers, is a work for all time.
Another cry we often hear is for the proving of synthetic preparations. When we consider that we have a pure materia medica, complied records of the action of Natures combinations developed in Natures laboratory, it seems a mistake and utterly unnecessary that we waste our time in proving alkaloids and synthetic products. The fresh plant preparations, which contain Natures own combinations, grown and designed for the healing of the nations, are much more apt to meet the needs of sick man than the chemical products, the by-products of man-made industries.
So then let us prove more remedies. Many of the new remedies, especially those the Orient, will, when proven, develop into major remedies; and if by reproving some of the old remedies in potency we can bring to light unlooked-for values, so much the better. Let us be slow to discard the old and tired, and alert to detect the value of provings of the new remedies. We will thus add to the volume of the sum total of knowledge of our materia medica, and with the addition of the present methods of the use of the repertories, and a through study of the knowledge we have accumulated, we will have attained greater efficiency in the practice of the art of healing.-H.A. ROBERTS.
Allan D. Sutherland was born in Northfield, Vermont in 1897, delivered by the local homeopathic physician. The son of a Canadian Episcopalian minister, his father had arrived there to lead the local parish five years earlier and met his mother, who was the daughter of the president of the University of Norwich. Four years after Allan’s birth, ministerial work lead the family first to North Carolina and then to Connecticut a few years afterward.
Starting in 1920, Sutherland began his premedical studies and a year later, he began his medical education at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia.
Sutherland graduated in 1925 and went on to intern at both Children’s Homeopathic Hospital and St. Luke’s Homeopathic Hospital. He then was appointed the chief resident at Children’s. With the conclusion of his residency and 2 years of clinical experience under his belt, Sutherland opened his own practice in Philadelphia while retaining a position at Children’s in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.
In 1928, Sutherland decided to set up practice in Brattleboro.