When the light generated from undiluted homoeopathic theory and its consistent practice is thrown into the corners of the homoeopathic closet not one but many skeletons are seen. This brief study of the homoeopathic skeletons is not only made from our own standpoint we are certain, but also from that of many who have found homoeopathy most efficient, and practically sufficient, for all but a small fraction of the human ills, aided only by a simple hygiene and reinforced only by a negligible fraction of manual therapeutics of any kind. From this standpoint, then, we will attempt an interpretation of some of the contents of our family closet.
One of the things coming under this head from which we always have to suffer is empirical homoeopathy. This is either the adolescent stage through which most homoeopaths pass, or homoeopathic thought nipped in the bud, arrested development, a state pitiful to behold; or it is homoeopathy stultified by some other interest taking up the space needed for expansion. With this form apprehension of the scope and principles is lacking, remedies being prescribed on reputation and routine, in combination, or alternation, or accompanied or displaced by various non-homoeopathic expedients.
This kind of homoeopathy has a definite relation to this association and its honorable traditions and needs immediate attention. The writer believes that the remedy, so far as this association is concerned, is the immediate restoration of the probationary or associate membership and the restoration of the teeth in the Declaration of Principles. These provisions of an earlier time were wise ones. Associate or probationary membership cuts favorably both ways.
To the member on probation it is, if he really is a potential homoeopath, a stimulus and an inspiration, a means to better appreciation of homoeopathic art and of the association itself. It simplifies and clarifies the work of the censors and enables them to do justice to both the applicants……. and the society, whereas, under the present conditions it is impossible to do justice to either. The writer suggests the immediate restoration of probation.
Another thing to be included in the bony lists is the traumatism of homoeopathic practice by the specialities. Now, the writer does to forget that on the rare occasions, very rare, he has been grateful for the assurance and technique of a specialists in one thing or another. Indeed, he would refer to specialists oftener for semiologic relations and advice were it possible to keep the patient under control and prevent his vitality from being perverted and tissues damaged by local treatments and examinations.
With regret we are compelled to say that in many instances he makes himself an excoriation by his local treatments, disturbing the central vital harmony or obscuring it altogether. If all physicians understood homoeopathic principles and the outflowing processes of life, specialists would be few and far better. Individual understanding and cultivation of homoeopathics should regulate specialism and the specialist automatically. Homoeopathy is the great central fact and sun of medicine and when some ten or fifteen centuries hence the fog and darkness is lifted, the specialities will be seen to be relatively small affairs. We should attempt to cultivate an understanding with the specialist as to his real relation to homoeopathic medicine.
Another nuisance when he is not desired and a joyful help in time of real need is the surgeon. The surgeon, like the poor, we shall have with us always. As to modern surgical technique we have nothing but admiration, and as to surgical judgment as we have seen it in some individuals, that thing so much finer and more comprehensive than mere operation, we have still more admiration, and often wish that it could be coupled with homoeopathic understanding.
On the other hand we could never understand why such prestige and glamour should surround the devoted head of the surgeon compared to the faint flicker from the purely medical man. One reason, we suppose, is that the surgeon deals with concrete findings and therefore can present his views accordingly, a procedure which is adored by the common mind. Little does the general medical and lay man realize that most of that with …….. which the surgeon deals is mere precipitate of the organism and that much of it is in a fluescent state and could be reclaimed by homoeopathic understanding would see surgical need as but a speck on the map of medicine.
Also, we could never understand why we should always be advised to have a surgeon at our elbow to say whether pus is present or to tell us when to operate; nor why the homoeopathic prescriber must never, never take a chances, why he must throw his responsibleness over to the surgeon without delay. Of course, from the surgeons standpoint there is one good reason, viz: to avoid late surgery. But there always seems to be surgical misapprehension as tot he power of homoeopathy and the value of the homoeopathic knowledge of constitutions.
Therefore the surgeon may toy with life and health with impunity, but condemnation hovers over the daring prescriber, even though surgical deaths outnumber the homoeopathic by 100 to 1. To illustrate homoeopathic treatment in critical conditions we will cite two cases of appendicitis. Case 1. A woman of thirty-three was seized by a constant belt- like pain about he waist which soon gravitated to the right iliac region. There is nausea, vomiting, thirst, but repelled by the taste of water and aggravation by the least motion. Bryonia was prescribed. The next morning the pain was found to be intense, with doubling up and screaming, copious sweat, rigid abdomen, the right side like a broad, white coated tongue. P.108, temp.104.
Lachesis 1M was then given. Early the next morning the cutting pains had disappeared and there was less tenderness. Watery stools appeared and in a few days recovery was complete.
Case 2. A stout, dark muscular woman of thirty-six while on a feasting visit with friends was taken with an attack of pain in the epigastrium, which gradually shifted to the right iliac region. The local doctor diagnosed acute appendicitis, advised immediate operation and gave various drugs. Disregarding the advice, but not the drugs, the patient journeyed home 200 miles in an automobile and we also found a well marked appendicitis.
The paroxysms were cutting, aggravated by motion, jarring, after …… taking anything into the stomach and by vomiting. They were accompanied by cold sweat. Lycopodium was given in the morning. In the afternoon the pain became much more severe and constant, ameliorated by loosening the clothing, by eructation and a little after a stool, the tongue was white coated ,and the inflamed area now extended to the right hypochondria and was hypersensitive. Sulph. 1M, 4 doses, 2 hours apart was prescribed.
Next morning found some improvement in general feeling and appearance. This continued until the following day when a marked change of symptoms occurred. The general illness was no worse but the inflamed are was extremely sensitive. She was most comfortable lying on the right side and it was impossible to lie on the left. There were watery stools with much flatus, preceded by rumbling but no pain, yellow coated tongue and yellow sclerotics, thirst for cold, oily sweat, icy cold feet and legs. A dense mass of adhesions has formed about the caecal region. The temperature remained at 102 and the pulse 100.
Mercurius 1M was given and the result would have appeased the must exacting demands.
Eleven days later much of the mass was still present with drawing sensations while in certain positions. A slow stye with white stringy pus was doing its best. Kali mur. 1M ended the entire trouble.
Here were two hair-raising cases which by all the rules of ordinary necessity should have been wheeled along the usual course with ambulance and tables.
Nevertheless, with due respect to the good warnings of our surgical mentors there were good and substantial reasons, not apparent to them, why these were occasions of opportunity as well as necessity, to which the patients also had an ethical right.
The Lachesis case was a woman with fairly well marked tubercular diathesis which had been modified considerably by occasional homoeopathic prescriptions during six years. Suddenly we were started by a rapidly moving attack of acute appendicitis. Could it be that the improvement of six years was spurious? Had the central vitality gained nothing that it should now be overcome by this sudden thrust at life? What if there might be some exciting cause! The very form of the attack shows that a pent up miasm had burst forth in a way characteristic of the remote syphilitic. The tubercular constitution had been so modified, the central vitality so increased, that it could now take on the acute expression. Here was an opportunity to eliminate, probably forever, while surgery would spoil forever. We took the homoeopathic choice with the result that during the last eleven years the womans complaints have been trifling.
Born in Torrington, Litchfield, Connecticut, USA on 20 Oct 1871 to Royal Edmund Hayes and Harriet E Merriman. He had at least 4 sons and 1 daughter with Miriam Martha Phillips. He lived in Torrington, Litchfield, Connecticut, United States in 1880. He died on 20 July 1952, in Waterbury, New Haven, Connecticut, United States, at the age of 80, and was buried in Waterbury, New Haven, Connecticut, United States.