And that vaccines and disease products used for the cure of disease are homoeopathic, is pretty widely recognized.
Dr. Cabot, a university teacher in New England, said in 1906, “The use of tuberculin is a form of vaccination which illustrates better than any example known to me the approval of homoeopathic principles in our school. The poison of tuberculosis, which can produce some of the symptoms of tuberculosis, is here applied for the cure of tuberculosis, through the production of immunity or resisting power in the tissues. Surely this is a case of similia similibus curentur, as homoeopathic writers have pointed out. The use of bacterial vaccines recently produced by Sir Almroth Wright is distinctly homoeopathic”.
Von Behring, the discoverer of diphtheria antitoxin, said: “By what technical term could we more appropriately speak of this influence excited by a similar virus, than by Hahnemanns word, homoeopathy.” And of tuberculin he said that its therapeutic usefulness “must be traced in origin to a principle which cannot be better characterized than by Hahnemanns word homoeopathic.” And again, in regard to immunity in sheep, vaccinated against anthrax, he said, “By what technical term could we more appropriately speak of this influence of a virus similar in character to the fatal anthrax, than by Hahnemanns word, homoeopathy”.
It may be interesting here to state that, according to the directions of Constantine Hering (one of Hahnemanns great followers) in 1830, Anthracinum was prepared from the spleen of animals affected with anthrax; and that, in 1836, the homoeopath Weber published in Leipsic a treatise on Cattle Plague Treated with Anthracinum, Also of Men Similarly Affected, in which he claims to have cured every case.
In regard to the use of disease products for the cure of disease, homoeopathy has been using them since the days of Hahnemann; but administered orally in potency and after provings have been made; just like any other homoeopathic medicines.
As pointed out by Dr. McGavack (Homoeopathic Principles in Therapeutics), in addition to vaccines, official medicine is now experimenting with another group of pathogenic agents, homoeopathically applied, for the cure of asthma, hay fever, and other diseases of foreign protein origin. The proper pollen is selected, in each case, by individualization.
But homoeopathy has been treating diseases of sensitization for over a country with success; individualizing always, but after the homoeopathic methods of drug-selection.
He says, “Every set of cutaneous sensitization tests contains common oats (Avena sativa), yellow dock (Rumex crispus), plantain (Plantago major), elder (Sambucus nigra), spikenard (Aralia racemosa), etc., etc.” But all these, in provings, produce either hay fever, or asthma, or both, and are therefore capable of curing these diseases and that “long before the laboratory was capable of demonstrating their power, as antigens”.
These, and many others, are to be found in Clarkes Dictionary of (homoeopathic) Materia Medica, published in 1900-1902.
Avena Suffocative attacks at night.
Rumex Nose, sudden, sharp tingling sensation, followed by violent and rapid sneezing. Violent sneezing with watery coryza.
Plantago Frequent sneezing, with sudden attacks of profuse, watery, bland coryza.
Sambucus Wheezing. Obstructed respiration when lying down. Spasmodic paroxysms of suffocation at night, with great agitation. Great difficulty of breathing.
Aralia Wheezing; sense of impending suffocation. Immediately on lying down, an attack of asthma.
But it is not enough to know that a remedy can cause asthma or hay fever. The homoeopath must know more, in order to differentiate between such remedies. He must know which to choose.
Rumex is peculiar in being worse by breathing cold air. In chest troubles, wants to cover up the mouth.
Sambucus has a bluish, bloated face; a great tendency to fright great agitation during the attack great pressure and constriction of chest and so on.
And there are many others even more valuable, but each only valuable in its place.
In coryza, with Allium cepa (the onion) the discharge from the eyes is bland, and from the nose excoriating.
With Arsenicum also, the discharges from the nose are hot and excoriating.
But with Euphrasia, the other way about, the eye discharge is acrid, and the nasal discharge is bland.
But homoeopathy goes much further, and has a far wider field than vaccines, which apply to only a limited number of diseases; whereas substances producing like effects to disease can be used in the same way, or be substituted for vaccines, with great simplification of preparation, elimination of risk, and precision in dosage.
NATURAL DISEASES AND DRUG DISEASES.
Hahnemann shows that diseases of like symptoms annihilate, or, as we may say, antidote, one another; and he instances, inter- alia, cow-pox and small-pox.
In the same way (he contends) an artificial, or drug-disease will antidote a natural disease of like symptoms.
Only that the artificial, or drug-disease, is vastly superior, as a curative agent, to any natural disease; since natural diseases are uncertain in action and leave many persons unaffected; whereas medicinal agents (take arsenic for instance) “act at all times, and under all circumstances, on all living beings, and have this great advantage, that they can be diluted, divided, potentized to the verge of infinity at the will of the physician, till the result of treatment is seen only as a gentle, imperceptible but rapid transition from suffering to health”.
This uncertainty in the employment of natural diseases for the cure of disease is exemplified in the use of malaria for the cure of general paralysis of the insane. A plaintive tale in this regard was voiced recently by Menninger and Fellows in the Journal of the Kansas Medical Society.
It is a tale of difficulty and uncertainty; of the damage to certain organs liver and spleen; of the risk of spreading malaria by patients under treatment; and of enhanced mortality.
POTENTIZATION.
The extreme subdivision of homoeopathic remedies has been keenly criticized for one hundred years. But, as Hahnemann taught the potentizing of medicines, the thing is perfectly simple and accurate. For Hahnemanns favorite “30th” or “decillionth” potency, only thirty small vials are needed, and a few drachms of alcohol or water. One drop of the strong tincture is put in a small bottle with ninety-nine drops of alcohol, and this, vigorously succussed, is the first centesimal potency.
Subsequent potencies are prepared in the same way always one drop of the preceding potency in ninety-nine drops of the attenuating medium, to form the next. And it will be easily seen that, so long as matter is divisible, each succeeding vial will contain a saturated solution of the drug, in finer and finer subdivision, always; activated, and not diluted and rendered less potent. Boyd of Glasgow has recently proved that every single succussion, up to forty, alters the potency; then if remains constant, till further potentized by taking one drop into a fresh ninety-nine drops of alcohol.
But homoeopathy makes use of many insoluble substances; and it uses them pure, and in tincture form. How can this be?.
And here we have another of the discoveries of Hahnemann. With insoluble substances gold, silica, carbon, lycopodium his first potencies are made by trituration (one part of the substance in ninety-nine parts of sugar of milk, triturated in an agate mortar for a couple of hours). One part of this first centesimal trituration is again ground up with ninety-nine parts of sugar of milk for the same period, to make a second centesimal potency, and a third is made in the same way. That gives the substance, as one in a million. And he shows that after these three triturations all substances become soluble in alcohol or water, and potencies can now be run up in the usual way.
The profession now has colloidal silica, etc., but silica, gold, vegetable charcoal, silver, and a host of insoluble substances were bequeathed to us, proved as to their exact role in combating sickness, by Hahnemann, over one hundred years ago.
Many, in the past, have called this diluting, and the resulting tinctures “dilutions.” So did Hahnemann, till experience taught him that subdivision (and he never reached its limits) meant more completely liberated energy; when he substituted for “dilutions” the truer term, potencies. And here, again, he appealed to facts and to experience, and has taught us to do the same; insisting that, so long as a remedy, so treated, can evoke some evidence of aggravation, we have curative power. And our personal experience of some twenty years is, that it is from the highest potencies (provided that the remedy is correct) that we get the most alarming aggravations; so much so that we dare not employ them in advanced disease with much destruction of tissue. For instance, in advanced phthisis, a very high potency of Phosphorus, in establishing too severe a reaction, may determine a fatal haemorrhage.
Weir received his medical education first at Glasgow University MB ChB 1907, and then on a sabbatical year in Chicago under the tutelage of Dr James Tyler Kent of Hering Medical College during 1908-9. Weir reputedly first learned of homeopathy through his contact with Dr Robert Gibson Miller.
John Weir wrote- Some of the Outstanding Homeopathic Remedies for Acute Conditions with Margaret Tyler, Homeopathy and its Importance in Treatment of Chronic Disease, The Trend of Modern Medicine, The Science and Art of Homeopathy, Brit Homeo Jnl, The Present Day Attitude of the Medical Profession Towards Homeopathy, Brit Homeo Jnl XVI, 1926, p.212ff, Homeopathy: a System of Therapeutics, The Hahnemann Convalescent Home, Bournemouth, Brit Homeo Jnl 20, 1931, 200-201, Homeopathy an Explanation of its Principles, British Homeopathy During the Last 100 Years, Brit Homeo Jnl 23, 1932: etc