In recent years the writings of various great men in the field of medicine show beyond a doubt that they feel, at least unconsciously, the truth of the homoeopathic teachings and philosophy. When we read that they believe that the suppression of a symptom does not necessarily mean that the underlying morbid process has come to an end, and that the doctors chief effort must be to promote natural defenses, to supplement them and if necessary to copy them, we can see here a decided leaning toward the Hahnemannian way of thinking and mode of prescribing.
In great works on pharmacology written within the last ten years we learn that chronic disorders such as hysteria, epilepsy, neurasthenia and gout have much in common. While manifested in acute attacks or explosions, for which definite exciting causes such as emotion, fatigue, or dietetic error may be often recognized, they are commonly dependent in largest measure on inherited defects and tendencies. As a rule the liability to recurrence is permanent, and in many cases persistent signs or symptoms can be detected even during intervals apparently free from disturbance.
We read in these searching volumes by men of the “old school” that in hysteria and epilepsy the molecular constitution or even the minute morphology of central nerve elements and endocrine structures may be more or less profoundly altered. That neurasthenia is, at least in part, an intoxication with autonomous poisons or fatigue products, is highly probable. that gout is, if not dependent upon, at all events associated with defective combustion and insufficient excretion of certain products of catabolism – purine derivatives, in particular uric acid – seems well established.
Yet neither in the nervous disorders, nor in the disorder of metabolism, nor in the disorder that exhibits both nervous and metabolic features, is there a definite association of a unique morbific factor, or of any characteristic tissue change discoverable by the microscope with the functional derangements that constitute a recognized clinical syndrome.
These above thought recall the same ideas written by another more than one hundred years ago when he states that:.
In sickness this spirit-like, self-acting (automatic) vital force omnipresent in the organism is alone primarily deranged by the dynamic influence of some morbific agency inimical to life. Only this abnormally modified vital force can excite morbid sensations in the organism, and determine the abnormal functional activity which we call disease. This force, itself invisible, becomes perceptible only through its effects upon the organism, makes known, and has no other way of making known its morbid disturbance to the observer and physician than by the manifestation of morbid feelings and functions; that is, by the symptoms of disease in the visible material organism.
The mistaken notion that in Graves syndrome there is primarily an affection of the thyroid with poisoning by hypersecretion has led to an equally erroneous insistence upon measures of destruction such as surgery, radium and x-ray in its treatment.
Although imperative in some cases, ordinarily destructive measures are unnecessary. The primary and essential element of Graves syndrome is not the thyroid tumor, but a congenital and often hereditary imbalance of the autonomic nervous system. The thyroid perversion is only an incident arising from the character and mode of impact of the existing cause or causes, whether they be physical, chemical or psychic. Sometimes it appears to be a protective reaction, erring by excess.
The natural history of Graves disease shows that many cases, perhaps one-fourth, tend to spontaneous and sometimes complete restoration in six months to two years. A few cases, perhaps five per cent, run a rapid, alarming, and sometimes fatal course. Between these extremes are many degrees of severity. Either death or restoration may be preceded by insanity, or insanity may persist permanently or temporarily after subsidence of all other derangements. Mild psychopathies may show during the whole course of the ailment, or intermittently.
The cardiac, nervous and ocular disturbances may disappear, and the goitre persist diminished or undiminished; the thyroid gland may return to approximately normal size, and nervous or ocular symptoms persist in greater or less degree; nor is a similar issue unlikely even after skillful thyroidectomy. Diabetes mellitus may develop, sometimes tending to persist after apparent restoration. Complete quiescence may be attained and shock, fright, anxiety, etc., may cause renewal of active symptoms.
We know, too, that erythema nodosum can occur in infectious arthritis, rheumatic fever and in tuberculosis. These facts all display the interrelationship between apparently unrelated diseases. In his unique and lucid manner Hahnemann gave expression to this fundamental concept when he wrote in his Chronic Diseases that:.
Careful observations, comparisons and experiments in later years have revealed to me the fact that the tedious ailments of both the body and the soul (provided they do not belong to the class of syphilis or sycosis) which differ so much from each other in their principal symptoms as well as in the different patients, are all of them nothing but partial manifestations of one primitive, chronic psoric miasm, in which they all originate, and whose innumerable symptoms form but one integral disease, and ought therefore to be regarded and treated as parts of one and the same disturbance.
In the great volume on pharmacology by Solis-Cohen we read that the best drug may at one time be an agent that would produce in a healthy person symptoms resembling those presented by the patient, and also that we must recognize the fact that it is the individual who is to be treated and not the disease. These same authors, while they doubt the efficacy and the potency of the fourth and fifth decimal dilutions, are even more dubious of the centesimal potencies, yet state:.
It is a fact that positive neurovascular reactions can be induced with such substances as epinephrine in very minute amounts; that one-twentieth part of one millionth grain of protein may so sensitize the guinea pig, that a second injection will produce toxic symptoms known as anaphylaxis; and that the quantity of musk capable of stimulating the olfactory nerve is so small as to be not only immeasurable but incalculable.
Facts like these, while they do not alter the necessity of proof, and while they do not obscure the difference between a simple element like carbon or a binary compound like sodium chloride and the complex organic molecules conceived in our illustrations, must at least prevent dogmatic denial of any well established fact of clinical observation concerning the effect of homoeopathic medication.
Had these authors stopped at this point, one could credit them with some understanding of homoeopathy, yet we see their limited conception of the true essence of the Hahnemannian doctrine when they write:.
To any special disease form as such it (homoeopathy) cannot apply, for in maladies it is usually the etiology, in affections the pathology, that must control treatment. The symptoms are of importance chiefly as they indicate their origin. Moreover the totality of symptoms of remedies, that is to say, their entire range of influence – by no means corresponds with the totality of symptoms of recognized disease forms.
The authors close their discussion on homoeopathy with the statement that:.
This sort of symptom matching is, however, going out of vogue among physicians educated in modern homoeopathic schools. It is for these trained men to study critically the traditional expedients of their school, to select those whose value can be best demonstrated, and to present the latter to the general medical profession in an understandable shape, and so fortified by exact observations – not mere statistics – as to convince the skeptical.
This is not entirely flattering, nor it is a denial of the truth of homoeopathy, and coming from such great authority within the “old school” is even encouraging. To rise up in defense against the criticism is needless, for the weakness and shortsightedness of the attack necessitates no come-back. The defense speaks for itself.
Again we learn from great “old school” works on pharmacology that the biologic reaction of a cell to a drug influence exhibits two phases, namely interference or primary effect and restoration or secondary effect. The secondary effect is opposite in type to the original or primary effect of the drug. In not a few instances the efficacy of a medicament depends largely, if not wholly, upon such secondary reactions. It is the large dose that causes the primary influence to prevail, while the small dose permits the reaction or secondary effect to become manifest.
Whether the original (primary) phase or the reactive (secondary) phase shall in a given instance be the more intense or the more lasting, and which shall first become evident, will depend not only on the size of the dose, but also on the frequency of administration relative to the speed of elimination, that is, upon the quantity active at any one moment. If the original dose and the frequency of repetition be so adjusted that the active quantity is always small enough, secondary effects will appear.
