As homoeopaths we often find in the results of researches of modern medicine a vindication of the homoeopathic tenets which daily guide us in our routine practice. No student can gainsay the truth of this statement, and yet it is extremely doubtful whether homoeopathy as an art or as a scientific principle will be given any recognition by these same research workers.
In any case, it is my purpose in this paper to note in an abstract way which of these principles of homoeopathy have been academically substantiated or disproven, and to note in the course of doing this what changes in medical philosophy we may find in orthodox medicine today. In doing this, specific examples will be avoided as they have been admirably worked up in our literature and are probably an old story to the majority of my listeners.
Kent asserts that there are NO principles in regular medicine, and that in their study of diseases by ultimates the gap between the two schools is made. The present day medical scientist is still studying ultimates although the trend toward the study of the sick individual is coming to the fore. Further, one notes that observations of perverted physiology in disease is assuming an importance hitherto unknown. But in general the lack of a law for the study of the cure of disease makes todays research still empirical experimentation.
Kent remedies us of the old division between the schools when he states in his lectures, “In medicine there are two kinds of study, one with a bearing towards the classification of disease, and the other one with reference to the remedy the patient needs.” Kents disregard for the necessity of diagnosis in instituting adequate treatment is no longer the enigma it once was, particularly since it has been definitely demonstrated at autopsy that 50 to 75 per cent of diagnoses are incorrect.
Today the average doctor will often treat patients on a physiological basis without any attempt at a complete diagnosis. Thus the old dictum that a diagnosis must be made before treatment could be instituted has become a relic of the past. While the nature of the prescribing may not be homoeopathic, nevertheless such work is a beginning parallel to the homoeopathic type of thinking.
To date the homoeopathic method of case taking with the object of arriving at the one similar remedy is unique with us. However, one cannot escape the fact that in “old school” circles today certain objective findings and some symptoms are being grouped together for the exhibition of single agents. Vitamin and mineral prescribing, while not of a homoeopathic nature, falls in line with this Hippocratic viewpoint.
Again, in the treatment of sick individuals who elicit symptoms but no demonstrable pathology, attempts are being made by our “old school” brethren to relieve these people before fundamental damage has set in either by pseudo-homoeopathic means such as light, heat, nonspecific therapy, or vaccines, or along nutritional lines with minerals and vitamins.
The “old school” yet allows no distinction between cure and recovery as done in Hahnemannian circles. Likewise, the relationship of suppression to later disease pictures has made little headway to date. The external treatment of eruptions, discharges and perspiration is still part and parcel of orthodox treatment. Unfortunately, outside of purely clinical assumptions we have no material proof to bear out our knowledge of the ill effect of suppression. We can hardly expect an “old school” man to take our word for it against what he has been taught.
The basic causes for disease still remain in obscurity. Neither the philosophy of the homoeopath nor the theories of the allopath have contributed anything tangible. The theory of altered dynamic force may satisfy the Hahnemannian student, but is no better and certainly less tangible than the modern conceptions of the origin of disease.
Kents picture of disease as a lack of coordination between will and understanding links itself with certain modern religious conceptions and, for the real thinker, offers satisfying possibilities, but also tends to lull us into a dangerous smugness.
The image of bacteria as the result of disease appears not to hold water in the light of modern bacteriologic investigation. Certain as it is that bacteria are not the sole cause in microorganic disease, it is folly in this day and age to assert that they are the result of disease wherever found. Epidemic infections can hardly be enveloped in this broad idea simply because during any epidemic there are those that escape infection.
As pointed out by Kent himself, individuals suffering very severe chronic disease may escape all acute infections for years. Too many other factors account for the relative immunity of the majority in an epidemic than to allow for the broad statement that all those affected were affected because of previous disease and that the bacteria found on them were secondary to this primary disease. In recurrent chronic infections there is more reason for Kents postulation.
In the notation of and attention to premonitory disease syndromes, orthodoxy has improved. Many excellent and enlightening papers have been presented concerning precancer states, prehypertensive types, etc. The idea behind these papers is to urge treatment prior to the establishment of a diagnosis.
Perusal of Kents chapter on what is curable in disease and medicine makes doubly clear to us that the values therein cannot be appreciated by science today since it has no standard whereby a differentiation between cure and recovery is possible. Undoubtedly, our finer prescribers can realize these delicate shadings which confront one in difficult cases. However, experience dictates that the majority of Hahnemannian homoeopaths, as a group, expect too much of homoeopathic remedies in fatal or incurable cases.
At least, modern medicine has given as prognostic knowledge of great accuracy and it should help those confronted with this problem to distinguish those cases calling for symptomatic relief from those still within the curative realm. Admitting that the “old school” cannot help us to determine what is curable in disease, we too must clear our skirts and perfect ourselves in this distinction since we certainly feel that we do have excellent criteria to judge by.
An amusing note in this connection is given us by Kent. He predicates that no cure of chronic disease is possible in man or woman employing contraception. We wonder what modern homoeopaths would subscribe to this. It would be our thought that the cure of many women would be impossible so long as the fear of repeated pregnancies was not removed through adequate knowledge of this subject.
The Kentian concepts of psora, syphilis, and sycosis as the causes of all chronic disease are confusing to discuss. While there is much in modern work that could be construed as tending to substantiate some of these ideas, still the recent works of Mackenzie and Tyler on psora, and that of the French schools along this line have made the homoeopathic stand far from clearly defined.
To the “old school” these three titles only mean that the crackpot homoeopaths have gone off the handle and ascribed to itch, hog warts, and promiscuity the causes of all chronic disease. We had better leave psora saying that it represents usually those inherited weaknesses in any given line of descent which tend to the production of chronic disease. For this we can find much substantial modern evidence. As to the development of psora in a given individual during his lifetime, no scientist could agree.
Sycosis is equally a mystery to the allopath. However, he has admitted that gonorrhoea is not necessarily a purely local phenomenon by reason of its modern treatment through systemic medicines, and the occasional development of internal invasions. However, as a cause for asthma, warts, etc., orthodoxy cannot comprehend, nor can we prove it.
The appraisal of older homoeopathic ideas on syphilis with the modern conceptions of the disease is not possible. For here science will deal only with demonstrable laboratory reactions or bacterial phenomena and sees no occult disease in lues. Homoeopaths might do much for medicine to show that a luetic constitution with its various disease tendencies does exist although not demonstrable in the laboratory sense. Might it not prove embarrassing to run Wassermann reactions on some of the cases enthusiastically reported as cured by homoeopathic potencies ?.
Kent speaks of drug diseases and contrasts those produced by the simpler physiologic drugs with those brought on by the coal tars and synthetics of his day. At present, in general, the situation relative to the use of the ever more intricate synthetics remains a serious problem. Drug diseases as complications are in the limelight now and even mild substances have been shown to produce intractable conditions from their long continued exhibition. Such conditions as agranulocytosis, cataract, dermatitis, etc., express the “old school” conception of untoward effects.
