Of course, it is true that Hahnemann did not care to publish his cures. Many reasons for this attitude come at once to mind, chief of which is, perhaps the danger he apprehended of early followers of his teachings being throws back to the diagnostic concept as opposed to the patient. That handicap should not exist today with our complete understanding that homoeopathy identifies the disease along with its particular manifestation in the individual patient, and as Hahnemann himself would term it, the patients species of pneumonia, or enteritis, or other complaint.
What is to answer for the world-wide mortality from pneumonia when treated by irregular methods? There is so much publicity given to other disease figures of much less importance, that we do not half realize this scourge of mismanagement, with its fatal results, contrary to the spirit and efficacy of homoeopathic treatment, responsible, as it is, for very few deaths. While we can make this statement that very few patients die under the homoeopathic treatment of patients suffering from pneumonia, often of the most serious type, one of the latest references from other sources reads:.
THE TREATMENT OF PNEUMONIA. Perhaps at the present time no acute disease is so universally prevalent as pneumonia. Pneumonia is both a complication and an aftermath of influenza, and in the words which Osler applied to tuberculosis is “The Captain of the Soldiers of Death”.
Yet in the philosophy that accompanies this attitude there is no voluntary knowledge and acceptance of the homoeopathic Bryonia, Aconite, Kali carb., Lycopodium, or of any of the scores of other remedies, any one of which may be equally and curatively appropriate, according to the features of the individual case.
The official report on pneumonia in the city of New York for February, March, April, 1926: Recorded cases, 10,821, recorded deaths, 5,213–or a mortality of nearly 50 per cent (.4817).
Influenza, same period: 4,413 cases, 782 deaths. It should be seen that without doubt some if not many of these influenza cases may have developed fatal pneumonia, and their mortality does not appear, at least influenza mortality.
This brings us to a consideration of the corner-stone of our structure. It is the knowledge of what drugs do. They are brutal destroyers when improperly harnessed. Their capacity for evil is boundless. It was this fact that led Hahnemann to his prime investigation, and through that experience we derive our rich legacy. There is no clearer lesson taught than that of the sick- making power of medical agents. This they easily accomplish in the healthy organism, and no adequate estimate can be made of their devastation when administered inappropriately to the unhealthy organism.
It is painful to think of how far this latter system has progressed. So extensive are its ramifications that to the homoeopathist come all grades of disorders wholly or partially originated by the assaults of so-called specifics which, as applied to disease per se, do not exist. This oblique trend, if any, toward homoeopathy offers little cheer. Its recent manifestation in current journalism is the assertion (along with admissions as to blemishes and disasters) that instead of one serum for a single disease, necessitating many serums for all the diseases to which we are prone, it is probable that the near future will provide from one of the laboratory experts in bacteriology one single serum that will confer immunity from all diseases.
Which reminds of the insulin theory and history, both as recorded as a still being evolved. Insulin is found not to be a cure of specific for diabetes at all, but only an agent sometimes useful, and there is the discovery that insulin is a great medicine for other maladies. The application still lacks practical and safe definition. This is not half the story. We shall yet learn those other effects producible with insulin when it is not appropriate for the correction of that for which it is selected. Incidentally, it may be noted that the sponsors for specifics are wisely advising great caution in their use.
Hahnemann insists on the necessity of careful diagnosis, not only as a help in selecting the remedy, but for prognosis–FRANK W. PATCH, M.D.
The striking importance to homoeopathy of diagnostic symptomatology is not to be depreciated. Detection of the nature and the pathological manifestations of illness–the diagnosis of disease–is inevitable routine in successful practice of medicine. Whatever serves to outline the status praesens which the physician has to meet, he will investigate. In a very large sense recognition of the location of implied disorder is indispensable as holding his attention to the definite task thrust upon him. Diagnostic symptomatology is always available.
Prescription symptomatology grows out of the same pathological field. It is intimate in origin with all the diagnostic detail, so that it would be useless to try to establish any barrier whatever between the two classifications. It is true that sometimes a sharp line of demarcation has been drawn, due doubtless to the distinction made in comparative practical values, but this line is often more imaginary than real. We certainly have no quarrel with its possible reality, however, provided both classification exist. While the function of each may be studied separately, it is remembered that the origin of both is the same sickness and the same patient.
While the prescription is not made on the diagnosis, neither is it properly made without a diagnosis. No one who understands homoeopathy is bewildered by diagnosis requirements, for the simple reason that those requirements are uncovered by the finer examination of the features of the case–the very highest grade of diagnosis– and examination concerned with the most delicate departures of the whole organism from its normal.
Popular diagnosis often deals with a small section of the patient. It may isolate and even remove that section, and yet become no wiser than before. Consequently, much antemortem designation and conclusion is disproved postmortem. The tendency to lay most of the blame of some specified malady to one or two organs does not secure proper endorsement. In the case of an interstitial nephritis it has not always been safe to declare it the cause of death; too often the autopsy discloses a fairly competent kidney, while nearly every other viscus is advanced in diseases peculiar to itself. In fact, the statistics of diagnosis and pathological findings nowadays in the ranks of their specialists evidence that in some way the great point of the curative effort is missed.
We take it that this would not be the case if prescription symptomatology were better accomplished. The latter often calls for a remedy whose proving discloses a veritable diagnosis in the given case.
In homoeopathys Law of Cure may be found an arcana of healing; and they who wear her shining armor. radiate hope and bring strength to the despairing and the afflicted–A.H. GRIMMER, M.D.
The homoeopathic physician is a specialist because his prescription is governed by considerations remote from those which depend upon the diagnosis, or upon popular reasoning on pathology. The materia medica does not owe its existence to diagnostic art. That is secondary to the information gained through drug proving. No drug is a specific for all cases of any disease. Because Hamamelis cures one case of hay fever, it does not follow that it will cure by fever in every case. There is no specific in this sense.
Every remedy has its own personality, if we permit such application of the word to drug entity, and that personality of the drug must be in harmony with the sick individual, irrespective of the names of disease.
So in the scheme of case-taking, diagnosis as such has merely its relative place among objective symptoms. It is but an incident. It does not dominate the situation. In the treatment of pneumonia, tuberculosis, carcinoma, rheumatism, even for a multiplicity of cases, no one drug may be indicated for many patients suffering from the same malady. And the drug needed in a given case is not defined by the diagnosis. The curative remedy is chosen by virtue of all the symptoms. These symptoms point to pathology most directly, however their significance may fail to accord with our preconceived ideas of that pathology.
It is impossible to accord to much attention and obedience to this principle–the study of symptoms in their totality. Many failures are to be attributed to superficial work here.
It is imperative to reiterate again and again the dicta– Symptom totality, similar remedy, single remedy, minimum dose. Then physicians who have done their best work in this way recognize its precise result, and are also bound to translate the language of result into terms of definite meaning, that further steps may be the right ones.
There is not a shadow of doubt that many a pathologist fails utterly as a therapist because his mind is completely saturated with knowledge of morbid anatomy. He is unable to disassociate himself from the idea, the consciousness of disease in itself, perhaps wholly apart from the suffering patient. Homoeopathy does not provide for such attitude, for it is devoted to the cure of the sick man.
