Homoeopathy is particularly adapted to discerning people, those who are capable of taking the long range view of treatment.
Shorn of his sophistries, man faces the bar of psychic and physical symptom judgment for remedy evaluation. It matters not whether the stage for curative study is found in the squalid surroundings of poverty, or the atmosphere of exquisite hygienic environment.
The remedy appraisal demands an essential and concrete symptom picture. Today thinking man, as never before, desires something for anchorage. He demands that which has been tested over a long period, with the least amount of expenditure of time and finance, and found enduring under diverse conditions.
All of this need is contained in the long established technique of homoeopathic procedure. Direct and rational action is attained in the proper single remedy selection, fully expressed in Paragraph 118 of the Organon, viz.: “Each medicine produces particular effects in the body of man, and no other substance can create any that are precisely similar”.
This truth has been repeatedly verified by all competent homoeopathic physicians. In fact it has not only been successful, but given renewed confidence under conditions when the old has been depreciated in the light of the new and supposedly more modern.
The importance of symptoms of the mind and disposition is a great truth in homoeopathy. It has been and is common to underestimate their value in diseased conditions. This view is sustained by the emphasis placed upon pathology, which no doubt occupies an increasing position of respect with improvement in
the microscope. Homoeopathy has no antipathy to constructive physical science, which repeatedly in unexpected ways strengthens its position.
In Section 214 we read, viz.:.
What I have to say regarding the treatment of mental diseases, may be comprised in a few words, for they cannot be cured in a different manner from other diseases–that is to say, it is necessary to oppose to them a remedy possessing a morbific power as similar as possible to the disease itself which it produces upon the mind and body in health.
After long delay our antipathic colleagues recognize the increased importance of mental symptoms. Inasmuch as the field of medicine broadens, and psychiatry grows to maturity, the value of mental symptoms is given more prominence. This by no means leads to the conclusion that the Law of Similars has been accepted. It does tend toward more unity in the study of symptomatic phenomena, which is a long step in that direction.
The increase in psychoneurotic perversion is becoming a problem which attracts psychoneurotic perversion is becoming a problem which attracts increased attention from all who are interested in the healing arts. Whatever the speculative approach may be, it is recognized to be of such a subtle nature to often defy diagnostic classification. In prescribed legal procedure it is well known to be of a such an elusive character that it is only measured by the number of individual testimony.
In fact it is becoming such a problem that the increased use of active sedation is engaging the attention of far reaching minds in war torn countries.
This leads us to Section 215, in which Hahnemann says:.
Almost all affections of the mind and disposition are nothing more than diseases of the body, in which changes of the moral faculties (more or less) become predominant over all other symptoms, which are diminished; they finish by assuming the character of a partial disease and almost of a local affection.
This statement, written over a century ago, directs the course of future medicine, which though detouring from time to time, leads only toward the monistic conception of health, disease and treatment.
Face and face with such a complexity of health perversion we surely need some solid foundation for an inductive approach to the problem. It does not seem to be possible to meet the situation with local forms of treatment, neither would it appear logical to attack from a purely pathological angle.
One of the major recurrent proofs is found in Section 217:.
In affections of this kind, it is requisite to proceed with particular care in searching for the entire signs, both in regard to bodily symptoms, and more especially that of the principle and characteristic symptom–the state of the mind and disposition.
By these means alone can be succeed in discovering, among the
number of medicines whose pure effects are known, a remedy that has the power of extinguishing the entire evil at once; for it is necessary that, among the number of symptoms peculiar to the remedy, there should be some which resemble as closely as possible, not only the symptoms of the disease, but also its moral ones in particular.
The final proof is in the challenge from the past to test the method of homoeopathic treatment according to the rules, and publish the failures; that in each decade searching minds have accepted the challenge and become convinced; and although many restrictions have been placed upon its practice in different parts of the globe, there are hundreds of thousands who have and are being benefited.
Far would it be from me to restrict to narrow confines the universal principle of similia in the treatment of disease. In the evaluation of treatment the Law of Similars worketh when and where it will to satisfy the breadth of its healing power. No man may sit in judgment to circumscribe the limits.
Homoeotherapeutics presents a definite, concrete and understandable approach to the problem of disease treatment. With the curative results obtained all classes have been more or less charmed. It has no apologies to make, except it may be for the dereliction of those who fail to live up to their privilege; since each decade it feels less lonely and walks more friendly with advancing general science.
HAMDEN, NEW HAVEN, CONN.
Education: Cincinnati College of Medicine & Surgery
Author, Distinctive Phases Of Kali Carb. and Homeopathy , the medical stabilizer