That Hahnemann recognized that homoeopathy was a tool, a method of art, a Heilweg, a method of cure, and not a tool of science, a datum of knowledge, a point of philosophy, and at once changed his term and use of homoeopathy when he had this better knowledge, show Hahnemanns intellectual integrity ; his power of critical discrimination between the essential, the important, and the unessential the unimportant ; his readiness to grasp truth for achievement and leave error on the pathway ; a moral and intellectual superiority.
The trouble with homoeopathic physicians is that they will talk and write about homoeopathy, but will not learn and practice homoeopathy. Is the calamitous loss of our homoeopathic schools to a new group of morons the result of Hahnemanns Organon of the healing art, homoeopathy in its true sense of the curative method of scientific medicine, or the result of the ignorance of Hahnemanns followers, practicing homoeopathy falsely and falsely theorizing about it ?.
Homoeopathy, the art, and theories about homoeopathy the science, are two different things. Hahnemann knew it, and therefore, left the “scientific” explanation to others, to these wonderful “modernists”, and thereby showed his genius. No one can budge his art, his method.
In 1811, appeared the first part of Hahnemanns Materia Medical Pura, pure because it contained medicines the effects of which on the human body had for the first time been studied on the human body ; in 1816 appeared the second part ; in 1817, the third part;in 1818,the fourth part;in 1819, the fifth part; in 1821, the sixth part ; with second and third editions following. Are these not contributions to our modern materia medica ? Where would Hughes and Allen and the rest of the notables have been without these foundation stones of homoeopathy.
Dr. Bellows himself declared that the effect of the reproving of Belladonna by his staff of provers was nugatory, and I agreed with him, Belladonna is one of the best proved medicines of Hahnemann, and no triflers will ever improve upon Hahnemann.
Hughes wrote that the preface to the proving is “a masterpiece of observation and reasoning, ” and the thought resulting from the proving was “as original as it was brilliant and fruitful”.
It has become apparent that Hahnemann has led a highly moral and intellectual life, useful both to his family and the world at large. Osler, that archenemy of homoeopathy, admitted that “no one individual had done more good to the medical profession that Hahnemann.” Napoleon did not confine the good that Hahnemann did the medical profession, but considered homoeopathy as the most beneficent discovery since Gutenberg invented the art of printing. Bier, the successor of Bergmann in the chair of surgery at the University of Berlin, declares that Hahnemann was an “important personality.” Fishbein, the new editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, admits that Hahnemann with his dilutions did less harm that Rush with his massive doses of jalap and calomel.
The question can never be : What is Hahnemanns Organon, Hahnemanns homoeopathy, in this light or that light, in this century or that century ? We must not fall into the Einstein- Newtonian squabble over space and time, light weight and light flight. The only proper question is : What is Hahnemanns Organon ? What is homoeopathy ? Hahnemann has answered the question, most clearly, in paragraph 50 of the fifth and sixth editions of the Organon : Heile durch Symptomenachnichkeit ! The introduction to Dr. Boerickes translation of the sixth editions of Hahnemanns German Organon, which I wrote, puts the answer into sober, understandable, scientific English.
Hahnemann gives homoeopathy as a method, the method of cure, Heilweg, a method that cures by symptom-similarity. Hahnemanns homoeopathy is today, was yesterday, and will be in the days to come the curative method of medically curable diseases by symptom-similarity. It cannot be otherwise. Changed, and it is no longer homoeopathy. It is a mistake to believe that the homoeopathy of the present is not the homoeopathy of any edition of the Organon.
Homoeopathy is the organon of curative medicine and will be its organon as long as there will be curative medicine. Hahnemann conceived his homoeopathy by induction in his proving of china in 1790 and, though the book, entitled Organon, has gone through six editions, each edition different from the others, homoeopathy, the organon of curative medicine, was never changed, could not be changed, by Hahnemann in any of his writings, from 1790 to his death in 1843, or by anyone else after him. Homoeopathy is today what it was when it was conceived a perfect induction of the scientific imagination, if ever there was a perfect induction in the annals of human thought.
In proving china, the homoeopathic relation between drug effects and disease effects evident to Hahnemann. “Heile durch Symptomenachnichkeit” is not merely “Let likes be treated by likes,” but the likes must be specific, and for Hahnemanns homoeopathy they are specifically the symptomatic effects of drug and diseases. In the proper practice of homoeopathy, there is no breach in the relation of these conditions.
We expose bodies not in physiologic isomorphic state to the action of bodies known to effect similar pathologic heteromorphic states. The results of the experiment is the removal of the pathologic state in medically curable diseases. The experimental result proves, establishes, maintains, that homoeopathy is the method, and the logical necessity, the law, for the practice of curative medicine.
What we seek is truth. Science calls for nothing else than the establishment and formulation of truth, and only those who will ignore what they do not wish, will not acknowledge the truth established and formulated by others than themselves or their favorites. Science is correctly related knowledge of natural phenomena. In homoeopathy, we related our knowledge of natural phenomena, and when we relate correctly we practice homoeopathy logically, scientifically, and produce true medical results. We may view that matter from all angles of pathology. Homoeopathy is the curative method of medicinal therapeutics.
Homoeopathy is not materia medica, or posology, or the Hippocratic injunction of the duty of the physician toward his calling. Materia medica, pure though they be without any admixture of impurities, cannot be homoeopathy ; medical materials are only a means for the clearer practice of homoeopathy. The minimum dose is not homoeopathy, it is only a means for accelerating cures by avoiding unnecessary aggravations in the practice of homoeopathy. The pathologic notion of psora that non-venereal chronic diseases are the result of underlying uncured non-venereal infections is not homoeopathy.
The pathologic notion of psora that non-venereal chronic diseases are the result of underlying uncured non-venereal infections is not homoeopathy, but only a direction for the removal of underlying uncured infections in the practice of homoeopathy. Homoeopathy is only the method of treating individuals suffering from disease curable by medicine with medicines the curative action of which has been ascertained : it is the method of treating individuals suffering from diseases curable by medicine with medicines the curative action of which has been ascertained : it is the method of treating and curing individuals with medicinally curable diseases on the basis of symptom-similarity, on the basis of scientific comparison of the symptomatic effects of disease and the symptomatic effects of drugs.
As I wrote in my Introduction to the Boericke edition of the sixth Organon and repeatedly before and since, Hahnemann discovered the common symptomatic factor for both pathologic and therapeutic diagnosis and thereby made the practice of medicine scientific. There is a false note in presidential addresses before the Institute when we are given not a word on Hahnemann and homoeopathy and 15,000 words on Pasteur who was a chemist and Gorgas, who was only an administrator, neither a physician in the true sense.
Is preventing medicine to be celebrated and not homoeopathy, when we are celebrating the introduction of homoeopathy into this hemisphere ? There is a false note given in impressions given for the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the introduction of homoeopathy into the United states when we forget our Hippocratic oath and cast disrespect and contumely upon the greatest path-breaking teacher in modern medicine, Hahnemann who taught us homoeopathy, the method of treating medically curable diseases on the basis of symptom- similarity, the only direct method in existence of curative scientific medicinal therapeutics.
Modern immunity or resistance therapeutics is Pasteurs prophylactic method of infection to prevent reinfection. Hahnemanns curative method is disinfection to be without infection, the homoeopathic method of remedial therapeutics. Chicago, with its focal therapeutics, says we must disinfect, not reinfect, in order to cure, and we are told that Hahnemann is dead. Vienna, the Mecca of Hebras scabies, and not second to Paris in admiration of Pasteur, talks of miasms today as Hahnemann did a hundred years ago.
