NEW BASIS FOR MEDICAL SCIENCE



We do not know with what quality of matter to connect the group factor. However, materials with similar physical constitution often fall into the same group. Thus, all of the snake venoms thus far classified, whether of the neurotoxic or hemolytic type, react in the second group. If we are tempted to generalize that perhaps something in animal poisons is responsible for this regularity of arrangement we are silenced by the observation that only snake venoms show this particular orderliness. Spiders have a more heterogeneous distribution: Latrodectus mact. in group 8, Aranea diad. and Tarantula in group 6, Mygale las. and Jumping Spider in group 5. Clearly the animal origin does not explain why all snake venoms apparently belong to the second group.

But this lumping of the venoms does explain why such drugs as Lachesis, Naja and Aurum are not as frequently useful as Sulfur, Silica and Arsenic. The second group is relatively small, both as to the drugs belonging within it and as to patients. Comparatively few patients are classified in groups 2; far larger numbers fall into groups 5,6, and 8. The pathogenesis of a drug like Lachesis is precise and crisp; yet patients do not often exhibit the type of illness making such a symptomatology possible.

Whether this means that the Lachesis (or Naja or Bothrops) type of illness is rare, or that the group 2 constitution productive of such states is rare, we do not know. The position of Aurum in a less usual group (the second), in company with the venoms, helps to make clear why Aurum is useful in the treatment of syphilis when Mercurius fails-i.e., to begin with, the patient probably belonged to the second group and was unresponsive to any drug from the eighth.

Out of eleven variations of the group factor, three occur with greater frequency than the other eight combined. These three variations have already been mentioned as the fifth, sixth and eighth groups. More persons belong in these groups than in any others; and more than half of all classified drugs also belong here. The eighth group is the commonest, the fifth a close second-it will be remembered that they comprise part of a series. Doubtless the preponderance of these three groups is associated with important physical factors. Perhaps the distribution of groups is in some manner related to the occurrence of blood types. We do not know.

The first group is interesting because one of its rhythms shows exceptionally close agreement with a physical classification already accepted in science. Ferrum, Niccolum and Cobaltum will be recognized at once as the only three metals gifted with magnetic properties; in the periodic table of elements they occupy adjoining positions. They also fall into the same Boyd group. The first group is further interesting for containing the two lighter halogens, Bromine and Chlorine; but the family of halogens is more loosely tied together than the magnetic metals, Iodine belonging to the eighth group and Fluoric acid to the fourth (pure fluorine has not been potentised).

Whereas the elements occupy an ascending scale according to atomic weight, they are not distributed amongst the Boyd groups in any similar pattern. A light mineral like pure Calcium exists in the second group together with Aurum, one of the heaviest of the elements. The fifth group shows an equally wide divergence between phosphorus, which is light, and Plumbum, which is heavy. The eighth group embraces Mercurius and Platinum, both heavy; and other heavy elements appear in the tenth group (Thorium and Uranium) and in the eleventh (Thallium). Until we learn the physical factors that establish the Boyd grouping of a substance we shall be unable to explain these divergencies from the atomic table by weights and by periods.

The grouping is most suggestive with reference to drugs of animal origin-especially the nosodes. We have seen how the snake venoms all cling to the second group. Of the true Tuberculins so far classified (Koch, bovinum, etc.), all are in the tenth group.

Bacillinum, not a tuberculin at all but the trituration of a tubercular lung tissue saturated with its end-products of disease and secondary infections like staphylococcus and streptococcus, belongs to the eighth group. Carcinosin, Scirrhinum, Carcin. axillae (a Gruener nosode), and Cancer inject. blood (Koch) show their relatedness by belonging to the fifth group. Influenzin (old type) and Influenzin antitoxin (horse) occupy positions close by in the fifth group; and the occurrence of another nosode in that group, Coryza, may well set us thinking about the common cold, its similarity at times to the prodromal stages of mild flu, and the way in which a cold sometimes persists despite remedies and at length flares up into flu.

Obviously, there is much more continuity amongst disease than many imagine. Equal continuity must therefore be shown by medicaments. How tightly a nosode group can cling together is shown by the Bach colon nosodes. The micro-organisms from which they are prepared are all gram-positive and do not ferment lactose. They are, however, found in patients of the most diverse types, suffering from innumerable dysfunctions and pathologies. Yet all seven, despite their scattered origins, occupy a firm position in group 8.

Sometimes the groups seem to be teaching us a lesson by the irregularities. Of the Kalis so far grouped, the largest single cluster is to be found in the eighth group. Some of the Kali salts show the influence of the heavier member; others do not. In the sixth group we find Kali mur., Kali nit., Kali ferrocy. From the strong domination by Arsenic in the case of other salts we might expect Kali ars. in this group, the home of Ars. Instead, Kali ars. belongs to the seventh group with Kali carb.

The position of Kali phos. and Kali mang. in the fifth group is clearly due to the Phosphorus and the Manganese (both fifth groupers), and Kali osmic. is pulled into group 10 by the Osmium. We thus observe that Kali salts may occupy any of the groups from five onwards; so far no Kali has been placed in the first to the fourth groups. If this distribution can be explained on physical grounds, we do not yet know how.

Of eighteen organic and inorganic acids thus far classified, seven are distributed amongst five different groups; the remaining eleven are clumped together in the fifth group. If we remember the relation of the Hydrogen element to all acids and the occurrence of pure Hydrogen in group 5, the clumping of eleven acids becomes clearer. On the other hand, no clue has been found which will explain the behavior of the nonconformist seven.

The prescriber will be chiefly interested to know whether symptomatic identification is possible with the groups. Can the physician recognize the group 2 patient as compared with a patient from group 6? In the last analysis, perhaps all such efforts will be found to reduce to a drug rather than a group picture. A patient will look like the sixth group because his symptoms so blatantly call for Arsenic; he will not lead one to Arsenic by first exhibiting sixth group characteristics. A quick glance over the drugs in group 6 will show how impossible, how contradictory and chaotic, a sixth group “type” would be.

The obvious generalization would stem from the accumulation of quick-acting drugs like Arsenic, Allium cepa, Euphrasia, Echinacea, Gelsemium, Sanguinaria, Spongia, Squilla, Sticta, the Strep. nosodes, and the relation of all these to infections of mucous membranes especially. But in the same breath we must admit the great chronic characteristics of other drugs and of other aspects of some of the drugs just enumerated: Arsenic, Echinacea, Anacardium, Curare, Kali mur., Lithium, Malaria, Natrum ars., the Streps. themselves, nd so forth. Furthermore, the curative range is not at all confined to infective conditions but embraces the whole gamut of disease.

Remedy identification is reached, homoeopathically, through the symptoms. Group identification calls for quite a different technique and is not evident from the symptoms. Thus far in the case of patients appearing for the first time the Emanometer is the only indicator of the Boyd groups. Neither symptomatic evaluation, nor other efforts made through the reaction of the reflexes, has supplanted the Emanometer in this respect.

From the diversity of groups in which fall patients and drugs it is clear that the Boyd classification is not a static phenomenon. It indicates a dynamic relation between disease and its medicaments. It indicates further dynamic activity of the patients most fundamental being. Over 30,000 Emanometer tests have uncovered some clinical observations of great interest.

The most important has to do with the group of any human being at a particular time. Axiomatically, we may state that within the limits of observation thus far the group into which a person is born continues to be his group during his lifetime. Certain influences tend to alter that group; such alterations, usually temporary, are followed by a reversion to the normal group of the person. Illness, especially acute conditions, are the most general causes of change in grouping.

Allan D. Sutherland
Dr. Sutherland graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia and was editor of the Homeopathic Recorder and the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
Allan D. Sutherland was born in Northfield, Vermont in 1897, delivered by the local homeopathic physician. The son of a Canadian Episcopalian minister, his father had arrived there to lead the local parish five years earlier and met his mother, who was the daughter of the president of the University of Norwich. Four years after Allan’s birth, ministerial work lead the family first to North Carolina and then to Connecticut a few years afterward.
Starting in 1920, Sutherland began his premedical studies and a year later, he began his medical education at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia.
Sutherland graduated in 1925 and went on to intern at both Children’s Homeopathic Hospital and St. Luke’s Homeopathic Hospital. He then was appointed the chief resident at Children’s. With the conclusion of his residency and 2 years of clinical experience under his belt, Sutherland opened his own practice in Philadelphia while retaining a position at Children’s in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.
In 1928, Sutherland decided to set up practice in Brattleboro.