Yet, the present pronouncement of biochemistry is that vitamins are substances and it disregards the opinion of so many wise medical men. It must astonish us that this science has not been able to elevate itself above the concepts of material substances and to perceive the energetic origin of life. It is obvious that many qualities ascribed to vitamins are only functions of the vital force. It seems that the metabolic vitamins are nothing but the vital force itself, while the more circumscribed vitamins, as the anti- infectious, growth-promoting and reproduction vitamins are animated with it, else the integrity of their function would suffer.
An animal sick with scurvy may well be cured from scurvy with synthetic vitamin C, but, if no change in food is made, it will die just the same and in the same lapse of time. Yet, if given fresh orange juice, it will not only be cured from scurvy, but also remain alive. The explanation of this discrepancy is that there is life force in orange juice and none in cevitamic acid or vitamin C. Direct sunlight or ultra violet rays exposure cures rickets without any correction in the customary diet or administration of industrial vitamins.
In admitting the cure of rickets by sunlight, vitaminologists unconsciously recognize the existence of this energy and its operation in the intracellular metabolism. If they consciously admitted this force, vitaminologists would avoid confusion and solve many problems which to this day have remained unsolved.
In spite of these defects, vitamin science deserves great credit for having incontrovertibly established the etiological connection between some constitutional diseases and certain foods which heretofore have been considered harmless. True, this is no new fact, but new is the firmness of its foundation as it can no longer be considered a speculation. Vitaminology has proved the existence and shown the cause of a great variety of degenerative diseases of organs and tissues which previously had been considered as one of the mysteries of pathology.
Rickets, scurvy, beriberi and pellagra are but the more pronounced of these diseases. Joint pathology and biochemical studies discovered also that subclinical forms of these diseases and combinations of two or more of them are exceedingly frequent. If to this we add disturbances of reproduction and increased susceptibility to infections, all recognized as caused by deficient foods, we can visualize the enormity of the scope and ambition of this new science.
Whoever compares the symptoms of psora as described in Hahnemanns Chronic Diseases with the symptoms of the different avitaminoses as given by vitaminologists, will soon notice that they belong to the same category of diseases with the only difference that Hahnemann gives many subjective and few objective symptoms, while vitaminologists describe only objective symptoms. He will also notice that the symptom picture of scabies, as we know it today, does not coincide with the symptom picture of psora nor of any of the avitaminoses.
In Hahnemanns time the acarus of scabies was unknown. So it happened that many skin diseases of unknown etiology, but exhibiting symptoms of itching, were diagnosed as scabies though they otherwise had nothing in common with it. No wonder then that Hahnemann also made the same mistake and confused this parasitic skin infestation with the pellagric form of avitaminosis.
Hahnemann, having observed that these skin troubles, wrongly diagnosed as scabies, were often accompanied by symptoms in other organs and tissues, attributed them all to one and the same cause, the toxins of scabies. So the theory of psora originated. We must admit that in those times nothing could have been more logical. Hahnemann did not suspect that these skin troubles were two different diseases; no one else did. To ridicule him for it today, would be as much as to reproach him for not having been a greater genius.
It is easy to reproduce experimentally that form of psora which Hahnemann describes. Dogs and cats living in apartments of high buildings in our large cities are frequently affected with it. The circumstances under which they live there resemble those of a physiological laboratory. They eat biscuits of meat and bread. The bread is poorly digested by these animals and ferments in their intestines causing acids. The devitalized meat starts the toxicosis and the acids of the intestinal fermentation precipitate the symptoms. If a cat is lucky enough to catch a mouse once in a while, it remains free from psora.
The dog also remains free or recovers quickly if given raw meat occasionally or a dose of Sulphur in potency. Miners in Nevada often live for long periods of time on meat, potatoes and gravy and develop a psora which responds promptly to both Sulphur and fresh vegetables. Smoked or well done meat, together with sauerkraut and whole wheat bread, are unfailing producers of it and these were the foods which Hahnemanns contemporaries ate most frequently, especially in winter time.
Another proof that Hahnemann failed to distinguish scabies from food deficiencies is the effect of the treatment. He cured skin manifestations of deficiencies with potencies of his remedies and thought he cured scabies. In the homoeopathic literature post-Hahnemann we find sufficient evidence that true scabies has never been cured with potencies of any homoeopathic remedy. Scabies is purely a local disease and can be cured only by local means.
Potentized Sulphur has never cured it, but crude sulphur, locally applied, always. For the most part potencies of our remedies do cure infestations by changing the soil in such a way that the parasitic cannot live in it, but the acarus of scabies seems to be an exception.
Some of you may object and say that Hahnemann did not mean to convey that scabies was at the basis of psora, but some other infection which penetrated through the skin into the system where it then lived indefinitely. On the contrary, Hahnemanns assertions are most emphatic in this respect and the text of his Chronic Diseases refutes any such objections most uneqivocally in two dozen places.
When Hahnemann thundered against the allopaths for treating psoric diseases locally, he was, of course, right and wrong. Right when treating avitaminoses, wrong when treating scabies. This led to arguments and conflicts. It was unavoidable, but we are sure that, were he here today, he would be the first to give up his psoric theory. He would have given it up even twenty years ago. Notwithstanding, today his description of psora is no less a valuable document in medical annals. Substitute in it the words food deficiencies for the word psora, and you have a most up-to- date clinical treaties on deficiencies.
Today, in this country, we rarely see a pure and fully developed avitaminosis, but we see many subclinical forms of hypovitaminosis. Consequently the modern term for psora would be hypovitaminosis, but–as we generally have to deal with a combination of several forms–the most correct term would be: polyhypovitaminosis or multiple alimentary deficiency.
In recent years orthodox medicine has treated this category of ailments with correction of diet or administration of industrial vitamins. As this method of treatment is much easier to learn than homoeopathy, some of you may well ask the question: “Why then slave ones life away with the study of homoeopathy?” To this the following experiment gives the answer. If a number of rats are fed on deficient foods, they will become sick.
If after about a week their diet is corrected, they will get well again. If, however, they are fed deficient foods for a much longer period, e.g., six months, they will not recover again, however correct their new diet. Long exposure to the damaging effects of deficient foods makes the lesions irreversible. The recuperating mechanism of the cells has suffered so much that even with the most proper foods or vitamins the cells cannot be aroused to proper functioning again.
This can be accomplished only with the indicated potentized homoeopathic remedy. Human ailments being of old standing for the most part or exacerbations of such, homoeopathy, with the easily available specific energies in its remedies, is by far the most efficient treatment. When the diet is not excessively faulty, the homoeopathic potencies may repair the damage even without any correction of diet. The cure then may be only temporary, that is of a few months or a few years, but it will always be permanent, if along with the remedy a proper diet is followed. Whether the remedy passes its vital force over to the cells which have not received enough of it from the foods or ionizes the protoplasm in the proper way, who knows?.
Deficiencies of foods, as explained before, are the primary causative agents of psoric maladies, but under certain conditions wholesome foods also may become such agents. Hippocrates had already given us an explanation of this fact. He says in substance: if man eats when his physical condition does not permit of good metabolism, that is, if he eats when indisposed, fatigued or weakened in any other way he will get sick. Therefore agents other than foods may contribute to the development of psora and must be counteracted by general hygienic prescription given together with the remedy and diet, all of which is in harmony with Hahnemanns teaching.
