In a given case one otologist pronounces the vertigo as due to a disturbance in the vestibular branch of the acoustic (eight) nerve; another claims that it is due to a disease of the brain stem; still another contends that it is of intralabyrinthine origin. All three cannot be right. Ask the same experts: What about the etiology? Again, they will differ widely, so too, will they disagree as to the form of treatment indicated. I have seen two experts disagree as to which of the two ears was involved.
From these few illustrations and hundreds of others that could be cited, it is plain to see that the treatment of diseases should be directed toward the fundamental disease rather than limit it to a single, secondary manifestation. Some of the best known otologists with the aid of x-ray and clinical laboratory studies and their own diagnostic appliances including the magnifying otoscope and tuning forks, frequently fall down in the diagnosis. What about treatment based upon a mistaken diagnosis? How is it possible for a patient to be cured if five or six otologists render as many different opinions as to the etiology and diagnosis? Which of the five is right? Can it be that all are mistaken? What is true of otology is true of all the other specialities.
I wish Dr. Wm. Griggs of Philadelphia were here to tell of his experience recently at the hands of an outstanding expert in urology, how a series of mistakes were made in determining the etiology, pathology, diagnosis and treatment. As a result, the patient was made seriously worse which could not have occurred under purely homoeopathic treatment.
A few words as to my own case: For three months I suffered from a corneal ulcer involving the right eye. As one of fifteen trustees of the Eye Section of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, I came in contact with the other trustees once a month at dinner. They all recognized that something was wrong by the way I shielded my eyes from the glare of nearby lights. They all appeared interested. There were, at least, seven different opinions as to the cause and cure of the ailment. I tried out a few of the suggestions offered by my old school friends, none of whom suggested any internal medication.
At a second meeting a few of these experts (the best in Philadelphia) started to “kid me”. One or two others said, “You cant do much for those d- ulcers.” When the third monthly meeting was reached and the ulcer has not improved, one of the group, an excellent ophthalmologist and intimate friend, begged me to let him treat the eye. He promised to cure the ulcer within two weeks. He was told to go ahead. Daily visits were made to his office. On each occasion he spent considerable time studying the eye. After the third visit, he began to use foreign protein. I cautioned him against the possibility of protein sensitization (allergy). He insisted it would not happen. At the end of two weeks, I had been sensitized and without any appreciable improvement. Homoeopathic remedies, plus attention to a diabetic factor, did the trick.
A failure had to be scored against those who directed their attention toward a single secondary manifestation instead of the fundamental disease.
RESUME
1. There is no disease that is strictly local.
2. What appears to be a local disease is but the peak, (the first appearing secondary) manifestation of a fundamental infection.
3. Excepting those disturbances in health due to faulty living and the abuse of drugs, diseases acute and chronic are due to infection in which no part of the body is exempt from its noxious influence.
4. Some parts of the body appear to be exempt because they seem to suffer less than the particular part which is affected most (characteristically).
5. In chronic diseases the original site of the infection (the focus) often, shows but the mildest reaction, as a result it is easily overlooked, in spite of which, the patient eventually becomes hypersensitive, when there develops “innumerable” secondary manifestations. The first of these manifestations hits the eye in one patient, the ear in a second, the heart in a third, the kidneys in a fourth, the brain in a fifth, etc. Just where the secondary manifestations are going to appear first, depends upon several factors, including the patients hereditary predisposition, past dissipation, diet, character of his occupation, age and many other variables.
6. Soon after, the peak manifestation develops, others follow until many organs are perceptibly affected. In the …. end the patient dies of a “complication of diseases” a term used many years ago. The numerous manifestations are all the result of one or a combination of fundamental infections.
7. There is but one way to treat an acute infection and that is by the identical or similar acting antigen in doses sufficiently small as to avoid the risk of producing a negative phase so deep as to allow the residual vital force to successfully react against it.
8. There is but one way to successfully treat a chronic disease and that is after the same manner as in acute infection except that in chronic diseases, because of the excessively hypersensitive factor, the desensitizing homoeopathic drug must be administered in infinitesimally smaller doses.
DISCUSSION.
DR. MARQUEZ: I would like to say something about the diagnosis, if I may. Diagnosis is nothing more than interpretation of the facts. As long as there are individuals, there will be individual interpretation of the facts. The facts exist, and interpretation of the facts is valuable. That is the reason we have so many diagnoses on a single case. A many may come into this room and see many more things than the other fellow. That does not take away from the diagnosis itself because, the doctor said, diagnosis must be based on the conclusion after all the facts have been gathered. From a sober interpretation, we derive a conclusion from these facts.
From the standpoint of immunology, so far as the reaction of the drugs is concerned, I think we can hold that in abeyance, for the reason that we are not able to determine yet how drugs act upon cells, and the reason for that is that we cannot study cells without destroying the cells. Of course, we can speculate and theorize as to how drugs act upon cells, but any speculation at the moment, so far as so-called science is concerned, is merely conjectural.
The allergic reaction of homoeopathic drugs, as I gathered from the doctors paper, is an attempt to explain the drug action, which is possibly not tenable from the immunological point of view on account of the time factor.
We must also realize that it is hard to compare allopathic treatment with homoeopathic treatment, because the two schools of thought are entirely different. They are divergent in their approach to possibly the same objective. That is paradoxical, but that is the truth, because in the allopathic school the treatment is purely casuistic. The …..
philosophy of homoeopathy is theologic. The beauty of the homoeopathic philosophy is that we can help most minute ailments wherein no organic pathology exists by simply applying the drugs, as I understand it. The treatment is exclusively of the individual who presents symptoms in response to the diseased factors, and this individual presents symptoms characteristic of that individual alone.
DR. BOWIE: I think the diagnosis in the old school was greatly changed through war conditions. I noticed, and I expect all of you here have, that a list of diagnoses were set from which no deviation could be made. For instance, syphilis was not accepted as cured until you had at least six negative Wassermanns. It was not accepted as a correct diagnosis of syphilis until you had at least three positive Wassermanns.
The same thing with tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was not accepted as a diagnosis until there were at least three x-ray pictures confirming it, and so on. Everything was a bit stereotyped. From that time on, the tendency has been to depend more on what you might call machinery diagnosis. It must be confirmed. That is the tendency at the present time.
Reasoning from just the general trend, one would say it sounds logical to be take an x-ray picture, laboratory test, chemical test, or microscopic test, make a complete diagnosis of the case, and then it is a very simple thing to cure.
It is the latent condition of the disease left in the system which is the trouble with the old school in not being able to cure diseases at the present time. They dont take into consideration this latent condition. We could all relate cases.
DR. BELLOKOSSY: I think we know as little about diagnosis as the allopathy. We take a simple picture and think we have a diagnosis. We can read cases by knowing the simple pictures, and that is why we are superior to allopaths; not because we know the diagnosis. We dont know any more about diagnosis than the allopath.
DR. BOWIE: I believe it was Dr. Mackenzie who wrote in the medical journal a while ago that the homoeopath was able to hit the remedy fifty-two and a fraction per cent in his prescriptions, and Cabot said there was only forty-eight per cent of diagnosis that was correct. Now they have gotten down to forty-seven and a fraction, I believe. So we are a little bit ahead of them in cure.
