There is but one avenue, in reality, for any progress – the broad and straight avenue of TRUTH; board because there is always room for everybody and straight because it takes us directly to where we want to go without loss of time or effort. We, as homoeopathic physicians, need simply to pursue our course along this wide thoroughfare. The only thing that separates individuals, groups and nations, is the lack of clear vision to guide them to the true path. Warts, like surgical operations, are in rare instances unfortunately necessary, but both operations and warts could many times be avoided were we constantly imbued with the desire to seek the true way.
At times individuals and even large groups are so far away from the truth that they cannot seem to reach it, though the sign posts that point in the right direction are near at hand. There is one certain test that tells us whether a thing is good or not, and that is: does it work? If it does, then it conforms to truth; but, strange to say, some do not even want to make this test. Homoeopathy has been so tested for over 150 years, and all those practising the art know her by her abundant fruit.
Homoeopathy can progress by not being hampered by forces from without. We can make progress by being free. America needs to add another freedom to the four freedoms enunciated by our late President Roosevelt – Freedom to Practise Medicine According to Ones Own Proved and Established Laws and Principles. Our country has progressed and become great by free enterprise, free competition. In a future era when many things will have been ironed out, competition will have had its day, and then the era of cooperation should begin.
But for the present when everything is still on trial, when many re-adjustments are to take place, this stage of competition is essential. Our people, and all peoples throughout the world, need helpful knowledge, need truth from whatever source that may come, and, more than anything else, they need health. With all our material progress, with all our modern inventions, I dare say there are more sick people now seeking restoration to health and never finding it than ever before in the history of the human race. There are today in the United States over 1,700,000 cases of cancer. In 1945, 177,464 died of the disease. In the same year 424,328 died of disease of the heart.
Competition in medicine would make for medical progress all around, as it does in other fields. Thus the health of the nation would at once take an upward step. However, in the medical world there is no such thing as competition; minorities have no voice at all in the administration of city, state or national medical affairs.
Be that as it may, we are not compelled to hide our lamp under a bushel. We must know, ourselves, and be prepared to show to the world, that our principles have received scientific laboratory corroboration, not by one man alone, but by many scientists throughout the world. Dr. William W. Young of Philadelphia, writing for the Journal of the American Institute of Homoeopathy for November, 1944, in an article entitled., “The Role of the conditioned Reflex in Drug Pathogenesis”, summarizes 200 years of research work and shows us how one homoeopathic tenet after another has been verified by innumerable experiments carried out on human beings as well as on animals.
Dr. Young says: “The material I bring to you today is not the contribution of any single one man, but the culmination of centuries of labor, although the most recent names associated with the work are Sherrington, Verworm, Metalnikoff, Magnus, Speransky and Pavlov. These men represent the ultimate in scientific research.” In another article by the same author appearing in the aforementioned Journal for May, 1942, we read as follows: “In a report to the Pennsylvania State Society entitled, “The Homoeopathic Trend in Modern Medical Thought, the Committee on Research made clear one thing, if nothing else, and that was that, while we have done nothing, independent research has presented us with an ever increasing amount of pro-homoeopathic protocols.”
Let me quote another article, by Dr. W. Schweisheimer, entitled, “Samuel Hahnemann, Founder of Homoeopathy”, from the Medical Record of June, 1944, a non- homoeopathic publication: “Modern conception does much more justice to Hahnemann. We can scarcely now estimate the force of character and of courage which was implied in his abandoning the common lines of medicine and braving the wrath of intolerant confreres. With his law of similars and his minute doses, not only Homoeopaths claim that Hahnemann anticipated the principle of vaccination, but even a convinced allopath like Emil von Behring has stated that the use of vaccines is basically a homoeopathic method.
And it is impossible to forget the words of Osler: No individual has done more good the medical profession than Samuel Hahnemann.” Yes, I repeat it: Dr. William Osler, the dean, we may say of orthodox medicine, made this statement: “No individual has done more good to the medical profession than Samuel Hahnemann”. If any of your colleagues on the other side of the fence should scoff at your method of treatment, let them know what one of their own leaders has said in regard to Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of Homoeopathy.
When vital issues are at stake involving the making of important decisions, our statesmen often consult with the American people, because of their faith in the latters good judgment. It behooves us to do likewise. Let us present our case to the great American People, through the Press, the Radio, Magazines and any other means. I have been struck with the great interest shown by most patients in our new periodical, The Layman Speaks. They will read it while waiting and many take the subscription blanks close at hand. Many seem to find it in material they had been looking for a long time.
Every article in this little magazine has so far been really splendid, clear,, instructive. Some of these articles should be reprinted in pamphlet form and distributed to all our patients and to the members of homoeopathic laymens leagues and their friends. One such article in particular should be read by as many people as possible, because it deals with the problem of cancer, and because it illustrates some of our homoeopathic principles, thus showing show and why our cures are performed. The article appeared anonymously in the first issue of The Layman Speaks for October 1947.
For the benefit of any one here who may not be familiar with our point of view on cancer, and on disease in general for that matter, I am going to give you the essence of the article, as follows: Two experts on cancer, both members of the staff of Memorial Hospital in New York issues a recommendation to the doctors to take any possible cancer symptoms seriously; a general practitioner, they urged, having any suspicion of possible cancer should lose no time in referring the patient to an expert. The treatment of cancer, the recommendation continued, is as much an emergency as a fracture, and much more important to the patients life. (This implied that most types, if seen early enough, can be cured by means of surgery, X-ray or radium).
The article continues: This is the sort of publicity put before the layman on what appears to be the highest authority. Now, let us consider the problem. If the tumor has started and is malignant, the situation is serious. By that time there has been what Homoeopathy calls an ultimation. That means that a long course of disorder within the patient has reached its last form. In case of an ultimation, the individual characteristic of the patient tend to submerge themselves under the disease. (That is, all the signs and symptoms that pointed to the remedy exactly suited to the patient as a whole, are covered up and, as it were, hushed up by the new symptoms produced by the cancer tumor itself. These cancer symptoms are practically alike in every patient, and to prescribe on them is utterly futile, as far as cure is concerned.
It is as if we attempted to revive a withering flower by pouring water on it instead of on the soil surrounding the roots of the plant). Thus, the search by Homoeopathy for the constitutional remedy is more difficult. (We cannot reach the roots of the patient, as it were, to supply them with that life-giving something that the proper remedy for him contains. The patient very rarely recalls his former symptoms accurately enough to suggest the needed medicine.
Occasionally, however, we do find the lost symptoms, and it is then that Homoeopathy can cure, and has actually cured, fully developed cancer cases). “Therefore it would have been far better if the case had not been allowed to progress to its ultimation, and had come under Homoeopathic treatment long before the tumor appeared; for Homoeopathy has the means of coping with cases which otherwise would be headed for cancer, a long time before the case ultimates in a local tumor. These means are inherent in the principles and the methods of Homoeopathy, and are not shared by any practice which concerns itself mainly with the tumor after it has appeared.
