THIS is a subject of the utmost importance to the Homoeopathic School, for upon its solution depends our future progress; that it is a serious question for consideration, admits of no doubt, if one stops to think of the wide divergence of opinion, as expressed in homoeopathic literature of the present day. From a school of “symptom chasers,” we have become a body of specialists, whose diagnostic skill and surgical attainments are on a par with those to be found in the orthodox school, and the chief business of homoeopaths today consists in the removal by surgical or other mechanical means, of the pathologic end- products of disease; this is particularly so in the United States, whose citizens are invariably inclined to go to extremes in everything they do and who measure all things by the yardstick of material achievement.
Hence it has come to pass that the general practitioner, with his calmer outlook upon disease, finds himself in a rapidly diminishing minority, whose influence is daily growing weaker. No longer is any attention paid to the purely philosophic side of homoeopathic medicine, whose fundamental principles are now undergoing revision and interpretation, in what is loftily regarded as the shining light of modern medical science. The old fashioned Hahnemannian notions, concerning chronic diseases, for example, have been thrown out entirely by those who profess to be the custodians of the welfare of homoeopathy and who condescendingly tell us that homoeopathy now demands a new type of mind, if its modern significance is to be grasped by those who profess to study it.
Psora, syphilis and sycosis, in the strictly Hahnemannian sense, no longer have an interest for these moderns and are, for the most part, looked upon as almost childish conceptions, no longer worthy of serious consideration. In substantiation of the truth of this assertion, one has only to read the reports of the treatment of cases of syphilis and gonorrhoea, by homoeopathic specialists, reports, incidentally, which compare favourably with similar ones of the old school and, if anything, outdo these in the multiplicity of formidable weapons of cure used.
Of late years, our friends of the orthodox persuasion, have been bestowing more and more attention upon the study and consideration of the constitution, thus emulating, in a sense, the laudable efforts of Hahnemannians, who still possess the temerity to show their faith in this elusive thing.
The study of the patient himself, is now receiving attention which heretofore has been bestowed upon his pathologic expressions only, yet after all, for the average medical man, the only thing which possesses any interest for him, is a diagnosis of the status praesens, its bacteriology, if any, and the purely pathologic changes which have taken place. The latter immediately become the object of attack, and their conquest, in his mind, means the cure of the patient.
In spite of all the allegations of progress in modern medicine, there is a crying need for old fashioned Hahnemannian conceptions and treatment, for there is still such an individual as a patient, who needs to be looked upon as entirely worthy of human consideration, and not as an animated test tube, into whose tissues and organs are skillfully deposited, the latest products of the pharmaceutical laboratory. However much we may disagree upon the subject of Hahnemanns chronic diseases, nevertheless, it is one which cannot be lightly thrown aside in the belief that we have outgrown its century-old tenets.
Whether we choose to believe in Psora or not, the fact remains that we ignore it at our peril, unless in our ignorance, we fail to observe the connection which exists between a chain of morbid events, which sooner or later show themselves as a result of disease suppression. The same observation applies to syphilis and sycosis, no matter how much we may stand in awe of the spirocheta pallida or of the elusive gonococcus of Neisser; for Nature has a way of hitting back, when she has been thwarted in her oftentimes crude efforts at elimination and cure.
Today, State Medicine has enormous police powers and can, therefore, impose its will upon a helpless public; medical supervision and care of school children undoubtedly has much to commend it, but at the same time there is much to condemn, especially in the attitude of the sanctified activities of physicians and nurses, who, with fanatical zeal, carry out the orders of their superiors. Thus it is that, adenoids and tonsils are ruthlessly sacrificed, with absolutely no regard to the constitutional peculiarities of their unhappy possessors, of whose subsequent history we are rarely told, until perchance, some victim has been brought to a Hahnemannian physician for treatment.
American Homeopathy Doctor.
Rabe graduated from the New York Homeopathic Medical College and trained under Timothy Field Allen and William Tod Helmuth.
Rabe was President of the International Hahnemannian Association, editor in chief of the Homeopathic Recorder, and he wrote Medical Therapeutics for daily reference. Rabe was Dean and Professor of Homeopathic Therapeutics at the New York Homeopathic Medical College.