It is to Dr. A. Nebel that we owe the idea of Drainage and its corollary Canalisation, one of the most important principles of Homoeopathic therapeutic. Our colleague of Lausanne is no doubt the uncontestable father of Drainage. He came to that idea through his clinical experiences following some researches in the field to histology. Later on he found out, and he explains it in this journal how drainage was practised since Hippocrates up to our time by Rademacher, by Hahnemann himself and finally by Burnett.
It is only since a few years that we have understood how it was possible to study drainage practically as one of the superior means to develop the possibility of Homoeopathy, to make its therapeutic process more sure and above all to gain time in treatment. We, therefore, consider a great step forward has been made in the Hahnemannian therapeutics, thanks to drainage when it is well applied and we should first of all explain and define the terms Drainage and Canalisation, before giving practical suggestions for their application :
We, therefore, propose here:
1. To define Drainage and Canalisation.
2. To indicate clearly the principles in order to understand them better according to the total observation of the fundamental laws of therapeutics.
3. And finally to show the superiority of Homoeopathy with drainage over the other principles of prescriptions.
1. Definition of Drainage and Canalisation :
When we speak of drainage, we should distinguish well the theory from the practice. In order not to run the risk of being reproached as builders of purely theoretical systems, we will speak here only of the results obtained from the practice of drainage and canalisation, the theory having, in our opinion, only explanatory value, a value of simple orientation.
However, we should give a theoretical definition of drainage before speaking about its practical application.
How then is the drainage defined?
The theory of drainage is intimately bound up with the idea of making the organism free from morbid energies. If we understand an organism as composed of many spheres, we will understand that it is necessary to give one or more medicines acting simultaneously on the successive organic spheres.
But, a single remedy, even highly diluted, cannot always act in a sure and complete manner on all the spheres, and generally the high dilutions help to obtain a superior action on the most subtle and higher planes, particularly on the sphere of sympathetic system.
It is therefore, necessary to help the Similimum remedy by judicious application of Simile remedies.
It is said that in each pathological case, there exists, in Homoeopathy, a single Similimum and many Simile and the first idea that comes to mind, is to apply uniquely the Similimum with the exception of Simile remedies that seem to be palliatives. In reality. very soon one understands that the rigorous application of the Similimum, remedy is not always followed and is not necessarily followed by an amelioration. If we can prepare the organism by the application of a remedy called satellite, or the remedy which by analogy has the symptoms culled from the patient, it happens very often that the Similimum may be applied afterwards without aggravation and it seems even to act more rapidly and more deeply.
The theory of drainage is, therefore, before all a theory of purification of the intoxicated organism that shows symptoms which may be classified according to the successive spheres of the organism and the disappearance of these symptoms can not be caused in a complete and rapid manner but by the application, generally, of many remedies simultaneously or successively.
The theory of drainage is, therefore, a theory of purification. Besides, the term Drainage, so often used in surgery, is understood better when one is only on the material plane. There is no doubt that when there is a suppuration in the organism, it is necessary to eliminate the formed pus, except in some cases where it is possible to obtain a complete resorption.
It is, therefore, necessary to purify the organism of the patient by eliminating the toxin. It is necessary to drain.
But drainage considered from the point of view of practice is much more important than from the point of view of theory. The drainage is before all a practice justified by results. The theory of drainage like all theories is seducing but it is rather easy. We need not find out up to what point it may be true, according as one represents it in such and such manner but it is necessary before all to insist on this fact that it is Fecund and that this Fecundity is the only justification that we require. The practice of drainage consists in following or in preceding the principal indicated remedy by the application of one or more satellite remedies with the aim of facilitating the toxic elimination in a given morbid state, to check medicinal aggravation and to obtain more rapid and sure results.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.