Drainage and Canalisation in Homeopathic Therapeutics



Generally, the slanderers of the theory of drainage speak against it without having practised it. It is not the case with us because we have always studied successively different schools of Homoeopathy, the unicist, pluralist, and the complexist, in order to find out the truth.

The Unicists, the most adverse critics of the practice of drainage may be very good homoeopaths but we say that the therapeutic results that they obtain are more slow and less complete than the results we obtain. In their arguments and criticisms there is a very curious respect for traditionalism. They are the staunch guardians of a wrongly understood Homoeopathy. But generally the critics of drainage that those who do not think like them, remain always a step inferior because they have not studied sufficiently deeply the Materia Medica. This belief is erroneous.

It is impossible to practise drainage and canalisation without a sound knowledge of Materia Medica and the relations of remedies. We do not believe ourselves to be at fault in supporting the serious and justified principles of Drainage and of Canalisation, because it will lead to an immense progress in the art of therapeutics.

(This article is translated fully, excepting a few lines, from L’ Homoeopathic Moderne, 2nd, year, No.2, 15 January, 1934).

Mauritius Fortier-Bernoville
Mauritius (Maurice) Fortier Bernoville 1896 – 1939 MD was a French orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become the Chief editor of L’Homeopathie Moderne (founded in 1932; ceased publication in 1940), one of the founders of the Laboratoire Homeopathiques Modernes, and the founder of the Institut National Homeopathique Francais.

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.