| Seen in its larger aspects sickness is an irregular
or disorderly conversion of vital
energy. We classify the coarser effects into forms, which are named
diseases; but its finer
and subtler activities, those by which likes call to likes for aid,
are not so easily formulated.
The manifest power which advances matter through chemical affinity
expresses itself in
sentient life first as animal instinct then as human intuition and
lastly forms the basis of
reason. In proportion as a relatively higher faculty becomes latent
the next lower one takes
on more activity. This is a law of life. When we see the human intellect
acting feebly, nature
again falls back upon intuition suggesting what she wants by simulating
it. It is nature's
oldest language, the detailed study of which should be the business
of the consistent
Homeopath.
Following this thought we soon come to realise that nature's calls
for help in sickness
may come from any of its phases and that only a careful and intelligent
scrutiny can discern
the significant points of each case. In saying this we are not unmindful
of the fact that whole
epidemics also have their own peculiarities. Headaches, for instance,
with vertigo are
common enough, but when dizziness precedes the headache it is unusual
and peculiar to
Calcarea-carb., Platina, Plum-bum and Tilia.
Symptoms may become prominent or even appear only during some
one stage of a
given malady, thus taking a very high rank. Prodromal symptoms belong
in this class, when
they may even outrank the deeper constitutional effects of latent
or apyrexial periods.
In chronic diseases it is useful to pick out the peculiarities of
each past illness, combine
these with the unusual features of the present complaint and then
seek for the remedy which
covers the combined feature, always bearing in mind that the latest
development most likely
contains the real deciding symptom. It is to be feared however,
that the habit of letting this
latest development overshadow the whole case is a little too common
for the good of the
patient.
The doctrine of signatures has been derided and said to rest upon
pure fancy; but
I know of no accidents in nature and everything has an adequate
cause, hence we
should not be too ready to attribute such things to mere coincidence.
Such
correspondences are too numerous as well as much too striking to
be lightly passed
over. lt seems rather a case of not knowing just what they mean
or what the real
connection is.
At the risk of seeming to ask hard questions we may inquire why
the time of the honey
bee's greatest activity corresponds so closely to that of the Apis
aggravation? Why the
poison of the sleepy Surukuku is most active a little while after
falling to sleep? Why Kali
bichromicum crystals become tougher on exposure to the air? Why
the twining
Convolvulacea cause twisting intestinal colics, etc., etc.?
One might amplify such instances almost endlessly, but it all
comes to this at last, that
whether occurring singly or in combination, these things by their
very peculiarity mean
something, be they found in the world of nature, at the sick bed
or in drug effects and it
should be our business to know their meaning if we wish to become
real healers of the sick.
If we would be proficient we must be able to avail ourselves of
great sources of information
and it ill becomes us to look upon any field of nature as a closed
book. We must remember
that the dry rules and classifications of our text books are only
the scaffolding of our temple
of knowledge, whose shrine abides within us where lies the true
path of power.
|