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The Scope of Homeopathy -- Stuart Close |
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In thus focusing attention upon the individual and purely functional side of the disease, upon disease per se, the sphere of homoeopathy may be clearly perceived. From this point of view, the most significant and general feature to be observed about the phenomena or disease is the fact of motion, action,change; change of states, forms and positions; change resulting from the application of morbific force in the living organism; changes from a state of health to a state of disease; and the reverse; change of symptoms and their groupings; change of order to disorder; change of form of disease structures, change of function; change of molecular combination and arrangement; everywhere motion, change and transformation so long as life lasts. In one word, we find ourselves in the realm of pure dynamics.This is the true and only sphere of homoeopathy, the sphere of vital dynamics.In fact, the homoeopathy might well be defined as the Science of Vital Dynamics. Its field is the field of disordered vital phenomena and functional changes in the individual patient, irrespective of the name of the disease, or its cause. Its object is the restoration of order and harmony in vital functioning in the individual patient. Its laws are the laws of motion operating in the vital realm, which govern all vital action. Its fundamental principle is the universal principle of Mutual Action.”Action and Reaction are equal and opposite”. “The unprejudiced observer”, says Hahnemann, “ well aware of the futility of transcendental speculation which can receive no confirmation from experience--- be his power of penetration ever so great--- takes note of nothing in every individual disease, except the changes in the health of the body and the mind (morbid phenomena, accidents, symptoms) which can be perceived externally by means of the senses; that is to say, he notices only the deviations from a former healthy state of the diseased individual, which are felt by the patient himself, remarked by those around him and observed by the physician. All these perceptible signs represent the disease in its whole extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivable portrait of the disease” ( Organon, Par.6) The tangible things which the examining physician finds in the body are not the disease, but merely its effects. It is impossible, and therefore as futile, to try to find a disease in the hidden interior of the organism as it would be to try to find a thought by an exploration of the interior of the brain, the electricity in the interior of a dynamo, or the song in the throat of a bird. Such things are known only by their phenomena. Metaphysically considered, they may be said to subsist in the dynamic realm as substantial entities, or forces, but as such they are perceptible only to the “ inner vision “, through the eyes of the mind. They are “ spiritually (that is mentally) discerned”. The metaphysical conception serves an aid in the interpretation of the phenomena. Practically, however, we do not deal with abstractions. We deal with facts and phenomena, with symptoms. “ The totality of these, its symptoms, of this outwardly reflected picture of the internal essence of disease, that is, of the affection of the vital force, must be the principal, or the sole means, whereby the disease can make known (its nature and) what remedy is required.”(Organon,Par. 7) The removal of all the perceptible symptoms or phenomena of disease removes disease itself and restores health. Hahnemann thus philosophically distinguishes between disease itself and its causes, occasions, conditions, products and phenomena, and in so doing shows clearly that the sphere of homoeopathy is limited primarily to the functional changes from which the phenomena of disease arises. In other words, homoeopathy is confined to and operative only in the sphere of vital dynamics. Primarily homoeopathy has nothing to do with any tangible or physical cause, effect or product of disease, although secondarily it is related to all of them. Effects of disease in morbid function and sensation may remain after the causes have been removed. Removal of the tangible products of the disease, if it be too far advanced, may have to be relegated to surgery. Homoeopathy deals directly only with disease itself, the morbid vital process manifested by perceptible symptoms, which may remain and continue after the causes have been removed and conditions changed. It stands to reason, as Hahnemann says, that every intelligent physician, having a knowledge of rational etiology, will first remove by appropriate means, as far as possible, every existing and maintaining cause of disease and obstacle to cure, and endeavor to establish a correct and orderly course of living for his patient, with due regard to mental and physical hygiene. Failing to do this, but little impression can be made by homopathic remedies and what slight impression is made will be of short duration. Having done this, he addresses himself to the problem of finding that remedy, the symptoms of which in their nature, origin and order of development are most similar to the symptoms of the patient, and to the proper management of it, when found, as to size and frequency of doses. While gross pathological tissue changes, organic lesions, morphological disproportion, neoplasm and the physical effects of mechanical causes are not primarily within the domain of Similia, and therefore are not the object of homoeopathic treatment, the morbid processes from which they arise, or to which they lead, are amenable to homoeopathic medication. Homoeopathic remedies, by virtue of their power to control vital functions and increase resistance, often exercise a favorable influence upon physical development as well as upon the tangible products of disease or accident. Thus, the growth of tumors may be retarded or arrested; absorption and repair promoted, even to a removal of the morbid product or growth; secretions and excretions may be increased or decreased; eruptions, sores and ulcers healed. But all these happy tangible results are only incidental and secondary to the real cure which takes place solely in the functional or dynamical sphere, quelling disturbance, controlling metabolism, antidoting poisons, raising resistance and bringing about cure by the dynamical influence of the symptomatically similar remedy. Following the exclusion method adopted by Dake, in his “ Therapeutic Methods”, and using a modification of his phrasing, the sphere of Similia may be defined as follows: 1. Homoeopathy relates primarily to no affection of health where the existing cause of disease is constantly present and operative. 2. It relates primarily to no affections of health which will of themselves, cease after the removal of the existing cause by physical, clinical or hygienic measures. 3. It relates primarily to no affections of health occasioned by the injury or destruction of tissues, which are incapable of restoration. 4. It relates primarily to no affections of health where the vital reactive power of the organism to medicines is exhausted obstructed or prevented. 5. It relates to no affection of health, the symptomatic likeness of which may not be perceptibly produced in the healthy organism by medical means, nor to affections in which such symptoms are not perceptible. The class not excluded, the one in which the homoeopathy is universal and paramount to all other methods, must be made up of affections of the living organism in which perceptible symptoms exist, similar to those producible by pathogenic means, in organisms having the integrity of tissue and reactive power nessary to recovery, the existing causes of the affections and obstacles to cure having been removed, or having ceased to be operative. The sphere of Similia in medicine is thus limited to those morbid functional conditions and processes, which result primarily from the dynamic action upon the living organism of morbific agents inimical to life. The living organism may be acted upon or affected primarily in three ways: (1) Mechanically (2) Chemically (3) Dynamically. The causes of disease fall naturally under these three heads. Under the head of mechanical causes of disease come all traumatic agencies, such as lesions, injuries and destruction of tissues resulting from physical force; morbid growths, formations and foreign substances; congenitally defective or absent organs or parts, prolapsed or displaced organs, etc. These conditions are related primarily to surgery, physical therapeutics and hygiene. The destructive action of certain chemical poisons such as the acids and alkalies is a sufficient illustration of the chemical causes of disease, although all such agents have also secondary dynamical effects, which come within the sphere of homoeopathy. Diseases arising from these causes require the use of chemical or physiological antidotes, combined in some cases with measures for the physical expulsion of the offending substances, and followed by homoeopathic treatment for the functional derangements which remain or follow. Entozoa or organized living animal parasites, when their presence in the body gives rise to disease, must be expelled by mechanical measures or by administration of medicines capable of weakening or destroying them without endangering the person suffering from their presence. Dynamical treatment on homoeopathic principles may be required to remove the functional derangements and restore the patient to health. The effects of dynamical causes of disease, by which is meant all those intangible and medical or toxic agents and influences which primarily disturb the vital functions of mind and body, come legitimately within the sphere of Similia. These are very numerous, but they may be roughly classified as (1) mental or psychical, atmospheric, thermic, electric,telluric and climatic, (2) dietetic, hygienic, contagious, infectious and specific---the last three including all disorders arising from the use or abuse of drugs, and from all bacterial agents or pathogenic microorganisms which produce their effects through their specific toxins or alkaloids.Homoeopathy successfully treats bacterial or zymotic diseases, such as cholera, yellow fever, typhus and typhoid fever, malarial fever, diptheria, tuberculosis and pneumonia, by internal homoeopathic medicines, without restoring to bactericides, germicides or antiseptics. Such agents have their use only in the field of sanitation, which is environmental, not personal. We disinfect the typhoid patient’s excretions but not the patient himself. Again quoting Duke’s admirable exposition, but qualifying his third proposition, and adding a fifth paragraph: 1) The homoeopathic law relates to no agents intended to affect the organism chemically. 2) It relates to none applied for mechanical effect simply. 3) It relates to none required in the development or support of the organism when in health. 4) It relates to none employed directly to remove or destroy the parasites, which infest or prey upon the human body. “ |
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