How To Use The Repertory
with A Practical Analysis of Forty Homeopathic Remedies

-- Glen Irving Bidwell, M.D.

The Three Miasms.

Study the theoretical part of Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases.

The three chronic miasms are the next of the ideas we will consider. In sections 78-80 we find mentioned the three chronic miasms of Hahnemann. They are Psora, Syphilis and Sycosis. Here it is stated that if any of these three miasms is left to itself it will only become extinct with life itself. Surely with this statement no sane physician would deny the chronicity of any of these miasms. It is in his Chronic Diseases that Hahnemann tells us more fully concerning these miasms.

For eleven years he observed and studied, with the tenacity, concentration and ability for which his German habits and great mind so well fitted him, before he brought forth the theories of the miasms.

While there as been much written against and a great deal of ridicule cast upon his theory of the psoric miasm, those who have followed his teachings closely believe in them, and from the knowledge thus gained have been able to secure results in chronic work which cannot be matched by those who do not believe and cast ridicule.

Whether the psoric miasm has been the result of suppressed itch or not, and be that as it may, do not waste your time in trying to throw it into disrepute, but when you have a case that will not react to the apparently indicated remedy, look well into your case and see if you cannot discern one of the miasms. Ofttimes you will find traces and then the administration of the indicated anti-psoric will cause a reaction which will lead to a cure.

In the dynamic, spirit-like, vital force, we find the three parallels of Hahnemann. Here we again find that far-reaching clear sightedness and concise expression of Hahnemann’s logic. Where have we since the writing of the Organon found anything which expresses that condition or being which controls and hold in harmony our life forces. Many of our physiologists and embryologist have given us theories concerning this condition but does the phagocyte theory or the opsonic theory with their variations give us anything better than Hahnemann’s description?

In Section 11 we find: “This vital force alone animating the organism in the state of sickness and of health imparts the faculty of feeling, and controls the function of life.”

Section 12: “Diseases are produced only by the morbidly disturbed vital force.”

When first trying to master Homoeopathy, after a perverted viewpoint gained in an old school college, this vital force was one of the hardest things for me to comprehend. In discussions raised from my standpoint as a pathologists and bacteriologist I would always chase my opponents to this stone wall, vital force, when they would nimbly hop over and intrench themselves behind this barrier, and I could only hurl my arguments against this wall and never dislodge them. In the light of advanced findings of our bacteriological laboratories I am inclined to believe that some of us carry this a little too far. While all fair minded physicians will admit that the predisposing cause of all diseases is the derangement of the vital force, I do not think we can deny that it has been proven beyond doubt that in the exciting cause of diseases, at least, there is a bacteriological factor, and we must admit that the ground must be made fallow by this deranged vital force in order for these minute vegetable organisms to produce their morbific effect, we must not pass over the fact that with this predisposing cause present the pathogenic bacteria are the exciting cause of many diseases.

In Sections 9-22 we find the explanation of the three parallels of force. These are as follows:
(a) Plane of vital dynamics of organism;
(b) Plane of disease cause;
(c) Plane of medicinal substance.

In section 83 Hahnemann gives us the three requirements or three qualifications necessary before we can properly examine a case. These are unbiased judgement and sound sense, attentive observation and fidelity in noting down the image of the disease. In the following paragraphs he further brings out these points by telling us that we must see, hear and observe.

We must enter upon the work of taking our case with unbiased judgement and sound sense. This is the hardest requirement for all of us to follow, and one calling for [most] rigid self-scrutiny. How often it happens as we are listening to the symptoms of a case the picture of a remedy comes to mind, and if we do not use sound sense we are biased in favor of this remedy, and we do not use sound sense we are biased in favor of this remedy, and we do not question further and bring out the whole picture of the diseased patient.

Then, again, we may maintain unbiased judgement until the case has been fully taken and then lose our sound sense of reasoning by saying such and such a case was like this and a certain remedy cured, therefore, “I will give that remedy without further investigation.” Then, again, in younger men comes the desire to produce results quickly. They want to make a reputation to give relief from the pain at once, and so they give something of an opiate to deaden the pain, or they give some application to relieve the itching, or to dry up an eruption, although their sound sense tells them that a cure can never be made in this manner. And so in many ways we need to resist temptation and use sound sense and judgement freed from bias.