Miasms,
Nosodes and Essences
by Peter Morrell
Dream Fragments – 9-11-1977 – Peter Morrell
This article attempts to use a short discussion about
miasms and nosodes as a launching pad into a deeper discussion of
homeopathic views about disease and cure, as basically aspects of
essentialism.
When
Hahnemann announced his miasm theory in 1828 it was greeted with shock,
disbelief, uproar and derision by the entire medical world. Even many
homeopaths blushed with shame and completely ignored the idea as
preposterous. It was hard to see where Hahnemann was coming from. The
grand scheme of the miasms, so familiar today, seemed just like words
from an alien language. If you start from symptom totality, then you can
just about reach the even wider concept of a miasm as a grouped entity
deriving from hundreds of cases. But if you start from the familiar
allopathic terrain of a ‘disease’ affecting whole populations, then the
idea of miasms as internalised and inherited dyscrasias seems
very hard to grasp. The conceptual challenge is simply one of breadth of
view. Each individual case, upon which homeopathy is based, was
henceforth to be viewed in the light of another totality – the family
legacy of Psora, Syphilis and Sycosis.The theory of miasms originates in Hahnemann’s book The
Chronic Diseases, [1] published around the same time that he also
decided to fix 30c as the standard potency for all homeopaths. He
declared that the theory was the result of 12 years of the most
painstaking work on difficult cases of a chronic character combined with
his own research into the historical diseases of man.The three miasms given in that work are held to be
responsible for all disease of a chronic nature and to form the
foundation for all disease in general. This latter aspect was then to
receive considerable amplification from Kent. Kent was also able to more
clearly identify those remedies that relate to each miasm. Though now
generally accepted by most homeopaths without question, at the time, the
theory was generally greeted with disbelief and derision from all but
the most devoted followers. This can be explained in part by the
primitive nature of medical science at that time, which was not really
very willing to accommodate any theory for the origin of disease, least
of all such a grand and all-embracing one.The word miasm means a cloud or fog in the being. Its
meaning can be expanded and seen as a primary defect; a root cause; a
shadow, fragment or internalised relic of an actual disease passed down
the genetic line; a vaccine defect; a pre-disposition [dyscrasia]
towards a predictable pattern of certain diseases and disorders within a
family, race or the human race; and a defect of the vital force.The theory suggests that if 100% of all disease is
miasmatic, then 85% is due to the primary and atavistic miasm Hahnemann
called Psora. The remaining 15% of all disease he held to be either
syphilitic or sycotic, being derived from suppressed Syphilis or
suppressed Gonorrhoea. Hahnemann, unlike Kent later, attached no moral
dimension whatsoever to the sexual nature of the two latter miasms.
Kent, of course, emphasised this moral aspect a great deal, which might
not be that surprising in the somewhat Puritanical atmosphere of
nineteenth century small town America.Taking them in reverse order, we can depict the main
characteristic features of each miasm.
Sycosis
This miasm is held to be responsible for many sexual
and urinary disorders, and affections of the joints and the mucous
membranes. Also those conditions worsened by damp weather and by contact
with the sea. Thus arthritis and rheumatism, asthma, catarrhs,
bronchitis, cystitis and warts are all regarded as partly or mainly
sycotic in character. The wart came to be seen as the underlying
archetype of this miasm as it is also held to be responsible for all
warty excrescences and growths. Chief remedies are Thuja, Lycopodium,
Natrum sulph, Causticum, Kali sulph, Staphysagria, Calc and Sepia
amongst many others.
Syphilis
This miasm is held to be responsible for many
diseases of the nervous system, the blood and skeleton as well as a
range of psychological disorders, including alcoholism, depression,
suicidal impulses, insanity, loss of smell and taste, blindness,
deafness and ulcerations. It is also associated with many heart
conditions, some vesicular skin eruptions and diseases that have a
definite nocturnal periodicity. Chief remedies are Arsenicum, Aurum,
Mercury, Phosphorus and Lycopodium, Nitric acid, amongst many
others.
Psora
The word Psora is probably derived from the Hebrew
‘Tsorat’ and Greek ‘Psora’ meaning a fault, groove or stigma. Hahnemann
held that all non-venereal chronic diseases are Psoric. That includes
most diseases of a chronic nature, all skin diseases, most mental
illness, other than syphilitic ones, allergies, varicose veins,
haemorrhoids, most dysfunctional diseases of organs and systems, etc. He
lists among others, catarrhs, asthma, pleurisy, haemoptysis,
hydrocephalus, stomach ulcers, scrotal swelling, jaundice, swollen
glands, cataract, diabetes, tuberculosis, epilepsy, fevers and
suppressed urine as all being typically Psoric manifestations,
including, of course, the whole gamut of skin problems. Chief Psoric
remedies he suggests include Sulphur, Natrum mur, Calc carb, Arsen
alb, Lycopodium, Phosphorus, Mezereum, Graphite, Causticum, Hepar sulph,
Petroleum, Silica, Zinc and Psorinum amongst many others.Hahnemann also claimed that Psora was the most
ancient and insidious miasm, deriving primarily from skin eruptions of
various types in the past, such as scabies (Itch), leprosy and
psoriasis. These had been supposedly contracted by ancestors or in one’s
own early childhood. Their subsequent suppression, especially through
the use of ointments, he held to be the primary cause of forcing skin
conditions inwards to cause the internalised Psora miasm. Psora,
he says, “is that most ancient, most universal, most
destructive, and yet most misapprehended chronic miasmatic disease which
for many thousands of years has disfigured and tortured mankind…and
become the mother of all the thousands of incredibly various chronic
diseases.” [1; 9]Kent, in his Lectures, then greatly enlarged upon the
theory, mostly in a moral sense, proposing that Psora was the foundation
of all other sickness, without which mankind would be pure and healthy
both in mind and body, as in the Garden of Eden. He thus regarded the
acquisition of Psora as being equated with the ‘Fall of Man’ and with
original sinfulness. He portrayed Psora in this highly moralistic light
as also being the foundation of the sexual miasms that came later.We can see that Hahnemann must have obtained his
original idea of miasms through an extension of the very fruitful
threads in his thinking about similars and poisonings, with which he was
deeply immersed in the original construction of homeopathy. His mind
simply must have been drawn towards seeing the wider patterns in cases.
For example, Hahnemann “suggested, in 1789, that
Mercury…displaced the syphilitic disease by imposing a similar
illness,” [2; 3]. He “had taken his time to formulate
his first intuitive deduction [similia] in fact seven years…[he] clung
obstinately to the everyday world of common sense…and had no use for
the theories of pathology then current…[being, in fact] dissociated
from theories of physiology and pathology,” [2; 4].The notion of Psora has many facets; for example, “seven-eighths
of all the chronic maladies prevalent are ascribed by Hahnemann to
Psora…” [3; 1, 142] He did not confine its meaning solely to
Scabies; “Psora…was widely known in Hahnemann’s time, as the
general term for a whole series of skin troubles of the most varied
kinds…” [3; 1, 143] Its underlying significance was even
broader: “to Hahnemann Psora is a disease or disposition to
disease, hereditary from generation to generation for thousands of years
and it is the fostering soil for every possible diseased
condition.” [3; 1, 144] However, the miasm theory should not be
viewed too literally as meaning that everyone needs to be dosed up with Psorinum,
Syphilinum or Medorrhinum; rather it means that the broad
outline of the miasms need to be kept in mind when observing the
symptoms of a specific case or family.For example, in a family with some evidence of
alcoholism, deafness, blindness, bone disorders and insanity, one is
entitled to believe a syphilitic streak is present. It should not
dominate one’s view of each case, but it is useful background
information. It guides one towards certain remedies, and away from
others, but should never wholly dictate practice. Such would be to fall
prey to medical speculation, which Hahnemann certainly regarded as “arid
and obfuscating scholasticism.” [4; 62] and “the
elaborate manipulation of hollow symbols.” [4; 62]. The dim
view he took of medical speculation presumed that that too often it is
disengaged from practice, lacking efficacy and encourages harmful
practices.Homeopaths should resist the temptation to allow
miasms, like some cuckoo in the nest, to exclusively dominate its
conceptual base in the way ‘evolution’ has come to dogmatically dominate
biology, or the way genetics and bacteria have come to totally dominate
allopathy. Allowing such ‘soiling of its own nest’ might be to indulge a
delusion, a monistic theory, and to allow the subject to be well and
truly hijacked by one idea, or even to comprise a lamentable waste of
otherwise objective talent. Kent beseeches us to resist the temptation
of allowing excessive dominance to be granted to one idea or theory.
Such advice applies equally to the miasm theory, which should be
balanced against other homeopathic views.
Nosodes
On the point about the use of miasms in treatment,
some people routinely give the corresponding nosode. For example, to a
child born with fine syphilitic skin vesicles, they might wish to give Syphilinum
rather than the simillimum, say Mercury. This would tend to
be seen as an inappropriate use of the miasm concept, as the simillimum
is what the patient needs, not the nosode. Such routine use of Psorinum,
Medorrhinum and Syphilinum is therefore frowned upon.
Certainly, the nosode can do good work, but it should be used more as an
occasional inter-current remedy, or when it becomes the simillimum – not
just routinely.Nosodes in general have a chequered history in
homeopathy. Some of the more pathological prescribers [e.g. Hughes &
Dudgeon] denounced them from the start. Yet, other homeopaths have taken
a far more generous view: “the indispensable curative service of
the products of disease…safely administered in sickness;” [6]
“for the past five years I have regularly used the bacillus
virus as part of my daily practice…with great satisfaction;”
[7] “I think very highly of Koch’s remedy…I use it in high
potency…” [8] In particular, nosodes can be used to
neutralise old internalised illness states [dyscrasias] or remove
invisible ‘taints’ [blockages] that prevent ordinary remedies from
working: “the nosode has removed the miasmatic block.” [9]
Then “the remedy will work again after the block is removed with
a nosode.” [9] This much at least is the empirical observation
of many who use them in regular clinical practice: nosodes were not so
well proven as “well-known polychrests…but have been so
successful;” [9; 317] their use “depends more on
clinical experience…[which has] accumulated for many years and has
been checked by the experience of so many practitioners that it is
considered trustworthy.” [9; 317]
Miasm, Holism and Essence
While the miasms require a certain conceptual ‘leap
in the dark’ for the average homeopath, they are even stranger to the
allopath who takes a generally less holistic view of the organism in
health and disease. Comparisons of this type are very stimulating and
rewarding.The upshot of the miasms theory is very interesting
as it illuminates so much about homeopathy and what distinguishes it as
a unique medical system in its own right, and also so much about the
subtlety of Hahnemann’s observational powers and thinking processes. As
soon as you have a mode of medical thinking that regards disease cause
in gross, tangible and molecular terms [germs, bacteria, molecules, dud
organs, genes] then it is natural not to look much beyond such matters,
but to regard “the cure” of disease, i.e. the removal
of symptoms, solely in tangible and molecular terms. Such is allopathy.There seems on this basis to be no need to look
beyond the tangible and the molecular. But when you have, by contrast, a
more subtle medical mentality that regards the tangible and the
molecular as valid so far as they go, but that this view of disease is
not a primary or fundamental one, but a secondary manifestation of a
deeper and intangible, non-molecular realm of causes, then you are more
likely to have modes of cure that employ similarly subtle, intangible
and non-molecular concepts and techniques. This really demarcates the
major dividing line between allopathy and homeopathy.While we might term the former as an entirely phenotypic
medical attitude and therapeutic system, rooted solely in the tangible
and the molecular, so the latter reaches behind and beyond the gross
phenotype [secondary expression] of disease to consider the deeper,
hidden genotypic realm of primary or true causes. It is precisely
in this latter sense that the great medical philosophers of homeopathy –
Hahnemann, Kent, Boger and Close – have come to regard disease. Whether
this appraisal flows entirely from empirical studies, from clinical
experience and experiments, or whether it flows from a subtle
inclination of mentality, is immaterial, and is probably a mixture of
both, but the essentialist nature of this position is ultimately clear
for all to see.Like the dwellers in Plato’s caves [see Plato, The
Republic], trying to make sense of shadows moving on a wall,
homeopaths have been consistently reluctant to accept the molecular and
tangible as the sole cause of itself, but always look deeper for
non-molecular and intangible root causes of the events observed at the
surface, in the tissues and cells, and in the physiology of organ
systems, never accepting solely tissue events as causes of themselves,
which is precisely where allopathy draws a halt in its search for causes
of disease phenomena, satisfied that there is nothing beyond that.
Clearly, the miasm theory follows the same line of thinking.Further positions flow naturally from these two
divergent medical philosophies. For example, the phenotypic view does
not need to see or fix the whole person because a tangible and discreet
portion of the whole can be hived off as “the disease”
and fixed in isolation from the whole, and this has come to be
regarded far too unquestioningly as a perfectly valid therapeutic
approach. But to the genotypic attitude, events in the body are always
seen as inextricably interconnected and as expressions of deeper events
in the network of vital processes that lies behind the tangible and
molecular expression of symptoms, and as a whole, and therefore it is
not legitimate in such a mode of medical thinking to merely ‘fix things’
at the molecular level or to do so in a localised manner for specific
groups of symptoms isolated from the whole and conveniently labelled as “the
disease“.Indeed, such an approach may conjure up an apparition
of cure in the short term, but the deeper pattern of causes has not been
touched or removed and must still be present and active. Therefore, one
feels justified in saying that one single ‘disease event’ might be seen
as the cause [or the effect] of any another ‘disease event’ all linked
together in a chain, while the deeper cause has been left un-tackled.
The tonsils may have been removed, but the deeper cause of the
tonsillitis has not. The deodorant may have masked the smell, but the
essence [cause] of the smell is still there – its deeper cause is still
present and active. It is precisely in this manner that Hahnemann
describes the development of diseases in the ongoing life of the person
[or family, or race, or humanity] mutating through time [“the
hydra-headed miasm“] and able periodically to throw to the
surface very different ‘disease events’ springing forth from the same
hidden root cause in the invisible and intangible realm of the
non-molecular. This describes very clearly his depiction of the true
nature of the miasms: a hidden realm of disease cause, and a
genotype from which the expressed and visible symptoms, the phenotype of
disease, periodically erupt at the surface and which we see before us as
separate diseases.With so much of their work being grounded solely in
the subtle, the holistic and the non-molecular, it is only natural for
homeopaths to be suspicious of and unsatisfied with the solely
molecular, mechanistic and tangible explanation or technique of crude
drugging for specifics [allopathy]. Being daily used to seeing into the
realm of the subtle and intangible, with their more subtle form of
vision, it is only natural for them to seek out deeper root causes in
such a realm that lies behind and beyond the solely molecular realm,
which seems so satisfying to allopaths and scientists. By employing
intangible and non-molecular remedies and seeing their often spectacular
effects in the clinical sphere, it is not so surprising that they have
come to develop such deep respect for non-molecular theories of life,
disease causation and cure.
Essentialism
Essentialism is “the belief in essences
independent of the phenomena of appearance,” [11; 304-5] and
which are conceived as “non-dimensional phenomena,”
[11; 407]. The idea is common to Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle and
dominated philosophy for centuries, almost into the modern era. Goethe,
for example, seems to have achieved a “fusion of Plato’s
essentialism with aesthetic principles.” [11; 457] An
appreciation of essentialism involves the belief that objects and living
things each contain an underlying and immaterial essence that can only
be known through a form of reflection upon the nature of the substance
or organism. Natural selection, for example, seems “meaningless
to an essentialist, for it can never touch the underlying essence; it
can only eliminate deviations from the type,” [11; 517] that is
operate at the physical level of the organism.The essentialist position of homeopathy runs through
all these ideas like miasms, nosodes and vital force. It runs through
the potency energy of the drug; it runs through the idea of the
nosode as containing some subtle essence of the disease it is
made from; the idea runs through the whole concept of miasm as a defect
resident in the life force; and it runs through the whole concept of the
vital force as a coordinator of whole organism events. In all these
senses it can be seen that homeopathy is riddled with essentialism, a
belief in subtle essences that lie behind and beyond the visible,
physical, tangible or molecular realm of ordinary life. This belief
comes very close to the Platonic idea that behind each phenomenon we see
lies a discreet and corresponding essence or ‘noumenon‘ that
exists in the ‘realm of ideas’ and from which the physical object flows
and with which it corresponds or resonates. The realm of ideas is
therefore also, as Kent would say, the realm of causes. It is as if each
substance, species, individual, rock, mineral, insect, plant – carries
within it an invisible imprint, hidden from view. This idea can also be
seen to permeate the ‘doctrine of signatures’.
Miasms
and nosodes are suggestive of the idea of disease being caused not by
the “morbific particles” [12] on the material level, as
allopaths contend, but by some internalised ‘subtle essence’ carried by
the germ and transferred through potentisation to the nosode. Kent makes
it very clear that homeopathy has a vitalistic rather than a
materialistic view of disease: “the microbe is not the cause of
disease. We should not be carried away by these idle allopathic dreams
and vain imaginations but should correct the Vital Force.” [10;
679] And that “the Bacterium is an innocent feller, and if he
carries disease he carries the Simple Substance which causes disease,
just as an elephant would.” [10; 660] Such an idea clearly
resonates with the medieval view of substance as equally alive. An
idea not as distant as we might think from the effect of potentisation
on substance.In Kent’s dictum of ‘the higher the deeper’ and the
concept that ‘disease essence’ [= miasm] can only truly be neutralised
by the highly potentised drug – what van Helmont called the ‘drug
archeus’ [10] – then we can see a broad and very strong parallel
between the metaphysical views of van Helmont and transcendental
homeopathy concerning a triad of spirits – vital force, drug
essence and disease archeus.[10] To which we might add that therapeutic
resonance [sympathy] between these three spheres operates as ‘similia
similibus curentur’ as well as ‘similia similibus causam’ –
diseases being both cured and caused by similars. “There is not
one law for contagion and another one for proving. They are both
one;” [5] “the quality of contagion is similar in
nature to the cure.” [5; 660] Such a notion then places
Hahnemann’s system absolutely in a line with the previous vitalist
systems of Paracelsus [1493-1541], van Helmont [1577-1644] and Stahl
[1660-1734].
Undoubtedly,
many modern homeopaths point to nosodes and high potencies as providing
ample confirmation of the metaphysical remarks made by figures like
Hahnemann, Kent and van Helmont, regarding the inherent genotype
of matter [potency energy], of disease [disease archeus or miasm] and of
living things [vital force]. They seem justified, therefore, in claiming
that the corpus of homeopathic expertise of the last century and a half
fully validates such concepts as potency energy, vital force and disease
cause as a spiritual essence [miasm] that temporarily invades and
‘poisons’ the spirit of the person, inducing symptoms. While
transcendentalists [and homeopaths] interpret the germ idea as spiritual
contagion by essence, the allopaths interpret it as physical
contagion by microbes. That is what divides us.It is also clear that vital force and miasms are
‘inferred entities’ just as the electron is an inferred entity. That
does not mean it exists or does not exist; it just means it sits in that
borderland between what is observably true and what is inferred or
suggested by the facts that are known with greater certainty: “unless
our theories and observations confirm one another, they will be still
little more than the most probable conjectures…while the mechanical
theories give rise to certain inferences regarding the minute structures
of the body, we lack any concrete verification of these inferences,”
[13; 527] For it remains clear that “theory without verification
is mere speculation rather than science. Theory alone cannot guarantee
truth…conjecture and extrapolation, however probable, [are] not the
same as concrete demonstration.” [13; 528] In that important
sense it becomes possible that “crude empirical observations
[might] masquerade under the cloak of theory,” [13; 538]. This
genuine tendency is just as likely in “real science” as it is
in homeopathy, where facts are fitted together into a bigger
picture using the glue of assumptions and inferred entities.The evidence supporting such inferred entities varies
in quality, but the inference in itself in each case is still strong and
valid as it flows naturally from a field of data unique to the
particular field of study, whether it is astronomy [e.g. black holes],
physics [e.g. quarks and muons] or homeopathy. Even those inferred
entities, which are mathematically provable, are not intrinsically any
more real than the inferred entities of vital force, potency energy or
miasms in homeopathy. In both cases, valid ideas and methods flow from
belief in the inferred entities – it is as if they are real and
that is usually sufficient to settle the matter in every case as a
working construct or model of the way things are.
Discussion
A miasm is clearly an internalised change in the
essence of the person, their vital force. Such a change is acquired as
an internal relic or shadow only from certain virulent diseases that
have especially strong essence or power to cause disease. Classically,
these include Syphilis, Gonorrhoea and Psora [suppressed skin
eruptions]. Some homeopaths would go even further than this and add
Cancer, TB and Influenza to the list as sub-miasms or even recent miasms
in their own right. Others would also add Diphtheria, Polio, Tetanus,
Typhoid and Smallpox as minor miasms and also Birth Pill and vaccine
damage as taints and blockages, which again are internalised imprints of
disease that comprise changes in the vital force capable of preventing
remedies working right [blockages] or acting as sources of symptoms in
the person’s ill-health. Such taints and blockages can be removed with
the appropriate nosode and each miasm represents a symptom-causing
element acquired into the fabric of the vital force. A miasm can be seen
as a hardened portion of the psychophysical network, rather like a
fixated proving, a rigidified section of the life force, and an aspect
of contagion that has become too solidly internalised.The miasm is the internalised shadow of a big
disease; with its own strong essence such a disease has imprinted itself
upon the vital force. The shadow it leaves behind is therefore a shadow
in the vital force. This concept of the miasm as merely a damaged or
deranged vital force [= essence] is very clearly the view of Hahnemann,
Close, Kent and Boger, who repeatedly state that contagion and cure are
the same – i.e. reversible changes in the vital force – and nothing more
or less than that. Therefore cure is but the reversal of the process of
contagion – the reversal of a change in the vital force – by which
symptoms once caused are then brought to a halt [subdued] by the
neutralisation of the change in essence that first elicited the original
disease. Neutralisation proceeds by similars – what causes can cure.Much understanding can be gained about miasms from
considering the nature of the vital force, disease and cure. For
example, “the dynamic potentised drug is the chief factor in
both proving and healing,” [14] which implies that there is a
reciprocal action between disease and simillimum. As Close says, disease
cause therefore also exists solely in “the realm of pure
dynamics;” [15; 39] what he calls the “sphere of
homeopathy is limited primarily to the functional changes from which the
phenomena of disease arise,” [15; 40-41] Therefore, the removal
[correction might be a better word] of the internal damage [miasm] is
the removal of the cause; which is not the same as removing the
symptoms: “In faithful treatment, it is sought to accomplish an
end far more subtle than the mechanical removal of bacilli.”
[16] Symptoms are not seen by homeopaths as the disease, but as the
results, the end-products, of deeper dynamic disease processes: “tissue
changes…are but the results of disease;” [10; 672] “a
cure is not a cure unless it destroys the internal or dynamic cause of
disease.” [10; 673]
When
Close states that the “real cure…takes place solely in the
functional and dynamical sphere,” [15; 42] he means it is not
the physical symptoms but views disease primarily as a “dynamic
derangement of the life force,” [18] a derangement of process,
which precedes any derangement of structure. Disease “is the
suffering of the dynamis.” [15; 70-72] Close devotes
considerable intellectual energy to clearly defining disease; an effort
that repays close study. For example, he says that “homeopathy
does not treat disease; it treats patients.” [15; 51] Disease,
he claims, is “an abnormal vital process;” [15; 60] “a
dynamic aberration of our spirit-like life;” [15; 67] “a
perverted vital action;” [15; 72] it is “not a thing,
but only the condition of a thing;” [15; 72] that in the last
analysis disease is “primarily only an altered state of life and
mind.” [15; 72]Close lays bare its deeper nature when he says
disease is “primarily a morbid disturbance or disorderly action
of the vital powers and functions,” [15; 73-4] or “purely
a dynamical disturbance of the vital principle.” [15; 73-4]
Furthermore, he logically pronounces that because “disease is
always primarily a morbid dynamical or functional disturbance of the
vital principle,” [15; 88] so in turn it is clear that “functional
or dynamic change always precedes tissue changes,” [15; 72] and
that cure has been established only “when every perceptible sign
of suffering of the dynamis has been removed.” [15; 73-4] For
Close, it is precisely upon such reasons and definitions that “the
entire edifice of therapeutic medication governed by the law of Similia,”[15;
71] has been conceived and constructed. All these insightful statements
elaborated by Close might be said to derive from Kent, but, as he
insists, they also flow naturally from Hahnemann’s own sentiments in the
Organon: [17] “let it be granted now…that no disease…is
caused by any material substance, but that every one is only and always
a peculiar, virtual, dynamic derangement of the health.” [19]The remedy for these sickness processes is equally
dynamic and nebulous – the potentised drug – which gives rise to the
comment by Kent: “lower potency…less fine and less interior
than the higher,”[10; 674] meaning the higher the potency, the
deeper it penetrates into the hidden realm of disease causes.Such a mode of medical conception is most interesting
when you consider that conventional medicine never even enters the realm
of essence [true causes] at all and so all its so-called cures are
false; they are mere rearrangements of the deck-chairs on the Titanic –
superficial window-dressing that does not reach into the deeper realm of
disease cause and that does not bring about [indeed, is fundamentally
incapable of] the radical type of true cure that can only ensue from
direct healing within the realm of essence, that is “the subtle
realm of disease cause or simple substance,” [5]. Being rooted
mostly in contraries and the molecular realm of symptom suppression,
rather than cure, so allopathy again looks like mere window-dressing,
not true cure. It is a mere tinkering with symptoms.The remedy must be similar in essence to the patient
totality and in degree of attenuation to the miasm, both to induce any
change in the case at all, and to reach deep into the essence realm
itself. Only intangible remedies can reach the equally rarefied,
nebulous and intangible realm of essences [miasms, vital force].
Similarity between remedy and disease [= patient totality] establishes
the primary resonance between the two, such that any healing action is
possible at all, and potentisation establishes the secondary link
between similar drug and the depth of disorder within the essence state.
While similars might be seen as concerning quality and properties,
potency seems more concerned with matching the energy or intensity of
the drug with that of the derangement in the life force [miasm]. Such a
view also echoes Kent when, regarding potency, he says that “the
higher the deeper,” [5] meaning that only the higher [more
intangible] potencies of the right remedy [simillimum] can reach deep
enough into the intangible depths of the vital force where the true
miasmic derangements lie hidden, i.e. the realm of essence. Therefore,
acting only at the surface, superficially, the low potencies can only
act upon acute superficial miasms.All this flow of reasoning is concerned mostly with
medical inference based around the concepts of homeopathy, which in turn
flow naturally from its engagement with clinical practice and the cure
of cases. It is therefore a mix of pure empiricism [raw observation]
combined with inferential rationalism [inference or reasoning], for “what
we cannot see directly with the corporeal eye, we may yet be able to
perceive indirectly, by the eye of reason,” [20; 23] It is
similarly true in homeopathy that “the distinction between
observation and inference, between empiricism and rationalism, is
basically artificial, since neither can exist without a substantial
share of the other…in almost every statement, some observation and
some inference are involved…the further we get from direct
observation, the more we depend on inference and reasoning,”
[20; 22-23] And to be sure the realm of essences and miasms, and vital
force is a realm of inference, illuminated and visible almost solely by
the “eye of reason.” Inference and reasoning act like
map and compass or a lamp that lights an unseen path and by which we can
probe the world and navigate through uncharted waters. Only in this way
can we gain our bearings and obtain the deeper understanding we crave
from the patterns in events. Only in this way can we gain understanding
of raw empirical data flowing from observation and experiments.In all subjects of study we employ a mix of both
observation and inference [theoretical models] in order to make sense of
our world. And as Berlin states, “the concept of fact is itself
problematic all facts embody theories…or socially conditioned,
ideological attitudes;” [21] there is no fact without its
adherent body of theory, or as Darwin once stated it – “without
speculation there can be no good and original observation.”
[22] And as Galileo and Luther relied upon very different rows of
books from the Church [23], to substantiate their views – in all such
notions there is a confluence of ideas about the nature of knowledge
[epistemology], and they therefore make important statements about how
we come to know and how we don’t. Theory and method move crab-like,
shackled in harness, in a perpetual form of unison, in everything we do
and study or try to understand. Vital force, essence, miasm and
potentised drug – in the last analysis, these are all inferred entities
visible only with the inner “eye of reason.”
Hahnemann
basically agrees with van Helmont and Paracelsus that the root causes of
sickness are not to be found in the outer, tangible and visible aspects
of disease manifestations, the phenotype, but rather in the deeper
essence or genotype. Therefore, they all concur that no radical or
genuine change in the tangible and visible [disease symptoms] can of
itself constitute a cure, or truly remove the causes within the deeper
realm of essences, which are the root causes of disease and therefore
the arisal of disease is not terminated by such chemical tinkering. This
can only truly be achieved by employing techniques that do delve deeper
into the realm of essences, the realm of root causes where disease can
be cut off at its true root. Thus, Paracelsus and van Helmont state just
as clearly as Hahnemann himself that drugs must be selected that match
the disease [patient totality] upon the basis of their essences and not
according to outward physical and chemical properties, which of
themselves are only, and at best, indicative of their deeper, essential
qualities. It also follows that this means holism because it means the
whole person and not just for localised symptoms or using disease labels
or named conditions.Clearly therefore, all these vitalist physicians
concur that mere tinkering at the level of symptoms [being results not
causes] is a futile undertaking rather like rearranging the deck-chairs
on the Titanic, as it does not penetrate deep enough into the essential
realm of causes where true changes can be induced. Through superficial
methods, only superficial changes can be brought about. As long as the
deeper cause remains present, so disease can always at any time spring
forth and flow from it. Such a notion is confirmed by Kent, Close and
others who chorus that remedies cure the patient in the deeper essence
state of vital force and miasm only when potentised to a higher degree
of similarity in essence state as that of the vital force and the miasms
themselves.
Only
by such matching of drug picture and patient totality, in their deeper
essence state, can the deeper realm of causes be roused into useful
activity, so as to throw disease off by the organism’s own efforts. This
also echoes the sentiment that cure, like contagion itself, has to be an
active process on the part of the organism, engaged in by the vital
force, by the whole organism, and not by any external agent, through
molecular intervention or by treating localised parts. Cure is brought
about by the vital force, and not by the remedy. The remedy acts merely
to stimulate the vital force into renewed therapeutic activity. Any
alleged therapeutic effort that fails to engage the effort of the vital
force must therefore be doomed to fail and to be suppressive. Such is
the whole of allopathy. It is mere tinkering with symptoms, with effects
not causes, as Kent, Close and Boger all concur. And one important and
deeper aspect of patient totality has to be the added dimension
provided by the theory of miasms.
Sources
[1] Samuel Hahnemann, The
Chronic Diseases, 1828[2] Frank Bodman, Lecture
to Osler Society, Oxford, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 44.2, 1955, 2-8[3] Richard Haehl, Samuel
Hahnemann His Life and Works, 2 vols[4] Isaiah Berlin The
Sense of Reality – Studies in Ideas and Their History, London:
Pimlico, 1996, 49[5] J T Kent, Lesser
Writings, New Remedies, Aphorisms & Precepts, Philadelphia:
Erhart & Karl, 1926, 679[6] P A Nicholls, Homeopathy
& the Medical Profession, London: Croom Helm, 1988, 233[7] James Compton
Burnett, New Cure of Consumption by its Own Virus, London:
Homeopathic Publishing Co, 1890, iv[8] Burnett, vi
[9] Luc De Schepper, Hahnemann
Revisited: A Textbook of Classical Homeopathy for the Professional,
Santa Fe: Full of Life Publications, 1999, 321[10] Walter Pagel, Van
Helmont’s Concept of Disease, Bull Hist Med 46.5, Sept 1972,
419-454; see also Walter Pagel, The Religious and Philosophical
Aspects of Van Helmont’s Science and Medicine, Bull Hist Med
Supplement No 2, 1944, 44 pages[11] Ernst Mayr, The
Growth of Biological Thought, Harvard: Belknap Press, 1982[12] K D Keele, The
Sydenham-Boyle Theory of Morbific Particles, Medical History,
18, 1974, 240-248; see also Pagel, 1972, & Pagel, 1944[13] Lester S King, George
Cheyne – Mirror of 18th Century Medicine, Bull. Hist. Med.
48, 1974, 517-39[14] Henry C Allen, Materia
Medica of the Nosodes, 1909, Calcutta: Sett Day, 1942, 528[15] Stuart Close, The
Genius of Homeopathy, Lectures and Essays on Homeopathic Philosophy,
New York, 1924[16] C F Nichols, Homeopathy
in Relation to the Koch Controversy, Science, 17: 429, April
24, 1891, 233-234[17] Hahnemann, Organon,
Aphorisms 11 [9, 10], 15 and 16[18] see Close, 37-8,
74[19] Organon,
Introduction, 10[20] Lester S King, The
Growth of Medical Thought, Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1963[21] Sir Isaiah
Berlin, Alleged Relativism in Eighteenth Century Thought, in The Crooked
Timber of Humanity, Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1999, 89[22] anecdotal aside;
no source found[23] see Patrick
A. Heelan, William Gaston Professor of
Philosophy, Georgetown University, Galileo,
Luther, and the Hermeneutics of Natural Science,
pp.363-375 in The Question of Hermeneutics, ed. by T.J. Stapleton
(Boston, Dordrecht: Kluwer 1994)