Homoeopathy
: its fundamental principles outlined
by Dr J. T. Kent
Presented by Dr Robert Séror
Cet article fort important de Kent, en Anglais paraîtra également au
sein de la totalité des ” Écrits posthumes ” de Kent
Dr RS.
Résumé en Francais :
Homéopathie : ses principes fondamentaux mis en valeur
Toute la doctrine se trouve dans les 5 ème et 6 ème éditions de l’Organon.
Il faut les lire sans idées préconçues. Ceux qui ont essayé de
démontrer les failles de l’Homéopathie, ont échoués. Un jour viendra
où la véracité de l’Homéopathie sera démontrée. Comparaisons entre
la Religion et l’homéopathie. Kent condamne les soi disants homéopathes.
Il défend Hahnemann que certains homéopathes ont traité de visionnaire.
Citation de Burnett. MM de Cullen et critiques d’Hahnemann. C’est
pourtant dans cette MM qu’Hahnemann a trouvé la justification de l’action
de China. SFCH refuse les explications de Cullen et donne les siennes.
Hahnemann s’appuie sur des faits et non sur des idées, comme le fait
Cullen. Suit un résumé historique de la découverte de l’homéopathie et
de ses principes. Kent passe en revue les différentes éditions de l’Organon.
Dans les 4 premières éditions, SFCH ne parle que de l’intérieur de l’organisme,
il ne parlera de la force vitale que dans la 6 ème édition. Dans toute l’œuvre
d’Hahnemann, il n’existe aucune spéculation d’ordre métaphysique.
Notion de Dynamis et de Diathèses. A la recherche primitive de la cause des
maladies. D’où les maladies viennent elles ? C’est là, la
véritable question à laquelle répond Hahnemann : il existe 3 miasmes
latents qui se trouvent dans la Dynamis. Et c’est là, la grande
découverte du génie d’Hahnemann. Les lésions anatomiques ne sont pas
les causes de la maladie mais les conséquences. Longue discussion afin de
montrer que SFCH n’était pas un rêveur ni un métaphysicien.
* * * * *
Homoeopathy :
its fundamental principles outlined
As we were about to enter upon a discussion that may lead beyond the
probability of ready comprehension, and as I may encounter, even at this
center of Hahnemannism, those who have not travelled beyond “
faith”
and “belief,”
permit me to ask my hearers to lay aside both, and with me enter upon a line
of thought and investigation, and accept the outcome regardless of
preconceived opinions, belief, or faith.
These have no part in a scientific discussion.
One should proceed without opinion, without faith, without prejudice to
weigh the statements found in the sixteenth section of the fifth and last
edition of the
Organon of Samuel
Hahnemann.
The doctrines contained in this section are the result of many
years of thought and classified experience and they conflict with the
statements of accepted authority.
But if it be the foundation of truth, even in part, we must explore its
interior and bow to its revelations.
Though
Draper
and Carpenter
have failed to discover these inner precincts, they have not demonstrated
that Hahnemann’s
conclusions were illogical or impossible.
With cell-formation they have ended ; but life, the home of disease, is
unknown to them.
The opponents of this doctrine, which the followers of
Hahnemann
have accepted as a great truth, may search in vain and quote authority
without end, and the only result attained is : Not found, not demonstrated ;
unknown.
These authors, being ignorant of this vital dynamis, deny its existence ;
they cannot see it ; cannot manipulate it ; and cannot demonstrate it by the
common instruments in chemistry and physiology.
Nevertheless. the time will come when physiology must deal with this
question as a factor – not in dispute ; then will the great void in this
science be filled with that which will make medical science to rest on firm
foundations ; while at present from old-school standpoint it has no
foundation, and with the Hahnemannian school our foundation is disputed.
As it is probable that I shall be accused of extremism, let me say, by
way of explanation, that not all so-called homoeopathists admit the truth of
the dynamic doctrine and choose to call it “dynamic theory.”
There are graded believers in Homoeopathy as in religion.
Some are born to position, others acquire it. To be born of Christian
parentage does not make one a Christian. Yet believing in Christ and His
teachings, without following His example or obeying His commands, will
distinguish him from the Jew.
In like manner believing in the Law of Cure makes a homeopathist
But like the followers of Christ, it is only possible to, be an exemplary
one by close relation at the throne of grace, or measuring every action by
the principles under the law.
Therefore it will be observed that to be an exemplary follower of the
master healer, it is necessary to be near him, and follow after him in all
his steps that the highest degree of wisdom may appear in our methods.
Not that I would blindly follow a leader who has been extensively courted
; but that after discovering Hahnemann to have been the greatest living
healer it behoves that we study him in all his intricate philosophy to
ascertain, if possible, wherein rested his great powers as a physician, and
then see whether as a healer he is worthy of followers.
If we have discovered that he was an original thinker and philosopher,
and his teachings are as he declared them to be, viz. : the only true method
of curing the sick, let us follow as far as he has gone, not wavering a
hair’s breadth, until we have arrived at the point where the master left us
and his great philosophy.
They who practice on a part of
Hahnemann’s
teachings and fill the great void with “results of experience,” do
so with methods that the master unequivocally condemned ; and while it may
not be thought kindly of the statement is true ; they are not the
homoeopathists who have followed in the footsteps of the master.
They have not lived closely to the law, and are not Hahnemannians.
Hahnemann
said to a friend of his in Paris, who was complimenting him on the great
number of his followers.
Says
Hahnemann
:
“Yes, there are a great many homoeopathic doctors, but all my true
followers can be counted on the ends of my fingers.”
It is as an exponent of the philosophy of
Hahnemann
that I speak to you, his professed followers. It is because I have learned
that the Central New York Society
desires to live close to the master and learn of him, as far as he had
advanced, that I travelled so far to address you on this occult subject.
While some of the enemies of Homoeopathy, and some professed followers of
the Law of Cure, have said that this great master was visionary, and many
other harsh things, it may be well to observe that he never ceased to think
with strength ; his very last thoughts are to be fully appreciated before we
attempt to walk alone, or build a philosophy out of other material.
Before entering upon a fuller discussion of the statements which contain
the master’s conclusion, let us look into the life of this great man, and
see what manner of man was he, and how he was led to such a conclusion
relating to the invisible vital dynamis.
We want to know whether he reasoned it out by a pure mental effort, or
arrived at it after the use of potentized medicines-as a result of
experience.
Burnett
says :
“Of
Hahnemann’s
father sufficient is known to be sure that he was no ordinary man, in as
much as he taught the young Samuel
to think for himself or which purpose he is said to have shut him up alone
and given him a theme to think out.”
If
Ameke’s
history be read it will be seen at once that Hahnemann
displayed wonderful energy in securing his primary training, as his father
was a man of limited means.
Everywhere facts confirm the historian, wherein he states that
Hahnemann
never admired metaphysical speculations ; he always concluded on facts,
never on theory or speculation. I refer you to his essay on the
“Speculative System of Medicine,” Lesser Writings, p. 567, wherein
a masterly handling of the subject was done, showing a wonderful mind and a
complete knowledge of the medicine of his time, which he manipulated so
iconoclastically.
In
1792
he challenged the physicians
to justify themselves for the treatment administered Emperor
Leopold II.
Even thus early the master-mind saw the perniciousness of the practice in
vogue. Neither was he wanting in knowledge of many sciences.
He was the first to make the proving of drugs a system. From
1790
he continued the proving of
drugs, and throughout his writings, he recommended the use of drugs only
whose effects are accurately known, which knowledge is to be discovered only
by proving upon the healthy ; and this is in keeping with his manners and
acts everywhere we find exactitude of thought and method.
While translating
Cullen’s Materia
Medica, in 1790,
he met the latter’s
explanation of the action of Cinchona bark in curing chills and fever.
Cullen
attributes the curative
influence to a “strengthening power it exerts over the stomach.”
Hahnemann
refuses to accept
this explanation, and cites the following :
“Substances, such as strong
coffee,
pepper, arnica, ignatia, and arsenic,
which cause a kind of fever, extinguish the periodicity of fevers.”
“For the sake of experiment, I took, for several days, four drachms
of good
Cinchona
bark twice a day.”
The results are too well known to be recalled here ; but it will be
observed that
Hahnemann
did not refuse to accept Cullen’s
explanation without a reason on definite information, while Cullen’s
opinion was a mere speculation, such as men feel compelled to offer when
expected to say something.
From facts,
Hahnemann
was led to remark that Ipecac must produce certain forms of artificial ‘
fever in order to cure intermittent fever.
Gradually was he advancing by deduction to the great discovery of the Law
of Cure.
Up to this time, while he had seen the evidence, he had not formulated
the
Similia similibus
curantur, in fact,
nothing is seen of it until 1796,
in an essay which appeared in Hufeland’s
Journal,
and is a part of the Lesser
Writings, p. 295- “Essays
on a New Principle for Discovering the Curative Power of Drugs.”
In this paper he advises medicines in crude, but small doses.
“In a, dose just strong enough to produce scarcely perceptible
indication of the expected artificial disease.”
At this time he had not discovered the nature of the vital dynamis.
In
1801
he wrote a paper,
“
Cure and Prevention of
Scarlet Fever” (Lesser
Writings, p. 369), wherein he recommended tinct. Opium,
one part to five hundred of alcohol, and one drop of this to be shaken with
five hundred of alcohol, the patient to take one drop of this preparation at
a dose.
It was after 1801 that his centesimal scale was brought into use. In this
year he used
Bell.
and Cham.
in about the third or fourth dilution.
Very soon he discovered that
“the diminution of the action, of the drug was not proportionate to
the diminution of its quantity.”
Also the astounding fact became evident that
“medicines could be so diluted that neither physics nor chemistry
could discover any medicinal matter in them, and yet they possessed great
healing power.”
Hufeland
says Hahnemann
was the greatest chemist of his day, therefore was not in ignorance of the
actual inability of the science to measure the quantity of medicine in his
newly discovered healing agencies.
His enemies have said he was highly educated in physics, botany,
chemistry, geology, astronomy, pharmacy, etc.
His greatest and last attainment was his discovery of dynamism, which has
distinguished him from all men and established a
Hahnemannism
that will stand as long as the world stands.
They may run away with Homoeopathy and befoul it into a modern nastiness,
a mongrelism, and by virtue of the might and numbers vote it to mean
anything they chose, but they have no power to change
Hahnemannism,
which stands and must forever stand as a living truth wherever men love
truth and are not afraid to speak their true convictions.
I do not favorisms ; but, Mr. President, in this case our only safety is
to stand by this one for the simple reason that when any other name has
become popular it will be stolen as the honored name of Homoeopathy has been
stolen, and is no longer an expression of the doctrines of
Hahnemann
and its most conspicious representatives who do not make use of his methods.
If an inquiring allopath seek information of one of these modern
representatives, he will learn nothing of the teachings of
Hahnemann.
Why is this ?
Simply because the colleges have not taught the sixteenth section of the
Primer.
They have not taken neophytes up through the primary work, but have
placed them at work with the advanced course, which is never learned without
the primer.
Where have we such a parallel in other sciences ?
One of the conditions necessary to the successful perpetuation of this
science is a knowledge of its first principles and how to teach them.
Let us now proceed to inspect the various editions of this
Organon,
and we see what a careful man
our author was.
He was not a man to adopt a theory of others before having thoroughly
tested it and having observed the facts upon which the theory was based.
Everywhere we see originality of thought, firmness, great power of
observation, comparison, and most wonderful reasoning. Metaphysical
speculation was repulsive to him, which he carefully avoided in the first
edition of the
Organon,
which was published in 1810.
He was eminently practical in all hat he said and did. Thus, you will
search in vain in all the first four editions of the
Organon
for the term and idea of the
vital force. He only spoke of the interior of the organism.
In the seventh section of the first edition:
“There must exist in the medicine a healing principle ; the
understanding has a presentation of it, but its essence is not recognizable
by us in any way, only its utterances and actions can be known by
experience.”
Twenty-three years later, when seventy-eight years old, in the fifth
edition, published in
1833,
in the ninth and tenth
sections, he distinctly calls a unit of action in the whole organism of the
vital force.
From this it is evident Hahnemann arrived at this conclusion after a long
and practical experience, in as much as he was led up to it by his early
perception of the similar vital principle contained in the medicine (see
first ed., fifth section), which is only recognized by its action upon the
organism.
I have shown you that it was not metaphysical speculation that led the
master to the idea of the vital dynamis, but a long series of practical and
experimental research.
If we would think for ourselves, let us inspect some of the facts that
relate to general medicine and see if we can answer some of the questions
that are propounded, and then revert to the vital dynamis.
We read in the time-honored text-books that there is such a condition of
the human body known as diathesis – in fact, several of them ; again,
that these diatheses are hereditary and predispose to disease.
What is this diathesis out of which grow so many diseases ? In one
subject comes cancer; in another insanity ; in another tuberculosis; and in
another epilepsy, or
Bright’s
disease, or Hodgkin’s
disease.
What is the strumous diathesis ?
What is this state of bad feeling that precedes any fixed organic change
that locates in an organ ?
Can it be that this latent wrong in the vital power is not worthy of
consideration ?
Can it be that the kidney can take on structural change and become waxy
without cause ?
You must say, No ! What is the cause of this lesion, and why do not these
named exciting causes always produce the same results, and why does not
every person subjected to these exciting causes become afflicted with waxed
kidneys?
You answer because there is a predisposing, determining influence at
work. Yes, the diathesis. But the diathesis has no foundation in fact, only
a thing of imagination.
A convenient explanation of unknown things ; a figure-head in the
text-books, out of which we have had no benefit, and learned no lesson from
the old school, whose literature has so wisely furnished us with a
meaningless lot of terms.
We read of the weakness, of the dropsy, etc., etc., coming from
Bright’s
disease, but we do not read of the pre-historic symptoms ; are they of no
value ? Are they not present ? Yes, they are present. Then what are they ?
We read of exciting and predisposing cases but we do not read why a
similar combination of exciting and predisposing causes is not always
followed by
Bright’s
disease.
We have a right to ask this of a system of medicine that claims
scientific attention and public patronage.
Another example, if you please, we read of a self-limited disease called
scarlatina (scarlet fever).
Any allopathist will warm up in opposition if you tell him that scarlet
fever is not a self-limited disease. If it be a self-limited disease it must
result in resolution or death ; the child must recover by statute of
limitation, or die.
They do not all die; some are left even under old-school treatment to
tell the tale. From these we learn that ear-discharges are the result of
scarlatina.
This otorrhoea is not a part of scarlatina – as according to accepted
teaching – the disease is self-limited. The child was a picture of health
before the scarlatina : then, what is this new trouble?
Specialists treat the otorrhoea as if it were a new disease
per
se ; if
so, whence has it come and what is the nature of it?
A novice can tell you a long name and affirm that it is catarrhal; but
that is not satisfactory. Where did it come from?
Did it come spontaneously, or was it the result of some latent wrong in
the vital dynamis?
I say in the dynamis, as there was no tissue change before, and the
scarlatina has long gone. We do not know that this new trouble is
essentially chronic ; and that in scarlet fever there is no chronic element.
Now, has this sore ear simply developed this, a propitious time ? Has the
scarlatina so weakened the mucous membrane of the aural tubes that they
become the favorite sites for the expression of a something that the disease
when badly treated has aroused into action ?
I say when badly treated, because when the disease is properly treated,
otorrhoea does not follow. I no longer see such troubles, and have not had
them since I have been able to recognize their true nature.
What is this something that may exist for years in a latent state be
handed down from generation to generation, and come to view at any time and
cause chronic troubles to follow self-limited diseases ?
We have a right to a civil answer to a question of this kind. If a vital
wrong is capable of existing for years in an invisible state outside of the
tissues, there must be some invisible precinct that stores it or it does not
exist.
Can it now be doubted that a disease may exist for years with or without
a morbid anatomy ?
Rokitensky
says scrofula has no morbid anatomy.
To be logical, according to the material school, there is no scrofula and
no struma ; that scrofulous manifestations have no cause, and consequently
no reality.
Why do not all injuries of the synovial membranes of the iliofemoral
articulation result in hip-joint disease ? Why do some abscesses dose with
the evacuation of pus, and others form sinuses and fistulae?
Look where you may in literature other than
Hahnemannian,
and you will find mere
speculation, theory, and no practical deduction.
Hahnemann
describes three
constitutional miasms that may exist in latency, that develop and progress
in the vital “dynamis” without changing the tissues, that may
spring into destructive activity and attack organs and give shape to
countless lesions called disease ; that these miasms should be recognized as
primary wrongs out of which grow incurable maladies, and all structural
changes.
Shall we, learn a lesson from these reflections or shall we pass them as
mere theories ?
Hahnemann
teaches the nature of these miasms; it is not my province to discuss them,
but to simply call them up as the essentials to the complete study of the
sixteenth section.
The questions to be unanswered from all these are :
First. Have we such a condition as an invisible immaterial disease ?
Second. If so, ewe all diseases of the same nature, and
Third. Is it rational to attempt to nullify a disease of immaterial
nature by material substances.
Hahnemann’s
early deduction was
that disease, being of an immaterial nature, could develop only on a similar
basis or in a similar sphere, when in contact with a similar quality of
force ; and to again reach it curatively, a force must be found equally as
immaterial.
The mystery of the vital force for all practical purposes in the healing
art has been solved by the immortal
Hahnemann,
and named the vital dynamis.
His deductions are summed up in the sixteenth section.
This section furnished the keystone to the doctrines of Hahnemannism, and
without which the great arch must flatten and collapse ; without this
finishing doctrine his followers would be where all are who have rejected it
– floundering in the mire of uncertainty and floating in the swift and muddy
rivers of guesswork and disappointment.
The study of the sixteenth section clearly sums up what the great
philosopher believed disease to be.
Let us enter this wilderness and see where we are directed. If we accept
the teachings we must admit that (the results of disease) lesions, tissue
changes, cannot be considered as primary expressions of disease, but as a
consequence.
The molecular vibrations or vital activities, are a warning that a
continuance of the expressions of wrong life must mean progressive death. To
consider life in the sense that
Hahnemann
looked upon it, as normal activities within the organism, we must then look
upon these normal activities changed by cause to be the abnormal, which is
disease.
The only evidence of disease are the definite expressions that deviate
from the normal, which we choose to denominate the language of the vital
wrong (section 7),
“Hence,
the totality of these symptoms, this outwardly reflected image of the
inner nature of the disease, i., e., of the suffering vital force. ”
Localization is at all times a secondary state or the result of disease,
while changed feelings are the primary manifestations.
The primary or changed feeling often escapes observation, as in a
gonorrhoea; but the disease has been pervading the economy for a period of
eight days, and the localization finally appears as a discharge.
The same is true of all contagious diseases, and as far as is known, of
every disease. If we look upon disease with any other view and consider it
per
se when
it localizes itself, and then search for a name to fit it, by virtue of its
morbid anatomy, or its location, we trace it to its observable beginning,
and as though it had no cause, and study it in relation to changed cells as
a something with only an ending but with no beginning.
But when looking at all tissue changes as the result of disease, we are
in position to inquire :
What is the disease proper ? This guides into the pre-historic state when
there were no tissue changes, and yet there will be found ample expressions
to convince us that all was not perfect in the invisible vital kingdom, and
the scalpel has not been directed.
Then it is with this pre-historic state, these vital activities, that we
have to deal. Before the change of tissue has occurred there must have been
a cause of morbid vibrations -a condition of morbid vital activities, or
cell-changes could not have been wrought.
What is the nature of that state or condition that existed before the
tissues and cells changed their shape ?
There must be two, the right and the wrong ; the former the correct life
function known by the absence of all subjective sensations – a feeling of
bodily comfort and ease ; and the latter by the presence of subjective
morbid feelings. The former is known as health, and the latter as sickness
or disease.
These cannot be measured as a quantitative influence, as the cause is
only qualitative in itself, and its results are but a perversion of a proper
force. It will be as difficult to demonstrate that quantitative influence is
necessary to produce vital changes as to demonstrate that there is a
measurable quantity in noxious forces so hurtful to man.
Therefore, we may conclude that causes purely qualitative act
destructively.
We now have the right to assume that all vital changes primarily are only
qualitative in the sense of misapplied force, and that these morbid
vibrations are the disease, and all there is of disease per se.
Now, we may assume that life is a dynamis capable of perpetuating its own
identity when the medium through which it acts it not destroyed or impaired.
Again, to act upon the dynamis and not disturb the medium there must be
force brought in relation with the vital force equally as qualitative and as
free from quantitative consideration.
It hardly needs further demonstration to show that this vital perversion
is possible, but we observe daily the wrong feelings that have been known to
exist for years without quantitative changes or localization.
Thus have we arrived at
Hahnemann’s
conclusion.
But now we glean that if an equally subtle dynamis is necessary to cause
disease and disturb the harmonious relations of the vital activities and it
is admitted that the Law of Similars expresses the curative relation and the
only law of the kind known to man – must we not conclude that this curative
power or force, to be a corrective principle, must be equally qualitative
and subtle with the life-principle, with the disease cause, with the disease
itself ?
The vital affinity cannot appear between forces of foreign relations ;
they must be
similar
in quality and devoid of
quantity.
Power used in the sense of overpowering an antagonist has no place in the
science of homoeopathics, but it is a consideration of a given force
deranged or perverted to be simply harmonized and restored to equilibrium.
It will at once be observed that a surplus of force is impossible only as
a surplus in a qualitative relation which has no part in the similitude of a
purely qualitative problem.
To attain the highest degree of similitude, not the quantity of a given
power, is the aim.
The similar is quality with similar expressions of activity in the
sine
qua non, as
we have demonstrated, that there is no quantity necessary in the
consideration.
Therefore, if this be only a spirit – like dynamis – and I believe the
demonstration is clear – all of the quantity taken or made use of must be
that much more than similar – therefore, unlike – and that much more than
the demand to restore equilibrium ; in other words, contrary and in no
relation curative.
Not in any sense restorative, but, on the contrary, retarding the return
to normal vibration by impairing the medium through which the vital dynamis
must operate.
In relation to cure, it has so often been said by the master there was
yet too much medicine to cure.
The dose is yet too large to cure. The use of the term quantity conveys
the idea of strength, which has no part in any homoeopathic sense as related
to a curative agency.
To reduce remedial agents to primitive identity of a qualitative
character only that they may act through the new medium, is the aim of the
true healer.
Not until they are divested of their own media can they be quickly
corrective or be active in any sense as similar agencies.
This view may appear to oppose some statements of
Hahnemann.
In section 45,
“The
stronger disease will overcome the weaker one.”
This is only apparent. The two diseases, being partially similar,
overcome each other only in part; but the part of the one overcome only in
part reproduces itself and runs its course unmolested.
” In section 34
, “For
it is by virtue of the similitude, combined with greater intensity.”
This statement may be correct; but I believe it to be only apparent, and
that the similitude is the only necessary demand for the destruction of
both, or, rather, the correction of the wrong in the dynamis or spirit –
like vital force.
There being no entity, there can be nothing to overpower – only a
perverted effort to be corrected. Any disease will subside apparently by
natural decline when met by a noxious influence of similar dynamis of
sick-making possibilities, regardless of intensity.
This view strengthens the Law of Similars and is in harmony with
immaterial activities. It is not adding a new force, but applying a force to
correct a perverted life principle.
The noxious, disease-producing influences have nothing in common with
material agencies. When so crude that they can be seen and manipulated, they
are feeble sick making agencies.
(The sceptical experimenters, in provings made with attenuations, forgot
that a special predisposition is frequently necessary for contagion, and
that this predisposition cannot be made to order, but must be utilized when
found, which affords a propitious opportunity for the pure experiment
through which we discover the sick-making power of drugs).
(Section
31).
The dangerous and most noxious agencies are of the unknown. The most
astute have failed to find the cholera or yellow fever causes. The cause of
small-pox is yet unknown. The subtle influence that in one stroke stoops
down upon a village is not measurable by our crude senses.
The smallpox poison, when attenuated with millions of volumes of
atmospheric air, comes to the surface through the mails and through old
clothing by inhalation and the slightest contact. The impression wrought
upon this spirit-like dynamis accumulates until the medium is threatened
with destruction – all from a simple perverted life-force.
In this sixteenth section:
“Neither
can the physician free the vital force from any of these morbid
disturbances.”
No, because the life force being an immaterial force like electricity,
there is nothing to purge out, but a simple vital perversion to be
corrected, and as the wrong is essentially immaterial, nothing but an
immaterial something can be similar enough to it to act upon it as a
curative.
A material substance may change the organism and thereby suppress or
suspend an immaterial wrong, but the latter will return so soon as the
former, its medium, resumes its normal conductivity.
It will be observed at once that the essentials of cure do not exist in
operations upon the organisms, and as material substances operate largely
through the organisms, the true disease is not reached. The object then must
be to avoid operating upon the organism and essentially through the vital
impulses by correcting the perverted vital activities.
The causes of disease existing in a highly attenuated form are similar in
equality to the vital dynamis ; hence the affinity or susceptibility. This
same affinity must be acquired by a drug substance. The attenuation must be
carried on until a correspondence of spheres has been reached, or until
resistance is no longer possible.
The point of the highest degree of similitude in quality between two
activities is variable, as it is in a degree observable in a very wide range
of attenuation, as many quick cures are observed from low attenuations, but,
more commonly, the high and highest attenuations furnish the most striking
examples.
That low potencies cure, nobody disputes ; and this does not refute the
doctrine ; but it must be admitted that it is by virtue of the inherent
dynamic principle that it is curative, though more feebly curative in the
low than when the drug it attenuated to a quality equal to the quality of
the attenuated disease cure and the qualitative vital dynamis.
The striking changes sometimes observed from low attenuations are the
results of primary action on the organism which
Hahnemann
seeks to avoid.
To bring about such results medicines must be repeated, while a single
dose of the attenuated medicine mould prove curative, and not influence the
organism primarily.
From a practical standpoint let us look upon the results of obeying the
instructions of the master, who was always guided in his later years by the
doctrine of the sixteenth section, and contrast them with the result of
those who disobey this teaching.
The former class has followed closely the master’s teachings, accepting
the dynamic doctrine, and in this line have they made their cures, with the
same evidence claimed by the other class, simply the patients recover.
They have not felt the need of other methods than those taught by
Hahnemann.
They have not gone backwards, but, on the contrary, they have made some
progress.
How have they progressed ? Let us see.
If you will consult section 41 of the
Organon
you will see. Here we see that
Hahnemann
declares it almost impossible to eradicate some diseases because they had
been complicated with drugs having no relation to the disease.
He says that his remedies were always capable of curing effectually all
simple diseases.
Hahnemann
then used but thirtieth cent. potency when this section was written with few
exceptions.
What have his faithful followers to say as proof of the truth of the
doctrine and as proof of progress ?
That many of these most complicated diseases can be wiped out. That the
drug symptoms can be subdued by very high attenuations, leaving the simple
original disease to manifest itself through the natural medium, when it can
be cured by the thirtieth potency of the master.
They who have rejected this doctrine as a dogma have never seen this work
and they never will.
Yes, we shall progress if we observe facts, and unflinchingly cling to
the doctrines of the immortal
Hahnemann.
Let us look at the contrast.
What can be said of this class ? Their cures are only a deception. Had
they really cured their cases they would not need to resort to the latest
whim of an empirical profession.
They have abandoned the teaching of the sixteenth section, and what is
the result ?
They know that they cannot cure the sick and they even refuse to believe
that anyone else can. You never dispute a cure where it is in keeping with
your daily observations.
They say that ague must have
Quinine,
when the follower of the master cures all his cases with the attenuated
appropriate remedy. The materia medica that has been found so satisfactory
in the hands of Hahnemann
and his followers has been a failure and it needs revising.
There must be something wrong and we want no greater evidence of their
failure than that the chief defamer,
J.
P. Dake, requires in his practice
a large stock of Warner’s
sugar-coated pills, composed of crude medicines.
If this be true of the chief, what in the name of heaven must the lesser
lights need, who must, of course, be less skilled ?
They have declared that any one who simply selects his remedy under the
Law of Similars is as high as he can attain in the art of healing ; and he
may thereafter cover his patients with mustard, and apply all the local
measures he chooses.
Even they say that the local treatment is assisted by the internal
remedy.
The first departure from the dynamic doctrine is dangerous and leads
toward non-success, and careless method is the outcome. Safety comes from
simply not following the law of selection, but also the teaching of the
sixteenth section must be heeded.
Look at the alternation departure, and see the laziness of his thoughts.
Examine the prescription file in any drug store of a large city.
What do you find ? Simply a lot of prescriptions called homoeopathic
whose only element of Homoeopathy is the signature of a long professed
homoeopathic practitioner.
Hahnemann
regarded this vital
dynamis as a unit of force (see section 15), and the departure from health
as a unit of force.
We cannot study the sixteenth section and ignore this portion of the
dynamic doctrine. How absurd must it appear to one who has a clear
comprehension of these truths to consider for one moment the problem of
alternation which the master has so unequivocally condemned in section 272,
and its note.
Take a mental state that clearly indicates
Nux
vomica, and associate it with a Pulsatilla
menstrual condition, with menses too late, scanty, and pale.
In the former
Pulsatilla
is contra-indicated by the crabbed temper ; in the latter Nux
is contraindicated by the conditions of the menstrual flow.
The two, therefore, are contraindicated, neither of them corresponding to
the unit of force known by the totality of symptoms. Can it be possible that
by combining them it will make either or both homoeopathic to the demand of
this unit ?
Hahnemann
everywhere speaks of
using only such medicines as are accurately understood by having been proved
on the healthy human body. Here we have a compound about which little is
known.
Can it appear rational to suppose, or assume, that with a compound
unknown, composed of elements neither of which is homoeopathic to this unit
of force, that they can act uniformly curatively ?
These departures, wherein the doctrine of the sixteenth section is not
heeded, are the foundation of all ill-success ; of the cry for a revised
materia medica, and of so-called modern Homoeopathy.
I must say again, that modern Homoeopathy is built out of the departures
from the doctrines of the immortal
Hahnemann.
These men have found the materia medica so inadaptable to their wants,
that a majority of their prescriptions are composed of crude drugs.
These departurists have so departed from the methods of
Hahnemann
that the homoeopathic profession as a mass is to-day but a caricature,
having violated every principle of the philosophy that has anything
distinctive.
They may find momentary comfort in it, but every true man must feel like
uttering,
“Father, forgive
them, they know not what they do.”
Pr J. T. Kent
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1999
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