Homeopathy
When we recommend the use of homeopathic
remedies, the medical nihilist says: "Don't talk homeopathy
to me! I didn't come to you for drugs; I have had enough of them."
When we explain that these remedies are
so highly refined that they cannot possibly do any harm, he becomes
still more indignant. "I don't need any of your mental therapeutics
in homeopathic form," he exclaims. "I, too, believe
in the power of mind over matter, but I have no faith in your
sugar of milk pellets; they are poor substitutes for the real
article. That kind of sugar-coated suggestion might work on some
people, but it doesn't on me."
When I first entered upon the study of
medicine, I, too, did not believe in the curative power of homeopathic
doses; but experience caused me to change my mind. The well-selected
remedy administered at the right time often works wonders.
True homeopathic medicines in high-potency
doses are so highly refined and rarefied that they cannot possibly
produce harmful results or suppress Nature's cleansing and healing
efforts; on the contrary, if employed according to the Law of
Homeopathy: "like cures like," they assist in producing
acute reactions or healing crises, thus aiding Nature in the work
of purification and repair.
Homeopathy Works with the Laws
of Cure, Not Against Them. Similia similibus curantur
(like cures like) translated into practice means that a drug
capable of producing a certain set of disease symptoms in a healthy
body, when given in large, physiological doses, will relieve or
cure a similar set of symptoms in the diseased organism if the
drug be given in small, homeopathic doses.
For instance, belladonna, given in large,
poisonous doses to a healthy person, will cause a peculiar headache
with sharp, stabbing pains in forehead and temples, high fever,
violent delirium, dilation of the pupils, dryness and rawness
of the throat, scarlet redness of the skin and extreme sensitiveness
to light, jars and noises.
It will be observed that this is a fair
picture of a typical case of scarlet fever. A homeopathic prescriber,
when called to a scarlet fever patient exhibiting in a marked
degree three or more of the above-described symptoms, would give
a trituration of belladonna, say 6x. In numberless cases the fever
has subsided and its symptoms have rapidly disappeared under such
treatment.
The reader may say: "I do not see
any difference between this and the allopathic suppression of
disease by drugs."
There is a great difference. The allopathic
physician may use the same remedy, belladonna, in the same case,
but he will give from ten to twenty drops of tincture of belladonna,
repeated every three or four hours. These doses are from twenty
to forty thousand times stronger than the homeopathic 3x or 6x.
Herein lies the difference. The allopathic
dose allays the fever symptoms by paralyzing the organism as a
whole and the different vital organs and their functions in particular.
This is frankly admitted in every allopathic materia medica. But
by such dosing Nature is forcibly interrupted in her efforts of
cleansing and healing; the acute reaction is suppressed,
but not cured.
If fever is a healing effort of Nature,
it may be controlled and modified, but must not be suppressed.
A minute dose of homeopathic belladonna, acting on the innermost
cells of the organism which the coarser allopathic doses would
paralyze, stimulates these cells to effort in the right direction.
It brings about conditions similar to those produced by Nature,
and thus assists her; it is cooperation instead of counteroperation.
After this brief discussion of the practical
application of homeopathy, let us now ascertain in how far its
laws and theories agree with and corroborate the laws and principles
of the Nature Cure school.
Hahnemann discovered the Law of similia
similibus curantur accidentally, while investigating the
effects of quinine on the human organism. Ever since then it has
been applied successfully by him and his followers in treating
human ailments.
However, this law has been used empirically.
Neither in the Organon nor in any other writings or teachings
of Hahnemann and the homeopathic school can be found a clear and
concise explanation of why like cures like. The proof offered
has been negative rather than positive.
Therefore the allopath says: "You
tell me that 'like cures like,' and that you can prove
it at the sickbed; but unless you can give me good and valid reasons
why it should be so, I cannot and will not believe that it is
your 'similar' which cures the patient. How do I know it is your
'potency'? The patient might recover just as well without it."
With the aid of the three laws of cure,
I shall endeavor to give the reasons and furnish the proofs for
our contentions. The laws alluded to are: The Law of Cure,
the Law of Dual Effect and the Law of Crises.
Similia similibus curantur is
only another way of stating the fundamental Law of Nature Cure:
"Every acute disease is the result of a cleansing and healing
effort of Nature."
If a certain set of disease symptoms are
the result of a healing effort of Nature, and if I give a remedy
which produces the same or similar symptoms in the system, am
I not aiding Nature in her attempt to overcome the abnormal conditions?
In such a case, the indicated homeopathic
remedy will not suppress the acute reaction, but it will help
it along, thus accelerating and hastening the curative process.
In the last analysis, disease resides
in the cell. The well-being of the organism as a whole is dependent
upon the health of the individual cells of which it is composed.
This has been explained more fully in connection with the action
of stimulants.
In order to cure the man, we must free
the cell of its encumbrances. Elimination must begin in the cell,
not in the organs of depuration. Laxatives and cathartics, by
irritating the digestive tract, may cause a forced evacuation
of the contents of the intestinal canal, but they do not eliminate
the poisons which clog cells and tissues.
In stubborn chronic diseases, when the
cells are too weak to throw off the latent encumbrances of their
own accord, a well-chosen homeopathic remedy is often of great
service in arousing them to acute reaction.
For instance, if the system is heavily
encumbered with scrofulous taints and if its vitality is lowered
to such an extent that the individual cell cannot of itself throw
off the morbid encumbrances by means of a vigorous, acute effort,
sulphur, if administered in doses sufficiently
triturated and refined to affect the minute cells composing the
organism, will start disease vibrations similar to those of acute
scrofulosis, and thus give the needed impetus to acute eliminative
activity on the part of the individual cell.
The acute reaction, once started, may
develop into vigorous forms of scrofulous elimination, such as
skin eruptions, glandular swellings, abscesses, catarrhal discharges,
etc.
Are High-Potency Doses Effective?
The question now arises: How large or
how small must the dose be in order to affect the minute cells?
In the administration of medicines, the
size of the dose is adjusted to the size of the patient. If half
a grain of a certain drug is the normal dose for an adult, the
proper dose of the same drug for a small infant, say, less than
a year old, may be about one twenty-fifth of the adult dose. How
small, in proportion, should then be the dose given to a cell
a billion times as small as the infant?
The dose given to an adult would paralyze
or perhaps kill an infant. In like manner the minute cell would
be benumbed and paralyzed by the drug suited to the infant's organism.
But this is how allopathy effects its
fictitious cures. It suppresses inflammatory processes by paralyzing
the cells and organs and their vital activities.
Homeopathy adapts the smallness of the
dose to the smallness of the cell which is to be treated. Herein
lies the reasonableness of the high-potency dose.
The Personal Responsibility of the Cell
The cell resembles Man not only in physical
and physiological aspects, but also in regard to the moral law.
Elimination must commence in the cell
and by virtue of the cell's personal effort. Its work cannot be
done vicariously by drugs or the knife. Large, allopathic doses
of medicine may be given with the idea of doing the work for the
cell by violently stimulating or else paralyzing the organism
as a whole or certain ones of the vital organs; but this is demoralizing
and destructive to the cell. The powerful doses calculated to
affect the body and its organs as a whole make superfluous or
paralyze the individual efforts of the cells and thus intensify
the chronic disease conditions in cells and tissues.
Alms-giving, prison sentences and capital
punishment have a similar allopathic effect upon Man, the individual
cell of the social body. Instead of providing for him the proper
environment and the opportunity for natural development and for
working out his own salvation, they take this opportunity away
from him and weaken his personal effort or make it impossible.
The Efficacy of Small Doses
The late revelations of chemistry, Roentgen
rays, x-rays, radio-activity of metals, etc., throw an interesting
light upon the seemingly infinite divisibility of matter. A small
particle of a given substance may for many years throw off a continuous
shower of corpuscles without perceptibly diminishing its volume.
For an illustration we may take the odoriferous
musk. A few grains of this substance will fill a room with its
penetrating aroma for years. When we smell musk or any other perfume,
minute particles of it bombard the end filaments of the nerves
of smell in the nose. Therefore the musk must be casting off such
minute particles continually without apparent loss of substance.
With the aid of this recent knowledge
of the true nature of matter, of the minuteness and complexity
of the atom, we can now understand how the highly triturated and
refined (attenuated) homeopathic remedy may still retain the dynamic
force of the element, as Hahnemann has expressed it, and how a
remedy so attenuated may still be capable of exerting an influence
upon the minute cell. Since chemistry and physiology have acquainted
us with the finer forces of Nature, demonstrating that they are
mightier than the things we can apprehend by weight and measure,
the claims of homeopathy do not appear so absurd as they did a
generation ago.
Undoubtedly, the good effect produced
by a well-chosen remedy is heightened and strengthened by the
mental and magnetic influence of the prescriber. The positive
faith of the physician in the efficacy of the remedy, his sympathy
and his indomitable will to assist the sufferer affect both the
physical substance of the remedy and the mind of the patient.
The varying mental and magnetic qualities
of prescribers have undoubtedly much to do with the varying degrees
of efficaciousness of the same remedy when administered by different
physicians.
The true Hahnemannian homeopath, who believes
in his remedies as in his God, will concentrate his intellectual
and spiritual forces on a certain remedy in order to accomplish
certain well-defined results. The bottle is not allowed to become
empty. Whenever the graft runs low, it is replenished with distilled
water, alcohol, milk sugar, or another "vehicle." Every
time he takes the medicine bottle into his hands, these potent
thought forms are projected into it: "You are the element
sulphur. You produce in the human body a certain set of symptoms.
You will produce these symptoms in the body of this patient."
If there is any virtue at all in magnetic,
mental and spiritual healing, the homeopathic remedy must be an
effective agency for transmitting magnetic, mental and psychic
healing forces from prescriber to patient.
Transmission of these higher and finer
forces, whether directly, telepathically or by means of some physical
agent, such as magnetized water, a charm or simile, etc., is the
modus operandi in all the different forms of ancient and modern
magic, white or black. It is the active principle in mental healing,
Christian Science, sympathy healing, voodooism, witchcraft, etc.
Homeopathy and the Law of Dual Effect
I have formulated the Law of Action and
Reaction in its application to the treatment of diseases as follows:
"Every agent affecting the
human organism has two effects: a first, apparent, temporary one
and a second, lasting one. The second effect is directly opposite
to the first."
Allopathy, in giving
large, physiological doses, takes into consideration only
the first, apparent effect of the drug, and thereby accomplishes
in the long run results directly opposite to those which it desires
to bring about. It produces the very conditions it tries to cure.
As an example, note the permanent effects of laxatives, stimulants
and sedatives upon the system. This has been explained more fully
in Chapter Six.
On the other hand, the homeopathic physician
may use the same remedies as the allopath, provided they produce
symptoms similar to those of the disease, but he administers the
different drugs in such minute doses that their first effect is
noticed only as a slight "homeopathic aggravation,"
while their second and lasting effect is relied upon to relieve
and cure the disease.
In other words, homeopathy produces
as the first effect the condition like the disease, and counts
on the second and lasting effect of the drug to bring about a
permanent change.
If, in accordance with the Law of Dual
Effect as applied to drugs, the primary, temporary
effect of the homeopathic remedy is equal to the disease,
it is self-evident that the secondary, lasting
effect of the remedy must be equal to the cure.
This law has been proved by homeopathy
for over a hundred years. An experienced homeopathic prescriber
would no more doubt it than he would doubt the Law of Gravitation.
Homeopathy and the Law of Crises
Therefore, if the remedy be well chosen
in accord with the Law of similia similibus curantur, the first
homeopathic aggravation, which corresponds to the crisis of Nature
Cure, will be followed by speedy and perfect readjustment. Nature
has her way, the disorder runs its course, and the return to normal
conditions will be quicker and more perfect than if the homeopathic
remedy had not been employed or if Nature's healing processes
had been forcibly interrupted and suppressed by large, poisonous
allopathic doses. Homeopathy assists Nature in removing the old
encumbrances, whereas allopathy changes the acute, inflammatory
healing effort into chronic, destructive disease.
The Economics of Homeopathy
The Law of like cures like is of great
practical importance from another point of view, namely, that
of economics.
The best engineer is the one who accomplishes
the maximum of results with the minimum of expenditure of force
and with the least friction. The same is true of the physician
and his remedies.
We have learned that drugs given in the
coarse allopathic doses attack and affect the organism as a whole.
If, for instance, there is a catarrhal affection of the serous
and mucous membranes of the respiratory tract accompanied by fever,
the allopath will give quinine in large doses to change this condition.
He may accomplish his aim; but if so, he does it by paralyzing
the heart, the respiratory centers, the red and white blood corpuscles
and the excreting cells of the mucous membranes. The body as a
whole and certain parts in particular are saturated with the drug
poison and correspondingly weakened. As allopathy itself states
it: "Quinine reduces fever by depressing the metabolism"
(the vital functions).
Homeopathic materia medica teaches that
Bryonia has a special affinity for the mucous and serous membranes
of the respiratory tract and that its symptomatic effects correspond
closely to those described in the preceding paragraph.
If, in accordance with the Law of similia
similibus curantur, a homeopathic dose of Bryonia be given
to a patient exhibiting these symptoms, the remedy, as has been
demonstrated, will assist Nature in her work of cure; and in doing
this, it will not attack and affect the entire organism, but only
those serous and mucous tissues for which it has a special affinity
and which, as in the case of this patient, are the most seriously
affected.
To state it in another way: the
large, allopathic dose paralyzes the whole organism in
order to produce its fictitious cure. The small, homeopathic
dose, on the other hand, goes right to the spot
where it is needed, and by mild and harmless stimulation
of the affected parts, assists and supports the cells in their
acute eliminative efforts.
Homeopathic medication, therefore, is
not only curative in its effects, but also conservative and in
the highest degree economic.
Homeopathy, a Complement of Nature
Cure
Having proved the accuracy of Hahnemann's
Law of similia similibus curantur, and having occasion
daily to observe its practical results in the treatment of acute
and chronic diseases, we should not be justified in omitting homeopathy
from our system of treatment. The attenuated homeopathic doses
of certain drugs may be of great service in bringing about the
acute reactions which we so earnestly desire, especially in the
treatment of chronic diseases of long standing.
I am aware of the fact that in severe
and obstinate conditions homeopathy is often apparently of no
avail. But when the system has been purified and strengthened
by our natural methods, by a rational vegetarian diet, hydrotherapy,
chiropractic or osteopathy, massage, corrective exercise, air
and sun baths, normal suggestion, etc., the homeopathic remedies
will work with much greater promptitude and effectiveness.
It is the combination of all the
different healing factors which constitutes the perfect system
of treatment.
No disease condition, whether apparently
hopeless or not, can be called incurable unless all these different
healing factors, properly combined and applied, have been given
a thorough trial. It is no charlatanic boasting, but the simple
truth, when we affirm that the different natural methods of treatment,
as we of the Nature Cure school apply them, can and do cure so-called
incurable diseases, such as tuberculosis, cancer, locomotor ataxy,
epilepsy, eczema, neurasthenia, insanity and the worst forms of
chronic dyspepsia and constipation, always providing that the
patient possesses sufficient vitality to react to the treatment
and that the destruction of vital parts and organs has not advanced
too far.