General
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1. Homeopathy, Its Beginning
The American Institute of Homeopathy defines a homeopathic physician as
"one who adds to his knowledge of medicine a special knowledge of homeopathic
therapeutics and observes the Law of Similars. All that pertains to the great
healing art is his by tradition, by inheritance and by
right."
Homeopathy is a system of therapeutics based upon the Law of
Similars as expressed by the maxim "Similia Similibus Curentur" -- let likes be
cured by likes. When a patient presents a group of symptoms similar to those
produced by the administration of a certain medicine to a healthy human, that
medicine is homeopathically indicated and if prescribed in correct dosage will
relieve or cure.
Calomel by its physiological action produces diarrhea,
frequent bloody mucus stools, increased secretion of bile and salivation. When
these symptoms have been produced by any other cause other than the
administration of calomel (Mercurius dulcis), very small doses of this medicine
will be curative.
Again, Belladonna is indicated homeopathically when
the patient presents dilated pupils, violent congestion of blood to the head
with throbbing headache, high fever with hot red skin, cerebral excitement,
dryness of mouth and throat, muscular twitchings (symptoms such as are
frequently met with in scarlet fever). Any physician will recognize the above
symptoms as well known toxic effects of Belladonna.
There are many
outstanding examples of this dual action of drugs in common medical practice,
but the observing student will note as he reads the Lessons of this Course that
the Law of Similars applies to all substances possessing medicinal
properties.
Homeopathy, or the "New School" of medicine, was founded by
Samuel Hahnemann. He did not discover the Law of Similars, but he was the first
to give it practical application to the art of healing. He collected and
translated from previous writings of all ages a mass of evidence to show that
others before him, including Hippocrates and Paracelsus, were aware of this
law.
Samuel Hahnemann was a celebrated scientist and chemist and one of
the leading physicians of his time. He had graduated from the best medical
schools and received personal instruction under the physician to the Austrian
Emperor, Freiherr Von Quarin. He was a translator of note. He practiced
successfully in several of the leading cities of Germany and was looked upon as
an eminent physician.
Hahnemann was a thinker. He perceived that for the
practice of medicine to be successful it must be guided by law. Up to his day no
definite law of prescribing for the sick had been announced or followed. The
practice of medicine was chaotic. Each physician prescribed according to his own
ideas or those of some "shining light" of the profession.
Hahnemann at
last became discouraged. Day after day his doubts grew stronger. He said to
himself, "It is not I who am at fault, it is the art of medicine which is wrong.
I know that I can prescribe as well as the best of those who now give medicine,
but if I am convinced that the sick will do better with no medicine at all --
God help me! I will practice no more!"
Finally he gave up the practice
of medicine in disgust and turned to the translation of medical and scientific
books for a livelihood. While translating a chapter of Cullen's Materia
Medica from English to German, it appeared to him that the author's
explanation of the action of peruvian bark was fanciful and irrational. So he
set about to determine in his own way the modus operandi of the drug. He tried
it on himself. He found it produced typical symptoms of malaria for which it was
recommended and used.
From this time on he conducted his investigations
along new lines. He did what others had not done before. He studied medicines
systematically by testing them on healthy humans. After repeated experimentation
upon himself and others, he eventually proved the Law of Similars to be the
basic law of cure. {It is a tribute to the genius of Hahnemann that he was
unaware that the homeopathic relation between disease and medicinal effects was
taught and practiced by Hippocrates and Paracelsus, until it was brought to his
attention by Trinks in 1825 (Vide: Life and Letters of Hahnemann, by
Haehl).}
One by one the medicines then in general use were "proved" by
this indefatigable worker and his associates. In medicine Hahnemann was what
Edison has been in electricity. He had vision as well as scientific knowledge.
Outside the beaten path he went in search of new medicaments and found that each
one tried was capable of producing its own peculiar and typical symptom picture
when given to healthy humans; and when administered to the sick, who presented
the same symptoms, was found to be curative.
Early in his career,
Hahnemann complained of the untrustworthiness of pharmaceutical preparations,
which no conscientious doctor could prescribe. And in his contributions to
medical periodicals which were always read with interest, he frequently
advocated the use of simple measures and the single remedy in the treatment of
disease. He was one of the first to teach that accurate and definite prescribing
could be accomplished only by giving one substance at a time and observing the
effects. He condemned as unscientific the customary mixtures which in his times
often contained twenty or more drugs. He based his belief on the results of
experience.
He went further and found that clinically a very small dose
of a remedy, prescribed according to the Law of Similars produced better results
than larger doses. In fact, he found that large doses aggravated the sickness
when exhibited in accord with the Law of Similars. Continued experiments along
this line led eventually to potentiation.
This briefly is the history of
the origin of the prescribing of minimum doses of medicine in accord with the
Law of Similars, guided by signs and symptoms of the sick individual
corresponding to similar signs and symptoms produced experimentally by the
remedy upon many healthy humans.
These experimental or clinical
observations of drug action called "provings" by Hahnemann were made under
controls and in a most painstaking way. This was the introduction to the medical
world of "animal experimentation" and led the way to all of the more recent
developments of drug testing and standardization.
Among the outstanding
early professional accomplishments of Hahnemann we shall mention but one. During
the scourge of Leipsic, when tens of thousands were dying "like flies" from the
Plague, and when every victim of the epidemic was committed to the "dead house,"
Hahnemann with his homeopathic prescribing saved 183 consecutive cases (most of
which were considered moribund).
Hahnemann did not work alone, nor were
his discoveries accidental. He had as associates many doctors who, like himself,
had an intense yearning for the Truth and who hoped to effect a change in the
haphazard and futile methods of medicine prevalent in their
time.
Hahnemann and his associates were eminently successful in
practice, and as might be expected, jealousies and unjust criticism were not
lacking. Traditional medicine, then as now, was intolerant of new ideas and
human welfare was secondary to medical politics.
Throughout his long and
busy life (he lived to be eighty-nine) he continued to study, develop and
practice the healing art according to the Law of Similars.
Hahnemann's
loyal and devoted students continued his researches. Remedies were "proved" on
thousands of subjects and many volumes were added to the numerous works of the
originator.
To France, Italy, Spain, England, and the United States went
homeopathic physicians, each one an apostle and a teacher. Later to Brazil,
Colombia, Argentina and other South American countries this "New School" found
its way: to Mexico and Central America it advanced with higher civilization: to
Egypt and other civilized parts of Africa; to Australia and to Asia; to India
where today it clalms millions of adherents. With higher civilization and
broader learning Homeopathic medicine has kept pace.
At the present time
there is an unprecedented demand for doctors trained in homeopathic prescribing.
Although the graduates from homeopathic medical colleges are doubling in numbers
annually, demands are not one-tenth supplied. Answer the question "why?" in your
own way.
That people fundamentally believe in the internal
administration of medicine in sickness cannot be successfully contradicted; that
they are always ready and anxious for the more harmless, the more pleasant, the
more certain and effective is also true.
Homeopathic prescribing does
not conflict with surgery, physical therapy, manual therapy, suggestion or other
non-medical measures. However, homeopathic prescribing of properly prepared and
standardized remedies is supreme in the field of internal medicine.
You
shall soon be led to see the raison d'etre of Homeopathy and to understand how
it must be adopted by any physician fully awake to his responsibilities and
possibilities.
As the Course unfolds it will reveal a broader conception
of disease and its management, and help you to become more proficient in your
chosen profession.
2. Homeopathic Fundamentals
In order better to comprehend the lessons to follow in the Course, it is
timely here to introduce a brief outline of Homeopathic Philosophy.
All
systems of prescribing have been based upon original hypotheses, clinical
observations, philosophical conclusions, and scientific experiments. Aesculapius
and other fathers of the healing art dealt with the hypothetical and
philosophical, with just a little clinical observation. As the sciences
developed, medicine lagged behind because of the lack of accurate research and
the ever-present personal opinions of the theorizing physicians. The vagaries of
early prescribing were as fallacious as were the concepts of anatomy, physiology
and pathology.
Instruments of precision such as the polariscope,
ultramicroscope, electrocardiograph, manometer, and spectroscope, were not at
Hahnemann s command. Yet he gave us by hypothesis, clinical observations and
reasoning, many of the fundamentals of medicine which are now being proposed and
confirmed by modern science.
Hahnemann, by scientific experimentation on
living human beings, repeatediy substantiated the Law of Similars. For nearly a
century and a half this Law has been constantly confirmed by scientific clinical
observation. And more recently, modern research laboratories are giving us
confirmation of the scientific soundness of the action of minute doses and their
dynamic action.
Colloidal chemistry gives us definite figures within the
limitations of the ultramicroscope. Gold, for instance, can be detected in the
25th decimal trituration, that is 1/(10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). Radium
in the 60th decimal trituration has demonstrated its radioactivity by affecting
sensitive photographic plates sufficiently to produce distinct radiographs. Add
thirty-five ciphers to the above fraction and you will have a mathematical
expression of the degree of subdivision to which this substance was divided and
yet identified by experiment. This radiograph can scarcely be ascribed to the
chemical action of the infinitesimal amount of elemental radium present in the
trituration used; but may be accounted for by the force or power or dynamis of
its immeasurably minute emanations.
The extensive experiments of Dr.
August Bier of Berlin University proved the three cardinal requisites of a
homeopathic prescription.
1. The single remedy (given alone).
2. The similar remedy
(Similia Similibus Curentur).
3. The minimum dose (the smallest amount
necessary to produce curative action).
Dr. Bier explains the above by saying that
(a) all of the cells of the body are not sick;
(b) the finely
subdivided remedy goes past the healthy cells because they have no attraction
for it;
(c) the sick cells have less resistance and are more responsive
to stimuli. The minimum dose affects these hypersensitive sick cells and
stimulates them to reaction. The similar remedy induces normal reaction. If the
remedy is dissimilar its action is not curative.
(d) only single
remedies produce guiding indications for the similar remedy. Iron (Ferrum)
produces definite symptoms. Phosphorus produces a different group. Phosphate of
iron (Ferrum phos.) produces symptoms of both iron and phosphorus but in
addition has a distinctive action not found in either of its components. The
characteristic symptoms produced by Ferrum phos. mark it as a distinctive single
remedy.
* * *
The Hahnemannian concept is that disease primarily is a disturbance in
the vital force or guiding energy which governs and regulates all the organs and
parts of the body. In health this vital force maintains normal growth and
coordination of all organic functions. When, from some disease-producing cause,
this force becomes disturbed, sickness or disharmony of function results. The
causes of disturbance may be infections, injuries, exposure, climatic
conditions, violent emotions, errors in diet, or others.
How are
symptoms produced? A symptom is a deviation from the normal. It is produced in
exactly the same manner as a normal phenomenon, but is the result of a stimulus
that is the product of dysfunction of some of the body's parts. For instance,
failure to menstruate is a sign or symptom of pregnancy. It also may be caused
by old age, disease or fright. Haemoptysis may be a symptom of pulmonary
tuberculosis but is by no means always of tuberculosis origin.
Objective
and subjective signs and symptoms are alike of physical origin. All symptoms are
efferent responses, voluntary or involuntary, or efferent impulses purchaseing
in nervous centers.
Bien etre and malaise are expressions of physical
conditions. Prodromes are symptoms just as much as are eruptions, fevers, or
discharges. Apprehensiveness, melancholy, tearfulness, loquacity, suspicions,
delirium, delusions, fears, emotions, hysteria, propensities, and even tedium
vitae are symptoms -- deviations from the normal.
Symptoms and signs are
by no means always pathognomonic of certain diseases. A patient with more than
one disease may have symptoms not clearly identified with any one of
them.
Someone has said, "All that a doctor can find out about his
patient, by all the means at his command, is often insufficient to make a clear
diagnosis." It is a fact that our best diagnosticians are incorrect in more than
50% of their diagnoses. Even laboratory findings cannot always be relied upon.
Correct logical reasoning must always prevail.
Some signs and symptoms
(departures from the normal in function, appearance, sensation or behavior) are
characteristic of certain definite diseases, while others cannot be ascribed to
any definite disease or pathological process.
Many symptoms are often
met with, such as "worse before a storm"; "relieved by warmth"; "aggravated by
motion"; "better in damp cold weather"; "fear of death"; "worse from the least
draught or cool air"; "better lying on affected side"; "cannot bear the smell or
sight of food". These are definite symptoms resulting from some abnormal
functional condition and not necessarily from pathology.
Even when
unable to interpret these and other like phenomena in terms of definite disease,
should we disregard them? No more than we should disregard pathognomonic
symptoms in the making of a diagnosis. Each change from the usual and normal in
function, appearance or sensation of the patient comes from a cause whether we
are able to determine and define it or not. The causative factor may be an
individual characteristic of the patient. Later, you will find that symptoms
unattributable to definite pathology are most often the determining factors in
selecting the homeopathic remedy.
The fact that the homeopath takes
cognizance of symptoms per se, whether indicative of any known disease or not,
enables him to correct the condition before definite disease results; and still
more important, he is able to combat new diseases that have never been heard of
before. For instance, ear abscess is prevented by removing the congestion and
inflammation that lead to it. Pneumonia if taken in its inception may sometimes
be aborted. Influenza, or the epidemic later called "flu" which created such
havoc among the soldiers in the United States camps and in the army overseas,
was treated symptomatically with surprising success by the homeopathic
physicians while others were absolutely impotent because they did not know what
caused the infection nor did anyone understand the
pathology.
Therapeutic nihilism (the travesty of medicine) originated
with that group of pathologists (not practicing physicians) who sought to
identify every disorder and disease with definite anatomical changes. They led
clinicians to study disease only in this relation. The fact is that anatomical
changes are resuits of disease and not the disease process itself. Disturbed
physiology always precedes pathology but does not always produce it. Therefore,
symptoms present themselves, before and during, as well as after the formation
of pathological end-products or tissue changes. The homeopathic prescriber
utilizes all signs and symptoms but recognizes their relative
importance.
Hahnemann was the first to systematize symptoms and call
attention to their importance in treatment as well as in diagnosis. He proved
that each drug invariably produced its own peculiar and characteristic group of
symptoms when administered to healthy persons. These characteristic symptoms he
called guiding symptoms because they guide to the selection of the homeopathic
remedy.
* * *
The body cells, guided in their activities by physiochemical force
(dynamis, or to use Claude Bernard's term, irritabilite) constitute a
superstructure, the human organism; Vital phenomena are dynamic and the actions
of the human organism should be regarded not from a standpoint of structure but
of physiological processes.
The healthy human body is like a marvelously
regulated, energized, highly speciaiized electrical machine. This body gets
sick, or parts of it may get sick, affecting the entire composite
whole.
What is the thing within the bodily tissues that responds to
remedial treatment? How does the remedy act? What occurs to restore normality of
tissue-substance and function?
Let us confine ourselves to the
consideration of the question more particularly at hand, "How do homeopathic
remedies act?"
It is clearly demonstrated that specialized organ cells,
hepatic or renal for example, display definite selectivity. Poisons, drugs and
remedies do not all affect the same tissues; for example, arsenic, strychnine,
ergot, pituitrin. Normal physiological function of all the twenty-five trillion
body cells in harmonious, coordinated rhythm, means health. To bring this about
there must be intimate interchange of messages among the different parts, even
among the cells of distinct organs and parts.
That interchange of "body
intelligence" occurs needs no argument. That it is both chemical and electrical
(nervous) is admitted. Perhaps the present marvelous development of radio will
enhance your vision of cellular intercommunication.
Cells are stimulated
to activity by capillary circulation of the blood, dissolved electrolites,
hydrolysis, changes in PH and colloidal interface activity. The balance of all
these may be influenced by a potentized drug.
The actual generation of
cellular and bodily energy by chemical changes, all based on oxygenation, must
be given its proper but not too important place in our consideration, for there
is something else in life beyond chemical reactions. The corpse still retains
the chemical constituents of the body; but without the maintenance and direction
of that elemental life force, the corpse chemistry is one of morbid processes
and quite different from that of the ovum, the mulberry mass, the fetus, the
growing child, the adult, the senile, or the dying.
That elemental vital
force; that something which activates alike the composite body and the
individual cell and makes the living, changing, functioning body different from
a dead man, we refer to as the dynamis.
This dynamis or its
counterpart is manifest in the lower animals, the fowls, the fish, and in the
vegetable kingdom. Some hold with good reason that something analogous to it
must obtain in the mineral kingdom as well.
We must deal, in the healing
art, with forces as well as with materials; with behaviors as well as with
pathology; with signs and symptoms as well as with their causes.
3. Homeopathic Concepts of Disease
This lesson presents the relation of patient and disease, and discusses
some of the deeper, more subtle and less apparent causes of acute and chronic
ailments so frequently met with and so seldom understood. These are problems
which have baffled physicians since the days of Hippocrates, Paracelsus and
Galen. But in a course of this character the importance of these considerations
warrants close attention on the part of the student in order that he may better
understand the depth of action and special application of the remedies to be
studied in future lessons.
In Lesson One the
homeopathic concept of disease was presented. This may have seemed new and
revolutionary and quite at variance with prevailing opinions. Nevertheless, it
was made plain that there was no actual discrepancy between prevalent science
and homeopathic concepts. The homeopathic concepts are broader and more
applicable to the art of healing.
We now come to the consideration of
the difference between acute and chronic disease; the causes of susceptibility,
dyscrasias and recurrence of acute morbid processes. This is necessary in
determining the basic nature of the case to be treated and in choosing the
remedies to be employed.
The philosophy of Homeopathy is laid down in
Hahnemann's Organon of the Art of Healing, a work replete with much
wisdom and cold logic, written after he had put his principles and methods to
the test for a period of twenty years. Although the first edition was published
in 1810, many of his teachings are only now being accepted, in principle at
least, by the medical profession at large.
"If the physician clearly
perceives what is to be cured in disease, that is to say, in every individual
case of disease; if he clearly perceives what is curative in medicines; and if
he knows how to adapt, according to clearly defined principles, what is curative
in medicines to what he has discovered to be undoubtedly morbid in the patient
... if, finally, he knows the obstacles to recovery in each case and is aware
how to remove them so that the restoration may be permament; then he understands
how to treat judiciously and rationally, and he is a true practitioner of the
healing art." (Hahnemann's Organon, par. 3)
Whether or not the
student can accept all that is taught therein, the Organon contains
certain fundamentals which are indispensable to success in homeopathic
prescribing.
To clearly perceive what is curable in each case of
disease, one must know the underlying causes of chronic diseases, their
intrinsic quality, their course and manner of manifestation and the part they
play in the production of many acute morbid manifestations.
To clearly
perceive what is curative in each individual medicine one must possess a
knowledge of the homeopathic materia medica and the genius and therapeutic
action of remedies.
To know how to adapt these remedies to the morbid
states of the patient one must have at his command a knowledge of how to examine
the patient and how to elicit symptoms, how to interpret the various changes
that follow the administration of a remedy; of dosage, repetition and sequence
of remedies.
The knowledge of what each remedy will do is contained in
the lessons on materia medica which constitute the major portion of the
Course.
One of the principle reasons why Homeopathy has not been more
generally accepted is that many of those who essayed it disregarded these
essentials. Many conscientious physicians have undertaken to use remedies
prepared according to homeopathic formulae, only to cast them aside as worthless
because of failure to appreciate the importance of homeopathic
fundamentals.
Disease naturally falls into two classes, acute and
chronic. The acute diseases run through a certain limited course and may
terminate favorably without remedial measures if the patient possesses
sufficient vitality and resistance. Chronic ailments are not self limited but
persist throughout life unless successfully treated in accord with the Law of
Similars. Any remedy acting curatively in a chronic disease acts
homeopathically.
Hahnemann practiced for a number of years before he
fully realized the fundamental differences between acute and chronic diseases.
However, with his usual sagacity, he noticed that although he was able to
overcome such ailments as common colds, croup, whooping cough, pleurisy,
pneumonia, dysentery, scarlet fever, in many patients he observed recurrences of
groups of symptoms which disappeared after treatment only to return in the same
or different form, and that the patient's general health was not permanently
improved. This led him to the conclusion that there must be some unrecognized
underlying factor responsible for chronic disease in general as well as these
apparently acute manifestations and that they were only the outcroppings of some
sub-latent chronic miasm.
He made a thorough search of the history of
disease and the recorded experiences of others, seeking some common dyscrasias
that were more or less universal.
There existed at that time a fairly
good knowledge of the venereal diseases, syphilis and gonorrhea. To each of
these, as we do now, Hahnemann attributed many chronic ailments. The basic cause
of syphilitic manifestations he called the miasm "syphilis"; that of gonorrheal
sequelae, "sycosis"; that of chronic diseases (except those due to drugs or
poisons) of non-venereal origin, "psora". {Vide: Hahnemann's Chronic
Diseases, Vol. 1, p. 19.}
We do not attempt to explain the
Hahnemannian concept of disease causation in terms used in modern medicine. The
language of today's accepted hypotheses may seem quaint a hundred years hence.
Nevertheless, Hahnemann's concept of miasms is fundamentally substantiated by
present day research.
Whether or not we use the terms "miasm", "psora"
or "sycosis", and whether or not we accept or reject Hahnemann's explanation of
them, there still remains the fact that the conditions he attributed to them
actually exist. No other theory or explanation offers as clear an understanding
of the underlying elements of chronic states.
Chronic cases present many
and varied manifestations as is well known. Sometimes, even with the appearance
of good health, the patient complains that he is "off color" and "lacks pep",
with no apparent or discoverable pathology and no pathognomonic signs or
symptoms. In this type the miasm is latent or quiescent, but the patient
nevertheless is chronically ill.
There are those with lowered vitality,
lowered resistive powers, increased susceptibility, anemic, who are neither sick
nor well; who are afflicted almost continually with one transitory ailment or
another. These get but little sympathy or attention. But each will present
symptoms which if rightly interpreted will guide to an individual remedy
selection applicable to the totality of the symptoms and the underlying cause of
the chronicity.
Other chronic cases will be definitely sick. Their
symptom syndromes indicate definite diagnosable diseases. Physical examinations
and laboratory tests are confirmative. They have arthritis, nephritis, diabetes,
broncho-spasm, gallstones, gastric ulcer, neurasthenia, and so on. These are of
the active chronic type.
How often have you met with a case in which the
cause of illness was obscure -- a case which has baffled every attempt at
diagnosis and case analysis? And how often have you exclaimed, "How I wish I
could get at the bottom of this?" It is hoped that this lesson will give you a
start toward the fulfillment of your wish.
* * *
All ailments are divided into two natural classes --
1. Acute
2. Chronic
Likewise, homeopathic remedies are classified as to their
application.
Acute remedies are more superficial in action and act for a
shorter time.
Chronic remedies are deep acting and chiefly applicable to
ailments of chronic nature although at times they may act wonderfully well in
acute ailments.
The chronic or deeper acting remedies are subdivided
into three groups --
1. Antisyphilltic
2. Antisycotic
3. Antipsoric
This division is made because these remedies are capable of producing on
healthy persons the miasmatic symptoms as well as correcting these symptoms in
the sick.
Suppression is not a cure of disease any more than it is of
crime. The natural tendency of the organism in health is to throw off waste
products from within outward. A similar tendency obtains in disease. Suppression
of natural excretions such as perspiration, urine or menses, gives rise to
serious systemic disorders. Skin eruptions usually are the result of nature's
efforts to throw out some toxin or local irritant. The dire results of the
suppression of the eruptions of scarlet fever or measles are well known.
Suppression of eczemas by local applications has been known to produce colitis,
asthma and bronchitis. Suppression of syphilis gives rise to a myriad of chronic
manifestations. The same is true of gonorrhea.
The suppression of any of
the above or like diseases is followed by changes in the resistance and
susceptibility of the individual, and new expressions of deranged vital force
instituted which differ from those of the original ailment and are frequently
mistaken for new ailments.
Symptoms due to suppression may not be
readily recognized by the novice, especially in cases where they are delayed for
months or years, as frequently happens in venereal and other diseases. That they
are in reality genuine effects of the suppression can be demonstrated by the
administration of the homeopathic remedy selected on the totality of the
symptoms and in accord with the Law of Similars. The correct remedy will cause
the original disease manifestations to return.
Illustrations: Thuja
Occidentalis has many times relieved rheumatism following suppressed gonorrhea
and caused the re-establishment of the urethral discharge. Sulphur has often
reproduced a suppressed skin eruption with relief of internal disturbances such
as bronchitis, asthma and diarrhea. Chronic headaches frequently follow the
application of local astringents to relieve offensive perspiration of the feet.
Silica relieves the head symptoms and restores the foot sweats.
The
considerations of this lesson have been introduced in order to emphasize the
fact that since the homeopathic prescription is made from the totality of the
patient's symptoms, objective and subjective, it is necessary that the important
symptoms attributed to miasmatic origin be given their proper
evaluation.
There is still another class of conditions which may be
acute or chronic -- those induced by the action of drugs and inoculations.
Inappropriate remedies or drugs, especially when taken in appreciable doses
(either by order of the physician by the patient on his own account, or by
accident) poison the system, even though they may effect the changes for which
they were taken. An artificial disease is produced which increases the task of
determining the proper homeopathic prescription. For instance, how could you
expect to get a true picture of the patient's symptoms from one who has for a
long time taken bromides, "physic", morphine, quinine, sulphur, aspirin, bromo
seltzer, and the like? It is therefore frequently necessary to discriminate
between those phenomena which are the result of drugs and those of the disease
itself. The indiscriminate use of sleep producers, pain killers, headache
remedies, rheumatism cures, blood purifiers, cathartics, and the many
self-administered drugs and nostrums must be taken into consideration by the
prescriber and discontinued by the patient in order to facilitate or make
possible the selection of the similimum.
This lesson is to be studied in
preparation for the messge of Lesson Four which deals with the taking of the
case, the evaluation of signs and symptoms, and the relationship of pathology
and diagnosis to homeopathic prescribing. As you will have observed in the study
of the lessons thus far, there are many prerequisites to correct homeopathic
prescribing. It is the purpose of the School to present to you these necessary
fundamentals and to guide you to accuracy of remedy selection and eventually
greater successes in your practice.