PITFALLS IN HOMEOTHERAPEUTICS
PITFALLS IN HOMEOTHERAPEUTICS
PLACE OF PATHOLOGY IN TOTALITY OF SYMPTOMS
[This brief dissertation was presented at the 18th. International Conference of Asian Homeopathic Medical League, held at Gending, Kuala Lumpur, from Oct. 3-5, 2009]
Kent somewhere wrote that giving a dose of Aconite in typhoid would spoil the case. A tyro will ask why not give Aconite if the symptom complex brings it out? The answer lies nowhere but in pathology. Pathogenetically Aconite cannot produce typhoid or a continued fever. (Will prescribing Aconite in typhoid harm the case? That’s a separate question.) Similarly in a case of severe toothache with intense thermal sensitivity and other definite modalities, Coffea comes out as the most indicated; but it does nothing. It fails you. Where lies the clue? In pathology. It was a case of receding gums, baring the dentine and exposing the pulp. Innocent Coffea can’t cause such destruction, and hence can’t mend it. Again you give Ipecac., Spongia, or Grindelia Rob. or any other medicine in a case of asthma. The case is ameliorated time and again, but keeps on recurring. Why? Because of the neglect of pathology again. In a case of nasal obstruction or hay asthma you fare beautifully with Nux Vom., Euphrasia, Dulcamara, day in day out. But when you stop giving these medicines the patient is found at the zero point again. In both the latter cases disease was dealt with on the basis of acute disorder. The real pathology was not taken into account.
Why did Hahnemann have to ponder and invent the theory of Chronic Miasms? Reason was the same. Complaints kept on coming back again and again after being ameliorated. Hahnemann thought that the disease lied elsewhere than in the so-called totality of symptoms. And he was right. The same difficulty was encountered generally by the profession. But most of them remained complacent because of the timely alleviation of the patient’s complaints, and their keeping coming back again and again did not bother them. But the thinking and conscientious minds among them started feeling that the remedies should be selected on the totality of symptoms plus the pathological findings; that in the knowledge of every remedy we should also know the possible pathology that it can cause and hence cure. Among such people were Boenninghausen, Jahr, Hughes, Burnertt, Farrington and Cowperthwait and many many others. Few of them did not agree with the Master in regard to his theory of the miasms. They thought it useless and redundant. But they could not make out that Hahnemann, in fact, was affirming, by inventing the theory of the Chronic Miasms, the inclusion of the pathologic factor in the totality of symptoms. Hahnemann was a genius, no doubt, but was also ingenious. His grasp of the situation was all encompassing. He was not dogmatic. Till his last, he kept on refining the theory and practice of Homeopathy. As in the case of the therapeutic rule of ‘single remedy, single dose and least repetition’ he waved off the part of least repetition. He found that the diseases or the miasms were not subdued or vanquished without repeating the medicine for days and even for weeks. To wave off the condition of least repetition his ingeniousness invented the 50-Millessimal potencies, on the alibi that the centesimal potencies were “too strong to be repeated”.
Now the dose of this new potency could be repeated daily. In fact, it was considered desirable to repeat the remedy at least once daily to expedite the cure. But in fact a near 50-Millessimal scale was already in use in homeotherpeutics. Dr. Jahr, my luminary and guide, was employing homeopathic remedies in watery solutions: two globules of the size of a poppy seed dissolved in half-tumbler of water, and of this solution one teaspoon to be dispensed every few hours, in an acute disease. I have added on this, one more proviso, i.e., when the patient is improving, and you do not yet want to discontinue the medicine, I instruct to give one spoon of the medicine and add one spoon of fresh water to keep the stock volume the same. [Hahnemann also prepared and applied watery solutions of medicines and preferred their such application. Cf. Organon, Articles 286, 288.]
So, we come to the conclusion that the repetition of doses is beneficial and desirable. One Dr. Desai of India made good of this proviso. He says that chronic ailments cannot be obliterated without frequent repetition of the indicated remedy, and that too not in low and medium potencies, but high and the highest. He starts from 1M (usually 10M) to 10M, to 50M, CM to MM. We find him prescribing, e.g., Sulphur 10M, thrice daily, for indefinite period. Farrington, we have read, warns against the repetition of such high potencies lest they stamp their morbid effects on the user for life.
This much for the digression; let’s go back to the postulation of the Theory of Chronic Miasms. I’ve already alluded that by the invention of this theory Hahnemann has affirmed the place of pathology of the disease as part and parcel of the totality of the symptoms. Even one feels that the Master has given precedence to pathology over the jejune and arid complex of the totality of symptoms. Because now, in a chronic case, first the pathology, or the Miasm, is determined, which brings to the mind a class of remedies; and from among this class of remedies one remedy is selected on the basis of the totality of other symptoms.
Hahnemann reduced all the nosological disorders that a book on pathology can contain, to the three heads of the miasms. All the functional, allergic or deficiency, etc., diseases were relegated to the Miasm of Psora. All the disorders which have the brunt of morbid over-growth and multiplication of the cells of certain tissues, hypertrophies, tumours, cysts and wart like excrescences were put under Sycotic Miasm; and all the pathologically destructive, necrotic, and cancerous phenomena was given over to Syphilitic Miasm.
People can say that this is an over simplification of an intricate phenomenon. They may be both right and wrong. But practically this classification works, and is tried and trusted for over a century now. Homeopaths have countless cures of the so-called incurable diseases to their credit. But this does not mean that we should totally disregard the advancements and researches done in the field of pathology and pathologic physiology by the dominant school. Their magnum opus is a torch bearer for all scientific and inquisitive minds. No person, among us, has made the best of this knowledge, except the great Dr. Compton Burnett. He gave beautiful inventions and thoughts in the field of homeotherapeutics based on this scientific research. And now it is anybody’s field to follow the fecund tract that the great Burnett blazed so ingeniously. To give a rocky solid foundation to homeotherpeutics, pathology should be given its due place. We must think that a prescription without considering pathology is a yacht without a rudder. Let me quote the immortal words of Dr. Burnett, he says:
“Far be it from me to underestimate the importance of symptoms or speak lightly of all symptoms to find the remedy in a given case, but far be it from me to treat the symptom or the total symptoms as the only way to find the remedy because the totality of symptoms can be and often is a scientific means of palliation”.
Upon his being criticized, he says:
I do not care, I argue that the future of the Homeopathy is for pathologists Homoeopaths and to cure serious diseases (with a pathological basis) we will have homeopathic remedies appropriate to the morbid anatomy at least in its early stages. No drug is able to heal homoeopathically a morbid state that it is not able to produce it.
Biography: Dr. James Compton Burnett, 1840-1901 by Dr. Robert Seror
Burnette is a priceless asset to homeopathy and a roll model of a faithful homeopath, who gave the rightful position to Hahnemann’s three miasms and contributed to the fourth, i.e. the tubercular miasm, by inventing the nosode of Bacillinum. He discovered and introduced new aspects of many already proven medicines from his insight of chemico-biologic research on diseases by the dominant school. He also introduced a bunch of immortal medicines that have local affinity to vital organs of the body. To pay a homage to the memory of such a great soul, let’s make this year a year of Burnett.