Hahnemann’s Mission In Relation To Modern Homeopathy

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Hahnemann's Mission In Relation To Modern Homeopathy

by Peter Morrell

 

 

Hahnemann's Mission in Relation to Modern Homeopathy

 

When we look at homeopathy growing in the world today, this raises a

number of important issues, some more recent and some embedded in

Hahnemann's own times two centuries ago. This article explores

centrally relevant issues of today that also troubled Hahnemann

himself, which derived from his own scathing analysis of Old Physick,

and upon which homeopathy was largely constructed.

 

 

 

Finding Definite Proofs Against Old Physick

 

Although Hahnemann spent over twenty years as a translator of medical

and scientific texts, he was nevertheless simultaneously using this

time to study the causes of the failure of the medical system of his

day - a puzzle his conscience refused to leave unsolved. He never

gave up searching for new medical truths. Therefore, although

superficially he appeared to have abandoned medicine completely, yet

in essence he was biding his time and actively searching for medical

enlightenment. During these " restless years of wandering, " [Haehl,

vol. 1, 13] Even during " this restless inclination for travelling, "

[Haehl, vol. 1, 47] Hahnemann was quietly developing his ideas and

publishing essays based upon his studies.

 

Hahnemann's searches of the medical literature were not primarily

conducted to obtain theoretical ideas and to back-up his own evolving

medical views, but as a crucial means by which he could trawl the

medical past and present for detailed case reports concerning

diseases and drugs and their various specific effects on the human

organism, as well as interactions between them, cases of poisoning

and cures of all types. Literary work thus provided him with a

precious window through which he could view not just medical ideas,

but also the practical clinical activities of hundreds of fellow

physicians scattered through time, the cumulative experiences of whom

Hahnemann could draw on to fertilise his growing views about drugs

and diseases. Through cunning use of this approach, he was soon able

to distil down a huge mass of material into a few basic principles

governing the actions of diseases and drugs, which methods work and

which do not. In brief, this was his `big idea,' and was his true

mission in life.

 

 

Dresden.

 

He obtained various medical positions during 1780-83, but soon after

his marriage [1782] he became increasingly disenchanted with the

imperfections of medical practice, [Haehl, vol. 1, 29, 33; Cook, 47,

52] and turned once again to translation work to enhance his modest

income and to feed his growing family. On moving to Dresden in 1784,

and by this time hugely dissatisfied with the harmfulness and

inefficacy of medicine, he gave up medical practice entirely so as to

devote himself to translation work on a full-time basis. In

Dresden, " Hahnemann...practised his profession only to obtain

definite proofs against it. " [Gumpert, 49] He already knew it was

harmful and uncurative. Now he wanted to reform it, to wrest victory

from the jaws of defeat.

 

He then embarked on many travels. For example, in 12 years from 1792-

1804, he lived in fourteen different towns. During this important

phase of " his restless wandering life, " [Haehl, vol. 1, 23] he was a

lonely figure, thoroughly disgusted with medicine [Cook, 52; Haehl,

vol. 1, 64] and completing many translations for his sole income.

Between 1777 and 1806 he translated 24 large textbooks and numerous

articles into German, usually accompanied with extensive footnotes

and detailed corrections of his own. What we might term `Hahnemann's

mission,' formulated mostly in the `wandering years,' [1783-1804] was

to find out why the medicine of his day was such a total failure and

what useful things could be gleaned from a sustained study of the

medical past, so as to piece together, hopefully, some salvaged

scraps and build something that both `worked and made sense;' he

craved a medical system that did both.

 

 

Torgau.

 

After finally settling down in Torgau in 1804 he started to commit to

paper those ideas that had been troubling him during his wandering

years and the results of his many experiments. In 1804, with " this

restless inclination for travelling, " [Haehl, vol. 1, 47] finally

expended, he settled in Torgau, " for seven whole years, " [Haehl, vol.

1, 72] - 1804-1811 - and began to write a series of important essays:

all " his chief works were produced in the Torgau period, " [Haehl,

vol. 1, 74] within which every detail of his new system was taking

shape. Into these essays were instilled everything he had discovered

in his restless wandering, deriving from his provings, his thinking

and his extended studies.

 

 

 

What he Roundly Condemned

 

It is quite obvious and beyond any reasonable doubt that Hahnemann

had thoroughly scoured all prior medical systems for truth. Knowing

this gives us a key to unlock many mysteries. This especially

occurred during the time when he was most fully absorbed in

translation work, roughly between 1783 and 1804. As a result, he

specifically rejected, and often roundly condemned, Galen,

Paracelsus, contraries, signatures, astrology, mixed drugs, strong

doses, prayers, spells, incantations, purging, bleeding, enemas

[clysters], and the prevalent notion of cleansing or purifying the

blood or bowels of alleged `toxic material.' He " was a most

passionate opponent of mixed doses that contained a large number of

ingredients. " [Gumpert, 96] He sought to " do away with the blind

chimney sweeper's methods of dulling symptoms, " [Gumpert, 99] then so

much in vogue.

 

Hahnemann frequently condemned many aspects of ancient medicine, such

as speculative metaphysics: astrology and theology, and their

medieval supernatural garb, with which he had only limited

patience: " ...metaphysical, mystical, and supernatural speculations,

which idle and self-sufficient visionaries have devised; " [Dudgeon,

The Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemann, 491] " ...now the influence

of the stars, now that of evil spirits and witchcraft... " [Lesser

Writings, 1805, 421] In an especially contemptuous blast, Hahnemann

even questions how " old astrology was to explain what puzzled modern

natural philosophy. " [Lesser Writings, 490] And, " ...we were fooled

by the natural philosophers....their whole conception - so

unintelligible, so hollow and unmeaning, that no clear sense could be

drawn from it. " [Lesser Writings, 1808, 494]

 

Medieval medicine regarded disease and cure as God's work and an

aspect of His plan for each person. Cure would come through

purification, abstinence, repentance and doing good works, as well as

the deployment of herbal simples: " ...above all, sickness was

regarded as the finger of Providence. God used illness for a

multitude of higher purposes...as a punishment... " [Porter, 1987, 27]

Although medieval medicine portrayed itself as 'Christian healing',

yet it still retained, even towards 1700, many of its more ancient

magical ideas and practices: " ...in the world in which the ancestors

of modern medicine practised...religion and medicine can scarcely be

teased apart. " [see Lawrence]

 

Disease was therefore seen as " a supernatural phenomenon governed by

a hierarchy of vital powers...disharmony in these vital powers can

cause illness. Thus, ancestral spirits can make a person ill.

Ingredients obtained from animals, plants, and other objects can

restore the decreased power in a sick person and therefore have

medicinal properties. " [Kale, BMJ 1995]

 

There is no doubt that " throughout the Middle Ages and into the 16th

and 17th centuries…disease [was] associated with the work of Satan

and with demonic possession. Plagues and pestilences were believed to

be visitations from God, to punish or try sinful people. Protestants

long continued to see disease as the finger of Providence. " [Porter,

1987, 14] In terms of the nature of pathology and the real causes of

human sickness: " God heals and the doctor takes the fee, " [benjamin

Franklin] or " God heals and the physician hath the thanks. " [George

Herbert] These topics are just as alive today as they were in

Hahnemann's time.

 

Goethe " rejected mechanistic views of life in favour of a philosophy

of holism. " [Porter, 1998, 249] Paracelsus " saw the essence of disease

as spiritual; " [Porter, 1998, 203] according to him, " living processes…

depended upon what he called `archei', the internal living properties

controlling processes like digestion…and `semina', or seeds deriving

from God…who orchestrated nature. " [Porter, 1998, 202] He saw the

causes of disease in " poisonous emanations from the stars or minerals

from the earth, especially salts. " [Porter, 1998, 203] The medieval

physician had always felt that " he had dressed the wound but God had

healed the patient. " [Porter, 1998, 188] Ancient physicians generally

adhered to the view of medicine as one of " supporting the patient and

trusting the healing power of nature. " [Porter, 1998, 260]

 

Lest we forget, " Hahnemann took ten years to test his general rule

[similia] before he used potencies at all…the infinitesimal dose…is

not laid down on theoretical grounds…[he] developed it…from

experiment alone…[which was] Hahnemann's doctrine and practice

throughout his life, " [Dr Charles Wheeler, 1944, 169]. As late

as " the 1650s, doctors still spoke largely of the sick man's humors

rather than of any particular entity from which he suffered. "

[shryock, 12] And even in Hahnemann's time, the continued domination

of medicine by the Greek theory of humours also gave some sanction to

the strong purificatory measures preferred by all physicians, even

extending down to the 1870s.

 

 

 

Rather Sweeping Condemnations

 

He therefore rejected outright the tenets of medieval Galenism and

most of its underpinning theoretical support structures [what we

might term `medical theology']. He specifically condemned them not

only as antiquated, outdated and useless therapeutic measures, but

also as unhelpful, inaccurate, ineffective, misleading and

endangering to patient health.

 

We need to ask how valid his condemnations actually were. Some of

these objections were theoretical and some were based in his own

dismal medical practice, his own first-hand clinical experience.

Added to these were also the combined experiences of many other

physicians he knew and those whose medical casenotes he had read

about in the vast medical literature to which his translation work

had given him such detailed access. As a result, he denounced the

medicine of his day as useless, uncurative, dangerous and at best

only palliative.

 

Hahnemann did not believe in the entrenched and

unquestioned `impurity theory' of disease, upon which medieval

medicine was very largely based, because medical practice had very

painfully taught him that its methods were useless and dangerous.

Thus he probably felt wholly justified in condemning, just as

forcefully, the theories upon which those methods rested. He could

see that behind those methods and theories there existed a subtle and

mysterious internal `genotype' of disease cause from which chronic

disease still inevitably springs even after the use of palliative

drugs have improved symptoms or subdued a condition. He could see

that strong drugs never actually cure sickness or remove this deeper,

innate tendency to sickness. They may delay things or modify them,

but they do not stop disease from arising.

 

It is likely that 1782-85 he only conceived of himself as a

translator of medical texts and a disgruntled critic of orthodox

medicine - he unleashed " uncontrolled and abusive attacks on

contemporary medicine. " [Cook, 105] We need to understand why. It is

doubtful that he could at that stage see beyond such a role. Apart

from being an open critic of medicine, or that he was soon to become

a great pioneer of a new system and a medical prophet. He saw drugs

as at best only palliative because they could not stop disease

arising from its deeper hidden source, from which it seems to spring

relentlessly in each one of us sooner or later. He maintained a

constant dialogue between the theory and practice of medicine and saw

them both as fertile sources always interlocked and influencing each

other. Ideally for him, they had to reflect each other; he was an

intensely pragmatic man, rarely allured solely by a theory. In this

respect, he was genuinely quite scientific in believing that

something worked because it was the right theory, and that useless

methods were useless because the theory they rested on was wrong.

 

Of course, he was right to condemn what he knew to be bogus - mostly

18th century ideas and methods - but was he right to condemn what he

could not know for sure if he so obviously did not fully appreciate

the theories it was based upon? At times he seems to have impatiently

condemned some practices and theories automatically, in broad brush

terms, when a theory or method that applied well to one case may not

have applied quite so well to another. Such was the nature of

medieval Physick. Thus, at times he may have committed an unworthy

averaging process in some of his more sweeping condemnations. He

probably condemned such body-purifying measures as clysters, purging,

bleeding and emesis, more on principle rather than because he had

personally investigated each of them very thoroughly through first-

hand use and found them wanting.

 

It is unlikely that he had tried and tested them all. He was perhaps

too sweeping in this than he could have been and so some things were

probably wrongly condemned by him in haste as useless that plainly

aren't. As he spoke so often in such absolute terms, we are entitled

to conclude that is how he predominantly thought. Hahnemann reasoned

that because crude drugs were mainly palliative, then that was all

they could ever achieve. His reasoning was that being used habitually

in complex mixtures and in strong doses, on the basis of the invalid

principle of contraries, meant that they were utterly doomed in every

respect. If the theories were wrong, then all methods based on them

were also wrong. This is flawed reasoning, however, as some methods

might have worked but for very different reasons. Furthermore, their

true healing properties were largely obscured or unknown by their

improper mode of use and thus any healing properties single drugs

really did possess should be ascertained beforehand by provings on

healthy volunteers. His view that they should only be used singly and

in moderate doses on the basis of similars also follows from the same

line of argument: Hahnemann had noticed that " a drug imposes its own

disease on the patient and wipes out the natural disease. " [Charles

Wheeler, 170]

 

However, in medieval medicine the composition of mixtures of drugs

were constantly rotated by physicians to fit each individual case and

not always fixed by rote as Hahnemann implied in his harsh judgement.

 

Yet, in Hahnemann's day the fine-tune technique of ancient medicine

had been abandoned in favour of more brutal methods and a heavy-

handed reliance on Greek-driven measures like purging, cupping,

leeches and opening a vein. Increasingly, these generalised and

brutal methods of treatment were used on an unquestioning, rote basis

for every case, in ignorance of individual symptom totality; fine-

tuning was abandoned. The idea of specifics came to dominate the

concept of `disease' and the idea of `matching drug' such that the

previous medieval fine-tuning approach became eclipsed by crude

application of the same brutal techniques to every case and a medical

practice dominated by treatment of small symptom groups conceived of

as `diseases' using any drug that could subdue them.

 

The upshot of all this was chaos – the dangerous inefficacy of

medical practice and a deplorable explosion of theoretical nonsense.

Speculation was allowed to dominate medical theory at the same time

as barbarity dominated its technique, and for the same reasons –

medicine meandered like a rudderless ship. It was this gradual

meltdown of all common sense and gentle methods that made raised

Hahnemann's blood to boiling point.

 

Experiments of his own and direct clinical experience, always his

most reliable and enduring beacons, had led Hahnemann to entirely

validate his own approach and to condemn the ancient methods: he

ranted and raved like " a raging hurricane against the old methods. "

[Haehl, vol. 1, 98] Through further experiment, he refined his views

towards single drugs in minute dose, used as per similars and based

upon provings, these becoming in turn the core axioms of the

homeopathic system. Such is certainly how homeopathy came into being.

It was not dreamed up overnight or all in one piece; by contrast, it

emerged in pieces over a long period: Homeopathy, therefore, had a

somewhat protracted `birth,' emerging in pieces: between " 1790 and

1805…homeopathy was slowly coming to birth. " [Haehl, vol. 1, 48]

 

The maxim of " everything that can hurt is something that can heal, "

[Anon, Jan 1932, 135] though Hahnemann was mindful of the nature of

poisonings, [Examples of his interest in poisons include his

publications: On Poisoning by Arsenic, 1786, Directions for the

Preparation of Soluble Mercury, 1790 and What Are Poisons? What Are

Medicines?, 1806] for the same reason Shakespeare once observed: " in

the infant rind of this small flower, poison hath residence and

medicine power, " [shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3] and

although it is self-evident that " drugs, in crude form…[do] have the

power to make even well people sick, " [Close, 54]

 

 

 

Mere Palliation

 

Hahnemann's denunciation of crude drugs in strong doses and mixtures

as only doomed palliative measures, needs greater scrutiny. Drugs

were palliative in the sense that the most they could achieve was to

subdue symptoms and shift them around the organism, rather than

eliciting true and gentle cure by their safe removal. Even if

they `cured' in the short term or in the ordinary sense of improving

sickness, Hahnemann saw later sickness episodes, of predictable

types, to always make their subsequent appearance and thus that such

allopathic `cures' often in truth meant only the temporary

suppression of symptoms, not the true cure he envisaged, which would

involve removal of the root cause. As `cures,' they were inevitably

always somewhat temporary and illusory.

 

Hahnemann's conception of true cure involved the gentle removal of

the most subtle, invisible and intangible causes of sickness at the

ultimate and most fundamental level of organism functioning, not just

the removal of the main symptoms, the gross molecular and

physiological dysfunctions that preoccupied most ordinary medical

practitioners. This at least was implicit to his line of reasoning.

 

It is a clear and peculiar fact that Hahnemann was innately very

disinclined to accept purely chemical or physiological factors as

root causes of sickness, as most physicians still do, and he always

tended to look beyond and behind them to a more rarefied, subtle,

spiritual and non-physical realm of disease causation resident not

within the tissues but within the vital force and the case totality.

This tendency cannot have come from Vienna, Erlangen or Leipzig, but

more likely from Brukenthal and Freemasonry. For example, it became

encapsulated in Aphorism 9 of Hahnemann's Organon, where he speaks of

the material organism being governed by a " spiritual principle…that

rules with unbounded sway. " [Organon of Medicine, 1922, Aph. 9]

 

The vital force literally `runs the show' and elicits every change in

the case. Hahnemann's central axiom in homeopathy is that the

organism is controlled by the vital force, which `rules with

unbounded sway and dominates the organism in sickness and in health'

[Organon of Medicine, Aph. 9]. Kent then elaborates this further: " We

do not take disease through our bodies but through the Vital Force;

likewise with a true cure; " and " the law of similars is the law of

similars, whether produced by drug or disease. It is the law of

Influx; " and " one who thinks from the material, thinks disease is

drawn in from without, but it is drawn out from within. " [Kent, 1926]

Hence, homeopathic treatment always aims to strengthen the innate

healing power or vital force. [Haehl, 1922; I, 64, 284, 289]

 

Because the vital force `runs the whole show,' so it is also that

which cures disease, not the homeopath and not the remedy – it truly

is the `innate healing power'. We should always " remember that it is

our duty to help nature as far as possible do her job. " [bodman, Sir

John Weir Obituary, 1971, 225] Medicine involves an attempt " to

restore health…an attempt to restore balance, " [Dr Charles Wheeler

Obituary, 1947, 1] for true " health is simply the balanced life. "

[ibid; 4]

 

Such innate self-healing powers, " the self-rectifying powers of the

vis medicatrix; " [simpson, 82] the " natural sanative powers of the

constitution, " [simpson, 81] " the curative powers of nature, " [simpson,

88] and " the vital dynamism, " [simpson, 23] are valid forces at work

in every one of us and the enhancement of those powers is the primary

task of all natural healing. Homeopathic remedies do not heal

directly, but, like other natural healing modalities, act indirectly

by stimulating these innate healing powers of the organism: " remember

that it is our duty to help nature as far as possible do her

job, " [bodman, op cit, 225] Yet, allopathy is saddled with a `quick

fix' mentality, what Maizes and Caspi call " the fixing paradigm, "

that blithely ignores the innate healing powers.

 

The innate self-healing powers are discussed at length in The

Organon: " it is only this spiritual, self acting (automatic) vital

force, everywhere present in his organism, that is primarily deranged

by the dynamic influence upon it of a morbific agent inimical to

life, " [Organon of Medicine, Aph. 11] for it is " the morbidly affected

vital force alone that produces disease, " [ibid; Aph. 12] and cure

must remove, " all such morbid derangements (diseases)...by the spirit-

like (dynamic, virtual) alterative powers of the serviceable

medicines acting upon our spirit-like vital force, " [ibid; Aph. 15]

for, " it is only by their dynamic action on the vital force that

remedies are able to re-establish and do actually re-establish health

and vital harmony. " [ibid; Aph. 16]

 

There is thus a strange ambiguity in his mentality, an inconsistency

in his approach to medicine, that strongly condemn signatures,

astrology and life-meaning theology, incantations, etc on one side

[as did most of his contemporaries], but on the other side resist the

enchantment of the materialistic philosophy of chemical and

mechanistic `machine patter' of the iatrochemists and the pneumatists

[unlike his contemporaries]. He therefore reveals an ambivalence,

giving homeopathy firm roots in both camps of medical thought, but

not wholly committed to either. He wished to render homeopathy into a

truly curative system that gently subdued disease, but that also went

straight to the root of disease causes and removed them. Experience

had robbed him of what little faith he once had that chemical drugs

could ever achieve such a noble aim.

 

 

 

The Subtle Realm of Disease Cause

 

In his slow and quiet way, Hahnemann made some startling discoveries,

which are still perfectly valid today. Apart from finally confirming

the superiority of similars, single drugs, moderate doses and

provings, by the 1790s his single most important discovery might well

have been that all ordinary medical treatments could only ever

palliate, alleviate or suppress symptoms and never truly cure at the

deeper, fundamental level. This revelation suggested to him that no

previous medical system had ever gotten to the bottom of disease, or

reached the true, deeper, innate causes of disease, let alone ever

removed them. He saw that sickness just keeps coming back over and

over often in new mutated forms [the hydra-headed?]. The source from

which it springs had thus never been severed.

 

They have always regarded drug-induced changes in cases as

fundamentally uncurative acts: any " removal of the tangible products

of disease…does not cure the disease, but does the patient a positive

injury. " [Close, 73] As Close then adds, " the suppressed case always

goes bad, " [Close, 75] to which Kent adds: " all prescriptions that

change the image of a case cause suppression. " [Kent, Lesser

Writings, 661] For Van Helmont too, " every disease had a vital

principle of its own [archeus] which could be treated by a specific

medico-spiritual response. " [Porter, 1998, 208] He believed that " all

objects, minerals included, were alive…matter was charged with a

specific disposition [archeus], which created life. " [Porter, 1998,

208] He also " postulated the existence of `blas'…the heart of the

human body…[a] life-force dominated all corporeal processes…a health-

defending property. " [Porter, 1998, 208] All these views can be seen

as the conceptual precursors to homeopathy, ground already laid out

for the foundation of another building - vital force and miasms.

 

Hahnemann describes the development of diseases in the ongoing life

of the person [or family, or race, or humanity] mutating through time

[ " the hydra-headed miasm " ] and able periodically to throw to the

surface very different 'disease events' springing forth from the same

hidden root cause in the invisible and intangible realm of the non-

molecular. This describes very clearly his depiction of the true

nature of the miasms: a hidden realm of disease cause, and a genotype

from which the expressed and visible symptoms, the phenotype of

disease, periodically erupt at the surface and which we tend to see

before us as separate `diseases'. From " frequent observations,

Hahnemann had discovered that chronic maladies…had some connection

with a previous outbreak of Psora. " [Haehl, vol. 1, 138] To

Hahnemann, Psora was " a disease or disposition to disease, hereditary

from generation to generation for thousands of years, and…the

fostering soil for every possible diseased condition. " [Haehl, vol.

1, 144]

 

It seems natural for homeopaths to be suspicious of and unsatisfied

with the solely molecular, mechanistic and tangible explanation or

technique of crude drugging for specifics [allopathy]. Being daily

used to seeing into the realm of the subtle and intangible, with

their more subtle form of vision, it is only natural for them to seek

out deeper root causes in such a realm that lies behind and beyond

the solely molecular realm, which seems so satisfying to allopaths

and scientists. By employing intangible and non-molecular remedies

and seeing their often spectacular effects in the clinical sphere, it

is not so surprising that they have come to develop such deep respect

for non-molecular theories of life, disease causation and cure.

 

For " what we cannot see directly with the corporeal eye, we may yet

be able to perceive indirectly, by the eye of reason, " [King, 1963;

23] It is similarly true in homeopathy that " the distinction between

observation and inference, between empiricism and rationalism, is

basically artificial, since neither can exist without a substantial

share of the other...in almost every statement, some observation and

some inference are involved...the further we get from direct

observation, the more we depend on inference and reasoning, " [ibid;

22-23]

 

Hahnemann basically agrees with van Helmont and Paracelsus that the

root causes of sickness do not reside in the outer, tangible and

visible aspects of disease manifestations, the phenotype, but rather

in the deeper essence or genotype. Symptoms are not seen by

homeopaths as the disease, but as the results, the end-products, of

deeper dynamic disease processes: " tissue changes...are but the

results of disease; " [Kent, 1926, 672; Pagel, 1972, 419-454; see also

Pagel, 1944, 44 pages] " a cure is not a cure unless it destroys the

internal or dynamic cause of disease. " [Kent, 1926, 673]

 

Homeopaths have generally, interpreted the phenomena of life, disease

and cure through essentialist eyes: " the outer world is the world of

results. " [Kent, 657; see also Coulter, iii, 334 re essence; also

Mayr, 1982, 38, 87, 304-5; Bullock & Trombley, 1999, 282-3]

 

Close states that " the gross, tangible, lesions and products in which

disease ultimates are not the primary object of the homeopathic

prescription. " [Close, 38] Close goes right to the heart of the

matter in stating that it is not symptoms that need correction, but

function. " Function creates the organs…function reveals the condition

of the organs, " [Close, 38] and he further reveals that " the totality

of the functional symptoms of the patient is the disease. " [Close,

38] This somewhat flies in the face of the Hughes/Dudgeon claim that

disease is a localised affair, a material affair that must be treated

with material doses - tinctures, 1x and 3x. But, seizing his quarry

firmly, Close deepens the real focus of homeopathy not upon the

tissues, but into " the realm of pure dynamics; " [Close, 39] what he

calls the " sphere of homeopathy is limited primarily to the

functional changes from which the phenomena of disease arise. "

[Close, 40-41]

 

Symptoms have never been seen by homeopaths as the disease, but as

the results, the end-products, of deeper dynamic disease

processes: " tissue changes…are but the results of disease; " [Kent,

Lesser Writings, 672] " a cure is not a cure unless it destroys the

internal or dynamic cause of disease. " [Kent, Lesser Writings, 673]

When Close states that the " real cure…takes place solely in the

functional and dynamical sphere, " [Close, 42] we can see that his

emphasis has shifted away from any visible pathology resident in the

organs, tissues and cells, to the underlying vital and dynamic

processes that underpin and derange the cells and tissues.

 

Close validates this view by tracing it back to its true

source: " Hahnemann introduces us into the realm of dynamics, the

science…of motion. In medicine dynamical commonly refers to

functional as opposed to organic disease. " [Close, 59] Power does not

reside in the body, in the tissues or the cells themselves,

it " resides at the centre; " [Close, 61] disease " is the suffering of

the dynamis. " [Close, 72] Close devotes considerable energy to

clearly defining disease; an effort which repays close study. For

example, he says that " homeopathy does not treat disease; it treats

patients. " [Close, 51] Disease, he claims, is " an abnormal vital

process; " [Close, 60] " a dynamic aberration of our spirit-like life; "

[Close, 67] " a perverted vital action; " [Close, 70] it is " not a

thing, but only the condition of a thing; " [Close, 70] that in the

last analysis disease is " primarily only an altered state of life and

mind. " [Close, 71] This is akin to Kent's likening of cure to a

qualitative re-tuning of a piano, [Kent, Lesser Writings, 664-5] and

is all a very far cry from using remedies in material doses [1x or

3x] for named conditions.

 

Close lays bare its deeper nature when he says disease is " primarily

a morbid disturbance or disorderly action of the vital powers and

functions, " [Close, 74] or " purely a dynamical disturbance of the

vital principle. " [Close, 74] Furthermore, he logically pronounces

that because " disease is always primarily a morbid dynamical or

functional disturbance of the vital principle, " [Close, 88] so in

turn it is clear that " functional or dynamic change always precedes

tissue changes, " [Close, 71] and that cure has been established

only " when every perceptible sign of suffering of the dynamis has

been removed. " [Close, 73] For Close, it is precisely upon such

reasons and definitions that " the entire edifice of therapeutic

medication governed by the law of Similia, " [Close, 88] has been

conceived and constructed. All these insightful statements elaborated

by Close might be said to derive from Kent, but, as he insists, they

also flow naturally from Hahnemann's own sentiments in the Organon:

[Hahnemann, Organon, Aphorisms 11 [9, 10], 15 and 16] " let it be

granted now...that no disease...is caused by any material substance,

but that every one is only and always a peculiar, virtual, dynamic

derangement of the health. " [Organon, Introduction, 10]

 

As Close says, disease cause therefore also exists solely in " the

realm of pure dynamics; " [stuart Close, The Genius of Homeopathy,

Lectures and Essays on Homeopathic Philosophy, New York, 1924; 39]

what he calls the " sphere of homeopathy is limited primarily to the

functional changes from which the phenomena of disease arise, " [ibid;

40-41] Therefore, the removal [correction might be a better word] of

the internal damage [miasm] is the removal of the cause; which is not

the same as removing the symptoms: " In faithful treatment, it is

sought to accomplish an end far more subtle than the mechanical

removal of bacilli. " [Nichols, 1891, 233-234]

 

 

 

Why Modern Medicine Does not Cure

 

These same observations Hahnemann made even apply today. Modern drugs

manifestly do not really cure, they only palliate for a time. They

create merely an illusion of cure. There is just as much disease in

the world today as ever there was, if not more. The medicine of today

has indeed " reduced the patient's autonomy to a therapeutic choice of

drugs or surgery, " [Diamond, 2001; 11] which stands as a chilling

indictment of its claim to cure disease, which is nothing other than

a sorry state of medical dependency masquerading as true cure. This

woeful situation obviously flies in the face of Kent's insistence

that cure should: " leave the patient in freedom always. " [Kent, 1900,

160-1] Aphorism 1 of The Organon states the mission of the physician

to heal gently and safely, to place the patient in greater

freedom: " to establish freedom should be the aim of the physician,

and if a physician's work does not result in placing his patient in

freedom he cannot heal the sick, " [ibid, 79]

 

Medicine, in spite of the entire scientific advance of two centuries,

is still not curing disease, nor is it reaching behind the molecular

level to remove the innate tendency towards sickness. The deeper

causes of sickness that Hahnemann identified as non-molecular are

still not being tackled two centuries later. His theory of miasms was

a good attempt to explain where sickness originates. He satisfied

himself further that only potentised drugs could reach deeper into

this non-molecular realm of disease cause. Modern medicine is

evidently just as incapable of doing so as its 18th century

predecessor.

 

When the bullets stop coming, you are entitled to believe the guns

have been silenced or even gone altogether. Thus, when disease stops

appearing, the causes can be assumed to have been removed. This was

his line of reasoning. Hahnemann's observations of medical practice,

combined with his prolonged analytical studies, convinced him of a

range of new medical truths even before he embarked on a path of

continued original experimentation. What he clearly observed two

hundred years ago is still true today – people show an innate

tendency towards sickness, to sickness episodes that tend to recur,

to conditions that mutate through time, to chronic and serious

disease and this tendency is not in decline, but on the increase, or

at least as active as it ever was. This clearly observable aspect of

modern disease is seemingly unaffected by drug-based treatments and

is not diminishing. Chemical drugs today manifestly do not reach the

heart of the matter; they do not cure.

 

If medicine were truly working, then we would see a very different

picture. We would see these tendencies on the decline, disease in

retreat, with the mass of disease declining. We would see sickness

going into reverse, being pushed back by medical advance. This is

precisely what we do not see in the world today. Therefore, it seems

safe to conclude, that the innate, deeper, genotypic causes of

disease are just as alive today, just as active in the organism, as

they were two centuries ago. Although the nature of sickness has

changed, and the old infectious conditions have largely disappeared,

yet the overall burden of disease is the same if not even greater

than it was. Who is to say that the removal of the one has been

obtained at the expense of the other?

 

Yet, there is a contrast when we look at adults and children who are

treated with homeopathy for any length of time. This is especially

apparent when you look at whole families who use homeopathy. They do

not show the same general tendency towards sickness, to simple

recurrent diseases or to chronic or relapsing conditions that are so

evident in the main population who are treated allopathically. Nor do

they show the same tendency towards chronic and serious diseases.

They show less disease, less recurrent disease, less serious

disorders, greater resistance to infections, than their peers, and a

general level of good health and well-being that is considerably

higher than the average population. This is especially apparent in

children and young adults.

 

This is not simply my own observation. Such observations are common

to all families who use homeopathy regularly and all homeopaths

confirm this same pattern. This applies as much to mental health as

to physical. Therefore, one feels entitled to conclude from this

that, as in Hahnemann's day, human beings today still react

positively to homeopathic treatment and that it does indeed

successfully subdue and progressively eliminate sickness and above

all the hidden, genotypic predisposition towards recurrent disease.

It removes the causes of sickness that lie buried deep within the

organism: the gun is silenced.

 

 

 

Origins of Homeopathy

 

All this modern material ties in very neatly with the main concerns

that Hahnemann immersed himself in two centuries ago. What Hahnemann

was primarily appalled and disgusted by and which he most vigorously

and passionately opposed were strong doses of drugs, bloodletting and

compound drug mixtures conceived and employed along the Galenic lines

of contraries. These were the biggest objections he made against the

medicine of his day. He was implacably opposed to them because he

could see from first-hand daily experience that they were dismally

ineffective measures to be employed against sickness, and they were

also harmful and damaging to patients as well; they caused more

suffering. Thus, he stood alone in having the courage and

intellectual honesty to abandon in disgust such a medical practice,

and to commit himself instead to a search for more gentle, benign and

effective therapeutic measures. Who could possibly stand up and

condemn him for doing that?

 

His starting point obviously suggested that he use single drugs in

moderate doses and not contraries. We should not forget that his

search was rooted in the sombre and very despondent basis of his deep

dissatisfaction with his chosen profession. It commenced 1781-2 in a

fairly lacklustre and haphazard manner, into the medical past for any

evidence of true cures attributable to using single drugs on the

basis of similars and in moderate doses. He found evidence for all

these principles and also some for the curative effects of one

similar disease upon another, but not for dissimilar diseases.

Together with the records of poisonings, he soon amassed considerable

evidence not only for using moderate doses of single drugs, but that

they should be employed on the basis of similars rather than

contraries. He also accrued abundant evidence of the health damaging

effects of contraries and high doses.

 

This mass of evidence gradually convinced him to use similar drugs in

moderate doses and to commence provings [1790] to ascertain more

precisely [than signatures] the real therapeutic properties of drugs.

This was his attempt to cast aside and move beyond the entrenched and

centuries-old `doctrine of signatures,' which was, to his mind, a

ridiculous, hit-and-miss method that was vague and often thoroughly

misleading.

 

He was also disparaging about the doctrine of signatures. [Hobhouse,

137-8; Hahnemann's Lesser Writings, 502-3, 670; Haehl, 1, 23; & 2, 10-

11] In his Materia Medica Pura we read under Chelidonium: 'The

ancients imagined that the yellow colour of the juice of this plant

was an indication (signature) of its utility in bilious

diseases...the importance of human health does not admit of any such

uncertain directions for the employment of medicines. It would be

criminal frivolity to rest contented with such guesswork at the

bedside of the sick.'' [Hobhouse, 138] Hence we behold his

fundamental ambivalence.

 

Even when the Organon insists that " the...virtues of medicines cannot

be apprehended by...smell, taste, or appearance...or from chemical

analysis, or by treating disease with one or more of them in a

mixture... " [Organon; v.110].

 

The only sane and rational means to discover the actual, pure and

real [repeatable] i.e. scientific properties of drugs was to initiate

mild medical poisonings [provings] and to record in detail their

manifold effects on the organism – their ability to derange health.

By proving drugs on the healthy, he could more clearly establish an

area of compatibility between the health-deranging effects of real

diseases on the one side, and the health-deranging effects of such

artificial diseases [provings] caused by drugs, on the other side.

Detailed comparisons between these two datasets might then yield

greater therapeutic success than continued adherence to the old-

fashioned, haphazard and in his view doomed method of signatures – a

battered and rusty old lamp that seemed to obscure in shadows as many

medical truths as it illuminated. Likewise, he could compare

contraries and similars, strong doses versus small and mixed drugs

versus single drugs. By proceeding precisely in this systematic

manner, Hahnemann uncovered the core truths of his new system.

 

Hahnemann had actually embarked single-handed upon a radical

programme of medical reform: to clear away the dusty, centuries-old

methods, the outdated dead wood of useless practices that were

manifestly uncurative and harmful and which blocked progress, and

replace them with new methods that were simpler, more effective and

thus superior.

 

When Cooper declares that " all great improvements in science are made

by men who throw off the trammels of previous teachings and begin by

a complete and radical overhauling of the entire subject, " [Cooper,

1894, 389], then he certainly encapsulates Hahnemann's bold,

freethinking spirit of inquiry. Hahnemann's original and gargantuan

task had been to " break through the orthodoxy…[and] sweep away the

painstaking edifices of their honourable but limited predecessors who…

tend to imprison thought within their own tidy but fatally

misconceived constructions. " [berlin, 1986; 72]

 

His research showed that the whole edifice of official, Galenic

medicine had been founded on entirely wrong premises – upon

contraries, strong doses of compound drug mixtures, instead of

similars, single drugs in moderate doses; upon the shifting sands of

signatures rather than the hard factual rocks of provings. All this

inevitably brought him into conflict with orthodoxy.

 

 

 

Protest against homeopathy

 

To some extent, the storm of protest that greeted the birth of

homeopathy and which was unleashed on Hahnemann personally, was a

storm of indignation by the mainstream against a single physician who

had the breathtaking audacity to step forward and challenge

officialdom and say its was entirely wrong. Such a damburst of

protest can be seen as the natural and instinctive reaction of

orthodox and well-established vested interest whenever official

orthodoxy is prickled or challenged: something of a David and Goliath

situation?

 

It needs to be made clear that in no sense whatsoever did such a

reaction stem from anything approaching a calm and rational appraisal

of the true merits of homeopathy, or from people who were remotely

intent on conducting a sober and sympathetic investigation of it,

giving it a try and then filing a balanced and neutral report. Quite

the contrary, it signalled a mass emotional response of a slightly

paranoid, defensive profession with a mass closing of ranks against

an obvious enemy, a traitor, which had to be both publicly repulsed

and publicly defeated. The chief method employed to achieve this

objective was a sustained and vigorous campaign of ridicule and

condemnation against homeopathy: attacks upon him and upon homeopathy

became increasingly coordinated, amounting to a " vicious campaign of

persecution, " [Cook, 124].

 

Such has been the official attitude towards homeopathy ever since

those early days and it must be viewed exactly for what it is. It

never has been and is still not a carefully researched and reasoned

response to the claims of homeopathy, nor an impartial assessment of

Hahnemann's case, his clinical track record or the mass of detailed

evidence he had accrued over many years against the methods and

theories of Old Physick.

 

 

 

Summary

 

To really understand Hahnemann, we must look in the first phase at

that which he condemned in allopathy and why. For in those

condemnations hides his anger and his passion against the betrayal he

felt at being trained in a medicine that was so useless. It was an

embarrassment. The anger he felt simmered like a volcano until it

exploded in rage at what nonsense his colleagues believed in and the

dangerous and injurious medical treatments they dished out to the

poor patient every day. Hahnemann refused to be part of such a blind,

corrupt and murderous form of medicine. Study what he condemned and

what he attacked and you can begin to see the puzzle unfold as it did

for him haphazardly over twenty years. By examining what he condemned

and asking why, we gain great insights into his approach and the

situation he found himself in.

 

The core principles of homeopathy, each is a shadow of something in

Old Physick or allopathy.

 

Similars is the shadow of contraries, a dominant concept in allopathy

since the time of Galen [2nd century]

 

Using single drugs is the shadow of the mixed drugs used in allopathy.

 

Using small doses forms the shadow of the large doses of allopathy.

 

Provings are the shadow of poisonings accumulated over many

centuries; a proving is a mild form of poisoning. Provings also

displace signatures as a source of reliable drug information.

 

Case totality is a product of close observation of cases and also

derives from provings; it is the shadow of specific named diseases, a

concept Hahnemann rejected. Case totality is also a monument to

Hahnemann's superior observational skills.

 

The drug picture is a result of case totality and the proving but is

also a distant shadow of the doctrine of signatures.

 

Hahnemann had great interest in poisons: because of their very great

power to derange health; in the first phase of his research he sought

to find ways of taming these prodigious weapons and so convert them

into gentle healing tools. In this was the maxim that what causes can

also cure.

 

The contents of the old materia medica were entirely the products of

folk medicine, old wives tales and the doctrine of signatures. These

had been authorised and validated only by a succession of eminent

doctors down the ages, who tended to repeat what their forebears had

said. Hahnemann rebelled both against the drugs selected on such a

ridiculous basis as well as the authorities who had validated them.

He held such authorities in contempt and he blamed them alone for the

appalling state of medicine in his day.

 

He condemned whatever was ineffective and uncurative; he condemned

whatever was harmful; yet he had in the beginning no alternatives and

simply had to give up medical practice. Most things he saw as both

harmful and uncurative like emesis, purgation, bleeding and sweating.

These core practices of allopathy he regarded as having no value

whatever because they did not achieve cures and they harmed patients.

Or in some cases, they only palliated symptoms without curing them.

 

His opposition was instinctive; he had no reasons and no alternatives

but he simply felt in his heart that medicine was too dangerous for

him to give his patients. He knew that it was damaging and uncurative

on instinct and this describes his mentality very well. It is an

insight that only comes to us now through prolonged reflection on the

details of his life and conduct; it cannot be seen directly in the

evidence. It is normally hidden. It is a good example of how history

can enrich our understanding of homeopathy.

 

There are in homeopathy no specific named diseases that affect whole

populations; there is just each case that must be assessed on its own

peculiar merits.

 

There are no mass treatments that can be given to everyone or to a

disease label; each case must be treated individually.

 

There are no single disease entities, just the whole person, body and

mind in which diseases and remedies enter and perform like actors on

a stage.

 

The law of similars began innocently enough with examples like

Mercury and Syphilis or Belladonna and Scarlet fever. Hahnemann soon

realised that very close similarity and case totality were required

for it to work best. Each case must be carefully individualised to

the single drug for success. Similars alone was not enough.

 

Homeopathy was created by Hahnemann in the light of its predecessor,

allopathy, and the main elements of homeopathy are like ghosts or

shadows of the main elements in allopathy.

 

As we have seen, these shadows or ghosts are in every case the

opposite of the corresponding idea or method in allopathy. Hahnemann

deliberately chose the opposite of things in the useless allopathic

system in order to obtain something better than it.

 

 

 

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Homeopathe International

 

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