H-Log 1
This series of blogs I have called H-Logs are inspired by the writings of Dr Samuel Hahnemann, the master and discoverer of Homeopathy.
His Organon of the Medical Art is a manuscript he wrote and perfected over six editions, the sixth and last of which was completed in 1842 but was not published until 1910, long after his death in 1843.
Reading and re-reading this precious text, as any dedicated homeopath is wont to do, I am inspired to relate some of the insights that he had into the practice of medicine. The marvel of these proclamations and observations I will leave to you, bearing in mind that his work and medicine was dismissed by the conventional medical establishment of the day as being too radical. Two hundred years later it is still dismissed by the same conventional establishment, this time for being implausible and outdated.
The first of our readings may lead you to a different conclusion regarding which system of medical thinking is the one that is truly outdated and way overdue for an overhaul.
Aphorism 104 begins
“Once the totality of the symptoms that principally determine and distinguish the disease case – in other words, the image of any kind of disease – has been exactly recorded, the most difficult work is done…….”
The following is the commentary that has been ascribed to this statement.
“In their treatments, the physicians of the old school made it extremely easy for themselves in this regard. They made no exact inquiry about all the patient’s circumstances. Indeed, the physician often interrupted patients in the account of their individual ailments in order not to be disturbed in the rapid writing up of the prescription, which was compounded of several ingredients that were unknown to the physician as to their true action. No allopathic physician, as said, insisted upon learning all the exact circumstances of a case, and still fewer of these circumstances did he ever write down. When he saw the patient again after several days, he was aware of little or nothing about the few circumstances he had heard at first since he had seen so many other, different patients since then.
He had let it all go in one ear and out the other. At subsequent visits, he only asked a few general questions, made as if he felt the pulse and looked at the tongue before writing another prescription (likewise without reason) or continuing the first, in more handsome portions several times a day, then hurried off with elegant gestures to thoughtlessly visit the fiftieth or sixtieth patient of the morning. This is how the most cogitative of all pursuits – the conscientious, careful investigation of the state of each single patient, and the special cure to be grounded thereon – was practiced by people who called themselves physicians and rational medical-art practitioners. The result was almost invariably bad, as is natural. Patients had to go to such people partly because there was nothing better and partly for the sake of etiquette and established convention.”
Given that this was written in 1842 one has to wonder or at best hope that much has changed over that time with regard to understanding the true nature of disease as it affects individuals.
A difference nowadays is that the prescriptions of pharmaceuticals are far more readily available, expensive and furthermore with ingredients almost entirely unknown by the prescriber, as to the mechanism of action or effect on the individual patient. My own observations of the differences in notes taken by homeopaths and regular practitioners is more to do with not understanding the significance of the symptoms or the disease being related and furthermore no knowledge on part of the regular practitioner of what to do about it. Homeopaths are interested and glean valuable insight from factors disregarded by conventional medical practitioners.
Hahnemann was, perhaps not surprisingly, not well liked by his colleagues of the day for his outspoken criticisms and unfortunately the effects of this disharmony has permeated into modern times with many of us facing similar conflict with our contemporary colleagues.
We could, in jest, speculate that Dr Hahnemann created a miasm of his own that has been inherited by practitioners of homeopathy over the past two hundred years. We are our contemporary colleagues ‘itch’ that will not go away and it has been hard for us to advocate for our medicine against a wave of criticism and ridicule persisting over almost two centuries.
It appears also and yet again that the principal beneficiaries of this rift are the producers of drugs, the pharmaceutical companies. They have found ideal prescribers in conventional practitioners who have become increasingly reliant on these prescriptions to do their work of healing their patients for them. Prescribers, who either don’t know or don’t want to know that they are not seeing the true nature of disease and definitely not providing cures.
Allopathic (pharmaceutical) medicines do not ever cure disease.
“You will need to be on this drug for the rest of your life” Really? I don’t think so!
Worse still is that we seem to have accepted that disease is incurable and that we must continue to prescribe pharmaceutical cocktails to enable and prolong life lived with chronic disease.
Homeopaths and animal owners who seek our services do not accept this premise.
In fact, disease is cured by the animal itself if it is properly supported to regulate the innate healing mechanisms held within. Homeopathy amongst some other excellent, simple and life affirming practices like species appropriate nutrition and rest, are primary tools for cure, if cure is possible.
The overarching problem, as I see it, is that we are still looking for a common language in which to communicate and a new school in which to learn our medical-art, as our conventional schools dig themselves deeper and deeper in to the mires of corporate greed, cleverly disguised and referred to as ‘stakeholders’.
I wonder where the term ‘stake’ here originated since we used to use them to drive out demons once upon a time.