WHAT IS HOMŒOPATHY?

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 242, 18 July 1872, Page 3

WHAT IS HOMŒOPATHY?

The literature of homoeopatliv is replete with attempts to explain the law of similarity from Hahnemann down to tiie present period. We cannot possibly undertake an enumeration of all these different views and opinions, more particularly since they would not possess any essential interest in this place. In our opinion the following explanation comes nearest to the truth, for the reason that the suppositions which it implies are few in number, and the most probably correct. The medicine stimulates certain organs or systems, and by acting upon sound parts necessarily produces morbid phenomena, whereas by acting upon the diseased organ it pro luces the stimulation requisite for a cure. This explanation does not imply a contrary action, but the effect remains the same, only that in its union with the morbid action it gives rise to a different product from what it does when acting upon sound tissues. This view likewise renders it possible to account for aggravations occasioned by too large doses.

Our view of accounting for tho modus operandi of homoeopathic agents leads us to an explanation of the law of similarity, which seems to us, more than any other, to satisfy the demands of logic and the necessary thoroughness in deducing it from known physiological facts. In order to be correctly understood we have to premise certain statements of physiogical facts that constitute an integral portion of our argument. Health depends, in every organic being, upon an inheieut endeavour to preseivc tbe equilibrium of its organic functions. This endeavour is designated hv physiogists as an organic tendency of persistence, or ns a physiological antagonism, or as an organic power of reaction. By virtue of this reactive power the organism equalizes the noxious influences acting upon it from without. As long as this equalization is continued regularly and imperceptibly, we call the organism healthy; hut if the disturbances are too powerful to be at once and imperceptibly conquered by tho reactive force of the organism—in other words, to be equalized—wc call the organism sick. In proportion as the struggle between the two factors is more or less violent, more or less extensive, wc call the disease acute, sub-acute, or chronic. The triumph of the reactive power over the disease is designated as a cure ; the triumph of thediseaseleads io death. If the transition to recovery or cure is marked by tumultuous phenomena we designateit as a crisis ; if the process of equalization is gradual, without any violaut symptoms, we call it lysis. In so far as the organic reaction is engaged in a struggle with the disease, it is termed the ris mcdkatric natural. Like anv other organic activity, it is based upon the nervous system, without which it cannot exist. But, inasmuch as the disease is not a strange something that becomes mixed up with the tissues; inasmuch as it is simply the consequence of a change in the reciprocal relations and functions of organs, diseases can likewise not exist without involving the nervous system, a derangement of the nervous functions being the startingpoint in every disease. Even - disease arises from th. action of some external noxa upon the e:\ranism, the difference of I one noxa from a: other, logctner with the peculiarities of the organism, determine the different forme, of disease : and inasmuch as these two factors may differ lrom each other in a variety of ways, it follows that there must be a variety of forms of disease. Disease is only recognised by the phenomena it presents to our senses.

It is only from these phenomena that we can draw conclusions regarding the morbific agent and the opposing endeavours of the r.-active force. Hence it becomes necessary to investigate every trifling circumstance in the picture of the disease in order to obtain a knowledge of its character, and to use it for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the roa l which Nature follows in order to free itself from the derangement of its functions, and likewise of obtaining light by an analysis of the external phenomena regarding the internal processes which these phenomena reflect. This result, can only be obtained if each case of disease is placed before us as a separate individual case, for it is only in this way that we learn to know liow far the organism is capable of equalizing the disturbance of its functions by its own unaided efforts, and when it becomes necessary to assist it in this endeavour. — A. Z. 11. G axe lie.