Homeopathy in epidemics
[Joette Calabrese and Cilla Whatcott]
Raymond
Seidel, MD, HMD, said that he decided to become a homeopathic doctor during the
Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 when he was working as a delivery boy for
a
homeopath in New Jersey. As he delivered remedies from homeopaths to their
patients, he noticed that those taking homeopathy were all doing well while
those taking aspirin were not. Seidel later stated, “I saw that the people who
were taking aspirin were dying. . . and those that received homeopathic
remedies were living.”
The
mortality rate of people treated with orthodox medicine and drugs for the
Spanish flu was 28% . In comparison, those treated by homeopathic physicians
had a mortality rate of only 1% .1 Nor is the Spanish flu an isolated
example—the use of homeopathy in epidemics has stood the test of time. In 2018,
after conducting an extensive literature search, Dr. Jennifer Jacobs concluded
that several different homeopathic methods can be employed during epidemics.
SCARLET FEVER AND CHOLERA
Dr.
Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) was a linguist, chemist, physician and founder of
homeopathy. In 1799, Hahnemann made the accidental discovery that homeopathic
Belladonna could be used as both a treatment and preventive for scarlet fever
(also known as scarlatina).
Hahnemann
wrote: “I reasoned thus, a remedy that is capable of quickly checking a disease
in its onset, must be its best preventive; and the following occurrence
strengthened me in the correctness of this conclusion: Some weeks previously
three children of another family lay ill of a very bad scarlet fever; the
eldest daughter alone, who, up to that period, had been taking Belladonna
internally for an external affection on the joints of her fingers, to my great
astonishment did not catch the fever, although during the prevalence of other
epidemics she had always been the first to take them.”
Hahnemann
continued: “This circumstance completely confirmed my idea. I now hesitated not
to administer to the other five children of this numerous family this divine
remedy, as a preservative, in very small doses, and, as the particular action
of this plant does not last above three days, I repeated the dose every
seventy-two hours, and they all remained perfectly well without the slightest
symptoms throughout the whole course of the epidemic, and amid the most
virulent scarlatina emanations from the sisters who lay ill with the disease.”3
In
1831, the Russian community enlisted Hahnemann to assist in treating cases of
so-called Asian cholera. Mortality was as high as 66% with the
conventional care of the day. According to modern accounts of this period, “a murderous
epidemic came over Europe from Russia (about 2,000,000 [sic] victims) with
tremendous speed and mortality. The Baltic countries, Poland (1100 deaths in
Warsaw alone) and Galicia were already affected. In Prussia and Austria
frontiers were closed and quarantine facilities were constructed. Nonetheless,
the Asian Cholera could not be halted.” 4
Applying
sound homeopathic theory, Hahnemann collected common symptoms of the disease
and prescribed appropriate homeopathic remedies in an effective method that is
now known as “genus epidemicus.” His treatment was highly successful and even
came to be recommended by conventional physicians of the day.4
Genus
epidemicus is derived from identifying the characteristic symptoms expressed
during an epidemic, such as a wet or tickling cough, high fever, chills,
sweating and so forth. These symptoms will point to a few remedies in most of
the cases. Homeopaths can then quickly deduce which remedy to give by
identifying the outstanding symptoms in a particular case and choosing among
these remedies.
U.S. HOMEOPATHY BOOMS
Homeopathy
found its way to the U.S. in the early 1800s as physicians immigrated from
Europe. The public embraced it as a safe and gentle form of medicine—in direct
contrast to methods of the day such as bloodletting, purging and
the widespread use of mercury, arsenic and lead.
Many
physicians of the time were apprentice-trained and were able to become a doctor
with the equivalent of a high school education. They earned very low salaries
and had relatively low social status. The New York Journal of Medicine (in
1845) described the requirements for conventional medical education at that
time as follows:
“All
the young man has to do is gain admittance in the office of some physician,
where he can have access to a series of ordinary medical textbooks, and see a
patient perhaps once a month, with perhaps a hasty post-mortem examination once
a year; and in the course of three years thus spent, one or two courses of
lectures in the medical colleges, where the whole science of medicine,
including anatomy, physiology, chemistry, materia medica, pathology, practice
of medicine, medical jurisprudence, surgery, and midwivery are all crowded upon
his mind in the short space of sixteen weeks. . . and his education, both
primary and medical, is deemed complete” [italics in original].
Homeopaths,
in comparison, were highly educated and to this day are required to have
ongoing postgraduate education within the field.
As
a result of homeopathy’s effectiveness and popularity, the first homeopathic
hospital—the Cleveland Protestant Homeopathic Hospital—was established in Ohio
by the mid-1850s. By 1900, over one hundred homeopathic hospitals had sprung up
in the U.S., with 22 homeopathic medical schools and over one thousand homeopathic
pharmacies.6,7 Included among the schools were Boston University; the
Universities of Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa; and Hahnemann Medical College.
HOMEOPATHIC SUCCESSES
Interest in homeopathy continued to grow as it became obvious that it could treat
epidemic disease safely and gently. Dr. Adam Miller, a homeopathic physician in
Quincy, Illinois treating patients with cholera, wrote of his successes during
an 1851 cholera outbreak:
“The
cholera had broken out in a fearful form the week before I arrived there. The
people and the doctors were alarmed. It was in June, 1851. The word was soon
spread through the city that a new doctor had arrived and that he knew how to
treat cholera. The first day after my arrival I had 3 patients, the second 6,
and in two weeks had
all
I could attend to. I cured several that the Catholic priest had anointed and
prepared for death. He was so vexed about it that he denounced me from his
pulpit and warned people against employing me as their physician, and said it
must be some black art or work of the devil that allowed people to get well
after he had prepared them for death.”
In
Cincinnati, Ohio, homeopathy was booming, and homeopaths actually published
names and addresses of patients cured of cholera compared to those who died. Of
one thousand one hundred sixteen homeopathic patients, only 3% died,
while between 48 and 60% of those under orthodox medical treatment
died.9,10
In
1852, around the same time that homeopathy was flourishing in the U.S., a
British medical doctor, Dr. Routh, was enlisted to complete a statistical
account of mortality for all diseases in England, Austria and Germany.
Routh
reviewed over 32.000 homeopathic cases and over 1.000 allopathic cases.
Homeopathic treatment resulted in a 4.4% mortality rate while allopathic
treatment relected overall mortality of 10.5% .11 This pattern emerged
repeatedly, whether the illness was typhus, cholera, yellow fever or other
epidemic illnesses.
HOMEOPATHY AND POLIO
Amid
the growing acceptance of homeopathy as a successful response to epidemic
disease, disgruntled allopathic physicians decided to form an organization to
stem the tide of popularity of this form of medicine, which was eclipsing their
incomes.
They
called this group the American Medical Association (AMA).12 The AMA’s rabid
efforts to extinguish homeopathy included disallowing membership by anyone
practicing homeopathy and even forbidding consultation with homeopaths.13
Despite the AMA’s efforts, homeopathy continued to gain support due in large
part to its unprecedented success in addressing polio, diphtheria and smallpox.
In
1950, a polio outbreak was met by the closing of public facilities, “social
distancing” and the use of menacing chemicals such as DDT, all of which failed
to eradicate the presumed virus.
In
1953, Dr. Morton Biskind tried -largely unsuccessfully- to draw attention to
what he viewed as a more logical explanation for polio epidemics, proposing
that polio and other central nervous system diseases were “actually the
physiological and symptomatic manifestations of the ongoing government- and
industry-sponsored inundation of
the
world’s populace with central nervous system poisons”—such as DDT.
Author
Forrest Maready has written in his book The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography
of Polio, “The irony that these very applications [of DDT] were very often
being used in a desperate attempt to stave off poliomyelitis in children is
unfortunately lost on most.”
Several
physicians desperately turned to homeopathy, using an approach that has come to
be known as homeoprophylaxis (the use of homeopathy prior to exposure to the
disease). Dr. Grimmer of Chicago prophylactically treated 5.000 young children
with a homeopathic remedy called Lathyrus sativus generally indicated for
“paralytic affections of lower extremities,” “spastic paralysis,” “infantile
paralysis” and situations involving “much weakness and heaviness” and “slow
recovery of nerve power.”
None
developed polio. That same year, during an epidemic of poliomyelitis in
Johannesburg, South Africa, Dr. A. Taylor-Smith protected eighty-two adults and
children
with
homoeopathic Lathyrus sativus administered as a prophylactic measure. Dr.
Taylor-Smith (an adherent to the viral theory) observed that while twelve
children “were exposed to infection by direct contact,” all remained poliofree.
In 1956, Dr. H.W. Eisfelder administered Lathyrus sativus to over 6.000
children and observed no side effects or cases of polio.
DIPHTHERIA AND SMALLPOX
In
the late 1930s, diphtheria was the second leading cause of death in children in
England and Wales. Many countries considered it a major child health threat.
A
laboratory experiment in 1932, published by a Dr. P. Chavanon, found that one
to two months after administering homeopathic Diphtherinum in the 4M and 8M
potencies, diphtheria antitoxins were measured in the blood.
Diphtherinum
an example of a homeopathic “nosode,” a type of harmless homeopathic remedy
safely made from inactivated microorganisms or products of the disease itself.
The
Chavanon study used the Schick test, a method involving the intradermal
injection of a tiny amount of diphtheria toxin into the forearm, developed in
1913 by Austrian pediatrician Bela Schick to measure diphtheria antibodies.
According to Dr. Chavanon’s report, a total of 45 children changed from
Schick-test-positive (no antibodies against diphtheria) to Schick-test-negative
(antibodies present).
In
1941, Drs. Patterson and Boyd repeated the same test with 33 children. All had
a Schick-negative result within nine weeks of receiving Diphtherinum, and some
as early
as
three weeks afterward.
Another
health professional named Dr. Roux repeated the Chavanon experiment in 1946 and
again confirmed that the Diphtherinum nosode provided immunity lasting for up
to five years.
Another
example of homeopathy’s successful use was recorded by Charles Woodhull Eaton,
MD of Iowa during his trials of homeoprophylaxis for smallpox. During the
trials, he treated almost 3.000 patients prophylactically with the smallpox
nosode Variolinum 30.
Eaton
recorded 547 “definite” exposures to smallpox in this group, but only 14
participants went on to develop the disease -amounting to an efficacy
(protection) rate of over 97% .
STILL FLOURISHING
Cuba
provides a powerful modern example of a setting where homeoprophylaxis has
flourished. The country’s Finlay Institute (dedicated to vaccine research and
development) has even utilized homeopathy within its department of natural
remedies. Because the government distributes medicines to the population,
homeoprophylaxis
has
been easy to implement as well as cost-efficient and highly effective.
Between
2004 and the present, trials carried out in Cuba for cholera, dengue fever,
swine flu, pneumonia, hepatitis A, leptospirosis and the current coronavirus
have produced stunning effects, showing disease prevention rates between 85%
and 97% .
If
we stop for a moment and consider the benefits of homeopathy, its track record
in epidemics, the ease of distribution (no needles or cold chain required),
plus the absolute safety of this natural method, it seems a rational and
obvious choice during epidemics.
Considering
our ever-expanding awareness of our relationship with bacteria and viruses and
the role they play in health and evolution, we would be well served to
interface with microbes in the gentle manner that homeopathy allows.
[Richard H. Pitcairn]
he
success that is observed with the homeopathic treatment of epidemics is a
challenge to our thinking. That we could have someone suddenly seriously ill,
perhaps collapsing, threatening to die, and have them recover to normal health
with a drop or two of camphor tincture just makes no sense. It seems ridiculous
to even suggest it was the camphor.
However,
if we have, ourselves, seen the equivalent of this happen, especially several
times, we have two choices. We can turn away from it, saying it makes no sense
and
can’t
be understood — or we can inquire.
We
can ask ourselves how this could happen, what do we need to understand, to
grasp it?
Let
us take the second choice.
Hahnemann’s
Explanation
We
start with the fundamental idea that disease is not a physical condition.
Organon
6
§11
“When a person falls ill, it is initially only this spirit-like,
autonomic life force (life principle), everywhere present in the organism, that
is mistuned through the dynamic influence of a morbific agent inimical to
life.”
§12:
“It is the disease-tuned life force alone that brings forth diseases. These
diseases are expressed by the disease manifestations perceptible to our senses
conjointly with all internal alterations.”
Preface: “… human diseases rest on no material, on no
acridity, that is to say, on no disease matter; rather they are solely
spirit-like (dynamic) mistunings of the spirit-like enlivening
power-force-energy (the life principle, the life force) of the human body.”
Footnote
31: “(Diseases) are not mechanical or
chemical alterations of the material substance of the organism; they are not
dependent on material disease matter.
They
are solely spirit-like, dynamic mistunements of life.”
This
seems clear, doesn’t it? Of course, you do not have to agree with it, but it is
a fundamental idea which could help us understand why homeopathy is different.
You
might ask “Are you saying I am not seeing disease when there are all these
physical symptoms?” Let us make this more clear.
What
we are in the habit of calling disease is the effect of the disease, the
visible expression of it, and not the disease itself. This view that Hahnemann gives us is that
there
is
first disorder at the non-physical, conscious, level. What he calls
“mistunement” of the life force. This is what we are to pay attention to.
The
detailed physical changes that conventional allopathic medicine now focuses on
with various instruments are of little significance. The pathology is not the
disease but
the
effect of it.
James
Kent
I
am drawing on Kent as he was one of those that fully understood Hahnemann’s
teaching. He put much of this in writing which is very useful to us by seeing
these ideas
in
different words. Here, from his writing,
is material relevant to what we are exploring here. (Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy, James Tyler Kent, MD, 1900 )
Each
and every thing that appears before the eyes is but the representative of its
cause, and there is no cause except in the interior. Causes exist in such
subtle form that they cannot be seen by the eye. There is no disease that
exists of which the cause is known to man by the eye or by the microscope. Causes
are infinitely too fine to be observed
by
any instrument of precision.
They
are so immaterial that they correspond to and operate upon the interior nature
of man, and they are ultimated in the body in the form of tissue changes that
are recognized by the eye. Such tissue changes must be understood as the
results of disease only or the physician will never perceive what disease cause
is, what disease is, what potentization is, or what the nature of life is. The
more that disease ultimates itself in the outward form the coarser it is and
the less it points the physician to the remedy.
What
follows from this is that disease does not originate on the physical level, but
is a happening only on the non-physical dimension. Not only that, it stays
there. From that level it manifests itself in observable changes in function,
new sensations, emotional and mental alterations.
The
physical location is significant, as also the functional changes such as
becoming hot, swollen, painful are a guide, but the resultant pathology (final
outcome) is not as much a guide. What we
recognize as the signs of disease are the outcome of disease, what Kent calls
“the ultimates” and not the disease itself.
Kent
describes observable changes in our patient as —
….
the second state following the first one disordered (e.g., the mistunement). This
deals with the outermost, it relates to externals. You have to consider both the internal and
external man; that is, you have to consider causes that operate in this
disordered innermost, and then the ultimates which constitute the outward
appearance, particularly when the affection is chronic. These two things must be considered, the nature
or esse (essence) of the disease and its appearance.
Germs
What
then do we make of micro-organisms? Are they not the cause of disease?
Hahnemann
clearly indicates that diseases (and also medicines) affect the condition of
the human organism only by acting dynamically upon the life force.
Organon
ed. 6, Glossary: Definition of Disease —
The
wesen (essence) of the disease dynamically interacts, impinges upon and alters
the tunement of the dynamis (i.e., the human wesen).
In
other words, the wesen (essence) of the disease acts on a dynamic level
instantaneously, in the wake of which there is a material manifestation of the
disease, which
is
associated with the reproduction and growth of micro-organisms.
As
we discussed above, all of these observable physical phenomena are the outer
expression, the effect of the disordered life force. Germs then are not the
disease, but
the
outcome of the disease, the sensory manifestation of it. A helpful way to think
of bacteria, viruses, etc., is that they are the fruit, not the tree.
How
then do we use the symptoms? Hahnemann tells us what we need is what can be
readily sensed by the practitioner.
Organon,
§6, footnote 6: The medical-art
practitioner can never see the spiritual wesen, the life force, that creates
the disease, and he never needs to see it. In order to cure,
he
only needs to see and experience its diseased effects. Therefore, in the eyes
of the medical-art practitioner, is not that which reveals itself to the senses
by disease signs
the
disease itself?
Comment:
One could consider Hahnemann’s statement that the interior state, where the
disease is and can never be seen, as a limitation of his time. He could not
know
what
has been accomplished by modern technology. Nonetheless, my interpretation of
this is in agreement with what Hahnemann says — that we will never be able to
see it.
It
is like what has been found in quantum physics, there is a quantum dimension
underlying all of physical reality. This dimension cannot be sensed and never
can be, as it is not a sensory part of the physical world dimension we live in.
In
The Medicine of Experience, Hahnemann says:
The
internal essential nature of every malady, of every individual case of disease,
as far as it is necessary for us to know it, for the purpose of curing it,
expresses itself by the symptoms, as they present themselves to the
investigations of the true observer in their whole extent, connexion and
succession.
When
the physician has discovered all the observable symptoms of the disease that
exist, he has discovered the disease itself, he has attained the complete
conception of it requisite to enable him to effect a cure.
——————————————————————————————–
We
see that disease is not primarily a physical condition but a disorder prior to
the physical expression that we can observe. “So what?” you might say. Well, if
we come to agree with this, then disease is not to be treated only physically
as you would be only modifying the effects and leaving the disturbance itself
unchanged.
This,
of course, would be the reason that with the primary use of allopathic
treatment diseases are increasing with passing years. What then? We are to
bring about cure when we treat the disease itself on the level of where it
exists — the non-physical dimension that has not physical components.
This
correlates with the other teaching from Hahnemann, one we are more familiar
with, that the medicines used are acting energetically rather than physically.
Thus,
the energetic essence of camphor, when experienced, results in a state that is
like that of the internal disease, which is then, itself, canceled out.
Footnote
289b “…rubbing a medicinal substance
and succussing its solution (dynamization, potentization) develops the
medicinal powers lying hidden in the medicinal substance and discloses these
powers more and more. The dynamization spiritizes the material substance, if
one may use that expression.”
Changing
our focus
If
what can be physically observed is not the origin of the disease, then what is
the dynamic of it as Hahnemann describes it? How did Hahnemann understand what
was happening at that level? The most extensive information is from his article
on treatment of cholera. What he says here will of course apply to other
epidemics.
(The
Mode of Propagation of the Asiatic Cholera, published as a pamphlet in Leipzic,
1831)
Hahnemann
starts with addressing the popular idea that cholera was spread through the
air, as what was called “atmospheric-telluric influence.” He gives evidence why
this does not fit the facts and then goes on to describe his understanding of
how cholera is transmitted. He presents in terms of an influence affecting the
town.
The
course followed by the cholera in every place it traversed was almost uniformly
this: that its fury shewed itself most virulently and most rapidly fatal at the
commencement of its invasion (evidently solely because at that time the miasm
encountered none but unprepared systems, for which even the slightest cholera
miasm was something quite novel, never before experienced, and consequently
extremely infectious); hence it then infected persons most frequently and most
fatally.
Thereafter
the cases increased, and with them at the same time, by the communication of
the inhabitants among each other, the quantity of diluted miasm, whereby a kind
of
local sphere of cholera miasm exhalation was formed in the town, to which the
more or less robust individuals had an opportunity of becoming gradually
accustomed and hardened against it, so that by degrees always fewer inhabitants
were attacked by it and could be severely affected by it (the cholera was then
said to take on a milder character), until at last all the inhabitants were
almost uniformly indurated against it, and thus the epidemic was extinguished
in this town.
Comment:
The disease was more virulent, more harmful, at the beginning and this was
because there was no experience with it, “the miasm encountered none but
unprepared systems.” This has been observed historically, that diseases, when
new, are more severe but with time become milder. A good example was the
introduction of syphilis to Europe as it was a condition that many died from. It
is not like that now.
The
other comment to make is his description of
“a kind of local sphere of cholera miasm exhalation was formed in the
town” that the people of the town were exposed to. That is, the experience of
exposure to the disease was not the transmission of the little guys we call
bacteria, but a diffuse cloud-like something that people were living in all
the
time.
What
he means by “cholera miasm exhalation” is not completely clear to me. I am
assuming the “exhalation” refers to what is given off by those that have become
sick with it. Perhaps a way to understand it is to think in terms of the normal
situation being one in which we all share life force, each contributing to a
community experience.
Or,
perhaps, it is more accurate to say there is a field of life force that we are
all using for our experience. I do often have people tell me they will come
into my town, or some other place, and have “a good feeling” or “a bad feeling”
about it. Might this be what they are referring to?
The
last comment is the description of people becoming “indurated against it.” The
word “indurated” means “hardened” so we can translate this as people becoming
less susceptible to it in terms of the configuration of their life force not
being easily disturbed by it.
The
Doctor’s Experience
As
the article on cholera continues, we learn even more detail on both
transmission and development of resistance. Here he describes how the doctor
encounters it.
When
first called to a cholera patient, the physician, somewhat timid as yet, as is
but reasonable, either tarries at first in the antechamber (in the weaker
atmosphere of the miasmatic exhalation) or if he enter the patient’s room
prefers keeping at some distance, or standing at the door, orders the nurse in
attendance to do this or the other to the patient, he then prudently takes his
departure promising to return again shortly; in the meantime he either goes
about a little in the open air, or goes home and has some refreshment.
His
vital force, which at the first short visit at some distance from the patient,
was only moderately assailed by the diluted miasm, recovers itself completely
in the meantime
by
this recreation, and when he again comes into the patient’s room and approaches
somewhat nearer to the patient, it soon by practice comes to resist more
powerfully the more concentrated infectious atmosphere that exists closer to
the patient, until at length, from frequent visits and a nearer approach to the
patient, it attains a mastery over the assaults of the miasm, so that at last
the physician is completely hardened against even the most poisonous cholera
miasm at the bedside, and rendered quite uninfectable by this pestilence; and
the same is the case with the nurse who goes as cautiously and gradually to
work.
Comment:
This is very interesting as it brings out the factor of distancing from the
patient. I don’t know if this was standard practice at the time, though
Hahnemann writes as if it is. He says if the doctor that arrives to see the
patient does not go in to be physically near the patient, to touch or examine
him or her, but rather stays at the door of the bedroom, the exposure to the
influence of the cholera disease is significantly less. This ties in with what
was said about the “exhalation” over the town, that there is something like a
cloud around the patient.
Again,
there is not more explanation about this and I assume what Hahnemann is
referring to is the contact with the life force of the patient. We might think
that the life force will be strongest at the body, less so away from the body
with distance. This is similar to what some people refer to as the “etheric
body” or the astral body” which is not confined to the physical form but is
more like an atmosphere around it.
Hahnemann
says that this distance encounter with the patient had the effect on the life
force of the doctor. It “was only moderately assailed by the diluted miasm.”
Presumably, if the doctor had walked right in and touched the patient, the
impact would have been very much greater, would have encountered “the more
concentrated infectious atmosphere that exists closer to the patient.”
As
a result of this less intense encounter, the doctor leaves, takes a break, and
his life force recovers from that influence. Of course, this is assuming there
is not a state of
prior
susceptibility, as if there was, recovery would likely not happen, but rather
the doctor would become ill.
Then
the doctor, on repeat visits, comes closer each time until his life force
“attains a mastery over the assaults of the miasm, so that at last the
physician is completely hardened against even the most poisonous cholera at
miasm the bedside, and rendered quite uninfectable by this pestilence.”
This
gives us a dynamic picture of the process. It is a living process. The life
force, an aware and perceptive entity, can upon exposure to the disease,
compensate and adjust itself in a way to resist it. This could be what
Hahnemann calls “mistuning” but a temporary condition that can be resolved on
its own.
The
outcome, then, is that the life force is not altered away from health, but
assumes a condition in which the later exposures are basically ignored. It
gives us a feeling of
how
this is a living process, one of adaptation.
Timing
The
way Hahnemann describes this process is not one in which the doctor is exposed
to the germ, so that the cholera organism then develops in him, and he develops
resistance or antibodies in the usual way we think of it. He is talking about
the doctor taking a break, like going home for a cup of tea or a nap and then
coming back again.
Certainly,
if this by the next day, it is way too soon for any cholera disease as we
usually think of it could be happening.
Contagion
Hahnemann
writes more about this process of non-physical communication of influences in
footnote 11 of Organon 6.
Footnote
11: What is dynamic influence, dynamic power? We perceive that, by some secret
invisible force, our earth conducts its moon around itself in twenty-eight days
and a few hours, and the moon, in turn, raises our northern seas to flood tide
at set hours and, in an equal number of hours, lets it sink again to ebb tide
(allowing for some variation at the full and new moons). We see this and are
amazed because our senses do not perceive how this happens. Obviously this does
not happen through material instruments, nor through mechanical arrangements
like human works.
In
the same way, the dynamic action of morbific influences on the healthy person,
as well as the dynamic power of medicines on the life principle in order to
make the person healthy again, are nothing other than contagion. They are as
utterly non-material, as utterly non-mechanical, as the power of a bar magnet
is when it forcibly attracts to itself
a
piece of iron or steel lying next to it.
A
magnet’s action upon a nearby piece of iron or a steel needle is neither
material nor mechanical. One sees that the piece of iron is attracted by one
end (pole) of the magnet but one does not see how this takes place. This
invisible power of the magnet needs no mechanical (material) helping-means, no
hook or lever to attract the iron. It attracts it
to
itself and acts upon the piece of iron or on the steel needle by means of its
own (pure) immaterial, invisible, spirit-like energy, that is, it does so
dynamically.
Moreover,
the magnet invisibly (dynamically) transmits magnetic energy to the steel
needle which, in turn, becomes magnetic, even at a distance, without the magnet
touching it. The steel needle can then transmit the same magnetic property to
other steel needles (dynamically).
Comment:
It is interesting that Hahnemann draws on gravity (the earth-moon relationship)
and magnetism to explain this. Over two hundred years ago he recognized, what
has been understood in today’s physics, that these dynamic influences — gravity
and magnetism — are not physical phenomena.
We
see how he refers to these powers as “immaterial, invisible, spirit-like
energy.” Is he not very much telling us that the origin of this experience is
not the time-space continuum?
He
then relates this specifically to transmission of viral diseases:
In
a similar way, a child with smallpox or measles transmits the disease to a
nearby healthy child, even without touching him. This contamination takes place
invisibly (dynamically) at a distance, without something material having come
(or having been able to come) into the affected child from the contagious one,
just as there is no material transmission between the magnet and the steel
needle. A solely specific, spirit-like impingement communicates smallpox or
measles from one child to another nearby, just as a magnet communicates the
magnetic property to a steel needle nearby.
Doctor
Transmission
Not
surprisingly, another aspect of this is how the disease can be carried from one
person to another.
For
such physicians and nurses, fortified in this manner against the miasm, now
take away with them in their clothes, in their skin, in their hair, probably
also in their breath,
the
invisible (probably animated) and perpetually reproductive contagious matter
surrounding the cholera patient they have just visited, and this contagious
matter they unconsciously and unsuspectingly carry along with them throughout
the town and to their acquaintances, whom it unexpectedly and infallibly
infects, without the slightest suspicion on their part of its source.
Thus
the cholera physicians and nurses are the most certain and frequent propagators
and communicators of contagion far and wide (Hahnemann’s emphasis); and yet
amazement is expressed, even in the public journals, how the infection can
spread so rapidly the very first day, to persons at the other end of the town,
who had not come near the patient!
Comment:
Is this not amazing? It is very different picture of this transmission than is
accepted today. These infectious diseases are communicated non-physically by
coming into contact with an aura around the affected person. Will it help to
wear a mask? Does not sound like it. But the ideas of distancing does come
forth. The difference in the distancing advice of today with what Hahnemann
tells us is the current idea today of distancing indefinitely whereas Hahnemann
tells us that this can be quite temporary,
even
just a matter of hours.
Another
quite different view of transmission is that of the doctor or nurses, or other
attendants, developing resistance and not being affected, yet they can still
carry the non-physical miasm with them “in their clothes, in their skin, in
their hair, probably also in their breath”
Probably
Animated
Another
choice of words by Hahnemann is referencing the cholera as “invisible (probably
animated) and perpetually reproductive contagious matter.” What does he mean
by
this? Certainly he would have known of the existence of micro-organisms as they
were discovered during the period 1665-83 by two Fellows of The Royal Society,
Robert
Hooke and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. Later, Leeuwenhoek also observed and
described microscopic protozoa and bacteria (communicated 1676). Hahnemann
(1755–1843)
likely factored this information in.
Was
he extrapolating these earlier discoveries to the cholera disease? The
identification of specifically the cholera organism is usually attributed to
Robert Koch (1883) though it was later found that the original person that
identified the micro-organism was Filippo Pacini (1812-83) in 1854 — both of
these discoveries after the time of Hahnemann. Pacini’s discoveries were
ignored during his life and not until 82 years after his death, the
international committee on nomenclature in 1965 adopted Vibrio cholerae Pacini
1854 as the correct name of the cholera-causing organism.
So
what was Hahnemann’s view? Another mention of this is of cholera occurring on
sailing ships.
The
most striking examples of infection and rapid spread of cholera take place, as
is well known, and as the public journals likewise inform us, in this way: On
board ships—in those confined spaces, filled with mouldy watery vapours, the
cholera miasm finds a favourable element for its multiplication, and grows into
an enormously increased brood of those excessively minute, invisible, living
creatures, so inimical to human life, of which the contagious matter of the
cholera most probably consists…”
He
then describes the development of the illness on ships in which many die yet
some develop resistance as we described above happens with doctors and nurses.
These
sailors, apparently in good health, when they go into communities later
communicate the disease unexpectedly.
The
cause of this is undoubtedly the invisible cloud that hovers closely around the
sailors who have remained free from the disease, and which is composed of
probably millions of those miasmatic animated beings, which, at first developed
on the broad marshy banks of the tepid Ganges, always searching out in preference
the human being
to
his destruction and attaching themselves closely to him, when transferred to
distant and even colder regions become habituated to these also, without any
diminution either of their unhappy fertility or of their fatal destructiveness.
Miasmatic
Animated Beings?
Hahnemann
is describing the existence of very small “beings” that are expressions of the
cholera miasm as he calls it. What does he mean by saying it is a miasm?
Organon
6 Glossary
Miasm
is “an acute or chronic disease which is infectious and which is invariable as
to its wesen. In other words, the disease’s essential esse (the dynamic,
self-subsisting presence which is the disease) is invariable. Miasms are
collective diseases in that everyone who manifests the disease (in whatever
form) has the same disease. This is also true of the uniquely-occurring
epidemic diseases (e.g., the various epidemic outbreaks of different kinds of
influenza); everyone in a given epidemic outbreak suffers from the one and the
same disease, even if their symptoms differ. The difference between the
uniquely-occurring epidemic diseases and the miasms is that the wesen of each
separate uniquelyoccurring epidemic disease is different from every other one
that occurred previous to it; no two such epidemics are exactly alike. The
wesen of a miasm, on the other hand, always remains the same. This is true both
of the acute miasms (e.g., the measles) whose disease manifestations are
limited and fairly invariable, and the chronic miasms (e.g., psora) whose
disease manifestations are numerous and vary greatly; all miasms, no matter how
variable or how fixed their disease manifestations, always remain the same as
to their wesen.
Comment: If we understand the word “miasm” to refer to
the essential beingness, the non-physical source of these organisms, it is
equivalent to the concept of the wesen (essence) of the human or animal that is
being affected. As we understand Hahnemann’s teaching the wesen of the human
being is what animates the physical body which is composed of approximately 30
trillion cells.
In
the human (or animal or plant) the cells are organized into a larger functional
structure. When he refers to the cholera miasm (wesen), again there are the
many cells “millions of these miasmatic animated beings” but they are not
organized into a larger structure but move about more independently even though
the same wesen animates them all.
What
does he mean by “invisible (probably animated) and perpetually reproductive
contagious matter.” It is bringing back
the concept of the life force animating the physical instrument.
The
suffering of the morbidly mistuned, spirit-like dynamis (life force) enlivening
our body in the invisible interior, and the complex of the outwardly
perceptible symptoms portraying the present malady, which are organized by the
dynamis in the organism, form a whole. They are one and the same. The organism
is indeed a material instrument
for
life, but it is not conceivable without the life imparted to it by the
instinctual, feeling and regulating dynamis, just as the life force is not
conceivable without the organism. Consequently, the two of them constitute a
unity, although in thought, we split this unity into two concepts in order to
conceptualize it more easily.
If
we accept that the life force of the disease organism, as we would call it, is
a unity with its physical expression, then we see how Hahnemann could describe
it this way.
It
is the life force that is the active “dynamic” and the life force being a unity
with the physical expression, we can refer to that expression as “reproductive
contagious matter.” The important thing is to keep in mind the principle that
the disease process is not happening on the physical level.
The
totality of these symptoms is the outwardly reflected image of the inner wesen
of the disease, that is, of the suffering of the life force. It is the contact
with the life force of the organism which results in transmission.
Variants
It
is interesting that he says “all miasms, no matter how variable or how fixed
their disease manifestations, always remain the same as to their wesen.” This
would mean that
if
influenza disease is a miasm, then all the flu epidemics that have occurred are
the same disease, only varying in form of expression.
During
the time that an epidemic is occurring, he is telling us that its identity, its
essence, remains the same. If so, then the current reporting of many “variants”
of the flu virus is quite a different view. At this point we cannot conclude
which view is more accurate but it does imply that if Hahnemann is correct then
the genus epidemicus should “work” regardless of it being called “a
variant.” As well, the changing drugs
and developing a new vaccine with each variant is not a solution. There is much
yet for us to learn.
Conclusion
The
teachings of Hahnemann give us an understanding of epidemics quite different
than what is assumed by most medical practitioners today. Some of these
differences would be:
The
epidemic diseases are not physical, but start, and remain, on the level of the
life force
What
we observe as disease symptoms are the outer manifestation (reflection) of the
mistuned life force
Treatment
of the outer manifestation (ultimate) does not restore health
Face
masks are useless as the transmission is non-physical
Distancing
is an effective measure but needs to be done for a relatively short time, not
indefinitely
The
primary means of transmission of the disease are the medical people (or others)
that are caring for the sick and the carrying away the miasm in their hair,
clothes, etc.
A
variety of individual treatments not needed, rather to see the whole pattern of
the miasm as it is in a number of people, and respond to that with the
appropriate remedy
Unless
there is pre-exiting susceptibility the life force has the ability to adapt and
become resistant to any epidemic
The
nature (essence) of the epidemic does not change throughout its occurrence,
even if symptoms vary
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum