LECTURE'S ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY

KENT. J.T

 A COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER-1: The Sick

Aph-1: The physician's high and only mission is to restore the sick to health to cure, as it is termed.

Summary of Allopathic (Old school) Teaching Regarding Disease & Its Treatment

Homeopathy believes that there are principles which govern the practice of medicine. In the old school there are no such principles exist, their medical practice is not governed by any fixed principles, their practice depends entirely on experience upon observing results after giving medicines to the sick. So always there will be shifting methods, theories, and rapid discoveries and rejecting of the same. (eg.—discovery of newer generation of antibiotics which lead to abandonment of older ones).

This differentiates homeopathy with allopathy as homeopathy is based on fixed principles which hold good at any given point of time, where allopathy which is based on materialistic concept denies any such principles, is subjected to constant changes in its treatment methods. Allopath deals only with the ultimate or the results of the diseases and never understood the real nature and origin of sickness. They perceive disease in terms tissue changes and nothing else. They accept what can be felt with the fingers & seen with the eyes or otherwise observed through the sense, aided by improved instruments. (Materialistic concept, so think that disease is known only by any palpable or visible tissue changes or recognized by special diagnostic instrumental aids).

Perception of Disease in Homoeopathy

As per Homeopathy there exists something prior to disease, prior to these tissue changes. Science or any scientific investigation proves that everything which exists does so because of something prior to it. Every effect has a cause and vice versa, this understanding helps us to trace the series of events from beginning to the end and from the end to the beginning.

Meaning of Word ‘Sick’ used by Hahnemann in aph-1.

The old school understanding of word ‘sick’ is derived from opinions of their physicians not based on facts. Old school defines sickness in terms of tissue changes, it is based on information obtained either from physical senses (what can be touched, or seen) or advanced laboratory investigation using modern instruments etc, which reflects their materialistic concept about Life, Health & Disease.

Thus old school seeks evidence of diseases as pathological & physical changes, which they think as actual disease (disease per se); it tries to divide the suffering of a man under different specializations, not looking at the individual who is sick, but is concerned only about the sickness in that individual.

Whereas Homeopathy asserts that without the vital force, without simple substance their can be no internal or external changes, there can be no cause and no relations between cause & effect. It differs from old school teachings as it has fixed principles based on scientific observation of facts and its rational application in understanding Life, Health, & Disease (Holistic concept) it is not based on mere opinions of individuals which always keeps changing. As per Homeopathy ‘disease per se’ are not mere tissue changes or symptoms, but the affection of vital force.

It is scientifically known that

• §  Organs are not the man and man is prior to organs & prior to sickness. From first to last it is the order of sickness as well as the order of cure. From man to his organs & not from organs to the man.

§  The real sick man is prior to the sick body.
§  Man is the combination of Will & Understanding, together they make life & activity, and they manufacture the body and cause all things of the body.
§  Man is Healthy as along as his will and understanding are operating in order.

Allopath views the tissue changes and physical symptoms as disease and tries to treat them, but in fact they are nothing but the results of the disease, nothing can exist without a cause, cause and effect relationship is well established phenomenon observed in nature.

The sole duty of a Physician should be to heal the sick, not to heal the results of the sickness, restoration of health results in restoration of normal operation of tissues and organs. Thus understanding of real meaning of word ‘sick’ is a must for physicians aspiring to cure the sick individual and thus bringing his health to normalcy.

There are no disease but sick people as per by Hahnemann, which implies that disease nosology doesn’t represent the actual disease but the results of the disease. Pathological changes in tissues are the results of the disorder which first affects the government (center/vital force) and proceeds from within outwards, to periphery ultimately manifesting as tissue changes.

Microbes as cause of disease—A Fallacy of Allopathic school

 The bacteria (microbial organisms) are not the cause of the disease; they act as scavenger accompanying the disease and are harmless. Their harmless nature is evident by the presence of millions of such microbes in the absence of any disease (presence of harmless microbes in intestines and other tissues of body). The increased presence of them during disease is nothing but the outcome of disease.

Hahnemann says in the footnote to aph-1, that the physician’s mission is not to form theories &speculation about the origin of disease, except in few acute diseases, in all other diseases no diagnosis can be made and no diagnosis is needed, except knowing that the individual features of one’s sickness. If one prescribes for the results of the disease it can cause alteration in the results of the disease (modification of disease symptoms), which makes disease progress further & the patient remains uncured.

A sick man is made sick under every circumstance, where as the healthy man could live in a lazaretto (house of leprosy patients), thus physician’s main business is not to search for the cause rather he should concentrate in obtaining the symptoms of the patient (actual image of the patient/totality of symptoms)& corresponding  remedy indicated.

To understand the real nature of sickness one has to study the proving of drugs upon healthy human beings, and Hahnemann made use of this information by observing the symptoms of the mind in all provers and concluded that mind is the key to man & his sufferings. Man consists of what he thinks and what he loves and that is everything of man.  When the two parts of man (will & understanding) are not in co-ordination it results in disorder or disease of any kind.

This is can be observed during drug proving that every proved drug in Materia medica affects man’s mind and from there it proceeds to physic and to outermost part of his body (Hair, skin, nails). This makes the real study of diseases and medicines should be studied in this way i.e., by observing the changes appearing in a prover after administering a drug.

The idea of sickness in man must be formed from the idea of sickness perceived in our Materia medica, so that in order to heal the sick we look into the materia  medica for suitable remedy. The totality of the symptoms is the only way to know the internal nature of sickness, and proper administration of the similar remedy will constitute the art of healing.

Probable questions from this Chapter

1.      Define sick, what is the understanding of sick or  Who is sick according to Kent?
2.      What is Mission of a physician/Homeopathic physician?
3.      What is ‘disease per se’
4.      Theoretic medicine?
5.      Sick
6.      The real sick man is prior to sick body? explain
7.      There are no diseases but sick people? Explain
8.      A sick man is made sick under every circumstance, where as the healthy man could live in a lazaretto? Explain
9.       Write a brief note on Concept of disease in Old school (Allopathy) & Homeopathy. Explain.

N.B:

Refer the previous question papers for other questions, if one understands the main points (concepts, theme) given in this chapter, answering any question from this chapter will be easy