By C.M. Boger, M.D.

     Homoeopathy in its literature contains so many articles which, by inference at least, hold the law of similia to be insufficient that one begins to wonder in what direction its usefulness lies, or whether it is not a great delusion after all. Now it is this disease, then it is that, in which numerous and often potent adjuvants are considered a necessity or the remedy may even be relegated to secondary place while some other powerful measure is directed against the main affection, and so on indefinitely until the logical conclusion that our method has only an incidental or entirely negative value often forces itself upon the inquiring mind.

      When the daily practice of a large percentage of so-called homoeopaths is closely scrutinized such a conclusion seems entirely reasonable and may not be lightly turned aside.

     In proportion that extra homoeopathic measures are resorted to is distrust of our system engendered. Those who are either incapable of following the true healing art or knowingly depart from the law while professing to obey it are cutting the ground from under more rapidly than open foes possibly can, nor have the allopathic societies made a mistake in inviting them to fellowship. The Anglo-Saxon sense of fair play gives justice when and where deserved, but also quickly detects those deceptions which can end in retrogression only.

      It has long been evident that in many of our schools true principles are either unknown or sacrificed to the greed of numbers and power. Here as elsewhere it seems that reforms must of necessity spring from the masses, for thee leaders are dead at the top; they write books which reflect but a faint shadow of the law or cover page after page with a ludicrous apologetic. Minds of this type naturally fall a prey to that fatuous pursuit of specifics which is leaving such a vast host of human wrecks in its wake.

     The lengths to which those who follow such machine methods are willing to go pass all comprehension. They see only the effects of to day, to-morrow is nothing to them; every disease must be regulated at whatever cost to the welfare of the poor patient, for the life of the latter does and will hold too many exigencies which will enable them to either salve over a half awake conscience or escape the consequences of such rash procedures through the recuperative powers of nature, outraged though she be.

     The most striking thing about all this is that patients should desire to be cured by a professed homoeopath after having been specifically medicated; then to fall into the hands of one who will go through the same performance under the guise of Homoeopathy is surely humiliating.

     The ordinary homoeopath is no match for the expert palliator who resorts to all kinds of expedients and suppressive measures; the latter daily grows more skillful in the use of the things which quickly ease suffering, but at the same time render a cure correspondingly more difficult, if not altogether impossible, for no affection is more intractable than one which has been distorted by all kinds of drugging.

     I cannot forbear saying a few words here about the blighting influence of modern pathology upon medicinal therapy in general; a result of the fact that disease has hitherto been chiefly studied in its grosser or microscopic astects, hence seen only as a ripened and fully grown product.

     The causes underlying susceptibility and the incubationary periods of disease are but little understood, and where seemingly so, aside from prophylaxis, thee investigations have added no dependable remedies to our store. I apprehend the cause of all this lies in the fact that an amnesis of every disease harks back in a large measure to one of the three great fundamental miasms whose accumulated store of perverted vital force only awaits the touch of certain epidemic or other influences for its liberation, the resultant being a concrete disease form compounded of several elements whose relative intensity of manifestation or explosion seems to be a direct product of the distinctive power of the deflected vital force.

    The law of similia shows how medicines turn those forces into their proper health producing channels and it will always remain the greatest of aids in bringing about a cure; nevertheless other ways of inciting a reaction along the right channels are open to us. In the more material sense they concern the establishment of equilibrium through the removal of physical causes and impediments. Mentally a like process obtains and is needful; the first step involves the setting aside of all those volitional mental encumbrances which so seriously weigh upon the general health as well as retard the action of the needful remedy. Such self imposed mental states are often due to an undeveloped soul life over-impressed, as it were, by its environment and offer a most fertile field for the employment of suggestive therapeutics and all those measures which energize by renewing hope. It must, however, always be borne in mind that such treatment, while very necessary as an initial step, is powerless to remove those deep-seated dyscrasias whose advent is often so insidious as to escape the casual observer’s eye and yet whose fruit-age is death; here there is only one true curative resource which lies in the most rigid adherence to thee law and most painstaking elucidation of the symptoms upon which the similimum is to be selected.

       The species of Homoeopathy which has emanated from our seats of learning has clearly shown itself incapable of dealing with the larger problems of today; its death rate varies a shade from the allopathic and does not begin to compare with that of the pioneers of our science. The lameness of its practice has largely been responsible for the growth of the many faith cures. It has too often only succeeded in arousing a distrust of traditional methods without being able to replace them by anything appreciably better; hence many have inferred the utter uselessness of medicines.

     A discussion of the ills from which we suffer without pointing out the remedy would be the most profitless of occupations. That we shall be able to convert any great number from the self-sufficient young men with which the dominant school is filled is most unlikely; their days of self-examination have not yet arrived, and until they do there is not much hope. After the years of discretion have taught them the fall aciousness of the largest part of their school instruction they are often overtaken by deadening therapeutic nihilism which is doubtless of immeasurable benefit to their patients, but most destructive to true progress of the art of medicine.

     This association was born at a time when pathological deductions seemed about to engulf Homoeopathy, but through perseverance and a steadfast adherence to the vital truths left to us by Hahnemann it is today a growing factor in the body politic of medicine. It has lived to see science crumble to dust the gratuitous pathological underpinning of Homoeopathy beneath the very feet of its advocates, a process that has made virtual eclectics of a large percentage of so-called homoeopaths.

     Such is the bitter fruit of a materialism at once gross, retrogressive and destructive. Its teachings have robbed us of much that is legitimately our just share of the fruit of modern research, it has unfitted Homoeopathy to grasp the unparalleled opportunities that have of large suddenly loomed up before her, and above all it is decadent.

     Although subversive teaching have robbed us of a large part of our birthright and sadly reduced the numbers of those who would follow a natural healing method, it is not for us to falter now when the truth is again on the e ascendant, and although we may not be numerous enough to do everything that should be done we will nevertheless be able to accomplish much towards putting Homoeopathy into her rightful position before the public. To do this it will be necessary to educate, not only our young men who are studying medicine, in the true Hahnemannian method, but also to enlighten the public on every possible occasion; it should be our especial care to point out the vast difference between true Homoeopathy and every other system and enforce our argument with visible demonstrations of its power. Above all we should not make the mistake of thinking that the public cannot grasp all the points which we wish to impress upon it, for the day is dawning when the power of the human understanding is to advance by leaps and bounds and the things which before have seemed hard and recondite will become easy. The awakened universal consciousness of a higher life receiving aid from sources until now lying almost unused, will lead to an intelligence. A mental development and a search after truth which will end in the golden age of life. How much each one of us will contribute towards this result lies with us individually; it depends upon how willing each is to lay hands upon means and put himself in communication with forces which will accomplish so much good in the world.

      It is always a safe rule to do well what is put before us in order to prepare ourselves for the next advancement. Our present work is to educate in the truth as we understand it.