– BENERJEE.P,
It has almost been explained above, that cure that comes as a result of administration of Homœopathic medicine, strictly according to the laws of cure, is bound to be smooth and gentle, and altogether devoid of any violence. Violence means opposition, and the Homœopathic drug has never a relation of opposition to the disease (i.e. the diseased life force), but a relation of similarity (Similia Similibus Curantur)-a relation of Homœopathicity. And similarity means that the medicine acts with the current of the life force and not against it. The subtle potentised drug, which has been rendered as subtle as the life force itself (by potentisation) and which has a relation of similarity with it, that is to say, which has a tendency to flow with the process of the life force, instead of against it, restores order at once in the life force-in the mind. And as the physical disease is only a reflection of the condition of the mind, the disappearance of the physical symptoms, follows at once.
Not only has the process of cure to be quick, gentle and permanent and not only has the process of cure to be manifested first of all in the mind, as explained above, but also the cure has to be effected by the application of medicines on principles, definite, natural and easily comprehensible. Unless the principles are definite and unchangeable no cure is possible, and unless the principles are natural no cure is possible; and last of all, unless the principles are easily comprehensible no cure is possible. If the principles or laws according to which you apply the medicine are not easily comprehensible, or in other words, if they are unintelligible, there can be no practical application of medicine with any prospect of success. Applying medicines without understanding the method of their application is really depending more or less on chance, and it is therefore, equivalent to throwing stones in the dark. Just as you do not know what will happen and whom it will hit, if you throw a stone in the dark, similarly you can not make sure what will happen if you administer a medicine without knowing the mode of its administration. Therefore, the laws according to which you will administer the medicine must be intelligible to you. The simple-ness of the laws of application of drugs must be a primary condition for effecting a cure. Then again the laws must be definite and natural. The laws have to be natural, because unless they are natural, the effect of medicine used on such laws, is uncertain, and is therefore indefinite. For example, let us consider the law that, magnet attracts iron. This is a natural law and is definite. There is no exception to this law. Similarly, in order to effect a cure, the medicine must be applied on such definite laws of Nature. If a big Homoœpath has stated that, Nux Vomica cures diarrhœa, we must not necessarily effect a cure by using Nux Vomica in any case of diarrhœa, because, the use of Nux Vomica on such basis is not on the basis of a definite law of Nature. In order to use Nux Vomica in diarrhœa for effecting a cure, we must find out the law according to which Nux Vomica cures diarrhœa. That law is the law of similarity, and if we use Nux Vomica in a case of diarrhœa, on that law, we must effect a cure. Mark here-“we must effect a cure”. Why?-Because, the law on which the medicine has been used is a law of Nature and is definite and is therefore bound to be unfailing. I might mention here some more of the definite laws of Nature, according to which true cure is effected:-(1) The law of similarity, (2) the law of potentised dose, (3) the law of only one medicine at a time, (4) the law of using medicine at the end of an attack, instead of during its course, and so forth. These are definite laws of Nature and they have been established beyond all question, by repeated observations, and if cure is effected under these laws, then and then only it is a cure, otherwise it is only a disappearance of the disease symptoms. And a mere disappearance of disease symptoms is not necessarily cure, as we have already understood.
Now, it comes to this, that some definite and fixed conditions must be there, in order that there may be true cure. And these conditions have been embodied in the very comprehensive statement that, “Cure is a rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health”. If only the symptoms of the disease disappear under the use of some medicine, it is not necessarily cure. Cure relates to the “patient” and not to the “disease”. It is not a “disease” that is cured but it is the “patient”. that is cured. The individual symptoms of a disease have no significance without reference to the individuality, and it is therefore the “individuality”-the “personality” that has to feel the cure first of all. But where does the personality lie?-It lies in the “mind” of the patient, as the patient is exactly as per his mind. It is his mind that has made him so i.e. , a patient of a particular type (suffering from a particular disease), and not otherwise. He would have been a patient of another particular type (i.e. , suffering from some other disease having some other symptoms,) if his mind was otherwise than it is. Thus, true cure has necessarily to begin in the mind, or a mere disappearance of the disease symptoms is bound to result. And if the patient feels better in the mind after the use of the medicine, it is to be expected that cure is perhaps coming. And if it is so, the effect of the medicine is bound to be rapid, gentle and permanent. Because the process of its action is a natural process-a process in harmony with the process of the life force and not in opposition to it. There is no brute force in it. It has only started the mind, the life force, in its natural flow and this flow will gradually be manifested in the physical body. There has been a normal flow of the life force, and there will be a normal body, and that means there will remain no disease now; both mind and body will be in health. Besides, the administration of your medicine having been on fixed and definite laws of Nature, the cure will be certain. It will be quite possible for you to anticipate a cure when you have used your medicine exactly according to these definite laws, and there will be no room for “chance” or “accident”. These laws of Nature are inevitable and unfailing, and there is absolutely no exception to them, just as the law of gravitation and the other laws of Nature have none. I shall soon take up a discussion of the indications of true cure. These indications will enable you to anticipate with exactitude the approach of cure. But before I actually take it up, it is necessary to impress upon your mind one very important thing, that has already been repeated several times, by now. It is this that, the process of cure-true cure is always from the mind to the body, from the centre to the circumference, though according to the other pathies disease is endeavoured to the cured (removed) quite in the opposite manner-from the circumference to the centre. Look here, it is the disease that they want to drive away and not the patient that they want to cure. They attack the disease as they find it, i.e. , the symptoms on the surface, with all their medicines and ointments, and they hope that if these symptoms are once removed, the disease also will automatically disappear. But unfortunately, that never happens, because that is not the law of Nature. The law of Nature is, that disease begins in the mind, in the centre, and it is only gradually that it comes to appear on the body. This being the inevitable natural course of disease, the natural course of cure also is bound to be the same. It must begin in the centre and then gradually manifest itself in the circumference. The Allopaths as also all others except Homoœpaths attempt to annihilate the external expression of the disease in the shape of the symptoms, while the internal of the patient (his mind, his centre) remains unaltered, as the change in the physical body effected by their medicines cannot change the mind. It therefore remains as it is, and as soon as the existing symptoms have been annihilated by their strong medicines, a different set of symptoms appears elsewhere, as the mind (the centre) having remained unaltered, it must manifest itself in the body, and if it has been opposed at certain parts of the body by the medicines that have been used, it must manifest itself vow in other parts, where there is the least resistance. This is the eternal process, and this explains why they have, dysentery after measles and asthma after fever.
The above also suggests that the process of cure is a process of the life force and not a process of medicinal action. The medicine in the potentised form only gives a start to the normal process of the life force that has unfortunately become abnormal, and not that it is the medicine that acts on. Though it may be the fact with crude un-potentised drugs in material doses, it can never be the case with potentised drugs which are practically immaterial. However, if the process of cure is a process of the life force, it is bound to be quick, gentle and permanent. Let us imagine for a moment the process of a healthy life force. How quickly, smoothly and gently it flows, so much so, that we are not even conscious of this process. Curative process is a life process and it is therefore gentle. There is no element of force or opposition in it. It is not a process in which a medicine enters the system and opposes itself to the process of the diseased life force. If that were the case, then the process would have been not only painful but also short-lived. And in such a case the process of cure would have ended simultaneously with the ending of the action of the medicine. This happens invariably in unhomœopathic cures, and as such, they are not cures at all. Take for example, the case of fever checked with quinine. As soon as the action of the quinine taken is exhausted, there is a relapse. Here the process is not a process of cure because, it is not a process of the life force itself but of the medicine against the diseased condition of the life force. In cure, much therefore depends on the character of the process. If it is a gentle and quick process of the life force and is permanent, and if the medicine used is not opposing itself to the life force, but is on the contrary, in harmony with it, then only, it is a process of cure. Forcible disappearance of the symptoms for a short time, with violent effects on the organism is no cure. Homœopathic cure is always gentle, quick and permanent, and it is always a process in which the medicine is not opposed to the life flow but is in harmony with it. This is why it is so gentle. In cases however, where the process of cure under Homœopathic medicine, is at all violent, it is invariably due to some previous suppression, as suppression drives the disease inward and makes it more difficult of eradication, and as such, in it, the life process has to exert itself to the utmost for obtaining relief.
It may, however, be argued that at times, the action of Homœopathic medicines too is very violent, far from being gentle. Quite so, and yet it is cure. Let me cite a case. A seven-year old boy of a reputed lawyer was suffering from typhoid fever. He was treated allopathically for 22 or 23 days, and after that I was called in. I found the boy in the following condition:-Motionless; there was no sensation in the eye-balls on touching them with the finger; feet moving automatically at intervals. No stool for 12 or 13 hours; abdomen bloated. There was high fever before this, but on that day the temperature was 97°. I told the father that, there was no hope, but yet every endeavour was to be made for saving the child. I prescribed Zincum 200 in hourly doses until there was any change, and then left, telling the father that I was to be called in if there was any change, which however could not be expected quickly enough. I also, told the father that if there was any improvement to come, it was to come from this medicine, and there was absolutely nothing else which could do the child any good. It was therefore necessary to have patience; and patience is ever had in Homœopathy, in such cases, because the scientific methods of treatment can hardly help here. However, I was informed at about 9 or 10 next morning that the patient was passing black stools and was crying sharply at intervals. I hastened to see him and waited there for about an hour. The sharp cries gradually developed into a terrible convulsion-so terrible that one could gauge its severity only by actually seeing it. I felt the eye-balls with my finger, and could understand that some power of sensation had returned to them. This indicated that the patient was better. I then left the spot, as by seeing the extreme agonies of the patient, I might have been led to give any other medicine. But that would have been wrong. I told the father this much and also added that there was some improvement, and that there was perhaps some hope then. However, it is no use going into the later details of the case, which fortunately resulted in cure. We have only to consider how it is that the action of the medicine was so violent instead of being gentle. A moment’s reflection will show that, what looks as the action of the medicine was not the action, but the re-action, or rather the action of the patient. All the morbid product of the disease was kept pent up in him by the scientific doctors in their scientific ignorance, and what else could the patient do than throw off all those accumulated dirts in his natural tendency for relief, which tendency was only brought into action by the few doses of Zincum 200? If there was no such accumulation of morbid products, or in other words, if there was no suppression of the disease manifestations, there would have been no such violent endeavour on the part of the system for freeing itself of those products. In a case, in which there has been no unscientific suppression, the action of the Homœopathic medicine and the response of the patient to that medicine are as gentle as ever. If the drain is clogged up with a lot of rubbish, has not the water to push it with force, so as to remove it and make its own way out?
Cure is a “rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health.” Mark here, it is not merely a restoration of health, but it is a particular kind of restoration of health. What is that kind?-Rapid, gentle and permanent. You have to restore the patient to health, rapidly and gently and permanently. If the process is slow, or if it is ungentle, i.e. , violent, or if the restoration to health is not permanent, it is not cure. If you remove the tumour by operation, the ring-worm by a strong acting ointment, or the fever by strong doses of quinine, it is no cure, as these processes are not gentle, though they may be rapid, and the restoration of health they effect is never permanent. The process of true cure is always gentle. There is no brute force in it.
It is, therefore, to be understood that cure begins in the mind. If this does not happen, that is to say, if the patient himself does not feel ease and relief, it is to be understood that no cure is coming, however much the physical symptoms may improve. It may happen at times that the physical symptoms are even aggravated on the use of a medicine, but if there is an improvement in the mental condition, it is certain that the process of cure has commenced. If there is, however, also a corresponding improvement in the physical condition of the patient, alongside the improvement in the mind-the improvement of the mental ease and relief-so much the better.
I would carefully warn my reader studiously to guard against such a method of treatment as has been described above, that is to say, a method under which cure begins from the circumference to the centre, as it is not a natural method, and is on the contrary, only an opposition to the life force. It also happens sometimes with many a Homoœpath (but such Homoœpaths are only so called Homoœpaths), that while a Homœopathic medicine is given internally, correctly on the laws of cure, the external application of some ointment alongside, is not only not objected to, but is also recommended. Just imagine what serious injury is done to the patient by this dual process of cure. The internal Homœopathic medicine prescribed on the natural laws of cure is trying to cure the patient from the centre to the circumference throwing off all the morbidities on the surface, while the external ointment is polishing up the surface driving the malady towards the centre. What a confusion there is likely to be created in the system by such “Dualism” can easily be pictured out. There is a confusion of symptoms, and there is a disorder, which it becomes very difficult to cure. You must, therefore, cautiously avoid such silly dualism in medicine. Suppose, an Allopath is treating a pneumonia patient, and you are then called in to see him. You prescribe Kali Carb and your allopathic friend insists on some antiphlogistine. If you agree to this, the sooner you take to Allopathy the better, as it is good for your patient, for yourself and for Homœopathy. Because, it must be the fact that, either you do not know what harm you cause to the case by agreeing to the use of antiphlogistine alongside Kali Carb, or you know the harm but are afraid of going against your friend. In the first case, you are a Homœopathic failure, and in the second, you are a coward. Either you do not know what Homœopathy is, or you have not the courage of conviction. In either case, you should leave Homœopathy straight.
Friends and relatives of patients often call in both Allopathic and Homœopathic physicians. They believe in the efficacy of Homœopathic medicines, but they want the patient’s lungs to be examined by the Allopaths; as if this wonderful examination cannot be made by a Homoœpath. But don’t you be guided by their diagnosis. And far less you must submit to the silly dualism described above, as it must create confusion and bring in disaster.