Need For Studying Pathology in Homeopathy

Dr  R  Santhana Pandian, B.Sc., D.M.S., M.B.S.
Visiting Professor-Vinayaga Mission Homeopathic Medical College, Salem.
Vinayaka Mission University

Homoeopathy is based on the law of Similars. A similar drug should possess the property of similar manifestations like the disease with which the patient is suffering from. Disease is studied as symptoms.

A symptom is having
1. Location    –    Anatomy
2. Sensation – Derangement of physiology i.e. pathology.  Derangement of anatomical structure.  Apart from these..
3. Abnormal functions – manifest as abnormal symptoms and structural changes. While studying a drug, it is said to be pathogenesis. A drug is studied in the following headlines, as we study a case.  (Location, sensation, modality and concomitants).

A drug produces pathogenesis i.e. the effect of pathological manifestations caused by the drug.

Hence the drug should be capable of producing similar pathological manifestations as found in the patient. Hence the homeopath should know the pathology of the particular patient as special pathology. While studying the case cured by homeopathic drug it is understood that it has cured the pathological changes.  These pathological changes cured by the drugs are included in the drug pathogenesis in due course of time.

This is abundantly present in the drug pictures of the Materia Medicas developed in course of time since the inception of Materia Medica Pura.

How many confine themselves with the Materia Medica Pura alone? Why?
Clinical provings in due course of time enriched the Materia Medica containing the special pathological changes.  Cured by these drugs as part and parcel of the homeopathic drug manifestation.  This is clinical evolution of the Materia Medica and repertory.  The days are not far away to include the X Ray findings, Scan findings cured in the Materia Medica.

Hence a student of homeopathy should be a master of pathology, special pathology for the understanding of the same in the patient to find out the similimum.

Pathology in homeopathy
Pathology deals with causes, effects and changes in the living entity.  Hahnemann explained the causes as partly physical and partly psychical.  All the causes whether living or nonliving as physical entities are well known in the present world.  Physical agencies, chemicals, living agencies as microbes, parasites etc. When Hahneman expressed that the causes are partly physical & psychical, why did he say that the diseases of man are not caused by any substance any agridity, that is to say any disease matter?

Everybody knows now about psychromatic diseases.

The allopaths of this time were using purgatives; bloodletting was rampant and they said that the discharges, excessive blood as the cause of the disease.  Hahnemann refuted the same scientifically.  Further when homeopathic medicines were used he found that no diarrhea or any discharge happened during the cure.  So he refuted this false theory and he found that there is no such matter.  As such he said that the derangement is dynamic one.

Knowledge of the disease is not more symptoms alone but the causes. Thus Hahnemann says in paragraph 5 “Attention to exiting and fundamental causes and other circumstances as help to cure”.  The old pathologists of his time considered that the evacuations and discharges as the disease.  Hahnemann condemned that as blindness of the old pathology.

We can say that Hahnemann was the founder of modern pathology. He stated the causes scientifically and studied the effects as symptoms in non-surgical cases.  When he distinctly mentioned that in non-surgical diseases no matter has to be removed, he was very careful to understand where the disease tissues should be removed as in surgery.  Here lies the knowledge of disease both in surgical and non-surgical diseases. Hahnemann thus advocated surgery according to the nature of the disease.

During Hahnemann’s time the interior was invisible. So he considered the activities as vital operations in regard to sensations and functions.  Sensations and functions are physiology; when they deranged they denote pathology.

Page 51 Introduction-Para 14 Organon 6^th edition Hahnemann says “these matters the true physician regards as actual symptoms of the disease”. This para is enough to say that the pathological changes and the products are the symptoms of the disease and to form the accurate portrait of it.  This is a great discovery.  The present day pathology, practice of medicine, clinical medicine are based on this discovery of Hahnemann.

Hahnemann did not accept anything that could not be demonstrated in Page 36 Introduction para 9 – He says,

a) Spiritual corporeal organism and it is a highly potentialised entity.
b) Sensational and functional vital changes are called as diseases.
c) The changes are produced by dynamic influences.

He puts several questions to the allopaths of his time? What?
In page 45 he says that the causes cannot be material.  This particular assertion was made by Hahnemann as the allopaths considered that some as Prima causa morbi.

Page 45 Introduction – Hahnemann says that the least foreign material substance is promptly ejected by the vital force as though it were a poison.  This knowledge is equal to the knowledge of present day inflammation chapters in pathology.  He says that the vital principle every where present in our body never rests until it is removed by pain, fever, suppuration, gangrene.

Page 46 Introduction, Hahnemann accepts that the application of material substance on the skin or to a wound has propagated disease by infection.  His open-mindedness to know about is well known from his question who can prove it?

His observations are correct according to Modern pathology for e.g. Page 46 Introduction, The more careful and prompt (syphilis) washing of the genital does not protect the system from infection with venereal chancroid disease.  The slightest breath of air emanating from the body of a person affected with Small pox will suffice to produce the horrible disease to a healthy child.  He wants to know, how does it occur in acute diseases as well as in chronic diseases?

Page 55 Introduction, he uses the term unreasoning life preserving power.  This very important term resembles the defensive mechanisms that the modern pathology ascribes as immediate hypersensitiveness in acute infectious diseases and delayed hypersensitiveness in chronic diseases.  He further asserts that these mechanisms depend on the organic laws of the body.  (The organic laws are studied in Physiology, Biophysics and in Bio-chemistry now a days).

Comments (my view) – All the pathological changes are the defensive mechanism of the living body.  You can see the various types of inflammations, degenerations, fibrotic changes hypertrophies, atropy, exudation, tumours, etc.  The defensive mechanism does not remain within the reasonable limitation and that itself becomes abnormal and gives troubles.  So Hahnemann used the term unreasoning life preserving power.

Page 55 Introduction – Hahnemann says “on all these efforts more or less of the affected parts are sacrificed and destroyed in order to save the rest”.

In page 56 Introduction he portrays the pathological (study this page) changes.  He includes the causes of Psora, syphilis, psychosis which tortured mankind which has groaned for hundreds and thousands of years due to these chronic miasms.  He says that, the vital force could not diminish not one of them in the slightest degree.

Hahnemann asserts that the internal operations cannot be perceived.  (Comment – The changes that occur in cells, tissues, organs could not be studied during Hahnemann’s time).

In page 65 Introduction, He says the vital force which of itself can only act according to the physical constitution of our organism.  (Comment – The physical constitution contains various tissues, organs, as such the changes n diseases vary for e.g. Liver tissue can regenerate when its pattern is left.  It can undergo fibrosis at the same time when the pattern is changed).

Psora is termed as atopy in modern medicine
Physical constitution is mostly genetic in origin but it can also be modified according to the environment.  Hahnemann was the first on to speak about the congenital corporeal constitution and circumstances, see para 81 Organon.  In modern pathology Psora is described as Atopy.  See atopic dermatitits in text books of medicine.  Aetiology – Inheritance, early environment acts as effecting cause.  There is instability of the autonomic nervous system of unexplained mechanism without obvious cause or as a result of emotional tension.  Asthma, vasomotor rhinitis and intense itching develops.  Electro encephalographic tracings are abnormal.  Very high serum immuno globulin level occurs in atopic dermatitis with or without asthma or vasomotor rhinitis.

The presence regain is also a feature of atopy.  Atopic dermatitis is more of a genetic association than a direct cause and effect link.  Atopic individuals are often above over intelligence but are excitable and prone to feeling of insecurity.  There may be an unsatisfactory relationship with their parents particularly with the mother.  Threat to security may coincide with exacerbations at times of detachment from parents, change of school, change of occupations, marriage.  Other factors include changes of temperature or of humidity, airborne, ingested or injected allergens, contact with rough clothing’s, drugs and infections, the atopic individual reacts to every day stimuli with a mechanism designed for use n emergencies,  thus pollens dust may cause asthma, vasomotor rhinitis and possible atopic dermatitis.

Staphylococccal infections when occur, the staphyloderma may be extensive and severe particularly in patients receiving systemic treatment with cortico steroids.  Virus infection with herpes simplex or vacccinia is a serious complication.  A generalized eruption may result.  It may be fatal in infancy.

Atopic dermatitis may start as early as the second month as a papulo vesicular and eythematous squamous condition involving parts easily rubbed by the infant – the face, neck, antecubital regions, wrists, hands, popliteal spaces, calves, ankles, and feet.  The trunk may escape or it may show a patchy ill-defined faintly pink popular and scaly eruptions, the lesions may be exudative, infected.  The condition usually becomes milder when the child starts to walk and to do things for itself.

Scratching may cease for several years but there is usually a recurrence at puberty when the condition localized more to the bends of the elbows and of the knees, the wrists, hands, the face and neck and sometimes the genito crural regions and the feet.  The severity may be less when adult life is reached but in some patients there is indefinite persistence and in others it may start in adult life.  Xeroderma is often present.

Treatment: whole patient with his characteristic personality and problems rather than the management of the skin condition itself.  This is the modern view.  Anybody having the knowledge of Psora would agree that Hahnemann was ahead of all the Modern pathologists.  Kindly note that Psora of Hahnemann and atopy of the present day pathologists are one and the same. 

Regarding syphilis lets us see what is said by Hahnemann.
Introduction to Organon page 42, he condemns the cauterization of chancre.  It is only a local lesion as an effect of syphilis.  By destroying the effect cause could not be removed.  After the infection has spread all over the chancre develops.  Hahnemann said that the internal derangement takes place.  The same thing is said by the pathologists of the present day and then only as a reaction primary, secondary, other lesions occur. So by mere cauterization of the chancre syphilis could not be cured.  The view of Hahnemann is perfect in consonance with that of Modern pathology.  Hahnemann says “the most careful washing of genitals does not protect the system from infection with venereal disease.

He says that the slightest breath of air emanating from the body of a person affected with small pox will suffice to produce this horrible disease in a healthy child. Comment – Now we say that, it is an air- borne infection.

By explaining syphilis and its manifestations Hahnemann becomes the founder of infectious granulomatous diseases of chronic nature.  Exactly he found out the nature of Gonorrhea s a chronic disease.  He distinctly separated the acute diseases and chronic diseases and there by his clinical acumen and the pathology behind them was well known to him.

He used the term Dynamic whenever he wanted to explain the invisibility of the processes. See page 97 Organon of medicine 6^th edition.

In para 15 of 6^th edition Hahnemann clearly explains that the vital force and the organism constitute a unity.  So any derangement of the organism constitutes disease – pathology.

Hahnemann was the first one to say that the morbific noxious influences do not posses the power of morbidly deranging the healthy man unconditionally- he speaks about the sufficient disposal and susceptibility.

Comment – at present day we study the same as the mode of infection, dose of infection, immunity etc.  Here Hahnemann’s forethought is well known as it is in Modern pathology.

Hahnemann was the first on who discovered the cholera vibrio.
See page 128 Richard Hachl.  The most striking infection took place and made astounding progress – whenever in the stuffy spaces of ships, filled as they are with musty aquaous vapours the cholera miasm found in element favourable to its over multiplication and throve to an enormously increased swarm of these infinitely small, invisible, living organisms which are so murderously hostile to human life and which most probably form the infectious matter of cholera.  These are the words and sentences of Hahnemann.

In page 411, Richrd Hahl in a book on Hahnemann: Hahnemann says “ I request that the different kinds of dropsy are not differentiated and the same kind of dropsy is always mentioned.  The diversion into leucoplogmatic and inflammatory is not sufficient”.  These are the writing of Hahnemann.

Thus Hahnemann is the Modern pathologist, Bacteriologist and a Diagnostician. As such pathology, bacteriology, parasitology are very important for the homeopathic practice.

While teaching materia medica the special pathology related to the pathogenesis should be taught. 

Some examples.

1. Cattarrhal inflammation of the stomach – Abies canadenses. Uterine displacement
2. Gastric ulcer                                           –        Abies nigra.
3. Diabetic carbuncle, diabetic Mel,            –       Abroma Augusta
4. Menstrual disorders                                 –        Abroma Radix
5. Tubercular Pleurisy with effusion              –        Abrothnum
6. Epilepsy                                                    –        Absinthium
7. Haemoptysis                                             –        Acalypha Indica
8. Rectal haemorrhage                                  –                  ”
9. Cardiac Dropsy with albuminuria          –        Acetanildium
10. Epithelial Cancer                                      –        Acetic Acid
11. Hyper cholhydria                                     –        Acetic Acid
12. Boils carbuncles                              –        Achyranthes aspera
13. Rheumatoid arthiritis-small joints          –        Actaea spicata
14. Congenital syphilis               – aethiops mecurialis mineralis
15. Corneal ulcer                         –        aethiops anti monalis
16. Neuralgia, Neuritis with spasm      –        Agaricus
17. Angioneurotic Oedema                  –        Agaricus
18. Gingivitis                                         –        Agave Americana
19. Sprains & Strains                            –        Agnus Castus
20. Adenoids                                          –        Agraphis Nutans
21. Follicular Tonsillitis                       –  Ailawnthus Glandulosa
22. Anaemia in females                        –        Aletris Farinosa
23. Diabetes insipidus                          –        Alfalfa
24. Frontal sinusitis                              –        Allium Cepa
25. Pulmonary tuberculosis haemoptisis      –        Allium sativum
26. Chronic herpes                                        –        Alnus
27. Re -establishing physiological equilibrium after large drugging  – Aloes
28. Diarrhea and Dysentery                           -Alstonia Scholaris
29. Fibrotic indurations, tongue, rectum,   Uterus, glands     –        Alumen
30. Epithelioma ulcers with induration        –        Alumen
31. Paresis                                                       –        Alumina
32. Chronic affections of brain, spine,
33. Nerves – epilepsy, phlebitis      –        Alumina silicate
34. Geriatrics   hearing impaired, cardiac
35. Palpitation                                  –        AmbraGrisea
36. Allergic conjunctivitis            –        Ambrosia
37. Chronic bronchitis                  –        Ammoniacom dorema
38. Gout, albuminuria                    –        Ammonium Benzoicum
39. Aphonia                                           –       Ammon caust
40. Syncope                                           –       Ammon caust
41. Larygitis Bronchitis                    –    Ammon Iod.

These are certain examples from Boericke Materia Medica.  The same process from all the drugs in the materia medica will help a lot to study the relationship of materia medica pathology in clinical application.

All rights reserved @ similima