Cure in Homeopathic Parlance

CURE   (DEFINITION) -  Master  Hahnemann  speaks  of  CURE  in  HIS  writings  at  many  places  as-

                                        The  dynamic  affection,  and  annihilated  it  and  it  produces  Homoeopathically,  they would  thereby  effect  a  rational  cure.  (Introduction - ORGANON  OF MEDICINE-  footnote)

•          Master  Hahnemann  sets  the  Mission  of  physician  in  $1  as  

                 "THE  physician's  high  and  only  mission  is  to  restore  the  sick  to  health,  to  cure  as  it  is  termed."

PRINCIPLES 

•          rapid,  gentle  and  permanent  restoration  of  the,  health

•          removal  and  annihilation  of  the  disease  in  its  whole  extent

BUT,  the  condition  is -  "in  the  shortest,  most  reliable and  most  harmless  way, on  easily  comprehensible  principles."

AND  according  to  S.Close -  The  only  principles  that  are  easily  comprehensible  are  principles  that  are  true.  The  only  principles  that  are  true  are  principles  logically  deduced  from  facts  - all  the  facts  that  belong  to  the  field  of  research  involved.  Simplicity  comprehensibility  -   the  highest  criterion  of  Truth.  The  greatest  truths  are  always  simple.

RECOVERY

•          Recovery  is  the  spontaneous  return  of  the  patient  to  health  after  the  removal,  disappearance  or  cessation  of  the  exciting  causes  and  occasion  of  disease,  or  as  a  result  of  treatment  which  is  not  directly  and  specifically  curative  in  its  nature.

•          Recovery  takes  place  by  virtue  of  the  existence  of  sufficient  integrity  of  organs  and  inherent  power  of  reaction  in  the  patient  to  overcome  the  disease-producing  agency  without  the  aid  of  the  healing  art.

•          Recovery  is  favored  by  the  application  of  sound  principles  of  mental  and  physical  hygiene,   judicious  mechanical  or  surgical  treatment  when  required,  avoidance  of  drugs  used  for  their  "physiological"  (really  pathogenic)  effects,  and  by  enlightened  sanitation.

DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  CURE  AND  RECOVERY

RELATION  OF  CURE  TO  DISEASE

•          The  Standard  Dictionary  defines  disease  as  "any  departure  from,  failure  in,  or  perversion  of  normal  physiological  action  in   the  material  constitution  of  functional  integrity  of  the  living  organism"

•           This  definition  rightly  focuses  attention  upon  the  dynamical  aspect  of  the  subject,  for  disease  is  essentially  and  primarily  a  morbid  dynamical  disturbance  of  the  vital  powers  and  functions,  resulting  in  a  loss  of  functional   and  organic  balance.

•          Disease  is  manifested  perceptibly  by  signs  and  symptoms.  Cure,  is  manifested  by  the  removal  of  the  symptoms.  Strictly  speaking  the  removal  of  all  the  symptoms  of  the  case  is  equivalent  to  a  cure,  but  if  symptoms  disappear  and  the  patient  is  not  restored  health  and  strength  it  means  either  that  some  of  the  most  important  symptoms  of  the  case  have  been  overlooked,  or  that  the  case  has  passed  beyond  the  curable  stage.  All  curable  cases  present  perceptible  symptoms,  but their  discernment  often  depends  upon  the  acuteness  of  the  observer.

Concept  of  DISEASE

•          $ 5 - "...the  changes  in  the  health  of  the  body  and  of  the  mind  (morbid  phenomena,  accidents,  symptoms)  which  can  be  perceived  externally  by  means  of  the  senses;  that  is  to  say,  he  notices  only  the  deviations from  the  former  healthy  state  of  the  now  diseased  individual,  which  are  felt  by  the  patient  himself,  remarked  by  those  around  him  and  observed  by  the  physician.  All  these  perceptible  signs  represent  the  disease  in  its  whole  extent,  that  is,  together  they  form  the  true  and  only  conceivable  portrait  of  the  disease."

•          $ 7 - "...outwardly  reflected  picture  of   the  internal  essence  of  the  disease,  that  is,  of  the  affection  of  the  vital  force,..."

•          $ 11 -  "When  a  person  falls  ill,  it  is  only  this  spiritual ,  self  acting  (automatic)  vital  force,  everywhere present  in  his  organism,  that  I  primarily  deranged  by  the  dynamic  influence  upon  it  of  a  morbific  agent  inimical  to  life;  it  is  only  the  vital  force,  deranged  to  such  an  abnormal  state,  that  can  furnish  the  organism  with  its  disagreeable  sensations,  and  incline  it  to  the  irregular  processes  which  we  call  disease;  for,  as  a  power  invisible  in  itself,  and  only  makes  itself  known  by  the  manifestation  of  disease  in  the  sensations  and  functions  of  those  parts  of  the  organism  exposed  to  the  senses  of  the  observer   and  physician,  that  is,  by  morbid  symptoms,  and  in  no  other  way  can  it  make  itself  known."

•          $ 12 - "... the  disappearance  under  treatment  of  all  the  morbid  phenomena  and  of  all  the  morbid  alteration  that  differ  from  the  healthy  vital  operations,  certainly  affects  and  necessarily  implies  the  restoration  of  the  integrity  of  the  vital  force  and,  therefore,  the  recovered  health  of  the  whole  organism."

Difference  Between  Portrait  of  Disease  and  Totality  of  Symptoms.

'CURE'

•          Natural  recoveries  following  treatment  consisting  of  mere  palliation  should  not  be  mistaken  for  cures.

•          The  disease  is  manifested  perceptibly  by  signs  and  symptoms.  And  Cure  is  manifested  by  the  REMOVAL  of  these  signs  and  symptoms.

                         Cure  relates  to  the  case  as  a  whole.  Cure  refers  to  the  patient,  not   to  some  symptoms  of  his  disease,  nor  to  what  may  be  called  "one  of  his  diseases."   Means  complete  restoration  of  Health !

•          Cure  is  not  affected  by  the  removal  surgically  nor  by  any  local  means,  of  the  external,  secondary,  pathological  "end-products"  of  disease,  such  as  tumors,  effusions,  collections  of  pus,  useless  organs  or  dead  tissues;  for  the  morbid  functioning  which  produced  those  effects  often  remains unchanged,  after  such  removal.

•          Cure  is  effected  only  by  dynamical  treatment  according  to  fixed  principles,  directed  to  the  primary,  functional  disorder  as  revealed  by  the  complete  symptom-picture  preceding  and  accompanying  the  formation  of  the  tangible  products  of  the  disease.

•             Cure  is  not  merely  the  removal  of  the,  primary  causes  of  disease  for  even  if  all  the  causes  of  the  disease  are  known  and  removable,  the  effects,  having  been  begun,  may  continue  as  secondary  causes  after  the  removal  of  the  primary  causes.  Spontaneous  disappearance  of  the  disease  does  not  always  occur  in  such  cases,  and  dynamical  treatment  is  required  to  restore  the  patient  to  health.

Requirements  of  CURE

1. The  result  of  the  direct  application  of  a  definite  general  principle  of  therapeutic  medication

                     - The  result  may  be  accidental  or  intentional  on  the  part  of  the  prescriber  in  a  given  case,  but  its  relation  to  the  means  employed  must  be  capable  of  rational  explanation  and  demonstration  by  reference  to  the  governing  principle.  A  general  principle  is  capable  of  systematic  demonstration,  not  only  once  but  repeatedly  and  invariably,  under  stated  conditions.  Given  the  principle,  it  is  always  possible  to  formulate  a  method  or  technic ,  by  means  of  which  the  principle  may  be  successfully  applied  to  every  case  within  its  scope.

2.  It  must  be  individual  

                          - A  general  principle  according  to  which  any  action  takes  place  is  always  capable  of  being  individualized.  The  ability  to  meet  the  varying  requirements  of  individual  cases  proves  the  existence  and  truth  of  the  principle  involved.  Remedy  to  the  needs  of  each  individual  case.  There are  no  cures  for  "diseases,"  no remedy  for  all  cases  of  the  same  disease.  Cure  relates  to  the  individual  patient,  not  to  the  disease.  No  two  cases  of  the  same  disease  are  exactly  alike.  Differences  of  manifestation  in  symptoms  and  modalities  always  exist  in  individuals.  It  is  these  differences  which  give  each  case  its  individuality,  and  create  the  need  for  an  individual  remedy.

3.  A  complete  and  impartial  collection  and  record  of  the  facts  which  constitute  the  natural  and  medical  history  of  the  individual

                                              - This  should  include  not  only  physical  and  constitutional  signs;  the  heredity  and  family  history  of  the  patient;  how  he  was  born,  raised  and  educated;  his  occupation,  habits,  social  and  domestic  relations;  but  a  chronological  symptomatic  history  of  all  his  diseases,  indispositions,  idiosyncrasies,  accidents  and  vicissitudes,  as  far  as  they  can  be   recalled.

                                    In  considering  the  recorded  results  of  each  examination,  the  homœopathic  therapeutist  pays  particular  attention  to  the  unusual,  peculiar,  exceptional  features  or  symptoms  which  give  the  case  its  individuality;  for,  by  these,  under  the  guidance  of  the  principle  of  symptom-similarity,  he  is  led  to  the  remedy  needed  for  the  cure  of  the  individual  case.

•           Symptoms,  general  and  particular,  "behave  themselves  in  a  particular  way,"  take  on  peculiar  forms,  combinations  and  modalities,  according  to   the  morphological  type,  environment,  personality  and  predisposition  of  the  individual.

•           It  is  necessary  thus  to  study  the  individual  in  order  to  understand  how  a  general  or  particular  predisposition  to  disease  becomes  concrete  and the  object  of  treatment  and  cure,  as  well  as  to  elicit  the  symptoms  which  are  to  guide  in  the  selection  of  the  remedy.

Manner  and  Direction  Of  CURE

Cures  take  place  in  a  definite,  orderly  manner  and  direction.

•          Normal  vital  processes,  cellular,  organic  and  systemic,  begin  at  the  centre  and  proceed  outwardly.  Figuratively,  if  not  literally,  life  is  a  centrifugal  force,  radiating,  externalizing,  concentrating  and  organizing  spirit  into  matter  -  "from  above,  downward."  In  the  same  sense  disease  is  a  centripetal  force,  opposing,  obstructing,  penetrating  toward  the  center  and  tending  to  disorganization.

•          The  progression  of  all  chronic  diseases  is  from  the  surface  toward  the  center;  from  less  important  to  more  important  organs  "from  below  upward."     

•          Curative  medicines  reinforce  the  life  force,  reverse  the  morbid  process  and  annihilate  the  disease.  Symptoms,  disappear  from  above  downward,  from  within  outward  and  in  the  reverse  order  of  their  appearance.

•          When  a  patient  with  an  obscure  rheumatic  endocarditis,  for  example,  begins  to  have  signs  and  symptoms  of  acute  arthritis  soon  after  taking  the  homœopathic  remedy  and  is  relieved  of  his  chest  sufferings,  we  know  that  cure  has  commenced.

•               Cure  takes  place  in  much  less  time  than  natural  recovery,  without  pain,  physiological  disturbance  or  danger  from  the  use  of  the  remedy  employed  and  without  sequelae.  The  restoration  of  health  is  complete  and  lasting.

Hering's  Law  of  CURE

The  order  of  disappearance  of  Symptoms

·         From  above  downward

·         From  within  outward

·         In  reverse  order  of  the  appearance  of  symptoms

References

Organon  of  Medicine - R. E. Dudgeon

The  Genius  Of  Homoeopathy - Lectures  &  Essays  on  Homoeopathic  Philosophy