Homeopathic Recorder, 1949.
A rational conclusion, fertilized by unfortunate experiences, has grown up from an intuitive one that, except in rare instances, the attempt to teach homeopathy to patients has done and will do more harm than good. Lay prescribing has set back the progress of a number of my patients and interfered with the orderly development of vitality. As a watcher over the life of each of my patients, I would rather have one take an aspirin or a laxative, if purely fortuitous and confessed, than to let him try to play with homeopathic remedies. As Kent says the effects of crude drugs soon wears off, but the unwise use of potencies can impress a new and incurable miasm on the vital economy and complicate the older ones. Another calamity is the untimely use of remedies.
My comments as a lay blogger
1. Homoeopathic preparations are said to be harmless, as per the well-established beliefs. This seems to be true because they do not contain any medical substances left in the amalgam of diluted extracts and alcohol -or- mixture of milk sugar and powder of the substance. Use of dilutions / quantity-reduced powder-mixtures
will be as good as -- or as bad as not using any medicine at all. This is true in both the cases of layman's use and licensed doctor's use. The absence of a substance in a potency in a homeopathic medicine does not vanish, simply because it is prescribed by a qualified homoeopath.
2. Then, how was it that Kent opined that unwise use of potencies could impress a new and incurable miasm (miasma) on the vital economy and complicate the older ones? Do potencies carry miasms?
The 1913 Webster Dictionary defined Miasma as under:--
Miasm = Miasma.
Miasma
Miasma Mi*as"ma, n.; pl. Miasmata. [NL., fr. Gr. ?
defilement, fr. ? to pollute.]
Infectious particles or germs floating in the air; air made
noxious by the presence of such particles or germs; noxious
effluvia; malaria.
[1913 Webster]
-- From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
miasma
n 1: an unwholesome atmosphere; "the novel spun a miasma of
death and decay" [syn: miasma, miasm]
2: unhealthy vapors rising from the ground or other sources;
"the miasma of the marshes"; "a miasma of cigar smoke" [syn:
miasma, miasm]
-- From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
47 Moby Thesaurus words for "miasma":
BO, afterdamp, bad breath, bad smell, blackdamp, body odor, breath,
chokedamp, cloud, coal gas, damp, effluvium, exhalation, exhaust,
exhaust gas, fetid air, fetidity, fetidness, fetor, firedamp,
flatus, fluid, foul breath, foul odor, frowst, fume, graveolence,
halitosis, malaria, malodor, mephitis, nidor, noxious stench,
offensive odor, puff of smoke, reek, reeking, rotten smell, smoke,
smudge, steam, stench, stench of decay, stink, vapor, volatile,
water vapor
- -- From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
Why should the alcohol-dissolved-sugar/milk-sugar particles carry infectious particles and germs? This seems to be a vague-threat by Kent, blindly accepted by Mr. Hayes. If sugar pills and dilutions carry infectious particles or germs, then homoeopathic medicines should be worse than their allopathic counterparts which are blasted day-in and day-out by homoeopathic physicians.
If homoeopathic medicines carry infectious particles and germs, in case owing to a judgement of error, if a qualified homoeopath competent or incompetent prescribes such medicines, the damage will be as dangerous as lay prescribing (modern terms: self-medication).
Another line of Dr. Hayes from the same article, reads as under:--
Moreover, orderly work requires the finest consideration as to sequences, an art unattainable by any except the full time student practitioner.
Is a Doctor's work an art or a science? Is prescribing an art or science? Why Dr. Hayes was calling sequencing an art? An art becomes a thing of individual skill and trait.
'Art' when used in its purest sense, cannot be acquired or taught. There may be exceptions. Sciences on the other hand are systematized knowledge bases. Sciences can be taught without forming their 'scientific base'.
(to continue).
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