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| Hpathy Ezine - Aug., 2004 | ||||
Miasms - an Overview-- Dr. Manish Bhatia |
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| Introduction
During the 18th century, the word ‘miasm’ was loosely used to denote the discharge coming from decaying animal or vegetable matter. It was also sometimes used to denote the discharge coming from bodies of diseased person. The morbific agents, which were thought to be connected with production of disease, were designated by a general term ‘miasm’ or ‘miasma’. The use of this term by Hahnemann remains controversial. At some places in his writing, Dr. Hahnemann has used miasm to denote the predisposition for disease and at other places he has used it to denote the morbific agent, similar to bacteria & viruses, and the states arising from their suppression. History of MiasmsIn the early days of his practice when Dr. Hahnemann started using the law of similia, he got good success in acute and epidemic diseases but he failed miserably in a large number of chronic diseases. He himself said – “Their beginning was promising, the continuation less favorable, the outcome hopeless…” (26, CD) For example, if a patient came to him with pain in knee worse by initial motion and better by continued motion, he would have probably prescribed Rhus tox. If the cause of this symptom were acute, the patient would get cured. If the case were chronic (say arthritis or gout), the patient would often come back with the same symptoms after an initial amelioration. Such instances made Dr. Hahnemann probe deeply into the concept of disease and the development of the chronic diseases. After 12 years of detailed case takings and case analysis, he found out that nearly all the patients with chronic diseases had a history of either Scabies, Syphilis, or Gonorrhea and most of the patients were not well since the time of infection. He called these infections and the disease tendency arising from them, miasms. The one arising from Scabies was called Psora or non-venereal miasm. The other two were called venereal miasms as they arose from sexual conduct. The one arising from Syphilis was called Syphilitic miasma and the one from Gonorrhea was called Sycotic miasm. The DivideDuring the days of Hahnemann, homeopathic world was divided in two parts –
In the early days of this theory, very few of Hahnemann’s pupils accepted this theory whole-heartedly. There were others like Hering who became converts with experience. There were still others like Richard Hughes who never believed it and even went on to call this theory of miasms, Hahnemann’s biggest mistake. Later with the rise of Kent and advent of microbiology/bacteriology, even the believers split into two groups:
Dr. Hering, R. Hughes, Stuart Close, G. Boericke, Margret Tyler, P. Speight, B. K Sarkar, Harimohan Chaudhary – all have favored the concept that miasms are bacteria or originate from bacterial diseases. Some of these people even went on to call Hahnemann as the Father of Bacteriology because his description of miasms was so similar to the bacteria at many places. Others like Kent, J. H. Allen, J. Paterson, H. A. Roberts etc. strongly believed in the non-material nature of the miasms. They described miasms as a dyscrasia, a state, and a predisposition. Kent even went on to say: “Psora is the underlying cause, the primitive or primary disorder of the human race…. it goes to the very primitive wrong of the human race, the very first sickness of the human race, that is the spiritual sickness..” The Big QuestionSo the big question is what exactly Hahnemann meant when he used the term miasm? What was his concept of origin of chronic diseases? If you go through various works of Hahnemann closely, you will realize that Hahnemann has used the term ‘miasm’ in the both senses at different places. May be he was himself a bit confused. On one hand he was talking about the spiritual vital force and its dynamic derangement as the cause of all disease, on the other hand he was well aware that there was something material (contagion) in acute diseases like Cholera and Typhus, and Chronic diseases like Syphilis and Gonorrhea. We need to understand that Hahnemann was trying to understand the cause of disease without the aid of any microscopes. He was just relying on his keen observation and apart from his observation, there was nothing much to support him. Developing a whole classification of diseases was a marvelous work done by Hahnemann. He had his own limitations and the work he has done within those limitations is extraordinary. |
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