Treatment


Act upon and make use of facts that are thoroughly well proved, and that have stood the test of years of experience in the hands of thousands of reliable observers….


Treatment not in Opposition to but a Development of Homoeopathy. Not seeking to oppose any System, but certainly opposed to unnecessary drugging. The direct curative action ought to be sought for systematically.

IN discussing the views put forward in preceding chapters, friends have often inquired of me any position in regard to Homoeopathy. My position is simply this: I act upon and make use of facts that are thoroughly well proved, and that have stood the test of years of experience in the hands of thousands of reliable observers, facts that have failed to obtain recognition from the profession generally in consequence of the natural acerbity of party feeling, such, for example, as the law of similars, the efficacy of the high dilutions, and the prolonged action of the really curative dose and upon these facts, modified, defined, precisionised, and simplified, I base the system to which I have given the appellation, Arborivital.

The Homoeopathic School has, I consider, paid too much attention to the controversial aspect of Hahnemann’s revelations and has gone on unceasingly discussing matters that, to my mind at least, are well-proved facts. Advance is, it seems to me, impossible while this controversial attitude is being maintained.

In opposition to this policy I have, in my “Problems of Homoeopathy Solved,: London: John Bale & Sons, Gt. Titchfield Street, put an end to the necessity for further disputation.

At all events, upon the conclusions there arrived at I have brought my practical experience in disease to bear, and the result is, to me at least, in every way encouraging. My work therefore is not, it is evident, as much iconoclastic as evolutionary and developmental: it is by no means meant to interfere with, much less to overthrow, any existing system.

It is, however, essentially opposed to the popular prejudice in favour of drug giving, and of continuous and unnecessary dosing, whether by small or by large quantities of medicinal agents.

I hold that between the true direct curative actions of remedies in disease and the food requirements of the body, when more or less healthy, a wide distinction must be drawn. I hold also that the obtainment of this direct curative influence upon disease is a higher, I ought to say a holier, ideal by far than the mere sustainment of the frame by the exhibition of its necessary pabulum, the one being the educated outcome of the physician’s observation, the other to a large extent the mechanical industry of the purveyor of food.

The work of the one and the work of the other at times nearly approach, but more often are to be advantageously kept apart.

That an earnest endeavour, aiming at obtaining the direct curative influence of plant-remedies upon disease, ought to be undertaken by the profession at large is, I consider, indisputable.

Whether it will be undertaken in the only way that promises success or not it is for the future to determine; my duty is perfectly clear, and I consider that in issuing this little work I have discharged it.

Robert Thomas Cooper
Dr. Robert Thomas Cooper (1844-1903) was an Irish homeopath. In 1866, he "settled in private practice at Southampton," [Obit, 459], moving to London in 1874. He had two busy London medical practices, one at Notting Hill and the other in Hanover Square. He was a key member of the Cooper Club named after him [Blackie, 1976, p.158]. He published Cancer & Cancer Symptoms 1900; and Lectures on Diseases of the Ears, 2nd Edition 1880. Apart from numerous articles in the Homeopathic World, mostly about materia medica, he also published a series of articles in the Dublin Medical Review.