Causes


Boenninghausen’s includes Causes (like fright, exposure to cold or damp air etc) under the head of modalities, but they ought in my opinion to be separated, as they often equal in importance the other three (location, sensation, modality)….


CAUSES

Of diseased conditions. Boenninghausen’s includes these under the head of modalities, but they ought in my opinion to be separated, as they often equal in importance the other three, as, for instance, was it fright? Aconite; Gelsemium; Ignatia; Opium; Lycopodium and Veratrum album occur to us.

Exposure to dampness in the air? Dulcamara; Rhus toxicodendron; Natrum sulphuricum; Nux moschata; or dry cold air? Aconite, Bryonia; Hepar sulphuris; Causticum.

Cold bathing? Antimonium crudum; Rhus toxicodendron; Sulphur.

Suppression of an eruption? Sulphur; Psorinum, of other antipsoric remedies.

A badly treated or suppressed gonorrhoea? Thuja; Medorrhinum etc. Always indicated by the symptoms which is one instance cured a long standing case of rheumatism by restoring the gonorrhoea; discharge, which was suppressed by local treatment twenty years before. Pulsatilla was the remedy, and was selected on the totality of the symptoms, except the previous gonorrhoea, of which I did not know. To have know it would have been additional indication.

Is the trouble the result of suppression of intermittent fever by Quinine (a common sin of the old Arsenicum; Natrum muriaticum; Ferrum and others, according to indications (of course always according to indications).

Syphilis also comes in as one of the causes of a multitude of ills and Mercury and its relatives will be in demand.

All these and prominent among these are the sufferings caused by the abuse of drugs in old school and patient medicine vendor’s hands, such as Quinine; Iodide of Potassium; Nitrate of Silver; Mercury; Bromides; Opiates; Strychnia; coal tar products, etc.

It is a lamentable fact that (whether we always recognize it or not) we have more to do with the patching up of the dilapidated victims of old school drugging and proprietary medicines than we do with other more natural diseases. Some of the wisest of them, recognizing the damage they have done and are liable to do, are in large measure discarding medicine, and directing their efforts in the direction of sanitation and surgery.

This is the best that can be done by them. But we have a law of cure to guide us, and can do better.

We might, under the head of Causes, mention many more than we have, but the skillful homoeopathist will not under-rate any of them in his examination of the sick. And now, though coming late, we must not fail to call attention to another important thing for consideration, viz.

E.B.Nash
Dr. E.B. Nash 1838- 1917, was considered one of our finest homeopaths and teachers. He was Prof. of Materia Medica at the N.Y. Homoeopathic Medical College and President of International Hahnemannian Assoc. His book Leaders in Homoeopathic Therapeutics is a classic. This article is from: :The Medical Advance - A monthly magazine of homoeopathic medicine - edited and published by H.C. Allen, M. D.