You know that according to Hahnemann there are three causes of diseases: Psora, Sycosis and Syphilis. Like all other doctors of his time, Hahnemann was right not to make any distinction between soft chancre and indurated chancre and to include in Syphilis other morbid manifestations.
Nevertheless he recognised the primordial value of this miasm, Sycosis. As regards Psora he has given the longest description. Identified by Dr. A. Nebel with chronic tuberculinism it includes at the same time the field of arthritism, some neuro-glandular and sympathetic troubles as well as Scrofula and established or unestablished tuberculosis. Thus the problem of Psora is solved. At least that solution proves to be extremely fecund in practice and though we are to wait for many other pathological explanations, yet we begin to understand the links that unite numerous morbid manifestations which are constitutional and temperamental.
The sycosis is not described by Hahnemann as at length as he has described Psora. But the genius of the Master already foresaw the breadth of the path of which he first gave the tracing, and mentioned the best arm that we still possess to cure the sycotic troubles: Thuja canadensis, the tree of life.
To Hahnemann sycosis is essentially a diathesis producing warts or wart-like growths, i.e., to say vegetating dermatosis to speak in the language of a dermatologist. On the one hand some are real neo-formations: benign cutaneous tumours susceptible sometimes to malignate degenerescence; on the other hand some non-itching dermatosis and all sorts of vegetations. All these growths may be expressed by the phrase “Cutaneous phenomena of sycotic origin” and they are classified according to their characteristics and formations.
Besides these visible sings it is difficult to characterise the sycotic diathesis because it is essentially torpid and asymptomatic in opposition to psora of Hahnemann. According to us there is a definite antagonism between these two diathesis. The Psora is before all a state of alternance. The life of a psoric is marked by successions of morbid or torpid states and after an acute eruption follows a silent period, itself followed by an acute phase and so on. On the contrary the troubles caused by this diathesis are slow, insidious, torpid, but continued. The sycotic patient constantly suffers from an affection, without periodicity and without discontinuity. The warts if they appear will become chronic without remission. After an asymptomatic first phase, besides the existence of warts, will come after a long time different troubles of nervous origin, neuralgias and neuritis. The sycotic patient does not defend himself like psoric patient by some eruptions on the skin which are generally periodical. His only defense consists in mucous secretions: Chronic catarrh is also the field of psora. But it seems that in sycosis the catarrhal symptoms when they exist, establish with difficulty.
Perhaps later on more relations will be established between psora and sycosis. At present we cannot precisely say anything. This question may be solved later on by a deep study of morphology and temperaments as well as of physiology and pathology.
1. Gonorrhoea and genital infections. According to Hahnemann the most important cause of sycosis is gonorrhoea as a consequence of which there results a temperamental change, a chronic gonorrhoeal condition. You know how Hahnemann gave us Thuja. It is the history of a seminarist who had a urethral discharge but who said upon oath that he could not have any genital infection due to direct contact. Hahnemann could have discovered that his seminarist had the habit of chewing the leaves of Thuja while walking in his garden. Thus the action of the plant was discovered. Experimentally it can cause a urethral flow. Thuja is, therefore, an important remedy of acute or chronic gonorrhoea.
By extension, it was clinically found that the individual who has A genital infection, even if the gonococcus is not present, may become later on sycotic after the stoppage of the flow. Then the warts are seen to appear, or a chronic catarrh which is very often seen in nasal mucosa (rhino-pharyngitis appear after one or two years of gonorrhoea). At the same time the patient shows numerous objective symptoms of the important ground remedies of sycosis: As for example the bluish white colour of lips (lilac colour), specially of the lower lip.
Later on there appear prostatic and uterine troubles of hyperplasias nature, (Oedema, fibroma). These may appear after many years of the first gonorrhoeal discharge. Or the person may have some neuralgias and neuritis. At the same time on the body and on the face there appear numerous objective symptoms which are characteristics of Thuja. They are very well described by Dr. Nebel: naevis, lozens like deformation of the skin with thickening of the skin specially of the haunches; orange skin of the forehead and of the glabella etc… All these indicate a first gonorrhoeal discharge, though followed by apparent cure, has changed the temperament of the individual to such an extent that even he may be predisposed to cancer by sycosis, just like psora which can lead to cancer.
Let us not forget any kind of confirmed genital flow even when it is not gonorrhoeal, can cause a sycotic condition ( as for example after-birth discharge).
2. Anti-variolic vaccination. The second great cause of sycosis is anti-variolic vaccination. We admit that sycosis very rarely results after the primary vaccination because it is generally followed by physiological reaction in the form of pustules.
On the contrary, the repetition of anti-variolic vaccinations may be dangerous, specially in cases when they do not take up. It may be evidently accounted for by clinical examination of the patient. Interrogate your patient always having the vaccination in mind. You will know that the patient is suffering from different troubles of nervous origin, neuralgias and neuritis after an unsuccessful vaccination.
Officially it is said that the vaccination does not cause any trouble when it does not take up. On the contrary the Homoeopaths believe that the vaccinations, when they do not take up, some deep troubles will appear sooner or later in the future.
A famous Homoeopath of England, Dr. Burnett, has under the heading “Vaccinosis”, very clearly described our point of view.
The vaccination has remained facultative in our neighbour country, where nearly 40 Percent of the inhabitants are not always vaccinated and our colleagues of that country are in a better position to study the diseases as there are cases of small-pox. They have acquired the skill to treat the possible complications. They avoid the disfiguring cicatrices by infra-red rays.
In spite of the facultative vaccination the number of small-pox cases are small in England because of the methodic measures of hygiene taken.
In that milieu having favourable conditions, it was possible for Burnett to write a book full of informations.
3. Other vaccinations and treatment by serums. By extension, going from particular to the general, it seemed to us that sycosis may be the result of all sorts of vaccinations which have the aim to create an artificial immunity, but of which the process of action consists always in the deviation of the temperament, causing a torpid and chronic state.
In the light of these statements we have arrived at the understanding of the mode of action of preventive or curative vaccinations. Both are sometimes unavoidable to save the life of an individual, but always diminish the power of resistance of the individual. Saved from death he pays the ransom to science by becoming a chronic patient which he was not before the first attack and the sycotic picture becomes gradually a finished one without remission and regular, if our system of therapeutic does not intervene.
We treat generally an individual when he is in such a condition and who has received numerous vaccinations with Thuja as an antidote of vaccinations. Thuja is the most important remedy of sycosis.
The serotherapy may also cause a sycotic state which is suitable to Thuja.
You are thus face to face with the dilemma: The impossibility of saving the life of the patient without precisely knowing the troubles that accompany the sycosis of Hahnemann.
We are naturally led by all that have been stated, to try to give a guiding principle wherefrom are deduced the facts that have not escaped our mind, clinically and homoeopathically. To be sure, the ground is delicate. Nothing is yet definitely proved regarding the danger of vaccination. However, it seems that a patient vaccinated against all sorts of determined acute infections can not avoid real morbid explosions by becoming chronically attacked by diseases that determine each of them. Thus the adults and the olds have rarely high fever; they escape contagious diseases that surrounded them; they have torpid influenzas, practically a dynamic. They are sycotics having good health for being considered as dangerously ill and at the same time are incapable of paying the price of a vigorous defense reaction against a heterogeneous infecting agent. To sum up, a torpid, chronic state, due to a more or less artificial immunity prevents the same individuals to react by natural process which should have fought against every infection by an acute stage of auto-defense.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.