Indisposition by James Tyler Kent

In a footnote to paragraph 7, Hahnemann writes: It is not necessary to say that every intelligent physicians would first remove this exciting or maintaining cause (causa occasionalis), where it exists; the indisposition thereupon generally ceases spontaneously.

You have, I believe, been led to conclude that there are apparent diseases, which are not diseases, but disturbed states that may be called indispositions. A psoric individual has his periods of indispositions from external causes, but these external causes do not inflict psora upon him. Such a patient may disorder his stomach from abusing it and thus create an indisposition. Indispositions from external causes mimic the miasms, i.e., their group of symptoms is an imitation of a miasmatic manifestation, but the removal of the external cause is likely to restore the patient to health.

Business failures, depressing tribulations, unrequited affection producing suffering in young girls, are apparent causes of disease, but in reality they are only exciting causes of indispositions. The active cause is within and the apparent cause of sickness is without. if man had no psora, no deep miasmatic influence within his economy, he would be able to throw off all these business cares, he would not become insane from business depression and the young girl would not suffer so from love affairs. There would be an orderly state. The physician then must discriminate between the causes that are apparent or external, the grosser things, from the truer causes of disease, which are from centre to circumference.

In every instance where Hahnemann speaks of true sickness, he speaks of its as a miasmatic disease, but here he employs another word. “Then the indisposition usually yields of itself,” or if the psoric condition has been somewhat disturbed, order can be restored by a few doses of the homoeopathic remedy. To illustrate, if a man has disordered his stomach it will right itself on his ceasing to abuse it; but, if the trouble seems somewhat prolonged, a dose of medicine, like Nux vomica or whatever remedy is indicated, will help the stomach to right itself, and so long as he lives in an orderly way he will cease to feel this indisposition.

“The physician will remove from the room strong smelling flowers which have a tendency to cause syncope and hysterical sufferings.” There are some nervous girls who are so sensitive to flowers that they will faint from the odor. There are other individuals who are so psoric in their nature that they cannot live in the ordinary atmosphere; some must be sent to the mountains some to warm lands, some to cold lands. This is removing the occasioning cause, the apparent aggravating cause of suffering.

A consumptive in the advanced stages, one who is steadily running down in Philadelphia, must be sent to a climate where he can be made comfortable. The external or apparent cause, the disturbing cause in his sick state, is thus removed but the cause of his sickness is prior to this. The physician does not send the patient away for the purpose of curing him, but for the purpose of making him comfortable. “He will extract from the cornea the foreign body that excites inflammation of the eye, loosen the overtight bandage on a wounded limb that threatens to cause mortifications, lay bare and put a ligature on the wounded artery that produces fainting, endeavour to promote the expulsion by vomiting of belladonna berries, etc., that may have been swallowed. Now, without the circumstances and surroundings in which Hahnemann stated these things, it has been asserted in the public prints that Hahnemann advised emetics. A class of so- called physicians have taken this note of Hahnemann’s for a cloak as a means of covering up their scientific rascality, their use of external applications. They tell us Hahnemann said so, but we see it becomes a lie.

Here is another note: :”In all times, the old school physicians. not knowing how else to give relief, have sought to combat and if possible to suppress by medicines, here and there a single symptom form among a number in diseases.’ This course of singling out a group of symptoms, and treating that group alone as the disease is incorrect, because it has no due relation to the entirety of the man.

A group of symptoms may arise through the uterus and vagina, and one who is of this understanding has a plan for removing only the group of symptoms that belong to his speciality, whereby he thinks he has eradicated the trouble. Hahnemann condemns this doctrine, and we see at once its great folly. In many instances there are, at the same time, manifestations of “heart disease,’ “liver disease,” etc. (that is, speaking in their terms; these are not diseases at all, as we know), so that every specialist might be consulted, and each one would direct the assault at his own particular region, and so the patient goes the rounds of all the specialists and the poor man dies. An old allopathic physician once made the remark about a case of pneumonia that he was treating, that he had broken up the pneumonia. “Yes,” said another physician, ‘the pneumonia is cured, but the patient is going to die.”

That is the way when one of these groups of symptoms is removed; constipation may be removed by physic; liver symptoms may sometimes be removed temporarily by a big dose of calomel; ulcers can be so stimulated that they will heal up; but the patient is not cured. Hahnemann says it is strange that the physician cannot see that the removal of these symptoms is not followed by cure, that the patient is worse off for it.

Some patients are not sufficiently ill to see immediately the bad consequences of the closure of a fistulous opening but if a patient is threatened with phthisis, or is a weakly patient, the closure of that fistulous opening of the anus will throw him into a flame of excitement and will cause his death in a year or two. The more rugged ones will live a number of years before they break down. and they are held up as evidences of cure.

Such treatment is not based upon principles, and close observation will convince a thoughtful man of its uselessness and danger. The fistulous opening came there because it was of use, and probably if it had been permitted to exist would have remained as a vent until the patient was cured. When the patient is cured the fistulous opening ceases to be of use, the necessity for it to remain open has ceased and it heals up of itself.

The Organon condemns on principle the removal of external manifestations of disease by an external means whatever. A psoric case is one in which there is no external or traumatic cause. The patient perhaps has the habit of living as nearly an orderly life as it is possible for anyone to assume at the present day, going the regular rounds of service, using coffee and tea not at all or only in small quantity, careful in diet, removing all external things which are the cause of indispositions,. and yet this patient remains sick.

The signs and symptoms that are manifested are the true impress of nature, they constitute the outwardly reflected image of the inward nature of the sickness. “Now as in a disease from which n manifest exciting or maintaining cause has to be removed we can perceive nothing but the morbid symptoms, it must be the symptoms alone by which the disease demands and points to the remedy suited to relieve it.”

Hahnemann’s teaching is that there is a use in this symptom image, and that every curable disease presents itself to the intelligent physician in the signs and symptoms that he can perceive. In viewing a long array of symptoms an image is presented to the mind of an internal disorder, and this is all that the intelligent physician can rely upon for the purpose of cure.

This divides Homoeopathy into two parts, the science Homoeopathy and the art of Homoeopathy. The science treats of the knowledges relating to the doctrines of cure, the knowledge of principle or order, which you may say is physiology; the knowledge of disorder in the human economy, which is pathology (that is, the science of disease, not morbid anatomy), and the knowledge of cure.

The science of Homoeopathy is first to be learned to prepare one for the application of that science, which is the art of Homoeopathy. If we cast our eyes over those who have been taught, self-taught or otherwise, we see that some can learn the science, become quite famous and pass excellent examinations, and are utterly unable to apply the science, or, in other words, to practice the art of healing, for all healing consists in making application of the science.

We study disease as a disorder of the human economy in the symptoms of the disease itself. We also study disease from the symptoms of medicines that have caused disorder in the economy. Indeed, we can study the nature and quality of disease as much by studying the Materia Medica as by studying symptoms of disease, and when we cannot fill our time in studying symptoms from sick folks it is well to use the time in studying the symptomatology of the Materia Medica.

True knowledge consists in becoming acquainted with and understanding the nature and quality of a remedy, its appearance, its image and its relation to man in his sickness; then by studying the nature of sickness in the human family to compare that sickness with symptoms of the Materia Medica. By this means we become acquainted with the law of cure and all it leads that it leads to, and formulate doctrines by which the law may be applied and made use of, by arranging the truth in form to be perceived by the human mind.

This is but the science and we may, notwithstanding, fail to heal the sick. You will observe some, who know the science, go out and make improper application of the remedies, and seem to have no ability to perceive in a remedy that which is similar to a disease. I believe if they had a candid love for the work they would over come this, but they think more of their pocket books. The physician who is the most successful is he who will first heal for the love of healing, who will practice first for the purpose of verifying his knowledge and performing his use for the love of it.

I have never known such a one to fail, This loves stimulates him to proceed and not to be discouraged with his first failures, and leads him to success, in simple things first and then in greater things if he did not have an unusual affection for it he would not succeed in it. An artist once was asked how it was that the he mixed his pains so wonderfully, and he replied, “With brains, sir.” So one may have all the knowledge of Homoeopathy that it is possible for a human being to have, and yet be a failure in applying that art in its beauty and loveliness. If we have no affection for it, it will be seen to be a mere matter of memory and superficial intelligence.

As he learns to love it, and dwell upon it as the very life of him, then he understands it as art and can apply it in the highest degree. The continuous applications of it will lead any physician of ordinary intelligence so far into the perception of his work that he will be able to perceive by the symptoms the whole state of the economy, and when reading provings to perceive the very nature of the sickness expressed in the provings. This degree of perception will enable him to see the “outwardly reflected image.” You will not have to observe long, or be among physicians long before you will find that many of them have a most external memory of the Materia Medica, that they have no idea of the nature of medicine they use, no perception of the quality or image of a remedy.

It does not come up before their mind as an artist’s picture; it is cold, it is far away. An artist works on a picture so that he sees it day and night, he figures it out from his very affections, he figures out every line that he is going to put in the next day, stands before it and he is delighted in it and loves it. So it is with the image of a remedy. That image comes out before the mind so that it is the outwardly reflected image of the inner nature, as if one man had proved it. If the symptoms do not take form the physician does not know his patient and does not know his remedy. This is not a thing that can open out to the mind instantly.

You are, as it were coming out of a world where the education consists in memorizing symptoms or memorizing key-notes or learning prescriptions, with really nothing in the mind, and the memory is only charged with a mass of information that has no application, and is only confusion leading man to worse confusion. There is no order in it. Hahnemann says: “In a word, the totality of the symptoms must be the principal, indeed the only thing the physician has to take note of in every case of disease, and to remove by means of his art, in order that it shall be cured and transformed into health.” That is the turning of internal disorder into order manifested in the way we have heretofore explained, viz., from above downward, from within out and in the reverse order of the coming of the symptoms.

LECTURES ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY BY JAMES TYLER KENT –

The old school of Allopathy considered about `sickness’ and `medicine’ in a particular way.



– The sphere of sickness was limited to the physical level. Only tissue changes were seen and considered.

– The source of sickness, process of sickness, the nature of sickness and the concept of real health were not studied.

– Only the result of sickness was felt with fingers, seen with eyes and observed by sense through instruments.

– The meaning of restoration of health was confined to relief in the ailments of particular organs where they appeared. – Drugs were used in crude forms to remove the ailments.



– The system was based entirely on experience. Decisions were made on opinions of individuals at different times and concensus of opinions or hypothesis.

– Pathological findings formed the basis of the diagnosis.

– The internal of man–his mental and emotional aspects were not considered.

– Symptoms–the language of sickness, at the levels of mind, emotion and body were not studied.



– Every pathological result had its corresponding bacteria.

– Doctrine of Vital Force had no place for them.

– Prime importance was given to the organs of man, and not to the man himself which constituted of body mind and emotions.

Will and understanding of man not studied and considered

HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY
Dr. Hahnemann `proved’ the drugs on healthy enlightened human bodies. He found that the drugs affected the mind, the emotions and the body and the effects are expressed through symptoms and modalities. He also found that these drugs in potency are able to remove Similar Sickness appearing in human beings. He discovered an Universal Truth; a truth based on `science’ where opinions do not matter, experiences do not form basis; source of sickness, process of sickness and the nature of sickness is explored and the correct curative agent is found.

Dr. Kent has interpreted and explained the various aspects of Hahnemann’s “Organon of the Healing Art”. His lectures are so vivid that they mirror the fundamental laws of health and healing to the mankind at all levels of understanding. This book was written about 90 years ago-but still, the concepts hold true in the present times. He was an empirical Hahnemannian. He could not compromise with the deviation from principles and philosophy and we find his criticism sometimes sharp and bitter of `Pseudo-homoeopaths’.

KEYNOTES OF PHILOSOPHY
– Man is the will and the understating and the house which he lives in is his body.

– The organs are not the man. The man is prior to the organs.



– The order of sickness as well as the order of cure is from man to his organs. The real sick man is prior to the sick sick body.

– A man is sick prior to localization of disease. When we wait for localization, the results of disease have rendered the patient incurable.

– Symptoms are but the language of nature, talking out, as it were, and showing as clearly as the daylight, the internal nature of the sickman or woman.

– Crude drugs cannot heal the sick and that what changes they effect are not real but only apparent.

– Tissue changes are of the body and are the results of the disease, they are not the disease.

– The bacteria are results of the disease. The disease cause is more subtle.

– The remedy, which will produce on healthy man similar symptoms, is the master of the situation, is the necessary antidote, will overcome the sickness, restore the will and understanding to order and cure the patient.



– Man consists in what he thinks and what he loves and there is nothing else in man.

– The physician has to `perceive’ in the disease that which is to be cured, and that is through `totality of symptoms’. He has to perceive the nature of disease and the nature of the remedy.

– Experience has only a confirmatory place. It cannot take the place of science and truth.

– All true diseases of the economy flow from centre to circumference. All miasms are true diseases.

– The active cause is within, and the apparent cause of sickness is without. If a man has no deep miasmatic influence, outer causes will not affect him.

– Homoeopathy has two parts: the science of homoeopathy are the art of homoeopathy. One has to learn the art of homoeopathy to prepare himself for the application of the science of homoeopathy.

– Vital force is constructive and formative, and in its thing in the universe has its aura. Every star and planet has it. The remedy to be homoeopathic must be similar in quality and similar in action to the disease cause.

– As soon as the internal economy is deprived in any manner of its freedom, death is threatening; where freedom is lost, death is sure to follow.

– Potency should suit the varying susceptibility of sickman.



– Any more than just enough to supply the susceptibility is a surplus and is dangerous.

– Human race has been greatly disordered in the economy because of surplus drug taking.

– Primitive cause is not in the bacteria. Bacteria themselves have a cause to appear and survive.

– Over sensitive patients are actually poisoned by the inappropriate administration of potentized medicines.

– Their chronic miasms are complicated with chronic drugging and its effect upon the vital force.

– The physician who can only hold in his memory the symptoms of a disease or a remedy will never succeed as a homoeopath.

– The majority of such as call themselves homoeopaths at the present time, are perfectly incompetent to examine a patient, and therefore incompetent to examine homoeopathy.

– It is impossible to test homoeopathy without learning how to get the disease image so before the eyes that the homoeopathic remedy can be selected.

– At the present day, there is almost no such thing as an unprejudiced mind.



– Do not prescribe until you have found the remedy that is similar to the whole case, even although it is clear in your mind that one remedy may be more similar to one particular group of symptoms and another remedy to another group.

– It is unaccountable, therefore, that some of our homoeopathic practitioners make use of palliatives that are so detrimental to the patients.