VITALISM
Another World View
There has always been another world view to compete and compare with the mechanistic , reductionistic , atheistic Western world view that is typically held by science . And that ’ s a vitalistic world view – one that includes art , life , holism , and universal intelligence . This vitalistic view has been continuously championed in the East for millennia and is readily accessible today , as found in the Oriental medicine modalities and philosophies from China , Korea , Japan , Vietnam , India , and Tibet . According to Matthew Wood , 2 there are only three flourishing Occidental ( Western ) medical traditions of vitalism – herbalism , flower essences and homeopathy . All these vitalistic traditions began with the influence of a Swiss-born physician and alchemist , Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim ( 1493- 1541 ) ( also known as Paracelsus ). He ( though actually a female who dressed as a male and suffered from Turner ’ s Syndrome ) was the historical pivot point for establishing vitalism in Europe . Paracelsus has the historical precedent , over 200 years before the conception of homeopathy , for using a single remedy , given in the minimum ( optimum ) dose , selected through symptom similarity by individualisation of the patient , that acted through an immaterial vitalistic medium .
Dynamis
Modern homeopathy was “ conceived ” after an experiment was conducted in 1790 by a German physician called Samuel Hahnemann ( 1755-1843 ). This experiment involved Hahnemann orally ingesting a four-dram ( 14.79 ml ) dose of Cinchona bark tincture twice daily for several days and observing the physical consequences , which were similar to “ malaria ” ( also known in Europe at this time as “ ague ”). This experiment resolved the prior erroneous attempts to rationally explain the specificity of how oral doses of Cinchona tincture effectively treated fever - as if by its bitter and astringent action it tonified the stomach . Homeopathy was soon “ born ” with a journal publication 3 in 1796 , written by Hahnemann , discussing this “ similar ” principle of treatment . As with Copernicus , Hahnemann also referenced an ancient Greek writer , called Hippocrates of Kos ( 290-370 BC ), who had previously written 4 that diseases could be cured with similars . It is interesting that Hahnemann reused Paracelsus ’ Latin logo of similia similibus curantur ( similars are cured by similars ) for his “ New School ” of practising medicine that we now call homeopathy . What is also interesting is that the concept of the vital force was briefly , though clearly , introduced 5 into homeopathy in the fourth edition of Hahnemann ’ s “ Organon of the Rational Art of Healing ”, which was published in 1829 . So , from the conception of homeopathy in 1790 and its birth in 1796 , through to the first edition of the “ Organon ” published in 1810 , and onwards until the fourth edition of the “ Organon ” was published in 1829 , vitalism had not been an explicit part of homeopathy . Early adopting practitioners did not need to acknowledge vitalism to practise homeopathy in those first 39 years of its historical development . It is , therefore , understandable that Anthony Campbell 6 could publish his book in 1984 , called “ The Two Faces of Homoeopathy ”, where the materialistic aspect of homeopathy is compared to its vitalistic aspect .
This alleged schism in homeopathy may have been in part due to Hahnemann ’ s own disposition , as he tried in the earlier stages of the development of homeopathy to base his practice upon pure clinical experience , and not upon any uncertain metaphysical speculation . Vitalism was out of fashion at that time in history , given the recent rise in interest in the materialistic atheistic sciences by the early “ philosophers of nature ”.
In the fifth edition of the “ Organon ”, published in 1833 , Hahnemann regularly wrote about the vital force , calling both the behaviour of the human organism and the immaterial action of a dynamised and potentised medicine as “ spirit-like ”. Vitalism was explicitly acknowledged in the final sixth edition of the “ Organon ” completed in 1842 , though not published in the German language until 1921 , and soon followed by an English translation in 1922 . 7 Here is an example taken from Hahnemann ’ s sixth edition of the “ Organon ”, 8 where he attempts to explain the vitalist significance of the impact of the kinetic energy invoked to potentise a medicine using the friction processes he called trituration ( rubbing ) and succussion ( shaking ):
Only when we dynamize this steel rod by strongly rubbing it in one direction with a blunt file does it become a true , active powerful magnet ... Likewise , rubbing a medicinal substance and succussing its solution ( dynamization , potentization ) develops the medicinal powers lying hidden in the medicinal substance and discloses these powers more and more . The dynamization spiritizes the material substance , if one may use that expression . ( p . 237 )
Richard Haehl 9 quotes a letter written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ( 1749-1832 ) on 05 May 1820 , describing Hahnemann as “ this new Theophrastus Paracelsus ”. Interestingly , both Paracelsus and Hahnemann were formally qualified physicians who were mercilessly derided and thoroughly castigated by their orthodox medical contemporaries , both rejected the practice of medicine in which they had been trained , both used small doses and emphasised the law of similars , both became enchanted with experiments that focused on chemicals , and so made extensive use of the common poisons , minerals , acids and metals as medicines , and both obtained brief university teaching posts but were dismissed after allegedly “ indoctrinating ” their students and castigating the conventional heroic medical system of the day by teaching their own “ heretical ” forms of medicine . 10
JATMS | Summer 2021 | 189