Do Medicines Make Functional
Changes?
By E. A. Farrington, M.D.
At a regular monthly meeting of the
Society held on May 11th, 1876, A.R. Thomas, M.D., President, being in the
Chair, the following interesting papers were read by E.A. Farrington, M.D.;
"Do medicines make functional changes?" being a reply to an article
of Dr. Lippe in the May number of the Medical Advance, entitled, "The Last
Departure of Homoeopathy in the Physiological Livery," and by Pemberton
Dudley, M.D., "On the Cimex Question."
In the May number of the Medical Advance, Dr. Lippe contributed an
article entitled, "The Last Departure of Homoopathy in the Physiological
Livery."
So far as the charges preferred in this article apply to me personally, they
demand no reply. But so far as they compromise the integrity of the College in
which I hold my professorship, I am bound to enter the contest in her defense.
In the early part of the winter I issued a syllabus containing some questions,
arranged in sections. These questions comprised a goodly portion of the Materia
Medica, certainly such portions as the beginning practitioner aught to
thoroughly understand before he commences the practice of medicine.
To this syllabus Dr. Lippe raises several objections, viz.:
- first, he considers that it reaches Schusslerism; secondly,
that it is contrary to the teachings of Hahnemann; thirdly, that it is
false because the answers to many of the proposed questions are impossible -
cannot be true.
The words which seem especially obnoxious to him are these: "The
intelligent application of Materia Medica requires a knowledge of the changes
medicines make in functions and nutrition." For example, I asked,
"What changes does Lachesis make in the blood?" This Dr. Lippe terms
Schusslerism. He asserts, and misapplies Hahnemann to confirm his argument,
that it is impossible to know what changes medicines make in function and
nutrition.
The reply to his argument comprises three questions:
First, what is
Schusslerism?
Secondly, can we
learn what changes medicines make in function and nutrition?
Thirdly, if he can,
of what use is such information in the application of drugs?
First, if Schusslerism means the law which Dr. Hering discovered some thirty years ago, then I
plead guilty to the charge. If it means floundering about with untried
remedies, basing their symptomatology on their supposed physiological action,
making a cure all of twelve substances - then I most emphatically deny the
charge. Every question propounded in the syllabus is answered either from
provings or from clinical experience. If Schusslerism means that medicinal
substances act on tissues producing changes in function and nutrition, then
again must I plead guilty.
And this brings us to the second question, upon the solution of which depends
the maintenances of my position. A function is, literally, an act, a
performance, and applied to physiology, "is the action of an organ or set
of organs" (Dunglison). If I take a drug and symptoms result, are not
these the expression of altered functions - altered in degree or quality? If,
for instance, Lachesis causes hemorrhages with a settling like
charred straw (Guernsey), or if it causes profuse
bleeding, the blood will not coagulate (Lippe);
is this not a nutritive change? And will this altered blood perform its normal
functions? Let the answer be found in the gangrene, the erysipelas, or the
impending typhoid state.
Were Dr. Lippe to ask how the changes are made, I would be compelled to answer,
I know not. The secret workings of vital force are under infinite surveillance.
Just how it works, mortal man may never know. We live in a world of effects,
and it is only of these we can become cognizant.
The blood propelled by the heart, sweeps over the aortic arch and down the
aorta, never dispensing its gifts until it reaches its ultimate in the
capillaries. Nerves run to and from centers, giving no impressions until their
termini are reached. The ulna, irritated at the elbow, tingles at its
termination in the little and outer side of ring fingers. So with every vital
effort, it is in its fullness only when terminated in its appointed organ or
organs.
Organs are made of tissues, tissues of molecules, and herein are consummated
the complex vital phenomena which make up life. As Hahnemann says, the internal
changes we cannot determine. But their effects, which appear normally in
conscious sensation and motion, and abnormally in symptoms, are determinable.
Whether these symptoms are subjective or objective, they express a change in
function or nutrition, and bespeak the tissue or tissues involved.
If a function is truly defined above, will not the symptoms show a changed
"action of an organ or set of organs?"
If I take a remedy, say Rhus, and it produces a vesicular
eruption, will it be denied that a change in nutrition has taken place? And
cannot we perceive what change has taken place? Or, still more to the point, if
for a non-uniting fracture we prescribe Calcarea Phos.,
and the callus quickly forms - a callus containing a hundred-fold more lime
than we give - can we deny a tissue and a nutritive action?
We know that tearing, boring pains indicate an affection of bones or
periosteum; that sharp, shooting pains indicate an affection of serous
membranes. We know that Aconite acts on serous sacs, increasing
their suction; while Sepia, Iodine, etc., relax serous and
synovial sacs.
Equally sure are we that Hypericum acts on nerve tissue, Arnica
on the capillaries, Mercury in the production and Silicia
in the prevention of pus formation, Conium on adenoid tissue, Graphites
in the dissolution of cicatricial tissue, Kreosote on the mucous
lining of the stomach, Silicia, Chamomilla, Bryonia, on
connective tissue, Ferrum on the haematin, Phosphorus
on the blood cells, and so on through the Materia Medica.
But thirdly, Are such facts of use in the application of materia medica? True,
a physician may cure the Lachesis hemorrhage without any other
information than the mere words of the symptoms. But so long as man finds
delight in the exercise of his God-given reason, he will demand the why
- the why which anticipates every new truth - the why which led to Hahnemann's
quinine experiments, and to every succeeding step in his discovery of
Homoeopathy.
No physician can intelligently apply medicines with simply a memorized materia
medica. He is then like the industrious student who, in his attempt to learn
French, memorized the dictionary but learned nothing of grammatical
construction. Neither can the physician always succeed in obtaining the
necessary totality of symptoms without an intimate knowledge of functional
perversions. He must know from physiology what are the normal relations of
organ with organ; from pathology what changes diseases cause; from the history
of diseases what are their probable course, duration and result. For example,
delirium, photo-mania, singing, praying, making verses, will yield to Stramonium;
but the same symptoms with retained placenta, demand Secale.
Neuralgia in and over the left eye may yield to Spigelia, but if
a tilted uterus exist, even though there are no subjective pelvic symptoms, the
remedy will be Actea Rac.
Gross in his
"Comparative Materia Medica," gives as a symptom of Apis,
"suppurations do not occur." Why? Virchow tell us that the production
of pus demands an inflammation of the parenchyma. Apis only attacks
surfaces, hence it seldom forms pus. The utility of this characteristic is
evident in contrasting the remedy with Belladonna, which does
attack the parenchyma; Apis, tonsils bright red, erysipelatous; Belladonna,
tonsils bright red, swollen threatening suppuration.
If a patient passes urine depositing reddish sand, are we damaging Homoeopathy
if we search for the cause of this defective oxygenation of nitrogenous matter?
On the contrary, will not the revealed symptoms help to complete the totality,
and so help us to diagnose between Lycopod., Natrum Mur., Ant. Crud., etc., all of which have such a
urinary deposit?
If a newly proved drug causes white, flocculent urine, are we violating the
precepts of the Master if we analyze this excretion and, finding phosphates in
excess trace thence the relation of other symptoms produced? Let it be
remembered, however, that symptoms have a relative value; and although we may
make use of every known means in analyzing a case and collecting the totality
of its symptoms, we must arrange our picture according to the well tried rules
of the Organon.
The true physician, while he holds fast to the precepts of Hahnemann, neglects
no fact which a progressive science might utilize, no discovery which bears the
stamp to truth. If the new discovery contradicts his well confirmed laws - his
creed it may be called - it must be false, for truth cannot invalidate truth.
Dr Ernest Albert FARRINGTON
1876
