The Unprejudiced Observer in Homeopathy andHomeopathic Philosophy

Kathryn Tian

Registered Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Canada)

Registered Acupuncturist (Canada)

ND Candidate (Canada)

MD (Canadian Equivalence)

In his book “Organon of Medical Art”, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann stated:“The Unprejudiced observer, well aware of the futility of transcendentalspeculations which can receive no confirmation from experience-be his powers ofpenetration ever so great, takes note of nothing in every individual disease,except the changes in the health of the body and of the mind which can beperceived externally by means of the senses ; that is to say, he notices onlythe deviations from the former healthy state of the now diseased individual,which are felt by the patient himself, remarked by those around him andobserved by the physician. All these perceptible signs represent the disease inits whole extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivableportrait of the disease.”

So, what does it mean by being an “unprejudiced observer”? Accordingto Dr. Hahnemann, a health practitioner does not need to probe into the causeof diseases, because that is impossible and futile. If a doctor thinks of atheory to follow and uses the theory to diagnose and treat patients, then thisdoctor is prejudiced; if a doctor decides any remedy or dosage of a remedywithout examining and analyzing the specific case, then this doctor isprejudiced; if a doctor evaluates the prognoses of a patient’s disease without observingthe detailed symptoms and signs, then this doctor is prejudiced. To be anunprejudiced observer, what we need to observe is the symptoms and signs, the“totality of symptoms”, of the specific individual case. We must analyze thedetailed case and practice case by case, individual by individual. Only by thiskind of unprejudiced observation and the method of induction, we can achievecure in our practices. In the unprejudiced homeopathy practice, a practitioneronly observes the difference between the former healthy state and the totalityof symptoms of the patient him/herself. In another word, homeopathy can treatthe reality of a case so as to achieve cure.

The prejudiced practice of allopathic medicine has been causingvarious issues, for examples, causing signs of suppression and signs ofpalliation. In the allopathic medicine practice, the chief symptoms aresuppressed, other symptoms still continue and new problems occur; furthermore,problems return when medicine stopped, in many cases, drug dosage needs to beincreased. Because they have so many fixed theories to follow, they havedifficulties in observing and analyzing symptoms and signs for each case, andthe treatment goal can not be for cure, but just for temporary relief ofcertain symptoms. When treating pain, allopathic medicine will just givepain-killer drug to suppress pain, but not observing the totality of symptomsto cure pain. When treating cancer, allopathic medicine use chemotherapy,radiotherapy or surgery to remove the lamps, but not seeing the whole pictureof the disease, many patients die from the side effects of those treatments andthe curative rate is pretty low. For symptoms like cough or diarrhea,allopathic medicine usually just uses suppressant methods. In many cases, thosesymptoms get worse when they are actually caused by pathogens for which thetreatments should be encouraging the body to make more cough and diarrhea tolet out pathogens. For eczema, cortisone is usually the only availabletreatment method, and  the disease canget worse whenever patients stop using it and the skin is harder and harderwith pigmentation formation.

On the contrary, homeopathy practice is based on individualizedunprejudiced observation. Homeopathy practitioners are unprejudiced observers,they treat patients individually, case by case. They believe in life force anduse finest and smallest dosage of spirit-like medicinal energy to achieveperfect cure. In homeopathy, “totality of symptoms” is the sole indicator inchoosing a remedy. The remedy is the totality, the patient is the subset.Comparing the totality with the subset, finding the similarities, and analyzingthe peculiar presentation of individual responses are the basis for choosingthe remedies. Homeopathy believes in “like cures like” and regards everypatient as distinct individual. It is a tailor-made medicine and is steeped inphilosophy. Based on symptomatology, homeopathy focuses on pattern recognition.They use materia medica to treat patients. Meteria medica means the materialsof medicine, it is the therapeutic substance for healing including plants,minerals, animals, and chemicals. In homeopathy, diseases are the mistuning ofvital force, and remedies are for tuning back the mistunement. In Aphorism 27,Dr. Hahnemann said: “A disease is completely, rapidly and permanently removedby a medicine that can engender a totality of symptoms most similar to thedisease but stronger.”

The concept of “unprejudiced observer” is very important for medicalpractice. Clinical practice is about facing to the real world. We are treatinghuman beings who are unity of mind and body. Every patient is unique. Genders,life styles, eating habits, exercising methods, social and natural environmentsare all different. More importantly, their minds are different too. Some peopleare easy to lose temper, some people are optimistic and easy to relax, somepeople are prone to anxiety. The mind and emotion can have strong impacts onlife force, causing the mistunement. To tune it back to healthy state, we needto follow homeopathic philosophy to practice. In doing so, sometimes we can seehomeopathic aggravation of symptoms and even healing crisis. These phenomenaare the signs of healing and curing and are part of special features ofhomeopathy practice. Comparing with other medical systems, homeopathy pursuesthe perfect cure the most by the unprejudiced observation method. This methodleads to the thought of individualized medical practice that is more and morepopular nowadays. The individualized practice can reduce the biases in medicalpractice to great extent and make the cure being possible.

In the very first paragraph of his Organon of Medicine, Dr. SamuelHahnemann states: “The physician’s high and only mission is to restore the sickto health, to cure, as it is termed.” We should follow Dr. Hahnemann’s organonand learn to be an unprejudiced observer and practice to be a homeopathicpractitioner.

References:

Hahnemann, Samuel. Organon of the Medical Art. Birdcage Books. Palo Alto, California.6^th edition.