Page 4 - Autumn 13

Hahnemann got it wrong
about miasms! by John Saxton, UK
Shock! Horror! Has Saxton finally flipped? Fortunately he hasn’t (some might dis- agree). So in what sense did Hahnemann get it wrong and why don’t miasms exist?
Drs Stapf and Gross were two of Hahnemann’s most enthusiastic and trusted supporters, and he wrote to them in 1827 that “It will take them (his other supporters) six months to recover from the shock (of mias- matic theory), and another six months to begin to understand (it).” In 1828 his book Chronic Diseases: their Peculiar Nature and Homeopathic Cure, was published, but
rather than the twelve months he predicted would be required for its acceptance and under- standing, the arguments and discussions are still raging 185 years later! What is there in his teaching that has so baf- fled so many people, and why, as Edward De Beukelaer quotes, do so many people have differ- ent definitions and views on miasms? It is helpful to go back to what Hahnemann actually proposed to find a way through the maze.
mal-functions. Similarly the overall theory of miasms is a dynamic concept, in modern parl- ance a ‘model of disease’.
It is necessary to be quite clear about termi- nology. Unfortunately Hahnemann was the first offender in this regard, as there are occasions, when he uses the term ‘miasm’ in different ways, at times reverting to the more accepted usage of his age to denote a noxious agent that causes disease – the forerunner of the ‘causal agent’ so beloved of modern orthodox thought. Allied to this, the fact that he named his three
illness the mal-functioning of the body.
There is a difference between a ‘concept’ and a ‘construct’, with a ‘concept’ implying a much wider vision. The concept of miasms is concerned with, why and how the body mal- functions, based on the underlying biological processes necessary for life; the constructs of diseases are only a way of classifying the
results of those mal-functions.
It follows therefore that to link a view of
miasms to a named disease process (a con- struct) is to change the definition of a miasm from what Hahnemann proposed (a concept). It also follows that if miasms are to be linked to particular diseases, it becomes necessary to increase the number of ‘miasms’ (exponen- tially?) to ‘cover all the bases’ – and hence
confusion reigns!
As Edward states: “the matching of a remedy to the patient is based on matching the dynamic of the remedy to the dynamic of the patient... [and]... if there is a perfect match between the central theme of the remedy and the patient, the response of the patient is going to be most pro- found”. The theme(s) of a remedy are based on the miasmatic balance in that remedy, which is a result of the same interplay of the funda- mental forces of nature in the source material
as are present in the mal-functioning patient. Different methods suit different people and the bottom line is the results. However, the pri- mary purpose of Hahnemann’s concept of miasms is to improve those results and can be used successfully to do so in its original form. Know your enemy by all means, but equally know and appreciate your friends. A ‘bad work- man blames his/her tools’ but in many cases a
‘bad workman fails to understand his/her tools’.
Finally, as Edward says: let’s have more on this subject.
Why did Hahnemann
feel the need to produce
the theory at all? It was
not to excuse failure but
to, firstly, explain the lack
of permanent success in
certain cases, and sec-
ondly to offer a solution
to that lack. He realised
that there was a funda-
mental difference
between acute and
chronic diseases, hence
‘peculiar’ to describe the latter. It was not that the homeopathic method had been found intrinsically wanting but that there was some- thing in the chronic cases that was preventing the prescriber seeing the full extent of the prob- lem, something beyond the presenting picture. It was back to aphorism 3, ‘perceiving what is to be cured’; and what was to be cured in these cases included an upset/block to the natural and fundamental healing reactions of the body. To describe this he used the general term ‘miasm’, not to indicate physical entities but rather dynamic concepts, in line with the basic homeopathic concept of illness as a dynamic thing. He identified three individual miasms, each one linked to one of the fundamental and essential ways, in which the body functions or
miasms in relation to three major clinical dis- eases that his medical profession knew well with, has led to the confusion of a causal link between his miasms and particular disease entities. However, a ‘disease’ is only the con- ventional name given to a particular set of symptoms. It has been said that ‘an illness is what you go to the doctor with; a disease is what you come away with’. Conventional med- icine is very much concerned with disease; homeopathy is more concerned with ‘dis- ease’, the dynamic upset to the functioning of the body. Edward’s view that a named disease is in many ways a construct of the observer(s), which can change with time, is useful; that construct is based on the observed signs and symptoms, which are the product of the funda- mental functioning of the body, or in the case of
his use of the term
2
References
Banerjea S K – Miasmatic Diagnosis (2003)
Saxton J – Miasms as Practical Tools (2006) Saxton J – Leitfaden Miasmen (2011)
Soanes, Stevenson & Hawker (Ed) – Concise Oxford English Dictionary 11th edition (2006)