Editorial – The Homoeopathic Heritage 11/2024
Dr. Joachim-F. Grätz, Classical Homeopathy, Oberhausen i. Obb., Germany
The Validity of External Applications in Homeopathy: An Unresolved Conundrum
I think the subject of “external applications in homeopathy” is quite controversial, depending on who you talk to and how they treat, acutely or – in the sense of Hahnemann – primarily chronically.
In homeopathy, we basically distinguish between two different treatment methods: acute treatment and anti-miasmatic, chronic treatment.
The essential characteristic of acute diseases lies in their tendency to heal themselves. They have a goal and therefore a definite beginning and a definite end, with or without medication or homeopathic remedies.
In the case of chronic diseases, on the other hand, self-healing is not possible. The vital force, the energetic center of the body/living being, allows them to enter the organism unhindered; it cannot free itself from them independently. Chronic diseases progress in phases and relapses with intervening latency periods and always reappear “in a more or less modified form and with new symptoms”; in other words, there is an increase in symptoms every now and then. The chronic illness only ends, so to speak, when the individual dies.
Conventional medicine sees only a temporal difference between the two terms acute and chronic illness. According to the clinical dictionary, acute illness means a “sudden, rapid, violent illness”, while chronic illness is understood as a “slowly developing and slowly progressing disease”. Hahnemann, and therefore homeopathy, does not only see this temporal dimension, but also the character and essence of the disease! For him, the difference between acute and chronic lies in the way the vital force reacts! And this is exactly where the concept of miasms comes into play.
Miasm means something like defilement, contamination or contagion (infectious, contagious, corrupting) and describes that which lies behind the superficial suffering. – The disease behind the diseases!
Hahnemann’s theory of miasms is where true homeopathy really begins!
This doctrine of chronic diseases really enables the homeotherapist to cure diseases that are considered incurable according to official doctrine. The tendency to certain illnesses is cured. And this is done with a well-chosen sequence of homeopathic high potencies (30C and higher or LM18 and higher), depending on the symptoms and which miasm is to be treated at the time, and may well take several years of treatment. The goal here is nearly absolute health. And this is only possible with the help of anti-miasmatic remedies in high potencies, with the aim of making the patient “completely healthy”, so that over time the patient stands like a rock in the surf, i.e. even hardly any acute illnesses occur.
For acute illnesses, low potencies are generally used, which are repeated several times a day. High potencies, diluted in a glass of water, can also be taken by the spoonful.
And the whole thing orally. That goes without saying. Illness means an upset of the vital force. This is something energetic, something subtle. In addition, Hahnemann’s remedies were proved on healthy people, orally via the oral mucosa. The medicine administered in each case (dematerialized in the case of high potencies) now enables the vital force to return to its biologically normal vibration and thus make the symptoms of the disease disappear.
In chronic diseases, i.e. when removing/eliminating the chronic miasms, the remedies will be prescribed according to completely different principles, i.e. the law of similia alone is not sufficient. First of all, it is necessary to determine which miasms are present at all – in the sense of primary and secondary miasms (i.e. inherited or acquired) – and which of these miasms is the currently active one, “for the totality grouping must be about the symptoms of the active miasm” (John Henry Allen), but this is easier said than done. And these miasms are then gradually eliminated over months of taking high potencies (especially LM potencies). In paragraphs 196 and 197 Hahnemann points out “a serious disadvantage” that in chronic diseases external applications of the “remedy found to be homoeopathically correct” do not necessarily accelerate the cure, but that the “local disease usually disappears from sight before the internal disease is destroyed and thus deceives us with the appearance of a complete cure”.
In the case of acute illnesses – we distinguish between different types of acute illnesses (the “simple” acute illness, the acute exacerbation, the intercurrent acute illness and the epidemic illness) – external applications are quite useful from time to time. Especially after injuries, which are not necessarily to be seen as an illness in the sense of an upset of the vital force. Here, Calendula ointments, Hypericum in mother tincture, Bellis perennis and the like can be applied to or on the affected lesions. Usually in quite low potencies, plus orally administered in higher potencies. Euphrasia eye drops in 4X have also proved effective for the conjunctivae, plus Euphrasia LM 18 orally. Or Cardiospermun ointments to relieve itching in neurodermatitis or other itchy skin florescences. Thuja in low potency for the local treatment of warts also works quite reliably.
The aim of external therapeutic measures can be immediate relief of the symptoms. The usual approach is a mixture of both, external and internal. In addition, external treatment aims to accelerate healing a little and provide some ad hoc relief.
Strictly speaking, however, external applications still involve a bit of conventional medical thinking with energized remedies, the local treatment of bringing the medicine directly to the site of action. But the understanding of the life force is that basically something energetic has to be put right. However, the life force has no fixed location; it is everywhere. Furthermore, all homeopathic remedies have been proven orally and not on the skin or anywhere else in the organism.
Such an approach is also a viable path for therapists who come from conventional medicine and want to learn and apply homeopathy step by step. It makes it a little easier to switch to a completely new way of thinking. Homeopathic injections also belong in this category. They are not quite correct, as they actually have an energetic effect and do not need to be applied to the local disease manifestations. In a way, this is also conventional medical thinking with homeopathic medicines.
Once again: Generally speaking, local applications miss the actual idea of homeopathy. Illness is an imbalance of the vital force and sometimes only manifests itself through external symptoms. Something energetic, something subtle. The remedy does not have to start where the acute complaints are. It must harmonize the vibration of the vital force, the energetic center. And that has no fixed seat in the organism. It is everywhere, something spiritual!
Homeopathy is not primarily concerned with small doses – this only describes the material substance of a remedy in terms of its degree of dilution, including its expected chemical effect – but with so-called dynamized potencies, which act on the basis of subtle information according to completely different principles of action and are exclusively physical in nature. These are dematerialized, spirit-like dynamic medicines that completely elude the laws of chemistry and act purely physically in the form of vibration and energy. And these medicines do not need to be administered at the place of action.
To put it in a nutshell: Conventional medicine is (gross) chemistry at the lowest level (which is used almost exclusively to suppress symptoms), whereas homeopathy is (subtle, energetic) physics at the top level, which stimulates/reactivates the self-healing powers of the organism and thereby specifically triggers and controls the corresponding chemical processes at the lower levels. – In short: Homeopathy is physics, conventional medicine and naturopathy are chemistry, a world of difference.
One could say that there is a strict hierarchy in homeopathy: the chronic, anti-miasmatic treatment with high potencies to gradually remove the miasms, and the acute treatment with low potencies or high potencies with the water glass method to control acute situations andr reactions. The latter also includes external applications. And these are not in the strict sense of Hahnemann, but nevertheless have their purpose and justification. They have proven their worth in many areas.
Our great master Hahnemann also realized this at the time, because in the footnote to § 282 of the 6th edition of his Organon of Medicine he advises additional local applications. Especially in the treatment of long existing figwarts he says that a local application together with the internal application of a homeopathic remedy is necessary (“figwarts, however, when they have remained untreated for some time, require for complete cure that their specific medicine be applied externally at the same time as it is used internally”).
