O ano de 1880 foi particularmente fatídico para a Homeopatia norte americana e certamente mundial. Carroll Dunham, desencarnado em 1877, enquanto presidente do American Institute of Homoeopathy havia clamado "liberty of the individual doctor" para tentar a homeopatia de sua escolha, permitindo a entrada e participação daqueles que clamavam ser a Homeopatia apenas uma das formas de tratamento.
No dia 22-6-1880 E. W. Berridge foi dar uma palestra na reunião anual do dito A.I.H., já dominado pelos ecléticos. O pronunciamento foi mal recebido porque Berridge disse claramente o que pensava daquilo. Quiseram tirar o discurso dele dos "proceedings" mas a Sociedade Lippe se reuniu logo depois e não só endossou como parabenizou o discurso.
A partir daí os homeopatas resolveram fundar outra associação que fosse menos "liberal". No dia 19-7-1880 foi assinada a "Declaration of Hahnemannian Principles", encabeçada por Hering, na presença de Berridge. Fundou-se a International Hahnemannian Association.
Quatro dias depois, às 21 h. 40 min., C. Hering, após jantar, foi para seu escritório e estava trabalhando no 4º volume dos Guiding Symptoms quando teve um ataque fulminante de angina pectoris. Foi aquele corre-corre, chama fulano, chama sicrano... Ele, muito inquieto mas consciente, embora já com as mãos frias, disse "I am dying now". Suas últimas palavras. Às 22 h. de 23-7-1880 desencarnou.
O discurso de Berridge é uma peça histórica, por isso o copiei e ofereço aqui para que a História nos seja guia em direção ao futuro. Só não me peçam para traduzir porque seria muito para meu caminhãozinho e nem mutilem o texto porque as pragas do Egito, e as minhas em particular, cairiam sobre tal infeliz.
Aos 17 de maio de 1999 do ano da graça de Nosso Senhor.
E. W. BERRIDGE
THE MILLWAUKEE ADDRESS AT THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF HOMOEOPATHY
June 22, 1880.
Copiado de The Homoeopathic Heritage, vol. 18, March, 1993; que por sua vez transcreveu de The Organon, 1880.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, through the courtesy of our president I have been invited to address you on some subject connected with our beloved science and art. I will attempt, however imperfectly, to present for your kind indulgence and consideration a few thoughts on that subject we all profess to have at heart, namely, "How can we best advance homoeopathy?"
It cannot be denied that homoeopathy has not advanced, and is not advancing, as rapidly as we could desire, nor as rapidly as we once had just and reasonable grounds for expecting it to advance. In the United States, where it has taken the firmest root, and where its spreading branches most widely overshadow the land with healing in their leaves, the old school is yet triumphant in point of numbers; and to this day the rules of medical trade unionism, euphemistically called professional etiquette, are brought to bear upon us by our opponents. In Great Britain we have but 275 avowed homoeopathic physicians and this number includes not a few who have not the slightest claims to this honorable title; and while there are many colleges and universities empowered by the State to grant degrees in medicine, we have not one legally recognized school of homoeopathy. In the Continent, matters are in the same unsatisfactory condition. More than forty years have elapsed since Hahnemann penned the fifth edition of his Organon; more than eighty since he first announced the law of similia, and yet how little fruit has his life-work borne in comparison with what should have been. Why is this? To what causes are we to attribute the fact that the profession and the public have not more universally accepted homoeopathy?
There are those amongst us who have a common answer to this question. Hahnemann, they say, was too dogmatic, too uncompromising, too visionary; and as a panacea for all the unbelief which now pervades the allopathic mind, they recommend that we should give up what they call our "sectarian attitude"; that we should drop and disavow the name of homoeopathy; that we should repudiate as untenable that which they call the extravagances of Hahnemann, such as his doctrine of chronic disease, etc., and finally, that we should claim for similia similibus curentur not the position of an universal law, but only that of a very good and useful rule of practice to which there may be many exceptions. "Do this," they say, "and the old school will advance to meet us half-way; the medical millennium will arrive, and the lamb will lie down with the lion." Yes, truly! but the lamb will be inside the lion. The experiment has been tried both in the United States and in Great Britain, and with what result ? Fortunately for our school, there has been no acceptance of the proffered amalgamation. On the contrary, the old school repulsed these ideas with scorn and contempt. And so it will ever be. Do not let us be mistaken in this matter. Our allopathic brethren are not all fools; they can discern the difference between true gold and its counterfeit; they are honest, though in error, and they will always reject the overtures of men who are not true in practice to the principles which they profess, or who show signs of wavering in the presence of the enemy. If they wish the old school to amalgamate with our own, it will never be effected by compromise. Truth and error cannot co-exist. No man can serve two masters. No man can halt between two opinions without suffering the natural consequences of his indecision. If homoeopathy be false, let us at once relinquish our distinctive name, and avow ourselves eclectics; if it be true, let us stand firm, not yield a single inch of our vantage ground. Magna est veritas, et praevalebit. Truth has no occasion to descend from her lofty eminence and ask permission to be heard.
I speak unhesitatingly on this subject, because I speak from experience. My friend and co-editor of our Anglo-American quarterly, "The Organon", was a leading allopathic physician, well versed in all the science of which the old school boasts. He was one of the bitterest opponents of homoeopathy, and a strong supporter of that law of the Liverpool Medical Institution which enacts that no homoeopathist should be eligible for membership, and that, should any member adopt that system, he should thereby forfeit his membership. I cannot wonder at it. He had seen the so-called homoeopathy practiced in that city; he knew how utterly false were the pretensions of many of its nominal adherents. Is it to be wondered that he made no distinctions; knowing none, he classed all under the same category. But when we became acquainted with each other, and then I explained to him what the true homoeopathy of Hahnemann was, he listened attentively, put the matter to the practical test, became convinced of its truth, sent in his resignation of the Liverpool Medical Institution as he was compelled to do under the law, and is now, as we all know, one of the most enthusiastic and uncompromising of Hahnemann's followers. Long afterwards he said to me, "If you had not been a Hahnemannian, you could never have converted me."
Such has been the effect of our wavering upon the minds of our allopathic brethren. What effect has it had on ourselves? Ever since that fatal error was committed by one whose memory we nevertheless hold in honour, of proclaiming absolute "liberty in medical opinion and action", a change for the worse has taken place in our own ranks. Ever since the name of Carroll Dunham has been held to sanction every kind of empiricism, forgetting that he himself in his teaching and practice, was a true Hahnemannian. Men have eagerly caught at his well-intentioned, though mistaken, perhaps misunderstood, words and even banded themselves together to overthrow those that remained true to the teachings of the master. I need not recount the various phases of the struggle, they are all well known to you; suffice to say that the crisis is past, and convalescence has commenced. There are indications both here and in my own country of a desire to return to a purer faith and a truer practice. How can we best accomplish that great work? How are we to advance homoeopathy, and render it the sole and universally received science and art of therapeutics?
The answer is simply this: we must go to the fountain head, and there drink of the water of life freely. We have neglected this; we have thought we are wiser than our teacher; we have attempted to run before we are able to walk, and the usual consequences have ensued. We must undo all this; we must be willing to begin again like little children and learn the ABC, and when we have mastered the alphabet, we may try our hand at reading, and perhaps in time even writing an original work. The great error of the present race of homoeopathists is their neglect to study the Organon of Hahnemann, and it is to this great work, the very bible of homoeopathy, that I especially desire to draw your attention. I do this with the more earnestness, because I find there are so many who have never read it, much less studied it. "The Organon", they say, "is full of Hahnemann's theories". Leave out the theories then; Hahnemann merely gave them for what they were worth, as the best explanation he could give of certain facts. His theories were based upon his facts, not his facts upon theories. To know the true meaning of a fact is of scientific interest, but it is not essential to the fact itself. Destroy all Hahnemann's theories if you choose, you will not thereby shake one single stone of the temple of homoeopathy. Yet even to the present day we find men wasting their time in writing against Hahnemann's theories. Perhaps they do so because his facts are too strong for them.
"But", says another, "we have the law; what more is needed?" Aye, the law! but of what use is a law unless you know how to apply it? You meet with a chronic case which is benefited by your remedy; the symptoms cease, then return in a milder form. What are you going to do now? Will a mere knowledge of the law help you ? If you have not the rules of Hahnemann to guide you, you will probably repeat the medicine, and so do harm, whereas if you have studied his writings, you will know that such periodical exhibitions are of frequent occurrence, and that the remedy must be allowed to act without interference. Will the law alone tell you how long to wait before deciding that the medicine will not act, and is therefore incorrectly selected? Will the law alone tell you that in all periodical diseases the best time to give the dose is just after the paroxysm? You talk of the law of similia, but do you know what is the "like"? To judge from the prescriptions frequently made, the sole idea of like in the minds of many appears to be a vague pathological resemblance, instead of the minute semeiotic correspondence taught by Hahnemann. Pathology is not without its use, but that use is not in the problem of selecting the most appropriate remedy. Pathology does indeed often tell us whether a new symptom is of favorable or unfavorable import, and hence whether it requires to be treated or not; but in the actual selection it is not of the slightest value, not only because it is theoretical and hence more or less uncertain, but because, even at its best. it can only generalize and not individualize.
Were there only one utterance that I could make during this visit to your mightly continent, it would be "Study the Organon of Hahnemann." Read it again and again. Those who study it the most, testify that it never wearies them, that it seems ever fresh, that something new, or something the full force of which they never grasped before, at each fresh perusal meets their mental eye. Do not be led astray by the utterances of those who would would have you first study fallacious manual on pharmacodynamics and therapeutics, or essays written by men whose object is to glorify themselves at the expense of a system which they have never comprehended, though they are indebted to it for the very reputation they possess. Do not be led astray by the fallacious dictum that the Organon should be placed "for frequent perusal and as a trusted guide, in the hand not perhaps of the student but of the educated, earnest practitioner." On the contrary, I maintain that the Organon of Hahnemann is the very first book which the student should read, without which he can really learn nothing of homoeopathy. The Organon is like the mariner's compass, without which the finest ship is in danger of being wrecked. You may know your Materia Medica by heart, but without a knowledge of the rules by which to apply it, your success will be imperfect; but with this knowledge, and with a faithful adherence in actual practice to the teachings of Hahnemann, your success will be certain.
It is not as a blind bigot, or a fanatical enthusiast, or a mere heroworshipper, that I urge these matters upon your attention. I am as ready as any man to worship a hero, but his right to the title must be first demonstrated to me. Since I first discovered how I was misled in early days by teachers, and taught to believe implicitly much that reason and maturer judgment have compelled me to reject as fallacious, I have become sceptical in all things, and require absolute proof, before I accept a statement as absolute true. And my absolutely and unwavering acceptance of the truth of the practical teachings of Hahnemann is based upon experience. It is now eighteen years since I first commenced the study of homoeopathy. I have compared it with allopathy and eclecticism. I have tested it in the most severe acute diseases threatening life, in the most chronic and inveterate diseases which had baffled all other treatment, and in incurable cases, when only euthanasia was possible, and I have never once found Hahnemann's teaching to be wrong. Nay more, though Hahnemann's faithful followers have made many discoveries in the same field in which he laboured, so vast was his insight and so profound his genius that there is scarcely a single therapeutic discovery of modern times of which you will not find at least the germ in his writings.
Hahnemann's system is the true, the only science of therapeutics, and if my words will persuade any of you who may have departed from his standard, to adopt a purer practice and a truer faith, I shall feel that my visit to you has not been in vain.