By Luc Chaltin, ND DIHom
Hahnemann wrote that chronic diseases are curable when the inherited miasm is treated homeopathically. In his time, and still in allopathic medicine today, the real cause of chronic disease is not known. Allopathic medicine continues to teach that chronic diseases are caused by bacteria and/or viruses. As such, they are treated with chemical agents that kill the invaders. Today we know that a chronic disease is the result of permanent metabolic changes in the functions of the cells, especially of the glands. This causes changes in the functions of one or more different organs or organ systems of the body. A chronic disease is not caused by pathogenic agents coming from the outside. When infectious bacteria or viruses accompany a chronic disease, they are secondary symptoms, not the primary cause.
Any factor (including miasmic action) that is able to change the metabolic functions of the body negatively may cause chronic disease. There are basically two major causes for the breakdown of healthy metabolism:
(1) Toxins in the environment and the food. These toxins will exhaust the functions of the immune system and the excretory system and eventually will cause an aberration of many metabolic functions.
(2) Lack of essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and trace minerals. These nutrients are critical to create enzymes and to promote a healthy metabolism.
Toxins and lack of essential nutrients reinforce each other’s negative actions by interfering with the enzymatic action of the cells, creating a situation of insufficient functioning in the whole body. This condition is called the deficiency syndrome. The parts that are first and most affected are the weakest organs, and they will show the signs of chronic suffering first. Simultaneously other part of the body will also be affected by the change of metabolism that is causing deficiency.
Because the deficiency syndrome affects the normal functioning of the metabolism, it also has a profound action on the immune system. There cannot be a well-functioning immune system if the metabolism is weakened. This is the reason why chronically-ill patients have constant trouble with their immune reactions.
The fight of a chronically-ill patient’s immune system is mostly against toxins. The body is not able to effectively fight and eliminate these toxins because many of them are synthetic molecules, such as in pesticides, medical drugs, etc. They all have to be eliminated by leukocytes and macrophages which engulf them and die in the process. These dead bodies end up in the lymph nodes or other lymphoid tissue where they often cause swelling, inflammation and pain. When this accumulation goes on for some time the swelling may become noticeable. This may be the way suspicious lumps start forming in the body, especially in women’s breasts.
The deficiency syndrome changes the inner environment (i.e. protoplasm of the cells, blood serum, lymph) of the patient, deviating from what nature intended it to be. It alters or suppresses the action of the enzymes. When enzyme function is diminished, it causes major changes in the metabolism, such as in food absorption, excretion of toxins by the liver, hormone production (i.e. pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, sexual glands), and hundreds of other enzymatic metabolic functions. This in turn leads to weakening of the immune system which is based on the actions of single cells (i.e. macrophages, T-cells, B-cells, others).
This alteration of functions leads to fatigue, digestive troubles, changes in the strength of the immune reactions (e.g. Epstein-Barr, candidiasis), changes in the tissues (e.g. arthritis, atherosclerosis, MS), as well as to other metabolically related malfunctions (e.g. hypoglycemia). As a result, the vital balance of the patient is destroyed and chronic disease appears, leading to tuberculinism and hydrogenoidism.
Homeopathic Proving and Chronic Diseases
Most of the testing, at least for the classic homeopathic remedies, was done in the last century. Those testings were performed on healthier and stronger individuals than the contemporary ones. The testings no longer relate to the condition of the majority of actual patients today most of which are chronically ill.
A chronically ill patient fails to show a reaction, or reacts only partially to a remedy because of the change in metabolism. The symptoms produced in a chronically ill body are weak and do not reflect the seriousness of the condition. The warning is not in proportion to the danger as it is in an acute disease. This lack of reaction makes the proving of a remedy for chronic diseases impossible because the outcome will be different for every test person. It will not even be constant in the same test person over a certain time period.
This makes the determination of a cure for chronic disease by application of the similimum rule completely impossible.
To treat chronic disease, we must rely on clinical experience gathered by numerous homeopaths over the years. This approach is called clinical homeopathy.
The first homeopath to write about curing chronic diseases was Dr. Léon Vannier, a French homeopath from the beginning of the 20th century. His book Les Tuberculiniques explains how tuberculosis has been cured successfully by him and his students since about 1912. By applying the principles of this book on myself, I discovered that Vannier’s approach for tuberculosis is applicable for all chronic diseases. He was the first to state that, in order to cure chronic diseases, the treatment must address all the symptoms of the disease at once.
At the same time, toxins should be eliminated by avoiding them (i.e. by eating organically-grown food only) and by detoxifying the body with homeopathic remedies. For each category of disease, there are appropriate homeopathic remedies that can be used to treat specific conditions ranging from arteriosclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis to dysmenorrhea, uterine fibroids, fever, sinusitis, and allergies.