As Stuart Close has well said, the real field of homoeopathy is
To those agents which effect the organism as to health in ways not governed by chemistry, mechanics, or hygiene, but those capable of producing ailments similar to those found in the sick.
Fincke has shown that in the development and growth of the child much can be done to make this symmetrical, for it is closely related to the laws of assimilation; here the laws of similia have pre-eminence, for the child is peculiarly under the influence of the laws of action and reaction as applied to the action of the similar remedy in its development and growth.
The homeopathic principle is not used in another field of what might be called extreme emergency, but rather we use what may be called a principle of palliation. As Hahnemann says in a note to Par. 67 of the Organon :
Only in the most urgent cases, where danger to life and imminent death allow no time for the action of a homeopathic remedy not hours, sometimes not even quarter hours and scarcely minutes in sudden accidents occurring to previously healthy individuals for example, in asphyxia and suspended animation from lightning, from suffocation, freezing, drowning, etc.—it is admissible and even judicious at all events as a preliminary measure to stimulate the irritability and sensibility (the physical life) with a palliative, as for instance, gentle electric shocks, with clysters of strong coffee, with a stimulating odour, gradual applications of heat, etc. When this stimulation is effected, the play of vital organs goes on again in its former healthy manner for here there is no disease to be removed, but merely an obstruction and suppression to the healthy vital force. To this category belong various antidotes to sudden poisonings: alkalis for mineral acids, hepar sulphuris for metallic poisons, coffee and camphor (and ipecacuanha) for poisoning by opium, etc.
Even in emergencies, however, we may find the indications for the homoeopathic remedy just as clear-cut as antipathetic means would be, and if we can read these indications, even here the action of the potentized remedy will be more rapid and far more gentle in its restorative powers than would be the case if stronger measures were taken. Thus in such conditions as asphyxia, shock from various sources, and even from the inges tion of poisons, among many other so-called emergencies, homoeopathic remedies in skilful hands have saved lives with almost miraculous speed and with the happiest of results. The indicated remedy works with exceeding rapidity, and we dare not put a limitation upon its restorative powers.
It is well to obtain this clear view of what is before us and face candidly the true place for the practice of the healing art that we may become true physicians; and to stabilize still further, let us look at what Carroll Dunham called the scientific reasonableness of homoeopathy.
Homoeopathy has been developed through the inductive method of reasoning. Not only are the conclusions of homoeopathy consistent with its assumption but they are founded upon Truth, for homoeopathy as a method is drawn logically according to the strictest rules of inductive generalization from data derived from the closest observation of facts and experiments. All the processes from the proving to the curative prescription are controlled by the principles of inductive reasoning.
