Hering's Law of Cure

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Hering's law of cure.

By Dr Roger Schmidt

Presented by Sylvain Cazalet

 

 

 

Dr C. Hering

[Hering's law of cure has been verified by not only homeopaths but also

ayurveds, naturopaths and energy healers. This suggests that the body is subject

to certain laws that governs its working as a whole. I have dealt with this

cursorily in my article, " The Dynamics of Disease " , which is available in the

net at http://www.jcrows.com/ayurvedic.html .

 

Herings law, in a nutshell, stipulates that there is a DIRECTION OF CURE. With

this knowledge the physician can be sure whether he has really benefitted the

patient or only made him worse despite a reduction in the severety of symptoms.

Says Hering, the cure proceeds;

 

1. From top to bottom. A symptom or a set of symptoms may slide down. What

appeared on the head may go to the chest, then the abdomen, then the legs before

going away entirely.

 

2. From within to outward. The problem may leave the innards of the body and

surface on the skin, nails, hair, and/or mucous membranes before disappearing.

If the patient has an ulcer in the abdomen, during the treatment if the patient

suddenly develops a profuse discharge of any of the mucous membranes, or

develops a scary rash, then the direction is towards a cure. In such a case the

subsequent acute manifestation should not be disturbed and must be allowed to

take its course.

 

3. Backwards in time. The present symptom may be replaced by what has taken

place prior to it, moving backwards the way it developed. For example a kidney

failure patient may go back to his cardiac manifestation, then the severe

abdominal complaints he may have suffered earlier may resurface. Then the eczema

or psoriasis that was suppressed earlier may recur which when treated

holistically, or by continuing the present method of treatment will cure the

patient.

 

4. From the more important organ to a less important one. As stated above the

affected kidney may heal with the disease going to the heart, then the liver,

the abdomen, then the skin before affecting a cure. A mental symptom like

anxiety may be relieved as the disease takes hold of a physical organ and then

moving on from the more vital organ to the less important one.

 

A word of caution here. Merely going to a practitioner who uses holistic

remedies will not result in a cure as stated above. The practitioner must be

aware of the DYNAMICS OF HEALING and must be a master in both the philosophy,

art and the techniques of his science of healing. Both philosophy and practice

must travel hand in hand. During the course of treatment the experienced

physician enters the realm of the patient and both get transported to a plane

which facilitates the healing. The intuition of the doctor and the expression of

the patient as to what ails him are the fundamentals without which cure is an

illusion.

 

Disease per se may not be bad in a healthy person. The law of cure is not

peculiar to the physicians efforts but is characteristic of the body's function.

An accumulation of waste in the body may find relief from a sudden diarhhoea or

a profuse cold. At such times rest and a simple diet will relieve the symptoms

and the patient emerges feeling better than ever, cured of ennui. An emergency

may thus be averted by the action of the body alone. What ought to be treated

and what may grow worse from an external intrusion is a decision that only a

knowledgeable and sincere physician well versed in the art of healing can make.

 

Detoxification is the primary aim of the body. Detoxification is the primary

aim of the health conscious individual and the trained physician. The aim is the

same, only the practices resorted to may be different. The body-mind energy

complex is the best healer and its collective role should be a subject of close

scrutiny for every physician.

 

Now please read on from the excerpts of an article I found on the net. I have

given a link to an excellent power point presentation at the bottom of the

article. For the reader who wishes to delve deeper into the subject, " Lectures

on Homoeopathic Philosophy " by James Tyler Kent would be a great beginning.-

Jagannath]

 

For a series of facts and phenomena to be the object of a science, they must

be united by real connections, submissive rules, principles and fixed laws. The

scientific mind invents neither facts, nor their relations of causality any more

than their laws and principles. Its mission consists in investigating,

discovering 'them' and establishing them on a basis as solid as possible.

 

Repeated observations and experimentation, which is only observation

applied to artificially produced relations of causality, establish the reality

of these facts on the firm basis of experience. When the relations of causality

are permanent and invariable the existence of positive laws may be concluded

from them.

 

As empirically found out facts, relations of causality have too, their

raison d'être. They derive from more general laws and have their principles.

Leading up to these principles, in so far as they can be positively established,

is the highest mission of science. On the limit of these positive principles,

experimental sciences stop. If we exceed that limit, we enter the domestic

domain of philosophy, the domain of primary and metaphysical causes. No

scientific man should remain a stranger to this domain. Willingly or not, those

limits are constantly exceeded ; as the search for principles is imposed upon

the human mind by its very nature.

 

The reality of the relations of causality, of the principles of laws and

the possibility of proving them by observation, are the first condition of every

true science. Another and quite as necessary condition is the fixity of those

laws. What makes the strength and superiority of homœopathic therapeutics is

that it rests on precise and fixed (LAWS and PRINCIPLES. Beside our great law

SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR) which forms the solid basis of the Hahnemannian

doctrine, there exists a secondary one little known : THE LAW OF CURE.

 

Constantine Hering had the merit of formulating for the first time the

law of the direction of symptoms, i. e. :

From above downwards.

From within outwards.

From a more important organ to a less important one.

In the reverse order of their coming.

 

Dr James Tyler Kent

I have been unable to find the original work, J. T. Kent in his Lectures

on Homœopathic Philosophy and Lesser Writings speaks of Hering and of the modus

operandi of cure. Stuart Close likewise mentions the law of cure in his Genius

of Homœopathy. As far as I know no trace of it can be found in the homœopathic

literature or elsewhere.

 

After defining what the Law is, it is useful to study the expression

" cure "

 

Our illustrious master, Samuel Hahnemann, took as starting point that the

aim of any medicine is the cure of diseases. This is the true art of healing.

 

" The perfection of a cure consists in restoring health in a prompt, mild

and permanent manner : in removing and annihilating disease by the shortest,

safest and most certain means, upon principles that are at once plain and

intelligible "

 

Hahnemann says restore health and annihilate the whole, the entire

disease, not SUPPRESS certain symptoms. This discrimination is of capital

importance upon which it behooves us to insist very specially, for people

usually call " cure " the disappearance of certain symptoms or syndromes, external

manifestations of disease, such as constipation, eruptions, leucorrhœa, piles,

etc.

 

A patient calls for the intervention of the physician for symptom that he

finds especially unpleasant, which make him suffer in his comfort or his vanity.

He does not know what distinguishes PALLIATION from a GENUINE CURE, and he has

no idea that such external manifestation is only one of the episodes of a deeper

affection, one of the parts, often the least important one, of the general

trouble. And the physician, always in a hurry and anxious to keep the patient as

a client, is but too often tempted, alas I to take the easy but dangerous way of

palliation, of the suppression of external symptoms or pain. For example, this

rheumatic patient so quickly freed from his articular symptoms through the

energetic intervention of his physician, returns to his clever doctor shortly

after and says to him, " You cured my rheumatism so well, why can you not cure my

asthma ? " The physician, and of course the patient, do not recognize the

connection between cause and effect of the

peripheral disturbances to the related and consequent internal manifestations,

which become more and more serious. The clear-sighted homœopathic physician can

observe every day in his practice that connection.

 

The undeniable proof of what should be called the " repercussion " in the

interior of the body of external manifestations suppressed, is the return of the

previous symptoms, the reappearance of external manifestations, thanks to

well-chosen homœopathic remedies.

 

The pains, changes, sufferings, which occur on the surface of the body,

not originating from any external violence, or merely from the consequences of

some slight external injury, owe their source to an internal affection. It is,

therefore, equally absurd and dangerous to regard these diseases as symptoms

that are purely local, and to treat them exclusively, or nearly so by topical

applications, as if they were surgical cases, in which manner they have been

treated till the present day.

 

These maladies have been considered as purely local, and, consequently,

received the appellation of such because they were looked upon as affections

that were in a manner attached to the extreme parts in which the organism took

little or no share, as it was ignorant of their existence.

 

Reflection, however, will suffice to explain why an external malady

(which has not been occasioned by an important external violence) cannot arise,

continue, or much less grow worse, without some internal cause, the co-operation

of the whole system, the latter consequently being diseases. (Organon. §. 187,

188, 189)

 

 

Dr Paul Carton

Behind all local affections, says Dr. P. Carton, even the most

insignificant ones, seemingly the most localized, such as anthrax, eczema,

coryza, sick headache, etc., is hidden a humoral alteration, an attack against

the general condition, a fall of vital resistance's, which really form the

essence of the malady. But it is principally in the so-called specialties

(malady of the eye, ear or nose, etc.) that it is absolutely necessary to know

that the eye, nose, ear must not be treated as if they were, so to say, placed

on a tray, independently of the value of the general reactions of the patient.

Insofar, any localized alteration (ulcer, fistula, abscess ganglion, etc.) can

he looked upon as a barometer of the general state.

 

Disease, therefore, is always general, it affects the individual as a

whole, physical and psychical, and it is not possible to speak of cure unless

the disturbed order has been completely restored in the whole individual and

unless the symptoms have altogether disappeared.

 

The human body can be considered as a sort of confederation of organs,

animated by a vital, immaterial principle. The control of all the functions is

effected from the centre to the circumference, so as to secure harmony and

fulfil the purpose assigned to the organism. The morbific agent always affects

the centre of government first, and it produces at first functional disorders

before producing organic diseases. This is especially evident in acute maladies

: every acute malady begins by general disturbances, modifications of the temper

and character, then troubles of sleep, appetite, etc., appear. And only later

after a more or less long period (called incubation period) are the

manifestations localized in such or such part of the organism (static period).

In chronic disease that process remains the same, though it is far more

difficult to detect.

 

The medica mental provings show a movement quite analogous in the

intoxicating action on the economy from centre to circumference. As the centre

of government is affected first, the whole economy feels that modifying

influence, that is why we can observe signs and symptoms in the whole body, with

predominance in such or such system or organ, giving thus to the picture of

intoxication its proper physiognomy.

 

Then, if the malady affects first the interior of the individual, not his

outside tissues and organs, it is obvious that it is the inside which must first

be put in order, and the outside afterwards. The cure must then proceed from

centre to circumference, i. e.

From above downwards.

From within outwards.

From the more important organs to the lesser.

From the head to the hands and feet.

The law of cure is infinitely precious to the physician ; it is his

compass and rudder in the struggle against disease. It explains to him clearly

in what manner the morbific principle evolves. The practitioner knows with

certainty, which makes his strength and his success, that if the symptoms are

developed in the direction indicated by the law, the patient will be cured and

the symptoms will permanently disappear. He knows also when the symptoms take a

country direction that the remedy was not well-chosen, that it acts as a

palliative and that the patient will grow worse.

 

For more:

 

An excellent power point presentation of the above:

http://www.naturalholistic.com/Herings_law_files/frame.htm#slide0001.htm

 

 

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