I initially posted this to my Academy FaceBook page, but I’m growing even more disillusioned with that platform for a great many reasons, and will likely be closing my account soon, so am posting it here as well.
I’ve been alarmed by the de facto rejection of vaccination by the global homeopathic community in the face of the ongoing pandemic.
I’d encourage us to take a very close look at what vaccination is, what it isn’t, and a very close look vaccine at safety & efficacy beyond both the industry pablum of “safe & effective” and the opposing perspective that equate vaccination with the 3rd horseman of the apocalypse.
Let’s begin with the concept of “
vaccinosis,” which is quite misunderstood by our contemporary homeopathic community. A careful reading of James Compton Burnett’s monograph
Vaccinosis And Its Cure By Thuja is worthwhile. The only “vaccinations” available in Burnett’s day, and the only vaccinations he referenced in his monograph, were Jenner’s smallpox vaccine, and the ancient practice of variolation, both directed at smallpox prophylaxis. Both of these involved the arm-to-arm propagation of infectious material, which unintentionally, and in ignorance of the nature of infectious disease, often introduced other infectious agents along with the intended infectious challenge, inadvertently transmitting tuberculosis, syphilis, hoof-&-mouth disease, staphylococcal & streptococcal skin infections, and the highly-infectious chronic disease Hahnemann described as Psora. Hahnemann had actually recognized this last in the recommendation he made regarding smallpox vaccination of a child (Jenner introduced his vaccinia vaccine in 1796, early in Hahnemann’s medical career, and Hahnemann actually embraced and endorsed this practice). Burnett, and Boenninghausen & Hahnemann before him, described homeopathic intervention to address these inadvertent introductions of unintended infectious diseases by these highly unhygienic practices (at the time not well-understood, as the nature of infectious disease was not yet well-appreciated; Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur, et. al. only formulated modern germ theory in the late 1800s). These cannot be equated to contemporary vaccination practices; we have seen some inadvertent introduction of infectious agents via vaccination since; preservatives were added to contemporary vaccines since staphylococcal infections were observed from multi-dose vials in the 1940s/1950s; but nothing on the order of those agents propagated in the unhygenic practice of arm-to-arm, or direct livestock-human propagation of these early “vaccines.”
If vaccine adverse reactions from contemporary vaccines are to be described, we need to apply a term and concept other than “vaccinosis,” as these are of a very different nature than the issues described by Burnett under that term. Unfortunately, it is common in our contemporary homeopathic community to toss that concept around as a given that applies to any & all vaccines, & even to apply Burnett’s proposal to treat these all with Thuja as a “specific” remedy.
It’s inherently difficult to work around our cognitive biases. Which is why they’re known as cognitive biases. George Vithoulkas reminds us that the definition of health is the freedom to adapt to current circumstances; I’d suggest that this applies to our cognitive health as well. Hahnemann’s favored motto was “Aude sapere” – “dare to be wise” – an admonition to follow the path of investigation, rather than to adhere to dogma. Early on in this pandemic I expressed skepticism around the notion that effective vaccines might provide us with a solution. I remain skeptical on several points, to be mentioned below, but faced with evidence, I’ve had to revise portions of my skepticism. When the COVID vaccines became available to my risk-group, I hauled my 70 year-old body to a vaccination site & received the Janssen vaccine, and recently the Pfizer booster; I tolerated both with brief & minimal discomforts. I would have rejoiced had the world’s homeopathic community discerned a genus epidemicus with documented efficacy in homeoprophylaxis, but this did not materialize. A number of studious practitioners have seen successes in treating individual cases of COVID-19, but I’ve witnessed self-proclaimed leaders in our profession basically making fools of themselves in their endeavors to present speculative arguments for a genus remedy for the pandemic.
It’s common for homeopaths to ridicule the practices of conventional western medicine. There is certainly much to decry, and we might look to the internal criticisms of conventional physicians for starters. But it does not serve our goal of advancing our own practice to begin by demonizing conventional practice. There are certainly times to look to the “other” for aid, and in the midst of a pandemic that has now resulted in over 5 million documented deaths worldwide, it would seem that we’d want “all hands on deck.”
The issue of potential adverse effects of vaccination needs to be looked at very carefully individually for each available vaccine, and cannot be encompassed by the archaic concept of “vaccinosis” proposed by Burnett et.al. Sadly many in our contemporary homeopathic community toss this concept around mindlessly & suggest it as an explanation for a great many supportable & unsupportable reports of “vaccine injury,” even proposing this as a universal phenomenon that invariably calls for “reversal” by therapeutic means.
Viral disease – viral pathogenesis – is primarily an issue of the result of dysregulated host immune responses to viral constituents. Viruses highjack our cellular “machinery,” but this is seldom the root cause of illness from viral infection; rather, it is the “well-intended” defensive reaction of the host immune system that results in what we recognize as viral disease. An extreme example of this is the cytokine storm seen in severe COVID-19. Cytokines are signaling agents in immune responses, and when dysregulated in COVID-19 or Influenza, these induce prominent pathogenicity. A simpler example is the classic morbilliform rash of measles – the result of effector T-cell-induced apoptosis of infected capillary endothelial cells with resultant microhemmorrhages in the skin.
As vaccines employ attenuated or inactivated viruses, or viral constituents (such as the spike protein in the COVID-19 vaccines) in order to invite an adaptive immune response, it is a given that these may invite a dysregulated host response at least in part reminiscent of the viral disease itself. We can recognize this in retrospect as a rationalization of Jenner’s use of Vaccinia (a murine [vole] virus also capable of infecting cats, horses, cows, & farmworkers in contact with these critters) to prophylaxis against smallpox, rather than controlled exposure to smallpox itself, as in the ancient practice of variolation introduced to England prior to his discovery. This need to mitigate the pathogenic response to a pathogen also was at the root of Pasteur’s introduction of “attenuation” of his anthrax & rabies “vaccines.” (the use of the term “vaccine” is problematic; Jenner coined this term in reference to his use of what he understood to be “cowpox;” [vacca – woḱéh = proto-indo-European for cow, in reference to the source of Jenner’s preparation]; Pasteur later adopted the term to refer to the practice in general, in honor of Jenner). In contemporary practice, as we seldom can identify a more benign pathogen with cross-reactive immunogenicity to a disease agent, this minimization of pathogenicity is accomplished by one of several means:
(1) “inactivation” of the pathogen, such as by formalin;
(2) “attenuation” of a pathogen, most often by serial passaging through another species, such as embryonated hens’ eggs
(3) the use of a pathogen “subunit,” such as the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the protein exotoxin of Bordetella pertussis or Clostridium tetani, these latter 2 not prophylaxing against infection, but addressing the primary virulence factor of the pathogen, preventing illness from infection.
These represent efforts to invite a protective response against disease or infection, while minimizing the potential for adverse pathogenic responses. Complete elimination of such adverse responses cannot be assured, despite the overly-simplistic “safe” half of the “safe and effective” claim on the part of the vaccine industry.
Which renders vaccination efforts complex. Quickly coming to mind is Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy’s portrait in the Star Trek movie The Voyage Home, of a disgruntled physician from the year 2286 confronting medical care in 1986. I think we can all recognize our primitive understanding of the workings of the body, without an ability to see beyond to the real complexities involved.
From our homeopathic perspective, we’re granted a partial view of those true complexities, with a Leibnitzian view partially eclipsing the simplistic Cartesian iatromechanical perspective of contemporary western medicine, and it’s perhaps easy to believe we’re on the high road. I’d assert that although I do believe we’re on the preferred path, we’re nearly as much in the dark, and Star Trek’s “Bones” would be quite as astonished at our ignorance as he was at renal dialysis & the use of trepanation to treat an epidural hematoma. (“My God, what is this, the Dark Ages?”).
But given the technology that is available to us in these “dark ages,” how are we to proceed?
Let’s break down vaccination a bit.
First, diseases that one would be exceedingly unlikely to encounter:
The risk of tetanus in economically “developed” cultures is exceedingly low; in the U.S., approximately that of being struck by lightening – twice. Weighting risks vs benefits, the risks associated with tetanus vaccination would need to be infinitesimally small to justify the practice. & since tetanus is not transmissible human-human, there is no social imperative to compel the practice.
Ditto polio in the “western” world. We could discuss the outsized importance accorded to the Salk & Sabine vaccines in polio “eradication” in the west, but the current risk of acquiring polio in the west does not appear to warrant the use of attenuated viral vaccines, or even inactivated vaccines for individuals not contemplating travel to areas of polio endemicity.
And smallpox, since 1980 only present only in research facilities, so vaccination campaigns have been discontinued worldwide, and only entertained since in the bioterrorism scares p the September 2011 terrorist attacks.
Second, diseases that pose little risk of serious morbidity & mortality:
Chickenpox is a relatively benign childhood illness that confers long-lasting immunity p initial infection, protecting the more vulnerable adult demographic. The introduction of a vaccine has protected the small, vulnerable population of immunosuppressed children (leukemia, chemotherapy & transplant recipients), and is a boon to this population, but more widespread use appears difficult to justify; the manufacturer maketed the chickenpox vaccine to the general public based on parental lost time at work, which really should be a matter of guaranteed parental paid leave. The most concerning adverse events have involved
(a) the elimination of community transmission among children, eliminating periodic re-exposure of adults to “boost” their immunity, resulting in a surge in cases of shingles (zoster) in the elderly from the re-expression of latent virus;
(b) a shift in the demographics of initial infection to older age groups, adolescents & young adults, in which primary chickenpox infection is more likely to result in varicella pneumonia or encephalitis, rather serious potential complications in these age groups.
Measles is a more complex story. Measles may result in rather serious morbidity & mortality in children, tho these serious consequences declined precipitously in importance in “developed” economies well prior to the introduction of vaccination, responding to improvements from 19th-century “Dickensian” living conditions. Measles remains of great concern in regions plagued by poverty, overcrowding, child labor, lack of clean water, & nutritional deprivation, both of adequate nutrition in general, & of deprivation of specific micronutrients, particularly of vitamin A (Madagascar, Mongolia, Somalia, &c.), and of indigenous populations in the Americas & Oceana. It might be suggested that Measles vaccination is necessary in these regions, and I would counter that it would seem even more essential to invest in the elimination of the conditions that contribute to its severity. It is easy to dismiss that by suggesting that such is just not feasible, but if it is possible to leverage the world’s resources to administer a vaccine addressing one illness, is it not possible to invest similar effort to address factors that promote a great many illnesses? U.S. billionaires’ wealth increased by $2.1 trillion over the 23 months of this pandemic; a small fraction of that could go a long way in improving these conditions worldwide. Note that the social changes that reduced the severity of measles in the “developed” world also had tremendous impact on illnesses as diverse as scarlet fever , polio, and scurvy. A single physician in northern India, Barbara Nath-Wiser, with the resources of a small NGO she directs, has nearly eliminated infectious gastroenteritis in the village of Sidhbari, in the foothills of the Himalayas, by building a water purification system for the village; it’s been observed that the vaccine addressing only one of the many responsible pathogens (rotavirus) is most effective in regions that have already addressed the issues of poverty, clean water, & such, and of course is of no benefit re the several other pathogens involved in infectious gastroenteritis. I’d suggest that we owe this attention to the world’s children, and if Elon Musk can entertain the prospect to terraforming Mars, we can certainly “terraform” our own Earth.
In the U.S., the result of aggressive Measles vaccination has been to nearly eliminate Measles as a disease of its historical demographic, children between the ages of 3-15 years, while shifting this to a disease of young adults & infants no longer protected by passive maternal immunity, populations at greater risk of complications of the disease.
Pneumococcal vaccine presents a complex story as well. Streptococcus pneumoniae is a constituent of our normal upper respiratory bacterial flora, and vaccination against this potentially opportunistic pathogen tends to reduce the prevalence of the vaccine-directed strains, while selecting for strains not covered by the vaccine. This does not represent an adverse event, but is a bit like expending one’s resources to chase one’s own tail.
“Internal” critique of Influenza vaccination (within the conventional medical community) suggests that the ‘flu vaccines have low real-world efficacy, and may compromise susceptibility to ‘flu in subsequent seasonal outbreaks.
I might go on.
What about the current pandemic?
There have been some stated goals of a vaccination campaign that do not hold water –
(1) The prospect of elimination of the virus from circulation in the world.
The claimed successes of vaccination in the elimination of smallpox, and the “near-elimination” of polio & measles have been cited as examples of what might be possible. But Polio and Measles have not been “eliminated,” and the WHO has recognized the infeasibility of “eliminating” Measles, even with a 95+% vaccination rate. Polio’s absence in the west in recent years is owed to multiple factors, with clean water at the top of the list for this disease of fecal/oral transmission. Smallpox appears to have succumbed to co-circulation of the disease now known as Alastrim, resulting from the closely-related orthopox virus Variola minor originating in West Africa. The often-repeated story that George Washington spared the colonial troops from smallpox with vaccination is inaccurate – Jenner’s vaccine was only introduced in 1796, 21 years too late for use in Washington’s continental army. Washington employed variolation, intentional inoculation with what we now know to be Variola minor, a practice adopted from slaves of West African descent. This resulted in community circulation of Variola minor (the agent of the more benign disease Alastrim) from virus shed by inoculated individuals, conferring cross-reactive immunity to smallpox even beyond the direct recipients of the procedure. And it is important to recognize that although this did protect American colonists, it actually posed a risk to indigenous Americans, for whom both Alastrim and Smallpox posed a serious threat.
We cannot extrapolate from the credited success of vaccination in the elimination of smallpox and the near-elimination of polio, to it’s ability to eliminate SARS-CoV-2. Smallpox appears to represent a one-off, with factors well beyond those that apply to contemporary vaccination in its elimination. The west’s success with polio had a great deal to do with waste water treatment & clean water provision in the 1950s, which overlapped in time with the introduction of vaccination. Correlation does not imply causation.
SARS-CoV-2 is a novel virus, and we need to learn from it as we go along.
(2) The concept of “herd immunity” has been grossly misunderstood by many, and unfortunately misrepresented by leaders & public health authorities who one might think should know better. This is often mis-represented as a hard threshold beyond which a pathogen no longer poses a societal risk. In truth it represents a continuum of epidemic behavior. It is not a hard threshold that one “meets” at a particular saturation of natural or vaccine-acquired immunity, but a “soft” point at which epidemic spread slides into the sporadic transmission of endemicity.
So what might be reasonable goals of vaccination in this pandemic?
(1) the most obvious, is protection of the most vulnerable populations. In this case, the elderly, & those with identifiable predisposing conditions; medical “pre-existing conditions;” obesity, cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, which in part point out deficiencies in our pre-pandemic public health priorities that ultimately need to be addressed. The existing COVID vaccines have clearly proven their value toward this goal. At-risk ethnic & socioeconomic groups have also needed to be addressed; this pandemic has underlined racial & ethnic disparities in our culture.
(2) it has become recognized that the vaccines rather surprisingly confer some degree of “sterilizing” immunity (reducing transmission). This is imperfect, & comes actually as a bit of an unanticipated surprise. Insufficient to achieve the mythological goal of “Herd Immunity” per se as this is (mis)understood, but sufficient to slow community spread. This can reduce community viral load, slowing the rate of viral evolution to thwart the development of more transmissible strains and strains possessing greater degrees of immune evasion. This raises an issue that is difficult for our human communities to fully embrace. Invoking Star Trek characters once more (Spock this time) – “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Which speaks clearly to the Vulcan mind it seems, but less clearly to us as humans. This brings up the specter of individuals taking the risk of incurring vaccine adverse effects in the face of what might appear to be of little benefit to the self, in order to benefit society as a whole, or at least the more vulnerable members of society, a decision that may have felt clearer to those of the now-passed generation who sacrificed through the Great Wars of the early 20th century than to our current population, which is more enamored with “rights” than with “responsibilities.”
But there’s another aspect to this, which has to do with “might
appear to be of little benefit to the self.” Current best estimates suggest that around 20% of the world’s population has been infected with SARS-CoV-2 as of this writing. Vaccination rates in the regions with the most aggressive vaccination campaigns rarely exceed 60%. Even in those regions, one cannot simply add up those figures, as these overlap, so don’t “do the math” to get 60% + 20% = 80%. Adopting a wildfire metaphor, that leaves a lot of tinder for this ongoing pandemic to burn through. It’s inevitable that everyone will eventually meet this virus, either through natural infection of by vaccination with its partial constituents. It’s been
estimated that the unvaccinated are likely to be reinfected by SARS-CoV-2 every 16-17 months on the average.The reported adverse effects of COVID vaccination are all more common in natural infection with the virus. This has been clearly documented.
Yes, it is possible to contract the disease even after being vaccinated; it is well documented tho that mortality, disease severity, and the incidence of “long COVID” are all reduced significantly in those who’ve received the vaccines, even in vaccine “breakthrough” infection, in all age & risk groups. So The “needs of the many” are not weighed directly against the “needs of the few,” and it does not require a fully selfless attitude, merely a fully-informed one.
It’s often mis-stated that natural immunity to COVID-19 is preferable to vaccine-induced immunity. This appears to be the case with chickenpox and measles, tho both of these appear to rely on periodic natural re-exposure from disease circulating in the community to periodically “boost” immunity, and historically were most prevalent in populations of lowest risk of serious illness. “Chickenpox parties” used to be popular to “get (this once-inevitable disease) over with” at a convenient time and might be considered reasonable with a relatively benign disease. In the case of COVID-19, the acquisition of natural immunity would require exposure to the disease, & is not a viable option for those in high-risk groups, and may not be a truly viable option for anyone, as disease severity and the risk of “long COVID” even in low-risk groups is somewhat unpredictable. And again, we’re dealing with a Novel virus, and cannot merely extrapolate from what we know about chickenpox or measles to predict the relative durability of natural vs. vaccine-induced immunity. As we are learning in the pandemic, it actually appears, that for SARS-CoV-2 and our existing vaccines, vaccine-induced immunity is more robust and durable than that acquired on natural exposure to the virus. Current estimates suggest that those who don’t get vaccinated against COVID-19 should expect to be r
einfected with the coronavirus every 16 to 17 months on average, and this can be anticipated to extend past the pandemic phase into the phase of endemicity.
There are most certainly risks to be incurred on vaccination with the available COVID-19 vaccines. These are real, but are surprisingly rare, and pale against the risks of natural infection. No medical intervention is free of risk; the question is always in the balance between risk and benefit. This was true in the days of Hippocrates, and will remain true in the time of Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy.
I don’t expect the homeopathic community to accept what I’m presenting here at Face value; that would be embracing my words as dogma, which I would find disheartening; but I am asking us to Aude Sapere, to exert flexibility in the face of external circumstances, and to break out of the prevailing dogma that constitutes much of contemporary misdirected homeopathic thought & teaching, including regarding the consideration of vaccination in the face of a pandemic that has resulted in more deaths than the 1918 ‘flu or the 14th-century black plague. Hahnemann himself embraced Jenner’s smallpox vaccination and advocated for its use, even while recognizing this to occasionally require homeopathic management for the transmission of Psora.
I’ll add to this post over the next few days, below.
Collecting the comments on vaccination by prominent shapers of homeopathic “doctrine:”
Constantine Hering wrote:
“there is the production of a real contagious disease, acting by zymosis or fermentation in the blood, thus endangering the organism, and resulting only in making the system less liable to, not proof against, the disease.
“Attention must likewise be called to the possibility of inoculating other diseases, such as itch, scrofula, leprosy, phthisis, syphilis, etc., and thus producing a complication of trouble difficult to be overcome.
“While the progress of our school has led us to a much more certain preventive, and also to an easy and certain and safe cure, the old school lost sight of Jenner altogether, and entirely forgot that the cows had also other diseases of the udder; and they lost sight of the only true origin of the true preventive cowpox, according to Jenner, and later Schonlein, in a peculiar disease of the horse’s feet, generally mistaken, and one not known to any of the vaccinating doctors.
“They went on vaccinating from arm to arm; and finally by the scabs, which often contained rotten and putrified animal matter.
“If it had been a poisoning even with the very best real cowpox, it now became a poisoning of nearly all children with the most horrible diseases; many even were murdered, and an infinite number poisoned for life.”
Look this over closely – In Hering’s lifetime, the only “vaccinations” available for human use were 1. Jenner’s Vaccinia vaccine for smallpox; 2. the ancient practice of variolation, actual intentional inoculation with smallpox or with Alastrim; and 3. Pasteur’s 1885 introduction of an attenuated rabies vaccine, which Hering would have had little exposure to at the time of this writing. It is clear from the above that Hering was writing specifically of Jenner’s smallpox vaccine. He notes the other diseases that might be transmitted from the serum of a cowpox pustule on a milking cow’s udder; we now recognize these to include tuberculosis, hoof-&-mouth disease, streptococcal & staphylococcal skin infections; then references “They went on vaccinating from arm to arm; and finally by the scabs, which often contained rotten and putrified animal matter.” This was the manner of transmitting Jenner’s vaccine, as well as providing “variolation;” lymph from a pustule of a vaccinated individual was inoculated into a 2nd person, & so on; in the course of this, it was inevitable that other human communicable diseases – most notably, tuberculosis & syphilis, as well as Hahnemann’s Psora, were transmitted along with
Vaccinia. Incidentally, Hering notes that Jenner’s “cowpox” preparation represents a disease not exclusive to cows, but encompasses as well a “peculiar disease of horses’ feet (now known as “grease”). We now recognize
Vaccinia to be a virus of voles which is rather “promiscuous,” capable as well of infecting barnyard cats, horses, cows, and many other mammals, including humans.
The reference to “a poisoning even with the very best real cowpox… a poisoning of nearly all children with the most horrible diseases” refers to those many diseases that were propagated along with the intended exposure to “cowpox,” and this concern (which Burnett et.al. later termed “vaccinosis”) cannot be directly applied to other “vaccinations.”
Concerns raised regarding contemporary vaccines need to rest on current evidence, and cannot be based on the concerns raised here by Hering, or later by Burnett. (again, find Burnett’s monograph Vaccinosis and its cure by Thuja, here:
http://covidcourse.s3.amazonaws.com/vaccinosis%20Burnett.pdf)
In his 1835 Homeopathic Domestic Physician, Hering wrote:
As long as it must be admitted, notwithstanding fact No. 1, that vaccination, if done in the right way, protects in a great many cases and lessens the mortality in a great measure; as long, or spite of fact No. 2, a great many children do not get seriously ill after vaccination, and as long as, notwithstanding fact No. 3,some children may yet die of small-pox. – so long is an absolute decision impossible, either in favor of or against vaccination. Until, therefore, the homoeopathic treatment of small-pox shall have been perfected to such a degree that all cases can be cured with perfect certainty, vaccination is to be allowed, choosing the lesser of two evils and preferring the more certain remedy; but it must be done under certain strict conditions, and so as to cause the least danger and the greatest protection to the children.”
Hahnemann references in part the disease(s) that were transmitted along with the intended infectious matter in Jenner’s vaccine, in the footnote to aph. 46 in his Organon:
“The inoculated COW-POX, whose lymph, besides the protective matter, contains the contagion of a general cutaneous eruption of another nature …”
THIS was the stuff of “vaccinosis.”
Jenner’s vaccine (vaccine from Vacca-, port-indo-European for “cow”) was a “live” virus preparation, consisting of the clear lymph (or in incautious preparations, the suppurative pus or scab) from the eruption resulting from infection of an ungulate’s (cow, goat, sheep) udder, and was propagated arm-to-arm in human recipients, using the same from the pustules raised in a human recipient. Jenner of course, introducing this practice in 1796, had no knowledge of viruses, nor of immunology, but merely recognized (as had many in his day) that human exposure to “cowpox” in individuals who milked cows or “grease” in individuals who shod horses or who served in the mounted infantry (tending to the care of horses’ hoofs) acquired protection from smallpox, apparently from exposure to these far milder, but similar diseases of the critters they tended to.
From Bradford; in writing to Dr. Schreeter, of Lemberg, on December 19, 1831, regarding Schreeter’s question re vaccinating a child, Hahnemann wrote: “In order to provide the dear little Patty with the protective cow pox, the safest plan would certainly be to obtain the lymph direct from the cow; but if this cannot be done (children are also made more ill by it, than from the matter obtained from human beings), I would advise you to inoculate another child with the protective pox, and as soon as slight redness of the punctures shows it has taken, I would immediately for two successive days give Sulphur 1-30, and inoculate your child from the pock that it produced. As far as I have been able to ascertain, a child cannot communicate psora whilst under the action of Sulphur.”
[Hahnemann here is not discouraging the use of Jenner’s vaccine, nor providing a “homeopathic” alternative to its use; but providing directions for its safest administration to a child. The recommended procedure (obtaining the lymph of a pustule directly from a cow, rather than from another inoculated human) would avoid some of the communicable diseases that might be picked up on arm-to-arm propagation, tho would still risk introduction of other infectious material from the cow. The use of Sulphur recommended would be to prophylaxis against the possibility of introducing Psora].
Burnett mentions “homeoprophylaxis” of smallpox, & specifically recommends the use of Thuja occidentalis. It is important to understand precisely what homeoprophylaxis refers to. This is NOT a homeopathic equivalent to vaccination, and does not confer long-term protective benefit. Homeoprophylaxis actually represents the early treatment of disease in exposed individuals who are incubating a pathogen, but not yet exhibiting characterizing symptoms of disease. The Totality is drawn from the symptoms of others exposed in the same epidemic. As such, its benefits are near-term, and it cannot be considered a substitute for vaccination, despite the confusion of the terms “homeoprophylaxis” and the contemporary concept of “homeopathic vaccination.” (This latter has no roots in Hahnemannian teachings or practice, and derives solely from contemporary “innovators”).
Lest I be seen as a pariah of the profession, alone in my advocacy for vaccination in this pandemic, let me refer to James Compton Burnett, who can claim greater authority as a homeopath than I might; his treatise on Vaccinosis begins with:
“FEAR not, critical reader, this is not an anti-vaccination treatise, for the writer is himself in the habit of vaccinating his patients, au besoin, and he believes that vaccination does protect, to a certain large extent, from small-pox… … Given a perfectly healthy individual who has never been vaccinated. We say to such a one, you must be vaccinated or you are liable to catch small-pox, which is often about …”
An interesting editor’s note (penned by Edward Berridge) to chew on in the homeopathic journal The Organon from 1878, accompanying an article printed from the (British) National Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League. Do some of the mentioned points appear familiar? (substitute “Bill Gates” or “Pfizer” for “Jenner,” and reflect on the wish of many homeopaths for cooperation & collaboration on the part of conventional practitioners, or who might wish to see our studies published in their journals):
“It is with regret that we feel forced to publish the following correspondence, because (1), whilst we have the greatest sympathy with the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination cause, we differ in toto from the League in the manner in which it goes about its work; and (2) we cannot approve of the illogical and ridiculous stand which it takes against the Profession of Medicine as a body; that medical men are the avowed enemies of mankind, and that the benevolent and intelligent Jenner was little short of a cut-throat and an impostor, who received £30,000 for massacring the innocents, and such-like twaddle,-as if he intended to harm or deceive; but if fanatics will exclude us from their press, and prevent us from defending ourselves, thank God they cannot hinder us from doing so in our own pages.”
Hahnemann acknowledges, in a footnote to aph. 46 in the 6th edition of the Organon, ” …since the general distribution of Jenner’s Cow-Pox vaccination, human smallpox never again appeared as epidemically or virulently as 40-50 years before when one city visited lost at least one-half and often three-quarters of its children by death of this miserable pestilence.”
I do not wish tho be misunderstood – I am not arguing for the adoption of vaccination on general principle; there are sufficient examples of homeopathic treatment of “aliments following vaccination” in our classical literature; note that most of these refer specifically to Jenner’s Vaccinia or to the practice of variolation, as the modern era of vaccination can only be considered to have been ushered in by Pasteur, c. 1886 with his attenuated rabies vaccine; and I believe I’ve expressed elsewhere, as well as in my main note above, my concerns regarding the efficacy of vaccination from both the individual & public health perspectives. However, to once again invoke Hering, until we can be assured of perfect homeopathic cures and homeoprophylaxis of COVID-19, it would appear to be appropriate to accept the assistance of our conventional colleagues & their art in the face of a pandemic that as of today has claimed over 750,000 lives in the U.S. & has been responsible for over 5 million documented deaths (likely 2-3 times that number, accounting for deficiencies in testing & reporting) worldwide; surpassing the mortality of the 1918 Influenza pandemic and the 14th century Black Death; morbidity is far greater than this, particularly when one considers the prevalence of post-acute (‘long”) COVID in young adults. This is not stated from a place of fear; I’ve stood at the threshold of death and find little in it to be afraid of; but rather from a position of great respect for the nature of pandemic illness and true love of suffering humanity.
If you wish to discuss this, please do so in the Community Discussion Forum.