The fourth phase of homeopathy is represented by Hahnemann’s discovery and publication of his theory of chronic disease. Hahnemann himself recognised the radical nature of what he was proposing, and knew that it would meet much opposition. Indeed, it led to the first split in homeopathic ranks, and more or less destroyed what bridges there existed with the allopathic medical community in Germany and elsewhere. Doctors could accept the law of similars for it was a familiar concept, and they could accept, with some misgivings perhaps, giving small doses of medicines (Hahnemann was still working more or less with low potencies).

However, the theory of a predisposition to disease that could be triggered by a parasitic (microbial) ineffective agent and then passed on to future generations if not treated properly was too much for most doctors at a time when the concept of infection was yet unacknowledged.

The break in homeopathic ranks is what interests us here, however. For what Hahnemann had done was nothing less than re-introduce the concept of causation into his system after he had seemingly chased it out. He recognised the important effect of this discovery of miasms on previous homeopathic philosophy right at the beginning of his book, referring now to the homeopathy of pure symptomology as “General Homeopathy.”

This could only mean that the rules of General Homeopathy, which are symptom-based, were solely applicable in cases involving natural diseases with few or no chronic elements (inherited predisposition or blockages to cure).

To be fair, this causation was different from that sought by the allopaths Hahnemann had so roundly ridiculed earlier. It was not the proximate cause, but rather two other types of cause that he saw as important: the exciting cause, or trigger for a disease-state; and the fundamental cause, or the underlying predisposition (susceptibility) to disease, which he choose to call “miasms.”

As David Little succinctly observed in his article in the June/July issue of Homeopathy Online, Hahnemann created the first and to date, the only sophisticated theory of chronic disease in Western medicine which synthesized the various streams of thought on this subject since the Greeks and Romans.

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