Lesson 30B - Homeopathic View of Vaccinations
Wanted to share this with you.
And I personally know, with what I know from the quality homeopaths I study with and
learn from, trying to 'vaccinate' with homeopathic remedies is not a good idea either. #1 the effect on the vital
force can be harmful and #2 do they work #3 for how long if they do.
And I DO NOT agree with every detail below, but the essence is good
I also DO NOT agree with the system he calls Heilkunst, but this article's essence is good.
Sheri
http://lyghtforce.com/HomeopathyOnline/issue2/voice.html
WHAT DOES HOMEOPATHY TELL US about vaccination? The debate over vaccination dates from the first
Western attempts in the 18th century to mimic the immunity conferred by nature. Given that there are valid
questions as to the medical effects of modern vaccinations, and that parents are increasingly seeking advice from
homeopaths, it is important to know and understand what homeopathic theory and practice tell us about this
medical practice.
Homeopathy has an ambivalent attitude toward vaccination. Homeopathic organizations seem reluctant to discuss
the issue publicly and it does not seem to be taught as part of any regular curriculum. There is no question that the
strong support of the medical establishment and governments for vaccination, despite growing concerns even
from within the medical research community, makes opposition to this policy risky. Nevertheless, our position
must not be based on expedience; it should be founded upon what we know medically.
The purpose of this article is not to consider the evidence for or against vaccination, but rather to examine what
the theory and practice of homeopathy over the past 200 years have taught us about vaccination. This article
explores these issues based on the writings of several respected homeopaths, their extensive clinical observations,
and inductive reasoning. What emerges is a consensus that vaccination is not consistent with the principles of
homeopathy, even if it is a crude application of the law of similars.
Clinical evidence further suggests that vaccination holds serious short and long-term consequences both because
of its effect upon the miasms, and because some constitutional types are particularly susceptible to vaccination
shock. However, a complete understanding of vaccination continues to elude us. The functioning of the immune
system remains shrouded in mystery. What we do not know about disease and prevention far outweighs what we
do know. The evidence, both from allopathic and homeopathic sources, strongly suggests that the long-term
effects of modern, mass, and multiple vaccinations in early childhood are significant.
The these of this article, therefore, is that homeopaths should be opposed to vaccination as a medical practice
because (1) vaccination is not consistent with homeopathic principles of health and cure, and (2) because
vaccination may potentially arouse latent inherited and constitutional weaknesses.
We homeopaths should discuss our knowledge of vaccination openly, and publicly. It is not a simple matter of
being pro- or anti-vaccination. It is a matter of speaking from our knowledge about the process of health and
disease, as well as from clinical evidence. That knowledge strongly suggests that the cost of vaccination far
outweighs any benefit. The pertinent theory and evidence should be more consistently taught during a
homeopath's training. Homeopathic journals and organizations should also be more active in the discussion of
vaccination from a medical and homeopathic perspective, seeking to present the evidence in objective and
homeopathic terms.
Correctness of Vaccination Policy Far From Proven in Medical Literature
The intent of this paper is not to debate the issue of vaccination from an allopathic point of view using medical
studies. However, the issue of vaccine effectiveness and safety, both short and long-term, is by no means proven
or settled within the scientific community. What evidence there is, is open to interpretation. One previously provaccination medical researcher who conducted a study of the literature came to the conclusion that vaccines were
both ineffective in eradicating (the initial claim) or protecting (the later claim) against the claimed diseases and
had serious consequences for chronic illness, in particular cancer and auto immune disorders: "After studying the
extensive literature demonstrating ineffectiveness of vaccines and their dangers, I concluded that the call for
suspension of all vaccination programs is now inevitable." (Viera Scheibner, Ph.D., Vaccination: 100 Years of
Orthodox Research shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System, 1993, p. xx)
Much of allopathic practice has never been submitted to the very tests allopaths deem critical to proving efficacy
and safety. Such practices continue because the medical profession finds they provide useful collective clinical
experience.
That the pro-vaccination stance remains the official one does not indicate its correctness; it only thrusts the burden
onto those who would challenge a status quo of over two centuries. In history, the burden is always on those who
challenge the paradigm of the day. Given the considerable amount of time that can pass between vaccination and
sequelae, cause and effect is difficult to prove – we have to wait for the epidemiological evidence to mount as
time passes, in much the same way that we waited for statistical evidence correlating smoking and lung cancer.
Homeopathic Evidence
Homeopathy has a unique means of testing its theory that vaccination may induce a state of ill health or a
departure from optimum health. Homeopaths who suspect that a state of ill health resulted from a vaccination can
treat for that shock to the system. They can then make the reasonable claim that if the health of the patient
improves after the treatment for vaccination shock, this is valid clinical evidence implicating vaccination in the
previous state of ill-health.
Every homeopath will see cases where a person's health has "never been well since" vaccination. I can think of
several recent cases. One involved two brothers who suffered from cough and persistent upper respiratory
infections for over three years – since they received the meningitis vaccination during an epidemic. The
"epidemic" consisted of several well-publicized cases in the local paper. The Medical Officer of Health stated that
the overall incidence was not abnormal and no mass vaccination was justified, but parental panic forced the
declaration of the "epidemic" and the ordering of the mass vaccination of adolescents.
Medical authorities admitted that it was being done for political, not medical, reasons. It is interesting to note that
the cases of paralytic polio used to justify the polio vaccine during the famous polio epidemic of 1949-50 in
England were determined by one doctor in 1950 to have been triggered by earlier pertussis and/or pertussis
diphtheria toxoid. This provocation poliomyelitis was also recorded in other countries following the mass
introduction of vaccination against tetanus and whooping cough in the 1940s (Scheibner, ibid, p. xviii). The case
of the two brothers is typical of others that I have dealt with over the past three years where the vaccination is the
trigger for a host of disorders, including personality changes. Treatment with the Meningitis vaccine nosode
resulted in a striking improvement in health and the removal of the cough which had resisted all other treatments,
both allopathic and natural.
Vaccination in Hahnemann's Time
In Hahnemann's time, the only vaccination known was for smallpox. Infecting people with pus from a smallpox
vesicle was an ancient practice used in parts of the Middle and Far East. It was known in Britain through
diplomatic contacts at the Sultan's palace in Constantinople. Its modern use in the West dates from the discovery
by Edward Jenner, an English country doctor, that milkmaids who had had cowpox seemed to get a milder form
of smallpox. This led him to infect people with pus from a cowpox vesicle, and within a century the practice had
spread widely in Europe in an attempt to combat the recurrent epidemics. The term "vaccination" dates from this
connection with cows; the Latin word vacca means cows.
The debate over the efficacy of vaccination began there, with some arguing the practice only spread smallpox and
others arguing that it was the only means of prevention against this dread disease. Jenner's efforts to prevent
disease by means of a weakened form of the same or a similar disease would later inspire others, most notably
Pasteur, the father of modern vaccination theory and therapy. Pasteur represents the branch of Western medicine
interested in prevention, but on the basis of the germ theory of disease. The body is largely seen as subject to
invasion from external germs which the body's immune system must then fight off. In the process, the body
somehow gains life-long immunity to further infection.
The idea behind vaccination is to provide the body with this coveted immunity without the risk of contracting the
natural disease agent. This is accomplished by artificially introducing a weakened form of that agent into the
body. Immunity is equated with white blood cells which remain ready to attack once the wild virus is
encountered. However, there is research emerging which questions this reliance on white blood cells as a true
indicator of immunity. Studies have shown that children with high titre counts after vaccination still contracted
the disease whereas those unvaccinated with low or non-existent counts did not. These studies suggest that other
aspects of the immune system, including the skin and respiratory system are involved.
Hahnemann's Views
Hahnemann wrote little about vaccination, but he recognized in the Organon, starting with the first edition in
1810, that the practice of vaccination against smallpox was an example of the law of similars. Most of his
references relate to the validity in nature of the law of similars, namely that two similar diseases cannot naturally
co-exist in the same person. In Aphorism 46 he states: ". . . the cow-pox when near maturity does, on account of
its great similarity, homeopathically diminish very much the supervening smallpox and make it much milder . . ."
Later, in the Sixth Edition, he added the following footnote:
This seems to be the reason for this beneficial remarkable fact, namely that 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.
In the same Aphorism, Hahnemann speaks of the fact that cowpox produces a type of eruption and then goes on to
say:
. . . the inoculated cow-pox, I say, after it has taken, cures perfectly and permanently, in a homeopathic manner,
by the similarity of this accessory miasm [the cow-pox], analogous cutaneous eruptions of children, often of very
long-standing and of a very troublesome character . . .
Hahnemann seems to have considered that the Jennerian method of vaccination – scratching cowpox pus into the
skin – was both preventative in epidemics and curative when it was used against similar disease states.
Hahnemann does not go on to say whether he felt that there were any detriments to this approach which involved
actual disease matter. However, this can be extrapolated from his general views on the prescribing of medicines,
e.g. to avoid drug-induced illness, medicines must be given in the smallest dose possible (meaning highly diluted
and succussed), and according to the individual susceptibility of the patient. These conditions were not met by the
vaccination of Hahnemann's day, nor of more recent times.
It is possible that Jenner's vaccination suggested to homeopaths, Hahnemann among them, the use of disease
matter in potentised form. At the end of his life Hahnemann accepted Hering's first nosode, now known as
Psorinum. Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases gives his view of the homeopathicity of nosodes:
I say homeopathic use, for it does not remain idem (the same); even if the prepared itch substance should be given
to the same patient from whom it was taken, it would not remain idem (the same), as it could only be useful to
him in a potentised state . . . But the dynamization or potentizing changes it and modifies it . . . Thus potentised
and modified also, the itch substance (Psorin) when taken is no more an idem (same) with the crude original itch
substance, but only a simillimum (thing most similar). For between IDEM and SIMILLIMUM there is no
intermediate forany one that can think . . .
Hahnemann must have worried about the ramifications of an approach involving nosodes and later reversed his
position. He subsequently stated that the use of nosodes made from the same disease matter was not homeopathy,
but isopathy (the principle of like, rather than similars). However, this did not deter Hering and others from
continuing to experiment with nosodes.
J. Compton Burnett and Vaccinosis
The next critical reference to vaccination came in the form of a small booklet entitled Vaccinosis by J. Compton
Burnett, an iconoclastic British homeopath of the late 19th century. Here he raised, for the first time in the English
homeopathic literature, the idea that vaccination can inculcate a disease state onto the vital force, which Burnett
called "vaccinosis." He distinguished this from the well-known immediate reactions to vaccination, then known as
"vaccinia." Burnett's views were based on articles in the German homeopathic journals which he read widely and
fully credited (admirably following Hahnemann in his willingness to acknowledge intellectual debts).
Burnett's ideas formed the basis of the homeopathic view of vaccination. In Burnett's time, as in Hahnemann's,
vaccination meant the use of cowpox or attenuated smallpox. Burnett promoted the discoveries of German
homeopaths such as Rummel, Boenninghausen, Grauvogel, Kunkel, and Goullon, who spoke of the ill-effects of
smallpox vaccination and the use of Thuja to cure it. He credits Boenninghausen as the first to notice the
homeopathicity of Thuja to smallpox, and Kukel and Goullon with using this observation to treat the ill-effects of
vaccination.
Burnett was the first to forcefully state the dangers of vaccination, or the use of actual disease matter to try to
protect against serious disease states. This zeal led to Burnett's castigation of Koch for his disasterous application
of material doses of the tuberculosis germ. Koch was forced into exile in Egypt, where he proposed the use of a
homeopathic potency of the germ, which he called Tuberculinum.
For Burnett, vaccination generated a state of disease. This is due to the fact that it is pathogenic material. That it is
given to protect does not detract from the fact that it is also disease-generating. If a vaccination works, then it
does because it generates a response on the part of the vital force, on account of its homeopathicity to a latent
weakness in the vital force. This weakness is the sycotic miasm of Hahnemann, whose main remedy against it and
gonorrhea was also Thuja.
Burnett introduced the radical idea that the vaccine reaction, vaccinia, was not the sign of whether a vaccination
had "taken," i.e., had been successful. Burnett argued that if the vital force mounted a strong response to the
vaccination, through local reactions and fever, then the vital force was strong enough to fight it and the full
natural disease. He also argued that if the person did not respond to the vaccination – the prophylaxis did not
"take" – it was because the vaccination had implanted itself on the vital force as a disease state, representing a
serious condition leading to chronic problems he termed vaccinosis.
The vaccinated person is poisoned by the vaccine virus; what is called the 'taking' is, in point of fact, the
constitutional re-action whereby the organism frees itself more or less from the inserted virus. If the person do
[sic] not 'take', and the VIRUS HAS BEEN ABSORBED, the 'taking' becomes a chronic process – paresis,
neuralgias, cephalalgias, pimples, acne, &c. The less a person 'takes', therefore (in such a case), the MORE is he
likely to suffer from chronic vaccinosis, i.e., from the genuine vaccination disease in its chronic form, very
frequently a neuralgia or paresis. (J. Compton Burnett, Vaccinosis, p. 22)
For Burnett, any protection afforded by vaccination could only be by the creation of a disease state rendering the
vital force no longer susceptible, as it normally would be, to responding to the natural disease agent. And this
"protection" comes at the cost of a deep grip on the internal economy:
The vaccinate is one who is suffering from vaccinosis . . . it is his diseased condition that protects him from smallpox. . . . Hence I must call attention to what I believe is fact, viz.: that it often does take deep hold of the
constitution without calling forth any local phenomenon. (Burnett, ibid, p. 20)
Burnett also made several other important points regarding vaccination:
Vaccination protection results in a decrease in the number of people catching the disease state (morbidity rate),
but does not really change the rate at which people die from it (mortality rate). He argued this was due to the fact
that the vaccination, which was a weaker form of the disease, only protected people who had a low susceptibility
to the disease state and did not really protect those who were very susceptible.
Vaccination protection varies over time and according to dose. This means that epidemics will still occur with
regularity.
Vaccination is not homeopathy because homeopathy is a system of cure, not prevention, but that vaccination does
operate on the principle of similars and, thus, can be more properly called "homeoprophylaxis."
Vaccination as practiced by Pasteur and Jenner, using material doses, will eventually end in disaster because it is
temporary protection, does not individualize the dose, and brings long-term chronic consequences. Also, it will
actually increase the mortality rate because in addition to the vaccinosis, if the person also catches the disease the
prophylaxis was intended to prevent, he is more likely to die than if he had just caught the disease without the
vaccination.
The only safe way to effect homeoprophylaxis is through potentisation of the disease agent. Burnett saw this as
essential. He does not say, but seems to imply, that even homeopathic prophylaxis is temporary and reduced in
time by the vital force re-asserting health.
Twentieth Century Homeopathic Perspectives
The next major statements on homeopathy and vaccination came with the classic textbooks of Close and Roberts
in the first half of the 20th century. Neither spent a great deal of time on the issue, focusing more on the harm they
saw resulting from vaccination in clinical practice. They disagree on whether vaccine therapy is an application of
the law of similars. Close argued against vaccination on the grounds that it harms in the way it is administered. He
did not go into the detail that Burnett devoted to the topic, but the message is quite clear: vaccination may be
based on the concept of similars, but its method is faulty and dangerous.
Homeopathy is opposed to the methods of vaccine and serum therapy, although it is claimed by many that these
methods are based upon the homeopathic principle. It grants that this may be true so far as the underlying
principle is concerned, but opposes the method of applying the principle as being a violation of sound, natural
principles of medication and productive of serious injury to the living organism. It has been proven
experimentally and clinically that such methods are unnecessary, and that the results claimed by their advocates
can be attained more safely, more rapidly and more thoroughly by the administration of the homeopathically
indicated medicines in sub-physiological doses, through the natural channels of the body, than by introducing it
forcibly by means of the hypodermic needle or in any other way. (Stuart Close, M.D., The Genius of
Homeopathy: Lectures and Essays on Homeopathic Philosophy, p. 20)
Roberts espoused Hahnemann's later view that using disease tissue is isopathy, not homeopathy, and, thus, that
the use of vaccines is not an example of the law of similars in action, but of the law of identities or isopathy (see
Herbert A. Roberts, The Principles and Art of Cure by Homeopathy: A Modern Textbook, 1936, p. 16). Roberts
saw vaccination as harmful and behind the plague of cancer already starting to emerge in his day.
George Vithoulkas, in his more modern, The Science of Homeopathy, presents a detailed explanation of why
vaccination is a disease agent leading to the same shock to the vital force as a severe illness or allopathic drug. He
states that vaccination is not homeopathic because it is not individualized. He does not argue specifically that the
administration of a material substance is at fault, but this is implied. He sets out an interpretation of each of three
possible reactions to vaccination: mild reaction, strong reaction, and very strong reaction. The mild reaction or no
reaction means the vital force is not strong enough to resist the shock. The strong reaction suggests that the vital
force is able to successfully overcome the shock of the vaccine but is then not "protected" by the vaccination
(although this "protection" consists or an artificial suppression of the person's natural susceptibility to a disease
agent). The very strong reaction means that there is a great susceptibility, but that the vital force is not strong
enough to overcome the shock and serious damage occurs.
Vithoulkas argues that the cases of illness after vaccination that Burnett saw with smallpox are repeated by
modern homeopaths with vaccines against rabies, influenza, typhoid, tetanus, etc. (George Vithoulkas, The
Science of Homeopathy, 1980, p. 116). Vithoulkas cites one case where a woman was successfully treated and
then received a smallpox vaccination for a foreign trip. Her case relapsed and did not respond any remedies until a
dose of the nosode, Variolinum, made from smallpox, removed the blockage caused by the vaccination.
Vithoulkas, basing his opinions on Burnett's work, has given the clearest homeopathic statement on vaccination to
date. Since Burnett, it has been widely accepted in homeopathy that the predisposition to vaccination shock lies in
the sycotic miasm. Homeopathic practice essentially now recognizes that a patient may experience significant
changes in health following vaccination and should be treated for "never been well since vaccination."
Another contemporary voice on vaccination within the homeopathic community is Dr. Richard Moskowitz, who
concludes from his experience and observation:
It is dangerously misleading, and, indeed, the exact opposite of the truth to claim that a vaccine makes us
'immune' or protects us against an acute disease, if in fact it only drives the disease deeper into the interior and
causes us to harbor it chronically, with the result that our responses to it become progressively weaker, and show
less and less tendency to heal or resolve themselves spontaneously.
This view was expressed in the March 1983 issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy and
later reprinted as a pamphlet, The Case Against Immunizations.
Homeoprophylaxis
The issue of homeoprophylaxis, the preventative side of the law of similars and admirably advanced by Burnett,
has generally been ignored within the homeopathic community. The clearest modern proponent of the use of
similars in prevention is an Australian homeopath, Isaac Golden, whose Vaccination? A Review of Risks and
Alternatives discusses his extensive experience with homeopathic doses of the vaccine nosodes. Golden has been
challenged homeopaths who argue that one should only treat for the disease condition or, possibly, when there is
an epidemic.
This argument seems to be the result of confusion over prevention and cure. Burnett saw homeopathy as a system
of cure using similars, and homeoprophylaxis as a system of disease prevention using similars. He saw each as
valid in its own sphere. He also noted that Hahnemann used Belladonna preventatively for scarlet fever as well as
curatively.
Constitutional Susceptibility to Vaccination Shock
One aspect of homeopathy and vaccination shock not well represented in homeopathic literature is constitutional
susceptibility in addition to miasmic susceptibility. I am not sure to what extent writings exist on this issue, but I
have noticed in my own practice that certain constitutional types are more likely to become ill following
vaccination. These are the ones that are more likely to die from vaccination or be severely brain-damaged.
My experience suggests that Sulphur, Pulsatilla, Silicea, and to a lesser degree Calcarea children are most likely
to come in with chronic ear infections, eczema, asthma, and various personality disorders which are linked to
childhood vaccination. The same goes for adults with these constitutions. It would be interesting to know if others
have made the same observations. In treating for the vaccination shock, significant improvements are noted in
their health and symptomatology. Pulsatilla and Silicea are related to the sycotic miasm and, thus, the
susceptibility seems logical. It is less clear in the case of Sulphur and Calcarea, although Roberts and Kent
consider Calcarea an anti-sycotic remedy.
To some degree we all have Sulphur within us, it being the ultimate polychrest and the main remedy of the most
fundamental miasm, psora. Without psora, there can be no disease. Sulphur represents, then, the fact that we all
have susceptibilities, that is, the ability to react to disease agents. Sulphur individuals represent a greater ability to
react to vaccination when this strong psoric base is coupled with a strong sycotic base. This is the case in North
America, an observation made early on by J.H. Allen in his book on miasms. In cases where I know the child's
constitution is susceptible – regardless of the strength of the sycotic miasm – I more strongly warn parents of the
risk of any further vaccination.
In conclusion, the theory and practice of homeopathy teaches us that the current approach to prevention, involving
the injection of material doses of live or attenuated viral material, along with various chemicals, has consequences
not only for short-term health, but more significantly, for long-term health. The issue of vaccination has been
consistently addressed by homeopaths and needs to be more consistently taught in homeopathic schools, and
discussed in organizations and journals. We also need to be better acquainted with homeoprophylaxis, a treatment
unknown to many homeopaths and derided by some.
******
J. Compton Burnett, M.D.
(July 10, 1840-April 1901)
Photo © Julian Winston
J. Compton Burnett studied medicine in Vienna, and received his M.D. from Glasgow in 1872. A brilliant
anatomist and pathologist, his dedication to the principles that Hahnemann set forth were obvious in all of his
writings.
Burnett was the first to originate the concept of "vaccinosis" – that a vaccine could trigger illness – and he
outlined this in his small book, Vaccinosis, that appeared in 1884.
Burnett introduced the remedy Baccilinum.
He was one of a group (Burnett, Cooper, John Henry Clarke) that met regularly to discuss homeopathy, and his
observations are well noted in Clarke's three volume Dictionary of Materia Medica.
Burnett was the great uncle of Marjorie Blackie, M.D., who served as the Physician to Queen Elizabeth for a
number of years, and he was the father of the British author, Ivy Compton-Burnett.
Burnett's book, Fifty Reasons for Being a Homeopath (1888) bears reading over and over.