What is Syphilis Miasm in Homeopathy?

Syphilis is the venereal miasm, also called by Hahnemann as the chancre disease. The syphilitic miasmatic state develops when the primary manifestations of diseases like chancre and bubo are suppressed by some local treatments. According to Hahnemann, this is “The second chronic miasma, which is more widely spread than the fig warts disease (sycosis) and which for three and a half (now four) centuries has been a source of any other chronic ailments.”

Read more about the word Syphilis from Wikipedia.

The syphilitic miasmatic state is the syndrome as observed by Hahnemann when the acute sexually transmitted disease syphilis and its primary manifestations like chancre and bubo are suppressed by some violent local treatments. Hahnemann called the syphilis miasm “the venereal disease proper”.

Mode of Development of the Syphilitic Miasm

Like any other miasm, the syphilitic miasm develops in 3 steps:

1. Mode of infection

2. Internal development

3. External manifestations

i. Primary manifestations

ii. Secondary manifestations

1. Mode of infection

Impure coition, most probably at the very movement in the spot, which is touched and rubbed, the specific contagion arises. “To effect the infection, it requires a certain amount of friction in the most tender parts of the body (sexual organs), which are most rich in nerves and covered with thinnest cuticle.” The infection mostly occurs in genital organs, especially at the wounded spot. Hence, a syphilitic miasm is called venereal miasm.

2. Internal development

As soon as the syphilitic miasm touches the spot infected, in the same moment it is no more local. The whole body has already received its presence immediately in a dynamic manner. “All wiping and washing off the spots affected, however speedy and with whatever fluid, is too late and in vain”.

During the first few days, no morbid sign appears in the spot affected. Only after the internal venereal transmission is completed fully, the chancre appears in the place first affected. This is intended by the nature to soothe the internally completed malady.

3. External manifestations

i. Development of the primary manifestations of syphilis:

The primary manifestation of syphilis is the chancre. The chancre appears after about the 7th to 14th day of impure coition. At first as the little pustule, this changes into an impure ulcer, within raised borders, and the characteristic stinging pains. In this stage, if syphilis is not cured internally, chancre remains standing in the same place during man’s lifetime, only increasing with years. As long as the chancre remains externally or locally, no secondary manifestations of syphilitic miasm develop.

ii. Development of the secondary manifestations of syphilis:

This is the development of syphilitic miasmatic state proper. When the primary manifestation of syphilis chancre appears, the allopathic physician tries to destroy them using corroding, cauterizing, and desiccating substances. He does it by thinking it to be just a local ulcer.

According to the old school’s writings, “No internal venereal disease is as yet to be thought of so that when locally exterminating the chancre, they suppose that they remove all the venereal disease from the patient at once if only he will not permit this ulcer to remain too long in its place so that the absorbent vessels do not get time to transfer the position into the internal organism and so cause by delay a general infection of the system with syphilis.

Hence, the allopathic doctor destroys in his blindness, through local applications, the vicarious external symptoms (chancre ulcer) and he inexorably compels the organism to replace the destroyed first substitute chancre by far more painful substitute, the bubo”.

When the allopathic mismanagement destroys the chancre, nature tries to soothe the internal disease by another local manifestation called “bubo”. As a usual routine, the allopath again tries to drive away from the bubo by the same type of local injurious treatment; nature is forced to develop internally and some secondary internal ailments results. Hence results from the chancre miasm. But the development of secondary manifestations occurs very slowly.

Kentian’s View on Syphilis

The three chronic miasms: Psora, Syphilis, and Sycosis are contagious in the form in which they exist at the time of infection. If the husband is polluted by syphilitic miasm, the disease is transferred from husband to wife; it is taken up in the stage in which it then exists and from thence it goes on progressively.

The woman catches it from the man on the stage in which he has it at the time of their marriage. When the infection takes place in the primary stage, there is no way of disguising it, but if it occurs in the secondary or tertiary stage, there is no way of detecting it immediately, because it goes on insidiously.

If the husband has the primary sore, It will manifest in the wife, but if he gives the disease to his wife in the tertiary stage, with every manifestation suppressed or passed by, then you will not be able to know whether she has taken the disease or not. As syphilis commences to occupy the interior tissues of man, the periosteum, the bone and brain are the tissues that are sought out as the principal sites.

H.A.Roberts views on Syphilis

H.A.Roberts applies analogy to the destructive tendency of syphilitic miasm and the anti-syphilitic homeopathic remedies. The substances which are used as pre-eminently syphilitic remedies are having atomic weights of above 53. They are the elements with the highest radioactive and destructive tendencies. Radioactivity is heat-evolving. (exothermic) process. Once this process is continued for a sufficient length of time, the original substance itself seems to change.

These radioactive substances, without destroying themselves just as the syphilitic miasm, actually destroy living tissue. This syphilitic stigma in turn is passed on to the next generations. The king of anti-syphilitic remedies “mercury” is a higher range of elements. Osmium, iridium, platinum, aurum, plumbum, bismuth, radium, and uranium are on the other list. H.A.Roberts is trying to conclude that the law of similaris is employing the destructive elements therapeutically in curing the destructive syphilitic miasm.

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Treatment of Syphilis 

The second important chronic miasm, chancre disease only causes difficulties in its cure, if it is complicated with developed psora or the sycosis or both. To cure this venereal disease, three states of the patient have to be distinguished:

1. The first stage is the one where the patient is suffering only from the primary manifestations of syphilis alone.

2. The second stage is the one where syphilis is alone, without complicating with other miasms, but the primary manifestations chancre or bubo have been destroyed by the violent local treatments.

3. The third stage is the one where syphilis had combined with psoric miasm.

i. In the first stage, when the syphilis is alone and not complicated with the Psora, Hahnemann says, “there is on earth no chronic miasm, no chronic disease springing from a miasma, which is more curable and more easily curable than this.” In this first stage, syphilis for its thorough and forever cure needs only one little dose of the dynamized mercurial remedy. Hahnemann recommends in his materia medica Pura, the semi-oxide of mercury as the most excellent anti-syphilitic remedy.

In such treatment, no need for any external application will arise. In a few days of taking such mercury, in 1, 2, or 3 fine pellets as a single dose, the chancre becomes a clean sore with little mild pus and heals of itself. Whole syphilis with its chancre will be removed within fourteen days. The skin where the chancre appeared, will become as healthy and clear as the surrounding skin and this can be considered as the proof of perfect cure of internal syphilis in this stage. As long as the chancre persists on the skin, no surety of the cure can be given at this stage.

ii. In the first stage of syphilis, the disappearance of the chancre and the bubo are considered as the proof of perfect cure. Whereas in the second stage the chancre and bubo have been driven off by the violent local treatments, the patient presents with the absence of local complaints. Hence, it is difficult for the homeopathic physician to declare the patient as fully cured of internal syphilis. This is the limitation in the cure of the second stage of syphilis. But even in such conditions, Hahnemann says, the careful homeopathic observer can notice one important sign in the patient.

When the chancre or bubo has been driven out by the local application of the orthodox school, “There will always remain in the place where it stood, as a sign of the unextinguished internal syphilis, a discolored, reddish, red or blue scar”. This scar is the indication that despite the local treatments, internal syphilis is still present in the patient. Perfect homeopathic cure of syphilis even in this stage is possible by internal use of the dynamized mercurial remedy.

Syphilis, for its thorough and forever cure, needs a little dose of the dynamized semi-oxide of mercury as the most excellent anti-syphilitic remedy. The patient is declared completely cured when the scar above is described, changes to the healthy color of the surrounding skin, and all discoloration of the skin will disappear.

iii. The most difficult of them all is the third stage, where the suppressed syphilis complicates with the psora. This again can be presented to the physician in two varieties. The first variety is the one where the patient is already suffering from a type of chronic disease at the time of the suppression of the primary manifestations of syphilis.

Hence, the suppressed syphilis easily combines with the psora and complicates its cure. The second variety is spurious syphilis: also known as masked syphilis and in England, it is known as pseudo-syphilis, a monster of a double disease. This results when the local manifestations of syphilis are suppressed by the violent local treatments of the dominant medical school slowly and painfully. Employing friction with mercury, large doses of calomel, corrosive sublimate, and similar acrid mercurial remedies in material doses, the allopath tries to remove the chancre and bubo.

Such injurious techniques produce a condition called the “mercurialisation” in the patient. This procedure was abundantly practiced by the dominant medical school during Hahnemannian times. The “mercurialisation” produces fever, dysenteric abdominal ailments, chronic exhausting salivation, pains in the limbs, sleeplessness, etc. Despite all such pains, this treatment did not possess the capacity to eliminate syphilis from the body. On the contrary, the patient becomes weak and his general health undermines leading to the awakening of the latent psora. Thus, awakened psora combines with internally driven syphilis and forms the monster of the double disease called the spurious disease.

Treatment of Syphilis Complicated With Psora

The hurtful influences from without i.e. any obstacles to cure have to be controlled first. The patient is advised to take a light yet nourishing diet to improve his general health. Psora has to be first combated by administering the best suitable anti-psoric remedy based on the existing psoric symptoms.

In the footnote, Hahnemann recommends Hepar sulph as the best anti-psoric remedy to improve the general health of patients. This medicine is best adapted to such conditions if the crude allopathic mercurial medication has produced a medicinal disease. A suitable anti-psoric remedy has to be allowed to complete its action. Based on the remaining psoric symptoms one or more anti-psoric remedies can be prescribed till the psoric symptoms disappear. Then the best mercurial preparation is administered and allowed to act for a period of three, five, or seven weeks.

This can be allowed to act as long as the patient notices improvement in venereal symptoms. In inveterate and difficult cases, few syphilitic and few psoric symptoms might remain without succumbing to the above treatment. A repetition of a similar process of cure is required here. Another application of one or more of the anti-psoric remedies that have not yet been used can be tried till all the psoric symptoms disappear.

The above-mentioned best mercurial preparation can be tried again but in a different potency. This is allowed to complete its action fully till the disappearance of all the venereal symptoms, including the discoloration of skin where the scar remained.

Treatment of the Threefold Complication of the Three Chronic Miasms

The suppressed syphilis might complicate with figworts disease, with the venereal miasm and at the same time a developed psora resulting in tri-miasmatic disease. Even in such cases, the psora has to be combated first and then the two venereal chronic miasms.

1. This threefold complicated disease (syphilis + developed psora + developed sycosis) must first be treated with anti-psoric medicines according to the predominant psoric symptoms.

2. The anti-sycotic and anti-syphilitic remedies can be altered one after another, the symptoms of which were at the time the most prominent. In doing so, each remedy must be allowed to complete its action fully.

3. To remove the remaining psoric symptoms, anti-psoric treatment can be resumed again to perfect the cure.

4. Each one of these three kinds of anti-miasmatic remedies has to be given in the proper time and purely according to the symptom totality.

5. Such alternating treatment may be continued successively till a complete cure is achieved.