Posted October 2nd, 2008 by admin
James Tyler Kent (c.1900) introduced some interesting views regarding the nature of disease, which differ markedly from Hahnemann's characterizations. Kent was highly influenced by Swedenborgian religious thought, and inspired by this, introduced the notion that all disease - even the susceptibility to acute disease and apparently to indispositions - originated in a spiritual fall from grace:
Psora is the beginning of all physical sickness.
Had psora never been established as a miasm upon the human race, the other two chronic diseases would have been impossible, and susceptibility to acute diseases would have been impossible.
...
Psora is the underlying cause, and is the primitive or primary disorder of the human race. It is a disordered state of the internal economy of the human race ... If the human race had remained in a state of perfect order, psora could not have existed ... it goes to the very primitive wrong of the human race, the very first sickness of the human race, that is the spiritual sickness
(James Tyler Kent, Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy, chapt.19)...
Without getting into a philosophical/religious debate regarding the theological supportability of Kent's teachings on the matter, it is clear that his notions re the nature of disease differ significantly from the conclusions Hahnemann came to on the basis of his careful observation.
Kent apparently did not allow for true acute disease, nor for indispositions - but suggested rather, that all disease was predicated on the chronic Psoric miasm. His equating of Psora with the spiritual fall from grace - with "original sin" - also deviated strongly from Hahnemannian thought on the matter.
