Constitutional Medicine-With Special Reference To The Three Constitutions of Dr. Von Grauvogl

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Dr John Henry Clarke (1853-1931) was editor of "Homoeopathic World" for 29 years from 1885 to 1898 and again from 1923 until his death in 1931. He was a consulting physician at London Homoeopathic Hospital. He is the author of "A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica" and "The Prescriber". He was a highly regarded practitioner and author, who fought for homoeopathy constantly, often to his own detriment. He was very supportive of the lay movement believing that as long as was practiced it didn't matter if it came from a qualified prescriber or not and most of his books are written for a lay person.

Having projected the compilation of a "Repertory of Generalities" it became apparent to me that the work of Dr. von Grauvogl would have to be taken into account, and especially his famous "Constitutions." A reference to such works as I possess, including his Text-book of Homœopathy in the American translation by Dr. George W. Shipman, published in 1870, showed me that no process of repertorial condensation could do justice to the subject, and that a complete setting out of it was necessary. As I know of no work of the kind in the English language, and as the subject is of most vital importance not only to Homœopathy but to medicine in general, I have thought well to put it together as best I may, leaving to others to complete what may be lacking in my account of it.

Grauvogl was certainly one of the most remarkable men who were drawn into the Homœopathic fold in the period of its adolescence. For clarity of vision, philosophical and logical mentality, he has no superior. At the same time he was quite in the first rank as a practical physician. He has left on record a series of observations, the parallel of which I have never met. Every one of the cases recorded is a little drama complete in itself, a spring as full of medical wisdom from which every practitioner may draw according to his capacity as it is of human interest. These will all be found in my pages, and to them I have added the cases, no less dramatic and no less vital, of Grauvogl's friend and disciple, Dr. Bojanus, of Moscow, the ablest of Russian Homœopaths.

Apart from the record of clinical observations which it contains, the Text-book is not easy reading for moderns. It is in two parts, each part containing some 400 pages, and is divided up into numbered paragraphs something after the manner of the Organon. This is exceedingly useful for reference, but it does not make for continuity of thought and reading. Also much of the work is necessarily occupied with the current medical doctrines of his day, and these Grativogl deals with in a spirit of absolute fairness.

The great medical Panjandrum of Grauvogl's day was Virchow with his "Cellular Pathology" and "Leukæmia," and his dicta had to be taken count of. Grauvogl correctly described Virchow as a " politician and phrase-maker," for Virchow was a leader of Liberals as well as of Medicals. In Grauvogl's view it was not the cell but the molecule which was the unit of living processes, and on this perception his division of the basic constitutions of man into three is founded.