The Story: THE FINDING OF THE FIRST THREE HERBAL REMEDIES
Although most of this discoveries up to that time had been made through scientific research, Edward Bach would trust to his intuition when science could give him no satisfactory answer to his problems, and he found that such inner knowledge always led him aright.
In the "new work" which he was so rapidly approaching, his intuition, his inspired genius alone was to guide him to truths undiscoverable through intellect and science. The year 1928 was a memorable one, for it was the birth of the new work.
Every moment he could spare from his practice and work in the laboratory he spent in searching for the plants and herbs with which he hoped to replace the seven bacterial nosodes. He would return from a day in the country or by the sea, after a few hours at Kew or in the parks, with many specimens which he potentised and tested, comparing their results with those of the nosodes, but none of them fully satisfying him.
He pondered deeply upon the reason for this. Being convinced that the true healing agents were to be found amongst the plants and trees of NATURE he sought for a greater understanding of disease itself, its cause and its effect upon the mind and body.
Bach had attended the dinner somewhat unwillingly and was not enjoying himself greatly. To pass the time he was idly watching the people around him when suddenly he realised that the whole of humanity consisted of a number of definite GROUP OF TYPES; that every individual in that large hall belonged to one or another of these GROUPS and he spent the rest of the evening watching all the people he could see; observing how they at their food, how they smiled and moved their hands and heads, the attitudes of their bodies, the expressions on their faces and, when he was close enough to hear, the tone of voice they used.
So close was the resemblance between certain people that they might have belonged to the same family although there was no blood relationship. He found this a most engrossing occupation, and by the time the diner was over he had worked out a number of GROUPS and was busy in his mind comparing these with his seven bacterial groups [nosodes]. He discovered he had added more TYPE-GROUPS to that number, and knew that when he applied himself seriously to the study he would find even more.
So close was the resemblance between certain people that they might have belonged to the same family although there was no blood relationship. He found this a most engrossing occupation, and by the time the diner was over he had worked out a number of GROUPS and was busy in his mind comparing these with his seven bacterial groups [nosodes]. He discovered he had added more TYPE-GROUPS To that number, and knew that when he applied himself seriously to the study he would find even more.
It would be a continuation upon a gigantic scale of the work already done on the nosodes, and he wondered how this extended GROUP-THEORY would apply to disease and its cure--whether the diseases from which these groups suffered would also bear a resemblance to each other. Then came the inspiration that the individuals of each GROUP would not suffer from the same kinds of diseases, but that ll those in any one GROUP would react in the same or nearly the same manner to any type of illness.
He could not wait for the end of the evenings entertainment, but left as soon as he could to think out these new idea. However, it was not until he had left London in 1930, and was able to give his full attention to the study, that he worked them out in detail.
Every patient who came to him from then onwards was closely observed; every characteristic, every mood, every reaction to disease, each mannerism and little habit was noted and, as far as he was able with the remedies he already had, he prescribed for them on these indications.
The results were so encouraging that he was satisfied his intuition had again led him into the right path. It was the principle of Hahnemann amplified, and it more nearly approached his own ideals of healing than had any method he had practised so far.
One day late in September of that same year he had a sudden urge to go to Wales and, obeying the impulse, he was rewarded by finding two beautiful plants--the pale mauve Impatiens, and the golden flowered Mimulus--growing in great profusion near a mountain stream.
He brought these back to London and prepared them in the same way has he had done the oral vaccines. When he came to use them, prescribing them according to the personality of the patient, they had, to this great joy, immediate and remarkable results.
One more plant he found and potentised that year--the wild Clematis, and these three remedies formed the first of the thirty-eight herbs he was to find and use in the new system of herbal medicine he discovered.
With these few remedies he began treating his patients according to their TYPE alone, and an account of them, together with one or two others he had found and used with good results, was published in The Homeopathic World of February 1930, entitled "Some New Remedies and their Uses."
So convinced was Edward Bach that he would now be able to replace the bacterial nosodes by the pure and simple herbs of the field that he decided, towards the end of 1929, to give up all other methods of treatment and use these three remedies, the Mimulus, Impatiens and wild Clematis, alone, whilst seeking others to add to their number.
He knew he was on the verge of discovering an entirely new system of medicine, although as yet he had no real conception as to the exact form this new method would take. So great was the urge to begin the search that he could not rest, nor continue with the work on the nosodes that he and his medical friends had been working to complete.
All he had done so far, he considered, was but a step towards this new healing, and he was impatient to begin seriously upon the fresh theories. At last he told his friends that he was about to give up his work in London and devote himself to the task of finding WORLD-TYPES and searching for the further remedies which would health these TYPES and, by doing so, heal all the diseases from which they might suffer.
This took his friends by surprise, they had always looked upon him as a leader of scientific research, a genius who had made and would make, further discoveries in that branch of medicine. They were well content with the oral vaccines; nothing so far had been discovered to compare with them, and they could not follow him in his new ideas which they felt were ideals with but little practical use.
They did their best to dissuade him from going and leaving his work as it were unfinished, but nothing could shake his determination or weaken his conviction that he was on the threshold of far greater discoveries. Edward Bach's decision to give up all his previous work and begin again was not a light one to make. His Harley Street practice was bringing him an income of over $5,000 UK a year; the work of preparing vaccines to send to medical men all over the world was in itself a full-time occupation; and, in addition to this, he was looked upon as an outstanding genius in his own line, with an even bigger future ahead of him.
But none of this did he consider or regret for one moment.
All that concerned him was the certainty which became stronger as the days passed that his work lay in another direction and that he would find what he sought amongst the trees and plants remedies which were already prepared for many by NATURE Herself, and were only waiting to be discovered...
...Thus, in the spring of 1930, Edward Bach, then forty-three years old, was preparing to begin his work all over again, and on entirely different lines.
His great intellectual powers had led him to make many scientific discoveries, the use of the which brought and is still bringing, through orthodox medicine and homeopathy, relief and healing to many sufferers; but now he felt awakening within him that divine inspiration which is intuition, the true wisdom.
Guided by this, he was ready to forsake all scientific and artificial methods of healing and to return to the simple ways of NATURE.
Source(s):
Compliation by Lisa Dawn Martin, BFRP
An Excerpt from Chapter VII
The Medical Discoveries of Edward Bach, Physician
The dramatic life story of the amazing who developed the world-famous Bach Flower Remedies
By Nora Weeks, with an appreciation by Dr. John Diamond, MD
