Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1. 1936
By the way, the dilemma you speak of can be solved in one way: his diagnosis is not always infallible, but he cures cases and his medicines are effective because homeopaths go more by symptoms, diagnosis occupying a minor place.
That only amounts to one horn of the dilemma – viz. that he can cure “incurable” cases even on a wrong diagnosis. We get no farther.
That’s why I rely too little on his diagnosis. But as you say, his medicines are very effective. I am watching with great interest and a little anxiety too, how successful he will prove himself in these special cases.
We don’t feel that B.P.’s eye disease has nothing or little to do with his syphilis, we think it is a direct result of it and what is behind is much more serious than what appears on the surface. Mother found no improvement by the oculist’s treatment. On the contrary she was telling me recently almost every second day that B.P. seemed to be in a horrible condition and getting worse and for some time she had an impression of approaching danger. It was why I handed over the case to R – with some reluctance – although I 
had promised him a rest after his big cases were over. We said nothing to R except that it was a syphilis case and he could get all the facts from you. But his immediate conclusion was the same, that it was a more horrible condition and was becoming dangerous. He is especially afraid of the danger of inflammation going up into the brain – he said it was travelling in that direction – and in that case he said the man may go off in 5 minutes. I knew that syphilis cases often end suddenly in that way, but did not think it could happen with gonorrhea – as he says he thinks it is in origin gonorrhoeic. He says it doesn’t usually, but under certain circumstances it may develop consequences that lead to that. He refused to promise a cure as he did at once in the tuberculosis and other cases even when they were at their worst. Today he has ordered B.P. to bed, made a temporary installation for himself there and wants to fight the case with what he calls vital medicines. I have seen that these sometimes sweep the body free of virulent disease in 24 hours or perhaps 3 days in a breath-taking manner. But here he was not at all sure of the result – there has been an amelioration decided but not decisive. We have to wait.
All this quite confidential. As for eye medicines he has them; his other cases had some of them eye affections as a result of the general illness, but he used, I think, only mild medicines there as they were quite effective.