Reports.
National Journal Of Homoeopathy By Vishpala Parthasarathy.
1994 Jul / Aug Vol III No 4.
Himanshu Kumar.
Seminar Reports.
August 94 - "Tracing New horizons In Homoeopathy"
THREE DAYS WITH RAJAN SANKARAN (14-16TH AUG 94):
The seminar began with a vandana recital followed by a few lines of Vaishnav Jan To"
by Dr. Rajan Sankaran, to tune us all doctors, students and even a few amateurs on to the
same wavelength.
To illustrate the idea of typifying patients into animal, plant, mineral kingdoms and nosodes, Rajan presented some cases on video.
CASE ONE was a straight forward, the remedy staring the majority of us in the face. A 35 years old male came with avascular necrosis of the left hip joint. The indecisiveness, hesitation to take on new activities, shy as a child and hesitant towards the approach of strangers pointed to Baryta-carb. Rajan further analyzed the patient as having the feeling - "Im small, still a child". He wants to be dependent, mothered. The physical appearance had baldness and premature senility (aging). After Baryta the follow-up indicated better self esteem, absence of self degrading feeling and opening up to others with amelioration in physicals too.
CASE TWO was of a child with complaints of bilateral sensory neural deafness since birth. Dr. Rajan illustrated his idea of relating ailments since birth to the state of the mother during pregnancy. The mother had suffered from tension during pregnancy. Wanted to go to her mothers house but couldnt due to a grandfather suffering from cancer. There were many guests in the house. There were many guests in the house. A recurrent dream was of a woman leading her to dirty places - toilets, grave yards and dead bodies against her wishes. Rajan interpreted this as a feeling of being forced to do something against her wishes resulting in anger. The theme of split wills led to prescription of Naja 1M. Rajan emphasized that dreams should not be repertorised literally unless the doctor or the patient fails to infer a meaning behind them. Such meaningless dreams are truly symbolic and would deserve literal reference to the dreams chapter in the repertory. In the present case, the meaning of the dream being clear, literal repertorization would have been misleading. After initial aggravation in the form of lymph node enlargement, redness and swelling of right ear then left ear, fever etc. the hearing improved and the concomitant complaint of alopecia areata also improved. Dr. Rajan pointed out two main delusions of Naja as having suffered a wrong and of having neglected ones duty.
CASE THREE was of a 36 year old man with complaints of cardiac neurosis. The complaint was traced back to the death of a friend from heart attack. Thereafter any report of death by heart attack resulted in acute anxiety for the patient. Rajans analysis vivid picturesque talk., dramatic. Animal kingdom people are communicative and wandering in their talk. The theme of jealousy in the patients film also pointed to an animal remedy. (The patient was a film and TV cameraman) The loquacity, theme of films was of snakes. The patient had no fear of snakes. Rajan said that animal kingdom people are usually afraid of or fascinated by animals.
The patient had a great fascination for the golden cobra though the black snake would scare him in his dreams. There was a steady improvement on Naja.
Lions milk was proved (Lac-leonium) and the main theme was a severe sense of competition, fight to the finish, protection of the species or group and open aggression with a do or die attitude. This theme is in perfect consonance with the theme of the lion.
THE SECOND DAY opened with the cream of the seminar - a live case. A child named Hare Krishna came with behavioral problems. The mother described him as extra energetic, mischievous, shy with strangers but very aggressive with mother, very possessive of the mother, wont eat or sleep without her, sometimes very well behaved and will do every thing himself and on time. Sometimes he will not be aggressive but will not just sleep or eat (very little), will not play and will be disinclined to answer. When well behaved, he is a cheerful and happy child. Earlier, Dr. Jayesh had focussed on the dullness alternating with aggression. Jayesh had given Tub-bov over the last four years with temporary ameliorations only but no lasting change.
Rajan saw the theme of this case as clearly linked to the state of the mother during pregnancy. The emotions that the mother could not express in pregnancy are expressed by the child as he is not confined or restricted. The theme of the mothers pregnancy was that she wanted attention and did not get what she desired. She felt rebellious but had to please everyone and was not allowed to do what she wanted.
She herself did not become rebellious but suppressed herself and waited patiently.
Rajan identified 3 phases in the child - aggressive, followed by a dull, insensitive giving up, and third, good behaviours which is liked by everybody.
The child craves attention even in the form of negative strokes. Common to all three phases is the possessiveness for the mother. Parents are too busy for the child who feels neglected and prefers servants who give attention.
Rajan pointed out that the feeling in the case must be understood by stepping into the shoes of the patient just as one human being relates to another, without thinking of remedies, repertory, rubrics or the Materia Medica. Once the feeling is clear, correlate with the mothers state during pregnancy.
For this child the sensitivity axis rules so he belongs to plant kingdom. Thus the search is a plant remedy which craves attention and has the three phases. Rajan prescribed Rheum for this case.
Corresponding rubrics were not discussed form the Synthetic Repertory. They are not reproduced here because the approach was not by rubrics but by the "theme" of the case and the kingdom typology which has been introduced by Rajan as a novel, innovative and practically useful approach to prescribing. Dr. Vishpala asked the question what was in the minds of so many in the audience - "How do you solve this case using rubrics?" Of course Dr. Sankaran had given the Rubric of Rheum relevant to the case but it was more of a post facto analysis of the rubrics i.e., the rubrics were conceptualized after the remedy was arrived at. The point of the case was that whenever the case involves a mixed up set of rubrics, it is more useful and practical to discard the rubrics approach and go by kingdoms and the approach and go by kingdoms and the approach of "themes" or the central idea of the case.
Dr. Sankaran went on to say that the vital force borrows or takes on a disease state from somewhere in the Universe which means that the disease states exists in the form of animal, plant, and mineral kingdom or morbid disease products (nosodes).
Intermediate or individual disease states are not possible according to Rajan. Our vital force is too lazy to create its own states - it only borrows from existing states. Also there are no approximate states - there are only exact states. Thus no patient is a jumble of symptoms of which the maximum occur in a particular remedy leading to its prescription. No! he is walking, talking, living conscious of a particular disease state or soul. The oft suffered confusion of the prescriber stems from his own lack of perception and the rubric approach is partly to blame - the kingdom and the theme of the case approach is an innovative way out.
THE LAST DAY saw a case with a pure application of the kingdom and the theme approach leading to an amazing prescription of an unproven remedy!
A child of 13 years came with nodules on the vocal cords and progressive loss of voice. The mother described him as very brilliant in studies, talkative, an avid reader, very sensitive, lonely - an only child, reads religious and philosophy, gets very upset and angry if something is not to his liking or if he sees unfairness or injustice.
Rajan interprets the great trust-worthiness and integrity if schedule and time as a pointer to a fear of being punished which can be interpreted further as an anxiety of conscience as if committed a crime. This also correlates with the feeling of the mother during pregnancy which has not been detailed here for brevitys sake.
Thus the main focus of the case is the tremendous mother child relationship theme-this structural theme leads to mineral kingdom. The fearful cowardly nature with the theme of protection from outside world leads to Calcarea while element of trust and conscience points to Bromium.
An unproven remedy - Calc-brom 200 was given on the basis of this analysis and remarkably improvement was seen after two months both in the voice and the temperament. To do full justice to this case a transcript of the video is requested from Dr. Sankaran.
The second half saw the proving of Human milk. The main theme that emerged was of a conflict between religion and sensuality, work and leisure, selflessness and selfishness.
In an interesting case of Natrum-mur for warts on the finger, it was found that 1M, 10M failed with subsequent results from 200. However there was no change in the mental state.
Rajan explained this by saying that the patient was in a fully coped up state and hence required a lower potency. An inference is that as a patients mental state improves descending potencies come of use.
Rajan ended the seminar with an elaboration of his kingdom approach details of which are already given in his "The Substances of Homoeopathy".
We left with a sense of elation and of deep learning and stimulation for further reflection into classical Homoeopathy.
Dr. HIMANSHU KUMAR
Allahabad.
