Lest We Forget
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1997 Jan / Feb VOL VI NO 1.
Dr S M Gunavante
The pressure of work in day-to-day practice is apt to make us forget or overlook the basic principles which ought to guide us always in the practice of Homoeopathy. Therefore, on this occasion, we shall refresh our minds of the basic precepts which experienced masters laid down sure that we bear them uppermost in our minds.
1. If a patient presents himself to us asking to be cured of the catarrh, he makes a great mistake. He really wants to be cured as a patient, and we are bound to cure, if he dies of consumption speedily, what have we achieved? The local catarrhal manifestations are of the least importance in finding our remedies. Six patients may come with organic changes in the nasal passages; the extent of the change may be equally great, and yet six different remedies will have to be given. The treatment must, in the highest sense of the word, be constitutional.
Dr T F Allen
2. A number of remedies may be indicated in any given case of disease, but only one remedy can be truly Homoeopathic to the disease and correspond not only to the principal symptoms but to all the secondary circumstances and phenomena.
In comparing the known pathogenetic symptoms of drugs, we discover very soon a considerable quantity of differences, but they are not all equally useful; what is worse, in many remedies we have no point to start from for our comparisons..... This deficiency has to be supplied by contrasting the totality of symptoms of various drugs and by studying the genius of a drug from its symptoms.
Dr C Von Boenninghausen
3. In no class of cases will the Homoeopathic remedy be found to act more efficiently and speedily than in post partum haemorrhage. It is really astonishing how rapidly a profuse haemorrhage will cease after the administration of the properly selected similimum. The physician should be prepared to select the remedy speedily, but time will be saved if we carefully get all the symptoms and as carefully select the remedy. When the similimum is administered, the haemorrhage will cease in a very short time or at least be under control so as not to endanger the life of the woman. In such emergency cases, nature speaks plainly. The more danger to life the more plainly nature speaks. And in like manner the more danger to life, the more speedily will the Homoeopathic remedy act.
This is a fact corroborated by the experience of the best prescribers. Only those who trust the well selected remedy are safe from calamity in such cases.
Dr W A Yingling
4. ANY SYMPTOM MAY BE LIFE SAVING. It is by far safer to have a few symptoms that may never or seldom be used, than to omit any that might save life or suffering. Then, in the Homoeopathic treatment of any case, it is impossible to tell what symptom may be indicative of the similimum or what remedy may be called for. Any remedy in the whole range of Materia Medica may be indicated in any given case. The patient in hand must be treated and the symptoms of the patient, even though it has never been used or even thought of in connection with such a case or condition.
Dr W A Yingling
5. INCURABLE DISEASES: Nothing seems more unreasonable than considering any disease incurable simply because it has not yet been cured. A cure of organic changes in some of the organs by promoting the removal of the diseased portion, and the formation of a substitute for the destroyed tissue, is a thing of daily occurrence in the practice of physician. The organs of special senses, the eye and the ear for instance, are frequently cured of organic affections which have lasted for years. Who shall say there is no remedy acting on the spinal cord when the totality of symptoms indicates its employment as Pulsatilla and Sulphur act upon the ear in a like case?
Dr Henry M Smith
6. The totality of symptoms would always be the ground of prescription, but close study of peculiar manifestations will very much facilitate the selection of the remedial agent.
Dr Henry M Smith
7. When to repeat? If a dose administered has acted for a along time, in acute disease for days, in chronic diseases for weeks or months, we must reasonably judge that it would be best to administer one more single dose; but if the action of the dose lasted only a comparatively short time, and has been rapidly exhausted, especially in acute diseases and a repetition appears still advisable, then it would almost always be better to dissolve a single dose of the remedy, now to be repeated in some few ounces of water and continue its administration in broken doses, until it becomes evident that the action of the dose in this manner administered has fully set in, and the symptoms for which it was given are yielding to it, becoming lessened in every respect. The greatest care should be taken never to repeat the dose or administer another remedy until the effects of the dose last taken have been exhausted.
Dr A D Lippe
8. REMEDY STILL ACTING: In chronic cases the skill of the physician is gauged to a very large extent by his ability to intelligently wait on the action of the remedy. He must know the nature of the disease and the indications of the favourable action of the remedy. If the disease goes form within outward, from above downward, from the most important organs, he may rest assured that his remedy is favourably acting and that a repetition of the dose is not called for.
Dr W A Yingling
9. THE SIMILAR AND THE SIMILIMUM: It is plain to be seen that similar remedy will require more repetition than the Similimum. There may be several remedies to a given case, but there can be but one Similimum. The similar will lack something, thus not striking the vital force properly, and thus requiring repetition and more time to effect a cure. The Similimum exactly fits the case, its action goes right to the centre of the mark, and the cure is most speedy, pleasant and effective. The similimum seldom needs repetition, the similar most always needs it and the farther it is form the one similimum the more need there will be for the repetition.
Dr W A Yingling
10. SINGLE DOSE: There is a misapprehension on the part of many regarding the exhibition of the single dose. Some suppose it to mean that each individual patient is to receive one and only one dose of the given remedy and no more. This is erroneous. The single dose does not apply to the case alone, but directly to the prescription. Each prescription is to be of a single dose unless there are very strong reasons for a repetition arising out of the nature of the acute case, or the similarity of the remedy, which will be but seldom with careful prescribers, and then only until the drug shows an action. If a well selected drug does not show an action within a reasonable time, reason tells us to repeat it.
Dr W A Yingling
11. LACK OF SYSTEMATIC MATERIA MEDICA STUDY: It is a barrier or obstacle to effective curative work. Few of us remember as much Materia Medica as would be good for our patients. Yet many rely on memory alone and then question the efficacy of remedies. Lack of study becomes an obstacle in proportion to the need for reviewing which a doctor is willing to make of the vast field. The habit of reading one remedy a day is wonderfully educational. Personally, the use of the 'Guiding Symptoms' with further reference to either Kent or some other Materia medica has been most helpful to me.
Dr RAY W SPALDING
12. KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTERISTICS INDISPENSABLE: The knowledge of the characteristic symptoms of medicines is indispensable if we wish to be successful in the practice of Homoeopathy because it is one of our fundamental practical rules that the characteristic symptoms of the only truly curative remedy must correspond with the characteristic symptoms of the patient. This as one of the most important rules of our school, enters also largely into the study of the Materia medica and for this reason we must deprecate the arrangements of medicines according to groups of pathological conditions [therapeutics] so much sought after and wrongly supposed to exist in groups of symptoms recorded in the provings.
Dr Adolph Lippe
13. CONSTANT COMPARISON AND DIFFERENTIATION, A LIFEWORK: The life work of the student of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica is one of constant comparison [with the help of an upto date Repertory] and differentiation [with the help of peculiar characteristic symptoms, concomitants etc] He must differentiate the apparently similar symptoms of two or more medicinal agents in order to select the similimum.... to do this corretly and rapidly he must have as a basis for comparison some knowledge of the individuality....something that is peculiar, uncommon or sufficiently characteristic in the polychrest remedy that may be used as PIVOTAL POINT of comparison.
Dr H C ALLEN Preface to 'Keynotes'
