Letters to the Editor
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1998 Jan / Feb VOL VII NO 1. I, had the opportunity to attend the 4th Sarla Sonawala Memorial Seminar organised by the National Journal of Homoeopathy on 25th and 26th of January 1998 with 8 other students from Jaisingpur. All of us are very happy and satisfied with the knowledge we acquired through the seminar. Dr C H Asrani's "General Guidelines to Health', was very educative. Dr Kasim Chimthanwala's "Skin Therapeutics" emphasised the importance of skin in elimination and provided the guidelines to the treatment of diseases of skin.
Dr Parinaz Humranwala's "Case of warts treated with Hypericum" was thought provoking. Dr Vishpala Parthasarathy's "Approach to skin cases & Interpretation of Homoeopathy in light of modern medicine" was very impressive.
All of us received valuable books like Nosode, Sulphur-Calcarea-Lyco: The immortal trio, Inches Book of Health, Robin Murphy's repertory: all at concessional rates from NJH's Book Club. Hope we will get the same co-operation and guidelines in future from the NJH family.
Dr R B Chougule, Jaisingpur, Maharashtra.
Kindly refer your comments against my cases, pg 120 of "Magnesia" issue of NJH [VOL VI, No. 2, March-April'97]. I am well aware of the fact that the case reports to be published in NJH should be properly prepared, so as to be instructive.
Though, I get little spare time during my general practice, I am trying to compile my striking cases of various acute and chronic diseases with proper reasoning for the treatment given, so that they are instructive. In due course, I will prepare detailed reports of all the cases whose photographs and brief summaries I have already sent to you. Then I will present them for NJH family.
Dr S K Mamgain, Dehradun. (Editor: We are sorry, we misunderstood the purpose. We will wait for properly documented cases.)
Received the Teeth issue this week. Thank you. A remedy missed was Fragaria-vesca - cleans tartar off teeth, heals sore gums, purges tape worm and is specific to the spleen and liver. Used in 30 on my cats with good results. Now I am experimenting with a flower essence of Wild strawberry from Green Hope Farm, PO Box 125, Meriden NH 03770 USA, to see whether a Bach style of remedy will give similar results.
Love your new shipping envelope. My journal came in very good condition and only the envelope was a bit tattered. Thank you.
Joanne Taylor USA. (Editor: Do let us know the results. A list of 98 issues is given in each issue. We would welcome contributions.)
There is a distinct difference in approach to the case between the Bombay school and the Calcutta school of Homoeopathy. There has also been a long felt desire among our student readers and the neophytes to include a section on Homoeopathy philosophy.
Some observations:
1. Majority of the cases of the NJH articles is Materia Medica based prescriptions - the drug picture [its core] is tried to match with that of the life story of the patient and his/her other symptoms. No doubt, these kind of prescriptions are based upon totality of symptoms [the results confirm that] but in such cases the Miasmatic viewpoint -its diagnosis and evolution is most of the time missing/not taken into consideration. If at all miasms are considered, then it is limited only to the use of the relevant nosodes as intercurrent to remove the 'blocks'
2. As most of such cases are single remedy cures [in actual practice, such instances are few], one gets to learn only about the MM drug pictures and the repertorial rubrics. Potency selection and dosage and repetition of medicine are of course justified to an extent. But there is no scope to discuss Kent's 12 observations, 2nd prescription requiring change of remedy and so drug relationships, Herring's law of cure etc.
3. Classification of diseases according to Hahnemann's proforma, which will define our approach to the case -constitutional/ palliative/ organopathic etc, the appropriate class of medicines, and the prognosis of the case etc needs to be given due importance. For this, variety of cases is required.
4. Commentaries on the aphorisms are not new to anybody, even to those reading journals, but if we can draw the attention of the reader to the relevant aphorism according to the case eg. dissimilar diseases due to other suppressive/side effects causing of on a natural chronic disease and then have a discussion on it, their practicality could be understood better.
5. Management: for instance, if we take the mental symptoms, broadly speaking, there could be two types:
i] true mentals [miasmatic] which are altered, perverted and modified and
ii] False mentals - secondary to some external exciting factors which only need management. Differentiating thus, it becomes easy as to which symptoms need counseling and not medicine and which don't and which need to be considered in the totality of symptoms. Dr Vishpala's case in the PMS issue contained that to an extent.
The majority of readers lack clinical experience and training.Journals can then become a training ground. Therefore all aspects need to be discussed.
S K Chatterjee, Calcutta. (Editor: We agree, and request authors to incorporate the above. Also, you should take it upon your shoulder to send in one case encompassing the above pointers for each issue of 1998 and beyond. The themes are up to you.)
I pray for the success of Memorial Seminar. Till yesterday, I was hoping to make it to the Seminar. Hopefully, next time I will be able to do so.
Secondly: the Rheumatology issue was almost perfect as important as a jewel. You have been keeping truth very high through your editorials. I wish you all success.
Shaji Kutty, Trivandrum (Editor: Thank you. All we need are good wishes. Yes, the Seminar was indeed very good. All of us enjoyed it thoroughly. And when you enjoy something, you learn all the more.)
I saw the NJH and am tremendously impressed. I would like to have all the back issues. We think this is a must for every doctor if he wants to practice well. There are 1,000 Homoeopaths here in Kerala. Just let me know in what way you require help, and I will give it to you.
Shaji Thomas, Kozhikode (Editor: Thank you. Help is always welcome. You could consider becoming part of the NJH extended team. To begin with, you can be part of the new movement of establishing NJH Node Depots in every city, so that all reader's grievances relating to NJH issues, can be dealt locally.)
