Case Seminar on Chronic Diseases, April'98
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1998 Sep / Oct VOL VII NO 5.
Reported by
Dr Gulraj Kaur

A two day "Homoeopathic Case Seminar on Chronic Diseases" was organized by CCRH at its headquarters at Janakpuri, New Delhi on 20^th and 21^st April, 1998 with financial grant from Department of ISM & H, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Inaugurated by Smt Shanta Shastry, Secy Dept of ISM&H, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and presided over by Dr R K Kapoor, Chairman, and Scientific Advisory Committee of CCRH.
Delegates: 120 comprising of scientists of CCRH, Medical Officers from MCD, NDMC, Delhi Administration dispensaries, teaching staff of Nehru Hom Medical College and private practitioners.

Objective of Seminar: to evaluate prescribing techniques incorporating Hom principles for the treatment of chronic diseases through presentation of cases.
Speakers: Four practitioners namely Dr S K Dubey from Calcutta, Dr Kasim Chimthanawala form Nagpur, Dr Parinaz Humranwala and Dr Praful Barvalia from Mumbai presented their cases and follow-ups and their prescribing techniques.

Dr D P Rastogi, Director CCRH, in his welcome address, highlighted the steps taken by the Dept of ISM&H, Ministry of Health & Family welfare, for development of Indian systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy. He outlined the new schemes formulated by Dept of ISM&H.
Notable Schemes: Reorientation training programs for Hom physicians- private practitioners & Government employees.

2. Providing funds for organizing seminars/ workshops and the extra mural research projects from research councils/dept of ISM&H to universities, Hom colleges, public and private research organizations at national and international level having infrastructural facilities.
He said that first such financial assistance for extra mural research has been provided to National Institute of Hom, Calcutta for undertaking studies in Arsenic poisoning prevalent in several districts of West Bengal. Under the scheme of re-orientation programmes for Hom physicians, this council was sanctioned funds to organize two reorientation programmes in the N-E region which were held at Imphal [Manipur] in Dec 1997 and March 1998.

For organizing this present seminar the funds were received from the Department of ISM&H. He hoped that the presentations would be interactive, informative and useful.

Smt Shanta Shastry, Sec, dept of ISM&H, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in her inaugural address said that Hom has come a long way since the time of Hahnemann. It is an easily administered medicine. She pointed out that Hom was gaining importance in India & abroad because of dependency and side effects of allopathic drugs and limited role of modern medicine in tackling many chronic diseases. She said that in a discussion on ISM&H on Delhi Doordarshan, it was highlighted that statistically next to Allopathy, 10% of the people resort to Hom more than other systems. She urged the Homoeopaths to equip themselves with the latest developments both in modern medicine and Homoeopathy. It was befitting that CCRH had organized a case Seminar to focus on prescribing techniques. This should lead to some kind of uniformity in prescription.

Dr R K Kapoor, Chairman, Scientific Advisory Committee in his presidential address said that by organizing this case seminar on Chronic Diseases, CCRH had provided a platform to the participants to have interaction with the eminent Homoeopaths, who would be presenting their cases. He was sure that this would be informative and useful on practical level in their practice and research work. He highlighted the tremendous work done by CCRH but felt that there was a need for propagating and publicizing the achievements of the Council.

In the two-day seminar, there were four scientific sessions. DR R K Kapoor chaired the first scientific session and Dr Kasim Chimthanawala from Nagpur was the speaker. He demonstrated case taking of cases of marasmus with recurrent tonsillitis and bronchitis, schizophrenia and ulcerative colitis. He emphasized each feature of case taking, stressed its importance in the analysis of a case. The cases were distributed in advance to facilitate a meaningful interaction.

Dr Jugal Kishore chaired the second session. Dr S K Dubey, the Calcutta doyen, gave the benefit of his vast experience through simple guidelines in tackling chronic cases. He dealt with different angles of prescribing in chronic cases: e.g.

1. Prescribing on symptom similarity
2. Constitutional similarity
3. Etiological prescribing, - on causation etc. He gave many clinical tips viz:
4. History of mental trauma linked with convulsions - Nat-sulph, Arnica, Hypericum
5. Mental effects of onanism - Arg-nitricum
6. Lack of reaction to well chosen remedy- Opium
7. For after effects of long term steroids treatment - adrenal cortex in potency.

1. hypertension
2. constitutional dyscrasia
3. temporal lobe epilepsy
4. epilepsy with mild mental retardation and
5. a case of impersonal and sentimental manager with hypertension and hyperthyroidism.

The fourth and last session was chaired by Dr S P Singh, Deputy Advisor [H] to the dept of ISM&H, Ministry of Health and family welfare, Govt of India. In this session, Dr Parinaz Humranwala of Mumbai presented a video presentation of a case of a child with mental retardation. The interpretation of the case for arriving at a remedy was explained .She had prescribed Stramonium to this child on the basis of history of fright of the mother during her pregnancy. She said, to arrive at a remedy one has to come to the core or gist of the case, through detailed case taking. She explained her way of taking the case and in between narrated interesting instances and cases:

1. Veratrum-album, Morphinum and Opium were fantastic liars.
2. She compared the remedy Drosera with Hitler, being dictatorial, dominating with immense imagination about himself.
3. Lycopodium too was dictatorial and dominating but was friendly.
4. Belladona has one peculiar symptom - fear of balloons and child always asks for a torch.
5. Mercurius-solubilis was equally creative and destructive, anarchist, revolutionary, with no remorse after committing a crime, courageous, propensity to investigate etc. She then presented a video recording of a typical Carcinosin child bringing out a very clear and beautiful picture of the drug.

Back