Book Review
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2000 Jan / Feb VOL II NO 1.
Reviewed By
T K Kasiviswanathan
Title: Materia Medica Elite CD-Hompath
Dr Jawahar Shah of Hompath software has brought out another Materia medica CD and it was released in the Medicynth Similimum- a Legend Seminar held in Mumbai in February 2001.
The CD is the second attempt to present the materia medica of important remedies graphically and the earlier CD was called Materia Medica Live. The presentation in this CD is much different from the earlier one.
It has the following major headings:
Select A Remedy: For opening the materia medica section one has to click the name of the remedy from this list. In all 31 remedies have been covered. Some of the important remedies are Ambra-gresia, Agaricus, Ammonium-mur, Bismuth, Bromium, Cactus, Cimicifuga, Conium, Ferrum-met, Kali-broamtum, Natrum-carb, Nux-moschata, Opium, Phytolacca, Platina, Sepia.
Each remedy is covered under sub-headings as follows:
Drug Property: This gives in brief the full name of the drug, miasmatic background, components, kingdom from which it comes.
Drug Picture: This is a very comprehensive section, which presents a complete picture of the remedy. It covers basic introduction, constitutional type, thermal modality and miasm addressed by the remedy. There is an important section relating to use of this remedy called Ailments from-causative factors which is an important factor for prescribing.
The Guiding Indications sub-section gives the basic characteristics of the remedy, followed by schematic presentation of the important symptoms from head to foot under
Particulars
A practitioner can look to the section - CONFIRMATORY SYMPTOMS for clinching this remedy in practice; supporting this section are allied sections - Nucleus of the remedy, Clinical symptoms such as diseases for which it is indicated and Red Line Rubrics. A differential diagnosis between similar remedies is also presented in a separate sub-section COMPARE AND CONTRAST. There is also a separate part on Remedy Relationships for choosing the related remedy in case the remedy had done all it can do in a case and an allied remedy is called for to complete the cure.
At the end is the QUESTIONS Section, which is useful for testing the understanding of the student and practitioner of this remedy or for discussions in a classroom.
Keynotes section contains the important characteristics and peculiar symptoms of the remedy. There is repetition of some of the material in this section as compared to the DRUG PICTURE.
Presentation - This is the heart of the CD and is a graphic presentation of the salient features of the remedy through Power Point Slides and this section has been well done in many remedies with as many as 40-45 slides with clip arts and photos to make a visual impact on the audience on each major symptom. Considerable efforts must have been expended by the team to build up this section as the slides are crisp, background nice and selected clip arts are appropriate. This section can be run in an auto mode, where you heed to sit back and let the module take you through the remedy, or for those who prefer to take their own time in going through the remedy, a normal mode is also provided where you can change the slide as per your convenience.
I find that two remedies namely Agaricus and Opium has also been covered in the earlier CD. It is but natural to compare and contrast the two presentations. I, however, liked the presentation of the above two remedies in the earlier CD Materia Medica Live much better as it was well structured and the animation was also very good; there was also audio for each symptom or point; one can freeze the whole portion of the screen where several symptoms were presented and read and reread which one cannot do in this new CD because each powerpoint slide is for a symptom. Audio is missing in this CD.
Materia-Medica Section: The entire portion of the materia medica on the remedy as given by Dr W Boericke in his book is reproduced in this section and this completes the information on each remedy. There is of course considerable overlap of information between this section and earlier sections but it can be used for ready reference for any clarification on any symptom presented elsewhere in the previous sections.
There is no doubt that a lot of work has been devoted to designing the CD, its contents and graphics and for researching the data to be presented in a concise and appealing format. Considering the fact that study of materia medica is a dry one such audio-video presentations of remedies will make the study of remedies interesting and for retention of important characteristics in one’s memory. In classrooms it will be a good tool for presentation and also encouraging students to do similar projects on other remedies and also form the basis for quiz contests on remedies.
One of the major changes, which can be observed in Materia Medica Elite from the earlier one, is the use of latest technologies like Internet Explorer, Power Point Viewer, etc. This enables easy navigation for the use and a much better user interface. The CD has soft colours and some section have an option for changing the scheme to suit individual requirements. The module has some very helpful features like changing the font type, size of font, automatic scroll bar which enables you to read while it is scrolling, changing the colour, etc. It is indeed a very useful creation from the Hompath family, and priced quite fairly at Rs.2000/-
