How to Study a Remedy eg Kali
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2001 Mar / Apr VOL III NO 2.
Dr Vishpala Parthasarathy
'Kali

A good teacher is one who teaches the student how to learn by himself. Our purpose today is to use this issue as a demonstration of a method of learning, and not just of sharing information. Little difficulty presents in learning well-proved remedies. What about those remedies which have not had this benefit?

Here we will lay down the general approach to the Study of any Remedy- every eventuality has to be provided for. The guidelines should be such as to allow the study of any remedy. Every means may not be employable or applicable for every remedy. Out of this, use only that which applies to that remedy. At the end of unearthing all this data, you will come closest to understanding the remedy. From here on, further understanding gets consolidated and builds up as we go along in practice and solve cases. It expands, clarifies and weaves the full picture together. This last has been amply demonstrated by Dr Tiwari in Kali-bi study and through our section on Learn a remedy through cases.

But unless we first have a base line, we cannot solve cases. So first let us explore the various sources, which will give us the primary data for the study of a remedy.

Various Ways To Pick Up Traits:

1. Position in cell.
2. Basic constituent - affect.
3. Deficiency and Excess / Poisoning effects.
4. Common Usage.
5. Kali location-through the basic Traits.
6. Inflammatory response.
7. Miasm.
8. Evolution - discussed separately.
9. Demonstration of final understanding through cases.

1. Position In Cell
   The positioning gives us some data
   Na + Ca: extra-cellular
   K + Mg: intracellular
2. Being an important constituent of the cell, a study of the functions will give clues to the remedy. Here Dr R D Jain’s article is exhaustive.
   K: controls Metabolic Processes. Conduction of N-impulses (c Na) ~ Synaptic Transmission.
   Mg: Plasma, mitochondria, enzymes.
   K + Mg: Insulin, Carbohydrate metabolism, ATP, Energy.
   Ca: Excitation and contraction, Enzymes
   Na: Transport amino-acids to nucleus.
   K + Na: opp sides of cell-wall: combined role in conduction of Nerve impulses.
   
   Na, Ca-extra cellular; Mag, K- intra cellular. Being constituents of the cell, all 4 go deep into the system and affect all systems and Mind. Along with Ferru, and Barium, they constitute 80% of clinical practice. Understanding these 6 clearly gives 80% success in practice.
   
   In Kali and Mag, Anxiety3 is all-pervading and reflected in Mind, Dreams and Delusions.
   Kali overt + dreams.
   Mag covert + dreams.
   Mag has poor data. Kali has a plethora.
   Then why is it used so little? Due to poor understanding!!
   Kent says it is a difficult remedy to study. Complex and Confusing.
   So to understand Kali and use it successfully, we will need many keys.
   So far we know it is a polycrest with a far reach.
3. Lets Take The Poisoning Effects:
   1. Potassium Imbalance: Excess: Spasms, contractions, Weakness, Flaccid Paralysis, Edema Deficiency: Hypertrophy, Paresis of voluntary muscles (periodic palsy), Degeneration.
   2. Regions Affected: Brain and Nerves, Heart and Blood vessels, Lungs pleura, bronchi, larynx, Kidney and Uterus.
   3. Discharges: White, Albuminous, Thick, sticky, stringy, Acrid, yellow-green, Bloody, fishy.
4. Common Usage
   1. Meaning of Kali: In Arabic Kaly = Ash
      Potassium Carbonate vegetable alkali - exists in all plants. Potash - ashes after burning wood and vegetables have large amounts of Kali. Discovered in 1807, the constituent of ash is mainly Kali. And it is the 7th most common element on earth.
   2. Used in manufacture of glass- difficult to melt=Always stands out
      Gunpowder- Kali-nit. Nit=Explodes.
      Artificial fertilizers- artificiality.
5. Kali Location
   Pot salts: specific relation to solid tissues of blood ie corpuscles.
   1. Affect fibrous tissue, ligaments, uterus, back. Useful where these tissues are relaxed: joints give way, back feels broken. 1st ranker in joint conditions - says Goulton.
   2. Women - uterine complaints, climaxis with heart, violent palpitations, Sensation: uterus suspended by thread.
   3. Other organs: lungs, pleura/ bronchi and larynx. Knee and joints.
   4. Kali causation: Heredity, psora5, Sycosis Tub3, Syp
      Suppression: emotions, discharges, eruptions.
   5. Prominent Catarrhal remedy.
      Hahn says: chest ulceration can hardly heal without this remedy.
      Cannot raise catarrh which is sticky, lump sensation, fish-bone sensation,
      < 2-3 am, < winter
      Allen: Kali-c < winter, > warm.
      Calc-c: damp > dry, cold
   6. Useful in hair fall- dry, rough.
6. Kali Inflammatory Response Kali Inflammatory response gains importance as it is different.
   Kali state-water-logging + Kali pt-anxiety + Pains-stitching.
   Kali does not have the classical acute response: Pneumonia - evolves over long time. Resolution is delayed. Contraction of fibrous tissue, with distortion and fibrosis.
   Psora: Outpouring of fluids.
   Sycotic: Indolent + metastasis < cold, damp
   Tub: Erratic + Suppuration tracts fibrosis
   Syp: Destruction
   Characteristic Physicals: Baggy eyelids. Water logging-upper eyelid.
   Spotty, stitching pain.
   GEN: Backache, chilly, sweat, Debility

Kali Mental State
From various MM, repertory and various authors and contemporary Homoeopaths, let us understand the Kali mental state.
When we think of Kali what is the first image, which comes to mind A person who, as Kent says;

1. Is Full Of Fear
   Let us now build on this.
   A person who fears everything - Fear of death, of ghosts, of future, Fear of being alone in the house. He thinks what if something happens, what if the house burns down, what if some robber comes.
   This fear of being alone does not allow him to sleep. So he cannot sleep.
   And when he sleeps even fitfully, he gets the most horrible dreams. Full of imagination and fear.

• So fearful, cannot be alone. Needs someone with him all the time. If alone, cannot sleep.
  The fitful sleep is full of dreams.
• Dreams of accidents, death, Frightful, Accidents.
• Falling from High Places,
• Murdered would be,
• Riots, Fire,
• Anxiety related-Bed sinking
• Some dreams common with Mag like Journey, robbers. Amorous dreams, with polluting and weakness. Performs in dreams.

2. Kali Cannot be alone. Needs Company
   Because he cannot bear to be alone, Kali wants company all the time.
   Kali should be the remedy of the 20th century. Because in this century people have forgotten how to be alone. They are constantly on the move, always doing things, meeting people, going to parties, a social, a movie, a kitty, a picnic, a jashan, a holiday.
   Want No time to think and stare.
   Never give themselves a moment’s rest!!
   Kali is A Group Remedy, 1: Many, unlike Natrum, which is 1:1

So Wants Company is 2nd important trait.
Phos also wants company. Is Kali like Phos? No, very far removed from it. Phos loves people, they want to do for people and wants reciprocation. Kali wants people for fulfilling its own requirements.

He wants them because he cannot be alone. And because he needs people to tell him how good he is, he stands on their good opinions. He does not have the strength of character to build himself on his own opinion. His own opinion may not be so good, so he drowns it by hearing other people. People fulfill a need for him and so he is nice to them as long as it suits him.

But he can throw them away when that need is over. So he can drop a friend at a moments notice. The same fellow whom he claimed to be his greatest friend is nowhere on the horizon a few days later!!

Yet this we must grant that Kali that he has a tremendous capacity to make and keep friends and to make them work for him, inspite of them recognizing his utterly selfish nature. Magnetism I call it, since I cannot find any other explanation. Rubric: Wants Company, but treats them outrageously.

3. Emerging from this is his Tremendous Attachments. Espescially to self = SELFISHNESS.
   Balance between needs and capacity=health. When wants far exceed the capacity it brings in its wake, disease.
   This makes him extremely hypersensitive - to external stimuli- emotional and physical.
   He imagines insults when none are meant.
   Building up tremendous insecurity and Anxiety.
4. Anxiety
   Kent Says: Pt says "doctor I do not have fear like other people, because I feel it in my stomach. If a door slams, I feel it right here in the epigastrium.
5. Kent says Kali is a weakling. Proof? Weakness after sex. Sex -that act of joy, of procreation, of energizing, of recreating, of fulfillment, which should fill one enough to do more work, that act or even thinking of it (sexual excitement) for Kali only produces Debility.
   He takes the next day to recoup. We can see how deep rooted the debility is. He is on the way to breakdown.
   Tremulousness, shivers and trembles for a day or 2 after coition.
6. I call the Kali Spineless. His back gives way and he gets paralyzing backaches. I had once a pt who, after carrying on with many girls, finally married the girl of his parents choice. And he got his just dues. The girl was frigid and he also got paralyzing backache. That marriage was a disaster. Only much later, he married a known girl and was happy.
7. Moralistic: You must understand that the Kali needs to have people. For this he must conform. He cannot get people to like him by going against the stream, by doing anything which society will not approve of. So he stays in favour by doing what the others do.
   
   He is a conformist. Not for Kali the wild and outrageous things that Nat does. Running away with the girl of his dreams. If he did that, he would be ostracized. And Kali could never bear that. Nor can he give up the world for ONE true love. One can never suffice for him; he requires many.
   
   Natrum has ONE friend whom he adores. All his eggs are in one basket.
   Devastated if that relationship breaks.
   Kali believes variety is the spice of life.
   Not an Idealist, our Kali, but practical and hard.
   Nancy Herrick says: Kali has a Strong sense of morality.
   This fits into what we have deduced. Examines each issue in terms of right and wrong. And will do what is right. The positive side. As a Judge, where the world is watching him, he will deliver a just Judgement.
   Attachment also to material objects, Buys much: clothes, perfumes. Keeps them in tip-top condition. Fastidious +++
8. Thus the Hypersensitivity to external stimuli, emotional and physical.
   On negative side, imagines insults when none intended. Builds up anxiety and insecurity.
   Positive aspect of sensitivity: Clairvoyant, Psychic and Intuitive. Case: One pt got dreams of events which she cannot place and which happen a month later. Eg saw a dead body with 2 children crying next to it. A month later her cousin died.
9. Manipulative: as per circumstances. Many friends, as shows only good side. Uses them, yet manipulative enough to keep them in his orbit. This explains his capacity to make and KEEP friends, inspite of his outrageous behaviour.
10. Magnetism: With these thoughts, I can now explain the traits quoted by Nancy Herrick, which I could not at first agree, when I first heard her in 1993.

From all the above a total understanding of Kali can be evolved. Aslo refer ICR symposium Volume chart.

Integrating various view-points to our understanding
In 1993, when I first heard Nancy Herrick's view point of Kali, it was difficult to integrate with the existing picture I had. Then I studied Jan Scholten, where he explains that in India, the picture of Kali is different, as social norms are different. In India, the family, fear of disease and loneliness are all pervading central themes. Concept of duty does not stand out as different, as in India duty to family is a norm and taken for granted. Outside India, different thoughts and norms prevail. With this explanation some of the interpretations did seem plausible.

While learning a remedy, different viewpoints must allow an understanding converging with our own overall picture, and allow us to find the remedy in our patient. Physical Generals are the most reliable and unchallenged indicators, the uncontested fixity.

Farrington's triad which ONLY spells Kali is - Backache, Debility with chilliness and sweat. 10/10 Homoeopaths can elicit the same symptoms and come to the same remedy without any controversy arising. This may not be the case when mentals come into play.

Coming to Scholten's main themes; it is worthwhile pondering to see how they reflect in our patients and then merging it with our existing picture- a true example of how a MM study grows- add on what fits, discard the rest.

Scholten's Minerals And Homoeopathy
Pure Kali-metallicum is not potentised yet, as it immediately reacts with both water and sugar. Volatile and violent aspect of Kali? Not clearly seen in the salts.

And all study of Kali so far has been only through salts.
The only other violent Kali we know is the Goddess Kali! Any connection? Imagine Goddess Kali - freshly severed human head in one hand; huge sword in another; tongue hanging out; a true picture of terror!

Goddess Kali- the most violent of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses- throws fire to burn out all that is not to her liking. But she is just? Destroys only the evil!? Something to ponder about.

Most important themes in Kali-met

• Work and duty
• Matter of Principle
• Simply doing work, no talk
• Duty lies in carrying out task
• Conscientious.

• Builders of society
• Practical, pragmatic, steady pace
• Steady plodders
• Fixed rules
• Reliable, stable, responsible
• Work alone, no family interference

Family normally bears the brunt of removing frustrations, thus irritability to family (Kali-c)

Since Kali falls in Ferrum series, several traits are of Ferrum

• Simply maintain order: control.
• Prefers routine; hates changes
• Not artistic.
• No heights of imagination.
• Pragmatic; not really selfish
• Fear failure, criticism, opposition
• Aggression reserved for family.

• Learns to control emotions
• No room for play
• Holds on to things
• Closed and reserved
• Tightly shut: expressed physically as:
  • Constipation;
  • Difficult labour.
  • No overflowing love for child
  • Routines - rigidity.
• Aim to get job done.
  • Sensitive to criticism. Brushes it off
  • Feel nobody understands their aim: to carry out their task.
  • Control, cannot bear to lose eg laughing, tickling
    (Rub: feels very ticklish in feet) surrender to emotion not allowed!
• Impulsive optimism great success. Also great failures with Fear of failures3
• Closed - do not share feelings.
• Too much control Fears: fear failure/ criticism/ opposition/ anticipation/ alone/ fears felt in stomach.
• Family oriented ie does work hard to support them
• Dreams: - futile efforts, paralysis.
• Moods in depression: gloomy, tired, apathetic.
• < exertion and exhaustion
• Aggression: irritable to family.

Conclusion: Prescribe on Physicals, which are uncontested: then study those patients, who got well, their lives and personality. See which of the above traits can be confirmed.

Kali: Some salts
The basic understanding remains, each salt will add its flavor. Each of our experts are going to do a salt with you, I just give the highlights.

Kali-bich
Kali: Anxiety. Chromium: Hardness
Acid: Debility. So punched out ulcers.
In each Kali the inflammation process progresses differently.
Here the exudative turns sticky and stringy.
Characteristic: < Tea and Beer. Hot syph

Kali-mur
- Exudates - plastic.
- Blocks tubes.
- Hot, white discharge

Kali-sulph
- Discharge acrid, yellow.
- Tongue yellow.
- Hot

Kali-phos
- Anticipatory anxiety
- Excitable
- Sex ++
- Bloody discharges.
[H] - Despair, Homicide, chilly

Kali-iod
- Hot
- Violent
- Restless
- > exercise
- Lesbian leanings.

Kali-chlor
- Destruction Gangrene
- Sepsis.

Kali-nit
- Hot
- Inky, black, menses
Dr: emaciated, friend dying, teeth break, urinating, of dirty linen, raped, men following her, pursued,
- Lot of violence- sexual, guilt

Now we have done an exhaustive study. We still need to do the evolution, which we are giving as a separate article. My cases we will have to hold over for another time.

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