Dr M L Sehgal Passes Away
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2002 May / Jun VOL 4 NO 3.
A Tribute by
Dr H L Chitkara
(Ed: We lost 3 stalwarts in one quarter. The Homoeopathic world is so much poorer.)
Dr M L Sehgal founder of Sehgal school of Revolutionised Homoeopathy & Author of Rediscovery of Homoeopathy Series died on 29th May 2002 at his residence in Delhi. Both his sons Dr Sanjay Sehgal and Dr Yogesh Sehgal were away to Europe and could returned only after the cremation.
Dr Madan Lal Sehgal was born on 23rd Feb 1928 in Pinditgheb, a town in erstwhile Northwest Frontier Province, now in Pakistan. As his father was a teacher and liable to service transfers; Dr Madan Lal and his mother stayed with his maternal uncle. He matriculated in 1945. After partition he settled in Dehradun in UP, where he joined the Ministry of Defence as an official; later transferred to Post and Telegraph Department. Anxious to gain further knowledge, while in service, he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts, without attending a College (quite under the rules.) He got interested in Homoeopathy and started attending the clinic of a well known Homoeopathic Practitioner. He became a keen student and follower of Kent. Following one of his teachings: he got the opportunity to see the the patient at the beside. When he would study a patient of malaria constantly, in a family where he was staying. He observed that the patient wanted to remain in bed most of the times. He found this symptoms in the Mind Section of Kent’s General Repertory and by observing one or two other symptoms in the Mind Section, he prescribed Hyos 30, 1 dose. To his surprise, the patient began recovering gradually till he was free of the disease. Encouraged by this, he prescribed on Mind symptoms for other patients and got success. Initially he used the ‘Mind’ section of Kent’s Repertory till, Vol 1 of Synthetic Repertory by Barthel and Klunker was published, then he switched to the Synthetic Repertory. In 1983 he retired from Govt. service and became a professional practitioner. As he gained confidence a band of disciples gathered around him. He would even invit them to stay with him overnight and taught them early in the morning in the traditional ‘GURU SHISYA PARAMPARA’. One of his disciples was Late Dr M L Aggarwal who compiled a Materia Medica of the Human Mind from the Mind section of Kent’s Repertory. This became very popular and a number of editions of this book were published.
Many foreign practitioners also came. At their invitation, Dr Sehgal agreed to give some lectures and explain his teaching in Europe especially in Germany, in London and Italy.
Altough Dr Thomas Pablo Paschero, MD (Psychiatry) of Argentina had preceded many years ago to propound and expound the technique of using the Mind symptoms alone, for the mind body diseases which he called Psychosomatic medicine. Dr Sehgal had never read or heard him. Dr Sehgal discovered this technique by himself, as stated earlier. Over the years, he let it evole in the Hahnemann tradition of the Organon as and when he found new insights and further experiences.
Under the ROH series Dr Sehgal published 8 booklets. He wrote an introduction to the perfect Materia Medica of Mind compiled and edited by three qualified doctors in his family, 2 sons and 1 daughter in law. These are holding the banner of this technique aloft.
