Panel Discussion
The Problems in our Current Materia Medicas
The Problems
The problems are many and varied. The materia medicas can be specified as jumbled, academic, one-sided, fragmentary, comparative, etc. But the one thing the practicing homoeopath needs – a practical materia medica which not only facilitates prescription but focuses only on the surety of the choice of the remedy – does not as yet exist.
The Goal
The goal which I have set for this panel discussion is to show that not only is such a materia medica possible but also very feasible and effective.
The Objectives
The objectives of this talk, which would then lead to the discussion, is to critically view certain controversial subjects which would not allow the full evolvement of such a materia medica:
- Hahnemannian Homoeopathy as opposed to classical homoeopathy
- Pathology as a basis for prescription as opposed to the psychological approach
- The Basic Laws of Homoeopathy as opposed to certain methods and trends
The Solution
The solution involves the structuring of the materia medica in the following manner:
1. The general description of a medicine featuring its essential symptoms in a general way
2. The general description of the medicine in respect to each of the disease conditions it is capable of effecting beneficially in a healing sense
3. The specific description regarding the disease conditions
4. The medicines to be compared for the disease condition
5. The follow-up-remedies generally
6. The follow-up-remedies specifically
7. The miasmatic considerations and the field of employment
Depiction of the problems
Almost all materia medicas give us a certain wealth of information on prescription, on the practical part, some less, some more.
Those that are jumbled we have to sort out what is useful and what to leave be. It is sometimes a tedious pursuit. To the uninitiated it can be very confusing or he starts generalising the useful information.
The academic materia medica, which justs lists the symptoms in the traditional scheme, can only be useful to someone who uses his logical and analytical talents to work out the possible areas of application of the medicine. Therefore the academical gives us no practical help directly.
The one-sided, like the keynotes or redlines, may give us a little help in many fields or tips. They are dangerous for the beginner because they may fully establish a one-sided view of the medicine in one’s mind.
The comparative are often very helpful in the matter of prescription as they give us many important specifics and also sometimes good ideas on follow-up treatment. They do not give an overall view of the medicine and just reading them without enough basic knowledge confuses the issue instead of imbibing us with useful knowledge.
These are just some of the problems we have with the materia medicas. For this reason a lot work goes into establishing useful and practical knowledge from all the varied works.
Portrayal of the objectives
Hahnemannian Homoeopathy as opposed to classical homoeopathy
These two approaches will lead to different kinds of materia medicas and therefore we have to define them.
The term classical homoeopathy has as such no general consensus and there exists no agreed definition of it. We find all different possibilities among those who call themselves classical homoeopaths. But there is an acceptance of some basic tenets among the hard core:
- The single remedy
- The single dose
- The minimum dose
The single remedy is probably the most controversial of them all. But it is a historical fact that Hahnemann in his later years was treating the psoric miasmatic basis with sulphur parallel with the other indicated remedy (the source, Hahnemann’s Paris cases, exists only in the German language, but Rima Handley has written on this in her publications). This was known to Boenninghausen among others and naturally to his wife Melanie. In those days many homoeopaths in England could speak and read German and often too French. Therefore they too were privy to these Hahnemannian secrets. On the basis of this we see that the Hahnemannian way of treating the sick parallel, e.g. one remedy morning and one evening, on all necessary levels is opposed by the classical which seeks to find the one ‘constitutional’ remedy. Again the term “constitutional remedy” is not defined. A scientific definition should covers all aspects and puts forward the meaning clearly which has again not been done for this term constitutional. Unfortunately much of Hahnemann’s later experiments and views were discredited by the growing force of ‘purists’ in homoeopathy. If we keep a scientific attitude to this question of the single remedy, which means finding out everything about it and experimenting with it, then we will certainly be able observe in many patients that a certain miasm is very active in the background, but the patients needs a remedy for his problems in the forefront which does not have the necessary action on this miasmatic process. Therefore without the necessary antimiasmatic remedy we are not going to stop this miasmatic process. Just consider one single point. If a patient gets better, e.g. his asthma etc. goes away, but at a later stage he gets cancer, then we have ignored the treatment of the miasm in the background eating away into very substance of this person. At this point it may just be too late to do anything about it. But we could have expunged this miasm earlier on. This is the homoeopathy Hahnemann taught in his later years, taking on the acitive psora miasm with sulphur at the same time treating the disease condition in the forefront with another remedy. This kind of homoeopathy is very individualising and considers the general symptoms and specific symptoms very carefully. I behove that trying to fit all the symptoms into one remedy is not a scientific approach. Seeing the different elements in a case and evaluating what is necessary to be done is true individualisation. It may be just one remedy needed but it may be more than one.
The single dose should today no longer be a moot point. Even in the fifth edition of the Organon Hahnemann is advocating repetition in acute cases and where necessary even every half-hour. We did not need to wait for the publication of the 6th edition in 1921 to come to know that Hahnemann was repeating daily and for that matter the centesimal potency in chronic cases. This he has written about in detail in the preface to the third volume of The Chronic Diseases published in 1837. The translation of this work of Hahnemann in 1896 by L. H. Tafel deliberately left out this preface. I wrote about this fact in my article on The LM Potencies in Homeopathy, formerly The British Journal of Homoeopathy, Vol. 91, Issue 2. This falsification has had a drastic effect on homoeopathy because many homoeopaths have stuck to the dogma of the single dose.
The minimum dose is certainly a misnomer because Hahnemann’s goal was to find the maximum dose possible which would heal without causing an uproar in the organism not to say have a detrimental effect nullifying the healing. It is certainly a reduction of matter to that point where there is no aggravation. All his experiments in diluting and potentising had only one goal, to nullify aggravation. This he did achieve to great extent with the LM Potencies.
Pathology as a basis for prescription as opposed to prominently psychological or other considerations.
There are certain statements made which make little sense and are even falsely attributed to Hahnemann.
Treat the patient, not the disease is one example. Such a statement or anything near it was never ever worded by Hahnemann. In the third paragraph of the Organon he is specifically telling us that Knowledge of disease and Knowledge of medicine are the basis for treatment. How this concept of the patient, not the disease ever arose is a mystery just like other similar mysteries in our world or shall we call them superstitions, an unscientific approach? For example in his foreword to Pulsatilla Hahnemann clearly tells us how he considers the mental symptoms. He writes that persons of a mild, gentle nature are more likely to get Pulsatilla symptoms than others. This shows exactly that others and anybody can get Pulsatilla symptoms.
In the above methods, which are opposed to the pathological basis, one may be using scientific methods very assiduously, but that does not make it a science or at least not a pure science as only part of the law is used. True science means the full application of the law. Allopaths also use scientific methods and very minutely sometimes, but that does not make it science.
It is the disease condition of the patient, which we first have to establish and then find the remedy, which corresponds to this disease condition. Confusion has been caused by homoeopaths in putting the results of a pathological process, e.g. a tumour, in the same boat as the term pathology. Pathology is the study of disease conditions, how they start, how they develop and where do they lead to. Therefore pathology gives the understanding of disease processes. And so we would never say that we treat hepatisation in the case of pneumonia, on the contrary we look for medicines, which correspond to the consolidation and the disease condition which is developing. This is the actual process of individualisation. There are those who have written that we should just correspond the symptoms and even if the remedy does not cover the disease condition it will cure it. No it will not! Unless it is a reflex condition or this disease condition is not yet truly established, i.e. it has not yet gathered momentum.
Therefore, for example, establishing the psychological state of a patient is not going help us to correspond the remedy for the disease condition, unless it is a psychological case. In all other cases if the psychologically established remedy does help the disease condition then it is only by chance. This method has nothing to do with the truly individualising one where we establish the psychological symptoms directly related to the disease condition in a certain patient.
The Laws as opposed to certain methods and trends
The Law is the establishment of the simillimum on the basis of the disease condition, whereas the remedy chosen must have also the same momentum of the disease condition in its pathogenesis.
The Law is to go deeper to causes which helped establish the momentum of the one or more disease conditions in the patient, once the said momentum or momentums have been negated.
The Law is to go to the deepest causes of disease, stage by stage or as they show themselves, to go to the basic causes of disease, the miasms as Hahnemann named them.
The methodology of fulfilling these laws has been minutely described by Hahnemann in his Chronic Diseases and many other fine points have been brought out by those who followed the dictates of Hahnemann. Hahnemann and others have clearly defined what we have to do for the many different kinds of reactions which can take place when a remedy is given. The whole array of reactions and their management I have arranged under twelve headings and described in my book on the Reactions.
All methods and trends fulfil the law only partially. They are certainly good and useful for all those cases they are suited to and give us a certain knowledge in these matters but they do not cover the whole spectrum of disease on our earth. Suffering humanity needs to be helped everywhere and anywhere.
So we see that in contrast Hahnemannian Homoeopathy is clearly defined. The miasms are to be basis of the simillimum. Pathology, i.e. the knowledge of diseases, is to be the deciding factor of individualisation. Active miasms and the present condition or conditions determine the remedies. Repetition according to the needs of the case and not the single dose is Hahnemann’s Rule.
Detailed view of the solution
A detailed view of the solution encompasses the working out of the pathogenesis of a medicine in all its aspects.
The general description of a medicine featuring its essential symptoms in a general way
This means the determining of the basic pathology of the medicine as has been done for the physical plane by Burt in his “Physiological Materia Medica”. But this has to be expanded to encompass the mental and general plane too.
For example if we look at Aconite, we would, apart from the nine centres of action which he portrays, like heart – inhibitory paralysis; blood pressure reduced –, define for example also the pathology of the fear which exist in Aconite. On the general level the action of dry cold on the Aconite, and so on.
The general description of the medicine in respect to each of the disease conditions it is capable of effecting beneficially in a healing sense
If we would carry on in the same strain and take a look at the heart conditions, then we find in Aconite three important ones: Palpitation, anxious heart, and angina pectoris. Generally we find great anguish with the palpitation. There is also great thirst.
The specific description regarding the disease conditions
The specific symptoms of Aconite in palpitation are: It is visible and loud, can be heard at a distance. The pulse is hard, strong, and full. The thirst is for cold water, which gives relief for a short time.
The medicines to be compared for the disease condition
In the case of palpitation there is no remedy to be compared, at least not yet known. But if hypertrophy of the heart is part of the pathogenesis then a number of medicines, e.g. Arnica and Rhus-tox, can be compared with it.
The comparison should also give us details where the pathologies meet and where they diverge.
The follow-up-remedies generally
Aconite has also no true follow up in the case of palpitation. But in the case of paralysis, for example, generally sulphur follows when a residual paresis remains.
The follow-up-remedies specifically
If only the numbness is better with aconite and the paralysis was caused by cold, then we would follow up with Causticum.
The miasmatic considerations and the field of employment
The only miasmatic consideration in the case of palpitation would be the psoric and sulphur would be the remedy in consideration. If psora has been activated in the course of the disease, only then we would think of it. But there are today very few patients for whom we do not have to go into the miasmatic considerations.
In the case of aconite there are three miasms which need to be considered: psora, syphilis, and tuberculosis.
Problems of this materia medica
The problems of this materia medica are two fold:
- As all the information which we put into it needs to be very well proven clinically, we will have leave out all which still needs clinical verification, and maybe record it some where else for reference.
- For many disease conditions we do have extensive knowledge of the therapeutics. But there are quite a few where it is quite meagre. The reason for this is that the kind of observation and clinical verification necessary for this slowly went out of fashion.
The solution to the first problem lies in the creation of a repertory which can show us possibilities other than clinically known to us. It could also be included in a “hypothetical” section of the materia medica. This repertory has to cleared up of all the chaff and narrowed down to the essentials. For example all the big general rubrics are truly not giving us the real list of medicines which do help in the condition. E.g. a kind of dullness is produced by almost any drug. But there are not too many medicines which are curative where it is a pathology in a disease condition. That which has not been verified but has promise could be put in a second volume of the repertory.
The second problem can only be solved when we homoeopaths again start observing like those in the earlier days. Technology has made it possible today that we can do in weeks what took months before. This could be very much facilitated if a networking would be established.
The main discussion I would like to lead to is to look into the weak points of this whole proposed background, especially into the seven headings of the materia medica.
At the end I would like to lead to a short discussion towards a possible networking which would facilitate and accelerate this work.