Specifics

[Gaby Rottler]

Hi Dr. Afsar,
Let's go back to the roots:

Hahnemann used the word for the first time in his Dissertation, 1779, where
e described:

"(so-called) specifics, very offensive smelling and often useful for
convulsions; in idiopathic spastic diseases"
Here he lists Moschus, Asa foetida, Castoreum and a lot of others.

In 1796 in his "Essay about a new principle..." he writes('Lesser writings',
Jain's ed. p. 260):
" Now, when I entirely deny that there are any absolute specifics for
individual diseases, in their full extent, as they are described in ordinary
works on pathology, I am, on the other hand, convinced that there are as
many specifics as there are different states of individual diseases, i.e.
there are peculiar specifics for the pure disease and others for its
varieties, and for other abnormal states of the system."

In 1817 ("Examination of the sources of the common Materia Medica", p.687 in
Jain's ed. of the Lesser writings) he clarifies one possible (though not
very efficacious) possibility of finding single remedies for diseases by
testing them:
"By an infinite number of trials of all imaginable simple substances used in
domestic practice, in a well-defined disease, which shall constantly present
the same characters, a true certainly efficacious, specific remedy for the
greater number of individuals and their friends suffering from the same
disease might certainly be discovered, though only casu fortuito."

He then lists examples where specific remedies for certain diseases had been
found by accident:
Spongia - for the goiter of inhabitants of valleys,
Mercury for the venereal disease
Chinchona for the intermittent fever in South America
Arnica for the consequences of falls and blows.

But the most important fact was:

"The constant specific remedies in these few diseases were capable of being
discovered by means of trying every imaginable medicinal substance, only
because the thing to be cured, the disease, was of a constant character -
they are diseases which always remain the same."

And that's what it is all about, even the use of Camphor in Cholera: a
constant disease can cure with a specific remedy a greater number of
individuals, as long as all of them present the same pattern of symptoms.

In the case of Cholelithiasis: this is not a well-defined disease, but a
clinical diagnosis. In quite a couple of cases the gall-stones don't produce
any symptoms at all.
To have a specific or better said group of specific remedies you need a
well-defined characteristic pattern of symptoms, which is lacking here.
Is it necessary? Why?

All the best,

Gaby

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gaby Rottler
Germany
rottler@curantur.de

http://www.curantur.de
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