Organon 6 - Aph 6

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

§ 6 Sixth Edition

The unprejudiced observer - well aware of the futility of transcendental speculations which can receive no confirmation from experience - be his powers of penetration ever so great, takes note of nothing in every individual disease, except the changes in the health of the body and of the mind (morbid phenomena, accidents, symptoms) which can be perceived externally by means of the senses; that is to say, he notices only the deviations from the former healthy state of the now diseased individual, which are felt by the patient himself, remarked by those around him and observed by the physician. All these perceptible signs represent the disease in its whole extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivable portrait of the disease.3

3 I know not, therefore, how it was possible for physicians at the sick-bed to allow themselves to suppose that, without most carefully attending to the symptoms and being guided by them in the treatment, they ought to seek and could discover, only in the hidden and unknown interior, what there was to be cured in the disease, arrogantly and ludicrously pretending that they could, without paying much attention to the symptoms, discover the alteration that had occurred in the invisible interior, and set it to rights with (unknown!) medicines, and that such a procedure as this could alone be called radical and rational treatment.

Is not, then, that which is cognizable by the senses in diseases through the phenomena it displays, the disease itself in the eyes of the physician, since he never can see the spiritual being that produces the disease, the vital force? nor is it necessary that he should see it, but only that he should ascertain its morbid actions, in order that he may thereby be enabled to cure the disease. What else will the old school search for in the hidden interior of the organism, as a prima causa morbi, whilst they reject as an object of cure and contemptuously despise the sensible and manifest representation of the disease, the symptoms, that so plainly address themselves to us? What else do they wish to cure in disease but these?

Regards

Soroush

Treat others as you would wish to be treated.

[Joy Lucas]

There is a warning here of being speculative and although this appears to be directed more towards acute cases it transfers well to chronic cases and that is that it is just as important to know what to leave out of a case as what it is to put in. So many times I see cases for discussion where healthy sx are included, where the normal nature of the client is being fused into the 'what needs to be cured' scenario. This isn't what is meant by totality - totality is what needs to be cured.

Symptoms are signs of disease and therefore signs of change and that is what is important to remember. I wonder what he means by 'unknown medicines'.

There is also another small footnote to this stanza left out of the 6th.

Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

I think Unknown medicine = Unproved medicine
Once a substance is proved, its potential becomes known.
Do not forget that in orthodox medicine a lot of stuff is prescribed with out much reason. "We think it might do good."
Soroush

________________________________

From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Joy Lucas
Sent: 16 July 2009 15:22
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Organon 6 - Aph 6
There is a warning here of being speculative and although this appears to be directed more towards acute cases it transfers well to chronic cases and that is that it is just as important to know what to leave out of a case as what it is to put in. So many times I see cases for discussion where healthy sx are included, where the normal nature of the client is being fused into the 'what needs to be cured' scenario. This isn't what is meant by totality - totality is what needs to be cured.

Symptoms are signs of disease and therefore signs of change and that is what is important to remember. I wonder what he means by 'unknown medicines'.

There is also another small footnote to this stanza left out of the 6th.

Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

[Vera Resnick]

I don't think it's clear that totality means what needs to be cured.
If someone has always had a short fuse, and is currently going through
digestive problems, I don't see that the treatment needs to turn him
into someone who's very patient, but I do see his short temper as
being part of totality.

One of the questions raised here is the concept of the "hidden
interior". Modern medicine insists that it has accessed the "hidden
interior" through tests and technology, and often we buy into that,
assuming the tests will tell us more about what is going on, which
ain't necessarily so.

Vera
--
------------------------------------
Vera Resnick RCHom
Classical Homeopath
e-mail: vera.homeopath@gmail.com

[Joy Lucas]

Yes, if the short fuse is inappropriate to health or it is seen through the case taking that it contributes to, is causative or a concomitant sx then it is part of the totality.

Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

[Tanya Marquette]

i had a similar direction of thought. today we do have
tests and x-rays, etc that do see into the body. sometimes
these tests give us useful information. i wonder what
h would do with these tests today? would he rail against
them as wild speculation? or would he investigate this
availability of information as to its usefulness and
how to incorporate it into the case. what do we do with
autoimmune deficiency diseases that can present with vague
sx and possibly lead us down a wrong path? without knowing
these dx we could very likely misread the pt's sensitivity
level, dose wrongly and wind up with a serious reaction.
i don't think what is understandable in the context of knowledge
during the time of h, always makes complete sense today.
tanya

[Vera Resnick]

I was involved in a thread on this subject a while back. Some argued
very strongly that the tests were definitive, even if the patient felt
better on all levels. Others said that it takes a while for the test
results to "catch up" with improvement, so a px could be doing much
better but still have iffy test results.

I think H would have done with this knowledge what he seemed to do
with everything else - experiment with it, draw his own conclusions
about whether it's useful, if yes then use it, if no then discard it.

Vera

On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 8:33 PM,
tamarque@earthlink.net wrote:
--
------------------------------------
Vera Resnick RCHom
Classical Homeopath
e-mail: vera.homeopath@gmail.com

[Tanya Marquette]

i tend to agree with you about h, and i think that is
what we need to do today ourselves.
tanya