ADVANCED HOMOEOPATHIC PRACTICE - lack of reaction

[krishna murthy]

LACK OF REACTION — LOW VITALITY — WHEN THE INDICATED REMEDYS FAILS TO ACT. [See also Nutrition etc.]
'When the indicated remedy fails to act…' We have been hearing this occasionally. Let us explain this in its true perspective. The statement, 'when the indicated remedy fails' shakes the very foundation of homoeopathy. This is best read as follows: 'When the (seemingly) indicated remedy fails…'
We often read in the journals that a certain homoeopath gave a certain remedy, say, Sepia (being the similimum for a patient) and when it did not effect changes he gave a dose of another remedy viz., Tuberculinum (because the patient’s grandma had tuberculosis) and this enabled the Sepia (given earlier) to act. This is farce. That is not the meaning of ‘lack of reaction.’
‘Lack of reaction’ or ‘When the indicated remedy fails...’

correctly defined.
Most homoeopaths do wrongly prescribe; e. g., in a routine way they give Aloe/Podophyllum for diarrhoea and in most cases it acts, though may not be the correctly indicated remedy–the simillimum.
If it be the case that only the simillimum would act, most homoeopaths would have closed their shop long ago. We do give wrong remedies (thinking it to be the simillimum) and it effects changes. But we do come across cases where the routinism fails. Here is the real challenge to learn homoeopathy in a better way.
In the remedy Ammonium carb. (Boericke’s Materia Medica)

in the para Skin we read “faintly developed eruptions with defective vitality.”
The correct meaning for this is this: If a skin patient needs

Ammon-carb. no other homoeo remedy, nor best allopathic, ayurvedic drugs etc. can make any change in the patient. In other words Ammon-carb. alone is the only hope for that patient.
‘Lack of reaction’ means no other method can cure the patient excepting that remedy. For example there was a skin specialist (using native herbs) and he was known not to have failed in any skin case. But he too came across a case where his herbals failed to effect any changes. Ammon-carb. 10M single dose cured the patient.
Now, do not write in your notes “when the routine remedy fails I must give Ammon-carb.” That idea is totally wrong. If you carefully examine that case, there too you would find the symptoms of Ammon-carb. in that patient. A child of ten months was having chicken-pox and it was running temperature and allopathic drugs could not bring down the fever. We routinely give Bryonia-30 (3 doses every four hours) and we had never failed to subside the fever and bring out the eruption.) In this case Bryonia failed. One thing that I noticed was that when I tried to put the pills into the mouth of the child it spit it out. (On earlier occasions when it was under my treatment it would ask for the sweet pills when I gave a dose to her mother for her treatment. This changed attitude made me to think.) Under the para ‘Mind’ (Boericke’s Mat. Medica) we find the word ‘unreasonable.’ I gave a dose of Ammon-carb and the child recovered in twenty-four hours.
While I was sitting in the clinic of a homoeopath a certain patient walked in and complaining of terrible itching he removed his shirt and started rolling on the floor scratching the itching places on the floor. The doctor told me that every time the patient behaved like this and he tried Psorinum, Sulphur, Graphites (may be his ‘favorite' remedies for skin complaints) and even high potencies failed. (Most doctors think that they would become senior if they start using high potencies.)
No skin patient would behave like the above patient to

demonstrate the violent itching The word ‘unreasonable’ fitted in well with this case. I asked the doctor to give one single dose of Ammon-carb and in five minutes the itching came down and in the next week it was complete cure. Therefore, you may take a note of this: When a skin patient does not find relief anywhere all over the world and if his behaviour or attitude is ‘unreasonable’ you can be sure of curing him with one single dose of Ammon-carb.
[All homoeopaths should read the remedy description for Tuberculinum in Kent’s Lectures on Hom. Mat. Med. Tuberculinum is needed when the deep acting remedies acts for a short time, say a few hours or one day where they ought to act for weeks/months. Unless you work with a good teacher you may not learn the use of Tuberculinum. So far I had two cases in my practice.]
The first case was headache. Even when I carefully select the remedy it acted for a day only; next day the modality of headache alone changed and the patient would be back in my office. On the prevailing symptoms I give a second remedy and that too acted for one day only. Third day, again as per prevailing symptoms I selected the remedy and gave it to her. Soon she got relief. After she got total relief I gave her Tuberculinum-10M one single dose and there was relief for six months. When she came after six months, I gave one dose of a certain remedy as per indications. As soon as she got relief I gave one dose of Tuberculinum-50M. After eighteen months she reported with headache; and after giving the indicated remedy for the prevailing the symptoms then, as soon as she got relief I gave her Tuberculinum-CM telling her to take this. This Tuberc-CM stopped her headache permanently.
Read the remedy Tuberculinum in Kent’s Lectures on Hom. Mat. Medica and you may learn correct homoeopathic practice.
When the blood pressure does not come down even with the best allopathic drugs I think of Laurocerasus. (“Lack of reaction in heart and chest troubles” Beoricke’s Mat. med.)
In cardialgia and dyspeptic troubles when even the best

painkillers in allopathy fails to relieve you must think of Capsicum.
That is the best way to learn homoeopathy.
A teacher is he who makes difficult things easy.
Think of Baptisia and Laurocerasus in mental cases. See the symptoms of these two remedies hereinbelow. (You must get rid of the notion that Baptisia is good for typhoid.)
REMEDIES HAVING THE SYMPTOM ‘LACK OF REACTION’ ARE GIVEN BELOW;
Tabacum (nicotine). (Uraemia) - paralysis of diaphragm; indifference, want of reaction; cold forehead; thirstlessness; serous ransfusions in intestines, without diarrhoea; want of secretion in liver and kidneys.
Abies nigra (Dyspepsia, weakness of stomach) - total loss of appetite in the morning, craving for food at noon, and exceedingly hungry and wakeful at night; pain after a hearty meal, but abstinence from any particular food does not relieve the dyspepsia; belching and acid eructations, frequent vomiting; sensation as if some indigestible substance had stuck in the cardiac end of the stomach (lact. ac.: sensation as if all food lodged under upper end of stomach); continual distressing constriction just above the pit of stomach, as if everything were knotted up, or as if a hard lump of undigested food remained there mornings.
China (Anthrax) - exhaustion of vital power, with excessive

sensitiveness and irritability of the nerves, deficiency of animal heat; decomposition of animal matter with symptoms of putrid fever; malaria.
China (Cholera infantum) - collapse after violent, long-lasting cholera; breathing rapid; surface cool, hardly any vitality left.
China (Typhoid fever) - typho-malarial fever; excessive prostration,

with great mental and bodily weakness, so that the least exertion

is hateful; heavy sweats during motion or in sleep, with

excessive sinking of the vital forces; uneasiness and

sleepiness; frightful fancies on closing the eyes to sleep; vertigo

and heaviness of head, dimness of sight, dulness of hearing,

pale face, dry mouth, yellow-coated tongue, with slimy, bitter taste and great thirst; abdomen meteoristic and tender with pains in bowels, watery lienteric stools, scanty urine; bowels move in daytime only after nourishment, but at night frequent, dark, fluid diarrhoea; coldness, especially of hands and feet; breathing oppressed, especially in the evening; swelling and hardness of spleen; tardy convalescence in consequence of serious

haemorrhages, exhausting diarrhoeas and night-sweats, with progressive loss of flesh and strength; indifference and apathy.
China (Melancholia) - mental depression as a reflex of general lowered vitality; low-spirited, despondent and tired of life, with suicidal tendencies; great sensitiveness; easily moved to tears by the least contradiction; indifference and apathy with obstinate taciturnity; weakness and exhaustion after the least

exertion, > in the evening and at night; nocturnal dread of dogs and other animals; desire for solitude.
Cochlearia - raises vital forces.
Crotalus-horr. (Angina pectoris) - sudden and great prostration of the vital forces; frequent fainting spells, with imperceptible pulse

and inclination to vomit; sudden breathing with open mouth and distortion of the eyes outward.
Crotalus-horr (Typhoid fever) - oppression of nervous centres; eyes

congested; features heavy, dull, bloated, besotted (bapt.); eruption dark purple, copious; during second week heart becomes markedly weak, systolic sound can hardly be made out; pulse soft, flagging, tremulous; great and distressing restlessness;

twitching, jerking, tremulousness, sinking down towards foot

of bed (mur. ac.), deafness; haemorrhagic tendency from all

orifices, epistaxis, foetid breath, gums bleeding and gangrenous;

stools, black, thin, like coffee-grounds, offensive or dark; fluid

haemorrhage from bowels; sudden and great prostration

of vital forces.
Crotalus-horr. (Haematemesis, gastrorrhagia) - low vital force and

decomposition of blood, which fails to coagulate; deathly nausea,

jaundicel complexion, faintness, cold sweat, insatiable thirst,

great prostration; weight, soreness and tenderness in stomach

which ejects everything.
Cup-m (Chlorosis) - after abuse of iron; symptoms in warm weather; lack of reaction in persons who are thoroughly run down by overtaxing mind and body.
Cup-m (Colic) - cramps in the abdomen; violent, colicky, drawing-

cutting pain in the abdomen; abdomen drawn in; colic not

increased by pressure; violent spasms in abdomen and upper

and lower limbs, with penetrating distressing screams;

intussusception of the bowels, with singultus, violent colic,

stercoraceous vomiting, and great agony; spasmodic movements

of the abdominal muscles; cramps of the stomach and bowels,

with vomiting and purging, and cutting pains in umbilical region

as if a knife were thrust through to the back, with piercing

screams; abdomen hard as a stone; constipation succeeded by

watery, greenish or bloody stool; spasmodic vomiting > by a

drink of cold water; collapse with great prostration and lack of

reaction;
Digitalis (Meningitis, cerebro-spinalis) - heart's action irregular and

labored; delirium like mania a potu; great pressure and weight

in head; violent lancinating pains, especially in vertex and

occiput; when sitting or walking the head falls backward, as if

anterior cervical muscles were paralyzed; convulsive efforts to

vomit; vomiting, with coldness, prostration and fainting; stiffness

in the nape and side of neck; tearing sharp stitches, aching and

cutting pains in nape of neck; convulsions, with retraction of

the head, syncope, and collapse of vital powers.15
Gels (Typhoid fever) - great prostration of all the vital forces already

in the initial stage, with strange sensation in head and continued

jactitation of muscles; sleeplessness, wide awake all night;

patient feels sore and bruised all over, as if he had been pounded,

dreads to move, on account of weakness; suffused red face;

trembling from weakness; slow pulse, which becomes

accelerated by lifting or turning the patient; chills and crawls

which go down the back; feeling of expansion, as though the

head or some part of the body were enormously enlarged; severe

pains in head, back and limbs, with extreme lassitude, chilliness

and fever (afternoon); sticky, clammy, feverish state; tongue red

and raw, painful in centre, can hardly protrude it; distention of

abdomen, with pain and nausea; diarrhoea, bilious, fermented,

with much flatus and great nervous weakness, more than the

stools could cause. post-typhoid intermittents. bapt. follows well.

Guarana (Headache, cephalalgia) - migraine in persons who used tea and coffee in excess or in whom nervous headaches, followed

by vomiting, are excited by any error in diet or depression of

mind; neuralgia, nervousness and weariness, reduced vitality,

weak beat of heart; drowsiness and heaviness of head, with

flushed face, in persons of sedentary habits, after eating > after

sleep.
Helleborus - a remedy in low states of vitality and serious

disease.
Hydrocyanic-acid. (Vertigo, dizziness) - insufficiency of arterial contraction, with frequent headaches, stupefaction and falling down; vertigo, with reeling; cloudiness of the senses, the objects seem to move; he sees through a gauze; is scarcely able to keep on his feet after raising the head when stooping, on rising from one's seat, worse in the open air; no reactive power, face pale, blue and cold.
Hypericum - preserves vitality of torn and lacerated members when

almost entirely separated from the body.
Cerebral anaemia and vital exhaustion, as in the last stage of phthisis: amm. carb., mosch. and phos. ign. acts well in children who may be overgrown.
Kali-iod. - tea-taster's cough due to inhaling the fungus; a also brings about often favorable reaction in many chronic ailments even

when not clearly symptomatically indicated.
Lachesis. - traumatic gangrene, restores vitality to parts apparently

dead and induces renewed circulation without sloughing.

Laur (Convalescence, hints upon) - lack of reaction in chest troubles.
Lauroceraus (Insanity, mental derangement) - extreme despondency or lively, joyous mood; forgets very easily from the constant confusion in his head; fear and anxiety about imaginary evils; nervous agitation; rotary vertigo; sensation of coldness in forehead and vertex; want of energy of the vital powers and want of reaction.

Laurocerasus (Melancholia) - indolence and indisposition to either physical or intellectual labor, so that patient becomes disgusted and tired of his life; fear and anxiety about imaginary evils; disposition to sleep; titillation in face, as if flies and spiders were crawling

over face; want of energy of vital powers, no reaction, a

paralytic weakness.
Laurocerasus (Pneumonia) - typhoid pneumonia, when paralysis of lungs threatens with dyspnoea; hurried and rattling breathing;

compressible pulse, cold extremities; continual irritation by

tickling; short, little cough; irritative cough, depending on cardiac

affections; patient coughs and spits a great amount of phlegm,

sprinkled over and through with distinct dots of blood; lightness

of breathing; want of energy of the vital powers and want of

reaction.
Laurocerasus (See also Hydr-ac) (Syncope) - long-lasting faints, no reactive power; face pale-blue; surface cold; fluids, forced down the throat, roll audibly into the stomach; if the syncope is attendant

upon some poison in the system, the symptoms are similar, the

eruption being livid, and, when pressed, regains its color very

slowly; fainting from cardiac weakness.
Laurocerasus - lack of reaction, especially in chest and heart

affections.
Ledum (Synovitis) - diseases of joints; but especially of knee; effusion, with sensitiveness of the parts to pressure; aching, tearing pains; great coldness; want of vitality.
Lycopodium (Typhoid fever) - comes in at the end of the second week when the rash fails to appear and the patient sinks into an unconscious state with muttering delirium, picking at the bedclothes, distended abdomen with great rumbling of flatus, constipation, sudden jerking of limbs here and there, involuntary urination, leaving a reddish sandy deposit in the clothing or retention of urine. the continued high temperature leads later on to cerebral paralysis; patient lies in a stupor, eyes do not react to light; lower jaw drops and hangs down; breathing snoring and rattling; tongue swollen, blistered and cannot be protruded, and if patient tries the dry tongue rolls from side to side; pulse intermittent and

rapid; cold hands and feet or one foot hot and the other cold;

restless sleep, at ease in no position, full of anxious dreams and

jerking of limbs; when aroused cross, irritable or awakes terrified

as from a heavy dream; great emaciation and internal debility,

paralysis; upper parts wasted, lower parts swollen. compare calc.

and lyc., follows often after lach.
Mosch (Pneumonia) - irregular reaction or insufficient crisis in

asthenic, torpid pneumonia in consequence of bleedings; great

weight on chest; rattling, but no phlegm can be raised; pulse

grows slower and slower.
Muriatic-acid (Scarlatina) - intense redness of body, it looks like a boiled lobster; rash comes out sparingly, scattered irregularly over

surface of body, interspersed with petechiae, with bluish or

purplish spots; rush of blood to head, with bright-red face and

great drowsiness; child is restless, throws off covering, irritable,

constantly changing position, though often unconscious at the

same time. during progress skin turns purplish and feet decidedly

blue; fauces dry and purplish; more chills than heat and without

thirst; cold sweat on feet, burning heat of body; gangrenous

angina; aphthae and ulceration of mouth and throat, oedematous

uvula, foul breath; acrid discharge from nose, excoriating nostrils

and upper lip (arum tri.); gangrene, with sloughing of mucous

membrane, yellowish-gray deposits in mouth, fauces, tonsils,

uvula and posterior wall of pharynx; prostration of vital

forces, patient sinks down to foot of bed; pulse intermits every

third beat and is weak; sighing, groaning breathing; urine and

stool pass unnoticed; urine scanty or frequent and profuse, red,

violet, milky; pulse slow by day, frequent at night.
Natrum-carb. (Anaemia.) - pallid anaemia, with great debility, milky-white skin; vitality below par; emaciation; nervousness and anxiety.
Nux-v (Typhoid fever) - early stage; chilliness from slightest motion;

hard, full and frequent pulse; pains and debility in all limbs, >

by lying down; nervous, excited sleep with much dreaming;

prevalence of gastric symptoms with bitter and pasty mouth,

yellowish tongue, nausea, greenish vomiting, bilious diarrhoea

or constipation. later on sudden sinking of vital powers with

a kind of paralytic loss of strength; dull headache with dizziness

as if the brain were whirling in a circle, with momentary loss of

consciousness, from an uninterrupted sleep.
Opium. (Drunkards, diseases of) - mania a potu, with dulness of the senses, and at intervals sopor, with snoring; sees animals;

affrighted expression of the face; delirious talking; eyes wide19

open; face red, puffed up; fear; desire to escape, or dreams from

which the patient wakes as soon as he is spoken to in a loud

voice; dry, tickling, paroxysmal cough, with spasm of lungs and

blue face when drinking; troublesome breathing; general sweat;

epileptic convulsions; trembling of the extremities; lockjaw;

twitching of the muscles of the face and mouth; staring look;

want of vital reaction in old sinners whose many excesses

destroyed their constitution.
Opium. (Paralysis) - paralysis, with insensibility after apoplexy, in

drunkards or old people; weakness, numbness and paralysis of

the legs and arms; stupefying sleep; the patient is dull, stupid,

as if drunk; retained stool and urine; want of vital reaction,

body cold, stupor.
Opium. (Uterus, diseases of) - prolapsus uteri from fright; foetid

discharge from uterus after fright; softness of uterus; want of

vital reaction.
Opium. - the effects of opium as shown in the insensibility of the

nervous system, the depression, drowsy stupor, painlessness, and

torpor, the general sluggishness and lack of vital reaction,

constitute the main indications for the drug when used

homoeopathically.
Phosphoric-acid. (Typhoid fever) - may be useful from the beginning to the end of the disease delirium is quiet, not violent, with muttering, unintelligible speech, patient lies in a stupid sleep from cerebral paresis, unconscious of what is going on, but when aroused he is fully conscious and then drops off into his former sleep; pointed nose; dark-blue rings around eyes; nosebleed at an early stage of the fever, but it gives no relief; boring with finger in nose

from irritation in peyer's patches; abdomen distended and

bloated, with gurgling and rumbling in bowels; copious flatus

with the watery, lienteric stools; dry tongue with a dark-red streak

through centre, or pale and clammy, covered with slimy mucus;

urine highly albuminous, milky, rapidly decomposing, loaded

with earthy phosphates; petechia on dependent parts and

sudamina with copious sweats, but still neither sweat nor

diarrhoea prostrates the patient; temperature of body never very

high; enlargement of spleen. gradual sinking of the vital power

without any reaction on the part of the organism, hence

indifference and apathy.
Phellandrium. - adapted to persons of a feeble, irritable, lymphatic constitution, with weak and defective reaction.
Phosphorus (Gastritis) - cutting burning pains in the stomach; severe pressure in the stomach after eating, with vomiting of food; unquenchable thirst; cramps in stomach, radiating to the liver; goneness in gastric region; haematemesis, better from drinking cold water; great heat of the body, with cold extremities; frequent

shudderings; convulsions; sinking of the reactive power.
Psorinum (Cyanosis cardiaca, neonatorum) - to increase vitality and

circulation, where other remedies failed.
Psorinum (Febris intermittens) - periodicity of intermittents not marked. cough returns every winter; attacks of other ailments return every day or every other day at the same hour. where there is a want of vitality after severe attacks and the failure of treatment, it will clear up the case, even where sulph. failed to give us the

hint. chill with thirst, on upper arms and thighs, internal shivering

with creeping chills and icy-cold feet, drinking causes cough.

evening heat, with delirium, great thirst, followed by profuse

sweat.
Psorinum (Lienitis) - stinging sharp pain in region of liver and spleen; stitches in spleen, > when standing by heat of stove. heat with thirst, flushes of heat in

face, burning heat of palms and soles, > by putting them out of

bed, ending in moisture and faintness; alternate heat with

chilliness. sweat profuse at night all over and restless sleep; sweat

on slightest motion or manual labor; morning sweat, setting in

after waking; sour sweat. apyrexia: great prostration after every

paroxysm, with thirst for beer, burning heat on vertex, early

morning diarrhoea.
Sulphur (Pneumonia) - pneumonia assumes a torpid character, with

slow solidification of the lungs; there may still be much rattling

of phlegm in chest; frequent weak, faint spells, and flushes of

heat; feels suffocated; wants doors and windows open; constant

heat on top of head. torpid typhoid pneumonia, with short, rapid

breathing, a mere heaving of the chest; cough and expectoration

nearly impossible; the patient responds sluggishly, comprehends

slowly; worse about midnight. neglected or occult

pneumonia, occurring in psoric patients, and which threatens

to terminate in tuberculosis pulmonum, or in phthisis pituitosa.

pneumonia passing through its first stages normally and then

remains stationary; such a deficiency of reaction points to

sulph, as the remedy, where it accomplishes the absorption of

the infiltration and prevents suppuration, when there are no

typhoid symptoms and no tendency to phthisis pulmonum;

bronchial respiration and hepatization most plainly heard on

back. pneumonia in infants and old people.
Ver-alb. - rapid sinking of vital forces; collapse. - young people and women of a sanguine or nervo-sanguine temperament; also people who are habitually cold and deficient in vital reaction; gay dispositions; fitful mood.
Ver-alb. (Constipation) - constipation of infants; chronic constipation; inertia of rectum (op.), general depression of vitality;

predominant coldness of the body; first portion of stool is large

and the latter part consists of thin strings; stools very large and

very hard; very weak after stool; or strains at stool until he is

covered with cold sweat and then gives up exhausted, tired of

life and afraid to die; craves cool and refreshing things.
Ver-alb (constipation in infants) - faeces cannot be passed, from inertia of rectum, but a healthy stool can be procured at any time by an injection; pallor and cold sweat from the exertion, with

exhaustion after stool; general depression of vitality.
Ver-alb (Typhus) - sudden sinking of vital forces, hippocratic face,

sunken eyes, pointed nose, cold sweat over whole body; marked

coldness of hands and feet; spasmodic constriction of throat;

violent thirst for cold water; petechiae on extremities.
Ver-alb (Headache, cephalalgia) - neuralgia in the head, with

indigestion, features sunken; paroxysms in various parts of the

brain, partly as if bruised, partly pressure; violent pains drive to

despair, great prostration, fainting, with cold sweat and great

thirst; cold sensation and pressure on vertex, generally attended

by pain in stomach, relieved by pressing on vertex with hand

(meny.); nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea; habitual coldness and

deficiency of vital reaction.
Ver-alb (Hydrocephaloid) - sinking of the fontanelles, vision obscure,

pulse filiform, complete extinction of vital power; cold,

collapsed face; nausea and vomiting from least motion; tongue

cold, and unquenchable thirst for very cold water or ice.
Xanth. - acts upon nervous system, mostly upon sensory nerves, but causes a marked depression of vitality, a non-reactive state;

hence its use in chlorosis, measles, neuralgia, etc., when there is

sensorial and bodily depression.
Zinc-met. - a state of the blood which in its qualitative analysis

approaches chlorosis; want of vitality, as we find it after24

physical and psychical depression; heaviness and weakness in

all organs, as we see in suppressed catamenia, but when menses

flow it relieves all her sufferings; cough harassing and

troublesome, strength in wanting for expectoration; feels as if

his bladder would burst, still there is not energy enough to pass

a good stream, small quantities only are discharged; stools scanty,

dry, brittle, granulous.
Zinc-met. (dentition, morbid) - coma interrupted by piercing screams; slow development of teeth from lack of vitality; slow pulse in long waves; child drowsy and lies with its head pressed deeply

into the pillow, eyes half open and squinting; face pale and rather

cool or alternately red and pale; trembling all over, boring fingers

into nose or pulling nervously at the dry, parched lips; automatic

motions at different parts of the body, and restless, fidgety

movements of feet; child excessively cross and irritable,

especially at night, while the eruption of several teeth at once

undermines his strength.
Zinc-met. (Meningitis basilaris) - child has not vitality enough to

develop the eruption, or it was checked in its appearance; feet

are in constant motion; distention of abdomen; constipation with

hard and dry faeces; eyes sensitive to light; nose dry; appetite

voracious, with gagging and vomiting; on awaking child shows

signs of fear and rolls its head from side to side; cries out, starts

and jumps during sleep.
Zinc-met. (Neuralgia) - neuralgic pains between skin and muscle in

subcutaneous cellular tissue; great weakness of all the limbs;

deficiency of vital power.

LACK OF REACTION — LOW VITALITY — WHEN THE INDICATED

REMEDYS FAILS TO ACT

[See also Nutrition etc.]
'When the indicated remedy fails to act…' We have been hearing

this occasionally. Let us explain this in its true perspective. The

statement, 'when the indicated remedy fails' shakes the very foundation of homoeopathy. This is best read as follows: 'When the (seemingly) indicated remedy fails…'
We often read in the journals that a certain homoeopath gave a

certain remedy, say, Sepia (being the similimum for a patient) and

when it did not effect changes he gave a dose of another remedy viz., Tuberculinum (because the patient’s grandma had tuberculosis) and this enabled the Sepia (given earlier) to act. This is farce. That is not the meaning of ‘lack of reaction.’
‘Lack of reaction’ or ‘When the indicated remedy fails...’

correctly defined.
Most homoeopaths do wrongly prescribe; e. g., in a routine way

they give Aloe/Podophyllum for diarrhoea and in most cases it acts,

though may not be the correctly indicated remedy–the simillimum.
If it be the case that only the simillimum would act, most homoeopaths would have closed their shop long ago. We do give wrong remedies (thinking it to be the simillimum) and it effects changes. But we do come across cases where the routinism fails. Here is the real challenge to learn homoeopathy in a better way.
In the remedy Ammonium carb. (Boericke’s Materia Medica)

in the para Skin we read “faintly developed eruptions with defective

vitality.”
The correct meaning for this is this: If a skin patient needs

Ammon-carb. no other homoeo remedy, nor best allopathic, ayurvedic drugs etc. can make any change in the patient. In other words Ammon-carb. alone is the only hope for that patient.
‘Lack of reaction’ means no other method can cure the patient

excepting that remedy. For example there was a skin specialist (using native herbs) and he was known not to have failed in any skin case. But he too came across a case where his herbals failed to effect any changes. Ammon-carb. 10M single dose cured the patient.

Now do not write in your notes “when the routine remedy fails

I must give Ammon-carb.” That idea is totally wrong. If you carefully

examine that case, there too you would find the symptoms of Ammon-carb. in that patient. A child of ten months was having chicken-pox and it was running temperature and allopathic drugs could not bring down the fever. We routinely give Bryonia-30 (3 doses every four hours) and we had never failed to subside the fever and bring out the eruption.) In this case Bryonia failed. One thing that I noticed was that when I tried to put the pills into the mouth of the child it spit it out. (On earlier occasions when it was under my treatment it would ask for the sweet pills when I gave a dose to her mother for her treatment. This changed attitude made me to think.) Under the para ‘Mind’ (Boericke’s Mat. Medica) we find the word ‘unreasonable.’ I gave a dose of Ammon-carb and the child recovered in twenty-four hours.
While I was sitting in the clinic of a homoeopath a certain patient

walked in and complaining of terrible itching he removed his shirt

and started rolling on the floor scratching the itching places on the

floor. The doctor told me that every time the patient behaved like this and he tried Psorinum, Sulphur, Graphites (may be his ‘favorite

remedies for skin complaints) and even high potencies failed. (Most

doctors think that they would become senior if they start using high

potencies.)
No skin patient would behave like the above patient to

demonstrate the violent itching The word ‘unreasonable’ fitted in well with this case. I asked the doctor to give one single dose of Ammon-carb and in five minutes the itching came down and in the next week it was complete cure. Therefore, you may take a note of this: When a skin patient does not find relief anywhere all over the world and if his behaviour or attitude is ‘unreasonable’ you can be sure of curing him with one single dose of Ammon-carb.

One should read the remedy description for Tuberculinum in

Kent’s Lectures on Hom. Mat. Med. Tuberculinum is needed when the deep acting remedies acts for a short time, say a few hours or one day where they ought to act for weeks/months. Unless you work with a good teacher you may not learn the use of Tuberculinum. So far I had two cases in my practice.

The first case was headache. Even when I carefully select the remedy it acted for a day only; next day the modality of headache alone changed and the patient would be back in my office. On the prevailing symptoms I give a second remedy and that too acted for one day only. Third day, again as per prevailing symptoms I selected the remedy and gave it to her. Soon she got relief. After she got total relief I gave her Tuberculinum-10M one single dose and there was relief for six months. When she came after six months, I gave one dose of a certain remedy as per indications. As soon as she got relief I gave one dose of Tuberculinum-50M. After eighteen months she reported with headache; and after giving the indicated remedy for the prevailing the symptoms then, as soon as she got relief I gave her Tuberculinum-CM telling her to take this. This Tuberc-CM stopped her headache permanently.
Read the remedy Tuberculinum in Kent’s Lectures on Hom. Mat. Medica and you may learn correct homoeopathic practice.
When the blood pressure does not come down even with the best allopathic drugs I think of Laurocerasus. (“Lack of reaction in heart and chest troubles” Beoricke’s Mat. med.)
In cardialgia and dyspeptic troubles when even the best

painkillers in allopathy fails to relieve you must think of Capsicum.

That is the best way to learn homoeopathy.
A teacher is he who makes difficult things easy.
Think of Baptisia and Laurocerasus in mental cases. (You must

get rid of the notion that Baptisia is good for typhoid.)
REMEDIES HAVING THE SYMPTOM ‘LACK OF REACTION’ ARE GIVEN BELOW;
Tabacum (nicotine). (Uraemia) - paralysis of diaphragm; indifference, want of reaction; cold forehead; thirstlessness; serous

transfusions in intestines, without diarrhoea; want of secretion

in liver and kidneys.
Abies nigra (Dyspepsia, weakness of stomach) - total loss of appetite in the morning, craving for food at noon, and exceedingly hungry and wakeful at night; pain after a hearty meal, but abstinence from any particular food does not relieve the dyspepsia; belching and acid eructations, frequent vomiting; sensation as if some indigestible substance had stuck in the cardiac end of the stomach (lact. ac.: sensation as if all food lodged under upper end of stomach); continual distressing constriction just above the pit

of stomach, as if everything were knotted up, or as if a hard

lump of undigested food remained there mornings.
China (Anthrax) - exhaustion of vital power, with excessive

sensitiveness and irritability of the nerves, deficiency of animal

heat; decomposition of animal matter with symptoms of putrid

fever; malaria.
China (Cholera infantum) - collapse after violent, long-lasting cholera; breathing rapid; surface cool, hardly any vitality left.
China (Typhoid fever) - typho-malarial fever; excessive prostration,

with great mental and bodily weakness, so that the least exertion

is hateful; heavy sweats during motion or in sleep, with

excessive sinking of the vital forces; uneasiness and

sleepiness; frightful fancies on closing the eyes to sleep; vertigo

and heaviness of head, dimness of sight, dulness of hearing,

pale face, dry mouth, yellow-coated tongue, with slimy, bitter

taste and great thirst; abdomen meteoristic and tender with pains13

in bowels, watery lienteric stools, scanty urine; bowels move in

daytime only after nourishment, but at night frequent, dark, fluid

diarrhoea; coldness, especially of hands and feet; breathing

oppressed, especially in the evening; swelling and hardness of

spleen; tardy convalescence in consequence of serious

haemorrhages, exhausting diarrhoeas and night-sweats, with

progressive loss of flesh and strength; indifference and apathy.
China (Melancholia) - mental depression as a reflex of general

lowered vitality; low-spirited, despondent and tired of life,

with suicidal tendencies; great sensitiveness; easily moved to

tears by the least contradiction; indifference and apathy with

obstinate taciturnity; weakness and exhaustion after the least

exertion, > in the evening and at night; nocturnal dread of dogs

and other animals; desire for solitude.
Cochlearia - raises vital forces.

Crotalus-horr. (Angina pectoris) - sudden and great prostration of the vital forces; frequent fainting spells, with imperceptible pulse

and inclination to vomit; sudden breathing with open mouth and

distortion of the eyes outward.
Crotalus-horr (Typhoid fever) - oppression of nervous centres; eyes

congested; features heavy, dull, bloated, besotted (bapt.); eruption

dark purple, copious; during second week heart becomes

markedly weak, systolic sound can hardly be made out; pulse

soft, flagging, tremulous; great and distressing restlessness;

twitching, jerking, tremulousness, sinking down towards foot

of bed (mur. ac.), deafness; haemorrhagic tendency from all

orifices, epistaxis, foetid breath, gums bleeding and gangrenous;

stools, black, thin, like coffee-grounds, offensive or dark; fluid

haemorrhage from bowels; sudden and great prostration

of vital forces.
Crotalus-horr. (Haematemesis, gastrorrhagia) - low vital force and

decomposition of blood, which fails to coagulate; deathly nausea,

jaundicel complexion, faintness, cold sweat, insatiable thirst,

great prostration; weight, soreness and tenderness in stomach

which ejects everything.
Cup-m (Chlorosis) - after abuse of iron; symptoms in warm weather; lack of reaction in persons who are thoroughly run down by overtaxing mind and body.
Cup-m (Colic) - cramps in the abdomen; violent, colicky, drawing-

cutting pain in the abdomen; abdomen drawn in; colic not

increased by pressure; violent spasms in abdomen and upper

and lower limbs, with penetrating distressing screams;

intussusception of the bowels, with singultus, violent colic,

stercoraceous vomiting, and great agony; spasmodic movements

of the abdominal muscles; cramps of the stomach and bowels,

with vomiting and purging, and cutting pains in umbilical region

as if a knife were thrust through to the back, with piercing

screams; abdomen hard as a stone; constipation succeeded by

watery, greenish or bloody stool; spasmodic vomiting > by a

drink of cold water; collapse with great prostration and lack of

reaction;
Digitalis (Meningitis, cerebro-spinalis) - heart's action irregular and

labored; delirium like mania a potu; great pressure and weight

in head; violent lancinating pains, especially in vertex and

occiput; when sitting or walking the head falls backward, as if

anterior cervical muscles were paralyzed; convulsive efforts to

vomit; vomiting, with coldness, prostration and fainting; stiffness

in the nape and side of neck; tearing sharp stitches, aching and

cutting pains in nape of neck; convulsions, with retraction of

the head, syncope, and collapse of vital powers.15
Gels (Typhoid fever) - great prostration of all the vital forces already

in the initial stage, with strange sensation in head and continued

jactitation of muscles; sleeplessness, wide awake all night;

patient feels sore and bruised all over, as if he had been pounded,

dreads to move, on account of weakness; suffused red face;

trembling from weakness; slow pulse, which becomes

accelerated by lifting or turning the patient; chills and crawls

which go down the back; feeling of expansion, as though the

head or some part of the body were enormously enlarged; severe

pains in head, back and limbs, with extreme lassitude, chilliness

and fever (afternoon); sticky, clammy, feverish state; tongue red

and raw, painful in centre, can hardly protrude it; distention of

abdomen, with pain and nausea; diarrhoea, bilious, fermented,

with much flatus and great nervous weakness, more than the

stools could cause. post-typhoid intermittents. bapt. follows well.

Guarana (Headache, cephalalgia) - migraine in persons who used tea and coffee in excess or in whom nervous headaches, followed

by vomiting, are excited by any error in diet or depression of

mind; neuralgia, nervousness and weariness, reduced vitality,

weak beat of heart; drowsiness and heaviness of head, with

flushed face, in persons of sedentary habits, after eating > after

sleep.
Helleborus - a remedy in low states of vitality and serious

disease.
Hydrocyanic-acid. (Vertigo, dizziness) - insufficiency of arterial contraction, with frequent headaches, stupefaction and falling down; vertigo, with reeling; cloudiness of the senses, the objects seem to move; he sees through a gauze; is scarcely able to keep on his feet after raising the head when stooping, on rising from one's seat, worse in the open air; no reactive power, face pale, blue and cold.
Hypericum - preserves vitality of torn and lacerated members when

almost entirely separated from the body.
Cerebral anaemia and vital exhaustion, as in the last stage of phthisis: amm. carb., mosch. and phos. ign. acts well in children who may be overgrown.
Kali-iod. - tea-taster's cough due to inhaling the fungus; a also brings about often favorable reaction in many chronic ailments even

when not clearly symptomatically indicated.
Lachesis. - traumatic gangrene, restores vitality to parts apparently

dead and induces renewed circulation without sloughing.

Laur (Convalescence, hints upon) - lack of reaction in chest troubles.
Lauroceraus (Insanity, mental derangement) - extreme despondency or lively, joyous mood; forgets very easily from the constant confusion in his head; fear and anxiety about imaginary evils; nervous agitation; rotary vertigo; sensation of coldness in forehead and vertex; want of energy of the vital powers and want of reaction.

Laurocerasus (Melancholia) - indolence and indisposition to either physical or intellectual labor, so that patient becomes disgusted and tired of his life; fear and anxiety about imaginary evils; disposition to sleep; titillation in face, as if flies and spiders were crawling

over face; want of energy of vital powers, no reaction, a

paralytic weakness.
Laurocerasus (Pneumonia) - typhoid pneumonia, when paralysis of lungs threatens with dyspnoea; hurried and rattling breathing;

compressible pulse, cold extremities; continual irritation by

tickling; short, little cough; irritative cough, depending on cardiac

affections; patient coughs and spits a great amount of phlegm,

sprinkled over and through with distinct dots of blood; lightness

of breathing; want of energy of the vital powers and want of

reaction.
Laurocerasus (See also Hydr-ac) (Syncope) - long-lasting faints, no reactive power; face pale-blue; surface cold; fluids, forced down the throat, roll audibly into the stomach; if the syncope is attendant

upon some poison in the system, the symptoms are similar, the

eruption being livid, and, when pressed, regains its color very

slowly; fainting from cardiac weakness.
Laurocerasus - lack of reaction, especially in chest and heart

affections.
Ledum (Synovitis) - diseases of joints; but especially of knee; effusion, with sensitiveness of the parts to pressure; aching, tearing pains; great coldness; want of vitality.
Lycopodium (Typhoid fever) - comes in at the end of the second week when the rash fails to appear and the patient sinks into an unconscious state with muttering delirium, picking at the bedclothes, distended abdomen with great rumbling of flatus, constipation, sudden jerking of limbs here and there, involuntary urination, leaving a reddish sandy deposit in the clothing or retention of urine. the continued high temperature leads later on to cerebral paralysis; patient lies in a stupor, eyes do not react to light; lower jaw drops and hangs down; breathing snoring and rattling; tongue swollen, blistered and cannot be protruded, and if patient tries the dry tongue rolls from side to side; pulse intermittent and

rapid; cold hands and feet or one foot hot and the other cold;

restless sleep, at ease in no position, full of anxious dreams and

jerking of limbs; when aroused cross, irritable or awakes terrified

as from a heavy dream; great emaciation and internal debility,

paralysis; upper parts wasted, lower parts swollen. compare calc.

and lyc., follows often after lach.
Mosch (Pneumonia) - irregular reaction or insufficient crisis in

asthenic, torpid pneumonia in consequence of bleedings; great

weight on chest; rattling, but no phlegm can be raised; pulse

grows slower and slower.
Muriatic-acid (Scarlatina) - intense redness of body, it looks like a boiled lobster; rash comes out sparingly, scattered irregularly over

surface of body, interspersed with petechiae, with bluish or

purplish spots; rush of blood to head, with bright-red face and

great drowsiness; child is restless, throws off covering, irritable,

constantly changing position, though often unconscious at the

same time. during progress skin turns purplish and feet decidedly

blue; fauces dry and purplish; more chills than heat and without

thirst; cold sweat on feet, burning heat of body; gangrenous

angina; aphthae and ulceration of mouth and throat, oedematous

uvula, foul breath; acrid discharge from nose, excoriating nostrils

and upper lip (arum tri.); gangrene, with sloughing of mucous

membrane, yellowish-gray deposits in mouth, fauces, tonsils,

uvula and posterior wall of pharynx; prostration of vital

forces, patient sinks down to foot of bed; pulse intermits every

third beat and is weak; sighing, groaning breathing; urine and

stool pass unnoticed; urine scanty or frequent and profuse, red,

violet, milky; pulse slow by day, frequent at night.
Natrum-carb. (Anaemia.) - pallid anaemia, with great debility, milky-white skin; vitality below par; emaciation; nervousness and anxiety.
Nux-v (Typhoid fever) - early stage; chilliness from slightest motion;

hard, full and frequent pulse; pains and debility in all limbs, >

by lying down; nervous, excited sleep with much dreaming;

prevalence of gastric symptoms with bitter and pasty mouth,

yellowish tongue, nausea, greenish vomiting, bilious diarrhoea

or constipation. later on sudden sinking of vital powers with

a kind of paralytic loss of strength; dull headache with dizziness

as if the brain were whirling in a circle, with momentary loss of

consciousness, from an uninterrupted sleep.
Opium. (Drunkards, diseases of) - mania a potu, with dulness of the senses, and at intervals sopor, with snoring; sees animals;

affrighted expression of the face; delirious talking; eyes wide19

open; face red, puffed up; fear; desire to escape, or dreams from

which the patient wakes as soon as he is spoken to in a loud

voice; dry, tickling, paroxysmal cough, with spasm of lungs and

blue face when drinking; troublesome breathing; general sweat;

epileptic convulsions; trembling of the extremities; lockjaw;

twitching of the muscles of the face and mouth; staring look;

want of vital reaction in old sinners whose many excesses

destroyed their constitution.
Opium. (Paralysis) - paralysis, with insensibility after apoplexy, in

drunkards or old people; weakness, numbness and paralysis of

the legs and arms; stupefying sleep; the patient is dull, stupid,

as if drunk; retained stool and urine; want of vital reaction,

body cold, stupor.
Opium. (Uterus, diseases of) - prolapsus uteri from fright; foetid

discharge from uterus after fright; softness of uterus; want of

vital reaction.
Opium. - the effects of opium as shown in the insensibility of the

nervous system, the depression, drowsy stupor, painlessness, and

torpor, the general sluggishness and lack of vital reaction,

constitute the main indications for the drug when used

homoeopathically.
Phosphoric-acid. (Typhoid fever) - may be useful from the beginning to the end of the disease delirium is quiet, not violent, with muttering, unintelligible speech, patient lies in a stupid sleep from cerebral paresis, unconscious of what is going on, but when aroused he is fully conscious and then drops off into his former sleep; pointed nose; dark-blue rings around eyes; nosebleed at an early stage of the fever, but it gives no relief; boring with finger in nose

from irritation in peyer's patches; abdomen distended and

bloated, with gurgling and rumbling in bowels; copious flatus

with the watery, lienteric stools; dry tongue with a dark-red streak

through centre, or pale and clammy, covered with slimy mucus;

urine highly albuminous, milky, rapidly decomposing, loaded

with earthy phosphates; petechia on dependent parts and

sudamina with copious sweats, but still neither sweat nor

diarrhoea prostrates the patient; temperature of body never very

high; enlargement of spleen. gradual sinking of the vital power

without any reaction on the part of the organism, hence

indifference and apathy.
Phellandrium. - adapted to persons of a feeble, irritable, lymphatic constitution, with weak and defective reaction.
Phosphorus (Gastritis) - cutting burning pains in the stomach; severe pressure in the stomach after eating, with vomiting of food; unquenchable thirst; cramps in stomach, radiating to the liver; goneness in gastric region; haematemesis, better from drinking cold water; great heat of the body, with cold extremities; frequent

shudderings; convulsions; sinking of the reactive power.
Psorinum (Cyanosis cardiaca, neonatorum) - to increase vitality and

circulation, where other remedies failed.
Psorinum (Febris intermittens) - periodicity of intermittents not marked. cough returns every winter; attacks of other ailments return every day or every other day at the same hour. where there is a want of vitality after severe attacks and the failure of treatment, it will clear up the case, even where sulph. failed to give us the

hint. chill with thirst, on upper arms and thighs, internal shivering

with creeping chills and icy-cold feet, drinking causes cough.

evening heat, with delirium, great thirst, followed by profuse

sweat.
Psorinum (Lienitis) - stinging sharp pain in region of liver and spleen; stitches in spleen, > when standing by heat of stove. heat with thirst, flushes of heat in

face, burning heat of palms and soles, > by putting them out of

bed, ending in moisture and faintness; alternate heat with

chilliness. sweat profuse at night all over and restless sleep; sweat

on slightest motion or manual labor; morning sweat, setting in

after waking; sour sweat. apyrexia: great prostration after every

paroxysm, with thirst for beer, burning heat on vertex, early

morning diarrhoea.
Sulphur (Pneumonia) - pneumonia assumes a torpid character, with

slow solidification of the lungs; there may still be much rattling

of phlegm in chest; frequent weak, faint spells, and flushes of

heat; feels suffocated; wants doors and windows open; constant

heat on top of head. torpid typhoid pneumonia, with short, rapid

breathing, a mere heaving of the chest; cough and expectoration

nearly impossible; the patient responds sluggishly, comprehends

slowly; worse about midnight. neglected or occult

pneumonia, occurring in psoric patients, and which threatens

to terminate in tuberculosis pulmonum, or in phthisis pituitosa.

pneumonia passing through its first stages normally and then

remains stationary; such a deficiency of reaction points to

sulph, as the remedy, where it accomplishes the absorption of

the infiltration and prevents suppuration, when there are no

typhoid symptoms and no tendency to phthisis pulmonum;

bronchial respiration and hepatization most plainly heard on

back. pneumonia in infants and old people.
Ver-alb. - rapid sinking of vital forces; collapse. - young people and women of a sanguine or nervo-sanguine temperament; also people who are habitually cold and deficient in vital reaction; gay dispositions; fitful mood.
Ver-alb. (Constipation) - constipation of infants; chronic constipation; inertia of rectum (op.), general depression of vitality;

predominant coldness of the body; first portion of stool is large

and the latter part consists of thin strings; stools very large and

very hard; very weak after stool; or strains at stool until he is

covered with cold sweat and then gives up exhausted, tired of

life and afraid to die; craves cool and refreshing things.
Ver-alb (constipation in infants) - faeces cannot be passed, from inertia of rectum, but a healthy stool can be procured at any time by an injection; pallor and cold sweat from the exertion, with

exhaustion after stool; general depression of vitality.
Ver-alb (Typhus) - sudden sinking of vital forces, hippocratic face,

sunken eyes, pointed nose, cold sweat over whole body; marked

coldness of hands and feet; spasmodic constriction of throat;

violent thirst for cold water; petechiae on extremities.
Ver-alb (Headache, cephalalgia) - neuralgia in the head, with

indigestion, features sunken; paroxysms in various parts of the

brain, partly as if bruised, partly pressure; violent pains drive to

despair, great prostration, fainting, with cold sweat and great

thirst; cold sensation and pressure on vertex, generally attended

by pain in stomach, relieved by pressing on vertex with hand

(meny.); nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea; habitual coldness and

deficiency of vital reaction.
Ver-alb (Hydrocephaloid) - sinking of the fontanelles, vision obscure,

pulse filiform, complete extinction of vital power; cold,

collapsed face; nausea and vomiting from least motion; tongue

cold, and unquenchable thirst for very cold water or ice.
Xanth. - acts upon nervous system, mostly upon sensory nerves, but causes a marked depression of vitality, a non-reactive state;

hence its use in chlorosis, measles, neuralgia, etc., when there is

sensorial and bodily depression.
Zinc-met. - a state of the blood which in its qualitative analysis

approaches chlorosis; want of vitality, as we find it after24

physical and psychical depression; heaviness and weakness in

all organs, as we see in suppressed catamenia, but when menses

flow it relieves all her sufferings; cough harassing and

troublesome, strength in wanting for expectoration; feels as if

his bladder would burst, still there is not energy enough to pass

a good stream, small quantities only are discharged; stools scanty,

dry, brittle, granulous.
Zinc-met. (dentition, morbid) - coma interrupted by piercing screams; slow development of teeth from lack of vitality; slow pulse in long waves; child drowsy and lies with its head pressed deeply

into the pillow, eyes half open and squinting; face pale and rather

cool or alternately red and pale; trembling all over, boring fingers

into nose or pulling nervously at the dry, parched lips; automatic

motions at different parts of the body, and restless, fidgety

movements of feet; child excessively cross and irritable,

especially at night, while the eruption of several teeth at once

undermines his strength.
Zinc-met. (Meningitis basilaris) - child has not vitality enough to

develop the eruption, or it was checked in its appearance; feet

are in constant motion; distention of abdomen; constipation with

hard and dry faeces; eyes sensitive to light; nose dry; appetite

voracious, with gagging and vomiting; on awaking child shows

signs of fear and rolls its head from side to side; cries out, starts

and jumps during sleep.
Zinc-met. (Neuralgia) - neuralgic pains between skin and muscle in

subcutaneous cellular tissue; great weakness of all the limbs;

deficiency of vital power.