Belated posting of intermediate agreed definition of homoeopathy

[John Harvey]

In trawling through various discussions for accurate definitions of homoeopathy, I've just seen the below request by Ellen to post an agreed definition on a new subject line. Accordingly, below is a definition of homoeopathy that Joe and I arrived at between us and that nobody has yet seen fit to dispute -- except to the extent that it has been argued that an accurate definition of homoeopathy should include homoeoprophylaxis. (Discussion on that topic stalled, I believe, on the question of what exactly was intended by "homoeoprophylaxis".)

My apologies to Ellen for having let her request slip my mind.

The working definition we stopped at on the particular thread on which Ellen made the below request was:

"medical use of a remedy made of a substance that, given to a healthy person, could create the same symptoms and signs presented by the patient".

Variations included such substitutions for "medical use of" as "giving", "offering", "application of", "prescription of", "medical use of", and anything similar.

To my mind, this could be made more elegant and slimmed down a little, but expresses clearly enough what we had arrived at. The important aspect is that the definition clearly include all that is homoeopathy and exclude all that is not. And this does so perfectly well.

I seem to recall that Joe and I may have worked on this a bit further and incorporated the notion of setting out to arrive at that homoeopathic relationship; if so, we did so under another topic heading. But even that may have complicated the definition more than necessary, as it's fairly self-evident that one does not practise a certain kind of medicine, arriving at a specified relationship (i.e., one of similarity) between medicine and patient, without intending to so practise it.

Cheers!

John

[Dr. Joe Rozencwajg, NMD]

We stopped there:
"Homeopathy is a natural therapy that attempts to restore health to the whole patient without neglecting the actual presenting problems.
It does that by considering at the same time the main complaints while putting them into the perspective of everything else happening to the patient during his life, taking into account all aspects, physical, mental, emotional and psychological.
The treatment is done essentially by offering remedies made of substances that, given to a healthy person, could create the same symptoms and signs presented by the patient, prepared in such a way that all toxicity is removed."

Joe.

Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD.

"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind"

www.naturamedica.co.nz

[Maria Bohle]

That is quite comprehensive.
Does everyone consider this finished?

[Dr. Joe Rozencwajg, NMD]

Please......nothing is ever "finished" and each and every practitioner will tweak this definition to fit his/her own method of practise....we did not try (at least I did not...) to have a legal and binding definition, but a tool that encompasses as much as possible different ways of practising.
As much as some will furiously disagree with other's ways and approaches, it is not going to change anybody's mind and claims, let's be realistic.

Joe.

Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD.

"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind"

www.naturamedica.co.nz

[domenicstanghini]

Hello
It looks like a good definition. I do NOT see the need for both MENTAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL being in the same line. One or the other word would be better but NOT both.

Best Wishes Domenic

---In minutus@yahoogroups.com, wrote :
That is quite comprehensive.
Does everyone consider this finished?

[John Harvey]

No, not in the definition discussion, we didn't, Joe. You may recall that I praised this as a description of homoeopathy that needed only clarification that multiple remedies are not used -- clarification that was forthcoming somewhere along the line -- but that I also pointed out that this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a definition of anything; it remains a description.

Think of what you see when you open a dictionary. Ideally, open it to the word "homoeopathy" -- and it will offer not a paragraph or two, not even an entire sentence, but a phrase that could stand in for the word "homoeopathy" in a sentence. With any luck at all, the phrases it uses will accord closely with what we all understand homoeopathy to be; what you and I agreed it is; what nobody has since seen fit to disagree with, which is just what your common good dictionary says it is.

Cheers!

John

[Irene de Villiers]

I think both as the two are not the same.
For example memory loss is a mental problem but not a psychological one.

...Irene

--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

[Irene de Villiers]

No definition can ever be finished in my view.
As we add ways to use the basic principles and develp more and better tecniques rio nwwr wirse and more serious illnesses, and as we discover more how it workd,=ks, the definition will cgange.

For me for example this lacks three very important actions of homeopathy - that of building robust health in a non-ill individual; that of using a remedy matched to innate - heritable- traits without considering disease symptoms; and th at os homeoprophylaxis.
Mine would CURRENTLY adjust it like so:
based on the Narural Law of Similars
which attempts to restore or achieve robust
and disease resistance
person, animal or plant.

the entire individual in perspetive for their life to date, or alternatively, a full set of their inherited traits, and their implementation to date,
including

a remedy belonging to a set of substances called homeopathic remedies
a)
an ill individual

OR one of these
b) may be used to build resistance to disease.

OR one of these
c) may be chosen based on an innate heritable trait set of the individual, independent of any disease

OR one of these or a new substance
d) may be used in homeopathy research called provings, to determine the features associated with the remedy upon which selection of the remedy will later depend.
I believe it is correct to have definitions that vary by practitioner.
We do not have a fixed science, it is a live and individualized and growing science and there is nothig wrong with that.
We need make no excuses for any universal suare peg in a round hole attempt.
It is OUR science to use - we, the living homeopaths - use it OUR way - individually.
......................................................
The below phrases were deleted from Joe's one.

[deleted as presenting problems are not a prerequisaite:

[re-worded]:

.....................
Namaste,
Irene
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

[John Harvey]

Hi, Irene --

Homoeopathy's results have nothing whatever to do with what it is. There are various ways to appreciate why that is so; if you see the previous discussion on your attempts to define homoeopathy by its results, you'll have the opportunity to consider them and to save yourself from repeating these same convenient but infinitely malleable notions yet again.

If you need a reference to those discussions, I'll be glad to point them you to them.

To enter into some specifics concerning the latter half of your sales pitch:

• Your option (b) falls into the same error just discussed.

• Your option (c) has, as you've admitted just 20 hours ago in response to Susan, under "Re: Epidemic diseases", nothing whatever to do with homoeopathy, for reasons too obvious to need stating yet again.

• Your option (d) fails to complete the picture by referring to the similarity of those pathogenetic symptoms to the patient's own symptoms. What it does say about testing a substance in provings is a good start; but that much was summed up in just few words, and far more precisely (referring to symptoms rather than "features"), in Joe's wording -- your reference to "provings" and to "features" leaving the reader to interpret how it is tested and what kinds of results those tests obtain. If such was your intention (being consistent with your continual assertion that any use of a substance is a "proving" and that prescription on the vague basis of any kind of similarity is "homoeopathic"), then it serves admirably to confuse and to allow for endless judgements of particular cases by "experts" on the basis of outcomes; but that was not the intent we set out with and is in fact anathema to Hahnemann's intention, in coining the word homoeopathy, to distinguish it from all that garbage.

You force some of us to wonder whether your perpetuation of these fundamental misunderstandings can possibly be due purely to failure of comprehension. How is it possible that after all these years of getting straight understanding such as Susan just offered you, and of seeing utterly clear expressions of Hahnemann's intent both in his own words and in modern parlance, you still understand nothing at all about what you purport to practise?

John

[Ellen Madono]

Maria just posted this version that I liked:
Ellen Madono