Arsenic Proving??

[John Harvey]

Hi, Shannon --
A few questions arise in discussing this.
(1) the usefulness of a remedy for chronic ailments in a genuinely acute illness;
(2) the usefulness of a remedy for chronic ailments in an acute exacerbation of the chronic state;
(3) the possibility of a single remedy for the patient's various chronic miasms;
(4) the usefulness of a remedy suitable for the patient's present complex state, in dealing specifically with chronic low-level poisoning;
(5) the comparative readiness and usefulness of a remedy suitable to the poisoning.
Regarding (1) the usefulness of a remedy for chronic ailments in a genuinely acute illness, it's equally clear that this idea arises time and again among those who don't appreciate the difference between a genuinely acute illness (such as measles) and an acute exacerbation (such as bronchitis) and who haven't ever bothered to spend three or four hours taking a patient's chronic case and then spent even an hour taking the acute case before jumping to the conclusion that this patient's acute illness (e.g. measles) calls for the (prior) chronic remedy. Anybody who has taken a chronic case properly -- which means not ten symptoms but essentially all of them, and not just the patient's initial description but all the details of sensation, relocation, timing, conditions, and accompaniments -- and then taken the same patient's acute case properly can tell that the two, in almost every case, will not require the same remedy.
Now, it may be the case, for all I know, that ignoring the acute illness for a while and prescribing the chronic remedy will start the patient healing. It's hardly a prescription on the basis of the patient's present symptoms -- given that they're now different! -- and could not be called homoeopathy; and of course it's not how Hahnemann proceeded. But it may be a superior method of beginning. I've never tried it, but I think that you'll find that it does nothing at all. And why choose such a difficult method when the acute remedy is staring you in the face?
Homoeopaths have become afraid to deal with genuinely acute illness on its own terms, but there's nothing easier -- except dealing with trauma on its own terms. What has made them afraid of acute illness is the failure caused by confusing acutes with acute exacerbations. The fact of the matter is that, just as in trauma any of five or six remedies will often be suitable enough to stimulate healing, in genuinely acute illness any of several similar remedies will do so also -- though the simillimum, if it can be found, will do so with astonishing speed.
Even in chronic illness, it becomes very plain, once you read enough cases, that there are two kinds of cure. There's the slow, because the remedy is similar enough to zigzag part way to a cure before another remedy takes over. I'm always disappointed to read of a homoeopath's satisfaction with such a case. And there's the steady but much more rapid cure, wherein even a single dose achieves revolutionary change in a period of several weeks and may maintain progress for a year or more before relapse begins. (I'm not recommending that a confirmed test dose not be repeated, but merely stating that a single dose can achieve rapid change when it's the simillimum rather than merely similar enough to stimulate the cure.)
And that brings us to (2) the usefulness of a remedy for chronic ailments in an acute exacerbation of the chronic state. It's clear that often this remedy will be eminently suitable, though often experienced practitioners have instead used an acute analogue in circumstances in which it would be dangerous or highly uncomfortable for the patient to experience any aggravation. (From memory, even the advantages of Q [fifty-millesimal] potencies in increasing potency did not alter Hahnemann's advice on that.) We're seeing eye to eye on this, I think.
Here, it's often possible to use, again, any one of two or three choices to settle the exacerbation. The old masters repeatedly use the "acute" remedy to bring the patient to a peak of responsiveness to the chronic remedy: that is, the reverse of what you seem to be suggesting. Belladonna is an "acute" of Calc. carb. not because a Calc. carb. patient will have a Belladonna-like measles, but because the Calc. carb. patient is likely to have a Belladonna-like exacerbation.
It's perfectly appropriate most of the time to use the patient's current miasmatic remedy to deal with whatever exacerbation has brought him or her to you. But it's absolutely vital to be able to distinguish such a situation from one in which a new miasm, an acute one, has temporarily displaced the chronic one -- a situation in which homoeopathic principles call for the remedy matching the acute state, not the chronic one.
For similar reasons, (3) the possibility of a single remedy for the patient's various chronic miasms is just that: a possibility. A remedy that happens to cover a fair amount of ground in the psoric miasm and a fair amount in the syphilitic might just happen to cover the symptoms in the one patient that belong to both miasms. Well, if such a thing ever does occur, then in that situation the one remedy will carry the patient through. Regardless, the miasm predominating today is the miasm whose symptoms should be dealt with today. And Hahnemann himself said that it was not possible, despite having recorded the most thorough of case histories, to predict what the next remedy would be.
This is not to suggest that the quiescent symptoms underlying the patient's present troubles be ignored. Rather, it is to say that those symptoms that reflect the same miasm as the patient's present troubles are relevant, and those that don't are not yet.
To come to a slightly more complicated situation, (4) the usefulness of a remedy suitable for the patient's present complex state, in dealing specifically with chronic low-level poisoning: I don't dispute that a remedy that takes account of the complex illness that may result from a combination of, say, psora and a mixture of low-level poisonings by arsenical compounds might be very effective in ridding the body of arsenic. It might.
What I will say is that it's a rare homoeopath practising today who could hit upon that remedy first time round. The confusions that are described in despair-inducing vividity on this list every day make clear that many homoeopaths have little knowledge of the treasures that the Organon contains; little knowledge of the simple measures that could obviate their patients' fresh troubles before they begin; little idea of how to gauge a patient's progress; and too little confidence to want to do so.
The idea of accurately prescribing a medicine on the basis of its similarity to a patient's complex state including the vague troubles that multiple chronic low-level arsenic toxicities will add is fine. The problem is putting it into practice. You don't learn a patient's chronic state well enough to do such a thing by sitting with him or her for ten symptoms or thirty minutes. And when you're dealing with, let's say, a number of infants who have been fed these compounds for many months -- not an acute poisoning but a chronic one, because of which, though some of the arsenic and/or mercury will be floating in the bloodstream, much of it will have been deposited in other tissues -- you're probably going to be expected to produce results.
And that brings us to (5) the comparative readiness and usefulness of a remedy suitable to the poisoning.
I'm not usually one to recommend what will produce "results". Usually this means very poor prescribing designed to create an effect and keep the patient -- which it often does. But in the case of a poisoning, equivalent conceptually to a trauma, the result being sought is a worthy one, even if the means of achieving it are less sophisticated and thorough than they might be. And in such a case, I'd think seriously about abandoning the homoeopathic approach as being beyond most modern practitioners to master in such a complex situation, and use instead an antidotal one.
Such an approach would look primarily at the trauma equivalent: the nature of the poison. It would consider the known antidotes. And it would select one on the basis of the symptoms. It's quick and dirty, but it works. I'm not distinguishing here between the use of Merc. in mercury cases and the use of a classic mercury antidote such as Hepar sulph. I'm treating them both as potentially suitable as antidotes to the poisoning. Both approaches have been known to work, though I can't say whether they work equally well.
I hope that that's answered all the matters that you've raised, but, if not, let's talk some more!
Cheers --
John
2008/5/6 Robert & Shannon Nelson >: