Minutus

Yes, but provings are screened procedures with provers in relatively healthy states - how do you use clinical observation to build materia medica if a patient who exhibits certain symptoms, ameliorations and or other 'observed' changes is not in a state of health to begin with? I would say we are dealing more with subjectivity - it is not sound science, it is based on conjecture. If a body of practitioners has elastic enough boundaries, then anything goes.
Best,
Lisa

I hear you, Lisa -- but much *useful* materia medica has been and is being built in *exactly* that way. Much of our mostly commonly used materia medica information does *not* come from provings, but instead from clinical information.

E.g. I am told (have not searched myself to verify) that the provings of arnica do not produce any bruising. Certainly provings are not producing broken bones or cancer -- or any other pathologies. They do not produce any histories or any causations. So all materia medica addressing any of these factors, has come from clinical information, not provings.

The constitutional picture of Thiosinamin (fascinating; a wonderful write-up in one of the old IFH Small Remedies and Interesting Cases conference write-ups) was begun (and developed?) very specifically on basis of a few clinical cases, wherein thiosinamin was given for a specific reason (adhesions or similar), but unexpectedly (esp. in the first case) produced wide and deep cure. The (very astute) practitioner carefully noted just *what* had changed, then combed that handful of cases for their other similarities. It's a beautiful write-up, and IMO a terrific illustration of making good use of clinical record-keeping to further develop materia medica.

Shannon
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I think you miss the
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I think you miss the point, Lisa.
The clinical observations of people who are poisoned by the substance, not those who need it.
We know, for example, things about Radon. It is colorless, odorless and tasteless. Is the result
of a breakdown of ground uranium. It is considered a carcinogen and the major cause of lung
cancer in non-smokers. So here you have the beginning of evidence about radon. If you had
someone who develops cancer from radiation, this might be remedy to consider.
I know this example is thin, but you get the idea.
tanya
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We've been through that straw man before, Shannon. How best to help a patient for whom one cannot prescribe homoeopathically is a question upon which the answer I suggested to the question I was discussing -- whether a homoeopathic prescription can be made without a basis in pathogenetic trials -- has no bearing whatever. Yes, you can't prescribe an unproven medicine homoeopathically. No, that is not a recommendation that you not try to help the patient anyway. Yes, it is a way of discriminating between homoeopathy and everything else. No, it is not any kind of constraint upon practising one of those other things. Yes, every homoeopath must resort to guesswork in order to complement prescription upon a basis of what is known. No, that does not make guesswork part of the homoeopathic method.

Cheers!

John

Provings are not your only method of building a "tool": granted. But they are an absolute requisite of homoeopathic prescription, and past "success" in prescribing blindly is the basis not of homoeopathy but of allopathy. You shouldn't need to go through this painful argument and withdrawal from discussion for a seventeenth time in order to get it, Shannon. Read the Organon. It's said in many ways throughout. Here's one sample:

"To cure mildly, rapidly, certainly, and permanently, choose, in every case of disease, a medicine which can itself produce an affection similar (ηομοιον πάθος) to that sought to be cured!" (From the Introduction, p. 78, B.Jain.)

Notice what Hahnemann does not say. He does not say "a medicine which can produce or remove an affection similar". He does not say "a medicine which can produce or remove various symptoms that, taken together, could be interpreted as a single affection similar". He says only "a medicine which can itself produce an affection similar".

Think about what that means: that the symptoms you imagine belong to a suitable medicine must not be a hotchpotch of produced and removed symptoms, but must together constitute an illness that is similar in its peculiarities to that of the patient. Then, and only then, is that medicine a contender for homoeopathic prescription. All else is educated or uneducated guesswork -- not to be disparaged for that, but merely to be distinguished from the homoeopathic method, whose pure materia medica is never built from "cures" but only from pathogeneses.

Cheers --

John
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“The meltdown of a 500-megawatt reactor located 30 miles from a city would cause the immediate death of an estimated 45,000 people, injure roughly another 70,000, and cause $17 billion in property damage.”
—Benjamin K. Sovacool, "The dirt on nuclear power", Project Syndicate: A World of Ideas 16 Mar 2011,

Hello Tanya,
So why not be better? What about the premise of the ethics of giving a medicine without any trial? Simply citing your feelings again towards big pharma does nothing to suggest that Homeopathy is not treading down the same path.

Best,
Rik

--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "tamarque@..." wrote:

Hello Shannon,
How many Homeopathic practitioners do you know personally who use this speculative model as they're last resort in treating a patient? Scholten doesn't... I know of none. But I do know many who use it as a first line treatment. Their success rate is about 50% and even worse in acutes. In the last 3 years I have known 5 Homeopaths who were using Clasisscal Homeopathy as their last line of treatment after several unknown lanthanides or other unproven rx's. failed. They have all come full circle in the last 12-18 mos. to a more sound approach.
So much for educated guesswork....
Best,
Rik

--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, Shannon Nelson wrote:

Similarity between clinical effects; I would call that arguably homeopathy.
Are you saying that, when Hahnemann describes homeopathic uses of e.g. magnets, heat, cold (and what else did he mention...), he was misspeaking? No provings are involved in those either, just clinical effects.

Because that is how you are *defining* homeopathic prescription -- one based upon provings.
Hahnemann's *definition* was not that strict; he did include causation (which cannot come from provings), and poisonings (not necessarily done on healthy people), and for that matter, he did use provings not done on healthy people, not adequately "controlled", done only on a single person, etc.

There is ideal procedure, and there is definition--the two are not the same.
I am not talking about prescribing blindly, please don't do that.
Not painful, just boring.
Oh yes I do have to go through the withdrawal from discussion, because the rest of my life is calling, again. You are putting your ideas out and I am putting out mine; and once again I will leave mine hanging and you are free to have the last word if you like--no hard feelings.
Tapping fingers.... We've been through that too. No further comment.
Words, in opposition to meaning. Sophistry... We interpret this differently, and I have no time to chase it further right now.

Best wishes!
Shannon