homeopathy -- dilution?

[Laura Coramai]

Hello Irene et al of this great thread...that I haven't followed in detail:

Sorry to come into this so late in the game, but I'm wondering if the definition is for internal use (alternative health practitioners & homeopaths) or external use (general public/laypersons)? If latter, in my opinion, the lovely/broad but siccinct definition you've got so far would need to have, unfortunately, some layperson or conventional language (stuff spelt out) in it instead of words that we homeopaths know and love...

I.E. - "symptom-specific, single, matched-energy "homeopathic remedies" individualized" could be changed to: "In Homeopathy a singular remedy is selected at any one time to correspond with the individual's total symtom picture. The action of the remedy is on the energy plane, hence, covering the totality of symptoms on the physical, emotional and mental planes of the individual. The basis of remedy selection is the matching of the individual's complete disease state, thus covering the symptom picture, with that of an induced state with a similar symptom picture. Homeopathic remedies are tested on healthy humans in clinical research trials for the pathological changes that occur when administered.

Lastly, a small point: "developed by Samuel Hahnemann as documented in the six editions of his Organon of Medicine" could be , in my opinion, phrased for layperson as "The system was developed by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann as outlined in his Organon of Medicine (6th Edition, 1842)".

Again, apologies if this is too late in this topic of discussion...but, may be of value or not? Why not, is what I say: my two cents may have something to offer!

Peace,

Laura Coramai
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, Irene de Villiers wrote:

[Laura Coramai]

I would agree with Irene here: the relevance is not in that Hahnemann
was into The Law of Similars but that he went the extra mile...in
Organon's Intro there's the nice piece for the layperson/medical person
to consider that Hahnemann outlines: "Homeopathic Folk Remedies"...with
simple but clearly natural egs, like cold application for frost bite and
freezing water to thaw frozen foods...this one is key to not getting
salmonella poisoning!

If everyone in science was as thoroughly investigative and integral as
Hahnemann was, we would have arrived at such a wonderful place in
history. All would be revealed: the universal energy that connects us,
and , therefore, there would be no reason to be disconnected/separated
from each other and other beings of universe....there would be world
peace!

Take care all,

Laura Coramai
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, Irene de Villiers
wrote:
it.

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

http://www.minimum.com/b.asp?a=organon-soft-hahnemann
"Samuel Hahnemann was a physician, chemist, linguist, historian of medicine, and scientific revolutionary. Early in his career, he became so disillusioned with the state of medical practice that he stopped practicing medicine in the firm belief that the methods he was taught would do more harm than good. Instead he made his living translating medical and other texts. While Hahnemann was translating the Scottish physician William Cullen's Materia Medica, specifically the section on the toxicology of Peruvian bark, he was struck by the similarity between the symptoms of poisoning from Peruvian bark (also known as cinchona, from which quinine is derived) and the symptoms of malaria against which it was used as a medicine. It occurred to him that this similarity might not be coincidental, but rather it might be the very basis of the medicine's curative power."
He of course demonstrated this symptom similarity with trying the Peruvian bark extract on himself and his family and observed the symptoms first hand.

Regards

Soroush

[John Harvey]

Some of us don't yet understand what a definition is -- what constitutes a dictionary entry rather than an encyclopaedia one -- even some who said the same nonsense six months ago in the conversation concerning what homoeopathy is.

So here's how we might think about a definition.

You're on a bus. You've enjoyed a casual chat with the stranger sitting next to you. In thirty or forty seconds, you're going to rise from your seat and get off the bus, expecting to run into that stranger again perhaps some time in the next month, perhaps never in this lifetime. The stranger is an eleven-year-old child, a 20-year-old university student working part time, a 40-year-old academic, a 70-year-old open-minded retired gardener. You've just mentioned a medical practice called homoeopathy. Your newfound friend has never before heard of homoeopathy and has just asked what it is.

Now pretend that the next half-minute is not all about you: that your aim is not to create an impression of being a hot shot, or well-informed, or different, or special, or even an insightful expert practitioner.

If that's too hard, imagine that you're somebody else altogether: not a half-baked practitioner but an intelligent patient; not whacko, not weird, not necessarily scientifically illiterate or incapable of stringing ordinary words together to denote what they commonly do; just roundly intelligent.

Let's say that being roundly intelligent entails being open-minded; practising a healthy skepticism; and being capable of hearing new ideas in context, understanding them in context, and evaluating them in context.

Context? What context? The context of your own lifetime of experience, be it eleven years or 70, which you haven't thrown away for the sake of any crazy belief.

You're getting ready to rise from your seat, and somebody in whom you recognise similar intelligence and roundedness has asked you a perfectly reasonable question: what is homoeopathy?

This is an opportunity to share. And you've prepared for it.

You know what it is that you're going to try to convey. To communicate successfully, you're going to tell this person what is essential in order to know exactly what homoeopathy is (implying an ability to discriminate what it is not).

In other words, you're going to convey all that a practice must be in order to constitute homoeopathy.

Let's keep this straightforward. You're not going to try to convey in thirty seconds -- though some of us evidently could -- everything you know about homoeopathy.

You're not going to try to convey those things about homoeopathy that -- though they may be essential in order to fully appreciate it -- are not essential in order to identify it.

You're going to convey what it is, and only what it is, that suffices to make something "homoeopathy": all that its practice must be.

You're going to convey just enough basis to enable your friend to judge either "Yes, there is truly an example of homoeopathy!" -- or "No, that's not homoeopathy".

For the straightforward, rounded, intelligent person informed in this field, knowing whether what somebody is doing is homoeopathy or not is not difficult. Similarly, communicating how to make that judgement is not difficult.

It doesn't entail roundabout abstractions, hypothetical constructs, esoteric understandings.

It doesn't entail reasons, purposes, causes, or effects.

It doesn't entail ranges, examples, exceptions, possibilities.

It entails only clarity about the limits of the word's inventor's intent in coining it.
Step back from this oh-so-difficult question by another pace. Pretend you're on another bus, in another time. On this bus, in this time, you're not about to say what homoeopathy is; you're about to explain in ten seconds what a book is. And you've prepared for this moment too.

Yes, a book commonly has certain features. Without a title on the cover, it's difficult to identify; so a title is important. But without a title on its cover -- indeed, if it had no title page, even no title -- it could still be a book. So there's no point to saying that it usually has a title or that the best books have a title.

You could explain that the form of the book might be fiction, poetry, political argument, journalistic exposition, instructions; that its audience might be toddlers, students, professionals; that its purpose might be persuasion, conviction, entertainment, enrichment, enlightenment, training; that its style might be emotive, dispassionate, stream-of-consciousness, or straightforward; that it can contain various languages, typefaces, colours, paper content, illustrations -- or be uniformly blank.

But to say any of these things does not make the definition of a book more accurate. To say that it is usually in one language or another or several is to overlook other possibilities. And to say any of these things distracts from an understanding of what a book is.

This is why the explanation of what a book is must be as simple as possible. After explaining what it is, you can fill your listener's mind with possibilities yet unimagined: multicoloured print, photographic illustration, multilingual type, broken columns, round sidebars, indented indexes, trifold centrefolds, reversible jackets. But all of this is simply enrichment: it's mere adornment to the one essential understanding of what constitutes a book. And time is a-wasting.
So back to the real world and the bus on which you, pretending to be a roundedly intelligent human being without unnecessary confusions, are about to explain exactly what homoeopathy is.

You've prepared for this moment. You're not a self-absorbed, self-promoting, omniscient hot shot ready to waste the time of everybody who will listen again and again to your ignorant hypotheses. You're a real and humble human being, about to share one vital fact with another real and humble human being: what homoeopathy is.

You have at most forty seconds.
Let's look at some of the possibilities.

Is it essential for your newfound friend to know whether the prescribing practitioner is aiming to cure, to palliate, to prevent, or to deal with an intercurrent problem? Clearly, even if you could read the practitioner's intent, you could not judge whether the practitioner is prescribing homoeopathically on that criterion.

So: no.

Is it essential for your newfound friend to know whether the prescribing practitioner uses or has even heard of (or invented) homoeopathic potency -- or prescribes always in relatively non-poisonous crude doses? Clearly, whether the practitioner is prescribing homoeopathically cannot be judged on that criterion either.

So: no.

Is it essential for your newfound friend to hear of strange examples of arguably homoeopathic applications, or to understand that talking or sungazing or the application of electricity might conceivably -- though we can never know -- be homoeopathic?

Clearly not!

Is it essential for your newfound friend to hear your private theory of how the homoeopathic treatment works? That it tangles with vital force, strangelets, energy signatures, angels, or (other) core delusions?

Before answering this one, recall that you're no longer a hotshot know-it-all; you're a patient. You actually don't care how homoeopathy brought you or your boy out of a coma, cured your hay fever, and gave you back your energy -- and you're wise enough to realise that it may not be possible ever to know. You're sane enough to understand that it doesn't matter whether the prescribed medicine channelled signature tunes or Edgar Allan Poe; you just love that it works -- and it's that it works that makes it worth mentioning.

So is it essential for your friend to know your practitioner's theory, or some conventional understanding, or anybody's understanding, of how homoeopathy works, in order to know what homoeopathic practice entails?

Was it essential to you as a patient?

No, it was not.

What, then, is it essential to convey in half a minute so that your friend will walk away with the treasure of knowing what homoeopathy is?

You're not going to blow it. You have half a minute. You know how to gauge the difference between homoeopathic practice and any other.

What do you say?

Thirty seconds!

John

[Irene de Villiers]

Thanks indeed -It should make sense to a general members of public.

Good points Laura.

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."

[Shannon Nelson]

Whew!
John, I hope you're going to give us *your* attempt at the question!
Personally, I've always liked the response of... can't remember who it
was, but one of either Hahnemann's generation or not too long after,
when asked by a newspaper guy (I think it was) for a quick definition
of homeopathy, replied "Goddamn it, I can't and I won't!" and walked
off. Yah, I know, we need to do better than that...

But okay, here's what I've said in similar situations (the friend on a
bus, not the reporter!): It's a system of natural healing, using
non-toxic remedies that stimulate the body to heal *itself*. Then if
they express interest I move on to like-cures-like, but even that would
not be in my first pass.

Sometimes too, I say a bit, and in return get a puzzled look and
(often) the question, Sort of like herbs? And unless I've got more
than a few minutes and/or have picked up on real (or at least
potential) interest on their part (not usually the case), I'm apt to
say "Yeah, sort of like that."

Shannon