Minutus

At 11:32 PM +0000 4/11/04, Anna de Burgo wrote:
Read his paragraphs in the Organon on treating Epidemic Diseases, and
you should have the answer.
As for Cholera, the beauty of the system of homeopathy is that
Hahnemann made these recommendations *before* he ever saw a case. He
heard the reports, understood that the disease appears in three
unique presentations, and selected the POSSIBLE remedies based on his
knowledge of Materia Medica. He knew that the first part of the
presentation was an intense coldness. Therefore he recommended
Camphora-- and not only as a treatment but as a prophylactic--
because THAT is the first presenting symptom of the disease we call
"cholera."
I don't think I can explain it any better than that. If you still
can't understand it, then perhaps re-read the above section of the
Organon until it makes sense.
There WERE symptoms to go by in the cases he saw. And, in the case
of Scarlet Fever he saw that Belladonna seemed to match the
presentation.
Because he carefully OBSERVED the cases he was seeing, and determined
the remedy from that. He NEVER gave a remedy for a disease name. He
always gave the most similar remedy based upon the presentations of
the disease he was seeing.
Grin, wink, or not, Homeopathy failed in the USA because the method
was no longer being taught. By 1880, most of the schools stopped
teaching Organon and philosophy and only taught therapeutics. That's
why the best prescribers into the 20th century came from the Dunham
or Hering Colleges in Chicago-- the only places that WERE teaching
philosophy.
You are really missing the whole idea of prescribing for epidemic
diseases. And also confusing the concept of acute case and chronic
case. The idea of"treat the person" and taking the mentals into
consideration is a gross distortion brought into homeopathic
prescribing by Kent and his Swedenborg overlay. Hahnemann stressed
that the mental are important WHEN THEY ARE CHANGED from those seen
in health. A person, who in their sick state, feels that medicine is
of no use and they will die, might be an excellent candidate for
Arsenicum-- *if the other symptoms match.* A sudden onset and fear
they will die, points to Aconite, of course.

You see a patient with a flu. They are "drowsy, dim, and dopey." They
ache. Their eyes can't focus. They have extreme muscular weakness.
They are almost paralyzed. How much more do you need to decide upon
Gelsemium? The case says, "I NEED Gelsemium." No need to spend an
hour taking a chronic case here. Then you see the next. And it is the
same thing. And a third, and a fourth. You now have Gelsemium as the
remedy for that flu presentation.
Then someone comes in who doesn't say "I can't move" but says "It
hurts to move, and all I want to do is lie still." And they are very
thirsty. You get these TWO symptoms and you think of Bryonia. So you
now have TWO presentations of the current flu-- one requires
Gelsemium and one requires Bryonia.

In the little practicing I've done (and I am NOT by any means an
experienced practitioner, but I have prescribed quite a number of
times in the last 30 years) I have seen this very thing. There was a
flu going around in the 1980's where the presentation clearly matched
Gelsemium, and I gave it to a number of students in my department who
came to me at the school at which I was teaching. Just needed a few
symptoms. Never asked about mentals. What was the need? They were
clear cases.
As I said above, he matched camphor to the symptoms of the first
stages of Cholera and used it prophylactically as his experience
showed that Belladonna/Scarlet Fever worked well. The use of
undiluted spirit of camphor was the usual dose-- one drop in a glass
of water. The best use was made by an Italian Homeopath named Rubini,
and the camphor was known as "Rubini's solution."
If you are wondering about "is it homeopathy" when thinking of the
undiluted spirit of camphor, the answer is YES it is. Homeopathy has
to do with matching similars. The idea of dilution and succession is
a corollary, but not a requirement.
Many of the early prescriptions were done with tincture doses.

JW

This would include the one sided cases as well, some of the time?

Best, Joy

www.homeopathicmateriamedica.com
on 12/4/04 11:29 AM, Julian Winston at jwinston@actrix.gen.nz wrote:

At 12:28 PM -0400 4/11/04, Ellen Madono wrote:
Yes.
In the model Herscu proposes, any symptom can move outside the circle
and "split off"-- in which case it will NOT respond to a remedy rxd
on totality, but only to a remedy prescribed for IT-- usually a very
small, single place of action remedy.

JW
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I suppose you could turn this around slightly and be asking what are the
pre-cancerous signs and sx in someone - there are many and we should be
alert to them and have some idea of how to incorporate them into a case.

So many people are not in tune to their bodies and thus a lurking cancer can
appear to develop without symptoms, even to the point of being advanced
cancer. Denial, which is a form of suppression, comes into this as well
though and some people who have this trait 'big time' in their approach to
life are possible already in the cancer miasm without any apparent sx.

I know a number of homeopaths who refer clients who have had cancer in the
past as they do not want this to return as an old sx. I have to say I have
never quite understood this, but, from an individual point of view I suppose
it can happen.

Not sure these are insights or not

Best, Joy

www.homeopathicmateriamedica.com
on 11/4/04 3:26 PM, Bob&Shannon at shannonnelson@tds.net wrote:

Hi Julian,

I'm very interested in your remarks re treating cancer when it has, so to
speak, no connection to the totality. A bunch of disconnected questions:
Can you say any more about how one treats a cancer which has no symptoms, in
a person who appears to be completely healthy? (What do you prescribe on??)

I find this easy enough to understand in an allopathic context, where
"completely healthy" is a pretty darned loose term, but I know that it does
also arise in context of homeopathy. A past homeopath of mine, whose work I
have found very careful and good, talked about being sort of broadsided when
a patient of his developed cancer, tho he had seen no sign whatever of any
trouble brewing.

I've wondered whether in some cases this could be just a step or a "wrinkle"
on the path of healing, whether (at least in some cases) the cancer might
simply resolve itself if it hadn't been "discovered"?

Or whether one can really have a terminal physical disorder develop in the
context of mental, emotional and physical vitality???

All insights appreciated!!!

Thanks,
Shannon
on 4/11/04 3:31 PM, Julian Winston at jwinston@actrix.gen.nz wrote:
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Joy,

This would have been my thought -- that the disharmony was there, leaving
signs, but the signs were not noticed or recognized. I find it easy to
imagine an allopathic patient/doctor missing signs of developing cancer,
since they (at least this is my observation) tend to wave away any sensation
or experience that doesn't have a corresponding label or drug.

But good homeopaths don't, which is why I was particularly struck by the
experience of that homeopath, since he *is* very attuned to subtle signs and
is a very good and very thorough casetaker. Obviously he was missing
*something*, but what... And if he missed it, I've no doubt that (most of?)
the rest of us would have, too.

But I would love to hear if you've more specific thoughts -- what might be
pre-cancerous signs and symptoms? Other than/in addition to M/E patterns of
denial and etc.?

Shannon
on 4/12/04 4:24 AM, Joy Lucas at joy.lucas@ntlworld.com wrote:

Hi Anna,

Hoping to add just a little to JW's,

on 4/12/04 2:40 PM, Julian Winston at jwinston@actrix.gen.nz wrote:
Yes indeed it's possible for the simillimum to be general to a majority of
the sufferers, and this is exactly why we can have genus epidemici and
"first thought" remedies for acutes and traumas. Some situations/diseases
tend to have greater uniformity (are more likely to need the "first thought"
remedy), and others less (e.g. a "cold" -- many possibilities!).

But there are two catches: (1) to know *which* remedy is likely to apply to
the majority in *this* epidemic or disease; and (2) to be sure that you are
not facing an exception. (Some will simply give the "first thought" remedy
and then work further with those for whom it doesn't work; this approach has
both advantages and disadvantages.)
Do you mean, no symptoms to go by when a remedy is given prophylactically?
This is part of the debate over prophylaxis. Some prefer always to use the
person's "constitutional"/chronic remedy as prophylaxis, but that obviously
requires finding the chronic remedy first.

In giving a "specific" remedy preventitively, well, it is I think a
different thing, one could fairly say that it's "not homeopathy", since you
can't cure a disease that hasn't occurred. Or, I suppose you could say
you're "curing" the disease that has already sent roots, even tho it hasn't
expressed yet?
Sure, and so does every successful homeopath, because the same remedies are
often indicated. The trick is in knowing *which* of the same remedies will
apply, and to know when to use each. Also, acute diseases are much more
straightforward to prescribe for, as you're drawing from a smaller pool of
possibles (or at least *most* cases will respond well to something from that
smaller pool of possibles).
Julian -- Did the Flexner Report, which removed funding from American
homeopathy schools, come before or after this had occurred?
*In this particular epidemic*.
But the process of *getting* to a choice between those two, required looking
very closely at *lots* of individual cases, and looking closely at their
follow-up too. Epidemics require lots of individualizing and follow-up in
the beginning (to be sure of what will work, what has worked, and how
lastingly and thoroughly it has worked), but once that grunt-work is done,
things should get much easier.
Only if you were going for their *chronic* remedies; prescribing for an
acute (whether epidemic or not) calls only for looking at *what's changed*
since, or around the time that, the illness began. A much smaller pool of
likely choices.
Or when you are treating a person's chronic state...

Cheers,
Shannon

At 8:43 AM -0500 4/12/04, Bob&Shannon wrote:

[snip a bunch]
My my. You don't have my book "Faces of Homeopathy?"
The Flexner report came in 1910. WAY after the start of the decline
in the late 1870's.
By the time Flexner did it, attendance at homeopathic colleges was in
a decline. A number of schools had already closed.
The error (as Daniel Cook and Alain Naude pointed out in a long
article I quoted in my book) is blaming the Flexner report for the
closing of the homeopathic schools-- as if the schools were really
teaching good homeopathy and were shut. That is a mistaken
impression. The Schools were (generally) teaching poor homeopathy or
no homeopathy.
The Flexner report did NOT actually remove funding. It just suggested
which schools were doing an adequate job and which weren't. If read
carefully, you find one homeopathic school (Boston University) coming
out as well-rated, and NY Homeopathic and Hahnemann, Philly were not
far behind.
Yet, Boston stopped teaching homeopathy all on its own in about 1925.
NYHom followed in 1929. Hahnemann kept going until 1940 ort so.
Flexner was not only critical of Homeopathic schools-- he was
critical of lots of schools set up to train minority students-- women
and blacks. I have never done a count, but I'd think that well over
half the medical schools in the USA closed after the Flexner report.

JW

Good commentary about treating disease, esp when refered to Hahnemann. True similimum is always difficult task to find for a person. If you are talking about epidemics, then a shortcut is always a necessity when one doctor is unable to handle too many patients. Of course still have to look for similarity of symptoms whcih is almost impossible under cirscumstances of too many patients. Bell will cure cholera but not all cases need Bell. I agree in most of your stand about the use of modern and allopathic knowledge for homeopath. Thank.

Anna de Burgo wrote:Dear Mr Winston,
Fair enough. But is it not possible for the "simillimum" to be general to a
majority of the sufferers? If it is the same disease, with more or less
similar expression. Hahnemann wrote newspaper articles on Cholera, for
instance, wanting to make public the choice of remedies that he had seen
would help. How could he do this, and yet observe the individual minutiae of
each personal case? Further, he used remedies prophylactically a good deal
in epidemic situations, based on observations that people who had had
Belladonna (for some other complaint) tended not to catch the epidemic
disease. So, if there were no symptoms to go by, how could he take the
individual case?
But Hahnemann used the same remedy a lot of the time and got the results.
Oh? It didn't fail because of homeopaths all gutting one another?
OK, but you are saying here that 2 remedies only between them covered the
whole thing. This is not very individualised - surely if every patient had
to be taken purely as an individual, looking at mentals, etc - "treat the
person, not the disease" - you would have thousands of different remedies
involved here?

Warmly,
Anna

P.S: I note that in treatment of cholera Hahnemann recommended (both
prophylactically and retrospectively) pure undiluted spirit of camphor. Is
that homeopathy??

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In an epidemic, one looks for the genus epidemicus (spirit of the remedy)
and then seeks to find the remedy epidemicus, a remedy which may be
administered to the vast majority of sufferers without the necessity of
having to repertorize each case, a time consuming process which would result
in great suffereing and death in the throes of an epidemic. The allopaths,
bless their stony little hearts, have learned to think in terms of the genus
epidemicus in everything that they do and, that is their great strength as
well as their great weakness. Once again, homeopaths need to learn to think
outside of their narrow little box and to take that which is of value from
other systems. Hahnemann knew the value of being fast on his feet and
learning to administer the simillimum with a minimum of hand wringing when
the situation warranted it. Even though one may be able to differentiate
between patients enough to administer different remedies to different people
for the same epidemic disease, he still recognized the value of finding the
remedy epidemicus. This is not mysterious or worthy of great debate. It is
what is and, it is good science. You take what you need when you need it.

The truth is out there.

Allen

Dear Mr Winston,
I will do that, and get back to you on this interesting topic.
I am pleased to hear you say this, because I have always thought that the
ideas of "treat the patient, not the disease" and "treat for the mentals and
all physical disease will be cured" were facile and ludicrous. What you say
makes sense.
It sometimes seems as though Hahnemann's concept of what homeopathy is was
far wider than the popular view we have formed. What are your ideas on his
interest in magnet therapy, for instance, which he appeared to think of as
homeopathic?

Warmly,
Anna

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At 5:44 PM +0000 4/13/04, Anna de Burgo wrote:

[snip]
Just read the Organon.
The Kentian idea of using "mentals" has been terribly bastardized.
You CAN do it but, like Kent, you have to have a very excellent
understanding of "what is characteristic in the case" and couple that
with an full understanding of Materia Medica.
As usually happens, Kent's pupils didn't quite "get" Kent.
It's the old question of teaching from a place of "unconscious competence".
Hahnemann was an experimenter. I have not had any experience with
magnet therapy, so I have no views on the subject. Maybe there is
something to it, maybe not, and maybe it is in the middle.

JW