Minutus

Dear Colleagues

Regarding the recent exchanges on Minutus over the definition of Single Simple Remedy, I wrote to Sheilagh Creasy by fax this morning.

I gave a back ground of the debate - specifically the example of Irene's mixture of vaccines which had been potentise.

Then I specifically asked as follows:
QUOTE
"My view - based I believe on discussions we have had in your classes - is that if a remedy is made from any source, be it a mixture of extracts or mother tinctures, if it is then potentised and proved, it then becomes a simple single medicinal substance."

UNQUOTE

Sheilagh very kindly rang this afternoon to confirm that my stance was correct with emphasis on proving. That the key is proving - if it has been proved, then it can be employed.

I thought you would wish to know.

Regards

Soroush

Treat others as you would wish to be treated.

Well that's a relief about the provings ) But it tells us nothing really about how she understands the simple single substance.

If a substance, when proved, provides us with a materia medica, then it is there to be used, with sx similarity but it still doesn't explain a simple, single medicinal substance.
Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

Please read the qn to SC again!
Any potentised remedy can be regarded as Single Simple Substance.
Rgds
Soroush

________________________________

From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Joy Lucas
Sent: 22 July 2009 19:02
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Single Simple Remedy
Well that's a relief about the provings ) But it tells us nothing really about how she understands the simple single substance.

If a substance, when proved, provides us with a materia medica, then it is there to be used, with sx similarity but it still doesn't explain a simple, single medicinal substance.
Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

Good God, Soroush. This is just somebody's opinion. What are the facts?

To create a potency from a mixture, you first must employ a mixture of medicinal substances.

To employ a mixture of medicinal substances, you must use more than one single, simple medicinal substance.

Use your own intelligence. This is not a matter of authority but a matter of understanding. What could Hahnemann possibly have meant by "more than one single, simple medicinal substance" but more than one single, simple medicinal substance?

You have diverted a very plain and simple way to understand Hahnemann's intent in the quoted phrase with this undefined new terminology of a "single remedy". To make a "single remedy", one uses just one, so he said, single, simple substance; yet you persist in stating that he meant you could make a "single remedy" from more than one. That is your "single remedy", not Hahnemann's -- and it is completely at odds with everything he wrote about the matter that I've read, and, I'm willing to wager, with everything that you've read too. Certainly you've produced no rabbit out of the hat to show that Hahnemann's meaning was not as plain and commonsense as I've several times now demonstrated it to be: that in proscribing "more than one" at one time, his intent was not to except more than one as long as you're going to potentise them together!

Could anything be more obvious than this?

I'm really disappointed in the quality of this discussion, which appears in this instance to be unable to progress beyond repetition of the assertion of groundless, nonsensical novelties having no connection with reality. If there is any meaning to this claim of yours, then please, finally, produce it!

Cheers --

John
2009/7/23 >
________________________________

Dear John
I will say this one more time.
DEFINITION:
A Single Simple Medicinal (SSM) (homeopathic) substance = A potentised substance which has been proved - ie we know about it properties.
As we have mentioned before, there are many remedies whose sources are by no means SIMPLE!
By more that a SSM Hn means Combo remedies - ie the mixture of more than one POTENTISED remedies. Which we all agree is a No No as its properties are unknown.
=======
As a diverse point - by saying "use your intelligence" what is that you are implying?
By saying that you are disappointed by the quality of the discussion, does it mean it is because we do not agree with you?
Sheilagh Creasy is the BASTION of Hahnemannian Homeopathy - what she does not know about, it is not worth writing about.
Best wishes
Soroush
________________________________

From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 23 July 2009 01:11
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Single Simple Remedy
Good God, Soroush. This is just somebody's opinion. What are the facts?

To create a potency from a mixture, you first must employ a mixture of medicinal substances.

To employ a mixture of medicinal substances, you must use more than one single, simple medicinal substance.

Use your own intelligence. This is not a matter of authority but a matter of understanding. What could Hahnemann possibly have meant by "more than one single, simple medicinal substance" but more than one single, simple medicinal substance?

You have diverted a very plain and simple way to understand Hahnemann's intent in the quoted phrase with this undefined new terminology of a "single remedy". To make a "single remedy", one uses just one, so he said, single, simple substance; yet you persist in stating that he meant you could make a "single remedy" from more than one. That is your "single remedy", not Hahnemann's -- and it is completely at odds with everything he wrote about the matter that I've read, and, I'm willing to wager, with everything that you've read too. Certainly you've produced no rabbit out of the hat to show that Hahnemann's meaning was not as plain and commonsense as I've several times now demonstrated it to be: that in proscribing "more than one" at one time, his intent was not to except more than one as long as you're going to potentise them together!

Could anything be more obvious than this?

I'm really disappointed in the quality of this discussion, which appears in this instance to be unable to progress beyond repetition of the assertion of groundless, nonsensical novelties having no connection with reality. If there is any meaning to this claim of yours, then please, finally, produce it!

Cheers --

John
2009/7/23 >
________________________________
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"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."

— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)

I can't agree with the idea that what one leading homeopath says is
holy writ (except perhaps Hn himself...), I think it's inappropriate
to stop debate by saying if Sheilagh Creasy says something that is the
full stop, the alpha and omega.

I'm allergic to the idea that combining substances, potentising them
and proving them creates a simple substance. But it does seem that
Hahnemann did mean that, as long as the substances involved are in
"constant combining proportions", and on the understanding that this
doesn't apply to plants. He writes in the footnote to 273:

"Two substances, opposite to each other, united into neutral Natrum
and middle salts by chemical affinity in UNCHANGEABLE PROPORTIONS as
well as sulphuretted metals found in the earth and those produced BY
TECHNICAL ART
--
------------------------------------
Vera Resnick RCHom
Classical Homeopath
e-mail: vera.homeopath@gmail.com

Hi, Soroush --

If the best argument you can make for your contention is to repeat the contention several times over and suggest that Sheilagh or anybody else is a higher authority on Hahnemann's meaning than is Hahnemann himself, then I'm afraid that it doesn't serve to counter any of the arguments proving that the contention was incorrect.

Perhaps it would be worth your while to think about whether all or indeed any of those arguments are faulty.

The authoritative opinion of somebody on what constitutes Hahnemannian homoeopathy, be that somebody Hahnemann himself, is actually totally irrelevant to this twig of the conversation, which concerns not what is Hahnemannian homoeopathy but what Hahnemann clearly intended by such statements (said in various ways but all meaning exactly the same thing) as:

• (§ 273) "In no case under treatment is it necessary and therefore not permissible to administer to a patient more than one single, simple medicinal substance at one time";

• (§ 273) "It is inconceivable how the slightest doubt could exist as to whether it was more consistent with nature and more rational to prescribe a single, simple [159] medicine at one time in a disease or a mixture of several differently acting drugs";

• (§ 273) "It is absolutely not allowed in homoeopathy, the one true, simple and natural art of healing, to give the patient at one time two different medicinal substances";

• (§ 274) "[The true physician] will, mindful of the wise maxim that "it is wrong to attempt to employ complex means when simple means suffice", never think of giving as a remedy any but a single, simple medicinal substance; for these reasons also, because even though the simple medicines were thoroughly proved with respect to their peculiar effects on the unimpaired state of man, it is yet impossible to foresee how two and more medicinal substances might, when compounded, hinder and alter each other's action on the human body... and supposing the worst case to happen, that it was not chosen in strict conformity to similarity of symptoms, and therefore does no good, it is yet so far useful that it promotes our knowledge of therapeutic agents, because, by the new symptoms excited by it in such a case, those symptoms which this medicinal substance had already shown in experiments on the healthy human body are confirmed, an advantage that is lost by the employment of all compound remedies"; and

• (§ 124) "For these experiments every medicinal substance must be employed quite alone and perfectly pure, without the admixture of any foreign substance...".

If there is any reasonably rational way to counter all the evidence I've yet presented (or any of it) in favour of the commonsense interpretation of "one single, simple medicinal substance" (i.e. of substantial medicines, only one may be used!), or if there is any evidence for the interpretation that Hahnemann did not mean, by "more than one single, simple medicinal substance", more than one substance but only more than one insubstantial medicine, I'd be most interested to hear it!

But the dogma of what you and Sheilagh like to imagine it means grows no more substantial with repetition, and my arguments from as long ago as 8 July showing the falsity of the contention stand unrebutted.

It would be interesting even to see evidence that Hahnemann distinguished in some way between "complex" remedies (mixtures of potentised single substances) and other compound remedies (potencies of mixtures of single substances). So far I've seen no evidence to suggest that anybody had suggested, by the time of Hahnemann's 6th-edition revisions, that anybody had thought to employ complexes and thought them significantly different from other compound remedies. And so far I've seen no evidence to suggest that Hahnemann agreed that complexes, by some magic, overcame the requirement not to use more than one single, simple medicinal substance (even in creating a potency).

And when I ask you to use your intelligence, I am expressing my faith in your abilities, asking you to think through these things, knowing that you have the capability of arriving at some conclusions rather more rationally than through uncritical adoption of some unreasoned contention on the basis of authority.

My disappointment in the quality of this twig of the discussion concerns failure to apply any reasoning process rather than to simply trot out another repetition of the one groundless assertion simply because it appeals to you. This entire larger discussion concerned the nature of homoeopathy -- a fact -- rather than one's preferences; it would be rather silly to draw conclusions of fact from simple prejudice, wouldn't it. So how about we leave the prejudice, the preferences, the beliefs aside, look afresh at what is challenging us, and make an effort to rise to that challenge!

Cheers --

John
2009/7/23 >
________________________________
________________________________

Hi John,

How do you understand to the footnote on 273?

Regards,
Vera
--
------------------------------------
Vera Resnick RCHom
Classical Homeopath
e-mail: vera.homeopath@gmail.com

Hi, Vera --

The class of substances that Hahnemann referred to as being the result of "constant combining proportions" was that of molecular compounds, as in As2O3, Ca2CO3, NaCl, and so on, which combine their elements in fixed proportions (e.g. two arsenic atoms to every three oxygen ones in Ars. alb.). But the class of compounds was only the first of three classes that he specified in footnote 159, the second being elements (e.g. Sulph., Phos., Mag. met., Ferrum met., Bromium) and the third being plants, by which he demonstrated that he was not at all confining to the molecular compounds the term "single, simple substance".

Cheers!

John
2009/7/23 Vera Resnick >
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"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."

— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)

Hi again, Vera --

We crossed in the mail. I guess I've answered that question briefly here; but I broke it out into numerous examples in the original "Of substance" e-mail, if you can find that: 1:35 p.m. GMT 13 Jul 09.

Cheers!

John
2009/7/23 Vera Resnick >
--
------------------------------------------------------------------

"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."

— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)