Our little RAT remedy name problem, again = Blessed be zoological detail
Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 11:57 pm
= was sub-thread to "Mouse proving ?"
question./
Dear Melanie,
I am afraid it seems you did not get my point. You just posted info
from others and did a typo by dropping one syllable; that can be
corrected quickly and politely without much noise, and that is then
all there ever is to be done about it. So no-one has/had any intention
to scold you. ( And, by the way, there was no much chance to get
confused from your word, even if there had not been any context to go
by : there does not exist any word "sor" or "soris" in latin to get in
the way. Only other intended meaning could perhaps have been "Sanguis
sororis" , surely an interesting remedy, or "Sanguis
solis" , a bit vague, but nevertheless very poetic
... ) You were the only one to reply to that request for a
while and provided some interesting inf., good thing for the list and
rest relaxed. -
Mr Shah et al., acc. to your supplementing inf., did a
proving ( hopefully well ) of an animal stuff that I agree looks
interesting. He most probably gave the right species name, there was
no chance to make any mistake with the latin, so no-one is going to
blame him either for anything to do with this issue. Both our posts
show we agree that it is to be preferred, for the sake of clarity and
in agreement with long homoeop. and earlier pharmac. tradition, to
indicate in every remedy name when it is taken from a specific body
part or liquid of an organism rather than the whole. No disagreement
here either, and this improvement should be made here and in similar
cases and become established practice in
general.
The big BUT is to come now. You write ( Mrs., I think, the one with
the dolphin, if I recall correctly ? ) Herrick "did same remedy
proving". Please tell us, did she a) get the already made hom. rem.
from the Indian team and then did a proving herself, or b) get the
idea and went hunting for another rat in the Bronx or wherever herself
etc.? - The point is, it would have been another species, most likely.
And do you per chance know if they ( either, whoever ) took blood from
a living or dead animal ? I bet that matters also.
/
And now the reason why I got angry in my previous post ( which may
have shocked you a bit, but was exclusively aimed at you-know-now-whom
): They ( new team ) messed up the latin and zoology in one
ill-adviced strike. I was sure this became apparent in my last post,
but it seems it did not. " Sanguis soricis - Blood of the Rat", you
write again. And I assure you a second time: that ain't not so. I
offer you hereby a bet in the public of this honourable forum ( =
latin for "market place", with bystanders and all ), say "The complete
writings
of Samuel H." in hardback edition, bound in vegetable leather, with
golden decor. and everything. Take it ? ( I mean the winner, either
side, would become richer, and people watching us, right ? ) - I knew
it when I read it, but I looked up two large Latin lg. dict.s, online
and old book. And I checked again, to be absolutely sure, some sites
and esp. books off the zool. shelf of the local Univ. libr..It is as
much of a fact as there could be: "sorex", from which the genitive "of
the/a ..." is derived, is not and was never and will never be the word
to be used for the creature known as "rat" in English. And that's it.
I understand there may be some slang or colloquial use or something,
for I spotted there were some rat poison vendors online that used the
word, whoever may whenever have started
to abuse it in such way for whatever reason; but even in several
"proper" English dictionaries that was not given as a correct meaning.
And then, you are not supposed to base your science terms on any local
slang, are you ? In short, they fabricated a pseudo-latin rem name.
Sanguis is
right. Sorex,
-icis means a shrew. I made it clear that a
shrew is an animal of its own merit, and yourself you are as close or
far in taxonomic distance from the rats as the poor little shrew is.
And it had its latin name for centuries, and there never was any
debate on this. And if per chance some laudable homoeopath is going to
do a proving of a drop of shrew blood in some ten years' time, how is
he supposed to baptize it ? "Sanguis shrew, but this time really" ?
That's what upset me. One look into a good textbook and you get it
right, but no, hom.s are so above things they need not ask an expert,
better do-it-yourself ? If you have ever looked into a zool. journal,
they are spending so much ink on debating naming issues and who in the
18th, 19th, 20th cent. referred to what with which, sorting out past
confusions costs so much effort, and today even hom.p.s discuss which
spider and plant stuff may be the right one to go with such and such
proving text etc, if there isn't proper
care in all steps of obtaining the database we have to rely on, then
there will be an ever-increasing mess.It is a matter of principle, not
of being "pedantic" versus, mmh, "free and openminded", but
precision. Sloppy input, poor results; eternal
law.
And my personal issue involved is always also showing proper respect
to those dear creatures that are, after all, supposed to provide us
with all sorts of healing stuff from out their bodies, and for free of
course. So apart from conservation-mindedness, which on the long run
would be in the best interest of humans in general and healers in
particular anyway ( half an Amazone forest lost, half a materia medica
gone forever ), they ought to pay respect in all regards,
acknowledging identities included
!
Do you ( meaning all, not Melanie ) have an idea how many rodents and
similars there are ? Just some critter, one like the other ? There are
a full 1700 species, Man, makes as many lacs, sanguines etc for as
many troubled souls, pains, delusions and delusion nuances and trouble
varieties... The one family Muridae ("Mouselikes"), i.e."true mice" in
the taxon. sense, comprising Old World mice and rats, has ca. 450
species. The New-World-Mouselikes ( sister-group to hamsters etc. )
are an additional 340 species. The one genus "Microtus", voles,
looking very much like "true mice", from
yet a different family, has 45 species alone, e.g. all over Europe and
16 in N.Am.. The gerbil-likes family has another 70 species in Asia
and Africa and so on ... The true rats, genus rattus, are 55 species,
of which two were spread by humans worldwide, but there are even true
wild rats in Australia ( long before humans ). Sure they are all
interesting and different, both in nature and in provings, don't you
think so ? And there are outstanding beauties among the mouse-shapeds
( like some striped African ones ), good for beauty trouble ? All
differ in biochemistry and behaviour, in "spirit" etc., hence in
potential rem symptoms. We are only beginning with discovering.
-
And
the shrews, again, they are Insectivores, no rodents at all, cousins
of hedgehogs. Family soricidae has 268 species, lacs, sanguines etc.;
Genus sorex ( the "TRUE" one ) alone with 64 species in Eurasia
and N.America, there are the ornate shrew, and the duskey, pacific,
smoky, vagrant and other shrews, Sorex minutus ( in earnest) and s.
minutissimus ( the "lesser" and the "least", no joking ), and then
megasorex, microsorex, soriculus, blarinella, cryptotis ("hidden ear")
etc etc.
Summary: Taxon. distance between house rat and brown rat : like wolf
and coyote. House mouse and H.rat: like wolf and fox, or gorilla and
chimpanzee. Rat and shrew, alias pseudo-sorex and sorex, like we
humans and either dolphin, cat, deer or elephant. Please respect the
shrew, I love him/her/it ( had a close encounter while sleeping under
the stars in the spanish Sierra Nevada mountains, aged 17, swore
eternal friendship, hence this effort ) !
Regards,
Panthera
--- In minutus@y..., USAHomeopath@a... wrote:
proving
the
just like
blood or
question./
Dear Melanie,
I am afraid it seems you did not get my point. You just posted info
from others and did a typo by dropping one syllable; that can be
corrected quickly and politely without much noise, and that is then
all there ever is to be done about it. So no-one has/had any intention
to scold you. ( And, by the way, there was no much chance to get
confused from your word, even if there had not been any context to go
by : there does not exist any word "sor" or "soris" in latin to get in
the way. Only other intended meaning could perhaps have been "Sanguis
sororis" , surely an interesting remedy, or "Sanguis
solis" , a bit vague, but nevertheless very poetic
... ) You were the only one to reply to that request for a
while and provided some interesting inf., good thing for the list and
rest relaxed. -
Mr Shah et al., acc. to your supplementing inf., did a
proving ( hopefully well ) of an animal stuff that I agree looks
interesting. He most probably gave the right species name, there was
no chance to make any mistake with the latin, so no-one is going to
blame him either for anything to do with this issue. Both our posts
show we agree that it is to be preferred, for the sake of clarity and
in agreement with long homoeop. and earlier pharmac. tradition, to
indicate in every remedy name when it is taken from a specific body
part or liquid of an organism rather than the whole. No disagreement
here either, and this improvement should be made here and in similar
cases and become established practice in
general.
The big BUT is to come now. You write ( Mrs., I think, the one with
the dolphin, if I recall correctly ? ) Herrick "did same remedy
proving". Please tell us, did she a) get the already made hom. rem.
from the Indian team and then did a proving herself, or b) get the
idea and went hunting for another rat in the Bronx or wherever herself
etc.? - The point is, it would have been another species, most likely.
And do you per chance know if they ( either, whoever ) took blood from
a living or dead animal ? I bet that matters also.
/
And now the reason why I got angry in my previous post ( which may
have shocked you a bit, but was exclusively aimed at you-know-now-whom
): They ( new team ) messed up the latin and zoology in one
ill-adviced strike. I was sure this became apparent in my last post,
but it seems it did not. " Sanguis soricis - Blood of the Rat", you
write again. And I assure you a second time: that ain't not so. I
offer you hereby a bet in the public of this honourable forum ( =
latin for "market place", with bystanders and all ), say "The complete
writings
of Samuel H." in hardback edition, bound in vegetable leather, with
golden decor. and everything. Take it ? ( I mean the winner, either
side, would become richer, and people watching us, right ? ) - I knew
it when I read it, but I looked up two large Latin lg. dict.s, online
and old book. And I checked again, to be absolutely sure, some sites
and esp. books off the zool. shelf of the local Univ. libr..It is as
much of a fact as there could be: "sorex", from which the genitive "of
the/a ..." is derived, is not and was never and will never be the word
to be used for the creature known as "rat" in English. And that's it.
I understand there may be some slang or colloquial use or something,
for I spotted there were some rat poison vendors online that used the
word, whoever may whenever have started
to abuse it in such way for whatever reason; but even in several
"proper" English dictionaries that was not given as a correct meaning.
And then, you are not supposed to base your science terms on any local
slang, are you ? In short, they fabricated a pseudo-latin rem name.
Sanguis is
right. Sorex,
-icis means a shrew. I made it clear that a
shrew is an animal of its own merit, and yourself you are as close or
far in taxonomic distance from the rats as the poor little shrew is.
And it had its latin name for centuries, and there never was any
debate on this. And if per chance some laudable homoeopath is going to
do a proving of a drop of shrew blood in some ten years' time, how is
he supposed to baptize it ? "Sanguis shrew, but this time really" ?
That's what upset me. One look into a good textbook and you get it
right, but no, hom.s are so above things they need not ask an expert,
better do-it-yourself ? If you have ever looked into a zool. journal,
they are spending so much ink on debating naming issues and who in the
18th, 19th, 20th cent. referred to what with which, sorting out past
confusions costs so much effort, and today even hom.p.s discuss which
spider and plant stuff may be the right one to go with such and such
proving text etc, if there isn't proper
care in all steps of obtaining the database we have to rely on, then
there will be an ever-increasing mess.It is a matter of principle, not
of being "pedantic" versus, mmh, "free and openminded", but
precision. Sloppy input, poor results; eternal
law.
And my personal issue involved is always also showing proper respect
to those dear creatures that are, after all, supposed to provide us
with all sorts of healing stuff from out their bodies, and for free of
course. So apart from conservation-mindedness, which on the long run
would be in the best interest of humans in general and healers in
particular anyway ( half an Amazone forest lost, half a materia medica
gone forever ), they ought to pay respect in all regards,
acknowledging identities included
!
Do you ( meaning all, not Melanie ) have an idea how many rodents and
similars there are ? Just some critter, one like the other ? There are
a full 1700 species, Man, makes as many lacs, sanguines etc for as
many troubled souls, pains, delusions and delusion nuances and trouble
varieties... The one family Muridae ("Mouselikes"), i.e."true mice" in
the taxon. sense, comprising Old World mice and rats, has ca. 450
species. The New-World-Mouselikes ( sister-group to hamsters etc. )
are an additional 340 species. The one genus "Microtus", voles,
looking very much like "true mice", from
yet a different family, has 45 species alone, e.g. all over Europe and
16 in N.Am.. The gerbil-likes family has another 70 species in Asia
and Africa and so on ... The true rats, genus rattus, are 55 species,
of which two were spread by humans worldwide, but there are even true
wild rats in Australia ( long before humans ). Sure they are all
interesting and different, both in nature and in provings, don't you
think so ? And there are outstanding beauties among the mouse-shapeds
( like some striped African ones ), good for beauty trouble ? All
differ in biochemistry and behaviour, in "spirit" etc., hence in
potential rem symptoms. We are only beginning with discovering.
-
And
the shrews, again, they are Insectivores, no rodents at all, cousins
of hedgehogs. Family soricidae has 268 species, lacs, sanguines etc.;
Genus sorex ( the "TRUE" one ) alone with 64 species in Eurasia
and N.America, there are the ornate shrew, and the duskey, pacific,
smoky, vagrant and other shrews, Sorex minutus ( in earnest) and s.
minutissimus ( the "lesser" and the "least", no joking ), and then
megasorex, microsorex, soriculus, blarinella, cryptotis ("hidden ear")
etc etc.
Summary: Taxon. distance between house rat and brown rat : like wolf
and coyote. House mouse and H.rat: like wolf and fox, or gorilla and
chimpanzee. Rat and shrew, alias pseudo-sorex and sorex, like we
humans and either dolphin, cat, deer or elephant. Please respect the
shrew, I love him/her/it ( had a close encounter while sleeping under
the stars in the spanish Sierra Nevada mountains, aged 17, swore
eternal friendship, hence this effort ) !
Regards,
Panthera
--- In minutus@y..., USAHomeopath@a... wrote:
proving
the
just like
blood or