Miasm theory
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2003 6:34 pm
Dear all
here are some thoughts on miasms.
How Hahnemann reached his conclusions: To understand the theory of miasms it would be good to first see how Hahnemann arrived at his conclusions. Dr. hahnenamm had proved quite a few remedies but in chronic diseases (And sometimes acute) even though he would give the seemingly indicated remedy the patient would come back much improved in the beginning but later he would return and say the trouble is back and the same medicine would not work any more. This led him to the conclusion that there must be something that is preventing the seemingly indicated remedy to work. This eventually led him to the thery of miasms.
In his time he identified three diseases that could become internalised and obstruct recovery. These he termed psora, syphillis and sycosis. They could either be there alone or in combination, such as psora-syphillis, psora sycosis etc.
Psoric diseases are usually functional diseases, that means diseases that do not have gross pathology. Sycotic diseases are proliferative diseases and syphillitic diseases are destructive lesions. Mentally the psoric is practical, the sycotic absolutely egoistic and the syphilitic humble and apologetic.
Others observed similar conditions caused by other substances and diseases, thus vaccinosis, tuberculosis (also called psora syphillis, or pseudo psora), cancer (type A personality, or a combination of all three miasms) etc were added to Hahnemann's list.
Dr. hahnemann gave an outline of how to tackle these miasms whether they occur alone or in combination. His main tools against these miasms were sulhur for psora, thuja and nit acid for sycosis and merc. for syphillis. After Hahnemann other doctors added other remedies thus Psor was found better suited as an anti psoric for chilly patients, and medhorrhinum was found better in some sycotic cases. Tuberculinum was found to be a good remedy for conditions that come in people having a family history of TB. Thuja was used for vaccinosis and Carc. where a family history of cancer could be found. As time went by Hahnemann himself increased the list of anti-psoric remeies and he finally had a large number of remedies for this condition.
Practical Uses of miasms: What has been taught regarding miasms is when the indiated remedy fails attack the miasm. Now this is a matter for discussion. What is the indicated remedy? I don't want to get into controversy but many times what one doctor calls indicated prescription is absolutely ridiculous prescription to another doctor. Before calling a prescription indicated certain things have to be borne in mind.
The first thing to be kept in mind is the depth of the disease and the depth of the medicine should match. Tubercular meningitis presents symptoms exactly like Belladona but belladona will not cure it and it has nothing to do with miasms. Chronic amoebic colitis presents symptoms exactly like Nux-v but nux can hardly ever cure this condition completely. Bell may cure an attack of migraine but it does not cure the disease permanently.n So these medicines were actually not indicated even though they semed indicated, and miasms have nothing to do with their not curing.
Another problem is that of the present trend of interpreting symptoms. Unfortunately many of the famous present day Homoeopaths are causing more confusion to Homoeopathy than they are doing good. The present day system of interpreting symptoms, dreams and so forth is a very dangerous practice, because twenty people can interpret a so called dream in twenty ways and come to twenty different conclusions and then basing the whole prescription on that wrong interpretation of a so called dream is a bit ridiculous.
As a rule we have to beleieve that when a prescription fails it was the wrong prescription. Now even though this is the rule there are exceptions to this rule and that is where miasms come in.
Let me give a few examples: No matter how well indicated your asthma remedy may be it rarely cures permanently unless it is anti sycotic. Of course you can palliate patients for long periods (even years) with medicines but the disease keeps recurring unless you give something deep acting and anti sycotic and sometimes anti psoric. (Like Thuja, Nat-s, lyco etc).
YOu can rarely cure hay fever permanently unless you give something anti-psoric such as psorinum.
YOu can cure chronic ottorhhoea without giving anti-psoric remedies but sometimes you can not cure unless you give a dose of Psor. and that is even when Psor. does not seem to be indicated
Some times Ring worm refuses to get cured unless a dose of tuberculinum is given and that is when the patient no-where looks like tuberculinum. The tuberculnum may itself not do anything but the Nat-m or tellurium that was not doing anything before the tuberculinum suddenly starts acting.
Again in acute diseases miasms have a role to play. Suppose you get a case of a simple cough. As a rule acute diseases tend to get cured very easily. But you give the so called indicated remedy and nothing happens, and you change your remedy and again nothing happens and this goes on for a few days. Then one day you get fed up and take a full case and prescribe for the patient as though he was sufferring from a chronic disease and not an acute disease and the acute condition simply goes away. Showing that it was not a simple cough, but there was something deeper to it.
Somebody had said how can you prescribe something not indicated and expect it to work where the indicated remedy did not work. As I said earlier what is indicated and not indicated is a matter of opinion. Disease may be compared to an ice-berg we see part of it and precribe on that. But sometimes the part that we do not see is quite different than the part that we see and then we have to guess what lies under. But this is not blind guessing. There are usually at least a few symptoms that guide us to the deeper acting remedy, if nothing at least the suggestion of a family history may be there. So by giving the miasmatic remedy we are not giving the unindicated remedy, but rather we are prescribing for the unseen part of the ice-berg, with the hope that once we get rid of that the visible part will either go away or be much easier to get rid of.
Finally there is something off topic. Homoeopathy is not as tough as some people have made it to look. There are many ways of arriving at acure and using miasms is one method. Can you do without this knowledge- I have to admit yes. Many people do pretty good job of curing even though they give two hoots about miasms. Some people say there is only one remedy that will work. Even though this statement is true, but it is not entirely true. There is one remedy that will cure in the shortest time but even those who know hardly anything about homoeopathy mnage to zig-zag their way to a cure. If you read cases by burnett, you will understand what I mean. I don't know if you could call his prescriptions indicated remedies at least they hardly seemed so to me but he did a pretty good job of curing. There are many ways pf prescribing prescribing on miasms is one way, on pathology another, on totality of symptoms another, purely on mental symptoms another, on rare and peculiar symptoms another, keynote prescribing another, isopathy another, on cause another, Oraganotherapy another abrivital another and so on. All these are homoeopathic prescriptions, all can cure, some are better methods than others but if one method of arriving at a medicine fails don't hesitate to use another. Some people have tried to make classical Homoepathy sound as if it is a rigid set of rules. It is not true, within the law there is a lot of flexibility and you can use everything to your benefit.
I hope I have not given you all a headache
best regards
Elham
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
here are some thoughts on miasms.
How Hahnemann reached his conclusions: To understand the theory of miasms it would be good to first see how Hahnemann arrived at his conclusions. Dr. hahnenamm had proved quite a few remedies but in chronic diseases (And sometimes acute) even though he would give the seemingly indicated remedy the patient would come back much improved in the beginning but later he would return and say the trouble is back and the same medicine would not work any more. This led him to the conclusion that there must be something that is preventing the seemingly indicated remedy to work. This eventually led him to the thery of miasms.
In his time he identified three diseases that could become internalised and obstruct recovery. These he termed psora, syphillis and sycosis. They could either be there alone or in combination, such as psora-syphillis, psora sycosis etc.
Psoric diseases are usually functional diseases, that means diseases that do not have gross pathology. Sycotic diseases are proliferative diseases and syphillitic diseases are destructive lesions. Mentally the psoric is practical, the sycotic absolutely egoistic and the syphilitic humble and apologetic.
Others observed similar conditions caused by other substances and diseases, thus vaccinosis, tuberculosis (also called psora syphillis, or pseudo psora), cancer (type A personality, or a combination of all three miasms) etc were added to Hahnemann's list.
Dr. hahnemann gave an outline of how to tackle these miasms whether they occur alone or in combination. His main tools against these miasms were sulhur for psora, thuja and nit acid for sycosis and merc. for syphillis. After Hahnemann other doctors added other remedies thus Psor was found better suited as an anti psoric for chilly patients, and medhorrhinum was found better in some sycotic cases. Tuberculinum was found to be a good remedy for conditions that come in people having a family history of TB. Thuja was used for vaccinosis and Carc. where a family history of cancer could be found. As time went by Hahnemann himself increased the list of anti-psoric remeies and he finally had a large number of remedies for this condition.
Practical Uses of miasms: What has been taught regarding miasms is when the indiated remedy fails attack the miasm. Now this is a matter for discussion. What is the indicated remedy? I don't want to get into controversy but many times what one doctor calls indicated prescription is absolutely ridiculous prescription to another doctor. Before calling a prescription indicated certain things have to be borne in mind.
The first thing to be kept in mind is the depth of the disease and the depth of the medicine should match. Tubercular meningitis presents symptoms exactly like Belladona but belladona will not cure it and it has nothing to do with miasms. Chronic amoebic colitis presents symptoms exactly like Nux-v but nux can hardly ever cure this condition completely. Bell may cure an attack of migraine but it does not cure the disease permanently.n So these medicines were actually not indicated even though they semed indicated, and miasms have nothing to do with their not curing.
Another problem is that of the present trend of interpreting symptoms. Unfortunately many of the famous present day Homoeopaths are causing more confusion to Homoeopathy than they are doing good. The present day system of interpreting symptoms, dreams and so forth is a very dangerous practice, because twenty people can interpret a so called dream in twenty ways and come to twenty different conclusions and then basing the whole prescription on that wrong interpretation of a so called dream is a bit ridiculous.
As a rule we have to beleieve that when a prescription fails it was the wrong prescription. Now even though this is the rule there are exceptions to this rule and that is where miasms come in.
Let me give a few examples: No matter how well indicated your asthma remedy may be it rarely cures permanently unless it is anti sycotic. Of course you can palliate patients for long periods (even years) with medicines but the disease keeps recurring unless you give something deep acting and anti sycotic and sometimes anti psoric. (Like Thuja, Nat-s, lyco etc).
YOu can rarely cure hay fever permanently unless you give something anti-psoric such as psorinum.
YOu can cure chronic ottorhhoea without giving anti-psoric remedies but sometimes you can not cure unless you give a dose of Psor. and that is even when Psor. does not seem to be indicated
Some times Ring worm refuses to get cured unless a dose of tuberculinum is given and that is when the patient no-where looks like tuberculinum. The tuberculnum may itself not do anything but the Nat-m or tellurium that was not doing anything before the tuberculinum suddenly starts acting.
Again in acute diseases miasms have a role to play. Suppose you get a case of a simple cough. As a rule acute diseases tend to get cured very easily. But you give the so called indicated remedy and nothing happens, and you change your remedy and again nothing happens and this goes on for a few days. Then one day you get fed up and take a full case and prescribe for the patient as though he was sufferring from a chronic disease and not an acute disease and the acute condition simply goes away. Showing that it was not a simple cough, but there was something deeper to it.
Somebody had said how can you prescribe something not indicated and expect it to work where the indicated remedy did not work. As I said earlier what is indicated and not indicated is a matter of opinion. Disease may be compared to an ice-berg we see part of it and precribe on that. But sometimes the part that we do not see is quite different than the part that we see and then we have to guess what lies under. But this is not blind guessing. There are usually at least a few symptoms that guide us to the deeper acting remedy, if nothing at least the suggestion of a family history may be there. So by giving the miasmatic remedy we are not giving the unindicated remedy, but rather we are prescribing for the unseen part of the ice-berg, with the hope that once we get rid of that the visible part will either go away or be much easier to get rid of.
Finally there is something off topic. Homoeopathy is not as tough as some people have made it to look. There are many ways of arriving at acure and using miasms is one method. Can you do without this knowledge- I have to admit yes. Many people do pretty good job of curing even though they give two hoots about miasms. Some people say there is only one remedy that will work. Even though this statement is true, but it is not entirely true. There is one remedy that will cure in the shortest time but even those who know hardly anything about homoeopathy mnage to zig-zag their way to a cure. If you read cases by burnett, you will understand what I mean. I don't know if you could call his prescriptions indicated remedies at least they hardly seemed so to me but he did a pretty good job of curing. There are many ways pf prescribing prescribing on miasms is one way, on pathology another, on totality of symptoms another, purely on mental symptoms another, on rare and peculiar symptoms another, keynote prescribing another, isopathy another, on cause another, Oraganotherapy another abrivital another and so on. All these are homoeopathic prescriptions, all can cure, some are better methods than others but if one method of arriving at a medicine fails don't hesitate to use another. Some people have tried to make classical Homoepathy sound as if it is a rigid set of rules. It is not true, within the law there is a lot of flexibility and you can use everything to your benefit.
I hope I have not given you all a headache
best regards
Elham
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]