Minutus

George wrote:

disease.

When you talk about disease, what do you mean by that?
Someone's personal disease, or the symptoms of a disease in a large group op
people, the Genus Epidemicus approach?
When you prescribe for the personal disease, it might as well be a
constitutional remedy.
What does that mean? The individual Symptoms are expressed as a Unity.
I think a better definition would be that:
One should prescribe on the basis of the totality of symptoms IN disease.

would

I think you're mixing up Eizayaga's 'Constitutional' (Innate) and his
'Fundamental' layer.
The Fundamental layer corresponds with Hahnemannn's/ Kent's totality
symptompicture as a Unified whole.
When someone gets an stronger non-similar disease, it will supress the
constitutional expression, and you have to prescribe for that first.

.deeply rooted and it has become independent and self-maintaining, merely
supporting the "constitution" is likely to be insufficient and ineffectual,
for the same reason that dietary changes, vitamins and herbs may be
ineffectual.

This is only true when the constitutional symptom expression is repressed by
the 'local' disease.
This is more domain of the disease, but only when the individual
constitutional expression has has gone to the background.
Here one has to prescribe on the'local' peculiarities first.
But don't forge this is complementairy treatment, constitutional treatment
is the core for true cure.

that

I share this with you, when you use characteristics you alway must bring
them in connection with the chief complaint.
But on the otherhand don't under estamate what an precise constitutional
remedy is capable of.
Look what kind of advanced pathology(Even Cancer of Reckeweg's Neoplasm
fase) Dr. Vijayakar is curing this way.
Kind regards, Piet

Hi George and Piet,

I have thought that in *part* this debate happens because of the "fuzzy"
nature or use of the term "constitutional", and in *part* because different
diseases occupy and stem from different "parts" of the person, and in part
because there can be different goals to treatment.

Below:

on 8/16/03 5:50 AM, Piet Guijt at piet@guijt.myweb.nl wrote:
One part of analysis that I was taught to use, is to "follow the case".
First, of course, you *take* the whole case -- get a good sense of the
person's personality, loves/hates, desires/aversions, special sensitivities
and etc., as well as a detailed description of the "disease" part, if there
is a specific disease or condition.

I was taught (and so have the bias) to look first for the "constitutional"
remedy, by which I mean *not* the Eizayagan "genetic" make-up, but rather
the "largest totality that I can see" definition.

After taking the full case, you look to see where you most compelling
information lies. In some cases the "constitutional" case will be rich and
clearly drawn, but the description of the "disease" won't be -- "It hurts.
I dunno..." No clear modalities etc. In that case you would look first for
a "constitutional" remedy (and there wouldn't be much basis for choosing a
"disease-oriented" remedy anyway).
In other cases the clarity and detail will be in symptoms of the
straightforward, named or localized disease, but the "constitutional" case
is not so compelling. (I think this would be mostly in the situation Piet
talks of, when the dissimilar disease has displaced the former
("constitutiona") one.)
In that case, I would look to see whether one remedy covers both the
specific disease and also what little can be seen of the underlying
"constitution", but would be happy to find a remedy that simply covers the
disease well.

George, how do you treat a case where the disease itself is not well drawn?
How would you proceed if there are plenty of dreams, loves hates
("constitutional" stuff), but only general symptoms otherwise?
Here's an analogy I like to use (tho only to myself, so far! ).
A remedy "for the disease" is like addressing a specific problem: E.g.,
"Honey I know you don't like it when your math teacher picks his nose...),
and helping the person problem-solve regarding that specific issue.
"Constitutional" is where you help the person become better at handling
issues in general.

I think that in this analogy it's clear that sometimes one approach is
needed, and sometimes the other, but we get back to the old "teach a man to
fish" thing... If all you focus on is specific issues, general learning
will be a lot slower, and more hit-or-miss.

Plus, if all you do is treat the specific disease, then only in a few cases
will you be able to leave the person *stronger* than they were before the
disease (i.e., only in those cases where, in Eizayaga's framework, the
"lesional" and "fundamental" layers happen to have been the same, as does
sometimes happen). But maybe I am misunderstanding what you mean by
"disease"...

Cheers,
Shannon

Hi Piet,

Can you explain what you mean?

on 8/16/03 5:50 AM, Piet Guijt at piet@guijt.myweb.nl wrote:
Thanks!
Shannon

Shannon wrote:
Hi Shannon,

Thanks for your comments on George's and my reply, it was very clear and
correct.

For a constitutional symptom expression de body uses the constitution, at
least a significant part of it.
The constitution has a lot of characteristics, that may be involved in the
disease as the underlying cause and some of them will be more exaggerated
by the expression of the disease and be troublesome for the patient.
The first group are the characteristics, the second are the symptoms of the
patient.
When we make a prescription, it must be based on the symptoms first, but to
put them in some perspective, we can use some characteristics for
confirmation, because we know there is a relation. (Symptoms don't fall out
of the sky, because it is the patient that is ill).

But the other way around does not work, because not all the characteristics
of a person have to relevant, and will lead only to the prescription of a
polychrest based on the rough personality and body 'type' of the person.
This is what a lot of people falsely think constitutional prescribing
(Kentian they say) is about.

So when someone comes to be cured, the first question should be what his
complaints are, especially his chief complaint and what this means for him.
The rest of the symptoms and characteristic must be connected, form a
logical picture with this, but when they don't, they can't be used right now
for the selection of the correct remedy.

I hope this makes my statement a little bit more clear,

Kind regards, Piet