The Book review on advanced learner’s guide to homoeopathic practice
Reviewer: Dr. D H Mercy, Department of Pathology, Assistant Professor, A M Shaikh Homoeopathic Medical College Belagavi, Karnataka
Author of the Book : Dr. V. Krishnamurthy
Preface:
The author started his career as a medical journalist. In New Delhi, he noticed that one homoeopath cured a case with single dose and another homoeopath cured a case using multiple remedies repeatedly. He was astonished as to why there were such variations in prescription. He entered into the scene of homoeopathy; he studied and practiced Homeopathy to fill the gap of knowledge of Homoeopaths.
Practical Homoeopathy
The author emphasizes several times that we need to be a true Homoeopath and not just a mere symptom coverer.
CASE:
T. Kent in Lesser Writings comments “Homoeopathy is slow to win its way because of defective use of books as well as because of defective books.” So, without actual cases, one cannot learn homoeopathic practice. There are no ‘principles or theories’ in Homoeopathy. It is purely & solely “Precision & Versatility”
How to make Homoeopathy more popular & acceptable?
There has been repeated hue & cry from homoeopaths against Governments and others for not giving due recognition to Homoeopathy. The remedy lies not outside but inside- among us Homoeopaths. If our practice quality is improved, everybody else will come forward to recognize as well as admire.
Books recommended by the author which are useful for daily practice
- Samuel Lilienthal’s HOMOEOPATHIC THERAPEUTICS
- FINAL REPERTORY OF ‘MIND’ SYMPTOMS AND ‘GENERAL’ SYMPTOMS compiled by Dr. V. Krishnamurthy
- T. Kent’s REPERTORY
- WILKINSON’s MATERIA MEDICA
- Boericke’s MATERIA MEDICA
- A. Yingling’s THE ACCOUCHER’s EMERGENCY MANUAL
- REPERTORY by Dr. Calvin B. Knerr
Random notes on practice
What is the remedy to be given in certain situations have been framed as questions in this chapter with answers reflected on page number 65.
Few examples are as follows:
- What is the remedy to be given (just one single dose) to a pregnant woman when the fetus stops growing? Secale (Calvin B Knerr)
- All the children born to a woman are syphilitic by birth. What remedy in one single dose would you give her to prevent syphilis in subsequent babies? Aurum-mur-nat (Calvin B Knerr)
- What is the chief or first remedy that you would think of for hemophilia? Crotalus horridus
- What is the remedy for jaundice after blood transfusion? Crotalus horridus etc
Scope & Limitations of Homoeo Softwares
Softwares are supposed to be updated as per observations made and change in the trends. But, the Homoeopathic software performers are not updating as per corrections suggested by the practitioners. Many alternates and synonyms are not considered at all. Thus the practitioners tend to use wrong rubrics and prescribe a similar remedy instead of the exact similimum.
Eg. ‘Diabetes’ can also be searched as ‘Glycosuria’/‘Sugar in urine’/ ‘Saccharine’.
‘Kidney’ as ‘Renal’/ ‘Nephritis’
Whither homoeopathy?
Author argues that Nirbhaya’s case would have been cured by Homoeopathy.
Cause of death: septicemia caused by trauma with hemorrhage
Rubrics: (taken from Homoeopathic Therapeutics by Dr. Samuel Lilienthal)
- Pyaemia, septicemia
-For hemorrhage
-For adynamia
Remedy: Crotalus horridus is the only remedy that covered all the three symptoms.
Homoeopaths should treat more such emergency cases and refer these two books:
- A. Yingling’s THE ACCOUCHER’s EMERGENCY MANUAL
- Samuel Lilienthal’s HOMOEOPATHIC THERAPEUTICS
- Case: Pregnant lady with upward uterus
Rubrics: Upward, uterus seems to go: Cimicifuga
Remedy: Cimicifuga 10M was given
Uterus came down to normal position and the lady had a normal delivery.
Mind Symptoms
Dr. Hahnemann quotes that without prescribing on mind symptoms cure is not possible. Uncommon, peculiar mental symptoms are to be taken into consideration.
We do not prescribe based on pathology but on the basis of uncommon symptoms which have no connection with the pathology.
Author’s recommendations of good books where correctly and elaborately minds symptoms are mentioned are:
- Samuel Lilienthal
- Calvin B Knerr
- Constantine Hering
- William Boericke
Author explains through 11 different cases how important it is to not just grasp the peculiar mentals from the patient but also to be able to interpret them.
An example of such case is:
A patient with weeping eczema wanted to take the treatment because his daughter was yet to be married and his son was yet to obtain a job. He didn’t want the treatment because he wanted to live long. His priority was to settle things in his life then he can die peacefully. (Here, the author wants us to have a look at the remedy, Petroleum from Boericke’s Materia Medica- “Feels that death is near, and must hurry to settle affairs.” This remedy approximately fits the patient’s remarks. Single dose of it cured him completely.
“Uncommon-Rare-Strange-Peculiar” symptoms are not what you have learnt but they are in reality, something different, which you have to learn by rote
Homeopathy is a system of medicine where the patient tells or indicates the remedy to us. The homoeopathic practitioner needs to grasp those symptoms or in better words, he must be able to interpret those uncommon/rare/strange/peculiar symptoms and search the same to get the similimum. Here in this chapter, the author illustrates seven cases that were cured by using the uncommon symptoms.
Use of Repertories
The author suggests that choosing a remedy merely based on the highest scoring remedies isn’t the actual method of repertorisation which many authors are teaching. The correct method is to arrange the valuable symptoms in order of their grade or importance. The marks are put for each of the symptoms covered based on the sequence of life threatening symptoms; next a broad general followed by general modality. Do not merely add up the scores but read the scores together. For example, do not add up the marks of the remedy (2+2+1=5) but it should be read as (221). Score of all the remedies should be read as so and the highest scoring remedies should be then studied in the Materia Medica and the final similimum should be thus decided for prescription.
Congestion, Rush of Blood, Hyperemia
Author tries to lift the clouds of mysterious obscurities enveloping homoeopathy. He tries to make us understand some terminologies most useful in selecting the remedy.
- Congestion: when two or more symptoms are in one and the same part of the body, instead of considering each symptom separately, you should take the rubric ‘Congestion’.
For e.g., a patient with hair fall, dandruff and headache; all three are in the same place i.e. the head. One has to search for Congestion in general in chapter Generalities of the Kent’s Repertory.
Plethora, Plethoric individuals, Precocity
Classification of the patients for making a prescription is not based on the name of the disease or pathology.
E.g. A person’s symptoms are disposed to appear periodically and in groups, which straightaway points Cuprum met. Whatever maybe the name of the disease the patient is suffering from, if this syndrome is present, Cuprum would cure the underlying pathology.
- Plethora: excess or abundant energy in the body.(Excessive fullness of blood). This also refers to those people who can do the amount of work ten people can do or others at their age cannot do. The term ‘tiredness’ is not in their vocabulary. The remedies for such individuals are: Acon, Aur-met, Bell, Calc-c, Lyc, Phos, Sep, Sulph, Arn, Bry, Chin, Ferr, Nat-mur, Nux v, Rhus, Thuja etc.
Checked discharges, Suppression of Secretions
This symptom is of immense help particularly in some chronic and grave acute cases. Suppression of hemorrhage or habitual depletion of any discharge makes the disease travel from less important organs to more important organs which is the direction of the disease. We cannot afford to ignore them.
Suppression of hemorrhage or abandoning habitual depletions rubric can be taken from Lilienthal (Pg. 1006) the remedies include: acon, bell, chin, fer, nux-v, puls, sulph, arn, aur, bry, calc, carb-v, graph, hyosc, lyc, natr-m, nitr.ac, phos, ran, rhus, seneg, sep, sil, spong, stram.
The author talks about the classification of disease as:
- Irritation
- Inflammation
- Degeneration
He gives the example of how Aconite should be more in the house of the patient rather than the clinic of doctor. Aconite is useful only in irritation stage rather than inflammation or degeneration stage where the mental state of a person is ‘Fear, anxiety, restlessness’.
Single Dose Cure for the present day Epidemics Dengue and EBOLA
- Author suggests that in the epidemics, it is generally one remedy that is indicated for all cases. Not only dengue-affected persons but also those affected by any other type of fever prevalent today have been cured by one single dose of Bryonia-200.
- Three Ebola- infected patients from abroad got complete cure within an hour by taking one single dose of the remedy Lachesis-10,000.
Wonders of Homoeopathic medicines:
The following diseases can be cured completely and permanently with one single pill of homoeopathic remedy viz., Crotalus horridus-10M
Hepatitis B, Infective Hepatitis, Jaundice after blood transfusion, Septicemia, Hemophilia, uncomplicated cases of Leukemia.
Reference:
- V Krishnamurthy, Advanced Learner’s Guide to Homoeopathy Practice
- Lilienthal Samuel, Homoeopathic Therapeutics
- Knerr B Calvin, Repertory
Other books by author:
- Complete Guide to Bach Remedies Practice (5 parts)
- An extremely Thorough, Exhaustive and Accurate Guide to Homoeopathic Practice
- Advanced Homoeo Practice
