Firstly, this brief overview is not for people of the Sankaran or Scholten school of thought. This website is solely for the real practitioners of homoeopathic medicine as defined by Samuel Hahnemann and enlarged upon over his lifetime in his writings. The repertorial work here is based on the 125 remedies contained within the 1846 edition of the Therapeutic Pocket Book, authored by Boenninghausen and approved by Hahnemann. The methodology can be adapted to use with any Repertory, however the accuracy of the Repertory you choose must be checked against the Materia Medica, For the honest and accurately observing practitioner, this will exclude most, if not ALL modern Repertories due to the inherent, uncorrected and false entries placed within its pages. More is not always better where health is concerned.
It is not within the scope of this article to discuss the merits or pitfalls of only having 125 medicines to work with. Suffice it to say that for those that use the Therapeutic Pocket Book, it is a very rare occasion that a case necessitates the use of a medicine outside of its contained medicines for evaluation.
It is also not in the remit of these brief notes to explain the Organon directives for case taking. For those wishing to discuss the whole methodology, we offer training courses over one or two days in the UK for groups of 10 or more.
Case example:
16 year old female, not yet started regular menses. Had intermittent flow of an hours duration perhaps 3 times in 2 years, presented in the clinic with a cough. No obvious causation. Spontaneous cough, would come and go. Patient was under stress with high volume schoolwork.
Patient came home from school yesterday after a concert. Mother observed child was glassy eyed, irritable, and mild redness of throat. Gave a dose of Belladonna. No change. I was consulted later that evening via SKYPE for advice.
SX presented. Cough. Bitter taste. A white coated tongue. Irritable mood. Cough increased when lying down. The patient reported in passing that she had a brown vaginal discharge for the last 2 weeks.
These are Symptoms. What is the importance of each?
Cough. as a symptom, complete rubric, in the T.P.B. has 121 medicines listed.
Bitter taste has 123 medicines listed.
Aggravated from lying down has 124 medicines listed.
Irritability has 62 medicines listed.
Tongue coated has 85 medicines listed.
If you look at each of the rubrics individually, and then collectively, it does not help. At least not on the information collected from observation, and from the patient. Its pretty useless as far as a prescribing case goes. Its a Cough. The modalities do not differentiate enough to choose a medicine. There are 50 remedies in the Materia Medica that cover the case.
Now Hahnemann in the Organon:
§ 6 Fifth Edition
“The unprejudiced observer – well aware of the futility of transcendental speculations which can receive no confirmation from experience – be his powers of penetration ever so great, takes note of nothing in every individual disease, except the changes in the health of the body and of the mind (morbid phenomena, accidents, symptoms) which can be perceived externally by means of the senses; that is to say, he notices only the deviations from the former healthy state of the now diseased individual, which are felt by the patient himself, remarked by those around him and observed by the physician. All these perceptible signs represent the disease in its whole extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivable portrait of the disease.”
He writes clearly that the true picture of the disease is the observation of the signs and symptoms that have CHANGED. He did not say, that the signs and symptoms of the know pathology of a process, he said that the perceptible signs represent the disease in its whole extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivable portrait of the disease.
So this means, that a composite picture of a DISEASE STATE, might include symptoms that are present, and appear to have no relationship with a known disorder.
As an observer of disorder, it is important to look at situations and symptoms EXACTLY as they are. I saw that the symptom, of recent origin, that prevailed, was a discharge, brown in colour from the vagina. Can I ignore it? Not really. This is a young girl who has not yet established her natural cycle, and thus her hormonal regulation is not fully functioning. It is a symptom, an expression of her body that is observable. It is fairly recent. On top of that, she now has developed a cough.
It is not for me to speculate regarding hormonal interaction, or indeed IF the discharge is related to the cough. It is for me to note that a clear alteration to her normal state is present. I HAVE to take it into account.
In adding this concomitant Symptom to the disease picture, The Therapeutic pocket book pointed me to one remedy that covered all the symptoms of the case.
This combination of expressed symptoms, albeit, apparently, not related to each other in allopathic terms, would be the totality of the disease.
One dose of 0/1 was administered to the coughing patient, and immediately, with 30 seconds, the coughing ceased. The patient was able to lie down and go to sleep. In the morning the patient awoke, had a mild cough, and was given another dose of the Nitric Acid upon which all coughing ceased. The patient was instructed to repeat the dose in the evening. All irritability is gone and the patient feels a lot more rested and like her old self.
Having used the SYNOPSIS and the T.P.B exclusively for a few years, and having a knowledge how the system works, in my analysis of this case, I only looked at the SX of leucorrhea brown. It has 2 medicines. I knew that Ammonium Muriaticum did not have a coated tongue in its symptom production. As stated, the other symptoms are general symptoms of a cough. Repertorization took no more than 70 seconds including a brief check in the Materia Medica.
For those of us that practice medicine the Hahnemannian way, these cases do not involve hours of questioning. The entire episode took no more than 10 minutes. Chronic cases in the main take only 40 -60 minutes if the directions of Hahnemann are followed accurately.
Unfortunately, the profession of Homoeopathy, in the Western world no longer exists in the schools and colleges, due to the establishment of guru like worship of self professed leaders. Time will prove them incorrect. Sadly for those seeking treatment, the chances of getting proper professional homoeopathic help are receding by the day.
G. W.
Flu Shot reaction
Went on holiday to hot country at end of October for 1 week. Came home, resumed his occupation as transport driver. Took 4 days off work due to another “heavy cold” and respiratory difficulties.
On 25th November, started to feel unwell and slowly developed another “heavy cold”. Missed two days of work, then resumed work but did not feel well and then went into a full blown influenza type picture.
I saw the patient on 30th November.
Patient complained of:
Frontal headache, temples to upper forehead.
Was chilled easily at change of temperature, would shiver and shake.
Lumbar area backaches, sometimes in legs.
Vertigo rising from seat, a mild unsteadiness.
Felt hot, no perspiration.
I heard a very upper chest cough, loose with no expectoration.
I asked the patient if he was experiencing anything else. He said he was just feeling like his bones were sore, not much, but just not right.
My personal observation of this patient that he was unusually mild in manner, whereas his normal mood is bantering and cutting and quite critical at times.
As I had some very specific symptoms, I ran a few physical checks and diagnosed to all intent and purposes, Influenza. My concern was to keep his airways clear so went to the Repertory (SYNOPSIS P & W Therapeutic pocket book by Boenninghausen) and put in the following SX.
(Click on picture to enlarge)
I have found through my career, that it is the key symptoms, as expressed by the patient, that represent the whole modality(ies) of the illness, AND represent the main symptoms produced by a remedy, are the ones to keep in view. This remains a constant even if the production of the modality in a medicine is NOT particularly in the same location as the patient is expressing the disorder. However, in this case, it became obvious that the medicine that covered the influenza was one of three.
All three remedies covered the rest of the case. The back, the vertigo the headache, there was nothing to distinguish between them. I asked for more details and none were to be had. At this point, the door opened and someone came in to give me details of the physical tests, and I noticed that the draft from the door, made the patient shiver. The draft was not colder than the room we were in, just the intake of fanned air from the heater in the corridor.
I made the choice for Rhus Toxidendron 0/1 potency. I gave the patient enough for 5 doses to be taken 1 dose an hour.
I was informed that the patients head ache increased that evening, and was restless. I instructed the patient go to bed and expect to get hot and even perspire some. In the event, the patient burst into perspiration for two hours, and then fell asleep and slept the whole night through. The next morning declared himself 90% better. although still a little weak and tired, and went off to work his driving job. I will now concentrate on his chronic respiratory ailment and run a few tests to see what the actual reality of diagnosis should be, and then evaluate what can be done for him homoeopathically.
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