Viewed through Proving: Alumina – Overview and some things perhaps you didn’t know…

One last look at Alumina before the weekend.  Here goes…

The Alumina proving has a respectable 1161 symptoms, representing all systems in the body.  The proving is a compilation by Hahnemann of symptoms gained from a Hartlaub and Trinks proving, symptoms added by Hahnemann from a slightly different preparation, and symptoms from Dr. H. G. Bute from Philadelphia.

Viewed through Proving: Alumina and Shakespeare

Any Shakespeare lovers out there?  Or are we a dying breed?

Which extremely famous Shakespearean tragic figure do these Alumina proving symptoms remind you of?

Viewed through Proving: Alumina’s Sore Throat

I write this sitting in a café, looking out at a glorious sunny day.  Hard to believe that it’s November 26th… But for all of us, the sore throats of the change in season are upon us.  In preparation for the rainy days ahead, I present to you:

Alumina and the Sore Throat – viewed through proving.

Viewed through Proving: Mercury from Scratch…

Provings usually show ameliorations and aggravations very clearly, but you also find symptoms beginning with “he is compelled to”, or “he must”.  I’ve mentioned this previously – these symptoms are of interest as they will often form part of the presenting disease picture.  One example in Mercury is a need to scratch.  The patient must scratch, gets almost a sexual pleasure from the scratching, but it does not ameliorate the itch.  As one patient who has benefited from Mercury reported to me:  “Scratching first almost feels like an orgasm then it hurts like hell”.

Viewed through proving: Mercury, fevers and a challenge

Well, back to what appears to be a favourite subject for me – composite fever symptoms, meaning symptoms where you get combinations of heat, cold, shivering, perspiration, chills, shuddering – all in different patterns.  We looked at Boenninghausen’s use of Sambucus, in a case where there was dry heat while asleep, alternating with perspiration when awake.

Viewed through proving: Nitric-Acid without borders

When I studied Nitric-Acid in school, much was made of its action on margins of orifica – around the mouth, lips, everywhere, as Farrington puts it “wherever skin and mucous membrane come together”.  This description appears in Farrington’s Clinical Materia Medica, first published in 1887.    Boger also presents this symptom in his Synoptic Key, published in 1915, and Phatak in his Materia Medica, published originally in 1977.  However, although the remedy does have ulcers, warts, fissures etc. in every conceivable place (and some inconceivable places), the proving itself does not bear out the centrality of this action, and other materia medica noticeably do not stress it.

This is another example of a bias which much has been made of and which has led to a mistaken perception of a remedy personality – and Nit-Ac is often presented as a remedy describing people who have problems with margins, emotional difficulty with borders and people invading their space.

Viewed through Proving: Nitric-Acid, Overview, Carriages and the importance of Why

amelioration or aggravation?

The proving of Nitric Acid is one of the larger ones, with 1423 recorded symptoms.  The top groupings of symptoms are Lower Extremities, Stomach, Sleep and Dreams, Male and Female Genitalia and symptoms relating to respiration including cough, sneezing, and coryza.  To be expected.  Also to be expected are the areas where there are a relatively high number of symptoms in bold – meaning symptoms that stood out in the proving in terms of their frequency amongst provers.

Changed and unchanged mental symptoms in prescribing

8. Are you sure the symptoms you took are symptoms of the disease?  If the patient is generally angry, this is a point you can use in differential diagnosis, but if that is not something that has changed, it is not part of the disease totality – don’t use it in your initial set of prescribing symptoms.  (vide Aphorism 6).

Dr. Marco Colla asked me to explain this point from my previous post in greater depth.

Before I begin, please make sure you’re sitting comfortably with a copy of the Organon on your lap, laptop, tablet (wax or digital) – and READ APHORISM 6! 

Viewed through proving: Opium distortions

Opium – not a perfume for pain-relief…

Well, did you find Hahnemann’s prescribing tip in his introduction in my last post?  It is one of the most important points to note about how to use the remedy, and also reinforces the need for correct practice in all cases of homoeopathic prescribing.

Opium does not cause any pain when given in proving.  It’s unusual that way.  As Hahnemann informs us, most remedies, if given in proving, will cause some pain. 

Viewed through proving: Opium aggravates

Most of Opium’s proving symptoms can be summarized very simply in the following words:  Opium aggravates.

The best overview of this remedy is that which Hahnemann gives in the introduction to the proving – so here it is. Go on, read the whole thing. You know you can do it.  For those who get bored quickly, look for an important prescribing tip in the text relating to how to prescribe Opium effectively homoeopathically for pain relief.

Read on!