Viewed through proving: Sulphur and the art of map-reading

Sulphur is a huge remedy.  With 1969 symptoms listed in the Chronic Diseases proving, it is unwieldy to “just look at”.

You can work with provings just as you would use maps to get to know a new city.  Perhaps Sulphur is an ideal proving to show the importance of this way of working.  When visiting a place you have not been before, it’s often interesting to get to know it on foot, with no prior information, absorbing the sights and sounds and getting interestingly lost.

When you can’t find a proving (or can’t find it in English)…

Why view remedies through the P&W repertory?

I have written on the importance of source material, especially of provings, in working to principle. As Hahnemann specified in Aphorism 3, in order to do homoeopathy we need to know what’s wrong with the patient, what the remedies can do and how to match a remedy to a complaint – with the proviso regarding appropriate potency and dosing.

How do we know what remedies can do? Through provings, first and foremost – the symptoms can a substance cause in a healthy person.

Hahnemann’s lesser writings include an essential article published in 1796, among his writings leading up to the Organon published in 1810. It is entitled “Essay on a New Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Powers of Drugs.” In this article, Hahnemann tackles existing methods one by one, and demonstrates their problematic nature. One after the other, with reasoned arguments and logical discussion, he knocks over chemistry as partial, nixes mixing unknown drugs with newly drawn blood, and more. He counsels against the doctrine of signatures, botanical affinity and families, stating categorically that the hints of the natural system “can only help to confirm and serve as a commentary to facts already known… or in the case of untried plants they may give rise to hypothetical conjectures which are, however, far from approaching even to probability.” He discusses experiments on the sick and how many discoveries were made by chance – and then laments “how humiliating for proud humanity did his very preservation depend on chance alone…”

Through step-by-step argument, Hahnemann comes to the conclusion that “nothing then remains but to test the medicines we wish to investigate on the human body itself,” which he states has so far been done “empirically and capriciously in diseases.” A standard human response to medicines, “some natural normal standard,” he states “can only be derived from the effects that a given medicinal substance has, by itself in this and that dose developed in the healthy human body.”

The body of provings which is easiest for us to access nowadays is in the Materia Medica Pura and Chronic Diseases. All the symptoms were carefully sifted through by Hahnemann, so if we see Hahnemann as a reliable source of information, that reliability extends to the provings he collated – and to his decisions to include some symptoms not taken from provings, rather from clinical work. We have less knowledge regarding the provings of other remedies noted in Boenninghausen’s Therapeutic Pocket Book, although here again, if we see Boenninghausen as a reliable source, information about these remedies will be important in our work. There is information in Hughes Cyclopaedia, and many other materia medica refer to provings, but all too often provings information is intermixed with symptoms derived from therapeutic clinical work and poisonings, or separate as in Hughes, but not organized.

But we have another source of information for those remedies whose provings were not collated or overseen by Hahnemann – the Therapeutic Pocketbook itself. Boenninghausen examined and brought together all the remedies in use in his time. Some were proven by Hahnemann but not published by him. Some were proven by Hartlaub and Trinks and others. Furthermore, Boenninghausen was kind enough to give us a grading system, indicating where a symptom derives from a proving of a remedy with grades 1 and 2, and strengthening the relevance of that symptom for that remedy from his clinical work with grades 3 and 4.

This means that if we take a remedy through the Reversed Materia Medica in the P&W software, we can actually gain a picture of the proving through grades 1 and 2, together with reliable clinical expansion on that remedy through grades 3 and 4. This in itself is information from early and primary sources, with Boenninghausen and Hahnemann’s stamp of approval. Furthermore, thanks to P&W, this information is available in English, Spanish, and Hebrew in addition to the original German. And there are other languages on the way. This means that those who have difficulty accessing the Materia Medica Pura in their own languages and use the P&W reversed to shed more light on these primary sources.

How can we begin to analyze this mass of information? The TPB was developed to help repertorize, guide the practitioner towards remedies to read up on more intensively. But the computerized version has given us the ability to access the material in different ways, including using the Reversed Materia Medica as a “back door” into gaining reliable knowledge of remedies where the provings are not accessible.

For example, on a very basic level, we can see a remedy’s position in any rubric. We can see if it’s there because it’s in the proving, graded 1 or 2, or because Boenninghausen emphasized its clinical use with grades 3 and 4. A remedy may appear in a symptom with very few other remedies, giving it additional importance in that symptom regardless of its grade. A remedy may appear in a large rubric, with over a hundred remedies, and there we may want to see if it’s in a higher grade than other remedies, if that symptom is very strongly connected to the remedy we’re examining. The relationship between remedy grade and rubric size may have relevance in the case we’re working on. All this while keeping in mind that the appearance of a remedy in proving is the basis for prescribing, and Boenninghausen’s clinical use of that remedy is an added bonus.

For those interested in working to principle, which means using provings-based materia medica, the reversed MM offers a treasure trove of information about provings which are harder to access, which is definitely worth while exploring.

“I knew that…” – but did you really?

The agonies of unlearning

I knew that…

This is something I and other IHM practitioners often hear, or see on people’s faces when we talk about homoeopathy to homoeopaths. I can feel the thought echoing through the ether (so to speak…) when I write about homoeopathy to homoeopaths.

However, to warp an old idiom, knowing is as knowing does. If you really knew that – why don’t you do that?

Let’s start with the first basic tenet of homoeopathy: like cures like.

Viewed through proving: Sulphur and the art of map-reading

Sulphur is a huge remedy.  With 1969 symptoms listed in the Chronic Diseases proving, it is unwieldy to “just look at”.

You can work with provings just as you would use maps to get to know a new city.  Perhaps Sulphur is an ideal proving to show the importance of this way of working.  When visiting a place you have not been before, it’s often interesting to get to know it on foot, with no prior information, absorbing the sights and sounds and getting interestingly lost.

How confident are you? How confident should you be?

On confidence:

How confident should we be as practitioners? This is a question which worried me greatly when I started out. I felt uncertain (not surprisingly as I was entering the world of sickness and health armed with a copy of Kent’s repertory – a copy of which a colleague justly through out of a window in a different continent – and some basic core delusions about Sankaran’s teaching.). I was qualified, I had the grades, supervised clinical work and diploma to prove it. And after all that training, I did not feel confident.

It will come, some said. The more patients you work with, the more confidence you’ll feel. Until a cold voice cut through the general internet babble, as a colleague (armed with a handbag full of plumbum crude – if you’re reading this, you know who you are) said sharply “if you’re not confident in what you’re doing, you shouldn’t be practicing.”

I see my own inner debate of that time reflected in many forums, where some few honest souls admit to worry and lack of confidence. With hindsight and its freedom of constraint, I see that confidence, for a homeopath, actually relates to at least two separate issues.

We must feel confident in our tools. If we do not feel confident in the principles of homoeopathy – not a blind faith but a clear understanding of the rationale of our practice, if we only know how to parrot “like cures like” without understanding what that means and more specifically, what that demands of us – we really should not be practicing. If we do not grasp that there is a quirk and a default in nature, whereby a stronger similar disease can annihilate a weaker one and will always do so unless something else is standing in the way of cure, whether it is a maintaining cause or a deeper inherited miasmatic taint – if we don’t get that then we really should not be practicing. We’re not talking about confidence in our ability. Here this is the confidence that our tools work. That “like cures like” is a prescribing principle, not a holistic “airy-fairy” slogan.

Personal confidence is another thing altogether. We have to get used to working with patients, to eliciting the information we need for prescribing, to listening to our patients without interrupting, to allow the picture of the disease to take shape before our eyes. We have to keep studying Organon, materia medica, provings, Hahnemann and Boenninghausen’s writings and works of similar value to keep our abilities honed and our homoeopathic knowledge checked and re-checked. We have to gain confidence in prescribing, in case-management, in effective follow-up.

Personal confidence is something every practitioner gains in time – in any field. But without confidence in our tools, that personal confidence is worthless. It’s worthless in the sense that if we are genuinely trying to work according to principle and don’t understand it, our confidence is a thin shell, a shiny veneer covering a world of insecurity in practice.

However, the worst expression of the worthlessness of personal confidence without true professional conviction is that those bumping up their levels of such personal confidence to overcome the lack of professional conviction are drawn to the new and the shiny, to developing their own new and shiny theories to astound the world.  As a result, they never investigate the tools properly, and learn to work faithfully and honestly to principle.

Something Hahnemann said in the Organon within a slightly different context seems an apt quote to close this post:

“A true homoeopathic physician, one who never acts without correct fundamental principles, never gambles with the life of the sick entrusted to him as in a lottery where the winner is in the ratio of 1 to 500 or 1000 (blanks here consisting of aggravation or death)…” (note to Aphorism 285).

Desires Refreshing Foods – What do you mean by that?

A refreshing cuppa char!

Yesterday I was working on a case of a 17-year-old girl who has an eating problem . She does not seem to be anorexic, but has difficulty with eating.

–   She does not get hungry – she gets stomach cramps which is how she knows she must eat. She also gets a “mouth” sensation that she wants something “with a lot of taste”, but when questioned it turned out that some of the foods she likes that fall into this category include pasta with olive oil and mild flavouring, cheese Danish, and similar. Her concept of “a lot of taste” did not mean highly spiced or strongly flavoured.

Repertorisation – are we relying on the dictionary instead of learning the language?

Marco’s question yesterday on how to find the rubric for the symptom that resolved Boenninghausen’s case got me thinking.  You’ll find the question and my response in the article on the case here

Fact of the matter is, we’re really working backwards most of the time.  I’ll explain what I mean.

Viewed through proving: Sulphur and the art of cartography

Sulphur is a huge remedy.  With 1969 symptoms listed in the Chronic Diseases proving, it is unwieldy to “just look at”.

I have described my methods of working with provings to students as similar to using maps to get to know a new city.  Perhaps Sulphur is an ideal proving to show the importance of this way of working.  When visiting a place you have not been before, it’s often interesting to get to know it on foot, with no prior information, absorbing the sights and sounds and getting interestingly lost.

תוכנת הסינופסיס של P&W

מה זה תוכנת ה”סינופסיס” של  P & W? כיום אני משתמשת כמעט אך ורק בתוכנה זו לעבודה השוטפת שלי בהומאופתיה.  מה כל כך מיוחד בתוכנה זו?

התשובה?  ספר הכיס הטיפולי של בונינגהאוזן (Therapeutic Pocketbook).   ללא ספק.  הכלי הקטן הזה היה בשימוש במהלך ימי הזוהר של ההומאופתיה, כאשר תוצאות ההומאופתיה הדהימו את העולם הרפואי, ומאות אלפי פציינטים נעזרו בשיטה. השיטה והגישה של בונינגהאוזן קיבלו את אישורו של האנמן, שראה בו ממשיך דרכו ומייצג מהימן של ההומאופתיה האמיתית.

פולוני את וויוור תרגמו את ספר הכיס הטיפולי ישירות מכתבי יד של בונינגהאוזן ומהמהדורה הראשונה בגרמנית משנת 1846.  לאחר התרגום לאנגלית, ספר הכיס תורגם לספרדית ולעברית.  כל השפות האלו, כולל הגרמנית המקורית, נכללות בתוכנה.  התוכנה הופכת כלי זה לנגיש וקל לשימוש.

כמובן, כדאי ללמוד את גישתו ושיטתו של בונינגהאוזן כדי להפיק את מירב התועלת מספר הכיס הטיפולי.  למרות הפופולאריות של השיטה בימיו, בזמנו של קנט, רוב הומאופתים כבר לא ידעו איך להשתמש בספר הכיס.

התוכנה של P & W מבוססת על שנים של מחקר דקדקני בספריות באירופה, שכללה עבודה על כתבי יד נדירים.  משילוב מיומנותו של גארי וויבר בהומאופתיה ובמחקר עם מומחיותו של ולדימיר פולוני, מעצב פלטפורמת ה-OpenRep האינטואיטיבית, נוצר כלי מעשי וחיוני לכל הומאופת שמתייחס ברצינות לעבודתו.

אני מצאתי ששיטות אלה מציעות ודאות ברתימת כוחו האמיתי של חוק “דומה בדומה ירפא” במרשם התרופה, בגלל הראשוניות של העבודה, והקרבה ההדוקה לפרווינגס המיוצגת בספר הכיס.

מה מקבלים בחבילת הסינופסיס?

בערך 17 רפרטוריס, כולל קנט, בוריקה, ועוד
כ-300 מטריות מדיקה וטקסטים הומאופתים חשובים אחרים.
ארכיון – מאפשר לחוקרים לחפש בעמודים סרוקים של טקסטים מודפסים מקוריים ממקרים, כתבי עת וספרים

ממשק העבודה פשוט ואינטואיטיבי לשימוש.  בסרטון הבא תוכלו לראות הדגמה של עבודה עם התוכנה בעברית.

מקרה של פציעה במפרק הכתף

לאחרונה נזכרתי במקרה שלקחתי בעודי הומאופתית טריה ולא מנוסה.

קרוב משפחה החליק ונפל, ונפגע קשה בכתפו הימני.  נתתי ארניקה מיד לאחר הפציעה, ובמשך 24 השעות הבאות.  המצב השתפר מעט ואח”כ התדרדר. ניסיתי שורה של תרופות אחרות אך שום דבר לא עזר.

המטופל נסע לחדר מיון ועשו לו צילום.  נאמר לו שחלקים זעירים של העצם כנראה נשברו ונמצאים כעת בתוך אזור המפרק.  כל זאת בערבון מוגבל – הם לא היו בטוחים בזה לגמרי .  נאמר לו שלאט לאט, עם פיזיותרפיה אגרסיבית, יוכל שוב להניע את היד ללא כאבים.  תהליך הריפוי יקח כחצי שנה ואולי יותר.  נתנו לו ארקוקסיה, לא נתנו לו מנשא ליד, ושלחו אותו הביתה.

הוא צילצל זמן קצר לאחר מכן, כמעט בוכה מכאב. לאחר לקיחת  הארקוקסיה, הוא קבל כאב ראש בלתי נסבל.  הוא ביקש לנסות שוב עם הומאופתיה. נתתי לו תרופה אחת ואחרונה.

האיש הזה לא היה מסוגל ליישר את זרועו.  הוא ישב, או עמד, כאשר כתפו הימנית כפופה, ותמך בזרוע בתנוחה כפופה בעזרת ידו השניה. כף ידו הימנית הייתה מכווצת באגרוף לכיוון הגוף – או מכאב או בגלל שהוא לא יכל לשחרר אותה.

בתוך 20 שניות של נטילת התרופה בפעם הראשונה, היה מסוגל לפתוח את ידו הימנית, פשוטו כמשמעו.  תוך חצי שעה עד שעה של טיפול, הוא הצליח לשחרר את ידו הימנית.  במשך שלושה הימים, חזרה 90% יכולתו להניע את הכתף והזרוע בצורה חופשית, אם כי נשארו עדיין קצת כאבים.

הוא המשיך לקחת את אותה התרופה לחודש ימים. הכאב נעלם. התרופה הייתה Ruta 30C שנתתי במים לפי השיטה המתוארת במהדורה השישית של האורגנון.

ב”ביקור החוזר” הזה, השתמשתי רק בשני סימפטומים – ואלה הרובריקות שהייתי לוקחת היום במקרה כזה: פציעה בעצמות בעקבות נפילה, הרעה מהארכת האיבר.  הנה הרפרטוריזציה:

בפרווינג מצאתי את הדברים הבאים: