How to study remedy in Homoeopathy?

How to study remedy in Homoeopathy? 

The most important thing to get in the study of remedy is the feel of it. The essence of homoeopathy being individualization, and each well proved drug having a definite personality, the student must ger acquainted with the different remedies in the materia medica as if they were friends. He must be able to recognize them from partial expressions even when he cannot see the whole picture, as he would know a well known person in a group across the room. Experts in prescribing are so saturated with the remedies that they can often choose them intuitively and although this is dangerous to the beginner it should be the goal of all. 

We suggest the following plan for systematic remedy study:

For those who do not contact humans in this way, and indeed for all at first, the study of a remedy must begin with a knowledge of its mentals. The innermost of man being the most important, the psychic charac teristics and peculiarities of each remedy individual must be thoroughly mastered. You could not conceive of giving Sulphur as a chronic remedy to a woman in whose linen closet the towels and napery were tied neatly with rose-colored ribbon. You would not give Phosporus to one who was abnormally modest, nor Arsenicum to a sloven. Unfortunately many of our remedies have not a fully-developed proving of mental symptoms, but where these exist they are of prime importance.

Many more drugs have clearly marked modalities. in other words aggravation from or amelioration by.meteorological conditions and such things as motion, beat, jar, touch, position, classes of foods or special substances, etc. The marked desires and aversions, aggravations and ameliorations should become etched on the mind of the student, both those which affect the personality as a whole, and those, often agreeing but sometimes contradictory, which modify the affected part.

Of particular importance, in the knowledge of materia medica, and often difficult to find in books, are the causations of disease typical of the different remedies. These may be mental or general. The student should pay particular attention to the symp- toms of ailments from emotion (such as mortification in Staphisagria; anger in Chamomilla, Colocynth, Nux romica; grief in Ignatia; fright in Aconite, etc.) and also to ailments from injury (Arnica, Natrum sulph). Ailments from suppressed discharges are of paramount importance, whether they be from mucous membranes, such as leucorrhoea, diarrhoea, etc., or from the skin as in the case of perspiration or eruptions, or from operations which close nature's vents, such as fistulae or haemorrhoids, The fourth important variety of causation is that due to chilling of various kinds, non- mechanical dietary indiscretions, etc., these being applicable more frequently in acute diseases.

When the student has mastered the various points about the remedy he should study the localities of the body to which the remedy especially applies, and make a chart of a figure with the vulnerable points of the remedy suitably drawn in. In this connection he would do well to make a diagram of the tongue, its condition often being characteristic and giving valuable hints for prescribing. He may also make drawings of different parts of the body such as the eyes, representing the various conditions in those organs cured by the remedy. These schemata aid memory by visualization. Not only the organ influenced by a remedy should be learned, but also the tissues, as for instance that Bryonia is suitable to inflammation of serous membranes, Belladonna is rarely so.

The student should then pick out from among the welter of particular symptoms those which are "strang, rare and peculiar", the so-called "keynotes" of ste remedy, and have these at his fingers' ends as signpos to point the way to further study. In this connecti he should pick out similes from literature (such as the analogy between the precocious Lycopodium child and Paul Dombey) and expressive epithets (such as "mincs- pie fined"-Carbo veg., the "human barometer Rbus tos, "gloomy Gus"-Natrum carb., the "false, ragged philosopher"-Sulphur, etc.).

He should pay especial attention to the pictures of acute disease in chronic remedies and to the different types of chronic personality in each remedy. 

He should get clearly in mind the important details relating to the bodily functions such as menstruation, pregnancy, digestion, sleep and excretion whether by skin, bowels or urinary tract.

He should make a remedy clock, a diagram showing the time of general aggravation and special aggrava-ltions of the remedy in question. 

Picking out the alternating conditions and the con- comitant conditions, and keeping them clearly in mind is of great help, although rarely done. edition of Kent's Repertory has a separate heading for (The second alternations, which, in the third edition, are sprinkled through the book). It will be very helpful to the beginner to make a note of the main contradictions in symptoms in each remedy and to think through why this should be so.

By this time the student is in a position to note, without danger of being unduly influenced by pathology, the different "diseases in which the remedy under study is especially useful; and after thoroughly master- ing the polychrests he should go back and compare their action in each of the diseases. Very little has been written anywhere about comparisons between the physiological action of drugs and their homoeopathic action, but in the study of each remedy its pharmacology and uses in regular medicine should be looked up and com pared. Useful hints and analogies are often forth-coming.

 The student should correlate the homoeopathic remedy picture with endocrinology, metabolic tests and morphology.

Study one polychrest each week, beginning with relatively easy ones such as Aconite, Belladonna, Bryonia, and then, when the habit of assimilating the remedy is acquired, tackle the essential drugs, such as Sulphur, Calcarea, Silica, Phosporns, etc.

Each remedy should be studied in at least ten different books so as to allow for the refractions of the personalities of the different authors. No human being sees all aspects of another individual or of drug. A composite picture is necessary to completeness. We would recommend the following books for study in the order mentioned:

Kent's Materia Medica, which, though informal in style, gives a compelling and permeating picture of the remedies.

 Nash's Leaders, a dangerous book if used alone, but stimulating and comprehensive.

Allen's Keynotes, in a class with the above.

 Clarke's Dictionary of Materia Medica, not the symptoms of the provings themselves, but the "charac teristics" which give interesting varied information and sparse salient features.

Hering's Guiding Symptoms, with especial attention to the symptoms with heavy and double heavy marks, this being the most solid and practicable of all our materia medicas, although it does not give the pictures- que individuality of the drugs as Kent does. 

Dunham's Lectures on Materia Medica, very lucid.

Hahnemann's Materia Medica Pura, the prime source of the subject, placed late on the list because of the mass of symptoms.

Teste's Materia Medica, giving suggestive group- ings of the remedies, a unique book.

 Allen's Encyclopaedia of the Materia Medica, difficult reading because of the mass of material, but invaluable.

 Jahr's Manual, which has many symptoms not to be found elsewhere.

When the nosodes are studied, H. C. Allen's Materia Medica of the Nosodes should be added, and for un- usual remedies Kent's Lesser Writings, Hale's New Remedies and Anshutz's New, Old and Forgotten Remedies. For those who read German, Stauffer's Homoopathische Arzneimittellehre, as yet untranslated, is a classic.

The student should also read Farrington's Clinical Materia Medica although it is confusing, and Hughes' Manual, or better his Cyclopaedia of Drug Pathogenesy. Cowperthwaite's Materia Medica, Pierce's Plain Talks on Materia Medica for Nurses, Rabe's Therapeutics, and Boger's Synoptic Key.

The student would do well before finishing his study to outline the emergency uses of each of the remedies and commit them to memory.

As a check to his study he can take the Kent Repertory and run through for the rubrics in which the remedy he is studying appears in the third (highest) degree.

If the student will follow this outline and get the habit of recognizing remedy types in street cars, at meetings, wherever he may be, his knowledge will be solid and broad, and his time saved.