•Knowledge of Disease
and Individualization.
•Knowledge of Materia Medica.
•Knowledge of laws and
methods by which he can apply the knowledge of medicines to his knowledge of
disease process. These include:
•Remedy selection
•Potency and dose
selection
•Repetition
•Knowledge of
causative and maintaining factors
•If you develop a good
understanding of all these variables, you will be able to perform many ‘ideal’
cures
•Knowledge of
physician
•In the first
aphorism, Hahnemann discussed the aim of a physician (to cure). In the second
aphorism, he discussed what is an ideal cure and in the third aphorism,
Hahnemann lists the tools that a physician needs to treat and cure his
patients.
•every individual case
of disease‘.
•If you are asked to
hit a target with a bullet, the first piece of information that you will need
is ‘what is the target?’. Then you will need to have a gun and some bullets at
hand and last but the most important, you must know how to fire a gun precisely.
Similarly, when you have to treat a patient, the first piece of information
that you need is – what is it that you need to treat?
•Is it the symptoms,
the pathogen, the pathology, the nosological disease or the person as a whole?
•Hahnemann says that
you have to know what is curable in ‘every individual case of disease‘.
•knowledge of the
medicines
• you need to have the
knowledge of the medicines that you will need to target the disease process.
You will need to know what medicines are available, what symptoms and
conditions they cover (range and precision), and how to differentiate one
medicine from other medicines producing similar symptoms. This means that you
should have a good command over Materia Medica.
•knowledge of Materia Medica
•Repertory is a tool
that can help us select a ‘group of possible remedies’. It is not necessary
that every time the medicine that gets most points in repertorization will be the right
one for your patient. You have to use your knowledge of Materia Medica to select the best
remedy from this ‘group of possible remedies’.
•medicine does not
become a ‘simillimum’ for a case just
because the symptoms match. A medicine will assist in curing a case only if
–
•medicine does not
become a ‘simillimum’ for a case just
because the symptoms match. A medicine will assist in curing a case only if –
•
•The symptoms match.
•The potency matches
the intensity of the presentation and the totality of the case.
•The dose, which
includes the potency, form and quantity of medicine are appropriate.
•The medicine is
repeated appropriately.
•KNOWLEDGE ABOUT
POTENCY
•After the remedy is
selected, you also need to choose the right potency. If the medicine is the
amplitude of a wave, then the potency is the inherent frequency of the wave.
•After the potency is
selected, we also need to decide the dose, which includes the form and the
quantity of medicine. We need to decide whether we wish to give the medicine as
dry sugar pills, liquid potency, water based liquid solutions, sugar of milk etc.
•Knowledge about
judicious repetition
•Now we come to the
judicious repetition. Often (not always), a single dose of the right medicine
would not be enough to bring about a radical cure, unless the case is at
functional level and the patient has strong vitality. We will need to repeat
the medicine at appropriate intervals depending upon the reaction that we
generate from our initial doses.
•
•Knowledge about exact
mode of preparation
•Another important but
often overlooked aspect of this aphorism is ‘the exact mode of preparation‘.
Many times I have come across cases that have not responded to a remedy from a
particular pharmacy but did very well when the same remedy was ordered from other
pharmacy. The quality of our medicines does matter.
•Knowledge of
maintaining factors
•So now you have the
knowledge of the disease and the knowledge of the medicine. Plus you have also
decided the right potency and dose. There might still be many cases which will
not show a curative response even with the simillimum. If you do not address the causative, contributing and
maintaining factors for a disease condition, even your right remedy will not be
able to bring about a radical cure. The patient will improve and relapse
•Summary
•So in the end, I
would like to enumerate the tools that are essential to cure a sick person. A
good physician must have the –
•
•Knowledge of Disease
and Individualization.
•Knowledge of Materia Medica.
•Knowledge of laws and
methods by which he can apply the knowledge of medicines to his knowledge of
disease process. These include:
•Remedy selection
•Potency and dose
selection
•Repetition
•Knowledge of
causative and maintaining factors
•