Anomalies in Homeopathic Literature

Tract - I

Standardization of Literatures on HOMOEO. MATERIA MEDICA & PHARMACY¹

Hahnemann's Homoeopathy is two centuries old. Like all revolutionary ideas, it has taken time to travel from one corner of the world to the other. There is no man of medicine, to whatever country, class and courses in medicine he may belong to, who is not aware of it.

Its journey from the banks of the river Danube to the plains of the Indus was not very slow although its development and recognition was. It reached the point of the termination of the Ganges in the Bay of Bengal in Bengal in 1819 and in Punjab , the land of 5 rivers in 1839. It had to wait till 1973 to be recognized as a separate system of treatment by the Govt. of India eyes and ears of the Central Govt. could notice it only when the country had nearly a hundred homoeopathic teaching institutions and few lakhs of homoeopathic practitioners, registered by the state Governments. It is the only medical science to reach the nooks and corners of the world without the anchorage of an invading army, encouragement of expanding empires or shelter of nomadic civilizations. It has survived in spite of the opposition and because of the patronage of monarchs and Maharajas , Presidents and Prime Ministers, dukes and dictators, academicians and intellectuals and, most of all, because of the faith, love and necessity of the people it has served.

Never before in its history had Homoeopathy such a large number of followers, so many of universities imparting education and such a vast number of teaching institutions and students. It is at its zenith of official recognition in India . But the Indian contribution, to homoeopathic literature has been limited to copying, duplicating, enlarging, forging, translating, reproducing and resetting of the materials printed in other countries. The golden period of homoeopathic world literature in English, especially relating to materia medica and pharmaceutics, can be said to be between 1833 to 1930. After 1930, except for a few brilliant but stray sparks, nothing of distinguished merit and originality has appeared in print. After 1990 the availability of the computers and computerized editions of the books on Materia Medicas, Repertories, Organon of Medicine and articles by renowned practitioners has caused a great boom in copying, recopying, over copying and reprinting of booklets, book and volumes.

Of the various causes of to the downfall of Homoeopathy in countries like U.S.A., France, Germany and, now, the United Kingdom, one is the absence of a uniform standard in its :

(i) literature,

(ii) teaching methods,

(iii) syllabi, and

(iv) practice.

It has failed to keep pace with or accommodate the developments in other fields allied to medicine like Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, etc. More serious, and worse than these, is that homoeopathy has failed to maintain uniformity in the standards laid down by its own school. Less like a science and more like a religious faith, Homoeopathy has allowed its institutions, its authors and its practitioners to function like independent islands. It has continued its expansion without standardizing, without regularizing and without improving its foundations in literature. Its solid principles of medical practice are unprotected in absence of standard, correct and updated literature.

The correction, updating and standardization of the literatures and text books of homoeopathy is the crying need of the time and necessary for its further development and progress. The profession at large and particularly its teachers in homoeopathic institutions, its editors and authors and, even our research institutions like Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy have not shown any eagerness or awareness.²

The errors and anomalies committed in advertently and in ignorance by the profession has to be pardoned considering the period, the infancy of homoeopathy and the lack of academic breeding and scientific schooling of homoeopaths who were brilliant practitioners, authors and who put down their methods of reading, teaching and practice in print. But a lasting a better attempt of standardization was expected from only institution in homoeopathy ever in the world, Central Council of Research in Homoeopathy.³ Which had the means and men to do the work.

They decided to try their hands at the literature of homoeopathy and published a Repertory of some organs mixing the rubrics 2 gradations in Oscar Boericke'sRepertory in Wm. Boericke'sMateria Medica, a compilation of medicines from clinical, pharmacological and empirical sources, with 3 rubrics of James Tyler Kent'sRepertory, a compilation of proved symptoms consisting of 3 grades of evaluation of symptoms.

Some of our brethren have applauded and praised this effort which to a non-homoeopathic bureaucrat will look to be a progress and achievement and which to a common homoeopath is against the fundamentals.

There is a necessity for standardization. Do we have the courage to do it now? Or is the lethargy to cast off the shackles too deep? How long shall we ward off the wisdom and foresight which foresee the change to be inevitable, if not immediate. The wheels are moving. It is we who can guide it towards our betterment or doom. Delay we can, stop we cannot, avoid we can, escape we cannot.

This writing is a pointer to the process of standardization and the Standardization of Homoeopathic Literature.

The Standardization of Education in India is under the experienced case of Central Council of Homoeopathy and the watchful Intel regent eyes of Ayush. The Standardization of Literature and Education can being some uniformity and standardization in the Practice, although it is the first object or mission of a medico or medical man but practice on wrong education, based on wrong literature can not be right. So, for the highest and first mission of a physician to practice and to heal, it is necessary that it must standardize its literature and education.

Standardization in practice will, obviously, follow these two. The literature includes the allied subjects and purely homoeopathic subjects. The homoeopathic subjects consist of Homoeopathic Philosophy, Pharmaceutics, Materia Medica, Repertory and Therapeutics. These homoeopathic subjects offer two fields for standardization and correction. One, dealing with the principles, the logic, the pillar upon which homoeopathic literature and education are based. The other is concerned with the mechanical, the technical and the structural aspects of these literatures. The former deals with the 'why' and 'how' of Homoeopathy while the latter deals with the 'what' of Homoeopathy.

In this writing we are concerned mainly with the technical faults in our literature, the mechanical and technical aspects of Materia Medica and Homoeopathic Pharmaceutics and its effect on education. We will suggest the corrections.

I am not a man of science in the sense that I have not been fortunate to go through the rigours of acquiring post-graduate degree in any of the disciplines of the sciences. But I have been fortunate enough to be in contact with men of science, especially chemistry including applied and pharmaceutical, botany, biochemistry and homoeopathic pharmaceutics, etc.

What occurred to me as anomalies in the subject and errors in the personal official, non-official and semi-official publications have, with the passage of time, brought me to the following painful conclusions:

1. There are serious omissions and commissions in the books published by one and all, which include the individuals publishing companies, government agencies, professional organizations, manufacturing companies and others.

2. There are serious lapses, lacunae and mistakes in some of the chapters or parts of the books on homoeopathic subjects.

(i) The lapses, whether out of ignorance, neglect or failure to attach importance to what was not important at that time or in the remote past but was inevitably to become very important in the future, near or remote, have created terrifying confusions amongst the students and persons interested in the subject.

(ii) These anomalies and lapses have been perpetrated and perpetuated by persons who were highly esteemed professionally or occupied chairs highly placed officially. It is difficult to accuse them of ignorance and it is impossible to acquit them of the crime of incompetence or negligence.

(iii) Science worships no God, mythological or professional, and the portion of Homoeopathic Pharmaceutics, Therapeutics, Materia Medica and Repertory which we are discussing here comes under the domain of science and we have to be guided by scientific outlook alone and have to be guarded only by high scientific attitude.

(iv) In this writing the harshness of language is not indicative of the intention to underestimate the contributions of stalwarts nor to undermine the selfless dedication with which they were inspired but it indicates the urgency and importance of the matter and, it is an indication of a feeling of helplessness of this author in face of the multiplications of the mistakes in print, in classrooms and in practice. The criticism of the professional ancestors, one feels certain, is amply justified in view of the future of the professional successors.

In criticising our ancestors and teachers my sentiments are akin to Brutus who said,

"...... why Brutus rose against Caesar,

this is my answer;

Not that I loved Caesar less,

but that I loved Rome more. "

[ Shakespeare, Wm.,: Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 1].

Homoeopathy is our Rome . No Caesar is dearer than it.

But we remember that Einstein [Albert Einstein on p. 68 of Ideas and Opinions, 1981] "There are few enough people with sufficient independence to see the weakness and follies of their contemporaries and remain themselves untouched by them. And these isolated few usually soon lose their zeal for putting things to rights when they have come face to face with human obduracy" because "That which is perfectly obvious to any man of common sense, as soon as it is mentioned may, nevertheless, fail to occur even to men of considerable ingenuity." [Whatley: Bibliography, 245].

Time alone can tell the class to which we belong.

We will point out the ERRORS & ANOMALIES in the Homoeopathic Pharmacy, Therapeutics, Repertory and Materia Medica in the following areas.

• The number of medicines used in Homoeopathy.
• Nomenclature of homoeopathic medicines.
• Sources of knowledge of medicines.
• Medicines whose symptomatology is available in languages of a small minority.
• Abbreviations.
• Synonyms and common names of the medicines.
• Name of the person or institution who introduced or proved the drug.
• Family order of the plants or animals and Chemical Formulae and Atomic or Molecular Weights of the minerals and other substances.
• Description of the plant, animal or other substances from which medicines have been prepared.
• Part of the plant or animal or the kind of substance used in the preparation of the medicines.
• Difference in methods of preparation of drugs described in different official or non-official pharmacopoeia and materia medicas.

The Errors and Anomalies⁴ also include :

1. typographical and editorial anomalies,
2. omissions and commissions,
3. errors and anomalies,
4. inconsistencies,
5. deviations from the principles laid down in the texts of the concerned science or subject.

Back 1.This writing was published in The Hahnemannian Gleanings of Feb. 1986 (vol. LIII, no. 2.) to June 1986, (vol. LIII, no. 6) issues under the caption ofStandardization of Homoeopathic Materia Medica & Pharmaceutics.

Back 2. Indian Homoeopathic Teachers' Association Literature Committee is now in the process of correcting the errors in the materials published by one of our great institutions, C.C.R.H.

Back 3. A Review of their publications is being serialized in Indian Homoeo. Recorder, Kolkata.700009.

Back 4. The errors, irregularities, inconsistencies and dishonesty in the construction, logic and explanations of the authors and their works on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, Homoeopathic Philosophy and Repertory are available in TRACTS, IV, V, VI etc., etc., of Mahendra Singh's Organon & Homoeopathic Philosophy .