A helicopter pilot in a case discussed in the last issue of Homœopathica (Matter over mind, by Nikhil Zaveri) suffered from mental problems. In this case the cause was physical. The pilot had mental disease caused by physical ailments. Establishing the cause ensured the treatment led to a successful outcome.
How often have we read in the literature of experienced homœopaths saying that “the seemingly indicated remedy failed to act”. Was it because the “totality of symptoms” approach to finding the remedy did not work, either due to the original cause of the disease not being sufficiently considered or due to a continuing block to cure, brought about by an exciting or maintaining cause.
Our late editor, Bruce Barwell, in his first editorial in the July 1997 Homœopathica said, “What do I mean by Hahnemannian homœopathy? I mean prescribing a medicine made according to the directions of an official homœopathic pharmacopœia selected after considering all the symptoms in the case created by disease, with almost exclusive emphasis on its cause and those symptoms which are striking, unusual and exceptional.”
In Aphorism 5 of the Organon, Hahnemann introduces causation as a component in putting together a complete case.
In Aphorism 7 he says in a footnote that it is possible if you remove the exciting or maintaining cause, where it exists, the indisposition may cease spontaneously. Even if the problem does not cease we need to remove the maintaining causes, both physical and non-physical, that block the well selected remedy from doing its work. Unless the cause is first removed, cure is unlikely.
If a situation is continuing you may have both a causation and a maintaining cause or aggravation. If the person is removed from the situation and finds their illness is reduced dramatically then it clearly is an aggravation. If the situation is stopped and the illness remains at a heightened level then you clearly have causation.
If the disease starts or is dramatically increased by a particular situation, you have rubrics in the repertory under “ailments from” that refer. Also “never well since” rubrics cover causation and can be utilised.
It is often possible using these rubrics to prescribe a remedy that fits the causation and yet does not have many of the other symptoms in the remedy picture.
Sometimes it is possible to prescribe a remedy “with almost exclusive emphasis on its cause and those symptoms which are striking, unusual and exceptional”.
At other times the remedy can be selected using Boenninghausen’s location, sensation, modalities, concomitants, with the causation added to these.
Monty Firmin