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Materia Medica
Started by: Thill at November 4 2006
Replies: 7 & Views: 1362
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Materia Medica
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By:
Thill
 
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November 4 2006
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The symptoms that the remedy produced on healthy persons have been compiled into lengthy reference books called 'Material medicas'. This is the main source of information for homeopathic remedies, which is used in the process of discovering the case remedy needed to do a prescription.
Material Medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties for any substance used for healing, what we would call a drug. The term was used from the period of the Roman Empire until the twentieth century, but has now been generally replaced in medical education contexts by pharmacology. In Latin, the term literally means 'medical matters'. One of the most well known early uses of the term was as the title of a work by the Greek pharmaco-botanist Dioscordes in the first century A.D. entitled de materia medica libri quinque (medical mattrs in five volumes). This famous commentary covered about 600 plants drugs plus a number of therapeutically used animal and mineral products.
Therapeutic use of plants and plant products precedes recorded history and seems to occur in all indigenous and preliterate cultures. We have no record of the original concepts of how these substances were thought to work. When we have explanations from ancient Western or Asian civilizations, or obtained from memebers of primitive cultures, the proposed explanations can often be characterized as magical, invoking mechanisms or relationships not recognized by science as natural phenomena. Fork healers among European peasantry believed that some of the visible characteristics of plants provided clues to human about the specific therapeutic velue of each plant, a concept known as the 'Doctrine of Signatures'.
In the early twentieth century the body of knowledge termed materia medica was transformed by the methods and knowledge of medicainal chemistry into the science of pharmacology.
All homeopathic remedies are listed in Latin so that every one can be precise with the exact source of the medical substance. These homeopathic names may differ from common names that are used in herbal form. Following the name of the remedy, in a Material Medica, is a 'Picture' or 'description'. This 'Picture' consists of listing various characteristices of an illness, or illnesses, and symptoms a person might exhibit who needs that praticular remedy.
There is a series of headings concerned with parts or systems of the body, such as mind, head, eyes, nose, and so on down to toes. Under each heading there is a list of symptoms, such as pain redness, or swelling. Also listed many clinical uses for the remedy, keynote symptoms and modalities, This also relates to the modality of worse and or better on certain condition.
There are hundreds of homeopathic meteria medicas, and there are different styles in which they are written and organized. Since material medicas are full of detailed information about a medicine, it is necessary to study each medicine in a systermatic way.
According to Dr. J. Kishore "the homeopathic Materia Medica is a very fascinating and yet an exasperating subject. There is no royal road to perfect understanding of Materia Medica". Each person develops his or her own way to study the materia medica. One common method is to summarize the key mental and physical symptoms on a index card or a sheet of paper. Now, a computer does this work accurately.
Dr. Hahnemann had proved various remedies, which he compiled in his book 'Materia Medica Pura'. The other prominent Homeopaths who made invaluable contributions to Dr. Hahnemann's work were, Dr. T.F.Allen, Dr. Nash, Dr. Boericke, Dr. Boenninghausen, Dr. Hering and Dr. Kent. They carried out rigorous proving of many unproved substances and added to the existing Materia Medica, which are referred as main reference source by doctors all over the World.
However, most of the remedies found in Materia Medicas were discovered in the last century or in the early part of this century. Many Homeopaths agree that there is an urgent need to update the information in order to find out if the twentieth century environment has changed people's responses to remedies. Some work has been done, still much to do.
"It employs for the cure only those medicines whose power for altering and deranging the health it knows accurately, and from these it selects on whose pathogenetic power is capable of removing the natural disease in question by similarity, and this it administers to the patient in simple form, but in rare and minute doses so samll that, without occasioning pain or weakening, injuring or torturing him in the very least, the natural disease is extinguished, and the patient, even whilst he is getting better, gains in strength and thus is cured"
-Dr. Hahnemann.
Thillai
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Re: Materia Medica
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By:
Thill
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November 4 2006
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Thillai
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Re: Materia Medica
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By:
girilal
New Jersey USA
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November 5 2006
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Thill, I got the exact same book.
girilal
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Re: Materia Medica
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By:
Thill
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November 5 2006
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I have three of them including 'Concordan Materia Medica' by Frans Vermeulen. If any one have this one, that mean they also have the Materia Medicas of Allen, Boericke, Boger, Clarke, Cowperthwaite, Hering, Kent, Lippe, Pulford and Vermeulen.
Because, the Concordant Material Medica has them all in it. It is simply a collection of all the above Materia Medicas. Still, I like Boericke's. it's different.
Thillai
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Re: Materia Medica
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By:
Thill
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November 5 2006
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Materia Medica, Kent's Word Index.
Thillai
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