Of course, as homeopaths, we all know that Hahnemann left us two ground breaking books to teach us homeopathy. Do I need to name them? — The Organon and The Chronic Diseases. And as sure as pizza at a party, you’ll find those two books on the reading list of every student of homeopathy. But let’s be honest: they’re not an easy read, and few ever got beyond the first few pages.
In another post I already mentioned that I was translating The Chronic Diseases to modern, readable English. In the meantime, I’ve finished and moved on to re-do the Organon. It was an arduous and laborsome process, to say the least. Of course, crawling through Hahnemann’s convoluted sentences I found several gold nuggets of wisdom. Do you remember the video game pac-man? I felt like that little sprite looking for diamonds along its treacherous way through the maze.
And today is one particularly shiny diamond I’d like to share with you: the way the master himself approached the follow-up prescription. From here on, this post may seem like total gibberish to you (in case you’re not at least a student of homeopathy). Then you’re excused and I beg your pardon for taking up your bandwidth unnecessarily. But if you’re a student or practitioner of homeopathy, you may find this distillate from The Chronic Diseases helpful for your education and practice.
Here’s the promised walk-through to guide you through the process step by step. Just start from the beginning, read the questions and follow the instructions.
- After the last prescription, are there old symptoms appearing?
(Yes: go to step 7) - Are strong and bothersome new symptoms appearing that persist longer than 2-3 weeks?
(No: go to step 7) - Are the new symptoms that have appeared common to the disease symptoms?
(Yes: the dose was too large, go to step 4)
(No: the remedy is not suitable, go to step 4) - Is there a known antidote to the remedy?
(Yes: give the antidote, go to step 5)
(No: give a better suited remedy, go to step 5) - Wait until troublesome symptoms disappear
- After they have disappeared, is the original remedy still indicated?
(Yes: give the previous remedy in a smaller dose and/or higher potency)
(No: give a new remedy based on the presenting state) - Wait
Simple enough, right? The interesting bit hides in step 6, where Hahnemann advises us to give a smaller dose or higher potency where, today, we would much rather give a lower potency. But this is different story and will be told another time.
Dr. Chris Kurz 