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constantine hering – guiding symptoms of our materia medica PDF

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CONSTANTINE HERING – GUIDING SYMPTOMS OF OUR MATERIA MEDICA Introduction The idea of reprinting of Hering's Guiding Symptoms was born in rather peculiar circumstances. Mr. Jain of M/s. B. Jain Publishers, was discussing with me the reprinting of Kent's Repertory and informed me that he was ready to go in to press for bringing out a new reprint. I dissuaded him because I felt that already three publishers have brought out the reprint of the famous repertory. Nobody had, however, tried to improve the previous edition either by revising or by adding the newer data which has accumulated since Kent's death. It is a matter of regret that neither the profession nor the publishers of this book have paid any serious attention to it. I made Mr. Jain postpone this venture, promising him to give authentic data for additions to Kent's Repertory. Let this edition be a memorable advance on the previous ones. I am convinced that Kent certainly would have wanted us to continue beyond where he left. This argument appealed to Mr. Jain and I was happy to find that he was willing to postpone this venture so that we could do something better than what has been done so far. Instead, I suggested that they should bring out a reprint of Hering's Guiding Symptoms. Till 1966, when Gregg Press Limited of England brought out a new print this valuable book was out of the print for about 90 years. This book is as valuable to-day, as when it was conceived. Even this new edition is out of print. There is a genuine demand by the profession, provided a reasonably priced edition could be brought out by any publisher. So far none of the publishers of Homoeopathic Literature have dared to undertake its publication. Mr. Jain, however, accepted the challenge and agreed to produce an edition which will be within the reach of every practising homoeopath. Judging by his previous performance and inexhaustible energy, I was convinced that he will be able to do it. That is how the idea of this edition of Hering's great book was born. Since this was my suggestion, I have been persuaded by him to write this introduction to the new edition. For me, it is a privilege to be associated with Hering's name, however minor the association may be. The great trio of Homoeopathy-Hahnemann, Boenninghausen and Hering-made very singular contributions to the science and art of Homoeopathy. Hahnemann gave us the basic principles and beginnings of Homoeopathic materia Medica. Boenninghausen gave us the origins of Homoeopathic Repertory and Hering gave us the 'matured' Materia Medica. The Homoeopathic Materia Medica came of age only when Hering published his work. Before that, the works on Materia Medica were rather collections of innumerable symptoms from provings and poisonings and not applied Materia Medica as this Hering's Guiding Symptoms is. For Hering, a symptom does not acquire the status of a guiding symptom unless, apart from its appearance in a prover or provers, it has been verified on the bedside a number of times. Actually, he laid down the criteria of the value of symptoms on that very basis. In his "Guiding Symptoms" he laid down the evaluation of symptoms into four grades |, ||, ¤, ¤¤, just as Boenninghausen had introduced the evaluation in his repertory. Hering admitted this idea which was borrowed from Boenninghausen, but, he was the first to apply it to the Materia Medica. This was indeed a great practical advance as it introduced some guiding points for the practical application of the stupendous Homoeopathic Materia Medica to the ills of mankind. Before him, Hahnemann had introduced rough evaluations depending more upon the occurrence of a symptom in the different provers. Dr. T.F. Allen, in his Encyclopaedia of Pure Materia Medica introduced similar evaluations, but even then, the number of confirmed or verified symptoms was proportionately much smaller compared to other symptoms obtained from provings or toxicological symptoms. In the Hering's Guiding Symptoms, the emphasis had shifted to the confirmed symptoms. The result is that the proportion of confirmed symptoms to others is much more enlarged. It was because of his work that later on smaller works on materia Medica, based on characteristics, were born. I wonder if anybody knows that Dr. HC. Allen's Keynotes of Leading Remedies is based entirely on the Guiding symptoms! Practically not a sentence or word has been changed. This latter book became popular and had numerous reprints, but people forgot about the original source. For each drug, Dr. H.C. Allen selected some of the symptoms from the Guiding Symptoms according to his sense of priority and his own personal experience. Yet there are quite a few symptoms which should have been replaced by other more important symptoms which are lying unnoticed in the Guiding Symptoms. One can imagine the amount of work done by Hering. He spent his life-time in producing this work, trying to collect verifications and confirmations from all reliable resources. Hering died after having published the first two volumes and completing part of the third volume. The remaining volumes were completed by his trusted students and colleagues, Drs. C.G. Raue, C.B. Knerr and C. Mohr. He knew, he would not live to finish this huge assignment. He had trained his successors, and a few weeks before his death had given them the manuscripts and all the instructions for completing his labour of over fifty years. In his humorous way, he had said to them, "Perhaps, from my place in Heaven, I may peep through a little hole and see that my work is well done!" The first volume was published in Hering's time in 1879. The second volume appeared next year in 1880. After that his successors published the later volumes during the period from 1881 to 1891. It took them ten years to complete the work. Not only Dr. H.C. Allen, but Kent also based his lectures mostly on Hering's Guiding Symptoms. When he mentions "The Text" in his lectures on Materia Medica, he quotes only the Guiding Symptoms. In his repertory also, Hering's symptoms were taken without exception. The greatest debt, however, owed by Kent to Hering in the construction of his repertory was the evaluation or grading of the remedies. This was based mostly on Hering's evaluation of the symptoms for a particular drug in his Guiding Symptoms. Another beauty of the "Guiding Symptoms" is the mention of various pathological conditions or diseases in which a particular symptom was found to be cured by a particular drug. This is mentioned by Hering at the end of the symptoms n brackets there are confirmations of the provings in particular conditions of disease. The reliability of the symptoms is doubly insured by repeated observations and confirmation on the sick in certain conditions of sickness. At the end of description of a drug in the Guiding Symptoms, the author has given references of relationship of drugs and hints for comparative study. This again was quite an innovation at that time. The relationships etc. of Allen's "Keynotes" is copied entirely from this source. Thus "Hering also laid the foundations of comparative materia medica. Later on Dr. Farrington and Dr. Clarke enlarged on the comparative study of drugs for a given symptom. Hering had made a very careful and judicious selection of symptoms to be incorporated in his materia Medica. His Judgement was influenced only by the test of time and experience. There are symptoms appearing in Hahnemann's Materia Medica Pura and Allen's Encyclopaedia, which Hering ignored, but emphasised others, which though having comparatively lower gradation, were verified and confirmed more often in actual practice. Let us take a minor example regarding Aconite. In the Materia Medica Pura, Hahnemann has mentioned in bold type "Weakness and laxity of the ligaments of all the joints". This symptom is missing in the Guiding Symptoms. On the other hand, Hering has highlighted the symptom: "¤¤ Numbness of left arm; can scarcely move hand; tingling of fingers." These symptoms were confirmed in cases of heart disease. If one reads the Materia Medica Pura of the Encyclopaedia, one misses the significance, whereas Hering saw in his own experience as well as from the experience of others interesting probabilities and possibilities and confirmed them in practice. Hence he placed such symptoms on a higher pedestal. Any deep student of Homoeopathic Materia Medica will come to the conclusion that the works like "Guiding Symptoms" need to be revised and allowed to grow in the hands of competent authorities. I cite an example. In the study of the drug, Aesculus Hipp. Under the section "Locality and Direction" he has mentioned preponderance of symptoms on the right side, whereas, on the left side, he mentions only four or five symptoms. Kent also, in his repertory, under Generalities followed this bias and placed Aesculus Hipp. In the list of the right sided remedies giving it the second grade. However, if one studies the text carefully in Hering's Guiding Symptoms, one finds the following symptoms on left side which were, due to oversight, left out and were not listed under "Locality and Direction; Left side". 1. Left knee, painful and swollen-stiff. 2. Left ankle-tension. 3. Burning left toe. 4. Burning in the dorsum of left toe. 5. Drawing and tearing in left arm extending to tips of fingers. 6. Neuralgic pain in the left arm. 7. Numbness, left arm and hand; left eye and left ear. 8. Soreness left hip and knee joints. 9. Shooting pain in left arm. 10. Twitchings in left arm; left shoulder. 11. Shooting pain in left kidney and left ureter. One can see how we can come to wrong conclusions by mistakes like this. There are a few other places where similar omissions have occurred. The writing of a Materia Medica like this is a gigantic task and it is the task of the later generations to revise and improve and add to what the early giants had contributed. Moreover, this book requires further extension of the existing remedies and introduction of new remedies which have not found their place so far in it. I have proposed to the Publishers that they should bring out additional volumes as appendices so that we make such a book as complete as possible. There is so much of material which must have accumulated since 1891. It is discouraging that we are not able to incorporate it. I am, however, glad that the publishers have agreed with my view and may publish subsequently further volumes as additional data. In my study of Materia Medica, and its application in actual practice, I have found that Hering's set has been most invaluable. To own the Guiding Symptoms, I had to pay a fantastic price for each volume in my student days. I have never been sorry for it. I am sure that every Homoeopathic student and practitioner makes use of this opportunity of owning this set. The profession should be grateful to the Publishers for making it available to everybody. This is an invaluable treasure. The more I study it, the more am over-awed by the genius of our pioneers. 86, Golf Links, DR. JUGAL KISHORE New Delhi-3 B.S. C., D.M. S (CAL) August 21, 1971 [hr1] PAGE 3 Preface This work will especially commend itself to the busy practitioner, because it is an attempt to give our Materia Medica in such a form as will make the selection of a curative medicine in any given case as easy as possible. It is a complement to all other works on our Materia Medica, being principally a collection of CURED SYMPTOMS. We could fill pages with quotations from our best practitioners in favour of their use in the selection of remedies. A cured symptom only, has never such an intrinsic value as one produced and cured, and yet, such a one should not be ignored; in course of time it may be added to the characteristics. Of course all characteristics will be found here, and many other symptoms produced and cured, which further experience may warrant us in marking up in degree until they attain the grade we denominate characteristics. As so many peculiar views have been expressed in regard to what is meant by a characteristic, a few words on the subject may not be out of place. Some of our best observers have been sneered at by would-be critics, as if they had been guilty of manufacturing characteristics. This, of course, proves them to be sadly deficient in a knowledge of the Organon. Let us see what Hahnemann says there, in his masterly advice how to examine the sick. [hr1] PAGE 4 § 95. In chronic diseases the investigation of all symptoms should be conducted as carefully and circumstantially as possible, and made to penetrate the minutest details, because they are most peculiar and most unlike those of acute affections, and also because they never can be too accurately considered for the purpose of successful treatment. Again, chronic patients are so injured to suffering, that circumstances, however characteristic and decisive in the selection of the remedy, are rarely, if at all, mentioned by them, but rather considered as a part of their unavoidable condition. It rarely occurs to them that other small or great deviations from the healthy condition might be connected with the main disease. § 101. A physician accustomed to exact observation may approach the true condition of an epidemic so closely that he is enabled to construe a characteristic image of the same, and even to discover the appropriate homoeopathic remedy. § 102. By writing down the symptoms of several cases of this kind, the sketch of the disease will gradually become more complete; without being enlarged by additional phrases, it will be more closely defined (more characteristic) and made to embrace more of the peculiarity of such collective diseases. General signs such as want of appetite, sleeplessness, etc., are specified and defined. More prominent and special symptoms will be made conspicuous by proper notation, and constitute the characteristics of the epidemic. § 104. When all the prominent and characteristic symptoms, collectively forming an image of a disease, have been carefully committed to writing, the most difficult part of the work will have been done. [hr1] PAGE 5 § 153. The search for a remedy consists in the comparison of the totality of the symptoms (of the sick) with the symptoms of our proved drugs. In making this comparison, the more prominent, uncommon and peculiar (characteristic) features of the case are especially and almost exclusively considered and noted; for these in particular should bear the closest similitude to the symptoms of the desired medicine, if that is to accomplish the cure. More general and indefinite symptoms, such as want of appetite, headache, weakness, restless sleep, distress, etc., unless more clearly defined, deserve but little notice on account of their vagueness. In paragraphs 164, 165 and 178 nearly the same is repeated. For the benefit of all who may have an opportunity of comparing the master's first edition of 1810, we quote the paragraphs and pages where he used the word "characteristic." § 74, p. 73, more fully explained; § 129. P. 108; § 135, p. 114; § 152, p. 122; § 169, p. 132; § 183, p. 151. Every word contained in his masterly advice how to examine the sick was new and unheard of in the history of medical science. According to this practical advice of Hahnemann, we have endeavoured to find out the characteristics of our drugs. What are the ways our School has followed? The first is, we allow the possibility that symptoms may follow when a drug is taken in health, and that these symptoms are produced conjointly by the drug and the prover. [hr1] PAGE 6 "Could Cinchona bark produce altered sensations on myself, if I took it now in health?" This was the question which induced Hahnemann to make his first proving, in 1790. The answer was, he felt a group of symptoms exactly such as he had when he suffered from intermittent fever, twenty years before, in Siebenbuergen. Was he satisfied with this observation? Certainly not. He repeated his experiment, and he repeated it several times with exactly the same result. "I stopped taking it, and got well," he says. Throughout all, we see the fine result of the thinking lessons given to Hahnemann by his father when a boy. His very first step already refuted the slander which was subsequently flung at our school, that it was based on the conclusion, post hoc, ergo propter hoc. If the same or similar symptoms appeared in the proving of a drug on the healthy, they were considered as having been probably caused by it, and the oftener the symptoms appeared in the provings, the greater became the probability. How anxiously the first builders of our Materia Medica looked for the printing of the provings, in order to compare their own with the symptoms of others, deriving enjoyment from each confirmation! The next step was to look for physiological and pathological corroborations. But all this was only considered as magnifying the probability. The next step was to give a drug to the sick, according to the symptoms it had produced on the healthy and the cures made were the verifications. [hr1] PAGE 7 Finally we obtained the CHARACTERISTIC, the ripe fruit hanging upon the tree. We never selected the remedy according to the loose generalisations in fashion with many,, and considered more scientific. We never walked on pathological stilts, but always took the symptom as a reality, on the one side observed by the prover, and on the other side observed on the sick. Phrases of "grand starting-points" and "centres of action in the ganglionic nerve-centres" are vagaries of a scientific appearance which every tyro can manufacture anew according to the latest fashion. The definition of a characteristic being "a symptom not found under more than one remedy" is quite erroneous. Such a unicum occurring among a large collection of symptoms should be looked upon with suspicion. On the contrary, all our most approved characteristics, as they have been corroborated time and time again, are never such as are found in one medicine alone. Many years ago, for the benefit of the students at Allentown, the following little scheme was written on the blackboard in the lectures on Materia Medica: \ / \ Sensation / \ / \ / \ / \ / Localities \ / Conditions, Tissues \/ or better, modalitties. /\ / \ / \ / \ / \ /Concomitants / \ [hr1] PAGE 8 The characteristic may be found in one or more of these. Three points of rest, according to mathematics, being enough to support any object, we may assume that three characteristics should be sufficient to make a cure very probable. All the so-called dynamics have been omitted. Thus the various applications of heat and cold, the water treatment, the two electricites, light and the use of colours, especially the indispensable blue light, magnetism (the work of many years of our master), the contact of metals (lately taken up again by the Old School), the highly valuable mesmerism, and the movement cure; not as if one could be a physician without them, but because they ought to be treated of in a separate work. So also all medicinal springs have been left out for the same reason. Some of the drugs have not found a place in this work for want of trustworthy cures. Very little notice has been taken of the so-called "critics," remembering the "razzia" of Roth in Paris, who had no other intention but to destroy our Materia Medica, and that by striking out, for the most trivial reasons, symptoms by the thousand. Like a don Quixote, he was fighting with windmills, and was not without a Sancho Panza, who wrote a treatise to show that Hahnemann's quotations of Dulcamara were erroneous, and that we had no right to give it for symptoms following exposure to cold. The poor critic did not know that there was scarcely a practitioner of homoeopathy who had not made such cures by the score. [hr1] PAGE 9 The arrangement Is the same as that in the "Analytical Therapeutics" and in the "Condensed Materia Medica." A more complete and concise review of the arrangement will precede the Repertory, which is to follow close upon the last volume of this work. To facilitate the study of the relative value of symptoms, four marks of distinction have been adopted, |, ||, ¤, ¤¤, which correspond to the four degrees in Boenninghausen's Repertory. | Is the lowest, and designates an occasionally confirmed symptom. It is omitted in most cases, and is sometimes used to mark a difference of value in the same line. || Symptoms more frequently confirmed. ¤ Symptoms verified by cures. ¤¤ Symptoms repeatedly verified. "The finger" Indicates an approved characteristic, but is seldom used, by reason of our not wishing to appear authoritative. It is to be hoped that the combined experience of many practitioners, solicited from all sides, will enable us in a future edition to designate many more symptoms with this mark. ð The Greek letter "theta" stands between the cured symptom and the pathological condition, or the physiological general state, f. i., pregnancy or climacteric years. This by no means excludes the characteristic nature of the symptom in other forms of disease. { Such observations from the Old School or the News as are worthy of our consideration. t. Toxicological. r. Right. L. Left. Agg. Increase, or aggravation; worse. Amel. Decrease, or amelioration; better. p The Greek "pi" stands before symptoms observed only on the sick. [hr1] PAGE 10 Like all employers with a good conscience, we are not governed by "strikers." It has been my rule through life never to accept anything as true, unless it came as near mathematical proof as possible in its domain of science; and, on the other hand, never to reject anything as false, unless there was stronger proof of its falsity. Some will say, "but so many things-a majority of all observations-will thus remain between the two undecided." So they will; and can it be helped? It can, but only by accumulating most careful observations and contributing them to the general fund of knowledge. CONSTANTINE HERING. Materia medica Abies nigra Black spruce. coniferae. The Pinus nigra or black spruce of this country. Proved by Dr. Leaman; Ohio Medical and Surgical Reporter. Mind - Inability to think or study. - | Very low-spirited; melancholy. Sensorium - Dizziness; bad feeling in head. Inner head - || Headache. - ¤ Terrible distress in head; generally with some flushing of face. ð Dyspepsia. Outer head - Head hot; with flushed cheeks. Gums - { Scurvy. Throat - Choking sensation in throat. Appetite - Exceedingly hungry and wakeful at night. - || Total loss of appetite in morning; craving for food noon and night. Eating - ¤ Pain after a hearty meal. - | Abstinence from particular food does not amel. ð Dyspepsia. Belching and vomiting - | Belching. - | Acid eructations. - | Frequent vomiting of food. Scrobiculum and stomach - ¤ Severe pain in stomach after eating. - || Distressing pain in stomach, extending to leftside. - ¤ Sensation of an undigested hard-boiled egg in stomach. ð Dyspepsia. - ¤ Continual distressing constriction just above pit of stomach, as if everything was knotted up, or as if a hard lump of undigested food remained there. ð Dyspepsia. Rectum and stool - || Constipation. Female sexual organs - Menses did not appear until third month after proving. Respiration - Gets out of breath easily. Back - Pain in small of back. Nerves - Nervousness. - Fatigue. Sleep - Dull and sleepy during day; restless and wakeful at night. - Wakeful at night with hunger. - Bad dreams. Time - Morning : total loss of appetite. - Noon : craving for food. - Night : hungry; wakeful and restless. - Day : dull and sleepy. Fever - Alternate heat and cold. - { Malarial fevers. 1* - ¤ Chronic intermittent fever, accompanied by stomachache. Locality and direction - Left : pain in stomach extends to side. Sensations - As if choking; of an undigested hard-boiled egg in stomach; as if everything was knotted up in stomach. - Pain : in stomach after eating; in small of back. - Aching : in bones. - Rheumatic pain : in bones. - Constriction : above pit of stomach. Tissues - Rheumatic pains and aching in bones. Relationship - Used in preparation of spruce beer. - Similar to : Nux vom. (pressure as from a stone after a meal); Bismuth; Calc. carb. (like a load after a moderate supper); Bryon. (like a stone, worse moving); Kali carb.; Arsen.; Zincum (as if food lodged in oesophagus); Ignat. - (food feels as if lying above cardiac orifice); Sepia (nightly pressure as from a stone, also after food); Agar. - (burning after food, followed by pressure as from a foreign body); Phosphor.; Pulsat. (like a stone, early, on awaking); Sulphur; Cinchon. (accompanied by bloating); Natr. mur. (sensation of a foreign body sticking in cardiac orifice). Abrotanum Southernwood. compositae. Artimisia abrotanum, or southernwood, growing on sunny hills in Southern Europe, and cultivated in gardens. Celebrated as an old popular medicine. Introduced into our practice by Deventer. Proved by Gatchell on two women. Mind - Feebleness and dulness of mind. - No capacity for thinking, as if all bodily and mental power were gone. - Thinks her brain is softening. - Excited, loquacious, feels like shouting. - Taciturnity. - Indolence, aversion to physical exercise. - Good humored, happy. - Gloomy, desponding. - ¤ Great anxiety and depression. ð Gastralgia. - ¤ The child is cross and depressed. ð Marasmus. - Ill-natured, irritable, violent. - Exceedingly peevish, feels as if she would like to do something cruel; no humanity. - Easily fatigued by conversation or mental effort. Inner head - The left brain seemed especially weak; easily fatigued by conversation or mental effort. - Sensation as of creeping chills along convolutions of brain, accompanied by prickling. Outer head - Head weak, could not hold it up. - Scalp sore, especially side. - Itching of scalp. Eyes - ¤ Blue rings around dull looking eyes. ð Chlorosis. - Inflamed eyes. Nose - Dryness of inner nose. - ¤ Nosebleed with boys. Face - ¤ Face wrinkled, old, pale. ð Marasmus. - ¤ Comedones with emaciation. - Face feels cold. - Drawing pains in upper maxilla. Teeth - Drawing and tearing pains in carious teeth. Taste - ¤ Slimy taste. ð Gastralgia. - Acid taste. Throat - Scraping in throat. Appetite - Gnawing hunger; craves bread boiled in milk. - ¤ Appetite great; ravenous while emaciating; marasmus. - ¤ Loss of appetite. ð Gastralgia. Scrobiculum and stomach - Burning in stomach as from acidity. - Fulness and bloating in region of stomach. - ¤ Sensation as if stomach was hanging or swimming in water, with a peculiar feeling of coldness and a dulness to all irritants. ð Gastralgia. - ¤ Pains cutting, gnawing, burning, sometimes contracting and stinging, mostly agg at night; never entirely free from pain, even in intervals. ð Gastralgia. - ¤ Disturbed digestion. ð Chlorosis. Abdomen - Weak, sinking feeling in bowels. - ¤ Frequent colicky pain. ð Marasmus. - ¤ Distended abdomen. ð Chlorosis; marasmus; colic. - | Hard lumps in different parts of abdomen. Rectum and stool - After sudden checking of diarrhoea, rheumatism. - Piles appear and become agg as rheumatic pains abate; frequent inclination to stool; hardly anything but blood passes. - ¤ Constipation. ð Gastralgia. - { Worms, especially ascarides. ð Marasmus. - ¤ Alternate diarrhoea and constipation; food passes undigested. ð Marasmus. - ¤ Protruding hemorrhoidal tumors, burning when touched and when pressing. Urinary organs - Bladder full, urging to urinate. - Urine scanty. Male sexual organs - ¤ Hydrocele of children. Female sexual organs - Darting pain in region of left ovary. - Twitching in ovarian regions, seems to extend to back. - { Ulcers on os tincae. - | Dysmenorrhoea; suppressed catamenia. Pregnancy and parturition - { Difficult parturition. - ¤ Blood and moisture oozing from navel of newborn children. Voice and larynx - Sudden hoarseness; weak voice. Respiration - ¤ Impeded breathing. Cough - ¤ Troublesome cough. ð Rheumatism. Inner chest - Raw feeling in respiratory tract from cold air. - ¤ In pleurisy (after Acon. and Bryon.), when a pressing sensation remains in affected side, impeding free breathing. Heart, pulse and circulation - ¤ Pain across chest, sharp and severe in region of heart. ð Rheumatism. - ¤ Pulse weak and small. ð Chlorosis. - ¤ Ebullitions, with general heat and distended veins on forehead and hands. ð Hemorrhoidal colic. Outer chest - Drawing pains in chest-muscles, especially from motion. Back - Weak back, with ovarian pains. - ¤ Pains in sacrum. ð Hemorrhoidal colic. Upper limbs - Fugitive pains in shoulders all night, preventing sleep. - Aching from shoulder joints to elbow. - Arms very weak. - Numb sensation in fingers. - Dull aching in first finger of right hand, followed by similar pain in other fingers of right and left hand. - Pricking and coldness of finger tips. Lower limbs - ¤ Emaciation, mostly of legs. ð Marasmus.

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