Homeopathy - An A to Z Home Handbook

Review

This book review is reprinted from Volume 27, Number 3, May/June 2007 edition of Homeopathy Today with the permission of the National Center for Homeopathy
801 North Fairfax Street, Suite 306
Alexandria, VA 22314
(703) 548-7790, Fax (703) 548-7792

Homeopathy: An A to Z Home Handbook
Alan V. Schmukler

Reviewed by Teresa Kramer

AT FIRST, THE TITLE MADE ME THINK, "I've already got stuff like this." Turns out I don't have anything quite like it, and I'm glad I have it now! Alan's book is a perfect companion to the NCH's First Response Homeopathy in Epidemics and Emergencies course: a ton of information, including some you hope you will never need but are better off having, especially in this well-organized, easy-to-use form.

After explaining "the what, how, and why of homeopathy" clearly and succinctly, Alan presents an amazing compilation of ailments from A to Z. He begins with the treatment of abscesses and ends with wounds and yellow fever. There are entries on the homeopathic treatment of anthrax, dengue fever, Ebola, hanta virus, and gangrene. There are also remedy scenarios for more common problems: earache, grief, flu, toothache, etc.

Included among the descriptions of possible remedies are a number I had never heard of ( Cadmium sulph, Mephitis, Convallaria) and others whose names were only vaguely familiar to me (Dioscorea, Picric acid). I won't find those in my home remedy kits, but I'm glad to know they exist.

Polychrest remedies are mentioned over and over, of course. Annoyingly repetitive? Not at all. Each brief description is directly applicable to the particular situation. This makes for a more digestible byte than the comprehensive description in a materia medica. Encountering remedy descriptions repeatedly in slightly different situations is a good review, even for people who have studied homeopathy for years. For novices, the repetition of the keynote symptoms of polychrests drums in the "personalities" of these remedies. Nosodes may perhaps receive more attention than is their due in a book aimed at non-practitioners. Still, even that makes for interesting reading.

In some instances, Alan has also added "first aid measures that can help the victim". No need to go looking for other books when acute help is needed. I really appreciate having so much in one place!

Faced with an actual acute situation, I would surely find Alan's alphabetic organization by common names of disease states helpful. Alan stresses, of course, that you can find the remedy "when you don't know the name of the ailment." For a newbie to homeopathy, however, that's a really hard concept to get your head around.

In the 1960s, living in a developing country and bent on experiencing natural childbirth, I could have used Alan's chapter on pregnancy and birth. Of course, professional homeopathic care would be far preferable, but when none is available, as was true in my case, Alan's advice would be priceless. I'll certainly send a copy of the book to our daughter in the Peace Corps who has recently encountered dengue fever, up close and personal!

The book is stuffed with intriguing tidbits such as "Pulsatilla should only be used in the third trimester and as a 30c or higher." That one sent me to Google, where I found that herbal Pulsatilla is believed to cause birth defects. Information in the brief chapter on "Organ Remedies" probably goes well beyond the competence of laypersons. On the other hand, it contains the sort of information that the people who attended NCH's First Response course in Philadelphia recently were obviously eager to have.

Alan talks about using homeopathy preventively, and the information provided might be very valuable in a pinch. The chapter devoted to "First Aid Remedies for Specific Occupations and Activities" is surely unique in homeopathic literature. Alan begins with remedies an activist might want to carry (Arnica for trauma, Euphrasia for the effects of tear gas, etc.) and proceeds to suggest a mini-kit for astronauts, bartenders, truckers, welders, and others. If he gets that sort of information into the hands of the general public, Alan might indeed achieve his goal: "to help homeopathy move from our exclusive club, into the mainstream."

Alan's book is sturdily bound and has been carefully copy-edited. He calls it "a handbook for survival" and notes that the book "is not meant as a substitute for professional medical care, when that care is available." With this book (and hopefully a first -aid course or two), he assures the reader, "you will be able to act, even if imperfectly." Heaven forbid we should find ourselves responding to a life-threatening or cataclysmic event, but if we did, this book would be a godsend!

Alan believes homeopathy is "magical, exciting, and empowering." Having his book-already dog-eared and visibly well-loved-certainly makes me feel empowered!

 

This book review is reprinted with the permission of the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians
P.O. Box 21488, Portland, OR 97212

Homeopathy: An A to Z Home Handbook
Alan V. Schmukler

Reviewed by Neil Tessler

This latest addition to the many home care homeopathy offerings has its own charms, and may well be found to have utility for the busy practitioner seeking a clinically oriented materia medica to have around. Following the usual introductory materials, the next 210 pages are an alphabetical list of conditions, followed by common remedies and their indications. The health conditions discussed are wide ranging. Headings such as Gun shot wounds, Hanta and Ebola virus (among other tropical diseases), Lyme Disease, Lymphangitis, frostbite, electric shocks, gangrene, and a wide variety of emotional states, stand out among the usual range of more common conditions.

Following this there is a special section devoted to specific organ systems and common remedies associated with them. There is also a section devoted to pregnancy and childbirth. The author also offers a chapter of one-paragraph descriptions of the key features of many remedies. There is also a section listing occupations and remedies that might be likely to come in handy. Lastly, he offers a chapter on how to extend the life of your stock of remedies and how to make your own in a pinch.

Plenty of first aid information as well as "homeopathic vaccination" related information is offered. This includes a list of ailments and remedies that may be used preventively for those conditions. Blessed by a beautiful and durable cover, Schmukler's A to Z Handbook is a worthy addition to the home-care library and maybe of some value to practitioners as well.

 

This book review is reprinted with the permission of the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians
12132 SE Foster Place
Portland, OR 97266
Telephone: (503) 761-3298
Fax: (503) 762-1929

HOMEOPATHY A-Z
by Dana Ullman, MPH
Reviewed by Peter Wright, ND, DHANP

A thorough account of the history of American homeopathy in the final quarter of the 20th Century will surely include more than a passing mention of Dana Ullman. In the years since he and Randy Neufstaedter encountered Richard Grossinger's intriguing interview with Theodore Enslin in the 1971 "Healing Issue" of the Canadian Whole Earth Almanac, Dana has found a unique niche in the informational food chain. Through lectures, classes, and authorship of numerous books and magazine articles, he has succeeded in introducing multitudes of lay people and professionals to homeopathic medicine.

Homeopathy found me, for one, at a public forum on alternative medicine at Stanford University in 1977, where he was featured among the speakers. In the following months I took his beginning and intermediate classes, joined a study group in which he often participated, and purchased my first textbooks and remedies from him.

Dana's business, Homeopathic Educational Services, stands out as the premier one-stop source of publications, software and remedies in the country. Extroverted, enthusiastic and pragmatic, his tireless efforts to promote the art of homeopathy are inseparable from the story of homeopathy is recent improbable progress from a dusty antique to a cutting edge contender among contemporary holistic therapies. As invisible and hermetic as we may sometimes feel as practitioners of an obscure system in a deeply allopathic culture, without this man's work we might still be far less visible!

His latest book is part of a series of colorful spiral-bound "A-Z" titles from the publishing venture of popular new age writer and teacher Louise Hay, which also includes "A-Z" volumes on aromatherapy, herbal medicine and Feng Shui. Visually and linguistically, this book is the antithesis of the dense, anachronistic republished tomes with which we began our study of Hahnemannian healing. Sprightly paintings of plants, remedy bottles and stylized figures, with feel-good messages like "Hold someone close to you and breathe with them" and "Inside a homeopathic medicine bottle is a world of possibilities" decorate every easy-to-read page.

Introductory books for lay people present the professional homeopath with a bit of a quandary. We want our patients to understand enough about what we are doing to willingly cooperate with our far-ranging interrogations, and to persist with us on the sometimes circuitous road of healing, despite the unpredictable obstacles of incorrect remedies and quirky aggravations. We certainly want them to feel that the medicines are safe and potentially effective, and that the care we provide is responsible and rooted in well-established principles and methods. We may even encourage their efforts to treat themselves and their family members with acute and first aid remedies in appropriate situations.

At the same time, we are conscious of the intrinsic complexity of the art, the difficulty of obtaining consistent results even with adequate training, the conundrums of distinguishing what may appear to be acute symptoms from those which actually belong to an individual's underlying chronic state, and so on. We don't want self-care prescribing to confuse or suppress the case, and we don't want our patients to undergo unintentional provings. We don't want them to second-guess our prescriptions, or to color their responses to our inquiries with what they have read about remedies. We want their experiences with homeopathy to be positive and empowering, but not so much so that they attempt to self-prescribe for problems which call for professional evaluation and management.

Homeopathy A-Z is divided into three parts: "About Homeopathy," a concise summary of homeopathic principles; "Homeopathy A-Z," a therapeutic guide presenting a few common remedies for an array of complaints, from abscesses to warts; and "Resources," listing homeopathic organizations, pharmacies, and recommended books.

Dana's exposition of the fundamentals demonstrates his mastery of the frequently asked questions with which we all must contend in responding to patients. I can't ignore his defense of combination remedies, which he suggests are as nonsuppressive and often effective for treating minor illnesses. After all, he was the first to instruct me in the principle of treating the whole person with the single remedy. Now he has his own line of combinations for sale! Perhaps, as he implies, my adherence to the basic Hahnemannian formula of Similia, Simplex, and Minimus, earns me a place among those whom he labels as "fundamentalists, who see their world in black and white, and who assume that there is only one way to do homeopathy ..."

Although one can readily agree with him that that "There are many ways to make homeopathic medicines work," I would argue that if any and all of the very diverse ways of using potentized substances are lumped together as "homeopathy," the term simply loses its meaning altogether.

I would welcome the demise of the phrase "Classical Homeopathy." Instead of using a special label to denote the homeopathy of Hahnemann and his successors, we should apply special labels to the nonhomeopathic experiments and improvisations with microdilutions of those who seek shortcuts to the goals of our worthy preceptors. Let a thousand flowers bloom, by all means. As Dana says, " simplistic and dogmatic thinking has no place in the art and science of healing." But let's not call them all homeopathy!

His mission, above all, is to make homeopathy accessible. Combination remedies are one aspect of this attempt, which is also reflected in the therapeutics format of the book. Apart from the "fundamentalists" principled objections to focusing on a single diagnosis or symptom, and then comparing, or compounding, a few typical remedies for the condition, these methods run into an important limitation: in my experience, they just don't work very reliably.

Attempts to streamline the process of remedy selection, whether by using a formula or picking a plausible medicine from a short menu of illness-specific "usual suspects," carry a cost. They reduce the likelihood of obtaining the kind of strikingly successful results which can change a curious dabbler into a committed convert to homeopathy. On the positive side, the book is scrupulous in repeatedly instructing the home prescriber stop taking remedies which aren't acting, and in advising about situations where professional care is strongly indicated.

As homeopathic medicines become increasingly available through supermarkets, natural food stores and pharmacies, the need for books like Homeopathy A-Z will continue to grow. Some readers will be inspired to try prescribing for themselves and their families. Others may remain confused by the Latin nomenclature and the unavoidable profusion of unfamiliar concepts, while concluding nevertheless that homeopathy is "deep," and merits further investigation.

Perhaps the real importance of Dana's work will ultimately be less in empowering a large cadre of adept lay prescribers, and more in expanding the numbers of people who attain just enough understanding of the essentials of the system to seek out either high-quality instruction for themselves, or the services of well-trained homeopaths.

SIMILLIMUM - Summer 1999
Volume XII No. 2