The Celle Homeopathic Seminar

Review

This book review is reprinted from The Homoeopath with permission from Nick Churchill of The Society of Homoeopaths.
2 Artizan Road, Northampton NN1 4HU, United Kingdom.

Reviewed by Francis Treuherz

Now for the latest publication, from which a chapter is reprinted in this Journal. Ulrich Burgdorf has produced a solid volume of 480 pages comprising 18 cases and three remedy essences: Adonis vernalis, Allium cepa, and Medorrhinum. The cases are long and complex, even convoluted. They make fascinating reading and study, just one chapter at a time. Although we cannot see the patient we can read what may be verbatim accounts of their testimony and their interrogation. We can read the essence of Vithoulkas' case taking technique probably faster than we could watch a video of it. And yet would it be cheaper and not much more cumbersome to manufacture videotapes than books, as the technology becomes cheaper and more accessible in every household?

Of course they are fascinating to read, like short detective stories, where the 'whodunnit' is the remedy. One can learn a lot from reading them. But what about the cure? These are almost all transcriptions of videos of George Vithoulkas interviewing patients in front of a camera and technicians and the patients' own homoeopath; with all the intrusive paraphernalia it is amazing how much is still revealed by the patient. even after treatment by the homoeopath may have failed.

It is strange and perhaps deliberate that they are almost all first prescriptions without follow up. Is this confidence, audacity or oversight? Only cases with a demonstrable cure would be considered as worth recounting even by that redoutable recounter of his own successes, James Compton Burnett. Compare these with the meticulously managed Case Conferences from the IFH.16 Each year we have published one of these cases so that you can see that the criterion for a solid record of case taking followed by evaluation of the action of the remedy and of cure. In fact the best criterion for publication of a case should be similar to those for the presentation of a case for Registration. The Vithoulkas cases presented here portray a description of the case by the resident homoeopath which is hardly evaluated in detail. Reasons arc not always given for the initial prescriptions nor for the apparent failure of the treatment. The initial care and work of the prescriber is rather dismissed. The patient is interviewed and often pressed for personal and also sexual items of information which it appears to me have not always a bearing on the discovery of the appropriate remedy and would leave Miranda Castro fuming if she ever reads this book.17

Vithoulkas does ask questions full of insight and under-standing and often is quite transparent in his pursuit of information leading to keynotes of a particular remedy -'do you like unripe fruit?' - or 'have you ever tried going to the seaside?'

Despite the very high quality of these transcriptions there are small ways in which they do not do justice to George Vithoulkas or to homoeopathy. To go into detail may make this review appear unduly critical. I regret to say this but I think it is so. Only by mentioning these details will Burgdorf and other publishers be persuaded to avoid making errors in the future. There have been many other books published in English by German publishers; almost without exception in recent years it appears that they have not been edited by a native English speaker and their errors of grammar style and presentation have actually been far worse than this publication.18 The Celle volume in English has some small errors of style which grate. There are some idiosyncracies of punctuation using >> and << for "and".

I must confess a prejudice having been born and raised in England in a German speaking family I am accustomed to these stylistic errors and maybe even, make them myself sometimes. But all that this book needs is one read through by an English proof reader and all would be well. George Vithoulkas' English is excellent but 'predicate' instead of 'predict' and the editor's 'left away' for 'left out' or 'omitted' are just two from a series of avoidable errors. I already know that the publisher will take this small point seriously.

It is revealed in case 9 that the patients were speaking in German and someone was translating. This is conveyed to the reader by his comment that the patient was looking at Vithoulkas instead of the interpreter although the transactions were in English. The publisher does not reveal this. The book is presented as if the seminar all took place in English. No translator is credited. I think that this is should he clarified.

We are not told when the seminar took place, important if we are to assess the development of Vithoulkas' ideas and work through time.

A number of allopathic prescriptions are mentioned, medicines that had been prescribed for the patients. The names used are trade names and not generic or chemical names so that the name of the substance may mean nothing for a reader in another country, a small point but one which could be remedied. Similarly there is reference to the computer in a number of places but the chart is not reproduced in the book.

Other stylistic points refer to homoeopathic style. In English speaking countries. We refer to potencies in a certain way, for example I OM rather than XM, x being used for decimal potencies. One of George Vithoulkas' most useful innovations is the systematic use of numerical grading to emphasise the symptoms of a patient so that for example, a desire for eggs with three underlines would show in a text as desires eggs(3) but this book uses (3x), a notation not seen elsewhere and which could be confused with a potency.20 Finally in this catalogue of minor stylistic faults is the omission not only of the name of the therapist but the omission of the names of all the participants in the discussions which were also recorded and included. We are not told who these worthy persons are, or whether they spoke in English or in German.

This book certainly shows George Vithoulkas as a virtuoso homoeopath with tremendous confidence and optimism for his patients. I know that it is one of his ambitions that there should be full video and paper records of his work and that of his colleagues and students so that the medical world may learn that homoeopathy is efficaceous beyond the anecdotal. I do hope that the next volumes show us the follow up treatments. I am really looking forward to reading it. I hope that this volume receives the acclaim that it deserves and that Burgdorf and the other seminar publishers will maintain high standards.

The Homoeopath Vol.12 No.4 1992