Mark O'Sullivan, 2
Year Irish School of HomeopathyEssay: Chronic and Acute Disease21. Oct. 2005
constitutional treatment that brought it from him.During Hahnemann's early days as a homeopath, he practiced acute prescribing with the growingnumber of remedies available to him. Despite successes in his practice and with treatingepidemics, in around 1816 he became incresingly concened with patients whose complaints wouldcure in the short term but who kept returning with one ailment and another. These patients werenot finding a complete cure and Hahnemann set his mind to finding out why. He says, in
... the Homoeopathic physician with such a chronic (non-venereal) case, yea in all cases of (non-venereal) chronic disease, has not only to combat the disease presented before his eyes,and must not view and treat it as if it were a well-defined disease, to be speedily and permanently destroyed and healed by ordinary homoeopathic remedies but that he has alwaysto encounter only some separate fragment of a more deep-seated original disease.
Thus, a chronic disease is the deeper condition underlying all of the acuteailments that the patient continually develops, which are but “separatefragments” of the chronic syndrome the patient has. These chronicdiseases for hahnemann were not as time-bound as the acute conditions,nor did he see the patient's immunity as being capable of overcoming thechronic condition on their own but only with the help of well-chosenconstitutional remedies.Having named the demon, Hahnemann then proceeded to outline how best to approach treatingthe patient's chronic disease. He discovered that it was not the remedies or the law of similars thatwas at fault but merely a question of approach in case taking.
the Homoeopathic physician must ... first find out as far as possible the whole extent of all theaccidents and symptoms belonging, to the unknown Primitive malady before he can hope todiscover one or more
which may homoeopathically cover the whole of the original disease by means of its peculiar symptoms. (CD p6)
In order to apprehend the underlying condition and prescribe a remedy for it, Hahnemann is sayinghere that the patient's history of disease needs to be thoroughly taken as part of the case.The third aspect to bring into constitutional case taking is the nature of the individual treated. Their traits and temperaments. Their striking or unusual foibles, appearance and preferences. Hencetreating chronic disease with a constitutional remedy is broad in its scope, not limited in time and
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