In reply to all:

1. To Ens. From your explanations, I now understand why you continued to ask all participants in your discussion to continue, even though I'd alerted you to the fact that it was disturbing that none of the other participants was providing any substantiation of their many and amazingly varied recommendations of remedies to you. You write that you believed that the more ppl who participated in your discussion, the greater your chances of finding the proper remedy for you son. I understand how you can feel this way. You trusted that the ppl replying to your situation were all experienced homeopaths and perhaps you didn't feel qualified to pressure them to substantiate/explain/give-reasons-for their recommendations (yet I reread all your posts and saw that you bravely did ask them for the "whys" on many occasions but they sadly did not answer you!! I will note, now, that this was the first warning to you that what was going on was not quite right.). In regard to you believeing "the more participants the better", well, yes, IF you had many ppl PROPERLY researching homeopathy (and there are indeed, as Simone's post says, a variety of ways to do the research and reach the correct simillimum), then "the more the merrier". However, this has not been the case in the lengthy discussion involving your son. I also suspect from Yvonne's and Simone's replies to me here, that there are some students and other non-professionals who visit this board but who dare not partake in discussions such as yours because they get the FALSE impression that "the professionals are taking care of things" and then they erroneously feel that their student/newbie input would be useless. The opposite would probably have been true in this particular case, and it is sad that these other students did not participate!! Plus, students/newbies are very likely to give the reasons for their recommendations (and hence it is easy to correct wrong assumptions or incomplete understandings). As far as your taking offense by thinking I was calling you an irresponsible parent. To that I will say that my first concern is for your son, your child. I take this position at all times with the parents. I do not know you. I did not know you were in touch with a doctor. As soon as I heard this, I was relieved and believed you, as a parent, were doing the right thing by keeping an allopathic doctor aware of your son's condition, AT THE SAME time you sought homeopathic advise. That was responsible of you. Remember, though, that I do not know you, and until your response here to my "warning to parents", I did not understand why you were continuing to solicit answers from ppl who were exhibiting very non-homeopathic advice-giving. Now I realize that you do not have the experience to judge whether the advice you received was based on good sound homeopathic reasoning or not. Just please keep in mind a little "rule of life": always command an explanation of why someone/anyone is giving you such-and-such advice. If they refuse to back up their advice with thorough reasons, move on to the next person/the next expert!! Any unwillingness to share one's method in arriving at a decision (at a particular homeopathic remedy, for example, but this applies to everything in life, really) sometimes is a result of EGO, sometimes selfishness, but othertimes it is from ignorance of the topic at hand. Of course, you can find that someone is willing to give you the explanation behind his or her advice to you, and the advice may still not be appropriate, but at least you have more information on which to learn and/or make a good decision. You are the ultimate decision-maker for your son until he becomes an adult. You are the appropriate decison-maker for your son. We homeopaths and the allopathic doctors have the role of giving you our opinions and suggestions so you can decide what is best for your son.
Having said all this, I will be glad to discuss further your son's case. I think we should talk about why I feel Nat mur is appropriate. You can tell me why you have felt that Nat mur is appropriate. And hopefully what will arise from our conversation is a good decision about whether to try Nat mur, or perhaps look at another remedy. I would suggest you read up on Nat mur and on Arsenicum album, and please start off by telling me why you feel one is better for your son than the other. This will be useful, all right? Also, what was the other remedy, besides for Lyc, that those other big-name homeopaths recommended? If you like, please reread my posts to you from your discussions, as then I won't have to repeat what I've already said. Looking forward to talking with you!!

2. Simone: yes, there are many ways of practicing homeopathy and arriving at the simillimum!! Neverthelesss, everyone must use the good homeopathic logic and reasoning. In the situation of Ens son, and in a few other situations I have read on these message boards, ppl are NOT using good homeopathic logic. One of the biggest problems is these ppl's unwillingness to state any and all reasons for making a recommendation of a remedy. I saw another scary situation where a lung patient was advised to take silica. So many of the old and wise founders of homeopathy recommend AGAINST this particular prescription!! Who are we to contradict them?? Again, another warning that some of what is going on on these message boards is NOT homeopathic logic. I take no personal offense here, but rather I felt concern for all those who visit here looking for assistance, in particular for parents looking for honmeopathic prescription advice for their innocent children. I felt parents must be warned to be very cautious. Also, I would like to provide my knowledge here and would love to learn of people's various ways of using homeopathic reasoning and logic to arrive at true simillimums. I appreciate your comments and your interest in my continuing to post on these boards.

3. Yvonne: the "substantiation" of my credentials will arise from people reviewing my logic in analyzing their situations and then seeing if any hints or suggestions I make are useful for their attending fuller health. As you can see, Ens says she visited some big-name homeopaths who provided no assistance for her son's health. True proof of whether any person is a good homeopath is whether their patients attain fuller happier health from taking the recommended advice and homeopathic prescriptions. I appreciate your comments.

4. Johnst: please see my reply in the post on my sister's cough. I address your comments there. I did indeed give the "mentals/disposition/constitution" of my sister's situation, as you will understand more thoroughly after reading my detailed reply.

[This message has been edited by kevin seymour (edited 06 October 1999).]