Anna.
Thanks for your comments which certainly add to the debate.

In my audit, I was looking for trends only as it was a fairly lengthy undertaking. I am only now getting round to further intellectual analysis and find comments such as yours most helpful. My audit obviously reflects the type of patient I attract to my practice In many cases, remedies were indicated which were listed in Murphy's repetory/toxicity/mercury rubric. In this rubruc there are remedies which cover all three miasms. This has led me to hypothesise that mercury poisoning is
a) a cause of many problems such as IBS, eczema- type eruptions and so on.
b) a trigger point and that the type of reaction a patient will display is dependent on the dominant miasmatic layer(s).

A lot of homoeopaths argue that we acqiure many new miasms along the way and that is another discussion. I like to keep my homoeopathy as simple as possible as I can see that reactions to poisonings can be ascribed to the basic three.
The most common poisonings I have found in my patients were mercury, synthetic hormones antibiotics and radiation in that order. Surprisingly, vaccination remedies came a poor fifth which may thankfully indicate that they don't take in a lot of people (amonst my patients that is).

I think Hahnemann was saying that iatrogenic symptoms clouded the picture and that it was necessary to remove these layers in order to see the true nature of the paitient. In his day, toxicity levels were much lower and maybe this was possible. However now, many sources of toxicity are constantly drip poisoning people and are therefore impossible to remove completely; although it is possible to moderate reactions and still work on the miasmatic stuff at the same time. It's as if they are becoming a part of the miasms and rendering this work more difficult.

When I started in practice I saw lots of people with clear pictures and single remedies were all that was required. I now see such clear pictures once in a blue moon and mostly in children. A sign of our times?

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Professional homoeopath interested in general discussion, ideas etc.