I think the concept of similimum is frankly a difficult one to sustain, at least in terms of 'one and only one....' in any case, it can only be sustained as a hypothetical, as the impossibility of repeating a treatment on the same patient makes experimental validation impossible. My problems with the concept are basically two:

1. many homeopaths have high rates of success, but will, on review, be found to find different similimums when analysing a case with colleagues. As all of these professionals have high rates of success, then we must assume that, given for example 100 cases, they will all maintain those rates of success on this new batch of 100 patients, and that therefore they will have their successes based on their differing findings of what is the correct similimum. The overlapping of success rates with differing prescriptions suggests that more than one remedy may act as a similimum in any particular case--and i specifically posit that we are talking not about a 'good result,' but the particularly excellent result of the true 'similimum'.

2. similimum is an artificial concept in the sense that it matches essentially randomly chosen elements from the environment to a range of human personality traits. This is not a designed crossword puzzle with only one correct answer matrix - it is basically a naturally occurring transactional network in which "close enough" wins. The similimum--even as usually defined--is not "identical" to the patient, but matches "enough" of its own characteristics to "enough" of the patient's characteristics. On a scale of 1 to 100, a 78, to make up numbers, might be an excellent match. But who is to say there can't be 2 or more 78's? And who is to say that a 74, given considerations of rare, strange and peculiar, for example, wouldn't be superior anyway? And who is to say that even approaching the patient from two or three different perspectives wouldn't yield excellent and possibly very similar results?

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"The need to perform adjustments for covariates...weakens the findings." BMJ Clinical Evidence: Mental Health, (No. 11), p. 95.... It's that simple, guys: bad numbers make bad science.

Hi BWv11 already we had with regard to this topic an interesting conversation in this forum. Probably it is interesting to remember her. He is in this place:
http://www.homeopathyhome.com/cgi-bi...c;f=2;t=006774

hi snoopy,

ok. i think i would agree and really should have stated originally as a condition to the argument that for some people and some conditions there is a 'similimum,' and maybe different practitioners (sam kent, herbert boenni, sylvia herscu, ivan sankaran, for example) would come up with the same similimum in such cases, which they would be bound to do, as there is indeed a similimum, a one-and-only. but i think, possibly related to complexity of case, possibly not, that each would claim high success rates, and each would, in a particular case, select different first remedies and different second remedies and ultimately cure with a different 'similimum.' what you are saying suggests that all these guys agree on the similimum, case by case, of which i'd be dubious.

and yes, i was pretty proud of myself for spelling schlemilimum!

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"The need to perform adjustments for covariates...weakens the findings." BMJ Clinical Evidence: Mental Health, (No. 11), p. 95.... It's that simple, guys: bad numbers make bad science.

Well, I am surprised so many people believe that in a science such as Homeopathy, where so much depends on individualization and clear understanding of communication between human beings (and other animals, let's face it), people are disappointed when things are not black and white.

In response to bwv11:

1. You can have a 100% success rate as a homeopath and only prescribe simillimum remedies 50% of the time.

Remedies which effectively remove the presenting complaint, or the life threatening complaint, or "push the case along" or "remove a layer" (choose your phrase as it doesn't really matter) can still cure--dramatically.

The simillimum is great when its found; the "close enough-icum" is also very, very good and helps your patient progress rapidly on their way to restored health.

Also, even if you have to use a series of remedies to bring this process along, you can still cure 100% of the time--given the state of the patient when they present. Don't forget that that is an important variable.

The simillimum is not "an artificial concept in the sense that it matches essentially randomly chosen elements from the environment to a range of human personality traits." This is a gross misunderstanding of Homeopathic method and philosophy.

The simillimum is the remedy which matches the patients total symptom picture--it is a perfect match of the energy and factual expression of the patient's dis-ease to the various factual symptoms found in the proving documentation of a particular substance. Symptoms are not randomly chosen, but chosen according to a keenly trained observer's analytical skills of prioritization and recognition. These skills are used to verify observations in fact. There is NO deduction in the method (in other words, we don't sit and deduce that a patient suffered a great deal of anger and therefore now suffers from his anger--we absolutely verify it). Fact is then matched to fact.

Close enough-icums work really well and then stop at some point, having exhausted their work. But the simillimum remedy, when it is found and administered, works much more effectively than the close remedy--it cures very quickly and...it cures.

If you want "black and white" prescribing techniques, you know where to look...and you know how effective they are.

[ 13. June 2003, 01:37: Message edited by: ChaChaHeels ]

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Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.<br />C.G.Jung

well, no, actually i'd have no idea where to look. perhaps you can advise me.


this is unquestionably true. for someone trying hard, i guess, to communicate, you seem to have missed the point that i was only trying to discuss the similimum, not the entire range of interventions and types of success that can be achieved with homeopathy.


this was not meant to describe homeopathic practice, but the accidental, or fortuitous, gathering of traits in a substance such as merc or hepar or bell or thuj, and the fact that some of the proven traits match some significant portion of the patients profile. unlike the letters in the boxes in a crossword puzzle, which must match precisely and exclusively to successfully complete the puzzle. if the match was that exact between similimum and patient, then any remedy would only ever match one person. but i think you are amazingly incorrect in saying that some of the proven symptoms are applicable to one patient, some others are applicable to another patient, the totality of the record of provings is not applicable as a whole to anyone, and the totality of the patient's mind/body is not going to be perfectly replicated by any remedy, though the similimum will do such a good job covering percentage of characteristics and critical areas we don't have to worry about being perfect, as you appear to do.

[ 13. June 2003, 02:07: Message edited by: bwv11 ]

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"The need to perform adjustments for covariates...weakens the findings." BMJ Clinical Evidence: Mental Health, (No. 11), p. 95.... It's that simple, guys: bad numbers make bad science.

Get it right, please, when you quote Hahnemann: "thing most similar."

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Albert, also Hahnemannian444B

"many homeopaths have high rates of success, but will, on review, be found to find different similimums when analysing a case with colleagues."

Hering and Lippe were engaged in a serious conversation that another homeopath was listening to, although I have fogotten who, maybe Kneer. At a lull he asked a question associated with their subject: "What did we do before Apis?"

A bit of silence, then Lippe said: "We zig zagged cases to cure" and then named the three he'd used because he'd already reflected back on Apis cases before Hering supplied it.

[ 13. June 2003, 09:26: Message edited by: Hahnemannian444 ]

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Albert, also Hahnemannian444B

"similimum is an artificial concept in the sense that it matches essentially randomly chosen elements from the environment to a range of human personality traits."

It does?
Not in my world.
I am well aware of the notions by GVs that we bring personality traits into consideration during prescriptions.
That is so wrong.
It is one of the basic mistakes made in HPH.
We treat diseases.
The personality cannot be treated.
We have this false notion from psychiatrists that the personality can be adjusted.
They are wrong.
Big surprise, huh?
The personality traits are matters of will; disease is not.
Neither do we touch the levels of being invoked by the word character of a person or nature for that matter.
The descriptions of basic temperaments were around in Hahnemann's time as four (maybe five) basic types of personalities, temperaments, nature, etc.
But we don't treat those things.
They are elements of free will.
Disease is an autonomic function.
Symptoms are our sole indicators.
You all must get out of your heads the ideas presented by supposed authorities among the GVs that we adjust personalities of all patients.
Psychiatric patients, okay, but they are rather few in the extreme.
It is not our business to mess with the psyches of patients without their permission.
I grant that mental elements enter into cases, but the GVs read LOTS and LOTS into those things via presumptions that have nothing to do with accurate observation of the patient.
And that is how they fail to discern the uncommon/characteristic symptoms of the patient, just as Hahnemann said about HPHs in his times on pp. 121-22 of THE CHRONIC DISEASES.
Not personalities, please; diseases discernable by symptoms, esp. and almost exclusively uncommon symptoms due to their highly individualizing or high-differential nature when cross referenced with others in repertorization and then matched in the materia medica.
Temperaments, etc., can be so misleading.
It is a very dangerous road down which to travel as a homeopath.

[ 13. June 2003, 18:10: Message edited by: Hahnemannian444 ]

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Albert, also Hahnemannian444B

This is not a designed crossword puzzle with only one correct answer matrix - it is basically a naturally occurring transactional network in which "close enough" wins.

Well said!
Close enough is good enough.
Like that one?
Don't fix it if it ain't broken = don't throw into a curative process still in motion another dose of the same medicine or another remedy by any means.
Like dat one?
I want me one of dem transactional networks when I get older. OOps! Already there. Where is it?

[ 13. June 2003, 09:38: Message edited by: Hahnemannian444 ]

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Albert, also Hahnemannian444B

thing most similar. terrific. and brief.

"...essentially randomly chosen elements from the environment.." is meant to refer to the same thing, essentially, as the "close enough," namely, the "accidental" collection of qualities found in provings to characterize a naturally occuring substance, such as merc, hepar, any of them. so how can you like one and not the other? probably because my meaning was not clear or was not clearly understood: these characteristics occur in nature, they were not designed into these substances by someone in a library or lab deciding, hmmm, let's make a substance for anxiety, or cancer.... my witty (hmmm, yeh, witty is better than your adjectives) prose refers, in short, to the natural origin of the substance and the happy confluence of some of its characteristics with some of the characteristics of people. this is not a statement about selection of symptoms for repping nor any other aspect of homeopathic practice.

you can problably look in the lionel catalog for the other, i'm sure that's where i saw it.

[ 13. June 2003, 10:54: Message edited by: bwv11 ]

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"The need to perform adjustments for covariates...weakens the findings." BMJ Clinical Evidence: Mental Health, (No. 11), p. 95.... It's that simple, guys: bad numbers make bad science.