Chris,
I wish I could be as lucid and precise (in quotations/references) in my posts as you are, but I need to say here, to avoid being another quiet, supportive, spectator to your posts (as quite a few on this board may be)...
.. I agree with you.
warm regards,
doctorleela

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I'll need to seriously excuse myself - fitness first - I'm digressing from your topic and not even answered what you aked but, you may appreciate this:

Dear Anna, could you tell what on earth this means?
if your interpretation were correct, the most important books of all would be - those that hahnemann didn't think to write - the books relating what remedies to use for what base states of constitution.

I'm not sure which are the books you are referring to and which authors?

1. All the modern homeopaths I know personally refer to many source books, including the MMP and Allens Encyclopedia as source for anything that the are talking or thinking about about presently. IT is all available on Reference Works for even better convenience.

2. Difficult to understand what definition of "CONSTITUTION(AL)" you refer to.
ITs one of the most distorted and ambigious words used in homeopathy today, something we were constantly grilled about in college -- so that we realised that we could not be sure what it actually is (IN A REAL LIVE CASE). Nice to use the word anyway.
To make a major issue about its use in order to "bash up Kentians" sounds ridiculous to me.

- Use the word Consitution(al), and you are a bashed up Kentian from a rejected school!
- Don't use it, and you are a chaste homeopath!!!

OK, maybe I'll say what else I had to say once I understand "where you are coming from".

(me and my typos)

[ 19. August 2003, 15:24: Message edited by: doctorleela ]

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Anna wrote: Emmanual Kant was not the sole philosophical influence on Hahnemann, okay!
The term, diathesis, is used to denote an inherited or acquired constitutional predisposition toward certain chronic disease states.
These are the Greek classical methods that offer insight into the nature of the innate constitution and temperament as well as possible disease propensities.
The 19th Century homoeopaths got the idea to use the Hippocratic diathetic constitutions and temperaments from Hahnemann himself. References are scattered throughout early homoeopathic writings.
There is the inclusion of Christian Junker's observations of the suppression of skin diseases in the four Hippocratic temperaments in the main text of the Chronic Diseases, Volume 1, in the Theorectical Part. on page 17. This document shows that the suppression of a skin lesion causes a noticeably different syndrome in each of the four Hippocratric temperaments.
In the Paris casebooks Hahnemann described Mme del a Nois as 'sanguine' and Eugene Perry as a 'choleric' in his notebook. In the case of Claire Christallo he wrote 'disposed to scrofula' while for another he wrote 'lymphatic'. (In Search of the Later Hahnemann, Rima Handlely, page 70).

These clinical observations provide a valuable unitary view (NOT stand alone polarizations!) of the disease process in reference to constitutional syndromes and also their relationship to the environment.

Hahnemann *continually* refers to the manifold expressions of psora through the various bodily constitutions, inherent dispositions and lifestyle factors. No symptom ever really stands alone as a single momenta! Everything has relationship! OTHERWISE THERE WOULD BE NO APHORISM 5 IN THE ORGANON.

It's most likely impossible to have a discussion if you're basic premise is based on such a polarized view of events occuring in nature.
All I can say is the first instruction in constitutional case taking is to record ALL the significant momenta of the complete case history, the timeline of the disease progression, that is, the significant factors of the entire medical history, the aetiological constellation (causation), the chronic miasms, and the 7 constitutional factors which comprise the basis of case taking.
The 7 constitutional factors are the discernible physical constitution, the character of the intellect and emotional disposition, the occupation, lifestyle, habits, civic and domestic relationships, age, and sex and sexuality.
Again, these 7 rubrics are the general symptoms of the innate constitution, predisposition, and character (nature-inheritance) and environmental conditioning factors (nurture-situation) which mistune the Vital Force (Organon Aphorism 5).
Boenninghausen also wrote a fabulous essay on it, I'm sure you know, A Contribution to the Judgement Concerning the Characteristic Value of Symptoms.

Anna. Hahnemann started homoeopathy and had one lifetime. Hering continued to document this most worthy contribution and WE can follow it up.

Oh hi there Leela. How are you doing? Mmmm, trying to get the art of blah, blah, blahing down to a fine art.

--Saw it now--, I will change it in my next version.
Best, Hans

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Hans Weitbrecht
Consultant Homeopath

You're welcome.

hello doctorleela.
you wrote:
i was not referring to any books. my point was that if hahnemann had regarded constitution as a basis for deciding on the prescription in any given case, he would not have omitted to mention what constitutional signs correspond to what remedies in his published works on materia medica.

your question as to what constitutes constitution, i will look at in a more full answer i am writing which will also address chris' post.

Dear Anna,
Thanks for you reply.

HEre is something I was reading on the Minitus Website and I thought it was relevent to you presently re: constitutional (especially as it is from Boenninghausan's Lesser Writings): http://www.minutus.org/value.htm
(Also a partial answer to FF's main question).

I still think we just expect too much from Hahnemann. HE died at a ripe old age and was experimenting till the end - changing various aspects of his homeopathic approach - and Hans and Chris' posts seem to confirm the same - don't they?

IF he lived on - how much more would he have included or not in his writings? IS is possible to second guess or LIMIT such a great scientific mind?

Chris has laid the foundation of what is the idea of Consitutional case taking.
What is the remedy finally chosen and why, depends solely on the type of case and the similimum requirement of the patient at a particular point of time.
IT may be termed as a "consitutional", it may not. IT is hardly relevant, if one knows what one seeks to cure at a particular point of time, which is acutally the focus.

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