If a person has certain set of ailements that have been plaguing her for the last 45 years or so and they are clearly never-well-since that grief. Would Ignatia still work or would the symptom picture of present guide towards the remedy.

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Don't take life too seriously, it aint permanent.

I would take the case as it is now and add the ailments from grief and see if Ignatia comes up. There are a number of other remedies that have ailments from grief (The Complete lists 88 & Kent lists 67) or long standing grief and there is no way of knowing which should be used without taking the case. Once you have the case, it may be that Ignatia comes up highly or it may be that another remedy is indicated.

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Shirley Reischman

I would say that ailments from grief of 45 years duration would probably have turned to a Nat Mur state rather than Ignatia.

Having said this though, you can only ever treat on what you see in the present sitting before you. You cannot treat a case retrospectively. Any homeopath needs to take the case and analyse and prescribe on what they see in the present moment. If a grief has been affecting a person for 45 years, then this will most definitely come through in the case taking and this will then figure very highly in the case analysis and any ensuing remedy choice.

Ignatia and Nat Mur are not the only remedies that have ailments from grief though.

Hope this helps you?

Carcinosin is another big grief Rx.

Hhmmmm, if we were to take the case now, keeping the present Sx in view, what would we do in case of ailements due to a physical injury, say, 40 years ago or ailements from exposure to cold, dry wind, this many years ago.

I guess the question is more towards confirming such statements of MM "ailements from xxxxx cause, no matter how long ago they happened".

Second thing, if we know the root of the problem, why not go for that instead of treating what is present now as it might be a changed symptoms picture. H says in Organon that a physician has to ascertain what needs to be cured in a case, so if I think that the cause was grief and that needs to be cured, irrespective of the present symptoms, then which is the right approach. Assuming the homeopath is from the immediate family and knows the reason, then.

Similarly, if a person develops cancer NOW as a result of this grief or lost love, some 20 years ago, what would you treat him for, symptoms that advanced stage of cancer exhibits or what was the cause of the cancer.

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Don't take life too seriously, it aint permanent.

I would still take the case as it is now, with the cause as part of the case. Since there are many remedies that have aliments from grief, if that were all you looked at, how would you differentiate the 88 remedies that are listed? You must put in the SX that are current in order to differentiate them and use 'ailments from grief' as an eliminative rubrics, i.e., the remedy must have that as one of its rubrics.

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Shirley Reischman

Present disease symptoms are the only reliable thing to guide us to a reliable prescription.

§7:
Now, as in a disease, from which no manifest exciting or maintaining cause has to be removed, we can perceive nothing but the morbid symptoms, it must (regard being had to the possibility of a miasm and attention paid to the accessory circumstances, §5) be the symptoms alone by which the disease demands and points to the remedy suited to relieve it - and, moreover, the totality of these symptoms, of this outwardly reflected picture of the internal essence of the disease, that is, of the affection of the vital force, must be the principle, or the sole means, whereby disease can make known what remedy it requires - the only thing that can determine the choice of the most appropriate remedy - and thus, in a word, the totality of the symptoms must be the principal, indeed the only thing the physician has to take note of in every case of disease and to remove by means of his art, in order that the disease shall be cured and transformed to health.

If grief is present - then it might be considered part of the present disease picture.
But, one cannot prescribe on one symptom alone (there are references in the Organon on this topic - warnings not to prescribe on symptoms in isolation).

Hope this helps.

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"The significance of a fact is measured by the capacity of the observer."
Carroll Dunham

I get the point here. Its kind of back tracking the cure. You start with the symptoms as they are now. Once they are done, probably the upper layer (of symptoms & changed disease picture) will be done with and you keep delving deeper with the outer layers giving way and you might need to change the remedies along the way till you reach cure.

For a 3rd person patient, I think this is the right approach to take.

But for a family member, who you know much more than a homeopath can find out about, for whom you can establish with certainty the cause and can pinpoint 1-2 characteristic symptoms (e.g. long drawn sighs), you don't have to go the above mentioned route as you can approach and cure it directly.

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Don't take life too seriously, it aint permanent.

Fitness, if you do not take the current symptoms, please explain how you will differentiate amoung the 88 remedies that have ailments due to grief?

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Shirley Reischman

Amen, Shirley!

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"The significance of a fact is measured by the capacity of the observer."
Carroll Dunham