PREFACE
IN the preface to the fourth edition of my Prescriber, which appeared in 1893, I mentioned that I was then
engaged in writing a “Materia Medica,” and I stated that it was to take the form
of a Materia Medica Companion to the Prescriber. Such,
indeed, was the original idea with which I started the work, soon after the first edition of
the Prescriber was published in 1885. But as the
materials accumulated, the scope of the work developed beyond the original intention, and it
became apparent that to produce anything short of a complete Materia Medica would only be to
add to the number of condensed and abridged Materia Medicas, of which there is already a
sufficiency of excellent examples. I therefore determined to include in the new work all the
remedies of which definite use had been recorded in homśopathic literature. If some are
inclined to object that I have inserted too many, I reply that my work is a Dictionary, and I have never yet found a dictionary that
explained too many words. Under the name of each remedy will be found all practical
information regarding that remedy that I have been able to bring together, so arranged that
every part of it is at once accessible, the information about one remedy in no way
interfering with the information about any other. In Farrington’s classical work, A Clinical Materia Medica, to which I am very deeply indebted,
the matter is so arranged that in order to find all the author has to tell about a single
remedy, search must be made under a large number of different headings; in the case of
Ipecacuanha, for example, twelve other remedies must be consulted. The plan on which the Dictionary is based obviates this result.
NAME OF THE WORK.
I have named this work a Dictionary of
“Materia Medica” because no other name would have been intelligible. But the name,
nevertheless, in homśopathy, is somewhat of a misnomer. We are dealing with forces which,
though derived from materials, are anything but “material” in the common
acceptation of the word. Our agents are forces of a higher order than any known to Old
Physic, and it is important that homśopathists should know them as such. Homśopathy is
from first to last an art of individualising. We have to individualise patients, and
individualise remedies. However convenient it is to think of remedies in connection with the
diseases in the treatment of which they are most frequently called for, it must never be
forgotten that this is a convenience and nothing more. To allow our conception of our
remedies to be limited by any list of nosological terms is to accept again the mental
fetters of old-school therapeutics. To understand and utilise our remedies to the fullest
extent, we must know them as powers ready to serve us in any case, no matter what the name
of the disease may be, when the indications for them come to the front. And we must be
prepared to find these powers hidden in common articles of food and drink, which we are
constantly taking into our bodies in large quantities with complete impunity; and even in
the tissues and secretions, morbid and healthy, of our bodies themselves. My object in the Dictionary has been to so present the picture of each remedy that
it may be at once recognised and distinguished from any other by those who consult its
pages. In doing this I have considered first those points which seem to me to have a practical bearing; points which have seemed of academic interest
only I have left in the main to other works.
THE SCHEMA.
The body of every homśopathic Materia
Medica must consist of a Schematised list of the Symptoms
belonging to each remedy. This is known, in brief, as “The Schema.” In the Dictionary it comprises all that portion given under the heading,
SYMPTOMS.Abridged Materia Medicas and lists of
keynotes, though of very great value, cannot take the place of a full Schema. The prescriber
is constantly requiring to know the exact symptoms produced or cured by a drug, and very
often these are not to be found among the recognised keynotes. Again, when a prescriber has
found his correspondence in some leading symptom, he may wish to test the correspondence in
other particulars. For these purposes nothing short of a detailed list of symptoms in each
section of the Schema is of any service, My work in no way lessens the value of the abridged
works; on the contrary, it very greatly enhances it, by providing the necessary complement
to their usefulness.The Schema arrangement adopted by Hahnemann
was a necessary evolution of his method. Day-to-day records of provings, though of much
interest, are of little use in practice, from the impossibility of finding individual
symptoms in them. The Schema adopted by me is arranged under 27 numbered headings: 1, Mind;
2, Head (including sensorium and scalp); 3, Eyes; 4, Ears; 5, Nose; 6, Face; 7, Teeth; 8,
Mouth; 9, Throat; 10, Appetite; 11, Stomach; 12, Abdomen; 13, Stool and Anus; 14, Urinary
Organs; 15, Male Sexual Organs; 16, Female Sexual Organs; 17, Respiratory Organs; 18, Chest;
19, Heart; 20, Neck and Back; 21, Limbs (in general); 22, Upper Limbs; 23, Lower Limbs; 24,
Generalities; 25, Skin; 26, Sleep; 27, Fever. The sources from which the Schema is compiled
are mainly, Timothy Field Allen’s Encyclopćdia of Pure Materia
Medica, and Constantine Hering’s Guiding Symptoms.
Without these two monumental works my work would have been scarcely possible. Allen includes
all the symptoms of Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura and Chronic Diseases, with all the later provings up to the date of
his work’s completion (1879). Hering’s Guiding Symptoms
includes, in addition to the chief symptoms of the older works, many clinical additions and
glosses. Hale’s New Remedies, 2nd and 5th editions, have
rendered me services scarcely less important. In my Schema I have sometimes indicated when
symptoms are of clinical origin but not always, as the distinction is more academical than
practical. I have also sometimes inserted in the Schema names of diseases. These will be
taken as clinical suggestions depending for their value on the appropriateness of the remedy
in other respects.
CLINICAL SYMPTOMS.
In regard to the inclusion of Clinical Symptoms without always distinguishing them, my reasons
are these: I know that symptoms removed by a remedy in a
patient who is taking it are an indication of the remedy’s power, even though the remedy may
not have produced those symptoms in a prover. I know
that many of the best indications we possess for different remedies were found out during
the provings by the disappearance of symptoms from which the provers themselves were at the
time suffering. I know that a remedy when being taken by
a patient will often produce some new symptoms of its own whilst removing the others. I know that these new symptoms are available for practice; and what
is more than this, I know that the practitioner who
cannot recognise drug symptoms in his patients loses the best materia medica teacher he is
ever likely to find, and will spoil many of his cases by supposing them worse when they are
really doing well on the right medicine and only require to have the medicine suspended or
partially antidoted. Those who have scruples about prescribing on clinically observed
symptoms have the Cyclopedia of Drug Pathogenesy at
their disposal. It is a work which has rendered me excellent service in compiling much of my
Dictionary; but it seems to me to need digesting and
schematising if it is to be of much use in daily practice. Those again, who like to know the
authority for every symptom, have Allen’s Encyclopedia
to supply their want so far as the vast bulk of the materia medica is concerned. In the case
of the less well known remedies, I have named the authorities; in regard to the
old-established remedies, I take for granted that the authorities for these are known.
AUTHORITIES.
Dr. James Compton Burnett
Dr. Robert Thomas CooperIn addition to the works of Allen and
Hering and the Cyclopedia of Drug Pathogenesy, Dr.
Curie’s edition of Jahr’s Materia Medica, the Materia Medicas of Lippe and Guernsey, Cowperthwaite’s well-known
Text-Book, and many others have been consulted. But the account of many of the remedies in
the Dictionary has been compiled from sources
inaccessible to the general reader, being scattered up and down the periodical literature of
Homśopathy, and throughout the writings of original workers, among whom I may name Dr. Compton Burnett and Dr. Robert T.
Cooper as pre-eminent, each in a line of his own. Throughout the Dictionary will be found accredited to these authorities many
guiding symptoms of their observation, some already recorded in their published works, very
many communicated to me in private conversations, and verified by myself in practice. And I
am no less indebted to Dr. Thomas Skinner for generous
help in materia medica studies. Years ago when I was making a special investigation into the
action of the high attenuations, Dr. Skinner gave me the greatest possible assistance. We
went over a large part of the materia medica together, and the notes I then made have been
of great service in compiling this work, especially the introductory sections.
Dr. Thomas Skinner
Dr. John Henry Clarke
THE INTRODUCTORY SECTIONS.
Whilst the Schema is the essential feature
of the materia medica, it is of great assistance in the understanding and using of it, to
have, in addition, some introductory guide. This I have supplied in each instance, and the
combination of the two is one of the main objects of this work. Hitherto narrative accounts
of remedies have been provided independently in works like Dr. Hughes’s classic Pharmaco-dynamics; and through no fault of their authors,
practitioners have endeavoured to make these works do service for a complete materia medica,
dispensing with the use of both schema and repertory. I think my method will obviate this
risk.
NAMES AND PREPARATIONS OF THE REMEDIES.
Under the name of each remedy I have given
the synonyms, mentioned its place in nature and the preparations of it that have been used.
In regard to the last, I wish it to be understood that I give the actual preparations used
in the experiments or in practice. I offer no opinion as to whether these may be the best or
not. Some contend that acetic acid is a better solvent of the native alkaloids of plants
than is alcohol. When acetic preparations have been used I have mentioned the fact. Dr.
Cooper has used fresh-plant tinctures, made from young shoots, with other actively growing
parts of plants, in the case of remedies of which the usual preparations are made from roots
or dried specimens; and he maintains that in such cases the fresh-plant tinctures are
superior. The same may be said of animal preparations. I have used a preparation of Sepia
made from the fresh ink-bag, given me by Dr. R. Swallow, of Ningpo, and I can confirm his
opinion that it is a better preparation than that made from the ordinary dried ink.
“CLINICAL.”
Next, under the head, CLINICAL, I have
given an alphabetical list of the diseases in relation to which the remedy has manifested,
or seems likely to manifest, some curative power. This list is of no independent authority,
many of the items being merely suggestions of my own. It is not to be regarded either as
inclusive or exclusive, but rather as suggestive. But the list serves further purposes; and
first, it enables me to save space. If I were to describe the sphere of a remedy in each of
the diseases in which it has been used, I should be obliged to repeat the same indications
many times over in slightly varied form. The main indications of a remedy are the same in
any disease, and the fine indications will be found on referring to the headings under which
they occur in the Schema. Further, the list enables me to relate the Dictionary to the Prescriber.
A number of the names of diseases in the list will be found printed in italics. This does
not mean that the medicine is more indicated in these diseases than in the others; it is
merely to indicate that under that particular heading the drug will be found mentioned in
the Prescriber, and that there its special indications
are given and compared with those of other remedies. For example, under ATROPINUM is the
following list: “Blepharospasm. Convulsions. Enuresis. Epilepsy. Eyes, affections of. Gastric ulcer. Locomotor ataxy. Mania. Neuralgia. Pancreatitis. Spinal irritation. Tetanus. Vision, disorders
of.” On referring to the Prescriber, under GASTRIC ULCER and PANCREATITIS, Atropinum
will be found mentioned along with other remedies. Finally, the lists will afford a
convenient basis for compiling a clinical index.
“CHARACTERISTICS.”
Following the heading CLINICAL, comes one
which I have named CHARACTERISTICS. Under this I have endeavoured to bring together the
leading individual features of each remedy, sketching its outlines with as firm a hand as I
can command. It is not a bare list of keynote symptoms, although it includes all of these
that are known to me. But it is written in a more or less connected, narrative form, so that
it will not have the effect of a catalogue on the reader’s mind. This part will contain an
account of the leading Conditions of aggravation and
amelioration which characterise the remedy;─an essential portion of a
practical knowledge and understanding of homśopathic remedies. In indicating these I have
made use of the signs “<” (aggravation) and
“>” (amelioration), for the double reason
that they readily catch the eye, and, at the same time, save space. These and other signs
and abbreviations are explained more fully on section “explanation
of abbreviations and signs“. This section, more especially, I intend to
supply a kind of introduction and guide to the Schema.
“RELATIONS.”
Following this section is another headed
RELATIONS. Under this will be found an account of the chief allies of each remedy. The older
homśopaths appreciated the value of this knowledge much more than do the moderns; and a
very great assistance it often is in prescribing. When a remedy (e.g.,
Belladonna) has done all that it can in a case, it is of very great use to know of a remedy
(e. g., Mercurius) that is likely to follow out and
complete its action, where both are related to the case. When this relationship is very
close the two related remedies are said to be complementary
to one another, as is the case with Iodine and Lycopodium. On the other hand some remedies
have a very injurious effect on each other’s action when one is given immediately after the
other. I have known a chronic case which was doing well on Calcarea, irretrievably spoiled
by a prescription of Bryonia immediately following. Further, it is necessary to know the
antidotal relations of remedies in order to be able to control the over-action of any remedy
administered. I once experienced very disagreeable symptoms from a dose of Natrum mur. in
potency, and suffered for some days before I realised the cause. As soon as I did, I looked
up Jahr, and found that smelling Sweet Nitre was one of the antidotes. I put it to the test,
and the magical way in which the symptoms were wiped out was a revelation to me of the
importance of this branch of homśopathic knowledge. In this section I have also pointed out
many of the characteristic differences distinguishing between medicines that have symptoms
in common.
“CAUSATION.”
Under the further heading CAUSATION I have
mentioned (when such relation is known to exist), the conditions to the effects of which the
action of a remedy is particularly suited. For it not unfrequently happens that the cause of any state is the keynote indication. A case of
Rheumatism, for example, supervening on a wetting, will probably not be cured by the same
remedy which would have cured if exposure to dry cold
had been the cause. The effects of over-eating may resemble the effects of over-drinking,
but a different remedy will probably be needed in each case. Shock due to physical injury
will probably need Arnica; if due to fright, Opium will most likely be called for. I have
often, in practice, wished for a tabulated list of 46 causes,” and I think this section
will be found of value.
TYPE.
It will possibly be remarked that I have
seldom indicated the relative importance of symptoms by difference of type. My reason is
this: while not denying the utility of emphasising by conspicuous type symptoms of proved
characteristic value, this can only be done at the cost of apparently depreciating symptoms
not so marked. I have so often found my indications in symptoms not distinguished by special
type at all, that I hesitate to put any under this ban. My arrangement, however, meets the
difficulty to a great extent. If it is considered that, in a general way, all the symptoms I
have mentioned under the heading CHARACTERISTICS are deserving of heavy type, and that the
symptoms mentioned only in the Schema are worthy of italics, a very fair estimate of their
value will be obtained.
GRADES OF HOMŚOPATHY.
Having had experience of every grade of
homśopathic practice, and knowing the possibilities that lie in all, I have sought in this
work to supply the materials needful for the application of the Law of Similars in any of
its modes. It is possible to obtain the needed correspondence in a great variety of ways and
degrees, and one practitioner will find it in one way and another in another. Homśopathy
uses phenomena as guides to reach the unseen activities operating below the surface. Keeping
my attention steadily on the plane of phenomena, and disregarding all the hypothetical and
ever-changing explanations of pathology and physiology, I have endeavoured to portray every
feature of drug-activity that is likely to find its correspondence in the manifestations of
disease. It may be in organ-affinity; it may be in coarse tissue changes; it may be in the
finest sensations: my object has been to supply the practitioner of every grade with
sufficient data for practice.
REPERTORIES.
If time serves, I may in the future provide
a special Repertory to this work. In the meantime all the fuller repertories now in use will
be available. It is impossible to practise homśopathy as it should be practised without the
aid of repertories, and the best repertory is the fullest.
THE TEST OF A HOMŚOPATH.
Complaints are not unfrequently made that
the homśopathic materia medica is too vast for practical utility; that the schematised
lists of symptoms are unprofitable, if not impossible reading. I do not think so. Indeed, I
think that the test of a genuine homśopath might not unfairly be said to lie in his
capacity to read through a Schema with both profit and enjoyment─because
of the possibilities it reveals of dealing with cases occurring every day in practice. Again
and again in the course of my work I have come across symptoms in the Schemas of remedies
reminding me of cases in the past which I might have cured had I but known the remedies
then. And many a time a case has turned up in my practice calling for a particular remedy at
the very time I have been working upon it, and a cure has resulted, when, but for my study
of the Schema, I might more than likely have failed to find what was wanted. I think that
the introductory sections preceding each Schema will make the study of the Schema profitable
and enjoyable to some who have hitherto only found it dry. And when we consider that the
Materia Medica is the very “raison d’ętre” of
the homśopathist, and that in it he must live and move and have his being, it is not too
much to expect of him that he shall at least give as much mind to its cultivation as is
required for maintaining high proficiency, say, in billiards, or in golf.
EVERY HOMŚOPATH HIS OWN MATERIA MEDICA MAKER.
And now I have a final word to my readers.
Every homśopath, in the last resort, must make his own materia medica for himself. It is
not alone what an author offers to a reader, it is what the reader can get out of his author
that tells. I have done my best to put the matter in an orderly and tangible shape, but
nothing short of hard work can make a proficient homśopath, no matter how handy his tools
maybe. I have selected paper for the book which will take ink, so that any reader may make
annotations, corrections, or additions, as his experience or reading may suggest. If I had
chosen to wait a few more years before publishing, I have no doubt I could have improved my
work; but if I had waited till doomsday I could not have made it perfect. In the meantime I
want it every day for my own use; and if I could have found any one else co do the work for
me I should most gladly have spared myself the task.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
I have already named some of the
authorities whose labours have been freely drawn upon, but there are many others to whom my
acknowledgments are also due. Among these must be mentioned that therapeutic genius only
recently departed from us, Alphonse Teste, whose Homśopathic
Materia Medica Arranged Systematically and Practically, I have largely quoted
from. Whenever Teste’s name is mentioned in the Dictionary,
this is the work in which the reference will be found. I have used C. J. Hempel’s
translation. To Dr. E. B. Nash’s Leaders in Therapeutics
and Leaders in Typhoid I am indebted for many
illustrations of remedial action. When not otherwise specified, all references to
“Nash” will be found in the Leaders in Therapeutics.
Dr. Oscar Hansen’s Rare Homśopathic Remedies has
supplied me with useful information regarding some of the less well-known remedies. Dr. H.
C. Allen’s Keynotes of Leading Remedies, his Intermittent Fever, and the pages of his journal, the Medical Advance, have been constantly drawn upon. Lastly, I must
express my indebtedness in numberless ways to Dr. Dudgeon, whose unique knowledge of the
Materia Medica has time and again stood me in good stead at the bedside; and whose original
works and translations of Hahnemann’s writings have become part of the daily bread of modern
homśopathy.
JOHN HENRY CLARKE.
30, CLARGES STREET, LONDON, W.,
July 4, 1900.® 2000
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