BTH rem rx

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© 2009 Dr. Peter J. Prociuk, M.D. All Rights Reserved

How are homeopathic remedies prescribed? To investigate how these medicines could be used clinically, Hahnemann devised a method called a “proving”. This involved giving a group of healthy volunteers a potentized remedy for a definite period of time and meticulously recording any changes in the subjects’ symptoms. A thorough proving may have elicited several hundred well-verified symptoms. Today, each remedy is indicated when the symptom picture of a patient with a natural illness matches the symptom picture which had been elicited in a proving. To properly prescribe homeopathic remedies, a clinician has to have both: (1) a detailed knowledge of the symptom pictures of the remedies and (2) knowledge of how to recognize these symptoms in patients. As experience has grown with the use of these remedies over the last two centuries, the number of symptom patterns that they cover has continuously expanded. Well known remedies are now used to treat as many as 20,000 symptom patterns.

This knowledge is what makes up the Homeopathic Materia Medica. A symptom must be well verified by several competent homeopaths before it is included in the materia medica of that remedy.