The Significance of Etiology in Homeopathic Prescribing

by Richard Pitt

For most homeopaths, a complete case taking requires a detailed overview of the most significant experiences in life, beginning with pregnancy and birth and from there getting all the details of both physical and mental traumas that may impact a person’s life. This can stem from a never been well since an illness (NBWS), whether it is measles, whooping cough or any particular condition, to any emotional trauma, e.g. physical or mental abuse, history of abandonment, grief, shock, fear, loss, violence etc, or  other physical trauma, whether at birth or later. 

Any significant event can be analyzed as part of the complete chronic/constitutional picture and often one sees a correlation between the type of trauma and the chronic pattern of susceptibilities that become part of the overall analysis. At times it is not easy to tell whether an initial trauma established a particular susceptibility or whether a basic susceptibility allowed a trauma to take hold and become more significant as a factor in the case. 

However, it seems to be true that the significance of etiology in prescribing and the finding of particular remedies that fit this etiology is often subordinated to an analysis of overall psycho/dynamic and general constitutional factors in the make-up of a person and preference is given to this information at the expense of specific physical or other traumatic causes. Ideally, the complete picture of etiology and underlying susceptibility is taken together and a remedy found to cover the complete picture.

However, there are many cases when addressing specific etiology should take precedent over other information and that there should be a greater acknowledgement that certain influences impose a “layer” upon the case, which needs to be addressed before applying a more broad based analysis.

This strategic debate is not new to homeopathy. There has always been a dichotomy of sorts between those who basically believe that only one remedy should be needed to cure a person, including all psycho-physical conditions and those who believe a more layered approach is necessary in some cases. However, in recent years, the concepts of essence, core delusion and the Sensation approach to prescribing has tended to focus on the one remedy theory, which has captured the imagination of many classically oriented homeopaths. On the other extreme some people have advocated a radical approach to layering in prescribing, one form of which is called “Sequential Prescribing” which seeks to antidote every and any possible trauma or superimposed affect on the body/mind by systemically giving mostly nosodes to counteract any affect of nearly every illness a person may have had, irrespective of their being clinical data or perceived effect.

Perhaps both of these perspectives are rather polarized positions when looking at the complexities of homeopathic prescribing. Perhaps a middle ground is needed where specific etiologically based prescriptions can be given to address specific situations, and then followed up with more constitutional or root form of prescribing, including the traditional miasmatic considerations in a case. 

One method that has been applied to address these issues is that proposed by the late homeopath, Dr. Tinus Smits, when looking at treating children on the Autism Spectrum Disorder. He devised a method of prescribing called CEASE (Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression). In this method outlined in his book Autism: Beyond Despair, Cease Therapy, Smits advocates the use of isopathic remedies to antidote any noxious influences e.g. drugs taken during pregnancy, vaccines, chemicals and other environmental toxins etc to begin homeopathic treatment, and then followed up with more miasmatic and constitutional care and supplemented with Orthomolecular medicine, especially the use of Vitamin C, Magnesium, Zinc and fish oil. He devised his own methodology of giving 30c, 200c, 1m and 10m in ascending potencies to detoxify a person, although no doubt, there are other methods of application. He would do the nosode first and then follow on with other remedy. Other ways of prescribing may involve giving a nosode 2-3 times a week and then giving a more constitutional based remedy as a daily dose at the same time. In this way, the case may move more quickly, but it will be more difficult to assess specific affect. 

The main point is to recognize the significance of possible toxic affects on the development of children in utero and soon after birth, especially that of drugs taken, toxins exposed to and vaccines used on mother and child. 

This last factor has been one of the most hotly debated possible causes of the huge increase in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), with figures of around 1:100 children diagnosed with ASD being quoted. (See the book review of the Vaccine Epidemic in the previous edition of the journal). This massive increase in ASD cannot be totally due to the increase in vaccines given over the last 20 years, but it is very likely to be one of the major factors, especially in the USA, where there has been a huge increase in the number of vaccines given to children. The Hepatitis B vaccine, introduced around 1990 initially had large doses of Mercury in it, and soon after the spike in ASD’s began to happen.(1) Therefore, the possible connection between the number of vaccines given and the increase in a wide range of psycho/physical disorders may make the use of nosodes/isopathic remedies a vital part of treatment. So far, this approach has been more piecemeal and not applied very systematically. It may be important to document this approach and many homeopaths have already attested to the result of using isopathic remedies when there is evidence of harm done and where especially behavioral and developmental issues in young children may implicate the many vaccines given. 

Smits also mentions how any drugs used during pregnancy, including alcohol, should be considered as toxic and addressed with appropriate isopathic remedies. Obviously this needs to be clinically verified and at times, a simple constitutionally based remedy may be enough. However, given the increasing complexity of cases in young children, especially in the area of developmental delays and general behavioral issues, all considerations should be given to possible etiological causes.

Smits states that in autism, even though it is often considered genetic, in many cases, it is not. There are many substances that may affect a baby – food, plastics, parabems, ethyl glycol, phthalates, bispenol A, medications, vaccines etc. He mentions using homeopathic Fenoterol (a drug used to deal with premature labor) as well as all the vaccines given.

This obviously is just one approach to addressing all matters of homeopathic prescribing but is a good example of how by paying close attention to the possible etiological causes of disease, one can find other remedy options. 

One can say that the stronger the etiological cause, the less significant are the constitutional factors. Obvious intense situations like a war situation, earthquake or virulent epidemic bacteria or virus will superimpose their impact upon many people, irrespective of their individual make up. That is the nature of any disease of epidemic proportions and how Hahnemann understood finding the genus epidemicus in an epidemic disease. The individual predisposition is made much less significant in such situations of extraordinary etiological influence, including vaccine damage. Of course, the long term effects of any etiology has to be influenced by fundamental factors of constitution, and the longer one is away from the initial trauma, the more other more chronic symptoms and factors need to be put into the equation. 

However, there are many cases, where even 40 years later, prescribing on the symptoms of an initial trauma totally cures, even many years later. The original wound/trauma is still a memory in the cells and vital force of the person and is not predicated by time. It exists outside of time and is a layer or memory that simply needs antidoting. 

Therefore, the main etiologies that often need to be considered include the following:

  1. Drug nosodes, Antibiotics, steroids, antidepressants, hormones, the pill, etc.

  2. Vaccine nosodes for NBWS any vaccine.

  3. Chemical isopathic remedies, e.g. pesticides, plastics, etc.

  4. NBWS certain illness, e.g. measles, chicken pox, mumps, whooping cough, meningitis etc.

  5. Physical trauma, e.g. head injuries, physical shock or any trauma. 

  6. Mental/emotional etiology, e.g. shock, loss, grief, fear, violence. 

  7. Traditional miasmatic etiology, with a personal of family history of a particular disease, e.g. gonorrhea, syphilis, cancer, tuberculosis, requiring nosodes and other remedies.

  8. Family history of illness, physical or mental trauma, requiring nosodes or even remedies that members of the family would have needed. In these cases, the etiology/miasm is passed through the generations. 

In many cases, the isopathic remedy or nosode is the remedy of choice to combat a particular etiology. In other cases, it maybe a particular remedy that covers the symptom complex that is the result of an etiological cause. 

Therefore, by including a more nuanced view of the role of any toxins and etiological influences on a case, remedies can be given to combat the specific effect of these causes. In today’s world, where people are being continually bombarded by damaging external causes, from vaccines, drugs, chemicals and other environmental factors, this methodology may need to be applied much more commonly than currently considered.

The following quotes are taken from the book Vaccine Epidemic and reviewed in Vol 14 #2 of the California Homeopath.

The next chapter, #18, discusses the issues of high mercury levels in the childhood vaccination schedule. Needless to say, until the government began to even think about this issue, the amount of mercury given to babies through vaccines by the two month period was up to 500 times the safe level of Mercury that the government itself had stipulated in guidelines to mercury exposure. However, the government then dismissed that there was a risk due the mercury in vaccines and that any danger was insignificant in comparison to the threat of childhood diseases. 

 “The mercury concentration in the previously used thimerosal-containing vaccines and the current flu vaccines is exponentially larger than what is considered hazmat material or that is even allowed in safe drinking water, as outlined in Pediatrics:”

0.5 parts per billion (ppb) of mercury kills human neuroblastoma cells.

2 ppb of mercury is the U.S. EPA’s limit for mercury in drinking water

20 ppb of mercury destroys neurite membrane structure.

200 ppb of mercury is the level in liquid that the EPA classifies as hazardous waste

25,000 ppb of mercury is the concentration in the hepatitis B vaccine administered at birth in the United States from 1990 to 2001.

50,000 ppb of mercury is the concentration in multidose DTaP and Hib vaccines, administered four times each in the 1990’s to children at two, four, six, twelve, and eighteen months of age; it is also the current “preservative” level in multidose flu vaccines (in 94% of the supply), meningococcal vaccines, and tetanus vaccines (for children age seven and older). This can be confirmed by analyzing the multidose vials.” 

So, as the author points out, it is OK to vaccinate your child with a toxic dose of mercury, but if some spills on the floor, it would require immediate evacuation of the building!!

The author then points out that the government recognizes “encephalopathy” (brain disorder, brain damage or change in brain functioning) as an outcome for the combination MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) or for the DTap (Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis) vaccines, but when symptoms of encephalopathy are diagnosed, it is diagnosed as Autism and not as a vaccine effect. The author then describes a situation in which a child became autistic very soon after having 9 vaccines in 5 shots in one go. The government accepted liability but then refused to diagnose it as autism, the head of the CDC at the time fudging the facts for the media, admitting that a vaccine could produce autism like symptoms in a child susceptible to the vaccine due to a preexisting condition but that in fact, vaccines do not create autism!! In accepting that susceptible children could suffer autism symptoms after vaccines, and that now 1% of all children in the USA are being diagnosed on the autism-spectrum disorder, why aren’t children being screened beforehand for signs of susceptibility? The child described above had been diagnosed as having a mitochrondrial disorder before getting the vaccines.

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