Desktop Companion to Physical Pathology

From the Book

This companion book to Desktop Guide is a systematic reference to the management, repertory analysis and differential diagnosis of remedies in over 50 common pathologies seen by homeopaths.

It is intended for use by practicing homeopaths.

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Details

Desktop Companion to Physical Pathology, by Roger Morrison, was published in 1998.

This book is a systematic reference to the management, repertory analysis and differential diagnosis of homeopathic remedies in over 50 common pathologies. Morrison's purpose in writing this book is threefold:

"It is meant first as an aid to be used at the time of patient interview (either by phone or in person) to cue the practitioner toward likely remedies for a particular condition. The second purpose is as a study guide, bringing the main points of the remedies into focus. And, finally, to give advice about treatment based on the experience of myself and my colleagues at our center."

It is meant as a clinical aid not as a replacement for constitutional prescribing.

The materia medica of the book is presented as a study guide of clinically proven remedies with symptoms and keynotes relevant to a particular disease. There is a comprehensive repertory section that begins with an explanation of where to find relevant rubrics in different repertories.

Each section begins with a description of the disease and corresponding treatment tips. There is a Management segment for each category with guidelines summarizing what to expect from homeopathic treatment. Another section is Therapeutic Tips, comprised of three parts-Homeopathic, Naturopathic and Allopathic.

Homeopathic tips include advice on potency selection, repetition of the dose, concomitant drug therapy and how to deal with it, and what results to expect. Naturopathic Tips covers complementary treatments such as dietary advice, nutritional supplements, specific herbs, etc. Under Allopathic Tips, recommendations on the reduction and elimination of allopathic drugs are given.

This book joins Morrison's Desktop Companion as another quick reference guide to facilitate day-to-day homeopathic practice.

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Heritage

"A concise yet thorough differential for each of the main pathologies encountered in homeopathic prescribing."

The book was written with three criteria in mind:

1. To cue the practitioner toward likely remedies for the condition
2. As a study guide to bring main points of the remedy into focus
3. To give advice about treatment, based on the author's experience.

Each "disease" is described, followed by sections on management, therapeutic tips, repertory rubrics, and remedy differentials.

Julian Winston writes:
An excellent addition to Morrison's previous well received Desktop Guide to Keynote and Confirmatory Symptoms.

From:
The Heritage of Homoeopathic Literature
copyright 2001 by Julian Winston
Reprinted with the permission of the author

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Author

Roger Morrison
M.D., DHt

(1954 -     )

Dr. Morrison was born on February 21, 1954 at 10:21am in Rochester, NY. He grew up in Tennessee and attended medical school there, graduating in 1978. In his early career, he worked as an emergency room physician for several years. During this time Dr. Morrison also did much of the preparatory work for his calling as a homeopath.

In 1978, while still in medical training, Dr. Morrison attended his first seminar on homeopathy in Athens. It was at this seminar that he determined to study at the Athenian Center for Homeopathic Medicine - the foremost center for homeopathy in the world. This center was created and run by the world's most renowned homeopath - George Vithoulkas.

Dr. Morrison spent four years learning to speak Greek and then completed a two year fellowship at the center in Athens. During his stay, Dr. Morrison became one of the top assistants at the center, eventually earning the prestigious diploma of the Athenian Center.

Upon completion of his fellowship in 1984, Dr. Morrison returned to the United States to assist in the establishment of the Hahnemann Medical Clinic and the Hahnemann College of Homeopathy. He divides his time between his practice at the clinic, teaching at the college and at other institutions and writing. Dr. Morrison lectures throughout the world on many aspects of homeopathy.

Dr. Morrison has published some 20 articles in homeopathic journals throughout the world since 1984. He has also presented papers before the International LIGA of homeopathy. In 1993, Dr. Morrison completed work on his first textbook, Desktop Guide. These books have become standard text at most homeopathic colleges in the country and are translated into five languages and are used by homeopaths throughout the world. In 1999 he published his second text The Desktop Companion.

Dr. Morrison and Hahnemann College now offer a comprehensive introduction to classical homeopathy in video for home study. The program, Foundations of Homeopathy consists of actual live video taped lectures from the Hahnemann College of Homeopathy four year professional course for licensed medical practitioners. Learn more about the Foundations of Homeopathy video course.

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Reviews

Two Reviews:
1. SIMILLIMUM
2. HOMEOPATHY TODAY


SIMILLIMUM
Vol XII Issue 4
Winter 1999
Reviewed by James Hillen, CCH

This is the companion book to Morrison's excellent and popular Desktop Guide to Keynotes and Confirmatory Symptoms. Since getting the Desktop Guide it has become an indispensable materia medica for me.

The Companion is designed as another quick reference to be used during the patient interview, or to prepare for an appointment. It gives remedy differentials for the main physical pathologies, to alert the practitioner to likely remedies. It is not meant to replace constitutional prescribing.

The remedies are arranged in order of most frequently used to less commonly used. For example, under Otitis Media there are four "main remedies" described in detail, and 24 "important" remedies described. Mostly this consists of physical symptoms and keynotes, but the "disposition" of the child is included as well.

Remedies are also named under the categories of right- and left-sided, acute, chronic and "homeopath-walking-screeching-in-the-middle-of-the-night" otitis. So a left-sided otitis media has five main remedies listed and described. It's a good quick reference.

Morrison stresses finding the "inner conflicts and frustrations ... the deeper meaning and causes of the physical illness ... the essence or center of the patient's nature." However, in many cases the physical symptoms point to the simillimum.

In the Headache section, he states that often the constitutional remedy can be found by analyzing headache symptoms alone. With successful treatment, the case should be reviewed to see that no suppression has occurred and the patient as a whole has benefited.

The materia medica is the heart of the book and is meant to be used as a study guide of clinically proven remedies with symptoms and keynotes relevant to this disease. There are many less commonly known remedies listed. They are easy to scan, in a format similar to the Desktop Guide with more characteristic symptoms in bold type.

"Main remedies" for a condition can get 20 lines, while "important remedies" may get just three or four lines. I have been able to identify a remedy from this brief description that, when referring to the Guide, fits the whole picture. The Cough section, for example, is subdivided into Uncomplicated Cough with 58 remedies, Croup with 14, and Pertussis with 20 remedies, enough to keep any student of homeopathy happy.

There is an exhaustive repertory section for most diseases, which for me underlines the need for a remedy differential. It begins with an explanation of where to find relevant rubrics in different repertories. Important rubrics are in bold type, which greatly facilitates referring to the repertory. Rubrics are not limited to the physical and local, as in Degenerative Disorders of the Heart. Rubrics are listed from Mind through Generalities.

There are 29 disease categories e.g. Pneumonia, Kidney Stones, and Thyroid Conditions. Many have sub-categories, for instance, Skin Diseases has 15 sub-categories such as Eczema and Acne. There is no section on menstrual disorders, but a chapter covers Uterine Hemorrhage. Cancer is not included.

Each section begins with a description of the disease and tips on treating it from Morrrison's clinical experience. In reference to asthma, he states that most cases respond rapidly to homeopathic treatment, yet cautions homeopaths with little allopathic experience to seek consultation, especially if the patient has ever required emergency care. He identifies a probable cause of much asthma as the early, aggressive and suppressive drug treatments of respiratory infections.

Morrison admits that his recommendations are cautious. He feels our main responsibility is to our patients, not to homeopathic ideals, and that a conservative approach is necessary both for our safety as practitioners and for the long term acceptance of homeopathy. Many precautions are based on his personal experience.

Knowing the likely homeopathic prognosis can be very useful in planning treatment. Morrison states that Parkinson's is one of the most difficult diseases to treat homeopathically. Results are best if treatment is started when symptoms first appear, rather than after diagnosis.

Once l-dopa is started, reversal is rare, and a remedy that provides a modest gain or simply preserves function should be maintained. Homeopathic treatment may give the patient a much longer response to l-dopa

There is a Management segment for each category; e.g. in Acute Sinusitis there are guidelines summarizing what to expect with homeopathic treatment, and when not to treat. Rapid improvement can be expected with a strong symptom picture, while a case with mild symptoms or current antibiotic use is best left alone. In chronic sinusitis, it is best to stop allopathic treatment first, if possible, then treat constitutionally.

Another section is Therapeutic Tips, which has three parts: Homeopathic, Naturopathic and Allopathic. Homeopathic tips include advice on potency selection, repetition, working around drugs, aggravation, length of time to wait after prescribing, and what results to expect. He recommends trying the constitutional remedy first when treating acutes. Morrison is clear and consistent in his recommendations.

Naturopathic Tips covers treatments when symptoms are too minor to require a remedy (Herpes simplex, for instance), when the remedy is not yet working, or in conditions requiring additional help. Hahnemann started this approach. Included are dietary advice, removal of the cause, nutritional supplements, specific herbs, elimination of allergens, topical ointments and other complementary treatments.

Under Allopathic Tips, recommendations, on reducing and eliminating allopathic drugs are given. In the Rheumatoid Arthritis section, one recommendation is to substitute the least interfering allopathic drug without causing a flareup of symptoms before starting homeopathic treatment. This naturally leads to a Hierarchy of Allopathic Medications in order of increasing interference with natural defenses and homeopathic treatment. This Hierarchy is given for other chronic conditions as well.

Unlike popular books on homeopathic differentials, there is no attempt to teach principles of practice in a few pages. This book is intended for professional practitioners with a thorough understanding of case taking, hierarchy of symptoms, acute versus chronic conditions etc. It presupposes good insight into the patient, and competent understanding of their medical condition.

It is currently fashionable to look exclusively to mental symptoms in remedy selection and case taking. Hopefully this isn't leading prescribers to imagine, project or exaggerate mental symptoms, to fit their philosophical beliefs. The Desktop Companion assumes physical pathology to be the top of the hierarchy of symptoms.

My personal experience with the book is that it can be very helpful when used with a more complete materia medica. Whether we are using a repertory or a disease differential, we are simply considering possibilities for the simillimum. No method is holier than another. For me, using the Companion is quicker. It does, however, require developing a new habit of reference.

SIMILLIMUM
Winter 1999 Volume XII No. 4
Reprinted with permission from the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians
http://www.healthy.net/library/journals/simillimum/index.html




HOMEOPATHY TODAY
Reviewed by Richard Moskowitz, MD, DHt

This is a book that took some courage to write and badly needed to be written. Although wholly contemporary in feeling and style, it speaks to the dilemma of busy homeopathic physicians in every time and place: how to keep doing good quality work under pressure of time, reputation, and ever more difficult and demanding cases to come up with creditable prescriptions without delay.

It is perhaps a measure of the extent to which our own practices have grown and prospered in recent years that homeopaths today are seeing more and more patients with serious organic pathology, many of them chronically dependent on powerful allopathic drugs, who need and want and can in fact make use of the unique kind of help we can offer.

Now as then, overworked GP's in the trenches have always had recourse to compilations that summarize our collective experience with different pathological entities, including practical "tips" on the remedies most frequently indicated for each and how to differentiate them.

In addition to manuals of first aid and self-care, such as Hering's Domestic Physician or Panos and Heimlich's Homeopathic Medicine at Home, and specialized monographs on particular organs and organ systems, like Roberts' Rheumatic Remedies or Guernsey's Obstetrics, our literature has always included general texts of therapeutics for the busy professional.

Jahr's Forty Years' Practice, Dewey's Practical Homeopathic Therapeutics, and Lilienthal's Homeopathic Therapeutics come to mind as classics of the genre that I myself have sampled more often than I might care to admit at a fancy case conference.

Dr. Morrison's book is clearly of this lineage and will surely gladden the hearts of practicing homeopaths both new and old. Like all the other titles I have mentioned, it also should and probably will revive legitimate questions about the classical method per se that were already raised by the master himself and have thus generated controversy from the very beginning.

With everyone from Hahnemann on down insisting that we treat the individual patient rather than the approximate pathological diagnosis or category, the intelligent student can hardly fail to wonder why it is necessary or useful to talk about "diseases" at all.

Speaking from my own experience, I can think of four good reasons why a pathological orientation that applies generically to large groupings of individuals is still relevant to homeopaths of all persuasions.

First, I would cite the accumulated experience of untrained laypeople using remedies for first aid and self-care, a technique of proven worth for over hundred and fifty years. Both to examine the validity of self-care as a concept, and to appraise its scope and limitations in a classical framework, it is necessary to draw on that experience.

Second, within the realm of more serious conditions usually seen by a professional, conventional diagnostic categories like pneumonia, breast cancer, or multiple sclerosis offer our collective experience with their average, approximate, or expected course as points of reference against which the remedies most often effective in these conditions may be compiled and measured.

My own experience with Belladonna, Bryonia, and Phytolacca in acute mastitis, for example, has simplified the process of choosing a remedy in such cases, by providing familiar standards against which more unusual possibilities are quickly suspected and identified.

Such approximations are particularly valuable in epidemic diseases such as measles, scarlet fever, or cholera, where the main features of any given outbreak impose themselves somewhat uniformly on almost every patient, so that the remedy most closely resembling it can be offered preventively to incipient cases, definite or suspected contacts, and others at high risk.

Indeed, with Belladonna for scarlet fever, Pulsatilla for measles, Bryonia for pleurisy, Sepia for morning sickness, Arnica for blunt injury to soft tissues, Ignatia for acute grief, and the like, the pathogenesis of the condition corresponds so closely to the essence of the remedy that each illuminates the other.

Under these circumstances, the remedy may appropriately be thought of as "specific" for the condition, and given out in early cases or even preventively to those at high risk of developing it or with a history of having benefited from the remedy for it in the past.

Unfortunately, there is no simple rule or formula for the untrained or inexperienced to distinguish these wholly legitimate practices from the short-cuts of those merely impatient with the discipline of the totality of symptoms.

Matching common remedies with lists of remedies for treating them and adding a few easy indications for each to differentiate one from the other, texts like those of Jahr, Dewey, or Lilienthal make it possible for a busy or lazy practitioner to forego the labor and discipline of interviewing patients, grading symptoms, or studying remedies at all. Another reason for studying pathology is thus simply to help navigate a path through this minefield.

Third, the central features of many ailments, like the remedies best suited to healing them, are limited in scope to a relatively specialized area of functioning. In otherwise healthy patients bothered by headache, constipation, neuralgia, menstrual cramps, or vaginitis, for example, the narrow focus of the problem may itself provide the first and best clue to the indicated remedy.

Clearly recognized and considered at length by Hahnemann himself, these seemingly one-sided or "local" ailments are shown in fact to represent latent chronic diseases of a more generalized character, which are apt to break out in full force if suppressed with conventional drugs.

In some cases, with few underlying constitutional symptoms that patients tend to ignore out of familiarity the picture remains circumscribed even after skillful casetaking, and the indicated remedy must also reflect that pattern.

Many remedies both famous and obscure are known primarily for limited applications of this type, though more detailed provings may well reveal their "constitutional" features in the future.

Fourth, as all these examples illustrate, the practice of homeopathic medicine culminates in the riddle of chronic disease, a problem to which Hahnemann devoted himself throughout the final decades of his life, revealing broad patterns of symptomatology that underlie the myriad of individual differences and are traceable even across the generations.

To this pioneering work, still controversial among homeopaths today, we owe the major nosodes, prepared from actual disease products, and an integrated schema of animal, vegetable, and mineral remedies based on them, both of which have greatly deepened and enriched clinical practice and thus stood the test of time.

For all of these reasons, books like Morrison's that are organized by diseases will continue to serve a valid and useful purpose, as they have always done, however liable to misuse.

I regard them as simply another way to classify materia medica information, and as such another possible conduit to the best available remedy in addition to prescribing by keynote, repertory "essence" information, miasmatic analysis, and various mixed strategies, no one of which is sufficient, but all of which are helpful at times. These issues are addressed by Morrison himself in his brief Introduction:

"The purpose of this book is threefold: It is meant first as an aid to be used at the time of the interview to cue the practitioner toward likely remedies for a particular condition.

"The second ... is as a study guide, bringing the main points of the remedies into focus. And finally, [the third is] to give advice about treatment based on the experience of myself and my colleagues at our center."

"

Yet another way to think of the book is as the companion piece and logical extension of his earlier Desktop Guide to Keynotes and Confirmatory Symptoms, which presents some of the same information organized by remedies, a condensed materia medica for the same busy professional I mentioned at the beginning.

As he says, both were written "because I wanted [them] for my own practice." Taken together, these two volumes are thus rather like an updated version of Boericke's Materia Medica and Therapeutics, intended for the same eminently practical purpose and for much the same audience.

Furthermore, the book is organized in an equally practical and user-friendly way, and also incorporates several novel features that are found nowhere else. Thus for every specific ailment a brief introductory discussion concludes with a "Management" subsection where homeopathic and conventional perspectives are combined.

The next section, entitled "Therapeutic Tips," is divided into homeopathic, naturopathic, and allopathic varieties, and is equally helpful and convenient to use.

Yet another thoughtful innovation, extracted from MacRepertory and ReferenceWorks, is the listing of useful rubrics in our Repertory language, to show the possible connections that have been made so far, and thereby to eliminate the necessity of rediscovering them anew each time, an incredibly useful service to student and practitioner alike.

Only then, at the very end, do we come to what is found in all the other books, the remedies he has found most often useful in the condition, with a few characteristic features for distinguishing them.

Even here, at the point where it closely resembles the earlier texts, it is clear why books like Morrison's will have to be written and updated continually, because both the definition of pathology and the number of possible diagnoses have expanded in all directions and will very likely do so even more in the decades to come.

Indeed, it is in his selection, most especially in the diagnoses he chose to leave out, that the limitations of the present volume are most apparent, presumably reflecting

• the relatively limited experience with them at his clinic, and
  
• the increased medicolegal risk incurred by even the most experienced homeopath in treating them at present.

It is noteworthy, for example, that most of the conditions listed in his table of contents, and even most of the subheadings found in the text, were familiar to Dewey and Boericke and even to Jahr and Lilienthal, while diseases more recently discovered, like chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, or multiple chemical Sensitivity (or environmental illness), are omitted, as are some infections (gonorrhea, Lyme disease, mono, PID).

For much the same reasons, serious or potentially life-threatening ailments (AIDS, serious blood dyscrasias, cancer, etc.) are avoided, as are myocardial infarction (which is combined with "Angina Pectoris" because the appropriate rubrics for them are indistinguishable), and hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, osteoporosis, and the like, which represent purely technical or laboratory diagnoses, typically or often without symptoms or rubrics at all.

In his Introduction Morrison speaks to this issue as well, likewise from the eminently practical standpoint of physicians the world over:

"My conviction is that our main duty is to the safety and health of our patients, not to our homeopathic ideals. This sometimes means that we need to resort to allopathic treatment for the short run.

"Furthermore, the safety of the practitioner is significant. We should never jeopardize our licenses or our reputations in the community. This is especially true in the United States, where homeopathy is still vulnerable to attack from medical authorities.

"A balanced and conservative approach is our best chance for longterm gains in spreading our beloved therapy."

"

These bracing and sensible truths should never be far from the thoughts of any practicing homeopath. Yet as a tentative First Edition of a classic text that hopefully will be updated over the years, I have no doubt that subsequent versions will phase in some of these other more controversial diseases as further experience becomes available, and the integration of homeopathy into the medical profession continues as at present.

The book as it stands is splendid and unequalled elsewhere. It could well become an important achievement for the society at large in the future.

HOMEOPATHY TODAY
APRIL 1999
Reprinted with permission from the National Center for Homeopathy

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Contents

AcknowledgementsAcknowledgements -- xiii
Author's Preface -- xv
Introduction -- xixvii-iix
Introduction Acknowledgements -- xiii
Author's Preface -- xv
Introduction -- xixix-x

...Head and Neck -- 3-98
Headache -- 3-26
Conjunctivitis -- 27-30
Otitis Media -- 31-42
Allergy and Coryza -- 43-52
Sinusitis -- 53-60
Tooth Pain -- 61-70
Pharyngitis and Tonsillitis -- 71-82
Thyroid Conditions -- 83-98

...Chest -- 99-204
Cough -- 99-132
Uncomplicated Cough -- 108-122
Croup -- 123-125
Pertussis -- 126-132
Pneumonia -- 133-144
Asthma -- 145-170

...Cardiac Conditions -- 171-204
Arrhythmia -- 172-180
Angina -- 181-189
Degenerative Disorders of the Heart -- 190-204

...Digestion -- 205-280
Nausea and Vomiting -- 205-216
Stomach Pain -- 217-226
Diarrhea -- 227-242
Abdominal Pain -- 243-254
Liver Disorders -- 255-270
Hemorrhoids -- 271-280

...Urogenital -- 281-322
Urinary Tract Infection -- 281-294
Kidney Stones -- 295-302
Prostate Conditions -- 303-310
Uterine Hemorrhage -- 311-322

...Peripheral Organs -- 323-494

...Musculoskeletal Disorders -- 323-366
Acute Arthritis -- 324-330
Tendinitis and Bursitis -- 331-332
Rheumatoid Arthritis -- 333-346
Degenerative Arthritis -- 347-355
Back Pain and Sciatica -- 356-366

...Injury and Trauma -- 367-404
Bruises and Blunt Trauma -- 369-374
Sprains -- 375-378
Fractures -- 379-380
Burns -- 381-384
Wounds -- 385-390
Surgical Trauma -- 391-395
Sunstroke and Heat Exhaustion -- 396-398
Spinal Injury -- 399-401
Concussion -- 402-404

...Skin Diseases -- 405-494
Eczema -- 407-415
Psoriasis -- 416-426
Craking Skin -- 427-428
Urticaria -- 429-434
Poison Oak -- 435-440
Herpes Zoster -- 441-445
Simple Herpes -- 446-452
Genital Herpes -- 453-459
Impetigo -- 460-464
Fungal Infections -- 465-467
Cellulitis -- 468-470
Acne -- 471-476
Abscess -- 477-485
Warts -- 486-490
Vitiligo -- 491-494

...Systemic Conditions -- 495-605
Vertigo -- 495-508
Influenza -- 509-518
Fever -- 519-570

...Neurological Disorders -- 571-605
Multiple Sclerosis -- 572-582
Bell's Palsy -- 583-585
Tics, Cramps, and Twitches -- 586-590
Convulsive Disorders -- 591-602
Parkinson's Disease -- 603-605

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