'This House believes that the single remedy is the
medicine of experience'

Summing up: proposing

Dr David Curtin:

I would first like to say a little about myself and my practice. I have made it my business to investigate ways of getting homoeopathy to work better and I have practised in many different ways, I have worked in many different situations. I have worked as a locum in many different homoeopathic practices and I have observed the ways in which different practitioners have worked, the kind of results that they have, and I have tried many of these different methods myself. I have used complex remedies, I have used pendulums, I have done all sorts of dowsing, I have tried many different things and the way that I practice now is not fixed. I continue to investigate and I continue to look for ways to improve the results which I get in my practice. But one thing that is clear is that I have now found that finding a remedy for the totality of the symptoms of the patient, the whole patient is that which gives me the best results by far.

I would like to pick up something that June Burger said about the French homoeopaths. She said the French with their imagination use polypharmacy. I would change that a little bit to say that they use polypharmacy without imagination. They practise in this way without imagination, they prescribe combinations of remedies on local symptoms and call it homoeopathy. Perhaps the local symptoms get better or perhaps they don't, but what about the rest of the patient? I think this gives homoeopathy a bad name. I get many patients coming to me and saying 'I've been having homoeopathic treatment for years' and it has done this and it has done that or it hasn't done anything at all, but it is often clear to me that it has actually done very little. Sometimes the patients are satisfied they say: 'I went to the doctor for this. He gave me this medicine and it got better'. I say, 'So what? What about the rest of the patient'. I look at the patient as a whole and I like to see my patients get better as a whole and when they do they really appreciate it. I want to get the message over to the low, combination prescribers that they are missing out on something much better. If one does treat the whole patient, and I prescribe a single remedy for the greatest totality that I can see, then I find that the whole patient gets better, not just the bladder, not just the chest, but everything. Picking up something that George Lewith said about the throat problem and then later on arthritis developing, toxins of streptococcus being found and then given something for that. Okay, so perhaps the rheumatoid arthritis improves, perhaps the throat gets better. What about the other symptoms, what about the fear of the dark, what about the anxiety? So the single remedy is my approach.

There was talk of support on a number of occasions, support remedies, support for organs, support for this, support for that. I would like to say again that when I prescribe, I prescribe for a totality and I prescribe a single remedy. When such a remedy is given and the choice has been good, the patient starts to improve. This improvement generally follows a particular path. It follows a pattern and I refer in particular to Hering's observations on cure that the process of the disease is reversed and that the symptoms disappear in the order in which they appeared. This is something that can be observed. Often the patient needs support in many different ways. I give my remedy and the process of cure is initiated. Things start to change in the patient's life. Sometimes if a grief has been suppressed this grief then erupts. Sometimes if anger has been suppressed this anger then erupts. Sometimes people who have been stuck in a particular life style which does not suit them or is compressing them in some way, start to react against it. Things need to change in their life. Such people need counselling: they need support: they need to talk to someone in order to determine how they are going to cope with the changes that are happening in their lives, what choices they are going to make in order to improve the qualities of their lives.

This is one kind of support. Andy Lockie talked about support at other levels. The patient may need to see the osteopath. The patient may need to have a broken leg set. The patient may need to be given advice concerning diet. There may be certain habits they have or things that they ingest or whatever that actually are interfering with the process of cure. We can give many different kinds of support to patients. Sometimes orthodox medicine may need to be given as a support of one kind or another. I have already mentioned the example of fixing a broken leg. Sometimes surgery is necessary. Sometimes it is necessary to give thyroxine or insulin to maintain the patient's life. Wecannot depend on homoeopathy to do everything. But homoeopathy can do the most remarkable things and in my experience the most effective way of achieving this has been by prescribing single doses. So I maintain that the single dose is the medicine of experience. It is the medicine which allows the practitioner to learn, to grow, to discover, not just to learn about the medicines but to learn about the patients, to learn how to discover what it is in patients that needs to be cured.

The problem that the patient really has is not necessarily the problem that they present with. A good homoeopath, I maintain, will discover what that problem is and endeavour to put it right by prescribing an appropriate medicine. And if a homoeopath practices in this way by constantlymonitoring the results of the remedy, feeding back to the patient if the remedy is not working well. Asking 'What is it that has caused me to prescribe a wrong remedy or a remedy that was not so good in any particular case?' By looking again at the patient, looking again at the case to see what is not quite right, and asking TIs there some more information I need, is there something in this patient thatI have misunderstood?' and by following the progress of the changes within the patient after each single prescription, the practitioner learns by experience more about medicines, more about patients, more about himself or herself in discovering what makes people tick, what makes people sick  and thereby learns more about how to make them better more quickly and more effectively.

Ann Larkin made the point that it is difficult in fifteen minutes to examine the totality of a case. It can be indeed and I sympathise fully with those such as Michael Jenkins, perhaps, who sees tens or hundreds of patients a day. It can be difficult. But I maintain that the experience of prescribing a single remedy and carefully observing the response will enable the practitioner to work more precisely and more quickly. By doing so he will be able to practise very accurately in quite short periods. And so I rest my case.

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