Page 26 - Autumn 18

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cases where the animal develops the same type of tumor as its owner. So yes, I think it can be.
Now how useful is this? It would be nice if this were a law which e.g. indicates that the remedy of the pet and the owner would always be the same.
We would need to look for the totality of the symptoms of the owner and the pet, wouldn’t we?
Now, you will all know at least one pet which behaves totally different from its owner. The very nice, welcoming lady with the dog who hates strangers entering the house and barks them away, etc. So, it is not a law!
As it is not a law, we cannot use this as a shortcut to finding the remedy in all cases. But, as it does happen, we should be alert and get all the help we can from being aware if this level of merging exists.
case taking merges
All this merging of ideas reminds me of the preparation of my day of teaching at last year's annual conference of the Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy in Monterey (USA).
I was invited to speak about case taking. Over the last years, I have lined out a simple 5 step process to walk through a case from the beginning to prescription. As I was preparing for Monterey, obviously I wanted to address the veterinary expectations.
Nevertheless, I decided to use my "human" 5 steps and to review each of them in terms of how they could possibly be applied by veterinary homeopaths.
My conclusion was that they applied almost equally for veterinary homeopaths, an idea which was enthusiastically welcomed by the congress attendees.
As an ultimate test I presented a video of a dog, which we analyzed completely non verbally and then checked our findings against the statements of the owner – it worked! In February 2007, I went one step further, I asked a group of non-vets (only one vet was present) to analyze the same video and to prescribe a remedy. At the next conference, I will present the follow-up and the double-check, double blind prescription by a vet homeopath for the same dog . I expect that you will have a surprise – can I let you be curious?
In any case and in the made abstraction of this dog's case, it has become my conviction that case taking of animals and humans is much closer than we estimated.
rubrics merge
Now let us go back to the beginning of this article: "I think we need a veterinary Synthesis". With all these merging ideas between human and veterinary homeopathy, that question became: do we need a separate veterinary Synthesis?
You know by now that we have decided that there is only one Synthesis which includes vet information, labeled with
precision. That vet information can be shown or not. Basically the reply is, yes, the repertory is the same, all rubrics are merged. The only exceptions are some new rubrics specific for animals, such as the nonhuman localizations (e.g. tail).
When I scroll through the issues of the BAHVS journal, I can only think that this has been the correct decision.
This made me remember a patient of mine with severe psoriasis and with this strong and striking symptom: he feared the rain. He never went out when it rained and after the rain he was still careful not to step in the puddles on the sidewalk. The remedy that cured his psoriasis and allowed him to take swimming lessons at the age of 72, was argentum nitricum!
As you can check, I did not yet add that remedy to Synthesis. Thank you Stuart for reminding me and for confirming!
Thank you veterinary homeopathy!
My conclusion, I guess, is clear to you: I am increasingly aware and enthusiastic about the entanglement between veterinary and human homeopathy.
Recently, my enthusiasm experienced a height as I was present at the reception of the veterinary satellite congress of the LIGA Congress in Luzern (Switzerland), October 2006.
There I met "your" John Saxton, who is currently presiding the London Faculty of Homeopathy where I received my initial training in 1977-78. It was Malene Jorgensen who took a nice picture of us and who, later on, asked me to write this article. I hope that my fascination at meeting veterinary homeopaths, from meeting Marc Bär some 15 years ago until reading your articles most recently, shines through.
May these ideas assist you in your practice and, finally, many thanks for the opportunity to formulate them.
One example: I read the very nice case of stuart Marston and agree with Stuart's analysis: "Looking at the case it appeared that it was the threat of the rain that triggered the symptoms...
The horse did not fear water it feared rain." So I checked the rubric "fear of rain" in the repertory. Then I read on and saw the final prescription of argentum nitricum.
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John Saxton and Frederik Schroyens at the LIGA congress 2006