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Importance of diet and regimen during the treatment and for
the maintenance of health is not new to the world. Infact
its importance is known to the world since 500BC .
Great Greek physician and father of medicine Hippocrate who
went far ahead to say ‘"Let your food be your medicine and
let your medicine be your food."
Egyptian physicians (also) held that food, if subjected to
insufficient or faulty digestion, could be transformed into
morbid entities.
Arab physicians, although they recognized that foods and
drugs constitute the pillars of therapy, differed in the
importance they accorded to each.
The importance of diet was, however, stressed by many, of
whom Avicenna who expressed it in several verse of his
Canticum: "To preserve health, medicine acts in two ways. To
maintain the temperament give a similar diet. To alter the
nature of the body, give its contrary (verses 791-798).
Dr Hahnemann also emphasized about diet and
regimen but contrary to believe then he gave different
places to diet and medicine required for treatment.
According to him remedy is must for cure but if diet and
regimen are not corrected they will maintain the disease. In
chronic disease he states that “ A strict homoepathic diet
and mode of living dose not cure chronic patient as our
opponents pretend in order to diminish the merit of
homoeopathy , but the main cause is the medical treatment .
This may be seen in the case of the many patients who
trusting these false allegation have fro years observed the
most strict homoeopathic diet without being able there by to
diminish appreciable their chronic disease , this rather
increases in spite of diet ,as all disease of a chronic
miasmatic nature do from their nature.
But in the disease due to transient dispositions caused due
to faulty diets or habits one must correct them in order to
attain health.§ 77 he gives eg: of disease due to
deficiencies or due to excess etc.
But in cases of pure miasmatic disease DR Hahnemann says §
256
"But should we find, during the employment of the other
medicines in chronic (psoric) diseases, that the best
selected homeopathic (antipsoric) medicine in the suitable (minutest)
dose does not effect an improvement, this is a sure sign
that THE CAUSE THAT KEEPS UP THE DISEASE STILL PERSIST, and
that there is some circumstance in the mode of life of the
patient or in the situation in which he is placed, that must
be removed in order that a permanent cure may ensue".
Proper hygienic and dietary measures must be taken recourse
to before administration of remedial drugs, which are used
as specific stimuli to rouse the vital force to react
against the morbific agent and overcome their noxious
influences. In the chronic disease we have to be more
careful in dietic and hygienic matter as they may easily
upset the patient in a surreptitious manner as it is rightly
explained in § 259-36 in organon of medicine 6th edition
Considering the minuteness of the doses necessary . and
proper in Homeopathic treatment we can easily understand
that during the treatment everything must be remove from the
diet & regime which can have any medical action. In order
that the small dose may not be overwhelmed & extinguish by
any foreign medicinal irritant further in
§ 260, Hahnemann 1989 – 36 quotes.
Hence the careful investigation into such obstacles is so
much the more necessary in the case of patient affected by
chronic disease, as they are disease causing errors in the
diet and regiment, which often passed unnoticed . Further he
states, the most appropriate regiment during the employment
of medicine in chronic disease consist in the removal of
such obstacles to recovery and in supplying them necessary
the reverse. Innocent moral and intellectual recreations,
active exercise in open air almost all kind of weather
daily, walks slight manual labour suitable nutrition
unmedicinal food and drinks etc.
In the note to this paragraph Hahnemann gives a list of
things that he felt were important to "avoided as far as
possible or be removed" while attempting a cure of a
prolonged chronic disease. He used the word "as far as
possible" because it difficult to remove such things all in
most cases. These avoidables hold true in todays life too.
1. "Coffee; fine Chinese and other herb
teas"
Coffee can be a great obstacle to the cure. Hahnemann wrote
that coffee was one of the greatest aggravators of the Psora
and the chronic miasms. Also it is non for its action as
universal antidote.
2. "beer prepared with medicinal vegetable substances
unsuitable for the patient's state; so-called fine liquors
made with medicinal spices; all kinds of punch; spiced
chocolate; highly spiced dishes and sauces; spiced cakes,
and ices.
It is best to avoid excessively spiced food, liquors,
candies, ice creams, and the like. The chronic miasms cause
many false cravings that make a person desire things that
are the very worst for them. In this way the miasms feed
themselves rather then the person. Moderate spicing usually
is fine unless the individual is idiosyncratic to them.
3. "odorous waters and perfumes of many kinds;
strong-scented flowers in the apartment; tooth powders and
essences and perfumed sachets compounded of drugs".
Strong perfumes and oils are a sometimes act as antidoting
agent canceling agents. They are best avoided. As the case
stabilizes and the health improves on can remove the
restrictions one by one. The if something happens the
homoeopath knows exactly what caused it. As a person gets
healthier these things often don't matter as much as well
they are ill.
4. "crude medicinal vegetables for soups; dishes of herbs,
roots and stalks of plants possessing medicinal qualities;
asparagus with long green tips, hops, and all vegetables
possessing medicinal properties, celery, onions; old cheese,
and meats that are in a state of decomposition, or that
possess medicinal properties (as the flesh and fat of port,
ducks and geese, or veal that is too young and sour viands),
ought just as certainly to be kept from patients".
In presnt days diets don't really use such crude herbs,
roots and stalks, nor the various meats mentioned. Our diets
are more refined which can be good or bed for health. Raw
onions and garlic are more of a problem than those that are
cooked in food. Heavy meats and fats are very hard on
psorics and sycotics. Such things should be kept at a
minimum.
6. "as they should avoid all excesses in food, and in the
use of sugar and salt"
Too much fat, sugar and salt potentates the chronic miasms
and speeds the development of degenerative diseases. A
healthy balanced diet is essential to the health.
7. "Also, they should avoid spirituous drinks, undiluted
with water"
Drug abuse may also includes substances like cocaine,
opiates, speed, and marijuana. If drugs and alcohol are
maintaining causes which keep up the disease the indiviudal
will not get well until they are reduce or stopped.
8. "heated rooms, woolen clothing next the skin, a sedentary
life in close apartments, or the frequent indulgence in mere
passive exercise (such as riding, driving or swinging),
taking a long siesta in a recumbent posture in bed, sitting
up long at night, reading while lying down."
Living in unventilated rooms which are over heated is
unhealthy as is living in a unhealthy building. Those who
wish to heal must avoid unhealthy surroundings, sedentary
habits, sleeping too much in the day, and staying up all
night. Fresh air, sunlight and exercise are very important.
9. "Prolonged suckling"
Too many babies and too much suckling is very hard on a
women. This speeds the aging process and is very stressful.
We see this much in third world where young mothers have too
many children too quickly.
10. Sexual energy either brings one health or destroys one's
life. The venereal miasms pervert the sexual instinct and
try to produce states that maintain themselves and spread
themselves. Moderation in all things is the best advice when
it comes to sexual matters. Dr Hahnemann emphasized on
stimulation or suppression of sexual energy is not healthy.
Too much masturbation is also not good.
11. "subjects of anger, grief or vexation, a passion for
play, over-exertion of mind or body, especially after
meals."
Emotional stress is the greatest aggravator of the chronic
miasms and degenerative diseases. If a person's emotional
life is in turmoil it is hard for even the best remedies to
act. For the best results the client should be working on
their own emotional and spiritual well being as the
treatment goes on.
13. "dwelling in marshy districts, damp rooms, penurious
living, etc."
Working and living conditions have a great effect on health.
Some people live in areas where negative telluric influences
maintain disease others live in substandard housing. Living
in crowded cities human beings are exposed to over
population, stressful environments and bombarded pollution.
Fresh air, sunlight, and pure water are very important and
all too rare in some cities and towns. More light, air,
plants, color, music makes life in our modern world less
stressful. If such conditions can not be change for the
better homoepahtic remedies may do little over all good in
the long run.
Dr Hahnemann sums up this long list by saying:
"All these things must be as *far as possible avoided or
removed*, in order that the cure may not be obstructed or
rendered impossible. Some of my disciples seem needlessly to
increase the difficulties of the patient's dietary by
forbidding the use of many more, tolerably indifferent
things, which is not to be commended."
Complete change in lifestyle and habits from the patient is
difficult to attain hence in the above statement “as far as
possible “ is used by master
A well chosen homoeopathic remedies has the power to work
though most common food and drink very well. They work
through perfume, toothpaste, teas, coffee, spirits, drugs,
and medicines if they are not in excess in many cases. It is
those cases in which such things are causing or maintaining
the disease state and those things which the person is
idiosyncratic to the individuals. These are the agents that
the homoeopath must seek out in the persons life. These few
things are what need to be changed so that the remedy will
take affect. Once the remedies retune the vital force toward
the harmonious state of health the false cravings of the
mind and miasms will lessen and the person will desire those
things which are healthy for them.
Dr Hahnemann came to the conclusion that the constitution
becomes used to many of things over a longer period of time.
If they are not maintaining the disease nor antidoting the
remedies there is no reason to remove them all at once. |
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