The Homoeopathic Treatment of Children (Pediatric Constitutional Types)

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There is at present a great necessity for information on the homeopathic treatment of children. We do not actually have enough literature on the subject apart from Borland’s booklet which is quite good but not sufficient for the needs of our time. I feel that Paul Herscu’s book goes further than any other homeopathic book in giving detailed information which will be very useful to any practitioner who treats children.

Homeopathic care is a great benefit for the healthy development of children. In my thirty years of practice I have seen children who were treated homoeopathically for a long period of time and who have developed and become healthier than their siblings who did not receive homeopathic treatment. I continually observe that children who have been treated well with homeopathic medicines usually exceed in height their parents and siblings who have not been similarly treated. This simple observation shows how deeply homeopathy can affect the body, most probably reaching to the very genetic level of the body.

I would also like to say that I consider Paul Herscu to be a person who is not only deeply devoted to homeopathy but also is an excellent practitioner.

During my first years of studying homeopathic materia medicas, I often found myself going over the same pages again and again, unable to grasp and retain enough of the information to apply it easily. Bits of information often seemed unrelated to each other and therefore hard to remember.

Later, after poring over these texts so many times that the material seemed second nature to me, I was able to look at them from a different perspective and notice patterns not easily discerned up close. For instance, if one were to organize the most valuable materia medicas chronologically, one would find that they parallel the evolution of homeopathy itself.

The first materia medicas written contained mostly proving organized according to the various sections of the body. What they amounted to, in fact, was a "laundry list" of symptoms. Lacking the wisdom that comes from the oft-repeated experience of many, these books nevertheless provided something priceless to the practice of homeopathic medicine: the raw materials with which future homeopaths could build. Doctors read these materia medicas, began to apply the remedies successfully, and recorded their findings.

The next generation of materia medicas consisted of these ever-growing records of clinical experience grafted onto the older laundry lists.

Finally, by the late nineteenth century, some materia medicas contained primarily clinical experience and little else. For example, Hering's Guiding Symptoms and Kent’s Materia Medica are both rich treasuries of clinical experience and are very valuable as such. More complete knowledge on how the remedies should be applied in actual practice, rather than theory, was made available in books like these.

This transformation of elemental data into practical wisdom through the process of analyzing and compiling one’s own and others’ clinical experiences continues to this day with the writing of modern materia medicas, which usually contain scant theory but ample experiential knowledge. Yet there is still something important missing from this continuum: materia medicas that vividly describe whole syndromes, whole symptom complexes, just as they appear in real patients and as they are commonly treated in practice today. I have approached the material with this in mind and have attempted to present it in a manner that makes it easily accessible to the reader. It is my belief that this book, and books following this concept, represent a necessary next step in the further evolution of materia medicas.

This book is also intended to help solve another problem with existing materia medicas: the dearth of theoretical, experiential, or any other type of homeopathic information available regarding children. Remedies are usually described primarily in the context of adults, leaving a large and treacherous gap in the literature. Attempting to apply that knowledge to an infant or a child has frustrated many homeopaths, myself included. We have often found ourselves prescribing solely on the basis of keynotes, which we were loath to do because keynotes do not adequately reflect the totality of the youngster’s presenting symptoms and underlying weaknesses.

Because we could not fully recognize the remedy picture of a child from the available inadequate descriptions, we floundered and were sometimes left unsure of the correctness of our prescription. This situation is particularly unfortunate because such a large number of homeopathic patients are children—and tragic as well, because the early and proper homeopathic treatment of children can contribute greatly to sound development and lead to a healthier adulthood.

Borland advanced the cause of paediatric materia medica with a short discourse, Children’s Types, published as a monograph on materia medica for the treatment of children. It consisted of brief compilations of clues upon which he would prescribe a polychrest remedy. Since his first step early in this century, no great strides have been made in the field of paediatric materia medica.

To my great fortune (though I thought it misfortune at the time), early in my career as a homeopath I was thrown into a busy practice that served hundreds of children. Overwhelmed by an unceasing flood of paediatric cases, I struggled to find the simillimum with tools and training that were inadequate to the task. The struggle lessened as I began to find the correct remedies by careful observation, long hours of study, and the grace of God.

In retrospect, I saw that the correct remedy was eventually found in countless cases without recourse to information contained in any materia medica. Talking with colleagues, I found that many of them wrestled as I had with this paediatric dilemma and craved help that might make this part of homeopathic practice easier. I proceeded to gather information from a great many successfully cured cases in my wife’s and my practice, which has evolved into this book. It is my fondest hope that others will add to this body of knowledge with their own experience, and in so doing continue to build a strong and eminently useful paediatric materia medica.

With this book, then, I wish to accomplish two things: first, to help fill the gap in paediatric materia medica; and second, to write a materia medica that I myself would like to read. Such a book, I thought, would describe syndromes just as they are seen in real patients. Psychologically, it would offer behavioural profiles of patients not in theory, but exactly as seen in office visits, complete with all their attendant expressions and actions. Physically, it would describe how individual diseases present in actuality. A student or practitioner would not need to memorize a list of disparate symptoms or compile symptoms to fit the patient sitting in front of him or her; the complete state of the patient could be read about here in its entirety, just as it presents itself in nature.

**Contents and Sample Pages**