The publisher:

For a long time numerous homeopathic practitioners have been asking me to write "my materia medica". They feel that the information I have given in various courses over the years should reach a wider audience. Until now this information has been available to only a limited number of homeopathic physicians. I have postponed this Herculean task for many years in order to create the necessary circumstances to do justice to such a tremendous undertaking, namely to communicate my experience, knowledge and understanding of our materia medica.

When these requests began, as early as 1975–76, I did not see any reason to write such a book because I felt I had little new to add to the already voluminous body of information concerning our homeopathic remedies and their pathognomonic pictures.

Subsequently I was persuaded by my best students of the importance of publishing a complete materia medica, one that would contain all the information and understanding that I have accumulated over the last thirty years of my practice.

Because a real need exists for this information, I have decided to publish Materia Medica Viva in separate volumes rather than wait for the entire work to be completed.

The structure

I have organised Materia Medica Viva so that the information can be used both for study and for reference.
The Essential Features are the part of the remedy that should be studied by the student. The remainder should be used only as a reference when studying a case.

1. The Essential Features, which I consider the heart of the remedy, in which I mainly give my own experience and my understanding of the remedy. In this chapter I have tried to capture the uniqueness of each remedy, the peculiarities that make one remedy different from another, so that the student may be helped to understand the remedy in its essence and the way it differs from others.

This is the part that students should study.

2. The second part provides generalities and keynote symptoms for different systems. This part is for reference only when you are studying a case.

I eagerly look forward to the day when we, as a homeopathic community, possess the means to engage in truly meaningful homeopathic research — research with the aim of improving our knowledge of our medicines and of establishing correct and reliable information concerning the action of homeopathic remedies upon the human organism.