The publisher:

Numerous homeopathic practitioners have for a long time been asking me to write "my materia medica." They feel that the information I have provided in various courses over the years should reach a wider audience. To date this information has been available to only a limited number of homeopathic practitioners. I have postponed this Herculean task for many years in order to create the necessary circumstances to do justice to such a tremendous job, 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 as I felt I had little new to add to the existing voluminous amount 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 my last thirty years of practice.

Because a real need exists for the information, I have decided to publish Materia Medica Viva in separate volumes instead of waiting for the entire work to be completed.

The structure

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

1. The Essential Features, which I consider the heart of the remedy, contain mostly 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 in understanding the remedy in its essence and the way it differs from others.

This is the section students should study.

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

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