The publisher:

Numerous homeopathic professionals 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 only to a limited number of homeopathic physicians. I postponed this Herculean task for many years in order to create the necessary circumstances to do justice to such a tremendous undertaking: 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 large volume 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 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 Materia Medica Viva so that the information can be used both for study and as a reference.
The Essential Features are the part of each remedy that students should study. The remainder should be used only for reference when studying a case.

1. The Essential Features, which I consider the heart of the remedy, in which I give primarily 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 students 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 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.