Canadian Academy of Homeopathy

12/31/2025

12/29/2025

Adolph Lippe on studying the homeopathic materia medica...

"The first impression of the uninitiated, who first takes in hand our voluminous works on Materia Medica, is to perceive no difference between the recorded provings of the many medicines. He thinks on glancing over the pages of the Materia Medica, that every medicine has caused some giddiness, some headache, some fever, some cough; all and every one of them.

He remains unavoidably puzzled on the subject, until he begins to compare the records more closely and accurately, he then sees clearly the differences that exist between the various medicines and the manner in which they are similar and differ. He will first try to ascertain what kind of pain a remedy generally produces, and on what part of the body, on what organ or part of an organ it is most apt to act. He will find under what conditions the changed sensations in the organism are produced, and these condition he will subdivide first as to the time, at what time of the day, month, or year, periodically and so forth; under what change of position at rest or in motion, by what kind of food or drink, and by what mental emotions the condition is either aggravated or ameliorated, and lastly in what connection the various changes appear, and their accompanying symptoms.

In this manner the progressive student will obtain the characteristic symptoms of each medicine; he will find by so studying each medicine, that various medicines have in some respects great similarities, but that in other respects they differ, in various ways, much from each other; he then makes comparisons as to similarities and differences, and he so finds out their relationship.

By comparisons alone, can we obtain a proper and lasting knowledge of each single medicine. We compare first single symptoms with similar symptoms of other medicines, and so we proceed, until later we compare medicines belonging to the same natural class or family or groups of medicines which by their similarity of action form a relationship with other similar classes or groups of medicines."

12/26/2025

An important history lesson from Adolph Lippe...

"Hahnemann found while translating Cullen’s Materia Medica, then one of the standard works, that China officinalis, Peruvian bark, was claimed to be a specific for intermittent fever. Hahnemann, who had always been a clear and reflecting observer of facts, knew that Peruvian bark did cure some cases of intermittent fever but not others; he also knew that it caused the patient who was subjected to repeated doses of this medicine only to suffer other pangs, which he had not before the treatment, without curing the original disease; he had noticed the symptoms of cases in which Peruvian bark had cured intermittent fever.

He then first reflected on the mode which would bring light into this darkness of uncertainties, and resolved to solve the plain question, “What determines a Cinchona fever?” He then himself took a few drops of the pure alcoholic tincture of Peruvian bark while in a perfect state of health, and behold, he experienced symptoms very similar to those he had had years ago, when suffering from intermittent fever, commonly called ague. These symptoms he noted down, and on comparing them with such cases as he had cured before by Cinchona, he discovered a great similarity.

The Cinchona proving was the first Hahnemann made on himself, and the results of this proving led him to draw deductions which he would never have arrived at without this experiment. He did not experience, nor did Cinchona cause intermittent fever, but it caused symptoms only resembling this form of disease, and from this observation he drew the only possible and correct conclusion, that, if medicines when taken in a state of health, were able to create symptoms similar to a form of disease which they were also known to cure at times, these symptoms so produced on the well, and the results of a voluntary proving, would in future indicate the condition under which this medicine might be administered for the cure of the disease presenting the same symptoms, with a certainty never known before."

12/23/2025

More important insight from Dr. Adolph Lippe:

"Sciatica... has never, can never be caused by any medicine. The provings on the healthy as well as the clinical experiment have taught us that symptoms similar to Sciatica have been caused, and cured by Curare, Iris, Kali bichromicum, Lachesis, Lycopodium, Phytolacca, Plantago minor,* Tellurium and Gnaphalium.

How then are we to come near a positive certainty which of these remedies we have to administer for this disease in a given case? By adding to our great storehouse of knowledge, our Materia Medica, such symptoms as were cured by a remedy when other symptoms had by their similarity caused us to administer a remedy not known to have cured these incidentally removed symptoms.

Lachesis shows but a very few symptoms in the original provings (published in an admirably compiled monograph by Dr. C. Hering, in 1837), similar to those experienced by persons suffering from Sciatica. We find symptom 2265, “Frequent tearing in the thigh down to the knee,” symptom 2279, “Sore pain in the thighs, worse when touched, or when walking.” By the clinical experiment, we have learned that Lachesis will promptly cure Sciatica when the pains extend from the right hip down the sciatic nerve, are not present as long as the patient lies still, but are very much worse, almost unbearable, when the patient rises, or tries to walk.

By adding these symptoms, cured, and not on record as produced by the medicine which cured the sick, we do develop our Materia Medica, or as we defined it, our ability of making our original Materia Medica, better adapted for clinical uses."

12/19/2025

Homeopathy in History...

In the late 1870’s, typhoid pneumonia* was endemic in Philadelphia. Dr. Lippe said, “patients scientifically** treated rarely survive the first seven days,” while “under homœopathic treatment the mortality has been ‘none.’ “

12/18/2025

Researchers recently published a prospective, randomised, open-label, controlled trial looking at the effect of individualised homeopathic medicine as an adjunct to fluticasone furoate for allergic rhinitis (AR).

Their findings?
"Adding an individualized homeopathy (IHM) to the standard of care (fluticasone) did not enhance clinical outcomes during the 12-week treatment period but significantly improved symptom control and quality of life at 18 weeks, suggesting a sustained benefit against AR relapse. These findings support IHMs as a potential adjunct for long-term AR management, warranting further investigation."

Source: Dixit, A., et al., Effect of Individualised Homeopathic Medicine as Adjunct to Fluticasone Furoate for Allergic Rhinitis: A Prospective, Randomised, Open-Label, Controlled Trial. Homeopathy. December 2025

12/17/2025

Dr. Walter James was both a student and practice partner of Adolph Lippe's. He was an excellent homeopath. Here is another great case from his files...

"January 23rd, 1879. A little girl, scarcely more than two years old, was taken with a violent attack of croup. At six p.m. her respiration was stertorous, the walls of the chest rising and falling like a pair of bellows. Her head was thrown back, and the eyes were starting from their sockets in the struggle for breath. Her voice was entirely gone; she could speak only in a hoarse whisper. Her cough, likewise, was but a whisper. The skin was hot and dry. Tongue whitish, with red points.

Not knowing, the true simillimum, I ordered cloths wrung out of hot water to be applied to the chest and throat, and, after some hesitation, I gave Bell. 200. At 8 p.m. I saw her again. She was no better, still I did not change the remedy. Being called elsewhere, I did not see her again until 11 p.m. , when I found her much worse. She was throwing herself wildly about. There was cold perspiration upon the forehead; the skin of the face, especially round the mouth and on the cheeks, was of a dusky hue from non-oxygenation of the blood, and there was a sound in the larynx as of an accumulation of mucus which would be expectorated, yet none came up.

In the provings of Tartar Emetic made by Hahnemann, and published in the Archives, in 1824, there are two or three principal symptoms, as follows: -
Mucous rattling in the chest. Oppression of the breathing. In the morning, at three o'clock, he became oppressed so that he cannot breathe. He must sit up to get air.
When beginning to cough, he gasps for air as if he could not breathe.

The first of these symptoms has been brilliantly confirmed by Dr. H. N. Guernsey, and, expressed in the style of the above italicized symptoms, now forms one of his series of "key-notes." On referring to the Materia Medica, I found the one symptom upon which I was doubtful, namely, cold sweat on the forehead - in Lippe's Text-Book, Symptom 69.

I thereupon gave the Tartar-emet. 54 M in water.

In half-an-hour the breathing became easier; the voice was regained; and shortly after midnight the cough became loose and of natural tone, large quantities of thick yellow mucus being raised. At one o'clock a.m. she could drink water without struggling for breath, and as she had not been weaned, notwithstanding her age, her mother gave her the breast. She continued to nurse for some time without once stopping to gasp. At two o'clock a.m. she was sleeping peacefully.

The next day, in disobedience to my injunctions, the child was allowed to stand in the draught from an open door while covered with a warm perspiration. That same evening, about eight o'clock, she was attacked again with the same symptoms in a milder form. The before-mentioned key-note "cropped out," and I gave her one dose of Tartar-emetic 54 M on the tongue. In an hour or two she was relieved.

The great error in this case was in giving Bell. without a sufficient number of indications. For it is probable that, had I searched more carefully for the remedy, I would have found that the symptoms pointed to Tartar-emet. from the first. The child might thus have been saved several hours of suffering. As it happened, I prescribed with many misgivings, and so losing confidence, was driven to the use of a palliative, namely, hot fomentations.

Here we have an illustration of the beginnings of mongrelism. The less the physician knows of the true similar in any given case, the more likely is he to call in the aid of temporary influences. He thus goes on from one case to another until he becomes a full-fledged empiric. Then he appears in the journals as a strenuous advocate for "liberty of medical opinion and action."

Another objection to the use of palliatives lies in the fact that if we admit them to be "remedies" at all, then, when we prescribe them in conjunction with the dynamic remedy, we are violating one of the greatest principles of homoeopathy, namely, the administration of the single drug. If the patient recovers, it is calculated to raise a doubt as to which cured. At all events, it forms a peg upon which cavillers can hang an objection. Fortunately for clinical progress, in this case there can be no doubt as to the curative agent, for the patient got worse notwithstanding the continued application of the hot cloths, until the simillimum was given, when a cure immediately followed; thus showing, what has been so often proved in other cases reported, that in the most grave conditions the smallest possible dose of the truly homoeopathic remedy will cure safely, mildly, and quickly, thereby fulfilling the sole duty of the physician - to heal the sick."

12/16/2025

Dr. Walter James was both a student and practice partner of Adolph Lippe's. He was an excellent homeopath. Here is a great case from his files...

"June 17th. Mr. P., a tailor, whilst standing before his cutting table, was suddenly seized with a severe pain in the left knee joint, so violent as to cause him to groan aloud. With much difficulty, he hobbled to a car and was taken to his home.

When summoned to see him, I observed the following symptoms:
Knee very much swollen, but not discoloured.
Sensitiveness so great that the slightest touch or movement caused him to groan.
Inability to let the limb hang down, must have it supported on a chair. (Indication for Puls.)
Pain most violent on first beginning to move, yet every movement was attended with suffering. (Puls., Rhus, etc.)

Whilst debating in my mind the proper remedy, the patient suddenly arose, and, with much effort and many groans, staggered across the room.

On asking why he did so, he answered that he felt he must move. The motion gave no relief, yet he must move.

I immediately recollected that, in a former conversation, Dr. Lippe had informed me that this last was a Pulsatilla symptom, relating a case of lumbago which he had cured, where the same indication was prominent. Thus decided, I gave my patient Puls. 200. Although he was unable to mount the stairs at the time I saw him - 7 p.m. - yet, at midnight, he was able to crawl up to bed.

The next morning he arose and dressed without much difficulty, and during the day took a short walk."

The following day he returned to work.

12/11/2025

We, at times, get the question: "why talk about homeopathy in history? How can that be relevant to modern medical care?"

Homeopathy is relevant now and at all times, regardless of the type of illness, because it is based on a fixed principle of nature. That principle states that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in a healthy person. It was discussed by Hippocrates and later carefully researched and developed by a brilliant German physician and chemist, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann. Hahnemann proved that disease is idiosyncratic to the patient and requires individualized care. He and his colleagues (past and current) meticulously tested hundreds of medicines on healthy volunteers to determine their effects, and in doing so were able to bring clarity to treatment options and the practice of medicine.

The dominant paradigm in medicine is based on no such fixed principle, with therapeutic options and standards that seem to change with great frequency - and whose drug therapies almost universally cause harm at some level of the organism (and subsequently the planet).

So - when we show reliable statistics regarding the successful, lifesaving treatment of patients during past deadly epidemics - that data is as relevant today as it was in the 1800s - because homeopathic principles are sound and never change.

12/10/2025

Homeopathy in History... (and a wonderful story)

In 1891, Dr. M. M. Walker of Germantown, Pennsylvania, documented fifty consecutive cases of typhoid fever with one death, a mortality of 2 percent. He wrote:

"The total number of cases treated was fifty, and the number of deaths one. … I think I can truly say that in a majority of typhoid cases we can get them under control by the selection of the properly-indicated homœopathic remedy within a week or ten days, and the fever will not rise again above 103° F. except from some imprudence in food, exposure, or getting about too soon. The homœopathic remedy will reduce the temperature more effectually than anything else I know of."

Here is one of his cases:
"Sarah C. W., aged two years; February 14th to April 14th, 1881; 60 days. Our little daughter, and the youngest case I ever had, was taken ill on St. Valentine’s day, and went through all the various stages of the disease according to the description in Professor Raue’s Pathology. Sewer gas found its way into our cellar from the house adjoining, and, contaminating the milk as well as the atmosphere of the house, was the probably cause. A light case of fever occurred next door, and when the workmen dug out their kitchen cellar afterward, they were frequently overcome from the odor of the sewer gas in the soil, this fact showing defective drainage.

No one but an anxious parent knows the anguish one suffers as they see their dear, little, helpless child go through all the various stages of this disease with scarcely any mitigation. The fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eigth days passed by. The delirium grew worse; the diarrhœa continued. Our darling grew thinner and thinner; her hands and feet felt dry, and were more like the claws of a fowl than the extremities of a child. In her nervousness and delirium she would scratch us like a bird of prey. I looked up her case and gave her Arsenicum album, Lycopodium, Hyoscyamus, Rhus toxicodendron, Baptisia, and other remedies, but all were of no avail.

My parental anxiety overcame my professional judgment, and I felt helpless, with but a slender cord between life and eternity for our lovely child. I then called in the noble Farrington, who sat down patiently in my library, and studied out the case faithfully and religiously; when I reminded him that it was getting late and that trains would not wait, he said: “Never mind the trains; let us find the remedy.”

At length he said it is either Chamomilla or Coffea. I had not thought of either; but as I read the symptoms it was chamomilla beyond a doubt. The third decimal was given in water every hour. This was on the 7th of April and fifty-second day of her illness. Next day, and not till then, did improvement set in. I think in our anxiety and endeavors to find the proper remedy, we look too far into the beyond for something great or unheard of, and seldom used, when we should read and reflect, and often select the simple and familiar similar, as Chamomilla was in this case, a proper messenger under the Homœopathic law of cure.

Three weeks later, our daughter being convalescent, I went on a pleasure trip to California, and on my return, in June, I found our little one as plump and happy as a child could be. I have never forgotten to bless the name of Samuel Hahnemann for his glorious law of cure, nor to praise the name of the since lamented Dr. E. A. Farrington for his persistent endeavors to save our child."

12/09/2025

Dr. Adolph Lippe with thoughts on our Materia Medica...

"The first impression of the uninitiated who first takes in hand our voluminous works on materia medica, is to perceive no difference between the recorded provings of the many medicines. He thinks on glancing over the material medical pages that every medicine has caused some giddiness, some headache, some fever, some cough; all and every one of them. He remains unavoidably puzzled on the subject until he begins to compare the records more closely and accurately; he then sees clearly the differences that exist between the various medicines and the manner in which they are similar and differ.”

12/05/2025

Homeopathy in History...

In 1889, there was a great epidemic of typhoid in Melbourne, Australia. All hospitals were cleared for the typhoid patients, as they were so numerous. The allopathic hospitals, with 462 beds, treated 755 patients with a mortality of 16.7 percent. The homeopathic hospitals with 60 beds received and treated 305 patients with typhoid fever with a 7.2 percent mortality.

Dr. E. Petrie Hoyle of London offered the following comments, “Thus the mortality under allopathy was more than double what it was under homœopathy, and besides the duration of the illness was so much shortened under homœopathy, as will be evident, where it is seen that the sixty beds of the homœopathic hospital dealt with nearly half as many patients as the 462 beds of the allopathic hospitals.”

The lesson was not clearly learned because in 1890-91, 168 patients with typhoid fever were treated at the Melbourne Homœopathic Hospital in Australia with 4 deaths, a mortality of 2.38 percent. During the same period, 211 cases with typhoid fever were treated at the Melbourne General Hospital (allopathic) with 42 deaths, a mortality of 19.9 percent.

Sources:
**J. Robertson Day and E. Petrie Hoyle (eds.). International Homœopathic Directory, 1911-12. London : Homœopathic Publishing Company, 1911 :17.
**H. R. Strout. The present status of homœopathy and its future. San Antonio : Maverick Printing House, 1891, 6.