Why learn family/group characteristics?
GC: Classical materia medica attempts to locate a unique pattern of symptoms in each remedy, so that the pattern can be recognized and the remedy used in future patients. Your materia medica also attempts to locate unique characteristics of each remedy, but also puts a strong emphasis (some would say too strong) on finding similarities to other remedies in the same family or group. For the student of Materia Medica, how important are the symptoms of the entire family (or group) as compared to the unique symptoms of the remedy? How is this knowledge used in practice? RS: This is a very important question. It underlines the most basic thing with regard to my approach, which is a system approach, rather than a symptom approach. For example, let us take the remedy Theridion. We know its individual characteristics, such as the desire for oranges or sensitivity to noise. We could look at the remedy as merely a conglomeration of symptoms, and they will appear unrelated. But there is a backgro
