Drug relationships

Antidotal

Antidoting can mean several things. First it can mean countering the effects of a chemical in poisoning. And second, it can mean countering the lasting or chronic effects created by a remedy.

Antidoting is not the same as masking or suppressing a symptom. If, because of participation in a proving, you develop a patch of dry skin, the use of a lotion to moisturize the area does not antidote the remedy. The action of the remedy has not stopped. The symptoms have just been made less visible. Also, it is superstitiously believed that certain physical actions like touching the remedy or opening two vials at the same time will antidote the remedy nullifying the effects.

Coffee often antidotes remedies and should be checked in the patient’s diet. Camphor products (Vicks VapoRub or others) are routinely avoided due to Camph being an important antidote. Check for antidote entries in a good materia medica before using or prescribing a remedy.

In 1999 a Danish report, A Survey of Classical Homeopathy, Theory, Practice and Patient Experiences, was published.  It was a result of a project on evaluation of treatment using classical homeopathy by Danmarks Farmaceutiske Højskole (University of Pharmacy). 73% thought it helped. Out of the patients the homeopaths considered they had helped, 90% of patients agreed with the homeopaths assessment. Moreover the report found that coffee did not appear to play a role in hindering the effect of treatment.

Thought question: What, if anything, antidotes Coffea cruda?

Concordants

Examples of concordant remedies are China and Calcarea, Pulsatilla and Sepia, Nitric acid and Thuja, Belladonna and Mercurius, Ignatia and Zinc.

What origins do the concordant pairs have that are listed above?

Complementary

The remedies that best suit the mental and general symptoms of your patient is sometimes described as the constitutional remedies. Knowing just a few of those allows you to select from many others when one doesn’t quite seem to do the job.

Very often in the treatment of a patient, no matter whether the disease be acute or chronic, we find that after a longer or shorter period of time, the remedy indicated in the beginning of the treatment no longer benefits the patient. We say that the remedy has run out and that another remedy must by selected. If, after the administration of this remedy, the patient progresses toward health, the second remedy, because it completes the work of the first in a greater or lesser degree, is called a complement of that remedy. – Dr. C. L. Olds, The Homeopathic Recorder, April 1928

One type of complementary relationship is that of acute and chronic. A person well suited to the chronic remedy Nat-m would do well in an acute circumstance with Bry, Ign, Apis or Caps. Calc is often mentioned as the chronic to the acute Bell. Sulph is considered the chronic of Acon, Nux-v and Puls.

Another type of complement is that of the series. One remedy follows another well in a specific order. Several well-known series are Acon—Spong—Hepar sulph and Sulph—Calc—Lyc. Clarke’s Dictionary lists many remedies that “follows well” or “followed well by” meaning those that come before or after.

[Note: please spell this one correctly. My NCH study group in Kansas City got off to a somewhat questionable start when the local alternative newspaper published that I would be giving out free drugs at the hospital where I was meeting. They misinterpreted my complementary health care study group as using complimentary remedies. - Doug Hoff]

Bell and Calc

Suppose a four or five year old, large-headed, bright blue-eyed boy is subject to taking cold, and every cold settles in the head giving him a flushed face and throbbing carotids. You give him Belladonna which relieves but doesn’t act deeply enough to cure.

He continues to have headaches but after a while Bell will not relieve them. Upon a thorough study of the case you find that when his symptoms are not acute, when he does not have this cold and fever, he does not have the headache and you see an entirely different remedy indicated.

You study over the flabby muscles, and you find his glands are enlarged, he takes cold with every change in the weather, and he craves eggs. Then you decide that the case calls for Calcarea.

The fact that Bell was so closely related to him and only acted as a palliative further emphasizes the remedy selection. It is a loss of time to treat more than the first or second acute paroxysm. Don’t give the complementary Calcarea during the paroxysm, but only after the edge has been smoothed by Bell.

Other complements

A medicine always leads to one of its own cognates, and cognates are closely related to each other, like Sepia and Nux vomica.

A bilious fever in a Sepia constitution is likely to call for Nux, and as soon as that bilious fever or remittent fever has subsided, the symptoms of Sepia come out immediately, showing the complementary relation of Nux and Sepia.

If the patient has been under the influence of Sepia some time, and comes down with some acute inflammatory attack, he is very likely to run towards Nux or another of its cognates.

Inimical and enmity

Examples of inimical remedies are Apis and Rhus tox., Phos. and Caust., Belladonna and Silicea. One source of this relationship could be in having two remedies closely associated such as Ignatia and Nux vomica which are from the same order of plants but don’t follow each other well nor do they antidote each other.

Farrington adds the relationship of enmity where certain drugs resemble each other but will not follow another with any satisfaction and mix up the case. His pairings of these nasty combinations are China / Psorinum, Apis / Rhus-t, Phosphorus / Causticum, and Silicea / Mercury. He doesn’t explain further because he said he couldn’t which was unusual for a man of words like he was.

Family

An example of a family of remedies is halogens like Bromine, Chlorine and Iodine; snake remedies like Lachesis and Crotalus; nut remedies like Ignatia and Nux vomica; or the Ranunculaceæ family.

Compatible

Side relations (congeners) belong to the same or allied botanical family or chemical group.

Similar

Drugs suggested for comparison by reason of their similarity, usually compatible, unless too similar, like Nux-v and Ignatia.