Two example Cases using Sankaran’s Miasmatic
Approach
This is a preamble. After I attended Sankaran’s seminar
in Sydney 2003, I came away with a profound sense of
being de-skilled as a homoeopath. The reason being
that I neither had any idea in how to take cases the
way Sankaran showed us nor was I clear about the
different states of being; sensation, passive reaction,
active reaction, and compensation. There was a lot of
information cramped into two days for me to digest
quickly. My usual reaction is that I need time to
assimilate and digest the information I received.
However, enveloped by such feelings of inadequacy and
despondency I thought that one alternative was to put
all the material and knowledge Sankaran had given us
into a cupboard and never think about it again. Of
course, this would be the most idiotic response to
something “unknown” and “unfamiliar” - a total waste
of time attending the seminar. Another option was just
try it regardless how inadequate and ill equipped I felt I
was.
However, after a few days feeling rather anxious, I
thought I need to just jump into the deep end, sink or
swim. Although I cannot take the case like the way
Sankaran does, I can do it my own way and see what
happens. It was truly amazing! Once again, the universe
always accommodates. In a short few days I not only
prescribed the remedies obtained from Sankaran’s chart,
but also of those remedies that I had no prior
information about their properties. They worked
beautifully. The two cases below are examples showing
the wonderful results Sankaran’s approach can yield.
Case 1 Lysimachia nummularia
This is a man aged thirty-eight. He had recurrent
tonsillitis ever since he was a child. Although the tonsils
were removed between the ages 5-6, however, a small
part got left behind. He did not have tonsillitis for the
next sixteen years since the operation. Then, he had an
attack while living in Papua New Guinea (PNG) at the
age twenty-one. After which he was free of it for
another ten years. Then, he had tonsillitis three times in
a row in 2000, and ever since then he has had it around
the month of May (end of Autumn and beginning of
winter) every year (he came to see me in May 2003).
During a tonsillitis attack, he has sore throat, a high
fever up to 40°C which lasts up to one week. His
other physical symptoms include a slip disc owing to
incorrect lifting, which he did some Yoga and stretching
to ease the pain. He has eczema in the scalp and some
around the ears, and ulcers appear in the corner of the
mouth when feeling run down. Occasionally, he gets
headaches when not drinking enough water.
In addition to all of these, he contracted Malaria while
living in Asia and has had three attacks since. He also
had one bout of Hepatitis A. Once he was hospitalised
after 4-5 days of very high fever without any signs of
improvement.
There is also swelling accompanying high fever, which
comes on within twenty-four hours. He is emotionally
resigned, while he is sick, with a sense of helplessness
and loses sense of time.
Now, he gets quite worried when taken sick, as he
doubts his ability to recover and feels that he is letting
his wife down; he becomes a burden rather than
support to her. I asked him “what do you do when you
are sick?” He says “I just sleep constantly, unable to
move and feeling sluggish.”
He did a lot of travelling in his twenties, but “since my
marriage and having a family, I do not travel anymore
and tend to stay at home, though at times, I still have
the desire to travel and go places.” This man is a
horticulturalist, so he is working out doors, often quite
hard physical work and is on the move constantly.
Prescription: Lysimachia nummularia 200C, one dose.
Analysis: It is clear from the above that the theme of
this case belongs to the Primulaceae family, as he is
unable to move during an attack with high fever (sleep
constantly). There is also the polarity showing a desire
to stay at home (aversion to going out) and the desire
to travel and to move. He travelled widely in his
twenties and now is quite content just staying at home
though the desire for travel is still at the back ground.
The miasm is Malaria (he contracted it) and that he
feels “attacked” by his illnesses, and is stuck in a
dependent and powerless position (feeling a burden to
his wife). The remedy is Lysimachia nummularia.
Response: Return visit was four and a half months later.
He reported that his swollen glands, a lump on the side
of neck cleared up immediately after taking the remedy
the first time.
This time, the sensation in his throat made him think
that it was going to develop into a full blown tonsillitis
again. The reason for this development was that he
went to a football game on the weekend and
participated in a drug binge; had some cocaine,
marihuana, ecstasy over the twenty-four hour period.
His nose is now totally blocked up unable to breathe
through it.
Prescription: repeat Lysimachia nummularia 1M. He was
able to breath through his nose within ten minutes of
taking the remedy.
His next visit was two and a half months later after the
last one. Again, he feels the onset of tonsillitis with sore
throat (< left side). He is run down, stressed out, and
has not been sleeping well. He loses appetite, lacks
energy and becomes irritable and impatient with the
sensation of developing into full blown tonsillitis.
Prescription: Lysimachia nummularia 200C, 3 doses.
I last saw him was in the middle of 2004. He was
feeling unwell and under the weather. Usually, he tends
to get tonsillitis and flu at this time of the year but this
did not happen this year. Repeat of Lysimachia
nummularia 1M, 3 doses (2 to take home). End of case.
Up-date (12/2005): He has been well ever since, though
at times felt run down never was bad enough to having
take time off work.
Repeat: Lysimachia nummularia 10M, 2 doses.
Case 2 Agnus castus
This is a thirty-three year old young man. He is at the
prime of his life and yet has no energy and feeling
sluggish all over. He saw a naturopath for the last two
years with very little results. The main problem is his
digestion (bloating) and elimination of waste. He used
to have very sluggish bowel movement but it is firmer
lately by changing his diet (diarrhoea and constipation
depends on what he eats). He has to be very careful of
what he eats. Gluten and grain type of foods can make
everything worse – including neck and shoulder pains,
inflamed sinus on the left side which gives him constant
pain spread across the face, fogginess in the head,
unable to concentrate or think clearly (this gets worse
when he is emotionally affected). All symptoms seem
better if he only eats meat and vegetables, but then he
does not have enough energy. When he takes in too
much dairy food he can become sluggish with sinus
pain, feeling of heaviness, lacks energy, and becomes
very constipated.
He started noticing this problem in 1993. Yet, the
problem of constipation started since his teens. His
pattern is to overeat (he got fat a couple of times,
otherwise a slim person) because of emotional
attachment to food. He used to drink a lot of alcohol
and was hospitalised in 1997. There is an inclination to
excess with everything he does; he is over sexed when
younger (in his twenties and had a lot of different
partners), over eat cocoa powder (stuff the whole tin
down the throat in one go), binging on chocolates, nuts
and seeds. Yet, the nuts and seeds that he loves cause
polyps in the nose with post nasal drip. He has a strong
desire for chocolates, cocoa, nuts (cashew and
almonds), and rice. He also has stabbing pain when
urinating and tinnitus in the ears.
He is sensitive to weather changes; dry wind can cause
foggy feeling in his head, energy drains when the
weather is hot, and feels better when rains. He is a
chilly person with cold feet.
As a child, he binged on chocolates to shut out his
dysfunctional family, and inclined to turn to food for
comfort as it provided him with emotional calmness
especially when become emotionally up-set over life’s
vicissitudes.
Father was an alcoholic and became violent when he
got drunk. As such, as a child he anticipates violence
and punishment every time when his father comes home
drunk. Frequently, he’d keep out of his father’s way by
going to bed early and staying in bed in the morning
until his father left for work to avoid being beaten. There
was a lot of tension and apprehension in his early home
environment.
He was emotionally very sensitive in the past but
learned to be indifferent (he says). His brother
committed suicide in 1993 after which, he decided that
he will become strong so that he will not go on the
same path.
His childhood experiences have made him quite cynical
about life, and he also feels quite ashamed of his
uneducated, troubled, and dysfunctional family. As such,
for a long time, he was very ambitious, vowed to be
successful and focused his attention totally on material
gains despite the pressure that this has caused in his
life. He says that he was “hungry and greedy.” Because
of his tremendous desire to succeed in the corporate
world, he tried to push himself to fit into a group that
he does not really fit (he has a rather sensitive and mild
temperament). He eventually got out of that world and
now begins to pursue a Ph.D., and at the same time,
come to accept that he missed out on the father and
son relationship. At the present, he is also separated
from his wife without any resolution; he is not sure
whether they will get back together or not especially he
is about to go overseas.
He has not had dreams for a long time, but when things
are going well for him he has happy dreams. In the
past, he dreamed about flying up and down. He also
experiences the floating sensation when he meditates.
Prescription: Agnus castus 30C, 4 doses one a week.
Analysis: The first remedy I gave him was Ulmus
campestris, which he had no reaction what so ever after
five minutes. The reason for choosing this remedy is
that his physical sensation being heavy and
compressed, together with the lightness and dream of
flying and floating sensation when meditating showing
the theme belong to the Hamamelididae family. It is the
cancer miasm because he has feeling of weakness
within him yet there is the need to perform very well
and live up to (his) expectation and desire. His problem
with digestion and bowel movement has been a
continuous and prolonged struggle without respite from
tension. His childhood experiences also gave him the
feeling of prolonged struggle and weakness.
Then, on careful consideration, I realised that the central
theme of this man is about excitement and the lack of
it, the Labiatae family. The polarity of excitement and
dullness is played out in his personal life; high degree of
sexual excitement in his twenties and now there is
dullness (has no real relationship, whether there is any
sign of impotence or not he did not say). This polarity
is also manifesting on his physical level; he has a great
deal of problem with constipation and loose motion
(sluggish bowel movement). There is also craving
(excitement) and aversion (dullness) in his approach to
things. In this, he thinks that he is a superman, then,
realises that he just can’t do it so loses enthusiasm, so
he goes through the peaks and troughs.
Response: Return visit one month later just before his
departure to take up a post for his Doctorate studies.
He related that his digestion was going well and has not
felt so well for a long time. Now he craves rich food and
is eating a lot of things, going overboard with cakes,
cocoa, almonds, and sweets. Neck and shoulder pain
returned for a short while, then, disappeared. Body
elimination of waste is good and effective, fogginess of
the head is gone. He has much more energy. Nasal is
clearer and concentration is much better though tinnitus
is still there.
Repeat of Agnus castus 200C, 4 doses. I also gave him
2 doses of 1M so that he won’t be short of remedy and
not able to source it while overseas and asked him to
send me e-mails if any problem occurs. I did not hear
from him since presumably well and recovered from all
his complaints. End of case.
Conclusion
From the above case examples, I have shown that the
Scholten (and Sankaran’s) methodology not only
conveys simplicity, ease and elegance in case taking
and remedy selection but also it takes a giant leap in
assisting homoeopathy to grow and mature.
While my experience as a homoeopath is limited, it is
enriched and deepened enormously by employing
Scholten methodology in case taking, understanding
remedies and in finding the simillimum. What Scholten’s
method (and Sankaran’s) revealed to me is the
immeasurable possibility and scope in our practice of
homoeopathy and its fulfilment in the art of healing.
Moreover, Scholten’s methodology can hone one’s skill
as a homoeopath much more finely as time goes on.
Like any other fields of knowledge, homoeopathy is and
must be continuously developing, changing and
growing. As such, all I want to say to would be
homoeopaths is that in the palm of your hand holds the
future possibilities of homoeopathy. Considering this, we
should not let prejudice, narrow mindedness, and limited
vision to constrict us from becoming an instrument of
healing and from advancing homoeopathy. One never
knows what wondrous journey life takes one on if we
are open and be accompanied by certain degrees of
humility.
With this in mind, we need to embrace change with
courage, consideration, knowledge and understanding
rather than blindness, ignorance, and fear. Every now
and then, there will be geniuses who come to change
the existing familiar ways of being for the better and
that the reverberation of such will benefit millions of
people. Hahnemann was one and to my thinking and
understanding, Scholten and Sankaran are the modern
day geniuses. Scholten’s methodology (and Sankaran’s)
is a timely revolution that has the potential to change
the face of homoeopathy for the better, from a juvenile
rubric dependent system to a mature “Person Centred”
approach. If we embrace it with openness and
thoughtfulness, the possibility is endless.
makewell.
Approach
This is a preamble. After I attended Sankaran’s seminar
in Sydney 2003, I came away with a profound sense of
being de-skilled as a homoeopath. The reason being
that I neither had any idea in how to take cases the
way Sankaran showed us nor was I clear about the
different states of being; sensation, passive reaction,
active reaction, and compensation. There was a lot of
information cramped into two days for me to digest
quickly. My usual reaction is that I need time to
assimilate and digest the information I received.
However, enveloped by such feelings of inadequacy and
despondency I thought that one alternative was to put
all the material and knowledge Sankaran had given us
into a cupboard and never think about it again. Of
course, this would be the most idiotic response to
something “unknown” and “unfamiliar” - a total waste
of time attending the seminar. Another option was just
try it regardless how inadequate and ill equipped I felt I
was.
However, after a few days feeling rather anxious, I
thought I need to just jump into the deep end, sink or
swim. Although I cannot take the case like the way
Sankaran does, I can do it my own way and see what
happens. It was truly amazing! Once again, the universe
always accommodates. In a short few days I not only
prescribed the remedies obtained from Sankaran’s chart,
but also of those remedies that I had no prior
information about their properties. They worked
beautifully. The two cases below are examples showing
the wonderful results Sankaran’s approach can yield.
Case 1 Lysimachia nummularia
This is a man aged thirty-eight. He had recurrent
tonsillitis ever since he was a child. Although the tonsils
were removed between the ages 5-6, however, a small
part got left behind. He did not have tonsillitis for the
next sixteen years since the operation. Then, he had an
attack while living in Papua New Guinea (PNG) at the
age twenty-one. After which he was free of it for
another ten years. Then, he had tonsillitis three times in
a row in 2000, and ever since then he has had it around
the month of May (end of Autumn and beginning of
winter) every year (he came to see me in May 2003).
During a tonsillitis attack, he has sore throat, a high
fever up to 40°C which lasts up to one week. His
other physical symptoms include a slip disc owing to
incorrect lifting, which he did some Yoga and stretching
to ease the pain. He has eczema in the scalp and some
around the ears, and ulcers appear in the corner of the
mouth when feeling run down. Occasionally, he gets
headaches when not drinking enough water.
In addition to all of these, he contracted Malaria while
living in Asia and has had three attacks since. He also
had one bout of Hepatitis A. Once he was hospitalised
after 4-5 days of very high fever without any signs of
improvement.
There is also swelling accompanying high fever, which
comes on within twenty-four hours. He is emotionally
resigned, while he is sick, with a sense of helplessness
and loses sense of time.
Now, he gets quite worried when taken sick, as he
doubts his ability to recover and feels that he is letting
his wife down; he becomes a burden rather than
support to her. I asked him “what do you do when you
are sick?” He says “I just sleep constantly, unable to
move and feeling sluggish.”
He did a lot of travelling in his twenties, but “since my
marriage and having a family, I do not travel anymore
and tend to stay at home, though at times, I still have
the desire to travel and go places.” This man is a
horticulturalist, so he is working out doors, often quite
hard physical work and is on the move constantly.
Prescription: Lysimachia nummularia 200C, one dose.
Analysis: It is clear from the above that the theme of
this case belongs to the Primulaceae family, as he is
unable to move during an attack with high fever (sleep
constantly). There is also the polarity showing a desire
to stay at home (aversion to going out) and the desire
to travel and to move. He travelled widely in his
twenties and now is quite content just staying at home
though the desire for travel is still at the back ground.
The miasm is Malaria (he contracted it) and that he
feels “attacked” by his illnesses, and is stuck in a
dependent and powerless position (feeling a burden to
his wife). The remedy is Lysimachia nummularia.
Response: Return visit was four and a half months later.
He reported that his swollen glands, a lump on the side
of neck cleared up immediately after taking the remedy
the first time.
This time, the sensation in his throat made him think
that it was going to develop into a full blown tonsillitis
again. The reason for this development was that he
went to a football game on the weekend and
participated in a drug binge; had some cocaine,
marihuana, ecstasy over the twenty-four hour period.
His nose is now totally blocked up unable to breathe
through it.
Prescription: repeat Lysimachia nummularia 1M. He was
able to breath through his nose within ten minutes of
taking the remedy.
His next visit was two and a half months later after the
last one. Again, he feels the onset of tonsillitis with sore
throat (< left side). He is run down, stressed out, and
has not been sleeping well. He loses appetite, lacks
energy and becomes irritable and impatient with the
sensation of developing into full blown tonsillitis.
Prescription: Lysimachia nummularia 200C, 3 doses.
I last saw him was in the middle of 2004. He was
feeling unwell and under the weather. Usually, he tends
to get tonsillitis and flu at this time of the year but this
did not happen this year. Repeat of Lysimachia
nummularia 1M, 3 doses (2 to take home). End of case.
Up-date (12/2005): He has been well ever since, though
at times felt run down never was bad enough to having
take time off work.
Repeat: Lysimachia nummularia 10M, 2 doses.
Case 2 Agnus castus
This is a thirty-three year old young man. He is at the
prime of his life and yet has no energy and feeling
sluggish all over. He saw a naturopath for the last two
years with very little results. The main problem is his
digestion (bloating) and elimination of waste. He used
to have very sluggish bowel movement but it is firmer
lately by changing his diet (diarrhoea and constipation
depends on what he eats). He has to be very careful of
what he eats. Gluten and grain type of foods can make
everything worse – including neck and shoulder pains,
inflamed sinus on the left side which gives him constant
pain spread across the face, fogginess in the head,
unable to concentrate or think clearly (this gets worse
when he is emotionally affected). All symptoms seem
better if he only eats meat and vegetables, but then he
does not have enough energy. When he takes in too
much dairy food he can become sluggish with sinus
pain, feeling of heaviness, lacks energy, and becomes
very constipated.
He started noticing this problem in 1993. Yet, the
problem of constipation started since his teens. His
pattern is to overeat (he got fat a couple of times,
otherwise a slim person) because of emotional
attachment to food. He used to drink a lot of alcohol
and was hospitalised in 1997. There is an inclination to
excess with everything he does; he is over sexed when
younger (in his twenties and had a lot of different
partners), over eat cocoa powder (stuff the whole tin
down the throat in one go), binging on chocolates, nuts
and seeds. Yet, the nuts and seeds that he loves cause
polyps in the nose with post nasal drip. He has a strong
desire for chocolates, cocoa, nuts (cashew and
almonds), and rice. He also has stabbing pain when
urinating and tinnitus in the ears.
He is sensitive to weather changes; dry wind can cause
foggy feeling in his head, energy drains when the
weather is hot, and feels better when rains. He is a
chilly person with cold feet.
As a child, he binged on chocolates to shut out his
dysfunctional family, and inclined to turn to food for
comfort as it provided him with emotional calmness
especially when become emotionally up-set over life’s
vicissitudes.
Father was an alcoholic and became violent when he
got drunk. As such, as a child he anticipates violence
and punishment every time when his father comes home
drunk. Frequently, he’d keep out of his father’s way by
going to bed early and staying in bed in the morning
until his father left for work to avoid being beaten. There
was a lot of tension and apprehension in his early home
environment.
He was emotionally very sensitive in the past but
learned to be indifferent (he says). His brother
committed suicide in 1993 after which, he decided that
he will become strong so that he will not go on the
same path.
His childhood experiences have made him quite cynical
about life, and he also feels quite ashamed of his
uneducated, troubled, and dysfunctional family. As such,
for a long time, he was very ambitious, vowed to be
successful and focused his attention totally on material
gains despite the pressure that this has caused in his
life. He says that he was “hungry and greedy.” Because
of his tremendous desire to succeed in the corporate
world, he tried to push himself to fit into a group that
he does not really fit (he has a rather sensitive and mild
temperament). He eventually got out of that world and
now begins to pursue a Ph.D., and at the same time,
come to accept that he missed out on the father and
son relationship. At the present, he is also separated
from his wife without any resolution; he is not sure
whether they will get back together or not especially he
is about to go overseas.
He has not had dreams for a long time, but when things
are going well for him he has happy dreams. In the
past, he dreamed about flying up and down. He also
experiences the floating sensation when he meditates.
Prescription: Agnus castus 30C, 4 doses one a week.
Analysis: The first remedy I gave him was Ulmus
campestris, which he had no reaction what so ever after
five minutes. The reason for choosing this remedy is
that his physical sensation being heavy and
compressed, together with the lightness and dream of
flying and floating sensation when meditating showing
the theme belong to the Hamamelididae family. It is the
cancer miasm because he has feeling of weakness
within him yet there is the need to perform very well
and live up to (his) expectation and desire. His problem
with digestion and bowel movement has been a
continuous and prolonged struggle without respite from
tension. His childhood experiences also gave him the
feeling of prolonged struggle and weakness.
Then, on careful consideration, I realised that the central
theme of this man is about excitement and the lack of
it, the Labiatae family. The polarity of excitement and
dullness is played out in his personal life; high degree of
sexual excitement in his twenties and now there is
dullness (has no real relationship, whether there is any
sign of impotence or not he did not say). This polarity
is also manifesting on his physical level; he has a great
deal of problem with constipation and loose motion
(sluggish bowel movement). There is also craving
(excitement) and aversion (dullness) in his approach to
things. In this, he thinks that he is a superman, then,
realises that he just can’t do it so loses enthusiasm, so
he goes through the peaks and troughs.
Response: Return visit one month later just before his
departure to take up a post for his Doctorate studies.
He related that his digestion was going well and has not
felt so well for a long time. Now he craves rich food and
is eating a lot of things, going overboard with cakes,
cocoa, almonds, and sweets. Neck and shoulder pain
returned for a short while, then, disappeared. Body
elimination of waste is good and effective, fogginess of
the head is gone. He has much more energy. Nasal is
clearer and concentration is much better though tinnitus
is still there.
Repeat of Agnus castus 200C, 4 doses. I also gave him
2 doses of 1M so that he won’t be short of remedy and
not able to source it while overseas and asked him to
send me e-mails if any problem occurs. I did not hear
from him since presumably well and recovered from all
his complaints. End of case.
Conclusion
From the above case examples, I have shown that the
Scholten (and Sankaran’s) methodology not only
conveys simplicity, ease and elegance in case taking
and remedy selection but also it takes a giant leap in
assisting homoeopathy to grow and mature.
While my experience as a homoeopath is limited, it is
enriched and deepened enormously by employing
Scholten methodology in case taking, understanding
remedies and in finding the simillimum. What Scholten’s
method (and Sankaran’s) revealed to me is the
immeasurable possibility and scope in our practice of
homoeopathy and its fulfilment in the art of healing.
Moreover, Scholten’s methodology can hone one’s skill
as a homoeopath much more finely as time goes on.
Like any other fields of knowledge, homoeopathy is and
must be continuously developing, changing and
growing. As such, all I want to say to would be
homoeopaths is that in the palm of your hand holds the
future possibilities of homoeopathy. Considering this, we
should not let prejudice, narrow mindedness, and limited
vision to constrict us from becoming an instrument of
healing and from advancing homoeopathy. One never
knows what wondrous journey life takes one on if we
are open and be accompanied by certain degrees of
humility.
With this in mind, we need to embrace change with
courage, consideration, knowledge and understanding
rather than blindness, ignorance, and fear. Every now
and then, there will be geniuses who come to change
the existing familiar ways of being for the better and
that the reverberation of such will benefit millions of
people. Hahnemann was one and to my thinking and
understanding, Scholten and Sankaran are the modern
day geniuses. Scholten’s methodology (and Sankaran’s)
is a timely revolution that has the potential to change
the face of homoeopathy for the better, from a juvenile
rubric dependent system to a mature “Person Centred”
approach. If we embrace it with openness and
thoughtfulness, the possibility is endless.
makewell.
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