Cocculus and how far homœopathy can be taught^{[ * ]}

Summary

Cocculus is presented pharmacologically, as a narcotic and intoxicant. It is shown that the remedy acts chiefly on the nervous system and how this predilection for the nervous system may be discerned even with symptoms involving the mucosa, such as cough and hoarseness. The symptoms differentiating this remedy from others are considered in relation to a number of indications—seasickness, dizziness, headache, dysmenorrhoea, and cough—demonstrating them on the basis of both the literature and the author's own case material.

It is shown how this remedy with its powerful action was during the early years of homœopathy used almost exclusively to treat serious illnesses, where life was at risk, and how this related to a different attitude of the medical profession at that time, when chronic conditions were considered beneath one's notice. It seems to the author that this in fact was one of the reasons why from the early days of homœopathy until well into the present century, doctors using, the “specific” approach in homœopathy were considerably in the majority compared to the “Hahnemannians’. An attempt is then made to show that the individual physician goes through a similar development, and that the homœopathy of specifics is much more easily taught than the Hahnemannian approach.

^* A paper read during a postgraduate study session organized by the Baden-Wuerttemberg Regional Association at Reutlingen, Germany, on 3 June 1978. Translated from the German by A.R. Meuss, FIL, MTG.