Certified Veterinary Homeopathy by Dr. Glen Dupree

In order for a treatment protocol to be truly holistic in philosophy and application it must consider and treat the entire patient, not just the presenting complaint of the patient.

The third law of Homeopathy defines Homeopathy as a holistic therapeutic modality according to this standard. The third law says that the selection of the remedy is based on the totality of symptoms displayed by the patient. The more closely the totality of the symptom picture of the remedy (as elucidated by the provings of the remedy - the second law of Homeopathy) matches the totality of the symptom picture of the patient (according to the Law of Similars - the first law of Homeopathy), the more likely the remedy is to be curative for the patient.

This third law also defines Homeopathy as a medicine of the patient, not of the diagnosis. There is no specific Homeopathy remedy for a named diagnosis/disease (distemper, parvo, FeLeuk, West Nile, etc.) but there is a remedy for the patient who is displaying symptoms which have been conventionally diagnosed as having a named diagnosis/disease (ten patients with the same conventional diagnosis would likely need ten different remedies because even though the diagnosis is the same, each patient is unique in their overall symptom display). The correct Homeopathic remedy for the patient will treat not only the symptoms which led to the diagnosis, but will also treat all the other symptoms produced by the patient. The entire patient is treated when the proper Homeopathic remedy is used.

Each and every symptom produced by the patient gives the Homeopath a clue as to what is in the patient that needs to be treated and what remedy is appropriate for this unique and individual patient.

Some symptoms are more useful in helping the Homeopath find the correct remedy than are others. Some symptoms are so common that they are found in nearly every remedy (nearly every itchy dog has a foul odor and red skin, nearly every remedy has foul odors and red skin - those symptoms will not help narrow the remedy choices very well). The unique, unusual, strange, rare, and peculiar symptoms are better guides to the exact remedy for the patient than are the common symptoms (a dog who only itches between 4PM and 8PM or when a storm is blowing through or whose itching is relieved by laying in the sun - those bizarre qualifiers of that dog's itch make the symptom much more important when it can be found in the provings of a remedy). Statistical analysis will support the significance of matching strange symptoms of the patient with a strange symptom in a remedy as being more important than matching common symptoms.

If a remedy is selected based on the strange, rare, and peculiar symptoms of the patient, the chances are also very good that it will also match the common symptoms of the patient. Thus the common symptoms become confirmations of the remedy selection, and markers to be watched in the evaluation of the action of the remedy in the patient.

Because of the importance of matching the totality of symptoms of the patient with the totality of the symptoms of the remedy, the Homeopath will take a detailed history of the patient - often involving several hours of interview (with the patient in adult human Homeopathy, with the caregivers in Veterinary or pediatric Homeopathy). During this interview the Homeopath will seek as much detail about the patient and the symptom as can be gathered. This detail turns the symptom from being a common symptom of the diagnosis to being a unique symptom of the patient (the common itchiness of allergic dogs vs. the peculiar itchiness of a patient who only itches on the left side while eating, for example).

Homeopathy takes patience. It is not an easy task to discover all the symptoms of the patient along with the unique qualifiers of each symptom. But the better all the symptoms of the patient are known, the more likely the correct remedy will be chosen, and the more likely the health of the patient will be improved above and beyond the simple removal of the presenting complaint.

As important as this third law is to the practice of Homeopathy (and we could not practice Homeopathy if we did not adhere to this law), it is also important in separating Homeopathy from conventional, Western allopathic medicine.

Western medicine is reductionist in its approach to the patient - the patient is divided into smaller parts as defined by specific organ systems and tissues. Then each separate part is treated by a specialist, usually with no regard or minimal regard to the rest of the patient.

Homeopathy, by definition of the third law, must consider all the symptoms produced by each part of the patient and use all of these in finding the exact remedy for the patient. There can be no specialist in Homeopathy since the patient is taken as an interconnected, interdependent whole.

The importance of this third law - the law of totality - cannot be underestimated in a medicine which treats the patient and not merely the diagnosis.

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