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This book by Dr. Vijayakar is in succession to his previous two books on the Theory of Suppression and the Theory of Acutes. The book, like its predecessors, tries to give a scientific framework to the applied homeopathy and tries to understand and explore the concept of miasms from a scientific and mathematical point-of-view. Dr. Vijayakar writes that through this work he is: "trying to correlate certain well-known principles of physics, chemistry, biology, genetics, immunology, human biochemistry and embryology to try and simplify the Doctrine of Miasm…" The book has three focal points. The early few chapters and some later ones deal with the history, development, transmission and Dr. Vijayakar's clinical understanding of miasm. The author's basic approach is similar to the established understanding of miasms: Psora is related to irritability, Sycosis to excess or deficient growth and Syphilis to destruction. Dr. Vijayakar's approach is that mere symptom-similarity will not give results in chronic diseases, unless the underlying miasm of the patient is taken into consideration. The clinical approach towards miasms, explained with cases, is very good and every homeopath has something to learn from it. The thrust of the whole book lies in trying to relate miasm with cellular defense. Here Dr. Vijayakar moves away from the whole man and focuses on the internal dynamics of a single cell. The author correlates the physiological defense of the cell with Psora, the constructive defense with Sycosis and the destructive defense with Syphilis. Although novel, this approach to the understanding of miasms appears very one-sided and deficient. The author says that this understanding of cellular defense and genetics ends: "My Assumptions (Myasmtion) about Miasms". But in his effort to correlate miasm with cell defense, the author has made so many assumptions that the assertion of the author seems empty. In trying to end all hypotheses' regarding miasms, Dr. Vijayakar has weaved some more. The excessive focus on the cell to the exclusion of the 'whole' leaves lots of open-ended questions. The utter neglect of cell differentiation, correlation of the tissues and the organ-systems, depiction of every cell as an actively thinking entity; trying to explain Sycosis through one or two specific genes, overlooking the environmental and social issues etc. makes Dr. Vijayakar's new approach towards miasms pseudo-scientific. At the end of the book, the author presents his 'Tri-Miasmatic Materia Medica' of some polychrest remedies. This section is again very enriching and adds some useful tools to one's clinical armour. Overall, the book sheds some new light on miasms and gives us a new approach to think about. There are a lot of open ends in Dr. Vijayakar's theoretical explanation but his clinical use of miasms is very insightful. One more thing that I found dissatifying about the book is very large number of typographical and grammatical errors, which can make this book a sour-read to those who are sensitive to such issues. To sum it up, this book has excellent clinical insights, average and confused theoretical explanations and poor presentation of the text. Still, it is worth a read by every homeopath! |
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