Mammal Remedies in Homeopathy by Jonathan Hardy is reviewed by Vatsala Sperling

Title: Mammal Remedies in Homeopathy
Author: Jonathan Hardy
Publisher: Narayana Verlag
First edition: 2021, full color, 360 pages, hardcover
Reviewer: Vatsala Sperling

Having read Dr. Jonathan Hardy’s earlier book on spider and scorpion remedies, I have been quite eagerly looking forward to his next book. Fortunately, the wait is over and his latest book, “Mammal remedies in Homeopathy” is now available.

Dr. Hardy begins the book by introducing us to the most outstanding features of the mammals – they are hairy / furry, warm-blooded, have various glands in their skin, for example, mammary gland, have brains that are large in relation to the body size, have well-developed senses, and they give birth to young ones that depend on mother’s milk for survival in the neonatal stage.

Description of themes encountered in mammals enables us to be ready for spotting these themes in our cases and a brief section on rubrics and mammalian words that represent mammalian themes clarify the picture further.

As the saga of various mammalian orders begin to unfold, the book begins to become crisp and engaging. I get the impression that Dr. Hardy has chosen cases from his own practice, and these illustrative cases, 53 in all, are expertly edited for filtering out the noise and presenting the bare essential core that would directly take us to the remedy.

The cases bring to life the remedies from primates (orangutan, gorilla, monkey, chimpanzee, and human – lac humanum, lac maternum), dog, wolf, and cats (lion, tiger, jaguar, domestic cat), brown bear, koala, meercat, cattle (lac defloratum), deer, sperm whale (ambra grisea), bottlenose dolphin, and finally sarcodes.

ln one case, the author struggled as a homeopath for locating an animal remedy that was rather elusive! He had to resort to the good old rubrics and prescribe, Lobelia. By covering the totality of physical complaints, the remedy caused an excellent improvement, however, it could not improve the emotional landscape. In the follow-up, the need for a mammalian remedy became obvious and the patient experienced a lovely healing on Beaver. This situation must be quite familiar to most practitioners.

The chapter on sarcodes covering remedies from placenta, umbilical cord, amniotic fluid and ovaries serves a strong purpose and the cases as well as indications for choosing these remedies are given in a clear format.

This book handles the mammalian orders adeptly and enables us to understand the bigger picture as well as the finer details that our patients present while calling out to the mammal remedies. With a unique style of writing this book, Dr. Hardy has fabulously succeeded in giving the readers bite-size but very highly relevant information that the readers can assimilate easily and make it all a part of their own remedy-awareness.

After reading this book (and assimilating the information presented) you will be able to recognize mammal remedies and mammalian patterns that emerge amongst whatever else your patient is saying to you. As is true for all homeopaths, during case taking, you may be at times, in a state of not-knowing, and yet when the mammalian themes appear, you would be able to recognize the emerging pattern without missing a beat.

A comparable metaphor is from driving a good car that lets you go from idling (zero) to sixty miles per hour in less than ten seconds!!! You do not know, and suddenly, you know because you can recognize the mammal patterns and themes, thanks to Dr Jonathan Hardy’s smart book: Mammal Remedies in Homeopathy. I call it smart because it is direct and clutter-free, simple to read and easy to retain, and I am happy to have read this book and review it for you.

Happy reading.