Can anyone recommend a good book on MIASMS?

Only if youhave completed the Organon, you may try, as a stepping stone, Dr. Harimohan Choudhary's book on Miasms.

Organon is the basic book of Homeopathy. You will learn nothing of true Homeopathy with it completely.

If you are in India, ask for Bhattacharya's commentary of the organon. It gives the complete text with an appendix where you will find detailed exposition of all the aphorisms.

Here are internet texts for Samuel Hahnemann's Organon of Medicine, and Chronic Diseases.

http://www.homeoint.org/books/hahorgan/index.htm

http://www.homeoint.org/books/hahchrdi/index.htm

These are Kent's lectures on the miasms...

Psora
http://www.homeoint.org/books3/kentlect/lect18.htm
http://www.homeoint.org/books3/kentlect/lect19.htm

Syphilis
http://www.homeoint.org/books3/kentlect/lect20.htm

Sycosis
http://www.homeoint.org/books3/kentlect/lect21.htm

David Little has also written extensively on the miasms. His writings on the miasms are among the best written in modern English, and are a good contemporary compliment to Hahnenmann's original writings.

Miasms in Classical Homeopathy
http://simillimum.com/education/little-library/constitution-....

Hering’s Preface to the Chronic Diseases (1845)
http://simillimum.com/education/little-library/homoeopathic-....

To Samrur,

The links pasted are all amazing, but you need to be careful. Read carefully the following point to understand better:

1. Homeopathy rests on the principle of Similitude or Symptom Similarity. Aphorism 7 of Organon is Clear that only symptom similarity can lead to the right remedy. In furthur aphorism, Hahnemann suggests to take the Peculiar, Queer, Rare and Strange (PQRS) symptoms along with the mood of the patient to arrive at the remedy. He did not talk about mental generals, physical generals, etc. etc.

2. Hahnemann completely discarded the nosological classification of diseases and propounded totality of PQRS symptoms as the only guideline for selection of remedy. This truth has been verified over and over again by Homeopaths over centuries.

3. MIASMS : François Boissier de Sauvages de Lacroix (May 12, 1706 – February 19, 1767) was a French physician and botanist who was a native of Alès. He was an opponent of theory and follower of simple experience, in more technical terms, his philosophy of life and was inductive rather than deductive.

As a physician, Sauvages de Lacroix is credited with establishing the first methodical nosology for diseases. His classification was based on the framework created by Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689), and was in accordance with the methodology used by botanists. His classification system listed 10 major classes of disease, which were further broken down into 44 orders, 315 genera, and 2400 species (individual diseases). This system is explained in his 1763 treatise Nosologia Methodica

In “Nosologie methodique“, we find Boissier writing the following :
'Miasmatic diseases are those diseases, which are caused by miasmatic matter. Miasmatic matter is an evaporation which contains invisible destructive particles.”

Boisiere classes as “Viral diseases”: syphilis, scabies, lepra, finn and tetters. They are created in the body and are transferred directly.

Hahnemann was familiar with his work: “Nosologie methodique“, which he used at the time of his own dissertation.

If we scan carefully through the Organon and the Chronic Diseases, diseases which are transmitted from Human to human or animal to human are called miasmatic diseases. TO simplify, these are acquired disease - genetic or microbial.

Misams have been furthur classified into:

Acute miasms: epidemics, childhood diseases, determined byduration
Chronic miasms: Chronic forms of miasmatic diseases such as Psora, Syphilis, Sycosis

Miasmatic diseases are recognized by their symptoms. In acute cases like measles, it is simple to diagnose; In chronic cases it is more difficult, as the start may have not be noticed. Hence, the importance of anamnesis in case taking of chronic cases. A clear timeline of the development of symptoms needs to be understood so that the presence of more than one miasms may be determoined followed by determination of the chronic miasms. You are suggested to read the article on the anamnesis of Sycosis in Boenningheusen's lesser writings.

All three chronic miasmatic diseases are of a cyclic nature. They have in common:

Stage One: a skin leason / eruption

Stage two: a latency period with only very discreet symptoms

Stage three: Manifest disease symptoms.

They can also return from stage 3 to stage 2 (frequently seen) and possibly to stage one.

In the case of psora, which is a very common chronic miasmatic disease Hahnemann listed the symptoms of each of the stages in his book on chronic diseases. By those symptoms Psora is recognizable. But going through the CD, you will find that the theory falters a lot of time. He identifies psora with Scabies or the Itch mite and states that it is the suppression of the itch mite that leads to secondary and tertiary manifestations of the psora.

If we know, that it is psora, what is to be dealt with, we know, that unless remedies are used which have the capacity to cure psora there will only be a amelioration of the disease. We also know, that for the cure of Psora different antipsoric remedies are necessary one after another. This observation nullifies the idea of ONE constitutional remedy which will cure the whole malady and also that constitution is disease.

Hahnemann wrote a lot about Psora and its indications in CD but could not fully explain on Sycosis and Syphilis. This explanation was one of his projects that could not be completed, as evidenced by his letters to Boenningheusen and Jahr.

Hahnemann seriously jeopardized the basic tenet of Homeopathy which rejected any form of nosological classification by the theory of miasms. We see a diversion in his thought where he moved from an objective assessment of totality of PQRS symptoms to a nosological miasmatic classification. However, he saved Homeopathy by writing clearly, even in the last edition of the Organon that the only way to remedies is through the symptoms.

4. Miasms are useful in the following:

- By a proper understanding of anamnesis and dominant miasm, we can always check if the cure is moving as per the Hering's Law of Cure
- If the case is stalled and not moving, as per miasmatic indications, we can give nosodes and remedies like Sulphur, Thuja and Merc sol

Apart from the above two, there is no use of miasms in the theory of Homeopathy.

5. Except for Stapf and Gross, no major Homeopath, except to an extent Clarke, accepted the Miasmatic Theory.

6. The current confusion on the multiple interpretation of miasms can be attributed to the faulty interpretation, based on his religious beliefs, by Kent. He defined Psora as wrong thinking, sycosis as wrong wishing and syphilis as wrong doing reflecting the moral of middle upper class east coast America at the end of the 19th century. The practitioner became a healer by that, liberating humanity from evil. The old belief in inherited sin finds its counterpart in the idea, that psora can be inherited and therefore be handed down from one generation to another.

7. Hahnemann in his works always refers to the disease as something ultimately separate from the person, as dynamic disturbance leading to the mistunement of the Vital Force. Kent and his followers referred to the entire person to be cured, and therefore proclaimed that all symptoms, present or past, disease or non-disease be indicative for the selection of the remedy.

Hope the detailed note helps you grasp an idea of what miasms are as propounded by Homeopathy and how it has been corrupted by later practitioners.

Don't TOUCH the CD before you are done with the Organon. That will confuse you immensely.

Best wishes,
Niel