Homoeopathic Treatment of Influenzas By D. M. Borland- A Review

I am in love with this book. If you are looking for an alphabetical arrangement of drugs with their corresponding symptoms, then this book is not for you. This book is all about the practical application of material medica in the clinic. He describes not the drug, but the everyday influenza patient. He starts slowly as how the patient is before the occurrence then builds on how the disease and the patient progresses and so on.

 The first remedy is gelsemium, I must type the first paragraph:

 “Visualize the ordinary, typical influenza case, probably developing over six to eight hours. The patient feels a little out of sorts the day before, possibly a little headachy, a little feverish, has a little indefinite pain, is probably a little catarrhal; he goes to bed, does not sleep awfully well, and next morning feels rotten.”

This is just the beginning.  A typical influenza case has fever, generalized pains, coryza and associated symptoms, sore throat etc.  Homoeopathically, we look for concomitants and modalities too. In this book the common symptoms too are described. However, each symptom is different for each drug, maybe the onset, intensity or the modalities. Thus they help in individualizing each drug, or even the patient. The most important symptoms of the drug are given in the beginning; those which help you form a mental image of the patient. The mental and physical generals and even the pathological symptoms are mentioned.  Differentiations between drugs are also given where necessary.

The medicines covered in this lecture are Gelsemium, Baptisia, Bryonia, Eupatorium, Rhus toxicodendron, Pyrogenium, Mercurius and Kali bichromicum, in this order.  The first five drugs cover the body pain, headaches, fever, throat/ larynx involvement, coryza, cough etc. When the lecture proceeds further to the remaining three, there is the involvement of sinuses, ear complaints etc.

It would be advisable to read a drug or two each day until you cover all the drugs. Then go back and look for the finer points and features that will help in selecting the similimum on a much easier scale. It is recommended that the book or the lecture be read again and again. It also helps to compare the clinical cases, the cured cases with the lecture. Those cases that fail to yield to the best selected similimum may require much closer observation.

Disclosure: The opinion mentioned here are my own, I have not received compensation for writing the review.