ABSTRACT: The literature for homeopathic medicine begins in 1810 with the first publication of "Organon", Hahnemann's text, which in the successive 30 - 40 years was translated in various languages in many editions.

(Papers of the Transnational Conference: "THE HOMOEOPATIC REMEDY-NON-MEDICINE. A PROPOSAL FOR RECOGNITION" - Rome 12th and 13th december 1988).

Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, the quality of a drug is something very important and we know that those who understand this value it in a different way, doctors and patients have a different evaluation of the drug. The patient says: "This Remedy is very good for me". But this he says especially after another patient tells him that: "I have recovered my health thanks to this Remedy".

A doctor is convinced and satisfied of this method when he knows the results and when he knows that results of his therapy are valid and certain; a politician is quiete and convinced and defends this method of his only when he can see and knows that people claim his method is good and certain and when he knows that this method is based on an old tradition confirmed by the passing of time.

My task here is that of talking to you of the bibliography of Homoeopathy and thus, thanks to all these old books, I shall prove that our method is a method on which one can count and that it is worthwhile using it and engaging on this path.

Yes, perhaps my subject matter is arid and I beg your pardon if I have to dwell on these points, but I have been told quite clearly that this was my task. I hope however to succeed in enlivening my talk.

The founder of Homoeopathy, doctor Hahnemann, after a long research elaborated those which are the basic principles of Homoeopathy in his book Organon.

This document, this book, was published for the first time in 1810 and in the following 30-40 years it was translated into very many languages and we could compare the translations of Organon with those of the Bible. Surprising though it may be, one realized how much interest the subject arose already in 1800.

Hahnemann himself improved this first edition of Organon; he worked on it, changed it bearing in mind his experiences in the course of his practise. In fact we know that he managed to publish a fourth and a fifth edition in the course of his life, while the sixth edition was published after his death in 1920.

Naturally enough, other translations were done, of this sixth edition too. Professor Negro for instance started and concluded an Italian translation.

If we consider the so-called official medicine, we see how many medicament-drugs are employed, the efficacy of which is not fully known, and here I shall have to better explain the sense of my intervention.

Many times the effects of a drug are experimented on cavies: mice, rats, rabbits and only the results of these experiments are taken into account. The drug is then employed and students or very strong people are asked to act as cavies and it is hoped that these people will not die directly. If this does not happen, these drugs are tested on patients in clinics usually without the patient knowing that he is being used as a cavy and only after many years one may realize that these drugs have side effects.

Very often side effects are so serious that the drug has to be taken from the market even if research has been very expensive.

We may thus say that the drug of the official medicine has a life span of 10-20-30 years and not more, because the market is always bringing forth new products.

Is this perhaps the way we work as regards Homoeopathy? Not at all. We employ drugs which have previously been tested on healthy people. What happens? A doctor gives himself a drug and takes note of the symptoms he feel under the effect of this drug.

This is the so-called medica experimentation.

Yes, perhaps it is not easy to accept this kind of experimentation, because those who administer themselves these drugs often do not know that they may themselves become diseased. I here wish to explain this system. I, too, once subjected myself to this kind of experimentation and I must say that the effects were not only of a physical nature. I became unbearable, for example, to my family, to my wife. My wife said to me: "Please wait, wait, put aside this experimentation of yours because you have become unbearable".

Only after having lived this experience can one realize what a diseased person has to suffer when he is diseased. He becomes unbearable for his environment, it become difficult to live with a diseased person. Hahnemann carried out this experimentation of drugs many, many times, even a hundred times. He experimented a hundred drugs on himself. Just think of this man who became ill a hundred times of different diseases whereas he was a healthy man who suffered from no disease whatever.

He not only gave himself these drugs and experimented them on himself, but also on his wife and children, his students and so forth. We may thus say that experimentation is always carried out on very many people and this not only to evaluate the symptoms from which adults may suffer, but also those of children for these may be different according to whether the individual be a man or a woman or, for example, a child and only when we are sure that a drug proves that it causes symptoms concerning all the organs of the body may we say that that particular drug has been tested.

This is why no new symptoms will be discovered during the following experimentations and then only shall we be able to speak of employing this drug at Homoeopathic level.

As one may see Homoeopathy employs drugs which are well known as regards their effects. We certainly do not follow the practices of the so-called official medicine.

But if we consider, for instance, what Hahnemann did, we see that the consequences have been considered in all of his books: two books of about 500 pages each and if you consider how much he has written you will understand that all the symptoms have been studied: from head to toe; and after Hahnemann how many other homoeopaths have attempted to follow this same path and have carried on experimentation.

We may mention, for example, Doctor Allen, an American who wrote ten volumes and described 70 drugs: there is another work by the well-known Doctor Hering born in Germany and then emigrated to the United States. In his books he writes of 500 different drugs. He indicates, for example, how Lachesis works after testing it on himself. I do not wish to bore you with Doctor Hering's experience as regards Lachesis, but he describes the symptoms and the effect of this drug in 100 pages.

Let us now leave direct experimentation aside. We see that many books speak of the practical consequences of Homoeopathy and we bear in mind what we have read at a theoretic level. An example as regards practical application: Jahr, speaks of the therapy of psychic patients in which he employs the drugs and Materia Medica which can cure psychic patients, Illing wrote a book on Homoeopathic Therapy in childbirth and obstetrics in which he indicates the single symptoms which may give rise to problems in childbirth, abortion, haemorrhage and so forth.

As regards bibliography, we may also talk of the many magazines in which many articles are dedicated to Homoeopathy. The so-called "ALGEMEINE HOMOOPATISCHE ZEITUNG" published in Germany for over 100 years. In many other countries there are specialized magazines. In the United States, almost all the Federal States or, more explicitly, in all the Federal States, there were magazines on Homoeopathy. Why was this?

It was because until 1920 Homoeopathy had many followers in the United States and it was only after 1920 that interest in Homoeopathy dwindled. Today there are very few magazines published in the United States and these are not very important culturally speaking.

Mention should be made of another magazine, also published in Germany "DEUTSCHES JOURMAL FUR HOMOOPATHIE" (German Magazine for Homoeopathy) which is also published in England and which has a very good standing in the Federal Republic.

However, if we consider the practical application, and here I wish to draw my conclusion, I must admit that there are other works which show the efficacy of Homoeopathy and I must also say that homoeopaths do not need books because they know only to well what it is possible to do. Many times, however, there are colleagues of allopaths and politicians too who need to see and read what may be done with Homoeopathy. My father, for example, has written a book on casuistry which has been translated into English and in this book you will find very many cases of diseases which were so serious that they could hardly be treated exhaustively.