Milk Remedies Materia Medica Clinica—Volume 1

Mangialavori's books on Materia Medica have been coming out for many years and over that time have become more professional and more useful. This is definitely the most practical and easy to use so far.

The ‘Method of Complexity’ was described in his earlier work Praxis and is applied in this work to a very important group of remedies: The Lacs or as he refers to them the Milks. Complexity is a way of looking at something by acknowledging its complex nature and finding the patterns within that complexity. This is much more suited to homeopathy, which by its holistic nature is always complex, than is a reductionist and systematic approach which is much simpler and so more popular, but can never really cover the full depth of homeopathy. There has always been a conflict between these two ways of looking at homeopathy. Simplification is much more suited to allopathy and has been advocated by those who think allopathically. Complexity has been advocated by those who think more homeopathically and has been more successful when working at depth.

The object of a complexity theory is to find simple patterns in complex expressions. However, working with complex notions can make complexity infectious. Mangialavori manages to avoid much of this, but there are times when a simpler word or a simpler expression would be clearer.

After an introduction to the general themes of the milks, the book covers 14 Lac remedies, 3 traditional and the rest more recently proved. The format is a concise introduction to the substance followed by an analysis of themes and symptom patterns, a section called Organization of Personality, a differential diagnosis and two cases with follow-ups. The Organization of Personality is probably the most speculative and weakest section as it imposes a narrative, whereas any patient is going to present a cross-section of their particular version of that narrative. The analysis of themes and symptoms can show a lot of crossover between those that apply to the Lacs in general and the particular remedy being looked at. Though there is a solid effort to differentiate between the remedies, it is not always clear what belongs to Lacs and what is specific to a particular Lac. This is a situation where less information about how the remedy reflects the general Lac themes would have made the differentiation clearer.

The cases presented are interesting and Mangialavori is commendably more rigorous in his follow-ups than are many homeopaths who use cases to describe remedy pictures. However, cases are always self-referential. The remedy is given for the homeopath's particular perception of the case and the remedy. The successful prescription confirms and thus narrows even more than perception and it becomes central to the homeopath's understanding of the remedy. Often we find a successful remedy through matching an unusual symptom or unusual expression. These may be central to the nature of the remedy, but this is by no means necessarily so and looking at cases can lead to a very specific and restricted view of the remedy. Cases are also memorable and we often remember a remedy through a case, which almost always depends on only part of the remedy picture.

This is undoubtedly the best book available on the Lacs and gives a picture that is more comprehensive and accurate than has been available so far. It is undoubtedly an important tool in differentiating the Lacs, which are a very homogenous group of remedies.