This volume is the first of ten and includes 111 plants of the 1200 key specimens that will be examined as essential to the homeopathic pharmacy. It boasts a simple but lucid style, arranged according to botanical classification. Besides identification and preparation of the mother tincture, toxicology, pharmacology, homeopathic action, duration of action, and dose are covered in just the right amount of detail (exquisitely brief is how it is described by one admirer).
Volume one offers an Introduction that contains an account of Hahnemann's life and his discoveries. This includes a brief synopsis of homeopathic terms and philosophy. Chapter Two offers Plant Description; useful for those who can't tell a capitulumic inflorescence from a rhizome. Chapter Three informs us of Plant Anatomy while Chapter four brings us up to speed on Drug Constituents. Both of these chapters are seriously scientific in the approach taken, illuminating the Forward where the work is offered outside the homeopathic community to researchers, drug analysts, ethno botanists, and pharmacologists. Chapter Five advises us about Cultivation and Collection. Chapter Six lists the Bentham and Hooker system of plant classification. Plants not used in the preparation of homeopathic drugs are not included.
One might hope that these first chapters would be reprinted in ensuing volumes to aid them in being stand-alone texts. The next 602 pages are about plants (refer to Table of Contents link). The book concludes with two glossaries (botanical and medical) and an index.
Who will find this book useful? Collectors of good modern reference books, people interested in homeopathic pharmacology and proving, plus researchers, drug analysts, and ethno botanists. People looking for understanding of the mental / emotional sphere of these plant remedies will not find any here. To try to extrapolate such information from this book would be fruitless. It is not the intention of the author to furnish any such material. What Dr. Gopi does accomplish is a clearly informative, thoughtfully formatted and well illustrated text on the medicinal plants used in homeopathy.
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Email- plantmedicines@yahoo.com