Heli. O. Retzek: Complete Materia Medica Mind

> 2000 pages IRHIS, Leidschendam, Holland First edition 4000 copies ISBN: 90-801878-2-8

Order from:

• http://www.narayana-verlag.de/The-Complete-Materia-Medica-Mind/Heli-Retzek/b1991

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Reviews

Below is an excerpt from book reviews (criticisms, discussions) about my “student work” – the CMM

• Review Homeopathy Journal
• Review JAIH Spring 1996, Vol. 89, No. 1
• Review SIMILLIMUM / Fall 1995 Volume VIII No. 3
• Review Homoeopathic Links – Autumn 1995
• Review General Homeopathic Newspaper 1, 1998

August 08 – copied from the website: , Reviewer: Christel Hämmerle

Well-founded and equipped with all the refinements – The Mercedes version of the Materia Medica editions

Retzek, Heli O.: The Complete Materia Medica Mind, 1932 pp., hardcover; Leidschenham (Irhish)
Price: 92.00 EURO

For those homeopaths who want to start studying the mental symptoms of the drug pictures, who often find ready-made descriptions too schematic and judgmental, who are curious to bring the multitude of symptoms into an order that suits them, the Materia Medica by Agrawal* is a great help. Here, the mental symptoms, listed in alphabetical order, are presented to you uninterpreted, weighted only by their significance, and invite you to carefully explore the psychological, mental and spiritual drug picture.
For some time now (1995) there has been an improvement on Agrawal, the “Complete Materia Mind” written by Heli Retzek. An improvement that cannot be measured in percentage values, given the meticulously researched additional information that is made available to the reader through an equally carefully devised structure: To be specific: Agrawal’s drug picture of China, for example, covers almost three pages, with the symptoms arranged in two columns. In Retzek’s case, the symptoms are listed on an impressive 14 pages. The Complete Repertory written by Zandvort with all its supplements is also responsible for this, according to which, for example, the number of “Unique Remedy Symptoms” (only China is listed here) has grown from eleven (Agrawal) to 58. If you jump to the conclusion that these Unique Remedy Symptoms are primarily “modern” additions, you will be proven wrong. They mainly come from Allen, Bönninghausen, Hahnemann, Knerr and Schmidt.
The “Common Rubrics”, i.e. the repertory rubrics that are inhabited by many remedies, so to speak, list the most important remedies by name. This is another novelty and of inestimable value, because Agrawal only gives the rubrics in their wording. An additional repertory is therefore no longer necessary in order to keep an eye on other possible (i.e. high-quality) remedies. For example, it can be seen that in the category “fear of dogs” a total of 27 remedies are listed, including China trivalent, Belladonna (addendum Pierre Schmidt) quadrivalent and Bacillinum (addendum Burnett) trivalent. Or in the case of the symptom “wealth of ideas”, which is also typical for China, at first glance it is clear thatIt is obvious that of the total of 118 remedies listed in the rubric, a distinction must be made between the trivalent remedies China, Coffea, Lachesis and Opium (addendum Pierre Schmidt). It is certainly clear that the benefit of this book is likely to be further increased when comparing similar rubrics. In addition, there is a list of plant families in the appendix (can be used in both directions, starting with the individual plant and the botanical family).

The only question that remains is: are there enough homeopaths who are not immediately put off by the weight of this work, who want to and can overcome this first hurdle and use the wealth of information on the spiritual symptoms of around 1020 remedies? And another: is this database-like information not easier to handle electronically? I fear that there are too few homeopaths who want to “plough” and who are not put off by encyclopedic dimensions. An electronic version may offer faster and more networked access to the information. But there is always the danger of getting too caught up in the individual details and overestimating the networking possibilities. The entirety of the drug picture can easily be lost sight of via electronic medium, while the book offers this path to the comprehensive drug picture more prominently.

Conclusion

Highly recommended. To have a (book) reference work for the mental symptoms of 1023 remedies just in case. And not least to appreciate this immense and meticulous work on the subject of homeopathy and thereby promote high-risk, unconventional projects in publishing.

Christel Hämmerle

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quoted as textbook: http://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/homeopathic-materia-medica-original-source-to-successful-treatment/

quoted as textbook: http://hpathy.com/homeopathy-repertory/mind-section-of-kent-repertory/

This book review is reprinted with(out) the permission of the American Institute of Homeopathy 925 E. 17th Avenue Denver, CO 80218

The Complete Materia Medica Mind

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Based on Roger van Zandvoort’s The Complete Repertory: Min

by Heli Retzek

Reviewed by Greg Bedayn, RSHom, NA

“Aggarwal on steroids” – this is what The Complete Materia Medica: Mind seems to be, but people are refer-ring to it as “The Brick” as it is the largest tome offered in the history of homeopathy. Heli Retzek wrote the computer program that extracted the information from Roger van Zandvoort’s The Complete Repertory of the Mind. So, Roger is the source of the information, and Heli organized it for this book and is listed as author.

This book is a must-have for all homeopaths as it is a thorough and exhaustive compilation of materia medica of the mind, listed in a manner which makes it ultimately accessible to the practitioner. “The Brick” is a required classroom textbook at the Hahnemann College and at Lou Klein’s Master Clinician Course. Mr. Klein feels Hydrogen might be the best proven remedy in the entire materia medica, and thus possibly the greatest polychrest. Hydrogen is a very “round” remedy – it has many different but clear aspects. The mental symptoms of Hydrogen are listed in great depth in “the Brick,” along with many other modern remedies on which it is often difficult to find information.

It is from these very complete remedy descriptions that one could easily form a complete “essence picture” of a remedy. This single feature alone is accelerating the knowledge and practice of homeopathy for all who use this valuable asset, and there is more…

The unique categories are listed first; then the common rubrics are listed, which I find uncommonly useful in understanding the distinctive qualities of a remedy. Authors are listed for each addition, and all references are listed by author so we can know who has listed the remedy/rubric and which work we can refer to, if necessary. There are many other simplified means of viewing and understanding the resources; all are covered in clear detail in the “guide” section.

Aggarwal listed 600 remedies in his book, but “the Brick” has 1,034, and they are much more complete. The contents of this book have the typical stamp of accuracy and high-quality that we have come to expect from Roger van Zandvoort.

All this book is missing is a suitcase handle with which to pick it up and carry. Minimum Price Books currently lists the Brick at $160.

JAIH Spring 1996,Vol. 89, No. 1

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This book review is reprinted (presently) with(out) the permission of the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians P.O. Box 21488, Portland, OR 97212 FAX:(503) 795-7320 e-mail: hanp@igc.apc.org

THE COMPLETE MATERIA MEDICA MIND

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by Heli Retzek

based on Roger Van Zandvoort’s The Complete Repertory Mind

Available from Althea Homeopathics (206) 284-8967 or Minimum Price. Price: approximately $160

review by Jeff Baker

This book could be entitled “The Ultimate Agrawal” or “Mega Medica.” The best way to begin talking about this remarkable new book is to state at the outset that this work is the ultimate outgrowth of two already well known Homeopathic contributions: Agrawal’s Materia Medica of the Human Mind and Roger Van Zandvoort’s The Complete Repertory Mind. Although most contemporary homeopaths are quite familiar with both of these works it is well to mention how each of these contributed mightily in forming the basis for this extraordinary new materia medica.

In 1985 M.L. Agrawal published his compilation, which was based in its entirety upon the chapter ‘mind’ of Kent’s Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica. Although, in essence, Agrawal’s book had nothing new to offer in the way of material, since the rubrics have long been in print, he did contribute an innovative format, which gave us a new way of studying materia medica. Let us not forget that repertorial rubrics are but extractions from materia medica in a readily recognizable, abbreviated form.

By conceiving of approaching remedies from an all encompassing rubric perspective, rather than vice versa, for the first time homeopaths could go to one source book to find all the mind symptoms of a particular remedy as they appear in the repertory. Additionally, Agrawal separated out rubrics which were unique to one and only one remedy as being of special relevance, and referred to them as ‘single symptoms.’ Those he placed at the beginning of the list of symptoms of each remedy. The schema also incorporated Kent’s system of grading, e.g., common symptoms in plain font, second degree symptoms in italics, third degree in bold type. The major shortcoming of Agrawal’s was that it included only the approximately six hundred remedies from Kent and no new additions from other authors and other repertories, of which there are so many.

Further evolution of Agrawal’s book took place in 1994, when H.L. Chitkara published a new Comprehensive Materia Medica of the Mind, which included additional listings taken from the Synthetic Repertory and Dr. Phatak’s Repertory, but those new additions still only applied to the remedies in Kent’s Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica, thus leaving out a vast number of remedies. With the advent of computer based repertories, such as Synthesis and The Complete Repertory Mind, came the possibility of a “super” Agrawal-a book that could potentially include all the additional rubrics and remedies from the vast array of repertories and homeopaths not mentioned in Agrawal’s or Chitkara’s offerings. This, finally, is the book which fulfills that hope!

Although the rearrangement of a computer based repertory from standard rubric form to “Agrawalian” form may appear, on the surface, to be relatively straight forward; it is not. In order for Van Zandvoort’s The Complete Repertory Mind to be reorganized into The Complete Materia Medica Mind an elaborate program had to be written. Heli 0. Retzek, an accomplished research scientist from Austria and currently a medical student, dedicated to homeopathy, volunteered to take up the challenge of creating the necessary computer program.

In so doing many well thought out and useful refinements to Agrawal’s original format have been incorporated, a testament to Retzek’s vision and commitment. The guide to The Complete Materia Medica Mind is itself 4 pages long. Suffice it to say there is a remarkable amount of useful information at one’s finger tips. Some of the outstanding features are: a numerical designation enabling one to know the source (identical to the format used in The Complete Repertory Mind, thus making these 2 books an invaluable set), the number of remedies in that specific rubric (enabling one to know the relative rarity or commonality of a rubric), designations enabling one to know if the remedy is highest ranked in that rubric by itself or if it shares the highest ranking with other remedies, in which case, providing that the list of equally high ranking remedies are not too vast (less than 8), then those remedies as well are listed.

But the real quantum leap forward is listed in the number of remedies, which is inclusive of virtually every remedy from any reputable source, so long as it has mind symptoms. The other characteristic which, in comparison to its predecessors, puts this book into a class of its own, is its quality. Roger Van Zandvoort, known far and wide in homeopathic circles for being a stickler where details are concerned, was uncompromising in the production of this work. Although it is 1,932 pages long nothing has been spared in terms of paper, binding and cover materials. It can be opened on a flat surface to its full extent, in either direction, and it holds its page position. I find this to be a very useful feature.

It is a huge book, weighing 7.7 pounds. Because of its size and voluminous nature I’ve affably dubbed it “MegaMedica.” Perhaps for the all too sedentary homeopath it brings the opportunity for weight training and fitness right into the consulting room! All kidding aside, this book is a dream come true. In early 1994 I had thought of going through my computer program and generating individual remedy rubric extracts so that I might have ready access to the mind symptoms of any number of lesser known remedies. When I realized that I’d be generating an unmanageable stack of paper, over a foot high, I gave up on the idea. Even with the remedies I printed out there was no way of telling if symptoms were unique or shared in common with a vast number of other remedies. I am not a computer programmer.

If I had to choose any one materia medica, from which to start studying cases, this would be it. Why? 1. Because it is so vast and yet so easily usable, it is like a small reference library all in one place. 2. Because the mind and disposition are the keys to understanding a patient, making this the too] for perceiving the breadth and depth of the mind states of our medicines. 3. by virtue of the fact that rubrics are footnoted as to source, I always know which homeopath(s) is the authority on any given remedy, thus allowing me the capability of referring to the original source material to further review that remedy for its generals and particulars. Indeed The Complete Materia Medica Mind is the Mega Medica. We, as homeopaths, owe a big debt of gratitude to Roger Van Zandvoort and Heli Retzek. Great work guys!

Jeff Baker, N.D., DHANP, is a graduate of the National College of Naturopathic Medicine. He is the founder of the Maui Academy of Homeopathy, on the island where he practices with his wife Susie.

Fall 1995 Volume VIII No. 3 / SIMILLIMUM

THE COMPLETE MATERIA MEDICA MIND

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by Heli Retzek

This book review is reprinted with permission from Homeopathic Links.
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The Complete Materia Medica Mind
by Heli Retzek,
published by IHRIS
Leidschendam Holland 1995,
1841 p.; Price: Fl. 200
[Editor’s note: As of February 1997 Minimum Price Books’ price is $145.00]

– the highest ranking remedies (with a maximum of 7) are given alongside the rubric (like we did in the old days in our handmade extractions) – this gives an immediate opportunity for a comparison with the most important remedies in that rubric (a small built-in repertory).
– when the remedy concerned is the highest ranking remedy in the rubric this is indicated by two black dots after the rubric, if the remedy is within the 7 highest ranking remedies a single dot is given.
– the dreams being very important mental-emotional symptoms are included (in the Complete Rep. of the Mind the dreams have been shifted from Sleep to Mind).
– sources given (numerical) with every new rubric or added remedy that is not in the original Kent; at the end of the book there is a very handy fold-out page where you can see which index number belongs to which author or source. Also a bibliographical list of literature of author or source (from which the addition is drawn) is included (this list is not complete yet).
– only one column per page allows space for adding your own notes (e.g. the complete symptom from the MM from which the rubric is drawn – sometimes very illuminating).
The “follow-up” of Agrawal’s Materia Medica of the Human Mind (which was based on the Mind chapter of Kent) was long awaited. Last year we welcomed the New Comprehensive Homoeopathic Materia Medica of Mind of Dr. H.L. Chitkara (Jain, New Dehli 1994) being based on the mind of the Synthetic Repertory of Barthel and Klunker and now the Complete MM Mind based on Complete Repertory is published. Before the computer era we made our own extractions of dozens of remedies from the Mind of Kent’s and the Synthetic Repertory. It took us about 6-8 hrs for an average remedy scrutinizing every rubric for the remedy concerned. After this work we did not only have a written compilation of all the mind symptoms but by linking the different symptoms together with its basic feelings, the mental state of that particular remedy had imprinted its picture on our minds. Besides we made a wealth of cross-references on the way and we got to know rubrics never seen before. So far from the good old days.
Now we have in the Complete MM Mind an extraction of every remedy from Van Zandvoort’s Complete Repertory of the Mind. With its more than 1800 pages it has become quite a fat volume (10 cm from cover to cover) and its nick-name “Megamedica” is very suitable.
In comparison with Agrawal’s and Chitkara’s MM there are some substantial improvements: – after every rubric the number of remedies in the rubric is given in parenthesis (and thus giving us a clue as to the specificity or the completeness of the rubric) I am quite sure that the profession will be very pleased with this “megamedica” because with very little effort and “at a glance” you get a very good impression of the mental-emotional characteristics of (especially the smaller) remedies in the familiar structured style of repertory language . For a possible next edition in the future I would suggest a less rigid separation between the single remedy rubrics and the other rubrics of the remedy (called common rubrics). This was the original set-up in Agrawal, he listed the “single symptoms” being the most characteristic first. This obviously “degrades” very characteristic rubrics with 2-10 remedies to common rubrics and on the other hand puts too much emphasis to a lot of (newly added) single-remedy rubrics which are quite “common” and not very characteristic for the remedy (e.g. Drawing, aptitude for, Business, talks of, in the evening or absent-minded, yellow fever, in are not so characteristic single-remedy rubrics for Sulfur and in the common rubric section we find rubrics like: Anxiety about his children (7 ) that are more characteristic for Sulfur. (The single- or double- dotted rubrics in the “common” section is a successful attempt to make the more characteristic rubrics in this section stand out more; but you still have to screen the unique remedy- rubric list and the common rubrics in search of characteristic rubrics of the remedy.) One could make a section of key rubrics containing all the single-remedy rubrics, all the smaller rubrics let’s say within 10 remedies and all those rubrics in which the remedy is within the 7 highest ranking. Then you have the most characteristic rubrics of a remedy alphabetically together in one section and what is left are the real common rubrics. It can even be considered to slim down all the rubrics with more than 1 00 remedies only to the 7 highest ranking (of course exceptions can be made for the real small remedies); These rubrics hardly play a role in a differentiation between remedies (in repertorizing we only consult their subrubrics) but do occupy hundreds of pages of text space (one rubric of 100 remedies takes in this MM one hundred lines, which is two pages of text space ; this measure will save around 250 pages). It will make the Complete Materia Medica Mind (CMMM) indeed less complete but all the more characteristic (and portable).
Homoeopathic Links – Autumn 1995 ——————————————- ———————————–  

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R E V I E W

The Complete Repertory by Roger van Zandvoort

by Dr. R. Appell,

published in Allgemeine Homöopathische Zeitung 1, 1998

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Repertorization with the computer has made homeopathic work easier, but it also entails the danger of particularizing the materia medica. Symptoms are taken out of context and the view of the whole, i.e. also of the comparative remedies, is in danger of being lost.
The (currently) most complete Materia medica of mental symptoms, which Retzek has now published, fulfils several important tasks here. It not only compiles the mental symptoms of 1,034 remedies, but also works out the essential characteristics and peculiarities of the individual remedies. First, the categories in which the respective Medicine is the only one represented. Then follow the rubrics that the remedy shares with others, with the total number of remedies represented in the corresponding rubric being indicated. In smaller rubrics, other remedies that are equally important and to be differentiated are also mentioned. The values ​​are highlighted by different print, as are the Key symptoms. Finally, the original sources are indicated for each section. The fact that 3,700 g are held together by a cover gives the user hope for the quality of the bookbinding, but does not make the large work particularly easy to handle. However, it is an important aid in everyday work, for which we have to thank Retzek and Van Zandvoort.