WHAT’S PATHOLOGIC AND WHAT’S NORMAL

(Especially in the Mind Chapter)

When lies are traded as patent truths and truthfulness is shunned, misconducts are taken as normal conducts; when cheating, plundering and bribery and nepotism are accepted as normal and meritable behavior; threats and intimidation and abusive manners are the daily practice of conduct in society; and the perpetrators of these ills and vile habits are happy and healthy people; what should one prescribe medicines for? The pathologic and sick symptoms have become normal symptoms, and the normal symptoms are no longer valued as current and healthy symptoms. The rubrics we find in the Mind Chapter of a Repertory are of the sick symptoms that are regarded now as normal behavioral symptoms, no longer requiring any treatment, and what use to be normal virtues are now discredited as states of the sick and maladjusted individuals. Only very few symptoms can be considered now as requiring repertorization, as for example some habits as ‘fastidious’, ‘hurried feeling’, some mental states as ‘sad’, ‘moaning’, etc. In such a society only the righteous and steadfast and conscientious person will suffer owing to these ‘bad traits’, and ‘unwonted habits’.

What threw me in this reverie is the sudden sickness of my son. He is the finest specimen of humanity that can ever live on the face of the earth. He has never told lies, never insulted any person, never acted as unruly, even in his childhood, or ever became a nuisance for us. Soft-spoken, understanding and well-behaved, he is very industrious as when he was a student and now as in his job. Single-mindedly absorbed in his business affairs, never intruding into the affairs of others or trying to sneak, he started feeling victimized, mistreated, target of jealousy from the colleagues who always enjoy life as if they had come into this world for merry-making, for joy-riding and hooliganism.

Can there be any symptom in the Mind Chapter for prescribing for this angelic soul?  When abnormal symptoms and conducts have become normal and normal symptoms abnormal and queer, what rubrics will you search in the Mind Chapter, except the one: i.e. Mortification.

A youth of radiant health, impressive personality and commanding stature, he has contracted bad liver. LFT shows malfunctioning of liver, and CBC shows some serious values. I can have only three mind symptoms from him, viz. Fastidiousness, Conscientious, and of course, M o r t i f i c a t I o n. The black letter remedy that comes through all is Carcinosin. And in the sub-rubric of ‘Fastidious’ : the ‘sense of being punctual and always in time’, Carcinosin stands out singly. And for ‘oversensitive to environs’ Carcinosin again comes out singly and conspicuously.

So the destiny of any good and noble person, in such a society as ours, is to befriend Carcinosin.

 Adam, my poet, says:

                        Ghat jai na izzat teri              Aye insaan, insaan na hona

i.e. It may detract from your prestige                        O’man, don’t try to be human.