Book Review on Practical Homoeopathic Therapeutics by WA Dewey

Reviewed by: Dr Karanpreet Nahar, Senior Research Fellow, CCRH
Name of the author: WA Dewey
Affiliation(s) of author- Professor Emeritus of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, University of Michigan. Author of “Essentials of Homoeopathic Materia Medica”, “Essentials of Homoeopathic Therapeutics”, Associate author of “The Twelve Tissue Remedies of Schuessler”. Member of various Homoeopathic Medical Associations, Local and Foreign, etc.
The book “Practical Homeopathic Therapeutics” arranged and compiled by WA Dewey, seeks intended audience of general practitioners of homeopathy as well as homeopathic students in quest of concise information about a particular topic. This work embraces the best palliative therapeutics in many curable and incurable conditions.
There are 88 names of authors quoted in the authorities quoted index which has been placed as the last section of the book. The ever changing nomenclature of diseases, in a time when this book was authored, made the writer choose a middle path that was to include general diagnosis as chapterization thus averting to follow the ever vacillating trends or fads in naming diseases. To a homeopathic physician, this distinctive approach of author may be helpful owing to its simplicity, whereas the same arrangement might be criticized in non-homeopathic world. The author has successfully achieved his goal to aid the prescriber in simple rubrics such as headache, vomiting, diarrhea etc. There are 15 such chapters mentioned in the index which cannot be placed under any exact disease classification, but which can surely help the homeopathic student to understand and grasp a particular topic useful in day-to-day practice.
A special mention is the chapter of Allergy and Allergens, under which, the author has made an attempt to connect the then newly evolving concept of Allergy with Homeopathy in the light of idiosyncrasy and hypersensitivity. Here he also criticized the modern-day pharmacologists for popularizing the asinine allergy testing; else the “Drugless Drugstore” would cease to exist.
An important drawback of the book is the inclusion of archaic chapters such as Vaccine therapy, smallpox and vitamins and hormones, since they do not hold much significance to the readers in today’s time.
The author hopes that his time and effort would not be considered in vain if it helps lessen the growing tendency to neglect therapeutics for easier and less satisfactory methods of learning Materia Medica.