Clinical Therapeutics of Acute Respiratory Diseases

Treating respiratory diseases can be very frustrating, often because of the lack of clear cut symptomatology. The practitioner has to rely on a solid knowledge of the materia medica, in such a way that he's able to jump literally on the oftenunique interesting symptoms given by the patient.

In this incredible work, Dr Farokh Master provides us an insight of the properties of our hoeopathic remedies in a series of beautiful pictures, making great 'cliches' of usual clinical conditions. He shares with us his enormous experience in the trenches. As a result, for the first time in my knowledge, one can see at a glance a synopsis of the remedy, the clinical picture, and the needed characteristics to prescribe.

A precious gift to the homoeopathic community!

Dr Farokh J. Master, M.D. (Hom.), is a gold medalist and his clinic has been awarded 'Certificate of Merit' by Dr Michael Lorenz recognizing his clinic as an important centre for Iscador therapy in India. He has a rich teaching experience for more than twenty five years in different schools of homeopathy throughout the world. He has authored more than fifty books on homeopathy; most of them are best sellers, His professional articles have been published in journals of international repute. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the largest circulated journal - The Homeopathic Heritage.

The homoeopathic literature has a very limited resource of authentic information regarding respiratory illnesses and thus the need for me to write this book arose.

I found that the homoeopathic books on this topic are not written from experience but are a mere reproduction. For e.g. ‘Homeopathic Therapeutics of Respiratory System’ by M. W. Van Denburg, is merely compiled information on the respiratory system by Hering’s Guiding Symptoms. Another book ‘Repertory of Cough’ by Pierce Willard is totally compiled from ‘Hand Book of Materia Medica and Homoeopathic Therapeutics’ by T. F. Allen.

The only good books I consider worth reading for practical knowledge are ‘Homoeopathic Leaders in Pneumonia’ by Dr. D. T. Pulford, ‘Therapeutics of Respiratory Organs’ by Dr. Francois Carter, ‘Therapeutics of Tuberculosis’ by Dr. Ghatak, and Borland’s Pneumonia.

During my time as a registrar and later on as administrative medical officer at the Bombay Homoeopathic Medical College, the indoor hospital always boasted of an 80-90% genuine occupancy. Thanks to my teachers Late Dr. Sarabhai Kapadia, Dr. K. N. Kasad and Dr. B. E. Patell, who took so much interest and had such excellent knowledge of their materia medica that they could show us such marvelous results.

The reason why homoeopathic hospitals in India are not filled to their capacity is because now-a-days clinicians and teachers are unable to demonstrate the efficacy of homoeopathic drugs on patients by the bedside.

Selecting the contents of this book was very tricky because the topic is so vast that even a hundred different chapters would be insufficient to do justice to it. Hence I decided to select those diseases which I was very fortunate to treat in homoeopathic hospitals in Bombay from the December of 1979 till the December of 1991.

Later, I started treating patients in major allopathic hospitals like King Edward Memorial, Hinduja, Lilavati, Breach Candy etc. The consulting chest physicians were also very kind in allowing me to treat such cases with homoeopathy.

After a lot of introspection I decided to include common respiratory illnesses like pneumonia, asthma, pulmonary oedema and respiratory failure and also rare illnesses like atelectasis and pulmonary embolism. The book begins with the various pathologies and ends with a clinical repertory of respiratory diseases. This book has been written purely through my clinical practice; for the clinicians who can apply the same information by the bedside of their patients.

This book is not an encyclopaedia of respiratory diseases, hence the explanation about the remedies are very precise in their scope.

The format of each chapter is a short introduction of the topic followed by an explanation of materia medica. A special box has been created which I have called ‘on observation’. In this box, symptoms which have been specially verified from the disease as well as from the materia medica have been selected. Another box is called ‘on examination’ where the examination findings of patients which have been repeatedly confirmed has been mentioned. In every remedy there are symptoms written in bold indicating the importance from their clinical point of view.

My sincerest salutations to Dr. Farokh E. Udwadia, Dr. Zarir F. Udwadia and Dr. Anirudh F. Kohli who wrote a wonderful book called ‘Principles of Respiratory Medicines’. This book is a bible for me. Whenever I am stuck with a case as far as diagnosis and management is concerned I refer to it. Another book "Diagnosis and Management of Medical Emergencies’ by Dr. Rustom Jal Vakil and Dr. Farokh E. Udwadia is a storehouse of rare gems for your clinical practice. I cannot imagine my existence without reading them.

I sincerely thank Dr. Shivin Gupta, my senior most assistant who has been working with me with total dedication for the past several years. His devotion, diligence and jesting nature encouraged me to write a book like this. He helped me gather a lot of reference material needed to write this book and also helped to convert all my voice notes from my I-pod to paper.

I am also grateful to my daughter Dr. Rukshin Master and Dr. Natasha Fernandes for editing and proof reading. I also want to extend my thanks to Mr. Peter Hassmann and his beautiful wife Agnes Tuscher. I also want to thank Dr. Huma Kadri, Dr. Aditi Bhatnagar, Dr. Nishita Shah, Dr. Hardik Shah and Dr. Jinal Shah who took care of my private practice while I was busy writing this book.

Finally, I would like to thank Mr. Paresh Shah and his team at Vijay Copy Centre for their unstinted co-operation in publishing the first edition of this book.

Last but not the least I want to thank my wife Dilnavaz and Iran Shah of Udwada without whose blessing I would doubt my existence.

**Contents and Sample Pages**