Saine’s MMPP: reading the genius of a remedy

A long Materia Medica entry can contain a great deal of detail. The challenge for the reader is to see what gives that detail its shape. André Saine’s Materia Medica Pura Project approaches this through research into the source material and concise summaries of the characteristic remedy picture.

What are the Group Summaries?

Our December 2020 newsletter introduced the Group Summaries as the first RadarOpus release from the project. The English collection covered 186 remedies, with individual summaries generally running from one to ten pages.

The wider project, guided by Saine, brought together researchers from 13 countries to examine material on around 600 remedies. Its sources included provings, toxicological reports and clinical case material. These figures describe the project presented in the original newsletter, rather than a claim that every planned monograph was already available.

The summaries aim to convey the genius of a remedy. In this context, genius means the characteristic pattern that holds the remedy picture together. It gives the reader a focus for exploring the longer body of information.

Search for a pattern, then read the passage

The publisher demonstrates searching the MMPP document with keywords and opening the matching remedy text. A wildcard can help you find variations in wording: *heat* includes words such as overheated, while cough* includes cough, coughs and coughing.

This is a useful distinction when searching prose. The word you have in mind may occur within a longer word or in a different grammatical form. Broadening the search can reveal those passages, but you still need to read them to understand their meaning.

In the publisher’s example, the results graph shows remedies covering the selected terms. Opening a result brings the reader back to the source text, with the search words highlighted. The full explanation and screenshots are on the MMPP publisher page.

Keep summary and source in conversation

A summary is valuable because it helps you hold a pattern in mind. A search result is valuable because it points to a passage. Neither removes the need to read attentively: notice what the words refer to, how they relate to the rest of the description, and what remains uncertain.

For study, choose one summary and list its recurring features before looking at individual search hits. This keeps the overall picture beside the details. See our MMPP Group Summaries entry for the collection.

Adapted from Luke Norland’s newsletter of 16 December 2020.

This article is for educational purposes and does not replace individual medical advice. Seek appropriate conventional care for health concerns.