More Doctoring: Selected Writings

Homöopathie für Skeptiker

This is volume 2 of Dr. Moskowitz's collected writings:

... the main criterion that I have used for making my selections is that I still like how they sound in my mind's ear as I re-read them slowly to myself, which is pretty much the standard I adopted when I wrote and edited them originally. I've cleaned some of them up a bit ... the present volume will probably appeal mainly to health care professionals, patients, and laypeople who are already acquainted with, interested in, or curious about homeopathy. (p. vii)

Moskowitz titled his first volume similarly, ‘Plain Doctoring: Selected Writings’, 1983–2013 (2013; isbn-1482338017), and perhaps you are familiar with two of his other works: ‘Homeopathic Medicines for Pregnancy and Childbirth’ (1993) and ‘Resonance: The Homeopathic Point of View’ (2000).

This book is divided into seven sections: Articles, Cases, Political Statements, Reviews, Obituaries, Letters, and Interviews and an Epilogue and Appendix. Each of these consists of his journal articles, whose sampling includes ‘Moskowitz versus Morowitz, or Harvard versus Yale’, ‘Vague, Long-Term Diagnosis: The Nocebo Effect’, Vaccinations', ‘Illness as Metaphor (with apologies to Susan Sontag)’, ‘Plague and Pregnancy’, ‘A Wound Heals – After 25 Years’, ‘A 42-Year-Old Man with Bronchiectasis, among Other Things’, ‘The Great Malpractice Scandal’, ‘Ethics in Homeopathic Practice’, AIH Bioterrorism Project, Excerpts', ‘Advisory on Bird Flu’.

In addition to this partial listing, there are 17 book reviews and seven obituaries.

‘Moskowitz versus Morowitz, or Harvard versus Yale’ is the author's response to Dr. Harold J. Morowitz's defamatory article against homeopathy, ‘Much Ado about Nothing’, as published in Hospital Practice (July 1982). Moskowitz, as one can imagine, defends homeopathy ably.

Moskowitz who received his medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine in 1963 received his BA in Biochemical Sciences cum laude from Harvard University in 1959. After medical school, he was awarded a U.S. Steel Graduate Fellowship reading Philosophy at the University of Colorado from 1963 to 1965. In his own words, ‘My evolution as a healer has been a long and tortuous one, but as soon as I discovered homoeopathy, I knew that it was the prize I had been looking for’.—Richard Moskowitz (‘The Faces of Homeopathy’, p. 340).

Not that it is needed, there is no index, but the good doctor does include a bibliography of references to all of his writings in both volumes, 126 in all. It is not indicated which articles are in which volume, however.

Like volume 1, this work has ‘everything’, but it is the cases that I find of most interest. For example:

Case 6: ‘Peculiar and Characteristic Symptoms’—there are six cases in this section.

‘My last case was that of a 38-year-old woman who developed acute hemorrhagic cystitis, with clots in the urine, tenesmus, and burning, especially at the end of urinating; it came on the day after watching her son's football team play in a snowstorm, ‘to the bitter end’. Chimaphila, the remedy in this case, scored low in the repertorization; but it did appear in several rubrics, and I probably read it simply because I'd never used it before. This is what Clarke says about it: ‘Chimaphila (pipsissewa) is a remedy used by many North American Indians in gravel and urinary disorders. The Eclectics use it in cases of cystitis, strangury, smarting, or burning pains on urination. Vesical tenesmus. Constant desire to urinate. Blood in the urine. The symptoms of Chimaphila are worse in damp weather, after washing in cold water, and from sitting on a cold, wet stone’.

That last sentence did it for me. Like most homeopaths, I love to try out remedies that I've never used before. Anyway, I gave her Chimaphila 6X, which was all I had of it at the time; and within a few days, her symptoms were essentially gone, although they came back briefly a week later, after making love with her husband. After a few more doses, she completed her recovery. (pp. 88, 9)

This volume, like the previous one, pleases in every respect. If you want to enjoy an erudite and varied narrative, I heartily recommend this most recent offering from a master homeopath.