What about Software for to Aid in Homeopathic Treatment and Diagnostics?

At the time of writing, homeopathic software is ideally being used as a tool for rapid access to homeopathic repertories and materia medicae, and an evaluation of the data gathered, primarily based on various statistical methods. During the 200+ years of the existence of homeopathy, a substantial amount of data has been gathered and homeopathic software makes this information more accessible, allowing better integration into homeopathic practice.

However, there is still a substantial space for improvement. While homeopathic software simplifies and enhances the efficiency of many otherwise tedious processes, the final interpretation of data relies, for the greatest part, on the homeopathic practitioner. Such interpretation is very ambiguous, ranging from very analytical one, based solely on provings and materia medicae information, through a more relaxed one based on keynotes, ending with a purely intuitive type of prescribing. During the interpretation process, an experienced homeopath considers not only the information alone, but also connections and associations between them, and their level of relevance to the case concerned.

The point is, this interpretation and analysis COULD be performed by a homeopathic software. As inconceivable as it may first sound, it could also be much more efficient than any human and also much more objective and justifiable.

To make this possible, the information cannot be stored as a text, as is the case nowadays, but rather as a semantic web of meanings (an ontology), thus making homeopathic software “aware” of the relationships between the objects and processes.
To allow for this to happen, we can consider two layers of information.

The first layer could be a general ontology of terms, or a specifically designed homeopathy-related ontology that would store the relationships and associations between objects. For example, the general layer would provide information such as “head is a part of the body”, “face is part of the head”, “head is an external part of the body”, “liver is an internal part of the body” etc. By establishing a multitude of such associations, this layer will allow homeopathic software to reason about the general connections and relationships between the objects.

The second layer would be a pathological layer, presenting observed symptoms and pathological states as recorded in provings, homeopathic materia medicae and repertories, while linking them to specific remedies. For example, we could record symptoms of “palpitation in the eyelids”, “protruding abdomen”, “thin legs” and link it with the remedy Ammonium Muriaticum.

In case a homeopath will encounter a person who experiences “throbbing in the local parts”, has a “corpulent appearance”, but “thin lower limbs”, homeopathic software will be able to identify these symptoms as belonging to Ammonium Muriaticum. Although the wording and also the exact meaning is different, based on the information and relationships stored in the general and symptomatic layers, homeopathic software will be able to consider them a sufficient match.

This example demonstrates only a basic outline as to what such homeopathic software could achieve in practice. If you ponder upon this idea, you shall find out the possibilities of such system are nothing short of staggering.

The creation of such homeopathic software system, however, would require a tremendous amount of time and expertise, and only time will show if homeopathic community is prepared to support such a novel idea.

About the Author
Peter Bezemek is the CEO of AEON GROUP spol. s r.o., the developer of Mercurius homeopathic software. If you want to push your homeopathic practice to a new level, visit us at http://www.homeopath.eu