Simplify, simplify, simplify -- Thoreau

[Guest guest]

Would anyone agree with the notion that the doctrine of Unlike Cures Unlike

(allopathy)applies to conditions of excess whereas the doctrine of Like Cures

Like (homeopathy) applies to conditions of deficiency? That is, when we

counteract an excess we dry dampness, warm coldness, cool heat, moisten dryness,

expel wind, move stagnation, or resolve phlegm, using herbals with qualities

opposed to the pathogen. When we tonify what is deficient, we look for what

corresponds to the deficient organ (for now the target is not a pathogen but the

viscera), like black kidney-shaped beans, or lightly salted cashews for the

kidney, green spring-harvested dandelion for the liver, summer-ripened tomato

(lycopersine!) or red hawthorn berries for the heart, late-summer squash or

yellow sweet potato for the spleen, blanched almonds for the lung.