Introduction

          Dr.S.K.Tiwari principal, Fr.Muller Homoeopathy Medical College is well known to every body. Every student of Homoeopathy and practitioner holds the book on Reperterorisation “ The Principles of Repertorasation“. He has authored number of books on various topics. His articles are very popular. Here he explores the concept of constitution.

          Constitution is defined as the Physical and mental make-up of a person, which is revealed through its physicaly built, its characteristics desires, aversion and reactions, emotional and intellectual attributes.

          Every person is born with a certain plan of organization which is determined by the gene and the, environmental influences. During intra-uterine life the embryo is liable to receive the effects of various physical and emotional factors of mother. Accordingly it develops certain attributes during this stage of the life. After completion of its nine months life in mother’s womb it comes to this world with certain attributes into an all together different environment. It matters to him very much how he has been received on his arrival in this world. This great change in the environment and the first reception has a greater impact in the future life of the person. As it grows it comes across with various types of environment and it modifies its reactions by learning through experiences. It develops certain likings and disliking, certain positive and negative attitudes, which becomes his behaviour pattern in due course. No doubt, a person learns through his experiences throughout his life but the impact of early environment has a great role in result of the influences of the early environment on hereditary characteristics.

          The person inherits the soil, the tendencies, the attributes and the miasms, which decides the pattern of reactions (susceptibility) to the environment. A person is constantly reacting to his environment and trying to strike balance. The balance means health, which allows a discomfort. The imbalance means disease, which causes functioning of the individual giving rise to-signs and symptoms. Since the disease represents the reaction of a person to his unfavourable environment the pattern of this reaction will be determined not only by the factors which have caused the illness but also by the constitution of the afflicted person. Though, the nosological diagnosis may be one, the symptoms of ‘the suffering are not the same. There is a difference during the health and during sickness between two persons. No two persons are alike and they maintain their characteristics during every stage of life. This universal law that individuals always differ has given rise to the concept of individualization in Homoeopathy. The concept of individualization delineates that every individual is unique and thus needs unique treatment when he is sick. It is possible to handle every case according to its individual presentation in Homoeopathy because of its nature of Materia Medica and its therapeutic application based on law of similars.

          The medicines in Homoeopathic system are proved on healthy human beings of all the ages and of both sexes. A group of healthy persons are administered a medicine in minimum dose and the changes in sensations and functions are noted down. This record of changes after administering the medicinal agents in healthy human being form the basis of Homoeopathy.
Materia Medica. The physicians who supervised and conducted drug proving that medicines while others prove it easily and express symptoms in abundance on the mental and physical plan have noticed it. This fact has helped us to come to a conclusion that certain types of persons are prone to react faster to certain stimuli. The type of person, therefore, is an important factor in drug proving which has been discussed, explained and described in length by the Masters of Materia Medica. Thus, Homoeopathic Materia Medica is not only enriched with informations of changes in functions and sensations but it also tells us the physical and mental make-up of a person who readily proves a particular types or the constitutions of medicines in study of Materia Medica.
We do notice that all individuals do not fall sick in spite of exposure to the common adverse environment. Thus the origin and development of a disease also depends on individual factor. This factor is also known as susceptibility, which governs all the reactions of an individual to the environment.

          Therefore, the constitution play an important role in drug proving (production of artificial disease) and in occurrence of natural diseases, and thus, its role is important in treatment and achieving a cure. The knowledge of constitution of a medicine and constitution of a person helps a physician to form a greater level of similarity between the person and medicine.
The constitution of medicines is known by the study of various Materia Medica books from a different angle: In order to know the constitution of a person a physician must know the person’s physical make up, his built, his desires, aversions, and disagreement with the foods, the characteristics of his discharges and eliminations, information related to sex, his thermal reactions. The mental attributes; emotional and intellectual reactions and performances are also important to know the person’s constitution. The pattern of reactions to the environment also gives us the quality of susceptibility a constitution possesses. The study of susceptibility is an important factor to understand the constitution qualitatively. The various concomitants expressed in relation to the stressful situation like dentition in a child, menstruation, pregnancy and menopause in a female are important expressions, which reveal the quality of a constitution.

          Thus constitution prescription should be based on the totality of all the mental and physical reaction. It should be able to cover the level of susceptibility, the tendencies, the behaviour patterns and the underlying miasms.

          The constitutional medicine has a capacity to correct the tendencies and abnormal behaviour and reactions to the environment by modifying its susceptibility. It is useful to overcome the chronic diseases, which have a constitutional basis.

          Constitutional medicine is a potential force and it should not be misused in the course of treatment. It should be noted that administration of constitutional medicine during acute stage of a disease might prove hazardous. In acute stage of a disease an acute remedy should be selected only on the basis of Acute Totality (Acute totality means the totality of characteristic symptoms expressed at the level of parts or system and the characteristics expressed at the level of generals) These general symptoms expressed prior to or during the acute disease are also called Fixed Generals since they are comparatively stable in relation fast changing particular symptoms. Therefore, acute totality is the total of characteristics, particulars and fixed generals).

          Constitutional medicines should be prescribed only when the acute crisis is overcome with the help of acute medicine to facilitate the individual to have a quick and uneventful convalescence. It also checks the tendency to relapse effectively. All these are achieved not by direct action on the causative organism, if any, but the conservation and stimulation of natural defense mechanism of the person. Thus, an artistic Homoeopathic prescriber successfully evolves an undistorted, accurate conceptual image of the person’ during acute and chronic illnesses and uses his discretion to find it’s exact replica in Homoeopathic Materia Medica i.e.Acute or constitutional in order to achieve the highest and only ‘mission that is to restore the sick to health’.