Nail Health and Miasms:

Getting 60% of Your Case in Two Minutes - Author: Berno, William

This article is a continuation and it describes a technique Dr. Banerjea explained

to us in his wonderful story telling manner, on how to get to the miasmic root of a
case in 2 minutes or less.

"When I had graduated after 5 and 1/2 years at the University and I had been
interning with my Uncle for three or four years, I said, `I think I have gained a lot
of experiences from you, can you suggest a friend, someone else I might study
with for another year before I start my own clinical practice? I was showing some
Lycopodium traits in my hesitation to begin on my own. My Uncle recommended
a friend of his who was 40 miles from the city of Calcutta. He used to see 70 or 80
patients a day."

"By the time the patient came up to the homeopathic physician, a remedy would be
found in a very short time. I had to be there at 8 am. So I had to get up very early
and travel for two hours to get there because in rural India, travel is difficult. I had
a little stool to sit on for the whole day and watch what was going on. People were
waiting in a crowd outside.

By the time the person was coming in, the physician would grab his or her hand
and make some funny noise with their fingernail, and maybe look at their toes.
Then, within two minutes he would come up with the remedy.

I couldn't follow what he was doing. But in India you just can't ask questions of
your teacher.
The relationship between the teacher and the student is like a Guru and disciple --
the more you become receptive, wisdom will be flooded upon you! So for the first
week, I was there at 8 am and staying till 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening, and I was
getting nothing out it."

"At night after my 2-hour journey home, I would look in all my books. If he had
given Lycopodium, I would look to see it there was anything about the finger
symptoms or nail symptoms and I could find nothing. I looked through all my
books about nails and toes and found no clues. So I felt I had wasted an entire
week. On the weekend, we had a family got together and my Uncle asked me how
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I was enjoying. I had to be very cautious because they were good Mends. I told
him, I wasn't getting much out of it. So my Uncle told me to keep going and he
would tell his friend to explain more to me."

"On Monday morning, my new teacher asked, `You don't understand what I am
doing?' I said, `No, sir.'

He explained, `I look at the nails and I know the miasm.' "My dear friends, that
opened up a new dimension before me. I spent 1 1/2 years with him."

He used to say, `Dry, harsh nails are Psoric. They look rough. They are not the
eaten up appearance. They are not glossy. They are dry. Psora has dryness.

"Wavy nails are Sycotic. The key word for Sycotic is in-coordination. They
should have waves or ridges or corrugated either vertical or horizontal.
These are not the concave nails. These are the long ridges or ribs on the nails. The
ridges are a proliferation - a hypertrophy, Hyper is Sycosis."

"Thickness of the nails is also Sycotic."

"Thin, paper-like nails that bend and tear easily are Syphilitic. Why? Because of
destruction and degeneration."

"Spoon-shaped or concave nails are Syphilitic."

"Convex nails are Sycotic."

"Brittle nails which split easily are Syphilitic."

"Glossy nails are Tubercular."

"White spots on the nails are Tubercular. Also stains or spots on the nails are
Tubercular."

"If the white spots predominant and the glossiness is there with dryness, this shows
that Psora is in the background."

"Thick nails with mottled eaten up texture are Syco-Syphilitic. Sycosis is the
thickness and the mottled nail is the Syphilitic."
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"If you see that the toenails and the fingernails are different this shows a lot of
suppression, If all the nails show the same miasm, this means less suppression."

"Squaring of the nail to a certain extent is Sycotic."

He took time during the lecture to look at all the finger and toenails of the course
participants. We saw examples of each and several times we could see all three
miasms together: dryness=Psora, ridges=Sycotic, and spoon shaped = Syphilitic.
Less the symptoms, more the suppression (physical, emotional, iatrogenic).

"All fungal infections are Syphilitic.

When you see the symptoms near the edges of the nail is Tubercular."

"If the ridges are on the underside of the nail this is Syphilitic. The nail is being
eaten up."

"When you see the redness behind the nail, when you pull up on the nail, this is
Tubercular. All hemorrhage, flushing is Tubercular. She might have profuse
bleeding during menses, irregular menses, or a longer menses period,"

Many times during his lectures, Dr. Banerjea would tell us to look up a remedy in
Allen's Keynotes or Boericke and then he would indicate what page and what line
we would find a certain rubric. The books we use for references, Dr. Banerjea has
memorized (Oh, well...next lifetime.)

Dr. Banerjea quoted Allen's Keynotes, "Second page of Sulphur in the middle."

"Bright redness of lips as if the blood would burst through Club.)."

"Keep an eye on the nails, they will change. My teacher used to tell me, if you (in
thick nails with pock marks as if the nail looks as if it has been punched by pins or
eaten up, this is Syco-Syphilitc. Sycosis is the thickening and the pock marks or
pin holes is Syphilitic. This can also be caused by fungal infections and fungal
infections are Syphilitic. In India we got it with the barefoot farmers. In the
U.S.A. you get it from the prolonged wearing of socks."

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"You could perhaps think of my new teacher with the nail diagnosis as a
superficial prescriber, prescribing for 70 to 80 patients a day. But I want to give
you an example because I don't want my mentor to be misunderstood."

"A patient came to him and said, `I have pain in the stomach area' and he points
with his finger below his stomach area. He also brings a paper from an MD that
says he has duodenal ulcer. My mentor finds that the nail is Syphilitic as it should
be, because there is an ulcer and ulcer is destruction. Remember, destruction is
Syphilitic. If the nail reflects that picture, within two minutes he would come up
with Kali Bichromicum."

"On the second page of Allen's, second line it says, `Pain, can be covered by the tip
of the fingers.' (It actually says `point of finger.' Kali Bichromicum covers the
peculiar symptom of pain' being covered by the `tip' of the finger and also is a deep
acting, anti-Syphilitic remedy. So, both are covered, the symptom and the miasm."

Then Dr. Banerjea said, "Let this seminar be clinically oriented. I give that much
courage to you. The wisdom I have inherited from over a century-old tradition, if
you can diagnose the miasm, 60% of your job is done."

"The patient will definitely feel better at least to some extent, because what is a
miasm? Miasm is a vacuum in the constitution. it is a stigma in the constitution, It
is a pollution in the constitution, When you touch the miasm, you are covering the
vacuum. So try and understand the soil, the stigma of the person, the lack or
deficiency of the person's constitution."

"This mentor told me something very important when I was to leave him after 1
and 1/2 years. He held my ear, gave me his blessings and said, `In any case if you
can not understand the totality, diagnose the miasm and give the nosode. Start
with a nosode or finish with a nosode."

"In this world, because of suppression, and suppression, and suppression, it is

sometimes very difficult to get a totality, There may be only one or two symptoms
obscuring other symptoms. If you give a correct miasmatic remedy or nosode it
will go deep into the individual and bring the suppressed symptoms onto the
surface."

Then Dr. Banerjea asked us to look up X-Ray in Boericke. "The homeopathic

action of X-Ray is thus centrifugal, from center to periphery. It brings suppressed
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symptoms to the surface, especially those of Sycotic origin potency like 200c or 1
M.

This will partially cover the totality and bring more symptoms to the surface so
that next time you can prescribe a deep acting remedy based on the totality of
symptoms."

In case you were wondering, the answer is: Yes, the homeopaths at the seminar
were displaying the total spectrum of miasms in their fingernails and toenails.

* Author : Berno, William

* Article Title : Getting 60% of Your Case in Two Minutes
* Publication Name : Prover, The: The Journal of the Chiropractic Academy of
Homeopathy
* Volume & Number : V. 6; N. 2
* Publication Date : 07-31-95
* Page : p. 68-70