The Method of Parimal Banerji

As far as the development of the method goes, Parimal Banerji explains that his father had opened a free charitable clinic in Bengal in 1916 and. .

[...]that he has served so many thousands of patients during about long fifty Years of practice[...]

to the extent that he and his assistants treated an average of 1000 patients a day.

In the course of this tremendous experience he

[...]gradually adopted some way of drug selection in consideration of some guiding symptoms of the patients. Also by the vastness of his experience he concentrated on using some fixed potencies for the drugs.

The above paragraph and the quotation below show in a nutshell the idea and the problems of the method:

He was a vastly learned man in the Homoeopathic literature and his control over the references from the books and journals were unparalleled. He was well-versed in the doctrines of Hahnemann and felt that his followers misinterpreted those doctrines. So, when Dr. Pareshnath followed the very scientific deeper senses of Hahnemann by mixing two remedies or arriving at some fixed treatments or by using frequent repetition of remedies, his such developments were wrongly understood by many Homoeopaths, even by some of his followers, who were not able to understand him, and thought this to be a deviation from the doctrines of Hahnemann. Which was not a fact, could be understood from my presentations on combinations, etc., in later pages of this book. So the methods of Dr. Pareshnath was completely classical and fully Hahnemannian. What else could be classical.

This has not changed in the meantime - still people on the "classical" lists and forums tend to ignore any reference to Banerji, now Parimal Banerji, who joined his father in the clinics and later succeeded him. He kept up the work and extended it, by methodical research and experimenting using the principles mentioned above, and by finding theoretical explanations and justification.

The theoretical explanations led to further experiments and confirmation, those again to further theoretical models and again experiments and confirmation - in a manner that is as scientific in the original sense of the word as working with living organisms can ever be.

In order to understand P.B.'s Materia Medica and to be able to use it in an intelligent manner, it is necessary to understand his theory and the basis for his theory. This will also show why Banerji considers his Method Hahnemannian and thus classical. The latter is very important to him.

So in the following paragraphs I will try and show - imperfectly of course, because my own understanding is necessarily limited, but also because of the necessary, though relative, brevity - Banerji's basic considerations and assumptions.

The unicellular animals have their own independent ways of living. But when many such units of single cells are found to be composed in one simple multicellular body [...] then they are found to be unitedly working there. We find that such individual units of cells are mostly not fully independent but interdependent to each other and work conjointly in that simple multicellular body. In addition to that, such individual units of cells have their own independent functions *inside each of them.

This is a very important concept inside the theory - as trite as it may seem to be. P.B. traces this through evolution and comes to the conclusion that in the higher developed animals

all the individual structures or organs inside [the] body are almost or exactly similar to the entire structures of many animals of much lower varieties as if captivated and fitted inside it. [...] [and] the minimum living units are the individual cells that are like the unicellular animals, and that constitute the structure of the living creatures. Anatomically these cells are the basic living constituents of all living creatures of the world and are the minimum units of life in them.

Here in such a complicated or developed body of an animal we find that unlike the components of the simple multicellular body or animal, the cells and organs are mostly independent. Each organ has got its own independent sphere of working. There are also some free cells in this type of bodies like the leucocytes, erythrocytes, etc., where such cells are independently working like the unicellular animals work.

P. B. asserts that in the human body the organs have a certain independence of their own as have the individual cells - on the other hand those organs and cells are also interdependent. This interdependence is more pronounced for some organs (and cells), less pronounced for others. They also have a certain intelligence of their own, they are capable of intelligent activities and can coordinate them with each other.

Because of their independence, sometimes an organ can get sick and not influence any other organ. Because of their interdependence, this is rare, however. In most cases a disturbance in one organ will also disturbe others -to varying degrees, since the interdependence of organ X to organ Y may be more pronounced than that of organ X to organ Z.

P.B. further asserts that these organs can "think" and gives as an example e.g. the fact that the skin of the soles of feet and palm of hands gets thickened from walking barefoot resp. working with the hands, i.e. the skin on the soles has realized that there is more wear and tear on them and makes provisions for that fact. Another very important example he gives is that of fever as a measure to fight infection. And:

Such patterns of decisive thinking have been found to be present in various ways in all the units of the human body. As we see that all the units have got their independent working as well as joint working, similarly they have independent thinking as well as conjoined thinking.


The next is a statement that is extremely relevant to P.B's theory:

On the basis of my observations the physical and mental spheres of action are not separable..

And when he says:

the various organs and units of our body form an integrated wholeness. Here, the external influences, when affecting a part or an organ of the body, create a disturbance in the harmony of all of them

this integration comprises the mind and body as a unit, not only integrated but interwoven. A primary disturbance of an organ may thus show symptoms on the level of this organ and/or on the level of other organs and/or on the level of mind. On the other hand, a primary disturbance of mind may show symptoms on the level of some organ or of several organs. But then again a disturbance/disease may show in only some organs and it may not show at all in the "mind" - as we generally conceive of it, i.e. in the mind of the entire person as contrasted to the "mind" of the organ(s) affected by the disturbance.


each of the mentioned effects works both in the physical and mental planes of activity of a particular part affected, and not in the whole of the man,though there is an integrated wholeness in the man.
[The organs] suffer from diseases separately to cause separate kinds of sickness in the man showing chief characteristic symptoms according to the parts and organs affected.

each such unit or organ has a certain definite role or influence on the mind of the man and in its activities


Therefore, it is further concluded that each unit or organ of the body has got its own activity in a plane, which includes its physical and mental activities. Whenever such a unit is affected by a disease, its dysfunction produces the physical symptoms as well as the mental symptoms of the disease in the man disturbing the functioning of the brain which is related to the share of participation by the organ so affected. Therefore the symptoms, both mental and physical, work in a dynamic plane as a result of the disease which affects a particular part of the human organism.

There may be a lot of different categories of symptoms in a disease which are in the same Physico-Mental Dynamic Plane (PMDP) of activity. In climacteric ailments a woman may develop hot flushes, irregularity of menses, mental restlessness, insomnia, irritability of mind, rheumatic pains, nervousness, etc., etc., but all these symptoms are in the same PMDP.

In each individual disease-effect, the influence which causes the disease, affects a particular organ from the whole group of organs which is most appropriate to or adapted for it. [...]the chief characteristic symptoms, both mental and physical, will be of the manifestation of the disease in relation to the organ primarily or chiefly affected by it. The primarily affected organ will have its full range of physical and mental symptoms developed in its own Physico-Mental Dynamic Plane (PMDP). The organs which are most dependent on this first affected organ will get sick or diseased next to it gradually, producing their own range of symptoms in addition to the symptoms of the first affected organ.

This, in a nutshell, is P. B's very basic concept, from which a lot of things can be derived - both for further theory and for practical work.

When a therapist is analysing a case, he obviously - at least as a general principle (we shall see that there are exceptions) - will take into account symptoms of body and mind. But he will only take into consideration symptoms of illness (not of the "entire man"), then group together those that are in the same PMDP. Curing the illness of that PMDP, in most cases no further treatment will be necessary, since it was the disturbance in the primary PMDP that had made the others sick. The symptoms of some PMDP that was secondarily affected are of minor importance and can as a rule be ignored.

This shows that his is not an easy method, as some may think when they look at Banerji's Materia Medica without knowing the theory behind it. It takes a lot of knowledge to identify in a given case the symptoms of the primary PMDP from the mass of symptoms present. It also involves indentifying symptoms of illness and separating them from that which is healthy.

This is even more so, since not only the primary symptoms of one disturbance have to be recognized - it is quite common to have 2 or more more more PMDP's primarily disturbed at the same time. The symptoms of disturbed PMDP X have to be separated from the symptoms of disturbed PMDP Y, since by P.B's theory the a specific remedy at a specific potency is the similimum for a specific grouping of symptoms in a specific PMDP.

Thus identifying the symptoms of illness and separating them from the signs of health is not enough, as it may be in other methods inside classical homeopathy, since if we use the totality of the symptoms of illness we shall come up with remedies that are only partly fitting the goal they are directed at - i.e. the primarily affected PMDP.

This may seem illogical on first reading - after all, if we have *all* the symptoms, they will also cover the symptoms of the specific PMDP. But on giving it some thought we should find out that this is not so. We hardly ever have a remedy that fits *all* the symptoms of illness of a patient, never mind the symptoms of the *whole person*. One way or other we - or the software - figure out which of the remedies fits most of the sx, taking into consideration the weighting. Even if this should be done perfectly, the remedy selected that way may - and quite likely will - miss those symptoms or partly miss those symptoms that are required for a perfect or even good fit of the primarily disturbed PMDP.

So to summarize the way one selects the remedy by the P.B.-method: One takes the case, identifies the symptoms of illness, identifies from them the PMDP of the primary disturbance, from this knowledge one identifies the symptoms that are relevant for this disturbance and on the base of those symptoms one then selects the remedy.

This may be a good time to consider Banerji's claim that his method is Hahnemannian (and thus by definition classical) or, where this cannot be claimed, in the true spirit of Hahnemann. This is obviously very important to P. B. and we should respect it by open-mindedly regarding his arguments.

It is relevant to know the attitude of P. B. to Hahnemann. He calls him a "saint" - refers to him as "Saint Hahnemann" several times. This is obviously the tranlation into English of the Indian "Shri" or even "Maharishi", and those expressions denote utmost respect and reverence. On the other hand it seems that in India persons so highly regarded have never been exempted from criticism. One only has to read "The Sayings of Ramakrishna" to find an account of how the latter Swami Vivekananda criticised Shri Ramakrishna when he was still a young man and Ramakrisha already a much revered saint. No-one in the group around Ramakrisha, least of all Ramakrishna himself, seems to have considered that preposterous. Similarly, Arjuna even criticized Shri Krishna. I am belaboring this, since a lot of homeopaths think it preposterous that Hughes criticized Hahnemann.

Thus there is no contradiction between Banerji's reverence for Hahnemann and the fact that he roundly criticised him, e.g. for the way H. had taken symptoms into his Materiae Medicae. He follows Hughes on this and quite extensively quotes him.

Yet he says that H. could not have done more than he did in one lifetime - it was important that a MM should be built and, with all the other research and work H. did at the same time, there was just no way for him to do things differently. It would have been up to the people who followed him during the next years, decades and century to continue the work in the true spirit of Hahnemann, and Banerji asserts that they failed to do so.

Homoeopathic practitioners are busy with their patients, while the theoreticians among the Homoeopaths write volumes on theories only. Nobody does any meaningful research.

And for this reason

[while]However, one can argue, that the, old method of Homoeopathy can claim to have on record successes-in a good number of very important cases. [...]Sure enough there was a method of drug selection and there were good cures too. [...] Every case was considered as a new one because as per their theory every individual case was different. And so the value of experience in treating a patient did never increase and was never utilised for the next patient. This was the defect of their approach.

But this was not the case with only one man who was an exception. He was Hahnemann alone who ceaselessly studied action and the symptomatology of cases repeatedly and progressively widened his knowledge about diseases. Furthermore, he was able to locate the handicaps and drawbacks of his science, but unfortunately could not remove them during his life-time..

Thus, Banerji feels that, by doing this extensive research, he is working in the spirit of Hahnemann, and when he finds out things that are different from what Hahnemann has found himself, the reason for this is that Hahnemann would have found them by his genius and his research and experimentation, but - having only one lifetime at his disposal - just "had not got around to it". However, a substantial part of his findings he finds confirmed by aphorisms of the Organon, e.g.

In each individual disease-effect, the influence which causes the disease affects a particular organ from the whole group of organs which is most appropriate to or adapted for it. It is very interesting that Dr. Samuel Hahnemann also observed some similar facts and he mentions in his Aphorism 40 each disease "occupies a particular locality in the organism, namely, the organs peculiarly adapted for it." In Aphorism 42 he writes each takes possession of the parts and systems peculiarly appropriate to it. He also mentioned in his Aphorism 189 "It could not make its appearance at all without the consent of the whole of the rest of the health meaning that other parts of the body which are not affected by the influence are in co-operation with the affected part which can be affected alone in a disease.

It has been observed by me from a huge number of cases of the same disease that different patients produce different sets of symptoms. This fact also did not escape the attention of Hahnemann who recognised it to be due to the peculiarities of individual constitution of man. So he could not accept the pathological diagnostic names of diseases, when under one such name, the patients varied in the exhibition of symptoms among themselves. But he did not work any further into the matter.

To-day's homeoathy he considers too much influenced by Kent, who in P. B.'s opinion misunderstood or misrepresented Hahnemann:

The concept of "Whole Man" as developed by Kent, in the U.S.A. during the nineteenth century from the ideas of Hahnemann needs full reconsideration and reorientation or even total rejection if conscience demands.

according to Kent, every person is having absolutely unique constitution of his own which is not to be found in any other man, and so every individual on earth will produce his own symptoms not similar to any other man's. (Vide his explanations on Aphorism 118 of Hahnemann's Organon of Medicine.).


And there we come to the second key concept of P. B.'s theory: Groups of Constitution - TheParimal Banerji Effect (PBE)

Banerji has found in his research on thousands of patients hat, while the disturbances/diseases may show up in manyfold patterns, the number of patterns is limited. In most cases e.g. a common cold will manifest in one of only 4 symptom groups: some people would get symptom group 1, some group 2 etc. So four "constitutional groups" could be identified (for a common cold - not generally), according to the symptom group they exhibited. In "constitutional group" A would be patients A1, A2, A3 .., exhibiting the same pattern, in constitutional group B would be patients B1, B2, B3... exhibiting the same pattern among themselves, but this pattern would be different from that of group A. The same holds for const. groups C and D.

This same Banerji considers to be true for the provings:

Another fact very importantly observed by me is, that the very composite symptoms that can be found in one person is common or similar to be found in both the influences, that is under a disease and under a drug.

The fact that one disease or drug influence produces a definite particular group or composition of symptoms on a particular type of constitution of a man is known as "Parimal Effect".

There would in a specific disturbance/disease a specific remedy at a specific potency be the simillimum for each of these groups - the same remedy for all the persons in the same group.

A different disturbance/disease would again have a limited number of constitutional groups, and again the same would apply.

However, in the subgroups of some other disease there would not be the same combination of patients as in the subgoups of the common cold, i.e. patient A1 might find himself together now with patients B1, B2, C2, D4 in the same constitutional group sharing the same symptoms, another group may just consist of patient A3, yet another one of patients B3, D1, D2 etc. This would generally be true for all diseases/disturbances.

That means that every person is composed of many constitutional groups, the combination of those is specific to the person. Each group is probably tied to one of their PMDP's. I do not know whether Banerji has said anywhere whether these constituional groups are potential or dynamic, i.e. "Will a specific person always come down with the same symptoms with the same disturbance/disease or is it possible/probable that he will be in one group at one instance, in a different one at other times".

Each of those constitutional groups has a specific remedy at a specific potency as the simillimum. Thus, while the number of possible permutations is still very great, it is not as horrendous as in the Kentian model, of which Banerji says:

if we are to accept the theory of Kent, then every one of these patients should have required completely different drugs than the other according to his constitution, which is absurd to be thought of, because our drug resources are limited

So we can now extend the description of how to find the fitting drug:

One takes the case, identifies the symptoms of illness, identifies from them the PMDP of the primary disturbance, from this knowledge one identifies the symptoms that are relevant for this disturbance. They should come in a certain combination representing the specific constitutional group of this patient for this disturbance/disease. One compares this combination with the list of such combinations that make up Banerji's Materia Medica and should find the combination in a certain remedy at a certain potency. This then would be the simillimum for this case.


As conclusion there is below a sample from Banerji's MM.

First, however, let us have a look at an example of a of the constitutional groups and their remedies.

Those examples have very long MM. Therefore I have chosen a "smaller" remedy for a sample from Baneri's MM.

As a practical example, we may find, that in a disease like, cold, we may observe, that Rama, Hari, Gopal and Rabin produced symptoms of coryza, nose running, sneezing, etc. of Arsenic 6, who are in Group "A". Then Parimal, John and Nita produced symptoms of nose blocking, sneezing, wheezing, etc., of Ammon. carb. 200, who are in group "B", under the same cold. In another disease asthma, Rama and Parimal may produce dyspnoea, cough, CHEST pain, etc., of Bryonia 30 and are put under group "A" of the asthma, whereas in the same asthma only Nita and Gopal produced dyspnoea, wheezing, nose running and blocking of Ammon. carb. 200 in the Group "B", and John, Rabin and Hari may be with another pattern of symptoms in Group "C" of asthma.

Cold			Asthma
Group A	Group B	Group A	Group B	Group C
Rama	Parimal	Rama	Nita	John
Hari	John	Parimal	Gopal	Rabin
Gopal	Nita			Hari
Rabin