Homeopathic remedies come from every part of the world and from all the kingdoms of nature – mineral, vegetable, animal and microbe. They include strong poisons such as arsenic, the venom of deadly snakes and the products of disease, as well as harmless substances like sand and charcoal, and herbs whose healing properties have been handed down through generations and are celebrated in history and legend.
Dr Douglas Gibson (1888–1977) was a distinguished homeopath who recognised the importance of knowing the materia medica in depth. These studies of remedies, first published in the British Homeopathic Journal over the period 1963–1977, combine the panorama of each remedy with a faithful description of the mental and physical symptoms it elicits from a sensitive prover. The whole remedy is indeed used to treat the whole patient.
His studies are edited here for publication in book form. They differ from any previously published materia medica in the uniquely wide range of insights that are brought to bear on each remedy. They will be of great practical value, and a source of pleasure and stimulation, to the homeopathic clinician.

Dr Gibson studied medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, subsequently taking the Edinburgh FRCS. After many years as a medical missionary in China he came to study homeopathy at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, where he became first a Member and then a Fellow of the Faculty of Homeopathy. This book was edited by the late Dr Marianne Harling, and by Dr Brian Kaplan, both practising homeopathic physicians.