Eternal learner of scientific homoeopathy

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Dr. Kershasp N. Kasad (1927-2022)

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Although inevitable, certain facts are so very difficult to accept and digest. Dr. Kershasp N. Kasad’s demise is an irreparable loss to the science of homoeopathy.

It was somewhere in 1987 that Dr. B. E. Patell joined as the Principal of CMP Homoeopathic Medical College, Mumbai. Along with him, he got his dear friend Dr. K. N. Kasad, as visiting faculty. Kasad sir started teaching us Organon of Medicine, his favourite topic of miasms.

The concept of travel of disease, pathogenesis, function, and structure was first introduced by him to us in the 3^rd BHMS class.

The soft-spoken, humble, ever-smiling, eager-to-learn person, soon became easily approachable and connected well with everyone. His cancer OPD started getting crowded with patients and students. He started making Homoeopathic Philosophy concepts easy for classroom lectures, which have remained ingrained in me in all these years of my clinical practice.

I was fortunate to be in close association with him once again, during my internship period. After finishing my hospital duty, I used to go to his Byculla Clinic, opposite Fire Brigade, as an observer. I came to know him more closely during this time. He was a perfect friend, philosopher, and guide to his patients and his students. He lived by the mission, specified by Dr. Hahnemann in Organon of Medicine. He tried his best to cure the sick and restore the imbalance. His unique way of case taking, recording the case directly on an A3 size essential evolutionary totality (EET) paper, was something to ponder. That EET, he used to create himself perfectly and neatly, with the help of 2–3 colour pens and a scale. He made the patients comfortable, used to go up to the reception room to call the patient and get him along the corridor, all by himself. Even Grade III and IV cancer patients, who received chemotherapy, were operated on, disfigured and disheartened, all connected wonderfully with him. His compassion toward them always reached across, through his expressive eyes, sweet smile, soft words, and warm handshake with them. The assurance he gave, always struck the right chord! His gesture of holding patients’ hand must have been so curative and soothing!

The perfect empathetic locations he took while receiving cases made patients open their life stories to him. What was impressive, was his grasp of the patient’s attributes, and his ability to analyse and synthesise the data, directly on EET paper. He connected physical illnesses on a timeline, to mind symptoms, and also to miasms on EET paper itself.

In the end, at the bottom of the page in one corner, he would write conclusions about constitutional medicine with reasons, most closely coming differential remedies, the likely acute medicines, the patient may need, and the intercurrent remedy that may be needed. He always did this after doing proper references in Repertory and Materia Medica books. Boenninghausen’s Therapeutic Pocket Book (BTPB) was used by him very often. Kent’s Repertory and BTPB were always found on his table for reference. Now when I process the entire case on SCR system, I realise how much the system and the discipline, were deeply carved in his mind and imbibed in his blood and soul. He was gifted with a sharp intellect and had a brilliant recall of rubrics and remedies in them.

What caught my fancy in those days was his interleaved copy of Kent Repertory, where he would note down his extra references of various rubrics. He had added many more remedies in almost all rubrics, across all the chapters in Kent’s Repertory, which he had found in other reference books and his clinical practice. He used to write them in that rubric, with respective marking and the name of the source in the bracket. He had offered me and my colleague and friend Dr. Zenobia, to copy all his extra referencing in our copy of Kent repertory. We started that process, but could not entirely complete the task, sadly. His enthusiasm and learning spirit and zeal to act were unparalleled. It was just impossible to compete with a voracious learner resident in him. His energy and enthusiasm levels compared to ours were many folds more.

He cared for us and loved us, never treated us as students. Took us along to have tea in the evening at a small tea shop outside his building. We walked through the long corridor, from his clinic entrance to the gate of the building with him.

His contribution to our science in the form of chapters written by him in symposium volumes, and the book on Iscador therapy, based on his vast experience of treating cancer patients will be cherished by generations of homoeopaths. He was a great homoeopath, his primary training was in modern medicine, but he mastered the homoeopathic concepts and created a body of work for which the profession will always remain indebted. He was a soft, gentle, genuinely humble, warm, kind, down-to-earth human being. His values and dignity made him much taller, than his natural height and he would always stand apart in the crowd because of his values. He was a great teacher who simplified the toughest aspects of philosophy, a hard-core theosophist, who never missed meetings of the Theosophy Society at Blavatsky Lodge, near French Bridge, Mumbai.

He always expressed the desire, to be born a homoeopath, in several births of his life cycle. I sincerely pray to the almighty to fulfill his wish, because students of homoeopathy and the science of homoeopathy will need him forever.