Can you please explain as briefly as you can, but intelligbly to a lay person like me, how two medicines can be both antidotal and complementary to each other.

jumma

Dear Mr. DSouza,

I will be explaining this in very brief as desired by you. When we need to antidote a medicine, we have to basically prescribe for an artificial disease state created by a medicine. The best antidote is worked out on the law of similia. The medicine A which produces symptoms similar to medicine B (which we need to antidote) will work as the best antidote. It is easier to understand this if instead of saying that we are antidoting a medicine, we say we are treating an artificially created disease.

Similarly, when we require a medicine C to complement the effect of medicine B, we again need a medicine that works in similar sphere and has similar symptomatolgy. Complementary medicines are required when a particular medicine is not able to bring about complete cure or when the presenting state of the patient changes during treatment. But since we are treating the same person, a similar medicine C would be required to complete the action of B.

So we use a corollary here.

A has to be similar to B.
C has to be similar to B.
So A will be similar to C too.

And often the similarity is so much that we end up getting A=C!

Best Wishes,
Dr. B