The miasm questionnaire
Practitioners searching "miasm questionnaire" are looking for a structured intake instrument that maps a case onto Hahnemann's chronic-miasm framework — psora, sycotic, syphilitic — and the later additions (tubercular, cancer) introduced by Allen, Foubister, and the sensation-method authors. No such stand-alone form exists, and none should: miasm is a derived judgement, not a discrete questionnaire. It is read off the totality of symptoms, weighted by the miasmatic affinity of the remedies the case has elicited.
What miasm assessment actually is
Hahnemann's Die chronischen Krankheiten (1828) names psora as the chronic miasm underlying most non-venereal chronic disease, with sycotic and syphilitic as the secondary chronic taints. Kent and Hering preserved that three-miasm model. Allen extended it with the tubercular miasm, and Foubister proposed cancer as a fifth in the mid-twentieth century. Sankaran's sensation-method literature reframes miasm as a spectrum from acute through malarial to cancer, with seven or more bands depending on the essay. A literal questionnaire — a fixed item list the patient answers — appears in none of the canonical sources. The miasm read is inferred from the case as a whole and audited against the miasmatic character of the top remedies.
| Approach | Where the miasm read comes from | Practitioner inputs |
|---|---|---|
| Classical (Hahnemann, Kent) | Synthesised from case history and remedy choice | Full repertorisation, materia medica recall |
| Sensation method (Sankaran) | Patient's spontaneous language placed on the miasm spectrum | Structured interview, vital-sensation tracking |
| Software-derived | Computed from miasmatic affinity of top repertorisation remedies | Rubrics already entered in the analysis |
How the Similia miasm panel works
Similia's miasm analysis sits inside the repertorisation view, not on a separate intake screen. It evaluates the miasmatic tendency of the case using the top remedies returned by the analysis, across five miasms — psora, sycotic, syphilitic, tubercular, cancer. Each remedy carries a miasm-affinity grade from 0 to 3, cross-referenced against Kent, Murphy, Complete, and Saine rubrics and combined with the literature of Hahnemann, Allen, Banerjea, Sankaran, and Foubister. Higher-ranked remedies and stronger affinity grades weight the final read, and the panel surfaces the top contributing remedies per miasm so the inference is auditable rather than opaque. The miasm panel is part of the core analysis surface; deeper repertory coverage (Murphy's MetaRepertory, Complete Repertory 2026, Saine Repertory 2025) sits behind the Pro edition.
The practical implication: when a remedy choice and a miasm read disagree, the disagreement is the diagnostic event. Either the rubric selection is too thin to express the case, or the remedy is acting on a layer above the chronic miasm and a deeper prescription is still pending. The panel is most useful read this way — as a check on the totality, not as a verdict to be accepted on its own.
For the long-form treatment see miasm theory in homeopathic-software contexts; a structured intake companion lives in the case-taking template. Practitioners who want to test a case against the live panel can run a repertorisation in Similia and inspect the miasm tab directly.
References
Hahnemann, S. (1828) Die chronischen Krankheiten, ihre eigenthümliche Natur und homöopathische Heilung, Arnold, Dresden and Leipzig; English editions by Tafel (1896) and Hempel (1845).
Kent, J.T. (1900) Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy, Lancaster.
Allen, J.H. (1908) The Chronic Miasms: Psora, Pseudo-Psora and Syphilis, Chicago.
Foubister, D.M. (1955) "The Carcinosin Drug Picture", British Homoeopathic Journal.
Sankaran, R. (1998–2010) The Soul of Remedies, The Substance of Homoeopathy, The Sensation in Homoeopathy, An Insight into Plants, Homoeopathic Medical Publishers, Mumbai.
Banerjea, S.K. (2003) Miasmatic Prescribing, B. Jain, New Delhi.