| Remedies are presumably given for reasons that seem
sufficient to the prescriber;
yet if we examine all the kinds and sorts of prescriptions, even
those made by men
guided solely by a more or less charted natural law, we are soon
convinced of the
preponderant influence of the personal equation.
While the use of a good repertory tends to limit this bias, yet
the power of
penetrating behind the scenes and viewing the mighty movement of
the corporeal vital
forces, is not equal in us any more than is the faculty of correctly
discerning symptom
values.
Vast difficulties confront the best of prescribers. For them the
getting of an
accurate and complete record of everything, big and little, pertaining
to the patient is
perhaps the major task. Certainly a shrewd cross questioner has
a great advantage. The
man who is able to draw out the reticent, guide the loquacious,
and finally get the fads
minus the opinions of his patients and perhaps hold in check his
own—is certainly to
be envied. I venture to think that no novice can do this well. Its
final accomplishment
means years of patient toil, if done alone, and a most thorough
drill if learned at
school.
The true symptom image once obtained, calls for the accurate fitting
to it of the
nearest similar remedy. Obviously there are various degrees of similarity
and were the
similimum the prerequisite to any degree of success at all, many
subscribers would
soon be in a sorry plight. A crude similarity may be all the aid
nature needs to help
throw off some present encumbrance. The use of remedies that only
palliate, remove
or suppress single symptoms or parts of disease is seldom for the
best. The drug whose
effects most perfectly resemble the salient features of the case
in hand is the only one
capable of touching the hidden springs of action which release the
power so necessary
for fully harmonising the conversion and expenditure of vital energy.
The reaction brought about may be of any degree from mild to very
intense,
depending upon a number of factors. In acute diseases it is often
gentle while in
chronic cases it is just as often rather marked, coming on very
commonly from the
fourth to the seventh day. The gentle, but right touch does for
the patient all that is
humanly possible, so we should inform ourselves most fully in order
to make no
misstep in applying the nearest to the similimum possible under
the circumstances.
We all know that the application of a somewhat similar remedy,
if given in a single
dose, tends to bring into bolder relief the true characteristics
of the case. If however it
be repeated too often certain symptoms only will be shorn off, leaving
but a distorted
and misleading picture for the prescriber, who will then be apt
to fail unless he
possesses the penetration to include the former as well as the latter
characteristics in
the symptom complex.
This all inclusiveness is the key to many a difficult case, only
the examiner must
have the acumen to be able to see the red strand of individualistic
indication which
runs through the life history of most patients from the cradle to
the grave; he will not
expect to get anything but a fragment of it from any one sickness
or any one particular
period of life.
This view of the matter places our homoeopathic prescribing on
quite a different
basis from that heretofore generally held as well as marks off a
sharp line of
distinction between Homoeopathy as she is practised and the truly
eradicative
treatment of our Hahnemannians.
DISCUSSION:
Dr. Boger: A few minutes ago while listening
to the discussion here I noticed that
no one had said anything about the fact that Dr. Hering noticed
very soon after the
provings made with potencies up to the M that the symptoms which
appeared at the
longest intervals after the dose were the symptoms which had the
greatest value for
prescribing the indicated remedy. We ought to remember that. That
does away with a
whole lot of pathological prescribing.
Dr. Starcke: The skeptics are the very ones to
discredit it because of the long time
between the administration of the dose.
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