From Generals to Particulars.
Why do we work from generals to particulars?
If a case is worked out merely from particulars it is more than
probable that the remedy will not be seen and
frequent failure will result. This is due to the fact that the particular
directions in which the remedies in the
general rubric tend have not been observed, and thus to depend upon
a small group of remedies relating to
some particular symptom is to shut out the other remedies which
may have that symptom, although not yet
observed. By working the other way, from the generals to the particulars,
the general rubric will include
all the remedies that are related to the symptom.
Before the physician can make any suitable homoeopathic prescription
we must take our case properly; this is
true if we use a repertory or not, but is of the greatest importance
if the repertory is to be used. Hahnemann gives clear and concise
instructions for the taking of the case in the Organon, sections
83-104.
Write out all the mental symptoms and all the symptoms and conditions
pertaining to the patient himself,
and search the repertory for the symptoms that correspond to these.
Then individualize the case still farther
by using the particular symptoms relating to the organs, sensations
and functions, always giving an
important place to the time of occurrence of every symptom. In this
way we will before us an
individualized symptom-picture, not of the disease we wish to treat,
but of the diseased patient we desire to
cure.
Individualization of the symptom-picture and knowing which symptoms
to give the most attention form the
hardest part of the prescriber’s armamentarium to acquire;
and this process of logic, reasoning or
whatever you may call it can only be obtained by study and application.
The homoeopathic physician must use discrimination, must individualize
things dissimilar in one thing and yet similar in other ways. This
is
done by the generals, for without generals of a case, no man can
practice Homoeopathy; without these he will not be able to individualize
and see distinctions. After gathering all the particulars of the
case
one strong general rules out one remedy and rules in another. If
you
know your materia medica you will at once see how to get the generals
and this will enable you to distinguish the remedy best adapted
to the
constitution when two or more remedies have one symptom in an equal
degree. Then again, a patient may bring out particular symptoms
so
strange that they have never been observed in the remedy, but if
the drug covers the generals, it will not
only relieve those special symptoms, but cure your case.
Remember this great truth, that the totality of the symptoms as
represented in the symptom picture of the
prescriber will be an entirely different picture from that made
by the surgeon, diagnostician or pathologist.
No man who can only understand the morbid anatomy and pathognomonic
symptom can make a
homoeopathic prescription. It is from this difference as to interpretation
of the symptoms by the different
specialists that the reporting of cases cured by the prescriber
causes so much dissatisfaction. They want to
know the exact pathological condition of each organ that produced
the symptoms which were removed by the
remedy; but the disease itself is only of benefit to the prescriber
in helping him to select his grades of symptoms.
After we have our individualized symptom picture before us, we
are ready to prepare the picture for repertory
analysis. In order to analyze our case with rapidity we must go
about it logically; we must have a starting
place and a place to end. The start is made with the generals, and
the particulars end it.
About the value of symptoms. Looking to Kent we find that he uses
three classes - generals, particulars and
common, and in his repertory he divides each into three grades -
first, second, and third. The generals and
particulars, you must remember, have the greatest importance in
our prescription.
Let us stop a moment and see what explanation he gives of these
classifications. Looking to his Lectures on Homoeopathic
Philosophy we find that as generals he includes all things that
are predicated for the patient himself. Things that
modify all parts of the organism are those that relate to the general
state; the more thy relate to internals that involve
the whole man, the more they become general. Many common symptoms
may run into generals and particulars.
Things that relate to the ego are always general. The patient says,
Doctor, I am so thirsty; I burn so; I am so cold, etc.; the things
he
says he feels are always general. His desires and aversions are
general;
menstruation is general, for when a woman says I feel so and so
during
menses she has no reference to her uterus or ovaries; her state,
as a
whole, is different when she is menstruating. (Homoeopathic
Philosophy, p 242.).
The general symptom as such are often not expressed by the patient
or are not always to be recognized as first to
be so; but on examining a group or series of particular organs we
find a certain modality or feature which runs
so strongly through them that it may express the patient himself.
Here we have a general composed of a series
of particulars. This most often happens under character of pains,
as cramping, burning etc., or in conditions
associated with pains as heaviness, numbness, etc. Here a symptom
may be raised from a particular or even a
common to a common general.
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