“For the provings of medicines on healthy individuals, dilutions and dynamizations are to be employed as high as are used for the treatment of disease”…. (M.M.P., vol. i. p. 20.) Dynamized doses get in
“The very small doses” (of homoeopathy) “produce the uncommon effects they do, just because they are not so large as to render it necessary for the organism to get rid of them by the revolutionary process of evacuations.” (M.M.P., vol. i, p. 3.)
“Some symptoms are frequently produced in many healthy persons who try them, others are produced in but a few, others again are extremely rare.” (Org., p. 124.)
“Drugs should be tried only upon healthy, but sensitive and susceptible persons.” (Org., p. 126.)
“A materia medica.. should exclude every supposition, every mere assertion and fiction. Its entire contents should be the pure language of Nature, uttered in response to careful and faithful inquiry.” (Org., p. 134.) The ideal
“The physician’s highest and only calling is to restore health to the sick, which is called healing.” (Org., p. 65.)
“The highest aim of healing is the speedy, gentle, and permanent restitution of health, or alleviation and obliteration of disease in its entire extent, in the shortest, most reliable, and safest manner, according to clearly intelligible reasons.” (Org., p. 65. )
Symptoms
“The physician observes deviations from the previous healthy condition of the patient, felt by him, recognized upon him by his attendants, and observed upon him by the physician. All of these observable signs together represent the disease in its full extent…” (Org., p. 66.)
“In a disease presenting no manifest exciting or maintaining cause, for removal, nothing is to be discerned but symptoms. These alone (with due regard to the possible existence of some miasm…) must constitute the medium through which the disease demands and points out its curative agent. Hence the totality of the symptoms…must be the chief or only means of the disease to make known the remedy necessary for its cure…” (Org., p. 67.)
“… the least remains of a germ may eventually reproduce the full disease.” (Chr. Dis., p. 172.)
Totality of the symptoms
“Besides the totality of symptoms, it is impossible to discover any other manifestation by which diseases could express their need of relief.” (Org., p. 70.)
“Distinct, sensible manifestations of disease, plainly appealing to us through symptoms, are contemptuously rejected as unworthy objects of cure. Does a cure remove anything besides these?” (Org. p. 188.)
“When a physician has succeeded in entirely removing all the symptoms, he will certainly have cancelled the internal and obscure cause of disease.” (ORg. p. 188.)
Taking the case In taking a case, “Write down everything in precisely the same expressions used by the patient and his attendants.” (Org., p.112.) (This has saved homoeopathy. If provings and materia medica had been done in the language of the medical science of Hahnemann’s day, homoeopathy would have died out half a century ago. But the simple language of Nature stands for all time.)
Never ask a question that the patient can answer by `yes’ or `no.” (Org. p. 113.)
Observe and discount the “temperament of your patient…” “Some,” he says, “particularly hypochondriacs, and other sensitive and intolerant persons, are apt to represent their complaints in too strong a light….hoping thereby to induce the physician to redouble his efforts. (Org., p. 116.)
But the shy, the modest, or timid and bashful will state their case in obscure terms; or may consider many of their symptoms too insignificant to mention. (Org., p.116.)
Working out a case
“…… We merely require to jot down when after each symptom all the medicines which can produce such a symptom with tolerable accuracy… and also to bear in mind the circumstances under which they occur, that have a determining influence on our choice (modalities) and proceed in the same way with all the other symptoms, noting by what medicine each is excited. From the list so prepared we shall be able to perceive which among the medicines covers most of the symptoms present, especially the most peculiar and characteristic ones…. and this is the remedy sought for.” (M.M.P., vol.i, p. 23.)
” Homoeopathy is absolutely inconceivable without the most precise individualization.” (Org., p.47.) Grading of symptoms
” The state of the patient’s mind and temperament is often of most decisive importance in the homoeopathic selection that should least of all escape the accurate observation of the physician.” (Org.p. 158.)
” One of the chief symptoms in disease is the state of the disposition.” (M.M.P., vol.i, p.21)
” Particular attention should be paid to the symptoms of the disposition, so that they should be very similar.” (M.M.P.M., vol. i, p, 26.)
“….each medicinal substance affects the mind in a different manner.” (Org., p. 158.)
Regarding the grading of symptoms, Hahnemann says: “The more prominent, uncommon, and peculiar characteristic features of the case are especially, and almost exclusively, considered and noted; for these in particular should bear the closest similitude to the symptoms of the desired medicine, if that is to accomplish the cure.
“The more general and indefinite symptoms, want of appetite, headache, weakness, restless sleep, distress,, unless more clearly defined, deserve but little notice on account of their vagueness, and because generalities of this kind are common to every disease and to almost every drug.” (Kent’s Common Symptoms) (Org., p. 137.)
He says that where disease and remedy present “prominent, uncommon, and characteristic symptoms, a disease of recent date will be usually cancelled and extinguished without additional discomfort, by the first dose of the remedy.” (Org., p. 138.)
“A true physician will know how to avoid the habit of considering certain remedies as favourites, merely because he happened to find them frequently adapted to diseases, and followed by favourable results…” (Org., p. 175.)
The single drug
“He will remember that of all medicines that one only deserve attention and preference which bears accurate similitude to the totality of the characteristic symptoms of the case; and that paltry prejudices should never be allowed to interfere with the serious deliberation demanded by the choice of a remedy.” (Ibid.)
Administration of remedy
“The best time for taking an antipsoric remedy is in the morning before breakfast.
“The powder may be taken dry upon the tongue (in this case the medicine acts less powerfully) and it is kept upon the tongue until dissolved. Or else it may be mixed with two or three drops of water, and taken in this fashion.
“The patient should wait an hour or at least half an hour before eating or drinking anything.” (Chr. Dis., p. 174.) To increase the effect of the remedy
“To increase the effect of a remedy it may be dissolved in a larger quantity of water…” and he suggests it should be in some cases given in divided dose: stirring up again, to increase the potency. (Chr. Dis., p. 174.) one considers this matter, of dissolving the remedy in a larger, quantity of water, it amounts to this that the patient receives with every dose, a couple of drachms, or whatever it may be, of the remedy in a slightly raised potency, instead of the amount that coats a few pellets. In acute cases especially, where rapid action is desired, most experienced physicians follow Hahnemann’s method, and dissolve the remedy in a few ounces of water, for several doses. Repetition in acute disease.
“In acute diseases the remedies may be repeated at much shorter intervals; for instance, twenty-four, twelve, eight or four hours, and in the most acute diseases at intervals varying from an hour to five minutes.” (Org., p. 172.)
“In acute diseases the time for the repetition of the proper remedy is regulated by the rate at which the disease runs its course; here it may often be necessary to repeat the medicine in twenty-four, sixteen, twelve, eight, four hours, and less, while the medicine, without originating new complaints, continues to produce uninterrupted improvement; but where this improvement is not sufficiently marked, considering the dangerous rapidity of the acute disease, the interval must be still further lessened. Thus, in cases of cholera, the most rapidly fatal disease known to us, it is necessary in the beginning to give one or two drops of a weak solution of camphor every five minutes to insure speedy and certain relief, while in the more developed stages, we may be called upon to employ doses of cup, verat, phos.,, every two or three hours, or to give ars., carbo-veg., at similar intervals.” (Org., p. 217.)
“In pure syphilitic diseases, I have commonly found one dose of merc. 30 to be sufficient…. but not infrequently two or three doses at intervals of six or eight days were necessary, whenever the least complication with psora was visible.” (Org., p. 217.)
To augment effect of dose
“The effect of a homoeopathic dose is augmented by increasing the quantity of fluid in which the medicine is dissolved preparatory to its administration, while the actual quantity of medicinal substance remains the same…. In using a solution of this kind, a much greater surface supplied with sensitive nerves, susceptible of medicinal influence, is brought in contact with the medicine. Although theorists may suppose that the dilution of a dose with a greater quantity of fluid would lessen the effect,…..experience proves exactly the opposite.” (Org., p. 185.)
Weir received his medical education first at Glasgow University MB ChB 1907, and then on a sabbatical year in Chicago under the tutelage of Dr James Tyler Kent of Hering Medical College during 1908-9. Weir reputedly first learned of homeopathy through his contact with Dr Robert Gibson Miller.
John Weir wrote- Some of the Outstanding Homeopathic Remedies for Acute Conditions with Margaret Tyler, Homeopathy and its Importance in Treatment of Chronic Disease, The Trend of Modern Medicine, The Science and Art of Homeopathy, Brit Homeo Jnl, The Present Day Attitude of the Medical Profession Towards Homeopathy, Brit Homeo Jnl XVI, 1926, p.212ff, Homeopathy: a System of Therapeutics, The Hahnemann Convalescent Home, Bournemouth, Brit Homeo Jnl 20, 1931, 200-201, Homeopathy an Explanation of its Principles, British Homeopathy During the Last 100 Years, Brit Homeo Jnl 23, 1932: etc