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.
