A disease of very long standing sometimes fails to yield without this aggravation and disturbance and turmoil in the economy, and the deeper it is the more tissue change you have to contend with, and the more wonderful and distressing and painful is this reaction. When a patient comes back after every dose of medicine with violent reaction, with violent aggravation of the disease, with violent aggravation of the symptoms, you know then that there is some deep-seated trouble.
There is a difference between the ultimates of disease and absolute weakness of the vital force. There is such a state as weakness of the economy, and there is such a state as activity of the economy, with much tissue change. In feeble patients you may expect feeble reactions, or none at all after your remedy, but in the feeble cases they are of such character that you have few symptoms, and you can very seldom find a remedy truly specific.
For example, say you get a patient that is destined to go into consumption, a merely suspicious case. You administer the right remedy and a violent reaction comes, a foreshadowing of what he will go through years from now if he is not cured by the remedy. A shocking condition will come upon him; he may be frightened and come back and tell you that that was an awful dose of medicine, poison, etc. That is the remedy disease, those are the symptoms of the remedy foreshadowing the future of that case, because if that remedy was not similar enough to him it could not do such things, and it is because of the similitude of his state; and he may only have those symptoms in shadow.
But the remedy cannot give him symptoms that he has not. It cannot give him symptoms that are not related to him except in those cases that are called oversensitives. Oversensitives, you know, are such as are capable of proving everything that comes along. You must know whether the patient is oversensitive and proving the drug, or whether he has a vigorous constitution and is getting an aggravation. The remedy will be exaggerated in oversensitives and sometimes in those of weakly constitution, especially those with a very narrow receding chin, those who have sunken eyes, those who have senility marked in the eyes.
The next paragraph continues this one to a certain extent. Par. 155. “I say without any degree of suffering, because when a perfect homoeopathic remedy acts upon the body, it is nothing more than symptoms analogous to those of the disease laboring to surmount and annihilate these latter by surping their place.” This is only speaking from experience. Whenever Hahnemann makes such a remark he does not place any value upon it, because it is a matter of opinion.
You will find as a general thing in acute diseases, that if a slight aggravation of the symptoms comes in a few minutes, you will hardly ever think of giving another dose. The remedy is so similar and searches so thoroughly that it is hardly ever necessary to repeat it. Now there are circumstances when it is necessary to repeat, but this is so difficult to teach, and so difficult to lay down rules for, that the only safe plan is to begin cases without repetition, to give a single dose and wait, and watch its effects. I very commonly give in vigorous, typhoid fever patient medicine in water, because it is a continued fever; but I watch and wait, giving it several days, and the slightest sign of the action of the remedy causes me to stop it always. I never vary from that. In a fever where the patient is feeble, to gain an immediate reaction that should never be done.
In a remittent fever the reaction may come in a very few hours and the one dose should be the rule, while in a typhoid the reaction will seldom come in a few hours. It is a matter of a few days, and hence the repetition is admissible. In typhoids that are somewhat delicate never do such a thing. The more vigor there is in a constitution the more the remedy can co-operate with that vigor to bring about a safe and quick action.
The more feeble the patient the more cautious you should be about using the smallest dose you can give. In many chronic disease it is possible to bring about a reaction in the first night, hence the danger if repeating the remedy. If the delirium subsides, or a moisture comes upon the skin, and he slumbers placidly, the medicine should never be given beyond such a state. There are times in diphtheria when the repetition of the remedy will kill, and there are times when repetition will save life. I hope some day to be able to discover the principles.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.