There are instances, however, where by letting the feet hand down the patient is ameliorated; for instance, you take a periostitis and the pain is relieved by letting the limbs hang. No one can tell why that limb is better when hanging over the bed. He lies across the bed with the foot hanging over the side, and why it is that he cannot lie upon his back nobody can figure out. Now that condition is found in Conium, and you will not be astonished after you know that Conium has that symptom to find all the symptoms of your patient, say Conium. All the rest of them perhaps, are common.
Now, when you think along this line of science, it will not take you long to get into the habit of estimating among the symptoms that appear in a record the things that are common, the things that you would expect, and the things that are strange.
Again, we see that there are certain symptoms in the remedies that are general and on the other hand the symptoms that are general must also be taken into account in order to examine any record. All the things that are predicated of the patient himself are things that are general; all the things that are predicated of any given organ are things in particular. So we see how there are things in general, and things common, and things particular; some times it may be a condition or state, sometimes it may be a symptom. We have said that what the patient predicates of himself will generally appear to you to be at once something in general. When the patient says, I am thirsty,” as a matter of fact, although he feels that thirst in the mouth, yet it is his whole economy that craves the water.
The things of which he say, “I feel,” are apt to be generals. The patient says, “I have so much burning,” and if you examine him, you find that his head burns, that the skin burns, that there is burning in the anus, burning in the urine, and whatever region is affected burns. You find the word burning is a general feature that modifies all his sickness. If it were only in one organ, it would be a particular, but these things that relate to the whole of the man are things in general.
Again, when the patient tells things of his affections, he gives us things that are most general. When he speaks of his desires and aversions, we have those things that relate so closely to the man himself that the changes in these things will be marked by changes in his very ultimates. When the man arrives at that state that he has an aversion to life, we see that that is a general symptom and that permeates his economy; that symptom qualifies all the symptoms and is the very centre of all his states and conditions. When he has a desire to commit suicide, which is the loss of the love of his life, we see that that is very innermost.
Medicines affect man primarily by disturbing his affections, by disturbing his aversions and desires. The things that he loved to do are changed, and now he craves strange things. Or the remedy changes his ability to comprehend, and turns his life into a state of contention and disturbance; it disturbs his will and may bring upon him troublesome dreams, which are really mental states. Dreams are so closely allied to the mental state that he may well say, “I dreamed last night; that is a general state. The things that lie closest to man and his life, and his vital force, are the things that are strictly general, and as they become less intimately related to man they become less and less general, until they become particular.
The menstrual period gives us a state which we may call general. The woman says, “I menstruate,” so and so; she does not attribute it to her ovaries or to her uterus; her state is, as a rule, different when she is menstruating. So the things that are predicated of self, of the ego, the things described as “I do so and so,” “Dr., I feel so and so,” “I have so much thirst”, “I am so chilly in every change of the weather,” “I suffocate in a warm room,” etc., these are all general. The things that are general are the first in importance.
After these have been gathered, you may go on taking up each organ, and ascertaining what is true of each organ. Many times you will find that the modalities of each organ conform to the generals. Sometimes, however, there may be modalities of the organs, which are particular that are opposed to the general. Hence we find in remedies that appear to have in one subject one thing, and in another subject the very opposite of that thing. In one it will be a general, and in another it will be a particular.
It is very important that you should understand what is meant by general common and particular symptoms and so I will repeat somewhat. The generals are sometimes made up of particulars. If you examine the liver symptoms alone, you are examining particulars. If you are examining the eye symptoms, or the symptoms of any other region considered apart from the whole man, you are examining particular symptoms. But after you have gathered the particulars of every region of the body, and you see there are certain symptoms running through the particulars, those symptoms that run through the particulars have become generals, as well as particulars.
Things that apply to all the organs may be predicated of the person himself. Things that modify all parts of the organism are those that relate to the general state. Anything that the individual predicates of himself is also general. There are things that an individual might say of himself that might relate to only one organ, but of course that become a particular; but most of the things that the man predicates of himself are general.
Consider for instance, the symptoms of sleep. You might at first think that they relate to the brain, but the brain does not sleep any more than the whole man. “I will wakeful last night;” he is predicating something of himself and hence it is a general. Or, he says, “I dreamed;” well it is true that the whole man really dreamed. You might say that the mind merely dreamed, but the mind is the man, and, therefore, we see how important sleep and dreams become in the anamnesis of a case. Scarcely more important is what the woman says of her menstruation; menstruation so closely relates to the whole woman that it becomes most important. The special senses also are so closely related to the whole man that the smells that are grateful and the smells that are disagreeable become general.
There are certain smells that relate more particularly to the nose itself, because the smell is in the nose and is due to some pathological condition of the nose, and thus becomes a mere particular. The smell of food is agreeable when the man is hungry, and that will relate to the whole man, but one who has a vicious catarrh of the nose, with much local disturbance, has many perversions of smell, which are particular, because they relate to the nose.
A patient says” “I see” so and so, without seeing; that relates to the generals. It is to a great extent a seeing with the understanding. Now, when the eye itself becomes affected, the symptoms gathered are particulars because they relate to the anatomy of the eye. The more the symptoms relate to the anatomy of the parts, the more external they are: the more they relate to the tissues, the more likely they are to be particular. But the more they relate to the internals that involve the whole man, the more they become general.
The things, therefore, that relate to the man are the ones to be singled out in the anamnesis and marked first. After gathering together all the symptoms of a patient you should single out for study first of all everything and anything that you can predicate of the man, everything of which you can say he feels so and so, she suffers so and so. Find out what remedies relate to these symptoms first. Sometimes when you have figured the anamnesis of the generals, you have settled by your anamnesis upon three remedies, or possibly upon one.
In ninety-nine cases of a hundred you can leave out the particulars, for the particulars are usually contained within the generals. if there be but one remedy that has the numerous generals, and covers those generals absolutely and clearly and strongly, that will be the remedy that will cure the case. There may be a lot of little particulars that may appear to contra-indicate, but they cannot; for nothing in particulars can contra-indicate generals. One strong general can over-rule all the particulars you can gather up. “Aggravation from heat” will throw out Arsenicum from consideration in any case.
It may be advisable to dwell again for a little upon the common symptoms. Sometimes we find in woman the common symptom, prolapsus. It is a common thing for them to say, “Doctor, I have such a dragging down in my bowels, as if my insides were coming out.” That is a common feature, and it is a common symptom. There is nothing about that alone that will enable you to find a remedy, but for these common symptoms we have a class of remedies. When you see a rubric containing a dozen, fifteen or twenty remedies, you may often know it is a common symptom. We would say that all women who have prolapsus have to a great extent a dragging down feeling, as if the uterus would come out.
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.