Selection of the Remedy



If the practitioner’s attainments in physiological, pathogenetic, and pathological knowledge are considerable, he will often be enabled, from a study of the symptoms actually present and a research into all the circumstances connected with the disease, to distinguish the idiopathic from the sympathetic symptoms, and to devote his attention particularly to the former. Thus he will pay less attention to the dull aching headache that so often accompanies gastric affections than to the gastric affection itself, and thereby he will be enabled to select the remedy much more speedily and accurately than if he sought for the parallel for each particular morbid phenomenon among the confused array of symptoms in the Materia Medica. He would, without a painful and anxious research, treat an indigestion arising from eating fat pork differently from one caused by sour fruit, and in cases where a poisonous substance had been swallowed he would certainly commence the treatment with an emetic. A bilious diarrhoea, brought on by vexation, he would treat at once with chamomilla, whilst a diarrhoea brought on by a chill he would cure with dulcamara. He would unhesitatingly select staphysagria for an affection of the mind brought on by annoyance, accompanied with indignation; and aconite for the bad effects of a fright, etc. But still the true homoeopathist would never select a medicine whose pathogenetic effects did not correspond to the symptoms of the disease.

The same point is dwelt upon by Dr. Hartmann, in his Therapia of Acute Disease. “It has been supposed,” he writes, ” that Hahnemann neglected to take cognizance of the exciting cause of the disease. The opponents of homoeopathy have frequently charged us with this neglect; but unjustly so, for every homoeopathic practitioner knows that in many cases, the proper selection of the remedial agent depends exclusively upon a knowledge of that cause.”

He then proceeds to enumerate the medicine mentioned by Hahnemann as specifics for certain accidental effects, to which list he adds the following:-Rhus toxicodendron for the injurious effects of a drenching; cocculus (query capsicum) for the effects of home-sickness; china for the physical and mental weakness produced by blood letting, haemorrhage, wakefulness, night sweats, onanism, venereal excesses, etc.; nux vomica for diseases occasioned by want of exercise and those produced by over- indulgence in alcoholic drinks; and he adds: “A homoeopathic physician who is acquainted with the pure effects of chamomilla, mercury, sulphur, china, valeriana, iodine, etc., will never prescribe these remedies without inquiring, in the first place, whether the symptoms have not been occasioned by the excessive use of these substances, in which case, he would administer suitable antidotes.” (Hartmann, Hempel’s translation, Introduction, vol.i. p. 29.)

Dr. Moritz Muller, a sincere admirer of Hahnemann, and a willing testifier to the great value of his discoveries to practical medicine, was one who, like Rau, brought a great sore of physiological and other scientific attainments to bear upon the therapeutical system he adopted. Unfortunately, like Rau, and for the same reason, viz., his independence of judgment and his refusal to take every word of Hahnemann’s for gospel until he had carefully subjected it to the searching criticism of his well stored and truly logical mind, he soon incurred the personal dislike of Hahnemann, who went so far as to denounce him publicly as being no true homoeopath, and never rested until he had enforced his retirement from the medical superintendence of the Homoeopathic Hospital in Leipzic, where he had exerted himself in the most devoted and unselfish manner without nay remuneration. After his retirement, the direction of the hospital fell into the hands of others, who flattered Hahnemann by avowing the most implicit faith in his every maxim, but who were incapable of comprehending the system they professed to practise; the consequence of which was that the hospital, which had furnished brilliant results during the period of Dr. Muller’s service, gradually fell off, and at length, chiefly owing to the incompetence or roguery of one of its physicians, the notorious Fickel, came to an untimely end. Notwithstanding the ungenerous treatment he had received from Hahnemann, at the instigation doubtless, of some personal enemies who possessed the ear of our illustrious but easily prejudiced Master, Dr. Muller never ceased to regard him with veneration and esteem; and on all occasions undertook the defence of his defensible doctrines against the assaults of his enemies. In a paper published in the second volume of the Allg. Hom. Zeit., he endeavours to remove from homoeopathy the reproach of being a rude empiricism, and represents the selection of the remedy as a work of the highest order of inductive reasoning, where all flashy attempts to ascertain the essential nature of the disease are relinquished, and the practitioner aims at forming a just conception and appreciation of all that is capable of being observed in the disease. He insists that the homoeopathist must endeavour to oppose the character of the homoeopathic remedy to the character of the disease, and not merely search for the whole array of the perceptible symptoms of the disease in the recorded effects of the medicines. He shows the groundless nature of the reproach that homoeopathy is identical with the ordinary symptomatic treatment. Homoeopathy, he says has to do with the totality of the symptoms, whilst the ordinary symptomatic treatment concerns itself only with those symptoms that are most prominent.

Dr. Schron (Hauptsatze d. Hahn. Lehre, p. 5; Naturheilprocesse und Heilmethode, 2, Aphorism 192; Hg., ii, 35.) undertakes the defence of physiology and pathology against the attacks of Hahnemann, and shows that the collective symptoms cannot be the sole indication for the selection of the remedy. In the first place, he proves that Hahnemann contradicts himself when he says that the totality of the symptoms must be the sole indication, for he admits other things as capable of determining our selection, such as the exciting cause, the individuality of the patient, prevailing diseases, psora etc. Schron admits the symptoms to be the most important indication, but the practitioner must avail himself of everything that can throw light upon the case of disease and can guide him on the right way to the selection of the remedy. Hence he insists on the importance of obtaining a better knowledge of the characteristics of the medicines, which he says is the kernel, whilst the bare unthinking symptomatology of diseases and medicines is but the shell.

In our investigation of diseases, as well as in our consideration of the pathogenetic action of drugs, we must, says Schron, endeavour to ascertain which symptoms are essential and idiopathic, and which are non-essential and secondary or sympathetic. The right remedy must correspond to the disease in the idiopathic symptoms; and if several remedies exhibit such correspondence, the sympathetic symptoms will enable us to select the most appropriate from among them. The main difficulty, however, it will be seen, is to determine which are the idiopathic and which the sympathetic symptoms of diseases, whether natural or artificial.

Dr. Kurtz c Hyg., iv. also lays great stress on the necessity for ascertaining the character of the drugs, and makes the selection of the remedy an affair of the reason and judgment, and not a mere enumeration of symptoms.

Dr. Wolf (Achtzen Thesen, 4ter Satz.) understands by the totality of the symptoms the collection of all the pathological points from the commencement of the disease until the moment when the physician is called in; he says that it is requisite to investigate the symptoms through their whole development and history.

Dr. Roth (Hyg., vii. 497.) of Munich holds the controversy upon the totality of symptoms as the indication to be a mere hair splitting logomachy; for says he, without symptoms objective and subjective it were impossible to make a diagnosis.

Dr. George Schmid, (Ibid., ix.1.) convinced that the similarity of symptoms is the only thing to guide us in the selection of the remedy, endeavours to ascertain what we are to understand by this similarity. The determination of this, he says, is the most difficult part of practice, for the problem is to distinguish what is apparent from what is real, and it is requisite to pay attention to every circumstance capable of affording us an explanation of what is similarity betwixt disease and medicine. Great value is attached to the elucidation of what is characteristic in the symptoms of disease and medicine.

In like manner Watzke (Bekehrungsepist., 81.) observes: in treatment all depends on finding a remedy which, by numerous experiments on the healthy, has shown that it can constantly, certainly, and powerfully produce on the affected organ or system and its sympathies and antagonisms an action corresponding in characteristic similarity to the collective symptoms in the case before us, and the efficacy of which, as a curative agent of this sort, has been proved at the sick bed.

R.E. Dudgeon
Robert Ellis Dudgeon 1820 – 1904 Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1839, Robert Ellis Dudgeon studied in Paris and Vienna before graduating as a doctor. Robert Ellis Dudgeon then became the editor of the British Journal of Homeopathy and he held this post for forty years.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon practiced at the London Homeopathic Hospital and specialised in Optics.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon wrote Pathogenetic Cyclopaedia 1839, Cure of Pannus by Innoculation, London and Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science 1844, Hahnemann’s Organon, 1849, Lectures on the Theory & Practice of Homeopathy, 1853, Homeopathic Treatment and Prevention of Asiatic Cholera 1847, Hahnemann’s Therapeutic Hints 1847, On Subaqueous Vision, Philosophical Magazine, 1871, The Influence of Homeopathy on General Medical Practice Since the Death of Hahnemann 1874, Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica, 2 vols 1878-81, The Human Eye Its Optical Construction, 1878, Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, 1880, The Sphygmograph, 1882, Materia Medica: Physiological and Applied 1884, Hahnemann the Founder of Scientific Therapeutics 1882, Hahnemann’s Organon 1893 5th Edition, Prolongation of Life 1900, Hahnemann’s Lesser Writing.