Hahnemann in paragraph 153 of the Organon says; “In this search for a homeopathic specific remedy, that is, in this comparing of the symptom complex of the natural disease with the symptom array of known medicines, in order to discover one with a corresponding sick making power similar to the disease to be cured, the more striking, singular, uncommon, and peculiar (characteristic) signs and symptoms of the disease attack are chiefly and almost solely to be kept in view; for these principally must correspond to very similar ones in the symptomatology of the desired medicine, if it is to become the most suitable one for a cure. The more general and undefined, anorexia, headache, debility, restless sleep, discomfort, etc., when they are not more accurately defined deserve but little attention because of their universality and vagueness, as we are apt to see generalities like these in almost every disease and medicine.”
It is especially noteworthy that Hahnemann limits these “characteristics” to those of the disease attack and not those which the patient possesses as a constitutional idiosyncrasy. This makes another of his paragraphs more lucid. I refer to the one in which he speaks of the necessity of a full and complete knowledge of disease effects in order that we may at once see and grasp any irregularity which may come up in the course of a malady. This departure from the usual course naturally individualise cases and should be the guide to the knowing healer of the sick as distinguished from the routinist; it is always important to call attention to the fact that he says these symptoms “must correspond to very similar ones in the symptomatology of the desired medicine”, and does not say they must agree with the characteristics of the drug, which one might infer from certain modern methods of procedure, which have often gone more or less under the title of “key-notes.”