In no way can we perpetuate pure philosophy but by adhering to the proven drug in all our discussions. Better rule out all the fragmentary guesswork and make every report show its relation between drug and disease in the manner designated in our philosophy. The Publication Committee should reject, without fear or favor, all papers with reports of cures where we have not had access to the record of provings. Of what value is the cure without the proving? Save the cures until you have given us the proving.
By thorough and careful work we will some day complete a Materia Medica whose every symptom will have been repeatedly verified. Then, indeed, will our art become the exact science predicted for it? Such is the end for which we labor. A great stride toward such an end will be made when we have in completed form the Guiding Symptoms, by the late Dr. Hering. These are now -promised, and if given us as that master mind left them (not as some lesser mind may think they should be given), our school will secure a treasure. The very opposite of this great work of Hering’s is the so-called Encyclopaedia of Drug Pathogenesy, which seems to be a confused mass of mangled provings. We have more than once attempted to gather assistance from its garbled and condensed pages, but have always been baffled. That it has any value we are unable to see. It is to be hoped it has a purpose, as much labor seems to have been spent upon it, and much expected of it.
There is another point to which your attention may be profitably directed, and that is to secure greater care in selecting our medicines and more care in manufacturing our potencies. It seems as though carelessness were also creeping into our pharmaceutics. The greatest discretion must be exercised in selecting proper material for our pharmacopoeia and in their preparation. The same preparation, especially in the use of our vegetable remedies, should be used in the prescribing as was used in the proving. We do not mean the same potency, but the same pharmaceutical preparation. Impure or uncertain drugs will, of course, not correspond in their effects upon the sick to the action of a purer drug used in the proving. The physician and the prover should use the same preparation. Without doubt, many of our failures may be justly laid to some imperfection in our drug preparations.
During the past year little worthy of note has occurred in the medical world. In the old school new theories have arisen and old ones have died. This is the old, old story with these scientists. Among ourselves the work seems to be steadily progressing for the better. The successful meeting held a year ago at Saratoga has been productive of much good, has shown the outside world that this is a working association of genuine Homoeopathists. Such successful meetings cannot fail to have a beneficial effect upon the Homoeopathic school.
And now, we meet for the eighth time to greet each other, and to work for the perpetuation of the art of healing known as Homoeopathy. We have come together from the remote quarters of the land to sharpen a common faith by another year of busy experience. This organization has been separated from the masses of all grades in medicine, a mere handful, that has been called a respectable minority, and it can even now see the gulf that yawns behind it. With independence we are able to go on climbing the mountain of Homoeopathic truth. Some say we are at the top. Be not so sure; we have but climbed a foothill; soon will we see a mountain beyond, with but the faintest trace of human footprints. We follow on, though the mountain side be steep and thorny, led by the light of truth. Soon the toilers grow weary and their number becomes smaller. In the distant past there is a multitude, while the valleys below still throng with conflicting millions. The few toil on up the steep and rocky mountain side, steeper, more rocky as they press onward. The distance brings to view the heavens, dotted with nebulous sky and space beyond. There is to be seen another mountain far away, and much higher, which is yet to be climbed, upon which, through the clear sky, above the clouds, behold the immortal Hahnemann.
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.