I have treated several cases of gouty rheumatism in which I could plainly see that every dose of medicine advanced the original malady. Many times I have been forced to feel that the dose of dynamized drug added new force to the old disease, and it progressed even more rapidly. I never saw such striking results from low attenuations. Not long ago I was called to the bedside of a patient in the last stage of phthisis. She had a diarrhoea, and passed large quantities of colourless urine; other symptoms accorded, and she took a dose of Acetic acid, which controlled the diarrhoea and polyurea, but immediately her chest symptoms came on with greater force than I was able to control, and she sank rapidly, I am sure she would have lived much longer had I permitted the less harmful conditions to go on. These things look strangely to the inexperienced physician, but they are facts; and, above all, show the great power of our potentized remedies. The truly appropriate remedy commonly develops the evidence of extreme sensitiveness in all kinds of sickness, and the extreme danger of repeating remedies is here illustrated.
If there is anything I dread it is an incurable disease. My experience in this line has been greater than I could ask. While these things have shown the danger of repeating medicines, they have also taught me another thing; viz. I am generally able to predict the gravity of the disease: I have seen troublesome aggravations, a pleasant increase of the existing symptoms or even new symptoms appearing as presumptive evidence of a good selection. In the western country our diseases are so mixed with that unknown quantity, or something that we call malaria, it is necessary to repeat medicines oftener in acute disease than in most countries. Malaria disease and states are so cumulative in character that the effect of a single dose is soon exhausted and another becomes necessary. Therefore I find myself repeating frequently in many acute cases. I begin by repeating once in two hours in a fever that is continued, but as soon as I see signs of a remission I stop all medicine and wait on Sac. Lac. When a fever is going up I repeat, and the instant it has ceased rising, I cease medicine, in agues I generally administer one or two doses in the apyrexia and wait results. I seldom administer medicine until the paroxysm has been completed. When the first dose is followed by a perceptible aggravation, a second dose should never be administered until the amelioration, which follows the aggravation, has ceased. When a medicine aggravated it will generally influence the patient much longer than when no such aggravation has been observed. An amelioration that begins forthwith also demands that all medicine be stopped, but such amelioration is seldom so striking as when the amelioration has been preceded by a slight aggravation. Immediate amelioration often indicates the absence of deep seated disease. Especially in this case with the use of long acting medicines. These go so deeply into the life that they shake the very foundation of the automatic existence. When these power are so clearly demonstrated, can any man desire Morphine to quiet a patient in any kind of agony? Can any man feel the need of greater force to combat disease? Yes, there are men who do not know this force; it cannot be evolved at will by anybody who wills to evolve it. This force is never observed, except by him who has learned the philosophy taught in the Organon of Samuel Hahnemann; and it is after, not before, looking upon the wonderful effect of a remedy conforming to the law of similars that one can appreciate the power he has with which to combat the ills of life, and with which to defend frail man against the assaults of his natural enemy.
Then to the question, What is Homoeopathy? I must answer, no man knows, God only knows, the length and breadth of the intricate, unfathomable mystery, the knowable part of this science, if I may use the word, consists in observing the sick making phenomena of drugs and the phenomena of sickness, gathering and grouping the similars, selecting with the likeness in view and waiting for results.
While we are observing the folly of others we must learn to avoid extremes in our own midst. We must not despise the original thirtieths of the master because we have found the Cm in so many cases useful. While reveling in the higher degrees of the true healing art, the younger and weaker must be fostered while tremblingly climbing the pathway up the hillside so familiar to most of us. While the way is beset with thorns, it is nevertheless the way of truth, and no part of it is to be despised. With the young and old our faith must be pinned to the law of similars, the single remedy, the smallest dose, the dynamic power, and last, but not least, the proved drug. These coupled with our organic philosophy, we shall continue in doing good and living to do good.
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.