The vital reaction to the remedy may be estimated by the intensity of the aggravation that follows the remedy. In acquired disease, such as are the result of indiscretion in diet and debauch, are seldom followed by any reaction as they do not belong to any specific chronic miasm of a progressive character.
I have hinted at a few things that a physician should know, and there are thousands of the kind. But it must be known at this time that the law will fail to be of service to him who knows not how to apply it. It helps him in proportion as he becomes acquainted with it.
Some days ago a physician who had graduated a few years ago and settled down in a malarial district, remarked that he could not cure the chills without quinine in large doses. I began to question him, to see if there was a good reason for the statement. He never had listened to a lecture on medical philosophy, and seemed to have no conception of its meaning. He was well educated in everything but Homoeopathy. He had a fair knowledge of the Materia Medica but he knew nothing of how to apply the law of cure. I am perfectly willing to say what I know to be the truth; that the professed Homoeopathists of this or any day claiming to need large doses of drugs to cure the sick are like this young man, ignorant of the philosophy of Homoeopathy and remain so during life. The colleges have neglected this philosophy hence the law fails to help the physician who should have the most confidence in it. Confidence comes from acquaintance that is ample and of long standing.
Another doctor says, “I must do the best I can,” when the law fails. “I must break that chill or he will go to someone else, and he would then get quinine; I might as well give it to him as for some one else to.” You have then concluded to do your patient harm, because if you do not somebody else will. If I see a pocket book on the street, I can as well say that I may as well steal that, if I do not somebody else will. The patient may have a skin disease and want to recover. You know that it can be made to disappear by outward applications. Now will you consent to do that man harm because if you do not you will lose a fee, or he will go to the next doctor? Will you not warn him of the danger? Is he not better with that disease on the outside than within the body? But you say I have tried homoeopathic medicines and the law has failed. Then because of your ignorance of the law, you propose to be hired to drive that skin eruption back into the body. You might as well be hired to give the patient a dose of poison. “Then what shall I do?” When you do not know what to do, why do you do anything? The great mistake rests in the ambition to do something. No man should consent to do a wrong as a substitute for an unknown right way. These things are hard to see. I have many times convinced myself of my own ignorance after a long and hard struggle, but had I been called ignorant of these self same things, I am satisfied I could have argued the point satisfactorily to myself. This is a man’s stumbling block, and is in the way of progress.
Many of our best followers of the law are not so well acquainted with remedies as they would like to be, but they cure their cases, and the redeeming feature with them is that they know how to avoided doing wrong. “Be sure that you are right, then go ahead” will do in this place.
To avoid frequent failure under the law it is necessary to know something not taught in allopathic colleges.
“When we have to do with an art whose end is the saving of human life, any neglect to make ourselves thoroughly masters of it, becomes a crime.” (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.