Homoeopathic prophylactics are tested and sure. The very remedies which cure the fully developed diseases will protect exposed persons. This is very important for the reason that incipient diseases are generally very lacking in the characteristic which determine the choice.
6.The modalities are the proper and most decisive modifiers of the characteristics, not one of which is utterly worthless, not even the negative ones. They have developed in importance with the growth of Homoeopathy.
A superficial examination of any completely proven drug will reveal the common symptoms of all diseases, such as headache, bellyache diarrhoea, eruptions, etc., etc. A little closer inspection of their sensations and relations to the different parts of the body establishes undoubted differences in the manner of their appearance, the modality. All experienced homoeopaths pay great attention to this point. It is self evident that the modality must be specialized: it is not sufficient, for instance, to note the general effect of motion in a given case, but the various kinds of motion, and whether they arise during continued or at the start of movement must be known. Likewise, the general effect of position, such as lying on the side, back, crosswise, horizontally, etc, as well as the special discomfort or ease caused from lying on the painful or painless side, must be elicited in order to apply the most suitable remedy.
The cravings and aversions to various foods furnish some of the most important points in deciding upon the remedy.
when the symptoms seem to point out a particular remedy with which the modalities, however, do not agree it is only negatively indicated and the physician has the most urgent reasons to doubt its fitness; he should, therefore, seek for another having the same symptoms.
7. The time is hardly less important than the aggravation and amelioration itself and could be of great use were the different stages of disease left undisfigured by drug influences, for they constantly produce the most devious effects upon the natural course of disease. I hope no one will say that periodicity necessarily indicates Cinchona (Quinine), for there is hardly a single homoeopath who has not treated numerous victims of this error. This homoeopathic objective concerns two points which have a direct bearing upon the choice of the remedy.
A. The periodical return of the symptoms after a shorter or longer period of quiescence.
B. The hour of the day when they are better or worse.
The former coincides with epochs having special, accidental causes, such as menstrual disturbances, all seasonal or temperatural influences, etc. Where it is impossible to discover such secondary causes, or where, as is usually the case, their time of recurrence is not more accurately designated they have no value for homoeopaths because they are lacking in precise indications.
The general or special modalities referable to the time of day are of much greater importance, for hardly any disease lacks this feature and the provings supply the same peculiarity, qualifying them for the best and most comprehensive uses. To illustrate this we need only refer to influences which the time of day exerts upon coughs, diarrhoeas, etc. A considerable list of remedies exhibit typically recurrent effects; unless these are clear and decided (like Hell, and Lycopod. at 4.8 P.M.), or return at exactly the same hour (Ant.c., Ignatia, Saba.), they are unimportant.
(In general, the tyro in Homoeopathy cannot too earnestly take to heart the caution to avoid the great error of regarding a numerically large mass of symptoms that are general in their character, but do not individualize the case, as a sufficient guide in choosing the remedy. The keen perception and appreciation of those symptoms, which, that the same time, correspond to the nature of the diseases and also designate the remedy which is exclusively or at least most decidedly indicated- this alone betokens the master mind.
For it is easier-very much easier-to select the right remedy after a picture of the disease, complete in every respect and fully meeting all requirements, has been drawn up, than to obtain the materials for such a picture and construct it for oneself.)- (From the Preface of the Whooping Cough).
THE REPETITION OF THE DOSE
Medicines, by proper (higher) potentization, develop a continually widening, quicker and more radical sphere of action which stretches far beyond all pathological forms but never out outgrows their own true characteristics. This should however, not lead us into straining at conclusions and making blind applications of this postulate.
A single dose of the properly selected homoeopathic remedy will in a short time to transform the character of a disease as to cause it to show indications for a different remedy. The common experience that the continued thoughtless and injudicious use of the same medicine often does more harm than good, and that two very similar remedies do not follow each other well, has its origin in this fact.
The primary and secondary action of many drugs repeats itself alternately, hence, as long as this happens, the one (first) dose has not exhausted its action.
In diseases like small-pox, scarlet fever, etc., which generally attack man only once, every repetition, particularly of the higher dynamizations, only tend to prejudice or retard the cure, whereas, in other diseases it regulates itself by the extent of their liability to recur.
In every attack, one minute dose of the rightly chosen remedy, if allowed to quietly expend itself not only accomplishes everything to be expected of medicine, but when the same drug is, after a long time, again given, as evidently the most applicable remedy even for another disease, it disappoints us, and will only act after a sufficient time has elapsed for the former dose to have finished its work.
In chronic disease the action of the truly legitimate (similar) remedy must be left undisturbed if we wish to attain success.
External manifestations are in noway indispensable to the existence of chronic disease, on the contrary, the more the external (vicarious) symptoms are disturbed or repressed, the deeper do they take root and flourish internally. It follows from the dynamic nature and constitution of every real disease that it is never purely local, but always finds its genesis in the immaterial life force, therefore in the whole living organism, and can only be rooted out as fast as the increasing vital reaction displaces the primary drug action; most rapidly towards the end. Abstracted from the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, VII., 12.
In conclusion it may not be useless to call to memory, in an abridged form, what my worthy friend, Dr. J. Aegidi, says in the?Archive of Homeopathy (XII., I., 121), which coincides entirely with my own experience. After the administration of the carefully selected (according to the similarity of the symptoms) remedy, as early, at the latest, as after the lapse of eight days (in acute sickness often already after a few hours), one of two events certainly follows either.
A. The state of the illness is changed, or
B. It remains the same.
A change in the sick condition embraces three events, either.
Ist.The condition is ameliorated,
2nd. It is aggravated, or,
3rd. The disease alters its symptom complex.
In the first case one sees the medicine’s beneficial action penetrating deeply and it is, therefore, hasty not to wait the fullest extent of the amelioration. Here, at least haste is useless, mostly harmful, and only then, when the improvement comes to a visible standstill, is it advisable to give a second, third or fourth dose of the same remedy, especially however, only as long as a lessening, but not essentially changed symptom complex still points to it.
In the second event we see the state of the sickness becoming worse; particularly do the characteristic symptoms heighten their intensity without changing or transposing themselves, the so-called homoeopathic aggravation. Here the remedy has overcome the affection in its essence and for a whole nothing further is to be done unless perhaps entirely too important complaints make the application of a proper antidote necessary, which on most occasions is found in a second, and, if possible, still smaller dose of the same medicine.
The third instance concerns an alteration of the symptom complex and is evidence when this happens that the remedy was not fittingly chosen and must be exchanged for a suitable one as soon as possible.
When, notwithstanding, the carefully chosen remedy and the patient’s faultless diet, the sick condition, on the contrary, is not at all changed, as in the case mentioned under B, the cause usually lies in want of receptivity, which we must seek to remove either by repeated small doses or by medicines recommended for deficient reaction.
By following these rules we have the pleasure of assisting the sick to recovery in an incomparably shorter time than has commonly been possible under the former evil treatment where the physician lacked a fixed rule of practice.-From the Preface of the Antipsoric Repertory.
Born in Western Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He moved to Parkersburg, W. Va., in 1888, practicing there, but also consulting worldwide. He gave lectures at the Pulte Medical College in Cincinnati and taught philosophy, materia medica, and repertory at the American Foundation for Homoeopathy Postgraduate School. Boger brought BÅ“nninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory into the English Language in 1905. His publications include :
Boenninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory
Boenninghausen's Antipsorics
Boger's Diphtheria, (The Homoeopathic Therapeutics of)
A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915
General Analysis with Card Index, 1931
Samarskite-A Proving
The Times Which Characterize the Appearance and Aggravation of the Symptoms and their Remedies