In the art of interrogation, of course the aim of the physician is to try to face five different kinds of questions which we must always have in mind very well. Of course for the acute phases observe what you see and listen to what you hear. You must remember that Hahnemann said something very interesting in his Organon: “when you come either for acute or for chronic for acute especially, you have always a symptom, a symptom that you see yourself. As a physician, you examine the patient and you see what are the symptoms. But this is not sufficient. If the patient. But this also is not sufficient.
Sometimes there are some things that the physician cannot know and cannot observe. If the patient has epileptic fits at night, how will you know this by looking at the patient; he won’t know this himself it is the mother, it is the father someone of the family who can tell you. So you must know the symptoms of the patient, the symptoms you discover yourself or that he tells you and the symptoms that a family member or someone else observes and tells you either about his walk his behaviour or his way of doing thing etc. So we must have these kinds of symptoms to start with.
Now in the Organon Hahnemann was saying something interesting too, that many people did not note something by which we recognise a disease – by the symptoms of three kinds. He says recognise three kinds of symptoms: “Symptoms signs and accidents.” You know this Organs has been translated now for 175 years and yet nobody has ever understood what signs, symptoms and accidents mean. What is a sign? We know the signs of pregnancy. Yes, these are physiological signs. These are not symptoms because symptoms refers to disease.
There is the sign of health. It is not at all a pathological sign. Now, in disease we have pathological signs. Hahnemann said very clearly “You know Opium produces constipation hard stool” Why did Hahnemann say so? You know Hahnemann never says something without reflecting very much. You know, constipation is something and hard stool is something else. Some people have inactivity of rectum and so have constipation even with soft stool. They are constipated in quality and quantity. So you must be very careful to know what is really meant by Hahnemann when he says, “Opium produces constipation following hard stool.”
The sign is what we call the objective symptom while the symptom is subjective. Subjective symptoms are the symptoms described by the patient. An objective symptom is that which not only the patient can see but physician can also see very well, But he cannot know if you have a headache – he cannot know if your pain is pricking stitching darting or stinging or whatever kind of pain it is. It is you who tell him, so it is a subjective symptoms. So this comes under the symptom. And what is an accident? Accident is a symptoms which has nothing to do with a chronic miasm; it is something which comes from an external source.
Suppose, you burn you hand it is an accident. It is not a symptom, it is not a sign, it is what you call an accident. It is not a disease that comes by the disturbance of the vital force, like whooping cough. So a burn like a prick of a needle which gives an infection or a sting from a busy bee or wasp is an accident it comes from outside. Now if you take some poison yourself this is an accident. It has nothing to do with the vital force. If you take away the cause, the thing goes away by itself. But you cannot take the cause away from a grief, you cannot take away easily something following indignation. This is something to do with the vital Force and this is a subjective symptom. And you know that contrary to ordinary medicine apart from the psychiatrist, we are also very much interested in those mental symptoms – the psychosomatic aspects, For us they are very important because they predicate the patient.
And for the us when we take a case we must forget everything else. When the patient asks me, “Have you treated many cases of asthma before or this kind of skin disease before?” I say, “Good Gracious! I hope I have not.” Because I am not like some physicians who say, “The more I see a kind of disease, the more I am able to treat it.” It is just the contrary in homeopathy. We are like judges. “Because this one has stolen something is he guilty like that one? May be that one is guilty this one not”. Therefore everybody has his own case. We must study each case by itself. If somebody else has asthma and this one also has asthma the cause may be absolutely different and your task is to forget the twenty cases of this disease.
You had seen last week and to take this case as a new one. So when you have had many cases of disease it is more difficult to take the new case because you will have to forget the cases that you have treated and not just copy and give the same remedy because it does not help. So what we must do in Homoeopathy is to be very careful Every case by itself is a new case – you must forget everything before and after. But you know we are so prejudiced that when we see a case we think may be it is pulsatilla and you ask her, “Are you thirstless? Do you dislike fat and salt? ” And you know you are making the greatest mistake, that is to put into the mouth of the patient the answer because you like to find it is pulsatilla.
I remember Dr. Mable asking. “When you hear a tap open, do you feel a desire to urinate?” Of course, you would like to give Lyssin if the patient answers, “Yes Again he was asking the patient, “Are you not sure that when you are near river you feel like urinating?’ You know in this way, by such questions we are bringing out only very forced material. You must be absolutely independent and neutral in your questioning. But as our mind is generally prejudiced there is a way to get rid of it. I will tell you the secret.
When you are taking the case of the patient and you see it is pulsatilla you write in the corner of your case paper, there pulsatilla. Now, after ten minutes, it is typically Nux vomica, so you put down Nux vomica. Then you see symptoms of Arsenic you put down Arsenic So you are astonished at the end of the questioning because you have twenty different remedies now that come on because of course they are symptoms of these remedies that you remember. Therefore, your memory is very good. But in spite of being good, you cannot know fifteen hundred pages of the repertory. So first because we have put down remedies our mind is free, we are neutral and then after this we begin to study the case with a certain consideration and according to Kent’s and Hahnemann’s method. Well we sill come to that later. But the main thing is first to take note of all your observation absolutely neutrally.
Now, Dr. Gladwin as well as Dr. Austin who were my teachers told me to divide the page into two parts. To the left, you write all the pathological symptoms the pathognomonic symptoms of the disease. The patient has tuberculosis he is coughing, he is emaciating, he has sweat and so on. So you write down on one side, on the left side, everything that pertains to the diseases. For this you must know the disease you must be a good allopath first. It is not a question of allopathy or homoeopathy but it is a question of knowing your Medicine. so your write down very carefully all the symptoms on the right side which are the non-pathognomonic symptoms – the symptoms that are not habitually occurring in the disease.
Let us say the patient is a tuberculosis patient and he has a desire for vinegar, I do not know what this desire has to do with tuberculosis. Or suppose this patient cannot tolerate fats. Why? For what reason this tuberculous patient who habitually likes fats very much is now averse to fats? We do not know. So these things you know are important which make you say, “Now pet us take a patient who is paralysed, you touch the limb which is paralysed and you find it warm Habitually, a paralysed member is cold. Now what is this funny thing? We have a description in every book, it is written that when you have a hemiplegia the paralysed side is colder than the other, but in this case it is not so – this is unusual! – So in this way you just notice these symptoms which are peculiar which you do not predicate with the name of the disease they predicate the patient himself.
There is the key of our success. You may not even know know for what he is coming – for a rheumatism of the neck a headache or anything else. You may even forget disease condition when you prescribe the remedy on those non-pathognomonic symptoms, funny symptoms. So please pay very much attention always to the non-pathognomonic symptoms. To understand this you must know your medicine well because you must know what is the disease usually like – whether it is enteritis or cholera or anything. You must know what are the symptoms of disease but, if you find something that has nothing to do with this disease so that predicates the patient, please value it. And you will make your best cures when you can find such symptoms.
Dr. Schmidt was introduced to the results of homeopathic treatment during the 1918 flu epidemic while living in London. There he met both J. H. Clarke and John Weir.
In 1922 he came to the United States and began his studies with Alonzo Austin and Frederica Gladwin, who had been a pupil of Kent's. He became the first graduate of the American Foundation for Homeopathy course for doctors. Returning to his native land he set up practice in Geneva, Switzerland. He was responsible for reintroducing classical homeopathy into Europe, teaching several generations of physicians, including Elizabeth Wright Hubbard.
Dr. Schmidt helped edit the "Final General Repertory" of Kent, and translated the Organon into French. In 1925, he was one of the main founders of the Liga Medicorum Homoeopathic Internationalis (LIGA).