This girl was saying “Ah yes I have also a kind of wheezing breathing and sometimes a little a asthmatic but with this difficult breathing I am always better while lying flat.” With difficult breathing people would like to sit and breathe but this girl was just the contrary. We like contraries. We like things which make us reflect and say, ‘stop now. This is not normal.” What is the matter? She was always very chilly and I learnt that this girl always liked something warm around her, and she was not very clean I must say. And for my nose it was not the perfume of Eaude Cologne when I went near her to look at her.
All this was so plain so far as I know that I gave her one does of Psor 10 M and since that time she has already emaciated any kilograms. And now she is sleeping normally with an expression which is very much pleasant. She is so full of pep that she comes form the school to study and in the morning she says to her mother “Please, I will go early to school because I like the school so much”, and she plays with other children which she never did and when she comes home she does not go to bed to lie down but she would like to study or to go to play outside – all with Psorinum 10 M one dose. That is the law of homoeopathy.
So, you see we must pay attention to the symptoms I remember another case which another case which was very funny. it was a physician from Congo. He came to see me because he had many symptoms. The case was a little difficult cases of physicians are always difficult. They interpret the symptoms. They tell you symptoms of this remedy and that. They always modify them. It was not very clear. But, thank God, I got one symptom a key symptom. He told me, and it was very funny, ” I can never go to the toilet without a handkerchief.” “what is the matter?” When I go to the toilet to pass my stool I must take my handkerchief because my nose starts running” Ofcourse an allopath would laugh at it and may be also a homoeopath but a good homoeopath will laugh internally, being so satisfied.
This is a very good. Symptoms this is a pilot symptom, this is a cardinal symptom, this is a symptom that will lead to the cure because it is in the repertory. With the divine homoeopathy, you just have to open this divine book that is there (Kent’s Repertory) and you just search and there is only one remedy for that symptom. And the only remedy is Thuja – the only one! You see you have to only open the repertory and you get the remedy – Thuja So funny symptom like this leading to the remedy is one of the marvels of homoeopathy. When you know a corner of the picture, you can know the whole picture, The patient is not someone you know but as you continue to ask him questions, he asks you “How do you know this, Doctor?” Ofcourse, as I begin to open a little of the corner and look into him I know he will have such and such symptoms though it is not someone I know It is like a picture of a great painter you know you can open a corner and tell what will be rest.
Of course if it is a picture of Leonard da vinci or Raphael, you will be knowing the rest by knowing a corner. And it is the same with homeopathy. You know you materia medica, you open the corner and it looks like Thuja. Now you would like to ask, “Have you had Sycosis or gleet before? No, you must not ask such questions that he can answer by a `Yes’ or `No’ But you must put your questions in such a way that he is free to give the answers though you may know the answer already Yes, here in this case it was exactly Thuja so as I told you, the non-pathognomonic symptoms leads you to the remedy if you can discover the rather singular the more typical So this you must know absolutely.
Now you have considered sleep – what the patient is doing during sleep with his hands, with his feet, with the head and so on. so it is a question of finding a right symptom. Now, after considering the desires and aversions the symptoms of sleep, the general symptoms we can go to the mental symptoms. This will be the time before going to the sexual symptoms. Because mental is all right but sexual is something that is more difficult to ask, Mental symptoms are of a different class. Ofcourse as I told you, a vague symptom like sadness does not interest us a bit, but if it is sadness before menses only, or sadness only in the evening when it is twilight, or for example there is sadness when you cry you feel better (some others feel worse) this is interesting because it is something different.
If I tell you please go to the station to meet one of my friends who is coming and he has two eyes, tow ears, two legs, and so on, you cannot distinguish him. But If I tell you he has a green Topee, he has one eye closed he has a nose just turned to the left and he is limping of course you will find him quickly. It is just the way you must proceed when you are trying to find something in repertory. Try to find modalities please and symptoms like sleeplessness, or sadness is no symptom.
Now, what questions shall we ask about mental symptoms? You know these symptoms are very peculiar. They are really represent thing to match or to try to match. We must know how to ask mental symptoms. One doctor told me the first time I was working with him that if you are not able at the first consultation to make a patient cry or laugh if you do not touch the heart of the patient you will not find the remedy. Now there are different questions to ask. Ofcourse if you ask somebody. “Tell me what are your defects please”, he laughs and says he has so many. ” I have so many, I cannot tell you. Ask my mother, my father, my wife”.
Somebody who cannot remain patient may tell you that he is absolutely patient. It is just the contrary to what they are. It is one of the funny things in life that we believe something which are contrary to fact. We believe a patient is very kind but when we hear about him we find it is exactly the contrary. So please by very modest about what you think about yourself and try to think when you see in others some defect which makes you irritable, about your own defect that you have exactly this defect that, you have exactly this defect and when you are angry about something and you feel irritated about different things that you see in somebody they are the little things that we have exactly. But you know the subconscious likes to hide our conscious defects. So we do not know ourselves really exactly.
Now, the first question we ask a patient is this and I have found this a question which opens the situation well. “What is in your life the greatest grief that you have gone through?” So they cannot say `Yes’ or `No’ There are some who say they have had no grief or pleasure. “You are very ungrateful. Now think”, you say. Some remember the love affairs when they begin to think. Some others have lost their parents and they begin to think about that and the tears come out. Some others have lost all their fortune. People begin to think (very often they have never done it) when you ask them what is the greatest grief, and really there are many people who cry. But please do not remain long in this situation. It is not good. Very quickly you ask, `What was your greatest pleasure?” At once they dry their tears and they think and say, “Yes I married a very nice girl I choose a profession which was for me my greatest pleasure”, and so on.
It is more easy to save the situation and partake of the little deficiency they may have so that the patient tells you “Yes, I have this and that. “Take somebody who is jealous. Suppose a lady is jealous of her husband who is flying in every direction with other women you know it is normal. You will not take this as a symptoms. But suppose for no reason she thinks of him whole night. Suppose she found some odour of perfume or something like that and she tries to arrange in her imagination many things it is interesting for us to know that she is brooding over things which are really not existing building them up in her own imagination. So about these different reactions you can ask and find that some people are sulky while some others when there will be trouble, just sit for one or two hours and then they accept it very well.
Then comes the very important thing, namely fears. There is in this world something which is really very intoxicating about fears. So you must know many fears. You must ask for fear of animals, fear of tunnels, fear of future fear of different diseases, fear of crime etc. You must be able to ask questions about these fears. You will see how it is that people have fear that you will never dream of fears that something will happen A lady says, “Yes I am sure my husband will not come back today he will have an accident”. This is interesting. Of course, about fears of animals, if somebody tells you about fears of animals you must also ask, “What kind of animals?” for fear of snakes is pretty normal So this will not count as a special fear Regarding fear of dogs, it depends. There are people who will cross others they have been bitten (by a dog) when they were young and they are fearing it now. Of course, this is not so important.
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).