Homoeopathic Case Taking



First the mind symptoms providing they are important they re characteristic. If the patient says, “I have no good memory I am sad very often. I am a little dull, I cannot concentrate myself.” There are 500 remedies for each one of these symptoms and it is not very interesting. If you go to the station to search for a friend or somebody you do not know who is arriving, and he wrote to you I have two eyes one nose, two legs and one head, you will not recognise him, but if it is a lady with the green hat, she is squinting you know, she is limping and she has a white handkerchief in her hand, then you will recognise her at once.

So the question is to know the characteristic symptoms and to know what the symptoms that predicate the patient. So you have typical symptoms, I do not have the time today to tell you all the gradations into the mind’s symptoms. It is fascinating to know about the many symptoms of the intellect, which are the ones that are less important. But you will always have weeping symptoms of fear or symptoms of excitation, irritability or weeping sadness or despair and so on always it is possible to find such symptoms.

Now the second, I can indicate this way, the omega ( The last letter of the Greek alphabet meaning here the last chapter in “Kent’s Repertory”.) that is the general symptom. The general symptoms in the repertory are in the repertory are in the last chapter because the repertory is thus make, first the intellect, last general symptoms and in between sandwiched all the rest.

You have all the symptoms coming from the head down, between the intellect and the general. And remember that the general symptoms are those of aggravation by heat or cold, aggravation by different seasons, aggravation by the weather, by the position, by going on the mountains, or near the seashore, by resting, by dozing and you know there are plenty of others. Most materiopathic influences are general symptoms which affect the whole body not only one part. So you have the general symptoms.

Then comes here, the symptoms of th stomach, not of the digestion and so on, but about the aversions and cravings. This is a very important thing. When your ask someone, “Do you like sweet or do you like them” (in a monotonous tone) this is not important. But when you ask, “What about salt?” you see his eyes become bright. He likes it so much that even before tasting the soup he puts salt it. So he has a craving for salt.

People who cannot do without going to sweetmeat merchants for buying sweet things and delicacies, pastries etc., it is a desire a craving for sweets. Now there are people who eat salads you know with vinegar. When it is finished, they take a little vinegar in a spoon and take it, so much they like sour things. So you see this is a craving.

Now, an aversion If somebody makes a face, really it is a disgust, (he means) “No I do not like it” You must note the expression on the face as well as the words expressed by the patient. So you have there the symptoms of cravings or desires.

Now this is a rubric that is very important – Amelioration and aggravation by certain items of food. There are people who like very much food with cream, and sugar and sweet, but they are sick right after no matter how much they like it. So they may have a craving for it and an aggravation from something you like it is curious. But to that you must be at once attentive. When you have a patient acute and very serious stage and his life is in danger if he craves something give it to him. But in chronic cases keep it away. So if somebody likes alcohol in a chronic case, he says when I drink brandy I feel so well you must prohibit it. If in an acute disease he is dying and he wants brandy, give it to him.

Now you have after this the sleep symptoms. The sleep symptoms are very important because when you are asleep you do not know what you are doing and sleep for a physician and a homoeopathic physician is very important. First the position in sleep. It seems to be very funny but there are people who sleep on the abdomen on their stomach. Why I do know, but it is a very good symptoms of Medorrhinum, Pulsatilla and other remedies.

And I know there are people who cannot sleep on the left side. Some others who have heart disease can only lie on the left side. Some of those sleep like that with hands above the head, you know the children must sleep like that. But when an adult sleeps like that he may be having liver disease. There are people with asthma who are always better when lying flat Why? Explain it to me. It is very good non-pathognomonic symptom because we cannot explain it. So remember the position in sleep.

Now what are you doing when you are sleeping. There are people who keep their eyes open. It is funny but it is so. Or they keep eyes half -closed with the eye-balls going up. So you take notice of this of course. Now there are people who squint when they sleep. But some others make a motion like this (chewing) This is Bryonia Of course when a child is making a motion like a rabbit, it is always Bryonia in delirium sometimes or in fever. Now there are people who chatter in sleep. Some of them grind their teeth, some of them clench their teeth as if they do not like to open as in trismus or tetanus. there are people who talk.

There are people who shriek. There are people who sing. Some of them weep. It is interesting to watch somebody in sleep when you can find so many symptoms. There are people who slide down the bed by morning well, you see these things are interesting. When they slide down like this habitually, they sleep with their jaws open and this is a very good symptoms of Muriatic acid. Every body knows it. So you see by looking at the different states of the sleep you can learn a lot. Now the sleep can be restless, it can be comatose, it can be semiconscious.

You know the different kinds of sleep. There are restless people who always roll up and down. In the morning they must search for the different pieces of the bedding around them. Others remain exactly as they were. You can find all these in the repertory. Open the repertory and you will learn a lot. By turning the pages you find different things, they correspond to certain remedies out of which you can choose.

Then there is sleepiness. Some people are sleepy in the daytime when they are listening to a lecture, they just begin to doze. There are people who cannot listen or go to a lecture without closing their eyes, or they begin to sleep after lunch. There was a notary. When he was writing what the client had said to him, he was in what we call as narcolepsy. It was a terrible heaviness of his sleepiness. He could not help closing his eyes. It was a disease. Of course, Opium will help him.

Then there are people who are sleepless. Sleeplessness can be in the beginning of the night. It can be in the second part of the night. it can be from 1 to 2, from 2 to 3 from 2 to 3 from 4 to 5 and these are indications for different remedies. When in the morning it is Natrum Sulph. When it is from 2 to 3 or 1 to 2, it can be Kali carb., Kali ars., and so on. Every body knows those little shades. There are people who are very sleepy. They cannot keep their eyes open in the evening, but the moment they are in the bed they cannot sleep. This is very often Ambra or such other remedies. Open your repertory do not break your head. Open your repertory and read. You must have the Organon, materia medica and a repertory plus your brain which helps you.

Now come the dreams. There are dream which are repeating every time. There are dream which are prophetic. The moment they dream something the next day it will happen. The patient begins to dream one day and then it continues all the week like in a cinema. It is funny but there are people you know, who have dreams that are exhausting e.g. as if they are climbing mountains In the morning they are all covered with sweat and they feel so tired. All this is found in the repertory. Open your repertory. See such of these things.

And to finish the last about this. This is co-ordination. Co- ordination of the sexual symptoms. Of course this requires the tact and the delicacy of thought of the physician to talk of this question with the patient.

You will never begin with this. If you know how to handle human hearts and human beings they will tell you very easily their troubles, especially their sexual troubles that they will hide from everybody else. You must know if the patient is plus or minus whether he has hyper or exaggerated feeling of sex or the other one, no feeling or aversion. You also deviations and abnormal possibilities.

You will know many more things. I have not the time to tell today. By looking at the patient you can know many things that he will not tell you, I see very much my corneal microscope. I can know at once if the patient has onanism, masturbation, if he is much excited, if a lady is a virgin or not and so on. I can know from the eyes many of the impulses of the human being put I have not the time today to expose this to you all it is very complicated. But one thing I will tell you. In this part comes for the everything pertaining to the menses.

Pierre Schmidt
Pierre Schmidt M.D.(1894-1987)
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).