As you know, the concept of matter today is that it is nothing but a form of energy. In fact, if you project a body so rapidly through space that it assumes the speed of light, it is no longer material, it is shortened to zero and has disappeared as matter and appears as energy. If it can be slowed down to less than the speed of slight, it will again assume the form of matter as we know it.
In chemistry, there are substances called enzymes. I dont know whether Dr. Boger meant “enzymes” when he spoke of “chemical converter.” Our remedies may act not as enzymes but as catalyzers. We must remember that matter express itself in multiple forms. The three common ones are solids, liquids and gases. We all know what water is like in these there forms. We know less about water in the gas form but we know that there is such a thing as water-gas. In humid weather, we know there is too much water-gas in the air.
We should keep clearly in mind the difference between science and art. We cant get along without science in medicine but the only thing that is worth while, so far as our patients are concerned, is the art of medicine.
If I should sit down at that piano, I could empty this room quicker than a fire, but if Paderewski sat down there, a fire wouldnt drive you out. That is the difference between art and something that isnt art.
I dont fully accept Dr. Pulfords statement that this something in our potencies is not physical. I get what he means but I think we should avoid dogmatic statements. My own concept i is that a potency is a form of matter difference from anything that we know. It is the fourth state of matter and we can leave it in physics.
Also, it is pretty broad to say that it can never be registered mechanically. I think some day we shall have a mechanical register of this energy. Hill house, who worked a great deal in this field, used colloids as his re-agent. The only trouble was when he would get the reaction the colloid would be destroyed. Then he had to start with a new re-agent, and when he got his end-product. Then he longer had an instrument for measuring. It is the same as with a match. When you light it, it disappearing.
Remember that any concept at which we arrive must be only tentative never will be. Everybody sees things differently. Everyone thinks differently, and no one sees more than part of any truth.
DR. A PULFORD: Do you think we see life?.
DR. G.B. STEARNS: Each one thinks he sees it. We dont see it. We only have different of it.
After we have obtained a full and complete account of the patients symptoms and cleared away by painstaking investigation obscure or doubtful points, we must next group and classify symptoms in accordance with our estimate of their value, to facilitate our subsequent task of selecting the required remedy. Symptoms originating from the mind, are to be noted down first, and then those and the unessential and unimportant is often very difficult and not seldom calls, as you are well aware, for great skill and discernment.
As a rule the less diagnostic is a symptom, the more important it is as a guide to the needed remedy. The most constant, the most recent or the latest symptoms developed must be considered – they are the sine qua non. All symptoms not founded upon reliable or positive premises must be discarded; the fleeting are generally of less value.- PROSPER BENDER, M.D., 1895.
