Feeling the necessity of having in a concise and accessible from the various sub-laws and rules of homoeopathy, I recently prepared for my own use the following arrangement of them. Dr.kent very kindly revised the manuscript and made a number of valuable additions, and also suggested that it might be of service to others if published in the journal.
CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASE.
All non-surgical diseases belong to one of the following classes: (A) Acute: (B) Chronic: (C) Those due to the use of drugs, living under unhealthy conditions, etc.
ACUTE DISEASES.
1. Acute disease are self-limited, and, provided no treatment is pursued, they ending resolution or death,.
This being so, an acute disease can have no sequelae, the so-called sequelae being manifestations of one of the chronic miasms roused into activity by the acute disease.
2. Acute diseases may be stopped at any stage by the similar remedy.
3. In acute infections diseases all infection ceases as soon as the similimum is given.
4. The best prophylactic in acute disease in the epidemic remedy.
5. When a trivial acute disease supervenes during the treatment of a chronic one, it is advisable to use the indicated remedy bin a low potency; for, if this is done, it will often be found after the acute disease has been cured, that the deep-acting remedy has not been interfered with by the short acting one, and that it still continues to act. (This is unlikely if the acute disease is severe. If it is a severe acute disease dont expect this, and give the remedy in potency- J.T.L.).
6. After the cure of the acute supervening disease it is advisable, before repeating the remedy for the chronic disease, to make sure that the chronic disease has not been modified by the treatment of the acute one, or by the acute disease itself, and not to call for a different remedy from that formerly needed.
7. When the acute disease has been modified by allopathic or inappropriate homoeopathic remedies, it is usually advisably to prescribe for the case as it now stands, rather than according to the original symptoms.
8. Acute exacerbations of active chronic disease must be treated in a different way from that of an acute supervening disease, provided any remedy is required at all. Frequently the acute complement of the deep-acting remedy, required by the chronic disease is the suitable one, but if only an antipsoric is called for it is better not to give any medicine.
9. Commonly, when the chronic disease is only partially active, as shown by the patient being apparently in good health except that slight causes give rise to frequent acute attacks of illness, the knowledge of the remedy for these acute manifestations will enable us to select its complementary deep- acting remedy, and so permit the cure of the chronic underlying disease.
CHRONIC DISEASES.
1. Chronic diseases are characterized by their progressing from without inwards and from below upwards, and, that while the symptoms may vary, they never disappear in the reverse order to that in which they came.
2. So far as is at present known there are only three chronic diseases, viz., psora, syphilis and sycosis.
These disease may be active or latent.
They may be present in three ways, viz:
(a) A single miasm.
(b) Two to three miasms co-existing, but separate and only one active at a time.
(c) Two or there of the miasms may form a complex and this may be further complicated by a drug disease.
If two or more miasms form a complex, the proper remedy will dissociate them, and then the most active must be attacked; but the greatest combine, and they will never again separate. [See Carriwitchet No.12, April Recorder, and answer to same.-ED.].
3. These chronic disease often remain latent for long periods, but are apt to be roused into activity by acute diseases, unhealthy surroundings, grief, etc.
While latent their symptoms are very similar, and the patient may only feel ill in indefinite way.
The nosodes of these diseases are frequently of great service in rationalizing the symptoms of such cases, and thus enabling the appropriate remedy to be found.
4. These disease are always taken at the stage in which they exist in the already infected person. For example, the wife of a man with secondary syphilis will take the disease at the stage and not in the primary or chancre stage.- [Kent in Journal of Homoeopathics, March, 1899.].
5. A man with syphilis or sycosis may fail to infect his wife if she is suffering from some other but dissimilar, protecting, chronic diseases such as phthisis, or dissimilar diseases repel one another.
THE TOTALITY OF THE SYMPTOMS.
As our sole guide in the choice of the curative remedy is the totality of the symptoms, it is necessary to inquire what is meant by the totality.
In acute disease every symptom experienced by the patient or observable by others is to be included in the totality; also any cause, such as wetting, fright, etc., and circumstances aggravating and ameliorating.
As an acute disease never forms a complex with a chronic one, the latter being suppressed until the former one has run its course, care must be taken when ascertaining the symptoms of the acute disease not to take into account old symptoms which belong to the chronic disease.
But in some cases of acute disease, SYMPTOMS of the chronic disease remain, and are active during the acute disease; such chronic symptoms are peculiar because they have not disappeared, and very often are guiding to the cure of the acute disease; while the remedy will have no relation to the chronic disease, yet that peculiar symptom will stand out and guide you to the remedy that will cure the acute disease; such symptoms are peculiar to the patient.- [Kent, Medical Advance, January 1890.].
In chronic disease the totality includes all symptoms experienced by the patient since birth, excluding these arising during acute disease. While theoretically it is proper to include all such symptoms, yet great caution must be used. (1) Some other chronic miasm may have been acquired during life, or (2) the symptoms may have been so perverted by inappropriate treatment that they do not truly represent the disease.- [Kent, Journal of Homoeopathics, July 1899.] When the symptoms have been much perverted by inappropriate treatment we can sometimes get a sure foundation on which to base a prescription by taking the symptoms as experienced by the patient before this inappropriate treatment was commenced.
This investigation into the former symptoms of the patient is frequently of great service when the presently existing symptoms do not point clearly to any remedy. For example, in an adult with neuralgia of the limbs, where present symptoms are not guiding, if we find that in infancy he had scald-head like that of Mezereum, and we now examine the neuralgias produced by that remedy, it will often be found that they bear a close resemblance to that of the patient, and it will probably prove curative and reproduce the original eruption.
If frequently happens that, when we search for the totality of the symptoms, we find they have been so perverted or suppressed by inappropriate treatment that these now present do not present a true picture of the internal disease. For example, take a case of gonorrhoea suppressed by Arg. nit., and on examination there will be found a pretty of Med. and a partial one of Arg. nit. and probably Natr. mur.
[In all such cases we must prescribe upon the symptoms if possible, but if the case does not respond and the suppressing drug is known, it is sometimes advisable to select a remedy competing which has an antidotal relationship.- K.].
In determining the totality, especially with regard to former symptoms in chronic disease, it is also necessary to ascertain whether one or more miasms are present, as it is useless to attempt to find a remedy for all the symptoms when there is more that one. In such cases, as a rule, only one miasm is active at a time, and the treatment must be directed against that one. When two or more miasms form a complex we must endeavor to separate them.
[The symptoms are the only guide to the separating of the miasms. The road to death is by more complexity, and any remedy that improves the patient will cause a simplification or separation of the miasms.- K.].
THE SELECTION OF THE REMEDY.
Having, then, determined the totality of the symptoms, we must now search for the remedy that has produced symptoms most similar to those observed in the patient. Theoretically we endeavor to discover a remedy whose symptoms exactly correspond in character and grade to those of the patient; but this can rarely if ever be done, and accordingly Hahnemann directs than in searching for the homoeopathic specific remedy we ought to be particularly and almost exclusively attentive to the symptoms that in searching for the homoeopathic specific remedy we ought to be particularly and almost exclusively attentive to the symptoms that are striking, singular, extraordinary and peculiar (characteristic).
