But a court suit is useless to a farm labourer as are fur-lined garments for the tropics. The clothes must fit- in all ways – his height and build, his taste his requirements.
If we need to take care and forethought in selecting our clothes, surely we need to individualize when it comes to choosing remedies for our subtle deviations from the normal, in temperament, in reactions to environment, mental and physical. All these must be met, or the remedy can only by accident fit the case.
It is the totality of the characteristic symptoms that decides the choice of the remedy. You may not find all the symptoms of a patients in any drug, or all the symptoms of a drug in any patient, but the essentials must be there.
Idiosyncrasies in regard to food are very important. The child that steels salt; the woman who can can never pass the pickle jar without helping herself; the child that munches raw suet or gnaws at a raw onion while the tears run down its cheeks. In some cases, as with salt the individual while eating quantities may not be absorbing enough for his needs; in other cases it may be a depraved appetite. In the nausea and vomiting of pregnancy unusual cravings help in the selection of the remedy.
Then the peculiar symptoms that sound so absurd may leads us to consider some remedy that would never, else, have occurred to us. As : –
One of our doctors, in his student days after a morning of practical pharmacy experienced a strange sensation in lying down at night. It was as if a globe of fine metal was shattered at the base of the brain, whose fragments were heard to tinkle as they fell. In the morning a hunt was made among the drugs that had been handled during the pharmacy class, and the symptom was actually found, under Aloe. Many years later, a patient mentioned this extraordinary symptoms and Aloe cured headaches of which she complained.
A young doctor was in distress because one side of his face was pouring with sweat while the other was dry. He had been taking Pulsatilla, for some ailment, and was proving it.
A boy mentally deficient, in was among other things frightfully jealous especially of the man his sister was engaged to. Whenever he came to the house the boy “was very naughty, and passed his stool into his trousers”. Hyoscyamus was found to have the symptom involuntary stool from excitement. He got a dose of Hyoscyamus cm, and the next report was that people remarked how much quieter he was, and that though the sisters finance had been staying in the house, he had not been jealous.”
Homoeopathy prescribes for sensitives. No one who is not sensitive to a remedy can “prove” it. And no remedy to which a patient is not sensitive will cure him. And we know the sensitivity of their peculiar symptoms.
Kent saying, ” Susceptibility is only a name for a state that underlies all possible sickness and all possible cure,” But there is more in homoeopathy than the remedy; there is the ADMINISTRATION.
In acute sickness you may need to repeat every four, six or eight hours – in the most acute, even every five minutes, for a few doses – till the patient is better.
If you stop too soon in a pneumonia, the disease is a apt to reassert itself. This must be watched. In acute, disease there are organisms rapidly multiplying, and the patient is fighting them for all he is worth. It may be necessary to repeatedly stimulate his resistance till he has the mastery. Then stop. Temperature etc., and especially his increased well-being tell you that he is as he says, “better.”
In CHRONIC DISEASE give one dose – some give two or three at a few hours internal – then WAIT.
Dr. Erastus Case, whose brilliant “Clinical Experience” are so well worth study ” in his early cases the selection of the potency and the number of doses given show the inexperience and prodigality of youth.” His later experience is that a single dose of a high potency proves to be the most effective in healing the sick. But when the vital force is sluggish, several doses of the remedy, preferably dissolved in water, are required to establish reaction.”
You will observe that we are following Hahnemann when we say, the remedy, the dose
For Hahnemann insisted on : – The single “like” remedy.
The single dose.
Initial aggravation (Wright’s “negative” phase”).
Amelioration, often very long-lasting in chronic disease.
Non-interference with vital reaction.
Potentization.
Where you found and administered the vital stimulus you will get reaction.
It may take the form of initial aggravation – of excellent prognosis, provided that this is followed by amelioration.
Or, where remedy and potency exactly fitted and where disease was not deep-seated there may be merely a quick rebound towards health.
The symptoms of the patient were his cry for a certain medicine.
His reaction to that remedy – his response – has a great deal to tell you; and this I have written out in the following sheets, which will help you to understand the RESPONSE OF PATIENT TO DRUG.
DEDUCTIONS FROM EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY.
(1) No change may mean (a) Remedy wrong.
(b) Potency wrong.
(c) Patient sluggish in reacting.
(d) Slow-acting remedy.
(2) Steady rapid improvement without any aggravation.
this means (a) Remedy and potency exactly corresponded.
(b) Or disease not deeply rooted.
(3) Short sharp aggravation, the quick improvement, the improvement being long lasting.
this means (a) Remedy correct.
(b) Reaction vigorous.
(c) No tendency to structural changes.
(d) Good prognosis.
Patients usually do best who get this initial homoeopathic aggravation.
(4) Long aggravation with slow improvement means case almost incurable, vitality being low.
Do not repeat too soon-wait till patient has sufficient strength to react to another dose.
(5) Long aggravation with slow decline of patient means (a) Case incurable.
(b) Or potency too high for feeble reaction of patient.
Incurable is only used in homoeopathic sense of the term. You can greatly alleviated.
(6) An aggravation, then amelioration, followed by return of old symptoms, in reverse order of their appearance.
This is the best result we can desire – AND MUST NOT BE INTERFERED WITH.
These old symptoms usually disappear in short time. If some persist, they rank high for the next prescription.
(7) Improvement marked but in wrong direction, e.g., ulcer on leg heals, put patients has, say, haemorrhage from lung – Antidote at once.
With some remedies, in some patients in chronic disease reactions to a dose of the vital stimulus may go on from 40 to 100 days – even longer. Let it!
Never interfere with vital reaction. So long as the patient is busy curing himself, let him alone. WAIT.
Hahnemann says, “HE who observes this rule with the greatest case will be the most successful homoeopathic practitioner.” The patient may go straight on to cure. Or later if the symptoms reappear, in modified form to demand another dose, you repeat.
Sometimes old, long-forgotten symptoms reappear to alarm the patient. “I have got that old rash coming back. It was cured 20 years ago. I don’t want to have that again.”
You explain. He has passed many milestones on his long load, undulating yet downhill. This is one of them. He will need to repass them in their reverse order as he climbs up again by the undulating road towards health. The rash was a milestone and is being repassed. The remedy that brought the patient back to that will almost certainty take him past it.
Initial aggravation in acute disease is short and sharp; soon over.
Initial aggravation in chronic disease, generally takes the form “symptoms worse. but patient better” If the patient is better, that is all that matters. DOn’t interfere. The rest will follow.
We know that vital reaction is still in progress so long as : – (1) Symptoms disappear in the reverse order of their coming.
(2) Ancient perhaps long-forgotten symptoms return to disappear in the reverse order of their appearing.
(3) Symptoms pass from internal organs or tissues to those more superficial (as when asthma disappears, while that ancient eruption reappears on skin).
The order of cure is :- From within – outwards.
From above – downwards.
In the reverse order of appearing.
So we see that homoeopathic prescribing is not merely a question of the remedy, or the initial dose.
Many go so far and then fail for want to knowledge.
They repeat without warrant. They change the remedy lightly; not realizing that; once the vital stimulus is given, it is peril that you meddle with reaction.
While the patient is still reacting, they repeat or interpose for trivial symptoms another drug, and the reaction stops.
They have not learnt that the first condition of cure is.”so long as improvement holds, and the patient says I am better, nothing must be done.”
We can only prescribe successfully in response to symptoms. This holds good in prescribing, in repeating, in changing the remedy (when it has to be changed) and in antidoting.
I must mention the plussing method – so called – of Hahnemann’s later days, which has only been realized since the publication of sixth edition of the Organon.
Weir received his medical education first at Glasgow University MB ChB 1907, and then on a sabbatical year in Chicago under the tutelage of Dr James Tyler Kent of Hering Medical College during 1908-9. Weir reputedly first learned of homeopathy through his contact with Dr Robert Gibson Miller.
John Weir wrote- Some of the Outstanding Homeopathic Remedies for Acute Conditions with Margaret Tyler, Homeopathy and its Importance in Treatment of Chronic Disease, The Trend of Modern Medicine, The Science and Art of Homeopathy, Brit Homeo Jnl, The Present Day Attitude of the Medical Profession Towards Homeopathy, Brit Homeo Jnl XVI, 1926, p.212ff, Homeopathy: a System of Therapeutics, The Hahnemann Convalescent Home, Bournemouth, Brit Homeo Jnl 20, 1931, 200-201, Homeopathy an Explanation of its Principles, British Homeopathy During the Last 100 Years, Brit Homeo Jnl 23, 1932: etc