i. Instead of copying the symptoms in this “fever order,” it may suffice to so mark them that they may be read at a glance in that order. Pencils of divers colors being provided, blue dots before certain symptoms would place them under “chill stage;” red, under “hot stage;” yellow, “sweating stage;” green, for apyrexia; black, for sequelae, etc.
j. Natural disease, as well as drug-provings, develop in then fever order. Even chronic diseases show it; and no perfect simile between disease and drug can exist without regard being had to this same fever order and to the febrile stages, one or all (nature sometimes seems to skip one or more), which truly assimilate the symptom-groups of the case and its remedy. Hahnemann’s remarks on intermittent fever (Organon, 239, 235, 236, etc.) apply thoroughly to al forms of disease and to nearly al remedy-selection and administration.
k. One can now appreciate how insufficient is mere date as a criterion of “primary” and “secondary” symptoms. In fact, absolute contrasts of all sorts are abhorrent to nature; and as in the fevers, all seeming contradictions blend somewhere, even in date.
This old notion recently cropped out when a Homoeopathic physician declared that “as the primary symptoms of drugs alone can guide to the similimum, the secondary (or late) symptoms have no right to any place in the materia medica”.
The date of a symptoms in a proving depends on varying circumstances, as temperament, dose, time of taking, repetition, and environment, and hence is fallacious as a test.
Furthermore, under this head, Dr. C. Hering, after long experience, decided that the very latest symptoms of any proving are probably the most characteristic.
To all this a climax is needed for each drug- a keystone, as it were-completing and perfecting the symptomatic arch and uniting the primary and secondary abutments with a single phrase for each, related but antagonistic, and expressing its genius. Diagnosis from the “totality of symptom” is the means by which this end is reached. The search in itself is a fascinating and valuable exercise.
All symptoms, primary and secondary, naturally group themselves around these two in the completed picture, but in their proper “fever order”.
Illustrations.-This, in Aconite we find in the “primary” range ANXIOUS RESTLESSNESS; in the “secondary” range, REPTILE-LIKE TORPOR.
In Rhus, tax, primary, RHEUMATIC RESTLESSNESS: secondary, TYPHOID UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
In Hyoscyamus, TURBULENT RESTLESSNESS versus PROFOUND STUPOR for primary and secondary states, respectively.
In Arsenicum, PROSTRATED RESTLESSNESS versus DEATH-LIKE COLLAPSE.
In Chamomilla, WALKING ABOUT LIKE A CAGED ANIMAL versus DOGGED, QUIET INCIVILITY.
Ferrum, WALKING ABOUT TO BELIEVE SEVERE DULL PAIN versus ANAEMIC INERTIA.
Belladonna, HASTY ACTIVITY versus DREAMY STUPOR.
Bryonia, DRYNESS OF SECRETIONS versus a COLLIQUATIVE STATE.
Calcarea carb., OBESITY versus EMACIATION.
Sulphur, EXCESSIVELY BUSY MANNER versus LAZINESS.
These processes of study are perfectly in touch with al others, affording assistance to all, hindrance to none.
The subject may yet be viewed from a variety of other stand- points, helpfully; but in this place emphasis may again be laid upon the only one of these which can never be spared-that of von Boenninghausen. His analysis of “the totality of symptoms” may appear to some very mechanical, but it is the basis of arrangement of his indispensable repertory. To recapitulate, its numerous divisions constitute four essential parts, viz.:.
1. “Location” (of symptom).
2. “Sensation” (or “kind of pain,” or “of symptom”).
3. “Condition” (of aggravations and of ameliorations).
4. “Combination” (or “concomitants”).
Added to these is the final one of “relationships” (or “comparisons”).
Great refinements and minutes are possible and valuable under every one of these heads, and thus the all-important individualities of both the person and the drug are to be discovered and to be matched, the one with the other; aided by carefully writing down all the phenomena, whether of a drug or of a patient, under these four heads, and in this order. A brief but attentive reading of the Materia Medica will give a strong impression of such refinements and minutiae; and by parallel, simultaneous, comparative reading of similar drugs their difference will grow more and more conspicuous also.
The practical application of von Boenninghausen’s method has produced a vast harvest in the hands of our pioneers; as, von B. himself; his pupils, Carroll Dunham, Ad. Lippe, and others, as sell as Hering, Guernsey, and many more.
The free use of this or of some similar repertory will greatly facilitate the selection of the remedy and will gradually give large and rapid mastery of cases and of the Materia medica. However, a word of caution is here needed, to wit: a repertory, after all, is but a disjointed catalogue (classified, it is true) of symptoms. It scarcely shows the perspective of anything; this can be found only in the Materia Medica proper. But we find the greatest usefulness in both when we employ the repertory as a simple index to the Materia Medica, and so economize precious time and energy in our work of selection or of a priori study.
For besides use, a “repertory of modalities” (of “conditions” of aggravations and ameliorations)-after von B., a very little book-often gives great help to one who already has a good general knowledge of the remedies of our school. It can be carried in the medicine case of pocket, and attracts little if any attention or criticism.
Drug-Affinity for Organs and Tissues.
It is most interesting to note the apparent proneness of divers drugs to display their effects-each, in it sown peculiar way-in certain organs, in the first place; as, Mercury, Chelidonium and Nux vom. in the liver; Phosphorous and Tartar emetic, in the lungs; Belladonna and Gelsemium, in the brain; etc. Attempts have been made to select remedies by this crude relationship, for the cure of diseases, under the name, “Organopathy.” But this is altogether too general a method to answer the precise demands of the sick organism, and is now little more than a tradition among us.
Tissue-affinity of drugs is, however, usually recognized; as Calc. phos. for bony tissues; Bryonia for fascia, etc. One argument, indeed, against Organopathy, is that no one drug can meet the needs of any one organ, since it contains a variety of diverse tissues, each requiring a distinct remedy or remedies, when inflamed, for instance; and besides, as the organ has its nervous supply from a plurality of sources, a plurality of nerve- remedies at the same time contend for the choice.
Hausmann and Schussler have elaborated this subject. (See, in particular, Schussler’s Twelve Remedies.).
Constitutional affinities are another branch of the same. Grauvogl’s work on Homoeopathy is largely occupied with its development. He recognizes therein, the composition of organic bodies, from carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen-the human body, in particular. The excess of some element or elements, or deficiency of some other (which results the same way), is largely the basis of disease, or at least, is commonly coexistent with it, and modifies both it and its treatment. In short, pathology is sustained, and therapeutics is applied to cure, alike through the channel of such constitutional conditions.
According to Grauvogl, these are to be placed in three classes, according to the predominance of elements, viz:.
1. The carbo-nitrogenoid constitution; (the non-eliminative; “lithaemia”) Sulphur is its drug-type.
2. The hydrogenoid constitution; (the flabby, watery; “hydraemia.”) Natrum sulph. represents this.
3. The oxygenoid constitution; (the inflammatory, combustible, febrile; the emaciating, wasting, consumptive). Ferrum is its type.
Other classifications there are, but this must here suffice. Grauvogl’s work is accessible, and should be studied, in this connection.
The Sides of the Body and their Drug-Affinities.
Nothing in Homoeopathy appears more fanciful, to the ordinary Allopathic mind, than our claim that drugs show a preferential relation to one side of the body and its parts, or to the other. On the other hand, nothing is better established in fact.
Theoretically, and a priori, a clear diversity of sides should exist; since the superior nutrition of the right side should assure us of its positive electric polarity, with the left side negative. And so on; for the same is true of the front as compared with the back parts; also, of the inner parts, as compared with the outer; all normal flow of force being from within, outward. The same is true of the head as related to the extremities. The chemical nature of the secretion at positive and negative poles is characteristically different-alkaline and acid, etc.
Again, the sides of the body are vastly influenced, its sensation and function, by the asymmetrical location of the internal viscera. Thus, the liver is located mainly on the right side; and the right shoulder, as is well known, is the special seat of is sympathetic pains.
