Dr. Hering humorously said: “Such symptoms are like children, well born, but coming into the world by a breech- presentation”.
Thirdly, other sceptics insist that either class of symptoms, if separated from their natural and observed grouping, and succession, are meaningless and useless. The answer is, that in pathological studies this is partly true; but that pathological studies are inadequate in prescribing, and that we are largely dependent upon pure symptomatology, in its most primitive form, at the besides.
At the last, the testimony of experienced prescriber must decide this question also. Hering, Boenninghausen, Jahr, Lippe, Dunham, Guernsey and a host of others have found that this theoretical and aesthetical objection is unpractical and misleading at the beside, and that such symptoms are valid, and do not disappoint the user of them.
“Cured symptoms” are recognized by most physician as bearing the very best credentials, but only an abundant experience can enable one to say that in new and strange combinations, or even standing isolated, they remain true to nature, are true and essential segments of a natural whole, and are reliable in drug selection. Experience, however, is too unanimously in favor of this conclusion to permit of further doubt, with all deference to those highly esteemed colleagues who hold the contrary view. Not yet found in a proving in a healthy body, Nature’s law predicts and requires that some day they shall so appear; and if already in a pure proving, also, the evidence becomes final.
Rank of Symptoms.-One of the practical difficulties encountered in the practice of Homoeopathy is the maze of symptoms, seemingly of equal value, of which every “totally” is composed, both in the chronically sick and in the provings-the materia medica. There are three methods, or systems, in vogue of the practical solution of this difficulty. Individual physicians combine these, at will:.
1. The pathological method, in which the provings are subjected to diagnostic grouping in advance, and the symptoms of the patient after similar diagnostic and pathological collation are compared, as a whole, with the pathological symptoms-groups in waiting in the materia medica.
2. The key-note or “characteristic” system. The latter term is Hahnemann’s own. The former phrase is, to the disease caused by any drug, somewhat as is the word “pathognomonic” to an idiopathic disease; it names the drug; subject, however, to exceptions. In other words, it is super-characteristic: it stand at the head of the characteristics of that drug, with which the whole drug-tune harmonizes, and is almost always found in the cases cured by that drug. And it is often irrelevant to any noble organ;; is, indeed, often trivial, apart from its drug identification. We owe the term and its application mainly to Dr. H.N. Guernsey.
3. The system of graded rank of symptoms. Thus, of all clinical indications, the highest rank is conceded, in a general way, in acute cases, to the latest symptoms. In chronic diseases, however,-not their acute outcroppings, which resemble other acute cases, and include recent drug-effects-in pure and simple chronic errors-the highest rank belongs to the long-suppressed skin affections, believed to be the rot of the whole. After these, the symptoms of the noblest organs take rank and precedence in the picture-the “totality”.
Lastly, the psychic symptoms-intellectual, moral, and emotional, with the will, plus and minus, outrank, ceteris paribus, all others in both acute and chronic diseases.
Heredity becomes, often, the ranking indication for drug- selection and for hygienic measures. And it is here needful to say that, in the view of modern pathology, the scrofulous taint, a form of “psora,” is little else, to use the phrase of Dr. F.F. Maury, than “quarternary syphilis.” The skin-clinic of Professor Duhring, in the University of Pennsylvania, has confirmed this view, to which he assents. A child, born with syphilitic pemphigus, for instance, and “cured” by routine treatment, reappears at two and a half years of age with scrofulous sore eyes, etc., to other known aetiology existing.
Pregnancy-the ante-natal period-is the right time to begin the cure in such cases, judging of remedies by the symptoms of the mother, and of the other children if any there be, and of the father also. After birth, continuous and strict Homoeopathic auspices are necessary to fit the young person to produce healthy offspring, and to live in health to old age.
Ante-natal treatment of a child is also the mother’s opportunity; for she, herself, is the prime field of curative activity, in which her child, as part of hers simply shares.
In girls and boys, the ages of teething and of puberty, and the years, more or less, before and after these periods, offer special opportunities of constitutional and radical treatment by the methods of Hahnemann.
All of these are in the line of physical evolution. The edge of involution, also-called, in women, the climacteric-is truly held to be “the critical age,” when chronic taints, with special symptoms, often seek to reassert themselves. Then, we should be prepared to give them the coup de grace.
Nosodes; “Isopathy.”-The virus of any disease producing such material, according to Dr. Hering and others, is, when potentized, a similar, not identical, remedy to the same. Others insist on the identity; hence reject this sort of therapy as isopathic (isos, equal; pathos, disease). Hering, however, by proving these on healthy persons, established their right to a place in the Materia medica and defined their particular indications; for instance, Lyssin, the attenuated virus of hydrophobia, which has a wide therapeutic range (see Guiding Symptoms). Tuberculin, too, is our ancient possession.
Dr. Samuel Swan, not hesitating to push this idea, extended it, with provings, to preparations of milk (Lac), human and other; to beef (Carnis bovis); to sugar (Saccharum officinales); to oatmeal (Arena), and many others; given versus cravings, repugnances, and ill effects alike; asserting great clinical success.
Typical Drugs.-Whilst individualization is the invariable duty of the physician in treatment, it is restful and helpful always to initiate this mental process from an anchorage in the consideration of a few pathological drug-types; thus in dysentery one must instantly perceive the type in Nux vomica and Mercurius; in pneumonia, Bryonia, Phosphorus, Tartar emetic, etc.: in acute fever, Aconite; yet none of these may be finally selected. Nevertheless, they were as fixed points whence we can the more readily proceed in comparison and differentiation.
A small Domestic Practice, by Samuel Morgan, M.D., may be recommended to beginners for this precise purpose. It can be carried in the breast-pocket.
Special Drugs.-Two common drugs (and doubtless many more) are of special interest, owing to the fact that they cure, on the one hand, certain perilous states, and, on the other hand, they severaly control some common and troublesome but merely inconvenient conditions. These two drugs are Aconite and gelsemium. Aconite is the remedy for profound, acute congestion, even with loss of consciousness. it also cures nervous anxiety, unwillingness to tell symptoms, omodynia, etc. Gelsemium cures scarletina, with stupor and sudden outcries from ear-pains; also mild but active delirium in typhoid states. Again, it helps in neuralgia of the cervical plexus, in gastralgia, and in alcoholic and other forms of insomnia, viz., the “wide-awake” kind.
These two drugs often follow each other very well, and so are especially “complementary.” They outflank and overlap the spheres of many other drugs, performing their apparent but mistaken duty. Thus after failure, in children’s diseases, of Chamomilla, Bryonia, Podophyllum, etc., Aconite has repeatedly cured. Years ago, Dr. C.J. Hempel so taught; but he wrongly substituted Aconite-mother-tincture of the root-for proper attenuations of true curative and “similar” drugs, and reaction and neglect followed. Gelsemium often supersedes Mercurius, Pulsatilla, etc.
Yet another drug deserves a special place, viz., Mercurius. Most of its uses are well known. One, little if at al recognized, is in that mild but depressing periostitis which remains often after internal diseases. The ribs, the bones of the head or face, the coccyx, or the edges of joints, are tender on pressure with the thumb mail. Mercurius cures.
Hering’s Analytical Therapeutics-particularly its sections on “Mind,” and on “Typhoid Fever,” are types of Homoeopathic clinical study. Hering’s and Horne’s Materia Medica cards or similar ones, home-made, are partly “clinical” in origin and character, and are very helpful for self-quizzing; having characteristics printed or written on one side, and the name of the drug upon the other.
Farrington’s Clinical Materia Medica is substantially Dr. Hering’s teachings interpreted and extended by an able, young and enthusiast6ic editor. Happy it is for Homoeopathy that he lived and taught and wrote!.
