January 11th-Cannot cat; though headache. Nat-mur. 200, 4 doses, 6-hourly.
February 1st-Not had an attack since here despite heavy work, feels very well. No medicine.
February 22nd-Not had a headache for 2 months. indigestion immediately p.c. Feels better in himself. No medicine.
March 14th-Only a slight headache since here, but was able to stop at work; and right again. No medicine.
Case VI
Miss R.G., (20) (Outpatient, Hospital). Feb,15th, 1912- Pain, back, when she catches cold. AHead, burning pain on vertex:(<) on closing eyes. Feels, sick with headache daily; hospitals or privately all the time; really never free from cough No pain; no sputum. Worse heat
Faintish in warm room. Depressed, consolation. Irritable with noises. Fidgety.
(<) Heat-(used as eliminating symptom to cur out cold remedies from lists).
(<) consolation (Kent, p. 16)- Let-t., Lycopodium, NAT-M., Platina, Thuja
Noises=irritable (p.59)- Iodium, Natrum mur., (later addition to Repertory).
Faint inward room (p.1361)- Lach, Lil-t., Lycopodium, PULS Faint in crowd (p.1359)-Nat-,., Sul.
Headache (>) closing eyes (p.137)-Aloe, Bryonia, Iodium, Natrum mur., Platina, Sul.
Pain, burning vertex (p.177)-Bryonia, Lachesis,, natrum mur., Nat-s Sul.
Pain, Burning, vertex at M.P. (p.177)-Lachesis, Nat-,., Sul.
=Bryonia2 4 Lachesis 3 6. Lycopodium 2; Nat-m 6 11 Sul 4 7. Nat-mur e0, r doses 6 hourly.
March 14th, 1912-Very much better in herself. Hardly had a headache. no burning vertex. No the least faintish., Pain in back gone. no cough: never been so free of cough since it began years ago. No medicine.
Of course there are heaps of cases, where you cannot et an mental or other general symptoms so definitely mares as in the foregoing, and where you have got to be most careful not to take symptoms too easily for “eliminating” purposes. or to knock out drugs in insufficient cause., If you do, you will find yourself landed with -Sepia probably, most times; though you might very often do worse.
Times of day, if very definite, help. Some people are perfectly well all day, but their nights are purgatorial. Some are in pain all day long, put perfectly well at night. Some wise feeling miserably ill and tired after a good night’s rest, and with nothing to account for it (it is important to ascertain this!) and only feel pretty well as the day wets on, k and are bright and happy and ready for work, mental and physical, in the evening, when you might expect them to be tired.
Others have all their wariness ad languor, all their sufferings, in the evening- after days neither strenuous nor fatiguing. These are important generals, and very useful in helping to determine the drug. Some drugs have their very hour on the face of the clock; and others a very marked periodicity. The worse-in-the evening people, by the way, have a talent for working out at Lycopodium.
Worse from damp, and worse from dry weather are deep seated, and very important: if strongly marked in the patient, they may be used as eliminating symptoms. “I feel ten years younger to- day because it is raining; all my joints are quite loose, and I case move freely,; said a patient a few days ago”: while others stiffen and ache for a mere passing shower. There is a small important list, patient better in wet weather which is not in Kent;s Repertory Dr.Kent points out that this rubric appears in his repertory as “DR weather agg” p., 1357 and “Cold dry weather agg.” p. 1349. Alumina, Arsenicum, ASAR., Belladonna, Boy, BRY., Carb-an., m Carb-v., CAUST., Charm, Fl-ac., HEP., Ip., Laur., Mang., Medorrhinum, Mez., Mur-ac., nitricum acidum, NUX, m plat, m Rhododendron, Saba., Sepia, Silicea, Spigelia, Spongia, Staphysagria, Sulphur, Zincum met. (Rheumatic pain better in wet weather, means practically, caust, m Hep or Nux-c) Dr. G. miller says, :in rheumatism where we expect as a rule to have an agg. from weather changes, its absence becomes peculiar; where the patient is not affects by change or weather, exclude Dulcamara, Nux-most., Phosphorus, Ran-b, m Rhodo, Rhus., Silicea, Tuberc. And where to patient is not affects by wet weather exclude Calcarea, Mercurius, Nat-c., Nat-s., Ruta.”
Then there are patients who never dare t get in. a bath, who are obliged to “wash in sections” as one of them expressed it; since they feel faint, or actually do faint, as soon as the water flows over their skins: while in a lesser degree, others feel miserably week and ill after a bath.
Such symptoms must be very marked and definite to carry great weight or to rule out drugs; but they help immensely; the last may give the casting vote between Pulsatilla and Sulph.
Last and least important of all, comes the name of the patients malady. Look it up, if you like, at the very end, and it may joyfully confirm your choice of drug, which it must not unduly bias. If your patient is an asthma patient, it is comforting to know that the drug his symptoms demand has gain and again cured bad cases of asthma. But remedies that have never been recorded as having cured asthma will do the trick, if the symptoms of he patient cry our for them, as their simillimum. Drugs have not all been pushed far enough to produce lesions, and their voices do not carry, as a rule, deeper than function-except in the cases of accidental poisoning. But get the right drug, the stimulus needed, ad you will find the long-sustained. Then KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF! Wait long for a second very definite cry, before you dare to interfere. You may have to wait months- then wait! Remember, it is the patient who has to cure himself; the drug cannot cure him; the drug is only the stimulus that starts the vital reaction. So long as curative reaction is in progress, it is senseless-criminal-to interfere. This is the way to crush your work., to vitiate your experience, to break your heart. So long the patient is improving, let him be, d never meddle till he begins to slip back; that is the first possible moment to repeat, or to reconsider the case. It is safer to be a little late than a little soon. You must “go fast slowly,” there is no other way.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.