But where your patient says “My” instead of “I” there you have a Particular. “My headache is awful in the house: the only thing for it is to got out a walk about If often drives me out of bed at 2 or d a.m., to walk the Common for hours.” (These are not exaggerated statements: we are giving you, all through, actual words of actual patients;and the magic drug for the last was Plus) different,
But the Generals and the Particulars nay not only be quite different, but they may be flat contradictory in the same patient: so you see how imperative it is to get then clearly and to know what value to give to teach. Arsenicum is worse from cold: Arsenicum stands in the lost of “predominantly cold remedies” in capitals. And yet the headache of Arsenicum is better from cold. ARs., has been described as only comfortable when ‘rolled in blankets up to his chin, with his head out of the window”
Lycopodium is a warm remedy the main, and often cannot stand heat; yet his stomach symptoms, which are a great feature of the drug, are ameliorated by hot food ad drinks. Of these the patient says not “I,” but “My,” therefore they are particulars. He may say,” I cannot stand heat,” (a General of the highest importance, and one of the most safe and useful of eliminating symptoms if strongly marked!) “I cannot stand heat, but my indigestion” (a particular of the greatest importance to the patient, and on which he lays greatest stress) “is better for hot food and drinks. Cold things always disagree with me,” (meaning his stomach). Again, Phosphorous stands in capitals as a very cold person.
If you are to be a good prescriber, but the way, your drugs have got to be people for you, with whims, fancies and terrors, with tempers and idiosyncrasies and characteristics: you have got to see them staking about the world, speaking and moving and halting with the bodies-minds-souls of men. You have got to travel with them in tram or train, and they will betray themselves buttoned up and shining together or loose and jolly and open; fidgety, restless, fearful; dull and inert; quarrelling for an open window, growing at the draught with windows closed.
You have got to dine with them, and they will reveal themselves in their relation to food and drink, ad in the mental revelations such convivial moments of relaxation call forth. You may spot hem standing of preference, or sinking always into the nearest seat; stoop shouldered and drooping or erect ad full of “go” depressed and purlieus. restless and anxious, as their deeply; lined faces testify’; smooth and smug; dirty complexioned and careless of appearance chalky faced and flabby of superlative tissue; compact and hard as nails; fault-finding-affectionate and mild-responsive to every wave of sentiment and emotion-dull and indifferent. Look for them everywhere, and learn them, ad they will betray themselves at every turn; and you will often save yourselves hours of solid work, by spotting them as they enter your consulting room.
So, to hard back…Phosphorus is a very cold person, but his stomach is better for old drinks. when that is sick he craves for cold water which is vomited, however, so soon as it gems warm in the stomach. This is a particular, true, but a priceless one, because it is peculiar to phosphorus. And here we have a new term-a “PECULIAR” symptoms, strongly diagnostic of one drug. these peculiar symptoms are especially useful in acute diseases where you are more likely to meet them, and where they often provide a brilliant short cut to the drug, saving time and toil. And see how these peculiar unaccountable, contradictory symptoms help you how unexpected they are, and how diagnostic!
Here you have the superlatively chilly Phosphorous and yet his pains are often of the most intensely-burning description: and though, as a whole, he cannot tolerate cold, yet his sick stomach craves for icy drinks, which it cannot even retain when they get warm! Take your Generals and Particulars mixed up and aware and just any how., and you might land in giving such a patient Lycopodium; for both are worse for heat, ad worse for cold only the Generals and Particulars are exactly reversed! for Lycopodium is in the remain, intolerant of heat, which his stomach craves; while Phosphorous detests the cold which his such stomach demands with vehemence.?See how all-important it is target your Generals and Particulars right! This is where we fail, and blame Homeopathy.
Then, besides Kent’s Generals and Particulars, you have COMMON SYMPTOMS. A symptoms nay be common to all cases of a certain disease, m and therefore of nt. great use in picking out the individual remedy for a particular case of that disease or it may be common to a very great number of drugs, and therefore indicate one of a large group of remedies only, and so of very little use in repertorising. Take thirsty, a general symptom of the patient, though in the Repertory relegated to the section :Stomach”: “I am terribly thirst.”
If there is nothing to account for the thirst, it may be an important symptom; though common to a great number of drugs! But if the patient is running a high temperature, or suffering from diabetes, of it his work keeps him in the heat of bakehouse or an engine-rom, of of the weather is suddenly and unusually host, the symptom becomes becomes a Common symptom, and almost valueless., Don’t waste life in writing down that awful list of remedies’ Thirsty,.:” absence of thirst under conditions where you would except it, on the contrary, becomes a very important symptom; as absence of thirst with a very high temperature Kent has a rubric for that. Remember-THE MORE UNCOMMON A SYMPTOM IS, THE MORE VALUABLE: THE LESS YOU CAN ACCOUNT FOR A SYMPTOM AND THE MORE INTENSELY PERSONAL IT IS, THE MORE IMPORTANT.
In inflammation, for instance, worse from pressure is what one would expect, and of little value-so many drugs and most inflammations have it! But better from pressure, under these circumstances, is priceless; and leads you to small group of drugs, such a Bryonia. Frequent maturation with a fibroid impacted in the pelvis is not a symptom that will help you in working out your case; it is a Common symptom and amply accounted for… and this leads one to insist on the absolute necessity for correct diagnosis before you even open your Repertory. Remember, the priceless symptoms for success are the strange, m the rare, the unaccountable ones; those that flatly contradict preconceived ideas, and head off straight for a limited number of drugs.
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.