All who know and desire the benefits of the homoeopathic system of medicine, or art of healing, should acquaint themselves with the customs of the strict practitioners in order to avoid the deception of pretenders who are willing to imitate for diminutive fees, having no consideration for the patient nor the art of healing.

There are physicians who call themselves homoeopaths, but are so only in name, as they do not follow the methods worked out by Hahnemann.

They give two medicines in one glass or alternate in two glasses, or in some cases give medicine in three or four glasses.

They do not conform to Hahnemann’s rules in taking the case and writing and preserving full records of the cases.

The people who are acquainted with these facts cannot protect themselves against such impositions.

The false and the true pervade all experiences and conditions of life, and the unenlightened and simple suffer by the deceptions of the false.

The time has come when the followers of Hahnemann should furnish information to the people in order that they may recognize the genuine if they desire the benefits of the homoeopathic art of healing.

It should be known, first of all, that true Homoeopathicians write out the symptoms of each and every patient, and preserve records for the benefit of such patient and the art of healing.

A moment’s thought must convince any person that human memory is too uncertain to be trusted with the long record of symptoms, even in a small practice; then how much more does the busy practitioner owe it to his patients to keep accurate records of their sicknesses ?

No physician is competent to, make a second prescription if the symptoms upon which the first prescription was made have not been recorded with fullness and accuracy.

Often in such a case the neglectful physician has forgotten the remedy given, even the one that has caused great improvement, but as there is no record of the case as to remedy or symptoms, and many of the latter have passed away, there is nothing to do but guess at a remedy, which generally spoils the case or so confuses it that the case seldom ends in a cure, and the sufferer always wonders why the doctor, who helped her so much at first, lost control of the case.

Many cases that should end in perfect cure result in failure from the above negligence.

Under such circumstances, when the physician has made a bad guess, he goes on spoiling his case by guessing and changing remedies to the disgust of the patient and injury to the art of healing.

Such failure leads to the experimentation and temporizing which lead to disgrace. The people should be able to know whether a physician is what he calls himself, or is of another sect. The temptation is very strong to be “all things to all men.”

The people should not expect to obtain homoeopathic results from a physician whose methods are not in accordance with the homoeopathic art of healing.

If a person wants mongrelism, regularism, polypharmacy, etc., by knowing the methods of the homoeopathist, he will be able to discriminate and select the kind of his preference, and it is reasonable to suppose that if he does not want a homoeopathist he will be glad to know how to shun him.

Nothing is more humiliating to a Hahnemannian than to be called to the bedside and find that the people do not want him; but actually want one who gives medicine in two glasses because some old family doctor did so.

Therefore, this information is as useful to him who would avoid a homoeopathist as to him who desires one.

Homoeopathic patrons going abroad and those far removed from their own physician, often ask for the address of a good Hahnemannian. Such address cannot always be given, yet there are many reserved, quiet Hahnemannian physicians scattered over the world, but they are sometimes hard to find.

As far as possible, traveling homoeopathic patients should carry the address of Hahnemannians. In the absence of this a test may serve the purpose.

Go to the most likely man who professes to practice after the manner of Hahnemann and tell him you want to consult him; but unless he writes out all the symptoms of the case as directed by Hahnemann, and continues to keep a record for future use, you cannot trust your case with him, as you have learned to have no confidence in the memory of the man.

If he refuses to do this because of lack of time or ignorance, he should not be trusted, and it is best to bid him “good day” at once.

If he be what he professes to be, he will be delighted to find a patient that knows so much of his system of practice, and the patient and physician will become fast friends.

There is another matter that the people should know about; that the homoeopathic physician cannot prescribe on the name of a disease; also, that names are often the cover of human ignorance; also, that two sicknesses of the same name are seldom given the same remedy.

If a physician could prescribe on a name there would be no necessity to write out the many pages of symptoms that some long cases present.

The name of the disease does not reveal the symptoms in any case of sicknesses; the symptoms are the sole basis of the prescription; therefore it will appear that the name is not necessarily known, but the symptoms must be known to the physician in order that he may make a successful prescription.

It will now appear that if a physician has not time to devote to the patient in order to secure the symptoms, he is likely to be just as useless to the patient as though he were ignorant, as he will, in either case, fail to procure the symptoms which are the only basis of a homoeopathic prescription.

A little thought will enable a patient to ascertain whether this work is being done with care and intelligence or with ignorance, inexperience and laziness. It matters not from what excuse, if the physician fails to ascertain all the general and particular information in a case, he should not be trusted, as this labor, well performed, renders the rest of the work easy and a cure possible.

The people should also know that when such a record is on paper it is in such form that the patient may become the object of great study.

In no other form can a likeness of his sickness be presented to the understanding of the true physician.

Any physician who sneers at this plan shows how little he values human life and how much he falls short of a Hahnemannian.

The people should also know that the true physician may now compare such a record of facts with the symptoms of the Materia Medica until he has discovered that remedy most similar of all remedies to the written record.

And when the patient has become intelligent, he will say to his physician :

“Take your time, Doctor. I can wait until you find what you think is the most similar of all remedies, as I do not want to take any medicine you are in doubt about.”

This statement makes a grateful doctor, as he now knows that he is trusted and known, and has a patient intelligent and considerate.

Under such circumstances the doctor can do his best and such patients obtain the best and uniform results.

People who are not thus instructed become troublesome to the physician, and even suspicious, when they need to inspire him with full confidence, and sometimes they even change physicians and do the one wrong thing that is against the best interest of the patient.

It is possible and desirable for the people to be so instructed that they may select the safest physician and know when he is working intelligently.

People who are instructed do not intrude upon the physician’s sacred moments, but, on the contrary, aid him with trust and gratitude.

Only the ignorant suggest this and that in addition to what is being done, and the more ignorant the doctor the greater is the number of things resorted to make himself and others think he is doing something.

The intelligent physician does what law and principles demand and nothing more; but the ignorant one knows no law and serves only his wavering experience, and appears to be doing so much for the patient, in spite of which the patient dies.

The physician must often long for a patient so well instructed as to say :

“Doctor, if you are in doubt about what to give me, don’t give me anything.”

Such words could only come from one who knows that there is a law governing all our vital activities, and that law must be invoked or disorder must increase to the destruction of all order in the human economy.

If it were not true that the human race is ignorant of the highest principles of science, mongrelistic medication could not find support upon the earth.

It is true that if the people would study Hahnemann’s Organon and thereby secure the safest medication for themselves and their families when sick, crude compounds and uncertain medication would not be the rule as it is at the present day.

In all trades a man must be somewhat skillful in order to gain entrance to an intelligent patronage; but in the profession of medicine, personal tact excuses such lack of training and ignorance of all science of healing.

People who know what homoeopathy really is, should seek to introduce the principles among the most intelligent people by reading, and not by urging upon them a favorite physician.

There is a large number of earnest believers in the law of cure, who desire to limit or restrict its application, not realizing that this limited acceptance makes it to themselves no law, but a rule of management of a few cases.

With them it is not a law that has any relation to their failures, but some other kind of medical practice must be called into use to fit the uncured cases which are, as a rule, the majority.

These expect to cure all cases of disease with medicines in crude state, and failing to do so, condemn the law as only applicable to “certain cases.”

They say that certain diseases must be treated with strong medicines; that a congestive chill must have large doses of quinine.

They deny the dynamic activities of medicines and ask foolish questions and manifest wonderful ignorance of medical philosophy.

They do not admit what they cannot demonstrate, and their demonstrations have been very meager, therefore their useful medical knowledge is admitted to be very small.

They are not willing to learn the part that does not permit itself to be accounted for through the action of visible particles of matter.

The dynamis and identity are unexplained, and yet we see them. Call them by what name you please, they are present.

I am asked what I mean by the dynamis and identity. By a slight digression I will explain myself in a few words.

The power, each identity possesses to produce its kind is unquestionably a most singular force and may be latent or active.

The power to grow from and out of the acorn the mighty oak, is no less a force in the dry acorn than when surrounded by congenial environment, heat and moisture or the earthly implantation.

What this force is has not been revealed to man. It may be a vital force or a formative force. The acorn has never been known to grow a sycamore; nor has the button-ball ever grown an oak. What is this identity that is not transferable ?

This dynamis is found again in animal life producing its kind. In crystallography this formative force is apparent. In symptomatology we again see it, each drug producing its own and no other identity or individuality.

But it must be remembered that the peculiar environments must under each and every circumstances be suitable to the identity or the evolution will not occur.

The vital energy may be a complex force composed of heat and electricity, but as such our subject is not endangered, and at present there is no clear demonstration.

It has been stated that the vital dynamis cannot exist apart from electrical vibrations. Even this is hard to demonstrate in view of the fact that the vital spark in its latency exists in the acorn without electrical activities.

From these it is clear that life is not motion, although motion is one of the evidences of life, as it is of heat, of electricity and of light. It was recently said in one of our public meetings that without motion there is no force.

The statement needs no further refutation. Again it has been stated that the amoeboid vibrations are the only evidences of life in protoplasmic cells, but the analogy will readily lead one to conclude that the motion is not the dynamis.

The vibratory activities in protoplasm increase with types up to the highest cell life, but the vital dynamis, or formative energy becomes no more typical or perfect that in the lowest order of such activity.

Then to develop the activities of each and every sickmaking substance is the aim of the Homeopathist.

He must study the most favorable relations for the evolution of the manifestations of each identity, or he has not performed his whole duty as a physician. Hahnemann was acquainted with these necessities and potentized, or attenuated medicinal substances to place them in a favorable relation to sick making causes to conform to the law of similars.

They who are willing to learn of the master himself find the law universal in its application to the demands of the sickroom, because they do not attempt to limit the environments of a drug in its curative evolutions.

They are willing to use a drug from the lowest to the highest attenuation, only to find the most suitable relation to sickmaking cause and alteration of health as expressed in symptoms.

As to myself I have no longer a doubt, in fact I am more than convinced that I could not universally apply the law curatively with the exclusive use of lower potencies.

Then it should be expected that the law would fail in the hands of men who do not admit the essentials to its universal application.

Crude drugs cure disease promptly under certain conditions, and the lower potencies when carefully selected are generally potent enough to cure most diseases, but shall we permit prejudice to deprive the world of increased usefulness.

The dynamis and its identity are unexplained, yet they are facts. No method of reasoning can forecast such things and no method of reasoning can do away with these facts. Can it be said that the law has failed, when in a given case, the dose administered is yet too large to cure ?

The failure of the law to help us out comes at all times from its non use. We think we are the law, we try to use the law, but we don’t use the law.

Homoeopathy is an applied science, and is no part of man’s imagination or belief. It cures disease when the law is applied, and not when misapplied.

When man fails it is man’s failure, and the law stands unimpeached.

Again the law seems to fail where the selection has been perfect, and the potency suitable by meddling with the action of the remedy.

This fault is a common one and depends upon ignorance of the philosophy of Homoeopathy. I have many times heard the law condemned for not curing an incurable sickness.

The physician who expects to cure the sick must know of disease what is curable, and he must know how to observe and how to interpret what he sees.

I remember a chronic rheumatism of all the joints in the body to have so changed in six months that the ankles and toes only were painful. The general state had greatly improved, and the patient was nearly well, but she said, “I cannot walk and I must be cured ;” so she went to a neighbor who bathed and rubbed vigorously, and the ankles and toes became better immediately, but the whole trouble came back, and I was never again able to relieve her.

There are many things that a physician must know to prescribe homoeopathically outside of what drugs may do. He may know the appropriate remedy and then not know how to use. The patient may say he is better, or he is worse, and the statement is of little value. If it relates to his general state he is competent, but if in the direction of his symptoms he is incompetent. Pain going from place to place must be observed for a purpose.

A deep seated trouble changing under the action of a remedy, coming to the surface, though the suffering be increased ten fold the remedy must not be disturbed or the cure may never be realized.

Though the patient say “I am so much worse, just see how I suffer,” he must have Sac. lac.

The physician who does not know these things can never follow the law closely enough to make it universally successful.

The treatment of chronic complaints demands an investigation entirely different from self-limited diseases. A man may disorder his stomach by gluttony and establish morbid phenomena, which may continue as long as the cause is continuous, but will cease when the cause is removed.

Should such diseases be called chronic ? I think not. These are an intermediate class that need for remedial measures instructions for the patient and very little medication.

These diseases tend to recovery, which is unlike the disease properly called chronic. Any disease having no tendency to recovery may properly be called chronic. This must not be interpreted to mean a symptom.

A symptom may have a tendency to disappear, and soon be followed by another equally as dangerous. The ulcer may close and a diarrhea appear as intractable as the ulcer. This shows that the proper disease has no tendency to recover.

The question will then arise, as to what is understood by chronic disease and how it is defined. It must be understood first of all that all diseases when leaving the body -when cured or self cured do so under unvarying rules or laws.

The vital manoeuvres are not one way today and another way next week.

Nature operates under fixed principles. Now it must be known first of all that diseases recover from above downward from within out and in the reverse order of their coming.

When the phenomena of disease do not follow this circumscribed limit of directions the disease is growing worse or at least progressing.

When any given disease has existed a considerable time and its changes present phases in the reverse of the above formula though the supposed causes have been removed, it is of necessity a chronic disease, and will only change or reverse its order of direction by suitable homoeopathic agencies.

A knowledge of these principles only inform the physician when, and when not, to interfere in the treatment of the disease.

It is so common for a patient to return after a correct prescription saying, “I am much worse today.” The physician must now look into the case.

If the new symptoms are such as were noticed in the early progress of the disease the cure is certain if properly conducted. If the new manifestation is felt on deep organs that have not heretofore been touched or given rise to symptoms, the disease may be known to be deep seated and most likely incurable.

Sharp aggravations after a prescription the direction being from within out is a sign of speedy recovery. Following a prescription for chronic rheumatism, if heart symptoms intervene the patient never will recover. If the acute symptoms following a careful prescription are prolonged, the recovery will be Wow.

The vital reaction to the remedy may be estimated by the intensity of the aggravation that follows the remedy. In, acquired disease, such as are the result of indiscretion in diet and debauch, are seldom followed by any reaction as they do not belong to any specific chronic miasm of a progressive character.

I have hinted at a few things that a physician should know, and there are thousands of the kind.

But it must be known at this time that the law will fail to be of service to him who knows not how to apply it. It helps him in proportion as he becomes acquainted with it.

Some days ago a physician who had graduated a few years ago and settled down in a malarial district, remarked that he could not cure the chills without quinine in large doses. I began to question him, to see if there was a good reason for the statement.

He never had listened to a lecture on medical philosophy, and seemed to have no conception of its meaning. He was well educated in everything but Homoeopathy.

He had a fair knowledge of the Materia Medica but he knew nothing of how to apply the law of cure. I am perfectly willing to say what I know to be the truth; that the professed Homoeopathists of this or any day claiming to need large doses of drugs to cure the sick are like this young man, ignorant of the philosophy of Homoeopathy and remain so during life.

The colleges have neglected this philosophy hence the law fails to help the physician who should have the most confidence in it. Confidence comes from acquaintance that is ample and of long standing.

Another doctor says, “I must do the best I can,” when the law fails. “I must break that chill or he will go to some one else, and he would then get quinine; I might as well give it to him as for some one else to.” You have then concluded to do your patient harm, because if you do not somebody else will. If I see a pocket-book on the street, I can as well say that I may as well steal that, if I do not somebody else will.

The patient may have a skin disease and want to recover. You know that it can be made to disappear by outward applications. Now will you consent to do that man harm because if you do not you will lose a fee, or he will go to the next doctor ? Will you riot warn him of the danger ? Is he not better with that disease on the outside than within the body ?

But you say I have tried homoeopathic medicines and the law has failed. Then because of your ignorance of the law, you propose to be hired to drive that skin eruption back into the body. You might as well be hired to give the patient a dose of poison. “Then what shall I do ?”

When you do not know what to do, why do you do anything ? The great mistake rests in the ambition to do something. No man should consent to do a wrong as a substitute for an unknown right way.

These things are hard to see. I have many times convinced myself of my own ignorance after a long and hard struggle, but had I been called ignorant of these self-same things, I am satisfied I could have argued the point satisfactorily to myself. This is a man’s stumbling block, and is in the way of progress.

Many of our best followers of the law are not so well acquainted with remedies as they would like to be, but they cure their cases, and the redeeming feature with them is that they know how to avoid doing wrong. “Be sure that you are right, then go ahead” will do in this place.

To avoid frequent failure under the law it is necessary to know something not taught in allopathic colleges.

“When we have to do with an art whose end is the saving of human life any neglect to make ourselves thoroughly masters of it, becomes a crime.” (Hahnemann.)

This is a very broad one, and hence its answer cannot be limited or contracted.

To say that Homoeopathy is based upon the law of similars is but the bounding of a cone by describing its base and leaving its apex undiscovered and projecting into space; to say the least, the answer is unsatisfactory.

When similars are mentioned, the novice immediately wonders what similars are referred to, and how are given similars related to each other.

It is simple to affirm that similars nullify each other, and it is easy to demonstrate the fact, but other questions arise of greater importance and much harder to answer – how are these similars recognized, and how are they utilized to cure disease ?

After hearing the statement that similars nullify each other, and having accepted the law expressed by the formula Similia similibus curantur, what Homoeopathy really is, is yet to be learned.

The knowledge comes after due conversance with disease and drugs. One must acquire knowledge of disease in all its relations to the human body.

One cannot afford to neglect any resource whereby he can gain information relative to disease.

Causes, morbid anatomy, duration, and course of every disease in particular must be thoroughly studied.

The habits of each and every fixed disease must be observed to acquire a knowledge of its true nature.

One must be able to predict from the present what will likely take place in the immediate future; he must also know the sick-making substances and the sicknesses they produce, their course and duration, beginning and termination.

From these the homoeopathist arranges his similars.

These are his media through which he develops a knowledge of the art of curing homoeopathically. Without a careful and thoughtful study of the two, he can never answer the question which has been selected as the subject for this paper.

If he neglects a part he is ever crippled and in darkness as to the whole or totality.

If he neglects to study disease in any of its many sides, he gropes in darkness during his lazy, half-useful life.

If he reads morbid anatomy, and attempts to apply remedies by such knowledge, he must live and die with a life filled with numerous failures.

The man who reads his symptomatology, as found in drug pathogenesies may do fine work, but he has neglected the half that he should have learned.

The human body, the house of both health and sickness, must be searched until familiarity breeds contempt.

Homoeopathy is the science of healing based upon the law of similars as a law of selection.

To select under this law, one must be acquainted with parts and counterparts, positives and negatives similars – that his conclusions may be made by exclusion, that he may demonstrate to himself as well that remedies are not indicated, as that the one similar only can conform to the disease in hand; appropriate, because it of all the known medicines is most like unto the disease to be cured.

It is well known that many want to be called homoeopathic physicians : some desire the appellation who in practice have not this information mentioned above.

They are not even acquainted with sick pictures. They only recognize disease in parts, not seeing the whole.

These men alternate, or practice, by using a part of the picture of one drug and a part of the picture of another drug to cover the two portions of a supposed disease which they see only in a fragmentary state; not being acquainted with disease in totality, they cannot shape a picture in a single drug to fit any but the fragmentary disease.

Only a few days ago one of these men said to me : “I have just prescribed Arsenicum and Sulphur on the pathology of the case.”

Being anxious to learn the pathology that furnishes such an infallible guide to these remedies, I made a pressing inquiry, but that which I learned was so vague I am unable to comprehend it.

The study of true pathology should be encouraged, and is essential to the science of Homoeopathy, and no Homoeopathician has ever discouraged it.

Pathology is any discourse upon disease; it is broad and all-embracing.

The study of disease as manifested through subjective and objective symptoms a study of lesions or results of diseases as made known by physical inspection, etc., etc., down to morbid anatomy, all should be known by the Homoeopathician, with a full appreciation of the true value of all.

The disease in its course, history, and every known manifestation should be considered that the individuality may appear in one grand picture.

Not until this picture, this totality, this individuality, is clear in mind, is grasped completely, can the physician deal with it intelligently; he will then see, in some pathogenesis, a picture with a similar totality and individuality standing out with the same bold relief.

Now if he is acquainted with both, and acquainted with the grand law of selection expressed in Similia similibus curantur, he will administer the medicine possessing in its pathogenesis this likeness to the experienced Homoeopathician.

These are the primary and essential tenets of Homoeopathy.

The rest of the science is made up of degrees that perfect as they advance, and are qualitative in character and quantitative in appearance.

Under these degrees we learn to play upon the strings of a vital harp with a tactus eruditus.

The next advancement deals with dynamization. Many are satisfied with the primary tenets of Homoeopathy and want no more.

They do not wish further instruction. They do not wish to be made conversant with the fact that all non-surgical diseases are dynamic in character (cause), and must be cured, even are cured only, by dynamic effects.

They lose confidence in the potency of Aurum when it becomes too attenuated to guarantee visible gold, and yet they know that visible gold cannot be appropriated by a living stomach.

Dynamic power begins to evolve very low in the scale of potentization, and may be evolved from the crude substance of some drugs. Experience, not philosophy, can satisfy the hungry mind as to the truth of this grandest achievement of the immortal Hahnemann.

When fully convinced that the dynamic power cures, another advancement awaits the student.

He is then presented to the mysteries of dealing with automatic forces of living body when influenced by disease. He observes the effect of a dose of potentized medicine selected by the law of similars.

It is indeed a small part of his observation to see the patient recover with no medicine but that contained in the dynamized drug. For greater things remain to be seen and studied.

The aggravations and ameliorations found in peculiar diseased states are not so simple. The disease that may arise from a single dose of Sulphur in the last stage of phthisis is most astonishing; and the beginner cannot convince himself that the potentized drug was the cause of it.

When I say to my class, you must not give Sulph. to the patient in the last stage of consumption, they all look at me in surprise. It is often observed that Phosphorus does great harm to low forms of organic disease.

I have several times known a chronic invalid to go on with little suffering for a long time, and with a hope to stay the progress of her disease, administered a single dose of a very high potency of an antipsoric medicine, only to distress her, put her to bed, and from which time her downward course was rapid, while I am convinced that had I avoided antipsorics she would have lived and suffered much longer.

If a carefully selected antipsoric aggravates a low form of disease sharply, and the aggravation is protracted and no amelioration of the general condition follow, no more antipsorics should be thought of for that patient; the hope of cure must be abandoned, and short-acting medicines resorted to palliate.

In gout, cancer, phthisis, and organic diseases of this kind generally, the rule holds good. Any physician who has followed the use of high potencies for a considerable time must feel it.

Then who can say there is no power developed ? Only he who has not found this method of treating the sick.

The physician that sees not these aggravations only demonstrates that he has made few or no homoeopathic prescriptions.

The closer the homoeopathic relation between the remedy and disease, providing the disease is of low origin and well advanced, providing the disease incurable, the sharper and more distressing will be the aggravation.

Once a fleshy, robust-looking lady, came into my office for professional aid; she looked so well that I suspected only a slight illness.

Finally, a close study of her symptoms revealed the history of rheumatism, endocarditis, suffocation, amenorrhoea of eight months’ duration, and great bodily suffering, indeed, I was surprised that she manifested so little of her suffering.

I compared her symptoms closely, and found that no remedy but Pulsatilla could correspond to her symptoms. This remedy was administered dry, one small dose, and Sac. Lac.

She went home and felt very badly. Pelvic symptoms became marked, and she sent for me. She believed her flow would resume, and I hoped from her report that I had made a homoeopathic prescription.

But she struggled on and no flow appeared; her pelvic symptoms were such as should accompany her menstrual nisus, but greatly intensified.

I dare not repeat; success depended upon permitting the remedy to have its own way. She was made comfortable as possible, and I waited on the remedy during this struggle for one or two weeks.

The endocarditis then began to show itself with all its terrors, dark blood began to well up from the lungs, which grew worse from day to day, pulmonary oedema became marked, and blood-spitting increased from day to day. I felt that I must interfere and make an effort to save her life.

The only result of the remedies selected was simply palliative. She passed quietly.

I have treated several cases of gouty rheumatism in which I could plainly see that every dose of medicine advanced the original malady.

Many times I have been forced to feel that the dose of dynamized drug added new force to the old disease, and it progressed even more rapidly.

I never saw such striking results from low attenuations. Not long ago I was called to the bedside of a patient in the last stage of phthisis. She had a diarrhea, and passed large quantities of colorless urine; other symptoms accorded, and she took a dose of Acetic acid, which controlled the diarrhea and polyurea, but immediately her chest symptoms came on with greater force than I was able to control, and she sank rapidly, I am sure she would have lived much longer had I permitted the less harmful conditions to go on.

These things look strangely to the inexperienced physician, but they are facts; and, above all, show the great power of our potentized remedies The truly appropriate remedy commonly develops the evidence of extreme sensitiveness in all kinds of sickness, and the extreme danger of repeating remedies is here illustrated.

If there is anything I dread it is an incurable disease. My experience in this line has been greater than I could ask. While these things have shown the danger of repeating medicines, they have also taught me another thing; viz. I am generally able to predict the gravity of the disease : I have seen troublesome aggravations, a pleasant increase of the existing symptoms or even new symptoms appearing as presumptive evidence of a good selection.

In the western country our diseases are so mixed with that unknown quantity, or something that we call malaria, it is necessary to repeat medicines oftener in acute disease than in most countries. Malaria disease and states are so cumulative in character that the effect of a single dose is soon exhausted and another becomes necessary.

Therefore I find myself repeating frequently in many acute cases. I begin by repeating once in two hours in a fever that is continued, but as soon as I see signs of a remission I stop all medicine and wait on Sac. Lac. When a fever is going up I repeat, and the instant it has ceased rising, I cease medicine, in agues I generally administer one or two doses in the apyrexia and wait results.

I seldom administer medicine until the paroxysm has been completed. When the first dose is followed by a perceptible aggravation, a second dose should never be administered until the amelioration, which follows the aggravation, has ceased.

When a medicine aggravated it will generally influence the patient much longer than when no such aggravation has been observed.

An amelioration that begins forthwith also demands that all medicine be stopped, but such amelioration is seldom so striking as when the amelioration has been preceded by a slight aggravation.

Immediate amelioration often indicates the absence of deep-seated disease. Especially in this case with the use of long-acting medicines. These go so deeply into the life that they shake the very foundation of the automatic existence. When these powers are so clearly demonstrated, can any man desire Morphine to quiet a patient in any kind of agony ?

Can any man feel the need of greater force to combat disease ? Yes, there are men who do not know this force; it cannot be evolved at will by anybody who wills to evolve it.

This force is never observed, except by him who has learned the philosophy taught in the Organon of Samuel Hahnemann; and it is after, not before, looking upon the wonderful effect of a remedy conforming to the law of similars that one can appreciate the power he has with which to combat the ills of life, and with which to defend frail man against the assaults of his natural enemy.

Then to the question, What is Homoeopathy ? I must answer, no man knows, God only knows, the length and breadth of the intricate, unfathomable mystery, the knowable part of this science, if I may use the word, consists in observing the sick-making phenomena of drugs and the phenomena of sickness, gathering and grouping the similars, selecting with the likeness in view and waiting for results

While we are observing the folly of others we must learn to avoid extremes in our own midst.

We must not despise the original thirtieths of the master because we have found the Cm in so many cases useful. While reveling in the higher degrees of the true healing art, the younger and weaker must be fostered while tremblingly climbing the pathway up the hillside so familiar to most of us.

While the way is beset with thorns, it is nevertheless the way of truth, and no part of it is to be despised. With the young and old our faith must be pinned to the law of similars, the single remedy, the smallest dose, the dynamic power, and last, but not least, the proved drug. These coupled with our organic philosophy, we shall continue in doing good and living to do good.

The success of prescribing depends upon the view taken of the totality of the symptoms. The view of any given totality affords the indifferent or the marked success of any given prescription.

The grasp of the symptoms, in part or as a whole, is firm or lax in accordance with the view taken of the parts and the whole collection of symptoms.

What else can be understood by the image of any case expressed in symptoms ?

To be able to view the totality of symptoms so that the most similar remedy will appear to the mind is the aim of all healing artists. As the view varies, so varies the success.

The examination of the patient is always made in accordance with the view of the totality the physician is in the habit of taking.

Some can never learn to examine a patient so that the symptoms, when written out, will have the form required for a review.

Any successful prescriber would know by the reading the totality what is lacking to make up an image.

But let us now suppose that the case has been properly taken, and that it is a full, well rounded case, with all the various symptoms that belong to perfect case-taking.

One will view such a case from its pathology, or from its probable pathology.

Another will view it from the temperature, color of hair and eyes, or what star he was born under.

Another will view it from the keynotes he can find in it.

Another takes the usually set phrases of the patient with the opinions and wordings of tradition, or the opinions of some previous physician.

In such a manner, a distorted view of the whole case is formed.

Again, it is observed that the totality contains an alternating image, or one set of symptoms one time and a different set another time.

The prescriber’s view may be formed from one group today, and from another after the change has come, which leads to change of remedy with every shift; but at the end of the year the patient has grown steadily worse.

Yet he has cured ( ?) each group of symptoms to his and his patient’s satisfaction.

Such work is a failure from the imperfect view had of the whole case. He fails to view the patient from the totality of the symptoms : from all the symptoms.

Removing symptoms may not restore health to the patient. Curing the patient will remove the symptoms and restore his health (Organon § 8).

We have assumed that the symptoms have been well taken, and therefore the view of the case is possible, which must be, of the symptoms which represent the patient as a whole; the symptoms that represent all the organs and parts; all the symptoms and conditions and circumstances of the organs and parts; all the pathology of the organs and parts; age, sex, habits and business.

Suppose the symptoms to be viewed come directly from the patient, what can be seen, heard from the patient and companions, all are presented without interruption.

One reader will ignore all but the pathology; another will notice only the keynotes; another will notice only the diagnostic symptoms.

In each instance, something is ignored or neglected; or, at least, the view of the case is absent.

Hahnemann’s teaching has never been improved upon. We must be guided by the symptoms that are strange, rare, and peculiar. How shall we do this ?

By first fixing in mind what symptoms are common, then it will be easy to discover what symptoms are uncommon, or, in other words, strange, rare, and peculiar.

Common symptoms are such as are pathognomonic of diseases and of pathology, and such as are common to many remedies and are found in large rubrics in our repertories; e. g., constipation; nausea; irritability; delirium,; weeping; weakness; trembling; chill; fever; sweat.

When such symptoms have taken their places in any given case, it will be seen at once that what remains must be uncommon, therefore peculiar and, as such, are always predicated of the patient as a whole, and of his parts in particular.

However, some of these common symptoms may become peculiar where their circumstances are peculiar; e. g., trembling at any time or at all times all over the body and the limbs is a strong and most troublesome symptom, but it is not peculiar nor uncommon.

But trembling before a storm, or during stool, or before menses, or during urination, is rare and strange.

Weakness is also common if constant, but it comes only before menses, or before stool, or during a storm, it is at once quite uncommon, and changes the view of the case.

Chilliness, if constant, is common to many people, and is a strong common general as it is predicted of the whole patent but if it comes only before or during menses, before or during stool, or while urinating, or only when in bed in the night, or only while eating, then it is strange and peculiar, or uncommon.

All of these are common to no disease known to medicine, hence they become striking and help to form a view of any given totality.

It must now be seen that the physician who has in mind only the pathology as a basis for his prescription has only what is most common, and therefore has no view of the totality, and therefore violates the first principles of prescribing.

He prescribes for results, for endings, and not for things first, not for causes.

It must be known that the symptoms that exist in childhood, and such as were present before any pathology existed, are the corresponding symptoms of causes, as all causes are continuous into effects.

They are not causes, but they represent causes, and often are all that can be known of causes, and they furnish a view of the case from causes to endings; from causes to ultimates : to pathology.

It is important to discover early these symptoms in any chronic sickness. The symptoms through childhood down to the present describe the progress of the sickness. These give an experienced physician a good view of the case, with its probable endings or pathology.

It is well to have all such results in view, but these ultimate symptoms are of the least value, and without the fullest representation in symptoms they are of no value as showing forth the view of the case by which to find the remedy.

But a physician must have a good and full knowledge of all these, as well as of anatomy and physiology, or he will not have the basis for good judgment, and hence will form a distorted view of the totality.

The symptoms that represent the patient as a whole are of great, and often of the greatest value, especially such as are expressed in the patient’s own speech.

The mental symptoms, composed of his reasoning powers, loves and hates, and memory.

And then his general bodily symptoms and their circumstances, such as worse from cold, from warmth of every kind, from weather, wet and dry, from motion or rest, time of day, etc. These are of highest importance when they apply to the whole body.

Two sets of aggravations and ameliorations must come into view, viz : those that apply to the whole being and those that apply to his parts.

These are often the opposite in parts or organs from what they are in general bodily states of the patient, and must-be looked up in the repertory in sections that relate to the part mentioned.

A woman consulted me for a violent rheumatic pain in the shoulder. She came into my office with her arm bound to her side to prevent moving the arm, as the motion of the arm increased the pain in the shoulder, yet the patient walked the floor constantly to ameliorate the pain in that painful shoulder.

The pain in the shoulder was worse before a storm. Dulcamara cured at once. This shows how a part may have an opposite modality from the whole body.

Nothing has harmed our cause more than books that generalize modalities, viz : by making a certain aggravation or amelioration fit all parts as well as the general bodily states. Cold air may aggravate the patient but ameliorate the headache. Stooping seldom aggravates headache, backache, cough and vertigo in the same degree, yet Boenninghausen compels you to look in one place for all of them, and they are marked with the same gradings.

The patient is often better by motion, but his parts, If inflamed, are worse from motion.

Lying aggravates backache, headache, and respiration in different degrees, and the patient in still another manner. If each symptom is not inspected, and considered with a view to its own circumstance, the result will be widely different.

Parts are better by heat when the patient is better from cold, and vice versa. The headache is better from cold, and the body is better by heat.

If we do not consider these circumstances, we do injustice to the patient and his parts. Therefore the circumstances that relate to the general bodily states and the circumstances that relate to the parts and organs must be vastly changed.

Ever so perfect an understanding of the pathology and pathological symptoms in a given case gives no view of the case for homoeopathic prescribing. The common symptoms, without the peculiar symptoms, may give a good understanding of a given case except for prescribing.

Common symptoms alone will lead to failure of the prescription. We might as well attempt to prescribe for nervous dyspepsia, gastritis, jaundice, gall-stone colic, enteritis, constipation, or a bilious temperament. The beginner often fails because he has secured only the common symptoms.

The symptoms of the organs and parts taken by themselves give an imperfect or one-sided view of the case. They fail to give the symptoms of the patient in such a form as to present a perfect view. There is something lacking. Many cases coming for advice express the particulars, and fail to give the symptoms that characterize the patient. This must be one of the most frequent causes of failure with the young physician.

This can be illustrated by the study of discharges.

Discharges are common to inflamed mucous membranes of ear, nose, throat, trachea, vagina, etc., and as such each is only a particular, but the part or the inflammation does not cause it to be green, bloody or viscid.

Therefore this must be due to some change in the whole economy which makes it general, and increases the value of the symptom from common to peculiar, and therefore changes the view of the case. Laudable discharges are natural and common. Therefore, let me repeat that if the part is inflamed there will be discharge, but that does not cause the color.

So it is with blood when it is fluid and fails to clot; it is peculiar.

The symptoms that characterize the whole mental and bodily states sometimes present such a view that the remedy may be seen at once; again, all the foregoing classes of symptoms are necessary to furnish a view of the past and present. When such a complete view presents itself, the prescription becomes easy.

If prescribing is to be made easy, it is to be dope by securing such a perfect view of the whole case as would be expressed by saying that “The sole basis of the homoeopathic prescription is the totality of morbid signs and symptoms,” as Hahnemann taught so many years ago.

It will be seen, therefore, that carelessness in taking the symptoms, as well as in viewing the symptoms after they are noted, must lead to indifferent results.

Remember that it is not the totality of the symptoms taken by a careless or ignorant physician that constitutes the basis of a homoeopathic prescription, but the totality of all the symptoms the patient has.

With menses too late or suppressed or scanty, the patient weeping, with aversion to fats, nausea, vomiting, weight after eating, the young man will say Pulsatilla at once; but wait a moment.

The patient is very chilly, likes the house, never needs the open window, is worse from motion, wants to keep very quiet; now you change your mind and give her Cyclamen. Or, if she is better in motion and in open air, and craves it, and is too warm, then Pulsatilla.

The physician cannot be careless, and cure as Hahnemann did.

“If you give quinine, go on with it; if you give an opiate, go on with it; do not go back into Homoeopathy.

The man who does these things is a homoeopathic failure.

Some men are incapable of grasping the homoeopathic doctrines, and fall back into mongrelism which is a cross between Homoeopathy. and allopathy.

I would prefer an allopath to one who professes to be a homoeopath but does not know enough Homoeopathy to practice it. . . .

If a doctor has not the grit to withstand the cries of the family, the criticisms of the friends, the threatening of his pocketbook and of his bread and butter, he will not practice Homoeopathy very long. An honest man does not fear these things.

There is but one thing for him to consider : “What is the right thing to do in this case ?” . . .

The attitude of the public must never furnish the physician with indications as to what he shall do. .

But the doctor who will flinch and tremble at every threatening is one who will violate his conscience; is one that can be bought; can be hired to do anything; . . . becomes a coward and a sneak; is ready to do almost anything that is vicious and cowardly, and will abandon his colors in time of emergency. . . . The doctor who violates the law also violates his conscience, and his death is worse than the death of the patient.”