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61- The trend of thought necessary to the application of the homoeopathic materia medica or a ration January 25, 2007

Posted by Dr.Sheela Suresh in Lesser Writings - Kent.
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It is not of the material stone, earth, ore quartz and mineral salts; nor is it the colors of plants, leaves, buds and flowers; nor of stems and stalks; nor of the chemical and physical properties of animal substances used, and the natural eye to behold, that one should think.

It is not the density of the platinum, or the whiteness of the aluminum, or the yellowness of gold, or the toxic nature of arsenic that one must turn his thoughts.

Think of the nutritive wheat, corn and barley used for foods, and then of the deadly aconite, belladonna and foxglove; and while thinking of one group as nutritive, and one of the other as poisonous, we make no progress.

But when we observe that they all grow and thrive in the same atmosphere and in the same soil and by reflection remember that one builds up and the other destroys man, i. e., one builds up the physical body and the other disorders and destroys the vital force of man, can we but conclude that there is some primitive substance, too subtle to see with the external eye, that becomes the medium of power ? This is the field of action and causes.

These substances of the three kingdoms must be examined, i e., they must be looked into by the internal eye, and the quality of each must be ascertained.

This does not mean that the internal surfaces of crystal forms must be examined with lenses.

Neither the interior of man, nor living plants, nor the so-called dead, earth elements have ever approximated the visual realm of external man.

But the vital test brings a response from the lowest and most inanimate elements as speedily as from the most poisonous plant or most venomous serpent virus, when circumstances have turned disordered life into the delicate degrees of susceptibility necessary to the homoeopathic conjunction and affinity.

To behold the interior of nature with the interior eye, the understanding must have long training and the purpose must be for the use of man; when an apparent sacrifice is a work of love one may see, when men and women devote life and property to science simply to benefit the human race.

This may be disputed, but only by the unenlightened, who know not the dreadful sacrifices made by the provers of septic poisons, serpent viruses, specific substances and poisonous drugs.

The abstract vital force is, to the untrained understanding, unthinkable, and as all internal examinations are upon this plane, then it must follow that a preparatory training must precede the actual examination of the internal qualities of the three kingdoms.

It is not generally known that the three kingdoms exist, as to their interior, in the image of man.

Neither is it generally understood what it is to exist in the image of man. It is not even known what man is, nor what the plant kingdom is, and much less what the mineral kingdom is.

If all these statements related to geology, botany and anatomy, they could be presumptuous, as these sciences are highly cultivated, but they treat of the kingdoms only as to their exterior or material relation.

The internal qualities have been left for the homeopathist, and such an exploration is within the province of homoeopathics.

To discover that man, as to his will and understanding, is capable of extremes, requires only that one shall examine our statesmen, our professional men, our scientists, and then the lowest types in civilized countries and cities.

To examine original tribes would not reveal the growth possible to the human race, nor the degradation reached by fallen man. The human race at its highest plane of development is only man.

No matter what attainments, what expansion, we see but the possibilities, the capabilities and nobility of man. He is but man and as such is but the image of his Creator.

Rise as lie may, he does so only within himself, and at his highest he is but himself, and even that is borrowed. So much as he has fallen below this highest point of the human race, and of any man, has he failed to reach his own individual possibilities, or fallen into degradation, so much is he but an image of himself, of man.

When he is but the image of himself he profanes himself, and likewise man, and how much more so must he profane God. Look at the animal faces in the degraded streets of our great cities.

We see but the degraded forms of man. Disobedience, sin and sorrow have brought depravity, and the souls within revel in hatred and crime as much as they will in the land beyond.

This is not the real man whom we see. It is but an image of what each one might be, but it is the real of such beings. A misspent life can here be contrasted with the life of usefulness, and the life of hatred with the life of orderly love.


In one all to hate, and in the other all to love.

In the one despised, in the other beloved.

The one, then, is man with his love for the degrees of uses; the other but an image with his hatred of uses.

In man is heaven; in his image is hell.

The fullness of man is but his capacity for growth as a receptacle for love, wisdom and use.

The image of man is hatred, ignorance, and to be cared for by local protectors and penitentiaries.

Independence contrasted with dependence.

Freedom contrasted with bondage.

Inconceivable gradations exist between these extremes.

These varying shades of changes in man come by inheritance, vocation, opportunity, disease and drugs.

There are no changes possible in man that cannot be produced, caused and aggravated by drugs.

Man’s diseases, have their likenesses in the substances that make up the three kingdoms. Man himself is a microcosm of the elements of the earth.

The earthy elements strive to rise, and do rise through the vegetable kingdom into man, and they strive to equal man; but, as they are not permitted to do so, they appear to degrade man they may approximate him.

Every element and creature below man in the created universe seeks to degrade man, which, how is only an appearance, by exercising such an influence, as will elevate itself at man’s expense, as if through jealousy.

We see this emerald quality on all sides. Man’s every inferior seeks to belittle him, and in every gradation down through to the lump of aluminous clay we see the tendency to lift up itself by depressing the interior of man in order to make him a brute.

So we see that man, with his depressing load, may rise within and become a glory or sink and become a brute. Even his external form in time resembles the face of an animal but not until long after his internals have assumed the disposition of that brute which he in face most resembles.

He grows Godlike in proportion to his struggle against his inherent evils, i. e., his loves mould his face and figure into the image of his real life.

The study of man as to his nature, as to his life, as to his affections, underlies the true study of Homoeopathics.

Whether we study him in the cradle of innocence, in the hieroglyphics of Egyptian sandstone, in the cunieforms of Assyrian clay, in the sculptor’s marble, on ancient and modern canvas, in Grecian architecture, in the vocations and trades of modern and recent progress, in the electrical telegraph, in the ships at sea or the mighty system of railroads that span the landed universe, we are but viewing the growth, action and qualities of this one, sole object of our attention, viz., man.

When we have reached the highest that is of man, and know him in all that he is and can be, then may we begin to study all the gradations down to the lowest image.

Man may be a physician to his equals and inferiors, but he cannot know his superiors in a manner to fully grasp the expanse of that great and glowing vital furnace that melts the metal to fill the moulds of human exigencies.

Then the physician must rise to the pinnacle of man’s growth; perceive his changes, even to the lowest degradation.

The physician must rise above bigotry, prejudice and intolerance that he may see that in man which will furnish the basis of comparison.

A rational doctrine of therapeutics begins with the study of the changes wrought in man. We may never ascertain causes, but we may observe changes.

A physician highly trained in the art of observation becomes classical in arranging what he observes. It will be hardly disputed that the changes in man’s nature, without an ideal natural man, would not be thinkable.

Whether we observe the changes wrought in man through his own will, through disease, or through drug provings upon the registration page, we have but one record to translate, viz., that of changes wherein man has in all cases been the figure operated upon.

The record of changes in the abstract is nothing. But when we see in that record the speech of nature, we then see the image or effigy of a human being.

Hahnemann emphasized the symptoms of the mind, hence we see how clearly the master comprehended the importance of the direction of symptoms; the more interior first, the mind, the exterior last, the physical or bodily symptoms.

Summarize.


Man.
Disease in general.
Disease in particular.
Remedies in general.
Remedies in particular.

The only possible way to conform to the above trend of thought and thereby establish a system of therapeutics, is by proving drugs as Hahnemann taught.

We may now see clearly what is to be understood by proving drugs, and we may define it as that conjunction of the given drug force with the vital force of man, whereby a given drug has wrought its impression upon man in a manner to make changes in his vital order, so that his sensations, mental operations and functions of organs are disturbed.

When a large enough number of provers have registered sensations, mental changes and disturbed functions so that it may be said of a drug that it has affected changes in every organ and part of man and his mental faculties, then may it be said that it has been proved; not that all of its symptoms must be brought out, but it has been proved sufficiently for us. In other words, its image has been established.

It is then known what there is in man that through its conjunction has been brought out.

When this particular perfect image of man has been observed fully by a rational physician, the nature of the sickness that this drug is capable of curing may be fully perceived.

The danger of using drugs whose properties are known only as related to a single organ must now appear, as drug is curative, or is a remedy, only because it is capable of producing symptoms on the entire man similar to such symptoms as the man is capable of having.

The remedy finds its place in man and develops its own nature; but if it has not in it that which can rise up and so impress man, it could not be capable of developing these symptoms.

Man’s image is therefore in all elements of plant and earth, and when that susceptibility exists in man then the proving may be wrought; but if that corresponding image is not in man at the time, then man is proof against the drug, except in increasing and larger doses.

Such provings exclusively are not desired, as they only impress a single organ with gross symptoms which are so unlike natural disease that a rational physician sees not therein the image of man, and stumbles into the grosser observation of artificial sickness, and is led to the ultimates, viz., pathological anatomy, rather than a rational study of the Materia Medica.

Many of our provings are wonderfully defective for the above reason. Hahnemann’s remedies will stand forever, as they are well-rounded provings from many degrees of strength in drugs and susceptibility.

The examination of an epidemic is in all nothing but the consideration of a similar number of provers. The steps from the whole group to individuals are in all cases the same.

The case is as follows : When a given epidemic, or endemic, comes upon the land, as many cases, most carefully written out, as can be gathered, are to be arranged in the Hahnemannian scheme, all symptoms under regional headings, so that prevailing disease may be viewed collectively, as a unit, or, as the image of a man, or as though one man had suffered from all the symptoms observed.

The same course applied to a large group of provers will bring the totality of the symptoms before the view as though one man had felt and recorded all the symptoms obtained, and the image of man may be then seen in the totality of the symptoms of the scheme.

The particular or individual study in the epidemic cannot be properly made until the symptoms are studied collectively, and in this kind of study is the same as after a proving has been arranged in schematic form in order to ascertain what other remedies and diseases are like it – diseases as to their symptom image, and not morbid anatomy – the same as to remedies as to their symptom image.

In this there can be no theory nor theorizing. The record of symptoms is to be considered either in natural disease or in the proving of a drug to ascertain so far as possible all the remedies that are, in general, similar throughout, in their fullness, to this one now under study.

Books have been so arranged. Belladonna on Diarrhea is but an anamnesis of all there is of that prevailing disease, and so must every single case, either in mind or on paper, be presented.

Here we see the series to work out our cases by. Every epidemic and every man sick must be so wrought out; first the general and the particular; remember that the particulars are always within the generals.

Great mistakes may come from going too deeply into particulars before the generals are settled.

An army of soldiers without the line of officers could not be but a mob; such a mob of confusion is our materia medica to the man who has not the command.

Hahnemann was not able to manage psora until he had completed his long and arduous labors which ended in the anamnesis of psora.

After he had gathered from a large number of psoric patients all the symptoms in order to bring before his mind the image of psoric man, he was able to perceive that its likeness was in sulphur, et al.

Boenninghausen arranged the anamnesis of sycosis which has been perfected by recent observers.

The anamnesis of syphilis must be arranged in this same way by every physician before he can treat it successfully. By this means we may settle in a measure the miasmatic groups.

The vast labor that Hahnemann put upon psora, before he discovered that this was the only way, shows how difficult it is to bring before the mind the full image of a prevailing disease. It is many times more difficult to solve the problem and find the similar remedy in isolated diseases and uncommon acute diseases.

Boenninghausen’s Repertory of Chronic Diseases (never translated), is arranged on this plan with symptoms and remedies graded.

An experienced eye glances over the repertory and arranges in his mind the anamnesis by singling out the remedies that are suitable to the general image of the disease that he has fully mastered.

The expert prescriber has fixed in his mind the image of the sick man before he takes up a book or thinks of a remedy.

He masters the sickness before he asks himself what is its likeness.

We must avoid the confusion of mind that often comes from thinking in the old way, not knowing what to call disease, and what to consider as only results of disease.

When advocating the above principle, I was once asked how to go about an anamnesis for epilepsy, for Bright’s disease, diabetes and other so-called diseases that have been arranged by old nosology.

It must be first understood that these so-called diseases are not disease as the homoeopathist thinks, but the results of diseases known as miasms.

Psora, syphilis and sycosis are the chronic miasms to be arranged in schematic form, and the arrangement in such form includes all the symptoms of each of the three.

Thus we have a foundation to build upon, and all curable cases, if properly studied, will be cured before they become structural. An attempt to arrange a schema for disease results could only fail, as the group worked at is but fragmentary.

A practical illustration comes to us at once when we think of Hahnemann’s prevision, inasmuch as he was able to say that Cholera resembles Cuprum, Camphora and Veratrum.

This he saw in the general view. When La Grippe comes the natural course to pursue by him who follows Hahnemann will be to write out carefully, as in one schema, the symptoms of twenty cases, more or less, the more the better, and then, after careful consideration by the aid of repertories, make a full anamnesis of all remedies, and the ones showing a strong relation throughout will be the group that will be found to draw from in curing the epidemic.

Only occasionally will the physician need to step outside of this group. But no man can predict which one of this group will be required for any single case.

But, in time of such hurry, when a large number of sick people must be visited in a day, the physician knowing the constitution of his patrons, much time may be gained in selecting for each sick person, from this group, the remedy he needs.

In a large proportion of the cases, the remedy will be found in this group. One will suffer with strange symptoms corresponding to the characteristics of one of the remedies in this group, and another will show forth the demand in like manner for another.

As there are no two sick people alike, thus no two persons will give forth an identical display of peculiar symptoms. Though several persons may need the same remedy, each one of the several persons must call for the remedy by virtue of the symptoms peculiar to himself.

When all of these features are properly understood, it will be clear to the mind how it is that every prover contributes his portion to the grand image that makes the disease likeness into the image of man.

Now, as like causes produce like effects, and as the causes of natural sicknesses have never been discovered, we can only reason from the effects of natural causes as we reason from artificial causes.

The teaching of Hahnemann, in the Sixteenth Section of the Organon, is to the effect that the vital principle cannot be assailed by other than dynamic agencies, or spirit like agencies. This must be accepted as true.

To prove that it is not true would require us to prove that scarlet fever, measles, small-pox, and in fact all acute infections and contagious diseases do assail the economy by other than spirit-like means.

With all the instruments of the scientific school of medicine, with every effort and ambition, no progress has been made by them to establish their material hypothesis. Therefore Hahnemann’s statement must stand as true.

The more dynamic, the greater resemblance to the life force and vice versa. The septic virus is dynamic because it has been vitalized or dynamized in nature’s laboratory.

It is a product of life operating upon matter, and the most dynamical toxics are animal ferments and ptomaïnes; no matter how concentrated they exist in a highly dynamic form.

The fluids and substances, ferments, ptomaïnes, etc., are the viruses, are the dynamic causes of fixed diseases; they are the causes of bacteria in all forms. It is not argued that the microscopical bacterium may not convey the fluid dynamic substances upon its body as perfectly to the detriment and hardship of men as a fly, a dog, or an elephant may.

Fluids containing bacteria of well-known disease producing character may be diluted until the bacteria is no longer found, and that fluid is just as active in its power to reproduce its own kind of sickness as when it was surcharged with microscopical animalculae.

Of course there is a difference – the susceptibility must be present in diluted virus, while any person may become ill from the concentrated ferment applied to any abrasion or injected hypodermically.

This condition once understood, the Materia Medica prover is prepared to consider the difference between the proving of drugs in full strength and in potentized form.

But as there are no bacteria in drugs, and as they are as potent sick-makers as ferments, when properly selected, it will be seen at once that it is not due to the bacteria in the concentrated virus, but to the virus itself.

It is the life force of aconite, of silica, of virus of septic fluid, and not bacteria that makes man sick.

The susceptible prover catches the disease that flows into him when he proves Cuprum the same as the person who catches cholera when he becomes infected by the dynamis of cholera.

He cannot protect himself – or the vital force cannot resist the deranging influence of cholera any better than it can resist Cuprum - If he is susceptible. If he is not susceptible to cholera, he cannot take cholera; if he is not susceptible to Cuprum, he cannot prove Cuprum.

But, by increasing the quantity or by changing the quality into quantity, of either, he may, without susceptibility, become sick, but it is not then in the same manner or course as that of natural contagion.

Natural contagion and infection are only possible through the susceptibility of man to the noxious cause.

The doctrine seems to be essential to the perfect understanding of the image of man in drugs and diseases.

When man has lost his equilibrium, so that he is not protected against deleterious influences, he is but an image of man, as man, in the order of his existence, cannot be assailed by any of the spirit substances that pervade the atmosphere in which he lives.

Even if influenced by concentrated artificial sick-making causes, he does not suffer from the fully developed image of the disease, as when susceptible, unless he is kept under the influence a long time, as is the case in alcoholic, opium, arsenic and hashish subjects. When momentarily affected he soon reacts and becomes himself.

Reflect upon the mental state of the man who has used alcoholic stimulants in great excess for many years. His manhood is gone, he is a constitutional liar, and will deceive in any manner in order to obtain whiskey.

It may truly be said he is but an image of his former self, and much more an image of what he might have been. This is no exception.

Indeed, every drug is capable of rising in its own peculiar way and making such changes in man as will identify itself in the image of man. There is no disease that has not its correspondence in the three kingdoms.

It is the physician’s duty to know that every proved drug contains the image of man, and the likeness of the disease and diseases it can cure.

To be able to see a drug in its totality, to see its symptoms collectively as it assumes the human form-not the body, but the character of the man, or his image must be the end in view in order to use the Materia Medica for the healing of the nations.

60- The trend of thought necessary for the comprehension and retention of homoeopathy January 25, 2007

Posted by Dr.Sheela Suresh in Lesser Writings - Kent.
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It is important to avoid thought destructive to the fundamental principles of Homoeopathy.

I desire to have my friends shun some things leading away from Hahnemann thoughts.

True Homoeopathy is the object of this association; to maintain the thought and trend of Hahnemann’s reasoning.

As long as I have practiced there has been no inducement to depart from his doctrines.

He used the 30th potency and said certain classes of cases were incurable, those that had been drugged and disorders thereby suppressed.

However, the experience of past years, added to thirty years of personal experience in prescribing and study, has revealed that these cases can be cured by use of higher potencies, without departing from the trend of Hahnemann’s instructions.

The tendency to depart from Hahnemann’s methods is the largest danger of pupils today.

For illustration, suppose a case appears with hip-joint disease or tending toward it.

Following the plan of Boenninghausen of studying the case to find a remedy by consideration, 1st, of the part affected; 2nd, the symptoms of the part; 3rd, the modalities of those symptoms; and 4th, the concomitants; where will it lead ?

This patient with hip joint trouble thinks of that as the affection to be eradicated, and the doctor thinks from that in search for a remedy.

You will perceive that this is the opposite of considering the patient. That is not following Hahnemann who says that the sole duty of the physician is to heal the patient, and taught how to do this by sketching the image of the patient in the totality of characteristic symptoms.

He never recommended concomitants of a part affected. Concomitants cannot come into consideration except as in connection with an objective condition.

Study the patient and everything of the patient. If you do not grasp this you do not receive Hahnemann’s idea of training the patient. I would urge you to shun concomitants as it leads away from the idea emphasized by Hahnemann.

The hip-joint patient has pain in the knee, perhaps some trouble in the uterus, or headache which is said to be due to constipation. To what is the constipation due ?

Perhaps they had not thought of that. Which are the concomitants ?

By thus centralizing on a part of the body you fail to grasp Hahnemann’s thought which is essential to the existence of Homoeopathy.

With the thoughts centered on a thing in one part of the body, then on the concomitants and then the modalities, as recommended in the preface of Boenninghausen, you are led far away from the trend of Hahnemann, and Homoeopathy is destroyed by such methods.

If that method were successful, I would not oppose it; but it is not in line with Hahnemann’s methods, it does not lead to the characteristic symptoms of the case.

What you want is to be led easily, simply, to that which characterizes the patient.

If you do not work with this aim you stray from the idea of going from center to circumference and go to the other idea. It must be from center to circumference always, from first to last, from things prior to things ultimate. I have thought along this line for twenty-five years, and must make it most forcible in maintaining the idea of Homoeopathy.

1. The center of man is his loves. When the loves go wrong he is sick in his will, the very center. This we find in dealing with those who threaten to destroy their own life or the life of another. A faithful, noble wife has no fault to find with her husband in her natural life, but finds herself with an aversion to him, does not want him to touch her.

This is a symptom of the innermost of man, it is not on a par with the skin and the toe-nails. According to the other plan, this is only a concomitant. Love of things is not always all in the brain.

Cravings for things for acids, for sweets, etc., are expressions of the patient’s loves, but must be expressed through the stomach. In the loves which are affected and are different from the normal, you have a description of his sick self.

Temperaments which are natural demand no consideration. Hering introduced temperaments into the Materia Medica, but temperaments are not in the provings.

Morbid changes of the mind are the basis of the prescription. Proceeding toward the circumference, work on those remedies related to the disordered affections first. Any remedy not in this group cannot cure.

2. The second point of consideration in the study of the patient is the intellectual functions, the reasoning faculties.

As many remedies suited to disturbances of the affections are found also to have intellectual disturbances, you proceed next to consult those related to the intellectual disturbances and may thus eliminate a few more remedies.

Among symptoms related to the affections, also those related to the intellect, some are common, less important than those more rare. Consult the most important, those most strange, first.

3. Memory disturbances come next in order in the mind but in study are less important.

The lists of remedies are so long that you will seldom eliminate many remedies from those of the preceding lists.

Memory disturbances are the most common of mind symptoms.

4. Next to the mental symptoms in importance are the physical generals. The physical generals cannot be cured with remedies that do not have the mental conditions.

The physical generals are those things which can be predicted of the bodily condition in its entirety. First of these to be considered is the patient’s relation to heat and cold. He may be very warm, desiring cool things, cool air, cool applications, cool food and light clothing; or he may want heat, cannot be too warm.

He may be so cold that there is lack of vital heat. Now what has this to do with the hip-joint, the kidneys, the liver, the stomach or the uterus ?

Nothing, yet these things relate to the man as a unit. They are general in their application to his entire bodily condition.

His desire for motion or rest is the next important physical general. Perhaps he cannot keep quiet, never comfortable unless he is walking. At the same time his shoulder may be more painful on motion of that part; working the arm from the shoulder, and all that relates to that part, may be worse from motion.

The patient is better when walking, but the shoulder is worse from motion. It would be foolish to start with the part to, try to see the patient himself.

Many remedies have the modalities of the part differing from those of the patient. Take first the things first; the patient is first before his parts.

Again you may have the patient himself worse from motions, and all his aches and pains worse from motion. How he is affected by the air is another physical general.

He may be better or worse in the open air. If the patient is a woman, her menstruation must be considered. This is not particular, menstruation is a function of the body, and she will say that she is worse or better during menstruation, or worse just before or just after menstruation.

The patent as a unit may be worse or better after eating; himself all over may be better or worse after the rectal evacuation, better after stool; these are important generals of the body. Two things run through the conditions, and must be distinguished, the bodily conditions which are aggravated from various modalities, and the particular aggravations from them.

Among the conditions relating to the bodily condition are weakness, pallor, and, frequently, the color of discharges when the color is due to a condition which represents the loves. As the blood is, so is the love.

The color of the discharge expresses the condition of the blood when there is a deterioration which renders them greenish. The greenish color to discharges from the vagina, as in cancer, represents the condition of the blood. A laudable condition of the discharge is common.

When a symptom is common to all or to many remedies it is not important. Hahnemann’s emphasis is upon the symptoms strange, rare, and peculiar. These are most important.

The common symptoms in each group are left until the last in the symptoms of the affections, of the intellect, of the memory and of the physical generals. These are all generals.

We go first to the generals and then to the particulars, proceeding from center to circumference. You may have a long list of symptoms that would baffle a strong mentality in a man, without an idea of order.

In a case without symptoms of the affections, no intellectual symptoms, no physical generals, with only a long list of particulars, what can you do ?

When a patient is properly examined and all is reduced to writing, then, as Hahnemann says, the greater part of the work is accomplished.

When a case is properly taken, with all these symptoms brought out, it is easy to work it out to a small list of remedies. It is not a short cut, there is no such thing as a short cut. It is the proper way, working from center to circumference of the man himself.

‘When you come to the physical generals perhaps only one in the list of mental symptoms is worse from heat. Then what need you care about the particulars ? You have the man himself, and the particulars will take care of themselves.

As the affections are, so is the man, extending from center to circumference. When you know his affections you know what trend is taken.

5. Then we come to the particulars, the thing for which the patient comes to be treated. Referring again to the hip-joint case, perhaps none of these remedies now are found in the hip-joint list, which was the point from which you would start by the other plan.

Most cases of hip-joint disorder cured by me in the past twenty-five years were cured by remedies not in the hip-joint list. This list contains those remedies that have been observed to cure hip-joint cases, but this remedy with which I cure a patient Who has hip-joint trouble may not cure another hip-joint case; hence it is not in the list, nor is it included as a clinical symptom.

A man with a rectal ulcer was advised to be operated on to relieve the copious hemorrhages from the rectum. He was urged to consult me before having an operation. I found a persistent mental symptom was the need of intense restraint to prevent himself from destroying his own life.

Natrum Sul. had this symptom, but has no rectal ulcer recorded. A few other symptoms present, together with this strong mental symptom, led to the use of Nat. Sul. and he had no more hemorrhages.

When you come to investigate the particulars, if you have a half dozen remedies left over, proceed on through all the particulars.

In this hip-joint case, you may have also liver affection, and all circumstances belonging to these symptoms must be considered, though they are classed as concomitants by the other method.

Starting with these particulars, which is the concomitant ? Working out the case on that plan, you may work out to an entirely different list of remedies for the different particulars, but they are in the same patient.

By beginning the investigation in relation to the patient, you may find none of the particulars in the remedy selected, but the remedy cures the patient, and the particulars disappear.

A doctor brought a patient to me for consultation one cold Winter day, saying he had tried for a long time and failed to benefit him.

The most troublesome symptom was a dry, hacking cough for which he had prescribed Arsenicum. He said the young man had been steadily emaciating, and he thought I might help him. I looked at the young man and noticed he had no overcoat on though it was very cold weather.

Asking him why he wore no overcoat, I found that he was never chilly, but wanted the cold air, felt better in the open air, wanted to walk and work rapidly, had been emaciating for some time, and had this dry, hacking cough.

I asked the doctor why he did not give him Lycopodium as that fitted the patient and the patent was clearly of the opposite type to Arsenicum. Lycopodium stopped his cough and he increased in weight and was cured.

I started out to follow the Boenninghausen plan but it did not cure the patients. You can give different remedies in succession without holding to any one, and after years, the patient is no better, they are not curing the patient.

Very sensitive patients should not be given too high a potency. For oversensitives it is best to begin not higher than 1m. This can be repeated two, or sometimes three times, and then a higher potency used.

Each potency can be used two or three times with benefit. Sometimes he will need to begin again at the lowest potency and go through the series. Thus you will perhaps cure the patient without change of remedy.

Failure of best success with the Boenninghausen plan led me to study Hahnemann’s teachings more closely. This dawned on me twenty-five years ago and I have been practicing it all these years. Starting with the patient, as above outlined, we find in each group many remedies to be eliminated because they are not related to the patient.

This is especially true in the particulars. Remedies will seldom be found in the lists of all the particulars; you must omit some, but be certain to omit the particulars and not the generals.

The least important are to be omitted. Start with the most important, proceed to the less and less important, on to the least important. If you do not follow this plan, you work in a helter-skelter way and are led to confusion.

A patient comes with something to be cured. That is usually not the thing to begin with, for you must get at the thing that is at the bottom. Each one must use his own method of eliciting the symptoms.

There is a tendency among those working in modern scientific falsities to have remedies for pathological tissue changes to cover the results of disorder. Although it may not be known to fit the pathology, if it is the patient, the remedy will cure the patient.

By becoming expert in this method you can do wonderful things. You must recognize that the loves and thoughts extend through the body; they are not only in the brain. Man thinks with the fingers, the eyes and the skin. The volitional system extends throughout the body. You will find the patient himself has a lack of vital heat yet the suffering part is aggravated by heat; the patient is cold but the part is aggravated by heat.

The things of his affections are represented in his physical loves, and he says he does not like this or that. These things are close to the patient, close to his vital loves; they express the patient.

By the Boenninghausen method, there is no opportunity to distinguish between the patient and the particulars. This method has retarded the development of Homoeopathy. It has obscured Hahnemann’s Homoeopathy, based on the idea of the patient first and the focusing the observation on things strange, rare and peculiar.

These do not relate to the particulars (the part affected).

You will cure inflammation of any part when guided by the symptoms of the patient, whether the remedy thus selected has produced that sort of inflammation or not.

There prevails a tendency to say that one is sick because the liver or the stomach or the uterus is disordered. One patient will visit a gynecologist, to be told that all her troubles are due to the disorder of the uterus, and a course of local treatment will make this in order and then she will be well.

The local treatment does not improve the patient, and she consults a spinal specialist who tells her the troubles are due to the spine, and treatment to cure that will restore her to health. Then the eyes are examined. Yes says the oculist all the troubles are due to errors of refraction; a change of glasses will improve her condition. Next the heart specialist is consulted, with the assurance that correction of the heart trouble will make her well.

None of them had directed any attention to the patient, but the condition of the patient was said to be due to her organs. The man himself is prior to his organs, more interior than his organs.

The condition of the organs is the result of disorder more interiorly. It is necessary to proceed from first to last, from things beginning to things ending, to grasp the idea of Homoeopathy. I have seen results of treatment in my cases that few have seen, and this is the reason.

Long experience results in expert facility in perceiving symptoms and surmising what has preceded them, in leading the patient to reveal what is there without asking leading questions.

You can turn the patient aside and lead him to reveal the very center of the case. You become expert in the use of the repertory, increasing from year to year, as long as you live. It is a lifework, a beautiful work, worth living to perform.

In the woman the menstrual symptoms, of all particulars, are nearest to the generals; they are close to the life of the woman.

Sexual symptoms, especially desires and aversions, are analogous to loves and aversions. Discrimination of the value of particulars is important. It is a question for meditation to determine how closely the symptoms of a part pertain to the generals.

Symptoms occurring in many parts are more general than those of only one part as illustrated by discharges of similar character from several parts. The condition of the blood is analogous to the loves. Few remedies have recorded the condition of the blood, that it will not coagulate, but it is a high grade symptom. It is common for blood to clot, and rare for it, not to clot.

There have been many criticisms for this use of the term generals, but it is the best word that meets the needs. The idea is that of systematic dominating from center to circumference.

It is Hahnemann’s system ultimated to a more scientific basis. The discoverer and founder comprehended without much thought and study. There are many difficulties to be explained. For their explanation it is necessary to study Homoeopathy, and then study man. Holding these things in the memory, we meditate upon it all, then decide that it is good, and employ it in use.

The result delights you, and you love it. Thus it extends more interiorly and cannot be forgotten. You love Homoeopathy, as you apply it, and, as the love is, so is the life. It is in you and part of you if you love it; you are a vessel of the truth.

It grows and expands a million fold, extending out from the interior. We proceed from center to circumference, perceive how men are sick harmoniously from center to extremities.

If this philosophy is not in the life, and only in the memory, it is not a part of you – it is only with you. If something comes up to delight you more, it can be laid off. Nothing can come to delight you more than Homoeopathy if it is in you and part of you.

There was once a poor man crippled and sick, an artist, whom several of us thought should have an opportunity. I gave him some medicine, and told him if he was better when that was used he need not return.

We united, several of us, and paid out much money to keep this man at Paris for several years. Long afterward he returned with a gift that he had made, chiseled from marble, a beautiful piece of work.

I said to him that his work differed from mine, it was very beautiful but returned no response, while the poor crippled disheveled man whom I was able to restore, returned in gratitude and warmth of vigorous life.

His cold marble, crude and rough in the beginning, was only a cold, unresponsive object after all his work was expended upon it.

59- The symptoms and aspects of such cases as present an unfavorable view and cause an unfavorable p January 25, 2007

Posted by Dr.Sheela Suresh in Lesser Writings - Kent.
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The difference between a symptom complex and a symptom image is partly a question of knowing from training and partly from experience.

To one who knows the totality as written out it may mean a clear symptom image and a sure index to a remedy the patient needs, which generally goes with a prediction of speedy recovery.

To one who lacks training and experience the totality as written out is a complex of symptoms that means chaos.

As one gains knowledge by training, reading, and experience, the symptom complex is less common until he is capable almost at a glance of saying of some cases ever so carefully taken that the whole case has the stamp of complexity.

Yet some of these after much study will reveal the image in the totality, and it can be seen what is the remedy, but it must be known of any case that so long as it is chaos, just so long a favorable prognosis is to be withheld.

In this great question there is ample room for artistic perception and judgment to manifest themselves, but there are scientific rules to be followed which constitute the foundation of art and experience.

The beginner who has been properly taught may soon be able to judge of the relative magnitude of a given record of symptoms and know to which class it belongs.

There is more to be learned about diagnosis and prognosis by studying the complex of symptoms than by any form of physical examination, but both and all methods of investigation should be used, as they confirm each other, and often where one is defective the other is strong and helpful.

To know symptoms in cause, beginning, purport, direction, and ending is only that acquaintance with sickness so often urged by Hahnemann.

To distinguish the symptoms that are natural or common to fixed morbid states should be the earliest acquirement of the physician in order that he may learn to discover what is queer and unaccountable.

To distinguish an incongruous symptom complex can scarcely be expected until one is able to say what is required in any symptom totality to constitute it harmonious.

Experienced homoeopathic observers know very well that the burning, stinging, enlarged glands, infiltration, hardness of the part, weakness, loss of flesh, in a scirrhus of a mamma will not lead to a remedy that will act curatively; also that oedema of extremities, weakness, albumen in urine and heart symptoms, dyspnoea and anxiety furnish no basis for a remedy for the patient.

All know that remedies given on such symptoms are only expected to comfort, and will not restrain the progress of disease nor very much prolong life.

All know that the above manifestations are the representatives of the sickness that ultimated upon the patient, but do not signify or show forth the signs and symptoms of the patient.

The particulars of the disease are there, which are the common symptoms, but the generals and particulars of the patient are left out.

Now it matters not whether these generals and particulars are masked, suppressed by previous drugging or never existed, except in the ancestry of the patient.

They must be discovered in any case or a favorable prognosis cannot be declared.

It simply sums up by distinguishing from well settled evidence what is order from what is disorder.

It is not to be doubted that sickness may appear in order or disorder. Many or most sicknesses will appear in an orderly form if permitted to do so.

The acute sicknesses all have order so that we are able to declare their course and termination.

Many chronic sicknesses present a form of order which is well known to observers. The order so far as knowable is a guide to distinguish that which represents the disease from that which represents the patient.

The hysterical patient presents an incongruous symptom complex that always deceives the neophyte. It seems natural to gather all those queer, incongruous fluctuations, imaginations and sensations and prescribe for them.

Who has not done just this thing ? Who has not had his lingering cases over which he has toiled for months, while the patient improved in no manner, and the friends wondered if the doctor was ever to be of any use ?

When one has learned the nature of the hysteria he sees that he has been trying to fit the remedy to the hysteria and not to the patient.

The writer has been asked to prescribe for such cases many times when the symptomatology was beautifully presented, where the hysteria was there in all of its richest neurological exaggeration, but not an idea could be drawn from it to portray the, state of the patient.

Such a case remains incurable until the symptoms that stand for the patient are also known. These generally are found, if they are discovered to be changes of desires and aversions, loves and hates.

These are most difficult to secure, as every hysterical patient conceals her real loves and hates, and relates such as are not true of her; hence it requires the skill and power of an experienced strong mind, which cannot be deceived, to question her when she has lost her guard.

This case is incurable until the case can be taken in a manner to present what is true of the patient. It is always true that what is predicted of the disease is easy to secure, but what is predicted of the patient comes out under difficulties by cross-examination or by accident and prolonged observation.

Let it not be supposed that the symptoms that are predicted of the disease are to be ignored or considered valueless in selecting the remedy, but they are to be considered subsequently to the symptoms that are predicted of the patient; and it has often occurred that a remedy has made brilliant cures when it suited the patient, even though it was not known to possess a strong likeness of the disease; but let the likeness be first to the patient and last to the disease.

The patient is first and the disease is last. It is like initiation, direction and termination.

In the prospective phtisical patient we see a patient with few symptoms of the patient himself, but weakness, loss of flesh, anaemia, coldness, tired from all exertion, bad reaction, easily disturbed by eating, drinking, exposure, loss of sleep and weather changes.

These states are common to so many remedies that it will at once be seen that the patient is not represented and no promise can be made, though there is no sign of tubercles.

A favorable prognosis must be withheld until a series of carefully selected remedies has been used and the symptoms that represent the patient begin to appear, such as mental symptoms and other generals too well known to need description.

There is enough to be told about this subject to convince any one who thinks with his head that a knowledge of diagnosis and prognosis is not limited to the traditional doctor, as is claimed.

Indeed the most of these quasi-learned class investigate with their heels, like the mule, instead of with their heads; i. e., they go about things to kick them into pieces and not to know them.

They do not love truth for the sake of truth.

There are three conclusions to be put into axioms :

First.

When there are tissue changes with no symptoms to represent the state of disorder in the economy.

Second.

When there is a complex confusion of particulars and no generals.

Third.

It does not follow that the patient must die because the symptoms are such as to persuade the physician to withhold a favorable prognosis. It may only mean a lingering sickness.

58- The study of provings January 25, 2007

Posted by Dr.Sheela Suresh in Lesser Writings - Kent.
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It is nearly useless to cram students with the language of provings. If they cannot be made to see the clinical image to be met they fail to make good prescribers. The student needs to know something of what we do, and what can be done with provings. Dry study of provings without application to clinical images, will not do for the neophyte.

Rarely do we find a student with sufficient acumen to formulate these images for himself; so, after puzzling over them for a time, he falls to grumbling over the imperfections of the Materia Medica, sometimes even, making fruitless efforts to correct the imperfections. Imperfections do exist, and some of them are fully recognized by good men, but how they are to be corrected is not so well known, even by the best men of today.

Dr. Hughes has demonstrated that he thought he knew how to correct those imperfections, but he has failed to demonstrate satisfactorily to the profession, that he knew even one remedy.

There is no short road to a fair knowledge of therapeutics.

The physician who masters the use of the repertory, usually makes the most rapid prescriber.

The symptoms that are in the way, are the ones we do not understand. Suppose each egotist were to throw out all symptoms he does not understand, what portion of the Materia Medica should we have left ?

Hahnemann made most wonderful use of the Materia Medica that he left us; we ought to do as well as he, with the many added provings, but if we tear down, we should be quite positive that the building would not result in improvement.

The best symptoms of the Materia Medica have come, and must come, from the provings of potentized drugs.

Throw away all such symptoms and we shall be compelled to practice medicine upon the thrown away Materia Medica, for the portion left and accepted, will not sustain the law for universal application.

This is demonstrated by the fact that those crying for crude provings, constantly confess their inability to cure the sick.

The very cry for a revised Materia Medica is an ample confession. The use of quinine, whiskey, and compounds, testify loudly in the same direction.

The grumblers never recognize the possibility of the difficulty being a personal one, nor think of their confession as the guilty pleading of their own lack of knowledge of the Materia Medica and how to use it.

A confession of the inability to use the Materia Medica as it stands is not a qualification necessary to the erudition of a compiler of a new Materia Medica. They have confessed, we have not accused.

The confessions extend so far, there is little left for them to learn pertaining to cures. The most startling confession recently made, the assertion that the 30th and 200th potencies do not make symptoms (!) but has a negative result; either the doctor did not select sensitive persons, or he refused to recognize symptoms.

Not all provers bring out symptoms from potencies, but the sensitive ones furnish symptoms of inestimable value.

If the physician makes a careful study of his willing provers, he will be able to select for them, such remedies as they can get symptoms from, i. e., by studying the natural traits of their life, he can see their weaknesses and make use of them.

A lady expressed a wish to prove drug, she was carefully observed, and thought to be sensitive to Phosphorus. She proved the drug in a high potency, confirming many old symptoms of Phosphorus about which she knew nothing, neither did she know the name of the drug she was proving.

These facts stand, nor do they become less than facts when other doctors fail to obtain symptoms the same way.

It is grievous to demonstrate one’s inability to find a remedy fitting to subjects, for the purpose of proving, after making numerous trials.

It means something. It means failure. Not of the law, not of the potentized drug, not of the patient or prover, but of the physician. He knew not how to select provers or remedies for provers, therefore he is become an agnostic.

The chemist says to a friendly physician :

“I hear you have become a Homoeopath ?”

Physician :

“Yes, that is true.”

Chemist :

“Well, you do not mean to say you believe in the 30th potency, do you.”

Physician :

“I understand you are a chemist, that you make a living by your knowledge of chemistry, and that your science is based upon the hypothesis of molecules and atoms, etc.”

Chemist :

“Yes, I am a chemist by profession.”

Physician :

“Well, now my friend, have you ever seen a molecule or atom ?”

Chemist :

“Let’s go; we’ll have a bottle of wine.”

The chemist knows the molecule is not very well determined, that it is entirely hypothetical, but he does not care so that he produces the results that previous experiments enable him to expect.

The results are not changed, even though the molecule be argued out and not believed in. Facts stand in spite of unbelief.

57- The study of our Materia Medica January 25, 2007

Posted by Dr.Sheela Suresh in Lesser Writings - Kent.
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The artist studies his model until he feels the lines and shadows, and in his mind sees the image on canvas or carved in stone. He builds a model and carves in granite the similar.

The student of our Materia Medica must study a proving until he feels the image of the totality of sick feelings of all the provers as if he had proved this remedy and felt all the morbid feelings of the provers.

The doctor that prescribes for symptoms as they look on paper fails to feel the weight of responsibility of the true healer.

The physician that first places all the morbid feelings of his patient on paper and then ponders over that complexity of symptoms until he feels and sees what that patient suffers, and next searches the Materia Medica till he finds the same image, will be able to cure the sick as Hahnemann did.

This gives him the sphere of sicknesses either produced by disease or by drugs. This sphere is an important feature of the study of cure and sick-making causes.

Through this study we discover the sphere of action of Aconite as it differs from Sulph., of Belladonna as it differs from Calcarea, of the natural successors, complements and inimicals.

We may study pathology until the dawn of the twentieth century, and it may not reveal what we need in the art of healing the sick, but the careful study of each picture of sensations may reveal to the student and artist the sphere of medicinal powers and curative possibilities.

Some may study much longer than others to reach this mastery of a drug image, but study will bring out the picture in time.

There are drugs that are largely proved, yet so badly proved that the true image has never been brought out.

This is generally the case when man has meddled with the statements of the simple-minded lay provers. The language of nature cannot be interfered with if the proving is expected to be a guide to the cure of our fellow-man.

Modern provings are commonly a farce and will not lead to the elevation that Hahnemann’s remedies sustain. The old masters knew how to do it, they were governed by the principles of the Master, they were governed by the philosophy, and their provings will stand and forever be safe guides to the cure of all animals and man.

The wrangle between the material and the immaterial philosophers may end in some good; both sides have truth, but to some extent perverted. Both sides evade the facts that oppose their own methods of reasoning, and their own conclusions.

Some will not accept a cure as a fact, because it was made with an infinitesimal medicine. Some will not accept a proving because it has been made with infinitesimal doses.

The actions of such men do not change the facts that exist, but they do retard the study of our Materia Medica. A proving that was made under my own eye, under the proper rules for proving, demonstrated most clearly that real symptoms were produced by the 10 millionth potency of Lachesis.

I had heretofore not believed it possible to procure symptoms from this potency.

The prover did not know what the dose was that she took. She brought out one symptom as perfectly new; and it might be doubted as a genuine Lachesis symptom, but the fact that I had discovered the symptom several years before clinically, and confirmed it and verified it.

Such a symptom the prover did bring out; and such a symptom known to belong to the drug, and that in the very high numbers, removed all doubt in my mind of the possibility of procuring symptoms in such high numbers.

This prover was not in perfect health, I am willing to say in answer to the proper question.

She was a very nervous person, extremely sensitive, and a subject of many nervous symptoms. This must of course greatly impair the value of the proving in the eyes of many.

A singular fact that I want fully stated here, is, the symptoms of the prover were entirely new and ran their course as an acute miasm should have done, completely subduing all the symptoms peculiar to the prover (with exceptions mentioned), and when the proving or drug symptoms departed, all her old symptoms came back.

This shows that she was not proving a similar, that it was not a Homoeopathic aggravation, but that it was a genuine proving.

The proving of Lachesis was so dear that Dr. B. Fincke and Dr. P. P. Wells have made remarks on it to the effect that there can be no doubt about the genuineness of the proving.

That the proving suspended the old symptoms of the prover is the proper thing, and what is constantly observed when scarlet fever or measles or small pox run their course; and as all know the symptoms come back after the acute disease has run its course.

It may be gleaned that a proving may suppress a given sickness. That is just what happened in this most wonderful proving, and is just what happens in some of our best provings.

If this be true, it must refute the idea that no value can attach to provings on persons riot perfectly healthy.

No one denies that healthy men and women are the proper provers, neither is it true that provings on sick persons may not have a high value.

Another grand lesson is found in the proving, viz.; that highly dynamized medicines are capable of suppressing the symptoms of natural diseases, and implanting themselves instead.

Another warning to the beginner, that he may not be, too hasty in giving medicine to sensitive, nervous patients.

In presenting this proving, as it comes from the pen of the prover, it is my purpose only to say for it, it must stand or fall on its own worth as a proving made to throw light on the great pathogenesis of Lachesis.

Lachesis

Mrs. H. W. A.-Proving of Lachesis 10m.

Beginning February 14, 1887.

A very nervous little woman who has never been very sick, but always very sensitive to surrounding atmosphere, so that she proves every thing she breathes.

February 14th-

Took a few pellets dry on tongue, 1 : 30 p. m.

Head felt better in a little while. Soon felt a severe, heavy, ache in both thighs as though they would come off or break. Slight amelioration by morning. Felt warm blood circulating in legs and feet; from knees down, are usually cold.

Felt happy and jolly, in spite of severe aching. Could not stand as usual during shopping. Upper arms began to ache, 3 p. m., left worst.

Pain in legs diminished, as pain in arms increased; could not carry a small parcel. Left arm aggravated by hanging. Left arm ameliorated by resting in coat. Aching moved upward to the shoulder, as though arm would drop out. Aching extending under scapula. Subsided into an uneasy ache after 5 p. m. Weight diminished.

Was told I look pale. During evening had to rest the left leg on chair, and take off the shoe. Elevation relieved the leg, but left arm began to ache.

Aching pain again went under scapula and posterior left lung. Could not lie on right side because of drawing sensation around the heart.

Lying on left side aggr. pain in arm, shoulder, lung and heart. Wondered if I would have heart disease, as my mother died of atrophy of the heart. Restless and suffocated all night.

February 16th-

Could not study or give due attention. Heart ached and would stop breath as though it would palpitate, but it did not. Went to sleep that night listening to the beating in head and ears synchronous with heart beat.

February 17th-

Aching of entire left side from crest of illium to first rib. Aching under both scapulae, left the worst. Upper arm so heavy could hardly raise it. Sensation in arm as if it were pulled. Intense aching between heart and scapulae, and was afraid to stir or breathe, and would raise and lower the shoulder to get relief. Slight palpitation and pain in apex.

February 18th-

Pain in apex followed by palpitation. Afraid some one would see and speak of the anxiety. Could hardly hold anything, would slip out of my hands. Feared the increasing palpitation which aroused me frequently in the night. Dreamed of riding in a. strong wind which took my breath.

Dreamed of riding on horseback. Going swiftly through the air gave me a sinking feeling in the stomach and left thorax. Waked holding my breath. Desire to unfasten dress from sternum to waist line.

Could not study in evening, hated everything, books, paper, pencil, lectures; and medicine. Felt like squirming; has often come on since I began taking the drug.

Afraid to go to sleep after retiring; put band on heart to watch its beating. Could rest comfortably upon left side, with hand upon heart; so slept.

February 19th

During shopping, at noon, felt weak and sinking, from heart to stomach. Palpitation during lecture, 2 p. m. Kept moving about in chair.

Sore under left scapula. Pressure of chair back caused palpitation, followed by cough. Could breathe better in open air, so took a long walk. Heart seemed to stop beating, then made extra exertion. Attacks of palpitation until 11 p. m. causing hacking cough each time.

February 20th-

Slept well all night.

Dreams toward morning dreamed I was almost dead with heart disease, but did not wish my friends to know of it. Was in a crowd; was suffocated and feet so cold, like walking on ice. Wished to get in the air, but trying to get through the crowd caused palpitation. Thought my body had become mottled like a snake skin; thought it would be soon on my face, so that I could not go in company any more.

Did not know why this was, but it was a punishment which I would understand in another world. Desired time to die to come quickly, for my heart ached so that I could not be happy; neither make my friends happy.

Slight palpitation on rising. Increased so that I could not walk after 11 a. m. Tried heating by grate, no relief. Palpitation every few minutes so that I coughed, could not talk or laugh, must have dress unbuttoned.

Aching all through left thorax, a dragging sensation. Frequent pain in second intercostal, seemed to pull inwards and down. A creamy leucorrhoea on rising in morning, after sitting.

Pain boring inwards in right occiput; old symptoms. Leucorrhoea, light green. Red sand in urine, adheres to sides of vessel, menses closed with pus-like discharge.

February 20th- Sixth Day.-

Burning in right ear and last upper molar. Tooth sore; felt as though it set in an ulcer. Must dry and warm the feet every hour or so. Palpitation in stomach after eating.

February 21st -Seventh day-

Violent palpitation while dressing; voice trembled so I could not talk.

Great weakness of lower extremities. Then of upper arms. Was asked if I had mental anxiety because the face showed so much anguish. Was unusually happy unless talking, which caused palpitation. 10 a. m.; violent throbbing of arteries supplying abdominal viscera, left side, extending into the rectum.

Quick rapid beating, causing change of position. Nerve of the left leg seems to be twitching, throbbing.

Wake with coldness, which causes me to crawl down in bed to warm and sleep. 5 a. m.; Sleep, dreams of pure white calf and cow.

Waked in slight perspiration. Coldness continues until 11 a. m. and the cough comes on. (An old symptom now worse, K.).

Must warm the feet. Stool irregular for a week, requires great effort, though small. Anus protrudes like cushion before pieces are passed. Try several times to appease the unfinished sensation. Must push tissues back, smarting long time after stool.

Cough pains in left side abdomen and from perineum upwards. Copious leucorrhoea at stool or during any exertion.

Backache relieved by passing hot creamy slightly stringy discharge-faint acrid odor.

This flow often relieves knot-like feeling of left ovary; old symptoms.

No appetite for breakfast or lunch because of throbbing in heart and left side. Eat well at 6 p. m. Burning in stomach. Cold water nauseates. Can feel cold water all through the abdomen.

Hands burn. Veins in hands so distended must hold them up to get relief. Cold in morning. First day that have felt like study this winter.

This dose did not produce left sided sore throat. Ulcerated odor from stomach. 4 :30 a. m.; for week have awakened cold and sensation of squirming. Coldness over heart, stomach, back. Flesh is cold. Amel. by moving about. Awake at 6 a. m. in slight perspiration. Sweat again p. m.

Odor slightly of garlic. Frequently must arise at 5 a. m. to relieve backache by urinating. Old symptoms more prominent since taking the dose. Scarcely noticed before, (Kent).

February 28th-Fourteenth Day-

Frequent quivering aching. Extensor proprius pollicis lame, nearly let me fall when standing on tip-toe. Aching in hypogastrium and inguinal region. Pain in uterus, going upward, while leaning forward.

Burning in different spots of the body. Can spell correctly but not form letters rapidly, mix words. Feel quite happy. Smell of turpentine caused distress in lumbar region, extending downward and forward into ovarian and hypogastric region, like dysmenorrhoea.

March 1st-

Cold feet, a. m. Felt lame and sweat while heating them offensive (subjective). Left upper arm cold, as if ice were upon it. Very sleepy, heavy eyelids. Waked early, with terrible distress in bowels and stomach. Followed by much flatus. Diarrhea at 7 a. m.; watery, leaving burning and tenesmus in rectum for several hours. Left arm cold. Hands very hot and swollen.

Burning in stomach after breakfast. Throbbing in left thorax and abdomen. Leucorrhoea better, catarrh worse. Pain in right fibula.

March 3rd-Twentieth Day-

Slept better waked unrefreshed. Dreamed of birds and animals. Dreamed I was dying of dropsy from kidney disease. That water was collecting about the heart. Headache. Pain in back of head. Golden flashes above the eyes on closing them. Discouraged. That those despised who knew me best and had lost confidence in me.

Felt that none understood my motive, which is good. Have lost the power to exert any influence.

Am so tired that I fail in all undertakings. The physical and spiritual will not harmonize. Longing to break the tie that binds the spiritual to the physical.

The influence of evil is uppermost. Morbid tendency to decide that wrong is right. Realize this only after it is committed, then feel crushed. Cannot rise above it. When alone the mortification of such mistakes nearly drives me wild.

Cry for help and receive mockery. Lost all consolation so long derived from the unnumbered words of my mother. These griefs agg. by mental efforts to rise above them causing me to despise myself.

Remorse, followed by tears. No strength of will to do desperate deeds. In moments of self-forgetfulness duties are performed with surprising ease and success. Self-consciousness that cannot be overcome.

Grief at committing actions which at the time seem proper, but afterward seem improper. Grief crowds all else out of mind.

March 4th-Twenty-first Day-

Chilly a. m. and p. m. Went to bed to get warm. Hot spot on vertex and over eyes. Can’t think, forehead too tight. Heat from vertex into throat and back of neck.

March 5th-

Awoke 2 a. m. troubled dream, crowding thoughts. Tried to study, but old impressions crowded the subject out. After lengthened effort broke into tears and dropped asleep.

Awoke at 4 a. m., cold, aching back, relieved by micturition. Slept, waked later tired and discouraged. Distress in lower abdomen from running to take street car at 10 a. m. Nearly fainted over the simple operation of reducing a hernia (reducible). First time in four years. Slept p. m.

Waking, arms felt like limbs of trees, numb. Stomach, over which arms are crossed, greatly distressed. Distress going downward to the uterus. Arms folded across stomach causes distress. Taste of blood, because of bloody mucus from posterior nares. Offensive perspiration. Several nights when going to sleep, have felt the bed was floating, as it seemed in childhood.

March 21st-

Deep yellow, mucous stool sinking into the bottom of vessel; watery, with floating white particles upon the top, like rice. 3 p. m. Great bearing down in the rectum, as though it would protrude. Stool at 8 p. m. So hungry and thirsty, ate soft part of raw oysters, which seemed to satisfy. Relief from the throbbing of heart, which has endured for a week.

March 22nd-

Slept well; dreams natural. Dreamed that on preparing for lectures, could not hurry. There was such soreness and gone feeling in the stomach.

Back of head ached. No motion of bowels. First evacuation of urine, thick, deep orange color; unsatisfied feeling, causing burning and smarting of parts. Cold from knees down, ankle, aches. But little of the burning and smarting, sensation (scalded) of mouth and stomach, present yesterday. A. M.; bloody mucus from left lung.

Weak in attempting to walk. Yesterday, while standing for the first time at foot of bed, felt very tall and bed looked small. Felt three feet taller than usual. Toast raw oysters and “cambric tea” seem to suit.

Crave sour things, which for two years have agg. my bowels, so also salt. Blisters in mouth, on lips, under nose, disappearing. As eager as a thirsty child f or a glass of water. Small moulded stool covered with mucus; feel better.

March 26th-

Mournful, dreamy state of mind, as though something very sad were transpiring, took Lach., 9 m.

March 29th-

Cold, sweaty feet when not near a grate, a. m. Walked a long distance in p. m. 4 p. m.; pain in or over right kidney caused by desire to urinate. Followed by distressing sickened feeling in stomach.

Pain went from stomach to left heel, then up the leg, ending in dull ache. Numbness in great and second toes, left, as though something pressed from the end. Same symptom occurs in bed. Wake in night with urgent desire to urinate, pain in right kidney. Feet warm and feel swollen.

Inclination to sweat after returning to the bed, especially when surfaces come in contact.

Tossing until day-break, then slept. Most comfortable lying upon the stomach. Tired when called to get up. Fall asleep on the pillow, but if waked will slip the head off and roll on the stomach. Burning sensation from vertex to last dorsal vertebra. Perspiration just before sleep turn on back to make it warm. Perspiration musty and old, as at one time during the ague; when I would wake in night with profuse sweat, making me sick at stomach.

March 30th—

Left toes numb. While packing, cramping in hypogastrium. Occasional pains from left of cervical vertebra to right, to left elbow. Heat in forehead. Eyes sensitive to heat. Left heel feels as though ice were pressing upon it. Uneasiness and fullness in kidneys before urinating. Urine profuse and colorless.

Bowels feel insecure as from impending diarrhea. Weight in rectum from long standing. Frequent pains in back opposite lower end of sternum. Itching over whole body after sitting a long time. An eruption size of small pea sometimes festered always sore and itching. Feel if I could break constriction in the forehead, could reason clearer and think more deeply.

April 6th-

Itching in roof of mouth and base of tongue; must rub it. At times burning and pricking on the edge of tongue, agg. by smell of tobacco or turpentine. All gone feeling in stomach amel, by eating. Slow urination, especially after waiting. Sweat middle of night, or after first sleep.

Throat feels full. Mouth feels sore. Agg. of the burning in mouth and stomach by salt. Dyspnoea agg. by slightest exertion. Constriction of the throat, as if something tight were about it. Coughing at night caused by itching in left side of throat, extending to ear. Amel, by warmth of hand. Hands puffy and often very warm. Sweat followed by chill (caused by dampness of clothes) ; then heat, then sleep. Fourth toe joint sore upon under side.

Moved to first toe and thought it would be a bunion. So sleepy at 8 p. m. am obliged to retire. Right foot and leg feels large, warm and heavy. Left foot and leg feels small, numb and cold.

Quivering in both ears when lying down at night, at times relieved by change of position. Aching back of both ears. Aching a little above the apex of heart. (Soreness about the edge of mammary gland before menstruation, Old Symptom.) Throbbing in left side. Slight pain in left ovarian region, sometimes both sides, and then in hypogastrium. During past two weeks swelling induration and smarting of the ducts of sublingual glands. Relieved.

Feeling of prolapsed rectum, only relieved by lying on the stomach. Top of head sore and hot. Throat burns and feels raw. Lungs dry and tight. No expectoration after long coughing. Burning smarting with itching.

April 7th-

Constipation; feces hard, bleeding from rectum. Feels like cut after stool. Bearing down in rectum, long time after evacuation. Gray spots drop in front of left eye while reading. Caused blur and nervousness. Agg. by looking to the left. Amel. by continuing to read. Mouth sore; herpes, lower lip, right side.

April 8th-

Numbness extending from lumbar region to lower extremities after long walk. Menses p. m. Bloating in epigastrium. Sensation of an opening in abdomen from umbilicus down; i. e., upon either side of bladder. Bladder distended, cold, before menses. Also aching in left arm, thoracic and abdominal cavities. Crawling sensation for several nights, in anus after retiring. Severe aching in left leg, first four hours of catamenia.

April 9th-

Waked from sound sleep by severe colic, followed by loose stool, dark almost green. During stool cold and prostrated. Amel, by stool. Weak before menses, had gushing, hot milky-white leucorrhoea. (At cessation of menses, continuous itching above the coccyx; worse at night. Has been customary for several months, Old Symptom.)

April 10th-Twitching in first finger (left) extending through tendons to wrist. Back of neck so weak that must have a high back chair. Catarrh in head better. Two attacks of coughing; 4 p. m. Repeated 2d day.

Can’t cough deep enough. Smarting and itching either side of trachea into ears. Cannot recall unfamiliar easy subjects. So sleepy by 7 p. m. am obliged to retire but am wakeful for some time after lying down.

Before and during menses, sweat at least exertion. From thighs upward warm, sweaty and suffocating. From above the knees downward, cold necessitates a warm iron. Cramping in left great toe before the menses. Worse in bed at night. Worse in turning from back to right side. Crawling sensation under seat of cold sore. In various places when tired. Same sensation would appear as a spot before eyes, during the blind headaches of my childhood, 16-20 years.

April 12th-

Extreme pleasure causes trembling and twitching for hours, more than would severe fright or sudden surprise. That and mental exertion caused wakefulness until midnight. Waked very early. Annoyed by sudden loss of subject of sentence, in attempts to speak. Effort to hold an idea until it can be expressed. Expression or the real effort, drives subject matter quite out of mind. Aching in occiput, extending to cervical vertebrae. Same pain extending down the arm when walking or upon receiving a jar.

April 18th-

Constant desire to lie down, can think better. An hour’s study and strength gives way. Pain in occiput neck and eyes feel cold, head hot. Ameliorated by warming feet. Ameliorated by lying down, finally. Ameliorated by open air. Such an anxious feeling to be strong and think quickly.

Became quickly exhausted. Long for physical strength. Sleep until 4 :30 a. m. Awaked refreshed, but work of the day before engrosses me to that extent, that when I rise, am already tired.

Desire to lie down again after breakfast. Tired feeling from forehead downward and backward through cervical region. Many times obliged to give up writing and throw myself on the bed.