Homeopathic tips and technique

The chief signs are those symptoms that are most constant, most striking, and most annoying to the patient. The physician marks them down as the strongest, the principal features of the picture. The most singular, most uncommon signs furnish the characteristic, the distinctive, the peculiar features. [8] The Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemann Hahnemann teaches that the remedies should be chosen according to the symptoms of the patient. The physician should be governed by what is certain and safe, not by that which is more or less uncertain and unsafe, and which is changed according to fashion. Both in the Organon and in his treatise on the chronic diseases, Hahnemann insists upon the remedies being chosen in accordance with the symptoms. [Hering] Section 258 : "He must, likewise, be careful not to entertain a prejudice against those remedies from which we may have experienced some check because he had made a bad selection, and he should never lose sight of this great truth that of all known remedies there is but one that merits a preference before all others, viz., that whose symptoms bear the closest resemblance to the totality of those which characterize the malady. No petty feeling should have any influence in so serious a matter."
One of the stumbling blocks to progress in the study of homoeopathy is the way we take our cases. We do not go back to Hahnemann's system of therapeutics. There is a broad distinction between symptoms of diagnosis and symptoms of therapeutics. Diagnostic symptoms are those of the disease, and the therapeutic symptoms go down to the patient himself. Now, the more valuable symptoms are for diagnosis the less valuable they are for the selection of the remedy. The practice of homoeopathy is just as simple as ' rolling off a log.' Read 152 of the Organon. Take the individual symptoms, and select those peculiar as your guide, and it will be astonishing how easy it is to prescribe for a case after you have taken it. That is where the trouble lies. Hahnemann has told us that anybody can prescribe for a patient after the anamnesis is well taken. [ H.C Allen]

Drugs not proved together cannot help modifying and changing or interfering with the action of each other as given in their separate pathogeneses. That drugs may and do complement each other we do not deny. This sometimes enables us, as Dr. Lippe used to say, to zig-zag to a cure cases for which the perfect similimum is not yet known.[ The Testimony of the Clinic Nash]

The modalities of the chief complaint are the most important. It is such a decisive factor that if you have a remedy with the concomitants, sensations, and dreams of the patient but not the modality, you must reject it.

 If there is a recognizable never well since or etiology it comes first among the modalities. Concomitant symptoms are symptoms that go together with the chief complaint. The less often it typically goes with the complaint, the more important it is. For example, diarrhea with headache is a concomitant. If there is an aggravation of the concomitant that is the same as of the chief complaint, it has increased value.

The modality the patient gives first is probably the most important. Choose big rubrics over the small. The modality the patient gives first is probably the most important. If the rubric is small, less than an inch, take all the remedies with a 4, 3, and 2. Put them in order of their grade. Anything that scores 5 or more in the top two modalities, should be included. In big rubrics take 3 and 4. Use remedies that score 7 or more in the top two rubrics. The number of rubrics the remedy appears in is more important than the total score. But, look at where it scores. Modalities are more important, but it almost never happens that a remedy with fewer rubrics is in the modalities. If two remedies are close, the past medical history will give you the choice. Ask about symptoms during puberty or pregnancy. If a remedy comes first in the repertorization and the remedy doesn't work, try a higher potency. Often a remedy for an acute condition also helps the chronic complaint. Remedies 2, 3, 4, and 5 are probably remedies that patient will need later. Even if a case doesn't have modalities you can still use the Boenninghausen method. [luc Boenninghausen Seminar].
Clarify the anamnesis by selecting a group of three or four essentials in one case and discarding all other remedies which do not turn up here. J. T. Kent

F. E. Boericke spent the last 20 years of his life as an invalid. It was the surmise of Dr. Skinner that his health was badly effected by his continual contact with very high potencies. There is a reason why, in the best homeopathic labs, that all transferring of dilution to pellet is done under a laminar flow hood, and that rubber gloves are used at all times. I had a proving of tuberculinum when transferring a 10m liquid from a vial to potencies. Also had a proving of Rhus Tox 200 from inhalation of the alcoholic solution. Julian Watson 1. It is impossible to learn homoeopathy except from a master. (Robert Gibson Miller.) 2. Drugs are sick making and sick curing and the sickness is the same.

3. The drug that can affect certain life processes adversely can be used to stimulate the selfsame life processes curatively. That is homoeopathy. 4. Matter processed to finer and finer particles develops finally into energy and vice versa, the physical is but concentrated energy. 5. The highly potentized remedy like processed pitchblende (radium) continues to radiate energy year after year without perceptible loss. Homoeopathic remedies unused for 20 or 30 years cure as readily as those freshly potentized. 6. Homoeopathy is absolutely inconceivable without the most precise individualization.

The outstanding symptom is the key to follow, no matter how remote this symptom may be from the pathology.
7.

Symptoms indicating the curative remedy often lie outside those that make up the pathology of the case.
8. 9.

Hahnemann's central idea is fundamental that the farther an

outstanding symptom seems removed from the ordinary course of disease the greater is that symptom's value in determining the remedy. (Cyrus Maxwell Boger.)
10. My inclination is to believe that there is real healing in crude drugs and that their action is homoeopathic, but as ordinarily used in continued application they have done more harm than their occasional good. 11. The principle of homoeopathy is applicable to any range of potency. (Cyrus Maxwell Boger.)

After a remedy has acted, repeating the remedy too soon is one of the greatest mistakes that can be made. (Boger. )
12. 13. After a prescription giving relief, do not give a remedy for any new symptom appearing in a less vital part. (Adolph Lippe.) 14. In chronic cases do not repeat or change a remedy too soon. This statement needs to be repeated a thousand times. (Sloan.) 15. Minutes or hours in acute, days, weeks or months in chronic. Never repeat while amelioration holds. (Tyler.) 16. Ultimates do not indicate the remedy. In cancer the sharp pains, ulceration and anmia are ultimates. Preceding symptoms must be found and on these the remedy selected.

17. Moving downward does not indicate progression but diminution of a disease. (Lippe.) 18. Do not dip into the chronic state when dealing with an acute condition and vice versa. (Roberts.) 19. Do not commence treatment of any chronic disease during an acute exacerbation. Prescribe for the acute symptoms. 20. In treating a chronic case, if an acute condition appear, unless it becomes dangerous or throws upon the screen some individualistic indication, it should generally not be interfered with. 21. If an acute disease appears on top of a chronic, you must let the remedy work its way out. (Boger.) 22. I always use a lower potency for acute conditions, the 2c. if I have been using the 1M. or 9M. (Roberts.) 23. Why prescribe for a part of a patient when you have the whole patient with you ? The patient was sick before the glands were. (Hayes.) 24. There is no better evidence of the good action of a remedy than mental improvement. (Kent.) 25.

THE

CONSTITUTIONAL REMEDY IS FOUND BY A SERIES OF SYMPTOMS ABSOLUTELY

NEW TO THAT PATIENT.(Boger. )

26.

PRESCRIBE

FOR THE LAST SYMPTOM TO OPEN THE CASE.

FOLLOW

WITH RELATED REMEDY IF ANY.

27. In any complicated chronic case, the recent symptoms are the deciding ones. Cure your case in layers, the last layer first. (Woodbury. ) 28. If the general state be ameliorated, whatever the state of local symptoms, await the action of the remedy. (Jahr. ) 29. In acute cases one must have a remedy of the highest rating in the outstanding symptom or symptoms. (Dixon.) 30. In acute conditions it is often advisable to yield to the food cravings but in chronics they must not be indulged. (G. Miller.) 31. Vegetable diet will increase susceptibility to our remedies. (Boger.)

32. When a remedy is indicated in a different type from its characteristic type, i.e., the type of its best prover and those most easily relieved or cured by it, often it is a double indication. Sepia in a man, Pulsatilla in a Nux type (its opposite). (Roberts.) 33. (Roberts.)

Keep on a symptom. Don't follow a remedy.

34. It is my experience that Pulsatilla symptoms occur and are relieved by Pulsatilla as, often in the Nux vomica type of patient as in any other. Also that Nux vomica is almost as often indicated in Pulsatilla type as in Nux vomica. (Freeman.) 35. The best provers of Nux vomica are dark wiry men ; of Pulsatilla stout fair young women with pale skin and blue eyes. (Roberts.) 36. We all know that proving in a remedy is evidence that it is not the simillimum. (Boger.) Apparent exception. Diphtheria epidemic. Those given Belladonna in the morning had at 4 p. m. a violent fever, headache and drowsiness ending by 6 or 7 in a sweat. All went on to recovery save when Aconit was given for these symptoms. 37.

Let us apply the triangular test.

If we find three important characteristic symptoms pointing to one remedy, let me assure you that we can apply it with almost unerring certainty. I have tested its application in hundreds of cases. (Hering)

38. In a cure, the original discharge may not come back at the original place but from some other mucous membrane. (G. Miller.) 39. If chronic cutaneous eruptions disappear at last of themselves, dropsy or hectic fever is to be apprehended. 40. Evil consequences of artificial suppression of chronic cutaneous eruptions are proportionate to the extent, intensity and duration of those eruptions, to the rapidity of their suppression and to the state of internal health. 41. It is dangerous to stop the diarrhoea of advanced phthisis, even by the indicated remedy. (G. Miller.) 42. The bond between two miasms can be broken only by a prescription that will meet the totality of the more active one. (J. H. Allen.) 43. All infectious diseases which form local affections on the skin are internal diseases, the last result of which is the local cutaneous manifestation.

44. All maladies which show skin eruptions are always present internally before showing local symptoms externally. (Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases.) 45. Local diseases do not exist. What have been called so are localized morbid affections. (P. Schmidt.) 46. A new remedy should sustain a complementary relation to a former one, i.e., Causticum and Phosphorus do not like to work after each other. Calcarea is the natural chronic to Belladonna and Rhus toxicodendron ; Natrum muriaticum of Ignatia and Apis and Silicea of Pulsatilla. Apis will not do well after Rhus toxicodendron. 47. The complementary remedy is always determined by the symptoms that arise. (Kent.) 48. Don't leave your intercurrent too soon. It may be the curative remedy. (Gladwin. ) 49. To prescribe for an aggravation is to fix the chronic condition on the patient. (Roberts.) 50. The initial aggravation may occur in chronics during the first eight or ten days. 51. Look for a clear picture of the chronic following recovery from an acute condition. (Roberts.) 52. Ultimately the constitutional peculiarity is bound to reveal itself in a form pointing to its remedial counterpart. Nature calls for relief in her own language which it behooves us to learn. Probably it is contained in the symptom picture but many times we are forced to look for it elsewhere. (Boger.) 53. If a remedy (Silicea) has the acute toxic symptoms and not the constitutional ones, it will subdue the acute symptoms without doing any damage. But if the patient had weekly headaches coming up the back of the head, offensive foot sweats, sensitive to cold, etc., even before the acute trouble, it would be a most dangerous remedy. (G. Miller.) 54. No other symptom is so pathognomonic of psora as pruritis. (J. H. Allen.) 55. Many things can interfere with the action of homoeopathic drugs. First of all these must be sought out and removed before even thinking of applying remedies. 56. A clear field is necessary. All continuing causes must first be removed.

57. If the symptoms for which a remedy is given are removed and a new symptom appear, withhold the hand if you wish the case to go on to recovery. (Lippe.) 58. It is doubtful if there be any antidote to a high potency except the specific dynamic drug antidote.

59. THE

PRODROMAL SYMPTOMS HAVE THE KEY TO THE

HOMOEOPATHIC REMEDY.

(BOGER.)

60. We have no long acting drugs. The action is immediate. Continued favorable condition depends on the quality of the vital force and its harmonious action. (Roberts.) 61. Pregnancy will often bring out an old latent malaria. It may not come until after delivery. (Roberts.) 62. Regular medicine is remiss in not following through effects of medicines or of diseases continuing after suppressive or other disruption of harmonious action of vital energy. 63. To hypersensitive patients use low or medium potencies, at first anyhow. (Close.) 64. In bad hearts, high potency may give a bad reaction. It may be necessary to use the tincture. (Grimmer.) 65. I have better results from the millionth potency than I have from any other. (Boger.) 66. Crude drug effects are antidoted by the same drug potentized. 67. Crude substances that act as irritants are best antidoted by the same or similar substances at higher vibratory rate, i.e., high potency, as in radium burns, rhus toxicodendron or primrose poisoning. 68. The potency must be changed if a given remedy is to be repeated. (Lippe.) 69. Boenninghausen usually repeated the 200th daily for two weeks. 70. In acute case Dr. Erastus Case usually gave four doses of the 2c. and waited. (Sloan.) 71. A rare remedy in a rubric is often the one. 72. When a nosode comes out in repertorizing, use it with care. It invariably proves to be the simillimum. (Hubbard. )

73. In luetic invalids, where remedies act but a few days and must be changed, it always calls for a nosode. 74. A well person taking a dose for proving, with the exception of a few sudden acting substances (Glononum, Camphora, etc.) will not feel any disturbance before the third day. (Roberts.) (How like the inoculation period of contagious disease or the application of radium to a surface lesion !) 75. N PROVING WITH POTENCIES THE LATEST SYMPTOMS HAVE THE

GREATEST VALUE IN PRESCRIBING. (Boger. )

76. Repeat the dose until an effect is produced, better or worse, then stop. (Case.) 77. Always it is the positive symptoms at the moment that demand a certain remedy. Negative symptoms must not be allowed to call us off. (Tyler.) 78. It is the positive symptoms that decide the remedy. Negative symptoms are no use. (Clarke. ) 79. Absence of any group of symptoms may or may not contraindicate a remedy, depending on the degree. (Roberts.) 80. Make no mistake, in homoeopathy one is dealing with energy, real and powerful. As radium emanations hold power for good or harm, so with potentized remedies. Unless used with the technique of homoeopathic procedure, with law, good results are not to be expected. 81. The simillimum (curative remedy) releases reactive power strong enough to reestablish harmony, which in turn is capable of sweeping away almost any morbid condition. (Boger.) 82. I believe that in homoeopathy we are on the edge of something great belonging not to this generation of mankind but to future ages. (Patrick.)

Therefore the over-large rubrics of our repertories are likely to be more useful to occasional confirmatory reference, than for the running down of the final remedy. Particular symptoms which are peculiar, strange or bizarre may appear in any sphere whatsoever. We need not look especially to location, sensation, modalities, connections or the mind, etc., for them but rather to the features which make them prominent as individual morbid expressions. (Boger.)