(Read at the June, 1922, Meeting of the International Hahnemannian. Association.).
The selection of the right remedy for each individual case is not always an easy matter. It requires much diligent study both of the Philosophy of Homoeopathy and the demonstrated symptoms of each individual drug. Without this one is unable to make even a poor prescription, which is worse than none.
A careful reading of Hahnemanns work on Chronic Diseases is absolutely essential to the successful treatment of chronic diseases. It is presumed that an individual who claims to be a homoeopath has mastered the Philosophy of Homoeopathy, the nature of chronic diseases (the miasms) and Materia Medica.
Presaging the selection of your remedy, make the patient to your office feel perfectly at ease and not at all frustrated by putting yourself on a pedestal above him. Make him understand that what you want of him is to tell you just how he feels in a general way. Lead him out on the line of thought on which he feels disposed to enlighten you, but do not put words in his mouth. After he has expressed himself about certain symptoms, endeavor to check him up on what he has told you, and see if what he told you at the beginning fully coincides with his later narrative.
Some individuals do not want to give out much information about themselves, while others will give you an array of complaints, thinking they are giving you the desired information. With the one that talks too much you will have to try the lawyers tactful cross-questioning to bring out the real symptoms, eliminating all symptoms that are questionable and of no value.
With the patient who is timid and is not used to the homoeopathic method of procedure, the physicians best method is to get him to talk about his complaints and this way he will begin to tell you how he feels. It is then your duty to be sure of every symptom that is a true one, and all the fine points brought out regarding its relationship to time, conditions of weather and motion, etc.
No prescription should be made without first obtaining a good symptomatology of all disordered feelings the patient presents. In the treatment of chronic complaints many times it is impossible to select the remedy off hand, there being such an array of symptoms which seem to be of little use that time should be taken for a proper study of the case with the assistance of the repertory. There are times even then that the remedy seems to be hidden from view which necessitates a diligent study of those drugs that stand highest in your repertorial score.
Now is when you have an opportunity to demonstrate your therapeutic efficiency, for it may take several days and nights before you see the remedy. Do not become discouraged; just this kind of diligent work makes of you a good prescriber. Never leave off procuring symptoms of your case until you have exhausted all means of getting them.
A good method after your patient has given you his symptoms is to sound him on weather changes, storm periods, heat, cold, wind, aversion or desire for open air, effects from drafts, time of day aggravation occurs, and the four seasons of the year, changes of temperature, of weather, cold or warm, cloudy, or clear; and do you–strange as it may seem–know that Caust., Hep. and Nux. v. are worse in clear, bright weather?.
Never depend upon symptoms for a good prescription unless they are of a general character. That is, they must belong to the patient as an individual, affecting him in a general way. Some people will say, “I can always tell when there is a storm coming because I feel it in my whole body.” Others will say, “I cannot stand the rays of the sun in the heat of summer,” while others are disturbed greatly by the wind. Some have great fear of thunder storms as of something going to happen. We might go on and enumerate many other symptoms.
The symptoms of greatest value are those that are not related to organs or parts, but more especially to the individual himself. These symptoms are usually called “Generals,” because they affect him in a general way, although he may have some breaking down of an organ or part when he will tell you he feels bad in a general way. Understand, we must have all the symptoms even of the parts, but the symptoms of the parts are of a lower order than the generals and consequently are not as reliable. It is generally conceded that the mental symptoms are of the highest order and should take first place.
The subject of potency is still a much discussed subject, some of us being extremely high and others of us being extremely low. I have found by experience that it is unwise to confine oneself to any particular potency, but to have all the potencies and use the one best suited to each individual case.
One should not use an extremely high potency on the aged or the infant, neither should he refuse to give a higher potency, if necessary, than the one administered, providing the selection of the remedy is correct. A higher potency nearly always does the trick. The beauty about this is that the higher potency antidotes the lower and goes on with its work, also a lower potency will antidote a higher.
