Two question naturally arise in regard to repeating the dose. First, how long should we wait after giving the one or first dose, if there be no improvement, before we either changes the dose or the remedy? Second, having decided to repeat the doses, how long should the interval be between the doses.
The first question applies especially to the use of the high potencies and is a most difficult one to answer. If the condition be a chronic and also a periodic one, I would suggest that the dose be not repeated till after one of the periods. To illustrate, a patient comes to your office and asks relief from a school-teacher headache, i.e., one coming every Saturday A. Am., and the symptoms call for Iris ver., give one dose of the Iris and wait till after at least one week elapses. If after two weeks and no improvement, I change the Iris to some other remedy of the Iris class.
If, on the other hand, the case be one of dysmenorrhoea or menorrhagia, I would wait till after at least one monthly period. On the other hand, should your patient be suffering from an intermittent fever, the attacks coming every two, three or four days, wait till after the expiration of at least two periods.
In regard to the second question, we should be governed entirely by the tissue involved and the condition of that tissue. To illustrate, let us suppose that the blood is the tissue involved and that the abnormal condition has been caused by typhoid fever germs.
In such cases two or three doses every twenty-four hours are sufficient. On the other hand, suppose we have a case of angina pectoris or ptomaine poisoning or laryngismus stridulus; we then administer such remedies as Glonoine, Veratrum alb., etc., at interval as short as fifteen minutes.
Here again the records of the provers are of great value. In them we find that such a drug as Glonoine produced symptoms a few seconds after its administration, while workers with Plumbum did not show objective symptoms of nephritis until after months or even years of exposure. I am guided as to the interval between doses by such facts.
In either case, should you get improvement, stop the repetition of the remedy and do not repeat so long a s the improvement continues. There is much more that we could say on our subject, but I am getting tired and am sure you are.
Therefore, I will close by saying : Study drug provings, not only the symptoms including the order and frequency of their appearance for the purpose of grouping and ranking them, but study still more the provers, study and ascertain as clearly as possible what inheritance and what environment has done for them.
Study your patient individually as a human being- a urine man. viz., a physical, an intellectual, a spiritual, all three united as one, and so untied that it is impossible for one to be affected without the others being affected also.
