A Course in Homeopathic Prescribing by Harvey

Farrington, M.D.
A Course in Homeopathic Prescribing by Harvey Farrington, M.D. (1872-1958)
1. General
Lessons related to general principles and practices of Homeopathy and
Homeopathic prescribing
1.1. Homeopathy, Its Beginning
Lesson one, regarding the historical context of Homeopathy
The American Institute of Homeopathy defines a homeopathic physician as "one
who adds to his knowledge of medicine a special knowledge of homeopathic
therapeutics and observes the Law of Similars. All that pertains to the great healing
art is his by tradition, by inheritance and by right."
Homeopathy is a system of therapeutics based upon the Law of Similars as
expressed by the maxim "Similia Similibus Curentur" -- let likes be cured by likes.
When a patient presents a group of symptoms similar to those produced by the
administration of a certain medicine to a healthy human, that medicine is
homeopathically indicated and if prescribed in correct dosage will relieve or cure.
Calomel by its physiological action produces diarrhea, frequent bloody mucus
stools, increased secretion of bile and salivation. When these symptoms have been
produced by any other cause other than the administration of calomel (Mercurius
dulcis), very small doses of this medicine will be curative.
Again, Belladonna is indicated homeopathically when the patient presents dilated
pupils, violent congestion of blood to the head with throbbing headache, high fever
with hot red skin, cerebral excitement, dryness of mouth and throat, muscular
twitchings (symptoms such as are frequently met with in scarlet fever). Any
physician will recognize the above symptoms as well known toxic effects of
Belladonna.
There are many outstanding examples of this dual action of drugs in common
medical practice, but the observing student will note as he reads the Lessons of this
Course that the Law of Similars applies to all substances possessing medicinal
properties.
Homeopathy, or the "New School" of medicine, was founded by Samuel
Hahnemann. He did not discover the Law of Similars, but he was the first to give it
practical application to the art of healing. He collected and translated from previous
writings of all ages a mass of evidence to show that others before him, including
Hippocrates and Paracelsus, were aware of this law.
Samuel Hahnemann was a celebrated scientist and chemist and one of the leading
physicians of his time. He had graduated from the best medical schools and
received personal instruction under the physician to the Austrian Emperor, Freiherr

Von Quarin. He was a translator of note. He practiced successfully in several of the

leading cities of Germany and was looked upon as an eminent physician.
Hahnemann was a thinker. He perceived that for the practice of medicine to be
successful it must be guided by law. Up to his day no definite law of prescribing for
the sick had been announced or followed. The practice of medicine was chaotic.
Each physician prescribed according to his own ideas or those of some "shining
light" of the profession.
Hahnemann at last became discouraged. Day after day his doubts grew stronger. He
said to himself, "It is not I who am at fault, it is the art of medicine which is wrong. I
know that I can prescribe as well as the best of those who now give medicine, but if
I am convinced that the sick will do better with no medicine at all -- God help me! I
will practice no more!"
Finally he gave up the practice of medicine in disgust and turned to the translation
of medical and scientific books for a livelihood. While translating a chapter of
Cullen's Materia Medica from English to German, it appeared to him that the
author's explanation of the action of peruvian bark was fanciful and irrational. So he
set about to determine in his own way the modus operandi of the drug. He tried it
on himself. He found it produced typical symptoms of malaria for which it was
recommended and used.
From this time on he conducted his investigations along new lines. He did what
others had not done before. He studied medicines systematically by testing them on
healthy humans. After repeated experimentation upon himself and others, he
eventually proved the Law of Similars to be the basic law of cure. {It is a tribute to
the genius of Hahnemann that he was unaware that the homeopathic relation
between disease and medicinal effects was taught and practiced by Hippocrates
and Paracelsus, until it was brought to his attention by Trinks in 1825 (Vide: Life
and Letters of Hahnemann, by Haehl).}
One by one the medicines then in general use were "proved" by this indefatigable
worker and his associates. In medicine Hahnemann was what Edison has been in
electricity. He had vision as well as scientific knowledge. Outside the beaten path he
went in search of new medicaments and found that each one tried was capable of
producing its own peculiar and typical symptom picture when given to healthy
humans; and when administered to the sick, who presented the same symptoms,
was found to be curative.
Early in his career, Hahnemann complained of the untrustworthiness of
pharmaceutical preparations, which no conscientious doctor could prescribe. And in
his contributions to medical periodicals which were always read with interest, he
frequently advocated the use of simple measures and the single remedy in the
treatment of disease. He was one of the first to teach that accurate and definite
prescribing could be accomplished only by giving one substance at a time and
observing the effects. He condemned as unscientific the customary mixtures which
in his times often contained twenty or more drugs. He based his belief on the results
of experience.
He went further and found that clinically a very small dose of a remedy, prescribed

according to the Law of Similars produced better results than larger doses. In fact,
he found that large doses aggravated the sickness when exhibited in accord with
the Law of Similars. Continued experiments along this line led eventually to
potentiation.
This briefly is the history of the origin of the prescribing of minimum doses of
medicine in accord with the Law of Similars, guided by signs and symptoms of the
sick individual corresponding to similar signs and symptoms produced
experimentally by the remedy upon many healthy humans.
These experimental or clinical observations of drug action called "provings" by
Hahnemann were made under controls and in a most painstaking way. This was the
introduction to the medical world of "animal experimentation" and led the way to all
of the more recent developments of drug testing and standardization.
Among the outstanding early professional accomplishments of Hahnemann we shall
mention but one. During the scourge of Leipsic, when tens of thousands were dying
"like flies" from the Plague, and when every victim of the epidemic was committed
to the "dead house," Hahnemann with his homeopathic prescribing saved 183
consecutive cases (most of which were considered moribund).
Hahnemann did not work alone, nor were his discoveries accidental. He had as
associates many doctors who, like himself, had an intense yearning for the Truth
and who hoped to effect a change in the haphazard and futile methods of medicine
prevalent in their time.
Hahnemann and his associates were eminently successful in practice, and as might
be expected, jealousies and unjust criticism were not lacking. Traditional medicine,
then as now, was intolerant of new ideas and human welfare was secondary to
medical politics.
Throughout his long and busy life (he lived to be eighty-nine) he continued to study,
develop and practice the healing art according to the Law of Similars.
Hahnemann's loyal and devoted students continued his researches. Remedies were
"proved" on thousands of subjects and many volumes were added to the numerous
works of the originator.
To France, Italy, Spain, England, and the United States went homeopathic
physicians, each one an apostle and a teacher. Later to Brazil, Colombia, Argentina
and other South American countries this "New School" found its way: to Mexico and
Central America it advanced with higher civilization: to Egypt and other civilized
parts of Africa; to Australia and to Asia; to India where today it clalms millions of
adherents. With higher civilization and broader learning Homeopathic medicine has
kept pace.
At the present time there is an unprecedented demand for doctors trained in
homeopathic prescribing. Although the graduates from homeopathic medical
colleges are doubling in numbers annually, demands are not one-tenth supplied.
Answer the question "why?" in your own way.
That people fundamentally believe in the internal administration of medicine in
sickness cannot be successfully contradicted; that they are always ready and
anxious for the more harmless, the more pleasant, the more certain and effective is

also true.
Homeopathic prescribing does not conflict with surgery, physical therapy, manual
therapy, suggestion or other non-medical measures. However, homeopathic
prescribing of properly prepared and standardized remedies is supreme in the field
of internal medicine.
You shall soon be led to see the raison d'etre of Homeopathy and to understand how
it must be adopted by any physician fully awake to his responsibilities and
possibilities.
As the Course unfolds it will reveal a broader conception of disease and its
management, and help you to become more proficient in your chosen profession.

1.2. Homeopathic Fundamentals

Lesson Two, regarding the nature of Homeopathy
In order better to comprehend the lessons to follow in the Course, it is timely here
to introduce a brief outline of Homeopathic Philosophy.
All systems of prescribing have been based upon original hypotheses, clinical
observations, philosophical conclusions, and scientific experiments. Aesculapius and
other fathers of the healing art dealt with the hypothetical and philosophical, with
just a little clinical observation. As the sciences developed, medicine lagged behind
because of the lack of accurate research and the ever-present personal opinions of
the theorizing physicians. The vagaries of early prescribing were as fallacious as
were the concepts of anatomy, physiology and pathology.
Instruments of precision such as the polariscope, ultramicroscope,
electrocardiograph, manometer, and spectroscope, were not at Hahnemann s
command. Yet he gave us by hypothesis, clinical observations and reasoning, many
of the fundamentals of medicine which are now being proposed and confirmed by
modern science.
Hahnemann, by scientific experimentation on living human beings, repeatediy
substantiated the Law of Similars. For nearly a century and a half this Law has been
constantly confirmed by scientific clinical observation. And more recently, modern
research laboratories are giving us confirmation of the scientific soundness of the
action of minute doses and their dynamic action.
Colloidal chemistry gives us definite figures within the limitations of the
ultramicroscope. Gold, for instance, can be detected in the 25th decimal trituration,
that is 1/(10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). Radium in the 60th decimal
trituration has demonstrated its radioactivity by affecting sensitive photographic
plates sufficiently to produce distinct radiographs. Add thirty-five ciphers to the
above fraction and you will have a mathematical expression of the degree of
subdivision to which this substance was divided and yet identified by experiment.
This radiograph can scarcely be ascribed to the chemical action of the infinitesimal
amount of elemental radium present in the trituration used; but may be accounted
for by the force or power or dynamis of its immeasurably minute emanations.

The extensive experiments of Dr. August Bier of Berlin University proved the three
cardinal requisites of a homeopathic prescription.
1. The single remedy (given alone).
2. The similar remedy (Similia Similibus Curentur).
3. The minimum dose (the smallest amount necessary to produce curative action).
Dr. Bier explains the above by saying that
(a) all of the cells of the body are not sick;
(b) the finely subdivided remedy goes past the healthy cells because they have no
attraction for it;
(c) the sick cells have less resistance and are more responsive to stimuli. The
minimum dose affects these hypersensitive sick cells and stimulates them to
reaction. The similar remedy induces normal reaction. If the remedy is dissimilar its
action is not curative.
(d) only single remedies produce guiding indications for the similar remedy. Iron
(Ferrum) produces definite symptoms. Phosphorus produces a different group.
Phosphate of iron (Ferrum phos.) produces symptoms of both iron and phosphorus
but in addition has a distinctive action not found in either of its components. The
characteristic symptoms produced by Ferrum phos. mark it as a distinctive single
remedy.
* * * The Hahnemannian concept is that disease primarily is a disturbance in the
vital force or guiding energy which governs and regulates all the organs and parts of
the body. In health this vital force maintains normal growth and coordination of all
organic functions. When, from some disease-producing cause, this force becomes
disturbed, sickness or disharmony of function results. The causes of disturbance
may be infections, injuries, exposure, climatic conditions, violent emotions, errors in
diet, or others.
How are symptoms produced? A symptom is a deviation from the normal. It is
produced in exactly the same manner as a normal phenomenon, but is the result of
a stimulus that is the product of dysfunction of some of the body's parts. For
instance, failure to menstruate is a sign or symptom of pregnancy. It also may be
caused by old age, disease or fright. Haemoptysis may be a symptom of pulmonary
tuberculosis but is by no means always of tuberculosis origin.
Objective and subjective signs and symptoms are alike of physical origin. All
symptoms are efferent responses, voluntary or involuntary, or efferent impulses
purchaseing in nervous centers.
Bien etre and malaise are expressions of physical conditions. Prodromes are
symptoms just as much as are eruptions, fevers, or discharges. Apprehensiveness,
melancholy, tearfulness, loquacity, suspicions, delirium, delusions, fears, emotions,
hysteria, propensities, and even tedium vitae are symptoms -- deviations from the
normal.
Symptoms and signs are by no means always pathognomonic of certain diseases. A
patient with more than one disease may have symptoms not clearly identified with
any one of them.

Someone has said, "All that a doctor can find out about his patient, by all the means
at his command, is often insufficient to make a clear diagnosis." It is a fact that our
best diagnosticians are incorrect in more than 50% of their diagnoses. Even
laboratory findings cannot always be relied upon. Correct logical reasoning must
always prevail.
Some signs and symptoms (departures from the normal in function, appearance,
sensation or behavior) are characteristic of certain definite diseases, while others
cannot be ascribed to any definite disease or pathological process.
Many symptoms are often met with, such as "worse before a storm"; "relieved by
warmth"; "aggravated by motion"; "better in damp cold weather"; "fear of death";
"worse from the least draught or cool air"; "better lying on affected side"; "cannot
bear the smell or sight of food". These are definite symptoms resulting from some
abnormal functional condition and not necessarily from pathology.
Even when unable to interpret these and other like phenomena in terms of definite
disease, should we disregard them? No more than we should disregard
pathognomonic symptoms in the making of a diagnosis. Each change from the usual
and normal in function, appearance or sensation of the patient comes from a cause
whether we are able to determine and define it or not. The causative factor may be
an individual characteristic of the patient. Later, you will find that symptoms
unattributable to definite pathology are most often the determining factors in
selecting the homeopathic remedy.
The fact that the homeopath takes cognizance of symptoms per se, whether
indicative of any known disease or not, enables him to correct the condition before
definite disease results; and still more important, he is able to combat new diseases
that have never been heard of before. For instance, ear abscess is prevented by
removing the congestion and inflammation that lead to it. Pneumonia if taken in its
inception may sometimes be aborted. Influenza, or the epidemic later called "flu"
which created such havoc among the soldiers in the United States camps and in the
army overseas, was treated symptomatically with surprising success by the
homeopathic physicians while others were absolutely impotent because they did not
know what caused the infection nor did anyone understand the pathology.
Therapeutic nihilism (the travesty of medicine) originated with that group of
pathologists (not practicing physicians) who sought to identify every disorder and
disease with definite anatomical changes. They led clinicians to study disease only
in this relation. The fact is that anatomical changes are resuits of disease and not
the disease process itself. Disturbed physiology always precedes pathology but does
not always produce it. Therefore, symptoms present themselves, before and during,
as well as after the formation of pathological end-products or tissue changes. The
homeopathic prescriber utilizes all signs and symptoms but recognizes their relative
importance.
Hahnemann was the first to systematize symptoms and call attention to their
importance in treatment as well as in diagnosis. He proved that each drug invariably
produced its own peculiar and characteristic group of symptoms when administered
to healthy persons. These characteristic symptoms he called guiding symptoms

because they guide to the selection of the homeopathic remedy.

* * * The body cells, guided in their activities by physiochemical force (dynamis, or
to use Claude Bernard's term, irritabilite) constitute a superstructure, the human
organism; Vital phenomena are dynamic and the actions of the human organism
should be regarded not from a standpoint of structure but of physiological
processes.
The healthy human body is like a marvelously regulated, energized, highly
speciaiized electrical machine. This body gets sick, or parts of it may get sick,
affecting the entire composite whole.
What is the thing within the bodily tissues that responds to remedial treatment?
How does the remedy act? What occurs to restore normality of tissue-substance and
function?
Let us confine ourselves to the consideration of the question more particularly at
hand, "How do homeopathic remedies act?"
It is clearly demonstrated that specialized organ cells, hepatic or renal for example,
display definite selectivity. Poisons, drugs and remedies do not all affect the same
tissues; for example, arsenic, strychnine, ergot, pituitrin. Normal physiological
function of all the twenty-five trillion body cells in harmonious, coordinated rhythm,
means health. To bring this about there must be intimate interchange of messages
among the different parts, even among the cells of distinct organs and parts.
That interchange of "body intelligence" occurs needs no argument. That it is both
chemical and electrical (nervous) is admitted. Perhaps the present marvelous
development of radio will enhance your vision of cellular intercommunication.
Cells are stimulated to activity by capillary circulation of the blood, dissolved
electrolites, hydrolysis, changes in PH and colloidal interface activity. The balance of
all these may be influenced by a potentized drug.
The actual generation of cellular and bodily energy by chemical changes, all based
on oxygenation, must be given its proper but not too important place in our
consideration, for there is something else in life beyond chemical reactions. The
corpse still retains the chemical constituents of the body; but without the
maintenance and direction of that elemental life force, the corpse chemistry is one
of morbid processes and quite different from that of the ovum, the mulberry mass,
the fetus, the growing child, the adult, the senile, or the dying.
That elemental vital force; that something which activates alike the composite body
and the individual cell and makes the living, changing, functioning body different
from a dead man, we refer to as the dynamis.
This dynamis or its counterpart is manifest in the lower animals, the fowls, the fish,
and in the vegetable kingdom. Some hold with good reason that something
analogous to it must obtain in the mineral kingdom as well.
We must deal, in the healing art, with forces as well as with materials; with
behaviors as well as with pathology; with signs and symptoms as well as with their
causes.

1.3. Homeopathic Concepts of Disease

Lesson three, regarding the nature of disease
This lesson presents the relation of patient and disease, and discusses some of the
deeper, more subtle and less apparent causes of acute and chronic ailments so
frequently met with and so seldom understood. These are problems which have
baffled physicians since the days of Hippocrates, Paracelsus and Galen. But in a
course of this character the importance of these considerations warrants close
attention on the part of the student in order that he may better understand the
depth of action and special application of the remedies to be studied in future
lessons.
In Lesson One the homeopathic concept of disease was presented. This may have
seemed new and revolutionary and quite at variance with prevailing opinions.
Nevertheless, it was made plain that there was no actual discrepancy between
prevalent science and homeopathic concepts. The homeopathic concepts are
broader and more applicable to the art of healing.
We now come to the consideration of the difference between acute and chronic
disease; the causes of susceptibility, dyscrasias and recurrence of acute morbid
processes. This is necessary in determining the basic nature of the case to be
treated and in choosing the remedies to be employed.
The philosophy of Homeopathy is laid down in Hahnemann's Organon of the Art
of Healing, a work replete with much wisdom and cold logic, written after he had
put his principles and methods to the test for a period of twenty years. Although the
first edition was published in 1810, many of his teachings are only now being
accepted, in principle at least, by the medical profession at large.
"If the physician clearly perceives what is to be cured in disease, that is to say, in
every individual case of disease; if he clearly perceives what is curative in
medicines; and if he knows how to adapt, according to clearly defined principles,
what is curative in medicines to what he has discovered to be undoubtedly morbid
in the patient ... if, finally, he knows the obstacles to recovery in each case and is
aware how to remove them so that the restoration may be permament; then he
understands how to treat judiciously and rationally, and he is a true practitioner of
the healing art." (Hahnemann's Organon, par. 3)
Whether or not the student can accept all that is taught therein, the Organon
contains certain fundamentals which are indispensable to success in homeopathic
prescribing.
To clearly perceive what is curable in each case of disease, one must know the
underlying causes of chronic diseases, their intrinsic quality, their course and
manner of manifestation and the part they play in the production of many acute
morbid manifestations.
To clearly perceive what is curative in each individual medicine one must possess a

knowledge of the homeopathic materia medica and the genius and therapeutic
action of remedies.
To know how to adapt these remedies to the morbid states of the patient one must
have at his command a knowledge of how to examine the patient and how to elicit
symptoms, how to interpret the various changes that follow the administration of a
remedy; of dosage, repetition and sequence of remedies.
The knowledge of what each remedy will do is contained in the lessons on materia
medica which constitute the major portion of the Course.
One of the principle reasons why Homeopathy has not been more generally
accepted is that many of those who essayed it disregarded these essentials. Many
conscientious physicians have undertaken to use remedies prepared according to
homeopathic formulae, only to cast them aside as worthless because of failure to
appreciate the importance of homeopathic fundamentals.
Disease naturally falls into two classes, acute and chronic. The acute diseases run
through a certain limited course and may terminate favorably without remedial
measures if the patient possesses sufficient vitality and resistance. Chronic ailments
are not self limited but persist throughout life unless successfully treated in accord
with the Law of Similars. Any remedy acting curatively in a chronic disease acts
homeopathically.
Hahnemann practiced for a number of years before he fully realized the
fundamental differences between acute and chronic diseases. However, with his
usual sagacity, he noticed that although he was able to overcome such ailments as
common colds, croup, whooping cough, pleurisy, pneumonia, dysentery, scarlet
fever, in many patients he observed recurrences of groups of symptoms which
disappeared after treatment only to return in the same or different form, and that
the patient's general health was not permanently improved. This led him to the
conclusion that there must be some unrecognized underlying factor responsible for
chronic disease in general as well as these apparently acute manifestations and
that they were only the outcroppings of some sub-latent chronic miasm.
He made a thorough search of the history of disease and the recorded experiences
of others, seeking some common dyscrasias that were more or less universal.
There existed at that time a fairly good knowledge of the venereal diseases, syphilis
and gonorrhea. To each of these, as we do now, Hahnemann attributed many
chronic ailments. The basic cause of syphilitic manifestations he called the miasm
"syphilis"; that of gonorrheal sequelae, "sycosis"; that of chronic diseases (except
those due to drugs or poisons) of non-venereal origin, "psora". {Vide: Hahnemann's
Chronic Diseases, Vol. 1, p. 19.}
We do not attempt to explain the Hahnemannian concept of disease causation in
terms used in modern medicine. The language of today's accepted hypotheses may
seem quaint a hundred years hence. Nevertheless, Hahnemann's concept of
miasms is fundamentally substantiated by present day research.
Whether or not we use the terms "miasm", "psora" or "sycosis", and whether or not
we accept or reject Hahnemann's explanation of them, there still remains the fact
that the conditions he attributed to them actually exist. No other theory or

explanation offers as clear an understanding of the underlying elements of chronic

states.
Chronic cases present many and varied manifestations as is well known.
Sometimes, even with the appearance of good health, the patient complains that he
is "off color" and "lacks pep", with no apparent or discoverable pathology and no
pathognomonic signs or symptoms. In this type the miasm is latent or quiescent,
but the patient nevertheless is chronically ill.
There are those with lowered vitality, lowered resistive powers, increased
susceptibility, anemic, who are neither sick nor well; who are afflicted almost
continually with one transitory ailment or another. These get but little sympathy or
attention. But each will present symptoms which if rightly interpreted will guide to
an individual remedy selection applicable to the totality of the symptoms and the
underlying cause of the chronicity.
Other chronic cases will be definitely sick. Their symptom syndromes indicate
definite diagnosable diseases. Physical examinations and laboratory tests are
confirmative. They have arthritis, nephritis, diabetes, broncho-spasm, gallstones,
gastric ulcer, neurasthenia, and so on. These are of the active chronic type.
How often have you met with a case in which the cause of illness was obscure -- a
case which has baffled every attempt at diagnosis and case analysis? And how often
have you exclaimed, "How I wish I could get at the bottom of this?" It is hoped that
this lesson will give you a start toward the fulfillment of your wish.
* * * All ailments are divided into two natural classes -1. Acute
2. Chronic
Likewise, homeopathic remedies are classified as to their application.
Acute remedies are more superficial in action and act for a shorter time.
Chronic remedies are deep acting and chiefly applicable to ailments of chronic
nature although at times they may act wonderfully well in acute ailments.
The chronic or deeper acting remedies are subdivided into three groups -1. Antisyphilltic
2. Antisycotic
3. Antipsoric
This division is made because these remedies are capable of producing on healthy
persons the miasmatic symptoms as well as correcting these symptoms in the sick.
Suppression is not a cure of disease any more than it is of crime. The natural
tendency of the organism in health is to throw off waste products from within
outward. A similar tendency obtains in disease. Suppression of natural excretions
such as perspiration, urine or menses, gives rise to serious systemic disorders. Skin
eruptions usually are the result of nature's efforts to throw out some toxin or local
irritant. The dire results of the suppression of the eruptions of scarlet fever or
measles are well known. Suppression of eczemas by local applications has been
known to produce colitis, asthma and bronchitis. Suppression of syphilis gives rise
to a myriad of chronic manifestations. The same is true of gonorrhea.

The suppression of any of the above or like diseases is followed by changes in the
resistance and susceptibility of the individual, and new expressions of deranged
vital force instituted which differ from those of the original ailment and are
frequently mistaken for new ailments.
Symptoms due to suppression may not be readily recognized by the novice,
especially in cases where they are delayed for months or years, as frequently
happens in venereal and other diseases. That they are in reality genuine effects of
the suppression can be demonstrated by the administration of the homeopathic
remedy selected on the totality of the symptoms and in accord with the Law of
Similars. The correct remedy will cause the original disease manifestations to
return.
Illustrations: Thuja Occidentalis has many times relieved rheumatism following
suppressed gonorrhea and caused the re-establishment of the urethral discharge.
Sulphur has often reproduced a suppressed skin eruption with relief of internal
disturbances such as bronchitis, asthma and diarrhea. Chronic headaches frequently
follow the application of local astringents to relieve offensive perspiration of the
feet. Silica relieves the head symptoms and restores the foot sweats.
The considerations of this lesson have been introduced in order to emphasize the
fact that since the homeopathic prescription is made from the totality of the
patient's symptoms, objective and subjective, it is necessary that the important
symptoms attributed to miasmatic origin be given their proper evaluation.
There is still another class of conditions which may be acute or chronic -- those
induced by the action of drugs and inoculations. Inappropriate remedies or drugs,
especially when taken in appreciable doses (either by order of the physician by the
patient on his own account, or by accident) poison the system, even though they
may effect the changes for which they were taken. An artificial disease is produced
which increases the task of determining the proper homeopathic prescription. For
instance, how could you expect to get a true picture of the patient's symptoms from
one who has for a long time taken bromides, "physic", morphine, quinine, sulphur,
aspirin, bromo seltzer, and the like? It is therefore frequently necessary to
discriminate between those phenomena which are the result of drugs and those of
the disease itself. The indiscriminate use of sleep producers, pain killers, headache
remedies, rheumatism cures, blood purifiers, cathartics, and the many selfadministered drugs and nostrums must be taken into consideration by the
prescriber and discontinued by the patient in order to facilitate or make possible the
selection of the similimum.
This lesson is to be studied in preparation for the messge of Lesson Four which
deals with the taking of the case, the evaluation of signs and symptoms, and the
relationship of pathology and diagnosis to homeopathic prescribing. As you will
have observed in the study of the lessons thus far, there are many prerequisites to
correct homeopathic prescribing. It is the purpose of the School to present to you
these necessary fundamentals and to guide you to accuracy of remedy selection
and eventually greater successes in your practice.