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Preface # 1 - The first question asked of us who profess to uphold Hahne-mann's teaching is this: What is Homoeopathy? Why is Homoeopathy preferable to other methods of medical practice?

How shall we answer it? Is it true that we can answer it by saying: Homoeopathy is a system of medicine? The thought­ful, conscientious homoeopathic physician will feel that a more comprehensive answer must be given, an answer that will appeal to the sense of logic in the mind of the questioner.

Preface # 2 - Out of the strain and stress and havoc and horror of this present world conflict comes the call for a new edition of this book. The remainder of the former edition having been destroyed during the attacks on London, this call for a new edition is a small part of the answer of the democracies to the attempt to enslave and dominate all free peoples.

01. Homeopathy? - What has homoeopathy to offer the young man as a future? This question comes to us repeatedly and in our changing economic conditions it is a pertinent question.

Perhaps we can get at the problem best by asking the young man the counter-question: "What do you want to get out of life? " Only his honest reply to the question can throw any light upon his adaptability to homoeopathy and only upon an honest consideration of his adaptability can we prophesy what homoeopathy has to offer him. Why is he thinking of studying medicine?

02. Introduction - If a physician would successfully practise medicine he must know, first, what is curable by medicine, and second, what is curative in drugs.

The physician must know something of the history of the development of the drug action; of the gradual experiments with the remedial substance upon healthy human beings and the data gathered therefrom over a long period of careful observations, which have been checked and verified again and again, both in experimental provings and in clinical use.

03. Vital Force - There is much misapprehension about homoeopathy among physicians as well as among the laity. Among physicians there is a feeling that if we know the materia medica that is all that is required. The materia medica is indeed important, and its thorough comprehension and study is needed at all times; but unless the homoeopathic physician has a concept of the philo­sophy, of the reasons underlying the administration of the remedy, he will never make a careful homoeopathic physician.

04. Vital Force Functions - The life and composition of cells is of a complex nature. The composition of animal protoplasm is capable of analysis, yet there is is in each cell and its life function that which is beyond our comprehension and defies analysis. We cannot as yet fathom the reason why a human ovum takes on growth and development only when the spermatozoa imbeds itself deep in its innermost nuclei.

05. Vital Energy - The vital energy is that force which animates each individual. While the vital energy is in the individual, that individual is said to have life, to be, to exist. Even as the individual is derived from—becomes—from the mating of two individuals, from the cell mating of which this vital force may be handed on with physical characteristics of the parents, so is the vital force itself derived from an infinite source, a storehouse of dynamic power, capable of developing and reproducing to an infinite degree in its manifestations, yet each individual partaking in greater or less degree of general vital characteristics common to all.

06. Fundamental Laws - Among the followers of Hahnemann we often hear the state­ment that homoeopathy is fundamental; that it is scientific; that it is based on natural law. Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that this is true; the natural corollary of this state­ment is that these laws must be active in all realms of funda­mental science, i.e. that in those sciences that deal with the established laws of the universe the same natural laws must be active.

07. Our Remedies - In our thesis that homoeopathy is fundamental, that it is scientific and that it is based on natural law, we have quoted findings from other branches of pure science that have been so uniform and constant as to definitely point the way toward underlying laws. These, to recapitulate briefly, were from astronomy, mathematics and biology, and have been compared with the closely similar findings of the action of drugs and their applica­tion (1) in states of health to produce, artificially, conditions simulating disease, or (2) to restore diseased states to the normal balance of health.

08. Taking The Case - (See Organon, Paragraphs 83-104). In taking the case, the homoeopathic physician has two objects in view. First, there is the object of diagnosis. This is to place your difficulty in a group class. The homoeopathic physician can have no other object in making a diagnosis than to classify the symptoms under a group head, since the homoeopathic physician never uses his diagnosis for therapeutic purposes.

09. Analysis - In analysis of the case, the value of symptoms must be taken into consideration on several points. First, the personality, the individuality of the patient, must stand out pre-eminently in the picture. This can be illustrated by likening the whole symptomatology to a complete picture of the whole individual, a whole personality. This embraces not only his physical characteristics, but the expression of his mental and emotional characteristics as well.

10. Law Of Cure - All natural forces are based upon law. These laws do not operate in a limited field, but are universal. To illustrate, the law of gravitation is not limited in its scope to the earth, but its influence extends throughout the universe.

Hahnemann, by his fine observation and the inductive method of reasoning, became convinced of the law of cure, similia similibus curentur, and embraced it and declared it to be universal, a basic law of therapeutics.

11. Chief Complaint - Almost every case that comes to the attention of the physician presents two distinct phases, two separate parts, as it were: the part comprising the symptoms of which the patient complains, those which are most annoying to him and most outstanding in his recognition; and secondly, those symptoms which he does not recognise as symptoms or which he does not consider worth reporting or does not consider as having any relationship to the case.

12. Action Of Drugs - We often speak of Hahnemann as the first to note the similar action of drugs and disease conditions, but history shows us that this is not so. Ten centuries B.C., the ancient Hindu system of medicine was founded on the theorem which, translated, reads in almost identical words to those Hahnemann used. Again, Aristotle, about 350 B.C., gave the following dictum:

13. The Dose - In considering the amount of medicine to be used at one time, or to answer the query, What constitutes a dose? it is very important to have some concept of the history of homoeopathy, for this throws light upon the development of the problem of dosage.

Before Hahnemann's time, and indeed in his early work, the dose played an important part.

14. Remedy Reactionxv - One of the first things required of a homoeopathic physician is that his powers of observation shall be highly developed. His powers of discrimination should be very keenly attuned, first, that he may observe the patient in the analysis of the symptoms and the selection of the remedy, and second, that he may have the keen perception of the import of the symptoms after the remedy has been carefully selected and administered.

15. Drug Proving - Drugs have been used as the usual method of cure for disease since antiquity, and their derivations varied from simple herbs and substances to fearsome combinations from all imaginable sources. The preparation and administration of medicines was kept as a mystery for centuries, and the medicine man was held as superior and revered as a little more than mortal for his powers.

16. Second Rescription - After studying a chronic case and after deciding on the remedy, having given each symptom its proper evaluation, and having administered the simillimum, we expect some action, some response. After the patient shows the desired reaction, there may and probably will come a time when the physician is called upon to meet a symptom picture once more. This is the time when he must consider the second prescription.

17. Susceptibility - Everything that has life is more or less influenced by circum­stances and environment. This is true in the natural growth and development of the vegetable kingdom. Certain flora develop fully only in certain altitudes and when swept by Ihe constant moisture of the ocean; they will take on an entirely different form under other circumstances and environment.

18. Suppression - In the dissertations on the vital energy we pointed out that it was this force which was the expression of life itself, and through its power of development and control in itself and by itself it maintains the harmonious working, the state of equilibrium, which is perfect health. There are external forces which may have an impress upon vital energy, yet that allow it to work in undisturbed harmony; and there are external forces that have great influence in inhibiting its normal functioning.

19. Law Of Palliation - Physicians who have been somewhat trained along homoeo­pathic lines manifest more confusion in the treatment of incurable diseases than in almost any other field of medicine. When faced with incurable cases, the thought occurs to a great many physicians to administer palliative measures in an effort to alleviate suffering and to attempt to hide from the patient and from the family the real seriousness of the situation.

20. Temperaments - In homoeopathic instruction there is frequent mention of temperaments; especially do we consider temperaments in case taking and in prescribing. Perhaps it is wise to give some consideration to a definition of temperaments, and just what weight this should have in taking the case and prescribing.

21. Local Applications - Local applications—what visions these words bring to mind! Mustard plasters, onion poultices, boneset and brine—in fact, anything in common usage that could be applied by the home nurse or procured by the most skilful physician. From time immemorial local applications have been the rule among the laity as domestic remedies and among physicians from iEsculapius down to the present day.

22. Disease Classification - All scientific advancement shows epochs of great progress. In the early seventeenth century the Swedish student Linnaeus studied the flora of the world, which was then largely un­classified, and through his prodigious endeavours he classified the vegetable kingdom as far as then known, and laid down a system of classification which would be applicable to further discoveries. 

23. Disease Classification #2 - Psora has numerous sensations of vertigo. These are of many kinds and accompany all kinds of motion, and are often induced or aggravated by emotional disturbances. Hahnemann speaks of the vertigos of psora as being many and peculiar, brought on by walking, motion, looking up quickly, rising from a sitting or lying; bilious vertigo, floating, from digestive disturbances, with specks before the eyes; desire to keep quiet by lying down, which >. In this desire to lie down and > by lying down we have the outstanding characteristic of the whole underlying condition.

24. Psora Or Deficiency? - Criticism of Hahnemann's psora theory has raged for a century. It is not feasible to follow minutely Hahnemann's line of reasoning that led to his declaration of the psora theory, but we have his own statement that it took years to classify what he came to term the psoric miasm.

25. Latent Psora - In the last chapter you learned something of the acute mani­festations of the psoric stigma. Besides the manifestations of the acute diseases, which are all directly traceable to the erup­tions of psora, the vital energy often places the psoric poison in a latent state, where it may lie for a long period, sometimes for years, without manifesting much disturbance, except that the observant physician may read its peculiar characteristics, even in that latent state, and even though the patient is not dis­turbed to any degree

26. The Syphilitic Stigma - The venereal stigmata (or, as Hahnemann called them, miasms), are fundamentally infections of a specific nature. It is well to bear in mind the basis of all infection and of all chronic diseases before we can properly understand the workings of a stigmatic disease.   Let us consider syphilis, for instance.

27. The Syphilitic Stigma #2 - It has been said that the patient afflicted with the syphilitic taint suffers from structural changes; yet the emotional sphere in the purely syphilitic patient is not seriously affected. For this reason, in the syphilitic patient we find less subjective symptoms; there is little of the supersensitiveness, and less desires, cravings and longings than in the psoric patient.

28. Syphilis - We have spoken of the psoric miasm as being closely related to the deficiency diseases, so called. Now on the same basis of the table of atomic weights in relation to disease conditions we are considering the problem of the venereal taints, syphilis and sycosis. Just as we find the remedies pre-eminently antipsoric in the lower register of atomic weights—below 53— and just as we find these closely related to the constructive elements in living tissue, so we find the elements with the highest powers of destruction in the upper and highest registers of atomic weights.

29. Sycosis - Sycosis is generally understood to be the gonorrhoeal poison. We should make the distinction clear between gonorrhoea and sycosis. Gonorrhoea is the acute infection of the gonococci, which takes from five to ten days to develop a urethritis after an exposure. During this incubation period it is purely an infection; then the local manifestations are thrown outward by Nature at the point of attack as a resentment of the vital energy to the infection.

30. Sycosis—Over-Construction - When we come to analyse the sycotic miasm in relation to the table of elements and their respective atomic weights, we find an entirely new grouping of symptoms. We have stated in the summary of the miasmatic symptomatology that the psoric manifests most strongly the functional symptoms; the syphilitic has as its hallmark ulceration and destruction of tissue, even to bony tissue; while the sycotic has an opposite manifestation— infiltration and overgrowth of tissue.

31. A Summary - Let us summarize the different stigmata, remembering that we may get all shadings of all the stigmata in their groupings in our patients, but one stigma will predominate above all the others. They have their characteristic differences. The accentuation of psora is functional; the accentuation of the syphilitic taint is ulcerative; the accentuation of sycosis is infiltration and deposits.

32. Homoeopathic Therapeutics - The viewpoint of the modern physiologist reflects the theory that the vast majority of human ills are traceable to dysfunctions of the glandular system; that most growth problems (over- and under-development of the whole body or parts) and many maladjustments of the child to its environment, and even of the adult to his relationships and problems, are related in some degree to endocrine imbalance.

33. Phenomenological - In his introduction to his book, Philosophy and the Concepts of Modern Science (1935), Oliver L. Reiser, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, tells us that the one possible method of:

. . . integrating the vast and unwieldly masses of facts of the sciences into meaningful wholes the adoption of a phenomenological viewpoint is recommended.

34. Deflected Current - We are told that light waves travel in a certain direction until they meet some obstacle, when they are deflected at an angle proportionate to the angle of interference. We are told that our remedies are curative in conditions closely similar to those produced by the remedy in a healthy human being.

35. Modern Medication - Like all principles, those of homoeopathy have been discovered and evolved through the crucibles of time, experimentation, and increasing enlightenment. Like all principles, too, they stand whether or not they have the ascription of those who profess to be their adherents. They are principles that, to those who understand and seek to apply them and to those who benefit from their application, stand pre-eminent, unchangeable, in spite of all changes in therapeutic fashions.

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