ARTICLES

THE TECHNIQUE OF PRESCRIBING.

OMOEOPATHIC PRESCRIBING is a science and an

art.

The therapeutic artist must be able to perceive what is morbid in the patient by the totality of the symptoms; by the symptom image; by those signs and symptoms which express the individual disorder. There is no other way by which we can know individual disease, and unless we can perceive the sickness as it presents itself in each individual patient, we cannot cure-except by a lucky hit. The homoeopath should not infringe upon allopaths by depending on luck, for he has a therapeutic law and fixed rules by which to prescribe. This, then, is the first lesson the homœopathic prescriber must learn, namely, to perceive individual sickness. When he has removed Nature's signals, the signs and symptoms of individual disease, he has filled his mission. He has done all a physician can do and all that needs to be done, for "it is not conceivable, nor can it be proved by any experience in the world, that, after removal of all the symptoms of the disease and of the entire collection of the perceptible phenomena, there should or could remain anything else besides health, or that the morbid alteration in the interior could remain uneradicated." (Organon, Par. 8.)

But all symptoms do not reveal the individuality of the patient, and it is the sick patient who must be treated and cured, not a sick heart or stomach or liver. The latter will get along very well in all curable cases if the patient's vital force, the dynamis of his system, is once righted. If, as disease results, structural changes have taken place, still the physician has completed his work when he has cured the perceptible symptoms. The professional quack (who is always an allopath or a mongrel), in order to get extra fees, takes advantage of the prevalent ignorance which has resulted from old school doctrines and says, "I'll first cure your stomach and then your liver; and by and by we will take up your headache and cure that." The poor fellow is diseased and drugged and duped. The homeopath says, "The totality of your symptoms form the image of your sickness, and when. these are all cured you will be well. If some symptoms have been suppressed, then your case must be developed; and if this cannot be accomplished, you cannot be cured; for there

is nothing to guide any man to a cure but the symptoms, and where there are no symptoms there will be no cure." Not only must symptoms be present, but the prescriber must find the symptoms which clearly reveal the individual sickness.

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.

I recently treated two cases, men who were suffering from asthma, and each was nearly fatal. When I came to the first man, what I wanted to know most of all was, the symptoms which distinguished that particular case of asthma from all others; and when I came to the second, the same question confronted me. Or, in other words, the symptoms which reveal the present disorder of this individual patient. I found them. Both had aggravation from cold. The least cool air let into the room even from another room would nearly choke them to death. Both had aggravation from lying and had to sit up in a chair or in bed. Both had labored and difficult breathing. So far I could only prescribe for asthma; but in each case I wanted to prescribe for the man. So I continued to ask questions. By and by, in the first case, I learned that there was some vomiting of bile and much nausea, and that cold water relieved the spasmodic cough and made him breathe easier; that he was always worse in warm. south winds. Ipecac 1-m cured like magic and in a few days put him right out in the bitter cold without asthma. ask, Did you cure the asthma? No, I cured the man.

You

Case two, in a general way, looked just like case one. One thing sure, they both had asthma. But this man always got relief in rainy, wet weather. This, together with some mental symptoms, decided for nux vomica. And this grand old remedy in the 1-m and c.m. brought equally quick and curative results and put this man also out in the cold without asthma. Both had been down for weeks suffering more than words can tell, and their good wives had been firing at night in order that the temperature of the room might not get even a degree lower and cause another "bad spell." Again the man was cured, not the asthma; and all that expressed the sickness of that man, including the asthma, were driven out together. Ipecac, in its pathogenetic power, met one of these sick men at the right place and the right time, and nux v. the other. Now, ipecac would not and could not have cured the second man, nor nux v. the first. Still, they both had asthma-no question about that.

In each individual case of sickness, whatever the diagnostic name, the careful prescriber thrashes and sifts and fans.

until he finds the odd, peculiar and unusual symptoms of that patient. These reveal the nature of the individual sickness as they reveal the nature of cach medicine when tested, and the medicine which covers the individualizing symptoms covers the image. If these symptoms are particulars, that is, refer to some particular part of the body, they are important. If they are generals, that is, refer to the patient himself as a whole, they are more important. If they are the last which have developed in the case and stand out in bold relief, they are most important. But above all, the technique of successful prescribing makes it indispensable that the prescriber shall find those symptoms which distinguish this case of asthma, if it is asthma, from all other cases; or this case of pneumonia, if it is pneumonia, from all other cases; or this case of rheumatism, if it is rheumatism, from all other cases; or this case of diphtheria, if it is diphtheria, from all other cases. In no other way can any man expect to prescribe with accuracy and success.

When the symptoms which distinguish the individual sickness are once perceived, and when we then find the medicine which in its proving is equally distinguished by those symptoms, the cure is easy if we employ the right potency and know when to repeat or go higher.

NOT A PROVING, BUT A CURE.

The technique of homoeopathic prescribing will not allow the medicine to be repeated every two, four or six hours regardless of improvement, for by so doing we get, in case the right remedy has been chosen, an aggravation, and if the wrong medicine has been selected we get a proving. How many homœopathic physicians have had this experience: Under a given medicine the patient improves for a time, but suddenly becomes worse while taking the same medicine right along. Now what is the matter? He is getting an aggravation on account of too much medicine. Or, he failed to improve after the medicine was administered, and the doctor gives it a little stronger and more of it, and new symptoms, numerous and prominent, make their appearance. Now what is the matter? He is getting a proving on account of the wrong medicine administered. Thousands of patients every day get drug provings, and the doctors repeatedly prescribe for the drug symptoms and do not seem to know it. Old school drugging and mongrel doping are void of science and art and only cure by accident; but scientific homoeopathic prescribing, employing the carefully chosen homeopathic rem

edy in the smallest possible dose and in the most suitable potency, recognizing its mighty power and waiting for the reaction, is quite a different proposition. How many have decided to "try the high potencies" and proceeded by giving the I-m or 10-m or 50-m every few hours or three times per day, then wonder why they cannot cure as Hahnemann cured. That is not the way Hahnemann prescribed even when he used the 30th or higher. These are the gentlemen who think the homeopathic remedies need help, such as antitoxin, in such disorders as diphtheria, and even suggest the use of antitoxin and the homoeopathic remedies at the same time! They forget the master's injunction, "One single, simple medicinal substance at one time." In all such cases the help needed is a competent homœopathic teacher; for it is the doctor who needs the help, not the homœopathic remedies.

The writer has been through three epidemics of diphtheria as malignant as anyone could experience, and he never yet let even one die with membrane in the throat. He never lost but three cases in his life, and they died with perfectly clean throats from heart failure-as all will do who will not take nourishment. And he never employed anything in the treatment of this dreaded disease but the indicated remedy. Anybody can cure such cases in the same manner if he will get his Hahnemannian lessons. It so happens that helterskelter methods and lucky hits are very disappointing in such disorders as diphtheria, chronic cutaneous eruptions, sycotic gonorrhoea, syphilis, etc. But when the application of homœopathic principles is witnessed, such disorders are cured gently, harmlessly and with certainty.

Herein lies the power of homoeopathy: Finding the symptoms which distinguish the indiviudal case of sickness, then the medicine which has produced similar peculiarities when tested in healthy human subjects, and fitting that medicine to that particular sickness in the potency suited to the patient's susceptibility, in a dose of the minimum size, and repeated when improvement ceases, to be followed by a higher potency when the former no longer seems effective. The homoeopathist who learns to thus coar disease, instead of relying upon physiological force and therapeutic awkwardness, will make many marvelous cures and demonstrate the power and science of pure homoeopathy.

When you are called to a case in which there are more drug symptoms than disease symptoms, are you going to accurately "take the case" and successfully prescribe? Never! You must clear up the case with such remedies as sulphur, pulsatilla, cinchona, sepia; and when the case reverts to its former self, then find the remedy and cure. HOLLOWAY.

CONTRIBUTED

VACCINATION AT PASSAIC, N. J.

HEALTH COMMISSIONER DEFIES IT-DOCTORS IMITATING EDUCATORS-SHALL WE HAVE COMPULSORY MEDICINE?

O THE EDITOR: Press dispatches are flying over the country with the news that Mr. George Michaels, of Passaic, has been arrested at the instance of the Board of Education for refusing to have his public school daughter vaccinated. He has had some sad experience from it already and says he will move out of the State rather than submit to it. Right he is!

This question of vaccination in the public schools has now seen added to it the compulsory medical inspection of all school chlidren, whereby, added to one vaccination, there may be as many more as experimental doctors may choose to inflict. All the States are witnessing a well-concocted movement for this inspection, and it has in some places shook the public school system to its foundation.

I have laid it down that the compulsory education system has been responsible for these compulsory advances along medical lines, and of late the doctors most desperate in the matter have confessed that they have, indeed, taken their cue from educators, public schools and compulsory education. They say that the State-paid doctors, with compulsory laws to back them, are as essential for the bodies of children as are State-paid teachers with compulsory laws for the minds of children.

But, from the children, the matter has gone farther than this. There is also now out a demand that all grown people be put under compulsory medical service and that the doctors be paid by the State. This is full-fledged Socialism. Homer Folks, the rich "sociologist," of New York, has come out endorsing it. With him we can class also the six or seven thousand men and women registered in the New York Charities Directory. J. P. Morgan is one of them. What are we coming to?

It is evidently time that the public school system should be abolished, inasmuch as it is preparing the country for this work of "the doctors' trust" and nation-wide Socialism. That great philosopher, Herbert Spencer, saw all the Socialistic