The Pacific Coast Journal of Homeopathy

Official Organ of the State Medical Societies (Homœopathic) of California, Oregon, Washington, and of the Southern California Homœopathic Medical Society.

Devoted to the advancement of Modern Medicine and Surgery and of the interests of Homœopathy on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains and on the Pacific Coast.

All communications referring to manuscripts, reviews, subscriptions and advertising, must be addressed to Dr. H. R. ARNDT, "The Galen," Sutter and Stockton Sts., San Francisco, Cal. Entered at the San Francisco Post-Office as Second-class Matter.

In studying materia medica-the material of our medicinesit is well to know the common as well as the technical name of the substance under discussion. Also the locality in which, if a plant, it is indigenous; or, if a mineral, or of animal origin, or a nosode, we should know its origin, mode of preparation, etc.

Next, we should learn its poisonous symptoms when given in quantity sufficient to destroy life, or nearly so. Every physician should be able to recognize in an emergency the evidences of poisoning by any of the deadly drugs in the pharmacopoeia. This should be so at least of the more common drugs. This will enable him, after he has taken the next step and learned the

antidotes for such, to take prompt and intelligent steps in time often to preserve the life threatened by poison through accident or design.

Then we should study carefully the symptoms produced upon provers, and those observed at the bedside as disappearing under the action of the drug.

In this study it becomes necessary for the student to learn also the general sphere of action of each drug and the diseases in which it is most often indicated. He must be taught that in a certain group of remedies will probably be found the right one for a patient ill with, say, typhoid fever. That, while any one of the five hundred or more remedies in the materia medica may be the one indicated, the probability is that it will be found in a group of, say, twenty drugs, and that it would be well to first seek among these.

It is very discouraging to the young practitioner or student to be set before a patient suffering with intermittent fever, for example, and have handed to him a copy of "Hering's Materia Medica Condensed," and be asked to prescribe for that patient, without having previously been informed what remedies are to be first thought of in intermittent fever. If he can recall from his teaching that in a group of, say, twenty remedies he will most probably find the one needed for this particular case, he is encouraged to make the search. But if he has no more definite information than the assurance that the desired remedy is somewhere described between the covers of that book, his heart sinks within him at the enormousness of the task; he does not try, and resorts to hap-hazard empiricism, etc. It so discourages him that the evil of mongrelism, which those who complain at this mode of stepping-stone teaching so earnestly deprecate, is increased thereby.

As well might we expect the average school-boy to solve readily a problem in higher mathematics without having first become familiar with "the rule of three."

As the science of homoeopathic medicine now stands, however, with its materia medica comprising so many remedies, each having such a vast number of symptoms, many of which belong to all in common, there is but one approximately satisfactory way of selecting the appropriate remedy in any given case. This is by what is known as the characteristic or "keynote" system. It

is not only at present the best way, but I doubt if there will ever be discovered a better. As the science becomes in the future more and more simplified, this means of selecting the remedy will become more and more easy and accurate.

This mode of practically applying the law to its use has been decried and misrepresented. Its advocates and practitioners have been sneered at and accused of prescribing for a patient on one symptom alone. They have been nicknamed "symptom-chasers," as if the making and learning and teaching of materia medica were not all symptom-chasing from beginning to end. "Symptomatologist" is regarded by many as a sign of reproach-upon what scientific basis, or from what logical deduction, I have thus far been unable to discover.

What do the pathologists offer in its stead that is better? Nothing. When they disregard the symptoms of the patient, there is nothing left them but a misleading phantom, which they have constructed from these very symptoms, and named "dis

Can the unperceivable and remote deduction be a safer guide in practice than the proximate and patent phenomena from which that deduction has been drawn?

Much of the discussion between intelligent and conscientious men results from misapprehensions of the meanings of terms. It may be so in this case. We will give those who sneer at and attempt to belittle symptomatology the benefit of the doubt. Let us first understand what we mean by certain words. The word "symptom" must be interpreted in its therapeutic relation. It thus means any evidence-objective or subjective-presented by the patient, or his history, or the history of his ancestors, which may aid in indicating the curative remedy. It includes every morbid phenomenon presented by the patient; also the cause— direct or indirect, exciting or predisposing, inherited or acquired -of his trouble. Not one or two, nor one-half, nor any part, of the symptoms which make up the totality of these phenomena, is sufficient ground for a prescription. The "totality" of the symptoms is the only proper basis for a correct prescription. "Totality" of the symptoms means all of the phenomena, as above indicated, presented by the patient and his history.

A "symptomatologist," in the therapeutic sense, is one who prescribes a remedy according to the totality of the symptoms presented by a given patient. He is a physician, in other words,

who carefully weighs and considers every fact and circumstance connected with the patient and his history as a patient, and selects his remedy accordingly.

His detractor, the pathologist, in contradistinction, observes these symptoms (or more often but a part of them) and projects from them into the patient an imaginary condition-an entitywhich he calls disease, and prescribes for that. He leaves a certainty-the symptoms-dumb nature's voice, which tells him as plainly as he can ever know her needs-and is misguided in his treatment by this will-o'-the-wisp of his own creation.

The symptomatologist-he who prescribes according to the symptoms-is the only one who is guided by the law. The symptoms of the patient, not the disease, are the true indications for the remedy.

When the physician meets a case of scarlatina he cannot refer to his materia medica and there find medicines, drug doses of which have produced scarlet fever; but he does there find remedies which have produced nervous phenomena and their results, similar to those found in the scarlet-fever patient. If he is justified in prescribing for the diseased condition by its name, one remedy must do for all cases of that name. This would be easy and simple enough. No puzzling over the symptoms of the materia medica with such a rule for practice. Naturally, lazy mankind loves the easy way. But what of the patient?

But all patients ill of scarlet fever have not symptoms precisely the same. There is often a wide difference. No matter; the condition in each is called scarlet fever, and if the name is to be the guide, the remedy must be the same in all cases.

If we recall a considerable number of scarlet-fever patients, we remember that in one the rash was of a brownish appearance, miliary in character, and showing in patches here and there over the skin; that he was delirious, stupid, debilitated. Another had bright red points scattered over the surface, scanty and highly colored urine; sometimes the urine even entirely suppressed; he complained of stinging pains in the throat; dyspnoea, a tendency to dropsy, etc. A third had from the beginning a sore, raw condition of the lips or corners of the mouth, which he kept picking and digging until they bled. A fourth had a smooth, shining, bright red appearance of the skin; eyes injected; pupils very much dilated; the skin so hot it burned the hand; delirious,

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The Pacific Coast Journal of Homeopathy, 20. kötet