ORGANON APHORISM §172
A similar DIFFICULTY in the way of the cure occurs FROM THE SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE BEING TOO FEW—a circumstance that deserves our careful attention, for by its removal almost all the difficulties that can lie in the way of this most perfect of all possible modes of treatment (except that its apparatus of known homeopathic medicines is still incomplete) are removed.
ORGANON APHORISM §173
The only diseases that seem to have but few symptoms, and on that account to be less amenable to cure, are those which may be termed ONE-SIDED, because they display only one or two principal symptoms which obscure almost all the others. They belong chiefly to the class of chronic diseases.
ORGANON APHORISM §174
Their principal symptom may be either an internal complaint (E. G., a headache of many years’ duration, a diarrhoea of long standing, an ancient cardialgia, etc.), or it may be an affection more of an external kind. Diseases of the latter character are generally distinguished by the name of LOCAL MALADIES.
ORGANON APHORISM §175
In one-sided diseases of the first kind it is often to be attributed to the medical observer’s want of discernment that he does not fully discover the symptoms actually present which would enable him to complete the sketch of the portrait of the disease.
ORGANON APHORISM §176
There are, however, still a few diseases, which, after the most careful initial examination (§84-98), present but one or two severe, violent symptoms, while all the others are but indistinctly perceptible.
ORGANON APHORISM §177
In order to meet most successfully such a case as THIS, which is of VERY RARE occurrence, we are in the first place to select, guided by these few symptoms, the medicine which in our judgment is the most homeopathically indicated.
ORGANON APHORISM §178
It will, no doubt, sometimes happen that this medicine, selected in strict observance of the homeopathic law, furnishes the similar artificial disease suited for the annihilation of the malady present; and this is much more likely to happen when these few morbid symptoms are very striking, decided, uncommon and peculiarly distinctive (characteristic).
ORGANON APHORISM §179
More frequently, however, the medicine first chosen in such a case will be only partially, that is to say, not exactly suitable, as there was no considerable number of symptoms to guide to an accurate selection.
ORGANON APHORISM §180
In this case the medicine, which has been chosen as well as was possible, but which, for the reason above stated, is only imperfectly homeopathic, will, in its action upon the disease that is only partially analogous to it—just as in the case mentioned above ((§ 162), ET SEQ.), where the limited number of homeopathic remedies renders the selection imperfect—produce accessory symptoms, and several phenomena from its own array of symptoms are mixed up with the patient’s state of health, WHICH ARE, HOWEVER, AT THE SAME TIME, SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE ITSELF, ALTHOUGH THEY MAY HAVE BEEN HITHERTO NEVER OR VERY RARELY PERCEIVED; some symptoms which the patient had never previously experienced appear, or others he had only felt indistinctly become more pronounced.
ORGANON APHORISM §181
Let it not be objected that the accessory phenomena and new symptoms of this disease that now appear should be laid to the account of the medicament just employed. They owe their origin to it certainly, but they are always only symptoms of such a nature as THIS disease was itself capable of producing in THIS organism, and which were summoned forth and induced to make their appearance by the medicine given, owing to its power to cause similar symptoms. In a word, we have to regard the whole collection of symptoms now perceptible as belonging to the disease itself, as the actual existing condition, and to direct our further treatment accordingly.
ORGANON APHORISM §182
Thus the imperfect selection of the medicament, which was in this case almost inevitable owing to the too limited number of the symptoms present, serves to complete the display of the symptoms of the disease, and in this way facilitates the discovery of a second, more accurately suitable, homeopathic medicine.
ORGANON APHORISM §183
Whenever, therefore, the dose of the first medicine ceases to have a beneficial effect (if the newly developed symptoms do not, by reason of their gravity, demand more speedy aid—which, however, from the minuteness of the dose of homeopathic medicine, and in very chronic diseases, is excessively rare), a new examination of the disease must be instituted, the STATUS MORBI as it now is must be noted down, and a second homeopathic remedy selected in accordance with it, which shall exactly suit the present state, and one which shall be all the more appropriate can then be found, as the group of symptoms has become larger and more complete.
ORGANON APHORISM §184
In like manner, after each new dose of medicine has exhausted its action, when it is no longer suitable and helpful, the state of the disease that still remains is to be noted anew with respect to its remaining symptoms, and another homeopathic remedy sought for, as suitable as possible for the group of symptoms now observed, and so on until the recovery is complete.