The generally accepted concept of homoeopathy is that it is concerned chiefly with the law of similars. Indeed, the encyclopaedia gives as the definition of homoeopathy that it is a system of medicine based upon the law of similars. While for a concentrated definition this might serve, yet there is much more to homoeopathy than the law of similars, for it would be very incomplete did it not embrace much more than this. It might better be defined as a system of medicine based upon natural laws.
We need to get a more complete and comprehensive insight into the scope of these laws. There is danger of making a fetish of the faith in homoeopathy by expecting wonderful results where a proper understanding of these laws would deter us from attempting the use of homoeopathy. Sometimes even without a knowledge of these laws we obtain wonderful results, it is true, but we often fail by not carrying out the teaching of Hahnemann, to remove the cause of the disease where it is manifestly a mechanical trouble. Again, in the class of diseases where malnutrition results from lack of the proper foods, instead of the lack of powers of assimilation, homoeopathy cannot be expected to take the place of the proper elements in the diet.
On the other hand, in the field of therapeutics by curative medicine there in no other absolutely curative assistance. Here homoeopathic laws reign supreme. To confuse the scope of each of these fields makes for misunderstanding and failure.
Homoeopathy considers the morbid vital processes in living organisms, which are perceptibly represented by symptoms, irrespective of what caused them. Homoeopathy is concerned only with disease per se, that is, in its primary, functional, or dynamic aspect, not in its ultimate and so-called pathological results. With these we have nothing to do; these are not in any sense the disease but are the results of disease conditions. Therefore we must distinguish between the primary functional symptoms which represent the morbid process itself, and the secondary symptoms which represent the pathological end products of disease.
