This discovery of the principle of potentization was Hahnemann's greatest gift to science in general, and to medicine in particular. Had it not been for his powers of observation and his interpretation of those observations through rational explanation, and his action upon those observations, he would never have achieved this eminence. When we consider the centuries of medical practice that preceded Hahnemann, and the years of medical practice and scientific research that have followed, and comprehend somewhat the significance of his discovery of powers released through minute division, we can but marvel at his keen logic and strive to follow his processes of reasoning.
Thus we readily see and appreciate the aptitude of Stuart Close's description of homoeopathy, when he describes the foundations as "solid concrete, composed of the broken rock of hard facts, united by the cement of a great natural principle ..." upon which the superstructure has been raised so soundly that it is inseparable from the foundation.
This shows the relation of facts to the practice of homoeopathy, with an outline of the reasoning process by which homoeopathy was worked out and built up; and it is applicable in every concrete case which the homoeopathic physician may be called upon to treat. The principles involved are the same: the examination of the patient, or the record of the proving; the analysis and evaluation of the symptoms in each case; the selection of the remedy; all these are conducted under the rules and in an orderly method based upon inductive reasoning. Thus we determine what is characteristic in the patient and in the remedy; the characteristic symptoms are always the generals of the patient.
What is true of one symptom may often be true of the whole patient, as illustrated by the reaction to thermic changes of individual parts and symptoms, and may be true of the whole man; therefore, while we strive to form a picture of the totality of the symptoms, we must instinctively evaluate, and find ourselves assembling symptoms as applying to the whole man or to his individual parts, as the case may be. As Close well puts it, in his Genius of Homoeopathy:
Logic facilitates the comprehension of the related totality or picture of the symptoms of the case as a whole. From all the parts, logic constructs the whole. It reveals the case; in other words, by generalizing it assigns each detail to its proper place and gives concrete form to the case so that it may be grasped by the mind in its entirety.
The true "totality" is more than the mere numerical totality or whole number of the symptoms. It may even exclude some of the particular symptoms if they cannot, at the time, be logically related to the case. Such symptoms are called "accidental symptoms," and are not allowed to influence the choice of the remedy. The "totality" is that concrete form which the symptoms take when they are logically related to each other and stand forth as an individuality, recognizable by anyone who is familiar with the symptomatic forms and lineaments of drugs and diseases.
The basis of the homoeopathic prescription is the totality of the symptoms of the patient, as viewed and interpreted from the standpoint of the prescriber. A successful prescription cannot be made from the standpoint of the diagnostician, the surgeon nor the pathologist, as such, because of the differing interpretation and classification of symptoms. A prescription can only be made upon those symptoms which have their counterpart or similar in the material medical.
Individuality is inculcated always in the examination of a case. The three steps always followed in a carefully developed case consist in the examination of the patient, the examination of the symptom record of the patient, and the examination of the material medical.
