The gross physical pathology such as we find in gallstones we do not prescribe for, but we do prescribe for the patient, being guided by the symptoms which began in the perversion of the vital process, which preceded and accompanied the ultimate development of the gallstones.
Functional symptoms always precede structural changes. In biology, " function creates and develops the organ." In disease, function, the effort of the vital energy to function under adverse circumstances, precedes and develops the pathological states. For the homoeopathic physician the totality of the functional symptoms of the patient is the disease and constitutes the only perceptible form of disease, and therefore the only basis of curative treatment. Symptoms are the outward and visible signs of the inward disturbance of the vital force which will ultimately produce morbid states, and when these symptoms are removed the disease ceases to exist.
Homoeopathy is not concerned with the morbific agents any more than it is with the tangible products or the ultimates of disease. Hahnemann regarded the removal of all obstacles to cure as absolutely essential before he attempted to proceed to the selection and administration of the remedy which was homoeopathic to the symptoms of the individual case, by which alone the cure is to be accomplished.
We thus focus our attention upon the individual and purely functional side of disease, upon disease itself, where we can perceive the sphere of homoeopathy. Thus from this view disease is a constant change of functions and tranformations so long as life lasts. We are here dealing in the realm of pure dynamics. This field is the field of disordered vital energy, and therefore disordered vital expressions and functional changes in the individual patient, irrespective of the name of the disease or its cause, and is governed by the laws of motion in the vital realm. It is in this sphere that vital functions act in the realm of the laws of Mutual Action : Action and Reaction are Equal and Opposite.
