After these steps are logically taken and analysed they lead by the process of induction to the generals of the case, for the generals are the sum total of the particulars. The value of the generalization depends primarily upon the data from which it is drawn, for it is an axiom of philosophy that "a general truth is but the aggregate of particular truths, a comprehensive expression by which an indefinite number of individual facts are affirmed or denied."
It is not possible to form generals until we have considered special particular symptoms and analysed and assimilated them, in their relation to the whole. Minor particulars enter into major, and majors into one all-inclusive concept of the case. Such an all-inclusive major is similar similibus curantur the most complete and far-reaching generalization ever made from the deduction of individual facts.
The value of generalization depends in its essence upon the data from which it is drawn. The facts must be both accurate and complete.
Where we have many and clear mental symptoms they are always generals, for they represent the man in the most characteristic sense. Modalities again are always generals, for they are the natural modifiers of the case. "Where there are no generals," says Kent, "we can expect no cures."
The approach to the study of the case and the approach to the study of the material medical are essentially the same the material medical is the facsimile of the sickness.
Boenninghausen has shown in his repertory that these aggravations and ameliorations are modalities, and therefore rank as generals. Close rates this reportorial work as "the greatest masterpiece of analysis, comparison and generalization in our literature." The attempt to limit the application of the modality to the particular symptoms with which they were first observed has not been successful in practice, so Boenninghausen's grouping of them as generals was a masterpiece of inductive reasoning. Writing in regard to these modalities which he considers generals, he says:
All of these indications are so trustworthy, and have been verified by such manifold experiences that hardly any others can equal them in rank; to say nothing of surpassing them. But the most valuable fact respecting them is this: That this characteristic is not confined to one or another symptom, but like a red thread it runs through all the morbid symptoms of a given remedy, which are associated with any kind of pain whatever, or even with a sensation of discomfort, and hence it is available for both external and internal symptoms of the most varied character.
He arrived at these truths by the inductive study of the facts, and the results were the products of sound reasoning.
