JAMES TYLER KENT.

Homoeopathy asserts that there are principles which govern

the practice of medicine. It may be said that, up till the time
of Hahnemann, no principles of medicine were recognized,
and even at this day in the writings and actions of the Old
School there is a complete acknowledgment that no principles exist. The Old School declares that the practice of medicine depends entirely upon experience, upon what can be
found out by giving medicines to the sick. Their shifting
methods and theories, and rapid discoveries and abandonment
of the same, fully attest the sincerity of their acknowledgments and declarations. Homoeopathy leaves Allopathy at
this point, and so in this manner the great division between
the two schools is effected. That there are principles Homoeopathy affirms. The Old School denies the existence of
principles and with apparent reason, looking at the matter
from the standpoint of their practice and methods. They deal
only with ultimates, they observe only results of disease, and
either deny or have no knowledge of the real nature of man,
what he is, where he came from, what his quality is in sickness
or in health. They say nothing about the man except in connection with his tissues; they characterize the changes in the
tissues as the disease and all there is of the disease, its beginning
and its end. In effect they proclaim disease to be a something
that exists without a cause. They accept nothing but what can
17

18 KENT'S LECTURES
be felt with the fingers and seen with the eyes or otherwise
observed through the senses, aided by improved instruments.
The finger is aided by the microscope to an elongated point,
and the microscopic pathological results of disease are noted
and considered to be the beginning and the ending, i, e., results
without anything prior to them. That is a summary of allopathic teaching as to the nature of sickness. But Homoeopathy
perceives that there is something prior to these results. Every
science teaches, and every investigation of a scientific character
proves that everything which exists does so because of something prior to it. Only in this way can we trace cause and
effect in a series from beginning to end and back again from
the end to the beginning. By this means we arrive at a state in

which we do not assiune, but in which we know.

The first paragraph of the Organon will be understood by
an inexperienced observer to mean one thing and by a true
and experienced homoeopath to mean another.
' $1. "The physician's high and only mission is to restore the
sick to health, to cure as it is termed."
No controversy will arise from a superficial reading of
this statement, and until Hahnemann's hidden meaning of the
word "sick" is fiolly brought to view, the physician of any
school will assent. The idea that one person will entertain as
to the meaning of the word "sick" will be different at times
from that which another will entertain. So long as it remains
a matter of opinion there will be differences of opinion, therefore, the homoeopath must abandon the mere expressions of
opinion. Allopathy rests on individual opinion and allopaths
say that the science of medicine is based on the consensus of
opinion, but that is an unworthy and unstable foundation for
the science of curing the sick. It will never be possible to establish a rational system of therapeutics until we reason from
facts as they are and not as they sometimes appear. Facts as
they appear are expressed in the opinions of men, but facts as
they are, are facts and truths from which doctrines are evolved
and formulated which will interpret or unlock the kingdoms of

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 19
nature in the realm of sickness or health. Therefore, beware
of the opinion of men in science. Hahnemann has given us
principles which we can study and advance upon. It is law that
governs the wofld and not matters of opinion or hypotheses.
We must begin by having a respect for law, for we have no
starting point unless we base our propositions on law. So long
as we recognize men's statements we are in a state of change,
for men and hypotheses change. Let us acknowledge authority.
The true homoeopath, when he speaks of the sick, knows
who it is that is sick, whereas the allopath does not know.
The latter thinks that the house which the man lives in, which
is being torn down, expresses all there is of sickness ; in other
words, that the tissue changes (which are only the results of
disease) are all that there is of the sick man. The hdmoeopath

observes wonderful changes resulting from potentized medicine, and being compelled to reflect he sees, that crude drugs
cannot heal the sick and that what changes they do effect are
not real but only apparent. Modern physiology has no vital
doctrine in its teaching, and therefore no basis to work upon.
The doctrine of the vital force is not admitted by the teachers
of physiology and, therefore, the homoeopath sees that true
physiology is not yet taught, for without the vital force, without simple substance, without the internal as well as the external, there can be no cause and no relation between cause and
effect.
Now what is meant by "the sick" ? It is a man that is sick
and to be restored to health, not his body,, not the tissues. You
will find many people who will say, "I am sick." They will
enumerate pages of symptoms, pages of suffering. They look
sick. But they tell you, **I have been to the most eminent physicians. I have had my chest examined. I have been to the
neurologist. I have been to the cardiac specialist and have had
my heart examined. The eye specialist has examined my eyes.
I have been to the gynaecologist and have had my uterus examined," says the woman. "I have been physically examined from
head to foot, and they tell me I am not sick, I have no disease."

20 KENT'S LECTURES
Many a time have I heard this story after getting three or four
pages of symptoms. What does it mean? It is true if that
state progresses there will be evidences of disease, i, e,, evidences which the pathologist may discover ^)y his physical
examination. But at present the patient is not sick, says the
learned doctor. "But what do all these symptoms mean? I do
not sleep at night. I have pains and aches. My bowels do not
move."
"Oh, well, you have constipation/' That is the first
thing that has been diagnosed. But do all these things exist
without a cause? It would seem from one opinion that the
"constipation" is the disease per se, but from another opinion
it would appear to be the cause of disease ; the "diagnosis" is
made to apply to one as much as to the other. But this is the
character of vagaries so common to Old School whims. These
symptoms are but the language of nature, talking out as it
were, and showing as clearly as the daylight the internal nature

of the sick man or woman. If this state progresses the lungs

break down. The doctor says, "Oh, now you have consumption" ; or a great change appears in the liver, and he says, "Oh,
now you have fatty degeneration of the liver"; or albumin
appears in the urine, and he tells the patient, "Now I am able
to name your disease. You have some one of the forms of
Bright's disease." It is nonsense to say that prior to the localization of disease, the patient is not sick. Does it not seem
clear that this patient has been sick, and very sick, even from
childhood? Under traditional methods it is necessary that a
diagnosis be made before the treatment can be settled, but in
most cases the diagnosis cannot be fnade until the results of
disease have rendered the patient incurable.
Again, take the nervous child. It has wild dreams, twitching, restless sleep, nervous excitement, hysterical manifestations, but if we examine all the organs of the body we will find
nothing the matter with them. This sickness, however, which
is present, if allowed to go on uncured, will in twenty or thirty
years result in tissue change ; the organs will become aif ected

. ON HOMCHOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY , 21
and then it will be said that the body is diseased : but the individual has been sick from the beginning. It is a question
whether we will start out and consider the results of disease or
begin at the beginning with the causes. If we have material
ideas of disease we will have material ideas of the means of
cure. If we believe an organ is sick and alone constitutes the
disease, we must feel that if we could remove the organ we
would cure the patient. A man has a necrotic condition of
the hand; then if we believe that only the hand is sick we
would think we had cured the patient by removing his hand.
Say the hand is cancerous. According to this idea it is can/cerous in itself and from itself, and seeing he would later die
from the cancer of his hand we would conscientiously remove
the hand and so cure the patient. For an eruption on the skin
we would use local means to stimulate the functions of the skin
and make it heal, and believing the eruption had no cause behind it we would conscientiously think we had cured the pa-

tient. But this is the Veductio ad absurdum, for nothing exists

without a cause. The organs are not the man. The man is
prior to the organs. From first to last is the order of sickness
as well as the order of cure. From man to his organs and not
from organs to the man.
Well, then, who is this sick man ? The tissues could not become sick unless something prior to them had been deranged
and so made them sick. What is there of this man that can be
called the internal man? What is there that can be removed
so that the whole that is physical may be left behind ? We say
that man dies but he leaves his body behind. We dissect the
body and find all of his organs. Everything that we know by
the senses belongs to physical man, everything that we can feel
with the fingers and see with the eyes he leaves behind. The real
' sick man is prior to the sick body and we must conclude that
the sick man must be somewhere in that portion which is not
left behind. That which is carried away is primary and that
which is left behind is ultimate. We say the man feels, sees,
tastes, hears, he thinks and he lives, but these are only outward

22 Kent's l^ctur^
manifestations of thinking and living. The man wills and
understands; the cadaver does not will and does not understand ; then that which takes its departure is that which knows
and wills. It is that which can be changed and is prior to the
body.
The combination of these two, the will and the understanding, constitute man; conjoined they make life and activity,
they manufacture the body and cause all things of the body.
With the will and understanding operating in order we have a
healthy man. It is not our purpose to go behind the will and,
the understanding, to go prior to these. It is enough to say that
they were created. Then man is the will and the understand-i
ing, and the house which he lives in is his body.
We must, to be scientific homoeopaths, recognize that the
muscles, the nerves, the ligaments and the other parts of man's
frame are a picture and manifest to the intelligent physician
the internal man. Both the dead and the living body are to be
considered, not from the body to the life, but from the life to
the body. If you were to describe the difference between two

human faces, their character and everything you observe of

their action, you would be describing scarcely more than the
will. The will is expressed in the face ; its result is implanted
on the countenance. Have you ever studied the face of an individual who has grown up a murderer or a villain of some
sort ? Is there no difference between his face and that of one
who has the will to do good, to live uprightly ? Go down into
the lowest parts of our great city and study the faces of these
people. These people are night prowlers; they are up late at
night studying villainy. If we inquire into it we will see that
their affections are of that kind. They have the stamp upon
their faces. They have evil affections and an evil face. The
countenance then is expressive of the heart. Allopathic pa-
thology recognizes nothing but man's body. Yet one can easily
confuse the allopath by asking him what man's thought is,
what man is. The homoeopath must master these things before
he can perceive the nature of the cause of disease and before
he can understand what cure is.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 23
It is the sole duty of the physician to heal the sick. It is not
his sole duty to heal the results of sickness, but the sickness
itself, and when the man himself has been restored to health,
there will be restored harmony in the tissues and in the activities. Then the sole duty of the physician is to put in order the
interior of the economy, i, e,, the will and understanding conjoined. Tissue changes are of the body and are the results of
disease. They are not the disease. Hahnemann once said,
'There are no diseases, but sick people," from which it is clear
that Hahnemann understood that the diseases so called, e, g,,
Bright's disease, liver disease, etc., were but the grosser forms
of disease results, viz., appearances of disease. There is first
disorder of government, and this proceeds from within outward until we have pathological changes in the tissues. In the
practice of medicine today the idea of government is not
found, and the tissue changes only are taken into account.
He who considers disease results to be the disease itself,
and expects to do away with these as disease, is insane. It is
an insanity in medicine, an insanity that has grown out of the
milder forms of mental disorder in sctence, crazy whims. The
bacteria are results of disease. In the course of time we will be
able to show perfectly that the microscopical little fellows are

not the disease cause, but that they come after, that they are
scavengers accompanying the disease, and that they are perfectly harmless in every respect. They are the outcome of the
disease, are present wherever the disease is, and by the microscope it has been discovered that every pathological result has
its corresponding bacteria. The Old School consider these the
cause, but we will be able to show that disease cause is much
more subtle than anything that can be shown by a microscope.
We will be able to show you by a process of reasoning, step by
step, the folly of hunting for disease cause by the irtiplements
of the senses.
In a note Hahnemann says, "The physician's mission is
not, however, to construct so-called systems, by interweaving
empty speculations and hypotheses concerning the internal es-

24 Kent's LiecTURies
sential nature of the vital processes and the mode in which diseases originate in the invisible interior of the organism," etc.
We know that in the present day people are perfectly satisfied
if they can find the name of the disease they are supposed to
have, an idea cloaked in some wonderful technicality. An old
Irishman walked into the clinic one day, and after giving his
symptoms, said, **Doctor, what is the matter with me?" The
physician answered, "Why, you have Nux vomica," that being
his remedy. Whereupon the old man said, **Well, I did think
I had some wonderful disease or other." That is an outgrowth
of the old-fashioned folly of naming sickness. Except in a few
acute diseases no diagnosis can be made, and no diagnosis need
be made, except that the patient is sick. The more one thinks
of the name of a disease so-called the more one is beclouded
in the search for a remedy, for then the mind is only upon the
results of disease, and not upon the image expressed in
symptoms.
A patient of twenty-five years of age, with gravest inheritances, with twenty pages of symptoms, and with only
symptoms to furnish an' image of sickness, is perfectly curable
if treated in time. After being treated there will be no pathological results ; he will go on to old age without any tissue destruction. But that patient if not cured at that early age will
take on disease results in accordance with the circumstances of
his life and his inheritances. If he is a chimney sweep he will be

siibject to the diseases peculiar to chimney sweeps. If she is

a housemaid she will be subject to the disease peculiar to housemaids, etc. That patient has the same disease he had when he
was born. This array of symptoms represents the same state
before the pathological conditions have been formed as after.
And it is true, if he has liver disease or brain disease or any of
the many tissue changes that they call disease, you must go
back and procure these very symptoms before you can make a
prescription. Prescribing for the results of disease causes
changes in the results of disease, but not in the sickness except
to hurry its progress.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 25
We will see peculiarities running through families. In the
beginning is this primary state which is presented only by signs
and S3anptoms, and the whole family needs the same remedy or
a cognate of that remedy ; but in one member of the family the
condition runs to cancer, in another to phthisis, etc., but all
from the same common foundation. This fundamental condition which underlies the diseases of the human race must be
understood. Without a knowledge of this it will be impossible
to understand the acute miasmatic diseases, which will be considered later.
It is a well known fact that some persons are susceptible
to one thing and some to another. If an epidemic comes upon
the land only a few come down with it. Why are some protected and why do others take it ? These things must be settled
by the doctrines of Homoeopathy. Idiosyncrasies must be accounted for. Many physicians waste their time searching after
the things that make their patients sick. The sick man will be
made sick under every circumstance, whereas the healthy man
could live in a lazaretto. It is not the principal business of the
physician to be hunting in the rivers and the cellars and examining the food we eat for the cause of disease. It is his duty
to hunt out the symptoms of the sickness until a remedy is
found that covers the disorder. That remedy, which will produce on healthy man similar symptoms, is the master of the
situation, is the necessary antidote, will overcome the sickness,
restore the will and understanding to order and cure the
patient.
To get at the real nature of the human economy, and to

lead up from that to sickness, opens out a field for investigation in a most scientific way. Sickness can be learned by the
study of the provings of drugs upon the healthy economy.
Hahnemann made use of the information thus obtained when
he stated that the mind is the key to the man. The symptoms
of the mind have been found by all his followers to be the most
important symptoms in a remedy and in a sickness. Man consists in what he thinks and what he loves and there is nothing

26 J^ent's lectures
else in man. If these two grand parts of man, the will and the
understanding, be separated it means insanity, disorder, death.
AH medicines operate upon the will and understanding first
(sometimes extensively on both) affecting man in his ability
to think or to will, and ultimately upon the tissues, the functions and sensations. In the study of Aurum we find the affections are most disturbed by that drug. Man's highest possible
love is for his life. Aurum so destroys this that he does not
love his life, he will commit suicide. Argentum ^on the other
hand so destroys man's understanding that he is no longer
rational ; his memory is entirely ruined. So with every proved
drug in the Materia Medica. We see them affecting first man's
mind, and proceeding from the mind to the physical economy,
to the outermost, to the skin, the hair, the nails. If medicines
are not thus studied you will have no knowledge of them that
you can carry with you. The Materia Medica has been established upon this basis.
Sickness must therefore be examined by a thorough scrutiny of the elements that make up morbid changes that exist in
the likeness of drug symptoms.. To the extent that drugs in
provings upon healthy men have brought out symptoms on
animal ultimates must we study sickness with the hope of adjusting remedies to sickness in man under the law of similars.
Ultimate symptoms, function symptoms, sensorium symptoms
and mind symptoms are all useful and none should be overlooked. The idea of sickness in man must be formed from the
idea of sickness perceived in our Materia Medica. As we
perceive the nature of sickness in a drug image, so must we
perceive the nature of the sickness in a human being to be
healed.
Therefore our idea of pathology must be adjusted to such a

Materia Medica as we possess, and it must be discovered

wherein these are similar in order to heal the sick. The totality
of the symptoms written out carefully is all that we know of
the internal nature of sickness. Then the proper administration
of the similar remedy will constitute the art of healing.

ON HOMCSOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 27

LECTURE II

2. The highest ideal of a cure.

The subject this morning relates to cure, to what the nature
of a cure is. It is stated in the second paragraph of the
Organon that *
The highest ideal of a cure is rapid, gentle and permanent
restoration of the health, or removal and annihilation of the disease in
its whole extent, in the shortest, most reliable and most harmless way,
on easily comprehensible principles.
If you were to ask a physician, who had not been trained
in Homoeopathy, of what a cure consists, his mind would only
revolve around the idea of the disappearance of the pathological state; if an eruption on the skin were the given instance,
the disappearance o,f the eruption from the skin under his
treatment would be called a cure ; if hemorrhoids, the removal
of these would be called a cure; if constipation, the opening
of the bowels would be called a cure ; if some affection of the
knee joint, an amputation above the knee would be considered
a cure ; or if it were an acute disease and the patient did not
die, it would be- considered a cure of the disease. And that is
really the idea of the patient as it is derived from the physician.
The patient will very often wonder at the great skill of the
physician in removing an eruption from the skin, and will go
back again when the graver manifestations, the tissue changes
threatening death, have come on as a consequence, and will say
to the doctor : **You so wonderfully cured me of my skin disease, why cannot you cure me of my liver trouble ?" But this
very scientific ignorant doctor has made a failure; he has
driven what was upon the surface and harmless into the inner-

most precincts of the economy and the patient is going to die

as a result of scientific ignorance.

28 Kent's l^ctur^s
There are three distinct points involved in this paragraph
and these must be brought out. Restoring health, and not the
removing of symptoms, is the first point. Restoring health has
in view the establishment of order in a sick human being ; removing symptoms has not in view a human being; removing
the constipation, the hemorrhoids, the white swelling of' the
knee, the skin disease, or any local manifestation or particular
sign of disease, or even the removal of a group of symptoms,
does not have in view the restoration to health of the whole
economy of man. If the removal of symptoms is not followed
by a restoration to health, it cannot be called a cure. We learned
in our last study that **the sole duty of the physician is to heal
the sick"; and therefore it is not his duty merely to remove
symptoms, to change the aspect of the symptoms, the appearance of the disease image, imagining that he has thereby established order. What a simple-minded creature he must be!
What a groveller in muck and mire he must be, when he can
meditate upon doing such things, even a moment! How different his actions would be if he but considered that every
violent cl^ange which he produces in the aspect of the disease
aggravates the interior nature of the disease, aggravates the
sickness of the man and brings about an increase of suffering
within him. The patient should be able to realize by his feelings and continue to say, that he is being restored to health,
whenever a symptom is removed. There should be a corresponding inward improvement whenever an oujtward symptom
has been caused to disappear, and this will be true whenever .
disease has been displaced by order.
The perfection of a cure consists, then, first in restoring
health, and this is to be done promptly, mildly and permanently, which is the second point. The cure must be quick or
speedy, it must be gentle, and it must be continuous or permanent. Whenever an outward symptom has been caused to
disappear by violence, as by cathartics to remove constipation,
it cannot be called mild or permanent, even if it is prompt.
Whenever violent drugs are resorted to there is nothing mild

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 29
in the action or the reaction that must follow. At the time
this second paragraph of the Organon was written physicking
was not so mild as at the present day,; blood-letting, sweating,
etc., were in vogue at the time Hahnemann wrote these lines.
Medicine has changed somewhat in its appearance ; physicians
are now using sugar-coated pills and contriving to make medicines appear tasteless or tasteful ; they are using concentrated
alkaloids. But none of these things have been done because of
the discovery of any principle; blood-letting and sweating
were not abandoned on account of principle, for the old men
deprecate their disuse, and often say they hope the time will
come when they can again go back to the lancet. But the drugs
of today are ten times more powerful than those formerly
used, because more concentrated. The cocaine, sulphonal and
numerous other modern concentrated products of the manufacturing chemists are extremely dangerous and their real action and reaction unknown. The chemical discoveries of petroleum have opened a field of destruction to human intelligence,
to the understanding and to the will, because these products
are slowly and insidiously violent. When drugs were used that
were instantly dangerous and violent the action was manifest,
it showed upon the surface, and the common people saw it.
But the patient of the present day goes through more dangerous drugging, because it destroys the mind. The apparent
benefits produced by these drugs are never permanent. They
may in some cases seem to be permanent, but then it is because upon the economy has been engrafted a new and most
insidious disease, more subtle and more tenacious than the
manifestation that was upon the externals, and it is because
of this tenacity that the original symptoms remain away. The
disease in its nature, its esse, has not been changed ; it is still
there, causing the internal destruction of the man, but its manifestation has been changed, and there has been added to this
natural disease a drug disease, more serious than the former.
The manner of cure can only be mild if it flows in the
stream of natural direction, establishing order and thereby

30 Kent's lectures
removing disease. The direction of old-fashioned medicine is
like pulling a cat up a hill by the tail ; whereas, the treatment

that is mild, gentle and permanent, flows with the stream,

scarcely producing a ripple; it adjusts the internal disorder
and the outermost of man returns to order. Evdtything becomes orderly from the interior. The curative medicine does
not act violently upon the economy, but establishes its action
in a mild manner ; but while the action is mild and gentle, very
often that which follows, which is the reaction, is a turmoil,
especially when the work of traditional medicine is being
undone and former states are being re-established.
The third point is "upon principles that are at once plain
and intelligible." This means law, it means fixed principles;
it means a law as certain as that of gravitation; not guess
work, empiricism, or roundabout methods, or a cut-and-dried
use of drugs as laid down by the last manufacturer. Our principles have never changed, they cannot change, they have
always been the same and will remain the same. To become
acquainted with these principles and doctrines, with fixed
knowledges, with exactitude of method, to become acquainted
with medicines that never change their properties, and to become acquainted with their action, is the all-important aim in
homoeopathic study. When one has learned these principles,
and continues to practice them, they grow brighter and
stronger. The use of these fixed principles is the removal of
disease, the restoration to health in a mild, prompt and permanent manner.
If one were to ask an allopathic graduate in this class how
he could demonstrate that he had cured somebody, the answer
could only be such as I have mentioned already, viz., that the
patient did not die, or that the manifestations prescribed for
had disappeared. If one were to ask a physician trained in
homoeopathic principles the same question, one would find that
there are means of distinctly demonstrating why he knows his
patient is better. You would naturally expect, if it is the interior of man that is disordered in sickness, and not his tissues
primarily, that the interior must first be turned into order and
the exterior last. The first of man is his voluntary and the
second of man is his understanding, the last of man is his
outermost ; from his centre to his circumference, to his organs,
his skin, hair, nails, etc. This being true, the cure must proceed from centre to circumference. From centre to circumference is from above downwards, from within outwards,
from more important to less important organs, from the head
to the hands and feet. Every homoeopathic practitioner who

understands the art of healing, knows that symptoms which

go off in these directions ^remain away permanently. Moreover, he knows that symptoms which disappear in the reverse
order of their coming are removed permanently. It is thus he
knows that the patient did not merely get well in spite of the
treatment, but that he was cured by the action of the remedy.
If a homoeopathic physician goes to the bedside of a patient
and, upon observing the onset of the symptoms and the course
of the disease, sees that the symptoms do not follow this order
after his remedy, he knows that he has had but little to do
with the course of things.
But if, on the contrary, he observes after the administration of his medicine that the symptoms take a reverse course,
then he knows that his medicine has had to do with it, because
if the disease were allowed to run its course such a result
would not take place. The progression of chronic diseases is
from the surface to the centre. All chronic diseases have
their first manifestations upon the surface, and from that to
the innermost of man. Now in the proportion in which they
are thrown back upon the surface it is to be seen that the
patient is recovering. Here it is that the turmoil spoken of
above follows the true homoeopathic remedy, and the ignorant
do not desire their old outward symptoms to be brought back
even when it is known as the only possible form of cure. Complaints of the heart and chest and head must in recovery be
accompanied by manifestations upon the surface, in the extremities, upon the skin, nails and hair. Hence you will find

32 KENT'S LECTURES
that these parts become diseased when patients are getting
well; the hair falls out or eruptions come upon the skin. In
cases of rheumatism of the heart you find if the patient is
recovering, that his knees become rheumatic, and he may say :
**Doctor, I could walk all over the house when you first came to
me, but now I cannot walk, my joints are so swollen." That
means recovery. If the doctor does not know that that means
recovery "he will make a prescription that will drive the rheumatism away from the feet and knees and it will go back to
the heart and the patient will die ; and it need hardly be stated
that the traditional doctor does not know this, as he resorts to
this plan as his regular and only plan of treatment, and. in the
most innocent way kills the patient. This is a simple illustra-

tion of how it is possible for the interiors of man to cease to

be affected and the exteriors to become affected. It may be
impossible for the man to be entirely cured, it may be impossible for this state to pass off, but that is the direction ef its
passing off and tlTjjere is no other course. If the patient is in' curable, while the means used are mild, he may experience
great suffering in the evolution of his disease, in the course of
his partial recovery. To him it may not appear mild, but the
means that were used were mild. In acute diseases we do not
observe so much distress after prescribing as we see in old
incurable cases, in deep-seated chronic complaints that have
existed a long time. The return of the outward manifestations
upon the extremities are noticed in such cases where they have
been suppressed. To illustrate: there are many patients who
have had rheumatism in the hands and feet, in the wrists and
knees and elbows, who have been rubbed and stimulated with
lotions and strong liniments, with chloroform, with evaporating lotions, with cooling applications, until the rhetimatism of
the extremities has disappeared to a great extent, but every
physician knows that as the disappearance of this rheumatism
progresses cardiac symptoms are likely to occur. When this
patient is prescribed for the rheumatism of the extremities
must come back or the heart will not be relieved. That is true

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 33
of every condition that has been upon the extremities and
driven in by local treatment. Just as surely as you live and
observe the action of homoeopathic remedies upon man, so
surely will you see these symptoms come back. The patient
will return and say : **Doctor, I have the same S)rmptoms that
I had when I was treated by Dr. So-and-so for rheumatism."
This comes out in practice nearly every day.
It requires a little explanation to the patient, and if he is
intelligent enough to understand it, he will wait for the remedy
to act. But the physician who thinks most of his pocketbook
will say : "If I don't give him a liniment to put on that limb
he will go off and get another physician." Now let me tell
you right here is the beginning of evil. You had better trust
to the intelligence of humanity and trust that he will stay and
be cured. If you have learned to prescribe for the patient
even though he suffer, if you have learned what is right and
do not do it, it is a violation of conscience.

This paragraph appeals to man's integrity; it is said

in the last line "on principles that are at once plain and
intelligible." Just as soon as you leave out integrity, and believe that a man can do just as he pleases, you leave out everything that pertains to principle and you leave out the foundation of success. But when thesd principles are carried out,
when a man has made himself thoroughly conversant with the
Materia Medica and thoroughly intelligent in its application,
when he is circumspect in his very interior life as to the carrying out of these principles, then he will lead himself into a use
that is most delightful, because by such means he may cause
diseases to disappear, and may win the lasting friendship and
respect of a class of people worth working for. He has more
than that, he has a clear conscience with all that belongs to it ;
he is living a life of innocence. When he lives such a life he
does not allow himself to wink at the notions that are carried
out in families, as, for example, how to prevent the production
of offspring, how to avoid bearing children, how to separate
man and wife by teaching them the nasty little methods of

34 KENT'S LECTURES
avoiding the bringing forth of offspring. The meddling with
these vices and the advocating of them will prevent the father
and mother from being cured of their chronic diseases. Unless
people lead an orderly life they will not be cured of their
chronic diseases. It is your duty as physicians to inculcate such
principles among them that they may live an orderly life. The
physician who does not know what order is ought not to be
trusted.
It is the duty of the physician, then, first to find out what
is in man that is disorder, and then to restore him to health ;
and this return to health, which is a perfect cure, is to be accomplished by means that are mild, that are orderly, that flow
gently like the life force itself, turning the internal of man
into order, with fixed principles as his guide, and by the
homoeopathic remedy.

ON HOM,CEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 35

LECTURE III
Perception of what is curable in disease, curative in medicine and
the application of last to first.
Organon. Sec. 3. If the physician clearly perceives what is to be
cured in diseases, that is to say, in every individual case of disease; if
he clearly perceives what is curative in medicines, that is to say, in each
individual medicine; and if he knows how to adapt, according to
clearly-defined principles, what is curative in medicines to what he has
discovered to be undoubtedly morbid in the patient, so that recovery
must ensue to adapt it as well in respect to the suitability of the medicine most appropriate according to its mode of action to the case before
him, as also in respect to the exact mode of preparation and quantity
of it required, and the proper period for repeating the dose; if, finally,
he knows the obstacles to recovery in each case and is aware how to
remove them so that the res1/)ration may be permanent ; then he understands how to treat judiciously and rationally, and he is a true practitioner of the healing art.
The translator has correctly used here the word ''perceive,"
which is to see into, not merely to look upon with the external
eye, but to clearly understand, to apprehend with the mind
and understanding. If Hahnemann had said "see" instead of
"perceive," it might have been taken to mean seeing with the
eye a tumor to be cut out, or, by opening the abdomen, to see
the diseased kidney, or, by examination of the urine, to see that
there is albumin or sugar present, by removing which in some
mysterious way the patient would be cured. It is evident by
this that Hahnemann did not look upon pathological change or
morbid anatomy as that which in disease constitutes the curative indication. The physician must perceive in the disease that
which is to be cured, and the curative indication in each particular case of disease is the totality of the symptoms, i. e,,
the disease is represented or expressed by the totality of th^

36 KENT'S LECTURES
symptoms, and this totality (which is the speech of nature)
IS not itself the esse of the disease, it only represents the disorder in the internal economy. This totality, which is really

external, a manifestation in the tissues, will arrange itself into

form to present, as it were, to the physician the internal disorder.
The first thing to be considered in a case is, What are the
curative indications in this case? What signs and symptoms
call the physician's attention as curative signs and symptoms?
This means that not every manifestation is a curative indication. The results of disease occurring in the tissues, in chronic
diseases, such as cancerous changes, tumors, etc., are of such
a character that they cannot constitute curative signs; but
those things which are curable, which are capable of change,
which can be materially aflfected by the administration of
remedies, the physician must know ; they are the curative indications.
The physician ought to have a well-grounded idea of
government and law to which there are no exceptions; he
ought to see the cause of disease action to be from centre to
circumference," from the innermost of the man to his outermost.
If law and government are present, then law directs every act
taking place in the human system. Every government is from
the centre to the circumference. Look at it politically. Whenever the system of central political government is not bowed
to, anarchy and loss of confidence prevail. There are also
commercial centres. We must recognize London, Paris, and
New York as centres of commercial government in their different spheres. Even the spider entrenches himself in his web and
governs his universe from the centre. There cannot be two
governments ; such would lead to confusion. There is but one
unit in every standard. In man the centre of government is
in the cerebrum and from it every nerve and cell is governed.
From it all actions take place for good or evil, for order or disorder; from it disease begins and from it begins the healing
process. It is not from external things that man becomes sick.

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 37
not from bacteria nor environment, but from causes in himself.
If the homoeopath does not see this, he cannot have a true perception of disease. Disorder in the vital economy is the primary state of affairs, and this disorder manifests itself by signs
and symptom's.

In perceiving what is to be cured in disease one must proceed from generals to particulars, study disease in its most
general features, not as seen upon one particular individual,
but upon the whole human race. We will endeavor to bring
this idea before the mind by taking as an example one of the
acute miasms, not for the purpose of diagnosis, as this is easy,
but to arrange it for a therapeutic examination. Let us take
an epidemic, say, of scarlet fever, or grippe, or measles, or
cholera. If the epidemic is entirely different from anything
that has hitherto appeared in the neighborhood it is at first
confusing. From the first few cases the physician has a very
vague idea of this disease, for he sees only a fragment of it,
and gets only a portion of its symptoms. But the epidemic
spreads and many patients are visited, and twenty individuals
have perhaps been closely observed. Now if the physician will
write down all the symptoms that have been present in each
case in a schematic form, arranging the mind symptoms of
the different patients under "mind" and the head symptoms
under "head," and so on, following Hahnemann's method,
they considered collectively will present one image, as if one
man had expressed all the symptoms, and in this way he will
have that particular disease in schematic form. If he places
opposite each symptom a number corresponding to the nimiber
of patients in which that symptom occurred, he will find out
the essential features of the epidemic. For example, twenty
patients had aching in the bones, and at once he sees that that
symptom is a part of this epidemic. All the patients had catarrhal affections of the eye, and a measly rash, and these
also must be recorded as pathognomonic symptoms. And so
by taking the entire schema and studying it as a whole, as if
one patient had experienced all the symptoms, he is able to

3^ ki^nt's lectures
perceive how this new disease, this contagiotis disease, aflfects
the human race, and each particular patient, and he is able to
predicate of it what is general and what is particular. Every
new patient has a few new symptoms; he has put his own
stamp on that disease. Those symptoms that run through all
are the pathognomonic symptoms; those which are rare are
the peculiarities of the different people. This totality represents to the human mind, as nearly as possible, the nature of
this sickness, and it is this nature that the therapeutist must
have in mind.

Now let him take the next step, which is to find in general
the remedies that correspond to this epidemic. By the aid of
a repertory he will write after each one of these symptoms all
the remedies that have produced that symptom. Having in
this way gone through the entire schema, he can then begin
to eliminate for practical purposes, and he will see that six or
;Seven remedies run through the picture and, therefore, are
related to the epidemic, corresponding to its whole nature.
This may be called the group of epidemic remedies for ,that
particular epidemic, and with these he will manage to cure
nearly all his cases. The question now arises, which one is the
.remedy for each individual case? When he has worked out
the half dozen remedies he can go through the Materia Medica
and get their individual pictures so fixed in his head that he
can use them successfully. Thus he proceeds from generals to
particulars, and there is no other way to proceed in homoeopathy. He is called to a family with half a dozen patients in
bed from this epidemic, and he finds a little difference in each
case, so that one remedy is indicated in one patient and another remedy in another patient. There is no such thing in
homoeopathy as administering one of these remedies to all in
the family because of a diagnostic name. Now, while one of
the remedies in the epidemic group will most likely be indicated
in many cases, yet if none of these should fit the patient, the
physician must return to his original anamnesis to see which
one of the other remedies is suitable. Very rarely will a patient

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 39
demand a remedy not in the anamnesis. Every remedy has in
itself a certain state of peculiarities that identifies it as an individual remedy, and the patient has also a certain state of
peculiarities that identifies him as an individual patient, and
so the remedy is fitted to the patient. No remedy must be given
because it is in the list, for the list has only been made as a
means of facilitating the study of that epidemic. Things can
only be made easy by an immense amount of hard work, and
if you do the drudgery in the beginning of an epidemic, the
prescribing for your cases will be rapid, and you will find your
remedies abort cases of sickness, make malignant cases simple,
so simplify scarlet fever that classification would be impossible,
stop the course of typhoids in a week, and cure remittent
fevers in a day.

If the physician does not work this scheme out on paper

he must do it in the mind, but if he becomes very busy
and sees a large number of cases it will be too much to carry
in the mind. You will be astonished to find that if you put an
epidemic on paper you will forever be able to carry the knowledge of it in mind. I have done this, and have been surprised
to find that after a dozen references to it I did not need it any
more.
Now you may say, how is this in regard to typhoid fever ?
It is not a new disease^ it is an old form. The old practitioner
has unconsciously made an anamnesis of his typhoid cases, he
has unconsciously written it out in his mind and carries it
around. It is not difficult to work out the group of typhoid
remedies, and from this group he works. The same is true
with regard to measles; certain remedies correspond to the
nature of measles, t. e,, when studied by its symptoms and not
by name.
Of course, every now and then will come up a rare
and singular case, which will compel you to go outside of the
usual group. Never allow yourself to be so cramped that you
cannot go outside of the medicines that you have settled upon
as medicines, say, for measles. All your nondescript cases of

40 KENT'S LECTURES
course will get Pulsatilla, because it is so similar to the nature
of measles, but it does not do to be too limited or routine, but
be sure in administering a remedy that the indications are
clear. Every busy practitioner thinks of Ailanthus, Apis, Belladonna and Sulphur for malignant cases of scarlet fever, and
yet he has often to go outside of that group.
So the physician perceives in the disease what it is that
constitutes the curative indication.
This presents itself to his mind only when he is clearly
conversant with the nature of the sickness, as, for instance, with the nature of scarlet fever, of measles, of typhoid
fever, the zymosis, the blood changes, etc., so that when they
arrive he is not surprised ; when the typhoid state progresses
he expects the tympanitic abdomen, the diarrhoea, the con-

tinued fever, the rash, the delirium and unconsciousness. These

things stand out as the nature of typhoid. When, therefore,
he goes to the Materia Medica he at once calls up before his
mind this nature of typhoid, and so is able to pick out the
remedies that have such a nature. He sees in Phosphorus,
Rhus, Bryonia, Baptisia, Arsenicum, etc., low forms of fever,
corresponding to the t)rphoid condition. But when the patient
jumps away out of the ordinary group of remedies, then it is
that he has to go outside of the beaten track and find another
remedy that also corresponds to the nature of typhoid fever.
By these remarks I am endeavoring to hold up before you
what the physician regards as the curative indications of disease. First he sees the disease in general as to its nature, and
then when 'an individual has this disease this individual will
present in his own peculiarities the peculiar features of that
disease. The homoeopath is in the habit of studying the slightest shades of difference between patients, the little things that
point to the remedy. If we looked upon disease only as the oldschool physician sees it we would have no means of distinction, but it is because of the little peculiarities manifested by
every individual patient, through his inner life, through everything he thinks, that the homoeopath is enabled to individualize.

on: homceopathic philosophy 41

**If the physician clearly perceives what is curative in medicines, that is to say, in each individual medicine." Here again
he progresses from generals to particulars. He cannot become
acquainted clearly with the action of medicines individually
until he becomes acquainted with the action of medicines
collectively, proceeding from a collective study to a particular.
This is to be done by studying provings. Suppose we wer^ to
start out in this class and make a proving of some unknown
drug. It would not be expected that you would all bring out
the same symptoms, but the same general features would run
through this class of provers ; each individual would have his
own peculiarities. No. 1 might bring out the symptoms of the
mind more clearly than No. 2 ; No. 2 might bring out the symptoms of the bowels more clearly than No. 1 ; No. 3 might
bring out head symptoms very strongly, etc. Now if these
were collected together as if one man had proved the medicine,
we would then have an image of that medicine. If we had a
hundred provers we would go through the whole nature of

this remedy and perceive how it affected the human race, how
it acted as a unit.
What I have said before about studying the nature of
disease must be applied to the study of the nature of a remedy.
A remedy is in condition to be studied as a whole when it is on
paper, the mind symptoms under one head, the symptoms of
the scalp under another, and so on throughout the entire body
in accordance with Hahnemann's schema. We may go on add-^
ing to it, developing it, noting which of the symptoms or groups
of symptoms are the most prominent. A remedy is not fully
proved until it has permeated and made sick all regions of
the body. When it has done this it is ready for study and for
use. Many of our provings are only fragments and are given
in the books for what they are worth. Hahnemann followed
up in full all the remedies that he handed down to us ; in these
the symptoms have been brought out upon the entire man.
Each individual medicine must be studied in that way, as to
how it changes the human race.

42 . Kent's lectures
To understand the nature of the chronic miasms, psora,
syphilis and sycosis, the homoeopath must proceed in identically the same way as with the acute. Hahnemann has. put on
paper an image of psora. For eleven years he collected the
symptoms of those patients who were undoubtedly psoric and
arranged them in schematic form until the nature of this great
miasm became apparent. Following upon that he published the
antipsoric remedies which in their nature have a similarity to
psora. To be a really successful physician the homoeopath must
proceed along the same lines in regard to syphilis and sycosis.
Now, when the physician sees, as it were, in an image, the
nature of disease, when he is acquainted with every disease to
which we are subject, and when he sees the nature of the
remedies in common use, just as clearly as he perceives disease, then on listening to the symptoms of a sick man he knows
instantly the remedies that have produced upon healthy man
S)rmptoms similar to these. This is what paragraph 3 teaches ;
it looks towards making the homoeopathic physician so intelligent that when he goes to the bedside of a patient he can clearly
perceive the nature of disease and the nature of the remedy.
It is a matter of perception; he sees with his understanding.

When the physician understands the nature of disease and of

remedies, then it is that he will be skillful.

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 43

LECTURE IV
3. "Fixed principles." Law and government from centre.
We will take up today the study of the last part of the
third paragraph relating to the fixed principles by which the
physician must be guided. In time past, outside of the doc]trinal statements of Homoeopathy, medicine has ever been a
matter of experience, and medicine today, outside of Homoeopathy, is a **medicine of experience." Now, in order that the
mind may be open to receive the doctrines, it is necessary that
the exact and proper position of experience should be realized.
If the true conception of law and doctrine, order and government, prevailed in man's mind he would not be forever hatching out theories, as they would not be necessary, and moreover
he would be wise enough to know and see clearly what is
truth and what is folly.
Experience has a place in science, but only a confirmatory
place. It can only confirm that which has been discovered
through principle or law guiding in the proper direction. Experience leads to no discoveries, but when man is fully indoctrinated in principle that which he observes by experience may
confirm the things that are consistent with law. One who has
no doctrines, no truth, no law, who does not rely upon law for
everything, imagines he discovers by experience. Out of his
'experience he will undertake to invent, and his inventions run
in every conceivable direction; hence we may see in this century a medical convention of a thousand physicians who rely
entirely upon experience, at which one will arise and relate his
experience, and another will arise and tell his experience, and
the talkers of that convention continue to debate and no two
talkers agree. When they have finished, they compare their

44 Kent's lectures

experiences, and that which they settle upon they call science,
no matter how far they may be from the truth. Next year
they come back and they have different ideas and have had
different experiences, and they then vote out what they voted
in before. This is the medicine of experience. They confirm
nothing, but make from experience a series of inventions and
theories. This is the wrong direction. The science of medicine
must be built on a true foundation. To be sure, man must
observe, but there is a difference between tri/e observation
in a science under law and principle and the experience of a
nian who has no law and no principle. Old-fashioned medicine
denies principle and law, calls its system the medicine of experience, and hence its doctrines are kaleidoscopic, changing
every year and never appearing twice alike.
Let me again impress the necessity of knowing something
about the internal government of man in order to know
how disease develops and travels. If we observe any
government, the government of the universe, civil government,
the -government of commerce, physical government, we find
that there is one centre that rules and controls and is supreme.
A man has within him by endowment of the Divine a supreme
centre of government which is in the grey matter of the
cerebrum and in the highest portion of the grey matter. Everything in man, and everything that takes place in man, is presided over primarily by this centre, from centre to circumference. If man is injured from the external, e. g., if he has his
finger torn, it will soon be repaired ; the order which is in the
economy from centre to circumference will repair every wrong
that is on the surface caused by external violence. The order
of repair is the same in external as in internal violence. Injuries are external violence, but diseases are internal disorder
performing violence. All true diseases of the economy flow
from centre to circumference. All miasms are true diseases.
In the government of man there is a triad, a first, second
and third, which gives direction, viz. : the cerebrum, cerebellum
and spinal cord, or when taken more collectively or generally,

ON H0M(K0PATHIC PHILOSOPHY 45
the brain, spinal cord and the nerves. Considered more internally, we have the will and understanding forming a unit mak-

ing the interior man ; the vital force or vice-regent of the soul
(that is, the limbus or soul stuff, the formative substance)
which is immaterial ; and then the body which is material. Thus
from the innermost, the will or voluntary principle, through
the limbus or simple substance to the outermost, the actual or
material substance of man, which is in every cell, we have this
order of direction. Every cell in man has its representative of
the innermost, the middle and the outermost ; there is no cell
in man that does not have its will and understanding, its soul
stuff or limbus or simple substance, and its material substance.
Disease must flow in accordance with this or^der, because
there is no inward flow. Man is protected against things flowing in from the outward toward the centre. All disease flows
from the innermost to the outermost, and unless drug substances are prepared in a form to do this they can neither produce nor cure disease. There are miasms in the universe, acute
and chronic. The chronic, which have no tendency toward
recovery, are three, psora, syphilis and sycosis ; we shall study
these later. Outside of acute and chronic miasms there are
only the results of disease to be considered. The miasms are
contagious; they flow from the innermost to the outermost;
and while they exist in organs yet they are imperceptible, for
they cannot exist in man unless they exist in form subtle
enough to operate upon the innermost of man's physical nature.
The correspondence of this innermost cannot be discovered by
man's eye, by his fingers, or by any of his senses, neither can
any disease cause be found with the microscope. Disease can
only be perceived by its results, and it flows from within out,
from centre to circumference, from the seat of government to
the outermost. Hence cure must be from within out.
In our civil government we see a likeness to this. Let
any great disturbance come upon our government at Washington and see how, like lightning, this is felt to the circumference of the nation. How the whole country becomes

46 K^NT^S LECTURES
shaken and disturbed as if by disease if it is an evil government. If the government be good, we observe it in the form
of improvement, and everybody is benefited by it. If in the
great centres of commerce, London, Paris of New York, some
great crash or crisis takes place, how the very circumference

that depends upon these centres is shaken, as it were, by disease. Every little political office depends upon Washington,
and that order must be preserved most thoroughly. The sheriff
and constable, the judge and the courts, are little governments
dependent upon the law that is formed by the state. The law
of the state would be nothing if the centre of our g^overnment
at Washington w^e dethroned by another nation. All the
laws and principles in Pennsylvania depend upon- the permanency and orderliness of the government in Washington, and
there is a series from Washington to Harrisburg and from
Harrisburg to Philadelphia. There can be no broken link.
It is now seen what is to be understood by order and directions, and that there are directions ; nothing can flow in from
the outermost to affect the innermost. Disturb one of our
courts in Philadelphia and this does not disturb the country or
the constitutional government. If the finger is burnt this does
not to any great extent disturb the constitutional government
of the man, but the constitutional government repairs it. It is
not a disease, it does not rack the whole frame. It is only that
which shakes the whole economy, disturbs the government,
which is a disease. So man may have his hand cut off without
the system being disturbed, but let a little disease, measles for
example, flow in from the centre and his whole economy is
racked. Old-fashioned medicine talks of experience, but it is
entirely dependent on the eyes and fingers; appearances are
wonderfully deceptive. If you examine any acute miasm you
may know what it looks like, but the esse of it cannot be discovered by any of the senses.
We have seen that everything is governed from the centre.
Now what comes in the direction of law, what comes from
principle, comes from the centre, is flowing in accordance

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 47
with order and can be confirmed by experience. To apply it
more practically, what we learn from the use of the law of
homoeopathies, what we observe after learning that law and
the doctrines that relate to it all our subsequent experience,
confirms the principles. For example, every experience with
Bryonia makes Bryonia so much brighter in mind. With experience one grows stronger ; one does not change or alter
with every mood, but becomes firmly established. If everything tends to disturb the mind, that means that you are in a

state of folly or that you are insane ; it may be a little of both.

A man that jrelies on experience to guide him never knows;
his mind is constantly changing, never settled ; it has no validity. Validity is something absolutely essential to science. It is
necessary for homoeopaths to look upon law as valid and not
upon man, as there is no man valid. In Homoeopathy it is the
very principle itself that is valid, and things that are not in
accordance with principle should not be admitted.
We see from all this the necessity of potentization. All
causes are so refined in character, so subtle in their nature,
that they can operate from centre to circumference, operate
upon man's interiors and from the interior to the very exterior. The coarser things cannot permeate the skin. Man's
skin is an envelope, protecting him against contagion from
coarser materials; but against the immaterial substance he
is protected only when in perfect health. In an unguarded
moment he suffers, and this is the nature and quality of disease
cause. It can only flow into man from the centre and towards
the outermost in a way to disturb his government. The disturbance of government is a disturbance of order, and this is
all there is of sickness, and we have only to follow this out to
find that the very house man lives in, and his cells, are becoming deranged. Changes are the result of disorder and end in
breaking down, degeneration, etc.; pus cells and the various
forms of degeneration are only the result of disorder. So long
as order and harmony go on perfectly, so long the tissues are
in a state of health, the metamorphosis is healthy, the tissue
change is normal, the physiological state is maintained.

48 KENT^S LECTURES
We can only comprehend the nature of disease, and tissue
changes the result of disease, by going back to its beginning.
The study of etiology in the old school is a wonderful farce,
because it begins with nothing. It is an assumption that tissue
changes are the disease. From the doctrines of Homoeopathy
it will be seen that morbid anatomy, no matter where it occurs,
must be considered to be the result of disease.

All curable diseases make themselves known to the physician by signs and symptoms. When the disease does not make
itself known in signs and symptoms, and its progress is in the
interior, we at once perceive that that man is in a very precarious condition. Conditions of the body that are incurable are
such ver3i often as have no external signs or symptoms.
In the fourth paragraph Hahnemann says : "The physician
is likewise a preserver of health if he knows the things that
derange health and cause disease and how to remove them
from persons in health." If the physician believes that causes
are external, if he believe that the material changes iit the body
are the things that disturb health, are the fundamental cause
of sickness, he will undertake to remove these e, g,, he will
cut off hemorrhoids or remove the tumor. But these are not
the objects Hahnemann means. The objects he means are invisible and can only be known by signs and symptoms. Of
course, it is quite right for the physician to remove those things
that are external to the sick man and are troubling him. These
are not disease, but they are in a measure disturbing him and
making him sick, aggravating his chronic miasm so that it will
progress and destroy. These are outward obstacles and not
the disease, but in this way man is very often rendered more
susceptible to acute miasms. The things "which. keep up disease" relate more particularly to external things. There are
conditions in man's life which keep up or encourage man's
disorder. The disorder is from the interior, but many of the
disturbances that aggravate the disorders are external. The
cause of disorder is internal, and is of such a quality that it
affects the government from the interior, while the coarser

ON HOMCeOPATHiC PHILOSOPHY 49
things are such as can disturb more especially the body, such
as improperly selected food, living in damp houses, etc. It is
hardly worth while to dwell upon these things, because any
ordinary physician is sufficiently well versed in hygiene to
remove from his patients the external obstacles.
In the fifth paragraph Hahnemann says: "Useful to the
physician in assisting him to cure are the particulars of the
most probable exciting cause of the acute disease, etc." The
probable exciting cause is the inflowing of the cause as an
invisible, immaterial substance, which, having fastened upon

the interior, flows from the very centre to the outermost of

the economy, creating additional disorder. These miasms all
require a given time to operate before they can affect the
external man, and this time is called the prodromal stage.
This is true of psora, syphilis and sycosis and of every
acute contagious disease known to man. While the influx is
upon the innermost of the physical man it is not apparent,
but when it begins to operate upon his nerves and tissues,
affecting him in his outermost, then it becomes apparent. Each
miasm produces upon the human economy its own characteristics, just as every drug produces upon the human economy
its own characteristics. Hahnemann says that these must be
recognized, that the homoeopathic physician must b^ familiar
enough with disease cause, with disease manifestations and
drug manifestations to be able to remove them in accordance
with principles fixed and certain. There should be no hypoth-/
esis nor opinion, neither should simple experience have a
place.
If the physician is dealing with acute cases he must take
into consideration the nature of the case as a malady, and so
also with chronic cases. It is supposed that he is conversant
with the disease from having observed the symptoms of a
great many cases, and is therefore able to hold before the mind
the image of the disease. When he is thoroughly conversant
with the very image of the sicknesses that exist upon the
human race he is then prepared to study Materia Medica. All

so KENT'S LECTURES
the imitations of miasms are 'found in drugs. There is no
miasm of the human race that does not have its imitation in
drugs. The animal kingdom has in itself the image of sickness, and the vegetable and mineral kingdoms in like manner,
and if man were perfectly conversant with the substances of
these three kingdoms he could treat the whole human race.
By application the physician must fill his mind with images
that correspond to the sicknesses of the human race. It is being
conversant with symptomatology, with the symptom images
of disease, that makes one a physician. The books of the
present time are defective, in that they ignore symptomatology
and do not furnish us an image of the. sickness. They are ex-

tensively treatises on pathology, upon heredity, with very little

of the patient himself. If we go back to earlier times, when the
physician did not know so much about the microscope, when he
did not examine into the cause of disease so minutely, we will
find in such works as 'Watson's Practice'' much better descriptions of sickness. Watson stands at the bedside and relates
what his patients look like, and hence it is a grand old book
for the homoeopathic physician. Chambers, in his lectures at
St. Mary's Hospital, London, also relates with accuracy the
appearance of the patient. At the present time the old-school
physician says: "I want to know nothing about your symptoms ; take this and go to the first drug store and have it filled."
This is the state of things at the present time, a look at the
tongue, a feel of the pulse, and "take this," handing a prescription to be filled at the nearest pharmacy. Is that observing
the sick ? Can such a man be the guardian of the sick, when it
requires time to bring out every little detail of sickness, and
a nervous girl is driven off and never permitted to tell her
symptoms? Such patients have told me after an hour's conversation and taking of symptoms : **The other doctor told me
I had hysteria, that there was nothing the matter with me,
that I was just nervous." That is what modern pathology
leads men to think and say. Everything is denied that cannot
be discovered by the senses ; hence this false science has crept

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 51
upon US until it is a typical folly. As to the end of sickness,
what sickness will do is of no great matter, because by the
symptoms we have perceived the nature of the illness and may
safely trust to the remedy. If no remedy be applied to check
the progress of the disease it may localize in the heart, lungs
or kidneys, but the nature of the sickness exists in that state
of disordered government expressed by signs and symptoms.

52 KENT'S LECTURES

, LECTURE V
5. Discrimination as to maintaining external causes and surgical

cases.
We wish to revert for a short time to the fourth paragraph,
in which Hahnemann says: **The physician is likewise a
preserver of health if he knows the things that derange health
and cause disease, and how to remove them from persons in
health."
The homoeopathic physician is a failure if he does not discriminate. It seems that among the earliest things he must
learn is to "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,"
to keep everything in its place, to keep everything in order.
This little paragraph might seem to relate to nothing but
hygiene. One of the most superficial things in it is to say that
persons about to be made sick from bad habits should break
off their bad habits, they should move from damp houses, they
should plug their sewers or have traps put in if they are being
poisoned with sewer gas. It is everybody's duty to do these
things, but especially the physician's, and we might almost let
it go with the saying. To prevent coffee drinking, vinegar
drinking, etc., is a superficial thing, but in this way he may
preserve health.
To discriminate, then, is a most important thing. To
illustrate it in a general way we might say that one who
is suffering from conscience does not need a surgeon. You
might say he needs a priest. One who is sick in his vital force
needs a physician. He who has a lacerated wound, or a broken "
bone, or deformities, has need of a surgeon. If his tooth must
come out he must have a surgeon dentist. What would be
thought of a man who on being sent for a surgeon to set an

ON HOMCeOPATHiC PHILOSOPHY S3
injured man's bones should go for a carpenter to mend the*
roof of the man's house? If the man's house alone needs
mending then he needs a carpenter and not a surgeon. The
physician must discriminate between the man and his house,
and between the repair of man and the repair of his house. It
is folly to give medicine for a lacerated wound, to attempt to
close up a deep wound with a dose of a remedy. Injuries from
knives, hooks, etc., affect the house the man lives in and
must be attended to by the surgeon. When the gross exterior

conditions which are brought on from exterior causes are complicated with the interior man then medicine is required. If the
physician acts also as a surgeon he must know when he is to
perform his functions as a surgeon, and when he must keep
back as a surgeon. He should sew up a wound, but should
not burn out an ulcer with Nitrate of Silver. If he is not able
to discriminate, and on every ulcer he plasters his external
applications, he is not a preserver of health. When signs and
symptoms are present the physician is needed, because these
come from the interior to the exterior. But if his condition is
brought on only from external causes, the physician must
delay action and let the surgeon do his work. Yet we see
around us that physicians bombard the house the man lives in
and have no idea of treating the man. They are no more than
carpenters, they attempt to repair the roof, put on boards and
bandages, and yet by their bandaging the man from head to
foot they often do an improper thing.
The physician must know the things that derange health
and remove them. If a fang of an old tooth causes headache
day and night that cause must be removed. To prescribe when
a splinter is pressing on a nerve and leave the splinter in would
be foolishness and criminal negligence. The aim should be to
discriminate and remove external causes and turn into order
internal causes. A man comes for treatment, and he is living
on deviled crabs and lobster salad and other trash too rich for
the stomach of a dog. If we keep on giving Nux Vomica to
that man we are foolish. If a man who has been living viciously

54 KKNT^S LECTURES
stops it he can be helped, but so long as that external cause is
not removed the physician is not using discrimination. Vicious
habits, bad living, living in damp houses are externals and must
be removed. When a man avoids these externals, is cleanly,
carefully chooses his food, has a comfortable home, and is
still miserable, he must be treated from within.
You know how we are maligned and lied about. You have
heard it said about some strict homoeopath, "He tried to set a
broken leg with the cm. potency of Mercury. What a poor
fool !" But still outside of such an instance this discrimination
is an important matter. You must remember it especially when
busy, as at times it will be hard to decide. This kind of

diagnosis is important, because it settles between things external and internal. It is far superior to diagnosing the names of
diseases. Every physician does, not discriminate thiis, for if
he did there would not be so many poultices and murderous
external applications used. Among those who do not discriminate are those who apply medicines externally and give them
internally.
Now we return to the fifth paragraph, which reads :
Useful to the physician in assisting him to cure are the particulars
of the most probable exciting cause of the acute disease, as also the
most significant points in the whole history of the chronic disease to
enable him to discover its fundamental cause, which is generally due to
a chronic miasm. In these investigations the ascertainable physical
constitution of the patient (especially when the disease is chronic), his
moral and intellectual character, his occupation, mode of living and
habits, his social and domestic relations, his age, sexual functions, etc.,
are to be taken into consideration.
Little is known of the real exciting causes. Acute affections
are divided into two classes (1) those that are miasmatic,
which are true diseases, and (2) those that may be called
mimicking sickness. The latter have no definite cause, are
produced by external causes such as living in damp houses,
grief, bad clothing, etc., and these causes being removed the
patient recovers. But the first, the acute miasms, have a distinct course to run. They have a prodromal period, a period of

ON homosopathic philosophy 55
progress and a period of decline, if not so severe as to cause
the patient's death. Measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough,
smallpox, etc., are examples of acute miasms. The physician
must also be acquainted with the chronic miasms, psora,
syphilis and sycosis, which we will study later. These have,
like the acute, a prodromal period and a period of progress,
but unlike the acute they have no period of decline. When the
times and circumstances are favorable the chronic miasm
becomes quiescent, but adverse times rouse it into activity, and
each time it is aroused the condition is worse than it was at
the previous exacerbation. In this paragraph Hahnemann
teaches that the chronic miasms are the fundamental cause
of the acute miasms, which is to say, if there were no chronic

miasms there would be no acute. It is in the very nature of a

chronic miasm to predispose man to acute diseases, and the
acute diseases are as fuel added to an unquenchable fire. Acute
diseases then exist from specific causes co-operating with
susceptibility. We do not recognize measles or scarlet fever
except in sick people. Their influence might exist in the
atmosphere, but we cannot see it. So apart from the subjects
that take and develop them we could not know that there were
such diseases. If there were no children on the earth susceptible to measles we would have no measles, and if there were no
chronic miasms there would be no susceptibility. We will
take up the subject of susceptibility later.
Psora is the cause of all contagion. If man had not had
psora he would not have had the other two chronic miasms,
but psora, the oldest, became the basis of the others. The
physicians of the present day do not comprehend Hahnemann's
definition of psora, they think it meant an itch vesicle or some
sort of tetter. They regard itch as only the result of the action
of a bug that crawls in the skin making vesicles, all of which is
external. This is quite in keeping with man's present form of
investigation, because he can comprehend only that which he
discovers by his senses. Hahnemann's idea of psora, as we
shall see when we come to study it, is wholly different from

56 KENT'S LECTURES
these perverted views. Psora corresponds to that state of man
in which he has so disordered his economy to the very uttermost that he has become susceptible to every surrounding
influence. The other day I used the illustration of civil government, and said if our civil government is evil in its centre it will
be in disorder in its outermost. So if man is evil in his very
interiors, i. ^., in his will and understanding, and the result of
this evil flows into his life, he is in a state of disorder. Let man
exist for thousands of years thinking false theories and bringing them into his life, and his life will become one of disorder.
Later we will be able to show,that this disordered condition
of the economy is the underlying and fundamental state of the
nature of psora which ultimates upon the body in tissue
changes. Suppose a man starts out and believes that it is right
for him to live upon a certain kind of food that is very distasteful to him; he lives upon that diet until he thinks (from

his belief) that he really loves it, and in time his very outermost becomes as morbid as he is himself. When man is insane
in his interior it is only a question of time and his body will
take on the results of insanity because the interior of man
forms the exterior. If the interior is insane the exterior is
distorted, and is only suitable to the kind of insane or disordered life that dwells in it. False in the interior, false in the
exterior, so that the body becomes, as it were false. This is
speaking from analogy, but you will come to see that it is
actually true.
Each and every thing that appears before the eyes is but
the representative of its cause, and there is no cause except in
the interior. Cause does not flow from the outermost of man
to the interior, because man is protected against such a state
of affairs. Causes exist in such subtle form that they cannot
be seen by the eye. There is no disease that exists of which
the cause is known to man by the eye or by the microscope.
Causes are infinitely too fine to be observed by any instrument
of precision. They are so immaterial that they correspond to
and operate upon the interior nature of man, and they are

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 57
ultimated in the body in the form of tissue changes that are
recognized by the eye. Such tissue changes must be understood
as the results of disease only or the physician will never perceive what disease cause is, what disease is, what potentization is, or what the nature of life is. This is what Hahnemann
means when he speaks of the fundamental causes as existing
in chronic miasms.
Just as soon as man lives a disorderly life he is susceptible
to outside influences, and the more disorderly he lives the
more susceptible he becomes to the atmosphere he lives in.
When man thinks in a disorderly way he carries out his life
in a disorderly way, and makes himself sick by disorderly
habits of thinking and living. This deranged mental state
Hahnemann most certainly recognizes, for he tells us everywhere in his teaching to pay most attention to the mental state.
We must begin with such signs as represent to the mind the
beginning of sickness, and this beginning will be found in the
mental disorder as represented by signs and symptoms, and as
it flows on we have the coarser manifestations of disease. The
more that disease ultimates itself in the outward form the

coarser it is and the less it points the physician to the remedy.

The more mental it is the more signs there are to direct the
physician to the remedy.
"In these investigations the ascertainable physical constitution of the patient, etc., are to be taken into consideration."
This is the second state following the first one disordered. This
deals. with the outermost, it relates to externals. You have to
consider both the internal and external man ; that is, you have
to consider causes that operate in this disordered innermost,
and then the ultimates which constitute the outward appearance, particularly when the affection is chronic. These two
things must be considered, the nature or esse of the disease
and its appearance. At the present day diseases are named in
the books from their appearance and not from any idea as to
what the nature or esse of sickness is, hence the disease names
in our books are misleading, as they do not have reference to

58 KENT'S LEctuR:es
the sick man but to ultimates. If the disease has terminated in
the liver, numerous names are applied to the liver; if in the
kidney or heart, these organs have names applied to them, and
such terminations are called diseases. Consumption is a tubercular state of the lungs, which is but the result of an internal
disorder which was operating in the interior long before the
breakdown of tissue.
The physicians of these days will tell you that they go
l^ack to cause, but they present no cause; they only bring
up the superficial conditions that make the consumptive man
worse. They will also tell you that a bacillus is the cause of
tuberculosis. But if the man had not been susceptible to the
bacillus he could not have been affected by it. As a matter of
fact, the tubercles come first and the bacillus is secondary. It
has never been found prior to the tubercle, but it follows that,
and comes then as a scavenger. The cause of the tubercular
deposit rests with psora, the chronic miasm. Bacilli are not
the cause of disease, they never come until after the disease.
Allopaths are really taking the sequence for the consequence, thus 'leading to a false theory, the bacteria theory.
You may destroy the bacteria and yet not destroy the disease.
The susceptibility remains the same, and only those that are

susceptible will take the disease. Bacteria have a use, for there
is nothing in the whole world that does not have a use, and
there is nothing sent on the earth to destroy man. The bacteria
theory would make it appear that the all-wise Creator has sent
these micro-organisms here to make man sick. We see from
this paragraph that Hahnemann did not adopt any such theory
as bacteriology.
This subject will be taken up in these lectures and fully
illustrated, but I might throw out a few hints to set you thinking until we come to it again. We know that a dissecting
wound is very serious if the body dissected is recently dead,
and this we would suppose to be due to some bacteria of wonderful power capable of establishing such a dreadful erysipelatous poisoning that would go into man's blood and strike him

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 59
down with a sort of septicaemia. In truth, soon after death we
have a ptomaine poison, the dead body poison, which is alkaloidal in character, but we do not yet discover the presence of
bacteria. The poison is there, and if a man pricks himself
while dissecting that body and does not take care of the wound
he may have a serious illness and die. But if, after the cadaver
has remained some time and become infected with bacteria,
the dissector pricks himself the wound is not dangerous.
The more bacteria the less poison. A typhoid stool when it
first passes from the bowel has a very scanty allowance of
bacteria, and yet it is very poisonous. But let it remain until
it becomes black with bacteria and it is comparatively benign.
Why does the poison not increase with the bacteria ? You can
potentize, as I have done, a portion of a tuberculous mass alive
with tubercular baccilli, and after potentizing it, after being
triturated with sugar of milk and mashed to a pulp, it will
continue to manifest its symptoms in the most potent form.
You can precipitate the purulent tubercular fluid in alcohol,
precipitate the entire animal life and potentize the supernatant
fluid until you have reached the thirtieth potency, and having
potentized or attenuated it until no microbe can be found, yet,
if administered to healthy man, it will establish the nature of
the disease in the economy, which is prior to phthisis. Thus we
have the cause of phthisis, not in the bacteria, but in the virus,
which the bacteria are sent to destroy. Man lives longer with

the bacteria than he would without them. If we could succeed

today in putting a fluid into the economy that would destroy
the bacteria that consumptive would soon die.
The study of disease as to fundamental cause and apparent
cause is an important subject. We cannot study cause unless
we have first understood government associated with law.
Hence recall to your mind that the law directs and experience
confirms. Law is nothing but an orderly state of government
from centre to circumference, a government in which there is
a head. You show me a company that has no captain and you
show me a disorderly company. Order exists from the highest
to the lowest, from centre to circumference.

60 KENT'S LECTURES
Now I have led up to the point where you may ask, Is it not
disorder for man to settle what is true by the senses ? Let us as
homoeopaths turn our lives, our thinking abilities and our
scientific life into order that we may begin to turn the human
race into order. Let us adopt the plan of thinking of things
from their beginning and following them in a series to their
conclusions. No man is authority, but principle and law are
authority. If this cannot be seen there is no use of proceeding
any further with the study of Homoeopathy. If man cannot see
this he cannot see the necessity of harmony from centre to
circumference, of government which has one head, and hence
it would be useless for him to study the human body for the
purpose of applying medicine to it. It must be accepted in
this form or it will not satisfy man, it will not sustain his expectation, it will not do what he expects it to do ; it will only
accomplish what Allopathy has accomplished, viz., the establishment of confusion upon the economy.

ON HOMCKOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 61

LECTURE VI
6. The unprejudiced observer notes only change of state as shown
by symptoms.
Paragraph 6. The unprejudiced observer ^well aware of the
futility of transcendental speculations which can receive no confirmation from experience ^be his powers of penetration ever so great, takes
note of nothing in every individual disease, except the changes in the
health of the body and of the mind which can be perceived externally
by means of the senses; that is to say, he notices only the deviations
from the former healthy state of the now diseased individual, which
are felt by the patient himself, remarked by those around him and observed by the physician. All these perceptible signs represent the disease
in its whole extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivable portrait of the disease.
The teaching of this paragraph is that the S3miptoms represent to the intelligent physician all there is to be known of the
nature of a sickness, that these symptoms represent the state of
disorder, that sickness is only a change of state and that all the
physician has to do is to correct the disordered state. Hahnemann, it seems, would say that it is great folly for a man to
look into the organs themselves for the purpose of establishing
a theory to find out whether the stomach makes the man sick,
or whether the liver makes him sick, or whether the stomach
makes the liver sick and such like. We can only end in theory
as long as we think that way. So long as we set the mind to
thinking about man's organs and how these things are brought
about we are in confusion, but not so when we meditate upon
the symptoms of the sick man as fully representing the nature
of the disease after these have been carefully written out.
Hahnemann starts out in this paragraph by speaking of
'the unprejudiced observer." It would seem almost impossi-

62 KENT'S LECTURES
(
ble to find at the present time one who could be thus described.
All men are prejudiced. Man is fixed in his politics, fixed in
his religion, fixed in his ideas of medicine, and because of his

prejudice he cannot reason. You ireed only talk to him a

moment on these subjects and he will begin to tell you what he
thinks ; he will give his opinion, as if that had anything to do
with it. Men of the present day cannot recognize law, and
hence they are prejudiced; but when men have authority on
which they can rest, then they can get rid of their prejudices.
Suppose we have a large dictionary that we say is an authority
on the spelling of words. If a club of one hundred and fifty
men have bought that dictionary, and put it into a closet and
say, "That is how we agree to spell," that is a recognition by
these men that the book is authority. There would be henceforth no argument on the question of spelling. But if there
were no authority one man would spell one way and another
man in another way; there would be no standard of spelling.
Such is the state of medicine at the present day, there is no
standard authority. One book is authority in one school, and
in another school they have another book, and so there is confusion.
Men cannot get rid of their prejudices until they settle upon
and recognize authority. In Homoeopathy the law and its principles must be accepted as authority. When we know these it
is easy to accept them as authority, biit seeing they are not
known there is no authority and everybody is prejudiced. Men
often ask, **Doct6r, what are your theories as to Homoeopathy ?
what are your theories of medicine ?" I have no theories. It is
a thing that is settled from doctrine and principle, and I know
nothing of theory. A woman came into my office this morning and said, '*Doctor, I have always been treated by the old
school, but the doctors were unable to decide whether the
liver made my stomach sick or the stomach made the liver
sick." This is only confusion. No organ can make the body
sick ; man is prior to his organs ; parts of the body can be removed and yet man will exist. There is no such thing as one

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 63
organ making another sick. When we realize that the course of
things is from centre to circumference we must admit that the
stomach was caused to be in disorder from the centre, and that
the liver was caused to be in disorder from the centre, but not
that they made each other sick. One who has been taught such
ideas cannot rid himself of them for a long time. It is a matter
of years to get out of these whims and notions which we have

imbibed from our inheritance. We cannot rid ourselves of

confusion until we learn what confusion is.
In this paragraph Hahnemann does not speak of changes
of tissue or changes in the organs, but of change of state. Man
could see and feel tissue changes, but these do not represent
to the intelligent physician the nature of disease or disease
cause, they only indicate that because of the disorder within
certain results have followed. The unprejudiced observer can
see that pathology does not represent the nature of the disease,
because numerous so-called diseases can present the same
pathology and the same phenomena. The trouble is that there
are so few unprejudiced observers. To get rid of our prejudices is one of the first things we must do in the study of
Homoeopathy. Therefore let me beg of you, while sitting in
this room, to lay aside all that* you have heretofore imagined or
presumed, the whims and notions, and *'what I thought about
. it," the things that you have learned from men and books, and
only follow after law and principle, things that cannot deceive,
cannot vary.
Even law will deceive if man is of prejudiced mind,
because then he misreads the law and doctrine, and when things
are called black they look to him white ; every image is inverted
in his prejudiced mind, because he realizes only with his senses,
and sees with his eyes and feels with his fingers only the appearance of things ; just as we say that the sun rises, judging
from our eyes, although we know from our intelligence that
it does not rise. If we believe our senses only we will accept
all the notions of men. If the senses were invariable men
would agree, but they are variable and no two men will agree

64 KENT'S LECTURES
in everything, for just as men's observations differ so different
notions and theories will be established. We must try to get
rid of the prejudices that we have been born with and educated
into, so that we can examine the principles and doctrines of
Homoeopathy and seek to verify them. If you cannot put aside
your prejudices the principles will be folly to you. The unprejudiced observer is the only true scientist.
"He perceives in each individual affection nothing but
changes of state." The changes of state are such as are ob-

served by the patient when he says he is forgetful, that his

mind does not operate as it did, that he is often in a state of
confusion, that when he attempts to deliver a sentence a part
of it goes away from him, the idea passes away, or that he is
becoming irritable, whereas he was pleasant, that he is becoming sad, whereas he was cheerful before, that there are changes
in his affections, in his desires and aversions. These things
relate to states ; not to diseased tissues, but to a state of disorder or want of harmony. Dr. Fincke expresses it as **a
distunement."
After the patient has related ever3rthing he can about
his change of state, the physician may be aided by information from outsiders, from relatives who look upon the patient
with good will, who wish him well. If the husband be sick it is
w*ell to get the wife's testimony. After the physician has written
down all the information in accordance with the directions of
85 for the taking of the case he then commences to observe
as much as he can concerning the disorder, but more particularly those things which the patient would conceal, or cannot
relate, or does not know. Many patients do not know that they
are awkward, that they do peculiar and strange things in the
doctor's office ^things that they would not do in health, and
these are evidences of change of state.
The physician also notes what he sees, notes odors, the
soimds of organs, chest sounds, intensity of fever, by his hand
or by a thermometer, etc., and when he has gone over this
entire image, including everything that can represent the
disease, he has secured^all that is of real value to him.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 65
What if there are changes in tissue present? There
is nothing in the nature of diseased tissue to point to a remedy ;
it is only a result of disease. Suppose there is an abdominal
tumor, or a tumor of the mammary gland, there is nothing in
the fact that it is a tumor or in the aspect of the tumor that
would lead you to the nature of the change of state. The things
that you can see, i. e,, the changes in the tissues, are of the least
importance, but what you perceive in the patient himself, how
he moves and acts, his functions and sensations, are manifestations of what is going on in the internal economy. A state of
disorder represents its nature to man by signs and symptoms,

and these are things to be prescribed upon.

Take a case which as yet has no pathological changes, no
morbid anatomy, one that has only functional changes : the collection of signs and symptoms presents to the intelligent physician the nature of the state and he is clear as to the remedy.
But if the patient does not receive that remedy, what will
happen ? The case will go on for a while, perhaps for two or
three years, and when he returns to you on examination
you will find that he has cavities in his lungs or an abscess
in his liver, or albumin in the urine, etc. If it were the
last, according to the old-fashioned notions and theories,
you must now prescribe for Bright's disease; you would
not think that that remedy which you figured out two years
before fitted his case perfectly then and is what he must
have now. But he needed that remedy from his childhood,
and you were able to figure it out from the symptoms of
his change of state pure and simple, without tissue changes.
Do you suppose because the disease has now progressed
into tissue change, the organs are breaking down and the
man is going to die, that this has changed that primitive
state? The man needs the same course of treatment that
he has needed from his babyhood. The same idea of his disease must prevail now that prevailed before he had the tissue
changes. Bright's disease is not a disease, it is simply the ultimate or organic condition which has followed the progress of

66 KENT'S LECTURES
the original change of state. Under other circumstances that
change of state might have affected his liver or his lungs.
Tissue changes do not indicate the remedy, and so as physicians we must learn to examine symptoms which are prior to
morbid anatomy, to go back to the very beginning. Such a
patient as I have described must be looked upon as when he
was in the simple change of state before matters were complicated. Beside this, there is no manner of treatment for
Bright's disease or any other organic change. Our remedies
appeal to man before his state has changed into disease ultimates, and these remedies do not chiinge because morbid anatomy has come on, they apply as much after tissue changes as
before it. If we do not know what the beginnings are we cannot in an intelligent way treat the endings.

In a footnote Hahnemann says, "I know not therefore how

it was possible for physicians at the sick-bed to allow themselves to suppose that, without most carefully attending to the
symptoms and being guided by them in the treatment, they
ought to seek and could discover only in the hidden and
unknown interior what there was to be cured in the disease,
etc." The learned man in the old school today would say,
'Oh, I do not care anything about your symptoms. I do not
care if you are forgetful or irritable. If you do not sleep I will
give you something to make you sleep. But I must sound your
liver, for that is the cause of all your trouble, and I will prescribe for that." He supposes the liver is the cause of all the
trouble, and believes that when that is corrected he has cured
his patient. What a false idea ! His mind is upon mere theory.
It is common, when they do not know what has killed a man,
to make a post-mortem in order to discover the cause, and by
this they find out certain pathological conditions ; but the aim
of the physician is to discover in his next patient that just
these conditions are present.
It is true, on the other hand that the post mortem affords
the physician the means for a general study of the results of
disease, which I would not, under any circumstances, prevent.

ON HOMCHOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 67
Indeed, there are times when I would strongly encourage the
study of morbid anatomy. The physician cannot know too
much about the endings of disease; he should become thoroughly acquainted with the tissues in all conditions; but to
study these with the idea that he is going thereby to cure sick
folks, or that the things he picks up at such times are going to
be applied in making prescriptions, is a great folly. It is astonishing that physicians should expect to find out by post-mortem
and ex;aminations of organs what to do for sick folks.
Physical diagnosis is very important in its own place. By
means of physical diagnosis the physician may find out the
changes in organs, how far the disease has progressed, and
determine if the patient is incurable. It is necessary also in
supplying information to Boards of Health. It may also decide
whether you should give curative or palliative treatment. But
the study of pathology is a separate and distinct thing from the

study of Materia Medica.

In many instances foolish examinations are made. In the
colleges women are examined with the speculum before a
symptom is given, and if the mucous membrane is red the
patient gets Hamamelis, and so on in a routine way through
five or six remedies which cover all the complaints of women.
Half a dozen remedies constitute the armamentarium of many
of the eminent gynaecologists. Such a practice as that does
not cure, does not even benefit temporarily, it is simply an
outrage. But bad though it is, perhaps it is not so great an
outrage as is perpetuated when the physician imagines the
disease is local, and that when he has cauterized it the woman
is well, not realizing for one moment that these things come
from a cause and that curing that cause should be his aim.
Yet such is the teaching of the old school.
Now while the signs and symptoms are the only things that
can tell the physician what the patient needs, and while those
signs and symptoms relate to change of state and not to change
of tissue, still there are signs that relate to tissue changes, and
one who is acquainted with symptoms may consider these as

68 RENTES LECTURES
indicating a change of state. For example, there are signs that
indicate that pus is forming, there are appearances that will
lead the experienced physician to know that the results of disease are coming; these are not valuable things in hunting for
the remedy, but simply indicate certain conditions. The physician must learn to distinguish these from the symptoms that
portray the state of the patient.
We are now prepared to see that if the patient is cured
from cause to effect he must remain cured ; that is, if the true
inner disorder is turned into order he will remain cured, because this order, which is of the innermost, will cause to flow
into order that which is of the outermost and finally cause the
functions of the body to become orderly. The vital order will
cause tissue order, because the vital order extends into the
very outermost of the tissues, and tissue government and
order is a vital order ; so if the cure is from cause to effect, or
from within out, the patient will remain cured. In incurable
cases the effects may be removed temporarily or palliated, but

the patient himself has not been cured as to the cause, and
owing to the fact that the patient cannot be cured the old
changes will return and grow stronger because it is in the
nature of chronic cases to increase or progress.
Certain results of disease which remain after the patient is
cured can be removed if necessary, but it is not well to remove
them before the patient is cured. If a patient has a disease of
the foot bones after a bad injury and the^ foot cannot be cured,
first cure the patient, and then if the foot is so clumsy and
useless that he would rather have a wooden one remove the
foot. If you have to deal with a worthless honeycombed knee
joint, first cure the patient and then if the knee can never be
useful and the limb is cold and the muscles are flabby consider
the question of replacing it with an artificial one. If the economy after being turned into health cannot cure the knee nothing that can be done to the knee can cure it. When disease
locates upon the extremities cure the patient first. Do not say
that the patient is sick because he has white swelling, but that
the white swelling is there because the patient is sick.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 69

LECTURE VII
7* Footnote. Indispositions and the removal of their cause.
In a footnote to paragraph 7, Hahnemann writes :
It is not necessary to say that every intelligent physician would first
remove this exciting or maintaining cause (causa occasionalis), where
it exists; the indisposition thereupon generally ceases spontaneously.
You have, I believe, been led to conclude that there are
apparent diseases, which are not diseases, but disturbed states
that may be called indispositions. A psoric individual has his
periods of indisposition from external causes, but these external causes do not inflict psora upon him. Such a patient may
disorder his stomach from abusing it and thus create an indisposition. Indispositions from external causes mimic the
miasms, i. e,, their group of symptoms is an imitation of a
miasmatic manifestation, but the removal of the external cause

is likely to restore the patient to health. Business failures,

depressing tribulations, unrequited affection producing suffering in young girls, are apparent causes of disease, but in
reality they are only exciting causes of indispositions. The active cause is within and the apparent cause of sickness is without. If man had no psora, no deep miasmatic influence within
his economy, he would be able to throw off all these business
cares, he would not become insane from business depression,
and the young girl would not suffer so from love affairs. There
would be an orderly state. The physician then must discriminate between the causes that are apparent or external, the
grosser things, from the true causes of disease, which are from
centre to circumference. In every insitance where Hahnemann
speaks of true sickness, he speaks of it as a miasmatic disease,
but here he employs another word, **Then the indisposition

70 KENT'S LECTURES
usually yields of itself," or if the psoric condition has been
somewhat disturbed order can be restored by a few doses of
the homoeopathic remedy. To illustrate, if a man has disordered
his stomach it will right itself on his ceasing to abuse it ; but, if
the trouble seems somewhat prolonged, a dose of medicine,
like Nux vomica or whatever remedy is indicated, will help
the stomach to right itself, and so long as he lives in an orderly
way he will cease to feel this indisposition.
**The physician will remove from the room strong smelling
flowers which have a tendency to cause syncope and hysterical
sufferings." There are some nervous girls who are so sensitive
to flowers that they will faint from the odor. There are other
individuals who are so psoric in their nature that they cannot
live in the ordinary atmosphere; some must be sent to the
mountains, some to warm lands, some to cold lands. This is
removing the occasioning cause, the apparent aggravating cause
of suffering. A consumptive in the advanced stages, one who
is steadily running down in Philadelphia, must be sent to a
climate where he can be made comfortable. The external or
apparent cause, the disturbing cause in his sick state, is thus
removed but the cause of his sickness is prior to this. The
physician does not send the patient away for the purpose of
curing him, but for the purpose of making him comfortable.
*'He will extract from the cornea the foreign body that excites
inflammation of the eye, loosen the over-tight bandage on a

wounded limb that threatens to cause mortification, lay bare

and put a ligature on the wounded artery that produces fainting, endeavor to promote the expulsion by vomiting of bella- r
donna berries, etc., that may have been swallowed." Now,
without giving the circumstances and surroundings in which
Hahnemann stated these things, it has been asserted in the
public prints that Hahnemann advised emetics. A class of socalled physicians have taken this note of Hahnemann's for a
cloak as a means of covering up their scientific rascality, their
use of external applications. They tell us Hahnemann said so,
but we see it becomes a lie.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 71.

Here is another note: '*In all times, the old school physicians, not knowing how else to give relief, have sought to
combat and if possible to suppress by medicines, here and there,
a single symptom from among a number in diseases." This
course of singling out a group of symptoms, and treating that
group alone as the disease is incorrect, because it has no due
relation to the entirety of the man. A group of symptoms may
arise through the uterus and vagina, and one who is of this
understanding has a plan for removing only the group of symptoms that belong to his specialty, whereby he thinks he has
eradicated the trouble. Hahnemann condemns this doctrine,
and we see at once its great folly. In many instances there
are, at the same time, manifestations of "heart disease," "liver
disease," etc. (that is, speaking in their terms; these are not
diseases at all, as we know), so that every specialist might be
consulted, and each one would direct the assault at his own
particular region, and so the patient goes the rounds of all the
specialists and the poor man dies. An old allopathic physician
once made the remark about a case of pneumonia that he was
treating, that he had broken up the pneumonia. "Yes," said another physician, "the pneumonia is cured, but the patient is
going to die." That is the way when one of these groups of
S)rmptoms is removed ; constipation may be removed by physic ;
liver symptoms may sometimes be removed temporarily by a
big dose of calomel ; ulcers can be so stimulated that they will
heal up; but the patient is not cured. Hahnemann says it fe
strange that the physician cannot see that the removal of these
symptoms is not followed by cure, that the patient is worse off
for it.

Some patients are not sufficiently ill to see immediately

the bad consequences of the closure of a fistulous opening but
if a patient is threatened with phthisis, or is a weakly patient,
the closure of that fistulous opening of the anus will throw him
into a flame of excitement and will cause his death in a year or
two. The more rugged ones will live a number of years before
they break down, and they are held up as evidences of cure.

72 Kent's lectures
Such treatment is not based upon principles, and close observation will convince a thoughtful man of its uselessness and danger. The fistulous opening came there because it was of use,
and probably if it had been permitted to exist would have remained as a vent until the patient was cured. When the patient
is cured the fistulous opening ceases to be of u^e, the necessity
for it to remain open has ceased, and it heals up of itself.
The Organon condemns on principle the removal of external manifestations of disease by any external means whatever.
A psoric case is one in which there is no external or traumatic
cause. The patient perhaps has the habit of living as nearly
an orderly life as it is possible for anyone to assume at the
present day, going the regular rounds of service, using coffee
and tea not at all or only in small quantity, careful in diet,
removing all external things which are the causes of indispositions, and yet this patient remains sick. The signs and
symptoms that are manifested are the true impress of nature,
they constitute the outwardly reflected image of the inward
nature of the sickness. **Now as in a disease from which no
manifest exciting or maintaining cause has to be removed we
can perceive nothing but the morbid symptoms, it must be the
symptoms alone by which the disease demands and points to
the remedy suited to relieve it."
Hahnemann's teaching is that there is a use in this symptom
image, and that every curable disease presents itself to the
intelligent physician in the signs and symptoms that he can
perceive. In viewing a long array of symptoms an image is
presented to the mind of an internal disorder, and this is all
that the intelligent physician can rely upon for the purpose of
cure.
This divides Homoeopathy into two parts, the science

of Homoeopathy and the art of Homoeopathy. The science

treats of the knowledges relating to the doctrines of cure, the
knowledge of principle or order, which you may say is physiology; the knowledge of disorder in the human economy,
which is pathology (that is^ the science of disease, not morbid

/
ON HOMCeOP'ATHIC PHILOSOPHY 73
anatomy), and thfe knowledge of cure. The science of Homoeopathy is first to be learned to prepare one for the application
of that science, which is the art of Homoeopathy. If we cast our
eyes over those who have been taught, self-taught or otherwise,
we see that some can learn the science, become quite famous
and pass excellent examinations, and are utterly unable to
apply the science, or, in other words, to practice the art of healing, for all healing consists in making application of the science.
We study disease as a disorder of the human economy in the
symptoms of the disease itself. We also^tudy disease from the
symptoms of medicines that have caused disorder in the economy. Indeed, we can study the nature and quality of disease
as much by studying the Materia Medica as by studying symptoms of disease, and when we cannot fill our time in studying
symptoms from sick folks it is Well to use the time in studying
the symptomatology of the Materia Medica. True knowledge
consists in becoming acquainted with and understanding the
nature and quality of a remedy, its appearance, its image and
its relation to man in his sickness ; then by studying the nature
of sickness in the human family to compare that sickness with
symptoms of the Materia Medica. By this means we become
acquainted with the law of cure and all that it leads to, and
formulate doctrines by which the law may be applied and made
use of, by arranging the truth in form to be perceived by the
human mind.
This is but the science, and we may, notwithstanding,
fail to heal the sick. You will observe some, who know the
science, go out and make improper application of th^ remedies,
and seem to have no ability to perceive in a remedy that which
is similar to a disease. I believe if they had a candid love for
the work they would overcome this, but they think more of
their pocketbooks. The physician who is the most successful

is he who will first heal for the love of healing, who will practice first for the purpose of verifying his knowledge and performing his use for the love of it. I have never known such a
one to fail, This love stimulates him to proceed and not to be

74 , KENT'S LECTURES
discouraged with his first failures, and leads him to success, in
simple things first and then in greater things. If he did not have
an unusual affection for it he would not succeed in it. An artist
once was asked how it was that he mixed his paints so wonderfully, and he replied, "With brains, sir." So one may have
all the knowledge of Homoeopathy that is possible for a human
being to have, and yet be a failure in applying that art in its
beauty and loveliness. If he have no affection for it, it will be
seen to be a mere matter of memory and superficial intelligence.
As he learns to love it, and dwell upon it as the very life of
him, then he understands it as an art and can apply it in the
highest degree. The continuous application of it will lead any
physician of ordinary intelligence so far into the perception of
his work that he will be able to perceive by the symptoms the
whole state of the economy, and when reading provings to
perceive the very nature of the sickness expressed in the provings. This degree of perception will enable him to see the
''outwardly reflected image." You will not have to observe
long, or be among physicians long, before you will find that
many of them have a most external memory of the Materia
Medica, that they have no idea of the nature of medicines they
use, no perception of the quality or image of a remedy. It does
not come up before their mind as an artist's picture ; it is cold,
it is far away. An artist works on a picture so that he sees it
day and night, he figures it out from his very affections, he
figures out every line that he is going to put in the next day, he
stands before it and he is delighted in it and loves it. So it is
with the image of a remedy. That image comes out before
the mind so that it is the outwardly reflected image of the
inner nature, as if one man had proved it. If the symptoms
do not take form the physician does not know his patient and
does not know his remedy. This is not a thing that can open
out to the mind instantly. You are, as it were, coming out of a
world where the education consists in memorizing symptoms
or memorizing key-notes or learning prescriptions, with really
nothing in the mind, and the memory is only charged with a

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 75
mass of information that has no application, and is only confusion leading man to worse confusion. There is no order in
it. Hahnemann says : **In a word, the totality of the sypiptoms
must be the principal, indeed the only, thing the physician has
to take note of in every case of disease, and to remove by means
of his art, in order that it shall be cured and transformed into
health.*' That is the turning of internal disorder into order
manifested in the way we have heretofore explained, viz.,
from above downward, from within out and in the reverse
order of the coming of the symptoms.

76 KENT'S LECTURES

LECTURE VIII
9. Simple substance.
On Simple Substance.
9. In the healthy condition of man, the spiritual vital force, the
dynamis that animates the material body, rules with unbounded sway,
and retains alPthe parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious,
vital operation, as regards both sensations and functions, so that our
indwelling, reason-gifted mind can freely employ this living healthy
instrument for the higher purposes of our existence.
This paragraph introduces the vital principle. It would
hardly seem possible that Hahnemann, in the time he lived,
could say so much in a few lines. In the seventh section of
the first edition of the Organon, Hahnemann wrote: "There
must exist in the medicine a healing principle ; the understanding has a presentiment of it," but after the Organon had gone
through a number of editions Hahnemann had somewhat
changed, and in this work, which is the 1833 edition, he distinctly calls a unit of action in the whole organism the vital
force. You may get the idea from some of his expressions
that the harmony itself is a force, but I do not think that
Hahnemann intends to teach that way. We cannot consider

the vital principle as harmony, nor harmony as principle ; principle is something that is prior to harmony. Harmony is the
result of principle or law.
Hahnemann could perceive this immaterial vital principle.
It was something he arrived at himself, from his own process
of thinking. There was a paucity of individual ideas at that
time, i. e., ideas outside of the accepted sciences, but Hahnemann thought much, and by thinking he arrived at the idea
contained in this paragraph, which only appears in the last

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 77
edition, "In the healthy condition of man the immaterial vital
principle animates the material body." If he had used the
words "immaterial vital substance," it would have been
even stronger, for you will see it to be true that is is a substance.
At the present day advanced thinkers are speaking of the
fourth state of matter which is immaterial substance. We now
say the solids, liquids and gases and the radiant form of matter.
Substance in simple form is just as positively substance as
matter in concrete form. The question then comes up for
consideration and study : What is the vital force ? What is its
character, quality or esse? Is it true that man only has this
vital force? Is it possessed by no animal, no mineral? For a
number of years there has been a continuous discussion of
force as force, conceiving nothing prior to it, accepting force
as an energy, or power to construct. The thought that force
has nothing prior to it leads man's mind into insanity. If man
can think of energy as something substantial he can better
think of something substantial as having energy. When he
thinks of something that has essence, has actual being, he
must think of that esse as something existing and as having
something prior to it as cause, and as a something which
has ultimates. He must think in a series whereby cause enters
into effect and furthermore into a series of effects. If he do
not do this he destroys the very nature and idea of influx and
continuance. If man does not know what is continuous, if he
does not realize that there are beginnings, intermediates and
ends, he cannot think, for the very foundation of thought is
destroyed.

What do we mean by influx? As a broad and substantial illustration let us think of a chain. What is it that
holds the last link of a chain to its investment or first attachment? At once we will say the intermediate link. What is
it that connects that link ? Its previous link, and so on to
the first link and first attachment. Do we not thus see that
there is one continuous dependence from the last to the first

78 KENT'S LECTURES
hook? Wherever that chain is separated it is as much
separated as possible, and there is no longer influx from one
link to the other. In the same way as soon as we commence to
think of things disconnectedly we lose the power of communication between them. All things must be united, or the series
is broken and influx ceases.
Again, we see that man exists as to his body, but as yet
we do not see all the finer purposes of his being.
To believe that man exists without a cause, to believe
that his life force goes on for a while and does not exist from
something prior to it, to think that there is not constantly and
continuously that influx from cause whereby he continues to
live, demonstrates that the man who does so is an irrational
being. From his senses man has never been able to prove that
an)rthing can exist except it has continually flowing into it that
which holds it in continuance. Then why should he, when he
goes into the immaterial world, assume that energy is the first ?
We shall find by a continued examination of the question of
simple substance that we have some reason for saying that
energy is not energy per se, but that it is a powerful substance,
and is endowed from intelligence that is of itself a substance.
The materialist to be consistent with his principles is obliged
to deny the soul, and to deny a substantial God, because the
energy which he dwells upon so much* is nothing, and he must
assume that God is nothing, and therefore there is none. But
the one who is rational will be led to see that there is a
supreme God, that He is substantial, that He is a substance,
the first of all substance, from whom proceeds all substance.
Everything proceeds from Him and the whole series from the
supreme to the most ultimate matter in this way is connected.
Just as surely as there is a separation, and not a continuous

influx from first to last, ultimates will cease to exist. '

The true holding together of the material world is performed by the simple substance. There are two worlds that
come apparently to the mind of man, the world of thought and
the world of matter ; that is, the world of immaterial substance

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 79
and the world of material substance. The world of material
substance is in order and harmony. Everything that appears
before the eye has beginnings. The forms are harmonious;
every crystal of a metal crystallizes in accordance with order ;
man's very anatomy forms harmoniously. We see nothing
in the material world to account for this, but we perceive that
all things are held in position because of the continuous influx
from first to last. There is no break in the chain and no break
in the flow of power from first to last. Nothing can exist unless
its cause be inflowing into it continuously. We see that all
things made by man's hand decay and fall to pieces in time,
but look at the things perpetuated from influx, look at their
order and harmony from time to eternity, working by the same
plan and in the same order.
j There are many qualities predicated of simple substance,
and one of the first propositions we have to consider is that
simple substance is endowed with formative intelligence, i, e,,
it intelligently operates and forms the economy of the whole
animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. Everything with
form goes on its natural course and assumes and continues
its own primitive state. The law6 of chemistry by analysis
may be so revealed to man that he can detect all elements because they conduct themselves uniformly. The simple substance gives to everything its own type of life, gives it distinction, gives it identity whereby it differs;^, from all other
things. The crystal of the earth has its owti association, its
own identity ;t it is endowed with a simple substance that will
establish its identity from everjrthing in the animal kingdom,
everjrthing in the mineral kingdom. This is due to the formative intelligence of simple substance, which is continuous
from its beginning to its end. If 'Nye^ examine the frost work
lipon the window we see its tendency to manifest formative intelligence. Plants grow in fixed forms. So it is with
man from his beginning to his end; there is continuous in-

flux into man from his cause. Hence man and all forms
are subject to the laws of influx. If man is in the highest

80 KEI^T'S LECTURES
order and is rational, he wills to keep himself in continuous
order, that his thoughts may continue rational; but he is so
placed in freedom that he can also destroy his rationality.
This substance is subject to changes; in other words, it may
be flowing in order or disorder, may be sick or normal; and
the changes to a great extent may be observed or even created
by man himself. Man may cause it to flow in disorder.
Any simple substance may pervade the entire material substance without disturbing or replacing it. Magnetism may occupy a substance and not displace any of it nor cause derangement of its. particles or crystals. Cohesion is a simple substance ; it is not the purpose of cohesion to disturb or displace
the substance that it occupies. Therefore this first substance,
or primitive substance, exists as such in all distinct forms or
growths of concrete forms, and the material, concrete, individual entity is not disturbed or displaced by the simple substance; the simple substance is capable of occupying the
material substance without accident to that substance or to
itself.
When the simple substance is an active substance it dominates and controls the body it occupies. It is the cause of force.
The body does not move, think nor act unless it has its interior
degrees of immaterial substance, which acts upon the economy
continuously in the most beautiful manner, but as soon as the
body is separated from its characterizing simple substance
there is a cessation of influx. The energy derived from the
simple substance keeps all things in order. By it are kept in
order all functions, and the perpetuation of the forms and proportions of every animal, plant and mineral. All operation that
is possible is due to the simple substance, and by it the very
universe itself is kept in order. It not only operates every
material substance, but it is the cause of cooperation of all
things.
Examine the universe and behold the stars, the sun and
the moon; they do not interfere with each other, they are

kept in continuous order. Everything is in harmony and

ON HOM(EOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 81
is kept so by the simple substance. We see cooperation in
every degree, and this cooperation workirig in perfect harmony; we see human beings moving about; we see things
going on about us on the earth; we see the trees of the
forest making room for each other, existing in perfect harmony; the very sounds of the forest have harmony; and
all this coordination is brought about by the simple substance.
There is nothing more wonderful than the coordination of
man's economy, his will and his understanding and his movements, which coordination is carried on by the life substance.
Without this all matter is dead and cannot be used for the
higher purposes of its existence. By the aid of simple substance the Divine Creator is able to use all created beings and
forms for their highest purposes.
Matter is subject to reduction, and it can be continuously
reduced until it is in the form of simple substance, but it is not
subject to restitution. No substance can be returned to its ultimate form after it has been reduced to its primitive form. It is
not in the power of man to change from first to last ; that is, it
is not in his power to ultimate the simple substance. This is
retained for the Supreme Power Himself, from whom' power
continually flows through all the primitive substance to the
end ; i. e,, to ultimates. Now do you begin to see that the thing
that does not start from its beginning with a purpose is not a
thing, or, to put it another way, what makes anything a thing
is because of its purpose or ultimate which is use, and there is
never created a thing without purpose. If it does not exist
in continuous series from first to last it cannot be of use or of
purpose; hence the end is in the first, and the end is in every
succeeding link to its ultimate, the very form in which the use
is to be appropriated and established. When you establish th\^
first link in the chain you have the end of the next link in view.
The simple substances may exist as simple, compound or
complex, and as such never disturb harmony, but always continue from first to last, and in that way all purposes are conserved. Throughout chemistry we can observe this compound-

82 rent's lectures
ing. We find Iodine uniting with its base; i. e., two simple
substances compounding in keeping, with their own individual
plan, reliably and intelligently in accordance with the affinities
for each other. AVhen substances come together in that way
they do not disturb the simple substance of each other, there is
nothing destroyed, each one retains its own identity, and they
can be reduced again to their simples by reaction and reagents.
Now all of these enter into the human body and every element
in the htunan body preserves its identity throughout and
wherever found can be identified. Such combination, however,
merely represents a composite state. But when these cbmposite
substances and simple substances are brought into an additional
condition ; i. e,, when they are presided over and dominated by
something, they may be said to enter into a very complex form,
and in the body a life force keeps every other force in order.
Dynamic simple substances often dominate each other in proportion to their purpose, one having a higher purpose than
another. This vital force, which is a simple substance, is again
dominated by another simple substance still higher, which is
the soul. It has been the aim of a great many philosophers by
study to arrive at some conclusion concerning the soul. iTiey
have attempted to locate it at some particular point, but we can
iee from the above that it is not in a circumscribed location.
In considering simple substance we cannot think of time,
place or space, because we are not in the realm of mathematics
nor the restricted measurements of the world of space and
time, we are in the realm of simple substance. It is only finite
to think of place and time. Quantity cannot be predicated of
simple substance, only quality in degrees of fineness. We will
see the importance of this in its special relation to Homoebpathy, by using an illustration. Whetf you have administered
Sulphur 5Sm. in infrequent doses and find it will liot work any
longer you give the cm, potency and see the curative action
taken tip at once. Do we not see by this that we ha^ve entered a
new series of degrees and are dealing entirely with quality ?
The simple substance also has adaptation. At this point

ON HOMCEQPATHIC PHILOSOPHY ^3

man's reasoning comes up, leading to false conclusions from

appearances, so that he has accepted what is called the environment theory. That the individual has an adaptation to his
environment is not questioned, but what is it that adapts itself
to enviroiiment ? The dead body cannot. When we reason
from within out we see that the simple substance adapts itself
to its surroundings, and tends to adapt its house to the surroundings, and thus the human body is kept in a state of order,
in the cold or in the heat, in the wet and damp, and under all
circumstances. The surroundings themselves produce nothing,
are not causes, they are only circumstances.
The life substance within the body is the vice-gerent of the
soul, and the soul in turn is also a simple substance. ^11 that
there is of the soul operates and exists within every part of the
human body, and thus it is that simple substance acts as a
vital force. The soul adapts the human body to all its purposes,
the higher purposes of its being. The simple substance when
it exists in the living human body keeps that body animated,
keeps it moving, perfects its uses, superintends all parts and at
the same time keeps the operation of mind and will in order.
Let any disturbance occur in the vital substance and we see
how suddenly incoordination will come. There is harmonious
cooperation when the vital substance is continued in its normal
quality; that is, in health. What is more perfect than the
human body in health, and what evidence have we of any
greater wreck than the human body when it is not in health?
We see also that this vital substance when in a natural
state, when in contact with the human body, is constructive;
it keeps the body continuously constructed and reconstructed.
But when the opposite is true, when the vital force from any
cause withdraws from the body, we see that the forces that
are in the body being turned loose are destructive. When
these forces are not dominated and controlled by the vital
force the body tends to decay at .once. So we see that the
vital force is constructive or formative, and in its absence
there is death and destruction. If we examine the very sim-

84 KENT'S LECTURES
plest form of living organism, the plasson body, we will observe that it has the essentials of life, has ever)rthing in it that
the very highest order of life has ; it has the properties and

qualities of the life substance of man and animals; it reproduces itself, it moves, it feeds, it is endowed with influx, and,
lastly, it can be killed. Now, when you have said these things,
you have predicated much of the vital substance, of the highest
and of the lowest. Its asserts its identity ; it moves and feeds ;
it propagates and can be killed. It does not sustain its identity
by chemical analysis, because when it is chemically analyzed
it is no longer protoplasm. Protoplasm is only protoplasm
when it is living. Chemically, all there is to be found of
protoplasm is C. O. H. N. and S., but the life sub
but the life substance cannot
be found. You put together 54 parts of C, 21 of O., 16 of N.,
7 of H., and 2 of S., and what do you suppose you will have?
Sitnply a composite something, but not that complexity which
we identify as protoplasm. In analyzing the protoplasm, what
has become of the life force ? There is no difference in weight
after death ; the simple substance cannot be weighed. Neither
weight, time nor space can be predicated of the simple substance ; and it is not subject to the physical laws, such as gravitation.
Now, when we consider this substance as an energy, a
force, or dynamis, ^that is, something possessing power, ^the
subject is intelligible. Inert elements have in their nature not
only their own identifying simple substance, but they have
degrees of this identifying simple substance. The human body
also has its degrees of life substance, existing in degrees suitable for all its uses. The innermost degrees of the life substance are suitable to the will and understanding, the outermost
degrees to the very coarsest tissue, and there is one continuous
series of quality, in degrees from the innermost to the outermost. Every cell has within it the innermost and the outermost,
because there is nothing in that which is coarsest but has that
which is finest, too. The outermost envelopes are dominated
by the coarser degrees of simple substance, and the innermost

ON HOM(EOPATHlC PHILOSOPHY 85
qualities are dominated by the innermost degrees. Each portion has an appropriate form, and from the outermost to the
innermost it has all. Otherwise the human body could not be
dominated or ruled by the soul. Each tissue has within it its
portion of the vital substance, each having its own peculiar

kind of function. Inert substances have their own degrees.

Silica has its degrees of simple substance within it, which can
be brought out by the process of potentization, whereby it may
be continuously simplified, rendered finer and finer, so that
each portion which remains may, by continued potentization,
be adapted to the higher degrees of the simple substance of
man. The thirtieth potency of Silica will be sufficiently similar
in form to reach in a curative way some of the diseases of man,
viz. : such as are dominating his economy in a correspondingly
superficial and coarse series of the body. But it is true that
Silica ceases after a time to act in the thirtieth potency, and
it has to be further potentized in order that it may be similar
in quality to the inner degrees, even until it reaches the very
innermost or finest degrees of the simple substance.
Everything in the universe has its aura or atmosphere.
Every star and planet has an atmosphere. The sun's atmosphere is its light and heat. Every human being has his atmosphere or aura ; every animal has its atmosphere or aura. This
aura is present in all entities. What may be said to be the aura
of musk? That is a strong physical aura which almost everyone can perceive. A grain of musk has been kept, for experiment's sake, in a bottle for seventeen years, giving off a perceptible aura yet without loss of weight. As a further evidence
of aura, take, for instance, the animals which prey upon their
food and you know that they can discover by an extremely intense aura states that man cannot discover. This* is not an
ordinary nose, but it is really the very instinct of the animal,
whereby he perceives what is prey. His instinct is analogous
to man's perception, and by this instinct he discovers his prey,
when man would not be able to discover it. Man can discover
musk in a bottle, but it is doubtful if man could discover the

86 KENT'S LECTURES
finest aura by its odor. This aura becomes useful and introduces a prominent sphere in the study of homoeopathies.
The consciousness between two simple substances is really
that atmosphere by which on^ knows the other, and by which
all affinities and repulsions between simple substances arc
known. They are in harmony or in antagonism. Human beings
are thus classified by positives and negatives. Minerals and the
world generally are classified by positives and negatives. This

has an underlying cause. Substances are extremely powerful

when meeting other substances that are antagonistic in any
way, and also when meeting substances in a destructive way.
The formative processes are often brought about by destruction ; forms are destroyed in order that new forms may exist,
and new forms therefore are often created from simple substance.
There are two realms or worlds, the realm or world of
cause and the realm or world of ultimates. In this outermost
or physical world we can see only with the eye, touch with
the finger, smell With the nose, hear with the ear ; such is the
realm of results. The world of cause is invisible, is not discoverable by the five senses; it is the world of thought and
discoverable only by the understanding. That which we see
about us is only the world of ends, but the world of cause is
invisible. It is possible that we may perceive the innermost,
and it is important also that man may know and look from
within upon all things in the physical world, instead of starting
in the physical world and attempting to look upon things iii
the immaterial world. He will then account for law and perceive the operation of law. Homoeopathy exists as law; its
causes are in the realm of causes. If it did not exist in the
world of causes it could not exist in the world of ultimates. It
is in the realm of cause that we must look for the primaries
in the study of Homoeopathy.
Of course it will be seen that the whole of this subject looks
toward the establishment of a new system' of pathology, which
will be the ground work of Homoeopathy. All disease causes

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 87
are in simple substance; there is no disease cause in concrete
substance considered apart from simple substance. We therefore study simple substance, in order that we may arrive at
the nature of sick-making substances. We also potentize our
medicines in order to arrive at their simple substance ; that is,
at the nature and quality of the remedy itself. The remedy to
be homoeopathic must be similar in quality and similar in action
to disease cause.

88 KENT'S LECTURES

LECTURE IX
10 and 11. Disorder first in vital force.
Organon 10. The material organism, without the vital force, is
capable of no sensation, no function, no self-preservation ; it derives all
sensation and performs all the functions of life solely by means of the
immaterial being (the vital force) which animates the material organism in health and in disease.
11. When a person falls ill it is only this spiritual, self-acting
(automatic) vital force, eversnvhere present in his organism, that is
primarily deranged by the dynamic influence upon it of a morbific
agent inimical to iif e ; it is only the vital force, deranged to such an
abnormal state, that can furnish the organism with its disagreeable
sensations and incline it to the irregular processes which we call
disease; for, as a power invisible in itself, and only cognizable by its
effects on the organism, its morbid derangement only makes itself
known by the manifestation of disease in the sensations and functions
of those parts of the organism exposed to the senses of the observer
and physician ; that is, by morbid symptoms, and in no other way can
it make itself known.
It is clear that Hahnemann wishes to teach that it is a disorder of the activities of the internal man, a lack of harmony
or lack of balance, which gives forth the signs and symptoms
by which we recognize disease. These sensations constitute
. the language of disorder ; i. e., the means by which we recognize disorder or disease. This immaterial vital principle, this
simple substance, everywhere pervades the organism, and in
disease this disorder everywhere pervades the organism, it pervades every cell and every portion of the human economy.
We will see in course of time that the change in form of a cell
is the result first of disorder, that the derangement of the im, material vital principle is the very beginning of the disorder,
and that with this beginning there are changes in sensation by

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 89

which man may know this beginning, which occurs long before
there is any visible change in the material substance of the
body.
The patient himself can feel by his sensations the changes,
and this is inimical to life, and death immediately follows,
for life in its fullest sense is freedom. As soon as the internal
economy is aeprived in any manner of its freedom, death is
threatening ; where freedom is lost death is sure to follow.
So it is when there is the inflowing of a simple substance that has the form or essence of a disease. It is in its
essence an evil that is flowing into the economy, but it is a sim- /
pie substance. Everything that is a thing is substantial or real,
and has in itself operating and perpetuating power. The fact
that it can operate and perpetuate is the evidence of power,
and if it has power it results in something. Every cause of
disease then has form. If it were not in the form of simple
substance it could not affect the forms of simple substance in
the natural state of the economy. Moreover, it has its association, from the finest forms of physical substance to the
crudest, from beginning to end, from the inner to the outer.
Such changes and activities as result in the very crudest forms
are but the results of disease through a series of degrees,
coarser and coarser to the outermost man. Everything that can
be seen, that can be observed with the aid of the finest instrument, is but the result. Nothing in the world of immaterial
substance can be seen with any faculty that is capable of seeing
things in the world of material substance. The employment of
instruments of precision will enable us to see the finest disease
results, which are the outcome or results of things immaterial,
the bacteria for instance, the very finest form of animal or
vegetable life ; but the cause of disease is a million times more
subtle than these and cannot be seen by the human eye. The
finest visible objects are but results of things still finer, so that
the cause rests within. The morbific agents that Hahnemann
refers to are simply the extremely fine forms of simple substance, or to bring them down to human thought we might call

90 Kent's lectures
them viruses; but viruses are often gross because they can
sometimes be observed by the vision of man, and therefore we

must remember that within the virus is its innermost arid that
this innermost is in itself capable of giving form to the outermost, which is the visible virus aggregated and concentrated.
The coarser forms would be comparatively harmless were it
not for their interiors. Disease products are comparatively
harmless were it not for the fact that they contain an innermost, and it is the innermost itself that is causative. The bacteria are the result of conditions within, they are, as it were,
evolved by a spontaneous generation ^literally, that is what
it is. Every virus is capable of assuming forms and shapes in
ultimates. The causes of ultimates are not from without but
from the immaterial invisible centre. Those things that appear to man's eye are evolved, just as man himself is formed
from a centre which has the power of evolving, an endowment
from the Creator, operating under fixed general laws.
It is only when the vital principle is disturbed by cause of
a disease character (that is the innermost of a virus in the
form of a simple substance) that it gives forth any consciousness of itself.
If there were no disturbing influence in the interiors of
man he never would have symptoms. As you sit there in your
seats in a perfect state of quietude or tranquility you are not
conscious of your eyes, of your limbs, of your hair. You have
to stop and think whether you feel or not. When all the functions are carried on in a perfectly orderly way you have no
consciousness of your body, which means that you are in freedom. When not in freedom the individual says, "I feel." It is
this disturbance of an invisible character which comes from
cause, and appears by changes in the activities of the body,
changes in sensations, changes in functions. It is in accordance
with all-wise Providence that these sensations should appear
to the physician who shall be intelligent enough to read them
and know what they mean. They are a warning, they are
for use, for purpose. No feeling a man can have is without

ON HOMCEOPATHIG PHILOSOPHY 91
purpose, as there is no thing in the universe without its use.
Hence these morbid sensations reveal to the physician that
there is disorder.

To establish freedom should be the aim of the physician,

and if a physician's work does not result in placing his patient
in freedom he cannot heal the sick, for healing the sick is placing the patient in freedom, giving him absolute physical freedom. If the physician causes the pains to cease by a dose of
Morphine, can we call that freedom ? Is the patient not made
stupid beyond the recognition of the nature of his feelings?
The large doses of the old school produce anything but freedom. We must look elsewhere to find that kind of healing
which turns disorder into order and makes man free. By
removing the signs and s)miptoms in dn orderly way, by converting disorder into order so that the symptoms no longer
have a cause (for as we have already seen when the economy
is turned into order it ceases to give forth symptoms), we
place our patients in freedom, both physical and mental.
*'Only the vital principle thus disturbed can give to the
organism its abnormal sensations and incline it to the irregular
actions we call disease." This is totally different from calling
the results of disease the disease, e. g., calling Bright's disease,
cancer, or palsy, diseases. Most of the conditions of the human
economy that are called diseases in the books are not diseases,
but the results of disease. To call a group of symptoms a disease of one part, and another group of symptoms a disease of
another part, is a great heresy and leads to errors in prescribing
that can never be corrected. Organic change is the result of
disease.
Morbid disturbances can be perceived solely by means of
the expression of disease in the sensations and actions! We
lyould have no means of perceiving the morbid disturbance of
the invisible principle except by morbid sensations, and if these
were not present we would have no means of putting the patient in freedom. There are patients so sick that they cannot
be put in freedom, those for whom there are no means of cure,

92 RENTES LECTURES
and in these, while the internal structural changes are going on
slowly, the morbid symptoms are not present. Such patients
continually change doctors and change climates, recognizing,
as it were, that no one is capable of relieving them. With an
incurable change in a vital organ, all or most of the symptoms
that existed go away; the symptoms of the disease are sup-

pressed, as it were, by the tremendous strain upon the system.

This is particularly true of the malignant forms of disease
results. The symptoms that existed years ago have disappeared
and the patient says: "Oh, they did not amount to anything;
I had had them all my life." But those are the symptoms that
would manifest to the physician the nature of the remedy, for
they give to him the real image of the sickness.
Some doctors say : *^Oh, we will have a remedy for cancer
some day," having only in mind the symptoms of cancer ; that
is, the symptoms that represent the results of disease and not
the symptoms that represent the disease itself. There is a vast
difference between these two. These physicians would not
talk so if they only knew and would only think in this proper
and wholesome fashion, that to cure the patient would be to
cure the cancer, and in order to cure the patient it is necessary
to go back in his history and get those symptoms that represent the patient in a state of disease and not the tissues in a
state of disease results. In the latter state, the original symptoms of the disease have often disappeared; they are, as it
were, swallowed up. So it is when the innermost disease has
acted and the whole body is full of disease results, such as
dropsical conditions, or pus sacs, or hip- joint abscesses. The
pains make the patient unable to think of his symptoms. Then
these physicians come along and prescribe for the resultant
states and end in failure. They give Silica for hip-joint disease
and Bufo for epilepsy, and so on, giving medicines for groups
of symptoms.
That is not Homoeopathy. Such men then go off and
say : **Oh, I have tried everything," but they have tried nothing
but modem practice. It is a travesty upon Homoeopathy. The

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 93

expert physician can listen to the signs and symptoms before

morbid changes have taken place, and if no medicines have
ever been administered, if no drugging has been resorted to,
no morphine and no other violent and vicious drugs, the image
stands out before him in relief; it is perfect, because it has
not been meddled with. It speaks with clearness, and the

physician who is intelligent can learn to read it. But the physician who is not capable of seeing that this is different from
the group of pathological symptoms that represent the so-called
fixed diseases, if he cannot make a distinction between the
symptoms that represent the disease per se and the symptoms
that represent the result of disease, he will never practice
Homoeopathy successfully. If he cannot understand it he had
better work at it until he does understand it; he must continue to labor until he can discriminate between the organic
symptoms associated with the results of disease and the pure
signs given forth by nature. Every few days I run across a
homoeopathic physician who asks: **What remedy are you
using in such and such cases?" Such a thing has no place in
my mind, and I look upon one who speaks in that way as a
man untrained in homoeopathies. I truly have lost my patience
over such things, for the old gray-heads, who have practiced
for years and pretended to practice Homoeopathy, do not
hesitate to say that "the best remedy for epilepsy" is so and
so.
What nonsense ! That is not adjusting the remedy to the
state of the patient that existed before he had these structural
changes and fixed groups of symptoms, for if you adjust a
remedy to the pathological condition you are not adjusting it
to the patient, to his very beginnings and from his beginnings
down to the present time. He need not have pathological
results, all he needs to have is symptoms. The patient can
cure his own morbid anatomy. If you will take away the first
state of disorder his economy will be safe. If the results of
disease cannot be removed the patient himself will return to
health and the morbid anatomy will undergo such changes that

94 rent's LieCTURES
it will not affect his state of health. The fibrinous adhesions
need not necessarily go away; a state of quiescence comes and
remains year after year so long as he remains well.
To think of remedies for cancer is confusion, but to think
of remedies for the patient who appears to have cancer is
orderly, and you will be astonished tp know what wonderful
changes will take place in these conditions when remedies that
corresponded to the conditions before the cancer began are
administered. Cancer is the result of disorder, which disorder

must be turned into order and must be healed. We dwell upon

this, for many paragraphs bring out this distinction between
s)rmptoms and results of disease. The true morbid sensations
of a healthy organism are what we must first consider. It is
first assumed that the organism is in a state of health and
capable of performing its functions, and then the morbid sensations of this healthy organism are the symptoms that come
to the physician as a forerunner of death in parts, and finally
death of the whole. The patient tells the physician his sensations, of the numbness of his fingers, of the pricking in his
skin, of the pain in his stomach, etc., all the sensations of any
part of which he is reminded. The healthy man is not reminded
of his parts. He passes his stool without pain in the part. If
he have pain or bleeding he is reminded of this part. If he
passes his urine without sensation we say it is normal and he
is in freedom, but if burning and smarting and tenesmus follow
he is reminded of it, and these sensations constitute s)rmptoms.
If the patient is waxy and palid, has papules and pustules,
or swollen and Varicose veins with red face, red eyes, etc., these
the physician can see and note down. Again there are things
that the physician cannot see and that the patient cannot tell,
that the mother, sister, husband or wife should relate to the
physician at his office. These symptoms constitute the image,
what there is knowable of the sickness, that which appears to
the mind of the physician upon which he makes up his verdict.
When the strong symptoms are all gathered together the physician in studying the case must separate out those things that

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 95
were observed years ago from those things that are observed
today, noting how they have changed and why changed. Sometimes they have been changed by drugs so that the whole nature
of the economy is giving out a different group of symptoms.
The physician must learn the changes all along the line,
from beginning to end; what symptoms represented this sick
fnan ten years ago, and what symptoms represent him now.
Perhaps now he has morbid anatomy, pathological conditions in
his lungs, liver or kidneys. The physician who has been for
twenty years observing previous and present conditions in this
manner, by hearing the symptoms can practically locate the
morbid anatomy ; he can tell where it will appear, knows when

pus is in organs and where, and he can foretell pretty well what
is soon to go on in the economy. I would rather trust to a careful study of the symptoms than most physicians' written diagnosis of phthisis, or organic diseases of the liver or of the heart.
The symptoms do not lie, they do not exist from opinions of
men who have thumped and pounded over the human body to
find out what is going on inside, which is in many instances
conf usinjg even to the best diagnosticians. A considerable observation amongst medical men will lead one to discover that
the dollar is the chief end of the practice of medicine when '
practiced in the old way; there is nothing else in it, nothing
to admire or cherish.
To become conversant with symptoms, to judge of the
sphere and progress of disease by the study of symptomatology,
is the requirement necessary for the homoeopath. Of course,
bystanders will say to the patient, "That doctor cannot know
much ; he did not give you a physical examination." After the
examination of the symptoms has been made there is no reason
why you should not make a physical examination of the patient ; but do not let this deprive you of becoming thoroughly
educated in studying symptoms, because the real study of
sick man is the meditation on his symptoms, and to become
wise in symptoms is to become an able prescriber. Study physical diagnosis to your heart's content, but weigh carefully what

96 KENT'S LECTURES
you discover and compare it with the symptoms in order to ascertain what the different symptoms mean. You cannot study
the symptoms of man without becoming extremely well acquainted with the nervous system. The anatomy of the nerves
and of the brain should be thoroughly known. Not always that
you may name the nerve, but that you may know where it is
and what its functions are, and this study should be continued
throughout all your life. The physician should be conversant
with anatomy and physiology, but by studying the symptomatology he acquires a knowledge of physiology which it is impossible to obtain in any other way ; he acquires a knowledge
of the functions and operations of arteries, nerves and muscles because they call attention to themselves when in disturbance, and he sees therefore how the symptoms manifest themselves. By studying the symptom in the recorded pathogenesis
one may learn much about true pathology. Morbid anatomy

furnishes no basis for prescribing, but true pathology is often

of the greatest benefit, helping the image of the sickness to
shape itself before the mind.

ON HOMCEOPAtHIC PHILOSOPHY 97

LECTURE X
13. Materialism in medicine.
Several paragraphs now to be read are scarcely more than
a recapitulation of subjects already spoken of. In going over
previous paragraphs I have introduced these points in advance,
because it was natural to do so in connection with the subject
in hand. I will therefore glance over them until we reach something new.
In the thirteenth paragraph Hahnemann says :
"Therefore disease (that does not come within the province of
manual surgery), considered, as it is by the allopathists, as a thing
separate from the living whole, from the organism and its animating
vital force, and hidden in the interior, be it of ever so subtle a character,
is an absurdity that could only be imagined by minds of a materialistic
stamp, and has for thousands of years given to the prevailing system
of medicine all those pernicious impulses that have made it a truly
mischievous (non-healing) art.
The material notion referred to was that existing in the
time of Hahnemann. Materialism is still growing. It seems
impossible for the majority of men of the present day to perceive. Perception, that is, seeing with the understanding, seems
to be entirely Ipst. The materialist refuses to believe anything
that does not conform to the laws of time and space. It must
be measured, it must be weighed, it must occupy space, or he
has no idea of it, and will distinctly affiV-m that without this it
is nothing and has no existence. Everything beyond this is to
the material mind poetical, dreamy, mysterious. So they look
in vain in the material world for cause. You will never find a
material entity as in any way causing anything. It has no
causative power, no creative influence, no propelling influence.

98 KENT'S LECTURES
Causes or simple substances are, in the natural state, in motion,
and cause motion in the bodies that they occupy; the natural
state for simple substance is that of power, of mobility, of
activity. The natural state of matter is rest, quietude, silence ;
it has no power to move imless acted upon. Like the dead man,
whose tissues are at rest, it has no action of its own. But the
simple substance dominates matter and animates it.
The two worlds, the world of motion, of power, and the
world of inertia, exist in one. There is a world of life and a
world of dead matter. The realm of thought and the realm of
matter are the realm of cause and the realm of result. Causes
are invisible, results are visible. We see the actions of material
substance, but the thinking man has only to reflect to see that
these actions that are visible in material form are but results of
the causes that exist in the form of simple substance which is
invisible to the natural eye but visible to the spiritual eye or
understanding. The materialist cannot grasp this idea,' he cannot think in this way. We have the grandest confirmation of
these things in the wonderful action of our potencies in the
varying degrees in which they operate upon man, from the
lowest to the highest. You will discover in course of time that
in a large number of chronic diseases our antipsorics will
cause changes in the economy, curative or otherwise, in from
five to seven different potencies. In this you have the demonstration of degrees of simple substance, and their relation to
different planes in the interior of the economy.
14. There is, in the interior of man, nothing morbid that is
curable, and no invisible morbid alteration that is curable, which does
not make itself known to the accurately observing physician by means
of morbid signs and sjonptoms an arrangement in perfect conformity
with the infinite goodness of the all-wise Preserver of human life.
This we have already spoken of. Every curable disease is
made known to the physician by signs and symptoms. Incurable diseases have few signs and symptoms, and by their absence
the disease is often thus known to be incurable. By watching
the patient gradually decline without any symptoms but those

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY ' 99

which are the common expressions of pathological conditions,
we see that the case is incurable and is going down to death.
All curable maladies, therefore, have signs and symptoms
in order to make themselves known ; their purpose is to shadow
forth the disorderly condition of the vital force or interior of
man, so that the physician may read it and understand it?
nature. This imaging forth when the human race is in a state
of ignorance, or materialism, is like seeds sown upon stony
ground; there is no man to understand them, to apprehend
their meaning. The images of sickness are continually being
formed, and only wait for a man intelligent enough to observe
them, to understand their meaning to translate them, and it
is possible for men, by the doctrines of Homoeopathy, to become wise, and intelligent enough to be conversant with these
signs.
In this paragraph we also see Hahnemann's recognition
of Divine Providence. It was the very recognition of Providence that enabled Hahnemann to become a man, and being
directed by Divine Providence enabled him finally to perceive
the law. When his little ones were being hurled into death by
strong drugs the first thought of Hahnemann was that Providence had not made these little ones to be destroyed by medicines ; it seemed to him inconsistent that they should be made
to take this miserable stuff. In all your experiences, if you
live to be very old, you will find a very poor lot of homoeopaths
among those who do not recognize Divine Order. You will
find among them false science, experimentation, but never any
government of principle, no thought of purpose, order or use.
Hahnemann was not in the strictest sense the discoverer of
the law, for Hippocrates said that disease might be cured
either by opposites or similars, but Hahnemann discovered
this by pure, experimentation and the following out of strict
order. After reading it up he found corroboration of the
principles he had discovered, and he followed along the line,
growing wiser and stronger, until he formulated the code which
is so simple and yet so complete.: Very few are able to read

100 KENT'S LECTURES

the Organon at first and see anything in it but words, and yet
the oldest practitioner of pure Homoeopathy finds nothing in
it to change and the older he grows and becomes more active
in work the more h^ depe.nds upon it and the more consistent
it becomes. Although I have been teaching the Organon for
many years, I never go over it without discovering some new
thought in harmony with the general teaching. The continued
study of the Organon brings a deeper and deeper understanding of it, because it is true.
In the 15th paragraph another thought comes up which
still further shows the unit of government which we have
dwelt upon so much in past lectures. Everything that flows
from a, centre must be considered in connection with that
centre. Man in his healthy state is but the result of the normal
activities of a unit, and he must be considered as a unit. In
other words, his healthy vital force is the result of action from
a centre. On the other hand, when man becomes diseased, in
his disordered or diseased state he is still a unit and has to be
considered collectively. It is not to be considered that his
physiological action produces his morbid actions, but that his
morbid actions so completely dominate him that he is one morbid state. This is again illustrated when he is dominated by
the action of a drug (when a drug instead of a disease possesses him), then we see a morbid state, but it is still a unit of
action.
There are three different subjects forming a union of
study, the study of man in his natural state, the study of man in
his sick state from natural disorder, and the study of man in
his sick state from artificial disorder. Each remedy must be
studied as a unit first and then those units may be compared.
To intermingle comparative Materia Medica without a full
knowledge of units is a mistake. This I have found out by
experience in my earlier teaching. I have taught much comparative Materia Medica, thinking that a wise course to pursue,
but have since abandoned that plan and now study each remedy
as a unit, just as I advise the study of each disease as a unit.

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 101

When one remedy is fully mastered, or one disease is fully
mastered, then you are ready to compare. First of all think of
measles as measles, and whooping cough as whooping cough,

and, when you come to the chronic diseases, ascertain all the
things that have been observed in syphilis, and all the symptoms that have been observed in sycosis, and all those that have
been observed in psora. You are then prepared to ehter the
study of the Materia Medica and see the relationship of some
remedies to the acute miasms and the relationship of other
remedies to the chronic miasms. You will see particularly the
image of measles in some remedies, the image of whooping
cough in others, and the image of psora, syphilis and sycosis
in others. Then yqu are ready to proceed with what may be
called individualization, because these are the most general,
and from these we go into particulars and then into comparison. This is the classical way to proceed, and when it is
followed the physician becomes wise and intelligent and can
apply the Materia Medica with wonderful precision. Such
was Hahnemann's method.

102 KENT'S LECTURES

LECTURE XI
16. (1) 'Healthy state. (2) How made sick. (3) How cured. Only
deranged and cured in dsmamic planes.
Organon 16. Our vital force, as a spirit-like dynamis, cannot be
attacked and affected by injurious influences on the healthy organism
caused by the external inimical forces that disturb the harmonious
play of life otherwise than in a spirit-like (dynamic) way, and iu like
manner all such morbid derangements (diseases) cannot be removed
from it by the physician in any other way than by the spirit-like
(dsmamic, virtual), alterative powers of the serviceable medicines
acting upon our spirit-like vital force, which perceives them through
the medium of the sentient faculty of the nerves eversrwhere present
in the organism, so that it is only by their dynamic action on the vital
force that remedies are able to re-establish and do actually re-establish
health and vital harmony after the changes in the health of the patient
cognizable by our senses (the totality of the sjrmptoms) have revealed
the disease to the carefully observing and investigating physician as
fully as was requisite in order to enable him to cure it.
The 16th paragraph furnishes the subject that we will talk

about this morning. It treats of three states : ( 1 ) of the state

of health, or the normal activities of the body, (2) of how
that state is made sick or turned into disorder, and (3) of how
that disordered state can be turned into health. If we could
find a man in a state of perfect health, we might subject him
to shock, to injuries, to the actions of the cruder things around
us, and he would pass through them or they would pass away
without leaving upon him any such thing as a disorder. He
might be under the influence of that shock a short time, but
when reaction came, if it came at all, it would leave him free
from miasm, he would not have therefrom either an acute or
chronic disease. It is only by the action of immaterial substances, simple substances acting upon a plane similar to the

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 103

plane of his susceptibility, that he can become affected with a
sickness ; that is, the resultant action of a substance capable of
operating from his innermost to his outermost, and establishing
evidence which we call symptoms. If the outermost alone is
acted upon the vital force of the man is only temporarily disturbed, but there is not established a definite disorder (not
even a limited one) that can run a course with a beginning, a
period of progress and decline, such as the miasms do.
Whatever depresses the tissues of man, or his bodily functions, only acts temporarily, and is not capable of establishing
a true disease. Take, for instance, the cruder drugs that we
see used as a physic. You may give the patient the coarser and
cruder forms of drugs as purgatives and emetics, and he will
go through the shock and return to his original state. It is only
after the most violent and long continued use of liquids that
there can be implanted upon him a drug disease, and even
that is largely superficial in comparison to a natural disjcased
condition. The constant use of Bromide of Potassium will
produce effects in time, but that drug does not go to the depths ;
it operates upon the tissues, producing a coarser form of disease, but not miasmatic in character. Take also the coarser
poisons as an example. Many of them can be taken into the
stomach in crude form with yery little manifestation upon the
vital force, indeed the more active and virulent and condensed
the poison the smaller the collective symptoms image. The
smallpox crust can be swallowed, and it will be digested and
very little trouble come 'from it, but the inhalation of the

atmpsphere that contains the aura of smallpox upon a plane

corresponding to the susceptibility of the individual will bring
him down with a disease having a definite prodrome, a period
of progress and a period of decline, showing that the very
foundation of the man's nature has been struck. Such an
operation is upon the internals of man, upon his invisible, immaterial substance, and it operates from within out, producing
ultimates in his tissues, establishing results upon the skin.
Hahnemann in this paragraph affirms that nothing, except

104 KENT^S LECTURES

in the form of a simple substance, can so implant itself upon
the economy as to run its course as a disease either acute or
chronic. No disease can implant itself upon the economy
through its ultimate forms ; only in its invisible forms can it so
act. All diseases known to man are in the form of simple substance, an invisible something that cannot be detected by the
chemist or the microscopist, and will never be detected in the
natural world. Disease cause is known, and known only, from
its effects; it is not capable of investigation by the natural
senses and can only be investigated as to its results. Everything that can be seen, felt or observed, or detected with the
microscope, is but an ultimate, a result. It is only by the understanding, by reasoning from first to last and then back again,
that we can perceive that disease causes are invisible.
The body can be affected, the tissues can be affected, and
ultimates can be affected by ultimiates, there can be friction
between ultimates ; things in this world can collide with other
things in this world and they may destroy each other ; ultimates
may destroy ultimates ; but such a thing as disease occurring
in ultimates except through dynamic changes is impossible.
Nor can any agency which is an ultimate act upon the
human economy curatively, turning into vital order the innermost of life. Vital disoifder cannot be turned into order except
by something similar in quality to the vital force. It is not
similitude in quantity that we want, in weights and measures,
but it is similarity in quality, in power, in plane, that must be
sought for.
Medicines, therefore, cannot aflfect the high and interior

planes of the physical economy unless they are raised to the

plane of similarity in quality. The individual who needs Sulphur in the very highest degrees may take Sulphur sufficient
to move his bowels, may rub it upon the skin, may wear it in
his stockings, can take Sulphur baths, all without effect upon
his disease. In that form the drug is not in correspondence
with his sickness, it does not affect him in the same plane in
which he is sick, and so it cannot affect the cause and flow

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 105

\
from thence to the circumference. So with all the coarser
drugs, they do not cure. We sometimes see the outermost
effects of disease, disease located in the outer planes, temporarily removed by the lower potencies and crude drugs, but it
is only as to the exteriors and ultimates that the cure is effected, and as it does not reach the innermost degrees it is
not permanent. In acute diseases also crude drugs sometimes
accomplish their purpose, because the outermost which they
affect is only on the surface and the innermost has, in acute
disease, the tendency to go away of itself ; if his life can simply
be spared until the disease has run its course the patient will
recover. But the chronic miasms are only reached as to their
ultimate symptoms, and these are caused to subside only temporarily or are suppressed by the action of the crude or ultimate forms of medicine.
I look back upon the time when my own mind was in a
cloud as to this subject, and if I refer to it here it may be of
use to you. I remember when I first read from Hahnemann
that potentized medicines would cure the sick that it seemed
to me a mystery. I had no knowledge upon which to found
belief in such things. I began to practice with the lower
potencies and with crude drugs in attempting to carry out the
law, but with these means I was able to cure only superficial
complaints. My work was far from satisfactory, yet it was
somewhat better than the old things, it was milder than physicking and purging and emesis. Of course I rested upon my
opinions and beliefs for my knowledge: everyone does that.
Later I resolved to test the 30th potency to see if there was
not yet medicine in it, and I prepared with my own hands the

30th potency of Podophyllum with water on the centesimal

scale, after the fashion of Hahnemann, having been told that
water was as good as alcohol and it was only the attenuation
that was required. This was during an epidemic of diarrhoea
that looked like Podophyllum, but I had not the courage to
give the 30th and still continued to use my stronger medicines.
One day a child was brought into my office in the mother's

106 KENT'S LECTURES

arms. She brought it in hastily, and it did not seem as if it
could live long. It was an infant, and while it lay in her arms
a thin yellowish fecal stopl ran all over my carpet. The odor
struck me as like that I had been reading about as the odor of
the Podophyllum stool; it was horribly offensive, stinking,
and the stool was so copious that the mother made the remark
that she did not know where it all came from. I said to myself, this is a case upon which to test Hahnemann's 30th potency. So I fixed up some of the Podophyllum 30 and put it
on the child's tongue, and sent the mother home, fearing that
the child would soon die, as it was very ill, face pinched and
drawn, cadaveric, and had a dreadful odor about it. Next
morning when making my rounds I had to pass the house. I
expected to see crepe on the door. I did not dare to call, though
I was very much worried about it, so I drove past ; but there
was no crepe on the door. I drove home again that way, although it was quite a distance out of the way, and still there
was no crepe on the door; but standing in the doorway was
the grandmother, who said : "Doctor, the baby is all right this
morning." Then I began to feel better, thinking I had not
killed it. Perhaps some of you have been in the same state of
mind.
That little child did not need any more medicine. After
that I had quite a number of Podophyllum cases, and the 30th
did the work to my astonishment. It was different from anything I had ever seen ; the cures were almost instantaneous, it
seemed as if there would be no more stool after the first dose
of medicine. I did not always give the single dose. I used that
30th all the season, and then made up my mind that if the 30th
of Podophyllum was good other 30ths would also be, and I
ought to have as many of them as possible. I made a good
many 30ths by hand, and finally succeeded in making up one
hundred and twenty-six remedies, some of them in the 200th

potency, and these I used. Then I procured a set of 200ths

and higher and practiced with them. I followed on in this way
and in a few years I discovered that by giving higher and

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 107

higher potencies the remedies seemed to operate more and
more interiorly.
I found that a chronic case that would be relieved by
moderately high potencies would only improve for a matter of
weeks, but on the administration of much higher potencies
the w6rk would be taken up, and in that way the same patient
could be carried on from one potency to another. If I give you
the conversation of one patient with me from time to time you
may understand better what I mean. I saw this patient for
the first time some fifteen years ago, when he was stoopshouldered and had a fairly phthisical aspect. He had a
catarrhal state of the chest, and it looked as though it might
end in phthisis. On his symptoms he received Sulphur about
6 m. He was violently aggravated by this dose of medicine,
all his symptoms were made worse, and he came back to the
office saying that the medicine had made him sick. I had attained knowledge of the aggravation from a similar remedy,
so I gave him sugar. At the end of another week he came back
and told me he was better, much better, that he did not want
me to give him any more of that first medicine, but he wanted
more of the last, as it had made him so much better. So I kept
him on thie medicine which pleased him for a period of probably six or seven weeks. One time he. returned and told me he
did not want that last medicine, but he wanted that medicine
that helped him so. By that I knew enough to give him another
dose of Sulphur. Within the next day or two he ran in and
said, '*You young rascal, you gave me that medicine that made
me sick in the first place," so he got sugar again and went on
this time for five or six weeks, or perhaps longer. Then he
came back again saying, **Now, I do not think 3K)u understand
me, for I am having my old symptoms back. I wish you would
study my case again." So I went all over his case and he got
another dose of Sulphur 6 m. He reported this time, "Well,
I do not feel any better ; I am just about the same." He was
not stirred up this time, you see.. I waited a little longer and
saw no relief from the last dose. Here are all the S3rmptoms

108 KENT'S LECTURES

calling for Sulphur, shall I give him crude Sulphur? I cannot
give a remedy that is not indicated. The experience of the
older men says **g6 higher." I gave him Sulphur 55 m.,
and in a few days he came back upon me, saying, "You rascal,
you gave me that first medicine again. I don't want that stuff."
Finally I got him cooled down, gave him some sugar and assured him that he would be better in a few days, and he went
on for six or seven weeks with great improvement. After a
while I explained to him that when the remedy did not act I
had to give him something to stir him up. Of course I did not
say 2Lnythmg to him about sugar.
When you have learned what your medicines will do
it is a good thing to say to the patient, "Do not be alarmed
or astonished when such and such things happen." Otherwise they will get alarmed and go off and perhaps get another
doctor. The 55 m. of Sulphur telieved that patient in a
couple of doses^ far apart, and then ceased to relieve him any
more. Next he received the c. m. which worked just as the
other potencies had done, and finally he got to the m. m. which
acted just like the c. m., and from that potency he went on
being restored to health. When you see these things, you have
a confirmation in them of the doctrines of the law. Experience
does not lead to these things, but principles which thereafter
are confirmed by experience. When a patient has been carried
up through a series of potencies he will often remain unaffected
by that remedy in a lower realm of potency or in the crude,
unless he is overwhelmingly dosed by it, and then he will be
poisoned.
The third proposition in this paragraph is that medicines
will not act curatively, or in a way to turn the body into order
and turn off disease, unless potentized to correspond to the degrees in which the man is sick. Such as are sick in a middle
plane are sick from that plane to the outermost. Such as are
sick in the interior planes are sick throughout to the very outermost. When the disorder is in the very depth of his physical
nature then it is in the form of chronic disease ; i. e,, all there

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 109

is of him is sick, and of such there is no tendency to recovery

but a continued progress. Such is the order of psora, syphilis
and sycosis.
The nutritive plane is entirely in the outermost, that is,
in the tissues. Assimilation goes on in the tissues. It is simply
in the realm of tissues and ultimates that crude drugs operate ;
they can only disturb ultimates, and the inharmonious condition is the inharmony of ultimates, the outermost plane. Of
course, if the outermost of the physical is disturbed the whole
economy suffers, and the body ceases to furnish a good instrument to be operated upon by the powers within; but a true
disease, with periods of prodrome, progress and decline or continuance, cannot be implanted upon the economy except it be
by a dynamic cause. And hence necessarily man cannot be
cured except by drugs attenuated until they have become similar to the nature or quality of disease cause. Disease cause
and the disease-curing drug must be similar in nature ; unlike
causes would not produce like effects. We can arrive at similar
causes by studying the effects that are similar. When we
examine into a case and find a certain group of symptoms, and
in the effects produced by a certain drug we see like symptoms,
we have a right to presume that the quality or nature in both
is similar. The causes must be similar if the effects are similar
in nature and quality. When the physician goes to the bedside
he asks himself. Do I know a remedy that has produced, upon
healthy man, symptoms like these? He must pass judgment
upon the symptoms, he must be an artist in application and
capable of discerning the finer shades of difference ind similitude.

110 rent's lectures

LECTURE XII
The removal of the totality of symptoms means the removal of the
cause.
I Organon 17. Now as in the cure effected by the removal of the
whole of the perceptible signs and symptoms of the disease the inter-

nal alteration of the vital force to which the disease is due consequently the whole of the disease is at the same time removed, it follows that the physician has only to remove the whole of the symptoms
in- order, at the same time, to abrogate and annihilate the internal
change, that is to say, the morbid derangement of the vital force
consequently the totality of the disease, the disease itself. But when
the disease is annihilated the health is restored, and this is the highest,
the sole aim of the physician who knows the true object of his mission, which consists not in learned-sounding prating, but in giving aid
to the sick.
The idea of this paragraph is that the removal of the totality of the symptoms is actually the removal of the cause.
It may not be known that causes are continued into effects
(i. e., that causes continue in ultimates), but it is true that all
ultimates to a great extent contain the cause of the beginnings.
And since cause continues into ultimates and things in ultimates shadow forth cause, the removal of all the symptoms
will lead any rational man to assume that the cause has been
removed. This will lead you to see that if a large number of
symptoms manifest themselves through a diseased ovary, and
that ovary is removed, the cause of the symptoms has not been
removed and will manifest itself through some other part of
the body, perhaps the other ovary or some organ that is weak.
It is a serious matter to remove any organ through which a
disease is manifested. When there are two or more of these
pathological conditions established upon the body and one is
removed the other immediately becomes worse. For instance,

ON HOMCKOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 111

if there is a structural change in the knee joint and the surgeon
removes the knee, while there is a corresponding structural
change in the kidneys or liver which he cannot remove, the
latter immediately becomes worse and breaks down as soon as
the knee joint is removed. In the same way we find in a tuberculous condition of the lungs that it may remain in a very
quiet state so long as a fistula in ano keeps on discharging, but
the allopath comes along and closes that vent and immediately
there is a cropping out of the disease by infiltration of the lungs
and the patient comes to an early death. The results of diseases are necessary in many instances. Sometimes these results are tuberculous conditions, which are the ultimate out-

come or eflfects from cause, and contain at times the seeds of

beginnings of a similar kind. They are not themselves bebeginnings, yet they contain causes. Unless causes are removed
from beginning to end the disease can reproduce itself. This
includes the first proposition of Hahnemann as to the cure of
disease, which means permanent removal of the totality of the
symptoms, thus removing the cause and turning disorder into
order, and as a consequence the results of diseases are removed.
The totality cannot be removed without removing the cause.
"But when the disease is annihilated the health is restored;
and this is the highest, the sole aim of the physician who
knows the true object of his mission, which consists not in
learned-sounding prating but in giving aid to the sick." Hahnemann gives this warning note against discoursing dogmatically
upon the flimsy theories of man. It was the custom in Hahnemann's time for men to cloak their ignorance in technicalities ;
that is, to use technicalities for the purpose of appearing wise.
It is done at the present day. I have heard physicians talk to
simple-minded people in technicalities. Wise people seldom use
technicalities. There is nothing in this world so beclouds the
understanding as to deal in technicalities, they are cramped
and often meaningless. The doctrines of Homoeopathy should
not be clouded in technicalities, but should be considered and
talked out in the simplest forms of speech. When talking of

112 KENT'S LECTURES

the Organon and its doctrines, talk good English, if you are
English, and use simple forms of speech. One technical word
will sometimes mean a whole sentence, and can be constituted
to mean a good many different things. Technicalities are a
sort of scapegoat to carry off the sins of our ignorance.
The "totality of the symptoms" means a good deal. It is
a wonderfully broad thing. It may be considered to be all that
is essential of the disease. It is all that is visible and represents
the disease in the natural world to the eye, the touch and external understanding of man. It is all that enables the physician
to individualize between diseases and between remedies; the
entire representation of a disease is the totality of the symptoms, and the entire representation of a drug is the totality of
the symptoms. It does not mean the little independent symptoms, but it means that which will bring to the mind a clear

idea of the nature of the sickness. Many of the little symptoms

that occur can be left out of the total without marring, but the
essence, the characteristics, the image must be there, as that
is of importance to the physician, being to him the sole indication in the choice of the remedy. It is true that the old prescriber may be able to perceive the totality if he can see only
a small portion of it. Prescribing in that way, however, is very
often a mistake, for when that which was wanting is brought
out the physician sees that he has prescribed only for the side
view, as it were. You become well acquainted with old friends
and know them by even a partial view or by the gait, or voice,
but it is not so with strangers. Strangers have to be studied,
criticized and examined. It requires a long time to know the
stranger's methods, to find out how he performs his business,
whether he is cheerful or not, to know the character, to know
the man. So it is with the totality of the symptoms, for to a
great extent every sickness is a new sickness. If the patient
has nothing to conceal he will delineate his symptoms cheerfully, but if he has something to conceal it becomes a hard
matter to obtain the totality of his symptoms. But this
totality must be obtained, for there is no other means of ascer-

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 113

taining the nature of the remedy that he is in need of, as it is
expressed in the eighteenth paragraph :
From this indubitable truth, that, besides the totality of the
s3rmptoms, nothing can by any means be discovered in diseases wherewith they could express their need of aid, it follows undeniably that
the 6um of all the s3miptoms in each individual case of disease must be
the sole indication, the sole guide to direct us in the choice of a remedy.
But it is not enough to consider the totality as a grand
whole; besides consiHering all the symptoms collectively each
individual symptom must be considered. Every symptom must
be examined to see what relation it sustains to and what position it fills in that totality in order that we may know its value,
whether it is a common symptom, whether it is a particular
symptom, or whether a peculiarly characteristic symptom. This
we shall consider later in the course.
19. Now, as diseases are nothing more than alterations in the
state of health of the healthy inditndual which express themselves by

morbid signs, and the cure is only possible by a change to the healthy
condition of the state of health of the diseased individual, it is very
evident that medicines could never cure diseases if they did not possess
the power of altering man's state of health, which depends on sensations and functions; indeed that their curative power must be owing
solely to this power they possess of altering man's state of health.
The statement is that medicines must be capable of effecting
changes in the economy or they cannot restore order in the
economy. If the medicine is too high to effect a disturbance
in an irregularly governed economy it will be too high to effect
a cure in that economy. The potency must be consistent with
the degree of susceptibility that calls for the medicine. This
susceptibility includes a wide range of potency, so that from
the 30th to the cm. there is seldom a miss in actual experience.
It is seldom that the potency is too high, but that it is higher
than is necessary is often true. No drug can act curatively except by its ability to effect changes, and it is known that drugs
do effect changes by their provings; but in the provings the
drug has been increased in quantity or reduced in quality in
8

114 KENT'S LECTURES

accordance with the judgment of the prover. Many times the
coarser substances effect few changes and sometimes none,
whereas the higher substances make sick : this is in accordance
with the state of susceptibility. Some provers are susceptible
to the higher who are not at all susceptible to the lower. There
are patients who are not in the least susceptible to a single drop
of the tincture of Coffea but who are extremely susceptible to
the higher potencies of Coffea. Such patients, however, are
often made sick by large quantities of coffee. Lycopodium in
its crude form has upon most people no effect, but in the
higher potencies is capable, if followed up continuously, of
affecting almost everyone. The effect that medicines have upon
the sick in restoring order can best be observed by inducing
their effects upon healthy individuals, which we call proving.
You might easily suppose, by the way the modern firms
bring their medicines before us, that they have by a great effort
of their will, and by great meditation, thought out what these
drugs will do to the human family. For the purpose of ascer-

taining the state of medicine at the present time I very often

listen patiently to a drtmimer from some of the New York
houses. He will speak his piece, tell what this wonderful combination will do, how many diseases it will cure, and then I ask
him how he finds this out. **Oh, the doctors say so. Here are
the testimonials." *'But how do they find it out ?" **Oh, they
use them." x
But the drugs have not been proved, and their use is
not in accordance with what the homoeopath knows the drugs
will produce or cure. If you go into a friendly drug store and
talk with the druggist you will find these medicines which have
been concocted in the prescriptions of all the fashionable doctors in the neighborhood. In six months from that time if you
go to that same store you will not find one of those drugs in
use, but a new set following the visit of the traveling man
who has come around to represent their wonderful properties.
Do not think that I refer entirely to the old school, because a
large percentage of these prescriptions is from professed

ON HOMOSOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY llS

homoeopaths, and that is as much Homoeopathy as anything
they do. The majority of homoeopaths do these things, attempting to establish a homoeopathic practice upon an allopathic foundation. They try to become fashionable and change
their prescriptions as the ladies change their bonnets with the
season.
In 20 Hahnemann says :
This spirit-like power to alter man's state of health (and hence to
cure diseases) which lies hidden in the inner nature of medicines can
never be discovered by us by a mere effort of reason; it is only by
experience of the phenomena it displays when acting in the state of
health of man that we can become clearly cognizant of it.
There is only one way of finding out what Aconite will do
to the economy, and that is to give it to many men and note
the symptoms that these men experience as the manifestations
of Aconite. It is first necessary to know that drugs can make
man sick, and next to know what that state of sickness is.
Every medicine that a homoeopath uses should have been
thoroughly proven upon the healthy so that its symptom image

shall have been thoroughly brought out. It is a burning shame

upon the homoeopathic profession that so large a number of
drugs exists in the homoeopathic pharmacies, and that these
drugs are recommended for such and such diseases without
any investigation as to their properties, other than perhaps that
Dr. So-and-So, on the recommendation of some old woman,
has used this or that drug for dropsy. Such a thing is positively
condemned in every line of the Organon and by every doctrine.
There is no principle in it, it is unscientific, and unworthy of
the vocation of a doctor. Every dfug must be thoroughly
proven upon the healthy. In our study of the Materia Medica
I do not encumber you with partially proved drugs. We can
study these after we have studied those that have been well
proved. The ''Guiding Symptoms" contain many medicines
only partially proven, and it is often a matter of accident when
cures are made with them. But the old remedies that have been
handed down from the masters, and that have had years of

116 KENT'S LECTURES

trial, come to us as friends which we can learn of and become
acquainted with. You cannot become acquainted with unproved
drugs. When books tell you that a drug is good for this or
that pay no attention to them, but when a book tells you that a
drug has produced such and such symptoms study these ; that
is a piece of valuable information. The old school Materia
Medica is made up of the results of medicine upon sickness,
an unscientific guide, a fluctuating scale.

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 117

LECTURE XIII
The Law of Similars.
[Read Organon 21-25.]
In these paragraphs Hahnemann summarizes what he has
said before and points out the necessary conclusions. In doing
so he proves that the only method of applying medicines profitably in disease is the homoeopathic method. We daily see that

the antipathic and heteropathic methods have no tendency to

permanency in their results. By these means there are effected
changes in the economy and changes in the symptoms, but no
permanent cure, the tendency being sihiply to the establishment of another disease, often worse than the first, and without eradicating the first. In this connection we might speak of
the giving of morphine and purgatives. The friends of the
patient plead with you to stop the pain or to give something to
move the bowels for the relief of the patient. You know quite
well that the relief from morphitie is very transient, but when
you are occupying the ground of principle there is the strongest
reason why a dose of morphine should never be administered.
After giving morphine changes are observed which are really
detrimental to the patient. The symptoms are changed, and
this is always unfortunate. The same objection applies to the
giving of chloroform in labor. No woman at the present day
is well enough to go through labor without some symptoms
calling for a remedy. Hence, if you give chloroform in labor,
you put your patient in a state in which she is unable to express the symptoms of her own condition. If, at the close of
labor, she was about to give forth symptoms that would indicate to the intelligent physician what remedy she needed (perhaps to overcome a life-time of suffering) you would be

118 KENT'S LECTURES

deprived of knowing what the remedy was by this act of foolishness.
26. This depends on the following homceopathic law of nature
which was sometimes, indeed, vaguely surmised but not hitherto,
fully recognized, and to what is due every real cure that has ever taken
place :
A weaker dynamic affection is permanently extinguished in the
living organism by a stronger one, if the latter (whilst differing in
kind) is very similar to the former in its manifestations.
In this paragraph Hahnemann distinctly declares that the
phenomena of cure depend entirely upon fixed law, the law of
similars or the law that governs Homoeopathy. After Hahnemann had made a number of provings he gathered together
from the literature a great number of reported cures for the
purpose of observing whether the cures had been made acci-

dentally or from purpose, and whether they were in accordance

with the law of similars or with the principle of dissimilars.
In every instance he was able to see that the cures had been
made in accordance with the law of similars, viz.; that the
drug which cured in each case was capable of producing symptoms similar to those which it cured. This is true in all planes,
under all circumstances, and all other apparent cures are not
cures but suppressions.
"A dynamic disease in the living economy of man is extinguished in a permanent manner by another that is more powerful when the latter (without being of the same species) bears
a strong resemblance to it in its mode of manifesting itself."
That sentence seemed to be about the best way of expressing
the law in Hahnemann's time. The words "more powerful,"
or more intense, would afford a natural way of expressing it,
but when one has lived in Homoeopathy, and has been able to
perceive its interior workings, the word "powerful" expresses
a different thought. If we follow along the line of potentization we lose the idea of power that is manifest to an uninitiated
mind. We enter the world of thought and therein learn of a
different kind of power or intensity. When we think naturally

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 119

of power or intensity the mind is at once carried to the idea of
intensity as in an electrical problem in which we increase the
intensity by increasing the number of batteries. On the other
hand, Hahnemann's expression leads to the idea of intensity,
having qualities more internal, higher, prior ; i. e,, in the sense
of from first to last. The more internal it is the more intense,
the more it approaches the first substance, so that intensity as
to cause means higher or more internal, higher in the sense of
subtleness or fineness.
The word "powerful" then, you will please note, contains
an interior thought, and that is the only way to bring the mind
to realize what is meant. Power is actually from within, and
hence we potentize, going higher and higher, in order that we
may reach, intensity, and it is in this sense that the remedy
becomes more powerful by potentization. As a matter of fact,
when speaking upon the material plane, the remedy grows
weaker by potentization because the material is actually reduced. It would seem strange to a materialist, to an old school

doctor for instance, who has no thought of anything but the

giving of great pills, to say that Aconite becomes more powerful by being attenuated. To him it would just be saying that
it becomes more powerful the weaker it becomes, and yet it is
really so, though he cannot see it.
**A dynamic disease is extinguished by another that is more
powerful when the latter is similar to it." The first proposition
is that it must be similar and then it must be intense enough.
The more there is in the interior, the more there is to expect
in the exterior. So it is with the light of the sun. It is grander
than all other lights, because there is more in its interior ; it is
purer, it is more dynamical and it will turn aside and destroy
all other light.
This law of similars is seen prominently in the natural
world. We see it from man to man. It is easily illustrated
among the insane. It is the secret of mind cure, and there are
many instances of mind cure that are based on the law of
similars. One ex!ample of this is seen in the young girl who

120 rent's lectures

has lost her mother or lover and is ill as a consequence, is
depressed with grief, is constantly sobbing, and has become
melancholy. She sits in a corner. Hears nobody, thinks no one
can pity her because no one has had just such grief. Let us
apply allopathic treatment to her. "Come, there is nothing 'the
matter with you; why don't you brace yourself up; why don't
you try to arouse yourself ?" But this only throws her into a
deeper state of melancholy. Scolding and harsh treatment do
no good. But introduce the homoeopathic treatment, employ a
nurse if you will who is a good actress and who nas gone
through the same identical grief, and let her make a big fuss
in the other corner. Pretty soon the patient will say, **You
seem to have the same grief that I have." "Yes, I have lost a
lover." "Well, you can sympathize with me," and the two fall
to bellowing and weep it out together. There is a bond of
sympathy. Sometimes a curable case of insanity can be reached
in this way, and thus we have a mind cure. Hahnemann made
use of this plan in curing insanity. When a patient would exert
her will, but is unable on account of the physicial encumbrances, then the homoeopathic remedy will restore order.

 27. The curative power of medicines, therefore, depends on their

symptoms, similar to the disease but superior to it in strength, so that
each individual case of disease is most surely, radically, rapidly and
permanently annihilated and removed only by a medicine capable of
producing (in the human system) in the most similar and complete
manner the totality of its symptoms, which at the same time are
stronger than the dfsease.
Then it is not sufficient merely to give the drug itself
regardless of its form. It is not sufficient to give the crude
drug, but the plane upon which it is to be given is a question
of study. The attenuation also must be similar to the disease
cause. In a proving the crude drug may bring forth a mass of
symptoms in one prover, but when a person is sick those symptoms will not be touched by the crude drug because the patient
does not sustain the similar relation or susceptibility that the
one did who proved it.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY ' 121

In paragraph 29, Hahnemann has given an explanation of
the law of cure. He himself preludes h by saying that he does
not attach much importance to it. You are not in any way
bound to consider it, and it is usually omitted in this course.

122 KENT'S LECTURES

LECTURE XIV
Susceptibility.
Organon 30.
The human body appears to admit of being much more powerfully
affected in its health by medicines (partly because we have the regulation of the dose in our own power) than by natural morbid stimuli
f of natural diseases are cured and overcome by suitable medicines.
31. The inimical forces, partly psychical, partly physical, to
which our terrestrial existence is exposed, which are termed morbific

noxious agents, do not possess the power of morbidly deranging the

health of man unconditionally ; but we are made ill by them only when
our organism is sufficiently disposed and susceptible to the attack of
the morbific cause that may be present and to be altered in its health,
deranged and made to undergo abnormal sensations and functions,
hence they do not produce disease in every one, nor at all times.
32. But it is quite otherwise with the artificial morbific agents
which we term medicines. Every real medicine, namely, acts at all
times, under all circumstances, on every liying human being, and produces in him its peculiar symptoms (distinctly perceptible if the dose
be large enough) so that evidently every living human organism is
liable to be affected, and, as it were, inoculated with the medical disease, at all times and absolutely (unconditionally), which, as before
said, is by no means the case with the natural disease.
Incidentally these paragraphs have a bearing upon degree
or intensity (which is potentization), upon the repetition of
the dose, and upon susceptibility, things which must be known
by the homoeopathic physician in order that he may be a good
prescriber. We have studied potentization sufficiently to see
that disease causes exist among attenuated things, the infinitesimal or immaterial substances, and thus the physician must
see that the curative remedy must be on the same plane. He
must know why it is that he should give but one dose, and the
rationale by which susceptibility is satisfied.
In contagion (and consequently in cure) there is practically

ON HOMCgOPATHlC PHILOSOPHY 123

but one dose administered, or at least that which is stifiicient
to cause a suspension of influx. When cause ceases to flow
in a particular direction it is because resistance is offered, for
causes flow only in the direction of least resistance, and so
when resistance appears influx ceases, the cause no longer
flows in. Now in the beginning- of disease, i. e., in the stage of
contagion, there is this limit to influx, for if man continued to
receive the cause of disease (if there were no limit to its influx) he would receive enough to kill him, fonit would run a

continuous course until death. But when susceptibility is

satisfied, there is a cessation of cause, and when cause ceases
to flow into ultimates, not only do the ultimates cease, but
cause itself has already ceased.
Hahnemann states that we have more power over human
beings with drugs than disease cause, for man is only susceptible to natural diseases upon a certain plane. Disease
causes, existing as they do as immaterial substances, flow into
man in spite of him; he can neither control nor resist them,
and they make him sick. But certain changes occur and man
ceases to be susceptible, and there is no longer an inflowing of
cause into his economy ; a suspension has taken place, because
susceptibility has ceased. Susceptibility ceases when changes
occur in the economy that bar out any more influx.
But cure and contagion are very similar, and the principles
applying to one apply to the other. There is this difference:
in cure we have the advantage of change of potency, and this
enables us to suit the varying susceptibilities of sick man. Because of these varying degrees of susceptibility some are protected from disease cause and some are made sick ; the one who
is made sick is susceptible to the disease cause in accordance
with the plane he is in and the degree of attenuation that happens to be present at the time of contagion. The degree of
the disease cause fits his susceptibility at the moment he is
made sick. But it is not so with medicines. Man has all the
degrees of potentization, and by these he can make changes
and thereby fit the medicine to the varying susceptibility of man

124 Kent's lectures

in varying qualities or degrees. Hence Hahnemann writes:
"Medicines (particularly as it depends on us to vary the
doses according to our will) appear to have greater power in
affecting the state of health than the natural morbific irritation,
for natural diseases are cured and subdued by appropriate
medicines."
Now, here we might ask the question, when does a medicine
that has been administered cease to be homoeopathic? The
same principle .as to susceptibility must apply, because of the
similarity between cure and contagion. Let me illustrate it in
this way. Suppose we have a case of diphtheria, and after due

study Lachesis appears to be the most similar of all medicines

and a dose is given. Now, when does Lachesis cease to be
homoeopathic? When the symptoms that indicated it change,
then it is no longer indicated. If it is given at all after this
change, it operates upon a different plane from what it did in
its homoeopathicity, and if it acts at all it does not act curatively
but depressingly. Any more than just enough to supply the
susceptibility is a surplus and is dangerous. In a chronic disease
administer Sulphur when it is clearly indicated, and the symptoms disappear and the patient feels better. Then the remedy
ceases to be homoeopathic, and if it is administered longer
whatever action it has is neither homoeopathic nor desirable.
But man argues if a little will do good, more will do more
good. Enough to effect a change is all that can be homoeopathic ;
when certain changes are effected then the physician must wait.
Enough medicine must be given to establish order, and that
is done almost instantaneously ; at most it is but a matter of a
few hours, and, as long as order continues after it has once
begun, so long "hands off." That is just the way contagion
takes place. In diphtheria the disease begins, suceptibility
ceases, a change takes place that protects the man from any
further disease cause flowing into the body, and the disease
develops and manifests itself by its symptoms.
The repetition of dose is advised by many wise heads, but
if we understand this doctrine it will be clear to us that such

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 125

repetition of dose is perfectly useless. It is true, that in
vigorous, robust subjects who have lightning-like reaction the
dose may be repeated and changes occur for the better if the
remedy is not quite homoeopathic to the case. But some are
injured in this way because they are delicate subjects, whose
reaction is slow ; the reaction is actually prevented by the repetition of the dose ; i. e., the order we have tried to establish is
actually prevented. Hahnemann teaches that the human economy is more under the control of man than under the control
of disease, for the economy can be affected only by such disease as it is susceptible to, but man, whether for the purpose
of proving or for the purpose of curing, can so vary the dose
that he can always get results, and the very susceptible ones

are terribly damaged by the repetition of the dose.

In the thirty-first paragraph Hahnemann says that disease
causes are limited in their ability to effect changes in health,
to certain conditions and states : i, e., to susceptibility. This is
all Hahnemann says of this doctrine of cessation of cause after
certain evolutions have taken place. We see that when a natural
disease is taken it runs its period, and tends to decline, and
the patient will not be susceptible until another change of state
has arrived. It is not true that man will go out of one state of
susceptibility to a disease, and in a few days go into another
state of susceptibility to that same disease. There must be a
change, a cycle, which means a certain length of time. Now if
we talk about cure instead of contagion, it would seem that a
certain dose of medicine ' administered had lasted a certain
time.
That is commonly the appearance. The medicine appears to act all that time, and you should be clear in your mind
that this is only an appearance. It really means that a certain
length of time elapses before another dose is necessary, viz. :
until another state of susceptibility has arrived. So again we
say, whenever a medicine ceases to be homoeopathic it is of no
use to administer that medicine any longer, as it will act on
the patient only upon an artificial susceptibility. By this wq

126 KENT'S LECTURES

mean that certain sensitive patients always have a susceptibility
to high potencies. We have thus two things to deal with, the
acute state, created by the disease itself, and the chronic state,
which is the natural state of the patient born under miasm.
Now, when in the acute state the patient has satisfied the
susceptibility to contagion, there is a period in which the disease cause can no longer operate upon him ; he is immune
against any further influx of disease cause. But when a remedy
ceases to be homoeopathic, the patient has not this immunity
against more of its power because of the possibility of variance
in the hands of the physician ; the potency being given to the
patient outside of his own degree of susceptibility, he may be
damaged.
33. In accordance with this fact it is undeniably shown by all
experience that the living human organism is much more disposed and

has a greater liability to be acted on and to have its health deranged

by medicinal powers, than by morbific noxious agents and infectious
miasms ; or in other words, that the morbific noxious agents possess a
power of morbidity deranging man's health that is subordinate and
conditional, often very conditional; zvhilst medicinal agents have an
absolute unconditional power, greatly superior to the former.
When we look over the improper use of all sorts of medicines, we can but conclude that the human race, because of
drug-taking, has been greatly disordered in the economy. You
have heard Hahnemann speak of the management of chronic
diseases; he distinctly states that the greatest difficulties are
those that have been brought about in the economy by continuous drug taking. It is not that the drugs themselves are
laid up in the economy, but that life-long disorder is created.
Think of the poor old individuals who were in the habit of
taking sulphur and molasses, think of those who were perpetually tapping their livers with blue mass, think of the western
sufferers who have filled themselves every year with quinine
pan-cake to keep off the chill. These people are so disordered
that it takes years of careful prescribing to turn them into a
state of order.
In 34 Hahnemann repeats two propositions to which we

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 127

have already alluded. The first proposition is that in order to
cure the medicines must be able to produce in the human body
an artificial disease similar to that which is to be cured; this
has been fully illustrated and explained. The second proposition is that the artificial disease must be of a greater degree of
intensity. The matter of intensity has already been explained
as something higher, more internal, something superior or
prior. Intensity or power is proportionate to the degree of
approximation towards primitive substance. There is no
thought of intensity in any other direction. The cause of disease and of cure exists within the primitive substance and not
in ultimate material form, although the immaterial cause of
disease continues in disease ultimates. The bacteriologists have
crawled into confusion because they do not know in their
science that causes continue into effects. The bacteria may contain cause because causes are continued into ultimates, but the
primitive cause is not in the bacteria ; the bacteria themselves

have a cause.

128 rent's lectures

LECTURE XV
Protection from Sickness.
Organon 35 et seq.
From these paragraphs we see that there are several kinds
of protection from sickness. When a violent epidemic is raging
we all know that, although the number of victims is large, they
are few compared to those who go through the epidemic unscathed, and the question always arises, why is it ? We suppose,
and probably rightly so, that a large number of the immune
have escaped because they were unusually strong and vigorous,
or in a state of very good order. But we find among those who
have escaped the epidemic a number of persons who are anything but strong, really invalids, one in consumption, another
in the last stages of Bright's disease, another with diabetes. We
call them all together and find that none of them have had
dysentery or smallpox, or whatever disease was epidemic. They
have not been susceptible to the epidemic influences. How are
you going to explain this ? The reason is that they have a sickness that it is impossible for the epidemic to suppress. The
epidemic is allopathic, or dissimilar to their diseases, and cannot suppress their disease because of its virulency. Now if
they have some mild form of chronic disease, a severe attack
of dysentery will cause that disease to disappear temporarily,
and the new (epidemic) disease will take hold and run its
course, and when it subsides the old symptoms will come back
and go on as if they had not been meddled with. This is an
illustration of dissimilars, and shows that dissimilars are unable to cure ; they can only suppress. If the chronic disease is
stronger than the epidemic disease, i. e., if it has an organic
hold upon the body, it cannot be suppressed. This is essentially

ON HOM(KOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 129

the relation of the acute dissimilar disease to the chronic dis-

ease of severity.
The relation between chronic dissimilar diseases is somewhat different. For example, a patient is in the earlier stages
of Bright's disease, and the symptoms are clear enough to
make a diagnosis. He takes syphilis, and at once the kidney
disease is held in abeyance, the albumen disappears from the
urine and his waxiness is lost. But after a year's careful prescribing the syphilitic state disappears, and very soon the albumen appears again in the urine, the dropsy returns and he dies
of an ordinary attack of Bright's disease.
Then there are cases where two chronic diseases seem
at times to alternate with each other; one seems to be
subdued for a time and the other prevails. Under proper
homoeopathic treatment one will be reduced in its activity and
the other chronic disease will show itself. This you will find
to be the case when you have to treat syphilis and psora together. The psoric patient, who has beeii suffering from a skin
eruption or one of the various forms of psora, takes syphilis.
All the psoric manifestations, the nightly itching or the salt
rheum will disappear, and the syphilitic eruption will come on
and take their place. You will treat the syphilitic manifestations for a while and you will be able to subdue them, and in
proportion as the disease is subdued the psoric manifestations
will come up again and will hold in abeyance that portion of
the syphilitic state which is still uncured. You will then be compelled to drop the anti-syphilitic and take up the anti-psoric
treatment, and again the homoeopathic remedies will restore
apparent order in the economy. But, after this has been done,
you will be surprised to see the syphilitic state return in the
condition corresponding to its last manifestations. You must
then drop the anti-psoric treatment and resume the anti-syphilitic. Thus they alternate ; when you weaken one, the stronger
comes up. The uncomplicated syphilitic eruption does not
itch; but the psoric eruption as a rule is an itching eruption,
and this will be seen in the alternation of the two diseases.
9

130 KI^NT'S Ll^CTUR^S

If the patient is given proper treatment his condition will be
simplified, but if given old school treatment it will become very

complicated. The two miasms will unite and form a complexity, which is a most vicious state of affair's; then the
syphilitic eruptions, while they have all the appearance of
syphilis, will itch as if they were psoric eruptions. Mercury
in large doses is capable of bringing about such a result.
Proper homoeopathic treatment causes* a separation, while inappropriate treatment produces complication, and you will
never see one improve where homoeopathic remedies have
caused the tying up of the combination.
Again, take a chronic malarial diathesis, which has existed
so long that it has complicated itself with psora, we will see
after the quinine has been antidoted that the chills and fever
will come back in their original form. Here you see an evidence
of the separation which Homoeopathy always tends to bring
about. The milarial state is now brought into observation for
the purpose of cure. It cannot be cured when complicated, for
the remedy cannot be clear that will be similar enough to wipe
them out. The first prescription antidotes the drug and liberates
the patient from the drug disease, and then you see the most
acute or last appearing natural disease which comes back first:
This is in accordance with fixed law; the last miasm or the
last s)miptoms that have been made to disappear will be the
first to return and go away to appear no more.
In 36 another thought comes up : "Thus non-homoeopathic treatment, which is not violent, leaves the chronic disease unaltered." To suppress, there is required a state of
violence to be brought about upon the body; one must do
violence to the economy by enormous dosing, tremendous
physic, much sweating, blood-letting, etc., such as was done in
olden times. Such treatment tends to subdue or suppress diseBjSe for the time being ; but when the violence has subsided and
the rough treatment is removed then the symptoms come back,
but in a more disturbed state than before. The more violent the
drug disease that can be established upon the body the greater

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 131

the changes in the chronic disease. Violent treatment alters

the nature of the chronic disease. A new and more intense

disease suspends a prior dissimilar one existing in the body;
similarly, just so long as the effect of quinine continues, so
long will it suppress and hold in abeyance the disease to which
it is dissimilar. Quinine is capable of engrafting upon the
economy its own disease form, which will last for years and
may not stop until it has been antidoted by a medicine similar
to its symptoms. But if it is antidoted, that malarial disease
which it suppressed will appear in its original form and the
patient will say : **These are just the symptoms I had in the
first place when I was cured by the late Dr. So-and-so; he
cured me with Peruvian bark." That story is so common that
any homoeopathic physician who has been doing sound prescribing for years has lots of records of just such cases. The
malaria was subdued only because the quinine was capable of
producing a more violent disease than malaria. Arsenicum is
capable of doing the same thing ; it can engraft upon the economy a dangerous disease that will result in very serious conditions because the Arsenicum will complicate itself with psora.
In some cases we have a complexity of horrible things, like
one built upon another, and when this is so, in treating them
the last group which was removed will appear first, which
shows that the remedy has done its work, and we then go on to
the next, and so on, the different groups sometimes appearing
one after another in distinct form. They must disappear in
the reverse order of their coming, as if put on in layers, one
piled upon another.
From all this we see how it is possible for two different
diseases to occupy, as it were, two different corners of the
economy, one manifesting itself while the other is subdued.
We also see how they may exist in a state of complexity. In
the first instance they do not combine, in the other they do and
become complex. We also see the propriety and use of observing what treatment has been administered to the patient. It is
not always possible to do this, and it is impossible to know

132 KENT'S LECTURES

whether each one of these drugs has established its own disease.
Not every drug that is administered is capable of estab-

lishing a disease. It is always prudent, when symptoms are

only partially developed, and when the drug which caused the
suppression of symptoms is known, to include the antidotal
relation to the drug with the rest of the symptoms ; that is to
say, select a drug which has a well-known antidotal relation to
the drug that caused the suppression of the symptoms, providing it is also the most similar of all drugs to the few symptoms
that are present. In that way we make as much of similitude
as is possible. The similar remedy is most likely of all others
to antidote that drug. Do not be led aside to administer right
away the drug that caused the trouble. The principle of Similia
is first.
43. Totally different, however, is the result when two similar diseases meet together in the organism ; that is to say, when to the disease
already present a stronger similar one is added. In such cases we see
how a cure can be effected by the operations of nature, and we get a
lesson as to how man ought to cure.
Then a real conjunction takes place, a union, as it were, a
marriage, which results in the disappearance of old things and
new things come and exist in a state of order.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 133

LECTURE XVI
Oversensitive Patients,
' Organon ^44 et seq.
Drug poisoning such as we referred to in last lecture is not
always due to the prescribing of crude drugs. If you work
long among sensitive patients you will come across those who
have been actually poisoned by the inappropriate administration

of potentized medicines. These are oversensitive patients who

have received repeated doses of medicine after the medicine
and dose that was homoeopathic to their condition was administered.
If a drug that is really homoeopathic to the case is continued, after enough has been given to cure, a miasm is established in some cases by that drug, and this miasm imitates one
of the chronic diseases or one of the acute miasms in accordance with its ability, t, have a patient who has been suffering
for seven or eight years from the effects of Lachesis. I have
patients who are suffering from Sulphur and other deep acting
medicines which have been repeated too often when truly indicated, or repeated in sensitive patients when not truly indicated.
The symptoms of the drug crop out periodically years after it
has been abused, and the periodical attacks are perfectly typical of the drug. The mineral substances which are perfectly
harmless on the crude plane may be poisonous on the dynamic
plane, when the patient is an over-sensitive. There are persons who can drink a glass of milk with impunity and be nourished by it, but upon whom a drop of milk, potentized to a
high degree and repeated beyond its homoeopathicity, will establish a miasm that will last for years. A prover of Lac caninum had a return of its symptoms periodically. She was an

134 KENT'S LECTURES

over-sensitive and proved the medicine indiscriminately, and
has suflFered ever since from its poisonous effects, whereas if
it had been given prudently the disease would have established
itself upon the body like any other acute miasm, would have
run its course and disappeared. It is unwise to make provings
upon over-sensitive subjects in that way. I tested a very high
potency of Lachesis on an over-sensitive patient, giving but a
single dose, and that patient ran the course of the Lachesis
disease in about two months; the symptoms disappeared and
never returned. While the Lachesis was in progress the patient's chronic symptoms were suppressed, but after it ran its
course and disappeared her chronic symptoms came back. This
is in accordance with the doctrines. She was over-sensitive,
and while the dissimilar Lachesis disease was in full blast her
chronic disease was suppressed. There are instances when
such a patient is truly homoeopathic to a remedy, and if that
remedy be repeated after enough (I mean in the internal

sense) has been given to cure it ceases its homoeopathic relation and acting through the general susceptibility creates a
miasm upon this extremely sensitive patient. When a patient
is hypersensitive you must avoid the use of the cm. and other
very high potencies, which will make your patient sick, and use
instead the 30th and 200ths. In cases where the remedy is indicated such potencies will work quite quickly.
49. We should! have been able to meet with many more real
natural homoeopathic cures of this kind, if, on the one hand, the attention of observers had been more directed to them and, on the other
hand, if nature had not been so deficient in helpful homoeopathic
diseases.
Hahnemann, in 46, gives examples of these natural cures.
We occasionally meet with these cures now. We find patients
that are threatened with phthisis go to the South, because it
has been proved that such cases can go into a vitiated climate
and stay for a number of years, and actually receive benefit
from this disease-producing neighborhood, and go away well.
Others go into a climate more wholesome and they are not

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 135

cured. The miasms can cure all similar diseases, and the curing substances are in attenuated form. The evils that arise
from these swamps are similar to the evils of the economy of
the patient, and that similitude is antidotal, is curative, and
causes change back into order in accordance with the eternal
law that governs the action of similars.
There was a time in the iearlier days of Homoeopathy when,
taking into view the great array of disease forms to be contended with and the very few medicines then at his command,
the homoeopath was worried to find remedies similar to all of
his cases. That cannot be true now. If the homoeopath will
work in a systematic way, he will be able to command enough
of the Materia Medica to meet all the diseases that he comes
in contact with, the symptoms of which are sufficiently observed.
Every man should put himself to the task of studying
the Materia Medica ; he has no time to lose, no time to fool
away. The physician can really have no excuse at the present

day to leave our proved medicines, the medicines that are

recorded in our books ; he can have no reasonable excuse for
stepping aside into ways that are dark, treacherous and recommended only by tradition. Some physicians hold that it is liberal
to do anything for a patient. This is a pitfall, a rock, that will
destroy any physician that will not avoid it. We know that
there are doctors, who claim to be homoeopaths, who* attempt
to justify, upon some ground or. other, the administration of
remedies merely to palliate and relieve suffering. With such
men there must be a lack of sturdiness in listening to the sufferings of a patient. It seems to me that no one who is honest,
and who has knowledge of the stupidity that comes after
the administration of a medicine that will cause the symptoms to disappear, will actually tie his hands against the
finding of a remedy that will be suitable to cure. As surely
as the voice of the symptoms is hushed, so surely does the
physician put out of his way the opportunity for selecting a homoeopathic remedy. When the index to the remedy

136 KENT'S LECTURES

is spoiled the ability of the physician to benefit his patient is
destroyed. If you give quinine, go on with it ; if you give an
opiate, go on with it ; do not go back into Homoeopathy. The
man who does these things is a homceopathic failure. Some
men are incapable of grasping the homoeopathic doctrines, and
fall back into mongrelism, which is a cross between Homoeopathy and Allopathy. I would prefer an allopath to one who
professes to be a homoeopath, but who does not know enough.
Homoeopathy to practice it.
Why should you put crude medicines upon the diphtheritic
membrane in addition to giving your remedy? If the crude
drugs do anything they will spoil the appearance of the throat,
and you will not be able to know what your remedy has done.
If these adjuvants to the remedy do anything at all they will
effect such changes as will damage the case; if they do not
effect changes, why use them? There can be no reason for
administering something that does not effect changes. This
question came up one time, and created controversy in an association meeting. One doctor recommended the use of Peroxide of Hydrogen in pus cavities; he said it did no harm, it
did no damage. The question is, does it do anything at all ? If
it does, the changes it effects injure the case. Lay it down, as

a rule, that you will use nothing that can effect changes in a
case in addition to your remedy. After you prescribe a remedy
you want to know when you come back whether that remedy
has done anything. For this reason you must rest your case
upon that which you believe to be the nearest homoeopathic
remedy. All changes must be watched, because by observing
changes we know what next to do. If something has been
given by the patient's friends and changes have occurred in
the case from such meddling the doctor is in confusion. If
absolutely no changes have occurred after his remedy then he
is in intelligence and knows what next to do.
Doctors sometimes give opitim to suppress pain, but it is
more frequently given to suppress the cry of people that stand
around listening to the patient. The friends stand there wring-

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 137

ing their hands and saying: "Doctor, cannot you do something?" and the poor doctor loses his head and gives a dose
of opium. What does he do that for? In order to quiet the
cry of the people. He knows he is damaging his patient, he
knows he has put out of his hands the ability to cure that
patient homoeopathically. What if the patient does suffer?
Can that be an excuse for the doctor destroying his power to
heal that patient hereafter? The doctor justifies himself by
saying, **If I had not done this the people would have criticized
me." What business is it of the people? If a doctor has not
the grit to withstand the cries of the family, the criticisms of
the friends, the threatening of his pocketbook and of his
bread and butter, he will not practice Homoeopathy very long.
An honest man does not fear these things. There is but one
thing for him to consider, what is the right thing to do in this
case? That is the thing he must do. The harangue of the
crazy old women who stand around wagging their tattling
tongues, what has that to do with the life of the patient or
the duty of the physician? Will they shoulder the responsibility of the patient's death, if he die? I say now that the
death of a patient is nothing in comparison with violation of
the law on the part of the doctor. In both instances the doctor
gets the worst of it. The doctor who violates the law also
violates his conscience, and his death is worse than the death
of the patient. Generally the physician who has knowledge
enough and grit enough to Wait will see, before the patient

dies, the homoeopathic remedy that will control the case. The
whole community is sometimes turned into excitement because
a doctor will not do this or that. Suppose the whole atmosphere is blue with* the effects of their wrath, what has that to
do with it ? The physician who will stick by the patient and
let the people howl is dne that will be trusted through any and
every ordeal. But the doctor that will flinch and tremble at
every threatening is one that will violate his conscience, is one
that can be bought, can be hired to do anything, and will abandon his color in time of emergency. It is hard work for a

138 Kent's lectures

homoeopathic physician to settle off alone by himself where he
has nobody that will stand by him in his tribulations. The attitude of the public must never furnish the physician with indications as to what he shall do. Let him study the patient and
the symptoms of the patient. That which is right is protected
and supported, and that which is wrong degrades. Let a man
lose his self-respect a few times and he becomes a coward and
a sneak, and is ready to do almost anything that is vicious and
cowardly. The physician who has done rightly by his patient
can look the friends squarely in the face when that patient has
died. If he has administered morphine to the patient and
turned aside all the symptoms upon which he could find the
remedy, it does not seem to me that he can look the friends
squarely in the face. Of course, if you act according to principle in this way you will suffer for it. You will be called
names.
In the 63d and 64th paragraphs Hahnemann treats of the
primary and secondary actions, of medicines. There is no
necessity for dwelling upon this subject. The primary and
secondary actions of a drug are simply the one action of that
drug. Some homoeopaths have attempted to individualize
between the primary and secondary action. It does nqt matter
what the patient is suffering from, from symptoms which appeared in the primary action or from symptoms which appeared in the secondary action, that drug will cure Just the
same. The symptoms that aris^ are the symptoms that arise
from the remedy, and they often seem to oppose each other.
In the earlier stages we have sometimes sleeplessness; in the
later stages, sleepiness, and one state is sometimes more prominent than the other. For instance in Opium, some provers

had sleeplessness first and sleepiness afterwards, from the

smaller doses of Opium. It is known that Opium has both
sleeplessness and sleepiness, and if the other symptoms agree
it does not matter which one of the two is present. If Opium
is indicated by the general state of the patient it will cure either
of these conditions, and you need not stop to see if it produces

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 139

one state in one place and the opposite in another. In some
provers Opiiun produces diarrhoea in the beginning, in others
constipation. If I should take today a crude dose of Opium,
in six hours I would have a diarrhoea that would last for several days and then be constipated for six weeks. To know
that drugs have two actions is simply knowing the nature of
drugs in general. You will find another example in alcohol;
watch two drunkards and you will see the double action illustrated.
There are constitutional states in patients by virtue of
which they are always affected in a certain way, and these
states are often left after provings, or are found in those who
have been poisoned by a drug. All thes^ patients will have
alternating symptoms which will confuse the physician before
he knows their constitutional state. It is an important thing
to know the constitutional state of a patient before prescribing. You will always be able to do better for your patients
when you know all their tendencies. Of course, in acute diseases symptoms sometimes stand out so sharply that an acute
remedy can be administered without reference to any constitutional state. Acute cognates can be established in almost
any patient. For instance, the Calcarea patient will need an
acute cognate of Calcarea when he is sick with acute symptoms. The acute symptoms fit into and are established and
formed by the constitutional state of the patient.

140 Kent's lectures

LECTURE XVII
The Science and the Art.

Up to this time we have been studying principles that relate

to the knowledge of Homoeopathy. At this point Hahnemann
arrives at three important conclusions as to what we have been
studying in its application to practice. There are three steps tp
be surveyed:
1st. "By what means is the physician to arrive at the necessary information relative to a disease, in order to be able to
undertake the cure?" Of course that relates to the disease in
general, and the patient in particular. In going over the 3d
paragraph, we gathered together the means of studying an
epidemic and each man in particular. We shall now proceed
to study disease in general and the patient in particular, from
now on to the end of this course. All the rest of the study is
of such a character. There are a great many questions that
arise in this problem that must be studied in detail, the study
of the nature of acute miasms and the study of the nature of
chronic miasms ; the study of such changes as show there are
two distinct classes of sickness. Each one is to be studied in
its most general way, and each person as a particular entity.
2d. "How is he to discover the morbific powers of medicines ; that is to say, of the instruments destined to cure natural
disease?" This constitutes a study of the Materia Medica
and a knowledge of how it is built, which is by provings, by
recorded facts.
3d. "What is the best mode of applying these morbific
powers (medicines) in the cure of diseases?" This involves
the study of all methods and settling upon that which is best.
To proceed in the study of these in a rational, scientific and

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 141

careful manner is the object of the future study of this book.
It leads, from now on, from the science of Homoeopathy to
the art of healing. We see that we have now gone over the
principal part of that which is merely science, the science of
HomcEopathy. We have none of the enormous classifications
in the study of Homoeopathy that are resorted to in traditional medicine ; they should not appear in the study of applied
Homoeopathy. The study of the classification of disease as is

done in traditional medicine is useful, because we come in contact with the world. As the Boards of Health require us to state
what particular disease, according to classification, a patient
died from, classified in accordance with old school nosology, we
haVe, therefore, to go into the study of diagnosis. In Homoeopathy, diagnosis cuts very little figure in the treatment ; but all
the ultimates in the case must be brought forward and described by name. We want the use of adjectives, we want the
use of large language, we want descriptive power, in order that
the nature of the sickness, which is all that man can know
about the disease, may be brought out on paper, and thereby
caused to appear at any time thereafter to the mind of the
physician. If the physician were simply to make a study of
the disease, and after studying it were to give it a name and
let that name constitute the record, no future prescription
could be made. And the physician, thereafter, in referring to
this record, would know nothing about its nature. The name
conveys no idea of the nature of the sickness, only its place in
a general classification. A knowledge of the nature of individual sickness is necessary for a prescription, and this depends
upon the ascertainment of the details.
The very first of this study is to prove and realize that
there are two classes of diseases, acute and chronic. The
general classification of all diseases is made in this way: the
acute are thrown into one group and studied as acute diseases,
and so with the chronic.
An acute miasm is one that comes upon the economy,
passes through its regular prodromal period, longer or shorter,

142 KENT'S LECTURES

has its period of progress and period of decline, and in which
there is a tendency to recovery. A chronic miasm is one that
has its period of prodrome, period of progress and no period
of decline; it is continuous, never ending, except with the
death of the patient.
The acute diseases need much less study than the chronic.
They are all such as are contagious or infectious, such as have
a miasmatic character and are capable of running a definite
course. When a man disorders his stomach and Has an attack
of vomiting, and from which he has no after trouble, he has

suffered merely from an indisposition. Such conditions from

external causes are not miasms. Things that go through the
mouth into the stomach and thereby produce sickness act
either as rousers up of some old trouble or as mechanical
causes of disturbance. The pure diseases, on the other hand,
whether acquired or inherited, are those that flow from the
innermost to the outermost while making man sick. These
causes that make man sick are influx of simple substance and
they run a fixed distinct course. Each one has its own time
of prodrome, its own period of progress, whereby the traditional school of medicine has fixed what it calls pathognomonic symptoms. It is well to know these symptoms, not for
the purpose of naming merely, but for the purpose of association.
The study of disease should not be for the purpose
of naming; if it is so, the name does harm. When you think
of a child suffering from measles, the idea of measles may go
out of the mind, but the character of the sickness of that
particular child must remain in the mind. At first you will
not be able to see what is meant by that, especially if you have
been in the habit of studying cases for the purpose of diagnosis.
I do not say this to throw a cloud upon diagnosis, but
to show you that the study of diagnosis is not for the purpose of making a prescription. The more you dwell upon
diagnostic symptoms, the more you will becloud the ideas en-

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 143

tering the mind that lead towards a prescription. You might
go into the room and work an hour in individualizing a case,
deciding whether it were measles or scarlet fever (there are
some confusing cases in the beginning). Well, you might
say, it is measles, and must now have Pulsatilla, or scarlet fever
and must have Belladonna. You will readily see that such a
state of affairs is misleading to the mind. If you are in an
epidetfiic, where it is necessary in order to save the neighborhood, to know, for instance, whether a certain case is of
cholera or not, then it becomes necessary to do the two things.
The family and the surrounding families are entitled to the
safety that a correct knowledge would give and that protection,
isolation or quarantine would afford. There are two kinds of

study, one with a bearing toward the classification that the

disease belongs to, and one with reference to the remedy that
the patient needs ; but I prefer to settle the patient first as to
the remedy he needs, and this has very little to do with the
classification, except in a general way. After a remedy has
been decided upon that clearly covers the symptoms and the
patient receives his dose of medicine, the next point is, what
step is it necessary to take in order to protect the people if this
a contagious disease. Diagnosis is something that a physician
cannot afford to be foolish a1;>out, he cannot afford to be a
blunderer, he cannot afford to go around calling scarlet fever
measles, and measles scarlet fever. He must know enough
about the general nature of diseases that after the prescription has been made and the patient settled as to that, and the
mother wants to know what is the matter with the child, to tell
her, for, in that instance, she has a perfect right to know ; that
is, a case where the family must be protected, where outsiders
must be protected; the physician must decide whether it is
proper for the child to go to school, or whether it is not proper.
There are some conditions of chronic disease which closely
resemble acute diseases; for instance, these mimicking acute
attacks that come on regularly as periodical headaches. One
attack, singled out, might have an appearance of an acute

144 RENTES LECTURES

niiasm, yet the tendency to progress and not to recovery shows
that -it belongs to the chronic class. Those disorders that
come from debauchery and drinking and overeating, from immediate circumstances that are not periodical, are things that
arise from the latent psoric condition; they are momentary
sickness, and if it were not for the fact that man suffers from
chronic miasms he would not have these ; these attacks would
not form a sickness, would not have an appearance of acute
sickness. It is due to chronic miasms that man has these little
recurring attacks. These do not come with a prodromal period,
a progressive period and a period of decline ; they may have an
attack and decline, but not a prodrome. The acute miasms like
the chronic have their prodromal period.
Par. 72 says : "Relative to the first point, it will be necessary for us to enter here into some general considerations.
The diseases of mankind resolve themselves into two classes,"
etc. Remember that the acute diseases always tend to recovery ;

the chronic diseases have no tendency whatever to recovery,

but a continuous progressive tendency; they are far deeper
miasms.
There are three of these chronic miasms that belong
to the human family psora, syphilis and sycosis and these
we will take up and study. The worst cases are those wherein
the three chronic miasms, or some parts of the three, have
been complicated by drugs. When the effect of drugs has been
removed then we may begin to study the pure miasms themselves; but the miasms are complicated at the present day in
most men, for wherever we come in contact with chronic sickness we come in contact also with chronic drugging and its
effects upon the vital force. I am of the opinion, perhaps I am
wrong, that when blood-letting was in vogue, when violent
cathartics were thrown in, when emetics and sweating were
prescribed, as in the olden times, when all these violent things
were resorted to, the human race was nbt torn to pieces as
rapidly as at the present day. The enormous doses of Jalap
and Calomel rushed through the intestines and cleaned out the

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHIEOSOPHY 145

patient, and he felt better afterwards, and probably did not
carry to his grave the internal results of that cleaning out. He
did not carry the internal results of the emetics and sudorifics,
but at the present day small doses of concentrated drugs are
administered, which have an insidious effect upon the economy
and develop their chronic symptoms very- slowly. From the
continued taking of old school products, the alkaloids, etc.,
we have the most dreadful state that has ever occurred in the
history of medicine coming on. The aim is to get small d(es,
to get an insidious effect. The milder preparations, like Sulphonal, require months to develop their chronic tendencies, and
are most vicious and troublesome drugs. These slow and subtle
preparations are now being manufactured, and though seeming
to produce a mild primary effect have secondary effects or
after-effects which are very severe. Hahnemann said, in his
time, the most troublesome chronic diseases were those that
had been complicated with drugs. If that were true then it is
ten times more so now. The little headache compounds, the
catarrh cures, etc., are milder as to the first effects, but more
violent as to the last effects. They are prepared to imitate the
palatable form of homoeopathic remedies.

10

146 KENT'S LECTURES

LECTURE XVIII
Chronic Diseases Psora.
Psora IS the beginning of all physical sickness. Had psora
never been established as a miasm upon the human race, the
other two chronic diseases would have been impossible, and
susceptibility to acute diseases would have been impossible.
All the diseases of man are built upon psora; hence it is the
foundation of sickness; all other sicknesses come afterwards.
Psora is the underlying cause, and is the primitive or primary disorder of the human race. It is a disordered state of the
internal economy of the human race. This state expresses itself
in the forms of the varying chronic diseases, or chronic manifestations. If the human race had remained in a state of perfect order, psora could not have existed. The susceptibility to
psora opens out a question altogether too broad to study among
the sciences in a medical college. It is altogether too extensive,
for it goes to the very primitive wrong of the human race, the
very first sickness of the human race, that is the spiritual sickness, from which first state the race progressed into what may
be called the true susceptibility to psora, which in turn laid the
foundation for other diseases. If we regard psora as synonymous with itch, we fail to understand, and fail to express thereby, anything like the original intention of Hahnemann. The
itch is commonly supposed to be a limited thing, something
superficial, caused by a little tiny bit of a mite that is supposed
to have life, and when the little itch mite is destroyed the cause
of itch is said to have been removed. What a folly !
From a small beginning with wonderful progress^ psora
spreads out into its underlying states and manifests itself in
the large portion of the chronic diseases upon the human racfe.

ON HOMCBOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 147

It embraces epilepsy, insanity, the malignant diseases, tumors,
, ulcers, catarrhs, and a great proportion of the eruptions. It
progresses from simple states to the very highest degree of
complexity, not always alone and by itself, but often by the
villainous aid of drugging during generation after generation ;
for the physician has endeavored with all his power to drive
it from the surface, and has thereby caused it to root itself
deeper, to become more dense and invisible, until the human
race is almost threatened with extinction. Look at the number
of the population upon the face of the earth, and notice how
few arrive at the age of maturity. It is appalling to think of
the number of infants that die, and these largely from the
outgrowths, or outcoming of psora. We see little ones born
who have not sufficient vitality to live. The congenital debility,
and marasmus, and varying diseases of a chronic character
that carry off the little ones have for their underlying cause
the chronic miasms. The principal underlying cause is psora,
next syphilis and next sycosis.
It required twelve years for Hahnemann to discover and
gather together the evidence upon which he came to his conclusions. When- a patient came to him who manifested chronic
disease in any way he took pains t6 write down carefully in
detail all the symptoms, from beginning to end, with the history of the father and mother, until he had collected a great
number of appearances of disease, not knowing yet what the
outcome would be; but after this careful writing out of the
S)miptoms of hundreds of patients, little and great, and comparing them and then gathering them together in one grand
group, there appeared in the totality of this collection a picture
of psora in all of its forms. Up to this time the world had
been looking upon each one of these varying forms as distinct
in itself, e. g,, all the striking features of epilepsy would be
gathered together, and epilepsy was then called a disease ; but
epilepsy is only one of the results of disease, and never appears
twice alike. Every person who has epilepsy differs from every
other epileptic on earth. But epilepsy, insanity, diabetes, cancer,

148 KENT'S LECTURES

Bright's disease, and every other case of so-called disease have

all had a beginning and one beginning. They are not distinct,
but operate in each person in accordance with that individual.
Hahnemann says that before he began that collection of symptoms he was struck somewhat with wonder that Nux Vomica
and Ignatia and such short acting medicines were able to cure
only a single manifestation of disease, a group of symptoms,
or they would relieve for a time, and then the symptoms would
come back, although he had followed up the treatment to the
best of his knowledge. At the end of a case, he could discover
that there had been a continuous progress in spite of the fact
that he had relieved his patient of suffering a good many times.
So it is, while acute acting remedies are used, and you will
use them if you do not know the psoric doctrine. The short
acting medicines are the ones that contain the counterparts of
the acute manifestations of psora, and hence when these acute
manifestations' appear in groups of symptoms you will naturally select acute remedies, and you will palliate them from
time to time, but at the end of years you will look upon every
individual case, and will notice that the case has been steadily
progressing. You will find that you have not struck at the root
of the trouble, that there is an ' underlying something present
and prevailing and that the disease is steadily growing worse.
Hahnemann saw this and it was a mystery to him because
he had acquired a perfect mastery over the acute disease with
the acute remedies. Such apsorics had been at this time very
well proved, Belladonna, Aconite, Bryonia, Arnica, China,
Nux Vomica, etc., etc., and these had been found to be perfectly suitable for the acute manifestations of psora and for
the acute miasms. Hahnemann had not yet learned that the
acute miasms were utterly and strictly acute miasms ; and could
not, therefore, compare acute miasms with chronic miasms,
or vice versa. He had not seen them yet as miasms.
One will not understand the acute miasms clearly until able
to compare them with chronic miasms. They side up one with
another, and make it wonderfully manifest. The acute miasms

ON HOMC^OPAtHIC PHILOSOPHY 149

come on either with sufficient violence to cause death to patients, or with less violence, wherein there is a period of progress and a tendency to recover. They cannot be prolonged in

the patient, and must subside. The acute miasms are not governed in accordance with fixed time in order to be acute
miasms, because they have times of their own. Neither is
there a time after the lapse of which the chronic miasm is said
to be chronic. According to the old school, diseases have been
divided into acute, sub-acute and chronic. If any sickness ran
longer than six weeks, it would be placed among the sub-acute ;
if it ran on indefinitely, it was called chronic. But a chronic
miasm is chronic from its beginning, and an acute miasm is
acute from its beginning. It is from its nature, from its capabilities, from what it will do to the human race, that we must
name the miasm.
So Hahnemann tells us frankly that he was astonished
to find at the end of a certain length of time no progress had
been made with his remedies in chronic diseases. The symptoms appeared with their own regularity, much stronger than
before, which showed that they were progressing. Hahnemann
enters not only a difficult study, but with all sorts of difficulties,
and after studying for twelve years he developed the fact that
in all the cases observed there was an underlying chronic disease, a chronic miasm, which had a tendency to progress and
to end only with the life of the patient. Then he bent himself
to the provings of medicines in order to discover from them a
likeness to the chronic miasms. Had he never come to this
conclusion, he would not have noticed such things.
When he had brought all the symptoms before the mind in
one grand collective view, he began to observe and reflect as
to what was the first, and what was the second, and later appearances in the line of progress in this deep-seated chronic
miasm. Thus it was that he observed amongst those who were
dying with phthisis that in their younger days they had a vesicular disease between the fingers and upon the body, which had
been suppressed by the ointments in vogue at that time. Then

150 K]aNT's LECTURES

the question naturally arose, what had this suppression to do
with that which came afterwards? As to how Hahnemann
figured out the answer to that question you can read in his
"Chronic Diseases," but he does not tell it all; although he
gives many pages of experiences and observations. You will
more clearly understand and be better prepared to take up

Hahnemann's line of thinking, if you enter into the use of

appropriate medicines and apply principle to the progress of
disease ^that is,* you will see a demonstration of his teaching
in the curative treatment of a very large number of cases of
sickness by applying principles: that diseases get well in the
reverse order of their coming, that the latest symptoms will be
the first to go away, and that the older symptoms will come and
go in the reverse order in which they appeared ; old symptoms,
in the form of eruptions, come back, old chills, which have been
suppressed, come back, and many other chronic manifestations
come back again in a sort of successive order. If we observe
these things we must come to the conclusion that when we
have driven these oldest and deepest troubles back to their
original manifestation, which was perhaps a vesicular eruption, and if we see nothing more simple than this eruption, we
must conclude that the suppression of such an eruption was
the beginning of his trouble.
If you practice accurately, you will observe these things ; if
you are not a success in practice, you will not observe these
things. Many patients are so badly off that this is never observed, and then we have the onward progress ; that is, we have
the patient declining, instead of the disease declining. If that
patient is only better as to symptoms, and his old symptoms
do not come back, we know that he is only being palliated, that
the disease processes are only being restrained, but that it is
not a case of cure. There is one thing that you should know,
and it is sometimes best to say it to the patient, and that is that
they should not take too much courage, because a patient that
takes too much courage may take too much discouragement
when reverses come. So when a woman walks into your office

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 151

and says beautiful things by way of gratitude for what you
have done for her, because you have mitigated the deep-seated
trouble, perhaps chronic sick headache, or epilepsy, but she
cannot tell you of an eruption returning or you have observed
no backward progress of that disease, no reverse order of the
S)miptoms, it is often well to say to that patient, that notwithstanding the fact that she appears to be much improved the
trouble is not over for all that. On the other hand, it is sometimes wise to say : "If ah eruption should come out, do not on
your life meddle with it," because they will probably use what

they say relieved it in the first place, some Sulphur ointment,

or some other miserable stuff. The physician should bear in
mind to caution the patient against removing any of the symptoms in the case. When the patient comes and reports such
wonderful tales of progress, take down your record and look it
over. If you have in the record failed to get the earlier history
of the case, endeavor then, if possible, to find out something
about the previous symptoms, the earlier symptoms, and then
it is sometimes well with an intelligent person to say : "Do not
be surprised, do not be alarmed, if such and such symptoms
return," cautioning the patient to report to the physician and
apply nothing. Now, it is from these circumstances that we
observe finally, where the patient is so well instructed not to
do anything, to take no drugs, to keep the life as pure as
possible, to keep the physical forces untrammelled by violence,
it is under such circumstances that we shall observe the coming back of symptoms that have long been suppressed. Long
after the treatment has ceased, a patient will come back and
say: "This old trouble has come back on me; can you do
anything for it ?" You have now to look over the record, and
you see that sure enough this is like what came out in the. beginning of this trouble ; that psora existed in its simplest form
of a vesicular eruption upon the child, and that it was suppressed.
These are the simplest cases of psora, because these
can be counted collectively in one person ; but the complicated

152 rent's lectures

forms of psora are those that are inherited. Amongst the simple forms of psora, after the eruptions disappear, catarrhal
troubles come on, with their varying manifestations. You prescribe for all these symptoms, and presently the eruptions of
childhood come back, especially in a younger person. If it is in
a more complicated state, we do not get the patient back to the
original form of psora, because the parent had the simple form
of psora, and the child gets a complex form, so that when the
symptoms come back from the advanced states of psora we
only get a less complex form from those which were present
when the patient came to you. You will seldom see the vesicular
form or simple form brought back except in those who have
had the simple form, but forms approximating the simple will
return if the vital energy of the economy is being turned into

order.
Since this, then, is the natural form of recovery, we
see we are gradually traveling back towards the beginning of
psora or its earlier forms. If you are treating a vicious form
of scaly eruption, dry hard horny scales, you will, under accurate prescribing, notice these scaly formations disappear, but
after the vital force has become strong enough you need not
be surprised to see vesicular eruptions develop, for the original
so-called disease had changed from its vicious squamous form
to the milder vesicular form. Different names have been given
to the skin diseases, but we see that names are of very little
value. The different eruptions change into varying forms, but
they are all from one cause, and will come back in their successive stages under true homoeopathic treatment. This is seen
quite often enough to demonstrate what I am talking about,
and from this alone we can ascertain that psora begins with
the simple isolated vesicular form of eruption. At times you
will be treating the more advanced and complicated forms of
psora, where there are organic changes ; after the patient gets
the homoeopathic remedy for a while he comes to a stand still,
seems to be doing nothing, but in the course of time vicious
ugly eruptions come out upon the body. This is a good sign ;

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 153

in SO far as the disease manifests itself upon the skin, or in
catarrhal discharges, the internal organs are safe, but when
these outward manifestations are stopped the internal parts
suifer.
If this be true, what conclusion must we come to as to
the good oi; injury done to patients when every catarrhal discharge is stopped and every eruption upon the skin is driven
away by outward applications. What are we to conclude when
we see that the idea of the medical world of today is to stop
everything that appears upon the surface? When we know
the truth in regard to psora, we see what a wonderful damage
it is to the patient to have these outward signs stopped in this
way, what a tremendous shock it is to the economy, and how
it is that psora is pushed on and made worse, made more complex from year to year, from generation to generation, until it
is the fundamental disease of the human economy and the
basis of all the trouble in man.

At the present day, as you are now prepared to hear, we can

really learn more about psora by watching it in its backward
progress than by watching it in its onward progress in any
particular case. It is the cause of all the chronic manifestations
of disease that are not syphilitic or sycotic. We are able to
group together in the mind all those vicious constitutional
states (not syphilitic or sycotic) that are called organic disease,
as the results of psora. Then the five forms of Bright's disease
are not diseases, but the result of psora operating upon the
economy and attacking the kidney. The common chronic diseases of the liver are not diseases, but the localization of psora
in the liver; the lung diseases and heart diseases and brain
diseases are not diseases, because they have one single origin,
and from this* origin we follow their progress, and thus study
them from their beginnings to their ends, from cause to ultimates. Only in this way will we have a clear knowledge of
their internal cause and beginnings.

154 Kent's lecturi^s

LECTURE XIX
Chronic Diseases Psora. (Continued.)
In the work on "Chronic Diseases" Hahnemann refers to
psora as the oldest, most universal and most pernicious chronic
miasmatic disease, yet it has been misapprehended more than
any other. "Psora is the oldest miasmatic chronic disease
known. The oldest history of the oldest nation does not reach
its origin. Psora is just as tedious as syphilis and sycosis, and
is, moreover, hydra-headed. Unless it is thoroughly cured, it
lasts until the last breath of the longest life. Not even the
most robust constitution, by its own unaided efforts, is able to
annihilate and extinguish psora."
The three chronic miasms, psora, s)rphilis and sycosis, are
all contagious. In ^ach instance there is something prior to
the manifestations which we call disease. We speak of the
different groupings of appearances as psora. We speak of
the signs and symptoms of a disease, we speak of the outcroppings of the symptoms when we speak of syphilis, but remember there is a state prior to syphilis or syphilis would not exist.

It could not come upon man except for a condition suitable to

its development. In like manner psora could not exist except
for a condition in mankind suitable for its development.
Psora being the first and the other two coming later, it is
proper for us to inquire into that state of the human race that
would be suitable for the development of psora. There must
have been a state of the human race suitable to the development of psora ; it could not have come upon a perfectly healthy
race, and it would not exist in a perfectly healthy race. There
must have been some sickness prior to this state, which we
recognize as the chronic miasm psora ; some state of disorder,
some state that it would be perfectly rational and proper for

ON HOMCEtdPATHlC PHUjOSOPHY 155

man to undeitake to solve as to its cause, as to its history, and
as to its very nature. Some will say, but if we undertake to
do this we will have to accept the Word of God as historical,
as relating to the beginning, because there is no other history
going so far back. There is no harm in reasoning from that
and I hope you will so accept it, not only as history, but as
divine revelation ; not that I wish to quote from or refer to it,
because I never do so in my teaching. If we look upon
syphilis we will see that man's own act leads him to the place
where he comes in contact with syphilis ; it is the result of action.
Syphilis is that disease which corresponds to the effect
of impure coition, of going where syphilis is, of coming in
contact with those who have it. It is an action; it is not so
with psora. Man does not seek it, he does not go where it is,
he does not associate with those necessarily that have it. He
may be exposed ; but syphilis is the result of his own action,
which is an impure fornication or adulteration which he knows
better than to seek, and knows enough from his intelligence to
avoid. Syphilis, then, is a result of action, although after once
ultimated it may be perpetuated by accident. There is always
a state and condition of man that precedes his action, and if
S3rphilis corresponds to man's action, and there is a state prior
to it, a diseased condition that precedes, that state must correspond to that which precedes action, which is thinking and
willing.

Thinking and willing establishes a state in man that

identifies the condition he is in. As long as man continued to
think that which was true and held that which was good to the
neighbor, that which was uprightness and justice, so long man
remained upon the earth free from the susceptibility to disease, because that was the state in which he was created. So
long as he remained in that state and preserved his integrity he
was not susceptible to disease and he gave forth no aura that
could cause contagion ; but when man began to will the things
that were the outcome of his false thinking then he entered a

156 rent's lectures

state which was the perfect correspondence of his interior.
As are the will and the understanding, so will be the external
of man. As the life of man or as the will of man, so is the body
of man, and as the two make one in this world there is evolved
from him an aura which is vicious in proportion to his departure from virtue and justice into evils. And long before the
time of Noah's flood, which was an inundation that destroyed
the evil ones that were upon the earth at that time, there was
a manifestation, called leprosy, which was but the result of the
dreadful profanity that took place in this period. A. great
many people suffered then from that violent aura of leprosy,
whereas the natural disorder of the human race today is a
milder form of psora upon a different race of people. If we
had the same race upon the earth today we would have leprosy
among them, as we now have the milder form of psora. The
ancients referred to leprosy as an internal itch.
Hence this state, the state of the human mind and the state
of the human body, is a state of susceptibility to disease from
willing evils, from thinking that which is false and making
life one continuous heredity of false things, and so this form
of disease. Psora, is but an outward manifestation of that
which is prior in man. It was not due to actions of the body,
as we find syphilis and sycosis to be, but due to an influx from
a state, which progressed and established itself upon the earth,
until we can see it as but the outward manifestions of man's
very nature.
The human race today walking the face of the earth
is but little better than a moral leper. Such is the state of
the human mind at the present day. To put it in another way,

everyone is psoric. We know what leprosy means, and to say

that the whole world is in a state of psora is no broader or
narrower than to say that leprosy prevails today upon the face
of the earth, but it prevails in a milder form, in the form of
Psora. A new contagion comes with every child. As Psora
piles up generation after generation, century after century, the
susceptibility to it increases. This is true of every miasm and

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 157

true of all drugs. We find in the drugged world that those who
have been mercurialized become more susceptible to Mercury
and are more easily poisoned by it. Those poisoned with Rhus
are so sensitive to it that they cannot go within a whiff of it ;
those that have been poisoned in their earliest beginning with
Psora become more sensitive to it, so that in childhood the
slightest whiff of it from their school friends will bring on a
crop of vesicles between the fingers attended with the acarus.
Of course, some persons will say that the acarus is prior to
the eruption, but they don't know that a healthy person will not
be affected by the acarus. The miasm is simply evolved out of
a state and the acarus is in turn its ultimate. It is the state
that is prior, the itch-bug is not prior. The human race becomes
increasingly sensitive generation after generation to this internal state, and this internal state is the underlying cause which
predisposes man to syphilis. If he had not psora he could not
take syphilis ; there would be no ground in his economy upon
which it would thrive and develop.
The will and the understanding are prior to man's action. This is fundamental. The man does not do until
he wills ; he wills what he carries out. If man did what he did
not will, he would be only an automaton. He wills to go to a
house of prostitution, or seeks for a prostitute with whom to
copulate, and from her he takes the s)rphilitic miasm. This
action of his will and this disease corresponds to the man.
There is a state in which he thinks it only, in which he wills,
but in which he has not yet arrived at the state in which he can
act. First there was the thinking of falses and willing of evils,
thinking such falses as led to depraved living and longing for
what was not one's own, until finally action prevailed. The
miasms which succeeded psora were but the outward representations of actions, which have grown out of thinking and

willing.
Psora is the oldest outward expression of the diseases of the human race representing this vital beginning, and
next exists that state that corresponds to action. Thinking,

158 Kent's li^ctures

willing and acting are the three things that make up the science
of life of the human race. Man thinks, he wills and he acts.
Now, that aura which is given out from the human race at any
period of its history is that which corresponds to the state of
the human race. The children inherit it from their parents and
carry it on and continue it. As the internal is so is the external,
and the external cannot be except as a result of the internal.
The internal state of man is prior to that which surrounds
him ; therefore, environment is not cause ; it is only, as it were,
a sounding board ; it only reacts upon and reflects the internal.
One who has the prior, which is internal, may have that which
can follow upon the external; it flows, as it were, from the
internal and eflFects its forms upon the skin, upon the organs,
upon the body of man. Such is influx and the inflowing is
always in the direction of the least or no resistance ; so that it
is in the direction of man's affection, man's loves. Things flow
in the direction that he wants them to flow. Diseases correspond to man's affections, and the diseases that are upon the
human race today are but the outward expression of man's
interiors, and it is true if the diseases are such they represent
the internal forces of man. Man hates his neighbor, he is willing to violate every commandment; such is the state of man
today. This state is represented in man's diseases. All diseases
upon the earth, acute and chronic, are representations of man's
internals. Otherwise he could not be susceptible, or could not
develop that which is within him. The image of his own interior self comes out in disease.
This state has continued to progress, and it has accumulated
and become complex. The original simple psora has added to
it syphilis and sycosis, and these progress and have now effected a state, they have continued to effect a state in mankind, whereby the race is so susceptible to acute affections
that many of our citizens have every little thing that comes
along, and every little epidemic of influenza brings them down

with an acute attack. This could not k* but for the complications that man has caused himself to get into, or has taken upon

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 159

himself. This was not done in one generation, but has been
accumulating upon the face of the earth so long as we have a
history of man. Otherwise man would not be sick, for he
should be a perfect animal in his animal nature. Look at the
perfection of all things put upon the earth ; see the plants, how
perfect they are; but man by his thinking evils and willing
f alses has entered upon a state wherein he has lost his freedom,
his internal order, and is undergoing changes which the animal
kingdom in its period, and the vegetable kingdom in its period,
did not take on.
The miasms that are at the present day upon the human
race are complicated a thousandfold by allopathic treatment.
Every external manifestation of the miasm has in itself a tendency to straighten mankind, but the human race is being
violently damaged and diseases are being complicated for the
reason that these outward expressions are forced to disappear
by the application of some violent or stimulating drug. At the
present day nobody will acknowledge that he had the itch in
his childhood, until it is seen by some intelligent mother that
it is wise to tell the doctor everything. The itch is looked
upon as a disgraceful affair ; so is everythmg that has a similar
correspondence; because the itch in itself has a correspondence with adultery, only one is adultery as to internals and
the other as to externals; one succeeds the other. So it is
with all miasms.
And now we have the great miasms before us to treat,
as physicians, in all their complications. For instance, if
a true sycotic gonorrhoea appears to us second hand it appears in its suppressed form, which is a thousand times worse
than the original form. All the outward manifestations have
been made to disappear. So it is with the external forms of
psora, the vesicular and squamous eruptions, and all the outgrowths and outcroppings of psora. Every conceivable thing
has been resorted to to destroy its manifestations, and the
disease has grown and grown until nobody can tell what its
outcome will be. How long can this thing go on before the

160 KENT'S LECTURES

human race will be swept from the earth with the results of
the suppression of psora? From the suppression of psora we
have cancerous affections, organic diseases of the heart and
lungs, phthisis, and general destruction of the body. How long
can it go on ? If Homoeopathy does not spread, if it does not
establish its doctrines upon the earth so that sick folks can be
healed under its principles, this threatening state and condition
will increase. Allopathic physicians are multiplying rapidly,
and they are all doing the same thing, even more so now than
at the time of Hahnemann. It does seem as if Homoeopathy
had become a necessity, but the kind of Homoeopathy that
is preached in the majority of our schools will not check the
progress of psora. The majority of the college teachers sneer
at the doctrine of psora; they sneer at the miasms and continue in their efforts to establish Homoeopathy upon an allopathic basis. Homoeopathy as taught in the colleges at the
present day is simply an attempt to establish Homoeopathy
upon an allopathic basis, using allopathic names, calling chronic
affections by different names, and treating diseases of organs
by name. No study is made of psora, but allopathic books are
their text-books. Syphilis is not treated from cause to effect,
but simply in the way of driving it back or holding it in abeyance, without any effort to permanently cure it. The patient is
filled with Mercury, the Iodides and other strong drugs, drugs
that are well known to subdue it temporarily by an allopathic
effect.
Psora has progressed until it has become the most contagious of diseases, because the more complicated it becomes
the more susceptible are our children to its beginnings, and its
contagion adds to the old disease; and while it goes on the
children become increasingly sensitive to the other miasms.
The human race at the present day is intensely susceptible to
psora, to syphilis and sycosis. "Psora," says Hahnemann,
"became, therefore, the common mother of man's chronic
diseases. It can be said that at least seven-eighths of the chronic
maladies existing at the present day are due to psora."

ON HOMOJOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 161

 True, if psora could be brought back in a series to its simple state the external of the body would become wonderfully
bad to look upon, but the internal would be in a much better
state. The vesicular eruptions that come are sometimes dreadful to look upon, horrible in proportion to the vanity of the
patient, but these must be allowed to evolve themselves and
then wonderful good comes to the economy. Hereditary states
roll out in these manifestations, internal evils flow into external manifestations and Homoeopathy continues to drive them
outward and outward, thereby leaving the economy in a
state of comparative freedom. Very commonly itch will not
yield to the homoeopathic remedy immediately, because the
action of the remedy is routing the heredity within, causing
it to flow out more exteriorly into manifestations without.
One who does not know this, of course, loses heart when
his remedies do not at once wipe out the eruption. A sickly
child may come out with eruptions, and if the child is treated
properly the sickness will flow out into the eruption and
that child will be cured from within out; and finally after
much tribulation the outward trouble will pass away, carrying
with it the internal trouble. So that when it is said that the
appropriate remedy did not immediately wipe oS the skin and
make it smooth, and, therefore. Zinc ointment or Sulphur ointment was resorted to, we see that it is a violation of law, and
a wonderful damage to the patient.
Then Hahnemann gives a long list of cases with authorities,
quotations and references which you should certainly look over.
He also gives the symptoms that he collected while observing
and investigating. It was the wonderful similarity between
those symptoms when grouped together, representing an image
of psora, and those symptoms representing an image of Sulphur, which led Hahnemann to the use of Sulphur in psoric
conditions. In psora we have the images of many remedies;
all of the deep acting remedies have more or less something of
the nature of psora.

11

162 KENT'S LECTUJlES

LECTURE XX
Chronic Diseases Syphilis.
There are some generals that relate to this disease under
homoeopathic treatment. It can be found from books what
to expect in this disease ; for instance, the different syphilitic
eruptions in all their varied manifestations as to time and
color. In regard to the prodromal period, it is well to remember that it is usually from twelve to fifteen days, but it is Sometimes as late as 50 or 60 days. Some acute miasm or a bad
cold, or a drug disturbing the economy, may prevent the external manifestations and prolong the prodromal period, but it
is u^ally from 12-15 days, if in no way disturbed or interrupted. Now the prodromal period increases with the contagion of the various stages. This is an observation that you
will be able to verify in homoeopathic practice, but one that
the books will not give. The books speak of the primary contagion as the only contagion in connection with the syphilitic
miasm, but let me tell you something. Suppose we assume that
the syphilitic miasm is a disease that would run for a definite
time, and suppose that an individual has gone through with the
primary manifestations and is told by his physician that he can
safely marry; if he marry, his wife becomes an invalid; but
she does not go through the primary manifestations, the initial
lesion and the roseola, but she has the syphiloderma and the
symptoms which belong to the later stage of the disease. This
disease is transferred from husband to wife, and it is taken up
in the stage in which it then exists and from thence goes on in
a progressive way. The woman catches it from the man in the
stage in which he has it at the time of their marriage ; she takes
that which he has; if he has it in the advanced stage, she

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 163

takes it in that stage ; she takes from him the stage he has to
offer.
This is equally true of psora and sycosis. Such things
never occur in the acute miasms, but the three chronic miasms
have contagion in the form in which they exist at the time.
The state is transferred, so that one in the advanced stages of
psora will transfer to his good wife the psora which he has,
and she takes it up and progresses with it and adds it to her

own, and it progresses in her in accordance with her peculiarities.

But the law of protection by dissimilars often comes in
here and saves the wife's system from receiving a new infection of either syphilis, psora or sycosis. The disorders already
present in her economy may be so wholly dissimilar that they
protect her from contagion. Thus it is that a woman may
have coition with a man that has sycosis in the form of gleet,
and yet not have it inflicted upon her ; thus she may have protection against forms of chancre. She may remain in contact
with him as wife, and even have a child by him, and that child
be black with syphilis, while she has no symptoms of syphilis.
The reason of that is that the child is from the seed of the
father and the mother only furnishes the groundwork.
There are plenty of physiological facts that demonstrate
these things. I have seen several cases where the child was
born black with syphilis, and have looked for the mother to
come down with syphilitic symptoms, but no trace of it could be
observed. When infection takes place in the primary stage there
is no way of disguising it, but if it occurs in the secondary or
tertiary stage there is really no way of detecting it immediately,
I because it goes on so insidiously. If the husband has the primary sore the primary sore will manifest itself in the wife, but
if he gives the disease to his wife in the tertiary stage, with
i every manifestation suppressed or passed by, then you will not
I be able to know whether she has taken the disease or not. We
have seen already in studying the Organon that when the diseases are dissimilar to each other one repels the other ; so that

164 KENT'S LECTURES

if the woman has something in her economy, in the form of a
chronic disease, perhaps a phthisical condition, she will be protected. The organic results are such that the body "is overwhelmed with the disease that it already has, and hence she is
protected. Dissimilars repel each other, and similars attract
and cure each other. Yet if the dissimilar psoric manifestation
is of a milder type, and can be substituted by the contagion,
then the syphilitic condition comes in. To know the action

of diseases upon each other is essential, because we see the

principle of cure in how one disease affect3 another.
We learn much concerning the syphilitic miasm under the
action of homoeopathic remedies. At the end of the prodromal
period we may expect the chancre; at the end of about six
weeks, more or less, we may expect the external manifestations, the roseola and other eruptions ; soon succeeding these,
at the time of their disappearance, or in connection with them,
we have the mucous patches in the throat, ulcers in the throat,
and finally the falling of the hair. These rapidly succeed
each other, often being associated. These are the commonest
outward manifestations of the earlier period of secondary
syphilis ; it is important to remember this. In weakly subjects
these come on very feebly; in robust, vigorous constitutions
these manifestations come on vigorously. Now it matters not
whether the feeble constitution fails to throw these out, or
whether because of drugs the constitution has been made
feeble and thereby the manifestations are withdrawn when
they have been thrown out. The state is the same, whether
they are suppressed or withheld because of feeble constitution,
i. e., the disease is operating upon the internal, having a tendency to affect the organs that are of the interior man, the
brain, the liver, the kidneys, the spleen, the heart and lungs,
the tissues and the bones. As syphilis commences to occupy
the interior tissues of man the periosteum, the bone and the
brain are tissues that are sought out as the principal sites. If
you will contrast that with psora you will see that the latter
more commonly attacks the blood vessels and the liver and

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 165

1
causes deposits beneath the skin, forming suppuration and
boils. The syphilitic boil is not a true boil, it is a multiple tubercular mass most vicious in character.
If we observe the syphilitic miasm in its backward progress
we will trace it back ia its stages, supposing they had been
suppressed. In the earlier state the homoeopathic treatment
strikes at the root of the evil, and will take hold of that which
would become latent, and will so turn things into order that
the chancre tnat is painful w^ir become painless, will contitiue

on as a mild and harmless sore. The bubo will be hastened

to suppuration when it would not otherwise suppurate. The
mucous patches will be checked, the sore throat will be greatly
relieved, so that the patient is made more comfortable in all
of his manifestations. In this earlier state we do not see the
backward progress in the form of ulcers, , etc., but we see that
the tendency of the homoeopathic remedy is, as it were, to
quiet manifestations or subdue them, until the remedy has
taken a deep and permanent hold of the economy, then they
gradually subside.
So much for the action of homoeopathic remedies upon
earlier manifestations. But now if we proceed to examine the
very latest manifestations we will see an opposite state. If
you take hold of a case that is very late, say an old case that has
been five or ten years going the rounds, getting all sorts of
vicious treatment, and the patient has those awful bi-parietal
head pains, he is becoming weaker in mind, he is getting the
tertiary manifestations in general, tendency to gummatous
formations and deep-seated ulcerations, and is threatening to
break down in health. You will find constitutional remedies
can only restore him and cure him by bringing out external
nlanif estations upon his body somewhere. Not that the primary
sore will come back right away ; he may never have it at all ;
but he will begin to have ulcerated sore throat, which may
progress and eat all the soft tissues in view, including the soft
palate. If this ulceration appears the bones that have been so
painful and threatened to become necrosed will cease to be

166 KENT'S LECTURES

affected; the periostitis will subside. Iritis is likely to be a
troublesome s)miptom and may come with the secondary S3rmptoms, or long years afterwards with tertiary s)miptoms. The
proper remedy will immediately relieve this last appearing
symptom, but the patient will say : "Doctor, I wish you would
look in my throat ; I have not had this trouble for a long time."
You see upon examining his throat a mucous membrane that
has been sacrificed by the application of Nitric acid and other
caustics, indurated, hard, gristly-like tissues that are infiltrated
with gummatous deposits. Now, he is in a pickle, for just as
sure as he lives that man will have to undergo much trouble if
you save him from insanity. If you save him at all, so that he
is worth living, these suppressed manifestations must come

back, and they will come back under appropriate treatment.

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 167

LECTURE XXI
Chronic Diseases Sycosis.
It is not generally known that there are two kinds of gonorrhoea, one that is essentially chronic, having no disposition
to recovery, but continuing on indefinitely and involving the
whole constitution in varying forms of symptoms, and one
that is acute, having a tendency to recover after a few weeks
or months. They are both contagious. There are also simple
inflammations of the urethra attended with discharges which
are not contagious, and thus we have simple inflammations
of the urethra and specific inflammations of the urethra, and
of the specific we have the two kinds I have mentioned, the
chronic and acute. The books will treat of them as one disease, treat them in a class, and in a treatise on gonorrhoea we
will have a description only of that which relates to the beginning, viz.: the discharge. The majority of the cases of
gonorrhoea are acute, f. e,, there is a period of prodrome, a
period of progress and a period of decline, being thus in accordance with the acute miasms. The acute may really and
truly be called a gonorrhoea, because about all there is of it
is this discharge. If the suppressive treatment be resorted to
in the acute, the system is sufficiently vigorous in most cases to
throw oflf the after eflfects. The suppression cannot bring on the
constitutional symptoms called sycosis. It cannot be followed
by fig warts, nor constitutional states, such as anaemia. But
while constitutional symptoms cannot follow the suppression
of the acute miasm, they will follow suppression of the chronic
miasm, and become very grievous. Most of the cases of* true
sycosis that are brought before the physician at the present
time are those that have been suppressed, and they are a dozen
times more grievous than when in the primary stage.

168 KENT'S LECTURES

In both the acute and chronic, the prodromal period is about

the same, from eight ^to twelve days, and there is no essential
difference between the discharge of the acute and chronic. It
is a muco-purulent discharge, and may have all the appearances
that any acute discharge of the urethra might take on. Any
simple remedy that conforms to the nature of the discharge
itself will soon turn the acute miasm into a state of health, but
it requires truly anti-sycotic remedies (remedies that conform
to the nature of sycosis) to turn the constitutional sycotic
gonorrhoea into health. In the very earliest stage of the discharge it is not necessary to make a distinction ; but after the
disease progresses for weeks, it becomes necessary to make a
distinction, and to follow the remedy that- conformed to the
more acute symptoms with the remedy that would be suitable
in a sycotic constitution fully developed. Remedies are picked
out for sycosis in the same way that the remedies are picked
out in any miasmatic disease, viz., by making an anamnesis.
An anamnesis of all the sycotic cases which we have had
enables us to look at the constitutional state of sycosis just in
the same way as Hahnemann, by an anamnesis of psora, ascertained its nature and worked out the remedies that are similar
in nature and action to psora. All medicines that are capable
of producing the image of sycosis may be called anti-sycotics,
but we can put it this way also arid say all those remedies are
anti-sycotic which when given to a sycotic case in its advanced
state are able to turn the disease backward, to reproduce the
earlier forms and bring back the discharge. That is the practical way of demonstrating that a medicine is an anti-sycotic.
When it conforms to the image of the miasm, it will turn the
disease on its backward course. Those remedies that conform
only to a particular part of the case are not deep enough nor
similar enough to establish a return to earlier symptoms, and
hence they are not truly anti-sycotic.
It is hardly necessary to go over a description of the acute
form of gonorrhoea, but let us turn our attention solely to
sycosis, recognizing it as a chronic miasm, or a disease whose

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 169

first stage is a discharge from the urethra. These cases I have

said are rare in proportion to the large number ot cases of
acute gonorrhoea, but the disease seems to be on the increase.
Every busy physician will see a good many cases in women
and children. Cases of gonorrhoea that have been suppressed
by injections in the hands of the old school are considered
ended, and soon after the discharge has stopped the sycotic
patient may be told by his physician that he is a fit subject
to marry as he has been cured. But it is not true, and he should
delay marriage. It is not right for him to marry until the
discharge has been brought back again, and he has been cured,
not by injections, because they only suppress, but by the indicated anti-sycotic. Only then may he marry a healthy wife,
and she will continue healthy and bring forth healthy children.
You will never know until you get into practice how
common it is for a wife to break down, in a year or eighteen
months after marriage, with uterine trouble, with ovarian disease, with abdominal troubles, with all sorts of complaints
peculiar to the woman ; and you will then be surprised on going
into the history of her husband (if you are permitted to do so)
to discover that in his earlier life he had two or three attacks of gonorrhoea that were treated with Nitrate of Silver or
by one of these prescriptions that are carried around in the
vest pockets of vicious young men, by injections that are
known to stop these discharges. You will not then be surprised
if you learn that the man himself has never had a really genuine state of health since that gonorrhoeal discharge disappeared.
You will look upon what followed that suppression in the man.
You will observe what followed the contagion in the woman,
and to observe these things closely constitutes an interesting
study.
Sometimes it is so very severe in form, and the trouble
comes so soon after the suppression, that there can be no
doubt, even in the mind of the man himself, that the trouble
he is now suffering from relates to the suppression of that
discharge. Sometimes they are latent and develop very grad-

170 Kent's lectures

ually, and the blood becomes affected, the gradually increasing
anaemia comes, the patient being pallid and waxy. What was
said in relation to syphilis about contagion in the stage in which

the individual has the disease is true in this disease, as also in

psora. Here is a common instance. A sycotic patient has been
"cured" as far as the discharge is concerned, and now marries,
for he is told that no harm can come hereafter; but shortly
afterwards his wife comes down with illness, whereas she had
always been a healthy woman before. In the old school there
is no recognition of a gonorrhoeal constitution; nor could the
homoeopathic physician be sure of this, except for his careful
prescribing.
You take a man who has gone ten to fifteen years with
this sycotic trouble. He is waxy, is subject to various kinds
of fig warts, his lips are pale and his ears almost transparent ;
he is going, into a decline; he has various kinds of manifes^ tations, and these manifestations appear in numerous particulars that we call symptoms. The physician sits down and
makes a careful study of the case, and if his perception of it
is similar to some long acting, deep acting medicine, and he
administers this medicine to the patient, the patient begins to
improve. The treatment is kept up, and in the course of weeks
or months the patient comes into the office and says : "Doctor,
if I had exposed myself I should think I had an attack of
gonorrhoea." Now, knowing that diseases get well in the reverse order of coming, you certainly cannot be surprised to
hear this story.
On the other hand, however, the trouble may have
manifested itself in other mucous membranes of the body, and
thus saved the man from his waxiness ; he is not so pallid when
the condition becomes busy in another region. These catarrhal
manifestations may be catarrhal conditions of the eyes, but
are more commonly catarrhs of the nose. It is not an uncommon thing for a nasal catarrh to be sycotic and to have existed
only since the gonorrhoea was suppressed. The catarrh is
located in the nose and posterior nares with thick, copious dis-

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 171

charge, and in spite of local treatment it has been impossible
to suppress it. When the constitution is vigorous enough it will
keep up the discharge in spite of the different specific remedies
that have been administered, but in constitutions that are feeble
diseases are easily driven to the centre, leaving the outermost

patts of man. So it is often the case that a man with a thick,

yellowish-green discharge from the nose, after a' dose of Calcarea, which is an anti-sycotic, one of the deepest in character,
has his old discharge brought back, and he says: "Doctor, I
am not able to account for this, for I have been nowhere but
with my wife." It is time to sit down and tell that man that
in his earlier life he had a gonorrhoea, and that its nature was
sycotic ; for if it had not been of a specific character, it could
not have transferred itself to the man's economy, affecting in
that way his nose; that it has disappeared from its new site
under the action of a truly homoeopathic prescription, and the
original discharge has been brought back, the trouble that he
had in the first place. This must be explained to him, the whole
nature of the case must be shown to him, and you can now tell
him that he is in a position to regain his health, to become well,
to get rid of his catarrh ; but that if he me441cs with that discharge from the penis he will never recoy^. Just this kind of
a case has been seen so often that there is no longer a doubt
about it.
It is in the nature of gonorrhoea to go to the surface
in the earlier stage, and so when the catarrh comes on in vigorous constitutions soon after the suppression of the discharge
from the urethra it may locate itself in the nose, but if the
catarrh does not come on soon the constitution is too weak
for the catarrh to represent the disease, and it will be represented on deeper tissues. Bright's disease may come, breaking
down of the lungs, breaking down of the liver, rheumatic
affections of the worst form, finally killing the patient. It is
only in the earlier stages that it becomes catarrhal. The man
thinks he is cured and he has escaped the outward manifestations because his constitution is not very vigorous, but the dis-

172 KENT'S LECTURES

ease goes on into an advanced state until it attacks the blood
and he becomes anaemic.
Now, if in this condition he marry, his wife does not
get the catarrh, does not get the leucorrhoea, she does not get
the bladder trouble, but she gets the anaemic state. You may
call it a secondary state if you like, but it is really the more
interior form of the disease. From this anaemic state it spreads
into all the functions of the body. The woman does not get the

catarrhal state, because the contagion is contracted in the

woman at the stage which the husband has reached. If he has
passed beyond the catarrhal stage, what she gets is beyond the
catarrhal stage. She gets fibrinous conditions, inflammation
of the uterus and the soft tissues, or low grade changes in the
kidneys. She may go on and have any of the peculiar constitutional diseases that the woman of today is subject to. It is
rather strange that it affects the soft tissues and not the bones.
Syphilis affects the soft tissues and the bones. Psora affects
the whole economy, nothing escapes ; it causes a general break
down.
Sometimes in the man it does not take the catarrhal form,
but produces inflammation of the testes, or it may affect the
rectum. Again, if you go to the bedside of a man who has used
strong injections for the purpose of suppressing a gonorrhoeal
discharge, and you find him in bed writhing and turning, tossing and twisting with the pains, and the only relief for him is
to keep in continual motion ; the pains are tremendous, they are
rending and tearing from head to foot ; if he can get up he will
walk the floor night and day. There is seldom much swelling
with this rheumatism; it seems to be along the sheath of the
nerves and is relieved by motion. The superficial physician will
say, here is a patient relieved by motion, here is a case for
Rhus. You give Rhus, and then find that it does not do a single
thing for the man; but, remember, when you have studied
sycosis in its innermost nature, Rhus is not an anti-sycotic
remedy and will not help this patient in his restlessness ; it will
not help his awful distress and anxiety. This state will go on,

ON HOMOSOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 173

and when it has attacked him so violently his tendons will begin
to contract, they will shorten, the muscles of the calves will
become sore, the muscles of the thighs will become so sore
that they cannbt be touched or handled; sometimes there is
infiltration of the muscles and hardness, and this soreness extends to the bottom of the feet so that it is impossible for the
patient to walk. He is compelled to sit or lie or crawl around
on his hands and knees, so violent are some cases. These cases
will go on for years. I have known the external applications of
the allopathic physician to be applied to these sore feet and
limbs for weeks and months and even years, and yet they
give no relief ; but a correct prescription made by a homoeopath,

carefully taking in account and covering the whole nature of

sycosis, will take the soreness out of the feet and bring back
the gonorrhoeal discharge. The return of old symptoms means
recovery. When the discharge comes back the relief of these
horrible symptoms' comes, and do not consider any patient
cured until the discharge is brought back.
With reference to the woman, in whom you know that the
contagion has taken place in the stage in which it existed in
the husband, supposing she has inflammation of a fibrinous
character and goes into the very worst forms of anaemia, with
all the sallowness and waxiness and patchy condition of the
skin and the withering and the organic troubles, if a homoeopathic prescription be made that is truly anti-sycotic you need
not expect that a gonorrhoeal discharge will appear in her
case; it is not necessary, she can get well without it. If she
had no discharge she can get well without its return. The
reverse order of the symptoms in her case means only the' reverse order of those she has had. She may not have had the
primary, but all that that patient has had she must go back
through, stage by stage and symptom by symptom. The woman
is the most grievous sufferer ; she is an innocent person, and
when there are anaemic conditions and a going-down steadily
in the wife that has come on a few years' after marriage you
should always be suspicious of this disease, at least do not

174 Kent's lectures

allow it to pass unless you have made a suitable investigation
of the matter. Send for the husband, talk to him quietly, tell
him you want to know whether he has gone through any of the
specific diseases in his younger days ; that it shall be considered
in confidence. Where you are the family physician that must
be done.
With fear and trembling he will likely tell you the whole
story; he has gone into his marriage with a degree of innocence, because he was advised by his physician that what he
has had will not affect his wife. When you have discovered
this state in the family, watch their children ; they will be few,
for sycosis very cqmmonly makes a woman sterile, or if she
has a few children you will find in them a strong tendency to
marasmus in the first year, or in the first or second summer a
strong tendency to consumption, or you will find a withering,

old appearence of the face. Any one of the three miasms may
predispose this child to these things, but when the child is
waxy and anaeinic, is accustomed to have lienteric stools, has
no digestion, when every hot spell brings on complaints that
look like cholera-inf antum, and it does not grow, does not
thrive, you have a right to suspect it is a sycotic case, for
sycosis is the most frequent cause.
This disease, you see, does not manifest itself by many
eruptions, except those of a warty character ; it does not manifest itself by eruptions like syphilis and psora, but operates
by bringing about a rheumatic state and an anaemic condition
of the blood. It takes liold of the blood first and conforms to
the subjects who are advanced in deep-seated troubles, subject
to epithelioma. They are especially subject to Bright's disease
and to acute phthisis. If they have pneumonia it is likely to end
in a breakdown of some sort in the lungs. If they have any
acute disease of a prolonged character, like typhoid, the recovery is always slow.
Manifestly it is a good thing to know the history of a
patient, all the peculiarities of the life of the patient. It is important to know whether that patient is syphilitic or. sycotic.

ON HOMCHOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 175

You know that everybody is psoric, but those that have lived
a proper life have escaped the two contagious diseases which
man acquires in the first place by his own seekit>g. When a patient has gone to the end of t)rphoid or some lingering disease,
you know that he is psoric; but if you also know that he is
syphilitic, or that he is sycotic, you can conduct his convalescence into a speedy recovery, and if he denies these things you
may be puzzled? The sycotic patient may go into a state of donothing and decline at the end of a typhoid fever ; convalescence will not be established, he will lie with an aversion to
food ; he does not react, he does not repair, there is no tissuemaking, no assimilation ; there is no vitality, he lies in a sort of
semi-quiescent state ; there is no convalescing in the matter. If
you know he is a sycotic patient, he must have an anti-sycotic
remedy, and then he will begin to rally. If a syphilitic patient,
he must have an anti-syphilitic remedy. If neither of these
miasms are present, a remedy looking towards his psoric state
will cause him to rally. The nature of these cases must be kept

in view; you must remember that these chronic miasms are

present in the economy and after an acute illness very often
have to be fought. If this is not known, many patients will
gradually sink and die for apparent want of vitality to convalesce.
Of course, the anti-sycotic treatment for the infant will
bring back, as you will readily see, only that stage which the
infant began with. It will not bring out a discharge in the
infant. The infant has only the interior nature of the disease,
arid has not the primary and outermost forms of it. You will
also remember another thing, that these infants when they
grow up are increasingly sensitive to sycosis; that they are
already prepared for a sycotic gonorrhoea whenever the first
exposure comes. The susceptibility is laid by this inheritance,
just as the susceptibility to psora is laid by our parents and the
susceptibility to syphilis is laid by our parents. Man can only
have one attack in his natural life-time of one of the three
chronic miasms; a man cannot take S)rphilis twice, he cannot

176 KENT'S LECTURES

take sycosis twice, he' cannot take psora twice. This is not
known ; a man when asked how many times he has had gonorrhoea will say : "About half a dozen times" ; but only one of
these was sycotic. The sycotic constitution cannot be taketl a
second time. One attack gives immunity to that person forever
after. The offspring become increasingly susceptible to all the
miasms the more they become developed in the human race.
The more they become complicated with each other the more
the human race becomes susceptible to acute and epidemic
diseases. Now, you have a general survey of the chronic
miasms.

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 177

LECTURE XXII
Disease and Drug Study in General.
Part of your study should be to bring before the mind, as

fully as possible, the diseases that the human race' is subject

to. This cannot be done to any great extent from Old School
books, as they do not treat of psora, syphilis and sycosis in
such a way as to bring the image of the disease before the
mind, and only ih a limited way the acute miasms are so
brought before the mind. The diagnostic or pathognomonic
symptoms are brought out for the purpose of distinguishing
one disease from the other, but not with the idea of bringing
the image of the disease before the mind that it may look like
some remedy recorded in the Materia Medica, because that is
not the allopathic physician^s way of prescribing. It is important to go over the great bulk of the psoric symptoms that
Hahnemann has given to obtain as perfect an image as possible
of the disease psora. If we take the Chronic Diseases and go
over them, writing out opposite every symptom that Hahnemann has mentioned as psoric all the remedies that have been
found from provings to correspond to these disease symptoms,
we shall have before the mind a list of the anti-psoric remedies. It is a good exercise and a good way of preparing for the
study of the Materia Medica.
Try to master this: Diseases must not be looked upon
from a few symptoms that the patients may possess, but
from all the symptoms that the whole human race brings out.
It is just as improper to look upon psora from a few symptoms
as it is to look upon a remedy from a few symptoms. Just as
you see the image of a remedy from all the symptoms, including the peculiar symptoms, so psora must be considered from
12

178 Kent's lectures

its characteristics, the features that constitute psora. Remedies
are adjusted as to appearance; the appearances of the remedy
expressed in symptoms must be adjusted to the appearances of
the disease expressed in symptoms. When you have finished
psora, take up sycosis, and spend much time in gathering together all the symptoms that sycotic patients have felt, all their
suffering and all the ultimates. Group them as one, and look
uponthem as one miasm. Then go to the Materia Medica again
and make an anamnesis. Take each symptom and place opposite
it all the remedies that have produced that symptom. You can
readily see that the remedies that run through most strongly

will be the anti-sycotic remedies, i, e., the remedies that have

the essentials of the disease or the nature of sycosis in them.
In the same way make an anamnesis of syphilis. By
these means you will bring before your mind the three chronic
diseases of the human race, and when this is accomplished in
a general way you will be prepared to enter upon their treatment. But remember that the symptoms, when it comes to prescribing for a chronic patient, constitute the whole basis of the
prescription ; we have no other. We may theorize as much as
we have a mind to, but when it comes to the actual application
the symptoms jnust guide to the remedy. There are, however,
a good many different ways of looking at the symptoms. It
is a very easy thing to become confused over the symptoms,
and fall into error by taking symptoms that are unimportant.
Your study in the Materia Medica will illustrate how you
must study disease, as the plan of studying the Materia Medica
for the purpose of bringing the image of a remedy before the
mind is the plan we must adopt in studying a disease. The
physician who can only hold in his memory the symptoms of
a disease or a remedy will never succeed as a homoeopath. He
has not taught himself to think, he has only a mass of particulars, and nothing to tie to. There is no order. It is like a
mob.
Here I want to read you a note of Hahnemann's. "Should
it, however, be thought sometimes necessary to have names

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 179

for diseases, in order to render ourselves intelligible in a few
words to the ordinary classes when speaking of a patient, let
none be made use of but such as are collective. We ought to
say, for instance, that a patient has a species of chorea, a
species of dropsy, a species of nervous fever, a species of
ague," etc. It will lead the mind into heresy if one gets into
the custom of speaking from appearances and naming diseases
according to the old way. The homoeopathic physician must
avoid thinking that way. One who has b^en in the habit of
thinking that way must make a great effort to keep the mind
from running in that groove. Of course, it would be folly to
talk to an old school physician or to a patient in any other
words ; and we can talk to them so, for the sake of conversing,
but we must know when we speak in such a way that it is only

an appearance.
This now brings us to paragraph 83, which takes up the
study and examination of the patient and the qualifications
necessary for comprehending the image of a disease. You
have probably by this time come to the conclusion that an old
school prescriber, and perhaps the majority of such as call
themselves homoeopaths at the present time, are perfectly incompetent to examine a patient, aiid therefore incompetent, to
examine Homoeopathy, to test it, so as to say whether there is
anything in it or not. They have every element of failure and
no element of success. It is impossible to test Homoeopathy
without learning how to get the disease image so before the
eye that the homoeopathic remedy can be selected. What a
natural thing it would be for an allopathic physician to say:
'*I am going to test Homoeopathy. This patient has a case of
vomiting, and I will give Ipecacuanha because it produces
vomiting." So he gives Ipecac, and the patient keeps on vomiting. He has tested Homoeopathy and it is no good ! That is the
way the tests are usually made. I have had physicians tell me
that they have tested Homoeopathy and it failed; but I know
that it was not Homoeopathy that failed, but the physician who
failed. Whenever failure comes it is a failure of the physician

180 KENT'S LECTURES

and not of the law. This is about the kind of a test that is made
today in this enlightened day and age of the world. They
have neither the knowledge nor the state of mind to make a
test. They do not know what tp observe, or how to select a
remedy. If we should look up all the remedies that have vomiting we would find a pretty good list, but to make use of that
list the mind must be prepared to see which one in it is similar
to this individual patient.
'The examination of a particular case of disease, with the intent
of presenting it in its formal state and individuality, only demands on
the part of the physician an unprejudiced mind, sound understanding,
attention and fidelity in observing and tracing the image of the disease.
I will content myself in the present instance with merely explaining
the general principles of the course that is to be pursued, leaving it to
the physician to select those which are applicable to each particular
case."

The first statement is that the physician must be of unprejudiced mind. Where are you going to find such a person ?
If that is essential, there is almost nobody that can examine a
case for the purpose of finding a remedy for that case. An
tmprejudiced mind ! At the present day there is almost no such
thing as an unprejudiced mind. Go out among the doctors who
profess to practice Homoeopathy and you will find they are all
full of prejudice. They will at once commence to telLyou what
they believe ; one believes one thing and another another thing ;
they all have varying kinds of belief. This does not come from
a question of fact, but it comes from what each man has laid
down as fact. What each man wants to be so, in his view, is
so. That establishes in his state of mind a prejudice, and as no
two agree there are many different opinions, the majority of
which must be false. Go into anything that you have a mind
to and you will find man full of prejudice. This state of prejudice exists in the examination of a patient. The physician
goes to the patient prejudiced as to his own theories. He has
his own ideas as to what constitutes the correct method of
examination, and so he does not examine the patient for the

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 18l

purpose of bringing out the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth. His prejudices lead him to snap the patient up
as soon as he begins to tell his story. He will thump him all
over, from head to foot, and then tell him what is the matter
with him. A prescription that has no earthly relation to the
constitutional state of the patient follows, but no examination
has really been made.
It might readily and truthfully be said that the true
man has no prejudices. It is certain that the true man is one
freest from prejudices, one who can listen, who can examine
evidence and who can meditate. What would we think of a
judge who would go into a case with strong prejudice? The
law provides that a judge cannot sit in judgment over his
brother, or over his wife, or over his other relatives. In a
homoeopathic physician an unprejudiced mind can only be attained by learning all the truth and all the doctrines of Homoeopathy. If the physician goes in with a prejudice for a certain
potency or a certain disease, or a prejudice against certain
principles, he is not in a rational state, he is not in freedom
with the patient and he goes into the examination in ignorance,

and if he cannot free himself from prejudice he cannot prescribe. If a man has arrived at a degree of sound understanding concerning the doctrines of Homoeopathy, concerning the
doctrines of potentization, concerning the doctrines that relate
to chronic and acute disease, concerning the Materia Medica,
he goes into it with full freedom, with an intention to examine
the case in all its length and breadth, and to listen patiently. He
listens to the patient, he listens to the friends of the patient
and he observes without prejudice, with wisdom and with
judgment. He must go into the case without forming any judgment whatever until all the witnesses have told their tale and
all the evidence is before him. Then he commences to study
the whole case. That is doing it without prejudice, and for
this a sound understanding is necessary, with a clear knowledge
of all the things relating to the subject and to all of his duties.
If an allopathic physician was to come in and listen to the

182 KENT'S LECTURES

long examination of a case by a homoeopath he would want to
know what it was all about. He does not see anything in, it,
because he has not a loiowledge of true materia medica. The
homoeopath's purpose is to transfer a man's sickness to paper
and so find the image of the sickness in the Materia Medica.
The allopathic physician could not do that ; he could not put the
image of the sickness on canvas so that he could fit the picture
to the Materia Medica, for he would not know one of our
medicines with which to compare it. The unprejudiced mind
then comes from sound understanding, and a sound understanding comes f rom education. The education we are now
talking about is an education in Homoeopathy, .becoming acquainted with all the doctrines step by step. After being taught
how to give attention and what to give attention to, fidelity is
necessary. This faithfulness would never be shown by one
who had not removed all his prejudices by opening his mind
tathe principles and doctrines. Here we work together; we all
work after the same fashion. Take every one of the. students
that goes through here for a year, and you will find that he has
the ways of the school and carries the stamp of the school.
Just as the stamp of Harvard or the stamp of Yale is upon
every student that comes from either of these institutions so
the stamp of the Post Graduate School is upon every student
that goes through its curriculum with faithfulness and ear-

nestness.
What we are now about to consider is the plan for the
faithful and careful examination of a case. It is our purpose
to cure the case, and it is necessary for this purpose to bring
the patient's symptoms in the very best possible way before
the mind. This is a long and tedious study, and there are many
difficulties in the way. Disease must be brought out in symptoms, with the end of its becoming a likeness of some remedy
of the Materia Medica. All the diseases known to man have
their likeness in the Materia Medica, and the physician must
become so conversant with this art that he may perceive this
likeness. You will find at first it is not an easy matter and

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 183

that, to become expert, requires the continual application of
patience. All the senses must be on the alert in order to perceive that which is similar, and most similar. Now we come to
the directions to the physician for discovering and tracing out
the image of the disease.

184 KENT'S LECTURES

LECTURE XXIII
The Examination of the Patient.
84. The patient details his sufferings ; the persons who are about
him relate what he has complained of, how he has behaved himself,
and all that they have remarked in him. The physician sees, hears and
observes with his other senses whatever there is changed or extraordinary in the patient. He writes all this down in the very words which
the latter and the persons around him make use of. He permits them
to continue speaking to the end without interruption, except where
they wander into useless digressions, taking care to exhort them at the
commencement to speak slowly that he may be enabled to follow them
in taking down whatever he deems necessary.
One of the most important things in securing the image of
a sickness is to preserve in simplicity what the patient tells

us in his own way, unless he digresses from the important

things and talks about things that are foolish and not to the
point; but as long as he confines his information to his own
sufferings, let him tell it in his own way without interruption
and in the record use his own language, only correcting his
grammatical errors for the purpose of procuring the record as
perfect as possible. If you use synonyms, be sure that they
are synonyms and cannot be perverted. Of course, when the
woman speaks of her menstrual period as "monthlies" or as
her "show," the more suitable medical term is "menses,"
which is a synonym for those expressions, and is more expressive than her own way of calling it "a show." So in general terms you can substitute terms of expression so long as
you do not change the idea. Of course, the changing of "legs"
into "limbs" if you feel like making such a change is not a
change of thought, but be sure in making a change it is not
a change of thought.
It is one of the most important things in forming the record

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 185

of a patient to be able to read it at a subsequent examination,
without being disturbed by the repeated statements of the
patient. If you write a record in consecutive sentences, you
will be so confused when hunting out the symptoms of the
patient that you will be unable to form an image of that sickness in the mind. It is truly impossible when the mind is full
with the effort at hunting out something to listen with proper
and concentrated attention. You should divide your page in
such a manner that when the patient is talking to you about
this thing and that thing and the other thing of her symptoms,
you can with one glance of the eye look down over the page of
the record and see everything there is in that page. If your
record is not so arranged, it is defective. Now, a record can be
so arranged by dividing the page into three columns, the first of
which contains the dates and prescriptions, the second the
emphatic symptoms or headings and the third things predicated
of the symptoms, thus:
Date
Symptom.

Things predicated of the symptom

< (aggravation).
> (amelioration).
After the patient has detailed his sufferings in his own way
and you have gone through them and discovered all the things
that you can predicate of his symptoms then you can proceed to
make enquiry of some one who has been with this patient. In
a study like this with most of our private patients there has
been a nurse, sometimes only a sister or a mother or a wife,
who has been observing all the sick individual has complained
of. "The persons who are about him relate what he has complained of, how he has behaved himself, and all that they have
remarked in him." Now, this should be listened to with great
care. It is more important in this instance to decide whether
the observer is overanxious, if a wife whether she is not
frightened concerning her husband and so intermingles many
of her notipns and fears, which you must accept with discretion.
Get the nurse, if possible, to repeat the exact words of the pa-

Remedy

186 KENT'S LECTURES

tieht. If such a thing can be done in acute sufferings it is
worth more than the words or expressions of the nurse, the
wife for instance, because the more interested and anxious
the person is the less likely she will be to present a truthful
image, not that she wants to deceive, but she is dreadfully
wrought up and the more she thinks of what he has said the
greater his sufferings appear to her, and she exaggerates them.
It is important to have the statement from one who is disinterested. Two or three of the observers who are intelligent having been consulted and their statements recorded, the physician
then notes his own observations. He should describe the urine
if there is anything peculiar about that, but if the urine and
stool are normal he need not care about the description of
these.
It has been the study for hundreds of years to find the best
Way to question witnesses in court, and as a result they have
settled upon certain rules for obtaining evidence. Homoe-

opathy also has rules for examining the case that must be followed with exactitude through private practice. Among pupils
who have been taught here, I know some who have merely
memorized and some have not even memorized but have fallen
away. These students are violating everything they have been
taught; they have gone to low potencies, making greater and
greater failures, to the shame of the tutor and the science they
profess to follow. I expect some in the sound of my voice will
be .doing this five years from now ; this is a warning, stop before you go too far, or you will not feel the fault is your own.
Yon will think you were hypnotized and led into false ways.
If you neglect making a careful examination the patient will be
the first sufferer, but in the end you yourself will suffer from
it, and Homoeopathy also. The questions themselves that
Hahnemann gives are not important, but they are suggestive
and will lead you in a certain direction. Question the patient,
then the friends, and observe for yourself ; if you do not obtain
enough to prescribe on, go back to particulars. After much
experience you will become expert in questioning patients so

ON H0M(^0PATHIC PHILOSOPHY 187

as to bring out the truth. Store up Materia Medica so as to
use it and it will flow out as your language flows. Ask ques*
tions so as to force the patient to tell the truth. You must put
yourself on a level with the form of speech your patients use.
Be sure you have not put any words into your patient's
mouth or biased his expression. You want to know all the particulars but without asking about it directly. If you ask a direct
question,^ you must not put the symptom in the record, for
ninety-nine times out of a hundred the patient will answer by
"Yes" or '*No." If the patient's answer is "Yes" or "Nq," your
question was badly formed. If a question brings no answer let
it alone, for he does not know or has not noticed. Questions
giving a choice of answers are defective. Ascertain the precise
part of the body the pain was in and the character of the pain,
etc. In investigating a case there are many things to learn, the
length of the attack, appearance of the discharge if it be a case
of vomiting, its character, the time of day, etc., etc. Every
student should go over these questions framing collateral questions, and practising case-taking. Leave the patient in freedom
always. Do not put any words into his mouth. Never allow
yourself to hurry a patient ; get into a fixed habit of examina-

tion, then it will stay with you. It is only when you sustain the
sharpest kind of work that you can keep up your reputation
and fulfill your highest use. Say as little as you can, but keep
the patient talking and keep him talking close to the line. If
he will only talk, you can find out symptoms in general and
particular. If he goes oflF, bring him back to the line quietly
and without disturbing him. There is not much trouble in
private practice. There you will do a better average of work.
All sleep symptoms are important, they are so closely related to the mind, the transfer from sleep to waking, from
cerebrum to cerebellum, is important. Old pathologists were
unable to account for difficult breathing during sleep. The
cerebrum rules respiration during sleep. To know the functions of the brain, the functions of the white matter and gray
matter, is important. A rational knowledge of anatomy is

188

KENT'S LECTURES

important. No homoeopath ever discouraged the true study of

anatomy and physiology. It is important not only to know the
superficial but the real, profound character, to enable you to
recognize one symptom-image from another.
Study this paragraph carefully and meditate upon it. If
you do not form habits now, you will not form practice hereafter. You have no regular course and will get into habits
you cannot break up.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 189

LECTURE XXIV
The Examination of the Patient (Continued).

The examination must be continued with due respect to the

nature of the sickness and with due respect to tlie nature of
the Materia Medica. Some symptoms have reference to pathology and diagnosis, while others have reference only to the
Materia Medica, and symptoms must constantly be weighed
in the mind in order to establish their grade whether common
or peculiar. If all are found to be common symptoms, the
Materia Medica is left out. Either the examination has not
been made with respect to the Materia Medica, or the symptoms are not there at all. It makes no difference as far as
cure is concerned; it matters not whether they are not present in the case or whether the doctor has not foimd them, the
key to the prescription is not present. But if the image is
round and full and complete, there are symptoms with regard
to pathology, diagnosis, prognosis and Materia Medica. It
will be proper later to talk of incurable diseases, pathognomic
s)rmptoms, obscure cases. Materia Medica symptoms, etc.
When the physician comes to look over the record after an
examination, to get the image, to classify and arrange it, he
will find what is peculiar, and those symptoms that are most
general, and those that are but common. These three grades
appear in every complete case, and in every complete proving
of a remedy. Homoeopathic study and observation will enable
one to pick out these grades at a glance. Every case has common symptoms, but peculiar symptoms may be absent and you
must not expect to cure when peculiar symptoms are absent.
Homoeopathy is applicable in every curable case, but the great
thing is to know how to apply it. The physician must sit in

190 ki^nt's lectures

jud^ent upon symptoms and determine whether they are
peculiar or coaimon. If the patient's discourse is incoherent,
the question arises is he intoxicated or delirious, or is there
brieaking down of the brain and insanity? The flash of the eye
is important ; it will tell things that cannot be told by the nurse.
It is important for the physician to know the value of expressions. When the patient stares with glassy eye, is he injured
about the head, is he suffering from shock, intoxication or
typhoid fever, or some disease in which the mind is stunned?
The physician immediately proceeds to ask, "How long has
the patient been in bed?" If the character is above reproach,
he will not suspect intoxication; if the patient has been sick

for many days with fever, tongue coated, abdomen sensitive,

etc., he is fully entered upon the course of typhoid fever. The
physician must know immediately upon entering the room
what the state of the patient resembles : apoplexy, coma, opium
poisoning, etc. A physician is supposed to set his mind to work
instantly, to ascertain the condition of the patient and what
relation the symptoms maintain to the Materia Medica. If an
opium poisoning, there must be selected an antidote; if apo-plexy, a careful taking of the symptoms in relation to the cerebral clot to prevent inflammation, and symptoms relative to
that state, and relative to the remedy. The patient may be
intoxicated and have apoplexy at the same time. There is no
symptom in the sick room without its value, especially in acute
and serious cases. Children are sometimes found in a sound
sleep and cannot be aroused; the mother says the child has
worms and gives Cina, for Cina has all these symptoms of
stupor, difficulty in arousing, falling back to sleep. But the
child fails, going into coma, tHe nose flaps, the chest heaves,
the brow is wrinkled, there is rattling in chest, showing the
child is going into cerebral congestion. The physician now
must examine on every side of the case to find the nature, to
know what to expect. He who neglects this is not a true homoeopathic physician ; a mere superficial application of Homoeopathy is not sufficient. After all the symptoms are written out.

ON HOMOeOPATHlC PHILOSOPHY 191

the physician must study the character of the fever, whether
it is intermittent, continued or has come on in one sudden attack ; he must know sufficient of the symptoms to judge of all
these. You will learn so much about the purport and the aspect
of every motion of the human being that you will place less and
less reliance on diagnostic symptoms as diagnostic symptoms,
and learn more the value of symptoms as symptoms. You will
be astonished to find how expert you will become about diagnosis and prognosis by studying the symptoms. You can learn
something from every case you have access to. Is it a waxy
face ? An avalanche of cases come into mind ; but by a process
of rapid exclusion, you say it is not cholera, not hemorrhage,
etc., and latterly you come to the cause of this aspect. You can
tell when it is time for cardiac compensation to be broken in
Bright's disease; a peculiar tremulous wave that belongs to
the muscles of the face and neck, a tremulous jerk of the
tongue, putting it out half way ; the pale, cold, semi-transparent

skin with cold sweat. It is important to know instantly what

the cause is, for the treatment will be different, but remember
that it is nothing that you need to name that makes it important.
All these symptoms have respect to remedy and to diagnostic conditions. So far as there is a morbid anatomy which
can account for symptoms, so much less are those symptoms
worth, as indicating a remedy ; if you had no other than such
symptoms, you could find no remedy.
Among the many things that interfere with the examination of the patient the most important is the taking of medicines, or having done something, no matter what it is, that has
been capable of changing the symptoms. Very commonly, the
patient will present himself in the doctor's offipe, and after
giving a long array of symptoms will relate that last night he
took a dose of Calomel, or two days ago he took a dose of
Quinine, and he thinks he is no better, and now he applies to
you fpr relief. In acute diseases this is very bad and may
interfere with finding the homoeopathic remedy. Very often
the general state collectively, both drug and disease symptoms.

192 K^NT*S L^CTUReS

in very acute conditions must be prescribed for, but in chronic
disease the plan is different. The symptoms that arise after
the taking of a dose of powerful medicine are not indicative of
a remedy, they are confusing, they present no true image of
the disease and hence the physician has nothing to do but wait,
or at most administer a well known antidote to the drug taken.
Sometimes he must wait a considerable time until the symptoms reveal themselves and express the nature of the sickness.
It is just as bad where the physician himself is a bungler as it
is where the patient has taken the drugs. The confusion arising
from bad prescribing is just the same as that produced by the
patient's drugging. There are physicians going about who will
mix up their cases and continue to prescribe for their own
drug symptoms, and who never have any idea of waiting for
the true image of the disease to develop itself. Drugging is
only a matter of changing symptoms and masking the case.
Anything that will effect a change in the symptoms, the taking
of drugs, or drinking too much wine or drinking toddy, or
great exposure, will mask the case, and this mask must wear
away before the intelligent physician can make a cure. The

whole aim of the physician is to secure the language of nature.

If it has been masked by medicines, it cannot be secured. Any
meddling will so affect the aspect of the case that the physician
cannot prescribe, and the physician who does this meddling
must inevitably be driven into bad methods or into allopathy.
I have looked over the work of bad prescribers and have wondered what on earth they could see in Homoeopathy to attract
them ; they do not cure folks. They have no cures to present.
The patients cannot be well satisfied by these things. It is true
that once in a while a strong, vigorous, robust patient, when
he gets a homoeopathic remedy, will go on getting well through
a mess of symptom changing and drugging, so that in spite of
this meddlesome practice he will recover. The physician in
that case knows not what remedy to attribute it to, for he has
given a great many. But only the most vigorous constitutions
will stand such homoeopathic villainy. Some vigorous patients.

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 193

after getting the homoeopathic remedy, go on and get well in
spite of their indulgences in wine, in eating, etc.; it is wonderful what their own powers will do in throwing off disease.
In ordinary cases, however, we see no such things ; confusion is brought about at once if the physician administer another
medicine in place of administering placebo. At times a patient
will present himself, and you will be able to get a true image
of the sickness by ascertaining all the things that occurred up to
a given date. "Upon that date," he says, "I took some medicine, and most of my symptoms subsided." They lead to another image from which you can gather nothing; a scattering
has taken place. The symptoms may cover page upon page,
and yet what remedy do you see ? None at all ; it looks as if a
number of provings of drugs had been mixed up all together,
intermingling symptoms here and there without any distinctness. No individualization is possible. Now up to that date
the symptoms you gathered may be just all that is necessary.
Up to that date the symptoms present the image of a remedy
which if administered may yet act, though sometimes it will
fail at first, because of the confusion, but after waiting a
little it will act. After the administration of a remedy prescribed upon symptoms in the past I have known the remedy
many times to go on acting. Again I have known that remedy
to fail entirely. In such a case, wait a while and then order
will begin to come and that remedy which was indicated pre-

vious to the drugging will act. Suppose a physician comes to

you and says, **Up to a certain date I was able to hold this
patient's symptoms in order with Thuja; but then the symptoms seemed to change and I gave such and such medicines,
and have never seen such good results in prescribing as I did
up' to that period." You must give him Thuja again, and in this
way take up the thread where it was lost. Examine the image
of the case where the order was lost ; because that is where the
image must be found. **On the contrary, the symptoms and the
inconveniences which exhibited themselves previous to the use
of the medicines, or several days after their discontinuance.

194 Kent's lecture

give the true fundamental notion of the original form of the
malady."
This is the idea, get the original form of the malady.
To do this, at times we have to trace through a mass of difficulties and conditions to get back to the original form of the
trouble, but you must get there because you will see that in the
beginning this malady, in accordance with all laws of Divine
Providence, must have conformed to some remedy that had
been created for its cure. The symptoms at that time stood out
indicating this medicine, but since then there has been nothing
but confusion, nothing that can be tied to, nothing that can be
examined; it appears to have no relation to anything. Very
often we can take up the thread and get back to the remedy
that was clearly indicated, even twenty years before. If that
remedy was indicated then, and was not given, the cure that
was possible by that remedy or a similar one is the only thing
to be considered; that is the only remedy in the case. Since
that time the patient has been in a continual turmoil from the
action of drugs. Because it was twenty years ago there is no
reason that you should not think of that drug. The patient'^
disease has not been cured, it has only been changed and
modified ; but it is the same patient, and the same sickness, and
requires the same medicine. If the disease has been complicated by drugs, however, you cannot always get the action of
that medicine which the patient needs for the disease per se,
but after the drugs have been antidoted you will have to give
that very medicine that you figured out and he will be cured.
It is necessary also to observe the changes all along the line

of progress, to know the disease at its beginnings, its earlier

manifestations, its later symptoms and its endings. You find,
say, most violent neuralgic pains along the course of nerves in
an adult patient, and for these you administer remedies until
you are tired and get only temporary relief ; but you discover
that in his childhood he had an eczema, and you can get his old
mother to tell you all about the eczema, and you will find it
looks like Mezereum. Now you study Mezereum, and see its

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 195

violent neuralgias are similar to those of your patient. The
administration of Mezereum cures this neuralgia and brings
back the eruption that he had in babyhood, and he goes on to
recovery. Without getting that view of the old scald head,
you would not have thought of Mezereum.
Or, instead of Mezereum, Sepia may have had the likeness of that scald head, and he may now have the most striking and characteristic symptoms of Sepia ; for behold the little
things that have been put into such a turmoil by a bad drugging
are under Sepia, and you put your patient on Sepia, and these
last appearing symptoms go first and the eruption comes back
upon the head and behind the ears and Sepia has cured him.
When these things are seen one after another in everyday practice the physician must begin to wonder if there is not some
truth in it all. And as sure as you live, if you practice faithfully, carefully studying your cases at great length, gathering in
everything there was in the beginning, your cures will be so
striking that the multitude will come to you to tie healed. You
cannot place too much importance upon the masking of a patient's symptoms by medicines, by improper repetitions and by
dosing carelessly.
Par. 94. "On inquiry into a state of chronic disease it is
required to weigh the particular circumstances in which the
patient may be placed in regard to ordinary occupation, mode
of life and domestic situation," etc. Almost everything in
life is circumstantial. All of the activities of life are circumstantial, i. e., there are ilo activities that are not governed by
circumstance. There is no business that is not governed by circumstance. The circumstances of a man's life govern his actions and reactions, the symptoms and the development of
symptoms. The body is associated with circumstances, every

function is related to circumstance, and we may say all the

natural functions of life are connected with circumstances.
Without these we would have nothing to prescribe upon, we
would have nothing to ascertain images by, we would have
nothing to form the symptoms, hence the circumstances of

196 KENT'S LECTURES

life and habit must be studied with a view to going into the
slightest particulars. To illustrate that more particularly, and
to bring it down to a practical basis, we may say that the examination of every woman relates to her eating, her stool, her
menstruation, her bathing, her dress, because these are the
things natural to her. These are the circumstances in which
her sjrmptoms may come, or may not come.
Until the woman is educated to it she does not understand. "What do you mean. Doctor?" she says. Then I
may say, "You have given me these symptoms; you say you
have headache, stomachache, etc. Now will you proceed to
relate to me under what circimistances this headache appears,
how it is affected by your changes in dress, by the changes in
weather, how it is affected before, during or after your monthly
indisposition and so on." Now, these are the natural circumstances.
In addition to these another group of circumstances
comes up, a group of circumstances somewhat different, in
relation to ordinary occupation. Every person will have circumstances more particular than those in general. Occupation
will make changes in the circumstances of young women. She
may be standing upon the floor of Wanamaker's store all day,
and this has produced a condition of prolapsus; or she may
lead a sedentary life at her work as seamstress, or she may be
at some other occupation, the circumstance of which will develop her psoric manifestations. Modes of life mean a great
many different things. They come in as supernumeraries over
and above the natural conditions and circumstances of life.
The natural functions and circumstances of life have to be
considered in relation to the mode of life. The mode of life
comes in as the exciting cause of disease, whereby psora which
is in the economy is developed in a certain peculiar direction.
The domestic relation is often the cause of trouble in the

woman ; there may be marriage to a man who is intemperate

with her sexually ; she may have a domestic situation that cannot be cured, and it must be examined as to its permanency

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 197

and the prospect of removing it. Things that cannot be removed will develop psora, in a peculiar direction. "All these
circumstances ought to be examined to discover if there is anything that could give birth to and keep up the disease, so that
by its removal the cure may be facilitated."

198 It^NT^S L^CTURBS

LECTURE XXV
The Examination of the Patient (Continued).
92. The patients generally call attention to the commonest things, while it is the strange and peculiar things that
guide to a remedy. The symptoms most covered up from the
observation of the physician are often the things guiding to the
remedy, but finally they leak out in some way. The symptom
is of such a character that the patient says of it, "I have always
had it and I did not suppose that that had anything to do with
my disease." When asked, "Why did you not tell me that
before?" he says, **I did not suppose that amounted to anything, it is so trivial." The physician often hazards a remedy.
He feels he must make a prescription, but has no reasonable
grounds for thinking he has found the remedy, because the
patient's story has been so confusing, and the s)miptoms that
he has obtained are so common and ordinary, such as all remedies possess. With such a foundation he cannot have any assurance that he has the remedy, and, although he may have
hazarded several remedies in the case, the patient comes back
uncured, month after month, and year after year. These symptoms that are withheld and seem to be so obscure, and so difficult to obtain, are the very ones that the patient thinks do not
amount to anything. What seems to him to be the little symptoms are very often characteristic of the disease, and necessary
for the choice of the remedy. Let me illustrate it. A patient

comes along with a pallid face, a rather sickly countenance,

tired and weary, subject to headaches, disorders of the bladder
and disturbances of digestion; and in spite of all your questioning, you fail to get anything that is peculiar. You set the
patient to thinking and to writing down symptoms, and she

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 199

comes back month after month and you give her Sulphur,
Lycopodium and a good many medicines. You can sometimes
find out whether she is a chilly or hot-blooded patient, and
thus you can get a little closer among the common remedies ;
but the patient says one day, "Doctor, it seems strange that my
urine smells so queer, it smells like that of a horse." Now at
once you know that is Nitric acid, '*How long have you had
this ?" "Oh, I have always had it, I did not think it amounted
to anything." If you examine the common things belonging to
Nitric acid you will find that it possesses all the features of
the case. ,
This is how a guiding symptom can be used. Nitric
acid has a keynote "urine smelling strong like that of a horse" ;
but if you should give it upon that alone, and the general symptoms were not there, yciu would probably remove the particular
symptoms only, and they would come back after a while. Use
a keynote to examine the remedy to see if it has all the other
symptoms that the patient has. What I have described to you
is a hypothetical case. In a busy day you will have several of
these cases that you have been working at for months, and the
patients have spent a lot of money to no account. You might
just as well have given Sac, lac, until you found the right
remedy. You can hardly say, why did I not see the remedy before, because it was not possible to see it. You can only go over
a case and say, why did I not ask her if there was any odor
to the urine, and if so, what it was like. I have had this very
symptom come out when I have asked a dozen times about the
smell of the urine, and they did not know, and yet would say
afterwards their urine smelled like a horse's urine, and they
knew it all the time. "On the other hand, the patients are so
accustomed to their long sufferings that they pay little or no attention to the lesser symptoms which are often characteristic
of the disease and decisive in regard to the choice of a remedy."
Of course the trouble that we have to contend with in as-

certaining symptoms from patients could be drawn out to

gfeat length. You might suppose that it would be the educated

200 rent's lectures

class that would tell their symptoms best, but you will find
the ignorant class often do better, they are simpler; they do
not disguise the symptoms; they come out and tell the little
details in a better way, in a way that conforms to the language
of our remedies. Our remedies have been recorded in simple
language to a great extent, and this simple language is often
better observed by the simple-minded, uncultivated people than
among the aristocrats. People who have plenty of means and
much education are more excitable, they have more fear and
they have tried a great many doctors. Any physician who has
a reputation is consulted for a chronic disease ; and the patient
who has plenty of money goes around amongst the doctors,
and when he comes to tell his symptoms he tells them in the
technicalities of his numerous physicians, so that when he has
finished his story nothing has been gained. Only gradually can
the physician lead him back into a language simple enough to
describe his sufferings. They who have been sick long with
their chronic ailments and have become somewhat hypochondriac will go through with this list of their diseases. They have
paid lots of money, and have lots of names, and they are loaded
with drugs. The physician must deal very carefully with these
slippery people, because if they are irritated they will run off.
P(J. There is another kind of patient spoken of here,
those that "depict their sufferings in lively colors, and make
use of exaggerated terms to induce the physician to relieve
them promptly." This is especially characteristic of the native
Irish as a class. You will find that they will exaggerate their
symptbms, really and sincerely believing that the doctor will
give them stronger medicine if they are very sick and will pay
more attention to them ; and if they do not exaggerate violently,
probably he will turn them off with a simple remedy. Then we
have the exaggeration of symptoms by sensitive people. It is
an insane habit, such as belongs to hysteria. The physician will
be helpless in the hands of these exaggerators, because Homoeopathy consists in securing the whole truth and nothing but
the truth ; it is just as detrimental to get too much as to get too

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 201

little. Any coloring which is expressed, whether by the patient

or by the physician, will result in failure. It is true that this
tendency to exaggeration must be considered as a symptom.
When you have found a patient to exaggerate a few symptoms
into a large number, you can simply mention in your notes
"tendency to exaggerate symptoms," which is covered by
some of our remedies. Such a state is misleading, for you do
not know what S)rmptoms the patient has and what the patient
has not. You may rest assured that no patient without symptoms would consult a physician ; the patient would not be likely
to manufacture the entire sickness; the fact that she has a
desire to present herself to the physician and has a desire to
exaggerate her symptoms and sufferings is in itself a disease,
because no well person would do that. Hence this must be
considered ; perhaps it is the first and only element that can be
considered of that which such patients give out. This exaggeration must be measured with discretion and wisdom. "Even the
most impatient hypochondriac never invents sufferings and
symptoms that are void of foundation, and the truth of this is
easily ascertained by comparing the complaints he utters at
different intervals while the physician gives him nothing at
least that is medicinal." Hahnemann's plan would be to give
no medicine and to compare the symptoms that the patient
gives from time to time. The patient cannot memorize these
various symptoms that he has gathered from other sources,
but by watching and comparing from time to time, letting the
examinations be far enough apart for him to forget, the physician can accept those things that he repeats. The young physician will be misguided by these cases until he has had sufficient
experience with disease to know something about the nature
of symptoms that ought to appear.
Another obstacle we have to the examination of the case
is laziness ; the patient is too lazy to write down the symptoms
when they appear, and too indolent and forgetful to remember
them when in the presence of the physician. The symptoms do
not come up in his mind when he is in the presence of the

202 KENT'S LECTURES

doctor, and he is too indolent to write these symptoms down

when he feels them at home. When a patient does not relate
symptoms well he should be instructed to write down his symptoms when they occur, and if he will not do that his physician
should insist upon it, or refuse to prescribe for him. It is often
quite an important thing to get the patient to write down the
symptoms in memorandum form as they occur. Not to write
at night what has occurred during the day, but to run instantly
and put the symptom down in simple language, describing the
sensation, and location, and the time of day of its coming and
going, and the modalities. Indolence then and forgetfulness
become obstacles to the gathering of the symptoms.
Now, in the present day, there has crept upon the face of
the earth such a state of false modesty and such a lack of
innocence upon the whole human race that this false modesty
and shame will prevent patients from telling the truth. Patients
will deny having had gonorrhoea, or having been exposed to
circumstances that were similar. If the whole human race had
lived in innocence up to the present day our women would
come to the physician with frankness and talk in perfect freedom concerning the menstrual flow, concerning even the sexual
functions, concerning things of the will and of the intelligence.
But as a matter of fact it is not so, it is with difficulty that the
physicians can draw out these symptoms through mistaken
modesty. When a patient consults a physician, the question of
modesty should be laid aside. You will find that the most innocent in mind are those that are the most easy to lay it aside,
when it is not a question of modesty, but of telling the whole
truth and nothing but the truth. If it be a wife, everything
that is in relation to herself and husband that is abnormal
should be told, and then the physician would have little to
ask beyond listening to the truth. I look back over a number of
people, especially among women, who seemed to be so much
embarrassed upon first coming into my presence and having to
talk about their symptoxns that they forget everything, and it
was only by considerable waiting that they became free and

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 203

frank and open with me. Sometimes it is a difficult matter for
the physician to put a patient at ease ; it is a thing that must
be studied and considered in order to bef able to say something
to put a bashful patient at ease ; this is quite an accomplishment

with a doctor.
The physician must be possessed of an uncommon share of
circumspection and tact, a knowledge of the human heart,
prudence and patience, to be enabled to form to himself a
true and complete image of the disease in all its details. He
must live the life of the neighbor, and be known as a man of
honor, as a man who may be believed and respected, as a candid man. Hahnemann says carelessness, laziness and levity
will prevent the physician from going into such a state of
Homoeopathy as will enable him to grasp the Materia Medica,
or to be conversant with his science. If he has such a reputation he will not command the respect of the people of the
neighborhood, and this will prevent him from getting the image
of the sickness upon paper. Hahnemann had a wonderful
knowledge of the human heart, and this is an important thing ;
a knowledge of the human heart, a knowledge of the things
that are in man.
It would seem that there are a good many men in the
community without the slightest knowledge of the human
heart. They have never given any inspection to their own interiors, their heart or impulses, but have gone on wildly. To
know the human heart well is largely to examine into oneself
and ascertain what one's own impulses are, what one is compelled to do under varying circumstances, what impulses one
has to control in oneself in order to become a man. If a man
has carried out his heart's desires without any self-control he
is a man unworthy of respect. If he has on the other hand
controlled those impulses, he has become a man worthy of
respect. In time the physician who does this will become so
well acquainted with the human heart that he has sympathy
and knows what constitutes the language of the affections.

204 Kent's lectures

LECTURE XXVI
The Examination of the Patient (Continued).
It is important to avoid getting confused by two disease
images that may exist in the body at the same time. A chronic
patient, for instance, may be suffering from an acute disease

and the physician on being called may think that it is necessary

to take the totality of the symptoms ; but if he should do that
in an acute disease, mixing both chronic and acute symptoms
together, he will become confused and will not find the right
remedy. The two things must be separated. The group of
symptoms that constitutes the image and appearance of the
acute miasm must now be prescribed for. The chronic symptoms will not, of course, be present when the acute miasm is
running, because the latter suppresses or suspends the chronic
symptoms, but the diligent physician, not knowing this is so,
might wrongly gather together all the symptoms that the patient has had in a lifetime. Again, on the other hand, in gathering together the chronic s3miptoms for a prescription it is sufficient to mention merely that the patient has had typhoid or
measles or other acute miasms. Such diseases are not a part
of the chronic miasm. The symptoms of the acute attacks were
separate and by themselves.
You must realize that the effort to prescribe for two
distinct miasms will result in error. If you practice in the
western part of this country you will often get confused cases,
a sample of which would be about as follows : A patient has
been suffering from intermittent fever, and has been treated
with medicines, Quinine, Arsenic and low potencies of this and
that drug, until the case has been complicated. You learn that
the S3rmptoms now are different from what they were in the

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 205

beginning, that there has been a transformation scene. You
prescribe for them as they are now, regarding it as a species of
malaria ; you prescribe for them with a view to antidoting all
the drugs that he has had, and your remedy brings about a
surprise; it opens out the case in a wonderful manner. The
patient up to this time was unable to give you anything descriptive of the original state of his malaria, but he comes back in
the course of a week of two and says : "Doctor, I am fiow as I
was in the beginning." "Well, what are your symptoms now ?"
And you will find out that one evening he has a 5 o'clock chill
with its accompanying symptoms that last him a good portion of the night, and then he has a well day, and then
next forenoon he has an 11 o'clock chill and then a well day.
Then he has two sick days in succession and one well day. If
you examine each one of these states, you will find that the

two chills begin in a different place, and the heat of each begins
in a different place, and the symptoms of the two attacks are
totally different. Such a thing will seem unlikely to one who
has never seen it, but one who has lived in the west and practiced accurately will see such things, unknown to those who
have practiced what is called Quinine Homoeopathy. A correct
prescription will disentangle these two malarial miasms and
show that two exist in the body at the same time, each having
conditions quite different from the other. These two can coexist and have their own times and expressions without interfering with each other to any great extent. The big doses of
quinine will complicate them and cause a general clouding of
things, so helter-skelter and disorderly that nobody can tell
anything about it.
If in such a case you were to attempt to prescribe a
remedy that had both these groups you would fail to cure.
Select the worst one and let the other one alone, entirely ignoring it. It is a bad policy to give one remedy for one and another
for the other. Single out the worst one and cover it carefully
with a remedy, and you will find it disappear and the other
one come on, just as if the patient had not a remedy at all.

206 KENT'S LECTURES

Now do not be in too great a hurry about removing the second one. You will find that after one has been removed the
patient will improve, and the one that has remained will become
more and more apparent from day to day ; then prescribe for it.
This illustrates the doctrine of not prescribirjg for an acute
and chronic trouble together. Never prescribe for any two
conditions, unless they be complicated. Only chronic diseases
can be complicated with each other. The acute is never complicated with the chronic ; the acute suppresses the chronic
and they never become complex. Of course, the, allopaths will
tell you about the sequelae of measles, scarlet fever, etc. ; but
they know nothing about it, and their pathology teaches them
nothing which is true concerning it. That which comes out
after all self-limiting diseases have run their course is not due
to the disease itself; the sequelae of measles are not due to
measles, the sequelae of scarlet fever are not due to scarlet fever,
but to a prior state of the patient. A psoric disorder may come
up after scarlet fever or measles, and must be treated as psora.

These sequelae, regardless of the disease which stirs them

up, are psoric and crop out at the weakest time, which is the
convalescent period. The better the acute disease is treated, the
less likely there are to be any sequelae. If measles and scarlet
fever are treated properly we have very little trouble afterwards. Sequelae should always be charged up to a great extent
to the physician. Of course, you will find now and then some
constitutions extremely psoric; almost in a condition of advanced decay, and for malignant scarlet fever in such a patient
it is difficult to find a proper remedy, and then the very best
physician in the world may make a mistake; yet with good
treatment in ordinary cases you should not expect sequelae,
such as sore eyes, running ears, etc..
It is of the very greatest importance in such cases to
be able to separate and distinguish one thing from another,
so that you may know what you are prescribing for. You
cannot prescribe an antipsoric in order to prevent sequelae
following scarlet fever while the scarlet fever prevails, Pr^-

ON HOMOeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 207

scribe first for the acute attack, and the symptoms that belong
to it. It is well, however, f6r the physician to know all the
symptoms that the patient has of a chronic character, that he
may know what to expect, that he may look at the close of the
acute attack for the coming out of the old manifestations of
psora, although often an entirely new group of symptoms will
appear. When at the close of scarlet fever troubles come
about the ears or dropsical conditions come on ; these are not a
part of the scarlet fever itself, but of the state of the economy.
The dropsical condition, or acute Bright's disease, must be
associated with the psoric state and the symptoms then will
lead you to a constitutional remedy. If you have in view simply the Bright's disease, you will make a mistake. You will fall
into prescribing for ultimates if you have but the name of the
trouble in mind, for instance giving Apis, which the books say
is such a wonderful remedy for Bright's disease, following
scarlet fever.
It is a great mistake for anyone to fit remedies for complaints or states. It is a fatal error for the physician to go to
the bedside of a patient with the feeling in his mind that he

has had cases similar to this one, and thinking thus : "In the
last case I had I gave so and so, therefore I will give it to this
one." The physician must get such things entirely out of his
mind. It is a common feature among oculists who profess to
be homoeopaths to say: "T cured such and such a case with
such and such a remedy. I will now give this patient the same
remedy." I have many times met physicians in consultation
who said : "I had another patient, Mr. X or Mr. Z, who had a
similar state of affairs, just such a disease as this, and I gave
him so and so, but it does not work in this case."
100. "With regard to a search after the totality of the
symptoms in epidemic and sporadic cases, it is wholly indiffefirent whether anything similar ever existed before in the
world or not, under any name whatever." Keep that in your
mind, underscore it half a dozen times with red ink, paint it
on the wall, put an index finger to it. One of the most im-

208 Kent's lectures

portant things is to keep out of the mind, in an examination of
the case, some other case that has appeared to be similar. If
this is not done the mind will be prejudiced in spite of your
best endeavors. I have to fight that with every fresh case I
come to. I have to labor to keep myself from thinking about
things I have cured like that before, because it would prejudice
my mind.
The purpose of all this Is that you will go away and
examine the patient with an unprejudiced mind, that you will
consider only the case before you, that you will have nothing
in mind that will distract your attention, that you may not
think of things that preceded it and find out from among them
a remedy while examining the patient. If you are biased in
your judgment and examine the patient towards a certain
remedy, in many instances this will prove to be fatal. Have no
remedy in mind until you have everything that you can get on
paper. Have it all written down carefully and then if, upon
examining it in relation to remedies, you are unable to distinguish between three or four, you can go back and re-examine
the patient with reference to those three or four remedies.
That is the only possible time you can try to fit a remedy,
or image of a remedy, while examining a patient. Get all the

symptoms first and then commence your analysis in relation

to remedies. The analysis of a sickness, is for the purpose of
gathering together that about it which is peculiar, for the peculiar things relate to remedies. Sicknesses have in them that
which is peculiar, strange and rare, and the things in sickness
that may be wondered at are the things to be compared with
those in the remedy that are peculiar, l^ow in order to see that
which is wonderful and strange it is necessary for you to have
much knowledge of disease and much knowledge of the Materia Medica ; not so much an extensive knowledge of morbid
anatomy, but a knowledge of the symptoms or the language
that disease expresses itself in. "In fact, we ought to regard
the pure image of each prevailing disease as a thing that is new
and tmknown, and study the same from its foundation, if we

ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 209

would really exercise the art of healing." A great deal depends upon a physician's ability to perceive what constitutes
the miasm. If he is dull of perception he will intermingle
symptoms that do not belong together. Hahnemann seems
to have had the most wonderful perception, he seemed to
see at a glance. Hahnemann was skillful in this respect because he was a hard student of Materia Medica and because he
proved his Materia Medica daily. He had examined the remedies carefully, he saw them, he felt them, he realized them.
**We ought never to substitute hypothesis in the room of observation, never regard any case as already known." Now we
see why it is that it does not make any difference with a physician whether he has seen such diseases before or not. The
homoeopathic physician is acquainted with the signs and symptoms of man, and a different disease is only a change in the
combination of them, only a change in their manner, form
and representation. There is order, perfect order, in every
sickness that presents itself, and it rests with the physician to
find that order. The homoeopathic physician need never be
taken unawares.

14

210 KENT'S LECTURES

LECTUPIE XXVII
Record Ejeeping.
^103, etc.
You should endeavor to have a good knowledge of both the
acute and chronic miasms. First of all the image of psora
should be studied from all the symptoms that we can gather,
and especially from the symptoms that Hahnemann has given
in the Chronic Diseases. Next we have to make out a similar
anamnesis of syphilis, which can be done from books, from
clinics, from observation, and all other possible sources, and
then an anamnesis has to be made of sycosis. These are things
most general, and will bring before the mind, in one, two or
three images, a grand picture of all the chronic diseases of the
human race.
Take psora first, for that is the very foundation of human
sickness. It would appear that the human race is one enormous leper. Now, add to that the state of sjrphilis and we
have a bad matter made worse; then add to that the state
of sycosis and we will see the extent of human sickness.
We then have to advance and carefully study each of the
acute miasms from the books, from observation, and from
every source of information, carefully arranging it on paper so
that it can appear before the mind as an image. Smallpox has
few features and it can be made to appear as an image before
the mind, and so with all the acute miasms, the infectious diseases, cholera, yellow fever, etc., the diseases that have heretofore appeared in epidemic or endemic form. These have all to
appear before the mind as images. It may be said of them that
they are all true diseases seen by the examination of the totality
of the symptoms. No physician can know too much about the

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 211

image of a given sickness, studied from the symptomatology.
The older books present to the mind of the physician the very
best images of disease, because they describe disease by symp-

tomatology, and this is the^best information that can be obtained. Now-a-days patients are not permitted to tell their
story in the language of nature. The physician says, "I do not
want to hear that." Talk on the part of the patient interferes
with his prescription writing. There is no writing down of
the case.
Now take, for instance, one of the clinics . here. How
would you remember from day to day, and from week to
week, what had been given to each patient? There is no importance attached to that in the old school. It is simply their
object to give the patient a big dose of medicine. It may not
have occurred to you that there are several reasons of importance for keeping records, and of constantly referring to
them ; even the regular clinicians here may not have seen the
full importance of it. But suppose a patient that I have been
considering for three years is partially cured, and she has done
remarkably well, has been restored from an invalid to a good
wife and mother, but is not yet cured. Now for some reason
she goes into the hands of another homoeopath. What can
he do without ascertaining what I have done for her? It is
important for the patient when living in the same town to be
faithful and true to the physician. who has done her the most
good. A conscientious physician will not feel like taking another doctor's practice in that way. I am not so conceited that
I sould feel like taking up the work of another doctor who is
able to do good work. Men who think more of getting money
than anything else will jump in and prescribe for your patients.
"The physician ought ever after to have this image before
the eyes to serve as a basis to the treatment, especially where
the disease is chronic." Without records, you are at sea without
compass or rudder. With a record, Hahnemann says, "He
can then study it in all its parts, and draw from it the characteristic marks," that is, you have the nature of the disease

212 KENT'S LECTURES

continuously in mind. When the image of the disease has
passed from mind its very nature is gone.
Here a point comes in you must know about. After your
first prescription has been ^ made, you may have an aggravation. It is well to know the date of this, and about how long

it lasted, and to keep watch of it. If no change has occurred

the same image may continue to appear before the mind, but if
changes have occurred and are continuously appearing in the
symptoms you will readily see that no medicine can be administered. The symptoms that come and go could not guide
anybody as to what to do. Now a commotion has taken place,
you cannot prescribe while this commotion is going on; the
symptoms are changing place, they are coming and going, for
perhaps one to three weeks after that prescription. You have
to watch and wait. Notice when the symptoms begin to roll
into order; then another dose of medicine is needed. These
things take place only after the administration of a remedy
that was pretty high, high enough to take hold, and the case
falls into order only when the patient needs another dose.
Suppose a patient has been sick three to four years with a
train of symptoms, and on the way to visit you from a long
distance; the patient is taken worse, and a homoeopathic physician is called in. The patient gets a dose of medicine and improves wonderfully, now what are you going to do? You do
not know what it was and you write to the physician, but he
has forgotten what it was. What a confusing state that is, is
it not? Well, that is just the state you would be in without
your records.
There is, I have been led to feel, tao great carelessness
often among our best men in transferring cases from one
town to another, from one physician to another. A habit that
has existed between another Hahnemannian and myself has
been pleasing to us both. When one of h.is patients has been
transferred from his care to my care he has told me what remedy the patient was on, and I in the same way when sending
patients to him have mentioned the remedy the patient was on.

ON HOMCEOPATHld PHILOSOPHY 213

It is the duty of the physician to furnish such information
when a patient leaves the city to go under the care of another
physician. It is the duty of the physician to transfer such a
patient to good hands, if there are any good hands to transfer
him to.
This subject is preliminary to the observation of Par. 105,
which leads to the second step of practical Homoeopathy.

214 Kent's lisctur^

LECTURE XXVIII
The Study of Provings.
105, et seq.
It may be well for you now to review thoroughly the first
portion of the study of the Organon, containing the doctrines
in general that may b^ hereafter found to be useful in the
application of Homoeopathy, including the oldest established
rules and principles. The first step may be called theoretical
Homoeopathy, or the principles of Homoeopathy^ after which
we take up the homoeopathic method of studying sicknesses.
In this we have found that the study of sickness in our school
is entirely different from the study of sickness under the old
school. But up to this time the doctrines have not exhibited
their purpose ; we only get their purpose when we come to the
third step, which deals with the use of the Materia Medica.
We have seen that we must study sickness by gathering the
symptoms of sick patients, relying upon the symptoms as the
language of nature, and that the totality of the symptoms constitutes the nature and quality and all there is that is to be
known of the disease.
The subject we will now take up and consider is> how
to acquire a knowledge of the instruments that we shall make
use of in combating human sicknesses. We know very well
that in the old school there is no plan laid down for acquiring
a knowledge of medicines except by experimenting with them
upon the sick. This Hahnemann condemns as dangerous, because it subjects human sufferers to hardship and because of
its uncertainty. Though this system has existed for many
hundreds of years, it has never revealed a principle or method
that one can take hold of to help in curing the sicknesses of

ON HOMCeOPATHiC PHILOSOPHY 215

the human family. His experiments in drug proving were made

before he studied diseases. In other words, Hahnemann built

the Materia Medica and then took up the plan of examining
the patient to see what remedy the sickness looked like. Whereas now, after Homoeopathy has been established, and the Materia Medica has been established, the examination of the
patient precedes, in a particular case, the examination of the
Materia Medica. But for the purpose of study they go hand in
hand.
Before Hahnemann could examine the Materia Medica
you may say he had to make one, for there was none to examine, there were no provings as yet ; we now have the instruments before us to examine, we have the proVed remedies.
When the fallacy of old school medicine fully entered Hahnemann's mind ; when he became disgusted- with its method at
the time his children were sick; when he placed himself in
the stream of Providence and affirmed his trust that the Lord
had not made these little ones to suffer, and then to be made
worse from violent medicines ; then his mind was in an attitude
for discovery. It was a discountenancing of and disgust for
the things that were useless, and this brought him to the state
of acknowledgment of not knowing and that everything of
man's own opinion must be thrown away. It brought him to a
state of humility and the acknowledgment of Divine Providence.
That state of humility opens man's mind. You will find
so long as man is in a position to trust himself he makes himself
a god; he makes himself the infallible; he looks to himself
and does not see beyond himself ; his mind is then closed. When
a man finds out that in himself he is a failure, that is the beginning of knowledge in any circumstance; the very opposite
of this closes the mind and turns man away from knowledge.
I have been teaching long enough to observe, and I will tell
you some things I have observed. I have observed quite a
number of young people turn away from Homoeopathy after
once confessing it, and professing to practice it, and after

216 Kent's lectures

seeming able in a certain degree to practice it. I often wondered why it was that after they had made public profession
of it they turned away from it, and I found in every instance

that it was due to a lack of humility. The great mistake

comes from turning one's attention into self and relying upon
self, with an attention that closes the mind and deprives one of
knowledge and prevents clear perception. Man takes himself
out of the stream of Providence when he becomes satisfied
with himself and thinks "now that I have done so many things
I have nothing more to study." This is a wrong attitude ; for
anything like self-conceit will blind man's eyes, will make him
unable to use the means of cure and will prevent his becoming
acquainted with the Materia Medica. The homoeopathic physician, as much as the clergyman, ought to keep himself in a
state of purity, a state of humility, a state of innocence. So
sure as he does not do that he will fall by the wayside. There
is nothing that destroys a man so fast in the scientific world
as conceit. We see in old-fashioned science men who are
puffed up and corpulent with conceit. The scientific men who
are in the greatest degree of simplicity are the most wise, and
the most worthy, and you need not tell me that those who are
innocent and simple have not had a tremendous struggle in
order to keep self under control and to reach this state of simplicity.
Extensive knowledge makes man simple, makes him
gentle. Extensive knowledge makes a man realize how little
he knows, and what a small concern he is. A little knowledge
makes a fool of a man, and makes him think he knows it all,
and the more he forgets of what he has known the bigger man
he feels he is. The smaller he feels he is the more he knows,
you may rest assured. In order to do this, he must study and
keep himself in a state of gravity and in a state of innocence.
In the scientific world we have all those horrible jealousies
and feelings of hatred to those who know more than we do. A
man who cannot control that and keep that down is not fit to
enter the science of Homoeopathy. He must be innocent of

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 217

these -things; he must put that aside and be willing to learn of
all sources, providing the truth flows from these sources. In
this frame of mind, and this frame of mind only, can the physician proceed to examine the Materia Medica.
We have already said that Hahnemann had no Materia

Medica to start with. He could not go to books, and read, and

meditate, and find remedies in the image of human sickness.
He had no such remedies to study, and hence it was necessary
to build up the Materia Medica. We can imagine that Hahnemann must have been almost in a state of despair, and inclined
to say there 'is no knowledge upon the earth. He felt in his
own mind that we should never know anything about the
Materia Medica so long as we perceived its effects only in
human sicknesses, but that a true and pure Materia Medica
must be formed by observing the action of medicines upon the
healthy human race. Hahnemann did not commence to feed
these medicines to others; he took the Peruvian Bark himself, and felt its effects upon himself. He allowed it to manifest its symptoms, and when he had thus proved Peruvian
Bark (which we call China) it might be then said that the
first remedy known to man was discovered, and that the first
drug effect was known and that China was born! Hahnemann searched the literature of the day to find out what other
effects of China had been discovered accidentally, and accepted
such as were in harmony with what he had discovered. We
have already referred to the fact that Hahnemann was able,
after proving China, to see that in its action it closely resembled
the intermittent fevers that had existed through all time ; that
there was the most abundant relation of similitude between
China and intermittent fever. Do we wonder, then, that Hahnemann said to himself, can it be possible that the law of cure is
the law of similars? Can it be possible that similars are cured
by drugs that produce symptoms like unto the sickness ? Every
drug that- he proved thereafter established the law more and
more, made it appear more certain, and every drug that he
proved added one more remedy to the instrument we call the

218 KENT'S LECTURES "

Materia Medica, until it came to be what we now recognize as
Hahnemann's Materia Medica Pura and the Materia Medica
of the Chronic Diseases. This work was simply enormous and
very thorough, but many additions have been made to it since
the time of its publication, and these form the instruments
that we have to examine.
The best way to study a remedy is to make a proving of it.
Suppose we were about to do that; suppose this class were
entering upon a proving. Each member of the class would

devote, say, a week, in examining carefully all the s)rmptoms

that he or she is the victim of, or believes himself or herself
to be the victim of, at the present time, and for many months
back. Each student then proceeds to write down carefully all
these S)miptoms and places them by themselves. This group
of symptoms is recognized as the diseased state of that individual. ;
A master-prover is decided upon, who will prepare
for the proving a substance unknown to the class and to all
the provers, known only to himself. He will begin with the
first or earliest form of the drug, it may be the tincture, and
potentize it to the 30th potency, putting a portion of that
potency into a separate vial for each member of the class. The
provers do not know what they are taking, and they are requested not to make known to each other their symptoms.
When their own original symptoms appear in the proving the
effect of the remedy upon any one of these chronic symptoms
is simply noted, whether cured or exaggerated, or whether
not interfered with ; but when the symptom occurs in its own
natural way, without being increased or diminished, it may
be looked upon as one of the natural things of that particular
prover, and hence all the natural things of the prover are
eliminated. Generally if a remedy takes marked hold of a
prover all the chronic symptoms will subside, but when a
proving only takes a partial hold it may only create a few
symptoms. These few symptoms, when added to the s)miptoms
that the other provers have felt, will go to make up the chronic

V
ON HOMCeOPATHiC PHILOSOPHY 219
eflfect of the remedy, which may be said to be the effect of the
remedy upon the human race. Now as to the method.
After the master-prover deals out these vials, each prover
takes a single dose of the medicine and waits to see if the single
dose takes effect. If he is sensitive to that medicine a single
dose will produce symptoms, and then those symptoms milst
not be interfered with; they should be allowed to go their own
way. In the proving of an acute remedy, like Aconite, the instructor, who knows something about the effect of the medicine, may be able to say to the class : "If you are going to get

effects from this remedy you will get those effects in the next
three to four days." It will not be necessary to wait longer
than that for Aconite, Nux vomica or Ignatia, but longer for
Sulphur or some of the antipsorics. If we were attempting to
prt)ve a remedy like Silicate of Alumina, the master-prover
would advise the class not to interfere with the medicine for
at least thirty days, because its prodrome may be thirty days.
It is highly important to wait until the possible prodrome of a given remedy is surely passed. If it is a shortacting remedy, the action will come speedily. We must bear in
mind the prodrome, the period of progress and period of decline when studying the Materia Medica as well as when studying miasms. The master-prover will usually be able to indicate
to the class whether they should wait a short time or a long
time before taking another dose, and from this the class will
only know whether the drug to be proved is acute or chronic.
If the first; dose of medicine produces no effect, and enough
time has been allowed to be sure that the prover is not sensitive
to it, the next best thing to do is to create a sensitiveness to it.
If we examine into the effects of poisons, we find those who
have once been poisoned by Rhus are a dozen times more
sensitive than before. Those who have been poisoned by Arsenic are extremely sensitive to Arsenic after they allow the
first effects to pass off. If they continue, however, to keep on
with the first effects they become less sensitive to it, so that
they require larger and larger doses to take eflfect. This is a

220 KENT'S LECTURES

rule with all poisonous substances that are' capable of affecting
the human system markedly. Now, when the time has passed
by which the prover knows he is not sensitive to that remedy,
that he has not received an action from the single dose (and
perhaps in the class of forty you will not get more than
one or two that will make a proving from the 30th potency)
to make the proving and to intensify the effect, dissolve the
medicine in water and have him take it every two hours for
24 or 48 hours, unless symptoms arise sooner. By this means
the prodromal period is shortened. The medicine seems to be
intensified by the repetition, and the patient is brought under
the influence, dynamically, of that remedy. As soon as the
symptoms begin to show, it is time to cease taking the

remedy.
No danger comes from giving the remedy in this wdy;
danger comes from taking it for a few days and then stopping it, and then taking it again. For instance, say you are
proving Arsenicum ; you find that you are not at all sensitive to
it, and after waiting thirty days you start out again and take it
in water, for three to four days, and the symptoms arise ; now
wait. So long as you discontinue it, it will not do any damage.
Now, the symptoms begin to arise; wait and let the imageproducing effect of Arsenicum wear off ; let it come and spread
and go away of itself ; do not interfere with it ; if you do interfere with it, the interference should be only by a true antidote ;
you should never interfere with it by a repetition of dose. That
is one of the most dangerous things. If the Arsenic symptoms
are coming and showing clearly, and at the end of a week or
ten days you say : "Let us brighten this up a little, and do this
thing more thoroughly," and to accomplish this ypu take a
great deal more, you will engraft upon your constitution in
that way the Arsenicum diathesis, from which you will nevej
be cured. You are breaking right into the cycles of that remedy
and it is a dangerous thing to do. At times that has been done
and the provers have carried the effects of their proving to the
end of their days. If you leave this Arsenical state alone it will

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 221

pass off entirely, and the prover is very often left much better
for it. A proving properly conducted will improve the health
of anybody; it will help to turn things into order. It was
Hahnemann's advice to young men to make provings.
Another portion of the class will not get symptoms, no matter how they abuse the remedy, and if it be Arsenicum they will
have to take a crude dose of it to get any effect, and then the
symptoms given forth are only the toxic effects, from which
little can be gained. The toxicological results of poisons are
provings of the grossest character ; they do not give the finer
details. For instance, you give Opium in such large doses that
it immediately poisons ; you see nothing but the grosser, overwhelming symptoms; the irregular, stertorous breathing, the
unconsciousness, the contracted pupil and the mottled face
and the irregular heart. The details are not there, you only
have a view of the most common things.

The reproving of remedies is of great value. The Vienna

Society did not fully endorse Hahnemann's provings. This
society thought it impossible that such wonderful things could
be brought out upon the sensations of people. The society did
not endorse the 30tb potency that was recommended by Hahnemann for proving. So this society gathered itself together and
resolved to prove remedies, and to test the 30th potency, and it
so happened that the society was honest. Natrum mur.. Thuja
and other remedies were proved, and W was honest enough
to say that although his convictions were decidedly against the
provings he had to admit that the symptoms gathered from
the 30th potency were very strong. The Vienna Society demonstrated by these reprovings that the polychrests of Hahnemann had been fully proved. Their provings of the 30th of
Natrum mur. was a wonderful revelation to them; but W ,
in spite of this result, held on to his prejudices. He acknowledged that he was wrong; but he continued to use potencies
lower than the 15th. He could not get his mind elevated to
the 30th; his prejudice was too strong. Dunham says of
some of these, that in spite of the fact that they had seen

222 KENT'S LECTURES

better results from the 30th and higher potencies even, they
were so prejudiced they could not bring themselves to a state
of yielding. As Dunham humorously expressed it, **they are
ossified in their cerebral convolutions as well as in their bony
structure." That is to say, their minds were inelastic, they
could not expand. We talk from appearance when we say the
eyes are closed ; it is the mind that is closed, the understanding that is closed.
Read %% 107-112, ^When the patient is under the poisonous influence of a drug it does not seem to flow in the direction of his life action, but when reaction comes then the
lingering effects of the drug seems to flow, as it were, in the
stream of the vital action. Then the symptoms that arise are
of the best order, and hence it is necessary in proving a drug
to take such a portion of the drug only as will disturb and not
suspend, as will flow in the stream of the vital order, in the
order of the economy, establishing slightly perverted action,
and causing symptoms, without suspending action, as we would,
for example, with a large dose of Opium. When a state of

suspension exists in the dynamic economy, then we have a beclouding of all the activities of the economy ; so giving a large
dose of medicine to palliate pains and sufferings is dangerous.
We have a suspension of the vital order when we give a medicine that does not flow in the stream of the vital influx. Homoeopathy looks towards the administration of medicines that are
given for the purpose of either creating order, and then always
in the higher potencies, or for the purpose of disturbing, and
then in the lower potencies. We should never resort to crude
drugs for provings, unless for a momentary or temporary experiment. It should not be followed up, and no great weight
should be put upon the provings that are made from the crude
medicines. They only at best give a fragmentary idea. Unless
the proving that lias been made with strong doses becomes enlarged with the symptoms from small doses the information
remains fragmentary and useless. If we had only the poisonous effects of Opium, we would be able only to use it in

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 223

those' conditions that simulate the poisonous effects of Opium,
like apoplexy. %
There are some prescribers who teach that for the primary effect one potency must be used and for the secondary
effect another must be used. No such distinction need be made.
I have many times been at the bedside of apoplectic patients
when death would have followed had not the homoeopathic
remedy been administered. I have been at the bedside of some
when the pulse was flickering, when the eye was glazed, when
the countenance was besotted, stertorous breathing coming on,
frothing at the mouth, and in a few minutes after the administration of Opium c. m. I have seen the patient go into a. sound
sleep, remain quiet and rest, wake up to consciousness, and go
on to recovery. Alumina has a similar state of stupor resembling apoplexy, and hence it is that Alumina and Opium are
antidotes to each other. I remember a case of apoplexy once
that puzzled many physicians for some days, s^nd I was puzzled, too. The patient was in a profound stupor. Opium was
administered by the physician in charge before I arrived, and
it stopped the stertorous breathing, but the patient remained
unconscious. Finally it was observed that one side was moving,
whilst the other side had not moved for many days, and that on
the paralyzed side there was fever, while on the well side there

was no fever. That was observed after careful examination

for many days. I asked the doctor if he did not consider that
the natural state of a paralyzed side would be coldness; he
thought so, too. The whole paralyzed side of this patient had a
feverish feeling to the hand, the other side was normal. That
seemed to be the only strange thing in the case ; no speech, no
effort to do anything, no action of the bowels; a do nothing
case. Upon a careful study of the Materia Medica, I came to
the conclusion that Alumina was suited to the case, and in
twelve hours after taking a dose of Alumina in a high potency
that fever subsided on the paralyzed side and the patient returned to consciousness.

224 Kent's lectures

LECTURE XXIX
Idiosyncrasies.
117. The study of the idiosyncrasies is very closely related*
to Homoeopathy. The usual explanation of the term is, an
oversensitiveness to one thing or a few things. It does not
apply, to that general susceptibility in feeble constitutions
where patients are susceptible to all things, over-susceptible
and over-impressed by simple annoyances. In the old school
idiosyncrasies relate to certain patients who are known in
every practitioner's practice as oversensitives. One oversensitive cannot take Opium for his pains, because of the congestion it produces, because of dangerous symptoms ; he is oversensitive to it and has complications from a very small dose
even, and the physician is compelled not to administer it.
Another patient cannot tolerate Quinine in chills and fever;
the primary action of Quinine makes him alarmingly sick;
whereas another individual may take 15 grains. One who
has an idiosyncrasy to Quinine cannot take one-quarter of a
grain without having an over-action of that drug b, state of
quinism. The homoeopath recognizes a wide range in susceptibility, including things that the allopath is not acquainted
with. There may be a chronic idiosyncrasy from a chronic

miasm and an acute idiosyncrasy from an acute miasm. There

are certain individuals in every community that cannot ride in
the country because of their susceptibility to hay fever ; others
cannot bear the smell of flowers in the room because of becoming sick; some will get sick from the smell of roses. I have
known a number of patients who became sick in this way. It is
common enough, and the sickness is known by the name of
rose cold or rose fever. I have a patient who cannot have dry

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 225

lavender flowers in the house without coming down with
coryza. She is disturbed by two or three things in this way,
and will go looking about to see which one of those things is in
the house. I had another patient who could not have peaches
in the room without becoming sick ; one of tlje symptoms that
he had was diarrhoea. This oversensibility is very important
and it explains in a measure the susceptibility to the remedy
that will cure. If an idiosyncrasy to the remedy is not present,
the patient will not be susceptible enough to be cured. The
state in which he becomes sensitive enough to a drug to cure
him is very analogous to these idiosyncrasies above mentioned.
Think what susceptibility man must have to the remedy that
cures him, when it cures in the very high attenuations that
we use.
There are acquired idiosyncrasies and idios3mcrasies that
are born with a patient. Those. that are congenital and those
that come from poisons are most difficult to cure. In Rhus tox.
poisoning those that have once been affected by handling it are
so sensitive to it that if they go within a quarter of a mile of the
vine, though they cannot detect it with the nose, yet in a few
days they will come down with a case of Rhus poisoning. A
very high potency of Rhus will sometimes remove that susceptibility and a dose of Rhus c. m. or m. m. will often check the
acute poisoning from Rhus: but if you find that the patient
has been bom with a. sensitivity to Rhus, while Rhus may palliate a few times, it will finally cease to help him. When one
is born with this sensitivity it is very tenacious and will sometimes persist, in spite of our best endeavors, to the end of life.
If eradicated at all, it requires an antipsoric to get to the bottom
of it. Hay fever is brought on in the fall and is supposed to be
caused by the patient's over-sensitiveness to irritants that develop about that time; sometimes it is attributed to the hay

that is curing in the fields at that time, sometimes to the different weeds that grow up then. Such patients have often
been able to ferret out the thing that they are susceptible to.
But psora is at the bottom of all these troubles. Patients get16

226 KENT'S LECTURES

ting up from typhoid fever have often idios)a(icrasies, and the
chronic miasms are responsible for these, just as psora is prior
to the sore eyes from scarlet fever. Sequelae are miasmatic,
they are simply the outcroppings of chronic miasms.
There are persons who are sensitive, not merely to one or
a few things, but to all things; oversensitive to the high
potencies, oversensitive in taste, oversensitive to light, and a
great many other things. This is a constitutional state; the
patient is bom with it. There are persons in whom you will
see the sensitiveness only when you go away from the plane
of nutrition into the plane of d)mamics. You will see for instance patients who will sit at the table and crave common
salt ; want lots of salt upon their food, and never seem able to
get just exactly what they need. They eat plenty of common
salt and remain sick, growing thinner all the time. This is on
the nutritive plane; the crude common salt is taken with the
food. Now you administer the c. m. to such a patient, and it
makes that patient sick, producing a violent aggravation.
This is where a food sustains a curative relation upon
a higher plane. We step out of the nutritive plane into the
plane of dynamics, the plane of disease-cause and cure.
Take Calcarea as an instance. We see the allopath and crude
medicine man give to certain babies, that are slow in forming
bone and teeth and have open f ontanelles, lime water in milk,
and the more lime water he gives them theless bone, they make.
Here is a bone-salt inanition, a non-assimilation of lime. A
dose of Calcarea very high will enable that child to take all the
lime that it needs from the food that it eats. The remedy
given on the dynamic plane causes a digestion and assimilation
of the lime naturally present in the food. You may feed lime
in crude form, and no benefit ever come; the child goes on
withering and emaciating.

In such non-assimilating patients the symptoms of Calcarea or Natrum mur. appear, calling the attention of the
intelligent physician to the fact that the child needs Calcarea
or Natrum mur. We know very well that we do not build bone

ON HOMCeOPATHiC PHILOSOPHY 227

with the c. m. potency of lime ; it simply corrects internal disorder and causes the outward forms of the body to flow into
order. The turning into order of the internal establishes the
nutritive principle from the internal to the external. So that .we
can see the wider range that idiosyncrasy or susceptibility has in
Homoeopathy.
Here we might undertake to coin a word, viz.: ^homoeopathicity; what does it mean? Homoeopathicity is the relation between the homoeopathic remedy and the patient who has
been cured. When the homopathic remedy has acted properly,
when it has cured the patient, it has demonstrated that it was
homoeopathically related to the case ; so that the relation, when
it was sustained, may be called the homoeopathicity, and it is
demonstrated by administering the remedy. It is true that we
can have what would be called a normal homoeopathicity, a
normal state, and that state exaggerated. That state exaggerated is where the patient is oversensitive to the curative remedy, and it not only establishes a curative relation, but before
curing produces an exaggeration of the symptoms of the patient. A remedy demonstrates its similitude to a case by curing. Homoeopathic physicians use the word simillimum. The
simillimum might be called that remedy that has cured the
patient, but in advance of curing that case it is only what
appears to be the most similar ; a medicine cannot be called the
simillimtun until it has cured.
It is worthy of consideration to discover the difference between a poison taken upon the nutritive plane, that is, in crude
substance, and a poison taken upon the dynamic plane. A poison upon the nutritive plane is usually not very deep, is more
superficial, it relates more to external things, to the body and
tissues, while the poison taken upon the dynamic plane may
last a lifetime. The miasms are of such a character. Poison
taken upon the nutritive plane may bring about a life-long
effect upon an individual, owing to susceptibility. The small

doses of Arsenicum will establish an Arsenicum poisoning that

will last a lifetime, but this is nowhere so deep as will be rep-

228 Kent's lectures

resented by the higher potencies of Arsenicum. To poison a
patient with the higher potencies there is generally required
something of susceptibility, while to poison patients upon the
nutritive plane susceptibility is not required; any patient can
be brought under the influence of a poison given upon the nutritive plane. ,
Here is another difference. Substances that are inert
and substances that we can use as food on the nutritive
plane may become poisonous upon the dynamic plane to those
that are susceptible. So that there is no substance that may not
be a poison in the higher and highest potencies. This gives us
a distinction between crude and dynamic poisons that you will
do well to think about.
Now from all this we are led to see that if there were
no state of susceptibility, no such condition as idios3mcrasy,
there could be no Homoeopathy. H there were no susceptibility,
there would be no sickness and ,no need of Homoeopathy.
Susceptibility underlies all contagion and all cure. So that
cause and cure, the cause of sickness and the cure of sickness,
knock at the same door. They flow in in the same way because
of the immaterial or simple substance. All disease is in primitive substance, or first substance ; all cure of disease must also
be in simple substance. In olden times we used to think that all
substances capable of extinguishing the vital force, or which
overcame the vital force, were poisons ; that in itself is a crude
idea of a poison. Apy substance capable of impressing itself
upon the economy of man sufficiently to cause death, or to
create a disorder in the economy, may be called a poison. That
definition will apply to both dynamic and crude poisons. Poison
presents two problems: an external problem and an internal
problem. The external deals with the question of quantity, the
internal with the question of quality. A dynamis cannot be considered from the standpoint of weights and measures, but from
quality. Crude substances are considered from the standpoint
of quantity, from weights and measures.

This is only a beginning to set you thinking. This subject

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 229

leads into the study of protection as well. There are two forms
of protection from sickness. Man is protected from sickness
in two ways, by Homoeopathy and by use. The physician and
the nurse who go into the district of 'yellow fever or typhoid
or diphtheria or smallpox, who keep busy, who have, in the
highest sense of the word, the true love of the use, who have
gone into the work as mediums of mercy, will largely be protected just simply from their love of the work, from their delight in it. They have no fear. Fear is an overwhelming cause
of sickness ; those who fall prey to fear are likely to become
sick, but those who face disease with no fear are likely to remain well ; they do sometimes fall sick, it is true, but I believe
it is because they begin to have fear in the work.
The other and greater prophylactic is the homoeopathic remedy. After working in an epidemic for a few weeks, you will
find perhaps that half-a-dozen remedies are daily indicated and
one of these in a larger number of cases than any other. This
one remedy seems to be the best suited to the general nature
of the sickness. Now you will find that for prophylaxis there
is required a less degree of similitude than is necessary for curing. A remedy will not have to be so similar to prevent disease
as to cure it, and these remedies in daily use will enable you
to prevent a large niunber of people from becoming sick. We
must look to Homoeopathy for our protection as well as for our
cure.

230 k^t's lectures

LECTURE XXX
Individualization.
118, etc, Comparison, individualization, and difference
in the nature of things most similar, are points that must be
carefully considered. The substitution of one remedy for another cannot be thought of, or entertained in Homceopathy.

The homcEopathic physician must individualize, he must discriminate. He must individualize things widely dissimilar in
one way, yet similar in other ways. Take for instance the two
remedies, Secale and Arsenicum ; they are both chilly, but the
patient wants all the covers off and wants the cold air in Secale,
and he wants all things hot in Arsenicum. The two remedies
thus separate at once; they are wholly dissimilar as to the
general state, whilst wholly similar as to particulars. A mere
book-worm symptom hunter would see no difference between
Secale and Arsenicum. You go to the bedside of a case of
peritonitis, and you will find the abdomen distended, the
patient restless; you will find him often vomiting blood, and
passing blood from the anus ; you will find horrible burning
with the distended abdomen, unquenchable thirst, dry, red
tongue, lightning-like pulse. Well, Arsenicum and Secale have
all these things equally; they both have these things in high
degree; but when Secale is indicated he wants all the covers
off, wants to be cold, wants cold applications, wants the windows open ; cannot tolerate the heat, and the warm room makes
him worse. If Arseniciun is indicated in such a case, Jie wants
to be wrapped up warmly, even in the month of July, wants
hot food and hot drinks. The whole Materia Medica is full of
these things and is based upon this kind of individualization.
Without the generals of a case no man can practice Homoe-

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 231

opathy, for without these no man can individualize and see distinctions. After gathering all the particulars, one strong general
rules out one remedy and rules in another. Physicians by the
questions they ask often show that they have not been able to
grasp this idea of individualization. They pick out two symptoms, or one symptom common to two remedies, and say,
"Now, both of these remedies have this same symptom, how
are you going to tell them apart ?" Well, if you are acquainted
with the Materia Medica, with the art of individualization,
you will at once easily see how to get the generals ; the generals
of one are so and so, and the generals of the other are so and
so, and this will enable you to distinguish one of these remedies
as best adapted to the constitution, when the two remedies
have the one symptom in any equal degree. Now, this rules out
the idea of substitution. If one does not work, they say, try
all down the list alphabetically, until you hit it. Why a remedy

that has never been known to produce that symptom may cure
the case, because it is more similar to the generals of that case
than any other. This is the art of applying the Materia Medica.
Many times a patient brings out that which is so strange and
rare that it has never been found in any remedy. You have to
examine the whole case and see which remedy of all remedies
is most similar to the patient himself. From beginning to end,
the homoeopath must study the patient. If he become conversant with symptoms apart from the patient, he will not be
successful.
Par. 118 reads : "Each medicine produces particular eflfects
in the body of man, and no other medicinal substance can
create any that are precisely similar." That is the beginning
of a doctrine showing that there can be no substitution. There
are cases that are so mixed that man, no matter how much he
study, can not see the distinctions; but, remember one thing,
there is one remedy that is needed in the case, whether it is
known or not ; it is needed in the case, and it has no substitute,
for that remedy differs from all other medicines, just as this
individual diflfers from all other individuals. It may be that

232 KENT'S LECTURES

we cannot see that it is needed, it may not appear to be indicated, but it is needed all the same, though the intimation
may not have come to the eye or ear of the physician. That
shows the necessity of waiting and watching. In Homoeopathy
medicines can never replace each other, nor one be as good as
another.
As we hasten along with this subject, we find in Par. 122
Hahnemann says : "In circumstances of this nature on which
depend the certitude of the medical art, and the welfare of
future generations, it is necessary to employ only medicines
that are well known." Purity is important, medicines as they
are proved should be kept unmodified and preserved and possessed of their full energy. Now, it is important that you
shall use the same substances, as nearly as possible, as were
proved. Among the potencies that we are using here as high

potencies, made by Fincke and others, we have in a large number of instances the very identical substances that were proved
by the provers. It is important not to change. A plant bearing
the same name as the one proved, but grown in a different
climate and on a different soil, should not be used. Procure the
one that was proved originally. Fincke recognized this when
he procured the substances that Hering proved. We have the
same Lachesis that Hering proved. I have a sample of the
original Lachesis that I am preserving in a little vial marked
with Hering's own name. The medicine should be well known ;
its history should be well known, with all the steps and details.
The question of potentization should be taken into account,
the different hands they have been through ; all the little particulars of our high potencies should be well known. You should
not be careless in this and not gather potencies from Tom,
Dick and Harry. When able, go to headquarters and get your
potencies.
Hahnemann writes in Par. 144- : "A Materia Medica of
this nature shall be free from all conjecture, fiction or gratuitous assertion it shall contain nothing but the pure language
of nature, the results of a careful and faithful research." We

ON H0M(E0PATHIC PHILOSOPHY 233

have formed, built and established the Materia Medica by
provings upon the healthy, and observations that are pure and
honestly made. Par. 145 : "We ought certainly to be acquainted
with the pure action of a vast number of medicines upon the
healthy body, to be able to find homoeopathic remedies against
each of the innumerable forms of disease that besiege mankind ; that is to say, to find out artificial morbific powers that
resemble them." At the present time it will rarely be found
that a fully developed disease has not its simillimum, its remedy and cure, in our Materia Medica. It is only those mixed
cases that are not developed that puzzle us.

234 KENT'S LECTURES

LECTURE XXXI

Characteristics.
146: **The third point in the duty of a physician is to
employ those medicines whose pure effects have been proved
upon a healthy person in the manner best suited to the cure of
natural diseases homoeopathically." We will take this up in
our next talk.
This third point in the duty of the physician referred to in
Par. 146 really takes up the balance of the Organon,
Par. 147: **Of all these medicines that one whose sjrmptoms bear the greatest resemblance to the totality of those
which characterize any particular natural disease ought to be
the most appropriate and certain homoeopathic remedy that
can be employed; it is the specific remedy in this case of disease." It is not an uncommon thing in this advanced day of
science to read of specific remedies. The old school distinctly
affirms that there are only three or four specifics, but almost
every off -shoot who starts at something for himself has to a
great extent the idea of specifics in him. One of the first things
the quack physician seems inclined to do is to commence advertising specifics for headache, for diarrhoea, for this or that.
This is altogether opposed to Homoeopathy. There are no
specifics in Homoeopathy except at the bedside of a patient
when the remedy has been wrought out with great endeavor
and care. Then it may be said that that medicine which is
found to be similar to the symptoms which characterize this
disease is his specific.
Now, please note that there is an emphatic sense in that
word "characterizes." It is no ordinary expression. We have
read in the earlier .portions of the Organon that the disease

ON HOMCeOPATHlC PHILOSOPHY 235

makes itself known to the physician by signs and symptoms,
and that the totality of the s)miptoms is the sole representation
of the disease, to the physician ; but that totality has to be
studied to ascertain what there is, among all the symptoms,

that characterises the disease, or marks the symptoms as peculiar.

Now Hahnemann commences to analyze the totality of
the symptoms for the purpose of giving it character. It has
been said in these lectures that it is necessary to do that, that
the information that leads up to characterizing is really the
information that makes the homoeopathic physician wise, by
which he has the ability to intelligently understand that which
he has to treat. That medicine which is best adapted is the
most similar, but you cannot demonstrate beforehand that it is
the specific homoeopathic remedy ; for you may be deceived in
your idea of the nature of the case. But when that remedy has
acted, then it may be seen that that remedy was homoeopathic
or specific, or that it was not homoeopathic. You have no idea
as to what remedy will be homoeopathic to the case until you
have examined all the symptoms, and then proceed to find out
that which characterizes.
Put that word characterizes in large type, in red letters.
You cannot dwell sufficiently long upon that, because it
grows greater and grander with every study of the case, that
idea of the characteristic. What is there in this case which
makes it an individual, what is there in it that makes it unlike
any that ever existed ? In the case of the remedy ascertain that
which characterizes it, and in the case of the disease that which
characterizes it. When these two occur before the perception,
before man's mind, so that he can think upon them and see
what characterizes each one of them, and he realizes that the
remedy is the most similar of all in the Materia Medica, then
he is assured that that remedy will cure, and it only requires
to be administered to prove that it is the specific. The homoeopathicity is thus sustained, the similitude has been borne out
by the medicine having cured. We cannot have the demonstra-

236 rent's lectures

tion that the remedy is homoeopathic until it cures the sick
man ; we may only presume that, it is homoeopathic, or say it
appears to us that it is homoeopathic, because that which is
characteristic of the disease is most similar of all other things
to that which is characteristic of that remedy, or vice versa.
We may reasonably assume that that remedy is the specific,
but the homoeopathicity can only be demonstrated by cure. So

it does not make a remedy homoeopathic simply to be carried in

my case. Homoeopathic remedies are not homoeopathic remedies
simply because they have been used by a homoeopath. Remedies
are not homoeopathic because potentized and attenuated or
prepared after the fashion of our school.
What constitutes a remedy homoeopathic? The answer is:
It has demonstrated its curative relation to the patient, after
having been prescribed in accordance with his symptoms, the
recovery taking place in the proper direction, from above
downward, from within out, and in the reverse order of the
symptoms. That constitutes a remedy homoeopathic, and that
constitutes the prescription homoeopathic. It is then a specific
remedy, and in no other sense can a remedy be called a specific.
Hahnemann gives his theory of cure in paragraph 148, but you
are not compelled to adopt it. Hahnemann himself says it is
only a theory, and he only offers it as simply the best in view,
but not as binding upon you to accept.
But Par. 149 is something that must be accepted, that is, it
must be known, and then accepted because it is true. It is a
general statement of the results of the homoeopathic remedy
in the cure of disease. The rejection of this paragraph must
effect a separation amongst those who do not believe, and those
who do believe. "When a proper application of the homoeopathic remedy has been made, the acute disease which is to be
cured, however malignant and painful it may be, subsides in a
few hours, if recent, and in a few days, if it is somewhat
older," etc.
From this I am placed under the plain necessity of
acknowledging that if under my treatment such diseases do not

i
I

, ON HOMC^OPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 237

subside, I have not found the right remedy. That will force
the honest homoeopathic physician to seek the proper remedy.
Let not the blame be placed upon the failure of the system and

of law and order, but let it be placed upon the one who practices it. Just so sure as you find the homoeopathic remedy in a
case of scarlet fever, just so sure you will see that fever fall
and that child improve ; while the rash will remain out, nothing
of the malignancy of the case ^yill remain, in an ordinary case
of scarlet fever ; we find that in a few days the child is so much
better he wants to go to school. But then we treat the child
and not the fever. Just so sure as the physician has in mind
the rash of scarlet fever or of measles as the main element of
the disease, he will make a failure, and the patient will not
recover so speedily ; but as a matter of fact, the homoeopathic
physician prescribes for the patient on that which characterizes
the sickness, even though it be what is called a self-limiting
disease. ^
150. This treats of one of the difficulties we have to
contend with. "If a patient complains of slightly accessory
symptoms which have just appeared, the physician ought not
take this state of things for a perfect malady that seriously demands medicinal aid," etc., etc. It is right for you, when your
patients are under constitutional treatment, to prescribe for a
cold, but only when it is not an ordinary one. If the cold is
likely to cause serious trouble, then you must prescribe for it ;
slight indispositions, however, should not receive remiedies.
You will have patients that will come to you at every change
of the wind, at every attack of snuffles the baby has, at every
little headache or every little pain. If you then proceed to
change your remedy or prescribe for each one of these little
spells of indisposition, you will, in the course of a little while,
have such a state of disorder in the individual that you will
wonder what is the matter with this patient. You had better
give her no medicine at all, and if she is wise and strong
and can feel confidence you can say to her that she does
not need medicine for this attack; but occasionally give

238 RENTES LlSCTURES

hor a dose of constitutional medicine when these little attacks are not on. While you are young and cannot hold
these patients with an iron grasp, when they come to you,
you had better give them placebo, and let the indisposition
pass off of itself. Watch it, however, and it may at the close
develop some constitutional manifestations and throw light
upon the patient that you have been treating. On the other

hand, it is an easy matter to prescribe for severe acute diseases ;

they are decisive, they strongly manifest their symptoms, they
are sharp cut in their expressions, the symptoms are prominent,
and you will not be confused as you will be in the slight indispositions. The slight indispositions are nondescript; you do
not know what to do for them. In vain you seek to find that
which characterizes them, and hence it is doubtful about any
remedy that is administered being of any value. You will be
astonished after prescribing a number of years, and your patients have gained confidence in you, that when they come in
with these little trivial ailments they won't have them after a
few powders of sugar. They will say: "Doctor, my trouble
went off splendidly." This is what is meant by letting the little
things alone. Severe diseases exhibit a strong degree of symptoms, and hence you have something to do. Par. 151. "But if
the few symptoms of which the patient complains are very
viplent, the physician who attentively observes him will generally discover many others which are less developed and which
furnish a perfect picture of the malady."

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY

239

LECTUJRE XXXII
The Value of Symptoms.

Nature of Symptoms.^

Grades of Symptoms.-

'General.
Common.
Particular.

' First Gradfe.

General. ^ Second Grade.
Third Grade.
"I First Grade.
Common. ^Second Grade.
Third Grade.
(First Grade.
Second Grade.
Third Grade.
Par. 153 is the one that teaches more particularly how the
process of individualization or discrimination shall be carried
out. It treats of characteristics, it treats of grades. The homoeopathic physician may think he has his case written out very
well, but he does not know whether he has or not until he has
mastered the idea of this paragraph. He may have page after
page of symptoms, and not know what the remedy is, and if
he takes the record to a master the master will say : ** You have
no case !" **Why, I have plenty of symptoms." "But you have
no case. You have left your case out ; you have left the image
of the sickness out, because you have failed to get anything that
characterizes it. You have plenty .of symptoms, but have not
an)i:hing characteristic. You have not taken your case properly." Now, after you have mastered this paragraph you will
know whether you have taken your case properly, you will
know whether you have something to present to a master, a
likeness of something. The lack of this knowledge is
the cause
of non-success with the majority of homoeopathic physicians.

240 KENT'S LECTURES

There are a great many homoeopathic physicians that prescribe
and tinker a long time with their cases, and will ask you what
a characteristic is, and what a peculiar symptom is, and if it
is some one peculiar thing that guides to a remedy. The idea
of a keynote comes to the mind of many.
I do not mean that all or any part of what you have written
is useless, but it is necessary to have individualizing characteristics to enable you to classify that which you have, to perceive the value of symptoms, and, if you must settle down to

a few remedies, to ascertain which of thesi is more important

than another, or most important of all. You cannot individualize unless you have that which characterizes. The things
that characterize are things to make you hesitate, to make you
meditate. Suppose that you have been acquainted with a large
number of cases of measles, for instance, or a large number of
cases of whooping cough, but along comes one of which you
say to yourself, "That is strange ; I never saw such a thing as
that before in a case of whooping cough. It is peculiar." You
hesitate, you meditate, and at once recognize it as something
individual, because it is strange and rare and peculiar. You say,
I do not know what remedy has that symptom. Then you
commence to search your repertory, or consult those of more
experience, and you find in the repertory, or upon consultation,
that such a medicine has that thing as a strong feature, as a
high grade symptom, and it is as peculiar in the remedy as in
your patient, though you have never seen it before. You may
have seen a hundred cases of measles without seeing that very
thing. That peculiar thing that you see in measles relates to the
patient and not to the disease, and as the sole duty of the physician is to heal the sick that peculiar thing will open the whole
case to the remedy. When you find that the remedy has that
symptom, along with the other symptoms, you must attach
some importance to it, and when there are two or three of these
peculiar symptoms they form the characteristic features.
What would you think would constitute a common symp- ,
tom? We shall at once see that the common symptoms are

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 241

those that appear in all cases of measles, that you would expect
to find in measles. It would be strange to have measles without
any rash ; that would be peculiar. We know that the absence
of rash is a striking state of affairs and means trouble," and is
peculiar. Either it is not measles, or the absence of the rash is
a serious state. Suppose it is a fever. The patient has intense
heat, an ordinary fever coming in the afternoons and running
through the night, with hot hands and feet, high temperature,
dry tongue, etc. What would you say concerning the presence
or absence of thirst? You would say it is common if he has
thirst, because almost anybody who has feyer would want
water. Nothing is so natural to put fire out with as water, and
the absence of thirst in a fever is strange, is rare and ^uncom-

mon, peculiar and striking. You would ask yourself at once,

is it not strange that he does not have thirst with such a high
temperature ? You at once strike to the remedies that are thirstless. You would not think of hunting up a remedy that has
thirst.
So the absence of the striking features of disease constitutes a peculiarity that relates to the patient. Well, then,
that which is pathognomonic is common, because it is common
in that disease, but an absence of the pathognomonic characterizes that particular disease in that patient, and therefore means
the patient, and in proportion as you have that class of symptoms just in that proportion you have things that characterize
the patient, and the specific remedy for the patient will be the
simillimum. It is necessary to know sicknesses, not from
pathology, not from physical diagnosis, no matter how important these branches are, but by symptoms, the language of
nature.^
A true homoeopathic prescription cannot be made on pathology, on morbid anatomy ; because provings have never been
pushed in that direction. Pathology gives us the results of disease, and not the language of nature appealing to the intelligent physician. Symptomatology is the true subject to know.
No man, w^o is only conversant with morbid anatomy and
16

242 KENT'S LECTURES

pathognomonic symptoms, can make homoeopathic prescriptions. In addition to diagnostic ability he must have a peculiar
knowledge ; that is, he must be acquainted with the manner of
expression of each and every disease. He must know just,
how each disease expresses itself in language and appearance
and sensations. He must know just how every remedy affects
mankind in the memory and understanding and will, because
there are no other things that the remedy can act upon as to
the mind, and he must know how the remedy affects functions,
because there are no other ways in which the remedy affects
the body of man. Now, if he knows how diseases express
themselves in signs and symptoms, then he knows what constitutes an individual disease a little different from all others.
It is the peculiar way that the same disease affects different

patients that makes the symptoms strange, peculiar and rare.

That which is pathognomonic in the remedy is that which you
will study out most, because it is that which is related to th^
patient. Such is the state of mind that the homoeopathic physicians must keep themselves in in order to begin this study,
and when they have begun to think in this way they can then
study the symptoms of the disease as to grade.
The symptoms of the remedies must be studied especially
with respect to order or grade. To look upon them as all alike,
because they appear to be all on the same level, is to be unable
to make distinctions. One symptom with some physicians is as
good as another. It is a fact that symptoms, to a great extent,
are upon a sliding scale. What is peculiar in one remedy is not
in any degree peculiar in another. While it may be peculiar in
a chronic case to have thirst, it is not so in a fever. That which
is true in many respects in a chronic state may be the very
opposite in an acute case. The chronic miasms are the very
opposite in their character and order to the acute miasms, and
this is a fact that the homoeopathic physician must know.
If you had a striking case of inflammation of the parotid
gland, and the patient says, "Do not press upon it, because it
is very sore," how would you classify that, as common or

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 243

Strange? If you think but a moment, you will see that it would
be a very strange thing for a highly inflamed gland not to be
sore, and that soreness upon pressure is not something to be
prescribed for, but something to be known, to be taken into the
general view of the case, and the remedy indicated in the case
would be suitable if it have inflammation and soreness of the
gland ; there is nothing striking in that ; quite a group of remedies have produced hardness, soreness and tenderness of the
gland; it may be one of those, or it may be on,e which has
never produced these things, if it have the characterizing features of the patient.
In sicknesses the S)miptoms that cannot be explained
are often very peculiar; the things that can be accounted for
are not so often peculiar; peculiar things are less known to
man. For instance, a patient can sit only with his feet up on
the desk, or with his feet elevated ; he is a great sufferer, and

because of this suffering he is compelled to put his feet up. The

symptoms hence will be put down, worse from letting the feet
hang down. "Well, what do you mean by that ?" "Why, if I
let my feet hang down, I find I bring the nates down upon
the chair, and there is a sore place there." Now that is quite
a different thing. You may find if it is an old man that he has
a large prostate gland, which is very painful at times and very
sore, and when he lets the feet hang down the gland comes in
contact with the chair. So we see that the real summing up of
the case is that this enlarged and sore prostate gland is worse
from pressure, and all you have learned from that symptom is
that the gland is sensitive to touch, which is a common symptom. There are instances, however, where by letting the feet
hang down the patient is ameliorated ; for instance, you take a
periostitis and the pain is relieved by letting the limbs hang.
No one can tell why that limb is better when hanging over the
bed. He lies across the bed with the foot hanging over the side,
and why it is that he cannot lie upon his back nobody can
figure out. Now that condition is found in Conium, and you
will not be astonished after you know that Conium has that

244 KENT'S LECTURES

symptom to find all the symptoms of your patient say Conium.
. All the rest of them, perhaps, are common.
Now, when you think along this line of science, it will not
take you long to get into the habit of estimating among the
symptoms that appear in a record the things that are common,
the things that you would expect, and the things that are
strange.
Again, we see that there are certain symptoms in the remedies that are general, and on the other hand the symptoms
that are general must also be taken into account in order to
, examine any record. All the things that are predicated of the
patient himself are things that are general ; all the things that
are predicated of any given organ are things in particular. So
we see how there are things in general, and things common, and
things particular; sometimes it may be a condition or state,
sometimes it may be a symptom. We have said that what the
patient predicates of himself will generally appear to you to be
at once something in general. When the patient says, "I am
thirsty," as a matter of fact, although he feels that thirst in

the mouth, yet it is his whole economy that craves that water.
The things of which he says, **I feel," are apt to be
generals. The patient says, "I have so much burning," and if
you examine him, you find that his head burns, that the skin
burns, that there is burning in the anus, burning in the urine,
and whatever- region is affected burns. You find the word
burning is a general feature that modifies all his sickness. If
it were only in one organ, it would be a particular, but these
things that relate to the whole of the man are things in general.
Again, when the patient tells things of his affections,
he gives us things that are most general. When he speaks of
his desires and aversions, we have those things that relate so
closely to the man himself that the changes in these things will
be marked by changes in his very ultimates. When the man
arrives at that state that he has an aversion to life, we see that
that is a general symptom and that permeates his economy;

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 245

that symptom qualifies all the symptoms and is the very centre
of all his states and conditions. When he has a desire to commit suicide, which is the loss of the love of his life, we see that
that is in his very innermost. Medicines affect man primarily
by disturbing his affections, by disturbing his aversions and
desires. The things that he loved to do are changed, and now
he craves strange things. Or the remedy changes his ability
to comprehend, and turns his life into a state of contention
and disturbance ; it disturbs his will and may bring upon him
troublesome dreams, which are really mental states. Dreams
are so closely allied to the mental state that he may well say,
"I dreamed last night" ; that is a general state. The things that
lie closest to man and his life, and his vital force, are the things
that are strictly general, and as they become less intimately
related to man they become less and less general, until they
become particular.
The menstrual period gives us a state which we may call
general. The woman says, "I menstruate," so and so ; she does
not attribute it to her ovaries or to her uterus ; her state is, as
a rule, different when she is menstruating. So the things that
are predicated of self, of the ego, the things described as "I

do so and so," "Dr., I feel so and so," "I have so much thirst,"
"I am so chilly in every change of the weather," *'I suffocate
in a warm room," etc., these are all generals. The things that
are general are the first in importance. After these have been
gathered, you may go on taking up each organ, and ascertaining
what is true of each organ. Many times you will find that the
modalities of each organ conform to the generals. Sometimes,
however, there may be modalities of the organ, which are particular that are opposed to the generals. Hence we find in
remedies they appear to have in one subject one thing, and in
another subject the very opposite of that thing. In one it will
be a general, and in another it will be a particular.

246 K^NT^S LgCYUReS

LECTURE XXXIII
The Value of Symptoms. (Continued,)
It is very important that you should tftiderstand what is
meant by general, common and particular symptoms and so I
will repeat somewhat. The generals are sometimes made up
of particulars. If you examine any part alone, you are only
examining the particulars. If you examine the liver symptoms
alone, you are examining particulars.. If you are examining
the eye symptoms, or the symptoms of any other region considered apart from the whole man, you are examining particular symptoms. But after you have gathered the particulars of
every region of the body, and you see there are certain symptoms running through the particulars, those symptoms that Tun
through the particulars have become generals, as well as particulars.
Things that apply to all the organs may be predicated of
the person himself. Things that modify all parts of the organism are those that relate to the general state. Anything that
the individual predicates of himself is also general. There are
things that an individual might say of himself that might relate
to only one organ, but of course that becomes a particular ; but
most of the things that the man predicates of himself are
general.
Consider for instance, the symptoms of sleep. You

might at first think that they related to the brain, but the brain
does not sleep any more than the whole man. "I was wakeful
last night" ; he is predicating something of himself and hence
it is a general. Or, he says, "I dreamed" ; well it is true that
the whole man really dreamed. You might say that the mind
merely dreamed, but the mind is the man, and, therefore, we

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 247

see how important* sleep and dreams become in the anamnesis
of a case. Scarcely more important i^ what the woman says of
her menstruation ; menstruation so closely relates to the whole
woman that it becomes most important. The special senses
also are so closely related to the whole man that the smells that
are grateful and the smells that are disagreeable l^ecome general.
There are certain smells that relate more particularly to
the nose itself, because the smell is in the nose and is due to
some pathological condition of the nose, and thus becomes a
mere particular. The smell of food is agreeable when the man
is hungry, and that will relate to the whole man, but one who
has a vicious catarrh of the nose, with much local disturbance,
has many perversions of smell, which are particular, because
they relate to the nose. A patient says: "I see" so and so,
without seeing; that relates to the generals. It is to a great
extent a seeing with the understanding. Now, when the eye itself becomes affected, the symptoms gathered are particulars
because they relate to the anatomy of the eye. The more the
symptoms relate to the anatomy of the parts, the more external
they are; the more they relate to the tissues, the more likely
they are to be particular. But the more they relate to internals
that involve the whole man, the more they become general.
The things, therefore, that relate to the man are the ones
to be singled out in the anamnesis and marked first. After
gathering together all the symptoms of a patient you should
single out for study first of all everything and anything that
you can predicate of the man, everything of which you can
ssy he feels so and so, she suffers so and so. Find out what
remedies relate to these symptoms first. Sometimes when
you have figured the anamnesis of the generals, you have settled by your anamnesis upon three remedies, or possibly upon
one. In ninety-nine cases of a hundred you can leave out the

particulars, for the particulars are usually contained within

the generals. If there be but one remedy that has the nimierous
generals, and covers those generals absolutely and clearly and

248 KENT'S LECTURES

strongly, that will be the remedy that will cure the case. There
may be a lot of little particulars that may appear to contraindicate, but they cannot ; for nothing in particulars can contraindicate generals. One strong general can overrule all the
particulars you can gather up. "Aggravation from heat" will
throw out Arsenicum, from consideration in any case.
It may be advisable to dwell again for a little upon the
common symptoms. Sometimes we find in women the common
symptom, prolapsus. It is a common thing for them to say,
"Doctor, I have such a dragging down in my bowels, as
if my insides were coming out." That is a common feature,
and it is a common symptom. There is nothing about that
alone that will enable you to find a remedy, but for these
common symptoms we have a class of remedies. When you
see a rubric containing a dozen, fifteen or twenty remedies,
you may often know it is a common symptom. We would
say that all women who have prolapsus have to a great extent
a dragging down feeling, as if the uterus would come out. If
we were to take this symptom and follow it up, we would see
that it works in various directions ; we would see that it runs
into generals, and into particulars. How shall we decide when
to give Sepia, when Lil tig,, when Murex,, when Bell,, when
Puis., when Nux, and when Natrum mur,? To enable you to
pick out of that group of remedies the one that will cure yod
must study both the generals and the particulars of the patient
and the generals always first. If it be a Nux vomica patient
who has the prolapsus of the uterus, what will she say of herself that will make you see Nux in it ? She would be chilly, full
of coryza, with stuffing up of the nose in a warm room ; she
would be very irritable, snappish, want to kill somebody, want
to throw her child into the fire, want to kill her husband. She
would probably have constipation and every pain that she had
with it would make her want to go to stool ; urging to stool,
but only a little is passed and she wants to go frequently. You
at once see that she has the generals of Nux, and whatever
particulars she has are in harmony with those generals, and so

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 249

you go from generals to particulars. The whole problem, like
any other scientific problem, must be gone into and followed
from generals to particulars. Suppose that Sepia is indicated
for that woman. You have in it as well this common symptom.
Now, what is there in this patient that no other patient has?
Tl^e dragging down is just the same, but with it an awful allgone sinking feeling in the stomach, and she gets relief only
when sitting with the legs crossed. She has a constant feeling
of a lump in the rectum that makes her want to go to stool ;
but she goes for days without any urging at all ; she is sallow
and sickly, talks of bilious symptoms and has a yellow saddle
over the nose. She tells you that she has an aversion to her
children, and feels very sad that she does not love her husband
as she ought to. She is unable to exercise the love she has to
her children. Now you have that which she says of herself in
general, and that which she tells of the stomach and rectum in
particular, and yet peculiar. You can see now that the dragging
down sensation is not general nor particular, but is common.
Many of the symptoms of regions are both common
and particular, particular because they are of regions and common because they describe a state. Scarlet fever gives us an
illustration of this. We would group all the striking symptoms indicative of scarlet fever, the rash, the appearance of the
mucous membranes, the sore throat, the fever, the history, and
the period of prodrome. The remedies for scarlet fever must
have these symptoms in common with scarlet fever. The appearance of scarlet fever is among the common things of
Belladonna, Ailanthus has in its common things the appearance of scarlet fever ; Apis has the appearance of scarlet fever ;
Rhus has the appearance of rough scarlet fever. Sulphur and
Phosphorus have a rash similar to scarlet fever. So if we were
to make a rubric for the repertory we would put the names
of all these remedies in the common group and call it scarlet
fever.
But when are you going to give one remedy and when
another? We can sometimes figure out from local manifesta-

250 KENT'S LECTURES


tions things in general. For instance, you can take an Arum
iriph patient ; that which appears to be most striking is that he
picks his nose and lips until they bleed. If you examine that
state well you will ascertain that these parts and the fingers and
toes tingle ; about the extremities where the circulation is feeble
and where the nerves are abundant, in the nerves of the fingers
land toes, there is an unusual tingling like the creeping of ants,
and he keeps picking at these parts. It is a state marking almost
the whole economy. If you watch a little more closely, you
will see that a liquid oozes out of the parts he has picked, a
bloody, watery oozing, and that it denudes the skin around the
parts. It becomes a part of the general state. Then in scarlet
fever, with the rash only partly out, we want to take the language of nature alone. I spoke of Phosphorus, Phos. has a
typical scarlet fever rash. Suppose you have a case that is
putrid, the rash has become very dusky and the skin has become mottled and purplish, and there are places about the
body that have a tendency to suppurate. You find there are
swellings about the neck, swellings upon the hands and fingers,
that are inclined to suppurate; or there is an oozing round
about them and pus is welling forth, and the case is so putrid
and offensive that as soon as you enter the room you detect
the horrible stench. If you examine into the case, you will see
that the child cannot get water enough and cannot get it cold
enough. The countenance is sunken, and the eyes are puffed
and swollen and red. Blotches are appearing of a septic character intermingled with the scarlet fever blotches. There you
have a Phos, case, and Phos, will stop the trouble immediately.
Now, what have you gathered together? You have gathered
together an evidence of the general state. You see running all
through that case putridity and a zymotic state. You may have
many cases of malignant scarlet fever, and you will find that
you can manage them with your remedies as you would an
unruly horse with reins.
Now as to the grades. The value of symptoms is divided
into three grades. General symptoms are divided into three

ON HOMCeOPAl'HlC 1>H1L0S0PHY 251

grades, first, second and third, and comnion symptoms and

particular symptoms are divided into the same three grades.

You will see in Boenninghausen a fourth grade, but as a matter
of fact these remedies do not form a grade; they are only
probationary remedies, requiring demonstration by re-proving
and clinical confirmation.
The general symptoms of the first grade are such as all or
the majority of provers state of themselves as a class of
provers. For instance, take that symptom of Apis, "suffocation
in a warm room"; all the provers oi Apis, or nearly all, were
affected to a great extent in that way. All the provers of Pulsatilla were worse in a warm room. There can be no doubt
about such symptoms for all the provers felt that state so
strongly. Kali hyd,, Pulsatilla, Iodine and Apis are among
those that have that symptom in the first grade, worse in a
warm room, suffocation in a warm room. Now when those
symptoms which have existed as generals among the provers
come into the experience of the practitioner, and are confirmed by curing those states extensively, wherever administered, for years, then these remedies are fully entitled
to this grade. When only one prover has recorded a certain symptom, it is doubtful whether that is a symptom
from the action of the remedy, but when several provers
have recorded the same symptom it becomes confirmed. When
that symptom has been removed or cured by the remedy
in the hands of a physician, it can then be said to have been
verified. So symptoms are (1) recorded, (2) confirmed by reprovings, and (3) verified upon the sick. When several provers
have observed that Puis, is worse in a warm room, and this is
confirmed by other provers, and then verified by cure upon the
sick, it immediately places Pulsatilla in the first grade of that
general state. Suppose that it were something that was in relation to the bladder; Puis, has a symptom of frequent urination ; now, that is immediately classified as a particular symptom because it relates to a region. Now, if all of these provers
had irritable bladder when they took Puis, that would be a

252 KENT'S LECTURES

confirmation of it, and if it cures for years experience verifies
it and it is then placed as belonging to Pulsatilla under the
particulars, and marked in the highest grade. So with the
symptom of bearing down, which also comes under Pulsatilla;
that would be classed as a common symptom, but of the first

grade.
Suppose now that there are more symptoms that have only
been brought out by a few of the provers; they do not run
through the whole family of provers, but they have been confirmed and occasionally verified; then you see they are not
entitled to so much consideration and as a matter of degree
they belong to the second grade, because not so strong as the
first grade, which produces these symptoms upon everybody
or nearly everybody. Of course, what is true of the generals
will be true of common and particular. Then as to the third
grade. Now and then a prover brings out a symptom and it
has not yet been confirmed by reproving, but it stands out
pretty strong, and seems to be worthy of a third place, or it
has been verified by having cured sick folks, or on the oth^r
hand it is admitted as a clinical symptom. Sometimes close
and careful observers have noticed that certain symptoms, not
in the proving, have generally yielded to a certain remedy,
and others have confirmed this clinical experience; these
symptoms are admitted to go into the third grade. A great
many of Boenninghausen's fourth grade symptoms really belong to the third grade, because Boenninghausen was very
cautious with the symptoms that had never been verified. His
fourth grade remedies include such as he had gathered from
his clinical experience, and he was doubtful about the propriety of placing them in the third grade, and also those symptoms that occurred in the provers but had not proper confirmation or were not verified. He laid them, as it were, upon a
shelf for approbation, to be hereafter proved or accepted.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 253

LECTURE XXXIV
The Homceopathic Aggravation.
154 (last clause). "A disease that is of no very long
standing ordinarily yields without any great degree of suffering to a first dose of this remedy," which is to say that in
acute diseases we seldom see anything like striking aggravations unless the acute disease has drawn near death's door, or
is very severe, unless it has lasted many days, and breaking
down of blood and tissue is threatened, or has taken place.

Then we will see sharp aggravations, great prostration, violent

sweating, exhaustion, vomiting and purging following the
action of the remedy. I have seen most severe reaction which
seemed to be necessary to recovery. Such a state in acute disease where it has gone many days without a remedy and a
great threatening is present will be to an acute disease what
many years would be to a chronic disease of long standing.
Long standing means a matter of progress ; if we say a disease
of much progress, or of considerable ultimates, we understand
it better. If the disease has ultimated itself in change of tissue,
then you may see striking aggravations, even aggravations that
cannot be recbvered from, such as we find in the advanced
forms of tissue change, e. g., where the kidneys are destroyed
or the liver destroyed, or in phthisis, where the lungs are
destroyed.
A disease ought always to be well considered as to whether
it is acute or chronic. Where there are no tissue changes,
where no ultimates are present, then you may expect the remedy to cure the patient without any serious aggravation, or
without any sharp suffering, for there is no necessity of reacting from a serious structural change. Where there is a deepseated septic condition, where pyaemia must be the result, you

254 ki^nt's lectures

will find sometimes vomiting and purging. As a reaction of the
vital force of the economy when order is established, this
order, which is attended by reaction, as it were, commences a
process of house cleaning. It does it itself, the drug does not
do it ; if a crude substance is used it is the action of the drug,
of course, but the action of the dynamic drug is to turn the
economy into order. So it is with chronic disease. When the
chronic disease has not ultimated itself in tissue changes, you
may get no aggravation at all, unless, perhaps, it be a very slight
exacerbation of the symptoms, and that slight exacerbation of
the symptoms is of a different character. It is the establishment
of the remedy as a new disease upon the economy instead of
the reaction which corresponds to a process of house cleaning.
Elimination must take place, as we know, probably from the
bowels, or stomach, by vomiting, by expectoration, or by the
kidneys, in those cases where everything has been suppressed.
It may look like an aggravation when you have had for
years a limb paralyzed from a neuritis. Suppose, after you

administer a remedy that goes right to the spot, that is in the

very highest sense homoeopathic, or truly specific, that paralyzed limb commences to tingle and creep like the crawling
interiorly of ants, tingling sometimes from which he cannot
sleep for days and nights. This is due to a reaction of the
nerves of the part. They are called into new life, into activity.
I have seen this in paralysis. You take, for instance, a child
v/ho has lain in a stupor for a long time, from inaction of the
brain, the tingling that comes in the scalp, in the fingers and
toes is dreadful, the child turns and twists and screeches and
cries, and it requires an iron hand on the part of the doctor to
hold that mother from doing something to hush that cry, for
just so sure as that is done that child will go back into death.
That is a reaction, so that all over the benumbed parts, or
where the blood begins to flow into parts where the circulation
has been feeble, where the nerves take on sensation again, we
have reaction, which is but the result of that turning into order.
The part has been benumbed and dead, and when circulation

ON HOMCeOPATHiC PHILOSOPHY 255

*
takes place in the part in order to repair its tissue we have
reaction, which is attended with distress. If the physician
cannot look upon that and bear it, he will have trouble. If he
thinks it is an indication for another remedy he will spoil his
case.
We must discriminate between that which is reaction and
that which calls for a remedy. These things are only seen in
Homoeopathy, never in any other practice. Sometimes the
physician will be driven to his wits' end in dealing with these
reactions. It is sometimes a dreadful thing to look upon, and
the physician may be turned out of doors. Let him meet it as
a man ; let him be patient with it, because the ignorance of the
mother or the friends can be no excuse for his violation of
principle, even once.
A disease of very long standing sometimes fails to yield

without this aggravation and disturbance and turmoil in the

economy, and the deeper it is the more tissue change you
have to contend with, and the more wonderful and distressing
and painful is this reaction. When a patient comes back after
every dose of medicine with violent reaction, with violent aggravation of the disease, with violent aggravation of the symptoms, you know then that there is some deep-seated trouble.
There is a difference between the ultimates of disease and absolute weakness of the vital force. There is such a state as
weakness of the economy, and there is such a state as activity
of the economy, with much tissue change. In feeble patients,
you may expect feeble reactions, or none at all after your
remedy, but in the feeble cases they are of such a character
that you have few symptoms, and you can very seldom find a
remedy truly specific.
For example, say you get a patient that is destined to go
into consumption, a merely suspicious case. You administer
the right remedy and a violent reaction comes, a foreshadowing
of what he will go through years from now if he is not cured
by the remedy. A shocking condition may come upon him ; he
may be frightened and come back and tell you that that was an

256 Kent's lectures

awful dose of medicine, poison, etc. That is the remedy disease, those are the symptoms of the remedy, the symptoms of
the remedy foreshadowing the future of that case, because if
that remedy was not similar enough to him it could not do
such things, and it is because of the similitude of his state ;
and he may only have those symptoms in shadow. But the
remedy cannot give him symptoms that he has not. It cannot
give him symptoms that are not related to him, except in those
cases that are called oversensitives. Oversensitives, you know,
are such as are capable of proving everything that comes along.
You must know whether the patient is oversensitive and proving the drug, or whether he has a vigorous constitution and is
getting an aggravation. The remedy will be exaggerated in
oversensitives and sometimes in those of weakly constitution,
especially those with a very narrow receding chin, those who
have sunken eyes, those who have senility marked in the eyes.
The next paragraph continues this one to a certain extent.
Par. 155. "I say without any great degree of suffering, because

when a perfect homoeopathic remedy acts upon the body, it is

nothing more than symptoms analogous to those of the disease
laboring to surmount and annihilate these latter by usurping
their place." This is only speaking from experience. Whenever Hahnemann makes such a remark he does not place any
great value upon it, because it is a matter of opinion.
You will find as a general thing in acute diseases that, if a
slight aggravation of the symptoms comes in a* few minutes,
you will hardly ever think of giving another dose. The remedy
is so similar and searches so thoroughly that it is hardly ever
necessary to repeat it. Now there are circumstances when it
is necessary to repeat, but this is so difficult to teach, and so
difficult to lay down rules for, that the only safe plan is to
begin cases without repetition, to give a single dose and wait,
and watch its effects. I very commonly give in vigorous,
typhoid fever patients medicine in water, because it is a continued fever ; but I watch and wait, giving it several days, and
the slightest sign of the action of the remedy causes me to stop

ON HOMiTOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 257

it'i/alwa}!^. I never vary from that. In a fever where the patient is feeble> to; gain an immediate reaction that shotdd never
be done.
In a remittent fever the reaction may come in a very few
hours, and the one dbse shotdd be the rule, while in a typhoid
the reaction will seldom come in a few hours. It is a matter oi
a few days, and hence the repetition is admissible. In typhoids
that are somewhat delicate never do such a thing. The more
vigor there is in a constitution the more the remedy can cooperate with that vigor to bring about a safe and quick action.
The more feeble the patient the more cautious you^ should
be about using the smallest dose you can gi^^^e. In many
chronic diseases it is possible to brii^ about a reaction in the
first night, hence the danger of repeating the ronedy. If the
ddirium subsides, or a moisture comes upon ^Sok skin, and he
slumbers placidly, the medicine should never be given b^ond
such a state. There are times in diphtheria when the repetition of the remedy \^ill kill, and there are times when repetition
will save life. I hope some day to be able to discover the principles.

In very grave and severe cases the idea is plaiti, that ^en
reaction is taking place you never repeat the remedy. When
reaction has ceased, and the tendency is to go the other way,
' then it may be necessary to repeat, but repetition must never
occur when reaction is coming. To be able to perceive wken
reaction is coming, when it has ceased and the tendency is to
go the other way, to be able to know this by the S3rmptoms, is
an important thing for the-homceopathic physician.
158. 'This trifling homoeopathic aggravation of the
malady during the first few hours, the h2q)py omen which
announces that the acute disease will soon be cured^ and! that
it will for the most part, }rield to a fhrst dose." That a hataral
disease can destroy another by exceeding it in power and in^
tenai^, but above all things by its similarity, is the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. So that when this slight aggravation occurs you will seldom, if ever, have to give another dose
17

258 ' KENT'S LECTURES

in an acute disease. When this aggravation does not come,
when there is not the slightest aggravation of the symptoms,
and the patient appears to be gradually better after the remedy,
then it is that the remedy shows that it has not acted upon the
same depth ; and that relief may cease in the case of an acute
disease, and when that relief ceases the reaction has ceased and
then another dose of medicine is correct practice.
Relief that begins without any aggravation of the symptoms,
does not last so long in an acute disease as when an aggravation has taken place. A slight action of the remedy over
and above the disease is a good sign. Again, you will find if
your remedy was not perfectly similar you will not get an aggravation except in oversensitive patients, and then it is a medicinal aggravation. When you find that you get no aggravation
of the symptoms in a good vigorous constitution, none at all,
very often your remedy has been only partially similar and it
may require two or three of such partially similar remedies to
finish the case. If you will observe the work of ordinary physicians, you will notice they give two or three remedies to get
their patients through where a master gives but one.

 159. ''The smaller the dose of the homceopathic remedy, the slighter the apparent aggravation of the disease, and
it is proportionately of shorter duration." This was written at
the time of Hahnemann's experience with what might be called
small doses, ranging from the lower potencies to the 30th and
seldom much higher. He had had ample experience with the
30th, and occasionally with the 60th, but not with the tremendous turmoil that comes from the very highest attenuations. It
reads in the correct translation of it (this is incorrect here) :
"The smaller the dose is of the homoeopathic medicine, the less
and the shorter is the aggravation in the first hours." It might
be considered to mean an apparent aggravation, or an apparent
aggravation of the disease. Now Hahnemann observes, as you
will find amongst several of his writings, that the disease itself
IS actually intensified and made worse by the remedy, if the
remedy be precisely similar, but if we pass away from the

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 259

N
I
crudity of the medicines, ranging up towards the 30th potency,
we get a milder action, and it has a deeper curative action, and
the smaller the dose of the homoeopathic medicine the less and
the shorter is the aggravation. The idea is that there is an
aggravation in the first hburs ; that is a matter that the paragraph itself admits, and it is this aggravation that Hahnemann
is talking about.
It is sometimes true that after the third or fourth
potencies of Belladonna in a violent congestion of the brain,
the aggravation is violent, and if the medicine is not discontinued the child will die. The disease itself appears to be aggravated, the child seems to be so susceptible to Belladonna
that it appears as it were to be added to the disease, but with
the 30th potency, as Hahnemann observes, this aggravation is
slight and of short duration. Now, in this we get an outside aggravation. It is the drug disease of the remedy added to the
natural disease, an aggravated state of the disease caused by
the drug. It is true sometimes, in spite of this aggravation,
that the patient says somehow or other he feels better.

This aggravation is unnecessarily prolonged by giving too

low potencies; it is also prolonged by a repetition of the
dose. I recently observed a state that occurred from repetition.
I sent a very robust young woman, twenty years old, a dose of
Bryonia, to be taken dry on the tongue. However, she dissolved it in water, and was taking it at the end of the second
day, when I was sent for, at which time she seemed to be going
into pneumonia. She had a dry, harsh cough. "What is the
matter with my daughter, doctor, is she going to die?" She
was proving Bryonia. I stopped the Bryonia, and next morning she was well. This has been seen a great many times when
the medicine was similar. If the medicine is not very similar,
only partially similar, it yet may be similar enough to cure, but
you will not see the results thaCt I am now speaking of; but
when you make accurate prescriptions, and are doing your
best work, you will see these things in the very best constitutions.

260 KENT'S LECTURES

Of course, the explanation is that the patient is as sensitive to the medicine that will cure her as to the disease thait
she has. Diseased states, then, are made worse by unnecessary
repetition and by the dose not being small enough, that is, by
the dose being very crude. The third, fourth or sixth are daor
gerous potencies, if you are a good prescriber. If you are a
poor prescriber, you will demonstrate but little of aoything.
You will naturally go to the higher and higher potencies for
the purpose of departing from what seems to be a poisonous
dose.
This action differs from tJie aggravation of a c. nt^ potency ; during the latter the patient feels deddedly better. It is
short, it is decisive, and only the characteristic symptoms of the
disease are aggravated. The disease itself is not aggravated ; the
disease itself is not added to, and is not intensified; but the
symptoms of the disease stand out sharply and the patient says,
"I am getting better." The symptoms sometimes are a little
alarming, but intermingled with this is a ray of light that convinces the patient from his innermost feelings that he is getting^
better. "I feel much better this morning," says the patient,
though the sjrmptoms may have been sharpened up.
160. We are accused nowadays of having departed from

Hahnemann. Hahnemann wrote of the 30th potency, in one

of the stages of his life, as sufficiently high and sufiicientiy
low. We can easily see that it was in the earlier period of
his investigations that he made the remark that potentizing
must end somewhere. We are accused of departing from
Hahnemann, because we give diflFerent doses from what
Hahnemann gave. Now I want to show you that this is not
so. Read paragraph 279 : **It has been fully proved by pure
experiments that when a disease does not evidently depend
upon the impaired state of an important organ the dose of the
homoeopathic remedy can never be sufficiently small so as ta be
inferior to the power of the natural disease which it cani, ai
least, partially extinguish and cure, provided it be capable of
producing only a small increase of symptoms immediately after

ON HOM(EOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 261

it is administered/' Now, if we go to the 200th potency and
find that that will aggravate, if we go to the 50m. and find that
that will aggravate, if wc go to the cm., the mm., etc., and find
that they will aggravate, that they still have the power to intensify the symptoms, the remedy has just the same curative
power in it. If we have the potency so high that it is not capable
of producing an aggravation of the symptoms, we may then
be sttre that there is no medicinal power left. We are up to the
13mm. and the end is not yet.
Now we have never made the claim that every potency will
suit everybody. The potency must correspond to the state of
the patient. If we ever find a person who will be aggravated
in his S3m[iptoms in the most positive and definite fashion, that
potency will be verified. We have not departed from Hahnemann, but have acted in accordance with his doctrines. 280.
**This incontrovertible axiom, founded upon experience, will
serve as a rule by which the doses of all homoeopathic
medicines, without exception, are to be attenuated to such a
degree, that after being introduced into the body they shall
tncrely .produce an almost insensible aggravation of the disease.
It is of little importance whether the attenuation goes so far as
to appear almost impossible to ordinary physicians whose
minds feed on no other ideas but what are gross and material. All these arguments and vain assertions will be of little
avail when opposed to the doctrines of unerring experience."

Now, can there be any doubt of what Hahnemann meant

when he speaks of the smallest dose ? Can there be any doubt
but that he means attenuation, and attenuation up and up until
we i^each that point in the attenuation that we do not observe
a slight aggravation of the s3rmptoms ? In the note to paragraph
249, he says, "All experience teaches us that scarcely any
homceopathit medicine can be prepared in too minute a dose to
produce perceptible benefit in a disease to which it is adapted.
Hence, it would be an improper and an injurious practice when
the medicine .produces no good effect or an inconsiderable aggravation of the symptoms, after the manner of the old school,

262 KENT'S LECTURES

to repeat or increase the dose under the idea that it cannot
prove serviceable on account of its minuteness."
So the senses have no relation whatever to the minuteness
of the dose. The medical man is inclined to measure doses
from the standard of a poisonous dose. He will measure off a
little less than that which would poison, and call that a dose.
It must be seen, it must yet be visible. This is not the test that
Hahnemann offers. He offers the test of the dose as one capable of producing a slight aggravation of the symptoms. We
see he does not limit attenuation, but he practically teaches it
is unlimited, and the end has never been found.
There is a generally prevailing idea kll over, not among
strict Hahnemannians, but among modern homoeopaths in
general, that the dose of medicine laid down by Hahnemann
is too small to cure. It is a fatal error. An increase of the
dose cannot make it more homoeopathic. The similarity of
the remedy is first, and the dose is second. But that the dose
of medicine laid down by Hahnemann is too small to cure is
a fatal error. We must see by the experience in the clinics,
and by considering the wonderful things that we have gone
over in the doctrines, that we have really very little to do with
the dose, that there is a wonderful latitude in dosage, and that
we cannot lay down any fixed rule as to the best potency to
use.
It ought to be distinctly felt, from all we have gone over,
that the 30th potency is low enough to begin business with in
any acute or chronic disease, but where the limit is no mortal

can see. We want to follow up the series, so that we may get

the very internal states that exist in degrees in the medicine.
The different potencies are distinct from each other, some are
very far apart, yet invariably connected. It is a mistake for
any homoeopath to start out with the idea that the dose of medicine laid down by Hahnemann is too small to cure. It shows
that his mind is of material mould, that it is inelastic and cannot yield to the higher observations, and not capable of observing and following higher and higher as true experience would

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 263

lead. Unless man has truth in his mind his experiences are
false. Truth in the mind is first and then experiences are good.
If his mind is in a state of truth, experiences are true. You
cannot trust the experiences of men who do not know what
is true, neither can they be led into truth by these fallacious
experiences.

264 rent's lectures

v:

LECTURE XXXV
Prognosis After Observing the Action of the Remedy.
After a prescription has been made the physician commences to make observations. The whole future of the patient
may depend upon the conclusions that the physician arrives at
from these observations, for his action depends very much
upon his observations, and upon his action depends the good of
the patient. If he is not conversant with the import of what
he sees, he will undertake to do wrong things, he will make
wrong prescriptioi;is, he will change his medicines and do things
to the detriment of the patient. There is absolutely but one
way, and nothing can take the place of intelligence. If you
talk with a great many physicians concerning the observations
you have made after giving the remedy you will find that the

majority of them have only whims or notions on this subject

and see nothing after the prescription is made. These observations I am going to give you have grown out of much watchfulness, long waiting and watching. If the homoeopathic physician is not an accurate observer, his observations will be
indefinite ; and if his observations are indefinite, his prescribing
is indefinite.
It is taken for granted after a prescription has been made,
and it is an accurate prescription, that it has acted. Now, if
a medicine is acting it commences immediately to effect changes
in the patient, and these changes are shown by signs and symptoms. The inner nature of the disease appears to the physician through the symptoms, and it is like watching the hands
upon the clock. This watching and waiting and observing has
to be done by the physician in order that he may judge by the
changes what to do, and what not to do. It is true that the

ON HOMOeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 265

homoeopatli is not long in dodbt in many instances yfimt not
to do. There ds always an index that tells him what not to do.
if be is a sharp and vigilant observer, he wiU see the index for
eyery case. Of coturse, if a prescription is not rdated to the
case, if it is a prescription that efSedts no changes, it does not
ixfce long to see what to do ; much patientt waiting 'for a foolish
prescription is bnt loss of time, and that should be taken hito
aocouBi among the observations. The observations taken after
a sf>ecific remedy has :been given sufficiently related to the case
to cause changes in the synqxtoms ane those <if value.
The changes are begimiing, what are they like, what do liiey
mean, to what do they amount? The physician must know
when he Ibtens to the reports of the patient what is going on.
The remeiy is known to act by the changmg of symptoms.
The dssappearance of ^rmptoms, die increase of symptoms, the
ameHaratk)n of symptoms, ilie order of the symptoms, are all
changes from the remedy, and these changes are to be studied.
Amon^ the commaaest things that remedies do is to aggravate or ameliorate. The ag^avation is of two kinds ; we may
have an aggravation iidiich is an aggravation of the disease, in
which the patient is growing worse, or we may have an aggravation of the symptoms, in which the patiexit is growing better.

An aggravation <>f the disease means that the pattient is -growing

weaker, the symptoms are growing stronger^ but the true
homcBopadiiic aggravation, which is the aggravation of the
symptoms of the patient while t!he patient is growing better,
is something that the physician, observes after a true homoeopathic prescriptioai. The true homceopatliic aggravation, I say,
is when the symptcons are worse, but the patient says, *'i foel
occoBr.
We nsust now go into the particulars concerning these
states, as to the time and plaoe, as to how the aggravation
oociKs, as to how the atne&oraition oocnrs, as to dusBtidn, letc.
The ftggcavatioaas and ametioraltidtts, the direction of s3miploms
and imaaxy oMier things laave to come up, and be observed and
jiw^ment has to be passed upon them.

266 KENT'S LECTURES

First of all, the patient should be the aim of the phy^sician, his whole idea should be centred upon the patient to
determine whether he is improving or declining. We have to
judge by the symptoms to know that this is taking place. Very
often the patient will say, "I am growing weaker," and yet you
may know that what he says is not true ; so certainly can you
rely upon the symptoms and their story, which is more faithful
than the patient's opinion. Many times the patient will
say, "Doctor, I am so much worse;" and yet you examine
into his symptoms and you find that he is really doing very well.
Just the moment that he finds out that you are encouraged, he
feels better and rouses up and wants to eat.
By the symptoms, also, you can tell when the patient is
really weaker, and if the symptoms are taking an inws^rd rather
than an outward course you will know, even if he is encouraged, that there is no encouragement for him. We have in the
symptoms that which we can rely upon. In the o|d school we
have nothing but the information of the patient. This is of
little account after making a homoeopathic prescription. The
symptoms themselves must be corroborated. The patient's
opinion must be corroborated by the symptoms. The symptoms
do corroborate what the patients say in may instances, but the
symptoms are the physician's most satisfactory evidence.
Another general remark needs to be made, namely, that we

should know by the symptoms if the changes occurring are

sufficiently interior. If the changes that are occurring are exterior, the physician must be acquainted with the meaning of
them, so that he will know by that whether the disease is
being healed from the innermost or whether the symptoms
have merely changed according to their superficial nature.
Incurable disease will very often be palliated by mild medicines that act only superficially, act upon the sensoriiun, act
upon the senses, and, though the hidden and deep-seated trouble
goes on and progresses, and is sometimes made worse, yet
the patient is made comfortable. So that by the symptoms we
can know whether the changes that are occurring are of sufficient depth, so that the patient may recover. The direction

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 267

that the symptoms are taking is sufficient to tell that, especially
in chronic disease.
A patient walks into the clinic, somewhat stoop-shouldered,
with a hacking cough that he has had for a good many years.
You judge then by his looks that he has been sick a good while ;
his face is sickly, he is lean and anxious, he is careworn, he is
suffering from poverty and poor clothing, and scanty food.
Now, you examine all of his symptoms, and they clearly indicate that he needs an antipsoric, for the symptoms are covered
by an antipsoric, and from the history of the case you know
he has needed it a good while. Upon a prolonged examination,
the antipsoric you have in mind is strengthened. You now examine his chest, and discover he has not the expansion that he
ought to have, and you detect the presence of tuberculosis, and
by feeble pulse and many other corrobating symptoms you ascertain that the* patient has been steadily (joining.
You give the medicine and he comes back in a few days
with quite a sharp aggravation of the symptoms; he has an
increase of cough, he has a night sweat, and he is more feeble.
Now, the homoeopathic physician likes to hear that ; he likes to
hear of an exacerbation of the symptoms; but this patient
comes back in a week, and the aggravation is still present, and
is somewhat on the increase, the patient is coughing worse, and
the expectoration is more troublesome than ever, his night
sweats have been going on; he comeis back at the end of the
second week and he is still worse, and all the symptoms have

been worse since he took that medicine. He was comparatively comfortable before he took that medicine, but at the
end of the fourth week he is steadily growing worse. There
has been no amelioration following this aggravation, and he
is evidently declining; he now cannot come to the office for he
is so weak.
This, then, will be the first observation, a prolonged
aggravation and final decline of the patient. What have we
done? It has been a mistake, the antipsoric was too deep, it
has established destruction. In this state the vital reaction was

268 Kent's lectures

jiE^oss&ie, iie was an ixicurable case. The question imfnediately
comes up, what are you to do? Are you not foing to give
fhe Immoacqiadiic remedy in such cases? The patient steadily
dedmes. If you ^rt^in doubt about such action of ^he remedies
:and fnafen:]^ the patient wxxrse, yoti will probably have am
undertaker^ certii&cate to sign before long.
In ^incifflable and dodbtful cases give no higher tlian i&e
30di or 2GQth potency, and observe whether the aggravation is
igoiirg to'be too deep or too prolonged. There are many signs
in iAiexshest in such cases to make a physician doubt whether
he cwill give a deep remedy when orgaaiic disease is present. Of
course this does mot apfdy when things are only threatening,
wHien yow :have fear of their coming, but when you Are sure ^of
hcttr beifig present. In the instance given the probability is
4iat the remedy has been too late, and it has attempted to rouse
his econonajr, but turned to destruction his whole organism.
Thenvbegin, in such cases, with a moderately low potency, and
the 30th is Iwv enough for anybody or anything.
When tdiepatie^ does not seem to be quite so bad as the
one 2 ha^e just described, yoii get hjm a little earlier in his
history before the trouble has gone quite so far, and tiien if
y&SL adm}ni$ter this same very high potency in the same way
jmi will make a second observation. Thot^h the aggravation
Is long imd severe, yet you have a nal reaction, or amelioration. 'Rte aggravation lasts for many weeks, perhaps, and
then his f^eible economy seems to react, and there is a slow
but ;sure improvement. It shows that tlie disease has not
progressed quite so far ; the changes have not become quite so

fxa^ked. At the end of three months ..he is prepared for another doBe of medacine, and you see a repetition of the sasne
thing, and ymi may know tiien that that man was on the
border land and had he gone further cure would have been
JmpossiUe. It is sdways "weU in doubtful cases to go to the
lower potencies, luid in this way go ^ cautiously prepared to
antldole iJtit ^aedicine if it takes iht wrong course.
Then the second observation is, the long aggravation.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 269

but final and slow improvement. li, at the ead of at e:vir
weeka, he is a little better and his symptoms are a little bettec
than wheh he took the dose, there is some hope that finaliy. tdie
syn^toms may have an outward manif estaticm vdiereby be
will attain final recovery, bttt for many years you may go along
with: prolonged ^;gravations. You will find in such a patient
there was the bejgfiniring of. some very marked tissue Ghaenge
in soffl organ. We may know by observing the action of a
remedy what staiie the tissues are in, as well as know something about the prognosis for the patient.
The third observation after administering the homoeopathic
remedy is, where the aggravation is quick, short and strong,
with rapid improvement of the patient. Whenever you find
an aggravation comes quicikly, is short, and has been mote* or
less vigorous, then you will find improvement of the patient
will be long. Improvement will, be marked, the reactuDn of
the economy is vigorous, and Aere is no tendency to any
structural change in the vital oi^ns. Any structural change
that may be present will be found on the surface, in organs
that are not vital; abscesses will form and often glands that
can be done without will suppurate in regions that are not
important to the life of the patient. Such organic changes
are surface changes, and are not like the changes that take
place in the liver, in the kidneys, in the heart and iii the brain.
Make a difference in your mind between organic changes that
take place in the organs that are vital, that carry on the work
of the economy, and organic changes that take place in- structures of the body that are not essential to lifie. An aggraivatioa quick, short and strong is one that is to be wished for and
is followed by quick improvement. Such is the slight aggravar

tion of the symptoms that occurs in the first hours after the
remedy in an acute sickness, or during the first few days in a
chronic case.
Under the fourth observation, you will notice a class of
cases wherein you will find very s^sfactory cures, wh the
adnritristration of the remedy is followed by no aggravation.

270 Kent's lectures

whatever. There is no organic disease, and no tendency to
organic disease. The chronic condition itself to which the
remedy is suitable is not of great depth, belongs to tTie functions of nerves rather than to threatened changes in tissues.
You must realize that there are changes in tissues so marked
that the vital force is disturbed in flowing through the economy, and yet so slight that man with all of his instruments of
precision cannot observe them. Under such circumstances
we may have sharp sufferings, but cures may come about
without any aggravation. We know then that if there is ho
aggravation the potency just exactly fitted the case, but here
you have a course of things that you need not always expect.
Though there is nothing but a true nervous change in the
economy after a potency that is not suitable, either too crude,
or too high, for that patient, you will have an aggravated
state of the symptoms. In cures without s^ny aggravation we
know that the potency is suitable, and the remedy, the curative remedy, provided that the symptoms go off and the patient returns to health in an orderly way. It is the highest order
of cure in acute affections, yet the physician sometimes will be
more sktisfied if in the beginning of his prescribing be notices
a slight aggravation of the symptoms. The fourth observation
then relates to cases in which we have no aggravation, with
recovery of the patient.
The amelioration comes first and the aggravation comes
afterwards is the fifth observation. At times you will see
sickly patients, fully as sickly as the one I mentioned in the
first or second instance, walk into your office and after long
study you administer a remedy. The patient comes back in
a few days telling you how much better he was immediately
after taking the medicine, and now he has three or four days
of what appears to be a decided improvement, a prompt action
of the remedy. The patient says he is better, and the symptoms

seem to be better ; but wait, and at the end of a week or four

or five days all the symptoms are worse than when he first
came to you. It is not a very uncommon thing in severe

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY ^ 271

cases, in cases of a good many symptoms, to have an amelioration of the remedy come at once ; but whatever you may say,
the condition is unfavorable.
Either the remedy was only a superficial remedy, and
could 6nly act as a palliative, or the patient was incurable and
the remedy was somewhat suitable. One of these two conclusions must be arrived at, and this can only be done by a reexamination of the patient and by finding out whether the
symptoms relate to that remedy. Sometimes you will discover
that the remedy was an error; a further study of the case
shows that the remedy was only similar to the most grievous
symptoms, that it did not cover the whole case, that it did not
affect the constitutional state of the patient, and then you will
see that the patient is an incurable one and the selection was
an unfavorable one. It is the best thing for the patient if the
symptoms come back exactly as they were, but very often they
come back changed, and then you must wait through grievous
suffering for the picture ; and the patient will wait better if
the doctor confesses on the spot that his selection was not
what it ought to be, and he hopes to do better next time. It is
a strange thing how the patients will have an increase of confidence if the doctor will tell the truth. The acknowledgment
of one's own ignorance begets confidence in an intelligent patient.
The higher and highest potencies will act in cUrable cases
a long time. When I say act, I only speak from appearance ;
I should say they appear to act a long time, for the remedy
acts at once and establishes a condition of order upon the
patient, after which there is no use in giving medicihd This
order will continue a considerable length of time, sometimes
several months. The patient will get along just as well without any medicine, and will get along better without that medicine that helped him than with it. In curable cases, whose
prospects are good, they will go along for a long time, and be^come very much relieved of their symptoms. Now, if the
patient comes back at the end of the first, second and third

272 Kent's latcruRKs

wedc and; sa^s he has done well, titatt he hais been impromtg
ali the that front tke cnii of Ssdpkur, bttt aiC the end of tbe
fourth week he comes back and ssifi^, '*i hflEve been mnming
down/' tjas ph^^ician must tbcn pat&s jud^^ent. Has this
patient doner somethings to spoM: the actien of this, medicine?
Has he been* on a drtmk ? Bas. he han^d diatiitab? Hss
he beea in t^ fttmes of Aaimoiiiia? No, he has done tione of
these tJu^is.
This: omdition is really an tiaxvorabte one. To have a
maiicine act ticrt a few weeks, whereas it ought to act im
raiNSths thereafter, will make you s:tt8picious^ of that patient.
If notfloittg hais iaisexi place to interfere with tiiis medtcine in
hi? economy yon may* be suspicions of this^ case. This sixik
okservation. is too short relief of- symptoms. The reKel srfter
the constitutional remedy does no^ last long enoi!^^ doe& not
last as Ibng' as. it ouj^t to^ If yon examine the diird observatiion 3nou find that there yott have the qttidc aggravation
followed by long amelieration; but in tfris, the sixths yon
havse the amelioration, but of too ^lort duration. In instanceswhere 3rou have an aggravsction immediately after, and them a
quick rebound, yon will never see, absolutely never sees^ too
sfaxnrtaa action of that remedy ; or, in odter wxrd6, too shoxdi an.
ameliocattkm of tiie remedy. If there is a qukk xebound; tiiat
amelioration should last ; if it does not last, it is because of
some condition that interferes widi the action of the remedy ;
it nsay be unconsdons on the part of the patient, or it may be
intentifmal. A quick rebound means everything in the remedy,
means that it is well chosen, that the vital econionty is in a good
state, and if eveiyt&fng goes? wdl, neoovejry will' take ^ase^
In acifte cases we may see thts> tDO short amelioration
of the symptoms ; for instsamce, a dose oi medicine given in a
most violent inflammation oi the bratn may remove all the
symptoms for an hour, and the remedy have to be repeated^
and at the end: of that rep^ition we find onfy an ameUoration.
oi thirty minutes. You make up your naisd, tiien, diat tint
paitient is in a desperate condition, it is^ too short ansuneliasar

ON HOMOeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 273

tion. The action of Belladonna in some very acute red-faced
conditions is instantaneous. In five minutes I have noticed the
amelioration come, but the best kind of an amelioration is that
which comes gradually at the end of an hour or two hours, as
it is likely to remain. If it is too short an amelioration in acute
cases, it is because such high grade inflammatory action is
present that organs are threatened by the rapid processes going
on. If it is too short amelioration in chronic diseases, it means
that there are structural changes and organs are destroyed or
being destroyed or in a very precarious condition. These
changes cannot always be diagnosed in life, but they are present, and an acute observer, who has been working earnestly
for years, will often be able to diagnose the meaning of symptoms without any physical examination whatever, so that he
can prophesy as to the patient. Such experiences of an intelligent physician in a family will cause them to look upon him as
wiser than anyone else, for he knows all about their constitutions. This he acquires by studying their symptoms, the action
of remedies upon them, and their symptoms after the medicines have been given. This enables him to know the reaction
of a given patient, whether slow or quick, and how remedies
i affect each member of that family. This belongs to the physil cian, and he should be intelligent enough to know something
I about them when he has been treating them a little while. The
\ old physician is in possession of this knowledge, while the
' student and the new physician have it all to learn.
* Once in a while you will see a full time amelioration of the
symptoms, yet no special relief of the patient, which is the
seventh observation. There are certain patients that can only
gain about so much; there are latent conditions, or latent
existing organic conditions, in such patients that prevent improvement beyond a certain stage. A patient with one kidney
can only improve to a certain degree ; patients with fibrinous
structural change in certain places, tubercles that have become
encysted and lungs capable of doing only limited work, will
have symptoms, and these symptoms will be ameliorated from

18

274 rent's lectures

time to time with remedies, but the patient is only curable to a
certain extent; he cannot go beyond and rise above such a
state. Remember this after several medicines have been administered, and the amelioration of the Case has existed often
the full length of time of the remedies, but the patient has not
risen above his own pitch in this length of time. The remedies
act favorably, but the patient is not cured, and never can .be
cured. The patient is palliated in this instance, and it is a suitable palliation for homoeopathic remedies.
Observation eight. Some patients prove every remedy they
get; patients inclined to be hysterical, overwrought, oversensitive to all things. The patient is said to have an idiosyncrasy to
everything, and these oversensitive patients are often incurable.
You administer a dose of a high potency, and they will go on
and prove that medicine, and while under the influence of that
medicine they are not under tjie influence of anything else.
It takes possession of them, and acts as a' disease does ; the
remedy has its prodromal period, its period of progress and
its period of decline. Such patients are provers, they will prove
the highest potencies. When you find a patient that proves
everything you give in the higher potencies go back to the 30th
and 200th potencies. Such patients are most annoying. You
will often cure their acute diseases by giving them the 30th and
200th, and you will relieve their chronic diseases by giving
them the 30th, 200th and 500th potencies. Many of them are
born with this sensitivity and they die with it; they are not
capable of rising above this over-irritable and overwrought
state. Such oversensitive patients are very useful to the homoeopathic physician. After they get out of one proving they are
quite ready to repeat it or go into another.
The ninth observation is the action of the medicines upon
provers. Healthy provers are always benefited by provings,
if they are properly conducted. It is well to observe carefully
the constitutional states of an individual about to become a
prover, and to write these down and subtract them from the
proving. These symptoms will not very commonly appear
during the proving ; if they do, note the change in them.

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 273

The tenth observation relates to new symptoms appearing
after the remedy. If a great number of new symptoms appear
after the adhiinistration of a remedy, the prescription will
generally prove an unfavorable one. Now and then the coming of a new symptom will simply be an old symptom coming
up that the patient has not observed, and thinks it a new one.
The greater the array of new symptoms coming out after the
administration of a remedy, the more doubt there is thrown
upon the prescription. The probability is, after these new
symptoms have passed away, the patient will settle down to
the original state and no improvement take place. It did not
sustain a true homoeopathic relation.
The eleventh observation is when old symptoms ar^ observed to reappear. In proportion as old symptoms.that have
long been away return just in that proportion the disease is
curable. They have only disappeared because newer ones have
come up. It is quite a common thing for old symptoms to appear after the aggravation has come, and hence we see the
symptoms disappearing in the reverse order of their coming.
Those symptoms that are present subside, and old symptoms
keep coming up. The physician must know himself that the
patient is on the road to recovery, and it is well to say to the
patient that this is encouraging; that diseases get well from
above downwards, etc. Old symptoms often come back and
go off without any change of medicine. It indicates that the
medicine must be let alone. If the old symptoms come back
to stay then a repetition* of the dose is often necessary. *
The twelfth observation. We will notice sometimes that
symptoms take the wrong direction. For instance, if you prescribe for a rheumatism of the knees or feet, or for a rheumatism of the hands, and relief takes place at once in the rheumatism of the extremities, but the patient is taken down with
violent internal distress that settles in the region of the heart,
or centres in the spine, you see at once a transference has
taken place from circumference to centre, and the remedy must
be antidoted at once, otherwise structural change will take
19

276 KENT'S LECTURES

place in that new site. When diseases go from centre to circumference, going out from the centres of life, out from the
heart, lungs, brain and spine, out from the interiors, upon the
extremities, it is well. So it is that we find most gouty patients
get along best when their fingers and toes are in the worst
condition. To prescribe for this, and see the heart symptoms
grow worse is a most uncomfortable state of affairs, for it is
attended with a gradual downward tendency. Eruptions upon
the skin and affections in the extremities are good signs. I
remember one time I was discharged from a violent old woman, with quite a considerable amount of Billingsgate, who
told me that when she called me in she could walk about, and
now her ankles were swelled up with rheumatism so that she
could not move. That patient got another doctor, but soon
died. There is great danger in selecting a remedy on external
symptoms alone, i. e., selecting a remedy that corresponds only
to the skin and ignoring all the s)miptoms that the patient may
have, ignoring the whole economy and general state of the
patient ; because it is true that that remedy that is related to
the skin alone may drive in that skin disease and cause it to
disappear while the patient himself is not cured. Such a patient will remain sick until that eruption comes back again, or
locates in another place.

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 277

LECTURE XXXVI
The Second Prescription.
The second prescription may be a repetition of the first, or
it may be an antidote or a complement; but none of these
things can be considered unless the record has been again fully
studied, unless the first examination, and all the things that
have since arisen, have been carefully restudied that they may
be brought again to the mind of the physician. This is one
of the difficulties to contend with when patients change doctors, and one of the reasons why patients do not do well after
such a change. ^The strict homoeopathic physician knows the

importance of this and will try to ascertain the first prescription. If the former physician is strictly a homoeopathic physician, he is most competent of all others to make the second
prescription. It is often a, hardship for a patient to fall into
the hands of a second doctor, no matter how much Materia
Medica he may know. The medicine that has partly cured the
case can often finish it, and that medicine should not be changed
until there are good reasons for changing it. It is a very common thing for patients to come to me from the hands of good
prescribers. I tell them to stay with their own doctor, I do not
want them. Such changing is often a detriment to the patient,
unless he brings a full record, and this is especially true in relation to a case that has been partially cured, where the remedy
has acted properly. If the patient has no reasonable excuse to
leave the doctor, it is really a matter of detriment to the patient for a physician to take another's patients at such a moment. It is not so much a question of ethics, it is not so much
a question of the relation of one doctor to another, because
friends can stand all that, but it is only after a tedious inspec-

278 KENT'S LECTURES

tion of all the symptoms that an intelligent physician is capable
of making a second prescription. As a general thing, if the
first prescription has been beneficial it ought not to be left
until it has done all that it can do. How is the second physician
to know that? Thep the duty of the physician is first to the
patient, and to persuade the patient to return to his first doctor.
The rule is, after the first correct and homoeopathic prescription, the striking features for which that remedy was administered have been removed, a change has come, and the
guiding symptoms of the case have been taken out, and only
the common and trivial symptoms remain. It is true if the
physician would wait long enough he would see the return
of those symptoms, but usually when a patient walks into a
doctor's office the doctor is in a hurry to make a prescription
and does not wait until the proper time. He at once prescribes
on the symptoms that are left, and this is one of the dangers
to be avoided, a hurried second prescription. The patients are

to be pitied that fall into the hands of such homoeopaths. Many

patients are wonderfully benefited by the first prescription;
they have said to me "Dr. So-and-so benefited me wonderfully for a while, and then he did not seem to be able to do me
any good." The fact was that the first prescription was a
correct one, having been properly chosen, and after that first
prescription the doctor administered his medicines so hastily
and so indiscriminately that nothing more was accomplished in
the case. The trouble was that he did not wait long enough.
It makes no difference whether the physician is so extremely
conscientious that he does not want to give Sac. lac, or whether
he is so ignorant that he does not know to give it, the result
is the same. The early repetition of the medicine, and the
continued giving of the same medicine, will prevent an)rthing
like an opportunity for the making of a second prescription.
If the doctor administers a well-chosen remedy, and repeats
it too soon, he never gives the symptoms a chance to come back
and call for a second prescription ; but they become intermingled with drug sjrmptoms, so that the rational second prescrip-

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 279

ft
tion cannot be made. The second prescription pre-supposes
that the first one has been 'a correct one, that it has acted, and
that it has been let alone. If the first prescription has not
acted curatively, or has not been permitted to act the full time,
it is impossible to get a second observation. The second observation is made when the case comes to a standstill, for after the
first prescription has been made changes occur; there is a
coming and going of symptoms, and while these changes are
occurring no rational observation can be made of the case ; if
a second prescription be made during this time, it will be
likely to spoil the whole case. If the patient is not given a
perfect rest, if medicines are not kept out of the case, we will
have no opportunity to make a rational second prescription.
But if these precautions are observed, then we can really .
make an observation upon the return of the original symptoms, which is the first thing to be considered. Perhaps they
are not so marked, but that is always the first thing to be
looked for, the return of the original symptoms. While the
confusion is going on after the administration of the remedy,

while internal order is being established in the economy, we

do not have the return of the original symptoms. This may
be a matter of days, or weeks, or months, but if the return of
symptoms is not observed what is there to be done?
Without symptoms what can the homoeopathic physician
do? No matter what state the patient is in, what can the
physician do without symptoms? There is no earthly guide
to the remedy except by signs and S3miptoms. So that it
is the duty of the physician to wait for the return of the
original symptoms. If the symptoms return somewhat as
they were, differing slightly in their intensity, increased or
decreased, it is good. If the patient has not had these
present symptoms for some time, if there has been a telief
caused by the first prescription, and then the S3miptoms return somewhat as in the original, this is one of the reasons
for believing that the first prescription was a good one. If, ^
after an interval of two or more months, the original symp-

280 KENT'S LECTURES

toms return, we need very little information beyond this

to know that the first prescription was a good one. In such a
case when the symptoms return, when the patient has the
same generals and particulars as formerly, it means that the
first prescription was a good one, that the case is curable, and
that the second prescription must be a repetition of the
former.
Another reason for making a second prescription is the
appearance of a lot of new symptoms taking the place of the
old symptoms; the old symptoms do not return, but new
symptoms come in their place. The patient says, "Well,
doctor, you have cured me of those symptoms I had, but
now I have these." The doctor, after examining carefully
\ these new symptoms, immediately looks up the pathogenesis,
and it is possible that he will find these symptoms in the drug
that he has administered and then it looks like a proving. He
asks the patient if he ever had these symptoms before. "Never
to my recollection, doctor." Cross-examine him carefully to
see if he is not mistaken, until it seems that they are really

new symptoms. If so, the remedy has not acted properly. It

was not homoeopathic to the case ; and yet it was an unfortunate prescription, because it has caused the disease to progress
in another direction, developing another group of symptoms.
This coming up of new symptoms means that they must
be antidoted, if it is possible. The new symptoms combining
with the old ones must be again studied and the second remedy
must correspond more particularly to the new than to the old.
It may cause the new symptoms to disappear and possibly
have an effect upon the old ones. Any subsequent prescription
takes into account all the things that have preceded it, all the
conditions that have arisen, and the third, fourth, fifth or sixth
prescriptions have the same difficulties to surmount that are
to be surmounted in the second. If the first prescription was
an unfortunate one, then all the others are made with difficulty and fear.
It is rarely the case that a new prescription becomes nee-

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 281

essary when the case merely comes to a standstill. The first
prescription has been made and the symptoms commence to
change in an orderly way; they change and interchange and
new symptoms come up, but finally the symptoms go back to
their original state, not marked enough to be of any importance, without any special suffering to the patient, and the
patient has arrived at a state of standstill. The patient says,
"I have no symptoms, yet I am not improving; I seemed to
have come to a standstill position." He says this as to himself, not as to the symptoms. He has come to a standstill.
It is the duty of the physician then to wait, and wait a long
time; but if after many months no outward s)anptoms have
appeared, no external tendency of the disease, it is true that
another dose of the medicine will not do harm and the same
remedy is the only one that can be considered. A new one
cannot be entertained, because there is no guide to it ; but another dose of the same medicine can cause the patient to be
jogged along the way of feeling better, but there should
never be any haste about it. Wait a long time when patients
come to a standstill; but when, as in the first instance, the
return of the original symptoms is observed, then you have

some guide to the administration of the medicine.

The second prescription, then, technically speaking, is the
prescription after the one that has acted. You may administer a dozen remedies without having any effect upon the
economy, and yet no prescription has been administered that
has been specific. You may fool away much time in administering remedies that are not related to the case. The result
is the same. Consider the first prescription the one that has
acted, that one that has eflFected changes, and subsequent to
that the next prescription is the second.
The next thing we have to consider is the change of the
remedy in a second prescription. Under what circumstances
must we change the remedy? One instance I have mentioned,
when striking new symptoms appear, and there is an entire
change of base in the symptoms, so that the headache, per-

282 KENT'S LECTURES

haps, which has lasted a long time, disappears. After thi

administration of the medicine, when a new group of symptoms appears somewhere in the body relative to the patient,
siich as the patient has never had, this new group of s)rmptoms means that a new remedy must be considered, and under
such circumstances the* change of the remedy will be the
second prescription, and the second prescription in this case
calls for a change of remedy.
We will suppose another instance where the remedy must
be changed. A patient has been for years under treatment
for a constitutional chronic disorder, and you have gone
through the potencies ranging from the lowest to the highest,
and they have acted curatively. You have administered the
different potencies, repeating the same potency until it would
tlot act any longer, and then going higher, until you have
gone through the whole range of potencies. You can repeat
that remedy many times on a paucity of symptoms, when
you cannot give another remedy, simply because it has demonstrated itself to be the patient's constitutional remedy. This
remedy should not be changed so long as the curative action
Citt be maintained. Even if the symptoms have been changed

do not change the remedy, provided the patient has continuously improved. If the patient says he has improved continuously, and though it would be impossible for you, at this
date, from the present symptoms, to select that remedy,
hold on to that remedy, so long as you can secure improvement and good from it, though the symptoms have changed.
Many physicians say: "If the symptoms change, I change
the remedy." That is one of the most detrimental things that
can be done. Change the remedy if the symptoms have
changed, providing the patient has not improved ; but if the
patient has improved, though the symptoms have changed,
continue that remedy so long as the patient improves. Very
often the patients are giving forth symptoms long forgotten.
The patient has not heard them, or has not felt them, because
he had become accustomed to them, like the ticking or the

ON HOMCeOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 283

Striking of the clock on the wall. Many of the symptoms that
appeiEtr, and the slightest changes that occur, are old symptoms
coming back. The patient is not always able to say that they
are old symptoms returning, but finally the daughter or some
body in the house will delight you by saying that her mother
had these things years ago and she has forgotten them. This
is likely to be the case whenever a patient is improving. So long
as curative action can be obtained, and even though the symptoms have changed, provided the patient is improving, hands
oflf. Whenever in doubt, wait. It is a rule after you have gone
through a series of potencies, never to leave that remedy until
one more dose of a higher potency has been given and tested.
But when this dose of a higher potency has been given and
tested, without effect, that is the only means you have of knowing that this remedy has done all the good it can for this patient
and that a change is necessary.
There is another instance to be spoken of, and that is when
the second prescription becomes a complementary one. A second prescription is sometimes necessary to complement the
former and this is always a change of remedy. Suppose a little
four or five year old child, a large-headed, bright, blue-eyed
boy, is subject to taking cold, and every cold settles in the head
with flushed face and throbbing carotids, etc., you say give
him Belladonna and Bell, relieves, but it does not act as a constitutional remedy. He continues to have these headaches,

which are due to a psoric constitution, and the time comes when
Bell, will not relieve them ; but upon a thorough study of the
case, you find that when his symptoms are not acute, when he
does not have this cold and fever, he does not have the headache and you see an entirely different remedy indicated. You
study over the flabby muscles, and you find his glands are enlarged; that he takes cold with every change in the weather,
like enough he craves eggs, and you decide that the case calls
for Calcarea. The fact that Bell, was so closely related to him
and only acted as a palliative further emphasizes it. It is a loss
of time to treat more than the first or second acute paroxysm.

284 KENT'S LECTURES

Do not give Calcarea during the paroxysm, but after the wire
edge has been rubbed off by Bell, give him that constitutional
remedy that is complementary to Bell., which . is Calcarea.
Many remedies associate with each other and become cognates
after this fashion.
Then there are series of remedies, as, for instance, Sulphur, Calcarea and Lycopodium, A medicine always leads to
one of its own cognates, and we find that the cognates are
closely related to each other, like Sepia and Mux vomica. A
bilious fever in a Sepia constitution is likely to call for Nux,
and as soon as that bilious fever or remittent fever has subsided the symptoms of Sepia come out immediately, showing
the complementary relation of Nux and Sepia. If the patient
has been under the influence of Sepia some time, and comes
down with some acute inflammatory attack, he is very likely
to run towards Nux or another of its cognates. The whole
Materia Medica abounds with these complementary and cognate relationships.
The second prescription also takes into consideration the
change of plan of treatment. The plan of treatment consists
in assuming that the case is a psoric one, if looming up before
the eyes, all the symptoms in the case and its history indicate
psora. The treatment has probably consisted of Sulphur, Graphites and such medicines as are well known to be antipsorics. The symptoms have run to these remedies; but, behold, after you have made the patient wonderfully well, and
you have effected marked changes in his system, so that the
psoric symptoms have disappeared, he comes into your office

with an ulcerated sore throat, with dreadful head pains and

with the constitutional state and appearance that will lead you
to say, "My dear sir, did you ever have syphilis ?" "Yes, twenty
or thirty years ago, and it was cured with Mercury." Now,
the psoric condition has been subdued and this old syphilitic
condition has come up. This, then, indicates a second prescription. You have to adjust you!= remedies to an entirely new
state of things. So it is also with regard to sycosis ; these states

ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY " 285

may alternate with each other. When one is uppermost, the
other is quiet, so you have to change your plan of treatment according to the state of the patient.
No prescription can be made for any patient except after a
careful and prolonged study of the case, to know what it
promises in the symptoms, and everything that has existed
previously. That is the important thing. Always restudy
your cases. Do not administer a medicine without knowing
the constitution of the patient, because it is a hazardous and
dangerous thing to do.

286 rent's lectures

. . . I .1

LECTURE XXXVII
Difficult and Incurable Cases Palliation.
While Homoeopathy itself is a perfect science, its truth is
only partially known. The truth itself relates to the Divine,
the knowledge relates to man. It will require a long time before physicians become genuine masters in this truth. In
Switzerland the children have been raised for centuries to the
knowledge that is necessary to make watches perfectly, they
have been raised, as it were, in the watch factories. Now,
when Homoeopathy is hundreds of years old, and little ones

grow up into the^ knowledge of it and observe and practice it,

our successors will acquire knowledge that we do not possess
now. Things will grow brighter as minds are brought together
and men think harmoniously. The more we keep together the
better, and the more we think as one the better. It is a pity that
differences should arise among us when we have so perfect a
truth to bind us together.
It is very rarely the case that among the provings of our
remedies not one is to be found which corresponds to the
characteristic features of a case. It was rarely so in Hahnemann's day, and it is certainly very rarely the case with our
voluminous Materia Medica. Beginners, of course, are obliged
to rely very largely upon the repertories. This one thing you can
depend upon, the image of the patient's illness becomes more
simple when you have done your best to prescribe one remedy
after another. In these difficult cases, when you have zigzagged
the patient for a number of years, you will find his symptoms
become more definite and striking and more clearly understood.
Sometimes when I have worked faithfully upon a patient for a
long time, and have given several remedies, and the patient has

ON HOMCEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY 287

partially improved, she has become disappointed and run off
to somebody else, but would come baclc again an^ say I had
done more for her than anyone else and she would try again.
I have found in such instances that time has done much, and
that I had little trouble then to grasp the case and make rapid
progress. In addition to that, she comes back with a patient
state of mind, which is more helpful to the physician than to
her. The confidence of the patient helps the physician to find
the right remedy. His mind works much better when he feels
he is trusted ; the confidence of the patient sharpens his intelligence.
Closely analogous to these cases are what may be called
alternating complaints and one-sided complaints, those that
show but one side. It is not uncommon for a patient's malady
to have two sides one side being manifested when the other
side is not. Eye symptoms may be present when the stomach
symptoms are absent. You may find that Euphrasia is more
sharply related to the eye symptoms than the antipsoric that
fits the whole case, and that Pulsatilla fits the stomach symp-

toms much better than the antipsoric that fits the whole case,
but remember that there is one antipsoric that is more similar
to the whole patient than these special remedies, because it is
better fitted to the generals. The oftener you prescribe for
different groups of symptoms the worse it is for your patient,
because it tends to rivet the constitutional state upon the patient and make him incurable. Do not prescribe until you have
found the remedy that is similar to the whole case, even although it is clear in your mind that one remedy may be more
similar to one particular group of symptoms and another remedy to another gi"oup. Very often a remedy that will go to the
very centre and restore order to the economy will cause quite
a turmoil. These alternating and one-sided complaints are
sometimes dreadful to manage, and when everything is thrown
to the sui'face or the extremities, e. g., when gouty and rheumatic symptoms have an outward tendency, the patient will
run 'off and leave you.

288 KENT'S LieCTURES

Incurable complaints ^and you meet many ^will trouble any
physician. The allopath has the means of putting the patients
under the influence of strong drugs and making them imagine
that something is being done to their benefit, whereas injury
is being done wjienever they are patched up by strong drugs,
It is unaccountable, therefore, that some of our homoeopathic
practitioners make use of palliatives that are so detrimental to
the patient.
The physician who applies the single remedy in potentized
form under the Law of Cure any length of time will be easily
convinced that there is no other way of palliation that holds
out any permanent hope for the patient. Opium will sometimes relieve pain, stop diarrhoea, and mitigate cough, but woe
to the patient. It so annuls reaction that there is no possible
development of the symptoms that are necessary to indicate
what homoeopathic remedy the patient needs, and while the
pain is stopped the patient is not cured. What has been said
of Opium is- as true of all drugs given to relieve pain. When
an opiate must be given, let it be clearly understood that a cure
of this patient is abandoned. What thoughtful physician will
abandon the hope of a cure during painful sicknesses so long
as life endures. In consumption and cancer and wasting sickness the remedy that is most similar to the painful groups of

symptoms will ever give the most relief and it is a forlorn hope
that tempts its abandonment.
JUNni92&

30th POTENCIES
Hand Made Potencies
We have 900 remedies run up to the 30th potency. These are
made by hand, run up step by step from the tincture, homoeopathic
alcohol beingr used as a menstrum. Each potency receives ten
downward, powerful, successive strokes. They are sold:
EHRHART HAND-MADE HIGH POTENCIES
200th 500th 1000th
We have 900 remedies run up to the 200th, 600th and 1,000th
potency. These potencies were all run up by Mr. Urban J.
Ehrhart in a separate room free from all odors and drugs and
you can rely upon them as being: absolutely correct. They are
the best, latest and most accurate potencies on the market.
They have been thorouerhly proven and tested by the best high
potency physicians in the profession.
KENT POTENCIES
lOM 50M CM
(10,000) (50.000) (100,000)
We have 900 remedies run up to the lOM, 60M, CM. These
potencies are made with the Dr. James Tyler Kent potentizer.
This machine is the most accurate centesimal potentizingr implement ever invented. The starting point of these potencies is commenced with the 1000 Ehrhart's hand made potency. The motive
power is water pressure. The menstrum which Is used for potentizini;
is filtered water.
There are four dials on this machine. The dials indicate the
actual number of times the receiver has been emptied. This machine differs from all others as the remedy being: potentized receives
quite a succuesion, this no other machine will do. These are the

only machine made hig:h potencies on the market that are made
with filtered water; all others that we know of are made with the
ordinary tap water.
ALLEN FLUCTION CENTESIMAL POTENCIES
DM MM CMM DMM
(600,000) (1,000.000) (100,000.000) (600.000.000)
We have 300 Polycrest Remedies. The starting: point is commenced with the CM Potency made on the Dr. James Tyler Kent
potentizer. The late Dr. H. C. Allen origrinally conceived the idea
of making these potencies by tubular method, but considerable improvement has been made on this process by -using: a circular tube.
Attached to this machine is a water filter, a motor and a water
meter that reg:isters the actual amount of water used. The receiver
is a specially desig:ned g:lass beaker, by Dr. James Tyler Kent.
After a remedy is run up to its highest point (DMM) this beaker is
broken, so that it will not be used again for another remedy. The
remedy to be run up is placed into this beaker. The tubes are set
so they will strike the bottom of the bowl at different angles, letting
the surplus water slowly flow over the sides of the beaker. This
beaker is placed into a solid mould so as to prevent it from breaking on account of the heavy water pressure.
On account of the many calls for potencies above the DMM,
we have potentized 100 of the Polocychrest remedies. The starting
point is commenced with the DMM potency made on the Allen Auction centesimal potentizer.
We have them in 6DMM, lODMM. 16DMM, 20DMM and so on
up to the 60DMM.
Above potencies are all sold in either liquid or granual form.
FOR SALE ONLY BY
ITUDUAD'F J6L. V^ADf 143 N. wabash AVE.
Htntin/VIv I <K ^/VKLi CHICAGO, ILL., U.S. A.
Manufacturing Homomopathie PHARMACISTS