The name of a disease or condition gives certain symptoms that are always present in that disease, it can also give location and often causation. A number of remedies will be an appropriate match with these symptoms. Clinical repertories built on clinical experience have confirmed remedies that have a strong affinity with a disease or organ.
Use this knowledge - add symptoms peculiar to the patient and differing in some way from those of other cases of the same disease. These are the distinguishing symptoms. Include sensations and modalities to find the curative remedy.
In acute cases this approach allows for a more rapid assessment, distinguishing remedies from each other and in a very large number of cases finding a closely similar, if not the most similar remedy.
An article in this issue, “Homœopathy in the home”, uses disease names and distinguishing symptoms in this way to assist in selecting the remedy based on clinical experience.
In cases of disease that run a more or less chronic course, taking the case fully and carefully is paramount. It is then necessary to match the patient’s symptom picture with the remedy symptom picture. Include medical tests such as blood or urine analysis, etc, to provide additional symptoms, which sometimes point unerringly to the curative remedy. O. A. Julian provided many symptoms based on his clinical experiences of such tests.
Location of organ needs to be included in the evaluation. This can be achieved with remedies listed under a disease or condition as confirmed by clinical experience.
Clinical experiences broaden our knowledge in two ways. Firstly they confirm or develop individual symptoms, as mentioned above with O. A. Julian. These symptoms are often distinguishing symptoms. On the other hand they give us successful cases which when listed under disease names provide a convenient means of recording the cases.
Use all this experience in arriving at the curative remedy. Good homœopathy is built on good clinical experience.
Monty Firmin