HOMOEOPATHY signifies similar affec tion, passion, suffering or disease. As em ployed in medicine, and as understood by Ha'hnemann and physicians of the homcea pathk school, homceopathy May be defined as: the treatment of disease by means of its si milimnm. The cure is undertaken by a medicine capable of producing in a healthy person symp toms similar to those manifested by the patient. The name or type of the disease, the type or class of the drug administered or the size or strength of the dose have no direct relation ship to homceopathy. Nevertheless, it does hold important incidental relationship to the classi fication of drugs, to the facts and principles of dosage, to diagnosis, to pathology and bacteri ology and to all other departments of medicine and allied sciences. Under this definition, the experimental application of homceopathy re quires that the drug shall cover the tout en semble—or, as Hahnemann expresses it, the 'totality" of the symptoms as exhibited by the patient; and not merely one or a few of the dominant or diagnostic symptoms or condi tions. Neither does it imply that the homceo pathic remedy can overcome any and all the adverse conditions and circumstances under which it may be administered. In its practice, homceopathy recognizes this principle of sim ilarity as between the symptoms of the tive drug and the symptoms appearing in the patient. The symptoms exhibited by the pa tient are carefully ascertained and studied with reference to their significance and relations, and these furnish the indications upon which the selection of the 'similar remedy* is then made with equal care. Whether the object of the prescriber be immediate and complete restora tion to health in a curable case or mere allevia tion of suffering in a case not curable, the same course is pursued.
In homoeopathic practice the finding of the curative remedy is of first importance, as a matter of course. But the diagnosis of the case is a most urgent consideration, because it materially aids the physician in his quest for the 'totality) of the symptoms, suggests his general management of the case, prompts the sanitary precautions to be taken, guides him in his etc. Moreover, it sometimes
calls to his mind a group of medicines among which the curative similimum will probably be discovered, and in this indirect way may assist in the medical treatment. Yet it must be dis tinctly understood that in homeopathic pre scribing the final choice of the remedy is al ways determined, not by the name of the dis ease, nor even by the symptoms usually present in the disease, but only by those symptoms oc curring in the individual patient. Pathology, both structural and functional, is also a sub of careful research in connection with homeopathic practice, as under other systems; but never for the purpose of formulating "theories* of the nature of the disease, on which to base treatment.
In common with all other modern "schools" of physicians homeopathists hold that when ever the originating or 'exciting" cause of the disease can e discovered it should be removed if possible. When the disease does not disap pear after removal of the cause which had ap parently produced it, homeopathic physicians are convinced that there must be some other contributory cause. In many cases this perpetu ating cause is hidden and its nature altogether undiscoverable. They also hold the• view that if this latter cause be removed the continuance of the malady is inconceivable. Equally in credible is it that the disease can be actually "cured" so long as the cause remains operative; if it could be, no matter how brilliant might seem the "cure," it would be immediately re produced, unless meantime the bodily suscepti bility to the disease were also removed. The homoeopathic profession does not concede a "cure" in any case in which the operative cause remains active, and, therefore, in the view of these practitioners, the word "cure* has a much narrower meaning, and actual cures are ac complished much less frequently than is gen erally supposed, the majority of such so-called cures being merely recoveries — recoveries fa cilitated, or perhaps made possible, by the skil ful efforts of the medical practitioner but re coveries merely.