CONSTITUTION AND TEMPERAMENT
Some would have noticed this first, and it is certain that the “personal” of the patient cannot be ignored, and their diseases often present symptoms that find their similar in a certain class of drugs. Dr. T.L Brown, one of the best prescribers I ever knew, used to say, that if he met a pure Pulsatilla temperament he would almost always find the symptoms and conditions to correspond. That is putting it strong, and it might be found that Nux vomica would be indicated in a Pulsatilla subject. These are the exceptions that prove the rule.
Sulphur will rarely be called for in a Calcarea ostrearum temperament, and vice versa.
Iodine, Lycopodium and Nitric acid are three of the remedies that often find their indications in brunettes, of spare habit, and so we find them the remedies oftenest adopted to the sanguine, nervous, and bilious subjects. Not only is this true in regard to the choice of remedies, but the rule holds good in the proving of drugs. The subject most responsive to the curative action of certain remedies will also be the most susceptible to their pathogenic effects. Some undoubtedly place too much stress upon this feature in taking the case, and thus run into routinism, while others underestimate it. There is a point where extremes meet and form the completed circle.
Constitution and temperament must certainly come into the totality of the case.
This method of taking the case is the one adopted by Boenninghausen, and the outcome was his celebrated Therapeutic Pocket Book.
There is another method in use and employed by some of our best prescribers, which is also a good one, which I will illustrate by a case so taken.
