12th Observation

by

12th Observation. Symptoms take the wrong direction. Remedy that is related to the skin alone may drive in that skin disease and cause it to appear while the patient himself is not cured. Such a patient will remain sick until that eruption comes back again, or locates in another place….

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 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 a 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 symptoms 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 appear while the patient himself is not cured. Such a patient will remain sick until that eruption comes back again, or locates in another place.

Related posts:

  1. 5th Observation The amelioration comes first and the aggravation comes afterwards is the fifth observation. Either the remedy was only a superficial remedy, and could only act as a palliative, or the patient was incurable and the remedy was somewhat suitable. ......
  2. 10th Observation 10th Observation. Relates to new symptoms appearing after the remedy. If a great number of new symptoms appear after the administration of a remedy, the prescription will generally prove an unfavorable one.......
  3. 4th observation 4th observation. Administration of the remedy is followed by amelioration and no aggravation whatsoever. 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.......
  4. 7th observation 7th observation. Once in a while you will seen a full time amelioration of the symptoms, yet no special relief of the patient, which is the seventh observation. The remedies act favorably, but the patient is not cured, and never can be cured.......
James Tyler Kent
James Tyler Kent (1849–1916) was an American physician. Prior to his involvement with homeopathy, Kent had practiced conventional medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He discovered and "converted" to homeopathy as a result of his wife's recovery from a serious ailment using homeopathic methods.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.