Allopathy- prejudiced observer
Now lets learn how allopathy treats the disease. They consider each as separate entity. If the body is affected they treat the body and if mind is affected severely they treat the mind. There is no continuity. There is no centre, no vital force for them. For them one organ makes another organ sick. By curing sickness in one organ they believe they can cure sickness in another organ- heart burn is due to chronic duodenal ulcer and treating duodenal ulcer he treats heart burn. They believe that ultimate change (pathology) is the cause and treat the pathology.
In this paragraph Hahnemann does not speak of pathology or changes in the organs, but changes of state of man as whole. Man could see and feel tissue changes, but these do not represent to the intelligent physician the nature of disease or disease cause. The centre is disordered and pathology is result that have followed. The unprejudiced observer can see that pathology does not represent the nature of the disease. To get rid of our prejudices is one the prime things we must do in the study of Homoeopathy.
In order to cure permanently we have to root out the cause which is in the centre (vital force) and not in the ultimate pathology which is only the result of the disease. Allopathy physician may remove an inflamed tonsils, painful haemorrhoids etc believing that they have removed the disease by removing the affected organ. Since cause is in the centre (vital force), the centre finds expression through some other organ and disease affects newer organ. They suppress the disease and they may find expression in new organs.
'He perceives in each individual affection nothing but changes of state." and totality of the symptoms
The physician perceive in individual nothing but change of state in the form of aggregate of symptoms known as totality of symptoms.
SYMPTOMS: is defined as perceived changes in the mind
or body, or an impaired function of the body implying the presence of disease or
injury.
Hahnemann defines symptoms broadly as, "any manifestation of
a deviation from a former state of health, perceptible by the patient, the
individuals around him, or the physician." We have here the basis of the
common division of symptoms into two general classes - Subjective and Objective.
Stuart Close says In general, a symptom is any evidence of disease, or change from a state of health.
The term symptom (from the Greek syn = con/plus and pipto =
fall, together meaning co-exist) has two similar meanings in the context of
physical and mental health:* A symptom may loosely be said to be a physical
condition which shows that one has a particular illness or disorder (see e.g.
Longman, 1995).
SUBJECTIVE SYMPTOMS
The alterations of state are such as are closely observed by the patient e.g.when he says he is forgetful, that his mind does not operate as it did, that he is often in a state of disarray, that when he attempts to speak ,he cannot complete it, a part of it goes away from him, he is becoming sad, whereas he was cheerful before, that there are changes in his affections, in his desires and aversions. This is subjective symptoms. We can define subjective symptoms are the symptoms which are discoverable by the patient alone, such as pain and other morbid sensations of body or mind, presenting no external indication.
With Hahnemann's proclamation of the doctrine of the Totality of the Symptoms as the foundation of the homœopathic prescription, it became possible for the first time in the chronicle of medicine to utilize all the phenomena- of disease. Before Hahnemann's time two of the most frequently occurring and important groups of symptoms were practically discounted-the mental symptoms and the subjective symptoms. The allopathic practitioner of medicine even today is very little interested in subjective symptoms. They play but a very small part in governing the practical treatment of their case. For allopathic physician investigations are to be made by physical and laboratory methods for discovering the supposed 'cause" of the disease, and the location and character of its lesions.
After the patient has said everything he can about his alteration of state, the physician may be assisted by information from outsiders, from relatives who look upon the patient. If the husband be sick it is well to get the wife's assistance. After the physician has written down all the information in accordance with the directions of aphorism 85 for the taking of the case he then commences to observe as much as he can related to the disorder, but more especially those things which the patient would conceal, or cannot relate, or does not know. Many patients do not know that they are clumsy, that they do peculiar and strange things in the doctor's clinic or hospital -things that they would not do in health, and these are evidences of change of state. Besides the physician also notes what he sees, notes odors, the sounds 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.
I now define objective symptoms as the expression of disease in sensations and functions of that side of the organism exposed to the senses of physician and bystanders. Hahnemann here implies that functional and sensational disturbances antecede organic changes; and this is logical with his basic premise that all disease is primarily a dynamical disturbance of the centre.
Totality of symptoms the changes in the health of the body and of the mind (morbid phenomena, accidents, symptoms) 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.
TOTALITY OF SYMPTOMS CAN BE OF TWO TYPES
(1)The Totality of the Symptoms means, first, the totality of each individual symptom. Each of the individual symptoms contain Locality, Sensation, Modality/Causation and Concomitance.
(2). The Totality of the Symptoms means all the symptoms of the case which are capable of being logically combined into a harmonious and consistent whole, having form, coherency and individuality.
Technically, the totality is more (and may be less) than the mere numerical totality of the symptoms. It includes the "concomitance" or form in which symptoms are grouped.
Stuart close says that " The Totality means the sum of the aggregate of the symptoms: Not merely the numerical aggregate-the entire number of the symptoms as particulars or single symptoms-but their sum total, their organic whole as an individuality. As a machine set up complete and in perfect working order is more than a numerical aggregate of its single dissociated parts, so the Totality is more than the mere aggregate of its constituent symptoms. It is the numerical aggregate plus the idea or plan which unites them in a special manner to give them its characteristic form. As the parts of a machine cannot be thrown together in any haphazard manner, but each part must be fitted to each other part in a certain definite relation according to the preconceived plan or design, "assembled," as the mechanics say-so the symptoms of a case must be "assembled" in such a manner that they constitute an identity, an individuality, which may be seen and recognized as we recognize the personality of a friend.