Hull's Jahr : a new manual of homoeopathic practice.

  • George Heinrich Gottlieb Jahr
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hull's Jahr : a new manual of homoeopathic practice. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    alphabetical order. Thus, in the chapter on Fevers, for example, where formerly chills, heat, &c., formed separate subdivisions, it will be found, in the present edition, that the chills are arranged under the letter C, heat under H, &c.; and that, in affections of the head, vertigo and stupe- faction are placed under their respective capitals among other symptoms of the head, &c. Our design in adopting this order has been to simplify the researches as much as possible. Many of our friends have expressed a desire to see in the Reper- tory, as in the Text, the clinical symptoms distinguished from the others; but the execution of such a plan requires six classes of different characters to designate the medicines underlined and not underlined in each of the three classes of symptoms that we have established; and the distinction of medicaments, by means of signs placed at each abbrevia- tion, menacing to enlarge the volume of this work too extensively, we have renounced this project, and have done it with less regret since the Clinical Remarks placed at the head of the chapters render this dis- tinction almost superfluous. In respect to the distinction of medicaments by italic characters, we had, at one time, the intention of abandoning it, observing that it was as likely to lead to error as to the selection of a good remedy ; for how frequently does it not happen that the totality of symptoms is such that a medicament not underlined may answer better than any other, although it may appear less in relation with the symptom that should by this rule be regarded as the prominent one. And, in the majority of cases, all the medicines which have the same characteiistie symptom have in this respect absolutely the same value, since the to- tality of symptoms only can give a preference of one over the other. Thus it is, for example, that Coffee has no more value than Aconite, Arsenic, or Chamomilla for anger or discouragement from slight suffer- ing ; the choice is here to be decided hj the other symptoms which characterize the case. If, then, notwithstanding the objections, we have preserved the distinction of italic latters, it has been with respect to symptoms where there was a mass of designated medicaments, in order to meet those sooner for whom the symptom is most confirmed than those for whom the symptom is most characteristic—a shade the observation of which may sometimes be useful, without, in the meantime, meriting too much attention, if the symptoms of the drug have been well observed. The italic characters of the Repertory must not be confounded with those of the Text, seeing that two different principles have dictated them. The object of the Text has been to compare and distinguish the symptoms of tho same medicament by themselves, while that of the
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