This volume has been prepared, with the official approval of the American Institute of Homeopathy, in response to a demand for authoritative and concise information in regard to the principles and practice of Homeopathy, on the part of physicians who have not had the opportunity of acquiring this knowledge during their medical course.

Every progressive physician today is endeavoring to add to his therapeutic armamentarium and is willing to accept and utilize any therapeutic measure which appeals to his judgment and which has stood the test of clinical experience. The wave of therapeutic iconoclasm, which reached its high-water mark a decade ago, is now rapidly receding. Its work has been accomplished and scientific medicine has been cleansed of the fallacies of polypharmacy and of the dangers of thoughtless and massive drugging.

The thought of the profession today is now focused upon a new era of "curative therapeutics." By the term "curative therapeutics" as applied to drugs, vaccines and similar agents, we understand the administration of these substances for the express purpose of setting up such reaction in the various cells and tissues of the body as will result in the formation of antibacterial, antitoxic, or other immune substances, which bring about a restoration of the body to a state of health.

A few years ago, such a conception of treatment was foreign to the mind of the great majority of medical men. The so-called "rational" or "physiological" system of therapeutics was based upon the, idea of administering drugs which either produced effects directly opposite to those manifested by the diseased condition which it was proposed to treat, or certain alterations in the functions of the body, which the therapeutist believed would indirectly place the body in a condition favorable to recovery. Typical examples of such methods of treatment are, the administration of opium for the purpose of checking a diarrhea, or the administration of castor oil, upon the theory that the purgative action of this drug would remove from the intestines certain offending material, and this being removed, it was presumed that the intestinal tract would then return to its normal condition. Given ideal conditions, this method of therapy has proven to be of distinct value; but unfortunately, in the larger number of pathological conditions, because of our limitation of knowledge or of other factors beyond our control, it is impossible to apply such methods with success. Particularly is this true, when we enter the field of curative therapy, for, as has just been pointed out, remedies acting along so-called physiological lines have only an indirect relation to the curative processes, per se. In fact, the rule of similars is the only principle in modern medicine which conforms both to the strict requirements of modern science and to the practical needs of the physician at the bedside, in the selection of such agents for internal administration as have the power of setting up curative reaction in the cells and tissues of the human body.

It must be borne in mind that the homeopathic method does not include the whole practice of medicine; in fact, it does not even cover the entire field of drug therapy. It has nothing to do with the selection of drugs administered purely for physiological or palliative effects. It applies only to the administration of drugs, sera, or similar agents internally administered for curative purposes, and in this sphere of therapeutics, the principle of similars is absolute and supreme.

While the principle of similars laid down by Hahnemann, is the foundation stone of the homeopathic method, there are other important principles related to it which must be understood, in attempting to apply homeopathy in the treatment of the sick. Briefly summarized, the essential principles of the homeopathic method are:

1. The rule of similars.

2. Drug provings (human).

3. Minimum dose.

4. Single remedy.

5. Totality of symptoms.

The rule of similars, as propounded by Samuel Hahnemann, briefly stated, is that, in the treatment of the sick, we are to administer the drug or other agent which is capable of producing symptoms similar to those from which the patient is suffering.

The results of modern medical and pathological research have confirmed this proposition in a much wider sense, perhaps, than even Hahnemann himself conceived. All our modern vaccine therapy is based upon the well-recognized fact that toxins or bacteria, capable of producing certain specific groups of symptoms when introduced into the body, stimulate the cells of the body to a reaction, which results in the production of substances an-tagnostic to the organism or the toxins originally introduced; that drug agents are capable of producing similar cellular reactions has also been demonstrated experimentally, in corroboration of the large mass of clinical data which has been collated by homeopathic and other physicians during the past one hundred years.

The proving of drugs on the human body was instituted by Hahnemann as the only scientific method of ascertaining the exact effect of these drugs upon the human organism. The accuracy of this procedure will scarcely be questioned by any scientific man today. The Department of Agriculture gave abundant recognition of this fact when Dr. Wiley con ducted an elaborate series of tests upon human subjects, as a method of ascertaining the exact effects of sodium benzoate.

The numerous fallacies incident to animal experimentation, as an accurate and final method of determining the action of drug substances upon the human being, are too well recognized to require elaboration.

The minimum dose or, more accurately stated, the administration of the remedy in the smallest dose which will give a curative result, is a natural corollary of the rule of similars.

One of the fundamental principles of protoplasm is its ability to react to stimuli, whether thermal, electrical or chemical. "Weak stimuli kindle life activity, medium stimuli promote, strong impede it and the strongest stop it." This law, laid down by Arndt as one of the fundamental biological laws, is a complete and direct corroboration of the postulate of the ho-meopathist, that in dealing with drugs acting upon the cellular activities, it is essen-ntial for therapeutic purposes that we should avoid excessive stimulation.

The single remedy is the only scientific possibility in dealing with agents acting homeopathically. To state that specific bacteria produce specific antibodies is simply to repeat one of the fundamental facts of serum therapy. No one expects antityphoid vaccine, for example, to immunize the patient against any disease except typhoid fever. In the same sense, the homeopathic remedy is specific in its action, and there is no scientific excuse for administering more than one remedy at a time.

The totality of symptoms, is a matter which has been much misunderstood. and concerning which a great deal of unnecessary argument has taken place. By this expression we mean, that in the selection of a remedial agent, the physician must take into consideration all of the manifestations of the disease in the patient, including both the subjective symptoms and the underlying pathologic changes. For purposes of accurate prescribing, we should first take account of the group of remedies that are capable of producing the pathological changes similar to those which occur in the disease from which the patient is suffering, and then, by means of the subjective symptoms presented by the patient, we should be able to select from this group the particular remedy which will be specifically applicable to the case under consideration.

The application of the homeopathic method in the art of medicine, is a difficult one. Our knowledge of the action of drugs, sera, vaccines and other agents is far from complete, and the physician, no matter how industrious and conscientious he may be, will often fail to make the most of the information which is available to him. Despite these obstacles, which we may say are met within all fields of scientific endeavor, we believe that the homeopathic rule of similars offers to the physician the only principle for the selection of curative remedies known to medicine, and that the intelligent application of homeopathic methods, will enable the physician to enlarge his sphere of usefulness and to bring about restoration to health, in many cases which have proved refractory to the traditional methods of treatment.