GENERAL RULES FOR USING DRUGS

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GENERAL RULES FOR USING DRUGS

  1. The best time for taking drugs is, early in the morning when the stomach is empty. In relation to food, drugs should be taken either an hour before, or two hours after eating. In cases of fevers, medicines should be taken when the temperature is coming down; in case of convulsion or hysterical fits, at the time when these are coming on. All medicines should be suspended, as long as there is an amelioration of symptoms.
  2. In commencing use of homoeopathic drugs shortly after a course of allopathic or other treatments or even after fruitless course of homoeopathic treatment, start with two or three doses of Camphor or Nuxvomica 30. Then use the necessary medicine.
  3. The use of Pan or tobacco is forbidden only an hour before and an hour after the time when a medicine is taken; but the use of spices and Camphor is to be avoided while undergoing homoeopathic treatment.
  4. The use of charcoal or linseed-poultice for hastening the maturation of boils, the use of lancet in opening them, the use of a soap-water-enema to speedily unload the bowels, of ice in cases of headache or nose-bleed, or of flannel compress-are always permitted during the course of homoeopathic treatment, whenever the necessity arises.

Symptoms (of Diseases): These are those perceptible changes in the body or its functions that occur in the course of a disease. These are objective when they can be detected by examination (such as heat of the body, quickness of pulse or of breathing, coating on tongue, redness of eyes, albumen in. urine; etc.); they are subjective when they are only felt by one patient—such as palpitation, headache, thirst, lumbago, etc.

Symptoms (of Drugs): Such signs or changes that appear on a healthy man’s System after ingestion of an overdose of any medicine are called the symptoms of that drug For example, thirst, quick pulse, dry skin, flushed face, high coloured urine, quickened breathing—are the manifestations of Aconite. But as said before the recording of such manifestations is called the proving of drugs. These are best studied in any good Homoeopathic Materia Medica.

Selection of Drugs: We have said before that a true homoeopath, in selecting his medicine for a particular case, does three things           — (a) he goes into all symptoms—subjective and objective, not neglecting, the so-called ‘trivial’ ones, (b) he then recalls to his mind, from his past knowledge of proving, which drug or drugs answer the largest number of these symptoms complained of, and (c) finally, he selects that drug which presents the largest number of points of contact with the symptoms. That is true homoeopathy. But it often happens that the busy or easy-going practitioner wants a short-cut; while very strongly protesting against such cuts, we are constrained to point out to such practitioners that often a cure can be effected by choosing those drugs that have very close resemblance to some characteristic symptoms of a disease. For example, the use of Cina on a child who frequently picks his nose or rubs it against his pillows or his mother’s shoulders may work wonders. Similar lucky hits may be made by prescribing Stramonium to a case of dysmenorrhoea with the characteristic habits of talkativeness and devotion. These may be good hits but are not real homoeopathy.

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