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In addition to diagnostic ability Homoeopathic  physician must have a peculiar knowledge of

	He must be familiar with the manner of expression of each and every disease.
	He must know just how each disease expresses itself in language and appearance and sensations.
	He must know just how every remedy affects mankind in the memory and understanding and will, because there are no other things that the remedy can act upon as to the mind, and he must know how the remedy affects functions, because there are no other ways in which the remedy affects the body of man.
	he knows how diseases express themselves in signs and symptoms, then he knows what constitutes an individual disease a little different from all others. It is the peculiar way that the same disease affects different patients that makes the symptoms strange, peculiar and rare.

This  is the state of mind that the homoeopathic physicians must keep themselves in order to begin this study, and when they have begun to think in this way they can then study the symptoms of the disease as to grade.

What is peculiar in one remedy is not in any degree peculiar in another. While it may be peculiar in a chronic case to have thirst, it is not so in a fever. That which is true in many respects in a chronic state may be the very opposite in an acute case. The chronic miasms are the very opposite in their character and order to the acute miasms, and this is a fact that the homoeopathic physician must know.

Demonstration of  RARE PECULIAR STRIKING SYMPTOMS

If you had a striking case of inflammation of the parotid gland, the patient says : "Do not press upon it, because it is very sore," how would you classify that, as common or strange ?

If you think but a moment, you will see that it would be a very strange thing for a highly inflamed gland not to be tender, and that soreness upon pressure is not something to be prescribed for, but something to be known, to be taken into the general view of the case, and the remedy indicated in the case would be suitable if it have inflammation and soreness of the gland ; there is nothing striking in that : quite a group of remedies have produced hardness, soreness and tenderness of the gland ; it may be one of those, or it may be one which has never produced these things, if it have the characterizing features of the patient.

Kent says In sicknesses the symptoms that cannot be explained are often very peculiar ; the things that can be accounted for are not so often peculiar .

Kent has given examples "For instance, a patient can sit only with his feet up on the desk, or with his feet elevated ; he is a great sufferer, and because of this suffering he is compelled to put his feet up. The symptoms hence will be put down, worse from letting the feet hang down. "Well, what do you mean by that ? Why, if I let my feet hang down, I find I bring the nates down upon the chair, and there is a sore place there." Now that is quite a different thing. You may find if it is an old man that he has a large prostate gland, which is very painful at times and very sore, and when he lets the feet hang down the gland comes in contact with the chair. So we see that the real summing up of the case is that this enlarged and sore prostate gland is worse from pressure, and all you have learned from that symptom is that the gland is sensitive to touch, which is a common symptom. There are instances, however, where by letting the feet hang down the patient is ameliorated ; for instance, you take a periostitis and the pain is relieved by letting the limbs hang. No one can tell why that limb is better when hanging over the bed. He lies across the bed with the foot hanging over the side, and why it is that he cannot lie upon his back nobody can figure out. Now that condition is found in Conium, and you will not be astonished after you know that Conium has that symptom to find all the symptoms of your patient, say Conium. All the rest of them perhaps, are common.

Now, when you think along this line of science, it will not take you long to get into the habit of estimating among the symptoms that appear in a record the things that are common, the things that you would expect, and the things that are strange.

General symptoms

Again, we see that there are certain symptoms in the remedies that are general and  general must also be taken into account in order to examine any case.

General:                                                                                                                       All the things that are predicated of the patient himself are things that are general .

We have said that what the patient predicates of himself will generally appear to you to be at once something in general.

When the patient says, "I am thirsty," as a matter of fact, although he feels that thirst in the mouth, yet it is his whole  craves the water.

The things of which he says, "I feel," are suitable to be generals.

The patient says, "I have so much burning," and if you examine him, you find that his head burns, that the skin burns, that there is burning in the anus, burning in the urine, and whatever region is affected burns. You find the word burning is a general attribute that alters all his sickness. If it were only in one organ, it would be a particular, but these things that relate to the whole of the man are things in general.

Again, when the patient tells things of his affections (loves and aversions), he gives us things that are most general. When he speaks of his desires and aversions, we have those things that relate so closely to the man himself that the changes in these things will be marked by changes in his very ultimates or vitalforce.

When the man arrives at that state that he has an aversion to life, we see  that is a general symptom and that diffuses his whole ; that symptom qualifies all the symptoms and is the very core of all his states and conditions. When he has a desire to commit suicide, which is the loss of the love of his life, we see that that is very innermost.

Homoeopathic medicines- how they act

Medicines affect man primarily by disturbing his affections, by disturbing his aversions and desires. The things that he loved to do are changed, and now he craves strange things. Or the remedy changes his ability to comprehend, and turns his life into a state of disturbance ; it disturbs his will and may bring upon him troublesome dreams, which are really mental states.

Dreams are so closely allied to the mental state that he may well say, "I dreamed last night;"

That is a general state.

The things that lie closest to man and big life, and his vital force, are the things that are strictly general, and as they become less intimately related to man they become less and less general, until they become particular.

The menstrual period gives us a state which we may call general. The woman says, "I menstruate," ; she does not ascribe it to her ovaries or to her uterus ; her state is, as a rule, different when she is menstruating.

So the things that are related to  self, of the ego, are all general. Take the following statement  which shows affection as a whole i.e. general

"I do so and so,"

"Dr., I feel so and so,"

"I have so much thirst,"

"I am so chilly in every change of the weather,"

"I suffocate in a warm room," etc.,

These are all general. The things that are general are the first in importance.

 SOME TIMES PATICULAR SYMPTOMS ARE IN AGREEMENT  TO GENERAL

After these have been gathered, you may go on taking up each organ, and determining what is true of each organ. Many times you will find that the modalities of each organ conform to the generals.

Example: burning of chest may be part of general burning sensation the patient feels. 

SOME TIMES PARTICULAR SYMPTOMS ARE NOT IN AGREEMENT  TO GENERAL

Sometimes, however, there may be modalities of the organs, which are particular that are different to the general. Hence we find in remedies that appear to have in one subject one thing, and in another subject the very opposite of that thing.

Take for example of burning in chest may not be related to general state which he feels chilly, cold.

In one it will be a general, and in another it will be a particular.

Classification of generals: Generals are broadly classified into

	mental general
	physical general

Particular:                                                                                                                    All the things that are predicated of any given organ are things in particular.

So we see how there are things in general, and things common, and things particular ; some times it may be a condition or state, sometimes it may be a symptom.

It is very important that you should understand what is meant by general, common and particular symptoms as it is most essential part of case taking and subsequent repertorization.
The generals are sometimes made up of particulars.
 If you examine any part alone, you are only examining the particulars.
 For example : If you  examine the liver symptoms alone, you are examining particulars. If you are examining the eye symptoms, or the symptoms of any other region considered apart from the whole man, you are examining particular symptoms.
 But after you have collected the particulars of every region of the body, and you see there are certain symptoms running through the particulars, those symptoms that run through the particulars have become generals, as well as particulars. Things that apply to all the organs may be applied  of the person himself.

General may be

Things that alter all parts of the organism are those that relate to the general state.

Anything that is related to individual  as a whole is also general.                                                                                              Consider for instance, the symptoms of sleep. You might at first think that they related to the brain, but the brain does not sleep it is  the whole man that sleeps. Take the following statement "I was wakeful the previous night"; he is relating something of himself and hence it is a general. Or, he says, "I  have dreamed"; well it is true that the whole man really dreamed. You might say that the mind merely dreamed, but the mind is the man, and, therefore, we see how important sleep and dreams become in the case history . The special senses also are so closely related to the whole man that the smells that are grateful and the smells that are disagreeable become general.

Nose- SMELL                                                                      
 There are certain smells that relate more particularly to the nose itself, because the smell is in the nose and is due to some pathological state of the nose, and thus becomes a mere particular. The smell of food is agreeable when the man is hungry, and that will relate to the whole man, but  catarrh of the nose, with much local disturbance, has many perversions of smell, which are particular, because they relate to the nose.

EYES-VISION
A patient says: "I see, so and so, without seeing; that relates to the generals. It is to a great extent a seeing with the understanding.
 Now, when the eye itself becomes affected, the symptoms collected  are particulars because they relate to the structure of the eye.
 The more the symptoms relate to the anatomy of the parts, the more external they are; the more they relate to the tissues, the more likely they are to be particular.
  But the more they relate to internals that involve the whole man, the more they become general. The things, therefore, that relate to the man as a whole (general) are the ones to be singled out in the case history and marked first.
 After amassing together all the symptoms of a patient you should pick out for study first of all everything and anything that you can relate to the man as whole, everything of which you can say he feels so and so, she suffers so and so. Find out what remedies relate to these symptoms first.
 Sometimes when you have figured the generals, you have settled by your conclusion upon three remedies, or possibly upon one.
 In ninety-nine cases of a hundred you can leave out the particulars, for the particulars are usually confined within the generals. If there be one remedy that has the numerous generals, and covers those generals absolutely and clearly and strongly, that will be the remedy that will cure the case.
                                                                                                                                 There may be a lot of small particulars that may appear to contra-indicate, but they cannot; for nothing in particulars can contra-indicate generals.
 

One strong general can overrule all the particulars you can collect up.

common symptoms-explained
Sometimes we find in woman the common symptom, prolapsus.
 It is a common thing for them to say, "Doctor, I have such a dragging down in my bowels, as if my insides were coming out." That is a common feature, and it is a common symptom. There is nothing about that alone that will help you to find a remedy, but for these common symptoms we have a class of remedies.
 When you see a rubric containing a dozen, fifteen or twenty remedies, you may often know it is a common symptom. We would say that all women who have prolapsus have to a great extent a dragging down feeling, as if the uterus would come out. If we were to take this symptom as an example, we would see that it works in various directions; we would see that it runs into generals, and into particulars.
 

How shall we decide when to give Sepia, when Lil tig., when Murex., when Bell., when Puls., when Nux, and when Natrum mur.?
                    To help you to pick out of that group of remedies the one that will cure you must study both the generals and the particulars of the patient and the generals always given more important.
Take  Nux vomica patient who has the prolapsus of the uterus, How will  you see Nux in it?
 She would be chilly; full of coryza, with stuffing up of the nose in a warm room; she would be very irritable, snappish, want to kill somebody, want to kill her husband, want to throw her child into the fire,.
 She would probably have constipation and every pain that she had with it would make her want to go to stool; urging to stool, but only a little is passed and she wants to go frequently.
You at once see that she has the generals of Nux, and whatever particulars she has are in harmony with those generals, and so you go from generals to particulars.
 The whole problem, of case taking  must be gone into and followed from generals to particulars.
Take another remedy, Sepia is indicated for that woman.
 You have in it both generals and  common symptom. Now, what is there in this patient that no other patient has or no other remedy has? 
The dragging down is just the same, but with it an awful all gone sinking feeling in the stomach, and she gets relief only when sitting with the  crossed legs. She has a constant feeling of a lump in the rectum that makes her want to go to stool; but she goes for days without any urging at all; she is sallow and sickly, talks of bilious symptoms and has a yellow saddle over the nose. She tells you that she has an aversion to her children, and feels very sad that she does not love her husband as she should. She is unable to exercise the love she has to her children.
                                            Now you have that which she says of herself in general, and that which she tells of the stomach and rectum in particular, and yet peculiar. You can see now that the dragging down sensation is not general nor particular, but is common. Many of the symptoms of regions are both common and particular, particular because they are of regions and common because they describe a state which is found in most of the patients or most of the remedies.
Measles  gives us an illustration of this.
 We would group all the striking symptoms indicative of measles-sore throat ,runny nose, cough, muscle pain, fever, bloodshot eyes, tiny white spots inside the mouth (called Koplik's spots), photophobia (light sensitivity), itching of the rash.
 The remedies for measles  must have these symptoms in common with measles fever- it may be aconite, apis, bry, euph, pul, sulphur and many other remedies have similar symptoms as of measles . So if we were to make a rubric for the repertory we would put the names of all these remedies in the common group and call it measles.

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