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Based on the belief that a person has one or more remedies that they have an affinity with.
Dr. Kent was of the opinion that it is the sick individual as a whole to be cured rather than the totality of characteristic symptoms or the pathological condition of the diseased organs of the patient. Therefore he have highest or first rank to the general characteristic symptoms of the patient as a whole. These symptoms are also called the constitutional symptoms of the patient. He said that there are no fixed types of constitutions.
The extreme version of this is used to ask the question "What remedy are you?" which is a similar system to astrological signs in determining a personality type.
Useful to the physician in assisting him to cure are the particulars of the most probable exciting cause of the acute disease, as also the most significant points in the whole history of the chronic disease, to enable him to discover its fundamental cause, which is generally due to a chronic miasm.
In these investigations, the ascertainable physical constitution of the patient (and intellectual character, his occupation, mode of living and habits, his social and domestic relations, his age, sexual function, ..etc., are to be taken into consideration.
All the sufferings, accidents and changes of the health of the experimenter during the action of a medicine (provided the above conditions [#124-127] essential to a good and pure experiment are complied with) are solely derived from this medicine, and must be regarded and registered as belonging peculiarly to this medicine, as symptoms of this medicine, even though the experimenter had observed, a considerable time previously, the spontaneous occurrence of similar phenomena in himself. The reappearance of these during the trial of the medicine only shows that this individual is, by virtue of his peculiar constitution, particularly disposed to have such symptoms excited in him. In this case they are the effect of the medicine; the symptoms do not arise spontaneously while the medicine that has been taken is exercising an influence over the health of the whole system, but are produced by the medicine.
There are constitutional states in patients by virtue of which they are always affected in a certain way, and these states are often left after provings, or are found in those who have been poisoned by a drug. All these patients will have alternating symptoms which will confuse the physician before he knows their constitutional state. It is an important thing to know the constitutional state of a patient before prescribing. You will always be able to do better for your patients when you know all of their tendencies.
Of course, in acute diseases symptoms sometimes stand out so sharply that an acute remedy can be administered without reference to any constitutional state. Acute cognates can be established in almost any patient. For instance, the Calcarea patient will need an acute cognate of Calcarea when he is sick with acute symptoms. The acute symptoms fit into and are established and formed by the constitutional state of the patient.
You will have patients that will come to you at every change of the wind, at every attack of snuffles the baby has, at every little headache or every little pain. If you then proceed to change your remedy or prescribe for each one these little spells of indisposition, you will, in the course of a little while, have such a state of disorder in the individual that you will wonder what is the matter with this patient. You had better give her no medicine at all, and if she is wise and strong and can feel confidence you can say to her that she does not need medicine for this attack; but occasionally give her a dose of constitutional medicine when these little attacks are not on.
Unani, the name given to the system that Hippocrates started and the system of medicine that Hahnemann used his Arabic to study, recognizes constitutional disorders in the form of Sanguine, Bilious, Phlegmatic and Melancholic temperaments. These later became the Five Temperaments: Melancholic ( dark eyes, tendency to laziness and sadness), Sanguine ( high color, fine, delicate skin, impressible natures), Choleric ( red hair and freckles), Lymphatic, and Phlegmatic.
Ayurveda, the dominant system of medicine in India since Unani, recognizes the symptoms of Vat, Pit and Kaph as the constitutional symptoms of the patient suffering from chronic diseases to be cured.
Dr. Grauvogl's constitutional types are grouped into Hyrogenoid, Oxygenoid, and Carbo-nitrogenoid.
Dr. Allandy describes the four types of constitutions as antoni-plastic, toni-plastic, toni-aplastic, and atoni-aplastic.
Dr. Nebel describes his three types of osseous constitutions as carbo-calsis, phospho-calsis, and fluoro-calsis.
Dr. Vannier
describes eight basic prototypes, named for Greek and Roman divinities with
definite individualizing traits. These are Mars, Saturn, Apollo, Venus, Jupiter,
Mercury, Luna, and Terra. Each type is described in terms of dominant
characteristics, morphology, mind, character, diseases to which they are prone,
and changes that commonly occur with age and in specific circumstances.
