Ignatia and constitutional thinking in homoeopathy^{[ * ]}

Summary

The author attempts to define the concept of “constitution” as used in homœopathy. He opposes the view that “constitution” may be equated with “totality of symptoms”. It must rather be considered that every patient is able to produce only the symptoms which already lie dormant in his constitution. A drug, or the effects of disease, can arouse only symptoms already pre-existing in the constitution. On the other hand one prover can prove several drugs, just as one and the same patient can have one illness after another, each of them requiring a different remedy. The constitution, then, is not drug specific but individual.

The author illustrates his point with the aid of a number of Ignatia symptoms—headache as from a nail, tension headache, improvement from lying on the back, restlessness, globus and scintillating scotoma, demonstrating them with tape recordings made in his surgery.