CLASSIFICATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONS
USELESS IN PRESCRIBING
Dr. James Tyler Kent
Why should we attempt to classify constitutions as an aid in prescribing ?
Every individual is a constitution, and no two sick persons are classified as of
the same class to the satisfaction of any clear, observing and thinking
homeopathist. It is a fatal error to classify constitutions, as no two are
sufficiently similar, when observed by a similar homeopathician to form even a
common class. Human beings are a thousand times more complex than the
chess-board in the hands of most skillful players.
Every change in combination in mental or physical signs and symptoms bring a
new view of the entire patient as observed collectively. Normal mental methods
come to all thinkers in such diverse appearances as to justify the well known
statement that no two minds are alike. In similar manner, all abnormal minds
appear to the alert physician as sick individuals. Mental abnormalities may be
classified by their common manifestation by the alienist, but the classification
is never useful to the homeopathist while searching for a remedy. The
classification is made up from the common symptoms of the mental-disease
symptoms for the purpose of medical diagnosis, but the peculiar symptoms in
each and every morbid mental case must guide to the prescription, and these
prevent classification.
Nothing leads a patient to failure so certainly as classification. The
physician who prescribes on a diagnosis is a failure, except for his chance
shots. Individualisation is the aim of every homeopathic physician. The symptoms
that represent the morbid constitution or disorder of the individual are
the ones that the skilful prescriber always seeks. Symptoms that are uncommon in
one constitution are common in another, because such uncommon symptoms are
common to some diseases and uncommon to others.
Classification is necessary to the proper study of diseases, pathological
conditions and diagnosis, but every case of sickness in an individual is so
dissimilar to another case that each and every patient must be examined and
measured by the symptoms that represent his disordered economy, or prescribing
will be followed by very ordinary results.
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