For offering this book to the profession, I have no apology to make, for I claim my right to do so; and if anyone finds imperfections in it, remember I lay no claim to perfection. I can offer severe criticism myself.
I will, however, state in brief my object in writing as I have:
FIRST. — To fasten upon the mind of the reader the strongest points in each remedy. Good off-hand prescribing can be done in simple uncomplicated cases if we have fixed in our minds, for ready use, the characteristic symptoms.
The elder Lippe was remarkable for such ability.
SECOND. — To try to discourage the disposition to quarrel over Symptomatology and Pathology. Neither can be ruled out, and it is foolish for our school to divide on such a bone of contention. Every symptom has its pathological significance, but we cannot always give it in words; but the fact that it has such meaning is sufficient reason for prescribing on the Symptom or Symptoms without insisting on, or trying to give, the explanation.
THIRD. — To insist on the fact that the question of dose is still an open one, and so I have taken pains to give the dose I have found best, not insisting that anyone is bound to give the same; but it is fair to say that if they use a different one and fail, they must blame themselves, not me.
FOURTH. — To condemn the abuse of drugs, both in the old school and ours.
If there is any one point in the Homoeopathic system of Therapeutics that recommends it before that of the old school, it is that we have discovered a law by which we are able to apply remedies for the curing of the sick without entailing upon them drug effects, often more serious than the original disease.
No honest man of either school ought to object to such an improvement in the science of therapeutics.
FIFTH. — I have hoped to so write as to induce any old school physician, who could overcome prejudice so far as to read any or all of this book, to experiment along the lines I have indicated, believing that any such physician, of sound head and honest heart, will be irresistibly led to give Homoeopathy a large, and perhaps finally, the largest place in his confidence and practice. Finally to express, after nearly forty years of conscientious experimentation, my firm and confirmed belief in the Similimum, the single remedy and the minimum dose.
Thanking the profession in general for their help to me, I reciprocate by offering my humble contribution to an already valuable homoeopathic literature.
E. B. NASH.
Cortland, N. Y., November 5, 1898.