The test drug-proving of the "O.O. & L. Society" : a re-proving of belladonna ; being an experimental study of the pathogenic action of that drug upon the healthy human organism. Conducted under the auspices of the American Homoeopathic, Ophthalmological, Otological and Laryngological Society, with the indorsement and co-operation of the American Institute of Homoeopathy and various state and local societies / arranged and condensed by the general director of the proving Howard P. Bellows.

  • American Homoeopathic, Ophthalmological, Otological and Laryngological Society.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The test drug-proving of the "O.O. & L. Society" : a re-proving of belladonna ; being an experimental study of the pathogenic action of that drug upon the healthy human organism. Conducted under the auspices of the American Homoeopathic, Ophthalmological, Otological and Laryngological Society, with the indorsement and co-operation of the American Institute of Homoeopathy and various state and local societies / arranged and condensed by the general director of the proving Howard P. Bellows. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    18/700 (page 2)
    Avhich are, perhaps, never seen in curable cases. These should be incorporated in our future records, but should be distinctly marked as poison effects, which must not be taken unduly into account in an ordinary presciiptiou. In examining the record of this work, especially as regards the manner in which it has been carried out, it should also be borne in mind that this is a test proving. Very many questions, of more or less practical import, arise constantly in relation to the best manner of conducting drug-provings in future. The use of tinctures or dilutions'; the size and repetition of the dose; the use of control tests; the length of the proving; the value of routine examinations; the best mode of recording results, etc., are subjects of such inquiry. Many of these questions relate to points of minor importance, but all have to be met sooner or later. In this proving, every such question which the general director has been able to foresee has, in one place or another, been worked out. Careful scrutiny will reveal these, and the student of drug-proving, who is sufficiently interested to follow through these pages critically, and note the points of difference in the various provings, will find answers to such questions already at hand by simply comparing the results which have been obtained by varying modes of pro- • cedure. Everything in this proving has bent to the idea of settling points of doubt by actual results, the only practical criterion. It will be noted that the basis of study in every proving Avhich follows is a narrative. This shows, day by day, the dosage and the developing effects of the drug, while the symptoms pro- duced are seen always in their sequence and in their relation- ship to each other, the presentation of which is considered to be of very great importance. The order of subsidence of symptoms is also of interest and value, and is here preserved. The repeti- tion of symptoms, day by day, occupies much space, but it is not without its advantage in impressing upon the mind more firmly the scope of the drug's action. We are taught that food which has been too highly concentrated is more difficult of di- gestion and assimilation than that which retains something of bulk and expansion. The same principle seems applicable to the mind in acquiring knowledge, a certain amount of repeti- tion, especially in matters of detail, being also a requisite. Next to the narrative, and serving in a measure as an index to it, is presented a si/nojjsis of the effects of the drug as exhib- ited in distinct systems or physiological divisions of the body. This, it is thought, will be of particular value to specialists, as well as to students, serving to fix in tlie mind a series of pictures of tlie pathogenic power of the drug in special directions, after liaving acquired a knowledge of the drug's action in general, while avoiding the absolute disjunction of symptoms which has