HOW TO REPORT SYMPTOMS

1. Always describe the beginning of complaints (or those of your child, if the child is the patient); state just how they began as well as the changes that may have taken place since.

2. Mention all previous illnesses. A complete history of your health is important, even of such things as skin diseases, children’s diseases and their after-effects; tell of fevers, colds, flus, sores, ulcers, etc; also injuries, if any. Tell their location and what treatment was used.

3. Tell, if you can, all treatments that have been used.

4. Describe all mental or “nervous” feelings and conditions, such as likes and dislikes, desires, fears, timidity, hurried feeling, lack of interest, persistent thoughts, discouragements, discontent, over-conscientiousness whether critical, irritable, easily confused, aversion to business or work, absentmindedness, changeable mood, difficulty of concentration, dullness of mind, whether easily startled or startling from sleep or when falling asleep, or from noise or being touched; whether annoyed by noise or talk of others or by children; whether easily affected by bad news; whether better or worse from mental exertion, or when occupied; whether sensitive to offense or contradiction. Describe the state of mind as to the future or to threatening troubles; attitude of mind as to associates and relatives, and the effects of same, and whether better alone or with company. Tell the peculiarities of memory; whether desire to be silent or to talk much. Tell of any emotional shocks, frights, disappointments, etc. of the present or past; how affected by a room full of people.

5. As to appetite, tell what is craved or disliked, including such things as salt, sweets, fats, sour, spicy things, eggs, etc. Also, thirst for much, little or nothing, and what drink is preferred.

6. Do the symptoms remain the same or do they change character or shift from one place to another.

7. Describe all pain; what kind, what it feels like and whether constant, changeable, or periodical; also in what direction it may go or extend, if any; whether it comes slowly or suddenly and how it leaves.

8. Write the time of day, night, month or season that you are better or worse whether before and after eating, sleeping, moving, resting, when occupied, when thinking of your complaint, etc. Write just what things or conditions make you worse and whatever relieves the pain or sickness. This is important.

9. Just how are you affected by different kinds of weather, by cold, heat, dryness, storm coming, thunderstorms, frost, cloudiness, seashore, low or high altitudes, etc.?

10. Sensations are important. State just what kind, where, at what time they are better or worse, and whatever makes them better or worse. Tell all sensations however slight or peculiar such as “as if—“so and so.

11. In skin, scalp, or nail problems, tell the exact location, colour, whether dry or moist, thick or thin, scaly, crippled, pimply, with or without matter, warts or growth, appearance of surrounding skin; whether itching, burning, worse or better from scratching, and what else makes it better and worse such as heat, heat of bed, cold, exercise, wool, water, etc. Tell of any enlarged veins, etc.

12. Describe discharges of any part, whether slight or heavy, the colour, odor, thick or thin, gluey or sticky, causing redness or burning, rawness, colour of stain; and what makes it better or worse and when.

13. Urine: whether pain before, during or after passing, colour, odor, appearance, quantity, sediment, frequency, urgency (if hurried).

14. Bowel condition: colour, odor, hard, dry, large, pasty, bloody, frothy, slimy, thin, watery, slender, flat etc. How often, at what times worse or better, or how affected by certain circumstances; whether difficult, incomplete, urging without result or stool slips back in, prevented by spasm of rectum, anything else peculiar.

15. Women are to give age at first menstrual period, how far apart then and now; whether pain before, during, or after, then and now, and where; also where the pain may extend to, as to the back, sides, groins, thighs, etc. What kind of pain (see No. 7), what relieves or aggravates, how often the pains come. Tell whether there have been miscarriages. Tell how you feel in general, before during and after the periods, sex desire or aversion, whether intercourse is normal, unsatisfactory or painful.

16. Men are to give particulars as to male organs, if anything is not normal, whether any former disease or abuse; effect of intercourse, whether night emissions, etc.

17. Tell as to the effects of heat, cold, bathing, lying down, beginning of motion, worse or better from perspiring, from lying, whether lassitude weakness or weariness, and how affected by activity.

18. Similia similibus curnetur (let likes be cured by likes) implies strict individualization. In other words, the curative remedy is the one that has produced in healthy human beings symptoms most similar to those which distinguish the patient from all others suffering from the same ailment. They are the more striking, singular, uncommon and peculiar symptoms – the more striking because they are more notable and remarkable; singular because they are more unique, strange, unusual and therefore distinctive; they are peculiar because they belong to the individual and to the remedy that will cure him; uncommon because seldom found in other individuals or in the pathogenesis of other remedies. They are the “characteristics”