Abstract
The issues which have dominated discussion of homeopathic medicine hitherto are the
efficacy and effectiveness of the medicines themselves and the problem of their mechanism
of action. The resolution of these is of profound clinical and scientific importance.
But there is another aspect of homeopathic methodology that is of equal, and perhaps
even more fundamental importance, and that does not depend on whether or how the medicines
work. This is the detailed study, almost unique now in western medicine, of the disease
process and the healing process; the evolution, manifestation and resolution of the
illness in the individual patient.
This paper reviews the epidemiology and the ‘pathography’ that are inherent in the
homeopathic method, and discusses their implications for medical science and clinical
practice, and their value to medical education; their importance to the identity of
the medicine of the future and the doctor of the future.
Keywords
epidemiology - pathography - symptomatology - homeopathy
