The starting point: pathography

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.