Organon in miniature: aphorism map

Key aphorisms to learn

• §1: The physician's sole mission is to restore the sick to health, which is called curing.
• §2: The highest ideal of cure is rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health. It is done by the shortest, most reliable and least harmful way, on principles that are easy to understand.
• §3: The physician must know what is to be cured (the disease) and what is curative in medicines. He must also apply the medicine to the patient in the right way, including the right dose and time.
• §4: The physician is also a preserver of health when he knows what disturbs health and causes disease, and how to remove it.
• §5: The exciting cause and the maintaining cause are useful for cure, particularly in acute disease.
• §6: The unprejudiced observer notes only the deviations from the former healthy state, and these form the totality of symptoms.
• §7: The totality of symptoms is the only indication for choosing the remedy, once the maintaining cause is removed.
• §9-10: In health the spirit-like vital force (dynamis) animates the body. Without it the body is dead.
• §11-12: In disease the vital force is deranged first, and this shows itself as symptoms.
• §14-17: Every curable disease is knowable through its symptoms. Removing the symptoms removes the disease.
• §18: The totality of symptoms is the only indication for choosing a remedy.
• §19-20: Medicines have disease-curing power, which is known only by pure experiment (provings) on healthy people.
• §21-27: Law of similars ("similia similibus curentur"). A stronger dynamic affection that is similar permanently extinguishes a weaker one (§26).
• §31: Morbific agents and medicines act on the vital force dynamically (they are not material in their action).
• §52-56: Antipathic (palliative) and allopathic (heteropathic) treatment give only temporary relief, or harm.
• §63-65: Primary action of a medicine is followed by a secondary (reactive) action of the organism.
• §72-82: Acute diseases are individual, epidemic or sporadic. Chronic diseases are the true miasmatic ones: psora, sycosis and syphilis.
• §83-104: Individualisation. Take the case in the patient's own words, with observation, and record it.
• §105-145: Provings are done on healthy people with a single medicine, in a controlled way.
• §153: The strange, rare, singular and peculiar (characteristic) symptoms are the most important for remedy selection.
• §157-160: Homeopathic aggravation.
• §210-230: Mental diseases, where the mental symptoms often decide the remedy.
• §245-248: Do not repeat the dose while improvement continues. In the 6th edition the dose is modified (succussed) before repetition.
• §264-270: Medicines must be pure. Potentisation is the dynamisation of the medicine. The LM (50-millesimal) scale appears in §270.
• §272-274: Use one simple medicine at a time.
• §275-280: Use the smallest dose that is effective.

Quick revision pointers

1. Cure is defined in §2.
2. Vital force is §9-16.
3. Law of similars is §26.
4. Provings are §105-145.
5. Characteristic symptoms are §153.
6. Chronic miasms are §78-82.
7. Potency and dose are §269-270, §275-280.