Foreword to
Textbook of Materia Medica the German edition of Adolph Lippe, 1866. (Handbuch homöopathischer Charakteristika. Eine Arzneimittellhre für die Praxis. Stuggart: Karl F. Haug Verlag, 2003.)
by André Saine, N.D., F.C.A.H.

The two most pertinent questions for this reader are, "Who was Dr. Adolph Lippe?" and "What value shall we ascribed to his Textbook of Materia Medica?"

Who was Dr. Adolph Lippe?

Adolph Lippe came from the old, illustrious and noble German family of Lippe Biesterfeld-Weissenfeld. He was born on May 11, 1812, on the family estate of See, near Göerlitz in Eastern Germany, then known as Prussia, and died in Philadelphia on January 23, 1888.

Lippe received a very good education in liberal arts and sciences at the University of Berlin where he commenced his studies of law but eventually interrupted them to change to medicine. It is said that after careful examination and trials, he soon adopted homeopathy.

In July 1838, at the age of twenty-six, he sailed for America and settled in Reading, Pennsylvania where he opened his first practice. In the fall of the same year, he registered in the first and only homeopathic medical college in the world, the North American Academy of the Homoeopathic Healing Art in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He was privileged to have among his first teachers Drs. William Wesselhoeft and Constantine Hering. On August 28, 1841, Lippe passed his final examination enabling him to graduate with a Doctorate in Homeopathic Medicine of which he later said, "The possession of an Allentown diploma is an honor to its holder, as it was only obtained by worthy applicants. Many who tried to pass were rejected as incapable."

Right from the beginning, even before completing his studies at the Allentown Academy, Lippe demonstrated exceptional skill in the practice of homeopathy. In 1881, recalling the beginning of his practice soon after his arrival in America and the phenomenal results he met with, he said:

As one of the early pioneers, I now offer my testimony. More than forty years ago, a stranger and friendless, with full faith and reliance on Hahnemann's teachings, fully convinced that success was within reach if his precepts were only followed, the young physician set out to cure the sick. Shortly after I had opened a very modest office in Reading, intermittent fever appeared as an epidemic among the laborers on the Reading railroad, which was then building between Reading and Pottsville.

At first, a few stragglers came to town and accidentally called on me to cure them. Homeopathy was then not known to these people even by name. These stragglers recovered while the quinine-eaters continued to suffer. As a natural result, the afflicted flocked to the dispenser of a curative remedy, and they kept on coming by hundreds. Rarely had any of them to come twice or three times. They all received strictly homeopathic treatment; the principal remedies were Nux vomica, Arsenicum album, Natrum muriaticum. All remedies were given in the thirtieth potency. Sometimes other remedies, Belladonna, Pulsatilla, etc., had to be selected, but never did it enter the mind of the young beginner to resort to other than homeopathic treatment. Even my allopathic colleagues were astonished when they perceived the beneficial effects and the universal success of the small doses.

The same success was obtained in later epidemic of intermittent fevers, and from these observations I came to the same conclusion which others arrived at under similar circumstances, that we have no occasion ever to deviate from the strict homeopathic practice, either in the cure of intermittent fever or any other disease. The testimony to that effect is overwhelming.

For fifty years, Lippe conscientiously applied the teachings of Hahnemann and reported his unsurpassed clinical success through his extensive writings. Lippe later became recognized as the best prescriber homeopathy ever had. Among Hahnemannians, whether it is Hering, Wells, Dunham, Nash, H. C. Allen, Berridge, Skinner, Wesselhoeft (son), D. C. McLaren, Walter James, Edmund Lee, Kent, Boger, Farrington (son), etc., the name of Lippe is always referred to with the greatest reverence for the great prescriber that he was. H. C. Allen wrote, "Dr. Lippe was known wherever the name of our school is known, and probably no member in our school was ever more honored or held in higher esteem for his ability as a close and accurate prescriber. In this particular he was simply wonderful, and the facility with which he grasped the salient point—the unique, peculiar or uncommon points of the case—and fitted his remedy in his characteristic way, as not been surpassed by any man in our school, since the days of Hahnemann; and I doubt if the latter could do it as well. . . . His wonderful knowledge of the characteristic symptoms of our materia medica—and no man excelled him in this—enabled him to grasp these particular features and cure cases in which perhaps his superiors in other departments had failed. There were undoubtedly men who excelled him in other departments of medicine, but in this particular field he stood almost alone. Dr. Lippe waged an unceasing opposition to anything which he considered to be un-homeopathic in practice. To any deviation of what he considered the law, he was a bitter opponent. I shall never forget my debt of gratitude to him."

Lewis and Randall, in the preface to their Thermodynamics and Free Energy of Chemical Substances, liken the edifice of science to a cathedral built by the efforts of a few architects and many workers. In this regard, Hahnemann was homeopathy's sole architect and Lippe stands out as his foremost foreman. It is safe to say that Hahnemann was in a class by himself regarding the development of homeopathy and that Lippe was in a class by himself for its successful application.

His writings

Lippe was a prolific writer. He wrote on average one to two articles per month during the last 25 years of his professional life making almost 500 contributions to the homeopathic literature, covering almost every aspect of homeopathy. His extraordinary clinical success provides great authority to his teachings as well as great meaningfulness to his unrelenting defense of pure homeopathy. In fact, his teachings are only second in importance to the ones of Hahnemann. A whole generation of practitioners became aware of pure homeopathy through his writings. Many subscribed to journals to which Lippe contributed, specifically to read his articles. Of his writings, Skinner said, "Dr. Lippe writes with no mean power. He writes with authority, with a life of experience which has known no backsliding." In 1942, Harvey Farrington wrote that, "Although Lippe was the author of but few books, the number of his contributions to homeopathic literature is unsurpassed by those of any other writer in this field, with the possible exception of Hering. Many of his papers are devoted to the elucidation of homeopathic philosophy, other to methods and rules of correct homeopathy practice. Still others deal with the finer points of the materia medica and reports of clinical cases. A long series entitled 'Fatal Errors,' appearing chiefly in the Homoeopathic Physician, are vigorous polemics aimed at what he considered un-homeopathic opinions and practice that were vitiating homeopathy and causing its gradual downfall. His style is clear and forceful; his arguments logical and at times irrefutable. If at times, he seems dogmatic, it is due to the profoundness of his convictions.

"By far the most important of Lippe's contributions to homeopathic literature are his reports of clinical cases. He was a past master in the art of presenting the essential symptoms, and always told why he gave the remedy which cures the case. He was one of the most accomplished prescribers in the history of our school. He not only possessed a wide knowledge of the materia medica but keenness of observation seldom equaled. With uncanny accuracy he picked out the essential indications frequently making use of symptoms, which seemed trivial or having no evident connection with the patient's ailment.

"Lippe's papers, even his polemics, are interesting and informative reading even for those who may not agree with his opinions or his interpretations of homeopathic philosophy."

He is definitively the best teacher we have for illustrating Hahnemann's genius. In fact, Lippe completes Hahnemann's work with his clinical confirmation and clear explanation of it. To develop a deep understanding of homeopathy we should start by studying Hahnemann, and then move on to Lippe to clarify it. And then read them back to back from year to year. Progressively, the fundamental principles of homeopathy will become so clear that no confusion will be left on how to successfully practice homeopathy. Moreover, the writings of Lippe are powerful, attractive, intelligent, logical, clear, profound, critical, instructive and to the point. Following a paper presented by Lippe, P. P. Wells, the great and wise Hahnemannian of New York, opened the discussion by saying, "A paper from Dr. Lippe is always very hard to discuss, because he always knows exactly what to say, so that there is very little to be said afterwards."

Everyone should have access to the writings of Lippe, but they will be of special interest to the serious student of homeopathy, the one who really desires to deeply understand its fundamental principles and practice. The newcomer will find in it no better introduction to pure homeopathy while the experienced practitioner will find no better invitation to rediscover the work of Hahnemann and become an even more successful prescriber.

It is our duty to learn homeopathy from the real masters. But the question is who were they? The history of homeopathy teaches that, in fact, few really mastered homeopathy. We can certainly mentioned Boenninghausen, Hering, Lippe, Wells and Dunham. Of these, Lippe and Wells have left teachings that are almost complete courses in homeopathy. Unfortunately, these most valuable teachings were left buried in old journals and have been replaced, as well as the ones of Hahnemann, by contemporary teachings. Sadly enough, the history of homeopathy is too often the history of people pretending to understand homeopathy and therefore misrepresent it. Every generation has to beware of such false teachers. They appear as very knowledgeable and often hold very prominent positions within the homeopathic community. They publish books and journals, open colleges, clinics and hospitals, based on their own version of homeopathy. However, their teachings have the common characteristic of being gross misrepresentations of the method of Hahnemann. Let's face it, homeopathy without Hahnemann is not homeopathy. It would be like playing Hamlet without Hamlet. The student who wants to master homeopathy has to discard all these false teachings and seek the ones who really knew. Few in the history of homeopathy have done their homework like the early followers of Hahnemann did.

In a nutshell Lippe said, "The early pioneers had established our school, had gained their hard fought victories by their steadfast adherence to principles, they had gained the confidence of the most intelligent part of the community; they established various local societies and finally the American Institute of Homeopathy. The success of these persistent and faithful pioneers induced many men to join this victorious small army of men, but some of them showed an unwillingness to enter upon the painstaking labors of their successful elder colleagues, by and by they so caricatured the practice that it so glaringly showed decreased beneficial results, that they became really a disgrace to the profession."

The key to success in homeopathy is the strict adherence to principles. This approach is in sharp contrast with most of the current teaching in homeopathy, which is based as a rule on opinions, fancies and speculation. Lippe said because the pioneers of homeopathy strictly followed the teachings of Hahnemann they have met with success—such a success, as to our knowledge, no other mode of practice could ever claim. We desire to show the great necessity of and the advantages derived from the strict adherence to the principles taught by Hahnemann when first prescribing for a given case of sickness, and how a faithful adherence to these principles will guide us on to an invariable success. And if all persons professing and pretending to practice homeopathy were consistent, if they exercised that fidelity to the principles of a school to which they profess and pretend to belong, then such a paper like this would be out of place; but as a great many of the professing and pretending homeopathic practitioners not only practice but even teach a multiplicity of erroneous but plausible opinions, and as the very modestly claim that their own individual opinions, quite unsupported by any argument, but thrust at the profession merely as "my opinion" must be accepted for the time being, and as it is desirable to establish a certainty of medicine, and as this desirable certainty is at our command, offered to us and to all mankind capable of comprehending any logical argument and deductions from indisputable facts, I offer to testify to the correctness, applicability and results of Hahnemann's great teachings, fidelity to its principles is and must be followed by success, and that success is our only and sole weapon against error. It is admitted that success must be followed by the full acknowledgment of the superiority of homeopathic practice over all other modes of practice, and that this success is invariably coming to us if we are true to the principles of our school. . . . If we follow these simple teachings we meet with success, and need not listen to organ-grinders, physiological basis builders—all amusing music and castles in the air; but it is not homeopathy—not successful. . . . As the following out of the oft-repeated laws and practical rules, all of them so simple, so comprehensible, has invariably resulted in success, why dare, I ask, do men professing and presuming to be homeopaths, venture upon "new departures"? It is that they found the laws and practical rules when applied practically leading to failures? That, then they looked for something better, which they found?

The writings of Lippe are also an excellent overview of many of the key events of the history of homeopathy up until his death in 1888. Knowledge of the history of homeopathy is essential not only to understand the present, but to develop insight of its most fundamental aspects. After a thorough reading, one will have a much better understanding of the most important and active period of homeopathy, which carries with it its wisdom. It is also interesting to note that many key aspects of the history of homeopathy have never been written, most likely because historians had conflicting and limited views of the events. Harvey Farrington wrote, "A complete history of homeopathy will never be written. Ameke, King and Bradford are the three best known of our historians, but there are many facts and incidents that do not appear in their pages, some, because they were overlooked, some perhaps, which the author deemed of little importance, but some because they were a discredit to those of our school who were involved or to the good name of homeopathy itself. Yet there are innumerable incidents, numberless stories in the life of our forebears that are of extreme interest to us of the present day. They lie buried in the pages of the old periodicals of our school, but they will bear repetition." Certainly this extreme interest mentioned by Farrington will be ongoing, as conflicts in homeopathy have as a rule the same source, the lack of knowledge of the teachings of Hahnemann.

What value would Lippe's writings have today? In 1953, at the ripe age of eighty-one, Harvey Farrington wrote that he was once presented with a set of old journals with the request that he proceeds to have all of Lippe's writing published in book form, but he said, "The cost of printing and the possibility that the book would have but a few purchasers prevented my fulfilling this ardent desire. Yet the book would have been a veritable gold mine to those who were endeavoring to perfect themselves in the art of prescribing according to the law of similars, for this remarkable man was one of the most accomplished prescribers in the history of our School. He not only possessed a deep knowledge of the materia medica, but a keenness of observation seldom equaled. With uncanny accuracy, he picked out the essential indications of the case, frequently making use of symptoms which seemed trivial or having no evident connection with the patient's ailment. By far the most important of his contributions to homeopathy are his reports of clinical cases. He was a past master in the art of presenting the essential indications and, what most writers neglect to do, he always tells why he gave the remedy that cured the case. . . . This great physician belonged to a race that is gradually passing from the face of the earth. At this day we have many sincere and skillful physicians in our midst, but none quite the equal of Lippe. Let us emulate him, study his writings, the account of his success and learn how it was that Lippe 'did it.' "

His Defense of Pure Homeopathy

In the 1830's and 1840's, pretenders had made the Hahnemannian homeopaths quite silent in Europe. Soon after the death of Hahnemann, Boenninghausen said, unless the signs deceive me, we are now at the commencement of a new epoch, marked by the death of our master, whose genius hovers around us, an epoch when the unity of the school shall be restored, when the excrescences shall have been chopped off, and the genuine metal separated from the dross. Let us henceforth be more firmly united, all of us who desire the good, but let us exclude from our ranks with unrelenting severity any one who sneers at the good cause, schismatics and all those who attempt substantiating opinions and hypotheses for careful observations. But let us at the same time honor the memory of the great reformer in medicine, by subjecting his doctrines, results of fifty years observation, to repeated and comprehensive examinations and trials, and by candidly communicating our experience one to another. This would be the best mode of preparing the monument which the great man has merited by the services he has rendered to suffering humanity.

After the death of Boenninghausen, Lippe almost single-handed took the role of defending homeopathy from its pretenders. He fought the promoters of the pathological and physiological approach taught primarily by Hemple and Hughes. He fought the eclectics led by Hale. He fought the isopathy of Samuel Swan. He fought liberalism in medicine and homeopathy proposed by Carroll Dunham. He defended Hahnemann from misrepresentation. For instance, Hahnemannian homeopathy accepted the progressive knowledge of pathology but rejected, as Hahnemann had previously done, the reductionist view of pathology, considering that the changes in functions and tissues constituted the disease and the basis of therapeutics on the reductionist view of pathology.

Lippe had to fight against pretenders and pseudo-homeopaths, who mainly approached homeopathy from a materialistic point of view. Today, we are dealing from outside the profession with materialistic minds, and esoteric minds from within. In all cases, pretenders do not understand the fundamental principles of homeopathy and make a caricature of its practice: prescribing remedies with a materia medica issued from their imagination rather than from accurate provings, falsifying cases to fit their presentation to students. All seem to want to supplement Hahnemann without having ever understood his work.

What made Lippe so adamant in defending the work of Hahnemann? After conscientiously applying the teachings of Hahnemann and having experienced the success promised by him, he could not restrain himself as Hahnemann and Boenninghausen had previously done, he raised his voice and warned the profession of deceit. He wrote, "The followers of Hahnemann who have found that his promises of successfully combating disease, if we followed his advises, were guided by certain fundamental and infallible principles, were fully realized by them, naturally looked upon every new departure from this strict practice, which procured unparalleled success, as a step backwards, and when these departures became so many fold there was really nothing left of the school—but the name. To try to gain a hearing, try to defend the master's teachings which led to success, try to show erring men the baneful consequences of their backward sliding can surely not be construed into a persistent effort to divide the school."

What value shall we ascribe to his Textbook of Materia Medica?

In 1854, Lippe first attempted to publish a comparative materia medica entitled the Key to the Materia Medica; or Comparative Pharmacodynamics. Unfortunately, only one of six fascicles was published, as there were not enough subscribers to warrant its publication. In 1876, Lippe wrote, "The manuscript of my Key to the Materia Medica has been burned, as a sacrifice to the Gods. Nobody wanted it, the loss on the first fascicle is prodigious, and I am resembling Rip Van Winkle* when I learn that really now and then a homeopathician states that he uses this attempt to unlock the materia medica ..." In 1888, William Wesselhoeft said that the most valuable work that Dr. Lippe had left us was his Key to the Materia Medica. The following year H. C. Allen offered to publish it as an appendix to the Medical Advance starting in January 1890 number an updated comparative materia medica, which Lippe had started more then twenty-five years before. Kent immediately offered Allen corrections made by Lippe, as he was "the fortunate possessor of Dr. Lippe's copy." Unfortunately, this book was never published aside from its first part. Lippe wrote in its preface, "The object of this work which I have the honor of laying before the profession, is, to facilitate the study of the materia medica.

* Rip Van Winkle is a character by Washington Irving who slept for twenty years and was referred to an idle worthless person despite being a simple and good fellow. Incidentally, the renowned actor Joseph Jefferson who with Irving was a homeopathic patron, played the role almost exclusively for over 15 years.

"While engaged, as I have been for a number of years, in teaching the materia medica, I devised various plans to facilitate the student as much as possible in entering upon this important study, and finally adopted the present, as, according to my experience, the best suited for the purpose.

"This plan, to give only the characteristic and most prominent symptoms of each remedy, and to compare them with all other medicines already proved.

"We have received the first part of a similar, but more elaborate work, published by the Hahnemann Publishing Society in London, entitled The Hahnemann Materia Medica, which we hope may be continued, as we think it will be very valuable for the student and practitioner.

"In the present work I shall only give what I consider most essential. The description and analysis of the drugs, their history, and their preparation, I could easily have copied from larger works, but they belong to other branches of medical science.

"By Characteristic Symptoms understand such symptoms, as have been repeatedly produced upon the healthy, and cured in the sick, by each respective drug; and such symptoms especially, as assist to distinguish it from all, or most other drugs, endeavoring by stating the drugs analogous to a given symptom, to compare the one with all other drugs, as regards their similarities and differences. The more frequently a symptom has produced and cured, the more it increases its relative value to the student of the materia medica; and while these symptoms may often determine the choice of a remedy in a given case, pathology must determine the relative value of the various symptoms presenting to us the disease to be treated. While, for instance, grinding of the teeth in encephalitis is a very important symptom, it is much less so in disturbances of the abdominal organs, and would not occupy the same rank when selecting a remedy.

"In classifying the drug symptoms, I first give the generalities stating the kind of pains peculiar to the drug; the organs on which it acts; the concomitant symptoms; and the conditions as to time relieved. This is followed by the prominent effects on the different parts of the body; in sleep; and mental emotions; in the same order as was adopted by Hahnemann.

"In the selection of the characteristic symptoms I have not been guided by any previous work of that kind, such as Jahr, Possart, Boenninghausen, Altshuhl or Schneider.

"The various drugs treated of in this work will not be given in alphabetical order. I shall first give the polychrests, as necessarily the most important, and most frequently used, and therefore, claiming the attention of the student, at the commencement of his course.

"This work will serve the student likewise as a Repertory, and there will be found in it, many things that he would look for in vain in all previous works on homeopathy.

"Being well aware that this work—a first effort of the kind—will admit of improvement, I shall very gladly and thankfully receive suggestions from any source, as to imperfections that may exist, and corrections tending to make it more useful." Philadelphia, October 11, 1853.

This first fascicle of 144 pages contained the following eleven remedies, Aconitum, Sulphur, Arsenicum album, Phosphorus, Belladonna, Calcarea carbonica, Pulsatilla, Tilia, Sepia, Agaricus and Rhus tox. Reviews appearing in journals were favorable to the work. The Philadelphia Journal of Homoeopathy wrote, "it will be seen that much care and labor are required for the production of such a work, and whatever is new or valuable in the arrangement certainly commends itself to the profession, and we sincerely hope that both author and publisher will be justly rewarded for their industry, and for the service they have rendered in contributing something of a substantial character to our homeopathic literature."

The Textbook of Materia Medica

In 1865, Lippe commenced his second year of teaching the materia medica at the Homoeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania and at the demand of his students published his notes in book form entitled Textbook of Materia Medica. In its introduction, he wrote, "The efforts previously made to overcome the difficulty, by abridging the materia medica, have proved but failures [because] they did not exhibit the essentially characteristic symptoms of the different medicines." Joseph C. Guernsey wrote in 1880 in his extensive and very detailed presentation on the history of homeopathy in Pennsylvania that Lippe's "special study has been the materia medica department, in which he stands unsurpassed in the world. His Textbook of Materia Medica is used as a textbook by all our colleges."

In the review of the Textbook by the Medical Investigator it was written, "The work will fill an important place in our libraries. The sifting of the symptoms appears to have been carefully performed, and with much discrimination. Pupils and practitioners should be thankful for this volume. It will save them much labor and be serviceable in many ways, not the least of which is that it will teach them to classify, systematize and methodize their knowledge of materia medica, without which its study would be as unsatisfactory as its rubbish is useless"

In his Homoeopathic Bibliography of the United States, Bradford wrote in 1892 about Lippe's Textbook of Materia Medica, "This work was originally published in five parts, at one dollar each. Dr. Lippe, in lecturing on materia medica before the students of the Homoeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania, was accustomed to read the symptoms from this materia medica, one by one, and dilate upon them. In fact, lecturing on each symptom. The writer of this well remembers his positive manner of instruction. And the symptoms that Dr. Lippe said were reliable have always proven to be so. The book has been long out of print and commands a good price."

In 1896, Bradford further wrote, "During the winters of 1867-8, 1868-9 Dr. Adolph Lippe lectured on materia medica before the students of the Homoeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania, and it was my great good fortune to listen to him. At that time his Textbook of Materia Medica had just been published, and it was his custom to open the book at the remedy in question, and after reading a symptom to talk about and explain it fully. I took notes of all he said, and after the lecture used to write them down in the Textbook. My book is full of annotations; upon some pages there is hardly any space free from notes; to me the notes have been invaluable, for my experience has been that what Dr. Lippe said was a keynote is to be relied upon and I have verified many of these characteristics."

Through the generosity of Dr. Julek Meissner from Ottawa, Canada, I was able to consult Lippe's personal interleaved copy of the Textbook. Obviously, Lippe had begun work on a second edition of his Textbook. He had doubled the material of the first remedy Aconitum and Apis was increased by over one third. He had added three more remedies, viz, Actea racemosa, Aesculus hippocastanum and Ailanthus glandulosa. This work stops abruptly on page 58 with Arum triphyllum. So was the second edition interrupted, probably corresponding to the conflicts at the school that led to his resignation. However, all additions will be transcribed and added to the German edition.

How can the Textbook be used? Lippe taught materia medica by making a study of the most characteristic and prominent symptoms of a remedy. He would lecture on such symptoms by making a comparison with other remedies. Unfortunately, his lectures were not recorded. However, two of his students, Drs. Thomas Bradford and Walter James, would later publish their class notes. The only true lecture on materia medica that Lippe left us was his lecture on Aconitum napellus that was commissioned by the editors of United States Medical Investigator. It is a masterpiece of comparative materia medica. At the end of this lecture, he wrote, "The most profitable mode of acquiring a reliable knowledge of the materia medica is to first master the old remedies, and now having for instance, mastered Aconite proceed to work out a similar remedy which must assist comparisons, say Sulphur which might profitably be followed by Calcarea carbonica, then Belladonna, then Chamomilla, then Pulsatilla, then Sepia, then Bryonia, then Rhus tox, then Arsenicum album, then Apis, then Nux vomica, then Zinc." It is in this spirit that his Textbook should used, by first examining each of symptom a much-used polychrest and comparing it with other remedies sharing a similar symptom.

Lippe, as well as the other great prescribers of the nineteenth-century, relied on Hahnemann's materia medica and original provings. Lippe wrote, "The early practitioners of homeopathy, as well as a not insignificant number of the practitioners of today, have introduced and kept respected the healing art founded by Hahnemann, entirely relying upon the materia medica as they received it from Hahnemann." At the same times he warns us to avoid unreliable works on materia medica, which in our times is the rule rather the exception; "every student of the materia medica can easily prepare for himself such a picture of a remedy. . . . The only safe guide will be to use the original provings, such for instance as Hahnemann has given us, or such perfect provings as have later been published by Dr. C. Hering, always avoiding to use books which on the very face of them are untrustworthy, and lead the student astray."

Therefore, Lippe's Textbook can be used as a reliable text for the study of the most characteristic and prominent symptoms of our materia medica. The student is here reminded that by making a comparison of each symptom with other remedies sharing a similar symptom will enhance such study. This is Professor Lippe's intention on how the Textbook should be used.