Proving Medicines

Organon Aphorism §108

There is, therefore, no other possible way in which the peculiar effects of medicines on the health of individuals can be accurately ascertained – there is no sure, no more natural way of accomplishing this object, than to administer the several medicines experimentally, in moderate doses, to healthy persons, in order to ascertain what changes, symptoms and signs of their influence each individually produces on the health of the body and of the mind; that is to say, what disease elements they are able and tend to produce, since, as has been demonstrated (§§ 24-27), all the curative power of medicines lies in this power they possess of changing the state of man’s health, and is revealed by observation of the latter.

Samuel Hahnemann, Organon of Medicine, 6th edition, translated by William Boericke (1922, public domain). Checked word for word against the 1922 printing in October 2026.

Study notes for this aphorism are not published yet. They appear here once a homeopath has reviewed them.