“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” William Shakespeare uses this line in his play Romeo and Juliet to convey that the naming of things is irrelevant. Well, sort of. What we mean is that a certain name without substance to back it up is irrelevant, but having a proper name to represent a certain reality is important.
The same principle applies in diseases also. A doctor may have given you a certain diagnosis, but what’s more important is the symptoms that led the doctor to conclude about the name of the disease. That is especially true for psychological or psychosomatic disorders (e.g. ADHD, Bipolar, etc.). We do not want you to become worried about the name of the disease, rather focus on the symptoms.
In homoeopathy, we are more interested in the symptoms. As Dr. Eugène Beauharnais Nash’s stated, “When names of diseases are mentioned, it is always to be understood that the name counts for nothing unless the symptoms are covered with the remedy. If there were no names there would be no routinism, which so often stands in the place of good prescribing.” Dr. Nash practiced Homeopathy for 44 years in Cortland, New York.
