Minutus

§ 95
In chronic disease the investigation of the signs of disease above mentioned, and of all others,
must be pursued as carefully and circumstantially as possible, and the most minute peculiarities
must be attended to, partly because in these diseases they are the most characteristic and least
resemble those of acute diseases, and if a cure is to be affected they cannot be too accurately
noted; partly because the patients become so used to their long sufferings that they pay little or
no heed to the lesser accessory symptoms, which are often very pregnant with meaning
(characteristic) - often very useful in determining the choice of the remedy - and regard them
almost as a necessary part of their condition, almost as health, the real feeling of which they have
well-nigh forgotten in the sometimes fifteen or twenty years of suffering, and they can scarcely
bring themselves to believe that these accessory symptoms, these greater or less deviations from the
healthy state, can have any connection with their principal malady.

§ 98
Now, as certainly as we should listen particularly to the patient's description of his sufferings
and sensations, and attach credence especially to his own expressions wherewith he endeavours to
make us understand his ailments - because in the mouths of his friends and attendants they are
usually altered and erroneously stated, - so certainly, on the other hand, in all diseases, but
especially in the chronic ones, the investigation of the true, complete picture and its
peculiarities demands especial circumspection, tact, knowledge of human nature, caution in
conducting the inquiry and patience in an eminent degree.