The aim of the art of medicine is to cure disease, and the physician's highest ideal of a cure, as Hahnemann says, Organon § 2, is the rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health, or the removal and annihilation of disease in its whole extent, in the shortest, most reliable and most harmless manner, and on easily comprehensible principles, that is, with the least possible expenditure of time, money, vitality and suffering.
In pursuance of this object, the physician presses into his service all agencies which tend to health. This is the part of
Therapeutics [therapeuein, to attend upon]. It includes all that relates to the science and art of healing, includes all agents, medicines among them, which may aid this purpose. It embraces dietetics, climate, clothing, bathing, nursing, application of heat, cold, electricity and all other means used by the physician for restoring health, when that is possible, or in palliating violent conditions or incurable diseases, or in preventing their development. Hence there are
Three methods of combating disease, of which every physician is bound to avail himself. They are:
1. Preventive medicine.
2. Palliative medicine.
3. Curative medicine.
