Aphorism 153 -
Hahnemann's Organon

In the search for a homeopathically specific remedy, that is, in the comparison of the complex of the natural disease's signs with the symptom sets of the available medicines (in order to find among them an artificial disease potence that corresponds in similarity to the malady to be cured) the more striking, exceptional, unusual, and odd (characteristic) signs and symptoms 170 of the disease case are to be especially and almost solely kept in view.

These, above all, must correspond to very similar ones in the symptom set of the medicine sought if it is to be the most fitting one for cure.

The more common and indeterminate symptoms (lack of appetite, headache, lassitude, restless sleep, discomfort, etc.) are to be seen with almost every disease and medicine and thus deserve little attention unless they are more closely characterized.

from Organon of the Medical Art, 6th edition
by Samuel Hahnemann M.D.

edited and annotated by
Wenda Brewster O'Reilly
Steven Decker - translator