specificker

plural specifickers · alternative Specificker

1. obsoletehistoryA homoeopathic practitioner who sought to ascertain the aetiologies of diseases, focusing on the symptoms most regularly associated with their diagnosis (to the exclusion of peripheral and occasional symptoms), and who, for their treatment, selected remedies (administered in more-or-less undiluted form) on the basis of their general physiological effects, ignoring incidental and side-effects.First known use mid-19th–late 19th c., first attested in 1847 and common in the 1860s

   The more the specificker relies on the merely general action of the drug (often, indeed, partly ascertained ab usu in morbis), the more he approaches to the allopathists, who will, ere long, equal him or even surpass him.

   1863, J.J. Drysdale, R.E. Dudgeon, and R. Hughes (editors), The British Journal of Homœopathy XXI, № lxxxv, “Review: Wilson, Cockburn, and Cameron on Hempel”, page 467

   5 more examples

   Those who arrogate to themselves the appellation of orthodox Hahnemannians have travelled far away, under the guidance of Gross, into the mystic regions of the 200th, 800th, and 10,000th dilutions, while the section, by the former styled specifickers, have gradually descended to the lowest numerals in the scale of dilutions until they have attained their ultima Thule in the Schmidian tinctures and first triturations.

   1847, J.J. Drysdale, J.R. Russell, and R.E. Dudgeon (editors), The British Journal of Homœopathy V, № xxi, “Dr. G. Schmid’s Homœopathic Treatment with Undiluted Medicines”, pages 257–258, editors’ preamble

   Those who have been derisively termed specifickers by their opponents…usually arrogate to themselves the title of pures or Hahnemannians. Some difference there must be between the specifickers and the pures…[although it] does not, I believe, consist in any want of that spirit of individualization so necessary for the selection of the appropriate drug on the part of the so-called specifickers, but rather that they endeavour more than their rivals to bring the light of modern pathology to bear on the investigation of the morbid case, and seek to refer, when possible the array of symptoms to the derangement of some particular organ or system.

   1852–3, Robert Ellis Dudgeon, Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Homœopathy (1854), lecture III: “On Specific Medicine, and Attempts at a Theory of Cure”, page 54

   The so-called Specifickers…chiefly rely in the choice of the remedy on certain groups of symptoms, intimately related to the pathology and diagnosis of the disease, and to the so-called general character of the action of the medicine…and also allow great influence to the clinical experience in the final decision.

   1860, Clotar Müller, “Repertorium or Therapeutics?”, in The British Journal of Homœopathy, XVIII, № lxxii, page 179

   It is true that there were in Germany, at that time, numbers of eminent physicians who differed greatly from Hahnemann on the question of the dose (for they administered the mother tinctures); whom he disowned, and designated “specifickers,” in terms of contempt and indignation.

   1865 June, Hugh Cameron (spoken participant), “On the Chemical Treatment of Disease” in Annals and Transactions of the British Homœopathic Society, and of the London Homœopathic Hospital IV (1866), № xxi, page 232

   They are…very similar to the practical observations of those of our school who draw the indications of the medicine mainly from clinical experience, guided by the more general physiological action of the medicines, i.e., those called specifickers by the more complete homœopathists, who keep in view the finer shades of the pathogenesis.

   1865 July, J.J. Drysdale, R.E. Dudgeon, and R. Hughes (editors), The British Journal of Homœopathy XXIII, № xciii, “Review: Treatment of Rheumatism, Epilepsy, and Fever, by Dr. J. R. Russell”, page 472

1. comparativenonstandardrarecomparative form of specific: more specificFirst known use 1928.

   I always prefer two specificker words to one generaller one.

   2006, Bob Geary, “random personal questions”, in alt.fan.cecil-adams (Usenet)

   1 more example

   “Boy, you gotta be mo’ specificker. How do you expec’ me to answer you when you ain’t, to be exac’, asked me nothin’ yet?”

   1928, Ralph Albert Parlette, editor, The Lyceum Magazine, XXXVIII, page 55

plural Specifickers

1. uncommonAlternative letter-case form of specificker.