A pathogenesis is the group of effects resulting from the administration
of a substance in a living being.
Talking this way, it looks as being a very imprecise thing, but we just
need to revise the Materia Medica Pura to take account that the
pathogenesis just can admit this definition.

The substances may be toxic or not, Venoms, or simply innocuous
substances. They may also be drugs or just energies as is the case of
the moon, X ray, or the Magnetis Poli, etc. They may be potentized or
not, and if they are, they can be either high or low potencies.

The individual who is proving these substances may be a human being, an
animal or even a plant. A human being will be the most appropriated to
do the experience, of course, because he can talk to describe their
perceptions and their sensations, but the animals or the plants also can
show us objective signs, changes of behavior, alterations, disease?s
evolutions, etc.

By their side the prover may be ideally sane or not. Even if the ideal
is that he is a sane person, the lack of health do not avoid a
pathogenesis, which can be voluntary or involuntary as are the cases of
poisoning or just a bite from any animal, or also we can see a
pathogenesis as a consequence of a therapeutic act done by allopathic or
homeopathic practice, as happens when we give a medication to a patient
and he, by an error in the administration, or by sensitiveness gets a
pathogenesis.

Nothing from him is to be disposable, as is not to be disposable when a
patient comes and tells us that he always takes some herb because he
gets amelioration from doing it, or eats some thing because it changes
their mood.

In relation to a supposed question posted, in the case of a patient that
takes too much coffee or tea... I think it is reasonable to do even
though the test, telling the patient to abandon the habit to take coffee
for some days just to empty the picture.

ChaChaHeels: The person who told that poison or medicine was only a
question of quantity was Paracelsus, not exactly a homeopath, but he was
probably a preceding which has influenced Hahnemann very much.

Best regards.