To remain vital and meaningful the homoeopathic materia medica, like any aspect of our cultural heritage, must be repeatedly scrutinized, analyzed, and interpreted by each generation in the light of its new knowledge and understanding. These Psychophysical Portraits are a modest attempt to discharge this task. Yet, while offering an expanded view of the homoeopathic patient, in health as well as sickness, in normalcy as well as pathology, and in the finer shadings of the psyche, they adhere strictly to the classic Hahnemannian tradition. The homoeopathic remedies serve as archetypes: that is, each embodies a wide range of symptoms and personality traits of which the individual patient is but a partial copy. These archetypal pat-terns, originally established using accounts of poisonings as well as symptoms developed in the homoeopathic provings, have been enriched and enhanced over the decades by physicians’ experience with cured cases. The resulting information may at times be contradictory and inconsistent.