Daniel E S Coleman The indicated remedy caused marked improvement for seven years which only ceased when she discontinued treatment. Her general health was always benefited by the medication. If the treatment had not been interrupted, might not a complete cure have resulted without an operation? There has been no return of the trouble, now twenty-two years later.
Surgery says operate early, at the incipiency of the disease. Then and only then is there hope of recovery. If operated later a return of the growth is almost certain. Operation on gastrointestinal cancers, under the most favorable conditions, can promise only about two short years of life.
Some years ago a patient of Dr. William Tod Helmuth, Sr., related the following to me: “I had been advised that I needed an operation and called on Dr. Helmuth to arrange for the same. After hearing my symptoms, the doctor said, There are two ways to cure you, one is by an operation; the other is by the homoeopathically indicated remedy. We will choose the latter”.
MIRACLES DONE BY GELSEMIUM AND PETROLEUM. IN my early years of practice we had to treat many cases of typhoid fever, now rare in New York City. What a remedy we had in Gelsemium! The weakness, the stupor, the trembling, etc., characterised the symptoms presented by a large majority of patients. I often wonder what I would do with the majority of my cases of influenza without this wonderful polychrest. It is no less useful for an ordinary nasal cold, with congested turbinates making breathing difficult. Later there is a thin watery discharge.
Fortunately the homoeopathic school has other cardiac remedies that are indicated for cases to which Digitalis does not apply: Spigelia with its rapid, weak, tumultuous action: Kalmia with its slow, weak pulse; Cactus grand. with the characteristic constrictive pain; and many others play an important part in our practices. I have found Iberis very useful in cases of tachycardia.
The statement is sometimes made that the objective or pathological symptoms are more trustworthy because the imagination can play no part in their production. This statement is based on false reasoning. If we were to accept “out of whole cloth” all the sensations expressed by the provers, our materia medica would be as untrustworthy as it would be unworkable if the objective symptoms were alone admitted.
Endocrinology, the efficiency of which is too often grossly exaggerated today, was practiced in the time of Confucius, who was born 500 B.C. Concoctions of toads, spiders, lizards and frogs were prescribed. According to Dr. Garretson they contained the hormones of these insects and animals cutaneous suprarenals. We as homoeopaths have used such remedies for years.