Internal and external Cancer


Different approach for Internal and external cancer, like cancer of neck and cancer of breast….


Cancer, internal and external; in contrast. Case of Cancer in both neck and breast. Case of Breast Cancer. The treatment of abdominal cancer quite different from that of the breast. Ferrum picricum in Warty Growths. Two cases of Lupoid Warts.

THE division of cancer into internal and external is not one that will meet with the approval of the modern scientists, who is nothing if not a pathologist.

As no road is worthy of the name that does not lead to Earl’s Court, so no classification of disease is worthy of consideration that does not meet the requirements of pathology; nevertheless, this simple classification into internal and external cancers is an absolutely necessary one when the question of the curability of the disease has to be considered.

The cases given show that the breaking down of many of the internal cancers is a very simple affair indeed, and that satisfactory evidence is readily obtainable of the possibility of effecting this desirable result.

The evidence of the influence of unit doses upon the external forms of cancer, of which the cancers of the breast form by far the larger proportion, is by no means so completely satisfactory; the cancers of external parts, speaking very broadly, require a longer period of time before the tremendous power of the arborivital doses manifests itself by evident diminution in size, and moreover, it is more difficult to get the cancer germs, pent up as they are in the form of swellings, to disperse when thus localised.

This statement is left as written; it requires qualification. it is perfectly accurate as regards breast cancers, but in the scirrhous swellings of the neck, I find as proved by the next case as well as that reported at p. 15, that remedies act very promptly, though even then a curative issue is not always assured.

It is from numerous observations that I draw the conclusion that cancer, especially in a cumulated form, can be easily acted on, and that if the practitioner wishes to disperse it he must exercise great delicacy of manipulation, so to speak, with his remedies. Above all things he must give the disease rest, a rest particularly from medicine; which is really another way of saying with Hahnemann, that as long as the action of the remedy continues, it ought not to be interfered with. “Chronic Diseases,” by S. Hahnemann, vol. i., p. 155. New York, Radde, 1845.

Take, for example, this experience. A lady, at the age of 73 years, sought my advice under these circumstances. She had on the left side of the neck a scirrhous cancer, which had existed for some twenty years, and upon which she had had a severe blow six years before. The effect of the blow was to cause this growth which before had been steadily increasing in size to diminish, but along with its diminution came a swelling of the same nature in her right breast.

The breast then took an action and began gradually increasing, until it was large and pendulous and heavy, and threatened to burst; so much so that her medical adviser told her that operation was peremptorily called for, and the her only chance of living depended upon her being operated upon within a week.

It was at this juncture she sought my advice, making use of these words: ” I am now 73 years of age, and naturally have not very much longer to live, but while life lasts I do not wish to be mutilated.”

My advice was to place herself under what I believed to be a natural treatment of disease, and that though I could not promise that a large mass of cancer could at her time of life ever be eliminated from the system, I yet could assure her the probabilities were she might live two or three years longer, and perhaps even die of something quite different from cancer. I took care at the same time to warm her that there might often come reasons for misgivings, but that if she made up her mind to try my treatment, I would expect her, come what would to remain under it to there end.

It is unnecessary to go into details of this lady’s case, suffice it to say that shortly after coming under the arborivital remedies the size of the cervical swelling rapidly went down, and that of the breast as rapidly increased.

The warning, therefore, I had given not to be frightened, applied to both doctor and patient thus early in the treatment, but for myself I felt confident that this effect on the cervical swelling must be beneficial, and that if the breast did increase, it could not be from an action other than a favourable one, and that in all probability the breast, though in threatened, would not burst. The subsequent progress entirely confirmed my suspicions, and it is with the greatest possible gratification that I am now enabled to state that this lady has reached her 79th year, in the enjoyment of health and happiness, as far as her sensations go; that the breast cancer, though it certainly has from time to time threatened to burst, has not done so, and is at present diminishing in size; that the swelling of the neck is hardly perceptible, and that the lady has never had a day’s illness in bed since she first adopted this treatment, four years ago. As she herself truly remarks, were she now to die of cancer, it would be with a sense of thankfulness that she had not been operated on.

I have it from friends of hers that her former medical attendant continually inquires about her, and expresses himself astonished at her being still alive.

Extracts from this patient’s recent letters may be interesting:

On February 27, 1899, she writes : ” I am feeling much better since I took your last powder.

” The swelling has remained perfectly quiet and stationary so far as I (the patient) can judge. My appetite is fairly good, I sleep well, and am as strong as I could expect to be at my advanced age.”

And on May 8 she writes:

” My report to-day, being a very good one, shall be very brief. In every respect I am feeling better, and the swelling has not caused me any uneasiness since I last wrote.”

This, then, is the present condition of a patient, who, in December next, will be 79 years of age, and who, at the age of 73, was to have been operated on for a scirrhous breast, and whose case had been advised upon by Paget and other well known authorities, without the slightest hope having ever been held out to her, of being able to avoid on operation.

The arborivital doses have not caused a removal of the disease, but they have kept in abeyance, have almost entirely removed the pain, and have enabled the patient to reach an advanced age with hardly a moment’s apprehension of any kind.

Thus ran the report of this very interesting case in the first edition of this book; the sequel will naturally be expected.

In April and May of 1899, she contracted a severe cold with bronchitis, but happily pulled round wonderfully. Though weakened she gradually regained her strength, and towards the close of November she reported to me a very noteworthy incident. About this time she felt “a working” and a pulling in the situation of what had been the cervical swelling; it seemed to her as if the roots of the swelling were being dragged out and were taking their departure. This evidently was the case, for there is no longer a trace of cervical swelling.

But close upon the disappearance of this scirrhous mass came a simultaneous swelling of the right breast. It rapidly8 increased in size, it moved round the side of the chest to under the arm, it became terribly heavy, turned black on the surface, and threw out great dusky prominences on its pendulous surface.

These blackish swellings soon began discharging a clear but most offensive fluid, from openings from the size of a sixpence to a half-crown. This discharge, apparently the cancer-juice itself, has gone on pouring away copiously from the end of November till now; and as I write the following letter reaches me from a lady friend in daily attendance.

” May 14, 1900.

” DEAR SIR, I am again writing to report Mrs. H.’s condition, which does not seem to alter much from week to week. Her breast is still about the same, fresh places rising and discharging, principally a watery fluid; the discharge is still very copious and unpleasant.

” The breast looks much smaller and not quite so appalling to the sight.

” Her general health is good, she sleeps and eats well, though she is now again troubled with constipation.”

There is therefore, every appearance, every likelihood, I has almost said, of this enormous mass of cancer disappearing altogether.

Neither the patient nor I myself expected at one time that she would survive this great draining away; but from the above report, and with other facts of the case before me, I almost expect her to reach her 80th birthday, and should she do so, it will be but with slight remains of her old enemy. Well may one say of her, that she who will endure to the end, the same shall be saved! Life is, I need not say, very uncertain as the ripe old age of 80 approaches, even with the most healthy, but that there can be even a possibility of this old lady reaching another birthday is a source of wonder to all her friends, and a cause of very natural pride to her medical attendant.

Robert Thomas Cooper
Dr. Robert Thomas Cooper (1844-1903) was an Irish homeopath. In 1866, he "settled in private practice at Southampton," [Obit, 459], moving to London in 1874. He had two busy London medical practices, one at Notting Hill and the other in Hanover Square. He was a key member of the Cooper Club named after him [Blackie, 1976, p.158]. He published Cancer & Cancer Symptoms 1900; and Lectures on Diseases of the Ears, 2nd Edition 1880. Apart from numerous articles in the Homeopathic World, mostly about materia medica, he also published a series of articles in the Dublin Medical Review.