Liver cancer


A complete documented case study of a case of liver cancer by R.T.cooper….


Case of Cancer of Liver. Case of Supposed Cirrhosis of Liver, declared incurable.

THE next are two somewhat similar cases and to these I devote the first portion of this chapter as affording equally important evidence of the truth of my statements.

Both of the patients had been attended by a number of doctors in Southampton.

The first is that of an artist of good repute, whose name, as well as those of the practitioners connected with his case, I suppress for obvious reasons.

On October 29, 1898, I received a letter from this gentleman’s wife, from which the subjoined are extracts:

“Perhaps you will remember whilst in southampton attending me and bringing me as I thought at the time from the brink of the grave. I wish now to put Mr. M.’s case before you, as no doctor here nor the specialist in London, Dr. M.B., has done any good. At the end of May Mr. M. had jaundice, but got fairly well again in two months, able to walk eight miles. Then as the weather changed he took cold and has been very ill over two months, not able to take any solid food without suffering agonies of pain after it, and is now starving from want, getting thinner and weaker every day.

“Dr. M.B., the specialist, thought there might be a gall-stone; the doctors here a growth or tumour.”

The letter went on to ask if I thought it possible to do him any good.

Few particulars as to symptoms having been given, I relied more upon past experience in sending him down Ornith. Umbel. O A., which he took October 30. On November 2, his wife reported unfavourably; he had had one of his bad attacks of acidity which left him more prostate than any of the preceding ones; no appetite whatever, takes only a little arrowroot. “To-day he had not been able to touch anything until 4 o’clock p.m., when he took part of an egg beaten up, but without appetite. “I am really afraid,” she goes on to say, ” he is sinking; he has got very thin and looks dreadfully ill.”

The letter went on to request my coming to see him, which I did a few days afterwards, but in the meantime sent down the better indicated remedy, Iris versicolor O A., and on November 4 report came in ” Mr. M. took the powder at 9 this morning, and found it working till 3 o’clock this afternoon, when he was sick naturally, an unusual thing for him; the vomit was slightly acid and yellow, about a teacupful. He is feeling very weak this evening, having been in bed four days and taking no nourishment through the stomach, and he does not feel inclined to take it, being only supported by suppositories.”

The assurance of the patient that he felt the remedy to be acting, followed by a change of symptoms, in this case a natural sickness, is proof that the selection was the right one.

After this, improvement continued; the dose was repeated in a week and proved too violent in its action to be pleasant for the patient’s comfort; when disturbance from it ceased, as it did in some hours, improvement again set in for a few days.

The subsequent progress of the case was somewhat checked by a severe cold with feverishness, and on November 27, I again called to see him and was much struck by his jaundiced appearance. This jaundice I ascertained had never really left him since he was seized with it in May. I found the stomach distended, with clearness of percussion over the duodenum except where the left globe of the liver appeared to overlap it, which led me to suspect a carcinomatous growth coming from the under surface of the liver. The patient expressed himself as having been so far wonderfully relieved; he had been, her said, in agonies of pain for two weeks before adopting my treatment, and had almost wholly lived during this time on food suppositories.

The presence of jaundice and the exacerbation of the symptoms on dark, misty days, led me to select Calendula off. O A. for him, and after this steady, uninterrupted improvement went on.

Thus, on December 2, his son writes” ” I think since Mr. M. has taken the powder the jaundice is much better; anyway his colour is much better. There is nothing unusual, as far as we can see, except that the bowels have acted twice a day for the last three days, but have not acted to-day, and his appetite has improved a great deal. This improvement is still maintained, and he has practically left off (food) suppositories.

On December 4, I repeated the Calendula without any disturbance whatever, and towards the close of December I gave him continuous doses of Ferrum picricum 6th dec. in tablets, and subsequently in drops, and without in any way disturbing the continued improvement.

From this absence of disturbance I conclude the greater part of the disease had by this time disappeared.

On February 5, of 1899, the patient himself writes: ” I am still progressing, having been out and walking about two or three miles, my legs aching a little, but otherwise doing well,” and his letter goes on: “Now, Sir, I again thank you for your marvellous treatment. Friends seeing me down town think it is my ghost, or else I could not have been so bad as was reported. But I find,” he goes on, ” there is a great prejudice against your system and I wish to testify all I can to its great efficacy.”

I care little what nomenclature may be chosen for this man’s disease; his abdomen had not been opened into like that of Murrell in the Cancer Hospital, and hence no one can be absolutely certain whether cancer was present or not. But one thing is perfectly certain, and this is that ordinary treatment had altogether failed to afford relief, and that at the present time the patient is in every respect in the enjoyment of good health. Beyond a unit dose of Senecio Doronicum in February, he was not had a particle of medicine sine the above report was made, and is now quite well.

The next Southampton case is equally interesting; I was telegraphed for on February 10, 1899, to see W. H. M., aged 59, a gentleman connected with the Commissariat Department of the Royal Navy, and supposed to be dying of cirrhosis of the liver. I saw him in the evening of February 10 in the presence of, thought not in consultation with, his medical attendant; one of the oldest and most experienced practitioners in the town. I then learned these particulars; twenty-three years ago W.H.M. had had ague in Bombay, had got well, but in 1877 went to Malta when it returned, and has had indefinite symptoms of it ever since. Two years ago was operated on for piles, which he had had since 1882. There is no history of any irregular habits. Present attack began a month ago by his bringing up black blood from his stomach, followed by great pain during the night and next morning, and since then has had occasional sickness, the last time two weeks ago. He has a burning pain all over the chest, under the ribs, and especially round the navel, but present as well throughout the abdomen, with excessive nausea and disinclination for food. Is being entirely fed by the bowel, sleep restless and suffers from pressure across the forehead. Urine natural.

On examination I found the liver decidedly small, with dullness and hardness in front of the left lobe, but without much distension of the stomach. I left as medicine a drop or two of an acetous tincture of Lobelia Inflate in a tumbler of water, with orders to take a dessert spoonful every third hour.

This evidently disturbed him, and the report came in next day of general upset and constant pain in hepatic region, and in the left side as well, with increased nausea and sickness; a suffocating feeling and tightness in the chest; to all of which I replied that he must go on to the unit dose, and that he was not to expect benefit from it for some days. The selection made was Crocus Sativus, which was taken February 12, and soon after the sickness left, but on 18th the complained of pain all over the body under the arm pits, in shoulder blades, up the spine and across the abdomen, with burning on right side, worse round the navel and upwards; from all of which I inferred that the disease was giving out, and consequently I left him without medicine. On the 20th there came in a very good report food was keeping down and the pain was gone. In this way he went on making good progress, so much so that on March 3 he thus wrote: ” My first letter must be to you tell you that under God’s good providence your skillful treatment of my case, so far, has been attended with great success. You will, I know, be as pleased to hear, as I am to tell you, that I am progressing most favourably, have an excellent appetite and enjoy my food, leaving off invariably with an appetite.”

Finding such remarkable progress to have been made, I considered there could be no harm, as in the last case, in giving a tablet of Ferrum picricum, 6th dec., every fourth hour, but with the precaution that if he found it upsetting him in any way he was to discontinue it immediately.

5 This I did as the rapid change that had taken place in his symptoms convinced me we dealing with something very different from ordinary cirrhosis of the liver, and that the growth from the left lobe of the liver was accompanied by a non-cirrhotic shrinkage of the hepatic substance.

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.