“D’un autre cote, des recherches experimentales, malheureusement, encore insuffisantes, enterprises par P. Carnot et par l’auteur, conduisent a des conclusions analogues.
“On est en droit de penser que la fonction menstruelle purge l’economie de certains poisons; les organs genitaux ont, a cet egard, un role d’elimination.
“Si, sous l’influence de l’heredite, de la scrofule, de la tuberculose, les tissus appauvris se sont insuffisamment develops, cette insuffisance de development a porte sur les organs genitaux comme sur les autres; ils remplissent moins efficacement ce role d’elimination. – D’autre part, durant les premieres annees, les depenses de l’etre sont minimes; al’heure de la puberte, elles s’accroissent rapidement.
“A ce moment eclate l’imperfection des cellules demerurees trop petites; les produits de la desassimilation devenus soudainement abondants sont elabores d’une facon vicieuse; de la une premiere cause d auto- intoxication, car on sait que plus ces produits sont metamorphoses, oxydes, moins ils sont nuisibles.. L’etroitesse des arteres, specialement de la mesenterique qui se rend a l’intestin, de la pulmonaire qui a charge de la nutrition gazeuse comme cette mesenterique de celle des solides ou des liquides, ajoute encore a ces imperfections des echanges.
“Sur ces processus generaux d’auto- intoxication vient segreffer un troisieme facteue, celui-la tout particular, donnant au mal sa caracteristique, faisant de lui l’apanage du sexe feminin: c’est l’obstruction de la voie depurative genitale, qui ne conduit pas au dehors les principes nocifs destines a suivre ce chemin.” (La Medecine moderne,11 janvier 1896.)
What is here said of chlorosis bears directly bears directly on my present subject of the menopause- in fact, the very same idea underlies it, except that I would hardly term it auto – infection or self-poisoning simply, but I would qualify adjectively, so as to bring out the central idea that it is not a poisoning of the individual by herself, but by her own products, due to defective elimination. Only, of course, chlorosis is at the beginning or early part of menstrual life, and the change of life at its end; but cessation of the menstrual flux is the one element common to both, either in whole or in part.
Climacteric – Case of Cataract Much Improved By Pulsatilla
A well- preserved, fresh -looking maiden lady, fifty- years of age, came under my observation at the beginning of 1895 for incipient cataract, which began when the periods began to wane.
For six months patient took pulsatilla 0, seven drops in water at bedtime.
September 3rd, 1895– Distinct improvement in her vision; left side of tongue swollen The same remedy was again ordered and preserved in, with pauses, and the report in June,1896, was:- “Oh! I see very much better.”
The Change of Life in Woman and the Ills and Ailings incident thereto cover such a wide range that one hardly knows how to keep the text. But it has to be done if we are to progress from the standpoint of the past, which comes out in the following narration:-
I once heard of an old physician who had a very kind heart, and also no end of other good qualities, who was wont to comfort folks in this wise: When a young girls had any obstinate ailment that kind-heartedness and talky – talky could not cure, and that opening medicines would not carry off or tonics tone away, he would assume a happy aspect and cheerfully tell the girl’s mother, “It will all come right when she becomes a woman.” This little oft-repeated fable usually quite satisfied the mothers.
When young ladies were brought to, him with ailments of divers kinds, their mothers were comforted with the cheerful assurance that the patients would be all right after they got married, which sometimes came off, but more frequently their ailments became even more troublesome thereafter. When middle-aged ladies consulted him, he was very apt to console them with even greater confidence, by suggesting that all their troubles would be over after the “change of life.”
And so this world wagged on very comfortably, and in the end he found himself the possessor of an ample fortune and a title conferred upon him by his gracious Sovereign for his distinguished services to medical science. Certainly he dispensed much cheery comfort during his long life, and was never known to shock the profession with any notions contrary to accepted views, and whenever, he felt that he might have shown a leaning towards any question at all fraught with danger to the comfort or dignity of the profession, he would suddenly pull up and remark, that such at least had been the privately-expressed opinion of his late lamented friend and master, that distinguished gynecologist, Sir, Jasper Pessary, than whom no more learned or more honorable physician ever adorned our profession – he feeling it his duty to give the late Sir Jasper credit for this opinion.
Indeed, the question was no less delicate than important, involving as it did the highest interests of out glorious profession. The question was eventually brought before the Medical Society of London, and was thus formulated: – Could a pessary introduced by a qualified homoeopathic practitioner be removed by a qualified regular practitioner without loss of professional dignity?
Needless to say the question was answered in the negative. Personally I rather rejoiced at the decision, for I could not help saying to myself and to a few intimates, that homoeopathic practitioners who (other than very exceptionally make use of pessaries might once in a way put the homoeopathic medical materials before their pessaries.)
In my next Part I propose to take the Ills and Ailings of the Climaxis a little more connectedly, to the end that they may be recognized and either cured or avoided in the earlier phases of the woman’s life, for this is the trend of much of what I here bring forward.
When I first began this little volume, I intended to write a much more elaborate treatise on the subject, but it has fallen far short of my original plan.
Burnett was one of the first to speak about vaccination triggering illness. This was discussed in his book, Vaccinosis, published in 1884. He introduced the remedy Bacillinum. He authored twenty books, including the much loved "Fifty Reason for Being a Homeopath." He was the editor of The Homoeopathic World.