Having surveyed in my previous lectures the pathology of cholera under its various aspects, we are now in a state to examine the treatment-the strictly homoeopathic treatment of the disease under discussion.
That Hahnemann did by no means overstate the virulence of the cholera attacks as prevalent at his time, we shall best be able to judge from the following case, related by Dr. Quin, the first medical man, who subsequently introduced Homoeopathy in England. Hahnemann’s instructions as to the case of Camphor at the onset of a cholera attack had been issued on the 10th of September, 1831. Two months afterwards, Dr. Quin was at Tischnowitz, in Moravia, whither he had gone to assist in treating cholera patients. He had soon an opportunity of testing in his own person both the effects of cholera and the effects of Hahnemann’s recommended remedies. Here are the words in which he describes his own attack: I fell to the ground insensible:(no premonitory diarrhoea!) carried at once to bed, I had recourse to the Spirit of Camphor as soon as I had recovered by senses; and after six doses, the cramps, the retchings, the sensation of burning at the stomach, the feeling of sinking an prostration, the vertigo, and the feeble and slow pulse sensibly diminished. The borborygmi, the great coldness of the face an extremities, and their blue, mottled color, continued for sometime longer, and gradually disappeared. The action of the bladder did not return until twenty-two hours after the attack. Slowly the other characteristic symptoms abated too; but for some days, though rescued from instant death there remained a livid circle round the eyes, there were occasional headache, giddiness and constriction of the chest.
Interesting and instructive as this case no doubt is in itself, it becomes the more so, from the fact, that it was the first of many more similar cases, which were soon afterwards taken up by Dr. Quin, and treated by him according to Hahnemann’s instructions, with a result shown in the following table sent to him by the chief magistrate of Tischnowitz:-
—————————————————————– Cases of Cured. Died.
Cholera —————————————————————– Allopathically treated…. 331 229 102 Homoeopathically treated…. 278 251 27 With Camphor alone…. 71 60 11 —————————————————————– Inhabitants……. 680 540 140
Dr. Quin’s case may be taken as a specimen of a virulent invasion of the spasmodic variety of cholera.
Let me quote to you now a few cases of Camphor poisoning, as recorded in the 10th volume of Allen’s Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica. There is one case extracted from the British Medical Journal 1875 N1, page 272, of a boy 14 years of age, who took about 15 drops of the so-called homoeopathic Camphor for a cold. The medical man who attended him says: He immediately became insensible: was soon found pulseless, with his extremities cold, and his face and lips pallid.
The second case I shall lay before you is an extract from the Lancet 1857.p. 384. A young lady, 18 years of age, swallowed a piece of Camphor of the size of a marble; A most vacant expression of countenance; eyes wandering about the room, speechless and powerless. Soon had a violent epileptic fit which lasted for about two minutes. She went into a state of stupor and in half an hour vomited freely, the matter ejected smelling most strongly of camphor.
Here is a third case of Camphor poisoning, taken from the Lancet. A man aged 39 years, ate about 35 grains of powdered Camphor. Had a fit of epilepsy, which lasted about 10 minutes followed by an extraordinary state of exhaustion. The extremities were cold, the surface was covered with clammy sweat; the pulse frequent and scarcely perceptible, and the pupils dilated. When roused he had scarcely perceptible, and the pupils dilated. When roused he had scarcely power to articulate. Occasional suppression of the urine for three months afterwards.
And yet another case from the Lancet (1875 p. 852). This time it is Dr. Thursfield who reports the case of a child just recovering from a fever, who was given half an ounce of Camphor Liniment. Burning of the mouth, throat and stomach (immediately); convulsions (in fifteen minutes): black in the face, body arched backwards; the teeth so firmly clenched that nothing could separate them; the eyes wide open, pupils quite insensible to strong light, but neither contracted nor dilated; the eyeballs were rapidly rolling from side to side; the pulse was at times hardly to be felt; at others it was full and bounding; the breathing was gasping; long intervals between each gasp, (in three hours.)
One case more and I am done. The case is taken from the New Remedies 1876.P.85. A lad 13 years of age ate two pieces of Camphor about 120 grains….. His eyes became fixed, and he stood motionless and unconscious. His brother took him up to carry him to an adjoining room, when he immediately became convulsed and perfectly rigid, with his head and legs bent back, so that he could only be placed on his side upon the floor. The convulsions increased until the flesh from the head to the shoulders became purple, and the pulse decreased rapidly until it could not be felt. The body then lost its rigidity, and was apparently lifeless; but in about ten seconds the pulse could again be felt, the convulsions returned and the boy foamed at the mouth. Applications of cold water brought him round in about four minutes; violent vomiting then ensued; he was hysterical for a time and recovered within an hour.
You will have observed that all the cases cited, date from a time long after Hahnemann had pointed to Camphor as a cholera remedy. In fact it is hardly possible to develop by the usual method of drug-proving on the healthy, as recommended and practised in the homoeopathic school of medicine, the full and decisive toxicological action of Camphor. Exceedingly large doses are required for what purpose, and unless such large doses are taken, the action of the drug is vague, uncertain, to all appearances perpetually changing between stimulation and depression. Even so experienced a drug-prover as Hahnemann left bound to say that, the action of this substance (camphor) on the healthy body is extremely, problematic and difficult of definition, for this reason, that the primary action of Camphor alternates so suddenly, and is so easily confounded with the reaction of the vital Principle:- and although he inclines to the opinion that chill and depression is the primary, while stimulation is the secondary, reactionary effect of the drug, yet we cannot forget that to state an opinion is one thing, to state a fact is another thing again. As far as we can learn from his Materia Medica Pura there seems to have been before Hahnemann only one single case of genuine Camphor-poisoning. It runs as follows: He rubs his forehead, head, chest and other parts; does not know who he is: he leans against something: his senses leave him, he slides and falls to the ground, stretched out stiff; the shoulders bent backwards, the arms at first somewhat bent. the hands bent outwards, somewhat clenched, the fingers spread apart: afterwards all parts are stretched out stiff, with the head bent to one side, the lower jaw open, stiff, the lips drawn inward, the teeth clenched, the eye closed, incessant twitching of the facial muscles, cold all over without breathing, for a quarter of an hour. However, as Hahnemann had only that single case of true Camphor, poisoning before him, he appears to have looked upon it as a toxicological exception, due to some idiosyncrasy of the subject concerned. Anyhow we know now from a concurrent characteristic of various cases of genuine poisoning that whatever the subjective feelings of a man under the influence of a so-called physiological or medical dose of Camphor may be, and however much divided opinions and impressions may be, whether the drug behaves as a stimulant or as a sedative, the toxic action of a full poisonous dose is decidedly that of morbid excitement of the motor and vasomotor nerves, causing tonic and clonic spasms of the voluntary muscles, and spasmodic contraction of the muscular tissue of the small arteries;in other words, it is an action strikingly similar to what we have in previous lectures learnt to recognise as the first stage of the spasmodic variety of cholera.
Gentlemen, it may sound strange, and it may be hard to believe, yet it is a fact that the similarity between the pharmacodynamic action of Camphor and cholera, has been, during the last fifty years, more a matter of blind faith in our school, supported by therapeutic evidence, than a subject capable of demonstration.
As to Hahnemann himself he never asserted that Camphor is homoeopathic to cholera. I have read to you in my first lecture his instruction regarding the use of Camphor; not a word is said there about its modus operandi; not is there anything said about it in the few sentences prefacing those instructions. They are s follows:-
