In a few days he came to the office and gave the following symptoms: Pain in the stomach after eating, of a dull, heavy character, accompanying the pain was a fear of death, or a fear that he was going to die. I said to him, “you have had clap within the last five years.” His answer was, “How did you know, did my wife tell you?” I said, “Your wife knows nothing about the case, whatever.” Later on, he admitted he had had gonorrhoea five years previous to his marriage, and that he had seen a well day since. He also stated that the treatment was medicated injections and some powerful interment was medicated injections and some powerful internal remedy. I then informed him why his wife was ill and why he was ill himself. Further that the discharge would have to be brought back as it was in the first place, and cured in the right way. He demurred at first, but finally consented to have me treat him. His treatment was Nux vomica cm the first week for the gastric symptoms, but as it did not cover his mental symptom, therefore, he did not receive any benefit from the remedy. Medorrhinum in the cm potency was then given, which caused the discharged to return and a complete cure followed.
A history of good health in the wife before marriage, and then a sudden decline (in non-tubercular patients) is a pretty positive sign of sycotic infection, especially where pelvic symptoms are present. When Sycosis is suppressed pelvic symptoms are present. When Sycosis is suppressed in a pseudo-psoric or tuberculous patient, the miasmatic union becomes one very difficult to separate. Indeed, this subversive force (Sycosis) has such a positive bond with the life force that the latter is unable to disengage itself. The life force, therefore, must become subservient to it. It is a law of all forces that they act or push out in the direction of least resistance, so Sycosis in the organism is modified by the kind of suppression and the constitutional pre-disposition of the patient whether tubercular, syphilitic, psoric, or whatever degree of perversion met with. So we see that the secondary phenomena arising from an imperfectly treated case may be almost anything we can imagine.
An organism so disturbed must set up an inhibitory point or a center of resistance somewhere, sand the life of the patient then is dependent upon the nature of that inhibition, modified somewhat by the character of the poison and the constitution of the patient. Many cases that I have noticed have acute articular rheumatism, others suffer with the chronic and sub-acute forms, or they may later on in the tertiary stage of Sycosis take on a gouty nature, and the concretions in the joints or tissues increase their sufferings. Again, many of these sycotically affected patients, either in the secondary or tertiary stages, have attacks of appendicitis, a disease, I think, largely dependent on the sycotic poison. If the patient happens to have already upon that organism the tubercular taint, the disease assumes a malignant type.
A case comes to my mind of a young man who eight months previous to his death was strong and healthy. No finer physique or better specimen of health could be imagined, but he had a faint history of tuberculosis in the family. He was suddenly taken ill with appendicitis. The organ was removed, and within sixty days there was noticed a marked infiltration of the right lung accompanied with fever and cough; a little later on malignant symptoms of phthisis developed, and death occurred within eight months. The history of this case was a history of suppressed Sycosis. I simply cite this instance, as being a typical one of many that I have observed in the past ten years. The pus, the local inflammatory process is similar to sycotic inflammations in other organs, and especially pelvic inflammations of women. The dirty, brownish or yellowish-green color, the odor so characteristic, the spasmodic pains assuming that of a colicky nature, and the characteristic adhesions besides the specific and septic character of the process in general all show that Sycosis is present. Whole families of tubercular patients are swept out of existence by our epidemics of LaGrippe and other acute expressions of Sycosis. When the disease is met with in tubercular patients who are already suffering form perhaps an acquired Sycosis, we have a case upon our hands that is certain to form a metastasis of the disease, to the lungs, bronchi, meninges of the brain, or some other organ. Many of us have overlooked the fact that almost every case of LaGrippe requires an anti-sycotic remedy such as Rhus tox or Gelsemium in the first stage of its invasion. The fever, coryza, and the acute rheumatic invasion are truly the phenomena of a sycotic element, of a contagious nature which the life force is vigorously endeavoring to throw off. Of course, if the psoric element is most prominent in the patient, a true anti-psoric may have to be selected or a pseudo-psoric as the case may require. When we stop to consider carefully the specific nature and character of LaGrippe from its start to its finish, we will see that it has that specific and positive action which it so Sycosis; it has the fever, pain, cough, catarrhal invasion of the nose, bronchi, lungs, eyes or other mucous membranes as does Sycosis.
J.H. Allen was a student of H.C. Allen. He was the president of the IHA in 1900. Dr. Allen taught at the Hering Medical College in Chicago. Dr. Allen died August 1, 1925
Books by John Henry Allen:
Diseases and Therapeutics of the Skin 1902
The Chronic Miasms: Psora and Pseudo Psora 1908
The Chronic Miasms: Sycosis 1908