FUNCTIONAL REMEDIES OR REMEDIES PROPERLY CALLED HOMOEOPATHIC
Let us now speak about functional remedies which are legion. They are numerous because the question of chronic rheumatism has not yet been properly solved. Often we have failures. Gradually as we arrive at a good knowledge about a question and get good results, we make a selection of remedies (as for example we have simplified the treatment of diphtheria in 50 years). It is impossible to keep in mind all the remedies used in the treatment of chronic rheumatism. Each among us does not use more than 35 to 30 medicines while nearly 150 medicines are indicated in chronic rheumatism. It is often said that one does not cure a patient because one has not used the best remedy. However we must try to find out the good remedies.
Before enumerating the remedies and classifying them in groups, I must insist on a special point the localisation.
The young homoeopath who takes a repertory finds it ridiculous to learn that question when he finds that a remedy is given for the wrist, another for the second phalange of the index of the right arm, another for left knee etc. For a long time I also believed that it is stupid to classify the remedies according to the localisations. But such a reasoning is ridiculous because the remedies act according to the local tropism; there are some affinities in relation to the tissue which we cannot yet explain. It is always Dr. Nebel and his successors who have put the question. It may seem absurd to localise too much. It is the homoeopaths who should try in the future to understand well the importance of localisations. In any case we must remember that some remedies have local affinities. It is a very interesting and important question, unfortunately very difficult to answer. Here is how we have classified the functional and organic remedies of chronic rheumatism.
Let us take up Calcarea carbonica with its troubles of metabolism of calcium. By its side we may places Calcarea phosphorica and Calcarea fluorica. The latter acts well in the 3x when you have cartilaginous as well as bone and muscular pains in persons whose articulations are deformed, whose ligaments become ossified. He begins for example with a rheumatism of the spinal chord which becomes later on hypertrophysing osteitis. You will often find syphilis in the heredity. You will often find syphilis in the heredity. Calcarea carbonica may be given to big, fat, soft, chilly, hesitating and indolent persons who think that they will never be cured.
Sulphur has digestive and hepatic troubles when he has rheumatism The very moments he begins to have rheumatism he will require other remedies.
This subject for example has periodic diarrhoeas alternating with rheumatism. You can give him Dulcamara. He may have enterocolitis with swelling of the abdomen, false membranes in the stools aggravation by sweets. He may have arterial hypertension, buzzing in the ears, congestive troubles. He is often a great eater who is never satisfied. He feels weak when he is hungry, feels better after eating. He may have cutaneous troubles in the relation with his digestive troubles. Antimonium crudum is related to Sulphur. He is rheumatic, having always a white-coated tongue with distended intestine, who feels better after a laxative or if a good intestinal drainage is effected.
Nux vomica may also be used as a complementary to Sulphur. By the side of these satellite remedies of sulphur in chronic rheumatism we have another group that acts on acute articular rheumatism. The best remedies are Ferrum phosphoricum Bryonia, Rhus tox, Apis, Pulsatilla. These remedies will be useful in persons who suffer from rheumatism with occasional and periodic acute or sub-acute inflammation. Suddenly the joints are attacked. It is a form of gouty rheumatism.
Ferrum phosphoricum and Aconite have intense pain dry heat, joints painful to touch, with possible fever but not yet any swelling. Aconite has aggravation in dry cold. The subject then passes to the stage of Bryonia; amelioration by rest, aggravated by movement, pricking pains, painful joints, clear intra- articular rheumatism, often fixed. From Bryonia the evolution is towards Rhus tox and Apis. Both are complementary to Bryonia but incompatible. These are two horses of the same harness but they go different directions. Rhus tox has the modalities inverse to those of Bryonia and we then enter into the group of hydrogenoid remedies which we will soon see. From Bryonia the patient goes to Apis.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.