Owing to the size of the growth an operation was not to be thought of, though to the physiological school any other resource is unknown. Consequently this woman would have been given over hopelessly, a prey to all the dangers which were to be anticipated in the case.
What may deliver us from such a dilemma? Nothing but the teaching of Homoeopathy touching the Concomitant Circumstances.
This woman did not look at all ill, had a good appetite and slept well, only she became sooner more wearied by her domestic duties than was previously the case, in the discharges of which duties she was very much incommoded by this tumour in her abdomen.
This was on April 4th. The remedies which I administered internally so long as I had my eye on the object of the disease alone were attended with no success, and from month to month the abdomen increased in size until- unhappily it was not till September 6th- I enquired about the concomitant circumstances. She acknowledged that she felt chilly every evening, and was worse, that is, there was more rapid enlargement of the abdomen, during moist weather. On this account I prescribed Nux 3 and Ipecac.3 in alternation every two hours, and with such effect that as early as September 26th the tumour had decreased in size to a diameter of three inches, though it could still be distinctly felt above the public bone. The cervix had also assumed a convex position and by the 30th of October had become quite perpendicular again; the lips were somewhat swollen, but the leucorrhoea had disappeared.
The improvement continued without interruption, during frequent suspension of the remedies, and four years have passed without any complaint from the woman, so that her complete cure was certainly accomplished.
CASE VI.
Hydrogenous Pneumonia. Nux and Ipecac.; Nux and Aranea.
A butcher and tavern keeper, 25, was taken, according to the declaration of his physician, with so violent a pneumonia that there was no hope of his recovery. The patient, however, was about to be married and the business would have been lost to his betrothed by his death. The physician therefore advised the patient to consummate his marriage as soon as possible. This took place; but now I was called to take charge of the case, a request which, of course, I thought I had a perfect right to decline. Yet I could not withstand their repeated urgent appeals for more than a day. I found hepatisation of the whole right lung from the lowest part to the apex, above the clavicle, the sound on percussion was somewhat hollow, and there was some respiratory murmur yet to be heard. The left lung had remained free from any affection. There was great difficulty of respiration, excessive debility, voice harsh, inability to lie on the left side without danger of suffocation, pulse 130. The cough brought up purulent yet scanty expectoration, the tongue was thickly coated, appetite entirely wanting. There was great emaciation with collapsed features.
On enquiry the patient stated that one day he was better-on the next decidedly worse and then at 8 p.m. he was worse than ever, so that he really thought the evening before that his time had come; he felt chilly also, notwithstanding the constant sweat, and in spite of the warm clothing on his abdomen. I prescribed Nux vomica and Ipecac. in alternation every two hours. On the next day, August 2nd, there was amelioration of all the symptoms. After eight days he still was chilly in the upper part of his body hence Aranea diadem. 3 was given in hourly alternation with Nux vomica, although the hepatisation was decreasing from above downwards more and more every day. On August 29th he was already able to remain two hours out of bed, for his appetite had returned in the first days of my treatment, and hearty food was given as his strength increased. He now felt quite well. The whole right lung was again serviceable for respiration, and in the same proportion the burden of the other ailment was also removed. The bodily weakness, however, was still considerable.
That day the young wife of the patient was standing at the door of her house as her previous physician passed by. He stopped to enquire about her husband, when, with a joyful countenance, she replied that he was quite well and already up. To this the doctor replied, “That is utterly impossible.” A week later the patient himself met the doctor and gave him ocular demonstration of that which he had declared to be utterly impossible!
CASE VII
Caries of Os Calcis; Gangrenous Ulcer. Arsen., Aggravation by calc. and Silicea, Cure by Aranea diadema.
After opening an abscess on the left heel of man, 75, the edges of the wound mortified and the physician declared that as gangrena senilis had set in the foot must be removed. Upon this decision I was called in. For more than a year I had seen this old man in the street limping with his left foot, and now I saw clearly the cause thereof- a chronic inflammation of the periosteum of the os calcis, which had probably extended to a the bone itself, and a gangrenous ulcer half an inch broad, causing insufferable pains and surrounded and partially covered with a gangrenous crust. Arsen. 10 gave prompt relief. The gangrenous crust was thrown off. The surface of the ulcer took on a healthy appearance, but after ten days did not show the least tendency to cicatrise, although the pains were decreasing. Both Silicea 10 and Calcarea c. 10 aggravated all the symptoms so far as this that none of them were better, but the ulcer had increased in breadth and depth, so that the probe could now touch the denuded and carious os calcis. The patient wanted his first drops again because they had relieved his pains, which now had returned to their former severity. This was granted him in the absence of any better indication. But the sleeplessness setting in, which could be attributed only to the Arsen. required that this remedy should again be discontinued. His sleep now returned but the pain increased again also.
A thorough examination now led me to the source of all his troubles, to which, indeed, the striking effect of Arsen. had already called my attention, as this remedy was given questioned the patient acknowledged that his pains increased and decreased periodically, and that regularly, every other day. He added that he might have told me this long before had he supposed that any importance could have been attached to such a trifle. He had thought that quite s little importance was to be attached to the circumstance that he was always cold, and hence was always cold, and hence was always trying to get warm.
Aranea diadema removed the pains and affected a rapid cure. At first the ulcer grew less; then many very small sequestra were thrown off; but five months passed under the repeated use of this remedy before the cure was complete.
HAY-BATHS.
I avail myself of this opportunity to call attention to the use of hay-baths in many forms of caries and in enchondroma of the bones. It was in the country that I first learned of these baths as a popular remedy for necrosis of bone. If what the country people related to me is true then it can only be the Silex contained in these baths which makes them useful in diseases of the bones. Hence I examined the hay chemically in order to learn whether Silex could be found in solution in these baths; and this proved to be the case.
CASE VIII.
Hydrocephalus. Sulphur, Calcarea phos., Argentum nit.
A young married couple had two years previously lost a child from acute hydrocephalus. The second child, then eight months old, was committed to my charge when the disease had already reached the convulsive stage, and it died in a few days.
It now devolved on me, as the family physician to solve the problem of protecting the next child from this disease and thus remove the conditions under which, both times, the development of this fatal disease had been possible, a problem which, as everybody knows, the physiological school is not able to solve.
Both parents were perfectly healthy and never ill. Both blonde hair, thin skin and blue eyes. The husband was spare, the wife of full habit. Hence no positive point of support could be gained from either. The wife had nursed both children, but without having sufficient nourishment for them as I learnt on enquiry, for she was obliged to give them in addition milk and sugar-water, and both were taken ill when they began to cut their teeth.
In hydrocephalus the nutrition of the bones is always deficient and hence during the period of dentition this nutrition of the osseous system must have given long before the period of dentition.
Hence I told the wife that she must not nurse the next child, and that she must during her next pregnancy take Sulph. 6 one day and Calcarea phos. 6 the next, so that she should not lose a third child by this disease. Sulphur I wish to exhibit as a nutritive remedy favouring the formation of tissues, while Calcarea phos. was to favour that of bones.
Five weeks later the woman informed me that she was again pregnant and asked me for these remedies. She was delivered at term, and this child, now five years old, remained healthy, as well as a second, now three, which was carried the regular term under this prophylactic treatment.
