Within the last few years M. Sperino, of Turin, tried puncturing the vitreous body, but soon abandoned it.
8. Can we stop an incipient cataract in its onward march?
M. Cusco, in his researches on the nutrition of the crystalline demonstrated the intimate connection existing between the vitality of the lens and that of the choroid by showing that, “when the latter became morbidly affected the crystalline was modified in its nutrition and turned opaque. To arrest the progress and even the formation of cataract by curing the choroiditis was the practical deduction drawn from the ingenious discovery of M. Cusco. But, unhappily, we posses no efficacious therapeutic means against choroiditis.”
Then according to M. Foucher, cataract is due to inflammation of the choroid, and if we had any sure means of curing choroiditis we should at once arrest the onward march of every such cataract. So we not only cannot cure cataract, but we also cannot cure an inflamed choroid, and so we are altogether helpless! Or shall we, perhaps, “perform an operation for the extraction of the choroid?” Granted, that a regular panophthalmitis, in a dyscratic individual, is a terrible thing to deal with, still I cannot admit that we do not know how to quell an ordinary choroiditis. It is an odd choroiditis that will not yield to rigid diet. scientific homoeopathy, and hydropathy. The hydropaths tell many an instructive tale of “incurable” cases of ophthalmitis that had gone on their weary months, aye years, with Nitras Argenti and Hydrargyrum cum-stupiditate.
9. My readers will remember that Conium Maculatum occurs very frequently in the prescriptions of the narrators of the homoeopathic cures of cataract, which I have given in a former part of this little work. If they possess Stork’s monographs on Cicuta (Antonii Stork, Medici Viennensis et in Nosocomio civico Pazmariano Physici ordinarii, LIBELLUS, quo demonstratur: Cicutam non solum usu interno tutissime exhiberi, sed et esse simul remedium valde utile in multis morbis, qui hucusque curatu impossibiles dicebantur, Vindobonae, 1760), they will see it was so used in pre-homoeopathic days, and that notwithstanding its “impossibility.” Stork knew no impossible in therapeutics on the ipse dixit of the superlatively sapient, who ween their own endeavours to be the full extent of the possible. Stork cured bonafide cases of cancer and cataract with Conium; of that there can be no reasonable doubt. If you doubt, my skeptic reader, peruse his books; they are about in old book-stalls. I will only give his cataract cases. The italics are mine.
Casus Decimus Octavus.
In viro quinquagenario, ex cataracta in ambobus oculis caeco, et in meo nosocomio ex acuta convalescente, pilulae hae (that is, of Conium) tantum effecerunt, ut intra duos menses non modo solus ambulare, sed et objecta, et colores potuerit distinguere. (p. 92, Cap. ii.)
Casus Decimus Nouns.
Virgini, 22 ann., ex incipiente in utroque oculo cataracta, visus adeo debilis factus est, ut jam citra summam adtensionem vix amplius ola incidere potuerit.
Ex usu autem harum pilularum intra binos et dimidium menses cataractae penitus dispulsae sunt, et visus adeo bonus rediit, ut jam fila per subtilissimarum acuum foramina ducat, et neat accuratissime.
Dominus Leber hanc Virginem and Illustrissimum VAN SWIETEN adduxit, ut Ipse historiam audiret, et videret effectum.
I am especially glad Stork sent the girl to Van Swieten, as we thus have the case verified by the highest medical authority then existing in Europe.
In the Corollaria to the First Monograph, Cap. iii., Corollar. 14 et 15, p, 105, are these epitomes. 14) Visum, cataracta nondum inveterata. demtum, quandoque restituit. 15) Incipientes cataractas aut solvit, aut earum progressum saltem impedit.
10 In the following year, 1761, Antonius Stork published his LIBELLUS SECUNDUS, quo confirmatur: Cicutam, etc.
We note from the title that from being only the Hospital Ordinarius, he is now Imperial Court Physician in Vienna.
On p. 154 we read: Casus Vigesimus Septimus: Operarius, qui ab anni fere spatio cataractam in oculo sinistro habuit solo usu cicutae et decocto bardanae spatio trium et dimidn mensium curatus est.
Omni decimo quarto die datum fuit purgans.
Per sex septimanas quotidie drachmam unam et dimidiam extracti cicutae assumpsit.
Ultimo autem mensa drachmas duas.
Use cicutae hicce homo non tantum visum recuperavit integerrimum; verum et longe robustior factus est, et liberabatur simul a suis doloribus rheumatics quibus per totum corpus jam and octo annis and omnem temporis mutationem excruciabatur.
Possibly this additional information, relating to the collateral cure of this patient’s rheumatic pains in the whole body, that he had had eight years at every change of weather, may sometimes be useful in the homoeopathic differential drug diagnosis for the treatment of cataract. We cannot afford to do without the aids ex usus in morbis, especially on this comparatively new ground. In the Supplementum to the foregoing we read further:
Corollarium Sextum. (p.39.)
Cicuta subinde fundit cataractas, aut eorum progressum impedit.
Et hac ratione visum conservat, aut auget, aut perditum restituit.
Stork’s remarkable success with Conium in cancer, scrofula, and some of the worst forms of cutaneous affections is not a little note worthy.
11. In Krebel’s Volksmedicin und Volksmittel verschiedener Volkerstamme Russlands, Leipzig, 1858, p. 159, it is noted that, in certain parts of Russia, burnt sugar, *(We have seen that sugar causes cataract.) vitriol, and pounded glass are reputed remedies for cataract. The Russians strew the powder of the kernels of a certain kind of cherry (die Cornelius- Kirsche) into the eyes for the purpose of curing cataract.
Also in Russia they make use of the gall of the sturgeon and the gall and the blood of the patridge. Also an injection of a solution of soap.
They likewise make use of the Succus Chelidonii Majoris dropped into the eye. We have seen that Buchmann cites two cures of cataract with Chelidonium; Dr. Berridge’s case has also been quoted, and likewise my own case.
12. Plenk in his Lehre von den Augenkrankheiten, Vienna, 1788, p. 197, says: Drugs are not often capable of curing cataract, but people have lauded the internal use of the extract of Aconite, of the black Pulsatilla of the white Hyoscyamus with Mercurius Dulcis, the juice of Millepedes and Theden’s tincture of Antimony. Thus 1 (Plenk) gave a man, who had a cataract of the left eye for three months, eight drops of this tincture night and morning, with such a good result, that already on the fourth day he could again distinguish large objects.
Cataracts due to a certain acridity seem more amenable to treatment, so I recommend you to try Mercury in venereal cataract, the bark with Conium in the scrofulous, and in the arthritic the extract of Aconite with Antimony.
13. I now pass on the excellent work entitled, On the Cure of Cataract, etc., by Hugh Neill, Surgeon to the Liverpool Eye and Ear Infirmary, London, 1848 where may be read (p.22) these words: “Cases, no doubt, have occurred, but they are assuredly rare, in which cataract has been cured by the use of drugs. Recourse may be had to such means at the beginning, where the object is-to remove constitutional irritation, to restore the secretions, and to improve the tone of the digestive organs. Local applications. too, are of concurrent use.”
14. Victor Stoeber also observes, that in such cases Antimonials, and affecting the system with Mercury, is the practice of some; “and in addition to Aconite, Arnica, Belladonna, and above all, Pulsatilla, the last being administered in doses varying from five to twenty-five grains of the extract.” (In Neill)
Then Neill adds condemnatory remarks, and concludes very characteristically in these words: “And as to Pulsatilla, whether experimented with in infinitesimal or less scrupulous doses, I equally recommend being left to an undisturbed place in the Quixotic Pharmacopoeia of Homoeopathy.”
Now, above, the same writer says: “Cases, no doubt, have occurred, but they are assuredly rare, in which cataract has been cured by the use of drugs.” Hence it transcends my comprehension why the drug treatment of cataract should be condemned on the same page. Oh! prejudice, thy optic opacity is indeed a thousand fold worse than the hardest cataract, and oh! how senile withal. To purge such a visual ray would require more euphrasy and rue than could be found on the whole globe.
15. I might thus continue to multiply instances from ophthalmological literature, but it would serve no useful end; so let me conclude with the Treatise upon a New, Expeditious and Safe Method of Treating Cerebro-Sensorial Affections, particularly Amaurosis and Cataract, by which the Cataract is removed Without Operation. By Louis Francois Goudret, London and Paris, 1840.
Goudret gives some twenty cases of amelioration or cure of cataract without operation. They are for the most part undoubted cases of true cataract, and clearly demonstrate that cataract can be cured by derivatives, revulsives, and counter-irritants, and therefore without operation.
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.