Cases



I ordered the child to be oiled night and morning in the manner I have already fully described, and prescribed Bellis perennis 1, five drops in water night and morning.

November 23.-The mother fancies patient is a wee bit sharper Rx Psorin. 30.

December 29.-Is though by her friends to be a little quicker, and, cried the mother, the ringworm on her head is gone! And she had it for two years.

Rx Thuja 30.

January 30, 1883.-She is beginning to speak better, but her temper is described as violent.

Rx Psorinum C.

February 26.-Speaks a little better; she makes greater effort to articulate; there is no sign of ringworm.

Rx Thuja C.

April 7.-She is bright; there is improvement all round; she is better tempered and less irritable.

Rx Luet. CC.

May 2.-Is better altogether.

Rx Trit. 3 Cuprum sul.

June 15.-Still improving; less cross; less excitable; talks more hears better.

Rx Rep.

July 13.-Great improvement articulates a little; thinks better.

Rx Bellis per. 1.

October 8.-Talks, and her intellect is developing.

Rx Silica 6.

I have not since heard of the case, but up to this point the child had very greatly improved in every way.

BACKWARD GROWTH; MESENTERIC DISEASE AND EVIL HABITS.

I am very strongly of opinion that evil habits in the young are of physical origin and nature, and that they can be cured by medicines, if physicians will take the trouble. The subject of this narration was brought to me on November 8, 1883, because he was small for his age ( 11 1/2 years); had a drum-belly, very tender; indurated mesenteric and other glands; “and I am sorry to say he has a very wicked habit, and constantly plays with his private parts;” “he also has constant diarrhoea.’

Is he a naughty boy in any other respects?

Oh, no, he is a dear, good boy; but for that one dirty, wicked habit his father vows he will kill him if he does not leave it off.

Does his father consider that the diarrhoea is also sinful?

Of course not, what do you mean?

What I mean is simply this–Your son is diseased, and his diarrhoea, his drum-belly, his dirty habit of masturbation are all of a piece, and all from his diseased glands; cure his disease, get him well and healthy, and he will leave off his dirty habit of masturbation, just as he will cease to have the diarrhoea.

So it happened; in a very few months the boy was cured, and got healthy in body, healthy in mind, and healthy in habits! When he was vaccinated he had a very bad arm.

On December 8 his body-weight being 4 st. 5 lbs., he was ordered to be rubbed with oil night and morning, and to have 6 grains of Arsenicum iod., 4 trit., four times a day.

December 13.-Weight, 4 st. 8 lbs., so he has put on 3 lbs. in weight, and his diarrhoea is rather better. His feet are ill- smelling and sweaty.

Rx Silicea C.

January 13, 1883.-Weight, 4 st. 8 1/2 lbs. Bowels better; belly less tender, but there is still tenderness at the sides. The boy is very much improved all round; feet sweat as much as ever.

Rx Thuja 30.

February 16.-Weight, 4 st. 9 1/2 lbs. Feet dry, bowels regular, but he has pain in his abdomen pretty badly when he gets warm in bed at night.

Rx Luet. CC.

This practically completed the cure, for after it was finished in March, Psorinum 30 was ordered for a month, and then no further treatment was needed, and the lad was physically and morally healthy and clean: his evil practice was entirely given up, and apparently forgotten –

BLIGHTED BY AGUE.

A stunted, forward-bent, asthmatic girl, 17 years of age, was brought over from the United States of America and placed under my professional care in the month of April 1886. The unfortunate child had ague on and off ever since she was eleven months old, and in addition to that she had pneumonia three times, as well as measles, whooping-cough, chicken-pox, and German measles. Her mother is under me for asthma, and two of her cousins for acne and comedones, and her mother’s mother died of phthisis. Patient’s skin was very dry, she perspired but very little, made water very frequently, had moderately bad leucorrhoea, and suffered much from dysmenorrhoea. Had also a good deal of anginal pain down the sternum; spleen very large; apex of right lung dull on percussion.

She remained under my care nearly three years, and then returned home practically well.

The remedies that cured the spleen were Oleum succini non rectificatum 0, which she took in five-drops doses twice a day for three months, and Medorrhinum CC., Bacill. 30, and Bellis perennis, and also Ceanothus Am. 1x, and Nux vomica.

Two or three months of Luet. CC. wrought a great change in her constitution, and after three or four months under the influence of Psoricum 30, her asthma was so far well that she could lie down in bed and sleep all night like other people.

The special point in her case is the very remarkable improvement in her bodily development and carriage, quite apart from the cure of her asthma and of the chronic enlargement of her spleen. Her father, a well-known public man in America, was greatly pleased with the remarkable change in his daughter.

MORAL OBLIQUITY IN CHILDREN.

We are all too much disposed to regard moral deviations in children (and in adults, too, for the matter of that) as something separate and apart from any physical basis.

What can minister to a mind diseased?

Remedies homoeopathically adapted to each individual case can.

How do I know?

Because I have done it myself any time and oft during the last twenty years.

And it is not even difficult, given a knowledge of homoeopathy and of pharmaco-dynamics, with a little knowledge of diagnostics and physiology. Of course, the more one knows the more one can do, as in all other branches of applied knowledge.

Most people one meets with in daily life can play at whist more or less-mostly less. There is whist and whist; likewise there is homoeopathy and homeopathy.

The mental and moral balance in children when disturbed is so disturbed materially and physically, and if we keep this well before our minds, we can restore such disturbed balance just as readily as we can cure any other disease.

A child that habitually wets its bed is not dirty, but disturbed in health of the parts involved.

A child that masturbates, or is guilty of any other moral obliquity, is disturbed and in the health of the part of parts involved in the several functions. I was sent for some fourteen years ago into Surrey to see a girl of 9 years of age, who was guilty of self-sexual gratification to a dreadful degree, occupying herself hours at a time threat till she was quite exhausted. Her parents were in a sad state of mind, and communicated the fact to me with much embarrassment, and then volubly anathematizing the poor child as vile, and given over to sinful depravity. Due investigation into the case showed that she had enlarged indurated glands in her groins and pelvis generally- the ovaries, no doubt, being in a like morbid state. The child also suffered from spells of diarrhoea, and I explained to the distressed parents that the supposedly wicked habit of the patient was as a matter of fact not wickedness at all any more than her diarrhoea, both being due to the state of the various glands respectively involved. This took a great load off the parents’ minds, and I set about proving the correctness of my diagnosis by curing both the naughty habit and the diarrhoea, and the morbid state of the glands, and in less than two years the girl’s glands were normal, her diarrhoea had quite disappeared, and the habit in question had also been quite given up, and apparently for gotten! That little girl is now a grown woman, and as sweet and pure as any parents could wish, and has seemingly not even any recollection of the past at all.

The chief remedies used in this case were Thuja, Sabina, Bacill., and Platina, all in the higher dilutions, and

infrequently repeated.

Several years since a greatly distressed mother brought her four-year-old boy to me, telling me, after much hesitation, that he was hopelessly given over to self-pollution, from which he would not desist, notwithstanding the most severe chastisements administered by both father and mother, the father often declaring in extreme anger that he would kill him if he did not leave off; but leave off he would not, and whenever he could hide or creep under the table unobserved, he would give himself over to furious masturbation.

I explained to the mother my views of the true nature of the case, which greatly relieved her mind, for she had become fully persuaded that she was the mother of a moral monster.

Due examination showed that his abdomen was greatly distended, and his inguinal glands were enlarged and indurated.

After a few months’ treatment, the mother ceased to bring him, and when she subsequently came on another matter concerning her own health, and I enquired about little Jack, she exclaimed, “Oh, he has quite given that up, and seems to have forgotten all about it”

A few months later she brought little Jack again: “He has begun with his old habit again, but nothing like so badly as before”

James Compton Burnett
James Compton Burnett was born on July 10, 1840 and died April 2, 1901. Dr. Burnett attended medical school in Vienna, Austria in 1865. Alfred Hawkes converted him to homeopathy in 1872 (in Glasgow). In 1876 he took his MD degree.
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.