REMEDIAL POWER OF HOMOEOPATHY IN CASES OF CHRONIC HEART DISEASE



I now gave her the Arsen. iod. 3x, 2 grains three times a day, and this, as generally happened, soon told beneficially on the general health, causing some improvement in the pain.

July 12th.-Feeling better generally, pain not quite so bad, breath much the same. Repeat.

Feeling better she did not return for six weeks.

August 23rd.-Arm has been better, but it is very painful again to-day. Repeat.

September 13th.-Arm better at times; for a few days it has been bad, it feels cold, aching is continuous.

Treatment Naja 6, every three hours. Arsen. iod. 3x, night and morning.

The next report was that the arm was much better. Repeat.

This was her last attendance. In this case the improvement was initiated by Arsen.iod. alone, but it did not give complete relief; this was left for Naja to accomplish.

It is remarkable how frequently disease of the heart is met with in patients with a strong consumptive history. This was exemplified in the case of Emily T-, and also in the one I will now relate. The power of Arsen.iod. to relieve many cases of phthisis may account for its wide range of action in cases of heart disease.

CASE XVI.-MITRAL INCOMPETENCE, DILATATION OF LEFT AURICLE, AND HYPERTROPHY OF RIGHT SIDE OF HEART.

Salome B, age. 38, single, housekeeper, dark, blue lips, attended at the L. H. Hospital on August 30th, 1882.

She complained that she felt ill in the morning, and could hardly raise herself from her pillow. Two years before she had “congestion of the liver” and now she feels just as she did then; she has a heavy pain in the left side, depression of spirits. She gets no rest, comes over faint, especially on walking. Has headache across the forehead and vertex on waking. Tongue clean, appetite poor, bowels regular, sleep bad, catamenia scanty, regular.

She has never been strong; her mother died of consumption; also one brother and one sister. Her father is living, but in poor health.

Examination.-Has scar of ulcerated gland on right side of root of neck. Lungs: apices clear. Heart: apex beat not visible, it is felt in the fifth space three inches to left of sternum. Vertical dullness begins in the middle of the second space. Transverse dullness at the level of the fourth costal cartilage extends one inch to the right and three inches to the left of the sternum. In the mitral area is a soft systolic bruit, heard also sometimes in the third space. The second sound is accentuated and occasionally reduplicated in the pulmonary area.

Treatment Arsen. iod. 3x, night and morning; Digitalis 1, three times a day.

The following fortnight (September 13th) she attended again.

September 13th.-The pain is rather better and also the palpitation; but she has taken a cold and (as is usually the case with her when she takes cold) had lost her voice. Repeat.

October 4th.-Better generally, voice better. She complains, however, that the medicine (Digitalis) makes her ill; it seems to make her heart palpitate. The palpitation and pain are worse than last time; she has pain between the shoulders. She has had some annoyance during the week.

R Ignat. 1x, four times a day. Arsen. iod. as before.

October 25th.-Not nearly so much pain; less palpitation. She has a sinking sensation sometimes.

This was her last attendance. There was a great improvement in her general condition as well as in the special symptoms. I ascribe the chief share of this to the Iodide. I am inclined to believe the patient was correct in attributing the aggravation of her symptoms to the Digitalis, and certainly the substitution of Ignatia was followed by very marked improvement.

Rheumatism and Chorea are fruitful causes of heart disease. In the case next to be related there was a history of epilepsy and stammering (which is itself a choreic condition) previous to the heart attack.

CASE XVII.-MITRAL CONSTRICTION IN PATIENT PREVIOUSLY EPILEPTIC.

Chas. H. S.-, age. 14, errand boy, dark eyes, light hair. This patient was treated by me in 1882 for epilepsy. The only medicine he received was Stramonium 3. I did not see him again until January, 1884. I then learned that he had never had a fit since his previous attendance. He stammered badly. This had been the case since he was three years old. It came on during dentition.

January 25th, 1884.-He now complains of pain at the heart and of being weak and nervous. If he breathes hard it catches him an he has to fight for breath. The pain is sharp, pinching, and constant. He is short of breath on going upstairs. All this came on nine months before, the pain preceding the breathlessness. It came quite suddenly; he was running to his work and the pain stopped him. Tongue white; bowels regular; sleep sound. He always has headache over the left eye.

I found on listening over the apex beat the characteristic thump of obstructed mitral; there was a faint venous hum in the neck. The heart’s action was not regular. The pulse was very small.

Treatment Arsen. iod. night and morning, and Digit. 1, one pilule three times a day.

He came back in a fortnight feeling much better. Has only had two attacks of the heart-pain in the fortnight. His stammering was rather worse. He received another supply of medicine.

I will now relate a case of heart affection of a gouty nature.

CASE XVIII.-IRRITABLE WEAK HEART IN A GOUTY SUBJECT. HISTORY OF OVER-STRAIN; ACTION OF Arsen. iod.

The patient was a lady, age. 66, short, very stout, florid. As a child she was delicate; in middle life her health was good except that she suffered almost constantly from supraorbital neuralgia. She had lived in India some years, and had very good health except very slight attacks of fever, which seemed to relieve her of the neuralgic pains. In 1854 she had cholera in Edinburgh. Had been a great walker.

In 1884, when she consulted me, I made the following notes :-Has gouty concretions about the joints of her hands, and her feet are deformed in the same way. Her present illness dates from six years back; she was climbing a hill in Scotland, and she felt at the time she had done too much; she thought she never would have got her breath again; she has never been right in her breathing since.

After this she had a cold and cough for six weeks; it is unusual for her to take cold-she loves air and open windows. (When I saw her she had had a cold in the head; this had left the head and gone to the chest). She complains of great dyspnoea in the night, and whistling in the chest, which keeps her awake; has a sensation about the heart as if something were nipping her there- this is confined to an area about the size of a crown-piece; then she feels as if passing away, but recovers if she is quite still. At times she has a sensation of fullness, as if something in the chest would burst. Exertion or worry will bring on cough. There is no swelling of the feet. Poor appetite. I found slight wheezing here and there in the lungs.

On examining the chest I found the second sound of the heart accentuated at all areas, the first sound very faint except at the apex; there was no bruit.

I gave her Carbo vegetabilis 6, every three hours for three days, and there was considerable improvement, which, however, was not maintained. I then gave her Kali carb. 6, an hour before meals, and Arsen. iod.1, gr. 1/10, in water, immediately after food. The improvement was marked and rapid; she could move about with more comfort, and the appetite improved. Four days after this I gave her the Iodide 3x, 1 gr. three times a day after food, by itself.

She kept much better and was able to leave town soon after.

Quite recently (1894) I learned from a daughter of this patient that she died a few years ago of cancer in the left breast.

Needless to say, there are numbers of cases which are not perceptibly influenced by the Iodide. Homoeopathy has specifics for patients not for diseases, hence a strict attention to symptomatology is the only safe rule in this as in all departments of our art, as the case next to be related will exemplify.

CASE XIX.-IMMENSELY ENLARGED, DISPLACED HEART; VALVULAR DISEASE; INDIGESTION. GREAT RELIEF FROM VARIOUS REMEDIES.

It is notable how frequently cardiac patients complain more than anything else of indigestion. It was the principal thing the patient, James T., complained of before the attack which brought him under my care. It was the chief trouble in two of the cases still to be mentioned. In the case I am now going to relate, that of Mrs. W., an octogenarian, the strictest attention to dietetic rules was absolutely necessary in order to keep her in comfort.

This patient had survived a number of illnesses, including a right-side pleurisy many years before, which had left her with a shrunken lung and curved spine and a displacement of the heart to the right. The heart was greatly hypertrophied, and there were murmurs to be heard at every orifice, a double aortic, loud systolic at mitral and tricuspid. The heart’s action was very irregular, the arteries hard and tortuous.

I attended her through a variety of illnesses, diphtheritic sore throat, bronchitis on various occasions, influenza with bronchitis, minor urinary troubles and psoriasis. The condition of the heart dominated everything. There was great swelling of the feet, which varied in degree at different times. But her chief trouble was indigestion and flatulence; the smallest transgression was pretty sure to be visited by an “attack” in the early hours of the morning. The “attack” was a feeling of faintness, a sensation that she was “going,” violent pain at times in the region of the heart’s apex, great oppression, the symptoms being relieved after a greater or less time by a copious flow of colorless urine. Every time I was called to her in one of these attacks she thought she was dying, and was almost angry with me because I refused to confirm her prognosis and pronounce the viaticum.

John Henry Clarke
John Henry Clarke MD (1853 – November 24, 1931 was a prominent English classical homeopath. Dr. Clarke was a busy practitioner. As a physician he not only had his own clinic in Piccadilly, London, but he also was a consultant at the London Homeopathic Hospital and researched into new remedies — nosodes. For many years, he was the editor of The Homeopathic World. He wrote many books, his best known were Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica and Repertory of Materia Medica