R. Ceanothi Americani 3x 3iv. Three drops in water three times a day.
She came from the country, so I did not see her again but as I asked for a report in a fortnight, her husband wrote at the end of that period to say that she was well and needed no further attention.
The case of this lady rather interested me, as some six years previously she came under my care for chronic headaches that seemed climacteric; I treated her for these headaches, but could not make any impression upon them, and then, on going over that the urine contained a small quantity of albumen. This our ordinary remedies removed in about two months and the headaches disappeared. About a year latter the albuminuria again returned in a very slight degree, and with it some cephalalgia; both yielded at once to the same remedies and she had remained well till she came with the splenalgia and haemorrhoids. I suspect, therefore, that the old albuminuria was not due to any kidney mischief, but to venous congestion of the kidneys.
PAINFUL ENGORGEMENT OF SPLEEN WITH VARICOSIS
Some cases of varicosis will not get well till you cure the spleen of its-perhaps slight -enlargement. Thus a hale gentleman of 70 odd consulted me early in 1887 for varicose veins, particularly below the knees. The veins on the surface of all four extremities get knotty and painful. These is a pain under the left ribs, which is worse when he has urinary urging. The splenalgia he has had these ten years.
I prescribed ceanothus 1. It cured the splenalgia and painful vein-knots in a few weeks. He is now comfortable under left ribs of for the first time for ten years. He is also not so short of breath. The stricture of the urethra, of which he also suffers, was not affected by the Ceanothus and he remains under my care to see of the stricture will also yield to treatment.
CHRONIC ENLARGEMENT OF SPLEEN WITH HEART SYMPTOMS
An Unmarried lady of 49 came to me in January, 1887, for a supposed affection of the heart. Being rather stout, she was though to have a fatty heart. She complained of numbness and heaviness down the left arm for a considerable time, also of a pain under her left ribs at times ever since her childhood, and over which part she had had blisters and poultices from most of her many physicians, generally with relief for the time being. An examination showed the heart to be normal, but disclosed an enlargement of the spleen. The patient has suffered from whites all her life.
She took Ceanothus Americanus 1. five drops in water night and morning, for two months: I had ordered it for one month only, but she found herself so much better from the medicine that she got a second bottle of it on her own account, and continued taking it for just two months, when she came to inform me that she felt quite well, and percussion showed that the spleen had returned to its normal size. The leucorrhoea was a trifle better, but not much, and for this affection she remained under treatment. The spleen engorgment had been cured by the spleen remedy, but the constitutional state had remained unaltered; but with this I am here not concerned.
VOMITING-CHRONIC AND SEVERE HYPERTROPHY OF SPLEEN.
On June 16,1881, an unmarried lady of 23 years of age, residing on high ground in London, came to me saying she suffered from chronic and severe vomiting, debility and emaciation. The vomiting began about midsummer, 1880, at first once or twice a week, and it has been gradually getting worse, so that she now vomits generally about half an hour after every meal, though occasionally she will miss a meal and not vomit,. She has lost 13 1bs. in weight since January last Menses are getting scant. There is a very considerable area of dulness on percussion in the left hypochondrium, and when she is sick she feels pain under the left ribs. She often gets caught with a pain under left ribs; and besides this left hypochondriac pain, she gets a clawing pain in the pit of the stomach, not seemingly connected with it, and apt to last the whole of the day. Lifting her arms seems to pull her stomach, and hurt in the middle. Cannot wear stays, because their pressure hurts; she dons them, but is compelled to put them off every few hours. There is a clear space of about an inch between the area of dulness on percussion of liver and spleen respectively. She flushes at times. She is generally chilly, string by the fire when others do not, and she goes to sit by the kitchen fire when there is no fire anywhere else in the house. Cannot walk upstairs other than very slowly, because of dyspnoea. The vomit is sometimes nearly black as if she had been drinking coffee; at times it is watery, at others just the food.
R. Ceanothus Americanus 1, 3v. Five drops in water three times a day.
She took no other remedy, and was discharged cured in about seven weeks. The patient had previously been under an able homoeopathic practitioner, who had treated the case purely symptomatically, and thus failed, for the very sufficient reason that the symptoms which he treated were secondary to the engorgment of the spleen, and so his remedies all failed. God forbid that I should say one disparaging word symptomatic treatment as such, for we but too often have only the subjective symptoms to go by, but where an exhaustive physical diagnosis is possible, it should always be made, and should stand in importance far before merely subjective symptoms, as these may be, and often are, consequently in this sense delusive.
For, in this case, it must be manifest that vomiting due to an enlarged spleen can never be cured by remedies that physiologically produce vomiting, but by such as will bring a large spleen back to the normal.
ENLARGEMENT OF SPLEEN-AGUE-CAKE
In November, 1886, a poitrinaire lady of 29 came under my observation complaining of indigestion, flatulence, and palpitation, with cough and considerable debility. The flatulence is worse in the evening. The right lung gives a dull percussion note almost all over the front aspect. There is an endocardial bruit, best heard at mid-sternum. The spleen fills the entire left hypochondrium, while in the right side the hepatic dulness runs up, seemingly almost to the nipple. There is slight increase of vocal resonance on the right side of thorax. The skin across the epigastrium is very brown. Had a cough ever since she had fever in Malta three years ago; also frontal neuralgia.
Chelidonium I cured the swelling of the liver, and reduced the spleen a trifle. Ceanothus Americanus I restored the spleen to the normal, but did not touch the neuralgia Thuja occidentalis 30 cured the neuralgia, and I an now endeavoring to go deeper into the case to find out the etiologic x of her constitution, which causes me to state that she is poitrinaire, the anatomic basis of which is a sodden, phlegmy, bronchial lining; but what is the etiologic moment thereof?
This case also illustrates both the insufficiency of the organopathic conception and also its practical utility.
QUASI-HEART DISEASE
A city gentleman between 30 and 40 came to see me on November 25, 1885, for heart disease, from which he had suffered for fifteen years. He has been under quite a number of eminent physicians, tried changes to spas, and been for climatic benefits east, west, north, and south, at all times and seasons. Cruising about in a yacht does him most good. For the past several years he has been under Sir—–for his heart.
I find his heart rather small, its action irregular, an endocardial bruit most audible below and to the left mammilla. He gets very chilly, and his fingers often go dead in the early morning: the so-called “poor circulation” so frequently accused. He is languid, anaemic, seemingly barely able to rise in the morning. Has been vaccinated three times, but only took very slightly the first time.
The lungs are flat; the spleen notably enlarged.
The most distressing symptom is his nocturnal palpitation.
R. Ceanothus Am. 1. Five drops in water three times a day.
After taking the Ceanothus thus for a fortnight, the cardiac and splenic dulness no longer ran into one another, and the palpitation and numbness were much better.
Regarding the case causally as partly from vaccinosis, I gave Thuja 30 infrequently, which did him so much good that he stayed away for a month. But a very ugly patch of eczema had come out in the right axilla! and he subsequently got shingles on left thigh.
The quasi-heart disease was gone, has not returned, and the further course of the case presents no relevancy to my present thesis. Strange to say, the endocardial bruit had also quite disappeared.
The foregoing being entirely chips from my own work-shop, I think it would be well to give an example of what Rademacher`s organopathy really is, by reproducing in rough and ready translation the bulk of his chapter on Diseases of the spleen from his great life-work, the Recht fertiguny, already referred to.
RADEMACHER`S EXPERIENCE OF DISEASES OF THE SPLEEN, BASED ON HOHENHEIM’S ORGANOPATHY*
*Abbreviated from-RSECHTFERTIGUNG der von den Gelehrten misskannten, VERSTANDESTECHTEN ERFAHRUNGSHEILLEHRE der alten scheidekunstigen Geheimaerzte, etc., von Johann Gottfried Rademacher: Erster Band. 4th Edition. Berlin, 1851.
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.