The little child has therefore an immense vital force, its hereditary taints are shrouded. The famous hereditary Psora of Hahnemann is a term which suits admirably to children. It is at the end of 4, 5 6, 8 or 10 years and sometimes even later the child will be forced to purge its hereditary taints that it has received. Fortunately its organism will purge them rarely so long as it is a child. The principal means of purge are the eruptive fevers and acute diseases which are special in children: whooping cough, chicken pox, scarlatina, measles etc. The measles is an important infantile disease, which seems to us to be a real collective crisis of the cleansing of entire generation. The measles is an important cleansing disease of tubercular conditions. Scarlatina is related to hereditary psoric, tubercular and syphilitic taints. Similarly the mumps and diphtheria are related to Psoro-tubercular condition, intricated with sycosis and syphilis. The whooping cough is like measles related to tubercular condition. It is great antipsorics of Hahnemann that will be able to prevent them, but in this case there will be a spasmodic element which does not exist in case of measles. In the last case Sulphur will cause rapidly a cutaneous eruption. In whooping cough the most important thing is the localised spasm of the larynx. In this case what becomes of the idea of microbes and specific drugs? The microbe exists and it should not be considered negligible. The germs grow because they have a favourable ground and will play because of its migratory character, the part of sparks that spontaneously spring out of overheated combustibles,. In the actual life, and perhaps since thousands of years that man exist they should necessarily suffer form measles ninety times our to hundred in their childhood. So much so that Psora is so to say, anchored in us in an indefinite manner. Perhaps it had been attracted from the very moment when man began to live in caves or in a house with a roof on it, depriving himself partially of pure open air, of sun and light. Normally when we speak of naturists, about back to the nature, we think of natural food, but none among us will have the idea to live outside like an animal.
But let us not anticipate. What we may say, in reply to the question of heredity-if we admit that its influence does not act only on two or three but on numerous generations-is that the miasms of humanity have fatally left their stamps on the children: tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhoea, cancer. Let us not forget other diseases such as Malaria which was for so long a time of the first importance in our countries as well as in the Orient or in other countries having hot climate.
Those which seem to us more important in our region are: The Psora first of all, i.e. to say chronic tuberculinism of Dr. A. Nebel, probably associated with alimentary intoxications. or other.
The Syphilis of which the role is well-known, has surely influence on numerous generations.
The Gonorrhoea, which seems to us very important, though its influence is impossible to prove by the Homoeopathic school that it may hereditary influence the sycotic temperament in children and in adults. But from multiple facts collected from our experience we are inclined to believe that sycosis plays an important part and it is the cause of different troubles.
Finally malaria and all other possible intoxications b y alcohol, meat etc.
For each of these entities we must think of the possibility of human temperamental deviations even though there is no necessity of transmission of germs in children.
The hereditary taints in the child are not evident. They are always veiled. It is only during the second infancy these taints are revealed by means of all sorts of possible affections: eruptive fever, cutaneous troubles, spasmodic troubles and many other diseases that are not possible to enumerate here.
The treatment of the troubles of the digestive apparatus and of nutrition of the first infancy.
1. General therapeutic considerations.
How should we treat the child from Homoeopathic point of view when we compare the Homoeopathic treatment of the child with that of the adult? In children we may take into account the question of heredity and use of Nosodes. But precisely because these hereditary taints are more or less dormant, that become evident later on, and precisely because they should reveal themselves very lately, it becomes necessary that we should not treat the child in a brutal manner with nosodes.
In a general way, we may say that the great antipsorics of Hahnemann, that remedies from plants and minerals are more advantageously used in children than the remedies from the animal kingdom. You will find none of the remedies from animal kingdom on our chart because their actions are very complex. In any case these very rare remedies from the animal kingdom should be used with great care and often in relatively low potency.
As for example we should not treat brutally the child with Tuberculins of Serum of marmoreck, not because of the chance of aggravation in adult (a child generally tolerates better the Homoeopathic medicines), but because we will not get clear and favourable results. The effects of the great classic remedies are generally favourable. Some nosodes, Bacillinum, Medorrhinum
Luesinum may be indicated more often than the habitual tuberculins. On the contrary for a prenatal treatment we may act on the pregnant mother deeply and energetically with all the nosodes specially by T.K., T.R., Luesinum. When the woman is pregnant you may treat her directly for three months for her nausea and vomiting or for her sympathetic troubles. It is only towards the fourth month and up to the end you will treat almost exclusively the child by using alternately Thuja, Natrum Sulphuricum on the one hand and T. R., Medorrhinum or Luesinum on the other hand. This kind of treatment seems to act marvellously as prenatal treatment according to our personal experience.
2. Some Rules Of Prescription We are now going to study the most important basic remedies that are used in children. A clinical classification will follow later on which will serve us as the basis of the study of our homoeopathic remedies in different cases.
Let us give at first some rules of prescription for the treatment of children.
We have just said that the child has no pathological past There is no medicinal aggravation in children. This fact surprises those who come new in Homoeopathy and they are also surprised to see how easy it is to treat the child with homoeopathic medicines. One faces difficulty when one begins to do Homoeopathy with Sulphur, Lycopodium and other such remedies that have centrifugal action. These remedies may in some cases cause aggravation of eczema and liver troubles. In children everything goes well. It is generally easy to select a remedy and the organism of the child responds rapidly. It is curious to note that in children the nature seems to be at our disposal. Subjective symptoms are very much necessary in Homoeopathic treatment but in the case of a child and animals it is different. Here the objective symptoms are more important and they are the real keys that will help us to arrive rapidly to the simillimum.
On this question we may automatically make a justified remark to some of the unicists for whom homoeopathy is valuable only in subjective symptoms. They think that the objective symptoms are less important, while some homoeopaths like Dr. A. Nebel have tried to enrich the Homoeopathic pathogenesis with the fruits of their clinical researches with all the indications that one may find on the tongue, on the lips and on the face. These facts have been described but it is a mistake because numerous objective symptoms have been indicated by Hahnemann himself in his pathogenesis specially in case of a child.
Rules of Posology.
In case of a child use the high dilutions only with care inspite of the fact that the child easily tolerates them because, it is preferable to give the remedies that do not act for a long time. If you apply a very high dilution you will be forced to wait for 3, 4, or 5 months before repeating the medicine according to the general principle of homoeopathy, or you will not be able to use any other remedy and you will not be able to ascertain which of the remedies will have been effective. Or again their action may be very fleeting and you will have the risk to take time. In a child it is necessary to act soon. You should not wait for curing the vomiting of a child or cholera infantile. You should not, like some unicists, turn over the pages of a book for two hours for finding out the good remedy and thus risk the aggravation of the disease. I, however believe that fewer remedies are required for children than for the adult. Generally the cases are simple because there is no pathological past, or if you like the child has his past before it. It is, as it will show the signs of hereditary taints in the form of eruptive fevers or other affections. The affections will appear in their time. They should not be called in earlier with a misunderstood treatment, neither they should be “choked” in their appearances by forcing the eruption to get in i.e. suppressed.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.