Some Homoeopaths use Luesinum as a rule with Calcarea fluorica and Aurum metallicum specially in children who suffer form otitis and during dentition. Teething is particularly difficult in Calcarea fluorica because the child has not enough place in his maxilla, so that the teeth may grow easily. The teeth grow obliquely. You may see all the signs of syphilitic heredity on the teeth, for example dented teeth, the gingival palate etc. Calcarea fluorica corresponds to this picture.
After these four very important constitutional remedies are to be studied. We will speak at first of Iodum and Natrum muriaticum. They will be required somewhat late, generally at the end of the first infancy or during the second infancy.
Natrum muriaticum. It is a remedy of the troubles of growth of children who remain lean for a longtime, who do not develop well or who remain a cretin.
As regards cretinism, the child who is very slow to develop is also suitable to Silicea, to Natrum Muriaticum or specially to Baryta carbonica. In such cases we should think of a very ancient syphilis which has attacked the endocrines specially the hypophisary. Baryta carbonica will be the specific remedy of heredo-syphilitic, Silicea of the heredo-tubercular and Natrum muriaticum 200 being the constitutional remedy for fixing the salts of Calcium and to help the child to gain weight.
We must compare Natrum muriaticum with Serum de Quinton or with Aqua Marina. In some patients lower triturations of Natrum muriaticum are necessary. It is Arnulphy, a famous homoeopath of Nice, who first proved the value of this remedy. Arnulphy worked with Quinton. Our colleague Jarricot of Lyon continued the use of Serum de Quinton. Unfortunately, I believe that actually this remedy is very rarely used. However, it is a valuable arm in many cases of athrepsia or of nutritional troubles of the infants.
Iodium. It is to be given in cases of marasmus or to children suffering from indurated glands with troubles of nutrition. The child eats well but becomes lean and evolves rapidly towards tuberculosis. But this remedy is more interesting in the second infancy.
Thuya. It is equally useful in the 2 nd infancy for troubles relating to sycosis and vaccination.
Sulphur. A child may soon require Sulphur. Sulphur is generally called the king of antipsorics. For Hahnemann Calcarea carbonica was the king of Antipsorics. He considered the value of heredity because the more one is a Homoeopath the more he gives importance to heredity from the pathological and therapeutic point of view. We shall not hesitate to go back in search of syphilis to several generations and not two or three generations only as some homoeopaths teach. But Sulphur has as well as Calcarea carbonica, a deep action on hereditary taints.
In the symptoms that indicate the primordial agent of hereditary force in Calcarea carbonica, we should note one very important symptom, the mydriasis. It is a child suitable to Calcarea carbonica. In acute case Chamomilla or Belladonna is necessary.
Sulphur will therefore be necessary to drain out, in a brutal manner, all the possible toxins. It is with Sulphur we will begin the treatment of measles, whooping cough and most of the infantile diseases.
Sulphur is inconvenient only, as explained by P. Chavanon, in children who have easy suppurative tendency. We will help the nature to play the part of fire, and the condition of the child will ameliorate at the cost of a possible otitis or any other suppuration that may become dangerous. A single dose of Sulphur given prematurely to a child who has the maximum suppurative tendency, will improve the general condition, but will aggravate the local conditions. There is therefore antagonism between general and local interest of the organism.
Sulphur is an important remedy and should be used in lower or medium dilutions and should be very rarely repeated.
The important indications of Sulphur, though it does not enter in the present study, is the incontinence of urine. With Calcarea carbonica, Sulphur is of the first importance in incontinence of urine in children. It is with Sulphur 200 followed by Plantago 6 and Equisetum 30 we will have frequent and regular success in the treatment of bed wetting in children.
We will besides find cramp rings almost always in the iris of these children and hereditary syphilis.
Lycopodium. It is a remedy of children of all ages.
I have Lycopodium in our schema immediately after Calcarea and Sulphur because there are digestive troubles which are related either to cutaneous sphere (Sulphur) or to the liver (Lycopodium).
The principal indication of Lycopodium is loss of appetite in all ages.
There is hardly a child in whom we cannot bring back the appetite. I have never failed even in a single case. Anorexia called nervous or mental seems to us in reality to be of hepatic origin because we cure it by liver remedies. It is here, where homoeopathy is really interesting because here we have to make a particular mental gymnastic. The officials at first make a pathogenesis and they gather a group of symptoms. The difficulty is that there is often a great distance between diagnosis and therapeutics. There is often an abyss to cross. One may not always cross over this difficulty. In homoeopathy we have always some landmark in our reasoning. From symptoms to therapeutics from therapeutics to clinic our mind shuttles many times and we constantly the confirmation by touch-stone treatment. We may bring back the appetite of infants or of children of the 2nd infancy or of girls at the time of puberty who keep themselves closed in a room, who like solitude. Their condition is cured with Sepia. When puberty will make them hypertensive of the portal veins and when there is pelvic and liver congestion, we will bring back their appetite. But it is rather with Lycopodium we will be able to bring back their appetite., We will cure the mental type of anorexia of the first or of the second infancy. We therefore think that we are right to think that if everytime we cure them with remedies like Lycopodium or by other remedies of hepatic insufficiency, that the anorexia which is called mental is in reality of hepatic origin or perhaps hepatopancreatic origin. It may exist with some mental troubles, but it is before all glandular and is often related to more or less ancient hereditary syphilis.
We will cure marvellously some nervous anorexias with Lycopodium in children who are soon satisfied who leave always half of their milk.
Lycopodium will also be useful in cyclic vomiting with Senna.
B. Functional remedies of different syndromes of nutrition.
Now we come to the properly called homoeopathic remedies. Let us examine some syndromes of nutrition from the clinical point of view.
1. Athrepsia, congenital weakness, anemia.
2. Troubles of growth, rickets and its satellite troubles.
3. All the liver troubles with Lycopodium, from mental anorexia to acetonomy.
4. Vomiting, diarrhoea, dyspepsia, infantile cholera, dysentery, enterocolitis and constipation, are the most important syndromes. Then we will broach rapidly colics, constipations and we will say something on erythema which is related to digestive troubles.
1. Athrepsia, congenital weakness, anemia.
These diseases are classic in children who are brought up with artificial milk or with food that does not contain sufficient vitamins. We have no homoeopathic remedy like fruit vitamins and we will also give orange juice or juices of other fruits. We will however follow the principles of naturists and will give one or two drops daily while the official school will apply quantity of acid fruit juice daily. We will thus avoid the troubles of demineralisation.
But when we have children suffering from marasmus, who are mere skeletons without flesh and who rapidly proceeds towards death we will think of Silicea (30 or even 200); Natrum muriaticum, Iodium, the basic remedies and in the Materia medica we will find some more important remedies: Abrotanum, Arsenicum iodatum, which are very important in pre-tubercular or tubercular children who become emaciated very rapidly. They should be used in the 3rd dilution or in triturations. In other cases Calcarea silicata in chilly children. Ferrum metallicum and Pulsatilla will be indicated in anemic children (anemia of children for want of air). In such cases quantity of milk should be diminished and food with assimilable iron should be used. In such cases we may use Ferrum metallicum 30. Pulsatilla is an excellent drainer of tubercular patients. Children suffering from marasmus are more or less tubercular.
2. Rickets, troubles of growth.
In rickets we have spoken of Calcarea carbonica, Silicea, Lycopodium, afterwards Natrum muriaticum & Abrotanum. We should also think of Baryta carbonica which is the best remedy of cretinism of children who cannot speak well, who walk late, who are intellectually late. Baryta carbonica is one of the principal remedies in retarded children. We should also think of Luesinum and Hepato-Luesinum. The latter seems very often more active.
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.