Sulphur iodatum may be indicated in emaciation of children, in oxygenoid children of tubercular constitution. Dr. Parteneau has given a prescription having a reconsitituting power which is very useful in children. Here is the formula.
Sulphur 6
Iodium 6
Calcarea phos }
Calcarea carb } IX
Calcarea flour }
It is a good medicinal combination which will help the emaciated child to take up weight. It seems that the lower dilutions of Iodium and Sulphur are necessary and Natrum muriaticum 200 will also be necessary to fix the salts of Calcium Oleum jecoris aselli (codliver oil), may be given in homoeopathy may be given according to the official doses, but it may cause digestive troubles.
Thus we come to the question of Vitamins.
We should also think of Organotherapy in all cases of the troubles of growth. We must not forget that syphilis is the basic factor of endocrinal troubles, next comes tuberculosis.
In children of tubercular constitution Arsenicum iodatum helps the child to take up weight and Kali iodatum in syphilitic child.
Aurum metallicum may be added to the list.
3. Anorexia and hepatic troubles: In Anorexia the important basic remedy is Lycopodium but it should often be followed by remedies directly acting on nausea and vomiting such as Ipeca and Antimonium crudum, according as the tongue is clean or covered with while patch.
In anorexia of children I generally give Lycopodium 30 one dose every 10 days, Calcarea phos 6, sometimes Arsenicum album and sometimes Silicea according to the symptoms.
If there is vomiting Ipecac is indicated.
When there is acetonemic vomiting Belladonna, Senna, Causticum, Lycopodium.
In these cases Lecithin may be given in gross doses. Lecithin has sometimes good actions.
On the whole with a few remedies Anorexia may be cured.
Sepia may be given in the second infancy when the child eats and digest only what is defended to it. Hard cheese, vinaigre, salted food (like Phosphorus & Natrum muriaticum). Sepia will be indicated in children of Iodium type who desires to remain alone.
Really speaking Sepia is a remedy of Anorexia of girls of 14, 15 or 16 years of ages, who have arrived at the age of puberty, who isolate themselves and say eating is a taxation to them. We can cure them easily with Sepia 200 & Nux vomica 30 followed by Luesinum. If the cure is delayed Luesinum should be used alternately with Lycopodium.
4. Vomiting and Diarrhoea.
In vomiting and diarrhoea and diarrhoea I will place Aethusa cynapium on the top of the list. But Dr. Renard has convinced me about the great value of Ipeca in infants. Let Dr. Renard speak.
Dr. Renard-Ipeca is indicated not only in the vomiting of infants but also in diarrhoea of infants. There are children who have alternate diarrhoea and constipation. The stools may be green; the colour of the stool may be normal when passed but becomes green afterwards. Ipeca should be given not in dilution but in mother tincture, one drop with hot water, sometimes 2 drops a dose four times a day.
Dr. Bernoville- We may then say that it is a marvellous remedy but it should be used in the required doses.
Generally when you have to treat mechanical troubles i.e. materially palpable such as digestive troubles, lower dilutions even the mother tincture should be used. For sympathetic troubles and mental troubles the high dilutions are required as for example you may use Ipeca 30 or 200 in asthma. If you want to cure the fit of whooping-cough use Ipeca 6 or 30.
Aethusa cynapium -Aethusa cynapium and Antimonium crudum are also two interesting remedies. The second is to be given in vomiting of children having a white washed tongue, and temperament like that of a Calcarea carbonica child.
Aethusa cynapium is a very important remedy. It is a remedy of the Ombellifera family and like all other remedies of this family it has spasms with all its troubles; sudden vomiting immediately after sucking or taking milk; vomiting of big clots of milk. It is a very faithful remedy. Generally it is given in the 6th dilution.
You see that generally the homoeopathic therapeutics is easy in children. The remedies are less numerous and easy to handle.
In cyclic vomiting Iris versicolor, Mercurius dulcis, and Senna give good results. The vomiting may be acetonemic when Senna will give good result.
In diarrhoea there are many remedies easy to handle. These remedies are of vegetable and mineral origin. The minerals seem to act slowly but deeply while the vegetables act very rapidly specially in acute cases.
In infantile cholera we should chose from among Veratrum album, Antimonium crudum, Cuprum, and Camphora.
Veratrum and Camphora are more important in infantile cholera where there is the danger of collapse of the heart; the child becomes ice-cold, cyanotic, having cold sweat on the forehead during and after stool.
Camphora has the pinched nose, the face is cold. The stage of collapse.
I repeat again here Veratrum is more important, then comes Cuprum and Camphora. Antimonium crudum is indicated in more benign cases.
These remedies are also of the first importance in Asiatic cholera. In France this disease is now absent. Homoeopathy has taken its root in countries where there is an epidemic of this terrible disease. In Brasil, Homoeopathy has obtained the official consideration since the epidemic of yellow fever in which Homoeopathy was so much successful so that it is recognised by the official authorities.
These remedies act in infantile cholera as well as in Asiatic cholera.
Chamomilla, Podophyllum and China may be compared and all the three act well when the stool is clear yellow.
Chamomilla has the stool like that of rotten egg mixed as if with chopped spinach. Diarrhoea during dentition like that of Podophyllum, specially indicated in diarrhoea in the summer or during hot climate. The child has tendency to prolapsus of the anus.
China is to be used when there is great dehydration with diarrhoea.
Mercurius solubilis and Mercurius corrosivus have greenish stools but those of the first is mixed with mucous, aggravation during night. The mouth of the patient is humid with thirst, the tongue is swollen, having imprint of the teeth.
Mercurius corrosivus has stomatitis and tenesmus of the abdomen or of the rectum. There may be ulceration and terrible pains.
Argentum nitricum, Ipeca and Aconite have green stools. Ipeca has stools like chopped spinach.
Aconite is an excellent remedy when the child has green stools with agitation, anxiety and great thirst.
Argentum nitricum has also greenish stools. Abuse of sweets. Stools becomes green rapidly. Stools, immediately after suckling.
Ipeca has green stools, sometimes glairy, sometimes mixed with blood. Cramping pain around the navel region.
Belladonna may also be indicated in green stools with spasmodic constriction of the anus. The important character is aggravation by the least contact. The child does not like that one touches his belly.
Magnesia carbonica and Rheum, with Calcarea carbonica are the three remedies of sour smelling stool in children.
Aethusa. We have already studied this remedy.
Kreosotum is indicated in children who have dental troubles. Caries of teeth which become black and crumbles.
Kali bichromicum is to be compared with Mercurius solubilis and especially in dysentery (Ipeca, Kali bichromicum, Arsenicum, Mercurius corrosivus, are specially used in bacillary dysentery).
Capsicum is useful in muco-membranous enterocolitis, with much burning sensation, false membranes in stools.
Colics. In colics of infants Chamomilla is the remedy of angry children who should be always carried, who have dental troubles like that of Belladonna and Mercurius solubilis.
Belladonna has fever and throbbing pains; Chamomilla is irritable and capricious; Mercurius solubilis has aggravation at night and in the heat of the bed.
China has diarrhoea with much flatus in the abdomen.
Colocynth has amelioration by doubling forward or by drawing the legs on the abdomen.
Veratrum album h as great abdominal pain; infantile cholera. Magnesia phosphorica has the same modality like that of Colocynth.
Dioscoria also is to be thought of (when there is amelioration by bending backwards).
Constipation: In constipation the remedies are very easy to apply. We will apply Calcarea, Lycopodium, Natrum muriaticum followed by Bryonia and Taraxacum two very important remedies.
Bryonia when the child has no desire of stools. When the stools are brown and large in quantity.
Taraxacum when the constipation is of hepatic origin. It acts better in 3x. It has map-like tongue. Natrum muriaticum has also somewhat similar tongue.
Graphites is interesting in fat children having tendency to obesity and chilliness.
Opium is interesting in constipation without desire. It is to be given in the 30 th potency like Bryonia. Stools are hard and like small balls.
Magnesia muriaticum is a related to Natrum muriaticum as regards dry stools, which comes out in crumbs.
Alumina is a remedy of constipation without desire. The patient is constipated even when the stools are soft. It is also useful in cutaneous troubles and erythema.
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.