Then I gave the following course of drug treatment : Silica 30 for fourteen days; Belladonna 3 for fourteen days: Sulphur 30 three times a day for a week; and then Phosphorus 1 for a fortnight.
A month or so after this date-March 20th, 1876-I one morning heard some very loud talking in the hall, and my patient came rushing in and crying in quite an excited manner that she could almost see as well as ever. She explained that latterly she seemed able to discern objects and persons in the street much better than formerly, but she thought it must be fancy, but that morning she suddenly discovered that she should see the parting in her hair and she at once at once started to inform me of the fact and en route, she further tested her vision by reading the names over the shops which she previously could not see at all.
I ordered the same course of treatment again, and in another two months the lenticular (or capsular opacities completely disappeared and her vision because and remained excellent.
She had never any recurrence of the ophthalmia and she remained about a year and a half in my neighbourhood in good health. She then went abroad again, and in her letters to her friends since, she makes no mention of her eyes or sight, and hence I fairly conclude that she continues well.
The patient’s age is now about fifty or fifty-one.
I have detailed this case somewhat circumstantially, so that my conversion to belief in the medicinal curability of cataract may appear to others as it does to me.
This case made a considerable stir in a small circle and a certain number of cases of cataract have since come under my care in consequence and the curative results I have obtained in their treatment are extremely encouraging.
And I may add that I published this in the year 1880, and since then I have partially or completely cured a number of cases of cataract with remedies and this power I possess because I am privileged to be a homoeopath.
XXXIV
You ask me whether the homoeopaths as a body endorse my views as to the amenability of cataract to medicines?
My answer is that some do and some do not, but that is not material; the task is very difficult, and not within the power of every physician who happens to practise on homoeopathic lines: the higher and highest work of which Homoeopathy is capable depends upon the capacity of the operating clinical artist i.e upon the homoeopathic practitioner. What I claim for Homoeopathy is what I have done with its aid myself; other physicians will be able to do more, and some less.
As my thirty-forth reason for being a homoeopath I will cite the details of a case of cataract begun in may 1884 and ended in May, 1886.
Mrs. V – aet. 66 came under my observation on May 20 th 1884. She came through a friend whose cataract had been cured by me with medicines.
Mrs. V. s history is this: In November 1882 and in April 1883 she had been operated upon for cataract of the right eye. Inflammation set in, and the eye was lost. Now her left eye has cataract the lens having a grey look and her vision is much impaired; she wears spectacles, but can no longer sew or thread a needle with their aid. Her father and his sister had cataract. Patient’s skin is scaly and pimply more particularly that of the face.
Rx Tc. Sulph 30 3iv.
S.- Five drops in water night and morning.
August 30 th.- Since last date I sent her a medicine, but omitted to not it. She thinks her sight clear.
Calcarea carb 30 October 29th.- ” I am thankful to say my sight keeps better, only I am nervous, and everything falling makes me jump.”
Thuja 30
December 2nd.- “I feel my sight improving.
Causticum 100
January 1 st, 1885.- “I am thankful to tell you my sight is much better; I can now se wonderfully well to read and write with my spectacles on, and I can see very well to go about or do anything in the house without the spectacles.
Rep.
March 25 the “Cannot bear the light so well; the eye which is blinded water very much.
Psor 100
April 28.- Bad cold.
Puls 1 x.
May 2nd.- On this day the patient paid me her second visit and the note in my case-book runs “The left lens is decidedly less milky can see to thread a needle.
Rep.
July 2nd.- “My eyes is not quite so clear.”
Silicea 30
August 27th.- No change.
Causticum C.
October 3rd.- Better of self, and sees better
4 Rep.
January 18th, 1886.-No further change.
Rep.
March 9th.-About the same as three months ago.
Pulsatilla 1x.
May 18th.- vast improvement; can read, write, and see well, and there is now only the faintest opacity of the lens.
I heard from her in October, 1887, and her vision continued in the same excellent state, and she is now just on seventy years of age.
So you see here one eye had been lost through the operation for cataract, and nevertheless the cataract in the other eye had been cured. I do not say the lens is at the center as clear as yours or mine, but the cataract is gone, and that little rest of opacity does not affect the vision at all appreciably, and is not of the nature of progressive cataract but is the remaining bit of it that Nature cannot get rid of, but it is no longer cataract, but its stationary remains.
Does this case convince you?
XXXV
It is the merest folly on your part to pretend to question my diagnosis of cataract; whatever truth there may have been in such objections when I cured my first case nearly a dozen years ago, that can hardly be valid now. But I make you a present of all diagnostic power, if that will please you, inasmuch as the cited cases were diagnosed by eye specialists of the greatest eminence and experience, so what is your next objection? That it was not senile? then take what I published in the “HOMOEOPATHIC WORLD,” October 1st, 1881. I will copy it word for word :-
CASE OF CATARACT MUCH AMELIORATED BY MEDICINE In a little monograph I have sought to defend the thesis that cataract can be often cured, and still oftener ameliorated, by the aid of medicines given internally,. The bulk of the profession, of course, ignore the thing entirely. That I expected. A few of the more enlightened welcomed the little book as an honest attempt-as an imperfect, but solid beginning. Yet others shook their heads in good old-fashioned honest doubt, and muttered something about “mistaken diagnosis”; and this not- -without a chuckle at their own superior powers in this regard.
Since the publication of “Curability of Cataract with Medicines”, I have continued my humble effort in the same line, sneers and jibes not with standing. I have only treated a very few cases, partly because I do not care to begin unless a patient is willing, if necessary, to go on for a year or two, and this most of them decline.
It is no wonder people are very incredulous about the possibility of modifying the stroma of an opaque lens; for it is indeed very difficult, and I fail myself but too often, yet by no means always, and I consider the future of the question very hopeful.
The opponents of the thesis that an opaque lens can be modified by medicines often cite the very aged as more than usually hopeless. But I propose to bring a case showing that even an octogenarian may be materially benefited, and get a considerable amount of useful vision restored. It is the oldest case I have ever treated, and has turned a few scoffers into respectful listeners. I do not give all the treatment, but only the relevant part of it.
Mrs.-, aet. 81, came under observation at the end of the year 1880, suffering from cataract of both eyes, diagnosed by various physicians and specialists. Her vision was much impaired; reading had become impossible, and she could barely recognize a person in the street, or the pictures on the walls of my consulting-room. Thinking the case hopeless, principally on account of her advanced age, I did not enter with my wonted minuteness into her case, but gave Chelidonium 1x, five drops in water night and morning, on pathological grounds.
February 2nd, 1881.-She came and said she felt more comfortable in her mouth, her tongue being less hard and stiff; vision the same. Thinking there might be yet a glimmer of hope for the venerable lady- at least that absolute blindness might possibly be averted-I went into her case with greater care. I found she had occasional diplopia, and things seemed farther off than they really were. But the thing that had long distressed her was this : On awaking in the morning her tongue was as hard and stiff as a board. That this should have any connection with the cataractous lenses was not apparent; still it was the most constant, peculiar, and characteristic symptom, and, moreover, a very distressing one. I turned up a Repertory, and finally decided on Sulphur iodatum (see Symptom 40 in Allen’s Encyclopaedia). Considering the general character of the remedy, and the pathology of the disease, I did not hesitate, but gave six grains of the fourth centesimal trituration every night at bedtime.
March 21st.-My report for this day in my case-book reads thus :-.Hardness and stiffness of tongue gone, and she had it two years; it was quite distressing; sees decidedly better at a distance.”
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.