Well, my patient had been to many eminent physicians in this London of our for what he called windy dyspepsia”. He is great and almost constant pain, full of foul flatus, constant diarrhoea, often involuntary, which is terrible distress to him.
He was greatly improved in a few months and the remedies which did it were Arsenicum 5, Nux vomica 5, Sulphur 5, Colocynthis 3x.
Said the old gentleman somewhat sententiously.
“These medicines seem to suit me.”
XL
An officer in the army brought his twelve-year-old daughter to me on November 13th, 1886 telling me that she had something growing in her mouth. A similar had come a year ago, when his family surgeon excised it, in six months from the time of the operation it had grown again, making it difficult for the child to eat her food as it caught the tongue and teeth, and then bled. This time the doctor ligatured it off thoroughly, leaving a hole, and informed the father that this time he hoped its roots were got rid of. Now it has grown again at the side of the said hole. On examining the mouth I find in its side just to the left of the fraenulum linguae, a warty fleshy excrescence, of the shape of a cock’s comb about a quarter of an inch broad at its base and nearly a quarter of an inch high. Patient has normal teeth; the tongue is coated and she is very pale. I ordered Thuja occidentalis 30 internally, in infrequent dose, and a mouth wash of Thuja a two drops in a dessertspoonful of water night and morning to keep it bathing the growth as long as possible and then expectorate.
As this brought the growth down to the size of a pea treatment was discontinued but she then bit it on three successive occasions where upon it again took to growing, and on January 1887, when I saw it, it was about as big as a horse-bean. This time I ordered sabina just as I had previously ordered Thuja. Under the Sabina patient took on a healthy look, but a small piece of the growth still persisted, when I ordered Cupressus lawsoniana in like manner as the Thuja and Sabina had been used. That was in March, 1887, and I did not se her again. But I met her father in October on another “Oh she is quite well; the lump has been gone a long time, but the hole is still there.”
So if you ever get a little cock’s comb growth in your mouth, take my advice, and have it treated homoeopathically, for it is, as you see much better than either excision or ligature and you will thereafter have no “hole” to mark the locus in quo and let the little tip stand as my fortieth reason for being a homoeopath.
XLI
Deafness is a very troublesome to deal with, but it is worth while being a homoeopath, were it only for one power it gives one over deafness. I never could make out what you allopathic fellows did for deafness beyond the everlasting syringing. I have peered about in the aural departments of big hospitals, and read the books of noted aurists, beginning with a namesake of my own, but could never find that they did any real good beyond clearing away mechanical hindrances. And even in Homeopathy it seems to me that our specialists rely far too much on cutting scraping, and syringing.
I have very often cured deafness with the aid of Homeopathy but most of the cases have needed so may remedies that I could not cite them without occupying too much space.
A lady of sixty of the Vielle noblesse catholique anglaise, came to me in December, 1886, sent by her daughter whom I had cured. of neuralgia. The daughter had neuralgia of right side of head very badly that she thought originally came from a coup de vent she spent the winter of 1885-86 in Nice, and one day sat next to state of being when it transpired that the gentleman had previously suffered from the very same sort of neuralgia and in the identical spot and that for many years until he came to me when I(thanks to Homoeopathy) cured him. I had intended giving the case of deafness as my forty-first reason for being as homoeopath, but I will alter my plan and instead give this cure of neuralgia.
The lady was forty years of age, and came to me in April,1886 the pain was in the right side of brow face ear and neck and had been on ever since the preceding November.
Thuja occidentalis in a rather high dilution and infrequent doses cured the neuralgia in a few weeks and the lady in question has thought this brilliant cure of her neuralgia of itself to convert the sufferer of and if it be enough to be one of my fifty reasons and that the forty-first.
XLII
Having begun in my last communication to give you a case of deafness as my forty first reason. I fell back on a case of neuralgia that had been suggested by it, and so that leaves the deaf lady to do duty now. Well, she came in December, 1886 because I had cured said neuralgia.
“You cured my daughter’s neuralgia so perhaps you can cure my deafness.”
It was a case of long standing that had been under th best aurists and they had syringed it an done their poor little best, giving temporary ease, but not touching the essence of the complaint which was due to chronic inflammation and swelling of the walls of the external meatus on both sides.
In five months the lady was quite cured, and the remedies were Thuja, psorinum, Sabina, and Ceanothus, and one other.
This lady has also become a homoeopath and now employs for her family the homoeopathic practitioner living near house and her cure must stand as my forty-second reason for being a homoeopath.
XLIII
I gave you have cure of a dermatitis state as my last reason for being a homoeopath; nosologically we called it deafness. Let me advance a little on the merely inflammatory state, and give as my forty-third reason for being a homoeopath the cure of a small growth. I will call it –
ENCHONDROMA INDICIS CURED BY Calcarea fluorica ALONE
A maiden lady of sixty came to consult me on October 13th 1883, telling me she had a shiny swelling on her left index finger, which had been there for about eighteen months. The lump was hard painful and of about the size of small split walnut, but rather flatter. Patient was very nervous and depressed.
Rx Trit. 3x Calcarea fluorica. Six grains four times a day, dry on tongue.
October 27th.- Very great improvement.
Rx. Rep November 3rd.- The cartilaginous nature is now clearly to be felt.
Rx. Rep.
10th.- The swelling continues to get softer.
Rx. Rep (dry on the tongue) 17th.- Still progressing softer and smaller: on its middle finger side it has taken on inflammatory action as if it were going to gather, being hot red, and more swelled.
Rx. Rep.
24th.- The tumour is softer and smaller and patient is beginning to bend her finger which had previously become quite impossible.
Rx. Rep.
December 1st.- Still improving.
Rx. Rep.
15th.- Further is much more normal in colour and still progressing. Patient went on with the same remedy until short way into the new year. I saw her the last time of December 29the when she was nearly well.
If I remember rightly Grauvogl was the first to use and to recommend the fluoride of lime for enchondroma.
The interest of this case lies not so much in the importance of the tumour of this case (it was only the size of half a walnut, or thereabouts), but rather in the fact that only one remedy was used, and no other, and no change was made either in diet or place of abode. The lady had a hard lump on her finger for eighteen months; she took a course of Calc fl., to the choice of which Homoeopathy led me, and the lump went away.- Q.E.D.
XLIV
I have before pointed out to you that I love the grand independence conferred upon me by Homoeopathy: when I have a difficult case I do not want to side softly away from responsibility by the support of a consultative old foggy whose brains have long since gone to sleep and whose raison d’etre is only medico-social. I want to cure my patient and were it only for the mental satisfaction. Now guided by Homoeopathy and a wee bit of reasoning power, I can generally do this.
Read the following case of –
TRAUMATIC SWELLING OF RIGHT BREAST CURED BY Bellis ALONE
I adduce the following case of swelling in a young lady’s breast rather to exemplify in a neat way the curative range of the DAISY in the treatment of tumours.
No experienced practitioner will deny the important part of played by bruises blows and falls in the genesis of tumours an cancer;and hence our anti-traumatics ought to figure much more largely in our therapeutics of growths from blows. Before giving my case I will quote a very instructive note on this very question that appeared as leader in the first volume of the Homoeopathic Recorder (Philadelphia,) No. 4, July 1886.
MALIGNANT GROWTHS
“In the preceding number of The Recorder there appeared three items concerning malignant growths, which deserve more than passing notice. One is the history of the development of malignant formation as the result of the frequent mechanical irritation of a simple mole on the frequent mechanical irritation of mole on the face, another recounted the cure of an extensive sarcomatous growth by an intercurrent attack of erysipelas, and the third contained the analysis of a series of cases of carcinoma in all of which there was antecedent injury by mechanical or chemical means; in the latter selection the writer asks in all seriousness: Is cancer, whatever its form ever primary – i.e does it ever originate without previous injury?
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.