HOMOEOPATHY IN WOMENS AILMENTS


THE number of unnecessary operations performed on hapless women in the course of a year all over England must go into many, many thousands.On examination I found a mass bigger than a cricket ball in the fork of her legs, a complete prolapse of the female organs


THE number of unnecessary operations performed on hapless women in the course of a year all over England must go into many, many thousands. I came across a poor woman to-day, white, bloodless, haggard, who told me a pitiful tale. Never well since the birth of her child eighteen months ago, frequent attacks of haemorrhage, several periods of many weeks spent in hospital.

Her inside had been “Cleaned out”, as she called it, several times. Now she was sent home to recuperate for the next big operation; removal of some more of her organs. She took it all as a matter of course, was rather proud of it than otherwise, and her case is one of many.

I learned long ago that homoeopathy can do a great deal for these poor sufferers, even in apparently hopeless cases. Many years ago, in my early youth, when I was waiting for work to drop in, a woman was brought in by her friends. She was almost in a state of collapse, thin, elderly, sallow, with deep lines of suffering and pain on her face, a typical uterine complexion. I said to myself: “What could I do for her?” I asked her what she complained of: Oh, she had a terrible big lump in her groin which made it difficult for her to walk or sit down.

On examination I found a mass bigger than a cricket ball in the fork of her legs, a complete prolapse of the female organs. She had been many times to the big general hospital nearby and was the despair of the dressers and of young doctors. The pessary, the uterine support, put in during the morning, would be out before eventide many times. She had been given the largest supports they had in stock and not one would “stay put”. She had been ordered to have an operation to stitch up the prolapsed organs, but had flatly refused. Now she came to me to get some help.

I was in a predicament. My medical training said: “Operation is the only thing.” My knowledge of Homoeopathic drugs whispered: “Try the indicated remedy.” The organs were replaced and the pessary put in and with fear and trembling a dose of Sepia 1,000th potency was given on her history and such few symptoms as I could get out of the poor, distracted, pain-racked woman, mainly on her physical appearance, yellow liver spots on her face, great depression, irritability, a great sufferer from the cold.

I expected to have her back on my doorstep very soon. Nothing happened. Day after day went by and she did not appear. She had gone to hospital and had her operation after all, I thought. Three months later a bright, pink and white complexioned woman, middle-aged, came in, and introduced two new patients to me. “Dont you remember me?” It was my wreck of a woman with a prolapse. “Have you had your operation?” “Oh, no!” was the reply. “I have still got the ring in. I feel so different, so happy and full of energy.”

I could hardly believe my eyes. The incredible had been achieved. The ligaments and muscles of the pelvic floor had tightened up and had kept the pessary in. She wore the pessary for six months or so and after this we dispensed with it entirely. The prolapse never came back as long as I knew her. This was for about seven years. This woman had been saved from a dangerous operation and from a tedious and long-drawn out convalescence at the cost of what? A single powder of Sepia 1,000th potency which only required to be repeated at six months intervals.

After this case my work consisted largely in saving people from unnecessary surgical butchery. There was the dark haired young girl of 19 or 20, full-blooded, with scanty menstrual flow, intense dragging-down pains in her abdomen. She had a displaced uterus, suffered from severe pains in the forehead with disturbance of vision, pain in the bottom of the back, the sacrum, great suffering during menstrual periods, great heats in the head, emptiness of stomach and hot soles of feet.

All her symptoms were very like Sulphur. Yet she was irritable with it, could not speak a decent word to anybody even in the office, could not bear sympathy, and withal was like a Pulsatilla patient, for she could not stand a warm room and liked to be in the cold. This patient had been told by a surgeon that she required a curetting for her intense suffering at the menstrual periods and probably later an operation to fix the misplaced uterus. One or two doses of Lilium tigrinum in a high potency relieved her suffering, so that she could attend to her work and laugh at the thoughts of an operation.

And what about the dozens of young girls with acute menstrual pains, with sickness and vomiting and scanty periods, with times of silent agony, bitter wrangling with fate for having put all this suffering month after month on one to bear! What is the usual advice given to such an unfortunate being? AGain an operation which may help for five or six months, and then a return of the agony. In many cases all that is wanted is a dose or two of Pulsatilla, or Sulphur or Sepia-if only the poor victims knew-without any degrading examination even.

Readers should not think that the cures described offer any exceptional features, or that they require any exceptional ability on the part of the prescriber. Mr. Ellis Barker has described in his book, Miracles of Healing, hundreds of similar cures of gynecological and other diseases, performed by more than a hundred homoeopathic doctors. They are everyday events in the lives of homoeopaths, and I am sure there are thousands of homoeopaths, who could have done just as well as I have done. Furthermore it is not necessary to treat such cases with single, or very rare, doses of medicine in a high potency. A number of doses in a low or medium potency might have done just as well.

Dorothy Shepherd
Dorothy Shepherd 1885 – 1952 - British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy. Graduated from Hering College in Chicago. She was a pupil of J.T.Kent. Author of Magic of the Minimum Dose, More Magic of the Minimum Dose, A Physician's Posy, Homeopathy in Epidemic Diseases.