(From Biologische Heilkunst).
YEARS ago I treated a business man affected with kidney stones. He did not suffer much pain, but he felt much worried and possibly he suffered more in his mind than in his body because he lived under the constant fear of an attack of kidney colic, which is extremely painful. When I saw him in my consulting room, I prescribed for him Lycopodium 6x, and the very next morning I was asked to call upon him at his house. He had just passed a kidney stone as large as a bean and he accused me half reproachfully and half delightedly with having brought on the colic by my prescription.
As the stone had been passed. I found it easy to put his mind at rest. Every doctor had found it happening that incidents which occur after a medicine had been taken are attributed to that medicine. That conclusion is not very convincing. I felt sceptical as to whether Lycopodium had caused the expulsion of the stone. Still I made a mental note of it and intended to pursue the matter further.
Not very long afterwards an elderly woman asked me to call on her. She had been in bed for four weeks on account of abdominal pain which had been described as “purely nervous”. The patient was certainly very nervous. In fact she was pronouncedly hysterical. I listened to her theatrical description of the pain in the left side of her abdomen and found it necessary to reserve my conclusions as to the cause.
I considered the possibility to colitis, inflammation of the descending colon, and kidney colic. She had suffered repeatedly from urethra on making water, as her urine carried sediment. and as she suffered from arthritis deformans in the right hip, I resolved to give her Lycopodium she had an attack of colic and passed a kidney stone as large as a coffee bean.
I could describe some other cases where Lycopodium had similar results. In order not to weary the reader, I would describe a third and last case. A commercial traveller, 42 years old, consulted me on account of general exhaustion. He told me that he was treated by a bladder specialist on account of catarrh of the bladder combined with the formation of abscesses, and that he was having his bladder washed out, a proceeding which gave him so severe a pain that he felt unable to go on with it.
Besides, stones had been found in the right ureter, the tube which leads from the kidney to the bladder. Further he suffered from inflammation of both eyes, catarrh of the throat with granulations, inflammation of the tonsils with formation of pus and the urine contained white blood corpuscles in moderate number and casts of the tubules of the kidneys. There was therefore inflammation of the bladder and possibly of the pelvis of the kidneys, catarrh, irritation of the kidneys and formation of stones.
The patients general health was much more reduced than was justified by the physical findings. He complained that he felt exceedingly weak and low, and that he could not get out of the clutches of the doctors. He had gone through a lengthy treatment for an affection of the roots of his teeth, he had to visit the oculist every week in order to be treated for inflammation of his eyes, and to go to the bladder specialist because of his bladder troubles. Yet, notwithstanding all his treatments, he felt rather worse than better.
The patients was typical representative of the Lycopodium constitution. It was obvious that his numerous inflammations in various parts of the body were due to a faulty metabolism to inadequate working of his digestive apparatus. One finds with particular frequency in patients of the Lycopodium type a combination of kidney disease, catarrhal inflammation of the eyes, and inflammation of the tissue around the roots of the teeth of a very intractable kind.
After taking Lycopodium 6x three times a day during a weak the inflammation of his eyes had disappeared his urine was free from sediment, the pains produced by kidneys stones were gone, and he had taken up once more his occupation as commercial traveller and felt thoroughly well.
Four weeks later my patient was attacked by an acute angina and by pain from kidney stone along the right ureter. Once more Lycopodium 6x produced immediate improvement. I advised him to try cold Sitz baths together with massage while sitting in the bath in the hope that the contraction produced by cold would cause the stone in the ureter to move along.
After a few days of this treatment, together with Lycopodium, a stone was expelled but as the urine was a burning pain in when making water, and as the urine was cloudy with phosphates, he was given Lycopodium 12x which improved both the local condition and his general health.
In view of the experiences described and similar ones, it seems to me that Lycopodium should frequently be considered in cases of kidney stones. It may be that this is the best constitutional remedy. At any rate that medicine seems to have a very powerful influence upon the peristalsis the automatic movement, of the ureters. Of course one should not give Lycopodium in all case of kidney stone. It has occasionally failed me in my practice. All the constitutional and other symptoms have to be observed before deciding on that remedy or another one.
