QUININE, MALARIA AND DEAFNESS


Thus, this would seem to indicate that we Homeopaths have been right from the beginning when we have spoken against the alkaloid Quinine. If some few Homeopaths employ this alkaloid yet, I say that such are not quite “weaned” from the teachings of their original medical tuition, but this is rare amongst us.


IN March, 1935, Sir Langdon Brown, Regius Professor of Medicine at Cambridge University, when addressing the British Medical Society at London, said that their profession had lost its prestige with the public when and because they relinquished their “gold headed canes”! At the same time this orthodox leader did not hesitate to sneer at Homoeopathy; he put down any Homoeopathic success to the “magic of hypnosis”.

Such sneering coming from him is not fair to Homoeopathy, for it is quite certain that he knows nothing of the subject. Sir Langdon Brown would have been better occupied in putting his own orthodox medicine in order, and the following will given him something to start on.

Though acute Malaria is not often seen in Great Britain, it is always present in India, so it requires some consideration, especially as orthodoxy habitually prescribes Quinine as a routine “specific”. This Quinine is even prescribed (and ordered in the Army) regularly as a “preventive measure” to all who are living in malarial countries, although apparently well at the moment.

We Homoeopaths claim, and have so claimed for over half a century, that Quinine only suppresses Malaria, and never cures it, as all patients are then left in a state of chronic ill- health, which can be very grave, with certain organs ruined, as is easy of demonstration. Homoeopathy has its own way of treating Malaria, each variety requiring a special remedy, each medicine being efficacious for its own particular type of this disease. These remedies are not interchangeable. Homoeopaths know that Quinine is a poison.

The Daily Press has recently told the world of the grave epidemic of Malaria in Ceylon, where over 30,000 people were stated to have died from it in one comparatively small district. The total deaths in Ceylon, have not been stated, but it was told us that nine out of ten persons in some villages were ill from it. It was said that the authorities fear that Malaria will soon appear in epidemic form in India, where in 1908 some 3,000,000 died of it in the Punjab alone. This shows what Malaria can do.

The boast of Orthodoxy has ever been that Quinine will cure, and even “prevent” Malaria. The Homoeopathic warning as to the danger of Quinine has been ignored and flouted. I know a lot about Malaria as I suffered, when a boy, for a whole year, though I took handfuls of Quinine, and it was left to the late Dr. John Compton Burnett of London to cure me of my “suppressed Malaria”, which had disorganized my liver and spleen. This he did on fixed and well-known lines.

The two Homoeopathic remedies which cured my liver were Chelidonium majus and Myrica cerifera, and the two necessary for my spleen were Ceanothus Americanus and Urtica urens (the simple Stinging Nettle). Burnett taught me the folly of Quinine in about 1882.

At this point I must be allowed to quote from the American Time weekly news magazine which has a sworn circulation of over 500,000 copies. It has one weekly section devoted to “Medicine”. On January 14th, 1935, issue Time has an item headed “MIGHTY MALARIA”, which tells of the quarter of a million cases in Ceylon. Quoting Orthodox authorities Time says “Quinine and certain recently invented synthetic drugs cure Malaria in most people, with consistent dosing for eight weeks.

Some cases are never cured, as the disease remains latent in the body for years(this is orthodox opinion). The reason for relapse is obscure (to orthodoxy; Homoeopaths know that it was merely suppressed). Some specialists think (guess?) that the Malarial parasite acquires a form which Quinine cannot master”.

Consulting rooms of Homoeopaths, all the world over, receive countless numbers of “Quinine-suppressed-Malarial” cases, which are cured by Homoeopaths on well-defined lines, proving our contention.

The following will show that Orthodoxy is at last recognizing one of the grave dangers of Quinine, all too late for millions of sufferers, and for this verdict of danger I must once more quote Time for March 11h, 1935, page 35, where Orthodoxy is at last re-valuing its fashionable drug in an article headed “QUININE AND DEAFNESS”. This drug is most frequently prescribed drug of orthodoxy. It is prescribed at some time or other for almost every disease known to them. Time reports, with alarm, “of the 10,000,000 deaf people in U.S.A. 3,000,000 are children, and of these latter nearly 2,000,000 were born deaf.

In the Southern States of U.S. twice as many deaf children are born in the last six months of the year, as are born in the first six months. In the second half of the year Malaria is rife in the South, and expectant mothers are doped heavily with Quinine, which is the specific drug, which victims of Malaria are given to combat that distressing disease”.

Time goes on to relate that “Otologist (ear specialist) Dr. Marshall Taylor, President of the Southern Medical Association (orthodox) declared that this Malaria-Quinine-deafness was a fact, and he uttered a strong warning to all ear specialists of the nation (but it is the rank and file of the orthodox men who prescribe this Quinine)”.

We Homoeopaths think that the orthodox men are just a little too late in re-valuing this dangerous drug of theirs, at least too late for millions of sufferers. Homoeopaths have long cured a certain form of deafness with minute doses of this Quinine (Menieres Disease, to give it a name known to them).

A few points I wish to make now are:.

(1) Quinine is a mighty poison, and the laity should know it.

(2) It does NOT cure malaria, merely suppressing the acute symptoms.

(3) At least two great organs, the liver and the spleen, remain chronically diseased by Quinine, and they are never well until they are treated by Homoeopathic remedies, on our well-known lines.

(4) Quinine is at last being decried in grave warning by the orthodox school who have so rashly abused it by prescribing it blindly for practically every ill.

This Quinine danger knowledge has been disastrously slow of arriving. Its common use has been in the nature of an “experiment on the sick”, which is poor science. Not even a “gold headed cane” can whitewash this mistake of orthodoxy. Yet they have, many years since, been” warned” by one of their own leaders.

Some thirty years ago I remember reading in some British medical journal, an article by Dr. Leonard Rogers, who was then at the head of the Indian Army Medical Corps. He is now Major-General Sir Leonard Rogers, so one would think that his words should have received the attention which they demanded. In that article Rogers made five points in favour of the alcoholic extract of Cinchona Bark, of which Quinine is one of its five known alkaloids, and perhaps there are yet other ingredients placed therein by Nature as safeguards or a natural balance wheel.

Rogers stated that:

(1) The alcoholic extract of the whole Bark acts far better than any of its alkaloids.

(2) The alcoholic extracts acts much quicker.

(3) It does not have any of the serious “After-effects” which are repeatedly seen in its alkaloids.

(4) It is much cheaper (and therefore a point worthy of attention by all tax-payers who have to foot the army and hospital bills).

(I forget the 5th point).

Thus, this would seem to indicate that we Homoeopaths have been right from the beginning when we have spoken against the alkaloid Quinine. If some few Homoeopaths employ this alkaloid yet, I say that such are not quite “weaned” from the teachings of their original medical tuition, but this is rare amongst us. When we employ this drug, for the very special indications outlined by “Similia”, we always use the alcoholic extract advocated by Rogers. This is done by macerating (soaking) the powdered Cinchona Bark in alcohol for three weeks, and then filtering the same. The drug is then named China officinalis, or sometimes Cinchona officinalis.

It contains all the plant ingredients. We employ only the very finest quality obtainable. I have seen in a British orthodox chemists trade journal no less than nineteen qualities of the drug offered for sale, with the poorest samples costing but a fraction of the better ones. It is to be presumed that all are used in the trade, and if so-then God help those who were sold a medicine made from the poorer qualities.

Homoeopaths only use this drug on the clear outlines found in our Materia Medicas, and then always as indicated by our Law of Similia. Read up same in our books. These particular indications were all obtained from experiments on our volunteer human “provers” of both sexes, and these facts are on record, so there is nothing left to chance.

Given time and an enlightened interest of the laity, Homoeopathy will eventually come into its own, without any such danger as of millions of congenitally deaf children or enlarged and hardened livers, and spleens, whose owners wish they were dead. Quinine is a “home-destroyer” amongst other things.

I beg of the orthodox profession to study what Major General Sir Leonard Rogers told them over thirty years ago about Quinine and Cinchona Bark, even if they will not listen to this. In the meantime I beg the laity to study Homoeopathy for their own safety. There is hardly a Britisher who has worked in Indian or the tropics, who does not come home more or less invalided because of the Quinine he has taken, so there must be many who should turn to Homoeopathy and see what it can do for their injured and diseased organs. Homoeopathy can promise much in this matter.

Ethelbert Petrie Hoyle
BIO: Dr. Ethelbert Petrie Hoyle 1861 – 1955 was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy. He served as editor of the International Homeopathic Medical Directory and Travelling Secretary to the International Homeopathic Society.