TUMOURS OF THE BREAST



Gardeners tell me also that the real seat of the growth of apples is the roots of the tree, and that in the small lateral roots. Of that I have no personal knowledge, but I affirm, as the outcome of my own thought, observation, and experience, that the growth of most tumours in the female breasts has its rootings in the ovaries and womb. Of that I have no manner of doubt. This naturally does not apply to traumatic tumours of the breasts arising from direct blows on the breasts, but to a vast majority of all the others which are idiopathic or autochthonous.

MULTIPLE TUMOURS OF BREASTS.

An unmarried lady of 32 came under my observation on February 24th, 1885, for a number of hard tumours in both her breasts, which were otherwise of enormous size, yet shapely. She had also prolapsus uteri, leucorrhoea, an enormous liver, the left lobe of which reached down almost to the navel.

Carduus mariae O restored the liver to the normal, and so made more room for the dislocated womb, which soon took advantage of the altered topography of the abdominal contents; in fact, the prolapsus was gone. Quite a number of nosodes followed in high dilutions, and then Cundurango 1, Chionanthus virgin. O, Helonias dioica O, Hydrastis canadensis O, Bellis perennis, Acidum fluoris 6, Fluoride of Ammonium 5, Secale cornutum 6, Sarza O, Solanum tub. 6, Scrofularia nodosa 6; and, under date January 17th, 1888, I find noted in my Case book – the breasts are quite normal, with the peculiar resilient elastic feel of that organ when healthy.

I attribute the original cause (or at least one of the causes) to numerous cauterizations of the os uteri to which the unfortunate lady had been subjected by a fashionable ladys doctor of repute. I do not mean that the cauterizations of the womb alone produced the tumours of the breast, but rather that what was the cause of the ulcers, being denied an outlet at the os uteri, became vitally concreted in tumid masses in the breast, aided by the reflected mammary irritation from the os uteri.

I feel it is not fair to my subject to give a string of remedies that were here used to cure this case, without at the same time giving their diagnosis and indications, but space fails me. I might just add that the most striking, prompt, and permanent amelioration wrought in this case was by the Solanum tuberosum and by the Scrofularia nodosa, both in daily dose of five drops of the tincture of the sixth centesimal dilution, though the last prescription was the former remedy in the twelfth centesimal.

CANCER OF RIGHT BREAST.

At the beginning of the year 1887, a lady friend and patient was consulting me on account of her health, and as she was very depressed, and frequently burst into tears, I pressed her to tell me the cause of her grief. “Oh,” said she, “I have a sister who is coming home from Germany to be operated on for cancer of the right breast. We are all very fond of dogs, and one of my sisters dogs jumped up to her and hurt her right breast very much, and now it has turned to cancer. She has been using ice compresses for over a year, and been under the Crown Princes physician, and under Dr. —–, who is sending her home for the opinion of Dr. —–“.

“Is there nothing in the world that can cure cancer?” said she.

My reply was – what I here solemnly restate – that most cases of cancer are quite curable by remedies IF TAKEN EARLY, AND TREATED LONG AND CONTINUOUSLY BY INTERNAL REMEDIES, and that in this way I had myself cured many cases of cancer.

“Then,” said she, “I suppose it is too late for my sister, for she has had it for more than a year and a half, and the doctors say that the operation is her only chance”.

April 2nd. I went to see the lady at her sisters house soon after her arrival from the Continent, and found them all, very naturally, in a sad state of mind. The patient had received a letter from Dr. —- urging an immediate operation, as otherwise the cancer-juice in the milk ducts would infallibly poison her blood. Subsequently the other gentleman, Dr. —–, saw the lady and concurred, and went so far as to say that delay, even till the next day, was most dangerous for fear of constitutional infection.

My kind professional brethren impatiently scouted my views as mere senseless, not to say wicked, talk.

On examining the right breast and comparing it with the left, one was struck with the diminution in the size of the right one. The nipple was deeply retracted, and from the little funnel- shaped opening in the nipple-region there oozed an ill-smelling fluid. The breast itself was puckered, and one raised ridge on its outer aspect was inflamed, swelled, and bluish at one part, – an unmistakable picture of cancer. I therefore agreed as to the diagnosis.

We had a very long conversation about it, and it was a terrible position for me to take up in the face of almost all the experience of the world, in the face of the eminent authorities arrayed against me, in the teeth of the sneering, jeering opposition of connections, belongings, and their medical and surgical friends.

Nor was it easy for the responsible friends or the patient herself to decide finally either for my treatment by medicines or for the operation.

To see the unfortunate lady looking at her sisters, them at me, then at her poor breast, and then reading her own doctors letter urging the imperativeness of immediate operative interference, and then bursting into a flood tears, and saying she did not know what to do, is a scene similar to others I have often seen; but it remains ever with me all the same. I concluded the deliberations by saying, “Mrs. —-, the breast is yours, mark that; not your sisters, not your doctors, not mine, but yours; and if I were you I would keep it. I promise you nothing, but I tell you that, in my experience, and speaking humanly, medicines can cure you, though the course of the cure will be slow; for that I find is almost invariably the case in the treatment of tumours, whether malignant or benign, the mending the help of medicines is slow”.

“Well,” said she, “I refuse the operation, and will do as you tell me”.

The breast being painful, red, and of traumatic origin (the weight of a heavy dog by its paws), I ordered Bellis per. I, ten drops in water every four hours. This was April 2nd, 1887. Nothing locally at all, now, or hereafter.

14th. Vast improvement.

Rx. Arnica montana 1x. Five drops three times a day.

21st. Better on the whole.

Rx. Repeat, and also give Chelidonium majus 1x.

May 5th. Not quite so well, and the skin of the diseased breast is red; more painful; has just menstruated.

Rx. Bellis per. O. Five drops in water three times a day.

12th. Better a good deal; the covering skin is less red, and the nipple is not quite so much retracted.

18th. Mending beautifully; the breast is softer; nipple less drawn in; a portion of the cutaneous covering is still red.

Rx Repeat.

26th Mending.

Rx. Repeat.

June 2nd. The mammae is less retracted, and the breast begins to be slightly movable. Heretofore it was so retracted and held down by bridles of tissue behind it that it could not be moved as a whole at all. Is menstruating.

Rx. Repeat four times a day.

9th. Still improving; nipple less retracted.

Rx. Repeat.

16th. The breast is getting bigger (i.e., returning towards its previous natural size) and less immovable.

Rx Repeat five times a day.

23rd. The breast is much less drawn in; the top of the nipple is now sunk only about half an inch from the level; all the discoloration has gone from the mammary surface; and patient is getting stouter.

Rx. Repeat.

July 2nd. Much running from the nose; runs like water ever since she took the Bellis (pathogenetic ?). There is a little more tenderness of the breast; to-day is the last day of the menses.

Rx Repeat

9th. some redness around the areola mammillae.

Rx Repeat

14th. The coryza is very bad, for which patient comes; bad cough; much green expectoration tinged with blood. The cold is like others she has had.

Rx Repeat

28th. The breast not quite so well. (Is menstruating.)

Rx Repeat gtt. x.

August 6th. I learn to-day from the patient, for the first time, that this right nipple has peeled at times for years with offensive discharge. In this state it is now.

Rx Repeat

16th. No change in the nipple, which is still peeling.

Rx Repeat

August 25th. th breast is slowly returning to the normal as to appearance, but there is still much discharge from the nipple.

Rx Repeat

September 8th. There is a little redness of the areola.

Rx. sul.30., 3ij., gtt. v. ter die.

27th. Much improved, but the redness is still there.

To take Belladonna 30 with the Sul., and thereafter return to the Bellis as before.

October 11th. Mending; the breast is slowly resuming its former proportions, though it is still hard.

Rx Bellis O.

November 12th. Not so well.

Hydrastis can. O.

19th. Slight improvement, there being less redness in the areola.

Repeat.

29th. The Hydrastis seems to be causing diarrhoea.

Arnica montana 3x.

December 8th. Has a cold.

To alternate Aconite 3x with the Arnica.

James Compton Burnett
James Compton Burnett was born on July 10, 1840 and died April 2, 1901. Dr. Burnett attended medical school in Vienna, Austria in 1865. Alfred Hawkes converted him to homeopathy in 1872 (in Glasgow). In 1876 he took his MD degree.
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.