A certain number of distinguished practitioners of scientific medicine (homoeopathy) have from time to time published cases of tumour as cured by medicines, but these cases are on record, and need no further writing about. I therefore will not refer to them, as my object is not to bring together odd cases of tumour cured here and there all over the worlds, some of them quasi- accidentally, but to bring new clinical material to the general stock.
I have not time to collate these strewn-about cases in our literature, however interesting and instructive the task might possibly prove to be, for one might them, perhaps, get at some fixed indications, though of these clinical fixations I have heretofore met with but very few.
In these pages, therefore, I purpose giving my own experience solely-just some facts, and these I leave to tell their own tale. One thing I may say- it is quite useless to try to cure old tumours, either cancerous of benign, unless you are gifted with PATIENCE of no ordinary kind. Rapid cures of old tumours by medicines I have never seen, nor do I think such tumours ever will be cured rapidly, simply because they are vital products- THEY ARE LIVING GROWTHS.
Nevertheless it will be seen from the cases which I shall presently narrate, that from the cases which I shall presently narrate, that some recently-formed tumours do get well in a very few weeks or months, while others require as many years. Speaking broadly, the tumour takes proportionately as long to cure by medicines as it has taken to grow. And hereby is not be to forgotten that a tumour has often existed a long time before it is found out. It is equally useless to try to cure tumours by giving drugs with a view of dissolving them chemically. Why?.
Because, as just stated, tumours are ALIVE; they are GROWTHS; they come vid vitae, and vitally they must be cured; and for this process time, often much time, is needful. At least that is my experience, and I therefore specially emphasize the fact, that I know of no short cut to tumour-curing by remedies, and the work must be done internal remedies.
Nevertheless, externally-applied remedies are not to be entirely neglected, i.e. where the growth is for any reason, as it were, extraorganismic. Where I use a remedy externally I shall state the fact, which, as will be seen, is rarely the case.
Derivatives I also occasionally use, and also, temporarily tonics. But let me proceed with my facts.
In case I should subsequently omit to state the fact, I would say that pig-meat, milk, much salt and pepper, are, in my judgment, to be avoided in tumours of the breast. New milk is particularly bad for ovarian, uterine, and mammary tumours and inflammations, as also for menstrual troubles.
TRAUMATIC SWELLING OF RIGHT BREAST CURED BY Bellis ALONE
I adduce the following case of a swelling in a young ladys breast, particularly 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 played by bruises, blows, and falls, in genesis of tumours and 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.
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 a malignant formation as the result of the frequent mechanical irritation of a simple 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 write asks in all seriousness: Is cancer, whatever its form, ever primary, i.e. does it ever originate without previous injury?.
A negative reply to this inquiry is the highest importance to those who believe in the curative effects of drugs. It deprives the disease-action of part of the mysterious, fateful quality so constantly associated in our minds with these affections, and which terrorizes to some degree the powers of the medical attendant. For we hold that the great majority of physicians, on discovering the existence of a suspicious growth, are strongly impelled to advise the use of the knife as the only sure treatment, notwithstanding that in cases of undoubted malignancy, the value of surgical interference is greatly lessened by the relatively poor results as measured by the added years give to the patient.
Moreover, if the occurrence of an infectious inflammation of the skin had destroyed malignant disease-process in that tissue, there is a fairly good basis for the view, reasoning by analogy, that a drug-disease, i.e. a disease produced by the action of a medicine, can, if affecting a part involved in the malignant process, cause similarly efficacious results.
In an admirable Report Phila. Med. Times, xvi, 484; on the Progress of PAthology, by J.H. Muser, M.D., Mr. Sutton, F.R.C.s., is given as authority for the following view: “Irritation, local or otherwise, affecting the the general level, may produce a wart. On the other hand, the epithelial growths may dip into the sub-epithelial tissues, and, on account of lack of formative development, either from decline of vigour or general constitutional debility, the new tissue never develops functionally, runs riot, and originates tissues of low vitality- carcinomata.
The conditions favourable to the development of carcinomata-debility, etc. are absent in the young, hence, in the young we have warts; in the old, cancers”.
What, then, is the bearing of these facts upon the treatment of probably malignant tumours? Passing by the cures of warts by internal medicine alone, which almost every homoeopathic practitioner has observed over and over again, we need only call attention to the cures, by the same method, of tumours of the female breast, an organ notoriously disposed to malignant neoplasms; here the action of Conium cannot be denied, and what is true of this remedy may be true of may others.
A thorough study of the symptoms of each individual case with the view of finding the exact similimum, the exhibition of the latter in different attenuations, if necessary, changing the remedy only when a change of symptoms demands it, and extreme watchfulness of involvement of the neighbouring glandular structures, make up, it appears to us, the duty of the physician.
Whether he would be justified in holding out any hope of cure by internal medication after evidences of systemic infection exist, must be decided by his own experience, but, as there are always cases in which operation is inadmissible, or in which it will not be allowed opportunities will not be wanting to continue treatment with the properly chosen remedy.
If statistics of our treatment can be collated and analysed, the results will, we feel sure, give encouragement to physicians and sufferers as well, and demonstrate anew, and in a strikingly brilliant manner, the value of our law of cure.
We earnestly hope, then, that those of us who hold hospital or dispensary appointments, will endeavour to employ the method of internal medication in cases of malignant growths, whenever it is fairly admissible to do so, and that records of cases containing diagnosis checked off as to their accuracy by every method known to medical science, together with the symptoms in full and the treatment used, may soon appear in our journals. Thus will be laid the foundation for a new and lasting monument to homoeopathy.
Without going so far as author of this article, I must certainly say I attribute some of my success in the treatment of cancers and other tumours by medicines to a due recognition of the traumatic fact, not in diagnostics merely, but also in therapeutics.
When we come to speak of the nervous diseases of children we shall see that rickets is a great predisposing cause in many of functional nervous disorders, such as conclusions, tetany, and laryngismus (croup); and you cannot hope to treat the rickets, which is the basis of it. Further, in the case of a child who is the subject of repeated catarrhs, bronchitis, or broncho- pneumonia, or it may be diarrhoea, it may be of the first importance to recognize that these are simply the symptoms of an underlying rickety condition. Dr. ROBERT HUTCHINSON, Lectures on Disease of Children.
THE USUAL VIEWS AND PRACTICE
Two or three days after penning the foregoing account of medicinal cures of tumours of the eyelids, I chanced to go to the office of a city solicitor on a matter of legal business. “Ah, doctor”, said he, “I have been away for a fortnight from business. I have had an operation on my left eye; just look. I have been at home a fortnight with it since. I had to keep it bound up”.
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.