I depended on the homoeopathic scalpel, which in this case was Belladonna. The district nurse was sent in to watch the case, and if necessary sent it to hospital; but again the simple remedy conquered the foul disease; the temperature went down to 99 the next morning and never went up again, and the child recovered as quickly as it was stricken down.
In the early days of practice in cases of this nature, earache with red congested drums and tenderness over the mastoid, one frequently went to a case with fear and trembling on the second visit, gas bag and ear instruments, fine scalpels, etc., all at hand in case of need, but it was never necessary. I never had to do this small, delicate operation which every general practitioner should be able to do, as text-books tell you, to prevent the more serious extension of the disease into the mastoid cavity, which means more trouble and months and months of discharging ears, deafness and perhaps death.
How much easier it all is to procure a resolution of an inflamed middle ear by a few doses of the indicated remedy. Perhaps it is too easy and on the whole not spectacular enough! One would miss the glamour and ritual of the whole surgical procedure, the bustling nurse, the cheerful anaesthetist with his bagful of sweet-smelling mystery and the important jove-like surgeon who holds death and life in his glistening instruments and his dexterous hands.
All glory to the clever mechanician when he is needed; but if homoeopathy was known and properly applied, the surgeon would once more occupy the secondary place of importance once held in the old days of the barber surgeon.
Speaking of surgeons and specially aural surgeons, one remembers a very puzzled colleague, a specialist, who, when told that a nurse was suffering from acute middle-ear disease with deafness, acute earache and faceache, enlarged glands of the neck and tonsillitis, warned the said nurse how serious such a condition was and offered to do all he could for her.
She refused his very king offer and stuck to homoeopathy. A couple of weeks later this selfsame aurist was more than surprised to see the nurse back at work, well and blooming — earache gone, faceache and sore throat gone, no discharging ears and no deafness and no noises in the head !!.
“What treatment did you have,” he asked, “to get well so quickly, two weeks ago you were very ill and now you are recovered ! You say you had medicine, nothing else, no specific ear treatment. Astonishing, you must have a wonderful constitution”.
I could have told him that this rapid cure was due to Belladonna as she had Belladonna symptoms: the sudden rapid onset, the high temperature, the throbbing pulsations in the head, all caused by exposure to cold wind and chill of the head; wearing a nurses cap all day and going to a theatre minus a head covering at night.
As it happened she had one or two minor attacks during the previous three months and the ear surgeons, there were three at the aural clinic she worked at, talked of advising a three months rest and change for her, to clear up this tendency to otitis media.
One saw that Belladonna did not hold the case; it did not prevent a recurrence, it was not deep acting enough, so in the last and third most serious attack, after relieving the acute pain with Belladonna, one went on and gave Merc. bin., and Merc. bin. 4th centesimal dilution, given night and morning for a fortnight, cleared up the ear and also the tendency to earache with each change in the weather.
As I said, the ear specialist was astonished, but he put it down to constitution or a mere happy fluke.
Poor man, he could do with a little homoeopathy himself, he is frightened of a bit of wind or draught, always corsets himself, always has a cold and cough, always afraid of broncho-pneumonia to which he is subject. And all the advice he could give the nurse was ” be careful of colds and draughts”– but how? He did not say “by wrapping up”, it did not prevent colds in his own case.
Another nurse had suffered from pain and deafness in the right ear; a fullness and numbness and muffled feeling of the ear and right side of face which had persisted for about three weeks.
The general practitioner told her it was due to the change and gave her Valerian and Bromide, with no result. She was getting deafer every day and the numbness of the face grew worse; every breath of cold wind made the faceache worse; she could not stoop, because of the feeling in the ear.
She also was given Merc. biniodide 6 twice a day; and on account of the complete deafness of the right ear due to Eustachian catarrh following an acute middle-ear disease, she was politzerized and had to have a Eustachian catheter passed to open the closed passages leading to the ear. She required a months treatment, and was then discharged without a trace of deafness.
Just at that time I had a run of ear cases, all showing Merc. bin. symptoms: left-sided earache caused by cold air, dullness and numbness of left side of face with feeling of internal heat of vertex and side affected: deafness after getting warm, giddiness which made it impossible to stoop; one often notices in the course of the years that a certain remedy seems to be more in the running during a certain period, and then a few months later the same disease — the same pathological entity requires a totally different remedy or set of remedies to cure it: the picture of the current epidemic always changes; and one has to study each manifestation of an acute illness afresh. One can just recall two nurses, two teachers, one headmaster and a women doctor all with earache and all yielding to Merc. bin.
But enough of Merc. biniodide, or you will run away with the idea, which is the last thing I wish for, that this is a specific for earache and there “aint such a thing” as specifics for a disease in homoeopathy. Let me illustrate this:–.
Some fifteen years ago I was called to a midwife who was laid low with a high temperature, ulcerated throat, and acute earache on the right side. I gave Belladonna, with the result that the next day the pain in the right ear had gone, the drum had lost its ominous redness and the patient was on the mend I thought.
Unfortunately I crowded too soon, the next day exactly the same trouble reappeared, but this time in the left ear, the temperature went up, the left drum was red and swollen, and so on. Once again I thought I should need to call in surgery to my aid, but I remembered the Lycopodium symptom: “disease going from right to left”, and on that gave Lycopodium.
I had another case almost identical, at that time, in the next street, and so they both got Lycopodium. The next day I went along with gas-bag and other necessaries for incising the drums of the two patients, and lo ! they had both cleared up, temperature was down, and both were pleased.
Again I was triumphant too early. In one of the cases Lyc. proved all efficient and no further remedy was required for curing the acute ear; but in the case of the midwife I was confronted once again with a rise of temperature to 101 on the next visit, recrudescence of the acute earache in the right ear, the right tonsil was swollen and glazed and shiny and the left ear was quite normal. One was not beaten, however. Homoeopathy did not fail one. One remembered that Lac. caninum has this symptom, as Kent puts it: complaints, regardless of kind or quality, change sides and Lac caninum 900, four hourly, effected the almost impossible.
This time the drum went back to normal, the tonsil cleared up, and there was no return of any inflammation and no incision of the drum was required, no deafness followed, and there was no extension of the disease to the mastoid. A most satisfactory result to the patient.
Now still another case, and still another remedy. This was a lady who had a mastoid operation on her left ear many, many years ago, but still gets acute earache or faceache off and on. She had a particularly severe “go” a few weeks ago, with the following details: left-sided, very acute cutting, stitching pains over ear, shooting down into lower jaw and up to crown of head, very bad during daytime, much easier during night, any motion, stooping, etc., was unbearable, could not bite or chew even the softest of foods.
Warmth relieved. She was very gloomy and depressed and very disinclined to move or work, very unlike her normal busy self. She was naturally very agitated about the mastoid inflammation recurring again. After two or three days of intense suffering she was given Spigelia 30 three-hourly, which speedily removed all pain and suffering. It had another curious sequel: a large lump of hard, inspissated earwax was found lying the next morning on the piece of cottonwool which she had put in her ear to keep out the cold air.
One argues from this that the piece of was was pressing on the superficial nerves in the ear and causing the acute neuralgia; once the pressure of the wax was removed the pain went. Was it a coincidence that a piece of hard wax which was lying deep down in the cavity got suddenly loosened on its own? Or was it due to the action of the Spigelia which was given twelve hours previously? You can believe what you like. This lady had bouts of pain several times for two years increasing in intensity subsiding each time without specific treatment, until it reached its climax. Since the Spigelia was given all discomfort and pain has gone.
