GUNPOWDER


“In some experiments made by myself with gunpowder 2x severe Herpes facialis involving right eyebrow and right side of nose was developed.” Gunpowder 1x will cure Herpes as often as you like. It appeared to me, therefore, that the three essences of gunpowder were of such a nature as to be extremely active in combination.


A CURIOUS effect of Gunpowder was related by a woman patient: she was taking Gunpowder 3x on the advice of a homoeopathic friend, I presume, for some minor septic condition, and noticed that it increased her menstrual flow. The period was always scanty and inclined to be painful; the freer the flow, the less pain there was. Since her discovery she has been taking Gunpowder 3x regularly at the beginning of each period and it invariably makes it flow more freely.

The character of her period is usually very scanty; it begins, then stops for twelve hours, after which it comes on again. The Gunpowder 3x prevents this twelve hourly intermission and increases the total quantity. She usually takes it at two hourly intervals and increases the interval as improvement takes place.

Gunpowder has not had a complete proving and has not been proved by a woman before. Apparently its action was limited to skin and superficial septic conditions, according to the observers.

NOTES ON THE USE OF BLACK GUNPOWDER.

By A LAYMAN.

(From The Homoeopathic World)

FOR the last forty years I have known and observed from personal experiment the effects of Black Gunpowder as a remedy for various kinds of blood poisoning.

The symptoms of poisoning which call for Black Gunpowder are almost invariably abscesses or boils or carbuncles, and frequently, though not always, exaggerated swelling of the poisoned limb, accompanied with discolouration of the skin, so that the arm from the tips of the fingers to the axillary gland is almost of a purple, or black tint.

1. In such cases I have found Black Gunpowder, whether in large or small doses, acts like magic.

2. Moreover, I have found that Hepar sulphur 2x trit. and 100 greatly assist the action of Black Gunpowder, the former at the commencement (2x) and the latter (100) in infrequent doses to clear the case up and to prevent recurrence.

3. I have, moreover, found that Arsen. alb. is of great use where there is great prostration and burning.

4. And yet, once more, I have found that Black Gunpowder will sometimes suffice alone.

And now for the history of my discovery (which it cannot, by the by, be correctly called).

My father, a country rector in Norfolk, used to add to his light duties in a small parish the recreation of farming the glebe and as there was a good lot of pasture, kept sheep.

He noticed that at the time of paring the sheeps feet suffering from footrot, his shepherds were continually subjected to blood poisoning, which was more or less (“less” I fear) successfully treated by local doctors. But it generally ended in the said shepherd having to give up his work and turn his hand to something else. However, at last came there a shepherd, who, year in and year out, never did get blood poisoning! Hullo! thought my father, what does this mean?.

So away he went to the shepherd himself.

“I say, Harry, how is it you do not get blood poisoning as my other chaps did?”.

“Well, Master! Dee you come up and see me when Im a-having my fourses” (four oclock meals) and then Ill show you how that be!”.

So at the appointed hour my father visited his shepherd in the field. There he was sitting under the hedge eating his “fourses”; and lo and behold he was eating bread and what looked like black cheese!.

“Why, Harry, whatever are you eating? It looks like black cheese!”.

“No, Master! that baint black cheese, but that is white cheese covered with black gunpowder, and thats what keeps out the pison, thats what dew (do) the trick I never gets no pison!”.

After several years faithful service this man, always in perfect health, got promotion to a better place.

Another shepherd appeared on the scene, and as surely as feet- paring time came round, the blood poisoning appeared once more. The shepherds arm was swollen and almost black from the tips of his fingers to his armpit, great pain and prostration.

My father promptly gave him a dessertspoonful! of black gunpowder in half a tumbler of water. It had to be carefully mixed (as you make cocoa) in a paste first gradually mixing and adding water and then taken.

Next morning appeared the shepherd!.

“Weh! Master! Dash my old father! But thats a masterpiece! My arm is fully better! Dee you look!” And there sure enough the swelling and inflammation all gone; the arm just as sound, apparently, as the other, with the exception that the finger, or two fingers were still discoloured, with a threatening of a boil; this was poulticed and in three days another dose given, and the man was cured. After that my father always advised his shepherds to eat gunpowder with their bread and cheese instead of salt, and blood poisoning vanished!.

It is needless to say that having once discovered this remedy he applied it to “all sorts and conditions” of men, women, children and even animals, always with the same invariable result a certain cure. Many and many a time have I been dosed, as a child, boy, and even young man, with the family patent medicine; boils, carbuncles, eruptions caused by suspected blood poisoning one and all had to climb down to the black gunpowder.

I am certain that the cases of blood poisoning which my father cured by black gunpowder during his rectorship of fifty years must have run into many hundreds, and for forty years since then I have cured almost as many; besides those unknown to me to whom I have recommended it, and who, no doubt, in their turn have passed it on to others.

There is one remarkable cure which I effected, which, being a typical one, I think I ought to describe as there were no boils or any eruption.

[Here “Layman” has supplied a full description of a case of thrombosis of the veins with great oedema and prostration ensuing on the swallowing a quantity of pus from a dental abscess. Treatment was of no avail, and the prostration became so marked that the patients life was despaired of. On account of the history “Layman” prescribed black gunpowder.

A larger dose than that prescribed was given in error, and followed by violent purging and sweating, but a cure of the patient was achieved so rapid as to seem to him and his friends miraculous. “Layman” knows the patient well and has observed him for years since. This summary does no justice to the vigour and picturesquences of the original narrative, but exigencies of space compel this amount of abbreviation. ED. Homoeopathic World].

There is a curious confirmatory experience as to the efficacy of black gunpowder met with in Sheffield. I was talking to the local tobacconist in the parish about this remedy of black gunpowder and he said: “Oh! I know that to, sir!” “You do?” I said, “and pray how?”.

“Well, sir, my wife suffered years ago from boils all over her, until her life became a misery to her and doctors medicine (there were no homoeopaths then) did no good. At last one day we saw in the paper the advertisement of a certain quack doctor, who offered a certain cure for boils in pills L1 1s. a box! Well, we werent very well off! However we agreed to buy a box of these pills, which we did. Having finished this box my wife was so much better and so many of the boils had disappeared, that we, after much searching of heart, sent for another box. Before the second box was finished my wife was perfectly well.”

Now thought the man, “Ill try and find out what these ere pills are made on?” So he took the remainder of the box of pills to the leading chemist for analysis. When he called the next morning on the chemist he was received with shouts of laughter! “Why what do you think your pills are made of? Black gunpowder!”.

And thus I could go on to tell of hundreds of cases which have come under my own experience. But these (you say) are large doses. How about small doses?.

Very good! Now listen, or read again. When I became a convert to homoeopathy, my thoughts naturally turned to my old love. “And pray what have you got to say about yourself in this new business Mrs. Black Gunpowder?”.

Answer. “Consider what I am made of, and then put me to the test!”.

“Begin in the lowest regions and keep going higher.” All right! Sulphur Materia Medica. Clinical I find boils, eruptions, Herpes, itch, eczema, skin affections, ulcers, biliousness (suppressed impurities). Carbo. veg., Charcoal carbuncle, dyspepsia, pyaemia, purpura, scabies scurvy, ulcers and produces a powerful effect on animal organism (potentized), antiseptic to putrefaction. Salt-petre, Kali nitricum, powerful action on the skin, opens pores of skin.

Then I find under Kali nitricum Dr. Clarkes Materia Medica, Vol. II., page 144: “A solution of Saltpetre as an application was an old remedy for inveterate in cats”; but proceeds: “nitre with sulphur and charcoal forms gunpowder.” “A teaspoonful of this in hot water was a favourite remedy for gonorrhoea among soldiers in the days when black powder was used” (blood-poisoning again).

Dr. Clarke continues: “In some experiments made by myself with gunpowder 2x severe Herpes facialis involving right eyebrow and right side of nose was developed.” Gunpowder 1x will cure Herpes as often as you like. It appeared to me, therefore, that the three essences of gunpowder were of such a nature as to be extremely active in combination.

Dorothy Shepherd
Dorothy Shepherd 1885 – 1952 - British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy. Graduated from Hering College in Chicago. She was a pupil of J.T.Kent. Author of Magic of the Minimum Dose, More Magic of the Minimum Dose, A Physician's Posy, Homeopathy in Epidemic Diseases.