A POSTMAN, when handing me my letters in the morning, told me that he was afraid that he would have to go to the hospital in order to be operated upon for appendicitis because he had in the right lower abdomen, in the appendix region, considerable pain which was present all the time and which was getting worse from day to day. I told him that an inflamed appendix was not a joke, and that he should consult his doctor at the earliest opportunity.
At the same time I gave him a small bottle of Bryonia mother tincture, and told him to rub a little into the aching part night and morning. Notwithstanding my advice, he did not go to his doctor. Bryonia cured the complaint and he told everyone that I was a miracle worker and that by rubbing on a little of the tincture only once he had lost the gnawing pain, which had never returned.
I was visited by a gentleman who also had been suffering for several days from the premonitory symptoms of appendicitis. In order to relieve him promptly I made him rub into the appendix region a few drops of Bryonia while he was at my house. I advised to consult his doctor without delay. He felt so promptly relieved of his pain that he also did not go to the doctor. Two hours after his visit to me and the Bryonia application he started digging up his garden and he has kept perfectly well ever since.
A third patient with all the symptoms of appendicitis was more docile and did himself much harm by following my advise. He came to me and told me that his son had an attack of appendicitis. I gave him the usual advice and a bottle of Bryonia mother tincture. He rubbed on the tincture and immediately afterwards took his boy to the hospital for the sake of safety.
At the hospital they did not await the effect of the Bryonia application but operated instantaneously. The anxious father stayed in a waiting room to hear the result, and he was told after the operation that it had not been necessary because the inflammation had visibly begun to go down.
CONSTIPATION MISTAKEN FOR APPENDICITIS.
A girl, about 20 years old, told me that she had always pain in the appendix region. She was given the usual advice and Bryonia tincture, but she was not benefited by rubbing a few drops on the place where she felt the pain. When she told me about the non- success of the treatment, I asked her, of course, whether she had any other troubles, and she told me only then that she had been troubled for many years by constipation. Notwithstanding the condition of her bowels, she looked perfectly well.
It was obvious that the pain was due not to an inflamed appendix but to an overloaded bowel. I therefore prescribed for her Nux vomica 3x, a dose to be taken every two hours, and an enema of warm water every three days if necessary. Apparently enemas were not needed because she told me that the medicine alone had sufficed to regulate her bowel and to cause the disappearance of the pain.
GALLSTONES.
A lady, who told me that she had suffered from gallstones for twelve years, and that she had been treated without success by various doctors at last found the way to my house. I gave her the three remedies which were most clearly indicated by the study of the Materia Medica, namely, Chelidonium 3x as the principal remedy, Cholesterin 3x to dissolve the gallstones, and Magnesia phosphorica 5x to relieve the violent colicky pains produced by the passing of gallstones.
In a few weeks she was freed of her complaint. When she went to her doctor who had treated her unsuccessfully for years and told him that she had been cured by homoeopathy, the doctor laughed aloud, and told her that homoeopathy was humbug.
A relatively young woman had had the most terrible attacks of gallstone colic, her pain was agonizing, and the local clergyman and all her friends had urged her to see a surgeon and be operated upon. As she had an instinctive horror of operations she resolved at last to try homoeopathy and came to me. I gave her the three remedies above mentioned and she also was relieved promptly and permanently.
A very religious woman in my neighbourhood had suffered terribly from frequent gallstone colics. At last she could not bear the pain any longer, and she made up her mind that she would be operated upon. she went to the hospital to make the necessary arrangements, but she fell in conversation with one of the nurses, who told her that lately three patients had died while being operated upon for gallstones and she advised her to try homoeopathy before trying surgery. She took the nurses advice, she came to me and she was completely and permanently cured in a short time by the three medicines mentioned before.
I am inclined to believe that about 10 per cent. of gallstone patients cannot be cured by my favourite homoeopathic medicines. I remember two gallstone patients whom I myself advised to be operated upon, having tried in vain during three months to cure them by medicine. In the two cases where I advised operation, the patients did very well and were able to leave the hospital after a fortnight.
In both cases the gallstones were so hard that the vital force had been unable to reduce and eliminate them. Those who wish to treat gallstones should give during the gallstone attack frequent doses of Magnesia phosphorica 5x dissolved in hot water to reduce the pain, and after the attack they should give every three hours a dose of Chelidonium 3x, and in addition the patient should have every day a good dose of Cholesterin 3x.
ANAEMIA.
A young friend of ours, a girl of 20, had many complaints about her health. She was very anaemic because her periods were far too profuse. Besides, she had suffered from scrofulosis in her childhood. The doctor had cut out her tonsils, and she had been troubled ever since with a chronic nasal cold and catarrh of the throat. The operation on the tonsils did not cure the fundamental trouble, the scrofulous tendency. It merely caused that tendency to cause local manifestations of a different kind.
I could not advise her because she was being treated by a doctor. Notwithstanding continued medical treatment her troubles became worse and worse and at last she resolved to abandon her doctor and to come to me for advice. I gave her a dose of Tuberculinum 30 twice a week and Calcarea phosphorica 3x three times a day, and after a few weeks she was perfectly well.
PNEUMONIA.
On a winters night, when it was freezing hard, I was asked to see the wife of a colleague of mine, who suffered severely from pneumonia. Obviously her chest was full of phlegm. That was apparent from the wheezing and rattling noise of her breathing. I found her in bed in an unheated room. My colleague, an old man, made some ridiculous excuses for not having called in a doctor and for allowing his wife, who was about 70 years old, to be in an unheated room.
I told him to take the patient immediately into a well-heated room, put her to bed, and give her Phosphorus 5x and Antimonium tartaricum 4x, every half hour a dose, changing all the time from one medicine to the other. Weeks afterwards I heard that the old lady got up a few days afterwards, feeling perfectly well, and she is still alive at the present day.
A CASE OF DIPHTHERIA.
At the time when I was teacher in K., the son of the miller was attacked by diphtheria, which rapidly spread to the nose. This is an exceedingly dangerous symptom. The miller fetched a doctor, who immediately gave the child an injection. Unfortunately the boy died the same night. Soon afterwards the millers second son fell ill of diphtheria, which in his case also rapidly spread to the nose. The position seemed desperate.
Very late at night, when everyone was asleep, the sick nurse, who was looking after the millers second son, knocked at my house and asked for advice and I gave her a helping of Nitric acid 4x. She came to me in the dead of night because she would undoubtedly have been dismissed if it had become known that she had treated a patient homoeopathically behind the doctors back. Happily the child recovered, grew up, and joined the army.
INFLAMED AND SWOLLEN FINGER ENDS, OR WHITLOWS.
A lady in our parish had a badly swollen and inflamed finger tip, which is learnedly called panaritium. My daughter gave her the common-sense advice to put the finger with the whitlow in hot water. As long as the finger was in hot water she felt no pain, and the inflammation went down while the finger was exposed to heat. Unfortunately the pain became worse when the finger became cold and dry. Very logically the lady resolved to put her finger into hot water for hours and the inflammation disappeared very promptly.
A servant from the next village came to me and asked my advice with regard to a similar condition. In her case the whitlow was already ripe for operation, and as the nearest doctor lived many miles away I acted for the first time in my life the part of the surgeon.
I took a needle and stuck it into the dead skin of the swelling. She did not feel the prick. I then asked her to put the finger into a cup of hot water, into which I had put a few drops of caustic potash solution. The liquid drew out all the pus. I told the girl to bathe her finger every day in the same way, and a cure was produced very promptly.
ABSCESS OF THE NAVEL.
A gentleman had developed an ulcer on the navel, and his doctor had advised him to put a disinfectant powder on it, which did no good. He then suggested an operation. Wishing to avoid an operation he wrote me a letter and asked me for advice. Of course I replied that if his doctor thought an operation necessary, he should act in accordance with the advice given. Before my letter reached him the ulcer had broken open.
