A WOMAN is always terribly distressed whenever she discovers a “lump in her breast”. With all the cancer propaganda which has going on for years, this is only natural; all the same one wishes that people would realize and remember that lumps in the breast can be cured by medicinal means, and that operation are not essential.
The usual procedure of course is to send the patient into hospital or nursing home and have the swelling removed, regardless whether it is malignant (cancer) or not. “It might turn into cancer,” she is told; and the most dire results are predicted if she should not carry out the doctors orders and go into hospital for an operation. I have watches a patient now for many months with such a condition and as far as I can tell at the present moment, she is cured.
She came to me at the end of October, 1937, with the history of the right breast being struck violently by a tennis ball two months previously. At the end of August she went to the local doctor who did not think much of it; the bruise did not appear for two weeks. There was a large swelling the size of a tangerine orange above the nipple; the whole breast was badly discoloured, purplish-blue in colour, the nipple was retracted; there were no enlarged glands. On the history she was given Arnica 30, night and morning for a week.
11.11.37. Swelling slightly smaller, softer and not so blue. Repeat Arnica.
18.11.37. Swelling very tender. Bellis perennis 30, to be repeated nightly for a week.
25.11.37. Tenderness gone and discoloration gone-no difference in size.
9.12.37. Swelling softer, slightly smaller-very nervy, but flushes, fortnightly periods. Sulph. 30.
16.12.37. No change in swelling of breast. Bellis perennis, 1st cent. potency. 4 powders, one to be taken every night.
20.1.38. Swelling much diminished in size. Continue Bellis Perennis.
27.1.38. Felt poorly; both hands went dead in the afternoon; very; feeling of tremulousness and shaking inwardly. Ignatia 30 night and morning.
3.2.38. Lump slightly softer. Bellis per.
17.2.38. No glands palpable. Repeat.
3.3.38. Lump not nearly so hard. Phytolacca 30 (1) 24.3.38. Only a tiny nodule now in the breast. Phytolacca 30 (1).
7.4.38. Repeat Phytolacca.
5.5.38. Has a severe cold, with herpes of upper lip. Natrum mur. 30 (1).
26.5.38. Beast worse again; left breast is enlarged and tender all over. Menstrual period very dark, almost black at times. Sleeps well. Lach. 30 (one dose).
2.6.38. Lump in breast larger. Bellis perennis O t. d.s. minutes after taking her medicine (the Bellis); could not sleep with her headache, feels light-headed-perhaps I was wrong. I should not have repeated the mother tincture of Bellis so often. The late Dr. Cooper found he got much better results in breast tumours, by giving one dose of the mother this; but seeing the aggravation this woman suffered from the repeated doses, I made a note of it-for the future.
16.6.38. Period during last week; no clots, the colour is much improved.
23.6.38. No pain in her breast; is very worried and nervy about her only child, very hysterical. Ignatia 30 night and morning.
7.7.38. Cannot keep legs still in bed, felt better the last few days. Ignatia 30 night and morning.
15.9.38. Not so nervous; still a small nodule felt in right breast; Silicea 30 ordered to absorb the last remnant of the welling.
22.9.38. Periods regular, no trouble during period. Headache day before period; irritation all over the body, after going to bed, wakened up by the irritation. Bedclothes are light, not due to body too hot in bed; feels better in herself. Nodule hardly noticeable.
6.1.38. Much better in herself; irritable erythematous eruption all over, pimples on shoulder and back; feels heat-the Silicea is evidently acting as an eliminating agent and throwing out psoric manifestations. Sulph. 30.
27.10.38. Right breast well. Repeat Sulph.
3.11.38. A cold, sore throat, drawing pains at arm and had, continual aching; also pharyngitis, sneezing, with a good deal of phlegm. Again psoric manifestations, and aggravations after the Sulphur. All the symptoms only manifested on the right side.
10.11.38. Everything was going on swimmingly until one day during week, on trying to get on a crowded bus, she was pushed and received a heavy knock on her right breast, again a slight swelling showing; bruised at breast, pumping sensation in veins of right arm-glands of axilla nil. To wear a firm brassiere for protection. Arnica 30, t.d.s.
17.11.38. Return of hard swelling in breast, alas! Phytolacca 30 night and morning.
24.12.38. Right breast a shocking sight, larger than it had ever been blue and congested, hard swelling size of small orange fixed to skin, several hard, knotty glands along border of right pectoralis margin in the axilla. Perspiration of the axilla profuse and offensive. This fresh knock had started up the old trouble which evidently had only been quiescent, with redoubled force, and this time the glands were infected as well. Was all our struggle against malignancy in vain? Had the enemy won after all? Carcinosinum 30 (1).
The patient was not seen for seven weeks, not until January 12th, 1939, when she presented herself again. I had been very agitated about her in my mind; had she got so much worse, had she taken alarm and presented herself at a hospital where she would be severely ticked off for not having come along earlier, to have her breast removed?
They would say hard things about me for having tried to treat by medicinal means; and what about my reputation in that particular neighbourhood? She was a poor woman, it is true, and a dispensary patient; all the same she mattered to me, and I was sorry for the sake of homoeopathy that this should have happened. Thus ran my thoughts. The to prove my fears wrong, she turned up smiling. She felt perfectly well; she had been busy and not able to come, as she lived a long way away.
Periods regular every three weeks, no complaints-lump in the right every three weeks, not complaints-lump in the right breast practically all gone; glands right axilla barely noticeable. Perspiration in axilla very strong. Wears a brassiere now for protection. Carcinosinum 30 (1).
19.1.39. Has been having pains on top of her head and at the back of her head. Could not bend down or stoop, with a good deal of giddiness. Evidently I repeated the Carcinosinum too soon after the first dose and this was an aggravation. Dr. Koch in Detroit, in the States, a great cancer man who has cured many cases of cancer, declares that (giddiness vertigo) is an early cancer symptom. Indeed, he usually finds it appears earlier, in the pre-cancerous days. Is this therefore a return of old symptom which one should get according to homoeopathic principles?.
2.2.39. Glands in the axilla gone; swelling of right breast completely disappeared.
9.2.39. Feels very well except for pains in legs, heavy feeling as if her legs were weighted with lead from the knees downwards; noticed it during the last week, Has been having chilblains on the toes of her right foot this winter during December and January.
All these symptoms are outward manifestations of elimination, following on the doses of Carcinosinum given, the tumour and glands have disappeared again, and the patient is feeling well. The swelling (tumour) of the breast, after a treatment lasting over sixteen months, has gone. If there had not been the second injury in November, she would have been well by then, Now she is protecting her breast, so that she will not be so liable to being injured.
This has been a most instructive case to watch and taught me several things. If she had not been such a poor woman, I should have put her on a vegetarian diet and forbidden all meat and fish. But this is almost impossible to carry out in a poor home. If she had been able to follow a vegetarian diet, I could have got her well more quickly.
She still needs careful watching, but I am not afraid that she will leave me now. I have proved to her what homoeopathy can do. It is the people who get tired of the long treatment required in chronic constitutional diseases and leave you in the middle after only a short trial, who are so annoying and aggravating. Of course it is their loss; but the cause of homoeopathy suffers as well. For the homoeopathic remedies work slowly; they stimulate the vital centre and the actual repair of the damage done in the past takes time.
Why have an operation if homoeopathy can do as well, indeed, it usually does better? There is always the risk of disseminating the cancer cells all over the body through the blood stream during the course of an operation. True this does not always happen. But I have seen many cases die within a few months of the operation. If a patient survives five years after the complete removal of the breast, it is evidently a complete cure. The late Dr. Burford had many cancer cures to his credit who survived longer than five years. And many other homoeopaths have done as well.
