DURING the summer eighteen months ago I was staying with my friend and his wife for a short time. The visit provided an experience showing the relative values of Homoeopathy and Allopathy in the treatment of complaints to which no “label” can be attached.
Mrs. A. was fair and plumb, aged about 26, and amongst other things suffered from gnat bites. These were not ordinary gnat bites, though apparently caused by that insect, for the resultant swelling was a large hard circular lump about the size and shape of a gentlemans big round wrist watch, 14 in in diameter and 2 in. thick.
Several weeks previous to my visit, three such painful lumps came up near the ankle of the right leg. The local doctor could do nothing but advised going to the hospital. There the house surgeon and two other doctors could suggest no treatment except cutting the lumps open and removing the pus. As none of the doctors had seen anything quite like it before, the nurses were called in turn to look at it.
The doctors said that they could give no name to the trouble did not know what it was. After the first opening the lumps gathered up again, they were cut a second time, then gathered again and cut a third time, after which about three weeks were needed for the wounds to heal.
On the Saturday that I was there, another such lump came up rapidly. As I had several months previously become greatly interested in Homoeopathy as a result of reading Mr. J. Ellis Barkers books, I had bought some good homoeopathic books and read them deeply. To find a remedy according to the name of the trouble was not possible as the doctors could not give one.
It was not an ordinary gnat bite, or abscess, ulcer, bursae or plain oedema. But one symptom it did have, that was that it slowly exuded a sticky glutinous fluid. This reminded me of Graphites, and on looking up this drug found that it fitted Mrs. A. very closely. So that evening Graphites 6 was given, to be taken three times daily.
On Sunday and Monday the hardness had slackened a little, by Tuesday it had shrunk to half its former size, and on coming down to breakfast on the Wednesday morning Mrs. A. proudly showed her leg, having entirely lost the lump, only a faint skin mark showing, which soon cleared up without leaving a mark. This, alongside of the evident marks of the previous illtreated swellings.
Incidentally my friend told me afterwards that certain other troubles had cleared up, one being the sensation of a cobweb on the face. So a few homoeopathic pilules cured completely in three days what other treatment cured indifferently in several weeks, and without the use of the knife and the true name of the trouble still unknown.
