(Largely reproduced from a Paper read by the author to the British Homoeopathic Society in 1927.).
Introduction
A FEW years ago, I came to the startling conclusion that the only two people who really knew anything about Drosera were Samuel Hahnemann and myself; and I have had it in my mind ever since that I would like to communicate such knowledge as I possess to my colleagues the world over. I can only hope that I may be enabled to add something very real to our powers of fighting one formidable disease-TUBERCULOSIS.
Of course, everybody knows all about Drosera! Has it not a place in every “Manual of Domestic Homoeopathic”-and a groove in every box of a dozen homoeopathic remedies? For Drosera is classical, and that for a hundred years, as a laryngeal remedy, and as our greatest remedy in whooping-cough.
But when, through a happy accident, I began to realize what Drosera can do in tuberculous disease of BONE, of JOINT and of GLAND, I was amazed, and I started hunting homoeopathic literature for my warrant in so using it. Kent knew it not. Clarke knew it not. But so far as bone and joints were concerned, I found my justification in black type in the provings of Hahnemann. I wonder whey we are content to take most things at second or third hand?-why we so seldom go to the fountain head? How many homoeopaths of our day read Hahnemann’s e”Materia Medica Pura”? But I may tell you that Hahnemann gives big black type not only to the laryngeal symptoms that have made Drosera famous among homoeopaths, but he gives the same black type to joints, to shoulder, to hip, and again and again to ankle; besides to the shafts of long bones; and pains in limbs, and in diverse muscles. Hahnemann also, in a foot-note, especially designates the use of Drosera in laryngeal phthisis.
But it was only after I had shown some of my gland and bone Drosera cases to the Society in 1920, that the whole picture of Drosera began to dawn upon me. I was rather apologetic about my use of Drosera in gland cases; in fact, I think my “indications” were demanded of me. But after the meeting. I was referred to the “Cyclopaedia of Drug Pathogenesy” where the key to the whole position lay, in the experiments of Dr. Curie For Dr. Curie proved the homoeopathicity of Drosera to tuberculosis in its widest and most important aspect–that is, he showed that Drosera breaks down resistance to tubercle every time in animals supposed to be absolutely immune to that disease; and he also proved to his own satisfaction that Drosera was also able to raise resistance to tubercle, by curing early phthisis. And I saw with joy that, in Curie’s experiments, GLANDS, especially abdominal and cervical glands, were tremendously affected.
Ancient, non-homoeopathic medical literature, as Hahnemann points out, suggests the same fact– viz. the opposite, or homoeopathic, action of Drosera. It was what Hahnemann had written together with his further researches in literature, that suggested to Curie to determine “the exact physiological action of the plant” and to see “how far it was connected with the Law of Similars”. For, among the ancients, Drosera had been alternately extolled as a remedy for consumption, and abandoned– as accelerating the disease. Hahnemann explains this. He says, several of the older physicians found this plant useful in some kinds of malignant cough, and in phthisical persons, thus confirming its (homoeopathic) medicinal power; but the moderns, having no knowledge of any other than large doses, knew not how to employ this uncommonly heroic plant without endangering the life of their patients; hence they rejected it altogether.
And now a word about Drosera rotundifolia (Sundew), which Hahnemann describes as “one of the most powerful medicinal herbs in our zone”.
Drosera is, I believe, our only insectivorous plant. It sits on the ground in boggy places, with its circle of round leaves studded with glandular hairs, which exude drops of viscid, acrid juice, and which close down on, and digest, any hapless insects that dare to settle on the plant.
Drosera has an evil reputation in regard to sheep fed on pastures where it abounds. They are said to acquire a very violent cough, and to waste away.
Hahnemann, in footnote to this black type laryngeal symptoms of Drosera, points out “their likeness to some kinds of laryngeal phthisis, where Sundew is so peculiarly useful, provided there be no specific cachexy”
In the sixteenth century, the Sundew had a reputation as an excellent remedy “to restore vital moisture in persons labouring under consumption”; but Gerarde states that “they have sooner perished who used the distilled water thereof, than those that abstained from it”.
Sundew had also a reputation for the cure of madness; and in the homoeopathic provings we find, restlessness (in black type), suspicion, delusions of persecution (in black type), and inclination to suicide by drowning. It was used also in coughs and diseases of the lungs, and here again it is purely homoeopathic. Also in chronic asthma–purely homoeopathic–and palpitation of the heart.
Now a word about CURIE’S EXPERIMENTS.
Curie chose cats for his experiments, the cat being, of all animals, least liable to tuberculosis. He says, “it is not certain that tubercles have ever been found in cats.”
His experiments were only three, “because of the difficulty of obtaining enough of this small plant for the long time these experiments require”. “Because,” as he says, “it is not a question of exciting functional symptoms, depending on the nervous system.” “Tuberculization,” he says, “is a work of time; and a drug capable of producing in its action on the organism the formation of tubercles, will require time in which to do so.” * *While provings on animals are useless from Hahnemann’s point of view in regard to any mental or delicate subjective symptoms so essential to their scientific employment, yet experiments, or accidental effects of drugs, long-continued, on animals may yield valuable suggestive information as to the organs and tissues especially affected by such drugs. It would not be legitimate to press the proving on a human being to the extent of provoking gross lesions; but it has been elsewhere also recorded that Drosera excites a very violent cough in sheep (fed on pastures where this plant abounds) and Curie’s cats prove that it not only breaks down resistance to tubercle in different parts of the body, but leads to enormous swelling of cervical and other glands.
The results of his three experiments were so conclusive that he felt bound to publish them. For he found that the prolonged use of Drosera induces tuberculization in animals; and he states that its power to cure tuberculization has never failed him.
Drosera IN SPASMODIC COUGH, AND IN WHOOPING-COUGH.
Hughes talks of the SPASMODIC COUGH of Drosera, and how “Hahnemann’s wonted sagacity led him to perceive this, and to recommend the medicine in pertussis”.
But we all try to improve on Hahnemann–with consequent loss of power. Hahnemann states that a single dose of the 30th (the decillionth) potency, is quite sufficient for the cure of epidemic whooping-cough (according to the indications given by certain symptoms which he enumerates). “The cure takes place,” he says,” with certainty in from seven to nine days, under a non- medicinal diet. Care should be taken not to give a second dose (or any other medicine) immediately after the first dose, for that would not only prevent the good result, but do serious injury, as I know from experience.”
Hughes, who loves to go one better than Hahnemann, suggests “repeated doses of the 1st, or 1st decimal” (instead of Hahnemann’s decillionth, or 30th) “to bring uncomplicated cases of whooping-cough to an end in two, three, or four weeks” (instead of Hahnemann’s seven to nine days) “with mitigation of the severity of the attack meantime”.
But Hughes got called over the coals for this, and had to print a footnote to the effect that homoeopaths truer to Hahnemann in their practice “and recently confirmed the correctness of Hahnemann’s observation” (British Journal, Vol. xxxvi, p. 268).
I may say that I have been in the habit of curing whooping-cough with single doses of Drosera 30 or 200; and I saw a god deal of whooping-cough during the 1914-18 war in our Children’s Out- patient Department. On a few occasions, one would repeat, after a fortnight, if any cough remained. I can only remember one failure, where I had to give another medicine. It was in a child of four, brought back a week later, no better–worse–and reeking of camphor, which she was wearing in a bag round her neck. This was not quite Hahnemann’s “no other medicine”; in fact, Hahnemann says of Drosera,” Camphor alleviates and antidotes its effects.” The camphor was discarded and with the then indicated remedy, Carbo. veg., the child was practically well in a week.
Here is a typical case. David S., an infant. (His father and mother were among our missionary students.)
November 1st.–Ill. Temperature 102* F. Coughing and vomiting. Bryonia 1m.
