Dog’s Milk.
Introduction
IN early medical days, unwilling to tie oneself down, even by coming on the Hospital Staff, and being only desirous of “keeping ones hand in”, and getting experience by helping in various out- patient clinics (general medical, gynaecological, and the departments for children’s diseases and nerve diseases), one filled in half days all the week round, and took the place of absentees, and worked on in this desultory way from the day of qualification in 1903 till 1914, when one sought and was reluctantly given a Staff appointment:–reluctantly, because the, then, medical staff had an idea of raising the status of the hospital by excluding any doctors who could not boast the “highest qualifications”, M.D. Lond. being the desideratum. Well in those far-off days a certain woman presented herself in the Gynaecology Department complaining of ovarian pain; which appeared first on one side, crossed to the other, and then went back, always. The physician in charge was horrified at the obvious prescription, Lac caninum “Why give such a drug?”–to him most repulsive. However, when she next turned up, a month later, the pain had, of course, disappeared. It was quite a nice little introduction to Lac caninum These are the things that rivet a drug in the memory: and establish it as a Power, and, as such, certainly not to be despised. By the way, while we are telling tales out of school, the same doctor was greatly disgusted at the idea of Tuberculinum as a medicine. “I would not take it myself, and would not give it to my patients.” Wee globules, mark you! medicated with a highly potentized alcoholic preparation, probably the 30th in those days, that is to say, one in a decillion, and given by the mouth. Well shortly afterwards, when the Koch excitement came along with a perfect tornado of trumpets, and a little later, the Armbroth Wright demonstrations, under the microscope, of tubercle bacilli in the process of digestion, or elimination, safely ensconced in white blood corpuscles, this same doctor began injecting his former horror; the dosage now crude, and the method far more questionable and perilous.
Ah, but!–we are told, such drugs are apt to get neutralized, or digested, or something, and lost in mouth or stomach. Think of the impurities of the buccal cavity! Why risk delicate remedial agents in–what is, after all, nature’s own ordained way of absorption!
As a matter of fact, once potentized, remedies do not suffer the perils of neutralization. Hahnemann proved that to his own, most critical satisfaction 100 years ago: though we are still slow and reluctant to realize the true inwardness of his experiments and teachings. Among the unstable elements there is Phosphorus, which, if exposed to air, promptly changes its nature and properties. It must be kept under water in order to survive as Phosphorus, without metamorphosis into phosphoric acid. Yet Hahnemann proved that, when potentized, a few globules of phosphorus in a paper may remain for years in a desk, retaining their medicinal properties and without changing them for those of phosphoric acid. He says, “The medicinal chemical substances which have been thus prepared” (by potentization) “are no longer subject to chemical laws. A remedy which has been elevated to the highest potency, and by this means has become almost spiritualized, is no longer subject to the laws of neutralization: highly dynamized natrum, ammonium, baryta, magnesia, cannot, like their bases, be changed to neutral salts by acetic acid: their medicinal properties are neither changed nor destroyed.” And he also says, Besides the stomach, the tongue and the mouth are the parts most susceptible of medicinal impressions.” And Hahnemann was not only a most careful observer, but was accounted “one of the great analytical chemists” of his day. But of course all this has been of late physically demonstrated by Dr. Boyd of Glasgow.
Well: Lac caninum is, as we must recognize, a very potent subversive and therefore remedial agent. If anyone doubt this, let him study the Provings: especially the mental symptoms, many of them detailed on page 438; which show that this remedy has as wide a range of imaginations and fantastic terrors as any drug in our pharmacopoeia:–and it is the marked “mentals” that are, so Hahnemann teaches, of supreme importance in prescribing. And here, a point! It is the drugs that have been proved in the higher potencies that reveal their delicate nervous and mental symptoms. The more crude dosages only evoke the more gross effects: the systematic lesions. Such drugs as Lachesis, and Lac caninum are so very definite with their useful symptoms, because proved in the higher potencies.
But dog’s milk, as a remedy, did not originate with the homoeopaths; but some among them, notably that pioneer in the Nosodes, the American, Dr. Swan, hearing of its extra-ordinary usefulness in an epidemic of malignant diphtheria, potentized it, and proved it, and thereby showed its exact sphere in medicine; and demonstrated, moreover, that its ancient flame corresponded, as is so often the case, with its present, scientific uses as revealed by the provings.
All drugs of very special and unique action, are easily studied, and well worth learning up. The polycrests, “the common drugs of many uses”, will serve us ordinarily; and when we have mastered Sulphur, Sepia, Lycopodium, Calcarea, Nux vomica, etc., etc., we are a long way on towards running, fairly easily and success-fully, an ordinary out-patient clinic. But the less universally-useful drugs, of very peculiar and distinctive features, are less frequently, yet amazingly helpful. Once mastered, they romp in brilliantly every time, and make prescribing an excitement and a delight. Generally they do not “work out”, unless for one who has mastered the secret, that the best work is done with a few of the “strange, rare and peculiar symptoms”, fitting the case, rather than with a host of somewhat indefinite general symptoms, which, if politely given precedence, will often only suggest several remedies of the polycrest type, and perhaps completely miss the one brilliant and indispensable.
But, we must hark back to our subject, the peculiarities of Lac caninum As said, it is the remedy, par excellence, of fears and terrifying imaginations: among them SNAKES loom tremendously. The tissues it can severely annoy and successfully comfort, are, skin; its ulcerations red and glistening:–mucous membranes, especially throat, as in diphtheria, where it has been found prophylactic as well as specifically curative:–gland troubles:– nerve troubles; and as said, mental troubles.
The Lac caninum throat is very sensitive to external touch (Lachesis), sensitive also internally–terribly sensitive. It feels as if it were closing; he wants to keep the mouth open, lest he should choke. Swallowing is difficult–almost impossible, yet with constant inclination to swallow, when pains shoot up into ears (Phyto.). Feeling of a lump in throat which goes on swallowing, only to return (Ignatia). The worst pain is when swallowing solids. Throat feels dry, husky, as if scalded. Lac caninum is not only one of the great remedies of diphtheria, but of syphilis, when that attacks the throat, which has a shiny, glazed, red appearance, or characteristic patches, that “look like white china”.
We have already pointed out the distinctive character of its pains: they fly about, or, characteristically, change from side to side and back again. These pains may be neuralgic, rheumatic, or ovarian. Boger (Synopsis) gives its special regions as “NERVES: THROAT: female generative organs.” It not only affects the ovaries, but inflames and congests the uterus, whose haemorrhages are bright and stringy. (Dark and stringy, Croc.) They come in gushes, but (unlike those of Ipecac.) they clot easily. “Its sore throats are apt to begin and end with menstruation.” The mammae are also affected: full, lumpy, sensitive to the least jar, very painful and must be supported when going up and down stairs. And “Lac caninum is serviceable in almost all cases where it is required to dry up milk.” In this, and in its sensitiveness to jar, it reminds one of Belladonna
Lac caninum is an uneasy sleeper. Cannot get a comfortable position. “There is no way she can put her hands that they do not bother her: falls asleep, at last, on her face” (Medorrhinum, Cina.)
Dr. H. C. ALLEN sums up more of its characteristics. For nervous, restless, highly sensitive organisms.
Very forgetful, absentminded, makes purchases and walks away without them.
In writing, uses too many words and not the right ones: omits letters or words: cannot concentrate to read or study.
Despondent, hopeless: nothing worth living for: her disease is hopeless! has not a friend in the world. Could weep. Cross and irritable: child cries and screams all the time, especially at night. Attacks of rage; cursing and sweating. Intense “ugliness”.
Coryza: one nostril stopped up, the other free and discharging: these alternate. Discharge acrid: nose and upper lip raw.
