September 21st, when he has a chance he drinks more and more. Still he is stronger, but his will power is not great. To cure intercurrent diarrhoea he is given Arsenicum alb. ix, to be taken three or four times a day during several days.
November 2nd, cured of the diarrhoea. He has not got thoroughly drunk for five weeks. He is still fond of wine.
November 30th, the amelioration continues.
He takes one dose Arsenicum alb. 300th.
December 28th, has not been drunk for four weeks.
January 18th, 1887, the cure continues.
May 24th, he still likes wine, but no longer gets drunk.
June 21st, he takes Arsen. 2000th in order to maintain the cure.
July 19th, he has not got drunk since the 1st of January.
October 18th, he still remains entirely sober, but is still fond of wine. To bring about a distaste for it I give him Hepar 200th.
Arsen, 200th and 2000th cured this hereditary drunkenness, a disease whose cure is so difficult to accomplish. A He has not got drunk for an entire years.
OBSERVATION 8
A married man, 68 years old, the grandson of a drunkard, the son of an ill-natured mother has been getting drunk for thirty-four years, principally on absinth. He is weak- minded, easily angered for a short time. Aristotle used to say that wine makes one eloquent. Many public speakers use it on that account. During each spree this drunken fellow talked insultingly for six hours at a stretch; the remedies gradually reduced the length of this drunkard’s disagreeable talks to five, four, three, two, one even one-half hour, diminishing at the same time the insolent character of that species of eloquence. His wife was particularly interested in the gradual diminution of this talk, for she was compelled to remain by his side so long as he was drunk in order to prevent his insulting the neighbors. This woman came to my dispensary every three or four weeks, for more than twenty months in succession, with rare constancy. This permitted me to cure, or to ameliorate, little by little, this chronic drunkenness, which had been lasting for thirty-four years, and into which he relapses occasionally, but which is less intense than it used to be, and occurs at longer intervals of time.
The reader will see how I proceeded in this case.
March 30th, 1886, he takes, without knowing it, one dose of Laches. 200th.
April 16th, no result. He takes Causticum 200th.
May 11th, no result. He takes Nux vomica 200th.
June 2nd, no result. He takes Petrol 200th.
June 23rd, he talks less insulting while drunk, chatters, yells, insults less, and has greater strength of will. Now he talks only two or three hours while he is drunk. He takes. Petrol. 3000th.
July 13th, he drinks as much as ever, but he yells and insults less while drunk. Petrol. 10,000th.
Great amelioration until the 1st of August, when he got very drunk.
August 3rd, he has not got drunk since the 1st is more reasonable.
August 5th, he is better, talks less, is less insulting towards his daughter.
November 3rd, amelioration continues.
November 23rd, he takes Phosphor 200th in one dose, for threatening paralysis of the tongue.
December 14th, amelioration continues.
January 11th, 1887, he has got drunk several times, but speaks less.
February 28th, he gets maudlin drunk.
He takes Causticum 200th.
March 1st, he is more calm, but defiant and cross. This is perhaps a drug aggravation.
March 21st, still ill-natured, talkative, insolent, inclined to use his knife on himself, his family, his neighbors. He takes Hepar 200th.
April 19th, amelioration in all respects.
He talks only one hour while drunk.
May 17th, amelioration continues.
June 15, amelioration continues. Still he gets drunk on five successive days. Wine no longer produces muscular excitement, hence his relatives mistakenly imagine that he is less strong than formerly.
July 5th, the amelioration continues.
August 2nd, likewise.
August 23rd, amelioration is more marked: he reasons better. He talks only one-half hour while drunk.
September 20th, amelioration continues.
October 18th, slight relapse. He takes Hepar 200th.
November 2nd, relapse. December 6th, better.
January 9th, 1888, unchanged. He takes Hepar 3000th
OBSERVATION 9
A married man, 60 years of age, the son of a drunken father, a drunkard himself, becoming more so since as number of years, usually, mild-mannered, but noisy, turbulent and licentious while he was drunk.
January 9th, 1886, he takes, without knowing it, a single dose of Laches. 200th.
March 2nd, no result. He takes Nux vomica 200th.
March 23rd, a slight amelioration, preceded by a slight aggravation. He takes Nux vom 600th.
April 3rd, no noticeable amelioration: still, he is less ill-tempered and loud while drunk. He takes sulphur 5000th.
May 4th, he is more mild-mannered, more calm, has not got drunk for three weeks, he cannot stand wine so well, sleeps better.
May 25th, he has been less nervous for the last six weeks.
June 2nd, since the 25th of May he has got drunk twice. He takes Sulphur 2000th.
June 29th, he gets drunk just as formerly. He takes petrol. 200th.
September 7th, in the same state as before. He takes Crotal 200th.
September 28th, no result. He takes Causticum 200th.
November 9th, no result. He takes Calc curb. 300th.
The wife of this drunkard has no hope of success and gives up the treatment, and this quite mistakenly; for if she had preserved, like the wives of some of the subjects mentioned already, I should very probably have succeeded, little by little, in curing her husband’s hereditary drunkenness.
OBSERVATION 10
A married man, 35 years old, the son of a father who had been a lazy fellow and a drunkard for thirty-five years, became a drunkard himself at the age of 16. He is under- handed, vain, mendacious and seals his wife’s money for drink. When he is drunk he beats his wife.
April 13th, 1886, he takes Nux vomica 200th.
May 4th, no result. He takes Nux vomica 10,000th.
May 25th, he is a little less ill-natured, but drinks just as much. He receives Laches. 200th.
June 8th, he is less ill-natured, but drinks more.
July 16th, he refuses to work any longer.
He receives Sulphur 5000th.
July 27th, he takes Laches. 30th, two doses in twenty days.
August 24th, he is ill-natured, selfish, rough and refuses to work. He takes Calcarea carb. 300th.
September 21st, no change.
March 22nd, 1887, he is better-natured, he still drinks, but he no longer steals his wife’s money for drink. This proves that he is less given to drink than before.
The mother of this drunkard gave up the treatment, and this quite mistakenly, for I could here make the same remarks as at the end of the preceding observation.
There are sometimes very prompt and encouraging cures, like the three that follow:
OBSERVATION 11
A married man was accustomed to drink as high as thirty glasses of absinth. After a single dose of Causticum 200th, taken without his knowing it, he felt such a repulsion for absinth, and even for wine, that not only did he not drink any more of it, but he could not even remain in the presence of persons who were drinking the stuff.
OBSERVATION 12 AND 13
There was administered to a man and his son-in-law, who were both great drinkers of absinth, without their knowledge, to the one Laches. 200th, and to the other Nux vomica 200th, which produced in them such a disgust for this liquor that their respective wives smilingly heard them say to one another, Don’t you find that absinth is not good anymore That is so; I drank some at so and so’s, and it was very bad. And I drank some in such and such a cafe which was good for nothing. We will have to give up drinking absinth, for they do not make any more that is good. That is what I think also, and I am not going to drink any more absinth; and the two women continued to smile as they overheard this consoling dialogue.
There are drunkards, fortunately not many, whom I treated almost without success for months and months. I at last discovered that in them the dipsomania was hereditary or symptomatic of a mild form of insanity, which had no other manifestations. Drunkenness is difficult to cure in both of these classes of cases, but especially in the latter, for in the first, that of the hereditary drunkards, a certain number are cured if they are as constant in the treatment as the physician himself.
There is a third class of cases, comprising cases of drunkenness, whether hereditary or not, in which drinking has been kept up for twenty, thirty or forty years, and has impressed upon the organism an inveterate habit which has become a species of second nature. Sometimes an almost ceaseless or often repeated treatment is necessary to cure this sort of drunkenness.
In the fourth class of cases, drunkenness, whether hereditary or not, manifests itself not as being the result of physical appetite or protracted habit, but as that of levity or lack of will power. It is sometimes difficult to act upon these people devoid of mental and moral ballast, who float upon the ocean of life, now driven by the waves of their changing caprices, now by the wills of those who surround them. To this class of people it is necessary to administer the indicated remedies, not only for their intermittent dipsomania, but also and especially for their fantastic disposition and their lack of will power, which are the predisposing causes thereof. This class of men is often more difficult to cure than others who are ten times worse drinkers, but who have mental and moral ballast. I might add to the preceding observation many others which are as different among themselves in their personal appearance, temperament and coexisting somatic and psychical symptoms. All these observations would show that drunkenness, when it is not hereditary, can be cured in one-half of the cases, on condition that the treatment should be continued with persistency, and even should be repeated after relapses occur.
Jean Pierre Gallavardin (1825 – 1898) was a French orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to gain international renown. Gallavardin was a Physician at the Homeopathic Hospital in Lyons.
Gallavardin set up a homeopathic Dispensary for the cure of alcoholics, often working in conjunction with priests, and he wrote several books on this subject.
Jean Pierre Gallavardin wrote Psychism and Homeopathy, The Homoeopathic Treatment of Alcoholism, How to Cure Alcoholism the Non-toxic Homoeopathic Way, Repertory of Psychic Medicines with Materia Medica, Plastic Medicine, and articles for The British Journal of Homeopathy, On Phosphoric Paralysis, and he collated the statistics on pneumonia and other cases for the United States Journal of Homeopathy, and he contributed widely to homeopathic publications.
