HOMOEOPATHIC TREATMENT.
Actually then, the great directing idea of the officials is that cancer is a disease, firstly local, which then generalize itself, which is only grave because of this generalization and invasion of the body. That which is called the precancerous state exists only in so much local irritation, or the isolated organic inflammation can be the cause for cancer (for example, a proctitis determining a favorable state for the birth of a rectal cancer, a uterine polyp degenerating into a uterine epithelioma, etc.). Consequence: it is essential to fight these local inflammations, and act aggressively on the tumoral element in order to destroy it (be it by radiation or surgical intervention). The main argument which appears to favor this belief is the relative rarity of relapses of cancers in aggressively treated cases and the exception of cases of primitive tumors appearing successively in different organs in the same patient.
On the contrary, homoeopaths believe, in general, and other colleagues hold equally to this idea, that there not only exists at the same time but especially for some time before the appearance of a tumor, a general constitutional state or generator of cancer.
The local irritations acts only as a focus of localization; it is a thorn due to disturbances or regional tropism (tissue or organ). Consequence: Know the signs of the precancerous state in order to treat the body before the appearance of the tumor and treat the general state as well as the cancer during or after the latter. The valuable argument in favor of this idea is the possibility of obtaining occasionally a remission or an amelioration, which is only temporary, by acting on the general state and via internal channels.
In reality, if certain officials are strangely blind when they refuse to admit the existence of an already deficient general state in a clinically pretumoral phase, certain traditional homoeopaths, especially foreigners, are mistaken, in our opinion, when they neglect the extreme importance of the local factor in cancer as in other affections.
To clarify our demonstration let us take another example: an abscess or phlegmon. Before the appearance of the suppuration one can prove that there exists in the general state of the subject warning disturbances: suppurative tendency; the smallest wound is infected very easily, the patient is fatigued, there often exists cytological transformations, etc. Then the abscess forms. At this moment local signs appear and assume more and more the first position over the signs of general disturbance unless the abscess is opened and the pus exteriorized. In this case, general treatment is useful before and after; the abscess ought to be associated with local measures in the suppurative phase.
There is likewise in cancer a rational local treatment whose object is the tumoral destruction, be it by irradiation or better still by operative oblation, be it by local application of homoeopathic remedies, it should be practiced each time this is possible, for without that the treatment of general detoxication is shown to be insufficient in the greater part of the cases.
It is then to envisage homoeopathic treatment from two aspects:
Generals (remedies to be prescribed in the precancerous state as well as during the tumoral phase or after it).
Local (treatment only possible in the actual cancer period).
A. General Treatment
This is composed of:
1. Constitutional remedies
2. Cancer remedies
3. Drainage and canalization remedies.
I. CONSTITUTIONAL REMEDIES.
Numerous polychrests, habitually employed as remedies of morbid constitutions, called “basic remedies” or improperly “constitutional remedies” are quite often indicated in cancerous and precancerous patients. As elsewhere, they can also be prescribed in the greater part of the chronic disease, as Hahnemann described them. That it may be a question of psora, that state so difficult to define yet so easily recognized; that it may be a question of sycosis in other cases; that psora is identifiable, according to Nebel, with hereditary tuberculosis (with infections of intestinal origin for other authors); that it determines in the subject a state called tuberculinique or pretuberculous in others, or a precancerous diathesis in others, we should only note that, habitually, it is the same great basic needs remedies which should be prescribed in the first place. Our object here is only a practical one, namely, to present a general view of the treatment of cancer, and it is not an etiologic or pathogenic investigation.
Thus we find that depending on age sex, race, soil, climate, habits of life, alimentation, morphology, there are a thousand shades which lend these remedies an extraordinary polymorphism. It is also true that Thuja, Lachesis, Iodium, Silicea, Lycopodium, Sulphur, Sepia, Petroleum, the Calcareas, the Kalis, the Natrums, Carbo vegetabilis and animalis, Graphites, Causticum, Arsenicum album, Phosphorus, Mercurius, Nitric acid, Nux vomica, Ignatia, shall present themselves judiciously to our minds as most often characterizing the morbid state of our patients. They are for us protean remedies, for precise personalities, which are multiple, faceted, variable. They can be described in a different in a different fashion, but as true as any other, as characterizing certain hereditary psoric states in the child, tuberculinique in every age but especially in the young subject (child, adolescent, young adult): or precancerous psoric or precancerous sycotic states in adults and mature people or in the aged who frequently present associations of sycosis and psora.
We lack the space required to describe in a detailed manner the precancerous state as it is manifested in Thuja, Lachesis, Sulphur, etc., as we have previously done for the tuberculinique or tuberculous state (General View of the Present Homoeopathic Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis, L’Homoeopathie Moderne, Nov. 15, 1932). The reader should refer to the materia medica, which is the premier source of all homoeopathic knowledge. Let us limit ourselves by giving only several practical indications of the value of these remedies which are habitually employed in high potency in the precancerous or even cancerous state.
THUJA: This is the king of Hahnemann’s sycosis, the diathesis which is productive of neoplasms, that are, most often, benign. These are warts, condylomata, vegetations, naevi, etc. Sycosis supervenes upon a genital infection, especially gonorrhoea, or after repeated vaccinations which are toxic to the body, especially Jennerian antivariolar vaccination.
Thuja is in the first rank of remedies for the precancerous state. In high potencies it is wise to repeat it rarely, since it can be dangerous and occasionally even precipitate a subject toward a cancerous localization.
In reality, Thuja can also act with success in the confirmed cancer if the latter isn’t too intensely malignant, and if the tumor is still localized. In such cases it can be used for cancer of the breast (degenerated adenoma) and for the cutaneous epitheliomata. In such cases one may be mistaken, perhaps, in prescribing it in too high potencies. Thuja 6 repeated often would appear to act more favorably in certain cutaneous cancers, especially in the cancroids.
LACHESIS: This is also a constitutional remedy of the first order for the precancerous and starting cancer cases. This is especially so in females approaching the fifth decade, following a period of glandular and circulatory disturbances affecting the thyroid, ovaries and liver. These disturbances are often accompanied by vertigo, flashes of heat, palpitations, general hyperaesthesia (cannot tolerate anything tied about the neck, chest or waist) and often, arterial hypertension. If there exists a bloody discharge the latter ameliorates the patient (especially the periods). If, on the other hand, there is a cessation of the discharge the condition is aggravated (menopause).
In other cases and regardless of sex, the precancerous Lachesis case is intoxicated (alcohol) or jaded. The latter’s intensive creative efforts or inventive researches have profoundly disturbed the humors and destroyed the reserves of nervous energy.
Lachesis even acts well in certain cancers, in high potencies, and without appearing dangerous as Thuja is even if its is repeated often. Its action is more general on the intoxication of cancerous origin. Thuja has a more localizing action. IODIUM: This is complementary to Thuja which is also its antidote. Patient is debilitated, weak, and wastes very rapidly in spite of his good appetite. He has the tendency to produce new connective tissues and hard glandular growths (breasts, uterus, lymphatic glands, thyroid, etc.). One must not neglect to prescribe it for it often has a favorable action on the weight and even on the tumoral element which it can cause to regress or whose induration and invasive tendency it will diminish.
SILICEA: This remedy is also related to Thuja and Iodium. It acts especially on the connective tissues in which, according to Ribbert, modifications often occur before epithelial neoformation. Lauded by Zeller, Fargas and other authors, it is suitable for the precancerous or cancerous diathesis. It can be prescribed in cicatricial degenerations (cheloids, analogous action to Fluoric acid) and especially in sclerosing tendencies with the production of new fibrous tissues. If Thuja is mentally obsessed, Iodium a depressed melancholic and anxious type, Silicea is a hypersensitive anxious type who is also capable of possessing fixed ideas.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.