EDITORIAL


Some of his lectures have always enthralled me, especially one on Lachesis. It appears that a number of homoeopathic physicians refused to use LAchesis. One group of doctors objected to it because it was not available in any dilution below the sixth, and they were committed against infinitesimals. Others threw discredit upon the proving of LAchesis, because the symptoms were too numerous.


THIS month finishes Dr. Burnetts epoch-making booklet, which treats of “Vaccinosis”-Thuja-Homoeoprophylaxis. Working on his lines, as here laid down, Thuja, he used to say, was worth 200 pounds a year to him; enabling him, as it enables us from time to time, to cure quite a number of cases of intractable disease-asthma-skin neuralgias – even epilepsy – where we should otherwise helpless.

Thuja is not cure for asthma, neuralgia, etc. But it enables some of the patients suffering from these disease to get well. Homoeopathy does not cure diseases per se. Correctly applied, it appears to lift the bar on health in certain cases, and allows the patient to cure himself. Of course, Thuja is only one among such remedies.

Parts of the little book may strike some superior persons as being somewhat old history, perhaps hardly worthy of reproduction in our day. But there are lessons to be had everywhere-for those who can learn. And this small monograph is so full of practical wisdom as well as brilliant personal experience, that it has seemed well worth reproducing, were it only for its shrewd concluding words, which still need emphasizing: “Pasteurs attenuating it” (a virus) “by poisoning a series of animals is ridiculous: an ordinary vial will do just as well.” And if just as well, just as better. You can sterilize bottles, not animals.

And what impurities you material may pick up, when run through a series of dogs or rabbits, or other “cheap animals”, who shall say! “Trust in Cod and keep your skin intact.” Some of us have experienced the difficulty of dealing with the hopelessly broken- down in health, who have submitted-almost proudly! to operation after operation, and injection after injection, till, in despair, they come to the homoeopath to cure-whatever is left.

We have been asked “the dose in drug-proving”, and cannot do better than reproduce part of the article dealing with this question from CARROLL DUNHAMs Homoeopathy, the Science of Therapeutics; because Dunham there discusses the matter in a way a could not aspire to do.

Dunham-the gentle- the greatly beloved- appears, curiously enough (Carroll Dunham-his Life and Works by DR.E. Wallace MacAdam) in the July number of the Homoeopathic Recorder. We will skim it through.

Dunham, “born in 1828, died in 1877,” was regarded as “our great man” “I have often wondered what manner of man this was, and how it happened that his name is kept alive by our Dunham Club so long after his death. When the club was organized he must have been dead about fifteen years; but his spirit must have lived on to stimulate those boys who called their little gatherings after his honoured name.” “One gets the idea of a frail, reserved boy, more found of books than of games. Graduated with honours…

Had been cured of a dangerous illness by Homoeopathy after eminent regular doctor has failed, and this, together with his friendship with Dr. P.P. Wells, turned him towards Homoeopathy. He studied also under Constantine Hering, gaining the most helpful and generous friend I have ever made”. And “later on, when leading specialists had said he had not long to live, this time with cardiac disease, it was Hering who, after exhaustive study, saved him with Lithium carb”.

“The advantage of having a banker for a father is evident: instead of beginning to practice he went abroad. In Dublin a dissecting wound nearly ended his life: butt he was again saved, this time by Lachesis 12, three times a day for five days.” (Lachesis, our first snake poison, was given to Homoeopathy by Hering.) Dunham studied in PAris under Trousseau; then in Berlin- Vienna-Munster, where he stayed long enough with the great Boenninghausen to learn his methods. (Later, it was Dunham who taught Nash to use the potencies.).

Dr. MacAdam says, “I have a set of homoeopathic remedies, reputed to be grafts from the 200ths that Carroll Dunham ran up, using the jigger of an old saw-mill to succus the remedies.” It was these 200s that gave Nash “confidence in high potencies”.

“The advantage of having a banker for a father is evident: instead of beginning to practice he went abroad. In Dublin a dissecting wound nearly ended his life: but he was again saved, this time by Lachesis 12, three times a day for five days.” (Lachesis, our first snake poison, was given to Homoeopathy by Hering.) Dunham studied in Paris under Trousseau; then in Berlin- Vienna-Munster, where he stayed long enough with the great Boenninghausen to learn his methods. (Later, it was Dunham who taught Nash to use the potencies.) Dr. MacAdam says, “I have a set of homoeopathic remedies,s reputed to be grafts from the 200ths that Carroll Dunham ran up, using the jigger of an old saw-mill to succus the remedies.” It was these 200s that gave Nash “confidence in high potencies”.

“Dunham must have been a voracious reader: he was a prodigious writer. Although most of his twenty-five years of medical activity was spent especially upon homoeopathic Materia Medica, he was always the scientific physician…. in this” (his Homoeopathy, the Science of Therapeutics) “he very carefully blocks out the various useful spheres of surgery, obstetrics, hygiene, diet, chemistry, diagnosis, prognosis, and points out clearly where homoeopathy should not be called for, and where it should.

“He insisted upon careful diagnosis-not, it would seem, so strongly urged by others of the school”.

“Some of his lectures have always enthralled me, especially one on Lachesis. It appears that a number of homoeopathic physicians refused to use LAchesis. One group of doctors objected to it because it was not available in any dilution below the sixth, and they were committed against infinitesimals. Others threw discredit upon the proving of LAchesis, because the symptoms were too numerous.

“In answer to these objections Dr. Dunham quoted a number of experiences from which I select two: they illustrate the lucid style, the attention to symptomatic detail, the dramatic sense of narration, the logical mind..” (we will quote one of them; since the methods and the results of great prescribers are not only encouraging to us, who struggle after, but also highly instructive.).

CASE I.

April 9th, 1960. Josephine Birmingham, aged nine years, well grown, had, last winter, scarlatina very severely. It left her delicate and deaf. Nine days ago she was exposed to the measles. The rash appeared on the 6th inst., along with a copious discharge from the ears. Yesterday (8th) this discharge suddenly ceased and the rash disappeared. She immediately became very feeble and prostrate; was seized with wild, muttering delirium. She had great thirst, drinking, however, but a little at a time. There was singularly biting heat of the skin.

I saw her first at 11 a.m., on the 9th inst. She had lain in alternate delirium and stupor for twenty-four hours; was irrational; had low muttering delirium; the pulse was soft, wavy, hardly to be counted; there was calor mordax; the respiration was attended by moaning; it was very rapid, whistling; there was an occasional single cough, with a moan following each cough, and a grasping at the throat, as if to tear away the clothing from it.

The pupils were widely dilated; there had been no stool for two days; the urine was scanty and seldom passed; I could not secure any for analysis. The expression of the countenance was cadaverous; the odour of then breath putrescent. I ordered Lachesis 30, six globules in water, a teaspoonful every two hours. Also strong beef tea every two hours.

At 6 p.m. I found her sitting supported in an arm-chair, playing with some toys; rational; the skin of a pleasant temperature; the pulse eighty, regular and soft. The attendants reported that after the second dose she had slept quietly, and no more delirium and no thirst. I found the eyes normal, the cough infrequent and not painful. I ordered Saccharum lactis.

The rash did not reappear. The patient convalesced from this point, and I gave no other remedy and did not repeat the Lachesis. .

This change from apparent impending death to established convalescence within the space of seven hours was very impressive and even startling.

I believe that in Homoeopathy we are on the edge of something great-belonging not to this generation of mankind-but to future ages.

Perhaps the whole purpose of Life is to discover Natural Law (not to explain “why”) and then, once having discovered to abide thereby. Homoeopathy is “part of” Natural Law hence its beautiful workings and-its mysteries!.

Margaret Lucy Tyler
Margaret Lucy Tyler, 1875 – 1943, was an English homeopath who was a student of James Tyler Kent. She qualified in medicine in 1903 at the age of 44 and served on the staff of the London Homeopathic Hospital until her death forty years later. Margaret Tyler became one of the most influential homeopaths of all time. Margaret Tyler wrote - How Not to Practice Homeopathy, Homeopathic Drug Pictures, Repertorising with Sir John Weir, Pointers to some Hayfever remedies, Pointers to Common Remedies.