NO.1.
LAST week you asked me if I would give you a lead as to how one tackles the average case of a child. Well, if you are considering prescribing for a child I think you have got to take it very much as one does in ordinary everyday homoeopathic prescribing; that is to say you begin to group your homoeopathic patients under headings, you get one of the commonly indicated drugs and you take that as your type of a group. Suppose you are dealing with children, far and away the commonest type of child is the CALCAREA child. Well, in practice what you do is, you are tackling a child, your first thought is, is that a Calcarea child?
That is far and away the commonest type in young children. And if you see a child and it is of a Calcarea type but you are not quite satisfied it is a Calc. silicate? Then immediately you begin to think of a Calc. phos. you wonder if the Calc. element is very marked after all, cant it possibly be a Phosphorus? You see you grade them down, starting from your Calc. carb. type. And so in practice one gets into the habit of having various outstanding types of that kind, and various other drugs that follow on.
Well, I think as far as kids are concerned, I got into the habit of grouping them roughly into about five different headings, and the way I used to group them was something like this. There were the Calcarea children first of all. Then what I would label the Baryta carb. type of child. Then the Graphites type of child. Then the Pulsatilla type. And, lastly, the Arsenic type.
Well, under the first lot, as I say, I would follow on with the Calcium salts, Calc. phos., Calc. silicate – these are the three commonest. Then there is the possibility of Phosphorus. Then under the same heading I always consider the Silica types, and, with the Silicas, Sanicula and AEthusa. Then, a little further away from the strict Calcarea, the possibility of Lycopodium. And, following on Lycopodium, the possibility of Causticum. and then in every case of any child I always consider the possibility of a dose of T.B. Well, that pretty well covers the first group.
In the second group-that is to say, under the Baryta carb. heading-the next drug that one always thinks of is Borax; it is the same kind of type of child, the same sort of indications. And then you have immediately got into the Sodium group-is it Natrum mur.? And never do you think of Natrum mur. without the possibility of Sepia. And immediately you are dealing with depressed drugs at all, you always consider the possibility of one of the Gold salts, either straight metallic Gold or the Chloride of Gold. And where you are dealing with a sluggish mentality or sluggish physical make-up you always consider the possibility of Carbo. veg. And that is the way that group runs.
Then, under the Graphites heading, one always begins to consider the possibility of Capsicum. And immediately you are dealing with any skin condition you always have to consider will a dose of Psorinum help them? And then, in connection with children, again where you have got definite skin indications, you always consider the possibility of Antimonium crud. Then, again under the skin indications, although it isnt really like Graphites, you always have at the back of your mind, is Petroleum a possibility?.
Then in the next group, what I myself call the Pulsatilla group, you have got again a definite crowd of drugs which are possible. First of all there is the Pulsatilla type. And following on Pulsatilla you always think of the possibility of Kali sulph. And immediately you get any drug with a Sulphur compound you consider, is it a straight Sulphur? Then, very much the same sort of mentality as Pulsatilla, you have got to consider the possibility of Thuja.
And immediately you get on to the Pulsatilla-Thuja group, you think of the possibility of Silica. And Silica always suggests the possibility of Fluoric acid. Then you are dealing with hot-blooded patients, and think of Bromine and Iodine. Immediately you get Iodine with its emaciation and hunger, you wonder is it Abrotanum?.
Then your last group of all. Here you have got your nervy drugs, Arsenic at the head of it with all its terrors. Immediately you get terrors you begin to think of Stramonium. And then you get your hyper-sensitive nervous system, and wonder if it is a Chamomilla.
Immediately you get Chamomilla you wonder if it is Cina-a little more violent. Then, with the strange digestive disturbances of Cina, you wonder if you are running to a Mag. carb. Then, getting back again to your strictly nervy type, is it possibly Ignatia? And wherever you get the Ignatia nervous type, restless, fidgety, you wonder, can it possibly be Zinc?.
Well, you see, if you have a grip of that list you will carry on in Out-Patients for a couple of years and practically cover 99 per cent. of your cases. But you see the principle on which one works; you get a drug, get to know it well, get to know all its symptoms, and then various things crop up in that drug which suggest some other possibilities, and you begin to tack one or two other drugs on to the first one; but it is always in definite groups that you work. That gives an outline of how one does it. then to take the groups in a little more detail.
If you take the CALC. CARB. type; at least in this country, the majority of young children are Calc. carb. children, and what one means by them is the typical soft, over fat, fair, chilly, lethargic children. Very often they look surprisingly fit, and yet they havent much energy either mental or physical. In early life they very often are over-weight, they look surprisingly healthy but when you begin to handle them you find it is soft fat rather than muscle. They have a tendency to quite frank rickets, with the enlarged epiphyses, bit head, slow closure of the fontanelles, and tendency to sweat. The children themselves are chilly, and yet they get very hot on the slightest exertion.
They sweat at night, and very often you get Calc. carb. children who stick their feet out of bed-dont think all the kids who shove their feet out of bed are Sulphur, they are not. Then a little later in life you find these kids again very much of the same type. They look fairly healthy, they look well nourished, and yet they are sluggish, mentally and physically. They are slow at school, they are slow at games, they are liable to sprain their ankles, they have got weak muscles, they sweat on exertion, and are liable to catch colds.
You find them with enlarged tonsils, enlarged cervical glands, rather big bellies, and they lack stamina; they are scared; they lack initiative. They are perfectly content to sit about and do little or nothing, and very often you find them peculiarly sensitive, they dont like to be scoffed at; they are clumsy in their movements, bad at games, and it tends to push them back into themselves; instead of sticking at it and becoming efficient they chuck their hands in and give up the game altogether; they hate being scoffed at or laughed at.
You find exactly the same thin in work; these kids very often have a difficulty with one or other thing at school, and the subject they have difficulty in they simple dont strive over, they chuck their hands in again, and if they are not sure of themselves nothing will induce them ever to answer questions in class in case they are wrong-in case they are laughed at.
Then, in early childhood, practically all these Calc. carb. children tend to have a relative constipation, though if chilled they tend to get attacks of diarrhoea, and as a rule the Calc. carb. children tend to have a relative constipation, though if chilled they tend to get attacks of diarrhoea, and as a rule the Calc. carb. small child has a pale stool which appears to be lacking in bile pigment. Then there are one or two odd outstanding Calc. carb. characteristics, which, when you get them, simply clinch the Calc. carb. diagnosis.
The one that is easiest to tack on to their sluggish mentality and sluggish physical make-up is that they are constipated and are much more comfortable when their bowels are inert. If you give an aperient it will upset them; if they have an attack of diarrhoea they are ill; if their bowels are relatively sluggish they are comfortable. The next thing you can tack on to their sluggish make-up is that they are aggravated by any physical exertion, or mental exertion, or by any rapid motion; they get car-sick and train-sick. Another thing about them which you tack on to their general sluggishness-at least I do-is that they have a very definite dislike of too hot food.
They are quite found of ice- cream; they have an aversion to meat, and occasionally you get one with a very definite egg craving, a craving for eggs in any form; if you get it, it is helpful, but you met many Calc. carb. children who have not got the carving for eggs.
Then there is other Calc. carb. indication, and that is that when they are seedy they become nervous; scared; you find a child who is perfectly happy so long as there is somebody about, they sit peacefully and play, and when it gets dark they are scared of going to bed in the dark, very liable to develop acute nightmare, wake up in the night screaming, and the kind of nightmare they get is that they get is that see horrible faces in the dark – that is very common Calc. carb. childs nightmare.
