I have seen an infant admitted to the ward when it seemed hardly worth while to attempt to do anything at all, and in a few hours, under the action of minute doses of ARSENICUM ALBUM, the child has improved beyond recognition. So often has this happened that no case can be looked as hopeless so long as one knows of the powers of such drugs as ALOE, ARSENICUM ALBUM,CROTON TIGLIUM, MERCURIUS, PODOPHYLLUM and SULPHUR when administered according to homoeopathic indications.
In the course of development of the infant the next milestone is the eruption of the first tooth. Teething, in the healthy child, is a perfectly natural process and is unaccompanied by any disturbance. Unfortunately the majority of the children who come under the observation of the physician are not perfectly healthy, and teething is liable to be accompanied by all sorts of disturbances.
We are all familiar with the teething child with swollen tender gums, who salivates freely, and whose fingers and hand at times it looks almost as if the whole arm, are pushed into its mouth for relief. Or the child may be so desperately irritable that the whole household is distracted. Incision of the swollen gums and the administration of sedatives cannot be compared with the immediate and lasting change produced by the action of a little homoeopathic CHAMOMILLA.
Infantile Croup
There is another ailment of childhood which can shatter the morale of a whole family – infantile croup. It is a fear-some spectacle. The child sitting up in terror, rapidly becoming purple, blue or black in the face, unable to draw a breath, starting to twitch, it may be becoming convulsed. No wonder the family is terrified, especially as the attack tends to recur.
The ordinary treatment of such a condition consists in the administration of an emetic, hot fomentations applied to the neck and the use of a steam kettle. Instead, after the administration of ACONITUM, HEPAR SULPHURIS, or SPONGIA, the infant will be peacefully asleep in a few minutes and the attack will not recur.
In a similar way one might take up and consider the other illness of infancy such as bronchitis, pneumonia, the various skin diseases, and the acute infections, and contrast the methods of treatment in the two schools of medicine.
Until quite recently the infant who was not suffering from any recognisable disease, but who, in spite of that, was not developing properly, had been the despair of the physician. Advice was given as to diet, hygiene, general management, but still the results were far from satisfactory. In recent years there has been some advance in dealing with some cases. A small proportion of them are due to disturbance of the internal secretions, and a lot of excellent work has been done in the study of such cases and their treatment with preparations of the appropriate gland extract.
Absence of Vitamins
Others again have been found to be due to the absence of one or other of the vitamins from the diet. Along these lines, also, good work is being done, while yet others have been found to respond to a certain extent to treatment with ultra-violet rays. There has been a definite advance, but the vast majority of case do not come into any one of the classes and so for them orthodox medicine does absolutely nothing beyond the general advice. Cases of this type may, for simplicity, be grouped under two headings; Those in which the mental development is disturbed.
Those in which the physical development is faulty.
Under the first heading we place all degrees of mental disturbance. There is the case of the infant who is merely backward. He is slow in learning to walk, though without any physical weakness, and slow in learning to speak. His attention wanders easily and he does not appear to take notice of things and people as the normal infant does. Yet there does not seem to be anything radically wrong, and the parents are advised not to worry; that he is only a little slow in developing and will get all right. Too often that is merely a pious hope.
Unemployable or Criminal
This is the type of child which not uncommonly in later years is found to have developed into the unemployable, or the criminal adult. On the other hand, under the action of BARYTA CARB., BORAX, NATRUM MUR., or one of the other kindred drugs, in a very short times these children become perfectly normal.
There is the more marked case of the definite mentally defective. There appears to have been a complete lack somewhere in the brain and the child fails to show any ordinary intelligence. It is a pitiful sight; unable to speak or to understand, the infant remains as helpless as at the day of its birth. The usual advice given is to have it sent to a mentally defectives home, where, with infinite patience, it may be possible to do something in the way of educating the child to be clean, and perhaps to feed and clothe itself. And yet I have seen cases. Such as these become normal children who later have been able to attend an ordinary school and take their place with ordinary children, after careful homoeopathic treatment.
Another type of disturbance which is extremely common these days is what is known as the nervous child. It is afraid to be left alone, is afraid of the dark, terrified to traffic, afraid of animals, liable to suffer from sleeplessness and night terrors; he is a misery to himself and a torture to his parents. A wealth of literature exists on the subject of the nervous child, full of excellent advice as to the general management of such cases, but with directions as to medicinal treatment confined to the use of sedatives. On these lines the acute symptoms can be controlled, but the unstable nervous system remains untouched.
Consideration of the environment in which the child is living is important, but consideration of the nervous make-up of the child is vital. Otherwise it will show signs of nerve strain if subjected to adverse conditions in later life. Homoeopathy can take hold of that unstable nervous system. It can control the immediate symptoms with ease, and, what is of infinitely more value, it can modify and strengthen the whole nervous system, so that all signs and symptoms of instability will disappear.
Physical Problems
On the physical side the problems are very similar. Here we meet with acute conditions, not as separate isolated facts but as indications of some deeper underlying weakness. This is a type of the story that one so commonly hears. The infant appeared healthy at birth. The first sign of any trouble was when it was cutting the first teeth. Then the child had a digestive upset, attended by a little diarrhoea, or a little vomiting, or perhaps a mild convulsion. Shortly after it developed a mild attack of bronchitis, and since that time it has never, for many weeks together been free from cold, and these colds always have tendency to settle on its chest.
The next step in the history is enlargement of the tonsils and adenoids, perhaps an acute earache followed by a discharge from the ear and more or less marked deafness, and finally, enlargement of the glands of the neck with or without abscess formation. That is the kind of history I have heard, with minor variations, scores of times in the out-patient department. Each of the episodes has been dealt with as it arose.
A course of grey powder has corrected digestive disturbance and prevented the return of convulsions. An expectorant mixture and vigorous application of camphorated oil have cured the bronchitis. The enlarged tonsils and adenoids and the discharging ear about to be dealt with by the surgeon. The enlarged glands are what usually cause the children to be brought to us.
That is one type of history, and there are many others, all differing considerably in their symptoms, but each of them so constant that one can foretell what their medical history will be; they are certain to develop this, that, or the other acute illness. To the parents the acute illness is the whole story, but to the physician it should be but one item in a connected history.
It is here that homoeopathy can do some of its greatest work. It depends, in some degree, on the point in the history at which the child comes under treatment as to how much can be done; but no matter at what point the treatment starts, it is aimed at eradicating the underlying weakness, and not merely at removing the acute symptoms of the moment; and, what is more, it succeeds and nothing else does.
CHILDBEARING MEDICINES (Brief Drug Pictures)
The following supplements Dr. Borland’s article with brief drug pictures for comparison with the patient’s symptoms. They should render the choice of the remedy more easy and more certain; remembering always that mental symptoms, corresponding in drug and patient, are the most important indications for the employment of any drug.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.