CANCER


The most useful homeopathy remedies for Cancer of Uterus symptoms from the book The diseases peculiar to women and young children by H.N.Guernsey….


CANCER is an hereditary constitutional disease which is characterized by the peculiarity of its several forms, by the progressive nature of it development, by the intensity of its pain and by its remarkable tendency to terminate fatally.

The hereditary nature of he dangerous dyscrasia is prove, d in part, by statics, from a variety of sources., of case sin which the relatives of those subject to cancer have been known to have had the same disease. Among the French authorities on this subject, we may he could certainly trace an hereditary taint. Lebert’s experience gives by one in twelve as thus constitutionally predisposed, Among English authors, we find that Mercurius Paget traces an hereditary predisposition in this manner in but one in four of the cancerous persons who have come under his notice. The statistics collected by Mr. Libbey, at the Middlesex Hospital, how an average of but 3 3/4 per cent. of he case as thus proved to be hereditary cancer cases. In the Cancer Hospital, the aggregate collection of the cases seen by the medical officers connected with the institution, yields an average of one in seven, who had relations previously affected by this disease. While Mr. Cooke, -from whose recent work “ON CANCER; ITS ALLIES AND COUNTERFEITS. By Thomas Weeden Cooke, Surgeon to the Cancer Hospital and to the Royal Free Hospital, & c. London,1865. on this subject I have taken these details,- states that one in four of the cancer cases which have come under his observation, give evidence of the hereditary nature of the disease in themselves.

But it may be urged that these statistics do but indicate that a large proportion, still a minority of the cases of cancer, appear directly hereditary, -as having relations who have suffered with the same disease,-and the therefore the proof of the hereditariness, that is of the constitutionality of this disease, is very far from being conclusive. And that it may be affirmed that cancer may arise directly, in persons who have no hereditary or constitutional predispositions to this form of teases. This conclusion we deem entirely incorrect. And we attach the more importance to a correct statement of the matter because it involves some very interesting practical considerations, relative to Hahnemann’s Psoric Theory on the one side, and to the inter changeableness of different forms of ultimate disease on the other. Thus in reply to the objection of the insufficient nature of the other thus in reply to the objection of he insufficient nature of the proof of he constitutionality of cancerous disease, it may be stated that even as individual cases of disease often require a long time to may have been increasing in intensity for several generations before it reached a sufficient amount of deviation from the natural state to be able to ultimate itself in an actual; cancerous growth. Again it may be remarked with people do not always know the history of their families,-and especially may oversights of this kind be considered probable may skip over an entire gentian.

But the main point to which generation is invited in this direction is the fact, that this latent dyscrasia, extending from tone generation to another, may be developed in entirely different forms in different generations and indifferent individuals of the same generation. This fact which has been in a great measure overlooked, we regard as of great distinct disease, no less fatal, perhaps,. and certainly no less surely progressive in its course, which appears to be the constitutional complement of cancer And this disease is phthisis! Which is, like cancer, an ultimate, organic, structural development of a constitutional dyscrasia, -which is, like a tuberculous affection, -and which, attacking principally a young class of persons, destroys its victims of disease appear mutually interchangeable, since both their ultimate and fatal manifestations appear in different generations and branches of the same family, and in different individuals of the same generation. Thus it happens that cause of cancer which cannot be traced to any cancerous affection in other members which cannot be traced to any cancerous affection in other remembers of the family may be referred to a strongly – pronounced hereditary predisposition to phthisis: and conversely, case of phthisis are seen to grow out of dyscrasia, which in other relatives branches and members of the same family, have been developed as true, malignant, fatal cancer.

In the peculiarity oft its principal forms, cancer differs remarkably from all the other organic disease. these forms are three in number,-the SCIRRHUS, or hard cancer; the ENCEPHALOMA, encephaloid, medullary or soft cancers and the COLLOID, or gelatinous cancer. the scirrhus seldom or never appears before puberty, is moderate in size, and slow in this development. The encephaloid variety is the one which most frequently appears in infancy; it may occur in any part or tissue of he body;l sometimes attains an enormous bulk; is the form which secondary cancerous deposits usually assume;is liable to very dangerous hemorrhage; and when once ulcerated runs a very rapid course. the colloid cancer, r itself firm and resisting, contains a peculiar jelly-like matter-occurs only in adults, -most commonly in the abdominal cavity may grow rapidly and to an enormous size; rarely proceeds to ulceration; and most commonly destroys life by encroaching upon some vital organ and so permanently obstructing its functional action. the scirrhous form is the most frequently seen generally, and especially in the female breast and uterus and is also the most different occurs. The encephaloid variety comes next in frequency.

These different forms of cancer have been by some supposed to represent merely the different stages of the disease; its different stages of development. It may indeed be true that particularly cases of cancer may, in the course of their progressive development, successively represent and with more or less accuracy, all these various forms. But in general, such a statement could hardly be support d by the facts, From the difference in the degree and intensity if not also in the kind of the cancer miasms, as well as from the innate variety for e constitutions in which it is developed, the cancer itself naturally assumes a variety of forms from the fist. Thus while scirrhus or hard cancer usually softness in its advanced stages, others like medullary cancers, which may occur in a wider range of human life, in the young as well as in the old, and which are more malignant as being more rapidly fatal,-are soft from their very commencement.

Still there does not seem to appear in these different forms any essential difference in the elements which may be demand the radical constituent of cancer, or any other difference, than that its preparation, in. the manner in which they are combined. Without stopping here to enter minutely into the discussion of the question as to whether there exist a true characteristic cancer cell, histological distinct from all to the normal or abnormal formations,-a question once doubtful by recent investigations,-we merely indicate the general elements of cancer structure. These are the so-called nucleated cancer cell; a peculiar fibrous structure, among the meshes of which he cells are found; and a no less peculiar viscous fluid, with which the two former elements are more or less abundantly surrounded. the combination of these three elements constitutes the cancerous may be considered to determine the form of the cancer itself. Thus if he fibrous element predominate, as it does in the earlier stages of the great majority of cases,-we have the scirrhous form. if the cells are more abundant, we have the encephaloma or soft cancer. if the viscous fluid be in the ascendant, there result the colloid, or gelatinous cancer.

Some cases are anomalous; presenting more the appearance of fungous growths; others against are more like bleeding tumors, hence termed bloody cancers. But an attentive study of all the symptoms and conditions will enable the practitioners to decide as these the malignant nurture of the disease. But such decision, independent of the data upon which it is founded, is if use rather with reference to diagnosis and prognosis itself, than from any influence which it should be allowed it exert upon he selection of the remedy. For the remedy must selected at first hands, that is, from the symptoms themselves, which will guide aright,-and not from out diagnosis of he case, which may be, and often is, -wrong.

As already implied, the cells, which where supposed to the absolute characteristics of cancer, and so called true cancer cells, -have more lately been deemed less positively determinate. Virtue, *the latest and highest authority in cellular pathology, considers the dry or juicy nature of he cells as much more decisively indicative of the benignant or malignant or malignant character, than is their shape or form. “The forms which yield dry, juiceless masses, are relatively benignant; those which produce succulent tissues have always more or less of a malignant character. And in deciding upon the benignant or malignant nature of any growth he says: “In the case of all these formations, every one of which corresponds more or less completely to a normal tissue, investigations ought nor to be conducted with view to determine either they have a physiological type, or whether they be a specific stamp impressed upon them; our final decision depends upon the answer to the question, whether they arise at a spot to which they belong, or not, and whether they produce a fluid, which, when brought into contact with the neighboring parts, may there exercise an unfavourable, contagious or irritative influence.

H.N. Guernsey
Henry Newell Guernsey (1817-1885) was born in Rochester, Vermont in 1817. He earned his medical degree from New York University in 1842, and in 1856 moved to Philadelphia and subsequently became professor of Obstetrics at the Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania (which merged with the Hahnemann Medical College in 1869). His writings include The Application of the Principles and Practice of Homoeopathy to Obstetrics, and Keynotes to the Materia Medica.