Mrs. S., aged twenty-seven years, fair and stout, has been married six years, but never pregnant. Before marriage, menstruation was normal; soon after marriage, it became irregular, as follows: menses would appear at intervals of three or four months, and the flow would continue, with scarcely an intermission, for twelve or fourteen weeks. The discharge was generally dark and thick, accompanied by pain, more or less severe. During the flow the patient became quite feeble and anaemic, although not apparently emaciated.
She applied to me, March 16, stating that she had been flowing since March 1st; the discharge being thick, dark and abundant, and attended unusually severe, labor-like pains, night and day. She was already very feeble; and, judging from past experience that she would continue to flow in this way for at least two months, she apprehended a degree of prostration that would utterly disable her. I gave Platina 200, a dose every night. The flow continued, although daily diminishing in quantity, for one week, and then ceased. The patient immediately began to regain strength. There was no re-appearance of menses until June 16, when they came on as before, but without pain, continued two days, ceased for twenty-four hours, re-appeared, and continued until July 4. During this time Platina200 was taken as before. July 18, menses re-appeared, the flow being very abundant, dark, and somewhat coagulated. The patient was weak, had no appetite, and complained of pain and much commotion in the abdomen. Platina having failed to produce a lasting effect, China, Crocus, and Hamamelis were given, but without satisfactory results. The flowing continued from July 18 to September 12, when the patient’s condition of debility was quite deplorable. I now found her symptoms to be as follows: the flow was not quite so dark, very profuse, but much more profuse during the night and on first rising than it was during the day. On rising in the morning, the patient experienced a contracting pain in the abdomen, and a sharp upward stitch in the rectum, followed by a discharge of coagula from the vagina. There was not much flowing during the day, while throughout the night it was abundant. She was very weak, and had much headache and no appetite. I gave Magnesia carbonica200, to be dissolved in water, a tea- spoonful every four hour until better. September 16, she reported that after taking Magnesia carbonica for two days the flowing at night ceased; now, after four days, the flowing had entirely ceased. The improvement in general condition had been remarkable. From this time, the progress of the patient was all that could be desired. In five weeks menstruation re-appeared and pursued a normal course, and there has been no recurrence of the former long-standing troubles.
The prescription of Magnesia carbonica in this case was followed by very prompt and complete relief. The symptom which led to it was the “condition” of the flowing, viz.: “worse during the night.” Shall we now, on the strength of this conformation of this unusual (we might say unphysiological) symptom, prononce the latter a “characteristic,” or a “key-note” of Magnesia carbonica? It was certainly the symptom in the case which struck me as most remarkable (for I do not remember meeting it before in practice), and the fact that I found it in the proving of Magnesia carbonica determined me to give that remedy. But would it be safe to rely on this symptom alone as a “key-note” and always give Magnesia carbonica when we meet the symptom in practice? No doubt we should sometimes brilliantly succeed, but I am sure we should often fail. At least one other remedy has the same symptom, flowing worse at night, viz., Bovista; and still others may have it. Between these two remedies, the distinction is easily found in the diversity of the other symptoms.
Magnesia carbonica produces (1 1Chronic Diseases, Symptoms 500 to 525.) too frequent and too profuse menstruation; the flow, which is dark and thick, being more profuse at night, (2 2Symptom 510.) corresponds with my case in every particular.
Bovista, on the other hand, (3 3Hartlaub and Trink’s Materia Medica, vol. iii., Bovista; Symptoms 382 to 394.) makes menstruation tardy and scanty; the flow, which is watery, being most abundant at night. (4 4Symptom 385.)
These remedies, so different, agree in this one symptom, “increase of flowing at night.” We could avoid error in a prescription only by taking cognizance of the totality of the symptoms, Hahnemann’s approved method. Should we venture to base a prescription on this remarkable symptom alone, as a characteristic or “key-note,” we should probably fail in half our cases.
Ex uno disce omnes. There is no royal road to knowledge of the Materia Medica.
Dr. Dunham graduated from Columbia University with Honours in 1847. In 1850 he received M.D. degree at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. While in Dublin, he received a dissecting wound that nearly killed him, but with the aid of homoeopathy he cured himself with Lachesis. He visited various homoeopathic hospitals in Europe and then went to Munster where he stayed with Dr. Boenninghausen and studied the methods of that great master. His works include 'Lectures on Materia Medica' and 'Homoeopathy - Science of Therapeutics'.