Mrs. F. B. W., aged thirty-seven years, had been examined by her brother-in-law, a surgeon among the allopaths, and another surgeon, and was to prepare for an operation for removal of gall stones, the week following her first consultation here. When told that it was possible for her gall-stones to be dissolved, without an operation, by the action of homoeopathic medicine, she reported to her family and the surgeon-brother said that only a quack would promise or presume to dissolve gall-stones with a remedy. Accordingly the woman’s husband appeared at the office with denouncement of him who offered encouragement to the wife that she could be cured without an operation. However, when the query was presented: “If your wife should be treated with a remedy, so that she would be free from gall-stone colic and the gall-stones should disappear and she should be strong, who would be the quack, the doctor who gave the curative remedy or your brother?” he unhesitatingly decided in favor of the prescriber of the remedy. Accordingly his wife began with homoeopathic treatment.
Nov. 2, 1904. Has had a long siege of typhoid fever. Headaches, followed by vomiting of bile, recurrent.. for years. Pain starts in r. eye, extends over forehead with a dragging sensation in occiput. Face purple. Mother had gall- stones and grand-mother died of gall-stones. Gall-stone colic, in August. Pain (>) by heat. Sleeps with shawl over her head. Very nervous; easily startled; apprehensive. Sacrum-pain extends to thigh on r. side. Intensely fastidious. Cold feet: hot water bottle in bed at night. Headache at menstrual per. for sixteen years, since her boy’s birth. M. flow thick, clotted, dark, only one day. Fecal evacuations light, when sick; then dark, as recovers. Must restrain herself or would commit suicide. Pulse slow at times. Natrum sulph. 10m.
Reference to the repertory, with the following symptoms:
Inclination to commit suicide; startled easily; sacral pain extending to thigh; feet cold in bed; m. flow clotted; m. flow dark; m. flow thick; vomiting during headache; vomiting bile; results in the following totals for the most prominent remedies: Mercurius 14; Nat-c. 9; Natrum mur. 14; Nat.-s. 12; Sulph. 20. From these the selection was made. Nov. 12. Nat.-s. 10m. Jan. 3 and Jan. 24. Nat.-s. 50m.
By February symptoms of gall-stone and suicidal symptoms had entirely disappeared.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.