Chronic Diseases—Sycosis



It is in the nature of gonorrhoea to go to the surface in the earlier stage, and so when the catarrh comes on in vigorous constitutions soon after the suppression of the discharge from the urethra it may locate itself in the nose, but if the catarrh does not come on soon the constitution is too weak for the catarrh to represent the disease, and it will be represented on the deeper tissues. Bright’s disease may come, breaking down of the lungs, breaking down of the liver, rheumatic affection of the worst form, finally killing the patient. It is only in the earlier stages that it becomes catarrhal. The man thinks he is cured and he has escaped the outward manifestations because his constitution is not very vigorous, but the disease goes on into an advanced state until it attacks the blood and he becomes anaemic.

Now, if in this condition he marry, his wife does not get the catarrhal state, because the contagion is contracted in the bladder trouble, but she gets the anaemic state. You may call it a secondary state if you like, but it is really the more interior form of the disease. From this anaemic state it spreads in to all functions of the body. The woman does not get the catarrhal state, because the contagion is contracted in the woman at the stage which the husband has reached.

If he has passed the catarrhal stage, what she gets is beyond the catarrhal state. She gets fibrinous condition, inflammation of the uterus and the soft tissues, or low grade changes in the kidneys. She may go on and have any of the peculiar constitutional diseases that the woman of today is subject to. It is rather strange that it affects the soft tissues and not the bones. Syphilis affects the soft tissues and the bones. Psora affects the whole economy, nothing escape; it causes a general breakdown.

Sometimes in the man it does take the catarrhal form, but produces inflammation of the testes, or it may affected the rectum. Again, if you go to the bedside of a man who has used strong injections for the purpose of suppressing a gonorrhoeal discharge, and you find him in bed writhing and turning, tossing and twisting with the pains, and the only relief for him is to keep in continual motion; the pains are tremendous, they are rending and tearing from head to foot; if he can get up he will walk the floor night and day.

There is seldom much swelling with this rheumatism; it seems to be along the sheath of the nerves and is relieved by motion. The superficial physician will say, here is a patient relieved by motion, here is a case for Rhus. You give Rhus, and then find it does not do a single thing for the man; but remember, when you have studied sycosis in its innermost nature, Rhus is not an anti-sycotic remedy and will not help this patient in his restlessness; it will not help his awful distress and anxiety. This state will go on, and when it has attacked him so violently his tendons will begin to contract, they will shorten, the muscles of the calves will become sore, the muscles of the thighs will become so sore that they cannot be touched or handled; sometimes were is infiltration of the muscles and hardness, and this soreness extends to the bottom of the feet so that it is impossible for the patient to walk.

He is compelled to sit or lie or crawl around on his hands and knees, so violent are some cases. These cases will go on for years. I have known external applications of the allopathic physician to be applied to these sore feet and limbs for weeks and months and even years, and yet they give no relief; but a correct prescription made by a homoeopath, carefully taking in account and covering the whole nature of sycosis, will take the soreness out of the feet and bring back the gonorrhoeal discharge., The return of the old symptoms means recovery. When the discharge comes back the relief of these horrible symptoms comes, and do not consider any patient cured until the discharge is brought back.

With reference to the woman, in whom you know that the contagion has taken place in the stage in which it existed in the husband, supposing she has inflammation of a fibrinous character and goes into the very worst forms of anaemia, with all the sallowness and waxiness and patchy condition of the skin and the withering and the organic troubles, if a homoeopathic prescription be made that is truly anti-sycotic you need not expect that a gonorrhoeal discharge will appear in her case; it is not necessary, m she can get well without it. If she had no discharge she can get well without its return.

The reverse of the symptoms in her case means only the reverse order of the symptoms in her case means only the reverse order of those she has had. She may not have had the primary, but all that that patient has had she must go back through, stage by stage and symptom by symptom. The woman is the most grievous sufferer; she is an innocent person, an when there are anaemic conditions and a going down steadily in the wife that has come on a few years after marriage you should always be suspicious of his disease, at least do not allow it to pass unless you have made a suitable investigation of the matter.

Send for the husband, talk to him quietly, tell him you want to know whether he has gone through any of the specific diseases in his younger days that it shall be considered in confidence. When you are the family physician that must be done.

With fear and trembling he will likely tell you the whole story; he has gone into his marriage with a degree of innocence, because he was advised by his physician that what he has had will not affect his wife. When you have discovered this state in the family, watch their children; they will be few, for sycosis very commonly makes a woman sterile, or if she has a few children you will find in them a strong tendency to marasmus in the first year, or in the first or second summer a strong tendency to consumption, or you will find a withering, old appearance of the face.

Any one of these three miasmas may predispose this child to these things, but when the child is waxy and anaemic, is accustomed to have lienteric stools, has no digestion, when every hot spell brings on complaint that look like cholera-infantum, and it does not grow, does not thrive, you have a right to suspect it is a sycotic case, for sycosis is the most frequent cause.

This disease, you see, does not manifest itself by many eruptions, except those of a warty character, it does not manifest itself by eruptions like syphilis and psora, but operates by bringing about a rheumatic state and an anaemic condition of the blood. It takes hold of the blood first and conforms to the subjects who are advanced in deep-seated troubles, subject to epithelioma. They are especially subject to Bright’s disease and to acute phthisis. If they have pneumonia, it is likely to end in a breakdown of some sort in the lungs. If they have any acute disease of a prolonged character, like typhoid, the recovery is always slow.

Manifestly it is a good thing to know the history of a patient, all the peculiarities of the life of a patient. It is important to know whether that patient is syphilitic or sycotic. You know that everybody, is psoric, but those that have lived a proper life have escaped the two contagious disease which man acquires in the first place by his own seeking. When a patient has gone to the end of typhoid or some lingering disease, you know that he is psoric; but if you also know that he is syphilitic, or that he is sycotic, you can conduct his convalescence into a speedy recovery, and if he denies these things you may be puzzled.

The sycotic patient may go into a state of do-nothing and decline at the end of a typhoid fever; convalescence will not be established, he will lie with an aversion to food; he does not react, he does not repair, there is no tissue making, no assimilation; there is no vitality. He lies in a sort of semi- quiescent state; there is no convalescing in the matter. If you know he is a sycotic patient, he must have an anti-sycotic remedy, and then he will begin to rally. If a syphilitic patient, he must have an anti-syphilitic remedy.

If neither of these miasms are present, a remedy looking towards his psoric state will cause him to rally. The nature of these cases must be kept in view, you must remember that these chronic miasms are present in the economy and after an acute illness very often have to be fought. If this is not known, many patients will gradually sink and die for apparent want of vitality of convalesce.

Of course, the anti-sycotic treatment for the infant will bring back, as you will readily see, only that stage which the infant began with. It will not bring out a discharge in the infant. The infant has only the interior nature of the disease, and has not the primary and outermost forms of it. You will also remember another thing, that these infants when they grow up are increasingly sensitive to sycosis; that they are already prepared for a sycotic gonorrhoea whenever the first exposure comes.

James Tyler Kent
James Tyler Kent (1849–1916) was an American physician. Prior to his involvement with homeopathy, Kent had practiced conventional medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He discovered and "converted" to homeopathy as a result of his wife's recovery from a serious ailment using homeopathic methods.
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.