The diet of patients under homoeopathic treatment has occupied a considerable amount of the attention homoeopathic practitioners; there is not a domestic book that does not contain long list of “ailments allowed”. and “ailments forbidden,” and in most of these certain articles of food and drink are dogmatically represented as absolutely wholesome, and certain others as absolutely hurtful. In many cases the writer has probably been guided by the idiosyncrasies of his own little stomach, in his selection of the allowed and forbidden categories for the enumerated articles of food and drink. Some authors, apparently of weak digestion, have put so many of the ordinary article of diet, which are quite wholesome to most persons, and even most patients, into their index expurgatorius, that it is scarcely a matter of surprise that nervous patients, fresh from the perusal of such ascetic dietaries, should entertain a horror of homoeopathy, and imagining it to be a kind of perpetual Lent, prolong their carnival under allopathic auspices, from very dread not being able to survive the austerity of our dietetic system.
Every list I have seen of prohibited and permitted aliments contains articles of food that should be included in opposite categories in reference to individual cases. How many persons are there who dare not touch one or other of those common articles of diet which agree with most, to wit, milk, butter edges, potatoes, coca, etc. and how many persons, with what we consider weak stomachs and digestions. are that who can only flourish on what would derange the digestion of most other individuals. A remarkable instance of this occurred in my open practice. A lady, in the early period of pregnancy, was affected with constant vomiting. Everything she swallowed was immediately rejected, and the saliva ran from her mouth in an almost continuous stream. This state of things had lasted some weeks, inspite of the administration of very conceivable homoeopathic medicine adapted to her condition, and in spite of experiments with almost every variety of food. Vomiting set in the instant she swallowed anything. In the midst of this melancholy state of affairs she was one evening seized with a sudden longing for a lobster. A fine large one was brought to her; she ate it with avidity, and retained it without the slightest sickness. For two or three days more she could eat nothing but lobsters, everything else brought back the vomiting; but finally she was able to eat anything-she was quite cured. In former pregnancies he vomiting had always continued, with more or less intensity, for six months; on this occasion it did not last as many weeks. Such cases put us in mind of the saying of Lucretius-“Utm and aliis cibus est, aliis fiat acre venenum; “anglice, “what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”
Various special works on Homoeopathic Dietetics have been published in Germany. The first that appeared was from the pen of DR. Gross (Diatetisches Handbuch fur Gesbde and Krabke;leipzic, 1824) Dr. Caspari write another in the form of a catechism. (Kateaschims det hom. Dietetic fur Krank, 2te Aufl.; leipzic, 1831) A still more compendious work was published by Dr. Hartmann (Handbuch der Diatetik fur Jedermann) in 1830, and a smaller one (Diatetik fur Krank) by the same writer in 1846. The author of all these works are dead: let us hope that they are now regaling themselves on ambrosia and nectar, without any misgivings as to whether those celestial ailments contain by ingredients forbidden to the homoeopathists.
The writers on homoeopathic diet have not in general been so cautious as Hahnemann, but have made absolute his conditional prohibitions of certain viands. I much prefer Hahnemann’s caution to the dogmatism of his disciples. Our dietetic rules must be adapted, like our medicinal prescriptions, to each individual case. The object of dietetic restrictions is twofold: 1st, to prevent the patient taking any medicinal substance that could interfere with the medicine he is taking, or set up an independent medicinal action of its own; and 2nd, to prevent him taking any article of food that could derange his stomach or prove indigestible. The physician can direct the patient in reference to the first point, but, as regards the second, he must be guided very much by the patient’s experience as to what agrees and what disguise with him. Thus, to a patient who cannot take milk with impunity, he would not insist that milk was a suitable article of diet; and to one with whom pastry agrees well, he would not think it necessary to prohibit that much maligned luxury supposing always there was nothing in his disease contraindicating its use. It will be observed that Hahnemann prohibition of condiments and spices is only conditional, and I have often found it absolutely necessary to restore to patients a certain amount of the condiments of which they had been absolutely deprive by a former homoeopathic practitioner or by myself; for they found their food so unpalatable without the proper, mustard, etc., to which they had been previously accustomed, that their appetite almost completely failed. In such cases the harm done by the moderate ingestion of the ordinary spices with which our dishes are seasoned is more than counterbalanced by the increased vigour attained by a better appetite and a greater relish for food. Of course, it is only in certain cases where this slight departure from the strict dietetic rule adopted by some can be allowed; but the judicious and attentive practitioner will readily know when to allow and when to prohibit such dietetic luxuries.
We have seldom any difficulty in persuading patients to abdomen the use of coffee and adopting a substitute for it, but with tea the case is different. This mildly stimulating and exhilarating fluid is to much drunk by all classes in this country, from their very infancy almost, that with most it seems to have no appreciable medicinal effect,. and yet with many there is no greater deprivation to which we could subject them, in a dietetic point of view, than taking from them their favorite beverage; accordingly, it is seldom necessary to prohibit the use of good black tea in moderation during the homoeopathic treatment of chronic disease. Green tea, being mixed up with medicinal mineral substances, is of course under no circumstances to be allowed nor can even black tea be permitted where nervous symptoms or palpitation contraindicate its use. Although Hahnemann was absolutely opposed to the use of tea under all circumstances, he permitted the smoking of tobacco in almost every case. In Germany, especially in Hahnemann’s time, drinking tea was a rarity, while smoking tobacco in almost every case. In Germany, especially in Hahnemann’s time drinking tea was a rarity, while smoking tobacco was almost a universal habit. In this country, on the contrary, tea-drinking is universal, tobacco-smoking by no means so. Now, since habit reconciles us to the use of things not in themselves absolutely unmedicinal, and prevents us experiencing their medicinal effects, if we may allow the German his pipe of tobacco, we may certainly indulge the Englishman in his cup of bohea, without prejudicing the cure in either case.
As regards the indulgence in stimulants, such as wine, beer, spirits, etc., the observations of Hahnemann on that point which I have just read, are most judicious. We cannot always, with safety, altogether prohibit stimulants to those accustomed to them, but we can diminish their quantity, if that seems to us too great; we can make them dilute their wine, substitute dilute wine for spirits, and select a pure wholesome beer, if that is the beverage they are used to; but in many cases we can at once discontinue the use of all stimulants with advantage.
As regards the diet in acute diseases little can be added to what Hahnemann has said respecting the expediency of being guided by the instincts of the stomach. We must, however, be careful to distinguish betwixt the real cravings of the stomach and those morbid longings for food often experienced by patients at the commencement of febrile diseases, the indulgence of which would be fraught with danger.
The administration of stimulants in certain cases of low typhoid fever is, I am convinced, often indispensable to the recovery of the patient. In a former lecture I alluded to the conditions under which wine or spirits are considered essential in such case, and I have only now to add, that the utmost caution and circumspection should be employed in the administration of such powerful agents. The practitioner must, as it were, give his stimulants with his miner on the patient’s pulse, and carefully watch the effect of each dose. Many lives, I am sure, have been saved, both by homoeopathists and allopathists, by the judicious administration of stimulants in cases of typhoid disease, where the powers of life seemed to be sinking beyond the possibility of recovery, at least by mere medicine.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon practiced at the London Homeopathic Hospital and specialised in Optics.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon wrote Pathogenetic Cyclopaedia 1839, Cure of Pannus by Innoculation, London and Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science 1844, Hahnemann’s Organon, 1849, Lectures on the Theory & Practice of Homeopathy, 1853, Homeopathic Treatment and Prevention of Asiatic Cholera 1847, Hahnemann’s Therapeutic Hints 1847, On Subaqueous Vision, Philosophical Magazine, 1871, The Influence of Homeopathy on General Medical Practice Since the Death of Hahnemann 1874, Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica, 2 vols 1878-81, The Human Eye Its Optical Construction, 1878, Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, 1880, The Sphygmograph, 1882, Materia Medica: Physiological and Applied 1884, Hahnemann the Founder of Scientific Therapeutics 1882, Hahnemann’s Organon 1893 5th Edition, Prolongation of Life 1900, Hahnemann’s Lesser Writing.