Every disease picture appeals to as well as leaves something to the imagination. Were it otherwise we could not cure. Disordered life forces soon exteriorise themselves as manifest disease pictures which we at once try to fill out by searching out all of its ramifications in order to form an unified concept thereof, which will be harmonious and be a speaking likeness, as it were, of some medicinal counterpart. The correction of a disordered symptom complex is important and often difficult. For this preliminary work Nux vomica has very generally been used, largely because of the American drugging habit; but sometimes other remedies are clearly called for and must be given.
A case in point: A lifelong hard drinker of 63 recently came to me with mitral incompetence and broken compensation. He did badly under several remedies including an allopathic prescription of large doses of digitalis with hypodermics of morphia two or three times a day. There was mounting ascites, dropsy of the legs, Cheyne-Stokes breathing and increasing insomnia, not always due to the dyspnoea. We all know the picture, which usually ends in repeated tappings and final exitus. The peculiar sleeplessness kept me looking for a remedy to match the combined contingency and which would perhaps hold, the heart a while longer. Sleeplessness in heart affections was finally found under Crataegus.
The prescription was thirty drops of mother tincture in half a glass of water; one teaspoonful every three hours. The effect was unbelievable. In two days the patient’s blue cyanosed face became red; the very dry, red tongue again became moist; he began to lie down a little and the immensely hypertrophied and dilated heart grew progressively less; in short, a marvellous improvement set in, until one day a left sided supra-orbital neuralgia appeared. Now I knew the symptoms had been set in order. A single dose of Spigelia MM has seemed to establish valvular competency and only slightly irregular heart action remains. For obvious reasons, this case does not point to a complete solution of the treatment of even one type of cardiac disease, but it does show what the right application of the carefully selected homeopathic remedy may do in a very dangerous situation. In an acute endocarditis following suppressed tonsillitis, with almost the same diagnostic picture, but accompanied by excessive restlessness of the arms and air hunger, Tarantula cured radically. It seems to me that valvular heart affections are more amenable to correct prescribing than has been generally supposed, but the utmost care to place the diagnostic and individualistic symptoms in their proper perspective, must be exercised, if success is to crown our efforts.
The problems which daily confront us are in no wise less vital if we take into account the ultimation of disease, for every acute affection properly treated tends to bring to the surface those deeper lying dyscrasias which we carry about but too faithfully for our own well being. If we wish to eradicate these, much depends upon when and how we begin operations. Homoeopathy has proven its high value in the growing years beyond all cavil. Dietetics and sanitation are the only measures which have come even within hailing distance of it here. When thinking over these things one is likely to become impatient at the narrow mindedness which has so long passed for real scientific attainment. Science is not the thing or mode which we learn, but the relativity with which we understand facts. This interdependence is not new in homeopathy, even, if almost bizarre in the senior branch of the profession.
One more thought. Our regular brethren may possibly take up and even extend the usefulness of the homeopathic method in a number of ways, but the purposeful manipulation of inherent vital powers is a step far beyond their grasp. For us it is almost natural.
PARKERSBURG, W VA.
Born in Western Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He moved to Parkersburg, W. Va., in 1888, practicing there, but also consulting worldwide. He gave lectures at the Pulte Medical College in Cincinnati and taught philosophy, materia medica, and repertory at the American Foundation for Homoeopathy Postgraduate School. Boger brought BÅ“nninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory into the English Language in 1905. His publications include :
Boenninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory
Boenninghausen's Antipsorics
Boger's Diphtheria, (The Homoeopathic Therapeutics of)
A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915
General Analysis with Card Index, 1931
Samarskite-A Proving
The Times Which Characterize the Appearance and Aggravation of the Symptoms and their Remedies