In common with most homoeopathic physicians, I have seen a few almost unbelievable cancer cures from the internal use of our remedies. Almost any remedy has occasionally cured, when it was in fact solely prescribed upon some special or prominent indication but happened also to have the general symptoms which corresponded to the life history of the patient, hence corresponding accurately and in its entirety to the disease picture. This was, of course, done in reverse, therefore the cure was a rare occurrence.
Boenninghausen in his Aphorisms of Hippocrates, 5-54, page 327, stresses the correct method where he substantially and clearly says: “Swelling with induration of the os uteri is always dangerous and easily terminates in malignant uterine cancer. Only in the beginning, by means of the accurately discerned, not local, but general symptom complex, along with sufficient concomitant or side symptoms, upon which after all the final choice depends, can a fortunate and complete cure be prognosticated. If once fully developed ichorous pus has appeared, there is little or no hope. >From the beginning there is the most urgent necessity to choose with the greatest conscientiousness and care the most fitting from the following recommended remedies, wherewith my colleagues and myself have always succeeded in averting the threatened danger before it had reached an incurable stage: Arsenicum, Aurum, Belladonna, Carb. an., China, Clem., Fern, Iodium, Kreosotum, Lachesis, Mag. mur., Mercurius, Platina, Pulsatilla, Sabi., Sarsaparilla, Secale c., Sepia and Thuja.”
My own experiences have been as follows: A middle aged woman subject to frequent aphthae showed a ragged, serpiginous, rapidly advancing cancerous ulcer of the inside of the lower lip penetrating almost to the outer skin. The main ulcer was large as a cent with a deep fissure running down toward the chin and there were already several metastatic ulcers on the soft palate. She had wandering, shooting pains through the body that left soreness behind. Milk left a sour taste and she was indolent, fat and not very clean. A dose of Kali bichromicum MM, repeated in sixty days, made a complete cure.
Radical cures in recurrences after operation have been few and far between, but Nitric acid given on the usual indications has cured several times, so has Silica. After operations done early or on what is usually on suspicion only, when new mammary nodules have appeared after several years, Bellis perennis has usually done the trick. As you know these are very anxious moments for the patient and she awaits the result of the prescription with great trepidity. In the toxic crises which so much resemble the onset of low types of erysipelas, Bellis is my sheet anchor also. It does not cure, but it reduces the tendency to hemorrhage to almost nil, makes a light affair of the toxic attack and lengthens the interval between attacks very greatly. Bellis comes to my mind as a greater and deeper Arnica—the rest of the picture you will know without being told. The prominent remedies that have palliated incurable cases for me are especially Calcarea carb. for phlegmasia alba dolens like attacks. Tellurium for the vile odor and purpura figurata, sometimes present, and above all Opium in very high potency when the patient looks prematurely old, brownish and withered. Sabal serrulata controls the stinging pains of cancer of the urinary tract and prolongs life to great lengths, so much so that a cure seems almost in sight.
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