Three Liver Cases (1916)


Quite a number of remedies have abdominal aching, many of them acting strongly on the liver, but none seemed to fit the case as well as Menispermum, aided as I was by this accidental proving….


CASE I

Ten months ago a professional man came to me with the following history:

1. Twenty-five years ago he worked in a cistern; this gave him a severe cold, followed in turn by chills and fever, after which the following chronic symptoms gradually developed and have been with him in increasing intensity ever since.
2. Skin of face yellowish and dry; the lips dry and feel parched.
3. Weak feeling of upper lip and right side of tongue; < when he is flatulent.
4. Burning across upper forehead.
5. Wheat bread, starches and water distress him and turn sour. He belches up soured food. Eating is soon followed by depression. Always light coloured stools.
6. Water tastes flat and the tongue is coated in the morning.
7. Soreness above and to left of navel.
8. Rainy or hot weather disagrees.
9. Lassitude and depression in evening. Occasional migraine at 9-10 P. M.
10. Prefers not to lie on left side.
11. Urinous odour of sweat.

During these ten months he has received seven doses of Carduus mariae beginning with one drop of the mother tincture and ascending the whole scale of potencies. Old symptoms have come and gone and he is quite a different man now. After the first dose he declared he could feel the bile dropping from the bile ducts. I laughed at him, but that has not changed his opinion. He has also had several mild attacks of gall-stones, but his color as well as that of the stools is normal now. On one occasion the remedy excited a head cold, relieved instantly by a dark nosebleed. At another a small haemorrhoid recurred after twenty-five years and rapidly left after slight bleeding therefrom.

CASE II

A woman who had several attacks of gall-stones asked for relief, giving the following symptoms:

1. Soreness and aching as of something in liver, with aching below scapulae and in the heels. Worse from lying on the right side or stooping.
2. Burning in gall-bladder and soles of feet at night. Standing hurts the soles.
3. Eructates much gas on first rising in A. M.
4. Vertigo, felt in the vertex; < reading, raising up and jarring, from stepping hard; with drowsiness.
5. Impatience.
6. Aggravation from noise, stooping, standing, starchy foods. Better in open air.

She received Scrophularia nodosa one dose. The relief lasted two weeks, then she got a single dose of the 6th with relief for three weeks followed by a severe sick headache with throbbing in the right temple, aching in the vertex and yellow-sour vomitus. These were old symptoms returning with unheard of severity and were gradually relieved by a single dose of the I2th. Since then there has been a steady improvement in her health and her color is better than it has been for years.

CASE III

Three years ago I reported a proving of Menispermum canadense to our society. It happened that several months afterwards the venturesome prover developed a persistently hard aching throughout the whole abdomen, with inability to lie on the right side; all of which I attributed to her previous experience and as late appearing symptoms are always of the greatest value I added this one to the pathogenesis.

That I was not mistaken was soon to be proven, for an old patient suddenly developed congestion of the liver with general aching, but much worse over the lumbar region and all over the abdomen. The pulse was 90, full and firm; the temperature 102°, general sweat, tongue dry, flabby and moderately indented by the teeth and lightly furred. There was inability to lie on the right side, constipation and scanty urine. The face and sclerotic were slightly yellow and the patient wanted to stretch every little while.

Quite a number of remedies have abdominal aching, many of them acting strongly on the liver, but none seemed to fit the case as well as Menispermum, aided as I was by this accidental proving. The sufferer received three doses of the I2th in eighteen hours. The result was such as we are accustomed to see only when the similimum has been given and the patient felt entirely well the next day.

C.M. Boger
Cyrus Maxwell Boger 5/ 13/ 1861 "“ 9/ 2/ 1935
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