It should be stated in other than the Hahnemannian Association that the displacements of the uterus could be cured, or palliated even, without mechanical support, the advocate would find few believers, either in his statement or in his plan of action. But it is expected that the law of cure is universal; therefore it is almost needless to assert that our materia medica is ripe enough (which we all know) to manage these conditions without mechanical support.
Any physician in active practice among women must find a large percentage of his cases belonging to this category. The various classifications resorted to in textbooks for pathological study have very little value in the matter of cure; the wilderness of symptomatology furnishes us the only hope of taking these cases to a successful termination, which is a permanent and radical cure. The Hahnemannian finds no place in his practice for mechanical support; he relies always upon the indicated remedy. There can be no proof like actual cures. This method is successful or it is attended with failure; living witnesses must testify to its usefulness. The report of a few cases would seem quite useful as an explanation of what must be done and how the work must be carried out to avoid the use of mechanical support in displacements.
Whenever a patient presents herself to a Hahnemannian, physician for relief for the complexity of symptoms belonging to displacements, not only the symptoms of the displacement but all the symptoms of the case, from childhood to the present time, must be accurately written down as it is possible to obtain them, after the method directed by the Organon. The fullest detail of general symptoms must be taken, as it is quite probable that the symptom image will be made up or strengthened by what would be considered as concomitant symptoms. An examination such as is generally given is of the smallest importance in the case, and reveals none of the peculiar characteristics upon which the physician must rely for his symptom image. Many of these cases appear wearing the mechanical support of the last physician in attendance. Under these circumstances, the symptoms of most value do not appear. With the support, she is relieved and permitted to walk, stand and perform her family duties with out much suffering. The mechanical support must be removed at once by the physician or the patient, if she be so instructed. She must be immediately placed upon Sac. lac., and at least a week permitted to pass before a full symptom image will be found; it sometimes requires a month before the symptoms appear that were present before she was tampered with by mechanical support.
The patient will usually remark to the physician, “I cannot walk if my supporter be removed.” Now this is what becomes necessary, and is usually what I want to hear her say. I immediately ask the question, “Why can you not walk, if this supporter be removed?” The answer brings the symptoms that I write down, and with the others the image becomes complete after she has rested a sufficient time to permit the symptoms, that have been removed by the pessary to return, so that finally the fullest expression of the symptom image is made out. Sometimes she may be able to relate with greatest fullness all the symptoms that were there before the pessary was used, and even the symptoms that will come back after the removal of the support, because she has become so familiar with them that she can relate them in full. Others have given little attention to the real symptoms of the case, having worn their pessary so long, and been subjected to such extensive local treatment.
It matters not how soon the symptoms are gathered, only so they are gathered in completeness as the honest expression of nature, and not the misrepresentations, such as must come in many cases where the mechanical support has completely changed the surrounding parts. If these details are not carried out in fullness, no physician need undertake to make a homoeopathic prescription. The symptoms that have been removed-no matter how removed are the outward expressions of the inner nature of the disease to be cured. If they are not present, they must be permitted to return in order to appeal to the intelligent physician, as all diseases do, by signs and symptoms, and so long as they do not appeal to him by signs and symptoms they are incurable. When all support has been sufficiently removed, the rule is that these diseases do appeal to the intelligent physician by natural signs and symptoms.
It has been said that mechanical support is necessary in aged women. This is seldom true, if ever, as the indicated remedy will remove the displacements in feeble and broken-down women. For an example, let us look at the following case:
A woman sixty-five years of age consulted me for procidentia. She was compelled to wear a bandage whenever she walked; lying down gave her some relief; bloody, watery leucorrhoea which was offensive. She was greatly emaciated, waxy, bloodless, scrawny. Skin very dry and shriveled. Toes becoming dark with gangrenous patches. Occasional attacks of bloody diarrhoea. Great weakness. Believed herself near the end. Had suffered from this extensive displacement for more than twenty years. Had on numerous occasions attempted to wear mechanical supports, always failing because of the soreness of the parts. Secale cured in a very short time, and the woman has gained flesh, strength and colour, and is in excellent spirits. In such instances, if cure can be performed where mechanical support can not be tolerated, why not in cases most suitable to mechanical contrivances? This remedy would be seldom thought of by routinists for displacement, but it corresponded to the peculiarities of the patient.
Another case wherein a remedy was administered that would seldom be thought of, if aimed at prolapsus, was as follows:
A tall woman suffered many years from extreme prolapsus. Great bearing down in the pelvis. When at stool, numerous haemorrhoidal tumors protruded, which seemed full of sticking pains; much burning, and often attended with hemorrhage. Extreme pain, aching, bruised, through sacrum and hips when walking; pain extending down the thigh. The only comfortable position was lying in bed; Aesculus cured that patient promptly. When she appeared for treatment she wore a horseshoe pessary, which was removed in the usual manner by the patient, and the symptoms of the prolapsus permitted to appear.
Another important application of a remedy. A middle-aged woman, mother of several grown daughters, appeared with what seemed to be a most important, peculiar mental symptom, which was explained by her husband. She only desired to be relieved of her mental anxiety at first, saying nothing about any displacement from which she had long suffered. The anxiety was of the nature of fear in the absence of her husband, fear that he would never return to her, fear that he would die, fear that he would be run over by the cars. It had grown so much upon her that she would weep during his entire absence; even attended him at his place of business to be with him. She had no desire to mention that fact that she was then suffering from a displacement, and was then wearing a pessary, not thinking that her displacement had any relation to her mental anxiety. But in the search for symptoms, it was ascertained that she had been treated extensively for a displacement, and was then wearing a pessary. She knew so little about Homoeopathy that she supposed it possible to continue with her specialist for the displacement and had simply consulted me because she had heard of some case in the management of mental cases. The removal of the pessary was insisted upon, which was carried out. She then informed me why it had been necessary, and the nature of the displacement, which had been carefully diagnosed by her attending physician. The other symptoms of the case, as they developed, were copious menstrual flow, which was black and clotted; extreme sensitiveness of the genital organs, which prevented wearing the usual napkin during her monthly indisposition. These completed the symptom image which was so like Platina, that a beginner should not make a mistake. This remedy was quite sufficient to remove not only the mental symptoms, but also the necessity for the continuation of any mechanical support.
It is not necessary to continue the further report of cases. Remedies having a reputation, when indicated, for curing such conditions are Belladonna, Lil-t., Murx., Nux-v., Podophyllum, Pulsatilla, Sepia. The indication for these medicines should certainly be very simple; they are in all the text books; they are open to the study of any physician who desires to follow the law. It is no secret method that the Hahnemannian physician employs in the management of these cases. “He who runs may read.”
If the patient presents the vascular fullness, the bearing down pains in the pelvis, as if the uterus would escape through the vagina; the extreme sensitiveness to the jar of a wagon or a street car; the marked heat of the menstrual flow, which is generally copious, clotted, black, mixed with bright red blood; the instinctive demand to press the external genitalia with the hand or with a napkin to prevent the protrusion of inner parts. With symptoms, who could help thinking of Belladonna?
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.