July 12th.-Trit.3x Iodoformum in four-grain dose Two months of this treatment effected very pronounced improvement, and patient had gained in flesh, but the hectic was not touched.
October 9th.-At this date I began with the bacillic virus (C.) Always in very infrequent dose, and, in future, this is always to be understood, so I need not again state this all-important fact. Thereafter the same remedy (C.C.) Recovery complete, and she remains plump and well. As patient lives 150 miles away from London, I have never been able to see her to percuss and auscultate with the view of ascertaining the physical state of her thoracic organs. They were under a promise to come, but as she is so evidently well they do not see the need of incurring the expense and taking the trouble of a journey to town merely for my satisfaction.
CASE XVI.
A little boy of 7 years of age was brought to me at the end of the spring of 1890 for symptoms of incipient phthisis; he had an ill-defined sort of fever, and then the Russian influenza. Consumption being in the family, his parents had become anxious about him principally because of his loss of flesh and great prostration, together with a morbid timidity. The glands of his groins and both sides of his neck were very much enlarged and indurated, particularly the glands over the apex of the right lung. As he had suffered much from vaccination, I first gave Thuja 30, and Sabina 30, and then the bacillic virus (C.) “He has gained in flesh, weight, and spirits; his nerve is also better, as he has taken to riding, a thing he was afraid of before.” He got quite well, and remains so to date.
CASE XVII.
A lady of 56 years of age came to me, with what I considered tubercular synovitis of her left knee, in the fall of 1889. She walked in with difficulty with the aid of a stick. The thing was evidently de souche tuberculeuse; she was florid; her mother died young of consumption, and six of her brothers and sisters had succumbed to the same malady in different forms. After two months of the bacillic virus (C.) she reported herself as quite well, and free from pain and inconvenience, and “able to walk slowly without stick for an hour and a half at a time.” She is quite well now.
CASE XVIII.
A boy of 8 years of age, whose mother is in consumption, and of whose ancestors quite a number have died of consumption, was brought to me on September 6,1889, for these symptoms: nocturnal perspirations; (notched incisors); indurated glands everywhere very large and very numerous; drum-bellied; grinds his teeth in the night; great susceptibility to taking cold; perspirations worse at the back of the lungs and of the head; big head with bulging forehead; subject to attacks of fever and diarrhoea.
Two months of the virus (C.) cured all these, and he is now well and thriving.
CASE XIX.
On September 9, 1889, a young merchant, 26 years of age, of pronouncedly phthisical habit, both of whose parents had died young of lung disease, came to me telling me he had been under nine physicians, and also in a well-known hospital for what may be collectively termed consumptiveness: severe piles; constipation, and a brown cutaneous affection on the abdomen, that, I think, has been termed erythrasma. He is tall, thin, long thin neck, and bends forward. He was three months under the bacillic virus, got quite well, and has since married. He is altogether a different man. He had subsequently Thuja for his vaccinosis, and then Hydrastis canadensis 0 five drops in a tablespoonful of water twice a day for some time. And here I will allow myself to interpose the remark, that Hydrastis given as just named fattens up patients after the cure with the bacillic virus in an often truly wonderful manner. The bacillic virus has a well-defined and limited sphere of action, and very frequently needs to be followed by other remedies, as so few cases are quite simple.
CASE XX. A married lady, 35 years of age, mother of three consumptive children; her only brother died of rapid consumption. She had miscarried three times, and was dying piecemeal of excessive menstruation, and had become alarmingly emaciated.
She had the virus (C.), and this was followed by Chelidonium majus 0 and Thuja 30, and she was discharged cured at Christmas, 1889.She is now well and in good condition.
CASE XXI.
Daughter of the foregoing, 7 years of age, with limbs like sticks; right lung very flat; ribs of the right side fallen in; indurated cervical glands; strawberry tongue; spleen swelled; irritable and restless.
She had the virus for two months followed by Calcarea phos. 3x, and was discharged cured on May 14, 1890.
CASE XXII.
The baby brother of the foregoing was brought on September 11, 1889, in an emaciated state, suffering from chronic diarrhoea, and evidently without the intervention of medical art not long for this world. In my case-notes he is described as “all glands,” i.e., the cervical and inguinal glands feelably indurated and visible. Without doubt his mesenteric glands were the seat of the same consumptive process and the real cause of the diarrhoea. He had Elaterium 3 (the motions went off “pop”). Iodium 2 and Thuja 30, when he was considerably better, but still had the diarrhoea and excessive perspirations. After a month of the bacillic virus, however, his mother reported “Very much better; no diarrhoea; no perspiration; we consider him quite well.” I gave him, however, two months of Calcarea phos. 3x. He was reported well on Feb. 24, 1890, and he is now a thriving boy notwithstanding our dirty London atmosphere.
CASE XXIII.
An author of eminence, well known in theological circles, a little over 50 years of age, came to me in the fall of 1889, complaining of terrible pain in his head, almost absolute sleeplessness, and profound adynamia. Most of his brothers and sisters had died of water on the brain; his own right lung is solid, probably from healed-up cavities, as he used to have blood-spitting for years, and after much good treatment and foreign travel he “grew out” of his pulmonary consumption. His own friends, on advice, were having him “shadowed,” as he was thought to be on the verge of insanity. The pain in his head he described as if he had a tight hoop of iron round it; his hands tremble; but what distresses him almost more than anything is a sensation of damp clothes on his spine.
It sounds hardly credible, but in less than a month after beginning with the virus the pain in the head had gone, the sensation of damp clothes had gone, and his sleep was very fairly good.
As a matter of prudence, I gave it him at long intervals for another month, and then he needed no further treatment. He continues, I believe, in good health, and is hard at work finishing a forthcoming publication.
CASE XXIV.
An anxious young mother brought her fifteen months’ old baby boy to me at the beginning of October, 1889. He was dark, sullen, taciturn, black-eyed and fattish (the kind of fat that I regard as hide-bound). He is irritable, costive, screams in his sleep, and he is very restless at night.
“His little sister died at 2 1/2, of consumption of the brain, and she was just like he is.”
He had at first some Thuja, with benefit, but we had not cured him by any means, then I gave the bacillic virus (C.), which his mother said made him at first “terribly ill,” and thereupon amelioration set in. Here I gave Calcarea phos. 3x, and he was thought well. But in May, 1890, he had a slight relapse, when I again gave the virus, but this time in the two-hundredth potency. He got quite well and is now thriving.
CASE XXV.
A young married lady, 28 years of age, one child, was recommended to me by her clergyman, and I first saw her on October 21, 1889. She had been under their very able and careful family physician for consumption, and then, said she, “I have been to all the physicians.” She had formerly been very plump, but is now very thin, and has lost ten pounds in weight during the last two months. “No one can do me any good, and I want you to tell me if I am to die, or whether there is any chance for me, all my mother’s people died of consumption.” As she had typhoid very badly, so badly that she never quite throve since, although that was eleven years ago, I began with Pyrogenium 5, five drops in water, three times a day. The same principle that guides me in the exhibition of the bacillic virus guided me in my choice of the Pyrogenium. Under the Pyrogenium she gained 3 1/2 lbs. in weight.
I should have mentioned that she had no cough, though the apex of the right lung is solid, and the part pains very much, as does also the region of the base of the left lung. The vocal resonance was unequal. Besides gaining thus in weight, the top of the right lung is not so dull, and the vocal resonance seems pretty equal.
She then had Nux vomica I for her indigestion. She is what the homoeopaths call a nux subject.
On Nov. 18th she had gained another 2 lbs. in weight, and scaled 8 st. 11 1/2 lbs. (She is a tall woman). She begs for the Pyrogenium again, but instead, seeing the very pronounced hectic flush, I put her upon the bacillic virus (C).
Burnett was one of the first to speak about vaccination triggering illness. This was discussed in his book, Vaccinosis, published in 1884. He introduced the remedy Bacillinum. He authored twenty books, including the much loved "Fifty Reason for Being a Homeopath." He was the editor of The Homoeopathic World.