1. FIVE YEAR’S EXPERIENCE IN THE NEW CURE OF CONSUMPTION



Thus we have in this case five years of good health to prove the genuineness of the cure.

CASE XXXVIII.

In the year 1885 a young lady of 20 was brought to me to be treated for the form of consumption commonly known as decline. She had a strumous scar in the neck, and her sister had just died of decline.

Patient’s weight was, in June, 1885, 7 st. 8 lbs. Had diarrhoea for nearly three years, and her tongue was raw-red. The full record of the case would occupy more space than I can here afford; suffice it to say that I gave her many remedies with very slow and varying success, but she took a distinct turn after a course of the virus, and I finally got her up to 8 st. 9 1/2 lbs. in weight.

She continues well now, but her digestion is easily upset. It will be noted that the aggregate increase in weight was 15 1/2 lbs.

CASE XXXIX.

A married lady, 29 years of age, came to me just four years ago for consumption of the left lung. She was very pale and neuralgic, and was greatly distressed by her cough. All her friends knew her to be in consumption, and she had of late years spent the winters abroad and by preference in Malta. I treated her with slow, bit-by-bit ameliorations with the remedies symptomatically homoeopathic, and thus passed just two years, when it was very clear that we had not got to the root of the matter. After a couple of months of the virus she got rapidly quite well, and, so far as I can tell, entirely free from any sign of consumption.

CASE XL.

An overgrown girl of 13, of phthisical habit and parentage, and then lately under Sir—for her lungs, was brought to me for treatment in the month of August, 1886.

The top of the right lung gave no respiratory sounds at all, and the vocal resonance was slightly increased. Her constitution was said to have been broken by one of the infectious diseases of childhood. Pain in the left side and profuse perspirations. After a month of the virus 30 : “Has done her a great deal of good, the perspirations were chiefly on the hands, feet and armpits, but these have nearly ceased.” After a pause of a month or two it was again given, and patient was discharged cured nearly three years ago. She continues well.

CASE XLI.

A girl of 10, daughter of a country squire, was brought to me in March, 1887, to be treated for decline. There was great emaciation, but not of the feverish consumptive kind. She had a number of remedies from me. Thuja, Ceanothus, Quercus, Chelidonium, Ferrum, and Carduus, and, on the whole, every one was more than satisfied with the general progress and increase in weight and intelligence. But not one of the remedies had influenced the indurated glands in the slightest degree, and hence I put her on the virus 30. This was in February, 1888, and the same remedy had to be repeated once subsequently.

She is now a thriving person.

CASE XLII.

An unmarried lady, about 30 years of age, was accompanied to me by her mother, in the month of August, 1887, so that I might treat her for decline. Her father had died of consumption at about the same age, and her steady and ever-increasing emaciation had resulted in a fixed belief that she was just doomed to follow her father. She had a huge liver, and severe and long-continuing dyspepsia. Her father’s was also the wasting form of consumption. She had some fever at times, with a hard, dry, deep cough.

On account of the liver I began the treatment with Chelidonium 0 following it up with Carduus Mariae, mother tincture and this again with Argentum nit. 1. These remedies did decided good, and were followed by Cimicifuga, Coccus cacti, Thuja, and Iodine, but notwithstanding bit-by-bit ameliorations, relief of the symptoms, and all that, the “consumption” was not gripped, as the evening fever clearly proved. Three months of the virus wiped out the whole thing, if I may be allowed to use such as expression.

A year has elapsed, and the cure holds good, notwithstanding the wearing, burdensome life she is obliged to lead, and still, this notwithstanding, she has gained a good deal in flesh and healthful appearance.

I believe the virus saved this life.

CASE XLIII.

A young lady of 14, daughter of a staff officer, was brought to me at the end of the year 1887, in the month of November. She was distinctly in consumption, and very tall for her age, and very thin. Twice, lately, there had been a good deal of bleeding from the lungs. The outer portion of the apex of the right lung was dull on percussion, indeed, it had barely any respiratory sound of any kind; scaly eyelids; very large tonsils; emansion of the menses. I at first treated her with Phosphorus and other pulmonary remedies, but I needed the virus to extinguish the fever. She had inter-current pleurisy once, and a good deal of bleeding, but has made a complete recovery, and is now thriving. I quite lately very carefully examined her chest, both the old seat of the mischief at the apex of the right lung, and also the seat of the inter-current pleurisy at the left side, near the top, but failed to find any evidence of disease whatever.

CASE XLIV.

A lad of 10 was brought to me by his mother in the early summer of 1888, with mesenteric disease, commonly called consumption of the bowels. “My little boy has a swelling on his left side, I think there was a swelling also of his right side, and he complains of a stitch in his side after running, but he seldom runs much. He is often languid and indisposed to talk; sometimes he is very nervous and irritable; he talks in his sleep and grinds his teeth; his appetite is small; his hands blue.” I found indurated palpable glands everywhere; a drum belly, the spleen region bulging out.

What rendered the case of importance, was the fact that a sister of his a year or two older had just died of tuberculosis of the brain, and many of the family had died of consumption. I treated him for a year, three separate months of which he was under the virus, and in June, 1889, or just a year from the beginning of the treatment, the note in my record is……… “Well and fat,” and that he is now, I believe.

CASE XLV.

A little girl of 6 was brought by her mother, Lady X., in the month of August, 1888, for evident symptoms of incipient tubercular disease: restless nights; sleeplessness; grinds her teeth; tendency to diarrhoea; want of appetite; foul breath; notched teeth; pain after food; vomiting of food; indurated glands; strawberry tongue; naughty; very irritable temper; puny growth; very thin.

After being four months under the virus, and having one or two tissue remedies, she was discharged in nine months in capital health, and without any morbid symptoms of any sort or kind. And the cure holds good to date.

CASE XLVI.

A young unmarried lady, 22 years of age, of delicate habit of body, was brought by her mother to me in October 2, 1888, for the following symptoms:-A nasty little cough these seven weeks; a good deal of expectoration; pains in the right lung; evening fever; liver and spleen both enlarged; cough worse in the morning after breakfast; her neck is slightly goitrous. Her brother has consumption of the bowels. She had first Chelidonium majus 0, and Scilla maritima 0, as spleen and liver remedies respectively, but there was but very slight amelioration, the cough being very bad after her breakfast, or, perhaps, I should say breakfast time, as she eats hardly any breakfast. So I went to the root of the matter, gave the virus (C.) for six weeks, and then discharged her cured, now ten months since, and I learn from her mother that she continues quite well.

CASE XLVII.

A married lady of 40 came to me in November, 1888, for grave consumptiveness, not to say actual consumption; almost all her people have died of consumption, indeed, I believe she is the only survivor of her own generation, and now she is clearly going the way of the rest. She has a good deal of fever, worse in the evenings; she is restless and terribly irritable; she is much depressed, and in almost constant agitation; her tongue is very red; she has chronic diarrhoea. She has lost 14 lbs. during the past six weeks, and she has no appetite.

Six weeks of the virus 30 quite cured her, the fever went after the second dose, the diarrhoea quickly followed, and she soon became quite plump. The mode of exit of the motion from the bowels in this case was, “pop,” as it were out of a popgun; this I have several times noticed. It has often been noted that the phthisical are wonderfully hopeful, but this does not hold good when there is tuberculosis of the brain, but, on the contrary, they are mum, taciturn, sulky, snappish, fretty, irritable, morose, depressed and melancholic, even to insanity. When, however, they are cured, they become sweet and charming. So it was in this case, and still more so in the one I am about to narrate.

CASE XLVIII.

A young lady, 18 years of age, was brought by her mother to me in the fall of 1888 for an old effusion into the left pleura remaining after severe pleuro-pneumonia; the ribs of that side bulged a good deal; respiration accelerated, and also the pulse; her teeth are foul and discoloured (not from want of the most scrupulous care); the heart is a good deal disturbed, probably mechanically; patient sleeps but very little, and that little is very distressful; she is painfully conscientious, depressed, and suffers greatly from spiritual melancholy. Her period comes very seldom. She is subject to lichen ruber, and get feverish.

James Compton Burnett
James Compton Burnett was born on July 10, 1840 and died April 2, 1901. Dr. Burnett attended medical school in Vienna, Austria in 1865. Alfred Hawkes converted him to homeopathy in 1872 (in Glasgow). In 1876 he took his MD degree.
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.