She was two months under the virus C., and this effected an essential cure, but other remedies were needed for the non-consumptive part of the case, for, as I have before stated, and here again expressly point out, the tubercular virus acts within its own sphere only. Thus, in this case patient had been twice vaccinated, she had Thuja occidentalis 30 for a month; Bryonia 1x was used for getting the pleura better; Pulsatilla 1x brought a good deal of comfort to the ovarian region, as did also Cimicifuga 1, Bellis perennis 0, Rubia tinct. 0, and Ceanothus 1, did much to restore the sympathy of the left costal region, and Ignatia amara 1 was of real service in the emotional sphere-and yet, for all that, the actual consumptiveness was wiped out pleasantly and promptly by the virus.
She is now quite well these seventeen months.
CASE XLIX.
A little girl of 7 was brought to me in the month of December, 1888, with tuberculosis disease of the left knee. For eleven months she had been limping; the knee is much enlarged and very tender; her teeth are tuberculous; there are numerous cases of consumption in the family, and her father had spine disease. After one month of the virus 30 the swelling of the knee had gone down one-third, the joint had become more movable; the strawberry condition of her tongue had gone, and her teeth had cleaned. She had thereafter two months more of the virus C., and got quite well; the remaining enlargement of the knee yielding to a course of the third decimal trituration of the Perlarum mater.
CASE L.
This is one of severe hip-joint disease of a severe type and of long-standing, who was long under Dr. Drysdale, and who handed the case on to me when the family removed to London. The child eventually quite recovered, and is now a fine girl of 16, but of course the leg of the diseased side is shortened. Dr. Drysdale, and the orthopaedic surgeon who kept patient in his very excellent apparatus for several years, will be both in the case was the virus of which we are here treating.
CASE LI.
A young gentleman of 20 was accompanied to me in February 1889 in fully developed consumption. There were all the usual symptoms, and haemorrhage from the lungs for many months. He was tall, good-looking, and weighed 9 st. 1 lb. I treated him with the virus, and in a few months got his weight up to 10 st. 5 lb., when he, in August 1889, went to the seaside as I thought safe and nearly well. He returned, however, in October voiceless, phthisis of the larynx set in, and he eventually died. Over the acute laryngeal process the virus had no power whatever.
CASE LII.
A lady of 40, unmarried, came under my care on Oct. 26, 1885. “I am almost in a consumption, and have been so far many years.” She was very thin and “consumed with fever.” All that one could say of the lungs was that they were very flat, and the respiration almost imperceptible. It is not easy to understand such cases, they are evidently in a chronic state of feverishness, they cough, they are thin, they eat very little, they suffer much, and vegetate forth and on languidly. The virus cured this lady; all the fever left her- she had it “very constantly for years.” She no longer takes cold as formerly, and has become plump and thriving. Now amongst her friends and relatives she is generally supposed to have at last “grown out” of her constitutional delicacy.
CASE LIII.
The influence of the virus upon the teeth and their growth and appearance is very striking. What I regard as tubercular teeth are those–often more or less rudimentary–with holes in their external surface. Whether this is a recognised pathological fact I do not happen to know, perhaps it is not. But it is an important clinical observation. I recognised it clinically some three years since, while treating a highly strumous lady with many scars and glands in her neck. While under the virus I noticed an extraordinary improvement in her teeth, they became a nice colour, and the numerous superficial holes cleaned and partially disappeared.
It was even more apparent and striking in the following case :-A girl of 11, with ringworm on the scalp; the lymphatic glands everywhere palpable, and her ribs very flat; strawberry tongue; a bad cough, worse at night; although 11 years old she had practically no teeth, that is to say, they were rudimentary and not above the level of her gums. All her mother’s brothers and sisters had died of consumption; after three months’ treatment with our ordinary remedies we had made but small progress, and then I kept patient altogether five months under the bacillic virus, with the result that her palpable glands ceased to be palpable; her ringworm disappeared; her ribs took on a better form; her breathing was notably better; and, mirabile dictum, her teeth had grown. She is now well, and has a mouthful of teeth which are quite passable.
It may be noted that the ringworm has disappeared, and in respect to this nasty thing I find it generally disappears under the influence of the virus. I learned this very important fact also purely clinically in the following manner:- A whole family of children of different ages had ringworm for a full year, and the mother told me on bringing them that she had already spent over pound 60 on medical fees for its cure, but in vain. All known remedies had been applied by the local doctors in two neighbourhoods, and several skin specialists had worked hard at their poor heads, but to no avail. Their heads were shaved and their scalps were well scoured night and morning, but still the ringworm persisted. Finally, a distant cottage had been hired, and the afflicted ones were there isolated, and the services of a noted ringworm curer of the non- qualified variety had been secured; but these also failing, they were put under my care.
I have had no great cause to complain of the homoeopathic treatment of ringworm with our antipsorics– indeed, quite the contrary–but it is apt to be a bit tedious at times. Now their mother had been cured by me of incipient tuberculosis with the virus, and it occurred to me that ringworm might be a manifestation of the tubercular kind, and so I forthwith put the whole lot under the virus, administered in the usual way, internally in dynamic dose; this I did all the more readily, as they all had numerous superficial palpable glands. And the result? In a very few weeks they were all well of ringworm and of the glands, and have thriven splendidly ever since. Something like a dozen bad ringworm cases have come to me since then, and they were all quickly cured by the virus, and in each case the general state has been greatly improved. No doubt some bacteriologist will cultivate, some fine day, the germs of the ringworm, and astound the world with his subcutaneous injections. It is well that medical men should approach each subject from a different standpoint as they serve to correct one another.
CASE LIV.
This shall be my last case in illustration of my “Five Years’ experience in the New Cure of Consumption by its Own Virus.” A young lad of 14 was brought to me in July, 1884, for treatment for consumption. For about a twelve month he had a bad cough, with spitting of blood, and one of the apices was audibly diseased. He had previously had pneumonia. His chest was flat, and respiration accelerated. After the use of the virus he got quite well, and nearly four years of subsequent good health, free from any consumptive symptom, testify to the genuineness of the cure. He has just successfully passed the medical examination for service in the British army.-Second Edition. There was one feature in his case to which I desire to call attention, viz., he tanned unduly in the sun before the cure, but not since. For many years I have regarded the rapid darkening of the skin in the sun’s rays as indicative of a consumptive tendency; and as I have verified it many times, I have no doubt about it. I know a little boy who was brought to me for a bad temper: he is the scion of a consumptive family. I noticed that he was very much pigmented where the sun’s rays impinged upon him, but not on the covered parts of his body, and his teeth were dirty-greenish. After he had been two months under the virus, his teeth went clean, and he no longer tanned in the sun, and finally he had become amiable and good tempered.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
Having come to the end of the task I set myself, I will make a few brief remarks in the form of general explanatory propositions:-
1. The virus of the consumptive process itself–here termed variously the virus, the bacillic virus, etc.–cures promptly the incipient stages of tubercular consumption in all parts– brain, lungs, skin, joints, etc.
2. The virus is to be administered by the mouth in what the homoeopaths call high potencies.
3. The doses must not be too frequently administered; one dose every sixth to tenth day is my own practical rule.
4. Low dilutions are inadmissible; myself I have never gone below the thirtieth centesimal potency, and as I have known even this to give rise to grave constitutional disturbances, I now very rarely go below the one-hundredth centesimal potency.
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.