2. BACILLINUM TUBERCULINUM CASES



Bacillinum 30 soon cleared up his lung, but patient refused to go on under my care; said he : “The medicine is awful; I was seized in the stomach with pain accompanied by diarrhoea and perspirations; it loosened all my teeth, made my gums sore, set up dreadful vomiting,” but the left lung seems well.

But I am not sure he rightly ascribed all this to the remedy, and the less so as he had been salivated with mercury long before. I only cite this case to show the violent action of the remedy even in the thirtieth dilution, and because it rapidly cleared up the left lung, the cough becoming much more active. One of his daughters died of consumption of the bowels, so he informed me.

TABES MESENTERICA. CONSUMPTION OF THE BOWELS.

In the early summer of this year, 1891, a lady and her asthmatic husband brought their eight year-old boy to me to be treated for chronic diarrhoea of four months’ standing, pretty extreme emaciation, a dark mahogany-like discoloration of the skin (all over, not in patches), feelable induration of glands in both sides of the neck and even more so in the groins. “He is nothing but skin and bones, and won’t eat anything, and the doctor has been treating him for worms but he gets no better.” Hereupon the mother burst into tears and was not to be pacified for several days, she seemed to feel he would die. “His grandparents are sure he will die.” Indeed I at first gave a bad prognosis and was only induced to modify it by the mother’s distress.

Three months of Bacillinum slowly and completely cured the boy, and a letter reached me this day to say, “R. is so well and bonny,” and a fortnight ago the governess wrote me, “R. is as well as ever, and needs no more medicine.” The boy himself I have not seen since his treatment, but it is pretty evident that he is now quite well. He had no other remedy at all to account for the cure.

STRUMOUS GLANDS.

Said a young mother to me on the 30th of September, 1891: “I have brought Leonard to you because he grinds his teeth so at night and I think he must have worms, his mouth gets sore and there are sores in the corners of the mouth; he is so thin and his glands are swollen–in fact, he is just as he was when I brought him to you last time when he was four years old. I want you, please, to give him the same powders you sent him then, as they cured him at once and quite set him up.”

I turned up my case book and found the entry following: “April 5, 1889.-Leonard X., aet. 4 (nearly); has a strawberry tongue and a very offensive chronic discharge from the left ear; behind the left ear there is an indurated swelled gland, and there are some hard feelable glands in the neck.” And what was the remedy in the powders the mother wanted again for her little Leonard? Bacillinum 30; one dose of six globules on sugar of milk every 12 days.

In my judgment there is not any higher testimony to the efficacy of a remedy than that of a mother when she remembers and picks out a given prescription of two years and a half ago. The little man’s sister had pyothorax after pleurisy last winter, but she is quite well now.

CONCLUDING REMARKS TO SECOND EDITION.

I have received kindly communications from various parts from those who have used Bacillinum as recommended in this work, and with one of these I will close this second edition:

“RAMSGATE, AUG. 13, `91.

“DEAR SIR–I have read with much interest your book, `New Cure for Consumption,’ and am acquainted with four persons who have been greatly benefited through taking the virus. One, a young woman, aged 28, came here last March in the second stage of consumption; had spent one winter in the home of Ventnor. The doctors said no more could be done for her, and I did not think she would ever be any better, but had just come here to die. The kind friend who lent me your book administered the virus, and the patient so far recovered as to be able to take a situation near Liverpool, and by a letter received a day or two since is evidently fairly well. The sister, who has resided with me many years, aged 26, was looking very pale and feeling languid, no energy; suffered, too, at monthly period. These young women are orphans –both parents died of consumption. She, too, began taking the virus once a week for eleven weeks, and the change was wonderful; does not suffer monthly now. All who knew her said `how well she looked.’ She discontinued it the middle of July, and one reason I write you is to ask if you think she had better resume it?

“The third case was a young person far advanced in consumption; left lung affected; could not lie on the left side. After taking the virus was certainly better, and could sleep on the left side.

“Third case, a child, wasting away, and poor appetite. She is now looking bonny and gaining flesh.

“I ought to say the first-named patient had the right lung affected; cavities in it, and the left very weak. Her sister had lost flesh, but has gained nearly six pounds since taking the virus. I shall feel so obliged for a few lines when convenient.” Now, little book, go forth and fell to all concerned that, thanks to the labors of Paracelsus, Fludd, Lux, Hahnemann, Hering, Pasteur, Swan, Berridge, Skinner, Koch and many others, phthisis and the tubercular diseases generally have definitely entered the list of medicable diseases. But finally, and for the last time, the remedy must not be administered by injection; it must be given in high, higher and highest potencies and the doses must be FAR APART.

To those who can use only low dilutions I solemnly say……

Hands off!

THIRD EDITION [PART 3]

I AM called upon by my publishers for a further edition of this work, and as I have the opportunity of enlarging it; this I do in the hope that its usefulness may be increased; but as I am hard run for time just now I shall not be able to add much. Reproaches have been levelled against me by some reviewers for defects of style, inadequate descriptions, and omissions of details; I plead guilty, my Lords.

But I would submit as an extenuating circumstance the fact that most of what I write is done in odd scraps of time, sometimes in carriages or at railway stations, and not infrequently when tired, and ofttimes when weighed down by anxieties and responsibilities inseparable from the life and labors of an advocate of absolute free thought in matters medical. In proportion as prejudice gives way to knowledge and to the teachings of experience, so the particular remedy here recommended will gain in favor with the enlightened who are earnestly engaged in battling against diseases. I do not expect such a remedy to find favor all at once, and my prime object in bringing out a further edition is to be useful to my fellow-man. Thanks to Professor Koch the task is a possible one, and I am grateful to him accordingly.

Of course, it is not suggested that Bacillinum is a specific for all cases of phthisis, of every kind, and necessarily it will do no good in those cases of phthisis to which it is not homoeopathic; something that will cure every case of any malady bearing a given name is, of course, non- existent.

Still, bacillary phthisis taken early, and complicated with nothing else, is curable by Bacillinum, and this I say after eight years’ experience at the bedside and in the consulting-room. Anything even approaching to it in therapeutic efficacy is thus far absolutely unknown.

Where, for instance, vaccinosis is also present, the vaccinosis must be first cured or the phthisis remains uncured, do what you will.

When there is a primary spleen affection that led up to the phthisis, such a case must be approached from the spleen as a straight-point, or the treatment fails. When a liver disease underlies the whole maladive state, and phthisis only coexists with it, the liver malady must be first cured.

When this state arises from an hereditary syphilitic taint (I say taint, not the disease proper), the specific nosode may be required first.

When the phthisis arises from a cancerous parentage, Bacillinum alone will not always suffice, until other remedies have prepared the way.

When the constitution has been damaged by typhoid, by malarialism, by alcoholism, by cinchonism, and so on, all these must be therapeutically reckoned with, or success will not reward our efforts. Wherever, in fact, phthisis coexists with other diseases, or taints of diseases, the Bacillinum touches the bacillary part of the case ONLY.

When phthisis supervenes upon overcrowding, conventicular or monastic life, excesses of the various kinds, bad food, foul air, chronic sewage poisonings, wounded pride, unrequited love, bad drinking water, active oft-renewed infection from marital or other domestic ties, or from the air, walls, bedding, etc., it will be vain to expect the simple administration of a remedy of any kind to cure unaidedly if the active cause still remains present and operative.

I have verified nearly all these varieties, and beg my readers to lay them to heart and make sure of their ground before giving an opinion on the subject. It is simple uncomplicated phthisis taken early that can be cured right off the reel by its pathologic similimum.

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.