Non surgical Treatment of Glands by Clarke J. H. (1853–1931). Published in 1894.
It is the province of Homoeopathy to show the world the true method of dealing with the diseased human organism, and I publish this treatise as a practical protest against surgical interference with diseased lymphatic glands. Surgery (apart from the surgery of accidents) is no cure ; it only gives the semblance of cure by cutting away diseased structures, whilst leaving the seeds of disease behind.
Matter can be absorbed, and its absorption can be promoted, by homoeopathic medicines. When matter can be thus dealt with, by putting the organism into a more wholesome condition, it is infinitely better for the patient to avoid any operative interference….
The lymphatics, therefore, not only deal with the waste of the body, they attack the products of diseased action, and, so far as they can, destroy the virus of disease….
The cases I am now about to relate were really, I believe, scrofulous in their nature, but they presented many points of resemblance to Hodgkin’s disease, treated with homeopathy….
I WILL now relate several cases of abscess in the armpit : the first, consequent on an injury to the finger; the others arising from constitutional causes. In each cases a cure was effected by constitutional remedies, and without operative interference….
By common consent diseases of the bones are classed as surgical. This I maintain is a very grave error. In many cases diseases of the bones are perfectly amenable to medical treatment, and only when medicine fails should surgery be allowed to step in….
It is not always possible to trace the remote results of surgical interference. After the operation the patient is often temporarily relieved, and is to all appearance quite well; and when the disease comes back again it is in such a different form that its connection is easily over looked….
Scrofula or Struma constitution is generally inherited, but it is remediable, either completely or to a very large extent. The underlying cause of it all is the presence of the psoric “miasm” as described by Hahnemann in his “Chronic Diseases.”…
In this paper a case is recorded by Mr. Smith which illustrates so pointedly my contention that the boundary line between surgery and medicine is in urgent need of reconsideration, that I cannot forbear to quote it in full. …