Mrs. X. 43 years of age, mother of a family, came to me on October 21, 1891, complaining of having frequently aborted, and of “weak heart, considerable swelling of lower abdomen, and dropsy of the lower extremities.” She wears a pessary to keep up the heavy womb, as otherwise she cannot walk. Severe leucorrhoea. It seemed to me that the heart was not at fault, but that the entire trouble lay in the enlargement of the womb. She had lost a favourite child-her only boy-and was bowed down with grief, which latter called certainly for Ignatia. The pressure of the huge uterus, however, called for Bellis.
Rx Ignatia am. 1 and Bellis per. 0, 20 drops of each daily in alternation.
November 4.-Distinct improvement in every way; leucorrhoea much better; can walk better.
During November and December she had Helonias 0 and Arnica 1, when she was very much better, and exclaimed, “My swelled stomach is as flat as a pancake.” Leucorrhoea and dropsy gone. No longer needs any pessary.
Bacillinum CC. followed, and under this the left leg swelled again. Early in 1892 she had a few weeks of Fraxinus Americanus 0, 10 drops twice a day, and wast hen in capital health, and functionally regular.
The Bacillinum was given because of the pippy state of her tongue, and did good to her constitution, but did not influence the uterus, which was merely in part subinvoluted and in part bruised from much use. I should have stated that she had morning sickness off and on so long as the uterus was so greatly enlarged. In merely organ diseases constitutional treatment is not indicated, and is therefore useless; but a battered, bruised uterus yields quickly to anti-traumatics such as Bellis perennis and Arnica montana. And the organ remedies appropriate to the uterus-Helonias 4 dioica and Fraxinus Americanus-quickly cured the hypertrophy of the organ. And in the case of organ remedies, small material doses act best, -indeed brilliantly; such remedies also needs to be repeated at short intervals. On the contrary, organ hypertrophies from constitutional causes are not curable by organ remedies at all until the constitutional disease has been cured by infrequently repeated high dilutions of remedies closely homoeopathic thereto.
I am often asked why I disapprove of the use of pessaries, and my reply is… I do not disapprove of pessaries if nothing else can be done, but a pessary is only a make-shift of a highly objection able nature; it is better to enjoy locomotion with the aid of a pessary than to lie on a couch and slowly become an unwholesome mass of tissue. But a pessary cures nothing, and not only does it cure nothing, but it tends to render the big heavy organ bigger and heavier still; the real indication is to set about reducing the size and weight of the organ, until it is light enough to go up to its normal position. And my contention is that this can be done, and and the task is not even difficult; but it cannot be done without organ remedies, and also it cannot be done without constitutional remedies when the hypertrophy is of constitutional origin.
Some of my critics have suggested that the use of organ remedies by me, learned largely from Rademacher, constitutes a falling away from my faith in homoeopathy, and one writer speaks of Rademacher as “Dr. Burnett’s new love.” As a matter of fact my acquaintance with the works of Rademacher and with those of Hahnemann fall within a year of each other, and the stand point of each is true at the bedside. Hahnemann is a hero to me, but so is Rademacher; is Rademacher small because Hahnemann is great?
Now I find myself often unable to cure simple organ diseases with dilutions; but I also find myself unable to cure the great constitutional diseases with organ remedies, and from very close observation, and not a little experience, I maintain that the organopathy of Rademacher (i.e., of Paracelsus) is just elementary homoeopathy, the degree of similitude being very small, wherefore small material doses are needed in fairly frequent repetition. As the degree of similitude increases so must the dose of the remedy be lessened.
Let me now take a case of enlargement of the womb from constitutional cause to illustrate my meaning. A complicated case like the last but one cannot be cured by any one remedy, and it is absolutely impossible to get a simile of the whole case under one remedy, since the symptoms are from different origins, and of diverse pathological qualities. Hahnemann saw this clearly enough, and hence the Coethen phase of homoeopathy.
But to my constitutional case.
SUBINVOLUTED UTERUS FROM CONSTITUTIONAL CAUSE.
A married lady, 29 years of age, mother of one child two years and nine months old, was brought to me by a lady friend of hers, an old patient of mine, for a sad state of womb disease that had baffled all attempts at cure. The uterus was very much enlarged from subinvolution dating from her only pregnancy, and in which the placenta had been adherent; the rectum was placed full of piles that bled often very severely, and besides this all, patient often had leucorrhoea and profuse monthly periods; vulvar and rectal regions deeply pigmented; inguinal and cervical glands like so many marbles. Her general condition one of great debility. and, moreover, she was very thin; her friends had given her up as a hopeless case. “No hope, I suppose, ” said her friend to me privately.
It was quite evident that though the case was one of womb enlargement, this enlargement was only a part, and only as insignificant part, of the case.
The prime element in this case was that constitutional state which lay behind the placenta praevia; this became more manifest after Bellis perennis 0 and Sepia 5 had failed to do any great good (during the month of July 1892).
At the beginning of August things were very bad, and patient had again lost flesh. The duskiness of the body, the evening febrile movement, the emaciation, led me to give Bacillin. (CC.), under which remedy patient lost her fever and put on flesh. Then under Thuja 30 she lost ground, and I went back to Bacill. (C.), and kept her under its influence for a number of months- when, thereafter, Fraxinus Americanus in small material doses brought the womb back to its right size, and to-day, patient is plump and well, and has again resumed her wifely position, for which she had been so long unfit. The phthisic element in this case could only be met dynamically by a remedy of high similitude, and although the constitutional element in the case had been really and radically cured by the high potency of the pathological simillimum, still the womb remained enlarged. The organ was then met with an organ (i.e., womb) remedy-Fraxinus Americanus in small material doses-and the cure was complete, the organ returned to its normal size. August 1896, patients continues well and is ceinte.
Contrariwise I will now adduce a very simple case of a hugely enlarged uterus, so bad that patient was sent home to England for the express purpose of having hysterectomy performed upon her, and for all that there was no constitutional disease, and a simple organ remedy amply sufficed to secure complete restoration to health.
EXCESSIVE ENLARGEMENT OF THE WOMB: THE ORGAN TO BE RE- MOVED BY OPERATION.
Two or three years ago-rather more perhaps-a lady resident in London was in the habit of consulting me about her skin and about her children’s ailings. We had many friendly chats, and latterly she was often tearful and seemingly in much distress. What is the matter? said I.
Oh! my favourite sister is so very very ill, the doctor have but very little hope of her.
This kind of thing recurred repeatedly, and finally she told me that all the doctors had decided that nothing but a very severe operation would now avail anything, and arrangements had been made to have it carried out forthwith, and rooms had been enlarged off Cavendish Square for the purpose.
Great operations on women are common enough, and I did not heed the lady’s laments very much, and I should not have done so had she not broken down with grief, and begged me to see whether the terrible operations could not be averted. “They are going to take the whole womb right away, it is so big that the body cannot contain it, and all the five doctors declare that is the only thing that can be done.”
it was arranged that the patient should be brought to me on the following Monday, the operation being fixed for the Tuesday.
Mrs. John X., mother of six children, aet. 38, was brought to me in July 1892. She came-was brought, that is merely to please her heartbroken sister, and to prove to her that nothing could possibly be of any service save the formidable operation to be performed next day.
Briefly, it was a case of a hugely hypertrophied uterus, that was so much in excess of the space Nature had for its storage, that the unfortunate lady could do nothing what ever, and it was barely possible to even keep the immense mass some what propped up with aid of a very large pessary. The womb had been scraped by one eminent surgeon, systematically curetted by another and vigorously cauterised by a third, but is seemingly only got bigger.
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.