Pulsatilla is a most useful organ remedy for the womb after the change of life, when there is no period to be disturbed and when the organ is moderately enlarged. During the menstrual life it is apt to be too disturbing, and must then be used in dilution if homoeopathically indicated. Miss X. took Pulsatilla 0, 5 drops in water night and morning, for a month, and it did good to the womb, and the whites and flushes were a little improved; but patient complained very much of feeling cold, though the weather was warmer than it had been (April 10). The spleen swelling seemed to me to be the primary seat of the mischief, and hence I ordered Urtica urens 0, 5 drops in water night and morning, and it very soon became manifest that the hypothetical diagnosis was correct, for the spleen came down in size, the chills disappeared, the varicosic swelling waned, and patient and physician were both delighted. Subsequently when Urtica had seemingly exhausted its action, and something appeared to bar the way to a complete cure, I made further inquiries, and elicited the fact that Miss X. had been four times vaccinated, and that her headache was much worse in the morning. The Pulsatilla had much improved the headache at first, but it returned. The Urtica did it no good, but Thuja 30 in infrequent doses cured the headache right off and completely.
Then Ceanothus Americanus 1 was given for some time-several months-and when I last saw patient she was practically well. A very small bit of the varicosic swelling alone remained, for which I ordered some remedy which I have not noted. I often pass Miss X. in the street, and to judge by her looks and pleasant greetings I have no doubt she is well.
Before this goes to press I may have an opportunity of asking her whether anything still remains of her ailings. *Not since seen.
CASE OF PLEURODYNIA OF LEFT SIDE.
I desire here to add a word or two more or less apposite to the question as to whether the spleen stands in any relation to the uterus. I maintain that it does (see my Diseases of the Spleen).
The submammary pain-the classic “pain under the left breast,” and its equally classic remedy, Cimicifuga-indicate a certain relationship between the uterus and upper part of the left side in women. “Pain in the side” is very vague, but many ladies complain to me of it. In this case the pain was located under the left ribs-i.e., in the spleen region (spleen enlarged); the pain was worse periodically (every third day), but never absent. Patient formerly suffered from leucorrhoea. From the history of the case I was led to give Bellis perennis 0. It did a little good; but the pain returned, and then disappeared under Tuberculinum t. C. (patient was losing flesh, had hectic flush of cheeks, worse in the afternoon). All periodicity left, and then followed Cimicifuga 1, Thuja 30, Sabina 30, and finally, tub. t. C. When the pain had gone, the spleen was normal, and Miss C. had gained many pounds in weight, and since continues well. Here the pain in the side came subsequent to the disappearance of the leucorrhoea, and from the remedies that acted curatively I fell sure it was a case of sycosis (hydrogenoid constitution) and psora mixed.
SUBINVOLUTED UTERUS; HAEMORRHAGE; BACKACHE.
A gentleman, resident in South America, formerly a patient of mine, sent his young wife home to be here placed under my care for serious ill-health. This was August 1894. Patient had borne a dead body in the previous June, and had got very low from haemorrhage, which had never left off since the miscarriage.
The enlargement of the womb is considerable, the backache very bad, the haemorrhage severe, and with this, patient has lost a good deal of flesh; her skin (of covered parts) very deeply pigmented; her inguinal glands enlarged.
The diagnosis here was perfectly clear, viz., a very much enlarged womb.Now, it might be supposed, from my many laudations of organ medicines, that I should forthwith give this patient a good organ remedy, such as Bursa pastoris, Helonias dioica, Fraxinus Am., Aletris farinosa; but I did not, and this brings me to a very important part of my task. But, perhaps, I had better record the case first, and comment upon it afterwards.
Rx Tuberculinum t. C. This was my first prescription on August 31.
Sept. 17.-The haemorrhage has ceased entirely!
Rx Fraxinus Americanus 0, 6 drops in water three times a day. This caused a considerable diminution in the size of the womb, with corresponding amelioration in the backache. Then the first prescription of the Tuberculinum t. C. was repeated, and continued for sometime. In the winter Saw palmetto 0, and thereafter Quassia 0, when in the following June patient returned to her husband restored to comparative health.*
The cardinal point in this narration lies in the fact that I did not first give an organ remedy in a small material dose, and why?
Because, though there was an
*This lady’s husband wrote to me in August 1896, saying that my patient continued well and was expecting to be confined very shortly. Organ disease, it was not primarily a disease of the organ, but one of the organism, and from the organism, though located in the organ as well as in the organism. Organs may be affected in themselves and, and their ill-influence goes thence into the organism, and in such a case organ remedies are the indicated curative agents.
As the organ is ill of the organism and from the organism, and consentaneously with it, here the primary ailment is organismic, and must be treated with the homoeopathic simillimum, which in this case was Tuberculinum testium, and, as the curative influence sought for was of a high degree of similitude, a high potency was used, viz., Tuberculinum t. C.
And the result? Quick cessation of the urgent symptoms, viz., haemorrhage, and this being thus radically cured, general improvement at once set in. At the bottom of the whole thing lay a tubercular state of the endometrium, manifested by the deeply pigmented state of the anal and vulvar regions, and by the feelably hardened state of the inguinal glands. Moreover, patient’s sister was formerly cured by me of phthisis with Bacillinum, and her case is narrated in my New Cure of Consumption; and, by the way, this lady has since her cure borne two more bonnie children, and is to-day in good health.
The pathologic simillimum is the furthest point yet reached in drug therapeutics, and embodies a very great and fertile idea.
After the organismic tubercular taint was cured by the Tuberculinum test., there remained the uterine hyperplasia, and this was then adequately met by Fraxinus Americanus.
In fine, I would summarize the whole thing thus:-Where the organ-ailing is primary to the organ, use organ remedies in little material doses frequently repeated; where the organ-ailing is of a piece pathologically with that of the organism, use the homoeopathic simillimum in high potency in frequently repeated. That is how I work, with much satisfaction and delight, at the curative results so obtained.
UTERUS ENLARGED’ BACKACHE; GREAT DEPRESSION OF SPIRITS.
A maiden lady, aet. 38, came over from Ireland to be under my observation. The chief and most troublesome symptom was depression of spirits of a somewhat severe type. As this lady had been four times vaccinated, and was much upset by travelling, I began with Thuja occid. 30.
At her next visit she told me she was much less unhappy, but that her backache was very terrible. An examination showed the womb to be thick and heavy, its neck very pulpy, and the backache was worse between 10 to 11 A.M.
The depression of spirits and the thickened state of the womb both seemed to call for Aurum, and this I ordered thus: Rx Aurum met., 3 trit., gr. vj., one powder night and morning.
May 12.-The neck of the womb is much less pulpy to the touch, and patient is bright.
Rx Rep.
June 25.-“I am so much better; I can run up and down stairs without my back aching as it used to do; ” and as to depression, ” I am quite jolly.”
Said her brother-in-law to me sometime thereafter,….. “You made a fine cure of my wife’s sister; we are all very grateful, for we quite expected we should have to put her into an asylum.”
Said a colleague of mine the other day (he loves me not), “Oh! Dr. Burnett gives everybody Thuja for what he calls vaccinosis, and he gives it in the thirtieth dilution, which science has proved to contain no medicine at all; and as for his fad `vaccinosis,’ it has no place in any nomenclature of diseases.”
To which I reply… If a perfectly healthy person, who has never been vaccinated, is liable to catch small-pox; if we now vaccinate that perfectly healthy person, rendering him practically immune against small-pox; wherein does the change consists? In something that is more than perfectly healthy? That is inconceivable. It seems to me that the change wrought is a pathological one, and I call it vaccinosis.
Thuja occidentalis is homoeopathic to that morbid state, viz., to vaccinosis, as has been proved many, many times. The thirtieth dilution of our remedies is a very powerful therapeutic weapon, and has been a thousand times scientifically demonstrated, and is scientifically demonstrable to anyone with a mind.
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.