Helonin 3x in 6-grain doses very promptly cured all the symptoms, although they had existed for several years.
NOTE ON Triticum repens.
This is our common couch grass that is such a plague to the farmer, and yet if such a farmer has an irritable bladder he will walk over his couch grass, and travel a distance to see a doctor, often getting no help, for school-learning too often engenders contempt for the simple weeds under our feet. My professor of pharmacology, a very learned man, never taught me anything about the virtues of couch grass. I learned it in this wise in dispensary practice:-A middle-aged man came to my dispensary seeking relief from dysuria so severe that it greatly interfered with his occupation. I prescribed for him and he ceased attending. Something thereafter his wife consulted me on her own behalf, when I enquired after her husband’s dysuria. “Oh,” said she, “he is quite well, thank you, sir.” I referred to my notes of his case to see what had brought the cure, when the good woman exclaimed, somewhat testily, “Oh, your little pills did not do him any good; Mr. Faster cured him.” Now, Mr. Fraser was a local herbalist who kept a little shop in a back street;and, needless to say, I had very great contempt for him and his wares, and I was strongly of opinion that the law ought to prosecute him as a quack, as his very existence was a scandal. Well, thought I, I will not be beaten on my own ground by any one, and so I made enquiries of Mr. Fraser as to what the medicine was that had cured the dysuria, and he informed me that it was a decoction of couch grass. And since then I have often admired the wisdom of our legislators and of the public at large who refuse to interfere with such humble and useful citizens as our herbalists commonly are. Dr. Robert. T. Cooper tells me that an infusion of cough grass is highly esteemed, and much used by British herbalists as a bladder medicine. I have used it these twenty years, and declare it to be a splendid medicine in dysuria.
I will just relate one case:-A lady, widow of a notable London physician, suffering from complete procidentia uteri and very bad haemorrhoidal bleeding, wrote to me one day from the country to say that she was driven almost mad with painful micturition; the burning and straining were truly awful. Triticum repens 0, in 10 drops doses frequently repeated, brought a most grateful letter, with the request, that she might have a supply to keep by her in case of need in the future. She keeps a bottle of the tincture now in her bedroom in case of need! “Oh! what a marvellous medicine,” said she to me one day.
Many very learned physicians do not believe in medicines. Just so; a man may be a splendid mathematician without knowing anything about Latin irregular verbs, and a physician may be very learned and yet know nothing of remedies; whether such a one, however, is properly called a physician may be doubted. All knowledge is good; but the knowledge that makes the real physician is the knowledge of how to cure.
THE HAEMORRHOIDAL UTERUS; STERILITY. On October 8, 1889, a married lady, 28 years of age, consulted me for what I sometimes think of as a haemorrhoidal uterus, viz: the period is disturbed, and the haemorrhoidal veins seem to bleed vicariously for the endometrium, the period itself being scanty. This lady had only one little girl 5 years of age, but she was desirous of having more family, and her husband very desirous of having an heir, he possessing large estates. I began the treatment with Nux 30 and Sul. 30 night and morning in alternation. Patient had been to Schwal-bach to no purpose.
November 14.-Much better; period scanty.
Rx Bellis per. 0, 10 drops in a tablespoonful of water night and morning.
January 16, 1890.-Much better. There being some endometric catarrh, and patient having been twice vaccinated, the second time nine years ago unsuccessfully, I now ordered Thuja 30.
February 13.-“For the first time in my life my period come on exactly the day four weeks, and although the piles are still there, they do not trouble me”. As patient had had typhoid at five years of age, I ordered Pyrogenium 5, 3 drops night and morning.
April 20.-Is enceinte.
A baby girl came in due course, and all went well.
October 13, 1891.-Patient did not suckle her little girl, and the uterus is now subinvoluted; the piles are again to the force, and her husband is most anxious for a son and heir. Nux 30 and Sul. 30 were given, as on the previous occasion.
January 9, 1892.-Is week.
Rx Levico (strong), 10 drops in water at bedtime.
Feb. 11.-Period four days late.
Rx Thuja 30.
March 14.-Period one day late.
May 5.-Bellis perennis 0.
September 26.-Piles rather worse. Nux 30 and Sul. 30.
January 10, 1893.-Patient is depressed, and despairs of ever having her heart’s desire, particularly as the period has become very infrequent. I thought it therefore desirable to rouse the parts to greater life, and prescribed Aurum muriaticum 3x, 5 drops in water night and morning.
February 4.-Period much more satisfactory. She is altogether better.
Rx Fraxinus Americanus, in the mother tincture, 10 drops in z3j. water night and morning.
March 16.-Enceinte.
A fine boy arrived in due course, and all went well.
July 7, 1896.-“Oh! he is a splendid boy; he is nearly three years old, and so well.”
ENLARGED UTERUS DUE TO ABORTION.
Lady X., well past 40 years of age, and not very long married, aborted at the end of 1891. The uterus was found very heavy, low-lying, and soft and warm to the touch, and bleeding at times.
I began with Bellis perennis 0 10 drops in water three times a day. This was continued with much advantage for about three weeks, when Helonin 3x followed, and then Arnica mon. 3x.
In the fourth month of the treatment Thuja 30 was given; in the fifth month Arnica montana 1x; and during the last month Fraxinus Americanus 0, when Lady X. was discharged in splendid health and entirely normal in the uterine sphere.
Lady X. had received injections from her family doctor, and some of her trouble was due to said injections.
Intro-vaginal injections, in my judgment, are generally very harmful; the vagina is the natural cloaca of the female organism; it is self-cleansing from within outwards, and from above downwards, and treatment in the contrary direction from without is irrational, all the recommendations of nearly all the doctors in the world notwithstanding.
NEURALGIA OF THE BLADDER; STERILITY; WITH CONSIDERABLE EN- LARGEMENT OF THE UTERUS AND OF THE SPLEEN.
Lady K. sends me Mrs. Y., now home from Africa. She is 35 years of age, has been married for eighteen years, and has had no child for fifteen years, when she was confined of a still-born child. There was last year a bad miscarriage, and since then she has never been well, though all the time under the care of a very eminent gynecologist. This gentle-man’s diagnosis is neuralgia of the bladder. Patient is obliged constantly to pass water: the pains are burning; very very small pips; anaemic; dark under eyes; very depressed before the period. The breasts give a good deal of trouble, being the seat of prickly pains.
Patient had had sunstroke, *Persons with a consumptive strain in their constitutions are very prone to sun-stroke, typhoid fever, and in later life to softening of the brain. and was commonly worse in the evening.
Rx Bacill. CC. This was August 1892.
September 6.-Pips less distinct; the urinary trouble is much better; less backache; not at all depressed before this period. Rx Thuja 30.
Sept. 23.-Period so much better; the left rib region bulges a good deal and is rather painful.
Rx Tc. Urtica ur. 0, 7 drops in water night and morning.
November1.-Tc. Saw palmetto 0, 7 drops in water night and morning.
Christmas 1892.-Mrs. Y. is enceinte.
August 10, 1893.-A2 lady coming to me on this date told me, “Mrs. Y. is daily expecting to be confined” (in last letter).
This case was one not properly termed sterility, perhaps, but at any rate it was one of childlessness from constitutional diseases.
Mrs. Y. is in an out-of-the-way part of Africa, so I have no knowledge of how things went.
ENLARGEMENT AND DISPLACEMENT OF UTERUS; NEURALGIA OF FIVE YEARS’ STANDING; STERILITY.
Countess X. came under my observation on January 22, 1887, for neuralgia of the forehead and top of head during the past five years; she suffered also from severe leucorrhoea, and for the same period of five years; and her married life was also of the same duration, viz., five years. She had never been pregnant at all, visits to Schwal-bach notwithstanding. The neck of the uterus enormously thickened, the os pointing rectum-wards. Period every three weeks, and lasts a week, and very painful. Rx Sabina 30.
Feb. 9.-Period lasted week, but was only painful for two days. She feels better.
Rx Rep.
March 23.-Period very painful. Rx Tc. Flor. aurant. amar. 0, 5 drops in water night and morning.
April 21.- Neuralgia gone; the menstrual pain is seemingly in the uterus itself.
Rx Thuja 30.
May 3.-Uterus much more comfortable; leucorrhoea certainly better.
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.