Alcoholism and Criminality



The habit of tobacco smoking or chewing tobacco also increase the thirst.

But one may well understand that tobacco or meat may be abandoned only very partially by men who are addicted to wine because one is forced to tread them without their knowledge. It is generally useful to force them to regularise their diet, but not too much meals as for example 4 meals a day, each almost equal in quantity. When they are thus nourished, they have less thirst, become more strong and they are not induced to alcoholic drinks, either to satisfy their thirst, or to make them, selves strong.

XII. After having given the homoeopathic treatment of alcoholism Ii think that II should make known an other method of treatment which is empirical, used by a homoeopathic doctor of Mexico, Dr. Ezchiel de Leon, and published in 1883, in the Bibliotheque homoeopathique, v. 15, p. 26.

This doctor was consulted by a washer-women of 41 years addicted since 12 years to alcoholic drinks and had already the following grave condition: Epistaxis, petechies, hemorrhages from the gums and rectum, convulsions etc. She was given every morning while fasting, 15 cg of Emetic in 9 grams of brandy, the liquor which she preferred. At the end of a few days the patient began to feel so much horror for alcoholic drinks, that their very sight caused nausea. After 28 days of the cessation of the treatment, it was recommenced for a few days after which the cure was complete and the habit did not relapse. Even today the patient has such a horror, that she cannot bear the smell of medicine the was mixed with wine.

Case 2,3,4,5,6,7,8

Later on Dr. Leon treated some drunkard artisans of different profession.

Four were cured, one died because he came in a most advanced state of drunkenness. In the last two who were suffering from hereditary dipsomania the result was incomplete.

This treatment by emetic which cannot cure hereditary alcoholism, is inferior to the homoeopathic treatment. Nevertheless when homoeopathic treatment does not act soon one may use emetic dissolved in wine which the patient prefers. But for avoiding intoxication by emetic, it is necessary to prescribe it in doses of 5, 10, 15, 20, 35 cgs successively and the dose that produces vomiting should never be passed over. In children one should not go beyond 1,2,3,5,10 cgs successively, but always in their alcoholic drinks in order to create in order to create in them a dislike for that particular wine.

In England this method of medication was used in the Inebriated houses and in other places for drunkards whose all drinks are mixed with emetics. Thus the drunkards developed a repugnance to alcoholic drinks, acquiring a nauseating taste which persists in some cases.

The practice in my dispensary helped me to learn other indications of emetics. This medicine, used in the morning in a cup of coffee, in water or in a soup causes a nauseating condition of the stomach which persists. Consequently it takes away the desire for drinks for the same day. One should consequently give them thus the emetic, on Saturday, the day for weekly payment of salary or on Sunday, the day of rest which the drunkards devote to their habits. The emetic dissolved in a hot medium (Coffee, soup etc.) causes better the nausea than when it is dissolved in cold drinks.

I have often prescribed emetic with success in this way drunkards in whom most of the remedies failed to produce at good effect, months after moths. Thus, for example a drunkard of 88 years old, since 30 to 40 years used to intoxicate himself, 3, 4 or 5 times a week, remained sober for 3 months during the time he drank only once and was very slightly intoxicated. He was attacked with diarrhoea which emetic caused, in the dose of 2 and 1’2 cg. There was a homoeopathic indication of this remedy. It is necessary to make and experiment gradually the dose appropriate for each individual in order to avoid even partial poisoning.

In Sweden the drunkards are isolated and prepared by Swenask Brautwein (country wine) all their foods, until they refuse completely to eat. On 130 alcoholics thus treated Dr. Schreiber in 1848, 128 were cured, 4 relapsed an 7 were put to mortal danger by this treatment.

One understands that the treatment by emetics and alcoholisation of all foods are sometimes dangerous and not help as in homoeopathic treatment, the cure of the other vices and defects of the drunkards. So this last method of treatment is more preferable that the two other methods.

V

At present when the people are possessed by the monomania to find suggestion everywhere, one should not be astonished seeing the allopaths and their clients explain by the suggestion the cure of alcoholism and other vices cured by Homoeopathic treatment. These cures are really effected by medicines and not by suggestions.

In fact:

1. But this method of treatment I have cured the vices of persons, treated without their knowledge and whom I have never seen.

2. I have cured some mental cases which were lasting for 8 years. Never was cited cures by suggestion which have lasted so long a time.

3. The psychic cures are sometimes exceptional, preceded by a medicinal aggravation which I would like to avoid, although it is a good sign and is habitually followed by cure. Thus for example, more and more jealous since thirty years of marriage, a husband of 60 years experienced during three weeks, under the single dose of Lachesis 200, a great aggravation of this jealousy, from which he was cured in 5 weeks; and the cure persisted till death i.e. to say for 6 to 9 months.

4. If I could cure by suggestion, alcoholism or other vices, I would not have taken so much pain to search for the medicine, the most useful for each individual and moreover, I would have cured every child. Therefore, to speak the truth, I cure them of their defects and because the medicines may develop the reason less, and the sensibility for the criticism of the entourage in children who have it only in germs, whereas the adults possess them already more or less developed. Also in adults, under the influence of remedies administered, there is caused the work of reflection and observation which helps the action of the same medicine. Thus, for example, I cure almost all the adults of jealousy and up till now I could not cure of this vice in children of 7 years or of less then 7 years.

VI

I. While wishing to explain why prescribe the high dilutions against alcoholism, I am forced to enter the question of doses in which the medicines may be used. To solve the problem which divides, not only the doctors of the old and the new school, and also the the homoeopathic doctors amongst themselves, I had to take the recourse to some general considerations, which will gradually prepare the readers to understand what I am going to say.

If. In the science of observation and experiment men generally have each a closed filed within which he studies, observes, experiment, finding some results which are questionable, of which they hazard the most different interpretations. The pity is that, habitually, each person has a mind closed by his field or investigation, see always through the top of his spectacles and does not want to see by the other end and verify in the filed of study of each of his friends some facts equally unquestionable. It results that the educated men and even the learned ones, having the mind full with findings or things observed by them, keep themselves within bounds of hearing themselves, and do not desire to listen to others. Thus they become some men, the least disposed to require some knowledge which are new and hence they become persons acting by routine.

The prudent doctor, who has the duty to use in his clients all the curative doses of medicines, will act prudently, imitating to this end the bee that goes through all the fields of exploration, sit on numerous flowers, compare and judge-since the judgment is nothing but comparison-gather as best it can its honey. Unfortunately the doctors do not act in this fields of regards doses. They remain each fixed in their fields of research wishing nothing to see beyond and so cannot judge, because they do not compare the different effects of different doses. Thus the allopathic doctors do not prescribe the medicines but in massive doses, some homoeopathic doctors do not use but the infinitesimal doses, lower or medium doses or very high doses. The exclusivism of the one or the other is often injurious to the doctors and to their patients. I am going to say why.

III. The medicines prepared by nature or by art, are but some matters under four states: Solid, liquid, gas and radiant substances. The last, so named by the English physicist Farady and Crookes, was called subtle state by Aristotle and to Hahnemann it was infinitesimal.

According to Faraday and Crookes, when the matter is in the solid state, its constituting molecules touch each other and are adherents. In liquid state, the molecules of matter touch each other but are not adherents. In gaseous state the molecules of matter are not adherents and are at a distance from each other. In the radiant, the molecules of matters from each other. In the radiant state, the molecules of matters are still more distant form each other which they were not in the gaseous state.

Jean Pierre Gallavardin
Jean Pierre Gallavardin (1825 – 1898) was a French orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to gain international renown. Gallavardin was a Physician at the Homeopathic Hospital in Lyons.
Gallavardin set up a homeopathic Dispensary for the cure of alcoholics, often working in conjunction with priests, and he wrote several books on this subject.
Jean Pierre Gallavardin wrote Psychism and Homeopathy, The Homoeopathic Treatment of Alcoholism, How to Cure Alcoholism the Non-toxic Homoeopathic Way, Repertory of Psychic Medicines with Materia Medica, Plastic Medicine, and articles for The British Journal of Homeopathy, On Phosphoric Paralysis, and he collated the statistics on pneumonia and other cases for the United States Journal of Homeopathy, and he contributed widely to homeopathic publications.