Ipeca has a clear vagotonic syndrome with nausea and vomiting (nausea does not ameliorate ever after vomiting). The tongue is clear (which shows that the gastric and the intestinal mucosa is the cause, it is purely a question of movement). Its cough, its dyspnoea, its expectoration all make a vagotonic syndrome. Ipeca is an important remedy but delicate to manipulate. In lower dilutions, in Allopathic doses, it is centrifugal and bronchial expectorant; in medium and high dilutions it is antispasmodic and it blocks expectoration. In bronchial patients it should be used very carefully because its medium dilutions will stop expectoration. In this case it should be used in decimal dilutions. In asthma on the contrary it may be used in high dilutions if there no fear of stopping the expectoration.
Lobelia inflata is nearer to Ipeca. It is easy to manipulate. It is an excellent remedy of Asthma.
Hydrocyanic acid has in its pathogenesis, asphyxia caused by paresis or tetanisation of the diaphragm because of a rapid action on the bulbar and pneumogastric centres. We know that the action of the Prussic acid is extremely poisonous, which, when inhaled may rapidly cause death.
Hydrocyanic acid then in Homoeopathy will be a remedy of grave cases of asthma with cyanosis and diaphragmatic troubles.
Cimicifuga. In high dilution it is interesting in asthma. Hyposphyxia associated with azotemia.
Here the principal remedies will be Ammonium carbonicum, Carbonic acid, Opium, Morphinum, Helleborus. Opium, Helleborus and Morphium are the three remedies of Chynestokes. In uremic coma or in apoplectic coma with red face and stertor Opium is sometimes an extraordinary remedy. It may be used at an interval of 48 hours. Sometimes it may be given in the 30th every two hours, of course in very grave states. Here the Homoeopathic remedies are indicated according to the stages and very often they cannot save the patient from death.
Cuprum arsenicum is the remedy of uremia with convulsions. Ammonium carbonicum is rather indicated in preuremic stage when it is to be prescribed in 3x. Besides it is known as a remedy of weakness due to weak vitality which does not react or because of some pulmonary congestion. In the late case it is to be given in the 6th or 30th.
5.Hyposphyxia because of pulmonary congestion. As for example in the course of a pneumonia, a bronchopneumonia; a pulmonary congestion four remedies top the list: Phosphorous, Veratrum album, Antimonium tartaricum and Lycopodium. Let us insist on two points:1. Phosphorous, so dangerous in tuberculous patient or in laryngial tuberculosis is here a marvellous remedy. One does of Phosphorous 30 has a centrifugal action on the congestion; the temperature falls rapidly, the rales and central sound of the congested part disappear. 2. The value of Lycopodium in these stages where it has an interesting symptom: fanning of the nostrils. In pneumonia and in broncho-pneumonia this fanning is a sure sign of Lycopodium.
Dr. Bernoville concludes this lecture by some extremely important statements:
1. In febril states when there exists tachycardia and a defence-polypnoea all the classical remedies of fevers are indicated, particularly Belladonna, Ferrum phosphoricum, Aconite and Gelsemium… and the drainage is done automatically in these acute cases as well as on the respiratory apparatus as on the other organs of the organism.
2. The importance of the re-equilibrium of the respiratory rhythm in some affections, for example in asthenia where there exist some vago-sympathetic troubles with psychic phenomena with an anxiety complex. These are cases where it is more necessary to bring back the equilibrium, then drainage an derivation.
3. The value of the respiratory capacity. Dr. Balland, a student of Tissie de Pau, knows a very useful method which he has learnt from his master, in order to obtain the capacity of the thorax, by supporting on the vertebral column. Dr. Tissie has shown that it was possible within a few minutes to modify thus the volume and the form of the thorax. It is, therefore, the question of an interesting method of physiotherapy. But it is absolutely counter indicated in tuberculosis.
In summary we may say that the drainage of the respiratory system is very special. The direct drainage yields its place mostly to derivation.
Local action of remedies lose here their importance. On the contrary the remedies that have no action on the pulmonary and laryngial tissues have here capital value. It is essential to bring back the equilibrium of the patient, to understand him as a whole of whose different apparatuses are solitary. As for example we must consider what are the remedies that will help us to obtain an action to derivate the morbid energies from the respiratory to the urinary apparatuses by Coccus cacti, Terebinthina, Cupressus, etc… from respiratory apparatus up to the digestive apparatus by Thuya, Carbo vegetabilis, Nux vomica Natrum sulphuricum and Sulphur from respiratory apparatus up to the skin. If it is the question of an asthmatic patient with eczema, a patient of urticaria with asthma we would act in the first phase directly on asthma even if we aggravate his skin affections. We must never try to ameliorate the skin troubles before the internal respiratory troubles. There is, therefore, a chronological order and a plan to follow in Homoeopathic therapeutics.
Finally, on the drainage of the respiratory system the necessity of doing an etiological Homoeopathic treatment and not only symptomatic seems to be quite clear than in other cases. An example: We have a patient suffering from chronic rhinitis. He is intellectual and sedentary. He has consulted different specialists who have diagnosed hypertrophic rhinitis with nasopharyngeal catarrh. If here we do symptomatic Homoeopathy without any consideration of the etiology we will give Kali muriaticum, Kali bichromicum, Hydrastis, Mercurius, etc… without a preconceived plan. One cannot thus do a real curative treatment even if the patient feels himself ameliorated and apparently cured, because one often causes a transmutation of nasopharyngeal phenomena in another organ, as for example entero-colitis. On the contrary, if one practices an etiological homoeopathy one would search for why the organism has drained its toxins through the rhinopharynx. One will find that the patient is in reality suffering from the liver which has the necessity of treatment side by side with the treatment of the rhino- pharynx, by Phosphorous or Natrum sulphuricum in high dilutions and by Berberis as a hepato-renal drainer. Treated thus the patient will be really cured from his rhino-pharyngitis and that would be a rational therapeutics.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.