Sambucus-The patient has coryza or rhino-pharyngitis. The mucous of the nose descends to the throat either during sleep or when the patient is awake. The mucous arriving at the glottis causes cough. In children the phenomenon causes a strident cough which is admirably cured by Belladonna 6 and Sambucus 6, used alternately. Sambucus is more useful to children than to adults.
Rumex crispus-A capital remedy of tracheitis and is related to Hepar sulphur. The patient coughs after having inspirated suddenly cold air. He coughs more in the open air than within the house. His trachea is so much sensitive that the very touch near the sternal fork with the finger immediately causes cough. An interesting fact : Like Bryonia, Rumex has digestive and respiratory polarity. The patient of Rumex may have a digestive syndrome with diarrhoea of yellowish stool, coming suddenly towards 5 to 7 a.m. which forces the patient to rise up (Sulphur and Tuberculinum). Let us finally insist on the deep tuberculous condition of the patient who has often the need of Rumex.
Spongia-It is indicated in laryngitis without nasal voice. The cough is dry, incessant, fatiguing and is aggravated towards midnight like that of Aconite. Spongia is also a remedy of recurring cough with Naja in aortitis or mediastinitis.
Hyoscyamus-Dry cough, while lying down, caused by a sensation as if the uvula is tickling the posterior part of the pharynx.
In all stubborn coughs, of influenza of others many remedies may be applied alternately. As for example: Sambucus, Rumex, and Spongia and often one dose of Drosera 200 is indispensable.
Drosera is the most important remedy of this group. At first experimented by Hahnemann, later on studied by curie who experimented Drosera on cat and showed precisely its indications on man. Dr. Leon Renard who was the doctor in the Homoeopathic hospital of London told us about Drosera when he came back in France. In France we usually give Drosera in whooping cough, in the 3rd and the 6th potencies. But in certain cases it is better to use it in the 200th rarely and even not repeated. In this dilution it has an action in all laryngial cough. We know also that Drosera is a remedy of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis. In tuberculosis of lungs it has almost the same counter indications as that of Phosphorous with which it is a vegetable homogeneous. When there is a laryngial cough which does not yield to any medicine even to Sulphur one should think of Drosera 200 which in certain cases gives really extraordinary result. A few words about the three remedies of the second group: Chlorum, Bromium and Ammon bromatum. These are rather remedies of chronic cases. Bromium and Chlorum are really remedies of Asthma. Chlorum is less used but Bromium is important. Bromium-An important remedy of subjects having fair skin, round type, whose asthmatic fits remain better on the sea-side.
Ammonium bromatum-An important remedy having the characteristic weakness, spasmodic cough at night with oppression. It is the only remedy of the Ammonium group which is indicated by dry cough. The other Ammoniums on the contrary have abundant expectoration.
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.