And thus it is: the external treatment of ringworm is wrong, because it only deals with the external manifestations of the internal organismic ailment. RINGWORM IS AN INTERNAL DISEASE of the organism having for its outward sign the ringworm consisting of fungi are the guests of the diseased host; cure the host’s diseased state, and the fungus-the ringworm-dies off from lack of a proper medium. Ringworm may be regarded as mould on cheese, bits of bread, oranges, or lemons, and warm moisture favours its development. Mouldy products love darkness rather than light-a sort of half light, moisture, warmth, and hiddenness; decaying organic matter is their food and life, and I am satisfied that those who get ringworm have in their scalps something whereon the ringworm mould can live, thrive, and multiply.
Inveterate Case of Herpes Ton- surans, or Ringworm.
A lad of eight years of age was brought to me at the end of April 1891, to be treated for ringworm, under a very severe form of which he had been labouring for over a year. At the date in question it was nearly all over his body, scalp, neck, upper extremities, in large numbers of rings, varying in size from that of a sixpenny piece to that of a halfpenny. His scalp is one mass of scabs and scales extending all down his neck (said to have come from gunpowder). The scalp is at times moist. He has no feelable glands in his neck, but those of his groins are like so many very small marbles. Sparsely strawberry-like tongue; teeth yellow and decaying. “What have you tried for your son?”
“Tried! everything, but he gets worse and worse, and since that gunpowder his head has gone like that.”
I am sure that any experienced practitioner of medicine, who places his faith in the outside treatment of ringworm, recognises the picture I am drawing as that of a type of ringworm cases that will not get well do what we will. I have had them myself in olden days, till I hated the very sight of them, with their closely shaven scalps that seemed to consist in a number of little exits of sticky, mattery ooze that then dried into scabs. Such was this boy’s aspect, but some of its hideousness was covered by a natty, well-fitting skull-cap.
Bacillinum C. was given for two months, when on the 24th June, I find noted that the red pips of his tongue were nearly gone; the lower half of his scalp was clean and healthy; appetite better; teeth much cleaner and whiter. “He is much better in his health.
To continue with the same remedy.
July 29th, 1891.-He is quite well of his ringworm, though his scalp is slightly scurfy, and his teeth still rather dirty looking. He then had the same remedy (1000th), whereafter the only one thing wrong with him was the greenish state of his teeth, which presumably was from another aetiological source, and therefore not amenable to the bacillinic influence. A worse case of ringworm would, indeed, be hard to find: a prettier, cleaner, or more accurately scientific cure I do not ask for. When cured the boy was a picture, with his splendid crop of hair stubbles about an inch in length- and, moreover, in excellent general health.
I used no external remedies at all. I do not for one moment suppose that the medical world (and still less the surgical) will accept my statements in regard to the true nature and cure of ringworm; nor do I imagine that they will fairly try my treatment. Past experience teaches me, that really radical curing on lines of scientific precision with high homoeopathic potencies is not in harmony with prevailing views, and, therefore, totally incomprehensible and unacceptable to the profession at large, and hardly more acceptable to eight-tenths of the medical men practising homoeopathically. Even the homoeopathic practitioner seems very commonly quite unable to crawl out of his own old ways. Well, medical progress will pass him by and go on.
The internal treatment of ringworm by Sulphur, Sepia, and Tellurium is good, but I trust I shall be able in these pages to show that the treatment of ringworm by the internal administration of very infrequent doses of high potencies of Bacillinum is direct, exact, radical, and beyond compare; the remedy being pathologically homoeopathic to the whole morbid state and crasis of the individual, and not merely pathologically similar to the superficial cutaneous manifestations.
I have long maintained the organismic or constitutional nature of skin diseases, and have time and again defended the thesis in medical literature, notably in my small treatise, Diseases of the Skin from the Organismic Stand-point, which is here confirmed in a manner I had not even hoped for, viz, direct clinical proof of the thesis that skin diseases are indeed general, constitutional, or organismic; and, therefore, for very joy I will dwell upon ringworm pretty fully, for as I have discovered that it is curable by the administration of Bacillinum in high potency, it so comes to pass that I can demonstrate clinically the organismic nature and cure of an affection of the skin that is clearly outside, to all intents and purposes, in its own life-history, being admittedly and demonstrably due to the fungus known as the trichophyton. And this demonstration is all the more powerful, because we cannot deny that the herpes tonsurans, or ringworm, is due to the fungus, the trichophyton. No; we cannot, of course, since the thing is scientifically demonstrable, as Kobner inoculated himself and certain animals with its products, and ringworm was the result.
Ringworm, is, therefore, an external disease due to an external infection, the trichophyton, and (next to the itch) the skin disease of which people have the very greatest horror. This is due, in the first place, to the fact that its favourite seat is the hairy scalp, or near it, though we find it often in other parts of the body, and it causes the hair to fall out in circular patches as if eaten away in a ring by little worms, and hence our English name of ringworm. Therefore, any lady’s imagination readily paints herself to herself with any number of these round “spots” with loss of hair, and thus an object to be shunned,- and ladies do not, as a rule, wish to be shunned. Next to this horror is the disgrace (!) of being subject to such a disgusting disease; and, finally, it is very well known to be often exceedingly difficult of cure.
“Oh, I have tried all our big doctors and two quacks, and all the sure cures, but M’s head is worse than ever!” But all these trials were on the same lines, viz., external applications to kill the fungi.
What first struck me was fact, that in a given household infected by ringworm only some of the members got the disease, and these were invariably the weaker ones, the weedy, and the unhealthy. I have known households in which ringworm existed in one or two of its members, and although towels, brushes and combs were used almost indiscriminately, still the disease did not spread. Conversely I have known others in which only one child would have, perhaps, just one small patch, and in which the greatest care was taken to prevent the thing spreading, yet many of the children finally caught the complaint.
I have noticed the same with cattle. Thus, a herd of heifers of my own observing two years ago, numbering eighteen when mustered in the yard, were examined by me for ringworm, and five had it-three pretty badly. These five were relatively weedy specimens, and those that had it worse were the most weedy. I noticed that the infected ones rubbed the diseased parts against posts and the like, and the healthy ones living with them, grazing in the same meadows, eating out of the same bins, herded with them in the same bins, herded with them in the same yard at night, all rubbing against one another, and against the same hard objects. The healthy and did not take ringworm in the smallest degree.
A practical cattle-kenner standing by was questioned by me as to this ring worm. “Oh,” said he, “the healthy, strong ones will get it.” “And what do you do to cure the diseased ones?” “Oh, that’s nothing; keep them dry, litter the yard well, feed them well, and they will all get well of the ringwormy as soon as they get strong.”
I took particular notice of this herd for many months, and found, indeed, that the ringworm ones mended of their ringworm exactly in proportion to their general improvement, and in the end only one remained unimproved, and that one had always been the most weedy, and it was thought that she would die. I had no further opportunity of observing the herd, but I had seen quite enough to satisfy myself that strong, healthy heifers do not get ringworm although exposed to the infection closely and constantly, and those that have it get rid of it in direct proportion to the improvement in their general condition. In other words, the ringworm fungi cannot live and thrive in really healthy animals, and the ill condition of those that have the disease is not a necessary antecedent condition of the animals before the trichophyton can thrive.
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.