E.g., the use of Dys. Co. which may combine the symptoms of Arsenicum, lycopodium and Argentum nit.
Later, after the nosode has acted, the symptoms of a particular remedy will be demonstrated and this indicated remedy should now be administered.
(3) The nosodes should be administered in the same manner as any homoeopathic remedy. They should not be given empirically but only on the basis of the homoeopathic law “Similia similibus curentur”. Since each nosode has its own symptomatology, the nosode should be given only when the symptoms of the patients illness correspond to those of the nosode.
Previously we would administer the nosodes on a pathological basis :
E.g., Dys. Co., in cardiac disease and duodenal ulcer. Morgan Co. in eczemas.
Proteus Co. in spasmodic conditions and epilepsy. In these conditions we were ignorant of the fact that other nosodes may be indicated.
We may have been fortunate in obtaining a god result, but often failure was our portion and then the nosode would fall into disrepute.
(4) Repetition of the nosode is similar to repetition of any homoeopathic remedy. It must be done indiscriminately nor empirically. The changes in health following administration of the remedy should be carefully noted and only when evidence is found that improvement has ended – only then should repetition be considered. Usually improvement after a nosode lasts two to three months and often much longer.
(5) Potency of remedy. I have based my experience on the use of the 30th potency and have obtained excellent results. Other potencies may also be used. Where there is gross pathological change the low potency of nosode should be given. But in the early stages of disease where only toxic symptoms are present, then the higher potencies may be used.
Dr. BRIGGS : It was decided by Dr. Paterson and myself that it would be a good thing if we could produce some evidence of the action of the remedies on the bowel flora and a good thing to put before you. We had some quite interesting results. For instance, I had one stool which was completely negative, i.e., showing no non-lactose bacteria : a week later it showed 100 per cent. non- lactose organisms and three days later it was back again, completely negative. Well, we want to know the reason for that. I looked up the clinical record in this case had had a long string of remedies given at various intervals, from twenty-four hours to two or three weeks, from the medical attendant before she had been admitted to hospital. These are question marks we want to get at. Why should these bowel flora alter like that so rapidly? Had one of these remedies given a fortnight before been in action for that period in which the stool showed the presence of a non-lactose organism?
Dr. JULIAN : I have had no experience whatever with the nosodes though I have been Interested in the subject and have listened to Dr. Paterson and read in the Journal of his work but there are two or three points about the significance of the bowel flora in disease about which I am rather puzzled. The first is that the appearance of those non- lactose ferments in quantity in the bowel has been assumed to have some definite significance with regard to the patient’s illness, i.e., with regard to the pathogenesis of the illness and I want to ask whether a series of control experiments have been carried out in apparently normal individual with variations in the bowel flora. Dr. Briggs has told us of a case coming into hospital in whose flora were at one time no non-lactose fermenters and then 100 per cent. and then non at all. Have these changes any significance with regard to the production of the illness or are they accompaniments of the illness that have no necessary part in the pathogenesis? I think one can only arrive at the truth by the provision of a sufficient number of controls. If one can take, for example, one hundred people who are apparently in normal health, if there is such a thing and examine their stools periodically over a very long period and see what changes there were in the bowel flora the some information might be gained. Again it seems to me even although you can show in a disease case that there is variation in the bowel flora, the explanation of the disease does not lie so much in the changes of the flora, as in the conditions of the bowel which made those changes in the flora possible. That is to say, the patient is not ill because he has pathogenic organisms, but the pathogenic organism are there because he is ill.
Then I would like to know whether in the course of treatment of a case when one gets the peculiar phenomenon of the cropping up of old complaints; whether that cropping up is associated with changes in the bowel flora. I would like to try some of these but unfortunately it means that one must be prepared to accept the statement that these particular nosodes have a particular pathogenesis just like our drugs. I would like more evidence before I decided that one would have to submit stools to a bacteriologist.
Dr. MITCHELL :… I am not very clear about Morgan Co. Does it include Morgan and Bach, or is if a separate nosode?
Dr. MASON : One or two things have come into my mind… I wondered if Dr. Paterson had done any work on the relationship of vitamin B in the bowel and non -lactose fermenting organism.
Dr. ROSS :… About the practical side of nosodes. I do assure Dr. Julian and any others who have similar doubts that these preparations called nosodes do act. In fact I think they are very powerful. I suggest that they be given a chance. So often one turns to a think like the bowel nosode when the remedies previously given have a failed to cure. It may be that there is a complication of drugs still working in the patient’s body. The time may not be opportune for giving a nosode and then one is disappointed. I have found this pretty frequently, but I have seen good results when the nosode was given in a clear field.
As to the different sub-types I cannot assure myself that these special types are necessary. They may well be. I am not in a position to say. I do agree that the nosode made from the Dysentery group is something quite distinct from the others. It is one of my favorite remedies and I have used it for twenty years and I would not be without it. It is a magnificent remedy. If Dr. Paterson could give us a little precis of all the details of Dysentery Co. it would be very valuable;e. I am not certain that when B. Gaertner or prates are found the Dysentery would not act. It is possible that they are similar enough.
Dr. BOYD : I am quite convinced that the general nosodes as supplied, i.e. the Morgan Co., morgan (pure) and so on which have been produced, I believe, by collecting a large number of culture of the particular type and then by the potency eventually being made from these, are of much greater value than what I would call auto-nosodes. My reason is that taking it for what it is worth I have noticed repeatedly that if a culture is made when a patient is under the influence of a remedy, the auto-nosode has no permanent or continues effect at all and I am almost dogmatic on it as I have come across it in so many cases. If the patient is under the influence of a remedy I find that the dose of the auto-nosode is merely antidotal. It is far better to get a culture potentized, give it, wait so long and then a second culture and tincture from it is much more likely to give effect. The auto-nosode very from day to day according to the state of the patient and therefore potencies from them are not apt to be such general use as the general nosode.
Dr. PATERSON in reply said he wished to thank all the speakers who had taken part in the discussion and would try to answer the question raised seriatim.
Dr. Briggs called attention to the sudden appearance of a 100 per cent. phase of non-lactose organisms in the stool which went back to negative in three days. That is one of the points where it is essential that should be some collaboration between clinician and bacteriologist. The explanation would probably be found by noting the remedies given beforehand, observing the possibility of a latent period between the giving of a remedy and appearance of this non-lactose phase. Previous observations would suggest that there is more or less definite latent period.
Dr. Julian… asks what control has been carried out in “normal” individuals ascertain what changes take place in a person in “ordinary health”. That he would answer by putting another question, where is one to find “normal” or “healthy ” persons? Having put the question, however, he would at the same time say that a routine examination of presumably healthy persons would be a great advantage in assessing the changes found to occur in the unhealthy.
Until he had… evidence, Dr., Julian was reluctant to use the bowel nosodes, but surely he does not hesitated to use such a valuable nosode as Tuberculinum, which, like many of the other generally used nosodes has its “pathogenesis” built up more from clinical observations on the sick person than by experiments on the healthy human. (Dr. Burnett did record the effects of 30c Tuberculinum upon himself.) Clinical proving have usually preceded and determined subsequent “provings on the healthy human
John Paterson was President of International Homeopathic Medical League in 1939.
John Paterson wrote The Bowel Nosodes, and he was responsible for introducing them into British homeopathy n the 1920s.