THE CANCER NOSODES
IT will have been noticed that in treating the cases detailed above I have largely used the cancer nosodes, and in nearly all the instances they were nosodes prepared for Dr. Burnett. Dr Burnett was not the first to use them, but we owe to him a very large extension of our knowledge of their uses.
Dr. Burnett found it advisable to provide himself with a large number of different preparations of cancer and other nosodes, every one of which covered different areas in the outlying field, though all were centrally alike. To those preparations he gave different names, and I have been able in a measure to find out their differences, though he left no written record of them. Indeed, he was in the investigation stage at the time of his lamented death. Had he lived he would doubtless have given the knowledge to the world; as it is, we must find it out for ourselves. And the way is not so difficult, since he has pointed it out. Thus, in building up a pathogenesis of any nosode, we have in the first place the
(1) Symptoms of the disease.
Here, as in the case of other remedies, it is the peculiar, striking and characteristic symptoms which count the most. For instance, the general indication for Syphilinum is the sunset to sunrise aggravation-which also, by the way, is a general indication for Mercurius and Aurum, the leading anti syphilitics in the mineral world.
Next we have
(2) The proving of the nosode in the potencies.
This is of a very high grade of importance, and one which Burnett would have been the very last to neglect. Burnett certainly proved the cancer nosodes in a fragmentary way on himself, but I am not aware of any records of these provings. The only symptom I know that they definitely produced in him was the deathly sinking sensation, after the kind of the anti- psorics, but not confined to any special hours of the day or night.
The disease-symptoms and the provings, either singly or combined, give us a starting-point for the use of these remedies in practice, and this brings me to the third most fruitful source of indications-
(3) Clinical experience.
Indications derived from clinical experience are of two kinds: (1) cured symptoms; and (2) produced symptoms.
Dr Burnett obtained his nosodes from different source, and gave them different names.
Those which I know most about are the following:- 1. Scirrhinum.
2. Carcinosin.
3. Durum.
4. Karkinosin.
These four are all, I have no doubt, variants of the same nosode-hard cancer.
5. Masto-haematin.
6. Dextro-masto-haematin.
These are, I infer, from bleeding cancers of the breast, the latter of the right breast.
7. Mamillin.
Probably from Paget’s disease of the nipple.
8. Sarcomin and
9. Sarcothoracin
-are sufficiently defined by their names, as are also.
10. Epitheliomin and
11. Epitheliomin-syphiliticum.
We have thus eleven different nosodes of malignant disease used by Burnett.
In addition to Burnett’s nosodes I may mention another which I used on my own account some seven or eight years ago. I was treating a case of rodent ulcer of the nose, and from the crusts which formed I had a preparation made which I named Rodulcerin. I cannot say definitely that it had an effect on the patient say definitely that it had any effect on the patient herself, as she had so many other troubles besides the rodent ulcer that I was compelled to treat at the same time mucous colitis and attacks of spasmodic bronchitis among the number-that I never could be sure enough of the action of any remedy on the nose of the action of any remedy on the nose to make a definite observation on the point. The lady lived a good distance from town, so that my treatment was mostly by correspondence. It was after I had been treating the other troubles for some time that I heard the nose was perfectly well! I may say she had taken expert advice about it on the urgent persuasion of friends and had been advised to submit to operation. She preferred to remain under my treatment. homoeopathy does not treat diseases by mane, but treats individuals constitutionally.
The most urgent symptoms demand the first consideration. If the law is faithfully followed, it will take care of conditions that are less urgent and cure more than is directly aimed at, as it did in this case.
