E. Stahl speaks in his Dissertations most highly of Carduus in those inflammations of the chest which are accompanied by gall fevers, and it was from him that Rademacher first learned its use and never ceased to prize it, notably in blood spitting from liver and spleen engorgements. No remedy, he declares, in our whole drug store can compare to Carduus when there are stitches in the side with bloody expectoration. He recommends his readers to note well where the last trace of pain is felt as it dies away, as that is likely to be the primary seat of the real disease.
CASE OF JAUNDICE IN A NEWBORN BABE CURED BY Myrica Cerifera.
An able accoucheur attended a lady who bore a jaundiced babe; said he, “I cannot give that wee thing any medicine, so you has better send for your homoeopath (meaning me), as he can give some of his `pips’!” This was done and pilules of Myrica cerifera 3x (crushed into a powder and rubbed on the baby’s tongue) rapidly cured him, and he at once began to put on flesh, and has thriven ever since. Before taking the Myrica he was very weedy, thin, and leathery looking.
Myrica cerifera is one of the very valuable additions to our materia medica that have come to us from America. I have often used it in liver disease, notably in bad cases of jaundice, with striking success; it produces jaundice in the healthy pathogenetically, and is very searching in its action. It was the great American Samuel Thomson, the botanic practitioner, who brought it into notice. A pale green wax is obtained from its berries, and hence it is called ceriferus, or wax-bearing. Its powdered bark was Thomson’s “canker powder,” and he advised it in all discharges from the mucous surfaces, especially in leucorrhoea, dysentery, and nasal catarrh.
Dr. Leland Walker’s proving, as given in “Hale’s New Remedies,” shews an accurate picture of severe catarrhal jaundice; we are, therefore, on indisputably scientific ground when we prescribe Myrica for catarrhal jaundice. No wonder that the old American botanists practised with so much success. That Thomson was a close and accurate observer may be seen from the fact that he commends it to ” disengage the thick viscid secretions of the mucous membrane,” for we find Walker’s pathogenetic Myrica-catarrh was of the same viscid quality; he says: “throat and nasal organs filled with an offensive tenacious mucus.”
LEPTANDRA VIRGINICA
Is another valuable contribution from America, effecting the liver, mucous membrane, lungs, and pleura. Roughly, it is the mercury of the eclectics. It has never been a favorite of mine, simply because I have not needed it, in as much as it closely resembles Chelidonium in its effects. I once saw Dr. Reginald Jones, of Birkenhead, make a brilliant cure of a severe case of right-sided pneumonia with it its prompt, decisive, curative action was unmistakable.
In the lazy livers of city men, I have used Leptandrin 3 in six grain doses with great satisfaction to the patients.
SANGUINARIA CANADENSIS is, in truth, a liver medicine, but not primarily or principally so, and is too great a remedy to be mentioned only in passing.
PODOPHYLLUM PELTATUM is a great liver remedy, and has been greatly abused. Its use in “torpid liver” is not good practice, and has done much harm Its true scientific homoeopathic use is in diarrhoea from overflowing bile, with much irritation, and even inflammation of the gut. It once stood me in good stead in a case of diarrhoea that threatened to end fatally-at any rate the allopathic family adviser had informed the lady’s husband that he considered the patient would not recover, as nothing would check the diarrhoea, and the lady was seemingly sinking. I was telegraphed for and had to travel nearly 200 miles. On arriving, the family physician, although he had given the patient up as past recovery, declined to meet me because of my homoeopathic creed, and this although he professed to be a friend of the family, and only lived two doors off. The stools were foul smelling, hot, bilious, excoriating, and passed out of the anus in a constant dribble. The patient had become too weak to be raised or even adequately helped, and things had to be just left. I studied the case a short time, and finally decided upon Podophyllum 6. The next evening patient was convalescent, and I returned to town. The cure was complete and permanent. When the family physician had heard of my departure, he returned and very kindly watched the case for me, still giving my remedy. “Why,” said he, “Podophyllum is one of our allopathic medicines it is not a homoeopathic medicine at all; they have stolen it from us.”
The poor ignoramus still knows not that the use of the remedy, i.e., the principle on which it is used, is the point at issue.
It might be asked, why would this dapper medico not meet the writer over a supposedly dying patient, and would yet accept the more humble position of merely watching the case and giving my remedy after I had departed?
It was thus: He and another doctor in the place each considered himself the first man there; and if his rival had heard that he had met a homoeopathic practitioner in proper consultation, he would have been denounced for unprofessional conduct, and his status lowered in the eyes of dear Mrs. and Dr. Grundy. He declared to the family that he personally should have been delighted to have met me, but that he had to consider his own position.
Such is medical life here in England to-day. Still, for all that, Podophyllum6, humanly speaking, saved the lady’s life; and I, having done my duty, have therein my reward, and I thank God for the privilege.
In the debility from jaundice I have found Picric acid very helpful. I have commonly used it in the third dilution.
I have found the Brassica murialis, which Dr. Heath tells me should be called Diplotaxis tenuifolia, of good service in the lazy livers of relaxing climates, when patients feel as if they could scarcely crawl about from sheer goneness. It is homoeopathic to such, as I know from a fragmentary proving made by myself in 1874.
GALLSTONES.
In the treatment of gallstones we have to consider the attacks of gall colic and the treatment of the stones themselves when they lie in the gall bladder giving no one any trouble. I have treated gallstones and gallstone colic a good many times with hepatics of various kinds, and have found myself best in the painful attacks with Hydrastis Canadensis, originally given from a suggestion of Dr. Henry Thomas. A great many remedies stand in good repute for the treatment of this almost unique complaint. I have used as much as ten-drop doses of the strong tincture of Hydrastis, given every half-hour in very warm water, and known it to succeed in a few hours after everything had failed. In one case the patient had lain for 40 hours in terrible agony, unrelieved by any known thing. It is odd that people who have been taking Hydrastis, not infrequently think they have been taking Opium. After the attack of pain is over, it is best to set about curing the liver itself by a long course of homoeopathically indicated remedies, whose names are legion; for it must be manifest that gallstones are a secondary affection, due to a previous condition either of the liver or of the gall, or of the gall-bladder, or of the linings of the ducts. In some cases I have thought the whole state had started originally in catarrhal jaundice.
My own procedure I will exemplify by narrating a case in point at some length.
CASE OF GALLSTONES AND ORGANIC DISEASE OF LIVER.
A lady of fifty years of age came under my observation early in the year 1888 with a very muddy complexion, subicteric whites of the eyes. She suffered very much from acidity and also from vomiting.
She told me she had been a sufferer from her liver for many years; severe bilious headaches and dyspepsia. She had been mercurialized for her liver till all her teeth fell out and now her digestion had given in almost completely, and she had become so thin that her appearance was quite cachectic. She had got so frightened of anything bringing on her attacks of gall colic that she avoided almost every article of food.
Owing to her great emaciation and trim build I was able to make the diagnosis of gallstones from actually feeling them, a thing I am very rarely able to do myself. The region of the gall- bladder was, however, so tender that a very little feeling with my hands was as much as she could bear. I treated her for close upon two years, and then she was a plump, bonny woman, enjoying her life and dining out with her friends. Her skin had become comparatively healthy looking, though not as clear as a healthy English lady’s generally is.
I chose the remedies on homoeopathic indications, and here and there as Rademacher would have done; and, when I the last few times examined the region of the gall-bladder, I entirely failed to find any stones.
She had the following remedies seriatim, Ignatio amara 1x, Chelidonium 1x and p, Nux vomica 1x, Cholesterine 3x, Hydrastis Can. p, Thuja occ. 30, Sanguinaria Can. p, Carduus marioe p, and Bilirubin. 5. All these remedies did their portion of the good, and were given as they were indicated.
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.