The saying of Duparcque which stands at the head of this, pithily puts the whole question; the thing has not changed, c’est alors comme alors.
This I will dwell upon very briefly now, and at the same time bear the very highest testimony to the virtues of Cholesterine in cancer of the liver.
On January 30th, 1889, an American gentleman, confessing to sixty-five years of age, and on a visit to his daughter, married to an English clergyman in the north, was accompanied to my rooms by the said daughter, so ill was he that had I thereafter heard of his immediate demise I should have been not in the very least astonished.
The note taken at the time stands thus in my case book under the above date…. Thin, weak, debile; yellow conjunctivae, insomnia: very nervous and apprehensive.
Been treated for enlarged liver and had lots of calomel and chloral. His skin is tawny, cachectic. There is a swelling of the liver or of the pancreas- probably malignant disease of the left lobe of the liver. Always suffered from, dyspepsia. Been a great ocean traveller. “I am very fond of salt, and eat a great deal.” Is a practical teetotaler. Bones of the fingers very knobby He is a spring and fall ailer. Has lost a stone weight since November. Never been ill but ailing, and has taken much medicine: bromides and chloral, urethran. Very chilly. He is very ill. Urine normal. Has had ague, and been twice vaccinated.
I ordered him six grains of the third decimal trituration of Cholesterinum every four hours, and requested him to call in a few days. The married daughter demanded my candid opinion, and I said it was, in my judgment, cancer of the liver, when she informed me that that was the unanimous opinion of all their medical advisers the most trusted of whom were quite sure the lethal end was not far off.
That would also have been my opinion had I not seen Cholesterine bring back hope in several desperate cases of cancer of the liver. I therefore felt warranted in stating that I thought our remedies care fully and persistently applied might yet cure him. In a few days patient returned to me in company with his daughter, and I hardly like to say what the change was, so great was the amelioration. He looked vastly improved and walked firmly, and indeed already considered himself on the high road to recovery, almost wondering what all the fuss had been about.
When Mr. D. R. had retired, his daughter very anxiously said, “What do you think, now?” I said I had not altered my opinion; and that the improvement was due to the remedy and not natural recovery, and that the said improvement would have to be followed up with close scientific treatment which might, and indeed most likely would, result in a positive and direct art- cure. I also tried to explain that we had begun successfully and rapidly to deal with the product of the disease, and that done we could proceed to deal with the disposition thereto. I ordered patient to go on another few days with the prescription which I had given to him at first (Cholest.,) and then to report himself to me.
In about half an hour thereafter the daughter returned with her husband, and the latter almost flew at me in very rage. “What,” said he, “do you mean to tell me that my wife’s father has cancer?” “Yes.” “And that you are going to cure him?” “Yes. I think I shall, but I am not sure.” Here upon he raised his voice somewhat and repeated his questions so offensively that I turned away from him and he left. I have never seen or heard of any of them since; nor have I ever since seen the wife’s sister, Lady-, whom I cured in 1886 of a thickening of the Cardia, but Lady—- ‘s cure was a truly Hunterian one, and she has been quite well for long. I have been so often amazed at the insolence of ignorance that I not infrequently find it hard to beat with equanimity. Thus here I was positively insulted, essentially because I knew more on a given point than certain others, viz., that Cholesterine will at any rate curatively modify some cases that seem to be hepatic carcinosis.
Still, I think God and take comfort… they know not what they do.
People who are sick of some chronic disease and are given over to their fate by those who ought at least to have the courage of hopefulness, find not infrequently their greatest enemies in their nearest relations, who resent effort at cure. These Job’s comforters seem to regard determined efforts to cure their friends as personal insults.
This phenomenon I have observed so often that I have wondered what the explanation thereof might be: in ultimate analysis it would seem to be human vanity. They have pronounced the case hopeless, and therefore it is so and not otherwise.
Ubi morbus ibi remediune
This idea is very old, and clings to mankind with wonderful tenaciousness. On this is founded Ameke’s conception which, had he been spared would, I think, have resulted at least in the discovery of notable remedies for which clinical experience would subsequently have afforded fixed indications.
TUMOUR OF LIVER OF GREAT SIZE CURED BY Cholesterinum.
A country squire nearing seventy years of age came under my observation in the early part of 1889 for a very large tumour clearly connected with the left lobe of the liver. Patient was so ill that he reached town with difficulty, and became so weak that it was impossible for him to return.
Orthodoxy well represented had given him up and his profound adynamia and cachectic look warranted me in stating that I had but small hope. But he was a plucky fellow-a type of the British aristocrat (born to govern and fit therefore because living out of doors and not reading books- Beaconsfield ) and he was willing to obey to the letter.
I advised him to go to the Grand Hotel and quarter himself in the sunny front high up out of the dirt and din, and there abide. He did so, and very pleasant abode that is: the sun streaming in; the quiet; and yet the outlook upon the seething mass below, which keeps from stagnation.
A homoeopath for half a century he had boundless faith in Nux vomica, but I told him that I was sure Nux would not cure him, and as this visibly depressed him, I said I would give him my medicine, but in alternation with it he should have his Nux. Hence this was given in alternation with Cholesterine. The tumour slowly disappeared, the liver went down to the state it had been in for forty years, i.e., the left lobe somewhat bulging, and patient returned to his country seat in about two months, and ever since he is not, as a rule, conscious of possessing a liver at all, though once in a way he feels a little uneasy in the hepatic region. This I know, as patient has long been worried with vesical catarrh, and for this I am now treating him, keeping all the time a certain amount of attention directed to the hepatic region in case of any further explosion; for I do not imagine that the cure thus far is a truly Hunterian one.
True, the tumour is gone and may never recur, and the gentleman has a very healthy look; but, after all, the tumour is not itself the disease, but the disease-product.
I would not be understood to maintain that a tumour which thus goes from drug action on the ubi morbus ibi remedium idea must necessarily recur, but that it may But I will continue on this same subject in my next chapter.
At the time of going to press this gentleman continues well.
AMEKEAN TREATMENT OF HEPATIC TUMOURS; HEPATIC CANCER.
About five years ago, a gentleman of 67 or thereabouts came under my observation for a swelling under the right ribs that competent authorities had diagnosed as of a cancerous nature. It had come a good many months subsequent to an accident: a cab wheel having gone over the body at the part mentioned. He had been under a good West end homoeopathic physician who had agreed, after a close examination. to the diagnosis, and declared positively to the gentleman’s wife that he had no hope whatever of curing the case, and he thought it his duty to say so.
The whole thing was quite cured with the remedies in about a year; the most striking, palpable result being observed after the use of Cholesterine in different dilutions, though numerous remedies were needed as well, notably Carduus marioe p, Chelidonium majus p, Myrica cerifera 3x, Iodium 1, Kali bich. 5, and Nat, mur, t trit.
Five years have elapsed and there has been no recurrence of tumour, and during the whole of the five years the gentleman has only been away from his business for three weeks and that was to go to the seaside last August.
A few days since I saw his wife on her own account, when she reported him “quite well.”
This certainly looks like a Hunterian cure. I can now report on another and very similar case, as follows :-
ANOTHER Cholesterinum CASE.
Nearly six years ago, indeed a little longer, as it was early in the years 1876, I was required to treat a liver case almost exactly like the foregoing one. But patient was not much over fifty years of age then, and it arose primarily, it was thought, from adhesive peritonitis of long before. For years this gentlemen, a county man, had felt the jolting in a carriage at first uncomfortable, and latterly so painful that he had got into the habit of holding his hand against the swelled part to support it and prevent its feeling the effects of the shaking.
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.