Spigelia. Pain in heart < lying L. side, can lie only on the right. Pericarditis three cases; KENT–p. 850 (must know diagnosis). Pain constant as well as < various modalities, size of ones hand, suggests diagnosis !.
Thuja. (1) Involuntary urination in the daytime only, on walking or in a bus. Not at night. Quick relief. Ferrum also has this symptom. This in an old man with no prostatic symptoms. Never had any trouble that way before.
(2) Pain in the bladder extending to the tip of the penis. This is Thuja but also frequently it is stone in the bladder. One case which I missed had the stone removed elsewhere. The next case I got with the symptoms (both had had their prostates removed about a year before) I had X-rayed immediately, with the report “large stone in bladder”. I thought, “This will make up for my first failure”, but he was having no more operations. So Thuja he has had, but as yet without relief.
(3) Foul-tasting expectoration < after eating; KENT–p. 815. So foul that cancer had to be suspected. X-ray negative, bacteriology negative. Thuja covers both < eating and foul- tasting sputum, and cleared it up.
Tarentula hisp. Fidgety legs in bed at night. Gave great relief after failure of Zinc and Rhus in a chronic kidney case. This would seem to show cerebral irritation and not local circulatory disturbances.
It has been said by the critics that the homoeopath is as curious as the symptoms he deals in. Well, to be curious is to be “eager to learn”, “inquisitive” if you like, “minutely careful” and only in a very secondary sense “strange” apparently because “rare”. Need we a better epitaph ?.
But there are two aspects of this curiosity which I as a final word should like to emphasize. (1) To be curious as to the significance of our symptoms not only from a prescribing point of view-but, as I have tried to indicate, from that of diagnosis, etiology, physiology, and even pathology !.
A patient who suffers from severe migraines pointed out to me recently the relationship of Iris (so useful in such headaches) to the pancreas and gastro-intestinal tract. Here, then, is a lead to those interested in etiology of this most obscure subject, gained directly from symptomatology.
Or, reversing the process, “headaches on waking” according to recent authority are due to a toxic process. What more toxic than Lachesis, and that has the waking symptom in black type !.
An old deformed knee which X-rays cannot decide is T.B. or osteo-arthritic is much better in snow ! That I cannot find in the Repertory, though I have a hazy recollection of having seen it somewhere. But tuberculous conditions are better in cold dry weather, and that is a prominent symptom of Tuberculinum so to pathology and drug !.
Another aspect. Dr. Bodman some long time ago reported on the effect of the indicated remedy on hidden focal sepsis. These, e.g. an abscess at the root of a tooth become manifest, and so can be dealt with ! So from symptoms to drug and from drug to cure.
Medicine is full of mysteries. When my critic laughs at my emphasis on right to left and left to right movement, e.g. of pain in headache or throats, etc., and facetiously murmurs “Let not your right hand know what your left hand doeth”, I reply that I have you to hear his satisfactory description of what a headache is !.
I have a case with headaches (you may think I have all the headache cases in town) which is an example of headache “without headache”: all the premonitory signs, all the concomitants, but no pain except occasionally when he stoops. In the words of a B.B.C. artist, it makes you think ! I am not without hope that a deeper study of our symptomatology might help in solving many of these mysteries and I murmur in my critics ear : “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy”. But finally (yes, really so) the critic will not depart without a gibe, maybe post hoc but not necessarily propter hoc when we relate a recovery under treatment.
“If two events A and B occur repeatedly in the same order, experience teaches us to regard them as being of the nature of cause and effect but to establish this relationship with any degree of probability the observed recurrences must be numerous, must be without exception, and the identity of A and B in each observation must be clear.”.
This is the rule propounded by the late Mr. Wilfred Trotter, an observer of rare perception, discussing the fallacies of clinical observations.
One wonders how often this rigid rule is applied to orthodox results but, following the advice given, should we not take the opportunity of recording even our everyday cases showing the sequence of the same symptom complex and its result, so that we may have numbers and more numbers to show of homoeopathic simillimum and symptom complex. If we do not, we are neglecting a marvellous opportunity of accumulating a mass of material which when we are called on for evidence, as sooner or later we shall be, we will be well able to justify our position.
The President has stated unequivocally that, at the moment, we have little or no such evidence to offer as to the effect of the homoeopathic law.
Do we not trust too much to Hahnemann and too little to ourselves ?.
So once again I would plead for cases and more cases, symptoms and more symptoms, not the same old ones warmed up but the record of your everyday work. With that in store and, we hope, the mustard gas results to fortify us, we should be able to face the future with equanimity. Without it, we are in danger not of, as in the old days, being ostracized, that was a compliment, but of being ignored, which is an insult !
DISCUSSION.
Sir JOHN WEIR said that he had thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Templetons paper. When he was asked to open the discussion he did not know what line Dr. Templeton was going to take, so that his notes were made during the meeting except a quotation from Kents Philosophy which said, “You cannot individualize unless you have that which characterizes, on which you must meditate.
You recognize something individual to the patient and not to the disease, and as the sole duty of the physician is to heal the sick, that peculiar thing will open the whole case to the remedy.” The drug selected should cover the characteristic symptoms of the disease but theoretically it should also cover any peculiar symptom manifested by the individual.
Dr. Templeton mentioned Sensation “as if– –” by Dr. H. A. Roberts, which was one of the most valuable and useful books he had come across. Roberts was one of the most painstaking men and could be relied upon for his references. In his foreword he gave the sources of his information as Herings Guiding Symptoms, Clarkes Dictionary, Allens Handbook, Allens Encyclopaedia and A. N. Shutzs New, Old and Forgotten Remedies. The only way to know its value was to try its suggestions in cases with curious symptoms.
He then related several cases with such peculiar symptoms. The symptom of “unable to pass stool in the presence of another person” was a very real thing, and Ambr. and Nat. mur. were suitable remedies. He thought he had mentioned a case of a sailor with severe dysentery who had been sent to hospital in the last war. His peculiar symptom was that he could only pass urine when sitting or leaning backwards. This suggested Zinc which also had his dysenteric symptoms. This remedy quickly proved curative to the surprise of everyone.
Dr. Templeton had mentioned the involuntary stool of Aloes, but he (the speaker) thought even more striking was the involuntary formed stool in bed. A symptom which had always interested him was that of the receding stool of Silica and Opium.
In a recent case of confusional insanity the chief symptoms were “suspicion that her food was poisoned” so that she had to be forcibly fed, together with marked jealousy of her sisters and loquacity–all suggestive of Lachesis.
Then there was “thirstlessness during fever” which was a peculiar symptom and this indicated amongst others, Apis, Cina, Gelsemium or Sepia. When rheumatic patients “prayed for rain” one thought of Asar., Bry., Caust., Hepar., Kali carb., Medorrhinum, and Nux vom. He remembered a little dirty-looking child with a greasy skin, whose one curious symptom was the constant washing of hands; if she touched the handle of the door when going out she had to return and wash her hands : Psorinum quickly cured.
Could the homoeopath not help the allopath in selecting the most suitable cases for gold injection treatment of rheumatoid arthritis ? It is found that patients who respond best to this form of therapy have many Aurum symptoms : great depression, much hyperaemia round the affected parts.
With regard to Carbo veg. he had already mentioned the case of the patient who was expected to die at any moment who so craved air that he had his head out of the window on a cold foggy November day. Carbo veg. 200, three doses four-hourly, enabled him to carry on for nearly a year.
Cannabis indica. A mental patient thought he was living in a huge place whereas he was in a very small room; was given Cannabis indica with good effect.
