CLINICAL EXPERIENCE AND HOMOEOPATHIC RESEARCH WITH THE MORGAN BACILLUS PURE


Much of the symptom complex has been observed in those children where the stool culture presented the Morgan bacillus and many of the confirmed symptoms have either been produced or are cured symptoms in healthy but susceptible human subjects augmented by clinical observations of the symptom complexes that they are capable of removing in the sick individual.


The non-lactose fermenting bacilli have been long observed as inhabitants of the intestine, but in bacteriological works no particular significance has been assigned to them, nor importance given to the pathogenic effects in man. The late Dr. Dishington of London I believe was the first to potentize most of these nosodes. Since then on Dr. John Paterson of Scotland has been diligently working with them; several years ago I obtained most of the non-lactose intestinal nosodes from London, trying when possible to get potencies of original preparations.

Since then I have been clinically proving these nosodes and developing clinical confirmations, and believe this new field of work has offered me much valuable information which I will pass on to the few loyal homoeopaths left to use them.

Hahnemann has said, “If the supposed seeker after truth is not willing to seek truth where it may be found; namely in experience, then he may leave it undiscovered.”

My seven years experience with these nosodes may be considered somewhat meager, but what I have done and offer to the profession is based upon fact.

It is in science more than any other human activity that men build on the foundations laid by their predecessors; this of course definitely applies to me. I have nothing original to offer; I am just building and adding more to a foundation laid out before me. The Morgan bacillus which I am going to discuss was prepared from culture of B. Morgan (pure) and is of course a polyvalent preparation.

Much of the symptom complex has been observed in those children where the stool culture presented the Morgan bacillus and many of the confirmed symptoms have either been produced or are cured symptoms in healthy but susceptible human subjects augmented by clinical observations of the symptom complexes that they are capable of removing in the sick individual.

The complete sickness image of each nosode should be portrayed and its curing possibilities thereby defined and bound into our materia medica : in this way we develop another good working tool.

The Morgan bacillus has great breadth of action and many applications in the treatment of sick children. B.Morgan has a selected action upon the skin and liver producing congestion and hyperaemia; and it often clears up obstinate cases where Sulphur seems indicated but does not finish the work or where there is deep internal venous stasis that the carbons do not entirely clear up, hence:

The keynote of B. Morgan seems to be the congestion action both internally and externally “Dr. John Paterson has suggested as the keynote of Morgan co. the word congestion” This has been clinically proven in several obstinate cases of moist eczema of infants which is caused by some allergy or some perverted functioning of the intestinal tract. The B. Morgan seems to reach those cases of skin lesions where the skin is red, raw and exudes freely a serous, watery fluid with intolerable itching causing incessant scratching which further lacerates the skin.

The careful homoeopath recalls the picture of such remedies: Graphites, Mezereum, Calcarea, Petroleum, Sulphur, etc.: or the nosodes Psorinum and Medorrhinum, each of these has extensive skin lesions in their pathogenesis and are within the group of remedies related to B. Morgan; but after careful, painstaking clinical study B.Morgan co. seems to have a much wider action than any individual member of the group and has cleared up that obstinate and unusual case where individual members of the above group of remedies have their failed or have given only partial relief and particularly where the Bacillus Morgan was found in the stool culture.

I feel I can confidently recommend B. Morgan to you as one of the curative remedies in the typical cases of moist infantile eczema.

The internal congestion produced by B. Morgan has given it a special place in the treatment of both bronchopneumonia and lobar pneumonia of childhood. In over forty-five years of hard, cold experience as chief of childrens hospitals, I have cured too many cases of pneumonia in infants and children to speak lightly of such valuable remedies as Phosphorus, Lycopodium, Antimony tart., Tuberculinum, Sulphur and many other remedies, but it is just in that critical case, where the apparently well chosen remedy does not seem to bring the expected result or when Sulphur does not arouse the vital reactive forces to work that this B. Morgan in a high potency will bring a favorable reaction.

As Dr. John Paterson has said, “Morgan Co. (pure) is a much more complex Sulphur compound with a greater width of action.” This action of B. Morgan pure in pneumonia I have personally confirmed. B. Morgan has removed superficial congestive swellings of the hands and feet where no definite pathology could account for it. I have cleared up the skin of a child where the face was red, coarse, with definite areas of redness like old hives.

Further work with this nosode I believe will add to our materia medica a useful remedy. As most of this work has been done on infants and children you will observe the symptoms are of necessity mostly objective in type. And may I again suggest its use in those cases of infantile moist eczemas that do not respond to the carefully selected homoeopathic remedy.

A few clinical abstracts from cases treated with the B. Morgan may help to evaluate the curative phase of the nosode.

A newborn infant about twelve days old presented a coarse, red and blotchy skin which was also quite yellow due to a persistent jaundice. This was rapidly cleared up in a few days with B. Morgan (pure) 30th.

Master B.F., twenty-two months old, a well nourished infant, has been treated for eczema since six month of age. According to the history of the case the lesions began on the head, face, and spread to the flexor surfaces of the upper and lower limbs being particularly worse at the bend of the joints; the history gave a few weeks remission at various times, particularly after mild x- ray therapy which was one of the many and various treatments he received. He has had obstinate constipation since birth.

When first seen at our hospital the skin of his face, arms and legs were covered with an extensive eczematous eruption with crusts and oozing of a serous bloody fluid. The skin was rough and highly inflamed. After the exhibition of Sulphur, Graphites, and local soothing applications there was no positives, relief, so I decided to try B. Morgan (pure) which was used in the 30th and 1,000th potencies.

At the end of two months I had a normal skin and also normal stools daily for the first time in the childs life history. This will give you some idea of the curative effects of this nosode. All I can ask is for you to put it to the test in suitable cases and publish your results to the profession. Only in this way can we establish its curative sphere.

DISCUSSION.

DR. GRIGGS: I am still working with these things and expect to keep on working. At some future date when I can handle older children better and get stool cultures, I am going to try to get a symptomatology, but there is the place for Morgan and Gaertner. This may not help much, but it may help you out in an unusual case where the ordinary remedy does not seem to finish up. DR. GRIMMER : I would like to ask Dr. Griggs where these potencies can be obtained.

DR. GRIGGS: Dr. Grimmer, I dont want to talk politics or anything about any firms, but I have had rebuffs in getting a lot of original stuff potentized. I have them at home. I am willing to send them to any man who will delegate himself as the agent and give them to you potentized from the original preparations.

I have the 30th and 1,000 and if Ehrhart & Karl will run it-

DR. GRIMMER (Interposing): They will do it.

DR. GRIGGS: — I will be very glad to have them do it, I have them in my possession from the 30th to the 1,000th and I have used them and gotten results.

DR. GRIMMER: Thank you, Doctor. I will send for them, and then I will have them run.

DR. GRIGGS: I am only me man, and I havent gotten cooperation.

DR. GRIMMER: Some of us will be able to do that.

DR. WOODBURY: Has anyone else put them out in London?

DR. GRIGGS: Try and get them.

DR. WOODBURY: I had some once.

DR. GRIGGS: Once, yes, but you havent since Hitler.

DR. WOODBURY: That is right. I forgot that.

DR. GRIGGS: Dont forget it. I have plenty of money in the mail for things that I havent received.

DR. GREEN : I would like to ask Dr. Griggs if he has made any treatment of asthma in children with the Morgan bacillus.

DR. GRIGGS: I have never used it in that way, Dr. Green.

DR. GREEN: I have had some experienced with it that way, and it has been splendid.

DR. GRIGGS: I will tell you that I have done, though. You know, I have a hospital which is a dumping ground for sick children, and I have had two or three severe cases of bronchial pneumonia, that type where we had to put them in an oxygen tent and where they had to be elevated to about 30 degrees, where there was that awful discharge and the whole chest filled particularly the right lobe, and so forth, which which pointed to Lycopodium. But Lycopodium didnt seem to hold the child.

William B. Griggs