In the more acute conditions that come to the attention of the majority of physicians, I agree that we have the wherewithal in our materia medica to treat successfully practically all of them. The difficulty in selecting the remedy seems to be in finding the peculiar characteristic or key-note symptom in nervous diseases, and herein, of course, lies the test of the skill of the homoeopathic prescriber; that is, taking an accurate case history, for an accurate and thorough case will naturally spell out the remedy.
Personally I see no difference in the application of homoeopathy to mental and nervous disease than to any other kind of disease, for when all is said and done we are treating a sick individual as a whole and not any particular nosological entity. When we come to the realm of the psychoneuroses, psychotherapy may be of primary importance, and when a cure is obtained one is sometimes left in doubt as to whether the credit is due to the remedy selected or the removal of doubts, fears and obsessions by persuasion, suggestion and positive assertion on the part of the physician. I know they both work.
For this reason I would urge every homoeopathic physician to endeavor to allow the psychoneurotic patient to tell his story; maintain an impersonal attitude, do not interrupt, interfere with, criticize or give the patient the idea that you are in any way sitting in judgment on him. Remember the nervous patient is abnormally sensitive to his inner psychic tensions, and may be as sensitive to some causal remark of yours as a man with a boil on the back of his neck might be to a light touch of the finger in the region of the boil. Let him have his say, and when the more or less inconsequential smoke and steam have blown away a clear picture for a prescription may be seen in the smoldering embers.
For example, one of my patients would come to the office in a depressed state, weeping and declaring that her condition was absolutely hopeless and that she would never be well. She knew that she was going to lose her mind, was greatly concerned because of her inability to concentrate her attention. She felt her memory was becoming worse as time went on. She was unable to carry on her work as a school teacher because mental effort made her confused. She states that she had lost all interest in her work.
She complained of aches and pains in various parts of her body. She was unable to sleep and always got up more tired in the morning than when she went to bed. She was very dissatisfied with her environment, thought that people around her were beneath her. She had formerly been a very capable woman, but now had a positive aversion to her work. She was having considerable menstrual difficulty and was fearful that she had cancer or some other serious condition in her pelvis. She was very voluble, would keep up an almost constant stream of talk, would talk and wring her hands and cry all at the same time.
She was quite suspicious and full of doubts as to whether I or anyone else could understand her condition. I prescribed various remedies that seemed to be indicated, but was making no real progress until one day she remarked that her feet felt so cold and numb at night; that she felt as if they were almost dead and when she took off her stockings they were always damp.
Then the light broke. I thought I had taken her case carefully, but I had not, because it was only the incidental remark about her cold clammy feet that was the essential key-note symptom that I had not obtained by questioning. I looked up Calcarea carb. and there was the lady as clear-cut as a cameo portrait, but I could not see her through the smoke of many of her neurotic manifestations. Calcarea carb. cured the case completely.
Another case, a young man about 21 years of age. About three weeks ago he said he had a cold and his doctor called it the flu.” Said he thought he had gotten over the actual cold, but still felt depressed. A week ago last Monday he felt dizzy, became very nervous and fearful and tremulous all over. He had a slight sore throat and was convinced that he had a streptococcic sore throat. He saw his doctor who assured him that there was nothing the matter with him, and then he became quite certain that he had pneumonia and thought that he was in danger of dying.
He again went to see his doctor, who took his temperature and again assured him that there was no foundation for his fear that he had pneumonia. His apprehensiveness still remained; said it was a very distressing fear of the unknown that something terrible might happen to him, thought he might possibly even lose his mind. He had a peculiar quivering in the pit of his stomach, his appetite was poor and he was slightly nauseated, and his bowels became quite loose.
He mental state was such that he consulted a professor of psychology at his university, who told him that his trouble was due to certain complexes and that he needed a thorough psychological house-cleaning; advised him to see a psychiatrist and undergo a psychoanalysis.
He informed him that he would require from two to four seances him that he would require from two to four seances a week with a psychiatrist, and to be prepared to undergo this psycho-analytical treatment for about six, months, and he should be prepared to spend considerable money for his treatment. He talked the matter over with his physician, who is a surgeon, and admitted to me he was as much bewildered with the case as the patient himself.
The young man was referred to me day before yesterday. I allowed him to go ahead and talk freely, and he disclosed many symptoms, but through the maze of them the outline of Gelsemium could be discerned. I gave him all the assurance I could in an endeavor to calm his fears, and then gave him a little Gelsemium and told him to take it four or five times during the day.
The next day, that was yesterday, almost all of his symptoms had disappeared. He called me on the phone about 9 oclock last night and stated that he had been free of most of his symptoms the greater part of the day and did not see the need for taking more medicine, but after dinner he felt nervous and tremulous. I told him to take another dose of the medicine.
Today he came into my office whilst I was in the throes of penning this ponderous epistle; he was almost entirely free of his symptoms. Said he had a awakened about 5 oclock this morning and had dozed off to sleep again and them awoke about 8 oclock with a slight headache and an unpleasant taste in his mouth. Later in the morning he was constipated. His appetite for breakfast was poor and he felt slightly nauseated. I thought it looked like Nux and so prescribed.
Had I not had the sheet-anchor of homoeopathy to tie up to, I no doubt would have wallowed around in a sea of doubt dragging the patient around with me. The point I wish to make here, of course, is that there was no need to prescribe the sedatives as is almost invariably done with the old school; neither was the patient subjected to a long expensive siege of psychoanalysis. In my opinion a psychoneurosis was nipped in the bud by homoeopathic treatment.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men which if taken at the flood leads on to fortune; neglected, all the voyage of our lives is spent in shallows and and in miseries.” This might well be restated as follows: There is a remedy for the diseases of men which if taken according to the laws of homoeopathy leads back to health; omitted, all the rest of our lives is spent in complaining and in doctors offices.
