The tinctures we most often use are: Sedum repens, Phytolacca, Scrofularia nosoda, Hydrastis (all cancers); Condurango, Ornithogalum, Conium (stomach); Conium, Bryonia (breast); Calendula (ulcerated cancers). I have not much experience with Sempervivum tectorum, Galium aparine, Symphytum, but we must not neglect them either.
II. ISOPATHIC METHODS AND SPECIFIC NOSODES.
For several years the tendency has been to discover distinctly in cancer as in other diseases, a specific treatment at the base of which are organisms or various extracts isolated from the cancerous tissues. This tendency is followed today, not only by homoeopaths but by other colleagues as well. They have been led in this direction themselves by a natural mental evolution. This has been in the direction of the general homoeopathic philosophy.
The remedies proposed in this fashion have been numerous. We shall attempt to give an almost complete list of them with some brief explanations of their fields and indications.
A. Specific Methods.
1. Homoeopathic potencies of cancerous fluids have been made for a long time: Epitheliomine (extract of epithelioma), Scirrhinum (extract of scirrhus), Carcinosine (extract of any cancer). The results obtained have been inconstant and variable.
2. More interesting is the work of Cachis of Barcelona, who has studied this question a great deal and who used Cancero toxin administered according to a special scale of potencies or again Pan-Cancro (we shall be very thankful to Dr. Cahis [Dr. Cahis died recently.- S.A.K.] if he would be willing, providing his health permits, to send us some articles of his Homoeopathic Testament with his very original reflections and explanations of his method).
3. Attempts have been made to isolate one or more cancer organisms and to prescribe them in homoeopathic dilutions. That the isolated organisms may perhaps be only witnesses or saprophytes or profiteers in the tumor, rather than its deep and real cause, is not the question. It is not less true than in certain case products of this kind show themselves to be efficacious.
It is to M. Nebel that we owe our Micrococcin (Doyens Micrococcus in the 30th, 200th and higher) and to Joseph Roy his Oscillococcin. The latter often acts with great benefit in those predisposed to cancer but it is dangerous and can aggravate the confirmed cancer cases, even according to the author. On the other hand, Micrococcin has often a really beneficial action, if not durable, at least temporary and distinct, on the weight and general condition.
The optimal potency would seem to be the 200th. It is not necessary to repeat it more often than once every two or three months. Before that the patient ought to be well drained. He ought to receive regularly also at ten, fifteen or twenty day intervals his constitutional remedy.
4. Dr. Nebel uses especially in cancer potencies of his Onkomyxa (preferably the 4th, subcutaneously). One can learn through the book he has published on this subject the gist of his thoughts on this subject.
5. The employment of potencies of blood in cancer or pre-cancer cases has been thought of: following Roger, Dr. Joseph Roy, the first in France, used individual blood isotherapy. J. Roy has now abandoned this practice, finding it dangerous and of only transient action. In my opinion the truth is perhaps here in a golden mean; believe neither in a marvellous therapeutic action of a miraculous panacea nor in the converse. It is certain that one ought to be very cautious about using potencies of blood from cancer cases. Aggravations are to be feared. We have also been witnesses, however, to beautiful ameliorations.
It would be necessary to be able to isolate from the blood the really homoeopathic principle which is capable of curative action; a principle which ought to be restrained, neutralized unfortunately by other substances, other forces. Clinical experience is the only method capable of judging the results of this method and not, in our opinion, philosophical concepts, which were conceived a prior. Since then J. Roy has preferred to use isotherapy of young and healthy blood, of which we have no personal experience. Now it would seem to veer more towards organotherapy. In the same sense, Guild has previously used serum-vaccines with variable results.
6. Rubens Duval had the idea of using globulin extracts from cancers. This is his proteinotherapy described by himself in this revue. His results are very encouraging and impressive and the indicated dilutions are distinctly homoeopathic.
7. Following many authors, Cuvier and Carrere have recently reattacked the question of treatment with tumor extracts and have some very interesting results.
B. Non-Specific Nosodes.
1. Psorinum is often used by homoeopaths in he cancerous or the precancerous as a constitutional remedy.
2. In England, Bach and Dishington have used their nosodes taken from cultures of intestinal organisms which are nonlactose fermenters; Gaertner, Morgan, Dysentericus, Proteus, are proposed. Here are their indications:.
In carcinoma: Morgan and Dysentericus.
In sarcoma: Morgan and Gaertner.
The Gaertner bacillus appears to act clearly on the indurated tumors, especially abdominals, when the stool analysis reveals the presence of this organism. The 30th is the preferable potency.
In other cancer cases, Proteus has seemed to be much indicated. We have not had much experience in France these remedies; the organisms they individualize are, besides, only rarely met with in the intestines of our compatriots outside of cases of bacillary dysentery.
3. Schlegel of Tubingen often uses Tuberculinum and Syphilinum in the cancerous. Cooper also used Tuberculinum. In a similar fashion, depending on the etiology or terrain, Medorrhinum (gonorrhoeal nosode) has been prescribed, or Malandrinum (glanders nosode; Cooper indicated it in cancer).
4. Starting from philosophical and metaphysical ideas, Rudolf Steiner noted that the misletoe (Viscum album) ought to be a real specific remedy in cancer. That is why the Anthroposophists, including Kaelin, use different kinds of mistletoe for the cancerous. The results obtained should be extremely encouraging. The blood of the patient is gradually diluted in glass cylinders and rises up a length of filter paper; at the height of its ascent he describes special figures which determine whether or not cancer exists and also its factor of gravity.
Potencies of mistletoe are capable of modifying these results in the sense of reestablishing the natural formula. One employs dilutions 50/100 of the plant from 1 to 28 in progressively increasing doses, which is the converse of classical homoeopathy. We only know the action of Viscum album in renal sclerosis and Brights disease with hypertension. It would be necessary to take up again Kaelins experience. I had the honor of assisting at this work at Arlesheim in 1929 and it appeared very interesting to me. Reports of this appeared in the revue Natura.
CONCLUSION.
How are cancer cases to be treated at the present time? Let us briefly indicate how a modern homoeopath can and ought to treat a cancer patient each time medical treatment is necessary or only possible.
1. The Precancerous State: One ought systematically to search for the existence of a tendency to cancer in every subject over forty years. Were there any cancer cases in the parents or family? This is very important as this has been demonstrated in the systematic examination we never fail to make.
Was there syphilis or gonorrhoea, or repeated vaccinations or even a former psoric, tuberculinique or tuberculous state? All these morbid manifestations appear often in different degrees; the first two especially predispose to malignancy. Do there exist certain signs of the precancerous state such as yellow spots on the skin, naevi (signs of Thuja), or again, a disturbed mental state through the morbid fear of cancer?
Truthfully, these symptoms have but a reduced value because of their frequency, or better still, we must consider all patients today as being precancerous if they are matured. Cancer is at most a precipice which all ought compulsorily to scale at a certain time in life and into which the unfortunate rarely fall. In spite of all affirmations, unfortunately, cancer can very well appear even in subjects seriously or regularly followed. What is more important is to appreciate the general vitality of the subject.
We must fear cancer following a period of marked weakness, general or localized atony in the susceptible area which can present the feared tumor, hepatic insufficiency with induration and swelling of the liver, changes in the attitude and appearance of the patient who stoops, whose complexion becomes wan, the facial lines drawn. One may fear in abdominal cancer coming with excessive and stubborn distension of the abdomen, with loss of elasticity and resistance of the tissues to palpation and modifications of the percussion note.
But all this constitutes more a vague picture which leads the mind intuitively towards the hypothesis of the menace of cancer rather than by a logical and sure reasoning. That is why, in our opinion, one of the best signs is simply the wasting. Let us fear the progressive and inexplicable loss of weight in every subject between the ages of forty and fifty, and older. That indicates a general intoxication, prelude of a palpable and visible tumor. What we call the precancerous state includes, in large part besides, the still microscopic existence of the tumor in the form of some few degenerated cells.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.