[Read before I.H.A., Bureau of Materia Medica, June 17, 1938].
I should like to discuss the remedy Ustilago maidis. This substance belongs to the order of Fungi. It is found growing on Indian corn or maize and is commonly called “corn-smut”. It belongs to the same natural order as ergot and has many symptoms analogous to those produced by Secale cornutum, especially in the female sexual sphere.
Ustilago appears as a dark grey or black fungus-like growth upon the ears of the corn. It has a moist feel and a not unpleasant, corn-like odor. I have seen it many times growing on “swear” corn. No doubt it appears also on “field” corn, though I cannot state this positively from personal observation. The tincture of Ustilago is prepared from the fresh, ripe fungus.
The remedy was first proved and introduced by Burt whose monograph related many of its clinical applications. It was also given a proving by Hoyne, a description of which appeared in the Transaction of the American Institute of Homoeopathy for 1872. These provings demon started that the drug had a definite affinity for the generative organs of both sexes, and especially for the left ovary and the uterus.
This action was suggested by the observation that pregnant animals feeding on smutty maize were quite likely to abort. Another observer noted that men and animals using infested corn for food sometimes lost hair and teeth, mules cast their hoofs, and hens laid shell-less eggs. It is implied in Clarkes Dictionary of the Materia Medica that these observations led to the actual proving of the drug.
Before describing any of the symptoms produced by Ustilago, I should like to relate the incident which occasioned my first use of this remedy. Less than three weeks ago I delivered a woman of her second child. She had been under my care for about eight weeks, having moved to Brattleboro from one of the larger New Hampshire cities. Her pregnancy had been perfectly normal up to the time of consulting me and remained so during the time she was under my care.
In short, she was one of those disgustingly healthy persons for whom there seemed to be no occasion to prescribe. This condition was most irksome to me, for if there is anything I dislike, it is not being able to give a remedy! In type she was large, obese brunette. Calm, serene and easy-going, she always had a smile for everyone and bore the vicissitudes of life with equanimity and fortitude. In keeping with this character she went eleven days over her “time”. Eventually, however, nature asserted herself and Mrs. R. came into labor one morning about four oclock.
I saw her at six thirty and made an examination which revealed a cephalic presentation, R.O.A., the commonest and easiest position to deliver. The cervix was practically completely effaced, soft, and dilated to three and a half fingers. The membranes were unruptured. Since it had been previously determined that all her measurements were normal and that she had easily delivered in eight-pound first child, I congratulated myself on having a case that would be over and done with in the course of the next three hours.
Well, you all know the answer to that one! What I did not take into consideration was the character of the pains. These were irregular, both in rhythm and force, were felt in the lower abdomen, occasionally in the back, and did not produce what one might consider the usual amount of disease. I thought that the trip to the Hospital and the excitement of admission and preparation for delivery, even my presence and examination, had all caused the pains to subside.
So I elected to give Nature a “break”, and the patient an opportunity of adjusting herself to a new environment, by removing myself from the vicinity, which I did. On my return at one oclock in the afternoon, conditions being in status quo ante, I made another examination, only to find still more status quo ante. Now, one would suppose, after eight and one-half hours labor in a multipara who was, mechanically, at least, perfectly normal, that some progress would have been shown.
But no! So then it would appear that the problem was one of dynamics. Well, again, you know the answer to that the dynamised remedy. But what remedy? Well, I did not know the answer to that one; but Dr. Yingling did. The only symptoms of note we had to guide us were two: (1) deficient pains; (2) soft, pliable cervix. I found them in Yinglings Accoucheurs Manual under Ustilago.
Well, to shorten a story already too long, I gave the patient a single dose of the 200th potency of this remedy at one-twenty in the afternoon. In fifteen minutes her pains began to be vigorous and normal, and at 2:32 p.m. she presented us with a healthy, lively girl which weighed eight pounds, four and a quarter ounces.
Though Ustilago has produced symptoms in all parts of the body, by far the greater number are found in the female sexual sphere. This fact makes it preeminently a womans remedy. Lymphatic women with clear, white skin; tall, thin, fair women; and women of a nervous temperament are types in which the exhibition of the curative power of Ustilago is most successful. These individuals suffer from ovarian and uterine conditions in which there is much haemorrhages of a passive type accompanied by clots.
The left ovary is more typically affected than the right. Sharp, neuralgic pains are felt, sometimes intermittent, sometimes constant which pass rapidly down the legs. These pains are worse from motion, particularly walking; indeed, walking aggravates to such an extent as to cause limping. The left ovary is swollen, frequently to a size that can be palpated through the abdominal wall.
In the uterus there is constant aching distress referred to the cervix. The body is enlarged from passive congestion. The cervix not infrequently is seen to be hypertrophied and bleeds easily from touch. Another condition in the womb which requires Ustilago is prolapsus when there is menorrhagia.
The menstrual periods of Ustilago are accompanied by much ovarian irritation, intermittent pains in the uterus and back, scanty pale flow, and the passage of false membranes. Again, the menses may be too early and too profuse with dark, clotted, thin blood and a feeling as if everything would come from her. Sometimes the flow will continue until the next period and she will suffer much from constant pain under the left breast near the margin of the ribs. Menorrhagia which occurs at the climacteric is a frequent indication for this remedy.
The chief use for Ustilago during pregnancy is in abortion from uterine atony or where there is an habitual tendency to abort. The condition is accompanied by the characteristic bearing-down pains, as if everything would come from her, and haemorrhage of dark, clotted blood.
In labor the pains are deficient, being irregular in force, rhythm and duration. The cervix at the same time is soft and pliable and may show effacement and partial dilatation.
As may be inferred, Ustilago finds a place in the treatment of postpartum haemorrhage with the characteristic dark, clotted, thin blood. Occasionally there is constant flooding with the typical bearing-down pains and every few minutes the passage of a large bright-red clot.
Too profuse lochia of dark, almost black blood, accompanied by severe bearing-down, as if everything would come out, and a sensation as if the uterus were drawn into a knot, call for Ustilago.
Erotic fancies, seminal emission and an irresistible tendency to masturbate, with despondency and irritability, indicate this remedy in the male sexual sphere.
The foregoing paragraphs have indicated the fields in which Ustilago finds its greatest usefulness, yet it has a place in the treatment of symptoms arising in some of the other systems of the body.
In the sensorium there are frequent attacks of vertigo occurring at the climaxis and accompanied by too profuse and too frequent menstruation.
In the inner head there are frontal headaches as if the forehead would burst open, which is worse from walking. These headaches are frequently seen as a result of menstrual irregularities in atonic women.
In the outer head loss of hair is typical of Ustilago.
With respect to sight, things whirl before the eyes, with double vision. White specks suddenly appear to obscure the vision. The eyes twitch so violently that they seem to revolve in circles or dirt from object to object. Hot, congested feeling in the eyes, worse on closing the lids, is common, with aching and smarting in the eyeballs and lachrymation, in the open air.
There is a slimy, coppery taste in the mouth and profuse bitter saliva. The tongue has a pricking sensation and a feeling as if something were under its root pressing constantly upward.
In the larynx there is a feeling as if there were a lump behind the larynx which produces a constant inclination to swallow.
There is passive, venous haemorrhage from the stomach accompanied by nausea, the nausea ceasing when the haemorrhage stops. Ustilago produces sensations of goneness or faintness in the epigastrium with pain in the liver and bowels. Burning beneath the sternum and in the stomach or cutting pains in the stomach are complained of.
Allan D. Sutherland was born in Northfield, Vermont in 1897, delivered by the local homeopathic physician. The son of a Canadian Episcopalian minister, his father had arrived there to lead the local parish five years earlier and met his mother, who was the daughter of the president of the University of Norwich. Four years after Allan’s birth, ministerial work lead the family first to North Carolina and then to Connecticut a few years afterward.
Starting in 1920, Sutherland began his premedical studies and a year later, he began his medical education at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia.
Sutherland graduated in 1925 and went on to intern at both Children’s Homeopathic Hospital and St. Luke’s Homeopathic Hospital. He then was appointed the chief resident at Children’s. With the conclusion of his residency and 2 years of clinical experience under his belt, Sutherland opened his own practice in Philadelphia while retaining a position at Children’s in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.
In 1928, Sutherland decided to set up practice in Brattleboro.