During the earlier years of my professional career, in the year 1888, when I had been in the city of Murshidabad, I was requested, in the fore part of a chilly winter night, to visit a patient nearby. He was lying on a dirty, filthy bed, which was spread on straw in a small hut, thatched with straw and fenced round with the branches of bamboos. The hut was situated on the bank of the river Ganges. As he was a poor shopkeeper and badly off, a few creditors of the Shylock type surrounded him and pressed him hard to make a death-bed declaration, in order to liquidate his debts. He had been in miserable condition when attacked with broncho-pneumonia and other complications. He had no other property except a small grocer shop. My first duty was to free him from the clutches of his inexorable creditors; then I examined him to make a diagnosis and bring out the subjective and objective characteristic symptoms.
He was suffering from a dry, tickling cough, with tightness across the chest. The lower half of the right lung was especially affected; moist bubbling rales were heard; the pulse was small, weak and frequent. Cough < lying on the left side; thirst for large quantities of cold water, high fever-temperature above 104. Hoarseness and rattling breathing. As phosphorus covered the most of the symptoms, it was given in the third potency in lukewarm water, with directions to take it in small doses at intervals of two hours. In the morning his condition was much improved in some respects, but later on, between 1 to 2 P.M., he became restless, with burning pain over the whole body, insatiable thirst, fear of death, etc. Ars, alb 6th was given in small doses and he felt better after taking a few. Phosphorus was repeated at long intervals for mucous rales, white and tough sputa of sweet taste, morning and evening aggravation, etc.
The place was a malarious one and it seemed that he had some malarious taint. Later on his fever continued with tenacity, chill preceded by hunger and thirst; felt chilly on uncovering; red-hot face with cold hands; during the heat thirstlessness, desire to uncover, profuse sweat with thirst, perspiration during sleep, bitter taste, foul-smelling stool, red urine, weakness, ringing in the ears, etc. A few doses of china 6 were given with great relief. Fever gradually disappeared, lungs became cleared and he gained strength by and by. I was struck with the marvellous effects of the potentised homoeopathic remedies. Notwithstanding the fact that they had to combat or struggle hard against unfavourable circumstances and harmful drawbacks or exciting causes. I was then a low-potency man and so I did not use higher than the thirtieth potency.
It has been stated by some authors that the repetition of a lower potency of phosphorus may do harm and even endanger life in pneumonic states, instead of doing good. Indiscriminate repetition may do so, not only of the lower but of the higher potencies as well. In the treatment of this case I all along repeated Phosphorus 3 with discretion, without any ill-effect, rather the potency acted as favourably as possible under such adverse circumstances. In many cases I used the sixth potency and repeated it at suitable intervals, without any ill-effects; on the other hand I noted injurious effects on repeating the higher potencies.
I now use both the higher and lower potencies, considering the idiosyncrasy or susceptibility and especially the individuality of the patients. I use the higher when I am sure of the characteristic indications and when the reaction which is aroused by them may follow a favourable course and the low when I am dealing with pathological commonplace symptoms. In all cases I repeat with much caution, taking care of the changes for better or worse.
Case No. 2.-In 1896, one day as I was returning to my office, after taking my evening walk, I observed a number of men who were gossiping and one of them was chanting the spell peculiar to ghost charmers, in a little hut by the roadside. I stopped there and inquired what the matter was. They assured me that a woman, a milkmaid, was under the influence of a ghost or an evil spirit. The truth was this, that the woman was in a high fever and delirium, both eyes were congested, she was talking wildly, and trying to get up by force. It is the general belief among the illiterate people that if a woman is young and beautiful she is likely to come under the influence of evil spirits.
The diseases are, in their opinion, mere effects, the results of coming under the influence of demons. If they can, no matter how, hit the ghost, the disease will then depart of itself. I told them that I could give the patient a small quantity of charmed water, which might be effective in quieting her condition in a short time. I gave her a few doses of belladonna 30, in water, and directed her to take a little quantity of it at intervals of an hour or so. On taking a few doses of it she became quiet and fell asleep. Belladonna not only soothed her delirious condition, but put an end to the fever too. Ignorance and prejudice are the sources of many kinds of evil and cause suffering for a great many people.
Case No. 3.-A girl aged about eleven years had been suffering from chronic malarial fever, with enlarged spleen and liver. Her abdomen became large, hard and prominent and the limbs emaciated. She was constipated and the bowels did not move regularly. Stools were hard, knotty and blackish; aversion to bathing; tongue yellowish. Fever, intermittent type; chill commenced after 12 A.M., temperature during heat 102 or a few points more; burning of soles; desire for sweets; craving for food; face pale, sickly looking, redness of lips, itching eruptions between the fingers < at night in bed, could not stand for a long time, must sit down. As sulphur covered all the symptoms, a dose of the thirtieth potency was given dry on the tongue in the morning, during the intermission.
The bowels after a while began to move regularly. The color of the stool changed to nearly normal. The size of the enlarged spleen and abdomen began to diminish. Eruption and itching sensation disappeared. After a few days, owing to some irregularities, the fever relapsed < between 1 to 2 P.M. Thirst for a small quantity of water restlessness, burning heat, slight perspiration.
A dose of arsenic alb. 30 was given in the morning. Fever gradually disappeared. After a few days the groups of symptoms appeared to be thus; Constipation with ineffectual urging, stool like sheeps drug, temper irritable, quarreled with her brother and sister; generally thirstless, poor appetite. Nux vom. 30 was given, directing her to take it in the afternoon and to repeat it for three or four days. The bowels began to move regularly again. Spleen and liver were much reduced; the size of abdomen became nearly normal; no medicine was given for a few days. At last a dose of sulphur 30 was again required to complete the cure. The general health with bloom in the cheeks became normal again.
When I was a mere boy I used to suffer from malarial fever with enlarged spleen and liver. Then I had to depend upon the Ayurvedic system of treatment and sometimes empiricism as well. It used to take a long time for me to recover my health. But what a sigh of relief comes over me when similar cases are cured in a short time, and in a straightforward manner, on taking a few doses of a well-chosen homoeopathic remedy. What a contrast: On the one hand bitter and nauseating pills and decoctions, and on the other hand a few sugar of milk globules medicated with the indicated remedy and palatable to taste.
Case No. 4.-A student, aged about twenty-one, had a serious type of psoriasis, a scaly eruption from head to foot. At first sight, from a distance, it appeared as if it were a case of leprosy. Both eyes were congested and became red, ulceration on the head fever at 12 A.M., slight chill, temperature 103 to 104, burning sensation all through the limbs during the heat, desire to uncover, thirst for small quantities of water and often, no perspiration, burning, itching, dryness; tongue coated dirty yellow. He had been suffering from this disease for a long time. He was treated during its course by various systems, viz., Ayurvedic, Unani, empiric, hydropathy and, last but not the least, allopathic. The principal and the professor of an allopathic medical college made great for him.
They took his photograph and kept him in their hospital for a few months, treated him and the time with salves and ointments and gave him alterative nostrums internally too; in short, they spared to pains to make use of their humdrums, as much as they could, but could not bring about a cure. The eruption first appeared in a small spot on the right about buttock. From the beginning every means were taken to suppress it, but the attempts to do so utterly failed. On the contrary, each time after the application of suppressive measures, the eruption spread farther, until it covered by arsenic alb., I gave him a dose of the two-hundredth potency, dry on the tongue, in the morning. This checked the progress of the fever and eruption to a certain extent, but as it did not continue to improve a dose of the C.M. potency was given on the fourth day.
