Marion S., age 7 years, was taken ill and a doctor called, who diagnosed the case as rheumatism. During the second week another doctor was called in consultation, who said the child was very seriously ill and needed a trained nurse, who was then engaged and the treatment, as per accompanying records of the nurse, was continued. The little patient getting steadily worse, the same doctor was called again in consultation and the treatment continued as shown in the accompanying records of the trained nurse.
As the child did not improve, but became steadily worse, the mother asked the attending physician what he thought the prospects for the childs recovery were. He answered: “I am afraid your little girl is lost. I do not think she can survive many days, but if she lives, she will not live to see her fourteenth year”.
The mother then told him he need not call any more, for she would get another doctor, if she could get one take the case at this stage of the illness, at the eleventh hour.
On April 17, 1900, the mother called at my office, saying that she would like me to see the child, as she thought she was dying and that she had been sick for four weeks.
I promptly declined to do so, confessing my inability to restore the dying to life, adding that if I called and the patient died while, under my care, I would be blamed for her death by all who knew of the case, and very likely by her and by the father of the child as well.
But she assured me that they would not do any such thing, since she knew the child was dying, and pleaded so hard for me to see the child, that I finally consented and accompanied her to her home.
I found the patient with the pallor of death upon her face and large drops of cold sweat on her forehead, the body emaciated in the extreme, pulse very weak, rapid and irregular, and blowing sounds with each systole of the heart. I did not think she could live more than a day or two.
Seeing the accompanying records of the nurse, I asked her if I might take them home with me to look them over, and discover if possible an antidote to this great amount of so very powerful drugs, and was told I could take them and keep them, and I have kept them ever since.
I have kept no record of the case during my treatment, as it was an acute case where I had to call on the patient and as I did not think the child could survive long. But I remember very distinctly that I gave her Nux vomica 30th potency, as I found it to be the best general antidote to all the drugs she had been taking,and that it also corresponds to her present symptoms.She received five drops of Nux vom.30, in one-half glass of cold water, two teaspoonfuls of this solution every half hour.
I also told the parents and nurse that the child would seem very much worse and would suffer more pain, as the narcotics which she had taken were being antidoted, and as the nerves regained their normal activity and sensitiveness; but that they must give no more of these other drugs; nothing but the medicine I had prepared for her, if they wished the child to have any chance at all to recover, and to make sure that they would not give any more of the drugs still standing on the table near the patients bed, I ordered them all to be thrown away.
The first few days and nights after this she moaned and fairly screamed with pain, which reached its acme on the fourth night, but thereafter she became gradually more quiet, until on the seventh night she had her first night of natural, healthful sleep.
From this time on she improved steadily in health and strength, from day to day, under the administration of Belladonna, Calcarea carb., Pulsatilla and Silica given in the order named and as the symptoms called for them, but it required several months to restore the heart, which had well-nigh been ruined by the large doses of drugs, especially of Digitalis and Nitro-Glycerine, to its normal condition and action, and this was accomplished chiefly with Bryonia alba, Apis melifica, Lycopus virg.
She is now in good, normal health in the last year of her course at the Girls High School, a bright pupil, taller and weighing more than either of her parents, in her nineteenth year, a living and very willing witness to the truth of the fact as above presented.
Duration of action and antidotes of the principal Homoeopathic remedies.
Homeopathy : the only scientific and actually curative system of medicine.