Intravenous injections of sodium arsenite in the dog cause a reduction in the whole blood alkali reserve often with a slight hyperglycemia.”-J.A.M.A.
This fact is of interest and may be of value of us homoeopaths in the future, when drug proving advances along modern lines of scientific thought. It will always be true that patients, and no diseases or diagnostic entities, are to be prescribed for. Subjective symptomatology will always be our most important guide in the search for the similimum; nevertheless, drug proving upon humans, which takes into consideration such modern methods as blood chemistry, for examples, will greatly facilitate our therapeutic efforts, if we wisely supplement the subjective with the objective. Furthermore, “objective” proving will explain many peculiar subjective phenomena which we cannot at present explain and which we take on faith, as it were.
To know the pathology or perverted physiology behind a given symptom, would strengthen our reliance upon the dependability of that symptom. Why, for example, does cold ameliorate the symptoms in one case and aggravate those of another? What happens when a skin eruption is produced or removed by a remedy; why does a wart appear and what makes it disappear under the action of Causticum, Nitric acid, Thuja or some other remedy? To say that such appearance or disappearance is due to the inscrutable activity of the vital force is not doubt true, but is the same time unsatisfactory, because it does not explain the physiologic or pathologic process. What actually happens and why does such change occur? What activates it, both in disease and in drugs?.
Undoubtedly there are many partially expressed cases in which objective symptoms are more pronounced than subjective ones, or where pathologic change is altogether predominant. Can any thing be done for such cases, from the purely homoeopathic standpoint, or are thy all incurable from this same standpoint? How far must pathology prevail to render a case homoeopathically incurable? There are many of us who are groping in the darkness of therapeutic ignorance, who would like to know the reasons, the whys and wherefores.
Drug proving, earnestly engaged in with these questions in mind and supplemented by a study of industrial poisonings, as well as judicious animal experimentation, will go a very long way to clear up existing doubts and to increase our power for good. Furthermore, in an age in which cold reasoning from hard facts, is the rule, it will do more than anything else to attract the best minds to the study of homoeopathy. We must combine the philosophy of homoeopathy with modern concepts and thought, we must explain it in modern scientific terminology; we cannot forever drift along, upon the consecrated raft of blind devotion to a glorious, yet uncompleted past.
Senega.- Snake-root.- We probably do not use this medicine as often as we should and by our neglect, miss its great advantage in a number of important diseases. Senega comes down to us from the Indians of New York Stake, who used it as an antidote to the bite of the rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus). But the provings and clinical experience have shown a very much wider field of usefulness. Pierce, in his “Pain Talks on Materia Medica with comparisons,” gives a good practical account of it; Nash, in his “Leaders,” says comparatively little, but what he says is of much aid and value.
Allens “Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica” gives some ten or more pages to the proving of Senega and among the numerous symptoms recorded are many of great importance. For example, among the eye symptoms we find, “Weakness of sight and flickering before the eyes when reading, obliging me to wipe them often, but which were aggravated thereby.” Also, “When walking toward the setting sun he seemed to see another smaller sun hover below the other, assuming a somewhat oval shape, when looking down, DISAPPEARING ON BENDING THE HEAD BACKWARDS AND ON CLOSING THE EYES.” “Flickering and running together of letters when reading.” These symptoms are supposedly suggestive of hyperphoria, a condition in which Senega has been of signal benefit.
“Paralytic feeling in the left half of the face” is suggestive and may be helpful in facial nerve conditions. Ptosis of the upper eyelid is found under the remedy, with paralysis of the left oculomotor nerve and of the recti muscles. In short, the symptoms of Senega as related to the eyes will repay careful study.
Throat, stomach and urinary symptoms are numerous, “diminished secretion of urine” is noted in the proving.
The respiratory organs present many symptoms of importance and it is here that Senega has a wide range of usefulness.
Thus we read “an irritation in the larynx inducing a short hacking cough”; organs of blood and oppression of the chest, with flushes of heat in the face, and ad frequent pulse, in the afternoon.” “Aching pain in the chest”; burning pains, compressive pains, stitches, etc., are all spoken of by the provers. “Cough with expectoration of tenacious mucus,” also “expectoration of white mucus, which is easily loosened by a little hawking,” are further symptoms, likewise “burning sensation under the sternum extending as far as the back”.
Clinically we have found this remedy of much use in bronchial affections of older people, with a loose rattling cough, as though much mucus filled the chest, but which it is difficult to raise. By way of comparison we think of Antimonium tartaricum, Ammoniacum gummi, Ipecac and Kali carb., but these remedies are easily differentiated by their concomitant symptoms.
In Senega we find that the cough is worse in the open air; during sneezing there is a sore pain in the chest and the chest is sore to touch. During cough there are stitches in the left half of the chest. The remedy has great debility, restless sleep and relief of many symptoms by perspiration, which is often profuse. Profuse diaphoresis is in fact a symptom produced by Senega, but one which is, unfortunately, missing in Kents Repertory.
We recently head occasion to prescribe Senega 200, in a case of subacute bronchitis, in a man of fifty-six years, who complained of a constrictive sensation in the chest, worse when lying on that side, loose cough and great debility. His breathing was labored and of the asthmatic type, on exertion. The remedy brought very prompt relief. The proving, however, speaks of pains in the left side of the chest, more particularly. Unquestionably the remedy needs verification of its symptoms through wider clinical experience, as well as through wider clinical experience, as well as through reproving. Farrington states that Senega acts best in fat persons of lax fibre. Our own experience bears out the correctness of his observation.
Jahrs “Symptomen-Codex” gives an excellent account of the remedy and among the chest symptoms, we find, “When sneezing, the experiences an extremely violent sore pain in the chest as if it would fly to pieces, although the sneezing does him good and relieves the chest.” Jahr speaks of an increased secretion of mucus in the lungs after inflammatory or catarrhal affections.
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.