Suppose it is a commercial organization, in so far as mighty financial interests sustain it, the results accruing from it could be made worthy of genuine support. With such important and reliable specifications at hand, the specialists of final importance, the man to cure the case, could begin to get in his real work with the patient. Stripped of all named disorders, just a disturbed and suffering organism assailed by many ephemeral and apparently no consequential sensations, unnoticed in the laboratory or on the examination table but which often spells out a code of help to the homoeopathic prescriber, how many problems would melt away under such a regime.
In conclusion I want to present three cases, not because of any special interest in the cases themselves but because each contains specific points for discussion.
Case one, shows that the old dictum, ” a case well taken is half prescribed for,” can be reversed into a case half taken is worse than not prescribed for. Mrs. A., middle-aged, rather rotund, and of a gouty diathesis, evidence by chalky deposits around finger joints, family history negative, has had gall bladder trouble in the past for which she was operated upon. Present symptoms — fatigue, can hardly endure her weakness and her pains; craves heat; is constantly sighing; has had a series of shocks in recent years, notably the loss of a favorite son in the late war; is very sensitive and high strung but constitutionally reticent and difficult to approach.
I gave her Ignatia which brought some relief but did not hold –a change of potency in a repeated prescription gave no better results. I now reassembled my data and at the third conference chose Nat. mur. Failure this time nettled me, and Mrs. A. and I got down to business, in other words I took her case because and I got down to business, in other words I took her case because I overcame her disinclination to talk and induced several important revelations, chief of which was the admission that so strong was her fear of growing stouter that she was living on a diet so low in caloric value that it would not nourish a half grown pup.
It took some eloquence but I finally convinced her that she could not run such a sizeable engine on such fuel, also that her disagreeable sensations were directly traceable to her abstenaciousness in the matter of food. I now gave Ignatia and with her cooperation, it worked the miracle, relief such as she had not known for years.
Case two is interesting because it indicates to my mind the fact that we do meet cases of so-called deficiency disease where the need may be physiologically supplied and not interfere with the action of true medicine when such cases call for medication. Mrs. G., with a history of myxoedema of thirty years duration. Thyroidine has been constantly employed during the whole of this period with a loss of ninety pounds in weight. She now weighs 180. I was called to prescribe for a case of grip and found that her constitutional history clearly indicated that Nat. mur. had been her medicine since girlhood.
I overlooked the acute symptoms of the grip picture and followed the lead. Her recovery was so spectacular that it was widely commented upon in the boarding house where she lives. Did I imagine I could remove her Thyroidine? I did not. This was nourishment not medicine. Nat. mur. took charge of affairs but on a different plane. This may be just a flicker of truth regarding all the ductless glands, simple of course when compared with hypersecretion, but the end of human attainment is still some distance ahead of us.
Case three is more complicated and more problematical. I did my best for him but the old man is dead. The last ten years of his final total, seventy-three, was rather rocky going; an energetic stubborn will and a fibrillating heart provoked more than one crisis. Finally two grains of Dig. a day smoothed over some of our difficulties — (that rank misnomer physiological medicine again). Then storms broke, restlessness, peevishness, sweat, sleeplessness and many more discomforts. I enlarged to him upon the steadying of the heart beat, etc., but all to no effect, he held to the opinion that he was getting worse and his family agreed with him. The main functions of the body were apparently normal and there was no fever.
I may mention here that Lach. had been given early in the case with great relief. At this juncture a misunderstanding suspended my attendance on the case. My two successors maintained the Dig. and added massive doses of Bromide which did not give sleep, but their tenure of office lasted but twenty-four hours. I was hurriedly summoned to see Mr. C. die or prevent it if I could. The case was desperate and looked hopeless. The generals in the symptomatology now were delirium without fever, aggravation from sleep, and profuse sweating, this last being the most peculiar as it ceased when the patient went to sleep.
Of course the Dig. was diminished and the Bromide discontinued. My prescription was Samb. Nig. Seven hours of quiet sleep followed the first night, even the heart action fell under the benign influence of the remedy for a number of days. Then Dig. was resumed and continued for a full year before he died, as I predicted, suddenly. In the interim between these two attacks my prescriptions were always based on the symptoms given regardless of the Dig. He had one or two colds and an attack of grip, but the action of the dynamic remedy given for these was in no way as far as I was able to perceive influenced by the Dig. I invite your comments upon my conclusion.
Hahnemann very emphatically enjoined us to determine what was curable in disease and medicine. I do not now recall that he left any specific directions as to what to do with our incurable cases. Palliation may be but an expedient, but no man could practice medicine without employing such. Are we always sure that the homoeopathic prescriber has a full line of these makeshifts? Their correct and legitimate use is perhaps our problem of problems.
