Reproving of some of the remedies is important, and the work should be undertaken with many of the remedies; this is especially so with those remedies which have never been proven in potency, because it is in the proving of the potentized remedy that we obtain the finer shades of the action of the remedy. Of course the provings should always be made upon human individuals, of both sexes and differing ages.
What have been the greatest sorrows of your life? How do you bear the griefs, reproaches, or mockery of others? Are you truly happy? Are you better or worse after anger, indignation, mortification, consolation? How would a fortnight alone in the mountains suit and agree with you? When do you think of death? What are the criticisms of the members of your family and your close friends concerning you, and do you think that they are justified and true?
Kali nitricum has produced conditions simulating sinus trouble on the right side of the face, with sense of pressure and hypersensitiveness to touch. The Aranea diadema patient has a sensation as if the hands and forearms were intensely swollen and heavy, and he will rise from his bed and get a light to see what happened to them.
The exacting pharmacopoeia of homoeopathy precludes any temporizing with makeshifts. It matters not at all that these latter are what do count enormously in other circles, they do not count with the homoeopathist, or with any relation to ultimate cure. The jargon of trade insures their wide popularity elsewhere, that is, with definite majority which does not exclude large classes in licensed medicine.
This brings me to the point that I want to stress. In an early day we had a great deal more cholera infantum then we have today and with an experience extended over many, many years I have lost but one case of this so-called disease. I was so wrought up over my failure that it took me six months after the child was dead and buried before I saw my mistake. Mistakes are easily made and, as in this case, often result in death.
Usually I vomit on Saturday morning, after which the headache,blurring of vision and nausea gradually get better but I am completely prostrated al day Saturday; I can sleep Saturday and Sunday night and am able to go back to my work Monday morning”. She continued, “This evening the eyes are worse than ever and I want to go to a picnic tomorrow, the worst way, so I came for something. Cant I get it?”.
There are many diseases that cannot be cured instantly. Symptoms that come on suddenly can be cured suddenly. Cramp conditions, spasm, sudden pains, vaso-motor disturbances, all respond instantly to the similimum. Typhoid can usually be aborted in ten days; intermittents in from twelve to twenty-four or forty-eight hours; diphtheria within twenty-four hours, etc.
An unnecessarily severe aggravation is used by too high or too low potency. A well chosen potency will given as above, either by aggravation in a quick short one. Too prolonged an aggravations after high potencies,such as CM in curable cases,the patient feels distinct better even during the aggravation, as it is the characteristic symptoms and not the disease or the patient which are aggravated.
Our experience teaches us that if we have taken the history properly, seen that the remedy secured therefrom bore the individualistic mark or stamp, and the proper potency was selected, and the patient was not beyond the reach of medicine, we had no failures, and the need for frequent repetitions of the remedy reduced to a minimum. Wherever any remedy of any kind will act, homoeopathy will not disappoint.
For suppression of the lochia with bearing down pains I would suggest Aralia racemosa, 10 drops of the tincture in wineglassful water every three hours, or he sixth trituration, depending upon the sum total of symptoms. At the same time, for its physiologic action, should the temperature have risen, I prescribe one ounce of Oleum Ricini for its oxytoxic and eliminative action.
The best way to be come acquainted with the homoeopathic materia medica is to use it, always with a good eye to similitude; first prescribed and then managed according to the familiar principles necessary to obtain the full benefit of action and reaction between remedy and vitality. These few unusual remedies and the tales thereof are such as any experienced homoeopath could give, for each one has at least a few favorites that are little known to others.
The patient, a young married woman, the mother of two children, had now a third well on the way. This pregnancy was deemed inadvisable and the obstetrician, for tenable reasons, felt justified in inducing abortion. The operation was performed at one of our private hospitals. Severe haemorrhage followed. Further operating was resorted to and other means were employed to check the loss of blood, but nothing had stopped it and the patients life was ebbing.
Hyoscyamus is now quite generally used for its physiological action; as a sedative, in epilepsy, mania, hysteria, etc.; as an anodyne, in rheumatism, neuralgia,or arthritis; as an antispasmodic, in asthma, croup, for irritation of involuntary muscular organs as diaphragm, heart and uterus; and, as an hypnotic, in all cases where opium disagrees.
All primary symptoms produced were confined to the night, commencing at 6-7 p.m. Not a single symptom developed during the day. The bone pains were most severe the first night, dull, changing from place to place, covering all the long bones and all the bones of cranium, but only in smaller or larger spots, never seemed to affect the whole bone.