I gave her Medorrhinum. She had been having an attack of colicky pain. she thought she had appendicitis. She had symptoms of it without fever. She left on the train, and I didnt see her again. She wrote me in about two weeks to send her some Medorrhinum, which I did, and which she took-four grams of Sac.lac.-very religiously. she came back about four weeks later and she said, “I had some of that pain for about four hours after I left your office and it has never returned.” she is now having normal bowel movements and I havent given her a repeated Medorrhinum once. I think I gave her one other remedy. she has been paying for sugar, but she is well.
DR.GREEN: I would like to tell of an experience along the same line, but not so successful. A lady had a husband who died of tuberculosis and their children had inherited tubercular tendencies. While her husband was very, very ill, she had what the doctors at the time called sleeping sickness. Nobody seems to know whether it really was that or not. Within perhaps five or six years from that time she began developing rigidity in the muscles of her jaw, some of the muscles in her face, and then it spread.
I lost track of her for several years about that time, and when I saw her again she was a pitiful looking sight. The doctor she had had, had diagnosed it as paralysis agitans. However, she was emaciated to a very sad degree. The expression of her face was changed completely; she did not look nearly so intelligent as before. The stiffness had grown worse. She held her hands out in front of her and walked rather stiffly. She said, “I wish I could tell you how I feel. I am so nervous. I wish I could tell you how it feels inside”.
That is about all I could get out of her. Her mother told me that when she felt worst, she would go upstairs and do what she called “putting her head down”. I had her illustrate to me what she meant. She meant sitting down on the edge of the bed and bracing herself on the edge of with her hands and tipping her head over until it hung over the edge of the bed. She would stay that way for from a few minutes to an hour at a time. She said it made the nervousness inside less.
Then her mother told me that at about nine-thirty every evening all this nervousness and the rigidity would rather suddenly let up and she also looked forward to that time of day because for the rest of the evening she would feel much more like herself and look much more like herself. She was in the habit of sitting up until one or two oclock in the morning in order to get the benefit of the amelioration, and then she would sleep in a relaxed way until her regular waking time, and as soon as she awakened and started the day, the rigidity would return with all the distress.
I gave her Medorrhinum and there was a slow amelioration, so that she herself said that all the symptoms were less. She could use her hands much better. She could handle herself at the table, and dress herself, comb her hair much better, and gained a little in weight, but it didnt last, and repeating the Medorrhinum didnt bring about as much amelioration the second time as the first. The family, in other branches, were so importunate with the mother that they finally went off to some other kind of treatment and had a lumbar puncture and various other things, so I dont know any more about them.
These apparent Medorrhinum symptoms are interesting to me and I never met a condition anywhere like this.
DR.ESMOND: I would like to relate a case in regard to Medorrhinum. A few months ago a young woman brought her daughter, five years old, to me. she said, “Every once in a while this child will have a soreness around the vulva and the and the anus and sometimes a slight discharge from the vulva. I asked particularly in regard to gonorrhoea in the father and the mother, but I could get nothing satisfactory. If there was any such thing, they denied it. But notwithstanding, I gave a dose of Medorrhinum, 1M and in ten days the whole condition cleared up and has not returned. That was several months ago, and she had attacks every few weeks.
DR.FARRINGTON: Madam Chairman, I liked the doctors paper very much, and especially the stand that it takes that we should prescribe these remedies symptomatically and not give them merely on the supposition of a preceding miasm, either inherited or acquired.
Speaking of Medorrhinum, I have cured several cases of asthma in children with it. The leading symptoms usually was that the child took that knee chest position at night, and I know positively in one of the cases that the child had no asthmatic valves.
I would like to relate a short case for Tuberculinum. Many years ago I was called to see a lady of about 69 years of age. After careful examination and questioning, I could practically no symptoms whatever. The only things that I could ascertain were that she was emaciated and although she had a fair appetite, her strength was declining and the left shoulder was getting stiff. I did not prescribe at first, but during the several days in which I was giving her expectant treatment, the shoulder became almost ankylosed, at least I could not move it. I gave her a single dose of Tuberculinum and very shortly noticed an improvement in tone and in strength, and the shoulder began to limber up so that the inside of ten days t was as good as the other. The woman got well, at least as well as a woman of that age could be. Apparently there was no inflammation, no previous history of trouble in that shoulder joint, no history of tubercular heredity, nor anything of the sort.
DR.WOODBURY: I have verified two symptoms of Psorinum that were set down in the books as characteristic of them-hunger at night, accompanied by headache, a long, standing, chronic headache, and dyspnoea relieved by lying down. There are only one or two other remedies that have that symptoms, but when one or two other remedies that have that symptom, but when one can get that peculiar complex, it is striking. I have also verified the action of Syphilinum in the constant washing of the hands. I have verified Tuberculinum bovinum in the tonsillar growth of children.
I have had some results with Medorrhinum as an intercurrent in cases of chronic gonorrhoea.
Secale disappointed me in a case which had arteriosclerosis. I thought Secale was the remedy, but I found that Sulphur very quickly changed the whole condition.
Ambra grisea I have verified in its peculiar nervous symptoms.
DR.SLOAN: I had a case of asthma for several years past which I relieved, but didnt cure. Finally I awoke to the fact that the attacks came on about bedtime and Syphilinum cleared it up very quickly, and so far it has remained cleared up.
DR.WAFFENSMITH: We cannot cure all patients who come to us. Some of them die. I want to call attention to one important phase of Tuberculinum, and that is in euthanasia. It has been of good service many times in this respect, and especially in cases which have had an active prior tuberculosis which has improved or quiescent. Later on in life when they pass through the crisis or when a malignancy or other incurable condition appears, think of tuberculosis. I had one particular case last winter which made quite an impression upon me.This case had been digitalized and suffered intensely from all t he important characteristic symptoms of digitalis. she was a prover of digitalis. I had never seen a more perfect proving.
In the progress of the treatment of this case, I secured very little result. The first remedy I gave was Ignatia, which did a great deal to modify the neurotic symptoms, but the patient rapidly went back to her former condition. After a careful study I concluded that she had but a very short time to live and that the remedy indicated as far as I could see, was Tuberculinum.
Within six hours Tuberculinum cleaned up all of the hyper-activity and the nervous irritability, and the patient, who was known to have an intense fear of death, called her mother the night before she died, entered into the discussion of business affairs very quietly and peacefully told her that she was going to die. The family repeatedly thanked me for this euthanasia condition that that Tuberculinum had given in this case. I remember another case, a homoeopathic physician, to whom I gave Tuberculinum. There are two remedies that I always consider in this neurotic state prior to death, Tuberculinum and Tarentula hispanica.
DR. FARR: I didnt hear Dr.Underhill mention Bacillinum. I inherited the drugs of a Brooklyn physician a number of years ago, and among them I found Bacillinum. I also had Tuberculinum. I dont know just what the difference is between the two remedies. I am using Bacillinum much more than Tuberculinum in the conditions which sometimes follow the grip of flu, where we have a small afternoon rise in temperature, a lack of appetite and a general tubercular looking condition. I find Bacillinum comes in very often in such cases. I have tried the Tuberculinum and do not get good results. I have Tuberculinum in the 1000th and in the Bacillinum I have the 200th.
Eugene passed away at his country home on Spring Hill, Tuscarora Township, Bradford County, PA. He had been in ill health for several months. His wife, the former Caroline Davis, whom he had married in Philadelphia in 1910, had passed away in 1961. They spent most of their marriage lives in Swarthmore, PA.
Dr. Underhill was a member of the United Lodge of Theosophy, a member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the Pennsylvania Medical Society. He was also the editor of the Homœopathic Recorder.