DR. H.B. BAKER: Kali phos. is a remedy that I use a great deal. The special indications are that tiredness that runs all through, and a feeling of worry. I had a case very recently, a young business man. His father had died not long before, and the responsibility of the business tell on him. He went to a prominent clinician who lived near every few weeks, and was told there was nothing the matter with him, that he should just stop worrying. This advice didnt help very much. Finally he came to me and I couldnt find anything much the matter, except this worrying condition, and a very nervous man. He was really a bit overworked. I gave him Kali phos, and he came back in two weeks and said that was the first medicine he had ever taken that did him any good. He is in pretty good shape now, just from that one remedy.
DR. H. FARRINGTON: Dr. Olds paper gives really the essentials of this remedy. I dont know how we would get along without it. It seems to me that the weakness of kali phos, is not that due to overwork or over-fatigue alone, but must have something of brain and nerve strain associated with it. So as Dr. Baker has pointed out, worry is one of the essential factors, worry and overwork at the same time.
I have a patient who has been under my supervision for a good many years, having had various remedies, with improvement in her general health. Her husband failed in business and she took up a side line to help out, buying and collecting antique furniture and selling it. That, together with her worries over finances, brought on a peculiar state. She had occipital headaches. She had the weakness and weariness, and a peculiar mental state of flying into a rage over little things and then weeping. Kali phos. cleared up this state completely.
DR. H.A. ROBERTS: Kali phos, is one of the Schuessler tissue remedies, and until a few years ago we had no proving of it, but under the direction of Dr. Erastus Case of Hartford the I.H.A. made a proving of Kali phos. It is a very good one and it is in the Transactions. It is only authentic proving that we have of this remedy, and it is to the credit of this Association that it has been put into print.
CHAIRMAN: J. HUTCHINSON: What year was that?.
DR. C.L. OLDS: It was 1890-91.
DR. C.A. DIXON: I wish to bring out one point a little more distinctly, and a point in homoeopathic philosophy, too. I have given repeated doses of kali phos to a mother who is burdened with an irresponsible son, a spendthrift and a no-account. The condition had been going on, I suspect, for ten years. I cant remove the cause but I can keep fairly placid with kali phos. occasionally.
PRESIDENT C. STEVENS: Have any of the members used Kali phos. in cases of diabetes far advanced?.
DR. D. MACFARLAN: Speaking about diabetes, I think Dr. Griggs proved a drug which is often useful in diabetes and that is Glycerin. It has not only a tendency to clear up sugar but it helps bleeding states. It clears up red blood-corpuscles in the urine remarkably. It also has a disposition to improve their mentally and also to diminish blood pressure. Many of the cases of diabetes, especially those that have been going on for some time, have increased blood pressure. It has a wonderful effect in reducing blood pressure Dr. Griggs can tell you more about it than I can.
CHAIRMAN J. HUTCHINSON: What is the remedy, Dr. Griggs?.
DR. GRIGGS: Pure Glycerin. We have no many of the compounds in materia medica that I have been working for a matter of thirty-five years on getting symbols. And nobody had ever attempted to prove pure Glycerin. So I proved it. My associates never thought enough of it to take it up, but I couldnt practice medicine without it. One of our old homoeopathic physicians was turned down by a life insurance company about twelve years ago, with a blood pressure of about 220 and a marked glycosuria, etc. I gave him Glycerin 200th and higher. He has been perfectly well ever since. He has gone into life insurance since then as a first class risk. He is enjoying perfect health and is still living in Philadelphia.
Glycerin is a deep drug, It is a valuable drug. It is one of those remedies we labored to prove and as I said it hasnt been picked up by the profession yet, I think I have some reprints. If I have I will bring them from Philadelphia tomorrow and give the members what I have left.
PRESIDENT STEVENS: Have you published the proving, Dr. Griggs?.
DR: GRIGGS: The proving was published years ago. As director of the Hering Laboratory I made the proving on twelve men who were thoroughly examined before taking the remedy and who carefully kept all their data very scientifically, such as blood chemistry, urine, and so forth.
CHAIRMAN J. HUTCHINSON: Did Clark use it in his dictionary?.
DR. GRIGGS: No, Clark didnt take it up, but Anshutz did in his Old and New Forgotten Remedies. It is one of the later provings.
DR. C.L. OLDS: In regard to what Dr. Grimmer said about kali sulph. being the chronic of Pulsatilla, I think I made the statement that Kali phos. has the aggravation from cold-most of the kalis have this aggravation. I think there are two of them that are aggravated from heat, Kali sulph., and kali iod.
I am rather surprised that someone hasnt taken up the matter of the use of kali phos. in obstetrical practice. That was one of the big points I tried to make. I have found although I do not do a large obstetrical practice that it is exceedingly useful in cases where it has symptoms such as I have given, along with the general symptoms. It will calm down these nervous cases wonderfully. You can go in and find a case that is all up in the air. She wants to do this that and the other. She wants to hold someones hand and she will say, “Give me a drink of water, I can hardly speak”. That is quite common in obstetrical practice, and Kali phos. will help to ease it.
As to a comparison of Kali phos. and Pulsatilla, of course we have at once that disagreement i temperature. I think that they are on rather different planes. I think that is rather indicated because the Kali sulph.; which is close to Kali phos, is the chronic of Pulsatilla. I would say that was one of the distinguishing features, the difference in the plane.
Hahnemann emphasizes and reiterates this caution (in Vol. I, Chronic Diseases, p. 152) by calling attention to what he terms “the three mistakes” which the physician cannot too carefully avoid, viz:
1. Thinking the dose too small.
2. Improper use of the remedy.
3. Too frequent repetition of the dose.
Whether the dose be large or small, the practitioner who fails to individualize and to match morbid phenomenon closely with drug pathogenesis, will fail to cure, and whenever an improper use of the drug is wilfully persisted in, whether arising from “carelessness, laziness or levity”, as Hahnemann tells us, there is absolutely no hope for improvement, and a decent regard for common ethics should compel such practitioner to abandon the claim to being a homoeopathist.-A.R. MORGAN, M.D., 1895.
