I wish to present this subject today in the form of a personal question. Let us face the issue fairly and squarely, with a mind unbiased, open to truth, zealous of principle. In your experience, in my experience, does pathology ever define the curative remedy? Has the advance in scientific medicine, the advance made in correlating facts, opened new angles of approach, not only to deranged viral force, but also in helping us to restore normal equilibrium?
Very true, in the Organon, Hahnemann tells us that nothing but the totality of the symptoms will determine the choice of the remedy. If Samuel Hahnemann were living and here present today with his phenomenal mental grasp of intricate truths, what would his answer be? Is the totality of symptoms always the only approach to cure? Is it ever possible for the science of deranged vital force, the science of disease, to elucidate, or, in terms of finality, to show us an equivalent to the totality of symptoms?.
During my days in old Hahnemann, at Chicago, Dr.Hawks was daily talking to us about characteristics, characteristic symptoms, as a key to the totality of symptoms. Dr.H.C.Allen gave expression, very forcibly, to the same thought, in his interpretation of getting the totality of symptoms by searching for and obtaining a clear mental picture of the red strands-the keynotes, of remedies. In my endeavor to make sick folks well in the quickest, safest and surest way, Dr.Hawks and Dr.Allen are my daily inspiration.
For years, I have, in my busy life, relied upon the characteristics-the red strands, or keynotes. By this method I have been able to get a breadth of personal experience, otherwise unobtainable, for by so interpreting Hahnemanns law I have been able to examine and prescribe for 96 patients in my office in a single day, and visit the homes of and prescribe for 58 others. I trust that the experience has helped to make me a better Hahnemannian. It has certainly proven to me the futility of the administration of remedial agents other than according to the law of similia similibus curantur.
Does pathology give us a modern short cut-a modern accuracy of stroke?.
In section 4 of the Organon, we find: “He is therefore a preserver of health, if he knows the things that derange health and cause disease, and how to remove them”.
A case in point. Master R., 15 years of age, a splendid specimen of physical and mental development, an all-round healthy boy. Last October, Master R. went to bed, apparently in usual health. In the night, he was awakened by nausea and vomiting, accompanied by severe pain in the right side. The nausea was relieved by homo remedies, but the pain persisted. I was called at 9 a.m., and found him a sick looking boy, temperature 100.6; pulse , 92; tongue coated; severe pain in right side, localized at McBurneys point; periodical attacks of nausea.
I ordered him McBurneys point; periodical attacks of nausea. I ordered him removed to the hospital at once, and had a white blood count made, which was 19,600. Pain persisted, sensitiveness increasing, tongue more furred, a toxic looking boy. He was hastily prepared for operation and placed upon the operating table, and a gangrenous appendix, fortunately not ruptured, measuring five inches in length, was removed. The wound healed by primary union. He made a perfect recovery, and all symptoms were removed. Would any one have the temerity to say that this case did not confirm Hahnemanns rule in section 4 of the Organon?.
I wish to report an experience which I had last winter in the pediatric department of our hospital. In the five cases I am about to report I ask: Did pathology not only define the curative remedy, but did it not define the similimum? In all of these cases, pathology, X-ray and clinicians made the diagnosis.
CASE 1.
William, 2 years old, admitted to the hospital Jan.21. Temperature, 105; pulse, 148; respiration, 36. Laboratory diagnosis, lobar pneumonia. White blood count, 28,400. X-ray diagnosis, double lobar pneumonia. Five clinicians diagnosed double lobar pneumonia, involving blood stream, with cerebral complications and with possible spinal involvement. Prognosis most grave. With the diagnosis made, the child growing worse hourly, under the advised waiting treatment, I was advised to wait longer and see what developed. I felt something must be done.
The remedy defined by pathology has never been studied by the speaker, neither have I ever heard, read or discussed a single symptom of the remedial agent as proven by the homoeopathic law. Jan. 22. The temperature was 106; pulse, 160; respiration, 48; white blood count, 29,000. The child was unconscious. I gave one dose of the remedy in the 1M potency. The next morning, the temperature was 101; pulse, 140; respiration, 48; no medication given. That evening, the temperature was 105.8; pulse, 144; respiration, 48. The remedy was repeated in the CM potency, one dose. The following morning, temperature, 98.6; pulse, 120; respiration, 30. The consultant clinician exclaimed, “What have you done? You have aborted the case; the lungs are nearly clear. The child is conscious and nearly well”. No further medication was given. William was discharged cured the eighth day.
CASE 2.
Florence, 4 years old; admitted to the hospital Feb. 5, having been under the care of a homoeopathic physician for three days, and having been given Aconite, followed by Bryonia. Temperature, 105; pulse, 256; respiration, 38; white blood count, 22,500. Diagnosis: Left posterior lobar pneumonia. One dose of the remedy was given in the CM potency. The following day, temperature, 99; pulse, 84; respiration, 22. Pathology confirmed the diagnosis, as in the previous, also in the following cases. No more medication was given, and Florence was dismissed cured the seventh day.
CASE. 3.
Bertha, 5 years. Admitted Feb. 15. Diagnosis of double posterior lobar pneumonia. Temperature, 104.2; pulse, 132; respiration, 48; white blood count, 27,500. Bertha received one dose of the remedy in the CM potency. She made a rapid recovery, and was dismissed cured Feb.21st.
CASE 4.
Lillian, 6 years. Admitted Feb. 18th. Temperature, 105; pulse, 148; respiration, 38; white blood count, 28,000. Left lobar pneumonia. One dose of the remedy in the CM potency was given. No other medication given. Recovery rapid and complete in five days.
CASE 5.
John, 3 years. Admitted Feb. 23rd. Temperature, 105.4; pulse, 149; respiration, 40; white blood count, 28,200. Right posterior lobar pneumonia. The remedy in the CM potency, one dose, was given. John was dismissed Feb. 28, cured.
To summarize: All five of the children were, clinically, desperately sick and most toxic. Pathology confirmed the diagnosis in each case. The 1M potency seemed to partially control the situation for a few hours, when the condition grew rapidly worse. The CM potency acted promptly and curatively. The remedy given in each case was Pyrogenium, a drug, which, as I have previously said, I have never studied symptomatically.
“When we have to do with an art, the end of which is the saving of a human life, any neglect on our part of to make ourselves masters is a crime”.
Prove all things, what was cured, as well as what cured.
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
DISCUSSION.
DR. A.H.GRIMMER: Was the well known keynote of Pyrogen, the separation of pulse and temperature present, in any or all of those cases?.
DR. J.W.KRICHBAUM: I endorse everything that Dr.Brown has said. Those case do get well in that way and get well quickly.
DR. C.L.OLDS: A number of years ago an East Indian made a report of a number of cases of pneumonia, all treated with Tuberculinum. They were very similar to these cases. All made very prompt recoveries. The point is that both Tuberculinum and Pyrogen are of a similar nature.
DR. J.W.WAFFENSMITH: This seems to me a good verification of the statement I made in a paper on bacillinum (See The Recorder, June 1930, p. 429), namely, that the nosodes being disease products represent basically the various miasms, because they come from a human being who, having had the foundation, has demonstrated in some particular way, sycotic, tubercular or syphilitic, a particular phase of the complex miasms that are affecting the human race.
DR. C.A. DIXON: As the essayist read the paper I immediately wrote what I thought would be the remedy afterwards. I failed miserably because I wrote Tuberculinum. But that type of fulminating case will respond just as quickly to Tuberculinum as it will to Pyrogen. I believe. Anyway Tuberculinum has been wonderfully successful in my cases.
DR. P.BROWN: As I said in my paper I knew nothing about Pyrogen until DR.Roberts gave his paper the other day, but the question I hoped you would discuss was whether pathology ever does find the remedy. Is it possible for us to ever get a clue as to the indication or indications of a truly homoeopathic remedy form our pathological findings:
Opacity of the cornea furnishes an example of a class of cures that are very striking to those who have not seen them. Corneal opacities with the old school are regarded with horror and dread; but we know that there are a number of the homoeopathic remedies, which, when indicated by the symptoms, will remove them entirely, leaving no traces no evil results behind.- DR. JOHNSON-OLDS, 1895.
