Veratrum, the dowager, unkindly witty, loquacious, malicious, working destruction with rapier ability in the Womans Club of which she is the president.
One little known to you, perhaps, Viola odorata, thin, fair, mild, impressive looking, with a marked increase of mental activity, over intellectual and suppressed in emotions with her aversion to music especially the violin.
And lastly, another of the brains of the outfit, Zincum who vies with Nux. for hard work, docile yet irascible, the keynotes to whose nature are oversensitivity, and the inability to throw things off either mentally or physically. The eruptions in the spirit of Zincum as well as in the skin cannot be thrown off and its natural fidgetiness and activity are turned into a slow and desperate prostration.
Here you have them, some of them, the group whom is pays to cure, and who, when they have received their remedies, are capable of doing enormous constructive work in any field as well as for homoeopathy.
NEW YORK, N.Y.
DISCUSSION
DR. A. H. GRIMMER: I dont know how we can discuss this wonderful paper. It is perfect. It is a wonderful, brief, concise, clear-cut picture of the mental phases of our remedies, which we see almost every day in our practice. yet Dr. Hubbard has brought that mental phase out so clearly and beautifully there is nothing to discuss. All we can do is just admire and thank her for it.
DR. C. B. STEARNS: It is very interesting to follow these remedies in the classification that I have mentioned before. You probably will have it in your wastebaskets or in your books somewhere.
Iodotannin, Phos. acid, Phos., Silica, Lycopodium, and Belladonna are all in group V. They all go together. They apply to the same kind of people. Coffea, Iodine, the Kalis, Sulphur, and Zinc are in group VIII. The others are scattered around.
DR. G. ROYAL: I have enjoyed this paper very much. I realize however that it is impossible for any of us to get the complete, rounded-out characteristics of our best friends. So I want to add a little bit to her Kali phos. for two reasons: first, because I proved it upon myself thoroughly in different potencies; secondly, because I have used it a great deal and I know it is one of the best of our mental friends in the materia medica.
There is an expression that rules all through the remedy covered by the word “tired”. You will find it in many of the books under the expression “brain fag”. It applies to the brain especially. It doesnt make much difference what the cause is, the makeup, as far as the neurotic individual is concerned, is excellent. But how or what produces the tired feeling or the brain fag is of a great deal of importance. For instance, it has been a busy day and a large number of patients have come in, old patients one or two new ones, with a lot of peculiar symptoms.
You have had to think and think hard. There isnt much irritation in this but there is hard thinking. Then again, you attend a meeting. You get into a discussion. Parliamentary rulings, bylaws and constitutions have to be set aside. The mind becomes just as tired from activity of this kind ad it does from the other. And in addition to that tired feeling we become irritated and almost disgusted. Kali phos. comes in well in such a condition, and I wanted to add that to the characteristics you have heard in this paper.
If you will permit me, I may be off the question a little bit, but I want to compare the word “tired” under Kali phos. and Echinacea. “Tired” is the word in both remedies which should to emphasized, tried in the different organs of the body. Echinacea doesnt make your head tried or your brain tried. I have proved them both. I have used them both. Echinacea makes you tried physically, muscular tiredness; Kali phos. makes you mentally tired. There is difference between the two.
I should like to ask Dr. Hubbard, when she put Zincum down here, what Zinc she means, what preparation, what compound?.
DR. E. HUBBARD: Zincum met., plain Zincum.
DR. G. ROYAL: The important three Zincums are the metal, the Phosphide and the Valerianate.
The doctor spoke about the fidgety condition under Zinc. She is correct, if she will include it in all three of them, because it is very marked under Zinc val.
Now we will take Zinc. phos. That is the Zinc. There is where you go down, way down in deep. If you remember I gave you, I have forgotten in which of my books, I think it is in my Practice, a case that was led into my clinic, and put down in the chair, a man about forty-six years old. His wife had to sit him down. He had as blank an expression as you ever saw. I called out one of the students and told him to go at him. His history had been good. He was a farmer. The family history was good.
The personal history was good until he had an encounter with a mad animal that gored him fearfully and he lost an immense amount of blood. A short time after that he began to have what she called spasms. The family physician was an old school physician. He came in and foolishly made a diagnosis, a very incorrect one of epilepsy. He didnt take into consideration all the four symptoms. Then, having made his diagnosis he put him on heavy doses of bromide of potash.
When I saw him at the clinic he didnt know what his name was. He could hardly walk. He was led along. The examination proved that he was impotent, gone, as you might say.
There was the case. We gave him the 3x of Zinc. phos. four times a day. For auxiliary treatment we put him on a meat free liquid diet.
It took a good deal of time to build up that man so that his blood was what is should be, and to overcome the effect of that foolish prescription of bromides. Gradually he got better but it took a year before he could get out and do the business of a large farm.
Again and again I have gotten conditions where there is deterioration of the nerve, especially of the optic nerve.
There is where your Zinc. phos. comes in.
PRESIDENT G. STEVENS: When Dr. Hubbard was speaking of Lycopodium it made me think of a
