CASE REPORTS


The pathetic side of it is that we are supposed to be wizards and establish “harmony within” pronto. So many of these cases result in disaster that it is no wonder we high potency men dread to see them appear. The handling of these cases is nearly always a problem. If it is a real emergency, a palliative remedy is justified. If time can be taken the only thing to do is to wait until the turmoil subsides.


This month I want to tell you some of the things not to do. I think one of the classics in homoeopathic literature is Kents second prescription. I wish I could place that thirty-sixth chapter of his lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy on every homoeopathic physicians desk that they might read it over and over now out of print and only an occasional copy may be picked up. Some day I trust some philanthropic individual will give us the money to print another edition. This book was reprinted in 1929 and may be secured from Ehrhart & Karl.–ED.

This second prescription is just as important as the first one and in many ways, more so. I am going to give you a case report illustrating this point, but first I want to tell you more about the whys, believing I am well qualified to talk on this subject because of over thirty years experience in trying to unsnarl the tangles resulting from good, bad, and indifferent homoeopathic prescribing. I wish to speak a word or two here in defense (or extenuation) of my high potency colleagues as well as myself, for I am sure my position is not a unique one.

We become known over a large territory as practising a different kind of homoeopathy, and people in the extremities of an obstinate or baffling illness suddenly decide to try us out, which results in the aforesaid snarls and tangles. It would be amusing if it were not so pathetic. I think the homoeopathic doctor and his family is the worst. Why? Because, almost invariably, there have been too many doses of too many remedies given the patient. Drug provings and symptoms all in a snarl.

The pathetic side of it is that we are supposed to be wizards and establish “harmony within” pronto. So many of these cases result in disaster that it is no wonder we high potency men dread to see them appear. The handling of these cases is nearly always a problem. If it is a real emergency, a palliative remedy is justified. If time can be taken the only thing to do is to wait until the turmoil subsides. Perhaps an antidote may be found, perhaps time and Placebo is the only solution. In any event dont prescribe a remedy until the drug picture is before you.

I do not know of a harder thing to do than to passively wait, I wont attempt to tell you how long, it may be months rather than weeks or days. Now is the time you need your philosophy. Get the patient interested in it, tell them how a remedy is chosen and how a cure comes about, your success depends on arousing their interest and cooperation. Even so, many failures accumulate because the materialists cannot grasp the infinitesimal. Dont let these failures depress you, just lean on your philosophy and realize that evolution is a matter of ages rather than years, that this is a material age we are living in and the masses are not prepared to follow us.

Now, assuming that we have waited till we have the drug picture and have given the remedy. We have now very definite laws to follow, and I want to give you a few donts so that you wont fail to cure your patient.

Dont lose sight of your philosophy.

Dont be worried about the so-called limitations of the homoeopathic remedy. The limits are so far beyond the ken of these materialists who are always haranguing about it, that we need not be disturbed.

If your patient is better, even though new symptoms appear, dont repeat when improvement ceases. Wait until there is a return of the old symptoms on which you made the first prescription. Kent has told you all of this in that thirty- sixth chapter much better than I have, and that is just why I have said that I wish every physician would memorize the whole lecture.

My case report this month will be an interesting study because I was able to uncover an old syphilitic condition that had been treated in the routine manner twenty-two years previously and which the lady assured me had been all cleared up and forgotten. She had never enjoyed good health since a miscarriage and severe haemorrhage at the age of twenty-seven. She came to me from a clinic with a diagnosis of a distended and relaxed stomach, weight 103 (formerly 155). The outstanding symptoms were, emaciation, anorexia, irritability.

Without elaborating any more on history I will give you the findings, and rubrics selected in her chart:.

Aggravated from drafts, Kents Repertory, p. 1344.

Aggravated mornings, Kents Repertory, p. 1341

Emaciation, Kents Repertory, p. 1357.

Irritability, Kents Repertory, p. 57.

Craves sweets and fats, Kents Repertory, pp. 485-6.

Fears robbers, Kents Repertory, p. 47.

Vertigo from heights, Kents Repertory, p. 100.

Sulphur runs high, and the only remedy appearing in all the rubrics, Calc. carb., is next, and Nitric acid third, Nux vom. showing equal strength for third.

The lady was given a powder of Sulphur 1M July 17, 1930 with instructions to report in one week, at which time there had been no change in the symptoms and no relief. Placebo was given ad liberatum because I was leaving the city for three weeks. Her next visit was Aug. 22. I found there had been considerable stirring up of old symptoms but no improvement. She is discouraged and disgusted. It surely was a situation that would tempt a man to change his remedy, but I did not do it. I think I talked to her and her husband for fully an hour about the philosophy of how a correct remedy worked through in a chronic case.

How it first had to work on back through old complaints that had been treated in a suppressive manner and that this remedy of mine was doing just that. That is what Garth Boericke calls selling homoeopathy or making the patient homoeopathy conscious in a mighty fine article appearing in the current issue of the A. I. H. Journal, and after all is said and done it often turns defeat into a glorious victory. Now to resume. The patient is persuaded to continue the experiment and reports back Sept. 9th feeling very much worse but with a pretty picture of Nitric acid, which you remember was tied with Nux vom. for third place on her chart.

Red mouth and tongue, bleeding gums, putrid odor, irritability up to the nth degree. Have we turned back to the old syphilis? Her blood Wassermann was negative at the clinic. Anyhow she took a powder of Nitric acid 1M before she left the office, and improvement has been startling since that date. She now weighs 124 pounds, has lost her irritability, does her housework and enjoys it. Needless to say they have acquired a wholesome respect for the little sweet powders.

AKRON, OHIO.

Charles A. Dixon
Dr Charles A. DIXON (1870-1959), M.D.
Akron, Ohio
President, I.H.A.