Still this does not disturb our choice. To understand the scope of our treatment we must be able to discriminate between disease as a morbific process within the organ and the material results or products in which this process terminates. Homoeopathy has to do with the former and is not essentially concerned with the latter. The application of Chelidonium in this case will not result, primarily, in the return of normal activity of the uterus.
But it will certainly restore the normal functioning of the liver (provided it is the truly indicated remedy) and in so doing we believe that we will be readjusting the patient as a whole, that we will be removing the cause of many of the uterine symptoms and that therefore we will be placing this patient upon the road to cure. Our limited knowledge prevents us commenting upon the outcome of symptoms dependent upon the change of life, if there is any truth in our belief that this also is a factor in some part in the menstrual distortions.
Additional remedies which were strong in the General symptoms and which continued to carry through the repertory analysis to a degree worthy of mention were, Mercury, Natrum muriaticum, Nux vomica and possibly Sepia, Sulphur, and one or two others which came in strong when the Particular were run after making a poor or doubtful start with the Generals.
Mercury is worse at night, worse to warmth or coolness. The type of patient and the foulness and the burning of the discharges are prominent features. Natrum muriaticum has a blinding headache but lacks the peculiar sequence. This drug also acts upon the mucous membranes and we find it indicated in catarrhs which are almost a constant feature. There is also marked distress in the region of the stomach which is relieved by tightening the clothes. While this drug is brought out by the rubric “better to lying”, further study shows that the majority of the complaints are aggravated. Nux vomica in general is better to warmth as is also Sepia. The action of the former drug is more gastric than hepatic and its prime etiological indication, abuse, is not a prominent feature in this case. Sepia, besides being better to warmth, is, to a greater degree, worse in the afternoon instead of the morning. The temperament of the patient does not fit here either.
Bryonia seems to have a special affinity for the lungs and serous membranes. Its headache is more apt to settle in the occiput although it may begin in the occiput or the forehead. It is true these are rarely neuralgic in type, but instead are usually associated with gastric derangement. In such gastric disturbances there usually is, besides the thirst, a bitter taste, coated tongue, nausea with possibly vomiting and sensitiveness of the epigastrium to touch. This drug is useful in affections of the liver especially where there is associated constipation, the stools being large, hard and dry and with little or no inclination to movement.
Compare this with the hepatic disturbance of Chelidonium where the stools may be normal or soft and simulating normal movements as far as the patient is concerned. In liver pains (in Bryonia) the condition is batter from pressure and lying on the right side. It is is of interest to note that the Natrum muriaticum headache closely simulates the Bryonia headache and that they are both more common in children about the age of ten or twelve years (Farrington).
A remedy in which we were quite a bit interested because it covered all the phases of the case was Sanguinaria canadensis. It seems to cover the entire case even to the point of the polypi. It is interesting that it is of the same family of plants as our choice. Chelidonium, both being of the family Papaveraceae. There is, in the terminology of Farrington, a conjunctive relationship between these two remedies. This is a relationship expressed by symptom-similarity of two remedies of the same source as compared with the relationship between Chelidonium and Kali bichromicum whose symptom-similarity would be termed dysjunctive.
Sanguinaria canadensis was lost to us for the same reason that excluded Kali bichromicum, a weakness in the Generals very much dependent upon the interpretation of the symptoms “better lying down”.
For this case Chelidonium is our choice.
