CARRIWITCHETS


Punctured wounds in farmhands that have been contaminated from manure should be cleansed thoroughly with sterile water and calendula or ledum tincture in solution. The dressing should be applied with a drain in the wound. Internal remedies may be given, selection made according to the indications. If there is much burning, stinging pain, Apis may be indicated.


SIT DOWN, DOCTOR, AND WRITE US YOUR ANSWERS TO THESE.

QUESTIONS.

1. Can anyone explain Hahnemanns instruction to give an intercurrent dose of Opium in Mercury cases?.

2. How did Hahnemann determine the Opium? Was it because Opium brings about a state of inertia that it will cure inertia? – W.H. SCHWARTZ.

ANSWER TO QUESTIONS IN THE OCTOBER, 1931, ISSUE.

The case presented by Dr. C. Gordon of Edinburgh, Scotland, for analysis and remedy selection :.

Should this patient be treated on the totality of the symptoms or should the pituitary poisoning be antidoted prior to constitutional treatment, and if so, by what?.

– As to Dr. Gordons case of acromegaly developed by the use of pituitary tablets, I beg leave to submit the following data. Using the General Analysis we have the following resume with the attached card numbers: Alternations 7. Bluish 21. Cold and heat both agg. 41. Company ameliorates 47. Memory 166. Menses painful 168. Migraine 170. Moistness, sweatiness 172. Sensitive 231. Sleepiness 247. Other cards might be added, but these are more than sufficient.

Holding the assembled cards before a strong light shows only Lycopodium, Nux vomica and Sepia, all coming through faintly. This is a smaller number than is usually desirable but a quick reference to the Materia Medica Pura and Chronic Diseases of Hahnemann clearly indicates that Sepia is the indicated remedy, as proven by the following summary:.

1. Alternately cheerful and sad, Symptoms 63 and 64,.

2. Memory gone. 65.

3. Word memory. 67.

4. Sensitive to heat and cold. 1422.

5. Sleepy attacks. 1488 and 1494 to 1500.

6. Sleepy and weak, 1596 and 1600.

7. Pale face. 323.

It is not a question of what is probably indicated, but rather of what remedy has the actual symptoms of the patient, the mentals leading. – C.M. BOGER.

ANSWERS TO CARRIWITCHETS IN THE DECEMBER, 1931, ISSUE.

A farmer worker comes into the office and shows a wound made by a manure fork. The skin and deep fascia have been divided and there is slight laceration of the superficial muscles. The patient is apparently healthy and has no symptoms apart from those due to the wound, which is obviously contaminated with manure. Now, beside any surgical treatment :.

1. What lotion should one use for cleansing the wound?.

2. What dressing should be applied to the wound?.

3. What internal remedy should be given?.

I have had several cases of punctures from manure forks, in some cases almost four inches deep through the calf of the leg, and with the treatment I am outlining there have been no untoward results and the patient made a speedy recovery.

Punctured wounds in farmhands that have been contaminated from manure should be cleansed thoroughly with sterile water and calendula or ledum tincture in solution. The dressing should be applied with a drain in the wound. Internal remedies may be given, selection made according to the indications. If there is much burning, stinging pain, Apis may be indicated. Where there are no particular symptoms connected with the wound, I have found that Ledum has always brought good results – H.A. ROBERTS.

Here is a point in philosophy that needs some clarification : The symptoms are supposed to disappear from above downward, from within outward and in the reverse order of their coming. Now do the last symptoms go first or do the chronic mental symptoms go first? In other words are the last symptoms, say of a catarrh, first to go or are the old mental symptoms of poor memory the first to leave? Another example : Should the symptoms of hectic fever which are of later development go first or should the old but inner symptoms of painful menses or dysmenorrhoea go first?.

Which is the more important, the order or the direction of the symptoms?.

There is no conflict between the order of cure and the direction of cure; neither is there more importance of one than of the other. For instance, the direction of cure is such conditions as rheumatic fever is always from above down; when an upper joint ceases to be involved, and a lower one becomes involved, it is moving in the direction of cure. If the case is well taken, you will usually find that it began in a lower joint and went upward. The order from within outward is also well illustrated in this condition, because the heart involvement usually follows the upward movement of the onset, and when a curative remedy is administered the heart involvement will cease and a joint involvement will return.

The proving of some remedies corresponds exactly to this direction: from within outward. For instance Sanguinaria and Arum triph. begin with a nasal discharge which extends into the throat and bronchi and then into the lungs, going ever deeper. When cure takes place, seemingly the direction is from below upward because of the bronchial and lung affections, being last to appear, will be the first to disappear; but it is rather from within outward, and form an important organ to a less important organ.

You ask if the last symptoms of a catarrh are the first to go, or the old mental symptoms of poor memory are the first to leave. You have here an expression of a condition that probably is mental to begin with, or certainly a much deeper miasmatic condition than the external discharge. The catarrhal symptoms very likely came later as a part of the general disorganization. If this surmise is true, then the catarrhal symptoms would be the first to disappear, because they were the last to appear. Likewise the same is true of the second example you have cited, of the hectic fever, which is the later development, going off first. Later the old symptom of painful menstruation will disappear.

Always the last symptom to appear should be the first to disappear. Oftentimes you unearth symptoms that have been long covered up with rubbish, and they will disappear in the reverse order of their coming – H.A. ROBERTS.

H.A. Roberts
Dr. H.A.Roberts (1868-1950) attended New York Homoeopathic Medical College and set up practrice in Brattleboro of Vermont (U.S.). He eventually moved to Connecticut where he practiced almost 50 years. Elected president of the Connecticut Homoeopathic Medical Society and subsequently President of The International Hahnemannian Association. His writings include Sensation As If and The Principles and Art of Cure by Homoeopathy.