Case 2. A carpenter ran a nail into his wrist at the junction of the hand. This happened in the morning and by late afternoon he was in such pain and so sick that he did not know what he was doing. He wandered into my office and I dressed his wrist and gave him Hypericum. Early the next morning he came to see me and thanked me for saving his life.
Surely a worthwhile remedy when correctly prescribed.
CANTON, OHIO.
DISCUSSION.
DR. W. W. WILSON: Before I took up the study of medicine, there was an old school doctor at my home, with whom I was more or less acquainted, and he spoke once of making a Hypericum oil. He gathered some Hypericum (the whole plant, leaves, flowers and all), filled a jar, poured olive oil over it, and let it stand in the sun to extract the virtues of the Hypericum.
I was a curious young man, so I made some of this Hypericum oil. Dr. Waltenbaugh says that for some reason the treatment of bruises has not been so satisfactory with Hypericum as with Arnica. This old school man told me this oil was a very remarkable remedy for black eye, and that the Hypericum oil rubbed in would reduce the ecchymosis. I still have some of it, made many years ago. It is very thick. One day my sister fell and suffered a Colles fracture. Of course, there was a good deal of pain in the joint. She wrote to me and asked me to send her some of the Hypericum oil I had made. She found marked relief from rubbing that oil on the skin.
When the oil is exposed to the sun and the virtues are extracted, it is a beautiful wine color, and is as clear as can be when you take the old plant out.
I pass that along because the old school man said it was such a wonderful thing in the ecchymosis about the eye, or anywhere in the body. It takes the pain out, too.
DR. G. STEVENS: I have had several interesting cases which were helped by Hypericum, cases of injury of the coccyx. In one case there had been a very serious fall fifteen years before the treatment, with a great deal of treatment from surgery and electricity and so on, but no permanent relief. In another case the injury had occurred something like five years before. In both cases the help was permanent from Hypericum.
DR. P. L. BENTHACK: Two weeks ago, I had a young man with a crushed finger. It had been caught in a machine and ground off at the middle joint. We took a little bit of the bone out, and made a flap. As it was not aseptic I feared infection, and I gave him one dose of Pyrogen 30 and to prevent infection a bottle of Arnica to take every hour or two hours and told him to report the next morning.
He came in and said, “I didnt sleep. I had a terrible pain.” He looked badly. I took his temperature and his pulse, and said, “There is no infection.” I gave him Hypericum and said, “Take six pellets every fifteen minutes, and when the pain ceases stop the medicine. Then take it every two hours or three hours.” The next morning he said he had slept as well as he had for a long time and that his pain was gone.
About six years ago, a section boss came to me. He had had some accident to his back, and he was about out of commission. He had had give up his job. I gave him Hypericum, and he is working today.
DR. C. L. OLDS: We all know of the wonderful action of Hypericum in punctured wounds, those wounds of rusty nails and so forth which the ordinary, non-homoeopathic physician fears so much. We can usually give a dose or two of Hypericum and go away feeling confident there is going to be no further trouble.
However, I wish to call attention to another remedy that we do not know a great deal about in those conditions, and that is Phaseolus nanus, the common bean. I have used it locally in a good many cases of punctured wounds, not only in man but in beasts, particularly in horses. It is a generally accepted fact among those who have horses that if they have a punctured wound in the foot of a horse it means death. I have never seen a case that hasnt been cured by the use of Phaseolus. Sometimes you get cases with heart symptoms. I think Phaseolus comes in there particularly.
DR. J. N. HAZRA: Just about a month ago we had a case in the clinic where a man had fallen and had a spinal injury. He was cured with one dose of Hypericum 1M. It had been troubling him for more than eight months, and he had tried many other remedies.
DR. B. C. WOODBURY: We had a case at the Homoeopathic Hospital which was variously diagnosed. Some said it was hysteria. Some had other diagnoses. One opinion was expressed that it might be a case of tetanus. It was a medicolegal case. I dont know just what the final decision was in the matter.
This woman had spasms and periods of unconsciousness. There may have been, and undoubtedly was, an element of hysteria in it, but she had had an injury very definitely. She was given Hypericum 1M. Whatever the diagnosis may have been, the woman, after having that remedy, began to redevelop a lesion in a spot where the original punctured wound had occurred. But the action of Hypericum was very striking.
I had a patient in the out-patient department, an old colored woman, who had been injured, and who had suffered a great deal for a long time. No remedy ever helped her. I finally gave her some Hypericum, I think probably the third decimal. She was immediately relieved of her trouble, which had persisted for a long time.
Those two cases illustrate well the action of this remedy.
DR. J. W. OVERPECK: I would like to ask if anyone has noticed a delirium from injuries that were treated by Hypericum. I had one case. In fact, I reported a number of cases in 1927. One of these cases was that of a man who was in a train wreck. He was in the sleeper and his head struck the head of the berth. About three days later he came to me and was unable to walk straight; he had to be led. He was delirious and was hearing the voice of one of his close friends who had died a few years before.
Another thing brought out in this paper was the shock of the spinal nerves. A shock that calls for Hypericum is one that comes from a blow in the direction of the medulla oblongata, either from the top of the head or from the lower end of the spine.
For example, a woman was standing in the sleeper when the engine was connected with the train, and the shock made her sit down very hard. She was very heavy. In two or three days (I discovered these symptoms usually arise on the third day) she had many nervous symptoms. Hypericum cured her quickly.
CHAIRMAN A. H. GRIMMER: You all know that in the proving of Hypericum, it is markedly worse in cold, damp weather. You also know that many cases of latent rheumatic conditions in the body will settle in the injured parts. You do not always need to get the history of an injury. You may use Hypericum to advantage in some cases of rheumatism that may or may not settle in the injured parts.
In many cases of coxalgia it is surprising how often Hypericum can still be a remedy, with no history.
A remedy to compare in punctured wounds, especially in dog bites, is Lyssin. I have had wonderful clinical results with Lyssin, also called Hydrophobinum. It takes the pain out of a dog bite as well as any remedy. I know of. It takes the fear from the patient. You can tell him, “This is a prophylactic against rabies” and it is surprising what clinical results you will get with Lyssin in dog bites.
DR. C. L. OLDS: How about cat bites?.
DR. A. H. GRIMMER: It is the same thing, bites of animals.
Disease is caused by a primary derangement of this vital force consequent upon the dynamic influence of some morbific agent which has the power of altering the harmonious working of the vital force.
Hahnemann says: “How the deranged vital force causes the organism to display morbid phenomena, that is, how the disease is produced it would be of no practical utility to the physician to know, and therefore it will forever remain concealed from him. Only what is necessary for him to know of the disease and what is fully sufficient for enabling him to cure it, has the Lord of Life revealed to his senses”.
Therefore it will be useless and altogether unnecessary to even try to explain how the dynamic vital force is deranged by the dynamic morbific force of some disease-producing agent. Knowing that the dynamic vital force is deranged and disease, therefore, produced by the action of a dynamic morbific force, does it not appeal to reason that the remedy which is capable of restoring order in the deranged organism must also be dynamic?- E. EARL FREEMAN, M.D., 1908.
Born in Western Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He moved to Parkersburg, W. Va., in 1888, practicing there, but also consulting worldwide. He gave lectures at the Pulte Medical College in Cincinnati and taught philosophy, materia medica, and repertory at the American Foundation for Homoeopathy Postgraduate School. Boger brought BÅ“nninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory into the English Language in 1905. His publications include :
Boenninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory
Boenninghausen's Antipsorics
Boger's Diphtheria, (The Homoeopathic Therapeutics of)
A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915
General Analysis with Card Index, 1931
Samarskite-A Proving
The Times Which Characterize the Appearance and Aggravation of the Symptoms and their Remedies