“Homoeopathy is good for children.” How often we have heard this statement. The implication is that it is not so good for adults. This was evidently the idea in the mind of a man who, when asked what kind of a doctor he employed, replied: “I have a homoeopath for my children because his sugar pills are so easy to take. When I myself am ailing, I want some real medicine.” The great majority of the laity, although well meaning, think superficially and reason from appearances instead of facts. And yet there is a moral aspect involved in the remarks of the parent just quoted. If you accused him of being no better than the man who pours off the cream for his coffee in the morning and gives the skimmed milk to his babies, he would be very indignant; but you would have been right.
Why not the best for the tender infant and the growing child? Life expectancy has advanced considerably over what it was a decade or two ago, not, we are told, because men live longer, but because more children are saved during the early and most precarious years of their existence. Careful parents who can afford it employ a competent paediatrist. Those in less fortunate circumstances avail themselves of the numerous books, pamphlets and newspaper articles which are printed almost daily.
They buy scales and keep an accurate account of gain or loss in weight. They carefully sterilize feeding bottles, nipples, toys and even diapers. They study the uses of cod liver oil concentrate, vitamins and prepared vegetables, and for the most part their babies thrive and wax in strength and stature. When, however, it comes to medical treatment they usually accept the measures dictated by Health Boards and physicians, and some, like the unnatural parent mentioned above, employ a homoeopath because his pills are easy to take. Of course you will agree that the little ones so blessed are the beneficiaries. The others live in spite of serums, vaccines and drugs. The latter, although given in smaller doses, are still in vogue.
The majority of my six hundred and eighty-odd confinement cases were taken care of in the home. In a practice of over forty years, I have never lost an infant whose heart was beating when it was born. Several years ago I was patronizing a well known hospital in Chicago which had shown an unusual record in the care of both mother and baby; but I was puzzled when I found in three consecutive cases that the baby, apparently perfectly well during its sojourn in the infants ward, came home with a diarrhoea that was unaccountable and not easily controlled. I made an investigation and found that it was routine not only to give the mother castor oil on the third day but the baby also. I had taken the precaution to interdict the “physic” for the mother but never dreamed that it was being given to the infant.
It is always a source of great satisfaction to me to “put one over” on the allopath. Some five weeks ago the seventeen-months- old son of patients of mine living thirty miles away was taken down with vomiting and diarrhoea followed by a loose cough, fever and great restlessness. They had been greatly worried over the child for some time because a paediatrist had told them the boy was running into the mongolian type and they thought that the present illness was a manifestation of this ailment. They begged me to come out, assuring me that, in order to save my time, they would have the local allopath there to tell me all about the case, adding that he was not to prescribe any medicine.
I arrived twenty minutes ahead of him and had a good opportunity for observation on my own account. The babys temperature was 102.5, his face pale. He persisted in lying on his back and at frequent intervals, jerked the pelvis off the bed several times in rapid succession. I was told that this strange symptom had been recurring for several weeks. The cough was loose and infrequent but not severe. There were a few rales in the bronchials but no dullness of the chest. He whined and whimpered and could be pacified only when carried about. After watching him for a few minutes I noticed a slight waving motion of the nostrils. He had been circumcised but there were a few slight adhesions around the corona glandis.
The young doctor came and was naturally not quite at ease, but he made the best of an embarrassing situation. With much hemming and hawing he gave a history of the case, eliminated pneumonia, meningitis and narrowed the diagnosis down to some obscure toxic condition in the colon, which agreed with my own conclusions. On leaving he advised me to give a little aspirin, a sedative, perhaps some phenacetin, and a cathartic. I assured him that I would prescribe a sedative and see that the child got a good cleaning out, and he made his exit. What I did give was a dose of Lycopodium 1M. and some placebo. The next morning the mother, over long distance telephone, told me that half an hour after I left the boy fell asleep and slept soundly for eleven hours, waking bright and happy. All symptoms had disappeared. Even the up and down motion of the pelvis had ceased. He has required no medicine since.
Many years ago the mother of a little family which summered at Grays Lake, Illinois, called me up and asked me to prescribe for a small girl across the way who was very ill with cholera infantum. There had been a consultation and the doctors had pronounced the case hopeless. I cannot recall the symptoms or the name of the remedy which was given from my patients family medicine chest, but the child made a rapid and complete recovery.
My friend told me afterward how amused she was when the doctor who had had the case walked past her neighbors house every morning on the way to his office, looking for the crepe which he confidently expected to see hanging on the door. After several days and not having the courage to inquire of the mother, he crossed the street and asked my patient what had happened. When she told him he merely remarked, “well there are doctors in Chicago who know a lot more than we do.” The question is, why didnt he ask about the remedy given?.
One of my families with an only daughter, ten years of age, moved to Springfield, Illinois. I recommended to them a homoeopath in that city, whose name I had obtained from my pharmacist. The found that he was a very poor excuse for a homoeopath and when the child contracted pneumonia, called an old school physician who had a reputation for curing that disease.
He, of course, rushed her to the hospital and placed her in a room with a vapor lamp. The father got me on long distance and gave a fairly good picture for Belladonna. A powder of the 10M. was mailed by special delivery and given the next morning. Two days afterwards I received the following telegram: “Temperature midnight 105 down the normal 11 a.m. Right lung still solid. No danger of spreading. Heart in good shape. Doctors amazed”.
On his next trip to Chicago the father gave me a graphic account of how the doctor and his son, also a physician, on their regular rounds, looked at the chart, then at the little patient, then at each other. The older man, evidently feeling that he should say something, remarked, “Well, it wont stay that way.” In five days the small patient left the hospital.
I could recite other similar instances, such as that of the small daughter of an old school oculist in the suite where I have my downtown office. I accidentally overhead the mother expressing her anxiety because the doctors wanted to give the child “shots” for hay fever, and that she had heard of a child having been killed by them. I offered my services, which were gladly accepted. Ambrosia art. stopped the hay fever.
Also of the 18 year old son of a surgeon on the opposite side of the big waiting room and the son of one of his patients, also suffering from coryza, who were cured with the same remedy. But I will forbear. The cases already recited should convince any thing person that HOMOEOPATHY IS GOOD FOR CHILDREN AND ADULT AS WELL. CHICAGO, ILL.
