Boenninghausens repertory, for instance, has not rubric for hay fever; the symptoms must be assembled according to those appearing in the patient, from several rubrics. Kents Repertory, on the other hand, had a rubric for hay fever under the general heading Coryza, but this rubric is too limited in the remedies noted, Phosphorus, Sepia and Sulphur not being listed.
In an analysis of the results of some ninety cases that have come to us this season, twelve remedies were indicated and prescribed with satisfactory results, on the basis of the repertory analysis, in approximately the following proportions:.
Pulsatilla, 29 percent; Phosphorus, 20 percent; Sulphur, 19 percent; Nux vomica, 14 percent; Sepia, 9 percent; Silica, 52 percent: Rhus tox., 2 percent; Bryonia, 2 percent; Calcarea carb., 2 percent. Arsenicum album, Sabadilla and Sinapis were prescribed in one case each, the last not on repertory analysis but on the obvious indications presented by the patients symptomatology.
We can regard these remedies as nothing less than constitutional in their action, for with the possible exception of Sabadilla and Sinapis these remedies are all deeply active and are numbered among the polychrests. Moreover, the four most frequently indicated remedies in this group, Pulsatilla, Phosphorus, Sulphur and Nux vomica, are probably the most outstanding remedies for their antidotal powers against the bad effects of drugs and serums.
No remedy will cover a case of this kind to remove the offending symptoms and leave the patient in a better state of health unless it is capable of reaching the deepest recesses of the system. This is clearly demonstrated by the study and comparison of the predisposing circumstances and the cure, not alone of the hay fever syndrome, but not the patient, in a long series of cases. If has been our experience that when the indicated remedy has been administered in the proper potency, the patient has been generally improved in health, showing that the action of the remedy was constitutional.
With the exception of Sinapis, which has not been classified, the remedies indicated in the seasons work all fall into at least one of the three groups of remedies covering inherited dyscrasias: antipsoric, antisycotic or antisyphilitic; most of them have demonstrated their powers in all three fields.
Sabadilla in ascending potencies was not sufficiently deep in its action to hold the case, and was followed very successfully with Sulphur. Other physicians who have used Sabadilla extensively in hay fever prescribing have remarked that while it seemed to have prompt action it did not always hold the patient well and must be repeated at frequent intervals; in other words, while it met the symptomatic indications of the hay fever attacks, it did not meet the needs of the patient as a whole. In the case where Sinapis was used so successfully, this was the complementary remedy to Sulphur in this case, for Sulphur had been the constitutional remedy and had released the effects of early suppressed eruptions.
This system of treating the patient rather than the hay fever syndrome actually cures the tendency for hay fever by correcting the constitutional basis and restoring the patient to a state of health. We cannot possibly consider any case cured until and unless we have removed the hypersensitivity to material activating irritants. In other words, hay fever as an individual entity cannot be cured; but the patient having hay fever can be cured through the action of the constitutional remedy.
DERBY, CONN.
