I graduated from a homoeopathic college in 1894 and for about fifteen years was not greatly concerned with my meagre knowledge of homoeopathy, or lack of skill in handling my sick patients. Then came an awakening to things homoeopathic.
Previous to this awakening, I was using as much allopathy as homoeopathy and thought nothing of it. But when I began to study Hahnemanns writings and those who had made a name for themselves as true followers of his teachings, I discarded all adjuvants of a remedial source and gave the single dose, following Hahnemanns teachings.
And that is the message I want to impart to my hearers here today in this paper.
What success I have attained in treating these cases, I believe is because I have prescribed according to the law, and taught my patients to keep the law.
In treating gallstones, peptic and duodenal ulcers, each individual has a lot of symptoms in common with all the others, and you must remember that common symptoms must be correlated to the generals, or concomitant symptoms. As for instance, vomiting and eructations (both common symptoms to all of these pathological conditions) must fit in with your strong general symptoms as to time, place, aggravations and ameliorations. Likewise a weepy patient will need a different remedy from a hypochondriac.
So the first thing to concern the physician is a careful case taking. Get their lifes history from the date of birth up to the present time and dont neglect to inquire into their parents medical history. It may hold the key to the whole situation. These patients have a long story usually, and delight in telling you about it. Listen attentively. That is the way to gain their confidence and cooperation, which you must have if you ever expect to cure them. Write out your answers so that you have a permanent record that is available anytime the patient comes in for medicine.
And as you take this history, explain to the patient how a homoeopath works. I usually wait until I am nearly through with my case taking and then stop and explain to them, something along these lines. “I want you to understand, Mrs. B., just how a homoeopath works, and why. Homoeopathy is the law of similars; that is, like is cured by its like. We match a remedy that has produced symptoms in its provers like you are complaining of.
“Homoeopathy is the only field that studies drugs this way. By it we know the sphere of action of our remedies. Remedies have personalities, some develop fever in their provers, not only a fever but a specific kind of a fever. One may be fever with thirst and another fever without thirst. One may develop pain that is > from motion and another pain that is < by motion, or > by hot applications and another by cold applications.
“Thus you see when I find upon questioning you that you bundle up and keep covers over you in bed, I know that you are what we term lacking in vital heat, in the language of the repertory (which is an index of symptoms arranged in rubrics of our drug provings or materia medica)”.
Perhaps I take my repertory and show them a rubric that is prominent in their case history.
Now by this time you have interested your patient to such an extent that they no longer resent answering questions that previous to your explanation had the appearance of being irrelevant as far as helping their distress after eating; but if it dont, go farther with your philosophy.
Tell them you are different from the doctor they came to you from and that if you are to cure them, you will have to teach them your philosophy and that they must cooperate with you all the way. That you have the natural law to guide you and that you must teach them the natural law and obey it.
I dont recall who the old master was who said that a case well taken is more than half cured, but this surely applies in every case that comes to us for help. I am sorry for the man who flippantly declares that he does not have the time to waste on every patient that comes to him. I am of the opinion that he is looking for easy money rather than helping a sick individual that has come to him for help in his hour of tribulation.
All through your case taking, be ever watchful for suppressions. Usually it will be an eczema or foot sweat, but it is equally important to establish a suppressed emotion, as anger, irritability, lost lover, death of a loved one. Get all the answers to your concomitants, time, place, weather, > from, and < by, fears, desires and aversions.
If you are going to be a good homoeopathic prescriber, this is the way to build up a reputation that will grow with every successful cure. And if you fail to cure it is because you have failed in teaching your patient the natural law.
These cases of ulcer and gallstone are all active, and active management must begin at once. In most cases, I take them off all food. Nothing but water. Explain to them that their stomach is sick and not capable of working, must have a rest. Tell them that they will not starve by going without solid food, if the body is furnished sufficient fluid, for weeks. Always tell them that Sweeney lived on water for one hundred days and then lived to be shot.
Tell them that these cases are always full of poison and that water neutralizes and helps to eliminate poison, and the stomach is not required to work on water.
Leave the bowels alone. No physic or enemas till there is a natural passage. No sleeping potions. No nerve sedatives. No nothing except your carefully selected remedy. And now I am going to revert to that old saw again and repeat that a case well taken is more than half cured.
The remedies I have used have always been prescribed from the repertory chart that I always work out from my case history, and I am not going to do anything but mention a few remedies by name that have worked out most frequently; and you will have to depend on your knowledge of materia medica to make your selections wisely.
Sulphur heads the list; Calc. carb. is next; Natrum mur. is next; Ars., then Puls., then Phos. Medorrhinum has at least six tallies for being the first remedy given and they were all gallstone cases.
I want to say to you that in making up this list, I reviewed over seventy cases that I have treated successfully in the past five years. I have had failures, too, but I cannot blame homoeopathy for any of my failures. They were due to something that I didnt have to give in that specific case.
My honest conviction is that homoeopathy is too big for any mortal to function perfectly in, but I know I am on the right track and am steadily forging ahead to a better and more perfect understanding of the natural law.
AKRON, OHIO.
DISCUSSION.
DR. STEVENS: I would like to ask Dr. Dixon what special symptoms he had in the cases for which he used Medorrhinum.
DR.SCHWARTZ: I certainly can say that I approve of Dr. Dixons method of cutting off the diet as much as possible. People who have gallstone and liver conditions usually like to eat, and I have found they crave starches, sweets, and a mixture of food. I can think of hardly one I have treated that hasnt been constipated, due to wrong mixtures of food and overfeeding, and certainly if you can get them to stop eating for a while and given their body forces a chance to eliminate, that is an important step toward getting better action from your homoeopathic remedy and toward a cure.
DR. GRIMMER: Dr. Dixons papers are always full of meat and give us something to think about, and his experiences are certainly valuable.
There are some other remedies he didnt mention, however, that I have found just as frequently indicated and useful that might be a help. Natrum sulph., Natrum mur., and Lycopodium are three remedies he didnt mention that really stand up with that group he did mention, especially in gallbladder conditions.
The old master to whom he referred was H.C. Allen, who made the statement he quoted. It is: a case well taken is a long way to a cure.
DR. GARCIA-TREVINO: Dr. Dixons paper is a subject that has always interested me very much.
When he mentioned Calcarea carb. I couldnt help but remember, when I was taking a postgraduate course in the New York Postgraduate School, which is an allopathic school, what one of the professors used to tell us concerning gallstones, especially in women. He said we should always keep in mind the three Fs, forty, fat and fair. I was just thinking that perhaps the last two of the three Fs, fat and fair, would have some bearing in regard to our remedies.
Gallstone cases have always interested me, because they have been a great influence in my being a homoeopath. When I was a student, I received quite a lesson from an old homoeopathic teacher in Mexico City. He was a Spaniard, a doctor who had come to Mexico from Spain. He had been an allopathic physician before, was converted to homoeopathy, and was a thorough homoeopath.
The case was my own mother. She had been suffering from gallstone colic for several years. I remember one morning, when I was in my second year of medical school, she was suffering terribly. I went to the nearest drug store, got a couple of morphine ampoules, and gave her one. That was about five or six oclock in the morning. The morphine gave no results. At about seven-thirty or eight oclock in the morning, our family physician came and he said to me, “What is the matter with you? Arent you a student of the homoeopathic school? Why did you get morphine for your mother?”.
Akron, Ohio
President, I.H.A.