THE TREATMENT OF BRONCHIAL ASTHMA


The symptoms which a patient is again and again putting up, whenever he gets a chill, or an indigestion, or a strain, mental or physical, are only part of a primitive malady, to cure which you must cover the original latent disease, whether inherited or acquired.


Bronchial asthma continues to be one of the greatest puzzles to modern medical science. Its etiological factors are still obscure and it has been designated by many as a respiratory neurosis. After studying quite a number of cases, Drs. P. De Barsaques and A. Berat, two Frenchmen, stress the presence in all cases of asthma of a neurovegetative instability and arrive at the conclusion that psychic factors are most important, as many patients psychopathic. “Asthma apparently has no single cause; rather three causes are of equal importance in the pathogenesis: (1) respiratory factor, (2) neurovegetative system instability and (3) hepatic factor.”.

A great deal of blame has been put today on allergy, and many of our patients come to us overloaded with the multiple test innoculations from all substances of known sensitivity.

To others, heredity takes an important part as an etiological factor for this distressing condition, and we all have met with families where two or more cases have been treated. Anatomical abnormalities of the nose or preexistence of a chronic rhinitis, sinusitis, bronchitis or a latent tuberculosis are also unquestionable determining causes. In many instances it is a case of suppressed skin disease.

Asthma remains a condition in which the “regular school” of medicine is at a loss, the reason being obvious: it is imperative for them to find the actual cause in order to be able to eradicate it. And here is where the homoeopathic school clearly shows its advantage: we need not know the cause to be able to help Nature get rid of it. The cause unknown,they must rely upon symptomatic treatment to give relief, if only temporary. Ephedrine, epinephrin or adrenalin, oxygen, etc., are only palliative. Such treatment is a mere cause of palliation versus cure, for we all know that the former has to be always at the expenses of the later:

the more we palliate the less we cure. And “The physicians high and only mission is to restore the sick to health, to cure,” the greatest teaching of the great founder of homoeopathy.

We must therefore try to cure all cases of asthma that come to us. They are too complicated, that is true, for they come with a heavy background to remove: heredity, suppression, a preexistent chronic condition. Besides,they present the most variable groups of symptoms, the purely respiratory with its spectacular dyspnoea, the nervous and mental symptoms which are always there and the gastro intestinal disorders as frequent manifestations of dietetic errors, many times acting as the exciting cause for an attack of asthma.

But can we cure asthma cases? Yes, we can. We may not cure asthma, for we never cure diseases; but we cure patients suffering with asthma. We can cure all those cases in which we succeed in removing the underlying condition, whatever it may be. We have the means of doing it by closely following and accurately performing the teachings of Hahnemann.

It is in the interest of bronchial asthma where we confirm time and again the importance of Hahnemanns discovery regarding the nature of chronic diseases. If we take special care to dig out the complete history of the case, marking down all the events, but particularly those referring to past illness, past treatments, vaccinations and hereditary influences, we will surely find at the bottom of every single case the history of a suppression, whether it be a skin eruption by means of topical applications of any imaginable nature, the suppression of a discharge with irrigations or instillations or the suppression of a most important defense symptoms of an acute condition like cough in bronchitis or fever in malaria. We will show these influences more plainly in the cases we will present later on.

It is in this type of cases where we meet more frequently with recurrence of the attacks, irrespective of the fact that the patient has well responded to the previous treatment, and the properly indicated homoeopathic remedy has cut the attacks short and prolonged the intervals of its repetition. Why do the attacks repeat? Because – and let me quote here from Dr.Tyler, of London, when she so well expressed the teaching of the Master:.

The symptoms which a patient is again and again putting up, whenever he gets a chill, or an indigestion, or a strain, mental or physical, are only part of a primitive malady, to cure which you must cover the original latent disease, whether inherited or acquired.

Hahnemann claims that he discovered the nature and treatment of chronic diseases which had remained uncured till his time.

And we are more and more demonstrating this point, viz., the victim of a latent chronic disease will not be cured of even his recurrent, recent troubles, unless the original condition is sought out and brought into the picture, and treated by remedies that should have been given perhaps half a lifetime before.

In no other cases is Hahnemanns miasmatic theory so plainly confirmed as it is in cases of asthma. They are hard to handle because they demand immediate relief and are very hard to hold because they usually come to the Homoeopathic physician after having experienced the apparently gratifying results of palliation, disregarding the injurious after-effects. But the well indicated remedy, that is, the homoeopathic remedy to the particular case, can bring about relief even quicker than any palliative drug.

And it is after the distressing condition of an acute attack when the real treatment must begin, the treatment that will take hold of the underlying condition, the one that will succeed in removing the chronic miasm, and only then a complete cure will be effected. We must, therefore, educate our patients to realize that the really curative treatment will have to be instituted between the attacks; that they must refrain from any dietetic errors and must avoid any physical or mental strains.

Of course we must find out the patients allergic sensitivities and protect him against them. We will have to begin by correcting any anatomical defects whenever present. Mechanical conditions can only be treated mechanically. And then institute the homoeopathic remedy. During an attack it may be one or perhaps more that will fit exactly into the picture at the moment and will give quick relief, yet with just a temporary action, but clarifying the case for the proper selection of the constitutional remedy that will complete the cure, the remedy that will eradicate the condition underneath,.

The following cases will illustrate the foregone statements.

CASE 1. Miss C.M., age 17. Diagnosis: bronchial asthma.

Previous History: Began suffering from asthma since five years of age. Some time before she suffered a skin condition – “the itch” – on the abdomen that was locally treated with ointments. She delicate and predisposed to colds ever since. Other history unimportant.

Family History: Her father suffered bronchial asthma when 15 years of age. Cured some five years later with a change of climate.

Present History: On October 24, 1939, I was called by an allopathic colleague, a very intelligent and honest young man, to see her because he had used in vain all the classic allopathic remedies: adrenalin, ephedrin, ephetonine, etc. It was a desperate case. We saw her that evening at 7 o clock, the eighth day of attack. She started two weeks before with a fluent coryza that later degenerated into an intense asthmatic bronchitis. The patient lay with her head practically buried on several pillows, her eyes closed, apparently in profound sopor. Her face with marked cyanosis, even her lips and tongue were bluish, also the nails of her fingers.

A loud, shallow, difficult respiration that moved her whole body. Her limbs covered with a cold sweat, especially the lower, from the knees down. The entire picture anticipated a near collapse. The room, with three windows and two doors, was almost closed and the air vitiated with the strong odor from a vessel where they were burning some of “Dr. Schiffmans stramonium leaves”, a patent medicine. Out first move of to get rid of such deleterious stuff and open the doors and windows. The intoxicating effects had gone so far that we even had to resort to use of oxygen, although very cautiously applied.

My first prescription was Carbo veg. 200. At 2 a.m. that same night, the patient was worse, there was no change in her respiration and she was beginning to have some convulsive movements. Cuprum met. 200 was given.

October 25, 10 a.m. No more convulsions; cyanosis slightly less; patient began coughing, but unable to raise any expectoration; tongue totally covered with a thick white fur. Cuprum helped in clarifying the case for the next remedy, Antimonium tart. 200. At 7 p.m. the same day the whole picture had changed at the end of the first twenty-four hours. No signs of cyanosis were left, patient was expectorating freely and was even talkative and smiling. Instructions were given for the collection of a specimen from the expectoration in a sterile glass vial for the purpose of preparing an auto-nosode, according to Dr. Duncans method, and following rules of Class V of the Pharmacopoeia. The filtrate was run up to the 30th decimal potency.

Eliud Garcia-Trevino