This young man of 22, over six feet tall, broad shouldered, athletic, as healthy looking as one ever sees, giving a history of practically perfect health all of his life except for a tendency to crusted eyelids and a rare stye, has had increasingly severe attacks of eczema of the face and scalp for the past three years. Several kinds of treatment were tried by an old school physician, local applications, X-ray and other light rays, which had taken off nearly all his hair. The scalp and face were covered with crusts that piled up high and oozed from underneath. They cracked easily, and on cracking would bleed. This was rather mild when he came to see me some time last fall but he said it was always worse in January and February.
I gave him Graphites first, and it seemed to help him a great deal; his hair grew so fast and so luxuriantly that the scabs on his scalp were entirely covered up and he looked fairly well on go about the street. By Christmas time he took a temporary position on a delivery truck for the Post Office Department, and while thus employed, had a fall and cut his knee. The Post Office Department sent him to their own surgeons and had it dressed. Then he went back to the college where he was studying and was put into the dispensary. He had an attack of influenza, and they dosed him some more.
The eczema cropped out in all its glory in January. The young man was housed completely for three months, because he refused to be seen because of his appearance. I would like to picture it for you as it really looked at its worst. His whole face was crusted in layers, overlapping each other and piling up to three-quarters of an inch high in the middle, oozing a sticky, gluey fluid. It attacked his forehead, his whole scalp, the back of his ears; the insides of his ears and his nostrils were entirely closed, so that he had to breathe through his mouth. He had crusts in the corners of his mouth which cracked and bled whenever he tried to eat anything. They were piled up so high around the back of the neck that it was difficult for him to lie even on his back, and he couldnt lie on either side on account of the condition of his ears.
It was almost impossible for him to sleep, and naturally he grew very nervous. When he tried to draw or eat, the serum would drop into his book or plate.
The body was covered with a different sort of eruption that looked more herpetic, all over the body, on the arms, and somewhat on the thighs and legs. The fingers and knuckles cracked and bled a little. Otherwise, he seemed to be a perfectly healthy man.
Sometimes he would have a very slight rise in temperature followed by a chill and faintness.
After the Graphites, I tried several things. I gave him Mezereum and it helped for a while, and then Petroleum which helped for a little while. I gave him Sulphur, and that also seemed to help a little. Then I took some of this discharge and ran it up to the 30th potency by hand and gave him that. This helped quite a little, but the results were not permanent.
Finally, I wrote to DR. Boger and sent him some of the discharge. He ran it up to the 12th potency by hand, and then put it through his electric apparatus. He sent me a vial of it. I gave this young man one dose on the sixth of March. Three days later improvement was noticeable. By the thirty-first of March he was just about ready to go out on the street. By the end of the first week in April, he took a position. The scalp was entirely clear, the face was rid of scabs, and all the bleeding and oozing were gone, but the skin looked very red and was very tender. The eruption on the body and limbs was somewhat better, but not gone by any means. He felt fine. He has been out working ever since, and was married by the end of April.
He went on improving beautifully until about the middle of May when there was some return of these scabs at the edges of the hair and base of the neck. I gave him another dose on May 25, but I was not satisfied with its action, and when I came up here to Montreal, he was clamoring for help because he was afraid that it would come back again.
Dr. Boger tells me to take the potency he made for me, run it up 10 points more, and give it to him. He assures me it will help him.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
