At times these remedies for the same reason are apt to cause damage after haemorrhage into the brain or other important organs.
Ferrum and Acetic acid are dangerous in many cases of advanced phthisis, owing to their power of inducing haemorrhage.
Ferrum in old syphilitics is apt to render ulcers phagdenic. Antipsorics are apt to do warm in active syphilis, i.e., as long as the syphilis is the uppermost miasm. But many antipsorics are also anti-syphilitics, and they are not to be excluded by the rule.
It is dangerous to stop the diarrhoea of advanced phthisis even by the indicated remedy.
Kali carb. is a very dangerous remedy in old gouty cases, but Kali iod. is often very beneficial.-[K.].
Arsenic is a very dangerous remedy in irritable heart, especially if organic, as it is apt to cause parenchymatous nephritis. – [K.].
Arsenic is a dangerous remedy in dysentery if not the exact similimum, as it is very apt to spoil the case.-[K., Med., Adv., Nov. 1899.]. IDIOSYNCRASY.
Every one has some idiosyncrasy or peculiar susceptibility to certain influences. It is for this reason that only a few persons but of the many are affected when exposed to the infinitesimal noxia that cause disease. The sensitiveness of a sick man to the homoeopathic similimum is wonderful, while a remedy that is not homoeopathic to this condition may be given in massive doses with little effect. No one can be made sick in a lasting way by a drug to which he is not susceptible. This fact may serve to explain how at times a high potency of the same drug with which a is poisoned proves curative. In other words, in such a case the patient was poisoned because he was already sick or susceptible and needed that remedy, but the drug not being the same place as his susceptibility poisoned instead of curing him.
Kent also suggests that frequent repetitions of a crude drug may bring about susceptibility to it, and that after a time the merest inhalation of it may produce its effects.- [Hom. Phys., Sept. 1889.].
PROVINGS.
It is advisable when making provings to begin was a single dose, but in the great majority of cases this will cause no effect. If the single dose fails we may try to create a susceptibility by repeating the dose until some effect is produced, but the medicine must be stopped at once on the appearance of symptoms and not repeated until absolutely all symptoms have ceased.
Many provings, especially some of Thuja, are almost valueless owing to this repetition of the drug after symptoms appeared. The finest symptoms, as a rule, are those that develop late, months after the drug has been discontinued. No heed must be paid as to whether the symptoms in a proving are primary or secondary, for as long as the drug can produce them it can cure them. In certain provers what are commonly regarded as secondary symptoms appear as the primary action of the drug.
In a proving, if symptoms appear which have been experienced long before, this re-appearance only proves that in virtue of this own constitution this prover has a special tendency to admit their manifestation.- [Organon, par. 138].
PSORA.
In the treatment of chronic non-venereal disease, Hahnemann found that the similar remedy was just as efficacious in removing the existing symptoms as it was in acute disease. But he also frequently found that while the patient might remain well for a considerable period, yet without adequate cause the same symptoms returned and were again removed by the remedy, though less perfectly than before. This happened several times, until finally the remedy ceased to benefit. Being convinced of the universality of the homoeopathic law of cure, he concluded that the ostensible disease could not be the whole but only the active part of some much more extensive disease, or otherwise it would have been permanently cured.
Accordingly he endeavored by careful examination of the history and progress of a large number of chronic diseases to discover all the ailments and symptoms belonging to this unknown primitive malady. He found that the majority of such patients had had the itch or some other cutaneous disease, such as eczema, herpes, tinea, etc., and that the symptoms of the chronic disease only began to manifest themselves after these had disappeared or had been removed by external treatment, and that the disease constantly tended to progress from without inwards-from the lesser to the more vitally important organs.
Having now, as he believed, discovered the common origin of all the variously named chronic diseases, which he called psora, he chose from amongst the then proved remedies all such as were capable of producing symptoms similar to those of the miasm and advised that they should be employed in its cure.
Hahnemann believed that psora was always the result of direct infection, and probably this was the case originally; but now, according to Kent, all mankind is more or less psoric and the acute manifestation is only the taking on of a new load of the disease.
Many have rejected the psora theory, but practical experience teaches us to give by preference these very antipsoric remedies. This preferences is not theoretical and is constantly subordinate to the general principles of homoeopathy.
Dr. Rueter published what he believed to be the order in which the various organs were affected by psora, when not interfered with, but Kent is unable to confirm this sequence. Kent him observed that many diseases seem to be on the same plane, one member of a family having epilepsy, while other have insanity, cancer, tuberculosis, etc., the various organs being affected according to the circumstances of the patient. SYPHILIS The true course of this disease cannot be properly followed from old school writings, as their habitual use of massive doses prevents the disease following its natural course.
The primary manifestation is the chancre, which usually appears fifteen days after exposure.
This chancre, under proper homoeopathic treatment, tends to enlarge, and the bubo frequently suppurates whereas, under allopathic treatment, the bubo remains as a hard lump and seldom suppurates. under homoeopathic treatment the bubo disappears if the chancre discharges profusely.
Hahnemann taught that it was possible to prevent the appearance of secondary symptoms, but this is a mistake, for they always sooner or later appear. In Hahnemanns day the distinction between the chancre and chancroid was not properly understood, and doubtless it was this that led him into error. The chancre is followed by the eruptions which likely call for a different remedy. The closer the remedy given for the chancre is to the similimum the less copious will be the eruption.
The eruptions under homoeopathic treatment are usually very profuse, but are never pustular. The eruption is followed by ulceration of the throat. The first ulcer to come will be the last to disappear under homoeopathic treatment. The next manifestation is the falling out of the hair- [K.].
The tertiary stage under homoeopathic treatment, if it appear at all, is a shadow, -[K.].
The foregoing only holds true when the treatment has been purely homoeopathic throughout, but when we are called on to treat a case that has passed down to the tertiary stage under allopathic treatment the procedure is very different.
In such a case under appropriate treatment all the symptoms he has already experienced will return, but in the opposite order to which they originally appeared, viz., the falling out of the hair, then the sore throat eruptions and finally the chancre Of course, these various stages will call for different remedies according to the symptoms. [Never leave Merc. so long as it benefits.-K.].
Syphilis like sycosis, is always taken at the stage it is in, in the person from whom it is caught, and consequently when under homoeopathic treatment the symptoms begin to come back in the reverse order-they only go back to the stage at which the patient took the disease. In old broken down syphilitics without any very guiding symptoms it is advisable to give a few doses of Syphilinum, which usually serves to re-establish the vital reaction and bring out the symptoms. After this comes antipsorics are called for because, when syphilis has advanced so far, psora has usually got mixed with it.-[K.]
If either psora or sycosis is active when syphilis is taken the syphilis usually suppresses the other miasm, and when after a period of anti-syphilitic remedies the disease becomes latent the symptoms of the sycosis or psora begin to be active again and must be treated by their corresponding remedies until they in turn become latent. The syphilis may again become active, and this alternation of the different miasms may go on for a time before the patient is thoroughly cured.
This alternation of the miasms is very important, because antipsoric remedies, such as Sulphur, Calc. and Graph. are more likely to do harm than good if given while the syphilis is active. – [K.].
When syphilis has progressed till gummatous formations have been produced round the anus, in periosteum and in the brain, Sulphur, if given, will suppurate these, and thus make the patient worse. I have seen it suppurate the soft palate away when I did not know he had syphilis. You may have to give at once Merc. or Merc. cor. to stop the action of the Sulphur.-[K.]. SYCOSIS.
