This, then, is the quartette form of treatment which has been used in a long series of infected cases through the years with no failures to date. The more submerged, the quicker the action, i.e., if an infection on the finger, submerge the whole hand; if an infected hand submerge the arm. Use as great heat as possible continuing till healing occurs. Reduce the protein, and increase the fruit and water in the diet, to increase resistance in the patient.
MONTCLAIR, N.J.
DISCUSSION.
DR. WRIGHT: I would like to ask Dr.Farr about the creolin that he uses in local applications, whether it is really homoeopathic?.
DR. SKILES: Acute infection, like the dirty nail in the dirty alley, is something to combat, and how are we going to get a remedy that will meet this poison? Here is my treatment of such a case: A boy, eight years old, was playing in a dirty alley. He stepped on a dirty nail which ran up through his shoe into his foot. In a few hours the foot was swollen, and the swelling was running above his ankle.
The pain was very intense. How to meet and control this poison is, to my mind, quite a knack, unless we have some philosophy by which we can do it. In this case I took a piece of cotton cloth, two inches wide and a foot long, rolled it up and put it in the boys mouth, leaving it there until it was saturated. Then I hastened to my office and prepared a potency from it the electric machine, running it up from the 12th to the 30th. I gave him first the 12th potency, and then in six or eight hours the 30th. The swelling commenced to go down and the pain ceased. He was given one potency every day and every other day until he was well. That is the best homoeopathy that I know.
DR. ESMOND: I would substitute Calendula for the creolin in every case.
DR. FARR: The only query which has been raised is regarding the creolin. as far as I know, creolin is not homoeopathic; it is antiseptic. I have used glycerin along; I have used Calendula alone. I have used what we used to call in the dispensary C.G.& H., which is Calendula, Hamamelis and glycerin. I now turn to creolin and glycerin. My only reason is that I want the action of the glycerin. I havent quite as much faith in the Calendula and Hamamelis as I have in creolin and glycerin. My only reason is that I want the action of the glycerin. I havent quite as much faith in the Calendula and Hamamelis as I have in an ordinary wound. I use either plain Calendula, or with a combination, but where I have more, I dont want any cross infection.
Regarding the hot water, I only add the tablets to the hot water for psychological reasons. I have no faith the tablets in the water; it is the heat and the water with do the work, but so many people feel that they must have something, otherwise the water, to them, is not sterile, although it has been boiled.
DR. BOGER: Why dont you use Pyrogen?.
DR. FARR: Because i have found so little result therefrom. I have rather lost my faith in Pyrogen.
I am willing to try Pyrogen in connection with the other homoeopathic remedies which I have suggested.
DR. GRIMMER: How high have you used Pyrogen?.
DR. FARR: A 30th.
DR. GRIMMER: Try it higher and you will get better results.
DR. KRICHBAUM: How early is Pyrogen useful in aseptic cases?.
DR. BOGER: Just as soon as rose colored streaks run up the arm.
DR. KRICHBAUM: I havent found pyrogen of much use except where there is a true pus condition after a few hours.
DR. BOGER: We all see surgical cases, such as crushed fingers, and a thousand other things. Not long ago a young man came to my office and said, “Doctor, relieve me of this terrible pain. I dont want to have my finger cut off”. There were streaks running up his arm. I gave him some powders of Pyrogen, an said, “Let me see your finger tomorrow”. He came back the next day and pain was almost all gone. I gave him some more Pyrogen, and that was the end of it.
I have been in practice since 1888, and since Pyrogen was brought to my attention I have only lost one case of general sepsis. That case was not given Pyrogen.
When the demonstration is clear that the present remedy has done all it is capable of doing, and this demonstration can not be made until much higher potencies than usually made have been tried, then the time is present for the next prescription. To change to the next remedy becomes a ponderous problem, and what shall it be? The last appearing symptom shall be the guide to the next remedy. This is so whenever the image has been permitted to settle by watching and waiting for the shaping of the returning symptom-picture.
The fact cannot be too often called to mind, nor too strongly insisted upon, that our most characteristic indication for the use of a drug which presents well defined general symptoms, as Arsenic does, and indeed as every well proved drug does, are derived not from its local action upon any organ or system, not from a knowledge of the particular tissues it may affect, and how it affects them but upon the general constitutional symptoms and conditions and concomitants. If this were not so, in the presence of how many maladies, of the intimate nature of which we are wholly ignorant and which nevertheless we cure, should we be utterly powerless for good?- DUNHAM.
