After careful history taking, the following symptoms were evident: Greasy taste. Aversion to sweets. Feeling of rawness about the rectum. Sensation as if lime were burned in stomach.
Causticum completely cured this patient within three weeks time. The relief was immediate and the cure progressive.
Other indicated remedies are:.
Silica: Chronic suppurative processes. Patient is cold, chilly, hugs the fire. Wants warm clothing. Hates drafts. Lacks grit, moral and physical.
Nitric acid: Splinter-like pains. Irregular edges. Exuberant granulations. Foetid footsweat.
Graphites: Anus extremely sore. Stools covered with mucus. Eczematous subjects cracking behind the ears.
Ratanhia: Constriction about anus which burns and aches for hours after stool. Cutting lancinating pains in rectum with dryness.
Paeonia: Fissures with large oozing. Anus offensive, moist and sore. Smarting and burning all the time.
Platina: Crawling, itching, especially at night.
ACUTE SUPPURATIVE MASTOIDITIS.
Capsicum: Swelling and pain behind the ears. Burning and stinging in the ears. Sensitiveness, especially at the top of the mastoid.
Belladonna: The symptoms are too well known for detail.
Ammonium picricum: Boring pain extending to ear, orbit and jaw.
OSTEOMYELITIS.
Silica: With old fistulous openings and sequestra discharging a yellow creamy pus.
Asafoetida: Caries with offensive discharges. Intolerable soreness about fistulous openings. Especially indicated in osteomyelitis of the tibia.
Aurum: Especially of the bones of the cranium, the palate and the nasal bones. Pains worse at night. Offensive odor. Discharging small sequestra.
Platina muriaticum: Especially in tarsus. (Mezereum).
Calcarea carbonica: Especially of the vertebrae. Sour sweat. Obesity. Waxy, white complexion.
Fluoric acid: Especially dental, but also of long bones with thin, excoriating discharges.
Stillingia: Especially luetic of long bones. Worse at night and in damp weather.
PROSTATIC HYPERTROPHY.
Conium: Urination difficult. Intermittent.
Ferrum picricum: Especially in the aged.
Chimaphila: Tenesmus. Frequent urination. Sensation as of sitting on a small ball.
Thuja: Frequent pressing desire to urinate with small discharge and great straining. Stitches from rectum to bladder.
Sabal serrulata: Of unquestioned value in prostatic enlargement; epididymitis. Acts on the membranoprostatic portion of urethra. Iritis with prostatic trouble. Constant desire to pass water at night. Enuresis. Cystitis with prostatic hypertrophy. Loss of sexual power.
SEPTIC GALL-BLADDER.
I have had a striking example of the verification of a peculiar symptom representing Lachesis in a patient suffering from a septic gall-bladder, the symptom being intense rigor with the patient begging to be held by attendants, and in one occasion begging that somebody sit on his chest and on his legs. The patient was permanently cured by six doses of the 4M. potency.
Ninety per cent. of patients seen during the functional disturbance of disease which always precedes gross pathology will never reach the stage where surgery becomes imperative if the exact similimum is found.
SEATTLE, WASH.
DISCUSSION.
DR. FARRINGTON: It has always been my theory that, while the similar remedy may help ordinary ailments, especially those that are self-limiting, and your patient makes a good recovery, when you come to a case which presents gross pathology and, especially, if that case is malignant, you have to hit the nail on the head or else you only palliate.
We have all had experience with most of the remedies that the doctor has mentioned. I only wish he had incorporated what he said extemporaneously into his paper because some of it is just as interesting as the text itself.
For instance, I would like to have him put down there that the special indication for Capsicum in mastoiditis is burning at the tip of the mastoid. I did not know that. I have never seen it in print. I have cured several mastoids and a number of fistulae. I have removed or dissolved several kinds of calculi.
Some years ago I reported to this body the case of a clergyman who took to drinking because he had such terrible urging to urinate, with cutting and burning pains, referred especially to the glans penis. He was cured with Prunus spinosa 200. The stone disappeared. Two surgeons had diagnosed it by probe. In those days we did not know anything about the x-ray. The man had the good sense to go back to them and ask them to examine him, and they could not find it.
One of the most remarkable cases was in a woman of about forty- eight who had calculi which entirely filled the pelvis of the right kidney. As I remember, there were about five large ones, the size of small marbles. The entire interspace was filled with small bits or detritus.
This case required nearly four years for complete cure. The first remedy was Lycopodium. I need not take up your time except to mention the fact that whenever she was passing a stone, she had flatulence which would cease as soon as the stone had been gotten rid of. The next remedy was Kali carb. which did good work, and the final remedy was Sarsaparilla. She was improving all this time. She had little or no pain, and only a vague discomfort when the stones were passing.
At first there were little quadrangular flat pieces, about 3/16 inch square. Then they were roundish or irregular, but when she began to pass bits like eggshell, she had terrific pain and I had to give her morphine; but in this case it did not interfere with the final outcome.
The final event was the passage of about half a cupful of gravel. That was some ten years ago, and she has never had any trouble since.
With regard to fistulae, I think that in those cases where there is a great deal of induration and the disease has gone on a long time, you are going to have great difficulty in curing the case with medicine. I remember one case cured with Sepia. This man came to me with pain in the rectum. I made no examination but gave him some remedy, I forget what it was, Nitric acid, I think.
A few days afterward he was back again. He said, “I found out the cause of my trouble. I pulled out one of these hard little shells that grow around an apple seed. I feel all right now.” But there was an injury there, and the fistula resulted from it. I made good by curing the fistula without operation.
Some of you were at our clinic yesterday. Perhaps you noticed that one clinician had a number of cases where low potencies and local treatment were given. They were interesting, especially the talks on diagnosis and care and management of the case, but the treatment was not altogether homoeopathic. I presented one which was improving under high potencies alone. The patient, a woman of twenty-six, had been losing her eyesight progressively since she was eight years old. She had a recurring iritis. Each time the attack subsided she found she could not see quite so well. Purple rings would start in her vision, rush toward her, burst in a purple ball, and then pass off. Niccolum was the remedy. I gave it in the 1M. She received over a period of several months three doses of the 1,000th; then she got the 10,000th. She is now free from trouble, and her sight is slightly improved.
In the clinic, those who are pathologically minded and think a great deal of diagnosis naturally use low potencies, as they almost always do. But now, seeing the results that have been obtained by Grimmer and myself, they are trying to use the high potencies.
Our eye man came to me the other day and he said, “Farrington, I made a wonderful cure of mastoid with Silica. I gave my patient the 10M.” Then he grinned. I said, “That is fine.” “I gave it to her on Saturday. On Monday she was very much better, so I gave her three more doses, and got a terrific aggravation. But luck was with me, and all the symptoms subsided.” I said, “You are right, luck was with you”.
DR. MOORE: I just want to speak of one of the sins of omission of Dr. Bryant. I am fussing around making indexes. Homoeopathy, if it is anything, is technique, careful technique. When cases are reported, we should absolutely have the potency and the repetition. Those things must be in. You cannot tell, if a fellow does not record it, whether he use the 3x. or 1M.
I think when any cases are reported in our Recorder they should always have the potency and the detail of application. Otherwise, they do not have the full value.
DR. WAFFENSMITH: The problem of mastoiditis, to my mind, is not only a serious one but very important from the homoeopathic. Although recognizing the value of manual interference, it has been my habit to place growing dependency upon constitutional treatment. I always appreciate a paper where surgical competition is keen as in this condition.
I recall a recent experience. I had treated the lad for antisocial proclivities, covering a number of years. While away on an extended journey, the boy became seriously ill with a throat infection. It was an episode in a downward swing of the then prevailing miasm.
Seattle.
Chairman, Bureau of Surgery