Adherence to the Law of Similars and the minimum dose offers a truly regal experience in clinical medicine. Homoeopathy, simple in application yet comprehensive in all it implies, appeals to constructive thinking. When there appears to be a drifting away from the old landmarks which past thinking has slowly and painfully erected, it acts as a stable beacon to him who seeks a fulcrum for expression of curative truth.
We may study the circle of clinical history. The beginning marks the tedious investigation of the subjective and objective symptoms of disease by the old masters of diagnosis. When we become acquainted with the older writings we find definite form in the making. They contain the gradual development of prior thinking which led up to the homoeopathic school of therapeutics. Then we move on to the laboratory period. More intensive research brings a Utopian enthusiasm, and the old landmarks are eclipsed by the new hope of a fool-proof discovery in clinical medicine.
Homoeopathy in a true sense transcends all organization, encourages freedom of thought by adherence to natural phenomena. It circle of influence may include laboratory or any other analysis contributory to the problem under consideration. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, when confusion in conclusion appears and the mind faces the vast unknown in clinical diagnosis, it offers a workable approach and a direct challenge to the speculative factor in disease. Time, the great equalizer of all, ever strives to establish a balance, especially when one becomes weary of the complexity of much detail. The endless test and routine often becomes burdensome to patient and physician alike. The desire grows to return to first causes, to that which is fundamental.
The homoeopathic search for the strange, rate and peculiar symptom harmonizes with this urge. When discovered, dignity is added to the selection of the remedy, all of which in conformity with natural law tends toward the completion of a clinical circle.
I present for your consideration a girl of seventeen years, who gives a history of measles, chicken-pox whooping-cough and mumps, and whose tonsils have been removed.
Since the age of six months she has been troubled with both ears, < left side Recurrent abscesses in middle ear; the discharge is putrid and persistent, although less in summer. Irritable, changeable moods; aversion to company; marked timidity, and inferiority complex in school work and social contracts. Desires open air. Redness of lobes of ears. Hearing subnormal, < left side. Heat in face.
This girl has been under the care of various specialists. The antipathic treatment has been exploited. It is not within my province to discuss the treatment, except to bring to your attention a condition which has failed during years to respond to a definite form of treatment. Neither has there been evidence of clearing up during interims without treatment. No doubt some pathology in the middle ear has resulted from the repeated acute recurrences covering a period of sixteen years chronicity.
One dose of Bacillinum 200 centesimal has brought a complete change in the health index, both psychic and physical, has acted over one year, and evidently continues to act. The discharge has ceased, hearing improved, and the disposition has assumed that of a normal girl. Should retardation occur in completion of the circle a second dose may be in order.
There is virility in the flexible homoeopathic approach. The unified whole of a disease phenomena finds its counterpart in the single remedy. It brings refreshing adventure into the taking of each case. Would one who has had experience be willing to sacrifice this freedom for a mechanized laboratory formula ?.
In the patient being considered there can be no accusation of a faulty diagnosis.
Again, we have been impressed during past discussions with the shortness of action of the nosodal remedies, and the need to buttress their use with another remedy possessing more permanent action. In this case that theory evidently does not hold.
Some remarkable process of health reconstruction is going on, changing the life course of an individual, giving happiness to the family group, and meeting the demand of social adjustment. After many years of stalemate, affecting personality changes, there was a return to first causes and an apparent end to a clinical circle.
HAMDEN, NEW HAVEN, CONN.
DISCUSSION.
DR. MACADAM : Bacillinum is a remedy I use a great deal. From Dr. Waffensmiths account of the case, it seemed to me perhaps I would have given Sulphur; maybe I wouldnt I dont know. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. This suggests something. We often speak of the similimum as if there were only one remedy that is curative. I think this is a mistake. If we thought there was only one remedy to cure each case, I am afraid we would not get it very often; we do not hit the nail right on the top of the head every time, but we achieve results by getting pretty close.
I was interested recently in reading some of the pronouncements in regard to hay fever. A patient sensitive to pollen of different weeds does not have to be vaccinated or injected with all the pollens that he is sensitive to. A few of them will serve to render him insusceptible to the others. That is, a similar pollen will, so they say, serve to render him immune from all. It is the same principle of similarity we all work upon.
I want to say another thing in regard to these discharging ears. Some way or other I found that Psorinum is effective, and it seems to be practically a specific for ears where there has been a discharge for a long time. We think of Silica and of Sulphur, and of other remedies, but I have found, if the indications are fairly good. Psorinum is a ringer. Where there are no good indications for another remedy, Psorinum will frequently bring about a cure in a short time.
DR. MOORE : In what dose, what potency ?.
DR. MACADAM : I usually use it in the 200th.
DR. MOORE : Do you repeat that or not ? It is one dose or the 200th repeated ?.
DR. MACADAM : I have gotten into the habit-it may be wrong-of giving repeated doses of the 200th, say, four or five doses. Some of my patients wont take it. They say, “If the first or second dose doesnt work, What is the good of the rest ?” So I have gradually come back to the practice which I was taught, which is one dose, even of the 200th.
Edmund Carleton used to give the 200th, every two hours, or perhaps four times a day. He deflected me from what I think is the better method. Anything over the 200th. I do not repeat, the lower potencies I frequently do, but I dont continue them very long. The students in college, who have the third and the sixth dilutions in their kits, are told to take one dose every hour or one dose every two hours for eight or ten doses, and then stop, wait. Gutman, by the way, has been using the tinctures recently, giving one dose of the tincture of iodine, for instance, in Iodine cases. He says he seems to get just as good results as he got with the 200th. I havent had any experience with that. The dosage is really comparatively immaterial. I think the higher potencies act quicker, much quicker, and I believe the single dose is usually sufficient.
DR. WAFFENSMITH : In answer to Dr. MacAdams discussion, I wish to say there are changing degrees of similia. There is progression in evolutionary similitude, especially when good homoeopathic treatment covers, say five, ten or more years.
Long range remedy stimulation, skillfully applied and spaced, releases many minor disease latencies. With the single dose and plenty of time for the reactive expenditure, a habit tendency to dynamic health expansion is established, and given a renewed impetus with each new similar remedy to meet the changing similitude.
MEDICAL AND SURGICAL RELIEF COMMITTEE OF AMERICA.
To help the Medical and Surgical relief Committee of America continue its vital work of providing emergency medical kits to Coast Guard patrol boats and Navy sub-chasers, an urgent appeal for drugs and instruments has been issued by the Committee to surgeons, physicians, and medical supplies houses.
Among the items sorely needed to equip the emergency kits are artery clamps, splinter forceps, scalpels, probes, grooved directors, sulfadiazine tablets, sulfadiazine ointment 5 percent, sulfathiazole tablets, and sterile shaker envelopes of crystalline sulfanilamide. Any other spare medicines or surgical instruments are, of course, equally welcome.
Specially designed for sub-chasers and patrol boats, the medical kit is a small portable case c rammed with essential medications and emergency instruments. It is complete enough to cover accidents and war casualties until the ship reaches a base hospital. Many of these small craft carry a considerable complement of men, including often a pharmacists mate. Appreciative letters from their officers to the Committee indicate that the kit is a necessary adjunct to the ships equipment. With this project, the committee (conducted for nearly 3 years by a nation-wide group of physicians) performs an invaluable service not undertaken by any other organization.
Education: Cincinnati College of Medicine & Surgery
Author, Distinctive Phases Of Kali Carb. and Homeopathy , the medical stabilizer