APHORISM 34. Frequent diarrhoea during pregnancy is a danger sign of miscarriage.
COMMENT: This aphorism is in connection with Aphorism 1 of Book IV which treats of diarrhoea of pregnancy. But in this particular case the danger is greater, because every severe diarrhoea is caused by a real abdominal disease. That is why homoeopathy dreads every kind of diarrhoea, rejects all kinds of laxatives, and hastens to cure every diarrhoea quickly. Frequently diarrhoeas during pregnancy are mild and these remedies will cure them: Antimonium crudum, China, Dulcamara, Pulsatilla or Rheum. But when a chronic disease is at the bottom of it, which may call for Lycopodium, Mercurius, Petroleum, Phosphorus, Sepia, Sulphur or Thuja, then these remedies will cure slowly but lastingly.
APHORISM 37: If the breasts become suddenly small during pregnancy, abortion is imminent.
COMMENT: In this condition often the foetus is already dead, but where there is still life, help is usually possible by remedy selection with care according to symptoms, and the following remedies given in high potency: Chamomilla, China, Conium, Ferrum metallicum, Iodum, Nitric acid, Nux moschata, Secale cornutum and Silica are to be consulted. In our own practice we have had a number of such fortunate cases even in women who had had previous abortions.
APHORISM 39. When milk is in breasts of a woman who is not pregnant, nor has been, her menstruation is suppressed.
COMMENT: Experience verifies this only partially, for some women have milk, though they never bore a child, nor did their menses cease. In such cases, especially when menses are suppressed, consult: Belladonna, Bryonia, Calcarea carbonica, Lycopodium, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla, Rhus toxicodendron, Sabina and Stramonium, letting the other symptoms be the deciding factors; however, Belladonna and Stramonium are most prominent, especially if the following aphorism applies:.
APHORISM 43. It indicates mental disturbances when there is congestion in the female breast.
COMMENT: This surely is an extremely dangerous sickness, but not necessarily fatal, which attacks after birth more often than in the pregnant. In the hands of an experienced and prudent homoeopathic physician the result is usually favorable. But this quickly fatal fever demands very strict individualization, for the number of possibly indicated remedies is very large, the accompanying and deciding symptoms very manifold, while quickly and exactly chosen remedies alone can be relied upon to turn the imminent danger.
In most cases the choice will be between: Aconitum, Belladonna, Chamomilla, Colocynthis, Nux vomica, Platina, Pulsatilla, Rhus, Sabina, Secale and Sepia, but others may also be indicated like: Apis, Arnica, Arsenicum, Calcarea carbonica, Carbo animalis, Coffea, Cocculus, Ferrum metallicum, Hyoscyamus, Ipecacuanha, Kali carbonicum, Stramonium or Sulphur, without excluding entirely: Antimonium crudum, China, Cocculus, Conium, Ignatia, Kreosotum, Moschus, Natrum muriaticum, Opium, Phosphorus, Veratrum and Zincum.
It is clear that in the treatment of this sickness procrastination and guessing are out of the question, that its treatment is very difficult, which can only be handled efficiently by a physician who knows well the peculiarities of all these remedies and who has a sharp eye for all the symptoms present, and who does not try to accomplish his aim violently which only can be reached by smallest doses of the similimum in dynamic form.
APHORISM 49. To expel the placenta, cause sneezing while nose and mouth are closed.
COMMENT: The result is reached much better and safer by giving small doses of Colchicum.
APHORISM 54. If the cervix uteri is hard, it must of necessity also be closed.
COMMENT: This does not apply to the closed so uteri of pregnancy which is soft, but to actual hardening and swelling, which is always dangerous and may easily end in cancer uteri. Only in the beginning can one prognosticate a favorable result by selecting a remedy for the recognized totality of symptoms, not only for the local but, what is more important, the concomitant symptoms. But when the condition is fully developed with foetid suppuration, then there is very little or no hope.
Hence it is mandatory that from the start the greatest care be exercised to select the indicated remedy, which may be especially one of these: Arsenicum, Aurum, Belladonna, Carbo animalis, China, Clematis, Ferrum, Iodum, Kreosotum, Lachesis, Magnesia muriatica, Mercurius, Platina, Pulsatilla, Sabina, Sarsaparilla, Secale, Sepia and Thuja. Thus we, and some of our friends, have been able every time to ward off the imminent danger before the disease had reached its incurable height.
APHORISM 56. Convulsions and fainting during menstruation are bad symptoms.
COMMENT: Some commentators opine that here Hippocrates refers to metrorrhagia, especially postpartum haemorrhages, but we are not of that opinion. Such menstrual convulsions and faintings usually happen before (Cuprum, Kali carbonicum, Natrum muriaticum, Phosphorus, Phosphoric acid, Platina, Pulsatilla, Sepia, Sulphur), or during (Aconitum, Bryonia, Calcarea carb, Causticum, Chamomilla, China, Cocculus, Coffea, Cuprum, Ferrum, Hyoscyamus, Ignatia, Ipecacuanha, Lycopodium, Magnesia muriatica, Mercurius, Natrum muriaticum, Nux vomica, Pulsatilla, Sulphur), but rarely or perhaps never following menstruation (China, Cuprum, Pulsatilla).
Hence it follows that such convulsions and syncopes are not the result of loss of blood, though that may happen, when China, Kreosotum, etc., may be indicated. A strong proof of our view might be the fact that several of the quoted remedies point especially to a weak or late menstruation, in which case a severe haemorrhage and its consequences are excluded.
APHORISM 60. If a pregnant woman continues to menstruate, it is impossible for the foetus to be healthy.
COMMENT: It is evident that this aphorism does not refer only to the first months (in which such a condition is also suspicious), but more to later periods. In these cases experience emphasizes it, and abortion is usually the end of gestation. Many homoeopathic physicians have seen what our indicated remedies here can accomplish, viz., Asarum, Chamomilla, Cocculus, Crocus, Ipecacuanha, Kali carb., Lycopodium, Phosphorus, Rhus, Sabina and Secale.
APHORISM 64. Milk is not suitable for patients with headache, in fever, or in patients with swollen hypochondria in which rumbling is heard, nor for thirsty patients with bilious diarrhoea, acute fevers, or after severe haemorrhages. It is beneficial in consumption without high fever, in protracted low fevers when none of the mentioned symptoms are present, but when there is excessive emaciation.
COMMENT: With great pleasure one here again meets pure experience from life, free from all explanations, and in its simple exactitude worthy of the penetrating observer who has left it to us. Indeed, it would have been of great value to science, if the outstanding patriarch had left us many more such gold nuggets which he gathered from the votive tablets of his own practice, stripped of philosophic-theoretic opinions. One commentator says that milk is always harmful in headaches from gastric conditions, as we all know, in which case Bryonia and Veratrum are a great help.
In burning fevers milk is not always a disadvantage, and those cases which are indicating our great antiphlogisticum: Aconitum, hardly ever are aggravated by milk. That milk is harmful after severe haemorrhages tallies with our experience and with our remedy provings, according to which our chief remedy for such conditions, China, as also the second line remedies: Arsenicum, Calcarea carbonica, Carbo vegetabilis, Conium, Kali carbonicum, Lachesis, Lycopodium, Nux vomica, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla, Sepia and Sulphur have aggravation from milk.
But here, as always we find exceptions to the rule in that two remedies, which are here often indicated: Phosphoric acid and Staphisagria, and also China, Ferrum metallicum, Iodum, Mercurius, Squilla and Veratrum tolerate milk very well.
Of course, the choice of the similimum must always be strictly homoeopathic, combining all the symptoms into one picture of the complaint, and search for the one remedy which has the symptoms, or which is at least not antagonistic to them. Therefore, taking the anti-milk symptoms of the first part of this aphorism together, then all the remedies are dropped except China, which corresponds to everything, and Pulsatilla, which has the next most symptoms, but the thirst contraindicates it, for Pulsatilla is one of the thirstless remedies.
May we be pardoned when in this connection we mention that we have found the milk diet very effective in freeing drunkards of their hard-to-cure vice. After a few small doses of Opium have removed the main symptoms of the drink sickness, the persistent use of milk, both as food and drink, taken several times during the day, will in a short time cause a real disgust toward alcoholic drinks.
