The production of the disease is still further favored if to these causes are added either deficient or improper diet. When prevailing as an epidemic, it attacks by preference those who are suffering from an exhausted state of the vital forces, from whatever cause. Of these, debility from the action of other diseases, excesses of any kind, protracted watching and attendance on the sick, are among the most potent predisposing causes of dysentery. While this is true, it is equally true that dysentery gives immunity to no age, sex, condition or race,though females are less frequently attacked than males.
These predisposing causes of dysentery are integral parts of the individual case. They are definitely related to it in time and circumstance, and in repertorial consideration of the case– whether in the mental review which the physician gives to each similar remedy or in his study of the case, with repertory in hand–they often prove of inestimable value in discarding the less similar remedies. For the verifications of our remedies have demonstrated, time and again, that certain dispositions to development are essential elements of certain remedies. Dulcamara, for instance, is peculiarly adapted for cases of this kind which occur in the autumn when there is a wide range between hot day temperatures and the chill nights.
Arsenicum, Nux vomica and Rhus tox. are among the sufferers from becoming cold, Rhus particularly when damp, Nux particularly when sitting on a cold stone. These are by no means the only remedies with a peculiar suitability to predisposing circumstances, nor are the predisposing circumstances here mentioned the only ones that may be pertinent to the case. Consider the list of predisposing circumstances noted by Wells, and we will find that there are few mentioned by him that do not appear in our standard repertories, to be sought for when the need may arise.–H.A.R.
Many others, in different ages, have noticed the fact that…. where… intermittent fevers are most prevalent and severe, there dysenteries are most frequent and violent…Dysentery, like intermittent fever, is in its favorite abode on southern coasts, shores of lakes, and the banks and deltas of rivers, and in countries which abound in marshes. In such localities, especially in tropical countries, the disease is found in greatest frequency, and in its most violent form. The extreme in these respects is likely to be developed in the hottest months of the year, and when the change of temperature from day to night is great. In all countries, this last is a potent disposing cause of the disease. This is true especially in the autumn of the year when hot days are followed by cold nights…
The duration of dysentery is stated…to be from eight to fourteen days. Under proper homoeopathic treatment it is no doubt much less. Indeed, it is no uncommon result of a right prescription that the disease is cut short, and its existence limited to but a day or two. This can only be realized where the effects of the remedy are specifically like those of the symptoms of the case in hand. Such a remedy cannot always be found, though it should always be carefully sought for. When this search is but partially successful, cases are of longer continuance. The duration of the chronic form of the disease is very uncertain.
I have had the happiness to cure a case of three years’ standing which had been contracted in India. The cure required two doses of medicine, and no more.
It has also been remarked that a perfect convalescence after acute or subacute attacks is attained only after a lapse of from one to four weeks, and is usually realized by a gradual subsidence of all the symptoms of the case, that this is seldom a sudden occurrence. This observation is also from an allopathic standpoint. Under homoeopathic treatment a perfect cure is not unfrequently a short work… Complications belong chiefly to cases which are treated allopathically. It will be only in rare circumstances, and those of the most unfavorable kind, that they can result in cases which have been well treated homoeopathically.
