There is one thing I would like to leave with you and that is the importance of colonic irrigation in these cases. Oh, yes, you have been told not to touch the bowels when you have appendicitis. This is true. We have used the old fashioned enemas, shooting two or three quarts of water, and pushing all the debris and gas up. Of course, you aggravate and irritate. We do not do it that way. It is a matter of technic. We do not
use these treatments in that way. If enemas are used at the bedside, not more than four to six ounces is injected at a time, but we may give a series of these small enemas until the bowels have been cleaned out. On the other hand, colonic irrigations when correctly administered do not distend or fill the gut with water. The water or solution goes gently in and returns, in this way cleaning out the section of the bowels after the other until the entire colon has been thoroughly cleaned out, and it causes no irritation nor distension.
I venture to say I will take any case of appendicitis (not gangrenous), stop all feeding except grapefruit juice and hot water, give the patient daily irrigations, and I will have the case safely out of danger after two or three days of treatments. It is a difficult matter for a physician who treats intestinal disorders to realize what a cesspool and what a large amount of debris the large intestine may contain, even in those people who claim to have a normal bowel movement daily.
I have given patients colonic irrigations daily for two or three weeks, with no food except a small amount of fruit juices daily, and at the end of two weeks the bowels will eliminate more debris and old inflammatory products than they did the first day the treatment started. The patient will quite often say, “I am surprised ; where does it all come from?”.
So you see if you will pay attention to these matters of elimination, particularly from the bowels, you will be surprised and both you and the patient will be pleased with the effect of these treatments and they may save the patient from destructive surgery many times.
In this case reported by the doctor from San Francisco, I would say if you had used colonic irrigations you may not have been sure to cure him in this way, but when these treatments are administered correctly they are absolutely safe and your patient could not have helped but feeling better from them. Of course, that does not mean that you would inject two or three quarts of water. I used to do those things years ago but experience has taught me better and safer ways.
I do not pretend to give the impression that these physiotherapy treatments are absolutely infallible, but you do not know what you can do with your hands and simple physical treatments until you have learned to use them the way they should be used on a human body. You can educate your finger tips to become very sensitive; they may have ears and eyes, if you know how to use them. It is not difficult to detect symptoms and particularly reflex symptoms. which the human body is full of.
There are many heart diseases that could be saved if the physician in charge had left the heart alone and treated other parts of the body, because the heart symptoms may only be reflex ones from a loaded colon or some other congested organs of the body. When put into a hospital a given strong heart remedies with plenty of food and coffee and no attention to the eliminating functions they usually die. Of course, a homoeopathic physician would commit such mistakes.
May I tell you about a patient who came to me some five or six years ago? He had been in bed for nine months and was unable to lie down because his heart was so dilated. He had been taking plenty of heart medicine, but was permitted to eat the usual
way, meat, potatoes, bread, butter, cake and coffee without any attention to the elimination. Of course, the average physician, as you know, does not know anything about food in its relation to health and sickness. He does not know that deficiency food and wrong eating with poor elimination is one of the main causes of disease, both acute and chronic; nor does he realize that proper food in correct combination with eliminating treatments assist greatly in curing practically all manner of diseases.
This patient, after coming to my hospital, did not receive any special remedy for his heart. I think his symptoms called for Carbo veg. but he was given colonic irrigations with other physical treatments without any food for two or three weeks except a little fruit and vegetables juices. He recovered very promptly and is strong and husky today. This is only one case, but I have had a great number of similar ones treated in the same way.
The main message I wish to leave with you is this: you are all members of the I.H.A. and as such the best homoeopathic prescribers that the world knows at the present, and I have profound respect for you from the standpoint of homoeopathic prescribers. But homoeopathic medicine is not always sufficient to cure or relieve all kinds of patients that may come to you for treatment and care. Will you, therefore, kindly consider the subject of physiotherapy a little more. Would you kindly learn to use the simple modalities of this branch of medicine with modern food and diet in combination with your homoeopathic remedies.
If you do so you will be surprised to see how these measures will assist you many times when you are in doubt and may not know what to do. The simple physical treatments, including various modalities of manual therapy, hydrotherapy, heliotherapy, particularly the infrared rays, do not interfere with the action potentized medicines when administered understandingly and judiciously. I am conscious of the fact that good homoeopathic physicians are very careful in not using means and measures that would suppress the disease present, but these simple measures would not do it any more than eating your meals or taking a bath. Of course, I do not include in these treatments x-rays or deep electrical treatments nor even ultra violet rays.
DR. BOND: That brings in the matter of whether heat acts as a suppressant. I had a case with pain in the region of the spleen. I was giving her the homoeopathic remedy, but in the meantime she applied intense heat over that region. My remedy had driven the pain in the spleen to the feet. I knew she was progressing nicely. I left her alone. In the meantime she applied intense heat to the feet, with relief of her feet, but the pain returned to the spleen again. Did the heat act as a suppressant there? We had an awful time getting the pain out f the region of the spleen again.
DR. ALMFELT: I think it is wrong to assume that heat judiciously applied would suppress a disease. It may relieve the pain if such is present but that in itself could not be constituted as a suppression of the disease. Pain is merely a symptom due to the irritation of some nerve or nerves. This irritation may be either traumatic from mechanical pressure or injury or due to congestion or to toxemia. Any treatment that
would tend to remove the pressure, lessen the congestion and assist in removing the toxemia could not be considered a suppressant.
Of course, when a patient is applying some physical measure of relieving the condition from which he may be suffering, he may not always use the correct application. But if the physician understands the physiological principle on which these treatments act and knows the pathology present he can always adjust these treatments so that they may become very beneficial and not suppressive.
