History was of severe ivy poisoning in 1941 on feet, legs, hands, scrotum, treated for a few months with local applications and violent rays. It took six months to heal the hands first time and then recurrent attacks of which this is one.
I ordered the ointment removed from hands and did not give a real remedy for 48 hours. Then Zinc. started healing promptly and no other remedy has been needed. Pain extended up arms to shoulders at first and then scabs began to dry and fall off until large quantities could be picked off each day. The entire cure took about six weeks so far as eruption was concerned but after two months more he had a large carbuncle on nape of neck. Being far away he had other treatment and healing took several weeks. That was a year ago and, except for an occasional pustule, health is better than for many years.
Again the evil of suppression by local application in a patient of nervous, irritable temperament.
Next two lower bowel cases:.
1. Mrs. K. S., age 39, an ignorant colored woman coming in because someone told her I did not believe in operations. Tall, very fat, greasy looking. Weight 260 pounds.
For eight years symptoms rectum or sigmoid: at first pain there, later this gone but a narrowing of the lumen and a surgeon wanted to make a false anus in abdomen, warning her that the natural lumen would be cut off entirely. This great fear kept her coming to me regularly the last year and a half.
As might easily be guessed she had an enormous appetite and ate much greasy food. Constipation was kept down by milk of magnesia; stools were narrow, ribbon-like. There was mucus and blood from rectum.
Perspiration very free, especially head and face. Crops of pustules here and there. Menses irregular, none of ten months. Suffocative sensation woke her in the night.
Remedies given soon created regular stools, then brought about regular menses, but as time went on intense itching of vulva and anus took the place of other symptoms, though it is steadily less in the last four months.
I cannot remember how I chose the first remedy–Alum. and very likely it was not a good choice but it eased the picture for five months. Development of rheumatic symptoms led to Lyc. and then to Sulph. which did good work for six months. General itching first and then the terrible itching of genitals finally led to Med. which may have been indicated from the start. The intestinal condition has been normal since early in the treatment except that stools remain ribbon-like. General health is markedly improved.
Whether she had cancer or was headed for it is anybodys guess.
2. Mrs. P. H., an intellectual Russian, a refugee of the Russian revolution, high-strung, nervous, over-sensitive, not the type to endure the many tragedies in her life. She came to me first in 1905 at age 23 and has had periods of treatment ever since. Her mind was always on the rectal symptoms so it has been difficult to obtain a comprehensive picture.
She has had recurrent attacks of pain high in rectum accompanied by much mucus and blood in the stools, also a thing yellow odorless fluid. At first there was much loss of weight and low vitality. This latter condition improved rather steadily but the rectal symptoms would return every week or two at first, later at longer intervals until they came only once in several months. No need to report all her nervous symptoms. Suffice it to say that she was too restrained to reveal the depth of mental depression which swept over to make life itself unbearable. Not until January, 1942, did she say the spells of depression brought intense longing for death, desired to be released, not definite suicidal thoughts. Also she reported that her father committed suicide when she was four years old.
Since then a series of potencies of Aurum has made her over new both mentally and physically. Before Aurum, Sulph. had been her basic remedy.
Again no one knows whether or not this was rectal cancer.
Two Christian Science cases:.
1. Mrs. J. C., my patient since 1923 when age 48 years. Widow of one of our good homoeopathic doctors. Always in much trouble, financial and domestic. Mother of a large family and children frequently in trouble. Attacks of gallstone colic over and over again through many years, then from 1938 to 1941 progressive loss of weight from 180 to 118 pounds, loss of vigor, an anaemic pallor and intermittent severe pain in liver region. Jaundice came and went and attacks of vertigo often kept her in bed. Itching of the dry skin drove her wild in 1941 and helped the general depletion.
The family wanted consultation and I called in Dr. Custis who proposed more observation for gallstones and perhaps operation; told me probably cancer. She refused operation and went to Christian Science in May, 1941. I did not see her until December, 1942 when color good, weight up to 137. Reported that itching left in a short time and has not returned. October, 1941, three attacks of the old liver pain each one helped right away when she appealed to the healer. Then in two months passed a gallstone size of a walnut since when great relief of all symptoms. Health has been good ever since, a truly remarkable change.
She always said my prescriptions helped much, but I was never satisfied with them for she was most difficult to prescribe for.
2. Mrs. A. B. P. in her late forties complained in September, 1942, of dull aching in left eyeball with occasional sharp shooting pain, swelling of both lids nearly closing the eye.
I suggested an oculist and she went to one who said some kind of muscular trouble. She would not return to him although the eye was progressively worse until it was actually disintegrating behind tightly closed lids. Then she called me for indefinite stomach pains and inability to retain food. At this time I discovered the right mamma entirely dark red, hard as a rock with grainy surface.
It was not otherwise deformed and she reported no pain there. Around it were dark red, round, slightly raised areas the size of large peas. Soon she was down in bed with increased weakness, entire loss of appetite, indifferent to questions, slow in answering. I suspected cancer in eye as well as breast and, as there was no one to care for her, tried in vain to get her consent to go into a hospital. Then her husband called another physician who took her to a hospital saying she had a rare kind of cancer in eye, mamma and stomach. She died in three days, April 2, 1944.
It was only after death that I learned she had been an ardent Christian Scientist for many years and “didnt like doctors.” My remedies never seemed to hold well although she was better for a short time on every one until the last few weeks.
Lastly, brief reference to two cases of mental depression:.
1. Mr. E. R., a man of large business ability associated with key people in India and New York. There are several cases of insanity in his family; a brother has been in institutions three times.
This patient was sure nothing he attempted would succeed; when it did succeed many times he was as unconvinced as ever. He was sure he was only a trouble to others, that he ought to resign his position, that his mind would not work, that there was no use in anything. He could not read, could not do anything with his hands, could only sit and stare into space. He longed to help in this war; he wanted to get a farm and raise produce, yet was convinced he could have no place in the world.
I deliberated some months before I gave this patient Aurum when presto, everything changed. He rose up, resigned his position in Washington, although he kept contacts with it in New York; he bought a farm and has been a happy ruddy outdoor man now for a whole year, studying farming, making over his home on the farm and building other buildings, hiring a manager and studying farming, making over his home on the farm and building other buildings, hiring a manager and studying with him.
2. Mrs. W. L. L., whose family also has several cases of unsound mind; a sister is now committed to a hospital for the insane. This patient has been brilliant mentally but unstable morally and subject to fits of deep depression alternating suddenly with periods of high spirits and great activity. When depressed she could not do housework or care for her baby, was indifferent to everyone and everything.
I gave her Anac. for the first few months with some improvement but not much. As soon as I changed to Aurum she snapped right out of it, began to be a responsible housewife and mother and said she had not been depressed for ever so long (when it had been only 2 or 3 weeks). Whether this will continue time will tell but it surely is a prompt transformation, stable now for several months. WASHINGTON, D.C.
