The proclivity of the world of dominant medicine to dissociate the disease from the patient deserves careful examination. We know that what is called diagnosis has to do invariably with a naming of the tissue pathology as to its location in the body and its morbid identity. This in the majority of instances takes to note whatever of the associated mental or emotional state and that phase of symptomatology which in the average case is not only ignored but also suppressed by the physician who may often say, “You let me do the talking!”.
Such inbred custom leaves no room for compromise. It leaves no change for the patient to help along a better diagnosis, a more comprehensive view of the case and therefore a nearer likelihood of good therapy. Homoeopathy declares that the mental and emotional character of the sick must be heeded if there is to accrue elimination of disease and benefit to the patient.
There are some cases of developed disorder wherein the established character of the patient as evidenced by his intellectual habits and his emotional reactions are hard to reach and to benefit as might have succeeded in earlier years. There is an age beyond which new forces do not elicit the desired reaction. Even if moderate effect is secured there is no telling how soon this will cease permanently.
I want to consider two sets of cases wherein the mental make-up and outgo of the patient must be recognized and weighed by the observing physician if his efforts are to meet with any grade of success. We remember that we are not treating disease per se but are healing the sick.
A man age fifty has been ill from bronchitis and pleurisy for some weeks. Owing to the tragically low state of his finances due to the “depression” of 1934 he has not asked fro medical treatment until that measure can no longer be put off. Coughing and chest pains are barely endurable. Fever temperature present for days and a pulse rate of 120 persist.
He presents an attitude of hopelessness. While explaining his sensations of distress of body, all of which we localized in the chest and cardiac region, it is entirely obvious that these conditions are not the real sum of his malady. His painfully low spirits dominate.
This picture must not be overlooked, much less ignored. It is the major condition that includes the whole material pathology. Of course this would be disputed by the doctor who says that disease of the body is an entity wholly independent of the mental and emotional disposition.
However, in the present instance we have to consider:.
1. Unresolved chest inflammation from.
2. An early onset of congestion uncared for.
3. Persistent pain and coughing.
4. Night sweats increasing.
5. Melancholia with acute crises.
6. Imperative care not received earlier.
Here was a patient of the build of men whose complaints remind at once of Phosphorus, if the reminded knows his homoeopathy. The query at once arises, “Is this man launched into the effects of an unresolved pneumonia? Will the outcome be phthisis–pulmonary tuberculosis? And has this state positively arrived with accompanying pleuritis?”.
Curiously enough, while the sufferer detailed all his chest symptoms–those of heart, pleura, cough, intercostal pains– his examiner was impressed above all by his mental anguish. All else appeared to be secondary with the patient himself. Yet he must stress his body symptoms, since one does not go to a doctor for the “blues”!.
Well, that does the doctor himself think? Yes, he does think that there is the anguish of Arsenicum, the apprehension of Aconite, the pains of Belladonna, the sadness of Ignatia, many striking earmarks of Phosphorus, a mental and other states of Helleborus, and so on; but this is not to be polypharmacy! The patient is to have one powder of the 1000th potency followed by a tablet every hour of that stable lac so necessary to the human psychology when an exhibited remedy is to be conserved and not disturbed.
A day later the whole picture had changed, not only for the better but for the the best, and though how much time has elapsed the restored health is firmly and most comfortably maintained, although financial embarrassments still linger. The powder was Aconite.
–I had intended originally to supplement this report with another on poliomyelitis. Four cases were the subject. But I will refrain, since this paper is already too long, and I will ask the Council members if they will extend their present discussion by telling whether in their experience with infantile paralysis, cured, helped, or uncured, they have noted any phases of the sequelae of conditions in any way related to megalomania. I have observed cases of optimism that appear pathological. These I will outline in closing this discussion if so desired. NEW YORK, N.Y.
DISCUSSION.
DR. TURNER: I am much pleased to read this paper. With surgery rampant, plus morphine, even with those who claim to practice homoeopathy the outlook for the coming generation is extremely poor.
How would this patient have been treated by the prevailing practice? Probably given a “tonic,” one of the serums for pneumonia or possibly placed in restraint or rushed to an insane hospital.
The rapidly curative action of Aconite, exhibited primarily because of the mental state, which is always to be taken into account, with also the confirmation of its selection by all the other symptoms, is a most beautiful illustration of the homoeopathic Law. Dr. Hutchinson is to be commended.
As to poliomyelitis, I have had no recent cases and none that I recall as showing symptoms of megalomania.
DR. SLOAN: Dr. Hutchinson has the ability to pick the dominant symptom or group of symptoms to a high degree. Of course mental symptoms dominate. The case was one which would have dragged on for weeks under O. S. treatment.
DR. SUGDEN: It is interesting to note that the remedy that cured was probably the one he needed at the beginning of his illness. The physician who says, “Let me do the talking,” is matched by one who never had time to listen to the patient so he thought to help him by writing symptoms down and giving them to him to real. When he saw the list he passed them over to her saying, “You need an undertaker, not a doctor, if you have all those symptoms.” She came to me instead. But what can a patient do when physicians talk like that?.
The connection between infantile paralysis and megalomania is very interesting. I never had a case of infantile paralysis, but a son of a friend had it when quite young, and he could do anything but study, was attractive personally and always ready to try a mans job with absolute confidence that he could do it, built an airplane in the attic that could not be taken down stairs nor out of the window etc. When twenty years old, he piloted an airplane into a mountain and was instantly killed and greatly lamented.
DR. HAYES: This cure is a good illustration of what does and negatively what dogs not cure in conditions of this kind. Those who know what cure is, know that all the learning and progress of scientific medicine never has and never will cure such a condition as the one reported. True enough, such a one may be “pulled through” with great waste of time, much expense and suffering, but then the heroic pair (patient and doctor) is confronted either with an imprint of the original malady or some vicarious affliction not related by science to its unintentionally malevolent efforts.
The attention of the Doctor to the facts presented seem to me to have been peculiarly Hahnemann-like. Such a report illustrating essentials does one good. It refreshes homoeopathic optimism and stimulates the appetite for more successes.
It would be interesting to know to what condition this would have progressed had it continued; and to what remedy. Also to know what solution or solutions would have bee offered by those extensively versed in miasmatic lore.
I recall no instance of megalomania following poliomyelitis. But judging by the medical discoveries in treatment exhibited by modern journalism, both lay and medical, I would not be surprised at anything.
DR. LEONARD: Dr. Hutchinson is to be congratulated upon making a true Hahnemannian prescription, and one all of us might not have done under the given conditions.
Dr. Constantine Hering, who gave some Saturday evening talks to a few students in 1878-9, said that only “once in a blue moon” did the earnest homoeopathist hit the exact similimum; more often he found a nearly similar remedy which answered the purpose, but no as well. Most of us can subscribe, to that, and still strive for perfection in prescribing.
Dr. Hutchinsons case reminds me of one in which his excellent example might have saved a life, possibly, had I possessed acumen.
The father of one of the old families with whom I had gone through many a year of episodes of varying severity, was seized with a sharp attack of bronchopneumonia in the trying month of March. For more than thirty years he had been the trusted head mill wright of the largest flour mill in Minneapolis, being responsible for the smooth running of the mill week days and Sundays, without any possible vacation except when the mill was shut down for repair a day or so once a year.
