There was one rather interesting point from the homoeopathic point of view with regard to Snake Poisons and that was to think of the first thing which an individual felt when he was bitten by a snake, which was death, and when death threatened the patient the prescriber should think of the Snake Poisons. He mentioned this in a paper he read on Snake Poisons in Berlin just before the war and it attracted the attention of reporters who were present. In the Berliner Tageblatte there appeared in headlines, “When death threatens, think of the Snake Poisons.”
Another point was that he thought a little more might have been made of Pulsatilla for the ear. His experience was that a pain in the ear was met by Pulsatilla irrespective of the indications of the Pulsatilla patient. One like to have something at the back of ones mind which could help immediately without having to think too completely of other remedies. If one had too many remedies they came in afterwards, but at first one might fall between two stools.
Dr. ALVA BENJAMIN said their with regard to the collapse cases one would have thought that Dr. Borland would have mentioned Veratrum album for cases of great coldness and excessive sweating. With regard to heart cases he had had a lot of help from Chamomilla, particularly when the pain was very severe. With regard to ear cases he was surprised Dr. Borland did not mention Bryonia for inflammatory conditions; he had found it admirable. In one case the child was developing mastoid. He asked Dr. Cunningham to come to see the case, meantime giving the child Bryonia 10m, and almost immediately there was no need for him to attend. He had had other cases in which he found Bryonia 10m extremely valuable.
Dr. HARDY added that Bryonia was very useful. In one case she gave a dose of Bryonia where the patient was lying on the painful side and did not want to move, which cleared up in ten minutes.
Dr. FRASER KERR said that the Aconite cases and interested him; he thought that the mental aspects were not so much mental as characteristic of the whole case. In one of his own cases of a child of 11 or 12 with asthma who was in a dreadful state he gave Aconite and within a few moments she was relatively easy. The mental aspects characterized the whole case.
Dr. GHAI said that during the past four or five years he could not remember a case where he had used morphia in a very large panel and private practice. He could recall three or four cases of children with earache, flushed, dilated pupils with the pain coming and going constantly, for which he gave Belladonna 30 and the next day the child was better. Pulsatilla was very useful but usually in the Pulsatilla patient the pain did not come and go so constantly.
Dr. C.E. WHEELER thought that as all the members felt the same about Dr. Borlands paper a special message should be sent to him from the meeting. Dr. Borland would be gratified to know that his paper had been enjoyed so much. From the earliest years that he knew Dr. Borland he had always realized that he had the gift of classifying his experience to himself and getting the maximum value of it and that was why he could express himself clearly. He had managed to get what he wanted to say into a succinct space, although the paper was long there was no over-elaboration of detail.
His principal feeling as he listened was certainly one of enjoyment but also of regret that he had not been able to sit under Dr. Borland. He must have made it easier for beginners by his ability to get into other persons mind the essentials of a very wide experience. It was not merely one or two cases, he had watched these things and had been able to classify them. It was not that the drugs. Dr. Borland had mentioned were unfamiliar, although the speaker would admit that he had never given Oxalic acid in heart emergencies, and would like to see the next case which came along: in this way they were classified.
There were one or two points which he would mention. The first was the relation drawn between Mag. phos. and Colocynth. He personally had never been able to decide whether Colocynth was a left sided drug; he had given it for left-sided neuralgia. The most prominent ingredient in tincture of Colocynth was Mag. phos. so that in prescribing Colocynth one was giving Mag. phos, which raised an interesting point, and he made it because it was the general observation which enabled one to see whether the point had substance and one which should be studied. It had been in his mind since he realized that tincture were mixtures; Lycopodium contained a lot of Silica and so on, so did Belladonna and the balsam compound.
He did not think atrophine was a pain reliever, it was a relaxer. That was the point in his mind, whether the drug which presumably was responsible for the relief of a group of symptoms would be just as effective if it were given alone. The Colocynth was chosen on the whole symptomatology which was in all Mag. phos.- the pain. Did Mag. phos. indicate Colocynth? Was it not probable that the vehicle was important and that it would not be so effective if the Mag. phos. had not been given?
If there was to be research he would suggest that this was a suitable subject. A far more detailed knowledge of the proportions of mineral ingredients in the vegetables tincture was needed. Such research might throw a great deal of light on some symptoms when they could be associated in that way. There were potassium salts in Pulsatilla and it was the potassium salts which stood out in a particular tincture.
With regard to dysmenorrhoeal pain where there was excessive periods and nausea, he would have thought of Ipecac, and Verat. alb. In Podophyllum the one outstanding symptom was that there was normally a gastrocolic reflex taking food into the stomach stimulated the movement of the colon and there had to be a motion after every meal; that would be a strong indication to him.
He would suggest that a definite expression of pleasure for his paper should by sent to Dr. Borland.
Dr. W.LEES TEMPLETON said that most of them felt that they had been back at school and he felt not only humbled but humiliated, for he must admit that he did not get such good results, possibly because one did not always get the symptoms. Most of the emergencies he saw were unable to give symptoms and one had to judge on appearances. He was glad, therefore, that Dr. Borland had elaborated the appearance of the patient, because that was important. With regard to drugs, he did no find Ant. tart. was useful in heart cases because he believed the pathology was different.
He thought Ant. tart. had a pulmonary pathology, not cardiac. Carbo veg, had a great and justifiable reputation as the “corpse reviver” and it did work when the appropriate symptoms were presents. Cold sweat he looked upon as guiding symptom for Verat. alb. and he had vertified its value in collapse. He was sorry that Dr. Borland was not more specific in his diagnosis, e.g. if pain was due to coronary thrombosis he doubted if the high potency alone would ease this particular pain in a matter of minutes.
To wait with the patient for four or five hours for the second presentation was a serious matter when one was called out in the middle of the night, and like confinements many of these emergencies did occur at night. Why was this, he wondered.
With regard to otitis media he felt that the success obtained depended on the stage at which the doctor was called in. If he got it early and there were good indications the result could be very good, but how rarely one did get to it early ! Beyond that stage it was not so easy, and people talked as if a mastoid arose suddenly: it did not, it was not a question of an earache to-day and a mastoid to-morrow. He had seen Capsicum successful where there was tenderness and swelling of the mastoid, but with otitis media and a purulent discharge he would not delay in seeking the advice of the aurist. Pulsatilla band Silica were the great polychrests in otitis media with discharge. Belladonna and Chamomilla to abort and avoid discharge.
Again with fifth nerve neuralgia it was a question of the stage at which the doctor saw the patient. It it was a chronic case the treatment was not easy. Supra-orbital neuralgia after sinus trouble was interesting, and frequently he found that China sulph. was indicated and proved efficacious. Post-herpetic pains was another difficult condition to influence. If there was scar tissue present in the posterior root it would take more than one dose of Ranunculus to remove it. Many of these cases had already received Ranunculus in the acute condition. The drug he found most useful in the acute condition was Arsenic where the eruption was widespread, and Arsenic covered the pathology of the condition as well.
Sciatica was rarely easy. They typical Colocynth case where the pain was better for lying on the painful side was often quoted, but how often did one get it? Kali iod. was the drug where the patient would not sit down in the consulting room; Rhus had to be considered in the fibrositic conditions. This was not a true sciatica, as shown by the improvement from exercise; a true sciatica rarely was.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.