The symptoms in the proving are so similar to those of certain patients who have suffered head injuries that we may well be guided by them. In general we may not prognose a permanent cure with many of these conditions. Slight symptoms of the trouble may persist even after apparently successful medication and when X-ray reports are negative.
Hahnemann, in an age where the scientific approach to medicine had not even begun and in which medicine was a conglomeration of theory and supposition unsupported by any relation of fact, observed in his work as a translator, the similarity between the poisonous effects of malaria and the cinchona bark, a resemblance between these effects and the symptoms suffered by those affected by the disease which they seemed to benefit.
Nocturnal aggravation is characteristic, as also perspiration, and patient is sensitive to change in temperature for which symptom Mercurius solubilis is valuable. External cleanliness must not be neglected, and for this diluted tincture of Calendula is recommended. Tellurium is highly recommended by Houghton in acute inflammation of the external auricle, external auditory canal and external surface of tympanum.
In this month of October the parents decided to take her to Johns Hopkins as the oracle of last resort. She stayed there in hospital for a week of observation and testing. Then the parents were given a letter signed by two heads of clinics stating the diagnosis, progressive muscular dystrophy, the prognosis, “no known cure,” a few years to live, not beyond ten years of age probably during which time she would become helpless and progressively weaker.
Surgery is altogether a different branch of study and is a matter of experience but not a science. It can be taken help of by a follower of any branch of medicine without the least detriment to the principles of treatment, provided the surgery is had recourse to in accordance with its true sphere. Unfortunately it is taken help of where real treatment should have been followed.