TWO VERY INTERESTING CLINICAL CASES



I told the husband that if he would supply me with a place to sleep I would stay over night and be ready for any emergency. We both slept in an adjoining bedroom and woke up the next morning to be surprised with the news that the patient had slept soundly through the night and was still asleep. When she woke up there was no acute pain but still some tenderness in the affected parts, yet she was able to lie on the right side for some time. The condition continued to improve, temperature became normal and remained so and the bowels began to move satisfactorily.

She left her bed five days later with practically no pain n although her entire right lower limb was somewhat stiff.

The attending physician called on her that day and was surprised when the patient herself greeted him at the door. He suggested some x-rays be taken and took them himself on the following day. The bones showed normally. One that same day he gave her an intramuscular injection of solu-salvarsan, thinking that some chronic malarial condition, of which the patient had had manifestations during the puerperium of her first baby, might have been in the background of the present complication.

Two hours later the patient was back in bed with a chill, a slight rise of the temperature, and the pain back again, this time more in the anterior crural nerve of the same right side. I was called in the next morning and informed of the solu- salvarsan injection. By that time the pain was again unbearable, the patient very restless, yet her knee was flexed with a pillow stuck underneath; she said that was the only way she could get some relief; although an electric pad also seemed to help; patient was thirsty, but drinking little at a time.

I could clearly see the toxic effects of the arsenicum she had received with the salvarsan injection, yet the symptoms were definitely pointing to the indication of that remedy, so I gave her Arsenicum album 200 in half a glass of boiled water, a teaspoonful every five minutes. The pain was again relieved after the fourth dose and the remedy discontinued. The improvement went on until the patient was on her feet again.

On June 6, 1938, the patient, in the seventh month of her third pregnancy, began again to have pain in the right anterior crural nerve extending down to the leg, < lying down. The first two months of pregnancy patient suffered from nausea, the rest of the time, until this day, normal, except for a slight swelling of her feet. Rhus tox. 200, single dose, was given with excellent results.

August 28, 1938. Patient almost at term, complained today of pain all over the body, after having taken a bath, but worse along anterior right crural nerve, > on the slightest movement. Bryonia 200 took care of this spell.

November 13, 1938. Her third baby was born September 14, normally delivered by the same doctor who had taken care of her before; but at this time she had been running a slight fever, of about half a degree Centigrade, every day since the birth of her baby. Yesterday she began feeling her right leg heavy and stiff, today the pain is again excruciating along the region of the anterior crural nerve, but this time extending to both ovarian regions; there has been an offensive yellowish uterine discharge for the two months, also constipation. Lycopodium 200 in half a glass of boiled water, a teaspoonful every ten to fifteen minutes, failed to relieve.

November 14. Pain still worse, temperature 38 C. (101.2 F.); patient feels as though the hip joint were being dislocated, and does not permit anyone to move her limb or even the bed, for the slightest movement aggravates. Bryonia 200, single dose.

November 15. Relieved for a few hours, but now pain worse than ever; temperature still half a degree above normal. Bryonia 200 in half a glass of boiled water, a teaspoonful pre re nata.

November 17. Pain greatly relieved since day before yesterday; temperature normal; bowels moving easier. Patient being improved, a continuation of the remedy was given.

During this last painful attack one of the two ampules of sedol prescribed for the patient the year before, under the doctors orders, was injected the first night. The patient still kept them. When the pain was at its height and she was begging for it, I consented to use one, to show her how the pain would be still worse after the effect of the narcotic was gone. She soon confirmed the fact, for the effect of the drug was very brief and she never again asked for the second ampule that I still keep. I was after this experience, that Bryonia was used with the gratifying results already mentioned.

The object of bringing this case for your discussion is to assure you of my earnest conviction that we homoeopaths do not need to prescribe narcotics in any painful condition if we take the necessary pains to find the similimum. My narcotic blank book is still unused, except for that single prescription which was never intended to be used. MONTERREY, N. L., MEXICO.

DISCUSSION.

DR. HAYES: Dr. Trevino certainly selected the right title for his paper, Two Very Instructive Clinical Cases.

The most significant thing to me in these reports is not that Ipecac cured a fibroid or some other remedy cured something else, but what we can read between the lines. Between all those lines we read about the importance of theory. In other words, he used principles, and managed his cases clear through with those principles, similarity, a single dose, or with the principle of dosage as it may appear in the individual case, the proper interval, and so on. That all goes back to the importance of theory, and that is the first step, it seems to me, in gaining mastery of homoeopathy.

DR. MOORE: Of course, this paper was interesting all the way through, but the one item of arsphenamin with the Arsenic in its high potency antidoting it was very interesting to me.

DR. MARQUEZ: I was very much interested in the case of fibroid the doctor mentioned. I was just wondering, for the sake of the statistical data, if a compilation could be made of the cases of fibroid cured exclusively by homoeopathic medication, which would give us further proof of homoeopathy against surgery in cases of uncomplicated proof of homoeopathy against surgery in cases of uncomplicated fibroids where there is no tendency to malignant formation.

I have no comment on the second case, unless it is to say that the patient was very foolish in continuing with the first doctor.

DR. SHERWOOD: I, too, noticed the ingratitude on the part of this patient who, in spite of all the doctor had done during her second pregnancy, when she comes along to her third calls on the allopath.

With regard to the comments of the last speaker, I want to say if the fibroid case were mine, even if there were indications of malignancy, I certainly would rather trust to my homoeopathic remedy and would be far more hopeful of a permanent result than I would be in resorting to surgery.

DR. DIXON: I want to compliment the essayist in the fight he put up to do away with narcotics. That, I think, is good homoeopathy, and it takes real fortitude to go through a case of that sort and not resort to narcotics. Few of the men do it. That just shows how the well selected homoeopathic remedy will combat pain.

DR. GRIMMER: I want to add my commendations on the doctors paper. I take a great deal of pride in hearing of anything. Dr. Trevino does, because I think I had some little influence in helping to bring him to a better vision of real homoeopathic principles and philosophy. The doctor showed his knowledge of the philosophy when those symptoms came back. The old haemorrhage of the philosophy when those symptoms came back. The old haemorrhage returning, he continued his remedy. He knew his remedy was working. Some who are not so well grounded, some fairly good prescribers, spoil their cases by putting in a new remedy when it is only the reactions of a former remedy that is working. They break into that rhythm and sometimes spoil the case or make it very difficult to get back to the curative channel.

Dr. Trevino surely managed both of these cases as a true homoeopath.

DR. BOND: I want to report one experience I had with reference to morphine. The case was a man about fifty years old who had a very severe sciatica which seemed to affect the nerve high up just as it came off the very low segments. This man had been given morphine, he had been given the usual saturation of salicylates, but it wasnt until I gave him the remedy based on the modality, aggravation when lying on the right side, that he was cured. The remedy was Mercurius 1M. Morphine and all the others distinctly failed.

DR. TROUP: I would like to offer a suggestion based on Dr. Trevinos knee-chest position. If it is consistent with fracture work, why should it not also, in manner of splinting, be consistent in uterine displacements. The knee-chest position is certainly fatiguing, and in order to get correction in retro displacements must be maintained for quite a series of days or weeks. Why would it not be definitely in line to support that uterus, even though fibrous heavy, by the use of a Smith or Smith-Hodges pessary worn through the day and night alike?.

Eliud Garcia-Trevino