DR. RUST: A number of years ago, I had a patient come in who was a very complicated case, and I wanted to study it out carefully, but he was not a good subject to start in on homoeopathy, so I give him some placebo powders. When he returned, he said, “Doctor, I never have had any such medicine like that in my life. Every powder I take, I feel better and stronger.” So I looked up in the book on sugar of milk, and I found that it is a great remedy in itself. I think that is where it is instead of in your personality. (Laughter).
DR. SPALDING: I think most of us hesitate to present a paper dealing with potency, because it has been a debatable question, and I have heard some pretty spirited discussions.
I want to say one thing, and cite one case. It so happens that I have an out-patient clinic in Boston that I have carried on for about ten years, which affords me an opportunity of treating cases with so called low potencies up to 6x. in the pharmacy. While I sometimes have used higher potencies on those cases, I have carried many of them with the lower potencies and with good results.
In my own practice, I almost invariably use the higher potencies. I want to refer to one case, because I think it is of interest and it may illustrate not only the action of the high potency but the matter of suppression. I saw a woman about a year ago with very bad rheumatism. In fact, she had deformed arthritis, hands drawn up like this, unable to straighten the leg, and she had been ill for twelve or fifteen years. She had been to everybody, of course, in various hospitals and was in constant pain. For two years she had to have some opiate of some sort every night.
I took the case with the understanding that I had a free hand and that if I didnt do anything I wouldnt charge anything, because I knew it was going to be a long procedure. I repertorized as carefully as possible. I couldnt see any remedy that really stood out. She had been well drugged. So I gave her Sulphur. At the end of three or four weeks there was absolutely no reaction and no improvement.
Then by going back further into her history, I found that thirty-five years ago she had a bad case of diphtheria. (This will interest the vaccination man.) She had received fifteen or sixteen innoculations of the antitoxin. There are some scar marks still showing on her legs. But after that she had several years of nose-bleeds, and after that the rheumatism began, so I gave her Diphtherinum, three powders, the 200th potency one night, the 1M. the next night and the 10M. the next night and, believe it or not, after three weeks I went back and there was no improvement whatever.
I said, “Well, after thirty-five years, we will wait still longer.” I went back three weeks later, and she hadnt had a pain in the past two weeks, and she hasnt had a pain now for eight months. She has not required any other remedy. She has been able to get out of bed. While she cannot straighten her legs, she can open a safety pin with her hands.
I am sitting and waiting, not giving placebo or any personality either, but there is an action of a very high potency in a very much suppressed case.
