Read before the Bureau of Pediatrics, I.H.A., June 18, 1948.
ANNE ELIZABETH CANNON,. M.D.
LUCY SWANTON CLARK, M.D.
FROM DR. CANNON:.
Treatment of measles in ten years practice has taught me several things. The first two cases got immune serum with such terrific reactions it has not voluntarily been used since. The children were more sick with the measles, had higher temperatures, and took longer to get over it, than those since treated with homoeopathic remedies.
Here are several cases haphazardly taken from the files:.
CASE 1: Boy, 5 years; Belladonna 3x, every two hours; uneventful recovery; no complications.
CASE 2: Girl, 32 years; Bryonia 3x every two hours; uneventful.
CASE 3: Brother, 18 months, caught it; mother gave Bryonia ex; child developed bronchial pneumonia on third day when doctor was called. Given Penicillin, Bryonia, Belladonna, and Phosphorus; later Ipecac, all in the 3x. One week later had bloody urine. Was given Terebinth 6x, one every two hours; also baking soda water, 4 teaspoonful to a glass; on the third day seen by urologist and no changes noticed. Better on fourth day. Uneventful recovery and, after three years, no complications.
CASE 4: Girl, 3 years Bryonia 3x given; uneventful for ten days. Then another rash appeared similar to first. Bryonia 3x repeated also a combination remedy of Aconite, Bryonia, Belladonna, Mercurius iodide. Rash cleared. Two days later hives developed; Apis 3x and Pulsatilla 3x given. Five days latter the child was carried into the office in convulsions; Belladonna; Aconite and Bryonia 3x given in combination. Rales were found throughout the left chest. By late evening the chest was perfectly well with no after effects or recurrences in four years time.
CASE 5: Girl, 5 years: Bryonia 3x; uneventful; no complications.
CASE 6: Girl, 4 years; very sick, temperature 104, pulse 120; Belladonna 2x, one every three hours, and Bryonia 3x every two hours; uneventful recovery.
CASE 7: Girl, 3 months exposed in hospital to measles; got two “shots” of immune globulin; no reaction; in measles. Perhaps maternal antibodies were still resent. This child was a breech with one leg (femur) two inches shorter than the other. X-rat showed the the entire body to be moth eaten with calcium deposits. Diagnosis: Chondrodystrophia, with a a prognosis of about one year to live. It is now 12 years old, walking and talking, about one or two months behind the first childs record which was about normal.
SUMMARY: Serum globulin used twice; both children got much worse on it. Aminopyrine used twice; both children seemed much worse afterward. Low potency homoeopathic remedies used many times and the children seemed to improve at once and continue to an uneventful recovery, even if sometimes complications developed.
Homoeopathic treatment of measles is satisfying and safe causing no serious complications.
Also I have notice that blondes get sick more easily, with higher temperatures, and also get well quicker; that brunettes, if they appear equally ill with similar temperatures, are really sick, and it takes them longer to recover. This is an illustration of the fine differential points that homoeopathy draws in the reaction of different individuals to the same diagnosis.
Also I have found that when the brothers or sisters of the measles patients develop the measles, the mothers will immediately start Bryonia with the coughing, and just phone the doctor that the measles is about to break out. Very often it will not even be necessary to see the child, and recovery will proceed normally. FROM DR.CLARK:
Two cases of measles with the family are reported. Dr. Maybelle Gilbert saw the first case just as the cough was starting, smelt his breath, and said, “That child is coming down with measles. You can smell it. Give him a hot bath and Bryonia an the rash will come out.” On the second day of the rash the face was puffy and red. Apis 2c. cleared it right up almost miraculously. Recovery proceeded rapidly with no fever after the second day. Second case was practically the same except that labored respiration developed with the puffy face; both were quickly relieved by Apis.
I have learned that measles has a “smell” distinctive to it, and that there is a peculiar dry, having cough preceding the rash and accompanying it, and that homoeopathic remedies can effect a seemingly rapid cure.
CLEVELAND, OHIO.
DISCUSSION.
DR. ELIZABETH WRIGHT HUBBARD: I am very much intrigued with the notion that blondes get sick fast and get over it fast, that brunettes are apparently much more sick but get over it slower. I would be interested to hear whether anybody else has made that observation. Our typical blond Belladonna children get things suddenly and are over it, but I wouldnt have thought of brunettes as being more lingering in their illnesses, though often we have heard the old which says that “The blue eye is the merry eye; the brown eye is the loving eye.”.
I think often brown-eyed people take things harder and take longer or get over them than the blue or “glad-eyed people” in life, but I never thought of it in Homoeopathy.
DR. DAYTON T. PULFORD: I think as a general rule brunettes have a little thicker skin than blonds and probably more of a tendency to pigment, and it might be an exanthem would not come out as quickly a sin a blond individual.
DR. F.K.BELLOKOSSY: I think the brunettes are more encumbered, more loaded with toxins than the blonds.
Another point in the paper-I am surprised at the fact the higher potencies are not used. Boenninghausen, a hundred years ago, wrote of how much better higher potency, 1M is than 30. or 6x,m and still we find so many using these low potencies. When a thing has been known for a hundred years, we should take advantage of it.
I have mostly associated measles with Aconitum and Pulsatilla, not with Belladonna and Bryonia. Aconitum and Pulsatilla are more often recommended so I would like to know why these doctors use Belladonna and Bryonia. Pulsatilla and Aconitum are more related to the skin than Belladonna and Bryonia pulsatilla especially is more of skin remedy than Belladonna and Bryonia.
Apis is something interesting. Apis has been use, which I approve of very much, because Apis is such a very strong skin remedy and very often brings out the exanthem quicker than any other remedy.
DR. ALLAN D. SUTHERLAND: I dont know Dr. Cannon except thought the fact that she was elected to membership in the organization this morning. I do know a little bit about her, however, and I know that she has been struggling with Homoeopathy for some years, without very much help. I think perhaps her use of low potencies might be cause of her feeling of insecurity so far as the remedy is concerned. Perhaps she is not yet quite certain of herself as a homoeopath, a state through which a great many of us have gone, and through which I personally am still going, so I dont thin she should be criticized.
The essential thing is that the remedy be chosen according to the law of similars. The potency then is not so important. As far as the use of Bryonia or Belladonna for skin manifestations, we are prescribing for people; we are not prescribing for skin, whether it is measles or what-not.
I dont think it is a condition that expresses itself on the surface of the body that should necessarily be considered in choosing a remedy; if the patients indications call for Belladonna, that is the remedy to use. I have used it in patients with eruption, the eruption we call measles, with success. I have used Phosphorus, and Bryonia, and Pulsatilla; in fact, I think all of our proven remedies are at our command to use, if the symptoms indicate them.
DR. ELIZABETH WRIGHT HUBBARD; Bryonia is one of the five remedies most often spoken of in the literature as bringing our a rash. We think of Cuprum and Zincum, and so forth, where the rash has not come out at all, because of feebleness, or being suppressed as by a sudden chilling, or hot bath; but Antimonium tartaricum, and Bryonia, as well as our old and friend, Sulphur, bring out a laggard eruption.
Secondly, I was interested in Dr. Bellokossys remark about the toxemia of the dark people. It gives one to think. The typical darkest-skinned and darkest haired person is often the every feeble adrenal type, who is, I think, markedly toxic, and that is an interesting thought to watch.
DR. HARVEY FARRINGTON: Dry cough, pathognomonic of measles. Rather unusual, at least in the beginning to moist cough, therefore dry cough should be characteristic of all those remedies usually given for measles in the first stage. In the experience of many, including myself, Aconitum is usually the first remedy, but, of course, there would have to be Aconitum symptoms there. Rarely is if Pulsatilla, yet many routinists give Pulsatilla from the beginning because they think it is good for measles, and they often spoil their cases and retard the cure.
I have been Bryonia cure a case of measles without any other remedy having to be given, and there you find the dry throat, the Bryonia thirst, Bryonia cough, often headache and a rough rash, but I have seen them get well just a well under it, as quickly as under my remedy. It is routine to give Bryonia because it is supposed to bring out rash. Later on, when the rash does not come out, to if it is suppressed, then Bryonia comes in very frequently.
