HOMOEOPATHIC PROPHYLAXIS


HOMOEOPATHIC PROPHYLAXIS. Especially in the realm of childrens diseases have the attempts at prophylaxis been chiefly directed and with some degree of apparent success. I say apparent because there is need for refinements in the technique of administration and in the preparation of the therapeutic agents employed, as there is still much to be desired in results obtained by present methods.


Preventive medicines occupies a prominent place today and it is logical that it should, because prevention makes cure unnecessary.

As the Law of Similars excels in the power to cure, it excels, more forcibly and certainly in the art of disease prevention.

Especially in the realm of childrens diseases have the attempts at prophylaxis been chiefly directed and with some degree of apparent success. I say apparent because there is need for refinements in the technique of administration and in the preparation of the therapeutic agents employed, as there is still much to be desired in results obtained by present methods.

It is true that the agents employed bear a crude similarity to the homoeopathic principle but because of this crudity of preparation and administration we meet with much disappointment and considerable consequential evil effects following their use.

Homoeopathic prophylaxis never causes anaphylaxis or shock, never results in secondary infection, never leaves in its wake serum or vaccine disease or any other severe reaction; it simply protects surely and gently.

While the homoeopathic law provides specific remedies for specific disease conditions, such as Belladonna for scarlet fever, Diphtherinum and Merc. cyan. for diphtheria, Carb. veg. and Cupr. met. for whooping cough, Lath. sath. and Gels. for polio myelitis, Variolinum for small pox, etc., it reaches a much higher degree of efficiency when the epidemic remedy is given for protection than is obtained by the disease specific.

To illustrate: an epidemic of scarlet fever may have more cases with a rough or a purplish rash than those having the typical smooth, shining, red rash for which Belladonna is specific. Where the typical rough, darker rash prevails remedies like Ailanthus and Phytolacca and Sulphur will give more certain protection, but after the single epidemic remedy is found it brings the highest protection of any other.

In diphtheria protection the remedy Diphtherinum is the leading prophylactic, but in some severe epidemics of the past Merc. cyanide has proven to be very effective as well as curative in this disease.

In whooping cough Carb. veg. has been a reliable protection in hundreds of cases of young children and infants. But some epidemics require remedies like Drosera and Cup. met. and then they afford the most certain protection.

The remedy Lath. sat. has given the most certain protection in thousands of cases exposed to polio through many epidemics over the last forty years. It easily heads the list of homoeopathic remedies for protection against that dreaded disease. This remedy has the same affinity to the same centers in the spinal cord and brain as the polio virus and acts as the most perfect antidote both for protection and cure. This single instrument in Homoeopathys citadel of power should command world-wide recognition both from the medical profession and the laity at large.

Against small pox Variolinum is an effective weapon, but we have others that have proved curative and effective prophylactic agents in many epidemics of the past, such an Sarracenia purpurea, Ant. tart., Vaccininum and Malandrinum. Ant. tart. in the third trituration rubbed on an abrasion of the skin produces a typical vaccination scar.

Malandrinum is the most potent antidote to the dangerous septicemia sometimes following vaccination and Thuja is the best antidote against the chronic effects following vaccination.

It is strange so little has been said by homoeopathic doctors familiar with the wide spread possibilities of homoeopathic prophylaxis, especially in the face of the so many harmful and even deadly accidents that have followed the application of the prevailing methods of protection against acute epidemic diseases.

As true healers and educators in progressive medicine it is our duty to give to the world this knowledge for its protection and well being.

It is also our duty to invite physicians of all schools of healing to test fully the homoeopathic art of protection against epidemic disease. If such tests were honestly made by sincere men of all schools of healing Homoeopathy would reach its place in the sun.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

DISCUSSION.

DR. ROGER SCHMIDT [San Francisco, California]: I thank Dr. Grimmer very much for this very enlightening paper. I think it is a very important subject. I would like to ask him two questions.

What about Pertussin in whooping cough as a preventive? And secondly, do you in your practice give routinely some of those remedies just as, allopathically, they have a set program to give at a certain age–I mean the family will come, or the mother will come to you, and say. “Well, at school they ask for this vaccination or this type of immunization”.

Then how do you handle this practically?.

DR. ELIZABETH WRIGHT HUBBARD [New York City]: Mr. Chairman, I have found that regular medicine knows that if you feed kids a lot of salt when there is a polio epidemic around, they are much less likely to get it. That is a very interesting suggested thought, and when children in my practice are going to beaches where polio is rife in the summer, I tell their parents to feed them salt pills.

I dont know whether homoeopathic Natrum muriaticum would have any effect.

I am interested to know that the doctor uses Carbo veg., also that he prefers Belladonna to Scarlatinum. I believe that it does children good to have the exanthematous diseases. I am sure that those children who have never had mumps, chicken pox, etc., in childhood are far more likely to have serious diseases in later life and are less healthy, because they have had no opportunity to throw off their inherited psora. Therefore, in answer to Dr. Schmidt, I would say I never give a child in my practice a preventive on general principles against any of those diseases, except such as are required by the local board of health.

Children are not accepted in nursery school in New York without immunization of some sort against diphtheria. I therefore give them Diphtherinum 1M, three doses twelve hours apart, and a certificate saying they have been protected against diphtheria. I dont say how.

One other thing that is required by all summer camps in New York State is the giving to children of tetanus protection, in which case I give Hypericum in the 1M, three doses, and a certificate that they have had their protection. I dont believe that those things hurt the children. I do believe, although I cant prove it, unfortunately, that they do immunize them against the liability to contract those diseases.

DR. SCHMIDT: May I ask Dr. Hubbard about the question she raises there which is controversial, I believe, about the merit of having those diseases during childhood or not? One edit would be that if you raise your natural immunity by having the disease when you are a child under a suitable condition, then you avoid them later on in life.

That question of eliminating psora is another point which is very interesting indeed but both are theoretical, of course. By giving the homoeopathic preventive, you raise the immunity to diphtheria. For example, it has been proved by the Schick test to raise that immunity.

DR. HUBBARD: I have heard it said that you even do for the child the same thing in the release of psora that would be done by having the disease. For instance, if you gave a child Morbillinum and it doesnt get the measles in the measles epidemic, I have heard it said that Morbillinum does for the child what having the measles would do for the child.

That I find it difficult to believe, but I would like to hear the opinion of some of my elders and betters on that subject. DR. A. DWIGHT SMITH [Glendale, California]: I would like to ask Dr. Grimmer if he has ever made any test as to how long Diphtherinum would act as a prophylactic?.

DR. SCHMIDT: I can answer that question. A homoeopath in Paris has conducted an experiment along that line for many years. I dont know his very recent results, but he has published a full book on that, and he has brought out the very interesting fact that the higher he goes in potency, the longer immunity is proved by the Schick test. I could not give you the exact data now because I dont have it in my memory, but I remember, at least, that he said that the 9,000th potency would give an immunity of about eight years. Therefore, 1,000th would give approximately only 22 years protection and a lower one, a 30th, would give protection only for a few months.

DR. A. H. GRIMMER: Dr. Schmidt asked about Pertussin. That was one remedy I did intend to put in but omitted it. I wrote that paper at the last minute and hurriedly. That is a very valuable and good protection. It is also a remedy where they come to you ad havent been well since a bad case of whooping cough. Pertussin will then come in and help you very effectively. Thank you very much, Doctor, for that suggestion.

As to how I employ the remedies, I generally give a dose of the 10M in most cases. The 10M is a protective potency and the reaction is good at least for that epidemic. If there comes another epidemic and they want further protection, I repeat the process, only for the epidemic. That holds good in all the protections that I have given–polios and all.

A. H. Grimmer
Arthur Hill Grimmer 1874-1967 graduated from the Hering Medical College (in 1906) as a pupil of James Tyler Kent and he later became his secretary, working closely with him on his repertory. He practiced in Chicago for 50 years before moving to Florida. He was also President of the American Institute for Homoeopathy.
In his book The Collected Works of Arthur Hill Grimmer, Grimmer spoke out against the fluoridation of water and vaccinations. Grimmer wrote prodigeously, Gnaphalium, Homeopathic Prophylaxis and Homeopathic Medicine and Cancer: The Philosophy and Clinical Experiences of Dr. A.H. Grimmer, M.D.