The Cuprum picture had disappeared, but the profound debility brought about by the loss of vital fluids through vomiting and diarrhea was manifest. Therefore, my prescription was China off. Which was given hourly. Along about the fifth day of treatment this child had three formed stools. I immediately stepped the diet up, increased the fluids, added a dextro maltose preparation to the formula, and the child began to have a daily increase in weight of one ounce. After the sixth day I discontinued all clysis.
The progress was slow but uneventful, and at the end of the second week I began feeding the infant orange juice and a whole milk formula with a dextro maltose as a carbohydrate. Here the baby presented still a picture of high grade malnutrition-the neck was markedly emaciated, sutures overlapped, the abdomen was sunken and flabby which gave me a picture, of Calcarea phos. which was the last remedy the child received. It is now 5 months old, weighs 142 pounds, had shown no evidence of any gastro- intestinal upset up to the writing of this paper, and is well and happy.
Case History No. 2-Baby G.M. was discharged from a Philadelphia Hospital on the fifth day post partum as epidemic diarrhea had developed in some infants at that Nursery. This was a full term infant, and was without a doubt the worst case I have seen cured. I have seen others who apparently were not as ill, but have died. This severe case gave a classic pattern. The infant had been il two days before I saw him, and the pediatrist who was called in would not treat the child at home. I was asked to treat the infant at its home. The parents were willing and could employ all the necessary nursing care and I too charge of the case reluctantly.
The history given to me was that the baby lost a pound within 8 hours; there had been a rapid and progressive loss of weight. The child was whimpering and wailing constantly. A general physical examination gave this picture: an emaciated infant with shallow, rapid, and at times difficult respirations which would occasionally stop for seconds. This child was cold and clammy to touch. Blue rings around the eyes. Lips cracked. Pulse was scarcely perceptible and very rapid. If a teaspoonful of water was taken, it was immediately regurgitated. The stools were scanty, watery, dark brown, and offensive. My prescription was Arsenicum album at once. Oxygen had been sent for. As this case had many willing relatives at hand, in a short time I gave this child a clysis of Hartmanns solution. In fact, we gave a clysis every 6 hours for 24 hours.
The child put through a very stormy night and its only nourishment was through venoclysis. In the morning I received a phone message from the nurse that the child had completely collapsed, had stopped breathing, and she was forcing pure oxygen. She had given 2 c.c. of coramine by hypodermic injection and this had brought some little reaction when I arrived at the house. The infant was probably dying so I immediately gave an intraperitoneal injection of 60 c.c. of plasma and 100 c.c. of normal saline solution. The picture of this child was collapse- pulse imperceptible, respiration slow, gasping, convulsive twitching of the face, inactive dilated pupils, staring eyes, a pure purple color of skin and mucous membranes; the face had a livid flushed color and cold body surface.
There was only one remedy to be given and that was Hydrocyanic acid which was given in drop doses in the 500th potency every 5 minutes. I believe this case was saved during this critical syndrome by this quick and powerful acting remedy, Hydrocyanic acid. This was the last sudden collapse the infant had. The vomiting had ceased, though weakness and vital depression were present. The child presented a picture of Arsenicum album and this remedy was given in frequent doses in the 30th potency.
At the end of a week only debility and weakness seemed to stare me in the face. I then prescribed China officinalis for the weakness due to the loss of much of the vital fluids of the body. At the end of 2 weeks this dying infant took a new lease on life, was having normal fecal stools, beginning to gain weight, and was taking a full milk formula. To this day I wonder why this infant survived. At the present time it is well and progressing normally in all respects.
After careful observation of these diarrheal cases in two Hospitals, and critically watching the modern orthodox treatment carried out to the letter, also noting the mortality rate of approximately 43 percent with this modern scientific treatment, I have much satisfaction in looking back at the five cases I treated with the homoeopathic remedy as the medicinal therapy, accompanied by intravenous clysis and scientific feeding. It also gave me great mental satisfaction to know that I discharge my patient living in their mothers arms and that none of my patients were sent home in a box.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
DISCUSSION.
DR. J. W. WAFFENSMITH: I should like to ask the doctor two question: First, whether he has had any experience in this condition with Aethusa; and, second, if he has had any experience with Chininum arsenicosum.
DR. WILLIAM B GRIGGS.: Aethusa cynapium in my experience of many years is a very narrow remedy, indicated only where there is milk intolerance, where the child is weak and vomits milk in large, tough curds that almost choke it. The temperature is almost always sub-normal, and there is a greenish, watery diarrhea.
I had no such picture in any of these cases.
There was only one remedy I was disappointed with, and probably it was my fault, and that was Carbo vegetabilis, in these collapses. It never did a thing for any case. One of the men had a case in extremis and came to me, and I looked at the baby and it was in collapse, eyes sunken, belly distended, cold, clammy skin, as cold as a frog, breath cold. I said, “Try Carbo vegetabilis 30.” It was given every five minutes, and the baby died. With that advice, he gave it to another patient, and that baby died.
We need the remedies indicated in cholera, by the type of collapse, such as Camphor, which I used successfully in one of my other cases, and Hydrocyanic acid, Arsenic, and so forth, but I never saw any results with Carbo vegetabilis in these case. I simply did my best. If I had taken on most of these cases, I would have had a mortality rate. At the present my mortality rate is zero and they are what they are because they were treated purely homoeopathically.
DR. ELIZABETH WRIGHT HUBBARD: Did I understand you to say you gave whole raw milk?.
DR. GRIGGS: No, diluted. I used Walker-Gordon milk diluted one-third, and when they tolerated that and had no diarrhea, and the temperature was subnormal, I added something to produce energy, a dextro-maltose preparation.
DR. ALLAN D. SUTHERLAND: I think the important feature of us to remember is not only the homoeopathic treatments the Dr. Griggs used, but also his supportive measures. I think too many times we have a tendency to depend entirely on the remedy. These case are in an extremely desperate state. It is of no value to be an accurate homoeopathic prescriber and still lose the patient because we have not replaced lost fluids or used other methods that will keep the patient alive along enough for the homoeopathic remedy to work.
DR. HARVEY FARRINGTON: It is worth coming all the way from Chicago, or even from the West Coast, to hear this paper. This disease seems to be a new one, although it may have occurred in the past and was not recognized. It has certainly puzzled the old school pediatrician. Doesnt it seem a crime that the only treatment he has thus far devised is the starvation of the infant, and just when it is most in need of nourishment? On looking back, it occurs to me that I may have cured two or three cases without knowing what the disease was. While still in general practice and delivering babies, I had several cases with symptoms that very much resembled the syndrome of epidemic diarrhea, and none of them died. In fact it is more than thirty years since I signed a death certificate for an infant or a child under sixteen years of age. One case recently came under my personal notice.
It was daughter of a patient of mine, born prematurely in a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. It apparently recovered under the starvation treatment, but had a second attack and died. They told the mother that a second attack was always fatal. Out of seven cases, including this one, only two babies lived, and one of them was taken out of the hospital, when it was learned that the epidemic had started. No other system of medicine could do what Dr. Griggs did with his little sugar pills.
DR. WILLIAM B GRIGGS. (closing discussion): I want to tell Dr. Farrington I have seen all types of diarrhea, and the infant was very much debilitated when it got the attack, but easier to cure and more of the pattern of the original picture as described that is, not with watery, explosive stools. These children have looked wrinkled and old, and so forth. They were being fed barley water for twenty-four or thirty-six hours. I watched the intestinal flora and the chemistry of it. If I have an acid stool. That is really scientific infant feeding, the kind I learned at the Finkelstein Clinic in Berlin, and those men knew their chemistry and their work.
