CLINICAL CASES


CLINICAL CASES. I have had several cases of Otitis Media this past winter that have gone on to suppuration, which is unusual. Generally I have cleared them up without a ruptured ear drum, with Bell., Puls., and Fe. phos., leading the list of remedies usually in the 200th potency. Finally with the help of a consultant I was introduced to Fe. phos. DMM, one dose, and since then I have not had a ruptured ear drum. This was a favorite potency of Dr.C.M. Boger.


I have had several cases of Otitis Media this past winter that have gone on to suppuration, which is unusual. Generally I have cleared them up without a ruptured ear drum, with Bell., Puls., and Fe. phos., leading the list of remedies usually in the 200th potency.

Finally with the help of a consultant I was introduced to Fe. phos. DMM, one dose, and since then I have not had a ruptured ear drum. This was a favorite potency of Dr.C.M. Boger.

I hope this report will bring out a full discussion, for I feel badly about bungling these cases.

CASE1.-A boy 14 years old has been my patient for ten years and I have cured him of epilepsy (I hope), at any rate he has not had a seizure for the past two years. This boy would have sudden attacks of fever every six weeks or two months. I finally sent Fred Morgan a blood specimen and he said, “Brucellosis,” and advised Feldspar 50M, which was given and was followed by the 1M and later the 30x. This was last September. He was well in six weeks and remains well to date.

CASE. 2-Another case of epilepsy came to me in December 1943. The young man had just been discharged a naval hospital. He had been an epileptic since an accident with head injury when twelve years old. His seizures always came at night until he went into training when they became much worse and mostly in the day time. He also was asthmatic and suffered from hay fever which always started on August 15th. For three years he improved physically, and his seizures were less frequent with an occasional hard attack.

Trying to clear up causes, I gave him Hypericum, Natr. sulph., then Cuprum was worked out. Finally Oenanthe was given, at first low and then stepped up to the 10M. Apparently the young man is cured. He took unto himself a wife late in 1946. a healthy baby girl was born in 1947. There have been no seizures since the summer of 1948; the last one he had was just a nervous feeling that ran up his left arm and that was more than eight months ago.

CASE 3.-Judy was 22 months old December 18, 1947. She developed asthma when one year old. A maternal aunt is asthmatic. She is worse in cold damp weather, has to sit up when in an attack, and is worse when inhaling with wheezing respiration worse from a draft.

One dose of Natr. sulph. 50M with immediate relief. Nothing but placebos for over a year when, finally, on March 12, 1949, a dose of Natr. sulph. 1M was given. I havent seen her since and I am calling this a cure. AKRON, OHIO.

DISCUSSION.

DR. ROGER SCHMIDT [San Francisco, California}: I enjoyed your paper very much, Dr. Dixon. I would like to ask you a question about this last case particularly. Why did you start with a 50M and then a year later for the relapse give the 1M instead of maybe the CM or repeat the 50M first, or something else?.

DR.EDWARD C. WHITMONT [New York City]: A peculiar thing has struck me about ear conditions in general. Ferrum phos. we think generally is a remedy that congests mildly. Yet, apparently, when it comes to the ear, it has pus. It is something that we are not inclined to consider generally and I think very often we abstain from prescribing Ferrum phos., though indicated otherwise, because of this mental reaction.

These indications are an exception to the rule as far as Ferrum phos. is concerned. I am glad Dr. Dixon mentioned it.

DR. THOMAS K. MOORE [AKRON, Ohio]: Dr. Boger gave Ferrum phos. a very wide territory to take in-all middle ear conditions, as well as mastoid. He figured that was the greatest remedy for this combination, and it was always given in the DMM potency. I am just a pathological prescriber and that suits me very nicely. I use Hepar for quinsy and it works. [Laughter]

DR. ROYAL E.S. HAYES [Waterbury, Connecticut]: I have cleared up a good many otitis media cases with Ferrum phos. where there is quite a little flushing of the face and skin and thirst, and relief from cold.

DR. A.H. GRIMMER: That is very interesting. It competes with Pulsatilla in that respects then, doesnt it? It should be complimentary to it in some way.

DR. EDWARD C. WHITMONT: If you have no more symptoms than those, how do you differentiate?.

DR. HAYES: By the talkativeness or by the quiet, playful state.

DR. DIXON (closing) : I just want to say that through the grapevine or some other way, Dr. Hayes is to blame, or should take the credit, for that epilepsy case that went on to Oenanthe. I heard of some wonderful work he had done with epilepsy with that remedy, and until then I dont know that I had ever used it. It is one of the new, old and forgotten remedies of Anschutz.

Answering Dr. Schmidt about the 50M dropping to the 1M, I dont know how to explain that any more than that perhaps it was in close sequence to that case of brucellosis for which Fred Morgan had advised that procedure. In talking with Dr. Morgan I find that he uses that system considerably, starting with the high and going to the low, and he has good success in doing it. Was that a good enough excuse for me to do it? The results show that it was, and that is all that is necessary. [Laughter].

I have nothing more to say. I still feel embarrassed about the three cases last winter going on to a ruptured ear drum where formerly I had had excellent success with my 200th potencies. I dont understand it. The old man is either slipping or else they were tougher cases.

Charles A. Dixon
Dr Charles A. DIXON (1870-1959), M.D.
Akron, Ohio
President, I.H.A.