In Calcarea we have a remedy resembling Phosphorus in many ways, yet possessing distinct differentiations. The patient will be of the scrofulous type and fat, and the scrofulous tendency will have existed from childhood, delayed dentition, slow closing of the fontanelles, localized sweat, etc., in contrast to the slender, overgrown Phosphorus patient, tall and narrow-chested, and with fine skin. Calcarea is also indicated late in tuberculosis with large cavity formation, especially in the right lung. There is pain in the chest and there are loud mucous rales all through the chest. There is yellowish-green, blood-tinged, purulent sputum. Meat is indigestible to the patient. There is emaciation and profuse sweat.
The Calcarea patient is always tired, becomes quickly exhausted, and takes cold easily. These colds settle in the chest and ultimately tuberculosis develops. Calcarea carb. would have cured this tendency to take cold and prevented the development of the phthisis. It encourages the calcification of tubercular areas. In even advanced cases it arrests them and stimulates calcareous deposits.
Bacillinum and Tuberculinum are two similar nosodes of unquestioned value in pulmonary tuberculosis when properly used. These remedies are indicated in individuals with a tubercular family history, and in early and even late phthisis. They are especially useful in the nonfebrile stages. Later, when the sputum shows a mixed infection with staphylo- strepto- and pneumococci as well as the bacterium tuberculosis, they should be used high, one thousandth or higher, with careful observation of the reaction and infrequent repetition.
They often work well as intercurrents with such remedies as the Calcareas, Lycopodium, Phosphorus, etc. Of them Nash writes, “I have seen apparent benefit follow the exhibition of these remedies in both incipient as well as advanced phthisis, always giving the high preparations in the latter and letting them act a long time without repetition”.
Now we shall give brief consideration to some remedies not considered constitutional but which have been so effective in some cases as to demonstrate that when the symptoms call unmistakably for it, almost any remedy may prove to be curative in tuberculosis.
About ten years ago a boy of ten years was brought to me by his parents with the report that an examination, including x-ray of the lungs, made at the Childrens Hospital had ordered the child to be put immediately to bed and under the supervision of the district nurse. I gave the child one dose of Bacillinum, the two hundredth potency, followed by Drosera 3x on the basis of these symptoms: paroxysmal cough, coming so frequently as to give the patient no opportunity to recover his breath, often followed by retching and vomiting. Kent mentions it for the violent paroxysms and spasmodic cough of tuberculosis. In this case a speedy recovery occurred.
Some years ago the later Dr. George Hodson of Washington Court House, Ohio, was discussing with me the value of Fieldings Card Repertory and related the following case to me. One of the families in his practice had a son in the twenties afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis. This son had been away to a different climate or a sanatorium. I do not recall which, but his affliction had become steadily worse until finally he came home to die. The family, upon his return, sent for Dr. Hodson to give him such medical attention as he might need. The case looked so hopeless that Dr. Hodson said he felt quite at a loss what prescription to make, when it occured to him to try the new repertory in the case.
He made a careful study and noted well the symptoms, then by reference to the symptom register selected the proper cards, and found the remedy to be Phellandrium, one he had never used. He immediately sent for this remedy and administered it to the patient with the result that he recovered. Probably no other remedy in the materia medica would have accomplished in this seemingly hopeless case the results that his obscure remedy did. What are its symptoms. The respiratory symptoms are most important, and have been frequently verified clinically.
An excellent remedy for the offensive expectoration and cough in phthisis, bronchitis and emphysema, tuberculosis affecting generally the middle lobe. Everything tastes sweet. Sticking through right breast, near sternum, extending to back under the shoulders. Cough with profuse foetid expectoration, compels the patient to sit up. An excellent remedy in the last stages of phthisis when the expectoration is terribly offensive. This case well illustrates the need of thoroughness in the selection of the similimum for even the apparently hopeless case.
I have discussed so far but a few of the more important remedies, and these but briefly. The list of those which might be discussed would be very long and assuredly contain such remedies as Arsenicum iodatum, Sulphur, Stannum iodatum, Natrum muriaticum, Sticta pulmonaria, Ferrum phosphoricum, Calcarea muriatica, Carbo vegetabilis, Acidum nitricum, Lycopodium, Pulsatilla, Jaborandi, etc., but the object of this paper is not to be an exhaustive treatise, but to present a few examples of the possibilities of homoeopathy in this disease in proof of the statement made at the beginning of this paper, that, if in more of these cases an accurate prescription were to be made, these unusual recoveries would be more frequent.
Disinclination is not an adequate excuse for not reviewing the materia medica in these cases, and it is to be hoped that these cases just related may dispel to some degree the prevalent idea that any medicine is useless in pulmonary tuberculosis. We are not keeping faith with our heritage, nor with our patient when we neglect the homoeopathic remedy in these cases.
These so-called exceptional cases, in my judgment, prove the possibilities of our therapeutic method, and the failures may not always be due to homoeopathy, but occasionally to our failure to apply it correctly. The success of the adjuvant and non-medicinal therapeutic measures now so much stressed should not cause us to relax the diligence with which we seek for the similimum for these cases, for in cases like the above it has well proven its superiority, practically unaided, over all other measures.
COLUMBUS, OHIO.
