HOMOEOPATHIC WAR REMEDIES.
Medical scientists are much concerned about the fearsome effects of atomic explosions on the population of the large industrial and residential centers.
What remedies if any can be employed to palliate or neutralize such forces and their chain reactions?.
The homoeopathic materia medica has in its scope remedies to meet and at least modify in part some of the evils produced by atomic explosions.
Any survivor not too close to the center of the explosion would be helped and comforted by the remedy Arnica, given in any potency as soon as possible after the explosion.
Arnica for concussions and contusions has been the first and best remedy in homoeopathic hands for the past one hundred and fifty years.
After the concussion is met, the effect from radiation must be dealt with, and the remedy Phosphorus is by far the first and best as an antidote to all forms of radiation, be it radium, X- ray, or atomic radiation.
Phosphorus meets the destructive effects produced on the capillary circulation and, later, on the blood elements as well.
Phosphorus is a remedy for deep burns, as well as for ulcerations of a serious nature, even gangrene has often been cured with this remedy.
If every individual, who possibly might be exposed to the horrors of such forces, would provide himself with, and carry on his person, a small vial of homoeopathic Arnica, to be taken as soon as possible after an explosion, and another vial of homoeopathic Phosphorus, to be taken one half hour after the Arnica was taken, he would have with him a first aid help of the greatest value.
These two simple homoeopathic remedies universally taken would save many lives and prevent much suffering and prolonged illness.
We will mention a few other well-known and widely-proven homoeopathic remedies for specific conditions: Arnica for bruises of the soft tissues. Hypericum for injury to nerve centers and tissues. Cantharides for burns. Calendula for lacerated wounds. Ledum for punctured wounds. Staphysagria for incised wounds. Symphytum, for broken bones, also promotes rapid healing even in the sickly and the aged.
For the evil effects that often come after the giving of the various “shots” demanded by the armed forces, homoeopathy has effective and satisfying antidotes.
Shock, followed by severe pain in head and nape with fever, often comes after the tetanus shots. Mag. phos. will bring comfort in a surprisingly short time to these victims. Ars. alb. antidotes the evil effects and distressing symptoms that follow the yellow fever shots. Bryonia takes care of the bad effects following the typhoid and paratyphoid shots. Baptisia antidotes the typhus shots. Malandrinum is the best antidote for the violent acute inflammations and swellings with alarming fever that often follow smallpox vaccination. Pyrogen for septic wounds that rapidly involve the heart and other vital centers of the body. Silica will remove small particles of glass and other substances from the tissues where surgery is often difficult to apply successfully without lacerating too much tissue.
Aconite, Arnica, Belladonna, Carb. veg. (haemorrhages with shock), Millefolium, Phosphorus and the snake poisons (Lachesis, Elaps, Crotalus horridus) all are a group of haemorrhage remedies that would save many lives, if given on their specific indications.
A dose of Aconite given to nervous soldiers who are full of fear of death or other horrors and anxieties, would soon help them to face their or deals with strength and resolution.
The above-mentioned remedies constitute only a fraction of the homoeopathic materia medica that could be employed for the good of the defenders of the Republic.
In these times of high costs and ever-mounting prices, homoeopathy presents the most economic type of medicine as well as the most effective in curing power that has ever been discovered.
A.H.G.
THE DURATION OF ACTION OF HOMOEOPATHIC POTENCIES.
The first volume of Jahrs Symptom Codex, also known as Jahrs New Manual, contains a long list of the remedies known at the time when this two-volume work was published in 1848 by William Radde of New York. Under the title “Tables and Explanations” information is given concerning abbreviations, synonyms, antidotes, comparisons, duration of effect, and doses. Also, the English and German names are given.
Those were the days, now one hundred and three years ago, when homoeopathy was in its infancy here in the United States, the days of enthusiasm for the law of similars and likewise the days when drug proving was to enrich the homoeopathic materia medica by the addition of many medicines of American origin. It is now a very far cry to those times of enthusiasm and devotion to a cause which Samuel Hahnemann had inaugurated in Germany in the face of persecution by the pharmacists especially, who feared the loss of their lucrative trade should the simpler methods of Homoeopathic Pharmacy prevail.
The question of how long a homoeopathic remedy acts is still with us, though very few physicians and those of the Hahnemannian persuasion only, trouble themselves to consider it or try to solve it. In its consideration there are many factors to be regarded, all of them important and dealing with such items as the susceptibility of the patient, his reactions to drugs, the potency of the latter and the frequency of repetition. Here, however, we wish to point out some of the directions given more than a century ago.
Thus we find that Hahnemann and Jahr believed the action of Aconite to last from half an hour to forty-eight hours, according to circumstances. The nature of the latter is not mentioned. Both Hahnemann and Jahr used the 30th potency, “one globule of it in a dose.”
The globules were made of milk sugar. Noack and Trinks gave in acute diseases one or two drops of the second potency for adults, and to children “of the 3d. dilution, repeated in half an hour or one, two, three or four hours.” The duration of the action of Arnica Hahnemann gives as six to ten days. Noack and Trinks give it from one to six days; “in small doses 4 to 12 hours.” Under “Dose” it is stated that one to two drops of the mother tincture, or of the first or second dilution, every hour; or repeated in 2,3,4,6,8 hours, again according to circumstances, though without stating the nature of these. For external use, thirty drops in 2,3, or 4 ounces of water.
Turning to Arsenicum album we find the duration given as thirty- six to forty days in chronic diseases; Noack and Trinks add “in large doses 3 to 24 days, and in some cases several weeks; in small doses from 2 to 34 hours.” How large or how small the doses may have been is left to our conjecture. However, presumably size was meant.
Concerning Aurum metallicum or Aurum foliatum, metallic gold, Hahnemann states the duration of action to be “6 weeks, and even several years.” As to the dose of this potentized metal, Noack and Trinks advise ” 1 to 2 grains of the 1st., 2nd., or 3rd. trituration, once or twice daily, or every 2 and 3 days,” again according to circumstances.
With reference to Sulphur we find mentioned Sulphur and Sulphuric acid placed in juxtaposition and the duration of action given as from four to five weeks. The dose is the same as that of Stramonium which is stated as “1 drop of the 1st., 2nd., 3rd. dilution, once or twice daily”.
From the above citations we of today can compare the methods of those early days in homoeopathy with the practices in vogue more than one hundred years later. It remained for Constantine Hering to introduce the decimal scale in the making of potencies and since his time we have come to accept, even officially, the combination tablet with its connotation of careless, unscientific thinking. Yet we have heard learned a great deal concerning potencies and the duration of action of our highly potentized remedies. In a broad, general way it may be stated that, lower potencies are more applicable where pathology is in evidence, though even here there are exceptions and therefore this statement must be qualified.
Higher potencies are more suitable to patients suffering from chronic ailments and to those who are very sensitive to the action of remedies. It may also be stated, and once more as a general rule, that remedies should not be repeated as long as definite improvement is evident. Remedies have been known to act for weeks and months after the administration of a single dose. Those physicians who doubt the truth of this statement have never put the matter to a test. Finally, let it be said that high potencies should be employed with great care, for they may at times prove to be dangerous, especially in deeply seated diseases and in sensitive patients. Kent pointed out these truths, years ago. Homoeopathic prescribers should keep them in mind.
American Homeopathy Doctor.
Rabe graduated from the New York Homeopathic Medical College and trained under Timothy Field Allen and William Tod Helmuth.
Rabe was President of the International Hahnemannian Association, editor in chief of the Homeopathic Recorder, and he wrote Medical Therapeutics for daily reference. Rabe was Dean and Professor of Homeopathic Therapeutics at the New York Homeopathic Medical College.