DR. A.H. GRIMMER [Chicago, III.]: From a scientific point of view, this is a fine paper, but it is a far cry from the old days. of course, we are not in the old days, I realize, when we used to go to the houses and deliver them, and we didnt have anesthesia or anything else, but we did get some marvelous results with our homoeopathic remedies, almost painless cases, so little they didnt give any trouble, but, as the doctor remarked, it is sometimes a very difficult thing to get the homoeopathic remedy, and then there are cases where there are mechanical reasons, where even the homoeopathic remedy cannot do anything for them. Then the choice of a good anesthesia is certainly a boon to the woman, and it is a good thing to know. I guess nowadays we dont deliver any more at the houses, and only certain men go to the hospitals to take these cases, so they are out of the hands of the general practitioner.
It is a very interesting paper. (Applause).
DR. HARVEY FARRINGTON [Chicago, III.]: It was a very neat and well-written paper and exceedingly interesting to me. The doctor takes the conservative viewpoint, of course, being a homoeopath.
Referring to what Dr. Grimmer has just said, I have been told that there is a tendency to take the case back to the home, and that some obstetricians have found they do better there than in the hospital.
Now, I hesitate to speak of my own experience, because in upwards of 650 or 700 cases, hardly 50 were in the hospital. The others were delivered at the house, with the exception of one little baby who was born in a little old Ford on the way to the hospital. There, there was no attention, no anesthetic. The mother, however, had already borne three. This was her fourth child and her births were easy and expeditious.
Now, I think the important thing regarding this is homoeopathic treatment before the delivery, and so far as possible before pregnancy, and especially during pregnancy. I have had many varied cases and some of them were really very difficult ones and also serious. I have seen a hemorrhage so profuse that the blood squirted on the wall, and the trained nurse got sick; however, we came out without any serious after effects.
We all know that our Materia Medica is rich in remedies that will relieve the pains and hasten the labor, and in my own case, with some knowledge of the Materia Medica and Yinglings Manual, I got along very well; in fact, I have seen at least seven absolutely painless births, and three of them were under my own care, because the young man, the husband, had moved to some other city. In one instance the doctor accused the mother of lying because she had no pain.
“No,” she said, “it is just a bearing down”.
One of my cases of painless labor was twins. This woman had a backache. She felt as though there were part of the vertebrae breaking in her back. That is a symptom of Psorinum, which not only removed that symptom but caused the easy and practically painless labor. Two boys were born. One came head first in the normal way; the other one turned in the uterus and followed a few minutes later, head first.
I remember once being called by Dr. Sayer, who was one of the finest surgeons. I ever knew, and he also knew quite a bit about homoeopathy. His patient was in the hall of the hospital on a cot and she had been in labor a number of hours, and he said she was not progressing at all, and he wondered what could be done. She had considerable irritability, and he said, “Dont you think it is Nux?” As I watched her he said, ” I cannot stop these pains,” but after some Asagraea she began to have normal pains and they had to hurry her to the operating room, and I said, “I have never lost a mother.” Naturally, somebody asked, “Did you ever lose a father?”.
I said, “Almost,” because when he found it was twins, he threatened to commit suicide!.
DR. DONALD G. GLADISH [Glenview, III.]: Referring to the matter that Dr. Sutherland brought up, the matter of Grantley Dick Read and his “Childbirth Without Fear” is interesting. It is a tendency which we could well support individually because anything that gets away from a lot of premedication and a lot of anesthesia is quite in our line, and it is working out quite well, I think, in many places throughout the country, where hospitals have taken it up, and there is quite an interest among the pregnant mothers to try it out if they have heard anything about it. It certainly does cut down on the need for analgesia and anesthesia, both.
DR. H.A. NEISWANDER [Pandora, Ohio]: Obstetrics, of course, is a thing that belongs to the man in general practice, all through his experience, and, of course, that is something that we in our territory have to deal with regularly. As the doctors have said, previously these deliveries were all done in the home. Now they are all done at the hospital.
Our hospital has a special routine that they follow. My patients have their homoeopathic remedy before they are sent to the hospital, and the routine in our hospital is that they are given demerol, one or two, or three doses, whatever is necessary, and then at the time of the delivery they go in for chloroform or a little ether, just enough to take off the sharp edge of the pain.
One of the things particularly interesting to me -I am the only homoeopath in our section working in out hospital, and the nurses will tell me every once in a while, “Why do your patients act so-and-so? The others dont Why do they respond so-and-so? The others dont,” and every once in a while they will say, “Why dont you give her some of Dr. Neiswanders white pills?” After all, they dont know anything about homoeopathic medicine, but even so they do know and see the effect of the indicated remedy and drug, and the more I watch it and the more I see, the more I am sold on what our homoeopathic remedies can do. (Applause).
DR. SWARTWOUT [closing]: Dr. Sutherland spoke about a patient giving herself the anesthetic, putting the mask on the face, and the thing goes this way (indicating). That is the McKesson machine, which is a very good machine in this type of thing, if you want the patient to do it.
Dr. Grimmer said some patients dont want an anesthetic. Since this book was written about “Childbirth Without Fear,” we have had several who have come to the delivery room wanting to have their baby without any anesthetic, but we are always there and we have had several who at the last minute said, “Well, I cant take it. Give me some gas”.
Dr. Farrington spoke about the mothers. Our present-day mothers read so much in The Readers Digest, Mc Calls and so forth. All I was trying to do was to call to mind to all of us the procedures that are available, and I think I definitely stated my feeling on the matter. I didnt say anything about the homoeopathic remedies, but I just pointed out those procedures that are available.
I go along with Dr. Neiswander, and all we do is just at the last minute give them enough to put them to sleep so they just do not know what is happening at that time.
Thank you very much for the discussion. (Applause).
