24. weakness of the back and extremities… Allen.
25. general debility… Hering.
176 Commonwealth Avg.
Boston, Massachusetts.
Discussion.
DR. CARL H. ENSTAM (Los Angeles, Calif.): Could I ask you for a list of books that you searched through. I am particularly interested in the question of whether you used anything from Hughes.
DR. RAY W. SPALDING: I cant name every book but we have at. least two.
DR. ENSTAM: Did you look at Hughes?.
DR. SPALDING: I looked at Hughes. We looked at Nash. We looked at Kent, Farrington. Hempel. Allen, Clarke, Hering, Boger, anything and everything; Guernseys Keynotes, Allens Keynotes.
DR. ENSTAM: Lilienthal?.
DR. SPALDING: Yes. He has a list of remedies as long as both arms, but the question is what is going to distinguish it? The amazing thing to me was to find so in multiple sclerosis. We know multiple sclerosis is on the increase. I have fifteen or sixteen cases, which is more than the average person sees, I imagine. I just happened to run into quite a lot of it. It is very discouraging. The old school has nothing to offer. It occurred to me that there might be something in homoeopathic Materia Medica which, if it didnt prove curative, at least might be palliative.
DR. HARVEY FARRINGTON (Chicago,Ill.): I feel that we owe you a debt of gratitude for this work and it ought not to be allowed to pass without a favorable comment. It is the kind of paper we can hardly discuss. That is the kind of paper we can hardly discuss. That is the kind of paper that we want to see in print and study.
My experience in this disease has been very limited. I imagine I have seen only four cases, and have had very little results, only meager results. In one case, Plumbum was undoubtedly palliative but eventually the case passed out of my hands, for which I was rather grateful.
It is very nice, very fine paper and a worthy work.
DR. A W. HOLCOMBE (Kokomo, Ind.): I have no criticism whatever to offer on this paper because I was very much interested. I think it is one of the most constructive papers we have had so far.
This trouble, this multiple sclerosis, is a difficult proposition for any physician and, as the doctor said the old school has nothing to offer at all will dismiss the case as kindly as they can. They are very glad to get rid of them. I dont welcome those cases, myself.
I have two cases on hand at the present time. Phosphorus in infrequent and rising potencies has been very beneficial in one case. I have prescribed Plumbum metallicum for one of the cases, the last time I saw, it and I am rather anxious to see what the outcome is going to be, whether there is going to b any improvement or deterioration.
But, as Dr. Farrington said, this paper is not for much comment; it is to be studied. Every case of multiple sclerosis requires study, not just mulling over the conditions that we see on the outside, but they have got to be studies inside and outside.
If there is any classification that requires the strictest application of homoeopathic art, it is these cases.
DR. F. K. BELLOKOSSY (Denver, Colo.): Have you any experience as to how it would fit Parkinsons?.
DR. SPALDING: Havent gone into that as yet. We havent touched Parkinsons We are going on from this into infantile. We have done some work with infantile paralysis with the same idea if trying to see what we have in the homoeopathic Materia Medica that is similar to that disturbance.
DR. MOORE T K. (Sharon Center, Ohio): I am sorry I didnt get to hear this paper but I want to give you a little experience I have had with multiple sclerosis. This patient came to me last June who five years before had been diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic and had been told there was nothing to do. She couldnt tell where she was putting her feet or where her hands were going. If she would put her hands up here, there was no sensation; she couldnt feel her face, she had double vision. She was thirty- four years old. This came along at a time in her life after she was married. I think that is the time of life that a great deal of the multiple sclerosis shows up.
One point, she had a leucopenia that came along after marriage. So she got a dose of Medorrhinum that seemed to go to the mark. She couldnt drive her car; she couldnt play her piano. Now she can play her piano. Now she can play her piano and she can drive her car, and she has lost her double vision. She still has trouble with her walking, but it does not seem now to be the in- coordination that it was. It is a little different from that. But we are working on that. She told me lately that she had worked all day the day before and wasnt even tired, which is quite something. Her mentality is brighter, and it has made quite a different me for her.
Several other remedies have come in, but I have a feeling from the fact, if it is a fact, that multiple sclerosis comes into the life of human beings at a time when the effects of gonorrhoea are apparent, that Medorrhinum may often be a remedy that will be useful in these cases, but that isnt a cures. It has made quite an impression on me, the advance that this one has made in being able to live much more satisfactorily.
A peculiar instance. Just lately I advised her to go and listen to Margaret Coleman who is a spiritual healer who comes to the big auditorium down at Canton, which is right near Akron. She heals almost everything-wonderful, spiritual healing. We often wonder why our cures arent noticed more. Well, her cures dont create such a sensation. But after a trip to Youngstown and attending this meeting, which was apparently quite an inspiring meeting she came back with a greatly improved countenance. She was bright; she was hopeful, more bright and more hopeful than she had been at any time.
So this Homoeopathy, with all its peculiarities, may work in a little with spiritual healing.
DR. WILBUR K BOND. (Greensfork, Ind.): I was just going to ask you what part you think vaccinosis might play in multiple sclerosis. I think Dr. Green also had some cases a few years ago that she cleared up. You might can on her.
DR. SPALDING: Did you have multiple sclerosis, or was it muscular dystrophy?.
DR. JULIA M. GREEN (Washington, D. C.); I believe I gave you two cases of multiple sclerosis. One of them is just as well as she ever was in her life and has maintained that since she recovered from the disease itself. She is married and has two children, keeps house, and has no trouble whatever with her muscles.
The second one went on to quite a period of improvement. I was very much handicapped in this case because the child lived in Florida. His mother brought him up to Washington to see me about three times. In the first place, to take the case down. I went down to Florida. But the environment at home was not good. The father was sure that the child would never get well and spoke of it on all occasions.
This father was the manager of a plantation belonging to a wealthy couple, and both of these people, who sent for me to come down to Florida in the beginning, were very enthusiastic about the thing, then lost all of their enthusiasm and fold the manger that the child never could recover and there was no use going on use going on. So, reports became few and far between.
I have not heard anything now for over a year, I think, and I am wondering whether I dare write to the mother and try to get a report, as I would like to do. The child must now be twelve or thirteen years old, maybe fourteen, and I believe that the he is going from bad to worse.
If you remember, this was a case in family where, on the male side, there were five cases already of multiple sclerosis that went on to death during adolescence. The tendency to it was transmitted through the mothers but all the children affected were males.
DR. ENSTAM (Los Angeles, Calif.): I think it is proper we take cognizance of the fact that Dr. Spalding not only is doing some interesting work but I think it is a pioneering work, as far as Homoeopathy is concerned. If he is the least bit successful, I think we are all going to take heart and be tremendously interested and see what we can do to establish some private research department of our own.
As far as the etiology is concerned, I wont take it for Gospel truth but I will tell you what I believe for the moment.
When my brother and I were very small, we contracted diphtheria. Living in New Haven, Connecticut, we were given one of the first imported doses of diphtheria antitoxin ever shipped over here from Germany, and it damn near killed us. My brother developed many symptoms Dr. Spalding has been kind enough to describe some here of which he has never gotten rid, of I dont know whether the effect of the antitoxin can produce symptoms of this kind, but I give it to you for what it is worth. It left me with a tremor. No other member of my family has had one, and I have had it since six or seven. I do my best not to show it to you.
A little over a years ago I was asked to undertake the care of a patient suffering from what was diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. She had been admitted to one of the better hospitals in Los Angeles, and she had been given up, after making their diagnosis.
