A CHRONIC MALARIA CASE


A CHRONIC MALARIA CASE. If this gentlemen could have had homoeopathic treatment again, the chances are that he would still be living, Or, on the other hand, if he had had the conventional allopathic treatment for the malarial condition which I treated, he probably would have gone on to his fathers at that time. Dallas, Texas.


Not long ago I had an office call from an American gentleman 72 years of age who had lived in Monterrey, Mexico for many years. He came in staggering, he could hardly walk, complaining of pains over all his joints. He had a high hardly walk, complaining of pains over all his joints. He had a high temperature-104 F-was very thirsty, very restless,s and very weak.

He also complained of paroxysms of chills and of excessive cold sweating at night. He stated that he had to get up at night and change his pajamas, which were “wringing wet.” All his symptoms were worse from the afternoon to early in the morning. He had been in this condition for a month. The pains in all his joints shoulders, elbow, wrists and fingers, knees, ankles and feet-were of a rheumatic nature. Though he was very restless, his pains were better by keeping quiet.

He wanted quick relief and demanded some wonder injection for his condition. I learned that this gentleman had been treated about ten years ago for an attack of malaria which was suppressed with the conventional quinine.

I made a repertorization of this case with my card repertory, taking consideration his malarial background and the following symptoms: restlessness, great thirst, excessive cold perspiration, symptoms worse in the afternoon. Arsenicum album was the remedy, which I gave in the 10M potency. That night the patient had the worst sweating of all, and from that time he improved of his pains and h is chills and temperature and in a weeks time he was free of symptoms and made an uneventful recovery.

Three months later, while in San Antonio, Texas, he had a slight cold and rushed himself to Mexico City, where the cold developed into pneumonia. He was taken to a “stylish” American doctor, being himself an American, and to a fancy private sanitarium. There he was overwhelmed with wonder drugs and, to make a long story short, he died two weeks later. The doctor said his heart failed.

If this gentlemen could have had homoeopathic treatment again, the chances are that he would still be living, Or, on the other hand, if he had had the conventional allopathic treatment for the malarial condition which I treated, he probably would have gone on to his fathers at that time. Dallas, Texas.

DISCUSSION.

DR. BENNO LIPTON (New Haven, Conn.): I should like to open the discussion by asking the question: Does it make a difference what time of the day you give Arsenicum, or any other remedy?.

DR. ALLAN D. SUTHERLAND (Brattleboro, Vt.)” I dont know whether I can answer your question, but I can only tell you what Dr. Roberts said, and that is that you must give a remedy away from the usual hour of aggravation. If the aggravation was very specific for the morning, it would probably be better to give the remedy in the evening rather than at that time. I think my experience, such as it is, has borne out the dictum of Dr.Roberts.

I have had no experience with chronic malarial cases because we see very few of them in Vermont; however, I did have occasion to see a returned marine who was in the so-called “Canine Corps,” and had spent his service in the South Pacific, where he had a lot of atabrine, according to the rules and regulations. When being returned to this country, he had an attack of malaria on board ship. This he had acquired in the South Pacific, but the atabrine had kept it suppressed. When he got to camp, he had another attack, and when he reached his home in Brattleboro, he had two or three of them, and they are corkers.

I happened to see him in one I immediately took a specimen of blood, but we were unable to find a malarial parasite simply because we didnt catch the blood at the right time. If we had taken it just before the chill or during the chill, we might have found them, but this was taken in the interim between chills.

At any rate, the remedy that worked out was Rhus tox. He had a dose of the 1M and he never had another attack. I dont know why Rhus tox. I have never heard it mentioned in chronic malaria cases, but his symptoms were so definitely Rhus tox. that there was no doubt about it.

DR. VIRGINIA M. JOHNSON (Chicago, III.): I had two cases. One was the late DR. Works grandson, and I gave him Malaria officinalis. About a year later he had a light attack. The first attack was very hard, and we kept him in bed for three or four weeks. Since the second attack he has had no return. Before that he was very thin and slender, and since then he has put on weight and had on trouble whatsoever.

Dr. Ennis used to belong to the association. His son,. Louis, was at college with us. He told about when his brother Ed was just graduated, and was left to take care of his fathers practice in Alton. The father warned him there was an old gentleman there who, if he had attacks, always had them at two in the morning, and he always gave him Arsenicum after the attacks had passed over. But Ed was impatient, and gave him a 200th of Arsenicum during an attack and the old gentleman lasted only about ten or fifteen minutes after that.

DR. SUTHERLAND: Arsenicum is supposed to be deadly poison; that sort of proved it, didnt it?

DR.ELIZABETH WRIGHT HUBBARD (New York, N.Y.): This paper of Dr.Jimenez brings up many interesting points. Let me begin at the back, in reverse order. I was interested that the dose of Arsenicum, similar to malarial chill, killed the old gentleman. With the very aged you have to be careful, but I once killed a pneumonia with Arsenicum, so Dr.Houghton told me. It was definitely indicated, but the patient was practically nonagenarian and very feeble. Dr.Houghton said I should have given it, then sat and watched over her, and as soon as improvement began to flag, owing to failing vital force, I should have followed it with Sulphur, I never forgot that.

Secondly, I have had great experience with Malaria officinalis, that was mentioned as a prophylactic. We had a letter from Dr. Many Cushman in Angola, and she has always refused to take quinine and atabrine, and I have always given her for herself and for all her workers, varying ascending potencies of Malaria officinalis, and she says the incidence of malaria, without quinine and atabrine, is practically nil, in an extremely malarial district. That is interesting.

I have given a number of Homoeopathic patients who went to the Far East, Malaria officinalis to take, and they had to take a modicum of atabrine, because the services would not permit them not to, but threw it out whenever they could, and none of them got malaria and the neuralgias following old malaria.

I havent seen any cases of acute malaria, because we dont have them, but some of the neuralgias are very interesting, and they often respond to such remedies as Natrum mur., but the trick is to get them to tell you, if they know them, the original symptoms of malaria and to give them that remedy.

One thing on which I should like to hear discussion is what luck anyone has had with post-atabrine an quinine head and ear noises. There I have signally failed. I have had three veterans who came back with persistent and maddening ringing in the ears, which they never had had prior to the quinine and atabrine. I have tired Chininum sulph., and whatever I might think of, without success.

DR. EIKENBERRY : Atabrine CM.

DR. HUBBARD: I didnt know there was any. I didnt know it was potentized.

DR. BELLOKOSSY: I have noticed that the atabrine cases respond to nothing. It is worse than quinine.

DR. H.W. EIKENBERRY (Indianapolis, Ind.): May I speak a little word from my experience? I happened to be in a malarial country and dealt with this atabrine problem with my troops. We, of course, saw all the ramifications of he ill effects, even to the point of many transfusion to these poor devils who had been poisoned with it, and the only result I ever got from it was with an extremely high potency of atabrine potentized by Ehrhart & Karl.

DR. SUTHERLAND.: May I speak to this again?.

There was one other malaria case that arrived in Brattleboro, after his service on Guadal canal, where he had taken a lot of atabrine. He had real malarial manifestations, and I couldnt touch him. Maybe it I had had a potency of Atabrine, I might have been able to put him in a state where the indicated remedy would act.

I wish I had known that at the time, but he eventually got out of my hands and went to the V.A. because I had no success with him. I had no success with him. I saw him in chills and sweats, and I studied the Materia Medica, and worked on the Repertory, and remedies that seemed to be just right for this man, just didnt work.

He had no results at all in any potency. I will be that if he had had an atabrine potency once or twice, he would then have responded to the remedy.

DR. EIKENBERRY: May I add another point? You might be interested in knowing that a number of these cases of so-called jungle rot, which are fungus-type infections, which were resistant to all treatment, did improve after a high potency of Atabrine.

DR. SUTHERLAND: That is interesting we still have a few cases around even now. It doesnt get well easily.

Allan D. Sutherland
Dr. Sutherland graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia and was editor of the Homeopathic Recorder and the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
Allan D. Sutherland was born in Northfield, Vermont in 1897, delivered by the local homeopathic physician. The son of a Canadian Episcopalian minister, his father had arrived there to lead the local parish five years earlier and met his mother, who was the daughter of the president of the University of Norwich. Four years after Allan’s birth, ministerial work lead the family first to North Carolina and then to Connecticut a few years afterward.
Starting in 1920, Sutherland began his premedical studies and a year later, he began his medical education at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia.
Sutherland graduated in 1925 and went on to intern at both Children’s Homeopathic Hospital and St. Luke’s Homeopathic Hospital. He then was appointed the chief resident at Children’s. With the conclusion of his residency and 2 years of clinical experience under his belt, Sutherland opened his own practice in Philadelphia while retaining a position at Children’s in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.
In 1928, Sutherland decided to set up practice in Brattleboro.