HYPERICUM CHANGED THE DIAGNOSIS


HYPERICUM CHANGED THE DIAGNOSIS. Although Sulphur had been the high point remedy on the repertory analysis it showed only a mild reaction. All others were negative. At the end of48 hours he reported that last night had been his best in several weeks. The Hypericum test was still markedly red and indurated (positive), whereas all others were negative.


On August 15, 1953, an old school physician, a neighbor of mine, inquired what Homoeopathy had to offer for the treatment of glaucoma, as the pilocarpine he had been using in his eye was making the pains worse instead of better.

After an explanation of the principles and philosophy of Homoeopathy, he was duly impressed with the Mackenzie method of determining his required treatment and related the following history:

He was sixty years of age. Several weeks ago he had experienced the sensation of “smoke before his eyes.” Next he had had dull headaches upon waking in the morning two or three days each week for about three weeks. Then one night he was awakened after midnight by a severe sharp pain in his left eye.

He sat up in bed and held the palm of his hand over the painful eye for about half an hour before it subsided sufficiently for him to return to sleep. Subsequently the pains increased in frequency and severity, and extended from the left eye along the nerve to his gums (on the same side) where his teeth had been removed several years before.

On August 1, 1953, he had consulted an ophthalmologist who found an increased intraocular pressure and decreased visual field on the painful left side. The diagnosis was glaucoma and the prescription was pilocarpine. After two weeks of this treatment, as stated above, the pains became worse, so there was no trouble in stooping it when homoeopathic treatment was started.

Other symptoms of the patient were: paroxysmal tachycardia following the noon meal; chronic discharging left-sided otitis media; night sweats, head and trunk; head so sensitive to exposure that he must wear a night cap; dyspnoea on exertion; chronic hacking cough; and history of thyroidectomy 15 years ago.

The Mackenzie potencies selected were: Arnica, Hypericum, Phosphorus, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus and Sulphur. One drop of each was injected intradermally at two inch intervals down the inner aspect of his arm.

After 24 hours he reported that his eye had been very painful. The Hypericum and Phosphorus tests showed marked positive reactions. Hypericum being slightly the large and more indurated.

Although Sulphur had been the high point remedy on the repertory analysis it showed only a mild reaction. All others were negative.

At the end of48 hours he reported that last night had been his best in several weeks. The Hypericum test was still markedly red and indurated (positive), whereas all others were negative.

On August 22, 1953, the patient was again examined by his ophthalmologist who was astounded at finding normal intraocular pressure and normal visual fields in both eyes, and remarked that evidently he had been mistaken in his diagnosis of glaucoma.

The patient improved and, after the pains ceased, the sensation of “smoke in the eyes” returned. By December 1953, this had subsided. The positive reaction of Hypericum was evident until March 1, 1954. Because his improvement was continuous, one treatment was all he needed. During this time his chronic otitis had flared up, drained, and subsided; his chronic night sweats had improved; his chronic hacking cough had become an occasional loose cough which the described as pleasurable because it was productive; his paroxysmal tachycardia and effort dyspnoea were improved but still present; and he still wears a night cap when the weather is cold. As he expressed it, these are only symptoms, not complaints.

30 East Ohio Street

Indianapolis 4, Indiana.

DISCUSSION.

DR. ELIZABETH WRIGHT HUBBARD (New York, N.Y.): I hate to speak. I have a smile on my face. That paper is just a beauty, if you are listening, if you hear how one dose carried him through, and more than that, how the things came back, the smoke returned before the eyes, the sweats, and the previous troubles came and went like the shadow of a bird across the landscape, as they s should reported.

I think if I ever go by his home town, I shall be treated by DR. Eikenberry. (Applause).

Would the doctor in closing tell us what he means by the Mackenzie method? Frankly, I dont know.

DR. HARVEY FARRINGTON (Chicago, Ill.): I agree with the last speaker. This case doses illustrate the process and the direction of homoeopathic cure, as we all realize.

Many years ago Dr. Neary said that the best we could do under all circumstances was give the Similimum 55 per cent of the time, that is, in a little over half of the cases that we treated, and I have a notion that that ratio hardly applies in general in the practice of homoeopathic physicians, because what he meant was not that we got a remedy that helped 55 per cent of the cases, actual remedy.

Here in several cases we have heard that this, remedy, that remedy, and that other remedy was given, and finally the real similimum was found.

There are two ways of looking at that. Cases are very complicated. There are many angles, many different conditions that we might he able to call layers, on top of the real one that we are hunting for, and that different remedies have to be given, and if they are prescribed carefully, and follow each other in the right series, one layer peels of after another, and-to use an illustration which is not very apropos, the onion-we want to get the core, and it has to be peeled first before we reach it, and then we have the reaction.

I think that we ought to have more papers like this, but also I would appreciate it if some of these essayists would tell why it was they gave this remedy, and that remedy, and the next remedy, because, as a rule, we see how it was that the right one did the work. (Applause).

I should like to ask is the Mackenzie method used in my any way except with a syringe? Are the Mackenzie remedies given orally?.

DR. VIRGINIA JOHNSON (Chicago, Ill.): In Chicago we have been fortunate up till now in having our homoeopathic graduate, who is an eye man, to send our patients to, and so, to satisfy the family, I have sent the glaucoma patients to him, and he always telephones back, “Just give them the remedy, Doctor, and have them back in every three to six months.” We gets wonderful results, depending on the symptoms, of course.

DR. H.W.EIKENBERRY (Indianapolis, Ind.): To answer the questions as to the reason for the selection of this remedy Hypericum was put in there because of the extreme hypersensitive and the damage to the nerve after tooth extraction, which might have been a forerunner to this, and I think you will find Kents Repertory has pain in gums after extraction, and Hypericum was one of the big ones.

The hypersensitivity, even to a draft was the basis for it, and, for you and Dr. Hubbard, if nobody else will listen, I will tell you that you have both admitted that you havent read your last couple of issues of the American Institute Journal, because in the paper I presented a year ago, at Swampscott, was a complete review of the Mackenzie method, the history of it, and the whole thing. It was published either last month or the previous month.

It is the injection of one minim of the potency. Instead of orally, it is injected intradermally, and in twenty-four to forty-eight hours your are able to have a subjective as well as an objective finding of the results of your treatment.

DR. FARRINGTON: How is it prescribed? How is the information obtained: by test.

DR. EIKENBERRY: The way I got next to it was by reading the articles of George W. Mackenzie, in the American Institute Journal. I never saw George Mackenzie, never was in his office, dont know anything but that I read in the Journal. I duplicated that and made a mistakes, and found out later he had a lot better idea than mine on types of syringes, and so forth, but I have a working method of it even through it might be a bit more cumbersome than his.

DR. F.K. BELLOKOSSY (Denver, Colo.): Do you use five or six remedies simultaneously?.

DR. EIKENBERRY: I have injected as many as thirty-four in one patient at one sitting. I have bungled the case.

DR. BELLOKOSSY: You mean you have thirty-four syringes?.

DR. EIKENBERRY: I have several hundred of them. Each potency I have, each remedy, has an individual, brand new syringe and platinum needle, and we found that if you include three of the top remedies in your repertorial study, plus one or two of the biological remedies-as you know, Mackenzies first work was on Tuberculinum-Streptococcus and Staphylococcus, and Colon Bacillus, you select which ever one of those your thin is most likely, and eliminate the rest. Of course, in case of infection of this area involving the nerve, ear, and so forth, our greatest likelihood was in Staph. or Strep., but they didnt show up like Hypericum.

DR. BELLOKOSSY: Couldnt you have just a scarification, a scratching of the skin?.

DR. EIKENBERRY: You wouldnt get induration. If you use a scratch area, you have nothing but the red area, the hyperemia.

DR. BELLOKOSSY: That would be enough.

DR. EIKENBERRY: For comparative studies later, no. Mackenzie, I Mackenzie, I understand, has done both of those. I cant find it in his writings, but he has tried both, and the intradermal injection gave him a more profound reaction and induration on which he could base a positive, as opposed to a negative reaction. Even the placebo, which is triple sterile water, is injected as a control, and that gives you a hyperemia, just by scarification.

H W Eikenberry