NEWS AND NOTES


NEWS AND NOTES. IT is becoming quite common nowadays in orthodox circles to bewail the increase in the mortality from Diphtheria and the failure of anti-toxin to stem this increase. The British Medical Journal a year or two back devoted a leading article of a page to this subject, stating that the high expectations entertained of a at the first of the diphtheritic serum had not been fulfiled.


DIPHTHERIA ANTI-TOXIN.

IT is becoming quite common nowadays in orthodox circles to bewail the increase in the mortality from Diphtheria and the failure of anti-toxin to stem this increase. The British Medical Journal a year or two back devoted a leading article of a page to this subject, stating that the high expectations entertained of a at the first of the diphtheritic serum had not been fulfiled. The same Journal a few weeks ago returned to the subject in an article which we reprint in this issue of the “World.”.

May we suggest to our orthodox brethren that all this uneasiness and expenditure of time and brain energy could be avoided by them by an application of Hahnemanns Law to the treatment of Diphtheria. Those who use homoeopathic measures in this disease are not troubled by questions as to why the serum is not acting as it should or problems relating to multiplicity of bacteria.

The homoeopathic prescriber does not even have to use anti- toxin, astounding (and even criminal to some minds) as it may seem.

Homoeopathy by itself has a lower death rate in this disease than any other form of treatment, including anti-toxin, and moreover (what will be a point of interest and importance to our allopathic colleagues) abolishes the micro-organisms in the throat more quickly after the attack.

TREATMENT OF PNEUMONIA BY COLLOID IODINE.

Since all cases of pneumonia may be guaranteed as septicaemic, and markedly beneficial results followed the use of colloidal iodine in a case of pulmonary blastomycosis presenting features of a typical pneumonia, R. V. Murphy (Irish Journ. Med. Sci., July, 1931, p. 289) has tried this drug in cases of ordinary pneumonias. His results were very encouraging, and he suggests that this treatment may be useful in other conditions also. In the two cases,10 c.cm. of a 0.2 per cent colloidal iodine were injected intravenously; subsequently the strength was increased to 0.4 and 0.8 per cent, and these doses have since been used.

There are said to be no contraindications to the use of the drug in pneumonia, and no ill-effects follow its administration; the most striking result is an early abatement of the toxaemia. Primary and recurrent cases respond rapidly and satisfactorily in a few hours, secondary and complicated ones in eight to twelve hours; hours, secondary and complicated ones in eight to twelve hours; aged, feeble subjects do not react so well. The earlier that the colloidal iodine is given, the less liability is there to complications and sequels.

Though its oral administration is of no effect, the results of intravenous injections can be intensified by introducing the preparation by additional routes. The ordinary routine treatment of pneumonia must be followed, and a favourable environment be maintained. Short, tabulated notes of twenty-seven pneumonic cases treated by this method are appended. British Medical Journal, September 26th, 1931.

Iodine, of course, may be indicated homoeopathically in pneumonia sometimes, though it is not a remedy often seen prescribed in this complaint.

But our allopathic friends are here making their usual mistake of trying to fit remedies to named diseases, and treating every case alike.

It will not work.

INDIVIDUALISATION is the keynote of successful treatment, and until the medical world realises this fact, empiricism will reign supreme.

A SPARTAN MOTHER. A mother tells of a successful back-to-nature experiment in rearing her children a girl of five and a boy of three. She started the experiment three years ago: these children go about dressed in bathing costumes; they live entirely on fresh fruit, nuts, wholemeal bread, and vegetables; they have no meat, sugar or milk, but as many oranges and apples as they want. This system, she declares, “has worked like magic”; it has kept the doctor and dentist away, and there has been no need to resort to powders or pills since they “went native.” They do their physical jerks every day with 5 lb. flat-irons.

This mother is clearly a strenuous and probably also a robust type of woman, and we may suppose that the children have inherited her good constitution. That they have thriven without milk or sugar does not surprise me, seeing that natural man has no milk but his mothers, and no concentrated sugar but what he may chance to secure from wild honey. The view that children need milk after weaning is a curious superstition; nor do they need concentrated sugar; though both these articles of food, judiciously administered, are permissible.

I am told by a medical missionary who has lived among the Chinese for thirty years that they never get any milk or sugar, and yet are the best workers in the world. The Medical Press and Circular, September 23rd, 1931.

J H Clarke
John Henry Clarke MD (1853 – November 24, 1931 was a prominent English classical homeopath. Dr. Clarke was a busy practitioner. As a physician he not only had his own clinic in Piccadilly, London, but he also was a consultant at the London Homeopathic Hospital and researched into new remedies — nosodes. For many years, he was the editor of The Homeopathic World. He wrote many books, his best known were Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica and Repertory of Materia Medica