By Dr. R.M. LE HUNTE COOPER, LONDON.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:- At this great and representative gathering, composed as it is of men of such wide experience, it is with a not unnatural feeling of diffidence that I approach my present task, but I rest the excuse for my temerity on the fact that the matter is of such vital importance to humanity that any ray of light, however feeble, may help towards the ultimate attainment of our great aim, “the final subjugation of this enemy to the health and peace of mind of our present-day world.”
Another excuse I have for this present paper is that Cancer research in the past has mainly taken the form of laboratory investigations of a physiological, biological, histological, and chemical nature, to the almost entire exclusion of the clinical side. I do not for a moment wish it to be inferred that I regard these researches as valueless, very far from it, but the results so far obtained clearly prove that the knowledge thus acquired is not at all commensurate with the time, energy and money expended on them.
The reasons for the neglect of the clinical side are fairly obvious. In the first place, the Old School view of the profession at large which credits remedies with a purely physiological and chemical action, while overlooking their far more important curative properties, has produced an astigmatic view of their potentialities in controlling disease. This has been still more intensified where “tumour formation” is concerned, and has led to the conviction that anything in this form can only be dealt with by the knife. The apparent sequence of events in malignant disease, as crudely judged by the eye, of an initial tumour, associated with cachexia and followed by metastasis, has led to the assumption that this first seen growth is the sole origin of all the trouble, with the very natural determination to get rid of it without delay, owing to its being the one great source of danger.
Belief in the true curative powder of remedies being nil, resort to operation has been the natural consequence, and as time has gone on, increasing stress has been laid upon the early use of this as vital. There has therefore been little opportunity, or inclination, for treating the condition medicinally, except in hopelessly advanced cases.
In order to explain how I have arrived at my present outlook upon the great problem, it will be necessary to touch upon the great problem, it will be necessary to touch upon past history.
Some of you, no doubt, are aware that for some years prior to his death in 1903 my father, Dr. Robert T. Cooper, had studied the question of the treatment of Malignant Disease from the homoeopathic and clinical side, and had obtained very encouraging and remarkable results, mainly from the exhibition of plant remedies administered in unit doses at intervals varying from a few days to several weeks.
At this death I essayed the task of following on where he left off. Having convinced myself that his findings were indisputable facts, and not figments of the imagination, as some professed to regard them, it became obvious to me that, if their value was not to be lost, the great need, for the benefit of those who were to follow, was to put them on some form of working basis. The matter was one of considerable difficulty, a nd the results I have achieved have fallen far short of my hopes, but I have endeavoured to keep this goal before me in any work I have subsequently undertaken.
I soon found that I would have to work entirely by myself, and had therefore to forgo the pleasure of collaborating with others, except in so far as an interchange of ideas at meetings was concerned. It will no doubt seem strange to you nowadays that anyone could doubt that remedies given in unit doses at long intervals could act curatively, but in the “Dark Ages” of 1903, when I commenced private practice in London, there was a very great deal of scepticism on the matter, and I have been told that the feeling was so strong that my father was actually hissed at a meeting of a certain Homoeopathic society for suggesting such a thing. I have personally never taken anything for granted, and though I had convinced myself of the truth of homoeopathic action by personal experience, with light on its modus operandi unwittingly shed by that avowed allopath, Sir Almroth Wright, when he lectured on vaccines at Netley, I had yet to prove to my own satisfaction (1) that any unit dose could act curatively on the system. (2) that it could act in the crude dose of the and (3) that above all it could act beneficially on aggregations of neoplasmic material in the system.
As to the first, we all have now such abundant proof of the action of the unit potentized remedy, that it needs no further comment. I very soon had proof of the crude remedy acting similarly in a case I subsequently detailed in a paper on “Curative Force” which I read before the British Homoeopathic Society in January, 1908. It was a typical case in a female child aged 8 of far advanced Tabes Mesenterica with the cardinal symptoms of bloated abdomen, wasting, &c., and which had been abandoned as incurable both by the local practitioner and the Westminster Hospital, the latter having declared that it would be a waste of time to treat her. Scrophularia Nodosa (fig.1) in unit Arborivital doses, given at intervals of a fortnight, extending to four and eight weeks and finally to still longer intervals, with no alteration diet, climate, or surroundings, brought about complete restoration to normal health. By the way, she subsequently married and went to Canada, from where occasionally she writes to tell me how well she is.
In my sketch of Scrophularia Nodosa I have put in the root in the right bottom corner to show the peculiar nodular projections from which this plant takes its name, and which are said to have constituted the signature for its action on lymphatic glands. Whether such deductions are justifiable is a matter for personal opinion, but I can affirm from my own experience that no other remedy I have used has given me anything like the help this one has when glandular tissues were involved, or when mammary nodules had to be dealt with.
I think the word” Arborivital,” which I have just used, needs explanation, as we have so many amongst us from overseas. It was given by my father to tinctures made from the living plant, the flowers and small shoots being plucked from the growing plant, put into proof spirit, and exposed to the sun afterwards when possible.
It may interest you to see one of the original tinctures made by my father which will now be thrown on the screen.
Then came the third proposition, “the action of unit doses on new growth, and especially that of a malignant type.” To convince myself on this point. I had to seek some cases of undoubted and proved malignancy, and was fortunate in being consulted at the end of November, 1903, by a gentleman hailing from Scotland, aged 75, and suffering from an Epithelioma involving the right side of the face. It was a recurrence at the site of the original tumour, which had been removed surgically by Mr. Knighton Treves, and its recurrence in a form showing intensely rapid growth left no shadow of doubt as to its nature. Rapid spreading infiltration of the surrounding tissues added further testimony, if it were needed, and the well-known London consultants who saw it were so satisfied on this point, and considered it so far advanced, that they were unanimous as to the uselessness of further operation, and the hopelessness of any remedial measure.
This case I reported fully, in detail, in a paper I read before the Cooper Club, in October, 1905, which was subsequently published in the Homoeopathic World in December of the same year. Its significance lay in the fact that under the action of unit doses of Lobelia Erinus (fig.2) the rapid proliferation of the cells of the growth was stayed, after the administration of the fist dose, absorption very soon followed, and the whole tumour disappeared in the space of about three months.
In view of a dubious remark made by the Chairman at my last paper read before this Congress in 1911, that” my cases would be of more value if we were to know what happened to them in after years,” it will be of interest if I quote from a letter I received a few weeks ago from this patient’s son, the Vicar of St. John’s, Folkestone: “The patient you refer to was my father, J—s A—–n, who received complete relief from his trouble, owing, we are as a family convinced, to your treatment. He died of old age in 1913, and had no return of the trouble since 1904.” This letter will be thrown on the screen (see pp. 354 and 355).
Although I had further and ample evidence after this to satisfy myself, it was not till a year later that I found a case of sufficient dramatic impressiveness to satisfy others, and, although the patient ultimately succumbed, the whole character and course of the disease were so altered that it formed incontrovertible proof of the kind I needed. She was a lady of 52, who had been seen by several well-known consultants. Mr. Bland-Sutton performed laprotomy, and found a large Colloid Carcinoma of the omentum occupying the whole of the abdomen; its extent being too great to allow of removal, the wound was closed, and every expectation was held that she would not live more than a week or two. The malignancy of the condition may be gauged by the fact that she had been to all intents and appearances in good health as recently as four months previously.
