While I have already reported the good results following the administration of Agaricus and Jaborandi in restoring the vision in many cases of what might be termed torpor-retinae of functional anaesthesia, I have also observed that Agaricus has a curative result in cases of of hyperaesthesia retinae. In regard to the action of Agaricus in optic nerve atrophy, I regret to say that I have been unable to get in improvement in the vision from its use. Some cases of toxic amblyopia arising from nicotine poisoning, where the atrophy was only partial, have certainly been benefited by it. Such remedies as Gelsemium, Ignatia, Phosphorus, Sulphur, and many others might also be mentioned as having directly or indirectly a marked action in improving the functional activity of the retina.
In hyperaesthetic conditions of the retina, where all local, refractive, and reflex causes have been removed, the action of the Homoeopathic attenuated drugs, such as Macrotin, Hyoscyamine, Atropine, Conium, Agaricus, Nux vomica, and Ignatia, are often marvelous in the rapidity of their action. The results obtained from the proper administration of the indicated remedies in these cases where the failure from the more general treatment of the opposing school of medicine is common, are the more remarkable, and tend to give one new effort and a desire to place again and again fresh laurels upon the already well crowned head of Hahnemann.
The results obtained by the Homoeopathic administration of Physostigma, Jaborandi, Gelsemium, Agaricus, in cases of spasm of the accommodation associated with refractive errors, have enabled me for the last ten years to do away with the use of Atropia, Homatropine, Hyoscyamine, and other mydriatics which are commonly considered necessary for the paralysis of the accommodation in the prescription of glasses. It has been my experience that the results of my prescriptions for correcting lenses have been much more satisfactory than when I have used mydriatics, and where the reflex symptoms arising from eye-strain, such as neuralgia and headaches and other more remote neuroses, were often relieved before the glasses were prescribed.
Again, it may be said that these and other remedies relieve the eye stain of both the intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the ball, as reflexes, when the total optical defect has been corrected by the prescription of glasses, based upon the supposed complete paralysis of the accommodation under Atropia or some other drug similar in action.
In the insufficiencies of the recti muscles, whether the cases exhibit an exophoria, esophoria, or a hyperphoria, we find that a close study of our cases with the prescription of such remedies as Argent.nit., Nat.mur., Gels., Senega, Physostigma, Agaricus, Mercurius, and Phosphorus, we are time and again not only to relieve the discomfort attendant upon the muscular deficiency, but also to avoid the aftermath of graduated tenotomies which daily confront us in search of relief which even our Homoeopathic law cannot repair. Thanks to the increasing intelligence of the medical profession the fad of to-day, whether in our department of medicine or in any other, is dead to-morrow, but while our colleagues in general medicine and surgery may bury their dead, ours too often with practically useless organs of sight confront us with their tale of woe in their tenotomized and be-prismed eyes.
Careful study, the painstaking prescription of the Homoeopathic remedy in our department of medicine, not only gives us the satisfaction of cure where other methods have failed, but also enables us to thus make a more enduring monument to Hahnemann than that of bronze which we design to erect to him.
F. PARKE LEWIS, M.D.: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Everything that Dr. Linnell writes is written with care. I never yet have seen anything from his pen that was not truly worth reading. It follows, as a matter of course, that the summary of the value of drugs which he has given us is one which has a very definite and distinct value. The thesis of this paper, however, is one in which in an interrogatory way he asks us if we may not accept.
It is this: He says: “Knowing that certain constitutional symptoms are accompanied with morbid conditions, and having cured this condition by the exhibition of the similimum, are we not justified in saying that any subsequent case, in which the morbid condition the eye alone appears, we may assume that had the drug in the proving been given long enough the condition of the eye would have disappeared, and that we may take that as a basis for subsequent precipitations of that drug?” Can we? I wish I could believe absolutely that that were true, because it would give us a basis for the exhibition of our Homoeopathic remedies, a very true and very sure one.
In other words, if it were always possible to say that because certain conditions have been cured by the exhibition of a certain remedy, we may assume that when these conditions of the eye appear independent of the constitutional conditions that appear in the first place, that we will also cure that disease. I think we would have a certainty in the application of our Materia Medica that to say I do not always feel, and I question whether we may accept in its entirely the thesis of Dr. Linnell’s paper. The case in cites, for instance, of Dr. Bissell’s, is it seems to me, a classical one. Bromium was given for certain constitutional troubles, accompanied by ptosis- the ptosis disappeared.
We had a definite Homoeopathic prescription, followed by a cure; but are we justified in presuming that, should ptosis appear without these constitutional symptoms, Bromium is going to cure that Ptosis? I do not believe that we can always do that. The consequence is that we have in our Materia Medica a great many symptoms which we accept as verifications, about which, in my mind, there is question. Immensely valuable suggestions, immensely valuable to us in our prescriptions, but not symptoms upon which we can pin our faith with absolute reliance. For instance, I have frequently given Gelsemium in iritis, and have not cured my case; therefore I have concluded that Gelsemium is not the remedy for iritis. It may be, but it is not always.
The reason I believe that we have such a small proportion of definite symptoms connected with the eye in our Materia Medica, is only partially due to the fact that we have not had skilled specialists to make examinations of these conditions; it is only partially due to that. I come more and more to believe that the eyes is not, in a very large proportion of cases, directly and specifically acted upon by drugs administered internally. I wish to be understood in this matter. I am not in any degree under-estimating the immense value of Homoeopathic therapeutics in diseases of the eyes; I am simply questioning the application of this therapeutics. I am by no means criticising the results which have been obtained in the hands of our careful prescribers.
That those results have been obtained, I also have no doubt; but I do believe that a large proportion of the diseases of the eye (if we exclude traumatism, refractive and muscular troubles-I mean traumatism of bright sunlight on the retina)-are the results of diseases of some of the other organs of the system; some of the great organs of the nervous system, or of the circulatory system. And unless we take into account the power which each of these conditions may have upon the disease of the eye, I am inclined to think that we lessen rather than increase our knowledge of the therapeutic action of drugs upon the eye. I hope I make myself hear in that, because I have such an unbounded faith in Homoeopathic remedies in diseases of the eye that I do not wish to be wrongly understood in the matter.
But as to the methods we sometimes adopt in determining the action of drugs upon the eye, I think there is room for frequent error. It is unnecessary to talk to those who are thoroughly informed-as thoroughly informed as those are to whom I am speaking-in regard to the nature of diseases of the eye, and the necessity of exact diagnosis; and yet I believe that in the administration of drugs therapeutically, an exceedingly exact diagnosis must be made, otherwise we are apt to be led into error. To explain what I mean more particularly: I remember trying for a long time to treat a peculiar form of cataract (a dotted condition of the lens, which I have seen in several instances), and without any appreciable effect.
I subsequently found that there was present in that case a refractive condition, which had been overlooked, a slight difference in the foci of the two eyes, and the correction of which absolutely corrected the whole difficulty. In other words, it relieved the strain on the ciliary muscle, it relieved the nutrition of the eye, and the eye cleared in consequence. I don’t mean to say that that kind of cataract come inevitably as a result of muscular or ciliary strain, but I do mean to say that in a very large proportion of these cases the correction of muscular and of refractive errors will eliminate the necessity for the exhibition of internal medication.
