They, too, find their position one of helpless incompetency, for the insensibility of narcotics, their cul-de- sac if refuge, is never to be accounted recovery nor improvement. Of their recommended methods of treatment, whose number but the more increases as their efficacy is disproved, only three need attract our attention; suspension, the application of electricity, and baths.
The theory of suspension, which was so enthusiastically preached by Motschutowsky, and given a friendly God-speed by Charcot, has already outlived its practice. After those careful showings of Eulenberg and Mandel no one will quite dare to again recommended it. The application of electricity still flourishes, although its most eager supporters adduce no convincing results in its vindication.
In former days I, too, rather lent myself to the belief that the application of a constant current was advantageous in treatment, since its beneficent result is undeniable in certain pain sensations. But practice, that great and final schoolmistress of us all, has taught me that the application of the intermittent current during and after Homoeopathic treatment jeopardizes and even annuls our results. Moreover, the cautions intermittent current is an agent whose positive effect is incompatible with, and consequently destructive to, the healing of our potencies.
There are yet left certain symptoms of tabes to be touched upon of not so inevitable appearance as those already discussed. I mean the retardation of the functions of the bladder and intestines, the gastric crises and the atrophic changes.
While I am justified in speaking decisively of my victories in subduing the intestinal trouble by lightening the work of the rectum through warm-water injections according to Hegar’s method, yet I have been unable to universally cope with the equally important disorders manifesting in the functions of the bladder, in spite of many happy results in the use of Arsenicum. In order to avert the dangers imminent upon a retention of the urine, I empty the bladder three times daily, and if I cannot myself attend to the same with the catheter, I have it done by manual compression.
The gastric crises, which are so closely allied to the lancinating pains, I have never been able to overcome, and the atrophic changes, with which, however, I have seldom met, I consider unamenable to treatment.
The choice of remedy must be unconditionally Homoeopathic, and I furthermore believe that in the treatment of tabes the best results will accrue to that Homoeopathic physician who adds to a scholarly knowledge of symptomatology the fundamental features of the antipsoric method of cure. For this reason I have contended from the beginning for the use of the highest possible potency of the chosen remedy, and I have come off very well in the attempt, These higher potencies-the 200x suffices for my need-I give at long intervals, and in order to quell the sufferer’s impatience between doses, I give him mock powders.
In a critical review of the results obtained one should not forget that remission often endure for a month and deceptively simulate improvement or recovery. It is, for this reason, advisable to impress the patient from the beginning with the need of long continued treatment, and to picture to him emphatically the difficulty with which any favorable modification of his trouble are attained.
From practical experience I have deduced the opinion that Homoeopathy may undertaken the treatment of tabes with the certainty of securing recovery to the patient in the first stage, and remissions of long duration in the developed process-the which is more aptly and accurately of Homoeopathic capability than of that of any other system of cure.
