DISEASES OF STOMACH AND OF INTESTINES
I will at first give you the example of aerophagia. In all aerophagias there is a vago-sympathetic syndrome and a hepatic syndrome. We can cure aerophagia marvellously by the help of homoeopathy, but we can ameliorate more surely with triturations of the liver and of the parathyroid, than by Carbo vegetabilis. If we follow directly the homoeopathic therapeutics, and if we try to search for the similimum then we will find that China will suit to aerocolia, Carbo vegetabilis in aerogastria, and Abies canadensis in aerogastria which causes heart troubles. Then we will not think of the liver which is really the cause of the disease. Here the suffering organ is the liver, and it is a dumb organ, and the organ which cries for the pain is the stomach but the latter is not really the cause of the disease.
This is therefore a case in which the homoeopathic therapeutics should really be etiologic and should be applied on the basis, not only of the etiology but on the pathogenesis. We will cure aerophagia with Thuya, Ignatia, remedies of spasms, Kali carbonicum extracts of liver and of parathyroid in small homoeopathic or imponderable doses, while very frequently Carbo vegetabilis and Graphites will be but medicines of secondary importance.
Let us take another case : The ulcer of the stomach, with hyperchlorhydria, syndrome of Reichmann, rather a pyloric ulcer. According to the law of similars there is no other remedy but Robinia which is the best indicated by symptoms. Robinia will cause amelioration no doubt because it will act on hyperchlorhydria. Besides, Sulphuric acid will be indicated, or another remedy of the same type but these remedies will have only momentary effect. Anacardium, may also have a deep action if it is used according to the modality painful hunger, amelioration by eating.
Kent had already shown that very from the homoeopathic point of view the symptom itself was not so important, but it is the modalities by which the syndrome is established, which are much more important. It is for this reason we give so much importance to the modalities which translate the temperament and the reaction of the organism, while reaction of the organism is nothing but the pathogenesis itself.
Thus in order to cure ulcer of the stomach we apply on the one hand some antispasmodics and on the other hand some medicines, having special action on the liver, such as Lycopodium. We also apply a remedy having local action because we are obliged, it may be said, to act on a particular point according to its similimum. It is important to use the medicines of hyperchlorhydria i.e., to say of the pain of the patient, but these remedies will be of secondary importance.
This is the reason why in the whole homoeopathic treatment of chronic disease, in order to avoid this kind of antagonism between the superficial and evident symptoms on the one hand and the general symptoms on the other, Dr. Nebel has rendered a great service by first modifying the rules of the Drainage and Canalisation. He has built the bridge between these two types of phenomena.
I am giving you some examples in order to make you understand this point of view and to show you the errors that should be avoided. It is very curious to see how in a general way we get an action much more deep with the diluted and dynamised medicines given according to the law of similars on the hollow organs, having some autonomous movement. And this is rather true as regards the digestive apparatus. It is on the digestive system that we can act better, while apparently it is the question of some phenomena which seem material, visible, energetic and palpable and which are before all due to s question of energy, to the sympathetic action on the nervous system, on these hollow organs that can be contracted at will.
Well, there again, when we speak of Nux vomica as a canaliser of the small intestines, when we speaks of Aloe, the canaliser of the large intestines, and the rectum, we have in view some medicines that act on the sympathetic system and which have no direct action, either mechanical or physiological on the intestines and on the rectum. Our medicines act because we treat according to the pathogenesis of the observed troubles.
While treating the acute and the chronic intestinal troubles sometimes some interesting facts are observed. A patient told me this: when I work or when I become nervous and fretful, I have soft and fetid stool. When I am at rest stools are formed and have no odor. Try to understand the story. You will understand that his nervousness augments the velocity of his intestinal transit because of the sympathetic action on the peristalsis. Thus you understand why sometimes he has soft and why he has formed stools when he is at rest. But at the first thought you will not be able to understand why in certain cases the stools are fetid and why in certain cases the stools are not fetid. If you think a bit you will understand the reason. When the intestinal transit is very rapid the bile flow is not sufficiently abundant and cannot act well enough to check the intestinal putrefaction. And very often when the stools are fetid the medicines like Podophyllum or Arsenicum will act better than Benzo naphtha or other allopathic medicines capable of deodorising the stools. We must come to the sympathetic system if we want to know what really happens, Arsenicum album will be the important remedy for intestinal putrefaction.
(And if the rest of the individual is not Arsenicum Album, is there no risk of aggravation by Arsenicum album?)
I have never experienced. Arsenicum album is a remedy difficult to apply in chronic cases. It does not act according to expectation. In acute cases it is a marvellous remedy. It is extra-ordinary from the point of view of the digestive system.
(But the patient may be of Arsenicum album from the point of view of the cardio-vascular system or of the skin and if Arsenicum is given to him, is there no risk of aggravation?)
I do not believe it because you know the antagonism described by Hahnemann between the acute and the chronic disease. The acute disease acts as a drainer of the chronic one. You know that an acute disease ameliorates the chronic one temporarily. The chronic disease will appear again but not in aggravated form.
I speak of Arsenicum album so that you may not confuse it with Podophyllum which will act on stools which is less coloured. Arsenicum has back stool. The stools Podophyllum contain no bile, or in which the action of the bile is much less. The stool is not deodorised by bile.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.