You know that in the materia medica we have some short lists of remedies which are named as antidotes to some other medicines. In fact they are not the antidotes of medicines considered toxic. Nebel, by antidotes, understands that the medicines called antidotes are complementaries and satellites. Thus when Pulsatilla is indicated as antidote of Nux Vomica, it means that when Nux vomica will finish acting it is necessary to apply Pulsatilla. Therefore in the place of “Antidote” it is better to use the word “Satellite’ or “Complementary” and by so doing we will know to check the aggravation of such medicines called antidotes. In the way Nebel has come to drainage. He began to observe in tuberculous patients that the most indicated remedy aggravates and that aggravation may not be dangerous for a patient who resists well or who has become ill very recently, but it may be terrible in patients in whom cavities are already formed. His first research on drainage was carried out on the aggravation caused by Calcarea Carbonica in high dilutions. We have therefore, continued like him to try to check aggravation caused by the high dilutions.
We have several means to check the aggravation. The first means is that of Dr.Nebel, afterwards taken up by Dr. Chiron. Chiron systematically drains the patient during the first eight days i.e. to say he does not give high dilutions when he starts the treatment. He gives first of all some drops or some globules of a functional remedy (that which has an elective action on a particular organ). The medicine for the constitution is applied after a week.
The second process is applied by the Unicists themselves who always look for an aggravation. It is Doctoress M. Tyler of London who first used this method which has been taken up by Dr. Renaud in France. This process consists in fractioning the high dilution. Instead of giving 200th once, it is broken into 3 parts and is applied every hour, i.e. to say the complete dose is taken in two hours and in three times. It is a case of medical excitation. The medicine will cause diminution of its intensity by antidoting itself partially.
A third process is that which I practise myself. I have often noticed that when a medicine is applied for a long time before or after the meals it acts much more deeply but it may cause some aggravation if the patient is very very sensitive. Therefore apply a medicine in the middle of a meal in hypersensitive patients. They will manifestly have an amelioration. This process is used by the doctors of the thermal stations. At Vittel Evian and at Capvern, the water does not act well but when taken in the morning during fasting and people are quite astonished that the water also acts well when taken at table. It is because the water acts mildly when taken with meals.
Lastly the process of Dr. Cahis of Barcelona which consists in mixing of dilutions. This method is in my opinion remarkable and I must emphasise this method. When you have a medicine, which systematically causes aggravation, in such and such case, specially in very well characterised diseases, apply first of all a mixture of the high and a low dilution: Arsenicum M/6 (1M plus 6th). You will have at the same time a rapid action of the 6th and the intensity and prolonged action of 1M. This process should besides be applied according to a precise technique for each disease, because it adapts to the disease rather than to the patient.
I will tell you something of a fifth method which has also been indicated to us by Dr. Nebel. It is that the drainage remedies should be applied in high dilutions, specially in the beginning of the treatment of a chronic case. It is a proved fact that the application from the very beginning of a high dilution may cause very injurious and prolonged aggravation and a very delayed amelioration. The observation of a patient by the unicists are extremely instructive in this respect for us, because these cases give us the experience of the application of a single remedy. I have known a homoeopath who allowed a case of gonorrhoea to become chronic with increase of flow during a very prolonged treatment. But it is possible that the blennorrhagias treated during two years check a prostatic infection and some late aggravations which we do not relate to their real cause. To establish in a patient who has gonorrhoea a kind of sinus flow continued for two or three years may not be a bad thing for the general health as well as for avoiding the diseases of the late years, but we must not fall into an inverse error and we must be able to understand the inconveniencies of such a method.
TIME OF APPLICATION OF DOSES
We are now going to see the errors that we may make regarding the time of the application of doses.
Medicinal aggravations are very often caused by applying the doses at the wrong moment. The time of action of the remedy is extremely important and it is also sometimes very difficult to fix the proper time. He who knows the proper time of the application of medicines can get rapid results. In other cases, on the contrary, if the application is untimely, there are aggravations and the diseased condition of the patient is prolonged. Untimely application of doses is a common error as regards the hour, season, and in woman during menses.
The time of application of remedies and the application of remedies in proper time as regards the menses in woman are very easy to fix. We know very clearly the time when some medicines aggravate which indicates to us precisely the hour of drainage. For functional remedies it is better to apply them one or two hours before the time of aggravation. As for example, we know that in homoeopathy all the hepatobiliary medicines have an aggravation from 4 to 8 P.M., with a summum towards 5 to 6 P.M. This is true for Lycopodium, Chelidonium, Sepia. Pulsatilla, Myrica, China, Chionanthus. This rule is also applicable to Ricinus Communis. Apply the medicine at 4 P.M. at the end of the stomach digestion and you will have an amelioration. Ricinus Communis, in the case of cholecystitis acts towards 4 P.M., if the patient has taken his meal between noon and 1 O’clock. This is the moment of the elimination of urea in the urine which is very important. If you establish a curve of that elimination you will find that the maximum is towards 5 P.M. This is what explains the aggravation of Lycopodium.
For China this is not always true. This remedy often acts better when it is given in the evening because it has an aggravation between 2 to 5 P.M., in children when they wake up in the morning. The aggravation of Natrum muriaticum and Gelsemium is due to the solar influence. The patients suitable to these medicines have an aggravation during the day. The solar activity is the greatest between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. If you make a graph you will find that from 10 A.M. to 12 noon the solar influence is at its highest. Natrum muriaticum and Gelsemium, of which the symptoms follow the solar activity, are to be applied during that time. There are other remedies, that have aggravation before storm. As for example Rhododendron and Phosphorus. These medicines are to be applied before the storm. Sometimes they are also applied earlier when great heat precedes storm. If you apply them during the storm, during the fall of the barometer, they will not act very well. Fergie-Woods of London has shown that the barometer on the one hand and the season on the other give very valuable indications about the marked action of a remedy specially in children. He said that the month of June is the month of Sulphur, whereas the month of Phosphorus is July. These remedies of “Burning” are really useful at a time when the days are the longest during the year.
For seasonal aggravations we have two medicines: Lachesis and Natrum sulphuricum. The same rule is to be followed here. Do not be too late or too early to apply these medicines. Apply 15 days before their seasonal aggravation. An asthmatic or rheumatic who has terrible aggravation of his disease each year in the month of March, must begin his treatment from the beginning of February. A hay fever should not be treated from the 15th March when the patient has already his attack of the disease. He should be treated from the month of January with Lachesis, Allium, Sabadilla etc.
This rule is also very true for the Tuberculines. Very often asthmatic and rheumatic aggravation may be checked down by diluted tuberculines specially by T.R. and also by Lachesis when there is aggravation in extreme conditions, in great cold or in great heat.
In amenorrhoea and in hypermenorrhoea, Sulphur, Graphites, Pulsatilla, Kali carbonica form the quarto of remedies. Apply high dilution of Sulphur 8 or 10 days before the period. If you apply it at a time nearer to the period it will not bring back the menses which is delayed.
For the sea-sickness the same rule applies : Cocculus, Tabacum, Ignatia, are the three medicines given 4 days before embarkation. If you apply it on board the result will be nil or insignificant, Generally Ignatia 1M, is to be applied 4 days before embarkation and it should be repeated after 8 days if the crossing is very long. In very troublesome cases, apply Cocculus or Tabacum 30. once a day on board the ship also. I have got some beautiful results in sailors who were suffering for 10 or 12 years from sea-sickness. One never becomes habituated to this disease. It is according to one’s temperament that one suffers or does not suffer from sea-sickness.
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.