A VIVID description of acute insanity is given in the Book of Books, which I will quite:-.
“The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty ?.
While the word was in the Kings mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee.
And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the Kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
The same hour was the thing fulfiled upon Nebuchadnezzar; and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles feathers, and his nails like birds claws.
And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High. At the same time my reason returned unto me and my counsellors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom. Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven and those that walk in pride he is able to abase”.
This ancient king suffered from Megalomania or a swollen head and this led to his undoing, his mind became clouded, and he behaved like an animal, lived with them in the open-air, ate like them for seven years, until he recognized the power of a higher being, and in all humility confessed his sin of spiritual pride; then he became rational once more.
There are many causes for this break-down in mental reasoning power. Fear and worry and anxiety are a common cause of acute mental trouble and mental diseases could be cured many times, if taken in time in the early stages, before the mind has become too clouded to respond to appropriate treatment, given a place that is, where they understand how to deal with them; for the majority of folks are afraid of diseased minds and run miles rather than face them.
I came across such a case the other day; this was an acute break-down, and the local practitioner, called in by the frightened mother, gave a very bad diagnosis, told her that her daughter, aged under thirty, was finished, that it was quite hopeless, her brain was gone completely. Naturally the mother believed him; fortunately for her and the poor afflicted daughter, the local G.P. would not certify her or send her into the Municipal hospital for observation. He passed on the responsibility to me.
The history was an alarming one, I must admit. She had been suffering from nocturnal epileptic fits for several years, which were not controlled by Luminal, she had these night fits at least three to four times a week, sometimes oftener. During the previous week, she had these fits almost continuously, went from one fit into another all night long. During the day she was vacant, refused to answer, would not speak at all, refused to touch food, vomited if any food was pressed on her, and she was incontinent as well.
This went from bad to worse for several days. She lived miles away from anywhere, in the depths of the country; so she was brought up to town in an ambulance and taken to a Home where they take borderland cases at a reasonable fee. A great consideration this!.
She was given small doses of Hyoscyamus which is one of the remedies for nocturnal epilepsy, and when I saw her, she was quiet, and had no fits since the Hyoscyamus had been given. She was sullen, suspicious, only answered “yes”, when spoken to, which was somewhat of an improvement as compared with the state she had been in for three days before. The Hyoscyamus had done this at once. She was left to the kind care of competent nurses in a ground-floor room, where she could do herself no damage.
The report for the first thirty-six hours was a somewhat serious one; she became extremely violent during the first night and shouted and struggled so that six people were required to hold her down; and Hyoscyamus 1/100 gr. or 2x given hypodermically was necessary to quieten her. There was a similar scene the next night, and again Hyoscyamus 2x was given with a quietening effect.
The second morning she was still irrational, shouted at intervals “I want to I want to,” without saying what she wanted. Then she would flop on the floor and crawl on all fours round and round the room. All the furniture was removed, and she was allowed to amuse herself crawling to and fro, while Hyoscyamus 30 was given 4 hourly.
The third day she woke up and asked with a puzzled expression: “How old am I?” and when told she was nearly 30, she did not begin her crawling again, but stayed quietly in bed and there were no further scenes, no violent rages, no exhausting struggles. She took her food, whatever was given to her, and behaved like a tired but otherwise rational being, sleeping a great deal both day and night. She must have been exhausted after the continuous fits and her violence for the past week.
Then her period came on, and this explained the violence of the attack; for the days before the monthly period often produce a violent explosion in mental cases. Everything settled down then; she ate well, she enjoyed her food; all the bodily functions worked well and normally and she answered rationally, she took an interest in her surroundings; there were no further fits, no further attacks of violence. What more could you expect?.
The acute attack, once proper care and attention were given, and once the right remedy was found, passed in a few short days. After the first dose of Hyoscyamus 30 the fits ceased and the incontinence stopped. These had lasted, as I said, for six days; but the hang-over after the epileptic explosion, lasted for forty-eight hours and was controlled by two doses of Hyoscyamus in a low potency and further doses of Hyoscyamus high.
The nurses of the Home were astonished how rapidly the attack passed and how quickly she became rational. She will have to stay in the Home for several weeks and will have to be watched and kept quiet, live an orderly well regulated life on a proper non- meat diet, and on homoeopathic medication and with interesting manual occupation in the kitchen and in the garden, one can guarantee that there will be no further acute attacks of brainstorms. The epileptic attacks, if and when the right remedy for this constitutional complaint is found, will eventually be controlled; but this may mean months.
Homoeopathy takes a long time to build up a persons constitution, and it does not do to lose patience. The first doctors pessimistic verdict has been proved wrong, thanks to Homoeopathy, but what a lot of harm could have been done, if the mother had taken his word for gospel and the poor child had gone to a mental ward for observation. Another great essential is to find a Home where the instructions of a homoeopathic physician are correctly carried out, and where no sleeping draughts and no drugs are given which destroy the brain cells and the reasoning power of the poor mental wreck.
King Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible story only got his reason back, because he followed his inclination, lived in the open-air on a non-meat diet, and was not given any drugs. I guarantee, if he had been kept in a modern institution behind lock and key, continually hearing the rattle of keys, and kept under drugs, he would never have got back his reason. Modern treatment seems very odd to me.
A sane child is not disciplined, must not be repressed under any condition, must be allowed to follow his own inclination, and when he grows up and when he becomes mentally deranged from too much licence being given to him, the preventive treatment is now applied to him, he is repressed by large doses of drugs and kept forever nearly always it means life-long imprisonment in a mental hospital. Why not teach discipline in the early days of childhood and teach repression of anti-social qualities?.
Let me add some further remarks about the patient I have been talking about. She had been suffering for four years from attacks of so-called night epilepsy and had been examined by many different doctors in Ireland and London. Some suggested pressure of the brain, others suggested brain tumour, she had all kinds of tests performed on her which showed no evidence of any disease.
During the whole of the time she had been heavily dosed with increasing doses of the most commonly used of the Barbiturate series.
This drug never controlled the fits; it only made her heavy and stupid and forgetful and sleepless. She was given Thuja 200 when first seen, then later Lyc. 6 tds., taken off all flesh diet and put on a vegetarian diet and did extremely well. Played golf, slept well at night and without any sign of a fit. Then after over two months of peace and steady progress, suddenly there was this violent outbreak which I described at the beginning.
