Hepar sulphuris (3x, 6x, 12x or 30). Note that the two lower strengths favour the hastening of any suppuration which is bound to occur. If this drug is taken early then the two higher strengths(12x or 30) have the power of dispersing the tendency to such suppuration and should be employed as early as possible in any such treatment and before there is suspicion of any collection of pus. In these cases it is better to give it not oftener than every four to six hours and stop as soon as any improvement is felt or noticed.
One of the first and most important symptoms for the use of this drug will be the “sensation of splinters or as if a fish bone were sticking in the throat” which is worse on swallowing, or on yawning, which symptom is very common; hypersensitiveness of the patient to touch or cold air; much discharge on the mucous membranes of the throat, which is very hard to detach; throbbing pains; offensive odour from mouth; glands of neck are hard and sore. During fever, exhalations from body are generally offensive.
The greatest key-notes for this remedy are the splinter-like prickings, swelling with tendency to suppuration of tonsil (or tonsils) and the offensive odour from mouth. Hence it is of prime importance to consider this remedy in threatened and actual quinsy.
Actea racemosa (3x,6x or 30). This remedy is always called Cimicifuga in U.S.A., so read up under this name if not found under Actea r. It cures the feeling of rawness in throat with stiffness of neck; constant inclination to swallow, great hoarseness toward evening, the root of the tongue, back of throat and uvula swollen, offensive breath, with very bad taste in mouth, hawking of thick saliva, detached with difficulty, all symptom worse on left side; tickling in throat (Phytolacca worse on right side). This is also a wonderful “womans remedy, so worth some study at length for this and many other troubles.
Lachesis (12x to 30). This is a serpent poison and will not act curatively lower than the 12x. This most valuable remedy used by homoeopaths for the best part of 100 years has for its great key- note that all symptoms are worse after the patient has been to sleep (sleeping into an aggravation, in other words), and all symptoms are worse on the left side, no matter what the disease is.
The tongue trembles when put out, which it is very difficult to do. Tongue dry, black, and stiff; tonsils purplish, throat intensely swollen, internally and externally. (If this is used in a diphtheria the membrane must show a dusky to blackish hue.)
Very bad odour from mouth which is very dry, or if there is an accumulation of mucus, it is very adherent; the mouth will be very sore, much empty swallowing, which is more painful than actual swallowing, pains from throat to ears on swallowing, liquids are harder to swallow than solid foods, fluids escape through nose, external throat very sensitive to touch, even clothes touching neck cause distress, there is a desire to free neck from the slightest touch of garments, etc.
Apis mellifica (3x, 6x to 30). This is the honey bee poison. Oedema (swelling) stands foremost for this remedy. Parts glisten and are glossy as if varnished, being tense with imprisoned fluids (serum). Stinging pains as from bee sting. Blisters in various parts, even on the tongue. Tough membranes form on tonsils, grey and dirty looking. Swallowing most difficult owing to great swelling of parts.
Throat swollen externally. Often suppression of urine. This drug causes a great flow of urine, draining the tissues. Apis cures swellings (oedema) of any part of the body if there is local numbness as a symptom.
Now for a type of acute throat troubles for which the Salts of Mercury are invaluable if the symptoms closely correspond, of course, and it is by using our infinitely small doses that we homoeopaths can employ even poisonous drugs with such remarkable efficacy and without the slightest harm.
Please remember I am writing to instruct those who cannot obtain a homoeopathic physician in the provinces or peradventure those who are beyond the reach of any doctor when I suggest complete confidence in these written words, which as I have said, are not personal opinions but which are drawn from practical experience of about 140 years world-wide homoeopathic practice. I realize the gravity of these cases.
Mercurius iodatus ruber (otherwise called Bin-Iodide of Mercury) (6x, 12x, or 30). For the laity we suggest not lower than the 6x trituration (sixth decimal) strength, and then stop the drug the moment improvement is felt. Personally I take the 3x trituration, taking a power the size of a medium size pea for five or seven doses, thirty minutes apart, and then stop entirely, reviewing the case in some ten hour or so.
Living one summer in London I contracted a sore throat, with white spot on tonsils, follicular tonsillitis, in fact a chemist in Bayswater told me that such were most common about his district, and he called this “Bayswater Sore Throat”. I cured myself several times in twenty- four hours thus. This drug will cure the white spots which come on the tonsils from infection carried in dust, etc.
Odour from mouth bad, fever runs high, swallowing very painful, great general depression, stiffness of neck and throat, sensation of lump in throat, back of nose and throat full of phlegm, glands of neck enlarged and very sore, swellings generally begin on left side, profuse saliva. Tongue stiff at base. If not taken in time such symptoms may run into a serious condition.
Mercurius iodatus flavus (otherwise called Proto-Iodide of Mercury) (6x, 12x or 30). This drug has about the same range as the Bin-Iodide with this difference, that the trouble begins on the right side.
Tongue is very thickly coated, being quite yellow around the root, the tip of tongue and edges are red and take the imprint of the teeth, offensive breath (as with all Mercuries), small ulcers at the back of mouth, the covering of which easily rubs off, leaving parts raw. (Stop this drug as soon as improvement is felt and before improvement is seen, possible.).
Mercurius cyanatus (12x (twelfth decimal) to the 30). NOTE WELL. The laity and allopathic doctors must on no account use this drug lower than the twelfth decimal trituration, as stronger dosage actually impedes recovery. Note this well.
This drug in homoeopathic hands has reduced the death rate in diphtheria in remarkable degree. Dr. Beck of Monthey-en-Valais and Dr. Von Villiers of St. Petersburg, when working in germany, lost but 2 percent (two per cent.) of their cases of diphtheria.
When I lectured in Germany for the International Homoeopathic Council in about 1911 I met some of our professional men who told me they lost under 1 percent (one per cent.), to be proved by the municipal tests of throat swabs taken from diphtheritic throats as verified by the municipal death certificates.
When I lectured in Sweden for the same 1.H. Council the homoeopaths there gave me their diphtheria statistics showing a loss of but one-quarter of one per cent. In my introduction to Dr. Burnetts Fifty Reasons For Being a Homoeopath, published before the War by the Homoeopathic Publishing Company, London, I gave the world-wide statistics taken from the Transaction of the Eighth Quinquennial Homoeopathic Congress, London 1911, page 490 to 495, which can be seen at the British Museum Library, giving the allopathic mortality with anti-toxin as 16. 1 per cent. whilst the homoeopathic ditto, without anti-toxin, was but 4.5 per cent.
The allopaths now admit that in some localities their death rate in this disease has mounted to about 20 per cent., for which they blame their antitoxin as “running out” or that the disease has changed.
Mercurius cyanatus (12th to 30th decimal potencies) cures these symptom with a great degree of certainty; mouth and throat covered with ulcerations, which tend to run together, being covered with tough, rapidly spreading grey and yellowish membrane (exudates), bleeding occurs when detached; very profuse salivation, pain and swelling of salivary glands, rapid prostration, foetor of breath, dark blood from ulcerations in mouth and nose, the blood is very fluid and has lost some of its coagubility; face assumes a dark blue appearance.
Such symptoms cover a bad case of diphtheria and yet homoeopathy cures, despite the microbes, but only if the picture of drug and disease correspond and if the drug is used in a dosage too minute to cause the least aggravation. Such is Hahnemann gift to the world.
I am not suggesting that any person within reach of a doctor shall try and treat diphtheria, but I do want to convince any reader that homoeopathy in competent hands has overcome and cured thousands of such cases with a very low death rate, in fact a much lower death rate than was ever obtained by allopaths with anti-toxin which is, after all, a crude groping homoeopathy wards. This is worth remembering.
The above mentioned drugs are but few. Many others may be necessary in a given case of this disease, symptoms corresponding absolutely.
