In these days of so-called “modern medicine”, with the congested traffic due to the various swift moving vehicles of highly specialized methods, one almost hesitates to come out in the open with the dear old “one horse shay”! And yet, looking back along the vista of thirty-six years travel, with the tried and true old nag, one feels the courage to jerk the reins and start off along the well-beaten path!.
Starting with the crowded childrens clinics at Seventh and Spring Garden streets, in Philadelphia in 1894, under the able guidance of Dr. James Tyler Kent, and his associates, one learned to study the “feeble child”. The pale, puny babies carried in, in the mothers arms, fretful and uneasy, only quiet as long as the mother walked back and forth, back and forth, whilst giving the symptom picture, Sitting down to rest her poor tired limbs a minute, then would the child begin to scream again.
A pitiful wailing sound calling forth all ones sympathy for the suffering baby, made us give the child Pulsatilla; a snarling, spunky scream so that one felt a desire to spank the poor infant, made us hurry for a dose of Chamomilla, and so on. It might be a summer diarrhoea; it might be an irritated brain from teething; it might be a bronchial condition; it might be hunger from lack of proper feeding, but the child and his symptom picture was the indication for the remedy needed, rather than the physical state.
Perhaps tugging at the mothers skirts would be another small offspring, grimy and illkept; poor little face broken out with sore places; nose unattended to and very red-looking where the discharge had accumulated; fretting and teasing for “candy”. A dose of Sulphur was the crying need there. Maybe another child would be bought in-pale, thin, almost to emaciation, “always hungry”, the mother says, “never satisfied”; the child devouring a pretzel such as Philadelphia only can offer; loaded with salt crystals, and with each mouthful the child smacks its lips, so good is the salty taste. Here is a Natrum muriaticum case.
The babies are not all thin and puny; here comes a plump, waxy faced child, heavy looking and listless: perspiring freely and very sour smelling. How about Calcarea carb. for this one?.
And so on through the crowded afternoon, day after day, week after week, month after month until a year swells into many years. There is no gratitude quite so fervent as that of the tired mother who finds her sickly baby relieved of its discomforts; its fretting turned into crowing; its wakeful, restless nights turned into quiet restful sleep. And she realizes that her child is on the road to health!.
But it is a slow process, this building up the feeble child; it takes much patience on the part of parents and physician (to say nothing of the poor child itself). There are many handicaps to overcome. It is a little easier if one has had a free hand from the time of the birth, of the child, or even before that, in the care of the mother during her time of pregnancy. One gets to know what to expect, so to speak, and as symptoms develop one is prepared to read the symptom picture more understandingly and to perceive clearly the indicated remedy.
But constructive work may be done even though the child first comes to our attention when he or she is seven or eight years old. How about the tall, lanky, dark haired boy brought to the office by his father, who is greatly distressed by his sons long lasting bronchial cough; the boy is seven years of age; very thin and underweight; craving sweet things in preference to all other food. He has been under the care of the family physician for some time, an allopath, who has “heard of me” and in desperation brings his boy.
A close study of the case reveals Sulphur as the needed remedy. It is given and in a very short time the cough disappears, the appetite becomes more normal and the boy gains gradually in strength and health. From that time on, and it is some twenty-four years ago, that family have been loyal to homoeopathy. And homoeopathic prescribing carried many members of the family through serious illnesses. Only the other night was I called to see the wife of one of the boys of this family who had developed a sore throat- tonsillitis. The husband took that occasion to remind me of the serious time he had had as a boy of twelve years with diphtheria and how well he responded to the remedies, all of which I remembered.
A child is born to highly nervous, sensitive people, and pretty soon one is asked to prescribe for distressing times of colic. The indicated remedy relieves promptly the acute condition and a study of the baby brings to light a much needed “constitutional” remedy. Disturbed digestion responds to treatment; the childs weight which has been unsatisfactory increases, showing better assimilation of food, and in general the baby is pronounced as “much better”.
It is a perfect waste of time to torture a child by experimenting with first one food and then another. Find out the childs indicated remedy, which puts in order the “disturbed vital force” responsible for the painful exhibition of symptoms, and in due course of time, the restored vitality will enable the child to digest and assimilate a well planned formula of food. It is the child, one is after; the sick child; prescribe for that and the food will take care of itself. Over and over again has this truth been borne in upon one.
And so it is all along the line of childhood ills; the baby covered with the distressing and hideous eruption called “eczema” is presented to our view. “Specialists” have been consulted, all manner of treatment resorted to, local and otherwise, and the external manifestation goes gaily on tormenting the childs peace of mind. What does this child need? A well chosen homoeopathic remedy given internally and “hands off”.
Probably at first there is a flare up, an aggravation, that we rejoice to see and then gradually does the eruption disappear, the last lesions disappearing first, until by degrees that child is relieved of its grievous ailment. As I said before, this takes patience and understanding on the part of the parents and physician. But it can be done, and such a child grow up into healthy womanhood, a brilliant scholar, and now a happy wife. Several such cases stand out before me at this writing.
How about your child born of parents with a tubercular diathesis? Your pale, anaemic child, listless, perspiring freely, especially at night; developing enlarged lymph glands; tonsils enormous with frequent sore throat; craving abnormal foods to eat, refusing wholesome diet. We all know the type. What can homoeopathy do for such as these? A well selected series of remedies will change that child by degrees into a healthy, hearty being. The whole economy responds to the impetus given by the remedy most similar to the case, and in due course of time the outward manifestations of the internal disorder disappear. Do we operate on those enlarged glands, remove them? A thousand times “no”; we cure them “from within, outward”, or rather we cure the child and the glands come to terms.
“Modern medicine” may be a wonderful thing and to be “up to date” very important. But the old fashioned laws laid down by Samuel Hahnemann prove very satisfying when it comes to curative measures as applied to sick folks. “Safety first” is a good motto.
Homoeopathy is also called into action to meet the disturbed condition with children known as “nervousness”, “Trying temperament”, “difficult behaviour” and so on. Probe down until you know such a child and can read the symptom picture clearly, or as clearly as you can; then match your symptom picture with the picture of the indicated remedy, and the result is amazing. The nervous, irritable, impossible child, after a while, becomes reasonable, sunny and carefree. Much easier to manage many times, if the child can be removed from unwholesome home influence, but good results can be obtained after the application of the right remedy even amid baneful influences.
The field is big, and the effort well worth while. What more valuable work than this-the “building up of the feeble child” into healthy manhood?.
MIDDLETOWN, CONN.
