Under this name it is proposed to give the homoeopathic treatment of those patients who have spasmodic attacks of chest pains, usually of short duration, and are rarely seen in the attack. However, this does not hinder one from prescribing for these patients and perhaps to cure them of at least to give temporary relief, regardless of its usual height the blood pressure rises during these attacks. Those patients who have no rise of blood pressure during the attacks of pain have some disease other than cardiac, and are cured with a different set of remedies.
The etiology of these cases may be based on many different causes, some have a functional and some have an organic background. One is never sure of the cause of these attacks from a physical examination or from the history of case. The electrocardiograph record is of great help in the diagnosis and prognosis of these cases-if properly read. My experience in sending these patients out for this examination has been very unsatisfactory, both as to scientific and professional result. However, these patients either get relief or die in the same manner whether the electrocardiograph examination is made or not.
Prognosis is is very uncertain. I have had patients live for more than twenty years after the family was warned that the next attack would be fatal. More than forty years ago an old gardener had repeated attacks of severe pain in his chest with violent palpitation.
These attacks were so severe that he would fall down, Glon. 3x tablets every five minutes until relieved apparently cured him in a couple of years. He lived many years in good health without any heart trouble and finally died of old age. In contrast with the above, a forty-eight-year-old husband of one of my patients died in a second attack of pain sixteen hours after the first attack. The coronary arteries were nearly obliterated by calcareous deposits. He has been pronounced in perfect health eight days before at the annual examination by a railway surgeon.
In 1934 a patient, age seventy-one, carried buckets of dirt from the alley to flower beds in front of his house. While doing so he had a very severe attack of pain in his chest and down his left arm. He would have fallen except he held to the fence. He was carried to his bed. When I saw him the pain was still very severe. The heart action was very rapid and irregular; so much I could not count its beat. The blood pressure was 160/95 up to about 40 points over his usual pressure.
He said his heart was squeezed so tightly he could hardly breathe. Cact. grand, 3x, five minutes apart, gave relief of the smothering and irregular heart action in one-half hours. He was confined to his bed for a week and made a slow recovery. LAter he complained of excessive smothering on going upstairs. His blood pressure has remained about 120/64 since the first attack. Calc.carb. 12x was given before meals. He has recovered sufficiently so that this summer at seventy-five years of age he climbed one-fourth of a mile up a steep mountain side and has driven his car over two high mountain passes-all without any heart or chest disturbances.
In April, 1935, a woman, age fifty-seven, had had short severe attacks of pain in her chest and down her left him. The heart was considerably enlarged. She had a smothering choking cough. The blood pressure was 200.115, upto about 50 points. Kalmia lat 3x gave complete relief in two months time. She ceased reporting to me after eleven months.
The blood pressure was 150/85. In April, 1937, her husband reported that his wife was having a return of her heart pains. She would not report to me for she had taken up with some new religion that was going to keep her well. On June 9, 1937, more than a year after discontinuing treatment, at 3 A.M. a very severe pain struck her in the chest and she died in a couple of minutes time.
When I cannot get definite indication of a remedy in these cases I am in the habit of prescribing Kalmia lat. It has nearly always given relief but does not always cure as in the former patient.
In 1935, a man, now eighty, had young ideas as to his prowess. The senile stubbornness was a problem to his family. He went to California to help a relative on a farm. He could not do any work and acted so queer that his relatives sent him back to Denver. A few weeks after his return home he had the most severe cramping in his chest and down his arms that I have ever witnessed.
He looked as though he was dying. The heart action was so irregular that its beat could not be counted. The blood pressure was 190/150. I prescribed Dioscorea 3x, two tablets every five minutes, Relief came in twenty minutes. He was confined to his bed for a few days and then appeared normal again. His blood pressure has remained 160/100. Only slight attacks has occurred since. He carries the medicine and takes a doses on the first appearance of any pain.
Spigelia has cured a few patients when the characteristic pains are present.
Inhalations of amyl nitrite usually give relief in an attack but it is doubtful in my mind if there is any lasting benefit from its use.
This concludes about all the treatment I have used for these patients. All that recovered probably had functional disturbance or had very slight pathology. All the “posts” I have seen showed coronary pathology.
One thing I have observed after giving the homoeopathic remedy is that these cases of angina diminished in severity and frequency. Rarely have I seen a patient die of cardiac angina who carried the remedy die of cardiac angina who carried the remedy with him and took a dose or two at the beginning of the pain.
