The period of life included between infancy and adolescence is the great life period which is subjected to all the ravages of the acute contagious diseases. Very few children are endowed with a natural immunity or resistance. Arlington Ailes in the Illinois Medical Journal states that, “sanitation in all its phases, including personal eating house sanitation, the general abolition of filth, the attainment of pure water, pasteurization of milk, better housing, better living standards, etc., has probably contributed greatly to the general resistance to many diseases including diphtheria.
There may have been developing a gradual racial immunity to the disease from long contact.” On account of this general lack of immunity such men as Emil Von Behring, Elie Metchnikoff, (Hans Much), Pasteur, Lister, and others have spent much of their lives developing a mechanical immunity and prophylaxis no many of these childhood and other diseases.
The homoeopath considers immunity as the particular well being and resistance that one may have or acquire, which will stand the exposure or attack of any disease to which one may be subjected or exposed.
The Schick and tests are quite reliable tests of susceptibility to diphtheria and scarlet respectively, but the attempted immunity against diphtheria by toxin and antitoxin, or toxoid antitoxin mixture, and against scarlet fever by scarletinal toxin throws or injects into the system a foreign matter the potency of which we have, so far, never been able to fully measure.
A large per cent of cases may accept it with no definite storm or disturbance, and establish a definite amount of anti-bodies which in turn produces a resistance to the respective disease, providing, however, the general physical fitness of the candidate is adequate, if not, an anaphylaxis is presented and a collapse or death supervenes. If adequate there is an absorption of this foreign matter which is stored within the cells somewhere within the body, just as remaining toxins of any disease which has left a hang-over.
This foreign matter, or the disease toxins, either remain stored in the cells of the body somewhere, or is gradually eliminated according to the patients condition or treatment. And likewise serum or whole blood taken from patients has often been used empirically with varying results, in the treatment and prevention of anterior poliomyelitis, encephalitis lethargica, measles and scarlet fever.
Not only immunity to the disease must be considered but also immunity to the results of disease. The regular school of medicine has accepted the fact “that when a convalescent serum from a patient having had measles is given to a child from one to three days after exposure to measles, it will prevent the disease and confer a passing immunity to measles, lasting anywhere from one to three months, and if a less quantity is given, or if given in the incubation period, it will greatly ameliorate or modify the course of the disease.”
The same writer states that such a protection is of inestimable value to infants as well as to sickly older children, and further states that there does not seem to be much reason for conferring a temporary passing immunity in healthy older children. Had he been acquainted with the potency of Arsenicum album, Bryonia, Gelsemium, Pulsatilla, etc., although administered in a much less spectacular manner, he would have saved all his worry, as you all have verified time and again.
And so with infantile paralysis another observer states:.
“Experimental evidence indicates that in gaining entrance to the body the virus deposited on the mucous membrane of the nose passes along the fibres of the olfactory nerves and thence, by breaking down the meningeal-choroid plexus complex defence, enters the cerebro-spinal fluid. Having once gained entrance into the cerebro-spinal fluid the virus then quickly passes into the tissues of the brain and cord and within a short time causes the development of paralysis.
“During the process of penetration of the meningeal-choroid plexus complex, defence signs of meningeal irritation appear which are quite characteristic to both clinical examination and examination of the cerebro-spinal fluid. To this period the term pre-paralytic stage is applied. Clinically this period usually lasts about three days and represents the interval elapsing between the onset of illness and the appearance of paralysis.
The symptoms and signs at this time (pre-paralytic stage) will consist of fever, which is rarely high, headache, drowsiness when the child is left alone, and irritability when it is disturbed, pain in the neck and back, stiffness of the neck and tremor of the hands, localized sweating, photophobia and retention of urine. Stiffness of the neck and spine is usually slight and never as marked as in tuberculous or cerebro-spinal meningitis. It is often so slight as to be missed by the examiner unless specifically looked for.
“Examination of the cerebro-spinal fluid at this time (pre- paralytic stage) will show increased pressure, slightly opalescent appearance, increased number of cells (30 to 70 per cubic millimeter), of which there will be a preponderance of polymorphonuclear leukocytes, possibly an increase in globulin content. As the pre-paralytic stage advances toward the paralytic, the proportion of the polymorphonuclear cells falls and that of the mononuclear cells increases.
“It is in this, the pre-paralytic stage, that the most beneficial results are to be expected from the use of convalescent serum because at this time, before damage to the nerve cells has taken place, it is possible, at least theoretically, to neutralize or destroy the virus and prevent injury to the nerve cells. Later when paralysis has occurred nothing can repair the injured nerve cells although it is possible that convalescent serum might prevent further paralysis.”.
All physicians approach infantile paralysis cases with fear and trembling, yet the true homoeopath is a bit more optimistic. Knowing the true value of his armamentarium he selects such a remedy as Aconite, Belladonna, Bryonia, Gelsemium, Rhus tox, Phosphorus, Strychnia or whatever the simillimum may be in the particular case. He administers it at the onset or the pre- paralytic stage, or even in the post-paralytic stage and he knows much can be done for the unfortunate sufferer.
With the passive and mechanical immunity referred to above the patient or individual may live for weeks, months or even years longer than he would have, had he not had this immunizing agent or treatment.
A person may carry this stored up foreign matter, together with previous disease toxins, inherited toxins or miasms, all remaining dormant for a time and feel perfectly well with no complaint whatever, but sooner or later, perhaps at young manhood or womanhood, or after 40, he must naturally succumb to the accumulation and its ravages, and show the signs of some chronic disease depending upon the miasm.
Since not all physicians and laymen know, or can fathom the deep influence and effect of the simple indicated remedy, the human race will continue to tolerate general suppressions and attempt to learn the cause of so many deaths at fifty-five, secondary to cardio- renal disease, malignancy or some other cause of premature death.
Hahnemann says in his Organon, regarding acute diseases, they are either of such a kind as attack human beings individually, the exciting cause being injurious influences to which they were particularly exposed, or they are of such a kind as attack several persons at the same time. In reality however, they are generally only a transient explosion of latent psora which spontaneously returns to its dormant state if the acute disease is not too violent a character and is soon quelled.
The epidemic diseases produce fever in such instance of a peculiar nature, and because the cases of disease have an identical origin, they set up in all those they affect an identical morbid process, which, when left to itself, terminates in a moderate period of time in death or recovery. The calamities of war, inundations and famine are not infrequently their exciting causes and producers sometimes they are peculiar acute miasms which recur in the same manner.
Close says:.
“Immunity which is obtained at the cost of the integrity and purity of the vital organism and its fluids is too dearly purchased.
“Inoculation of crude, pathological products such as animal sera and vaccines, confers only a spurious immunity through impairment or destruction of normal susceptibility. It results in the contamination or poisoning of the entire organism, sets up a morbid condition instead of a healthy one and leads to physical degeneration.
“The homoeopathic remedy, correctly chosen upon indications afforded by the anamnesis and symptoms of the disease as manifested in the individual and the community, and administered in infinitesimal doses, per orum, satisfies the morbid susceptibility, supplies the need of the organism and confers a true immunity by promoting health, which is the true object to be gained.”.
CASE REPORTS.
Elenore H., female, age 9, only child, plump, robust appearance, tonsillitis and mastoid with operation five years previously with slow recovery, apparently well until Sept. 13, 1930 when she developed an acute disease which her physician, a regular, diagnosed influenza. She started this disease with quite a marked elevation of temperature, developed a projectile vomiting, slept much, was dull and slow of thought, cried quite easily, and after two days developed an apparent remission.
