CLINICAL EXPERIENCES WITH NOSODES


In contradistinction to the weak, thin and undernourished Gartner child, the Sycotic child is generally fat and slack with typically increased nightly perspiration on the head (similar to the Calcarea carbonica); warty skin eruptions or typical impetigo are common with these patients; they are very liable to get rheumatism; their face is pale or pale yellowish with long dark eyelashes, a picture often met with in tubercular patients.


(Extract from a lecture delivered at the Bonnington Hotel, London, W.C.I. before a Students Class of the British Homoeopathic League).

Nosodes are potentized disease products, obtained from patients.

Hahnemann was the first to prove the three miasms: Medorrhinum, Psorinum and Syphilinum.

Burnett introduced Bacillinum or Tuberculinum long before Robert Koch inaugurated his Tuberculin for the diagnosis and therapy of consumption.

The number of nosodes has largely increased during the last decades, products of nearly all infectious diseases were added, such as Diphtherinum, Morbillinum, Pertussin, Scarlatinum, Staphylococcin-Streptococcin and so on. A new group of intestinal nosodes was developed by Bach in Great Britain and finally Dr. Paterson, of Glasgow, introduced a number of nosodes derived from intestinal bacilli.

Nosodes play an important part in the prevention as well as in the treatment of acute or chronic infectious disease.

Burnett immunized people with Variolinum 30c with the result that not a single person so treated developed smallpox.

Dr. McLaren and Dr. Knerr (Homoeopathy, September, 1940) confirm the preventive and curative power of Variolinum in smallpox. The same results were obtained by Dr. Swan.

Dr. Lees, of Dundes, immunized people with Diphtherinum 200x against diphtheria.

Further experiments will certainly prove the value of the nosodes for immunization against the majority of infectious diseases.

All nosodes have been proved in the same way as all our homoeopathic drugs on healthy people, their drug pictures are thus well known and they should always be prescribed in accordance with the law of similars.

Although the majority of acute diseases will undoubtedly be cured by the homoeopathically indicated remedy, there are exceptional cases which do not react on the indicated drug; such lingering cases may be due either to a psoric condition of the patient or to a preliminary infectious diseases, interfering with the action of the drug. In such cases a dose of the indicated nosode will often be of use.

You remember that Hahnemann recommended to give a dose of Sulphur, if the homoeopathically indicated drug does not prove to be effective.

Modern experiences, however, have taught us that a dose of the indicated nosode is much more reliable. The difficulty begins, however, when the patient has been suffering not from a single, but from a number of infectious diseases. Here we must carefully question the patient to get his whole history into the right perspective. See also Dr. D.M. Foubister: “Indications for Certain Nosodes,” Homoeopathy, Vol. VIII, No. 9; September, 1939.

As an exact knowledge of the nosodes is indispensable for their use. I am now going to give you a sketch of some symptom pictures.

Let us begin with Psorinum and Medorrhinum.

Psorinum should first of all be considered in children, the parents of which had been suffering from skin diseases, diabetes mellitus, kidney or heart diseases, mental diseases, neurasthenia or general weakness.

The Psorinum child is characterized by the most various skin diseases, such as eczema in or around the ears with foul smelling secretion from the ear. The skin is very rough and dry; in grown up Psorinum people the skin is more commonly greasy, irritated and very liable to bleeding, the patients scratch their faces until they run blood.

The Psorinum patient looks unhealthy, dirty and unwashed, he is liable to increased, foul smelling perspiration and to develop fissures about the hands and in the folds with a watery or purulent offensive discharge. These patients feel the cold very badly, they are upset by it, they are always chilly. They are rather thin than fat. In spite of their thinness they have abnormal appetite, any lack of food brings on a violent headache, very often a definite sick headache.

The Psorinum patients are easily exhausted by any physical or mental effort; they are dispirited, hopeless, peevish and irritable.

By the way, you will be interested to hear that Psorinum is an almost specific remedy for hay fever when given in the interval, one dose of Psorinum given early in the spring cures hay fever of long standing. Psorinum has a definite spring aggravation. Psorinum is, however, of no help during an acute attack of hay fever. (Quoted from Dr. Borland, “Childrens Types,” Homoeopathy, Vol. VII, No. 7, July, 1938).

Psorinum children are disposed to convulsions, tetany and general weakness of the nervous system.

Asthma in psoric children is improved indoors, when sitting and when the arms are amply stretched out, but aggravated in the open air, when lying or when the arms lie close to the body.

Foul smelling diarrhoea, bed-wetting during night, bronchitis with foul smelling expectoration are not uncommon.

In constant to Medorrhinum, the Psorinum child is nightly out of temper, nevertheless normal and gay on the following day. The Medorrhinum child, on the other hand, is cross during the day and gay, in the evening.

The Medorrhinum child is egoistic, frightened in the dark and afraid of animals, it is very nervous, fearful and stupid. All Medorrhinum children are anaemic, late is growing up, their legs are very weak, their hair is not shiny, but refractory.

The eyelids ulcerated, the eyelashes fall out.

The nose is constantly running without a previous cold, the child pants continuously; the lymphatic glands are enlarged, the skin is itching, the tongue covered with vesicles, during sleep a stringent mucus comes out of the mouth. Ravenous appetite is associated with violent craving for sour and sweet. Their is no nausea, but vomiting of bile, pricking pain in the stomach and eructation.

The rectum seems to be paralysed, the stool is tough, loamy, black or white. Frequently relapsing catarrhs of the bladder and foul smelling perspiration in spite of the greatest neatness complete the Medorrhinum picture. The Medorrhinum cough with its hollow sound reminds one of Hepar sulphuris, the expectoration itself of Kalium. The position of the child is very characteristic: with the knees drawn up to the abdomen it presses the face into the pillow. Heat and uncovering aggravate.

The permanent perspiration of the feet increases during the winter; the increased micturition during night after greater fatigue.

Medorrhinum should be considered in cases where there is any suspicion of a previous gonorrhoeal disease, especially in cases of bed-wetting or chronic rheumatic affections.

You can best remember the many indications for Medorrhinum and Psorinum by connecting them with the drug pictures of Sulphur and Graphites. Both of these drugs have almost the identical symptoms and indications.

Sulphur and Graphites coupled with the symptom picture of Carbo form a connecting link with the Morgan nosode of Dr. Paterson. I mentioned Dr. Patersons nosodes at the beginning of my lecture and considering their great importance for the treatment of so many diseases I should like to give you a more detailed sketch of them.

Dr. Paterson introduced four different nosodes, obtained from cultures of intestinal bacilli: (1) the Dysentery nosode, (2) the Morgan nosode, (3) the Gartner nosode and (4) the Sycotic nosode. These four nosodes have been thoroughly proved by Dr.Paterson, their symptom pictures are definite and many excellent cures have been performed. The following drug pictures are quoted from Dr. Patersons paper, “Der Gebrauch der Darmnosden beider Behandlung von Kinder-krankharten,” read before the XII Internationalen Homoeopathischen Kongress held in Berlin, 1937.

Regarding the Dysentery nosode I refer only to Dr. Dorothy Shepherds contribution in HEAL THYSELF, November 1942. You will find in this article a very clear and instructive symptom picture of this nosode with all its indications, illustrated by a very interesting case. I wish to add only a very useful mneumonic hint, namely the earmark “Nervous tension” give by Dr. Paterson to the Dysentery nosode. If you couple the name “Nervous tension” with the Dysentery nosode you will certainly almost automatically remember its whole symptom picture.

The Morgan nosode shows an entirely different symptom picture. Dr. Paterson gives it the earmark “congestion.” This term congestion gives you indeed a very definite idea of the symptoms and indications of the Morgan nosode, especially when you couple this nosode with the drug pictures of Carbo vegetabilis and Sulphur. Carbo points to venous congestion in the internal organs and Sulphur to a general hyperaemia of the skin surface. We thus understand that the Morgan nosode acts especially on the skin and liver.

In the Morgan children these disorders are very often due to a deficient action of the digestive canal. These children develop a specific eczema during the period of growth and development. It starts, as a rule, on the scalp or on the face, extending later over the body, affecting especially the bending sides of the extremities. The skin becomes red, sore and secretes; unbearable itching forces the child to incessant scratching, thus increasing the secretion, soiling linen and clothing.

W. Karo