WE “lay down the law” : but, after all, what do we know ? Cravings, natural or unnatural, may be harmful or-even healing. Surely Nature has a right to be heard ?.
Clarke (Dictionary) under SILICA MARINA writes : Burnett told me an interesting experience of his. He was consulted about a body who persisted, in spite of punishment, in eating sand when playing on the beach. Burnett advised the parents to let the boy eat as much as he liked. He kept it up for a fortnight, at the end of which time he was vastly improved in health, and he neither wanted nor ate any more from that day.” Silica marina appears to be a great gland medicine; and Clarke gives curious experiences with it, in constipation.
Another curious case, where a craving led to cure, is in the Dictionary under Agave, which in Mexico has a local reputation as a remedy for hydrophobia. A body developed the classical symptoms of hydrophobia four and a half months after having been bitten. Quarrelsomeness, excitement, fright, inability to swallow, small, frequent pulse, great anxiety.
Finally swallowing was impossible, restraint had to be used to prevent him from biting his nurses in the hospital, when as a last resource, a piece of Agave was offered to the body by the doctor in attendance, cut from a hedge of the plant with which the hospital grounds were fenced. To the astonishment of all, the boy reached for it and ate it greedily, almost without chewing. By evening a decrease in the violence of the nervous attacks was manifest, though they remained as frequent as before.
The improvement was slow but continued. On the fourth day he took some nourishment, but also continued chewing Agave, and swallowing the juice. On the sixth day he recovered consciousness, but still demanded Agave. On the eighth day he said he did not want any more as “it tasted too bitter and caused a burning in the mouth”. He had no further symptoms of the disease.
(Agave is the American Aloe : Century Plant.).
Among the important drugs of SYNOVITIS, omitted from our lists last month, is RUTA.
Ruta graveolens. A great remedy of periostitis : also of bursitis, and ganglia. Ruta specifically affects wrists and ankles : also knees. Sprains of especially wrists and ankles, with puffy swellings. Writers do not make so much of it for synovitis : but clinically it is found rapidly curative of knees, in acute stages, especially with effusion.
