DIPHTHERIA CURED BY APIS.
MORE than forty years ago a terrible epidemic of diphtheria broke out in a village in my vicinity, which was terribly fatal to the children. In a short time forty children died of diphtheria and two doctors went day and night from one house to the other looking after them but they had no success whatever. I have to bury all the children, for my friend and colleague, Johannes, did not care to bury them. It was not his duty. I could not help because I had no idea what remedy should be given.
Unfortunately the disease spread to my own village as well and two of the children whom I was teaching were attacked simultaneously. I wrote immediately to a firm of chemists and described to them the form of diphtheria which was raging and asked for advice and a suitable remedy. They sent me by return a considerable supply of Apis 4x and they told me that Apis was particularly indicated because diphtheria had broken out after scarlatina, because the disease was attacking particularly the right side of the throat and of the neck and because in the throat there was a large swelling which rapidly increased in size, which threatened to close the windpipe and which looked exactly as if it had been caused by bee stings.
Consequently bee poison. Apis given in the homoeopathic form, should save the children. Meanwhile, one of my two pupils had already died and the other was dying. The dying child, however, was just able to swallow a little of the power and remained alive. In the neighbouring village, where the epidemic had originated, six children lay dying. I rushed over to that village, each child got a helping of apis and all were saved. Of course the epidemic was by no means ended. However, every child that was at attacked was supplied with the new remedy and since its arrival there not a single death among them.
Unfortunately the disease spread to another village called Stepen, and it killed in a few days six children although a doctor was constantly attending those who had been attacked. The Stepen Villagers heard that all those who had caught the disease and who had taken my remedy had been saved. The news flew from house to house and it gave me a tremendous prestige. As soon as a child in Stepen showed diphtheria symptoms, the parents rushed over to my village, fetched some Apis and there were no further deaths from diphtheria in that place.
Soon afterwards a new clergyman was introduced into the parish. I had to act as secretary during the formalities. there was a dinner attended by all the leading people in the neighbourhood and a great land owner, Herr von der Gabalenz, of Stepen, asked me across the table: “Are you the man who has saved all the children in Stepen?” Everyone listened.
I was urged to give an account of my activities as a healer, and everyone in the room wrote down the name of the medicine for future emergencies. I do not know whether Apis was used elsewhere in consequence and, if it had been done, whether there were similar successes.
CRAMPS OF THE STOMACH CURED
BY Arsenic AND Nux Vomica.
It had never been my intention to help the sick with those homoeopathic remedies which I had obtained only for my own family. I had purchased a supply of these of these remedies solely with the the idea of being able to help my own family in emergencies. When one lives in the heart of the country, far away from doctors and chemists, one cannot go to the doctor for every triviality.
My father had, during fifteen years, suffered periodically from severe cramps in the stomach. He had always been treated for this complaint by orthodox doctors and he had spent much money without any particular success. In view of their failure, it was perfectly clear that allopathic doctors could not help him. A homoeopathic doctor might have been successful, but the nearest lived at that time in Stettin, a distance of 120 miles from our village. I was therefore delighted when I read in the Textbook of Homoeopathy, written by Dr. Lutze, that Nux vomica would cure about 80 per cent of all cases of cramp of the stomach. I looked keenly forward to the next attack, feeling confident that I could cure my father with Nux vomica Unfortunately I disappointed.
My father was a very pious and at the same time a very studious man. He carefully studied my homoeopathic book and he discovered that the leading symptoms of his disease did not call for Nux vomica but for Arsenicum album. I obtained ARsenicum album in the 4x potency and he took on his own 5 drops of the medicine in a tablespoonful of water, with the result that he felt relief immediately. He took a dose every two hours during three days but on the fourth day every dose of Arsenicum was followed by a distinct aggravation of the trouble. As it happens, Nux vomica is the antidote of Arsenicum album.
It occurred to me that possibly my fathers condition had been aggravated by Arsenicum, and therefore I asked him to leave off that medicine and to take instead I asked him to leave off that medicine and to take instead its antidote, Nux vomica 4x, 4 drops every two hours. Immediate and great improvement followed and, after taking a few doses at long intervals, the cramping pains disappeared and he never suffered again from his old complaint.
I had through this experience made an important discovery. I had found that in case a cramp of the stomach one must give at first Arsenicum album, provided that remedy is indicated by the leading symptoms, and if, in due course, an aggravation should occur, then one must give doses of Nux vomica as an antidote to Arsenicum. If one acts in this manner one can really cure with Nux vomica about 80 per cent of all cases of cramp in the stomach.
Soon afterward I had an opportunity to test the correctness of my views on another patient. One of my neighbours, a woman who was over 70 years old, had also been suffering with cramp in the stomach for many years. I gave her Arsenicum and Nux vomica in the same way in which I had given these two remedies to my father and within a week she was permanently cured of her old complaint.
Shortly after this incident I was moved from Holkewiese to another village. I met there a wealthy peasant who told me that his wife suffered severely from cramps in the stomach. When I enquired for details I discovered that he symptoms were identical with those which I had previously encountered. The peasant told me that his wife was rapidly going downhill, that nothing would help her and that he had distilled a special liqueur containing some powerful curative herbs, but, unfortunately, his wife obstinately refused to try the remedy which he had provided.
I therefore told him that I could cure cramp in a week with a few drops of a remedy which was absolutely tasteless and which he could have for nothing. He laughed aloud at the idea that a tasteless medicines costing nothing could help in such a serious case and it required long and earnest persuasion on my part to induce him to try homoeopathy. At last he promised that he would give my medicine to his wife and she got completely well in a week, as I had foretold.
The peasant visited me and told me of the wonderful cure which I had effected and I asked him what he had done with the curative herbal liqueur which he had made. He told me: “I am afraid the liqueur was a little too strong and I am quite glad that my wife did not try it. A little while ago two of my neighbour called on me on a Sunday and On offered them my curative herbal liqueur and told them that it was most wonderful tonic and remedy. Each had a glass and then they went home.
A few days after when I met them I asked them what they thought of my new liqueur, and one of them said: It was indeed a very powerful medicine. It was stronger than I. I could carry it no further in my stomach than your fence.” I knew his wife well and met her often in the course of the next ten years, but during all that time she was in perfect health and she never had another attack of cramp in the stomach. She was emaciated when I met her first, but after her recovery she became gradually a buxom and shout woman.
For years I had had the ardent desire to find a remedy with which to treat bronchitis, accompanied by fever, a remedy which would be as marvellously effective for bronchitis as Bryonia had proved in the case of pleurisy. However, notwithstanding all my studies and inquiries, I did not find what I wished to find. U myself had been suffering since my fifteenth year from a chronic catarrh of the bronchies accompanied by profuse expectoration, which was easy to raise.
This trouble became very seriously aggravated if I caught the slightest chill and for weeks after a chill I felt almost prostrated with my chest trouble. My wife and my children also had weak chests, catarrh and an inclination towards bronchitis. Unfortunately I did not succeed in helping them although I tried one remedy after another. I did not even find it possible to shorten the attacks of the disease, which always ran its course. I had consulted several homoeopathic doctors in Germany and had seen a celebrated homoeopathic physician in Prague, but all the homoeopathic doctors had failed to give us relief for bronchitis.
