THE question, “What has Homoeopathy done for Gynaecology?” having been raised and proposed as a theme for one of the essays at this meeting, our honored chairman assigned it to me, and it was accepted with the expectation that an answer to such a question, even if not altogether satisfactory, would be tolerably easy; but the task has proved a much more difficult one than I anticipated. The difficulty lies not in any doubt of the good work done by Homoeopathy in this field, but in the absence of positive evidence regarding the administration of any one remedy in my given class of cases, the uncertainty regarding the conditions for which remedies are prescribed in many instances- especially when based wholly upon subjective symptoms-and in the want of knowledge regarding the pathogenesy of the remedies reported as curative.
If possessed of that unquestioning and implicit faith which knows or recognizes no conditions or exceptions to the power of Homoeopathic medication to overcome and cure each and every human ill, regardless of cause or character, it would be very easy to claim that Homoeopathy and at least furnished the means, if we but make ourselves competent to use it, by which all that gynaecology or any other class of diseases presents for relief may be successfully met; and with the exalted power of imagination which can see the most marvelous effects follow the administration of a drop of water or a grain of sugar, it would not be difficult to demonstrate, to our own satisfaction, at least, that by such means more remarkable cures have been and are being effected than by any or all other methods.
But I cannot treat the subject from any such standpoint. We want to know if definite and unquestionable results can be shown as the direct effect of Homoeopathic treatment in women’s diseases, whether independent of or associated with other measures.
While we all, doubtless, believe and feel sure, from experience and observation, that such results are produced, to define and demonstrate this so that it cannot be gainsaid is a very different matter, and which I do not except to succeed in doing this to any great extent, I shall hope to prepare the way, and perhaps indicate the lines along which, by the testimony of those who may bear witness in the discussion to follow, the demonstration may be made and the fact established. Let us, then, seem to make all our claims rational and based upon known facts, not upon theories or assumptions. Thus only can we command or reasonably expect a fair and respectful hearing.
In the consideration of such a question as this the term gynaecology must be understood to mean broadly the diseases and derangements of the female generative organs, not only in the degrees which bring them under the care of the gynecologist, but in all degrees as presented to the general practitioner or family physician as well, and we must all realize that it is less from the gynaecological specialists than from the family physicians that the evidence of the curative power of Homoeopathic remedies must be expected.
While this by some may be deemed a concession, or even an admission of the preferred charges that gynaecologists are not good Homoeopaths, I shall deny this, and maintain that it is but a natural and necessary consequence, inasmuch as homoeopathy, per se, has to do with nothing but the therapeutic in any case, and it it generally recognized that therapeutic means are most marked and definite in their effects upon functional derangement and the early manifestations of disease in all departments of practice; and because the work to be done by specialists is largely that which other physicians, by therapeutic methods, have not succeeded in doing, and which generally demand some form of surgical or mechanical treatment.
From the recorded evidence of the skilful prescribers of Homoeopathic remedies, we may reasonably claim that by this means a large proportion of the functional derangements of women ar speedily and perfectly corrected without the need of any other form of treatment, and that a very considerable proportion of the diseases-that is, the pathological changes to which the uterine organs are subject are prevented or cured at the very outset by the same means.
Now, while this may not be capable of absolute or positive proof, we certainly have strong circumstantial evidence for it in the fact that women who from childhood have been under the care of the Homoeopathic physicians have far less of this class of disease than those who have not been so fortunate, and also in the fact that the general practitioners of Homoeopathy have few cases which they feel compelled to sent to the gynaecologists as compared with those of the Old School, who have not the means of relief which our Homoeopathic medicines afford.
Now, while we know that in all spheres and relations of life little credit is given those who guard and protect from impending dangers, as compared with that accorded those who rescue the victim from the very teeth of the destroyer; yet it is as true in this as in any other instance that “an ounce of prevention is better than a point of cure,” and who will not agree that to save a woman from the mental as well as physical suffering which attends the development and course of a uterine or mammary cancer, for instance is to bestow a far greater blessing than it is possible for even the most skilful surgeon to bring when his services are necessitated, and because the life which, if saved by the surgeon’s skill, is a shattered and blighted one at best, by the other means is enabled to develop all its powers, to ripen and produce its fruits free from the torture, the impending danger of which was no less real because only in its incipiency.
And so, while the surgeon who succeeds in saving the fragments of such lives, even for a few years, winds honor, fame, and wealth, they who had done so much more by protecting and saving lives in their entirety are unrecognized and without reward; often without even the gratitude of the patients, who do not realize what has been done for them.
In this very way Homoeopathy is doing for its friends and adherents vastly more than they realize or even suspect, and in such a gentle and unpretentious manner that little credit is given and scarcely any evidence recorded. Innumerable cases of this class, that is of, prevention or cure in the embryonic stages of disease, many times unknown to either the patient or the physician, are to be credited to a system of healing which is competent to meet the enemy at any point and in any form; to fortify against and ward it off without being compelled to wait its full development or to learn its exact name and nature before active for relief can be adopted.
This claim will not be allowed, I am not well aware, except by those who know and feel the influence and power of this law of cure; but though we cannot, of course, prove prevention in any individual case, we could, were it practicable, by a comparison of our lists of patrons with a like number differently treated, demonstrate its validity. We cannot wonder nor much blame our Old-School brethren for doubting our claim when we remember that they have so generally lost all, or nearly all, faith in the power or virtue of drugs except as opiates to destroy the consciousness of pain, tonics to stimulate nature’s efforts, or alternatives to disturb existing functional derangements, hoping that out of the disturbance nature may evolve an improved condition.
But to any physician who has had any considerable experience in the Homoeopathic application of remedies, numberless instances of relief and cure will be recalled to mind by the mere mention of Aconite, Arsenicum, Bryonia, Belladonna, Cimicifuga, Colocynthis, Gelsemium, Helonias, Mercurius, Thuja, Viburnum, and scores of other remedies; and if you would, one and all, furnish definite and accurate reports of your experience, we could compel a recognition of the claim that Homoeopathic remedies in the hands of skilled prescribers can and do cure most cases of functional derangement and prevent or cure in their incipiency a considerable portion of the diseases of women.
Here, then, before reaching the sphere of the gynaecologist, we find the proof of Homoeopathy in gynaecology of which we may well feel proud. But it does not end here, the opinion of some of our critical brethren to the contrary notwithstanding. I think I am safe in claiming that in the practice of Homoeopathic gynaecologists fully one-half the cases which, under Old-School treatment, would remain uncured or be subjected to surgical operation are cured by homoeopathic treatment.
Not every case is thus curable, and many demand surgical treatment. But we do, by combining Homoeopathic medication with the needed mechanical measures, cure many pathological conditions; such, for example, as metritis and endometritis, pelvic peritonitis, ovaritis, uterine dislocations, fibroid tumors, salpingitis, etc. And we have some well-authenticated cases in which ovarian cysts have disappeared during the continued application of the indicated remedy; and not only this, but very many who have endured for a longer or shorter season the attempts of the Old-School specialists to cure, come to us and find the relief they had previously failed to receive; and certainly not because we are better mechanics, but because we have the Homoeopathic remedies to aid us; and this is equally true in cases which require surgical treatment.
