Read before the Annual Meeting of The International Hahnemannian Association, Philadelphia, July, 1926.
Influenza surely has been epidemic over most of the country during the last two years, cases appearing in any month but far more of them in cold weather.
In some cities, though the cases have been vicious, no epidemic remedy has shown itself to the diligent seeker after it.
In other cities epidemic remedies have been different, according to location and circumstances.
In Washington the epidemic remedy was and is Kali bichromicum, for fresh cases are still presenting themselves. I grew really ashamed of prescribing Kali bi. so often and told myself I was becoming an empiricist. Then I would use another remedy, given on a few of its characteristic symptoms, and come to grief. The patient would grow worse and would show clearer indications for Kali bi. next day.
The duration of the attack would be greater and convalescence less satisfactory. So I gave up my qualms of conscience.
I do not mean to say that a few other remedies were not required in some cases. Bry., Phos., Caust., Hep., Rumex came in for a small share. But I was always filling up the Kali bi. bottles and giving this remedy to one patient after another with signal success. Patients were very ill, as a rule, on calling the doctor. Generally they were markedly better next day and well in one or two days more, with very little of the dragging convalescence, which has been so prevalent as to become a part of “grippe” or “Flu” in the popular mind. It grew to be real fun to go about making people well at this rate. Of course a few were much slower. These were the patients who had little resistance to disorders and were depleted at the start. If the constitutional remedy was known, it helped much in convalescence.
An interesting observation in this epidemic, as in all others, is that patients under homoeopathic treatment for chronic ills are not apt to succumb and if they do the attack is slight and short. The sickest patients, and the great majority of them, were robust, well people of all ages.
The epidemic has been so general that, during the winter and early spring, the government departments and the schools were greatly depleted. In the schools epidemics of all the contagious diseases followed influenza to an extent to make one suspicious of a direct connection. These cases were often obscure and puzzling. An eruption would look just like scarlet fever or measles one day and be gone the next. Yet typical scarlet fever or measles might be in the neighborhood. Mumps, whooping-cough and chicken pox came along, too.
Cases treated by the dominant school were very often vicious and protracted, with pitiful tales of sinus and mastoid involvement, marked weakness, lingering fevers and mental depression.
And think of it! Here where pneumonia is reportable, there were 1183 cases reported to the Health Department during the first three months of this year, with, I think, 427 deaths. This last number may not be accurate but it is approximate. More than one victim in three died!!! The number of cases was watched in the daily papers. At first the Health Officer declared pneumonia was not epidemic in the city. Then he decided it was, tried to find the cause, said it might be due to so much building, upturned earth, etc.
The situation made the few of us who tried to use homoeopathy correctly, sick and miserable inside as we watched members of families we knew sicken and die in a few days under suppressive treatment. An acquaintance was watched through the last night of his life by good patients of mine who recoiled in horror at his treatment and have been thoroughly roused on the subject ever since. This man was given large doses of Pluto water and quantities of digitalis, then begged not to cough because of the strain on his heart. He did not seem to these observers like a very sick man early in this night, but the doctor declared he would die before morning–ad he did. 1183 cases in three months with more than one death in three!.
I had three cases of pneumonia with two deaths, but the statement needs explanation. One lady who had been devoted to Christian Science for thirty years and used her last breath to tell me how much it had done for her, called me in just twelve hours before death. She had been an asthma victim for thirty years.
Another lady, ninety-seven years old, caught influenza from her daughter after she had been bedridden with weak heart for months and static pneumonia had started. She was mercifully released.
The third case was an old colored mammy of seventy-five years, lying in the front room of a wooden shack, with double pneumonia following influenza. The door opened directly into this room and neighbors called frequently. An air-tight stove was going full tilt close to the bed. The patient was swathed in many blankets to sweat out the trouble. As soon as I could get rid of neighbors, get a colored nurse and cool off the stove, this old woman recovered, first on Phos., then Kali bi.
To return to the epidemic remedy, in order to present a survey of its usefulness, I have gathered together all the case which have had Kali bi. since the beginning of 1925 (223 people and some of them two and three attacks).
From these records I have noted all the symptoms, together with the number of times each occurred.
Taking the symptoms in order from the one which presented oftenest on down the line, we have a characteristic picture of
Kali bi.:
1. General aching all over.
2. Chill. Decided chill or creeping chilliness.
3. Nausea. From half-nausea to decided nausea with vomiting.
4. Hoarseness marked.
5. General weakness, faintness.
6. Headache frontal; tightness above the eyes.
7. Aching eyeballs.
8. Discharge nose; thick, tough, leathery.
9. Sensitiveness to the least air.
10. Perspiration easy from slight exertion.
11. Exhaustion.
12. Chills and heats alternate.
13. Cough racking.
14. Cough dry.
15. Expectoration thick, tough.
16. Vertigo frequent.
17. Congestion antrums.
18. Tightness at root of nose.
19. Rawness, throat.
20. Fulness in ears.
21. Aching in ears.
22. Severe aching lumbo-sacral region.
23. Oppression upper chest, anteriorly.
24. Pain in different small areas here and there, coming and going.
25. Lachrymation.
26. Cough loose.
27. Loss of smell and taste.
28. Drowsiness marked.
29. Head stuffy, congested all over.
30. Headache occipital as if a nail boring in.
In considering these thirty symptoms several things are interesting.
I had not supposed nausea or hoarseness would hold places so high as 3 and 4.
Congestion of nose, throat and ears are highly characteristic, yet they come as late as 17, 18 and 20.
Thick expectoration comes much later in the list than tough coryza, partly because many cases were cured before they reached the expectoration stage.
This is the reason, too, that the general symptoms head the list. Many cases did not go much into particulars. The epidemic remedy aborted them.
Pains in small areas are highly indicative of Kali bi. Yet this symptom is number 24.
Loss of smell and taste we should expect rather early, but they come 27th.
Mental symptoms are almost absent or negative. Heaviness, drowsiness, torpor–yes, but active irritability I have down only four times and delirium not at all.
Temperature ranged from subnormal to 104 and has not been considered in the list. Often it was most erratic.
Other symptoms one thinks of in relation to Kali bi., occurring less often in these cases, are:
Burning eyes.
Agglutination eyelids.
Noises in ears: singing, snapping, stitching.
Aching bones of nose and face and teeth.
Sneezing violent.
Entire stoppage nose.
Post-nasal droppings.
Tongue coated in patches.
Redness edges soft palate and uvula.
Deposits in tonsillar crypts.
Very severe aching in knees or one hip.
Sharp, darting pains here and there.
Aggravation from drafts, dampness, storms.
On the other hand, it was interesting to note many symptoms cured by Kali bi., which seem characteristic of other remedies.
Sensation band across forehead (carb. ac., carb. v., chel. graph., merc.).
Pain occiput extending over head to eyes (glon., lach., petr., sang., sep., sil., spig.).
Crack in lower lip (nat.c., nit. c., phos., sep.).
Gums sore (ars., carb. v., merc., sil.).
Blisters in mouth (ars.).
Sensation something waving back and forth in throat (sensation hair, sil., sulph.).
Hollow sensation stomach on rising (coca., nat. p., phos.).
Vomiting blood (arn., cact., carb. v., clin., crot. h., ferr., ham., ip., phos., sabin.).
Sensation numbness abdomen (calc. p., podo.).
Constipation alternating with diarrhoea (ant. c., chel., nit. ac., nux v., op., podo.).
Respiration wheezing (ars., carb. v., ip., kali c.).
Cough worse least open air (ars., kali n., phos., rumex).
Cough cannot reach right spot (caust.).
Cough worse first lying down (dros., phos.).
Pain lumbo-sacral region extending down posterior thighs (berb., kali c., lyc.). A study of this sort is bound to be fragmentary and conclusions tentative, but perhaps I have increased the interest in a remedy which proves a friend in need to be treated with respect.
