[Read before the I.H.A., Bureau of Surgery, June 9-11, 1932.].
While training for, and hoping to be, a surgeon, I fell from grace, and my surgical experience became, as a consequence, badly neglected. Therefore, when your chairman asked me to write a paper for this bureau, I hardly knew what to say. But a reminiscence of some few cases may be of some value to you in showing wherein, in some cases, the indicated remedy either succeeded where surgery failed, or cheated the surgeon out of a nice fat fee by the forelasting of an operation.
CASE I.
Mr. B., machinist, age 55, developed an abscess in the palm of the left hand. He was turned over, by his company, to their surgeon, who, it appears, was a free incisionist, in the case of an abscess at least. He made a deep incision clear across the palm of the hand, severing all the ligaments. He later found himself unable to heal the wound. All the contractor muscles had suppurated out, leaving the hand perfectly useless. The hand was later condemned to amputation. It was at this stage that the patient was turned over to me. A pair of extremely offensive feet led to the study of Silicia. It fitted his constitution exactly. Under Sil, the wound healed promptly, but no remedy could restore the lost ligaments. This case needed no operation in the first place. In the next place it was a bungling piece of surgery and as fine a piece of malpractice as one could wish to see.
CASE II.
Mrs. M., age 35, light complexioned, short, heavy set, came to me in great distress. Her allopathic doctor had just informed her that she had a case of pyosalphinx, that her tubes were all decayed, if not partly gone, that an abscess had already formed, that cancer might result, and finally, that an operation was her only hope. The lady balked at the operation and at the request of a friend came to consult me. In the affected region she had all the pains of congestion and suppuration, could bear neither touch nor pressure of the clothing, was especially sensitive to touch and pressure about the throat, hot drinks caused suffocation, she was worse on entering sleep, but decidedly so on waking, and her menses had shut down. Lachesis stood out all over the poor woman. A single dose of the 1M was followed by a discharge of pus through the vagina, a little later a good healthy menstrual flow with complete relief of both mental and physical symptoms. To date, at least, another operation has been indefinitely postponed.
CASE III.
Mrs. D., age 45, dark complexioned, well built, developed a fissure at the anal orifice, complicated with indigestion. She was sent from pillar to post, x-rayed, blood tested, meal tested, etc., and each time positively assured that nothing but an operation could bring her the least relief. She was mortally afraid of cancer. The burning pain at the fissure and the incarcerated gas nearly drove her wild. From the work we had done for her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law, she decided to consult me. While I assured her that she had no cancer, she departed dissatisfied. After about three weeks she returned, put herself under my care, and decided to give me a trial. The extremely red orifices, the burning soles at night in bed, the faint, hungry, gone sense at the stomach at 11 a.m. relieved by eating a little, etc., led me to study Sulphur, which brought prompt and lasting relief. And thus the surgeon was deprived of a nice fat fee.
CASE IV.
Mr. N., age 35, developed a syphilitic ulcer on the cornea of the right eye. This ulcer spread rapidly and threatened to completely destroy the eye. His allopathic eye specialist failed to halt its progress and advised its complete removal in order to save the other eye. At this juncture he was turned over to me. The rapid spread of the ulcer, the nightly burning pain, etc., pointed so strongly to Mercurius corrosivus, which was found to cover all his symptoms, that it was given, with the result that the eye was completely cured, and thus the oculist was cheated out of a nice fat fee.
CASE V.
Mr. R., age 60, prominent railroad official, had submitted to a radical operation for piles, which gave him a wonderful relief for about six months, after which he developed a very annoying condition in the throat. Being a man of ample means he consulted several throat specialists in New York City, then in Europe, but in vain. A friend of his, in Cleveland, sent him to me. He demurred at first because of an arrangement for an operation on his throat. After thinking the matter over carefully, he decided to come. His throat looked exactly as his anus had looked. The characteristic lumbo-sacral backache, the excessive dryness, burning and itching of the throat, the purple color of the enlarged veins, and the sense of little sticks on swallowing enabled me to tell him that the cure would be easy.
Here are his words: “Can you cure me?” Answer, yes! “Do you mean to tell me that you know more than the very best specialist?” Well, I replied, gold-bricks always cost more and shine brighter than the real article, and have the advantage of being worthless. He received Aesculus hippocastanum. At the end of two weeks he returned as “mad as a March hare”, and said: “What in hell did you do to me?” Is your throat no better, I asked? “Better,” he replied, “it was better in three days, but now I have the piles worse than ever. The more pleased I seemed to be the madder he got. I had quite a time trying to convince him that all was well and that he should stick to the remedy. He made a rapid and complete recovery of both throat and piles. And thus another surgeon was cheated out of another fat fee. Is it any wonder that the surgeons and specialists have no use for homoeopathy?.
CASE VI.
Mr. D., age 40, carpenter, had been ailing for sometime. Had consulted a number of allopaths, but without relief. Was finally consigned to an exploratory operation. While trying to make up his mind to such an operation he was referred to me. Our diagnosis finally ended up in renal colic. The sudden clutching pains led us to study Belladonna. It covered his case exactly. On Sept. 14th he received the 30x which brought prompt relief to the more severe symptoms, but did not relieve the continued distress. Seeing no reason to change the remedy, on Sept. 21st he received a single dose of the 10M which brought about a complete subsidence of all the symptoms within a few hours.
Not having been able to work for some time, and feeling so good, he went to work the morning of the 23rd, and as he said, “Worked like a horse at heavy work”, without feeling the least evil effects therefrom. On Sept. 26th he reported at the office, receiving a Placebo. On the morning of the 27th he felt something give way one each side of his back, over the region of the kidneys. On the afternoon of the same day, while urinating, he passed a stone as large as a good sized pea, without pain, and with very little distress, followed by a little blood. A few moments later he passed a second stone, smaller in size without either pain, distress or discharge of blood. He has now been working steadily up to this writing. He called a few days ago for the sole purpose of telling me that “He had never felt better in his life.” There has been no repetition of the remedy.
I have given the above case more fully than the rest because it verifies and confirms three points: First, as Kent stated, “Anything spasmodic can be relieved at once by the similimum.” Second, that only will that relief occur when based on the direct primary pathogenetic group produced directly by that drug alone. Third, that the correct potency must be reckoned with in the selection of the similar remedy, whether it be used in surgery, or in medicine, and that this selection is as much a part of, and of equal importance to the direct drug pathogenesis in the indication and selection of that similar remedy, as Nature is both exact and exacting. TOLEDO, OHIO.
DISCUSSION.
DR. JULIA GREEN: I am reminded of a case I had, a colored woman who gave a group of symptoms located in the left ovarian region. I gave a dose of Silica and ten days later a little piece of drainage tube emerged and I said, “You didnt tell me you had an operation”.
She said, “Oh, yes, I had one”.
I dont know whether that was a joke on the surgeon or a joke on me.
DR. DAYTON T. PULFORD: I should like to add two more jokes on the surgeon. They had no relation except to homoeopathy.
I know a young lady who was examined by a surgeon and told if she wasnt operated on she would be dead in six months, so she went to another allopathic physician and he said, ” Wait a while.” So she waited two years and she is still living.
And the other is a case where a child specialist was called in and looked the child over and said, “I am glad to see that the childs tonsils have been removed. That is one factor that is eliminated”.
The childs mother said, “They have never been removed”.
“Well,” he said, “get them out right away. They are the cause of this childs trouble”.
