It is well known that the homoeopathic remedy acts more promptly and, as a rule, more completely in infants and growing children, than it does in adults. The reasons for this are obvious. The childs nervous system is more sensitive and responds more readily to both intrinsic and extrinsic stimuli its tissues are softer and more pliable; all its functions are more active; new cells and fibers are being added every minute of the day, and, what is usually overlooked, it is free from the anxieties and the worries that interfere with remedial action in later years.
Of course, in some cases, there are inhibiting factors such as wrong feeding, prophylactic “shots,” vaccination or the presence of some latent miasmatic taint. But, even here, the well-selected remedy clears the way for nature to reassert herself more quickly than it does in the adult, as we shall see later.
The following cases were selected because they are typical illustrations of our thesis, and also because they present some useful hints in prescribing.
CASE I-Many years ago, while still interning in the clinic connected with Kents Post Graduate School, I delivered a baby girl in a dark and dingy cellar. The walls were festooned with spider webs black with coal dust. A few weak beams of daylight found their way through two small windows at the level of ones head. Labor was short and not too painful for a primipara; there were no complications. The infant was apparently normal in every way. But on the morning of the third day, her eyes were running profusely with thick, yellow pus. Her face and the edge of her little blanket were smeared all over.
She seemed to like her eyes washed with cold water, so naturally I gave her a dose of Pulsatilla 1M. After warning the mother and attendant of the possibility of contagion (there was no money for a nurse), I took a specimen of the discharge at once to a laboratory. The microscope revealed the fact that it was teeming with gonococci. On my next visit, I found the amount of discharge greatly reduced. But I made many visits in the week that followed and, I must confess, spent some sleepless nights before I was finally assured that the disease had been whipped.
In the first place, owing to a marked blepharospasm, it was exceedingly difficult to get a view of the cornea. How happy I was to get a glimpse of a perfectly bright and clear membrane. In about five days the discharge became more profuse, there was more swelling of the lids and the photophobia seemed to have increased. I then gave the deeper acting Argentum nitricum which completed the cure in another week or so.
CASE II- A little girl, nineteen months old, presented symptoms resembling those of the case just described, except that the discharge was less profuse, thinner and somewhat acrid. I received the same message from the laboratory. Since she kicked the covers off at night, was always hungry and cried all the time she was getting her bath, I gave her a powder of Sulphur cc. In half an hour she had a profuse, diarrheic stool, and in five days the eyes were back to normal.
CASE III-One evening I was called by Dr. Annie Anderson of Chicago to see her eleven-year old nephew. She had carried him successfully through a severe attack of scarlet fever, but had been unable to check the nose-bleed that married his convalescence. His small face was somewhat thin, his nose bristled with numerous toothpicks which had been inserted in order to carry pledgets of cotton deep into the nose and, from the right nostril, there was a line of black blood running past the corner of the mouth almost to the chin. To me the zymotic character of his illness and the black, uncoagulable blood spelled Crotalus horridus.
I asked a few questions, put a dose of the 10M on his tongue and sat watching the results. They were soon evident. In five minutes I wiped the blood from his face and found that it had ceased to flow. In another five minutes, I gently withdrew the toothpicks and cotton. Only a few drops of blood followed. The epistaxis had ceased, never to return. When I happened to meet the doctor a short time afterwards, she told me that she had asked the boy what he thought of “our doctor.” He had replied: “He is a man of few words!”.
CASE IV.-When the apparently indicated remedy fails to act. the experienced homoeopath knows what to do. Here is a blond, blued-eyed boy two years of age. His face is a bright red; his breathing difficult and wheezing, worse on lying down; his temperature 103 degree. He has a loose, rattling cough and occasionally he raises a gob of yellowish-green mucus. He is quite thirsty. There he sits, half propped up in bed, making no complaint but placidly enduring his suffering. The remedy? Ferrum phos. of course. But the next morning he was worse. His chest was filling with mucus and he seemed much weaker.
Something was interfering with the remedy. I asked the mother what position the boy took during sleep; she replied: “On his stomach.” This settled the matter. I placed a dose of Medorrhinum 10M on his tongue. A remarkable change took place over night. The rales in the chest had abated considerably, the temperature had dropped to 101 degree and his face was covered with a measly rash. I had not thought of looking in his mouth, or the diagnosis would have been certain. The little fellow passed through the regular course of an ordinary case of measles and made a rapid recovery with no further medication.
CASE V-Another small, fair-haired, blue-eyed boy aged twenty-one months. On the 19th of December last, his mother called me on the telephone in great alarm. She said her baby was in convulsions and she could not locate Dr. Don Gladish, her family physician. I told her that I did not make house calls any more, but would come if they sent their car of me. I got there in about fifteen minutes. The convulsions had ceased but the little fellow was unconscious. His face was flushed, his eyes wide open and the pupils contracted to a pin-point. His temperature was 104 degree per rectum. It was plainly a case for Opium.
I put a powder of the 1M on his tongue, saying to his mother that if he started to make a big noise she should not be frightened, for it would only mean that he was coming to life again and would surely get well. The “big noise” was not forthcoming, but in exactly sixty seconds, he began to cry softly and opened his eyes, looking around as if he wondered what it was all about. I saw this boy in his fathers arms, at some tableaux which were being shown at a nearby church, on December 23d! He seemed as well as he ever had been.
CASE VI-Here is one that could be considered a midnight thriller. It is that of a boy about two and a half years of age, one of twins that I had delivered for Dr. Frances B., a loyal homoeopath and skilful prescriber. She asked me to see the case with her. Dr. A., another conscientious woman homoeopath, was present when I arrived on the scene, around 4:30 p.m. They had brought in a veritable library of books, over which they were pouring with the greatest diligence, for they realised that they had a very serious case. They had Kent, Knerr, a book or two by H.C. Allen and, I think, two or three others. Little wonder that their remedies were of no effect, for the one that cured the little patient could scarcely be found on purely symptomatic indications.
The child lay in a crib with high sides, and all that was visible of him were his eyes, nose and mouth. He was wrapped in blankets up over his chin and literally packed in hot water bottles or hot bricks. He had been in a tonic convulsion with slight twitching of muscles, for over two hours. His face was a deep red, his lips quivered, and whether from the ailment or the hot packs, he was sweating profusely. Never will I forget that night! I sat watching the boy for half an hour, giving one or two remedies the names of which I cannot remember.
Then Dr. B. said: “Excuse me, doctor, I must go to see a case of scarlet fever and of course will not dare to come back.” At six o clock, Dr. A. said that her office hours would begin shortly and she would have to leave, which she did. There I was alone with the sole responsibility of the little invalid on my shoulders. Fortunately, in those days, I was very phlegmatic. The small house of two rooms was built so that it could be easily taken down. The walls and roof consisted of sheet iron supported by wooden frames. It was situated in a small back yard between tall buildings. About ten oclock a terrific thunder storm blew up.
The rain descended in torrents, the thunder roared and, as if this were not enough, the wind every now and then sucked the tin roof upward and let it fall with a loud bang! It was pandemonium let loose. Fortunately it did not disturb the poor little invalid, for he was totally unconscious. I kept my vigil until a little before 2 a.m. Then I fired my last shot. It was Tuberculinum. During the past hour the boy had develop a chewing motion, the first definite use of muscles that he had exhibited while I was watching him. Bryonia did not fit the case; Calcarea, Phosphorus and Stramonium were out. But in simple language, I had a hunch.
