Few cases come to the homoeopathic physician in which he cannot read the working of some of the laws and precepts which govern homoeopathic practice; he has here the opportunity to observe the effect of environment, circumstances and heredity in relation to the complaints of the patient, and to observe the action of the laws which the patient and his forebears may have broken. He has always before him the living pages of the action of these laws governing the patients return to health from sicknesses of varying depth and chronicity.
It has been observed that heredity plays a strong part in the illness of succeeding generations. Oftentimes, too, it appears that chronic states which appear in more than one member of a family throw much light on the underlying causes of disease, and its development in different manifestations, in various members of the family. Some careful homoeopathic prescribers have observed that such chronic conditions as eczema, asthma, etc., which afflict one partner in a marriage may appear later and in very similar form in the other partner.
The laboratory cannot demonstrate any connection between such occurrences in many instances, and would no doubt dismiss the incidents as unrelated, pure coincidence. The homoeopath replies that there are yet many things about disease which we do not understood; there are subtleties of mental and physical states which we cannot appreciate, and the relation between body and mind is as profound as it is subtle.
A patient 36 years of age, married, came to me first in 1935, from a city some four hundred miles away. As a child she had suffered from eczema which had been suppressed intermittently with great success, and she had suffered from time to time also from asthma. This had never wholly yielded to treatment, and in the intervals between the eczema and asthma she suffered from hay fever. She had then two children who appeared to have escaped the mothers afflictions, except that they took cold easily and often. The husband was tall, thin, studious in appearance, the typical Phosphorus type; he suffered from severe chest colds and had the wornout feeling at frequent intervals.
My patient, Mrs. E., did very well on the remedies which were indicated from time to time, especially Pulsatilla, Sepia and Sulphur. The asthmatic attacks lessened in frequency and severity, hay fever attacks sometimes failed to appear throughout the season, and while the eczema appeared now and then in full bloom it was much better than formerly and there were long gaps between the recurrences when her health seemed to be entirely normal. Her progress was satisfactory until she became pregnant for the third time, when she went under the care of her local doctor. She had a regulated painless delivery under sodium amytal, and was hospitalized for several weeks thereafter from partial paralysis of the legs.
From that time on she suffered more continually from her asthma and eczema. The infant was eczematous from the age of a few weeks. The mother knew little freedom from the same manifestation of her afflictions; her response to the indicated remedy was never so complete and satisfactory as before her reversion to allopathic medication. Both the asthma and hay fever had now returned in full force, and she was now never free from eczema, which cracked and bled. She had begun now to suffer considerably from painful stiff joints of the hands and wrists.
October 31, 1941, her husband wrote in great distress that he had suffered from an eruption first in the preceding February which he described as follows: A rough scabby dry spot the size of a dime appeared on the left ankle. This spread, grew redder, more scaly, and itched and burned. Sometimes it appeared like a water blister, oozing. In April a streptococcus infection in ankle spread up the leg rapidly; the ulcerated pits appeared discharging a yellowish-white thick pus.
These lesions healed slowly but still itched and burned. In September the ankle broke out as before, became very red, itched and burned incessantly; watery oozing on rubbing. He received treatment from the dominant school since the first outbreak of the trouble; then bronchopneumonia developed, from which he is now recovering. Eczema began on the hands in September with large blisters under the skin, itching severely, yellowish clear oozing when blisters were broken. Ankle eruption now covers eight square inches, and a spot the size of a silver dollar on the other ankle.
Large water blisters on soles. The skin is peeling from these areas, leaving them ragged and sore, dry, cracked, red and raw. Because of the general picture and modalities, Sulphur CM. was sent.
There was immediate aggravation of the condition. The eruption increased markedly and there was no recession or improvement in any particular. Late in November, because no improvement had been noted, the case was reviewed and Medorrhinum 20M. was sent.
Immediate improvement in general strength and condition was reported, and gradual improvement of the eruptions in proper order; the eruption first receded on the hands, and so on from above downward. December 23 he reported himself practically free from the eruption and in good health generally. For a slight return since that time he has required another dose of the same potency. In the middle of April the report came that he had been in better health than for a long time and was very busy.
The reaction in this case was so enlightening that when his wife next called for a prescription for her asthmatic attacks and her painful cracked eruptions and deforming finger and wrists, she too received Medorrhinum 20M. The babe, who had been having a bad session with asthma and eruptions, also had a dose of the same nosode in the same potency. At the last report the babe had had some attacks of asthma, lighter, fewer and shorter than before.
The mother still complains that she has some embarrassing eruption on her face, but the deep bleeding cracks on her hands have disappeared. She did not mention her painful fingers and wrists, but she wrote the letter in long-hand, which she had been unable to do for some time.
Further medication will be required in these two patients, the one of long chronicity, and the other a direct heir. But satisfactory progress has been made in the few months just past, better than the results from other seemingly indicated remedies over a much longer period of time. And it is a hindrance to the prescriber to be unable to see that condition for which he is prescribing, and to rely solely on the report given by the patient himself.
A woman now 92 years of age has been under my care for twenty years. Although always under good homoeopathic care, when she came to me she had a discharging ear; the discharge was very offensive, and she must always keep her head covered at night.
Several members of her immediate family had succumbed by middle life to tuberculosis in some form. Her health became very good under Silica, the discharge from the ear ceased, and she forgot to cover her head at night. Although always suave and courteous to those whom she met, she dominated her husband until his death and her two daughters until they became hopelessly insane.
In spite of her indomitable will, old age came upon her, and she developed attacks of delusions that robbers were breaking into the house; that members of her family were stealing her valuables (which she herself had hidden); that she was among strangers and wanted to go home; and finally and very markedly, obscenity appeared. She has been kept comfortable and brought back to a reasonably rational state by the indicated remedy. Bryonia and Lachesis have been useful at times, and for the obscene states Hyoscyamus has been very effective.
It has been possible to keep her at home under the supervision of her granddaughter and a housekeeper through the use of homoeopathy, which has palliated an end condition that under orthodox treatment would have demanded institutional care. It has been far less expensive in money as well as in wear and tear on both patient and family. No other form of treatment can offer so much comfort as Hahnemannian homoeopathy, even where cure is not possible.
Another case where homoeopathy rendered a patient comfortable where complete cure is problematical is that of a man 85 years of age, under homoeopathic care for some three years, for gangrene of the feet. He had been a lumberman all his active life and had frozen feet several times. Until the past few years he had been a continual alcoholic. When he came under my care he had six gangrenous spots on the feet and toes, two of which involved the toes complete with the joints. Secale 200 has been the principal remedy indicated in this case, although occasionally Arsenicum album and Sulphur have been clearly exhibited.
All but one of the gangrenous portions have sloughed off dry and clean; the two toes required only that the tendinous portions which held them be snipped, and they healed as they separated. One foot is healed except for a spot half the size of a dime, which is healing rapidly. The other foot still has a place on the upper surface of the great toe extending upward toward the foot, which may or may not yield to the action of the remedy in a satisfactory manner.
