QUESTION AND ANSWER DEPARTMENT

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According to recent surveys there are four conditions which are responsible for about half of all hospital service; they are tonsillectomies, deliveries, appendicitis and accidental injuries with tonsillectomies far in the lead and deliveries second.

Question: WHY ARE MANY HOMOEOPATHIC PHYSICIANS SO PREJUDICED AGAINST THE SIMPLE OPERATION OF TONSILLECTOMY?.

Answer: These physicians have long recognized what is now editorially admitted in the Pennsylvania Medical Journal, Oct.

1943, page 55.

The abuse of tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy and the supposed importance of the tonsils as “foci of infection” has subsided a good deal since the heydays of the 1920’s, but when one realizes that at present about one-third of all surgical operations are for tonsillectomy something must still be wrong. Since there is no acceptable evidence that the indiscriminate removal of tonsils benefits the patient with arthritis, nephritis, rheumatic fever and heart disease or with disease of the eye, and the incidence or colds and pneumonia is not reduced by the operation there would seem to be no need for its wholesale perpetuation.

Would it not be wonderful to have all unnecessary operations banned for the duration, or if not banned at least rationed?.

Question: Homoeopathic physicians are sometimes critical of the operation for appendicitis although less so than in the matter of removal of the tonsils. WHY SHOULD THIS ATTITUDE BE MAINTAINED WHEN MODERN SURGICAL SKILL AND TECHNIQUE HAVE REDUCED THE RISK ALMOST TO THE VANISHING POINT?.

Answer: The risk has been reduced but it has by no means vanished. We quote further from the same editorial:.

According to recent surveys there are four conditions which are responsible for about half of all hospital service; they are tonsillectomies, deliveries, appendicitis and accidental injuries with tonsillectomies far in the lead and deliveries second.

Now if these “four conditions” account for “about half of all hospital service” and if “about one-third of all surgical operations are for tonsillectomy” what must the ratio be for appendectomy?.

It is conservative to estimate that the number of tonsillectomies plus the number of appendectomies equal the number of deliveries plus the number of accidental injuries. Therefore these two very minor and frequently unnecessary surgical procedures add up to the startling total of twenty- five percent of all hospital service. What a tragic waste of manpower, building space and equipment to say nothing of the needless suffering of the patient in body, mind and pocket book.

Question: I HAVE HEARD THAT PATIENTS SOMETIMES BECOME SENSITIZED TO THE SULFA DRUGS. IS THERE ANY AUTHORITY FOR THIS?.

Answer: Repeated administration of sulfonamides either internally or locally may sensitize an individual to these drugs and thereby preclude their future use in serious diseases, such as pneumonia.–New York State Journal of Medicine, Aug. 15, 1943, page 1497.

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Eugene Underhill
Dr Eugene Underhill Jr. (1887-1968) was the son of Eugene and Minnie (Lewis) Underhill Sr. He was a graduate of Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. A homeopathic physician for over 50 years, he had offices in Philadelphia.

Eugene passed away at his country home on Spring Hill, Tuscarora Township, Bradford County, PA. He had been in ill health for several months. His wife, the former Caroline Davis, whom he had married in Philadelphia in 1910, had passed away in 1961. They spent most of their marriage lives in Swarthmore, PA.

Dr. Underhill was a member of the United Lodge of Theosophy, a member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the Pennsylvania Medical Society. He was also the editor of the Homœopathic Recorder.