Nosode is an old term. Many physician have never heard the word. I like better the designation, “potentized biological remedy”. Any substance-mineral, botanical, or biological-may be a homoeopathic remedy, if properly prepared and correctly applied. These biological trace remedies are many, but I shall mention only a few that I have used in the past year, citing such clinical cases only as seem to me to help to fix the remedy in mind. Very few of these remedies have been completely proved-some not at all. The clinical cases may be interspersed with such remarks as seem pertinent to the discussion.
It seems natural to think that a high potency of any offending virus should be the homoeopathic remedy for the disease, and that would be the limit of its usefulness. Such is not the case, for the remedy will be more useful in other conditions where the symptoms are similar to the disease from which the nosode originated. In other words, the nosode must be thought of as acting according to the law of similia similibus curentur, not as a disease conqueror, but acting in the same manner as do the mineral and botanical remedies-that is, by increasing the vital reaction of the patient. We do not think that arsenic should be used in potency only when we have acute arsenic poisoning, but that it should also be used for patients who have developed symptoms, from known or unknown causes, that are like those developed in arsenic toxemia.
This same principle applies to the use of every potentized biological remedy which I shall mention to-day. A woman in her thirties had for years an ulcer on her leg. Many treatments had been unsuccessfully used. Under Vaccininum, in three months time, the ulcer completely healed. When ten years of age she had been vaccinated on the arm for smallpox. The reaction was severe and prolonged. Two years after the vaccination, the ulcer came on the leg and would not heal. It had the macroscopic appearance of a large vaccination ulceration. Twenty years after the vaccination, her blood gave the same electro-dynamic reaction as it would have blood gave the same electro-dynamic reaction as it would have done if she were having smallpox. It is difficult to believe this, but it is true.
Another class of cases that I have learned to scrutinize carefully is that in which the patient says he has been vaccinated many times, but it would never “take”. Such patients may develop degenerative troubles, especially fatty degeneration of the heart muscle.
Another woman in her late thirties, had an ulcer on her leg for twenty years. It healed quickly under Medorrhinum. The Wassermann and Khan were negative. No effort was made to find a history of gonococcus infection. I did not suspect any. The only peculiar symptom was that she had been unable to have any visible perspiration for twenty years. Her electro-dynamic reaction was the same as it would have been if she had an active. Neisserian infection. With the beginning of the Medorrhinum treatment she began to perspire normally, and in a few weeks the ulcer healed. A young man in his twenties, had discharging anal fistulae that had been twice operated unsuccessfully.
These fistulae exuded a thick, greenish pus. For two or three years he had been subject to small pimples dispersed over his body. These pimples contained a green pus which appeared the same as that excreted by the fistulae. His blood gave the same dynamic reaction as a culture of streptococcus viridans. The pus first lost it green color, and then quit forming. The pimples disappeared. For nine months now there has not been any sign of skin infection nor of fistulae. In so far as I know, Dr. G. Beckley Stearns introduced potentized streptococcus viridans into our therapeutic armamentarium. Our homoeopathic pharmacies have many strains of streptococcus and staphylococcus in potency. Of course one has to put forth considerable effort to find which one is indicated. The wrong one will have no effect.
Dr. Bach of England introduced five nosodes that are of outstanding efficiency: proteus, Morgan, faecalis, and polyvalent. Especially the proteus and Morgan have won laurels and for the prescriber. Intestinal toxemia is the common denominator of these five remedies.
Scirrhinum, the nosode of scirrhus, in a few weeks cured a case of tic douloureux of thirty years standing. This case had been diagnosed in many clinics and doctors offices.
There are six or eight Influenzins in our pharmacies. If one can select the right one, they are of signal use in treating epidemic colds. This selectivity can not be had unless one has the proper instrument with which to make the choice. Without such instrument, one can do almost as well by giving Bryonia in potency.
There are many Tuberculins in our pharmacies, but here again one must have an instrument in order to make the choice between the various strains. Once the differentiation is made, they are valuable. They must be used with caution, and usually as an intercurrent, if the indicated remedy is failing to act.
There are many snake poisons of which provings have been made. Lachesis is the best proved and the oftenest prescribed. In the climacteric, it is efficient, and has none of the drawbacks of estrogen.
One snake poison that has been very seldom prescribed is Buthus australis. It has done excellent work in a case of hysteroepilepsy. Boericke and Tafel have it in stock. An old Journal of The American Institute of Homoeopathy has as incomplete proving thereof.
Vipera torva is another snake poison that has rather a positive curative action. A male, 51 years of age, had migraine for thirty years. For one or two days each week he had to leave his work as a machinist and go to bed. He consulted many internists, and each one said, “Migraine. I can do nothing for you.” On June 6, 1947, he received Vipera torva 1M.; June 14, Vipera torva 500.; on July 11, Vipera torva 200.; on July 22, Vipera torva 30x; August 15, Vipera torva 30X. There has been no migraine since June 6, when he received his first dose of Vipera. He recovered from the persistent tired feeling in four to six weeks after the initial dose. There was a marked gain in weight and vigor for three months. A strip of scalp two inches, wide shed every vestige of hair. Later the hair came in white, then gradually took on its natural color. Two years later he remains in vigorous health, with no return of migraine.
There are many insect poisons of which Apis mellifica and Cantharis are favorably known. Formica rufa has helped selected cases of rheumatism.
There are many animal poisons of which the spider poisons are seldom used. However, Mygale lasidora cured a chronic recurrent headache that was marked by great despondency, fear of death, palpitation, weakness and tremor.
It would be very easy to make this paper too long, but I think enough has been said so that it will occur to each of us to renew our nosodes and put them to as wide a use as possible. CLINTON, JOWA.
DISCUSSION.
DR. ROBERT H. FARLEY [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]: Mr. Chairman, I have recently become interested in some of the nosodes. There is another indication for Morgans bacillus that Dr. Griggs told me about and which seems to be helping me in a very difficult case right now, and that is its use in arthritis where nothing else seems to do the trick. He also told me of success in treating nine or eleven cases of enuresis in children where, as usual, the best selected remedies failed with what is known as polyvalent.
DR. THOMAS K. MOORE [Akron, Ohio]: If any of you have a case of infantile eczema that is quite resistant, dont forget the Morgan nosode. It has cleared it many times.
DR. HARVEY FARRINGTON [Chicago, Illinois]: Dont forget Proteus in bronchitis of old people with a lot of rattling mucus.
Many years ago, I treated a man for asthma. In fact it was about forty-eight years ago. He had had the best prescribers in the country. You would naturally infer this, because he was the son-in-law of old Dr. Boericke who founded the pharmacy in Philadelphia. Then my location changed and I left Glenview for Chicago and I didnt have an opportunity to give him medicine until two years ago, having moved out there again.
He was then ninety-two years old and had his asthma for about eighty years, he thought, and it occurred to me that perhaps Blatta or Anagallis would help him. I started him on 3x, a few doses; in eight days, 6x; in two weeks as 30th; and in three or four weeks the 1000th, and cured his asthma. He lived for more than a year after that.
You notice, I went up into the potency there and the length of interval of its action increased. But he still had bronchial mucus which so often accompanies this kind of an ailment. Proteus, three doses of the 30th, removed it. In about three weeks he died at the age of ninety-three and I had a hard time trying to find what to put on the death certificate as the cause of death.
MEMBER: I would like to mention the remedy Bacillinum in ringworm of the scalp. It cleared two cases of mine very beautifully through the suggestion of Burnetts book on treatment of skin conditions, which I assume many of you have read.
