SOME CLINICAL ASPECTS OF AESCULUS HIPPOCASTANUM


Several years ago a woman came to me from Pittsburgh. She had been under the care of two different homoeopathic physicians. Each one of them had insulted her almost as she claimed by telling her that she was neurasthenic; there was nothing the matter with her. She had a long range of most striking and I might say “high fault in” complaints. A careful study showed they were all contained under the remedy Agaricus, and that cured her, made a new woman out of her.


If the physician clearly perceives what is to be cured in each individual case of disease, and what is curative in each individual medicine, and if he knows how to adopt what is curative to what is undoubtedly morbid, according to clearly defined principles, then he understands how to treat judiciously and rationally, and he is a true practitioner of the healing art. These few lines taken from the third paragraph of the Organon present the essentials of correct homoeopathic prescribing.

Unfortunately, they are ignored by the majority of those who claim to be loyal members of the homoeopathic school or a given an interpretation so liberal, that they would appear to admit of any system of treatment that appeals to the mind of the prescriber. Thus have arisen keynote and pathological prescribing, indifferent results, and the necessity for restoring to unhomoeopathic methods.

AEsculus hippocastanum furnishes us with an excellent confirmation of this. A brief study of its pathogenesis will reveal a wide range of action and many clear cut characteristics. Yet, to the routinist, it usually spells haemorrhoids. He may have read somewhere that people used to carry a horse-chestnut in the pocket as a cure for rheumatism, but would not think of prescribing it for that disease unless there was an accompanying portal stasis. To give AEsculus in neuritis would seem to him a waste of time. But here is a typical case:.

Mrs. A.E., aet. 52, light complexioned, rather stout; cheerful and vivacious. For two weeks she had been suffering with an intense neuritis of the right shoulder and arm which felt full and heavy. Shooting pains of great severity, started from the spine, passed to the point of the shoulder, and followed the course of the circumflex down along the radial nerve into the thumb and adjacent fingers. There was numbness of the hand which increased with the severity of the pains, especially acute in the tip of the thumb. Worse from motion and cold, better from applied heat. Always worse from emotion and excitement.

On August 19, 1929, she received one dose of AEsculus hipp.

45 M. Relief was almost immediate and in less than a week she was almost entirely free from pain, but the numbness and heaviness persisted. On October 17th she reported aching and bruised soreness in the forearm, numbness of the tip of the thumb, caused, apparently, by apprehension over sickness in the family.

She has been afflicted for years with psoriasis which is now improving rapidly under Petroleum.

It will be noted that this patient was not despondent and irritable, which is the usual mental state of the AEsculus subject, nor did she have piles or venous plethora in the slightest degree. She was unaffected in general, by either heat or cold. The sense of fullness, the heaviness of the suffering parts and the shooting pains and numbness were the guiding features.

Authorities on homoeopathic therapeutics tell us that AEsculus is useful only in functional heart ailments. Here again we must revert to Hahnemanns axiomatic paragraph: “If the physician clearly perceives what is to be cured in disease.” To restrict the prescriber to either functional or pathological condition is to limit the range of remedies he has at his command and to cause him to miss the similimum in a large percentage of cases. Doubtless this is the reason that the horse-chestnut is not considered as a heart remedy.

Mrs. Irene A., 68 years of age, dark complexioned, obese and flabby. A long life of grief and anxiety resulted in heart disease. Diagnosis: mitral regurgitation.

Despondent, apprehensive, somewhat petulant but not irritable.

Flushes of heat in the face, with anxiety.

Pulse regular but soft and rapid, increased by slight exertion.

Palpitation and dyspnoea < on walking, climbing stairs and eating, > by belching; accompanied by anxiety and flushes, of ten driving her out of bed at night.

Shifting pains, especially in the cardiac region, left ear, temple and the knees.

Numbness and tingling in the forearm and hand on the side lain on, with full feeling, > letting the part hang down.

< morning, walking, from cold air.

> warm weather.

Craves acids; bowels slightly constipated, but no haemorrhoids.

February 13, 1927, she received a dose of the remedy in the CM potency with marked relief of all symptoms. The same potency was repeated on June 22 and July 20. She improved in general health until the following January when the symptoms changed somewhat, a distinct aggravation after sleep was added and Lachesis was given. A complete cure could not be expected in a case of this character and no doubt other remedies will be required in the future, but were the patient here now she would testify to the comfort the AEsculus gave her.

One more case completes the group I have culled from my records Mrs. L. V. R., aet. 60, had been a patient of mine for over twenty-five years. She was always bright, cheerful and energetic. But, after her house burned down and her business of corset making declined, she became despondent, indifferent and lazy, neglected her family of seven children, continually made mistakes in fitting corsets and even neglected her own personal cleanliness and attire. Her husband made a small salary but it was sufficient for a modest living. She refused medical treatment, saying that it could do no good. Finally her husband persuaded her to come to the office. She presented the following symptoms and conditions:.

Rheumatism for years.

Bruised soreness all over, but more marked in the cardiac region and down the whole right side.

Numbness of the side lain on.

Sensation of fullness in the region of the heart, alternating with a feeling of emptiness, the latter worse at night, and relieved by eating. Heart seems to stop, then start with a thump; pulse 64.

Fullness in the right side of the head and face.

Palpitation on slight exertion, lying on the left side and after a full meal.

Stopped feeling in the right ear; noise as of a waterfall. This troubled her more than the more serious symptoms. Metallic taste in the mouth.

October 23, 1929, Aesculus hipp. 10M.

At her next visit, February 4, 1930, she reported great improvement and noted with great satisfaction, that the ear had entirely cleared up. But as the heart symptoms were beginning to return, she was given another dose of AEsculus, this time in the 45M. It was repeated in the CM on April 10th. Soreness, numbness, strange full feelings, palpitation and all symptoms referable to the heart had entirely vanished by June 2nd. This was indeed gratifying to both patient and doctor, but the change in mental state, her increased energy, and the return of her old neatness in personal appearance and interest in the wanted activities of her life, showed a deep and radical action of AEsculus.

CHICAGO, ILL.

DISCUSSION.

CHAIRMAN J. HUTCHINSON: It is most helpful and gratifying to have new things brought out as to the authentic values of remedies, and I think this paper is a good example of that. Will you discuss it?.

DR. A.H. GRIMMER: I think perhaps there is one phase of this paper that we ought to be thankful for and that is the point the doctor stressed about AEsculus covering a greater ground that what it is so commonly used for , haemorrhoids. The doctor has shown how we should study our remedies, in relation to the patient, regardless of pathological conditions. And while it is true that remedies do have affinity for certain organs, parts, and tissues, still I want to thank the doctor for bringing that points to the fore.

DR. D. MACFARLAN: What the doctor just said is interesting. We have certain predilections for certain remedies. I know my father, who knew Dr. Lippe very well, said he was fond of silica. He used Silica very often. Dr. Boger probably uses Phosphorus too often. And I think probably I use Sulphur too often. But I think we have all special predilections.

Dr. C.M. BOGER: I want to confirm what has just been said. The reason for it is that we get used to using certain tools, we get to be a little more proficient with that particular tool and we use it more than others. That is all.

DR.C. A. DIXON: I wonder if the same thought occurs to others that this paper brings to me. Sometime I start in at the office at two oclock in the afternoon and the first case say , offhand, is a Nux or Calcarea case. Before the day is over I have prescribed that three or five or ten times. It seems as though everything I see is Calcarea or Nux or whatever it is that I prescribed for the first case. Is it psychological, or what is the reason for it? I noticed, as Dr. Farrington read those papers and dated them, that last fall he was especially interested in AEsculus.

CHAIRMAN J. HUTCHINSON: Dr. Farrington ought to be allowed to answer that, but before he does I should like to say that I think at times the same weather, even in different localities, brings out in patients the need of the same remedy. I find sometimes of a winter day when there are indications of a scourge of grippe that patients (I may not know of those patients) from the environs come in, and although one may be from Mount Vernon and another from Newark they seem to require the same remedy.

Harvey Farrington
FARRINGTON, HARVEY, Chicago, Illinois, was born June 12, 1872, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, son of Ernest Albert and Elizabeth Aitken Farrington. In 1881 he entered the Academy of the New Church, Philadelphia, and continued there until 1893, when he graduated with the degree of B. A. He then took up the study of medicine at the Hahnemann College of Philadelphia and graduated in 1896 with the M. D. degree. He took post-graduate studies at the Post-Graduate School of Homœopathics, Philadelphia, Pa., and received the degree of H. M. After one year of dispensary work he began practice in Philadelphia, but in 1900 removed to Chicago and has continued there since. He was professor of materia medica in the Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago, and was formerly the same at Dunham Medical College of Chicago. He was a member of the Illinois Homœopathic Association and of the alumni association of Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia.