The death of Dr. E.P. Anshutz, editor of THE RECORDER, was a great shock to me. I had learned to love the man for his many little acts of kindness to me. He was one of my kind of men for he was bread minded and liberal enough to see all the good outside of his own particular school of medicine. He was always ready “to give honor to whom honor was due.”
The article in February RECORDER, by Dr. T.L. Bradford was a beautiful, an eloquent tribute to the memory of EDWARD P. ANSHUTZ. It seems very strange to me that with all the many discoveries in medical science, with all the brilliant men in the profession within the past one hundred years, that our doctors have never been able to tell if a person was in pain or not they simply had to take the patients word for it. I have made this discovery, that if there is pain in any part of the body there will be a tension to the pulse (be it ever so little) and a contraction of the pupil of the eyes.
If there is no tension to the pulse and no contraction of the pupil of the eyes, there is no pain.
I have also made another discovery, that there is a great difference between the pulse of the right and left wrist. The pulse of one wrist will tell us of the vitality, the constitution of our patient, the pulse of the other wrist will tell us of the local disease or injury (whatever it may be), the real, the true condition of the sick person when the time comes by proper treatment that the pulse of both wrists are alike, full, strong and regular, the patient is near well.
It has been said that we “cant tell whether a person is sick or well without a physical examination.” I have discovered this fact, that if the face has a healthy appearance, a clear, bright expression to the eyes, tongue light red, moist and cleaning, pulse full, strong and regular, the muscles of the arm firm, not flabby, the person is in normal health. Then a variation from the above must be disease in some form. The above is, I believe, one of the most important discoveries of the century. Some of the most prominent physicians in this country and across the Atlantic are testing this discovery in their practice. Try it out in your practice, dear reader, for there is more in it than you may realize.
I have received a very kind letter the Surgeon General U.S. Army and the Surgeon General of Canadian Army, and Secretary of War for England, thanking me for calling their attention to the above facts.
I am too old to do “my bit” in this great war, but there are many of my students and medical friends in the service of our country. I feel confident that any soldiers placed under their care will be will taken care of.
I am often asked the question, “What specialty would you advise me to take up?” Before a doctor takes up any special work he should have several years experience in general practice; he should be a good “all round” physician he should know materia medica.
If he takes up any special work, he should put himself under the personal instruction of a doctor who has built up a reputation in that specialty by the cures he has made. When a physician lets it be known that he is a specialist in any department of medicine he is then supposed to be an expert on that subject. To not only be able to make a diagnosis of the disease, but to be able to outline a definite treatment first. Some of our would – be specialists are like our political reformers, “they are reformers that dont reform!”
Some of our young men, when they graduate from a medical college, have an idea that they would like to specialize in some branch of medicine, so, if they have the price, they go to Europe to “study wine and women,” and, ostensibly, to pick up some information about a particular line of medical work.
In due time they return to their native land and blossom out as a full fledged specialist; what they dont know about that particular subject would fill a good sized book.
What our profession needs and what the public need at the present time are men who have developed a definite treatment for the disease common to our country. Very many acute diseases, by improper treatment, have advanced to the chronic stage, and here is a splendid chance for the doctor who will study and develop a definite treatment for chronic diseases. There are 20,000,000 people in the U.S. suffering from some form of chronic disease.
There is another very important specialty, and that is, materia medica. A physician who knows materia medica is a “Tower of strength” in the sick room, and in consultation will prove a “Godsend” to his brother physicians. Any doctor who would learn how to read the eye, pulse and tongue intelligently, both as a means of diagnosis, and to find the indicated remedy, would have the whole field to himself and no competition.
Whatever may have been said against the homoeopathic school of medicine by its enemies, there is one fact remains, that is worthy of our consideration, that in every community where there is a good physician of that school of medicine he usually gets the wealthy and intelligent people for his patrons. They are the kind of people that appreciate Homoeopathy for they judge a man by the results of his treatment.
When a hospital is needed in any of our cities there will be found plenty of wealthy people who know by experience the value of homoeopathic treatment who will contribute liberally to the support of such an institution. It is not so long ago, that every justice of the Supreme Court of New York State was a Homoeopath, they were men of brains and men who would fully appreciate the success of that school of medicine in healing the sick.
I am of the opinion that the average Homoeopath in this country has failed to appreciate the real the true value of his remedies, for the simple fact that he dont know his materia medica.
A homoeopathic physician prescribed Graphites in a case of erysipelas. I said, “Why do you give that remedy, what is the indications for it”? He could not tell me, so I told him the indication for the above remedy in that disease.
A doctor should never prescribe a remedy for a sick person unless he is able to give an intelligent reason why he gives it and what he expects it to do.
Many years ago there lived a married couple in Maine that I knew, a doctor and his wife. The wife had her own ideas about the married state. They tacked up the usual card in their sitting room, “God bless our Home.” In order that there might be no misunderstanding about who was to be the head of the family, she tacked up another card, “In OUR home, the rolling – pin gathers no moss.”
The neighbors called him, “Man afraid of his wife.” She had the husband under such excellent discipline that all she had to do was up give him the “matrimonial high sign” and he would shrivel up, lay down roll over and play dead!
The morale of this story is that a man who starts out in married life as Second Lieutenant ought never to expect to be promoted.
I have seen cases where patients had a discharge from the rectum of yellow, bloody, or transparent jelly – like mucus. Sometimes the stools pass voluntarily when expelling flatus. The rectum feels full of heavy fluid, they go to the closet and only gas escapes.
Next time they feel like going to stool they dont go, and then afterwards they wish they had!
There is a sense of insecurity in the rectum, with a loss of confidence in the sphincter, and the patient cannot decide whether it is flatus or feces.
The above symptoms indicate Tr. Aloes 3x.
In reading the pulse of a patient the pulse feels slow, then it starts, and goes quick for a few times. Between the two, we have a slow, irregular pulse, that intermits every third, fifth and seventh beat. When you get that kind of a message over the wire (artery) it spells “Digitalis.”
In reading the pulse of a young lady, it was a thin, soft, empty pulse, it means Ferrum, whatever the disease may be called.
In consultation with our doctors I sometimes let them count the pulse of the patient, take the temperature, ask the usual questions that they have been in the habit of asking. Then I sit down beside the sick person and read the pulse, read the eye, and tongue. In this way I get right at the real condition of the patient, and find the indicated remedy. A patient may try to deceive you, but the pulse will tell you the TRUTH.
When you go into a barber shop the barber takes his brush and spreads the lather all over your face, into your mouth, ears and nose. Then he rubs the lather all over your face with his hand, not because it is needful (for it isnt). He does it because he was taught to do it that way. So it is with our doctors, they were taught to count the pulse, they dont know any other way. They never stop to thank how foolish it is, but they keep on doing it, as they were taught to do it.
Now suppose you have a case of rapid heart (tachycardia) pulse going so fast you cant count, then what will you do? When you read the pulse, it points like a finger board to one remedy, Tr. Iberis amara 2x, ten drops once in two hours. A child can count the pulse, but it takes a man of brains to read the pulse and tell what it means and what remedy is indicated. That is what I call “Arterial telegraphy” and it is something that should be taught in all our medical colleges.
