In common with most homoeopathic physicians, I have seen a few almost unbelievable cancer cures from the internal use of our remedies. Almost any remedy has occasionally cured, when it was in fact solely prescribed upon some special or prominent indication but happened also to have the general symptoms which corresponded to the life history of the patient, hence corresponding accurately and in its entirety to the disease picture. This was, of course, done in reverse, therefore the cure was a rare occurrence.
Boenninghausen in his Aphorisms of Hippocrates, 5-54, page 327, stresses the correct method where he substantially and clearly says:.
Swelling with induration of the os uteri is always dangerous and easily terminates in malignant uterine cancer. Only in the beginning, by means of the accurately discerned, not local, but general symptom complex, along with sufficient concomitant or side symptoms, upon which after all the final choice depends, can a fortunate and complete cure be prognosticated. If once fully developed ichorous pus has appeared, there is little or no hope.
From the beginning there is the most urgent necessity to choose with the greatest conscientiousness and care the most fitting from the following recommended remedies, wherewith my colleagues and myself have always succeeded in averting the threatened danger before it had reached an incurable stage; Ars., Aur., Bell., Carb. an., Chin., Clem., Ferr., Iod., Kreos., Lach., Mag. mur., Merc., Plat., Puls., Sabi., Sars., Sec. c., Sep. and Thuja.
My own experiences have been as follows: A middle aged woman subject to frequent aphthae showed a ragged, serpiginous, rapidly advancing cancerous ulcer of the inside of the lower lip penetrating almost to the outer skin. The main ulcer was large as a cent with a deep fissure running down toward the chin and there were already several metastatic ulcers on the soft palate. She had wandering, shooting pains through the body that left soreness behind. Milk left a sour taste and she was indolent, fat and not very clean. A dose of Kali bichromicum MM, repeated in sixty days, made a complete cure.
Radical cures in recurrences after operation have been few and far between, but Nitric acid given on the usual indications has cured several times, so has Silica. After operations done early or on what is usually on suspicion only, when new mammary nodules have appeared after several years, Bellis perennis has usually done the trick. As you know these are very anxious moments for the patient and she awaits the result of the prescription with great trepidity. In the toxic crises which so much resemble the onset of low types of erysipelas, Bellis is my sheet anchor also. It does not cure, but it reduces the tendency to haemorrhage to almost nil. makes a light affair of the toxic attack and lengthens the interval between attacks very greatly.
Bellis comes to my mind as a greater and deeper Arnica the rest of the picture you will know without being told. The prominent remedies that have palliated incurable cases for me are especially Calc. carb. for phlegmasia alba dolens like attacks. Tellurium for the vile odor and purpura figurata, sometimes present, and above all Opium in very high potency when the patient looks prematurely old, brownish and withered. Sabal serrulata controls the stinging pains of cancer of the urinary tract and prolongs life to great lengths, so much so that a cure seems almost in sight.
PARKERSBURG, W.VA.
These distinguishing characteristics which form the individual and constitutional symptoms of the patient are sensational symptoms, rather than functional derangements or structural disorganizations. And the method we pursue in relying upon these in the absence of other indications, and of attaching very great importance to them, even where other symptoms are not wanting, is sustained by two substantial reasons.
First, in many cases we can do no better, since as already stated, few if any of our remedies either have or can be expected to have direct pathogenetic symptoms to correspond to the innumerable ultimate forms of structural disease which we are often called upon to treat. Second, this method has been found reliable by much experience. The purely constitutional symptoms such as those of periodicity and the conditions of aggravation and amelioration strictly sensational symptoms, being found to constitute infallible indications in the choice of the remedy, where all other guides are wanting. H.N. GUERNSEY, M.D., 1866.
HYPERICUM PERFORATUM ST. JOHNS WORT
[Read before the I.H.A., Bureau of Materia Medica, June 1931.].
CHARLES C. WALTENBAUGH, M.D.
This is a common plant found in the fields and along hedges and empty lots. The stem is two edged and is from one to two feet high. The leaves are lanceolate, marked with lines, and have a great many transparent points on the surface which look like perforations; the edges of the leaves roll back; the flowers are in panicles, star shaped and yellow. The fruit forms four capsules with three valves. This is a brown red and shines like resin.
The plant is gathered in August soon after it is done flowering. The tincture is prepared from this according to Class 3. This is of a dark, purple red color, has a slightly balsam odor, and when applied to a wound, leaves a coating resembling shellac. It is from this tincture that our potencies are made.
When making a study of the provings of Hypericum you will be reminded of a class of injuries involving the sensitive nerves for which it should be used. Sensitive wounds may be treated with Hypericum. It relieves great nervous depression following wounds, and removes consequence of fright and effects of shock. It is used by some authorities in pneumonia cases, also for bleeding, painful piles.
Hypericum acts on the cerebro-spinal nervous system and causes hyperaemia, with the production of an irritated and highly sensitive condition of parts freely supplied with nerves by acting on the nerve sheaths and the meninges.
In the surgery of the homoeopath it runs along with such remedies as Arnica, Rhus tox., Ledum, Staphisagria and Calcarea.
When you have the bruised, black and blue and pounded sore feeling, use Arnica. If the muscles and tendons are involved use Rhus tox. For the final weakness after Rhus tox. use Calcarea. Use Ledum for the punctured wounds. Hypericum does not give much relief from the bruised and strained condition but is more satisfactory in another class of cases. You will find that Hypericum and Ledum run close together and they must be compared. Ledum, like Arnica, is a remedy for a bruised and sore feeling. Hypericum and Ledum must especially be compared when, because of an injury, a nerve has taken on an inflammatory condition, as the nerves are the sphere of their action. The wounds of Hypericum are very sensitive to touch while those of Ledum are not.
When the ends of the fingers or toes are lacerated or bruised by a blow from a hammer and the pain can be traced up along the nerve toward the body, stitching and darting, coming and going, then by all means use Hypericum. It is the remedy that will prevent lockjaw for which your patient is headed.
A wound from a vicious dog in hand or wrist, or a wound caused by a nail or any sharp instrument, will need Ledum at first, unless a nerve is injured, then you will need Hypericum for it will prevent tetanus. Every practitioner knows that lock-jaw may follow an injury to sentient nerves. So, when shooting pains come on, travelling up the arm or leg, Hypericum will stop them, cure your case and prevent tetanus. It is useful for such symptoms as are found in tetanus and ascending neuritis. A painful scar with pains shooting upward toward the center of the body following up the nerves will be cured by Hypericum. Ledum will do the work very often in your punctured cases if given at once. You will not need Hypericum unless the case has been neglected, and the nerves involved.
I remember when attending lectures at Dunham College, Chicago, of seeing a horse that had picked up two nails which had entered the coffin joint. I was asked to look at the horse. History showed that the nails had been in the foot several days before they were removed. If Ledum had been given at once the trouble might have been avoided. The horse was cured by Hypericum.
Hypericum does very nicely in cases of injury to spinal nerves and injuries to the coccyx, and when the pains travel up the spinal cord to the brain. This I have verified a number of times. Dr. Kent, lecturing at Dunham on Hypericum, brought out these points very clearly. I shall always remember.
I will cite a few cases which I hope will show the action of Hypericum in a brief way.
Case 1. A woman shut the door on her finger and came to my office to have me drill the nail and let out the blood. I was not in and she returned home. The pain increased until she was almost frantic, the pain going up and down the arm extending to her head. She asked me to come and see her. I tried to drill the nail but the pain was so great that she could not allow me to touch the finger. I gave her Hypericum in water and went back in a couple of hours and found the pain down at the end of the finger. Finger then not very sensitive. I drilled the nail, let out the blood and the trouble was all over.
Born in Western Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He moved to Parkersburg, W. Va., in 1888, practicing there, but also consulting worldwide. He gave lectures at the Pulte Medical College in Cincinnati and taught philosophy, materia medica, and repertory at the American Foundation for Homoeopathy Postgraduate School. Boger brought BÅ“nninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory into the English Language in 1905. His publications include :
Boenninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory
Boenninghausen's Antipsorics
Boger's Diphtheria, (The Homoeopathic Therapeutics of)
A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915
General Analysis with Card Index, 1931
Samarskite-A Proving
The Times Which Characterize the Appearance and Aggravation of the Symptoms and their Remedies