S.A. KIMBALL., M.D.
April 20, 1888, I was called in the evening to attend Mrs. T. in her first confinement. She was a medium sized, healthy looking woman, about twenty-five years old. She had been having labor pains for two or three hours. Soon after my arrival, the child was born, a girl, weighing about seven pounds. The labor was normal and easy, head presentation, O.L.A. The perineum was slightly nicked and the placenta was intact, no pieces being retained. She received one dose dry of Arnica cm.
Everything went along well until the fifth day, April 25, when i found her in the morning sitting up in a chair. She was very thirsty, her breasts were heavy with stitching pains, and there was plenty of milk; pains in the abdomen on nursing; the room was exceedingly hot. Gave one dose dry of Bryonia cm. and sent her to bed.
Mrs. T. was a poor woman. She had one small room in the top of a house, and had to do most of the waiting upon the baby and himself.
I was called to see her the next morning, the sixth day, at 5:30 A.M. She had been awakened at 4 A.M. by a severe chill, and she was now stupid, slightly delirious, face flushed, complaining of a severe headache and of pains in the abdomen, which was very sensitive to touch and slightly swollen. She also had frequent flushes of heat to the head, the soles of her feet were hot and burning, and there had been no lochial discharge since yesterday. her breasts were full and very sore. Pulse 120. Temp. 104. For these symptoms she received one dose dry of Sulphur, cm. (F).
At 11:30 A.M. she was much better, the lochia had returned brownish in color, and she had been very sleepy. Temp. 99.8, a fall of 4.2 degrees. No delirium. Sac. Lac.
At 5 P.M. she was still more comfortable, the lochia were brownish and offensive, the abdomen was still sore and the temp. the same as at the last visit, 99 8. sac. lac.
The next morning, April 27th, she has no pain or soreness in the abdomen; had an excellent night, but is very weak. Temp. 98.2. Sac. Lac.
April 28. No soreness in abdomen. Sac. Lac.
April 30. Attempted to get up and found that it caused some soreness in the abdomen. Sac. Lac.
May 3. is all right, but a little weak. Sac. Lac.
The appearance of the patient after the chill on the morning of the sixth day, the flushed face, the delirium and stupidity, the sensitiveness and swelling of the abdomen, seemed to point to belladonna or Gelsemium, but when I found that she had been having flushes of heat, with burning of the soles of the feet, I gave th dose of Sulphur, especially as I remembered to have seen a short time before in the Homoeopathic Physician, an article by Dr. Kent, in which he said that a threatened attack of puerperal fever may often be wholly averted, or rendered much less severe, if, after the chill on the fifth or sixth day, a dose of Sulphur is at once given, as the whole condition is essentially psoric, and the Sulphur goes to the root of the matter. Sulphur has all the symptoms of the patient with the exception of “suppression of the lochia.” This I cannot find, but as they returned in a few hours, we are justified in crediting it to Sulphur for further confirmation.
The patient was evidently in a serious condition. The severe chill, the flushed face, stupid delirium, the swollen and tender abdomen and the suppression of the lochia, could point to but one condition, a beginning puerperal peritonitis, or, as it is now called by our allopathic brethren, a condition of “sepsis,” or “puerperal infection in its first stages”.
If the treatment were not given there would hardly be a question in regard to the correctness of this diagnosis, either by an allopathist or by his unsuccessful imitator the eclectic homoeopathist, who claims to use for his patients “what is best in each school, but whose practice usually consists of the worst methods of both.
Had the patient recovered in his hands after a long treatment secundam artem, of intra-uterine injections of bi- chloride of mercury for the unfortunate microbes and Belladonna and gelsemium in alternation, or some other such messing for the fever, then the result would have seemed somewhat commensurate to the means employed, which would be something tangible, below the twelfth dilution that could be seen, smelled and tasted no doubt.
Or if the case had been detailed as cured without specifying the means employed, it would have obtained some degree of consideration; but to ascribe the cure to a single dose of a cm. potency is to him an incredible thing and would probably result in his doubting the diagnosis, cure and everything connected with the case. His logic is as bad as his Homoeopathy if that were possible.
How differently a cure of this kind, without regard to the diagnosis, appeals to the true Hahnemannian; he sees in it another verification of the truth of the law of similars, another instance of a grave affection checked in its first expression and the patient restored to health in a way that is possible under no other method of cure. To him it is an incentive to be content with no results that are not equally satisfactory.
After all, the so-called eclectic homoeopathists are not so much to blame for their lack of knowledge of Homoeopathy, especially the younger men. The teachings of the majority of our so-called Homoeopathic colleges are such, that it is a wonder that any belief in Homoeopathy is retained by their graduates. The future of Homoeopathy rests with this Association.
Some method must be devised by which instruction can be given in pure Homoeopathy. the allopathist is not to be feared, but the eclectic Homoeopathist is. He is everywhere, but here; he is aggressive, full of enterprise, and to oppose him successfully we must fight him on his own grounds with schools of instruction in our Homoeopathy. truth is mighty, but in this case it will not prevail unless we strive to overcome the teachings of error.
A post-graduate school of homoeopathics is what we need to spread the grand truths of the Homoeopathy of Hahnemann.
DISCUSSION.
Dr. Wesselhoeft: A number of the younger men of our school, as well as some from the old, have come to us with the question: “Where in the world can we learn the Homoeopathy of the purer sort, as taught by Hahnemann?.
The germ of this interest may, i think, have come from our society, called the Organon Society. it is an interest in something very different from the sort of stuff which is taught in the so-called homoeopathic colleges of to-day, Some of us have thought that it would be worth our while (even if we could get only two or three men from either of the schools) to give those enquirers a course of homoeopathy in a quiet way; perhaps in the offices of the different physicians. It seems to me a duty incumbent upon us to help these questioners, and I think such a course as is suggested in this paper for post-graduate would be a very effective way of accomplishing the object.
A motion was made and carried to take up the consideration of a post-graduate school of homoeopathics at the evening session.
