The reader will kindly excuse the writer for answering a question which is apt to arise in the mind of the prescriber regarding the two torticollis cases reported here. Lyc. was called for in the first case, because of its rightsidedness and lithic diathesis. Cupr. was required in the second case, because of its rightsidedness and exanthemic suppression or metastasis.
Men who are devoid of the power of spiritual perception are unable to recognize the existence of anything that cannot be seen. Popular medicines knows therefore nothing, next to nothing about any diseases that are not cured by mechanical means, and the science of curing internal diseases consists almost entirely in the removal of causes that have produced mechanical obstruction.
There was dryness of the air-passages; excoriated sensation in the upper chest; great weight on chest; these was extreme difficulty in breathing and sharp, cutting, lancinating pains in the left side of the chest; so that he could not lie on this side; the act of coughing caused pains in distant parts, especially the head and abdomen; the bronchial respiration was attended with crepitation and rattling.
Aralia rac. did give a good deal of comfort for a time, likewise Kali carb. Dulcamara and Drosera, all of which were selected with care, but still, as I can see now in looking back, without a comprehensive grasp of the patients whole nature. After each one of these drugs some little improvement followed for a time and the patient was gradually gaining a little strength for sitting into a chair and walking about the room.
The universe is full of mystery and the further physical science penetrates into the unknown the deeper and more insoluble it grows. And as for The Intangible: what is the ultimate object and highest aim of science, philosophy and religion but to reduce everything, theoretically, to the “intangible,” and then from that sure foundation to build up the material and the concrete?
Psora progress from simple states to the very highest degree of complexity. Medical men have endeavored and are continually trying with all their power, to drive psora from the surface, thus causing it to be rooted deeper, more dense and invisible. How few reach maturity, what an appalling number of infants die largely as the result of psora.
Elsewhere in this issue we print by request of the above foundation the prize essay of one of the students of the New York Homoeopathic Medical College and Flower Hospital, a senior who has just won his degree of Doctor of Medicine. The essay ably reflects the painstaking efforts of the teachers in the department of Materia Medica, who without compensation, are giving of their time and money to educate homoeopathic physicians.