The Homoeopathic Recorder 1930 Nov Vol XLV No 11

Dr. John Wyckoff, professor in medicine at the New York University, and director of the third medical division of Bellevue Hospital, in an address before the recent congress of physicians at Yale University, has issued a warning against the use of digitalis in the treatment of labor pneumonia. He stated that digitalis was widely used in the treatment of this disease in the belief that it aided the heart action. With this in mind, Dr. Wyckoff analyzed 735 cases of lobar pneumonia, and he reached the decision that the use of digitalis tended to increase the morality.

It is noteworthy that this remedy presents quite a few of the modalities of Pulsatilla and of Rhus tox. and for this reason is often overlooked, often being needed when Rhus is given. It is a common complaint that poison ivy doesnt act long or thoroughly enough; when a careful scrutiny of the Magnesia carb. symptomatology will show that it should have been given instead.

In the realm of metaphysics the same painstaking progress appears. Students are busy interpreting the esoteric into terms of modern thought in order to give us clear understanding and working equipment. One school of thought is showing us oriental teachings in terms of the Christian Bible and so opening up new appreciation of that wonderful collection of books.

The miasmatic analysis, whether we apply it to the progressive unfoldment of the condition or the proving and clinical experience of the remedies used, brings us to the same conclusion, namely, that there is a clear-cut relationship. This proven fact, which I bring to your attention, is the center of gravity in advanced homoeopathics.

Fortunately the homoeopathic school has other cardiac remedies that are indicated for cases to which Digitalis does not apply: Spigelia with its rapid, weak, tumultuous action: Kalmia with its slow, weak pulse; Cactus grand. with the characteristic constrictive pain; and many others play an important part in our practices. I have found Iberis very useful in cases of tachycardia.

Now what is true of Phosphorus is true of every remedy in our materia medica. In sickness we must not put a limitation on our remedies, when they are so broad as to cause an action on all kinds of provers, both men and animals, and are curative in all diseases of men and animals, whether or no they are of the classic types that produce the best provers.

The tapeworm immediately begins to feed on this, which produces a soporific effect upon the worm, and his tentacles let go their hold. Once they have let go, they do not anchor themselves again, and the worm is expelled in entirety. This I call mechanical removal, because it is his inability to use his anchorage and he must pass out with the natural peristalsis.

Remember that exophthalmos may signify chronic nephritis, that heterophoria is a frequent accompaniment of intractable headache, that early presence of tubercle bacilli may be found in the larynx with a cotton swab before it is found in the sputum.

At the back of the first volume would be a list of synonyms, not only in English but also in French and German and possibly in Spanish. This would make the work available internationally. A list of correct remedy names with pronunciation marks and carefully standardized abbreviations should be added, and a brief section on remedy relationships appended.

In the past few years I have had a number of patients come to me with facial neuralgia who have been through some clinic and been told that as far as the clinic could find out they were one hundred per cent. However, as the pain was still doing business at the same old stand, the patient did not agree with them, and he was dead sure after setting the bill that he was not one hundred per cent financially.

The greatest of all chronic ulcer remedies is, of course, Sulphur. It will cure nine out of ten chronic cases. Carbo veg. ranks next. Nux vomica is useful where the ulcer is caused by business and other worries and drugging. Anacardium where eating greatly relieves the pain, also Graphites. Where the haemorrhage is severe and the patient partially collapsed use Secale. For smaller haemorrhages try Kreosotum.

Irritations and injuries occur in other parts of the body, such as those in the gastro- intestinal tract, faulty foods, indiscretions in eating, adulterated foods, from irritations produced by chlorine in the drinking water, and aluminum poisoning coming from the use of aluminum cooking utensils and from aluminum plates in the mouth, sometimes used by dentists.

All of the above have their uses and should not be neglected. They belong to the common routine skill and knowledge of all schools of medicine. But we, as students of the Hahnemannian law of cure, have many well known and positive aids to meet the requirements of the so-called normal and preventable operative cases of delivery. In this we have the advantage over the other schools.

Does this not correspond well with those mothers who are worn out physically with nursing and caring for babies, and mentally driven to distraction with the ailing demonstrations of the sick and nervous infant; or of the worn-out man, emaciations and tired to the limit with his own particular worries.

The great majority of us go into disease ignorant of how to combat it, it scares the very life out of us, then we begin to dope and dope and dope, simply because on top of this ignorance and fear we do not know our materia medica. In this way we pile up, on top of the original disease, an artificial drug disease for which eventually the very best prescriber on earth could never find a remedy.