Once in a long while a case that seems in the beginning solely medical and curable, goes just so far and no farther under the best homoeopathic prescribing one knows. It would seem as if the goal were missed by one step. To be sure these are serious cases when they end in surgery, but plenty of serious cases are cured medically.
The above outline gives outstanding indications of some of the important remedies in facial neuralgia and it can readily be seen that it is often necessary to differentiate by repertorial study. However, to aid in selection, such lists as the following have proven useful. They are common modalities and include some other remedies in addition to those mentioned above.
A medical student recently asked if we were not afraid of a starvation acidosis in cases such as the one reported. So far we have had no such untoward result. However, in chronic conditions where an individual is extremely fleshly and overweight it is dangerous to order too rigid a fast as the body toxins may be dissolved out so rapidly as to overwhelm the constitution.
In cases where no drug stands out, after patient questioning and repertorizing, some give the nosode of the main miasm in order to stir up the depths and throw out indications for a curative prescription. We hear much of the role of the nosode when seemingly well chosen drugs fail to act or hold; and in the clearing up of recalcitant relapses. The strict homoeopath uses the exanthem nosodes for immunization often, although Merc. cy., Bell. and Dros. prevail, too.
We homoeopathists have been laughed at for so defying our High Priest; people say we have a “father complex” in regard to him. Well, I am not ashamed of it, but I make one stipulation: it must be clear which Hahnemann I so admire, because his life falls into three fairly clear cut periods, two of which were homoeopathic.