Results with unusual
remedies.
by Dr Elizabeth Wright Hubbard
Presented by Sylvain Cazalet(Read before I. H. A., Bureau of
Clinical Medicine, June 19, 1937.)
Dr E. Wright
Hubbard
Case I.
Insomnia.
Elderly lady with nervous prostration, unable to get to sleep until
seven o’clock in the morning, week in, week out ; restless,
sensitive to noise, mentally over excited, lively and gay during the
night with occasional twitchings, has tried all sorts of sedatives
without success. I compared Scutellaria.
Valerian and Cypripedium
and gave the latter 1M., one dose, and placebo each night. The patient
slept ten hours the first night, only a very occasional night until two
A. M. for six weeks, then return of insomnia. Repeated Cypripedium
1M., one dose ; sleeping well since.
Case II.
Headache.
Violent headaches, as if the patient would go crazy, with loquacity,
sensation as if the temples were in a vise, and as if the skull Opened
and shut, or as if waves in the head changing to penetrating pain on
motion, numbness of the vertex. Carboneum
sulphuratum 2C., one dose, with almost immediate relief. This
patient’s chronic remedy was Sulphur.
Return of similar headache again yielded to Carbo.
sulph. and has not returned since.
Case III.
Heart
trouble. Frail, delicate, exquisite lady of 60 with a weak heart.
Electrocardiograph showed branch-bundle block. Apprehensive, drowsy,
sensation as if the heart stopped with faintness, relief in the cold air
and from lying. Sore feeling in the abdomen with heart distress. Convallaria
10M., one dose. Relief of symptoms and gradual increase of strength.
This prescription was almost an intuitional one, Cratægus
and China sulph. having been given
before without marked improvement. She resembled lily of the valley (Convallaria).
Case IV.
Facial
neuralgia. Acute swelling and redness of one side of the face with
swollen gland under the chin, pain and tightness of the occiput and
neck, worse putting the head back, extreme sensitiveness of the bones of
the nose to touch, dryness of the mouth and throat, no sweat. Cinnabaris
1M., one dose. Face normal in a couple of hours and relief of all
symptoms, which had been severe several days, by night.
Case V.
Varicose
ulcer. Stout German woman with a varicose ulcer over the lower right
shin, shallow, black, offensive, her one complaint “terrible
burning”. Anthracinum 50M., one
dose. Burning relieved within the hour and ulcer healed in a few days
and did not return, although she had had it months and even had a small
hæmorrhage from it. Her chronic case came out to Graphites,
which has since been given her, and she has lost twenty pounds and walks
miles and stands all day at her work without recurrence.
Case VI
.
Acute sinus trouble.
Young woman with a history of pneumonia and pleurisy came for sudden
obstructive coryza, constant blowing of the nose but nothing comes, pain
at the nose root with stuffed feeling, dry, harassing night cough,
sensation as if floating in the air. Sticta
pulm. 10M., one dose. Patient reported next morning first
good night’s sleep in a week and nose almost cleared.
Case VII.
Mammary
tumor. Middle-aged woman with almond-sized tumor in her right breast
near the nipple, stitching pains shooting inward, chill after stool,
burning vesicles on the right side of the tongue. Phellandrium
aquaticum 10M., one dose. Symptoms swiftly cleared and lump
gone in three weeks. No return in two years.
Case VIII.
Heart
trouble. Middle-aged man, hypochondriac, palpitation on first lying
down, choking sensation in morning, heart troubles him whenever he
thinks about it, excessive weakness, must lie dawn, feeling as if the
heart were Porarily paralyzed, burning sensation in the lower throat. Oxalic
acid 10M., one dose. Relief of heart symptoms and extreme
prostration, more cheerful outlook.The range of remedies a
prescriber uses is sometimes singularly hackneyed, but especially in
acute prescribing repertorization of three or four symptoms of a more or
less peculiar or keynote character will bring you to a relatively
unusual remedy which will fit the case. Go over your prescriptions for
the last year or for any month and see what the gamut is and what
remedies are frequently repeated. Undoubtedly not only the genus
epidemicus but the meteorological conditions influence the
remedies indicated. I have often noticed that a certain remedy or group
of remedies will be called for on the same day. Constant study of the
less familiar remedies will widen the scope of our use fullness.
New York, N. Y.
DISCUSSION.
Dr Grace StevensDr. Grace Stevens
:
I am very much interested in what you said about finding indications for
the same remedy several times in succession. I have noticed that a
number of times and I have heard other people speak of it, and I am
sure, as you say, it isn’t necessarily because you have the remedy in
mind ; perhaps it is because there is something in the atmospheric
conditions, or other conditions, that it is likely to be needed for
several cases within a short time.
Dr. Grimmer :
There are three more of
us who have confirmed the observation that has been mentioned, that many
days we prescribe the same remedy, on cases which occur close together.
Dr. Hubbard
: Do you three wise men
in the back row give any reason for that, or do you have it and don’t
give it ?
Dr. Grimmer
: Well, I have a theory.
You may accept it for what it is worth, but I believe the astrological
conditions that prevail at that time bring people together with similar
complaints, to the doctor at that time. That is all.
Dr. Underhill, Jr.
: Several times I have
had the experience of having two or three or more new patients come in
within a day or so with essentially similar complaints and perhaps
requiring the same remedy. I can corroborate the statement of Dr.
Grimmer and Dr. Stevens.
Dr Julia M. GreenDr. Green
:
It is all similar to the observation that we often make that if we meet
something new, some new idea on one day, we are likely to find something
to corroborate it within the next day or two, or three, or, if we meet
some person, some friend we haven’t seen for a long time, we will meet
that same person or someone who knows that person, within a few days.
Dr. Hubbard :
That is almost like the
fact that if you have one puncture, you are sure to have three.
Dr. Hayes :
There is another way of
expressing the same thing. The widest sphere of observation we have, I
think, is the procession of the equinoxes. Everything goes round in a
spiral, ascending or descending, but in a spiral, at least, and
everything within that circle will also go round in spirals, and we have
it clear down to the finest point of observation that we can attain to.There is one lesson in that paper which I think
should not be forgotten or overlooked, and that is that a little
repertorization of peculiar and unusual symptoms, rare symptoms, many of
them, wilt turn up the unusual remedy.
Dr. Hubbard
: I am glad you brought
that out because when one uses the expression “keynote
remedies”, I felt a little worried lest I gave it because of the
keynote, which I practically never do, but to use some of the keynotes
as a basis for-repertorization with a few symptoms, is perhaps fair.
Dr R. E. S. Hayes
Dr Charles Dixon
Dr. Dixon
: I, too, have had the same
experience -all of us, I guess, who have prescribed for years, have
noticed this sequence of events, but I rise to my feet with a confession
that often times when I am studying a remedy have the book on my desk to
refer to frequently, I will catch myself finding symptoms of that
remedy-often. I have to guard against it.You know I had a paper here on Bovista.
I had books referring to Bovista on
my desk and along my chair and in handy places, picking out the high
lights of the remedy, and it was surprising how many Bovista cases I saw
during that time, so there may be a tittle angle of psychology there.
Dr. Harry B. Baker
: Speaking of that
case treated with Sticta pulmonaria,
about ten years ago we had a run of influenza cases, with that heavy
feeling at the root of the nose. I haven’t seen it since then at all.
One thing I have noticed is that the cases in epidemics especially seem
to call for different remedies in different parts of the country, even
parts more or less in the same latitude.In the epidemic of 1918 I remember seeing some of the
men use Arsenicum and some of those
remedies. In the fall of 1918, I believe we gave but one remedy and that
was Gelsemium. We didn’t have to
give anything else.I had been laid off for a year and up in the country
recovering from an operation and I was called down and reached Richmond
the first of October, 1918, for there were hardly any doctors left.
About the only one still on his feet told me Gelsemium
was the remedy, and for a month at least we hardly had to give another
remedy.
Dr. Underhill, Jr. :
There is such a thing
as intuition, which we all possess latently and which is developed in
some people. Many consider intuition is something we should rise above,
but it is really a higher attribute of mind, perhaps, than ordinary
reasoning. Some of the most brilliant prescriptions I have ever made
have come about this way ; chronic cases which have been extremely
puzzling in which I failed to achieve success for a considerable time -I
have gotten right down and plugged on them and still didn’t see in
daylight.Then, after having worked on it and almost given it
up in despair, I have seen the patient and perhaps I have just touched
the patient, or listened to the heart, or touched the pulse, and the
remedy would pop into my mind right out of the blue. It is nearly always
correct if I go through that particular sequence, but if I haven’t
worked on it, it doesn’t amount to anything.I have always noted that women have more intuition
than men. They are more sensitive.Here is a point in regard to the use of serums and
vaccines that I have observed in the reactions of men and women to this
problem : Men are more susceptible to the opinions of men and to
the opinions of authority and they will defer to that sooner than women
will. When a question arises whether or not a child should be vaccinated
or immunized against some -disease, I can usually win the mother much
easier than I can win the father.I have in mind a family where the mother was a
trained nurse and had served for a number of years in the University
hospital. University of Pennsylvania. The father is a lawyer and he
comes in contact with a great many professional and scientific people
and physicians. The father was practically sold on the idea of
immunization, end the mother had been brought up in that general
atmosphere ; nevertheless, in explaining the situation and advising
against immunization, I had no trouble in winning the mother, but could
never win the father ; however, what the mother said went in that
case, fortunately.
Dr. Baker :
Speaking of that
intuition, my old preceptor, George A. Tebor, of Richmond, who was an
Ann Arbor man, used to say very often. “That looks to me like a Lycopodium
patient”. He didn’t always have a reason for it and often couldn’t
prove it on the symptoms.
Dr. Underhill, Jr. :
The word
“intuition” means “teaching from within”, and when
you consider that meaning, it deserves more dignity than we usually
apply to it.
Dr. Hubbard :
I should like to ask a
question about the intuitional business. I had a case this past winter I
was particularly anxious to cure. Those are always the ones I have
trouble with. I repertorized her with the utmost faithful care and never
in the repertory study (and I restudied her three times) did she come
anywhere near the remedy I was itching to give her, and I have never
given her the remedy I was itching to give her, which is Aurum,
and why I wanted to give her Aurum I
can hardly even tell you except to me she has been Aurum.She has not done well on the many I felt justified in
giving her, but I could not give her Aurum
on just a hunch, do you think ?
Dr. Underhill :
I would think so.
Dr. Hubbard :
But it doesn’t come
out, even eighth or ninth.
Dr A. H. Grimmer
Dr Eugene
UnderHill
Dr Thomas K. MooreDr. Grimmer
: Are any of the mentals
present at all ?
Dr. Hubbard :
She won’t ad nit to
them at all, and I think now they are not present, but she is a Russian
and I see that somewhere in her background they were definitely
there.
Dr. Grimmer :
I wouldn’t hesitate to
give it to her with those antecedents.
Dr. Moore :
I think some of us
practice by intuition without knowing it. I had done a cataract
extraction on a trance medium, and I was doing a dressing and she said.
“Someone comes in with you every day”. I asked for a
description and she gave an excellent description of an uncle of mine
who was a surgeon, gone a while before, and I said, “What does that
man do ?”She said, “He tells you what to do”.
So, in the practice of medicine, all I have to do is
be there. Somebody tells me what to do. It is easy.
Dr W. J. S. PowersDr. Powers :
I
have had the experience of being in doubt about two remedies, as to
which one to give, one or the other, and I have decided on one. I have
gone to my drawer, taken out the remedy, given it to the patient, and,
after she has gone, I have looked at the remedy, and found I have given
the remedy I decided not to give, and, of course, I have worried quite a
lot until I saw her the next time, and the next time she was very much
better.
Dr. Hubbard :
Your subconscious is
wiser than your conscious.
Dr. Grimmer :
Somebody has defined
“intuition” as being stored up knowledge, knowledge that is
inherent.
Source :
Homœopathic Recorder,
October, 1937.Copyright ©
Sylvain Cazalet 2001
