DIGITALIS
DROPSY
Case 80
A boy had scarlatina. On the twelfth and thirteenth
day from the appearance of the rash he had swelling of the right hand
and fingers, with scanty, high-colored urine. Digitalis
c. m. (Fincke) every four hours for four doses. Next day hand nearly
well, urine freer and paler. Recovered. Forty-one remedies are given by
Bśnninghausen and Jahr under “Swelling of the hands.” This
list does not include Cactus or
other recently proved remedies. Neither the swelling nor the
highly-colored, scanty urine is diagnostic of any one remedy, being
found under many. Shall we theorize, pathologically, and argue that as
the kidneys were the source of the mischief we must direct our efforts
to the establishment of their secretion ? If so, what shall we
give ? Shall it be Digital. or Apis
or Terebinth. ? All, and many
more, act on the kidneys. No, the homśopathic physician takes note of
apparently insignificant symptoms, which to the pathologist (only) are
of no value, because he cannot explain them. In this case the right
hand and fingers were swollen.
This symptom is of no importance to the pathologist ; what does it
matter to him whether the right hand or the left is swollen in
post-scarlatinal dropsy ? The homśopathic physician, however,
finds out that only five of the above forty-one have “Swelling of
the right hand”, Digit.,
Hepar. Lycop., Nat. mur., and Phosph.,
and of these only Digit. has in the
same symptoms, “Swelling of right hand and
fingers.” Another peculiarity unexplainable to the
pathologist.
Phos. has indeed swelling of right
index finger as well as the hand, but here the swelling becomes black
and gangrenous, which is a contra-indication.
Merc. sol. has swelling of left
hand, and Cactus śdema of both
hands, worse in the left.
(Berridge.)
DROPSY
Case 81
In 1865 I was called to a man, Mr. Matthewson, aged
about 80 years, who was sitting upright in his chair because he could
not breathe lying down. He was a man who did not like to call a doctor,
so had come to a very bad state at this time. I found hydrothorax, of
course, and his lower limbs were greatly swollen and very hard, but
readily pit on pressure, and stay pitted a long time after. Dark red,
almost purple spots had appeared on the lower legs, as if the tissues
were about to become gangrenous. Heart action very weak, at times very
slow, and again at times rapid, irregular and intermitting. Respiration
very difficult ; could not lie down ; had sat in his chair for
three weeks. Suffocative constriction, distressing dyspnśa, wants to
get a long breath, and, on account of the effusion in the chest, heart
sounds very muffled. Urine very scanty and red. The diagnosis was, of
course, cardiac dropsy. But referring to Allen’s Encyclopćdia it will
be seen that Digitalis covered all
the heart symptoms. I gave it first in the potency (30) then lower,
finally drop doses of the fluid extract. No result. The patient then
expressed a wish to see an eclectic physician. So I brought him in. He
looked him over, and on the way home I said, Well, doctor, what shall we
give that man to cure him ? He looked at me resentfully, and
exclaimed, Do you think I am a fool ? No, I replied, I thought you
knew something or I would not have brought you down here. Well, said he,
you know this man will die within two weeks if you know anything. I
didn’t say. But I went home, went up to the drug store and procured some
powdered digitalis leaves, made a 1st decimal trituration, and said to
myself, we’ll see what a decoction will do, and, old man, you either die
or get well on this. I put up some one grain powders and told the nurse
(his wife) to put one in the bottom of a teacup and pour the cup half
full of hot water and let it stand an hour, and then let him drink it,
and repeat once in two hours. Next day he was worse apparently ;
thought he felt a little better. The
next day the urine increased and soon became very profuse, and all his
symptoms rapidly subsided. Then the interval between powders was
increased to two hours, four hours, eight hours, twelve hours,
twenty-four hours, etc., and finally left off altogether. In one month
he came up town, nearly a mile, and carried home a bushel of cornmeal on
his shoulder. I met him a few months after and jokingly said to him,
Well, old man, aren’t you ever going to die, can’t anything kill
you ? Well, said he, I don’t know, I guess not ; you tried your
best. There was never any return of the dropsy, and he lived seven years
after and died of old age simply, as near as I could diagnose. (Nash.)
I have in several other similar cases seen this decoction of Digitalis
do good work when the fluid extract in old school hands failed, also
when the potencies and alcoholic preparations failed.
I prescribed upon the symptoms above
named and cured the man, whatever the pathology of the case.
In the Hahnemann Monthly (Journal), A. D. 1871, page 171, is an article
from the pen of our ever beloved and honored Constantine Hering, which
is entitled “The Great Desideratum.”
In my opinion it is a masterpiece which should be reproduced often and
never lost sight of. Want of space forbids quoting it entire in these
pages, but I will, I hope, be pardoned for making somewhat lengthy
quotations from the same.
“In 1844 there appeared in the A. H. Z., Vol. 27, page 1, a very
elaborate treatise on the homśopathic treatment of endocarditis, by
Clotar Mueller. To the symptoms obtained by the provings he has added,
not without skill and great ingenuity, the symptoms of percussion and
auscultation, according to the cures reported. Iback and Tinks in their
Handbook had just commenced to astonish the homśopathic word by their
readymade ‘labels’ containing, in
technical terms, the constitution, temperaments, and all the undefined
general characteristics of many of our drugs. These labels were eagerly
translated and copied into an ‘original’ big book on materia medica ;
and now many years after they pass for essentials in Hughes’ Text Book.
Yes, finding their way event into Burt’s ‘Characteristics'”. Such
“labels” we can best liken to the red and blue flowers growing
in wheat fields. When the grain is harvested and prepared to yield such
flour as we made bread of they are separated and thrown on the
dung-hill. Sure observations live forever.
Cl. Mueller must have had a foreboding of this, for he says on page
57 : “Next to Digitalis no
other remedy deserves a new proving as much as Spigelia,
that is, a proving having for its object the auscultatory symptoms. Such
a proving would give with the very extraordinary specific influences Spigelia
has on the heart a great many more decisive and more certain
results.”
It bothers our learned author not a little that according to the cures
made by homśopathicians Spigelia
had shown itself of great use in pericarditis, in all the stages of
endocarditis, even the far progressed, in valvular diseases of different
kinds in hypertrophy, and, alas, also in dilatations. He wished, like
Watzke, in the Vienna provings of Colocynthis,
Aconite, etc., to have such symptoms as would, above all,
enable him to put Spigelia into one
of the drawers of the sideboard invented by the pathologists of the late
period.
In Edwin M. Hale’s “Lectures on Diseases of the Heart”, 1871,
on page 88, we find the following remark : “Spigelia
is an important remedy in pericarditis, but the provings were conducted
with such disregard for physical or objective symptoms, or even correct
subjective symptoms, that it is difficult to define clearly its curative
sphere.” By “curative sphere” the author cannot mean
anything else but those above mentioned drawers in the sideboard.
There was no difficulty whatever to “define clearly” the
effect of a number of herbs proved in a hurry, by a few, who were at the
same time in a hurry to cure sick people with indigenous plants. The
reason why there is such a difficulty here to “define the
sphere”, and to define it “clearly”, is
only because it will not fit in the drawers. And why does it
not ? There are too many symptoms, and there is a want of such as
the author requires to “define the sphere”.
But there is a school of medicine founded by a certain Hahnemann, who
laid down as a main principle to select the
curative drug, according to symptoms, not according to spheres.
Now it happened that Spigelia had
been given according to the corroborated and characteristic symptoms,
not only in so many different diseases of the heart, but also in
inflammatory diseases of the brain, the eyes, the lungs, in neuralgias
of the eye, the face, the shoulders, the feet, etc., also in catarrh of
the stomach, in affections from worms, and even for squinting. Well,
we have to put the heart or the worms in the centre of the sphere.
Then Hering goes on to give quite an extensive history of the provings
of Spigelia. After that is done we
quote again : “But what is the great desideratum
so ardently desired, from Cl. Mueller in 1844 down to the ‘Lectures on
Diseases of the Heart’, in 1871 ? It has been repeatedly said
during a quarter of a century that the provers ought to get
“auscultatory symptoms.” This was said first by one, then by
two, three and so on, and now it has become what some call ‘a public
opinion’, an opinion of the majority. Let anyone read the words (V. II.,
p. 390) in Shipman’s Grauvogl (and all ought to have it), “Assent
becomes a duty.”
What is commonly called public opinion
is, plainly speaking, the opinion of two or three persons, and we should
convince ourselves of the truth of this, could we but see into the mode
in which this public opinion originated. We should then find that there
are two or three people who first assumed or decided or affirmed that
such and such a thing was so without taking the trouble very thoroughly
to examine it. Taking for granted that these had sufficient capacity of
judgment, a few others also accepted their opinions ; three again
are believed by many others, whose indolence rather inclines them to
believe it at once than to take the trouble to test it. Thus grows from
day to day the number of such indolent, easily believing
adherents ; for if the opinion had only gained a goodly number of
advocates, those who adopted it afterwards attributed its prosperity to
the quasi fact that those already accepting it would have done so only
on account of weighty reasons. Others were now constrained to accept
what everybody else accepted, lest they might pass for restless souls
who were setting themselves up against generally received opinions, and
for malapert hinds, who would be wiser than the rest of the world.
Assent now becomes a duty.
Now the few who are capable of judging must be silent ; and those
who are permitted to speak are those who, perfectly incapable of forming
their own opinion or judgment, are the mere echo of the opinions of
others ; nevertheless, they are all the more zealous and intolerant
advocates there of. For they hate in those thinking otherwise, not so
much the diverse opinion they hold, as the arrogance of daring to judge
for themselves ; something, by the way, which they never venture
themselves, of which they are at least conscious.
In short, very few can think, but all claim the right of having
opinions ; what else then remains for these latter, since they
cannot make opinions for themselves, but to adopt the ready-made opinion
of others ? As this is the case of what avail now are the voices of
a hundred million of men ? “Dico ego, tu dicis, sed denique
dixit et ille ; dicta que post toties nil nisi dicta
vides !” – Text-book of Homśopathy,
by D. V. Grauvogl, Part II., p. 390, et
seq.
Auscultatory symptoms of provers are, of course, welcome, like all the
other objective symptoms ; but it is a horrible mistake to suppose
that there is so much depending on them. There is no necessity, no gain
of certainty, in obtaining any auscultatory symptoms from any
drug ! In thousands of cases the remedy has been found, without
having any such extreme or material symptom. We have to decide by the
individualities of the given case, and we’ll heal the sick by drugs that
never produced such symptoms, and very likely never will. Vice
versa, if a drug has really produced valvular alterations,
hypertrophy or dilatation, tubercles in the lungs, or exudations on the
pleura, or anything else. And a drug never will cure the same unless the
characteristics of the case correspond with it,
and if these correspond it will cure it, and the organic lesion will, if
it is a possibility, be removed. No matter if the drug never has
nor will produce it. Guiseppo Mauro
cured a case of hypertrophy with the sound of the purring of a cat
(Arch. X., 1, 150) according to the symptoms of Hahnemann’s provers,
without any auscultatory symptoms ; and Bethman (A. H. Z., 3, 109)
a case of dilatation, where the stethoscope manifested the undulatory
motion of systole and diastole, without any such symptom having been
observed by any of the provers of Spigelia.
A. Haynel, P. P. Wells, and others have treated the worst cases of
valvular diseases with the greatest success, and given Spigelia
without having a single auscultatory symptom of the same.
Sulphur has been proved by nearly
fifty provers ; not one of them had exudation of the pleura. We
know it has cured innumerable cases.
It is a great mistake to say that if a drug produces a disease,
particularly an organic lesion, it will cure such disease. It may, but
only if it corresponds with the case, and it will then, if it never
produced any such organic symptom.
This is a long quotation from the above referred to article, but is well
worth the space. If the writings of the masters who followed Hahnemann
when the sure foundation of the homśopathic healing art was laid were
referred to and studied and applied, there would be less mongrelism and
less bungling.
JAUNDICE
Case 82
Wm. R. Cole, young man of excellent habits, after a
few days of feeling dull, weak and sleepy, was suddently taken with
nausea, vomiting, and weak, gone feeling
at the stomach. The matter vomited was very yellow and very bitter. In a
short time he became very jaundiced. The sclerotic skin, and even the
nails were as yellow as gold. The stools were perfectly colorless or
gray, while the urine was dark brown like lager beer. In the vessel it
colored the ware as yellow as gold. The pulse was
very slow, only thirty beats per minute, and very weak and
occasionally intermitted. Digitalis
3d centesimal, in solution, once in three hours cured. A few years after
and after his marriage he had a similar attack, though not quite so
severe which the same remedy again cured. This was, the last since, now
at least ten years. (Nash.)
RÉSUMÉ
1. Very slow ; occasionally
intermitting pulse or rapid and frequently intermitting pulse.
2. Weak heart, with faintness or sinking sensation at stomach, feels as
if the heart would stop beating if she moved.
3. Blueness of skin, especially eyelids, lips, tongue and nails,
cyanosis.
4. Respiration irregular, difficult, sometimes performed with frequent
sighs.
5. When going to sleep the breath fades away and seems to be gone, then
wakens with a gasp to catch it ; cannot get to sleep on this
account. (Grindelia and Lach.)
6. Vertigo in the aged, with very weak, slow pulse.
7. Ashy-gray stools, either formed or watery, with cardiac symptoms.
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