Little
doses – Big results! Homoeopathy for animals
by PIERRE
SCHMIDT, M.D.
Presented by Thomas Mickler
www.mickler.de
THE
HOMEOPATHIC RECORDER
VOLUME XLIV. DERBY, CONN., APRIL 15, 1929 No. 4.
(p.221-226, p.327-329)
(German)
Part II (p.
221-226)
FIRST CASE:
One of
my old school-mates, Dr. Ferreol, a veterinary, having heard of
mysterious homoeopathy, met me one day by chance. “What is
homoeopathy at bottom”? he asked me. “Is it a serious
method”? “Serious”! I replied, “that’s not the
question: it is a method which cures affections that are curable
according to a law, and by means which do not poison the patient”.
“But”, said he to me, “that’s all very well for human
beings whom one can make believe all that one wishes, but can these
infinitesimal doses really have any action at all on animals”?
“It is perfectly simple”, I responded, “not theories but
facts; results, first, and then afterwards we will discuss it”!Just at that time he had a series of cases which were
bothering him a great deal. It was a matter of an epidemic of
swine-fever in a piggery of more than one hundred and twenty animals.
Many had already died and, called urgently on the 30th of January, 1928,
he autopsied a pig which had just died in convulsions. He found a
haemorrhagic gastro-enteritis with inflammation of Peyer’s patches and
the mesenteric glands, a haemorrhagic nephritis and, above all,
endocarditic and myocarditic lesions which permitted him to diagnose the
chronic form of swine-fever (rouget du porc).The absence of erythema allowed one to think of
“white swine-fever”. Bacteriological analyses confirmed the
diagnosis by the presence of Bacillus rhusiopathiae suis.
When a piggery is infected one gives serotherapy,
not only to the small number infected but to all the pigs, as a
preventive measure. That is why he proceeded, on the 4th of February, to
immunize to the full by the appropriate serum, which he had sent for
expressly from Bern from the Federal Institute of Hygiene. Eight to
fifty cc. of serum were injected into each animal according to its
weight. Result: Two days later they found eight pigs newly infected and
showing clonic convulsions. A bleeding at the ear was ordered, to reduce
congestion of the nervous centres. Ferreol noticed that the blood of the
animals in convulsions did not flow until after several seconds, which
confirmed his diagnosis of a chronic form of swine-fever of which
endocarditis is the principal manifestation. The symptoms abated after
bleeding and he waited for the effects of his immunization. Two days
later he was sent for urgently and found the swine-keeper distracted,
his cutlass in his hand, ready to kill the eight animals of whom we have
been speaking, all of whom were again going into convulsions. Another
pig, fifty kilos in weight, a new case, struggled into the passageway,
laid down on its back and remained in opisthotonos two hours.Having lost confidence, the proprietor summoned
another veterinary secretly, who confirmed the diagnosis and declared
peremptorily that the cases were lost, all treatment hopeless, and the
only thing to do was to cut the throats of all the sick animals as soon
as possible. There was the situation!It was, then, a question of an infections condition
due to a specific bacillus; the diagnosis was perfectly clear. The
treatment had been conducted according to modern knowledge of this
condition, and the results were completely negative. The verdict was
formal: To sacrifice these animals since science declared them
incurable.Ah! We may well repeat the classic phrase of
Hahnemann: “When it is a question of the sacred art of curing, to
neglect to learn is a crime”!Here it was not a question of human lives but of
animals which must be saved because the financial loss was great. All
these young animals had cost a great deal to raise and now, although
they were still too young for the butcher, it was necessary to
kill them. The infection had spread to these nine new cases and
others would follow. You can judge of the state of mind of the
proprietor and the caretaker. It was these cases which Dr. Ferreol put
up to me, on which to prove to him the value of homoeopathy. I accepted
the challenge.The symptoms then were:
1. The rapidity of invasion, when all the animals had
seemingly good health.2. Convulsions in young subjects.
3. Active congestion as observed by autopsy.
4. The disease showing grave symptoms of the nervous
and arterial systems.5. The absence of rash (possibly the cause of the
convulsive symptoms).All these can be found literally in the same words
pages 32, 34, 36 and 41 of the first volume of Guiding Symptoms
published in 1879 by Dr. Hering, an allopath converted to homoeopathy,
these symptoms having been produced by Aconitum napellus.
BelladonnaAs Belladonna possesses a great analogy in its
toxicology to the symptoms above indicated, I proposed to make the
following experiment:1. To give ten drops of a solution of Aconite
in the 200th centisimal dilution in a glass of water, one coffeespoonful
(one single dose) to four pigs which were to be marked with a red cross
of the back.2. To give ten drops of a solution of Belladonna
in the 200th centesimal dilution in a glass of water, one coffeespoonful
(one single dose) to three pigs to be marked with a black cross.3. To leave one pig without a mark and without
medicine, as a control.4. To give ten drops of Aconite in the 200th
to the 50 kilogram pig which was lying in opisthotonos in the middle of
the stable.
AconitumAll this was carried out exactly. It was very
interesting that exactly twenty seconds after the single dose of Aconite
the convulsions of the pig stretched out on her back ceased, leaving the
caretaker open-mouthed before this incredible spectacle! The beast
remained stretched out for five hours perfectly calm. After this length
of time she got up unaided, went to the trough and ate her food as if
nothing had ever happened. The attacks were not renewed and the animal
has been in perfect health ever since. (This 200th dilution, gentlemen,
was prepared by me and was not one of those high dilutions concerning
which one is ignorant of its origin and especially of its mode of
preparation. It was not a tincture of Aconite succussed two
hundred times, but a preparation made according to the Hahnemannian
rules. diluted two hundred times and vigorously shaken at each dilution.
The tincture used as a base had been made from plants gathered in the
high Jura mountains in a moist, cold place a little before the time of
complete flowering.)A fortuitous case, a case due to chance, you say, but
listen to the next: All the pigs which had received either Aconite or
Belladonna ceased their convulsions almost instantaneously, but the
next day two of the pigs with a black cross had convulsions again, tonic
but not clonic this time, and much less violent than heretofore. As
these did not seem to be decreasing we gave to the two relapsing pigs,
on the 21st of Feb. 1928, a coffeespoonful of the solution of Aconite
200th ten drops in a glass of water. (The recurrence of the
convulsions proved that the Belladonna was not sufficiently
similar to the case to hold.) The reception of the veterinary
this time was very different, confidence was restored, the battle was
won.Forty-eight hours after the administration of the Aconite
the most perfect calm reigned in the piggery. However, on the
morrow, there was a hurry call to autopsy one pig which had suddenly
died. It proved to be none other than the unmarked pig who was the
control. All the others were in good health.One month after this interesting experiment (for it
well deserves the name) there was a very slight relapse among the eight
pigs which had been treated. A new dose of Acon. 200 was
accordingly administered. The little piglets, born of the last animals
who contracted the swine-fever (rouget) but previously cured by
the Acon., perished one after another at their birth, which meant
a severe loss for the proprietor. The autopsy done on most of the
cadavers and the bacteriological analysis showed the same disease which
the mothers had, so we gave at birth to all subsequent piglets a dose of
Acon. 200. One week afterward, out of eleven treated but one died; the
other ten, thanks to the Acon., began to grow fat and had no
attacks. Fifteen days later they told us that one pig among the last
group treated had had a violent tonic convulsion lasting a quarter of an
hour. Another of the same litter had had to be killed in the midst of a
convulsion, in extremis. At the autopsy the essential organs were
found normal but an enormous haematoma was discovered accompanied by
deviation of the spinal column at the level of the eighth dorsal
vertebra. Several piglets perished despite Acon. On examining
each case, one after another, we found that after eight days they were
having fewer crises and one could not deny the helpful action of Acon.,
as, before its intervention, more than thirty pigs had died in a
week. But homoeopathy was not at the end of its resources and we knew
that when Acon. has exhausted its action, in order to get
a deeper action, one must employ what ‘s called its “chronic”,
which, in this instance, was Sulphur in the 200th centesimal dilution,
which we gave to all the pigs who where ill, or who had been so. It is
now three months and the result is marvelous. There has been neither
death nor infection since the chronic dose.These grave cases, incurable by ordinary methods,
were, then, cured by high homoeopathic dilutions chosen simply in
accordance with the law of similars. The multiplicity of the cases
treated, although it did not run into the thousands, nevertheless
obliges one to think, because it illustrates and confirms the law of
similars.A case declared incurable by classic medicine does
not deserve this definite label if homoeopathy or other unofficial
therapies have not been tried. Homoeopathy does not pretend to cure all
so-called “incurable cases”, it also has its limits, but it
offers different possibilities of such a value that an honest and
conscientous doctor cannot afford to neglect them. Doses in such
dilutions could not have any action if they were not administered
according to a scientific law.
SECOND CASE:
Satyriasis and impotence: Prize bull 2 years old. This bull which had
always served well, and whose matings had been followed by gestations
had been subject recently to perverse sexual excitations. When he was
led out to the drinking fountain, for example, he would rush to the
entrance from which the cows were ordinarily let out for mating, and,
then, when he saw that it was not for that reason that he was led out of
the stable, he would rush back again and masturbate by friction of his
hind legs until ejaculation occured. His keeper said that he did this
two or three times a day. In addition, whenever a cow was brought to
him, although the erection took place it was impossible for him to
perform intromission and the ejaculation did not occur despite his
marked excitation. This state of affairs meant a considerable financial
loss to his owner, for a prize bull, although very expensive and used
only for reproduction, will bring from the butcher a comparatively
negligible price. Allopathically these cases are considered incurable,
the only way out being castration, which would mean the negation of his
main value.This condition of general excitation associated with
impotence and onanism responds admirably, however, to a homoeopathic
remedy which has brought out similar symptoms on healthy men:
Delphinium staphysagria. Accordingly Staph. 200, a single
dose, in globules, was given him in the morning by Dr. Ferreol. Four
days afterwards he was in excellent condition and able to mate normally
to the great relief of his owner and veterinary. You can judge what this
cure was worth when I tell you that this bull had been bought for $
600.00 and that his butcher ‘s worth would have been only $ 160.00 to $
180.00. This loss was avoided thanks to a single dose of Staph. in the
200th centisimal dilution.
Part II (p. 327 –
329)
THIRD CASE:
Motor
paralysis following distemper in a German hound dog seven months old,
sick for two months with distemper which was manifested by the usual
symptoms:Temperature.
Catarrhal symptoms of the urinary tract.
Dyspnoea
Purulent discharge from the eyes and nose.
Loss of appetite.
Diarrhoea alternating with constipation.
The owner had given various allopathic pills with
ipecac as a base, purges and syrups, without any result except the
suppression of certain symptoms and the progressive development of a
spasmodic paraplegia of the hind quarters.The striking features on examination of the dog were:
Spasmodic muscular symptoms.
Trembling of the limbs.
Marked paresis of the hind quarters.
Increased reflexes.
Symptoms only during the day.
The animal drinks little.
Aggravation from cold air.
Aggravation after motion.
Swaying, very uncertain gait.
Agaricus
muscariusRepertory study, taking into account the
non-pathognomic symptoms, done with Dr. Ferreol, showed Agaricus
muscarius as being the remedy corresponding best to the case and
alone possessing all the indicated symptoms. In fact, all these
spasmodic and paretic symptoms, associated with the curious aggravation
from cold, are found in the pathogenesy of this poisonous mushroom.June 15, 1928, we gave Agaricus muscarius 200
dilution, ten drops in a single dose.Five days after, this dog, who previously could not
go up stairs, could mount them although with difficulty. He swayed less
but he still frequently fell to the right in walking.Eleven days after the first dose ist eyes suppurated
abundantly and the owner, of course, ran to the pharmacy to buy a
collyrium which Dr. Ferreol hastened to empty down the sink! The dog no
longer fell, although he still tottered a little; he could mount the
stairs without difficulty, run, jump and play with other dogs; his
general condition was much improved.
Agaricus
being supposed to act forty days, and
the ameloriation having been progressive from the time of the first
medication, we allowed the remedy to act and simple advised bathing the
eyes with boiled water. Fifteen days after the first dose the animal was
cured.On july 13, 1928, four weeks after the first dose, we
again saw the animal who was marvelously well: He walked, ran and
behaved like a normal dog. His eyes still discharging a little but we
ordered no local treatment as that is a natural vent for distemper which
we knew ought to be respected.All veterinaries know the progressive evolution and
the gravidity of of the nervous sequelae of distemper. This cure was
complete, patent and permanent.Was the 200 centissimal dilution of Agaricus too weak
to act in this case? Is this not the confirmation of the law of the
similars? A verification of the symptoms of this dangerous mushroom? A
proof of the undeniable action of high dilutions when they are
administered according to Hahnemannian rules? And a plain demonstration
that a single dose is entirely sufficient to cure even a severe case, if
one knows enough to give the organism time to react to the action of the
remedy administered?Although insufficient from the point of view of
numbers, the two cases cited in the previous issue together with this
case, which were experiments rigorously conducted, admirably illustrate
this great general law, the law of similars. This therapeutic law has an
inconceivable bearing on cure; and the imperious necessity of plumbing
it and giving it the place of honor which it merits in therapeutics, is
none other than the crown and object of medical work. It is this law,
together with the cases which have permitted ist establishment and
confirmed it, which gives to homoeopathy the right to be a science and a
therapeutic method. Medicaments applied according to this law and
studied along Hahnemannian lines become positive substances whose action
on healthy men and whose application to the sick are no longer variables
as they are in allopatic therapeutics. No sooner have the remedies of
the so-called official school had their burst into prominence and been
proclaimed so marvelous at their debut, then they rapidly arrive at
their period of decline and disappear without leaving behind them, most
of the time, any traces except their inconveniences, one could even say,
with the French pharmacologist Pouchet, “…their bad
results”.On the contrary homoeopathic remedies are not subject
to the influence of style or an extravagant modernism; once firmly
established by experimentation they become medicaments and the
homoeopathic physician who know them and use them remain constant to
them.Hahnemann said, in his Prolegomenon to the treatise
on Materia Medica Pura, written in French in 1834:Homoeopathy rests entirely on experience. Imitate
me, says she out loud, but imitate me well, and you will see at each
step the confirmation of my claim. That which no materia medica, no
system of medicine, no therapeutics has done or has been able to do
heretofore, she loudly demands: to be judged according to results.Homoeopathy has never pretended to cure diseases
by the same power as that which produced them; she wishes to do it
by a power which is not identical but simply analogous, by a
medicament which can only produce a morbid condition analogous to
the disease.Take cases of illness one after another, describe
them in the order outlined in the Organon; paint them so well
to all their perceptible symptoms that the author of homoeopathy,
himself, could have no criticism of the exactitude of your picture;
and, supposing that these cases are among those for which one can
find a remedy in the medicines already proved today, select the
medicinal substance which is the most appropriate, homoeopathically
speaking; give it alone and unmixed, in doses as weak as the
doctrine precribes, while removing all other medicinal influences;
and if the patient is not cured, if he is not cured promptly, if he
is not cured gently, if he is not cured in a durable way, cover
homoeopathy publicly with shame, while proclaiming the failure of a
treatment rigorously followed according to ist own principles. But
abstain, I beg you, from all mistakes.If, after you have acted in good faith, others no
less conscientious than yourself arrive at the same results in
repeating your experiments, if al that homoeopathy promises to him
who follows it faithfully is not made good, then this doctrine can
be considered as of no account.Do you know any better method of disproving this
doctrine which only needs to appeal to good sense and to minds free
from prejudice in order to find access everywhere? Do you wish to
obtain the same successes? Imitate me freely and loyally.Pierre Schmidt, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Ó
Copyright 2001: Übersetzung mit freundlicher
Genehmigung der
Fondation Pierre Schmidt, St. Gallen, Schweiz.
Thomas Mickler
