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A boy aged 16 years from a poor family was brought to us with a
complaint of acute pain and tumor like swelling on posterior aspect
of right thigh following injury, with no external signs of any injury.
He had fallen from a bicycle in his native place and had been injured
in the right thigh about 4 weeks back. He was treated by a local
doctor. After 1 week of mild pain very severe excruciating pain
started occurring at the place of injury and he was again treated
with anti-inflammatory tablets and painkillers. After about 15 days
he fell down whilst playing and got injured at the very same place.
He started getting severe excruciating pain at the same place every
evening for which he was hospitalized and had to be given painkiller
injections every day. He then came to Mumbai on a vacation and stayed
with his elder brothers. He was one of four brothers. Father had
expired 10 years back. Mother was working hard to earn a living.
He was one of the twins. The other twin brother was very close to
him. They were very attached to each other and he could not stay
without him but as the twin brother was not good in studies, he
discontinued his studies and came to Mumbai for work. This boy was
very good and sincere in studies and stayed back in his native place.
After this separation (4 years back) this boy became sad, quiet,
never talked to anybody, sulked and had gradually developed low
fever almost daily.
He was afraid of his eldest brother who was strict and occasionally
got a beating from him. This boy was a brilliant student and scored
well in languages. He did not like mathematics and would get low
marks, which was the only reason for him to be punished. In his
native place he never talked to anybody except his mother after
the departure of his twin brother. He was so reserved and secretive
that when he came down to Mumbai on vacation he did not even disclose
to his elder brothers that he had an injury or was hospitalized
prior to coming. It was only because of his limping gait that the
brothers came to know about his injury. Within 3 days of arrival
the pains increased so much that he had to be hospitalized in Mumbai
again. There was no fracture detected but the allopathic treatment
was not able to give him relief. Probability of osteo-sarcoma loomed
large and hence they were contemplating a major surgery.
When the child was brought to us in the outpatient department,
this child sat with his head down hardly looking up and hardly talking
to us. Answers were given in monosyllables without looking up. He
was short and thin even at this age of 16 years compared to his
twin brother who was almost double his height. He had stopped growing
after his brother left the village & came to the city. He refused
to comment on what he felt after his brother left.
His personal likes and dislikes were very clear. He hated cold
weather, as he could not tolerate it at all. He hated sun, which
gave him headaches. He was completely thirstless and had strong
aversion to milk.
HISTORY PROBING:
It is often useful for us to probe the immediate cause thoroughly.
The injury to thigh-history is simply not sufficient. The way or
circumstances during the injury and the reaction of that boy to
it tells you so many things about his constitution. The boy was
asked how he fell down from the cycle
- Was he learning to cycle? Or was he pushed down by somebody?
- Or was he trying to do acrobatics? Was he rash?
- Was he trying to knock somebody else down in mischief. After
he fell down what did he do?
- Did he just pick up the cycle and start riding again?
- Did he get so angry on the cycle that he started kicking the
cycle? Or did he get up and bang the cycle tyre against the wall?
- Did he get so frightened that he did not get up from there and
called for help or did he just let the cycle be there and go home
and cry?
He just got up, picked up the cycle, returned it to the owner,
paid his dues for an hour though he had cycled only for half an
hour, and went home.
Even if it is an injury or bad effects from injury a genuine Homeopath
would like to ascertain what constitution the patient or the injured
man is likely to be. The knowledge of constitution will let him
know predictively, how the bone is going to behave on being injured
and it is the knowledge of the reaction or behaviour of the
injured person, which is going to help him assess the constitution.
It is so easy to prescribe Arnica, three times a day or Symphytum
or Ruta or Calc-fl. etc. repeatedly. These will act only if the
injury is not grave and it has not had a constitutional effect and
grown or is threatening to grow into malignancy. Nor can it prevent
the constitution from developing into rheumatoid arthritis etc.
Hence the sphere of action of the use of such acute injury drugs
prescribed on the history of injury alone and not having a matching
general, mental, particular picture shall be of help only in psoric
constitutions where the constitution is strong enough to resist
any suppressions. In such cases it has been seen by me that it is
always better to let the patient's constitution recover by itself
rather than interfere, so the best possible result is achieved by
keeping the patient on placebo. Injury to joints, say knees, treated
blindly with Arnica montana or Bryonia alba or Rhus tox have inadvertently
or unknowingly been seen to proceed after a primary relief of pain
into lumbo-sacral spondylitis and further either into widespread
multi-joint arthritis or progressively changing into a different
sphere say cardio-vascular (3rd layer to 4th layer of suppression)
and the patient starts exhibiting hypertension or ischaemic heart
disease. The Arnica-Bryonia-Rhus tox prescriber is blissfully unaware
of such a symptom transfer which is of his own making, primarily.
This is because of blatant violation or bending of homoeopathic
law of cure - 'Similia Similibus Curantur!'. The symptom similarity,
if one argues, is only local. Every individual or every constitution
gives back a reaction to an injury befitting its basic nature. This
reaction is individual not only at the level of mentals (i.e. the
attitude towards suffering) but also at physical level i.e. at the
level how tissue will behave or react to the injury. This in turn
is wholly dependent on the predominant miasm which is ruling the
constitution at that time.
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