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DISCUSSION
W.S. Hatfield: When is it not right to depend
upon the homoeopathic remedy?
Stuart Close: I did not specify any particular condition, but I
can imagine a condition that might demand relief, or release from
suffering, by means of a suitable dose of morphine or chloroform.
I can say that only on two occasions have I ever met such a condition.
One was a case of uremic convulsions in the terminal stage of chronic
interstitial nephritis, immediately preceding inevitable death,
and the other was a case of severe traumatism from instrumental
delivery of an acephalous monstrosity.
P.E. Krichbaum: I have never found anything better
to produce comfort in the dying hours than the homoeopathic remedy.
If the patient demands on opiate, they must go elsewhere because
I do not use anything but the homoeopathic remedy.
W.S. Hatfield: I believe that the homoeopathic
remedy is always equal to the occasion; I have found it to be so.
Carbo veg. given in extremis either saves the patient or allows
them to die easy.
H.L. Houghton: A year ago last winter I treated
a little frail woman for pneumonia; she already had progressive
arthritis deformans. Phosphorus was her remedy as it turned out
after studying her symptoms a while. She told me a very similar
story to that related by Dr. Close, as happening twenty years ago.
Does he think that the shouting did it or the Arsenicum?
J.F. Roemer: The adjuvant remedies that were used
in the case of the sea captain should be emphasized. I do not believe
for a moment that the doctor could have cured him unless he had
had the co-operation of the patient and his wife.
E.A. Taylor: In regard to the shouting as to whether
it did good or not there need be no trouble. At any rate it did
not interfere with the action of the homoeopathic remedy. I was
impressed with the point the doctor made when he said that we need
not all be experts; we need not be experts, if we know the principles
of Homoeopathy and do the best we can, we can do better than by
any other known method whether we are experts or not. I was displeased
with the circular that our officers sent out to us because it spoke
of the members of this society as therapeutics specialists. We are
physicians and surgeons. Therapeutics is the most important part
of medicine; what do we do most in general practice? Is it not to
get the indicated remedy? We are called upon to prescribe for symptoms
twenty times as often as we are called on to do surgery. Those who
practice Homoeopathy should qualify themselves to practice it. The
way for us to do is to go at the problem in a plain sensible way,
take the case as well as possible, and then follow the plain directions
of Hahnemann; we may not always get the simillimum, but we will
get a remedy that will be similar enough to help the patient and
will never do any damage such as may be done by some of these new
fashioned fads.
G.E. Dienst: The point is, will Homoeopathy do
as well for the patient in emergency cases as the old school will?
Is the indicated remedy as efficacious in severe hemorrhages, post-partum
and others as are the expedients of the old school? In traumatisms?
Dislocations? Fractures? Violent vomiting of blood? I simply ask
these questions without attempting to answer them.
A.P. Bowie: All who ask such questions as those,
should get hold of the recent work by Edmund Carleton, a man who
was a surgeon of the first class. He will tell you in that book
how his homoeopathic treatment helped him in his surgery. Dr. Carleton
has gone, but he has left us a legacy that is worth its weight in
gold.
Lawrence M. Stanton: A patient in such a state
of collapse that death seems imminent may be said to be an emergency
case. Such a case, the heart beats not audible, water rolling into
his stomach with audible gurgling as into a paper bag, was given
Laurocerasus and made a complete recovery. I think that beats any
vaccine.
Julia M. Green: A case of nine got into an extreme
condition and it seemed would have died until it dawned upon me
that it was a complete picture of Opium which produced a favorable
reaction and recovery. I was asked to report it at a meeting and
did so. After reading it they all crowded around me and said, that
is all right but I could not have done it.
C.M. Boger: it is well not to make up one's mind
as to what Homoeopathy is capable of doing or not doing and always
await an extension of its possibilities. Careful and conscientious
prescribing does greater and still greater things with our remedies.
Our new hospital superintendent found a lot of old uncured cases
had been dumped there. Among them a case of syphilis in a woman
who had been infected eighteen years before. Some eight months ago
she had had an attack of grippe followed by myelitis and contracture
of the hamstrings; the lower limbs were firmly flexed on the thighs,
hands clenched and she had the argyll-Robertson pupil. She could
not even sit up in bed. She now received a daily massage and a single
dose of Pulsatilla 1M. In three weeks she was better; in seven weeks
she was dressed and sitting at the window, after which complete
recovery gradually followed.
G.E. Dienst: I want to say for myself that I asked
the question in order to bring out this very discussion. Personally
I have had very little trouble with emergency cases. The indicated
remedy will do more than all the thousand that are not indicated.
A child was sent to me from Wisconsin; the child was losing rapidly.
I tried to find symptoms but could not. The weight had fallen from
twelve to five pounds. I prescribed as best I could without result,
when the family moved to Lockport. They sent for me and told me
to bring a death certificate. I found the child nearly gone. It
was so weak that when I pulled the eyelid down it could not raise
it up. Finally I asked the mother what she ate while she was carrying
the child. I found out that she had an inordinate craving for salt.
Only one dose of Natrum muriaticum was needed. He is a big boy now.
Geo. G. Starkey: I am emboldened to add a stone
to the pile that has been heaped up here from the experience of
many. A little boy of five years was the patient. He was in a tremble,
uncertain of movement, could not walk straight, staggering, running
into the door-frame when trying to go through; easily crying, eyes
rolling; some nystagmus; getting rapidly worse. Legs were giving
away, yet he wanted to climb things. It looked like Friedreich's
ataxia. Phosphorus caused a slight improvement. Dr. Kent helped
me to see that Alumina was indicated and in the 10m after a slight
aggravation it helped promptly. In a few weeks, he was a well child.
Stuart Close: I can only endorse Dr. Bowie's suggestion
about the excellence of the posthumous work of Dr. Carleton. I hope
that every member of this association will send to Boericke and
Tafel for a copy and read it as they would their bibles. It will
do more to strengthen Homoeopathy than any other book that has been
published within the last twenty-five years. As to Dr. Houghton's
question I may say that I did not "shout", I merely spoke
in an ordinary tone of voice, and it was not at all to sustain my
own courage; thought of myself never entered my mind. I never felt
more exultant and confident nor have I ever had a keener inward
sense of power and efficiency than I had when I entered that room.
The course that I pursued was entirely without premeditation although
I saw afterward that I had followed physiological lines and dynamical
principles in beginning with the smallest muscle in the upper part
of the organism, the upper eyelid.
While I understand Dr. Taylor's and Dr. Houghton's attitude towards
anything that savors of mysticism, I believe that everything I did
was necessary to recall that patient and save her from dissolution;
it was necessary to relax those rigid muscles, to awaken her attention,
and to arouse in some way her desire and will to live. She had died
in her mind; the victim of ignorance and error; she had been surrounded
by those who thought that she was dying, and said so in her presence.
The depressing psychical influence had brought on slowly what is
brought on rapidly in those cases of hazing in our colleges, where
students are sometimes told that they are being bled to death, and
while blindfolded, the arm is scratched and water poured slowly
down so that they imagine they feel the blood trickling down. Death
from fright has occurred in such cases. My patient was dying because
psychical traumatism was an element in her condition as well as
physical disease.
Psychical treatment was as necessary as medicine. I used a combination
of physical manipulation, psychical control and drug action, and
I am certain that she would have passed away never to return if
I had omitted any of them. |