Saturday, April 28, 2018

A LAW OF NATURE - Dr. W. Jefferson Guernsey, M. D.

If additional proof is needed to confirm the truth of our belief, that the maxim " similia similibus curantur " is based upon a law of nature, we find yet another illustration of the point in an able article on Hystcro-Epilepsy by Chas. K. Mills, M. D., in the October number of the American Journal of Medical Sciences. 

One section thereof reads as follows: Brown-Sequard has shown that some lesions of the spinal cord, of the medulla oblongata and of the nerves, especially the sciatic, will determine, in lower animals, the production of an affection in which manifestations, which approach closely those of epilepsy, show themselves a certain number of days after experimental traumatism. These animals, thus rendered epileptic, are sometimes attacked with convulsions spontaneously; but it is possible also to provoke these attacks by exciting a certain region of the skin which Brown-Sequard designates as the epileptogenic zone. This zone, situated on the same side of the body as the nervous lesion, has its seat about the angle of the lower jaw and extends toward the eye and the lateral region of the neck. 

The skin of this region is a little less sensitive than that of the opposite side, but touching it most lightly provokes epileptic convulsions. The simple act of breathing or blowing on it brings about the same result. Something analogous to this epileptogenic zone has been noticed among hystero-epileptics. Simply touching the region is sufficient to provoke an attack, and this is more easily done if near the time of spontaneous seizure. 

After the grave attacks, the excitability seems to be exhausted, and pressure in the zone indicated does not cause any convulsive phenomena. In some cases these zones are double—it is necessary to touch two symmetrical points in order to bring on the convulsion. Touching but one has no effect in these cases. These zones occupy diverse points of the skin and of the deeper-seated parts, and, if they vary in different patients, they always occupy the same place in the same case. They are found on the trunk exclusively, more frequently in front than behind; in front, they occupy lateral positions and are double and symmetrical; behind they are more often single and median. They exist more frequently to the left than the right, and the unilateral zones have always been met with on the left side. Ovarian pressure gives rise to spasmodic attacks; the same pressure arrests them. 

What is true of ovarian compression is equally true of all hysterogenic zones. A slight touch brings on the convulsions, which have scarcely commenced when they can be stopped by a new excitation of the same point.When a patient possesses several hysterogenic zones, the attack occasioned by an exciting of one can be arrested by acting upon another.''

The treatment of frost-bite with snow, of burns by heat, and intlammation by hot fomentations, are daily practices in the allopathic school, and although crude in their way, are, nevertheless, more successful than any other means known to them, and certainly homoeopathic in principle, as also is the temporary relief of hysteroepileptic convulsions in the manner above cited. Why will not allopaths accept the suggestions of Dame Nature, and investigate a svstem of medicine based thereon?

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Case of Intermittent Fever - Dr. Ad. Lippe, M. D.

On the morning of the 2d of November, I was summoned to see Mrs. C, set. fifty years. In early life, this lady resided on the banks of Delaware, and with the other residents in that locality, suffered very severely from intermittent fever, and still more from enormous doses of Quinine, administered year after year for the suppression of that disease. For more than twenty years she has been under homoeopathic treatment, and the admonitory symptoms of chills and fever returned gradually with less severity every spring and autumn. For the last ten years, they were very light, only occasionally reminding her of her previous sufferings; her brain and spleen which had been injured severely from former overdoses were now in an almost normal condition. Early in October, while on a visit to West Point, on the Hudson River, she was exposed to the then prevailing malarial influences, and began to feel bad. 

Returning to Philadelphia, she suffered, first, from diminished appetite, followed by frequently returning watery, but painless diarrhea, for which she took no remedy, hoping that the disease would be carried off in that way. On the night of the 1st of November, she felt very cold on retiring to bed, and was awakened about 2 a. m., by a very heavy chill which made her teeth chatter; she had to rise, feeling nausea and a desire to have a stool, and went to the water-closet back of the back chamber.

After a very profuse watery evacuation, she tried to walk to the front chamber, but on reaching the door, was overcome by weakness and fell to the floor. She chattered and shook all over from the chill, became stiff" and icy cold to the touch, and, in an unconscious state, was carried to bed. The heat was applied and when consciousness returned she was totally blind, not being able to see the strongest gaslight. About 4 a. m., the fever set in and she fell into a dose, her breathing very much oppressed. When I saw her at 9 A. m., she was suffering from extreme prostration; was not aware of her unconsciousness at night but remembered the blindness. She complained that the external and icy coldness was not to be compared with the icy coldness she had felt about the heart, that even then she felt cold and pain about the heart, that she had a slight headache and backache, and no perspiration after the slight fever heat. The pulse was very weak, irregular, small and less than fifty beats in a minute. She had a dry mouth but no thirst, aversion to food, and her position in bed clearly showed her intense debility, of which she complained bitterly. She received one dose of Natrum Mur.CM (Fk.) dry on the tongue. 


When I saw her at 7 p. m., November 2d, she had perspired slightly during the day, the tongue and mouth felt less dry, no thirst, pulse over sixty beats in a minute and more regular. 

November 3d, she was feeling better, and her condition continued to improve without further medication. 

On the 6th of November, I dined with her at 6 p. m., the lady occupying her usual place at the head of the table. She required no further treatment.


Comments. - There were present three characteristic symptoms of Nat. Mur. : Coldness about the heart, blindness, and unconsciousness during the chill; and great prostration. Adding to these characteristic symptoms, the irregularity of the pulse, and her exposure to malaria, the choice was very easy; while Camphor and Gelsemium had some of her symptoms, the totality of them could be found only under Nat. mur. Then came to be considered the possibility of a return of the chill in twelve, twenty-four or forty-eight hours, and the great danger to her life from such a recurrence; for she expressed herself as not able to endure such another chill, which surpassed anything she had ever experienced.

Just in such very grave cases does our true healing-art show itself to the greatest advantage, and it never becomes necessary to fly to other means than those offered us inside of our exclusive school of therapeutics. Shall we listen to the seductive voice of public teachers who in such cases claim that it is not only the duty but the privilege of the homeopathic physician to administer massive doses of Quinine to prevent a possibly fatal return of such a chill? We positively decline to listen to such weak teachers ! If we are true to Homoeopathy it will be true to us—that is our experience; no matter how men may bluster who never tried the experiment. 

Let them say that a case like this was not cured by the homoeopathic remedy faithfully administered ; let them say that the curative virtue of medicines is limited to a certain fixed potency ; let them call us hide-bound transcendentalists; let them babble about the absurdities of an exclusive dogma and the limits to the applicability of homoeopathic practice, all of it will not do away with facts, stubborn facts. Such talk only proves the utter incompetency of a set of illogical and ignorant fault-finders, whose only desire is to drag the noble healing-art and the healers down into the detestable mire of eclecticism, which suits them well.

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Thomas Skinner and His Machine - The Fluxion Potentiser (F.C.)


Thomas Skinner, MD

August 11, 1825- October 11, 1906

Educated in medicine at Edinburgh University, Skinner was an outspoken critic of homeopathy. After becoming ill and having to give up his practice to preserve his health, he was treated by Dr. Edward Berridge who had trained in the USA at Hahnemann Medical College. Skinner was given an MM dose of Sulphur and had a complete recovery.

He dove into homeopathy whole-heartedly. He studied homeopathy under Berridge, and read Hahnemann's three major works— The Organon, The Materia Medica Pura, and The Chronic Diseases. When he felt secure in his homeopathic practice he announced his changed practice and resigned from the Liverpool Medical Institute— which prohibited the membership of homeopaths through a law put into place years earlier by Skinner himself.

Skinner attended the International Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and upon his return to England he founded (with Edward Berridge in the UK and Adolph Lippe and Samuel Swan in the USA) The Organon— "An Anglo-American Journal of Homoeopathic Medicine and Progressive Collateral Science." Although it ceased publication after the first issue of Volume 4 in 1881, it became the pacesetter for journals devoted to pure Hahnemannian homeopathy that followed— the Homoeopathic Physician and The Medical Advance.

Skinner practiced in Liverpool, England. He was, in the words of H. C. Allen, "probably the best prescriber in Britain."

He died two weeks after injuring himself in a fall when he slipped on a banana peel.


Skinner's Machine

The "Skinner Centesimal Fluxion Potentiser" was first described in an article by Thomas Skinner, MD in "The Organon (Vol. I, p. 45)."


Very early on, Skinner was unsure if it was the dilution or the succussion which was the deciding factor in preparing remedies. He conducted an experiment in which he took a two-dram vial, and placed in it one drop of Sulphur tincture. He then filled the vial slowly. He then emptied it and repeated the process a thousand times. When the next patient arrived that needed Sulphur, he gave a dose of the potency he had prepared. The patient had such a strong reaction that it had to be antidoted.



This was the starting point of developing a machine that would prepare remedies by a similar process.

The machine was designed to be used over a wash-basin in a doctor's office. The water supply from the faucet was attached to the machine and provided the motive power through the "water wheel." The machine held two potentizing vials. The vials had a spherical bottom and each held just 100 minims of liquid. The water supply was adjusted (with the stop-cocks) so that the vial was filled with 100 minims of water before overturning quickly and forcibly ejecting the contents into the sink and down the drain.

In theory, one drop was left adhering to the wall of the vial. The vial what then returned to the upright position and the process repeated.

Dr. Skinner wrote that because of all the ways of adjusting the water flow of the machine, that there was "no difficulty obtaining mathematical certainty" in the potencies.

The machine could make 50 potencies a minute, 8,000 an hour, 72,000 per day, and a 100,000 (CM) in about 33 hours. An MM (a 1,000,000) could be made in 330 hours or 14 days.

He said that his "Fluxion Centesimal" (F.C.) potencies are made "by a process such as Hahnemann himself, if he could witness them, would highly approve, because all the essential points are most scrupulously observed and greatly improved upon, whilst time has enormously economized, and error is next to an impossibility, so perfect are the methods used."

Skinner's original machine is on display at the Faculty of Homeopathy Library in London.

In about 1900, Boericke & Tafel installed a Skinner Machine in their pharmacy.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Edward William Berridge 1844 – 1920

Edward William Berridge 1844 – 1920 was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy. Edward Berridge trained at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1864 and then traveled to America to study at the Homeopathic College of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1869.

Berridge was a founding member of the *International Hahnemannian Association. Edward Berridge found his homeopathic feet in America, forging contacts with Edward Bayard and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who recommended him highly. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was in London in 1883, when she consulted David Wilson, Edward William Berridge and Mary J Hall (?-?), the only woman practicing homeopathy in Britain at this time (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ann Dexter Gordon (Ed.), Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony: When Clowns Make Laws for Queens, 1880 to 1887, (Rutgers University Press, 25 Sep 2006). Page 297).

Berridge cured Thomas Skinner of his debilitating ill health and converted him to homeopathy. Thomas Skinner stayed with Berridge at Thomas Lake Harris‘s Fountain Grove commune, where offered a commendation for the wine served there ‘… It possesses peculiar nourishing and vitalizing properties and it is certainly the most delicious wine of the kind I have ever tasted… (advertising flyer from the commune ?dated 1870s)…’)

Berridge was most influenced by Thomas Lake Harris and Alice Bunker Stockham‘s Tokology A Book For Every Woman and Karezza Ethics of Marriage. Berridge was also the homeopath of Andrew John Jukes (1815- 1901) (James Gregory, Reformers, Patrons, and Philanthropists, (Taurus Academic Studies, 2010). Page 160).

Edward Berridge was a member of The Golden Dawn and ‘assumed a position of importance‘ there, supporting Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers within the Order, and opening an Isis-Urania Temple Number 3 with Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers‘s blessing and acting as his representative. Edward Berridge was a follower of Thomas Lake Harris and Andrew Jackson Davis.


From http://www.answers.com/topic/edward-berridge Edward Berridge returned to England in the 1870s and founded an Adventist organization called the Brotherhood of the New Life, devoted to the “reorganization of the industrial world.” He was also interested in psychosexual theories and practices in relation to the occult.


Edward Berridge cured, taught & influenced Thomas Skinner. He was an early ‘Kentian’ prescriber


The Kentian influence also came to these shores with Robert Gibson Miller in Glasgow, who studied with James Tyler Kentian 1884 in St Louis.

Robert Gibson Miller, in turn, began to influence UK practice chiefly in Scotland, from where the ‘high potency habit’ formed a separate and parallel strand to that centered mainly in Liverpool with John James Drysdale and Edward William Berridge.


Edward Berridge graduated MB BS London 1867, and MD Homeopathic College of Pennsylvania 1869, post-graduate school of homeopathy 1892, Member International Hahnemannian Association 1880, Member Hahnemann Academy of New York 1875, Medical Officer at Liverpool Homeopathic Dispensary 1868-9.

Berridge is widely acknowledged as one of the most important teachers of homeopathy in England and especially in Liverpool. He was a high potency prescriber who had trained in Philadelphia. He trained John Henry Clarke, James Compton Burnett, Thomas Skinner, Giles Forward Goldsborough and many others.

He is also very typical in the fact that he held formally accepted British medical qualifications as well as those in homeopathy from the USA. Almost a ‘belt and braces’ approach which guaranteed him to work on both sides of the Atlantic if he so wished.


The Organon Journal 1878 – 1881 Though in existence for only a short period of time, The Organon Journal was one of the most important homeopathic publications of the 19th century. It was edited by Adolph Lippe, Samuel Swan, Thomas Skinner and Edward Berridge. Cured cases were presented based on sound principles, and materia medica was derived from provings, augmented with clinical experience.


Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers then appointed Edward Berridge as his representative, who proceeded to begin working the ceremonies and rites of The Golden Dawn in West London as early as 1903… historical evidence shows that there were “twenty-three members of a flourishing Second Order under Berridge-Mathers in 1913.”


Edward Berridge joined The Golden Dawn in May 1889, taking the magical name “Respiro” and the motto “Resurgam” (I shall rise again). He associated with the London members who supported Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, including Aleister Crowley, who later ridiculed Berridge with typical malice in his Confessions and under the name “Dr. Balloch” in the novel The Moonchild.

Edward Berridge wrote Complete repertory to the homeopathic materia medica. Diseases of the eyes, The Pathogenetic Record: An Arrangement of the Pathological & Toxicological … , The Brotherhood of the New Life; an Epitome of the Work and Teaching of … , Heart disease cured with Gelsemium and many journal articles, A Repertory to the Materia Medica, and he did many drug provings, including cannabis indica and medorrhinum.

*International Hahnemannian Association 1880 – 1959 published Transactions annually from 1880 – 1927 when the International Hahnemannian Association absorbed the Homeopathic Recorder (a publication the International Hahnemannian Association had been associated with since at least as early as 1898 and previously published by Boericke and Tafel), and thus the Homeopathic Recorder became the main publication of the International Hahnemannian Association. Julian Winston2003. Proceedings were also published by the International Hahnemannian Association as early as 1901.

A case Piles - Dr. E. W. Berridge, M. D.,

—November 23d, 1871. Mrs. set 30. Subject to piles for four or five years; two years ago they were bad for three days. Was confined seven weeks ago, and piles have been worse since; very bad for last month. They are now internal, but at first were external. During and after stool, throbbing, burning and smarting in piles, with shooting upwards which catches the breath; also dull aching in coccyx and sacrum, extending around sides of pelvis; all this lasts for six or seven hours after stool. Stool once in from two to four days, otherwise natural. The pain makes her feel faint, trembling, sick, inclined to move about, hot, and as if she would lose her senses; the pain at anus is better when -landing than when lying. Has taken, by the advice of a professed homeopathic physician, Acon., Nux 3 and Sulph. 3, without relief.

Diagnosis of the remedy.—Boenninghausen's Repertory gives " shooting in rectum stopping the breath, Sulph." This I took as the key-note or starting point and finding that this remedy corresponded fairly with the other symptoms, I gave one dose of CM (Fincke).

Nov. 29th. Piles are gone; pain much less, lasting only two hours after stool; still costive; the pain was bad yesterday, but better all the other days; much less weakness, trembling, heat, and feeling of losing senses; the shooting does not catch the breath so much.

April 10th, 1872. Perfectly recovered within a week, and has remained so to this day.

Comment*.—

(1) The value of key-notes or characteristics is here shown ; a key-note is not a symptom on which we prescribe without reference to the rest, but it is a symptom so characteristic of the remedy, that we almost always find the remaining symptoms covered by it also ; hence a knowledge of key-notes saves much trouble in the selection of a remedy.
(2) The superiority of the high over the low potencies is also shown. It also proves that Fincke's fluxion potencies are not low potencies, as some have ignorantly or maliciously asserted; else how would they cure after the bona fide low potencies failed?

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Two short cases - Dr. E. W. Berridge, M. D.

1. A headache -- March 15th, 1870. Mrs. sensation(not pain) as if the brain was gradually squeezed, then relaxed, then again squeezed, and so on ; she has had this for four days, commencing earlier each day, and lasting till she went to bed ; to-day it came on at 10 A. M. ; it makes her feel as if she would lose her senses; feeling of rush- of blood to the head ; feeling as if she squinted ; feeling as if she would fall when walking ; giddiness ; the squeezing is relieved by lying down, or by pressure with the cold hand ; aggravated by strong light, reading, writing, on looking up, and when the head is covered.

Diagnosis of the remedy.—Feeling of losing the senses (taken as the key-note because of a mental symptom): Acon., Agar., Alum., Ambr., Bov., Bry., Calc, Cann., Carb. an., Chlorum, Laur., Magn., Mag. sul., Merc, Mercurial, Mosch., Nat. m., Plat., Sepia, Sulph., Strain., Thea. 

Squeezing of Brain: Bov., Calc, Cann., Mag. s., Nat. m., Sulph. (with many others which have not the first symptom).

Head worse from looking up: Calc, Sulph.

Head worse from reading or writing, and better from lying: Calc, Nat. m.

Calc. alone corresponds to all these symptoms; it has also feeling of falling with giddiness, the rush of blood to the head, and relief from pressure with the cool hand; the rest have not as yet been found under it. 

One dose of Calc, 107 M (Fincke) was given about 4 p. m. 

March 17th. All the symptoms were better the same day; the next day nearly gone to-day quite gone.

June 1870. There has been no return. 


This case again conclusively proves the absolute necessity of having a collection of conditions. Calc. has not produced all these symptoms in combination with these conditions, but it possesses them all separately; without such a collective, how then could the remedy have been selected? It also shows that too much reliance must not be placed on concomitants; they are sometimes of value in deciding the choice between similar remedies; nevertheless, a medicine will often cure a group of symptoms if it has produced them, either separately or in other combination*-, as pointed out long ago by Constantine Hering.




2. Abdominal Complaints.—July 6th, 1871. Miss . For a week, and getting worse, pain in stomach going round to left hypochondrium and through to the back, with shooting in left hypochondrium; this comes on every day after dinner, which is at 2 P. m. Pain in stomach better by bending double; pain in back worse by deep inspiration. With the pain, yawning, faintness, chilliness, borborygmus and tasteless eructations. This afternoon there was also, with the pain, dyspnoea and wheezing for a time, and after this had passed off there was nausea in the stomach, with the objective heat of forehead and cold hands. This case illustrates the selection of the remedy according to the concomitants, which must not be neglected, though too much stress must not be laid on them. In the abdominal chapter of the Cypher Repertory, I found that Castoreum corresponded best to the above conditions. (The symptoms given by Allen are, " Pain in abdomen relieved by warmth, pressing upon and bending the body;" "Violent pain in bowels, arresting breathing, with yawning;" "Piercing pain in abdomen, with rolling about, frequently intermitting, with chilliness, from 11 a. m. to 4 p. m.") I gave one dose of 200 (Leipzig) at 10.35 p. m. The yawning decreased at once.

June 7th. Slight pain in the stomach in morning for a time ; pain returned at 7 p. m., after tea, but much less, not felt in back ; very little yawning ; no other symptoms.

June 8th. Pain in stomach returned at 11 A. M. for one and a half hours ; none in evening.

June 9th. Pain in stomach and left hypochondrium (but no shooting) for half an hour, one hour after breakfast and in afternoon ; no other symptoms.

June 10th. Quite well ; remained so.

Comments.—This case illustrates well the action of Castoreum, a drug which has been denounced as worthless and inert. I have found yawning in connection with diarrhoea and other abdominal complaints to be characteristic thereof.

Friday, April 20, 2018

Postpartum Derangement - Dr. E. W. Berridge, M. D.,

October 23d, 1870. Mrs. has confined fourteen days ago to one child. Ever since, when in bed at night in a dark room, has had a delusion that there is another baby in the bed which requires attention. She had this delusion in a former confinement and in another a delusion that she had a third leg, which would not remain quiet. For seven days single, sharp shoots about twice a day, from the upper dorsal spine into occiput. 


Diagnosis of the remedy.—The peculiar shooting pain is found only under Kali. "Delusion that he is double "—the nearest approach to the mental symptoms of the case;—is found under Petr. and strain. [Since this case was cured, I have added Anac, Cann.ind., Mosch., Sec., Sil. and Thuja to the list]. 

As Petro. has also " Delusion that one limb is double," I selected it in preference to Strain., on account of the anamnesis. In this case, there were thus two conflicting keynotes, Kali being indicated by the latest symptom, but Petro. by the mental condition. I considered the latter of the greater importance and gave one dose of Petroleum, 3000 (Jenichen).

Oct. 31st. No return of the delusion ; no more shooting till 27th, when it returned twice, worse than before, and seemed to fix the head for a moment. Last night, on being frightened, had a return of the pain, and at the same moment a shoot in the lumbar spine. As the mental state had been removed, and the pain increased after a temporary cessation, I now gave the corresponding remedy, Kali, one dose of 4000 (Jenichen).

November l5th. Once, on being frightened, has had a slight shooting from neck to occiput.

December 3d. On two consecutive days, four or five days ago, after unusual exertion (going up lofty stairs) repeated shooting up into the head as before, for a minute, but less severe; has had it slightly at times before. No shooting in the lumbar spine. As the pain seemed to return, I repeated the dose of Kali 4000.

Dec. 12th. Has a catarrh. On waking this morning the delusion returned. Last night very slight shooting into Head. The recurrence of the mental state, combined with the great amelioration of the pain, pointed to the first remedy again, and I gave one dose of Petr. 3000.

March 13th, 1871. Reports that she has only had the shooting
occasionally, and not so severely; no other symptoms. 

The above was one of those rare cases where two remedies have to be given in alternation, according to a corresponding alternation of symptoms. This is the alternation to which Hahnemann refers to is sometimes necessary. 
In several places where he uses the term, he distinctly states this to be his meaning; hence it is evident that he must have used it in the same sense in other passages, though he did not deem it necessary to repeat his explanation on every occasion. The modern unscientific, empirical practice of a priori "alternation," or rotating change of medicines without a corresponding change of symptoms is quite different and is most emphatically repudiated by Hahnemann as unnecessary, unsafe, and we might add, a relic of the lawlessness of allopathic polypharmacy yet some mongrels continually misquote and pervert Hahnemann's plainest teachings, to excuse their own shortcomings, and to blind the eyes of their victims to the falsity of their pretensions.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Cito, Tuto, Jucunde.

There are but two kinds of laws, the laws of God, and the laws of man. The laws of God or of nature, are absolute, infallible, and eternal, hence they cannot be altered or corrected by man. The laws of man are changeable, fallible and mortal like the man himself.*
* The great difference between the laws of man and of nature seems to be understood by very few. We were once astonished to hear a professor, in a Homoeopathic medical school, in arguing against the infallibility of our law, compare it to the " Laws of the Medes and Persians," which he said were once proclaimed to be unalterable; the natural inference is that the law of the similars was, like those laws, the fiat of a tyrant or master.—Ed.

It is the duty of scientific men to discover and investigate the laws of nature, for they form the fundamental basis of all science. It is an undisputed fact that before Hahnemann's time, medicine was never guided in the exhibition of its drugs, by an eternal and infallible law. That grand, acute observer was the first to discover that law of nature which governed therapeutics and upon it, he built the system of medicine which he called Homoeopathy. This system will and must stand as long as the laws on which it is built remain.—that is, forever.

On the other hand, the history of allopathic medicine shows that the medical profession in healing the sick, was either guided by experience without any principle; or by principles and speculative systems concocted in the erring brain of man; which theories have been invariably contradicted by experience. The falsity and uncertainty of men's theories will continue to be shown, by the practical test of experience, as long as they are not based on unchangeable natural laws. The brightest stars of the medical world, in all ages, have candidly confessed this fallacy ; their lamentations about the uselessness of such methods, and their despair of ever coming to any certainty under such principles, should be sufficient testimony as to the utter worthlessness of their treatment ; especially when this is compared with treatment based on Homoeopathic laws. Therefore the true physician (the investigator of nature and its laws) has no choice as to the treatment he should select if he would be most successful in relieving the sufferings of mankind. His sound reason will prove to him that he must adopt and strictly adhere to the unchangeable principles discovered and laid down by Hahnemann, in other words, he must become a Homoeopathic physician.

Truly has it been said, by Galen, that the best method of healing the sick is that which accomplishes it; Cito, Tuto, Jucunde. And we may, with equal truth, assert that no medical system except Homoeopathy, does cure in this manner. Let us now see how amply Homoeopathy does fulfill this desideratum of Galen.

Cito.—It is well known to all Homoeopathic physicians how wonderfully quick the manifold symptoms, incident to diseased conditions, are alleviated, also that even the most violent affections, though of long duration, or worse, aggravated by previous bad treatment, are promptly mitigated or completely cured, by the application of the law of the similar. These results we must attribute to the correct principles of Homoeopathy; results which the old school cannot produce even with its narcotic and anaesthetica, which drugs bring but temporary relief and seldom cure. 
In the overwhelming majority of cases treated thus. i. e. palliatively, the original disease returns again and again, with augmented intensity, until the patient's constitution is totally wrecked, and its restoration to health is rendered well-nigh an impossibility. The number of such cases is legion. It is my intention to narrate several marked cases of this kind in a subsequent paper.

Tuto.—Dr. Wolf, of Berlin writes, as early as 1858: 'The Homoeopathic physician is not only able to cure positively those diseases which have been shown up to the present time to be curable, but he can also eradicate from the human system the tendency to new morbid affections, as well as the causes of life-long infirmity. Thereby preventing the continuance of disease from generation to generation." Whereas the allopathic school, with its massive doses and its so-called specific remedies, suppresses disease, thereby engendering new and worse diseased conditions, which eventually leads to confirmed ill health or even to death. What Homoeopathic physician is not cognizant of the injurious effects of mercury, quinia, the narcotica, drastica, etc.. etc. ? 

The countless detrimental effects consequent upon allopathic medication are spared mankind by the Homoeopathic method of cure, for Homoeopathy never suppresses an ailment: or transforms it into a chronic diseased condition, one injurious to health or even dangerous to life.

Jucunde.—In this particular, Homoeopathy has surely verified the most sanguine expectations that could possibly be entertained of any art of healing. Not only this, but it has completely done away with the whole allopathic* apparatus of torture, such as the moxa, the seton, blistering, cauterizing (even to the bone) etc; it has done more yet, for it has caused those nauseous and disgusting drugs recently in use, to be thrown aside.
* To illustrate how little the allopaths have sought to fulfil this l “Jucunde treatment" we instance — e pluribus unum —the following: Magendie, the physiologist in discussing etherization before the French Academy of Sciences, declared that "pain always has its usefulness," also declared it to be "a trivial matter to suffer and a discovery, whose object was sole to prevent pain was of a slight interest only."— {Gazette Medical de Paris, Feb. 6th, 1847, p. 112). Simpson says, "Hildanus, the patriarch of German surgery, amputated the limbs of his patients with red-hot knives, in order that he might divide the flesh and sear up the vessels at one and the same time." Not much "Jucunde" in this practice?—Ed.

Such diseases as tumors, fistulae, strabismus, condylomata, etc., for the cure of which the old school has no other means than the knife or the cautery, are healed by Homoeopathic remedies, when indicated by the eternal law of the similar. Not only does Homoeopathy cure the above-mentioned diseases, but it also improves the constitution of the patient, and hence prolongs life. The operative procedures of the old school never eradicate the real internal diseased condition (of which tumors, etc., etc., are the mere manifestation), on the contrary, it is brought into a more rapid decline and, not seldom, to a speedy death.

We can proudly claim that the influence of Homoeopathy on the old school has been so great that it has forced them to abandon, in great part, those barbarous methods which were in vogue before the days of Hahnemann. Had Homoeopathy accomplished nothing more than this, and could it claim no more favorable results in the treatment of the sick than allopathy, even then it would still rank pre-eminent in medicine. What man of feeling would gainsay this when he remembers the unspeakable misery and unlimited suffering, which have become things of the past since the advent of Homoeopathy?

The disciples of Hahnemann are counted by thousands, their followers by millions, and are spread broadcast over all lands; this in spite of all the efforts of their opponents. The power of the truth and the success of Homoeopathy were so convincing that many of its bitterest and most learned enemies became its staunch defenders, as soon as they were willing to undertake a fair trial of its law. He who knows the fate of Harvey, Auenbrugger, Mesmer, Reichenback and others, and who remembers that Velpeau, in 1835, as president of the Medical Society in Paris, rejected all communications concerning anaesthetics as chimerical, with the remark, that such fantastical ideas were not worthy of the consideration of scientifically educated physicians.* I repeat, he who knows all this will cease to wonder that Hahnemann also, when he first promulgated his immortal theory of
Similia experienced the same fate. All, even his best friends, although honoring his talents and immense learning, turned against him and derided his discovery.
* In speaking of Ambrose Pare's discovery of the ligature, Cooper says: "Almost one hundred) rears after Pare, a button of vitriol was employed, in the Hotel Dieu, at Paris, for the stoppage of hemorrhage. . . . So difficult was it to eradicate the blind attachment shown for the ancients, that Baronius, a professor at Cremona, publicly declared, in 1609, that he would rather err with Galen than follow the advice of any other physician!" ("Cooper's Dictionary of Practical Surgery," 7th ed., p. 46).—Ed.


The law of the Similia, the single dose, the minute dose, the habit of allowing ample time between doses for them to act to their fullest extent, the proving of drugs on the healthy—all these, seeming innovations, contrasted so strongly with the practice of medicine then in vogue, that the scientific men of Hahnemann's time found it a very easy task to cover his great discovery with ridicule.

The whole medical world of that day sat in solemn judgment on Hahnemann's theory, without ever inquiring into the facts. Instead of following the experimental method of Galileo they adopted the logical method of Aristotle and so passed sentence upon his discovery without adequate practical knowledge of it. All knowledge and erudition were marshaled in defense of the old doctrines in medicine and for the annihilation of the new.

Thus a very learned physician* of Hamburg wrote a book against the ‘Organon' exceeding it in volume fivefold, in which nearly all the ancient classical writers of Greece and Rome are cited.
* As another instance of this tendency to eirenecus opinions on the part of those supposed to be learned in any branch, and also to show how one not so learned (professionally) may form a more correct opinion, we would mention the following. In 1856 an engineer wrote a long dissertation, in the Edinburgh Review in which he scientifically proved "the absurdity" of the Suez Canal. Yet that "absurdity" was afterward built by one who was not a professional engineer.—Ed.


Having read this book, we involuntarily arrive at the same conclusion, as after reading Tycho de Brahe's works and polemics against the Copernican system ; namely, that no doubt not only an immense amount of learning is necessary to compile such works, but also that all the learning of the world does not suffice to cast eternal truths into doubt, or to philosophize errors into then place ; and furthermore, that it is an impossibility for one not so well versed in the classics to say so many silly and absurd things.

Only slowly and by degrees did Hahnemann, by the success of his method of treatment, prove to the world the truth of his theory and thereby gain proselytes. As the observations of Hahnemann were verified daily in the practice of his followers, it was but natural that Homoeopathy should rise to its present eminence, in spite of all opposition, even of governments egged on by influential lay and medical men. If we adhere, with the utmost strictness, to the principles bequeathed us by Hahnemann in his " Organon," the time will not be far distant when Homoeopathy will reign supreme everywhere as the benefactor of suffering mankind.

It is true that many deceive themselves with regard to the amount of unremitting mental labor which is necessary in order to be an able Homoeopathic physician. For one must toil continuously, as long as life lasts, to overcome the difficulties and problems presenting themselves in endless succession, as Homoeopathy advances. Routine can never be acquired by the true follower of Hahnemann, as every new case must be individualized and treated strictly according to the law of similia. The closer the physician adheres to this law, and the more conscientiously he follows its precepts, the more he will be rewarded by success; and the more will he be admonished of the necessity of continued study. With such experience as may be at my disposal, I shall endeavor, on a future occasion, to illustrate some of the great difficulties in the path of every practical physician. 

Whilst we adhere rigidly to the principles of the "Organon,"
we must not fail to appropriate all new discoveries which may
extend the application of Homoeopathy, be they discoveries in hygiene, dietetics, or medicine proper. We must also acknowledge our indebtedness to the scientists who have, since the origin of Homoeopathy, made many discoveries tending to prove the correctness of its principles.

I will offer proof, at another time, that Homoeopathy, with its
principles, in the treatment of the sick, occupies a higher plain than allopathy. Judging from the proofs which science is rapidly accumulating for us, we may say positively, that in the course of time allopathy will be forced to admit the correctness of the principles of Homoeopathy. I quote the closing words of Prof. Jaeger in his report on Neural analysis to the convention of physicists at Dantzig.

"The graduated increase in the physiological action of dings
as we raise their potency, being shown by Neural analysis elevates Homeopathy at once to the position of an exact physiologically proven science and places it positively on a level with allopathy. In consideration of this fact, it will in the future be an impossibility for the old school to combat systematically the doctrines of Hahnemann and, by the power of Neural analysis, Homeopathy will take its place on the roster of the Universities."

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Neuralgia and Cough - Dr. E. W. Berridge, M. D.

February 10th, 1868.

Mr., the allopathic chemist, has had for about a week a feeling of fullness across the right supra-orbital ridge, as if it were being pushed out from within, gradually getting worse; to-day it has extended to the corresponding part of left side ; soreness on pressure on under surface of right supra-orbital ridge, in the bore, with feeling of warmth there. The fullness was worse to-day after bending the head down for some time. It came on this morning in bed, from 4.30 to 6:30 o'clock, but only on right side, preventing sleep; he fell asleep at 6.30 o'clock, and was free from pain; the pain returned about 10 A. M., forty-five minutes after breakfast. The right eye feels as if it would water; right upper lid hangs down lower than left, and is rather red, it feels warm. Feeling as if something were repeatedly pressing on under the surface of the right supra-orbital ridge, near inner canthus; he describes it by placing a finger on his hand, and repeatedly pressing it in; he distinctly says it is not a throbbing pain. Today the pain was very bad at dinner, better in afternoon; the pain has generally been worse in evening, on sitting down to read. Three weeks ago caught a cold; two weeks ago cough came on, excited by tickling at throat-pit. Now has a cough excited by a tickling behind the sternum, running up to throat-pit; it is worse in the evening when sitting down to read; it comes on also when beginning to eat, especially if he drinks nothing; it is the same in and out of doors. For the last three days (this is the latest symptom) the cough has caused a feeling of a rush of blood from nape into occiput, compelling him to place his hand on occiput, which relieves it ; from the first, though not every day, it has caused a pain from between shoulders through to chest ; there is slight expectoration in the morning from a cough. For some months has had a feeling of the stiffness of the nape on waking, as if he had lain on his back in the form of an arch, going off soon after rising. For many years has had the fullness of vertex and forehead on waking. He eats salt with his food, though he dislikes it because he has understood it is good to eat it! Three years ago was vaccinated for the second time; since then his teeth, which were perfectly sound before, have begun to decay close to the gums. (This is Boenninghausen's characteristic of sycotic teeth; I have found it a valuable indication of toothache for Thuya). He has taken two doses of Pyretic salts, and during the first week of a cough applied mustard plasters, but all without effect.

Diagnosis of the remedy: The totality of the symptoms could not be covered. The most peculiar, and, at the same time, the latest symptom was the rush of blood to the occiput when coughing, relieved by pressure; this symptom, therefore, was, according to Hahnemann, of the greatest importance. Nat. Mur. has a very similar symptom, "A headache from sneezing and coughing, immediately disappearing on external compression;" it has also tenderness of left orbital region; it is also, in a high potency, an antidote to the effects of crude salt, which I considered to be the cause of his symptoms. Some persons are very sensitive to salt and suffer from its pathogenetic action if they take it with their food. It is an error to suppose that raw salt is a uecessary article of food because it exists in the tissues ; iron and phosphorus also exist in the tissues, yet we are not taught to take these substances as we do salt ; the truth is that food, in its natural state, as well as the air we breathe, contains sufficient of all these mineral substances to supply the waste continually going on in the body ; when they are thus taken, in what we may call their organic form, tliey act as foods ; when taken raw, as poisons or medicin s, as the case may be. The common argument that animals eat it is fallacious, as they only take it occasionally, doubtless through an instinctive craving for the remedy for their morbid condition. The arguments derived from the condition of prisoners fed on unsalted food is also deceptive, as other causes were operative. Healthy children never, I believe, eat salt till the taste is acquired through compulsion; but I have frequently noticed a craving for salt associated with serious disease. 
It is now more than twelve years since I myself gave up the use of raw salt, and I have not yet suffered the fate of Herod, as a kind friend predicted at the time.

February 11th. Woke with the same fullness and pain across eyebrows, mostly on the right side; did not feel the soreness; lay awake from 5 to 6 A. M. At 8.20 A. M. took one globule of Nat Mur. 1000 (Jenichen); he was also instructed to leave off the use of salt entirely, and coffee while under treatment. This last advice I now consider to have been unnecessary; high potencies are not easily if at all, disturbed by crude drugs, too, which the patient is habituated. After the dose, felt extremely tired, low spirited, out of sorts entirely (effects of Nat. Mur. ?) Head became decidedly better; the usual evening aggravation did not occur. During and after dinner, the pain over eye was bad but less than at the corresponding time yesterday. Cough much better still preceded by the tickling; only once or twice felt the rush of blood to the head; no pain from back to chest. The pain, like repeated pressure in orbit, is almost gone. Cough did not come on at dinner or tea, and only slightly at supper. No feeling of watering of eyes. The stiffness of neck unchanged.

Feb. 12th. Very much less languid; better spirits. Very slight cough occasionally, more in evening ; no concomitant symptoms ; stiffness of neck gone (thus verifying Hahnemann's statement, that the oldest symptoms disappear last in a homoeopathic permanent cure); all day a feeling of slight soreness of muscles of nape when pressing them, and slight stiffness of nape on bending head back (effect of Nat. Mur..?) Bowels open twice yesterday and today, otherwise? natural.

13th. A cough troublesome only in evening, but without the former concomitants; bowels open twice.

14th. A cough slightly increased, with expectoration; he was out of doors last night in the chilly air. Slight soreness of left ala nasi, externally, worse on touching and blowing nose, with heat, redness, and swelling; this he has had before, and he thinks yesterday; it is a marked symptom of Nat. Mur. His expectoration has increased since he took the dose.

15th. Ala nasi better; no other symptoms.

26th. The usual fullness of head on waking has continued as before, up to today. For the last two or three days, a mental feeling, as if something was coming on (effect of Nat. Mur. ?) At 11 A. M., after breakfast, felt something wrong about right supra-orbital ridge, and found it was sore to touch, as before, but to a less extent; not much in evening. (He never had such neuralgia before this attack.) Since he took the dose, bowels act every day; formerly they would sometimes not act for two days. Occasional momentary pains along both sides of the neck, in a direction downward and forward, affecting the whole extent of their course simultaneously (effect of Nat.mur. ?) The neuralgia had returned. "Was the dose to be repeated or allowed to act, or a new remedy given? Sometimes a dose will give instantaneous relief, followed by a return of the symptoms as severe as ever. In this case, it is simply the palliative action of the medicine, and a new one should be selected. (See Hahnemann's Preface to Magnet, and Ad. Lippe in Hahnemannian Monthly, vol. i, p.372.) Sometimes, after the those have afforded more gradual but complete relief, the symptoms will return in a modified or lessened form, after an interval of a few days. In these cases, it is simply an instructive proving of the medicine, which will disappear if left to itself. (See Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases and Ad. Lippe in Hahnemannian Monthly, vol. ii, p. 26.) No medicine is therefore given.

27th. About 10 A. M., after breakfast, pain as if right eye were pressed out; the eye waters, and the lid falls a little; the inner half of the right supra-orbital ridge and the corresponding part of forehead just above it are sore to touch and on knitting the brows, the soreness being in the bone ; feel 3 as if he must often draw the hand lightly over that part of the forehead, which relieves it, The pains prevent him from reading ; they were worse than yesterday, but less than during the first attack; no soreness under right supra-orbital ridge. In afternoon, both before and after dinner, the symptoms were better, but again slightly increased by writing and book work, going off entirely in the course of the afternoon. Has a few pimples on the forehead, one with a vesicular head; has these about every three weeks (effects of Nat. Mur. ?) No fullness of head on waking.

28th. About 10 A. M., after breakfast, the same symptoms as yesterday, but much less; lasting till afternoon; gradually decreasing.

29th. Between noon and 1 P. M., slight soreness along right eyebrow, in the bone, when pressed; gradually lessening; not felt in the evening.

March 1st. About 10 A. M., the same soreness as yesterday; felt slightly all day.

6th. The fullness of the head on waking returned. Several weeks afterward he reported that he had been quite free from neuralgia and the stiffness of neck on waking.

1869, August. Has had no return of neuralgia or stiffness of the neck. No report is given as to the fullness of head.

The patient went on with his avocations, as usual, proving that the inhalation of crude drugs does not necessarily interfere with the action of high potencies.

N. B. After he was cured, he ridiculed the idea that one little globule could have had any effect on him. Subsequently, however, he applied to me for treatment for some other complaint; but I declined to prescribe, telling him that there were plenty of medicines in his shop if he did not believe in what I had done for him. Ungratefulpatients should be punished.

Friday, April 6, 2018

Prolapse of Hemorrhoidal Tumor and Rectum - Dr. John F. Miller, M. D.

Mr. G. Age seventy-three; large, obese, florid complexion; after two or three days of general indisposition, the tumor made its appearance; not after stool. On the second day found a tumor the size of the double fist, very hard, hot and purplish color; complained of much pain, throbbing, with the sense of constriction; scanty black stools; frequent ineffectual efforts to urinate; pulse 60.
Rx Mur. ac. 90 m., one dose.

The next day, December 18th, much the same. Rx Mur. ac. 90m., one dose.

December 19th. Tongue dry, dark-red, restless prostration, stitching pain in the tumor. Rx. Ars. 200th every three hours.

December 19th, 9 P. M. Tongue moist. Sac lac.

December 20th. Very much worse; tumor very blue and painful; tongue dry, red; dizzy; great prostration and distress. Rx Lach. 200th every two hours, and asked for counsel.

December 20th, 5 P. M. Dr. Lippe, of New York, saw the case with me and diagnosed Lach. As the patient had received two doses and seemed a little better, Dr. L. advised Sac. lac. as long as improvement continues. Gave rather an unfavorable prognosis, and suggested the c. m. the potency of the same remedy if he got worse.

December 21st. A little better; not so much urging to urinate; can pass flatus downwards, the first time in years. Pulse 52; less beating in the tumor; feeling generally more comfortable. Rx Sac. lac.

December 22d. Tumor smaller, and not so dark. Rx Sac. lac.

December 23d. Pulse 68 ; tongue dry ; lip catches on teeth.
Rx Sac. lac.

December 24th. Small stool, without any trouble ; tumor shrunken, flabby; tongue dry, but not so red. Rx Sac. lac.

December 27th, 10 A. M. Pulse 72, full hard ; tongue dry; dark on the tip, and in the center; restless, distressed. Rx Lach. c. m., one dose.

December 27th, 9 P. M. Severe chill in the afternoon; face very red; thirsty; a headache. Pulse 80 full; tumor blue and hard, although only about half of its former size; tongue trembling, hard to protrude, catching on the tip; exhaustion seemed profound. Rx Lach. cm., every three hours.

December 28th. Pulse 60; improving. Rx Sac. lac.

January 4th. Occasional fair stools; tumor size of butternut; pain in the tumor after stools; eczema of legs. Rx Graph, c. m., one dose.

January 5th. But little pain in tumor during or after stool; the
pain had lasted three or four hours after stool the day before. Rx Sac. lac.

January 12th. No pain in the tumor, which is the size of small butternut appetite good; bowels regular. Dr. E. C. Franklin in the transactions of the American Institute, says: " This disease (prolapsus of the rectum) is an affection of childhood, but occasionally occurs in old age when it assumes a serious aspect. In a case of the latter kind, that came under my observation, the descent of the bowel was so great, as to produce death by consequent derangement and irritation of the system (exhaustion ?) It was reduced three times, but so great was the propensity to extrusion that not even a T bandage would retain it in position. Medicines effected little or no good, and the patient sank from exhaustion." What medicines were given, he does not state.

In my case, neighbors and friends thought local treatment should be used. I explained to them, that the prolapsed tumor was not the cause of this sickness, but that his exhaustion and illness was the cause of the tumor, and any local treatment, would be directed to the effect, and not the cause. The treatment would have been at the wrong end, in more than one sense.

After his recovery, the patient said to me, " Do you know that if I had died, during this sickness, without any local treatment, and only one or two slight, insufficient stools in over two weeks, you would have been blamed, unjustly, perhaps; but still it would have injured you very much. Would it not have been politic to have done something to allay the prejudices of the people?"

My answer was, that that line of conduct—the desire to allay allopathic prejudices, was the reason that there were so many mongrels. Too many so-called Homœopathic physicians will sacrifice their Homœopathic principles every day to placate allopathic prejudices. Instead of endeavoring to educate people in right principles, they weakly yield to the majority; seemingly justifying the assertion of the old school, that Homœopathic physicians only treated trivial cases, that would get well without any medicine, with Homœopathic remedies, while serious cases were treated allopathically. This is true of weak-kneed Homœopaths but able Homœopaths, under all and every circumstance, adhere rigidly to strict Homœopathy
as giving always the best results.
Nothing but pure Homœopathy saved this man's life. Any other treatment would have assuredly caused death.