Legatum Homeopathicum

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====== CLINICAL REMARKS ON HIGH POTENCIES.======

{{anchor:s2}}* [Allgm. Hom. Zeitung, 66, 102.]

{{anchor:s3}}BY DR. BATTMAN, GROSSENHAIN.

{{anchor:s4}}Carbo vegetabilis200 in threatening Paralysis of the Lungs in Typhus, — Encouraged by my great success in treating croup, I have made further experiments with high potencies in acute diseases and believe that I have witnessed better results from them than from the lower potencies. {{anchor:s5}}As yet, however, I abstain from publishing the cases, inasmuch as their number and character are perhaps not sufficient to be decisive with colleagues who are, on principle, opposed to high potencies.

{{anchor:s6}}But, inasmuch as Carbo veg.200 has rendered me most remarkable service in threatening typhoid paralysis of the lungs, whereas I have never seen any similar good effects from the second and third triturations; and inasmuch as this morbid condition is one of the most dangerous that can occur in practice, I have thought it inconsistent with my duty to withhold any longer, from publication, facts which might induce my colleges to make trial of this remedy in such cases, in which but too commonly every expedient fails us, and inexorable death demands his victim.

{{anchor:s7}}A young man, aged 14 years, lay sick, two years ago, with a severe attack of typhus fever. {{anchor:s8}}His mother was ill with the same disease and was therefore unable to take care of him; so was his father, whose avocations compelled him to be always away from home. {{anchor:s9}}The entire task of waiting upon the patient devolved upon a maid servant, who had, besides, to look after the dairy and general house work and therefore had, as may be imagined, very little time to give him. {{anchor:s10}}In the third week of his illness, his condition was pretty desperate. {{anchor:s11}}His consciousness had almost left him, or was only recalled for an instant by a loud shout; his appetite was gone entirely; he had profuse, involuntary diarrhea; the abdomen was distended; the spleen was very much enlarged; the urine passed involuntarily. {{anchor:s12}}The tongue was dry, black, and cracked. {{anchor:s13}}Strength so completely exhausted that he could scarcely move himself. {{anchor:s14}}Respiration regular; in the lungs and bronchia a variety of mucous rales. {{anchor:s15}}Percussion on the posterior aspect of the thorax gave a dull sound; and the respiratory murmur was almost inaudible in that region. {{anchor:s16}}There was, in addition, a frequent rough, hollow cough. {{anchor:s17}}I found the patient in this condition one evening. {{anchor:s18}}The next morning he was found under the table, where he had fallen from the sofa on which he had been obliged to sleep. {{anchor:s19}}There he lay in the midst of. his excretions, cold and unconscious. {{anchor:s20}}When I arrived, some hours later (for the maid had been afraid to confess her negligence, and therefore I had not been summoned earlier), his condition was that of a moribund. {{anchor:s21}}After a few respiratory acts, there would be an intermission of several respirations. {{anchor:s22}}At each respiration, the patient, with distorted features, snapped at the air and gasped exactly like a dying fish. {{anchor:s23}}The pulse was small, and very frequent; the skin cold. {{anchor:s24}}The patient then received Carbo veg.200, two globules every two hours.

{{anchor:s25}}When I visited him again in the evening, his respiration was regular, his skin warm and soft, his pulse had risen in strength; the other symptoms were the same.

{{anchor:s26}}Two days afterwards, the same remedy being continued, the patient was incomparably better. {{anchor:s27}}Consciousness was less obscured, the lungs were more free, the cough was becoming loose, the diarrhea was less; the skin covered with perspiration, the pulse somewhat full and soft. {{anchor:s28}}The tongue was still dry and brown in the middle; the apex and margins, however, were moist and covered with superficial ulcers which were partly covered with loosening scabs. {{anchor:s29}}As I had on former occasions found Acidum mur.3 specific for this condition, I gave it to the patient in the same dilution, and under this alone, he recovered completely in a few weeks.

{{anchor:s30}}I have given Carbo veg.200 to five other typhus patients who were threatened with pulmonary paralysis and in the case of all, it effected this much at least, that they did not die of paralysis of the lungs. {{anchor:s31}}One recovered, three died of paralysis of the brain, one died of debility; all, however, lived more than four days and one woman lived three weeks. {{anchor:s32}}The irregular, agonized respiration, the mucous rales in the larynx and bronchia, the dyspnea, which the patient sought to have relieved by opening windows, change of position, assuming the upright position in bed — all these symptoms steadily decreased, and, if in all cases, life was not saved — at least, in all, time was gained, time which is so important aft element in typhus.

{{anchor:s33}}In conclusion I wish to say a word about the hostility which is felt against the treatment of disease by high potencies.

{{anchor:s34}}We, German Homoeopathists, with hardly an exception, were, all of us, at one time, Allopaths. {{anchor:s35}}The reason of our going over to Homoeopathy was, first of all, a conviction which came upon us, little by little, that, in certain diseases, our mode of treatment was inefficacious. {{anchor:s36}}In seeking after something better, we saw, perhaps, that a neighbor Homoeopathist, obtained better results than we did; or we heard or read that this was the case. {{anchor:s37}}We condescended then, in such cases as these, just to make a single experiment with Homoeopathy, and if, as generally happened, this experiment succeeded, we repeated it in similar cases. {{anchor:s38}}Little by little, more numerous experiments were instituted, until we finally became convinced that the homoeopathic mode of treatment, was throughout, more precious than the allopathic.

{{anchor:s39}}Furthermore, we are all convinced that if the Allopaths

{{anchor:s40}}would enter on the path of experiment on which we have travelled, their host would soon melt away to a minimum. {{anchor:s41}}The fact however that they do not do this, but that they prefer, without having made practical experiments, to deny, to ridicule, to laugh to scorn, and to chew the cud of a host of Bockiana (or Brodiana, or Holmesiana) — this we are justified in regarding as a wholly illogical position.

{{anchor:s42}}And now, I think, I have a right to venture the question, whether those among us, who, without making any experiments with high potencies, do not hesitate to utter denunciatory judgements respecting their use, are not acting just as those opponents of Homoeopathy do, against whom they as well as we, are contending? {{anchor:s43}}And whether it would not be better, if they would just once, sine odio et ira, make trial of the high potencies, at least in those cases in which we have no reason to be satisfied with the action of the lower potencies? {{anchor:s44}}If they would do so, we should, certainly, come by degrees to a clear knowledge of what cases require the lower and what the higher potencies and our science, our patients and ourselves would gain far more than by the present hostile opposition, which cannot fail to be in every view prejudicial to our true interests. {{anchor:s45}}D.

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Legatum Homeopathicum

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