Lets Hear
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1996 May / Jun Vol V No 3.
Kulay F M.
Cases.
` Sulph / Ars / Mez
One of the NJH issues for 1996 has been earmarked for the Ear. That set me thinking about various aspects of remedial action. For example, Homoeopathic remedies have definitely shown organ-wise favoritism, and these locational remedial preferences have been recorded with care. Yet, when I contrasted a reported case of glandular suppuration behind the right ear, having bloody and purulent discharge from the ear, with one of my cases of persistent eruptions behind right ear, I felt that I owe to the fraternity to pen the following.
In the reported case, a lad of 19 benefited from Nitric-acid, which was selected on the basis of the repertorial analysis given below:.
- Suppuration behind the ears. (K 318)
- Swelling, lymphatic gland behind ear (K 318)
- Eruption, vesicle, behind ears (K 288)
- Discharge bloody (K 286)
- Discharge purulent (K 287)
Note that the above rubrics amount to nothing more than PHYSICAL DESCRIPTIONS. There are no MODALITIES, General or Particular, nor any other significant information which Homoeopaths would love to hear. Kent says in Minor Writings (p 629).
"They who can perceive the meaning are the ones who are able to perform the work directed in the Organon of Samuel Hahnemann and heal the sick as he taught; viz to cure the patient, and then the organs will also return to normaL functions. Men who give Bryonia for pneumonia, Nux vomica for the stomach, Kali-iod for syphilis and Belladonna for cerebral congestion, seldom learn to individualize from the patient to his parts and organs. The best they can do is to individualize from organs and parts, hoping to get somewhere. "Lucky hits" are their sole joy and success. . .".
Years ago, I had a case of a 7 year old girl, with suppurating eruptions behind right ear. It was the sheer trust of the family that the case continued with me for years without appreciable results and they then consulted another Homoeopath. The eruptions were gone in a week or two.
Intelligent, they felt alarmed, not so much at my failure, as to so prompt a recent result. They came back to me and narrated the adventure with an apologetic tone. Although I cannot recall the prescriptions made over the years, I distinctly remember that I gave her a dose of Sulphur 200, and called them back. They continued under me and she got rid of the persistent eruptions almost by the time she became an adult. It is not at all suggested that organ-affinities as recorded by the masters are suspect; no not at all. My own wonderment keeps disturbing me to decide if in terms of the SIMILIA principle, everything worthwhile in the patient, organs sometimes included, should fall in line in the selection of the remedy, or a mere catalogue of physical features can help in selecting a remedy on Homoeopathic lines.
The foregoing was intended as food for thought in the hope of promoting reflections.
Reproduced below is a case of DEAFNESS included by Nash in his THE TESTIMONY OF THE CLINIC (B Jain, 1992, p 24):
"(18)-Case-Mrs A, age 49, deaf in right ear for twenty years, in left ear for five years. Hears no conversation except upon a high key, and that only when very near. Sensation of heavy pressure and heat at the vertex, extending to both ears with soreness of the brain. Soles burn at night, hot flushes on the face followed by cold sweat; constipation, faintness at 10 or 11 am.
Sulphur 300 for twelve days, with but little improvement. Sulphur 6000 was followed by restoration of hearing in the left ear and relief from soreness and pressure at the vertex. The hearing in the right ear was slowly restored. (Hoyne).".
Note that the left ear responded earlier, and only latter the right also benefited. Also note that the 6000 potency did what the 300th failed to do. a significant sentence of Dr. Kent reads- "The remedy was Arsenicum, but the similimum was Arsenicum 8 M." (Minor Writings, p 82).
Appended herewith is a document from C Dunhams "Homoeopathy-The Science of Therapeutics" (B Jain edition, 1913-pp 462-466) on a case of DEAFNESS cured by Mezereum 30 (given at long intervals), I think it is very instructive.
Case 2
Deafness Cured By Mezereum.
"G. W W., aged seventeen years, small but well proportioned and of good constitution, healthy since his ninth year, has been deaf since he was four years old. When three years of age, he had an eruptive disease_ of the whole scalp, which, after resisting for a year all the milder methods of allopathic treatment was finally caused to disappear, in the following manner: A tar cap was placed upon the head, and when firmly adherent to the scabs, was violently torn off. The scabs came with it, leaving the whole scalp raw. This raw surface was moistened with a saturated solution of nitrate of silver. The eruption did not reappear; but from that time the child was deaf.".
"The condition of the youth now excites the earnest solicitude of his friends. His inability to move in society, or to get a situation in business, on account of his deafness, has produced a morbid state of mind. He broods over his infirmity, and secludes himself even from his own family."
"Under these circumstances, he applied to me to be cured of his deafness. His present condition is as follows: He is quite unable to hear ordinary conversation, and has never heard a sermon in his life. A loud -ticking lever watch can be heard at a distance of three and a half inches from either ear. On application of the watch to his forehead, or to the teeth, he hears it distinctly. Occasional buzzing noises in front of the ears. A physical examination of his ears reveals the following condition: The external meatus is a abundantly supplied with soft, normal wax. The membrana tympani is white, opaque, and evidently thickened. When the patient attempts to inflate the middle ear (which he accomplishes, with great difficulty, by closing both mouth and nose and making a forcible expiration), the membrana tympani becomes but very slightly convex, and it is impossible to distinguish its distended blood-vessels. There has evidently been deposits in the substance of the membrane. On examination of the throat, it appears that the orifice of the eustachian tube is free."
"Feb 3rd, 1857. Patient received a powder containing three globules of Mezereum 30, to be taken on retiring.".
"24th Feb-Thinks he hears better-every sound seems much louder than before. Hears my watch at a distance of four and a half inches from the right ear, and four and a quarter from the left ear. Saccharum lactis.".
"March 1st-Has not improved during the last week. Mezereum 30, three globules.".
"March 27. Hears my watch, with the right ear, at a distance of ten inches, and with the left, at a distance of fourteen inches. Hears ordinary conversation easily, with attention. Saccharum lactis."
Sept 28. Has been steadily improving until three week ago, when he became more deaf again, without apparent cause. Mezereum 30, three globules, on retiring.
"Jan26, 1858. Hears my watch at a distance of fourteen inches from the right ear, and twenty-four inches from the right ear, and twenty-four inches from the left ear. Deafness returns when he takes cold, but disappears with the cold. Mezereum 30, three globules on retiring.".
"March 19. To his surprise, on going to church, although seated at the extreme end of a very large building, he distinctly heard the whole sermon-for the first time in his life. On physical examination, the opacity of the membrana tympani is found to have disappeared, and its elasticity to have sensibly increased."
"May 24. Patient writes to me that he has obtained, without difficulty, a situation in a store, and that he is no longer conscious of being deaf. His sole difficulty is that, as he has the reputation of being deaf, everybody shouts at him. His father writes, that the sons hearing is perfectly restored."
REMARKS: "The success of the treatment restored to in this case warrants a few remarks upon its rationale. Here was a case which presented to the practitioner apparently nothing on which to base a prescription. There was a thickened membrana tympani-nothing more. The work of thickening had probably been accomplished years ago. Here was a pathologico-anatomical condition, but no pathological process and, consequently, there were no abnormally performed functions-or, in other words, no symptoms of disease from which to draw indications for the treatment. The pathological anatomical condition threw no certain light on the pathological process which had produced it-just as a knowledge of the town, at which a traveller has arrived, gives no certain clue to the road by which he reached it.".
"But, as Hahnemann advised his disciples, the history of a case is often of the utmost importance in determining the treatment. In the case before us the coincidence between the violent removal of the taenia capitis by nitrate of silver, and the appearance of the deafness, was too marked to escape notice. It could not fail to occur to the practitioner that the scalp disease was one phase of a psoric affection, as Hahnemann would have called it, or of a dyscrasia, as the modern school of German pathologists would say (for the doctrine of the dyscrasias is but a rehash of Hahnemann;s psora theory), and that this affection, disturbed in its localization upon the scalp, had transferred itself to the tissues of the ear. It further occurred to me that, since in this latter localization there were no sufficient indications for a prescription. I might find such indications in the phenomena of the former localization upon the scalp. I accordingly addressed myself to the task of getting a complete picture of this affection, which had disappeared thirteen years before. By good fortune, the mother of the patient was possessed of a good memory, and of very excellent powers of description, and from her I learned that "thick, whitish scabs, hard and almost horny, covered the whole scalp. There were fissures in the scales, through which, on pressure, there exuded a thick, yellowish pus, often very offensive. There was great itching, and a disposition to tear off the scabs with the finger-nails-especially troublesome at night."
"The remedy which corresponds most closely, in its pathogenesis, with the above group of symptoms, is undoubtedly Mezereum. In the introduction to the proving of that drug, in the Chronic Diseases, vol iv, Hahnemann recommends it for moist eruptions of the scalp. In the proving, in the Archiv, vol iv, many symptoms point to a similar eruption-itching, especially, at night; but the conclusive group of pathogenetic symptoms is the following from a new proving of Mezereum, by the late Dr Wahle, of Rome."
"Head covered over with a thick leather-like crust under which thick white pus collects here and there, and the hair is glued together; on the head, great, elevated, irregular, white scabs, under which pus collects in quantity, and becomes offensive and breeds vermin the child keeps scratching its face and head at night and continually tears off the scabs."
"The resemblance between these groups of symptoms was so striking that Mezereum was at once selected as the remedy for this case of deafness, just as if the scalp affection had been still in its original form, and had been the immediate object of the prescription.
"Frequently we are called upon to prescribe for what seem rather like results of morbid actions, rather than active diseases. In such cases it would seem that we may often successfully base a prescription upon the symptoms of a diseased condition which no longer exists, but which forms in reality a part of the case. It may not be amiss to call attention to the completeness of the corroboration which this case affords (were any needed) of Hahnemanns psora theory. It is hardly necessary to say that Hahnemann had no idea of restricting the appellation psora to itch, as we understand that term, that is to the disease caused by the acarus. On the contrary, in his Chronic Diseases, vol iv, he expressly includes under it various forms, as Itch, Tinea capitis, Herpes, etc." .
Dunham, in the above case, brings out the difficulty a Homoeopath often faces because of paucity of symptoms of prescribing value. But even in this case, Dunhams analytic mind connects the tinea capitis and the deafness in a CAUSE-EFFECT chain, and INDIVIDUALISES the eruption as one which Mezereum typically produces.
Reprinted from Science of Therapeutics-Dr Dunham.
Life is like that, one stitch at a time taken patiently, and the pattern will come out all right, like the embroidery.
