Frequent Repetition of High Potencies
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2000 Nov / Dec VOL II NO 6.
Compiled by:
T K Kasiviswanathan
'Calc-fl / Apis / Rhus-t / Anat-tart / Merc-cor / Cic / Aur-met / Op
Case 4: A Case of Severe Convulsions
A 12-year-old boy had high fever after severe vomiting in the school. Within next 3 hours he became unconscious with convulsions of a very severe type. The condition of opisthotonus with lock-jaw persisted and convulsions were continuous. It was a difficult task to feed the boy in such a situation. He was prescribed Cicuta 1M every hour. There was apparently no improvement for 3 days. He passed urine at intervals with severe convulsions; no stools. The medicine was continued for four more days without any relief. Dr Desai noticed on a visit to the patient that boy's grandmother was rubbing her gold ring with milk on a stone to give a gold concoction as tonic to the sick boy.
On that observation, he gave Aurum-met 1M every hour and the boy began to respond to his surroundings on the next day though his convulsions and fever remained the same. The medicine was continued for four more days and on the fourth day the comatose condition cleared without relief in fever and convulsions. Thereupon Dr Desai again prescribed Cicuta 1M and this time it worked favourably within 12 hours. He passed flatus frequently and later he passed a profuse stool containing two worms; there were no convulsions next day and fever also subsided. Here worms were the exciting factor that led the condition of fever to develop into coma on a serious background of Aurum.
Case 5: Cerebral Tumour
A boy aged 11 developed severe headache and his eyesight became weak. He went into coma very often and became stoop-shouldered and walked with unsteady gait. The X-ray revealed brain tumour for which surgery was suggested but only 1% chances of survival. His mother was against such surgery and tried Ayurveda treatment, which benefited for sometime. He developed burning all over the body, had voracious appetite; the headache with vomiting increased in intensity. The boy was therefore very depressed and began to lose interest in everything. He became unconscious while vomiting one day. At that stage it was decided to try Homoeopathy and Dr Desai was consulted.
The family history revealed that his father died of paralysis and mother had hypertension; father was fond of ayurvedic preparations and used to take a gold preparation as a tonic. The etiology was that the boy suffered from malaria, which led to jaundice two years ago, for which Ayurvedic medicines were given.
For the immediate complaint of unconsciousness, Dr Desai gave Opium CM every hour and the boy regained consciousness in 6 hours but complained of severe headache. Vomiting started and continuance of Opium for next 2 days did not help. Taking the family history and background of the disease, Syphilis and Tuberculosis inheritance were noted and this along with voracious appetite of the patient Desai selected Aurum- iodide as the constitutional remedy; it was prescribed in 1M potency every two hours. The patient slowly started improving in all areas with reduced headache and intensity of vomiting and in 6 months there was appreciable improvement. He got cured completely in 4 years. The X-ray taken at that time revealed no sign of brain tumour. Later the boy became a big businessman.
These cases, especially coma, were difficult to treat and Dr Desai has demonstrated how high potencies of the indicated remedies will cure such cases; note the very frequent and continued use of high potencies and astute selection of the remedies and his grasp of the miasmatic background of the cases.
Dr P Sankaran also conducted a number of experiments in the Government Homoeopathic Hospital, Mumbai by giving frequently high potencies of selected remedies. Many sub-acute and chronic cases treated with high potencies repeated frequently, were cases of chronic bronchitis, bronchial asthma, eczema, paralysis, pulmonary tuberculosis, nephritis, psoriasis, carbuncle etc. Only in three cases some aggravation was noticed which could be attributed to repetition. . He did not find any harmful effects in other cases; he also gives the details with two cases in his booklet "Repetition of Doses".
Dr Douglas M Borland advocates use of high potencies in frequent repetition in acute diseases. He writes in his lectures on Pneumonias "The second method of treating acute conditions is by the administration of higher potencies- something above a thirty. You will find that by the administration of these higher potencies you abort the disease. It does not run its normal course; the duration of the illness is very much shortened and you have an anticipated crisis. Instead of getting the crisis from the seventh to tenth day (by using low potencies) you get it from twelve to forty-eight hours of starting the treatment, irrespective of the day of the disease.
A crisis is always attended by a certain amount of stress, possibly a certain amount of risk, although this is not so likely when the crisis occurs early rather than when it occurs after seven to ten days of continued fever. The temperature crashes over a few hours but you do not get a collapse because you have a perfectly healthy patient to start with instead of one whose vitality is impaired by long toxaemia." At the same time he cautions that one has to be very careful in selecting the similar remedy while administering high potencies; while using low potencies one can produce a modifying effect without necessarily covering the whole case.
As regards repetition of higher potencies, he advises: "- -to continue the administration of the selected drug until the temperature has reached normal and has remained normal for at least 6 hours (in cases of Pneumonia). Otherwise you will find the patient tends to get a further rise of temperature and will require a second course of medicine, possibly same or another, say 24 hours later, whereas if you have kept up the administration for six hours after the temperature has become normal, you do not, as a rule, get a relapse at all.... It is wiser to give the drug in high potencies, every two hours for the reason that you want a number of stimuli on a comparatively short period of time in order to obtain a crisis within twelve to twenty-four hours. . In six hours you ought to find the temperature coming down; in 12 hours it will probably be down to normal and in twenty four hours it certainly ought to be."
Tips:
He then gives tips in different stages of pneumonia as to the use of and repetition of the drug.. ..In incipient stage of pneumonia , "if you are using potencies above 30, I think you are wise to repeat your medicine at not longer intervals than one hour for the first four hours and after that keep us your administration at two-hourly intervals over a period of twelve hours in all". In his experience this way of repetition will abort the whole thing.
In the next frankly developed pneumonia Dr Borland says "in my own practice, in the average case, I would prescribe 10M of the drug though where the indications are clear my preference would always be to go higher provided there is no contra-indications. I give CMs in preference to 10Ms if I am perfectly certain that I have the right drug. The average case of pneumonia, when it is frankly developed, will require at least six doses of medicine; it may require more. One finds that the average length of action of each dose is round about two hours ie it need repetition every two hours".
In a case of complicated pneumonia (either the patient has a mixed infection or he is unhealthy to start with or broncho-pneumonia) "I tend to give 1M rather than a 10M because it seems to produce less disturbance and yet produces a definite reaction. I repeat at about the same intervals as for an ordinary straight pneumonia. In an alcoholic patient I tend to give higher potencies, probably a 10M or CM".
Thus we have evidence that frequent repetition of high potencies both in acute cases and in difficult cases like coma are found to be effective. However, handling high potencies in such frequent repetition requires considerable skills and knowledge of the disease, miasmatic background etc. Dr Hahnemann had developed 50ML potencies and on the basis of his own practice for several years advocated frequent repetition of such potencies in ascending scale in chronic cases and also pointed out that the medicinal aggravation, if any, would always came very near the curative stage by which time the vital force is able to absorb it.
But his LM potencies are different from centesimal potencies referred to in this article.
Dr Sankaran observes "No doubt that the cases reported by these Homoepaths have been treated successfully with such rapid repetition of high potencies. But there is no comparative presentation and study of cases treated with infrequent repetition and similar ones treated by frequent repetition of high potencies to prove that the latter method is indeed infinitely superior and quicker in its action. It may not therefore be advisable for the large majority of less experienced Homoeopaths, who may not be able to assess the effects so carefully to adopt this method straightaway. It would be preferable to conduct carefully controlled trials and note the advantages or disadvantages of this method before adopting it universally." But how many cases of coma of the type treated by Dr Desai will a Homoeopath get nowadays when the preference is for allopathic treatment?
Sources:
- Principles of prescribing - compilation by Dr K N Mathur
- Coma - its Homoeopathic treatment by Dr Maganlal B Desai
- Pneumonias- Lectures by Dr Douglas M Borland
- The Repetition of Doses- by Dr P Sankaran
