I want to take up the study of Tuberculinum.
The preparation which I use is a little different from that which is generally found in the market. This preparation I procured through a Professor of Veterinary Surgery.
In Pennsylvania there came a time when a handsome herd of cattle had to be slaughtered because of tuberculosis. Through the Veterinary Surgeon of the Pennsylvania University I secured some: of the tubercular glands from these slaughtered cattle.
Dynamization: I selected from these the most likely specimen.
This was potentized by Boericke & Tafel as far as the 6th, and has since been prepared on the Skinner machine, the 30 th, 200 th, 1000 th and the higher potencies. This preparation I have been using for fifteen years. Many of my friends have been using if, as they have procured it from me.
From observing the effects of this preparation I have been gathering these notes in my inter-leaved Hering’s Guiding’Symptoms, and, they now guide me in the use of Tuberculinum. I do not use Tuberc. merely because it is a nosode, or with the idea that generally prevails of using nosodes; that is, a product of the disease for the disease, and the results of the disease. This I fear is too much the prevailing thought in using nosodes.
In certain places it prevails and is taught that anything relating to syphilis must be treated with Syphilinum; that anything relating to gonorrhoea must be treated with Medorrhinum, anything psoric. must be treated with Psorinum, and anything that relates to tuberculosis must be treated with Tuberculinum.
That will go out of use some day; it is mere isopathy, and it is an unsound doctrine. It is not the better idea of Homoeopathy. It is not based upon sound principles. It belongs to a hysterical Homoeopathy that prevails in this century. Yet much good has come out of it.
It is hoped that provings may be made so that we may be able to prescribe Tuberc. on the symptoms of Tuberc. just as we would use any drug.
It is deep acting, constitutionally deep, because it is a product of disease from a very deep-seated constitutional condition, like Silica and Sulphur. it goes deep into the life; it is antipsoric; it is long acting, and it affects constitutions more deeply than most remedies; and when our deepest remedies act only a few weeks, and they have to be changed, this remedy comes in as one of the remedies-when the symptoms agree and brings a better state of reaction, so that remedies hold longer. It may well be considered a species of Psorinum.
One of the most prominent uses of this remedy is in intermittent fever. Some of our most stubborn cases of intermittent fever will relapse and continue relapsing, even when such remedies as Silica and Calcarea and the deeper-acting remedies have been indicated, have acted we have broken the fever, and in a few weeks, from exposure to cold, from sitting in a draft, from becoming fatigued, from mental exertion, from over-eating and from disordering the stomach this ague has returned.
Any of these circumstances will bring back these stubborn cases of intermittent fever when Tuberc. is needed. When a patient is traveling toward phthisis and he is exposed and intermittent comes out. He is of a feeble constitution and his complaints have a tendency to relapse, and remedies well selected do not hold long, though they act well at first, they must soon be changed-changing symptoms.
It is not an indication for Tuberc. when the well selected remedy fails to act. Well selected is a relative expression and involves too much of human opinion. It may be thought to be well selected when it is not related to the case. When, the well selected remedy has acted and the constitution shows a tendency to break down, and the well selected remedy does not hold, because of vital weakness and because of deep-seated tendencies; then it is that this remedy sometimes fits in.
Such a case is often tuberculous in inclination, even though no evidence is present, of a pathological character.
Burnett, dropped an idea, that has been confirmed many times. Patients who have inherited phthisis, patients whose parents have died of phthisis are often of feeble vitality. They do not throw off their inherited tendencies.
They are always tired. They take on sicknesses easily. They become anaemic; nervous; waxy or pale. These conditions are sometimes met, when the finer symptoms agree, although Burnett evidently used this medicine in a sort of routine way for this kind of constitution, which he called “Consumptiveness.” Persons who had inherited phthisis, who were debilitated and anaemic.
It seems from looking over the record of many cures that this remedy has been given many times for just that state on a paucity of symptoms, and if the records can be believed, it has many times balanced up to the constitution in that anaemic state, where the inheritance has been phthisis. It is not the best indication for Tuberc., but where the symptoms agree in addition to that inheritance, then you may have indications for the remedy.
Tuberculinum Bovinum be given in 10 M., 50 M.. and 100 M. potencies, two doses of each potency at long intervals, all children and young people who have inherited tuberculosis may be immuned from their inheritance and their resiliency will be restored. It cures most cases of adenoids and tuberculous glands of the neck.
Mind: The nodes that have guided me to in use I will attempt to explain.
The mental symptoms that I have seen give way while the patient was under treatment, and the mental symptoms that I have seen crop out under the provings, and the mental symptoms that I have so often seen associated when the patient is poisoned by the tubercular toxines are as belong to many complaints and are cured by Tuberc.
Hopelessness in many complaints. Aversion to mental work. Anxiety evening, until midnight. Anxiety during fever. Loquacity during fever. Weary of life. Cosmopolitan. Tormenting, persistent thoughts during the night.
Thoughts intrude and crowd upon each other during the night. These I will say are the common mental features, and have often yielded when the remedy has been prescribed. Anyone who has inherited phthisis, anyone who has been in a state of debility, who has had intermittent fever with continual replases, and these mental symptoms are present, you may think of Tuberc. Loquacity during fever is a common feature in hectic fever when the patient, is decidedly affected by the toxines of tuberculosis.
A person gradually running down, never finding the right remedy, or relief only momentarily; has a constant desire to change, and travel, and go somewhere, and do something different, or to find a new doctor.
The desire to travel, that cosmopolitan condition of the mind belongs strongly to the one who needs Tuberc. It comes out so often in clinical experience; is found so often in the Calcareas and especially in Calcarea Phosphorus, always wanting to go somewhere. Such is the condition of those about to go into insanity, about to go into some lingering disease. Persons on the border land of insanity.
It is true that phthisis and insanity are convertible conditions, the one falls into the other. Many cases that are treated and cured, and phthisis of the lungs has just been turned aside, finally become insane. Persons who have been cured of insanity go into phthisis and die, showing the deep-seated character of their nature. The intellectual symptoms and the lung symptoms are interchangeable.
Head: Tuberculinum cures the most violent and the most chronic periodical sick headaches, periodical nervous headaches.
Coming every week; every two weeks; and the irregular periodicity coming under certain conditions, in damp weather, after overwork, from mental excitement, from overeating, disordered stomach. Tuberc. breaks up the tendency to this chronic periodical headache when the symptoms agree.
It has been observed in the hands of good prescribers that, when chronic constitutional headaches have been broken up sometimes the patient has a tendency to lose flesh and become feeble. An entire transformation scene takes place; a cough sets in; the headache has been removed, but the patient is feeble. Whenever that takes place Tuberc is a most useful remedy. A new manifestation comes; a new organ is affected.
Sore bruised feeling all over the body. Aching of the bones. Sore bruised condition of the eyeballs, sensitive to touch, and on turning the eye sideways. Persons who have long felt the weakness of tuberculosis, tubercular conditions, and are subject to cold sweat on the head. This was brought out in the provings of Calcarea, and those about to go into phthisis have many times been cured by Calcarea.
The relation ship between Tuberc. And Calcarea is very close. They are interchangeable; that is, the one may be indicated for a while, and then the other. They are both deep-acting remedies – also Silica is closely related to Tuberc., on the same plane of action, going deep into the life in a similar way; Calcarea, Tuberc. and Silica, and the Silicates.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.