Who remembers last month’s riveting and exciting quiz? Here it is again for those of you who missed it…
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Kelly, just to let you know, I am totally prepared for you this month! I have a back-up co-host for the show now that you seem incapable of coming out of your dressing room after James Brown!
Hey, I’m with Mick Jagger, Elaine! I don’t want to follow James Brown either! Can you explain the famous cape “shtik” the Godfather of Soul does at the end of every show?
He closes his shows with his very first hit from 1956, “Please Please Please”
and he always walks off with a cape that’s been thrown over his shoulders by his emcee, Danny Ray. It comes from when a prize fighter (a boxer) is defeated, his robe is thrown over his shoulders and he’s escorted out of the boxing ring by his corner man.
But then James shakes the cape off and comes back on stage, signifying he’s gonna try one more time! Of course, the crowd is screaming at decibels that only a dog can hear! You can see it by clicking below. This video is really a rare find, I am not kidding! It’s from the show “Shindig” and it looks like it’s from the mid ’60’s, click below:
James Brown “Please Please Please”
Will there be anymore tributes to James Brown in upcoming issues?
Kelly, if people want to see James Brown, somebody’s going to have to write to me besides Shana!
Really? Then I’m going home to write my letter now!
Kelly, come back! Oh geez! I knew this was going to happen! Luckily, I came prepared! Ladies and gentlemen, meet Shobi, my best friend!
She’s got a great case for us today; this is your father’s case, right Shobi? And amazingly, your mother’s case is in our “Aggravation Zapper” article in this very same issue! Let’s everybody give a warm Hpathy welcome to our very special guest-presenter, the lovely and fabulous, Shobi Barnes!!!
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Thank you for inviting me, Elaine; it’s such an honor to be here! I’m surprised my whole family isn’t in this issue! Anyway, OK, here we go. This is the email I sent you:
Subject: My dad – urgent
Elaine,
It was good seeing you for muffins!
My dad is having a bad moment, though, with a severe respiratory infection – a cough that sounds like gasping. He also suffers from sleep apnea. This respiratory infection comes on every time he travels by plane (which he has to do, as this is part of his work). After any flight, long or short, he is left as of recent with this severe phlegmy cough and a high fever. He says the only thing that helped him get through his business trip was having about 5 very hot baths/showers a day between meetings. But the infection is really, really bad. And he is struggling to breathe – the cough sounds so painful and sounds very much like gasps. Even with all this he is struggling to keep working and won’t stop to give himself the rest he needs to heal. He is going about his business but he can barely speak as he is coughing so much – with every word!
He has been seeing a naturopath in Sri Lanka, but he hasn’t been able to help him this time around with the infection.
I know I haven’t done the constitutional for him – but please can you help us with this acute? As soon as I can think I’ll start filling in the constitutional for him.
Shobi
That’s the email, Elaine; then you asked me if it was normal for him to have sleep apnea, and I said yes; but, he hates wearing the oxygen mask when he sleeps as he feels like it’s suffocating him. At the moment, he doesn’t want to wear a tie – he says he feels like that, too, is suffocating.
And that’s it, that’s the case!
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OK! How did we do? You know, I hesitated presenting this case. “Too easy!” I thought. “Everybody’s gonna know what the remedy is!” And yet, so few people wrote in! But still, this case demonstrates so well what a miracle homeopathy is. Remember that the naturopath could do nothing with it? It sounds very severe and life-threatening to me. It’s especially relevant that at literally the exact same time, Shobi’s father-in-law, with a similar respiratory infection, was in the hospital (his family opted for “real” medicine) unconscious on a respirator, with antibiotics and morphine…does anybody think this case ended well? No, it did not. So, homeopathy vs. drugs, which case got better? Just ask Shobi’s father!
So, as for the quiz, I was shocked that so few people voted! I thought I would be flooded with quiz answers! It is a fact, though, that half the people got it right. The answer was, indeed, Lachesis!
Now, why did I think this would be an easy case? You know, when you’re looking for the correct remedy, or what Hahnemann called the “simillimum”, if you go down the road of checking the Repertory for common symptoms like “loose cough” and “fever”, you’re going to wind up with a big fat tie of ten or twenty remedies for first place, and how is that going to help you? So, when we look at a case, we’re hoping we see a big red flag somewhere! A big red flag is a KEYNOTE, a symptom a remedy is known for exclusively, or almost exclusively! What’s the great big red flag in this case? Here it is:
“At the moment, he doesn’t want to wear a tie – he feels like that, too, is suffocating.”
All anyone needs to know about the case is right there! Lachesis can’t bear to wear anything tight around his neck! And Lachesis is constantly fearing that that he can’t breathe, that he will suffocate! If you keep hearing the word “suffocate” over and over again, think of Lachesis!
In solving a case, you want to make sure that the remedy covers the peculiar or “characteristic” symptom in the case, then you can work your way back and say, Does Lachesis cover…
- Cough from talking
- Suffocative cough
- Sleep apnea
- Bronchitis/pneumonia
And, clearly, the answer is yes! One other interesting symptom that he had: According to Allen’s Keynotes, under Lachesis, “The least thing coming near the nose or mouth interferes with breathing.” Remember what Shobi said?
“Yes. but he hates wearing the oxygen mask when he sleeps as he feels like it’s suffocating him.”
Interesting, right? So, what about the etiology? People are always remarking to me how I’m always emphasizing the role the “cause” or “etiology” plays in solving a case. It appears that Shobi’s father comes down with these respiratory ailments every time he FLIES! This is clearly the etiology–ailments from flying. But, what about flying? There are two possibilities. A plane is a closed-in space. Lachesis is in BOLD for “fear of suffocation”. Second possibility: there’s a lack of oxygen in your average plane; you can’t open a window! We all know they’re recycling the air; Lachesis people are very sensitive to oxygen deprivation!
Generals: air, indoor air agg.–Lachesis (3)
The latest word from Shobi is that her father has since taken more business flights and is fine!
He began recovering significantly within one day of taking Lachesis 30C.
So who are our winners this month? Stand up and take a bow:
Sapna, Dr. Amit Arora, Elisabeth Fawcett, and, of course, Gabi!
Give yourselves a big hand!
Going out, here’s the original recording, James Brown from 1956, “Please, Please, Please”—his first record, and the one he’s most famous for:
Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom. Elaine takes online cases. Visit her website at: elaineLewis.hpathy.com
