A number of years ago in one of my own families. a family I had been in the habit of prescribing for, a little boy about four years of age, while sliding down the banisters one day, lost his hold and came down pretty fast, striking his head on the tiled floor. I was absent when sent for and a surgeon living near me was called in haste and remained in attendance, as they did not like to stop him, so that I did not see the case for two or three days. Immediately after the fall the child became unconscious and remained so. A clear white watery discharge started from the ear, and this, the surgeon said, was cerebrospinal fluid which was pouring from the fracture in the base of the skull that lead to the ear; that was his opinion. The child remained unconscious and the surgeon gave no hope for recovery, saying that the child would surely die. Finally I was sent for and found the child very pale, unconscious, with stertorous breathing, and that discharge was flowing, drip-dripping like clear water from the ear in to the pillow, and the water that was flowing out of the ear (I do not say where it came from) was forming little vesicles. It seemed to be acrid enough to form vesicles. The ear was red, and wherever the discharge came in contact with the skin the part became red. That was all there was about it. I could not see any more. My first thought was to give Arnica. But I did not. I gave him one dose of Tellurium. In two hours the child vomited. That discharge gradually ceased, recovery took place and in two weeks the child was perfectly well. What did the Tellurium have to do with it?
There was a discharge from an injury. Tellurium without any injury produces just such a discharge as that, and we know that the Tellurium discharge is not cerebro-spinal fluid, at least we have no reason to suppose it is. The first action of the remedy I observed was the child’s vomiting, showing reaction. It is laid down in all the books that after concussion if vomiting takes place it is considered a reaction and the case will probably recover.
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.