Homeopathy Papers

Nervous Moments of a G.P.

Nervous Moments of a G.P.

(Read before I.H.A. Bureau of Clinical Medicine, June 17, 1940)

To this august assemblage no explanation is needed that a “G.P” does not stand for general paretic, nor even for grateful patient, for in the I.H.A. (alias Internally Happy Altruists, or Intensely Homoeopathic Aggregate, or Immediately Helpful aids, or whatever each of you feels the I.H.A. symbolizes) all your patients are grateful. No, “G.P” stands for that precious anachronism in big cities to-day, the General Practitioner. You will not accuse me of needing Gelsemium or Argentum Nit, or even Lycopodium or Silicea, when I assert that the G.P. of the best homoeopathy has his “nervous moments”.
At these critical times not only the life of the patient is at stake, and the doctor’s reputation, but the furtherance of faith in homoeopathy in some small but devoted purlieu.

Case I. Woman, 46, complains of swelling and stiffness of the joints, markedly< in wet weather, bathing or even drinking water; bitter taste, bright yellow coat on rear of tongue; right-sided flatus,< on walking, can’t bear tight clothing, loose a.m. stools; violent impulse to harm her children; suicidal, has to restrain herself; red naevi. Natrum sulph. 10M, one dose.
Marked improvement for two months, when return of symptoms called for repetition.

Case II. Woman, 84, diabetic; 4 plus sugar in urine cleared and blood sugar of 205 lowered a year ago by diet and Phosphorus 1M, one dose, followed in a few days by Digitalis 10M because of slow intermittent pulse, nausea and frequent urination. She then went south for the winter and felt so well she omitted medication. On returning she had sudden terrific diarrhoea, scanty tools, collapse, no sweat, dry mouth, blueness, icy fingers and toes, cold yet insisted on uncovering; acetone 4 plus, sugar 2 plus, apparently dying though not comatose. Camphora 10 M., one dose.
Acetone cleared sugar reduced to least trac; sat up in chair in twenty-four hours.

Case III. Woman, 40; one child; hysterectomy years ago; has sudden profuse thick yellow burning leucorrhoea, two day’s duration, with bearing own sensation. Craving for sours since onset; all-gone sensation, nausea. Violent burning urination and frequency; pain up the rectum on urinating. Smear 4 plus for gonorrhoea. Sepia 10 M, one dose. Second smear on third day, 1 plus. Distress almost gone. Smears at one-week intervals all negative thereafter. Monthly checks since negative. General health better than in years.

Case IV. Man, 42, scalp eczema for many years, spreading. Patches circinate, red rims, dry scaly, itchy, mostly in the late afternoons; right lumbar backache, urine negative. Desires sweets lately. Irritable, marked inferiority complex; blood pressure low. Lycopodium 10 M., one dose.
Two weeks latter red rims to eruption gone, less itch, looking and feeling better.

Case V. Boy, 3, treated by sulfanilamide by suburban M.D. for streptococcus throat. Local condition and fever controlled, but child dwindling, low persistent fever, very low white count. Can’t bear top button of shirt closed, wakes from sleep or nap, cross and miserable. Left tonsil swollen and purplish, pain on empty swallowing, desires cold drinks, choking on eating. Pulse 120; yellowish faeces; mitral systolic murmur (recent). Grandparents persuaded mother to try homoeopathy. Lachesis 1 M, one dose.
No fever after second day. Normal rosy checks returned. Pulse 108. Throat better and choking gone. In one-week murmur gone, pulse 90, child active and gaining; thriving steadily ever since.

Case VI. Man, 38, with oozing, itching, cracking eczema of scrotum and groins, which had resisted salve and x-ray for months. Stout and gaining weight. Marked aversion to sweets of late. Worried, constipated, with knotty stool covered with mucus. Chilly recently. Cracks of fingertips in winter for three years. Graphites 2c., one dose.
Returned in three weeks, better but relapsed last two days. Graphites 10 M., one dose. Not heard from for eight months. Recently wife came for herself with message, “It was like a miracle. No more eruption or trouble since.”

Case VII. Man, 33, life-long “migraines”, start with eye symptoms; sour burning from mouth to stomach; sour vomiting after which he can eat again; must move with headache. They come on after he gets home from mental strain or on days of rest. Iris v,. 50 M., one dose, controlled each one but did not stop tendency.
Chronic case study came to Graphites After the 1 M dose no vomiting or migraine for months.

Case VIII. Man, 48, diagnosed as multiple sclerosis by full tests including spinal tap; recommended to try homoeopathy. Case repertorized to Alumina, Phosphorus And Silicea Alumina 1 M., one dose.
Relief moderate for weeks. Repeated. Progressing slowly but favorably three months later. Alum, Silicata may follow.

Case IX. Sea captain, 64, walked in my office with a pulse of 180, B.P. 188/70, complaining of choking spells at night, on waking, with loss of breath, Can’t wear stiff collars. Craves air. Burning feet. Lachesis 10M, one dose.
Pulse 90, but irregular, fibrillation. No more chokes. B.P. 140/70. No decompensation. Cought cold in chest muscles: intercostals neuralgia. Belladonna 1M relieved. After this Lachesis Repeated did not take hold. Time of fibrillation, weak pulse, < at night; restless. Aur, 2c, one dose. Little result.
Crataegus ox 30, four times daily for a week, gave slow steady improvement.
Question: Would Crataegus 10M., one dose, help more? What experience have you had with Crataegus high? It is one of the remedies I have not succeeded with high.

Case X. Man, 42, very thin, dark. Spitting of bright blood by thimblefuls. Occasional cough with green thick sweet sputum. Weak feeling in chest. X-ray shows active bilateral tbs., one healed cavity. Fever each night 99-100 F. Sputum positive. Marked double mitral murmur since a child. For financial and family reasons this man must work. Extra feeding, air and rest advised. Stannum 2c., one dose.
No more blood spitting after second day for three months. Gain of over two pounds. Cough and sputum stopped. No longer feels tired. Carried for over three years on stann. and Alumen at two to three months intervals (with one dose of Iodum for a cold), never stopping work except for two week’s vacation yearly. No blood spitting in over a year. Holds his increased weight. Chest negative for acute findings. No fever or sputum.
You will get nervous moments if I go on farther. But fifteen years of strict homoeopathy has taught me, in nervous moments, to study your cases and your material medica more; to go into training to keep your self fit and intuitive, and then homoeopathy will not fail you.

NEW YORK, N.Y.

DISCUSSION.

Dr. Grimmer: I want to commend the doctor for the way she takes her case. Old Dr. H.C.Allen used to say,”A case well taken is nine-tenths prescribed for” and in every one of these cases the remedy was very clearly mapped out when you heard the doctor’s discussion. It was classical. That is one of the things this paper teaches us. Go into your case. Get the thing in its completeness, and you will find it is relatively easy to fit the remedy.
On the heart case the doctor spoke about, I do not know that she is to be criticized for giving the Crataegus especially, and evidently the prescription was justified by the results. The man is some better. You cannot expect too much from such cases. However, I would have thought of some other remedies, somewhat analogous to the symptoms of Lachesis, Ammonium carb, Opium and Carbo veg.

Dr. Bond: The case was very interesting to me because I had a heart case similar to that just before coming up here. The man was very short of breath and would not tolerate his collar buttoned or even the waistband tied around his wait. It was a typical Lachesis case apparently. I gave him the 50,000th—he had had the 1000th before—and it did not help him. I waited quite a while and gave him C.M, and it did not help him. Then I resorted to my strictly “heart” remedies and gave this man 3x Digilatis and Crataegus tincture, and there again I departed from the path a little bit and alternated those doses—two tablets of Digitalis 3x and 10 drops of Crataegus tincture every four hours. The man is getting well. I don’t know why.

Dr. Dixon: I would like to ask Dr. Hubbard to recite to me the rule on some of the remedies that cover the feet and say why she did not give one of those when Lachesis failed to clear it up.

Dr. Hubbard: You mean one of the others? Lachesis has that effect. Well, I could not see indications for it. I do not remember the rule.

Dr. Dixon: Just taking it by and large, I don’t know the patient and you do, why would not a dose of Medorrhinum have done something in there?

Dr. Hubbard: They say all sea captains need it. He certainly did not get over on his hands and knees.

Dr. Nixon: I just wondered if a nosode would not have done something in that case. There is any underlying reason why Lachesis did not clear it up. That is the angle I got on it. I was wondering.

Dr. Stevens: Would Sulphur have done it?

Dr. Hubbard: I thought about Sulphur, but I did not see any other symptoms for it, except that one. He was a most tidy, orderly. Calm, sensible person. Doesn’t go in for sweets; doesn’t have any emptiness or diarrhoea or any thing. I could not see it, but it may be there.

Dr. Moore: Dr. Hubbard may feel badly about her repetition.

Dr. Dixon here has just got a wagonload of books from Texas, a most wonderful layout of homoeopathic literature, and anything he has I get for the asking, so I am delving into all of these things. Lately I have been going over the homoeopathic literature for 1873 and 1874. Through all of this reading—and I have had to do a lot of it for a long time—there is no one except Boenninghausen and Dr. Dixon that use nothing under the two hundreds—just those two fellows. I don’t know of anyone else. You will find all sorts of irregularities all along the line in our best prescribers in curing cases.

I got from Dr, Boger once the idea of giving Mercurius cor; give it 200 three days and wait a week and give it 203 for three days.
Certainly Hahnemann didn’t do it, but his friend, Boenninghausen, and later his friend, Dr. Dixon, have been at it.
Dr. Dixon: I don’t have to take that man’s abuse if I don’t want to. I can answer him. (Laughter).

Dr. Engle: I feel as if I am in the hall of science. Dr. Hubbard invited us to “jump on her”. I don’t feel I am able to jump on her. All I am asking for is knowledge and a little information as to whether when she prescribes Crataegus 30 in those doses, she considered Crataegus 30 the divided dose or whole potency.
Furthermore, I would like to know why she repeated Crataegus 30 so often.

Dr. Stevens: May I say that, through the influence of somebody who was a good deal older and knew more about homoeopathy than I, I have tried Crataegus in what is approximately the 1x. and sometimes I give one dose a day of that, in cases especially where there was breathlessness. I think that is one of the special indications, the very difficult breathing. Usually I give just One dose a day of the 1x for a time. As it gets better, I stop it.

Dr. Hubbard: Dr. Engle delights me by putting me on the spot. I must confess that to me a 30th is a very low potency. I don’t think I own anything less than 30, except Phosphorus, which I own in 12, in some cases. I may have been influenced by the fact that Crataegus 30 is the lowest I have in my special collection, which I got from Dr. Kent.

I was giving it in one dose. It seemed to me he was not getting well on the one dose and was immensely pathological, he was not throwing out symptoms as well as he should, and possibly he needed something more nearly physiological than I had been giving. It may have been entirely wrong.
I am afraid I was just plain experimenting with that 30. I went to see him carefully. After he had had the four doses, if he had been worse, I would have stopped it instantly. He appeared to get better. I told his wife to stop it instantly if he appeared to get worse at any moment, but he fooled us and got gradually better, so I am afraid I have no reason for it except God-given despair.

Courtesy—– The Homoeopathic Recorder, November 1940.

About the author

Elizabeth Wright Hubbard

Dr. Elizabeth Wright Hubbard (1896-1967) was born in New York City and later studied with Pierre Schmidt. She subsequently opened a practice in Boston. In 1945 she served as president of the International Hahnemannian Association. From 1959-1961 served at the first woman president of the American Institute of Homeopathy. She also was Editor of the 'Homoeopathic Recorder' the 'Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy' and taught at the AFH postgraduate homeopathic school. She authored A Homeopathy As Art and Science, which included A Brief Study Course in Homeopathy.

Leave a Comment