In the view of those who know that suppuration is never the beginning, but, on the contrary, is the ultimate of processes in living bodies, pyorrhoea must be considered an index to point to something which has disturbed the bodily functions, something which is to be changed in the life of the individual.
If our mental vision, intelligence, understanding is keen we cannot deny that something of disorder preceded that inflammation which progresses to the stage of cellular destruction, separation of the gums around the teeth exposing that portion of the teeth which nature has protected with clinging firm structure, separation even to the extent of permitting the teeth to move and be loose in the gum when yet firm in the bone, and bleeding from the small vessels normally provided to maintain supply and carry off waste products.
These alterations from normal procedure in the body must have been preceded by some vital disturbance, something more than local stimulation and mechanical clearing away of degenerate tissue. Coming to the remedies in homoeopathy whose action on the body brings this sort of effects, we find the most similar are Am-C, Canth., Carb-A., Carb-Veg., Caust., Hep., Lach., Mere, Mez., Nat-M., Petr., Phos., Puis., Sil.
These have suppuration of gums. Consult the repertory to find which of these have detachment of gums, bleeding gums, looseness of sound teeth. Do not be alarmed. I am not going to bore you with the detailed symptomatology of these remedies.
I am asking you to appreciate what these remedies in their action in the body do to the functions which maintain the body a receiving station for the life-vibrations in the vital system of wireless transmission of messages.
Look upon the individual who includes pyorrhoea in the symptomatology and determine for each one what has been going on in that individual body and in that individual life to bring about this condition. You will find other testimonies, of course, to combine with this local expression, to make out your complete case.
And then it will be clearly evident to the intelligent preserver that this list of remedies is not one to be applied succesively to the same individual but a list from which to select the one most similar to the condition, if one might so express it, similar to the course by which that individual has traveled to arrive at this condition of body.
When we have a clear image of the Am-c. patient, of the Carb-v. patient of the Phos. patient, we must be able to recognize pretty well how the metabolism is being performed, what is the condition of the blood vessels, how the heart is acting and so on and we must know that in the Silica patient Phosphorus will not do much for pyorrhoea, even as Carbo veg. will not in the Ammonium carb. man.
But I am asking you to go farther back, and receive the testimony that these symptom images offer in regard to the life of the patients whom we learn to name according to their remedy characteristics even more than we recognize them by their family or Christian names.
These are no superficial changes presented by these remedies. They tell of processes that have been operating deeply and through extended periods of time and of experience. They tell of circulation, of intelligence, of wisdom, of metabolism, of blood-constituents, of nerve response, of mental control.
Let us study the characteristics of Ammonium carb., for instance. Let us not lose sight of the fact that what is exhibited in the body and in the functions of the body was preceded by corresponding operations or experiences in the life. Nothing operates in the life that is not first in the thought.
In the Ammonium carb. man, whether prover or patient, one strong characteristic is the blood change, increased watery content and decreased corpuscles, disproportion of elements and perverted quality. The blood is breaking down before it reaches the tissues or is surcharged with waste from the tissues without the needed fresh supply of substances in exchange.
Fluids are acrid, blood oozes from relaxed or degenerate vessels. There is not only lack of repair, there is also lack of response to ordinary stimuli, lack of reaction. We say remedies that appear similar arouse no response. The system does not express its disorders in symptoms, so few symptoms to guide to a selection of remedy.
Pallor, mottled color of skin, yellow finger nails — what does it tell of blood and circulatory channels? The blood presents a zymotic quality. Is it not the accumulating poison from the system — animal poison similar to snake-venom and decaying flesh? The endocrinologist explains that the suprarenals are inactive. Something preceded that. Something has depleted this system, deprived it of the supply of life-force which belongs to every human being.
Something has interrupted the life-vibrations, lessening the response in this receiving station of matter (or substance). This is seen also in the exhaustion at menstrual periods, the sleep aggravation. There has been internal fever, whether the thermometer reveals it in the externals or not.
Lips are dry and scabby, cracks in the corners of mouth and eyes. Acute infectious fevers, of intense zymotic type, erysipelas. Defective metabolism is revealed by the quality of blood, hemorrhagic tendency, catarrhal discharges, changes in the gums and at the roots of teeth, emaciation, lack of heat and aversion to washing.
Mental control is lessened. Reactions may be somewhat hysterical, depression, weeping inclination and undue sensitiveness to what people say and to the sound of their talking tell that con- trol of self is slackened — another testimony of lessened vital vibration. Irritation from ordinary functions, and normal stimuli, sensitiveness to weather changes further bespeak lowering of mental control.
Asthma and cardiac enfeeblement hint of repressed affections and indifference in the emotional life. The glandular system is altered and presents lumps and obstructions of the lymph flow, probably one phase of defense from the zymotic inflictions.
In such a constitution Ammonium carb. would be a wise choice as the medicine, but the physician’s duty goes further. Instructions in diet to lead the patient to providing constructive materials, to be used with the least burden on the eliminative organs and omitting the depleting elements. That is, meat and highly albuminous foods, acids and potatoes should be omitted while sweet fruits, natural sweets (least possible refined cane sugar), cereals, fats, milk and plenty of green vegetables will constitute the best diet.
Perhaps most important, most interesting, and most delicate of all, the doctor has the problem to seek out what has been the influence that has brought the depletion. It might be worry and grief, shock, excessive attention to other peoples’ demands, under the sense of duty or other form of relinquishing the will to the demands of another, or burdensome tasks performed continuously without joy in the work.
Having found what is the occasion, the patient is not cured until a change in this respect is instituted and carried out in new lines of life that afford opportunity for freedom in expression and loving attentions and exchange of ideas in normal joyous activity. What could local swabbing, injecting, scrapping do toward curing such a patient of pyorrhoea and other disturbances without attention to the nature of the case?
In Carbo vegetabilis what a different picture is met. It is the materialization of self-love, indulgence, greediness, fear. Like the man of the parable who gathered his harvests to hoard in his barns, this patient has accumulated so much matter that the economy is overburdened, cannot digest it all nor assimilate what is digested or partially digested, because it holds onto or is too inactive to use up what it previously had stored.
Here the sluggish action of the receiving station, the body, interferes with its responsiveness to the life-vibrations and we find lack of response, sluggish mental action, sluggish circulation, life depletion further manifest in the respiratory difficulties.
How many expressions are here telling of the excess matter accumulation. Internal burning and external cold, desire for cooling drinks and for warm clothing, fresh air with lack of vital heat. Bleeding, ulceration, catarrhal discharges, many variations of stomach and intestinal disorders or deficient action.
He craves coffee, acids, cooling things containing vitamines and scant building substances. Craves sweets, easy of assimilation without taxing digestion, and salt, to supply more alkaline. He is averse to those foods which are counted usually the substantial and common foods, meat, milk, fats, wines.
He is satiated with these. He needs a highly eliminative diet to clear the body of its excess. Abundance of acid fruits and acid vegetables, potatoes cooked in the skins, plenty of green vegetables with exclusion of proteid, starches, fats until the system has disposed of all this accumulation and has better tone restored in all tissues and reaction in the functions.
Mental deficiency is expressed in failure to control thoughts. Sleep is disturbed by dreams always of self, horrible experiences that bring cold sweat, exhaustion with the fright and anxiety. Indifference in affections, anxiety with dyspnoea, confusion, dullness reveal how the intelligence and the emotions are distorted — lack of mental control.
In addition to diet and the deep-acting potentized carbon, this sort of patient who has pyorrhoea must learn self-denial, first in small things, but persistently and purposefully. Could we assume to free him from the local manifestations if we could not reveal to him what had brought him to it and then direct him to change of habits in such manner as to insure his carrying out the instructions and gradually awaking and strengthening the wisdom and knowledge in his own mind that would bring about better ultimates?
So must the physician investigate remedies and life functions and life experiences to be able to select from the list of remedies in the potentized medicines which is the one for this case of pyorrhoea. So long as a doctor harbors a thought of applying these remedies in succession on the same patient, or seeking the one which has pyorrhoea in highest degree in the provings he may well expect disappointment.
This small group of remedies offers a fine opportunity to study end conditions, ultimates as they are sometimes called, tracing back to the beginnings, following the course by which various sorts of disturbances in that wonderful connection between receiving station and constant, unceasing, infinite source of life-vibration manifest.
The correspondences of bodily functions and organs relating back to the immaterial can make these discriminations very clear and really enlightening. They afford the strongest line of first things for immunity, because they deal with the healthy activity and not with the end products.
Heart disturbances point to the affection, love, devotion to others. Lungs represent life. In lung conditions seek avenues for less depletion and more life force. In stomach disorders, investigate matters of intelligence and foster better action there.
In liver disorders, Truth has been neglected. Foster truth in all details, frankness, do away with hiding, deceiving. When the abdominal organs act not harmoniously and freely, stimulate reliance on and increasing knowledge and wisdom.
In all lack of co-ordination foster mental control, to the end that the individual fixes clearly what he mentally desires and trains his mind to carry out his will, that some suggestion or impulse cannot turn him from it to a course that he really does not wish to follow. We are masters of our fate only in that degree that we are captains of our souls.
From: The Homoeopathic Recorder Volume 37
