uch of the substance of this website has been a compilation of the theory and philosophy of homeopathy. To make this information more real, this section will be devoted to the presentation of actual cases from medical records. As time goes on, this part of the site will be the largest and, hopefully, the most interesting. As I come across interesting cases from the literature, they will be included.

Most of the cases will be old ones for the following reason: Homeopathy used to be the treatment of choice for many ailments that are currently treated by other means. For example, the old masters of homeopathy used to routinely treat cancer with considerable success. In the current environment of legal restrictions and the ever-present threat of litigation, homeopathic treatment of cancer is rare. It is hoped that the following case examples will give the reader a more vivid sense of the potential curative power of homeopathy in medical problems that one would not ordinarily be associated with this kind of treatment.

A historical note: Homeopathy used to be a primary mode of medical treatment in many parts of North America, England, and Europe. "In that year [1836] there were 53 physicians practicing homeopathy in the U.S. By 1848 the number rose to 400-500; by 1899, 10,000; by 1901, 14,000" (Yasgur, p. 213). Approximately a decade later, the wheels came off this explosion and soon thereafter homeopathy was essentially banned in the U.S. Why did this happen? There were two main reasons. Firstly, the homeopathic community was very stupid. Instead of presenting a united front to a devastating campaign by the American Medical Association, homeopaths squandered the impetus of their growing popularity in useless theoretical bickering with each other. Secondly, the underlying real reason was that there was (and is) no big money in homeopathy. This was an unacceptable threat to the pharmaceutical industry and this industry carried (and continues to carry) a very big stick.

A word of discretionary caution here. Some of the cases that follow come from another era and sometimes the language used to describe a patient is not politically correct, and can be downright offensive, by today's standards. If you are not too put off by, for example, a description of a young woman as an "epileptic idiot," then I think that you will find that this older literature opens a window on a gentler time when medicine was viewed more as a calling than a profession.

Case 1: From the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital
One has seen that in one extreme case, in especial, the sort of case one does not forget, and which one quotes to show what Carbo veg. can do in the most desperate conditions, where the symptoms agree. It was a small girl with heart disease, and an acute exacerbation supervening that was abruptly ending her young life. She had a pneumonia with pleural effusion. An endocarditis with pericardial effusion, and one morning, when the Physician was going his round accompanied by several other doctors, she was found lying forward on the supports that had to be provided, because she could not rest otherwise, cold, white, unconscious; just alive, because she was still giving the infrequent sharp gasps of the dying. Carbo veg. (I think 200) was quickly administered, while one of the doctors of wide experience exclaimed, "I'll eat my hat if that child lives!" But before the ward round was finished she had regained warmth and consciousness -- death had passed on! And, under Kali carb. (the complementary remedy, by the way!) she got well, so far as the damaged heart would permit. It is such experiences that have gained for Carbo veg. the name "corpse reviver."
(Dr. Margaret Tyler, Homeopathic Drug Pictures)

Case 2: From the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital
    It was many years ago: Charlotte E., an epileptic idiot, 23 years old. First seen in 1909.
    History-- At 3 1/2 years old had a fall on head. In bed for four months, "unconscious and blind." On recovery, a pustular rash all over head, cured with ointments.
    Epileptic fits ever since, with enuresis. Whole body violently convulsed. Sleeps after the fits, sometimes all day.
    May have 20-30 fits in one night. May go 14 days without fits, then fits every night for a week.
    Very intelligent before the fall (at 3 1/2 years old). Just like a baby now, at 23.
    Cannot wash or dress herself, but can feed herself now. If asked whether she wants food, says "No," -- then eats it, if set before her.
    Can never be left alone.
    For the  (a) violence of the convulsions --
                   (b) the pustular rash --
    and for   (c) "after-effects of blows on the head," she got Cicuta 200, one dose.
    The effect was amazing; it was a revelation!
Three weeks later, the report was --
    Much better. Fewer fits, and less violent. No struggling.
    Much more intelligent. Remember things now!
    Remembers as she has not done since babyhood.
    Washed and dressed herself today for the first time in life. No medicine.
In five weeks --
    Better. Goes upstairs to fetch things for her mother.
    Fits? "Nothing near so bad. Only six fits since here"... used to have 20-30 in a night!
    Actually talks about things.
    Dressed herself to come up to Hospital. Understand and remembers.
    Mother says, "It doesn't seem true that she can talk to them, and say sensible things," as she does now.
    Some festery spots have come out on her face.
    The girl talks to me. Tells me that "she likes to go and see the girls doing needlework." Shows me the pennies that they have given her. Mother says, "She couldn't trust her to do anything for herself; can now!" No medicine.
In two months --
    Very much  better. Only two slight fits.
    Memory improving. Enjoys coming up here. She positively asked her mother not to forget her hospital card!
    Helps herself at meals now. Cuts bread.
    Again, spots on face. No medicine.
In three months --
    Still rapid improvement in intelligence.
    Remembers that she had forgotten to bring me flowers
    Two slight fits. No medicine.
In five months --
    No fits at all.
    Can make beds and do cleaning. Sews on buttons. No medicine.
In six months --
    Has been ill with a bad cold; doctor called it pleurisy; and one severe fit. Cicuta 200, one dose (for the second time in six months).
In seven months --
    Am told that this medicine (like the first) produced an aggravation. She was dreadful for two days, and took no notice of anyone.
    Much better since. Does housework. Loves needlework. No medicine.
In eight months --
    No fit, till she burned her hand. She was taking a kettle off the fire with paper for a kettle-holder. It flared up and burnt her hand. She screamed with the pain. Three fits, not severe, the next day.
    She is very useful in the house. Talks to me a lot today. No medicine.
In eleven months --
    "Getting on tremendously." Does needlework.
    Goes out and buys vegetables.
    One slight attack. Cicuta 200, one dose, for the third time.
In twelve months --
    One slight attack. No medicine.
In fourteen months --
    Better than ever before. No fits at all.
    Tells me a long yarn about her sister.
    Originates conversations.
    After wringing the clothes, and hanging them up to dry, said "Now I am dead tired. I'm going to bed. Mother doesn't want me to, but my nerves are going like that, and I'm dead tired!" No medicine.
In seventeen months --
    Understands that her Sunday School teacher is dead. Said, "She's gone, and we shall not see her any more." Never mentioned her again. No medicine.
In nineteen months --
    Mother wrote up, "Ill, and ten fits." Sent Cicuta 200, one dose.
Two years later --
    Several rather bad fits. Cicuta 200, one dose.
Three years later --
    Had been ill with flu; ten bad fits one night. Otherwise well. Washes up. Cleans the doorstep. Goes shopping. Cicuta 200, one dose.
    Then for some six months -- No fits.
After four years --
    Mother says, "She speaks in proverbs now! She said, 'What is it, Mother, when your nose itches like this?'" No medicine.
In five years --
    Mends her clothes. Does all the mangling and hangs the clothes out. Remembers where she has put things.
    Has been seen since, at very long intervals. It was a pleasing and illuminating case. Excitement or sickness may bring on an attack. But a girl of 23, with less than the mentality of a baby, unable to say when she wanted food, let alone to wash or dress herself, was quickly transformed into a useful and fairly intelligent member of society by a very few doses of Cicuta, in the 200 potency.
(Dr. Margaret Tyler, Homeopathic Drug Pictures)

Case 3: From the practice of Dr. Luc De Schepper
    Dysentery Co. was used with remarkable results in a little lapdog diagnosed with rheumatic endocarditis and valvular lesions after a dental cleaning, apparently while he had a strep infection. The symptoms included shortness of breath on the slightest effort, a chronic cough and complete exhaustion. The vet gave him two months to live. Naja helped minimally at first, then stopped working in spite of increased potency. Arsenicum was given with no response.
    The dog was given one dose of Dys.Co. 30C. The next day, to the owner's horror, her beloved little Bichon Frisé suddenly keeled over as if dead! He got up after several hours, and the next day he was "reborn." No more exhaustion, cough or shortness of breath. He began frisking around like a puppy and stayed this way for one month, at which point some of the symptoms came back in mild form. He was given one dose of Arsenicum 30C, the associated remedy. One year later he is still healthy with no repetition of... remedy. Note that a dose of 6C of the Dys.Co. would have avoided the frightening aggravation.

Case 4: From the practice of Dr. E. B. Nash
   I once had a case of very severe gastralgia caused by suppression of eczema on the hands. I knew nothing of the suppression, but prescribed Arsenicum because the pains came on at midnight, lasting until 3 a.m., during which time the patient had to walk the floor in agony, and there was great burning in the stomach. She had but one slight attack after taking Arsenicum, but, said she, when I visited her, "Doctor, would that remedy send out salt rheum?" Then I found out about the suppression which had been caused by the application of an ointment, and told her that she could have back the pain in the stomach any time she wanted it, by suppressing the eruption again. She did not want it.
(E. B. Nash, M.D., Leaders in Homeopathic Therapeutics)

Case 5:  From the practice of Dr. E. B. Nash
    This remedy [Colchicum autumnale] has one of the most positive and reliable characteristic symptoms in the whole Materia Medica, and one which cannot be accounted for from any pathological standpoint that I know of... "The smell of food cooking nauseates to faintness." To illustrate the value of this symptom I will give a case of my own practice; it was also my first experience with a potency as high as the 200th. Patient was a lady, seventy-five years of age, who was suddenly seized with icy coldness at the stomach and vomiting of blood in large quantities; then bloody stools followed, which were at first profuse, then became small and of bloody mucus. There was great tensness and pain in the bowels. Aconite, Mercurius, Nux vomica, Ipecacuanha, Hamamelis and Sulphur; all tried as well as I knew how to select them at that time, but no relief came, and at the end of twelve days my patient was rapidly going down and it looked to me as though she must die. She had become so weak that she could not lift her head from the pillow. By actual count the number of stools passed on cloths in the bed was sixty-five, in twenty-four hours, the pains, number of passages and all symptoms were aggravated from sundown to sunrise.
    Now during all this sickness this patient had been so nauseated and faint at the smell of cooking food that they had been obliged to keep the doors closed between her bedroom and the kitchen, which was two large rooms away. I was not so well acquainted with Materia Medica then as now, and while I did not overlook the symptom did not know of any remedy that had it. But I had my Lippe textbook of Materia Medica in my carriage and I went out and got it and sat down by the bedside; determined to find that peculiar and persistent symptom and "fight it out on that line if it took all summer." I began at Aconite, and looked at the stomach symptoms of every remedy, until the first time I remembered ever having noticed it, there it stood in plain English under Colchicum. Then I looked in my medicine case for the remedy. None there, and I was four miles from home. I had a box of Dunham's 200ths under my carriage seat that had been there for over a year, but which I had never used for want of confidence in high potencies. It was the best I could do for the present, so I dissolved a few pellets in a half-glass of cold water, and directed to give one teaspoonful after every passage of the bowels. On my way home I stopped my horse two or three times to turn around and go back and give that poor suffering woman some medicine. I felt so guilty, but I said to myself this is Lippe's Materia Medica, and these are Carrol Dunham's potencies, and here is a clean-cut indication for its administration, and the other symptoms do not counter-indicate. Well, I got home. But I started early the next morning to try and make amends for my rashness (if the patient was not dead) of yesterday. Imagine my surprise as I stepped into the sickroom when my patient slowly turned her head upon the pillow and said, with a smile, "Good morning, Doctor." I had been met with a groan several past mornings. I felt faint myself then. I dropped into a chair by the bedside and remarked, "You are feeling better." "Oh, yes Doctor." "How much of that last medicine did you take?" "Two doses." "What!" "Two doses; I only had two more stools after you left." "Don't you have any more pain?" "Pain stopped like that" (putting her hands together) "and I feel well except weakness." She took no more medicine, quickly recovered, and was perfectly well for five years after, and finally died at eighty years of age. I never got over that surprise.
(E. B. Nash, M.D., Leaders in Homeopathic Therapeutics)

Case 6:  From the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (a "spoilt" case with commentary")
    I have always regretted, and never forgotten, a spoilt Lachesis case -- spoilt for want of (then) knowledge. It was a huge cavity in a woman's calf: one of those big excavated ulcers one used to see so often in student days. Lachesis was her remedy, and was prescribed. The second time she appeared, there was most amazing healing in the ulcer. But instead of waiting to let the vital reaction carry on towards cure, it was interrupted, by repetition of the remedy. When she came again, it was much worse -- and then she came no more. It was a tragedy. "My people perish for lack of knowledge." Work is not always easy: but the spoiling of good work is easy and deplorable. When things are going well, past all expectation, let them get on with it. Solomon says, "there is a time for everything." But the time of rapid and extraordinary improvement is not the time to "butt in."
(Dr. Margaret Tyler, Homeopathic Drug Pictures)

From the same author in her introduction to Kent's Repertory of Homeopathic Materia Medica: "But get the right drug, the stimulus needed, and you will find the reaction of the organism deep enough in all conscience, and long-sustained. Then KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF! Wait long for a second very definite cry, before you dare to interfere. You may have to wait months -- then wait! Remember, it is the patient who has to cure himself; the drug cannot cure him; the drug is only the stimulus that starts the vital reaction. So long as curative reaction is in progress, it is sensless -- criminal -- to interfere. This is the way to crush your work, to vitiate your experience, to break your heart. So long as the patient is improving, let him be, and never meddle till he begins to slip back: that is the first possible moment to repeat, or to reconsider the case. It is safer to be a little late than a little soon. You must 'go fast slowly;' there is no other way."

Case 7:  From the practice of Dr. E. B. Nash
    All seem to agree that it [Conium maculatum] paralyzes from below upwards... It ought to be a remedy for locomotor ataxia. The strongest characteristic I know, from a homeopathic standpoint, is its peculiar vertigo, which is much aggravated by turning the head sideways. Turning over in bed is the same.
    I once treated a case of what seemed to be locomotor ataxia with this remedy.
    The patient had been slowly losing the use of his legs; could not stand in the dark; and when he walked along the street would make his wife walk either ahead of him, or behind him, for the act of looking sidewise at her or in the least turning head or eyes that way would cause him to stagger and fall.
    Conium cured him. It would always aggravate at first, but he would greatly improve after stopping the remedy. The aggravation was just as invariable after taking a dose of Fincke's c.m. potency as from anything lower, but the improvement lasted longer after it.
    Taking an occasional dose from a week to four weeks apart completely cured him in about a year. It was a bad case, of years' standing, before I took him.
(E. B. Nash, M.D., Leaders in Homeopathic Therapeutics)
 

Case 8:  One of my own cases
    In February 2005 a 21-year-old female presented with chief complaints of chronic fatigue, severe abdominal pain that was food related, and allergies. On interview the following symptoms were reported:
    Fatigue: The patient believed that her fatigue was a consequence of poor circulation. Her hands would turn purple or red when exposed to cold and her hands and feet were always cold, with clammy sweat. She reported that her vital heat had been good until two to four years ago. Her heartbeat was irregular with a pattern of two slow, two quick, then regular pulse. She experienced shortness of breath on exertion, accompanied by mild stabbing pains in her chest. Getting to sleep at night was difficult and she typically awoke unrefreshed.
    Abdominal pain: Severe stabbing pain in circumscribed areas approximately three inches in diameter in both sides of her lower abdomen and back. Attacks occured after eating salads, red meat or dairy. Pain was accompanied by bloating and constipation.
    Allergies: Skin allergies to all metals except for silver, gold and titanium, as well as laundry detergents. Eruptions were red, very itchy bumps that burned on being scratched. In addition, chronic sinus congestion with phlegmy cough and thick green expectoration. Itchy eyes and ears.
    Other symptoms: Menses: PMS and at onset of flow the patient experienced back pain with spasms, nausea, vomiting and headache. Headaches two or three times per week that were one-sided and accompanied by nausea, vertigo, and vomiting of an excoriating greenish-yellow bitter bile. Constant back pain and scoliosis dating from being thrown off a horse at 14 years of age. Dreams: "I'm often being murdered... always someone out to get me." Thirstlessness with aversion to drinking water.
    General symptoms: Worse: damp weather, change of weather, noon to 8 p.m., exertion, strong odours. Better: deep pressure, hot applications
    Most symptoms had approximately the same time of onset: two to three years previously.
Prescription: Lycopodium, LM1
Follow-up in May:
    Areas of no change: skin reactions to metals, respiratory congestion and phlegmy cough with change of weather, cold hands and feet (not as cold but still cold), cramping and bloating after eating salads, aversion to drinking water, and itchy ears.
    Areas of significant improvement: eyes did not itch anymore; no bloating or cramps after eating red meat or cheese; less sinus congestion; longer, deeper and more refreshing sleep; clammy sweat gone. Energy: "I don't feel drained anymore. I don't think about it now."; shortness of breath and chest pains entirely gone; irregular heartbeat resolved "doesn't have that sketchy beat anymore;" constipation resolved. Menses: cramps (still severe) and bloating only, nausea, vomiting, back pain and headache all completely resolved; headache: "I don't remember the last time I had one."; vertigo gone. Dreams: "My dog is driving in TO in a plastic cup. He was talking. He said something really funny. He said his mouth was numb because he saw the dentist [laughter]."
    This young woman had not previously related any precipitating factor in her life around the time of the onset of many of her ailments. I decided to ask again, and finally she volunteered: "My boyfriend cheated on me two years ago. It's still something I think about... can't eat... cry a lot (note the present tense)... Just hurts."
    Often the first signals that a homeopathic remedy is working are manifested in sleep and dream states. Taking this new information into account about a never-been-well-since element served, in my opinion, as a confirmation of the choice of remedy. There are very few remedies that have "ailments from betrayal" as a characteristic symptom, and Lycopodium is one of them.
Prescription: Continue Lycopodium LM1, dosing only as needed.
Telephone conversation in August: PMS cramping not as severe; cramping and bloating after eating salads resolved. Respiratory congestion with cough: no change. New symptom: an outbreak of hives on the patient's legs.
    The patient was outraged by the rash on her legs. I was unable to determine whether she had taken too many doses of the remedy or whether this was a healing response indicating a cure. A cure is sometimes heralded by some temporary and transient skin eruption as the body externalizes and expels an internal problem via the skin. The plan of action in both cases is to wait until the rash disappears. I never saw her again. I do hope that the dramatic and comprehensive improvements stick over time and qualify as a cure. During our last conversation she also stated that she was feeling more tired. Whether this woman was already cured or would be soon with adjusted dosing, I would have liked to finish her treatment with a single dose of the same remedy in high-potency to reduce susceptibility and prevent recurrence.


No. 9:  From the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (several Drosera cases):
     Of course, everybody knows all about Drosera! Has it not a place in every "Manual of Domestic Homeopathy" -- and a groove in every box of a dozen homeopathic remedies? For Drosera is classical, and that for a hundred years, as a laryngeal remedy and as our greatest remedy in whooping-cough. I may say that I have been in the habit of curing whooping-cough with single doses of Drosera 30 or 200; and I saw a good deal of whooping-cough during the 1914-18 war in our Children's Out-patient Department. But... I began to realize what Drosera can do in tuberculous disease of BONE, of JOINT and of GLAND.
     The case that opened my eyes, accidentally, to the value of Drosera in SPINAL CARIES was one that was sent in to me by one of the Surgeons, when I was running our Children's Department during the War. It was a small boy of four. He had started a T.B. finger at twelve months, and spinal caries six months later. He had been treated by our Children's Physician and by one of our Surgeons, and was lying on a board with a double Thomas splint and headpiece. He had improved, on the whole, under treatment with fluctuations. He got very thin at one time, and there was threatening of lung trouble, and night sweats; but Tub., Phos., Calc., etc., had helped. The Surgeon now sent him in for whooping-cough: not a desirable occupation for one who was supposed to maintain a restful recumbent position! He got a dose of Dros. 200.
     When next seen, two months later, the mother was so enthusiastic as to the good effects of the last medicine on the child's health that I began to "sit up and take notice." Another two months and he was found to be "eating well; putting on flesh. Fat and flourishing." The change in the child was really amazing. The remedy was repeated at long intervals. When last seen some three years later, the note is, "Boy's spine is very good. He has not worn apparatus for nearly two years. Goes to school for the last six months.
     One remembers another case of spinal caries (cervical) in a boy of seven years. He started at four years old with a knee, then a finger, then his neck. He had been treated at other hospitals. He had also had fits, and ear discharge, and was brought in a spinal carriage; never allowed to sit up. He was a happy little fellow, with an extraordinarily deformed neck, which he would move from side to side with alarming jerks. He got Drosera 200, and began to improve at once; and was soon able to turn his head easily, all ways. In two or three months, with the approval of one of our Surgeons, he was allowed to sit up, and he made steady progress, with very intermittent treatment, till a couple of years later it was reported to me that his parents (in spite of warning) "took him flying about the country in the sidecar of a motorcycle -- long journeys, sitting up, his neck being joggled all the time." He rapidly put on flesh, and one of my notes four years after treatment began reads, "Looking very well. Active. Good colour. Father takes him out all day in his van. Does not mind the jolts." And later, I was told that "nothing new in the way of his disease had occurred since he first came here four and a half years ago." Till then there had been a succession of T.B. manifestations.
     I am allowed to quote a case, showing the value of Drosera in Tuberculous Sinuses. Boy, 13 ½. For eight months there had been a swelling, constantly recurring in right forearm, followed by several areas left arm. When opened, pus oozed out, but the discharge would not cease. There was a bad T.B. history on both sides of family. The boy had three considerable areas of typical tuberculous-looking tissue, which alternately scabbed and broke down.
     Tub. and Silica helped. Then Dros. 200 was given, and a month later the scars were found to be freely moveable (this is a typical Dros. result, -- the three drugs one has seen dealing successfully with scar tissue being Graph., Sil., and Drosera; and where tuberculous scars are concerned, the greatest of these is Drosera). Treatment was continued till, six months after the first dose, it was so extraordinarily cured that the note is, "Discoloration faint. In certain lights the skin looks almost normal." And -- "the boy was well, fat and flourishing."
     Where Drosera helps, results are very soon seen, and invariably in renewed health and spirits, and in utterly changed appearance. I have seen this so often. The patient who needs Drosera and gets it, simply blooms. There is no other word for it.

     One has had a number of cases of cervical gland doing well under Drosera, some of them after long treatment here or elsewhere, and with a great deal of ugly scarring.
     What one invariably notices is that the cases that react to this drug, react rapidly, with astonishing improvement in general health and well-being. Where they do not rapidly react, I know that I have not got my remedy. But over and over again I find in recorded in Drosera cases, and often on the very next visit "patient looks blooming." I do not think this expression occurs -- it certainly does not occur constantly, in my records in regard to any other remedy.
     In Drosera GLAND cases one notices, as I said, not only the diminution in the size of the gland, but that the old scars fade away, get free, and come to the surface; that discoloration goes, and that when a gland does break down under Drosera, in behaves in a very restrained manner, with a small opening, little discharge, and that it leaves practically nothing to mark what has taken place.

     As to Drosera in JOINTS... occasional cases of rheumatoid arthritis clear up to an astonishing extent on Drosera. One remembers an old body of 76. She had been coming up some years before -- unable to close her hands: wrists and knuckles expecially affected, and ankles and feet, with swelling and deformity. She had an extremely bad T.B. family history. As she had previously improved under Tub.bov. and Causticum she came again to see if more could be done for her. Caust. helped again; and then, for "severe pain in right tibia; foot and leg unbearable," she got Drosera.
     In a month, "Very much better. Pain gone." Says that now her left hand "goes out flat," and shows it.
     Then a succession of visits to boast and rejoice. "Getting back her left wrist, hasn't had it for years!" (i.e., it is no longer rigid). Later, "can bend her feet and bend her toes now; so she knows she is getting better. Feels so well now; does her room, and her washing!" Later again, "Only comes to show her hands! Watches herself improving! Has movement in both wrists now. No pain at all, except in one finger,..." Says "she used only to be able to lift a cup between her two clenched hands." Now "stands on tip-toe." Hands look all gnarled and twisted, with the typical ulnar deflection: but they are pliable, and she is able to extend them flat.
     A curious fact one has noted is the number of patients who, after months of steady treatment with other remedies and with varying periods of amelioration and relapse, on getting Drosera, come back no more, or only after periods of months to years of good health. Drosera goes deep.
(Dr. Margaret Tyler, Homeopathic Drug Pictures)


No. 10: From the caseload of E.B. Nash (two Digitalis cases):
     The leading characteristic of Digitalis is a very slow pulse. This may alternate with a very quick pulse, and between the two we may sometimes get a very irregular or intermittent pulse.
     One day I saw an old but very strong man staggering across the road toward my office. I thought he was drunk, but on closer observation I noticed that his face looked purple, his lips bluish, and I stepped out and helped him in. He sat down and could not for a few minutes speak a word, but say and struggled for breath. His pulse was very irregular and intermittent. When he could speak, he told me that for a number of weeks past he had been having these spells, had fallen several times and been obliged to go into the stores and sit, before he could go along the streets. Auscultation revealed hard, blowing sound with the first beat of the heart. He had had inflammatory rheumatism in his younger days. He had been obliged to give up all manual labor and dared not go away from home on his business, that of a bridge builder. Said he expected to die with this heart disease. I gave him Digitalis 2, a few drops in water. In a few days I saw him shoveling snow from the walk in front of his dwelling. "Hello," he said, "I have no heart disease;" and I saw him often after that and he told me that medicine cured him of "those spells."
     A young man of good habits was taken with nausea and vomiting. He was drowsy, and after a couple of days he began to grow very jaundiced all over. The sclerotica were as yellow as gold, as was, indeed, the skin all over the body, even to the nails. The stools were natural as to consistence, but perfectly colorless, while the urine was as brown as lager beer, or even more so. Where you could see through it, on the edge of the receptacle, it was yellow as fresh bile. The pulse was only thirty beats per minute and often dropped out a beat.
     This was a perfect Digitalis case of jaundice, and this remedy cured him perfectly in a few days, improvement in his feelings taking place very shortly after beginning it; the stools, urine and skin gradually taking on their natural color. The characteristic slow pulse was the leading symptom to the prescription, for all the rest of the symptoms may be found in almost any well-developed case of severe jaundice.
(E.B. Nash, M.D., Leaders in Homeopathic Therapeutics)


Case 11:   From the casebook of Dr. J.H. Clarke
      The patient was a sea-captain, aged 50. I had saved a relation from some operation, and for this reason he came to me. Except for his trouble, which was steadily getting worse, he was quite healthy.
      His face was quite distorted, right cheek bulging out, nose pushed over to the left side, right nostril stretched out. The malar bone was especially prominent near the wing of the nose. This was the only part that was tender. The tumour was softish as if cystic. There was no discharge. Inside the mouth the right side of the hard palate bulged into the mouth and was slightly tender to pressure. The tumour was the seat of a constant gnawing pain, but the thing that troubled him most was sensitiveness to cold winds and cold weather. This was so great that he was afraid he would have to give up his calling. This led me to give Silica 30 in the first instance (on February 27, 1895), but Sil. only increased the pain. One night he awoke feeling all his back aching.
      I worked up the case more carefully and found this under Mag-c. [Magnesia carbonica]: "Throbbing pain in antrum of Highmore with swelling of right malar bone," and "facial neuralgia, left side, shooting like lightening, worse from touch, draft, change of temperature, cannot stay in bed, must walk the floor." Putting these together I prescribed (on March 13th) Mag-c. 30, giving four doses a day.
      March 28th: "Much less pain. Face much reduced, swelling softer, fluctuating. Swelling inside mouth softer."
      April 10th:  "Very much better. Tumour softer and smaller."
      August 14th:  "Face almost normal in appearance. Swelling inside mouth quite gone. Has no pain whatever, no sensitiveness to cold air. Had finished medicine in middle of July.
      He not joined his ship, and as he was generally away for years at a time that was the last I saw of him, but I gave him a supply of Mag-c. to  take with him.
(J.H. Clarke, M.D., Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica)


Case 12:  A  case by Dr. J.T. Kent
      A good wife goes to her husband and says: "If you only knew what restraint I have to use to keep from shooting myself you would appreciate my condition!" It is attended with wildness and irritability. No remedy has that symptom like Natrum sulphuricum. You may examine the various remedies in our drug pathogenesy and you will find almost every kind of mental symptom, but here is one that stands by itself -- this wonderful restraint to prevent doing herself bodily harm, is characteristic of Natrum sulphuricum. The satiety of life, aversion to life; the great sadness, the great despondency, coupled with the  irritability and dread of music -- music makes her weep, makes her sad, makes her melancholy -- this symptom runs through the Natrums which it receives from the Natrum side of the family; Natrum carbonate, Natrum muriaticum, Natrum sulphuricum, all have it....
      With the constitutional troubles there are important head symptoms -- mental symptoms from injuries of the head. A young man in St. Louis was hurled from a truck in the fire department. He struck on his head. Following this for five or six months he had fits; I do not know what kind of fits he had; some said epilepsy. Some said one thing and some another, and some said he would have to be trephined. He was an Allopathist, of course, as these firemen all are, for it is hardly ever that you can get one to outside of Allopathy and try something else. He was a good, well-bred Irishman; so he had to have some good stout physic. Some of his friends prevailed upon him to stay in the country for a while. He did so, but he did not get better; he was irritable; he wanted to die. His wife said she could hardly stand it with him; always wanting to die; did not want to live. His fits drove him to distraction. He did not know when he was going to have one, they were epileptiform in character. Well, in the country he ran across a homeopathic doctor, because he had one of these attacks and the handiest doctor at the time was a Homeopath. That Homeopath told him that he had better come back to St. Louis and place himself under my care. He did so. At that time it had been about six months that he had been having these fits. When he walked into my office he staggered; his eyes were nearly bloodshot; he could hardly see, and he wore a shade over his eyes -- so much was he distressed about the light -- such a photophobia. He had a constant pain in his head. He had injured himself by falling upon the back of his head, and he had with all this the irritability that I have described. There was nothing in his fits that was distinctive of a remedy, and the first thing that came into my head was Arnica; that is what everybody would have thought. Arnica, however, would not have been the best remedy for him. Had I known no other or better remedy, Arnica would have perhaps been the best. As soon as he had finished his description, and I had given the case more thought, I found that Natrum sulphuricum was the best indicated remedy for injuries about the head, and I have been in the habit of giving it. So I gave it in this case. The first dose of Natrum sulphuricum cured this young man. He has never had any pain about the head since. He has never had any mental trouble since, never another fit. That one prescription cleared up the entire case. If you will just remember the chronic effects from injuries upon the skull -- not fractures, but simple concussions that have resulted from a considerable shock and injuries without organic affections -- then Natrum sulphuricum should be your first remedy. Now, that may not be worth remembering, but when you have relieved as many heads as I have with Natrum sulphuricum you will be glad to have been informed of this circumstance. Ordinarily, Arnica for injuries and the results of injuries, especially the neuralgic pains and the troubles from old scars; but in mental troubles coming  on from a jar or a knock on the head or a fall or injury about the head, do not forget this medicine, because if you do many patients may suffer where they might have been cured had you made use of this remedy.
(J.T. Kent, M.D., Lesser Writings)


No. 13:   An illustration of "never been well since" by Dr. M. Tyler
      One never forgets a recurrent experience with Mezereum cm, when doing children's and casualty work at the hospital during the War: the children being ill-nourished, probably lent themselves to such miserable conditions. The experience was with the many cases of kerion (tinea kerion), thus described in text-books: "marked inflammatory symptoms with circumscribed boggy tumefaction of the scalp, which is covered with pustules, or with gaping orifices from which exudes viscid pus." And one remembers vividly, how some of the cases were "running with lice...." Mezereum never failed to rapidly cure the condition. So much so, that when appealed to from the country in regard to some children thus affected, one sent Mezereum cm, a few doses, which, as one was told, rapidly cured.
      We may here, with advantage, give in extenso Dr. Carroll Dunham's classical case of the cure of an almost life long deafness with Mezereum. He traced it back to a severe attack of just such tinea capitis in childhood; and, by treating that ancient condition -- all those years later -- he managed to restore hearing, utility and happiness to a boy whose life had, till then, been blasted.... It bears out our contention that... in ill-health dating from some acute illness, where the patient, apparently recovered, has never been well since, we may really be dealing with Chronic Vaccinosis, Chronic Pneumonia, Chronic Measles, Chronic Diphtheria, etc., and we may prove our case (to our own satisfaction anyway) by seeing the rapid leap to better life and energy, after a dose or two of Diphtherinum, Morbillinum, Pneumococcin, or Thuja, etc., according to the "past history" of the sufferer.
      We make no apology for reproducing the case if full, together with the lessons deduced from it, by one of the past masters of homeopathic prescribing: