Tuberculin Nosodes

Bacillinum ( Burnett ) ; Tuberculinum ( Kent )

Tuberculinum ( Koch ) ; Tuberculinum bovinum

Bacillinum (originally called Tuberculinum ) was the earlier production ; and, glancing through Burnett's epoch-making New Cure of Consumption , in the light of one's large experience in the use of, chiefly, Tuberculinum bovinum , probably the infinitely more potent for good of the two.

There have been many preparations from different manifestations of tubercle, and they all act. It is a " nosode " which, in one form or another, one would be sorry to be without. Human nature is strange, and interesting. When Burnett brought out his book, and one started using the " phthisic virus " on his lines, one of our doctors expressed disgust at the very idea of employing such loathsome material for curative purposes.

" He would not take it himself, and certainly would not give it to his patients . . ." and then, not very much later, inspired by Koch , he was injecting it ! Imagine ! — too loathsome in potency, killed and sterile and triturated and, in the 30th potency, merely one part in a decillion, in alcoholic tincture ; and of that, only sufficient used to medicate a few tiniest pellets of milk-sugar. Can one imagine anything more disgusting ? But, by the methods of Hahnemann , the most terrible poisons and disease-products can be so tamed and roped-in as to affect curatively the strong man, who needs them and is therefore hyper-sensitive to their action, and yet perfectly innocuous " to a healthy infant a day old ".

It is a question, perhaps, of making contact ? Neither is the delicate preparation, per se , a power, nor is the sick man sensitive all round : but it is only " like to like '' that makes contact — and then things happen.

And as to any objections to its use, founded on its unpleasant origin, Burnett says, " If phthisis can be cured by bread and butter or attar of roses, well and good : but if not, then let us have something that will cure it."

These are some of the preparations of the tubercle disease-poison. Dr. H. C. Allen, who did so much in furthering the use of the nosodes, says in his Keynotes , " The potencies of Fincke and Swan were prepared from drop of pus obtained from a pulmonary tubercular abscess, or sputa. Those of Heath from a tuberculous lung in which the bacillus tuberculosis had been found microscopically ; hence the former was called Tuberculinum and the latter Bacillinum . Both preparations are reliable and effective."

BURNETT , who introduced the nosode into practical politics by the brilliant little monograph above mentioned, used Heath's preparation, "made especially for him ". Burnett tells us that the Homoeopaths, ever in the van were, years earlier, using the virus of consumption to cure consumption itself but " the leaders of the dominant sect of the medical profession raised a hue and cry against those of the homoeopaths who were so unspeakable as to use the virus of consumption against the disease itself ; and for fear of an unbearable amount of opposition and ignorant prejudice, the practice was discountenanced and almost discontinued — a few only publishing here and there a striking case of the cure of consumption by the virus of the process itself ".

Burnett had been steadily using his preparation for five years in his daily practice, when Dr. Koch " breaks in with his great epoch-making discovery of a new cure for consumption and which turns out to be none other than our old homeopathically administered virus, against which the hue and cry was long ago raised by the very men who now lie prone at Dr. Koch's feet in abject adoration."

Burnett says the difference between our old friend Tuberculinum (which I have ventured to call " Bacillinum " as the bacilli were proved to be in the preparation) and that of Koch lies in the way it is obtained : ours is the virus of the natural disease itself, while Koch's is the same virus artificially obtained in an incubator from colonies of bacilli thriving in beef jelly : ours is the chick hatched under the hen, Koch's is the chick hatched in an incubator. The artificial hatching is Koch's discovery, not " the remedy itself or its use as a cure for consumption ". . . But " There is one other difference, i.e. the mode of administering it to the patient. I use the remedy in high potency, which is not fraught with the palpable dangers of Koch's method of injecting material quantities under the skin, or, in other words, straight into the blood. . . . .

A year later, in a second Preface to a new edition, Burnett wrote of Koch's remedy, " Almost universally voted ' useless as a cure, and terribly dangerous ', Koch and his world-famed remedy have come and — gone ! But they will return anon and . . . remain i only the dose will get smaller and smaller, until the long-contemned homoeopathic dilutions will acquire rights of citizenship in the universities and hospitals of the world. What now bars the way to the further progress of Kochism is the awful admission that will have to be made of the therapeutic efficacy of the Infinitesimally small : the little dose is the great barrier to its onward march . . ."

" Homoeopathy," says Burnett , " is the winning horse at the Medical Derby of the world, and will presently be hurried past the winning post by Orthodoxy itself as her rider."

So much for Burnett's preparation ; now for Kent's preparation of Tuberculin : — " a little different from that generally found on the market. This preparation I procured through a Professor of Veterinary Surgery. In Pennsylvania a handsome herd of cattle had to be slaughtered because of tuberculosis. Through the Veterinary Surgeon of the Pennsylvania University I secured some of the tubercular glands from these slaughtered cattle.

I examined and selected the most likely specimen. This was potentized by Boericke & Tafel as far as the 6th, and has since been prepared carefully on the Skinner machine — the 30th, 200th, 1000th, and the higher potencies. This preparation I have been using for ten years."

All the preparations do good work, but one has found them of more use, I think, for " consumptiveness " ; for the ill-health, or the failure of normal recovery from acute disease of persons with an (even distant) " T.B." family history, or who may themselves have long ago had tuberculous activities, apparently recovered from. But Burnett's work seems to go further, and his Bacillinum seems to be able to deal magnificently with pulmonary and cerebral tuberculosis : and he found it of more use in suitable cases of rheumatoid arthritis than we seem to do. It will be interesting, provided that his preparations are still available — one must enquire into this — to test them, and observe whether one gets even better, or wider results, than from our usual preparations of " Tuberculinum ", or " Tuberculinum bov ."

Clarke , in his Dictionary, uses the term Tuberculinum " for Koch's preparation, of which we have potencies ; and Bacillinum for Burnett's, prepared by Heath , which, as said, was originally called Tuberculinum . The preparation of Swan , probably the originator of the virus as a remedy, was also called Tuberculinum. It is a pity that there should be this confusion, and one should know what one is using.

Besides all these, there are " Bacillinum testium ", and " Aviare " from bird tubercle : and Dr. Nebel , who was for years at Davos Platz, prepared quite a number of different tubercle remedies. He sent over a whole selection : but I am afraid they were allowed to dry up.

Thus far, as regards the origin and preparation of the remedy, now for its uses, and the indications for its use.

Remedies must be proved on the healthy — and this is of the essence of Homoeopathy, in order that they may be used with scientific assurance on the sick.

But, as Swan contends, " Morbillinum, Scarlatinum, Variolinum " (and the rest) " are the fullest proved poisons in existence : they have been proving for hundreds of years by tens of thousands of persons, old and young, male and female. . . . Here we have the provings ready made by nature for us on healthy persons. Collate the symptoms . . . and you have the pathogenetic effect of that poison, and when you have found such in the sick, administer the potentized " (whichever it may be), " and you will cure the effects of that poison."

Burnett was in the habit of proving likely remedies on himself, and this is his experience with his Bacillinum.

" A severe headache, worse the day after taking the poison, and lasting on till the third day. This headache I felt every time I took it ; I fancied the headache from the 30th was much worse than from the 100th. The headache I could only describe as far in, and compelling quiet fixedness. The headaches recurred from time to time for many weeks.

" The next constant effect upon me was expectoration of non-viscid, very easily detached, thick phlegm from the air-passages, followed after a day or two by very clear ring of the voice.

" The third effect was not quite so constant, viz. windy dyspepsia and pinching pains under the ribs of the right side in the mammary line.

" And, finally, disturbed sleep distressful."

Then he says, he began to use the virus with, not more confidence exactly, but with more familiarity. He also notes " very slight cough, only just enough to raise the phlegm, which came so easily that one might almost say it came of itself."

DR. Clarke was asked by Burnett for his experience with the new remedy, and his answer, with a small proving, appears in the third edition of Burnett's book. . . .

Clarke wrote, " I began to use Bacillin, and at the same time I proved it on myself, in the 30th and afterwards the 100th potency," with the following result.

1/ Pain in glands of neck, worse turning head or stretching neck. Right side more affected.

2/ Pain deep in head, worse on shaking the head.

3/ Aching in teeth, especially lower incisors (all sound).

This was felt at the roots, especially on raising lower lip : the symptoms persisted many months, and I occasionally feel it now. Teeth’ very sensitive to cold air.

4/ Sharp pains of short duration in chest and various parts of body.

5/ Pain in left knee whilst walking one evening : passed off after persevering in walking for a short distance.

6/ Nasal catarrh. Pricking in throat (larynx) then sudden cough. Single cough on rising from bed in the morning. Cough waking me in the night. Easy expectoration. Sharp pain in precordial region, arresting breathing. Very sharp pain in left scapula, worse lying down in bed at night, relieved by warmth.

7/ An indolent angry pimple on left cheek. This persisted many weeks, and I began to fear it was something worse. After it had healed it broke out several times at long intervals, and even still a slight indentation can be felt at the spot.

Then he gives cases treated by the nosode. Several of these are inflammatory conditions of the eyelids, in which doses of Bacillinum acted very promptly and curatively. (And we have found it almost specific for ulceration of cornea in children. — M.L.T.)

Burnett gives other partial provings of Bacillinum, one by Dr. Boocock (U.S.A.), published in the Homoeopathic Recorder . Dr. Boocock , not having the tooth potency but only the 30th and 200th potencies, and engaged in further potentizing the 30th, grew tired of shaking, put down the vial, and dried his fingers on his tongue.

Soon after experienced " a flush, some perspiration, and a severe headache, deep in." . . . Later, finished his potentizing, and foolishly did the same thing — " dried my finger on my tongue. Headache increased all over, mostly in temples and occiput. Stinging, stitch-like pains through my piles, and a stitching, creeping pain through left lung and a tickling cough.

I felt 'very weak. I had no cough before, and yet now I had a tickling in my fauces and must cough ; the headache continued, and weakness, and feeling in and under left breast, deep in. . . .

" If this dilution, 2 drops or so, can make one in health feel as I did, I am sure there is a power in dynamization. A very restless feeling, not able to read with profit, so went to bed early ; very restless, slept well, had to rise to urinate three times, urine clear, but of a very bad smell ; putrid. Awoke at daybreak and could not sleep, feeling very tired " . . . and the proving symptoms are recounted for ten more days. Like Burnett and Clarke , he found that it had power to set up` a very severe headache, deep in ; that it irritated the throat; the left lung, especially, and also inflated the bowels with gas (see Burnett's proving) ; caused a soft, dark-green mushy stool, and affected the anus, relieving a troublesome eczematous condition there.

We make no apologies for reproducing these slender provings of Bacillinum . Most of our common remedies have been magnificently proved, and have received a thousand fold confirmation in the treatment of the sick : but with some of these scantily-proved remedies of great significance, we need all the light that can be thrown upon them by those who have actually experienced, on their state of health, the effect of the subversive — i.e. curative agent ; together with the localities or organs primarily hit, and in exactly what manner. Little, actual pictures of drug-action, by keen and competent observers, are invaluable.

Even Allen in his Keynotes, where he gives so many of the guiding symptoms of Tuberculinum , does not notice the headache, " deep in ", recorded by these three doctors.

Dr. H. C. Allen, in his larger Materia Medica of the Nosodes, gives a long Schema of Tuberculinum : but, curiously, he does not tell us there on what authorities, or how provings were made. Nash quotes Allen's smaller Keynotes (which gives many invaluable indications for the use of the drug) ; and gives cases, to prove its great value.

And now, let us take NASH'S little list of indications. . . .

" Cosmopolitan : never satisfied to remain in one place long : wants to travel.

" Wandering pains in limbs and joints : stiff when beginning to move : < standing : > continued motion.

" Longs for open air, wants doors and windows open, or to ride in a strong wind.

" Takes cold on least exposure, can't get rid of one before another comes.

" Emaciation, even while eating well : so hungry must get up nights to eat.

" Pain through left upper lung to back.

Tubercular deposits begin there.

' ` Persons with a history of tuberculosis in the family.

" Symptoms ever changing, begin suddenly, ceasing suddenly."

* * *

HERING , Guiding Symptoms , says that fragmentary provings were made by Swan : and he quotes, inter allia, Burnett's New Cure of Consumption.

KENT gives many of his personal observations, " recorded in his interleaved copy of Hering's Guiding Symptoms " ; these " now guide me in the use of Tuberculinum ", and on these he drew for his Lecture. We will extract and condense.

" I do not use Tuberc . merely because it is a nosode, or with the idea that generally prevails of using nosodes — that is, a product of the disease for the disease, and the results of the disease . . . that is not the better idea of Homoeopathy. It belongs to a hysterical homoeopathy that prevails in this century. Yet much good has come out of it. It is to be hoped that provings may be made, so that we may be able to prescribe it just as we would use any other drug.

" It is deep-acting, constitutionally deep. . . . When our deepest remedies act only a few weeks, and they have to be changed, this medicine comes in as one of the remedies — when the symptoms agree.

" One of its most prominent uses is in intermittent fever : stubborn cases that relapse and continue relapsing. . . . When the well-selected remedy has acted, and the constitution shows a tendency to break down, and the well-selected remedy does not hold because of vital weakness and deep-seated tendencies ; then it is that this remedy sometimes comes in.

" Burnett dropped an idea that has been confirmed many times — patients who have inherited phthisis, whose parents have died of phthisis are often of feeble vitality. They are always tired : take on sicknesses easily : are anaemic, nervous, waxy or pale. Burnett evidently used this medicine in a sort of routine way for this kind of constitution, which he called ` Consumptiveness '.

" The mental symptoms that have given way when the patient was under treatment, the mental symptoms I have seen crop out under the provings, and the mental symptoms that I have so often seen associated when the patient is poisoned by the tubercular toxins are such as belong to many complaints and are cured by Tuberculinum .

Hopeless : aversion to mental work : anxiety evening till midnight : anxiety during fever : loquacity during fever : weary of life ; cosmopolitan : thoughts intrude and crowd upon one another during the night.

A person running down, never finding the right remedy, or relief only momentarily, has a constant desire to change, to travel, to go somewhere and do something different. That cosmopolitan condition of mind belongs so strongly to the one who needs Tuberculinum . Persons on the borderland of insanity : and phthisis and insanity are convertible conditions, the one falls into the other.

" The most violent and the most chronic periodical sick headaches, periodical nervous headaches.

Tuberc . breaks up the tendency to periodical headache, when the symptoms agree.

" Sore, bruised feeling. Aching of bones. Sore, bruised eyeballs, sensitive to touch, and on turning the eyes sideways.

" Face red to purple. Aversion to all food. Aversion to meat — impossible to eat it. Desire for large quantities of cold water during chill and heat. Craving for cold milk. Emptiness, faint feeling ; all-gone, hungry feeling that drives him to eat.

" Emaciation : gradually losing flesh : a growing weakness : growing fatigue.

" Constipation is a strong feature of Tuberculinum . Stool large and hard, then diarrhoea. Excessive sweat in chronic. diarrhoea. Driven out of bed with a diarrhoea, or diarrhoea worse in the morning. ( Aloe, Sulph .)

" Menses too early, too profuse, long-lasting : amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea.

" Desire for deep-breathing. Longs for open air.

" Especially when the tubercular deposits begin in apex of left lung : an indication verified by a number of observers.

" Perspiration from mental exertion : stains linen yellow. Nightsweats. Sensitive to changes in the weather ; to cold damp, or warm damp weather : to rainy weather. Worse before a storm : sensitive to every electric change in the weather."

In regard to one's own personal experiences — well ! — their name is legion. It is a drug that comes continually into use in outpatient work, in cases that hang fire and that give a T.B. family history. " Any consumption ? — father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts ? " is one of the first questions one puts to a new patient, with questions as to vaccinations, and previous illnesses. The answers may save much work.

Used as a powerful intercurrent, where cases, with that history, hang fire, one has often felt, after tardily prescribing the drug, " If I'd only started with it, how much quicker we should have got on ! " — such a big difference has it made to the patient.

When a pneumonia hangs fire, and refuses to clear up, and a T.B. history is elicited, and Tub. bov. (generally 200 for preference) is given, there is apt to be a rise of temperature for a few hours, then it drops and does not rise again, while the patient makes the desired recovery. It may help, in the same way, an acute rheumatism, where carefully prescribed remedies have failed to benefit.

It appears to be complementary to Dros. and Silica ; these drugs seem to play into each other's hands, so to speak, especially in cases of T.B. bones and glands : also in some cases of mental deficiency with that taint. One could tell wonderful tales of T.B. glands and bone cases, treated in our children's clinic. One should probably add Calc. and Sil. — but with less of remembered personal experience.

Again, Tuberculinum comes in specially to regulate menstrual activities — in persons with the family history, or with tell-tale scars in the neck, etc. One thinks of it when menses are late to appear, or are too profuse, or even painful, or scanty. One has seen Burnett's suggestion in regard to its use in arrested development , mental or physical, bear fruit. In the case of one young woman, who had never succeeded in getting anything like her full complement of teeth through and who, after a dose of Tub . produced (to her surprise also) — I think it was eight in a couple of weeks.

One began with Burnett and his wonderful little book : we will now end with it : remembering that it was his Bacillinum , made" direct from active, advanced tuberculosis, that he used. He details over fifty cases in his first edition, and a number more in the two succeeding editions, which are bound together to form one volume.

He gives many cases of children with brain troubles ; for instance — Child about 20 months old, with, for days, high fever, restlessness and constant screaming : in a " fallen in and collapsing state ".

A peculiarly fetid smell about the child, and a strong family history of consumption. After a dose of Bacc., in high potency, the child fell asleep within ten minutes and screamed no more. Made a rapid and complete recovery. He needed two more doses later on : and his head, in course of time, became quite shapely, and he " a gifted boy ".

Many of the cases recounted of phthisis, etc., had been vaccinated, and received benefit from Thuja also : and many of the cases during somewhat lengthy treatment, required other constitutional remedies.

In regard to this Burnett writes :

" As to the use of the other remedies, I would especially insist on the fact that the phthisic virus only acts within its own sphere, and that this sphere is very sharply defined as to time, and what it does not do soon, and promptly, it does not do at all.

Its action is, if I may so express myself, acute : its chronic equivalent in Psorinum ." But he explains in a footnote, " When I say soon, I mean that the action begins at once ; only, of course, as phthisic processes are generally chronic, the treatment must also be the same, i.e. chronic."

In cases of miserable, ailing, hopeless-seeming children, Burnett says, " Having grown wiser, and fully recognizing that the stop-spot of such remedies as Aconite , Chamomilla, Pulsatilla," which had helped, " was a long way on the hither side of a cure ", he said to himself . . . " ` This sort of remedy only goes up to the tubercle, and the tubercle-sphere is their stop-points. . . . But it is the tubercles that kill ! ' I therefore began with the phthisic virus."

He tells us, he used the Bacillic virus " Always in very infrequent dose : this is to be understood in all his cases, so he need not restate this all-important fact ." His potencies were the 30th, 100th, and 200th.

Case XXIII is interesting. An author of eminence, with terrible pain in the head, almost absolute sleeplessness and profound adynamia : had had phthisis, with blood-spitting for years, with a solid right lung, but who had " grown out " of his consumptiveness. His brothers and sisters had died of water on the brain. He was being " shadowed " on advice, as he was thought to be on the verge of insanity.

The pain in his head is " as if he had a tight hoop of iron round it ; and he has a distressing sensation of damp clothes on his spine. It sounds hardly credible, but in less than a month after beginning with the virus the pain in the head had gone, the sensation of damp clothes had gone, and his sleep was fairly good. He got a few more doses at long intervals, then needed no further treatment. Continued in good health, hard at work finishing his forthcoming publication."

Many cases of consumption are here cured — the earlier cases : but Burnett gives a case " which is quite in accordance with my previous experience ; when the consumptive process is in full blaze the virus is unavailing ." (This is of course what is called galloping consumption. And such is, I believe, the general experience. In fact one has come to think that Tuberculinum is more useful in " consumptiveness ", and in cases where structures other than lungs are affected.)

Burnett gives several cases of phthisis, less rapid, which yielded to occasional doses of Bacillinum , intercurrently with other homoeopathic remedies, as demanded by symptoms ; or, where a double chronic affection, such as " tuberculosis " plus " vaccinosis " co-existed, with occasional doses of first Thuja then Bacillinum .

Of course Burnett was looked upon as an innovator and sharply criticized by some of his homoeopathic confrères ; indeed he was a person about whom some of them could not " speak comfortably ". But in all this he was only following Hahnemann , whom they also professed to follow — more or less — and who, sixty years earlier had pointed out, in regard to his (then) three chronic miasms, that two or more might co-exist in a chronic patient, interfering with his normal reactions to indicated remedies, and that these miasms would require to be " annihilated " one by one. " Their different remedies," he said, " are to be alternately employed, if necessary, until the cure is completed." But — he warns us" Leave to each medicine the necessary time to complete its action."

Sixty odd years earlier, then, Hahnemann had already reached the " stop-spot " of the obvious remedies of present symptoms in chronic disease : but not the " stop-spot " of his deductive genius. Utterly refusing to acknowledge the failure of Homoeopathy in these cases of apparent failure, he realized that it was just a question of further extension of the principle, and of digging deeper into causes.

Therefore he set to work, " day and night, for ten years," to elucidate the matter, and arrived at the parasitic nature of chronic disease, and at the fact that remedies homoeopathic to their primary manifestations must be employed — in turn, where more than one such disease was in question — if real progress towards cure were to be achieved . . . and all this years before the microscope began to confirm him in regard to their real parasitic nature.

Burnett , in his turn, came up against the stop-spot of the remedies of present conditions and symptoms " on the hither-side of a cure ", where one of the " chronic miasms ", tubercle, was in question. Such remedies as Aconite, Pulsatilla, Chamomilla and their like, " only go up to tubercle : the tubercle-sphere is their stop-spot " ; so he began to interpose doses of the tubercle-virus.

But, in the same way--and this one must take to heart ! — he found the stop-spot of the T.B. virus, which acts within its own sphere only . Other remedies, he says, " are needed for the non-consumptive part of the case ".

It is thought, by inferences from his writings, that Hahnemann was already working with other disease-products as remedies, besides the one ( Psorinum ) which he proved and gave to the world. He designated certain drugs, as needed intercurrently when treating chronic cases — notably " The best preparation of Mercury " on the one hand and Thuja or Nitric acid on the other, where the chronicity was based on one or other of the venereal diseases.

But here, within their limits, the most potent of all are the disease-products themselves. Hahnemann's " isopathic remedies " changed, as he contends, by preparation, till no longer " idem ", the same, but "simillimum " — " like" or " homoeopathic ", are by far the closest " like ", and of that there can be no question.

For Hahnemann , incessant toil ceased after eighty years ; and Burnett obtained his release unexpectedly, alone, in a hotel room one evening ; and now it devolves on us to carry on, and extend the wonderful work for humanity. Homoeopathy has not necessarily failed where we fail to deal with — for instance — cancer ; that is a lesson we may learn from Hahnemann and Burnett .

Hahnemann refused, so he tells us, the plausible excuse for failure, in the too few proved drugs ; and, instead, delved deeper than the superficial symptoms of the moment, into Cause ; and thus attained still wider success. As Burnett wrote :

" Mach's mach, aber mach's besser," " get on with it, but go one better."

Burnett ends his first edition with the following: " Now, little book, go forth and tell to all concerned that, thanks to the labours of Paracelsus, Fludd, Lux, Hahnemann , Hering, Pasteur, Swan, Berridge, Skinner, Koch, and many others, phthisis and the tubercular diseases generally have definitely entered the list of medicable diseases. But finally, and for the last time, the remedy must not be administered by injection : it must be given in high, higher, and highest potencies, and the doses must be Far Apart.

To those who can only use low dilutions I solemnly say — Hands off ! "

In his second edition he says, further : " Of course, it is not suggested that Bacillinum is a specific for all cases of phthisis, and necessarily it will not avail in the many cases that do not come for treatment till very late on : something that will cure every case of any malady bearing a given name is, of course, non-existent.

" StiIl, Bacillary phthisis taken early, and complicated with nothing else, is curable by Bacillinum , and this I say after eight years' experience at the bedside and in the consulting room. Anything even approaching it in therapeutic efficacy is thus far absolutely unknown.

" Where, for instance, vaccinosis is also present, the vaccinosis must be first cured, or the phthisis remains uncured, do what you will.

" Where there is a primary spleen affection that led up to the phthisis, such a case must be approached from the spleen as a starting point, or the treatment fails. When a liver disease underlies the whole maladive state, and phthisis only co-exists with it, the liver malady must first be cured.

" When this state arises from an hereditary syphilitic taint (I say taint , not the disease proper) the specific nosode may be required first.

" When the phthisis arises from a cancerous parentage, Bacillinum will not always suffice, until other remedies have prepared the way.

" When the constitution has been damaged by typhoid, by malarialism, by alcoholism, by cinchonism, and so on, all these must be therapeutically reckoned with, or success will not reward our efforts. Wherever, in fact, phthisis co-exists with other diseases or taints of diseases, the Bacillinum touches the bacillary part of the case Only.

" When phthisis supervenes upon over-crowding . . . bad food, foul air, chronic sewage poisonings, wounded pride, . . . it will be vain to expect the simple administration of a remedy of any kind to cure unaidedly if the active cause still remains present and operative. . . It is simple uncomplicated phthisis taken early that can be cured right off the reel by its pathologic simillimum. . . .

` To my brother practitioners I would say, Shake off the shackles of prejudice and try for yourselves whether, and how far, I may be personally carried away on the wings of enthusiasm for my subject. But, mind, only high dilutions and no Kochian injections — and moreover, if you give the doses too often you will fail, as I formerly did before I learned the lesson that the pathologic simillimums of a disease must be administered in high potency and infrequently. Moreover, the worse the case the higher the potency, as a rule."

Again, we make no apology for these long and interesting quotations. Dr. Burnett was a great and original thinker, and a most charming writer, and it is not everybody who can get at his booklets to be charmed and instructed.

URTICA URENS

IN the country it is difficult to get away from stinging nettles. We call them weeds : we belabour them with sticks : we cut them down with bill-hooks : we dig them up : and in spite of the old saw,

" Cut them in June

And they come again soon,

Cut them in July,

You cut them down truly "

they are always with us.

WHY ? Is it perhaps because they are invaluable, and must be at hand for emergencies ? Test them ! Make an infusion by pouring boiling water on stinging nettles, and cover the burn with clean linen steeped therein, and see !

The dictionary calls them " neglected weeds with stinging hairs". And yet, no home in town or country should be without stinging-nettle tincture, Urtica urens, if only because of its magic power over

BURNS,

for almost instant relief of pain, and rapid healing. (This applies, of course, to fairly superficial burns — " burns of the first and second degrees ".)

Someone, doing a chemical experiment, exploded a small tube of boiling sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) into face and eyes. It was quickly washed away, but there were extensive superficial burns, and a corneal ulcer. Good old RUDDOCK , in his Domestic Homeopathy, advised : . . . and soft rag, moistened with a few drops of Urtica in water quickly wiped the pain out, and healed in a couple of days — so far as the skin was concerned.

One remembers a hotel-boy, hurried into hospital, having severely scalded his face. He had to be admitted on account of shock, and Urtica was quickly applied. Next morning it was difficult to see where the scalds had been, except on edges of lips, etc., which had not been well covered. Otherwise there was no vesication, and no inflammation.

A doctor who could not believe the fairy tales told him regarding this power of Urtica , was advised to " burn his finger and try". He did accidentally burn it a few hours later, and was convinced. The pain went in a few minutes, and it soon healed.

One could multiply, indefinitely, instances of the soothing and healing power of stinging nettles in burns.

One remembers with a shiver the burnt and scalded children of student days ; and their shrieks, day after day, when we were instructed to get the dressings off — stuck to intensely painful wounds. But when one uses Urtica ( pace asepsis !) there is no need by removing the dressings, to constantly interfere with healing. Be glad that they do `,` stick " : and merely water them well, from time to time, with Urtica lotion, to cleanse and keep them moist. They will drop off, as healing takes place.

I have seen a small ulcer with a surface of pus, heal quickly under the little scab of pus, when kept moistened with Urtica .

Old burns, also ! that have never healed. One small boy came up with terrible scars and contractions on thigh, and with considerable areas still ulcerated. These began to heal rapidly when compresses of Urtica were applied. And a cottage woman, one remembers, where an old burn just above the wrist had refused to heal, did heal promptly under the magic touch of a stinging nettle compress.

BUT . . . There is always a " but " ! Remember, what a remedy can cure, it can cause. And if you use Urtica externally too long, or too strong, you will be surprised to find fresh vesicles, matching those of the burn, outside the burn-area — proving Homoeopathicity. And then ? — why, a little soap and water finishes that.

But, one grows curious ! Evidently a powerful medicinal herb ! — what else is it good for ?

It has long been in domestic use for " gravel, and urinary affections, provoking, as Dioscorides says, urine, and expelling stones out of the kidneys ".

CULPEPPER , who lived from 1615 to 1654, praises it as a remedy for chest troubles ; " to provoke urine and expel the gravel and stone " ; to wash " old, rotten or stinking sores, etc." and for GOUT (more of this anon) ; also for " joint aches in any part — found an admirable help thereunto ".

But we want to know more than that. We want to know the mischief a drug can do to a sensitive, in order to KNOW what it is capable of curing in a sensitive : a sensitive being a person suffering from " like " symptoms.

NETTLE-RASH.

Burnett says, " It seems to me that if any honest enquirer is really desirous of putting the truth of Homoeopathy roughly to the test, he need only handle a few nice nettles with gloveless hands, when he will find that nettles do produce nettle-rash ; and then if he will treat a few cases of nettle-rash with nettle-tea or tincture, he will find that the nettle really does cure the disease nettle-rash . . . and if that is not homoeopathy, pray what is it ?"

Urtica has not been well proved ; and has never been proved, for finer symptoms, in the potencies. But several provings are recorded. One, a most dramatic one, in " a woman who drank two cupfuls of a hot infusion of two ounces of the herb ".

The result was a most intense urticaria, " with burning, itching, numbness, swelling, oedema and vesication. Face, arms, chest and shoulders were affected — the whole upper part of the body down to the navel. The itching was so intense that the vesicles were scratched off, and exuded a large amount of serum. The look of the patient was monstrous : eyelids completely closed ; upper lip, nose and ears frightfully swollen ".

But the most astonishing thing was that "in this woman, who had had no children for 3 years, and who had nursed none of her children, the breasts swelled up and discharged, first serum, then perfect milk ; and a very copious secretion of milk lasted for eight days ".

Other provers got nettle-rash " especially on fingers and hands ". (See Allen's Encyclopedia, etc.)

We will quote two cases of nettle-rash, showing, inter alia, that the potency is of less importance than the remedy.

The first. After a prolonged course of Camembert cheese, there came occasional urticarial swellings of palms ; but only when hot with walking. Camembert was suspected and let alone. Again Camembert, as a test, with the same result. Then Camembert was let finally alone. (This was in the early days of the Boer War, about 1900.)

Years later (some years after the Great War ) in a strange place in the country one afternoon, a cup of tea with goat's milk was drunk. A few hours later, after getting home, terrific irritation began, first in one place, then in another, then everywhere, till the victim was obliged to retire and tear off her clothes, in agonies of itching from scalp to heels, and she was forced to rub, till black and blue. She had been inclined to laugh at nettle-rash — till then ! Happily Urtica was remembered, and a few drops of the strong tincture in water, sipped, brought speedy relief, and it was all gone by night, never to return since, i.e. in some ten years.

A second case.- " She looked as if she had fallen, stripped, into a bed of nettles : not an inch free from weals. She got Urtica Urens 10M., one dose, and was clear next morning."

LACTATION.

Urtica has been used to promote the secretion of milk, Ind also to suppress it, in women who are weaning. In a case quoted in Clarke's Dictionary , a woman with a lump in her breast was seen six weeks after childbirth, with stinging pains in the lump and in various parts of the body, and with entire absence of milk. Nothing helped till Urtica was given, " when in three days the breasts filled with milk, and the pains were relieved. The breasts had now to be supported on account of their fullness ".

DELTOID RHEUMATISM.

Another notable feature of the provings of Urtica was a very severe right deltoid rheumatism, and Urtica has proved curative in this distressing condition.

Dr. Compton Burnett, who had a perfect genius for spotting, roughly proving, and making play with rather unusual remedies, tells us a great deal about Urtica urens in his brilliant little monograph on GOUT . It is to him that we owe much of our knowledge of this despised but supremely-useful weed.

AGUE — MALARIA.

In a charming and characteristic little story, he gives an account of his " first acquaintance with the nettle as a medicine ".

" Twenty years ago I was treating a lady for intermittent fever of the mild English type, when one day my patient came tripping somewhat jauntily into my consulting room and informed me that she was quite cured of her fever, and wished to consult me in regard to another matter. I at once turned to my notes of her case, and inquired more closely into the matter of the cure, in order to duly credit my prescribed remedy with the cure, and the more so as ague is not always easily disposed of therapeutically.

` Oh ! ' said the lady, ' I did not take your medicine at all, for when I got home I had such a severe attack of fever that my charwoman begged me to allow her to make me some nettle-tea, as that was a sure cure of fever. I consented, and she at once went into our garden, where there are plenty of nettles growing in a heap of rubbish and brickbats, and got some nettles, of which she made me a tea, and I drank it. It made me very hot. The fever left me, and I have not had it since.' "

Burnett adds, " Honour to the charwoman of nettle-tea fame!"

Burnett continues, " The thing escaped my mind for years, but one day being in difficulty about a case of ague, I treated it with a tincture of nettles and cured it straight away, and my next case also, and my next, and almost every case ever since, with very nearly uniform success. Some of my cases of ague cured with nettle tincture were most severe ones, invalided home from India and Burmah. And quite lately a patient in Siam, to whom I had sent a big bottle of nettle tincture, wrote me, ' The tincture you sent us has very greatly mitigated the fever we get here. Please order us another bottle.' "

" I say almost every case has yielded to Urtica urens ; every case, of course, has not."

This use is also homoeopathic, for Burnett says, " Urtica urens , in my hands, has produced fever over and over again." One sensitive to whom he gave rather large doses of the Ø reported, " I cannot go on with this medicine, it sets all my pulses beating, makes me terribly giddy as if I were going to topple forwards in my bed, and then a bad headache comes on ; and when I take it at night it makes me very feverish."

In an Indian officer, suffering from Scinde boils (? of malarial origin), to whom Burnett gave Urtica , this " was followed by a furious outburst of fever, so severe that his condition caused his friends considerable anxiety ". But " he made a quick and complete recovery "

In another such case, followed by very severe fever with unusually long stages, the patient recovered under Nat. mur.

Burnett says, " It is distinctly curious to note the remarkable effects of Natrum muriaticum and Urtica urens in gout as well as in ague and malarialism."

GOUT.

Urtica urens was one of Burnett's great remedies, not only for malaria and ague-cake (he found in it a powerful " splenic ", but also " for its gravel-expelling power ' ` and for gout .

He says, " Patients under the influence of small material doses of Urtica will often pass quantities of gravel " ; (one of his patients " used to point to a spot under her spleen as her gravel-pit ") and he says, " when I observed others who, being under the influence of Urtica urens , passed grit and gravel pretty freely for the first time in their lives, I came to the conclusion that Urtica possesses the power of eliminating urates from the economy.

And it slowly became clear to my mind that Urtica might be the very remedy I had long been in quest of, viz., a quickly-acting, easily-obtained homoeopathic remedy for the ATTACKS of gout, or some of them ; for of course we, of experience, never expect uniform results, any more than we expect all the trees of the forest to be of the same height ".

He says, " I have no faith in gout cures unless they thicken the urine." And he says, " in acute gout, it cuts short the attack in a safe manner, viz., by ridding the economy of the disease product, its actual suffering-producing material."

His usual way was to give five drops of the mother tincture in a wineglassful of quite warm water, say every two or three hours : and a few hours later he would hear, " Oh ! the pain is gone, and I have passed a lot of gravel."

Acute gout was more common in his day, than with us : but I remember one case in a lady, whose foot was red and swollen and intensely painful, and who was in the habit of getting gouty attacks. Urtica urens Ø cured very promptly.

For his success in curing acute gout, Dr. Burnett came to be known as " Dr. URTICA " in London West-end Clubland.

Then again, for suppression of urine, and uremia. One remembers a small boy, dying of tubercular meningitis, where the urine was suppressed, and the body had a highly urinous odour. A few drops of the strong tincture of stinging nettles caused the passage of urine, and the odour disappeared, and life was, pro tem ., prolonged. The same restoration of the urinary function was seen in a case of uremia in the hospital a few years ago.

Burnett's little book is crowded with brilliant cases, told in his inimitable style ; we are here giving only the results of his experiences.

As said, he used Urtica " in small material doses ", repeated pretty frequently (since they were acute illnesses) for some days.

In the course of his so using the remedy he got, as we have seen, some pretty severe provings in some of his patients, which show the homoeopathicity of the drug : as able to cause , as well as to cure .

It was in exactly this way that Hahnemann started, originally, when administering his " similars ". Then he had to dilute, to avoid severe aggravations ; this especially where poisonous drugs were concerned. Then, going further and further in attenuation — as. it seemed ! — he discovered that Dilutions became Potencies.

Poor old Culpepper ! how surprised he would have been to learn that he was advocating Homoeopathy an odd hundred years before its time ! — just as Molière's Bourgeois Gentilhomme was enchanted with the wonderful news that he had been speaking prose all his life ! But Culpepper only tells what he knew had cured.

While we know, that what will cure, will also cause.

By the way, if you are being stung by a mosquito, don't smack it dead on your face, thus expressing its maximum poison : but flick it off lightly. In the same way, if you have the misfortune to be badly stung by nettles, don't " rub it in " but pass a sharp knife lightly over the painful places, after the manner of shaving, and so extract those little terrors, the poison hairs.

After all this, I think we shall all GRASP THE NETTLE ; remembering that it is only out of sufferings that we can ever extract CURE .

The strong tincture of Arnica applied to a wasp sting, prevents the pain and swelling, and in a couple of hours the sting is forgotten. Urtica is said to do likewise for bee stings.

And Cantharis 200, given internally, quickly cures the inflamed and horrible swellings that may follow gnat bites.