New, Old, and Forgotten Remedies Part 47

By request I appear before you to-day, and I presume you will be disappointed if my paper is not on some new remedy; and such it is,--a remedy, I think, worthy the careful investigation of every h.o.m.oeopathic physician,--phaseolus nana, or the common white bean. It is unnecessary for me to say to you that Boston is called a bean-eating city, or refer to the many sudden deaths there or in its vicinity from brain or heart trouble, nor how in a certain way young men grow old. Can you tell me the cause? I shall not take the time to report the proving I made, nor why I began it, nor how I prepared it, nor its wonderful effects upon the nervous system, the genital organs, stomach, bowels, or kidneys, in the provings, referring only to three symptoms. A medical student has made a short but interesting proving of the remedy, confirming some of my symptoms. While my proving was going on nicely, I suddenly felt a curious sensation in the region of the heart. It was so sudden and strange I immediately felt of my pulse and found it very irregular and feeble, so much so I think I was frightened, at least I did not take any more of the medicine. Never before had I had any irregular action of the heart. Soon after, I read that foreign physicians were using a decoction of the growing bean and pod for dropsy.

About that time I was called to see a hopeless case of uterine cancer with severe general dropsy. I prescribed the best I knew and decided to try the bean remedy. Several days elapsed before I could get any, and then only the dry pods, as it was in December. I steeped them and gave it with apparent relief. I report this case more especially to speak of the final result. I called one day expecting to find her quite comfortable, but found her dead. She suddenly screamed, "Oh, my head!"

grasped it with both hands and was dead.

Months later, after an experience with another patient which I will report later, it suddenly dawned upon me that possibly the bean decoction might have hastened her death.

I was called to see a man about forty-five, suffering from general dropsy with heart and other complications, who had been under the care of a h.o.m.oeopathic physician some time. Although he had taken _Digitalis_, _Strophanthus_, _Strychnia_, _Nitroglycerine_, salts, etc., he had been unable to lie down for two weeks. I prescribed for him, but as soon as I could I prepared and gave him the bean-pod decoction. In about one week he was able to lie down in bed, and his legs, which at my first visit measured over twenty-one inches in circ.u.mference, measured fifteen inches. Then hay fever appeared, and by the advice of nineteen or twenty-five women an old-school expert from New York was called and I was left out.

The following cases, having symptoms similar to those developed in the proving, were given the same preparations as those used in the proving.

A man aged sixty-nine, a retired clergyman on account of a heart disease that had troubled him many years, yet no physician had been able to satisfactorily diagnose, came home from a trip where he had unwisely preached twice, greatly exhausted. The heart's action was weak and irregular, growing weaker each day for a few days, when he was entirely pulseless at both wrists, which continued four days in spite of my best efforts. I then gave him _Phaseolus_ 9x, and in a few hours there was an improvement, and in thirty-six hours his pulse was regular and strong, about seventy per minute; and it remained so till my last visit, one-half hour before his death, two weeks after beginning the medicine.

I was called to New York and returned too late to make a _post-mortem_ examination. Among his children were a public school teacher and a college professor. I told them what I was giving, and they watched the case very closely and were surprised at its effects. Later they asked me if I would send some of the same medicine to a friend in Connecticut who had no money but a bad heart, said by the doctor there and an expert in Boston to be a weak heart. I sent the medicine and two weeks later they wrote: "His breath is not as short, his limbs were not as badly swollen, could walk and sleep better, but they did not know as he was any better." I sent more medicine and have not heard from that.

A lady living in the West, aged about fifty, had been ailing several years. Her greatest complaint was a weak, bad-aching heart. I treated her a few months with general improvement, but she complained of a weak, tired, bad-acting and bad-feeling heart. I sent her _Phaseolus_ 9x, and later she wrote me that forty-eight hours after commencing the last medicine sent her heart wheeled into line all right and remains so.

A lady, aged eighty-seven, had diarrhoea, which was soon relieved; then I found her heart acted badly, about every third beat omitted, and she said it had been so for a year or more. I gave her _Phaseolus_, and two days later her pulse was all right.

Dr. Brown, of Springfield, reported a case of a young man that only once in two weeks did he get his pulse up to sixty, ranging from fifty to fifty-five the two weeks. He gave _Phaseolus_ 6, which I furnished him, and the next forenoon his pulse was seventy-two and remained so.

I will report only one more case, treated with this remedy, one which I think very interesting.

A lady physician, aged thirty, married, no children, never has been sick except with childhood diseases. Two years ago had considerable mental trouble and rode a bicycle a good deal. Since that time, two years ago, five times each minute, or about that, her heart would give one hard unpleasant throb, then omit one beat, this in the day time, but much worse at night, preventing sleep. Being in somewhat of a hurry, I did not examine the heart, thinking there would be a plenty of time later, but gave her _Phaseolus_, the 10th I think. Thirty-six hours later the heart would beat one hundred consecutive times without the slightest variation, and it continued to improve, although after taking the medicine thirty-six hours she was obliged to desist on account of a severe headache. She is never subject to headaches, but it was so bad she dared not take any more of the medicine. It was as if something was pressing hard against each temple, much worse soon after taking each dose of the medicine. This headache led me to fear that the death I mentioned might have been hastened by the medicine.

A medical conundrum. A lady, aged about thirty, decided she would investigate the next world to see if she could enjoy it better than this, and called in the aid of morphine to help her along. Not being in the habit of taking morphine, to disguise the bitter of it, placed a tablet of morphine in the middle of a baked bean and swallowed it whole.

She took her little dose in the evening, having eaten nothing since noon, and went to sleep. At seven in the morning she awoke and was surprised to find herself in this world. When asked if she would get up, replied, no, she would sleep a little longer. At eleven A.M. she awoke and tried to get up, but could not walk, so crawled to the door and opened it to let in fresh air. A servant found her there, and at her request handed her the camphor bottle, and she took a little. Dr. Rowe was called and said she vomited a little mucus, some dark specks that looked like blood, and a small piece of lettuce she ate the noon before.

She had taken twelve and one-half grains of morphine. Did the lettuce antidote it? Did the bean destroy its power? Why did it not kill her?

POTHOS.

NAT. ORD., Araceae.

COMMON NAME, Skunk Cabbage.

PREPARATION.--The fresh root gathered in spring is macerated in twice its weight of alcohol.

(Contributed by Dr. S. A. Jones to the _h.o.m.oeopathic Recorder_, 1889.)

This perennial, odorous member of the natural order _Araceae_ is one of our most common meadow and bog plants. From its very realistic, skunk-like odor when cut or bruised, and its resemblance in shape of leaf and mode of growth to the cabbage, it has been commonly well known as the skunk cabbage.

Belonging to the same family as the Calla lily and Indian turnip, the shape of its flower becomes at once familiar to anyone who observes it.

Among the first plants to flower in spring is this species, and by closely observing the surface of any boggy meadow in the latter part of March or early April one will find irrupting the earth like mushroom the points of many beautiful spathes gaping open to extend invitations to the earliest slugs and carrion beetles of the season. These are the flowers of Pothos appearing some time before the leaves, and when divested of the mud that clings to them, and polished with a damp cloth, as the apple-woman serves her pippins, they s.h.i.+ne out in beautiful mottled purple, orange, and deep red, and, being very fleshy, will keep up appearances many days if cut deep and placed in hyacinth jars.

The root is large, thick, and cylindrical, giving off its lower end numerous long, cylindrical branches; the leaves which appear on the fertilization of the ovary are large, smooth, entire, and deeply plaited into rounded folds. On opening the pointed spathe or floral envelope, a club-like ma.s.s will be noted arising from its base. This is the spadix bearing the naked flowers, which are perfect, consisting of a four-angled style and four awl-shaped stamens. The fruit, when mature, is a globular, ill-smelling, glutinous ma.s.s, consisting of the enlarged, fleshy spadix and changed perianths, and enclosing several large bullet-like seeds.

The roots are easily gathered, one alone being sufficient to make a year's stock of tincture for the most lavish pract.i.tioner.

THE TINCTURE.

Take the fresh root stalks and rootlets, gathered in spring on the first appearance of the flowers, and chop and pound them to a pulp, and weigh.

Then taking two parts, by weight, of alcohol, mix the pulp with one-sixth part of it, add the balance, and, after stirring the whole well, pour it into a well-stoppered bottle and let it stand for eight days in a dark, cool place. After straining and filtering, the resulting tincture should be of a light brown color and have a slightly acrid taste and a neutral reaction.

CHEMISTRY.

The active principle of this plant is doubtless volatile, as the dried root presents none of the acridity of the fresh, and is odorless as well. Dr. J. M. Turner determined in the root a volatile fatty body, a volatile oil, a fixed oil, and a specific resin.

On the 16th of December, 1887, there came into my hands a case that the family physician (a h.o.m.oeopath) had p.r.o.nounced epilepsy and declared incurable. Upon being consulted, his diagnosis had been confirmed and his prognosis corroborated by the late Prof. E. S. Dunster, of the University of Michigan.

Up to date that identical patient has had neither a "fit" nor any approximation thereto, and that fact is an occasion of this paper. One who already discerns the first gray shadows of that night which comes to all, does not now write at the urging, or the _itching_, of the Ego. He disclaims any merit, having evinced only a monkey-like imitativeness. He had from the Infinite, the gift of a good memory, and an old book, picked up one happy day at a street stall, flashed into recollection some twelve years later, and enabled him then to imitate the much earlier doing of its worthy author--

"Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust."

This dead worthy--he that was James Thacher, M. D.--more than any other, made known the virtues of _Pothos foetida_, and grat.i.tude for what his book had taught me to do made me feel that to write up this forgotten remedy were the fittest return that I could make for his well doing.

A second incentive, ample enough, is found in the fact that the first h.o.m.oeopathic paper on _Pothos foet._ has never had a faithful translation into our language, and has not been critically reproduced in any other. A study of the _h.o.m.oeopathic Bibliography_, as given in this paper, will teach an impressive lesson not only to the _real_ student of Materia Medica, but also to those who a.s.sume the responsibilities of editors.h.i.+p.

A third inducement, and perhaps a pardonable, is the singular fact that much search in our literature has not enabled me to find any a.s.sistance of the clinical application of _Pothos foet._ by a h.o.m.oeopathic pract.i.tioner. If any reader knows of any such, he will greatly gratify the writer by making it known.

AN EMPIRICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.[K]

[K] As my researches are confined to my own library, I do not profess to be exhaustive. I have not given all the references at my command, but have aimed to include such writers as have made positive contributions to our knowledge of this drug. Of my list, only Rafinesque is a mere (but a useful) compiler.

1785. Rev. Dr. M. Cutler.--_Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences._ Boston.

1787. D. J. D. Schoepf, M. D.--_Materia Medica Americana potissimum Regni Vegetabilis._ Erlangen. (Not in my possession. Quoted from Barton.)

1813. James Thacher, M. D.--_The American New Dispensatory._ Boston.

(This is the second edition wherein Pothos is mentioned for the first time. Our citations are from the fourth edition. Boston, 1821.)

1817. James Thacher, M. D.--_American Modern Practice, etc._ Boston.

1818. Jacob Bigelow, M. D.--_American Medical Botany, etc._ Vol. 2.

Boston.

1820. Wm. M. Hand.--_The House-Surgeon and Physician._ Second edition.

New Haven.

1822. Jacob Bigelow, M. D.--_A Sequel to the Pharmacopoeia of the U.

S._ Boston.

1822. John Eberle, M. D.--_Materia Medica and Therapeutics._ Philadelphia. (The citations are from the fourth edition. Philadelphia, 1836.)

1825. Ansel W. Ives, M. D.--_Paris' Pharmacologia._ Third American edition. New York.

1830. Elisha Smith.--_The Botanic Physician, etc._ New York. (The t.i.tle page proclaims him "president of the New York a.s.sociation of Botanic Physicians.")

1838. C. S. Rafinesque.--_Medical Flora, etc._ Philadelphia.