Flu

[Petter]

Greetings fellow homeopaths !

Are any homeopaths in Mexico or the U.S  following this flu epidemic going on in Mexico ? Should we not be ready if this is as contagious as it seems ?

Petter Martinsen
Norway

[J. Claire Green]

HI Petter,

I rarely come here....but thought there might be an active influenza thread...and sad to see there isn't.  I hope some homeopaths in Mexico are working on a genus epidemicus, or can at least give us some feedback.

Here is an excellent article by Will Taylor on genus epidemicus in general: http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/wt10.html

I am going to brush up on flu differentials and also Borland's Pneumonia book.  The old masters had great experience in this area, we need to look back to their experience. I heard this mornign from a local public health director that WHO/CDC will have a better handle on the ease of transmission between humans soon , and if a virulent strain has high sustained transmission  they most likely would call for a level 6 phase of pandemic (currently we are level 4...bordering on 5)
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/phase/en/index.html

[Lourdes]

Thanks, Claire!

This helps.

All the best,

Lourdes

[Randy Baker]

I too was hoping to find more of a discussion, but I am guessing we don't know enough about this epidemic yet.  I am curious if homeopaths in Mexico have been seeing cases and what success they are having.  My understanding is that in epidemics there are usually one or two remedies found that work for most cases. Of course, this would make our jobs much easier!
I also have read that homeopaths had great success in the 1918 pandemic, with patients under homeopathic care having much better outcomes.  While I hope and pray this does not turn into a serious pandemic, if this does spread it might be homeopathy's chance to shine and prove it's efficacy to a skeptical mainstream medical community...

[David Kent Warkentin]

    The Homeopathic Treatment of Influenza: Surviving Influenza Epidemics and Pandemics, Past, Present and Future with Homeopathy
    by Sandra J Perko, PhD, CCN, 395 pages, $24.95 paperback
    Reviewed by Maggie Taeger
    Perko clearly intends her book as a wake-up call. It is effective. Part I of her book (112 pages) is largely the story of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19. This is a chapter in history which many of us know too little about. In brief: this previously unseen strain of flu swept the entire globe in a matter of months. Some estimates of global mortality top 40,000,000. It took the lives of 675,000 Americans and 30,000 Canadians. (In Native communities of the far north, some villages suffered a 100% mortality rate.) Onset was extremely rapid and death could ensue within 48 hours or less of first symptoms. Conventional doctors were helpless against the disease, and were probably responsible for greatly increasing the death rate through the heavy-handed use of aspirin (as Perko and many homeopaths of that time have postulated, and as is born out by the discovery of the link between aspirin and viral infection in Reye's syndrome). Tragically, the young adult population, 14 to 40 years of age, was the hardest hit and saw the greatest number of fatalities. Perko describes at length the symptoms and progress of the illness, and the state of hospitals and communities-chances are you won't get through this section of the book without shedding tears.
    Homeopathy was the light shining in the darkness. In roughly 50 accounts from homeopaths of the time we hear how they treated patients successfully, mostly with a few well-known remedies (Gelsemium looms largest), and lost astoundingly few patients.
    Perko explains how periodic shifts are thought to occur in the structure of flu viruses, as a result of avian viruses finding their way to humans (often via swine); when a new virus of this kind combines (through genetic reassortment) with a highly contagious human flu virus, a super-virus can be created, to which humans have no immunity. (This is the best current explanation for the Spanish Flu pandemic.) According to Perko, the world's leading virologists fully expect another disastrous pandemic of flu. She thinks we should get ready.
    The second part of the book is Perko's attempt to compile and render easily accessible materia medica information with specific reference to flu symptoms. (This is preceded by a short section on fevers, influenza complications, and recommended care.) First she gives a 107-page "Quick Keynote Reference", which is divided up under headings, for example "Fever Predominates"; "Respiratory Symptoms Predominate"; "Throat Symptoms Predominate"; etc. Under each heading, flu remedies are listed in alphabetical order along with their characteristic fever symptoms, or respiratory symptoms. This section seems unwieldy, since to find your patient's fever, for instance, you have to read through 5 pages of fever descriptions-15 pages if you also want to consider chill and perspiration-in order to find the best match for your patient. And if you want to consider more than one predominant symptom, say throat and muscle aches, this section won't help you.
    Perko then gives a 112-page materia medica of 68 remedies in which she includes only symptoms relevant to flu ("Influenza Remedy Differential Reference"). This is quite useful since it is hard to get an unencumbered flu picture at a glance from other sources. Here Perko doesn't contribute original material, but quotes a number of different authors for each remedy (Tyleresque), both older and modern, which tends to give a helpful, well-rounded picture.
    A brief section (10 pages) at the end of the book deals with pneumonia as a complication of influenza and with post influenza complications ("never been well since"). For each, Perko gives a list of remedies which have been noted as helpful in these conditions, along with one or two quotes suggesting their indications.
    Perko's book is written in a clear, accessible style and is well-researched. It is an important effort to spread awareness and increase readiness among homeopaths concerning the danger of future pandemics. For this alone I think the book is worth the price. If the predictions of virologists are true, world communities will once again find themselves in dire circumstances, and homeopathy will be the only known effective medicinal tool for saving millions of lives. In such a circumstance, the specialized materia medica which Perko has compiled will certainly be of good use.

[David Kent Warkentin]

    29. In the pandemic influenza of 1918 to 1920 many lives were saved by Bryonia. The Old School methods of treatment were utterly futile, for in many cases the infection in the nose and throat spread so rapidly to the chest, that a bronchopneumonia developed before the physician realized it. Aconite, Belladonna or Ferrum phos. may have been indicated in the beginning, but Bryonia was often the remedy when the disease acted in this manner.

[David Kent Warkentin]

    Heal Thyself 1936
    PYROGEN IN DANGEROUS CASES
    By DR. DOROTHY SHEPHERD
    DURING the serious influenza epidemic in 1918 - 19 one's clinical acumen was greatly tried, but again and again one was thankful for the very efficient aid that homoeopathic medicines provided, and over and over again an apparently serious case quickly turned the corner.
    Patients used to say, "I only had a very mild case of flu". They never gave the credit of the rapid cure to the almost tasteless watery medicines they used to imbibe. There were no complications, no heart trouble, no bronchopneumonia, no septic pneumonias and therefore no fatal incidents in several hundred cases. A triumph for homoeopathy indeed. Very few cases gave one much anxiety. The only replace I had was a lady dispenser who knew so much that she wished to almost treat herself, and she had several weeks in bed and was far more pulled down afterwards than any of the other cases: even though she had the same strict starvation diet, copious draughts of barely water, lemon juice, orange juice and grapes as the other patients I looked after. So I proved to myself that natural diet, a fruitarian diet alone, was not the greatest factor in promoting a rapid cure: It always wanted the indicator - that is the right homoeopathic remedy for each individual case.
    There was another case that caused me some anxiety, as it would not respond to the usual remedies: He was a young man invalided out of the army on account of shrapnel wounds in his ankle. The rest of his family, both parents, several brothers and sisters, responded quickly to the treatment given, temperatures came down within twelve to twenty - four hours. They were kept in bed for seven days, after the first day of normal temperature for two to three days only a faint diet which was gradually augmented. His mother could not understand why her eldest son did not get well as quickly as the rest and put it down to the effects of the war wounds. She was not so far wrong either, as it turned out in the end. After nearly a week of pyrexia I had visited him at all hours of the day and night to get all the symptoms collected together, nurses were at a premium just at that time; one depended on the relatives provided there was anybody left to do the nursing, and one carried several doorkeys on one's pockets to let oneself into the various houses. Well, eventually one got the following disease picture: very high, steadily rising temperature, going up to 105° at night, the pulse remaining somewhere about 100 - 110, therefore the pulse and temperature were quite out of proportion. He was extremely restless, never staying long in one position, very confused as regards the number of extremities he owned, there seemed to be so many arms and legs in the bed; he complained of the extreme hardness of the bed, his back was so painful and the bed was as hard as a board. He had received Rhus tox for his restlessness, also Arnica for the hardness of the bed and (?) remote effects of war injuries, also Baptisia, which seemed to correspond to the confusion of the mind and the sensation of there being more than one person in the bed: nothing would touch the illness, however; the weakness went from bad to worse. There were drenching sweats, an offensive, penetrating odour from his perspiration; he had to change his shirts several times in the twenty - four hours; his mouth and tongue were foul and yet Mercury did not touch him. One did not give up hope; but continued to study the case. In the back of one's mind one knew there was something that would act as they key to open the door to this maze, this complicated septic fever. Suddenly it came to one, there was a certain remedy which had this arrhythmia of pulse and temperature; a high temperature with a low pulse or vice versa. This was Pyrogen, and in reading up Pyrogen in the Materia Medica there was the simillimum: the extreme restlessness, the bruised feeling of the parts lain, on, the relief by movement of feet, by change of position, offensive, disgusting perspiration, great weakness and lassitude: the imaginary crowding of supernumerary limbs in the bed: it was all there. So Pyrogen cm - the only potency one had except the mm, both Heath Potencies from America - was given two hourly in a watery solution, and by the morning, a few hours after the late night visit - one found the patient had slept more restfully and the temperature was down to 100°, that night within twenty - four hours of starting this new medicine the temperature was normal, and it kept normal after that. One continued the remedy for a couple of days and then finished off with one dose of Pyrogen mm dry on tongue. One does not remember now, whether he had a constitutional remedy at the end of "seven days bed" after the temperature reached the normal level. anyway, the patient was kept under observation for several years afterwards, and he had no after effects from his serious attack of "wartime 'flu", and on the whole he came off quite lightly, compared with many other victims; he was only in bed for a little over two weeks: eight days' temperature and seven days' recuperative rest. In this case the normal influenza, if one may be allowed to call any influenza normal - was complicated by previous inoculations of the various typhoid, paratyphoid and cholera bacilli; he had had antimalarial inoculation, he had been vaccinated, he had had anti - streptococci injections and inoculation against tetanus, and he could not remember what other inoculations he had had to submit to. I cam to the conclusion that he was full of septic matter; and his blood stream was a battlefield of all sorts of serums and bacteria, and hence the drenching sweats, the high temperature, the offensive odour and the extreme prostration.
    In my own mind I am absolutely convinced that this young man would have been another of the numerous victims of the fatal influenza epidemic if it had not been for our Pyrogen.
    A number of years passed by, but the lesson one was taught of the action of Pyrogen was never forgotten: one day one heard of a poor woman lying dangerously ill in her own home after her confinement: she had been in hospital antenatally for several weeks with high temperature due to pyelitis, the story went, and was sent out under the care of a district nurse with the instruction to call in a local doctor, even though the fever, etc., had not abated. There was such a call on the hospital beds she had to be sent out. I heard of her accidentally, she had been at home for nearly a week since her discharge from hospital: the visitor told me that the temperature would not come down, but stayed round about 103°, the pulse was only about 80 though; she was so weak she could not look after her baby, a kind neighbour was seeing to it. It seemed so tragic, poor Mrs. D. being so ill as there was a large family of seven or eight children. Across my mind flashed the story of the soldier suffering from septic influenza and his cure by Pyrogen; here, once again, was the abnormal pulse - temperature ratio. As there was no doctor in attendance, the woman was too poor to pay for one, and the nurse was so worried, a dozen powders of Pyrogen 30 were sent, with the instruction to take one powder at four - hourly intervals, with the result that the evening temperature, the first temperature taken after the powders had been sent, was 99. 8°, and the next morning the temperature was normal and stayed normal. The patient reported herself a couple of weeks later as being very well except for a crop of vesicles on both her wrists and hands, which cleared up with a dose of Sulphur 30. Here, once again, was a septic fever, caused by or following on some infection of the female generative organs, cured by Pyrogen which eliminated the poison, as often happens after homoeopathic medication, through the skin.
    A little while ago one came across this abnormal pulse - temperature ratio in a case of post - operative pyrexia. Pyrogen was exhibited and pulse and temperature came down together and the patient reported the curious fact that shortly after taking a powder she could taste pus in her throat and mouth. She was a vegetarian and had never tasted meat in her life, so she said, and was probably hypersensitive. I gave her unmedicated powders to try and prove the veracity of her statements, and she only complained of the putrid taste after a Pyrogen powder. As it was given in the 30th potency it was certainly not a physiological reaction, more in the form of a proving.
    Pyrogen - which is a product of sepsis - cures septic fevers of all kinds and conditions when the symptoms agree; it was proved on healthy individuals, and produced a distinctive type of pyrexia with definite clear - cut indications. Thus it proves again the great truth of the Homoeopathic Law: Like cures like. In my hands it cured septic influenza, puerperal pyelitis and post - operative pyrexia, and it will continue to cure other septic diseases showing the typical symptoms.
    Many cases of blood poisoning and ptomaine poisoning, peritonitis and pyaemia could be saved by Pyrogen, if the medical practitioners would only study our Materia Medica and apply it in cases which show the characteristics I mentioned. Pyrogen is closely related to various other remedies, it is very similar to Rhus tox., to Baptisia, to Arnica; one has to get together all the distinctive symptoms of each case and then apply the simillimum, the remedy which is most similar.
    The general medical profession is getting an inkling of the truth, as it is using the serum and vaccines made from individual bacteria or a combination of bacteria found in different septic cases and injecting them hypodermically, and in certain cases they do get a positive reaction, a good curative result. But their doses are too big, and the results are too uncertain, and until they learn to give minute doses and apply them according to a definite law of cure their results will never be as good as our remedies applied strictly following the Hahnemannian laws:
    (1) The single remedy.
    (2) The minute dose.
    (3) Given on the totality of the symptoms found in the individual patient, and corresponding to the symptoms produced by healthy provers.

[David Kent Warkentin]

    ∫RESEARCH WORK IN GELSEMIUM SEMPERVIRENS AND BRYONIA ALBA IN Influenza. by William F. Baker, AM, M.D., Philadelphia, Pa. ∫(Read before the Homoeopathic Medical Society of the State of Penna., Philadelphia, Pa., September 17, 1919.)
    (The Homoeopathic Recorder, 1919, Vol. 34. No. 11, Nov, page 489-496)
    In theƒ Journal of Immunologyƒ for July, 1918, there appeared a very good description of a new method of determining blood immunity, and a full report of the extensive work done in pneumonia by Prof. Solis Cohen at the Jewish Hospital in Philadelphia. The homoeopathicity of the work appealed to me as the function of a homoeopathic laboratory and, following his method, the subject was studied from the homoeopathic standpoint, and I wish here to publicly express my thanks to Drs. Cohen and Heist for the willing and able support given me and the willingness with which they offered me the ways and means of their work.
    Having seen also that a method could be used similar, except the substitution ofƒ Bryonia,ƒ the research was first attempted in July, 1918, with pure pneumococcus toxin. This was later augmented by a study ofƒ Gelsemiumƒ in the mixed infection which began a little later in Camp Devens, Boston, Mass. Here thousands of cases developed in the barracks so that an alarming situation was soon present, and all available Reserve Corps men were sent to Boston. The infection here seemed to be particularly virulent. Following Dr. Cohen's method, with the possible exception of immunizing with the rabbit protein which he did not do (the rabbit protein being just placed on the market), a quantity of the toxin was immediately secured andƒ Gelsemiumƒ andƒ Bryoniaƒ selected in the place ofƒ Cinchonaƒ, which Dr. Cohen had used in his pneumonia experiments.
    The nature of the infection known as influenza was discussed at the recent meeting in Chicago of the American Public Health Association, and they closed without reaching definite conclusions concerning the cause of the influenza. The committee reported "the micro - organism or virus" primarily responsible for this disease has not been identified, but that deaths resulting from the organism are due to pneumonia complication, and that the evidence at hand as to the value of vaccine in influenza epidemic is contradictory.
    The prevailing influenza is aƒ typical mixed infectionƒ, since all the four types of the pneumococcus, streptococcus, staphylococcus and Pfeiffer bacillus or the true bacillus of influenza are found. The organisms have been both hemolytic and non - hemolytic. The hemolytic has been found in larger numbers. The influenza bacillus is practically of no pathological significance. The hemolytic micro - organisms produce certain blood changes, greatly lengthening the coagulation time and increase in watery elements. Congestive complications in the lungs did not seem so important according to the report, and yet a mortality as high as 38 per cent, was reached, clearly showing a fallacy in therapeutics.
    Much to the credit of the homoeopathic profession by beginning therapy before a pathological entity was reached a low percentage to 6 per cent was present as a monument to homoeopathic therapy which should be of lasting credit to the school and demand serious attention of all health authorities.
    The homoeopathic prescription begins with a disturbance of the dynamic before a pathology is arrived at.
    A full description of the methods employed are available so that it is only necessary to review the homoeopathic results. So pronounced were the differences in mortality that I understand experiments are now being made with fluid extract ofƒ Gelsemiumƒ in regular schools.
    Dr. Cohen has, however, established two cardinal principles, viz., by experiment.
    1. Drugs to influence pathology and materially so.
    2. In mixed infections the immunity of the blood ought to be determined first before any serum or antiserum be administered, and this can be done by testing the whole blood with the aid of the Lacey - Heist tube, and is far superior to the agglutination test. A review of the pneumonia work shows at once that derivatives of cinchona in high dilution accelerate phagocytosis. Low dilutions retard phagocytosis, and it is clear that animal experimentation will demonstrate phagocytosis influenced by drug administration.
    He says: "The germicidal properties of the whole blood can be better studied by the Lacey - Heist method, and it will outline the susceptibility of the blood to certain diseases."
    Either the culture is killed or grows at once, and, therefore, is determined immunity. The rabbit is highly susceptible to pneumonia, and it is almost impossible to secure immunity. A culture which will not grow in the blood certainly will not kill it. He further states that when a rabbit is fed quinine the blood serum shows little destructive power, but the leucocyte attack upon the toxin is marked.
    Kolmer and Steinfeld have clearly shown that cinchonin in solution of 1 to 10000 will disinfect in a test tube secretions from a pneumonic patient or from a rabbit suffering from influenza.
    Having decided that it is possible to modify and alter pathologies by means of medication, we are confronted with the so called genius of the infection.
    The genius or type of the infection was established by the Chicago committee, and when we speak of influenza, we mean that mixed infection which became pandemic.
    In section 101, fifth American edition of the Organon, Hahnemann lays down the following principle: "It is possible that a physician meeting with the first case of a certain epidemic should fail to perceive at once its perfect image, because every collective disease of this kind will not manifest the totality of its symptoms and character until several cases have been carefully observed. But after having observed one or two cases of this kind a physician may approach the true condition of the epidemic that he is enabled to construe a true characteristic image of the same and to discover the true homoeopathic remedy."
    Later writers have classed this as a "genius" of the remedy and a "genius" of the drug.
    Hahnemann broadens this general principle in section 102, when he says the complete knowledge is only to be obtained in a perfect manner by observations of the affections of several patients ofƒ different bodily constitutions. ƒ
    This method of examining and classifying epidemic diseases is the accepted standard now for advanced research work in the laboratories. Having the "genius" of the epidemic, it was the purpose of research to obtain a remedy fitting the "totality."
    The method of procedure was to take the mixed toxins in a dose equal to about one - half the lethal dose after the immunity of the animal had been determined. The animal is carefully housed and fed after being given the dose, and the effects noted to determine toxicity. A control animal is also used, which has been treated with animal protein.
    Within six to twelve hours there is marked chill, rapid rise in temperature, loss of appetite, dullness and heaviness with great weakness and prostration and usually a profuse watery diarrhoea, eyes congested and exceptionally thirsty. After the third day there either develops a hypostatic pneumonia and death or a prolonged convalescence extending over a period of several months. Pneumonias developed in about 40 per cent of cases with resultant death.
    The control rabbit went through practically the same state but recovered in three to five days, and did not develop pneumonia.
    Post mortem examination showed extreme basal cerebral congestion, especially in the medulla even after the animal had been decapitated lesions of chloroform anesthesia.
    The lungs were not primarily involved, and where they were secondarily, it was in the form of a passive congestion of circulatory origin presumably.
    The next step is to intercept the toxin in the animals by administration of the homoeopathic remedy. (The caution might be well placed here to say thatƒ Gelsemiumƒ acts best in a low alcoholic percentage, andƒ Bryoniaƒ acts better in a high alcoholic solution in the potency. The 3rd, 6th and 30th were used.) This was to determine the effects of the remedies and if possible select the similimum.
    Having selectedƒ Gelsemiumƒ because of its control of the infection when administered, the last step in the research was to determine the immunity produced byƒ Gelsemiumƒ in the rabbit blood, and this is astounding when we say that the index of the blood is raised from 43 to 81 per cent. by the administration of dilutions ofƒ Gelsemiumƒ to perfectly well and normal animals.
    Observations were made in the care of animals suffering with the toxin as to food, shelter and administration of aspirin and coal tar products.
    The essential homoeopathic observations are:
    1. ƒGelsemiumƒ offered according to the animal experimentations the nearest similimum to the infection, and that afterƒ Gelsemiumƒ was administered to healthy rabbits the lethal dosage of the toxin would be increased showing clearly some relationship.
    Immunization was more complete whereƒ Gelsemiumƒ had been administered and where no remedy was used and the animal survived, the condition lapsed into what may be called a chronic state, so that it could be started again with a very small dose of the toxin. For this reason we may hope to have the epidemic with us again this fall.
    The best immunization obtainable in rabbits, who are especially sensitive, can be obtained from an animal which has been fed uponƒ Gelsemium. ƒ
    2. ƒAconiteƒ seemed suitable to the hypertonic states and was useful in treatment of chronic states where there was an acute exacerbation or where tonic or clonic spasm resulted.
    3. ƒBryoniaƒ seemed in our hands a dangerous remedy on account of its action on lung tissue. it seemed to direct the infection towards the lung, especially when given in large doses.
    As the toxin was given a preponderance of the pure pneumonic culture,ƒ Bryoniaƒ in potency up to the third seemed to render the animal more comfortable.
    The higher potencies ofƒ Bryoniaƒ were disappointing.
    General observations were:
    1. Purely corn fed animals suffered more with the injection of the toxin and the death rate was high.
    2. Milk fed animals suffered least in reaction.
    3. Wheat fed animals suffered also lightly.
    4. We were unable to get the animals to eat a rice diet or a sugar diet.
    5. Our observations lead to the conclusion that animals kept warm and not exposed to chill were even better than those exposed to colder weather or draughts.
    6. The invariable rule for the fall of temperature where a remedy was used was by lysis as opposed to crisis in the purely toxic states.
    7. The experiments withƒ Gelsemiumƒ slow its value in all mixed infections, particularly those affecting the central nervous system. The basilar condition found may account for its peculiar headache. Its exceptional use in post - diphtheritic paralysis and the peculiar symptom of relief after urination may be due to its antagonistic effect upon the toxaemias.
    ƒGelsemiumƒ offers us the most purely dynamic remedy that we possess in the materia media.
    ƒBryoniaƒ affects the peripheral sensory functions and marked gastro - enteric.
    The deep action ofƒ Bryoniaƒ on lungs is more of the nature of a hypostasis from collapse.
    While it affects the serous side in nature of a pleurisy.
    8. Coal tar products increased the toxicity of the toxin and provided increased mortality.
    From our observations we are justified in the association of the severity of the reaction with the feeding of the animal. Certainly it is that marked changes in the immunity of the blood are noticed when the animal is deprived of foods containing vitamins. The resistance of the animal being lowered a much smaller dose of the toxin will produce serious results. That resistance is lowered as long as the animal is deprived, tests being made several weeks apart.
    One of the best methods in combating the disease is a balanced ration.
    That the disease is highly contagious and infectious is evidenced by the rapidity with which it spread through one of the colony houses. It has been my personal experience after an extended acquaintance with this mixed infection that food plays an important part in the care and prevention of this disease, and that many of our people because of the high cost of food supplies were really not balancing the food ration to throw off the effects of the infection.
    The following conclusions seem justifiable.
    1. Animal experimentation has a useful field in the realm of materia medica as based upon the law of similars, but that use is limited for observation clearly shows that many substances are inert when administered to animals.
    2. It offers the best eye - concept in the preliminary teaching of homoeopathic materia medica. Its further uses are to localize pathology and show probable course, although it is unfair to attribute to a drug all the pathology of a terminal lesion when that terminal lesion is augmented by chloroform anesthesia. Probably thorough bleeding will give better pathological entities as shown by the slides presented. Decapitation is suggested.
    3. The psychological factors or the individuality which so appeals to the homoeopath cannot be given a place in such experiments, and consequently the dynamic cannot be considered in the pathogenesy.
    4. A standard course of pathological teaching could, however, be worked out from the homoeopathic materia medica, thus fixing the data in the student's mind.
    5. If such a low mortality rate can be had in a medical emergency as the one in which we have just passed through, it is fair to assume that the same results can be had in another form of medical emergency with a proper understanding of the materia medica.
    6. The need of the further study in materia medica is evidenced by a report of a dean of a certain medical college when 95 per cent. of the asked for suggestions were to advance the materia medica service.
    Closing remarks:
    The work just outlined is interesting, and I believe instructive, and it ought to be possible to have a laboratory under homoeopathic supervision where our remedies and especially our potencies could be proven. Localizing the pathology, visualizing materia medica and then follow such a course with dynamic research such as Dr. Griggs will present to you later.
    We need in our homoeopathic colleges more materia medica teaching. Homoeopathy does not need modernizing; you may as well attempt to modernize your pocket book, and you are well aware where that will land you. What homoeopathy needs and needs badly, is an unbroken faith among its teachers and a publicity which will bear the closest investigation.
    Other laboratories are doing our work and unfortunately giving homoeopathy no credit, while homoeopathy unfortunately, is not given its just amount of time, in our teaching curricula.
    The one bright spot in the future lies in the fact that where homoeopathy is added to a university course the department is given full encouragement.
    In a recent questionnaire sent to the alumni of a certain medical college, there was a prompt response in 91 per cent. of its alumni asking for more materia medica to be taught. They in practice had felt the need of it.

[David Kent Warkentin]

From Hoyle:

    (9) Baptisia (3x, 6x or 30). To close this abbreviated lesson I must draw your attention to a totally different and extremely fatal type of influenza, if not treated homoeopathically. It covers and typifies the fatal epidemic of 1918, when thousands of lives were lost because orthodoxy did not know and would not study homoeopathy. Let us see how this drug acted in 1918. The late Dr. Byres Moir, one of Britain's best and known by my family since 1876, though vastly "over - age" was placed in medical command of an Atlantic transport during the War. During the height of that epidemic scores of poor American soldiers were sewn up and consigned to the ocean from all the transports - but one ! Dr. Moir told me that he did not lose a single soldier due to his being able to "diagnose ƒBaptisiaƒ for his 'flu cases". I asked him why he had not reported this remarkable success to our journals. He replied that he could not, because he was a public servant in the employ of the Government. The "disease - picture" of that type of influenza, which fits the "drug - picture" of that type of influenza, which fits the "drug - picture" absolutely, is as follows, and some medical readers will recognize the precise similarities. The symptoms are somewhat of a typhus - typhoid nature, putrid, highly septic, and infectious. The mind is confused, running fast to stupor; face dark to dusky, with a heavily besotted expression. Eyes bleared. Early in the disease the mind becomes confused; falls to sleep before he can answer a question, or he stops in the middle of a sentence. Mouth putrid, ulcerated, with fecal breath. The tongue yellow at first, becomes darkly streaked down the middle, with many red papillae standing out; edges dark red and shiny. Tongue soon becomes cracked and ulcerated, with tendency to putrid ulcers throughout the mouth, and with sores (black patches) on lips and teeth. Breath becomes terribly foul, in fact all secretions and ƒdischarges (urine, stools and sweat) are extremely offensiveƒ. Some patients think that they are in several pieces, and feel around the bed, trying to collect the scattered portions. Can only swallow liquids. Solids gag. Breathing is difficult. Lungs feel compressed. Body feels sore and bruised. ƒLivid spots and areas appear all over the body and extremities, and withoutƒ Baptisia ƒthese case are doomedƒ. (Compare our ƒLachesisƒ for under - skin hemorrhages, especially in Yellow fever.) Remember Dr. Moir did not lose a case of Septic 'flu, or diagnose it what you will. What a pity for humanity that orthodoxy won't study homoeopathy !.

[Lourdes]

Thanks for all these, David!

I've been on the web reading up on this subject, but of course, the symptoms listed in the articles I looked at don't tell me anything other than a list of flu symptoms! I think it's time to rest my eyes. Everything is a blur now.

[David Kent Warkentin]

From Krebs (Murphy):

When the influenza epidemic hit Northern Nevada in 1918, Ernst Krebs MD of Carson City was surprised to see the local Washoe people recovering, and he inquired as to their medicine. They called it "Toh-sa" or "Do-sa". Dr. Krebs called it Balsamea, due to its biting odor of balsamic resins.
The Indians gather this root in the late fall, November being considered the proper month for gathering. The root is used in the fresh or dry state. It is cut up and a decoction is made by boiling the root in water, skimming off the top and giving large doses of the broth. A pound of root is considered about the proper dose to treat a case of fever for three days, which is the longest time needed to break up a fever due to influenza or a pulmonary disease, although the Washoes used it as a panacea.
Whether a coincidence or not, there was not a single death in the Washoe tribe from influenza or its complications, although Indians living in other parts of the State where the root did not grow died in numbers. It was such a remarkable coincidence that the root was investigated by a practicing physician who saw apparently hopeless cases recover without any other medication or care of any kind.
A preparation was prepared and employed in a great many cases among the whites, from the mildest to the most virulent types of influenza, and it proved, among other things, that it is the nearest approach we have today to a specific in epidemic influenza and the accompanying pneumonia. Where used early it proved itself to be a reliable agent in preventing pulmonary complications.
Other physicians were induced to give it a trial, with the same results. It is beyond the experimental stage, as its therapeutic action in this direction is established and beyond any doubt. The cases in which it has been used run into the hundreds. There is probably no therapeutic agent so valuable in the treatment of influenzal pneumonia and, as far as being tried, in ordinary lobar pneumonia if started early.

The remedy they are describing is LOMATIUM DISSECTUM (Indian carrot) - DW

[David Kent Warkentin]

From Rajan father's work:

    INFLUENZINUM
    Influenzinum is indicated for poor reaction, when the patient's recovery is poor after influenza. It also acts as a preventive if given in the autumn of the year. Someone has said Influenza is the cowbird of the disease family, "depositing its germ in the nest with every other infection". 50 percent of all chronic cases have chronic influenza as one of its complications and often it is the sole cause of their chronic state. Obsessions, delusions and other anxious states may show their appearances so long after the acute attack of influenza as not to be readily associated with it. While Influenzinum is of no benefit in an acute case of influenza, its use in the chronic case is frequently astonishing. Patients who have been ailing or complaining since an attack of this disease, recent or remote, will also show a marked relief from their symptoms. It may also be given for prophylaxis with some surprising results. C. E. Wheeler says "In any epidemic the corresponding nosode can be given for this purpose and will be found valuable. Generally speaking, a dose of the 30th will protect for at least a fortnight. For the more resistent and recurrent infections like influenza, in our judgement, the nosode Influenzinum is best mixed with one of the Tuberculinum nosodes, either Tuberculinum bovinum or Bacillinum. All the Tuberculins suits that type of patient who seems to pick up nasal catarrh on the least provocation and the mixture suggested is effective against the common cold as well as against influenza. A monthly dose of the 30th potency is usually sufficient to confer protection. "
    The original Influenzinum was prepared merely from the nasal smear of a patient suspected to suffer from influenza. The smear probably contained several other organisms besides the virus. Further, the virus is known to undergo mutation, so that the virus of one epidemic differs from the virus of another. Gutman gives indications for this nosode.
    Stearns writes:
    "In the matter of influenza, the acute cases are quickly cured by the proper Influenzin nosode and the chronic cases are so modified by the nosode as later to make easy the selection of the true chronic simillimum.
    "Every case of acute encephalitis required Influenzin, as does every chronic post - encephalitic case, but in chronic influenza as in all chronic conditions, the nosode will not complete the cure.
    "Infection originally occurs because of some constitutional tendency. The disease factor is best met by the nosode - the constitutional by the constitutional remedy. In post - encephalitic cases, remedies of the type of the Belladonna group are likely to be required after Influenzin has done its work and, finally the more deeply - acting constitutional remedies are needed. In intuitive prescribing, however, the only guide to the follow - up remedies after Influenzin has finished, lies in the symptoms as they develop. It is like a house of mystery; Influenzin is the key which opens the front door but each room has a secret combination lock of its own.
    "Influenza is almost always associated with tuberculosis, and acute influenza often stirs up latent tubercular infections. Because of this, Influenzin usually is indicated when we begin treatment of tuberculosis and, on the other hand, Tuberculinum saves the most desperate cases of influenza. Remember that when Koch developed his original tuberculin, its use frequently caused pneumonia with patchy areas of congestion in the lungs, and note that patchy areas of congestion are found in the lung involvement of influenza. Koch's Tuberculinum 1M was a sheet anchor in the pneumonia type of influenza, during the 1918 epidemic.
    "Dr. Pierre Schmidt sent over the first influenza nosode, calling it Spanish Influenzin and this has proved the best in the chronic forms of the disease, especially with patients who had severe attacks in the 1918 epidemic.
    "Influenzin antitoxin acts best in the recent acute cases and in the chronic form of more recent origin.
    "Influenzin meningeal is seldom useful, but when it is needed it acts brilliantly.
    "Influenzin serum is sometimes helpful.
    "Recently we have obtained three new Influenzins, which are influenzin nekel catarrhalis, Influenza vaccine polyvalent and influenzin polyvalent. The last two are from Lederle. "
    Some of the Influenzinums marketed by Nelson's of London are as follows:
    1. Influenzinum (the 1918 epidemic). 2. Influenza virus A Asian/57. 3. Influenza virus A England/42/72. 4. Influenza virus B Hong Kong/5/72. 5. Influenza virus A/Port Chalmers/ 1/73. 6. Influenza virus A (Asian) 1954. 7. Influenza virus B (Asian) 1954. 8. Bacillus influenza 1918. 9. Influenza virus Az Hong Kong 1968. 10. Influenza virus Ar 1967. 11. Influenza virus B. 12. Influenza Co. (Combination of Az to 1918). 13 Influenza virus A1.
    They also have a combination of influenza strains with Bacillinum.
    Tyler reports a case:
    "POST - INFLUENZAL EPILEPSY: 'Fits ever since influenza twelve months ago. ' Severe fits several times a week, with enuresis. Also fits of very violent temper. Had been treated unsuccessfully for six months at a Children's Hospital. She was given Influenzinum 200, three doses six hours apart. She needed no other medicine. The report was "No more fits, and now she is no more trouble than the other children. "
    But personally I prefer to give Cadmium metallicum to antidote the sequelae of influenza. I have seen its remarkably beneficial effect in numerous cases.
    A patient whom I treated recently had not been well since Influenza. His symptoms were great weakness in the body, especially the legs, felt unsteady and heavy, confusion of mind etc. All these symptoms had appeared since an attack of Influenza which had occurred two years back. Cadm. met. completely cured him. This indication has been given by William Gutman who has published the provings of Cadmium metallicum.

[David Kent Warkentin]

Hoyle:

    HOW TO CURE INFLUENZA
    THAT these epidemics will recur it is fair to assume. In the meantime the wise thing to do is to study every method to combat such a death - dealing force. It is the stern duty of every orthodox doctor, and common sense on the part of every family.
    Though brevity is expected of me, I must fix the reader's attention on to what may be expected of medicine, and this is best done by presenting some statistics, comparing the death rates of this disease in various hands. This concerns the laity more than the profession, for their's is the risk.
    (1) Dr. W. A. Pearson, whom I have known well for over twenty - five years, is Dean of the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia; their hospital, of 592 beds, runs up twenty stores in the heart of that city. He has certified that he carefully collected records of 26, 795 cases of epidemic 'flu, including 1918, treated by homoeopathic physicians, with the remarkably low mortality rate of practically I per cent., whilst for the same epidemics the Orthodox death rate was 30 per cent. I talked with Dr. Pearson in 1934 and he stated that the recurrent death rate averages still held for both schools of medicine. He further told me that many doctors, known personally to hi, never lost a case unless such had previously been" doped" with Aspirin, or such like heart - depressants before the cases were transferred to homoeopathic care.
    (2) Another set of statistics is to be found in the International Homoeopathic Directory for 1932, which I compiled (see page 220). This can be obtained from the publishers of this journal. These figures were collected by Dr. T. A. McCann of Dayton, Ohio, who reported same in his Presidential address before the seventy seventh Annual Congress of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, held at Washington, D. C. June, 1921, and these figures included that most fatal epidemic year of 1918. 24, 000 cases treated allopathically, that is by orthodox men, had a fatality rate of 28. 2 per cent. whereas, 26, 000 cases treated by homoeopathic physicians, including the 1918 epidemic, when their death rate was 1. 05 per cent. (also reported in the Journal of the American Institute of Homoeopathy for October, 1921.)
    (3) See Bulletin 43, Series II, for June 21st, 1934. issued by the "Bureau of Publicity" of the American Foundation of Homoeopathy, at Washington D. C. and read: "The tragic 'flu epidemic of 1918, an aftermath of War, was for the most part fought by methods of war (Aspirin and Quinine) when in orthodox hands the death rate was roughly 48 per cent and with strict homoeopathic treatment the death are was 3. 95 per thousand cases, or under four - tenths of I per cent.. "
    This death rate is substantiated by an old friend of mine from New York, a Dr. Guy Buckley Sterns, who is now Associate Professor of Materia Medica of the New York Homoeopathic Medical College, in a review of 16, 913 cases with but sixty - seven deaths, that is with homoeopathy without Aspirin.
    The terrible difference shown in the death rates of the two schools of medicine must be put down to our homoeopathic medicines and to our method of selecting same. Dr. Sterns dwells on the ever - changing methods of the orthodox with their palliative, sedatives, narcotics, fever - breakers, purgatives and alcoholic stimulants, which are one and all thoroughly harmful. Aspirin and all coal tar derivatives actually cause untold numbers of UNNECESSARY DEATHS, with Aspirin worst of all because it falsely beguiles by its quick relief of pain. Aspirin, whatever the advertisements say, puts a double load on the heart. It weakens the heart and all the vital forces, already taxed to the utmost by disease, and at best it lengthens the convalescence by three or four times that of the convalescence of those treated by Homoeopathy.
    The remedy you decide to give to - day may not be the one necessary tomorrow. The particular symptoms must be considered at every prescription, and they must match with what is known of the drug chosen. If you do select the absolute simillimum to - day such will run remarkable recovery and perfect cure, so rapid in fact that you will get a surprise, and when observed, it is wise to stop all medicine and allow the homoeopathic stimulus to work itself out undisturbed, for Nature is an efficient worker and does not brook over - drugging. One great difference between the two schools of medicine is that orthodoxy is always flirting with the "maximum" dose which may be given without immediate destructive results, though as long as the "maximum" dose as printed in orthodox works and as allowed by their pharmacopoeia is not exceeded, a death certificate is quite "legal" and does not entail calling in a coroner. We homoeopaths can recognize many "drug - diseases" in patients which drift to us from orthodoxy. We homoeopaths always aim at giving the most minute medical stimulus, never harmful, which will arouse the vital reaction towards Natural repair, and we have guiding rule (similia) on which to base every prescription.
    It was Hippocrates (400 B. C.) who formulated the dogma, we employ, and Hahnemann gave him full credit for "Let likes be treated by Likes". This law goes back to the beginning of all TIME, unchanging, and it is employed the world over by every savage in their knowledge of local and tribal medicine, though they know nothing of the underlying law of cure.
    The few symptoms I am about to lay before you are the major indications of each drug of "keynotes" as we term them. On the first sign of a chill or an influenza infection having been contracted, take Aconite (3x, 6x or 30) and Belladonna (3x, 6x or 30) alternatively, every half - hour for five or six doses each. Put five to eight drops (or pills) in half a glass of water. Stir very well. Take a teaspoonful at a dose, holding same in the mouth as long as is convenient (one minute at least).
    If the invasion is not conquered in a few hours review the peculiar persona symptoms of the invalid and pick out the "similar" symptoms of be found in the patient from the following list. The dosage and manner of taking the medicine will be as given for Aconite and Belladonna except that the intervals between does should be from one hour to three hours according to the severity of the symptoms. When the patient is feeling much better - STOP ALL MEDICINE - for a time. This is important. Only resort to further medicine, if things are not still proceeding to a cure.
    (I) Gelsemium sempervirens
    (2). Eupatorium perfoliatum
    (3). Bryonia alba
    (4) Arsenicum album
    (5) Veratrum viride
    (6) Rhus toxicodendron
    (7) Euphrasia
    ( Allium cepa
    (9) Baptisia

[David Kent Warkentin]

Andre Saine encourages us:

    How does homeopathy address patients with infectious diseases? Homeopathic treatment is ideal to optimize the body's natural defenses against microbes. With the appropriate homeopathic treatment, people recover from infectious diseases, even the most serious ones, gently and rapidly. During past great epidemics such as diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid, cholera, yellow fever, malaria, etc., homeopathy decreased mortality by 10 to 30 times versus conventional medicine. During the infamous Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-19, it has been estimated that 25 to 50 million people died worldwide. In the United States alone, 550,000 died, approximately 10% of the people afflicted with the flu. Homeopathic physicians documented then more than 62,000 patients treated with homeopathy resulting in a mortality of 0.7%. For people who were sick enough to be hospitalized, conventional medicine had a mortality of 30% while with 27,000 documented hospitalized cases, homeopathy was reporting a mortality of 1.05% (Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy 1921; 13:1028-43).

[David Kent Warkentin]

   THE HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT OF INFLUENZA
    By W. Lees Templeton, Esq., M. D.
    He would indeed be a bold man who would attempt to cover in a short paper such as this anything like an adequate account of the homeopathic treatment of influenza.
    The time allotted might indeed suffice to cover the treatment by orthodox methods, but then, the treatment by orthodox methods once the diagnosis is made is more or less routine, and that is the first point I wish to make: that the homeopathic treatment of influenza (as in any other disease) is not routine but essentially individualistic; not, as might be understood or rather misunderstood, according to the individual prescriber, but according to the individual patient! That is to say, no two patients with influenza need necessarily receive the same drug treatment, but that will be obvious as we go along.
    On the other hand, it is true that most epidemics do run true to type not only in the symptomatology, but also in the drug picture which it shows to the homeopath.
    There is often a " remedy epidemicus " which will cover the majority of the cases seen, though there will be many cases which do not fit into that average picture and will require a different remedy because they have different symptoms, though suffering, as far as one can tell, from the same disease.
    This generalization is true of all disease when viewed from the homeopathic angle.
    The method I have chosen in discussing the subject of treatment of flu may seem to you too simple or too elementary for this learned assembly, but in order that one should not approach the subject in any biased manner or with preconceived ideas even as to drugs, I have taken to - day for the purpose of this discussion the experience of my partner, Dr. Russell, and myself of a recent mild epidemic and without prejudice for, up till a week or so ago, neither of us had any idea as to the proportion of cases treated by one drug or the other.
    I have taken 100 cases at random from one epidemic; there were others, and fortunately one was able also to consider a number of others treated allopathically during the same period under review.
    I wish also to say that one has tried to eliminate various acute cases seen during the same period which did not seem to be true influenzas, and one may have indeed excluded some which were, though the outstanding symptoms were perhaps a tonsillitis or some manifestation which one felt might not be justly termed influenza.
    In our 100 cases, the following were the drugs used:
    Gelsemium........ In 36 Cases.
    Bryonia........,, 15,,
    Sulphur........,, 10,,
    Rhus tox.........., 7,,
    Eupatorium......,, 7,,
    Carbo veg........,, 2,,
    Pyrogen........,, 2,,
    Kali carb.........,, 2,,
    Ars. alb.........,, 2,,
    Phytolacca........,, 2,,
    Belladonna........,, 5,,
    and Lach., Phos., Terebinth, Nat. mur., Nat. sulph., Nux vom., Nit. ac., Baptisia, Kali nit. and China in one case each.
    Now I believe this will give us quite a satisfactory cross - section of the homeopathic treatment of influenza as any other. It is founded on fact, not theory, and no other ancillary treatment was given to these cases.
    I fully realize that the epidemic was mild, but that would not affect our methods nor our choice of drugs and, I hope, would not affect our results!
    Now taking the drugs consecutively, in order of merit if you like.