Three weeks ago a woman whose hair is frosted with over 63 winters was referred to me. Around the nipple of her left mamma was a cake which seemed, from palpation, to be half an inch in depth and one inch in diameter, a doughnut, so to speak, encircling the nipple (which was decidedly retracted), while there was no actual pain there was a decided discomfort. I could not find any lymphatic enlargements and otherwise than a muscular discomfort in the left hip and an obstinate constipation with a white, flabby tongue, she seemed all right. She had no use for the homoeopathic doctors and had appealed to a real regular, who referred her promptly to a surgical friend, who, in turn, advised ablation of the breast at once. My friend recommended me as a specialist on tumors and so she came to me. Introducing Elix. Of Gentian I put one ounce of Tr. Phytolacca and directed her to take a tablespoonful three times a day. Saw her in two weeks, the in duration almost entirely gone, nipple retraction much improved, bowels moving without her accustomed pills, hp pains better, a delighted and grateful patient and another triumph for the pokeberry.
By the way, I wish to supplement my article on bry. In appendicitis by the following case, to wit: Was called to see Helen, a lass of fourteen, who had been suffering for three or four days with severe pains in abdomen. Attending physicain had given Bry. 3d for two days (every two hours) and then changed to Bell. Temperature had been 1040 and persisted around 1020. Bryonia seemed indicated, I found the right rectus abdomen very hard and tense around McBurney’s point, was a perceptible elevation and a decided tumor, irregularly circular and two inches in diameter.
I put a powder of Bry. 200 on her tongue. Diagnosed appendicitis, and expressed the opinion that an operation would be imperative the next day if there was no improvement. She had several paroxysms of severe pain in the next two hours and then went to sleep, and slept well into the next morning. When I arrived after 10 A. M., Twenty miles away, I found her temperature 99, but I could not find the periappendix induration and she did not wince upon deep and firm pressure, her temperature was normal by evening and she was up and around the next day. The attending physician had the right remedy, but not the right potency, was in error when changed to Bell., and this case illustrates an important point in prescribing, viz., change your potency and not your remedy when patient fails to respond to the apparently indicated drug.
In my first case I do not claim to have cured a cancer, but I did dispose of a condition for which the surgeons would have performed an operation, mutilated the patient and made claims to another victory for early extirpation, or else (if she has the cancerous taint) they would unanimously have fanned the carcinomatous spark into a raging pathological flame. Selah.
JOSEPH E. WRIGHT, M.D. Westfield, N. J.
