C. M. Boger, M.D.
A sudden and violent emptying of the digestive canal by vomiting and purging at the same time, and mainly seen in cholera, cholera morbus and cholera infantum, but may occur as a prodrome to pneumonia or apoplexy or during migraine, strangulated hernia, uraemia, etc., etc. It seems to be an effort of the vital forces to get rid of an overload of one kind or another, mostly, but not always of digestive origin.
Its premier aspect is that of a violence great enough to raise the suspicion of the presence of some really serious disorder. It was formerly more common during the heated period. More sanitary methods of handling foodstuffs have very materially changed this for the better.
Remedially the syndrome points to a certain small group of very active remedies whose pure effects combine suddenness of onset and violence with vomiting and purging. The first of these is Acthusa and one sometimes wonders how the early homoeopaths got along without its help in cholera infantum, for those dangerous cases in which the child suddenly vomits up a tough or hard curd of milk, purges, turns deathly pale about the mouth and then sinks back in utter exhaustion. Only the correctly chosen remedy, promptly given, will save this kind.
Then we have the drowsy patient who vomits and purges moderately, has a little Coll general sweat with a suspicious rattle in the throat, so that we can’t just say whether it is really cholera infantum or the onset of a capillary bronchitis. A single dose of Antimonium tart. very high will cure the patient so quickly that our doubt will always remain. Such an action belongs to the nature of tartar emetic.
It is not necessary to here point out the Arsenicum, Colchicum Cuprum, Podophyllum or Veratrum alb. Type of case, but what I want to say is, that, faced by such an admittedly serious complex, even a moderately good homoeopath stands head and shoulders above his allopathic brother in his power to save the situation.
I might speak a long time of the things which you know and feel are perfectly true, and yet be helping the cause but little did I not point out the fact that the things which hold us back are largely of a fundamental nature. The patient who comes to know correct homoeopathic prescribing will rarely ever take strong doses of medicine at all, even preferring drugless healing to being always in the shadow of dope or measures of violence. Most sensible persons still hold with Montaigne that they “see no race of people so soon sick and so long before they are well as those who take much physic.” Today the victims of surgery may well be added to this class. Both are dupes of a mighty poor opportunism.
What can we say for ourselves after denouncing old physic and castigating short sighted surgery? Is our need self glorification, boastfulness of the law, which we occasionally observe, or an exclusive and bigoted regularity? Such thing did and do still belong to low grade homoeopathy, rich in everything but the self-sacrificing devotion which finally emancipates the searcher after truth; he who finally comes those that efficient and complete reaction only follows an initial impact of a like kind. No one can predicate the final results of a force thus converted or released into its own proper channels. One more thought. All measures intended to thus convert or turn latent energy into its normal channels, which stop short of doing it by virtue of the law of similar, fall just that much short of making genuine cures. Much help may be gained by various mechanical or material acts, surgery, manipulation, etc., etc., but every one of them lacks the power to tune back into natural expression, the innate vitality of the patient. Only the potentized remedy can do this; all other methods are inherently more or less palliative; it can not be, nor is it otherwise. How then, may this knowledge be obtained? Let me tell you: “Seek by humility; the wise who see the truth will communicate it unto thee.”
