Article originally published in "The American Homoeopathic Review, Vol IV, New York, January, 1863. No. 7 & 8"
MOTION AND REST*
BY
DR. C. VON BOENNINGHAUSEN, MUNSTER .
* Allg. Horn.
Zeitung, 65, 18.
Driving and riding must
be included among the varieties of motion. Various symptoms are induced or
aggravated by driving in a wagon, which generally find their remedy among Ars.,
Bry., Cocc, Colch., Hepar., Hyos., Ignat., Lach., Nux mosch., Op., Petr., Rhus
tox., Selen., Sep., Sil and Sulph. On the other hand the remedies for sea-sickness,
from motion in a ship, are pretty much confined to Ars., Cocc, Colch.,
Ferr., Hyos., Opium, Petr., Sil and Tabac, although the motion of rocking which
seems to nearly related to the above, corresponds only to Borax and Carbo veg.
It may here be mentioned as something remarkable that some symptoms are
relieved by driving in a wagon, and in such cases Ars., Graph., Nit.
acid or Phos., are most likely to be indicated.
As
regards riding (on horseback) the totality of the symptoms in those
persons with whom this exercise does not agree, will generally be found to be
of such a character that Graph., Nat. carb., Sep., Spig. or Sulph. acid, are
among the remedies best indicated. In this connection, as above, we note a
singular circumstance, viz.: that cases of exceedingly painful, inflamed and
protruding haemorrhoids sometimes present themselves, in which, contrary to all
analogy and to all reasonable expectation, riding (on horseback) affords the
greatest relief. In such cases as these a single very small dose of a high
potency of Kali carb. is generally sufficient to cure the disease rapidly and
permanently.
Just as change of position may, through the
aggravation of symptoms, furnish a useful indication for several remedies, most strikingly, for Caps., Carbo veg., Con., Euphorb., Lach.,
Lyc, Phos., Puls. and Samb., so it may also happen that it alleviates the
symptoms. This affords a very characteristic indication for Cham., Ign., Phos.
acid, Valer. or Zinc.
Turning over in bed is also
a motion which produces more or less of aggravation under several remedies, and
may therefore serve as an indication. It is most marked under Acon., Ars.,
Borax, Bry., Cann., Caps., Carbo veg., Con., Ferr., Hepar., Lyc, Nat. mur., Nux
vom., Puls., Rhus tox., Sil., Staph. and Sulph. Closely related to this is the
motion of looking around, although as regards aggravation it is as yet
noted only of Calc, Cicuta vir., Con., Ipec. and Kali.
In addition to the above-named
varieties of motion there are many others, which however we may pass by here
the rather because they affect often only isolated portions of the body, a fact
which constitutes in itself something of an individual characteristic and which
therefore gives to the motion associated with it a somewhat subordinate rank. Among
the number, are, for example, respiration, inspiration as well as expiration,
swallowing, whether only of saliva, or empty swallowing, or
also swallowing of food or drink; sneezing, yawning, coughing,
speaking, writing, etc. Respecting all of these conditions, in so far as they
exercise an influence upon the aggravation or amelioration of symptoms, our
Materia Medica Pura contains a large quantity of observations which were first
obtained by provings upon the healthy and then verified by administration to
the sick. They have therefore sustained a double test, a priori and a
posteriori, and they deserve just as much consideration, in the search for
the most complete and perfect simile, as any other symptoms that have
been discovered and verified in the same way. If at the present day this
consideration is not commonly accorded, if, indeed attention is chiefly fixed
on the pathological, the general symptoms, while the concomitant symptoms,
which for the most part are very characteristic, are correspondingly neglected,
assuredly such laxity and incompleteness in the application of our fundamental
principle are utterly inexcusable and it is not; to be
wondered at that even “experiments on the sick,” to their great injury should
be ever on the increase, while pure experiment is growing less and less
frequent.
Thus much, for the present, I have felt constrained to say
respecting the influence of motion and its varieties upon the phenomena of
disease and respecting, consequently, the importance of regarding them and
finding their correspondence in the drug symptoms in order to show to what
extent and with what critical discrimination we are to avail ourselves of them.
At the same time, what has been written will demonstrate, with what industry in
a period of fifty years (the first volume of Materia Medica Pura of 243
pages, appeared in 1811, the third edition of the same volume with 504 pages in
1830) our therapeutic edifice has been extended, while every duly verified new
observation or discovery finds always therein its appropriate place and must
contribute to the further extension and completeness of the whole.
All that needs to be said
concerning the influence of rest upon the aggravation of symptoms, may be done
with considerable brevity, for essentially it consist in the converse of what
has been already said.
One variety of rest, however, demands a brief
consideration and all the more, because in the first place it affords for many
internal and external diseases a truly indispensable characteristic, and in the
second place because it must astonish every experienced Homoeopathist to see,
as he reads the more recent descriptions of clinical cases, that many
practitioners appear to leave it altogether out of account. I mean rest in
the recumbent position.
I pass by simple lying,
which is merely rest in contradistinction to motion, and also lying in bed and
propose to consider the different recumbent positions, which are the
points of greatest interest in this connection.
First under this head comes aggravation from lying
outstretched in contradistinction to lying crooked or in a curved
position. For aggravation in the former posture, Cham., Colch., Coloc., Platina, Puls., Rheum, Rhus and Staph. are most likely to be appropriate.
For aggravation in the latter, most frequently Hyos., Lyc, Spong., Teucr. and Valer.
Aggravation from lying with the head low indicates
other remedies again, among which are Ant. tart., Arg., Ars., Caps., Chin.,
Colch., Hepar., Lach., Nit., Puls, and Spig. If in addition the horizontal position
is most tolerable to the patient, then Apis, Arn, Bell. and Spong. may be added
to the above.
But still more important than these, are the recumbent
positions upon the back and upon the sides.
If lying upon the back aggravates,
this indicates especially Amm. mur., Ars., Caust., Cham., Chin., Coloc., Cup.,
Cycl., Iod., Nitr., Nux vom., Phos., Plumb., Rhus., Sep., Sil. or Spig. When,
on the contrary this position affords relief, the most suitable remedy will
generally be found among Acon., Anac., Bry., Calc.., Carbo. an., Kali carb., Lyc,
Merc., Puls., Seneg., Stann. or Thuja.
Aggravation from lying on the side requires in general
Acon., Anac., Bry., Calc., Carbo. an., Kali carb., Lyc, Phos., Puls.,
Stann., Sulph. and Thuja. But under this head there are two varieties which are
of very great importance, viz.:
1. The aggravation may be produced
by lying upon the right or upon the left side; or,
2. It may be produced by lying on
the painful side or on the side which is not the seat of pain.
If we disregard these distinctions
we grope about in the dark in treating many affections of the head, chest,
abdomen and limbs, and we fail to select the correct and successful remedy
until we have long sought it and experimented in vain, whereas we might easily
have found it at the outset had we paid attention to the distinctions above
indicated.
The following remedies correspond to aggravation produced by
lying upon the right side; Amm. m., Borax, Caust, Mag. mur., Merc., Nux
vom. and Spong.; by lying on the left side, Acon., Amm. c., Baryt.,
Bry., Colch., Ipec., Nat. carb., Nat. mur., Petr., Phos., Puls., Sep., Sil., Sulph. and Thuja. But when this condition comes into collision
with the following one, the preference is always to be given to the latter.
The most important distinction and one of which we may the
most frequently avail ourselves in practice is that between aggravation
produced by lying on the painful side, and that produced by lying on
the painless side.
In the former case the chief
remedies are: Acon., Amm. c., Ars., Baryt., Calad., Cycl., Dros., Graph.,
Hepar., Iod., Lach., Lyc, Magn. c., Magn. m., Mosch., Nitr. acid, Nux mh., Nux
v., Par., Phos., Ph. ac, Rheum, Ruta, Sabad., Selen., Sil., Spong., Staph. and
Thuja.
On the other hand, aggravation when
lying on the side which is not the painful one occurs uniformly under the
following remedies; Ambra, Arn., Bry., Calc., Cann., Caust., Cham., Coloc.,
Fluor. acid, Ign., Kali carb., Puls., Rhus , Secale,
Sep., Stann. and Viola tr.
All of these indications are so trustworthy and have been
verified by such manifold experience that there are hardly any others which can
equal them in rank, to say nothing of surpassing them. But the most valuable
fact respecting them is this: that this characteristic is not confined to one
or another symptom, but like a red thread it runs through all the morbid
symptoms of a given remedy which are associated with any kind of pain whatever
or even with a sensation of discomfort, and hence it is available for both
internal and external symptoms of the most various character.
It is really a matter of surprise
and wonder that an element so obvious and so very valuable for the appropriate
selection of a remedy should have remained so entirely unheeded in many of the
most recent details of cases so carefully drawn up in other respects and that
instead of these, the results of auscultation and percussion should be recorded
with the utmost exactness, notwithstanding the fact that the symptoms of our
old and well-tried pure Materia Medica contain nothing whatever relating to
these, then unknown methods of observation and that, consequently, they are
almost worthless as items on which to base the choice of the remedy.
If the conscientious homoeopathic
physician is more intent on curing his patient as speedily and as safely as
possible, than on making a parade before him and astonishing him by a display
of scientific accomplishments, he will, at least, first, seek out in the case
those, I had almost called them therapeutic-pathological, characteristic
symptoms by which he may make sure his choice of the remedy; and not until he
has done this, will he seek to make available the general physiologico-pathological
phenomena, for these, at least, can then do no mischief. And if he desires, in
a laudable manner, to prepare the way for a future useful application of the
stethoscope and the pleximeter, let him seek to
bring the results of the employment of these new implements into relation with
the above-mentioned old and verified symptoms, in such wise that both united
may be employed in making the cure even more certain and precise than before.
He, however, who does not go to work in this fashion, but in
contradiction of section 153 of the Organon, pursues his way over the
barren waste of a pathology without characteristic, should as little expect to
be recognized as a true homoeopathic physician as those others who in
opposition to section 245, et sequa. of the Organon, by their, to
say the least, unnecessary administration of massive doses, give our adversaries
occasion to declare (as in the Allg. Preuss. Med. Zeit., 1861, and not
altogether without reason) that the distinction between allopathic and
homoeopathic remedies no longer exists, and to deduce from this the futility of
the claim on the part of physicians to the liberty of dispensing their own
remedies, since in fact the necessity for this liberty is denied to exist.
If any one, whoever he
may be, has the audacity to proclaim to the world, that Hahnemann himself,
towards the end of his life, returned to the use of massive doses and only
maintained an outside semblance of adherence to his potentization theory, from
unworthy motives, such a man is nothing but a common slanderer, unworthy of
respect and credit at the hands of any honorable man,
whether Allopath or Homoeopath, and he will be nailed to the pillory as a
malignant liar by the publication, which we may very soon expect, of original
matter from our great master’s own journals.
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