During my resident posting, in 1993, at the government
homeopathic hospital in Mumbai, India, I saw a man in his late forties who had
been disowned by his family because of his frequent hospitalisations; his
family was tired of him and his illness, so most of the time he would get
admitted to our hospital, where he stayed for months at a time. He received
several remedies over the years by different resident house physicians. Therefore,
as soon as I joined the hospital the first thing I did was to study his case
and to prepare myself for any crisis which might arise.
He had three main complaints:
1) Bronchiectasis: severe cough with breathlessness.
2) Epileptic fits.
3) Mental illness: violent mania with increased strength, whereby he hit others and talked senselessly.
These three complaints never occurred at the same time. After a severe attack of bronchiectasis had run its course, an epileptic fit would come, followed by violent mania.
Here was a case of three dissimilar diseases, where each one occupied a particular locality suited to it. After existing over a period of time, they joined together to form a “double complex disease”. Since they are dissimilar diseases, they cannot remove or cure each other (Ref: Organon 6th edition, aphorisms 36, 38 and 40).
An episode of violent mania:
Once, after we had finished seeing all our patients of the day, I received a call that this man had turned violent, hitting an old patient on the bed next to him. The old man suffered from heart failure and he and his relatives were obviously very frightened by the attack. My patient was talking continuously, at times very loudly, and I could hardly make out what he was trying to say. His case record noted that at such times he was usually prescribed Stramonium, which seemed a logical option. He would, however, not allow anyone to approach him in order to give him the remedy; even with the help of the nursing staff, we could not overpower his physical strength to give him the remedy and we had to abandon our efforts. Since his constant talking and his violent behaviour was disturbing other patients in the ward, I started arguing with him, even scolding and reproaching him a bit. I tried to tell him that he should understand and allow us to give him the remedy. How foolish of me! I should understand rather than expecting him to understand. During this moment of despair, I suddenly remembered the Auxiliary regimen described by Hahnemann on how to behave with such patients (aphorism 22). Here are some of his insightful advices related to this case:
1) Physician and carer must always behave as if
believing the patient to be possessed of reason.
2) No corporal punishments, no reproaching patients for acts of destruction and injury of surrounding objects, but merely trying to prevent it by removing such objects.
3) In response to senseless chattering: silence, but not wholly inattentive.
4) In response to disgusting, abominable conduct and conversation: total inattention.
After reading this, I decided to follow it with a ray of hope. I took steps for the benefit of this patient, as well as others in the ward:
a) I immediately stopped arguing and reproaching him for disturbing and hitting the patient on the next bed.
b) I shifted all the patients to another ward, thereby preventing any act of destruction or injury to them and hence the need to reproach the patient.
c) I instructed the hospital staff to ignore his senseless talking and behaviour. I kept, nevertheless, watch from a distance.
Under the circumstances, this was the best I could do for this patient. Soon, he settled down into a more sober mood and manner. After a few hours, the other patients were shifted back to the ward.
Unfortunately, we could not find a correct remedy for him to break his cycle of diseases. Nonetheless, this experience is worth sharing to emphasise the need to pay close attention to Hahnemann’s advice.
Categories:
He had three main complaints:
1) Bronchiectasis: severe cough with breathlessness.
2) Epileptic fits.
3) Mental illness: violent mania with increased strength, whereby he hit others and talked senselessly.
These three complaints never occurred at the same time. After a severe attack of bronchiectasis had run its course, an epileptic fit would come, followed by violent mania.
Here was a case of three dissimilar diseases, where each one occupied a particular locality suited to it. After existing over a period of time, they joined together to form a “double complex disease”. Since they are dissimilar diseases, they cannot remove or cure each other (Ref: Organon 6th edition, aphorisms 36, 38 and 40).
An episode of violent mania:
Once, after we had finished seeing all our patients of the day, I received a call that this man had turned violent, hitting an old patient on the bed next to him. The old man suffered from heart failure and he and his relatives were obviously very frightened by the attack. My patient was talking continuously, at times very loudly, and I could hardly make out what he was trying to say. His case record noted that at such times he was usually prescribed Stramonium, which seemed a logical option. He would, however, not allow anyone to approach him in order to give him the remedy; even with the help of the nursing staff, we could not overpower his physical strength to give him the remedy and we had to abandon our efforts. Since his constant talking and his violent behaviour was disturbing other patients in the ward, I started arguing with him, even scolding and reproaching him a bit. I tried to tell him that he should understand and allow us to give him the remedy. How foolish of me! I should understand rather than expecting him to understand. During this moment of despair, I suddenly remembered the Auxiliary regimen described by Hahnemann on how to behave with such patients (aphorism 22). Here are some of his insightful advices related to this case:
1) Physician and carer must always behave as if
believing the patient to be possessed of reason. 2) No corporal punishments, no reproaching patients for acts of destruction and injury of surrounding objects, but merely trying to prevent it by removing such objects.
3) In response to senseless chattering: silence, but not wholly inattentive.
4) In response to disgusting, abominable conduct and conversation: total inattention.
After reading this, I decided to follow it with a ray of hope. I took steps for the benefit of this patient, as well as others in the ward:
a) I immediately stopped arguing and reproaching him for disturbing and hitting the patient on the next bed.
b) I shifted all the patients to another ward, thereby preventing any act of destruction or injury to them and hence the need to reproach the patient.
c) I instructed the hospital staff to ignore his senseless talking and behaviour. I kept, nevertheless, watch from a distance.
Under the circumstances, this was the best I could do for this patient. Soon, he settled down into a more sober mood and manner. After a few hours, the other patients were shifted back to the ward.
Unfortunately, we could not find a correct remedy for him to break his cycle of diseases. Nonetheless, this experience is worth sharing to emphasise the need to pay close attention to Hahnemann’s advice.
Keywords: dissimilar diseases, bronchiectasis, epilepsy, mental illness
Remedies: Stramonium
From Interhomeopathy
The patient is a boy
in early puberty. His complaints started 3 years ago in a foot; later a
dissemination (Brodie's abscess) occurred to the pelvic bones. There were
several exacerbations per year, which were treated with long courses of
antibiotics. He improved with each course of antibiotics but the inflammation-free
intervals became shorter and shorter. The last relapse started one week after
the end of a course of antibiotics of a few months duration. The situation
became almost intractable because of the pain and the general well-being of the
patient. The surgeon planned a removal of a part of the pelvis, a very
mutilating operation, should another exacerbation follow. 
Food:
What can I say about my trip in Indonesia? Well, it was
certainly hot, dusty, dirty, and very challenging, but refreshing and immensely
enlightening. Some would call me very brave or extremely insane for undertaking
this trip. Looking back, I am glad I didn’t look too far ahead or I wouldn’t
have gone. Being only a second year student at the Bay of Plenty College of
Homeopathy in New Zealand, I
went armed with only a few homeopathic remedies, my Kent repertory, and 2 therapeutic
books. All I can say is: please be careful what you pray for, it does get
answered in some form or other!
On my second trip to Nepal, I was
finally sitting down to dinner late one evening, when there was a knock at the
door. One of the participants of the course was there on his scooter, asking if
I would come to help someone who was acutely ill. I quickly finished my dinner
and jumped on the back of the scooter with my repertory and a kit of remedies.
It was dark quite early and after a trip through alleys and bumpy paths, we
came to one of the kind of houses that are so familiar there – half finished.
The first storey is finished, above, however, the corners of the second storey are in
place but the storey itself is not there. 
After
a personal experience, I always ask
patients with chronic diarrhea after a trip to the tropics, if they have
experienced any
severe frights on their journey. Twenty five years ago, I travelled
through Nepal. One
evening in a lodge, we felt very threatened by a group of young men who
were
partying and we fled, with the idea that we were being chased for a long
time
(which, luckily, was not the case). Thank goodness, some people put us
up for the
night. This was the last day of a three week trek; we were going back to
Kathmandu by bus the next day. It was only when we were
actually on the bus that I started to feel safe. As soon as we departed,
I felt
the first signs of diarrhea. I will always remember that trip: having
diarrhea
while travelling on a bus from the fifties, driving over mountain paths
next to
ravines is not such a fun thing to do, and in my case it was charged
with
feelings of shame. Unfortunately, in that time, I didn’t have a
homeopathic
traveller’s kit with me, so I just sat it out. A few weeks later, my
complaints
were over. About ten years later, I did a proving together with several
colleagues. On the second night of the proving, I had a dream: I was
being
chased by 3 giants. I could just escape but I felt terribly anxious. The
next
day, I went to work but I could hardly sit at my desk as I often had to
run to
the toilet with diarrhea. The remedy that we were proving turned out to
be
Opium: diarrhea after fright, ailments from shame. Later, I saw a
patient who had come back from a trip to the tropics with intestinal
complaints after he having
been mugged. Opium relieved his symptoms. 
Bhaktapur is one of the three cities of the
Kathmandu valley, with 200,000 inhabitants. In
Nepal,
there is only one doctor for 80.000 people and in some remote areas, there is
even only one doctor for 200,000 people! The Nepalese live in very precarious
conditions: lack of clean drinking water, lack of a healthcare system,
uncontrolled deforestation, high levels of environmental contamination in the
cities, and rapid population growth. This last year, there is also a shortage
of electricity in the country.