Remedies Related to Pathological Tissue Changes

Author: James Tyler Kent, M.D.

The Homoeopathician,
Journal for Pure Homoeopathy, No. 2
August 1912

Provings of remedies are not continued to the extent of producing tissue alterations-indurations, infiltrations, suppuration, caries, etc. Most of the indications for the use of remedies in these conditions must be learned clinically; from the use of remedies in patients when these conditions have developed. When a remedy has been prescribed for a patient in whom tissue-changes have occurred, the prescription being based on the symptom-image, resolution of the existing tissue-changes has occurred, as a result of the reaction to the remedy. These become reliable clinical symptoms of the remedy: demonstrations of the power of the remedy over the altered tissue. These remedies are then recognised to be suited to constitutions in which these pathological changes can develop. Hence they are as important to the prescriber as though they had appeared actually in the proving.
In many instances such cure of pathology has occurred as a delightful surprise to the physician, who realizes in this evidence the accuracy of the prescription, which not only restored the functional activities but altered the nutrition to the extent of removing the products of disorder.
The difficulty in prescribing for patients with such altered tissue - cataract, hepatization (in pneumonia), induration of glands, arterio-sclerosis, fibroids, cancer, etc. - rests in the fact that when these tissue-changes occur, the symptoms on which a prescription should be based - the symptoms of the patient - have disappeared. The symptoms present at the time are symptoms of the pathology. If the symptoms that preceded this condition can be learned, and considered together with the later results of disorder - the pathological tissue - it may be possible to select a remedy that is sufficiently related to both the patient and his pathology, to effect a cure of both, provided always that the reaction and vitality of the patient are sufficient to permit the resolution.
Caust., Graph., Lyc., Nit-Ac., Staph., Thuja and many other remedies relate to excrescences. Skin indurations are met by Ant-C., Calc., Con., Lyc., Phos., Rhus., Sep., Sil., Sulph. and similar remedies. Indurated glands find suitable remedies in Ben-Ac., Brom., Calc., Calc-F. and remedies of similar depth, while such remedies as Caust., Bry., Con., Kali-C., and Lyc. are found suited to muscle indurations.
Acon., Bapt., Gels., Ipec. and remedies of this scope have never been known to produce any alteration by induration and infiltration, hence the wise prescriber will not select these remedies for patients with the aforementioned conditions, when he has those, from which to select, which are preeminently related to the exact condition present. The final selection of a remedy, when these conditions are present, is to be determined by the character of symptoms that preceded, or what may be present and indicative of the patient himself.
In pneumonia, in hepatization period, when the symptoms point to Arsenicum, the patient will die if Arsenicum is prescribed, for this remedy is not deep enough to include that infiltration: Sulphur, Lycopodium, Phosphorus, Calcarea, etc., must take up the work where Arsenicum could not proceed. One of these remedies will clear out the lungs, in a few hours, with a disappearance of all the symptoms dependent upon the infiltration, and the patient, freed of the burden, will be restored to health promptly, instead of succumbing to the mechanical interference and consequent air-starvation.
In arterio-sclerosis, in cataract, in induration of liver or other glandular structures, the same principle holds. Ars., Bry., Puls. and other short and mediumly-short-acting remedies are insufficient because they have not power to take hold of this condition, while Silica, Calcarea Fluorica, Sulphur and such deep-acting remedies have been known to remove the tissue change by their deeper action, hence more similar, and from them one may be selected which will prove curative.
By reference to the repertory the prescriber may find remedies which have thus been established as suitable for suppuration, those suited for cancer, those suited for tuberculosis, those related to apoplexy, etc., and as an intelligent prescriber, the physician should select a remedy for the patient similar to the condition of the ultimated disorder. This is totally different from prescribing on the pathology alone, or seeking a specific for the name of the ultimate, regardless of the patient.