Incompatible Remedies
Before administering or taking a remedy, check to see if it is
compatible with the last one used.
Incompatible remedies are those which, if used directly before or after
each other, can greatly aggravate the symptoms or confuse the case.
Incompatible remedies may follow each other if:
1.There has been an
intervening remedy
2. Considerable time has
elapsed
3. The first remedy did not
act
Avoid aggravation [Robin Murphy]
Each person has an optimum potency. If the optimum is 12c, then start at
6c, until not effective, then go to 12c. If you enter the system at 200c, an
aggravation may occur. By starting at 6c, a tolerance is built and the healing
is gentle, rapid and permanent. The healing crisis is not necessary or wanted.
Alternating Remedies: [C. V. Bönninghausen]
When 2 related remedies compete so closely that a choice is difficult,
and each had some concomitant symptoms of the case that the other did not
possess. Best results when continuously alternating both and with not too long
intervals, so that always the one is given before the other had fully exhausted
its action. The improvement increases and often no other medicines are
necessary to complete the cure.
[M.L. Tyler]
One has been minded, to talk about OLFACTION (= act of smelling) as a
potent means of administering medicines: and the "Little Case" we
publish in this issue, brings it again to the front. One remembers a doctor
who, years ago, scoffed at Hahnemanns dicta in regard to the administration of
medicines by olfaction. But with the suggestion, "All right: I will bring
you one to sniff", grew suspicious: "What was it?" "Only
Amyl nitrate:" and, he declined with thanks.
Anyway, here is what
Hahnemann has to say on the subject. (The italics are hers).
"Besides the stomach,
the tongue and mouth are the parts most susceptible to medicinal influences:
but the interior of the nose is especially so: and the rectum, the genitals, as
also all particularly sensitive parts of the body are almost equally capable of
receiving medicinal action: hence also, parts that are destitute of skin,
wounded or ulcerated spots permit the powers of medicines to exercise almost as
penetrating an action upon the organism as if the medicine had been taken by
the mouth or still better by olfaction and inhalation”. (If you don’t want to
give a remedy by mouth, the inside of the nose works fine and may even give
faster results. Moisten a q-tip with a water potency or have the patient dip a
finger in the water potency and touch the septum inside the nose )
"Even those organs
which have lost their peculiar sense, e.g., a tongue and palate that have lost
the faculty of tasting or a nose that has lost the faculty of smelling,
communicate the power of medicine that acts first on them alone not less
perfectly to all other organs of the body. The most sensitive parts are also
the most susceptible".
In the Little Case quoted
down the page, five years of intermittent colitis almost dysenteric following
inhalations of turpentine, "the smell of paint" was cured by
Terebinth. "high".
Now, one had a sort of idea,
that if a substance were merely inhaled, and not taken by the mouth, or
injected, its effects must be far more transient. And yet, WHY? Have we not
proved, a thousand times, that a few small pellets, merely moistened and so
medicated, with some potency, may affect the organism, "rendered sensitive
by disease", for months. It is the impression made at the moment that
"acts" and persists, so to speak. No substance has been given to
continue in the organism and to "act". It is the (?) neutralizing (?)
stimulating effect that has been imparted to "parts rendered sensitive by
disease" that has started a curative reaction not to be lightly meddled
with. Perhaps some of our deep-thinking, or more learned readers will endeavour
to elucidate this question? That it is a fact may suffice for some of us,
whatever the exact explanation may be. As knowledge unfolds itself, many of the
things we have had to, and have been content to, take on trust, because they
worked out in practice, have at long last become scientific. And of course in
these days we recognize that some of the most deadly poisons, even to the
extinction of life, are at their deadliest when inhaled. The time has long gone
by when we can afford to sneer at "Olfaction".
But other reflections
suggest themselves. "Nose, tongue, mouth, in that order are, according to
Hahnemann, especially receptive of medicinal influences, which are conveyed to
all parts of the body, to affect the susceptible parts. Hahnemann gave
instances of cholera cured by vapour of camphor inhaled, when the patient was
long past swallowing moribund even supposed to be dead. When our patients are
long past swallowing, or with tiny blisters, it is enough to place the remedy
inside the mouth, where it can be absorbed by tongue and buccal membrane and
carried to its destination, i.e. to the morbid part, hyper-sensitive to its
benign stimulation. Again, what about all the drugs poisons often to which the
vaginal mucous membrane is subjected lightheartedly, as if, there, they could
effect nothing but local action. "Civilization" has much to answer for!
One does not wonder that our Missionaries, with their homoeopathic remedies,
have such delightful results to bring us. But, in spite of all adverse
circumstances, in spite of all the ways in which we are constantly poisoning
ourselves and doing violence to our being, Homoeopathy the indicated remedy
properly prescribed can work seeming miracles. And, again and again, we take
heart; and try, so much as in us lies, to pass on the good news.
The following cutting from a
B.M.J. has been long "lying in wait" for energy or opportunity to
discuss "Olfaction" in these pages. It bears out the dicta of
Hahnemann as to the absorption of medicinal agents, not only by inhalation, but
also through the skin.
!!!Castor oil vapour acts as a purgative!!!
"The statement that
castor oil will purge even when rubbed into the skin occurs in Sir William
Hale-Whites Materia Medica. It is one of those sentences which may well remain
impressed on the memory of the student, although he may never see an example of
its practical application. Among the methods of administering purgatives
described in the various textbooks inhalation is not mentioned, so far as I
have seen. Yet that this mode of administering castor oil proves effective is
indicated by two examples.
"A pilot during the
Great War suffered from mild chronic constipation which necessitated periodic
laxative treatment. He was flying pusher planes, in which the engine was behind
the pilot and observer. Later, he changed to aeroplanes with rotary engines. These
engines were at the front of the machine, and used pure castor oil as a
lubricant. The smell of castor oil was prominent in the fumes which he perforce
had to inhale. He noticed that during the period when he flew these latter
machines he never required to take any laxative medicine, but, when he gave up
flying, his old constipation returned. Apart from this case, it was quite
generally known among observant flying officers that the fumes from rotary
engines kept the bowels open.
"A striking case came
to my notice recently. A mountaineer treated two pairs of climbing boots with
castor oil in the bedroom of his hotel. On retiring for the night he again
lavishly spread over the boots a layer of oil, the odour of which filled the
room. Next morning the slightly nauseating odour was still noticeable in the
room, and the owner of the boots found the purgative effect to marked that his
bowels were opened 3x in the course of the morning; he noticed, moreover, that
there was no griping effect.
"It seems justifiable
from these examples to conclude that the prolonged inhalation of the vapour of
castor oil produces a purgative effect; although Cushny states that only
volatile drugs can be used thus for their general action, Sollman writes that
"this method is used only for gaseous medicines, such as anaesthetics or
oxygen, and other authorities generally concur regarding inhalation.
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