Epilepsy case study

- TYLER M L,
 Mrs. L.S.  39,; 1 child.
 Sept. 29, 1924. Epileptic fits-at least once a week.
 If rises quickly from bed, loses consciousness.
 Has "gone off" if worried. Gets attack, if she hurries.
 In attack "goes stiff and back". Enuresis once or twice.
 L. leg gets numbed.
 Convulsions as a baby; consumption of bowels as a baby.
 Aura. Before attack ears feel numbed and funny. (Worse) for onions : they mean an attack in the morning.
 Drops in sleep.
 Twice vaccinated, the last took badly.
 Numbness ears-worse for onions-drops in sleep.
 The queer characteristic symptoms of the case are Thuja symptoms.
 The vaccinations gave the casting vote. Thuja 10m one dose.
 One month later. No attacks. Used to get them it she hurried; has hurried and no attack.
 Another month. No attacks, but feeling less well. Her second dose, Thuja 10m.
 Again 3 months later. M.B.  all ways. No attacks.
 Again, a month later. Had burnt her leg and had had a fall. No attacks.
 Nine months after her first Thuja. No attacks : "Doesn't have them". Seen once lore, "come for a cold. Still no attacks."
 Here there were epileptic fits, "at least once a week", and after the first dose of Thuja 10m they entirely ceased for the ten months she was under observation. "I don't have them now".
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 B.P. , 23 years old.
 To cure boils at a nutmeg 8 months ago. Ground it up and ate it on brad and butter.
 Symptoms of poisoning were severe...she was said to have "nearly died."
 Never well since. Very nervous. Gets the symptoms back.
 And now (8 months later).
 Tired. Frightened (? of what).
 Dreams and nightmares...aeroplane crashes; being chased. Indigestion.
 Skin oily all over, head, face, back-greasy.
 Drops in sleep.
 Sweat axillae, and a number of other symptoms (those given are Thuja symptoms).
 Twice vaccinated : second did not take : first only slightly. Thuja 1m, 10m, 50m. One each morning for 3 days.
 In three weeks, distinctly better. Able to do more. No nightmares. Giddy attacks less frequent.
 Still tired : "needs something to enable her to play tennis". No medicine.
 In seven weeks. "I am a different person, and you'd hardly recognize me. Playing tennis daily : -almost my own self."
 Think! Thuja would have cured those boils, and she would have been spared months of illness (which she said "had cost them $100", and all the misery).
 M.C.  50 years old.
 Headaches all her life. Better at times for Nat. mur. 200. "But the only thing for them is aspirin" (Unable to earn her livelihood).
 Blinding headaches.
 "Nerve breaks down," then gets violent headache with vomiting. Has been treated with injections...plenty of symptoms,
 but
 Vaccinated 3 times. Last took very badly. Laid up with it. Delirious. So, Thuja 1m, 10m, 50m, one each morning for 3 days.
 A month later. Only one headache, not a bad one.
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 Feels better. Putting on weight.
 Not half so tired with journey or exertion.
 But is breathless "as when vaccinated."
 And, "bones have been aching as when vaccinated". No med.
 Another month, thuja Cm. One dose.
 Another 31/2 months. Headaches M.B.  and M.B.  in self. Has put on 8 lb. "? needs no more powders? So much better that she hopes to get to work soon." (She was a worn-out and broken-down missionary.)
 She had, what most of these Thuja patients have, half-asleep sensations of dropping into a bottomless pit.
 Miss D. 39. Nov. 1928.
 Nurse at one of the big hospitals.
 Sever attacks of asthma for 2 years. Attacks last 3-4 days, when she can hardly breathe.
 It started from inhaling sulphur fumes.
 Plenty of symptoms : and vaccinated 5 times, last did not take.
 Here I feel very virtuous, because her symptoms worked out to Thuja; Sulphur coming in next best, and being very tempting, from the aetiology. Thuja 10m. one dose.
 Two months later. No asthma at all since powders. Gets colds, but no asthma".
 Not heard of for 31/2 years. Then someone 'phoned from her hospital, would I see her, she had asthma : and she came along at once. (This was in Feb. 1932).
 "Why did you not tell me that you had asthma again?" She said she had been perfectly well till to-day. Thuja 1m, 10m, 50m, one each morning for 3 days.
 That was nine months ago. Not heard of since.
 R.H.  19.
 Gets discharge between, or instead of, menses. Vague symptoms...But-Vaccinated once, 18 months ago. It kept her at home from work for 14 days with a very high temperature : though the arm was only red for one day, and it did not take. "The doctor said it took internally."
 Worse in every way since vaccination. Thuja 1m, 10m, 50m, one each morning for three days.
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 A month later, the doctor who sent her up wrote. "Miss H. is cured." And her mother wrote 6 months later, "She is quite well and jolly. She had been so unlike herself in her behaviour to me, that I had remarked to folks, I wondered if it were the vaccination, as one does hear rumours of these different injections altering people's temperaments; so I was of course very delighted with your point of view that the vaccination had upset her in other was, as confirming mine. I lost my previous baby-a lovely boy-through vaccination...and my mother lost a boy from trouble set up by the same, so there is a susceptibility in the family it seems."
 H.S. H. 59 years old.
 Boils on and off since 1925-6 years.
 2 last week. Worse about vulva and anus.
 Began with carbuncle back of left thigh.
 Inoculations for typhoid, and again in India.
 Vaccinated 4 or 5 times, "Doesn't take as a rule".
 Numbers of symptoms-suggestive of Phos : -her type.
 But first, Thuja 1m, 10m, 50m, one each morning for 3 days.
 A month later. No more boils.
 Another months, worried with domestic affairs, Phos.
 4 months later, "No more boils", and no med.
 Nine months after the Thuja. "No further trouble. Hope they are things of the past." N.B. -not a single boil since Thuja (after having had them for 6 years).
 Mrs. N. (a doctor's mother).
 Eruption. Began between toes-then wrists-then palms-now also soles and sides of feet.
 Much itching, especially of feet at night.
 A touch starts the itching.
 Desquamation.
 Tongue gets sore, is "large for mouth".
 One brother. T.B. -rapid.
 Used to sweat-axillae. Warts neck.
 A few not very marked symptoms : but vaccinated 3 times. Last 10 years ago. Thuja 1m, 10m, 50m, every morning for 3 days.
 Daughter writes 6 days later. "No trouble at all since taking the 1st powder. So grateful! Eruption all fading away : no new ones coming. And no irritation at all!"
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 3 months later, "Only one we scaly patch on palm", when Thuja was repeated in same potencies.
 Mrs. T.
 Many years of incapacitating headaches in the mother of a very noisy young family of brilliant children. She had taken the lot out to the South African War, and brought them safely back. Headaches necessitated constant days in bed.
 Much vaccinated, so she got Thuja. (This was about the time of the Boer War.)
 The Thuja cured the headaches : and when I met her two years ago (some 30 yrs. later) she told me that she had never had them since.
 Miss B. H. 47 years old.
 Gassed during War. Asthma began the same night. Seldom afterwards till about 1921.
 Now, Jan. 1931, asthma every 2 months, or more often.
 Always starts at a meal : evening or midday. Starts with cough and tightness, and she gasps and coughs all through the attack. Cigarettes ephedrine, nit. amyl. help. Attacks may go on four 1-2 hours even with remedies-which are losing their effect.
 It used to wake her at 6 a.m.  : but she is generally all right all night.
 Drops in sleep.
 Vaccinated "lots of times : never seems to take. Never a scab."
 Uses Odorono for axillary sweat.
 "Impetigo" 1907-face, arms and back-Bed 14 days. Thuja 10m, 50m, Cm. 1-3 mornings.
 May. She had no attacks for 4 months, "her longest spell without asthma." Then, with a cold, a bad attack. Thuja 10m, 50m¸ Cm, was repeated.
 Another 5 months, and again no real attack, but rather less well. Colds and retching. No phlegm ever.
 Still drops in sleep. Still uses Odorono-will use it! Thuja again, same potencies.
 A month later. Quite free from attacks.
 July, 1923. Again "been splendid, but asthma just threatening in early hours since the hot weather". But for new symptoms she got Sulphur.
 Here was "ten years of asthma-at least every 2 months," practically well for 18 months (one real attack, after 4 months, needing a repetition of the Thuja; and two threatenings).
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 I am allowed to quote the following case of asthma, treated on symptoms, and on the indication that it was subsequent to a bad vaccination.
 Miss X.Y.  (32). Asthma for 7 years hay fever for 15 years.
 Mother has asthma : farther had asthma : T.B.  history mother's side.
 With patient, asthma started after a very bad vaccination 7 years ago.
 She had been treated by injection, and had had further injections after pneumonia 3 years ago. Asthma worse since.
 Attacks as soon as she lies down at night : then wake her at 1-2 a.m.  Gets up choking : burns a powder and can lie down : then may wake her again in an hour.
 Her worst attacks are in June, when she may have to burn a powder every hour of the night. In some localities she gets asthma by day also. In some she is, pro tem., free.
 Her symptoms suggested Ars. Caro. Veg. Phos. and Thuja. But, the asthma being subsequent to a bad vaccination, she was given 3 doses of Thuja, in different high potencies, one each morning for three days.
 The improvement from the first was so great that, in two months, there was no asthma any more-the nasal condition being also improved. And this happy condition of "no asthma" continued for a whole year, therefore the medicine was not repeated. For the whole summer, "No asthma, and no hay fever."
 Then, 13 months later, for a slight return, the Thuja was repeated, since when she has remained "extraordinarily fit".
 Somebody is going to ask presently, "Why the three doses, in different potencies?" Merely on Hahnemann's suggestion, in the 6th Ed. Organon, that in chronic disease, matters may be accelerated by giving several doses, provided that the potency be raised for each dose.
 This case confirms (1) potencies-(2) big amelioration after the single (divided) dose...(3) non-interference with vital reaction, i.e.  so long as amelioration holds.