25/06/2025
An instructive case from Dr. Adolph Lippe's files...
"On the morning of the 7th of June, a lady called about 10 A.M., asking for some medicine for her brother, who for more than two days had suffered from a severe nose-bleeding and was not able to arrest it. Not able to learn more than this from her, I gave her a few doses of Cactus grandiflorus, and learned that the first dose had arrested the bleeding, but that it had returned again, was better during the night, but worse on the 8th.
On the evening of that day I finally obtained a full history of the case. The gentleman, fifty years old, had always enjoyed robust health—in fact, was a picture of health; he stood six feet in his stockings, was well nourished, being a rather high liver. His father had been a still larger man, and had died of apoplexy at the age sixty-five years.
On the 5th of June a complete hemorrhage from the left nostril had set in; his family physician, an allopath and a learned professor in one of our celebrated medical colleges, applied alum and plugged up the nostril—of course to no purpose. In the night of the 6th the hemorrhage became worse and during the night another learned man was called in in consultation; and now the patient had to take first a bottle of Citrate of Magnesia, which was followed up by liberal doses of the tincture of Secale Cornutum; but the bleeding did not stop, and on the 7th day of June, the friends becoming very much alarmed, almost as much so as the patient, resolved to seek other help; but not at first knowing anything more of the case than what his sister reported, could not well understand why he continued to have more attacks of nose-bleed. Drugged, having suffered besides all day of the 7th with incessant debilitating diarrhœa, utter loss of appetite, and rapidly becoming weaker. I finally learned further that he was free from nose-bleed now when in a recumbent position, but worse when he arose or when he stooped.
When he arose his head felt full, he felt faint, and if he stooped the blood poured out in stream. A single dose of Rhus tox. CM (Fincke), which I gave him on the evening of the 8th of June at 9 P.M., caused him to sleep all night till 8 A.M.. He then arose, as he expressed himself, to feel like a new man, had a good breakfast, and reported himself, 10 A.M., at the office well and disgusted with the allopaths."
Comments from Dr. Lippe.—"An apparently simple case of epistaxis became unmanageable in the hands of our scientific opponents. Such an apparently simple case, becoming unmanageable, calls us “to reflect.” The old school—old to be sure, but utterly void of any guiding principles, blind to the simplest truths, thoughtless as to a correct diagnosis to guide it in therapeutics—this aged school could not even manage a case of epistaxis. What then will the close observers ask—what, then, do the followers of that common school cure? If they sometimes accidentally restore the sick, if the sick do not die outright, they never cure or restore the sick to better health than he enjoyed before he sickened.
All the accidental recoveries under the allopathic treatment are made under the law of the similars, as Hahnemann so clearly demonstrated. It is a prevailing notion that the pathology of today is far superior to the pathology of Hahnemann’s days, and should receive better acknowledgment from the members of the homœopathic school. It has been charged that Hahnemann rejected pathology altogether, which is a fatal error; he did reject it as a basis of therapeutics, and whatever advances have been made in this collateral branch of medical science will be utilized by every progressive healer. Pathology will enable us to obtain the symptoms of the sick and will continue to teach us the respective value of these symptoms; will enable us to discern more accurately the most important symptoms—that is, the symptoms belonging to the individual and not necessarily to the disease, pathologically speaking, from which he is suffering. It will enable us to judge of the new symptoms arising in a case, whether they indicate the progress of the disease or whether they belong to symptoms denoting a salutary crisis.
The case above related shows that the most progressive scientific men of the common school of medicine do not appreciate the knowledge imparted to them by pathology as it stands today. The old school forever demanded, as a ruling axiom, “Tolle causam”? Now, in this case, the cause of the disorder was evidently congestion of blood to the head, and was it rational treatment to apply means by which the capillary vessels were to be first contracted by Alum, later by Secale Cornutum, or was the congestion to the head to be relieved by a cathartic?
If that is a specimen of rational allopathic treatment, we may well feel deep pity for the victims who confide in such irrational and unscientific treatment. We may ask, what would a homœopathician gain if the “New code”* was introduced? Is it desirable to consult with that sort of scientific men? The true healer will continue to accept the totality of symptoms as the only guide in his therapeutics. In this case we have a knowledge of many remedies causing nose-bleed, and in this, as in all other cases, individualization must guide us in the selection of the curative remedy, if we find the similar along the many proved drugs. In this case the most striking symptoms was an aggravation from stooping, which is characteristic of Rhus tox. Again, the strong aggravation of the head symptoms when rising from a recumbent position is also characteristic of Rhus tox. Again does true pathology teach us that a nose-bleed frequently relieves the congestion to the head in diseases, as in typhus fever, that, therefore, the mere local contraction of the capillaries is not a rational remedy. Rhus tox, being found the true similar remedy, was administered in such dose as a long experience has taught us to the most effective in the very large majority of cases."
