Part 6

These observations do not indeed show with characteristic certainty the diseases to which Apis might correspond. But if they are contrasted with the total character of Apis; if we consider that Apis develops a catarrhal irritation throughout the whole intestinal mucous membrane, affecting most deeply the nervous system and the normal constitution of the fluids, we have sufficient ground to experiment with Apis in those respiratory diseases which seem to be inherent in the prevailing genius of disease, and which are characterized by the very conditions which I have described. Who is not struck by the fact, that the same individual morbid process is reflected by different forms of disease, _croup_, _whooping-cough_, _influenza_, _acute and chronic bronchial catarrh_? The more essential the resemblance between these forms of disease and the medicinal power, the more certainly may we expect a cure. The medicinal power which seems to be most adequate to this end, is undoubtedly Apis. My observations in this respect are not sufficiently numerous to enable me to offer positive directions concerning the best mode of using the medicine in these diseases, or concerning the extent of the curative process or the complications that may exist. All I can do is to recommend Apis for further experiments in this range, and to remind my brethren of the insufficiency of other drugs, which has been a source of trouble to us in the past ten years. Every body who has watched the course of these diseases during this period, must have seen the difference existing between the present and the past character of the symptoms. It must, therefore, be a source of satisfaction to all of us, to have found in Apis an agent that is capable of filling up the gap.

My observations regarding the curative virtues of Apis in urinary, uterine and ovarian difficulties, and in rheumatism and gout, are not very extended. In the American Provings, symptoms 634 to 669, seem to point to urinary difficulties, and 685 to 695, to ovarian troubles; symptoms 697 to 727 to uterine derangements; and 837, 842, 867, 873, 874, 918, 919, 940, 942, 964, 969, to rheumatism and gout.

What little experience I have had in the employment of Apis in these diseases, is, however, sufficient to induce me to recommend the use of it for further and more enlarged knowledge.

I have had abundant opportunities of verifying the warning expressed in No. 721, "pregnant women should use the drug very cautiously." I am not acquainted with any drug which seems possessed of such reliable virtues regarding the prevention of miscarriage, more particularly during the first half of pregnancy, as Apis. I have often become an involuntary spectator of the power of Apis to effect miscarriage; for I had given it to honest women who did not know that they were pregnant, and where the fact of pregnancy was revealed to them by the subsequent miscarriage, which took place after one or two doses of Apis had been taken. Ever since I have made it a rule not to give Apis to females in whom the existence of pregnancy can be suspected in the remotest degree until the matter is reduced to a certainty, and the conduct of the physician can be determined upon in accordance with existing facts.

I am unable to say how far this power inherent in Apis, of producing miscarriage, may be serviceable to females who are prone to miscarriage.

I beg the privilege of adding a more general warning to this particular one. The more generally useful a thing is, the more liable is it to abuse. The most important and useful discoveries of hom[oe]opathy are abused in this manner by our age given to all sorts of excesses.

Not only are the records of hom[oe]opathy ransacked by speculative minds, who use her advantages for personal gain without giving due credit to the source whence the good things are obtained. This species of egotism may perhaps be excused in consideration of the use which this kind of plagiarism affords, even if whole volumes should be filled with it. But if the stolen property is paraded before the world as something belonging to one's self by right divine; if official influence is abused for the purpose of dressing up that which rightfully belongs to our science, as some original discovery, thus caricaturing and disfiguring the beauty of the genuine blessing; then good is changed to evil, and the evil is the greater, the more comprehensive the truth that is so shamefully abused. It is absurd and may entail sad consequences upon the world, if the rational use of Apis is to be converted to the irrational proceedings of the so-called specific method, which is often practised by men who, knowing better, purposely conceal the truth from the world. For years past, I have been called upon again and again, by patients who had been in the hands of these men, and who had been drenched with medicine, and had had all sorts of disastrous complications engendered in their poor bodies, to afford them some relief from these tortures inflicted by physicians who do not hesitate to assail the health of their patients by massive doses of drugs, of which they often know nothing but the name.

With these facts before me, nobody can find it strange that I should feel some misgivings in laying before the world a drug endowed with such extensive virtues. Apis is one of those drugs, the abuse of which may prove as destructive as the use of it is a source of saving good. It is no anti-psoric, nor is it capable of antidoting the three miasms, or of inflicting medicinal diseases for life. Nevertheless, it is a deeply and speedily-acting drug, for it affects the whole internal mucous membrane, the nervous system, and the process of sanguification, thus disturbing the health for a long time. Its primary aggravating action, its deeply penetrating interference with the existing morbid process, which may lead to errors in diagnosis, and its power to exhaust the reactive energies of the organism prematurely, render it a very dangerous agent. These circumstances go to show that such an agent, in the hands of the partizans of the Specific School, may be as dangerously and injuriously abused as other important drugs have been. I cannot sufficiently warn my readers against such distressing abuses. Only he is protected from the danger of imitating such shameful absurdities, who listens to the words of our master:

"Imitate this, but imitate this correctly!"