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 Presented in honor of 
 Solon Richard Boynton Sr. 
 
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 M. D. E 
 
 COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC PHYSICIANS 
 AND SURGEONS • LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
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 THE CHANGE OF LIFE 
 IN WOMEN
 
 THEiCHANGE OF LIFE 
 
 IN WOMEN^ 
 
 AND THE 
 
 ILLS AND A I LINGS INCIDENT 
 THERETO 
 
 I. COMPTON BURNETT, M.D. 
 
 \ 1!1"E OF "TUMOURS OF THE BREAST," " ORGAN DISEA 
 WOMEN, " CURABILITY OF TUMOURS BY MEDICINE." 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 THE HOMOEOPATHIC PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 12 Warwick Lank, E.C. 
 1898

 
 FOREWORD. 
 
 I HAVE myself never heard a clinical 
 lecture on the menopause that was the 
 least help to me in my medical work, or 
 one that afforded, to my mind, the least 
 satisfaction ; neither have I ever read 
 any article or book on the subject that 
 offered me either mental enlightenment or 
 practical advantage. As far as I know my 
 way about in medical literature, the meno- 
 pause is, to say the least, a very dark 
 region indeed, wherein we are left to 
 grope about in quest of unknown quasi- 
 ghostlike awfulnesses. 
 
 I have always tried at least to strike a 
 match in any dark corner where medical mys- 
 teries midst ghostly terrors most abound ; 
 and although the illumination emanating
 
 vi Foreword 
 
 from one solitary match is not exactly 
 blinding, still it is more helpful than utttr 
 darkness. 
 
 If my readers find this little work even 
 of one-match power only, I shall not regret 
 the labour of writing it. 
 
 J. COMPTON BURNETT. 
 
 Wimpole Street, 
 Cavendish Square, 
 Easter, 1 8 98.
 
 The Change of Life in Women, 
 
 and the Ills and Ailings Incident 
 thereto. 
 
 TT stands in evil repute does the 
 change of life in women ; and 
 when a more than usually curious 
 patient enquires of us the nature 
 of this or that, and we reply, " Oh, 
 it s the change of life ! " a more or 
 less sufficient reason is thereby 
 supposedly given, and the woman 
 is heard resignedly to exclaim, 
 " Ah, I suppose I must expect 
 trouble at my time of life!" But 
 
 A
 
 2 Change of 
 
 why should poor woman expect 
 trouble at the change of life? That 
 she does, as a matter of fact, often 
 suffer at and after that time of life 
 is all too evident ; but again, Why ? 
 
 Surely the thing can be accounted 
 for, and measures taken to prevent, 
 cure, or palliate said sufferings. 
 
 Girls are more forward than 
 boys at a given early age up to 
 the loomings of the menses, as any 
 of us can see in our own families ; 
 but no sooner does menstruation 
 begin than the superiority of the 
 girl over the boy is at an end. 
 The boy slowly gains upon her, 
 and becomes more aggressive, and 
 the girl more retiring. 
 
 The explanation of this lies close 
 at hand, — the girl's digestion and 
 assimilation are so arranged that
 
 Life in Women. 3 
 
 she shall for some thirty years or 
 so of her life's course, from puberty 
 to menopause, make blood enough 
 for her own maintenance and activi- 
 ties plus what should or might be 
 needed for gestation and lactation, 
 the menstruation being primarily 
 a means of maintaining her equipoise 
 by throwing overboard at stated 
 times a given not-called-for blood 
 supply, prepared by the time of each 
 ovulation as a possibly needed food 
 reserve, which throwing overboard 
 of said supercargo does not occur 
 if impregnation of the ovule take 
 place. It is this menstrual arrange- 
 ment which must be kept in view 
 if we are to understand the change 
 of life and its sequels, and indeed 
 if we are to understand women's 
 diseases at all at any period.
 
 4 Change of 
 
 The resignation of many women 
 to their various sufferings is to me 
 often absolutely astonishing, and 
 many times have I enquired of 
 my professors, of books, of myself, 
 and finally of old mother Nature, 
 what this change really is. It is 
 not a little instructive to work out 
 clinical problems for one's self, just 
 as they really are, without the god- 
 fathership of schoolmen, who often 
 seem to me to stand between truth 
 and one's mental vision ; we very 
 commonly learn our professors' 
 teachings only, and never see the 
 things themselves. 
 
 UNOBSCURED BY PRECONCEPTIONS. 
 
 The importance of the change of 
 life in the practice of medical men, 
 notably in those who see much of
 
 Life in Women. 5 
 
 diseases of women, needs no de- 
 monstration. The change of life 
 is very commonly regarded as some- 
 thing positive that, so to speak, 
 attacks the woman's health. " I 
 suppose it is all the ' change,' " one 
 hears very constantly. 
 
 Now, what is this "change of 
 life " that causes so much misery 
 to so many women ? 
 
 I am treating a lady for haemor- 
 rhoids that bleed furiously here and 
 there, causing alarming symptoms 
 of faintness, so that tonics and 
 stimulants are in constant requisi- 
 tion. 
 
 " My family doctor says I must 
 undergo an operation for the 
 piles, or I shall never get well, 
 but I think myself it is all the 
 change."
 
 6 Change of 
 
 I saw a lady yesterday for rheu- 
 matoid arthritis and lumbago ; she 
 is fifty-one years of age, and the 
 ends of her finger bones are getting 
 knobby, and the erstwhile elegant 
 little hand, with tapering fingers, 
 is becoming "full of horrid knobs," 
 . . . said she, " I suppose it's due 
 to the change of life ; you know I 
 have turned fifty, and those things 
 have left me." 
 
 And continuing — " And these 
 horrid flushes : my family doctor 
 has given me no end of things for 
 it, and Dr Jones gave me Lachesis 
 and you gave me Urtica, but 
 nothing- has done me the least bit 
 of good." 
 
 If we are to understand what a 
 Change of life signifies, we must 
 first have a clear notion of what
 
 Life in Women. ~ 
 
 that Life really is, that in its 
 " Change " is so funest. Life in 
 general, as common to both man 
 and woman, I am here not dealing 
 with, but with its modifications as 
 manifested in the female, and speci- 
 fically with that part of her life 
 which is called The Change, which 
 change consists in the cessation of 
 the monthly period, and with this 
 leaving off of the menses seemingly 
 begin the ills and ailings incident 
 thereto. Not that they really begin 
 in the individuals at the menopause 
 — they were for the most part there 
 before — only that at this time of life 
 the manifestations change form. 
 
 In order to get a clear idea of 
 the subject we are considering, we 
 must first have a just conception of 
 what the menstruation that here
 
 8 Change of 
 
 leaves off really is, so let us dwell a 
 little on the subject. 
 
 Physiological Menstruation. 
 
 We need not go far afield to get 
 at the bottom of this function in 
 its main essentials. The normal 
 woman, as we all know, ovulates in 
 certain known cycles in order to 
 supply the ovule necessary for con- 
 tinuing the race, but as the ovule- 
 seeking spermatozoon may not be 
 in the way, and in obedience to its 
 own life-history, the ovule appears at 
 intervals. Should the ovule meet 
 at the proper trysting-place, and 
 there marry the spermatozoon, we 
 have normal impregnation. We 
 have here nothing more to do with 
 the ovule, the product of each 
 menstruation ; but we must see
 
 Life in Women. 9 
 
 what good the menstrual flow itself 
 may be, apart from being the 
 medium of the ovule. The flow 
 itself stands before our minds 
 thus : — Suppose the monthly period 
 were a mere ovulation and nothing 
 more, how would matters stand ? 
 The woman would have nothing 
 wherewith to nourish the impreg- 
 nated ovule ; with each ovulation 
 there is a menstrual flow of the 
 vital fluid ; and if there be no 
 impregnation, the flow is, as we 
 have seen, cast away as waste, 
 purely and simply : with the ovu- 
 lation and for the contingency of 
 an impregnated ovule, comes the 
 flow. 
 
 After impregnation the period 
 ceases. Why ? Because the 
 nourishment it contains is needed
 
 10 Change of 
 
 within the economy of the mother 
 for feeding and building up the 
 
 child. AND FOR STRENGTHENING the 
 
 woman for the work of parturition, 
 and then for suckling. The expan- 
 sion and consolidation of the 
 woman during gestation is very 
 striking and remarkable, and for 
 this extra growth food is required, 
 and this can only come from her 
 own blood. Thus the normal 
 woman's digestion is equal to pro- 
 ducing blood enough for herself, 
 together with a monthly surplus. 
 which goes to waste if the ovule 
 meet with no spermatozoon ; but if 
 it does, and due fructification 
 result. the woman's organism 
 simply goes on as usual, only the 
 monthly surplus is here not cast 
 away as waste, but is retained and
 
 Life iu Women. 1 1 
 
 used for building up the new being 
 until it is born, and then during 
 lactation there is normally no 
 monthly flow, as it is diverted into 
 the breasts in the form of milk, to 
 nourish the babe during the early 
 months of its life till its teeth grow, 
 and then in due course the breasts 
 become dry, the female organism 
 reverts to active menstrual life, 
 and goes over the same ground 
 ao^ain and ao-ain within its known 
 limitations. But that is not all ! 
 
 The Menses constitute a means 
 of Purification for the 
 Organism. 
 
 The monthly flow, however, sub- 
 serves a further use, viz., that of 
 purifying the woman's blood and 
 through it her organism ; and here
 
 i 2 Change of 
 
 we must pause and fix upon our 
 mindsthe importance of this monthly 
 loss as a means of purifying the 
 entire individual for the time being, 
 for herein lies the central idea of 
 this work. 
 
 With the monthly period the 
 woman throws away her disease 
 elements and products, her monthly 
 period is a monthly purification. 
 
 Has any one ever seen a nor- 
 mally menstruating woman in an 
 acute attack of gout of the classic 
 variety ? I never have ; clearly 
 the gout is cast out menstrually. 
 And so we observe that menstrually 
 active women have — apart from their 
 own peculiar ailings — by far fewer 
 diseases than the corresponding man. 
 So much is this the case, that 
 women commonly live longer than
 
 Life in Women. 13 
 
 men, and this I attribute to their 
 power of monthly purification, to a 
 very large extent. 
 
 In my opinion it is very rare for 
 a woman to die of child-bearing, 
 though deaths in childbed are not 
 uncommon ; at any rate I have 
 rarely known a woman die "of" 
 childbed ; in childbed, yes. 
 
 Assuming that there is no danger 
 of blood poisoning from the ac- 
 coucheur or nurse, or from food, 
 air, or water, or whatnot, and as- 
 suming that the woman is well 
 built, and that she have no consti- 
 tutional taint, then there is prac- 
 tically no danger in child-bearing. 
 
 Deaths in childbed are very 
 largely due to pre-existing disease 
 proclivities in the parturient person, 
 and these are generally expressed
 
 14 Change of 
 
 by inflammation' and haemorrhage. 
 The most common causes of child- 
 bed mortality are certainly inflam- 
 mation and haemorrhage. 
 
 Haemorrhage is, most usually, 
 due either to a consumptive taint 
 of the individual expressed in the 
 pelvic parts, or to other locally ex- 
 pressed disease, and is no necessary 
 part of child-bearing. That is to 
 say, child-bearing is, in the normal 
 and under healthy conditions, a 
 healthy thing, fraught with ab- 
 solutely no danger whatever to the 
 parturient person, all danger is from 
 the abnormal. A distinguished 
 lady journalist wrote not long since 
 that a woman "descended into the 
 valley of the shadow of death in 
 order to bear a child ! " 
 
 What ineffable twaddle !
 
 Life in Women. 1 5 
 
 Dysmenorrhea, or Painful 
 
 Menstruation. 
 
 Pain at the period is so very 
 common that not a few regard 
 the pain as a part of the bargain. 
 Such is, however, not the case by 
 any means. I am prepared to 
 yrant that a little discomfort and 
 malaise may be normal to the time 
 of the period, but only very slightly 
 so ; if it ever comes to pain, there 
 is something wrong. 
 
 I hold that every woman who 
 suffers from dysmenorrhcea is, so 
 far, abnormal and ailing in some 
 particular ; it may not be much, but 
 pain at the period is not normal. 
 
 Menorrhagia. 
 The precise amount of the 
 period to be within the limits of
 
 i 6 Change of 
 
 normality is not easy to determine, 
 depending as it does on family, race, 
 mode of life, and other things ; still 
 we can in a given case fairly easily 
 determine where enough leaves off 
 and the too much begins. 
 
 Just pain at the period pro- 
 claims that something is wrong, so 
 does an excess of the flow, in an 
 even louder tone. I have noticed 
 many, many times that whenever a 
 woman has persistently suffered 
 from excessive menstruation, the 
 change of life rarely fails to disclose 
 the cause ; for, as the flow dimin- 
 ishes, so, in equal pace, do some 
 other constitutional ailings crop up. 
 A very common thing is rheu- 
 matoid arthritis, expressed as 
 swellings of the bones of the 
 fingers.
 
 Life in Women. \j 
 
 Amenorrhea. 
 
 When the menorrhcea ceases we 
 call it amenorrhcea. That this state 
 is wrong needs no demonstration, 
 and of course the same may be said 
 of insufficient menstruation. 
 
 It lies without the scope of this 
 little work to dwell upon menstru- 
 ation other than in this short 
 manner. We are here concerned 
 more with its final cessation, and 
 thus only glance at it in outline to 
 get a clear notion of where we are 
 in considering the Ills and Ailings 
 incident to the Change of Life. 
 
 We may as well begin with, per- 
 haps, the most common of all post- 
 menopausial troubles, viz., The 
 Flushes. 
 
 Heats and Flush es. 
 
 One of the most common com- 
 
 B
 
 i 8 Change of 
 
 plaints of women after the meno- 
 pause is Heats and Flushes, and the 
 phenomena are very curious and 
 not easily understood. Personally 
 I have never been able to satisfy 
 my mind whether they are morbid 
 or normal ; but all things con- 
 sidered, I incline to the view that 
 they are not normal. 
 
 When I first read that Lachesis 
 controlled these flushes, I was very 
 much astonished, and took an early 
 opportunity of putting the state- 
 ment to the test of clinical experi- 
 ment, and found it quite true. 
 Forthwith I jumped to the con- 
 clusion that Lachesis cured these 
 flushes ; but after a time I found 
 that though they are to a large 
 extent controlled by it, they are not 
 really curable thereby. The flushes
 
 Life in Women. 19 
 
 persist in recurring. The same 
 may be said of Glonoin, but of this I 
 have but small experience. Dr 
 Richard Hughes speaks very 
 highly of it. The similitude offered 
 by the provings of Uj'tica urens 
 to the flushes led me to use it in 
 lieu of or after Lachesis, with the 
 same results, viz., — prompt but 
 passing amelioration. And there 
 the matter rests with me. A 
 genuine cure of the flushes as a 
 morbid entity I do not know. We 
 must fall back on the repertory, and 
 find the simillimum for each indi- 
 vidual case — an awful labour, deny 
 it who may. That something 
 which lies behind the symptoms 
 of the flushes is to me an unknown 
 quantity.
 
 20 Change of 
 
 Leucorrhcea in Relation to the 
 
 Menopause. 
 
 Ordinary leucorrhcea ceases with 
 the period to which it very com- 
 monly stands in relationship. Where 
 the whites persist after the change of 
 life, we must regard it as the expres- 
 sion of a morbid constitutional state, 
 and very often of positive womb 
 disease. And as leucorrhcea usually 
 ceases with the period, the organism 
 is also thereby robbed of a con- 
 stitutional outlet for many morbid 
 products. This may not be ortho- 
 dox doctrine in the schools, but it 
 is certainly the doctrine of nature, 
 as any clear unbiased observer may 
 see for himself. The practice of 
 using injections for the whites is
 
 Life ill Women. 21 
 
 utterly bad, a downright sin against 
 nature's ways. 
 
 Years ago I was called upon to 
 treat a young wife for a small 
 tumour of the breast (interstitial 
 mastitis) that much puzzled me ; 
 patient was accustomed to use 
 injections for the whites, and to 
 this I attributed the lump in the 
 breast. My view of the case was 
 so distasteful to the lady and to 
 her husband that I was dismissed 
 as an incompetent adviser. The 
 sequel proved, however, that I was 
 right, and after the lady's death the 
 grief-stricken husband came round 
 to my view — too late. 
 
 For twenty years I have been 
 noting the ill - effects due to the 
 suppression of the whites by in- 
 jections, and I could fill a book
 
 22 Change of 
 
 with proofs thereof. I take every 
 opportunity of denouncing the 
 practice as altogether damnable. 
 If you cannot cure the cause of the 
 whites, for heaven's sake let the 
 thing alone — at least do no harm. 
 But patients will have them, col- 
 leagues tell me. Will they ? They 
 never have them from me, and the 
 thing, duly explained to the sufferers, 
 usually offers no difficulties. More- 
 over, leucorrhcea can be readily 
 cured by homoeopathic remedies, 
 and injections are therefore need- 
 less. 
 
 The talk about personal cleanli- 
 ness and comfort is mere moon- 
 shine : all mucous membranes are 
 self-cleansing", and the use of in- 
 jections, far from being sweet and 
 clean, is in fact a dirty proceeding.
 
 Life in Women. 23 
 
 Why, the epithelial cells are being 
 constantly cast off with all the im- 
 purities clinging to them, and ex- 
 truded from the body, and exqui- 
 sitely clean brand new cells are left 
 behind — the tubing's of the human 
 body are living tissue, not drain- 
 pipes. Who cleans the lining 
 membrane of the faeces - carrying 
 gut? It is self-cleansing, and so 
 is the lining membrane of the 
 vagina. Well do I know that 
 practically all the gynecologists of 
 the civilised world tell their lady 
 patients to use vaginal injections 
 for purposes of cleanliness : the 
 error of this teaching is stupendous, 
 and fraught with untold evil con- 
 sequences, and nasty and vulgar 
 to boot. Am I conscious of the 
 terrible opposition my thus ex-
 
 24 Change of 
 
 pressed view of the perniciousness 
 of the practice of using vaginal in- 
 jections will call forth ? 
 
 I am, and defy it all. The 
 practice of using vaginal injections 
 is damnable, and I damn it accord- 
 ingly. Leucorrhcea is not in itself 
 and of itself the disease, but the 
 cause of the leucorrhcea is the 
 disease. And not only so, but the 
 leucorrhcea is of many different 
 natures and qualities, just the same 
 as is haemorrhage : in fact, what is 
 leucorrhcea but haemorrhage with- 
 out the red blood corpuscles ? At 
 this point it seems almost imperative 
 to prove that leucorrhcea is a con- 
 stitutional ailing that may not be 
 suppressed ; but its full considera- 
 tion here would lead me too far 
 away from ''the Change of Life,"
 
 Life in Women. 25 
 
 when the whites is a thing of the 
 
 past. 
 
 Nature's Days of Wrath and 
 Vengeance. 
 
 So long as the menses offer an 
 outlet for disease - products and 
 disease-germs, so long is the or- 
 ganism of the woman kept free for 
 the time being ; but neither primary 
 nor what 1 would term "echoic" 
 diseases are thereby cured, and we 
 may very aptly compare the state 
 to that of baling-out a leaky ship : 
 if the baling-out process be adequate 
 the navigation of the leaky ship is 
 not greatly interfered with, but if 
 the baling-out is less than the leak- 
 age the water accumulates and in 
 time sinks the ship. Precisely so 
 is it with the diseases of menstruat-
 
 26 Change of 
 
 ing women : during the period of 
 active menstruation the baling-out 
 of disease elements by the female 
 organism is commonly adequate, 
 and the woman lives on fairly well ; 
 she is indeed a leaky vessel con- 
 stitutionally, but the leakage of the 
 month is baled out, so to speak, 
 with every menstruation. And 
 just as with the leaky vessel, the 
 time of the ultimate sinking comes 
 on by degrees, not all at once ; so, 
 as the menopause begins to cast 
 its shadows before it, we see symp- 
 toms in our patients of defective 
 depuration in the form of "spasms," 
 dyspepsia, rheumatoid arthritis, 
 uterine trouble, tumours, eczema, 
 asthma, cancer. Let any physician 
 listen attentively and sympatheti- 
 callv to the health-histories of a
 
 Life in Women. 27 
 
 few scores of ladies in their suffer- 
 ings at the change of life, and care- 
 fully note all their historic points, 
 and he will find that the troubles 
 at the change of life are not of the 
 same, but far anterior to it : the 
 ills and ailings incident to the 
 change of life in women date from, 
 often, far back in their lives, or in 
 the lives of their parents, and are, 
 as it were, the stems, branches, 
 leaves, flowers, and fruits of the 
 lone - Sfone - before. This in a 
 general way, I will come to the 
 concrete anon ; here I merely 
 desire to state in general terms 
 the ground-thought that many of 
 the ailments at and after the meno- 
 pause seem to me to be, so to 
 speak, nature's wreakings of wrath- 
 ful vengeance for persistent dis
 
 28 Change of 
 
 obedience during the previous course 
 of the life, and by Nature I mean 
 the laws of nature in accordance 
 with which we do not reap oats 
 when we sowed barley. What 
 evidence of this can I brino; ? 
 
 Let me go to some of the first 
 of the cases that have passed under 
 my own observation, and which I 
 took down from time to time. 
 
 Addison's Disease from Sup- 
 pressed Leucorrhcea. 
 
 In the month of July 1891. a 
 Xew York merchant brought his 
 wife to London to place her under 
 my care for vomiting, great de- 
 bility, weakness, and a brown dis- 
 coloration of the skin. Patient 
 was forty-one years of age, and was 
 still regular, but had had no chil-
 
 Life in Women. 29 
 
 dren. That Addison's disease is 
 a branch of the tree known as 
 tuberculosis seems very possible ; 
 but although this patient was in a 
 state of debility in her youth which 
 bordered, they said, on consump- 
 tion, and her own father had 
 succumbed to phthisis, still the 
 most striking symptom was a 
 fearful backache that resisted all 
 treatment, and in the main my 
 remedies did patient but very little 
 good. It did not matter whether 
 the remedies chosen were high, 
 low, or medium, or whether the 
 prescriptions were routine ones, 
 " snap-shot " ones, or laboriously 
 repertorial — they all failed more or 
 less ; and although amelioration 
 frequently set in here and there, 
 and patient would begin to get
 
 $o Change of 
 
 better and to carry a little healthier 
 colour, still none of the spells of 
 improvement was lasting — mine was 
 a veritable work of Sisyphus. So 
 passed three years, till one day she 
 exclaimed to me — " I have the 
 whites, and I am now not able to 
 check them like I have been." 
 
 Further conversation elicited the 
 fact that the beginning of patient's 
 ill-health coincided with the cure (?) 
 of her severe leucorrhcea with in- 
 jections ! And during all these 
 three years of my generally pretty 
 close prescribing, as soon as she 
 began to mend a bit the whites 
 appeared, whereupon these were 
 attacked and quelled with injec- 
 tions, and patient went worse 
 again ! It was a very different 
 affair as soon as the injections were
 
 Life in Women. 3 1 
 
 given up, and in a few months 
 patient was vastly improved, and 
 got into fair health, but never really 
 well, and died of vomitingand debility 
 after a very long railway journey, 
 followed by a long carriage drive in 
 the cold in July 1896, no doubt of 
 Addison's disease. I quote the case 
 here merely to show the part in it 
 played by leucorrhcea, otherwise it 
 does not touch our subject very 
 closely. But it brings home to my 
 mind the fact that in this case, at 
 any rate, the leucorrhcea was an 
 outlet from the economy, and bene- 
 ficial to it in the same sense as a 
 leaky boat may be kept afloat by 
 adequate baling-out of the water, 
 no matter how laborious the 
 baling-out might be. It is most 
 probable that if this lady's leu-
 
 32 Change of 
 
 corrhcea had been let alone, she 
 would have fared better ; and had 
 the causal tuberculosis been first 
 cured, early in life, Addison's disease 
 would never have developed. 
 
 Leucorrhcea is often a manifesta- 
 tion of a tubercular constitution, 
 and when suppressed leads to graver 
 developments of the same diathesis. 
 And surely if leucorrhcea is some- 
 times a manifestation of a tubercular 
 diathesis, it is not the leucorrhcea 
 which is primary, but the tuber- 
 culosis, which is the real disease, and 
 the leucorrhcea is secondary to it, 
 and its existence constitutes in the 
 main an outlet for morbid matter or 
 disease-stuff of some kind. These 
 are not fanciful pictures, but based 
 on facts from my own experience, 
 and they may be seen in my (and
 
 Life in Women. $3 
 
 anyone else's) clinical work any day 
 and almost any hour. 
 
 Change of Life, Fibroid Tumour 
 of the Uterus, Hemorrhoids 
 with very severe recurrent 
 haemorrhage from the bowels. 
 
 A childless widow, fifty years of 
 age, was brought to me on July 9, 
 1 89 1, suffering- from the above very 
 formidable ailments. She changed 
 a year previously, and ever since 
 gets attacks of bleeding piles every 
 five or six weeks. The fibroid 
 tumour was about the size of a 
 man's fist. Patient was very pale 
 and ill. worse towards evening-. 
 
 Patient was discharged cured at 
 the end of 1893, she having 
 attended very regularly all the 
 time. The tumour slowly dis-
 
 34 Change of 
 
 appeared, the attacks of piles 
 ceased, as also the rectal haemor- 
 rhages. I only name the case here 
 because of patient's old, old habit of 
 using vaginal injections, which, in 
 my opinion, led up to the formation 
 of the tumour. Leucorrhoea is a 
 catarrh differing very much in 
 pathological quality in different 
 cases ; there is not one substantive 
 disease called leucorrhoea, but the 
 thing is commonly of a depurative 
 nature, and stopping it by local 
 measures is a wrong proceeding. 
 Leucorrhcea may in many ways be 
 compared to eczema of the skin, for 
 eczema is also a catarrh, often of a 
 depurative nature, and treating 
 eczema by local remedies, unguents, 
 and lotions is equally a wrong pro- 
 ceeding.
 
 Life iu Women. 35 
 
 Note on Lyssinum. 
 
 I do not know where to fling in 
 an odd note on this important 
 remedial agent that I have used 
 for a good many years in here and 
 there a case, and in its own little 
 sphere of influence it is even in 
 erotomania, with me, a tried remedy. 
 And I have extended its use to some 
 of those many cases of spasms and the 
 like, so often met with in clinical life, 
 whose cause is really primarily from 
 unsatisfied sexual longings, often 
 called hysteria. The sufferings of 
 the celibate state, notably in women, 
 are at times amenable to its benign 
 influence, and to this I was partly 
 led by a consideration of the prime 
 cause of rabies, viz., pent-up sexual 
 longings. We will not dwell too
 
 36 Change of 
 
 much on the subject, but I feel 
 bound to name this, my valuable 
 clinical friend. I use 30 and C. and 
 higher only. And when we reflect 
 on the truly awful sufferings of this 
 lyssic state in the human subject, 
 we must gratefully accept the help 
 which Lyssinum can give. Of 
 course, like all homceopathically used 
 remedies, it fits only certain cases, 
 not by any means all, for Med. and 
 Luet. (both high) also play a great 
 part in such loveless states. 
 
 " I am roused in the nieht with 
 such fearfully horrible, sinful feel- 
 ings " calls for Med. 
 
 " No sooner does night come on 
 than I am a prey to such dreadfully 
 sinful desires that drive me mad " 
 calls for Lnet. Now are all these 
 sin ? I cannot think so ; to my
 
 Life in Women. t>7 
 
 mind they are no more sinful than 
 colic or neuralgia ; they are just the 
 sufferings of our common humanity, 
 and what sufferings too ! Much 
 worse than mere pain. 
 
 Is Leucorrhcea a Disease? 
 
 Yes. Certainly, just the same as 
 pain — only forcibly drying it up is 
 no more a cure than lulling pain 
 with opium. 
 
 Although I hold and advocate 
 the view that leucorrhcea is a bene- 
 ficent function, I do not consider 
 the leucorrhcea a sign of health, and 
 so I do not let it alone. 
 
 Leucorrhcea is the servant of the 
 organism ridding it of something ; 
 leucorrhcea in itself is disease, but 
 only vicariously for the organism. 
 I always treat leucorrhcea as a dis-
 
 J 
 
 S Change of 
 
 ease, though not locally at all, but 
 constitutionally, and by preference 
 by high potencies, so as to be quite 
 sure the cure is radically organismic. 
 The leucorrhcea that leaves off at 
 the change is often of rheumatic or 
 rheumatoid nature, and very soon 
 thereafter we see the ends of the 
 fingers begin to get knobby. The 
 change of life is a perfectly harm- 
 less thing in the absolutely healthy, 
 for in itself the Change of Life is 
 absolutely free from morbid sequels 
 in those who are really and truly 
 healthy. Perfectly healthy — really 
 normal — women have no pain at 
 the period, the period is moderate 
 in quantity, there is no pain and no 
 whites, and when the menopause 
 arrives the function ceases almost 
 without the woman's knowledge —
 
 Life in Women. 39 
 
 she merely knows that the thing 
 has left off, and there is an end of 
 it. That is normality. There are 
 many degrees of ill-health, but the 
 absolutely normal woman is not, by 
 reason of her sex, a suffering" crea- 
 ture at all, either at puberty, or at the 
 menopause, or at any time between ; 
 and not only so, but her health is 
 better than that of the correspond- 
 ing man, by the very fact that her 
 sex provides her with an automatic 
 depurative overflow for super- 
 fluities and impurities ; so much is 
 this the case, that many women in a 
 blooming state would, if they were 
 males, be on a much lower scale of 
 health, or not even alive at all. But 
 these, when the menopause comes, 
 lose the manifold advantages of 
 their sex, and descend to the common
 
 40 Change of 
 
 (male) level. Wherefore a truly 
 normal woman when she passes the 
 menopause enters upon a period of 
 vigorous life in which she manages 
 a good deal more than half crea- 
 tion. A perfectly healthy child has 
 no trouble with his teeth, they are 
 simply found, nobody knows when 
 they come ; even so is the meno- 
 pause in perfectly healthy women. 
 
 Tumour of Left Breast at the 
 Menopause. 
 
 It is very instructive to note the 
 beginnings of tumours principally in 
 the breasts and womb as the chancre 
 
 o 
 
 of life is looming, but has not yet 
 arrived. I read it thus : The pre- 
 existent constitutional taint that 
 heretofore has overflowed and 
 sailed off in the menstrual flux
 
 Life in Women. 41 
 
 no longer does so completely, and 
 hence the organism has to deposit 
 what has remained behind some- 
 where, and this constitutes the be- 
 ginning of many of the tumours. 
 Of course the causation may not 
 be merely a lack of elimination by 
 way of the period, but it is seem- 
 ingly so to a large extent. 
 
 Miss X., forty-five years of age, 
 came under my observation on 27th 
 October 1891 for a tumour in her 
 left breast, that had been growing 
 for about a year. We observed an 
 induration of the tissues, about the 
 size of a child's hand, in the outer 
 aspect of the left breast ; it was 
 tender to touch and somewhat pain- 
 ful ; worse at night. Period pain- 
 ful, regular ; whites formerly pretty 
 bad, but they had disappeared for
 
 42 Change of 
 
 some time, and were now returning" 
 slightly. Tongue very frothy, in 
 two rows. 
 
 B Viburnum 6. Ten drops at bedtime. 
 
 November 19th. — The tumid, in- 
 durated mass is nearly gone ; much 
 painful indigestion. 
 
 R- Tc. Bcllis p. 0. Ten drops in water at 
 bedtime. 
 
 January 21st, 1892. — No pain 
 last period. Less haemorrhoids. 
 
 R- Hydrastis Can. 6. Ten drops in water 
 night and morning. 
 
 March 17th. — Breast well ; 
 whites gone. 
 
 December 1892. — No return of 
 tumour, and patient quite well in 
 herself.
 
 Life in Women. 43 
 
 The Precancerous Bleeding 
 Womb at the Menopause. 
 
 There are a large number of 
 cases of bleeding from the womb 
 at, and about, and after the change 
 of life that come before me, that are 
 almost always considered by me as 
 incipient cancer. That they are 
 cancer in the early stage I have 
 no doubt whatever, but inasmuch 
 as they get well, often very quickly, 
 under the use of Gold and other 
 remedies, I will content myself 
 with speaking of them as the pre- 
 cancerous bleeding womb. 
 
 Mrs W., forty-four years of age, 
 mother of nine children and had 
 also four miscarriages, came under 
 my observation at the end of the 
 year 1891. She had for the past
 
 44 Change of 
 
 live or six months considerable 
 bleeding from the parts on and off 
 all the time, but particularly ex- 
 cessive about the period. Some 
 years ago patient vomited a good 
 deal of blood. She is very weak 
 and anaemic, and is, in the opinion 
 of her own doctor, suffering from 
 incipient cancer of the womb. Her 
 mother died of cancer of the womb 
 at seventy-one. and one of her 
 sisters died of internal tumour at 
 fifty. 
 
 E Aiirum muriaticum 3 1 , 5iv. Three 
 drops in water three times a day. 
 
 Feb. 9th, 1892. — Patient is very 
 lavish in her praise of this 
 medicine. " Oh, I am so much 
 better, the bleeding has gone." She 
 feels very much better in herself ; 
 the tenderness of the womb has
 
 Life in Women. 45 
 
 gone, and it is now normal to the 
 touch. To go on with the 
 medicine for some time. 
 
 I never heard any further of the 
 case, and I should not have 
 narrated it at all. were it not that 
 it is only one of numerous cases of 
 the kind that have come under my 
 care, and of which many have 
 promptly got well under the action 
 of Aurum. 
 
 The Precancerous Bleeding 
 Womb. 
 
 Some years since, Mrs E., sixty 
 years of age, was taken suddenly 
 with haemorrhage from the womb, 
 and fainted while on a visit to the 
 house of a patient of mine. The local 
 doctor (a very experienced all-round 
 learned practitioner) was hurriedly
 
 46 Change of 
 
 sent for, and declared it cancer of 
 the uterus. It transpired that 
 attacks of bleeding had been the 
 rule with her for years past, which 
 her anaemic, cachectic look fully 
 corroborated ; the bleedings were 
 very ill-smelling, spoken of as 
 " fleshy," like " cold soup." Patient 
 had a large blood bleb on lower 
 lip of long standing. The diagnosis 
 being called in question, a second 
 opinion of the chief surgeon of a 
 well - known cancer hospital was 
 sought, and he fully confirmed it. 
 The lady returned home and had 
 the infirmary doctors of her native 
 city to see what they thought of the 
 case, and they agreed that it was 
 cancer, and recommended imme- 
 diate operation. 
 
 " No," said patient, " I'll not
 
 L ife in 1 1 'omen. 4 7 
 
 be cut about ; I have seen enough 
 of that. If I'm to die, I'll die!" 
 
 I put her on Aurum, as in the 
 previous case, and in three months 
 she was seemingly quite well. 
 
 Three years later she had bleed- 
 ing again, and the same remedy 
 again put her right. 
 
 Two years after this she had 
 another relapse, the smell being 
 very bad. 
 
 The same remedy was again 
 ordered, and again it put her right, 
 and so she continued when I last 
 heard from her. She must now be 
 about seventy years of age. 
 
 September 23rd, 1896. — I happen 
 to have just received a letter this 
 very day from this lady's friend, 
 from whom I enquired about the 
 patient's state last Tuesday. She
 
 48 Change of 
 
 says : — " Mrs E. came to see me to- 
 day ; she is a good deal better, and 
 seemed in good spirits." 
 
 December 23rd. — She writes : — 
 " I am a good deal better ; all dis- 
 charge has ceased." 
 
 Spring of 1898. — On enquiry I 
 hear: " Mrs E. continues well." 
 
 Neurasthenia at the Menopause. 
 
 A maiden lady, forty-three years 
 of age, came under my observa- 
 tion on January 19th, 1892, tell- 
 ing me of her painful nerves and 
 flushes that have troubled her 
 ever since she changed. She gets 
 gouty swellings of the feet, and 
 has whites. Is much given to 
 sleeping draughts. The womb is 
 somewhat large, the pain in the 
 feet considerable, depriving her of
 
 Life in Women. 49 
 
 sleep. On condition that she ab- 
 jures sleeping" draughts once and 
 for all, I undertake her case. This 
 is an invariable condition with me, 
 as it is quite impossible to really 
 cure people who take hypnotics. 
 
 I gave Fraxinus Americanus 0. 
 Ten drops in water at bedtime. 
 
 March 3rd. — Has done her much 
 good ; womb is lighter, and she is 
 better able to do her work. She 
 sleeps now quite well without any 
 sedative, a sure proof that the 
 neurasthenia was here primarily 
 a womb ailing. 
 
 Flushes no better ; skin very 
 irritable ; costive. 
 
 Ii Tc. Urtica ur. 6. Five drops in water 
 night and morning. 
 
 March 31st. — "The first bottle
 
 50 Change of 
 
 suited me better for nervousness ; 
 flushes much better ; o-eneral health 
 
 1 O 
 
 also." 
 
 Followed a month of Fi'agaria 
 vesca 6, and then Fraxinus A?neri- 
 camis 0, when patient had nothing 
 further to complain of beyond her 
 hard lot in life., for which latter I, 
 however, know no healing herb. 
 
 General Break-up at the Meno- 
 pause — Ulcerated Womb. 
 
 Weak constitutions often break 
 up at the change of life, particularly 
 if there is any great trial falling to 
 their lot, which in this life is common 
 enough. Such a case came under my 
 observation in the spring of 1893. 
 
 Mrs X., aged fifty-two, mother of 
 six children, tells me she has been 
 ailing very much ever since the
 
 Life in Women. 5 1 
 
 change ; the womb is ulcerated ; 
 she is "nothing" but skin and bones;" 
 chronic cephalalgia, insomnia ; she 
 retches and vomits ; she complains 
 of " whirlings like windmills in her 
 head." 
 
 Her physicians have practically 
 given her up, and they all have put 
 her on sleeping draughts and ''sooth- 
 ing injections." 
 
 " My husband is dead," said she, 
 " and I am, as you see, not far from 
 it, and I do not care to live any longer 
 except for my dear children ; my 
 poor darling who has gone home 
 would like me to try and live for 
 our children's sake." 
 
 I consented to treat her on con- 
 dition that she should give up all 
 narcotics and all local messings for 
 the internal ulcerations.
 
 52 Change of 
 
 Her grief was the very first point 
 to consider, and this, with the 
 vomiting", more than justified my 
 first prescription, Ignatia amara 
 i x , §ss ; five drops in water three 
 times a day. This having done 
 good, the primary constitutional 
 blight had to be seen to, as this it 
 was that produced the extreme 
 emaciation : one of her sisters had 
 died of phthisis, and hence I ordered 
 Bad/ I. CC. 
 
 Then followed Pu/s. 0, Niix i, 
 Quassia 6 ; and patient's digestion 
 and general condition were much 
 improved. But the nervous symp- 
 toms were very distressing : almost 
 complete adynamia. Several months 
 under Ka/i phos., 6 trit., and then a 
 short course of Cypripedin 3*. 
 
 September 27th. — " I am fatter ;
 
 Life in 11 'omen. 53 
 
 my nerves feel better, and altogether 
 I feel stronger." 
 
 Iv Scutellarin 3 1 . Six grains dry on the 
 tongue twice a day. 
 
 October 25th. — Nearly well of all 
 her nerve troubles ; sleeps, how- 
 ever, very badly. 
 
 R Bacill. C. 
 
 After this patient never looked 
 back, and she is to-day in a good, 
 healthy, plump condition, and, 
 humanly speaking, good for another 
 quarter of a century. 
 
 In grave, complicated cases it is 
 best to pick out the central points 
 in them and start from them. Thus, 
 in the foregoing case, there were — 
 1, grief; 2, consumptiveness ; 3, 
 neurasthenia — and from these out 
 the therapeutic efforts were directed.
 
 54 Change of 
 
 The totality - of- the - symptoms 
 principle was here not the best, be- 
 cause of the several different causa- 
 tions of the symptoms which were thus 
 of different pathological qualities. 
 
 At the change of life it is well 
 to keep the fundamentals of the 
 basic constitution of the person 
 well and fixedly before one's mind, 
 and in the second place construct a 
 history of what the individual has 
 gone through, and then separate, 
 mentally, the various groups of 
 symptoms and cure them group- 
 wise and not altogether — only thus 
 is success in grave life-threatening 
 cases possible. 
 
 Retardation of the Menopause. 
 
 It not infrequently happens that 
 when the time has arrived for the
 
 Life in II 'omen. 55 
 
 period to cease, it will not do so ; 
 that is to say, there is bleeding but 
 no true ovulation, and this is 
 disease. When ladies over fifty 
 years of age say to us chirpily — 
 " Oh, I have not changed yet ! " 
 the statement is commonly of some 
 gravity. The period due to an 
 ovulation is health ; the quasi- 
 period is only haemorrhage of the 
 same nature, as, for instance, the 
 bleeding from haemorrhoids or from 
 the lungs, and each kind of haemor- 
 rhage has a pathological quality of 
 its own. Thus, when a consump- 
 tive person bleeds at one time from 
 the lungs, at another from the 
 haemorrhoidal veins, and at another 
 from the vagina, the haemorrhage 
 is in each case presumably of the 
 same pathological quality.
 
 56 Change of 
 
 Mrs G., fifty years of age, mother 
 of six children, came to me on 
 September 22, 1S92, telling me 
 she was still regular, but the flow- 
 was very excessive. Close enquiry 
 showed that the thing was not an 
 ovulatory period, but an habitual 
 periodical haemorrhage. With her 
 first child patient had had white- 
 leg (phlegmasia alba dolens), which 
 left leg still swells and troubles her. 
 Those conversant with this form of 
 leucocytosis will not marvel when I 
 say that after a three months' 
 course of Thuja 2>°- Sabina 30, 
 and Cupressus Lawsoniana 30 (each 
 one month by itself) patient's left leg 
 became comfortable, and her periodic 
 bleedings from the uterus ceased. 
 
 When the period is unduly pro- 
 longed, in nine times out of ten it
 
 Life in Women. 57 
 
 is no longer an ovulation at all, but 
 there is something- wrong with the 
 person, which wrong should be set 
 right in lieu of making efforts to 
 stop the bleeding. 
 
 Case of Precancerous Uterus 
 and Abdominal Tumour after 
 the Menopause. 
 
 The name of precancerous uterus 
 is not an accepted nosological en- 
 tity, and what I really mean is 
 cancer ; only as patient has got 
 quite well, some other name must 
 be found, and whatever its nature, 
 certainly it was a case of greatly 
 diseased womb coming after the 
 menopause. So much is quite 
 certain. 
 
 In the region of the pancreas 
 there was a swelled mass. Patient is
 
 58 Change of 
 
 a maiden lady of fifty-two years of 
 age, and came to me in the spring 
 of 1893, saying she had changed 
 several years ago, and now for 
 the past five years has an ill- 
 smelling copious discharge from 
 the vagina, principally thick, 
 mattery, and yellow. After using 
 Sul., Urtica ur., TrifoL, etc., I on 
 June 22 prescribed Aur. mur. nat. 
 3* five drops in w T ater night and 
 morning, which was continued for 
 nearly four months, and the dis- 
 charge slowly diminished, and in 
 October had ceased. In November 
 the discharge had returned, the 
 right breast swelled up very con- 
 siderably and was tender, and Tub. 
 t. C. was given for several months, 
 and then Aur 21m for a number of 
 months, and patient was discharged
 
 Life in Women, 59. 
 
 cured in April 1896. Patient's 
 mother died of cancer of the womb, 
 and a sister of cancer between 
 uterus and rectum. 
 
 Prolapsus Uteri of Many 
 
 Years' Standing. 
 A widow lady, fifty-seven years 
 of age, was conducted to me by her 
 sister on October 9, 1888, suffering 
 from prolapsus uteri of many years' 
 duration ; the exact number is not 
 noted. She is obese and scant of 
 breath. Cannot move about with- 
 out her pessary, which she, how- 
 ever, only wears by day, and places 
 it in position herself. Flushes, leu- 
 corrhcea, and occasional bleedino- 
 
 o 
 
 from womb. 
 
 R Tc. Hclonias dioica 6 } 51Y. Five drops 
 in water night and morning. 
 
 November 27th. — Thuja.
 
 60 Change of 
 
 December 29th. — Can now go 
 about without pessary without any 
 particular inconvenience. 
 
 W Helonias dioica 6. 
 
 February 2nd, 1889. — I have 
 felt wonderfully easy without any 
 pessary. 
 
 R Rep. 
 
 April 11th. — "I can walk quite 
 well without knowing anything is 
 wrong." Leucorrhcea pretty bad 
 at times. 
 
 R Aletris farinosa d, 5iv. Five drops in 
 water night and morning. 
 
 May 14th. — Was quite well, but 
 has now a little intravaginal pres- 
 sure again, which she thinks has 
 come from over-stretching. 
 
 R Sabina 3.
 
 Life in Women. 61 
 
 September 26th. — Complains that 
 the Sabina does not suit her so well 
 as the former drills ; womb coming 
 down on over-exertion, but now 
 when it does it is much softer than 
 it used to be. 
 
 R Helonias dioica 6, which finished the 
 cure. 
 
 Seven years later, September 
 1896, this lady came in to see me 
 the other day, and tells me she 
 continues quite well in all respects, 
 and is very active on her feet, as 
 she now keeps her bachelor son's 
 house in the country. Has never 
 used a pessary since November 
 1888 ; but during the whole of the 
 interval I have heard from her at 
 odd times, and have, time and 
 again, repeated the remedies be- 
 fore-named whenever over-exertion.
 
 62 Change of 
 
 etc.. had produced discomfort or 
 slight relapses. 
 
 Pruritus. 
 
 After the menopause (and also 
 before it), but particularly as the 
 turn of life approaches, and often 
 for many years after it, the 
 peculiar irritation known as pruritus 
 or itching is apt to become very 
 troublesome indeed : it is located 
 mostly in the vagina,' vulva, or 
 anus, or thereabouts. It is often 
 accompanied by eczema, and may 
 be symptomatic of internal disease. 
 It is usual to order soothing applica- 
 tions for this ailment, and their 
 name is indeed legion. 
 
 Is the treatment of pruritus by 
 soothing applications efficacious and 
 rational ? It is neither. I grant
 
 Life in Women. 6 
 
 o 
 
 that a little Calendula ointment, 
 lanoline, or vaseline, or the like, do 
 ease for the time, and that, perhaps, 
 harmlessly, and that is no small 
 boon, as it allows patients to get 
 to sleep. But when it comes to 
 forcibly lulling" sensation of the 
 parts with active sedatives, I believe 
 such a proceeding to be very harm- 
 ful. 
 
 A proper course of homoeopathic 
 treatment commonly suffices for its 
 cure, but not always ; there are 
 some obstinate cases that defy all 
 known efforts at cure. The very 
 largest amount of success is obtained 
 when we abstract ourselves from the 
 name of the ailment and study the 
 constitutional bearings of the case, 
 and treat the woman's organism on 
 general principles. Here the total-
 
 64 Change of 
 
 ity-of-the-symptoms principle works 
 exceedingly well, particularly where 
 the pruritus seems to exist by itself 
 without any diagnosable anatomical 
 pathological basis. 
 
 Taken by itself, the most fre- 
 quently successful remedy in my 
 hands is Caladium seguinum> about 
 the fifth dilution. It almost always 
 does some good. Sepia comes 
 next, but personally I generally 
 have recourse to nosodes before I 
 can really and radically cure it. 
 
 Sometimes the spleen is at fault 
 in pruritus vulvae, and when the 
 irritation is at the seat the liver 
 may require attention. Some people 
 find that pruritus ani will depart 
 when the usual nightcap on retir- 
 ing for the ni^ht is omitted. 
 
 Cases of pruritus vulvae are some-
 
 Life in Women. 65 
 
 times due to tight-lacing — in fact 
 this is pretty frequently the case in 
 ladies of full habit and slightly dis- 
 posed to gout : if such patients 
 happen to lie abed for any trifling 
 indisposition they are not troubled 
 with pruritus, as the viscera are 
 thereby relieved from pressure. 
 A lady consulted me not long 
 since for a tumour in the vagina : 
 it was a vaginocele about the size 
 of a Tangerine orange. " And is it 
 not strange," said she, " the lump 
 goes away very often when I stay 
 in bed for a day or two, but it is 
 generally there soon after I have 
 properly dressed," i.e., when she 
 had put on her stays. I explained 
 the matter to her, and recommended 
 a discontinuance of the lacing ; but 
 I hear from her husband that she 
 
 E
 
 66 Change of 
 
 laces tighter than ever, and, of 
 necessity, the vaginocele persists. 
 Most commonly there is a patho- 
 logic quality underlying the pru- 
 ritus, such as gout, scrofula, eczema, 
 when, of course, we must look away 
 from the symptom pruritus, and 
 attack the said pathological quality. 
 
 Post-Climacteric Cataract. 
 
 There are many kinds of cataract 
 in quality and in causation, — even 
 senile cataract is of different path- 
 ology in different cases. 
 
 In spite of jibes and jeers, sneers 
 and snubs from many very superior 
 persons whose world is spectacles, I 
 still maintain that many cases of 
 cataract can be cured by medicines. 
 
 Difficult task ? Oh, yes, very ; 
 but difficult does not spell impos-
 
 Life in Women. 67 
 
 sible. Cataract in women at and 
 after the change of life is, probably, 
 the least difficult of any to cure 
 with medicines. My plan is to sub- 
 ject patients to, say, a given consti- 
 tutional course of treatment bv hiafh 
 dilutions, and when this seems to 
 have done all that can be achieved, 
 I put patients on small material 
 doses of uterine remedies, principally 
 Pulsatilla 0, in from five to ten-drop 
 doses once or twice a day. The 
 result is often very satisfactory. 
 Thus, some time since a clergyman 
 in Bedfordshire wrote to me that 
 his wife's vision was returning, and 
 begged me to continue my treat- 
 ment. The cataract was almost 
 ripe of the left eye ; it began about 
 the change of life, and has taken 
 ten years to get mature. When I
 
 68 Change of 
 
 first undertook the case I gave as 
 my opinion that no medicines would 
 do any good, because the lady is a 
 great weeper : she will shed tears 
 in abundance on any occasion of 
 the least excitement, and I thought 
 it hopeless to expect lenses to clear 
 under such circumstances. Tear- 
 fulness is an admitted indication for 
 Pulsatilla. I saw this lady not 
 long since and asked her how she 
 could see. " Oh, very much better, 
 thank you." With the naked eye, 
 and to a casual observer, the cata- 
 ract is now not visible, whereas 
 formerly all her friends knew quite 
 well that she had " something in the 
 eye," and now her intimates remark 
 to her that " that thing in your eye 
 is gone." 
 
 The lens is not clear when duly
 
 Life in Women. 69 
 
 examined, but it is clear enough for 
 fair vision, which is not a bad result 
 for a lady verging on sixty-six. 
 
 Chlorosis considered as Men- 
 strual Auto- Infection. 
 
 M. Charrin regards chlorosis as 
 a menstrual auto-infection. He 
 says that the poisonous qualities of 
 the blood serum is at its highest 
 pitch just as the period is coming 
 on, and he calls attention to the 
 well-known fact that suckling 
 women who happen to menstruate 
 while suckling, are apt to give their 
 babies diarrhoea or skin eruptions. 
 But M. Charrin's work is so im- 
 portant from my own standpoint, 
 that I ""ive the notice of it as I find 
 it in La Semaine Mddicale, viz. : — 
 
 " Au moment ou les regies vont
 
 /O Change of 
 
 survenir, la toxicite du serum est en 
 croissance ; les nourrices qui, par 
 hasard, conservent leurs menstrues, 
 a ce moment plus qu'a tout autre 
 donnent des diarrhees, des eruptions 
 a. leurs nourrissons ; a ce moment, 
 egalement, chez de nombreuses 
 femmes, la fievre, l'herpes ne sont 
 pas rares ; puis l'ecoulement se pro- 
 duit et tout rentre dans 1'ordre ; les 
 migraines cessent, les douleurs mus- 
 culaires disparaissent, l'appetit re- 
 vient, les signes d'empoisonnement 
 s'evanouissent. 
 
 " D'un autre cote, des recherches 
 experimentales, malheureusement 
 encore insuffisantes, entreprises 
 par P. Carnot et par l'auteur, 
 conduisent a des conclusions ana- 
 logues. 
 
 " On est en droit de penser que la
 
 Life in Women. 7 i 
 
 fonction menstruelle^///^' I'e'eonomie 
 de certains poisons ; les organes 
 genitaux out, a cet e'gard. un role 
 ii elimination. 
 
 " Si, sous l'influence de l'heredite, 
 de la scrofule, de la tuberculose, les 
 tissus appauvris se sont insuffisam- 
 ment developpes, cette insuffisance 
 de developpement a porte sur les 
 organes genitaux comme sur les 
 autres ; ils remplissent moins effi- 
 cacement ce role delimination. — 
 D'autre part, durant les premieres 
 annees, les depenses de l'etre 
 sont minimes ; a l'heure de la 
 puberte, elles s'accroissent rapide- 
 ment. 
 
 ''A ce moment eclate l'imperfec- 
 tion des cellules demeurees trop 
 petites ; les produits de la desas- 
 similation devenus soudainement
 
 J 2 Change of 
 
 abondants sont elabores d'une fa9on 
 vicieuse ; de la une premiere cause 
 d'auto-intoxication, car on sait que 
 plus ces produits sont metamor- 
 phoses, oxydes, moins ils sont 
 nuisibles. L'etroitesse des arteres, 
 specialement de la mesenterique qui 
 se rend a 1'intestin, de la pulmonaire 
 qui a charge de la nutrition gazeuse 
 comme cette mesenterique de celle 
 des solides ou des liquides, ajoute 
 encore a ces imperfections des 
 echanges. 
 
 " Sur ces processus generaux 
 d'auto-intoxication vient se greffer 
 un troisieme facteur, celui-la tout 
 particulier, donnant au mal sa carac- 
 teristique, faisant de lui l'apanage 
 du sexe feminin : e'est l'obstruction 
 de la voie depurative genitale, qui 
 ne conduit pas au dehors les prin-
 
 Life in Women. j$ 
 
 cipes nocifs destines a suivre ce 
 chemin." (La Mddecine modernc, 
 i i Janvier 1896). 
 
 What is here said of chlorosis 
 bears directly on my present 
 subject of the menopause — in fact, 
 the very same idea underlies it, 
 except that I would hardly term it 
 auto-infection or self - poisoning 
 simply, but I would qualify 
 adjectively, so as to bring out the 
 central idea that it is not a poison- 
 ing of the individual by herself, 
 but by her own products, due to 
 defective elimination. Only, of 
 course, chlorosis is at the beginning 
 or early part of menstrual life, 
 and the change of life at its end ; 
 but cessation of the menstrual flux 
 is the one element common to both, 
 either in whole or in part.
 
 74 Change of 
 
 Climacteric — Case of Cataract 
 much Improved by Pulsatilla. 
 
 A well-preserved, fresh-looking 
 maiden lady, fifty years of age, 
 came under my observation at the 
 beginning of 1895 for incipient 
 cataract, which began when the 
 periods began to wane. 
 
 For six months patient took 
 Pulsatilla 0, seven drops in 
 water at bedtime. 
 
 September 3rd, 1895. — Distinct 
 improvement in her vision ; left 
 side of tongue swollen. The same 
 remedy was again ordered and 
 persevered in, with pauses, and the 
 report in June 1896 was : — "Oh! 
 I see very much better." 
 
 The Change of Life in Women and 
 the Ills and Ailin^s incident thereto
 
 Life in Women, 75 
 
 cover such a wide range that one 
 hardly knows how to keep to the 
 text. But it has to be done if we 
 are to progress from the standpoint 
 of the past, which comes out in the 
 following narration : — 
 
 I once heard of an old physician 
 who had a very kind heart, and 
 also no end of other good qualities, 
 who was wont to comfort folks in 
 this wise : When a young girl had 
 any obstinate ailment that kind- 
 heartedness and talky-talky could 
 not cure, and that opening medi- 
 cines would not carry off or tonics 
 tone away, he would assume a 
 happy aspect and cheerfully tell the 
 girl's mother, ''It will all come 
 right when she becomes a woman." 
 This little oft-repeated fable usually 
 quite satisfied the mothers.
 
 -6 Change of 
 
 When young ladies were brought 
 to him with ailments of divers kinds, 
 their mothers were comforted with 
 the cheerful assurance that the 
 patients would be all right after 
 they got married, which sometimes 
 came off, but more frequently their 
 ailments became even more trouble- 
 some thereafter. When middle- 
 aged ladies consulted him, he was 
 very apt to console them with even 
 greater confidence, by suggesting 
 that all their troubles would be 
 over after the "change of life." 
 And so his world wagged on very 
 comfortably, and in the end he 
 found himself the possessor of an 
 ample fortune and a title conferred 
 upon him by his gracious Sovereign 
 for his distinguished services to 
 medical science. Certainly he dis-
 
 Life in Women. 77 
 
 pensed much cheery comfort during 
 his long life, and was never known 
 to shock the profession with any 
 notions contrary to accepted views, 
 and whenever he felt that he might 
 have shown a leaning towards any 
 question at all fraught with danger 
 to the comfort or dignity of the 
 profession, he would suddenly pull 
 up and remark, that such at least 
 had been the privately - expressed 
 opinion of his late lamented friend 
 and master, that distinguished 
 gynaecologist, Sir Jasper Pessary, 
 than whom no more learned or 
 more honourable physician ever 
 adorned our profession — he feeling 
 it his duty to give the late Sir 
 Jasper credit for this opinion. 
 Indeed, the question was no less 
 delicate than important, involving
 
 78 Change of 
 
 as it did the highest interests of 
 our glorious profession. The ques- 
 tion was eventually brought before 
 the Medical Society of London, 
 and was thus formulated : — Could 
 a pessary introduced by a qualified 
 homoeopathic practitioner be re- 
 moved • by a qualified regular prac- 
 titioner without loss of professional 
 dignity ? 
 
 Needless to say the question was 
 answered in the negative. Person- 
 ally I rather rejoiced at the decision, 
 for I could not help saying to my- 
 self and to a few intimates, that 
 homoeopathic practitioners who 
 (other than very exceptionally) 
 make use of pessaries might once 
 in a way put the homoeopathic 
 medical materials before their 
 pessaries.
 
 Life iu J I 'on icu. 79 
 
 In my next Part I propose to 
 take the Ills and Ailings of the 
 Climaxis a little more connectedly, 
 to the end that they may be recog- 
 nised and either cured or avoided 
 in the earlier phases of the woman's 
 life, for this is the trend of much of 
 what I here bring forward. 
 
 When I first began this little 
 volume, I intended to write a much 
 more elaborate treatise on the sub- 
 ject, but it has fallen far short of 
 my original plan.
 
 PART II. 
 
 Change of Life in Women : Its Ills 
 and Ailing s. 
 
 C\F course we do not expect to 
 find any virus-disease from 
 without as peculiar to the Change of 
 Life. The English name — change of 
 life — is singularly appropriate : it 
 is what its name implies and 
 nothing more. The woman who is 
 really in sound health — i.e., of good 
 constitution — is quite as well at and 
 after the change as before. A 
 good constitution does not then
 
 Life in Women. 8 i 
 
 become bad. It is, as it were, 
 sleeping dogs that then wake up 
 to bark and bite ; hence it is that 
 we must early look to the prin- 
 ciple of heredity to get correct and 
 helpful views of the troubles that 
 beset a woman at the change, 
 notably where they have lain more 
 or less latent prior thereto. Mani- 
 festations of gout and rheumatism 
 are most common. 
 
 Goutiness — Arthritism. 
 
 Like begets like, which no one 
 can gainsay ; but as two beget one, 
 we have a third entity whose quali- 
 ties are not absolutely apparent. 
 When we learn to read, and come 
 across a new word, we spell it ; so 
 it is with the hereditariness of 
 disease. I have occupied myself a
 
 82 Change of 
 
 good deal with this question, and 
 hope to say my say thereon in due 
 course. Here I must confine my- 
 self to its bearing on the subject 
 matter of this book. 
 
 The offspring of a gouty parent 
 must be gouty more or less, unless 
 indeed the one of the twain com- 
 pletely neutralises the other, which 
 is conceivable, but not probable. 
 The girl that comes of a gouty 
 father will teethe goutily ; she will 
 menstruate goutily ; and at and 
 after the change of life her ills 
 and ailings will be gouty. 
 
 Many times I have remembered 
 this point in the troubles of denti- 
 tion with much advantage. Even 
 in using the Repertory it throws a 
 valuable side-light on the case, and 
 helps. My two big guns in gouty
 
 Life in Women. 83 
 
 menopause are — Bursa pastoris ti 
 and Pulsatilla 0. The similitude 
 is very small ; the dose must there- 
 fore be material, a few drops of the 
 tincture ; and on the treatment ol 
 gout I may fairly refer to my 
 own monograph on the subject,* in 
 which what I know of gout may 
 be found. Bursa pastoris 0, ten 
 drops in a tablespoonful of warm 
 water at bedtime, is a very fre- 
 quently indicated remedy in gouty 
 ladies at the change of life. The 
 gouty diathesis must be treated on 
 its own merits in a woman just 
 the same as in a man. 
 
 Notk on Bursa Pastoris. 
 In my judgment, as I have else- 
 Go/// and Its Cure. London and 
 New York, 1895.
 
 84 Change of 
 
 where stated, the Shepherd's Purse 
 is pronouncedly a uterine medicine. 
 It is a very notable remedy in 
 uterine sterility — pregnancy fre- 
 quently occurring during its use. 
 A gentleman was under my pro- 
 fessional care for frequent nocturnal 
 micturition of a gouty character, and 
 I ordered him Bursa pastoris 0, 
 ten drops in water at bedtime. 
 On April 8th he wrote me that 
 he could not take such a large dose, 
 as it caused him "aching and ful- 
 ness in the head, worse in the 
 morning." At my request he re- 
 sumed the medicine (Bursa) in 
 four-drop doses. 
 
 June 10th. — On this day he 
 brought the medicine back him- 
 
 O 
 
 self to me in the original half- 
 ounce bottle, still two-thirds full
 
 Life in Women. 85 
 
 of the tincture, complaining very 
 much of its " nasty rotten drain 
 smell," and saying he could not 
 take any more of it, for, says he, 
 "it flushes my face so much that I 
 cannot take it ; I only took three 
 drops this morning, and just see 
 how it has flushed my face." 
 
 This symptom being patho- 
 genetic, we thus get another remedy 
 for the flushes, and it would be ad- 
 ditionally indicated in gouty indi- 
 viduals, for Bursa pastoris often 
 produces a notable output of gravel. 
 
 And, referring again to the 
 Flushes, our apotherapeutists score 
 one in the palliative treatment of 
 this trouble ; thus we read in the 
 British Medical Journal of April 
 24, 1897, a note by Dr Fosbery, of 
 Hournemouth, as follows : —
 
 86 Change of 
 
 " Severe Climacteric Flushings 
 Successfully Treated by 
 Ovarian Extract. 
 
 " As medication by various glands 
 is still on its trial, except, perhaps, 
 that of the Thyroid in Myxcedema, 
 individual experiences, if recorded, 
 will help in estimating rightly its 
 value, and in indicating the class 
 of cases in which treatment may be 
 used with benefit. It is with this ob- 
 ject I record the following case : — 
 
 " Miss C, aged fifty-two, for more 
 than three years suffered from severe 
 menorrhagia, and during part of 
 that time from metrorrhagia also. 
 The latter was relieved by the 
 removal of a pedunculated polypus 
 growing from the cervix. The 
 menorrhagia, however, continued,
 
 Life in Women. Sy 
 
 the periods occurring about every 
 three weeks, and lasting" a fortnight 
 or even three weeks. The bleeding 
 was" very severe, and not influenced 
 much by drugs, though Ergot (both 
 by mouth and hypodermically), 
 Hydrastis, Liquor Ferri Perchloridi, 
 Potassium Bromide, Hazeline, 
 Arsenic, and Thyroid Gland were 
 tried. During the last two periods, 
 however, Calcium Chloride, in 
 scruple doses, three times a day, 
 seemed to have a good effect, but 
 this might have been due to the 
 natural close of menstruation. Fre- 
 quent plugging of the vagina, some- 
 times twice a day, was the only 
 means of controlling the haemor- 
 rhage, with iced injections on re- 
 moval of the plugs. Hot douches 
 were not so effectual as the cold.
 
 88 Change of 
 
 " When at last the periods ceased, 
 the patient was much troubled with 
 frequent and violent flushings, which 
 at night, in winter, would wake her 
 up, the face being in a burning heat, 
 while the hands and body were icy 
 cold. 
 
 " For these flushings I ordered 
 five-grain doses of Ovarian Gland 
 three times a day. For the first 
 day or two there appeared to be no 
 effect, then the flushings rapidly 
 became less frequent and intense, 
 and were nearly cured by the time 
 three dozen doses were taken. The 
 patient now tells me she is free of 
 them, but o-ets a ' threatening ' if 
 she omits the capsules for some 
 days. One dose occasionally keeps 
 her free." 
 
 The treatment of the case is bad
 
 Life in Women. 89 
 
 from our homoeopathic standpoint, 
 and I only quote it as suggestive of 
 the use of Ovary Extract in the 
 Mushes when Lachcsis and other 
 remedies have failed. 
 
 Cancerousness traced through 
 Life clearly evidenced at the 
 Menopause. 
 
 A gentleman brought his wife to 
 me on June 26, 1897, for a painful 
 swelling in her left breast ; and as 
 the case brings out one of the chief 
 points of this little treatise, I will 
 narrate it pretty fully. 
 
 Mrs S., aet. forty-three, married 
 these twenty years, but childless. 
 Has pains in her left breast that 
 wake her up in the night and cause 
 her much anxiety. Her father died 
 at sixty- three of diabetes; her mother,
 
 go Change of 
 
 at fifty-two, of cancer of the left 
 breast ; her sister, of cancer of the 
 same breast, at forty-three, just after 
 the change ; a brother, at forty-five, 
 of rapid phthisis. 
 
 The inner half of patient's left 
 breast is the seat of a diffused 
 swelling since the change, which 
 occurred at forty years of age, that 
 is three years ago. 
 
 There is nothing unusual in this 
 history, but let us trace back her 
 health history and see how that 
 stands. Soon after marriage she 
 was under treatment for womb 
 trouble — ulcers at the os ; these 
 ulcers were cauterized severely and 
 oft, at times daily for weeks together; 
 they were then painted regularlyand 
 for long periods. She has been 
 using vaginal injections for pretty
 
 Life in Women. 91 
 
 bad whites for many years. She 
 injects hot water into the vagina on 
 her physician's advice every day for 
 the past fifteen years, and still the 
 whites — yellow and sticky and cor- 
 roding — continue the same as ever. 
 " All my life I have never been ill 
 and also never well." Right lobe 
 of thyroid somewhat enlarged for a 
 year past. The breasts often swell. 
 Has had gallstones twice. 
 
 We are here not concerned with 
 the treatment of this particular case 
 (moreover, it was only begun yester- 
 day), but it illustrates clearly what I 
 hold and what I should like to 
 teach, viz., that the various ills and 
 ailings of women are not of a local 
 nature, and must therefore not be 
 locally regarded or treated. 
 
 I read the phenomena thus :
 
 92 Change of 
 
 The ulcers at the os, the leucor- 
 rhcea, the sterility, were of a can- 
 cerous nature (precancerous, as 
 Hutchinson would say), and in- 
 herited from her mother, and that 
 the ulcerations and whites should 
 have been treated on constitutional 
 lines from the beginning in lieu of 
 the local measures of cauterizing 
 and painting the seemingly offend- 
 ing parts. And as to the treatment 
 of the case, now it is manifest that 
 we have to deal with a constitu- 
 tional ailment located primarily in 
 the uterus, and thence reflected on 
 to the breasts, so ablation of the 
 left breast would be useless, inas- 
 much as the root-ailing is located 
 primarily in the womb. My object 
 in narrating the foregoing is to 
 bring before the reader's mind how
 
 Life in Women. 93 
 
 the thing appears to my mind — the 
 ulcers and the leucorrhcea were not 
 to be regarded as the ailment to be 
 treated at all, they were only the 
 local expression of the enemy with- 
 in, and not the enemy himself — 
 rather were they its voice. 
 
 What I am trying to say is that 
 silencing the ulcers and leucorrhcea 
 was bad practice, not only doing no 
 good to the woman's organism, but 
 rather harming her. So long as 
 the monthly flow continued, so long- 
 did this lady live on in a fair state of 
 health ; but since it has stopped she 
 has ailed rather more, the right lobe 
 of her thyroid has become enlarged, 
 and now the left breast is enlarging 
 and hardening, and has already be- 
 come the seat of a good deal of pain. 
 
 The persistence of leucorrhcea
 
 94 Change of 
 
 after the menopause is of consider- 
 able import, and certainly betokens 
 positive disease of the womb (or 
 ovaries), and the same may be said 
 of the swelling of her breasts, for 
 the breast is an appendix to the 
 womb, and ever under its influence 
 and domination. Whenever there 
 is anything wrong with the breasts 
 I direct my attention straightway 
 to the womb, for it is in the womb, 
 respectively the ovaries, that the 
 ailing is surely primarily located. 
 
 When I speak of leucorrhcea I 
 mean leucorrhcea, and not gonor- 
 rhoea. This latter is a dirt disease 
 introduced from without and not 
 from the constitution, and should 
 be killed in situ the sooner the 
 better, if possible. I hold the same 
 of the acarus disease — the pure itch
 
 Life in If omen. 95 
 
 — the nasty little acari are from 
 without, and should be slain. 
 
 The Hahnemannian Doctrine of 
 Psora Re-stated; 
 
 The Hahnemannian doctrine of 
 psora as usually comprehended in 
 the ranks of really pure homoeopathy 
 is so vague and mind-confusing 
 that many of us have never known 
 what to say or think about it. 
 When I first tried to practise 
 homceopathically I accepted the 
 doctrine of psora purely and simply, 
 and honestly believed that the itch 
 could be, and was commonly cured 
 dynamically by the strict Hahne- 
 mannians, and I copied their prac- 
 tice in this regard. Thus I kept 
 a young lady under treatment with
 
 g6 Change of 
 
 antipsorics, and principally with 
 Sulphur, high, higher, and right 
 away into the very high, for over 
 a year, and the result ? Total 
 failure ; and the parents very pro- 
 perly gave me up as inadequate. 
 Patient was quickly cured by a 
 near medical brother with Sulphur 
 ointment and soap and water, and 
 I was regarded by those who knew 
 the circumstances as a mere faddist. 
 
 I went on for several years be- 
 lieving in and trying to cure the 
 itch with homoeopathic dilutions, 
 and what ? I failed practically in 
 every case. 
 
 Now the test of all doctrinal 
 medicine must be clinical, and if I 
 cannot cure on the lines of a given 
 doctrine I throw the doctrine over- 
 board. But a man who owes so
 
 Life in Women. 97 
 
 much to Hahnemann's teachings as 
 I do, hesitates much and long be- 
 fore discarding any of his doctrines. 
 Hence I tried and tried, and failed 
 time after time. Now I will take- 
 as an example what I will term my 
 Doctrine of Ringworm : I say that 
 Ringworm, and fungi notwithstand- 
 ing, is dynamically curable by 
 BaciU'tnum. I cure case after case 
 almost always. I say the same of 
 Vaccinosis and its cure by Thuja 
 and the like in dynamic dose. 
 Then why cannot I do the same 
 with itch ? Well, I cannot, and for 
 me there is an end of it. It is no 
 use to tell me that I fail to cure 
 itch with Sulphur 30, C, CO, &c, 
 because I lack in the skill requisite 
 for such work. Well, let us grant 
 that it is lack of skill on my part,
 
 98 Change of 
 
 then what is the use to me of a 
 medical doctrine that is beyond my 
 skill? Just none. The truth, for 
 me, is that you cannot kill acari by 
 any dynamic dose of any remedy 
 whatsoever, and hence I have 
 thrown the doctrine overboard. 
 
 Then is the teaching altogether 
 false ? 
 
 I would re-state the doctrine 
 thus : You cannot cure the itch by 
 dynamic medication, and you must 
 therefore kill the acari ; they should 
 be killed on the spot, the sooner 
 the better ; you cannot kill acari 
 with dynamic remedies, and they 
 should be killed at once. But I 
 am not speaking of its concomitant 
 constitutional eruptions brought 
 forth by the acari, neither do I 
 say that the acari may not poison
 
 Life in // T omen. 99 
 
 the blood, — indeed I think they do, 
 and therefore they should be sul- 
 phured to death instanter. But, 
 and this is very important, if the 
 acari have called forth an eruption 
 from a previously existing internal 
 state, this eruption may not be 
 got rid of by external remedies. 
 There is the rub. Da liegt der 
 Hund begraben ! It is the funest 
 results of suppressing the constitu- 
 tional eruptions that have been 
 called forth from their internal 
 lurkings by the acari themselves, 
 or by their poison, that we have to 
 fear. If we watch cases of itch 
 carefully we find that the cases of 
 those of tainted constitutions £et 
 quite a number of different kinds of 
 eruptions which were potentially 
 there before thev were infected with
 
 ioo Change of 
 
 the acari, and these constitutions 
 have to be mended by proper 
 homoeopathic remedies, and their 
 eruptions may not be driven in, 
 but the acari must be killed by 
 parasiticides. The best men in the 
 homoeopathic ranks should set to 
 work and clear this matter up, as 
 it trammels our progress not a little. 
 Years ago I was the means of con- 
 verting an allopathic medical man 
 to homoeopathy ; he came over bag 
 and baggage at considerable pecun- 
 iary loss ; he subsequently caught 
 the itch, and placed himself under 
 my care, and he remained faithfully 
 under my care for over a year, and 
 I totally failed to cure him, where- 
 upon he exclaimed to me — "I cannot 
 stand it any longer, I shall go mad ; 
 look what an awful state I am in."
 
 Life in Women. 101 
 
 He then gave up homoeopathy and 
 everything connected with it. 
 
 However, homoeopathy is true, 
 although you cannot kill acari 
 dynamically. I have long been 
 tussling with this question of 
 psora, and this is my solution of 
 it : 
 
 The dangerous results from the 
 suppression of true itch are in 
 reality not from the itch itself at 
 all, — on the contrary, the acari are 
 poisonous little brutes that should 
 be killed instanter. These danger- 
 ous results are from the driving in 
 of dyscratic eruptions present in the 
 itch-patients, but not due primarily 
 to the itch itself, but pre-existent in 
 the individuals suffering from the 
 itch, and not infrequently brought 
 out on to the cutaneous surface by
 
 102 Change of 
 
 the acari or their poison, though 
 not really due thereto. 
 
 It is the source of very consider- 
 able mental satisfaction to me to 
 have thus solved the question of 
 psora, as now I cure the itch — the 
 acarus disease — as quickly as pos- 
 sible with Sulphur ointment and 
 soap and water, regarding it as a 
 dirty parasitic disease impinging 
 from without on to the individual, 
 but at the same time do not sup- 
 press any concomitant skin trouble 
 which is from within the organism, 
 being there before the itch was 
 caught, though very likely called 
 forth by the irritating influence of 
 the acari : that which is from without 
 is to be cured from without : that 
 which is from within must not be 
 treated from without, but from within.
 
 Life in Women. 103 
 
 This re-statement of the doctrine 
 of psora has no special bearing on 
 the change of life, and it finds a 
 place here simply because I have 
 only now clearly seen where the 
 truth lies. 
 
 Rheumatoid Arthritis. 
 
 Rheumatic gout at the change of 
 life is indeed a very large order ; a 
 series of remedies are needed to 
 cure the same. A sample of how I 
 get along with them here follows : — 
 
 Mrs X., aet. sixty-five, mother of 
 one child, born when she was forty- 
 one (married at forty), since when 
 she has gone very stout and suffered 
 from rheumatic gout ever since her 
 menopause. Right knee and left 
 ankle much swelled ; cannot walk ; 
 dreads cold water ; urine thick ; is
 
 104 Change of 
 
 much distressed by inability to 
 retain her urine ; altogether she is 
 in a sorry plight. 
 
 Med. 1000, in infrequent dose. 
 
 July 22nd. — Urine much clearer, 
 and there is much less difficulty in 
 retaining it. 
 
 R Rep. 
 
 August 1 2th. — Pains and swell- 
 ings much diminished. 
 
 R Rep. 
 
 September 1 6th. — " Decidedly 
 better," her husband writes, "more 
 like her old self, a good deal better 
 all round.'' 
 
 R Rep. 
 
 October 19th. — Well, except that 
 she is stiff.
 
 Life in 11 omen. 105 
 
 R Bellis per. 6. Ten drops in water in 
 the forenoon. 
 
 November 25th. — li Bryonia #. 
 
 December 20th. — Acid, oxalic, 1. 
 
 February 2nd, 1892. — Bacill. 
 CC 
 
 March 1st. — " My wife is quite 
 well of her rheumatic gout, and the 
 water is quite comfortable, but she 
 is weak. 
 
 R Fcr. picric 3'. Three drops in water 
 three times a da}\ 
 
 April 11th. — "A few pains here 
 and there, but what can you expect 
 in this heat ? " 
 
 R Salix alb. 6, §j. Ten drops in water 
 twice a day. 
 
 Long after, I saw this lady's 
 husband about his varicose veins, 
 when he told me Mrs X. continued 
 free of her pains and swellings, and
 
 106 Change of 
 
 in very good general health. And 
 still later, I had the same report 
 from her stepson. 
 
 Incontinence of Urine at the 
 Menopause. 
 
 After the change of life ladies 
 are not infrequently troubled with 
 inability to hold their water ; the 
 causes vary considerably ; and where 
 the sweat glands are inactive Jabor- 
 andi is a good friend, as the follow- 
 ing brilliant little cure will show : — 
 
 Countess G.. verging on fifty 
 years of age, consulted me on 
 November 6, 1890, for inability to 
 contain her urine, worse when she 
 had a cold, which was then the case. 
 The point which struck me most 
 was her dry skin. " I never per- 
 spire," said she. I ordered Jabor-
 
 Life in Women. 107 
 
 audi 1, ten drops inwater three times 
 a day. To the great delight of her 
 ladyship the medicine cured the 
 incontinence right away. 
 
 Note on Jaborandi. 
 
 I have used Jaborandi for many 
 years — in fact I wrote a paper on it 
 already in my allopathic days ; but 
 though I have used it long, I have 
 not used it often ; of late years I 
 have generally used Pilocarpinnm 
 muriaticum 3*. It is my big shot 
 in mumps. It is well known that 
 Jaborandi causes profuse perspira- 
 tion, ending in a very dry skin. I 
 regard it merely as an organ remedy 
 of the sweat glands, affecting also 
 the parotid and the pancreas. I 
 have known it long, but do not know 
 it well.
 
 io8 Change of 
 
 Climacteric Insanity. 
 
 For a number of years I have 
 had an odd case or two of insanity 
 under my professional care, gene- 
 rally only one or at most two at a 
 time. Some of these have been 
 cases of climacteric insanity, or that 
 which occurs at the change of life. 
 I cured a case of senile insanity 
 and one of insanity in a young lady 
 a good many years ago, and these 
 were subsequently published in the 
 British Journal of Homoeopathy, and 
 are epitomised in my Fifty Reasons 
 for being a Homceopath. The cure I 
 now propose to relate is of a some- 
 what different order, and clearly 
 closely allied to the menstrual func- 
 tion at its close, and not merely a 
 cephalic menstruation, so to speak.
 
 Life in Women. 109 
 
 That is to say, any young woman 
 may become insane if the men- 
 strual flux hang about in the head 
 in lieu of taking its proper course, 
 and here, as soon as proper men- 
 struation sets in, the quasi-insanity 
 is gone. Puerperal mania is analo- 
 gous to this, the patient returning 
 to complete sanity when the mind- 
 storm is over. Sometimes I have 
 thought there is just a dash of 
 the genuine article hidden in be- 
 hind. 
 
 Now what is true genuine in- 
 sanity ? 
 
 Genuine Insanity : its True 
 
 Nature. 
 
 What is it ? I have come to the 
 conclusion, from a good many ob- 
 servations and therapeutic trialsf
 
 1 1 o Change of 
 
 that Genuine Insanity is Cancer of 
 the Mind. By cancer of the mind 
 I mean simply that if the ailing fix 
 itself upon, say, the breast, we have 
 simply cancer of the breast, whereas 
 if it fix upon the mind-organ, we 
 have what we commonly call in- 
 sanity ; this I only name paren- 
 thetically, and reserve its elabora- 
 tion for a future occasion, — to dwell 
 upon the fascinating subject now 
 and here would lead me too far 
 away from my present task, which 
 deals with the ailments of the 
 climaxis. 
 
 Of course I do not mean that any 
 case of insanity is from the can- 
 cerous diathesis, for here I name 
 climacteric insanity, and an insane 
 state may arise from many causes ; 
 what I do mean is that many of the
 
 Life in Women. 1 1 1 
 
 acutely and chronically insane, that 
 ordinary remedies fail to touch, are, 
 in their mind-organs cancerously 
 affected, — this form of insanity is, in 
 fact, a cancerosis, or carcinosis. 
 
 Now let me return to my case of 
 Climacteric Insanity, which, by the 
 way, is not a cancerosis. 
 
 Miss X., thirty-seven years of 
 age, came under my observation 
 on September 10, 1891; father died 
 at seventy-six ; mother and most of 
 her brothers and sisters living. She 
 has had no period since last May, 
 and for six and a half years only 
 here and there a menstruation, not 
 much more than a show ; numerous 
 strumous scars under right side of 
 jaw. Spleen very large. Had 
 diphtheria in Rome in 1883. Much 
 hypogastric hyperesthesia. Rigid
 
 1 1 2 Change of 
 
 ovary terribly sensitive, the lightest 
 touch in the region causes her 
 seemingly intense pain. Vaginal 
 irritation maddening. She twitches 
 and jumps. Severe frontal head- 
 ache all her life. Used to have 
 leucorrhcea, for which she had many 
 vaginal injections. Three times 
 vaccinated. Has had the Weir- 
 Mitchell treatment. Has had en- 
 largement of the glands, mumps, 
 varicella, morbilli, pertussis, shingles 
 of right side of trunk. Mentally 
 she is held to be insane by her 
 belongings, wherefore she has been 
 in " Homes," and goes about in 
 charge of a paid "friend." She 
 flushes in conversation, talks inces- 
 santly about the evil conduct of — 
 others ! — and her own lot. With 
 her, self begins, self continues,
 
 Life in Women. 1 1 3 
 
 and self remains the one absorbing- 
 subject from sunrise to sunset. 
 She had first Urticaria as a 
 spleen medicine, and then Viscum 
 album 1 as an ovary medicine. 
 
 October 1st. — A period has come 
 on ! 
 
 R Kali brom. 3. 
 
 October 21st. — Much better. 
 They (i.e., her friends and relations) 
 are bad, it is true, but not altogether 
 devoid of regard for HERSELF. 
 
 November 3rd. — l\ Bursa pas- 
 tor is 6. 
 
 November 26th. — Her nose has 
 bled four times. 
 R Rep. 
 
 December 3rd. — Great vaginal 
 
 irritation and whites. 
 
 R Viscum alb. i>, and then followed 
 Ignatia 1 and Puis. I. 
 
 II
 
 i 14 Change of 
 
 January 4th, 1892. — Saw patient 
 with a good period, but her hypo- 
 gastric hyperesthesia was very dis- 
 tressing : everything that touched 
 the hypogastric region, or even the 
 apprehension that something might 
 touch it, would send patient off into 
 twitches. She was also very ex- 
 cited, and her attendant was almost 
 driven beside herself, hence l\ 
 Lyssin. 50, twelve globules over a 
 fortnight. The improvement therein 
 was very great ; she became much 
 less excited, and the hyperesthesia 
 greatly diminished. Followed here 
 a course of Fraxinus Amei'icanus 
 Q, to bring down the uterine 
 enlargement. 
 
 March 1st. — Has been wonder- 
 fully better, but has had no period 
 for seven weeks. Mindful of the
 
 Life in Women. 115 
 
 submaxillary strumous scars, I 
 ordered Bacilli 11. CC, and then 
 Bursa pasioris 0, which was 
 followed by a period and further 
 general improvement. 
 
 After that Fraxinns American us 
 6 was again given for the heaviness 
 of the uterus, which remedy earned 
 the sufferer's repeated praises. 
 
 By the middle of 1892 patient 
 began to go about with almost any 
 lady of her own choice, and w T ent 
 then into society a little, and by the 
 end of the year, the remedies 
 already named being given as called 
 for by their respective indications, 
 and, in addition, the sexual excite- 
 ment was well met by Salix nigra 
 6, prepared, I believe, from the 
 aments, and given in ten-drop 
 doses. The Salix was given on
 
 i 1 6 Change of 
 
 several occasions, and mostly with 
 benefit. Lyssin. cures the same 
 symptom, but more in the nerve 
 sphere, whereas Salix seems to me 
 to act on the womb itself more. 
 
 April iith, 1893. — Still under 
 Salix nigra 6, and has had several 
 periods. She is now quite sane, 
 and no longer considers her rela- 
 tions so sinful, and at this period 
 she began to go back in her own 
 case historically, and made it clear 
 to my mind that though she was 
 now having here and there a 
 period, the same was not " like it 
 used to be. for formerly when I 
 was as well as any lady could wish 
 to be, and the joy of my darling 
 father who was so good to me, my 
 period was quite different and was 
 preceded by whites, and the periods I
 
 L ife in Women. 1 1 7 
 
 get now have no whites with them, 
 and they don't do me any good." 
 Thinking of the suppression of 
 leucorrhcea by vaginal injections, 
 and of her three vaccinations, I 
 ordered Mai. C. on May 16th. 
 
 June 29th. — Just had a period 
 preceded by ivhites, and mentally she 
 is nearly normal. She goes about 
 by herself when she thinks she 
 will, but generally has now a lady 
 companion like any other well-to- 
 do lone lady. No further period 
 occurred, and it became manifest 
 that she had really changed for 
 good and all. Here a new order 
 of things came to the fore ; the 
 patient had changed and became 
 mentally normal (from the treat- 
 ment I believe), but flushes began 
 to worry, and the month was here
 
 1 1 8 Change of 
 
 divided into two parts : during one 
 part she was depressed in a wonder- 
 ful degree, and during the other 
 she became sexually excited, and it 
 took me over a vear to «"et the 
 mastery over these, for which the 
 remedies were Salix nigra 0, and 
 Bacill. 30, and this last seemed to 
 finish the cure completely. During 
 the years 1S94-5-6 patient ran up 
 to town to see me once in a way 
 for some of the symptoms that re- 
 curred, and I see from my notes 
 that Fraxinus Americanus 0. Sa/ix 
 nigra 6, Sepia 30, Sabina $0, and 
 Lyssin. 30 were the remedies used. 
 The long intervals between the 
 prescriptions led me to infer that 
 each one duly did its work. Patient 
 continues quite well to date, and 
 when I saw her a few months aofo
 
 Life in Women. 119 
 
 she looked in splendid health, and 
 was then off on her own initiative 
 on a tour round the world. " I 
 have never seen the world, but now 
 I am so well I want to do so, and 
 so I am off; I have no one to 
 please but myself." Here came a 
 merry laugh, and "Good-bye, doctor, 
 I am very grateful to you, but I 
 shall come and see you again some 
 day." 
 
 So we see that homoeopathy 
 patiently applied can minister to a 
 mind diseased, only there is no 
 specific for an abstraction bearing 
 a name as if it were a tangible 
 entity that had got into a wrong 
 place, and needed only to be seized 
 by "a cure" and ousted from its 
 place. Strictly speaking we cannot
 
 i 20 Change of 
 
 cure diseases at all. We can, 
 however, cure people whose states 
 and conditions bear man - mven 
 
 o 
 
 names, such as insanity, hyper- 
 esthesia, a cold, rheumatism, or 
 what not. It lies in the nature of 
 things that we should think and 
 talk of diseases as entities, and just 
 as every baby gets a name, so does 
 every disease. 
 
 The foregoing case I call " Cli- 
 macteric Insanity," but other no- 
 sologists might prefer another 
 name. 
 
 But, doctor, you use such a lot of 
 remedies ; who is to know now how 
 to cure "Climacteric Insanity?" 
 Quite so. I once played a game of 
 chess all night, and I really could 
 not say which move won the game, 
 or which portion of the night's
 
 Life in Women. 121 
 
 work caused the fever that set in 
 next day. 
 
 " That's a long ladder you 
 have got there, Carter." 
 
 " Yes, sir, it is ; but you see 
 your house is so high ! " 
 
 Severe Neuralgia Cured by 
 Glinicum 1000. 
 
 A married lady, mother of five 
 children, verging on fifty years 
 of age, and just changing, came to 
 me on May 7, 1891, for severe 
 neuralgia of the left side of face, 
 running from left ear to the left 
 angle of mouth, where it remains, 
 preventing her often from opening 
 her mouth. It first came in 1886, 
 when she was in North Devon, and 
 has plagued her ever since. " No- 
 thing does it any good." Of course
 
 i 2 2 Change of 
 
 not ! Has not neuralgia been 
 declared incurable by Regular 
 Medicine ? Then how dare any 
 self-respecting physician presume 
 to even try to cure it ? 
 
 There were two distinct rows of 
 froth lengthwise along the tongue, 
 which was white and thickly 
 coated ; distressing flatulence and 
 acidity no end. The pain is said 
 to be worst in the evening- and 
 when tired ; it comes on gradually 
 and disappears gradually, but it has 
 two very characteristic symptoms, 
 viz., it is worse at the seaside and 
 rouses her from her sleep. Nat-nun 
 muriaticum 6 and 30 cleaned her 
 tongue, and caused greeny-browny 
 diarrhoea. Passing wind eased the 
 pain. But after this the neuralgia 
 was worse than ever.
 
 Life in Women. 1 23 
 
 June 9th. — " The pain is awful, it 
 roused me twelve or fourteen times 
 last night, and I have fearful 
 acidity." 
 
 R Glinicum 1000, in infrequent doses. 
 
 June 23rd. — Almost well ; sleeps 
 quite well and undisturbedly. 
 
 R Rep. 
 
 July 28th. — Neuralgia gone, but 
 her digestion is not quite happy. 
 Has been four times vaccinated. 
 
 R Thuja 50. 
 
 I believe there has been no return 
 of neuralgia, which I conclude from 
 the fact that patient, who lives quite 
 near me, has not been to me since, 
 which I think she certainly would 
 have done had it returned.
 
 i 24 Change of 
 
 Note on Glinicum. 
 
 Glinicum is none other than 
 Medorrhinum ; then why multiply 
 names ? Only because I obtained 
 the matrix of this myself from a 
 typical case, and macerated it my- 
 self in spirit of wine, and so I know 
 what it is and how prepared, and 
 any one else can do the same 
 at anytime and anywhere in the 
 whole wide world. Furthermore, 
 we can use the name Glinicum 
 just as we use Met. alb., Verb. sap. 
 
 In simple georgic and bucolic 
 times our weeds no doubt amply 
 suffice for our ailings ; but in these 
 polyandrous days, when late mar- 
 riages are the rule, and gonococcic 
 Muxes are all over the place, we 
 must needs go to the source of
 
 Life in Women. 125 
 
 the disease for its remedy —for ubi 
 morbus, ibi remedinm is a blessed 
 fact. Chinchona does not stow in 
 cold wet places, that's where we 
 find the willow. 
 
 1^ T indications for Glinicum are: 
 roused in the small hours of the 
 morning by the pain, acidity, coated 
 tongue, filthy taste and breath, un- 
 cleanably dirty tongue, weakness, 
 palor, chilliness, worse from cold 
 wet ; and moreover Glin. is largely 
 a left-sided remedy. Glin. wipes 
 out half the cases of sciatica that 
 pass my way. What a record ! 
 
 Case of Neuralgia in a Lady 
 Eighty-six years of age, Cured 
 by Bacillinum CC. and rooo. 
 
 Although this case has no riufht 
 to be here, I add it next to the
 
 126 Change of 
 
 Glinicum case to show that I do 
 not regard Glin. as a specific for 
 neuralgia. Every case of disease 
 needs its own remedy, though like 
 cases call for like remedies, so that 
 we may nevertheless really claim to 
 have generic specifics, if I may use 
 this odd term. 
 
 In May 1 89 1 , I received the 
 following letter : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, — At the instance of 
 
 my friend Mr L. of , and with 
 
 the approval of my regular attendant 
 
 Mr , I write in the hope that you 
 
 may possibly be able to give relief 
 to my suffering during many months 
 past, from neuralgia in the left side 
 of my face, etc." 
 
 " I am a widow in my eighty- 
 sixth year, etc." 
 
 Here the neuralgia did not rouse
 
 Life in Women. i 27 
 
 her in the small hours of the 
 morning, but was almost always 
 bad at bedtime. This excludes 
 Glinicum. 
 
 Neuralgia worse from eating, 
 talking, and laughing. Patient 
 had been twice married, and was 
 a widow for the second time, and 
 in her eighty-sixth year, and could 
 yet laugh ! Decidedly a case worth 
 curing ! 
 
 I did not see the lady, and her 
 regular medical attendant gave me 
 no information (not he), though he 
 magnanimously alluded to the un- 
 clean thing; but patient's father died 
 (at eighty-two) of asthma, and her 
 mother (at forty-two) of pulmonary 
 phthisis, and the aggravation was 
 in the evening, so I ordered Bacill. 
 CC, three doses in a fortnight.
 
 128 Change of 
 
 June 4th. — On the whole I think 
 I have had fewer paroxysms of pain 
 about bedtime. 
 
 ft Rep. 
 
 July 7th. — Nearly well. 
 E Bacill. 1000. 
 
 Cured. 
 
 Fagged Womb. 
 
 Near the change of life we 
 occasionally come across what I 
 would call a fagged state of the 
 uterus ; the organ is weary - 
 fagged. 
 
 Such cases are apt to be com- 
 plicated with disease, but I will 
 shortly narrate a case in which 
 there was no disease — merely fag. 
 
 Mrs P., zex. forty-six, came to
 
 Life in Women. 129 
 
 me on March 28th, 1893. Here are 
 the notes : " Fag, suffering ; wants 
 to lie clown ; has done a good deal ; 
 husband vigorous ; married late ; 
 has three children ; period regular ; 
 backache ; womb is thick but high 
 up, no disease." 
 
 R Be I lis per. t), §j. S. — Ten drops in 
 water night and morning. 
 
 June 8th. — " Has done me a 
 world of good." 
 R Rep. 
 
 August. — Quite well. 
 
 This morning (July nth, 1897) 
 
 I received a letter from a colleague 
 
 in America, asking me what my 
 
 indications are for the use of Bellis 
 
 per. 
 
 Dear Colleague, — Bellis per. is
 
 i 30 Change of 
 
 our common daisy ; it acts very- 
 much like Arnica, even to the 
 contingent production of erysip- 
 elas ; it causes pain in the spleen, 
 and generally symptoms of coryza, 
 and of feeling very tired, person (the 
 writer) wanting to lie down ; it acts 
 on exudates, swellings, and stasis, 
 and hence in a fagged womb its 
 action is very satisfactory ; indeed, 
 in the discomforts of pregnancy 
 and of varicose veins patients are 
 commonly loud in its praise. In 
 the giddinesses of elderly people 
 (cerebral stasis) it acts well and 
 does permanent good ; likewise, and 
 particularly in fag from masturba- 
 tion, in old workmen, labourers, 
 and the overworked and fagged, it 
 is a princely remedy. In the head- 
 sufferings of elderly working gar-
 
 Life in Women. 1 31 
 
 deners its action is very pretty. 
 Its action in the ill-effects from 
 taking cold drinks when one is hot 
 is now well known. It is a grand 
 friend to commercial travellers, 
 and in railway spine of moderate 
 severity it has not any equal so 
 far as my knowledge reaches. I 
 think stasis lies at the bottom of 
 all these ailin^s. — Yours, etc. 
 
 P.S.- — AVhen given at night, 
 Bellis is very apt to cause the 
 patient to wake up very early in 
 the morning, hence I order it by 
 preference to be taken not too late 
 in the day. I have often cured with 
 it the symptom " wakes up too early 
 in the morning and cannot get off 
 again," and here the higher dilu- 
 tions act much more decidedlv
 
 132 Change of 
 
 and lastingly as a rule and without 
 any side-effects, for here the action 
 is purely homoeopathic and not 
 simply deobstruent. 
 
 Case of Arthritic Pains. 
 
 A married lady, aged fifty-four, 
 mother of two children, came to 
 consult me on May 24th, 1894, for 
 arthritic pains in the left hip and 
 outside of left thigh, and in left 
 knee, coming on since the change of 
 life. The condition had so persisted 
 that her case had come to be re- 
 garded as not likely to be cured 
 at all. Patient was very chilly, 
 wherefore I began with Urtica 
 urens 0, which did not do very 
 much good. 
 
 June 28th. — The pains are no
 
 Life in Women. 133 
 
 better, they are terrible in the 
 warmth of the bed. 
 
 R Luet. CC. 
 
 August 14th. — There is very 
 great improvement. 
 
 & Rep. 
 
 September 20th. — The ameliora- 
 tion is maintained ; her nights are 
 no longer so terrible ; indeed, " Oh, 
 how nice it is to be able to lie in 
 bed at night without beino- wakened 
 with pain." 
 
 R Rep. 
 
 November 22nd. — "You have 
 done wonders." 
 
 R Rep. 
 
 At the beginning of 1895 
 patient's husband informed me that 
 the cure was perfect, and long after-
 
 1 54 Change of 
 
 wards I heard from him that she 
 continued quite well, and could and 
 did walk miles, and her sleep and 
 rest at night quite normal. Whether 
 the case was really of an arthritic 
 nature may, perhaps, be doubted. 
 Here we have a proof for the ten 
 thousandth time that high dilutions 
 do act curatively. and that a well- 
 defined characteristic symptom or 
 keynote can lead to most brilliant 
 cures, and the best of such keynotes 
 is that one can remember them and 
 so save time. The time spent with 
 one's nose in a repertory ought to be 
 saved, if possible. Said a well- 
 known gentleman on entering my 
 consulting-room one day : "I say, 
 what a lot of repertories you have ; 
 I am astonished : I have always 
 understood that you never used
 
 Life in Women. 135 
 
 repertories, and go in mostly for 
 what you call organ-remedies." Ah, 
 said I, the repertory is my haven 
 of refuge to which I fly in case ot 
 need ; the more I know of the 
 diseases themselves the less I need 
 repertories ; I live and move and 
 have my medical being in behind 
 the symptoms, where lies the future 
 of Higher Homoeopathy ; organ- 
 remedies are only the bottom rung 
 of the ladder. 
 
 Rheumatoid Arthritis after 
 Climaxis. 
 
 A maiden lady, forty-nine years 
 old, was conducted to me by an old 
 patient on July 23rd, 1893, when she 
 told me she had been suffering for 
 the past three years from rheu- 
 matic gout, crops of red lumps,
 
 o 
 
 6 Change of 
 
 with stiffness of legs and arms at 
 the joints, accompanied by much 
 pain, worse by day on moving, and 
 in warm weather. The joints are 
 swelled, and crack and grate. Used 
 to have whites, and had influenza 
 seven years ago. 
 R Med. iooo. 
 
 August 23rd. — Much better. 
 Knees much less painful ; they 
 grate less on movement, and the 
 lumps are gone. 
 
 Xo medicine. 
 
 September 20th. — Well. 
 
 No medicine. 
 
 October 1 8th. — Well; discharged. 
 
 Sycosis at the Change of Life. 
 Mrs X., forty-six years of age, 
 childless, came under my observa- 
 tion on May 3rd, 1897. She was
 
 Life in Women. 137 
 
 vaccinated at eighteen, and from 
 that time on to this present time 
 she has been subject to " no end of 
 shows," i.e., here and there tiny 
 bleedings from the parts. She is 
 very passive, mentally inert ; 
 uterus enlarged. 
 
 H Tc. Aur. mur. 3', 7;iv. Five drops in 
 water night and morning. 
 
 May 24th. — She now consents to 
 have her long - worn pessary re- 
 moved. 
 
 R Thuja 30. 
 
 June 2nd. — Her pessary having 
 been removed causes her no incon- 
 venience, and there has been no 
 s/wzu. She is stronger ; is worse in 
 the summer than in the winter ; she 
 is unable to lie on her left side. 
 
 II Tub. test. C.
 
 i 38 Change of 
 
 July 20th. — Complains of muddle- 
 headedness. 
 
 Vy Spirit, gland, quercjis 0. Ten drops 
 in water night and morning. 
 
 August 27th.- — -The pain in her 
 left side rouses her from sleep at 
 night, enabling the wind to pass, 
 and then relieving said pain. 
 
 R Fraxtnus Am. 6. 
 
 October 21st. 1898. — Has done 
 her much good ; she has had one 
 proper period, but no "show." 
 
 Ii Thuja 30. 
 
 November 15th. — The flatulence 
 wakes her up, and her breath is 
 very foul. Med. 1000. After 
 which she was very much better, 
 and no longer roused by flatus. 
 
 P.S. — Roused from sleep is a
 
 Life in Women. 139 
 
 thoroughly reliable keynote for 
 Med. I observed it pathogeneti- 
 cally on myself first, and have 
 verified it clinically many times. 
 
 Some Phthisic Manifestations at 
 the Change of Life. 
 
 There are many cases that baffle 
 the best unless serologically regarded. 
 Thus, three weeks ago, a lady who 
 had formerly been cured by Bacillin. 
 of pulmonary haemorrhage and loss 
 of flesh, sent me an urgent request to 
 cure her incoercible vomiting, say- 
 ing: — "I have been so well, and am 
 expecting to be confined in about 
 a month, but latterly I have been 
 constantly vomiting, until I am 
 now losing flesh, getting so thin, 
 and can keep nothing but a little 
 brandy on my stomach ; please send
 
 140 Change of 
 
 me something to stop my vomiting, 
 for nurse says the baby will be dead 
 if this goes on much longer." The 
 vomiting was worse in the after- 
 noon, and there was some fever and 
 hectic Hush. 
 
 It seemed to me probable that the 
 intrapelvic congestion had a dash of 
 the consumptive quality about it, 
 and so I dissolved ten globules 
 of Bacill. C. in four drachms of 
 spirit of wine, and directed her to 
 take five drops in water every four 
 hours. 
 
 A fortnight later she wrote me — 
 " Oh, that marvellous medicine, I 
 only vomited once after the first 
 dose." 
 
 The same idea often helps me 
 in climacteric troubles ; thus, Mrs 
 X., forty-seven years of age, came
 
 Life in Women. 141 
 
 under my care on July 24th, 1896, 
 telling me — no, that was not the way 
 it came about, for previous to that 
 her husband had visited me, telling 
 me his wife's life was despaired of 
 on account of such severe anaemia, 
 due to severe flooding^ coming" on 
 at regular intervals like a period, 
 and lasting from six to seven days. 
 " My wife is drained to death by it, 
 and our family doctor gives very 
 little hope of her ; she is now almost 
 always confined to her bed, and iron 
 tonics no longer do her any good." 
 "Yes, we have had several other 
 medical gentlemen to consult with 
 Dr C, but they give me but very 
 little hope, and I don't think there 
 is anything more that can be done, 
 she is so short of breath that she 
 cannot even stand."
 
 142 Change of 
 
 After a few months' treatment this 
 lady came to London for some social 
 functions, and after a further year's 
 treatment she was practically well, 
 and away in the Welsh hills with her 
 husband on a holiday. About two- 
 thirds of this period she was on 
 Baccill. or Tub. test. 30, C, and 
 also had Med. C, Thuja 30, Sab in a 
 30, and each a month of Urtica 
 urens 0, Prunus Virginiana 0, and 
 Salix nigj-a (ten drops of either 
 two or three times a day, for their 
 organopathic effects). Consump- 
 tively disposed ladies are very apt 
 to have floodings at any of their 
 congestive functions, and they fre- 
 quently increase in severity as the 
 time of the chanoe comes on. 
 Thus, this lady was in the habit of 
 menstruating very freely, but after
 
 Life in 1 Tonic u. 143 
 
 forty years of age it slowly became 
 worse and worse, till the thing could 
 only be termed periodical Hoodings, 
 resulting in alarming anaemia. The 
 florid, freely menstruating lady of 
 thirty is very apt to be drained 
 almost to death by forty or so, un- 
 less the blood-taint be wiped out 
 before, by, say Bacill. or other such 
 remedies. Let me further illus- 
 trate 
 
 The Pessary Craze. 
 
 A lady, just over forty years of 
 age, came under my observation in 
 November 1 896 for enlarged womb, 
 excessive periods, and foul, putrid 
 leucorrhcca. " I am in an awful 
 state, I'm going rotten, I am sure 
 I am ! " 
 
 Here we have an example of a
 
 144 Change of 
 
 very fine, rosy person, exceedingly 
 good-looking (by the way a kind of 
 o-ood-lookinorness which I have come 
 to regard as almost pathognomonic 
 of consumptiveness), who has had 
 very free periods from a sappy 
 state of the uterus ; and now that 
 the change is looming, her troubles 
 are all accentuated ; and as her very 
 religious husband has for years 
 been doing what Onau did, the 
 womb has become so heavy that 
 most of the leading homoeopathic 
 physicians and gynaecological sur- 
 geons have been ordering injections, 
 douches, ..." Dr X. ordered me 
 very hot water injections for the 
 whites, and he also put in a pessary, 
 but could not get one to fit com- 
 fortably then. I have had six or 
 seven, and this one hurts terribly."
 
 Life in Women. 145 
 
 Now this lady was of the thriving 
 consumptive build (tall and large, 
 lax, rosy, full-bodied, soft-mannered, 
 good-looking, languid, often tired), 
 readily parting with blood, and 
 come now to the threshold of the 
 climaxis, her accumulated troubles 
 were threatening to wreck her 
 altogether. She sought the help 
 of homoeopaths, who did not reckon 
 with her constitution, who moreover 
 regarded her "three times vaccin- 
 ated " as an additional proof of her 
 good health, and who commended 
 the Onan-like withdrawals (what 
 Onan did, not Onanism so-called), 
 as "so prudent and considerate, 
 you know." My own diagnosis in 
 this case was — 1. Hereditarily Con- 
 sumptive ; 2. \ accinosis ; 3. Thick- 
 ening and enlargement of the womb
 
 146 Change of 
 
 from genesiac fraud. This poor 
 lady formerly had piles, for which 
 she sought the advice of a pro- 
 minent follower of Hahnemann, who 
 . . . oh yes ! he did, cut them off! 
 
 Was your operation for piles 
 successful ? 
 
 Yes, very. 
 
 But I thought you said that you 
 have now bad bleeding piles ? 
 
 Yes, so I have ; they came again 
 two or three years after they were 
 operated on. 
 
 And you are constipated, are you 
 not? 
 
 Yes, but my doctor has ordered 
 remedies for that. 
 
 So here we have in a middle- 
 aged lady, still well-nourished and 
 fresh-looking — 
 
 a. Operation for piles.
 
 Life in II 'onicn. 147 
 
 ,#. Enemata for constipation. 
 
 y. Hot water and medicated 
 vaginal injections for the whites. 
 
 S. A fine choice of pessaries to 
 prop up an enlarged womb, and 
 the result ? In the patient's words : 
 " I am going rotten." A little 
 further on such idiotic lines of 
 treatment, and then the diagnosis of 
 cancer of the womb would have to 
 be made, and then an . operation 
 would be performed, and then the 
 whole crowned by a widower's 
 tears and the regrets of her 
 motherless children. 
 
 But was there any alternative ? 
 
 Yes, that lady is now cured by 
 common-sense homoeopathic treat- 
 ment. The Tuberculin (30, C, CC.) 
 cured the comsumptiveness ; the 
 antisycotics Thuja 30, Sabina 30,
 
 148 Change of 
 
 Cupi'ess. Laic. 30, Med. 1000, cured 
 the whites, and organ - remedies 
 brought down the uterus to its pre- 
 sent moderate size and bulk ; and 
 Mrs X. is at this moment spinning 
 about on her bike a free and happy 
 woman. 
 
 It was Fraxinus Am. 6, ten 
 drops in water night and morning, 
 that reduced the womb in size the 
 most promptly. (See my Organ 
 Diseases of Women.) Everything 
 is relative and comparative : given 
 an enlarged uterus, it is better to 
 prop it up with a comfortable 
 pessary than to let it flop down on 
 the floor of the pelvis and protrude ; 
 but inasmuch as the too heavy 
 oreran sfoes down bv reason of its 
 bulk and weight, it must follow that 
 if this bulk and weight be sum-
 
 Life in Women. 149 
 
 ciently reduced the organ will re- 
 bound to its old place, and need no 
 pessary to prop it up. In addition 
 to this, we have to bear well in 
 mind that the pessary as a foreign 
 body is, as such, highly objection- 
 able in the parts, and is in fact 
 filth-producing, making the poor 
 sufferer shrink from her very self 
 by rendering what should be sacro- 
 sanct a veritable cloaca. Inter- 
 faces et urinas nascimur is right 
 enough, because natural, but we 
 may fairly stop at that. 
 
 Post-Climacteric Dyspepsia. 
 
 Mrs N., fifty-two years of age, 
 mother of four children, and having 
 had two miscarriages, came under 
 my observation in June 1897. ^ ne 
 has been twice vaccinated, the last
 
 i 50 Change of 
 
 time at twenty-one unsuccessfully. 
 Has had dyspepsia for many years, 
 much more severely since she 
 changed. The bowels are very 
 tender to the touch ; the urine ill- 
 smelling (" fishy "). Her flushings 
 are distressing and like waves of 
 heat. She is now very thin, but 
 used to weio-h 1 1 st. Suffers much 
 from " yellows " {i.e., yellow 
 leucorrhcea), and has twice had 
 polypoid growths taken from 
 womb. 
 
 R Thuja 30. 
 
 July 9th. — The right side of 
 tongue is much thicker than the 
 left. Sinking, empty feeling. 
 
 R Scirrh. C. 
 
 August 10th. — Pretty bad flushes.
 
 Life in Women. 151 
 
 H Trit. y, Ovary Extract, gr.vj. One 
 powder at bedtime, which very greatly 
 relieved the flushes. 
 
 The influence of the Thuja 30 on 
 the dyspepsia, and that of the 
 Ovary Extract on the flushes, was 
 marked and incontestable. 
 
 Patient remains under treatment. 
 
 Eczema and Warts. 
 
 A lady of hfty-four years of age 
 consulted me on August 24th, 1896, 
 telling me she was suffering 
 from a nasty eruption on the scalp, 
 with great loss of hair, and quite a 
 number of raised warts on her 
 hands, four of which warts were 
 large ones, and these had been 
 there for three years. She changed 
 two years ago. 
 
 R Thuja 30.
 
 i 5 2 Change of 
 
 October 2nd. — The warts have 
 quite disappeared ; her scalp is a 
 mass of scales, and " all the hair is 
 going." 
 
 \\ Bacill. C. 
 
 November 20th. — No warts ; 
 scalp is improving ; flatus bad. 
 Rep. 
 
 February 1st, 1897. — Much better 
 of scalp ; no return of warts. 
 R Rep. 
 
 May 10th. — Rep. 
 
 July 2nd. — Pains in the joints of 
 fingers. 
 
 R Thuja 30. 
 
 August 6th. — Head better ; 
 fingers painful. 
 
 R Psor. CC, which finished the cure. 
 
 The remarkable cure of the 
 old-standing warts struck me very
 
 Life in Women. 153 
 
 forcibly ; not that curing warts by 
 Thuja is at all new or unusual, but 
 to cause any growth of any kind 
 soever to disappear right away 
 under the influence of any drug- 
 whatever in the thirtieth-centesimal 
 dilution is a marvellous thing to 
 me, and not the less marvellous be- 
 cause it has been done so often by 
 so many for the past two or three 
 generations. 
 
 Why did I give Thuja ? Tradi- 
 tion, and also because the lady in 
 question had been in her day three 
 times vaccinated, the last twice un- 
 successfully. And an unsuccessful 
 vaccination means, to me, that the 
 virus has been taken up by the 
 organism and there lies latent for 
 future ill — the organism having 
 failed to react.
 
 1 54 Change of 
 
 Diagnosis and Prognosis. 
 
 The fundamental idea underlying 
 this little work is that an absolutely 
 healthy woman changes without 
 any ills or ailinsfs whatever, and 
 therefore a normal woman, married 
 or maiden, who has no disease or 
 disease taint, has nothing to fear 
 from the change of life. The 
 period will cease as it began, almost 
 imperceptibly : it just leaves off. 
 and there is an end of it. 
 
 But unfortunately very few 
 women are truly free from disease 
 and taintless ; no doubt there are 
 such, but these do not throng our 
 consulting-rooms. A medical man 
 is hardly a fair judge of the number 
 of really normal persons, for the very 
 sufficient reason that such individuals
 
 Life in J I omen. 1 55 
 
 need no physician, and rarely come 
 to him. There is, however, a 
 large class of people whom I would 
 designate as more than healthy, i.e., 
 whatever may be wrong with them, 
 they are loud and voluble in per- 
 sistently declaring that they are 
 always quite well and wonderfully 
 healthy, and all their ancestors from 
 Noah on have been perfectly well 
 and quite free from any disease. 
 So far as they will confess they are. 
 in regard to health, absolutely holy. 
 The wise practical physician knows 
 at once that this is all fudge, and 
 gives no credence to their state- 
 ments ; on the contrary, he at once 
 suspects that the most grave con- 
 stitutional disease lurks behind in 
 these health-holy boasters, whose 
 statements are commonly entirely
 
 156 Change of 
 
 mendacious. A gentleman once 
 brought his little daughter to me 
 suffering from scrofulous ophthal- 
 mia, and, said he, she has had 
 it over a year, and I cannot under- 
 stand it, as we are all so healthy, 
 and my father lived to be nearly 
 ninety. Now I happened to know 
 from the old gentleman himself, 
 who was formerly my patient, 
 that though he himself did in- 
 deed live to be nearly ninety 
 years of age, still all his very 
 numerous brothers and sisters died 
 young of tuberculosis in one form 
 or another. 
 
 Bacillinum cured the scrofulous 
 ophthalmia in three months, and 
 the fond father commented on the 
 cure thus : " I knew there could 
 not be very much the matter, as we
 
 Life in II 'omen. i 57 
 
 are all so health)', and my father 
 lived to nearly ninety." 
 
 A young lady was recently 
 brought by her mother to me for 
 haemorrhage from the lungs, and 
 was thought to be doomed to die 
 of phthisis of the lungs, two physi- 
 cians of repute having given this 
 prognosis. Said I, " What sort of 
 health-histories have your people ; 
 is there any consumption in your 
 family ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! We are all wonder- 
 fully healthy ; there was never any 
 consumption in our family." 
 
 The true history being, as I 
 happened to know, this — Her own 
 mother died of cancer of the 
 bowels ; her eldest brother has 
 asthma ; her father had haemor- 
 rhage of the lungs as a young man ;
 
 158 Change of 
 
 her third brother died of rapid 
 phthisis ; her eldest sister died of 
 tuberculosis of the pelvic organs ; 
 her second sister has very severe 
 eczema and disfiguring rheumatoid 
 arthritis ; her third sister is ac- 
 tually under my treatment for 
 tumour of the breast with deeply 
 retracted nipple; while her youngest 
 brother is suffering from a huge 
 lipoma. 
 
 So much for this example of the 
 wonderfully healthy ones. 
 
 How r ever, given a really pure- 
 blooded normal woman, I contend 
 that the change of life is a purely 
 negative process in a pathological 
 sense. 
 
 Why, then, do we think and speak 
 of the change of life almost as if 
 it were of necessity a dangerous
 
 Life in Women. 1 59 
 
 mysterious period that all women 
 do and should dread ? 
 
 The reason is that most women 
 are not quite normal, and their 
 abnormalities are for the most part 
 inherent disease that may be 
 observed in them any time from 
 puberty to menopause and after- 
 wards. As before observed, the 
 cessation of the monthly purifica- 
 tion fully explains the whole series 
 of morbid phenomena. Take any 
 half-dozen cases of ill-health at the 
 change of life and you will readily 
 trace the troubles back often even 
 to the period of dentition, and 
 almost always to the commence- 
 ment of the period. I constantly 
 trace such climacteric troubles to 
 gout, rheumatism, cancer, consump- 
 tion, and venereal affections from a
 
 160 Change of 
 
 parent down through the daughter's 
 life. Thus consumptiveness will 
 show itself at puberty as painful 
 and excessive, or deficient men- 
 struation, and ending as cancer at 
 the change of life — cancer and con- 
 sumption often alternating in suc- 
 ceeding generations ; a small patch 
 of eczema at puberty not infre- 
 quently means scirrhus at the 
 menopause. As I have before 
 pointed out (Tumours of the 
 Breast), the various tumours of 
 the breast commonly have their 
 seat of origin in the womb or 
 ovaries ; and holding this view, I 
 have succeeded from time to time 
 in curing very many such tumours 
 in women at all periods of life, and 
 notably at the change of life. Thus 
 recently the Baroness X. tele-
 
 Life in Women. 161 
 
 graphed to me from the Hague 
 that her doctors there had diag- 
 nosed Interstitial Mastitis of her 
 right breast, and urged an imme- 
 diate operation. I wired back for- 
 bidding the operation, saying that 
 medicines would cure it. Her lady- 
 ship appeared in my consulting- 
 room two or three days thereafter, 
 and I found the diagnosis correct : 
 the right breast being pretty- 
 uniformly infiltrated and hard. 
 Under Scirrhinum C. the breast 
 became quite normal within two 
 months ; but it then became mani- 
 fest that the real origin of the 
 trouble still persisted, and lay in the 
 pelvic organs, and this pelvic root 
 trouble I am now treating. I can 
 afford to forgive certain insolent 
 remarks of a very prominent
 
 1 62 Change of 
 
 medical brother at the Hague : he 
 knows no better, and what he does 
 not know of interstitial mastitis is 
 not knowledge. What on earth is 
 the use of ablating a breast for a 
 swelling that has its root-life in the 
 female pelvic organs ? I cull the 
 following from the Homoeopathic 
 World of July ist, 1897. 
 
 The author is Dr John H. 
 Clarke, editor of that useful journal, 
 and to whom I offer my heartfelt 
 thanks for appreciating the work 
 of a brother homoeopath, notwith- 
 standing that he is a homoeopath. 
 For, strange to say, our British 
 homoeopaths are ever ready to 
 swallow anything and everything 
 from an allopathic source ; but sit 
 up o' nights to damn anything 
 done by a professed homoeopath.
 
 Life in Women. 163 
 
 Oh ! the misery of the vulgar 
 Brodklauberei. 
 
 The Distant Origin of Tumours 
 of the Breast. 
 
 Dr Clarke says : — " Since my last 
 article was written there has ap- 
 peared in the Medical Journal a 
 report of a paper by Dr Beatson of 
 Glasgow, read at a meeting of the 
 British Gynecological Society, with 
 a discussion thereon which deserves 
 very special attention. The best 
 report appears in the Medical Press 
 of March 24th and May 5th, and I 
 propose to make lengthy extracts. 
 The point brought out is one dealt 
 with fully by Dr Burnett in his 
 well-known work on Tumours of the 
 Breast, and as Dr Beatson's paper 
 forms such an eloquent commen-
 
 164 Change of 
 
 tary on Dr Burnett's words, I cannot 
 do better than make a quotation 
 from them here as a sort of text. 
 
 " ' To begin with,' says Dr Bur- 
 nett (p. 160), 'the tumours in the 
 female breast are very rarely prim- 
 ary to the breasts, but are most 
 commonly produced in the breasts 
 much in the same way that the 
 organ is enabled to perform its 
 natural function of suckling the 
 human offspring, i.e., the part is 
 rendered physiologically active from 
 the utero-ovarian sphere. Whether 
 this view of the origin of mammary 
 tumours has ever been promulgated 
 before I do not know, — in any case I 
 have it from my own observations 
 in practical life. Usually there is 
 some disease or irritation in the 
 lower part of the body, either arising
 
 Life in Women. 165 
 
 primarily there, or else expressed 
 there holopathically. . . . The one 
 point I here insist upon is that 
 mammary tumours do not usually 
 arise from a cause existing primarily 
 in the breasts themselves, but the 
 cause is usually in some other more 
 or less remote part of the organism, 
 most frequently in the ovaries.' 
 
 " In quoting from Mr Beatson's 
 paper it must be understood that it 
 is in the clinical observations that 
 the value of it lies, and not in the 
 method of treatment he pursues. 
 The removal of the ovaries for dis- 
 ease of the breast is in my opinion 
 quite devoid of justification, even if 
 there were no possibility of medi- 
 cinal cure. And it will be noticed 
 that it is only in cases pronounced 
 to be ■ inoperable,' so far as the
 
 1 66 Change of 
 
 breast is concerned, that the other 
 operation is advocated. It is diffi- 
 cult to see how any one who realises 
 that the origin of breast cancer is 
 often in a remote and apparently 
 undiseased organ can advocate the 
 excision of the breast as a cure ; 
 but the straits to whiclT old-school 
 pathology and treatment are driven 
 are sufficient to account for almost 
 any inconsistencies. 
 
 " Discussion on Dr Beatson's 
 Method of Treatment of 
 Inoperable Carcinoma. 
 
 " Mr Armstrong (Buxton) said 
 that he had been invited some time 
 ago to make a communication to 
 the Society on what he had seen in 
 Glasgow of Dr Beatson's method of 
 treating carcinoma, and being much
 
 Life in Women. 167 
 
 impressed with the principles in- 
 volved, he expressed his willing- 
 ness to comply, and the more so, 
 that he had been much struck by 
 the candid and scientific attitude of 
 Dr Beatson himself with reference 
 to the cases treated by this method, 
 and the deductions to be made from 
 them. Before the meeting, the 
 President and Council invited Dr 
 Beatson to come up and join in the 
 discussion ; and as thev had the 
 pleasure of Dr Beatson's presence 
 this evening, he felt sure that he 
 could not do better than to simply 
 explain to the Fellows how it was 
 that he came to be introducing the 
 discussion, and to leave in the more 
 capable hands of Dr Beatson the 
 task of explaining the principles of 
 the treatment, and the results
 
 1 68 Change of 
 
 obtained by it up to the present 
 time. 
 
 " Dr Beatson (Glasgow) said 
 that when he received from Dr 
 Armstrong the invitation of the 
 Council he at first hesitated, be- 
 cause he thought that it might seem 
 as if he had something fresh to 
 communicate ; at the same time, he 
 felt that after a paper such as he 
 had written on the subject, he 
 ought, if called upon, to appear to 
 explain his method in further de- 
 tail. In the first case to which 
 Dr Armstrong had referred, the 
 mamma, axillary glands, and part 
 of the pectoral muscle had been 
 removed and found to be cancerous ; 
 three months later the disease ao-ain 
 manifested itself, and the case was 
 considered hopeless for operation.
 
 Life in Women. 169 
 
 Thyroid was given to a physio- 
 logical extent, but in vain. The 
 tubes and ovaries were then re- 
 moved, and the Thyroid again 
 pushed. In little more than two 
 months she was much improved ; 
 in five months the maglignant tissue 
 had become yellow and fatty, and 
 in six it had gone ; now, at the 
 end of twenty-one months, the 
 tissues were sound and the woman 
 was in good health. The value of 
 the case to him was that it seemed 
 to throw some light on the nature 
 of carcinoma, and the only question 
 was as to the right interpretation 
 of the facts of the case. 
 
 '' This is the most important 
 of Dr Beatson's observations. It 
 is followed by a lengthy dis- 
 quisition on the nature of cancer,
 
 i jo Change of 
 
 into which it is not necessary to 
 
 >> 
 g°- 
 
 This excerpt gives the gist of Dr 
 Beatson's views. 
 
 The point I claim is that 
 Tumours of the Breast do not 
 commonly arise primarily from the 
 breasts, but from the utero-ovarian 
 sphere, and that therefore it is very 
 poor treatment to excise the fruit 
 while leaving the roots (in the 
 pelvic organs). Whether the ex- 
 cision of the ovaries or uterus will 
 be any good remains to be seen, 
 but I doubt it very much. How- 
 ever, we shall soon have the re- 
 cords of vast numbers of Beatson's 
 operations, so here we leave the 
 question sub jurfice. 
 
 I feel constrained to acrain thank 
 
 o 
 
 Dr Clarke, as it is very hard on a
 
 Life in Women. 171 
 
 homoeopathic worker who, fighting 
 persistently for a hearing, usually 
 gets next to none ; but wakes up 
 some fine day and finds his most 
 cherished suggestions brought for- 
 ward by our friends the enemy as 
 altogether admirable. • 
 
 Was it not thus with the treat- 
 ment of phthisis pulmonalis ? 
 American homoeopaths had been 
 treating consumptives by Tuber- 
 culin successfully for years and 
 years ; but they were laughed to 
 scorn and scoffed at as filthy per- 
 sons because of the origin of their 
 remedy ; but when Koch did the 
 same dirty thing ^successfully, he 
 was hailed with almost divine 
 honours. And even now that 
 Koch's doses have been fully 
 condemned all over the world.
 
 i 7 2 Change of 
 
 and the homoeopathic tuberculin 
 treatment has been tried and found 
 of marvellous efficacy in very many 
 parts of the world quite apart from 
 my own very numerous cures of 
 consumption by Bacillin. (Natural 
 Tuberculin), even now the claims of 
 homoeopathy are almost entirely 
 ignored, and one hears : " There is 
 no cure for consumption, is there ? 
 Koch's affair was a terrible fiasco.' 
 Explanations are for the most part 
 in vain. 
 
 Significance of the Retracted 
 Nipple. 
 
 The retraction of the nipple is 
 held to be a gravely important 
 symptom in tumours of the breast, 
 but the retracted nipple in young, 
 seemingly healthy girls and young
 
 Life in Women. 173 
 
 women is usually not regarded as 
 of any particular importance ; but 
 I have myself come to regard it as 
 indicative of, perhaps latent, womb 
 or ovarian disease ; and thus regard- 
 ing it as of pelvic origin, I have 
 ameliorated a certain number of 
 them and quite cured a few. The 
 curative process is a tedious one, 
 and takes a good deal of time, but it 
 can be done. Wherever there is a 
 retracted nipple, even in the most 
 blooming young woman, there you 
 are sure to find, very likely latent, 
 but still positive disease, that will 
 crop up in the later course of the 
 life of the individual. Just as the 
 milk rises to the breast after child- 
 birth, so do morbid activities rise 
 from the female pelvic organs at 
 the change of life, or before. The
 
 i 74 Change of 
 
 retracted nipple in young girls has, 
 I maintain, its place of origin, its 
 primary seat, in the uterus or 
 ovaries, and do we not often notice 
 that the breast that has a retracted 
 nipple is, at the beginning of 
 lactation, the seat of a mam- 
 mary abscess ? Such abscesses are 
 generally either strumous or here- 
 ditarily cancerous. I do not mean 
 actually cancer, but merely of a 
 carcinosic quality. I have often 
 heard about the time of the meno- 
 pause this remark from a lady. . . . 
 "I have a lump in my breast ; it is 
 the same breast that has the nipple 
 drawn in, and in it I had an abscess 
 when I was nursing my first baby." 
 Mammary abscesses during lacta- 
 tion should not be backed, but 
 allowed to gather, burst, and dis-
 
 Life in Women. i 75 
 
 charge, and left to go on discharg- 
 inof as longf as it will, the child 
 being kept on the sound side, the 
 gathering breast being kept in full 
 function by an exhauster till the 
 abscess has healed, when baby may 
 have both ; only the patient should 
 be kept under Bacillimi77i (high) till 
 the fever, which is of the phthisic 
 type, quite disappears, and subse- 
 quently the lady's health is better 
 than before the gestation, and it 
 becomes also subsequently manifest 
 that the abscess was a constitu- 
 tional depurative effort : hence I 
 encourage the ripening of mammary 
 abscesses and do not back them. 
 Sometimes the mammary abscess 
 is of carcinosic quality, when Scirr/t. 
 C. plays precisely the same role as 
 Bacillinum in the strumous form.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Acid, oxalic, 105. 
 
 Addison's disease from suppressed leu- 
 
 corrhcea, 28. 
 Aletris farinosa, 60. 
 Amenorrhoea, 17. 
 Armstrong, Mr, Buxton, on Dr Beatson's 
 
 treatment of carcinoma, 166. 
 Arnica, 130. 
 Arthritic pains, 132. 
 Arthritis, rheumatoid, case of Mrs X., aged 
 
 6p, 103. 
 Arthritis, rheumatoid, after climaxis, 135. 
 Arthritism, 81. 
 Aurum muriaticum, 44, 47, 58. 137. 
 
 Bacillinum, 52, zt,, 97, 105, 115, 118, 127, 
 128, 13Q. 140, 142, 143, 152, 
 172, 175. 
 
 cures neuralgia, 125. 
 
 cures scrofulous ophthalmia, 
 
 Beatson, Dr, of Glasgow, discussion on his 
 treatment of inoperable carcinoma, 
 163, 166. 
 
 M
 
 178 Index. 
 
 Bellis perennis, 42, 105, 129, 131. 
 Breast, left, tumour of, at the menopause, 
 40. 
 ,, left, swelling at, case of Mrs S., aged 
 
 43) 8 9- 
 ,, swelling ot the right, case of 
 
 Baroness X., 160. 
 ,, tumour of, in young wife, 21. 
 Burnett, Dr, work on " Tumours of the 
 
 Breast," 163. 
 Bursa pastoris, note on, 83. 
 
 n . 11 ri 3i TI 5- 
 Bryonia, 105. 
 
 Caladium seguinum, 64. 
 
 Calendula, 63. 
 
 Cancerousness at the menopause, So. 
 
 Carcinoma, inoperable, treatment of, 166. 
 
 Cataract, post-climacteric, 66. 
 
 ,, case of, much improved by Pulsa- 
 tilla, 74. 
 Change of life, fibroid tumour, haemorrhoids 
 and haemorrhage, case of, 
 33 ; unobscured by pre- 
 conceptions, 4. 
 ,, ,, in women : Its ills and 
 ailings, 1, 74. 
 Charrin, M., on chlorosis, 69. 
 Chlorosis considered as menstrual auto- 
 infection, 69. 
 Clarke, Dr John H., on tumours of the 
 breast, 162.
 
 Index. 179 
 
 Climacteric flushings successfully treated 
 
 by ovarian extract, 86. 
 Cupressus Lawsoniana, 56, 148. 
 Cypripedin, 52. 
 
 Diagnosis and prognosis, 154. 
 Dysmenorrhea, or painful menstruation, 
 
 1 5. 
 Dyspepsia, post-climacteric, 149. 
 
 Eczema and warts. 15 r. 
 
 Fer. picric, 105. 
 
 Floodings, case of Mrs X., aged 47, 140. 
 
 Flushes, 85. 
 
 Flushings, climacteric, 86, 88. 
 
 Fosbery, Dr, of Bournemouth, on climac- 
 teric flushings, 86. 
 
 Fragaria vesca, 50. 
 
 Fraxinus Americanus, 49, 50, 114, 115, 
 118, 138, 148. 
 
 Girls at early age more forward than 
 
 boys, 2. 
 Glinicum cures severe neuralgia, 121. 
 
 ,, note on, 124. 
 
 123, 126, 127. 
 Glonoin, 19. 
 Goutiness, Si. 
 
 Hahnemann ian doctrine of psora re-stated, 
 95-
 
 1 80 Index. 
 
 Haemorrhoids with haemorrhage, case of. 33. 
 Heats and flushes, 17. 
 Helonias dioica, fq, 60, 61. 
 Homoeopath, Dr Burnett's " Fifty Reasons 
 
 for being," 108. 
 Homoeopathic World, extract from, 163. 
 Hydrastis Can., 42. 
 
 Ignatia amara, 12, 113. 
 Insanity, climacteric, 108 ; case of Miss X., 
 aged 37, in. 
 
 ,, genuine, its true nature, 109. 
 Itch not curable by dynamic medication, 
 
 98. 
 
 Jaborandi, 10b ; note on, 107. 
 
 Kali brom., 1 13. 
 „ phos.. 52. 
 
 Lachesis, 6, 18, 19, 89. 
 Leucorrhoea in relation to the menopause, 
 20. 
 suppressed, Addison's disease 
 from, 28. 
 „ is it a disease. 37. 
 
 Luet., 36, 133. 
 
 Lungs, haemorrhage from the, 157. 
 Lyssinum. note on, 35. 
 ,, 1 14, 1 16, 1 iS.
 
 Index. i 8 i 
 
 Mai., 117. 
 
 Mastitis, interstitial, 161, 162. 
 
 Medorrhinum none other than glinicum, 
 
 124. 
 Med., 36, 104, 136, 138, 139, 142, i4 8 - 
 Menopause, general break up at the, 
 
 5°- 
 ,, retardation of the, 54. 
 
 Menorrhagia, 15. 
 
 Menses a means of purification for the 
 
 organism, 11. 
 
 Menstruation, physiological, 8. 
 
 Xatrum muriaticum, 122. 
 
 Nature's days of wrath and vengeance, 
 
 25. 
 Neuralgia, severe, cured by glinicum, 
 
 121. 
 
 „ in lady, 86 years old, cured by 
 
 bacillinum, 125. 
 Neurasthenia at the menopause, 48. 
 Nipple, retracted, significance of the, 
 
 172. 
 Nux, 52. 
 
 Ovarian gland prescribedTor severe climac- 
 teric flushings, 88. 
 Ovary extract, 151. 
 Ophthalmia, scrofulous, 156. 
 
 Pessary, Sir Jasper, 77.
 
 182 Index. 
 
 Pessary craze, 143. 
 
 Phthisic manifestations at the change of 
 
 life, 139. 
 Pilocarpinum muriaticum, 107. 
 Prolapsus uteri of many years' standing, 
 
 Primus virgini, 142. 
 
 Pruritus, 62. 
 
 Psora, Hahnemannian doctrine of, 95. 
 
 Psor., 152. 
 
 Pulsatilla, 52, 67, 68, 74, 83, 113. 
 
 Quassia, 52. 
 
 Rheumatoid arthritis and lumbago in lady 
 
 51 years' old, 6. 
 ,, ,, case of Mrs X., 
 
 aged 65, 103. 
 ,, ,, after climaxis, 
 
 Ringworm, Dr Burnett's doctrine of, 97. 
 
 Sabina, 56, 60, 61, 118, 142, 147. 
 Salix alb., 105. 
 
 ii ni g ra , Il5i II6 , Il8 » J 42- 
 Scirrh., 150, 161, 175. 
 Scutellarin, 53. 
 Semaine Medicale, la, 69. 
 Sepia, 64, 118. 
 Spirit, gland, quercus, 138.
 
 Index. 183 
 
 Sulphur, 58, 96, 97, 102. 
 
 Sycosis at the change of life, 136. 
 
 Thuja, 56, 59, 97, 123, 137, 142, 147, 150, 
 
 *Sh 152, 153. 
 Trifol., 58. 
 
 Tuh. test., 58, 137, 142. 
 Tuberculin, 147, 171. 
 
 Tumour, fibroid, of the uterus, case of, 33. 
 ,, of left breast at the menopause, 
 
 40. 
 ., abdominal, after the menopause, 
 
 Urine, incontinence of, at the menopause, 
 
 106. 
 Urtica urens, 6, 19, 49, 58, 132, 142. 
 Urticaria, 113. 
 
 Uterus, precancerous, and abdominal 
 tumour after the menopause, 57. 
 ,, fibroid tumour of the, case of, %2>- 
 
 Yaccinosis cured by thuja, 97. 
 
 Vaginal injections for leucorrhcea utterly 
 
 bad, 20. 
 Viburnum, 42. 
 Viscum album, 1 13. 
 
 Vomiting, case of lady, cured by bacillinum, 
 139- 
 
 Warts and eczema, \'\.
 
 1 84 Index. 
 
 Womb, fagged, 128. 
 
 ,, precancerous bleeding of, at the 
 
 menopause, 43. 
 ,, precancerous bleeding from, in 
 
 Mrs E., 60 years of age, 45. 
 ,, ulcerated, 51. 
 Women, resignation of, to suffering, 4. 
 ,, change of life in, unobscured by 
 preconceptions, 4. 
 change of life in : Its ills and 
 ailings, 1, 74, 80. 
 
 OLIVER AMI BOYD, l'KIKTERS, EDINBURGH.
 
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 Change of life in women 
 
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