"Influenza Remedies" that were successfully used in 1918?

Part 6 - Notes from a Homeopathic physician, which provide insights into the symptoms experienced by patients during the 1918 pandemic, and what cured them.

In 1918 viruses, as we know them today, were not known, though you will find reference to “viruses” in the archived literature, my feeling is this mean some form of "toxin” and not a protein encapsulated entity containing genetic material. From what I can determine, in 1918 the general consensus around the world was that the diseased called “influenza” was caused by a bacteria commonly referred to as Pfeiffer’s bacillus, though even that was being debated because the gram negative bacteria could not be isolated from far too many cases of “influenza”.

The disease could not even be proven to be contagious. There were a number of studies that attempted to demonstrate transmission of a causal agent from patients with influenza-symptoms to healthy volunteers, but the volunteers failed to get sick. No one could pin point the causal agent of the initial symptoms, but death was often and consistently the result of bacterial pneumonia.

It wasn’t until 1997 that Taubenberger et al from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology published their “initial genetic characterization of the 1918 “Spanish” influenza virus” which only 7% of a fragmented genetic sequence was isolated and pieced together from a preserved lung specimen from a Fort Jackson soldier. The sequence was said to be “consistent with a novel H1N1 influenza A virus,” and thus began the narrative of the “influenza” pandemic being caused by a gene sequence consistent with an influenza virus from pigs.

It is important to note that this publication estimated 20 million people had died during the1918-1919 pandemic, today that figure has been inflated to 50 to 100 million!

Did a virus cause the excess deaths in 1918?

So was it really a pathogen that caused the excessive deaths or was it a combination of mass vaccinations (imagine the quality control of those!) coupled with mass-medication by the hit-and-miss toxic treatments administered by practitioners of “Medical Science”? Getting ill in the first place may have been due to a pathogen, war conditions such as food shortages and stress plus the introduction of a new type of electromagnetic radio frequency, but were these alone the reason for the high death numbers?

I am going to share with you some archive publications in this and some future Substacks which I feel reveal an untold side of the 1918 pandemic story. Just like in the COVID-19 pandemic where frontline doctors demonstrated early treatment interventions saved lives but was censored and ridiculed, were lives saved in the 1918 pandemic?

What treatments worked in 1918?

This following little insight is taken from volume 34 of The Homeopathic Recorder journal from the United States titled “Influenza Remedies” by Wallace McGregor M.D.

source

This is a transcript from the Philadelphia Country Homoeopathic Medical Society held on November 14, 1918, it will provide an insight into what symptoms the population experienced and what range of homeopathic remedies the homeopaths used to treat patients presenting with “influenza”.

(Any bold will be mine, formatting may be altered for ease of reading and I will add comment along the way)

In the terrible epidemic of influenza that visited us last month and is now passing over the Western States, Homoeopathy has come out with honor. Many people are alive to-day because of the curative action of homoeopathic remedies, carefully prescribed and conscientiously given.

Clearly the sickness that occurred was significant and “terrible” but it passed over an area fairly quickly and is described here as moving from the Eastern states of America likely September-October 1918 towards the Western states in November-December 1918.

Some of our physicians who have been called to attend the sick and dying in emergency cases in our hospitals have been sorely tried, yet even these have had cause to rejoice in the curative action of homoeopathic medicines.

Be aware that at this time there were homeopathic hospitals competely separate to allopathic hospitals. Through my dives into the archives I have come across many references to the challenges faced by homeopaths as they too often received patients only after other approaches had failed. So when not everyone survives under the care of a homeopath, you need to make sure you are aware of the full patient history.

The list of remedies I used is not large. Aconite, Bryonia, Eupatorium, Gelscmium, Lachesis, Nux vomica, Phosphorus, Sticta, Sulphur, and Tartar emetic covered every case.

Of all these remedies Aconite stands out pre-eminently. Every patient but one that received Aconite recovered, in many cases without the help of another remedy. Next to Aconite came Bryonia, then Eupatorium, later Lachesis or Phosphorus, according to the character of the cough. A few cases needed Tartar emetic. When Bryonia did not relieve the bronchial cough Sulphur did. For the dry, persistent, worrying cough that remained after Bryonia, Sticta was curative. For the great weakness and exhaustion with loss of appetite Nux low worked charmingly, and in many cases completed the cure, and enabled him to return to his daily toil.

When the patient came in with an anxious look or when he was possessed with an indefinable fear, Aconite was thought of. If he complained of aching all over, or was cold and chilly, when the temperature ranged from 96.3 to 97.3 degrees [35.7 to 36.3 degrees C], and he could not get warm, Aconite low was sure to help him. If he or she had a dusky color in the face, particularly in the forehead between the eyes, when the hands were cold and the chill ran up his back to the head, when the lower part of the face was cold but the forehead was warm, Aconite was surely indicated.

At first I prescribed the 30th potency, but soon found the third potency worked quicker, and later on I gave the first dilution in nearly every case. My rule was to give a dose every half hour till sweat came, then every hour till the aching entirely ceased. Under this procedure my cases recovered; in many cases Aconite alone completed the cure.

I don’t completely understand how a homeopath prescribes their remedies, but I do know what is given is individualised to what the patient is experiencing and not a diagnosis, it is very different to how conventional medicine proceeds, especially today with protocol medicine.

If the aching was only in the back, if he complained that his back felt as if it would break; if every bone in his body was breaking, Eupatorinm perfoliatum, the old-fashioned boneset, was the remedy. Many physicians used this drug in the tincture but Boericke & Tafel's thirtieth potency cured all my cases, relieving them in from six to eighteen hours. Most of my patients complained only of the terrible backache, but two or three of them had the broken bone feeling so typical of this drug.

Homeopaths use the word “drug” to mean their homeopathic remedy, quite different to a pharma drug. To be clear the remedy reference here did not cause the “broken bone feeling” it was given because the patient was experiencing symptoms of a “broken bone feeling” and under the “like cures like” principle which is central to the homeopathic philosophy, this remedy was indicated.

Gehemium was helpful when the patient sneezed a good deal with running of the nose. One peculiar symptom which I observed many times, and which I had myself one day, was a severe pain in the occiput, worse in the lateral lobes of the cerebellum. Walking was painful, riding in a carriage aggravated the pain, but pressure on the lobes relieved the pain as long as the pressure was applied. Allen in his Encyclopaedia of Materia Medica gives a part of this symptom under Gelsemiitni. If the patient was drowsy or had pain in the occiput or pain in the liver with slow pulse, all the more surely was Gelsemiitni indicated. The thirtieth potency cured my cases.

The range of symptoms are interesting and certainly sound flu-like. The homeopaths certainly describe them in detail, I find this fascinating.

Bryonia was helpful for the bronchial cough which set in the second or third day. Every time he coughed he had a pain from the bifurcation of the bronchia half way down the sternum : a splitting, painful cough. If he kept quiet in bed and warm, this cough was somewhat relieved. When the patient felt better from resting or from keeping quiet, Bryonia was all the more indicated. I got the best results from the third potency.

When the cough was more in the throat, with or without constant tickling, or if they complained more of the throat than anywhere else, it was so sore and hurt so much when he coughed. Laehesis was the remedy. The thirtieth potency cured my cases.

When the cough woke the patient up, or when he coughed more after waking, just as soon as he woke, was another indication for Laehesis. Some of these coughs persisted for days, but Laehesis eventually cured them.

When the lungs were involved—in most of my cases the lower lobe of the left lung was the part affected—when they were sore on the chest from coughing, when the sputum was whitish, or whitish-yellowish, sometimes sanguineous, Phosphorus was the remedy, and I invariably used the thirtieth potency. In one case when the patient took home remedies for three or four days, and then against his wife's pleadings went to work one cold day, he soon returned chilled through. Pneumonia set in, and when I was called late that night he was a very sick man.

But sick as he was he would not go to bed, but sat up in a rocking chair alongside a window. I begged him to go to bed, but he had his own way, and in two days his heart gave out, and in a little while he was gone. This was my first fatality, and this case should have gotten well. After that every patient I visited went to bed and stayed there till I allowed them to sit up.

The stubborn man who refused to go to bed and rest could not be helped. How many of this mindset, under any treatment, succumbed to the illness? This is hardly a reflection of the doctors skill and willingness to help.

In one office case I prescribed for through her sister the patient positively refused to go to bed. After getting all her symptoms I ordered her sister to put her to bed. She said the sick woman had a mind of her own and would not go to bed. Then I gave the sister the medicine the patient needed and told her to go home and tell the sick woman to go to bed and stay there, but if she wouldn't do as I advised, to pick out the undertaker she wished to lay her out. It was rather an unfeeling message, but some people need plain talk to save them from their own willfulness. The message was delivered, the patient went to bed, took the Aconite I had sent her, and made a good recovery.

This clearly was an illness that required the body to rest to heal itself.

In one case of lobar pneumonia where the cough was very persistent and wearing the patient out, Sticta 30, in water, every hour, gave prompt relief and hastened her recovery. Sticta cured a cough for me which kept me awake at night when I wished to sleep.

In two or three cases of catarrhal pneumonia with much rattling of mucus in the lungs, Tartar emetic served me well. In one case in which I had Dr. Quint for a consultant, he gave the first trituration, but the relief was not as prompt from the crude drug as when I gave it in the thirtieth potency. But I must thank Dr. Quint for suggesting Aconite very low in these cases of influenza. Tartar emetic has saved many pneumonia cases in this epidemic.

In some cases when Bryonia failed to relieve the bronchial cough and when the patient stated every time he coughed he thought his breast bone would split open, Sulphur relieved the cough and hastened the cure. When the patient complained of being so tired and weary, with a troublesome cough, yet did not want to keep still, Sulphur was better than Bryonia and brought about a speedy recovery.

In tedious cases where the patients were slow in recovering their strength, Nux vomica helped me very much. Nux took away the bad taste so many had and helped them to regain their appetites. It helped to take away the tired feeling so many patients had in their feet when they started to get around.

Honestly, I used more Nux 1st in this epidemic than in my entire practice for fifty years. It is a good thing to know when a low potency is indicated, and as I am called a high potency man, it is but fair to say that Aconite and Nux in the first potency, and Bryonia in the third, have helped me to cure many cases of "flu" quicker than the high potencies would have done.

The more dilute the remedy, the higher the potency. Seems illogical but that is how homeopathy works. A great little documentary to watch to understand this modality more is one I have listed on my documentary page called Just One Drop. And to conclude.

In this epidemic, more than any other I have seen in a long and eventful practice, absolute rest was essential to complete recovery. So with your permission I will add REST to my list of remedies.

Now given this information I hope you have gleaned the fact that for a homeopath it didn’t matter what the causal agent of the sickness was or whether they cared to call it “influenza”, what mattered was the symptoms the patient was experiencing, and armed with that information remedies could be prescribed. Sometimes one was enough to aid the body in recovery, sometimes more were required or some tweaking was needed. Cure was possible for those who tended to their illness early and rested.

Homeopathy is alive and well today, and is backed by public funded scientific research, it truly is a fascinating modality which does not deserve, in any measure, the ridicule it has had to endure. I will continue to share my findings, especially in relation to the 1918 pandemic. It has become clear to me that people have suffered and died because this information has been suppressed.

More to come soon.

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