Personal Experience of a Physician by Ellis, John, 1815-1896

During the fall of the year we had many cases of dysentery which were very obstinate, continuing one or two weeks or longer, attended by a fever approaching a typhoid character. I found the Allopathic treatment unsatisfactory, as there were quite a number of deaths. So I consulted my homoeopathic books and concluded to try the remedies; but at that time I had only the six carefully prepared remedies given me by the physician in Northampton, and I found that I needed some other remedies; so for Arsenicum I used a drop of Fowler's solution of arsenic in a glassful of water, giving a teaspoonful of the solution thus prepared for a dose, and I also used the tincture of Colocynth and other remedies in the same manner. Even with the help of such crude remedies I found that I could generally control the disease far more speedily and with greater certainty and safety than by Allopathic treatment.

I was called to attend a young man who, while stooping over to set a trap in the woods, was mistaken for a bear by a comrade who was hunting with him, and shot through the neck. To restrain secondary hemorrhage I was obliged, in order to save the life of my patient, to ligature both carotid arteries at the interval of only four and one-half days, which, at that time, had never been done successfully at an interval of less than twelve months between the operations. My patient did not suffer from head symptoms, as I was fearful he would, but his lungs became seriously congested. I resorted to the Allopathic treatment without affording any relief; and, as he was steadily getting worse, I consulted my homoeopathic works and gave him Aconite, a drop of the tincture in a glass of water; of the solution thus made I directed a teaspoonful to be given every hour; this gave prompt relief to the active symptoms of congestion. For a cough which remained I gave a few doses of belladonna prepared in the same manner, and all of the symptoms soon disappeared. I reported this case to the New York Journal of Medicine, and it was transferred, even to the homoeopathic prescriptions, to the American edition of Velpeau's great work on surgery.