Prover cured a severe acute flowing coryza, headache, vertigo and cough, with sticking pains throughout the chest, heaviness and trembling of the lower limbs; pulse, 110. Penthorum 3x quickly cured.
Miss P——, a blonde of 17, had a severe cough of several weeks duration; worse from talking or singing. Frothy greenish sputa. Pulsatilla and afterwards Phosphorus were given without benefit. Penthorum soon cured.
In the prover it produced a general malaise, headache, weakness of limbs and inability to attend to business, a feeling as though he must give up and be sick. I have promptly relieved several patients having these symptoms with Penthorum. It produces a soreness throughout the chest, with a severe dry cough, "as though I would cough my insides out," worse in the morning. Have speedily cured several such coughs with it.
PHASEOLUS NANA.
Nat. Ord., Leguminosæ.
Common Name, Dwarf Bean.
Preparation.—The crushed beans are macerated in five parts by weight of alcohol.
(In 1896 and 1897 Dr. A. M. Cushing wrote several articles on this new remedy, and among them the following, which appeared in the Homœopathic Recorder, 1897.)
While making a proving of the above remedy I felt a sudden curious sensation in the region of the heart, and immediately felt of my pulse and found it very weak and fluttering. I have been asked what that sensation was, but I can't describe it, for, to tell the truth, I believe I was frightened and failed to remember it. Although it is unpleasant to be badly frightened, the nice results I have seen from the use of the remedy and the kind words I have received from the profession in regard to it has more than paid for the little fright. As so little is known of the remedy, I wish to report one case that was not at all indicated by the proving and two cases under the care of an old school doctor. My case was that of a lady aged about forty, who for two years was under the care of a homœopathic doctor for some trouble, I don't know what; then two years under the care of another homœopathic doctor for a fibroid of the uterus. She had twice consulted a specialist in Boston, who said it could not be removed. Then she came under my care with a fibroid as large as a fetus at full term. Suffice it to say, I gave remedies in a higher attenuation than I believed she had taken, and in a few months the tumor had greatly diminished and gave her no trouble. Still she was nervous and had neuralgic pains almost all over her. As remedies did not seem to relieve her for any length of time, I decided to give her Phaseolus 9x, as it probably would do as well as what I had given her. The next time I called she met me with "I want a whole bottle like what you gave me last." She does not have to take any medicine now.
I was called in consultation with an old school doctor to a case of confinement. Patient, 26; first child; had been in pain forty-eight hours, but not severe till the last twelve hours. Patient, fleshy; urine heavily loaded with albumen. I knew that trouble was ahead, as she became blind. I found the head jacked firmly in the superior straits, face presentation which I could not change. I decided to wait a little, help what I could and watch the results. In a little while she went to sleep, the first quiet sleep in forty-eight hours; but when she moved it was in a fearful convulsion. I expected the convulsions, but felt that if I applied the forceps, before they appeared some might say if he had let her alone she would not have had them. I immediately turned her upon her left side, well covered up, and adjusted my forceps and soon had the head through the bony parts; and as it is my custom to remove the forceps till the soft parts are dilated to prevent rupture I commenced to do so, when a fearful expulsive convulsion threw forceps and a thirteen-pound child into the bed with a complete rupture of the perineum—my first such case in forty-one years. While she was unconscious I took the necessary stitches, the doctor attending to the medical part. One hour later, when I was in the kitchen helping the nurse and a few damsels dress the baby, the doctor came to me and said her heart was failing in its action fast. I gave him a vial of No. 25 globules medicated with 9x Phaseolus, and told him to give her a dose about the size of a bean (being a bean remedy). Ten minutes later he said: "That is wonderful, her heart is all right." Three times during the night he had to repeat it with the same results. Afterwards she had no trouble.
One week later the same doctor came to me saying: "I want a bottle of that remedy." Yesterday I was called to see a lady who was unconscious, pulseless, breathing ten times a minute, beyond hope as I supposed. I gave her three doses of Phaseolus, and she is all right.