P. S.—If not too late, I would like to add a little to the paper I sent you not long ago. The same old school doctor to whom I referred in that paper tells me he has used Phaseolus in another case of heart disease with a success similar to the others reported.
A few weeks since a lady aged 50, nurse by profession, came to me saying, at times, she had fearful time with her heart palpitating and feeling as if she should die. Being in great haste, I made no examination, but gave her a vial of Phaseolus 15x to take a dose three or four times a day, as needed. Yesterday she called, saying she was going out of the city, but did not dare to go without some more of the medicine, for she never took anything in her life that did so much good as that.
(Dr. Cushing also read the following paper before the Massachusetts Homœopathic Medical Society, which we take from the New England Medical Gazette. January, 1897:)
By request I appear before you to-day, and I presume you will be disappointed if my paper is not on some new remedy; and such it is,—a remedy, I think, worthy the careful investigation of every homœopathic physician,—phaseolus nana, or the common white bean. It is unnecessary for me to say to you that Boston is called a bean-eating city, or refer to the many sudden deaths there or in its vicinity from brain or heart trouble, nor how in a certain way young men grow old. Can you tell me the cause? I shall not take the time to report the proving I made, nor why I began it, nor how I prepared it, nor its wonderful effects upon the nervous system, the genital organs, stomach, bowels, or kidneys, in the provings, referring only to three symptoms. A medical student has made a short but interesting proving of the remedy, confirming some of my symptoms. While my proving was going on nicely, I suddenly felt a curious sensation in the region of the heart. It was so sudden and strange I immediately felt of my pulse and found it very irregular and feeble, so much so I think I was frightened, at least I did not take any more of the medicine. Never before had I had any irregular action of the heart. Soon after, I read that foreign physicians were using a decoction of the growing bean and pod for dropsy.
About that time I was called to see a hopeless case of uterine cancer with severe general dropsy. I prescribed the best I knew and decided to try the bean remedy. Several days elapsed before I could get any, and then only the dry pods, as it was in December. I steeped them and gave it with apparent relief. I report this case more especially to speak of the final result. I called one day expecting to find her quite comfortable, but found her dead. She suddenly screamed, "Oh, my head!" grasped it with both hands and was dead.
Months later, after an experience with another patient which I will report later, it suddenly dawned upon me that possibly the bean decoction might have hastened her death.
I was called to see a man about forty-five, suffering from general dropsy with heart and other complications, who had been under the care of a homœopathic physician some time. Although he had taken Digitalis, Strophanthus, Strychnia, Nitroglycerine, salts, etc., he had been unable to lie down for two weeks. I prescribed for him, but as soon as I could I prepared and gave him the bean-pod decoction. In about one week he was able to lie down in bed, and his legs, which at my first visit measured over twenty-one inches in circumference, measured fifteen inches. Then hay fever appeared, and by the advice of nineteen or twenty-five women an old-school expert from New York was called and I was left out.
The following cases, having symptoms similar to those developed in the proving, were given the same preparations as those used in the proving.
A man aged sixty-nine, a retired clergyman on account of a heart disease that had troubled him many years, yet no physician had been able to satisfactorily diagnose, came home from a trip where he had unwisely preached twice, greatly exhausted. The heart's action was weak and irregular, growing weaker each day for a few days, when he was entirely pulseless at both wrists, which continued four days in spite of my best efforts. I then gave him Phaseolus 9x, and in a few hours there was an improvement, and in thirty-six hours his pulse was regular and strong, about seventy per minute; and it remained so till my last visit, one-half hour before his death, two weeks after beginning the medicine. I was called to New York and returned too late to make a post-mortem examination. Among his children were a public school teacher and a college professor. I told them what I was giving, and they watched the case very closely and were surprised at its effects. Later they asked me if I would send some of the same medicine to a friend in Connecticut who had no money but a bad heart, said by the doctor there and an expert in Boston to be a weak heart. I sent the medicine and two weeks later they wrote: "His breath is not as short, his limbs were not as badly swollen, could walk and sleep better, but they did not know as he was any better." I sent more medicine and have not heard from that.
A lady living in the West, aged about fifty, had been ailing several years. Her greatest complaint was a weak, bad-aching heart. I treated her a few months with general improvement, but she complained of a weak, tired, bad-acting and bad-feeling heart. I sent her Phaseolus 9x, and later she wrote me that forty-eight hours after commencing the last medicine sent her heart wheeled into line all right and remains so.