An examination of the above considerations leads me to the following conclusions:
1. That the importance of the materia medica of the tubercular virtues ought not to be exaggerated. There are few characteristic symptoms to take off; it is more wise to guide oneself in the homœopathic application of the therapeutics by the clinical symptoms of the evolution of the various tuberculosis, rather than by the intoxication produced by their active products, the Tuberculins.
2. Koch's lymph, Bacillinum and Avian tuberculin must be studied separately, clinically as well as experimentally. Bacillinum presents symptoms very different from those of Avian tuberculin, and especially from those of Koch's lymph; and I intend to divide my remarks into three parts, corresponding to these three substances, which have actually become homœopathic remedies.
At the time of the introduction of the ever-memorable Koch's lymph, there were included under the head of poisonings by this drug vascular lesions, as I have mentioned above, acute arteritis, arterio-sclerosis, changes in the vessels of the heart and the kidneys, and acute nephritis. Apropos of acute nephritis, the supposition was that the kidney became congested because of the presence in that part of certain tubercular islets, and that the kidney responded, like the tuberculous lung, under the influence of the Tuberculin, by acute congestion.
However this might be, these vascular lesions drew attention to the homœopathicity of Koch's lymph in nephritis. Dr. Jousset has experimented in it with encouraging results, using homœopathic dilutions, in Bright's disease; and at the meeting of the Société Homœopathique Francaise on April 18, 1895, Drs. Tessier, Silva and Jousset, father and son, mentioned the diminution of albumen in cases of chronic and incurable nephritis, and the appearance of that substance in acute cases.
Dr. Arnulphy, in a series of articles in the Chicago Clinique, which I have read attentively, speaks favorably of Koch's lymph in homœopathic dilutions in cases of tuberculosis. Personally I have not used it, and I am loth to pass judgment on observations recorded in every good faith. I would merely remark to my honorable colleague that Koch's lymph was used in our school in all the homœopathic dilutions possible at the moment of its far-resounding discovery—a fact which he should know as well as myself. To mention only one instance—Drs. Simon, V. L. Simon Boyer and Chancerel used the drug at the Hahnemann Hospital in Paris at the time of the arrival in France of the first consignment of lymph from Germany; and I am nearly certain that there is not at this time a single country where homœopathists have not used this remedy in all the infinitesimal dilutions. Homœopaths and allopaths have actually taken pretty much the same side as regards the primitive formula put forward by Koch (I am not now speaking of trials of new tuberculins); and Dr. Arnulphy would be fortunate enough were he able to revive its credit after its several years' oblivion as a cure of tuberculosis.
Clinically this lymph of Koch has led to wonderful cures in lobular pneumonia, for it produces pneumonia, broncho pneumonia, and congestion of the lungs in the tuberculous patient. Its homœopathic action would thus appear more trustworthy than its isopathic, and Dr. Arnulphy makes this remark: "I make bold to state that no single remedy in our materia medica, not excepting Ipecac, Iodine, Tartar emetic, and even Phosphorus, approaches the singular efficacy of Tuberculin in well-authenticated cases of that affection (broncho pneumonia, be it) in the child, the adult, or the aged. Its rapidity of action in some cases is little short of wonderful, and all who have used it in this line are unanimous in their unbounded praise of its working."
The four cases quoted by Dr. Mersch (Journal Belge d' Homéopathie, November, 1894, January and May, 1895) are very instructive:
The first is that of a member of the Dutch Parliament who had contracted a pneumonia which reached a chronic stage. While undergoing a relapse his expectoration assumed a rusty-red color, which color disappeared completely in three days on treatment with Tuberculin 30th.