Burn treatments [was: ...ignis alcoholis]
Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 2:42 pm
Hi Jas,
Here are some of my old saved posts re burns.
An addition thing I recall, which my quick scan doesn't seem to show in the
following, is the approach of some well-respected homeopath, tho I can't
recall who... A severe burn would be cleaned gently, then wrapped in gauze
doused in calendula tincture (diluted in the usual way). The wrappings
would be left in place as healing took place, re-doused with calendula
dilute as needed (few times daily?). The book (I think it was) said that
the bandages would begin to stink (!!), but not to worry, just keep them
moist with calendula, and do not change them, to allow the skin to heal
undisturbed, and that this produced wonderful results, without scarring.
Whether this could apply to a third-degree burn, I don't know...
Best,
Shannon
* * * *
Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 17:06:11 -0700
From: rjgee@uswest.net
To: Robert Nelson
...
Dr. Dorothy Shepherd practiced in LONDON during the 2nd WW (and before and
after) and it was during this period that her reports on burn treatment with
homeopathy mostly took place. You should get her book because she was
really successful in many ways when things were really hectic.
"Magic of the Minimum Dose" -- Dr. Dorothy Shepherd
Health Science Press, The C.S. Daniel Company Ltd.
1 Church Path, Saffron Walden, Essex, England
The fascinating thing about her treatment of 2nd and 3rd degree burns was
the relief of acute, agonizing pain. She says that she gave Urtcia Urens
12th or 30th potency. She said that she had timed it several times, that the
pain was relieved in just seven minutes!
Repeating as necessary...it always acts rapidly. Also, she did not remove
the original gauze dressing, allowing the skin to replace itself without
disturbance. (The practice today is to SCRAPE the burn area twice a day to
protect against infection!) My wife went
through this for 5 weeks and she says that the pain is indescribable.
Obviously, because the new skin is continuously scraped off, they must
revert to grafts.
Her treatment of 3rd degree burns is even more exciting, using Causticum for
pain (relieved in 7 minutes, and then other remedies to follow. You've got
to read her book to get the full story.
As profoundly important as I believe this information to be in the
furtherance of the homeopathic medical therapy, Dr. Shepherd spent just
about a page and a half to describe her experiences...Maybe that is the
reason why no one has gotten as excited about it as have I.
* * * *
From: "Wendy Howard"
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 21:26:11 +0100
Subject: Re: hsg Burn question
I seem to remember from somewhere a story about a French perfumier who burnt
his hand quite severely while at work. Without thinking, he immediately
plunged his hand into a vat of Lavender oil. The burning was instantly
relieved and the inflammation completely disappeared, never blistering, and
never leaving a mark.
Regards
Wendy
* * * *
From: "Petko Velichkov"
To:
Subject: Organon Introduction - Part 8 (End)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 20:47:28 +0200
The Organon, Samuel Hahnemann, Introduction - Part 8 of 8
Thus we find in these examples of successful domestic practice, that it
is not the prolonged application of the degree of cold in which the limb was
frozen that restores it isopathically (it would thereby be rendered quite
lifeless and dead), but a degree of cold that only approximates to that
(homoeopathy), and which gradually rises to a comfortable temperature, as
frozen sour crout laid upon the frost-bitten hand in the temperature of the
room soon melts, gradually growing warmer from 32 or 33 (Fahr.) to the
temperature of the room, supposing that to be only 55, and thus the limb is
recovered by physical homoeopathy.
In like manner, a hand scalded with boiling water would not be cured
isopathically by the application of boiling water, but only by a somewhat
lower temperature, as, for, example, by holding it in a vessel containing a
fluid heated to 160, which becomes every minute less hot, and finally
descends to the temperature of the room, whereupon the scalded part is
restored by homoeopathy. Water in the act of freezing cannot draw cut the
frost isopathically from potatoes and apples, but this is effected by water
only near the freezing-point.
So, to give another example from physical action, the injury resulting
from a blow on the forehead with a hard substance (a painful lump) is soon
diminished in pain and swelling by pressing on the spot for a considerable
time with the ball of the thumb, strongly at first, and then gradually less
forcibly, homoeopathically, but not by an equally hard blow with an equally
hard body, which would increase the evil isopathically.
The examples of cures by isopathy given in the book alluded to muscular
contractions in human beings and spinal paralysis in a dog, which had been
caused by a chill, being rapidly cured by cold bathing. These events are
falsely explained by isopathy. What are called sufferings from a chill are
only nominally connected with cold, and often arise, in the bodies of those
predisposed to them, even from a draught of wind which was not at ali cold.
Moreover, the manifold effects of a cold bath on the living organism, in
health and disease, cannot be reduced to such a simple formula as to warrant
the construction of a system of such pretentions!
That serpents' bites, as is there stated, are most certainly cured by
portions of the serpents, must remain a mere fable of a former age, until
such an improbable assertion is authenticated by indubitable observations
and experiences, which it certainly never will be. That, in fine, the saliva
of a mad dog given to a patient labouring under hydrophobia (in Russia), is
said to have cured him that "is said" would not seduce any conscientious
physician to imitate such a hazardous experiment, or to construct a
so-called isopathic system, so dangerous and so highly improbable in its
extended application, as has been done (not by the modest author of the
pamphlet entitled The Isopathy of Contagions, Leipzic:Kollmann, but) by its
eccentric supporters, especially Dr. Gross (v.Allg. hom. Ztg., p. 72), who
vaunts this isopathy (aequalia aequalibus) as the only proper therapeutic
rule, and sees nothing in the similia similibus but an indifferent
substitute for it; ungratefully enough, as he is entirely indebted to the
simila similibus for all his fame and fortune.
**** (End of footnote 32)
The experienced cook holds his hand, which he has scalded, at a certain
distance from the fire, and does not heed the increase of pain that takes
place at first, as he knows from experience that he can thereby in a very
short time, often in a few minutes, convert the burnt part into healthy
painless skin.(33)
(33)So also Fernelius (Therap., lib. vi, , cap.20) considers that the
best remedy for a burnt part is to bring it near the fire, whereby the pain
is removed. John Hunter (On the blood, Inflammation, etc., p.218) mentions
the great injury that results from treating burns with cold water, and gives
a decided preference to approaching them to the fire, guided in this, not by
the traditional medical doctrines which (contraria contrariis) prescribe
cooling things for inflammation, but by experience, which teaches that the
application of a similar heat (similia similibus) is the most salutary.
****
Other intelligent non-medical persons, as, for example, the
manufacturers of lackered ware, apply to a part scalded with the hot
varnish a substance that causes a similar burning sensation, such as strong
heated spirits of wine(34), or oil of turpentine(35), and by that means
cure themselves in the course of a few hours, whereas cooling salves, as
they are well aware, would not effect a cure in as many months, and cold
water(36) would but make matters worse.
(34) Sydenham (Opera, p.271 (edit. Syd. Soc., p.601) says the spirits of
wine, repeatedly applied, is preferable to all other remedies in burns.
Benjamin Bell, too (System of Surgery, Grd edit., 1789), acknowledges that
experience shows that homoeopathic remedies only are efficacious. He
says:"One of the best applications to every burn of this kind is strong
brandy or any other ardent spirit: it seems to induce a momentary additional
pain (see below, 157), but this soon subsides, and is succeeded by an
agreeable soothing sensation. It proves most effectual when the parts can be
kept immersed in it; but where this cannot be done, they should be kept
constantly moist with pieces of old linen soaked in spirits. "To this Y may
add that warm, and indeed very warm, alcohol is much more rapidly and much
more certainly efficacious, for it is much more homoeopathic than when not
heated. And all experience confirms this in a most astonishing manner.
(35) Edward Kentish, having to treat the workers in coal pits, who were
so often dreadfully burnt by the explosion of fire-damp, applied oil of
turpentine or alcohol, as the best remedy in the most extensive severest
burns (Second Essay on Burns, London, 1798). No treatment can be more
homoeopathic than this nor is any more efficacious.
The estimable and experienced Heister (Institut. Chirurg., Tom.I. p.
33) confirms this from his own observation and extols the application of
turpentine oil, of alcohol and of very hot poultices for this end, as hot
as ever they can be borne. But the amazing superiority of the application
to burns of these remedies, which possess the power of exciting burning
sensation and heat (and are consequently homoeopathic), over palliative
refrigerant remedies, is most incontestably shown by pure experimentation,
in which the two opposite methods of treatment are employed for the sake of
comparison, in burns of equal intensity in the same body.
Thus Benjamin Bell (in Kuhn's Phys. Med. Journ., Leipzic, 1801, Jun., p.
428), in the case of a lady who had scalded both arms, caused one to be
covered with oil of turpentine, and made her plunge the other into cold
water. In half an hour the first arm was well, but the other continued to be
painful for six hours longer; when it was withdrawn one instant from the
water she experienced much greater pain in it, and it required a much longer
time than the first for its cure. John Anderson (Kentish, op. cit. p. 43)
treated in a similar manner a lady who had scalded herself with boiling
grease. "The face which was very red and scalded and excessively painful
was, a few minutes after the accident, covered with oil of turpentine; her
arm she had, of her own accord, plunged into cold water, with which she
desired to treat it for some hours. In the course of seven hours her face
looked much better and the pain was relieved. She had frequently renewed the
cold water for the arm, but whenever she withdrew it she complained of much
pain, and, in truth, the inflammation in it had increased. The following
morning I found that she had had during the night great pain in the arm; the
inflammation had extended above the elbow; several large blisters had risen,
and thick eschars had formed on the arm and hand; a warm poultice was then
applied. The face was completely free from pain, but emollient applications
had to be used for the arm for a fortnight longer, before it was cured".
Who can fail to perceive in this instance the infinite superiority of
the (homoeopathic) treatment by means of remedies of similar action, over
the wretched treatment by opposites (contraria contrariis) of the antiquated
ordinary school of medicine!
(36)John Hunter (loc. cit.) is not singular in asserting the great injury
done by treating burns with cold water. W. Fabricius of Hilden, also (De
Combustion libellus, Basil. 1607, cap. 5, p.11), alleges that cold
applications in burns are highly injurious and productive of the most
serious consequences; inflammation, suppuration and sometimes mortification
are caused by them. ****
The old experienced reaper, although he may not be in the habit of
drinking brandy, will not touch cold water (contraria contrariis) when he
has worked himself into a violent feverish state in the heat of the sun he
knows the danger of such a proceeding but he takes a small quantity of a
heating liquor, a mouthful of a brandy; experience, the teacher of truth,
has convinced him of the great superiority and efficacy of this homoeopathic
procedure, whereby his heat and fatigue are speedily removed.(37)
(37)Zimmerman (Ueber die Erfahrung, ii, p. 318) informs us that the
inhabitants of hot countries act in the same manner, with the best results,
and that, after being very much heated, they swallow a small quantity of
some spirituous liquor.
Here are some of my old saved posts re burns.
An addition thing I recall, which my quick scan doesn't seem to show in the
following, is the approach of some well-respected homeopath, tho I can't
recall who... A severe burn would be cleaned gently, then wrapped in gauze
doused in calendula tincture (diluted in the usual way). The wrappings
would be left in place as healing took place, re-doused with calendula
dilute as needed (few times daily?). The book (I think it was) said that
the bandages would begin to stink (!!), but not to worry, just keep them
moist with calendula, and do not change them, to allow the skin to heal
undisturbed, and that this produced wonderful results, without scarring.
Whether this could apply to a third-degree burn, I don't know...
Best,
Shannon
* * * *
Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 17:06:11 -0700
From: rjgee@uswest.net
To: Robert Nelson
...
Dr. Dorothy Shepherd practiced in LONDON during the 2nd WW (and before and
after) and it was during this period that her reports on burn treatment with
homeopathy mostly took place. You should get her book because she was
really successful in many ways when things were really hectic.
"Magic of the Minimum Dose" -- Dr. Dorothy Shepherd
Health Science Press, The C.S. Daniel Company Ltd.
1 Church Path, Saffron Walden, Essex, England
The fascinating thing about her treatment of 2nd and 3rd degree burns was
the relief of acute, agonizing pain. She says that she gave Urtcia Urens
12th or 30th potency. She said that she had timed it several times, that the
pain was relieved in just seven minutes!
Repeating as necessary...it always acts rapidly. Also, she did not remove
the original gauze dressing, allowing the skin to replace itself without
disturbance. (The practice today is to SCRAPE the burn area twice a day to
protect against infection!) My wife went
through this for 5 weeks and she says that the pain is indescribable.
Obviously, because the new skin is continuously scraped off, they must
revert to grafts.
Her treatment of 3rd degree burns is even more exciting, using Causticum for
pain (relieved in 7 minutes, and then other remedies to follow. You've got
to read her book to get the full story.
As profoundly important as I believe this information to be in the
furtherance of the homeopathic medical therapy, Dr. Shepherd spent just
about a page and a half to describe her experiences...Maybe that is the
reason why no one has gotten as excited about it as have I.
* * * *
From: "Wendy Howard"
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 21:26:11 +0100
Subject: Re: hsg Burn question
I seem to remember from somewhere a story about a French perfumier who burnt
his hand quite severely while at work. Without thinking, he immediately
plunged his hand into a vat of Lavender oil. The burning was instantly
relieved and the inflammation completely disappeared, never blistering, and
never leaving a mark.
Regards
Wendy
* * * *
From: "Petko Velichkov"
To:
Subject: Organon Introduction - Part 8 (End)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 20:47:28 +0200
The Organon, Samuel Hahnemann, Introduction - Part 8 of 8
Thus we find in these examples of successful domestic practice, that it
is not the prolonged application of the degree of cold in which the limb was
frozen that restores it isopathically (it would thereby be rendered quite
lifeless and dead), but a degree of cold that only approximates to that
(homoeopathy), and which gradually rises to a comfortable temperature, as
frozen sour crout laid upon the frost-bitten hand in the temperature of the
room soon melts, gradually growing warmer from 32 or 33 (Fahr.) to the
temperature of the room, supposing that to be only 55, and thus the limb is
recovered by physical homoeopathy.
In like manner, a hand scalded with boiling water would not be cured
isopathically by the application of boiling water, but only by a somewhat
lower temperature, as, for, example, by holding it in a vessel containing a
fluid heated to 160, which becomes every minute less hot, and finally
descends to the temperature of the room, whereupon the scalded part is
restored by homoeopathy. Water in the act of freezing cannot draw cut the
frost isopathically from potatoes and apples, but this is effected by water
only near the freezing-point.
So, to give another example from physical action, the injury resulting
from a blow on the forehead with a hard substance (a painful lump) is soon
diminished in pain and swelling by pressing on the spot for a considerable
time with the ball of the thumb, strongly at first, and then gradually less
forcibly, homoeopathically, but not by an equally hard blow with an equally
hard body, which would increase the evil isopathically.
The examples of cures by isopathy given in the book alluded to muscular
contractions in human beings and spinal paralysis in a dog, which had been
caused by a chill, being rapidly cured by cold bathing. These events are
falsely explained by isopathy. What are called sufferings from a chill are
only nominally connected with cold, and often arise, in the bodies of those
predisposed to them, even from a draught of wind which was not at ali cold.
Moreover, the manifold effects of a cold bath on the living organism, in
health and disease, cannot be reduced to such a simple formula as to warrant
the construction of a system of such pretentions!
That serpents' bites, as is there stated, are most certainly cured by
portions of the serpents, must remain a mere fable of a former age, until
such an improbable assertion is authenticated by indubitable observations
and experiences, which it certainly never will be. That, in fine, the saliva
of a mad dog given to a patient labouring under hydrophobia (in Russia), is
said to have cured him that "is said" would not seduce any conscientious
physician to imitate such a hazardous experiment, or to construct a
so-called isopathic system, so dangerous and so highly improbable in its
extended application, as has been done (not by the modest author of the
pamphlet entitled The Isopathy of Contagions, Leipzic:Kollmann, but) by its
eccentric supporters, especially Dr. Gross (v.Allg. hom. Ztg., p. 72), who
vaunts this isopathy (aequalia aequalibus) as the only proper therapeutic
rule, and sees nothing in the similia similibus but an indifferent
substitute for it; ungratefully enough, as he is entirely indebted to the
simila similibus for all his fame and fortune.
**** (End of footnote 32)
The experienced cook holds his hand, which he has scalded, at a certain
distance from the fire, and does not heed the increase of pain that takes
place at first, as he knows from experience that he can thereby in a very
short time, often in a few minutes, convert the burnt part into healthy
painless skin.(33)
(33)So also Fernelius (Therap., lib. vi, , cap.20) considers that the
best remedy for a burnt part is to bring it near the fire, whereby the pain
is removed. John Hunter (On the blood, Inflammation, etc., p.218) mentions
the great injury that results from treating burns with cold water, and gives
a decided preference to approaching them to the fire, guided in this, not by
the traditional medical doctrines which (contraria contrariis) prescribe
cooling things for inflammation, but by experience, which teaches that the
application of a similar heat (similia similibus) is the most salutary.
****
Other intelligent non-medical persons, as, for example, the
manufacturers of lackered ware, apply to a part scalded with the hot
varnish a substance that causes a similar burning sensation, such as strong
heated spirits of wine(34), or oil of turpentine(35), and by that means
cure themselves in the course of a few hours, whereas cooling salves, as
they are well aware, would not effect a cure in as many months, and cold
water(36) would but make matters worse.
(34) Sydenham (Opera, p.271 (edit. Syd. Soc., p.601) says the spirits of
wine, repeatedly applied, is preferable to all other remedies in burns.
Benjamin Bell, too (System of Surgery, Grd edit., 1789), acknowledges that
experience shows that homoeopathic remedies only are efficacious. He
says:"One of the best applications to every burn of this kind is strong
brandy or any other ardent spirit: it seems to induce a momentary additional
pain (see below, 157), but this soon subsides, and is succeeded by an
agreeable soothing sensation. It proves most effectual when the parts can be
kept immersed in it; but where this cannot be done, they should be kept
constantly moist with pieces of old linen soaked in spirits. "To this Y may
add that warm, and indeed very warm, alcohol is much more rapidly and much
more certainly efficacious, for it is much more homoeopathic than when not
heated. And all experience confirms this in a most astonishing manner.
(35) Edward Kentish, having to treat the workers in coal pits, who were
so often dreadfully burnt by the explosion of fire-damp, applied oil of
turpentine or alcohol, as the best remedy in the most extensive severest
burns (Second Essay on Burns, London, 1798). No treatment can be more
homoeopathic than this nor is any more efficacious.
The estimable and experienced Heister (Institut. Chirurg., Tom.I. p.
33) confirms this from his own observation and extols the application of
turpentine oil, of alcohol and of very hot poultices for this end, as hot
as ever they can be borne. But the amazing superiority of the application
to burns of these remedies, which possess the power of exciting burning
sensation and heat (and are consequently homoeopathic), over palliative
refrigerant remedies, is most incontestably shown by pure experimentation,
in which the two opposite methods of treatment are employed for the sake of
comparison, in burns of equal intensity in the same body.
Thus Benjamin Bell (in Kuhn's Phys. Med. Journ., Leipzic, 1801, Jun., p.
428), in the case of a lady who had scalded both arms, caused one to be
covered with oil of turpentine, and made her plunge the other into cold
water. In half an hour the first arm was well, but the other continued to be
painful for six hours longer; when it was withdrawn one instant from the
water she experienced much greater pain in it, and it required a much longer
time than the first for its cure. John Anderson (Kentish, op. cit. p. 43)
treated in a similar manner a lady who had scalded herself with boiling
grease. "The face which was very red and scalded and excessively painful
was, a few minutes after the accident, covered with oil of turpentine; her
arm she had, of her own accord, plunged into cold water, with which she
desired to treat it for some hours. In the course of seven hours her face
looked much better and the pain was relieved. She had frequently renewed the
cold water for the arm, but whenever she withdrew it she complained of much
pain, and, in truth, the inflammation in it had increased. The following
morning I found that she had had during the night great pain in the arm; the
inflammation had extended above the elbow; several large blisters had risen,
and thick eschars had formed on the arm and hand; a warm poultice was then
applied. The face was completely free from pain, but emollient applications
had to be used for the arm for a fortnight longer, before it was cured".
Who can fail to perceive in this instance the infinite superiority of
the (homoeopathic) treatment by means of remedies of similar action, over
the wretched treatment by opposites (contraria contrariis) of the antiquated
ordinary school of medicine!
(36)John Hunter (loc. cit.) is not singular in asserting the great injury
done by treating burns with cold water. W. Fabricius of Hilden, also (De
Combustion libellus, Basil. 1607, cap. 5, p.11), alleges that cold
applications in burns are highly injurious and productive of the most
serious consequences; inflammation, suppuration and sometimes mortification
are caused by them. ****
The old experienced reaper, although he may not be in the habit of
drinking brandy, will not touch cold water (contraria contrariis) when he
has worked himself into a violent feverish state in the heat of the sun he
knows the danger of such a proceeding but he takes a small quantity of a
heating liquor, a mouthful of a brandy; experience, the teacher of truth,
has convinced him of the great superiority and efficacy of this homoeopathic
procedure, whereby his heat and fatigue are speedily removed.(37)
(37)Zimmerman (Ueber die Erfahrung, ii, p. 318) informs us that the
inhabitants of hot countries act in the same manner, with the best results,
and that, after being very much heated, they swallow a small quantity of
some spirituous liquor.