Various illnesses - Hahnemann's approach to the treatment of psychiatric patients

During my time at the homeopathic hospital in Mumbai (India) I treated in 1993 a man in his late forties who had been ostracised by his family because of his frequent hospital admissions. His family had grown tired of him and his illness; therefore he spent most of the time in our clinic, where he remained for months. Over the years he had already been given several remedies by various local GPs. For this reason, on my arrival at this hospital I first attended to his case to prepare for a possible crisis.

He had three main complaints:

1) Bronchiectasis: severe cough with shortness of breath.
2) Epileptic seizures.
3) Psychiatric illness: violent mania with enormous physical strength. In this state he strikes others and talks nonsense.

The three clinical pictures never occurred simultaneously. After a severe episode of bronchiectasis had run its course, an epileptic seizure followed, succeeded by a violent mania.

Here we had a case of three completely different, unrelated diseases, each occurring in its respective location. After they had occurred independently for some time, they combined into a „multiple complex disease“. Since these are entirely different illnesses, they cannot cure one another (Organon, 6th edition, §§ 36, 38 and 40).

A case of violent mania:

Once, at the end of the day when we had finished with all our patients, I received a call that this man had become violent and was hitting an elderly patient in the bed next to him. The old man suffered from heart failure, and he and his relatives were obviously very frightened by the attack.

My patient talked incessantly, sometimes very loudly, but I could hardly understand what he was trying to say. His file noted that in such states he was usually given Stramonium, which seemed an appropriate option. However, he would not allow anyone to come close to administer the remedy. Not even with the help of the nursing staff could we overcome him — he had developed tremendous strength — to pour the remedy in, and we had to abandon our efforts.

Because his constant talking and violent behaviour disturbed the other patients on the ward, I began to argue with him, even scolded him and reproached him.

I tried to explain to him that he had to understand us and make it possible for us to give him the remedy. How foolish of me! I should have tried to understand him, rather than expecting him to understand me.

1) The physician and nursing staff must always behave as if they believed the patient to be sane.

2) No physical punishment, no reproaches to the patient for destructive actions and breaking things in the surroundings, but only try to prevent this by removing such objects.

3) In response to senseless chatter: silence, but not full attention.

4) Response to repulsive, disgusting behaviour and speech: ignore it!
After reading this I regained hope. I decided to follow Hahnemann’s advice and took the following steps for the welfare of the patient and the other ward occupants:

a) I immediately stopped arguing with him and reproaching him for disturbing and striking the patient in the next bed.

b) I moved all the patients to another ward so that nothing more could happen, making it unnecessary to reproach the patient.

c) I instructed the hospital staff to ignore his senseless talk and strange behaviour. I nevertheless observed everything from a distance.

Under the circumstances this was the best I could do for the patient. Soon he was composed again and his behaviour normalised. After a few hours the other patients could be moved back to the ward.

Unfortunately we did not find the right remedy to break this cycle of illness. Nevertheless, this experience is valuable in drawing attention to the importance of Hahnemann’s advice.

Categories: Cases
Keywords: Bronchiectasis, epilepsy, psychiatric illness
Remedy: Stramonium