The majority of children inherit various tendencies to illness, or at least certain trends of constitution. Constitutional administration of a similar remedy can wipe out these inherited difficulties, and promotes a healthier future for the child and its descendants.
Work for the new-born child should be begun on the parents. Although one may not do the actual obstetrics, the homoeopath should make the mother realize the importance of her receiving proper constitutional treatment during pregnancy. In case there have been grave difficulties with a previous child, the father also should undergo treatment before the conception of the subsequent child. A thorough study of the disease trends, even in grandparents, aunts and uncles as well as in the present generation, gives a picture of the family stream which is especially helpful in guiding towards the most profoundly suitable nosode. In nosodes we have remedies applicable to long-range tendencies, even several generations back.
For example, a little child was brought to me some twenty years ago with ears poorly set. high narrow palate. Hutchinson's teeth - a typical product of a syphilitic taint in her father's family. The parents did not recognize these implications and brought the child for minor annoyances such as catarrh, and because it seemed "not quite bright', as they said. The opening gambit was a dose of Syphilinum 10M. followed at intervals of several months by Mercurius and other remedies as the sympto- matology called for them. The child developed splendidly and is now a healthy and competent nurse.
You all know the list of nosodes in the precious fourth volume of Clarke's Dictionary, called the Clinical Repertory. Of these, the most basic ones which tie in with the classification of chronic diseases suggested by Hahnemann are Syphilinum. Medorrhinum. Tuber- culinum. Bacillinum and Psorinum. No proper practice of homoeopathic paediatrics can develop its best results without the frequent use of these resolvers of the past.
Take the gassy baby who screams with colic frequently during the day. who has a snuffly nose, mucus obstructing the throat, perhaps mucus in the stool. It shows few distinctive symptoms for any remedy chosen
according to the law of similars. Then you notice that its colic is immediately eased when it is turned over on its abdomen, and that it does not lie stretched out but draws its knees up under it almost in the knee-chest position. This baby needs a dose of Medorrhinum. even though no immediate history of gonorrhoea be forthcoming or even suspected. The taint may be further back in the family.
Look at the angel infant or small child of whom the friends say. It is too beautiful to be long for this world', with alabaster skin and a tendency to frequent colds and coughs. If there is any family history of lung trouble or tuberculosis think of Tuberculinum Bovinum. in a single dose. 200c potency, or higher, according to the vitality of the child. (Bacillinum is used more in actual cases of tuberculosis or where there is secondary infection.) Tuberculinum Bovinum is used in the inherited tendency cases, the listless, weak child or those who have had glandular difficulties. Also those with violent temper tantrums, kicking and screaming on the floor, and those who have no perseverance or concentration.
The child who needs Psorinum may be allergic and. like the Medorrhinum baby, have a tendency to asthma. But in the Psorinum infant this is usually combined with, or alternates with, skin difficulties; dirty, smelly, itchy, sweating, whining little darlings!
In ail constitutional homoeopathic work, one selects not only the similar remedy at the moment but jots down the top-ranging half-dozen remedies, their acute collaterals, and the nosode or nosodes most strongly permeating the case. Get your nosode in early in children. They are the 'stitch in time that saves nine'.
It is also necessary to remember one of the graver aspects of what usual medicine does for children. The idea is to prevent the infant having what used to be considered normal childhood diseases, the exanthemata. The baby is shot full of 'anti' everything, from smallpox vaccines through diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlatina, measles and even colds. Basically, children should have the childhood diseases. These throw off certain inherited impurities and clarify the constitution. Cases properly handled should leave the child with no sequelae and in better health. Patients who come to the doctor in adulthood or in middle life, saying they had never been ill and boasting how they had no childhood diseases, are often those with serious or incurable troubles. For instance, many cancer patients, and many who die suddenly from heart ailments although they were apparently in vigorous health, give no history of childhood diseases. Aside from the fact that one should have the childhood diseases, another point is that, if skipped in childhood, they
often occur later on in a far more serious form, such as mumps in grown men involving the testicles. Furthermore, these preventives, given in good faith in the name of perfect health, introduce elements through the normal protective skin covering that are completely foreign to the human body.
As so many of these so-called protective measures arc now legally required, homoeopathy has also developed, from and for each of these diseases, certain nosodes which contain no gross foreign animal matter, and which should do for the body what the disease itself would do if it were undergone. By this I mean such substances as Diphtherinum. Morbillinum. Pertussin (Coqueluchin). Scarlatinum. Variolinum and others.
Whether or not you use these nosodes with your children is relatively unimportant, compared to the primary need of helping clear up the health of the race with the basic miasmatic nosodes. Train your patients to bring even relatively healthy children at least four times a year for a constitutional remedy. Remember somehow to give every child who comes under your care, however briefly, its suitable nosode, in high potency, at least once. For example, if you are called for an earache and give the acute remedy, take the time to find the symptoms which will lead you to the choice of a nosode; if you know that the family are not likely to bring the child back for a chronic check-up. leave the nosode to be given at the end of the illness and ask the parent at least to telephone you after having done so.
Remember, too. that in many infants and small children symptoms are far to seek, at least those of a constitutional nature, but that if you give the correct nosode. it will bring out chronic symptoms for further prescribing.
If several nosodes are perceptibly indicated in the family stream, you will have to choose which one to give first, and should be guided by the most recent symptoms. When that layer is cleared away, you can give the nosodes for the deeper latent tendencies.
If all children could have constitutional prescribing, the race could be notably improved in two or three generations. Proper homoeopathic paediatrics can be the hope of the future.