Syphilinum
Girl, 1 day old
A doctor who attends the seminar reports:
I want to show you some pictures of my newborn
child. She is about three weeks old now and you see that she has Ophthalmia neonatorum.
(Neonatal conjunctivitis, also known as ophthalmia neonatorum, is a form
of conjunctivitis contracted by newborns during delivery. The baby's eyes are
contaminated during passage through the birth canal from a mother infected with
either Neisseria gonorrhoeae
or Chlamydia trachomatis.) I attended her
birth and the first thing I observed was that her upper lid was too long.
The second day there was a swelling of her
right upper lid. There was no discharge yet, only a swelling, a red swelling.
Her mother put some drops of mother's milk in her eye and everything
disappeared.
The next day her right upper lid started to
swell again, it was a very big, red swelling. You can see this in the picture.
We gave her some remedies, but without any result.
Because of the mild, yellow pus I gave her Pulsatilla in Q potencies, three times, and after Pulsatilla the swelling went to the left side. We waited
for three days and then I gave her Ignatia. This
remedy didn't work either. The next remedy I gave was Hepar.
Immediately after I gave her the remedy she opened the eyes for about 10
minutes, then she closed them again and she hasn't opened them the whole day
and night. It was terrible. I couldn't sleep and my wife couldn't sleep either.
The next day we decided to give her Argentum nitricum, because Argentum nitricum is one of the
capital remedies in the rubric "Ophthalmia neonatum".
Question: Where is the rubric?
You have to look on page 242:
EYE, inflammation, infants
infants : Acon., alumn., Apis., arg-m., Arg-n., arn., Ars., arund., bell., bor., bry., Calc., cham., dulc., euphr., hep., ign., lyc., merc-c., merc., Nit-ac., nux-v., Puls., rhus-t., sulph., Thuj., zinc.
In the Repertory of Knerr
there are many more rubrics under "eyes", and here you find the small
rubric "Ophthalmia neonatum".
After one dose of Argentum
nitricum 30 the discharge changed. It was not so
thick anymore, not so yellow, and the swelling diminished a little bit, but it
was not a real result, because if you give the right remedy in fact you may expect
that there is a clear amelioration the next day.
She had a very, very strong photophobia and
couldn't tolerate the slightest beam of light. When it was completely dark she
tried to open her eyes., but she couldn't. One night I
tried it myself, because I was afraid something would happen to her eyes. You
don't know, because you can't see the eyes. I tried to open her left eye a
little bit and I saw a very strong conjunctival
injection, and edema of the retina. It was terrible.
After Argentum nitricum she started perspiring on her head, especially on
the parts where her skin touched her mother or me. She perspired on her head
and her neck and in the beginning of the sickness we noticed that she couldn't
tolerate the cold, that she liked it somewhat warm. This was also the reason
why we gave Hepar. In addition, two days after birth
she had a little inflammation of her right toe.
You can find this in the rubric on page 1005:
EXTREMITIES, felon
FELON (Onychia, Paronychia,
Panaritium, etc.), beginning in nail : Par., petr., phyt., plb., puls., rhus-t., sep., Sil., sulph.
This small inflammation, the perspiration and
the pus were reasons enough to give Silicea. Indeed,
we were not really satisfied with this decision, but we didn't have any other
idea for a remedy.
After Silicea the blepharitis was a little bit better and it seemed as if she
wanted to open her eyes, but she didn't do it. This has lasted already for 12
days. She couldn't see anything all the time, the eyes
were swollen and purulent. There was not so much pus as in the beginning, but
they were still purulent.
By coincidence a friend called me, he was also a homeopathic doctor. I told him the story
of my child and he said, "I've seen this very often when I worked
homeopathically in a normal practice. On which side did it start?" "On
the right side. And it was red, swollen and distended." "Oh,
then it is Syphilinum."
When I looked into the Repertory at the very
beginning of her sickness I was thinking of Syphilinum,
because it is also mentioned in the rubric "Ophthalmia
neonatum".
The
same evening as the telephone call I gave my daughter Syphilinum
200 and within 5 minutes she opened her eyes. After Argentum nitricum she had thrush
in her mouth and after Syphilinum the eyes became
better and better and the thrush worse and worse. In addition she had some
problems with the abdomen. Colic.
The next few days her eyes became better and
better, they were not so purulent anymore and the swelling went back down. Two
days after Syphilinum the thrush on two small spots
of the tongue diminished. They were both far removed from the midline of the
tongue. The next day these spots had become bigger.
My colleague reminded me that in cases in
which you need Syphilinum you can see two small
cracks on the tongue, which are the same distance from the midline of the
tongue, on the right side and on the left side. And both these spots on the
tongue of my daughter, which were free from thrush
have reminded me of these cracks.
This morning she is doing fine and she doesn't
have any problems with her abdomen anymore and there is very good development.
I think this is a very nice Syphilinum case.
A. Geukens: Don't
forget to add two remedies in the rubric on page 242:
EYE, inflammation, infants: Med, Syph
In Clarke the Ophthalmia
neonatum for Syphilinum is
very strongly indicated, exactly as strong as the doctor told us in the story
before, with the appearance as if the upper lid is too long.