A case of rheumatoid arthritis
By R.M. Sidgwick

Some years ago I spent some weeks at one of the southern seaside towns. On the last day of my visit I went in to a shop to pay a small account. I noticed that the proprietor, whom I will call Mr. A., seemed very tired. He told me that he had to work all day in the shop and most of the evening at home. His wife, he said, was crippled by rheumatoid arthritis. For eighteen years she had been slowly getting worse. Now she spent her days sitting in a chair as she was unable to walk more than a few steps. At night her husband carried her to bed where she often cried herself to sleep, so acute was the pain. The left knee and the fingers of her left hand were the seat of the disease. As she lay in bed, she felt as if she were lying upon boards. No position was comfortable. She felt sore all over “as if beaten with a stick”. She dreaded anyone touching her, and she could not bear to be thought an invalid. She disliked doctors, and told them to go away as there was nothing the matter with her.

Mr. A. told me that eighteen years ago his wife suffered from pyorrhea. All her teeth were extracted. Then she fell heavily upon her left knee which became exceedingly painful and did not respond to treatment. After a time her left hand became affected. No treatment had been of any use whatever.

I had no time to see Mrs. A. as I was leaving within an hour of this conversation with Mr. A. I offered, however, to send some medicine which I thought might give relief. I had no great hope of curing so advanced a case of this obstinate disease.

Anyone with even a moderate knowledge of Homeopathy will see that, in this case, Arnica is the drug indicated by these typical symptoms. I sent Arnica 3 to be taken three times a day half an hour before meals. I asked Mr. A. to report any amelioration or aggravation of the symptoms. For a month there was no apparent result. Then Mr. A. reported that his wife was very slightly better. This improvement continued, and I gave instructions that the medicine should be given with wider intervals between doses.

About this time Mr. A. wrote and told me that Mrs. A’s left leg was very much swollen and hard. There was great irritation, and the skin was peeling off in large patches. A week or so after this message I saw Mrs. A. for the first time. Her arthritic pains had vanished. She felt well, slept well, and she was very pleased with the change in her condition. Her knee was smaller, and not quite as stiff as it had been. The leg was swollen, the skin thickened and peeling off. There was no pitting on pressure as the limb was extremely hard. This condition was, I imagine, due to an interruption of the lymphatic circulation. The indications were not very clear, but I tried Arsenicum 3 with excellent results. The leg slowly decreased in size, the skin became nearly normal, and the irritation vanished. Some time after this Mrs. A. was able, for the first time for eighteen years, to cook a dinner unaided.

There has been no relapse. Mrs. A. cannot walk very far. Her knee, after eighteen years of arthritis, is too stiff to be of much service. But she is free from pain, and says she never felt better in her life.

There is an interesting point in connection with the dose and potency of this case. I was a beginner in the art of prescribing Homeopathyically. I did not know that Hahnemann, at any rate in his later period, objected to the repeated administration of the same potency at short intervals. Kent says somewhere that the lower potencies are not as a rule suitable for cases of chronic disease. He advised a scale of potencies beginning at 30, then 200, 1m, 10m, etc. Kent taught that any potency would, after a time, cease to hold the case. Here is a case which reacted favourably in spite of the fact that my treatment was opposed to the practice of these eminent men.