08/19/2026
A wonderful case from Dr. Adolph Lippe's case files...
"Miss. H., 18 years old, was visited June 4th. She had taken a walk on the previous evening, and returning home at 10 P.M., seated herself at an open window for an hour. She retired, feeling perfectly well; was suffering from slight pain in her chest, which increased rapidly.
I saw her at 2:30 P.M. Stitches in the right side of the chest, through the lungs in different directions, very violent at times, causing her to cry out; in the last half hour the pain had extended to left upper part of the chest. The least motion causes much pain; breathing very short and rapid, as every effort to draw a long breath causes great (stinging, pricking) pain in the chest. Slight pain in the forehead. She is restless, wants to change her position all the time, although the movement of her body very much increases the pain. Pulse normal, very little thirst, skin dry, face flushed.
Gave her a dose of Aconite 50 M (Fincke) on the tongue. Saw her again at 8 P.M. and received the following statement: Very soon after taking the medicine, she fell asleep; slept very quietly for an hour; awoke feeling better, and was cheerful; the skin had become slightly moist. She remained quietly in her bed, took no food, and, without any assignable cause, the pain in her chest had returned about 6 o’clock, and by 8 P.M. was much more distressing than it had been before she took the Aconite.
She was exceedingly restless, cried out with pains; the skin had become very dry again; the pain had not extended any further on the left side of the chest. I now dissolved 6 pellets of the same preparation of Aconite in half a tumblerful of water and gave her one teaspoonful, ordered the medicine to be repeated (a teaspoonful at a time); every two hours, till she was relieved.
On my visit in the morning following, I learned than after the first teaspoonful of this Aconite solution the patient had very soon gone to sleep, and took no more medicine; slept till midnight; awoke in a profuse warm perpspiration, and soon fell asleep again; awoke at 7 A.M. free from pain; could draw a long breath, and took a very good breakfast. She remained perfectly well afterwards.
This young lady had been attacked during the last two years with pleurisy, congestion of the lungs, and had had one very severe attack of pneumonia; was then treated here by a homœopathic physician of great distinction. On account of the previous attacks of diseases of the lungs, the case was more alarming than it would have been otherwise. The first dose of Aconite had certainly caused a very short improvement; this first improvement had ceased, and now came the perplexing question, what next?
There could be no doubt that Aconite was the true homœopathic remedy, and had, of course, to be given again. If the first dose given dry on the tongue had only caused so short an improvement, much could not be reasonably expected from a second dose administered in the same manner. To go down to the Tincture was out of the question, as long experience and observation of this mode of administering Aconite by other physicians had fully convinced me that Aconite at least should under no condition be administered in its crude tincture. The only alternative was the solution of the remedy in water, and the result was a very happy one.
It is very well for men of distinction and liberality to demand the greatest freedom with regard to the dose; just as long as we have no practical rules to guide us in the selection of the dose or the repetition of the remedy, such demands are in order; but it does not follow that we should forever be deprived of such practical rules in relation to the doses, as could be deductions from facts only, be collected for that purpose.
Assertions amount to nothing at all; we must have facts, and logic will do the rest. And it is time that the oft-repeated invitation to the profession to publish, in the many journals devoted to our cause, well related cases, in which one mode of administering the clearly indicated remedy in a given dose has failed, and then has been successfully administered afterwards in a different dose or in a different manner. There is a solution to all perplexing questions. Let us ask nature; let us collect facts, and we will learn all we want to know."