Cundurango

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Condor-plant.)

[This medicine is prepared from the bark of a climbing plant or shrub found in Ecuador, South America. A decoction of the bark is advised.] Officinal Preparations. — Tincture of the bark; dilutions. Analogues. — Arsenicum, Baptisia,Conium, Lapis alb., Pmonia, Silica.(?)

• A cachectic state of the system, such as obtains in patients

in surgical wards of hospitals — and in which ordinarywounds and ulcers tend to take on a bad appearance, fester, etc.

• Indolent ulcers, with hard callous edges, discharging a foetid,

sanious smell. ° Old, indolent ulcers, appearing cancerous.

(See Therapeutics, Vol. II.)

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

This medicine is prepared from the bark of a climbing plant found in Ecuador, South America. It is called the Condor-plant by the natives, and it is from them that the knowledge of its supposed virtues were first obtained.

It was introduced into practice and notoriety by a Dr. Bliss, of Washington city, but the manner of its introduction was so

suspiciously unprofessional, and smacked so much of quackery, that Dr. Bliss was expelled from the allopathic society to which he belonged. The testimony relative to its value is singularly at variance.

Dr. Bliss, and a few others, claim to have cured many cancers by its use. Other physicians claim to have tested it in private and hospital practice, and found it worthless. The British Hospital physicians report against its value.

Dr. Andrews, of Chicago, in a communication to the Academy of Science, stated that he had corresponded with many of the most eminent physicians of South America relative to Cundurango, and while they denied its curative powers over cancer and syphilis, they asserted its usefulness in “ old, obstinate, foul ulcers .”

Several homoeopathic physicians in this country have reported favorably of its value in “ foul and obstinate ulcers” Dr. Clotar Muller, of Germany, reports that he has used it in over twenty cases, “ some were real carcinoma, others benign (purely scrofulous) glandular swellings and ulcerations. In the latter it showed no action whatever. It also failed to act in scirrhous indurations. The size, hardness, and lancinating pains remained unaltered.” He decrees that “ favorable action may be expected in open cancer,” but the cases he cites do not prove its value in cancer, for he fails to show that his cases were cancerous. I give his cases as he reports them.

(1.) Carcinoma of the lip, an unclean and sinuous ulcer about the size of a dime, with surrounding hardness and swelling, burning pains, lip everted outward, emaciation. Five drops of 1st dil., morning and evening. In ten days the ulcer looked better and the surrounding hardness was reduced to a minimum.

(2.) On the right of thorax and around the nipple several tumors, of which two suppurated and formed sinuous, ugly-looking, foul-smelling ulcers, with raised edges. Cured in two months.

(3.) An ulcer seated on false ribs, of the size of the hand, beginning years ago. It looked carcinomatous with its high uneven edges, its deep, small islets of half-destroyed cellular tissue and muscular fibres at the base, and with its ichorous, acrid secretion ; the pains were severe. After taking Cundurango the ulcer had decreased to half its size.

I do not consider these cases as brilliant illustrations of cures by any means, nor do I believe the ulcers were cancerous. They were simply old, foul-smelling , ichorous ulcers, just such ulcers as South American physicians found it useful in, and the sphere of Cundurango evidently includes just such ulcers appearing anywhere on or in the body.

In the “ North American Journal of Homoeopathy,” May, 1874, is reported a case, by Professor N. Friedreich, as “ carcinoma ventriculi, with co-affections of the epigastric and supraclavicular lymphatic glands.” This case was so nearly cured by Cundurango in three months that the patient was discharged. The dose was 5iv of the bark to half a pint of water; a tablespoonful twice a day.

I have given it in several cases of uterine cancer, but without any good results.

From the “ British Journal of Homoeopathy,” January, 1875, I quote the following, translated from a paper by H. Goullon, Jr., in Hirschell’s “ Zeitschrift,” No. 16:

Dr. Obolinski, surgeon to the St. Lazarus Hospital, Cracow, experimented with the Cundurango in several cases with the following result :

Case I. — Patient is suffering from an epithelial cancroid of the right foot. He gets fifteen grains pro die, in the form of decoction, for three weeks. The remedy was likewise applied locally.

Result. — No amelioration ; the pains are getting intolerable. Dr. Obolinski performs amputatio cruris.

Case II. — Patient is suffering from an epithelial cancer of the left temporal region, of the size of the palm of the hand. Medication as in Case I, but during six weeks.

Result. — The whole ulcerative surface covers itself, in the fourth week, with healthy gramdations, and this led Dr. Obolinski to perform a heteroplastic operation, after the manner of Reverdin, and that, too, with success. However, no sooner had the transplanted bits begun to show signs of activity than the cancer began afresh, and destroyed both granulations and the transplanted portions of skin. Here the whole of the epithelioma was extirpated right down to the bone, and the place was (brought to heal for good. — (Goullon, Jr.).

But when, not long ago, Professor Friedreich published a case of cancer of the stomach cured by the bark of Cundurango, and thereby called attention to the fact that many of the experimenters had got negative results because they had had spurious or bad preparations, Obolinski began to experiment again, and this time made use of true American Cundurango bark, prepared from the sources named by Professor Friedreich. He had two cases in his private practice, an

octogenarian woman, with a flat epithelial cancer (ulcus rodens), of about the size of a farthing, on her lower eyelid ; and a woman, set. fifty, with a flat epithelial cancer, about the size of a bean, on the left side of the nose, and which had been repeatedly cauterized with Kali causticum, but kept on coming again. To these two he exhibited the remedy. He gave to both patients, daily, two, and, later on, three tablespoonfuls of medicine, and charpie impregnated therewith was laid on the sores. Both went their way to their homes with the order to persevere in this manner for a couple of weeks, or even months, and when Dr. Obolinski saw them again, six weeks thereafter, he was very greatly astonished to find both sores perfectly healed.

These cures have no small clinical interest for us homoeopaths. First of all, they seem to confirm the opinion expressed already, in 1872, by Cl. Miiller, in his clever essay on this subject, viz., that the newly imported drug is no infallible remedy against all sorts of growths called cancer, but rather curative of a definite form of such growths. “ It will- be seen,” said he, “ Cundurango does not act curatively in cases of tumors and scirrhous indurations, but rather in cases of open carcinomata and cancerous sores ; in other words, it happens, as with other discoveries, that the discoverer himself thinks his little babe a kind of Messiah, who shall work such wonders and signs as neither Creator nor creation intended.”

Then, when the public finds itself disappointed by the numerous failings, there follows such an odious and blind reaction, that the really good part of the discovery is no longer seen, and all who desire to get better acquainted with the thing are repelled by the giant, Prejudice. Is not homoeopathy itself a sad example of all of this ? Of further interest in these cases of Obolinski is the question of the dose. Cl. Miiller himself soon perceived that but little was to be expected here from light, infinitesimal doses. He gave, night and morning, five drops of the first dilution.

The external treatment of the sores, carried out at the same time with the same remedy, is probably of very decided advantage. Miiller’s case was cured with Cundurango1, internally alone.

We think that we are also justified in concluding, from the observations of the Cracovian surgeon, that where Cundurango should prove of no avail, a stronger and not a weaker dose would be called for. It is not with Cundurango as with Silicea and Lycopodium.