I remember a case of paralysis of the lower extremities that was prescribed for by a very careful homeopathic physician many years ago. It was one of the things that surprised me in the early days of my prescribing and observation. It was the case of a little girl with paralysis of lower extremities after diphtheria and no hope was given.
But Doctor Moore (he was then an Octogenarian) looked over the case.
I was acquainted with the family and with the doctor.
He studied the case carefully and gave Cocculus CM.
It was not many days before the child began to move the legs, and the condition was perfectly cleared up, and I have never ceased to wonder at it.
It was a good prescription, perfectly in accord with all the elements of the case.
Doctor Moore was one of the pupils of Lippe and Hering.
Reason for prescription:
As diphtheria has been known to induce a state very much like I have described, under Cocculus, as due to loss of sleep and anxiety:
Cocculus slows down all the activities of the body and mind, producing a sort of paralytic weakness. Behind time in all its actions. All the nervous impressions are slow in reaching the centers.
If you pinch this patient on the great toe he waits a minute and then says “oh,” instead of doing it at once. In response to questions he answers slowly, after apparent meditation. but it is an effort to meditate. And so with all nervous manifestations, thought, muscular activity, etc. He cannot endure any muscular exertion, because he is weak; he is tired. First comes this slowness, then a sort of visible paralytic condition, and then complete paralysis. This may be local or general. There are certain causes which produce these effects.
A wife nursing her husband, a daughter nursing her father, becomes worn out by the anxiety, worry and loss of sleep. She is exhausted; unable to sustain any mental or physical effort; weak in the knees, weak in the back, and when the time comes for her to sleep she cannot sleep. Sickness brought about in this manner is analogous to that caused by the Cocculus, and hence Cocculus from the time of Hahnemann to the present time has been a remedy for complaints from nursing, not exactly complaints that come on in the professional nurse, for Cocculus needs the combination of vexation, anxiety and prolonged loss of sleep, such as you have in the mother or daughter who is nursing, or the nurse when she takes on the anxiety felt by a member of the family; a wife nursing her husband through typhoid, or other long spell of sickness.