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RINGWORM: 
 
 ITS CONSTITUTIONAL NATURE 
 AND CURE. 
 
 J. COMPTON BURNETT, WL.JD. 
 
 II faut, pour la realisation de la maladie, la reunion de deux fac- 
 teurs ; le premier necessaire, est le gernie iufectieux, le 
 second, non moins indispensable, est la connivence de l'or- 
 ganisme qui niettra a la disposition du gernie P ensemble des 
 conditions physiques et chimiques qui constituent sou milieu 
 vivant. A cette condition, et a cette condition seulemeut, la 
 maladie sera constitute. — Bouchard (Les Microbes Patho- 
 genes). 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 BOERICKB & TAFKL. 
 \ 
 
 hOHfrx 
 
M' 
 
 ^> 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT iSQ2, 
 
 BY 
 
 BCERICKE i TAFEL 
 
 T. B. & H. B. COCHRAN, PRINTERS, 
 LANCASTER, PA. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Some years since I published a small 
 volume under the title of Diseases of 
 the Skin from the Organismic Stand- 
 point, and in it I seek to show that the 
 so-called diseases of the skin are for the 
 most part diseases of the constitutions 
 of the persons, and not diseases of their 
 skins. Since that time I have had ample 
 opportunities of making observations on 
 the true nature of skin diseases, and 
 these observations tend almost uniformly 
 to prove the correctness of the view. 
 
 Gout in the big toe is not a disease 
 of the said toe ; acne on the shoulders of 
 young persons is not a disease of the 
 
4 Preface. 
 
 skin of the shoulders ; neither is a yellow- 
 coated tongue a disease of the tongue. 
 
 The disease under consideration in 
 this tiny treatise is one of the most 
 characteristic, and its outward nature is 
 indisputably parasitic ; yet a careful 
 survey of the young individuals that get 
 it shows that they all have very peculiar 
 characteristics — serological, cutaneous, 
 and glandular. 
 
 Ringworm inspires disgust ; more or 
 less almost all skin diseases do that, and 
 yet a perfectly clear skin may enclose a 
 very diseased organism, and a skin- 
 diseased person may have a relatively 
 much better constitution, and have ail 
 his internal organs in a relatively much 
 better state, his cutaneous manifestations 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 Indeed, I would almost go so far as to 
 say that many cutaneous manifestations 
 betoken, in a certain sense, constitutional 
 
Preface. 5 
 
 power, — in the sense, namely, that such 
 organism has the power to determine 
 its diseases to the periphery, to its out- 
 side. It other words, the disease being 
 of the organism, it is a smaller evil to 
 have it outside on the skin than to have 
 it inside in a given organ. Gouty inflam - 
 mation of the big toe is one thing ; the 
 same process in the stomach, quite 
 another ; therefore, the disease being 
 given, it is the stronger person who 
 throws said disease into his skin ; but that 
 does -not make it a disease of the skin. 
 Old physicians who used to set up issues 
 in their patients' flesh, and maintain 
 them there, knew well what they were 
 about. 
 
 In regard to ringworm I am of opinion 
 that absolutely healthy children do not 
 and cannot, catch it. Before they can 
 catch ringworm it is essential that they 
 be in tainted health in some way, for 
 
6 Preface. 
 
 otherwise they could not supply to the 
 parasitic fungi the food which they need 
 to live and thrive on, and to continue 
 theirpropagation. On careful reflection, 
 this I believe will have to be conceded, 
 and this the following pages illustrate 
 clinically. 
 
 You cannot grow a common mush- 
 room except under given conditions, 
 neither can you the trichophyton of 
 ringworm. 
 
 The trichophyton is not the disease 
 itself, bu t i ts organic scavenger. Cure the 
 internal disease, and this scavenger dies. 
 
 J. COMPTON BURNETT. 
 
 86 Wimpole Street, 
 
 Cavandish Square, W., 
 
 August^ 1892 
 
RINGWORM : 
 
 HERPES S. TINEA TONSURANS. 
 
 / T V HAT Ringworm (Herpes S. 
 tinea tonsurans) is due to a 
 specific fungus is one of the certain- 
 ties of practical medicine ; that the 
 recognised treatment of the same is 
 by external applications with the 
 view of killing the fungi, no one 
 needs to be told. Hitherto its medi- 
 cability by internal remedies has 
 been admitted by a certain section 
 of the homoeopathic school of medi- 
 
8 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 cine. Indeed the more staunch Hah- 
 nemannians have always fought for 
 this view, and time and again have 
 proved its practicability ; on this 
 point I have long been at one with 
 these more staunch of the Hahne- 
 lnannians, and that simply because 
 I have been able to verify their 
 views clinically. For years, in 
 common with many others, I have 
 been constantly in the habit of 
 treating and curing ringworm by 
 internal remedies with relative suc- 
 cess. For all that I have thus far 
 never had anything approaching 
 to a clear notion of its true nature, 
 and some of the cases would persist 
 in not getting well ; and this lack of 
 a definite idea of its nature, and also 
 the uncertainty of its cure, is I 
 believe fully shared by those who 
 
and Care of Ringworm. 9 
 
 have thus habitually considered 
 and treated ringworm constitution- 
 ally . It is due, let us say, to psora, 
 but we have no clear conception of 
 what psora is. Psora needs to be 
 split up into its component parts, 
 no easy task ; it roots in the vague, 
 its trunk and boughs run away into 
 anywhere. The psora of the 
 homoeopaths seems somehow true, 
 but it has no proper beginning, no 
 definite course, and ends in patho- 
 logical chaos. Perhaps we study it 
 in Hahnemann, and in the best 
 writers on the subject, and after 
 doing our best to master it, we rise 
 from our studies with no clear idea, 
 and we finally decide to abandon 
 psora as an intangible myth, and 
 then we proceed with our clinical 
 work ; but, before long, we stumble 
 
io The Constitutional Nature 
 
 against a very tangible something, 
 and on looking at the stumbling 
 block, we find writ large upon it 
 the word Psora! Have I then 
 hit upon a solution of the psora- 
 problem ? No ; but if we can- 
 not break the whole faggot, we 
 may perchance break one stick 
 of it. 
 
 Hughes, in his Manual of Thera- 
 peutics,§a.y§ that Herpes circinnatus 
 (ringw r orm of the surface) is usu- 
 ally treated, and with fair success, 
 by Sepia, but that when the proving 
 of Tellurium produced so similar an 
 eruption, he (Dr. Hughes) followed 
 Dr. Metcalf in prescribing it instead 
 of Sepia for this disorder, and has 
 never failed to cure it speedily 
 thereby. 
 
 Of ringworm proper of the 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. n 
 
 scalp, Hughes thus writes: — 
 {Manual of Therapeutics, p. 520) 
 u That this disease is, when recent, 
 amenable to internal remedies 
 alone seems to disprove the theory 
 of its parasitic origin. The medi- 
 cine for it is Sepia, at about the 6th 
 dilution ; but if this fails, you must 
 resort to some local parasiticide, of 
 w^hich I suppose a solution of Sul- 
 phurous acid would be about the 
 best." 
 
 Some time since I published a 
 small volume, entitled Five Years' 
 Experience i?i the New Cure of 
 Consumption by its own Virus, and 
 the fifty -third illustrative case 
 therein runs thus (p. 95) : — 
 
 The influence of the virus upon 
 the teeth and their growth and 
 appearance is very striking. What 
 
12 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 I regard as tubercular teeth are 
 those — often more or less rudiment- 
 ary — with holes in their external 
 surface. Whether this is a recog- 
 nised pathological fact I do not hap- 
 pen to know, perhaps is it not. But 
 it is an important clinical observa- 
 tion. I recognized it clinically 
 some three years since, while treat- 
 ing a highly strumous lady with 
 many scars and glands in her neck. 
 While under the virus I noticed an 
 extraordinary improvement in her 
 teeth, they became a nice color, and 
 the numerous superficial holes 
 cleaned and partially disappeared. 
 It was even more apparent and 
 striking in the following case : — A 
 girl of ii, with ringworm on the 
 scalp ; the lymphatic glands every- 
 where palpable, and her ribs very 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 13 
 
 flat; strawberry tongue; a bad 
 cough, worse at night; although 11 
 years old she had practically no 
 teeth, that is to say, they were 
 rudimentary and not above the 
 level of her gums. All her 
 mother's brothers and sisters had 
 died of consumption ; after three 
 months' treatment with our ordi- 
 nary remedies we had made but 
 small progress, and then I kept 
 patient altogether five month un- 
 der the bacillic virus, with the re- 
 sult that her palpable glans ceased 
 to be palpable ; her ringworm dis- 
 appeared ; her ribs took on a better 
 form ; her breathing was notably 
 better ; and, mirabile dictn, her 
 teeth had grown. She is now well, 
 and has a mouthful of teeth which 
 are quite passible. It may be noted 
 
14 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 that the ringworm had disappeared, 
 and in respect to this nasty thing I 
 find it generally disappears under 
 the influence of the virus. I learned 
 this very important fact also purely 
 clinically in the following manner: 
 — A whole family of children of dif- 
 ferent ages had had ringworm for a 
 full year, and the mother told me 
 on bringing them that she had 
 already spent over £60 on medical 
 fees for its cure, but in vain. All 
 known remedies had been applied 
 by the local doctors in two neigh- 
 bourhoods, and several skin special- 
 ists had worked hard at their poor 
 heads, but to no avail. Their heads 
 were shaved and their scalps were 
 well scoured night and morning 
 but still the ringworm persisted. 
 Finally, a distant cottage had been 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 15 
 
 hired, and the afflicted ones were 
 there isolated, and the services of a 
 noted ringworm curer of the non- 
 qualified variety had been secured; 
 but these also failing, they were put 
 under ray care. I have had no 
 great cause to complain of the ho- 
 moeopathic treatment of ringworm 
 with our antipsorics — indeed, quite 
 the contrary — but it is apt to be a bit 
 tedious at times. Now their mother 
 had been cured by me of incipient 
 tuberculosis with the virus, and it 
 occurred to me that ringworm 
 might be a manifestation of the 
 tubercular kind,* and so I forthwith 
 put the whole lot under the virus, 
 administered in the usual way, 
 internally in dynamic dose ; this I 
 
 * I find Tilbury Fox and Startin were of this 
 opinion ; so are, doubtless, many others. 
 
1 6 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 did all the more readily, as they all 
 had numerous superficial palpable 
 glands. And the result ? In a very 
 few weeks thev were all well of 
 ringworm and of the glands, and 
 have thriven splendidly ever since. 
 Something like a dozen bad ring- 
 worm cases have come to me since 
 then, and they were all quickly 
 cured by the virus, and in each case 
 the general state has been greatly 
 improved. No doubt some bacterio- 
 logists w T ill cultivate, some fine day, 
 the germs of the ringworm; and 
 astound the world with their subcu- 
 taneous injections. It is well that 
 medical men should approach each 
 subject from a different standpoint, 
 as they serve to correct one 
 another. 
 
 Since then I have systematically 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 17 
 
 subjected almost all my ringworm 
 cases to the influence of Bacillinum 
 in higli potency and infrequently 
 administered, and of this later 
 experience I will now proceed to 
 treat. Ringworm is a fairly com- 
 mon complaint, and sends terror 
 into the hearts of masters and mis- 
 tresses of houses ; and school- 
 masters and school mistresses give 
 but a short shrift to any unfortu- 
 nate wights who show on their 
 scalps or necks, or elsewhere, any- 
 thing approaching to a scaly, ring- 
 like patch. They know well that 
 if it spreads, or is reported to the 
 children's homes, the depletion of 
 their school is imminent. " No 
 Doctor; I am very fond of Gerald, 
 he is my own nephew, and a dear 
 good boy, and his father is in India, 
 
 B 
 
t8 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 but I cannot take him back to my 
 school unless you give me a writ- 
 ten certificate, and that round patch 
 on his neck is quite cured!" The 
 very Prince of Darkness is less 
 dreaded in a school than ringworm. 
 Definite information, therefore, on 
 the subject of the nature and cure 
 of ringworm will be welcome to not 
 a few. Moreover, it marks a new 
 era in the treatment of the disease. 
 When I say it marks a new era 
 in the treatment of the disease, I 
 should say that for the first time it 
 gives us a clue to its aetiology, 
 pathology, and, best of all, to its 
 really radical cure. The meta- 
 morphosis wrought in the bad or 
 poor constitutions of ringworm 
 patients subjected to the influence 
 of Bacillinum (high , and mark well , 
 
and Ctire of Ringworm. 19 
 
 in very infrequent doses) is simply 
 beautiful, and a delight to the heart 
 of the physician who loves his 
 work for its own sake, and the 
 more so if he has a fair share of 
 the milk of human kindness in him. 
 
 I do not agree with those who 
 consider that the amenability of 
 ringworm to internal treatment — 
 say to Sulphur, Sepia, or Tellurium 
 — militates against its parasitic 
 nature.* There can be no question 
 of its parasitic nature, however it 
 may be cured. We must read the 
 facts thus : the disease is parasitic 
 in its external manifestation, and 
 if this external manifestation — the 
 scaly, annular patches — be the 
 
 * I think Erasmus Wilson could never be 
 brought to believe in the parasitic nature of 
 ringworm. 
 
20 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 disease, and the whole of the 
 disease, then, of course, internal 
 treatment must be regarded as 
 little less than silly, and the only 
 sensible thing to do is to apply to 
 the ringworm parts something 
 that shall kill the fungi and there- 
 fore cure the disease. 
 
 Well, few need to be told that 
 the task of treating ringworm 
 successfully by external means,//., 
 killing the fungi, is so unsatis- 
 factory, so uncertain, so tedious, so 
 often an entire failure, that I well 
 understand the state of mind of an 
 eminent London skin specialist, 
 who six weeks ago exclaimed to 
 Lady X., who wished to known 
 how long it would be before her 
 little boy would be quite cured 
 of his ringworm, and fit to re- 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 21 
 
 turn to school, " How long? 
 Heaven knows, I don't; perhaps 
 by the end of next term, I really 
 cannot say I" 
 
 And thus it is : the external 
 treatment of ringworm is wrong, 
 because it only deals with the 
 external manifestations of the in- 
 ternal organismic ailment. Ring- 
 worm is an Internal Disease 
 of the organism having for its out- 
 ward sign the ringworm consisting 
 of fungi thriving in a certain 
 order : the fungi are the guests of 
 the diseased host; cure the host's 
 diseased state, and the fungus — the 
 ringworm — dies off from lack of a 
 proper medium. Ringworm may 
 be regarded as mould of the skin, 
 analogous to the mould on cheese, 
 bits of bread, oranges, or lemons, 
 
2 2 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 and warm moisture favours its 
 development. Mould}' products 
 love darkness rather than light — a 
 sort of half light,moisture, warmth, 
 and hiddenness ; decaying organic 
 matter is their food and life, and I 
 am satisfied that those who get 
 ringworm have in their scalps some- 
 thing whereon the ringworm mould 
 can live, thrive, and multiply. 
 
 Inveterate Case of Herpes Ton- 
 surans, or Ringworm. 
 
 A lad of eight years of age was 
 brought to me at the end of April 
 1 89 1, to be treated for ringworm, 
 under a very severe form of which 
 he had been labouring for over a 
 year. At the date in question it was 
 nearly all over his body, scalp, neck, 
 upper extremities, in large numbers 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 23 
 
 of rings, varying in size from that 
 of a sixpenny piece to that of a 
 halfpenny. His scalp is one mass 
 of scabs and scales extending all 
 down his neck (said to have come 
 from goapowder). The scalp is at 
 times moist. He has no feelable 
 glands in his neck, bnt those of his 
 groins are like so many very small 
 marbles. Sparsely strawberry-like 
 tongue ; teeth yellow and decaying. 
 
 " What have yon tried for yonr 
 son?" 
 
 " Tried! everything, bnt he gets 
 worse and worse, and since that 
 goapowder his head has gone like 
 that." 
 
 I am snre that any experienced 
 practition er of medicine, who places 
 his faith in the outside treatment of 
 ringworm, recognises the pictnre 
 
24 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 I am drawing as that of a type of 
 ringworm cases that will not get 
 well do what we will. I have 
 had them myself in olden days, till 
 I hated the very sight of them, with 
 their closely shaven scalps that 
 seemed to consist in a number of 
 little exits of sticky, mattery ooze 
 that then dried into scabs. Such 
 was this boy's aspect, but some of 
 its hideousness was covered by a 
 natty, well-fitting skull-cap. 
 
 Bacillinum C. was given for two 
 months, when on the 24th June, 
 I find noted that the red pips of 
 his tongue were nearly gone; the 
 lower half of his scalp was clean 
 and healthy ; appetite better; teeth 
 much cleaner and whiter. " He 
 is much better in his health. " 
 
 To continue with the same 
 remedy. 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 25 
 
 July 29th, 189 1. — He is quite 
 well of his ringworm, though his 
 scalp is slightly scurfy, and his teeth 
 still rather dirty looking. He then 
 had the same remedy (1 oooth), 
 whereafter the only one thing 
 wrong with him was the greeny 
 state of his teeth, w T hich presum- 
 ably was from another aetiological 
 source, and therefore not amenable 
 to the bacillinic influence. A worse 
 case of ringworm would, indeed, be 
 hard to find: a prettier, cleaner, or 
 more accurately scientific cure I do 
 not ask for. When cured the boy 
 was a picture, with his splendid 
 crop of hair stubbles about an inch 
 in length — and, moreover, in ex- 
 cellent general health. 
 
 I used no external remedies at 
 all. I do not for one moment 
 
26 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 suppose that the medical world 
 (and still less the surgical) will 
 accept my statements in regard to 
 the true nature and cure of ring- 
 worm; nor do I imagine that they 
 will fairly try my treatment. Past 
 experience teaches me, that really 
 radical curing on lines of scientific 
 precision with high homoeopathic 
 potencies is not in harmony with 
 prevailing views, and, therefore, to- 
 tally incomprehensible and unac- 
 ceptable to the profession at large, 
 and hardly more acceptable to 
 eight-tenths of the medical men 
 practising homceopathically. Even 
 the homoeopathic practitioner seems 
 very commonly quite unable to 
 crawl out of his own old ways. 
 Well, medical progress will pass 
 him by and go on. 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 27 
 
 The internal treatment of ring- 
 worm by Sulphur, Sepia, and 
 Tellurium is good, but I trust I 
 shall be able in these pages to show 
 that the treatment of ringworm by 
 the internal administration of very 
 infrequent doses of high potencies 
 of Bacillinum is direct, exact, 
 radical, and beyond compare; the 
 remedy being pathologically ho- 
 moeopathic to the whole morbid state 
 and crasis of the individual, and not 
 merely pathologically similar to 
 the superficial cutaneous mani- 
 festations. 
 
 I have long maintained the or- 
 ganismic or constitutional nature of 
 skin diseases, and have time and 
 again defended the thesis in medi- 
 cal literature, notably in my small 
 treatise, Diseases of the Skin from 
 
28 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 the Organismic Stand-point, which 
 is here confirmed in a manner I 
 had not even hoped for, viz., direct 
 clinical proof of the thesis that skin 
 diseases are indeed general, con- 
 stitutional, or organismic ; and, 
 therefore, for very joy I will dwell 
 upon ringworm pretty fully, for as 
 I have discovered that it is curable 
 by the administration of Bacilli- 
 num in high potency, it so comes 
 to pass that I can demonstrate 
 clinically the organismic nature 
 and cure of an affection of the skin 
 that is clearly outside, to all in- 
 tents and purposes, in its own life- 
 history, being admittedly and de- 
 monstrably due to the fungus 
 known as the trichophyton. And 
 this demonstration is all the more 
 powerful, because we cannot deny 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 29 
 
 that the herpes tonsurans, or ring- 
 worm, is due to this fungus, the 
 trichophyton. No ; we cannot, of 
 course, since the thing is scientific- 
 ally demonstrable, as Kobner inoc- 
 ulated himself and certain ani- 
 mals with its products, and ring- 
 worm was the result. 
 
 Ringworm is, therefore, an ex- 
 ternal disease due to an external 
 infection, the trichophyton, and 
 (next to the itch) the skin disease 
 of which people have the very 
 greatest horror. This is due, in the 
 first place, to the fact that its 
 favourite seat is the hairy scalp, or 
 near it, though we find it often in 
 other parts of the body, and it 
 causes the hair to fall out in circu- 
 lar patches as if eaten away in a 
 ring by little worms, and hence our 
 
3'o The Constitutional Nature 
 
 English name of ringworm. There- 
 fore, any lady's imagination readily 
 paints herself to herself with any 
 number of these round "spots" 
 with loss of hair, and thus an ob- 
 ject to be shunned, — and ladies do 
 not, as a rule, wish to be shunned. 
 Next to this horror is the disgrace(!) 
 of being subject to such a disgust- 
 ing disease ; and, finally, it is very 
 well known to be often exceedingly 
 difficult of cure. 
 
 "Oh, I have tried all our big 
 doctors and two quacks, and all 
 the sure cures, but M's head is 
 worse than ever!" But all these 
 trials were on the same lines, viz., 
 external applications to kill the 
 fungi. 
 
 What first struck me was the 
 fact, that in a given household in- 
 
and Cure of Ringworm, 31 
 
 fected by ringworm only some of 
 the members got the disease, and 
 these were invariably the weaker 
 ones, the weedy, and the unhealthy. 
 I have known households in which 
 ringworm existed in one or two of 
 its members, and although towels, 
 brushes and combs were used al- 
 most indiscriminately, still the dis- 
 ease did not spread. Conversely I 
 have known others in which only 
 one child would have, perhaps, just 
 oiie small patch, and in which the 
 greatest care was taken to prevent 
 the thing spreading, yet many of 
 the children finally caught the 
 complaint 
 
 I have noticed the same with 
 cattle. Thus, a herd of heifers of 
 my own observing two years ago, 
 numbering eighteen when muster- 
 
32 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 ed in the yard, were examined by 
 me for ringworm, and five had it — 
 three pretty badly. These five 
 were relatively weedj^ specimens, 
 and those that had it worse were 
 the most weedy. I noticed that 
 the infected ones rnbbed the dis- 
 eased parts against posts and the 
 like, and the healthy ones living 
 with them, grazing in the same 
 meadows, eating out of the same 
 bins, herded with them in the same 
 yard at night, all rnbbing against 
 one another, and against the same 
 hard objects. The healthy ones, I 
 saw, remained healthy and did not 
 take ringworm in the smallest de- 
 gree. 
 
 A practical cattle-kenner stand- 
 ing by was questioned by me as to 
 this ringworm. u Oh," said he, "the 
 healthy, strong ones will not get it." 
 
and Cure of Ringworm, 33 
 
 " And what do you do to cure 
 the diseased ones?" " Oh, that's 
 nothing ; keep them dry, litter the 
 yard well, feed them well, and they 
 will all get well of the ringworm 
 as soon as they get strong" 
 
 I took particular notice of this 
 herd for many months, and found, 
 indeed, that the ringwormy ones 
 mended of their ringworm exactly 
 in proportion to their general im- 
 provement, and in the end only 
 one remained unimproved, and that 
 one had always been the most 
 weedy, and it was thought that she 
 would die. I had no further oppor- 
 tunity of observing the herd, but I 
 had seen quite enough to satisfy 
 myself that strong, healthy heifers 
 do not get ringworm although ex- 
 posed to the infection closely and 
 
 c 
 
34 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 constantly, and those that have it 
 get rid of it in direct proportion to 
 the improvement in their general 
 condition. In other words, the 
 ringworm fungi cannot live and 
 thrive in really healthy animals, 
 and the ill condition of those that 
 have the disease is not a conse- 
 quence of the disease, but a neces- 
 sary antecedent condition of the 
 animals before the trichophyton 
 can thrive. 
 
 Whether ringworm in itself is 
 beneficial or hurtful, I am unable to 
 say with certainty, but incline 
 strongly to the belief that it may be 
 beneficial. When I say that I incline 
 strongly to the belief that it 
 may be beneficial, I mean that the 
 presence of the fungi being sequen- 
 tial to internal ill-conditionedness, 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 35 
 
 and being on the outside of the 
 economy, may live on what harms 
 that individual, and thus determine 
 the hurtful matter from the within 
 to the outside, thus acting as liv- 
 ing derivatives. 
 
 Inquiring of my practical cattle- 
 kenner whether the men who tend 
 ringwormy cattle catch the disease 
 or not, he said, — " Oh, yes, some- 
 times, but not as a rule." 
 
 The man who attended to this 
 particular herd of heifers did catch 
 the disease; and I found on ex- 
 amining him that he was phthisi- 
 cally disposed, he was very dusky, 
 he tanned unduly in the sun, was 
 morose and taciturn, and always 
 felt tired and weary. I found, 
 further, that he had had to give up 
 a good situation in a large town, 
 
36 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 and had been recommended to find 
 an outdoor occupation in the 
 country, the doctors telling him he 
 would go into consumption if he 
 stayed in the town. 
 
 I remember years ago attending 
 the family of a farmer, when several 
 of the children were presented to 
 me as having caught ringworm 
 from the cows, and one of the boys 
 afterwards became very distinctly 
 consumptive, and was given up as 
 past praying for, and then he was 
 sent up to London to me. Four 
 months of Bacilliuum, high, quite 
 cured him, and he is now thriving. 
 
 This all confirms me in my view, 
 which is the underlying idea of this 
 book, that there is some close re- 
 lationship between tuberculosis and 
 ringworm, the precise nature of 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 37 
 
 which deserves attention and study. 
 
 I have already quoted from the 
 first London edition of my Five 
 Years 1 Experience in the New Cure 
 of Consumption, which see. 
 
 In the second (American) edition 
 of this same work the following 
 may be found : — 
 
 Case of Ringworm. 
 
 In the first edition, as just stated, 
 I communicated the important fact 
 — many smaller things are called 
 great discoveries — that ringworm 
 yields readily to Bacillinum, and 
 that I therefore regard this cuta- 
 neous eruption as a tubercular 
 manifestation. A little girl, five 
 and a half years of age, was brought 
 to me at the end of January 1891 
 to be treated for ringworm ; there 
 
38 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 was only one ring on the back of 
 the neck, but this was well defined. 
 Bacillinum C. was ordered, and the 
 whole thing disappeared within the 
 month, and the little lady has been 
 very thriving ever since. 
 
 So far as I am concerned in this 
 work {New Cure for Consumption), 
 the curability of ringworm by 
 Bacillinum is an established fact 
 and I therefore take leave of the 
 subject so far as this work {New 
 Cure for Consumption) is con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Here in this little volume I am 
 concerned purely with the question 
 of ringworm from the organismic 
 standpoint, and so I will adduce a 
 little more clinical evidence from 
 my case-book. 
 
 Neumann's statement that 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 39 
 
 healthy people are as liable to 
 pityriasis versicolor and herpes 
 tonsurans as those who are delicate 
 I absolutely deny. Eczema mar- 
 ginatum is pretty common, and, 
 therefore, I have seen a good many 
 cases of it. Neumann is of opinion 
 that eczema marginatum is a modi- 
 fied form of herpes tonsurans, 
 which I doubt, as one meets with 
 eczema marginatum in many fairly 
 vigorous adult males, though they 
 may not be truly healthy. 
 
 Moreover, eczema marginatum 
 does not yield to Bacillinum. 
 Eczema marginatum I have known 
 to improve under the influence of 
 this remedy, but that is all. If, 
 therefore, eczema marginatum is 
 the same thing mycologically as 
 herpes tonsurans, there must be in 
 
4-0 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 its modification a tertium quid, a 
 different pathological entity. 
 
 Four Cases of Ringworm {Sisters) 
 cured by Internal Medication. 
 
 Miss Winnie X., aged ten, came 
 under my care in the month of July 
 1 89 1 to be treated for ringworm. 
 There were several large patches on 
 her scalp and numerous little ones ; 
 the largest was on the crown of the 
 head, a trifle to the left, and nearly 
 two inches in diameter. The child 
 had a profuse mass of hair; is of 
 fairly healthy parentage. I say 
 fairly, because I formerly cured her 
 mother of an abdominal tumour 
 and her brother of very severe ec- 
 zema. Winnie herself is small for 
 her age, thin, and not robust look- 
 ing, though she has been living in 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 41 
 
 a fine healthy part of Yorkshire. 
 Her neck was thin, and on both 
 sides studded with feelable, large, 
 hard glands. I put her on Bacilli- 
 7mm in my wonted way ; in a month 
 her glands were smaller and the 
 herpes tonsurans was less active ; 
 and in three months the glands of 
 her neck were well, she had grown, 
 had taken on a healthy look — quite 
 ruddy — and the ringworm was 
 nearly gone, the hair all growing 
 again. At the end of the fourth 
 month she was in all respects nor- 
 mal, and a bright, bonny girl, and 
 so she continues 
 
 The three other sisters of Winnie 
 had the same disease, and the same 
 general conditions of non-thriving ; 
 numerous pretty large, hard glands 
 on both sides of the neck, and 
 
 D 
 
42 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 patches of the ringworm on their 
 scalps and necks, and, like Winnie, 
 with the bald ringworm patches, 
 great shocks ofhair. They had the 
 same treatment for the -same length 
 of time, and with the identical 
 result: the ringworm quite dis- 
 appeared, the indurated glands got 
 well (/'. e. , impalpable ) , the girls 
 took to growing, and took on a 
 ruddy, healthy appearance. The 
 cure of the ringworm nr these four 
 cases — as also in my others — was 
 effected solely by the internal treat- 
 ment by high potencies of Bacilli- 
 num. The improvement was grad- 
 ual, general, and all along the 
 line, as one, indeed, should theoret- 
 ically expect from any remedial 
 agent that cures organismically 
 and organically. Note well ; the 
 
an d J Cure of Ringworm. 43 
 
 cure is not only organismic, but 
 organic; not chemical, not mechan- 
 ical, not local, not topic, not an- 
 tiparasitic, but organic, vital. The 
 fungi are not attacked, but the 
 "host" of the fungi is healed, and 
 the wee fungi die, and their spores 
 cannot germinate any further in 
 the same soil. In these four cases 
 three of them had profuse heads of 
 hair hanging down their necks ; one 
 had been cropped. I ordered these 
 fine heads of hair not to be cut off, 
 but just left so as to put the treat- 
 ment to the severest possible test, 
 by thus leaving the spores of the 
 fungi en masse all over 'the place. 
 But this notwithstanding, no 
 further development took place 
 after the patients got well under 
 the influence of the remed}^ the 
 
44 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 progressive amelioration being 
 steady, continuous, and complete. 
 There are two elements in herpes 
 tonsurans to be thus considered: 
 ist, the soil-quality; and^ 2nd, the 
 fungi. Every organic thing needs 
 certain conditions of its own life in 
 order to thrive, and what I main- 
 tain in regard to ringworm is, that 
 the disease proper is not to be 
 sought in the presence of the fungi, 
 but in that quality of the body 
 which constitutes its fitness for 
 the fungi to develop and thrive. 
 In other words, a really healthy 
 individual does not, and cannot 
 catch ringworm. I say catch, and 
 by that I mean get it from ordinary 
 together-living with ringwormy 
 individuals. I do not refer to 
 inocul ability, where force is used, 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 45 
 
 and the stuff is injected into one's 
 flesh and blood direct, because here 
 a new order of things is created, 
 which fact is commonly entirely 
 lost sight of. I will, however, not 
 touch, upon this question here, 
 contenting myself with observing 
 that catching a complaint in the 
 common and natural order of 
 things, and being compelled to take 
 it by the injunction of material 
 quantities of its stuff, are not 
 equivalent by any means, though 
 Pasteur, Koch, and biological ex- 
 perimenters very generally work 
 and write as if they were. And 
 this, indeed, constitutes the weak 
 link in their chain of argument. 
 More particularly is this the case 
 w r ith Koch and his experiments in 
 tuberculosis. True, he renders 
 
46 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 certain {healthy) creatures by 
 inoculations immune against tuber- 
 culosis, but our tubercular patients ; 
 are not by any means healthy, but 
 very unhealthy, inasmuch as they 
 are tuberculous, and they can only 
 be cured slowly, organically, by 
 the processes set up by the action t 
 of homoeopathic potencies of the 
 remedy; for, if anything like a 
 material dose be used, the action 
 set up is on the same line and in 
 the same direction as the disease, 
 whereas the homoeopathic high 
 potency of the virus sets up a con- 
 trary — the opposite— action which 
 tends to cure. This is the true 
 reading of the phenomena, and 
 this reading sheds ligjit upon the 
 whole subject, and affords a sound 
 working hypothesis, and all the 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 47 
 
 known phenomena are thus readily 
 comprehended, and stand out in 
 the clear light of reason tallying 
 exactly with experience. Only the 
 homoeopathic law of the double and 
 opposite action of different doses 
 renders the use of viruses as reme- 
 dies possible. 
 
 The greater the poison the great- 
 er the remedy; true, but only 
 homceopathically. Throw out the 
 homoeopathic law, and the high 
 potency and you are stranded, and 
 your virus is a virus and nothing 
 more ; and where is Koch ? Strand- 
 ed just here — at this very point. 
 He casts aside the homoeopathic 
 law, he ignores the possibility of 
 the action of high potencies, and 
 tries nevertheless to cure with likes 
 or identicals, and he fails ; and he 
 
48 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 not only fails to cure, but he kills, 
 as do all who follow him, as he and 
 their own published results clearly 
 testify. 
 
 This is very unfortunate for sick 
 folks, because the world at large do 
 not, cannot, readily see the differ- 
 ence between the use of a virus in 
 homoeopathic potency and its use 
 in Kochian fashion, although 
 THE RESULTS ARE EXACTLY OPPO- 
 SITE. 
 
 For them — medical and lay — 
 tuberculinum is tuberculinum 
 whether the matrix substance or a 
 homoeopathic potency, whereas the 
 one is a poison that kills, while the 
 other is a grand harmless remedy, 
 that cures a very dire and fatal dis- 
 ease. 
 
 The vast majority of the homoeo- 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 49 
 
 pathic practitioners of the world- 
 take up this position : they say the 
 use of viruses as remedies is not 
 permissible ; they are superior per- 
 sons who disdain the use of such 
 unspeakable things. They object 
 to the kind of remedy altogether, 
 which would be a tenable position 
 if only they were able to cure as 
 well without them. But can they ? 
 No, they cannot, and do not. I 
 have before now urged, that inas- 
 much as the virus can (and must) 
 be used in a high potenc}^, what 
 the origin or nature of the matrix 
 may be is a matter of absolute in- 
 difference. 
 
 "Oh," say they, " but we do not 
 believe in high potencies, there is 
 nothing in them." 
 
 Their position is therefore this : 
 
 K 
 
50 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 they object to, say, tuberculinum, 
 or pj^rogenium, because of their 
 nature and origin; they object to 
 them in high potency, becanse 
 high potencies contain nothing at 
 all. When, therefore, any of these 
 superior persons object to the use 
 of Bacillinnm for the cure of ring- 
 worm on the ground of its being a 
 virus, my reply is, that as I only 
 use high potencies of it, and as 
 high potencies, on their own show- 
 ing, contain nothing at all, their 
 objection falls to the ground, being 
 reduced to the absurd, for no one 
 can ascribe bad qualities to il noth- 
 ing." 
 
 I will pass on now from the ob- 
 jections of these superior persons 
 to a further study of the clinical 
 results obtained by Baallinum in 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 51 
 
 the treatment of ringworm, and this 
 I do the more willingly as I know 
 full well that it w^ere vain to ex- 
 pect or wait for any progress or 
 help in the cure of grave forms of 
 disease from them. They are now, 
 therapeutically, where they for- 
 merly were, and in the future they 
 will be still in the same place, 
 subserving the not altogether use- 
 less purpose of milestones on the 
 road of medical progress. They 
 are already a good way behind, 
 and will soon be lost to view al- 
 together. 
 
 Homoeopathy must progress on 
 the lines of pathology and morbid 
 anatomy, or it will wane, and study 
 on animals will have to help us. 
 
52 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 Case of Tinea Circinnata. 
 
 A young lassie of eight years of 
 age was brought by her mother to 
 me on February 18, 1889, for a 
 patch of ringworm on the left side 
 of the nose and several others on 
 the back of the neck, where the 
 hairy scalp ends. She had from 
 me Morbitlinum 30. 
 
 March 20. — The old spots have 
 gone, but she has quite a number 
 of new ones on chest and arms ; 
 her tongue is pippy ; she does not 
 get off to sleep very readily. There 
 is no ringworm on the body. 
 
 B Bacillinum C. 
 
 This quite cured the ringworm, 
 and it never returned. I should 
 have stated at the outset of this 
 little narration, that patient had 
 
and Citre of Ringworm. 53 
 
 had ringworms for many months 
 before she was brought to me at all. 
 Three years later — i. e., April n, 
 1892 — I again saw r this girl with 
 her mother, when I inquired 
 whether there had been any return 
 of the ringworm ? Patient had al- 
 most forgotten all about the affair, 
 but her mother exclaimed, — " Oh, 
 Kathleen has never had any re- 
 turn of the ringworm, though fresh 
 places had kept on coming for over 
 a year when I first brought her to 
 you." 
 
 Case of Ringworm Cured by 
 Bacillinum CC. 
 
 Towards the end of the year 
 1 89 1, a lady was induced by rela- 
 tives to bring her twelve-year-old 
 son to me, because he had suddenly 
 
54 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 arrived home from school with a 
 circular, bald, scaly patch on the 
 top of his head. The ring was 
 about the size of a florin, and for 
 the past three weeks had been 
 treated most actively ; one might 
 saj^ that said little ring-shaped 
 patch had been attacked with 
 venom, fury, and hatred by the 
 surgeon, the mother, the governess, 
 and by " uncle," the general im- 
 pression conveyed b} r the onslaught 
 was " we'll soon get rid of you!" 
 
 But in vain, though "uncle" is 
 a general in the army. The in- 
 durated glands in the neck, the 
 dusky colour of the skin of the 
 neck, the dirt that would not wash 
 off, showed quite clearly that the 
 stroma was ill. Three months of 
 the Bactllznum CC. } and nothing 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 55 
 
 else locally or internally, effected 
 a very perceptible change in the 
 boy : not only had the nasty horror- 
 inspiring ring-shaped patch become 
 covered with clean, healthy hairs, 
 but the scurf had gone, and the 
 boy had grown an inch ; he looked 
 fresher, brighter, and — u Doctor, 
 his face and neck are so much 
 cleaner." 
 
 The boy duly returned to school 
 in capital health. 
 
 Said the boy's mother, U I am 
 beginning to have faith in your 
 treatment, but oh! what a life 
 'uncle' and the others have led me." 
 
 What does your uncle say, now 
 the nasty thing has gone ? 
 
 u He says he always had his 
 doubts as to whether it was a trite 
 case of ringworm." 
 
56 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 But I thought he was so very 
 sure about it? 
 
 "So he was when I brough S. 
 to you, but the general says that 
 the real ringworm is a parasitic 
 disease, and that you cannot possi- 
 bly kill parasites on the skin by 
 giving the infected person little 
 white powders to take." 
 
 Tell your uncle I think faith did 
 it. 
 
 I fancy the general has a sure 
 cure of his own brought from In- 
 dia. 
 
 Ringworm in General Survey in 
 Literature. 
 
 In daily life we find ringworm a 
 difficult disorder to cure: a few 
 cases yield to almost any sensible 
 treatment, but the bulk of them 
 
and Cure of Ringworm, 57 
 
 offer a stubborn resistance. And 
 yet we often find the therapeutics 
 of ringworm in the text-books con- 
 fined to a very few lines. One 
 author of no mean standing tells 
 us that the soft-soap treatment 
 generally suffices! However, some 
 authors do not hesitate to speak 
 out plainly on the subject. And I 
 notice that the more the authors 
 know of ringworm, the more they 
 have studied it, the less therapeu- 
 tically positive do they become. 
 Willan (181 7) confessed that it is 
 u hard to cure." 
 
 Gruby (1844) made the discovery 
 that a fungus was present in the 
 broken-off hairs and in their root 
 sheaths. This parasite was fully 
 described by Malmsten, in Stock- 
 holm, in 1845, and it was named 
 
58 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 by hitn the Trichophyton tonsur- 
 ans. Cazenave's name, Herpes 
 tonsurans, is most commonly met 
 with in many works. Its other 
 names are legion. 
 
 Alder Smith, M. B. Lond., F. R. 
 C. S. (" Ringworm: Its Diagnosis 
 and Treatment" London 1885), 
 has very usefully spent many years 
 in studying ringworm, and in the 
 work just named shows himself a 
 thorough master of the subject, his 
 position as Resident Medical Offi- 
 cer at Christ's Hospital, London, 
 affording him incomparable oppor- 
 tunities for such studies. I shall 
 take this author as the represen- 
 tative of the latest views of science 
 on the subject of ringworm. 
 
 Alder Smith thus defines ring- 
 worm : — 
 
and Cure of Ringworm, 59 
 
 " Ringworm is a disease of the 
 skiu caused by a microscopic veg- 
 etable parasite ; and the character- 
 istic lesions are due to this minute 
 fungus invading the epithelial 
 layers of the skin, the hair follicles, 
 and the hairs. The growth which 
 causes this very troublesome af- 
 fection belongs to the lowest order 
 of plant life, the fungi or moulds ; 
 the same fungus is found both in 
 ringworm of the head and the body, 
 and the two affections are essen- 
 tially one. This disease, which is 
 a very common one, is liable to at- 
 tack all classes — the rich as well 
 as the poor — and is highly con- 
 tagious, but it is almost entirely 
 confined to children." And then 
 says : — 
 
 " The history of ringworm is 
 
60 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 complicated, as certain varieties of 
 form of the disease have received a 
 number of designations from the 
 older authors."* 
 
 As to the life-history of the 
 fungus I will refer my readers to 
 Alder Smith's work, which is be- 
 yond compare the best epitome of 
 
 * " Viz, — Porrigo scutullata, Willan; 
 herpes tonsurans, herpes squamosus, 
 Cazenave ; herpes circinatus, Batema?i ; 
 porrigo ton soria, dartre furfuracee ar- 
 rondie, Alibert; tinea tondens, squarus 
 tondens, Mahon ; phyto-alopecia, Malm- 
 stem; rhizophyto-alopecia, trichophytie, 
 Gruby ; dermatomycosis tonsurans, K'db- 
 ner ; tinea trichophytina, tinea circinata, 
 Anderson; trichonosis furfuracea; porrigo 
 furfurans; lichen herpetiformis, Devergie; 
 lichen circumscriptus, figuratus, gyratus, 
 impetigo figerata, etc.; Germ., scherende 
 flechte ; Fr., herpes tonsurant ; teigne 
 tondante ; teigne tonsurante." 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 61 
 
 the subject with which I am ac- 
 quainted, almost all the other works 
 on ringworm are antiquated and 
 only of historic value. But I must 
 quote what Alder Smith says of 
 the host of the Trichophyton ton- 
 surans. 
 
 " The Soil" 
 " All children are not equally 
 susceptible to ringworm. A certain 
 unknown condition of the skin is 
 necessary for the growth of the 
 fungus, as some children never 
 take ringworm though constantly 
 liable to become infected For it is 
 evident that when one child in a 
 family has ringworm, and is not 
 under any treatment, the others 
 must be exposed to the action of 
 the fungus ; yet, at times, the dis- 
 ease does not spread. 
 
62 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 " This fact is often used as an 
 argument by parents, to prove 
 that their children are not suffer- 
 ing from any contagious form of 
 disease, and that they are in a fit 
 condition to enter a school. 
 
 " On some the fungus takes but 
 slight hold, and is easily destroyed. 
 Others are extremely susceptible; 
 the disease quickly attacks the 
 follicles and the hairs, and spreads 
 with great rapidity although under 
 treatment. Sometimes treatment 
 even accelerates the already rapid 
 spread of the disease, by producing 
 impetiginous eczema with crusts ; 
 and, by means of the pus, the 
 fungus is carried to more distant 
 and healthy parts. This variety 
 is most difficult to manage. 
 
 u The difference in these cases 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 63 
 
 must depend on some peculiar 
 nutritive condition of the soil or 
 material in which the fungus de- 
 velops, or upon some special state 
 of the general health or constitu- 
 tion. In fact the state of the soil 
 is a most important condition ; and 
 the rapidity with which a small 
 spot of ringworm will spread before 
 it comes under efficient treatment 
 depends chiefly upon this peculiar 
 condition of the soil or nidus. We 
 generally find that ringworm spe- 
 cially occurs, and spreads most 
 rapidly among poorly nourished 
 children of a strumous or lym- 
 phatic diathesis.* And it is often 
 
 * "Mr. M. Morris states — and I fully 
 agree with him — 'that children with very 
 light brown, golden, or colourless hair, 
 with light grey or blue eyes, and with 
 
64 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 observed that all the children in a 
 family of this description, if they 
 become infected, will suffer severely; 
 evidently showing that there is 
 some general condition present 
 favouring the parasitic growth. 
 
 " Ringworm is also commonly 
 seen amongst those who, while 
 they are not decidedly strumous, 
 are yet thin and pallid. 
 
 " Most children with chronic ring- 
 worm dislike fat ; this avoidance of 
 fat in the diet — according to Dr. 
 Fox — 'has a most potent influence 
 in leading to the development of a 
 condition of nutrition which is 
 favourable to the occurrence of 
 obstinate ringworm.' 
 
 fine skin with thin epidermis, take ring- 
 worm easily, and visually have it 
 severely.' — The Lancet, Jan. 29th, 1881. 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 65 
 
 "But, on the other hand, we con- 
 stantly see both recent and chronic 
 ringworm in those who are neither 
 strumous nor ill-nourished, — in 
 fact upon decidedly healthy and 
 robust children. This leads me 
 still to hold the opinion, that the 
 peculiar condition which is favour- 
 able to the development of the ring- 
 worm fungus is unknown. 
 
 " Ringworm does not exercise 
 any noticable influence on the gen- 
 eral organism or constitution, or 
 on the general nutrition of the 
 body." 
 
 I cannot agree with Dr. Fox's 
 view, just quoted, in regard to the 
 avoidance of fat as a food; what I 
 would say is this : These children 
 dislike fat because they are in an 
 ill condition ; the ill condition pre- 
 F 
 
66 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 exists the avoidance of fat, and is 
 not produced by want of it, other 
 than secondarily. Alder Smith, as 
 we see, holds the opinion that " we 
 constantly see both recent and chronic 
 ringworm in those who are neither 
 strumous nor ill-nourished — in fact, 
 npon decidedly healthy and robust 
 children" 
 
 This I deny; the ringworm mould 
 cannot grow on really healthy chil- 
 dren any more than fish can live 
 out of water. Thej^ niay look 
 healthy, even very healthy; they 
 may appear to be robust, jolty, rosy, 
 fat, but they are not truly healthy, 
 or their skin-surface would not get 
 mouldy in ringwormy patches. 
 
 Of course, my opportunities for 
 observing ringworm are not by any 
 means to be compared to those of 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 67 
 
 Alder Smith's, but I have examined 
 a goodly number to test the point, 
 and have never yet found a truly 
 healthy child the subject of ring- 
 worm: they all have more or less 
 indurated glands somewhere. From 
 the curative results following the 
 exhibition of Bacillinum I am led 
 to believe that the mould of ring- 
 worm can 'only grow on those who 
 are more or less strumous or tuber- 
 cular, and that the degree of the 
 disease gauges the degree of the 
 constitutional morbidity. 
 
 Now Alder Smith is a reliable 
 observer, a man of science and fact, 
 and there is strong inherent evi- 
 dence in his work on ringworm that 
 he puts his facts fairly and squarely 
 before his readers. This being so, 
 it must follow that his facts should 
 
68 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 prove the constitutional nature of 
 ringworm if such be the case. 
 Let us see. 
 
 ALDER SMITH'S FACTS VERSUS 
 ALDER SMITH'S VIEW THAT 
 ' 'DECIDEDL Y HEAL THY CHIL- 
 DREN" MAY BE SUBJECT TO 
 RINGWORM. 
 
 In the following quotations from 
 Alder Smith's work most of the 
 italics are mine. 
 
 He says (pp. 29 et seq.): — 
 
 " Diagnosis of Ringworm which has 
 Existed Some Time. 
 
 " Chronic Squamous Ringworm. 
 
 " In the first place, I cannot help 
 observing that very few medical 
 men, either in consultation or pri- 
 vate practice, are aware how ex- 
 tremely difficult some cases of ring- 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 69 
 
 worm are to cure; and the majority 
 consider a case well, even when it 
 has assumed a decidedly chronic 
 state. I constantly have boys 
 brought to me on their return to 
 private schools, and very many also 
 on their presentation for admission 
 to Christ's Hospital, who, while 
 bringing certificates from medical 
 men of the highest professional 
 standing that they are cured of ring- 
 worm, and quite fit to mix with 
 other children, are still suffering 
 from a severe, contagious, and chronic 
 form of the disease ; and I have 
 often found on inquiry, that an 
 opinion has been formed, and a cer- 
 tificate given without any special 
 examination of the scalp, and cer- 
 tainly without the help of the lens 
 or microscope. Many practitioners 
 
70 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 imagine that ringworm is cured 
 when some of the hair is again 
 growing freely and firmly on the 
 part affected. This is a great mis- 
 take, as some of the most chronic 
 and intractable cases are those in 
 which the hair has partially grown 
 again on the scurfy patches; but, 
 on close inspection with a lens, 
 some short broken-off hair or stumps 
 may be seen scattered among the 
 healthy hairs. 
 
 "It is impossible to speak too 
 strongly on this point, as an out- 
 break of ringworm in a school is 
 often due to the admission into it 
 of an unrecognised case of the 
 disease. As a rule, the trouble 
 arises from a boy returning to 
 school (after he has had an attack 
 of ringworm on the head) with a 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 71 
 
 certificate to the effect that he is cured, 
 when in fact he is suffering from a 
 chronic and contagious form of the 
 complaint; or, from the entry into 
 the school of an entirely unsus- 
 pected case ; generally a boy, who 
 has had a scurfy patch on his head 
 for some time, but who is, in reality, 
 suffering from chronic ringworm. 
 
 " Speaking from experience, after 
 the examination of a very large 
 number of children, both in private 
 and for admission into Christ's 
 Hospital and other schools, / have 
 found that in by far the majority of 
 cases where a boy has had rtngU r m 
 on the head within a year or two of 
 my seeing him, the disease has not 
 been really cured. As a rule, the 
 treatment has been continued until 
 some new hair has made its appear- 
 
72 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 ance on the patches, after which it 
 has been discontinued, although 
 many diseased stumps remained. 
 When this stage has been reached, 
 the case will often continue in the 
 sa?ne chronic state — the patches re- 
 mained about the same size, getting 
 neither better nor worse — while the 
 little patient, who may be certified 
 as " perfectly well," may be the 
 constant and unsuspected cause of 
 a succession of outbreaks of ring- 
 worm in a school." 
 
 We therefore see that in by far 
 the majority of cases certified as 
 cured the disease has not been 
 cured at all, but still exists as 
 Chronic Squamous Ringworm. 
 Hence it follows that the ordinary 
 statistics of the cure of ringworm 
 by medical and surgical practi- 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 73 
 
 tioners are worthless. The cures 
 are not real, the treatment has 
 merely got rid of the worst of the 
 ringwormy mould in its more gross 
 and evident form. Even one year, 
 even two years, after the cure the 
 sufferers continue to be contagi- 
 ously ringwormy notwithstanding 
 the fact that the patches have been 
 scoured clean and the hairs have 
 grown again. 
 
 Our Author further says : — 
 
 " Disseminated Ringworm. 
 
 " Especially would I call atten- 
 tion to a variety I call " dissemi- 
 nated ringworm " — one rarely diag- 
 nosed, and the most chronic and 
 difficult to cure. The hair is found 
 to be growing freely and firmly all 
 over the head; there are, perhaps, 
 G 
 
74 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 no patches to be seen now, although 
 probably they have existed at an 
 earlies stage of the disease; the 
 skin appears generally healthy, and 
 perhaps almost free from scurf: 
 but numerous isolated and gener- 
 ally thickened stumps, or groups 
 of stumps, or black dots, are seen 
 here and there, often scattered all 
 over the scalp. This variety is al- 
 most always overlooked^ and can 
 only be detected by very careful 
 examination." 
 And again : — 
 
 " Diffuse Ringworm. 
 
 " A very chronic form, "diffuse 
 ringworm/' is also sometimes seen, 
 in which there are one or more 
 large .irregular patches, often ex- 
 tending nearly all over the scalp. 
 
ci7id Cure of Ringworm. 75 
 
 The surface is very scurfy, and 
 very many of the long hairs have 
 grown again, but numerous stumps 
 are to be seen in every direction. 
 This variety is constantly overlooked, 
 or mistaken for seborrhoea or 
 chronic squamous eczema; but it 
 can always be diagnosed by the 
 stumps. Cases are even found 
 where the entire scalp is affected. 
 
 " Chronic Pustular Ringworm. 
 
 " Chronic ringworm may also 
 occur in the form of pustular spots, 
 with a certain amount of redness 
 and crusting around, and with a 
 stump existing in the centre of 
 each spot. This appears to be 
 Nature's effort to get rid of the 
 stump, and can be successfully 
 imitated by treatment. 
 
76 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 " Small Spots. 
 
 " Sometimes chronic ringworm 
 may exist, without apparent change, 
 for months or even years, as a single 
 spot, or in spots so small that they 
 are not noticed, even by professional 
 men, with numerous long hairs 
 and only a few stumps. Often ten 
 minutes or more has to be spent in 
 examining a child's head before 
 any stumps can be detected. I 
 have known an outbreak of ring- 
 worm in a school to be caused by 
 a chronic spot not larger than a 
 split pea, and where only a few 
 stumps could be found on close ex- 
 amination with a lens." 
 
 We see, then, that not only are 
 most of the cases certified by emi- 
 nent medical men as cured, not 
 really cured, but that " Dissemi- 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 
 
 i i 
 
 nated Ringworm," " Diffuse Ring- 
 worm," and " Small-Spot Ring- 
 worm" are " rarel} r diagnosed," 
 " constantly overlooked," and " not 
 noticed even by professional men." 
 It must, therefore, be manifest 
 that the germs of ringworm must 
 be about in almost every gathering 
 of children, at every party, in every 
 school, in almost every church and 
 chapel in the world ; and when we 
 further remember that Dr. Tilbury 
 Fox found the conidia of tricho- 
 phyton in abundance in the dust 
 deposited from the air of a ward in 
 which ringworm cases were lo- 
 cated, it must be pretty clear that 
 ringworm may be communicated 
 through the air in a multitude of 
 different places, and in almost all 
 schools and other places where chil- 
 
7 8 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 dren do congregate, and that is 
 practically everywhere. Alder Smith 
 further affirms (p. 5) that it may 
 be caught from the heads or infect- 
 ed articles belonging to boys or 
 girls, with chronic, and often tin- 
 known and untreated, varieties of 
 the disease, which are every day 
 mistaken for chronic scrnf or dry 
 eczema. 
 
 Therefore we may say that the 
 germs of ringworm are practically 
 everywhere. This is qnite what 
 we shonld expect from our knowl- 
 edge of the moulds generally: 
 given the right conditions for 
 mouldiness and moulds, and there 
 they are. Also, given the right soil 
 and conditions for ringworm — and 
 there it is. 
 
 The other known facts of the 
 
and Cure of Ringworm* 79 
 
 disease ringworm leads us to the 
 same conclusion as just stated 
 probable universal presence of the 
 germs of ringworm. 
 
 Keeping still to our Author, we 
 read (p. 44): — "I am positive that 
 a ringworm on the head, the size of 
 a sixpence, can develop in forty- 
 eight hours, and increase to the 
 size of a florin in another twenty- 
 four hours, because I have actually 
 seen ringworm grow at this rate. 
 But this is certainly not the usual 
 rate of progress. Ringworm gener- 
 ally develops much more slowly 
 than this ; yet there is no doubt 
 that a moderate sized patch may 
 appear in a few days. 
 
 " It cannot, on the other hand, 
 be said how long it has not existed; 
 for the place may spread very slow- 
 
80 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 ly, and remain almost in the same 
 state for weeks, or even months. 
 
 " Cases like these (chronic ring- 
 worm) mnst have existed some 
 time ; probably for many months, 
 or possibly for years. 
 
 "I remember one inveterate case 
 that resisted all treatment/or nine 
 years, and thongh the patient was 
 eighteen when I last saw him, he 
 still had disseminated ringworm; 
 and another disseminated case {lately 
 under my care) had been treated by 
 many medical men for a period oj 
 eight years without being cured. 
 
 " It is impossible to say how long 
 even a small spot of chronic ring- 
 worm may not have existed, as it 
 may have remained in a latent state 
 for month, or even years. 
 
 " The rate of growth and rapidity 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 81 
 
 
 of reproduction are very different 
 in individual cases. If the fungus 
 spreads slowly, it indicates only a 
 slightly favourable soil, and it can 
 then — in its early stage — often be 
 quickly eradicated; but if it grows 
 rapidly, it is due to the general nu- 
 tritive condition furnishing a fa- 
 vourable nidus : it is then most dif- 
 ficult, and sometimes impossible to 
 arrest its course; the increase in the 
 rate of growth of the fungus being 
 greater than can be counterbalanced 
 by rubbing in parasiticides. 
 
 " Dr. T. Fox says : ' Ringworm 
 is obstinate in propoi r tion as this or 
 that patient offers a favourable soil 
 in his textures for the growth of 
 the fungus or parasite.' " 
 
 I think the impartial will at once 
 concede that Alder Smith the 
 
 H 
 
82 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 physician completely refutes Alder 
 Smith the rubber-in of parasiticides, 
 but that he should do it unbeknown 
 to himself is distinctly curious. 
 
 Is Ringworm a Disease Due to 
 Dirt ? 
 
 No ; not one of my cases of the 
 past three or four j T ears was due 
 to dirt, all being members of the 
 higher and upper middle classes, 
 who tub and scrub, perhaps, even 
 too much. 
 
 On this point Alder Smith says : 
 "It is a great mistake to think 
 ringworm is due to dirt. Of course 
 neglected children with dirty heads 
 are more likel}^ to be exposed to, 
 and to take the disease ; but it 
 constantly occurs in children whose 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 83 
 
 heads are kept perfectly clean, and 
 where all proper care is taken. 
 No matter what precautions are ob- 
 served with regard to cleanliness, 
 some of the other children in a 
 school will commonly take ring- 
 worm if an untreated case is acci- 
 dentally admitted into it, no matter 
 from what class of society the pu- 
 pils be obtained." Note the some. 
 
 Our Author continues : — "Chil- 
 dren under ten years of age seem 
 more prone to take the disease than 
 those who are older ; and it is very 
 rarely contracted after the age of 
 thirteen, and hardly ever seen on 
 the head in adults. Again, infants 
 are not often infected. 
 
 " About puberty, ringworm is 
 more manageable, and generally — 
 even when it has existed for vears 
 
84 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 — it tends to get well spontaneously 
 soon after this period" 
 
 Now if the essence of the disease 
 is the fungus, and the treatment is 
 to be addressed to the killing of 
 the fungi, why should the age of 
 the individual host have anything 
 to do with the parasite ? And how 
 is it that it gets well spontaneously 
 after puberty ? 
 
 Alder Smith devotes over a hun- 
 dred pages to the treatment of ring- 
 worm — killing the fungi — and I 
 will conclude this part of my sub- 
 ject with a few of his intercurrent 
 remarks on the difficulties of the 
 task. He says : — 
 
 " Nothing is easier to cure than 
 a patch of ringworm situated on 
 the body, but it is a very different 
 matter when it exists on the hairy 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 85 
 
 scalp. Then the treatment is, as a 
 rule, most disappointing. Quick 
 cures are very rare, and snre results 
 are only to be obtained by thorough 
 and long-continued employment of 
 active remedies. 
 
 "It is necessary to keep in mind 
 the important facts, that the fungus 
 is the essential cause of the mis- 
 chief; that it soon extends to the 
 bottom of the hair-follicles; that 
 its destruction is indispensable in 
 order to cure the disease ; that the 
 great difficulty in curing ringworm 
 is not to find parasiticides, but to 
 get them to penetrate deeply into 
 the hair-follicles, and thus come 
 into contact with the fungus. 
 
 u Remedies act in two ways: first, 
 by destroying the fungus — para- 
 siticides, such as boracic acid, 
 
86 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 sulphurous acid, and the oleates of 
 copper and mercury ; others act \>y 
 setting up inflammation, and even 
 exudation about the follicles, and 
 by this means cure the disease — as 
 croton oil ; but by far the majority 
 combine both these properties, as 
 acetic and carbolic acids, Goa 
 powder, chrysarobin, nitrate of mer- 
 cury, etc. 
 
 "It is very unwise to make a 
 large sore place on the scalp, espe- 
 cially in recent ringworm, as the 
 pustular variety may thus be set 
 up; and strong preparations should 
 never be used to young children. 
 
 "Selection of a Treatment. 
 
 " There are hundreds of different 
 ways of treating ringworm of the 
 head, and many ' never-failing ' 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 87 
 
 nostrums, which are warranted to 
 cure the disease in a few days or 
 weeks. 
 
 "The reason why so many things 
 are said to cure ringworm is due to 
 two causes : firstly, many cases are 
 only ringworm of the body ; sec- 
 ondly, numberless children are said 
 to be well, when they still have 
 ringworm in the most chronic 
 form, and thus remedies are said to 
 cure cases that have never been in- 
 fluenced for good by them. I have 
 so often drawn attention to this fact 
 that this may appear mere repeti- 
 tion, but considering the number 
 of children constantly sent to me 
 already certified as ' cured,' who 
 have ringworm in a contagious 
 form, it would appear that all that 
 has been written on this subject 
 
88 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 has made but little impression on 
 some medical men. 
 
 "The plain truth is that there is 
 not a single plan {except the nse of 
 strong caustics which will form 
 scars) which can be relied on with 
 absolute certainty to cure ringworm 
 of the head. The rapidity with 
 which different cases, of apparently 
 equal severity, yield to similar 
 treatment varies greatly. Some go 
 on unchecked for months , or even 
 years, and may even spread nnder 
 good treatment — while others rap- 
 idly get well." 
 
 The next hundred pages of Alder 
 Smith's work are devoted to para- 
 siticides and their modes of appli- 
 cation to kill the fungi, and all this 
 is by, perhaps, the greatest living 
 authority on ringworm — always, 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 89 
 
 bien entendu, from the outside sur- 
 geon's standpoint. The treatment 
 of ringworm by orthodoxy thus re- 
 quires horse-clipper, scrubbing- 
 brush, and ointment-pot, and, to 
 identif}^ the sinful fungi, a micro- 
 scope. 
 
 Date, 1892. 
 
 Finally, in the light of the fore- 
 going facts, it must be manifest to 
 any thoughtful practitioner that 
 annular scalp mould or ringworm 
 is to be regarded as a constitutional 
 affair, and the treatment should be 
 addressed to the host and not to 
 the parasite. 
 
 We have seen that the germs of 
 ringworm are almost universally 
 present, and that at all times. The 
 treatment by parasiticides is diffi- 
 
90 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 cult, tedious, and, for the most part, 
 entirely unsatisfactory, for the vast 
 majority of cases medically certified 
 as cured are really not cured at all. 
 The nephew of one of the best- 
 known dermatologists of this coun- 
 try was lately brought by his 
 mother to me to be treated for an 
 ill-defined pining condition and a 
 trifling cough. "He has never 
 been well since he had the ring- 
 worm," exclaimed his mother. An 
 examination of the boy's scalp 
 showed that w^e had to do with 
 pretty severe scalp eczema, or 
 Alder Smith's Diffuse Chronic 
 Ringworm. There was anorexia, 
 and restless nights had brought 
 down patient's state of nutrition. 
 His cervical glands were hard and 
 visible : two months of BacilL and 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 91 
 
 the boy was discharged well, or 
 rather the mother did not bring 
 him again, as he was in her judg- 
 ment " perfectly well." 
 
 " But," said the mother, "I have 
 come this time about myself; ever 
 since my children had the ring- 
 worm last year my own head is 
 covered with scurf, and my hair 
 breaks off, and my hair has become 
 quite thin and short, whereas I have 
 always been so proud of my beau- 
 tiful head of hair, especially as I 
 have had so many children." 
 
 After being two months under 
 the influence of Bacillinum in high 
 potency and infrequently adminis- 
 tered, the lady wrote to me saying, 
 " my head is now quite free from 
 scurf, and the hair is growing again 
 beautifully." No external applica- 
 
92 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 tion of any kind soever was nsed ; 
 nor was any change made either 
 in diet, mode of life, or place of 
 abode. 
 
 Depend upon it, impartial reader, 
 the mould of ringworm is not the 
 disease ; the disease is of the organ- 
 ism. 
 
 The Literature of Ringworm and 
 of Mycology Generally. 
 
 Alder Smith I have quoted from 
 largely, and his work, Ringworm: 
 Its Diagnosis and Treatment, third 
 edition, London, 1885, is classic. 
 
 Then there is Cooke's Fungi: 
 Their Nature, Influence, and Uses, 
 which is a masterly production. 
 
 Besides these I have also con- 
 sulted the following from my own 
 library, viz. : — 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 93 
 
 1. Mushroom -Culture for Ama- 
 
 teurs, by W. J. May. 
 
 2. British Fungi,by E M. Holmes, 
 
 F.L.S.,F. R.M.S. London, 
 1886. 
 
 3. Parasitic Diseases of the Skin, 
 
 Vegetoid and Animal, by James 
 Startin. London, 1881. 
 
 4. A Synopsis of the Bacteria and 
 
 Yeast Fungi, by W. B. Grove, 
 B. A. London, 1884. 
 
 5. Micro-Fungi, by Thomas Brit- 
 
 tain. Manchester, 1882. 
 
 6. The Plant- World: Its Past, Pres- 
 
 ent, arid Future, by George 
 Massee. London, 1891. 
 
 7. Rust, Smut, Mildew, and Mould: 
 
 An Introduction to the Study of 
 Microscopic Fungi, by M. C. 
 Cooke, M.A., LL. D., A. L. S. 
 London, 1886. 
 
94 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 8. An Essay on Ringworm, by 
 
 Andrew Paul, surgeon, Ox- 
 ford, 1849. 
 
 9. Les Microbes Pathogenes, par 
 
 Cli. Bouchard, Membre de l'ln- 
 stitut, Paris, 1892. 
 
 10. On Ringworm : An Inquiry 
 into the Pathology, Causes, and 
 Treatment, by William J. 
 Smith, M. B. Lond. London, 
 1867. 
 
 1 1 . On Ringworm : Its Causes, 
 Pathology, and Treatment, by 
 Erasmus Wilson, F.R.S. Lon- 
 don, 1847. 
 
 But I had not by any means the 
 wish to write the history of my 
 subject; I merely desired to get a 
 look round in the literature of the 
 subject generalfy : only an all- 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 95 
 
 round idea leading up to the study 
 of pathogenous fungi. 
 
 Ringworm Regarded from the 
 Standpoint of General Mycology. 
 
 The botany of most medical men 
 can be at best only a of very ele- 
 mentary nature, and when we come 
 to a consideration of the physiol- 
 ogy of the fungi this is especially 
 so. To have independent views of 
 mycological questions from the 
 standpoint of botanic science I 
 should need a vast deal more 
 knowledge of fungi than I can 
 claim ; but at the same time I am 
 anxious to see whether my clinical 
 standpoint is at variance or in con- 
 sonance with the views of acknowl- 
 edged mycologists. For it must be 
 manifest that we might expect to 
 
g6 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 find certain fixed data in the physi- 
 ology of fungi generally that should 
 help us somewhat in arriving at a 
 just conclusion. 
 
 Cooke* almost doubts the possi- 
 bility of excluding the germs of 
 common fungi, so numerous are 
 they, and no air can be found but 
 what contains multitudes of them. 
 
 According to Pasteur the spores 
 of fungi are more numerous near 
 human habitations. 
 
 A very common form of mould 
 is Penicillium ) its spores being 
 everywhere present in large num- 
 bers. 
 
 * Fungi : Their Nature, Influence, arid 
 Uses, by M. C. Cooke, M.A., U,.D., etc. 
 London, 1875. 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 97 
 
 Neumann* says that the results 
 of his experiments confirm the 
 clinical observation of Hebra as to 
 the origin of Herpes tonsurans 
 (ringworm) and favus from one 
 organism, viz., Penicillium. 
 
 Hallier regards Trichophyton as 
 a development of the conidia chains 
 of Penicillium. It must, therefore, 
 be manifest that any one may have 
 ringworm without ever coming into 
 contact with ringworm as such at 
 all, inasmuch as the conidia of 
 Penicillium are the germs of Tri- 
 chophyton, and the conidia of Peni- 
 cillium are always present in large 
 
 * Text book of Skin Diseases, by Dr. 
 Isidor Neumann, Lecturer on Dermato- 
 logy in the Imperial University of Vien- 
 na. Translated by Dr. Pullar. London, 
 1871. 
 
 I 
 
98 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 quantities in the atmospheric air 
 wherein we live, and move, and 
 have our being. And hence it 
 would appear that the presence or 
 absence of ringwormy boys in a 
 school is not a matter of capital 
 importance, inasmuch as the ring- 
 worm mould is only another and 
 higher form of the Penicillium. 
 
 There is so much evidence on 
 record illustrating the polymorph- 
 ism of fungi, that it cannot be re- 
 garded as a very far cry from Peni- 
 cillium to Trichophyton. 
 
 Grove* speaks with small respect 
 of the reliability of the data given 
 by medical mycologists. His di- 
 
 * A Synopsis of the Bacteria and Yeast 
 Fungi and Allied Species (Schizomycetes 
 and Saccharomycetes), by W. B. Grove, 
 B.A. London, 1884. 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 99 
 
 vision of fungi into chromogenous, 
 zyinogenous, and pathogenous 
 seems fairly natural. 
 
 Speaking of fungi, Holmes* 
 says : — " Mushrooms, toadstools, 
 the mildew on walls, the mould on 
 bread, the rust on wheat, and the 
 potato disease, are familiar objects 
 to most of us ; but few who are not 
 botanists are aw 7 are that they all 
 belong to the large and varied 
 group of plants comprised under 
 the name of fungi. It might be 
 still more surprising to some to 
 learn that the yeast with which 
 bread is made and beer fermented, 
 the vinegar plant which is used to 
 turn sugar and water into vinegar, 
 
 * British Fungi, Lichens and Mosses^ 
 includi?ig Scale-Mosses and Liverworts, by 
 E. M. Holmes, F.Iy.S-, etc. London, 1886. 
 
ioo The Constitutional Nature 
 
 and the disagreeble skin disease 
 called ringworm, all belong to the 
 same class of plants." 
 
 He also tells us that many 
 species which in this country are 
 despised as loathsome toadstools, 
 form regular articles of diet in 
 Italy, Russia, and other countries ; 
 while in China and Japan several 
 kinds of fungi are cultivated on 
 decaying trunks of trees, in the 
 same way that mushrooms are 
 grown in the catacombs of Paris. 
 Not very pleasant for one enjoying 
 a petit diner in a beautiful Paris- 
 ian cafe to suddenly remember that 
 the daintly dressed mushrooms in 
 the dish before him were perhaps 
 grown in the catacombs. 
 
 The role played by the fungi in 
 this world of ours almost baffles 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 101 
 
 any adequate conception ; to them 
 we owe beer, wine, vinegar, our very 
 bread (in the form we use it) , and — 
 ringworm. 
 
 Concluding Thoughts. 
 
 X. the organic individual dies, 
 and as spores and germs are every- 
 where present, they find in the de- 
 caying X. their food, housing, and 
 all their other conditions of organic 
 and organismic thrift. The death 
 of X. is birth to innumerable or- 
 ganisms, for as soon as X. ceases 
 to react with its medium, then these 
 organisms begin their life on its 
 organic remains. Life is just 
 change. Nature knows no dead 
 material, for the grave of one or- 
 ganism is the birthplace of many 
 more; the animal lives on the 
 
io2 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 vegetal, and man lives on them 
 both. En revanche man decays and 
 dies, and vegetal and animal again 
 swarm into being in his remains. 
 Verily, an awful contemplation, but 
 so it indubitably is. Then there 
 is another death in the form of ema- 
 nations ; our very breath is death in 
 a certain sense. The products of 
 any assembly of organisms at a 
 given stage of intensity poison and 
 kill their producers, they getting 
 diseases constituting their ante- 
 mortal stage. It is just the same 
 throughout Nature and with all 
 degenera and species. 
 
 It is the degree of concentration 
 that is really determinative. 
 
 The Hollyhock Disease. 
 Cooke {jam cit.) remarks that a 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 103 
 
 writer in the Gardeners Chronicle 
 has proposed a remedy for the 
 hollyhock disease which he hopes 
 will prove effectual. He says: — 
 " The terrible disease has now, for 
 twelve months, threatened the com- 
 plete annihilation of the glorious 
 family of hollyhock, and to baffle 
 all the antidotes that the ingenuity 
 of man could suggest, so rapidly 
 does it spread and accomplish its 
 deadly work. Of this I have had 
 very good evidence, as last year at 
 this time I had charge of [the 
 italics are mine], if not the largest, 
 one of the largest and finest col- 
 lections of hollyhocks anywhere in 
 cultivation, which had been under 
 my special care for eleven years, 
 and up to within a month of my 
 resigning that position I had ob- 
 
104 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 served nothing uncommon amongst 
 them; but before taking my final 
 leave of them, I had to witness the 
 melancholy spectacle of bed after 
 bed being smitten down, and 
 amongst them many splendid seed- 
 lings which had cost me years of 
 patience and anxiety to produce. 
 And, again, upon taking a share 
 and the management of this busi- 
 ness, another infected collection fell 
 to my lot, so that I have been do- 
 ing cruel battle with this disease 
 since its first appearance amongst 
 us, and I must confess that up to 
 a very short time back I had come 
 in for a great deal the worst of the 
 fight, although I had made use of 
 every agent I could imagine as 
 being likely to aid me, and all 
 that many competent friends could 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 105 
 
 suggest. But lately I was re- 
 minded of Condy's patent fluid, 
 diluted with water, and at once 
 produced a bottle of the green 
 quality, and applied it in the pro- 
 portion of a large tablespoonful to 
 one quart of water ; and upon ex- 
 amining the plants dressed, twelve 
 hours afterwards, was delighted to 
 find it had effectually destroyed 
 the disease." And so on. 
 
 He continues : — " I believe plant- 
 ing the hollyhocks in large crowded 
 beds should be avoided, as I have 
 observed the closer they are growing 
 the more virulently does the dis- 
 ease attack them, whereas isolated 
 rows and plants are but little in- 
 jured" Now the point brough out 
 by this gardener with regard to 
 his beautiful hollyhocks is pre- 
 
106 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 cisely what my own ideas lead up 
 to, viz., overcrowding. Let us note 
 that our friend's hollyhocks were 
 in large numbers, they had been 
 there a long time, the closer they 
 were growing the more virulently 
 did the disease attack them, whereas 
 isolated row r s and plants were but 
 little injured. 
 
 The lately prevailing epidemic 
 of influenza is, in my judgment, a 
 fungal disease produced in houses — 
 £. e., overcrowding. 
 
 During this epidemic I noticed 
 that house-life was seemingly ne- 
 cessary for it to thrive. In one 
 town the mortality was fearful, 
 over 60 per 1000 ; it was difficult 
 to get undertakers enough to bury 
 the dead. I recommended my 
 patients there to keep their win- 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 107 
 
 dows wide open night and day, and 
 where this was done no one fell ill ! 
 
 The emanations of organisms, 
 whether hollyhock or human be- 
 ings, are of the nature of effete, 
 dead matter, notably to the self- 
 same organisms, and, give a suffi- 
 cient degree of concentration, 
 fungal disease is the result. The 
 Condy's fluid probably killed the 
 hollyhock disease by using-up the 
 autoinfective hollyhock emanations 
 on which the fungi lived and 
 throve ; it would act in two ways,, 
 viz., by using-up the hollyhock 
 emanations the hollyhocks had a 
 poison-free medium again, and the 
 fungi would become weak from 
 want, and thus be readily killed, 
 or simply die off wholesale from 
 starvation. 
 
108 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 We call to mind that the disease 
 did not attack those # hollyhocks 
 that were isolated in single rows, 
 their emanations not being here 
 sufficiently concentrated to give 
 the fungi enough to live on. We 
 note w r ell that the collection of 
 hollyhocks, in which the disease 
 became formidable, was very large, 
 and had been long established in 
 the same place. 
 
 The emanation of organisms are 
 noxious and obnoxious to the self- 
 same organisms. Anj^ one can 
 notice that where horses and cows 
 graze in the same meadow the 
 horses will nibble off the grass 
 close to cow-dung but not near 
 their own, and conversely the cows 
 will eat the grass close to horse- 
 dung, and even push it away with 
 
and Cure of Ringworm, 109 
 
 their mouths without evincing the 
 slighest objection. 
 
 All creatures abhor their own 
 dejecta. Even the " dirty pig" is 
 very sty-clean if he has the chance, 
 and evidently on the same prin- 
 ciple, while he has no objection 
 whatever to the dejecta of other 
 animals. 
 
 Physicians know but too well 
 the smells of bedrooms, and even 
 a very large bedroom with only one 
 healthy person in it for a very 
 short time will get quite "frowsy" 
 in an hour, particularly if the per- 
 son has been to sleep. 
 
 The emanations from living or- 
 ganisms are very evidently hurt- 
 ful to themselves, and, if suffici- 
 ently concentrated, more or less 
 deadly, and it seems probable that 
 
no The Constitutional Nature 
 
 the fungi come in and thrive there- 
 on to the advantage of the organ- 
 isms, tending at any rate to post- 
 pone the fatal issue; organic 
 remains and emanations constitute 
 the pabulum of the fungi. Of 
 course the fungi must follow the 
 ordinary law of Nature, and they 
 in their turn must succumb to their 
 own products. 
 
 Nature does not tolerate any 
 dead thing, for as soon as there is 
 any dead thing present new life 
 starts therein forthwith. How far 
 fungal products poison the hosts of 
 the fungi is worthy of study and 
 thought, and will in the future loom 
 large into therapeutics. 
 
 It seems to me that those chil- 
 dren who are suffering from ring- 
 worm are in better health with 
 
and Cure of Ringworm, in 
 
 their ringworm than they are when 
 the ringworm fungi are killed off 
 by local measures. My own obser- 
 vations on this part of the subject 
 are as yet too few for me to be able 
 to form a positive opinion, but as 
 far as they do go they tend to the 
 conclusion that serious ill-health 
 often dates from the time when 
 they were cured of ringworm, i.e., 
 from the time when the fungi were 
 locally more or less destroyed from 
 the surface. I know of two cases 
 in which very severe forms of deaf- 
 ness started coincidently with the 
 germicidal cure of ringworm. 
 
 The thought naturally at once 
 arises in one's mind, whether the 
 trichophyton of ringworm has any 
 relationship to the bacillus of tu- 
 berculosis, and if so, what ? 
 
H2 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 Just as the fungal disease of 
 hollyhocks was most virulent 
 where they were crowded, so is the 
 fungal disease ringworm in most 
 evil report in schools, or, in other 
 words, where the children are nu- 
 merous and close together. School- 
 masters and school-surgeons are 
 very positive about ringworm hav- 
 ing been " imported into the 
 school " by a boy coming from his 
 home, but my own experience goes 
 to show that as a rule ringworm is 
 bred in the schools and is exported 
 thence into the families. Not only 
 so, but it is large families that sup- 
 ply us with specimens of ring- 
 wormy children more frequently 
 than small ones, and it is the large 
 schools that suffer most. At least 
 so it appears to me from my only 
 moderately numerous observations. 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 113 
 
 And in regard to tuberculosis 
 we find this behaves similarly, and 
 it is certainly true that where 
 numerous human beings house to- 
 gether in closed apartments, there 
 anthropotoxine* is generated, and 
 the bacillus of tuberculosis finds 
 its cradle and home. Of course, 
 some organisms can withstand the 
 effects of poisons, simply by reason 
 of their strength, more than others; 
 the weaker and more delicate de- 
 teriorate in health from the effects 
 of anthropotoxine. 
 
 Anthropotoxine is inhaled until 
 the lungs become bad enough for 
 the fungus of phthisis to thrive in. 
 I do not imagine that overcrowding 
 acts in any specific way, or that 
 
 *The poisonous principle in human 
 emanations. 
 
 j 
 
ii4 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 numbers are necessary other than 
 in proportion to the quantity of air 
 to be breathed. It therefore fol- 
 lows that a household of two per- 
 sons may suffer from overcrowding, 
 while one of twenty persons may 
 not, — it is the proportion; and al- 
 ways must we remember that there 
 are several factors in the sum, viz., 
 the lack of sufficient clean fresh 
 air ; the presence of autotoxine 
 (the hollyhock emanations from the 
 hollyhocks, and the anthropotoxine 
 for human beings) , and then fungal 
 life. And then, given these forests 
 of fungi, their effects upon their 
 hosts have to be considered. This 
 is a large chapter. Certainly fungi 
 love darkness rather than light, 
 but whether their deeds are there- 
 fore evil, science, experience, and 
 thinking must determine. 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 115 
 
 Bland Sutton in his Evolution 
 and Disease (London, 1890), and 
 after a consideration of actinomy- 
 cosis, a very interesting disease, 
 expresses the view that sarcoma is 
 of fungal nature, and as what he 
 says on the subject is eminently 
 instructive and intensely interest- 
 ing, I cannot refrain from giving 
 his summary : — 
 
 "To put the matter in a clear 
 form, a sarcoma is probably the 
 scene of action of a virulent and 
 prolonged conflict between irritant 
 micro-organisms and leucocytes. I 
 say probably, because, as has been 
 already remarked, bacteriologists 
 have not yet succeeded in isolating 
 a special bacterium for sarcomata 
 in general; that such agents will 
 soon be discovered is in the highest 
 
n6 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 degree probable, because in recent 
 years each increase in the list of 
 infective granulomata is made at 
 the expense of sarcomata. The 
 structure, mode of growth, infective 
 properties, and manner in which 
 these tumours destroy life, clearly 
 coincide with what is positively 
 known with regard to infective 
 granulomata. The fact that sar- 
 comata make up the greater part 
 of tumours occurring in wild and 
 domesticated animals has, in my 
 opinion, a very significant import 
 in this relation." 
 
 Thus we see that although ring- 
 worm may not at first sight appear 
 to offer a very promising subject 
 of general interest, we soon find 
 ourselves in studying it landed 
 right into the middle of the great 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 117 
 
 bio-pathological problem of " the 
 maggot and the cheese" — i. ^.,life 
 and death. 
 
 It has been urged against some 
 of the medical views to which I 
 have given expression that they 
 are advanced too positively as ab- 
 solute facts ; well, of course, that 
 may be: I give my data and my 
 reasons, so that any other com- 
 petent medical person can judge 
 for himself whether I am right or 
 wrong. It is perfectly true that I 
 am a positive individual ; I believe 
 in work and progress, and, in the 
 practical activities of the physician, 
 I want helpful, and, therefore, posi- 
 tive views. If I have bad ring- 
 worm cases to cure what is the use 
 to me of the medical agnosticism 
 of the superior person whose posi- 
 tion is this : — 
 
n8 The Constitutional Nature 
 
 " It may be so, I cannot tell, and wouldn't like to say, 
 I don't incline to this or that, nor yet the other way; 
 I can't at an\' time feel sure, yet hardly like to doubt, 
 And feel I musn't trust to ' guess ' for fear of being out 
 Not feeling any certainty, I do not like to speak, 
 I don't know what I want to know nor what I ought to 
 
 seek 
 I never like to venture far for fear of running wide, 
 And I haven't an} 7 notion how I ever can decide." 
 
 Of ringworm I hold positively, — 
 (i.) That it is a constitutional 
 complaint. (2.) That it is gener- 
 ated by the together-being of num- 
 bers of young people in close spaces 
 i. e., by their personal emanations, 
 or anthropotoxine. (3.) That it is 
 so to speak, "subtuberculosis." 
 (4.) That it is curable by its patho- 
 logic simi/limum jhere termed Bacil- 
 linum, in high potency, internally 
 and infrequently administered. (5.) 
 That the mycosis is merely the 
 concomitant external manifestation 
 of the disease and not the disease 
 itself. (6.) That the external 
 
and Cure of Ringworm. 119 
 
 treatment of the disease is irra- 
 tional, unscientific, and, probably, 
 harmful to the patient. (7.) That 
 it is commonly bred in schools. 
 (8.) That truly healthy children 
 cannot catch it because the fungus 
 cannot grow upon such. (9.) There 
 is, therefore, no reason why a ring- 
 wormy child should be excluded 
 from school life or the company of 
 its fellows in home life (10.) 
 And, finally, that the trichophyton 
 of ringworm is to ringworm what 
 the bacillus of Koch is to tuber- 
 culosis, — the trichophyton and the 
 bacillus being, moreover, nearly 
 related to one another. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Agnosticism in medicine, 117. 
 
 Anthropotoxine, 113, 118. 
 
 Bacillic virus, 13, 15. 
 
 Bacillinum, 17, 18, 24, 27, 28, 36, 37, 38, 
 39, 41, 42, 50, 52/53, 54. 67, 91. 
 
 Bacillus of tuberculosis, in, 113, 119. 
 
 Burnett, Dr. J. C, Diseases of the Skin 
 from the Organismic Standpoint, 3, 
 27. 
 
 Burnett, Dr. J. C, Five Years' Experi- 
 ence in the New Cure of Consump- 
 tion by its own Virus, 11, 37. 
 
 Cases reported, 12, 13, 14, 22, 37, 40, 52, 
 53, 80, 90. 
 
 Cattle affected by ringworm, 31. 
 
 Concluding thoughts, 101. 
 
 Condy's patent fluid, 105, 107. 
 
 Consumption, Five Years' Experience in 
 the New Cure of, by its own Virus, 
 
 «i 37- 
 
 Consumption, virus of, 11; influence of, 
 on teeth, 12; on ringworm, 12, 14. 
 
122 Index. 
 
 Cooke's, Dr. M. C, Fungi: their Nature, 
 Influence, and Uses, 92, 96. 
 
 Cooke, Dr. M. C, on the hollyhock dis- 
 ease, 102. 
 
 Eczema marginatum, 38, 39. 
 
 Fox, Dr. Tilbury, on avoidance of fat in 
 diet, 64. 
 
 Fox, Dr. Tilbury, on conidia of trichophy- 
 ton, 77. 
 
 Fox, Dr. Tilbury, on obstinacy of ring- 
 worm, 81. . 
 
 Gardener's Chronicle, writer in, 103. 
 
 Grove, W. B., Bacteria and Yeast Fungi, 
 98. 
 
 Grub} 7 's discovery of fungus, 57. 
 
 Hallier on trichophyton and penicillium, 
 
 97- 
 
 Herpes circinnatus (ringworm of the sur- 
 face) treated by sepia, 10. 
 
 Herpes s. tinea tonsurans (ringworm), 7. 
 
 Herpes tonsurans, 58, 97. 
 
 Hollyhock disease, the, 102. 
 
 Holmes, E. M., British Fungi, etc., 99. 
 
 Hughes' Manual of Therapeutics. 10, 11. 
 
Index. 123 
 
 Kobner inoculated ringworm, 29. 
 
 Koch stranded, 47. 
 
 Malmsten, in Stockholm, describes para- 
 site Trichophyton tonsurans, 57. 
 
 Medicine, agnosticism in, 117. 
 
 Morbillinum, 52. 
 
 Morris, M., on ringworm, 63. 
 
 Mycology, literature of, generally, 92. 
 
 Mycolog}^, standpoint as regards ring- 
 worm, 95. 
 
 Neumann on ringworm and eczema 
 
 marginatum, 38. 
 Neumann, results of his experiments, 
 
 97- 
 Pasteur on spores of fungi, 96. 
 Penicillium, 96, 97. 
 Pityriasis versicolor, 39. 
 Psora of the Homoeopaths, 9. 
 Ringworm a constitutional complaint, 
 
 118. 
 Ringworm a fairly common complaint, 
 
 17. 
 Ringworm an external disease due to an 
 external infection, the trichophyton, 
 29, 118. 
 
124 Index. 
 
 Ringworm an internal disease of the or- 
 ganism, 21. 
 
 Ringworm as studied by Alder Smith, 
 M. B., 58-89. 
 
 Ringworm, cases of, 12, 13, 14, 22, 37, 
 4°> 5 2 > 53> 80, 90. 
 
 Ringworm caught from cows, 36. 
 
 Ringworm, concluding thoughts on, 101. 
 
 Ringworm cured by Bacillinum, 17, 
 18, 24, 27, 28, 36, 37, 38, 42, 54, 
 118. 
 
 Ringworm, Dr. Tilbury Fox on, 64, 77, 
 81. 
 
 Ringworm due to a specific fungus, 7. 
 
 Ringworm, healthy children do not 
 catch, 5, 44, 119. 
 
 Ringworm (Herpes s. tinea tonsurans), 7. 
 
 Ringworm in cattle, 31. 
 
 Ringworm in general survey in litera- 
 ture, 56. 
 
 Ringworm inoculated by Kobner, 29. 
 
 Ringworm, is it due to dirt? 82. 
 
 Ringworm is parasitic, 19. 119. 
 
 Ringworm, literature of, and of mycol- 
 ogy, generally, 92, 118. 
 
Index. 125 
 
 Ringworm of the surface (Herpes circin- 
 
 natus)treated by sepia and tellurium, 
 
 10. 
 Ringworm, proper, of the scalp, treated 
 
 by sepia or sulphurous acid, 11. 
 Ringworm regarded from the standpoint 
 
 of general mycology, 92. 
 Ringworm, selection of a treatment for, 
 
 86. 
 Ringworm, treatment of, by external 
 
 means, unsatisfactory, 20. 
 
 Sepia in Herpes circinnatus, 10. 
 
 Sepia in ringworm proper of the scalp, 
 11, 19, 27. 
 
 Skin, Diseases of the, from the Organis- 
 mic Standpoint, 3. 27. 
 
 Smith, Alder, M. B., chronic pustular 
 ringworm, 75. 
 
 Smith, Alder, M. B., diagnosis of ring- 
 worm which has existed some time, 
 68. 
 
 Smith, Alder, M. B., diffuse ringworm, 
 74> 90. 
 
126 Index. 
 
 Smith, Alder, M. B., disseminated ring- 
 worm, 73. 
 
 Smith, Alder, M. B., on heads or infected 
 articles, 78. 
 
 Smith, Alder, M. B., on ringworm, 
 58-89. 
 
 Smith, Alder, M. B., small spots, 76. 
 
 Sulphur, 19, 27. 
 
 Sulphurous acid in ringworm proper of 
 the scalp, 11. 
 
 Sutton, Bland, Evolution and Disease, 
 115. 
 
 Tellurium in treatment of Herpes circin- 
 natus, 10, 19, 27. 
 
 Tinea circinata 52, 
 
 Tongue, yellow-coated, 4. 
 
 Trichophyton, 29, 97, 98, 111, 119. 
 
 Virus of consumption, 11, 13. 
 
 Willan on ringworm, 57. 
 
 T. B. & H. B. Cochran, Printers, 
 
 LANCASTER, PA. 
 
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