bjbanerjee

On the quiet and calm morning of 19th Aug. '80 I was sitting in my chamber when a ten year old boy, Munnelal led by his father came in. The father said, "Doctor, my son can not see any things with his right eye for the last few months I consulted some eye hospitals and am at present coming back from K.G. Medical College Lucknow. Is their any hope of my son regaining his version ? Should I go and consult Doctors who perform eye operations ?" Having stated all his fruitless effort he showed me the prescriptions and medical test reports.
I listened to him patently and consoled his as he said to me with tears in his eyes, "I am very poor and Munnelal is my only son." How I begain to question him as followes :
Q. How did the boy lose his eye sight ?
A. Sir, it all happened all of sudden without any prewarning.
Q. Did he suffer from any disease since his birth ?
A. A year prior to his blindness, the boy suffered from fever for some days.
Q. How long did the fever last ?
A. The fever lasted for about a fortnight (It strucks me that it was typhoid fever.)
Q. What medicines were administered ?
A. In treatment only some capsules and injection were given.
After learning the past history of the patient I prescribed Lyco. 0/1 (one pill disolved in one ounce of distilled watere and dived into seven doses. One dose was added to a cup of boiled water and from it one teaspoonful to be taken after every hour, four doses a day. After gap of two days the process was to be repeated for about a week.) The father was instructed to report the condition of the patient after a week. The father was also advised not to warryat all if the patient got fever during the treatment and he should positively inform me. After a week the father came to me highly annyed and incensed. He blamed me that I was responsible for the high fever of the boy. The boy realy had developed high temperature and I was requested to treat the fever and then do any thing else for the blindness. I consoled him and told him that the boy must have fever as a symptom for the efficacy of the medicine and with the subsidence of the fever his blindness would disappear like a magic. (Every body knows according to Merring's guiding symptoms that suppressed symptoms reappear with the asministering of the correct medicine.)
I gave the patient false doses for four days on 25th Aug. '80. After four days he agains reappeared and reported with great joy that it was miracle that the boy regained his lost sight after the disappearance of the fever I gave his Lyco. 0/2 according to the previous proceedure and the medicine to be taken only twice a days with a gap of three days. I asked him to see me after twenty eight days.
Munelal came to me with his father on the prescribed date and the father said, "My son can see now objects miles off."
I cut a joke and said, "If your son can see for mile with his one eye he can see for two miles when he is looking with his both eyes wide open."
The father told me that his son had become very week and requested me to give him some tonic. I advised the father to give his son half a Kg. of Cow's milk daily to be taken only a cupful at a time. I gave him false doses in two ounce to be taken with a cup of a milk every morning and evening and asked him to be present to be examined in the last week of May's 81.