Pneumonias

Details

Pneumonias, by Douglas M. Borland, was published in 1939. Borland separates pneumonia presentations into 5 distinct categories:

1. Incipient stage
2. Frankly developed pneumonia
3. Complicated pneumonias (mixed infection or alcoholic patient)
4. Complicated pneumonia (bronchopneumonia)
5. Late pneumonia.

He then describes each type of pneumonia and differentiates the homeopathic remedies most commonly indicated. When treating a pneumonia epidemic homeopathically it was Borland's expectation that there would be a 100% recovery rate.

Borland believed that, in homoeopathic prescribing, your endeavour is to find a drug that will cover not only the actual pathological picture but also the reaction of the individual patient to that disease.

First of all you find the common ground, on which you make your diagnosis; then you look for the contrasting points in your different cases in order to make your individual prescription.

It is your ability to recognize differences in identical diseases that determines your success, and that is why the experienced clinician is a far more successful homoeopathic prescriber than the inexperienced; they know what a pneumonia should do, how it should behave, and what its constant symptoms are.

Borland felt that the successful homoeopath takes advantage of every atom of knowledge and experience that they have, and the greater the clinical experience the more successful they are going to be. The homeopath must consider the totality of symptoms, in other words, the symptoms of the disease and all the other symptoms as well.

Here is Borland on the topic of how to implement this method:

"Suppose you take a case of pneumonia; it does not interest you that the patient has a temperature, a rapid pulse, rapid respiration, rusty sputum, because all the drugs you consider for the treatment of a pneumonia have these symptoms and you do not need to bother about them at all.

"But it does matter to you whether the individual patient has a generally evenly coated tongue, whether he has a dry mouth or a moist one, whether he is thirsty or thirstless, whether he is more comfortable lying on the affected side or on the opposite one, whether he is drugged and toxic or delirious and excited, whether he is more at peace with somebody by his bed or prefers to be left alone.

"All that sort of thing you very definitely want to know; it is on that sort of thing you prescribe; but you only take it into account after you have decided that the drugs you are considering have the constant features on which you have made your diagnosis.

"It is not a question of neglecting your clinical side; it is a question of knowing which drugs have the clinical picture, and adding to that the points on which you are going to prescribe."

Back to the Top

Heritage

All Borland's pamphlets are derived from a series of lectures given to the Faculty of Homeopathy.

From:
The Heritage of Homoeopathic Literature
copyright 2001 by Julian Winston
Reprinted with the permission of the author

Back to the Top

Author

Douglas Borland
MB, ChB, FFHom.

1885 - 1960

Dr. Borland saw active duty during World War I with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Postwar, Borland established a practice in London and returned to the staff of the London Homeopathic Hospital, where he became senior consultant physician and chief of staff.

He was respected for his presence as a doctor and his willingness to assist his colleagues.

Borland wrote several popular books. These include:
Influenzas (1939)
Pneumonias (1939)
Children's Types (1939)
Some Emergencies of General Practice (1946)
Homeopathy for Mother and Infant (1950)

Borland died November 29, 1960.

Back to the Top

Contents

Pneumonias 1-6
Group 1 - Incipient Stage 7-14
Group 2 - Frankly Developed Pneumonia 15-25
Group 3 - Complicated Pneumonia 26-44
Group 4 - Late Pneumonia 45-59
Index 61-74

Back to the Top