Page 16 - Spring 20

Revival of a Dead Chicken by Mary Ellen Finger DVM, LMT, HHC
Transcribed from a presentation during the Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy 2002
Conference and Annual Meeting, Park City, Utah
Intro: I’ve been listening to past AVH meetings on tape and MP3 for several years; to catch up on missed meetings, to remind myself of great cases, to learn, and hear well-loved voices. One of these well-loved voices is that of Mary Ellen Finger. She presented a very interesting tutorial on remedies for sheep, but as part of this session there was a little aside case which I really loved. This story, complete with chicken sound effects, goes down in AVH history of memorable lectures. I decided to transcribe it here. For more information about Mary Ellen Finger’s life and accomplishments, see the memorial piece in the AVH Journal Fall 2017.
Lisa Brienen, Editor
“The best story I have (for the use of Carbo veg) is my drowned chicken. This is a totally drowned chicken. My chickens free range, I’ll find them a half mile away. They are very happy chickens. They have all their feathers unlike most chickens you’ll see that are pecking each other. And so, occasionally I’ll get these stray avian viruses that come through and I’ll get a few chickens that get sick and they (impression of a coughing chicken) do these various things, and I will treat them depending on their symptoms if they look like they need it.
I had one virus that went through and I found a couple of acutely dead chickens including this one that was floating in the bathtub where I water all my animals. And she was dead as far as I could see. Her eyes were closed, she was limp, she was floating in the water. I picked her up and I said, “Oh! Too bad, you’re my favorite little bantam hen.” And I took her and threw her over on my compost pile.
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