Page 6 - Winter 24-25

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Seen again 10/1/95. Reported back to normal, thirst normal for the first time for months, weight 3.1kg (a further 600g increase) and normal activity levels. The dehydration was obviously gone, and the muscle wastage was less prominent.
Seen on 22/3/95. Weight now 3.3kg (a 50% increase since treatment began). No further treatment was given. No further tests were carried out as it was considered unnecessary.
Seen on 28/12/95. Similar signs were recurring. On this occasion a urine sample was obtained, and was negative for glucose, although did show a trace haematuria and proteinuria. Antibiotics were given at owner request, but a further split dose of Natrum muriaticum 1m was also given. She weighed 2.9kg.
Seen on 18/4/95 for routine boosters, but she was still “not right” since December when last treated. She still weighed 2.9kg. No blood or urine assessments were done at this time. The owner agreed to having homeopathy alone, and another split dose of Natrum muriaticum was given, this time in 10m potency. This apparently improved the cat markedly in a very short time. There has been no recurrence of the problem. Vodka was seen for annual boosters in April of 1997, was in very good condition, and weighed 3.3kg.
Discussion
Although antibiotics were given concurrently in this case, it seems most likely that there was a diabetic state as the major problem, which would have been unaltered by their usage. It could be argued too that the i/v fluids strengthened the patient sufficiently to overcome the months of decline, but again that would seem to be most unlikely. The dramatic response to the remedy, and the
reversal of the well-established deterioration, all points to the remedy having fundamentally corrected the malady. The very good response to the same remedy at a later stage, particularly the higher potency when given without concurrent conventional therapy, would also indicate a homeopathic response. There would have been good reason to give China officinalis as the first remedy, as it comes out on the repertorising, and is a good support remedy following fluid loss, and I would retrospectively have used this initially while strengthening the patient. The important thing was not to challenge a weakened vital force with a high potency preparation until it had been restored to a position where there could be sufficient vital response.
Reflections from 2024
The comments on this case will be limited to reflections on the remedy Natrum muriaticum. The conventional diagnostic work-up did not prove without doubt that this patient had diabetes mellitus, although there is very strong evidence to support it, so this cannot be presented as a proven cure of diabetes in the cat, however likely this may be. We are fortunate that the restriction of symptoms within a label of conventional diagnosis is of little relevance with homeopathy, where observing the individual patient, listening to the symptomatology, evaluating their vital force energy, and assessing the totality of their condition, is what matters. This cat could equally have been a renal or hepatic disease patient, but the constitutional homeopathic approach would have been the same.
The first thing which needs to be asked is what is the remedy which we are using. I am very grateful to Lee Kayne, proprietor of Freeman’s Homeopathic Pharmacy,
Glasgow, for his personal input into this question. I asked myself, for the first time since I have been using homeopathy, what exactly am I giving when prescribing Natrum muriaticum? I wonder how many homeopaths can actually answer this question!
Samuel Hahnemann describes the remedy he called “Natrum muriaticum” as potentised “table salt” (rather unhelpfully, says Lee!). We do not know what he meant by table salt, nor where it originated from. Our modern-day Natrum muriaticum remedy is laboratory-produced pure NaCl, which is most unlikely to be the same as the salt which was used in the original provings, and applied clinically by the early homeopaths. Similarly, it is commonly stated that Natrum muriaticum is potentised sea salt, but sea salt is actually a separate remedy. There is, in addition, a remedy made from Himalayan salt.
Natrum muriaticum is described by Vermeulen in “Prisma” as “Sodium chloride, also known as table salt, rock salt, and sea salt, [which] occurs in nature as the mineral halite. It is produced by mining [rock salt], by evaporation of brine from underground salt deposits, and from sea water by solar evaporation.”
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