The Collected Works of
Arthur Hill Grimmer, M.D.

A Homeopathic Book Report

Several weeks ago, I mentioned the research of Max Gerson, and his observation that in Cancer, the polarity reverses, and that is why he recommends no salt in the diet.... While Gerson’s work is more herbal and diet, Grimmer’s work is Homeopathic, but follows a similar thread; that of polarity reverses. The following is some excerpts from several reviews of a book I ordered it, read it, and found something that was so helpful, it seemed at the time to make a life and death difference for a family member! Dr, Grimmer’s use of Cadmium is what I’m referring to. As I tend to study the Old Eclectic Homeopaths, I’d never heard much on the use of Cadmium in treatment of Cancer, but, if indicated, it is an incredible remedy. This book is about 900 pages, and comprises this doctor’s entire life’s work. Hope you find it interesting and perhaps helpful.

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ARTHUR HILL GRIMMER, M.D.
edited by Ahmed N. Currim, M.D.
Reviewed by Durr Elmore
Published by Hahnemann International Institute for Homeopathic Documentation,
148 East Avenue Suite 1-L, Norwalk, CT 06851.

Arthur Hill Grimmer practiced homeopathy for 57 years. Despite the fact that Grimmer was a prolific writer, contributing many articles and cases for the homeopathic journals of his day, he is little known among contemporary homeopaths. With the publication of The Collected Works of Arthur Hill Grimmer, M.D, Dr. Grimmer’s relative anonymity should change.

This anthology, edited by Dr. Ahmed Currim, is a big and ambitious work as befits its subject. Currim began collecting Grimmer’s unpublished manuscripts with the doctor’s daughter, Audrey Grimmer Winthers in 1972. His comprehensive, organized and well documented treatment of Dr. Grimmer’s writings is an exciting addition to the homeopathic literature.

This very large page book is arranged into 8 chapters; Materia Medica, Homeopathic Prophylaxis, Philosophy, Clinical Cases, Special Diseases, Essays, Electronic Reactions of Abrams, and Cancer. Really The Collected Works of Arthur Hill Grimmer, M.D. is like several books under one cover.

Grimmer gave many brief descriptions of very rarely used remedies which he said had proved curative. Using a sample of the patient’s blood and his Abram’s box he was able to arrive at remedies which apparently were extremely successful. Alas, but that we could follow in his footsteps. What Grimmer demonstrated was the homeopathic medicines do have the power to cure cancer even if he failed to teach us how to do it.

Frequently Grimmer prescribed based on the “polarity” of the patient’s blood. He postulated that there were four types of blood, positive, negative, neutral and bipolar. Each type needed a remedy which corresponded electromagnetically to the blood. For someone in a state of negative polarity a remedy with positive polarity was necessary to neutralize or cure. Those diseases of negative polarity required positively charged remedies whereas the neutral diseases needed neutral agents and the bipolar diseases bipolar ones. To determine the remedy, Grimmer used a radionic device patterned after the work of Dr. Albert Abrams, an early innovator in radionics. Unfortunately, Grimmer never passed on exact knowledge of this methodology so it is virtually impossible to know precisely why he prescribed as he did. Included in this collection are lists of negative, neutral, bipolar, and positive homeopathic medicines.

Grimmer was clearly passionately interested in the subtle electric currents permeating the organism: “While the life energy of this wondrous organism of man is flowing harmoniously, that is, polarized correctly, for the maintenance of the electrochemical processes of metabolism, health is present. Anything interfering with this life force, i.e., reversing its normal polarity, results in disease. And order can only be restored by recovering the normal polarity of the vital force. If a reversed polarity exists for too long a time, changes begin in the chemistry of metabolism which are soon followed throughout the cellular elements of the body by a change in structure ultimating in some pathologic process.”

Here is a piece from the chapter titled “Clinical Novelties.” The remedy Oxydendron arboreum was the remedy given in this case. We also find that Grimmer was using a “radionic” machine to determine the remedy - a most “unclassical” method!

“My experience with this remedy was in the case of a young married man, 23 years of age who came to my office November 19, 1942 suffering with acute diffuse nephritis which followed the extraction of a large number of infected teeth; extremities were badly swollen with considerable ascites [fluid in the peritoneal cavity]. The only thing complained of was many dizzy headaches; blood pressure 160/90; heart sounds weak and fast but regular; urine albuminous and loaded with granular and hyaline casts. The general health had always been good. The patient had been treated several months before I saw him by regular physicians of the old school. There were no therapeutic symptoms; only common and diagnostic symptoms were present for the selection of the remedy. Aur-iod 10M, Merc-sulph 10M, and Kali-ars 10M were given within an interval of about ten days apart. After each remedy the patient grew worse, becoming more bloated with fluid and gradually finding it harder to get his breath. After a month he was a pitiable sight, distended to abnormal proportions and unable to lie down, and found it almost impossible to move.

“Apparently this was an incurable case, but in desperation the patient consented to a test of his blood for remedy selection. Oxydendron was the only remedy in several hundred of the polarity group to which his blood belonged to come through. It was given in the two hundredth potency with most amazing and rapid improvement in the patient’s symptoms and well being. The potency was repeated in 3 weeks and later several doses of the 10M were given at month intervals, followed by the 50M and CM potencies to complete the cure in about 6 months when the patient returned to his work as a truck driver, and has remained on the job until the present time. Some three years have elapsed with the patient remaining strong and well but still considerably under weight (135 lbs.) for his height (6 feet). From this brief review of the little known drug we could expect much greater things from its use by a complete homeopathic proving.”

Another case of interest concerns the little known Solanum integri:

“Several years ago, while visiting there (Florida), I procured one of the plants with their fruit and sent it to our able pharmacist and good friend Mr. Ehrhart of Chicago for identification and preparation of tincture and potencies of this plant, having first tested the whole plant and fruit for its polarity and vibratory rates of disease contained there-in.

It belongs to the positive group and corresponds to rates of malignant disease of various types such as tuberculosis and degenerative types of disease. In the past this remedy [was given] in potency only, 30th and higher by means of testing it over the patients blood to ascertain its homeopathic relation to each specific case tested. The results in a great number of seriously ill cases have been uniformly good. The most outstanding cases were those of chronic bronchial asthma.

One very unusual case of a doctor, who has suffered for almost a lifetime and had tried all forms of medication for relief including good homeopathic prescribing with only occasional slight relief. One month after one dose of the 30th potency of Solanium integri the patient reported being almost entirely free of asthma and felt better than ever before in his life. The patient is still improving after 6 months and is now on the ten thousandth potency of the remedy.

Surely here is another remedy that, when proved homeopathically, will be a mighty weapon in the hands of the physician to relieve and cure one of the most intractable and terrible diseases; asthma.” Grimmer, p. 126,7

I chose these two cases not just because of their amazing amelioration, but because Dr. Grimmer used radionics as a source of information about the potential curative properties of the remedy and to help him cure the case. I’ll talk more about this in a bit.

Dr. Currim’s treatise is divided into nine sections (approximate number of pages are in parenthesis): Materia medica (150), Prophylaxis (40), Philosophy (180), Clinical Cases (60), Special Diseases (60), Essays (I 83), Electronic Reactions of Abrams (50), Cancer (150), and Repertory Rubrics for Kent’s Repertory from Grimmer (20).

Grimmer skillfully turns to “electronic homeopathy” in order to bring about homeopathic cures, especially with cancer. Though controversial, I would be remiss if I did not discuss this aspect of healing as Grimmer sought to cure his patients with any means he could. With this and his tremendous grasp of homeopathy in mind, he blended the latest theories concerning bodily polarity disturbances as proposed by George W. Crile, M.D. (A Bipolar Theory of’ Living Processes, 1926), Archie Jones, M.D. (The Behavior of the Blood Colloids in Health and Disease), Maud Slye, M.D. (authored 42 papers on cancer), and Albert Abrams, M.D. (Spondylotherapy, 1910, The Electronic Reactions of Albert Abrams, 1922). Grimmer became quite familiar with the method of Abrams and employed that methodology in his medical practice.

Physician Maud Slye of the University of Chicago did extensive experiments on rats. She bred thousands of families (many generations) and succeeded in establishing the fact that cancer is inheritable. She further proved that by selecting cancer free parents, cancer could be bred out of the population. Basically she proved the inherited soil theory of’ cancer. Crile, Abrams, and Jones maintained that before any chemical or pathological change takes place in the cells there is a preceding change in the electrical polarity. If this polarity is not changed - brought back within normal limits - disease was sure to set in, particularly cancer. Crile suggested that the normal bipolar state of healthy cells becomes positively charged when the cells become cancerous. Abrams said the same thing but earlier in the century. As the normal bipolar activity becomes positive, the chemical and physical properties of the cell changes. Abrams tested the blood and found that when blood registers positive, a remedy in the negative polarity class is needed. Furthermore, not all negative remedies will restore health, but only that negative remedy whose “vibratory rate” is similar to the patient’s. The proper remedy is found by placing the remedy in circuit with the patients blood and noting the resulting action. This action is measured by a rheostat and if the resistance (measured in ohms) is within normal limits, then no remedy need be given. If abnormal, the remedy which most closely matches the patient’s “vibratory pattern” is given.

“This vibratory and electromagnetic method of remedy finding is a boon to the hard working homeopathic prescriber because it combines accuracy with much time saving, providing the prescriber is well grounded in homeopathic Philosophy and the homeopathic materia medica. First he must take his case history carefully and completely as outlined in the Organon. Then the personal and family history together with the high grade generals with rare and peculiar symptoms by repertory study will reduce the vast materia medica to a dozen or so remedies. When the patient’s blood polarity is obtained or known three fourths of the remedies may be put aside as the similium (sic) will be found in the proper polarity group only. The few remedies needed for further study can yield the one most appropriate when placed in the circuit with the blood. It is a mistake to infer that one can successfully employ this method without a good knowledge of the Homeopathic Philosophy and an assiduous study of the Materia Medica. Without the coordination of these elements success will be infrequent and failure a common experience.”
Grimmer, p. 690

Grimmer treated many with the Cadmium salts, yet I could not find out how he stumbled upon Cadmium as being such a wonderful remedy. “In the last two years since my study and application of the Cadmium salts my losses have been greatly reduced. I believe that any advanced case of carcinoma will need Cadmium in some form, dependent on the symptoms of the individual before a cure can be effected. Other remedies are sometimes needed after Cadmium to complement and complete the cure. Sometimes other remedies must precede the use of Cadmium. I frequently find cancer of the liver yielding to Catc-ars. in every way but the tendency to relapse, when frequently a single dose of Cadmium (usually Cad-sulph .... ac) in high potency will render the cure permanent. In the early stages of cancer, especially of the skin, when many guiding therapeutic symptoms still are present, any one of our deep constitutional remedies may be sufficient to cure. Our literature abounds in reports of hundreds of beautiful cures.

I believe a study of the Cadmium salts and their use early in every case, on strictly homeopathic lines, will enable the homeopathic physician to make many more cures of cancer than are being made at the present time.

... I submit, briefly, the records of a few cases to illustrate the action of Cadmium on cancer conditions.” Grimmer, p. 811.

There is much to be learned from this large figure of 20th century homeopathy, and what better way to end this review than by offering a quote, the final paragraph, from one of Dr. Grimmer’s essays, “Fifty Seven Years in the Practice of Homeopathic Medicine”:

“Finally, let me end with a plea to you, my beloved colleagues and devoted students, and numerous friends, who have known the benefits of Homeopathic medicine, for your support of the ideals and principles of the Homeopathic philosophy, that all the future may be blessed with the gentle, safe, and sure power inherent in the similimum empowered to cure a sick world, by the Grace of God. And may His choicest blessing be with you, my friends, as I bid you a fond farewell.”
Grimmer, p. 516