85 Years of Homeopathy: Elsa Engle and the sixth edition of the Organon

An Interview by Frances Kalfus OMD, LAc (Simillimum, Volume XIV, Issue 3, Fall 2001, p. 9) 97 years old at time of interview in 1992.

September 1, 1992

Q. Were you practicing with Dr. Engle?
A. Well, I learned about everything. It was like I was a nurse practitioner. I must tell you, during the 1918 flu I did practice medicine without being a licensed doctor for five days, and I did not lose a single, solitary patient.

Q. So the flu hit here in California also?
A. Good grief, they died. Nowadays they say that they killed them off with the medicines that they gave them, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised, because I know they gave you seven things, but I don't remember what they were. The homeopaths at Hahnemann Hospital didn't lose any. Dr. Engle lost two patients. One was a young woman, who had gotten married just before the war started. She was pregnant and had a bad heart. Dr. Engle was worried because of her heart, whether she was going to be able to carry the pregnancy to term. When the flu came, she died. The other was a woman who also had a very bad heart. I forget what they called that heart disease; her lips were always blue. It was very serious, she was in a very critical state. These were the only two patients we lost.

Q. Do you remember how you treated it?
A. They all had about the same symptoms. You didn't have to do anything else but give them a bottle of Gelsemium, followed with a bottle of Eupatorium perfoliatum. We told them to go to bed, and to stay out of the bathtub and out of the shower, and to keep themselves clean with alcohol rubs. In those days we could get them to clean with alcohol. And to stay on liquids. In five days practically all of them were well.

Q. Do you remember the potencies?
A. I think both of them were 6X.