On Fistula :[ and its cure by homeopathy ]
By J. Compton Burnett. M.D.

Fistula is practically just a convenient term for a certain morbid state found at a given. part, and it cannot be regarded as a disease sui generies, though it is itself a generic term. which potentially includes quite a number o£ diseases of a more or less formidable nature.
Fistula is a condition that is sequential, to another condition, viz., to a gathering or abscess of some kind, and when we speak of a fistula-say a fistula-in-ano we mean that at the indicated part there is a variously shaped, often a pine-shaped, mattering portion of eroded or otherwise denuded tissue.
Now it is commonly taught that this discharging pipe-like abscess is in itself the disease, and that its cure consists in cutting it open, cleaning it, and making it heal, and there the thing is supposed to end. But is it so ? .
I know a lady who was abroad, and suffering from fistula, and the local family doctor ordered her home to London to be operated on for her fistula, he having previously tried many local applications in vain. She came home to London, was operated on and cured-that is to say, the fistula with a good deal of trouble was got to heal up. After that the os uteri became gravely ulcerated, and patient spent nearly two years for the most part lying on her back and underwent an almost endless number of local manipulations and operations. At length the ulcerations in the region of the os were made to heal. Then came leucorrhoea without ulceration, and of a most distressing kind ; a very dapper gynecologist occupied several years in stemming this discharging tide, and when the unfortunate lady had been fairly rid of the leucorrhoea by the injections so long and so strong, she found herself cured surgically and completely of-lst. fistula-in-ano ; 2ndly, of ulceration of the os uteri ; and 3rdly, and lastly, of this severe leucorrhoea.
And then ? health ? Not at all, but a hard tumour in the region of bowel and womb, which has rendered her state simply awful ; for, apart from theof the tumour per se, the exit of the bowel being almost obliterated, the going to stool can be only characterized as awful, so distressing, so tedious, and so painful .
Now, what is the meaning of this all ? Just this : the lady was ill in herself, and her organism tried to rid itself of some of (at least) the product of her ill-being ; to this end it constructed a fistula in an out-of-the way district of the economy, through which it might drain off matter inimical to itself : the surgeons, in forcibly healing the fistula practically stopped the outlet pipe.
Then the same process was repeated in regard to the said ulceration, and again with the surface outlet, which we call leucorrhoea ; and, finally, finding all direct outlets effectually blocked by the doctors, Nature was fairly compelled to deposit within the organism the before-mentioned inimical matter in the form of a tumour, and that at the next nearest available point to the seat of the fistula, ulcers, and leucorrhoea respectively Controvert his you men of the knife, if you can.