WE commence the publication of our provings by the symptoms of the Crotalus Cascavella, not so much on ac- count of the importance of the symptoms which the poison of this dangerous reptile produces on the healthy body; but because the unfortunate experiment which was attempted a few years ago, on a sick person, offers a fair opportunity of contrasting the hazardous and uncertain results of a merely clinical experimentation, with the positive advan- tages of Hahnemann's method of proving. A popular notion,— and the therapeutics of the Old-School was gradually built up of such notions, — attributed to the poison of the crotalus cascavella, the power of curing the elephantiasis of the Greeks, a malady which, in Brazil, goes by the name of morphea, or Lazarus' -evil. A disciple of Hahnemann might have verified this belief without any 6 BRAZILIAN PATHOGENESI3. difficulty, and without endangering human life. But the Old-School who does not acknowledge our method of prov- ing, had to remain in doubt about this curative virtue of the cascavella, until a patient and physician would be found sufficiently bold and logical to apply to a frightful disease a still more frightful remedy. Mariano Jose Machado, fell a victim to his heroic attempt, and, by his death, dis- sipated the illusory hopes founded on the curative virtue of the poison of the cascavella. Now what conclusion shall we draw from this fact ? That the practitioner who advised the attempt, has been imprudent and censure- able ? God forbid that we should commit such an act of injustice. A patient has succumbed to a clinical experi- ment ; let us honor the heroic courage with which he braved the serpent's bite; let us honor the zeal of the practitioner, who persuaded him to risk a few years of a loathsome existence for the chance, though uncertain, of a cure. The unhappy Machado has been saved a few years of cruel suffering ; but what a joy it would have afforded him and his miserable fellow-sufferers, if the remedy for their loathsome disease had been known ! what a glory it would have been to the physician who should have con- ducted them to the haven of relief ! * * This case has been reported in detail, in the Medical Gazette of Paris, of the 5th of January, 1839, by the attending physicians, Mdia and Reis. We transcribe it for the benefit of our readers. Mariano Jose Machado, fifty years old, of athletic form, bilious- sanguine temperament, was afflicted with elephantiasis leontina Alibert. The whole body, especially the extremities, were insensible. The skin and the cellular tissue were thickened, hard, rugose and covered with tubercles which were somewhat raised but not ulcerated. A few pustules under the arms, looked like itch-pustules, and seemed to indi- cate a complication with this disease. The epidermis and nails began to alter, and the fingers had lost their normal shape. Internally, the patient felt quite well, enjoying both vigor of mind and body. After six years of suffering, he had come to the determination to try this dreadful experiment, which would either lead to death or a deliverance from his horrible affliction. On the morning of the fourth of September, at fifty minutes past eleven o'clock, he was bit by a rattle-snake, the crotalus cascavella, in GROTALUS CA8CAVELLA. However, a homicide has been committed on this occa- sion, and though the perpetrators may be free from blame, the two last fingers near the metacarpus. He felt neither the bite, nor the poison as it penetrated into the wound. A few drops of blood came out of the wound, and the hand began immediately to swell. — In five minutes : slight feeling of coldness in the hands. — Twelve o'clock : slight pain in the hollow of the hands. — Twenty minutes : the hand swells a good deal. — Thirty minutes : swelling of the jugular veins. Alteration of the features. Formication in the face. — Fifty-five minutes : the sense of swelling extends through the whole forearm. — Twenty minutes past one : trembling of the whole body. — Thirty-six minutes past one : the head is affected, with frequent pulse, difficulty of moving the lips, disposition to slumber, constriction of the throat, violent pain in the whole arm, the hand swells more and more. — Thirty-eight minutes past one : sense of chilliness ; the patient covers himself. — Forty-eight minutes past one : pain in the tongue and larynx, increased pains and swelling of the bitten hand ; sense of coldness in the feet. — Twenty-five minutes past two : difficulty of swallowing, — anguish, — copious sweat on the chest. — Fifty minutes : weakness of the arms, — nosebleed, — anguish, now and then, — restlessness, — pulse 96. — In three hours and forty minutes : pulse 100. — Fifteen minutes: intensely vio- lent pains in the arms, — restlessness. — Thirty minutes : pulse 98, — red face,— continual bleeding of the nose. — Thirty-five minutes : the patient drinks some wine and water without any difficulty, and changes his linen which was all wet from the perspiration. — Intense redness all over. — In four hours : pulse 100,— the whole of the skin, especially on the bitten arm, is very red, — violent pains in both arms, which do not leave the patient any rest, — constriction of the throat, — impeded respiration. — Fifty minutes : pulse 104, — the body is very hot all over, — flow of saliva. — In five hours, thirty minutes : torpor,— copious emission of urine, — thick, viscid saliva, which it is difficult to get out of the mouth, — muscular debility, — frequent moaning on account of the pains which he feels in the whole body, — quiet breathing, — pulse full and frequent, skin soft, — the bitten hand swells enormously. — In seven hours : som- nolence with moaning, — after waking the pains in the arms are less, but he experiences violent pains in the chest, — sensation of a lump in his throat, — copious emission of urine, — great difficulty of swallowing, white, viscid saliva, — discharge of a bloody liquid from the nose, — ina- bility to swallow a drink composed of water, sugar and brandy. — In eight hours : the sweating abates, — restlessness, — moaning, — emission of urine. — In nine hours, ten minutes : the moaning ceases, — deep sleep. — In ten hours : takes an infusion of guaco, — pulse 108, — the bloody discharge from the nose ceases, — shrivelling of the tuberculous formations on the arms and in the face, they exhibit an erysipelatous 8 BRAZILIAN PATHOOENESIS. yet we may justly condemn the deceitful science that has to resort to such dangerous practices, in order to augment its resources and enlarge its boundaries. Like unto the vile poisoner who, when his poisons fail him, resorts to the stiletto, as a means of gratifying his cupidity or his ambition, allopathy sacrifices human life, and, like him, will have an ignominious end. The solemn homicide, which was com- mitted a few years ago in this capital in the name of science, may be of use to the world, by hastening the glorious recog- nition of the homoeopathic healing art, in these distant re- gions. If it was permitted as recently as four years ago, redness. — In ten hours, twenty minutes : emits two ounces of a natural urine, — a few minutes' quiet sleep, without moaning. — In ten hours, forty minutes : the pains abate a good deal, but he complains of pains in the thighs and feet, where he had felt a considerable coldness until now, — pulse 108, — ordinary thirst, — the patient sits up in order to drink, and swallows the drink with ease. — In eleven hours : takes four spoonfuls of a strong infusion of guaco. — In eleven hours, forty-five minutes: emits a deeply-colored urine, — pulse 119, — the bitten hand and arm are very much inflamed and intensely painful, — restlessness. — In twelve hours: quiet sleep, disturbed by eructations,— pulse 112, — emission of urine. — In twelve hours, thirty minutes : restlessness, — screams, — despair. — In twelve hours, forty minutes : emission of urine, — pulse 116, — sensation of burning heat in the legs, which he un- covers.— In thirteen hours : emission of urine, — quiet, — he takes an infusion of guaco. — In fourteen hours : he sits up in bed, and drinks water, during which he moves about violently and screams. — In fifteen hours : emission of urine, — the swelling of the lower lips abates, — the salivation ceases. — In fifteen hours, forty-five minutes : pulse 110, — involuntary motion of the right thumb and left foot. — In seventeen hours : the patient feels very sick, — pulse 100,— frequent moaning. — In nineteen hours : excessive debility, — involuntary motion of the lower jaw, and lower extremities, — bloody urine. — In twenty hours : acceler- ated, intermitting pulse, — increase of the convulsive motions, — the swelling of the extremities, and the redness of the skin are less, — ex- treme difficulty of swallowing, — anxious respiration. — In twenty hours, fifty minutes : diminution of the convulsive motions. — In twenty hours, fifty-five minutes : the convulsions cease. — In twenty-one hours : he takes an ounce of lizard-oil, which he swallows with difficulty. — In twen- ty-one hours, thirty minutes : death. — In a few minutes, the blue-colored body, swoll considerably. — Twenty-three hours after death, the body had swollen enormously, was covered with blue and red spots, and smelt so horridly that no post-mortem examination could be made. — HEMPEL. CROTALUS CASCAVELLA. 9 when the name of Hahnemann was scarcely known in this country, to kill a man for the purpose of trying a drug, we venture to say that, at this period, nobody would either dare to propose or accept such a murderous practice. It will be seen, in studying the symptoms which we have obtained from the poison of the crotalus, that there are very few among them which resemble the tuberculous lepra, and that this terrible malady will, therefore, have to be cured by some other means. Fortunately, homoeopathy teaches us the method of discovering a suitable remedy iu the place of the crotalus poison, which we now know has to be aban- doned as a remedy for lepra, and the success which we have already obtained, enables us to indulge the hope, that the Brazilian lepra, as well as the elephantiasis of the Arabs, will soon disappear entirely, under the operation of the suitable dynamised homoeopathic agent. The crotalus will become a useful adjunct to the lachesis proved by Doctor Hering ; it is my belief that it affects the organism longer and more thoroughly than the latter, and will effect many cures which had to remain incomplete under the use of lachesis. The serpent from which this poison has been extracted, was caught in the province of Ceara. In this operation I was aided by the young practitioner who alone, four years ago, had protested against the dangerous experiment which was made in the hospital of the leprous patients, of which he was at that time chief physician. His noble heart revolted against the practice of risking human life, for the sake of a medical doctrine, and, soon after, he imitated the glorious example which Hahnemann had set him fifty years previous, by abandoning a lucrative practice, and the direction of two hospitals. Having first protested against the bite which the reptile was caused to inflict upon his patient, he now volun- tarily exposed his own life for the purpose of extracting the poison, which was to be suitably attenuated in order to con- vert it into a curative agent. Several drops of the poison spirted on his face, and might have ended his life, if the inner corner of the eye had been touched as I first feared 1* 10 BRAZILIAN PATHOGENES1S. it was. At this day, Avhen his suspicions have been abun- dantly confirmed by the physiological provings, Dr. J. V. Martins, is one of the firmest adherents of our rising School. May he live to see the error which he had instinctively rejected, completely extinguished by the brilliant light of medical truth. This terrible serpent is found in the province of Ceara, whence it was brought to Rio Janeiro. This species gene- rally attains a length of from four to five feet but the animal from which the poison was taken for our provings, was three feet long. Its oval-triangular head one half of which is provided with shields, shows a round depression in front of the eyes, which are covered with a large elliptical shield, serving as a lid. The body is big, conical, its movements are sluggish ; its upper surface is covered with scales, the dorsal scales being keeled and somewhat lanceolate, the scales of the tail being quadrangular and smaller. The belly is provided with one hundred and seventy large transversal plates ; there are twenty-five plates belonging to the tail, the three first of which are divided in shields. The extremity of the tail is furnished with seven or eight capsules of the con- sistence of parchment which, when agitated, produce a shrill sound. The color of the crotalus is a yellowish-brown, much lighter under the belly, with twenty-four or twenty-six regular long rhomboidal lines on each side of the back. When irritated and during the excessive heat, the crotalus spreads a very fetid musk-like odor. The molar teeth which are few in number, but long and excessively poisonous, are inserted in exceedingly dilatable jaws. Every body knows that the poison of this reptile acts with a frightful intensity ; and it was not without great danger that Doctors Mure and Martins succeeded in obtaining a few drops of it, by com- pressing from the living animal the gland which secretes it. FIRST EXPERIMENT. 1. First day : Heavy pain in the back part of the orbit, and at the left eyebrow. — Second day : Pain under the right orbit and at the forehead, right side. — Third day : Dry CROTALU3 CASCAVELLA. 11 cough with tickling in the throat, at night. — Fourth day ; Headache extending over the forehead and then the rest of the head. &. Fifth day : Smell all day like that of the crotalus, insipid, nauseous, like the odor perceived in a hospi- tal. Sixth day : Lancinations in various parts of the body. — Seventh day ; Contraction with pressure at the right eye- ball which felt as if drawn out, — Eighth day: Yellowish diarrho?a.— - Ninth day : Pain in the middle of the forehead. 10- Tenth day: Rheumatic pain in the right shoulder. — Eleventh day : Rheumatic pain in the left wrist. — Twelfth day : Violent cramps in the heel. SECOND EXPERIMENT. (The drug is taken at 10 o'clock in the evening.) Spitting of black blood. 15. Prickling all over the body. Starting during sleep. Sleeplessness. Fright at night, without knowing about what. 20- Sleep in the morning. The tip of the nose is drawn up as by a string which is fas- tened to a central point of the forehead. Tingling in the throat. Salt taste in the mouth which cannot be removed by drinking sugarwater. 25- Pulse a little heavy. Small red conical pimples on the wrist. Painful pulling on the sides of the neck in turning the head. Feeling of coldness in the stomach, after having eaten. Sensation as if a peg were sticking in the middle portion of the liver. 30- Ach- ing pain at the gums, left side. Circular pain round the abdomen, terminating at the navel. Two lancinations under the right shoulder, as if with a dagger, arresting the breathing and reverberating in the chest. Sensation as of a grain of sand in the outer canthi of the eyes. Burning pinching at the pylorus. 35- Constriction in the thyroid body. Sen- sation as if the right lower limb, from the hip to the heel, were shorter ; this sensation, though illusory, causes him to limp. The left eye feels as if drawn towards the temple. Burning and constriction in the throat. Second day : Pain in the inner head. 40. The feet are cold. The arms are weak. Contusive feeling at the inner side of the right shoulder-blade. Painful heaviness in the 12 BRAZILIAN PATHOGENESIS, loins. Appearance of a blue dazzling light before the eyes.