Aloe Socotrina

[ALOE. NATURAL ORDER, LILIACEiE.]

This resin is obtained from a tree which grows at the cape of Good Hope, on the island of Barbadoes and on the island of Socotrina on the south coast of Africa. The leaf of the tree is cut off by a clean incision, when the resin flows out and is collected in appropriate vessels, dried in the sun and afterward enclosed in pouches of goat's skin and shipped off. At the Cape the resin is collected in pits cov- ered with goat's skins, and the evaporation is effected by exposure to a flame ; on the island of Socotrina the resin is exposed to the sun's heat and thus evaporated, and on the island of Barbadoes the resin is boiled to a suitable consistence. The Socotrina aloes is considered the best for medicinal uses.

Aloes acts specifically upon the liver ; it causes congestions in the portal system, and hence it excites haemorrhoids, causes bilious stools, scanty and hot urine, and a more copious secretion of menstrual blood. We give aloes with great success in

DYSENTERY when the following symptoms are present : Stools Dark yellow, fecal ; bloody, jelly-like mucus in "gobs "; small, lumpy, watery ; involuntary while passing flatus. Aggravations When walking or standing ; after eating ; while passing urine and flatus ; in the afternoon, evening and night.

Before stool Sudden violent, excruciating, cutting, griping pain in the abdomen, often worse on the right side, with imperative urging. During stool The same pains and urging continue ; much flatus and horrible tenesmus.

After stool Pains subside ; great prostration and pro- fuse cold prespiration ; tenesmus ; haemorrhoids. Accompaniments Good appetite and no special thirst ; loud rumbling and gurgling in the abdomen, as of water running from a bottle ; pain in the small of the back (Dr.

Oonant, Am. Homceopathist, Jan., 1877).

Dr. W. J. Hawkes gives the following cases which illustrate the use of the drug in abdominal difficulties : Lady, aged fifty-five years had been troubled for years with a frequently recurring and distressing " colic." The attacks would commence with a profuse, windy-watery diarrhoea, with lumps of mucus like jelly.

She must hurry to the closet immediately after eating or drinking. There would be great and cutting- griping pain in the right and lower portion of the abdomen, which was excruciating before and during stool ; after stool all pain ceased, leaving a profuse perspiration and extreme weakness. Aloes30 removed all unpleasant symptoms in a very short time. The patient has been comparatively free from such attacks since ; and when she is threatened, a few doses of this remedy relieve.

A strong, robust man, of about forty-five years of age, was taken with dysentery. This disease was an old enemy of his — had been confined to his bed a month at a

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time with it — had a tendency to that particular trouble. The deciding symptoms in the case were those severe, cramping, griping, weakening pains across the lower and right portion of the abdomen, which disappeared as soon as the stool was complete, but leaving him with a feeling of extreme weakness and prostration, and bathed in a cold perspiration. The stool was quite profuse, with the jelly-like lumps, and accom- panied with wind. Aloes30 was given.

General improvement set in at once, and gradual and steady progress was made to a complete and satisfactory cure. The patient and his wife said, he had never been so quickly relieved before, in such a case. (Am. Honmopathist, Oct. 1877.)

Dr. A. Noah Martin states that "aloes is nearly a specific for dysenteric diarrhoea, with sensation as if the rectum were full of water, which gushes out at the least effort to pass flatus. One case, in which the patient passed a quantity of black, fluid blood, was re- lieved immediately with one dose of a high attenuation.

BILIOUS DIARRHCEA, having a peculiar putrid smell, the whole body feeling hot during an evacuation, and with a feeling of distress or uncomfortableness in the region of the liver.

June 9, 1870 In the afternoon and before midnight I had diarrhoea, brown, watery, with thin, fecal matter; during stool soreness of the anus ; after stool dryness of the throat. The hot weather had just commenced. For some years I have been subject to diarrhoea in hot weather, and it would last several days.

About midnight I took an olfaction of some globules of cm (Fincke). No return of diarrhoea, though the weather continued hot, nor has the hot weather caused any return of it to this day, August, 1872. (Dr. E.

W. Berridge, in the Ilahn. Monthly, Sept., 1874.)

Gentlemen, I give you this case, because it is related by a gentle- man of education, refinement and of veracity, and, furthermore, has been published without comments by one, if not more, of our repre- sentative journals. It is consoling to know that Dr. Berridge is ready to place himself under the same kind of medical care which his patients enjoy. This is, at least, consistent.

But the writer would feel recreant to his duty, did he not utter an earnest word of warning against an imitation of such practice. It is enough to give, by the mouth, dilutions, so high that the only plea which the well- known Dr. Swan makes in their defense, is the assertion, that they cannot be made the subject of reasoning, because they are beyond the power of reasoning. But when our trans-Atlantic friend im- proves even upon this extreme practice and contents himself with an olfaction of the medicated globule, then I beg of you to stop on this side of the dividing line and to refuse to go where reason cannot accompany you.

PROCTITIS. — Aloes covers a group of symptoms which is at times met with in proctitis. Dr. Mohr relates the following case :

July 13, 1874. — C. H. B., aged fifty-five, gentleman, has been troubled excessively for six years with what he termed " moist piles," for which he had in vain tried allceopathic and homoeopathic treatment here and in Europe. He complained of his linen being constantly stained by a mucus discharge from the anus ; bowels generally

296 ALUMEN.

moved once a day; stool covered with slime; after stool feels "played out" ; is always worse after bathing ; at times the discharge is so disagreeable and annoying that he feels like shooting himself. Prescribed ant. crud.1000, which was repeated in August, and again on Oct. 27th, when he wrote me: "The whole thing has experi- enced a great change for the better since taking your few powders, for, while formerly the spongy substance was most always passing off, there is only now and then some of this mucus, whitish stuff, which is easily wiped off." Very little, if any, improvement followed until January 3, 1875, when I prescribed aloes30, to be taken in water, a teaspoonful night and morning, for one week, the indications being, "gob- like evacuations of clear jelly, with faintness for hours afterward, and anxiousness on account of health ; a kind of chill running through the system, with pressure on the bladder, chill disappearing at once after making water." Aloes relieved markedly until February 4th, when the prescription was repeated.

May 27th, my patient came again, after have been troubled for six weeks, and at this time he gave me another indication for aloes, viz., always much worse during hot, damp weather. Aloes500, one dose every day, was followed by rapid improvement, and now, Aug. 3d, my patient considers himself radically cured. [Hahn. Monthly, Sept., 1875.)

PILES with flow of hot, blackish blood, heat in the bowels, heat and painful pressure in the liver, flushes in the face, and heat about the head. The tumor, if protruding, appears like bunches of grapes, is very tender, and is relieved by the local application of cold water.

EXCESSIVE MENSTRUATION, when the blood is hot and dark, and the abdomen feels full, hot and distended. There may be present much pain and tenderness in the liver ; the characteristic stool symptoms, haemorrhoids and other indications of the drug.

Eberle says : " Experience has shown that this drug is among the most efficient agents for exciting the uterine vessels, and directing the afflux of blood toward them, and deserves to be accounted the best remedy we possess against the protracted, exhausting and obstinate haemorrhages from the uterus, which occur in females of nervous, relaxed and phlegmatic habits, about the critical period of life."

Dr. H. N. Guernsey furnishes the following symptoms: A sensation of weight in the gravid uterus ; it seems too heavy, there is a sensa- tion of heaviness ; cannot walk much, this sensation seems to prevent.

ALTJMEN.

[common alum.]

Alumina is the oxide of aluminum, argilla, albuminous earth. It is a dazzling white powder ; an antisporic of which we have extensive provings, which I consider unreliable. The alum of commerce is the sulphate of alumina and potash or aluminous sulphate of potash, from which the pure alum is obtained by repeated washings and crystallizations.

Alum acts as an astringent ; if taken internally, it causes dryness

ALUM EN. 2(.)7

of the mouth and throat, thirst, diminishes the frequency and in- creases the consistency of the alvine evacuations. These are the immediate or primary effects of alum. But, if the action of alum be continued for a longer period, a violent organic reaction may be excited characterized by nausea, vomiting, griping, purging and even an inflammatory condition of the intestinal canal. Actual and dangerous gastro-enteritis was produced in one case by a solution containing between ten and twenty grains of the burnt alum.

The late Professor Barton was in the habit of saying to his class, that however strange it might seem, "some astringents do actually purge." He named alum especially, as in point, if taken in doses of from thirty to sixty grains.

AVibmer experimented with the pulverized alum upon himself ; he took it in repeated doses of three to five grains, and perceived no other effect from it than a diminution of the alvine secretions. A diarrhoea, with which he was troubled during the time of the proving, ceased entirely, but returned as soon as the alum was dis- continued.

Barthez swallowed from thirty to one hundred and eighty grains of alum in the smallest possible quantity of water before breakfast, allowing a few days to elapse between two successive doses. The effects of the large doses simply were : desire to vomit which lasted about fifteen minutes, and an increased torpor of the bowels.

Considering its peculiar action upon the lining-membrane of the digestive canal, we may prescribe alum with good effect in

SUBACUTE GASTRO-ENTERLTIS, with vomiting, purging, watery and even bloody diarrhoea, heat and tenderness of the bowels ;

GASTRIC DERANGEMENTS characterized by a flow of water from the mouth, having an alkaline reaction, sense of fulness and oppression in the stomach and sensation of dullness and torpor, as if the stomach did not act ;

CONSTIPATION, the feces being dry, hard and pale ;

LEAD-COLIC, for which opium is frequently given, but not always with success. Alum, in massive doses, has effected beau- tiful cures in some instances. In one case, reported by Frank, opium had been given for three clays in tolerably large doses, together with injections. No relief or evacuation could be obtained. Alum was now administered in powder-form at the rate of twenty grains at a dose every four hours. After the fifth powder, the pain disappeared, several copious evacuations took place, accompanied

298 ALU MEN.

with a continual tearing in the right knee ; the sixteenth powder was the last medicine which the patient took, who has continued well for the last eighteen months. In another case, alum effected a cure with equally distinguished, but much more rapid effect. A de- tailed account of the pathognomonic symptoms of this species of colic will be given in the chapter on lead and its salts.

As an astringent palliative, it has been used by alloeopathic phy- sicians in a number of affections characterized by discharges of mucus or blood from various organs, air-passages, stomach, womb, bladder, urethra.

Alloeopathic authors report a number of cures of diarrhoea, met- rorrhagia, incontinence of urine, gleet, which were effected by means of very large doses of alum. This species of therapeutic experience cannot possibly be incorporated in a work on materia medica and therapeutics from the standpoint of homoeopathy, without converting such a production into a slough of empiricism.

it is not generally known that alum is of value in the treat- ment of

DIPHTHERIA— There is in the Halm. Monthly, March, 1875, a short article from Dr. J. Gr. Houard, advocating the use of this rem- edy in that dreaded disease, in which he cites the following case :

Young lady, twenty-one years old. This patient had seen me several times in ym office, during which time she complained of a sure throat. The left tonsil was much inflamed and enlarged, and she experienced great difficulty in swallowing. I thought at the time that it was only a case of tonsillitis and prescribed belladonna.

Finally I was called to visit her at her home, and, on examining her throat, found the left tonsil and the back part of the throat covered with a grayish white membrane. The most prominent symptoms were violent headache ; vomiting ; excessive prostration , difficult deglutition ; pains through the chest ; expectoration of a large quantity of mucus, which was thick and stringy ; sleeplessness ; fever every night, and all the symptoms aggravated toward evening ; loss of appetite ; great fetor, which was intol- erable ; great thirst, the patient constantly asking for cold drinks.

I commenced treatment with aconite and mercurius iodatus. The second day found my patient about the same, or perhaps worse, the membrane spreading to the right side of the throat ; continued mercurius iodatus, as she remarked that her throat was not quite so painful. On the third day there was no marked improvement. I then stopped mere. iod. and gave nitric acid.

On the fourth day there was some little improve- ment ; the headache had left and she could take some nourishment, such as beef-tea and chicken-broth. I imagined that the false membrane was shrinking, and at alL events a portion of it had peeled from the right tonsil. On the sixth day the patient was no better. She complained of excessive prostration ; had had no sleep, was rest- less and desponding; on examining the throat I found that the membrane had changed from a grayish-white to a dark gray, almost black in some parts.

The pros- tration was so great on this day, that my patient's voice became almost extinct. Her pulse could hardly be felt, and I warned the family of the danger she was in. I have in my library twenty volumes of an old French journal, published by the Royal Academy of Medicine, Paris. In Vol. iii, I found a long report, directed to the academy, by Brettonneau, on diphtheria, in which he mentions his success, as well as that of Dr_ Arctree, during an epidemic at Lyons in 1819.

During this epidemic it seems that all the cases subjected to the antiphlogistic treatment died, and Dr. Arctree decided

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to try alum which was the remedy employed by the ancient physicians as far back as the 1 6th and 17th centuries. They prepared a paste of alum and water, and applied this paste with the handle of a spoon immediately to the affected parts of the throat and at the same time gave calomel. Dr. Arctree gives a long list of cases in his report, and says that from the time he commenced this treatment he saved every patient.

This decided me to try alum as a last resort. I accordingly dissolved some alum in water and gave a teaspoonful of the solution every hour. I did this because my patient would not allow me to apply it topically, for fear that I would make her gag and vomit. On the following day I saw my patient about noon, and upon exam- ining her throat found that every particle of the membrane had disappeared.

She said she felt better than at any time since she had been taken sick. She is now con- valescent. Three other cases in which alum was used with promptly beneficial effect are to be added to the above report.

Externally a solution of alum is used by many physicians as a means of cleansing foul ulcers.

While alumina is closely related to alum, it has been used much more extensively than the latter. Hahnemann furnished an ex- tensive proving of the drug in his Chronic Diseases. It seems to act more particularly upon the mucous membrane, its special character- istic being dryness. It has also a marked effect upon the sexual organs, and Teste claims to have had very satisfactory experience with it in those diseases of aged women, which had originated in dis- turbances of the generative organs, the primary symptoms having disappeared with the cessation of the menstrual flow.

Alumina has been used in the following conditions, the higher attenuations being usually preferred :

CONSTIPATION, characterized by dryness of the mucous mem- brane with irritation of the same and want of peristaltic action ; the stool is not always hard, but even if soft, it may be difficult of expul- sion ; stools very hard, knotty and scanty. Weakness of memory.

Miss. R., aged forty years, cannot remember the time when she was not costive. Has taken continually aloes for physic for several years. Has no inclination to go to stool.

When she has no passage for several days she feels full in the abdomen and tight as a drum. When she does not take a. cathartic she has a small passage with great straining. She must grasp something and exert her whole strength to accom- plish an evacuation. Dry, hard passage like cranberries.

Has dry piles and pains running up the spine. Completely exhausted after a passage. Rectum and bowels seem paralyzed. Alumina, three doses.

First 200 ; second 1500 ; third 2300, at intervals of three weeks, cured the case perfectly. (Dr. C. W.

Boyce in Ha/in. Monthly, 1867.)

In our own practice alumina has proved itself of great value in the treatment of constipation of infants, even at the breast. It is gen- erally understood that such cases are often very difficult to reach. No remedy has cured so many cases for us as alumina, when the stools were white or grayish, almost like chalk, hard, nearly impossi- ble to expel, causing the child to make agonizing efforts to evacuate the rectum ; general health good ; appetite excellent.

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Baby C, aged thirteen months, had always been constipated and had had strict, orthodox treatment for a year, which means, from nearly the day of its birth. An enema had no effect whatever. In perfect despair the mother consulted me and a few days later I spent an hour in assisting the child at an evacuation, succeeding only by the constant use of a pencil, fingers, etc., in digging out the rock-like, chalky stool. Alumina12 and 30, given every three hours, cured, the child permanently in about five weeks.

This cough may be accompanied by more or less difficulty of res- piration, partaking somewhat of the nature of

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302 ALUM EN.

AMMONIACUM. 303

AMMONIACUM.

Another gum-resin which is obtained from the dorema ammonia- cum, and has been used in homoeopathic practice.

CHRONIC COUGH — We may use ammoniacum in cases ot chronic cough, with irritation of the bronchial mucous membrane and profuse expectoration of mucus. It is also recommended for

AMAUROTIC WEAKNESS OF SIGHT, for it causes obscura tion of sight. It may also prove useful in

WEAK DIGESTION, to which it is more or less homoeopathic Its use may be chiefly confined to

BLENNORRHCEA of the bronchial tubes, and to blennorrhoea of the vagina with tendency to profuse and premature menstruation.

304 AMMONIUM ACETICUM.