Sleep

Full of fancies and troubled by voluptuous dreams. This would constitute an additional indication for the use of colocynth in affec- tions of the sexual sphere.

We make a tincture of this drug, by macerating the pulp of the gourd. The tincture has a fine straw-colored appearance and a very bitter taste. Triturations with sugar of milk may likewise be made in the usual proportions.

A sort of stupor ; sleepiness, and long and sound sleep are very

140 GERANIUM MAOULATUM.

general symptoms. (Douglas.) Sound sleep; difficult, weary, awakening. Dreamy sleep and early awakening. (Morgan.) Eest- less and much annoyed with unpleasant dreams. (Stone.) But little inclination to sleep. Sleep full of dreams ahout business. (Bigelow.)

In heavy doses the drug produces stupor and even profound coma. Eclectics attribute to gelscmium narcotic properties. "In that peculiar stupor or drowsiness felt by students or persons of sedentary habits, especially in hot weather, and not caused by hepatic torpor, this remedy, in small doses, continued for many days, is as capable of affording relief as any drug I have ever used." (Hale.)

SLEEPLESSNESS comes within the curative range of gelsem- ium when it arises from long-continued mental exertion or nervous excitement.

ANTIDOTAL TREATMENT.— Owing to the extreme prostra- tion of the system caused by large doses of this drug, it is not advis- able to give emetics, unless the accident is discovered at once, when a very active emetic may be used. The stomach-pump comes into play. The galvanic battery should be used promptly, if it can be had ; if not within reach, stimulants should be given promptly and freely.

GEEAMUM MAOULATUM.

[SPOTTED GERANIUM OR CRANE'S BILL. NAT. ORD. GERANIACEiE.]

Stem erect, angular, forked, retrorsely pubescent; leaves palm- ately three to five-lobed, lobes wedge-shaped and entire at the base, incisely-serrate above, radical ones on long petioles, upper ones oppo- site, on short petioles ; petals entire ; sepals tipped with a spring point. Perennial. Grows in the woods in the United States and Canada, but rare in New England. Stem from one to two feet high.

Leaves from two to three inches in diameter, cleft three-fourths of the way down, two at each fork. The flowers are generally pur- ple, mostly in pairs, on unecmal pedicles, often somewhat umbeled on the ends of the long peduncles. Blooms from April to June. (Wood.)

The root is usually from two to three inches long; a tincture of the root is the officinal preparation.

Dr. E. 0. Bcckwith (Ohio Med. and Surg. Reporter, vol. iv., No.

GERANIUM MAOULATUM. 141

4,) makes the following statement: "Taking the geranium inacu- latum, the following symptoms were developed: Dryness of the mouth, extending outward on the lips to the cuticle proper, and also well off, followed by pain in the left side of the forehead, aud in the left side of the head directly over the ear ; tip of the tongue dry and. burning ; fulness of the eyes ; slight pain in the occipital region low down. The most marked symptom noticed, was a constant desire to go to stool.

This symptom attended each attempt in proving the geranium; went to stool often, and each time found myself unable to pass the least fecal matter. One powder of the 2d would produce the continued desire for stool. This symptom continued for some time, and after the effects passed off, the bowels moved without pain or tenesmus. The stool was natural and well lubricated."

CONSTIPATION. — Geranium has been used in the treatment of constipation. In the absence of both provings and extended clin- ical experience, it is impossible to give characteristic indications. From the writer's limited experience with the drug, he would recom- mend its use in constipation of people of sedentary habits, nervous temperament and suffering from overwork.

Mrs. S. has been habitually constipated for years, often going without a passage from her bowels for days together; with dyspeptic symptoms to complicate the case. Gave geranium maculatum night and morning for a few days, then to be taken as required. Symptoms of constipation have not troubled her since. (Dr. E. (J. Beckwith.)

Mr. H., during an attack of Bright's disease, was troubled with constipation; he was never able to evacuate the contents of the bowels without some assistance. Nux at first gave the necessary relief, but soon failed. Small doses of geranium mac, in the first decimal trituration, acted very satisfactory. [Ibid.)

DIARRHOEA. — It has been used in diarrhoea of a watery char- acter, accompanied with but little pain, the passages containing undigested food and occasionally traces of mucus.

SICK-HEADACHE. — Dr. Wm. H. Holcombe recommends it in sick-headache, and especially in the constant headaches of needle- women and of others, confined at wearisome and exhausting in-door labors. He advises a powder of the first decimal trituration three times a day for a month.

The writer prescribed the remedy in the second trituration for a single lady who had suffered greatly and for many years from headache in the left frontal region, accompanied by gastric derangements and constipation. The pain was nearly con- stant, with frequent keen, sharp, darting pains through the afflicted side. The left eye looked congested, when the headache was more than usually violent. She had derived no benefit from other and well-indicated remedies.

Geranium alone gave great relief. Loosing sight of her, I am not prepared to say, whether it cured the case or not.

142 GLONOINUM.

GLOJTOISTTTM.

[NITROGLYCERINE. ]

Nitroglycerine i the result of the action of nitric and sulphuric acids upon glycerine. It has an oily consistence, is heavier than water, soluble in alcohol, insoluble in water. Its physiological effects Avere first studied by Dr. Hering (1848), to whom belongs the credit of its introduction into the materia medica.

After nitro-glycerine had been used for some time by the homoe- opathic practitioners of America, it was brought into more general notice by the publication of the results of some experiments which had been made with it by Mr. Field, by Dr. Fuller, and by Dr. Harley, which results were published in the Medical Times and Gazette of March 20 th and April 3d.

The following is Mr. Field's description of his experience of the effects of glonoine :

In the evening of the 3d of February, 1858, 1 was conversing with an homoeopathic practitioner, when he mentioned a medicine which possessed peculiar and extra- ordinary qualities, some of which he described as having affected himself, though he had taken it in very minute quantities. I laughed at his credulity, and offered to take as much as he pleased, upon which he let two drops of what he called the first dilution of glonoine fall on my tongue. After swallowing this small quantity of fluid — I was assured the quantity did not exceed two drops — I asked what effects I must expect, but was told to wait and observe for myself.

I then purposely conversed on other subjects. In about three minutes I experienced a sensation of fulness in both sides of the neck, to this succeeded nausea, and I said " I shall be sick." The next sensation of which I was conscious was, as if some of the same fluid was being poured down my throat, and then succeeded a few moments of uncertainty as to where I was, during which there was a loud rushing noise in my ears like steam passing out of a tea-kettle, and a feeling of constriction around the lower part of my neck as if my coat were buttoned too tightly ; my forehead was wet with perspiration and I yawned frequently.

My intellect returned, however, almost immediately, and I remember saying " This has nothing to do with homceopathy, but it has to do with a powerful poison : there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of some of us." I also reproached my friend for not having tested the anjesthetic power of the medicine, by inflicting a slight wound on me. I need scarcely say I am thus minute in my description of what occurred, that an accurate idea may be conveyed of the actual effect produced on me, as well as to justify the uses to which I have since put the medicine.

When these sensations passed off, which they did in a minute or so, they were succeeded by slight headache, and dull heavy pain in the stomach, with a decided feeling of sickness, though without any apprehension that it would amount to vomiting. I lay on a sofa, feeling rather languid, but talking cheerfully, conscious at the same time that I could very well exert myself both mentally and physically, if I liked, but that it was more pleasant

ULOtfOlNUM. 143

to be idle. This condition lasted about half an hour, at the end of which I was quite well, and walked home, a distance of half a mile, with perfect comfort. I slept soundly from one o'clock till six, when I was called up, having a slight amount of general headache, but not such as I should have regarded but for the recollection of last night's adventure.

The physician to whom I am indebted for this overdose told me, that when his first impression that I was shamming had passed off, my condition caused him the greatest alarm, for he really thought he had killed me. I learned from him that my head fell back, my jaw dropped, I was perfectly white, breathing stertorous, and no pulse at the wrist for about the space of two minutes. He immediately rushed to a closet and procured some stimulants, which he poured down my throat. I had never been in better health and spirits than on the day of this occurrence, and had taken nothing for hours but a little cold tea.

This same first dilution of glonoine consists of one drop of a peculiar chemical compound, dissolved in ninety-nine drops of rectified spirit; and glonoine itself I learn to be a nitrate of oxyde of glycyl, prepared by adding nitric and sulphuric acids to glycerine, the temperature of the fluids being kept down by a freezing mixture.

A laborer drank two swallows of a fluid, which he thought was oil, but the burning in the throat taught him that he had taken blasting-oil, and at the next farm-house he drank quickly milk and water, and asked for medical aid. He did not, at that time, feel very unwell, but complained only of slight pressure in the chest, accelerated breathing, irritable pulse, off and on some vertigo. After taking an emetic, he vomited a fluid, smelling and tasting of nitro-glycerine. Respiration became very quick, sixty to the minute; the pulse greatly accelerated, ninety-six to the minute, but otherwise normal; oppression in the pit of the stomach set in; consciousness remained undisturbed, but the patient complained of dullness of the head ; there was no pain in the head, mouth or oesophagus, nor had he any thirst or rattling of mucus in the lungs ; the temperature of the body was somewhat lessened.

At night, some five hours after taking the poison, vomiting and purging set in, lasting with great severity over an hour ; the vomited matter had the odor of nitro- glycerine ; the stools were at first greenish, after awhile white, like foam made with soap, watery, and had a trace of the odor. He felt somewhat better; the gastric pains ceased; respiration was more quiet, but still superficial, a deeper one following two or three super- ficial respirations ; he complained only of the extremely severe head- ache ; after a while, he laid quietly as if asleep ; cyanosis and sopor set in, and the patient died an easy death seven hours after taking the poison.

Five hours after death there was well-developed rigor mortis, and collection of froth in the mouth.

Post-mortem examination' showed a hypergemic condition of the cerebral membranes on the convexity and at the base; moderate hyperemia in the substance of the brain, especially at the external layer; more internally, the brain appeared normal. The posterior part of the lungs also showed great congestion. The mucous mem- brane of the trachea was of a reddish-brown color. Fluid blood in

144 GLONOINUM.

the left ventricle of the heart, the right one being empty ; coagula in both pulmonary arteries. The stomach contained about 120 grammes of a red-brown fluid ; its mucous membrane at the fundus showed reddish-brown injection, with numerous small ecchymoses, swollen to a gelatinous mass, and could easily be torn off. There was nothing abnormal in the intestines.

Holts knows of four other cases, described in different journals. In all cases severe headache was present, but in the four cases it set in immediately after taking the poison, whereas in this case it appeared at a later stage; unconsciousness and sopor also set in before death closed the scene. In relation to the cumulative action of nitro-glycerine, Hystroem found that laborers who have much to do with the blasting-oil, get a sort of immunity from its noxious action. (Schmidt's Jahriuecher, 1872, No. 6.

Lilienthal's translation in the Halm. Monthly, October, 1872).

Dr. James Lembke pi-epared an alcoholic solution of three grains of glonoine in one drachm of alcohol, of which he took ten drops at a dose for experimentation. Immediate results : great heat over the whole body, especially over the face and head, with warm sweat, for a quarter of an hour; in a few minutes, increased frequency of the beats of the heart which were more violent, especially during motion ; these beats were then felt up to the head, especially when stooping, with stitches in the heart ; aching pain in the occiput, reeling sensation in the head, with insecure, staggering gait, redness and heat of the face, moist, weeping eyes.

These symptoms lasted three quarters of an hour, except the headache which lasted longer. Afterward, the countenance had an expression of fatigue and weakness, with margins around the eyes.

PALPITATION OF THE HEAET.— This group of symptoms suggests the use of glonoine in nervous palpitation of the heart, such as may be induced by a sudden fright, or as a symptom of hysteria.

Dr. Reil, and three other physicians, who experimented with the first centesimal attenuation of glonoine, announced the following symptoms as the result of their trial : Two, three and five minutes after taking the medicine : Sudden pain at the vertex and in the temples pressing from without inward, pressure in the forehead and Over the eyes, obliging one to wink ; a sensation rising from the occiput and fore- head toward the vertex ; dizziness, vertigo, transitory obscuration of sight, precordial anguish, nausea, sensation of a cold sweat on the forehead (which did not exist), feeling of a rush of blood, throbbing in the arteries of the neck and head, accelera- tion of the pulse by twenty, thirty, and even forty beats, disappearing again in half an hour, and followed in one of the provers, who was most violently attacked, by a considerable sinking of the pulse down to fifty beats. The normal number of beats was ninety; highest increase, one hundred and forty ; lowest number of beats, forty ; difference, one hundred beats in one minute.

In one case the pulse remained unchanged ; in another prover, who had drank some wine previously, the pulse decreased without any previous increase from one hundred and twenty to one hundred. Lastly, a hurried desire for stool, with copious evacuation, after which the symptoms ceased. During the night, the headache returned. Next morning, the head felt confused.

GLONOINUM. 145

This proving shows the powerful notion which glonoine is capable of exerting over the nervous centres which regulate the action of the heart.

Dr. Dudgeon has instituted a proving, the results of which he has recorded in the British Journal of Homoeopathy, April, 1853. He employed a preparation con- taining about one-twentieth of pure glonoine. In a few minutes the pulse went up from ten to twenty beats, was irregular, at times accelerated, at other times retarded, full and bounding; throbbing in the whole body, especially in the head, with sensa- tion of violent rush of blood to the head; pressing headache from within outward, dullness and fulness in the head, especially in the temples which felt as if they would split open ; violent beating of the temporal arteries, fainting turn as if intoxicated ; as if the head were hanging down ; all these symptoms are aggravated by motion, diminished when lying down ; flashes of heat in the face, which looks first flushed and then pale ; sensation as of a band around the nape of the neck and throat, with unpleasant tension in the muscles of the face and head ; irregular beating of the heart, with oppression of the chest, digging in the epigastrium (region of the stomach and umbilicus), with a feeling of illness and discomfort as in sea-sickness, especially in the room; stitches in the region of the liver, at a small spot; frequent soft", diarrhceic stools ; dryness of the mouth; burning in the hands; restless sleep, with many dreams about faces and heads.

The menstrual flow is soon arrested ; on the other hand the catamenia, which had ceased to flow six days previous, reappear.

This proving seems to confirm in all respects the result obtained by Eeil and his friends.

These experiments would seem to show that nitro-glycerine acts upon the medulla oblongata, and that the symptoms of cerebral con- gestion which it occasions, are depending upon a momentary irrita- tion of this great nervous centre. The pneumo-gastric nerve is involved in its disturbing influence.

APOPLEXY. — In accordance with these well-established effects of this powerful drug, we may expect much good from it in apoplexy and apoplectic headache, with stupor, sudden loss of con- sciousness ; the pain is particularly severe at the back of the head, a heavy, throbbing, constricting pain.

SUNSTROKE, characterized by such symptoms as I have des- cribed, violent vertigo, falling down, violent distress in the head ; sudden rush of blood, depending upon an acute irritation of the cerebral nerves, with vertigo, fulness in the head.

H. R., a young man seventeen years old, complains of attacks of giddiness, which cause him to fall; occasionally has epileptiform attacks, losing sight and conscious- ness; he cannot look at anything long, and has often to leave the choir, to which he belongs, to obviate an attack. These symptoms have troubled him more or less for upward of four years. Glonoine 6th decimal dilution was prescribed for four days, at the expiration of which time the symptoms were unchanged.

Belladonna3 for a week enabled him to report improvement. This medicine was continued another Week, when there was a recurrence of all the former symptoms. Glonoine 3d

VOL. II. — q.

146 GLONOINUM.

decimal was now given and in five clays he reported himself decidedly better. The last medicine was continued in the same dilution, and without the aid of any other he was perfectly restored in a few weeks. (Dr. Ruddock, Horn. World, Feb., 1870.)

M. B. was overpowered by the heat, when the thermometer stood 1030 in the shade. I saw him one hour after he was taken and found him with pale and cool surface, low and feeble pulse, stretched upon a bed, considerably comatose, eyes dim and cloudy, without any expression, slight muscular tremors, respiration somewhat labored. Upon inquiry I found that he had been slightly delirious.

He declared that he was dying, and pointed to the pit of the stomach as the seat of distress. He received five pellets of glonoine 2d dilution. Within five minutes he spoke hopefully, his pulse became natural, the skin warm and moist and in ten minutes he got up and walked about the room. (Dr.

John Fox in Phila. your, of Horn., Vol. hi., p. 356.)

M. M., laborer, fell exhausted while at work in the hot sun. I found him in a deep comatose state, deprived of consciousness, sensation and motion ; the coun- tenance was marked with a total absence of expression. Pulse full, slow and inter- mittent.

Respiration slow and somewhat labored. Pupils dilated, with the eyes turned up. His jaws were so firmly clenched, that, with all- my force applied, I could not open them sufficiently to get the globules within his mouth. Limbs per- fectly relaxed and motionless, with occasional muscular tremors.

He was literally drenched in cold water from head to foot. Friction was freely used on the chest and stomach and every five minutes glonoine was administered as in the first case. In thirty minutes partial consciousness returned and in about twenty minutes more he had control of speech and motion. He was discharged cured within one hour and I saw him on the street in the evening of the same day. [Ibid.)

We have some excellent provings of this substance instituted by homoeopathic physicians.

Doctor Hering, one of the chief pro vers of this drug, recommends it, upon the strength of a vast array of symptoms obtained by his provings, for the following pathological conditions : puerperal mania, cerebral congestions, apoplexy, headache, sunstroke, meningitis, hydrocephalus, epilepsy, spasms, eclampsia, ophthalmia, otitis, sea- sickness, helminthiasis, congestions of the chest, carditis, pericarditis, hydropericardia, congestions of the spinal-marrow, myelitis, cholera, typhus, cerebral typhus, congestive fevers of the west, etc.

We have verified in our own practice the curative effects of glonoine in a case of puerperal mania of great interest to us.

The patient was a lady of twenty-five years of age. It was her first confinement, and passed off without any accident whatever ; the labor was easy and short. About a fortnight after the birth of the child the mother began to complain of head- ache; she showed signs of dizziness; her eyes glistened; there was an occasional and sudden flushing up of the cheeks and wandering of the mind ; her consciousness was otherwise undisturbed ; she recognized her husband and friends, and com- plained of nothing but her headache and dizziness; she was habitually sad; her pulse was generally from eighty-five to ninety beats; she had plenty of milk and the lochial discharge was perfectly normal ; all her symptoms were of a mild character.

She was given aconite, belladonna and coffea. Not one of these medicines produced any decided change in her symptoms. She was then put on the use of glonoine, five drops of the 3d decimal attenuation in half a goblet of water, a dessert-spoonful every hour until an improvement set in. This remedy acted so promptly, that the patient made a perfect recovery in the course of a week, and afterward frequently sent for a vial of glonoine for an headache to which she had been more or less subject, saying that it was the best headache medicine she had ever taken.

GRAPHITES. 147

Hyoscyamus deranges this condition of the organism very deeply. It causes : sopor and stupor ; sleeplessness ; stertorous snoring during sleep; he dreams of furious cats that are jumping upon him. These alterations of the sleep are symptomatic, and only indicate hyoscyamus when occurring in the course of an affection to which hyoscyamus is homoeopathic. They may occur in phrenitis, typhus, etc. Sleeplessness may. be troublesome to hysteric women, and may require hyoscyamus.

ANTIDOTAL TREATMENT.— In a case of poisoning, we first give an emetic for the purpose of evacuating the poison. Afterward we overcome the narcotic effects by resorting to cold affusions, and occasional sponging with warm water ; strong black coffee is likewise an excellent antidote.

HYPEKICUM PERFOLIATUM. 193

The sleep of most of the provers of manganese is very much disturbed by anxious and vivid -dreams, and occasionally by an anxious restlessness.

In diseases to which mercury is homoeopathic, the symptoms generally exacerbate in the night. Nocturnal aggravations of the symptoms constitute an indication for mercury.

Mercury causes drowsiness in the day-time, and wakefulness at night, with restlessness, heat, disturbing dreams. This group of symptoms is therefore an indication for mercury.

MENTAL GROUP.

MANIA. — It is well known that mercury may cause mania and imbecility. In a case of craziness, caused by mercury, the patient lapped up spittle, cowdung, and did not know his own family. It also causes mania resembling mania-a-potu, with fright, hallucina- tions. We therefore may find mercury useful in mania, craziness and imbecility as symptoms of a general cachexia of the tissues and the nervous system.

MERCURIUS SULPHURATUS RUBER.

[CINNABARIS.]

We obtain this preparation artificially by subliming together six parts of pure mercury and one part of refined sulphur. The native cinnabar is not sufficiently pure for homoeopathic use.

GONORRHOEA. — The middle potencies of cinnabar have been used in chronic gonorrhoea, and the lower triturations in cases of

CHANCRE OF THE GLANS.

SLEEPLESSNESS. — Nux causes heat and restlessness at night, frightful dreams. We may prescribe it for the sleeplessness of drunkards, and also for

NIGHT-MARE, when arising from bad digestion, abuse of spirits.

DROWSINESS is also characteristic of nux.

MEXTAL GROUP.

Nux is eminently adapted to hypochondria, when arising from, or accompanied by, liver-complaint or gastric derangements. Even when the hypochondria increases to

VOL. IX. — 3^.

498 NUX VOMICA.

SUICIDAL MANIA, nux may still be an efficient remedy. Irritable temper is characteristic of nux.

STRYCHNIA.

From the strychnos nux vomica we obtain the alkaloid strychnia, a white, odorless, intensely bitter, crystalline substance.

OLEANDRA. 499

Strychnia forms salts with various acids, tannic acid, gallic acid, muriatic acid.

OLEAKDRA.

[ROSE LAUREL. NATURAL ORDER, APOCTNE^E.]

50C OLEANDRA.

We prepare a dark brownish-green tincture of the fresh leaves, gathered shortly before the flowering period.

This plant is endowed with exceedingly poisonous properties. Lindley says: "The common oleander is a formidable poison; a decoction of its leaves forms a wash employed in the south of Europe to destroy cutaneous vermin, and its powdered wood and bark constitute at Nice the basis of an efficacious rat poison."

Hamilton has extracted the following cases of poisoning for his valuable Flora Homoeopathica :

In 1809, when the French troops were lying before Madrid, some of the soldiers cut the branches of the oleander for spits and skewers for the meat when roasting. The wood having been stripped of its bark, and coming in contact with the meat, was productive of the most direful consequences, for of twelve soldiers who ate of the roast seven died, the other five were dangerously ill.

Five men who partook of soup that had been stirred with a twig of oleander, were seized with the following symptoms : great rest- lessness, a wildness and prominence of the eyes, dilated pupils, vertigo, slight convulsions, pain in the abdomen, vomiting of a greenish-colored liquid, and insensibility.

According to Orfila, this drug, when taken in over-doses, causes palpitation, anxiety and fainting, swelling of the abdomen and diminution of vital temperature.

Petrus de Abano has seen palpitation of the heart, anxiety, faint- ing fits, heat, loss of recollection, and sleeplessness caused by oleander.

Morgagni relates that the juice of this plant, mixed with wine and drunk by a woman, has caused vomiting, increased warmth of the skin, speechlessness, somnolence, feeble pulse, death. Hahnemann has incorporated both these series of symptoms among his list of provings.

Wibmer sums up the poisonous effects of oleander in the following statement: "Its local action is hardly perceptible; if absorbed, no matter in what way the poison is introduced into the organism, it acts upon the stomach, causing spasmodic contractions of this organ which result in vomiting. It chiefly, however, affects the brain and spinal marrow, whose functions it disturbs or even paralyzes ; hence arise vertigo, stupefaction, trembling and spasmodic constrictions of the muscles, rigidity, staggering, dilatation of the pupils, debility, insensibility, paralysis, death. Death ensues most speedily after the injection of the poison into the veins. Scarcely any changes are observed in the dead body, except an utter extinction of the irrita-

OLEANDRA. 501

bility of the heart, sometimes an engorgement of the cerebral vessels, and an increased density of the pulmonary parenchyma."

Hahnemann has left us some interesting provings of this drug which not only confirm its general toxical effects, but elucidate, in some measure, their special nature. He recommends this drug for some forms of mental alienation ; in certain kinds of painter £ paraly- sis; in exantliems of the hairy scalp, with tendency to the formation of vermin, and in various affections of the cerebellum.

CEREBRO-SPINAL GROUP.

We find, also reported: Stupefying pressure at the malar lone, penetrating into the brain, and extending to the root of the nose ; a stupefying, troublesome feeling of tension ; violent pressing pain in the temples, when swallowing ; great general weakness ; a feeling of suffocation and tightness at the throat, obliging him to untie his cravat.

602 OLEANDRA.

HYDROCEPHALOID.— Oleander may prove useful in the treat- ment of hydrocephaloid, when found in children who have been sick with exhausting summer-diarrhoea, and where the following symp- toms are present: slight coma; pallor of the face; the eyes are sur- rounded by blue riugs, are distorted, fixed, staring, lustreless ; nausea and vomiting; rumbling and gurgling in the abdomen; small stools of undigested food ; oppressed breathing ; small, irregular, weak and slow pulse ; great prostration ; coldness of the extremities ; slight convulsions. It is especially adapted to children who have a deli- cate, soft skin, which chaps easily.

ORBITAL GROUP.

These symptoms seem incidental to a state of cerebral depression and irritation, and have no therapeutic value except in so far as they constitute elements of this superior group.

The last symptom may be interpreted as indicating an engorge- ment of the internal carotid, the pressure of which upon the optic nerve may cause such a pain as is here described.

AURICULAR GROUP.

An acute pressing pain deep in the ear. A buzzing, singing and shrill ringing in the left ear.

FACIAL GROUP.

Langhammer and Hartmann report : Pale complexion, the whole day.

Morgagni : The lips are brown, especially the lower lip ; the color of the face is scarcely changed, perhaps rather pale.

Franz reports an interesting symptom : Heat preceding at times from the lobe of the right, and at other times from that of the left ear, whence it spreads over the same side of the face, and then over the whole face.

The primary effects of oleander seem to be to prevent a normal supply of blood from reaching the brain, either by diminishing the

OLEANDRA. 503

functional power of the heart, or by primarily impairing the cere- bral power from which the heart itself derives its own vitalizing support. The symptom reported by Franz seems to characterize an incipient reaction of the organism ; the primary effect of a full dose of the drug is undoubtedly to cause pallor of the countenance, superinduced by a depression of the cerebral activity, or by a diminished irritability of the heart.

DENTAL GROUP.

Franz has reported the following effects of oleander upon his teeth : Toward evening and in the night he experiences a dull- tearing pain in the left side of the nape of the neck and in the left shoulder-blade, alternating with a tearing sensation in the temple and in the left second molar ; toothache, the whole night, a teariug- drawiug-pain in the first molar of the left jaw, and sometimes in the, hollow molar adjoining; his toothache ceased as soon as he left the bed, and returned as soon as he got into bed again, accompanied with an anguish as if he would die ; at the same time, the prover had to urinate a number of times, felt sick at the stomach, and had heat in the left cheek, (the first night). A cutting-aching pain is experienced in the teeth during mastication, which passes off as soon as he stops chewing; nevertheless, the tooth is perfectly painless when touching it or when pressing upon it. When chewing, the molars are sensitive, as if they were hollow. Langhammer reports : A strange sensation in the mouth, as if every tooth were loose and vacillating; the gums of the whole upper and lower jaw are of a bluish-white color.

In a condition of the system for which oleander generally seems adapted, this agent would undoubtedly prove a specific remedy for just such a toothache as we find described in this series of symptoms.

CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

Our provers have reported quite a numerous array of symptoms, which have been elicited from the action of oleander upon the digestive organs. Even the unprofessional reader knows that the functions of the various organs constituting the digestive apparatus, are very often extensively interfered with in an attack of general or partial paralysis. The following series of pathogenetic effects embodifes some of the leading phenomena which are apt to mark these derangements of the digestive sphere. First let us state that the following symptoms show the homoeopathicity of oleander to

504 OLEANDRA.

Most of these symptoms are often present as consensual elements in a general group denoting a paralytic condition of the brain.

THORACIC. GROUP.

The symptoms of this group show that oleander affects very pow- erfully the action of the heart, and that its modifying power in this

OLEANDRA. 505

EXANTHEMATOUS GROUP.

Other pro vers report an itching of the skin generally. Langham- mer, for instance, experienced a biting-itching over the whole body, while he was undressing.

SLEEP AND EEVER.

A sort of sopor, she was conscious and able to move ; restless dreams, erotic dreams, with involuntary emissions, for two nights in succession, (Langhammer and Gutmann). Shuddering all over, without thirst or subsequent heat, during rest and motion ; after- ward the hands were cold and the cheeks warm ; gradually the whole body felt hot and chilly at the same time ; the heat was even perceptible to others. He is attacked with flashes of heat, if he is rather more active than usual ; the face feels hot, as if stung with many fine needles.

These so-called fever-symptoms cannot be regarded as indepen- dent therapeutic indications ; they may, however, become valuable as incidental features in the pathological picture, viz. : the nervous disorder, paralysis, which, in one form or another, seems to consti- tute the chief sphere of action of this drug.

MENTAL GROUP.

It is hardly necessary to remark that, in an attack to which oleander is homoeopathic, the mental functions must necessarily

506 OLEUM ANIMALE.

suffer. Among the effects of the drug we find : an indisposition to work, dullness of ideas, want of good humor, sad mood, waut of confidence in one's self, irritable and irascible temper.

OLEUM ANIMALE.

LEMPYREUMATIC animal oil, dippel's oil.]

This is a fetid, volatile oil obtained by the destructive distillation of animal substances, such as bone or hart's-horn. For homoeo- pathic use the oil has to be distilled over again two or three times, until it becomes perfectly limpid, nearly colorless, highly volatile, of light specific gravity, having a penetrating, pungent, empyreumatic, but not very disagreeable smell. It has to be preserved in very small blackened vials, provided with glass stoppers and perfectly protected from light and air.

We prepare a solution of it with strong alcohol ; this is to be preserved with the same care as the strong oil, and must be renewed as soon as it becomes colored and loses its limpidity. In large doses, it acts both as an irritant and as a narcotic.

We have little clinical experience with this oil, but we may recommend it for asthmatic paroxysms, for hysteria and hypochon- dria, hysteric spasms and convulsions, for muscular debility, palsy, rheumatic and arthritic affections.

We possess extensive provings of this agent, which may lead the observing practitioner to its employment in some very troublesome derangements of the intestinal mucous membrane and of the nervous system. This agent has undoubtedly a tendency to dete- riorate the mucous secretions, and, if I interpret the physiological effects of the drug rightly, this deterioration seems to result from, or to be intimately connected with, derangements in the functions of the liver. In acute cases the oleum animale does not seem indicated ; but in chronic cases, where the vital action seems to be blighted by some deteriorating dyscrasia, more particularly in the hepatic and gastric functions, when the patient complains of fiat or sour taste, loathing and nausea, heartburn, burning and stinging in the stomach, uncomfortable and oppressed feeling in the stomach, and feeling of weakness after eating, cutting pains in the bowels, followed by liquid stools, or perhaps costiveness, habitually sallow complexion, depression of the reproductive functions, -softness and want of tonicity of the muscular fibre, nervous irritability or

OLEUM CROTONIS. 507

depression, slow pulse, decrease of the normal temperature and itching of the skin, deep-seated numbness and formication in the lower extremities, fainting- turns; if these and similar symptoms characterize the gastric and nervous irritation, oleum animale may be of service. It is from this substance that Keichenbach obtained kreasote, to which he ascribed, the supposed virtues of animal oil, a very illogical hypothesis, for if animal oil has any medicinal powers at all, it has them by virtue of the unitary combination of its prin- ciples as resulting from, and. supported by that inmost constituent force which determines the therapeutic character of every organic or inorganic drug,

OLEUM OEOTOj^IS.

[CKOTOK OIL.]

It is well known that this oil is possessed of violent drastic prop- erties, which may induce very violent poisonous effects. The fol- lowing cases are related by Pereira.

508 OLEUM C ROTO NTS.

A young man, aged twenty-five years, affected with severe typhoid fever, swallowed by mistake two and a half drachms of croton oil. At the end of three-quarters of an hour the skin was cold and covered with cold sweats, the pulse and action of the heart scarcely perceptible, respiration difficult ; the points of the toes and fingers, the parts around the eyes and the lips were blue, as in malignant cholera ; abdomen sensitive to the touch, but there was no vomiting. In an hour and a half, there were excessive and involuntary alvine evacuations, sensation of burning in the oesophagus, acute sensibility of the abdomen, skin colder, respiration and circulation difficult, the cyanosis extended over the whole body, the skin became insen- sible ; death occurred, with some of the symptoms of asphyxia, four hours after the poison was swallowed.

No lesion was found in the gastric membrane. The intestines presented ulcerations such as are characteristic of typhus.

L. Cruse swallowed one half of a large seed of croton tiglium. At first the taste was not unpleasantly sweetish, but there was a pecu- liar, scraping-burning after-taste, which became more intense in spite of the tea he drank and of the cloves he chewed. It was accompanied with ptyalism, an increased warmth of the whole body, especially of the face, accelerated pulse ; nausea and eructations, especially after drinking water ; a disagreeable sensation of fulness in the region of the stomach and abdomen, with rumbling and slight colicky pains, dysphagia and dryness of the fauces.

After the lapse of two hours and a half the burning and scraping abated ; in the meanwhile violent tearing pains were experienced in one portion of the vertebral column ; the tongue showed a white coating, the taste in the mouth was insipid, the buccal cavity felt as if it had been scorched ; all these symptoms continued until nine o'clock on the following morning, when a semi-fluid discharge from the bowels took place, which was followed by another fluid discharge at two o'clock in the afternoon.

There was an increased secretion of cloudy urine ; for several days he experienced a certain debility, a feeling of indisposition and a swelling in the region of the palate ; no cramps.

The author considers it probable that the effects of the poison were moderated by the cold water which he drank. Herrmann, at

OLEUM CKOTOXIS. 509

any rate, asserts that the diarrhoea caused by the croton oil is arrested at once by drinking cold water, or even by placing the feet or hands in cold water. An entire, but smaller seed, was taken with the same effect, except that it caused neither backache nor diarrhoea.

A robust young man took one drop of the oil on the tongue ; in three hours he had six discbarges in succession, which were followed by four discbarges during the night; the last discharge was accom- panied with violent tenesmus.

A girl of twenty years, who was afflicted with worms, and whose catamenia were too scanty, was ordered two drops of the oil, rubbed up with forty grains of sugar, to be taken in four doses, one every morning and evening. After the first dose she had six evacuations, accompanied by cold sweat, especially on the forehead ; the second powder, which was taken twelve hours after the first, caused violent retching, vomiting, rumbling in the bowels and twenty-four diar- rhoeic stools.

These cases show the marked action of croton oil upon the gastro- intestinal track. Whether this effect is wholly due to local irritation, or is caused by absorption, is still considered an open question by writers of the physiological school. The homoeopathic student can- not help seeing in this pathogenetic effect the manifestation of a drug-force, which has impressed the whole organism with its indi- viduality, and produces only more powerful and prominent symptoms upon the structures mentioned by virtue of that law of selection or of affinity, if you please, which we are bound to accept as one of the fundamental principles of drug action.

DIABBHCEA of thin, yellow, watery stools, attended with great debility; drinking or eating aggravates the diarrhoea; the stomach is irritable, rejecting drinks, and particularly cold water ; coldness of the body.

510 OLEUM CROTONTS.

CHOLERA INFANTUM with the same "gushing" of the stool, already described ; the stool occurs while nursing or soon after ; it consists of copious, watery, usually yellow evacuations.

CHOLERINE with violent gastric irritation ; nausea and painful vomiting of half-digested food or mucus ; painful pressure and burn- ing in the stomach ; violent purging ; great general weakness.

OLEUM CROTONIS. 511

Keyer mentions a case in which thirty-two drops, rubbed upon the abdomen, produced purging ; large vesicles, swelling, redness of the face, with small, prominent, white, crowded vesicles on the cheeks, lips, chin and nose.

At times it may be advisable to accompany the internal use of this drug with the external application of a suitably reduced prepa- ration of the oil, either directly to the eruption itself, or to the adjoining parts. The existence of gastro-intestinal irritation would be a valuable indication for the use of the oil in eruptive diseases.

Croton tiglium has also caused rheumatic pains in various parts of the body, a painful drawing, twitching and tearing in the cervical vertebrae, in the joints of the elbow and fingers, hips, knees and in the large joint of the big toe ; there is also recorded great weakness of the lower extremities.

A farmer, forty years old, formerly in excellent health, has complained for four weeks of a pain in both feet, commencing in the heels, and extending into the big toes, accompanied with a sensation as if the feet had been sprained. The pains be-

512 'OLEUM JATROPH2E CURCADIS.

METASTATIC NEUROSIS OF THE BRAIN.— Croton tig- lium has likewise been recommended in metastatic neurosis of the brain and thoracic organs, tongue, oesophagus and stomach, arising from the sudden checking of a diarrhoea either by violent means or spontaneously ; the symptoms by which this irritation of the cerebral nerves is characterized, are : violent dizziness, loss of consciousness,, flushed face, heat in the head, numbness and sense of swelling in the tongue, burning of the throat and oesophagus, pain in the epigastric region, oppression on the chest, coldness of the surface,, irritated pulse.

ANTIDOTAL TREATMENT — Emetics, afterward mild, emol- lient, demulcent drinks; stimulants, such as ammonia and brandy ; for the violent diarrhoea, aconite and cold water may be given ; opiates may sometimes be advisable.

OLEUM JATKOPH^E CUKOADIS.

[JATROPHA OIL.]

This oil is obtained from the seeds of jatropha curcas, a shrub which is found in both Indies, in Brazil and on the island of Ceylon. The leaves have long stalks, are broadly cordate, angular, roundish;.

OLEUM JATROPHLE CURCADIS. 513

Souboiran, who has made an analysis of the seeds, found in them a fixed oil, a peculiar fixed acrid resin, saccharine matter, gum, a fatty acid, a free acid, glutine and some salts.

We are informed (hondon Mediccd Gazette, vol. ix., p. 8,) that Mr. Bennett swallowed four seeds, and experienced a very unpleasant sensation in the stomach and bowels, with nausea, which, after an interval of two hours, terminated in vomiting; their purgative effects followed soon afterward, and were mild ; the sickness had then passed away, but the burning sensation continued for some time longer.

Professor Letheby relates the case of a laborer who swallowed five seeds; they caused vomiting, purging, perspiration, debility, giddi- ness, and delirium. Four hours after taking the poison, he walked to the London Hospital ; the pupils were natural, the countenance

514 OLEUM JATROPH2E CUECADIS.

pale, the hands cold, and the pulse one hundred and forty. After taking an opiate and a mild cordial, he soon recovered.

Dr. Farquharson witnessed two cases of poisoning by the seeds of this plant on board the U. S. schooner Taney, at Porto Praya, Cape de Verde. He relates as follows : Two of our men, being ashore, tested tbe seeds of the jatropha curcas, and finding them pleasant, ate of them, one about a handful, the other three or four seeds only.

In both cases, vomiting and purging of a violent character came on in the course of an hour; and in the instance of the man who had eaten but a small quantity, the effect only extended thus far. In the other case, more alarming symptoms rapidly supervened. The muscles of the extremities were contracted by violent spasms ; the patient was affected with dizziness and vertigo, accompanied by great restlessness ; the respiration was quick and panting ; the skin became cold and moist, and the pulse small, thread-like and inter- mittent ; the heart's action was very irregular, and so weak, that the impulse against the walls of the chest could be perceived with great difficulty only.

These effects of the poison upon the nervous system continued for the space of several hours. The seeds eaten were ripe, and of the kind which the inhabitants use, in small quantities, as an active purgative. Under the use of anodynes and stimulants, with the application of a large mustard poultice during the stage of depression, reaction occurred in about five hours ; shortly afterward the patient fell asleep and waked the next morning with no other ill effects remaining than a slight irritability of the stomach and considerable debility.

The action of the jatropha nut, as far as it is known, leads us to infer a specific relation between this drug and certain forms of severe gastric irritation or a mild form of

GASTRITIS, characterized by a burning distress in the stomach and oesophagus, violent retching and vomiting, coldness of the ex- tremities, small and hurried pulse, pallid countenance, loss of strength. It may likewise be in homoeopathic rapport with certain forms of

OLEUM JECORIS MORRHLLE. 515

DIARRHOEA, with vomiting of large quantities of a watery sub- stance, profuse watery diarrhoea, the stools gushing out like a torrent of water, bloating of the abdomen with tenderness to touch and gurgling and rumbling in the bowels, which continues after stool has been passed ; coldness of the body ; pallor of the countenance ; great prostration with cold, clammy sweat ; cramps in the legs and feet.

CHOLERINE with similar symptoms, and

CHOLERA MORBUS, or even

ASIATIC CHOLERA in its first stage,' with well marked symp- toms of gastric irritation, and the indications given above, the discharges from the bowels often resembling in appearance the white of egg.

OLEUM JEOOEIS MOEEHTJ^E.

[COD LITER OIL.]

This oil is principally procured from the common cod, termed asellus major ; hence the name oleum jecoris aselli.

OLEUM JECORIS MORRHTLE.

ilar in their physical and chemical qualities, and there is good reason for believing that they agree in their medicinal properties. In dif- ferent countries the mode of preparing the oil varies somewhat. Pennent, in his Arctic Zoology, furnishes the following description of the mode in which the oil is prepared by the Newfoundland fisher- men: "They take a half tub and, boring a hole through the bottom, press hard down into it a layer of spruce boughs, upon which they place the livers, and expose the whole apparatus to as sunny a place. as possible. As the livers corrupt, the oil runs from them, and, straining itself through the spruce boughs, is caught in the vessel sat under the hole in the tub's bottom." We are informed by Pereira that at Newhaven, near Edinburgh, the fishermen simply boil the livers in an iron pot and then filter the oil through a towel contain- ing a little sand.

Iodine is sometimes admixed by fraudulent persons with train-oil to imitate cod-liver oil. The presence of this substance may be readily detected by adding a solution of starch and a few drops of sulphuric acid, by which the blue iodide of starch is produced ; or the suspected oil may be shaken with alcohol which abstracts the iodine.

Sulphuric acid furnishes a test for the presence of bile in cod-liver. De Jongh, a Dutch chemist, who made a most elaborate analysis

OLEUM JECOEIS MOEEHILE. 517

of cod-liver oil in the laboratory of Mulder, another Dutch chemist of immortal renown in the history of physiology, has shown that all the essential constituents of bile are contained in cod-liver oil. Hence, if these constituents are not contained in the oil, we may conclude that the oil was not obtained from the liver of the fish, but from other parts of its body. If bile is present in the oil, and a drop of concentrated sulphuric acid be added to -it, it must strike a fine violet-red color.

. The experiments of De Jongh go to prove that the active princi- ple of the cod-oil is a substance called by him gadin or gaduin. It is an odorless and tasteless substance of a dark brown color.

Dr. H. C. Wood, Jun., (Therapeutics, Materia Medica and Toxi- cology) uses the following language : "The value of cod-liver oil in what is often very incorrectly called the ' pre-tubercular ' stage of phthisis has already been alluded to, but is so important that it will bear reiteration.

There can be no doubt that consumption often commences with catarrh, and is often developed slowly as the result of frequently < catching cold.' Whenever a patient is feeble, pale, somewhat anaemic, complains of his liability to catch cold on the slightest exposure, even though no local disease exists anywhere, or rather because no local disease exists anywhere, there is cause for alarm ; and it is of the most vital importance that the patient be put upon a tonic treatment whose basis is cod-liver oil, be fed upon nutritious diet, and have the hygiene of his daily life regulated, especial care being taken to avoid any exposure to cold.

In the advanced stage of chronic phthisis the remedy is less efficacious, in that it much more rarely effects a cure than in the pre-tubercular stage ; yet it does more good than all the other remedies of the pharmacopceia combined — alleviating the cough, increasing the strength, weight and general health of the sufferer, often retarding or even arresting the pulmonic disorganization, almost always greatly prolonging life, and sometimes, in conjunction with other

518 OLEUM JECOEIS MORRHTJ^E.

Homoeopathic physicians use cod-liver oil in its crude form and, at times, in attenuations, for coughs, especially if they apprehend tuberculous troubles. Says Kafka, in his chapter on phthisis pul- monalis : "Under the same conditions [when we find traces of latent scrofulosis in the patient Ed.] we may find cod-liver oil, a table- spoonful each morning and evening, an excellent remedy to remove, with much promptness, the remaining symptoms of scrofulosis, to improve the condition of the blood and the digestion, and thereby to stop the development of tuberculosis.

Many practitioners of to-day consider the amount of iodine and phosphorus, contained in the cod- liver oil, far too insignificant, to attribute to those agents a possible curative action upon the diseased organism, and think that the increase of strength and the improved condition are due to the oleagenous matter. To prove their position they cite the fat of dogs, which is a well-known popular remedy in consumption. From our standpoint we look upon cod-liver oil as an homoeopathic attenua- tion of iodine and phosphorus, and do not doubt, for one moment, its efficacy, else we would be obliged to deny the value of the various mineral waters which contain exceedingly small quantities of iron, iodine, et al.

If practitioners attribute the curative power to the fatty matter alone, why do they not use substances, which are less repugnant to the taste and can be had at a nominal expense, such as the fat of geese, hogs, chickens, or the oil of almonds, coco- nuts, etc."

OLEUM JECOEIS MOEEHU.E. 519

520 OLEUM JECORTS MORRHIL3S.

urethra, with burning, every morning during an evacuation from the bowels.

EHEUMATISM. — We infer from these few physiological effects that cod-liver oil may prove beneficial in rheumatism, more particu- larly in arthritic or tubercular rheumatism, and that it seems to have some specific uses to perform in cases where a scrofulous dia- thesis has developed certain abnormal conditions. In scrofulous disorganizations of the osseous system, caries, rachitis, in disorganiza- tions of the lymphatic system, swellings, abcesses, etc., in phthisis pulmonalis, chronic haemoptysis, cardialgia, chronic diarrhoea, etc., in mesenteric consumption, cod-liver oil is a valuable agent.

Several of the older German homoeopaths have left us strong testimony in favor of the use of cod-liver oil in ulcerations and other affections of the bony structure, when the disease seems grafted upon a scrofulous diathesis. Says Kurtz (Hygea, iv., 219): "My experience in a fairly large number of cases has led me to the conclusion that cod-liver oil is an excellent remedy in so-called subacute inflammatory states. I might be tempted to speak of it as a specific when in children a short feverish attack is followed by sudden and very painful swelling of the head of one or more bones. In two such cases the entire difficulty subsided within two days after the use of four dessert-spoonfuls of cod-liver oil."

OLEUM RICIHT. 521

OLEUM RICIKI.

[castor oil.]

The castor-oil plant, or ricinus communis, is a native of India, ■where it grows to a height of from fifteen to twenty feet, and endures for many years. It is also found in Spain, Italy and on the island of Creta, in the Greek Archipelago ; it is not quite certain, however, whether the ricini found in these parts of the world are mere varieties of the ricinus communis, and therefore partake of the common properties of this agent, or whether they constitute distinct species.

We use the seeds of this plant, "which have an oval, somewhat compressed shape, about four lines long, three lines broad and a line and a half in thickness; externally of a pale-gray, but marbled with yellowish-brown spots and stripes. The oil may be obtained from these seeds by subjecting the slightly warm seeds to the action of a powerful screw-press.

Castor oil acts as a mild cathartic, although, if taken in large doses, of one or two ounces, it may irritate the bowels very unpleasantly.

In the tenth volume of the London Medical Gazette a remarkable case is mentioned by Dr. Ward, of a woman upon whom this oil does not operate as a cathartic, but exudes from every part of her body.

522 OLEUM SUCCTNI.

It is certainly homoeopathic to certain forms of mucous diarrhoea, more particularly if resulting from dietetic transgressions or when accompanied by symptoms of inflammatory irritation of the gastro- intestinal mucous membrane. In gastro-enteritis, with watery or bloody discharges from the bowels, the seeds, properly triturated for homoeopathic use, may prove a valuable remedy.

In domestic practice the leaves of the castor-oil plant are applied to the breasts of nursing women to promote the flow of milk.

The irritating or inflammatory action of castor oil is antidoted by aconite.

OLEUM succim.

[oil op ambee.]

From this substance we obtain, by distillation, an oil, the oil of amber, a volatile substance, having a pale-yellowish color which deepens by age ; it has a strong but agreeable odor.

This must 'not be confounded with amber gris which appears to be the indurated feces of the cahalot or sperm whale, a solid, opaque, grayish, striated substance, having a pleasant musk-like odor which is supposed to be derived from the squid (sepia moschata) on which the animal feeds.

OLEUM SUCCIHI. 523

Primarily, ambra stimulates the circulation of the blood, increas- ing the heat of the pulse, the functions of the brain and the sexual instinct ; the secondary effects are depressing. Among the patho- genetic effects recorded by provers, the following are of especial value : Great lassitude and physical exhaustion ; mental depression, irritability, peevishness ; vertigo ; feeling of f aintness and goneness at the stomach ; obscured vision ; momentary darkness before the eyes ; partial loss of hearing ; dryness in the mouth ; fetor of breath.

Bitter eructations ; pyrosis ; nausea. Frequent erections, without excitement of the sexual instinct or voluptuous sensations ; loss of sexual desire; premature menstruation. Spasmodic cough at night; weakness of the legs ; nightly cramps in the calves of the legs.

A permanent cure is too often out of the question in cases which present the symptoms described ; but the administration of the in- dicated remedy is frequently followed by an alleviation of trouble-r some symptoms.

Ambra has caused : hoarseness and roughness of the voice, with

524 OLEUM SUCCIKI.

COUGH of a dry, convulsive character, with hoarseness and accumulation of thick, tough mucus, which can be thrown off by a little coughing; expectoration *of saltish taste; worse at night. Also: Eructations of gas with the cough, so as to almost choke the patient.

We find such coughs in bronchial catarrh, pertussis, etc. In the latter disease the remedy is of use only after the inflammatory symptoms have subsided.

Ambra has been recommended for the treatment of infantile spasms, due to severe reflex action, depending, primarily, upon latent psora, the development of which is largely due to improper nutrition. The writer has no personal experience with the remedy in this class of difficulties, nor has he been able to substantiate this recommend- ation by clinical evidence.

Ambra has caused : burning in the genital organs of women with a discharge of a few drops of blood, soreness and itching of the pudenda ; bloating of the lower abdomen with a feeling as if the menses would appear; premature menstruation; thick, tenacious leucorrhoea. Hence we may find the remedy useful in

MENORRHAGIA of women who present not only the symptoms just described, but whose mental and nervous condition harmonizes with the pathogenetic record of the drug.

OLEUM TEREBIXTHIN^E. 525

over: also, burning, itching and dryness of the skin. It is said to cause, suppressed itch and herpes to reappear upon the skin.

It is useful in old (and lean) persons of paralytic habit, with much pricking in the skin, accompanied by numbness, coldness and diminished sensation of the affected part.

OLEUM TEBEBI^TRIN^E.

[oil or spirits of turpentine.]

We obtain the oil of turpentine by submitting to distillation a mixture of American turpentine and water, in due proportion ; the distilled product is found to consist of oil of turpentine floating on water. Pure oil of turpentine is a colorless, limpid, very inflam- mable fluid.

The action of the oil of turpentine upon the human organism is very fully illustrated by the following experiments and accidental cases of poisoning:

Stedman relates that the oil of turpentine, given to a woman, caused a pain in the kidneys, diabetes and subsequently dropsy ; in the case of another woman, two drachms of the oil in beer caused strangury, haeniaturia, suppression of urine, fever, thirst, vomiting.

Wibmer extracts the following case from Schlegel's Materia Med- ica : A young man drank about an ounce and a half of the oil ; soon after, he was seized with a frightful oppression in the praecordial region, and with all the symptoms of intoxication. From evening till morning he lay drenched in sweat, in a state of stupor, from which he did not wake until next morning, very weak and with his head in a state of bewilderment. When undertaking to stand still, he staggered about ; he was relieved by a profuse discharge of urine which had the odor of violets.

The following case is likewise reported by Wibmer: A man took the oil of turpentine for taenia ; on the first morning he took an ounce in two doses within an hour; in the evenino" the same dose

526 OLEUM TEREBINTHIN^E.

was repeated ; this was followed by a burning in the stomach, one turn of vomiting, fulness in the head. Next day an ounce and a half was given in the form of an emulsion in the space of an hour ; soon after, he experienced a violent burning in the stomach, colic, vertigo, pressure and fulness in the head, threatening apoplexy. After the lapse of three hours the cerebral irritation abated in con- sequence of a spontaneous rejection of the oil, but the breathing remained labored, and the colic continued. Five hours after the inhibition of the drug a scarlet eruption broke out upon the body ; in the evening he had two stools ; on the following day, symptoms of gastro-enteritis made their appearance.

Oopelaud made the following experiment upon himself : He swal- lowed ten drachms ; in five minutes the pulse increased from sixty- nine to seventy-five beats, and became harder ; in ten minutes it increased to seventy-six beats, in half an hour to eighty ; at the same time he experienced slight vertigo, chilliness, eructations, and a sensation in the region of the stomach which was a mingling of warmth and pain. After the lapse of an hour the pulse became small and rather hard, and increased to eighty-two beats ; the vertigo and chilliness increased, the face became pale, collapsed, the carotids beat but feebly, he found it difficult to chain his attention ; the peculiar sensation in the region of the stomach became more intense ; there was no nausea, but a sensation as if the bowels were drawn up toward the spine, some anxiety, hunger and thirst. In the next twenty-four hours he experienced similar symptoms but of different grades of intensity. From six to eight drops promoted the urinary secretions, larger doses acted as a purgative.

From other experiments it appears that different organisms are endowed with different degrees of susceptibility to the action of tur- pentine ; for in direct opposition to S ted man's previously related case of poisoning by two drachms of the oil, Percival did not see the least unpleasant effects caused by two drachms of the oil, either in the digestive system or in the urinary apparatus ; on the contrary, the oil of turpentine proved a pleasant stomachic, and the catamenia always flowed more profusely.

Pereira says in reference to these antagonistic statements that

OLEUM TEREBINTHIISLE. 527

« these two cases may be regarded as the opposite extremes; and, in general, we may expect from a medium dose a feeling of heat in the stomach and bowels, accelerated peristaltic motion, increased fre- quency of pulse, diaphoresis, diuresis, and sometimes irritation of the urinary organs. Occasionally, it provokes the catamenia."

Many experiments have been made upon horses and dogs by injecting the oil of turpentine into the veins. A very common result of these experiments has been the development of symptoms of pneumonia, the existence of which disease was confirmed by post- mortem examinations.

Upon these various experiments, both upon men and animals, Wibmer bases the following summary of the effects of the oil of turpentine: "'The oil of turpentine acts similarly to turpentine, except that its action is more intense, more penetrating, more rapid and volatile, and that it affects more the vascular and nervous sys- tems generally. It is a local irritant, on which account larger closes, taken internally, excite nausea, pain in the stomach, vomiting, diarrhcea, inflammation of the stomach and bowels.

It is likewise absorbed, after which it acts specifically upon the urinary and respi- ratory organs, which it excites and, if acting in larger quantities, irritates until strangury, hematuria, difficult respiration and symp- toms of cystitis and pneumonia result. The breath and urine acquire the odor of violets or turpentine. It likewise acts specifically upon the uterus, hence the catarnenial discharge is promoted by it. The cardiac plexus is likewise influenced by this agent, the circula- tion is accelerated until even fever results.

It acts moreover upon the higher parts of the nervous system, although less powerfully than other ethereal or spirituous substances, upon the brain and spinal marrow, its action being marked by vertigo, stupefaction, congestion of the head, sopor, tetanic spasms, etc."

CEREBROSPINAL GROUP.

We have seen that, when acting upon the brain, the oil of turpen- tine causes intoxication, stupefaction, sopor, and in general a train of symptoms which closely resembles the effects of alcoholic bever- ages. Hence we may regard the oil of turpentine as a useful antidotal agent in

INTOXICATION and in the milder forms of

MANIA-A-POTU, more especially when a comatose state has supervened, and the subsequent persistency of the signs of cerebral

528 OLEUM TEREBIXTHIN^E.

irritation and engorgement seems to call for the interference of art. If the cerebral symptoms should depend upon gastric conditions, these will have to be taken into account.

The oil of turpentine acts powerfully upon the larger nervous trunks, especially in the lower extremities ; the pains are drawing, drawing-laming, tearing and lancing. Hence in

ISCHIAS the oil of turpentine may be used with advantage. In

CHRONIC ARTHRITIC RHEUMATISM, especially of the lower extremities, more especially if the articular surfaces and the muscular tissue, or the muscular sheaths are the seat of the disease, the oil of turpentine may be of service. It is not well, however, to expect too much from this *agent in rheumatism or arthritis ; we are in possession of other remedial agents which act more specifically in neuralgia, arthritis and rheumatism than the oil of turpentine.

The oil of turpentine has been employed with the same success as a remedy for

EPILEPSY, especially in those forms where the disease is what Dr. Marshall Hall terms centripetal or eccentric, or, in the language of Schcenlein, ganglionic ox peripheral, and where it takes its origin in parts distant from the cerebro-spinal axis, "which becomes affected only through the incident or excitor nerves." In all such cases the drug is given as a cathartic and anthelmintic, and pro- duces a derivative action on the head. If the attacks are caused by worms, the curative influence of this oil in convulsions and epilepsy is readily accounted for; but we are at a loss to comprehend why the derivative action of this drug should avail in purely functional forms of epilepsy any more than the derivative action of any other cathartic; we are unable to furnish any other than purely specula- tive indications for the employment of this agent as an antepileptic.

CHYLO-POIETIC GEOUP.

The gastro-enteritic symptoms which the oil of turpentine de- velops, determine its homceopathicity to certain forms of

GASTRO-ENTERITIS ; it will be found particularly applicable to the gastro-enteritis of drunkards, both acute and chronic, when there is much burning distress in the bowels, vomiting of mucus and blood, thirst, inflamed tongue, serous, or muco-serous and bloody discharges from the bowels, frequent urging to urinate, with involuntary dribbling of the urine, hot and dry skin, pulse fuller, harder and quicker than in the normal state.

OLEUM TEKEBINTHI103. 529

The oil of turpentine is undoubtedly one of our most effectual remedies for worms, for taenia, lumbrici, and likewise for the asca- rides or thread-worms which are frequently so distressing to children. If there is a perfect correspondence between the worm-symptoms and the essential nature of the remedial agent it will not be necessary to give the large doses to which the old-school practitioners so often resort. In the case of taenia, tbe cerebral symptoms, (vertigo, loss of recollection, pain at the top of the head,) the digestive symptoms and the symptoms of tbe abdomen, (impaired or irregular appetite, deep-seated soreness on pressure, feeling of inflation, tension of the abdominal integuments, especially when lying down, etc.,) have to be carefully considered side by side with tbe pathogenetic action of the drug before a selection is determined upon.

In old-school prac- tice the regular dose to adults is from an ounce to an ounce and a half. As many as two ounces have been administered. And Dr. Duncan informs us tbat he has seen three ounces administered with- out injury.

He states (see Edinburgh Dispensatory) that "it lias been given even to the extent of four ounces in one dose, without any perceptible bad effects, and scarcely more inconvenience than would follow from an equal quantity of gin." These enormous doses are in no respect proportionate to any disease for which the oil of turpentine is adapted. In a case of tamia, where the parasite may have to be destroyed, a large dose may have to be given, and it must be left to the discretion of the physician what the dose shall be ; but in all ordinary diseases with which the oil of turpentine is in specific homoeopathic rapport, a moderate dose of five, ten or thirty drops, will prove sufficient for purposes of cure, if repeated at suitable intervals.

Even children may take these quantities in per- fect safety. For the removal of ascarides, a very effectual remedy is an enema of the oil of turpentine, which is obtained by beating up one ounce of the oil with the yolk of an egg, and mixing this Avith sixteen or twenty ounces of barley-water.

UKINABY AND SEXUAL GEO UP.

Experiments, as well as accidental cases of poisoning, have shown that terebinthinate substances have a decided action upon the urinary organs. Hence, it will prove efficient as a curative agent in such diseases of the urinary organs as are characterized by symptoms which, in their totality and connection, lead the mind to infer that the natural disease and the drug-disease are so closely related to

VOL. II.— 33.

530 OLEUM TEEEBISTIIIN^.

each other that there is no room for any intermediate therapeutic influence ; in other words, the drug-disease must constitute the specific neutralizer of the natural malady.

We know that the oil of turpentine causes a burning in the blad- der and urethra during micturition ; dysuria sometimes amounting to actual inflammation, with painful erections as in chordee; com- plete suppression of urine ; bloody urine ; small doses cause an increased flow of urine ; the urine deposits a thick, muddy, white- yellow sediment, looks like wine, has the odor of violets.

These symptoms show very plainly that the oil of turpentine may act as a specific remedy in urinary affections, in which it is likewise depended upon by alloeopathic practitioners as one of their most efficient agents.

In the chronic form the discharge looks whitish, the urinary emissions take place quite frequently, and even involuntarily. Pereira argues that in blennorrhoea of the urethra the oil of turpentine effects a cure by setting up a new kind of irritation . in the affected membrane, which supercedes the previously-existing disease. "Hence," he says, "its use is not admissible in acute or recent affections of these tissues." In

CATARRH OF THE BLADDER, and in irritable bladder, small doses of turpentine may often effect a cure. In

SUPPRESSION OF URINE, the oil of turpentine, which is capable of producing such a condition, will sometimes succeed in reproducing4 the urinary secretions, where, according to Pereira's own admission, "other powerful diuretics had failed."

FCETOR OF THE URINE, when the constitutional symptoms of the case justified the use of the remedy.

OLEUM TEIIE13IXTHIK-3E. 531

DIABETES. — Turpentine is of use also in diabetes with great despondency and well-marked physical debility; the tongue is dry and red ; the gums bleed easily, from slight touch ; there is a fitful appetite and great aversion to meat ; the digestion is deranged and we find bloating after meals, with pressure in the pit of the stomach after a meal, as if food had been swallowed too hastily ; rancid eructations ; frequent voiding of urine, having at times the odor of violets ; drawing pains in the small of the back.

BKIGHT'S DISEASE— Diminished secretion of urine which is dark, sometimes bloody, and often contains mucus ; general dropsy, tendency to haemorrhages and to a typhoid state. Weakness of the alimentary canal ; restless sleep ; hallucination ; frequent appearance of red spots, pimples and vesicles on different parts of the body.

532 OLEUM TEREBINTHI1SLE.

The oil of turpentine may prove useful in some forms of DROPSY which seem to depend upon, or, at all events, be com- plicated with, the urinary irregularities, partial suppression of urine, irritable bladder. Although Pereira affirms that this oil "is inad- missible, or contra-indicated, in dropsies accompanied with arterial excitement, or with irritation of the stomach or the urinary organs," yet it is vouchsafed to ns to know that the very essence of the curative relation of any drug to its corresponding disease consists in an inherent power on the part of the drug to represent, in all its essential characteristics, the very disease which it is expected to cure. Hence the oil may be indicated in acute as well as in chronic forms of dropsy; these last-mentioned forms must gradually, but, from a law of physiological necessity, inevitably result from the acute form, without an essential change in the system of medication being required. Pereira recommends it in the atonic forms of dropsy, especially in leucophlegmatic subjects, attended with de- ficient secretion of the skin and kidneys ; but here it can only act upon the antagonizing principle, as a palliative stimulant of those organs.

FEVER GROUP.

Oleum terebinthinge is of no value in the common fevers, unless special complications should arise to which this remedy holds a homoeopathic relation. It is, however, a most important factor in the treatment of

OLEUM TEREBINTHIN2E. 533

simultaneously; in either case, it should he remembered that ulcer- ation of the bowels has begun, and this may be the only indication. It rarely occurs, however, without some of the following symptoms : a sensation of dizziness ; fulness and flushing of the face ; extreme tympanitis ; pain in the iliac region ; tenderness of the abdomen upon pressure ; thick, scanty urine, with mucus and blood-corpuscles present ; fetid urine ; fetid stools ; bloody diarrhoea ; small, wiry pulse ; haemorrhage from the nose and anus ; bloody expectoration ; effusion of serum into the pleural and abdominal cavity ; great pros- tration with unusual loss of flesh. * * Turpentine seems to act in a dyuamic manner, preventing disintegration and defibrination ; it seems also to act locally upon the ulcerated surfaces."

THOEACIC GROUP.

BRONCHIAL CATARRH, characterized by an intolerable titillation in the throat-pit, and a constant inclination to cough, with expectoration of a muco-sanguinolent substance.

HAEMOPTYSIS, where oil of turpentine has been employed by old-school practitioners, it is an exceedingly unreliable remedy. The most may be expected from it if the blood is discharged from the bronchial passages, a sanguineous exhalation from their mucous lining, with very little febrile excitement, and a good deal of tickling in the throat-pit, with barking cough.

"We have never used turpentine in

534 oleum tekebinthinm:.

ANGINA PECTORIS, but its employment in this affection, if simply a functional disorder, not resulting from cardiac disorganiza- tion may be advisable in some cases.

EXANTHEMATIC GKOUP.

Turpentine produces an exanthem of a scarlet color; the erup- tion may be erythematous, papulous or vesicular, resembling those which are apt to break out from eating molluscae or crustacean The presence of such an eruption would constitute an additional indication for the use of the oil of turpentine in the accompanying gastric or rheumatic affections.

The use of the oil of turpentine as a remedy for

The indiscriminate use which some alloeopathic practitioners make of the spirits of turpentine, as an external application in rheumatism, sometimes results in dangerous metastasis to, or inflammation of, the heart; this is more particularly the case in arthritic rheumatism.

opium. 535

564 opium.

Chronic effects of poisoning by opium, such as : headache, con- stipation, dryness of the tongue, want of sensibility of the pupils to the light, may be combated by means of belladonna, aconite and black coffee.

Eecent investigations seem to prove that opium and belladonna are physiologically antagonistic to each other, and will counteract the poisonous effects of each other. To the physiological school this fact is one of great importance, for " in therapeutics these antagonistic actions may be utilized to secure effects which cannot be obtained by the employment of either agent alone." (Dr. Robert Bartholow in Cartwright Lectures for 1880.) To us, this fact, if fully demonstrated, is mainly of interest on account of its bearing upon cases of poisoning with either opium or belladonna.

MORPHINE.

Morphia occurs in minute, shining crystals, is insoluble in cold water, slightly soluble in cold alcohol, and freely soluble in boiling water.

In Wibmer's Toxicology a number of experiments with the pure morphium, and likewise with its salts, the acetate and sulphate of morphine, are related, which, however, do not shed any additional light on the physiological action of opium. The effects obtained simply confirm the specific range of action of this powerful agent.

opium. 565

One or two short experiments may serve as examples of all the rest. The experiments were instituted under the supervision of Professor Berandi.

Allinio, twenty-two years old, of bilious temperament, pulse sixty-six in the minute, took one-eighth of a grain of the acetate of morphine in two ounces of water. The solution had a bitter acrid taste. In five minutes he experienced a pain in the pit of the stomach, disposition to sleep, and somewhat labored respiration ; in twenty minutes a copious sweat broke out over the whole body ; the pupil was considerably dilated, the pulse beat ninety-four times in the minute. In thirty-three minutes he felt drowsy, had a pain in the frontal region.

In fifty minutes the lips looked livid, the face red, bloated ; the conjunctiva looked swollen, he had a beating pain in the forehead. In fifty-two minutes he felt a pain in the region of the bladder; his coun- tenance assumed an expression of silliness, the eyes glistened, he felt very thirsty and feeble. In about an hour and a half, his skin began to itch, he complained of pain in the urinary and sexual organs, especially in the right spermatic chord, heavi- ness in the frontal region.

These symptoms continued for several hours; at that period he complained of a violent pain in the pit of the stomach, nausea, disposition to vomit. After midnight he became restless, had headache, pain in the umbilical region, and afterward slept soundly until half past six o'clock.

All the other experiments yielded similar results, except that larger doses would develop these effects with more intensity. The headache was more violent and stupefying, the eyes sparkled, the face looked red and became covered with drops of sweat, the tongue looked inflamed at the tip and edges ; the pain in the region of the stomach, umbilicus and bladder was very marked.

APOPLEXY.— In Charvet's Essay on the Effects of Opium, we find the following case of poisoning by the acetate of morphine, which is interesting to homoeopathic practitioners in so far as it may afford us additional light concerning the use of opium in apoplexy, if attended with violent cerebral congestions.

In the evening a dose of this salt was administered to a patient, which resulted fatally. The pulse first became intermittent, small and contracted, afterward fuller, the patient being somewhat stupe- fied and slightly convulsed. Twenty-four hours after, he was unconscious, the head drawn backward, the breathing labored, the face had a blueish tint ; some phlegm in the mouth ; the upper parts of the body were covered with a viscid mucus, the lower extremities were cold and jerked convulsively.

On the third morning the body looked blue, the breathing became stertorous and slow, the pulse collapsed, the pupils very much contracted ; gradually the face became cadaverous, and death ensued. The sinuses and veins of the brain were found turgid with blood, the ventricles of the brain and the pleural cavities filled with a bloody serum, the coats of the stomach ecchymosed.

Orfila relates the following short but exceedingly interesting and instructive case :

5G6 opium.

A young physician ordered twenty-four grains of the acetate of morphine in an ounce and a half of water. In ten minutes, the patient experienced a violent burning in the hack part of the head and pit of the stomach, whence a formicating sensation spread along the linea alba to the bends of the knee. Sometime after, a similar sensation was experienced in the upper extremities which, together with the lower, felt as if crushed to atoms. The whole inside of the heart felt hot; in a few hours a burning thirst was complained of, with dryness of the tongne, and stinging in the eyes which felt as if covered with a gauze.

The consciousness was undisturbed, there was neither nausea nor vomiting. The heat now spread over the whole body, except the extremities which remained cold ; the abdo- men became distended, the carotids beat violently, the patient sank into a stupor. Thirteen hours after, Orfila took charge of the patient, and saved his life by means of cold affusions, acidulated drinks, injections of tartar emetic, etc.

PAKAPLEGIA — This case again illustrates with a remarkably characteristic range of symptoms the relationship existing between apoplexy and perhaps paraplegia accompanying and resulting from this disorder of the cerebral functions. Characteristic indications for the use of the acetate of morphine in this affection are the vio- lent aching pains in the extremities as if they would be crushed to atoms, coldness of the extremities, formicating sensation in the upper and lower limbs, and symptoms of violent cerebral conges- tion, such as redness and bloating of the face, stupor, throbbing of the carotids, obscuration of sight.

Morphine may be given in doses of from one-hundredth part of a grain down to one-tenth of a grain. The latter dose may produce well-marked physiological effects. The remedy should not be given more than once a day.

Morphine holds an important place in the materia medica as a palliative. We are aware that the use of palliatives is opposed by a number of physicians of our school. We do not propose to enter upon an argument, but desire to state that palliative treatment is at times an absolute necessity, that it has nothing to do with curative treatment, and that the physician who hesitates to use it, when a patient's condition justifies and demands its use, is simply criminally ignorant, bigoted, or regardless of his duty.

Neither do we propose to hold ourselves responsible for the actions of physicians who are ready to resort to palliative treatment upon the slightest pretext imaginable, often to the great injury of their patient, and to their own disgrace. Whenever it becomes necessary to resort *to morphine it should be given cautiously and, if possible, by the physician him-

PETKOLEUM. 567

self. We prefer to use light doses, repeated at short intervals, until the desired result is produced.

The use of hypodermic injections of the salts of morphia requires much caution and is frequently followed by very unpleasant effects. One-tenth of a grain is an average dose ; one-sixth of a grain is a very large dose, and one-half of a grain has produced death.

In a case of poisoning with morphine we proceed as in case of opium-poisoning.

Phosphorus causes restlessness at night, wakefulness, disturbing dreams. These symptoms, if present in a superior group, may con- firm our selection of phosphorus ; otherwise they are without any therapeutic value.

Sorge recommends an emetic and the copious use of tepid water for the purpose of keeping up the act of emesis. In chronic cases of poisoning, such medicines as are homoeopathically indicated, will have to be resorted to.

These symptoms are only useful as therapeutic indications in so far as they may occur incidentally to diseases for which lead may have to be prescribed.

FEVER GROUP.

Lead is not used in fever ; it does not cause fever, properly speak- ing. Lead has a depressing action upon the pulse ; but in severe lead-diseases the pulse may become hurried, feeble, irregular.

In consequence of the power of lead to check the secretions, it has caused a universal coldness of the system, as may be seen from the following case quoted in Frank's Magazine:

A lady had been using a hair-dye which had been pronounced perfectly harmless. Soon after, her skin became icy- cold, from the top of the head to the tips of the toes ; the mucous lining of the nose and mouth became perfectly dry ; all the functions of the senses were morbidly altered; the abdominal secretions were suspended; she was unable to raise her head, on account of the vertigo, heaviness, aching pain. An antidotal treatment gradually restored her health.

MENTAL GROUP.

Lead has caused, and may therefore be found useful in, idiocy, mania characterized by fright, loss of memory, melancholy.

VOL. II. — 41.

658 PODOPHYLLUM.

In conclusion 1 may here mention the tannate of lead, plumbum tannicum, which has been used with great success as a remedy for gangrenous bedsores, in the shape of a wash or ointment. If the wash is used, a compress may be applied to the part.

Pulsatilla causes wakefulness, restlessness during sleep, disturbing dreams, nightly heat and dryness of the skin. These symptoms considered alone, do not furnish any special therapeutic indica-

PULSATILLA NUTTAL LIANA. 685

tions ; but as characteristic of hysteria, of hypochondria, of a gastric derangement or any other affections for which pulsatilla should be prescribed, this group of symptoms would constitute additional indi- cations for the use of this druse.

PULSATILLA J^UTTALLTAl^A.

[AMERICAN PULSATILLA. NATURAL ORDER, RANUNCULACEiE.]

These provings establish a great similarity of the European and American pulsatilla, which is still further brought out by clinical experience.

€86 RANUNCULUS BULBOSUS.

Every prover of sabadilla complains of drowsiness and an increased

SABADILLA. 743

desire for sleep, as the primary effect of the drag ; even in the day- time the desire for sleep is often overwhelming. In some, the night's rest is disturbed by dreams and by a furious itching of the skin ; some are suddenly roused from their sleep with a start, contrary to habit ; some are frequently awakened by frightful dreams and feel icy-cold on awaking.

FEVER GROUP.

INTERMITTENT EEVER — Sabadilla is used in the treatment of intermittent fever, coming on in the spring, commencing with a violent chill, and followed by very light fever. The apyrexia is characterized by a feeling of lameness of the body, as if it had been bruised. The constitutional symptoms will modify the case by a prominence of certain characteristics, as the dyspeptic symptoms or the hunger which is so peculiar to this remedy.

A man, forty-eight years old, has had tertian fever for eight days. He felt per- fectly well during the apyrexia, with the exception of some weakness ; the paroxysms were short, and the different stages were not well defined, so that frequently chilli- ness returned after fever had commenced, or heat and chilliness were experienced at the same time on different parts of the body. There was thirst part of the time; the pulse was disturbed but little ; perspiration profuse, but of short duration. He experiences the following gastric symptoms : passing nausea, and, during the parox-

744 SABINA.

MENTAL GEOUP.

These mental conditions must be regarded as incidental symp- toms. The rage which Plueck mentions as the effect of the drug, may occur as a natural disease in consequence of the violent sup- pression of some eruption on the scalp, or as an expression of cere- bral irritation which may yield to sabadilla as its natural remedy.

SABUSTA.

SABItfA. 745

physicians to produce the specific action of savin upon the uterus, which is to "bring on the menses.

746 SABINA.

It seems universally admitted that sabina acts powerfully upon the uterus, and that it determines a flow of blood, as we are in the habit of expressing it, to this organ, the result of wbich may be haemor- rhage, miscarriage, or simple inflammation of the uterus and its appendages.

MENORRHAGIA — Sabina is used in the treatment of menor- rhagia and of

SABINA. 747

ABORTION is frequently avoided by the prompt exhibition of sabina, when haemorrhage has already set in the totality of symp- toms justifying the use of the remedy.

Mrs. , thirty years old, strong, active, of sanguine-choleric temperament, has

Sabina is also of service in assisting in the expulsion of the placenta, if the retention depends upon thorough exhaustion of the uterus.

LEUCORRHCEA demands the exhibition of sabina, when the discharge is yellowish, thick, accompanied by : stitches in the vagina ;

748 SABIKA.

pains running from the sacrum to the pubes ; headache ; dizziness ; pale face ; sunken eyes. Fetid leucorrhoea after suppressed menses.

AMENORRHEA. — In amenorrhoea sabina is called for when in plethoric young women the flow is suddenly stopped, and a thick, yellow leucorrhoea takes its place, characterized by symptoms de- scribed above.

STERILITY — Kopp recommends sabina in sterility which de- pends upon a want of action, upon a torpor of the uterine system and its appendages.

URETHRITIS where such symptoms occur.

It has likewise been used with great success in the treatment of

CONDYLOMATA — In this respect it ranks with thuja. In

METASTATIC HEMOPTYSIS, occurring in the place of the menses, sabina may do much good. Haller relates that a girl who swallowed large quantities of sabina for the purpose of bringing about miscarriage, did not effect her purpose, but was attacked with haemoptysis instead.

In a case of poisoning by savin, or by the oil of savin, we first en- deavor to remove the poison from the stomach and bowels. After- ward we may give demulcent drinks, opiates, and, in cases of inflammatory symptoms, aconite internally.

SAMBUCUS NIGRA. 749

SAMBUOUS E"IGEA.

[black elder, natural order, sambucine^.]

An infusion of the blossoms has long been in use for the purpose of exciting perspiration ; we also use an ointment made of the leaves and blossoms. The late Stephen Girard was so very partial to the elder-ointment that he is said to have made it with his own hands, and kept it in his house for distribution among his friends who happened to be burnt or scalded. It is a pleasant application and should be renewed twice a day.

Wibmer describes the action of the different parts of this plant in the following concise statements: "The flowers have a strong, characteristically balsamic oder, which continues even after they are dried, is slightly stupefying but not disagreeable ; they have a rather bitter and strong slimy taste. The ethereal oil which they contain imparts to them the properties of a mild and volatile irritant, which acts principally upon the skin, excites perspiration without causing heat or stupefying the brain ; they are not endowed with any con- siderable influence over the nervous system.

"The fresh berries first have a sweetish taste which afterward be- comes disagreeable, and they are apt to cause nausea and diarrhoea ; when stewed or inspissated with sugar, they are converted into a pleasantly-tasting, gentle-acting diaphoretic and cathartic.

"The inner bark has a penetrating, disagreeably-nauseous odor; its taste is at first sweetish, afterward somewhat bitter and acrid ; in moderate quantities it excites the secretion of urine, in large quan- tities it causes vomiting and diarrhoea."

According to Murray, the leaves of elder likewise have a disagree- able odor, and a somewhat bitter and acrid taste. Bartholin relates a case where the leaves, eaten with oil and vinegar in the shape of

750 SAMBUCTJS XIGRA.

salad, caused forty stools with fainting fits ; two other individuals were attacked with vomiting and diarrhoea, loss of strength and emaciation.

Hahnemann and his disciples have furnished a few interesting provings of this drug, from which we infer that its therapeutic use is limited principally to such catarrhal and rheumatic irritations of the mucous surfaces and the cutaneous follicles as result in an abnormally increased excretion of the watery constituents of the blood, both by the bladder and the skin. Our provers report the following symptoms in this direction : Frequent urging to urinate, with scanty discharge ; this was followed in some hours by frequent urging to urinate with copious discharge. Frequent emission of a deep-yellow urine. The stream of the urine is thinner than usual.

These symptoms indeed show that the provers experienced a more frequent urging, but that the quantity of the urinary secretion was not increased in proportion to the desire. We may avail ourselves of these effects of the drug as an indication in

ANASARCA, to which an important symptom, reported by Haller in his Materia Medica, likewise points ; it is this : "Watery swelling, caused by applying the drug to the skin." This symptom shows that in anasarca, superinduced by a sudden suppression of the per- spiration, sambucus may prove exceedingly valuable.

Our provings abundantly demonstrate the fact that the black elder is endowed with a specific power of disturbing the equilibrium of the animal temperature. Wislicenus reports this symptom: "Chilly shuddering over the whole body, with chilly crawling at times at one, at other times in another place, the hands and feet are particularly cold; the shuddering passes down over the knees." This was followed in one hour by the opposite state, namely: "Burning sensation of heat in the face, with moderate warmth of the body, and icy-cold feet, without thirst." Hahnemann himself experienced the following effects of the drug: Chill before going to bed; half an hour after lying down, vascular excitement with a sensation of trembling.

A feeling of intolerably dry heat over the whole body. The palms of the hands and the soles of the feet feel hot when touched. Several hours after the dry heat had com- menced, sweat broke out in the face while lying awake in bed; drops of sweat covered the face, and the whole body was perspiring.

The following symptoms show that the brain is involved in the febrile irritation of the general organism ; it is recorded by Hahne-

SAMUUCUS NIGBA. 751

maun : "Periodical delirium, he saw frightful spectra on the wall."

These symptoms may be attended with signs of gastro-intestinal Irritation, soreness, pinching and stitches in the intestines, crampy pains in the abdominal muscles, and likewise with symptoms of irritation in the back and extremities, such as : aching pains, weari- ness, lameness, tearing and stitching pains. If single elements of this series should be predominantly developed, we may describe this more characteristically defined group of symptoms as a case of catarrhal or rheumatic headache, or as a case of rheumatic fever; but in trying to select a remedy for such a pathological state, we should never lose sight of the totality of symptoms.

The sudorific properties of sambucus enable us to use it as a pal-

752 • SAMBUCUS NIGKA.

liative for excessive and exhausting perspiration in some forms of phthisis, or in febrile conditions characterized by a disproportionate and excessive amount of perspiration.

Kopp reports a case in his Memorabilia where this effect of sambucus is fairly illustrated : A lady of forty-five years, who had ceased to menstruate, at each period when the menses ought to have appeared, was attacked with such flashes of heat and such an excessive sensitiveness of the skin, that the least motion caused her to per- spire very profusely. This perspiration continued all night and annoyed her a great deal. Aconite, china and other agents remained ineffectual. An infusion of a cup of water to a teaspoonful of the flowers of the sambucus, drank every day, arrested the perspiration almost entirely as long as she used the drug.

In the famous sweating fever which destroyed so many lives in England some centuries ago, sambucus finally arrested the perni- cious effects of this extraordinary colliquation of the adipose tissue.

HECTIC FEVER. — In this category we may range a state of colliquative or hectic fever, where sambucus may render good service J we mean a state of colliquation primarily superinduced by onanism or excessive sexual intercourse ; the patients are troubled with noc- turnal emissions, profuse night-sweats, loss of flesh, and other signs of marasmus. Our provers have informed us that sambucus causes frequent emissions, night-sweats, trembling ; prostration ; hence its use in this state of things is justifiable upon homoeopathic principles. It may, however, be necessary to administer a watery infusion in- stead of the tincture or the attenuations.

DRY CORYZA. — The action of sambucus upon the mucous membranes generally, and upon the Schneiderian membrane in particular, accounts for the use of this agent in the dry coryza of children, where it is used by homoeopathic practitioners, if the breathing is materially interfered with while the child is nursing.

SAMBUCUS NIGRA. 753

CHRONIC COUGH.— The action of sambucus upon the pul- monary lining membrane, seems to justify its use in certain forms of chronic cough, or as a palliative in

MUCOUS PHTHISIS. Our provers report several interesting symptoms in this direction : Hoarseness caused by a quantity of tenacious, viscid mucus in the larynx ; oppression and stitches in the left side of the chest, below the nipple ; oppression and pressure under the sternum, and pressure in the pit and region of the stomach, with nausea and a feeling of prostration ; a sudden tear- ing-griping in both sides of the chest, in the region of the fourth true rib, internally.

These symptoms have led to the use of sambucus in cough, with saltish and sweetish, purulent, hectic expectoration, fever, night-sweats ; also in cough with saltish expectoration, dysp- noea, oedema of the feet.

ASTHMA MILLARI. — Sambucus is an important remedy in those diseases of childhood which are characterized by spasmodic affections of the epiglottis or larynx. Hence its use in asthma mil- lari. Its use in this affection is determined by the following symp- tom among Hahnemann's provings : Slumbering with the mouth and eyes half open ; on waking, he was unable to get his breath, and had to sit up ; the breathing, then, was very hurried, with wheezing in the chest, as if he would suffocate ; he threw his hands about, the face and hands were swollen and had a bluish appearance; he was hot, but not thirsty ; at the supervention of the paroxysm he cried; the whole passed off without cough, more particularly be- tween midnight and four o'clock in the morning.

We make a dark brownish-green tincture of the leaves and blos- soms of this plant, a few drops of which may be given in a small tumblerful of water. A tea made of the blossoms of this plant is very commonly used by the people in Europe.

VOI.. II. — 47.

754 SANGUINARIA CANADENSIS.

Sulphur causes sleeplessness, and disturbing dreams about wild beasts, fire and death ; hence it proves useful in eradicating a ten- dency to nightmare, especially if other constitutional symptoms confirm the selection of this drug. Palpitation of the heart during the attack is characteristic of sulphur.

MENTAL GROUP.

856 THUJA OCCIDENTALIS.