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A
NEW  AND COMPREHENSIVE  SYSTEM
                         OF


MATERIA   MEDICA

                        AND


           THERAPEUTICS,

                    akkanged upon a
PHTSIOLOGICO-PATHOLOGIOAL  BASIS,

                 FOE THE USE OP


     PRACTITIONERS AND STUDENTS OF MEDICINE.
                         BY


             CHARLES J. HEMPEL, M.D.,


LATB PROFESSOR OP MATERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS IN THE HOMCEOPATHIC MEDICAL COLLEQE OP
     PENNSYLVANIA; FIRST PRESIDENT OP THE WESTERN INSTITUTE OP HOMOEOPATHY

          AND SURGERY ; HONORARY MEMBER OP SEVERAL MEDICAL
               SOCIETIES IN EUROPE AND AMERICA, ETC.
     SECOND Br>ITI03ST.

REVISED AND CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED.


            YOL. I.
     NEW YORK:  WILLIAM RADDE, 550 PEARL ST.

Philadelphia : F. E. B(ericke, 635 Arch Street.  Boston : Otis Clapp,
 St. Louis: H. C. G. Luyties.  Chicago: C. S. Halsey.  Cincinnati:
   Smith & Worthington.  Cleveland :  John B. Hall.  Detroit :
    E. A. Lodge, M.D. Pittsburgh, Pa. : J. G. Backofen & Son.
     Manchester, England : H. Turner & Co., 41 Piccadilly
       and 15 Market St. London, England : H. Turner
                 & Co., 77 Fleet Street.
1864. 
J.  I
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year one thousand eight hundred
                              and sixty-four, by

                         WILLIAM  RADDE,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.


                 Kino & Baibd, Printers, 607 Sansom Street, Philadelphia. 
PREFACE TO  THE  SECOND EDITION.
  The first  edition of this work was  nearly exhausted when
the war, which  is still desolating our  country, broke out and
sadly interfered with the book-trade generally, and more par-
ticularly with the sale of expensive medical works. Moreover,
the work was received with so much  favor in England, that
a London publishing firm deemed it conformable  to their
interests  to  reprint the work in England.   In spite of these
drawbacks, the  first  edition of this work, of  fifteen hundred
copies, was sold in a comparatively short period.  The almost
unanimous verdict of the Profession in its favor, has induced
the publisher to put forth a second  edition, in spite of the
present enormous price of  binding and printing material, and
to furnish the  work at the  lowest price which the extra-
ordinary outlay involved in its publication will warrant.
   The reader will find that this  second  edition has been
greatly improved  and considerably  enlarged by the addition
of new remedies,  and by  a more careful elaboration of a
number of the older remedies, to which a rather short space
had  been allotted in the first edition of this work.   It has
been my endeavor  to embody in  this work  the  doctrine of
Homoeopathy, such  as  it  presents   itself—a  science  as
universal and imperishable as Nature; and  to explain  the
clinical uses of our drugs in the light which this universal
science sheds  upon  them, as restorers of the  physiological
harmonies of the animal organism.  This desire of rendering
my Materia  Medica  a precise and  carefully-constructed text-
book of our  School, has obliged me to sift my material with
a good deal of care, and not to forestall, by a  series of vague
statements and empirical indications, the labors of those who 
IV
PREFACE.
have devoted more care and study to this subject than I have
been able to do.
   The Repertory, at the end of the Second Volume, has been
greatly enlarged, and will be found of eminent advantage to
those who desire to avail themselves of this work, as a clinical
guide at the sick bed.
   The author avails himself of this opportunity of tendering
his warmest acknowledgments to the Profession for the nume-
rous and unsought-for expressions of approbation which he
has received from students of medicine, as well as from many
of our most eminent  practitioners;  and will endeavor  to
render subsequent editions of this work  as  complete as the
progress of the medical sciences may enable him to do.

                       CHARLES  J. HEMPEL, M.D.


    Grand Rapids,   }
   Kent Co., Michigan, >
    November, 1864.   ) 
LECTURE I.
                  INTRODUCTORY.

   Gentlemen:—In these halls which are consecrated to the solemn
 business of teaching the life-giving truths of Homoeopathy, we again
 welcome you as the future champions of this God-created science.
 Forty years  ago her illustrious discoverer had to flee before  her
 ruthless enemies, until he found a refuge within the boundaries of the
 humblest principality of Germany.  Since then we have  achieved
 a  triumph which promises" still more brilliant success.  We have
 our own pharmacies; our numbers have swelled to many thousands;
 we are honored  with the confidence and respect of the.most intel-
 ligent and influential members of every civilized community; we
 boast of chartered institutions, dispensaries, hospitals, colleges.  In
 our own glorious and imperishable Republic,  Homoeopathy, like an
 infant Hercules, is advancing  towards the period when strong, ma-
jestic, radiant with the sun-light splendor of a divine truth, she will
 go forth in the irresistible might of her manhood to  do battle for
 the great good of humanity, and to combat the mischievous  practices
 of the destructive' therapeutics which the infatuated  professors of
 antiquated systems have been permitted for centuries to  proclaim
 ex cathedra as the orthodox tenets of medical  science.
   Ours is a noble and sacred position.  We are not simply teachers
and students  of medicine; we  are the professed advocates and pro-
mulgators of a medical doctrine which is to revolutionize to its verjr
foundations a time-honored system of therapeutics.  The old land-
marks of medicine are to be forever  removed by the new dispenser
of healing powers; the horrible tortures which the deceitful genius
of man has contrived for the  relief of the sick, and  to which  the
votaries at the shrine of an unregenerate JEsculapius still adhere,
with all the unfeeling tenacity of incarnate fiends, are to be buried
in  the abyss of eternal oblivion; a whole empire of medical Pride,
Superstition,  Prejudice and Interest  is to be overturned, and a new
                              2 
13                      INTRODUCTORY.
temple of the healing art is to be founded upon God's great law :  that
so fur from a relation of antagonism existing between the disease and
its remedial agent, this agent on the contrary unites itself with it, as
it were, by some mysterious but inevitable process of attractive affi-
nity, and gently hushes and removes the disturber, without leaving
a trace of his painful presence.   These are the objects of our endea-^
vors; our pride is not centered in a creed; our interests are those of
suffering man; our worship is the love of truth; our school is bound-
less nature; our teacher, Eeason, fortified by observation and expe-
rience.
  If our aim  is elevated, our responsibility is correspondingly great.
We owe it to the public, and above all to our own consciences,  that
we should be right.   If we claim the privilege of an unsparing criti-
cism towards our opponents, we certainly should exercise the strictest
watchfulness  over the  developments which are going on in our  own
midst, and are presented to the  world as integral portions of the
homoeopathic fabric.   A candid, fearless and impartial examination
of our own doings and teachings can only result in good to the cause
of medical truth and of the sick: moreover, we have become a power
in the land; we  can afford to exhibit our weakness in broad  day-
light ; our strength will become the more apparent and formidable ;
and the sting of satire, which threatened to poison the very life-
springs of homoeopathy, will seem as  harmless as the prating of
babes, or the vapid nonsense of learned sots.
  Let us then devote a few moments to an examination of the past,
the  present  and the future of our cherished science.  I beg  the
privilege of presenting my remarks under the respective heads of
"the Fossil,  the Transition,  and the  Prophetic  Periods of
Homoeopathy."

                     FOSSIL  PERIOD.

  The old fable of  Minerva starting out  of Jupiter's brain a  full-
fledged goddess, armed  and equipped for war, with spear, buckler
and helmet, has never yet found, and is not likely to find, its reali-
zation in the  sciences or arts.   The law of gradual growth seems to
be a necessity inherent in the organization of all finite existences
and discoveries.   Homoeopathy is subject to this law.   To suppose
that a finite mind could have perceived at a single glance all the
facts of the new science of therapeutics, and could have arranged
them into a faultless system of relations and applications for the use
of succeeding generations, would be to suppose that God had dele-
gated his infinite wisdom to mortal man, for the accomplishment of
such a work.   Homoeopathy, eternal in nature  and reason, had to
have a beginning and a development in time.  In  the midst of
Cimerian darkness and chaotic confusion, the sun of medical truth
shed his first  rays over one of the small capitals of Germany.  Frag-
mentary  essays were  the first fruit of the new light; gradually a
compact system of the new doctrine was given to the  world, and it
was not until several  years had elapsed after the publication of the
Organon, that the Materia Medic a Pura was completed. 
fossil period.
19
  In Hahnemann's case, theory preceded practice.  He was a man of
genius and  the  discoverer of a  great law, interwoven in the very
foundations  of nature, and constituting an essential element in her
infinite mechanism.  Cullen might have seen it before Hahnemann,
but although a  fine thinker and an  excellent physiologist who
believed  in  the  vitalizing forces  of  the  nervous system, and was
therefore far in advance of the massive  humoralism which had been
dispensing under Boerhaave's lead its clissolvant, its deobstruent,
its discutient, its incrassant brews and decoctions: yet his was not
the glorious destiny to interpret the specific curative relation which
Peruvian bark holds to intermittent fever, as the result of an univer-
sal  law which would prove applicable to the treatment of diseases
generally, and would be  universally followed by the same positive
and life-saving results.   It is the perception of this specific relation
of the bark to intermittent fever which establishes  the  genius  of
Hahnemann; the readiness with which he generalized his discovery,
shows the vastness of his grasping intellect.
  The opponents  of  Homoeopathy  deny that  Peruvian bark  is
endowed with the specific power of producing a condition like fever
and ague in the healthy organism.  They affect to account for the
effects of bark experienced  by Hahnemann  by the fact, that these
effects resulted from a foregone conclusion in  Hahnemann's mind.
He had predetermined  that the specific curative power of bark  in
fever  and ague, was owing to the property it possesses of realizing a
similar disturbance in the healthy organism;  and therefore, when he
experimented with bark in order to verify the correctness  of his
theory, the specific  effects had to  be such as he had decided in his
own mind they should  be.  This is Professor Simpson's theory
against Hahnemann.  He too took the bark without experiencing
any of its fever and ague symptoms, and therefore he concludes that,
in the matter of Simpson versus Hahnemann, he, Simpson, being his
own judge and jury, brings in a verdict in his favor without the
least hesitation or compunction of conscience, and apparently satisfied
that Hahnemann will go down to posterity, if he goes there at all,
or does not go to a worse place, as a common impostor, covered with
merited derision and contempt.   But  the Professor  has failed  to
perceive  that his argument against Hahnemann cuts both ways, for
it certainly was a foregone conclusion in the Professor's mind'that
bark should not produce fever and ague ; hence it did not produce  it.
  The discovery of Homoeopathy will be viewed in another, I should
say more heavenly light, by those  who religiously believe that God's
providence rules the destinies of this humanity.  God knew that  in
the course of time  diseases would invade the human frame, and He
certainly must have provided means of meeting the adversary in an
adequate manner.  And inasmuch as God's providence operates by
universal laws, He must have arranged, in the very  framework  of
nature, an universal principle of cure, which, in due course of time,
would be discovered and applied for the relief of the sick.  We
have  a  right to suppose that, if love  and wisdom  be not  mere
abstractions, but living and efficient attributes of the Divine Creator,
His infinite love would prompt His wisdom to devise such a law  of 
20
introductory.
cure, and, in order that it might become operative, to appoint some
suitably-prepared mind as the discoverer and promulgator of this
divine system of therapeutics.
  Xow, if these premises  be correct (and I do not see how any
religious physician can dispute their soundness,) we have a perfect
right to look  upon Hahnemann as the vessel whom it pleased God
to fill with the wisdom and energy required for the great  work of
medical regeneration.  All that it is incumbent upon us to  do, is to
substantiate by reasoning and experience the incontrovertible validity
of his great discovery.
  Even our opponents must admit, that if, in the fulness of time, the
God-appointed architect of a true system of therapeutics should
make his appearance, he will prove to be a man peculiarly fitted for
his work—endowed, not only with a high order of intellect, with
indefatigable  energy and  the flash of  genius, but with all those
delicate, unerring physiological susceptibilities which we  contend
Hahnemann possessed.   If he was a God-appointed reformer of the
old system of medicine, we certainly cannot be charged with extra-
vagance, if we claim for Hahnemann a keenness  of sensibility to
medicinal impressions which, for aught we know, may have exceeded
those  of any  of his cotemporaries; at  all events, they must have
been adequate to the task he had to perform, of revolutionizing the
Materia Medica and establishing the new system of therapeutics by
means of successive provings of drugs upon himself and his disciples.
Xo man can perform a great work unless his soul  is inspired with
the  love  of it. Hahnemann's  enthusiasm may  have fired all  the
energies of his noble intellect;  it may have quickened all the sensi-
bilities of his  untainted organism; and why should not this have
fitted  him, in a most eminent  degree, for the sublime business of
determining the  therapeutic properties  of drugs  by  systematic
provings upon himself and his  faithful  disciples?  Why should
these  natural advantages of destiny and organization have trans-
formed Hahnemann's mind into a laboratory of baseless hallucina-
tions,  .fit only  to delude an  imbecile crowd?  We cannot accept
these  inferences of his reckless defamers; nor  can we accept  the
inference that, because Hahnemann's humanity was not immaculate,
he must therefore have been a contemptible quack.   We are told by
his enemies that he permitted himself, during  the earliest period of
his professional  career, to sell one or two medicines  as  specific
remedies for certain diseases.  I have been unable to ascertain how
far these charges are founded ;  but supposing they were, would this
conduct on the part  of  Hahnemann militate  against his fitness to
discover the true law of the  healing art?  He was poor, he had to
procure bread  for his family, and  he may have momentarily yielded
to the weakness of regarding the products of his genius as a  market-
able  offset against the poverty which had fallen to his lot.  The
apostle, whom the Saviour addressed as the  rock  upon which  he
would build the foundations of his eternal church, perjured himself
in the ante-chamber  of  Ca'iphas, by denying  the Master in whose
service he afterwards  suffered an infamous and  horrible death.
Gentlemen, if  there is a meanness on God's earth  which I despise 
fossil period.
21
more than any other, it is the canting hypocrisy and the arrogant
self-sufficiency of professional men.   Behold by whom the ranks of
the medical profession are filled!  God be praised, we can boast of
a few thoughtful, honest, liberal-minded men, who love truth more
than a creed,  and who would rather serve the sick than sordid
interest or hollow-hearted ambition;  but what, besides their parch-
ments, entitles a majority of medical  practitioners to their seats in
the council-chambers of medicine ?  Where is the ever-active ambi-
tion for the good  of man,  the ever-aspiring love of progress, the
comprehensive liberality of thought and feeling that  distinguish the
good Samaritan among us?  To hear such  a man as Hahnemann,
the  gifted son of Heaven, whom the wise and good  Hufeland
delighted  to honor as a friend and brother, traduced by the brainless
multitude of the common  leechers and calomel-venders, or by the
arrogant pedants who fill professors' chairs in alloeopathic colleges—
men who, under cover of their parchments, and the semblance of
ethical morality, permit themselves to practice the most cruel decep-
tions and extortions upon their patients—is enough to make  an
honest man's blood  boil with indignation.   May God have mercy
upon their nameless frames, when the memory of Hahnemann shall
be  wreathed in the  temple of Immortality  with the homage of a
redeemed humanity!
  Homoeopathy was  ushered  into the world an infant giant, turges-
cent with the  new life. At  the very threshold  of his discovery I
request you to identify yourselves with the position -and the mind of
Hahnemann.  What was it that flashed through his mind when he
beheld the  new truth?  What was that  one  glimpse, that  one
inspiring thought, that  inmost revelation of genius which was as yet
unfettered by the chains of words, and emerged from the chambers
of his mind like a shapeless consciousness, a vague aspiration, if you
please, before the understanding had time to recover from its surprise
and examine the quality of this instantaneous unfolding of thought ?
Gentlemen, it is because the followers of Hahnemann have failed to
grasp the  nature of that inmost perception, that the heavenly science
which he was commissioned  to announce to the world, has been
misapprehended by  some  of her earliest apostles, and  has  been
developed into channels that will require a thorough purification
before the healing powers of  their waters can be commended to the
sick with  uniform  confidence in all curable diseases.
  Behold Hahnemann  in the presence of the new truth; its inmost,
etherial essence floating before his  mental vision like a wavelet of
transcendent light.  What was it that this focus of revealing bright-
ness conveyed to his startled reason ?  Why, it was simply this: that
there is no essential difference between the principle of disease and
the principle of the drug.   Be disease what it may, a purely physi-
ological disturbance  as Broussais would have it, an effect without a
cause as it were; or the result of some morbific agent acting upon
the living tissues as a subverter of their functional equilibrium : the
drug-action must not only be analogous to it, but must meet it from
beginning to. end, must be its  exact counterpart, a sort of framework
into which the essential principle of disease will fit as its own home 
22
introductory.
 and orderly arrangement, and which it will most gladly accept in
 the place of an opposing organism, which  is the legitimate sphere of
 harmonious and constructive, instead of discordant and destructive
 forces.   It is this intellectual perception of the essential oneness of
 the morbific principle and  the drug-force  that quivered through
 Hahnemann's mind when he beheld the first rising of the new sun
 on the distant horizon of truth.  In this one universal thought you
 grasp the very spirit of Homoeopathy;  in this one thought she has
 her being: this relation of harmonious oneness between the  drug
 and  the "disease is the absolute, the inevitable condition of every
 therapeutic cure.
   Gentlemen, the letter killeth. It might have been well for Horn-
 otopathy if the spiritual  perception which had been enkindled in
 Hahnemann's mind, could have expanded  into symbolic speech of a
 corresponding  order.   Would that we could have  witnessed and
 understood the silent communing between the Master s soul and
 the holy presence that came to him in those inspiring moments.
 This has not been our privilege, and we have to gather our  knowl-
 edge of  the inmost workings of his mind from the  printed record
 which he has left behind him.  So soon as Hahnemann confided his
 inmost thoughts to words, he exposed them to the danger of being
 misapprehended by those whose intuitive vision of the truth was
 clogged by the coarse and  clouded understanding.  And who can
 tell how  far, in Hahnemann's own case, the effort to analyze and to
 give definite shape and utterance to the new truth which shone into
 his mind from  the bosom of the Infinite, may have diverted the
 quivering ray from its true course  into  a series of developments
 more or less tainted by the peculiarities of his mental constitution
 and the fallacies which, to a greater or  less extent, are inherent in
 every finite mind ?  Hahnemann's position at the time when the
 great truth of Homoeopathy flashed upon his mind, was  a  very
 peculiar  one.   He was like a great chieftain marshaling his forces
 against an  enemy, who has fortified his camp with all the  contri-
 vances that human cunning can suggest: an offensive as well as a
 defensive position.  Hahnemann conducted this war of extermination
 with merciless  energy.  He engaged in the combat with the deter-
 mination of crushing  the enem}* as a monster of wickedness and
falsehood.  What else could be expected of a spirit which, like his,
loved truth and loathed the systems that had been playing foot-ball
with suffering humanity for thousands of  years ?   Medical  science
was utterly depraved ; it had to be wiped out; baseless theories and
gross materialism were its  component parts;  the little wheat con-
tained in such an immense quantity of  chaff, was hardly worth
preserving; Materia Medica,  Therapeutics. Pathology became  a
mass of ruins, and the flag similia similibus floated over the enemy's
camp.
   Simib'a simililv.s was the motto upon the escutcheon of the new
truth.  Hahnemann, I have no doubt, understood himself perfectly
in thus formulating his  great  discovery.  Having destroyed the
 enemy's fastnesses, he built up his own works, cementing the whole
fabric into a coherent  system under the name  of  Homoeopathy. 
foss:l period.
23
The principles of this system are explained in the Organon.  This
great synthesis constitutes the defensive works of Hahnemann's dis-
covery. They have been assailed with all the weapons which sarcasm,
sophistical cunning and  material science could furnish.  That these
works  must guard some precious treasure, is evident from the fact
that no  regulars ever  assemble  in convention without flinging
a little of their dust at Hahnemann or  his discovery.  Even at the
recent  convention of apothecaries at Washington, Professor Guthrie
of New York, in his address, alluded to Homoeopathy as an infini-
tesimal humbug, which  must undoubtedly appear a great improve-
ment on former insults of this kind, if we consider that Homoeopathy
has always been  represented as a humbug of monstrous proportions,
and that infinitesimal, in the minds of her defamers, means infinit-
esimally  small.
  To  us the formula  similia similibus which embodied a luminous
truth to Hahnemann's mind, presents itself more or less as a mystic
symbol which, as paraphrased by its author, means, that diseases can
only be  cured by remedial agents which  produce in the animal
economy, while  in  a  state of health, conditions resembling in all
respects the  natural disturbance.   Hahnemann believed in diseases ;
but he likewise believed that the essence of diseases would ever be
an inscrutable mystery to the infinite understanding and that all that
we shall  ever know of diseases, is the manner in which they appear
to the  senses as  an aggregate of phenomena.  The morbific force
manifests itself to us by its effects on the living organism;  these
effects  are our therapeutic indications, to remove which Ave have to
operate with drugs that produce effects  of an exactly similar order
upon the tissues  in health.
  To an  unsophisticated mind, this doctrine, thus expressed  with a
certain generous vagueness, would seem to embody a beautiful and
saving truth, nor  is it probable that it would ever have been assailed
with one tithe of the fierce bitterness and venomous satire which
have sought to crush the life out of it, if the practical developments
which were  given to it by Hahnemann and more particularly by his
earlier disciples,  had not been mixed up with a mass  of unimport-
ant, pedantic details that were not only shocking to the universal
sense of  the profession but threatened  to hide the  new light under
a bushel. The  influence  which the irresistible  weight  of circum-
stances had  upon Hahnemann's  mind, was not appreciated  by his
disciples. If the great reformer denounced the absurdities of patho-
logical theories and therapeutic methods with intelligence and power,
his disciples, feeling secure under the wings of his genius, saw fit to
despise the  very idea of pathology; in the place  of the luminous
intuitions with which Hahnemann determined the character of a
given disease, and the specific adaptation of this, that or the  other
drug to its essential nature, they had to content themselves  with a
sterile  comparison of the symptoms of the disease with the  symp-
toms of the  then known  drugs, in order  to  effect by such purely
external  juxtapositions of morbid phenomena the selection of a re-
medial agent whose homceopathicity to the  existing case was deter-
mined  by the numerical proportions of its symptomatic similarities. 
24
INTRODUCTORY.
The shape which the science of Homoeopathy took in these earlier
periods of her existence, seemed so contrary to reason that even the
good and wise Hufeland who had generously opened the columns
of his influential journal to an exposition of Hahnemann's doctrines,
saw fit to undertake a refutation of some of his positions. ^
  Some of Hahnemann's illustrations of homoeopathic action which
have been put forth as perfect clinchers in all popular discussions on
Homoeopathy, evidence  the beautiful  delicacy of the physiological
adjustments of the living  organism, rather than the homoeopathic
relation of such remedial measures to the functional disturbance.
The cure of a burn by the application  of heat, and the restoration of
a frozen limb by means  of cold, are physiological rather  than thera-
peutic processes, essentially of the same order as the restoration of
a man who is dying with hunger, by means of the smallest quantities
of nourishment, or of the restoration of a man who is  dying with
thirst, by means of small quantities of liquid.  To  the eye that has
been operated on for cataract, we measure out light very gradually;
to the stomach that has been deprived  of food until  its vital energies
are nearly exhausted, we administer food  within restorative limits,
commencing perhaps with a few drops of  wine or  a  teaspoon ml of
broth. If we were to  meet a pilgrim in the desert, dying  with thirst,
would we inundate his  stomach with a bucketful  of water ?  The
mucous membranes being exhausted, would not the feeble flicker of
vitality become extinct,  if the prostrated brain were called  upon to
effect the absorption of such a disproportionate mass of liquid ?
   A similar physiological  caution is required in  the treatment of
frozen limbs.  If we  were to expose them to the  ordinary heat of a
stove, we should soon  bring about decomposition of the injured
parts; hence we administer caloric within  conservative or rather
restorative limits, first, as much of it as is  contained in snow, ice or
frozen sourkrout, and gradually increasing the quantity  as the vital
action becomes strengthened.
   In the case of burns the opposite process takes place.  If we were
to plunge a burnt limb into  ice-water, we should  soon destroy it;
hence we abstract  caloric very gradually,  imperceptibly at  first  by
applying heated alcohol,  spirits  of turpentine  or similar agents
which contain a sufficient amount of  cooling principles to  quicken
the feeble reaction of the deeply-wounded vitality of  the part.
   Upon  similar  grounds we remove the pain  of a simple burn by
exposing the part to the heat of a stove or to the flame of a candle.
It is not the hot stove or the burning candle that  effects a cure in
such cases; the  excess  of caloric is  abstracted  by the  cooling in-
fluence  of  the surrounding atmosphere, which has to be tempered
by the proximity of heat; else the pain would  increase in conse-
quence of the disproportionate amount of vital reaction which the
decomposing tendencies  of the atmospheric oxygen might excite in
the injured part.  These, friends, are  physiological processes, which
Homoeopathy has no legitimate right  to offer as illustrations of the
law " similia similibus curantur"
   False issues were raised in the bosom of the Homoeopathic School.
Medicine is both a science and  an art.   The science was speedily 
TRANSITION PERIOD.
25
overlooked in the midst of the multifarious claims, explanations,
suggestions with which the homoeopathic artists filled their journals.
By such writers  as  Hering and Bcenninghausen, the most fanciful
and baseless speculations were dignified with the term " law."  The
most childish verbiage  about right, left  and cross symptoms, up-
wards  and downwards, vertical, horizontal and diagonal action of
drugs, and a mass of kindred balderdash was put forth by these and
other writers of the Homoeopathic School as  the solemn dictate of
Nature.
  Moreover,  every  trifling sensation  became a symptom.  After
Hahnemann had published his great work entitled " Materia Medica
Pura," which history will revere as a monument of  careful and reli-
able experimentation, a perfect symptomania took possession of the
self-constituted leaders of our School. At  that time Hahnemann had
already grown grey in the midst of his triumphant labors, and he
cannot justly be held responsible for the theoretical extravagances
of his  disciples.  The Materia Medica was flooded with a perfect
deluge of symptoms which would  have dishonored and destroyed
any medical doctrine that  was not founded upon the rock of eternal
truth.  And materials have  been  crowded into it that must seem
disgusting to every pure-minded man.   Cimex lectularius and pedi-
culus,  the bed-bug and the  louse: Gentlemen, if we cannot cure
diseases without such  materials, my advice is, let us exterminate the
materials, and leave the cure to nature.
   Things could not well go on  in this direction without exciting a
powerful reaction against the theoretical  assumptions of Bcenning-
hausen, Gross and other writers of that time.  We now enter upon
the

                 TRANSITION PERIOD

of Homoeopathy.  One of  the first men who raised his voice against
the then existing fancy-sketches of the homoeopathic symptom-fabric
was the medical counsellor Dr. Rau, a man  of the highest professional
standing, and of consummate judgment, education and  experience.
In his Organon, of  which  I furnished an English translation some
ten years ago, he vindicates medical science with a full knowledge
of its legitimate claims.  A band  of  noble  minds soon united in
upholding the great cause  of  medical truth.   Griesselich published
his Hygea, and the best thinkers of the Homoeopathic School became
contributors  to  its pages.  Pathology, therapeutics and  medical
common sense had again a representative  in our midst.  The symp-
tom-doctors  opened fire upon the impertinent intruders in isolated
pamphlets as well as in their regular publications.  Hering, who had
virtually denied the specific character of diseases, and had taught as
one of his self-styled laws, the childish absurdity, " that any disease
may be cured with any drug," conceived such a bitter hatred against
Griesselich, that even  after the  death of the lamented reformer, he
could not refrain, in a scurrilous publication entitled "Hauhecheln"
from alluding to  this  noble-minded thinker in  vulgar  and  unjust
language. 
26
INTRODUCTORY.
  The withering pages where  Griesselich brushes away the flimsy
cobwebs of his opponents, constitute some of the most brilliant and
instructive chapters in the literature of our school.  Thanks to the
efforts of Griesselich and his friends, the student  of Homoeopathy,
whom the quicksands of an unmeaning  symptomism had plunged
into an abyss of doubt and uncertainties, again found himself placed
upon  solid ground, where he might cast the anchor of hope.  X either
the nosological empiricism which Hahnemann had so justly rebuked,
nor the fantastic and truth-destroying symptomism which the dicta-
torial triumvirate of Bcenninghausen, Hering and Jahr sought  t>
substitute in its place, found favor with the writers of the  Hygea.
With every proper feeling of reverence for the noble old man whose
genius had awakened this new longing for truth in their souls, they
subjected his doctrines to the most rigid examination:  they repudi-
ated the idolatrous man-worship, to which the triumvirate and their
followers seemed addicted: they proclaimed the doctrine that diseases
are essential modes  or conditions  of  existence, which are  just  as
immutable as the  physiological functions of  the  organism, and  of
Avhich the symptoms are manifestations full of meaning to the intel-
ligent observer.
  What a change in this dreary wilderness of symptoms, which the
triumvirate  had been in the  habit of arranging into unstable and
illogical groups, without any regard to their internal relationship and
fitness, simply in accordance with certain arbitrary and ridiculous
notions of up and down, right and left,  backwards and forwards,
crosswise and  otherwise.   Symptoms ceased to be hieroglyphic
symbols;  they became  speaking witnesses of an abnormal, but
essential condition of the organism, upon which their individual
quality and their general relation to each other depended.
  Granted that the inmost essence of diseases will forever  remain
an  inscrutable  mystery—although  such a doctrine seems to me  to
imply an uncalled-for and utterly gratuitous  interference with the
rights of human reason—nevertheless, these abnormal conditions of
the organism are just as accessible to the scalpel of inquiry and
observation  as  the normal physiological  states of our frame.   We
certainly may know as much of disease as is needful for us to know
in order  to  effect a cure by therapeutic means, in accordance with
some   definite,  consistent,  uniformly-true  method of treatment.
Hence, whatever may tend to shed light on the causes, course and
terminations of a disease, belongs to the domain of human thought
and observation.   Hence, again, the  study and  analysis  of  post-
mortem changes may become useful and  even highly important
means of diagnosis.  And hence we derive the consoling conviction
that the researches  of our  cotemporaries, in the departments  of
physiological chemistry and pathological anatomy, have not been
love's  labor lost, but may be turned to excellent account by men
who are in possession of an universal principle of cure.
  Gentlemen, the writers of the specific school, which offers the only
just and legitimate conception of Homoeopathy, have shown us the
problem that Ave haA~e to solve: A disease being given, to determine
the character, the probable course  and termination of  the disease, 
TRANSITION  PERIOD.
27
and to select the remedial agent that shall meet it at all points, as its
natural, direct or specific neutralizer.  We shall revert to this sub-
ject in our last diAnsion of this discourse.
  If the fossil period of Homoeopathy  had been distinguished by
the most lamentable misconceptions and positive perversions of her
spirit, the specific school became no less tainted with the most woeful
absurdities.  Griesselich had departed, and the Hygea had become
defunct.   The lucid and eminently philosophical teachings  of  this
journal no longer stimulated the vital currents of scientific Homoeo-
pathy.  The symptom-school had repudiated the validity of patho-
logical lesions as homoeopathic indications, with an unaccountable
and utterly unreasonable stubbornness.  In endeavoring to  correct
the errors of pathology, the adherents of this school expelled both
truth and falsehood.   They drove out one  devil,  but seven other
devils took possession  of the premises.   They ostracised the names
of diseases which had  become  household words among the  people.
Instead of calling a thing pneumonia or inflammation of the lungs,
by  Avhich every honest-minded and unprejudiced physician  under-
stands a condition of the lungs  characterized by morbid phenomena
of a definite and more  or less specific order, constituting an unitary
complex  of disturbed functions, subject to  well-known, orderly
changes  and characteristic terminations, Ave were told that this gross
nosologism is  incompatible with the dignity of Homoeopathy.   We
were told to take a record of the symptoms,  and to indiyidualize, as
it was termed, every  case of disease, by filling a whole sheet of
foolscap  with the subjective sensations of the patient.
  The whole past of pathology was flung in the dust.  The  Hippo-
cratic school Avhich had made the development, relations and termina-
tions of  morbid phenomena an object of the closest scrutiny  and
observation, Avas theoretically ignored as unavailable; the great, page
of Medicine Avas a blank which henceforth had to be filled Avith the
ten thousand jerkings, twitchings,  prickings, spots, pimples and insig-
nificant nothings that our symptom-hunters have crowded  and keep
crowding into our Materia Medica AAdthout order, without any diag-
nostic acumen, without any reference to those fixed and immutable
pathological conditions which  have marked the pages of  human
history Avith the  characters of one, uniform, identical language of
woe.
  If there be unity in Nature  any where, it is to be found in path-
ology.  Study disease in China  or  among  the  aborigines  of  our
continent, under the bright sky  of a southern  sun, or  among the
snow-clad plains  of the poles;  you will find it every Avhere  exhibit
the same characteristic phenomena and obey the same laws of deATel-
opment,  save accidental differences which the modifying influences
of  climate and mode  of life may impress  upon it, Avithout in the
least affecting its essential characteristics.  A pneumonia in Green-
land is the same disease as a pneumonia in Naples, and. the sjrphilis
of a Chinese requires the same  treatment as  the syphilis of the West
Indies.
  The consoling unity of the principle of disease, without Avhich we
could  neArer expect to arrive at a true Science of Therapeutics, we 
28
INTRODUCTORY.
 are to fling to the winds;  the fixedness and immutability which has
 characterized disease from the primeval ages of the world to the
 present day, we are to repudiate as a scholastic chimera; these grand
 divisions of  disease which Infinite Wisdom has set up in the very
 frame-work of Nature in order to render the eternal Scourge amen-
 able to the tribunal of human reason and subject to the control of
 those specific agents which the hand of Infinite Love has scattered
 along the  path of suffering man:  we are to ignore, and accept in
 their stead the  baseless, planless, arbitrary, illogical,  indefinite,
 incoherent, unreliable and ever-changing combinations which the
 symptom-school Avould fain have us consider as the consummation
 of therapeutic wisdom.
  It would be well for humanity, if the professional sense and the
 common sense of an unsophisticated, non-professional man, remained
 essentially the same.  Many  of the theoretical absurdities which
 creep into the medical schools might then be avoided, and man
 might be spared untold suffering, to which the dangerous practices
 that false theories so frequently suggest, give rise.   But by some sad
 fatality the study of a profession, and more particularly perhaps of
 the medical profession, instead of developing and fortifying common
 sense, seems to have a tendency to bias the judgment, to obscure the
 intuitions of  reason, and to entangle the mind in a maze of sophisms
 which, by habit and interest, finally become a second nature.
  If a layman of  common sense, speaks of pleurisy as a disease, he
 does not  mean that the pathological lesion of the pleura, the effusion
 into the pleural sac, the stitching pain and acute soreness in the side,
 the panting respiration, the tearing cough, the bloody expectoration,
 the fever, headache, flushed face, coated and inflamed  tongue, and
 the various consensual symptoms  are  the  disease, but simply the
 effect of  disease.  By an authorized abuse of language, and for the
 sake of  abbreviating the matter, we  designate these pathological
 changes  and  conditions as the disease.   Such incorrect forms of
 speech may save a good many circumlocutions and  fatigiiing defini-
 tions, and they are perfectly harmless, as long as they are not mis-
 taken for an expression of the truth.
  There  is no harm in saying, the sun rises or sets;  these customary
 expressions, although implying a  radical falsehood, are perfectly
 compatible with the most rigid calculations of astronomy.  But, if
we would build a theory of the starry heavens upon these illusory
phenomena, the whole science of astronomy would become perverted.
In medicine,  a great many forms of speech are  current among the
people, which would do no harm, if they were not made the basis of
a theory  and  corresponding practice.
  The most popular error in medicine is, to speak of a pathological
lesion as a disease.   If the lungs are inflamed, the common  man
calls that inflammation a disease.  The professional physician  who
ought'to know better, has been beguiled into accepting these popular
definitions as the genuine truth, and erecting upon such false theories
a system  of treatment fraught with danger, mischief and  suffering
  In order to remove the effused serum from the pleural cavity, he
applies a  blister to the side, for the purpose of draAving the fluid out 
TRANSITION PERIOD.
29
This is but too often the vulgar explanation of such a proceeding.
Knowing that, in pleurisy, the capillaries are injected, he applies
leeches to the  side of the thorax, in order to remove the accumulated
blood which he considers as the cause of the inflammation.  It seems
incredible that physicians  should  entertain, and act in accordance
Avith, such absurd notions; but pathology has been full of such
illusions.
  Hahnemann repudiated the doctrine of pathological lesions as a
fruitful source of deceptions.  Yet, the study and analysis of patho-
logical changes after death, seem to exercise a powerful attraction
on the most gifted medical minds.  Why is this ?   Why should a
man like Rokitansky be willing to  spend his life among cadavers,
amid the ruins  of the dissecting-room ?   Certainly not to act the
part of an intellectual hod-carrier, but because he honestly fancies
that these dissections and  microscopical  examinations of diseased
organs may lead him to a more accurate  and more intimate know-
ledge of the nature of disease.  The method may be faulty, but the
aim is noble, and the arduous labors of such a man are eminently
deser"ving of the commendations of our school.
  Only  let  us guard  against repeating  the mistakes  of  the  old-
fashioned empirical nosologism, and connecting mere names of
diseases with remedial agents in the fatal bonds of an  indissoluble
union.  If we say that Phosphorus is a  remedy for pneumonia, or
Bryonia for rheumatism, let us associate with these technical names,
definite abnormal states, with which the  Phosphorus and Bryonia-
action, corresponds both in essence and in form.  If this course had
been uniformly pursued by the specific school, the dangerous extra-
vagance  of regarding certain remedies  as  absolute  specifics for
certain general  disorders, such as  Arsenic for typhus abdominalis,
Phosphorus for pneumonia, Pulsatilla for amenorrhcea,  would have
been avoided,  and the specific homoeopathic relation of a drug to a
disease, would have been understood to mean what it really  does
mean in nature: that a certain abnormal  state  of the organism can
be directly met by only one remedy, in the same sense as that there
is but one straight line from one point to  another.
  Thirty years after the publication of Hahnemann's Organon, the
Homoeopathic School  had undergone considerable  modifications,
owing to the persevering and eminently successful efforts of Griesse-
lich, Schroen, Arnold, and a host of other writers and practitioners
of this stamp, to elevate the scientific character of Homoeopathy, and
to expound her principles as natural laws, independently of tradition
and authority.  One of the most brilliant and philosophical works
of that period, where the connection of homoeopathic  therapeutics
with psychology, physiology and  pathology, is shown with  great
force and originality of thought, was published  by Dr. Koch, of
Stuttgardt, who is noAV residing and practising among us.
  The adherents of a purely technical symptomism had dwindled
down to  a very small number.   Homoeopathic  physicians  had
discovered that,  under the guidance of their therapeutic  law, the
facts of pathology might be converted into beacon-lights as it were,
pointing out to the helmsman, to whose watchful care some patient 
30
INTRODUCTORY.
had confided his frail bark, a safe entrance into the haven of conva-
lescence.  Broussais, who had defined a symptom as " the cry of a
suffering organ," spoke an intelligible language to the physicians
of our school.   The symptom was no longer a sensation without
quality, but a speaking Avitness of some  peculiar, characteristic, or
we might say, specific disease, an element of an unitary group, to all
whose other elements it Avas related by virtue of an essential identity,
and from which it only differed in appearance, in consequence of the
functional and structural differences of the  affected organ, tissue or
system.  The  contempt Avhich the regular  physicians, as they self-
complacently style  themselves, had experienced for homoeopathic
practitioners, gave place, in Germany at  least, to considerate treat-
ment.  In the writings of the opposition  press, they are frequently
alluded to as " our respected colleagues."  This change of tone was
not the result of a compromise, but of actual conquest.  Some of the
most distinguished Professors of Medicine  in Germany, admit that
there is a good deal in Homoeopathy which may be made available ;
they admit that their poor patients have been physicked too much,.
and that their prescriptions are unreasonably complicated; they
even go so far as to ransack our Materia Medica, and to appropriate
some of our drugs, without it is true, being ahvays very particular
in regard to mentioning the source whence they are derived.  Pro-
fessor Schcenlein, of Berlin,  recommends Pulsatilla for menstrual
suppression in doses of one-sixteenth of a  grain.
  Previous to the thorough discussion which the doctrines of Hahne-
mann underwent in the columns  of the Hygea, the infinitesimal
globule had been considered as an indispensable accompaniment, a
logical and inevitable result of the homoeopathic law.   This opinion
which, if allowed to prevail in an absolute sense, might have led to
injurious and perhaps fatal  mistakes in practice, was tempered,
through the  efforts of the Hygea, with  a suitable  admixture  of
belief in the  homoeopathicity and curative  adaptation of  larger
doses of the remedial agent. Even the tinctures of such drugs as
Pulsatilla, Aconite, Belladonna, Nux Yomica, and the loAver tritura-
tions of Mercury, Sulphur, Arsenic and other agents, were not only
used with signal advantage, but were found to be equal,  if not
superior, to the attenuations in a number of cases.
  The  bugbear of homoeopathic  aggravations  had likewise been
stripped of its terrors.   This doctrine was a logical consequence of
Hahnemann's peculiar mode of explaining the operation of homoeo-
pathic agents, and therefore  liable to modifications just so far  as
these explanations might require to be modified.  It was found that,
in many cases, the natural development of  the morbid phenomena
had been mistaken for a medicinal aggravation, and that the subse-
quent relief was a natural  subsidence of the pain, and by no means
owing to an organic reaction against the primary action of the druo-.
Thus one stumbling-block after another  was removed,  which had
been in the Avay of a calm examination of the tenets of our school •
the number of sober-minded homoeopathic practitioners increased
from year to year; every fact in therapeutics and  pathology,  of
which  homoeopathy  could justly and usefully avail herself)' was 
TRANSITION  PERIOD.
31
incorporated in her statute-book, and the day seemed to have dawned
Avhen the regenerating influence of the  homoeopathic laAV Avould be
felt in the whole domain of medical sciences.
  Gentlemen, the time will come when the law similia similibus shall
whisper accents  of Avisdom in every council-chamber of our oppo-
nents ; but we should not  attempt to obtain this influence by an
abandonment  of principle.   It is strange that in  our own country,
Avhere Homoeopathy is rushing onward like a mighty river in her
triumphant course, her crystal purity should be contaminated by the
mischievous folly of some of her pretended advocates.
  Some of the writers in the North American Homoeopathic Journal
promulgate  doctrines which  every philosophical thinker  of  our
school must regard  as perversions of the very principle Avhich con-
stitutes the corner-stone of  homoeopathic therapeutics.   The physi-
ologism of Broussais,  the iatro-chemism of Liebig,  the humoralism of
Boerhaave, the empiricism of Rademacher, all the medical absurdities
of the present and past centuries, are mixed up by Dr. Peters Avith
the facts of Homoeopathy, in that species of eclecticism which Trous-
seau and Pidoux condemn as " a source from Avhich emanates the
nothingness of chaos, and  which, proscribing all unity of method,
has led to the numerical system, the last cloak of sceptical weakness."
  Is it proper for a homoeopathic practitioner to bloAV hot and cold
in the same breath,  and to swear by any kind of treatment that folly,
pride and reckless caprice may suggest ?  If the homoeopathic laAV of
cure  be not an  universal principle, capable of being defined  and
applied with scientific precision, why affect the name of homoeopathic ?
Is not this trifling with the sacred things of God and humanity ?
  In an article on fatty diseases of the heart, Dr. Peters proposes to
get rid of the fat by deluging the stomach with liquor potassa.  A
pint, says he, will dissolve several pounds of it.  No more beautiful
illustration of iatro-chemism  could be found  in the whole  range of
medical literature.
  If you adopt physiologism  in one instance, why  not be consistent ?
Why not stimulate the liver with your  calomel, or narcotise the
brain with opium ?   We may feel disposed to excuse the illusions of
this false  system of physiological therapeutics for the sake of- the
consistency with which it Avas taught by the distinguished  Professor
at the Val de Grace, with an  eloquence and a  brilliancy of genius
that fascinated the  medical world  of Paris, and  unfortunately was
backed by a power of specious logic, and a justness  and  depth of
criticism, Avhich  swept the medical horizon like a meteor of dazzling
splendor.   But to see Hahnemann  chained to the car  of Broussais,
must excite a feeling of pity and contempt  in the  heart of every
clear-headed homoeopathic  physician against these shallow attempts
to fish pure pearls in  muddy  waters.
  Who can read a paragraph like the following in a professedly
homoeopathic journal without a feeling of bitter disappointment and
disgust: "Acids prevent the digestion of, and remove fat; a Spanish
general Avho Avas enormously corpulent, is said to have removed the
fat  so rapidly by drinking large quantities of vinegar, that he could
wrap the loose  skin  around  him like  a  cloak;  another  case Avas 
32
INTRODUCTORY.
promptly cured by Nitric acid; yet when Nitric acid is made to act
on fibrin apparently deprived of  its fat, an oily substance is disen-
gaged ;  and during the action of Nitric acid on starch, an oily matter
is set free.   The best time to take acids, to prevent fatness, is before
and during meals. Alkalies, such as Soda and Potassa cure adiposis
in a different way, they cause the fat to be re-absorbed from the fat-
cells,  then combine with it to form a soap or emulsion, after which
it is burnt up with oxygen, as a calorific  element;  the best  time to
take  alkalies to remove corpulency, is from four to six hours after
meals; if taken with, or shortly after food, they will solve or saponify
all the oil and fat in the food, favor its absorption and appropriation."
Liebig teaching  Homoeopathy; as well  might we appoint a rabid
wolf the shepherd of a flock.
  Dr. Peters seems to have a peculiar fondness for the iatro-chemical
treatment of diseases. Speaking of the iodide of potassium, he says:
" The most remarkable of its effects are a rapid and very considerable
increase of the urine, and what is quite remarkable is, that gradually
the uric acid sediments entirely disappear, while those of the ammonia-
phosphate of ammonia decidedly  increase.  This effect is still more
apt to occur from large doses of the iodide of starch  and  iron.
Here  Ave would seem to have a truly homoeopathic remedy to the
Phosphatic Lithiasis"  Liebig again!  This looks  like science, but
such teachings constitute a most woeful perversion of science. How
does the iodide of potassium remove the uric acid crystals ?  By \-irtue
of its dynamic action?  But Lehmann  tells us that  most of the
soluble  alkaline  salts, such as the nitrate of potash, the iodide of
potassium, the alkaline carbonates, etc., are found unchanged in the
urine.  Hence, so far as  therapeutic  purposes are concerned, we
might as well mix these substances with the urinary excretions in
the bed-chamber instead of introducing them into the living organism.
  The doctrines  which  I here repudiate, are not the result of  a
passing  indiscretion; they are the offspring of false principles  and
of a misapprehension of the  very  spirit of Hahnemann's own teach-
ing.   And  Avhat  is  worse, they  are engrafted upon the Code of
Homoeopathy  as  genuine doctrines;  they  are recorded  in,  and
therefore must be supposed to have the sanction of, a professedly
homoeopathic journal distinguished for the ability, sound learning
and devotion of its editors and contributors.   Gentlemen, in defend-
ing truth, we must not mince matters; Ave must speak out  plainly
and manfully. Honesty and rigorous  analysis are our sacred right
and duty.
  Let me show you to what  lamentable and dangerous mistakes the
hyper-materialism of Dr. Peters  and his  followers, if  he  have any,
leads  in  practice. Speaking of Aethusa Cynapium, and Noack's
recommendation of this drug for abdominal typhus, the doctor goes
on to say:  " But the most  essential  part in  typhoid fever is the
peculiar change in the blood, this consists in a diminution of the
fibrin and an increase of the carbonated salts, especially of carbonate
of soda.   Numerous  experiments have shown that in Animals which
have for a long time  been submitted to the excessive use of alkalies,
the blood becomes destitute of fibrin and rich in the carbonated 
PROPHETIC  PERIOD.
33
alkalies;  hence the alkalies are homoeopathic to typhoid fever, and
the acids, antipathic."
  Now I ask, in the name of common sense, what have these phe-
nomena to do with the homoeopathicity of the carbonate of soda to
typhus ?  Is not this change in the constitution of the blood effected
by  an endosmotic process of absorption?   Is there the remotest
analogy between the cerebral symptoms accompanying this change
of the blood, and the pathognomonic symptoms of typhus?   How
will you determine the homoeopathicity of the alkali to typhus in a
given case?   Will you first draw a pint of blood from the patient
and then make a chemical analysis of it, in order to ascertain the
relative amount of fibrin and the presence of the carbonate of soda?
How absurd, and Avhat an uncertain basis for the selection of a drug!
Lehmann tells us that  " it appears, from the most recent analysis of
Becquerel and Rodier, that the amount of fibrin may vary consider-
ably in the same  group of diseases, in  one case  rising  above, and
in another  falling below, the mean number."  Is it possible that
Homoeopathy has to seek refuge in such miserable fallacies?  Sul-
phuric acid is recommended for black vomit, because, in a  case of
poisoning with sulphuric acid, the  acid corrodes and blackens the
mucous coat of the stomach; these shreds of chemically blackened
mucus are considered as homoeopathic to black vomit, and a clever
practitioner like Dr. Holcombe, permits himself, on the recommen-
dation of Dr. Peters, to  use sulphuric acid  in this stage of yelloAV
fever.
  Gentlemen, if I seem to you severe in my condemnation of these
mischievous teachings and practices, it is because I am pained in
my very soul, to see the divine truth of our doctrine sacrificed to
vulgar and deceptive materialism.   Alkalies are homoeopathic, acids
are antipathic to typhus.  What is the inexperienced student of
Homoeopathy to understand by this disgusting twaddle?  Is he to
understand that alkalies will cure typhus and that acids will not?
or that either may be used indiscriminately ?  If so, by what law is
he to determine the curative fitness of these respective agents in
determinate  cases?  What is left for him to fall back upon, but a
baseless and  most treacherous empiricism,  unbecoming  a rational
mind, and utterly at variance with the divine prerogative of man to
investigate  the first principles of science, and to  realize in his own
humble sphere the order  and  living harmony, which constitute the
matchless and imperishable beauty of God's nature.
   We are standing on the threshold of the future.  The


                  PROPHETIC  PERIOD

of Homoeopathy has dawned upon us.  A spirit of inquiry is abroad
that will sweep out of existence both the hyper-symptomism of the
past and  the hyper-materialism of the present; a spirit of inquiry
that Avill develope Homoeopathy into an art based upon the clearly
comprehended  and universally  admitted facts  of  science.   The
medical age is traveling toAvards Homoeopathy, though with  their
                              3 
^                      INTRODUCTORY.

seeing eyes they see not, and with their hearing ears they hear not.
The spirit of God is hovering over the dark waters of Medical Chaos,
creating order and harmony out of the confused elements which the
struggling genius of physicians has scattered about on the vast plain
of Therapeutics.  Homoeopathy is fast reforming the old abuses and
modifying the theories of the past.   In the  most  classical work  on
Therapeutics in France, the sixth  edition of  Avhich was published a
few months ago, I mean the elaborate treatise of  Trousseau ^and
Picloux, the  doctrines  of the Organon are subjected to a most rigid,
but very fair criticism.  In an introductory chapter of some hundred
pages, thirty are devoted to Hahnemann.
  EAren our globules have been adopted  by allceopathic practitioners.
In the late Convention of Apothecaries held in the city of Washing-
ton, Mr. ] )elluc, of NeAv York, presented a report on Avhat he  terms
saccharides  and  sugar-granules, which  he recommends  strongly as
more  suitable and agreeable vehicles for the administration of drugs.
The report was referred to a committee,  and  the saccharides will  no
doubt be incorporated in the body of allceopathic pharmaceutics.
  " The wind bloweth Avhither it listeth, and  thou  hearest the sound
thereof; but canst not tell whence it  cometh, nor whither it goeth."
Yes, the old Avreck  of Medicine is drifting  towards Homoeopathy.
The people are tired  of being physicked  to death, and physicians
are  compelled to treat human nature Avith respect.   Satire is repudi-
ated by the most  distinguished  opponents of Homoeopathy  as  an
unworthy weapon.  "We do not belong to the party  of those,"
write  Trousseau and Pidoux, "who fancy  they have done  with
Hahnemann,  after invoking Arago's authority to prove that the
decillionth part  of  a  grain  is proportioned  to a whole grain, as  an
atom which  is invisible to the naked eye, is to the bulk of the sun.
Assuredly, the quantity of the pestilential or small-pox miasm, which
is required to destroy a man, is exceedingly small, and we are not
aware whether Arago has  ever endeavored to find out the relative
weight or  volume of this fractional miasm."  They even admit that,
if it " be true, as Hahnemann asserts, that disease is an alteration of
the  immaterial vital principle in us, and that the medicine Avhich acts
upon  this immaterial vital principle, must do so by properties of the
same  order:  the quantity of the dose  may easily become infini-
tesimally small."
  Why then, it may be asked, are these  gentlemen opposed  to
Homoeopathy ?   Why do they reject or find  fault with almost everv
existing medical doctrine, and yet continue the abuses of the old
methods of treatment ?  Evidently for various reasons, the principal
of which is, that  they labor under an honest misapprehension of the
teachings  of Hahnemann, arising in a  measure from  their incom-
pleteness  and_ from Hahnemann's  unqualified opposition to the
medical theories and  practices  of the  past.   They  designate their
method as the substitutive method, by Avhich they understand the
processof effecting a  cure, by substituting one disease for another
Theirs is not so  much a new method, as a neAv mode of explaining
the phenomena of counter-irritation.  A cure of ophthalmia, by means
of the application of a solution of the nitrate of silver to the inflamed 
PROPHETIC PERIOD.
35
eye, is the result of a substitution of an artificial inflammation for
the natural disease.
  This seems, in reality, Hahnemann's explanation of the operation
of homoeopathic agents.  The artificial disease substitutes itself for
the natural malady, by virtue of its superior, more specific intensity.
But strange to say, this A^ery simple explanation has been woefully
misunderstood by Hahnemann's opponents, as well as by some of his
leading disciples.
  Every disease embodies a trinity  of facts: 1. The cause which
constitutes the essential principle of the disease; 2. The pathological
lesion or derangement, and 3d, the symptomatic indications. Can you
conceive of a single act Avhich is not the result of a three-fold order
of principles?  Does not  every act imply a moving cause, a thing
moved, and a method or mode of motion?  So. does every disease
imply the existence of a morbific principle or force, a corresponding
derangement of the physiological functions,  and a series of phe-
nomena by which  this derangement manifests itself to the sentient
understanding.
  AVhat  noAV does Hahnemann, who  never  mistook a pathological
lesion for the-essential morbific force, mean Avhen he  sa}*s that the
homoeopathic remedial agent effects a cure by virtue of its superior
intensity ?  Why, he simply means, that the relation existing between
the remedial agent and the essential morbific force, is  of a more
specific nature, and therefore more intense, than the relation existing
between the morbific force and the physiological organism, and  that
this force will therefore be induced, by a natural process  of affinity,
to relinquish the organism and unite  itself Avith the remedial agent,
Avhich possesses the power to externalize, if I may use this expression,
the internal disease, by amalgamating it as  it  Avere Avith its  OAvn
molecules, and thus reducing it to such a condition of inferiority to
the vital reaction  as must result  in  the restoration of health.  If
Hahnemann had not meant this, he would have taught an absurdity,
and Hahnemann Avas not the man to teach foolish things.
  Professor Trousseau and the symptomists have done Hahnemann
equal injustice in opposite directions;  Trousseau by accusing Hahne-
mann of contenting himself with combating the essential, immaterial,
dynamic, morbific  cause,, and the symptomists by attributing to  him
the absurd doctrine, that  symptoms may be treated as abstract and
independent entities as it were, Avithout referring them to a patholo-
gical lesion as their fountain-head.   Hahnemann kne\v full Avell  that
in every disease the  physiological functions  of  the  organism are
deranged in a peculiar, specific manner; but Avhen he speaks of the
substitutive action of  homoeorjathic  remedial agents, he does not
understand it in the same sense as the physiological school, of Avhich
Trousseau is one of the leading oracles, understands this doctrine.
He certainly does not mean that in order to cure a natural inflamma-
tion, avc must absorb it by exciting a more intense artificial inflam-
mation, but he does teach that the character of the pathological
lesion determines the meaning of the symptoms,  and the choice  of a
remedial agent, and that a remedial agent, thus selected in accord-
ance Avith the  symptoms, and Avith specific reference  to  the patho- 
36
INTRODUCTORY.
 logical disorder, will act directly upon the morbific force by virtue
 of an inmost and therefore superior  affinity, Avithout creating a per-
 ceptible artificial disturbance of the  physiological organism.
   Gentlemen, I look upon a proper comprehension of the  homoe-
 opathic  laAV as the  highest  effort  of reason.   It  can hardly  be
 expected that  an  allceopathic  physician, whose mind is AAredded to
 the fallacies of materialism, should be able to analyze the meaning
 of similia similibus Avith that nicety of perception without which any
 heavenly truth remains either inaccessible to the human mind, or
 hidden in the fog of scepticism and misapprehension.  Trousseau who
 is a distinguished  Professor in the Medical School of Paris,  a good
 and  honest man, of gifted intellect  and  not afraid of progressive
 ideas,  does not comprehend Hahnemann.   Hence  his arguments
 against  Homceopathy leave the latter invulnerable and may be
 turned against his own position with terrible effect.
   " Because an artificial morbid action seems to cure in many cases
 a natural morbid action  by substituting itself in the place  of the
 latter,  after which the former  rapidly disappears of itself, we must
 not conclude that this curative effect is due to the similarity of the
 artificial to the natural disease.  Substitution does not mean homoe-
 opathicity.  The curative application of a topical irritant to a speci-
 fically inflamed part cannot be  accounted for on  the ground  of
 similia similibus.  In a phlegmasia of a bad  character, topical irri-
 tants  act most probably by causing the healthy or physiological
 element to prevail over the morbid element, or by extinguishing, so
 to say, the latter.  This may be inferred from the injurious  action
 which  topical irritants exercise on healthy inflammation.   A healthy
 or physiological inflammation, and  an inflammation of a morbid,
 gangrenous, diphtheritic, syphilitic, scrofulous character, are in no
 wise similar.  Pathologically considered, they are rather opposed
 to each other, since the one tends to a curative restoration, and the
 other to a decomposition and destruction of the parts.  Hence by
 endeavoring to impress a restorative character upon an inflammatory
 process of a specifically morbid, disorganizing tendency, Ave  do not
 act homoeopathically, but heteropathically.  If it were possible for the
 medicine to induce an artificial morbid action as nearly as possible
 similar to the natural morbid action, this one Avould be increased
 instead of being weakened.   But an internal  resemblance has been
 taken for granted on the ground of a few gross external analogies,
 and whereas the principle of contraria was more evidently demon-
 strated than ever, the principle of similia has been proclaimed."
  This paragraph,  which seems to embody a very specious and suc-
 cessful refutation of the homoeopathic  law, shows how little even
such men as Trousseau and Pidoux apprehend the true import of
similia similibus.  They will have it that a medicine, in  order to act
homoeopathically to a disease, must actually set up a disturbance of
 the physiological functions similar in form and degree to the natural
 disease.  This, they say, is  the doctrine of the Organon, and it may
 indeed seem so to the superficial reader.  But in spite of Trousseau's
 argument to the contrary, Mercury does cure syphilis homoeopathi-
 cally.  Mercury is homoeopathic to  the syphilitic element, and it  is 
PROPHETIC PERIOD.
37
 this element that Mercurj^ neutralizes or extinguishes, if you please,
 thus converting the  malignant sore into a healthy inflammation.
 And if the application of white precipitate or the nitrate of silver to
 a simple, or, as Trousseau terms  it,  physiological inflammation
 results in an increase of irritation of the inflamed part, it is  because
 the action of the topical irritant is not  homoeopathic to the  physio-
 logical action  or element.   No, my dear professor, homoeopathic
 physicians are not the fools you take them to be; Homoeopathy does
 not  rest upon a mere gross resemblance of external symptoms, but
 upon a similarity of the internal morbid  processes.   It is the  drug-
 action in its  essential principles that is homoeopathic to the essential
 morbid action, and, by virtue  of this homoeopathic affinity, hushes
 up,  extinguishes or,  as you very energetically express it,  devours
 this latter element.
   The whole of Trousseau's brilliant argumentation against  Homoe-
 opathy rests upon this fatal misapprehension of the fundamental
 idea of homoeopathicity.  Trousseau will have it  that homoeopathi-
 city means the actual production of a pathological disorder similar
 to, and more violent than the natural disease, Avhereas the true intent
 and meaning of Homoeopathy is the superior affinity of  the  drug-
 principle to the essential  principle of the disease or to the morbific
 force or element, as Trousseau terms it,  which generates  the  specific,
 characteristic derangement of the physiological functions.  We thank
 the  learned  Professor  for having  afforded us  an  opportunity  of
 enlightening him on the subject of  Homoeopathy;  he is, so  far as I
 know, the first  writer of eminence who has undertaken the task of
 refuting the doctrines  of Hahnemann  by philosophical reasoning.
 Would that  all our opponents might imitate his example!   If we
 cannot beat  them in  vulgar abuse, we certainly can beat  them in
 argument.
   Friends, we must not expect to  conquer the  world by  a  mere
 stroke of the pen.  Nor Avill the numerical method be found a reli-
 able means of securing  the universal triumph of our cause.  It is
 undoubtedly true that,  under  a  properly conducted homoeopathic
 treatment, all other circumstances being equal, more patients Avill be
 cured than  under any  other form of treatment.  Nevertheless, the
 numerical method is  the lowest order  of argument that can be re-
 sorted to in favor of Homoeopathy.  Numbers are  not  facts of the
 reason, but have to be  credited  upon  the  authority of individual
 observers.  And then it is very doubtful whether the pneumonia or
 typhus of one region, and similar maladies of another region, are
 equally intense in character, and equally amenable to treatment.
 Moreover, observers may not be  equally particular in ranging dis-
 eases under their proper categories, although I am confident  that, in
 this respect, unfairness cannot be charged upon homoeopathic  prac-
 titioners, Avho very often succeed  in  cutting short an acute  disease,
 like  Asiatic  cholera, in its preliminary stage, Avhich, under allceopa-
 thic treatment, will run its course onward towards a fatal termina-
 tion.
  If similia similibus  is a natural laAAr, it must be capable of  demon-
stration.   We cannot  expect to convince our  allceopathic brethren 
38
INTRODUCTORY.
 of the truth thereof, until we  shall succeed in  establishing this law
 as one of the immutable principles of nature, the perception of which
 constitutes an  essential element, and therefore an inevitable  result,
 in the progress of our mental groAvth.   Yes, if similia similibus be
 an universal law, and if it be  true, that Infinite Wisdom operates in
 things infinitely great as well as in things infinitely small, according
 to an unchanging system of  harmony, then every globule which a
 homoeopathic physician prescribes,  should personate God's Provi-
 dence to the suffering organism, and should  minister relief just so
 far as relief is possible under  the supreme laws of life.
   The usefulness of the  homoeopathic law is admitted even by those
 who  denounce the doctrines of Hahnemann as a tissue of absurdities.
 Professor Simpson concedes, that  "it would be a valuable general
 law,  if it could be proved to be such."  Even Hooker, in his diatribe
 against  Homoeopathy and Hahnemann, believes in the possibility
 that  " future observation may  establish the homoeopathic law as one
 among the  many laAvs of cure, which are employed in the removal
 of disease ;" he  simply asserts " that homoeopathic observation has
 not done it."
   Is  there such a law ?   Is an universal law of cure one of the prin-
 ciples of universal order ?  To say that it is  not, is to doubt the
 wisdom  and goodness of Providence.  It matters not how disease
 came into the world,  The biblical tradition of the original  sin,
 whether it be understood in a literal or figurative  sense, accounts
 for the introduction of disease in a manner sufficient for all practical
 purposes.  We are told that the Creator was satisfied with his work.
 The design and working of the great machinery of creation were
 perfect.  If there was no disease, the probability is that  there Avere
 no drugs.  If there were drugs, the  Creator must have foreseen the
 eventual supervention of diseases; and  if there Avere no drugs, he
 must have so fashioned the forces of nature that, with the introduc-
 tion of diseases,  drugs must have been produced.  If drugs weie in-
 tended as the natural neutralizers of diseases, I  do not see hoAv, with
 the belief in a Providence, whether  the  Providence of God, or  the
 Providence of  Nature,  whose supervising  and all-governing care
 extends to the minutest details of the Great  Whole, the  idea of a
 specific  adaptation of drugs to diseases can  be avoided.  And if
 drugs are specifically curative under His infinite Providence, it can
 be shown that they cure  homoeopathically.
  It matters not how  we  understand man's original transgression of
 the laws  of Divine Order.  The fact  that such a transgression took
 place, is  established by the evidence of the  actual as Avell as by the
 traditions of the past.  The moral  transgression tainted the physical
 creation,  and the forces of disease were  the  inevitable result." But
 God could not permit these morbific  forces to pervade creation like
 Avild and lawless furies seeking whom they might destroy.  He sub-
jected them to the laws of order, by compelling  them to fix them-
 selves as it were in definite, concrete  forms.  Thus it is, that medi-
 cinal  agents embody or materialize, so to say, morbific forces, them-
 selves resulting from man's original transgression, and perpetuating
 themselves, with the  hereditary consequences of this transgression 
PROPHETIC PERIOD.
9 1
in man, from age to age and generation to generation.   In what do
these hereditary consequences consist in a pathological and thera-
peutical aspect ?  Why, they consist in the fact that man's organism
is actually tainted with morbid tendencies, corresponding with those
forces' of disease which a wise and merciful Creator compels to em-
body or substantialize themselves in our drugs for the use of suffer-
ing man. ^ The Aconite-force is therefore within us, the Belladonna-
force is within us, not actively, but  in a state of potency, Avatching
for an opportunity to break forth like a fury bent upon destroying
the organism.  Under the influence of some accidental cause, the
slumbering  Aconite-force becomes a rebellious disease, and then it
is that the healing artist steps in with the  Aconite-plant in order to
imitate God's own  process of salvation.   He brings the Aconite-
principle as materialized in the plant, in contact with the Aconite-
disease, and obliges the  latter, by virtue of its superior affinity to
the former, to unite itself with the drug-molecules, and  from an in-
ternal disease, to become converted  into  an  external principle of
limited and  harmless dimensions.   This  it is what  Hahnemann
meant, when  he  seeks to  explain a homoeopathic cure  upon the
ground that a drug acts more powerfully than the disease ;  Hahne-
mann could never have been guilty of the  silly nonsense, which his
opponents impute to him.
   To Homoeopathy is reserved the  glorious mission of restoring
order in the domain of Medicine.  Order in Medicine implies a three-
fold hierarchy of facts:
   1st. Forces  of disease which are essences, essential principles or
morbific causes, effecting corresponding derangements of the physio-
logical functions and thereby producing,
   2d. Pathological  lesions which manifest themselves to the sentient
understanding,
   3d. By abnormal sensations and alterations of tissue.
   This is the  hierarchy of facts without which Medicine is  a choas
and a nonsense, and which implies a threefold order of studies :
   Pathogenesy, or the science of morbific causes ;
   Pathology, or the doctrine of abnormal changes in the physiologi-
cal functions and the organic tissues; and  lastly,
   Semeiology, or the doctrine of symptomatic indications.
   Who can foretell whether it will ever be given unto us to know
the essences  that perpetuate woe and pain among us?,  We may
never be able to solve  this mystery, but it  Avill be reserved  for
Homoeopathy to show that these essences do not float through ethe-
real  space in anarchical confusion; Homoeopathy will show that
they are definite in number, subject to law and order, and admitting
of a classification not depending upon the fitful caprice of fancy, but
resting upon the incontrovertible and immutable dictates of Nature.
Mere symptom-hunting will not accomplish this result, but a careful
and  unceasing  comparison of  drug-symptoms  with  pathological
phenomena  will be  a preliminary step tOAvards the grand Nosology
of Nature.
   And then, let us  not despair of the chemist and the natural  phil-
osopher.  Consider  Avhat has been done in the laboratory!  Hoav 
40
INTRODUCTORY.
the principles of matter have been hunted up in their hiding-places!
May Ave never know the forces that float upon the sun-beam into the
atmospheres of Nature, vitalizing the germinal principles in the crust
of our planet, and developing them  into visible forms in harmonic
relations with the constituent principles of man's own nature ?   The
ancient philosophy which regarded man as a miniature-universe, is
the very corner-stone of theosophic truth and a mine of practical
usefulness to the  Homoeopathic  physician.   Yes, the principles
which originated the drug-Avorld, emanate from, and are  perpetu-
ated by, man's sinful nature.  He tasted of the fruit of the tree of
the knoAvledge  of good and evil; he substituted  the  lusts of his
own will in the place of God's laAV of love, and the fallacies of his
foolish Avisdom in the place of God's eternal truth.  The consequence
of this moral transgression was that man's physical organism became
tainted Avith  morbid tendencies or  predispositions Avhich reacting
upon the spheres of life, engendered morbific forces corresponding
with those morbid tendencies.  Every noAV and then, under favor-
able circumstances, these morbific  forces,  existing as they do in the
bosom of the vital spheres, invade the organism exciting its morbid
predispositions into actual lesions.
  But, under God's Supreme Providence,  these forces of disease are
subject to definite laws  of order and means have been provided for
their extinction.  The forces which develop pathological lesions are
the same forces that develop drugs in the crust of our planet. Drugs
being the natural ultimations or  material types of the forces of dis-
ease, will therefore manifest a tendency, and are indeed possessed of
a power to absorb or attract these forces, to externalize them as it
Avere with reference to the internal organism, and hence to hush up
their disorderly  workings  amid the play of the  physiological func-
tions.
  Thus it is that God himself sets us a supreme example of homoeo-
pathic action.   With the  very  forces  which create  pathological
lesions, He creates the means for their extinction.   And the human
artist imitates the Divine example  by using for the  cure of a patho-
logical lesion such drugs as are  homoeopathic to it;  in other words,
drugs that harbor Avithin their inmost bosoms the very forces Avhich
had excited the  lesion, and  the quality of which he determines ap-
proximatively, according to Hahnemann's brilliant teaching, by  ex-
perimentation upon the healthy as the only reliable basis of  com-
parison between the  physiological series  of  phenomena  of  druo-.
action, and the pathological series or phenomena of  disease.
  Here you have a generalization of the facts which may be said to
constitute the great Series of Homoeopathy:  man's  sin taintino- the
vital spheres Avhich support his physiological organism, by the°pro-
duction of morbific principles  that Avould  utterly pervert God's fair
creation, if, under His supreme Providence, they were not held in
order by eternal laws.   Under God's  government they do not rove
through the spheres of life like the unchained furies  of hell, but they
are ever tending downwards in obedience to an inevitable necessity
until, in material nature, they become embodied in fixed forms, sub-
ject to the use of man, each typifying some specific morbific essence 
PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF HOMCEOPATHY.         41
which will not fail to unite itself with this its material type, if such
a union be still possible in the prostrated organism.
  Would that I could make you see it as clearly as I see it:  that our
drug-world is a fixed and permanent  revelation, in material forms,
of the diseases that afflict humanity !   To me, Homoeopathy is not a
mere'system of technicalities; it  is  a  Christian  science,  a diAane
handmaid to the Christian atonement.  Sin begetting disease which
the laws of order compel to fix itself in definite material forms that
become the agents for its own extinction.  Is not  this the Christian
salvation enacted in the domain of therapeutics ?   God permitting
sin to exist,  and coming into  the world to wipe out its terrible con-
sequences !
  It has been said that Homoeopathy is a system of atheism in dis-
guise.   Who are the atheists—practitioners who flagellate the poor
organism with the rod and the scorpion, or the men who gently and
SAveetly minister remedial agents for the purpose of removing pain ?
" I  came not to destroy, but to save."   Nor Avas a drug created for
the purpose of inflicting pain; its mission  is to be a saviour unto
suffering man.
  It is the Physiological  school, this  medical Babylon of  the day,
that is  guilty of  atheistic materialism.  Berard, the Professor  of
Physiology  in the  Medical School of Paris, teaches that life is the
result of organization, a doctrine that can only be  accounted for and
excused in so far as it  implies an  acknowledgment of the  magnifi-
cently-beautiful harmony  of adaptation existing  between man's
spiritual and natural organisms.
   Trousseau and Pidoux account for the phenomena of disease and
of medicinal action by the supposition of vital properties  inherent
in  the  constitution of matter.  Living matter!   A self-sustaining,
self-living organism!
   And if the harmony of the machine is disturbed, they bleed, blis-
ter and burn it, as though the poor organism were at fault.  They
do not see that it  is invaded  by an enemy, from whose  assaults it
should be freed Avithout having additional tortures inflicted upon
it.  "I came not to destroy, but to give life."
   Gentlemen, we  may not live to see the  day Avhen Homoeopathy
shall be acknoAvledged as the great  universal Christian science of
medicine.  But let us work for this noble end.  The harvest is ripe,
and God's blessing awaits every honest laborer in the vinyard of
his suffering humanity.
                   LECTURE   II.

  We have  met, gentlemen, to study  both facts and principles.
Among the facts, a correct knowledge of the therapeutic properties
of our drugs occupies a deservedly high, if not the highest, rank.
The principles embrace every statement or inference, every generali-
zation, Avhich bears upon, illustrates the meaning or facilitates the
application of our law of cure. 
42
LECTURE II.
  I shall devote this hour to a development of some of the general
principles of our school, including a philosophical definition of our
law of cure, a clear perception of which is absolutely necessary to a
successful study and  an intelligent application of the therapeutic
properties of our drugs, and their modus operandi in disease.
  Before, however, entering upon a description of the external and
internal properties of  our drugs, it will be advisable to spend a few
hours in explaining the various technical definitions which frequently
occur in our school, and in acquainting those among you, who have
not as yet had an opportunity of  looking into our method of treat-
ment, with  the necessary details  regarding the mode  of making
homoeopathic preparations, the utensils and manipulations which are
resorted  to  for that purpose, an  explanation of various  technical
expressions, such as trituration, attenuation, potency,  dilution, and
so forth.  It is  likewise desirable that you should have a knowledge
of the non-medicinal vehicles which we use in preparing our attenu-
ations, such as sugar  of milk, alcohol, globules, etc.: in one word,
it  behooves every homoeopathic  physician  to  possess  a general
knoAvledge of the manner in  which a crude drug is changed into a
remedial agent.
  Many among you, being already fully acquained with these details,
may feel disposed to deem their recital superfluous.  To all second
course students, young practitioners, or young gentlemen who have
had the  advantage of studying with older practitioners, these pre-
liminary details must undoubtedly seem  tedious;  but let us  not
forget that there are  those among us who come here for  the first
time, and who  have not yet had an opportunity of seeing or hearing
much in the way of homoeopathic technicalities.   For their sakes I
shall be obliged to tire some of you with a few repetitions.
  It is your interest, gentlemen, that I should not take anything for
granted.   You may perhaps recollect one of Moliere's immortal
comedies, where a gentleman who had risen to fortune and to a
position in  society, engaged a professor of philosophy to give him
a private course of lectures on metaphysics.  The professor said to
him, " I suppose you understand Latin, sir ?"  To which the gentle-
man replied, " Oh, yes, sir, but you had better talk to  me as if I
knew nothing  about  it."   This student chose the true  mode of
learning.
  Keep it constantly before your mind's  eye that a professor of
medicine is not an infallible mortal, Avere that mortal  even Hahne-
mann.  I trust that I shall  never permit myself to lay before you
facts Avhich only exist in my oavu imagination and are not substan-
tiated by experience.  Nevertheless, I shall at times offer inferences
and suggestions; I shall lead your minds into the higher regions of
thought, and endeavor to  explain the law under which the facts of
homoeopathic therapeutics are grouped in harmonious relations.   At
such times I trust that you will ever find my mind as free from par-
tizan dogmatism as I  desire your minds to be.  "Prove all things
and hold fast that Avhich is good  !"  Let this be your maxim in all
your studies.  Genuine faith is the acknowledgment of a truth that
shines as such in the interiors of the mind.   This should be the faith 
PRACTICAL  CHARACTER OF HOMOEOPATHY.
43
of a student* of Homoeopathy.  If a statement does  not seem clear
and convincing, examine, interrogate, discuss;  you will always find
me and my colleagues willing to mete out to you the full measure
of justice.
  My duty to you, gentlemen, does not consist in making a display
of learning; it is of a far more elevated and  useful nature.  You
have come here to obtain  a knowledge of Medicine generally, and
more particularly of the manner in  Avhich diseases are treated in
accordance with the homoeopathic law.  Our system of Therapeutics
is exceedingly democratic.   If you look into Hahnemann's Materia
Medica Pura, you will there find scarcely a single word of Latin or
Greek.  The action of every drug is described in the  simple lan-
guage  of the people.   These drugs were proved by Hahnemann's
disciples and their friends.   By proving, we mean that persons in
health swallow a portion of the drug, in order to ascertain how  it
Avill  affect them.   The effects of the drugs  were collected  and
recorded in the words of the prover; hence, in the original lan-
guage, you will find many expressions among these provings which
are not at all received as  classical, and  might mislead  one who  is
not thoroughly acquainted with the idiomatic singularities  of the
German people.   Among the provings of Chamomile, for example,
we frequently meet with this expression: "sensation as if the heart
should be squeezed off."  By heart, the common people in Germany
mean the pit  of  the  stomach; and  by this  symptom the prover
simply meant to convey the idea  that he experienced a very hard
and  painful pressure in the prascordial region, such as is generally
accompanied by anxiety and shortness of breath.  That this is the
meaning of the distress thus announced as a pressure as though the
heart should be squeezed off" results from the accompanying expres-
sions immediately preceding or succeeding this symptom.
  Physicians have long since found out that diseases may be named,
but cannot be treated, much less cured, with Latin  or Greek.  In
order to treat diseases successfully, you have to be correct diagnos-
ticians, in other words you  have to know what  the matter is; but
next to this  knoAvledge, it is likewise of the utmost importance that
you should have an accurate knowledge of the true action of drugs
upon the organism  in  health, not only of their toxicological effects
as we find them recorded in old-school works on toxicology; but of
the more delicate  shades of action which may be  observed through-
out all the ramifications of the sentient nervous system.  You will
find  the action of our drugs delineated with remarkable accuracy
and completeness  in Hahnemann's Materia Medica.  But their study
would require more toil and time than you can afford, in the begin-
ning of your  professional  career,  to bestow upon  a careful  and
thoughtful perusal of this laborious work; moreover, themultitude
and apparent sameness of the  symptoms might puzzle you.  It is
my duty to present this subject  to you in a more digested  and
practical form.
  I Avould not have you  understand that one or two courses of
lectures will enable you to dispense Avith all further study on your
part.  All I can  do, in the  short period Avhich  is allotted to our 
44
LECTURE II.
lectures, is to give you such a knowledge of the curative properties
of our drugs as shall  enable you to step  to the bedside^ of your
patients, Avith the confidence of men Avho need not be afraid of the
enemy they haA~e to encounter.  Nevertheless, a case may turn up,
even  at  the  commencement of your  professional  career,  Avhere,
instead of prescribing for your patient upon the spot, you may deem
it  expedient to first consult  your records.  If  you improve your
opportunities for study, as all young gentlemen who  mean to devote
their  lives to the service of suffering humanity ought, such a diffi-
culty will never occur in an acute  case, requiring  the immediate
interference of the physician; but in a chronic case,  in  a functional
or organic disorder  of long  standing, you  may have to fall back
upon a Manual or Repertory, before making a prescription.
   A perusal of our Materia Medica will confirm to you my state-
ment that in style and manner it is as simple as it is rich  and vast
in its therapeutic aspect.  It shall be my endeavor, and it will be my
pleasure  to shoAV to you the perfect applicability of this Materia
Medica to the successful treatment of all curable diseases.  You will
find that the characteristics, or, as we term them, the pathognomonic
symptoms of all known diseases are contained among the results of
our provings with sufficient accuracy and  fulness to  admit of the
application of our great law "similia similibus  curantur," to all
curable cases of disease.
   Gentlemen, let us pause here for a few moments, and look at the
practical character of the homoeopathic system of treatment.  You
are aware that our literature abounds in popular works on Practice.
There is hardly a family of ordinary  intelligence  and education,
Avhere the mother, an elder  sister,  or some other member  of the
flock, is not more or less acquainted with the use  of  some of our
drugs  in all ordinary cases.  Hahnemann Avas the most democratic
practitioner  of Medicine that  ever shook the old  oligarchy of
medical dogmatism  to its foundations.   The popular  literature of
our school is  the  logical and inevitable consequence of his mode
of criticising the old abuses and of treating the new truths.   Some
of our popular treatises  on  Homoeopathy, most of  which are pub-
lished under  the title  of " Domestic Physicians," have reached as
many as six and even more editions. Hering's  Domestic  has gone
through eleven editions in Germany.
   In the 25th number of the North-American Homoeopathic Jour-
nal,  the mention of this work is  accompanied by the following-
remarks  signed  by  T. F. Pomeroy: "In  the last  number of the
journal, I perceive that Dr. Peters handles  quack and  secret medi-
cines Avithout gloves, as they justly deserve. I  could  not  but Avisb,
while reading his article,  that he or  some other one competent to do
justice to the subject, would take up the  matter of  the  domestic
practice of Homoeopathy, as taught in the thousand and one treatises
called 'Domestic Physicians,' and the practice necessarily growing
out of the publication of such works, of furnishing families Avith
'domestic cases  of medicines.'  My own observation has satisfied
me that this system, on the whole, has been productive of vastly more
injury than good, both to the public and to the profession, and it is 
PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF  HOMOEOPATHY.         45
high time that it should be discountenanced and discontinued.  In
my opinion, the use of pellets or globules, and the attempt to popu-
larize and domesticate Homoeopathy, have done more to degrade and
injure our system, than any or all other influences combined.  The
introduction of the  homoeopathic system  and its zealous propaga-
tion, would naturally  and necessarily  excite both  prejudice and
opposition, because the interests of others were jeopardized thereby;
but the shafts of ridicule and contempt that have incessantly assailed
its onward progress, have been invited by the folly that has begotten
a progeny of  medical  literature, noted  particularly for  its crudity
and rapid increase.
  " I hope that the time is not far distant, Avhen more attention shall
be paid  to the publication of books for the profession, and  the
talents and time of  our brethren no longer wasted upon ' Domestic
Practices' which  seem chiefly to level  us and our  system to  the
position  of quacks  and  quackery.   So soon  as its  adherents and
exponents  shall  learn to treat it with the respect  to which it is
entitled,  our system of medicine will command even from its oppo-
nents both recognition and respect, although it may not secure their
adhesion to its precepts or principles."
  The physician who  penned this paragraph is just one century
behind this age  of democratic progress.  Let your  motto be  the
beautiful verse of the old poet Terentius: "Nullius humani a me
alienum puto."  I feel interested in everything that  concerns man !
With this feeling in  your hearts, you will always desire to render
the beauties of art and the majestic  movements of science accessible
to the masses of our people.   "Let your  light shine on  the house-
tops,  do not  hide  it under  the  bushel!"  This great  precept is
emphatically applicable to the teaching and  practice of medicine.
The man who would keep the light of medical truth shut out from
the popular  mind, ignores the spirit  of our institutions, and is
utterly regardless of the portentous signs of the times.  The gloomy
shadows of the  old dogmatism are fast flitting  out  of sight before
the rising sun of truth.  Shall we again bow to the mystic conclaves
of bewigged and bepowdered pedants,  or shall  it be our endeavor
to cause the star of Homoeopathy to shine into  the  palaces of the
great and the  cottages of the  poor and the lowly ?
   Dr. Adam Smith has called universities the " dull repositories of
exploded opinions."  Let our university be a beacon-light of truth
to every honest inquirer.  I regard the propagation of our doctrines
among the people  as one of  the  first duties of a homoeopathic
physician, young or old.  Use  all honorable  means to accomplish
this purpose.  Be always ready to relieve the sick, and do it success-
fully if possible.  Enlist the editors of journals in your favor.   Get
them to publish, every now and then, an editorial paragraph making
favorable mention of  Homoeopathy.  Publish popular  tracts,  and
every few Aveeks scatter  them broadcast throughout the length and
breadth  of the community where you happen to practice.  As often
as your time and means Avill allow, give a lecture to the people;  if
possible, publish some popular periodical on Homoeopathy, and get
your friends to share the expense by liberal  contributions.  Never 
46
LECTURE II.
 mind the croaking of your opponents about quackery; this is nothing
 but the silly twaddle of impotent fools, who resort to abuse in the
 place of argument. All the great and liberal minds among medical
 practitioners have constantly endeavored to popularize the practice
 of their art.  Listen to the words  of one of the  noblest and  most
 gifted among them, I mean Benjamin Rush.  In his lecture on "the
 causes which have retarded the progress of medicine," he gives this
 soul-stirring advice to the young gentlemen who enjoyed the privi-
 lege of listening to this great teacher:
  " Let us strip our profession of everything that looks like mystery
 and imposture, and clothe medical  knowledge in a dress so simple
 and intelligible, that it may become a part of academical education
 in all our seminaries of learning.  Truth is simple upon all subjects,
 but  upon those which  are  essential  to  the general happiness of
 mankind, it is obvious to  the meanest capacities.  There is no man
 so simple, that cannot be  taught to cultivate grain, and no woman
 so devoid of understanding as to be incapable of learning the art of
 making that grain into  bread.   And shall the means of preserving
 our  health, by the culture and preparation of aliment,  be so intel-
 ligible, and  yet the means of restoring it, Avhen lost,  be  so abstruse
 as to require years of  study to discover and  apply them?  To
 suppose this, is  to call in question the goodness of the  Supreme
 Being, and  to believe that he acts  without unity and system in all
 His works.  In no one of the acts of man do we behold more weak-
 ness and error than in our present modes of education.   We teach
 our sons words at the expense of things.  We teach them what was
 done two thousand years ago, and conceal from them what is doing
 every  day.   We  instruct them  in the heathen  mythology, but
 neglect to teach them the principles  of the religion of their country.
 We  teach them to predict eclipses  and the return of comets, from
 which no physical advantages worth naming have ever been derived;
 but we give them no instruction in the signs which precede general
 and  individual diseases.   How long shall  the human  mind bend
 beneath the usages of ancient and  barbarous times? When shall
we cease to be mere scholars, and become wise philosophers, well-
 informed citizens and useful  men ?
  " The essential principles  of medicine are very few.   They are
 moreover plain.   There is not a graduate in the arts, in  any of our
 colleges, who does not learn things of more difficulty  than a system
 of just principles in medicine.
  "All the morbid effects of heat and cold, of intemperance in eating
 and drinking, and  in the exercises of the body and mind, mio-ht be
 taught Avith as much ease as the multiplication table.
  "All the knowledge which is attainable of diseases by the pulse,
might be acquired at a less expense of time and labor than is spent
in committing the contents of a Latin grammar to memory.
  " The operation of bleeding might  be taught with less trouble
than is taken to teach boys to draw,  upon paper or slate,  the fio-Ures
in Euclid.
  "A knowledge of the  virtues and doses  of the most  active and
useful medicines, might be acquired with greater facility, and much 
            PRACTICAL CHARACTER  OF HOMOEOPATHY.          47

more pleasure, than the rules for composing syllogisms laid down in
our system of logic.
  " In support of the truth of  the opinions I am now advancing, let
us take a Adew of the effects of simplicity, which has been introduced
into  the art of war by one of the nations of Europe.  A few obvious
principles have  supplied  the  place  of volumes upon  tactics;  and
private  citizens  have become  greater  generals, and peasants more
irresistible soldiers, in a few weeks,  than  their predecessors in war
Avere after the instruction and  experience of fifteen or twenty years.
Could changes equally simple  and general be  introduced by means
of our schools into the practice of  medicine, no arithmetic  could
calculate its advantages.   Millions of lives Avould be saved by it.
  " In  thus  recommending the  general diffusion of medical know-
ledge, by making  it a part of  an academical education, let it not be
supposed that I wish to see the exercise of medicine abolished as a
regular profession.   Casualties which render operations in surgery
necessary, and such diseases  as occur rarely, will always require
professional aid; but the knowledge that is necessary for these pur-
poses may be -soon acquired; and two or three persons, separated
from other pursuits, would be sufficient to apply it to a city consisting
of forty thousand people."
   These are the opinions of a  great and good teacher of our profes-
sion. The healing art, as such, is a very simple thing; and  this
beau ideal of it, as  foreshadowed by the illustrious Rush, finds its
realization in the homoeopathic practice.
   The study of the therapeutic properties of our drugs  may be
reduced to the  simplest formulas.   There does  not seem to be any
immediate necessity for a knowledge of all the intricacies of physi-
ology or pathological anatomy, in  order to become  a successful
practitioner.  A physician should undoubtedly know all that which
is practically useful to him as  a restorer of health; but pathological
anatomy, as Rokitansky studies it, pursuing the material disorders
of disease in the  dead body  with as  much  tenacity as Columbus
went in search of a new continent, or  Le Verrier  hunts up a  new
star, is  something comparatively distinct from, or  independent of,
the plain and practical wants  of the  sick-room.
   Gentlemen, a  man may be the leading  pathological  anatomist of
the age, and yet he may be a poor physician; a man may be a great
physiological chemist, and yet a most unsuccessful practitioner; a
man may be a second Cruveilhier, and yet lose more patients than
his  unlearned colleague who  only has a general knoAvledge of the
main facts of anatomy: a man may even be a  most learned patholo-
gist, and yet make exceedingly inadequate prescriptions.  Why is all
this  ?   Why may a practitioner treat  diseases, and treat them suc-
cessfully, Avithout wading through the almost bottomless pathological
learning of  the  Vienna School ?  It is undoubtedly true that thera-
peutics should not be, and  indeed cannot be,  separated from physi-
ology  and pathology, but,  in the present state of these  sciences,
they can only  inform us in  a very general  way, how  far, and in
Avhat specific manner, the healthy functions of the organism have
been invaded by disease.  It has taken years of hard labor and bitter 
48
LECTURE II.
 disappointments to  reach  this point; but now when it has been
 reached ; noAV, when the organic functions, the nature of the secre-
 tions, the mission of the nervous system and the mutual relations
 of organs  are tolerably Avell  known, avc find that the pathology of
 disease is not only cleared up, but simplified by the flood of light
 Avhich the patient toil of our cotemporaries has shed upon it.  Any
 intelligent person may be taught Avhether a headache is of a conges-
 tiAre, bilious or nervous character; any person may learn to diagnose
 pleuris}^, pneumonia, typhus or any other disease of common occur-
 rence, and may be  made acquainted with the course and natural
 terminations of  these disorders.  Why should a knoAvledge of  the
 therapeutic properties  of our drugs, and of  Avhat constitutes their
 homoeopathicity to certain  diseases, be more difficult?
   It  is  not a knoAvledge of  the ten thousand minutiae of disease,
 that secures success  in practice ; but the possession of that intuitive
 power of vision, that inborn faculty  to appreciate the meaning and
 relation  of phenomena, as indicating the degree or character of an
 existing disturbance of the vital forces;  added to  this  must be a
 corresponding tact  to  determine what remedy is  adapted  to the
 case.  This tact may be sharpened, it can  never be Avholly acquired,
 by experience.  Common sense, backed by an appropriate amount
 of technical information, is a far  more valuable gift to a practitioner
 than  whole volumes of abstract science.  I  would not  discourage
 you for  the world from penetrating as deeply as you  please into
 the marvellous intricacies of the medical  sciences;  I Avould simply
 have  you understand, that, in order to diagnose and successfully
 treat  a case of pulmonary tuberculosis, it is not necessary that you
 should have investigated  the  inmost  nature of a tubercle as a
 physiological product.  If a  physician's taste and genius lead him
 to make  such minute investigations,  he  may become one  of the few
 who lead generations onward on the  path of science;  but in a prac-
 tical course of lectures, where, in the brief space of five months, the
 vast field of therapeutics has  to be traveled over, it is of  the utmost
 importance to the student, that the prominent traits of every drug-
 disease, and consequently of  every corresponding pathological dis-
 turbance should  be  presented, to the exclusion of  a multitude of
 details which only serve to  embarrass  the memory and to tarnish
 the brightness of the genuine  fabric.
  Physiologism, by which  I  mean  the  abuse of physiology in  its
 applications to the treatment of disease, has led-to the most contra-
 dictory results.  All the different ramifications of the physiological
 school are either guilty of the  most frightful excesses or of the most
 lamentable omissions.  The  human  organism is  a compound  of
 organs each of which is endowed with certain physiological proper-
 ties or forces.  The doctrine is that the play of the functions is
 determined by the structure of the organ; that the liver for instance
 secretes bile by virtue of its peculiar organization.   What else can
a man m his senses understand by this pompous nonsense than that
the liver secretes bile, because it is the liver, and the  urine trickles
into the bladder, because it is the bladder and not the brain ?   W hat
horrible abuses does this physiological organicism lead to in practice' 
PHYSIOLOGICAL THERAPEUTICS.
49
If the secretion of bile  slackens, the  liver must be whipped up by
calomel; if the glands  in the mouth secrete too much saliva, they
are tied up by an astringent; abdominal torpor is removed by stir-
ring up the intestinal mucous lining with a dose of salts or castor-oil;
the heart  is hushed by  Digitalis, the  brain by Morphine.  It is the
organ itself that is held accountable for its functional derangements.
Theoretically the existence of diseases or morbific essences is denied;
in their places we have abnormal physiological functions.
  Gentlemen, it is of importance that  you should have a perception
of the teachings of  the  Physiological school;  a logical comprehen-
sion of our own doctrines hinges upon it.  The Physiological school
does not distinguish between the organism in health and the organ-
ism in disease, between vital and morbid forces, between drugs and
aliments.  Muriatic acid is food for a dyspeptic stomach; Mercury
for the absorbents when they require stimulation; blood-letting will
relieve the brain  from pressure, and will lessen the heart's labor of
propelling the  column of blood through  the  organism.   " Physio-
logical" and "therapeutic" have become convertible terms;  in the
crucible of subversive  physiologism  the  normal functions  of life,
and  the  abnormal  functions of disease are  amalgamated without
distinction under the cover of seeming principles which make chaos
look  like  order, and death-harboring confusion  like life-saving
harmony.
  The Homoeopathic School does distinguish between the harmonic
forces of life, and the subversive forces of disease ;  between aliments
which support and develop the organism in health, and drugs which
tend to disturb the functions and gradually to undermine and destroy
the organism.   What would become of  the human organism, if the
inmost essence of vitality, the life-force of an organ, could be altered
by disease ?  " If the salt has lost its  savor,  wherewith will  it be
salted ?"   Not only would the individual man perish, but the race,
the very idea of humanity would become extinct. The vital sphere,
or force, of which  the  individuals of our race are individualized
manifestations,  is just as essential to  the preservation of humanity
in its present form, as the heat and light of the sun are essential to
the preservation  of the  varied individualities of material nature.
The vital  sphere Avhich  emanates from  this sun, is not sufficient for
the preservation and development of organized life. There must be
a vitalizing sphere  back of the  sun's heat, or within it, or round
about it, I do not care where you locate this fountain-spring of life,
—from which the sun itself derives the power to animate material
nature ;  the moment an organized life-form is cut off from the influ-
ence of this supreme life-sphere, the sun, so far from preserving the
form, destroys  it.   This life-sphere, which  constitutes the  inmost
principle of every human form, can never be tainted by disease, any
more  than the sun's rays are altered in  their essential constitution,
if they engender poisonous exhalations from  stagnant Avaters and
decayed vegetable substances. These pernicious results are owing to
the medium  upon Avhich the sun  operates.   As long as the sun
shines upon pure floAving water, the limpid fluid will not be rendered
turbid by his rays; but if they  should  fall  for any length of time 
50
LECTURE II.
upon a stagnant pool filled Avith  decaying animal matter, you will
soon  see  this turbid liquid  teem with  myriads  of  living bodies
hardly perceptible to the naked eye.
  The vital rays act similarly to the rays of the material sun.   As
long as they act upon an organism existing in normal conditions of
nutrition, exercise, atmospheric stimuli,  and  mental  and passional
influences: they not only preserve, but develop, strengthen and
beautify the human  form; but if these normal conditions are dis-
turbed by exposure to dampness, to keen winds, to a draught of air,
to excessive heat  or cold, or by privations of food or drink, by
excessive fatigue, by depressing or exciting mental or  moral causes ;
the vital  rays no longer acting upon an harmonious medium, cannot
possibly develop harmonious results.
  In  the analysis of health and  disease, the  Physiological school
does  not seem to  ascend beyond the circumstances Avhich, in the
eyes of the philosophical  physician, simply furnish suitable oppor-
tunities for the invasion of the organism by morbific principles.  To
the adherents of the Physiological school, these abnormal  circum-
stances which  the philosophical physicians of all  nations and ages
have  simply regarded as  the  exciting causes of disease, the cav.sse
occasionales as they are termed, sufficiently account for the functional
derangements  of the organism.  According to some they excite an
undue degree of vital reaction ;  according to others this reaction is
depressed beyond the normal standard.   Broussais Avas  haunted by
the ghost of inflammation ; Brown knew of but one  disease, diathesis,
a sort of  general susceptibility to physiological derangements, the
intensity of Avhich he measured numerically as it Avere, by the degree
of excitability manifested by the tissues. The treatment corresponded
with these contradictory hypotheses.  The School of Broussais, upon
whose banner Avas inscribed "Irritation and  Inflammation," bled,
froze  and purged patients  to death; Brown who proclaimed "Incita-
bility" as his beacon-light,  sought  to  stimulate the' prostrated
organism by food, alcohol and opium.   " By their fruits ye  shall
know them."  Doctrines which led  to  such monstrous  aberrations
in practice, must have  been radically wrong.   The  Physiological
school ignored the very existence of diseases; pathological  lesions
which are simply the effect or result of those morbific essences which
really and truly constitute the disturbing causes in derangements of
the functions, were mistaken for, or confounded with there essential
morbific forces;  hence the wild and abusive stimulation in practice,
hence an  absurd and  inhuman butchery in the  place of rational
treatment.
  Can a thing be essentially good and bad at  the same time ?   If
the inmost vitality  of the organ si m can be  vitiated, how  is' this
vitiated vitality to be restored to a condition of harmony ?  If the
core is corrupt, how  is it to be repaired ?   For the  sake  of truth let
us  adhere to common sense.   Is it not evident that there must be
some restorative energy left, which the  blighting  hand of disease
could not touch ?  What  is this energy but the essence of  life in
man,  the very principle that never perishes and therefore can never
be tainted by disease ?  This inmost vitality, this  livin°- essence is 
HOMEOPATHY EXPLAINED.
51
not a reasoning or discriminating power;  it feeds the tubercle and
the polypus as well as the healthy muscle  and nerve.   It is the
business of the vital force  to  assimilate food to  the tissues and to
repair their Avaste; but it behooves man's reason to determine, out
of what materials the thread  of life shall be spun.  What a folly
ever to accuse the vital essence in  man !  Diseases are adventitious
principles or forces, super-induced or eliminated in the surrounding
spheres by man's deviation  from the laws of divine harmony.  Look
around you, gentlemen, at the mechanism of social life !  Is it possi-
ble that the disorders which taint society, should not have led to the
development of morbific forces which, although primarily resulting
from man's transgressions, in their turn fan  the fire  of disease in man?
This process is constantly taking place on a limited scale and in a
more specific  form.  We know that puerperal peritonitis, typhus,
yellow fever, may not  be epidemic;  but Ave  likewise knoAV that, if
such patients are huddled together in badly ventilated hospitals, or
crowded districts, deprived  of  proper attendance, pure air and water,
clean linen and the comforts of sweet and gentle love, an epidemic
principle  may very speedily be eliminated which may spread the
havoc of disease far and near.
   This humanity is an  organism, the harmony of which is depending
upon laws that cannot be violated  with  impunity.  It  is idle to
suppose that God's providence should not have designed rules and
regulations for the government of his creatures.  He governs brute
nature by laAvs; how much more a Avorld  of  rational souls!  "And
why take  ye  thought  for raiment!  Behold the lilies of the  field,
how they  grow! they toil not, neither do  they spin, yet I say unto
you that even Solomon, in  all  his glory, was not arrayed like one of
these."  "Behold the fowls of the  air; for they soav not, neither do
they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them.  Are ye not much better than they ?"  " Therefore I say unto
you, take  no  thought  for your life, what  ye shall eat, or what  ye
shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not
the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ?"  " Wherefore,
if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morroAV
is cast into the oven, shall  he  not  much more  clothe  you, oh  ye of
little faith !"   " Therefore take no thought, saying,—Avhat shall we
eat ? or what shall Ave  drink ?  or, AvhereAvithal shall Ave be clothed ?
For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of  all  these
things."   " But seek ye first the kingdom  of God  and his righteous-
ness, and all these things shall be added unto you!"
   We say then that Humanity is an  organism for which the Divine
love and wisdom designed  a code of laws.  If these laAvs are obeyed,
the  evolutions of this great  organism Avill be  performed with a
matchless harmony; if these  laws are not  obeyed,  the  opposite
results must ensue.   War, pestilence and famine desolate our globe,
and the furies of hell  lacerate the hearts  of  men.  Hence Ave infer
that the divine laAvs are not obeyed.
   Among the atmospheric  disorders, the  subterranean convulsions
and the electrical perturbations Avhich visit us at more or less regular
periods, the existence of diseases constitutes another  characteristic 
52
LECTURE II.
sign of man's deviation from the laA\rs of divine order.  As I stated
in my Introductory, the  biblical account of the original sin is all-
sufficient for therapeutic purposes.   Man yielded to the first tempta-
tion, and  this  trangression opened the flood-gate  of  evil.   The
organism became tainted with morbid predispositions or  tendencies
to disease, and morbific principles were  gradually excited in the
spheres  from which  man derives vitalizing support for  his bodily
organs.   This now constitutes  the course  of disease;  in certain
abnormal  conditions of the system, such  as  exposure,  privation,
mental depression, some morbific force is enabled to excite  a corres-
ponding morbid tendency into an active disturbance of the physio-
logical  functions.  The morbific force acts as a cause,  an active,
inseminating principle; the morbid predisposition is the germinal
seed that  is acted  upon, and is kindled into a pathological lesion
which constitutes  the offspring, as it were, of this subversive in-
semination.
  This  is the theological view of the  origin of disease from the
standing point of  our school.   You may take an  historico-natural
vieAV  of the same subject.   Practically, the results are the same.
Take  the  existence of diseases for granted, and you have the  same
trinitary series of facts: a morbid tendency as the basis ;  a morbific
force as the ♦inseminating principle, and a pathological lesion as the
result of its action upon the former.
  Therapeutically, both the theologico-spiritual and  the philosophi-
co-natural view of the origin of diseases, lead to the same results.
Pathological lesions are acted upon by means of drugs. Theologically
we  are led to believe that drugs are the representatives or  products
of sin in material nature, the embodiments of evil principles ; philo-
sophically we arrive at a similar knowledge by the  slow process of
experimentation.  By swallowing  portions of a drug, suitably pre-
pared and in perfectly normal conditions of the system, Ave develop
groups  of symptoms that are found to be essentially similar to the
disturbances  resulting from the action of morbific forces upon the
morbid  predispositions of  the organism.   From this similarity we
infer that drugs are the products of the same forces which produce
pathological  lesions in the  human organism.  Now, a pathological
lesion being given, what is  a therapeutist  to do in order to remove
or neutralize it ?   Why, he acts upon it by means of the drug Avhich
is the product of the same cause that  developed  the pathological
lesion.  A previous knoAvledge of this drug must of course have
been  attained by  experiments upon the healthy.   As soon  as the
drug-power is made to act  upon the morbific force which seeks to
destroy the organic  tissues, this  force will  turn  to the drug  as
naturally  as the needle turns to the pole. The drug-power is its twin
sister, an union with which is sanctioned by the laws of God's Order.
In  proportion  as  the  morbific force  and the drug-force  become
united or amalgamated as it were,  in the molecules of the drugs, the
vital power of the organism begins to react and a process of cure is
inaugurated,  which, if adequately maintained,  will  inevitably lead to
recovery.  It is by the very terms of our laAV that this process of
cure  takes place.  The similarity between the  morbific force and 
HOMCEOPATHY EXPLAINED.
53
the drug-force is  greater than that  between the morbific force and
the morbid predisposition of the organism.  It is by virtue of this
superior attractive affinity existing between the morbific force and the
drug-force, that the organism is ultimately freed from  disease.   It
would be interesting, but it is not material to know what these forces
are in their inmost essence.  Whether they are  electric, magnetic,
aromal or odic forces; a comprehension of the general idea of Ho-
moeopathy is  neither obscured by the absence, nor Avould it be mate-
rially sharpened by the possession of this knowledge.  Hahnemann
looks upon the morbific essence as a  dynamic principle  Avhich,  as
embodied in a drug,  assumes  a semi-spiritual  and semi-material
character.  The morbific essence is certainly inferior to the vital
force, for it is only exceptionally that it succeeds in destroying the
living  organism.
  The question may be asked:  if the  drug-force and the morbific
force are identical, how happens it that  the drug-force does not
kindle the same pathological lesion that characterises the action of
the morbific force ?  This seeming anomaly can easily be accounted
for.
  The morbific force acts upon the  morbid predisposition, and sub-
verts the organism  from first principles to ultimates.   The drug-
force, on the  contrary, does not act  upon the morbid predisposition,
which it leaves passive, in a state of potency; it simply impresses the
external tissues as it were, setting up a purely external disturbance
of the functions,  of  limited duration, though sufficiently charac-
teristic to reveal the therapeutic range of the drug.  In a case of
natural disease, the morbific force acts  internally, directly or imme-
diately upon the morbid predisposition; in a case of artificial or drug-
disease, the morbific force acts externally, indirectly or mediately
through the material molecules of the drug. Hahnemann has applied
the term " disease" to both the natural and the artificial disturbances,
although there is this  difference between the two, that the natural
disease is an internal, and the artificial disease a purely external dis-
order.  Hence we might say that a  cure consists  in externalizing an
internal disease, or, in other words,  in reducing it to the limited and
harmless dimensions of the homoeopathic remedial agent.
  Gentlemen, you may find it necessary to spend years in elaborating
the principles of  our science to your own  minds  Avith clearness and
logical consistency.   He who would enjoy a rational conception of
the homoeopathic doctrine, must not be afraid of  elevating his mind
into the very highest regions of thought.   The study of first princi-
ples is eminently useful to  a homoeopathic practitioner.   It consoli-
dates his faith,  and yields weapons  wherewith  he may repel the
assaults of open enemies and unmask the treason of deceitful friends.
The writings of  some of  our authors tend to  bias the minds  of
unsuspecting  students.  In a  review of Dr. Headland's treatise
" On the Action of Medicines," Dr.  Peters, for  instance, uses the
following language in the last May number of the North American
Homoeopathic Journal:
   " Poor  Headland, he  cannot see that similarity in a hybrid,  or
compound;  that  it consists of a certain amount of difference as well 
54
LECTURE II.
 as of resemblance; that a similar thing differs as well as resembles ;
 that a similar action exerts, not an identical, but a somewhat altera-
 tive influence; that similar or homoeopathic remedies exert a chang-
 ing or altering action, which differs only in degree, not in kind, from
 simple alterative or true allceopathic remedies, or even antagonistic
 or true antipathic remedies; for  antagonism is merely an _extreme
 degree of difference, Avhile similarity is a lesser degree of difference.
 The two laws (contraria contrariis and similia similibus curantur)
 are  the  complements  of  each other; they  are  not diametrically
 opposed to each other; there is  a  bond of union and  similarity
 between them.  Identity and antagonism are the opposites of each
 other; similarity is not the  opposite of antagonism, but is merely a
 lesser degree of difference, Avhile antagonism is the greatest."
   The essential distinction  between Homoeopathy and the old sys-
 tems of Medicine is done away with in this paragraph.  Antagonism
 and similarity only differ in degree. The very soul of Homoeopathy
 is killed outright by  the sophistry embodied in these few  lines.
 Even the most superficial student of Homoeopathy knows that the
 spirit of this  science,  in  Hahnemann's mind, Avas opposed to the
 common method of treatment, and that the formula " similia simili-
 bus" was promulgated  by the discoverer of Homoeopathy as a means
 of determining  the remedial  agent Avhich, in a given case, Avould
 operate in a manner  absolutely the reverse of the established  prac-
 tices.  A  physician Avho overlooks  this cardinal  distinction, is
 neither prepared to accept nor to practise the homoeopathic doctrine.
 He does not understand its purport, and he crowds into his practice
 any thing and every thing that the  most unprincipled eclecticism
 may flaunt upon  its banner.  This  may be perfectly legitimate
 practice from an empirical point of view,  but it is not homoeopathy,
 and I protest most solemnly against such teachings being  put  forth
 under her sacred segis.
   It is a  sad thing to see homoeopathic physicians treating diseases
 as though the  great law which, if properly understood and carried
 out, might  save  the world from physical and mental misery, reck-
 lessly disregarded by those who profess to believe in it.   The truth
 is they do not believe in it,  or else, which  amounts to the  same
 thing, they suffer themselves by the  glistening  infatuations of
 strange gods—an appearance of  allceopathic learning—to  be be-
 guiled  into the  pernicious fallacies of our opponents.  It may be
 flattering to one's vanity, to make an exhibition  of false learning
 in the midst of an old-fashioned crowd ; but how does this learning
 benefit the sacred  cause of  Truth?   Is our  watchword to  be
 " onward," or shall we  go  back to the flesh-pots of Egypt ?  Shall
 we engraft  our neAv Truth upon the old  Fable, and dig an abyss of
 medical error, deeper  and darker  than before?   Gentlemen, if we
 forsake principle; if we turn to empiricism and  eclecticism as our
 "pillar of  the cloud by day and  our pillar of fire by night," the
time will be when we shall be the meanest and most despised amono-
the tribe of medical Israel.
  BeAvare,  gentlemen, of the deceitful glories of the Physiological
 school.  BeAvare of its quicksands!  Young  physicians  especially 
HOMOEOPATHY EXPLAINED.
55
take a pride in confessing themsehres  the  partisans of this school.
With  microscope and crucible in hand, they expect to be led bv
physiology to the laboratory where the vital forces spin the thread
of life, and to lend a helping hand, as they understand it, in case the
functions should  not be carried on to suit  the judgment of the
observing creature.   If the   stomach does  not  secrete as much
gastric juice as it ought  to do, they pour a little Muriatic acid into
it to help it along, on the principle that Muriatic acid has the same
dissolving properties as gastric juice when out of the stomach; and
yet they might  knoAV that there must  be a vast difference between
gastric juice and Muriatic acid ; for gastric  juice is an organized
product  of the vital forces, and,  if no  longer subservient to the
supervisory  action of these forces, soon decays and  is radically
altered in all its essential properties.
  I have shown you how one branch of the Physiological school is
led to the most frightful excesses  in treatment.  There is another
branch Avhich  simply watches the natural course  of  pathological
lesions, and rejoices in doing nothing to abbreviate it.   Physiologi-
cal physicians either bleed, burn or blister  the poor patient, or else
they shrug their shoulders, and, as Hirschel in his excellent Avork on
Homoeopathy tauntingly remarks,  " hide their impotence or ignor-
ance behind an  embarrassed scepticism, or a dangerous indifference
Avhich leaves the patient to his fate.  Yes, the greatest  lights of the
allceopathic  school,  have  given over  Medicine to Nature.  Alas,
what shall  Ave say of Medicine, if the learned  pathologist, armed
with the Avhole apparatus of  modern  science, applies his stetho-
scope or his compasses to  the  patient's chest, and points out to the
astonished  layman  the spot  where the bloody infiltration, the
bronchial dilatation, the emphysematous  cell may be  found; if,
guided by the sounds of the heart, he furnishes an exact description
of the valvular disease; if he  demonstrates to the patient the size
of the liver, or the quantity of fatty matter it contains; if he gives
the anatomical  history of pneumonia,  and if, in spite of this tre-
mendous array of medical  science, he is finally compelled to confess
to his utter ignorance of positive and  infallible means  of relief; if,
for instance, a distinguished auscultator, like Skoda or Bock,  after
delighting his class  with  a lucid and correct  description of the
physical signs of pneumonia, has to tell them, that it is immaterial
whether they bleed  the patient, or give  him  Opium,  or Tartar
emetic, or Nitre, or  nothing at all?  Or, in a case of oedema  glot-
tidis, after describing the characteristic difference betAveen this dis-
ease and bronchitis, if the physiological physician has to prescribe
gum-water,  as if anxious not to dispute the palm with Nature?  If
Nature is sufficient to a cure, of Avhat use is all this array of science?
If the  science of healing is useless, avIiv not likewise  throw over-
board  pathology?"   Is it  the  business of  the physician solely to
track Nature with an observing eye, and to admire her multitudinous
manifestations of life ?   Is it not his duty to learn from her the art
of imitating her, and helping  her along, without interfering in her
operations ?  Alas, the  greatest masters of our  art are reduced to 
56
LECTURE III.
 the miserable shift of the expectant school, Avhich consists in looking
 on and doing nothing.
   The so-called Expectant Method, as this  system of treatment is
 termed, may be more agreeable to the patient than the old-fashioned
 bleeding,  blistering, and salivating methods, but it is not always
 very successful.  According to Diet!, for instance, who is physician-
 in chief to one of the Vienna Hospitals, fourteen out of one hundred
 and eighty-nine patients who were treated  expectantly  for pneu-
 monia, died;  this is one in about thirteen; whereas under homoeo-
 pathic treatment, only one in twenty-eight  died in Fleischmann's
 Hospital,  and out  of seventy-two  patients  not one died in the
 Petersburg Hospital.  The difference is  considerable, although the
 partisans of the expectant method claim the results  of homoeopathic
 treatment as  showing the superiority of their  own  method.   Not
 believing in the efficacy of small closes, they feel justified in claiming
 the brilliant results of our treatment for themselves.
  Gentlemen, you  have  a vast field before you.  The development
of therapeutic medicine  as a Science and an Art is the great pro-
blem of the future.  It is  your privilege to  engage in its solution.
May God  speed  the day when your efforts shall be crowned Avith
success!
                     LECTUEE   III.

     As I am standing here before you, the spirit of Hahnemann over-
   shadoAvs the flitting hour.  He is gone, and what is left us of him, is
   the echo of his fame, and the Avritten record of his earlier labors.
    _ As soon as ^Hahnemann had  published a systematic exposition of
   his doctrines in the Organon, he  set  about creating a  new Materia
   Medica in harmony with  them.  Already in the year 1805,  Hahne-
   mann had published a number of provings under the title:  Fragmenta
   de viribus medicaminum positivis, or fragments concerning the positive
   powers of  drugs.  This work contains a number of the characteristic
#  symptoms of several  of our more important drugs, obtained with
   massive doses of the  strongest known  preparation.  The Aconite-
   symptoms were  obtained from the watery extract  inspissated  by
   exposure to the sun.  These drug-effects Avere afterwards incorpo-
   rated in the  Materia Medica Pura, the first edition of which appeared
   in the year 1811, one year after the publication of the Organon
   This work was originally published in four volumes, and contains
   the provings of sixty-six drugs, most of Avhich constitute  to this day
   the staple  of our therapeutic agents.  All these  provings bear  the
   impress of reliability. They are the results of careful labor.   A
   number of enthusiastic and conscientious observers concurred in
   developing these drug-effects in their own persons by means of laro-e
   doses of the  strongest  preparations then in use.                  G
     In  1828,  Hahnemann  published  his  remarkable theory of  the 
PROVINGS AND VALUE OF SYMPTOMS.           57
chronic miasms.  In the course of my lectures this theory will be
explained and accounted  for. I  here allude  to it  simply for the
purpose of introducing to your acquaintance a vast addition to the
Materia Medica.
  Among the chronic miasms, of which Hahnemann admits three,
viz.: Psora, Syphilis and Sycosis, the psoric miasm is the most wide-
spread and inveterate; most of the chronic diseases which uoav afflict
humanity,  arise  from the  insidious  operations of psora.   In the
exposition which Hahnemann furnishes of  his theory, he states the
reasons which impelled  his mind to seek for more thorough and
reliable means of combating the disorders to Avhich the human
family is subject from infancy to old  age.   The  drugs which had
been  proved so far, and which  were used  by the homoeopathic
physicians in the treatment of diseases, were found insufficient by
Hahnemann  and his disciples to effectually remove the numerous
chronic ailments that have desolated  this  fair Avorld  of  ours  for
thousands  of years.   Hahnemann set his genius to work, and
searched for, and discovered a series  of agents which he thought
had been designed by the Creator for  the great purpose of healing
the chronic diseases that  had so far baffled  all the resources of art.
Inasmuch  as most of these diseases were supposed to originate in
the psoric miasm, most  of these newly discovered remedies were
therefore directed against it, and designated by Hahnemann as anti-
psorics.  We do not propose,  at this  stage of our  course, to inquire
into the validity of Hahnemann's theories; we simply Avish to advert
to the fact  that the large number of drugs, the provings of which
are recorded  in the five volumes  known  under the  title  of the
" Chronic Diseases, and their Homoeopathic Treatment," Avere sup-
posed by Hahnemann to be possessed of  specific powers to heal,
and gradually to exterminate all chronic maladies.  Several drugs
which had already been proved at former periods, and the  provings
of which had been incorporated in the four volumes of the Materia
Medica Pura, such as Sulphur, Phosphoric acid, and others, Avere re-
proved in  different Avays;  neAv symptoms were obtained, and the
whole of them, old as well as new provings, were  transferred to the
"Chronic Diseases" as an  integral portion of the great anti-psoric
Materia Medica.  The volumes entitled "Chronic Diseases," embrace
about a hundred drugs, more or less, all of  Avhich are distinguished
by an almost interminable array of symptoms.
   Gentlemen, on contrasting the provings contained in  the five
volumes entitled "Chronic Diseases," with the provings of the four
volumes of the original Materia Medica Pura, we discover remark-
able differences as regards clearness  and characteristic positiveness
of delineation. In the original Materia  Medica Pura, every symptom
bears upon some well marked disease; with a little  tact, and a pre-
vious knowledge of existing diseases, the practitioner has very little
difficulty to discover among the head-symptoms of those drugs,  the
various forms of headache, congestive, bilious, nervous, rheumatic,
and so forth, to Avhich the respective drugs  are homoeopathic.  The
same may be said of the alvine and thoracic symptoms, of the symp-
toms of the special senses, of the general nervous  symptoms;  the 
58
LECTURE III.
very expression  of all  these symptoms  bears intrinsic evidence of
their reliability and perfect truthfulness, and indicates in unmistake-
able language the pathological lesions with which they correspond
as specific curatiAre agents.
   Would that the same confidence could be had in the provings of
the drugs to which Hahnemann has applied the term " anti-psorics."
Most of these provings Avere instituted during Hahnemann's declin-
ing years by his professional followers, and by their uneducated lay-
friends, in a manner which provoked Hahnemann's own condemna-
tion.  In a note appended to the provings of one of the anti-psorics,
he declares in substance that he has had to reject a number of the
symptoms furnished by some of the provers, and he moreover ex-
presses his surprise that the business of proving drugs should be
conducted with so much  levity, as he inferred from the unreliable
character of the  symptoms, it must have been.   In spite of Hahne-
mann's precautions, and a great deal of clipping and pruning, a large
number of insignificant symptoms, according to  Hahnemann's OAvn
admission, have been left  standing, producing unnecessary complica-
tions, obscuring  the true therapeutic character of drugs and occa-
sioning merriment and avoidable  misrepresentations on the part of
our opponents.
   The doctrine of potencies, concerning which I shall offer all proper
and useful suggestions in the course of my lectures, had  engaged
Hahnemann's attention from  the  very beginning of his great dis-
co ver}r.  ToAvards the latter part  of his practice, Hahnemann used
almost exclusively the higher attenuations both in his own case as
Avell as when treating his  patients.  And the opinion became preva-
lent among a number of homoeopathic physicians that, because the
attenuations proved efficient in the treatment of diseases, they must
likewise prove efficient in developing symptoms.  Thus it happened
that most of the  later provings, and more particularly the provings
of the antipsoric medicines, Avere  conducted with the attenuations.
The result  is before us.  If Ave had no  other testimony to offer in
favor of  Homoeopathy than the provings of the anti-psorics, our
cause Avould not  be Avorth the ink  it required to print them.   Such
trifling sensations, pains, eruptions and the like, as we see put doAvn
to the credit of the anti-psoric remedies, seem to be a parody  on the
splendid symptomatology of the Materia Medica Pura ; it seems in-
credible that such a mass of vague, childish, ill-defined  symptoms as
are recorded in the four volumes of the "Chronic Diseases," should
have been accepted  by earnest and sober-minded men as  the pure
effects of drugs.  With the exception of the few substances  that
have been transferred from the Materia Medica Pura to the "Chronic
Diseases," we may safely reject many  of the symptoms  that are
supposed to have been elicited by  means of the attenuations, as un-
worthy our attention.   I do not mean to say that attenuated medi-
cines generally are unfit  to develop symptoms;  Ave have abundant
evidence  that the sixth,  twelfth and "even higher potencies have
affected the organism in health in their own characteristic and pecu-
liar manner.  My criticism bears upon the symptoms furnished by
the provers of such  of our drugs as are technically known as antU
s 
PROVINGS AND VALUE OF SYMPTOMS.
59
 psorics.  In reference to many of these symptoms I wish to express
 my unqualified condemnation, and to state in unequivocal language
 that, Avith a few honorable exceptions, I reject most of them as base-
 less fancy-sketches.
   Entertaining as I do a philosophical belief in the efficacy of atten-
 uated drugs, and  in the doctrine of dynamisation as developed by
 Hahnemann; yet I cannot refrain, on the present occasion,  from ex-
 pressing a regret that the system of proving attenuated drugs should
 have been so extensively adopted in our school.  Attenuations Avill
 undoubtedly affect the healthy organism in exceptional cases.  But in
 no one instance has an attenuation ever developed a Single symptom
 that had not been more characteristically and more intensely produced
 by a massive dose of the strongest preparation  of this attenuated
 drug.   As a general  rule, the attenuations only act after the same
 drug had been previously taken in massive doses; and in all such
 cases  the attenuations invariably reproduce, but more feebly and
 obscurely, symptoms that had been elicited by the larger close.  If
 the attenuations are used first, without any previous saturation of the
 organism by the concentrated tincture or the original drug, percep-
 tible symptoms are scarcely ever obtained beyond the third attenua-
 tion ;  nor are these symptoms, Avith  scarcely an  exception, ever as
 clearly marked as the pathogenetic  effects  obtained by means of
 massive doses.
   Our Materia  Medica is unfortunately  flooded with a deluge of
 trifling, unmeaning,  unreliable symptoms.  A perfect symptomania
 seemed at one  time  to have taken possession of our school.   Such
 men as Hering, Boenninghausen, Gross, fanned this incipient aberra-
 tion into a perfect fury of symptom-hunting.  If I mention living
 names, you will do  me the justice, gentlemen, to believe  that my
 criticism is exclusively dictated by the exalted and sacred demands
 of science.   Hering's provings in particular seem to me liable to the
 grave  suspicion of superficiality and  unreliability.  Not one of the
 numerous provings with Avhich this gentleman  has over-loaded our
 Materia Medica, will stand  the test of a rigorous critical  analysis.
 Many  of them  are  fancy-pictures which may seem interesting to a
 few partisans, but  will never pass current with  the great  body of
 scientific and enlightened homoeopathic practitioners.   This rage of
 parading interminable symptom-lists before the profession, is destruc-
 tive even of the positive good that some of these inaccurately proved
 drugs  might otherwise do.   Disgusted Avith the quantity of chaff, we
 feel disposed to reject even the grain of Avheat that is hidden  amongst
 it.   What need is  there of this Babylonic confusion?   Millefolium,
 or  the common yarrow, has been used empirically for years past
 for well marked disorders  of the  circulatory  apparatus,  such as
 nose-bleed, haemorrhage from the lungs, stomach, womb.  Although
 it is proper and necessary, and especially incumbent upon  homoeo-
 pathic  physicians, to ascertain by actual experiment the therapeutic
 range of drugs, yet there is no earthly use in  conjuring up an array
 of several hundred vague and trivial symptoms, in order to secure
for  a drug of such  limited  therapeutic dimensions a  respectable
place in the Augean stable of our Materia Medica.  Four hundred 
60
LECTURE III.
symptoms to a drug  Avhich no practitioner living or to live will
probably ever think of using, I mean using philosophically, and in
strict conformity with our great  laAV, for any other disorder than
haemorrhage from some internal organ or tissue.
  Apis mellifica, or the poison of the honey-bee, is another interest-
ing agent of a rather limited sphere of action, of which the American
Provings furnish 1,350 symptoms.  If Ave consider that Aconite,
which  has  been proved  and  re-proved by Hahnemann and some
twenty of the most distinguished observers of our school, and which
has a therapeutic range that may be said  to be bounded only by
the limits of disease,  has only between seven and  eight hundred
symptoms, Ave may fairly suspect the  pathogenesis  of Apis of the
most  extravagant  exaggerations.   Decked with   the  fascinating
charms of antiquated  lore, and Avith the positiveness of pretentious
science, these provings have been ushered in with sounds of harpsi-
chord and cymbal as  an achievement, an invaluable contribution to
our Materia Medica.  But independently of the suspicion, which,
like a dark cloud, overshadows  the ignis-fatuus brightness of this
picture of provings: that  the  poison of the  honey-bee develops its
pernicious effects by  its  direct action upon the capillary current,
and not so much through the primary agency of the nervous system,
we  shall  find, at a later stage of our course, 'that the effects of this
poison, as exhibited in the " American Provings," are tainted with
all  the defects which distinguish many of our modern provings
generally, and that  they  betray a lack  of accuracy of observation,
correctness of  delineation, and  adaptability to the treatment of
disease, Avhich will render it necessary to reprove all such drugs.
  In thus critically sifting  the materials Avith  Avhich we  have to
work, we shall arrive at  facts to  which permanency and universal
recognition are secured as an imperishable birth-right.  I am not
willing to examine in the crucible of analysis the cases which are
reported in the " Provings" as having yielded to Apis.  I will say,
however, that they furnish additional evidence of the  utter unsound-
ness of the testimony which has  been  offered  as illustrative of the
curative virtues of this drug.  From among a number of cases, let
me select one or tAVO as specimens of the whole series.
  "A man of 28 years,  of sanguine-nervous-bilious temperament,
had  been  suddenly attacked Avith paralysis of the right side, with
violent delirium, which sometimes increased to rage.   His wife told
me that the attack had been  preceded by whitish  blotches on the
head and occasionally breaking out on the  nape of the  neck; they
appeared suddenly and itched  violently.  On this account I selected
Apis as my first remedy.  In  less than  an hour  after taking  Apis,
the eruption re-appeared  in innumerable places on the headland he
became more quiet.   Before morning the blotches  disappeared
again, and his rage became so violent that it took three men to keep
him from rolling off the bed.  I gave Hepar sulphuris, and in fifteen
minutes after, Apis.   He  became  more rational during the day, and
his eruption appeared profusely on the  calves.   This kind of treat-
ment Avas resorted to repeatedly, and always Avith success."
  The case was managed and  reported by Dr.  de Bonneville  a sort 
PROVINGS AND VALUE OF  SYMPTOMS.            61
of itinerant practitioner, who, I believe, emigrated to California some
years ago.  I hardly knoAV which most  to marvel at in this case,
the doctor's utter ignorance of the nature of the case, or the childish
naivete with which  he 'attributes the periodical intermissions be-
tween  the paroxysms of rage to the use of Hepar and  Apis.  We
are left to guess  Avhether the paralysis and  the acute irritation of
the cerebral nerves were cured ; the probability is, that the ultimate
result  of the  treatment  Avas unsuccessful; but I would  ask you,
gentlemen, would any honest  and  careful observer parade such
results before the world as the effect of his treatment?   Can we
wonder that the scientific practitioners among our opponents laugh
at such clinical messes as de Bonneville has concocted  for us with
the honey-bee ?
  Let me relate  another case, and then close the Apis chapter for
the present.
  " A girl of eight years had been  sick for  about a fortnight.  In
the day time she was drowsy, and seemed lazy and listless; at night
she was constantly talking during her sleep;.  towards morning her
sleep became very sound, so that  she Avould not Avake until she was
taken  out of  bed, shaken and driven about the room.  She was
exceedingly languid, with  loss of strength, pale face; scanty urine,
boAvels rather costive.  The mother  of the child  told me, that
eight years ago a daughter of the same age  had exhibited similar
symptoms of  derangement, and had finally died of dropsy  of the
brain.
  " The mother was frequently attacked Avith nettle-rash,  showing
itself here and there on the legs, painful, sensitive to contact, and
always assuming  as it ran its course, a bluish-red, livid hue.  A feAV
of these spots might be seen on the nape of the neck and  on the
forehead of the sick child ; they  were scarcely visible, not hard or
raised.
  " I gave her three doses of Apis, second attenuation, one at eleven
o'clock in the forenoon, one at three o'clock  in  the afternoon, and
the third dose at  seven o'clock in  the evening.  For the first time
since she had been sick, she slept  quietly next night, she Avoke early
next morning, Avas bright, disposed to play about the house, and she
looked better than she had done  for a fortnight past.   There was a
visible  improvement after the second dose.   Next  day I gave the
child three poAvders of Apis 3.  The following night she was more
restless than the  night previous, but she aAVoke at an early hour,'
and, in the afternoon, played in the yard.   The second  or third
day after taking  the medicine, hard,  bluish-red spots  made their
appearance  upon the face,  forehead, nape of the neck and loAver
extremities.   They remained hard  and  painful  for ten or twelve
days, after  which period they passed away.   It took some time
before  the patient regained her former strength, but she gradually
recovered perfect health."
  The  most superficial reading of this  report Avhich, by-the-ln~, is
drawn  up Avith a  good deal of confusion, shows that Apis had as
much  to do Avith the gradual recovery of  this little girl as the
comet's tail.  There  certainly Avas no very threatening disorder im- 
62
LECTURE III.
  pending; otherwise the child would not have been pulled out of her
  bed every morning and pushed about the room in order to be roused
  out of her sleep.  The facts of the case were undoubtedly, that the
  child was sickly;  the eruption which was an hereditary cutaneous
  disorder, had begun to develop itself before medical treatment was
  resorted to,  and this development went  on increasingly  until the
  eruption Avas fully out.   .Apis had  no effect whatsoever upon the
  eruption which disappeared of itself after it had run its natural
  course.  Apis did  not even benefit the general health of the child ;
  for, according to  the relator's  own  statement, the  little patient
  remained feeble for a long time before her former strength returned.
    Dr. Hering appends the following complimentary note to this case:
  " The selection of Apis Avhich Avas at that time almost unknown, was
  a masterly inference, and such reports  should be copied in all our
*  neAvspapers." In other Avords :  AVhatever may serve as grist on my
  mill, is of immense importance to all the world and the rest of man-
  kind.  The literature of our school must be sadly in need of supply,
  if such fancy sketches have to be resorted to in order to fill its pages.
    The cheerless task of criticizing the labors of my cotemporaries is
  not to my taste; but this duty has to be performed by e\rery public
  teacher.  If  he wishes to inseminate neAv and higher truths, he must
  first pull out the rankling Aveeds that might obstruct their groAvth.
  Our Materia Medica  is so filled with useless material, that our first
  business must necessarily be, to subject it to a most rigorous sifting
  process. Many of our drugs have obtained a reputation  and a name,
  not because their provings can  at all be relied  upon as therapeutic
  indications, but because an empirical use has secured for them a sort
  of prescription-right.  Lachesis is  one of them.   Perhaps no drug
  in our Materia Medica has enjoyed a more factitious eclat than this
  agent.  But  the halo of glory Avhich has surrounded this secretion,
  proves, upon closer  examination, to emanate from  the smoke  of
  fancy as much as from the light of truth.
    All toxicologists incline to the opinion that the poison of serpents
  manifests its  pernicious effects by destroying the vitality of the blood.
  The celebrated Fontana Avho made nearly  six thousand  experiments
  Avith the bite of the viper, concluded that  among a  number of other
  facts the following  may be considered as established:
    1.  The viper's venom, when applied upon the nerves,  does not
  produce any effect,  nor does it accelerate the death of the animal; it
  is as innocent for the nerves as pure Avater, or simple gum arabic.
    2.  The symptoms which it produces, depend upon its absorption,
  its being carried into the circulation, and on the action it exerts on
  the blood, which it partly coagulates, and  on the nervous irrita-
  bility, which it destroys by conveying into the fluids a principle of
  putrefaction."
    Orfila, in his " system of General Toxicology," which is one of the
  most classical works on this subject in our possession, quotes Fon-
  tana as an authority, and accepts his inference as conclusive.
    Flandin, in his recent Avork on Toxicology, which was published
  in Paris in the year 1853, likeAvise states that "the poison of serpents
  only produces its toxical effects after it penetrates the organism by a 
PROVINGS AND VALUE OF SYMPTOMS.
63
wound, and that it is absolutely poAverless when introduced into the
stomach."  He adds: "The  experiments of Eedi, Mead,  Fontana,
Breschet and others, leave  no doubt in this respect.   Even  the
ancients Avere acquainted with this important fact; Galen and Celsus
make mention of it.  Lucian, in  his  epic poem entitled Pltarsalus,
causes Cato to say to his soldiers Avho are afraid of quenching their
thirst in a spring full of serpents:
             Noxia serpentura  est admixto sanguine pestis;
             Morsu vires habent et latum dente minantur ;
             Pocula morte carent.
  Or in plain English :  the poison of serpents is hurtful Avhen mixed
with the blood ;  their bite is  poisonous, and may even cause death;
but Avhen the poison is drank, it is harmless."
  A few years ago, Dumeril, distinguished in the scientific Avorld of
Paris, Avas bitten by a poisonous viper in the forest of Fontainebleau;
his son sucked the poison from the father's wound without the least
untoward accident to himself.
  In spite of these grave facts  substantiated by the most careful
obserAration of able and conscientious experimenters, provings have
been instituted with the poison of the Trigonocephalus Lachesis as
though Fontana and his co-laborers had  been, Don Quixote fashion,
fighting mere windmills.   Taking advantage  of the doctrine of
potentization which, although a vital principle of our School, may
yet be made the source of much fallacious reasoning by fanatical or
superficial  dogmatists, a feAV  physicians undertook to protentize the
poison of this reptile by resorting, to the usual processes of trituration
and succussion, and to institute provings Avith this potentized poison,
Avhich were  to  upset the experience of  previous  experimenters.
Favored by plausibility, they succeeded in making these provings of
the Laehesis-poison pass current  for genuine drug-effects, and they
professed to use Lachesis with success in the diseases to Avhich they
supposed it to be homoeopathic.  The most distinguished and most
philosophical Avriters of our School have repudiated the article as an
unreliable intruder, and there is not, at this late day, a single case
on record, Avhere Lachesis  can be shoAvn to have effected a cure as
clearly and unmistakably as Ave  can prove the  curative effects of
Aconite, Belladonna, Nux, Pulsatilla and other polychrests; Avith
the exception of the poisonous symptoms Avhich  have been incor-
porated in the provings of  Lachesis, the remainder are unworthy
the serious attention of thinking minds.   The remaining symptoms
are evidently the result of fancy and do not  seem to be in homoe-
opathic rapport  Avith any known  and Avell-defined pathological con-
dition.  It is true a few  cases  of cure with  Lachesis  have been
reported in the Homoeopathic Archives, one of the earlier homoe-
opathic publications; but these cases are reported in such a slovenly
manner; the employment  of Lachesis is mixed up with  so many
other drugs, and there is  so much left uncured in most of these
cases, that  it is  far more probable the patients derived Avhat benefit
they seem  to have experienced,  from the use of general  hygienic
means,  and the discontinuance of the nauseating and  prostrating
doses of their allceopathic physicians. 
61
LECTURE III.
  If we wish to prove the poison of serpents, we should follow the
example of nature, and proceed as we do with the vaccine virus ; we
should inoculate the poison through the capillary system ; this, as
far as we knoAV, is the only reliable mode of ascertaining the physi-
ological effects  of this class of agents.  At all events, the symptoms
which are obtained by introducing Lachesis into the stomach, should
be so perfectly certain that they cannot possibly be repudiated even
by sceptics.  This cannot be said  of the Lachesis provings published
in Jahr's Symptomen-Codex; they  are  unreliable, indefinite, and,
at best, Avithout much practical value.
  The object in proving a drug, is not to elicit symptoms, but to
discover the mode in which a drug affects the living tissues, with a
vieAV of ascertaining its therapeutic uses.   The difference  between
these two modes of  investigation  is very great.  If the object is to
elicit  symptoms, Ave  risk to lose  ourselves in an inextricable maze
of unmeaning and useless details Avhich obscure the true character
of a drug instead of establishing it upon the positive and  acknow-
ledged basis of  fact.  It is this mania of symptom-hunting that has
introduced  into our  Materia Medica the tens of thousands of puerile
and  utterly useless  trivialities which have  excited the derision^ of
both friend and foe.  If, on the contrary, our object is to determine
the therapeutic range  of a drug with scientific precision, we shall
necessarily use  the  most rigorous discrimination in distinguishing
between  actual drug-effects  and  purely  accidental  sensations, such
as we experience more or less at all times in consequence of the
abnormal influences which the mind, the  nervous  system and the
tissues generally are exposed to.
  The mere symptom-hunter is  infatuated Avith the idea that symp-
toms  may be obtained from the smallest as well  as from  a  large
quantity of a drug; he will employ the sixth, eighteenth,  thirtieth
or even two hundredth potency for  his  experiments with the same
unconcern as the more massive preparations. And he will moreover
commit another egregious  mistake, which is:  to note  down  as
drug-effect  every sensation Avhich he may experience after taking
the first dose ; hence it is that our Materia Medica is filled with so
many trivial  symptoms, jerkings  and twistings, itchings and sting-
ings, spots and pimples ; none of them symptoms that are in marked
and characteristic rapport Avith Avell-knoAvn and accurately-described
pathological conditions, but mere evanescent sensations with which
any man might fill a page of foolscap in the course of a single day,
without being under any medicinal influences Avhatsoever.
  Hoav different are the provings of the truly scientific observers of
our School.   Among the seven hundred Aconite-symptoms which
we find recorded in  Hahnemann's Materia Medica  Pura, and in the
re-provings of the Vienna Provers' Union, there is not one that does
not bear the test of  a most critical scrutiny.  The same may be said
of most other drugs  proved by Hahnemann during the earlier period
of his labors.   All  the re-provings of the Vienna Provers' Union,
some of our English and  a few of our  American Provings  are
characterized by correctness and adaptability ;  they point of them-
selves, without  any resort to sophistical cunning and hypothetical 
PROVINGS AND VALUE OF  SYMPTOMS.
65
combinations, to the pathological disorders for the cure of AArhich
these therapeutic agents were designed.  Some of our French prov-
ings and more  particularly the Brazilian  provings of Dr.  Mure, a
wild and fanciful propagator of Homoeopathy, are utterly worth-
less and a perfect caricature of the sacred  business of determining
the therapeutic character of drugs by positive experimentation upon
the healthy.   Think of a diseased potato, or of a piece of  charred
deer-hide, or,  horrendum dictu ! a louse  potentized  to the thirtieth
attenuation, one globule of which is swallowed and permitted to act
for three, four and even six  weeks,  developing  symptoms all  the
time, which symptoms  are  gravely arrayed under their respective
heads as head, face, eye, ear, chest-symptoms, and so forth, and pub-
lished to the world as the actual effects of those substances.  Such
and many other absurdities  may be found  in Mure's  Brazilian
Pathogenesis.
   The business of proving drugs is at this period engaged in by all
who desire to obtain a correct and reliable knoAvledge of  their
therapeutic properties.   The old-fashioned empirical method of ob-
taining this knoAvledge ab tusu in  morbis or by clinical experience,
has been abandoned by all progressive inquirers on the  field  of
Medicine.  Clinical  experience only serves, as it should do, to con-
firm the therapeutic properties, a knowledge of Avhich had been ob-
tained by pure experimentation upon the healthy.   Pereira who is
one of the great authorities in allceopathic therapeutics, says in his
great work on Materia Medica:  " The homoeopaths assert, and Avith
truth, that the study of the effects of medicines in the healthy state
is the only way of ascertaining the pure or pathogenetic effects of
medicines," and he fully concurs Avith Hahnemann in opinion that,
if Ave  administer our remedies to invalids,  " the symptoms of the
natural disease then existing, mingling Avith those which the medi-
cinal agents are  capable of producing, the latter can rarely be dis-
tinguished Avith any clearness  or precision."
   Trousseau and Pidoux, in their Treatise of  Materia Medica and
Therapeutics,  Avhich has been elevated to  the rank of a classical
text-book  in  France, make honorable  mention  of the German
Provers' Societies in  the folloAving language: "Under the  lead  of
Homoeopathy, German Societies have been formed for the revision
of the  Materia  Medica.  All drugs  have  been  proved upon the
healthy by physicians Avho, it is  true, have  not always known how
to avoid systematic illusions, but Avho, endoAved with a good deal  of
patience and attentive observation, and  always instituting their ex-
periments with simple substances, have constituted a Materia Medica
Pura, whence  have  emanated many very precious notions concern-
ing the special  properties of drugs,  and concerning  a  variety ot
characteristic  peculiarities of their action, with Avhich Ave are too
little acquainted in France.  Owing to  this ignorance we are only
acquainted Avith the grossest general  properties of  our therapeutic
agents, and, in  the presence of diseases Avhich exhibit so many varied
shades of therapeutic indications, Ave very often lack the modifying
agents adapted to these  shades."
                               5 
66
LECTURE III.
  Fleming has enriched the literature of Aconite with some of the
most splendid provings of this agent.
  Joerg, late  Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the
University of Leipsic, gathered around him a band of enthusiastic
and devoted disciples, aided by Avhom he instituted provings with a
number of our most important  therapeutic  agents, Avith a  view of
determining their exact opposites in disease.
  Frank's Physiological Magazine is filled with a number of highly
important  provings instituted  by  alloeopathic  practitioners  with
large doses.
  All these provings help to perfect our knoAvledge of drugs, and
to effect a proportionate increase of our means of cure.
  Most earnestly do I  invite you, gentlemen, to institute provings
Avith new, and re-provings Avith old drugs.  If every one  of you
would  make it his business, within the first five or  ten years of his
practice, to furnish a complete monograph of some drug, exhibiting
the whole therapeutic  range of the agent, and  its  applicability to
corresponding diseases, Ave should  soon succeed in  reducing our
system of therapeutics to the forms of a fixed science, Avhich every
Medical  College would teach as orthodox doctrine.   The business
of proving drugs is not near as laborious and  painful as it may seem
to the uninitiated. In order to institute successful provings, it is not
necessary to  torture  one's self by pain and privations.  AVhile
engaged in proving, you pursue your avocations as usual,  you eat
your usual meals, avoiding only such substances as might taint the
organism or set  up a counteraction in the nervous system.  Smok-
ing, chewing  or taking snuff, the use of coffee, beer, and alcoholic
stimulants, hygienic  and dietetic irregularities of any kind, are in-
compatible with a thorough and successful investigation of the ther-
apeutic properties of drugs. Nor is it sufficient to institute provings
with attenuations.  Eepeated  trials Avith massive doses  are  abso-
lutely indispensable in order fo obtain a correct and reliable know-
ledge of a drug.  If the  attenuations should  develop symptoms
similar to those obtained  with massive  doses, or  if  symptoms
thus obtained should be accompanied  by other symptoms, we may
accept them as reliable, provided these symptoms were never experi-
enced  by us  Avhen not  under medicinal influence.   The desire of
contributing  our mite to  a perfect  and truly  scientific Materia
Medica, enables  us to undergo a good deal of labor, yea, to suffer
pain for  a good  cause.  Nothing is more delightful  to  a conscien-
tious and energetic prover, than to trace the action of a drug, as
manifested by clear and unmistakeable symptoms. Commence your
proving with a small quantity, two or three drops of the tincture to
be taken once a day, and increase the dose every morning or evenino-
by a feAv drops, of course within conservative limits, until the drug
seems  to be  unable to yield any new symptoms.  Keep an exact
record of the effects of each dose, and a picture of druo-.effects thus
obtained, AAdll shadow forth the outlines of the patholoo-ical series of
which it may constitute a curative  neutralize!-.  In  order to deter-
mine the therapeutic range of a drug, it is .not necessary that the
physiological series, or series of drug-effects, and the patholoo-ical 
CLASSIFICATION OF DRUGS.
67
series, or series of morbid phenomena, should correspond in all their
details.  In order to determine the curative adaptation of Phosphorus
to pneumonia, or of  Arsenic  to  lepra or malignant impetigo, it is
not necessary that we  should previously develop these diseases
artificially.  We knoAV  that  Aconite is in  curative rapport Avith
an acute inflammation of the  testicles, and  yet among the patho-
genetic  symptoms of Aconite, orchitis is  wanting.   The  homoe-
opathicity of drugs to diseases is not determined by a mere mechani-
cal juxtaposition of symptomatic similarities.  We knoAV that an
acute inflammation arises primarily from torpor of the arterial capil-
laries, Avhich, by a process of organic  reaction, superinduces engorge-
ment and all the characteristic signs of inflammation.  It makes no
difference  what organ or tissue is imraded; every where  an acute
inflammation is determined by the same cause: torpor of the capil-
laries.   This being known, Ave require to possess a drug capable of
affecting the capillaries in the same manner primarily, and of devel-
oping a similar organic reaction.   We know by careful and reliable
experiment that Aconite is this drug.  Hence it is our great homoe-
opathic specific to acute phlegmonous inflammation characterized
by a full, hard and bounding pulse,  hot and dry  skin, preceded by
chilly creepings, thirst, flushed face,  headache and dizziness, coated
tongue,  nerArous restlessness, and other sj^mptoms, all of which Avill
yield to one or more doses of Aconite, except where the specific
character of the disease renders the'use of some other drug likewise
necessary.
  Let us  then not forget that Homoeopathy should not  be to us
simply a fat cow that yields  us  plenty of milk  and butter, but a
Divine Goddess Avhose name  is Truth, and Avhose form is Beauty :
he who  wishes to  be a  genuine  high-priest in her  temple, should
aid in building it up.
                  LECTURE  IV.

  In  my  last lecture we have considered the subject of proving
drugs.  The present lecture  shall be devoted to a few  necessary
suggestions concerning the action of drugs generally, and  that of
homoeopathic medicines in particular.
  Various theories have been spun  by allceopathic observers ex-
planatory of the action of drugs.  Most of these theories are specu-
lative and impractical, the result of mere guess-work.
  It is well known to most  of you, that formerly the virtues of
medicines Avere inferred from  resemblances (fancied or real) in form,
color, etc., between these substances and  parts of the organism.
These marks or indications haA^e been  called signatures, and were
supposed  to arise from astral influences.  The jaws of a boar, for
instance, were  employed  in  pleurisy, because the  stitching  pain
caused by the sharp teeth of this animal, AAras  supposed to resemble
the stitching pain in pleurisy.  The ashes of a hare, the most timid
                              5 
68
LECTURE IV.
of all animals, were recommended for the consequences of fright.
The pulverized liver of a rabid Avolf Avas used for hydrophobia. Eu-
phrasia Avas supposed to be endowed Avith curative virtues in diseases
of the eyes, on account of a fancied resemblance of its flower to the
human eye.   A gourd cured jaundice on account of its yellow color;
the blood-red juice of John's-Avort arrested haemorrhages; poppy-
heads acted principally upon the head, and the pith of the elder Avas
used in diseases of the spinal marrow.
  Some physiologists have  undertaken to  determine the action of
drugs by their sensible properties, such as color, taste and odor.   This
seems to be a most superficial method  of solving the  problem.
  By some writers* the natural-historical  properties of drugs  have
been depended upon as  a standard for the determination  of  their
therapeutic virtues.  Even homoeopathic physicians  have been led
to regard these properties as suggestive of the dynamic character of
drugs. Dr. Gray, of New York, in a note to the provings of Arsenic
in Jahr's large manual, entitled "Symptomen-Codex," Avrites : "It is
important that practitioners should point their attention to the ques-
tion, whether drugs Avhich are isomorphous, are not, on that account,
allies in the  treatment of disease; thus  Arsenic, Phosphorus and
Antimony, being eminent instances  of the isomorphous relation,
and being strikingly analogous in their pathogenecy, it  is not. very
probable that these tAvo similitudes depend  on the same element in
each, namely, an identical original force or poAver.  We find these
drugs chemically uniting Avith other substances in precisely the
same atomic proportions, and producing crystals in each case of the
same form."'
  But, as  Pereira very justly remarks: "No conclusion respecting
the medicinal properties of minerals, can be deduced from crystalline
form and structure.  The triphosphate of soda, for instance, is iso-
morphous with the triarseniate of the same base; but no  one will
pretend to assert that their action in the system is alike.  Arsenious
acid is isomorphous Avith the sesquioxide of Antimony; yet  their
effects on the system are A'ery dissimilar."  IIoav a homoeopathic
practitioner  can  discover any similarity  between  the  effects  of
Arsenic, Antimony and Phosphorous upon the healthy organism,
is a mystery to me.  Their therapeutic range differs respectively as
Avidely as  that of Aconite from Arsenic, or that of  the Nitrate of
silver from Phosphorus.
  The natural-historical properties of vegetables are equally unre-
liable as indications of the medicinal virtues of drugs. I refer those
who wish to be thoroughly convinced  of this fact, to Hahnemann's
essay, entitled:  "Suggestions for Ascertaining the Curative Powers
of Drugs," and published in the American edition of his  lesser writ-
ings.  The root and leaves of the carrot are wholesome and nutri-
tive ;  but  the analogous  parts of the spotted hemlock  are highly
poisonous.   Both  Hahnemann  and Pereira adduce a  number  of
instances shoAving that botanical affinities  cannot  be relied on for
determining the effects of remedial agents.   Capsicum annuum and
Atropa Belladonna both belong to the family Solanese, and  yet hoAv
different is their  physiological action  upon the brain.   Both the 
CLASSIFICATION OF DRUGS.
69
melon and the colocynth belong to the family Cucurbitaceas, yet the
one is a delicious fruit, and the other a poisonous drug.
   Chemical properties are likewise unreliable as means of determin-
ing the therapeutic virtues of drugs.  Sulphuric, nitric and hydro-
chloric acids  possess similar chemical properties; yet hoAv Avidely
do their medicinal effects differ from each other!
  There is then but one true, philosophical method  of ascertaining
the pure effects of drugs; it is to institute provings upon the healthy.
It is likeAvise  in this respect that Homoeopathy has set an example
which the Old School is  beginning to folloAV.  Some of our most
valuable contributions to a knowledge of the pure effects of drugs
have  been recently furnished by the Imperial Provers' Societies of
Vienna and Prague, founded under the auspices of the most enlight-
ened allceopathic practitioners of these tAvo cities.
  In  attempting to explain the  action of homoeopathic remedial
agents, we shall be-led to a train of reasoning utterly at variance
with any of the established  theories of the Old School. By the terms
of our law we prescribe remedies that act similarly to the existing
disturbance of the functions.  This fundamental difference in the
first  principles of our respective schools  Avould of itself seem  to
imply a radical difference in the mode in  Avhich our remedial agents
perform their  work.  It is  true, a knowledge of this mode does not
seem  absolutely necessary to the performance of a satisfactory cure;
jet what thinking practitioner can refrain  from inquiring into the
apparently marvellous mystery of a cure by means  of a few infini-
tesimal globules ?
  It is astonishing how even in this direction intelligent physicians
of the old school have stumbled upon observations Avhich, with a
little more logical consistency and a little  less adherence to scholastic
dogmatism, might have led them to mistrust the universal applica-
bility of the old-fashioned  Hippocratic-Galenian  law of "Contraria
Contrariis." Paracelsus had already denounced  it  as contrary  to
nature. So did the celebrated Aran Helmont.  The learned Tycho
de Brahe  likewise repudiated to some extent the authority of Galen.
Pereira's elaborate work is filled with isolated propositions embody-
ing principles  that might  have infused a neAv life into the Materia
Medica and  the Avhole  system  of therapeutics.    He  frequently
alludes to the  primary and secondary action of drugs, ascribing the
primary action to the drug and  the secondary or reaction to the
organism.   Speaking of cold,  he  says:  " The effects  of cold  on
animals are twofold, viz.:  1. direct, primary  or immediate;  2.  in-
direct, secondary or mediate.  The  direct or primary influence  of
cold  is diminished vital activity;  the indirect or secondary influence
of moderate cold, applied  temporarily, is increased  activity  of the
vital powers, or reaction.".  Further on Ave read this passage :  "The
primary effects of a cold bath constitute the shock; its secondary
effects the reaction or gloAv."   Unfortunately Pereira lacked the in-
tuitive genius  which might have taught him to vitalize these isolated
propositions into general  therapeutic principles.  It Avas reserved
for Hahnemann  to  show that, if the reaction  is the  opposite  of the
primary action, we should not be  guided  in our exhibition of reme- 
70
LECTURE IV.
dial agents by their primary action, but  by the character of the
reaction which they excite in the organism.  Diarrhoea, for instance,
being  a symptom" of organic reaction, should not be treated with
astringents, but with medicines which will  excite  an organic re-
action opposite to that excited  by the disease.  Hence Ave do not
treat  diarrhoea with opiates, because such agents, whose primary
action is to bind the bowels, would develop an organic reaction of
the same character as the natural disturbance of the functions Avhich
we wish to remove.  On the contrary, we prescribe medicines Avhose
primary action upon the alimentary canal is  similar to the existing
disorder;  for  we know that, as  soon as the  primary action is ex-
hausted, the opposite secondary or organic reaction will develop
itself  in opposition to the existing symptoms.  Such medicines are
Aconite, Arsenic, Mercury, etc.
   Page 27-4  of Pereira's great work we read: " The sudden and
temporary application of cold, as  in the affusion of cold water, some-
times  proves sudorific by the reaction which  it occasions."  If this
be true, would cold water affusions arrest or increase perspiration?
Make the experiment on a warm summer's  day;  sponge the perspir-
ing skin Avith cold water, and  see whether  the cooling effect of the
water, its  primary action, will not very speedily be»followed by an
increase of perspiration.   On the other hand the use of slightly
tepid  water will, in the end, prove much  more, and more perma-
nently cooling.
   Even Professor Mitchell, who fills the chair of Materia  Medica
and Therapeutics  in Jefferson College, and who seems as unprin-
cipled an opponent  of Homoeopathy as any medical writer of the
age, teaches Homoeopathy without knowing it.  On the 28th page of
his System of Therapeutics he writes: "Very many articles operate
as indirect sedatives; in  other  words,  the first impression of an
active stimulant having subsided, a state of indirect debility follows,
and this is called a sedative effect. In this way Opium and Alcohol
may be indirect sedatives, although they are, in the first instance
direct  stimulants."
   Professor Mitchell seems unconscious that the law of action and
reaction is an universal principle in nature, equally operative in
therapeutics as in physics.   If the primary  effect  of  opium  is to
stimulate the brain, the secondary effect will undoubtedly be to de-
press its action. The same rule applies to alcoholic stimulants.  We
may avail ourselves of this law as a regulating principle in disordered
physiological conditions.  A state of excessive nervous irritability
may be quieted by a small dose of coffee.  Excessive wakefulness
excessive  mobility of the  nervous system may yield to a small
spoonful of strong black coffee.   Why ?   Because the general prim-
ary action of coffee consists in  dissipating sleep by excitino- the
brain  and stimulating the nervous energy.  As soon as this primary
effect  is past, an opposite condition of the system sets in, Avhich if it
were the same as the natural disease, would increase its intensity
instead of affording relief.   Hence, in order to effect a cure, it is the
organic reaction or secondary action as it is termed, and not the
primary action of the drug, that  has to be opposed to the disease 
CLASSIFICATION OF DRUGS.
71
  It is astonishing that some of the highest authorities in the allceo-
pathic ranks should be habitually stating facts of the utmost im-
portance in medical practice without perceiving their bearing upon
general principles.   We might collect from Pereira's large work a
few hundred pages of statements illustrative of the compound action
of drugs, and showing the absolute necessity of being guided by this
law in practice.   In proof of this we will quote the folloAving para-
graph, page 250.   "Sometimes the same principle produces, under
different circumstances, apparently different effects.   Thus brandy,
in moderate quantities, acts as a stimulant; but taken in excess it
overpowers the brain, exhausts the nervous power, and  impedes its
generation, disengagement and communication ; thus acting both as
a stimulant and narcotic."
  Here is a curious confusion of ideas.  The same drug  acting both
as a stimulant and a narcotic, without accounting for this apparently
contradictory effect in a profitable manner. A small dose of brandy
will stimulate the brain not because its action is essentially different
from that of a large dose;  but because the primary narcotic effect
is so evanescent that it is readily overcome by the vital reaction.
A large dose will narcotise the brain because the vital reaction is
insufficient to  subdue the primary narcotic effect of the drug.  We
shall soon see to what important practical  results  this apparent
opposition between the action of small and large doses of the same
drug will lead us.
  Trousseau and Pidoux assign a twofold order of effects to drugs:
common and special.   A common effect of the narcotic  poisons, for
instance, is to narcotise  the brain, and of the  corrosive  acids to
develop an inflammatory irritation of the intestinal mucous lining.
On  the other hand, every narcotic and every acrid poison has special
effects of its own.  The common effects are developed by large, and
the  special effects by small doses.  In old-school practice drugs are
arranged for therapeutic purposes according to their common effects.
If an old school physician wishes to evacuate the boAvels, he uses a
cathartic or drastic.  Every physician generally has his  favorite
remedy for such purposes.  One prefers castor-oil, another magnesia,
another rhubarb;  others  again  at once  charge  Avith their  heavy
artillery, a few blue pills, jalap or colocynth, and very often charge
so effectually that the tissues become gangrened  and are perforated
as surely as the walls of a citadel fall  before the  enemy's  shells.
Special morbid phenomena not being considered, the special effects
of drugs are of no consequence Avhatsoever.  One drug  Avill do just
as well as  another; anything that happens to be handy  or sanc-
tioned by  the routine-habit of the medical attendant.   The same
gross method of generalizing is resorted to in acting upon the skin,
the  bladder, the  sexual system, brain, or upon any other  organ.
Here is a case of dropsy.    The  doctor  concludes that  he  must re-
move the fluid by acting upon the salivary glands or bladder. Any
thing will do for this purpose, provided  he succeeds in  making the
poor patient  spit or urinate.  If squills will not do, he resorts to
the  iodide of potassium or to some other drug, until the whole cata-
logue of his diuretics is exhausted. 
72
LECTURE IV.
  With this gross mode of investigating and applying the general
effects of drugs, Ave have nothing to do Avdiatsover.  If Ave promote
the urinary secretions or excite cutaneous perspiration, the effect is
o\Aring to altogether different influences.  If, in a case of inflamma-
tory fever,  a dose of Aconite takes down the pulse and restores the
secretory action of the skin, this perspiration is not the direct effect
of the remedial agent; it is the natural and spontaneous  result of
the restored vital action of the  organism.  The capillary system
being freed from its torpor, the secretions are again carried on Avith
their customary regularity, and the pores of the skin  pour  forth the
incarcerated moisture until the equilibrium in the absorbent system
is fully restored.
  If, in a case of strangury, a dose of Cantharides should  induce a
copious secretion of urine, this extraordinary action of the bladder
would not be a drug-effect, but the natural result of the re-aAvakened
vital energies of the urinary organs.
  So in a case of torpor of the bowels ;  if a dose of Nux Vomica or
Sulphur should  induce diarrhoea, the diarrhoea Avould not be OAving
to  the medicinal impression set up by the  drug, but to the vital
reaction, in proof whereof, Ave shall find that the  diarrhoea will
gradually disappear, and be followed by regular motions,  Avhereas,
if the diarrhoea were a medicinal symptom, the constipation Avould
be increased after the cessation of the medicinal impression.
  In homoeopathic  practice, therefore, the classification of  drugs in
accordance  with general properties is  of very  little,  if any, use.
We may use the general appellations of tonics, stimulants, sudorifics,
and so forth, but Ave must be careful to associate Avith them ideas in
harmony with our  general therapeutic  principle.  If Ave choose to
call  Aconite a sudorific, Ave  must understand  by this expression
that if, in certain conditions of the system, the  cutaneous secretions
are checked, Aconite Avill restore them, provided it  is specifically
adapted to  this Avork.   There  is no harm in calling Nux Vomica a
cathartic, provided Ave attach  the right understanding to the term.
Nux does  not  produce catharsis, but it may remove  torpor of the
bowels, if homoeopathic to this condition.
  Sometimes we should be sorely puzzled  to  determine  in Avhat
general category the drugs belong. Aconite will excite perspiration,
hence Ave may range  it among the sudorifics.   It will restore the
urinary secretions ;  hence it may be  termed a diuretic.  It will de-
press the  pulse,  diminish fever-heat,  and remove  inflammation;
hence it  is  an  anti-phlogistic. It will  hush the  fiercest attack of
neuralgia;  hence we consider  it as one of our most important ner-
vines.  It will  quiet  spasms and convulsions; hence it is an anti-
spasmodic. _ It will arrest diarrhoea, and quiet  the  irritation and
uneasiness  in the boAvels; hence it acts as a sedative.   It will restore
the menstrual secretions, if arrested by a fright or exposure to cold,
dampness or a draught of air; hence it may be ranged  amono- the
emmenagogues.  It will restore the nervous energy in cases of de-
pression brought on by fright  or excessive blood-lettings; hence Ave
may very appropriately consider it as a tonic.
  From this long list of diversified effects you  may readily infer 
CLASSIFICATION  OF DRUGS.
73
that it would be highly unphilosophical to assign  such an agent as
Aconite  to a  single category; our standard of classification must
necessarily be totally different from that of allceopathic physiologists.
What Avould Ave call  a tonic?  Why, any remedial agent that re-
stores the  strength of the patient.   Any agent which removes a
group of morbid symptoms, among Avhich debility is a characteristic
element,  may be said to act  as a tonic.  Mercury may be a tonic;
Arsenic  may be one; Veratrum may be another.   We may desig-
nate the carbonate of Ammonia as an anti-scorbutic, and yet the
continued  use of this  salt produces a deterioration of the animal
fluids which resembles in all respects the worst form of scurvy.  Our
true standard  of classification Avould perhaps be the curative effects
of drugs.   Or we might be guided in this business by the special or
specific  effects of our drugs, and  group  them in accordance  Avith
Avhat  Ave know by positive experimentation to be  their therapeutic
properties.  We shall find it very difficult to assign definite names
to our drugs.   Our provings shoAV us that some of them act upon
the organism  generally,  others  more  particularly upon definite
organs or tissues, others again both generally and  locally.  But the
one thing needful in the practical business of applying drugs to dis-
eases, is that we should have an accurate knoAvledge of the precise
character of the disturbance  which a drug is capable of occasioning
in the healthy organism.   This knowledge alone can teach us Avith
Avhat  pathological conditions the  drug is in curative  rapport, and,
if we are anxious to  create a name for the drug, it should be one
that expresses this specific relation ; the crude terms of " anti-bilious,
anti-phlogistic, anti-septic, anti-spasmodic, etc.," or  of "cathartic, su-
dorific, diuretic, tonic, stimulant, etc.," express nothing definite, and
are only adapted to the gross and  delusive  methods of allceopathic
practitioners.
   We have said that Trousseau and Pidoux speak of special and
common properties of drugs.  "All the purgatives  for  instance,"
they  teach, " are endoAved with the common virtue  of provoking
intestinal secretions and contractions.  These are their general pro-
perties.   Exhibit them in large, purgative doses, and you will obtain
no other effect, or at any  rate this effect will prevail to such  an ex-
tent that it Avill.absorb all other effects of the drug.  In large doses
Aloes and  Rhubarb irritate  the boAvels  and excite colic; in  small
doses, they relax the muscular fibres of the intestines and quiet their
spasmodic irritation, and  the Aloes in particular, induces still more
certainly  hsemorrhoidal congestions.  In large doses, both  these
drugs irritate the stomach ; in small doses, they quiet and strengthen
it.  In large doses, they manifest their common, in small doses their
special properties."
   In  the hands of homoeopathic practitioners, the doctrine of special
and common properties of drugs becomes fruitful  of the most bene-
ficent results.  In the hands of physiological  physicians, this doc-
trine  seems to constitute, comparatively speaking, a barren invest-
ment  of thought.
   In  the course of my lectures I  shall have frequent  occasions to
show  you that drugs seem to affect the organism in two opposite 
74
LECTURE IV.
 ways, and may therefore be  homoeopathic to two pathological con-
 ditions, holding towards each other relations of antagonism.  We
 may illustrate this laAV by the well known condition of fever. The
"first stage of an inflammatory fever is not a full and bounding pulse,
 a hot and dry skin, flushed face, and so forth; an opposite group of
 symptoms occurs.  The patient experiences a chill  or cold creepings
 along the back;  he looks pale, hollow-eyed, the  hands and feet are
 cold, the  pulse is thin, feeble, rather slower than naturally, or at any
 rate, not  much accelerated.  This condition is soon superseded by
 the  opposite group  of phenomena generally designated as fever.
 The chill is the primary effect of the disease; the  fever  constitutes
 a secondary effect, or the  reaction of the organism.  In  selecting a
 remedial  agent for this derangement, it should be homoeopathic not
 only to the primary chill, but also to  the secondary group, fever.
 Aconite is such  a remedy.   Aconite is homoeopathic to the chill,
 which marks the first invasion of the disease, and to the fever which
 marks the beginning of the organic reaction.   We are seldom called
 to a patient during the primary invasion of the disease;  the organic
 reaction is generally fully established when we first see the patient.
 Nevertheless  we prescribe  Aconite, knowing full well that  the
 inflammatory  stage must have been preceded by a  chill.
   We say that Aconite is homoeopathic to the chill, and we prove
 this experimentally by taking a large  dose  of this drug, of course
 within conservative limits, Avhich will  uniformly  cause  a more or
 less perceptible chill, coldness of the skin, depression of the pulse,
 all of Avhich symptoms disappear after a certain interA^al of time, and
 are  followed  by the opposite  condition,  fever.  A small dose of
 Aconite will not produce the primary chill, but will at once excite
 the organic reaction characterized by the  usual phenomena of heat,
 flushed face, dryness of the mouth, etc.  This shows the importance
 of proving drugs in massive doses.  It  is massive doses that develop
 the primary drug-symptoms; small doses do not develop these pri-
 mary symptoms,  because the organic reaction very speedily super-
 sedes them.
   In the  Manual of Homoeopathic Theory and Practice,  Avhich  has
 lately been published by Drs. Beakley and  Hempel, I have offered
 the following remarks concerning the two-fold action of drugs, viz.:
 the primary drug-action and the secondary action or rather reaction
 of the organism.
   " The primary  action of Aconite  upon the capillary nervous net-
 work of the intestinal mucous membrane is to induce torpor, such
 as might be considered analogous  to  the torpor  induced by cold.
 The  first consequence of this torpid condition of  the nerves, is  to
 cause a relaxation of the mucous  membrane  and  an excess of the
 mucous secretion.  This excess of  the secretions  Avould affect the
 character and regularity of the alvine evacuations; the stools would
 be  thin, slimy or watery, and the desire to evacuate  the bowels
 would be felt  more urgently and more  frequently.
   "But under ordinary circumstances  the relaxed condition of the
 mucous membrane would hardly continue long enough to affect the
 evacuations in a permanent manner.   Organic reaction will soon 
            POTENCIES,  INMOST PRINCIPLES OF DRUGS.          75

take place, and an opposite condition is set up; instead of excessive,
we  shall have a deficient  secretion of intestinal  mucus which may
induce a corresponding  costiveness.
  " Hence Ave perceive that a medicine may be homoeopathic to tAvo
opposite conditions, to diarrhoea as well as to constipation; to both
a state of hyperemia or excess of blood,  and a state of anosmia or
deficiency of blood;  to  both atony and excessive irritability of the
stomach;  to a condition characterized  by paralysis as well as  to a
condition characterized by spasm.  Aconite and Nux may be used
as true  homoeopathic remedies in paralysis  as well as in tetanus;
Ipecacuanha may remove  perfect atony as well as spasmodic irrita-
bility of the  stomach; Opium cures diarrhoea as well as constipation,
excessive wakefulness as well as drowsiness and  stupor; Mercurius
will check as well as  promote the secretory action of the pancreas;
Secale answers in uterine  haemorrhage from  atony of this organ as
well as in spasmodic  uterine  contractions, it will arrest  the former.
and quiet the latter simply by virtue of the beautiful  and life-saving
law: that every drug is exactly homoeopathic, and therefore adapt-
able as a specific curative  agent to two morbid conditions which are
in direct or polaric opposition to each other."
  In practice it is of the utmost importance that  we should discrim-
inate between the primary and secondary action.  If we are called
upon to prescribe for a  group of  symptoms corresponding with the
primary action of a drug,  we give a larger dose  than we should do,
if Ave had to prescribe for  a group of symptoms corresponding with
the secondary action, or organic reaction.  In prescribing Aconite
for  diarrhoea (primary symptom), we may sometimes have to give
one or two drops of the tincture of the root; costiveness, if treated
Avith Aconite, may require two or three drops of the first or second
attenuation.   I may  here mention incidentally that, in  order to
determine Avhether Aconite should be used in a case of costiveness,
your  first care should  be to ascertain the nature  of the primary
symptoms that may have preceded this condition.  If these primary
symptoms,—more particularly the diarrhoea, uneasiness and pain in
the Dowels, and the sickness at the stomach Avhich are characteristic
of Aconite,—corresponded Avith the  primary action of Aconite, Ave
may depend  upon this  drug as one of the specific agents in a case
of constipation.
  There are a few violent diseases, where a physician may happen
to see the patient during the primary invasion. This will frequently
happen  in Asiatic Cholera, or even in a much less dangerous, but
much more  chronic disease, such as fever and ague.  In all such
cases I consider it philosophic homoeopathic treatment, to endeavor
to excite the organic reaction  by resorting to larger doses of the
appropriate  remedial  agents  than we should use, if  the organic re-
action had already set in. We might endeavor to  abbreviate the
chilly stage  of  a miasmatic intermittent by giving one or two drops
of the strong tincture of Aconite in  a gill of water, administering
a small  tablespoonful every ten or fifteen minutes.
  You  have heard me  distinguish between large and small  doses.
This seems strange, and yet you will  hear this distinction frequently 
76
LECTURE IV.
made by practitioners.  There is a considerable difference betAveen
a dose of the first or second trituration, and of the two hundredth
potency.  The subject of potencies is one of considerable import-
ance in homoeopathic  practice,  which should be  fully understood
by every student of our great  Science.   Let us examine it a little
more closely.
  It is one of Hahnemann's great doctrines that every drug contains
an essential principle which constitutes the active force of the drug
and upon the presence of which its peculiar characteristic properties
depend.   What is  it that distinguishes  Stramonium from  Bella-
donna, or rather that "makes Stramonium  and Belladonna to be
what they are respectively?  It is this inmost essential principle
which no 'chemist  has yet discovered in his crucible.  Analyze
Stramonium into its constituent elements, its carbon, nitrogen, hy-
drogen, and what not; can you recombine  them  into the original
plant?  Ah,  the Stramonium principle, the agent or force  which
had  combined these elements into a definite form, and Avhich, by
means of this form, had become a tangible and visible substance,
has fled into the sphere of forces Avhence  it descends upon the sun-
beam into  the loAver atmospheres, and again embodies itself by
means of the material, molecules of our globe, in  its OAvn peculiar
and  characteristic form Avhich constitutes the type or typical sub-
stratum of the in-dAvelling principle.
  Fixing your mind's eye upon  this subject, you  perceive two dis-
tinct elements that inteiwene in  the formation of a drug- an  active
principle or force, acting as a creative or inseminating agent,  and a
passive principle composed of material  molecules  Avhich have been
so fashioned by the  Supreme Creator as to  serve as  a recipient vessel
or form to the former.   Further  than this it seems impossible to go
in the present state of our scientific investigations.  AVe have not
yet solved the mystery of Creation, and all that  we have learned to
know by reasoning, observation and  analysis, is, that there  are, 1,
active forces or principles Avhich constitute the essence of things, and
2, forms  or passive recipients of the former.   How far the  active
forces of Nature have been originally instrumental in Avorking their
appropriate characteristic forms  out of the elementary molecules of
matter; Iioav the union between  these two principles is maintained ;
how thegreat process of organizing life into distinct individualities
and  maintaining and  developing them, each according to  its in-
herent laAV and destiny, is carried on: these, gentlemen, are subjects
worthy of the most religious contemplation, but  not immediately
connected with our present course of studies.
  Taking the Stramonium-plant as an illustration, Ave  say that it
represents an active principle or force which is  embodied, as  I term
it, in this plant, and more particularly in the  seeds  thereof.  The
plant, Avith all its perceptible characteristic properties of shape color
odor, leaves, blossoms, etc., is a representative type of the active force
dAvelling in its inmost bosom as  it  Avere.   Noav, gentlemen, what do
I mean when,  in the case of man, I allude to morbid tendencies or
morbid predispositions in the human organism?   I mean that the
germinal principles out of Avhich drugs are developed in Nature are 
            POTENCIES, INMOST PRINCIPLES OF DRUGS.         77

represented in man  by corresponding morbid tendencies or predis-
positions.  The germinal principle of Stramonium, or that recipient
faculty impressed  upon the elementary molecules of Nature to be
influenced by, and excited or individualized into a concrete, percep-
tible form  by some  specific force, which, while separated from the
material  molecules, constitutes an essence, and which, Avhen uniting
itself to, or pervading and penetrating material molecules, gives rise
to, and develops the Stramonium-plant;  this recipient faculty in the
elementary molecules of matter, likewise exists in the human organ-
ism; the  human organism likewise is tainted with a faculty of being
impressed by the active force, which, Avhen embodying itself  in the
material  molecules of Nature, results in the formation of the Stra-
monium-plant.  It  stands to reason that this force, when acting upon
the human  organism,  does  not develop the Stramonium-plant in
man.  What then does it develop?   Why, it develops the Stramo-
nium disease, a pathological lesion  characterised by definite signs,
symptoms or phenomena.  Let the Stramonium-force or principle
act upon the organism mediately, through  the  Stramonium-plant,
and'you  will develop a Stramonium disease exactly resembling the
former in all essential characteristics.  Is not this essential similarity
an evidence of the identity of their origin ?  Does not this  essential
similarity show that  the Stramonium-disease as mediately developed
by the plant, and  the Stramonium-disease as developed by the im-
mediate  invasion  of the organism by the Stramonium-principle or
force, are products of the same essential cause ?
   The ancient doctrine that man is a microcosm, a doctrine Avhich
has been accepted, Avith various modifications, by the philosophical
minds of all nations and ages, leads to the idea of Homoeopathy as
certainly and positively as any general law, if essentially  true and
correctly apprehended, will inevitably lead to its particular applica-
tions.  All  the germinal principles of  Nature are represented by
recipient faculties in man.  Man constitutes an universe of germinal
forces.   Every germinal drug-principle in outAvard Nature is repre-
sented in human  Nature by a kindred recipient faculty, a morbid
tendency or predisposition.  The germinal principle of Stramonium
pervades all Nature, but it does  not develop itself all over into an
actual  form.  In order that it  may  develop  itself into an  actual
plant, the circumstances of soil and locality have to correspond with
its essential nature.  It is only in waste places, on heaps  of rubbish
that the  Stramonium-plant can grow; it will not show itself in an
ornamental garden.   So does a recipient faculty of being impressed
by the creative Stramonium-force pervade every human organism;
but it does not develop in every organism an actual Stramonium-
disease.  In order that an  actual  pathological  lesion may be de-
veloped  in man, the circumambient conditions, abnormal influences
of climate and diet, exposure, the excessive action of the sun's rays,
starvation, fatigue, a draught of air, retrocession  of the perspiration,
mental or moral depression, have to favor this development. Other-
wise the  morbid faculty Avill remain  dormant, in a state of passive
potency,  and the A'ital force will not be disturbed in the harmonious
exercise  of its functions. 
78
LECTURE IV.
  We have reached the conclusion of our argument.  If a Stramo-
nium-lesion has actually been excited in  the organism, hoAV do we
proceed in order to hush  it up, and to reduce it back again to a
state of passive potency, a mere faculty, tendency or predisposition?
You know my answer." We act upon it by means of the Stramonium
principle as embodied in the plant, after leaving previously fitted it
for this work by suitable manipulations.  AVe present this principle
to the disease  in the shape of attractive molecules, and the conse-
quence of this contact of the Stramonium-disease with the Stramo-
nium-plant in a state of suitable adaptation, is the restoration of the
organism to a state of normal activity.
  Here is the great mystery which puzzles our  opponents and even
our friends.  Hoav does the homoeopathic medicine act?   Why, it
acts by carrying the war into Africa ; it acts like the lightning-rod
inviting the thunders of heaven.  Here is the Stramonium-disease,
the creative Stramonium-force having invaded  the organism where
it meets a kindred, recipient faculty, a predisposition which it excites
into a violent,  palpable disorder. I  say, we conquer this disorder
by carrying the war  into  Africa.   We act upon it by  means of
material  molecules for which the Stramonium-force or essence has
a stronger attractive affinity than for the organic  tissues.   These
material molecules are  the  Stramonium-drug in a suitable state of
preparation.  If the drug-molecules are not endowed with sufficient
force  to draAV the disease to themselves, to incorporate  the  disease
with themselves, in other Avords to materialize it, to  convert it from
the dynamic or immaterial  form in which it pervades the organism,
into  molecular drug-atoms of limited dimensions and harmless as
disease-producing agents, the cure fails.  Either the disease was not
a Stramonium-disease, or else the inimical force had  so thoroughly
assimilated the organic tissues that their dissolution had become
inevitable.  It is in this exact adaptation of  our remedial agents to
diseases, that consists their potency, their poAver to act.  Potency
has not reference to quantity or number, but to  the curative adapta-
tion  of drugs  to diseases.   In  this sense  a  globule of the  tAvelfth
attenuation of Arsenic may be a far more efficient potency than ten
drops of Fowler's solution ;  whereas, on the other hand, a few grains
of Quinine in fever and ague may exercise a more positive curative
influence, and  therefore constitute a more efficient potency, than a
few globules of the thirtieth attenuation.
  Hahnemann taught the doctrine,—and you must have seen from
my statements, that this doctrine is founded in Nature and Reason—
that it is the drug-force which effects cures. By drug-force we mean
the morbific essence Avhich materializes itself in the plant, and de-
velops pathological lesions in  the organism.   This drug-force can
never be wholly separated from the material molecules of the drug;
but by resorting to various peculiar processes of shaking and tritu-
rating, this drug-force may be set free, disengaged and may be united
Avith a temporary vehicle, such as alcohol  or sugar of milk.  I shall
describe this triturating and shaking process more fully in our next
lecture, and I shall then give a number of illustrations furnished by
Chemistry and Natural Philosophy, shoAving that very small bodies 
            POTENCIES, INMOST PRINCIPLES OF  DRUGS.         79

may possess the power of producing great effects.  For the present
let it suffice to know that  it is the  in-dwelling dynamic force of
drugs which effects our cures by absorbing or attracting as it were,
the morbific essence to itself, and amalgamating or incorporating it
with the molecular atoms of the drug.  I shall  hereafter quote "the
great authority of Professor Doppler, the  inventor of the platina-
hydrogen lamp, in order to substantiate this theory.
   The process  of  developing the dynamic  virtues of drugs by suc-
cussion and trituration has been carried to an almost incredible ex-
tent.  Take one drop of the tincture, and shake  it together with
ninety-nine drops of alcohol, and you obtain the first attenuation,
potency or dynamization.  It  is designated as an attenuation by
those Avholook upon this proceeding simply as a mechanical division
or separation of the drug-molecules ; the term potency or dynamiza-
tion is applied  by physicians who regard the process of shaking and
triturating as a development of the in-dAvelling drug-force.   Shake
a drop of thefirst potency with ninety-nine drops of strong alcohol,
and you obtain the second potency or attenuation.  This process has
been continued up to the one, four, eight, ten, yea forty thousandth
potency.
   Gentlemen, this is going  too far; there must be a  limit to this
thing.   Our materials are too crude to enable us to potentize drugs
to this  incredible height.  We  may keep potentizing until we po-
tentize  the drug-force back  again 'into the ethereal regions  of the
infinite.
   The use of infinitesimal doses as they are termed, is one of the
characteristic peculiarities of our practice.   Is the  doctrine of infi-
nitesimal doses essentially absurd ?  Is there any thing  essentially
absurd  in the developments which I have laid before you?  Is there
any thing absurd  in our doctrines concerning disease, with  Avhich
our doctrine of potencies and of infinitesimal doses is most intimately
connected.  "If I have  spoken falsely, prove it; if I have spoken
truly, why dost thou smite me ?"
   It is  not thus that our opponents treat us.  They do not Avish to
investigate our doctrines. They seize upon a few prominent peculi-
arities which, if separated from the organic structure of  the whole,
may easily be made to look unphilosophical, unscientific and absurd.
   " The practice of this  deluded man," writes my colleague of Jef-
ferson  College, Professor Mitchell, "has been called  infinitesimal,
because it  is fairly inferrable, from all he has said, that doses, di-
vided and  diminished, ad infinitum, are thereby augmented in effi-
cacy."   And again he  says:  " Were the position true, that  the
strength of a fluid mixture was augmented by dilution, then beyond
all doubt, an ounce of laudanum poured into the head  of the Alle-
ghany should narcotize  every individual Avho drank of the  Avater
of the Ohio,  down to where it empties  into the  Mississippi; and
the fish, too, of that noble stream could not fail to be destroyed by
the poison."
  It seems as though Professor Mitchell might have been drinking
of some such Avaters, or,  may be, the doctrines of Hahnemann have
so Avoefully narcotized his brain that  he has become incapacitated 
80
LECTURE V.
from understanding them.  I will  do him the justice tobeheve that
he is constitutionally unfit for such a task.  Let him slide.
  Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh, expresses his amazement at the
efficacy of our small doses in these terms: "To be called on to be-
lieve that the decillionth of a grain of charcoal or oyster-shell, is
capable of producing hundreds of the most formidable symptoms,
and of curing, as by magic, the most  inveterate diseases, while Ave
can take ounces, nay pounds, of the very same substance into our
stomachs, with  no other  inconvenience  than its mechanical  bulk,
seems  so gratuitous an outrage to human reason, that the  mind
instinctively recoils from the proposition."
  This seems more plausible, but  it is not the globuk of charcoal.
and oyster-shell that the professor demurs at, but  the infinitesimal
doses generally.  And yet, Avhy should not a globule of the thirtieth
potency of Aconite have the poAver of  curing a fever, if we consider
than an infinitesimal germinal vesicle, which can only be seen through
a powerful microscope, may develop itself into a Simpsonian  brain
which  has poAver to elaborate two mighty volumes on obstetrics
alternately filled with wisdom  and with folly; and Avhich enables a
man to commit  a crime against humanity by misrepresenting and
deriding our divine doctrine of the Healing Art and its great,  glori-
ous and immortal discoverer.
                   LECTURE  V.

  We have seen that the remedial poAver of a drug depends upon
the presence of an active principle which pervades the molecular
atoms of the drug as the vital spirit does the tissues of the organism
This active principle  is a force sui generis, which cannot be replaced
by any other force in nature.  In alloeopathic practice one amarum
or bitter substance may be  taken for another;  the doctrine  of suc-
cedanea or substitutes  is essentially a doctrine  of the Old  School.
We see  proposals made in allceopathic journals to employ one med-
icine in  the place of another; governments offer reAvards to  the dis-
coverer  of some cheap native substitute for expensive foreign drugs.
In our practice Ave repudiate the very idea of substituting one drug
for another.  Every drug constitutes a distinct power, is endoAved
with distinct properties which  make it to be Avhat it is: an indi-
vidual agent.  The ver}' idea of individuality precludes the possi-
bility of substitution, which is  simply another term for chaos and
confusion.  Every drug affects  the  human organism  in a  definite
manner, and is  in therapeutic  rapport Avith  some definite path-
ological lesion characterised by definite phenomena of pain, altera-
tions of color, temperature  and  pulse, eruptions, disharmony of the
nervous functions and  other signs of disease Avhich are peculiar to
this and to no other derangement.
   We are aware that modern chemistry has succeeded in analyzing 
ACTION  OF THE  DYNAMIC FORCES  OF DRUGS.        81
 medicinal  plants into a number of component parts.  Opium, for
 instance, has been analyzed into some twenty different substances, a
 fact of which Professor Simpson, in his volume against Homoeopathy,
 avails himself for the purpose of showing that homoeopathic phy-
 sicians do not operate with simple, but exceedingly compound sub-
 stances.  He writes;
   "Opium  is not  a  simple substance;  it is extemely composite
 in its character.  It contains, says Christison, no fewer than seven
 crystalline principles, called Morphia, Codeia, Paramorphia, Narco-
 tin, Narcein, Dorphyroxin, and Meconin, of which the first three are
 alkaline, and the others neutral; secondly, a peculiar acid termed
 meconic acid, which consitutes, with sulphuric acid, the solvent of
 the active principle;  and thirdly, a variety of comparatively unim-
 portant ingredients, such as  gum, albumen, resin, fixed  oil, a trace
 perhaps of volatile oil,  lignin,  caoutchouc, extractive matter,  and
 numerous  salts of inorganic bases.  Of these  inorganic  salts  and
 substances  in  Opium, Schindler,  in his analysis, detected among
 others, phosphate  of  lime, alumina, silica, magnesia, oxide of iron.
 Homceopathists, in  using  this frequently-indicated medicament,
 Opium, employ a preparation which is certainly not single, but con-
 sists at least of some twenty different substances."
   Unfortunately for his argument, our professor is a little too fast.
 He might  have increased the list  of these elementary ingredients
 threefold, and  yet  he would have been obliged to leave out  the
 most  essential of them all, the very element, in fact, which consti-
 tutes  the essential thing in Opium. Mix up your twenty ingredients
 in a crucible, and  try to combine them by fire or water, or by any
 means in your power, and what will you  obtain ?   Opium ?   No,
 indeed, you may produce some monstrous compound which will be
 as different from Opium as the inanimate carcass is from the living-
 body.  The Opium-principle or force, by assimilating to  itself  the
 molecular atoms of material nature, among which the above men-
 tioned chemical products constitute essential ingredients, becomes
 embodied for our  use in the opium-plant, the papaver somniferum,
 from which the Opium is obtained by means  of certain simple pro-
 cesses Avhich will be mentioned in the course  of our lectures. It is
 this opium-force or essence  Avhich effects  our cures of the path-
 ological lesions to which it is homoeopathic;  in other words, which
 result from its OAvn action upon the organic tissues.
  In order to enable  the dynamic principle  of a drug to act with
 more  positiveness,  more directness and more  specific intensity as it
 Avere,  Hahnemann  has resorted to  tAvo processes which our descen-
 dants  Avill, I doubt not,  regard  as two highly important inventions
 in the domain of pharmaceutics.  These two processes are: tritura-
 tion and succussion.  Before dwelling upon them more minutely,
 let me quote  the  opinion  of a  distinguished man in the natural
 sciences, I mean Professor Doppler of the University of Halle, who,
in an  essay, entitled "great and small," has felt called upon to vindi-
 cate the efficacy of small doses, Avithout being at all anxious to  say
a kind Avord in favor of Homoeopathy.  He expressly declares that
he does not Avrite in behalf of a theory not connected with his OAvn
                               6 
82
LECTURE A'.
 peculiar branch of investigation, and that it was physicians of the
 old school who requested him to publish his views.
   It is unnecessary to transcribe the Avhole of his interesting article;
 it may suffice for our present purpose to state, that  according to
 Doppler, " the poAver of remedial agents may be measured by exten-
 sion of surface, instead of being determined  by weight as has been
 the fashion heretofore.   By surface in the sense in Avhich Professor
 Doppler understands this  term, Ave do not mean the mathematical
 surface of a body, but the aggregate surface  of all its molecular
 constituents in a state of absolute separation from each other.   By
 separating these atomic  constituents, the actual surface of a body
 may be increased from a square inch to several thousand square feet.
 This separation is  best effected by mixing the pulverized substance
 with a sufficient quantity of sugar of milk, and afterwards grinding
 the mixture in a suitable mortar.  Having effected an homogenous
 compound by this means, Ave mix a portion of it Avith an additional
 quantity of sugar of milk, and  reneAV the process of grinding until
 another homogeneous product is secured.  This proceeding may be
 continued  until a  complete  separation  of all the molecular  con-
 stituents of the substance is effected.  The trituration with sugar of
 milk is resorted to in order to prevent  a reunion of the atoms by
 virtue of the  attraction  of affinity Avhich their immediate  contact
 with each other might excite."
   In making these successive triturations, we  shall find  that elec-
 tricity becomes developed on the surface of the atoms, endowed
 with such a high degree of expansiAreness that metals and  similar
 coarse bodies will not influence it.  That this electricity is developed,
 may be ascertained very readily by any one who will make these
 triturations in the dark.  After the first trituration, you see little of
 it; it becomes much more intense Avhen making the second tritura-
 tion, and still more  so during the third.  An electric light is readily
 perceived, and the crackling of a multitude of little sparks may be
 heard.  In breaking up  the atoms of liquid drugs, Ave use  alcohol
 as an  appropriate  vehicle, and  instead of triturating, Ave resort to
 the process of shaking, taking care to impart a number of poAverful
 succussions, not simply one or tAvo feeble,  nervous agitations of the
 surface.  In sending these molecular atoms through the  organism
 by means of the capillary current, we bring  the attractive force of
 each atom to  bear upon the dynamic disease Avhich pervades the
 tissues.  It is  the  dynamic force of the drug-molecule  that acts
 through the electric attractive poAver developed  on its surface  and
 the effect of this influence is to convert the dynamic  disease into so
 many atomic points as it Avere, which are perfectly harmless to the
 organism and are readily overcome by the vital reaction.
  Nature  and history furnish many proofs that very small  bodies
may produce great  effects.  Passional excitements may cause great
 disturbances of the physical organism.   A sudden joy has  caused
death; anger has developed  a  dangerous attack of bilious fever
stupor; the news of a sudden fortune  has made people mad • fear
has caused and  cured diseases.   Boerhaave cured epilepsy \vhich
had  become  epidemic in  the  foundling-hospital of  Leyden   by 
POWER OF SMALL QUANTITIES.
83
threatining all those who should be attacked again, with a severe
floo-D-ino*
   A sudden fright has caused imbecility and  death.
   The sense of smell is so keen in a dog, that he discovers his master
by the scent.
   According to Bouchardat,  fresh-water fishes die in water  con
taining iioouoth  of  sublimate,  or in smooth  of the  iodide  of
mercury.
   Segin has discovered  atoms  of copper through  a microscope
magnifying seventy-five times; Mayerhofer  has seen  atoms of the
eighth trituration  of iron, of the tenth of platina,*gold, silver, mer-
cury, and  of the fourteenth of tin.  In order to avoid the possi-
bility of a mistake, he first examined the atoms  of the crude sub-
stance, with which the atoms of the triturations seemed to correspond
perfectly.
   Liebig writes: We knoAV of animals with teeth, with motor and
digestive organs that are no longer visible to the naked eye.  There
are other animals whose size has been found  by measurement to be
infinitely smaller,  and Avhich possess the same apparatuses.  Like
the larger animals they take  food, and propagate themselves by
means of eggs, that must  necessarily be thousands of time smaller
than their bodies.  If we are unable to perceive creatures which
are still billion times smaller  than these, it  is because our optical
instruments are too imperfect.
   Concerning distance  the same author writes: " The  multitude of
Avorlds is infinitely large, it cannot be expressed in numbers; in one
second a ray of light travels forty thousand  miles; there are fixed
stars whose rays require millions  of years before they reach our
globe."
   Chemistry furnishes  a  number  of striking illustrations of the
power of  small quantities*  Starch and water are united  into an
entirely new body by Sulphuric  acid which  loses none of  its  pro-
perties in consequence;  it effects this union by its mere presence, a
process termed by chemists Catalysis or action of presence.
   One part of hydrothionic acid gas is discoverable in  three million
parts of water by means of silver with a polished surface.
   One millionth part of starch is rendered violet by iodine.
   One eighty thousandth part of a grain of sulphuric acid is- still
discoverable by sugar.
   Brande and Eveling state that one five thousandth part of a grain
of arsenious acid is discoverable in five hundred  thousand parts of
Avater, after the lapse of tAventy-four hours, by means  of ammonio-
sulphate of copper.
   According to Poppe, 350th of a grain of carmine tinctures sixty
pounds of  water;  take tott-ootjo oi> this solution and one drop of  it,
spread on  white paper, will still show the color  under the micro-
scope.  To2:{ ooijth of sulphur reacts against acetate of lead; 2o45oootn
of chlore against nitrate of silver.
   Spallanzani states that rra-lnjth of a grain  of semen of frogs is
capable of fecundating;  viz.:  three  grains of semen  dissolved  in
twenty-two pounds of Avater. 
84
LECTURE V.
  According to  Professor Arnold of  Heidelberg,  a solution of
TSTTooooth of frog-semen is still endoAved Avith powers of fecundation.
  The greatest philosophers believe in the infinitely small.
  Berzelius Avrites: We  may progress in knoAvledge as far as Ave
• dioose;  we shall always stumble upon something that seems incom-
prehensible.
  Professor Albers teaches  that, "the  comminuted  dose  is more
readily received by the stomach, irritates much less the place Avhere
it first comes in contact  with the organism, and hence  acts more
completely and more permanently than a massive dose."
  Dr. Schulz expresses himself thus: The reception of drugs by the
organism is the more rapid, the less the local absorbents are irritated
by the drug, in other Avords: the smaller is the dose.
  Panizza  concludes from his experiments concerning  absorption,
that  " small comminuted  and easily soluble doses of medicine are
more efficacious than  large  doses which pass  off again with the
excrements; the absorption of drugs takes place the more  readily,
the more soluble the medicines are, and the more  they are divided
and susceptible of assimilation."
  It  must be conceded, however, that all  these quantities,  small as
they may appear, may  still seem large in the presence of our infini-
tesimal doses.   Think  of the  ten thousandth potency!   Well may
Ave exclaim with  the great poet:  " There are more things  between
heaven and earth than  we have dreamed of in our philosophy."
  It is impossible to determine the size of doses by a fixed,  unvary-
ing rule.   There was a time when the great body of homoeopathic
practitioners Avas divided into two hostile camps, high and low dilu-
tionists.  The high dilutionists professed to practice a Homoeopathy
of a higher order; Avhile the Ioav dilutionists looked upon the former
Avith a sort of phy, doubting, may be, their sanity.   These opponents
are noAV Avilling to treat each  other with more respect and liberality,
and  a certain harmony of feeling and action might  perhaps  have
.been agreed upon, if the new marvel of the so-called highest poten-
cies  had not come to disturb the brethren.
  Do these very high  potencies act ?  It is my decided  conviction
that they do.  But can they be depended  upon in  all cases ?  . I un-
hesitatingly answer: No.  In the course of my lectures I shall take
every opportunity to enlighten you concerning the  most appropriate
dose of every drug; for the present I take the liberty of giving the
general advice that, in  the beginning of your professional career'you
had better confine yourselves to the first six potencies ; in some cases
you may use tinctures and  the loAver triturations; but  in the vast
majority of _ cases you will find the attenuations from the first to the
sixth sufficient to effect a cure.  Gradually,  as }rou gain  experience
and  confidence in yourselves, you  may make trials with the higher
and highest potencies in cases that seem adapted to their use.
  As a  general rule physicians use the higher and  highest potencies
in all chronic cases; the loAver potencies are used more particularly
in acute cases.   Here  too Ave may distinguish between the primary
and secondary symptoms.  While the primary symptoms prevail  a
large dose is preferable t« a smaller one which is more  appropriate 
ADMINISTRATION OF MEDICINES.
85
during the secondary symptoms or the stage of organic reaction.  In
chronic cases attended with disorganizations, such  as hypertrophy
of tissues, abscess, effusion, and in certain kinds of miasmatic  dis-
eases, more  particularly in all forms and stages of syphilis, massive
doses of the appropriate drug are very often, and indeed most gene-
rally more efficient than  small  doses. Nevertheless you will find it
unwise to adhere too dogmatically to any rule regarding the size of
doses.   You may undoubtedly incline to general principles; but it
is best to do so cautiously, and Avith the reservation of modifying
them according to the requirements of individual cases.
 _ I am willing to admit  very freely  that the doctrine of potentiza-
tion has been most sadly abused by a small number  of homoeopathic
practitioners.   On the other hand, however, I would ask you, gen-
tlemen, to refrain from rushing into the opposite extreme of material
doses.  Have faith in Hahnemann's teachings regarding the dynamic
force of drugs.  Hoav is it that allceopathic physicians, Avhen making
their first attempts in Homoeopathy, turn to the despised globule
Avith a sort of instinctive warning that it embodies a great and vital
truth ?  I never  knew of an allceopathic convert to our  doctrines
who does not fly from the contaminating materialism  of the  Old
School with a perfect  loathing.  Yes, there is power in small doses;
the lower  potencies, from the first to the sixth, may be all-sufficient
for practical purposes; but do not  be  afraid of investigating  the
doctrine of potentization as  embodying principles which may, at
some future period, reveal to us hitherto unknoAvn forces of life.
  Homoeopathic  physicians are not in the habit of using  medicines
externally; nevertheless we may resort to this method in some cases.
Arnica is used externally in the case of wounds and bruises;  the
external use of Aconite frequently becomes necessary  in severe
forms  of neuralgia.   Many homoeopathic physicians employ  the
Sulphur-ointment in  the itch.  In the  course of my lectures, this
subject will be dwelt upon more in detail.  Let me here caution
you, gentlemen, against the pernicious practice of allceopathic physi-
cians to resort to the external  application of drugs for the  purpose
of repelling an eruption,  drying up some old sore, or burning away
a chancre*  Untold suffering  has been entailed  upon patients by
rubbing mercurial ointment upon an acute nettlerash, or by drying
up  a chronic ulcer Avith lead-Avashes.   Such diseases are internal
maladies, the intensity and destructive power of which are tempered
by the vital reaction  through the development  of  these cutaneous
symptoms.  Close up these natural outlets of the internal disease,
and you may develop incurable chronic  ailments, asthma, paralysis,
consumption and other disorganizing processes.  On more than one
occasion the drying up of an old sore  by means of an astringent
Avash has resulted in fatal apoplexy.

  Regarding the

            ADMINISTRATION OF  MEDICINES,

We may remark that Ararious methods have been adopted by homoeo- 
so
LECTURE V.
pathic  practitioners, agreeably to their respective tastes and judg-
ments.
  In the earlier periods of Homoeopathy, Hahnemann and his dis-
ciples Avere in the habit  of giving a single dose of the appropriate
remedy dry on  the tongue, and allowing it to act  for a longer or
shorter period, according to the requirements of the case.   A dose
consisted of one, tAVO  or more globules of the size of a mustard-seed.
At a later period, Aegidi introduced the practice of dissolving four
or five globules or pellets in from six to ten tablespoonfuls of soft
Avater,  Avhich  had  to be perfectly free from all impurities.   A table-
spoonful, or a desertspoonful in the case of children, was adminis-
tered every fifteen minutes, or every half hour, or even every hour,
two, three or four hours, according as the symptoms were more or
less acute, and the disease ran a more or less rapid course.  This
practice is the  prevailing practice Avith the vast majority of prac-
titioners.   Many  of our practitioners give the medicine in powders,
mixing one or two drops of the required potency with a small quan-
tity of sugar of milk, and dividing it into six, ten or twelve pow-
ders, one of which is taken by the patient, dry on the tongue, every
hour, or every two, four, six or eight hours, according  to  the more
or less acute  or chronic nature of the case.
  Another mode of  administering homoeopathic remedies is  by
olfaction.   This process is not much resorted  to by modern phys-
icians.  If employed, the emanations from  the medicine should- be
sufficiently perceptible to impress the nervous system through the
filaments  of the olfactory nerve.  This  method should only be re-
sorted to in purely nervous affections; we doubt whether  it can be
depended upon in acute inflammations, or in disorders of  any kind
which may terminate in dangerous disorganizations.
  The process  of inhalation has likewise  been adopted  by some
homoeopathic practitioners,  more particularly in affections of  the
respiratory organs.  The medicine is introduced into an inhaler, and
made to act directly upon the pulmonary tissue  and the bronchial
lining membrane. A very excellent inhaler may be  procured of Dr.
Otto Fullgraff, New York, a representation and description of which
may be found  in the February number of the North-American
Homoeopathic Journal, 1856.
  A good deal of metaphysical sophistry  has  been  expended in
former years upon the repetition of doses and the succession of reme-
dies.   After a dose of the medicine had been given, the effects had
to be Avatched Avith scrupulous care, and any  change  in the symp-
toms,  Avhether  apparent or real, generally indicated  a chano-e of
remedy.   Modern  homoeopathists  of  experience  and  judgment
change their medicines much less frequently than  Avas the fashion
Avith their predecessors, or is the fashion Avith  some of their cotem-
poraries.  We hear of physicians using four and even six medicines
not only in the same case, but at the same time, alternating them in
regular order.  This  is undoubtedly a  strange abuse, of which  no
intelligent practitioner who comprehends our law of cure and is
fully conversant  Avith our therapeutic resources, Avill ever render
himself guilty. 
PREPARATION  OF DRUGS.
87
  If in a case of pleurisy, pneumonia, meningitis, acute rhematism,
or any other acute disease, a decided improvement sets in after one
or two doses of Aconite or Belladonna, it would be very unwise to
change the medicine, because the symptoms are less intense, or be-
cause some of the more acute and distressing symptoms have disap-
peared.  The essential character of the disease may still be the same,
and the same treatment, if continued in a modified form, may lead
to perfect recovery.  Instead of changing the medicine, Ave continue
the same remedy at prolonged intervals ; many a case of meningitis
has been cured with Belladonna, many a case of typhus with Arsenic,
many hundred cases of pleurisy or pneumonia with Aconite, without
the employment of any other medicine. In chronic cases the medi-
cine may be repeated every twenty-four  hours, or even every two
or three days.   There are chronic diseases, hoAvever, Avhere  it may
be proper and  necessary to give  the medicine every six or twelve
hours, and  even more frequently.   In some forms of chronic dys-
pepsia, it may not be out of the way, to  repeat the dose every six
hours; in  primary syphilis the specific remedy may  sometimes  be
repeated with  advantage every four hours; even in the secondary
and tertiary forms of this disease, a dose of  the appropriate remedy
may be given every four or six hours.
   In chronic diseases we generally confine ourselves to  one remedy
at a time.   The method of alternating- two medicines at regular in-
tervals, is generally resorted to in acute cases only. AVe may alter-
nate Aconite and Belladonna, or Aconite and Bryonia, or Aconite
and Phosphorus, Belladonna and Nux, Phosphorus and Arsenic, etc.
It should be remarked, however,  that, in many cases, this method of
alternation is an expedient shift  rather than an usage necessitated
or justified by principle.
   Luz, the inventor of the isopathic system of treatment, has pro-
posed in a  late publication to mix the  remedies instead  of alternat-
ing them.   He asserts that Hahnemann, in a letter addressed by him
to Luz, and published in the above mentioned work, sanctioned the
proposition of mixing medicines, and that Hahnemann's views con-
cerning this subject Avould haA^e been  published in the last edition
of the Organon, if the physicians to whom the publication of this
edition Avas confined in Germany, had not left them out by a manage-
ment of their own,   Be this as it may, it is very doubtful Avhether
Hahnemann, in the full enjoyment of his mature judgment, would
have authorized this new-fangled polypharmacy ; on the other hand
it is equally certain that he Avould have visited with the severest
condemnation  the practice of using three or four medicines in the
same case simultaneously at  regular intervals.
   It remains noAV to give a short description of the utensils Avhich
are required for the business of making homoeopathic preparations;
and afterwards to indicate more specially the method which has been
adopted by Hahnemann and by modern homoeopathic pharmaceutists
generally, of making homoeopathic preparations.
   The utensils of which we make use in preparing  homoeopathic
tinctures, essences, triturations and liquid attenuations,  are: 
88
LECTURE V.
                           1. Mortars.

  An iron mortar which is to be perfectly smooth on the inner sur-
face, and Avhich should be  kept polished constantly;  and mortars of
white marble with hard pestles.  The marble mortars should not be
glazed Avithin;  the  pestles may have Avooden handles to which an
elongated, and evenly rounded extremity of unglazed marble should
be attached.

                      2. A Cutting Machine.

  For the cutting of roots and herbs, a Avell-polished  knife should
be used, which has  to be free from rust.  Rust decomposes a great
many  vegetable juices instantaneously.   The boards  and blocks
upon which the  plants are cut,  should be  cleansed  immediately
after  being used.  An excellent contrivance for such purposes is a
very simple machine, Avhere the knife is worked up and down with
a handle between four uprights;  a similar instrument is used for
cutting tobacco leaves.

                           3. A Press,

For the purpose of pressing out the juice of plants, etc.  An excel-
lent  instrument for  this purpose is the press contrived by Messrs.
Bullock & CrenshaAV of this city, for  our pharmaceutists.   It con-
sists mainly of an iron screw Avith an iron  handle attached  to  it.
The  plant having been previously cut in small  pieces, is enclosed
in a linen bag  perfectly free from  starch and bleaching materials,
and, enclosed in  this bag, is subjected to the action of the screw.
The juice collects in a tin pan Avhich is provided Avith a convenient
opening at the side for the purpose of alloAving the juice to run into
a suitable vessel.  After using the screw, the pan and screAV should
be thoroughly cleansed; no bags should be used for tAVO different
substances.

                           4. Yials.

  All vials  which  the homoeopathic physician has to use in his
practice, should be rinsed in hot, and  afterwards in  cold Avater;
after Avhich the vials are  turned upside  down, so as to enable the
water to run down  the sides of the vial; before using these vials,
they should be  dried in a  hot oven.  These remarks likeAvise apply
to the bottles and jars in Avhich the medicines are to be  kept.

                           5. Corks.

  The corks Avith which the vials are closed, have to be selected
with great care ; all hard, porous and dark-colored corks have to be
rejected.  As soon as the corks shrink or become soft,  they should
at once be replaced by new corks having the requisite qualities for
use.   Vials containing corroding  acids, should  be provided with 
PREPARATION  OF DRUGS.                  89
ground-glass stoppers.  A'ials containing substances Avhich are liable
to being altered by the action of the light, have to be pasted over
Avith dark-colored paper.

                           6. Alcohol.

  _ This product of fermentation  may be obtained from wine, beer,
cider,  malt,  dregs  of grapes, sugar-cane,  germinating  cerealia,
pounded cherries, molasses, juice of carrots or beets, potatoes, honey,
etc. _  The alcohol of the shops  is never pure; chemical  alcohol,
obtained from the resin of jalap  for instance, is not suitable for our
preparations;  if made from potatoes, it contains fusel-oil, an empy-
reumatic oil, which may be removed by shaking the alcohol with
pure olive-oil  for  several days;  the  two oils combine and  float on
the top, after which they may be easily removed.
   Pure anhydrous alcohol is a colorless fluid, having a sweet and
penetrating odor, and a burning and pungent flavor;  it must not
lather Avhen rubbed, and have no foreign odor; it dissolves perfectly
in water, evaporates by exposure to the air, on account of its affinity
for atmospheric moisture.  It burns with a white flame at the centre,
and blue at the edges, leaving no residue. Alcohol  dissolves many
substances, phosphorus and sulphur in small quantities, fixed alka-
lies, balsams, resins, camphor, sugar, volatile oils, extractive matter,
etc.
   Acids are either dissolved by alcohol or transformed into ether.
   Anhydrous alcohol of one hundred degrees, is never used; there
is always water in the alcohol of the shops.  AV"e have 1, the alcohol
of commerce; 2, rectified alcohol, also termed  diluted alcohol, con-
taining about  sixty per cent.; 3,  best rectified  or strong alcohol of
seventy-five to eighty degrees ; and 4, absolute alcohol from ninety-
six to  one hundred degrees.
   Soemmering has contrived a very simple process of freeing alcohol
from the Avatery particles it may  contain.  Taking advantage of the
fact that alcohol has no affinity for animal tissues, he cleans a pig's
bladder from  its adhering  fat and impurities, and having tied the
orifice of the  bladder  to a glass  tube, he distends it Avith air to its
full size and then hangs it  up to dry, having previously stopped up
the opening of the glass  tube by means of a cork.   The bladder
being perfectly dry, a thin  layer of glue is spread over it, in order
to preserve it from injury and to give it more consistence.   The
bladder is then filled with alcohol, the cork is removed from the
tube, and in its place a piece of Avet bladder is tied over the opening
of the tube.   The bladder being  exposed to the ordinary heat of a
stove,  the watery particles  Avill evaporate in the course of a fort-
night, and the  strong alcohol Avill remain behind. It is advisable to
distil this alcohol over charcoal before using it.

                           7. Water.

  Common Avater  is  always  impure, charged with  gases, earthy
matters, etc.   Pure Avater  should be  without taste, smell or color. 
90
LECTURE V.
Rain-water, after a storm, contains ammonia Avith nitric acid.   Be-
fore  using Avater, it should  be distilled by a careful honi<eopathic
pharmaceutist, unless the physician prefers doing it himself.

                        8.  Sugar of J [ilk.

  This is obtained from the  serum of coav's or goat's milk by evapo-
ration.  It crystallizes round a thin stick in elongated tubular
masses.   The sugar of milk  of the shops not being pure, *ve crystal-
lize  it over again  by first  boiling  it over  a moderate fire, Avith
double its quantity of distilled Avater, after Avhich  we proceed as
folloAVs according  to Griiner's directions: Filter  the  hot  solution
through filtering paper over which  a piece  of perfectly Avhite and
clean linen is spread, into  an earthen vessel containing as much
strong alcohol as Avater had  been used in boiling.   As soon as the
two liquids come in contact, the sugar is precipitated in the shape of
small pointed crystals which partly accumulate at the bottom of the
vessel, and partly are deposited on its sides  in the shape of a solid
coating.   After the liquid is all filtered and  before the vessel is set
aside for cooling, the liquid  is stirred with a  clean wooden stick, in
order to obtain a perfectly homogeneous mixture.   In a few days the
liquid which floats over the crystals, is poured off, the crystals are
separated  from the sides and bottom of the vessel, washed Avith cold,
distilled water, spread out in  thin layers upon clean paper over a
sieve, and lastly dried by exposing them to a moderate heat.  The
dried crystals are  pulverised  in a mortar, and the poAvder is after
Avards passed through a fine sieve.  The finest part of the poAvder
is used  for putting up poAvders; the coarser part is used for tritu-
rations.
  Sugar of milk should be  kept in a dry, well-ventilated  room, in
Avell-closed glass jars.

                           9. Globules.

  The globules we use, are  of various sizes; they are composed of
sugar and starch, and should be perfectly Avhite, dry and hard.
     TRITURATIONS AND LIQUID ATTENUATIONS.

  According to Hahnemann, the triturating process  should be car-
ried on in the manner described in the first volume  of the Chronic
Diseases.  Hahnemann was exceedingly particular  in his instruc-
tions, how triturations and after Avards liquid attenuations should be
made; I will give you  the substance of his remarks from a Avork
which I published some years ago.  Specific directions will be com-
municated when we come to treat of the various substances compos-
ing our Materia Medica.
  Of  the substance to be triturated, we take one grain and  mix it
in an  unglazed mortar with thirty-three  grains  of  suo-ar of milk.
Stir the  mass with a spatula  and then triturate for  six minutes! 
           TRITURATIONS AND LIQUID ATTENUATIONS.         91

Scrape up the mass that adheres to the bottom and sides of the mor-
tar and to the pestle, for four minutes, and then triturate again Avith
great force for six minutes.  Then scrape up again for four minutes,
add another thirty-three grains of sugar of  milk, stir the neAv com-
pound Avith the spatula, triturate for six minutes, scrape up again for
four, triturate again with great force  for six,  scrape the mass up
again for four minutes, and  then add the last thirty-three grains of
sugar of milk,  proceeding with this last portion as with the  two'
former.  Tl^is powder we enclose in a well-corked vial, marking  it
Avith the name of the drug and the fractional number Tfo to show
that this is the one-hundredth potency of this substance.
   From this first trituration Ave  obtain  the second  marked TT)i^,
by triturating one grain  of it with ninety-one grains  of sugar of
milk in the same manner as has been  described in the previous
paragraph.
   In a similar manner the third trituration  marked tooiUm or I- is
obtained from the second trituration.
   From this third trituration we obtain the  fourth potency by mix-
ing one grain of the triturated substance with fifty drops of distilled
water,  shaking the mass  vigorously for a  feAV minutes, and after-
Avards  adding fifty drops  of strong alcohol, after which the whole
mixture is again  shaken  vigorously for a  feAV minutes.  The  vial
should not be filled more than two-thirds.
   This vial is marked with the name of the medicine and the num-
ber m I.   Of this potency we take one drop, mixing it with ninety-
nine drops of strong alcohol and shaking it  vigorously a number of
times.  This is the fifth potency marked 100° I.  Of this potency Ave
take  again one  drop,  mixing it with ninety-nine drops of strong
alcohol, shaking the mixture vigorously and marking  it II.   The
subsequent potencies are prepared each from the one which imme-
diately precedes  it; they are to  be marked in a similar manner,
100II. for the seventh ;  10u0° II. for the eighth; III. for the ninth,  etc.
   Vials having been used for one medicine  or  potency, should not
be used for any other.
   After triturating a drug for a long time, a portion of the triturated
substance will sometimes adhere to the sides of the mortar so firmly
that it  cannot be Avashed off; in such a case it will be necessary to
scour the  mortar with fine  sand  and afterwards to dry it in a hot
oven;  this will likeAvise remove the odor that  may haAre remained
behind.
   Hahnemann Avas in the habit of using globules for his prescrip-
tions, Avhich had  been previously moistened  Avith  the respective
potencies.   He  generally poured two or  three  drops upon  two
hundred  globules  enclosed in a vial;  and after shaking and rolling
them about until  every globule Avas  saturated Avith the liquid, he
spread them upon a piece of Avhite unglazed paper,  with the edges
raised,  and left them for a feAV hours until they were perfectly  dry,
after which he  put them  up for use in a fresh vial.  One  or two
globules were given at a dose, or half a dozen globules were dis-
solved in  a tumblerful of water, of which  mixture a tablespoonful
was administered every hour, or two, three or four hours according
to the requirements of the case. 
92                        LECTURE  V.
  These details, gentlemen, may seem somewhat pedantically minute,
but I am satisfied that the true method of securing good homoeo-
pathic preparations, is to follow Hahnemann's  rules as closely  as
may be possible  and  convenient.  Instead of adding at once the
whole quantity of sugar of milk, Ave  obtain a  much more certain
and perfect commingling of the medicine Avith the sugar of milk by
pursuing the course pointed out by Hahnemann.
  The details of the mode of preparation proposed by Hahnemann,
have been somewhat modified by our pharmaceutists.  TJiough it is
acknowledged by all that trituration is the best  mode of developing
the medicinal powers of a  drug, and that the triturating process
should be conducted Avith the  greatest care, order and regularity;
yet it has not been deemed necessary to observe the details in the
very same manner as they have been proposed by Hahnemann.   It
has not been deemed derogatory to the scientific character of Homoeo-
pathy to modify  the number  of minutes  Avhich  Hahnemann  pre-
scribes for the various details of the process, or to increase the num-
ber of shakes in preparing the dilutions.   Moreover the proportion
of the ingredients in making our preparations, has been considerably
modified.  Instead of taking one grain or one  drop to ninety-nine
grains of sugar of milk, ten grains of the drug  are taken, to ninety
grains of the vehicle.   I would here observe in passing, that by
vehicle is always  to be  understood the non-medicinal substance
with which  the medicine is triturated or shaken in combination.
Hahnemann's  scale is called the centesimal, and  this new scale  is
designated as the  decimal scale.  I believe that  the decimal scale is
now more generally used by homoeopathic practitioners  than the
centesimal.
  Griiner, who is  one of the most distinguished pharmaceutists of
our school, adopts the decimal scale in preparing the  triturations
and liquid attenuations;  in his  pharmacopcea he gives the following
directions:
  "AVeigh careful]3^ a portion  of the drug, add  to it an equal por-
tion in Aveight of  powdered sugar of milk, (using the coarser kind
for firm or tenaceous substances,) and  triturate these ingredients in
a mortar of sufficient capacity, until both have been transformed
into a homogeneous mass  as respects  color and  fineness.   Every
noAV and then, the substance Avhich adheres to the sides of the mortar
and to the pestle,  should be scraped off Avith a horny spatula.   The
homogeneous character of the  preparation will,  in a great  measure,
depend upon the fulfilment of this condition."
  "It is impossible to limit the duration of this first  period  of the
triturating process by a general rule.  This  depends upon the greater
or less degree of solidity of the drug.  In every case, however, it
should be continued for at least half an hour.  Such substances as
Lycopodium require several successive triturations, before their par-
ticles are entirely broken up. After the first trituration is terminated,
and the drug-particles and those of-the sugar of milk are sufficiently
intermingled, a second portion  of sugar of milk, being equal to three
times the quantity of the former, is added, and  the trituration is
continued for another half hour, including  the scrapino-• after which 
           TRITURATIONS AND LIQUID ATTENUATIONS.         93

the last portion of sugar of milk, equal to five times the quantity of
the first portion, is poured into the mortar, and the triturating pro-
cess continued until the whole mass presents a perfectly homogeneous
compound, even when viewed through a glass.  This compound will
necessarily weigh  ten times as much  as the  original drug.  It is
called the first trituration and designated as No. 1.
  We noAV take a  certain portion of this trituration, add  to it nine
times its weight of sugar of milk, and triturate these two substances
together far  three quarters  of  an hour in the manner  described
above.  This second trituration is designed as No. 2.  From this
second trituration  we derive the third by a similar process.
  Before  commencing to triturate, care should be had to dry the
vessels, drugs and sugar of milk as perfectly as possible, and more-
over, to divide hard and tenacious substances as finety as may  be.
The dividing of the metals will  be explained more  in detail Avhen
Ave  come  to speak of the different metals.   Salts, precipitates and
the like should first be reduced to  a fine powder.  The  same obser-
vation applies to Aregetable substances."
  The fourth dilution of the decimal scale is obtained  by first dis-
solving ten grains of the third trituration in the same quantity of
water as was originally used for  one grain of the centesimal scale of
Hahnemann; and after shaking the tAvo together until the sugar of
milk is dissolved,  add  a  similar  quantity of alcohol, and  shake the
Avhole mass until a perfect union of all the particles is established.
This fourth attenuation, if it is prepared for immediate use, may be
prepared by means of water, without any alcohol. Of course it could
not be made to keep.   But even with  the alcohol it is preferable to
use the fourth attenuation only as a means to obtain the succeeding
attenuations.  If the fourth dilution is obtained Avith Avater, the next
attenuation should be made with dilute alcohol, and after that, strong
alcohol should be  used for all succeeding attenuations.
  Before  commencing the  attenuations, as  many vials, containing
about two drachms each, should be prepared, as attenuations may be
required ; they should be corked  and the names of the medicines and
the potencies should be marked on the corks.  Labels exhibiting
these names and potencies, should  likeAvise  be pasted on  the vials.
Afterwards each vial should be filled with ninety-nine, or,  if Ave pre-
pare our medicines according to the decimal scale, Avith ninety drops
of alcohol.  In order to avoid superfluous  repetitions, we will sup-
pose that the decimal scale  is followed throughout.  Into the vial
marked No. 1, ten drops of  the  medicine should then be dropped,
and the vial should be vigorously shaken  by means of a dozen or
more powerful strokes of the arm.
  From this first vial avc fill ten or twenty drops into the next fol-
lowing, and prepare this dynamization in a similar manner by shak-
ing the vial.  And so on through the Avhole series.
  You will understand from these  remarks, that in order to make
reliable attenuated preparations,  you require to use,
  1. Dry and fine  sugar of milk;
  2. Pure, distilled Avater;
  3. Alcohol free from all admixtures;
  4. Sound corks and perfectly clean vials, and 
94
LECTURE V.
    5. Cleanliness, accuracy of measurement or weight, and the most
 systematic regularity in Avorking with your  materials.   Do not be
 triturating for ten  or  fifteen minutes, and then leave off for a few
 hours or more, leaving your mortar standing on the table, exposed
 to dampness, dust and other impurities. If you commence a tritura-
 ration, go through Avith it, until it is bottled up and put away in its
 proper place.  It is a  great treat for a homoeopathic practitioner
 Avho can spare the time, to make his  OAvn  preparations; if it were
 known how bunglingly some of our  preparations are made at the
 shops,  nobody Avould wonder that our  higher attenuations seem
 inefficacious.
   Soluble salts, ethereal oils, and similar substances, instead of being
 triturated,  are  dissolved in water from the first.  By triturating
 them, their constituent elements AArould be partially disunited, and
 many of them exercise a decomposing influence upon sugar of milk,
 as may be inferred from the sourish odor emitted by such prepara-
 tions after the lapse of  several months.
   Salts are dissolved in pure water, ethereal oils in the strongest
 kind of alcohol.   The decimal scale may be preserved with most of
 them.  Some salts, for instance the nitrate of  silver, have to be dis-
 solved  in the proportion of  five to ninety-five, that is, five parts of
 the salts in ninety-five parts  of distilled Avater.  This preparation is
 marked one-twentieth which indicates the proportional  relation of
 the drug  to the vehicle.  To obtain the first dilution, we take twenty
 parts of the above preparation and mix them Avith  eighty parts of
 alcohol; the second and all successive attenuations are made in the
 proportion of one to ten.  These attenuations should each'be well
 shaken by means of vigorous strokes of the arm.
   The following precautionary rules should be observed in prepar-
 ing the solutions of salts:
   1. These  solutions should  be prepared at an ordinary tempera-
 ture, and  the  room where  they are kept, should not be  subject to
 variations of temperature, so that the crystallization by cold may be
 avoided.
   2. In order to prevent any possible decomposition, the solution
 should not be exposed to the  light of day.
   3. The  liquid should only be used as long as it remains perfectly
 clear and transparent;  it  should be thrown away  as soon as  it
 becomes dim, or borders, flocks or crystals show themselves.
   4. Only corks of the  best quality should be used for  solutions,
 since corks used for solutions decay more readily than corks used
for the alcoholic attenuations.
   5. To obtain  the  second attenuation of these solutions, dilute
alcohol should be used; the third and  all subsequent attenuations
should be made Avith strong alcohol.
               TINCTURES AND ESSENCES.

  The preparation of tinctures and essences varies in accordance
with  the  constituent  particles and chemical composition of  the 
TINCTURES, ESSENCES.
95
 plants.  For the present I shall only give you the general rules to
 be folloAved in making the tinctures.  If any particular rules should
 have  to be observed as regards the  strength of the alcohol to  be
 used,  and  the like, they will be indicated when we come to  speak
 of each plant in particular.
   All the  plants from  which tinctures are prepared, are arranged
 by Griiner in three classes, corresponding with the different  modes
 adopted for the preparation of tinctures.
   In  the  first class we range all barks, roots, seeds,  leaves, etc.,
 which are preserved and prepared in  a dry state.
   The second class contains all those  fresh plants, the juice of Avhich
 can be obtained in a  sufficient  quantity by squeezing  it out by
 means of a good press.
   The third class numbers all such recent plants as contain so little
 juice  that only a  very small quantity  can be obtained  by simple
 jmessure.
   The best method of obtaining a strong or, as it is termed, a con-
 centrated  or saturated tincture from dry plants, is to first pulverise
 them  as finely as  may  be, and then  transform this powder  into a
 fine paste by adding a little alcohol.   This should be done in a room
 having a normal temperature, nor should the  mass be exposed  to
 the decomposing agency of the solar rays.  Upon this paste we pour
 the required quantity of alcohol, and alloAV the liquid to stand for
 a fortnight.  We must take care to keep the vessel—which contains
 the liquid, closed with a piece of Avet bladder; once a day, or morn-
 ing and evening, the vessel should be vigorously shaken.  After the
 lapse  of a fortnight, the liquid is  poured off, and the residue sub-
 jected  to a  press; Ave alloAV the  extract  to settle  for twenty-four
 hours,  after which  period Ave filter it  through Avhite blotting paper,
 and then put it up for use.   This method of preparing a concentra-
 ted tincture, is termed maceration; and such tinctures are denomi-
 nated  by homoeopathic  physicians mother-tinctures, for the reason
 that the subsequent attenuations are made from them.  For some  of
 these  tinctures  strong alcohol is  required, and for others  dilute
 alcohol; in  treating of the  separate drugs, the kind of alcohol
 Avhich is to be used, Avill ahvays be indicated.  Particular rules will
 newer  be omitted, if special mention of them should be necessary.
   In the Second Class, Ave number such plants or parts of them as
 contain a sufficient quantity of juice to be squeezed out by means of
 a good press.  Before pressing out the juice, the plant should first
 be cut in small pieces, Avhich we subject to the action of a screw, tied
 up in a perfectly  clean linen-bag free  from all bleaching materials.
 This mechanical  pressure being insufficient  to obtain all the effica-
 cious constituents of the plant, especially the volatile and resinous
 parts:  it is indispensable to subject the  residue to the action of strong
 alcohol. We take  a quantity of alcohol equal in weight to that of
 the obtained juice,  and no more, even  if the residue should not be
 entirely covered by the  alcohol.  The juice which was obtained in
the first instance by pressure, is kept in a lightly-covered vessel in a
cool cellar, away from the light.  After the lapse of tAventy-four or
thirty-six hours,  before  this juice has  had time to  ferment,  the 
96
LECTURE V.
alcoholic residue is again subjected  to  pressure, and the tincture
thus obtained, after the second pressure, will be found to contain the
larger portion of the extractable matter, as may be inferred from the
taste, smell and color of this extract. This extract is mixed with the
juice previously obtained.   After the mixture has been allowed to
settle for several days, it is filtered and kept for use.  Tinctures ob-
tained in this way, are often termed essences, though the name tinc-
ture is generally applied to all alcoholic extracts whether obtained
from drv or recent plants.
  Plants belonging to the Third Class, contain so little juice that
only a very small quantity of it can  be obtained by pressure.   In
order to prepare a saturated tincture from these plants, avc first cut
them up in small pieces, and then add double  their quantity of
strong alcohol in weight.  We macerate for one fortnight precisely
as for tinctures of the first class; after which the liquid is draAvn oft;
the residue is subjected to pressure, the whole of the extract filtered
through white blotting paper, and the tincture thus obtained  is put
up  in appropriate vessels for use.  Our Thuja, or so-called  arbor
vita?, belongs to this third class.  As regards the

                        Selection of Plants,

We have to be  careful; roots may seem sound and yet  be worm-
eaten; seeds may seem sound and yet be altered within ; all hetero-
geneous particles should be carefully removed.

                           Wild Plants

Are preferable to those which are grown in  gardens; they may be
obtained dry, but no volatile particles must get lost.  Foreign  plants
may be sent to a distance,  after being previously cut up and pre-
served in alcohol.
   Have regard  to  the locality of a plant; the luxuriant, tall  and
juicy appearance of a plant is no  guarantee for  its possessing the
highest quantity of medicinal virtue; nor should plants which prefer
a dry soil and much sun, be  gathered from  a damp and shady lo-
cality, or vice versa.
   None but sound and regularly formed plants should be used ;  all
distorted, half-dried, decayed or otherAvise injured plants should be
rejected; nor should old plants be used Avhich have become woody
by age.
   All plants should be perfectly clean;  they should not be Avashed,
but the dirt may be brushed off.
   The plants should not be infested by insects.
   They must not be  gathered  during the morning-dew or after a
shower; they must not  be closely packed, nor carried  about in the
hot sun.
   One species must not be confounded with another;  most  of our
plants have different species.   AAre have several species of Aconite,
Bryonia, etc.; and Ave should use the species that has been proved. 
AC0NITUM NAPELLUS.
97
                   LECTURE  VI.

   The method which I propose to adopt in endeavoring to present
 to you the vast subject of our Materia Medica in a simple, attractive.
 comprehensive, and instructive manner, seems to me dictated by the
 very nature of the subject which Ave  are going to consider.  Our
 Materia Medica contains a very large number of drugs of much less
 importance than many others the importance of which can scarcely
 be sufficiently appreciated.  We possess some tAventy-five medicines
 which are so frequently and so universally used, that Hahnemann
 has given to them the name of polychrests, or many-healing remedies;
 remedies possessing the power of healing many diseases.
   Next to these we possess a number of drugs the therapeutic range
 of Avhich is well  defined, but limited, extending only to a small
 number of pathological lesions.   A third class comprises drugs im-
 perfectly proved, which, if used at all, are used empirically.  AVe
 may adopt a fourth class consisting of drugs which are merely knoAvn
 to us by name and are as yet of little if any practical value.
   I shall devote the first half of our course to giving you a thorough
 knoAvledge of our polychrests.  This knowledge will serve you as a
 rallying-point, a central column, as it were, round which the other
 drugs of less importance and of a much smaller therapeutic range
 will afterwards cluster with ease  and without producing any con-
 fusion.
   Among  the  polychrests,  the first and most important medicine
 which claims our attention, is

                   ACONITUM NAPELLUS.

   This medicine constitutes the back-bone, as it were, of our Materia
 Medica.  In analyzing the effect of this heroic agent upon the living
 organism, I shall be enabled to show you that there is hardly an
 acute disease Avhere this medicine is not required more or less.  Even
 in many chronic diseases Aconite may prove an useful, yea an indis-
 pensable agent.   The English name of this  plant is wolf's-bane
 and also monk's-hood; wolf's-bane because  it proves  exceedingly
 poisonous to wolves;  and monk's-hood because the beautiful blue
 flower of this plant resembles the hood Avhich  monks used to Avear,
 and which our ladies  uoav wear Avhen  going  to parties or to the
 opera.
   This plant was known to the ancients, for Ave find its name men-
 tioned  by  Theophrastus, Dioscorides and Plinius.  These  ancient
 authors inform us that the extraordinary poisonous properties of this
 plant were attributable to its origin; they supposed that this plant
 had been created  by Hecate, the goddess of the infernal regions;
 according to another myth  it arose from the froth of Cerberus, the
 monster-dog that watched at the gate of Hell.   All that the ancients
 knew of this plant  Avas, that it was very poisonous.  It Avas not until
the vear  1C>24 that Matthiolus, physician to Pope Clement VII., in-
                               7 
98
LECTURE VI.
stituted the first experiment with this plant with a view of investi-
gating its poisonous qualities.
  On account of the beauty of its flowers and  leaves, we cultivate
this  plant in our gardens as an ornamental shrub.   We_ prepare a
tincture and  an extract from this cultivated  plant.   It is possible
that, in the  course  of time, these cultivated medicinal plants may
have to be used exclusively, the natural plants failing us or becom-
ing too expensive for importation.  If these embarrassments should
arise, we may suppose that, with a more cultivated state of our med-
icines, the  diseases for which  they  seem  designed,  will likewise
manifest themselves in a more tractable, a more civilized form.
  This plant belongs to the family Ranunculacese,^ a family of plants
characterized by acrid properties.  It attains a height of from two to
three feet, has a glabrous or smooth stem which is moreover ramose
or full of branches, and cylindrical;  the leaves are green and shin-
ing, petiolate, (endowed with  leaf-stalks,) incised, having five or six
lobes, linear, (by Avhich we mean narrow and flat lobes, having paral-
lel margins,) expanding at the upper extremity and marked with a
line.  The plant has beautiful blue flowers in long terminal spikes,
forming racemes with sessile flowers.  The root constitutes a rhizoma
or root-stock resembling a small turnip.  Hence the surname napel-
lus, from napus Avhich is the Latin for turnip.  The generic name
Aconitum is  supposed  to be  derived from the Greek word akonse
which signifies  " rock."  The plant is a native of the mountainous
regions of the north and middle of Europe, Jura, Germany, SAvitzer-
land, the mountains of Tyrol and Bohemia, etc.
  Linne states  that horses eat the dry leaves  of napellus without
injury.   Dogs, Avolves, cats and rats are killed by this plant.
  We have several species of  Aconite the principal of which are
Aconitum napellus, neomontanum, cammarum, ferox, variegatum,
etc.   Opinions,  as to Avhat species Hahnemann used in his provings,
have differed.  It  seems generally conceded, however, that it was
the species napellus, though this is not very material; for, according
to the late experiments of Professor Schroff of  Prague, which were
conducted Avith the most exemplary devotion  by himself and his
disciples, the different species of Aconite are all poisonous, though
not equally so.   There seems to be no difference whatever between
the poisonous properties of neomontanum and napellus,  and it is
almost, certain that it is these two species that were used by Hahne-
mann, and by his predecessor, Baron  Stcerck.
  I have found that an excellent way of  becoming acquainted with
the therapeutic properties of a drug, is to obtain a thorough know-
ledge of its toxicological effects from cases of poisoning.  Many of
these cases exhibit the characteristic virtues of a drug in striking
well-marked, unmistakeable and impressive characters, and of course,
delineate the pathological lesions to which  such a drug applies as a
homoeopathic remedial agent, with corresponding distinctness  and
accuracy.  Let us then review  some  of the most important cases of
poisoning by Aconite which  we find recorded  in  our treatises on
Materia Medica and Toxicology, and apply them as instructive les-
sons to the study of therapeutic science.  In revieAving these cases 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
99
it is immaterial whether we  observe a strictly chronological order.
This would  oblige us to first describe the experiments of Richard
and Matthiolus.  But the object we have in vieAv of investigating
the therapeutic properties of Aconite, permits us to commence our
examination of this agent with a few interesting cases of recent date,
the first of which is related  in the July number of the Medico-Chi-
rurgical Review, 1844.

                          First Case.

  "A boy ate some of the  leaves instead of parsley.   Tavo hours
after, he complained of a burning sensation in the mouth, throat and
stomach, followed  by swooning and death.  A post-mortem inspec-
tion  showed that the cerebral vessels were enormously distended
with a  dark-colored  fluid;  a deep inflammatory blush  extended
over the whole mucous surface  of the  stomach, with dark-colored
patches."
  From this case we may learn a useful lesson regarding the thera-
peutic use of Aconite.  The  symptoms shoAv that a most violent con-
gestion of the brain had taken  place and  that death may have re-
sulted from this cause.   The acute congestions caused by Aconite,
are the result  of the paralyzing action which this poison exercises
upon the capillary nerves.   We  find moreover  all the symptoms of
acute gastritis, such as might result from exposure to a cold, to
draughts of air, retrocession of the perspiration, or  even from  indi-
gestion.   Hence for
  Acute congestion  of the brain not resulting from typhus or  from
some other primary disease  of the cerebrum, but from a depressed
condition or an inability of  the capillary nerves to apply the neces-
sary amount of harmonious,  contractile and expansive energy to the
tissue of the capillary vessels : I repeat, in all such congestions of the
brain, even when assuming this most violent form termed apoplexy,
Aconite may be a most important  and efficient  remedy.  The same
may be said of
  Acute gastritis, when of a purely inflammatory or rheumatic char-
acter, where the disease is  characterized by burning heat in the
stomach, vomiting  of bile, mucus or blood, and high fever.  In  such
attacks, Aconite will be found, a powerful means to strike down this
dangerous invader.
  Regarding the dose, I Avould remark that in acute congestions of
the brain, and  in rheumatic  gastritis or gastritis from indigestion,
I do not hesitate to give half-tablespoonful doses of a mixture of one
drop of  the tincture of the root  in  ten tablespoonfuls of water, re-
peating  the  dose every  hour or even half-hour  as the case  inaj"
require.

                        Second Case.

  Another interesting case of poisoning by Aconite, is reported in
the Dublin Medical Journal,  1842.
  ''A young man ate the  leaAres  of Aconite  by  mistake.   Two 
100
LECTURE VI.
 minutes after eating the leaves, the  patient experienced burning
 heat  in the mouth, throat,  gullet,  and stomach, with  sensation of
 swelling of the face, general  feeling of numbness  and creeping of
 the skin, restlessness, dimness of sight, stupor and  partial insensi-
 bility and death."
   This case again shoAvs that Aconite has a powerful effect upon the
 cerebral and ganglionic system of nerves, and through it upon the
 capillary vessels.
   One of the most constant and most characteristic effects of Aconite
 is to cause a burning sensation or even a burning pain in the mouth,
 throat, oesophagus and stomach.  In
   Angina faucium and  in quinsy sore-throat, where this burning is a
 very  common pathognomonic  symptom, Aconite will prove an in-
 valuable remedy.   In severe forms of
   Heart-burn  this burning  sensation along the oesophagus, accom-
 panied with acrid risings, is a very common symptom.  The first or
 second attenuation prepared from the tincture of the root, is a capital
 remedy for it.  In
   Dyspepsia, burning  in  the  pyloric  region  very  often  torments
 patients.  I knoAV  from abundant experience that in very many
 cases of this kind, Aconite, first or second attenuation, is preferable
 to Arsenic or  Carbo. In  severe forms of dj^spepsia, this burning is
 not only felt in the pyloric region, but it likeAvise invades the region
 of the heart.   From the depressing action which Aconite exercises
 upon the bilious secretions, as we shall see in our  subsequent lec-
 tures, I infer that this burning is occasioned by bile, which, carried
 along by the capillary current, is enabled  to act upon,  and irritate
 in certain localities, the  terminal filaments of the ganglionic system
 ramified over the mucous  surfaces.  In
   Neuralgia, this burning sensation often calls for the exhibition of
 Aconite. In a case of neuralgia of the stomach, where this burning
 was most agonizing, as if a red-hot iron had been bored through the
 stomach, the patient was completely relieved in the space of half an
 hour by taking a spoonful of one drop of the tincture of the root in
 a tumblerful of Avater every five and ten minutes.
   In the case before us, the presence of cerebral congestion is fully
 revealed by the sensation as if the face were swollen, by the dimness
 of sight, the stupor and partial insensibility.
   The accompanying sensation of numbness and formication is gene-
 rally experienced by patients previous to an apoplectic or paralytic
 stroke.  Hence we infer that Aconite is a great remedy in true
   Apoplectic Conditions of the  brain, and Ave have an abundance of
 clinical  proof confirmatory of this fact.  If a patient complains  of
 pricking, creeping and burning in the extremities, accompanied by
 a sense of heaviness, numbness, sluggish or irritated pulse, and by the
 above-mentioned symptoms of cerebral derangement, do not hesitate
 to give a drop of the tincture or a few drops of the first attenuation
 in eight tablespoonfuls  of water, a dose every five  or ten minutes
 until decided symptoms of reaction have set in.   By this treatment
you may avert paralysis, and perhaps apoplexy. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
101
                         Third Case.

  Pereira relates the following cases of poisoning by Aconite, in his
"Elements of Materia Medica:" "A man, his Avife and child, ate some
roots  at  dinner by mistake  for horse-radish.  The greater portion
was eaten by the man, at about two o'clock in the afternoon.  Three-
quarters  of  an hour after eating  the roots, the man complained of
burning  and numbness of the lips, mouth and throat, which soon
extended to the stomach, and  was accompanied by vomiting of his
dinner and  aftenvards  of a frothy mucus.   His extremities wen'
cold, but his chest Avas warm;  his head was bathed in a cold sweat;
his eyes  were glaring;  there was excessive trembling and  violent
pain in the head ; the lips were blue;  there were no spasms, cramps
or convulsions; his breathing  was not  affected ; he died  apparently
in a fainting state about four hours after dinner.
   " The woman Avas similarly affected :  the same burning and numb-
ness of the lips, mouth, throat, stomach;  \Tiolent vomiting; curious
sensation of numbness in the hands,  arms  and legs; she lost the
power of articulating ; her attempts to  speak were attended Avith un-
intelligible sounds only;  she  experienced great muscular debility,
was unable to stand ; some of the external senses were disordered ;
though her eyes  were wide  open, her  sight was wery  dim, and sur-
rounding objects were seen  indistinctly; sensibility greatly im-
paired ; face and throat almost insensible to the touch ; she Avas very
dizzy, but neither delirious  nor sleepy ; body  and extremities cold;
she frequently pulled her throat, but knew not Avhy;  five  or six
hours afterwards she began to recover.
   " The  child was similarly, but slightly affected: like the others,
she was  constantly putting her hands to her throat."
   This case of poisoning likewise  yields a good  deal of valuable
instruction to a homoeopathic  physician.   Let us analyze the phys-
iological character of these  symptoms, and  range them in parallel
lines with the pathological conditions to which they point.
   In the case of the man we have several interesting symptoms:
first, the burning which large doses of Aconite always cause in the
 mouth and fauces;  next we  have  vomiting of frothy mucus and
symptoms of  violent cerebral  congestion, which seems induced  by
capillary torpor;  the symptoms inuicating this congestion are: blue
lips, profuse secretion of cold  sweat about the  head;  violent pain iii *
the head.  Another important symptom is the  trembling of the head,
 which shoAVS that the nervous equilibrium of the supporting mus-
cles  of  the head must have been  considerably  disturbed.  This
 trembling of  the head  is worthy of notice, for Ave shall  afterwards
find that Aconite is  one of our great agents  for the cure of chorea,
spasms and tetanic convulsions.  This  case likewise affords evidence
of the depressing or paralysing  action of Aconite upon the heart;
the fainting and coldness of the extremities bear witness to this rela-
 tion of Aconite to the central  organ of the circulatory apparatus.
   In the case of  the woman we have striking evidences of the para-
lysing action  of Aconite upon the capillary system of nerves.  This
case  shoAvs, for instance, that Aconite is  capable of  paralysing  the 
102
LECTURE VI.
  organs of speech;  we find likewise incipient paralysis of the lower
  extremities, incipient paralysis of the sense of vision; this paralys-
  ing action had  even invaded the sphere of sensations, for we are
  told that  sensibility was  greatly impaired,  and that  her face  and
  throat Avere almost insensible to the touch.  We are told that she_ was
  dizzy, but neither delirious nor  sleepy, from  which we may  infer
  that, inasmuch as her consciousness  seemed to have remained un-
  impaired, the Aconite had simply induced a state of purely nervous
  irritation in the brain, without any of those  violent congestive con-
  ditions which terminated fatally in her husband's case; an irritation
  giving rise to a condition described as nervous vertigo.
    Aconite induces  a sense  of constriction or strangulation in the
  throat; these symptoms, accompanied by a want of  sensibility in
  the part, account for the fact that both mother and  child were con-
  tinually pulling  at and feeling about the throat.  These symptoms
  lead us to infer that Aconite is a curative agent in
    Paralytic conditions, in
    Pure and simple irritations of the cerebral nerves, and in
    Spasmodic affections of the throat, among which we may class that
  peculiar spasm of the glottis to which children are liable and which
  is described by pathologists under the name  of asthma millari.
    So far Ave have seen that Aconite may be resorted to as a power-
  ful  remedial  agent  in  the treatment of acute congestions of the
  brain; apopletic conditions of the brain;  rheumatic gastritis  or
  gastritis from acute indigestion;  heartburn; dyspepsia; neuralgia
  characterized by burning pain;  paralytic conditions of the heart
  characterized by collapse or extreme sluggishness of the pulse; loss
  of sensation from paralysis of the sentient nerves, nervous vertigo.
  We shall now turn our attention to another case of poisoning which
  Avill enable us to increase this list of morbid affections quite con-
  siderably.

                          Fourth Case.

    In the year 1524, on the loth of November, Claudius  Richard
  gave one-eighth of an ounce  of Aconite-root  to  a criminal  con-
  demned to_ death. _ It was the fashion in  those times to experiment
^ upon  criminals with unknown poisons whose virtues some promi-
  nent physician wished to investigate.  If the criminal outlived the
  experiment, he recovered  life and liberty as a reward for his bold-
  ness.  In  the present case, the experiment  was made in order to
  test the antidotal virtues of bezoar, a calculous concretion found in
  the fourth stomach of the gazelle of India; it was supposed  to be an
  irresistible antidote to poisons, and was so named from pa, (against,)
  and zahar, (poison.)
    " Immediately after taking the poison, the  man complained of the
  following symptoms: oppression on the chest; pain in the stomach ■
  obscuration of sight, with  dizziness:  no alteration in the pulse • he
  became very feeble and called for help.  Five grains of bezoar  were
  given him,  after which  he  felt relieved,  vomited, experienced
  anxiety, complained of some strange stuff accumulating in the 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
103
region of his stomach ; he felt a pain at the occiput and nape of the
neck, was delirious, whistled on a  leaf.   The delirium soon ceased ;
he complained of pains in the stomach, head, jaAvs, chest and noAV in
one joint, then in another;  after the lapse  of seven  hours, all his
joints pained him; the abdomen began  to swell as in dropsy; the
sides were distended, painful, hard; he experienced stitches in the
kidneys, retention of urine; one upper  and one  lower  extremity
were  paralyzed;  the pulse frequently  intermitted  and  became
feverish, on  the same day he vomited  several  times, had several
stools, complained of pressure and coldness in the stomach, as from
a  stone.  Finally  he was attacked with frightful ophthalmia and
lippitudo (bleareyedness,) so painful that he  preferred death to so
much  suffering.  This continued for eight hours.  At the end of
this  period  all the  symptoms ceased, he had a good appetite for
supper and felt quite well on the morning following."
   The effects of Aconite as depicted in this case, point to a variety
of important affections in which this great agent may prove cura-
tive.   Let us analyze the symptoms in their order, and see with
what pathological iesions they correspond.
   The  patient became  delirious  and whistled  on  a leaf.   This
symptom points unequivocally to acute  mania.   The delirium Avas
accompanied by pain in the occiput and nape of the neck, Avhich
would seem to  show that the cerebellum Avas  irritated and most
probably congested.
   After the delirium ceased, he complained of pains in the stomach,
head, jaws, chest and joints.  The universality of these pains shows
that the ganglionic system of nerves, or the great sympathetic as it
is called, must  have been  deeply invaded  by the  action of the
poison.  In some  forms of rheumatism, pains  of the same nature
occur.  Common arthritic and articular rheumatism is characterized
by pains of this kind.  The fever is not always Arery high; nor are
the external signs of inflammation, such as  swelling and  redness,
always strikingly developed.  Hence it is in rheumatic affections of
this order that Aconite shows  specifically curative virtues.  In the
articular form of rheumatism the tincture has often to be used; in
the arthritic form,  the attenuations are generally, though not always,
preferable.
   The pains here indicated may likeAvise occur in certain forms of
biliotis remittent fever. Considering that Aconite seems to derange
the bilious functions to their very foundation, as may  be inferred in
the present as well as in other cases from  the  repeated vomiting
and the  precordial  anxiety, we may justly recommend Aconite as
one of our  important agents in bilious remittent fever.  AVe shall
afterwards see that Aconite answers to all the characteristic symp-
toms of fever.
   AVe are told that the abdomen began to SAvell as if dropsical,  and
that the sides became distended, painful and hard.   Hence we infer
that Aconite may prove useful in acute dropsy. ' In a case of anasarca
induced by fright, Aconite effected a cure.  In a case of hydrothorax
superinduced by a cold. Aconite likewise effected a thorough  and
permanent cure.   Aconite exerts  a disorganizing influence upon 
104
LECTURE VI.
the blood, the arterialization of Avhich  it has a tendency to retard.
The continued use of Aconite makes the blood Avatery,  and causes
a diminution of fibrin.
  Aconite is evidently in therapeutic rapport with congestion of the
kidneys; the stitches in the kidneys, the swelling and the retention
of urine point to this affection.
  Paralysis of the muscular fibres of the bladder may be inferred
from the retention of urine.
  Paralysis of the extremities, both upper and lower, may  be success-
fully treated Avith Aconite.
  The pressure and coldness in the pit of the stomach as from a
stone, is a symptom which occurs in many severe forms of dyspepsia
and chronic congestion of the stomach.   It may result in hsematemesis
or vomiting of blood.  Aconite will  relieve  this symptom.   The
German tincture  had better  be used,  one or two drops in twelve
tablespoonfuls of water.
  The last  symptom  which this case  developed, is ophthalmia,
accompanied by a  profuse discharge  of acrid and burning tears.
This  very painful  symptom  is frequently present  in scrofulous
ophthalmia,  and Ave may therefore  recommend  Aconite  for  this
exceedingly distressing disease.

                          Fifth Case.

  In 1561, Matthiolus  made the following experiment in  Prague:
" A criminal took one drachm  of Aconite (stems, leaves, blossoms
and seeds of the plant); three hours after, ulcerative sensation in the
whole body ; prostration of strength ; Aveight about the heart;  cold
sweat on  the forehead;  pulse  almost imperceptible;  after taking
bezoar, his eyes became distorted, the mouth Avas draAvn to one  side,
the nape of the neck was stiff, he fainted and would  have fallen
unless held;  he passed  several  stools; after consciousness  had
returned, he Avas put in bed, complained of chilliness, threAv up  foul,
black bile, then turned to the left side, became  speechless, and  died
after  his face had become  blue as if he had been choked.  Death
seems to have occurred from apoplexy and paralysis of the heart."
  Regarding this ulcerative  sensation all over the body, Ave  may
observethat it seems to  arise from a general bilious congestion of
the capillary vessels.   This symptom  sometimes occurs in certain
forms of remittent  fever, either purely rheumatic or bilious rheu-
matic ; among a group of Aconite-symptoms, this one constitutes a
characteristic indication.
  The symptoms of cerebral  apoplexy  and paralysis of the heart are
so characteristically developed  that it seems  hardly necessary to
dwell upon them more especially.

                          Sixth Case.

  " To another criminal Matthiolus gave a mixture of Aconite •
the patient fancied  it contained pepper.  One hour after taking the
poison, he experienced the following symptoms:  vomiting of oreen 
aconitum napellus.                   105
bile ;  sensation  as if a  ball were ascending from the pit of the
stomach, spreading a cool current across  the vertex and  occiput.
After a longer interval  he Avas attacked Avith complete paralysis of
the left arm and leg, except the hand which was still a little move-
able.   As  soon  as the  left side Avas restored,  the right side Avas
affected in the same Avay; finally he Avas again able to lift  up both
hands.  He then complained of every vessel in  the body becoming
congealed;  he was attacked With vertigo, burning  in the head asif
the head Avere full of boiling-hot water, convulsions of the eyes and
mouth, violent pain in the jaws as if they would  drop off, protrusion
of the eyes, blueness of the face, black lips; the abdomen  became
distended as if  full of  water, pulse and spirits changed according
as the symptoms were more or less violent; at times he despaired of
his life, at others  he thought he might be saved ;  at times he Avas
rational, at others  delirious; at times  singing, at  others Aveeping; he
lost his sight completely three times during this time, and  thought
himself dying; always had the full use  of his voice  ; all these symp-
toms  disappeared  in seven hours;  the pulse became normal and he
recovered."
   This case presents an interesting group of symptoms.  The first
symptom to which our attention is directed is the vomiting of green
bile;  Ave  will note this SA^mptom,  for  it appears as a constituent
element in more than one group of pathological phenomena denot-
ing a deep-seated derangement of the bilious secretions.
  Secondly, we have: sensations  as if a ball Avere  ascending from
the pit of the stomach spreading a cool current across  the vertex
and occiput; this  symptom is  characteristic of hysteria, the globus
hystericus, hysteric ball, a spasmodic and congestive sensation Avhich
causes a good deal of distress to some females.
  Thirdly: alternate para lysis of the  extremity of the left and right
side.
  Fourth:  bilious  congestive headache, as indicated  by the burning
and seething sensation in the head ;  these bilious congestive  head-
aches are generally accompanied  by vomiting of green bile, a sense
of stupor or excessive  sensitiveness to noise and  light; for  such
headaches Aconite is a specific  remedy.
  Fifth: neuralgic pain in the jaws, with sensation as if they Avould
drop off; this kind of neuralgia  may be induced by a cold, and it
may be of great advantage to you to know that Aconite is a  remedy
for it.   The tincture prepared from the whole plant, or a few drops
of the first or second attenuation of the  tincture  of the root  in eight
or ten tablespoonfuls of Avater, is the proper dose for this affection.
AVe have cured  the most horrid aching, burning and stinging pains
affecting the whole of the lower jaAV, Avith the sixth attenuation.
  Sixth: apoplectic congestion of the brain, as indicated by the intense
distress in the head, as if the head Avere full of boiling water, pro-
trusion  of the eyes, blueness of the face  and blackness of the lips.
  Seventh: drcpsical distention of the  abdomen;  we  have seen  in a
former case that acute dropsy may be cured by Aconite.
  Eighth: fitful mania  characterized by opposite  states, such as:
despondency even unto  dread  of dying,  and hopefulness;  singing 
106                      lecture  vii.

and weeping mood.  These alternate states are likewise character-
istic of hysteria, in which affection Aconite may be depended on as
a most admirable agent.
  Ninth: we have  complete  amaurosis; in amaurosis caused by
exposure to the sun's rays, accompanied with sudden rush of blood,
distress in  the  head and more particularly in the  frontal region,
buzzing in the ears, irregularity and depression, or heaviness and
sluggish hardness of the pulse, you will find the tincture of Aconite
the first and foremost remedy.
                  LECTURE  VII.

                        Seventh  Case.

  Vincent  Bacon relates the following case of poisoning in Vol.
38,  page 287, of  the Philosoph. Transactions: "In  the  night  of
February 5th, I Avas called to J. Crampler, a canemaker; he Avas
in bed, his eyes staring, the jaws spasmodically closed, the hands,
feet  and forepart of the  head covered  Avith cold  sweat;  pulse
imperceptible; respiration hurried and scarcely audible.  He took
supper  at eight, and had eaten salad bought in the market, mixed
with celery from  his own garden; feeling sick, he took an emetic
and threw up the larger portion of his meal; the symptoms increased
in intensity until I arrived;  his head was drawn backAvards, his
mouth was opened by force, spirits  of hartshorn were poured into
him which excited cough and vomiting.   During moments of con-
sciousness,  he had to drink  carduus-tea,  which caused vomiting;
the vomiting was  followed by fainting; then came several stools and
more vomiting;  the bowels and stomach  felt  easier, but  the head
was heavy, strength and spirits exhausted ; he had  to lie doAvn;  the
pulse returned, but remained intermittent  and  irregular, sometimes
tAVO or  three beats in rapid  succession, then making a stop of as
long a period ; after an  hour or two he felt chilly: Avas covered up
warmly, perspired, slept, and finally recovered.   He then stated that,
immediately after  partaking of the root, he felt a tingling heat in
the tongue and jaws, as  if the teeth would fall out.  His cheeks
were so irritated that his  face felt to him twice as large as it really
was.  This tingling sensation gradually spread through the whole
body,  especially  the extremities;  he felt  an  unsteadiness  in  the
joints, especially the knee-joints and feet; also  a  twitching in  the
tendons so that he was scarcely  able to walk;  he fancied  that
the blood had ceased to circulate in his limbs; from the wrists to
the tips of the fingers, and from the tarsus  to the tips of the toes, he
experienced no sensation at  all;  after vomiting, he felt giddy, his
sight was misty, his look wandering, he heard  a buzzing-whizzing
noise in his ears until he fainted."
  This is a most instructive case of poisoning, showing that Aconite 
aconitum napellus.                  107
 exerts a paralyzing  influence upon  the  capillary nerves and con-
 sequently upon the  movements going  on in the capillary vessels,
 and that this depression may gradually lead to paralysis, apoplexy,
 asphyxia and death, unless, as in the  present  case, the capillaries
 are relieved from their embarrassment, and vital re-action triumphs.
   The leading features in this case are the precursory symptoms of
paralysis Avhich  constitute  a characteristic  indication  for  Aconite
 whenever paralysis threatens to set in.  The tingling and prickling
 sensation in the extremities, accompanied by a sense of numbness, a
 feeling of heat and heaviness in, or else coldness of the extremities;
 dizziness, sickness at the stomach and  vomiting of bile;  heavy,
 sluggish, or else irregular  and intermittent pulse;  these are symp-
 toms which call for the immediate exhibition of Aconite, if Ve Avish
 to prevent a paralytic stroke.
   The intermissions and  irregularities  of the pulse are also indica-
 tive of heart-disease,  where Aconite and Digitalis constitute our
 chief remedial agents.
   The spasmodic closing  of the jaws in  this case points to lockjaw,
 where Aconite will be found a most useful remedy, especially if the
 disease originates in rheumatic exposure.  But also in traumatic
 tetanus Aconite may be of great service.
   The unsteadiness in the joints  Avhich  this  patient experienced,
 shows the  remarkable action of Aconite upon the articulations,
 in  rheumatic  affections, Avhether of an inflammatory or neuralgic
character.
   In  regard to the buzzing and whizzing in the ears, you will find
that in rheumatic deafness, these noises constitute  a most annoying
element of the pathological  group ; the first attenuation of Aconite,
or even a few drops of the German tincture in a tumblerful of water
remove the  affection, if recent, in a very short time.

                         Eighth Case.

   Dr.  Watzke,  one  of the editors  of  the Austrian   Journal  of
Homoeopathy, has reported the folloAving interesting case of poison-
ing, extracted from  Otto's Travels:  "Giuseppa Vigano  di Bussero,
an Italian girl, 27 years old, of a bilious and robust constitution, Avas
admitted  to the  hospital  of Turin on  the third of August,  1815.
She was suspected of having venereal disease.
   She looked Avell, the skin had a dingy color; her appetite was
good ;  all the vital functions and the pulse were normal;  the nipple
a little sore.   She was put on spare diet, half a pound of bread and
tAvo eggs.  4th, took extract of Aconite, two drachms, together  with
twelve pills  of the poAvder of Aconite.   5th, same dose.  6th, same
dose ; three drachms of extract with powder.  The affection remained
local.  7th, took half an ounce of extract.   8th, the patient has little
appetite,  skin and eyes are rather yelloAv.   9th, the jaundice is more
developed.  Took a Avhole  ounce  of the  extract.   11th, nausea at
night, vomiting and delirium; expression of the face altered; the  look
is extinct, voice scarcely audible ; half an ounce of extract. August
12th,  restless night;  the  patient  left her bed  several  times,  Avas 
103
LECTURE VII.
unable to lie down without help; they bound her;  she experienced
great anxiety; took no  medicine.  In  the  evening, loss of speech,
stupor,  her  eyes Avere  closed, the  facial  muscles  spasmodically
convulsed; lockjaAV set in ;  her breathing became slow,  labored ;
the pulse quick and irregular; the skin burning-hot.  The patient
was  bled one pound.  August 13th, the jaundice is less, but  the
other symptoms Avorse; the abdomen  is distended:  the blood which
had  been draAvn, has a yellow appearance at the surface, Avith a soft
crust.  Bled  again; barley-soup,  six grains  of tartar emetic, and
two  injections each containing twenty  grains of tartar emetic.  In
the evening,  the symptoms  are Averse.   Bled  again  one pound.
14th, torpor, labored breathing, with rattling.  Again barley-soup
and tartar-emetic, but the patient died.
  A post-mortem examination showed  engorgement of the cerebral
vessels; the stomach Avas covered with blackish, gangrenous spots.
  This case  shows that Aconite is capable of producing jaundice,
even a most malignant form of jaundice.  The gangrenous degene-
ration of the  mucous coat of the stomach  may have been owing to
the corroding action of foul and  acrid bile.  Hence avc may infer
that  in black vomit, Aconite may prove a most valuable remedy in
conjunction  with Arsenic.   You  recollect  the case  of Matthiolus'
criminal, Avho ejected masses of a foul, blackish substance  from the
stomach a few hours before his death.
  I look upon the case  before us as  a tolerably fair  representation
of a group of yellow fever symptoms, which justifies the  use of
Aconite in yellow fever as an homoeopathic  agent.  The  curative
virtues of this agent in yellow fever have been abundantly tested by
Drs. Holcombe and  Davis,  and a number of other homoeopathic
practitioners.

                         Ninth Case.

  Baldriani, district physician at Brescia in  Italy, relates the follow-
ing case of poisoning in a letter  to  Professor Giacomi, of Padua:
"On June 11th,  twelve  patients, some of whom Avere affected with
scurvy, others witli pellagra, and  Avho had been  taking for some
days the recently expressed juice of Cochlearia or scurvy grass, in
doses of three  ounces,  complained of feeling sick  an  hour after
taking the medicine.  These complaints  Avere not heeded.  A patient,
sixty years old, and Avho had scurvy, was most affected.  The phy-
sician,  who had  not the least suspicion that the patients had, by
mistake, been given the juice of Aconite, instead  of Cochlearia,
found great anxiety and dyspnoea, with inclination  to vomit; think-
ing that these symptoms arose from some  gastric irritation, he pre-
scribed a good dose of castor-oil, and had a large blister applied to
the chest.   The anxiety now increased  enormously, and the prostra-
tion  of strength  soon terminated in death.   At the same time tAvo
women who were  about fifty-five years old, and Avho were in  the
asylum for mania and pellagra, likeAvise took the juice of Aconite.
They soon felt sick, dyspnoea set in,  then convulsions, followed by
paralytic debility, and death. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
109
  A post-mortem examination yielded the following results: Abdo-
men distended, excessive blueness of the finger and toe-nails, the
fingers  and toes  were  somewhat  contracted.  The vessels of the
brain, especially of the pia mater and the arachnoid, were engorged,
with effusion of serum under the membranes, and at the base of the
brain; no effusion in the ventricles.   The lungs, especially the lower
lobes, were filled with black blood ;  the heart Avas relaxed, contain-
ing a small  quantity of black, fluid  blood;  the  large vessels  Avere
almost empty; liver normal; gall-bladder contained a small quantity
of watery  and yellowish bile;  spleen  relaxed and  friable.  The
stomach, Avhich was  distended, contained a moderate quantity of a
viscid, blackish-green substance; the lining membrane of the stomach
was red here and there, especially at the fundus and large curvature.
The  duodenum and small intestines contained the same blackish-
green substance, and likewise exhibited red patches.   The bladder
Avas almost empty; the kidneys somewhat engorged."
  This case yields important practical information to a homoeopathic
practitioner.   We learn from it, that Aconite may induce  dyspnoea
and even apoplexy of the lungs; these patients evidently died  from
pulmonary apoplexy, and paralysis of the heart, to which must  be
added signs of inflammation of the lining membrane of the stomach
and boAvels.  The other patients recovered ; tartar emetic was given
and powerful stimulants were resorted to; nevertheless some marked
symptoms of Aconite-poisoning Avere observed, such as: rapid  sink-
ing of strength and spirits, striking paleness of the face, Avith altera-
tion of  the features; blue rings  around  the dull eyes ; dilatation of
the pupils; vertigo, with tensive,  dull headache, especially in the
occiput; somewhat painful tension  in  the abdomen,  Avith borbo-
rygmi;  vomiting of quantities of a greenish substance, and in one
of the patients, greenish diarrhoea; sense of oppression and anxiety
on the chest;  general and increasing coldness, especially of the ex-
tremities, with circumscribed blueness of the finger and toe-nails;
cramp  in the calves; pulse small, feeble, in some patients hardly
perceptible.
  From these cases we learn  that  Aconite depresses the bodily
strength and  spirits, and that it has a specific power of  disturbing
the biliary secretions; hence the vomiting of green bile,  and alvine
evacuations of the same character.  Note this s}Tmptom, Gentlemen :
it tells you that Aconite is a remedy for diarrhoea, if the  stools con-
sist of green bile, bilious diarrhoea; also for  cholera-morbus, Avhere
green discharges from  the  boAvels and  green vomiting  are  often
present; in bilious fever, or in rheumatic fever,  Avith discharges of
green bile, Aconite is  indicated.  Nothing  depresses the action of
the lungs more intensely than the presence of bile in the pulmonary
capillaries; hence this agonizing d3^spnoea Avhich Aconite is capable
of producing, and Avhich it Avill of course be able to remove.  Taking
the whole group of these symptoms in their complex, prostration of
strength and  spirits, vomiting and alvine discharges of green bile,
agonizing oppression on the chest, blue nails, cadaA*erous  coldness
of the extremities, collapse of pulse; I say, taking these symptoms
in their complex, you have as complete a group of symptoms indi- 
110
LECTURE VII.
 cative of cholera-morbus as you can find recorded under any drug.
 Even Asiatic  cholera, in the first invasion, frequently presents this
 group of symptoms ; Avith  a few doses of Aconite you will often suc-
 ceed, if these  symptoms are present, in arresting the development
 of this frightful disease, and bringing about a triumphant reaction.

                          Tenth Case.

  Dr. Shervin reports the following case of poisoning by Aconite,
 in the London Lancet.  He had been macerating one and  a  half
 pounds of Aconite  root in one gallon of Alcohol, and left it within
 reach of the servant girl.   Two days after he had  mixed his  ingre-
 dients together, he  Avas suddenly called home;  the girl had been
 taken  ill.  " He found her lying on her  back, Avith staring  looks,
 contracted  pupils, livid complexion, rigid jaAvs, coldness of the ex-
 tremities, collapse of pulse, short,  imperfect and labored  respiration,
 feeble beating of the heart.  At times she Avould  sigh, throw her
 arms about, and a rattling noise and vibratory motions of the trachea
 were perceived.   It appears that the girl had put some of this tinc-
 ture in her mouth for a toothache, and afterwards had swalloAved it.
 The doctor gave her half a drachm of sulphate of zinc, to vomit her;
 after which the pulse returned and she Avas better able to see.  After
 a Avhile, bilious vomiting  took place, which was  accompanied by
 collapse of pulse; the patient complained of violent pressure  in the
 head and in the precordial region.   Symptoms of cerebral conges-
 tion being apparent,  the patient  Avas bled from  the jugular vein,
 twenty ounces of blood being drawn;  she felt easier, it seemed to
 her as though she had been transported from a narroAV, dark and hot
 room into a light chamber.  After the venesection she had several
 more but less Auolent attacks of vomiting, the pulse became fuller,
 fifty-eight per  minute, but intermitted after every fourth beat; the
 precordial anxiety Avas less. The pulse gradually rose up to seventy
 and, tOAvards evening, up  to one  hundred, the skin being hot and
 dry.  Next day the pulse  remained small; she had slept but  little ;
 her tongue was coated, she complained of  headache; the hands felt
 numb.  On the day folloAving she Avas Avell  again.  After  swallowing
 the tincture, she experienced the following symptoms as reported by
 herself: first I felt a prickling in the arms and fingers, numbness in
 the shoulders, tongue and  mouth, and finally in the legs and feet;
 after this, a sense of swelling in  the face and constriction  of the
throat;  I looked in the glass, and my  face looked blue and dis-
figured, I made an effort to go to bed, but my strength gave out and
I fell down. It Avas at this stage that the doctor saw her.
  This is likewise an instructive  case!   AVe learn from this case,
beside the  usual symptoms which we have noticed in other  cases,
such as green  vomiting, collapse of pulse, loss or decrease of  sight,
that Aconite, during the period of reaction, by which we mean the
period when the  vital forces begin to react against the depressing
effects of the drug,  induces a state of inflammatory fever, with full
and  rapid  pulse, hot  and  dry skin, headache, coated tongue, etc.;
hence we infer that Aconite is  a remedy for inflammatory  fever, 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
Ill
characterized by similar symptoms, such as dry and hot skin, full
and rapid pulse, headache, etc.  Now, if you remember, Gentlemen,
that Aconite  causes bilious vomiting, vomiting of green bile, you
have an excellent group of indications for bilious fever, with hot and
dry skin, full pulse, coated  tongue, bilious vomiting; or for gastric
fever, which  differs from bilious fever more by the apparent symp-
toms than by the actual character of the disease.
   The remarkable  influence which Aconite seems to have over the
action of the  pneumogastric nerve, and Avhich is characterized in
this and in  other  cases by imperfect  and labored  respiration, a
rattling noise and vibratory motions of the trachea, and other symp-
toms, should never be lost sight of  in asthma and in such  affections
of the respiratory organs as are characterized  by dyspnoea, feeble
beating of the heart, feelings of anxiety.

                        Eleventh Case.

   Dr. Pereyra of Bordeaux reports the  following case of  poisoning
by Aconite in the  Gazette des Hopitaux, March 26th, 1839:   "In
May, 1838, a man of forty-five years was attacked with  acute rheu-
matism, and Avas received in the St. Andrew Hospital of Bordeaux.
On the 19th of December, seven  months after his  reception  in the
hospital, the  man was still affected  with  rheumatism.  Every possi-
ble remedy had been tried in vain.   The patient was placed  under
the care of Dr. Pereyra.  The disease seemed to have principally
localized  itself  in the knee-joint.    The patient  had to Avalk on
crutches, dragging himself along Avith great  difficulty.  Dr. Pereyra
gave him the alcoholic extract of Aconite.   He  commenced "with
two-grain doses, Avhich he gradually increased  to five-grain doses
morning and evening.  The patient had taken already twenty closes
of Aconite, was much improved and began to walk.  The medicine
having given out, a neAv supply had to be ordered.  This neAv ex-
tract was given to our patient and to various other patients in other
wards.  Next morning it Avas found that several  persons had been
poisoned.  Our patient had taken  five  grains of the neAv extract at
five o'clock in the  morning.  In a quarter of an hour he experienced
as usual  a  certain  tremor  and tingling in the  limbs, Avhich Avas
accompanied with stinging pains.   While taking the former extract,
these symptoms used to disappear in about half an hour after taking
the medicine, but  now the stinging  pains became worse and Avorse,
and the tremor  increased to convulsions. In the mouth and throat
the patient experienced a sensation as if he had swalloAved strong
pepper.  Soon after, he vomited up all the contents of the stomach.
During the convulsions, the patient lost his consciousness.   As often
as consciousness returned, the sight  Avas dazzled.  He complained
of a seated pain in the head, as if the head Avere encircled by a hot
iron.  Pulse irregular and sIoav,   These symptoms were sought to
be antidoted by coffee.  At ten o'clock, five hours after the patient
had sAvalloAved the Aconite, Dr.  Pereyra observed the  following
symptoms: pale face, showing an expression of anguish and restless-
 ness; great mobility of the eyes;  the patient is restless, tosses about 
112
LECTURE VII.
 and likes to change his position ;  contrary to his habit he seems fond
 of talking a good deal and hurriedly; cold tongue as in the case of
 cholera-patients: sense of burning  in  the  fauces  and oesophagus;
 vomiting of mucus; orthopnoc, twenty-five inspirations per minute;
 pulse fifty-four, irregular, soft and fuli, as if the volume of blood did
 not fill up the arteries; auscultation revealed natural  breathing in
 front,  and a mucous rale posteriorly.   The  heart shoAved several
 striking symptoms.   The apex of the heart beat only once against
 the Avail of the thorax,  whereas three pulsations Avere distinctly felt
 at the wrist.  The beats of the left ventricle were synchronous with
 the beats of the radial  pulse.   The right auricle seemed to be con-
 vulsed ; its movements were rapid, irregular, and bore no proportion
 to the beats of the  ventricles.  Gradually the extremities  began  to
 groAV  cold.  No alvine discharges.   Neither sinapisms nor  warm
 glass-cups Could restore the vital heat of these  parts.  Dr. Pereyra
 regarding this  group of  symptoms as an  exact representation  of
 Asiatic cholera, he gave his patient  an infusion of  Guaco which he
 had found  an exceedingly efficacious  remedy during the  paralytic
 stage  of the cholera; this infusion  was given for the purpose  of
 stimulating respiration and the beats of the heart; tAvo drachms  of
 liquor Ammonias were likewise  given; frictions with  the tincture
 of Cantharides Avere made upon the precordial region and  back.
 ToAvards evening reaction set in, and next morning the patient Avas
 well:  his rheumatism  Avas  gone, not a trace of it  had remained
 behind.
   One of the other patients Avho had taken of the same preparation
 died after the  lapse of four hours;  death, it appears,  took  place
 through  suffocation,  and a general collapse of the circulation.   The
 principal symptoms of poisoning in this case were:  excessive  burn-
 ing pain in the throat, vomiting, afterwards cold sAveats, oppressive
 anxiety, an agonizing tossing about,  fainting fits, gradual sinking of
 the respiration  and  circulation, collapse of pulse,  death.  A  post-
 mortem  examination shoAved  the folloAving  results:  continued ex-
 pression  of terror in the face; injected condition  of the cerebral
 vessels; the cerebral substance Avas dotted Avith blackish points; the
 parenchyma  of  the  lungs was  engorged with  blood,  and almost
 ceased to crepitate; the left ventricle Avas found empty; the  right
 ventricle Avas filled Avith a jelly-like bloody coagulum: the stomach
 exhibited traces of considerable  congestion;  the kidneys, urinary
 bladder and spinal marrow Avere not  examined."
   Now, Gentlemen, let us revieAv the  symptoms Avhich these two
 cases of poisoning offer for our consideration :
   Trembling and tingling in the extremities, accompanied by sting-
ing pains.
   Convulsions of the extremities, with loss of consciousness, and
followed  by return of consciousness with dazzling of the eyes, and
profuse sweat.
   Headache, as if the head were encircled Avith a red-hot iron.
   Excessive restlessness with great mobility of the organs of speech.
   Cholera-coldness of the tongue.
   Burning in the oesophagus. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
113
  Orthopnoe' (suffocative constriction of the chest), with  hurried
respiration.
  Diminution and irregularity of the heart's action.
  Utter extinction of the rheumatism.
  Expression of agony in the features.
  Excessive sanguineous engorgement of the lungs.
  According to the  terms of our  laAV, Ave may avail ourselves of
these symptoms as indications of cure in the treatment of several
distressing affections.  These symptoms inform us that Aconite may
be a specific agent in the treatment of convulsions when caused by
some irritation or morbific influence  not operating primarily upon
the brain but upon the peripheral nerves.  In hysteric convulsions, for
instance, when the sensation as of a ball ascending from the stomach,
is present, Aconite may  prove a sovereign  remedy.   In  convulsions
occasioned by fright,  by  teething, or even in traumatic convulsions as
they are termed, occasioned  by mechanical  injuries, a nail in the
sole of the foot, or a prick Avith a pin, Aconite may prove the best
remedy.
  These symptoms further show that Aconite is a great remedy for
bilious  and  nervous  headaches when this distressing sensation  of
burning  is  present.   You recollect, Gentlemen, that in a former
case, a patient complained as if his  head Avere full of boiling water;
here we have the symptoms as if  the head Avere encircled with a
red-hot iron: these symptoms point to Aconite as one of our most
efficient remedies in bilious congestive headache.
  The symptom of excessive restlessness and  excessive mobility of
the organs of speech points to the use of Aconite in a peculiar form
of mania, a sort of mono maniacal loquacity.
  Coldness of the tongue as in cholera ; this symptom  leads us to
regard Aconite as a great agent in the treatment of cholera Asiatica,
to which many of the  other symptoms likeAvise point, such as vomit-
ing, involuntary serous  stools, retention of urine, burning in  the
epigastric region and  oesophagus, a  burning distress about the head,
blueness of the finger-nails and lips, etc.  Aconite is not a specific
for Asiatic cholera; but,  as may be inferred from  the symptoms, it
must be, and indeed is, a  most poAverful restorer of the vital reaction.
especially during the  first invasion of the  disease.  In the stage of
asphyxia, when the skin has lost all  elasticity, and has the shrivelled
appearance of a washerwoman's  skin, Aconite is  not the  remedy;
Areratrum then  comes into play, unless Ave choose to give Aconite
and A'eratrum in alternation.
  Burning in the oesophagus and epigastrium reveals to us the im-
portance of  Aconite  in  nervous or  bilious dyspepsia.   We are often
called upon to prescribe for this distressing symptom, and there are
no remedies which will relieve this more speedily and more directly
than Aconite, Arsenic and Carbo  vegetabilis.
  Orthopnoe, or suffocative,  constrictive  oppression  on  the chest,
yields to Aconite; hence in apoplexy of the lungs, or rather when
apoplexy of the lungs is threatening, as  indicated by the agonizing
oppression on the chest, Aconite will be found a reliable  remedy.
  Another symptom  Avhich  this  last case of  poisoning presents  to
                               8 
114
LECTURE VII.
our vieAv, is the diminution  and irregularity in  the  heart's action.
Coupling this symptom Avith the slow and heavy pulse, and with the
symptoms of cerebral congestion which have been pointed out in the
previous cases of poisoning, Ave have a most instructive therapeutic
indication for the use of Aconite in cerebral apoplexy.  Gentlemen, if
apoplexy threatens, and even after it has actully taken place, the use
of Aconite will effectually supersede the use of, and indeed, will
prove an inestimable substitute for the lancet.
  You will  recollect that Aconite was prescribed in this case in
order to cure inflammatory rheumatism of the knee-joint.   After all
the  poisonous  symptoms had been  extinguished, the  rheumatic
disease  had so completely disappeared that no trace of  it Avas left
behind.   AVe may infer, from this cure, that Aconite  is possessed of
a specific  power  to  cure inflammatory rheumatism of the joints.
This will  be shown  still  more definitely in reviewing  the patho-
genetic effects or symptoms of Aconite. It is not necessary, in order
to cure  this species of rheumatism, to resort to poisonous doses of
Aconite ;  but, on  the  other hand,  it  must not be  supposed that
chronic inflammatory rheumatism of the joints, especially if organic
degenerations  have already developed themselves, can be removed
Avith the  two hundredth potency.  If such a  thing is  possible, I
have never  seen it done.  In  the case of patients Avhose constitu-
tion is very sensitive to the action of  medicine, and Avho have not
yet taken  Aconite,  the thirtieth  potency  may perhaps  effect  a
change; but it is safer  to  operate Avith a loAver potency, say from
the  third to  the sixth, and if the constitution of the patient  should
be  naturally very torpid, you must  not be afraid of resorting to
the  strong tincture, in doses of one or tAvo  drops in a tumblerful of
Avater.

                        Twelfth  Case.

  The following  exceedingly interesting  case  of  poisoning  by
Aconite has been reported by Dr. F. Devay, supplementary physi-
cian to the Hotel  Dieu of Lyons in France, in the Medical Gazette of
Paris, January 5th, 1844: "'On the 26th of October, 1843, about 8£
o'clock  in the evening, Charles Grimaud, assistant in the pharma-
ceutical laboratory of an apothecary of Lyons, while eating his sup-
per, swallowed about thirty-two scruples of the tincture of Aconite,
Avhich he had  poured into a dark bottle on the morning of the same
day, and had placed by the side of another similar bottle that con-
tained the wine which he was to drink at supper. Immediately after
swallowing the tincture, he  experienced a sensation of warmth  and
constriction in the throat.  Having  discovered his mistake, he took
about a grain of Tartar emetic dissolved in a large quantity of Avater.
This, however, did not excite  any vomiting.  His restlessness noAV
became excessive; he was utterly unable to remain quiet, and com-
plained about his throat and of  a burning in the oesophagus.   As
soon as the  apothecary returned home, Dr. Devay was sent for.   It
was 10J o'clock.   The patient was 35 years old, of a  lymphatic san-
guine temperament, robust constitution, and begging for help in  a 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
115
state of the utmost fright.  His anxiety was so great  that he was
utterly unable to remain  quiet.  I asked  him to sit doAvn, but he
immediately rose again.  I had to Avalk up and down the room Avith
him, in order to  ask him  questions  and obtain a knowledge of his
symptoms. His  mental and sensual functions were undisturbed; the
tongue exhibited a Avhitish coating: he complained of nausea. No
colic.  I observed that  the  first effect  of the poison had  been  to
attack the organs of locomotion, especially the  lower  extremities,
which the patient moved incessantly, even Avhile sitting on a  chair.
While walking about the room, his legs trembled.  This gave  to his
gait the appearance of staggering.   I gave him an emetic composed
of nearly 2|- grains of Tartar emetic, 16  grains of powdered Ipecac-
uanha, the whole in 4 ounces  of water.   The patient swallowed it
hurriedly,  lie  complained  of an  acute  pain  in  the  fauces and
oesophagus, and  showed excessive restlessness  and dread of death.
In  about 7 or 8  minutes  copious vomiting took place.  About 11
o'clock in the evening, the patient was unable to remain  standing;
he was attacked by a peculiar sort of convulsions; the upper and
loAver extremities Avere  turned inwards, the fingers were clenched
and the thumb turned inwards, so that it Avas impossible to open his
hand.  There was no concussion.  His face was covered  with a cold,
clammy sweat.  The e}Teballs  were rolled upwards, so that only
the whites could be  seen.  The expression of the ^countenance was
frightful.  The pulse  at the Avrist and temples had entirely vanished.
This paroxysm of convulsions lasted about three minutes, and Avas
succeeded by prostration.  The patient complained of experiencing
extreme anguish ; he felt  that his  end was approaching.   His con-
sciousness was not disturbed, although the patient seemed every noAV
and then  to  lapse into  a state of stupor,  from  Avhich he hoAvever
speedily roused  himself in order to call for help.  He Avould  close
his eves,  with his  head  hanging  clown, after Avhich he suddenly
raised it again like one who, having fallen asleep  standing, or sitting
on a chair, is suddenly roused from his slumber.  His visual power
had become extinct;  he was unable to distinguish either persons or
other surrounding objects.  He had to vomit several  times after
this, and every attack of vomiting was followed  by a paroxvsm  of
convulsions.
  "About  12J  o'clock  the  symptoms  continued the same; the
anguish and agony of the  patient were extreme.  Alternate1 parox-
ysms of convulsions  and  nausea.  Another emetic was given, and
water and  vinegar ordered  as  a beverage in  tablespoonful doses.
About one o'clock the sight returned, but the paroxysms of convul-
sions were as frequent as before and more violent;  the temperature
of the skin became less and less. The patient  began to shiver and
finally became cold as ice; his countenance assumed the expression
which we  characterize as hippocratic;  his head  Avas powerfully
drawn backwards ; during the spasms his joints Avould creak.  The
breathing became stertorous: the mucous rale Avas  audible at a dis-
tance.  In  spite  of this agonizing condition he  understood every
thing that Avas told him, nor did he experience any colic.   Even
after the first convulsive paroxysm the palms of his hands had lost 
116
LECTURE VII.
the faculty of sensation so completely that he did not feel the prick
of a needle, even if pushed  pretty  deeply into the  flesh.  The
abdomen remained warm.   Sinapisms were  applied to the  Avhole
body, except the abdomen, and a solution of Iodine in water was
administered, 4 grains of iodine, 48 grains of the iodide of potassium,
dissolved in 8 ounces of water.  About 3 o'clock in the morning, up
to which hour there was no change in  the  symptoms, the beats of
the heart again became perceptible ; the pulse could be felt again ;
the warmth of the skin returned and the patient felt more comfort-
able.   An infusion of mint was administered with 48 grains of the
spirits of  Mindereri, or the  well-known acetate of Ammonia, first
described  and  introduced  into medical  practice  by  Boerhaave.
About 4 o'clock the patient began to look better; a copious, warm
sweat broke out; the pulse had risen up to 125 beats; the palms of
the hands had recovered their sensibility; the breathing was natural.
The patient was  now given an infusion of couch-grass or Triticum
repens, with nitre and syrup.  At 6  o'clock, he  slept  for half  an
hour.  On waking he complained of feeling sore and  bruised  all
over.  An injection brought away a mass of black and exceedingly
fetid  stool.  A small quantity of urine was passed, which  looked
cloudy.  The abdomen Avas  painless and soft;  tongue moist and
coated Avhite.  During the two days  folloAving,  there Avere no neAv
symptoms.  The .sleep was rather restless.  On the 29th, the patient
was able to leave his room;  his appetite had returned; barring an
expression of fright  and imbecility Avhich still Avas  perceptible  in
his countenance, all the other dreadful symptoms had  entirely dis-
appeared."
   This case of poisoning, Gentlemen, is of the highest importance in
a therapeutic point of view.  An allceopathic physician may perhaps
derive no  further benefit from the perusal of such a  case than a
knowledge of the fact that Aconite is  an acrid poison, and has to be
used with great  care; but how instructive must such a case be to a
homoeopathic physician !   Hoav many therapeutic indications of  the
highest interest  and importance  does it furnish to the attentive
observer of the physiological effects of this wonderful, and most
comprehensive and intensely-acting agent upon the living tissues!
Let us revieAV the symptoms Avhich this  case offers, and ascertain
with Avhat diseases they correspond.
   First Ave have the  usual warmth and constriction in the throat.
   Secondly, excessive restlessness, the patient Avas unable to remain
quiet;  he  had  to be in constant motion; especially the loAver  ex-
tremities were continually agitated, trembling, staggering.
   Third symptom -. Excessive pain and burning  in the oesophagus.
   Fourth: Epileptiform convulsions; the fingers  Avere spasmodically
closed; the thumbs clenched, and the legs drawn in; these convul-
sions occurred  in paroxysms at more or less regular intervals and
were accompanied by mucous rale and stertorous breathing, symptoms
that are usually  present in this form of convulsions. Noav, Gentlemen,
this symptom shows the great poAver which Aconite must necessarily
possess in the treatment of convulsions;  but remember, they must
be convulsions Avhere the brain is only secondarily affected.  In the 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
117
 present case we have seen that the patient retained his consciousness
 and remained in full  possession of his intellect from first to last;
 hence the brain could not have bsen primarily affected by the poison,
 and the convulsions must have been the result either of some secon-
 dary irritation of the  brain, such as might have been induced by
 violent sanguineous engorgements  of the cerebral vessels and conse-
 quent pressure upon  the  brain; or they must  have resulted from
 some direct lesion of  the  functional equilibrium  of the peripheral
 system of nerves.  We have several convulsions of this kind which
 we are often called upon to prescribe for:  such  as epileptiform con-
 vulsions, where the neck, trunk, or extremities may be tetanically
 convulsed, rigid and distorted, and where the fingers are spasmodi-
 cally closed and the thumbs clenched ; the eyeballs may likeAvise be
 frightfully rolled about in their sockets, sideways, upwards or doAvn-
 wards, and froth may  appear at the mouth.
   Another class  of convulsions,  to which  the present  paroxysm
 points, are puerperal  convulsions,  or  eclampsia; these convulsions
 sometimes occur to parturient females, and  as far as we may be
 guided by post-mortem appearances and by the symptoms existing
 during the life-time of the patient, these convulsions result, not from
 a primary derangement of the cerebrum, but from some secondary
 irritation of this organ, more particularly from capillary engorgement
 induced by the deficiency of animal energy which is more specifically
 generated by the cerebellum. The development of the  fetus is essen-
 tially an animal function, a function pertaining to the animal sphere,
 of which the cerebellum is the central organ;  if the  cerebellum is
 unable, in consequence of some inherent Aveakness, to respond  to the
 stimulating action of the cerebrum, Avhat must be the inevitable con-
„ sequence of this Avant oT  harmonious equilibrium between the  two
 central  organs of vitality?  The  inevitable consequence must be
 that the cerebellum, being unable to properly use the supply of blood
 which the cerebrum,  in its capacity of supreme guardian and pre-
 server of vitality is continually sending to the  uterine organs, per-
 mits the vascular engorgement thus established to react upon its
 source, the cerebrum, and to occasion an engorgement of the cerebral
 capillaries Avhich must  inevitably lead  to convulsions,  and, unless
 this engorgement is removed by some means or other, to rupture of
 the capillaries, effusion into the cerebral tissue, and  consequent death
 of the patient.  Old-school physicians endeavor to relieve the brain
 by  bleeding or by extracting the  fetus  by artificial means; but in
 our practice Ave may resort to the use of Aconite, Avhich is endoAved
 with a specific poAver  of developing, by its peculiar action upon the
 cerebellum, precisely  such a train  of symptoms  as Ave find described
 in  the books under  the  appellation of eclampsia and  as Ave are
 often called upon to treat in the sick-room.  Mark this Avell, Gentle1
 men, that Aconite exerts its specific action in the animal economy
 not upon the cerebrum, but upon the cerebellum, and, that the cere-
 bral symptoms which indicate the use of Aconite, are indications
 of  some secondary or sympathetic irritation of the cerebral organ.
 If  you  keep  this distinction in  view,  and  if,  by observation  and
 thought, you  endeavor to acquire a more and  more lucid, positive, 
118
LECTURE VII.
 and I might say, intuitive perception of this and  similar facts, you
 will find that medicine is not necessarily and constitutionally, as it
 were, an uncertain and vague science;  you will find that, Avhere the
 mere symptomist sees  nothing but symptoms,  darkness and con-
 fusion, the philosophical homueopathist, who knows how to interpret
 the meaning of  symptoms and determine their character and value,
 and their relation to the central organs of life, sees light, order and
 beautiful harmony in the midst of the desolating processes exhibited
 to his view by the organism of a suffering creature.
   You Avill not understand me as recommending Aconite as a  pa-
 nacea for puerperal convulsions.  These convulsions may proceed
 from some primary lesion of the cerebrum, a deficiency of cerebral
 innervation, in Avhich case medicines that act directly upon the brain,
 such as Opium,  Hyoseyamus, etc., may be required.
   Our next, and a most interesting symptom, is the condition of the
 pulse which rose up to one hundred and tAventy-five beats. Most of
 you are doubtless acquainted Avith the fact that we prescribe Aconite
 as a specific remedy for simple inflammatory fever, and this symptom
 shows that such a prescription is in strict accordance Avith the specific
 action of Aconite upon the human system.  In the present case,  the
 patient's pulse was in the first place depressed even to complete col-
 lapse, and the skin Avas icy-cold.  This icy-coldness of the skin was
 ushered in  by a Avell-marked  chili.  This is the primary effect of
 Aconite upon the circulation:  depression and even collapse of  the
 pulse, diminution of the temperature  of the skin,  accompanied or
 preceded by a chill, a sense of  cold creeping, shivering.   The reac-
 tion which the organism sets up against these symptoms, is marked
 by opposite conditions,  heat, increased rapidity and fulness of  the
 pulse, sometimes rising, as in the present case, up to one hundred
 and  twenty-five  and  even to a larger number of beats.   These two
 conditions, although they seem to be antagonistic to each other, yet
 come both  of them Avithin the curative range of  Aconite.   These
 two conditions, the previous depression and subsequent exaltation of
 vitality constitute two phases of one and the same functional process,
just  as the violent contractions and  subsequent atony of  the uterus
 constitute two phases of  another functional process to which I shall
 direct your attention when speaking of Secale.  The previous nega-
 tive  and the subsequent positive condition of the circulatory system
 make up  the sum total  of the vital  energy normally belonging to
 it, and  all  that Ave have to do, in order to restore the harmonious
 movements of this system, is to give  a  remedy that  shall free the
 capillaries from their spasmodic torpor and thus enable the column
 of blood to floAV through the  body from one ventricle to the other
 with undisturbed rhythmical ease.  This purpose is accomplished  by
 means of Aconite which, if it should  be found inadequate to a com-
 plete removal of the difficulty, will, at  any rate, pave the way  for
 the exhibition of the next remedial agent.  If Ave prescribe Aconite
 during the chill, it will not only hasten the febrile reaction, but will
 likewise shorten its course; and if Ave prescribe Aconite during the
 febrile reaction, the therapeutic effect will be the same, viz.? the 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
119
restoration of the natural rhythm of the pulse, and the normal tem-
perature and secretions of the skin.
  We should not omit to notice another symptom, Avhich does not
seem of great importance, but Avhich sometimes occurs in catarrhal
and rheumatic fevers, and which affords an additional indication for
the use of Aconite in these affections ; I allude to the feeling of sore-
ness of Avhich the patient complained after his short nap, a sensation
as if the whole body were bruised.  As I haA'e stated on a previous
occasion, this symptom is often present in rheumatic fever; so is the
next symptom, the black and fetid stool.  The turbid urine likewise
points to the fact that Aconite is a curative agent in inflammatory
conditions of the organism.
   And lastly we are  told that an expression of terror and imbecility
remained  in the patient's countenance some time  after the  other
symptoms had disappeared.  Gentlemen, one of the most remarkable
effects  of  Aconite upon  the mind is, to induce  this state of terror
and imbecility.  In a former case avc were told that Aconite induced
a state of mania characterized by fitful changes of mood, such as
alternate  singing and weeping, loAvness and  exaltation of spirits,
alternate delirium and rationality.  Here Ave observe that Aconite
causes a state of fright and an appearance of imbecility.  This effect
of Aconite upon the mind  is one of the most characteristic indica-
tions for its use, and  whenever, in certain forms of mania or dementia,
a state of fright and imbecility is a characteristic symptom, Aconite
will prove an invaluable auxiliary to the cure.
                 LECTURE   VIII.

  Noav, Gentlemen, let me briefly recite again the Avhole series of
the affections which the  cases of poisoning that I have  related to
you, teach us as coming Avithin the curative range of Aconite.
  1. Acute congestion of the brain, when of a purely nervous, rheu-
matic or traumatic character, and Avhen not  symptomatic of some
more deep-seated  disease of the cerebrum, such as typhus or menin-
gitis.  In revieAving the symptoms of Aconite-poisoning, which  I
have pointed out to you, you will find, that they contain all those
symptoms Avhich  constitute  a  more  or  less  complete  group of
acute congestion  of the brain.   We have  the chill Avhich always
ushers in an acute congestion, in Avhatever  organ it  may set up its
abode;  then we have the febrile reaction A\ith the pulse up to one
hundred or even one hundred and twenty-five beats in the minute;
we have the heat  and dryness of  the skin which  is always present
during an acute congestion of any organ, and Ave  have all the  cere-
bral symptoms Avhich point to this disease, such as acute aching pains
in the head;  sensation of soreness  about the head, as if the scalp had
been bruised; flushed appearance and bloating of the face; heat in
the head ; sensitiveness to the light and noise ; buzzing and Avhizzing
in the ears ; vertigo, throbbing of the carotids, nausea and vomiting,
highly-colored  and turbid urine,  and  other more or less variable 
120
LECTURE VIII.
symptoms.  This form of congestion is generally the result of ex-
posure to  a draught of air, keen Avinds, retrocession of the perspira-
tion about the head ; it may likeAvise result from indigestion, or from
some  mechanical cause, such as a blow or fall  upon the head, or
• 'yen from fright.
  You will  remember that in several fatal cases of poisoning  by
Aconite, the brain was found dotted Avith red or dark-colored spots,
showing that the ruptured capillaries had discharged their contents
into  the substance of this organ.  In fatal cases of  acute cerebral
congestion, a similar appearance is revealed to us after death; hence
we perceive  that the homoeopathicity of Aconite  to acute congestion
of the brain extends  even to the pathological  changes discovered
after the death of the patient.
  In treating such a case, you may give Aconite in various doses, from
the tincture  up to the  thirtieth potency; a drop of the tincture in a
tumblerful of Avater, or a drop or a  feAV pellets of the sixth, twelfth,
eighteenth or thirtieth attenuation.  In my concluding lecture  on
Aconite I  shall offer the necessary suggestions concerning the repeti-
tion of  the dose, and  therefore  deem it unnecessary to dAvell  upon
this topic  for the present.
  The second pathological lesion for Avhich we have  found Aconite
indicated,  is
  Acute Gastritis,  when of a purely rheumatic  character, or when
resulting from indigestion or from some mechanical  irritation of
the stomach.  The symptoms as developed by our toxicological
provings,  are the  sjrmptoms usually characterizing acute  inflam-
mations, accompanied by a sense of burning in the stomach, vomit-
ing of  mucus, bile and blood, intense  thirst.   You recollect that
in cases of acute gastritis caused  by Aconite, the stomach exhibits
all the  symptoms  of  this  inflammatory condition, and  that in one
ease  the inflammation had even terminated in ganorene.    Post-
mortem examinations have  revealed  similar changes  in cases of
genuine gastritis; hence  the homoeopathicity of Aconite  to the
rheumatic or purely nervous form of this disease, is fully established.
You will afterwards find, that there  are forms of gastritis Avhich have
to be combated  by other remedies,  such as Arsenic or Phosphorus.
 In regard to the  dose I would  say that the lower preparations of
Aconite are generally more reliable in this disease than the  higher:
you  may go  down to the third, second, or first attenuation,  or even
to a  drop  of  the tincture,  although  higher attenuations may some-
times be required  by very sensitive subjects.  Give your medicine
 in water, one or two drops in a tumberful, provided  the patient can
 keep the liquid on the stomach; otherwise resort to powders.
   Thirdly Ave have
   Paralysis of the organs of speech; the patient is unable to articulate,
 and  utters unintelligible sounds;  this condition is sometimes accom-
panied  by violent  symptoms of cerebral congestion, but it may like-
 wise  occur  as a more or  less  isolated symptom; the tongue feels
 heavy,  swollen, numb, or a prickling sensation  may  be experienced
 in this  organ.  Aconite from the eighteenth down to the first is the
 remedy. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
121
  Paralysis of the sentient nerves is another condition which comes
under  the  therapeutic range  of Aconite.   In one of our cases of
poisoning the sensibility of the patient's face was greatly impaired ;
the face and throat Avere almost insensible to the touch.   In another
case the patient's hands had  so completely lost all power of sensation
that he did not even feel the prick of a pin.
  Purely Nervous  Irritation  of the  brain is another morbid condition
which  may require the  use of Aconite.   In  the  case of poisoning
Avhere  this  symptom occurred, the patient complained  of  feeling
dizzy,  but she was neither delirious nor  sleepy.   This  condition of
the brain you will often find  described in  the books under  the
appellation  of
  Nervous  Vertigo.  It may be induced by exposure to the  sun, or
by  some constitutional  irritation,  gastric  derangements, etc.   An
attack  of this  kind  is  generally accompanied or  succeeded by
symptoms of cerebral congestion,  and it  may even be accompanied
by  partial loss  of consciousness,  loss of memorj'', even to such an
extent that the  patient forgets his own name,  the names of his best
friends, of his native place, and even the letters of the alphabet and
the names of the common numbers,  (jive your  Aconite from the
first to the sixth attenuation.
  Suffocative Catarrh,  as it  is termed, is another morbid condition
which  Avill be found to yield to the use of Aconite.   The symptoms
which  point to the use of Aconite in this  disease, are the constriction
and strangulation which Aconite  causes  in the throat, and the
dyspnoea or djstivss of breathing  which  is  likewise  one  of the
characteristic effects of Aconite upon the lungs.
  In  his later  years the great  discoverer  of  Homoeopathy was
attached Avith an  illness which endangered his life.  It was suffo-
cative  catarrh.  His  OAvn statement concerning  it,  is,as follows:
" Although I kept nryself very warm, yet the annoyance I received
from   "x"  *  *   "::"  , may have contributed to bring upon  me the
suffocative catarrh, that  for  seven  days before, and for fourteen days
after the 10th of April, threatened to choke me, with instantaneous
attacks of intolerable itching in the glottis, that would  have caused
spasmodic cough,  had it not deprived me of breath altogether; irri-
tation  of the fauces with the finger, so as to cause sickness, was the
onlv thing  that restored the breathing, and that but slowly; there
were besides other severe sjnnptoms—very great shortness of breath,
total loss of appetite for food and drink, a sensation of weariness and
a bruised feeling  in all  the limbs, constant droAvsiness, inability to
do  the least Avork, presentiment  of death, etc.   It  is only within
these four days that I have felt  myself out of danger; I obtained
relief by two olfactions,  of Coffea  cruda X° first, and then Calcarea;
Ambra too Avas of use.   And  so  the great Protector of all that is
true and good, Avill grant me as much more  life upon  this earth as
seemeth good to his wisdom."
   Far be it from me. my friends, to find fault with Hahnemann's
prescriptions.  But  look at the symptoms; look  at this suffocative
or  spasmodic constriction  about the larynx, at this distress for
breath, at this  general prostration of the system, at this  universal 
122
LECTURE VIII.
feeling as if the  limbs had been bruised by blows, and what more
complete picture of an  Aconite-group of symptoms can be found
than is presented by this description of Hahnemann's illness.  Gen-
tlemen, if I had  had charge of our illustrious patient, I should have
given him the second or third attenuation of Aconite, a drop or two
in a tumblerful of water, in small tablespoonful doses every two or
three hours, and I feel persuaded that the disease would have speedily
terminated  in perspiration and recovery.
   Speaking of suffocative  catarrh, let  me not forget, to recommend
Aconite to  your  favorable consideration in
   Asthma Millari, this dreadful invader *of the quiet comfort of deli-
cate infancy.   Asthma  Millari, as it is termed, or asthma thymicum,
is, in  fact, a species of suffocative  catarrh, or spasm of the glottis
accompanied by  signs of suffocation.  If there is a meaning in symp-
toms, and if our  provings are of any use to us as therapeutic indica-
tions, Aconite is one of our best remedies for this frightful disorder.
No remedy is possessed of the same poAver as Aconite, of producing
this spasm of the glottis which is the pathognomonic feature of Asthma
Millari.  Then why  not use it?   Why  do our books recommend
only Sambucus,  Moschus,  and other remedies Avhich are much less
homoeopathic to  this  disease?   Gentlemen, it is because one book-
maker copies from another;  instead of ascending to first principles,
and of determining the homoeopathic relation of drugs to  diseases
by a careful exploration and analysis of the pure effects of drugs upon
the living  tissues: book-makers would  rather  trust  in their oavii
empiricism, and  SAvindle the confiding  student of  Hemceopathy out
of the most valuable means of cure Avhich the Divine  Father  has
designed for our use.
   Mania Avas the  next affection for Avhich Aconite may be recom-
mended as  a specific remedy; the symptoms which indicate Aconite,
are a sense of fright; the  patient looks terrified, and, accompanying
this  sense  of terror, there  may be an appearance of imbecility;
hence in
   Idiocy, Aconite may at any rate be given as a palliative, provided
the disease is incurable.  In some forms of mania the  patients are
exceedingly loquacious, and subject to  alternate changes of mood,
at one time singing and laughing, and the next weeping and moan-
ing; at one time full of  hope,  and then depressed by despair and
forebodings of death ;  at  one time enjoying the full  use  of their
reason, at another apparently demented.  Tuese alternately opposite
conditions  of the  mind indicate Aconite  as one  of  the remedies
Avhich, among others, is to be used  in  such  cases.
   Neuralgic pains in various parts of the body;  this  is  another
morbid condition  Avhich  will yield to Aconite.  In our cases the
only neuralgic pains that we have become acquainted Avith so far
are  hard aching pains in various parts of the body, jaAvs, n >ck,
chest, joints; by and by Ave shall  find that Aconite is  a sovereign
remedy  for a variety _ of neuralgic sufferings, such  as stitching
boring, screAving, burning and other pains.
   Dropsical swelling of the abdomen.  If dropsy should set in in con-
sequence of the sudden  retrocession of an  acute  eruption, or  in 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
123
consequence  of the  sudden stoppage  of  the  cutaneous exhalation
through  exposure to a draught of air, to  dampness, keen  Avinds,
etc., Aconite may restore the action of the exhalants and thus either
terminate the Avhole difficulty or, at any rate, pave the way for some
other remedy.
  Aconite may likeAvise cure drops}' brought on  by fright.   Fright
causes that spasmodic torpor  in the capillaries which Aconite pos-
sesses the specific power of removing;  and one of the effects  of this
torpor of  the capillary exhalants may be an accumulation of serous
fluid  in the cellular tissue.  Some years  ago I had such a case to
treat.  A French lady had had  a  violent fright.  On coming out of
her house, a man was  shot dead in front  of her in the street.  The
effect of  this fright was  anasarca.  When I first saw her, she Avas
enormously  distended.  On pricking  the skin Avith  a needle,  the
water Avould spirt out.  After  using  Aconite for a few days,  she
began to  discharge a quart of water from the vagina in the course of
twenty-four  hours; this  gradually increased to two and even three
quarts, and the dropsical symptoms had all disappeared when, from
some cause  or other my patient removed  to other parts.  What
became of her I am unable to  say.
  Acute congestion of the kidneys, characterized by swelling  in  the
region of the kidneys, stitches in the kidneys, retention of urine, and
the usual symptoms  of inflammatory fever;  this group of symptoms
likeAvise requires Aconite.
  Rclcu!ion of urine is another derangement corresponding Avith  the
effects of Aconite.  This  retention may be  owing  to spasmodic
constriction of the sphincter, or to  paralysis of the muscular fibres of
the bladder; in either case Aconite, by virtue of its power to induce
muscular paralysis and spasmodic constriction of the orifices of  the
body, is  indicated as one of the most reliable remedies in this dis-
tressing affection, if occasioned by a cold or fright.
  Paralysis  of the  rmuscular fibre.  We haA^e seen  that Aconite
causes a  spasmodic  torpor  in the capillaries; this torpor may  so
completely embarrass the circulation  in the affected part that mus-
cular paralysis may be the consequence.  A  paralysis of this sort
must necessarily be characterized  by symptoms like these: a sense
of swelling in  the part: heat, numbness and tingling as if the part
had  gone to sleep,  prickling sensation in  the part;  sIoav,  heaA'y
pulse, in  some cases  full  and hard, and in other  casjs sinking and
empty.   Aconite from the  sixth  to  the  thirtieth, and sometimes
lower, will often  prevent  the  threatening paroxysm.  And even if
paralysis has actually set in, Aconite is still a specific restorer of the
normal vitality of the part.  Among a number of cases of paralysis
which I  have treated with Aconite, I  select the following  two or
three cases, in order  to illustrate  the wonderful curative powers of
Aconite in this disease.
  One was a  man about forty years old, good constitution, rather
phlegmatic temperament, in  good circumstances and  not  much
oppressed with care.  He had a paralytic stroke, and  for some six
or seven  weeks was treated by a botanic physician Avithout the least
benefit.   When I saw the patient,  the following group  of symptoms 
124
LECTURE VIII.
  presented itself: The  patient Avas hardly able to stagger about the
  room ; his sight Avhich  Avas naturally very goo 1, Avas so impaired that
  he was unable to read  the largest sign across the street: his memory
  was likewise damaged;  though naturally intelligent, there was  an
  expression of imbecility  in his features; he Avas only able to stutter
  out a few words : Avhen  attempting to count, he would  skip two or
  three numbers, 1. 2, 5,  6,  9, etc  When attempting to read, he would
  sometimes commence in  the middle of a line, or he would  skip two
  or three lines, or read  one word  for another, good for great, etc.
  Sometimes he would only see the half of a word.  His appetite was
  poorly, tongue coated  Avhite, foul  taste in the mouth, fetid  breath,
  pulse  exceedingly irregular, intermittent and  rather depressed.   I
  put him  on the use  of Acouite,  and in  about  three Aveeks  the
  patient's health was completely restored, and  he Avas  able to walk
  about three miles doAvn town to his place  of business.
    Another case Avas that of a lady of fifty, of stout make and florid
  complexion, short and thick neck and bilious temperament.  She
  had an apoplectic fit,  and Avas bled by a physician who was called
  there  by some friend  in a hurry.  I saw  her about half an hour
  after.   She  was comatose,  almost unconscious,  her  face  looked
  reddish-brown, one pupil Avas exceedingly contracted, and  the other
  pupil  widely dilated and insensible to the light; this Avas the pupil
  of the left side] the  whole  of Avhich side  Avas  paralyzed.  Her
  features showed signs of terror.  The pulse  Avas heavy,  slow and
  hard.   I put her on the  use of Aconite, and in about a fortnight she
  Avas entirely Avell and able to  resume her usual  domestic duties.
  For a month  or two  she complained of feeling weaker than usual
  after  making a bodily exertion ; this, I suppose, Avas owdng to the
  bleeding rather than to her attack.
    Another lady summoned me  in the middle of the  night to her
  house.  She Avas about  fifty }^ears old, of a paralytic habit, several
  of her sisters and brothers had died of apoplexy and paralysis; she
  had been  troubled for  months past with numbness and symptoms
  of constitutional congestion,  such as sensation of swelling in various
>  parts  of the body ; Arel vety feeling under the soles of the  feet, arising
  from  a congested condition of the capillaries in that region; Avind
  rolling off' the stomach in extraordinary quantities, partial amau-
  rosis, buzzing in the ears, violent  headache, slow pulse.   When she
  sent for me 1 found her  unable to articulate, she looked frightened,
  her pulse Avas down to thirty-five, and  she made signs that  she felt
  great distress  in the  head.   I gave  a few drops of a  rather weak
  tincture of Aconite in a tumblerful of water, in tablespoonful doses
  every few minutes; after having  taken a few  doses, the pulse rose
  up to sixty; she continued the Aconite during the night, and in tAvo
  or three days  she had regained her  usual  health,   in this case  the
  timely use of Aconite undoubtedly prevented an apoplectic stroke.
    Another lady, of a very full habit of body, and subject to severe
  congestive headaches,  was  suddenly attacked with the  following
  symptoms: Apoplectic state of the head, a sort of stupor, expression
  of intense distress in the features, dark  flushes on the cheeks,  un-
  natural contraction of  the  pupils, paralysis  of the tongue Avhich 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
125
seemed immovable, and a sIoav and hard pulse.   I gave her Aconite
in water every five minutes; already after the first dose the pulse
began  to rise, and after the  second or third dose she Avas able to
answer a few questions.  She stated that she had felt like one dying,
and that her tongue had been entirely paralysed.  She Avas entirely
restored in a few days.
  In a case of paralysis of the oesophagus, Aconite saved the patient's
life.   The patient Avas a lady of about fifty-five years,  of a paralytic
habit of  body, and  had  had one severe attack of paralysis which I
cured  Avith Aconite.  For  months she enjoyed perfect  health, as
good as ever she did; care and grief brought on another attack of
paralysis, and this time the part affected Avas the oesophagus.  The
condition of the patient seemed really frightful; an  expression of
fright and agony in her features, constant fear of death by strangu-
lation ; desire to swallow and yet inability to bring  doAvn a drop of
liquid  of any kind  without choking.   The Aconite  Avas  held to the
tongue every now and then, and a very small powder Avas deposited
upon the tongue every ten or fifteen minutes.  In this manner the
contractile poAver of the muscular fibres of the oesophagus Avas soon
restored, and in about a Aveek the  patient's  health  was  as good as
usual.
   On looking at this patient, you Avould have said that she Avas de-
signed, as it were, to have paralytic strokes.   I treated her four or
five times for paralysis, but the last attack carried her off.  Paraly-
sis of the heart set in, and although the heart's action became some-
what regular again under  the use of Aconite, yet  after  having
lingered for a Aveek or so, the patient died very gradually.   I  have
no doubt that if the reactive energies of  her system had not  been
shattered as they necessarily  must have  been in  consequence of
care, grief,  and  frequent attacks of paralysis, her life Avould  have
been saved.
   In another case I restored the motor power of one half of the face
with Aconite.   One side of the face was  useless, and  drawn doAvn
or rather hanging  doAvn, the muscles of the cheek and jaAvs  had
become paralysed in consequence  of exposure  to a draught of air.
This is rheumatic paralysis, as it is termed.   Aconite restored the
patients health very speedily.
   Paralysis of the sentient sphere, may likewise be cured by Aconite.
Complete loss of smell for instance, or anosmia as it is termed, which
has a catarrhal origin, will yield to the use of Aconite.   You  may
be called upon  to  treat such  a  case, the  Schneiderian  membrane
is as dry as a chip, and the olfactory nerve  is so completely para-
lysed that the patient  is utterly unable to distinguish the odor of
sulphuretted hydrogen from the most delicious perfume.  Give your
Aconite, (rentlemen, one or two drops of the  first or  second attenua-
tion  in a tumblerful of Avater, in table-spoonful doses every hour or
two,  and your patient will  soon recover  the use of his olfactories.
In such cases which are not at all unfrequent, I have often given
the concentrated tincture in water, and helped the patient in twenty-
four or thirty-six hours.
   Again, complete  deafness or dysecoea Avhen  caused  by paralysis of 
126
LECTURE VIII.
 the auditory nerve resulting from exposure to a draught, to damp-
 ness or to a keen Avind, in other  words:  rheumatic  deafness, will
 speedily yield to Aconite.  The patient is utterly unable  to distin-
 guish one sound from another, and complains of a thousand noises,
 roaring, buzzing, blowing, whizzing, in the cavity of the drum.   Give
 your  Aconite as recommended for anosmia, and  you  will be aston-
 ished at the ease with which the patient's hearing can be restored.
   And likewise in rheumatic amaurosis, or rheumatic paralysis of
 the optic  nerve, Aconite will wery speedily  restore the  visual poAver.
 We have seen that among the toxicological effects of Aconite,  com-
 plete amaurosis occupies a prominent place.
   Rheumatic paralysis of the bladder is another condition which Avill
 speedily yield to Aconite.   If the sphincter is paralysed, there Avill
 be a  continual  dribbling of urine: if the  muscular  fibres of the
 bladder are paralysed,  there will be a complete retention of urine;
 in either case, Aconite will prove an invaluable remedy.
   In the same way you may have rheumatic paralysis of the rectum.
 If the muscular fibres of the rectum are paralysed, there  "will be a
 complete  inability to evacuate the contents of the  rectum; if the
 sphincters are paralysed there will be a continual, involuntary pas-
 sage of faacal matter.  In either case Aconite will prove adequate
 to  the  removal of this distressing difficulty, not  in  Old School
 fashion, entailing  distress and chronic  Aveakness upon the patient
 after a most unreasonable amount of fussing has been perpetrated,
 but thoroughly and permanently, as in any other curable malady.
   In thus recommending Aconite to your most careful consideration,
 you Avill not misunderstand me.  You will not understand that I
 recommend Aconite as a panacea for paralysis. In  muscular para-
 lysis,  when caused by catarrhal irritation, or Avhen  resulting  from
 some  suddenly and violently operating emotion, Aconite is  the chief
 remedy; but  there are other  forms of paralysis Avhere  Aconite
 would be of very little, if any, use.  They  will be  pointed out to
 you in their order. It will  be shoAvn you, for instance, that Rhus,
 Nux  vomica or its alkaloid  Strychnine ;   and lead and  its  salts,
 Cocculus  and  perhaps  one  or more  remedies may likewise  cure
 paralysis.   The  characteristic  differences  betAveen  these  various
 agents will more strikingly appear at a later period of our course,
 Avhen   we  shall  be able to contrast analogous therapeutic groups
 under  general categories.
  Gentlemen, it  is astonishing that an agent Avhich is endowed Avith
 the most Avonderful specific  powers of curing  paralysis, should not
 even be mentioned by our book-makers among the medicines Avhich
 they recommend for this disease.  Strange  to  say, even Teste does
 not allude to Aconite.   Laurie assigns to it two meagre lines under
 apoplexy,  and  simply recommends it  when  there  is  fever.   For
paralysis one author  recommends  Arnica,  Bryonia  and Sulphur,
exceedingly feeble and  often  inefficient members of the paralytic
group, another one recommends a whole batch of absurdly-chosen
medicines  which prove  inadequate in any hands but those  of book-
makers.  There  is but one true method  of studying the therapeutic
character of a drug; you must, in the first  place, ascertain its pure 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
127
physiological effects upon the system, and by these effects determine
its use in the treatment of corresponding diseases.
  Our next pathological  derangement which will be found curable
by Aconite, is
  Jaundice.  In one of our cases of poisoning, the patient died Avith
all the symptoms of jaundice.   This shows that Aconite is endowed
with  specific poAvers  of  deranging or rather of embarrassing the
capillaries  of the biliary  system.  If the portal capillaries  remain
engorged in consequence of deficient  contractility of the capillary
tissue, the bile must necessarily remain in the circulation, and create
disease.  AVe know that bile is a most acrid  poison, and it is not at
all astonishing that, in the case of  this patient, the  stomach  should
have  been found corroded  here  and there, as  I suppose,  by the
blackish bile Avhich was  found in the interior  of  this organ.   In
another case we were told  that the  patient  threw up  black bile:
hence Ave have  a right to  infer from  these symptoms  that Aconite
must  be a great agent in the treatment of jaundice, and even of that
most  malignant  form of jaundice,
   Yellow fever,  even in the stage of black vomit.  In this case there
is undoubtedly  homoeopathicity between Aconite and black vomit;
Aconite affects the character of the bile, and the forces which gene-
rate bile in the animal economy, precisely as bile and the  secretory
organs of bile are affected in yellow fever; this homoeopathicity has
a true dynamic  basis founded in the inmost  principles  of the living
organism.
   Dr. Peters, one  of the editors  of  the North-American Journal
of  Homoeopathy,  recommends Sulphuric  acid  for black   Aromit:
There is no homoeopathicity betAveen  black vomit and the flocks of
blackened  mucus Avhich  are expelled from the stomach in case of
poisoning  by Sulphuric  acid.  What a mistake to confound  this
purely chemical effect of a corroding poison Avith the dynamic action
of drugs, and to predicate the homoeopathicity of an agent upon such
a basis!
   Gentlemen, there are tAvo classes of physicians in the homoeopathic
ranks which occupy opposite extremes of our school. Both are more
or less useful in their way, but  both are utterly and radically wrong-
in their conception  and definition of the homoeopathic law.  At one
extreme we observe a set of men Avho seem to be troubled with an
incurable symptomania; it seems  to  be  their special endeavour to
heap  Ossa  upon Pelion, and to storm the very Olympus where the
god of Medicine sits in council with his ministering angels.  This is
the modern Babel Avhich threatens to destroy the beautiful simplicity
of our  sj^stem  and the harmonious  evolution  of its  progressive
growth. It is from the physicians who occupy this extreme  that Ave
are periodically flooded by a deluge of imaginary symptoms, which
not only have no parallel in pathology, but are utterly false because
the merest product  of  a baseless and  childish fancy.  Look  at your
fluoric acid provings, some six or seven hundred symptoms, scarcely
one of  them of the least therapeutic value; scarcely one of them
shadoAving forth even the faintest  outlines of such  pathological dis-
turbances  as physicians are called  upon to prescribe for.  Who : wjj 
128
LECTURE VIII.
for your ten thousand little itchings, stingings, jerkings, twitchings;
for your myriad of insignificant pimples and spots; for your unmean-
ing gastric derangements, one prover  complaining of a diminished
desire for coffee or tobacco, another of an additional belching, another
of a little more constipation and still another of a little more loose-
ness than he  is  habitually subject to?   If  these  symptoms Avere
recorded as the more delicate shades of a grand physiological tableau
marked by a few characteristic strokes of a master's hand, they might
be received as necessary complements of a  group;  but  when the
Avhole mass of the so-called provings is made up of such insignificant
trifles, unrelieved  by a single telling and truly characteristic element,
then we must, as conscientious practitioners, refuse our assent to such
a frothy symptom-fabric  and explode it as a  monstrous and utterly
useless bubble.
   At the other extreme we have a set of gross materialists, the very
antipodes  of the  former  symptom-hunters.   The homoeopathicity
Avhich  they  advocate, is based in a great measure  upon  a fancied
similarity of post-mortem  appearances, or even upon a similarity
depending  upon  purely  chemical changes.   Thus, if in a case of
poisoning, the mucous coat of the stomach is found softened, as for
instance in poisoning by Agaricus muscarius or  toadstool, Avhere the
mucous and muscular coats  of  the stomach  have been found de-
stroyed in  one case, this is set  doAvn  as  an  indication of the ho-
moeopathicity of Agaricus  to  gelatinous  softening of the stomach.
Now, Gentlemen,  you will  understand that this resemblance of a
pathological post-mortem appearance to a similar post-mortem ap-
pearance as occurring in disease, is not  sufficient  to constitute a
true homoeopathic relation of the drug to the disease.   In  order
that post-mortem appearances may constitute  true  homoeopathic
indications, they must be in either ease, in the  event of poisoning
as well as in the natural  disease, terminations of the same dynamic
process; in other  words, both the drug and the disease must set up
the same  dynamic  process in the  system, and this  process must
terminate  in the  same or  a  similar pathological disorganization;
hence the symptoms  which characterize this process during the life
of the  patient,  must  likewise be similar;  there  must be similarity
of sensations,  of  cutaneous  appearances; and, if this  similarity
should^ hold  good,  from the  incipience  of the two diseases,  the
drug-disease and  the  natural  malady. doAvn  to  the changes re-
vealed by a post-mortem examination!  then and then only would a
resemblance between the post-mortem  changes  of the druo--disease,
and the post-mortem changes of the natural malady, constitute a
therapeutic indication, and really and truly seal  the homoeopathicity
of a drug to sumo  peculiar disease.  It must be our endeavour, Gen-
tlemen, to discard either extreme.  Our School  must stand forth as
the cradle of that only true homu-opathic science Avhich interprets
the great how,  •' Similia similibus eurantur," neither  as the formula
of symptomania  nor as  a  sign-post to the  gross  and disgusting
materialism  of a  few vain-glorious boasters  about pathology : Wo
must teach our profession  and the Avorld that a drug is homoeo-
pathic to a disease when the drug is capable of setting up a dynamic 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.                  129
process in the system similar to the dynamic process set up  b}~ the
disease; this similarity must  extend throughout the whole  of this
process, from its first beginnings, from the very first perception of it
in the sensorium down to the ultimate pathological degenerations,
provided such degenerations are possible;  very often the patient's
vitality is thoroughly exhausted, and life becomes extinct before the
disease has had a chance to exercise its degenerating raAdages in the
tissues.  But let it be understood  that the symptoms Avhich charac-
terize this  dynamic process, in the case of the drug and in  that of
the natural malady, must be alike;  I  use the term alike, for  the
similarity must constitute an  exact likeness of the artificial and the
natural diseases; no proving  can be accepted as genuine Avhere  the
effects of the drug do not clearly and unmistakably point to some
well marked disease,  and, if we  are otherwise satisfied, that  the
proving had been conducted  in a thorough and conscientious man-
ner, and if, in spite of our most devoted care and  perseverance, the
proving of a drug does not yield any decided results, we but  fulfil a
duty in rejecting all such provings as useless and complicating lum-
ber.  Unfortunately there are very few characteristic symptoms to
be found among most of our modern provings.  I care not what the
cause of this utter absence of characteristic symptoms  may be, a
want of care on'the part of the prover, or an inherent deficiency of
medicinal power in the drug.   The fact may be established  by the
most superficial perusal of these provings, that they present but few,
very few marked and available indications as therapeutic  agents.
What right, Gentlemen, has any man or any set of men to palm such
unmeaning trash upon our profession, and by means of the juggling
hocus-pocus of  an organization, a Provers' Union and so forth, in-
vest the miserable caricatures of provings, with which our books are
filled, Avith the sanctity of official orthodoxy ?  It is my right and my
duty as your teacher, to point these things out to  you as a blemish
upon our fair science, and a scandal to all  thinking and conscientious
physicians.   Look at  that mass  of rubbish, Jahr's Symptomen-
Codex, three large volumes, Avhich I published some ten years ago.
Ahvays excepting  Hahnemann's oavii original provings,  the re-
provings of the Provers'  Union of Vienna, and the valuable addi-
tions extracted by Noack and Trinks from actual cases of poisoning,
beside half a dozen short  provings emanating from our own midst,
what do the thousands of symptoms which are  piled  up  in this
enormous reservoir of  trifles,  signify?  Alas, nobody takes  any
notice of them; nobody studies them, nobody uses them in prac-
tice, .for  a very simple reason: they are  utterly unmeaning and
utterly unvailable.  Gentlemen, you  have  a vast  field  before you.
Let it be your earnest endeavor to simplify our Materia Medica, to
purge it of its many weeds and enormities, and it will not be many
years before Homoeopathy shall walk over the land like a goddess
among gods.
  The  next disturbance Avhich I  have to  recall to your recollec-
tion is
  Bilious Diarrhoea.   In one or more of our cases of poisoning the
patients discharged green bile from the bowels.  This condition of
                              9 
130
LECTURE VIII.
the bowels is apt to occur in summer and at the beginning of autumn,
particularly among children.  Aconite is one of the great remedies
which we may effectually resort to in order  to arrest this difficulty.
This  difficulty may arise  from a Aveakness of the neck of  the gall-
bladder ; the constricting power of the neck being weakened by the
heat of the Aveather and  by the  sudden alternation of hot days and
cool nights, the bile is poured through the ductus choledochus com-
munis into the  bowels in inordinate  and irregular  quantities, and
hence the  constant irritation of the bowels and the frequent dis-
charges of bilious  stools.
  This condition  may likewise  arise  from  an  engorgement of the
portal capillaries in the bowels, resulting  in the accumulation of bile
as a foreign agent, which  manifests an irritating influence upon the
intestinal lining membrane, resulting in frequent and painful dis-
charges of  mucus and faecal matter mixed Avith bile.
  In  Cholera morbus these green stools are frequently present; green
stools, vomiting of green bile, soreness, cramps in the calves, headache,
dizziness, burning in the epigastric region, intense thirst, constitute
a group of symptoms which will sometimes attack the patient all of
a sudden during the summer and fall, either in consequence of ex-
posure or of  some indiscretion in eating  or drinking; this group of
symptoms constitutes an attack of cholera morbus, and Ave have seen
from  our toxicological cases, that Aconite, is eminently capable of
producing  all these  symptoms in  the healthy organism, and that
hence it must be capable of curing them.  But in such affections you
will not be able to get along with Aconite, unless you use the loAver
preparations,  even a  drop  of the tincture  in a tumblerful of Avater.
I have often  tried the difference betAveen the  attenuations and the
tincture in such  cases, and my experience is uniformly in favor of
the lowest  preparations.
 _ You Avill recollect, that in one case the patient exhibited all the
signs of an attack of
  Asiatic Cholera.  The characteristic symptoms of this case were
the coldness  of the  tongue, collapse of pulse,  cramps in the legs,
vomiting and diarrhoea, and so forth.  The attack resembled cholera
so closely  that Dr. Pereyra  concluded  to give his  patient Guaeo
which he had found an efficient remedy during the paralytic stage
of cholera. I have often found Aconite eminently useful, during the
first invasion of the  disease, in restoring  the pulse and  rousing the
vital reaction generally.   Yeratrum, Camphor, Arsenic, or perhaps
some other remedy may be appropriately used after Aconite.
  The specific effects of Aconite upon  the  respiratory organs will
not be forgotten.   Aconite causes, and will therefore cure &
  Dyspnoea, Orthopnoea, and if Apoplexy of the lungs can be said to be
a curable disease, Aconite will cure this  disorder.  If we  consider
that in
  Pneumonia the  lungs  are  exceedingly gorged with blood  Aco-
nite must suggest  itself to us as  an invaluable  agent  in this disease.
In pneumonia some  of the most characteristic Symptoms  point to
Aconite: the dyspnoea, orthopnoea, and, as I shall show you by and 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
131
by, the cough, pain, rusty sputa, and the inflammatory fever, indicate
Aconite as a prominent remedy.  In
   Spasmodic Asthma, when resulting from exposure to keen Avind,
or from the retrocession of some acute eruption, acute nettle-rash,
and  the like, Aconite will  be found invaluable;  the  orthopnoea of
Aconite is equivalent to an attack of spasmodic asthma.
   We have seen that in one case Aconite  caused
   Ophthalmia with profuse  discharge of acrid tears. The attack must
have been most intense, for  the pain was so agonizing that the patient
preferred death to such sufferings.  This group of symptoms occurs
in arthritic and scrofulous ophthalmia; a most intense inflammation,
sensitiveness to the light,  profuse discharge  of acrid and  scalding
tears: these symptoms point to Aconite as a sovereign remedy.  In
this  most obstinate  and dangerous form of ophthalmia, Aconite may
have to be used more or less as long as the disease lasts, in alterna-
tion with  Arsenic,  Hepar  sulphuris,  or Corrosive sublimate; and
even, if we should not be called to the patient until at a later period
of the disease, when  disorganizations of  the cornea  have already
commenced, Aconite will still be found  of sovereign importance to
effect a resolution of the organic alteration of the parts.  It stands
to reason that, if Aconite is  so eminently useful  in scrofulous and
arthritic ophthalmia, it must likewise be useful in common catarrhal
or rheumatic ophthalmia; and this fact has been abundantly verified
by clinical experience.
   From some of our cases of poisoning we have learnt that Aconite
is a  specific remedy for
   Inflammatory fever, whether simply catharral or rheumatic, or even
for the  more complicated  forms of inflammatory fever, bilious and
gastric fever.  Aconite will  either cure these fevers without the use of
any other medicine, or else  it will pave the way for the next remedy ;
more than three remedies are hardly ever  required by these fevers,
although there are physicians who do not hesitate  to use from six to
ten medicines in simple bilious or gastric fevers.  I trust that such
bungling will never be laid  to  the charge of gentlemen who have
graduated in this institution.
   We have seen that
   Convulsions may be caused  by the use of, and therefore must yield
after the exhibition of Aconite. Other remedies produce convul-
sions and may be capable of curing them ; but the effect of Aconite
upon the  nervous system  is  exceedingly  striking, and if the con-
vulsions arise from  secondary congestion of the brain,  or from some
irritation  of the  peripheral  nerves, teething, worms, pain in the
bowels,  Aconite will sometimes prove  a  more powerful sedative
than any other drug.
  Nervous  tremor of the extremities, which sometimes amounts to
St. Vitus' dance or Chorea as we term it, will often yield to the use
of Aconite.  You will recollect that excessive mobility of the limbs,
a perfect inability to keep the limbs quiet, and a constant tremor of
the lower extremities, are symptoms which  Aconite developed in one
of our cases in a very striking manner.  It seems hardly necessary
to again advert to the fact that 
132
LECTURE IX.
  Hysteric, Puerperal and Epileptiform Convulsions will often find in
Aconite one of their most efficient remedies.
  In my next lecture I shall endeavor to present a systematic ar-
rangement of  the  symptoms of Aconite, including toxicological
effects as well as symptoms obtained by systematic provings, under
appropriate heads.   If I have extended my remarks to some length,
it has been for more than one reason.   In the first place I know and
feel that it is  utterly  impossible for a homoeopathic  physician to
practice Homoeopathy to his satisfaction, unless he is thoroughly
acquainted with the therapeutic virtues of Aconite and of the poly-
chrests generally.   Moreover, in going over the therapeutic range
of this drug, I have been afforded an opportunity every now and
then, of giving utterance to my own views concerning various points
of doctrine.
  Aconite is one of the mainstays of our practice, and a knowledge
of the therapeutic properties of this  agent  will amply  repay the
trouble of acquiring it.
                  LECTURE   IX.


  After having communicated to you a number of the toxicological
effects of Aconite, I will now give you the prominent Aconite symp-
toms obtained by systematic provings upon the  healthy.  These
provings have been conducted with a devotion and a conscientious-
ness worthy of so noble a cause.  You will readily perceive the
necessity of such provings.  How could we know to Avhat diseases a
drug is homoeopathically adapted, unless we  first ascertain in some
way or other what effects the drug is capable of producing in the
healthy organism? We know that these effects must represent some
kind of natural disease.  We knoAV that drugs and natural diseases
both emanate from the same source; that, in  the case of the natural
disease, the morbific principle invades directly the tissues of the
organism at some opportune moment; and that, in the case of the
drug, the same morbific  principle or force acts upon the  tissues of
nature, if I may  be permitted to use such a term,  producing in the  ,
one instance the natural  disease characterized and manifested to the
senses by its own pathognomonic phenomena, and, in the other case,
developing out of the soil and water of nature, under the stimulat-
ing influence of the sun's heat and light, its own material substratum
or representative in  the shape  of some plant, animal  or mineral.
Now in order that we may know what drug and what disease cor-
respond with each other, in other words Avhat drug and what dis-
ease have emanated from the same morbific essence, and are there-
fore in the closest possible therapeutic relations of similarity to
each other,is it not evident that we have to ascertain by careful and
systematic  provings the  effects which the different drugs are respec-
tively capable of producing in the normally-existing organism ? 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
133
  But it is likewise evident that these provings must be conducted
by men who possess the necessary amount of health, intelligence and
observing and discriminating acumen.  If the symptoms which Ave
obtain through our provings, do not shadow forth in striking features
the diseases which afflict humanity; if these provings are conducted
in such a loose  and flippant manner  that the determination of the
homoeopathicity of a drug  to a  given disease is mere guess work,
these provings  should be rejected without a moment's hesitation.
Most of the provings with the so-called antipsoric remedies which
we find recorded in Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases,  have been con-
ducted with the 6th up to the 30th, and some of these exclusively
with the 30th potency.  I have told you in a previous lecture that,
in introducing  these provings to his readers, Hahnemann remarks
in a  note, that  many of the symptoms being unreliable, he had to
reject a large number of them, in spite of which many vague symp-
toms had nevertheless to be permitted to  remain.   Many of our
former and more  recent provings are utterly  useless  in  practice.
Take for instance the  provings of Apis mellifica.   The therapeutic
range of this drug is  exceedingly limited, not extending over more
than half a dozen affections, and yet the pretended symptoms of this
agent occupy some tAventy octavo pages or more.   Graphites has
upwards of a thousand symptoms in our books, and yet Ave only use
it for some cutaneous affections, a feAV menstrual irregularities and
perhaps one or two gastric  disorders.  And these remarks apply to
the larger number of our drugs. When will the period arrive Avhen
all these excrescences shall be expunged from our books ?
   On the other hand, in attempting to get up  a new and  more re-
liable Materia Medica, we should not rush into the opposite extreme,
and, instead of fulfilling the just and legitimate expectations of our
readers with reference to a reconstruction of our Materia Medica,
we  should not embody  a  perfect chaos of gross and unmeaning
materialism  in our  compilations.  Every allceopathic empiric  is
 ransacked by what we might term the pathological branch of our
 school,  and his crude speculations  are  mixed up with  our OAvn
 pathogenesis without the least reference to our oavii laAV of cure,
 thus paving the way for  a  complete demolition of the glorious
 structure which the  great genius of Hahnemann has called into
 being!   This gross materialism, these filthy and meretricious com-
 binations of the pure pathogenesis of our drugs, obtained in many
 instances through heroic sacrifice and patient labor, with the crude
 and unreliable empiricism of Old-School authors, lead to the pro-
 duction  of such a compound of delusive theories, of  erroneous
 applications  and  dangerous  deviations from the path trodden by
 Hahnemann and  by all his true and  devoted disciples,  that we may
 well pause and ask  ourselves, where are all these things to end ?
 Alas ! my heart feels sad at the prospect before us ; if the bold em-
 piricism and the nauseating materialism which  some of our modern
 writers on Homoeopathy advocate, are to become the rule and custom
 of future generations, then Homoeopathy will have to be re-made;
 some new Hahnemann willhave to rise up in  the midst  of this
 disorder, and teach the world the true Science of Therapeutics. 
134
LECTURE IX.
  It is  not difficult to account for  this opposition  to the usages
and teachings of Hahnemann.   It is the natural  reaction against
the silly and pernicious absurdities,  which some of  the pretended
leaders  of  the symptom-school have been guilty of.  In  the  first
place they have averted by their childish  provings the more rigor-
ous and scientific minds  of  our School; and  in  the next place,
they have  exposed the Avhole  science of Homoeopathy to public
derision  by the ridiculous manner in which they have sought to
apply our  law of cure.   What must rational  men  think, for in-
stance, of Bcenninghausen's recommendation to the  German gov-
ernments, to abolish vaccination and to substitute in its stead the
use of Thuja as  a  preventive• of small-pox?   Upon what is this
bold recommendation based?  Why,  simply upon  the  fact  that
among the  physiological effects of Thuja we discover in one case a
pustule,  which is  supposed  to resemble the  small-pox  pustule.
There is not the remotest similarity between the Thuja disease and
the small-pox disease; but because this one Thuja-pustule  happens
to resemble in its outward shape the  small-pox pustule, Thuja is at
once declared a specific for small-pox, and an infallible preventive
against  this frightful disorder.   This levity must necessarily have
been followed by an opposite tendency characterized by an adherence
to the grossest pathological materialism.   What we now require, is
an union of true pathogenesis  and pathology;  let us explore the
therapeutic range of every drug by careful provings upon the
healthy; results  thus obtained, in combination with toxicological
symptoms, will afford us a correct and clear view of the diseases to
which a drug is applicable.  But the idea of exploring the thera-
peutic  character of a drug by means  of the 6th, 30th  or 200th
potency is, in my estimation, preposterous.  Our attenuations  act upon
disease,  which is a dynamic disturbance of  the organism  brought
about by the invasion of some morbific essence ;  and they may affect
the normal tissues in some cases, where an idiosyncratic relation pre-
vails between the prover and the drug.  But attenuations cannot be
depended upon in proving a drug.  Gentlemen, allow me to take
this opportunity of expressing my most  emphatic condemnation of
this method of proving.  If you should be desirous of proving new
drugs,  or of re-proving those which  Ave now have, prove  them in
massive doses of the concentrated tincture first, beginning with a
few drops and gradually increasing the dose until you are satisfied
that no new symptoms can be obtained short  of  poisoning your-
selves.   Having  proved your drug with massive doses of  the tinc-
ture, you may then prove the  attenuations, and if they are at all
capable of affecting the healthy organism, the results obtained by
means of them will confirm the provings with  massive doses; but
it is absurd to depend upon the 3rd,  6th or 30th attenuation as ex-
clusive means of obtaining a correct  knowledge of the therapeutic
properties of a  drug.  This is not the way that Hahnemann  pur-
sued, in proving the drugs contained in his Materia  Medica Pura.
All these drugs have  been proved with massive doses, and even
Mercurius was proved with doses which often developed poisonous
effects. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
135
  A great many of these original drugs have been re-proved by the
Vienna Provers' Union.  In order to  show you hoAV these men go
to work in their business, let me  give you a single example of an
Aconite-proving.
  This drug was re-proved by a society of 16 persons among whom
were two  females.  The drug was re-proved with massive doses of
the  tincture,  of from  5  to  130  drops.  One of the provers, Dr.
Arneth, first took 10 drops of the tincture, and in a few hours 15
drops more.   The result was a burning sensation on the tongue.
  On the 21st of February, a few days after the former  proving, he
again took 15 drops of the tincture. Immediately after taking them,
he experienced  a burning sensation  on the tongue and a violent
pressure and rather  deep-seated  stitches in the  anterior portions of
the eye-ball.
  On the 22d, early in the morning and evening, he took 20 drops of
the tincture, and on the 23rd, at noon, 30 drops.  Immediately after
swallowing the drug, he experienced the same symptoms as before.
He discontinued the medicine for some 6 days.  On the 26th he
experienced the following  symptoms:  violent coryza,  shivering
over the back, especially towards evening, slight difficulty of breath-
ing, with slight  pressure  behind the sternum,  occasional flashes of
heat,  accelerated and rather  full pulse.  The nights were very rest-
less, and  he had vivid dreams of what he had been doing the day
previous.
  On the 28th,  morning and  evening, 25 drops followed by slight
increase of the above symptoms.   On the 29th, forty drops.  Beside
the former symptoms, he experienced, immediately after taking the
medicine, some pinching  around the navel, followed soon after by a
painless diarrhoea;  afterwards he  felt a painful  pressure in  the
region of the left eye-brow ; towards evening the febrile symptoms
increased. Not knowing what drug  he was  proving, and in  order
to moderate  the increasing violence of the fever, he- took a feAV
pellets  of Aconite.  The  following night he was very restless and
dreamed  about  a patient who interested him very much.  On  the
30th, not  perceiving any  abatement in the symptoms, he took  a few
more globules of Aconite.   The febrile excitement continued until
the 8th of March, without any abatement.  On the 7th of March, the
dyspnoea was worse; there was great oppression in the region of the
heart, accompanied  by intermittent pulse.  There Avere  five  hard,
full, quick beats, and the sixth beat  intermitted both at the  heart
and wrist. This symptom continued  all da'y ; the prover looked
pale and thin;  his gait and  whole appearance were those of a sick
man; he  experienced  a  burning sensation  in the  urethra  when
urinating.
   On the 9th of March, sense of contraction in the hamstrings, with
pain in the left  patella as if he had knocked it against something.
These symptoms continued on the 10th and 11th of March.  On the
12th, the  prover experienced for about ten minutes a peculiar sensa-
tion in  the eyes; sense of warmth and an undulating feeling, with
involuntary half closing of the eyelids; although the room was very
bright, yet he fancied that the darkness was so great that he should 
136
LECTURE IX.
hardly be able to discern printed type.  He tried a book and found
that he had his sight; this last symptom continued for some time ;
Avhen amaurosis first sets in, patients sometimes experience just  such
a symptom.
  On the 13th,  slight  drawing in the right shoulder, which passed
off towards noon; this was followed by a drawing and tearing,  with
a feeling of lameness  in the  articular extremity of the left upper
arm, for two days.
  On the 15th, sense of contraction in both tendines Achilles;  he
found it  difficult and painful to stand  erect  without his knees
shaking; these symptoms, continued for about  three weeks, during
Avhich time the use of the drug was discontinued.
  On the 5th of April, Dr. Arneth resumed  his proving.  He  now
selected for his experiments the third, second, and first attenuations.
The nights were  restless,  he dreamed of things that had  occurred
years ago, so vividly that  the event seemed quite recent even  after
waking;  he experienced some dulness in the head and bleAV a  little
blood from the  nose.
  On the  20th of April, he took  50, and on  the 21st,  60  drops  of
the concentrated tincture. This caused discharge of blood from the
nose, and an aching pain in the whole head.
  On the 22d of April, 80  drops of the  tincture.   He had  a
restless night, and a vesicular  eruption made its appearance on the
temples.
  On the 23d, 100 drops, folloAved by discharge of blood  from the
nose,  violent twitchings  of the extremities  when  on the point  of
falling asleep, so that it woke him; restless  night.  This day and
the day before, he experienced, immediately after taking the drug,
a violent  desire to  vomit, Avhich was only slightly moderated by
eating his simple breakfast, (bread and milk.)
  On the 21th of April:  130 drops of tincture.  Immediately  after
taking the -dose,  he experienced a violent  inclination  to vomit,
with violent tightness and dulness of the head.  This terminated the
present proving ;  the Doctor concluded that the sensitiveness to the
action of Aconite had been  too much impaired, to enable  him to
elicit any new or striking results.
  The other provings were all conducted in the same heroic manner,
and yielded  most brilliant and invaluable   results.   There  is  a
symptom in the former  proving, which alone would have  compen-
sated the doctor for the trouble he took in instituting his experiment;
it is the sensation of contraction in the tendons of the flexor muscles
of the knee joint, and  of the gastrocnemii muscles.  Rheumatic
inflammation and contraction of the tendons is an exceedingly trouble-
some affection, and how beautifully does this  proving show us that
Aconite is a remedy for this condition.
  Among these systematic provings of Aconite there is one other
proving which I will  briefly relate to you;  it Avas instituted  by a
student of medicine, and exhibts an intensity of devoted enthusiasm
worthy of such a noble and useful cause.  This proving, Gentlemen
may perhaps  suggest the  propriety to some of you, of instituting
similar re-provings with some of our drugs ; you could not select a 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
137
better subject for a thesis  than the  re-proving of some important
remedial agent.
  Our prover was 23 years old, of sanguine temperament, slender
make, and had had an attack of palpitation of the heart during the
previous year, which had at once yielded to the third attenuation of
Aconite. Since then his health had been perfect.  During the space
of 60 clays, he took 2386  drops of the saturated tincture of Aconite.
  He commenced his proving  on  the 14th  of February.  On this
day, and on the 15th and 16th he  took each  day,  morning and
evening, 10  drops; on the 17th he  took 15 drops,  morning and
evening; from the 18th to the 22d he took 12 drops each day twice,
and from the 22d to the 27th he again took 15 drops morning and
evening; from the 28th of  February to the 3d of April, he took 20
drops.   These doses  induced  the folloAving  symptoms: scraping-
sensation in the fauces, smarting and biting on the lips, congested
condition of  the palate and tonsils, tearing  pain during the whole
extent of the right fore-arm, wrist-joint and fingers.
  On the 5th of April he took  21 drops.  After this, tearing  in the
right upper arm and in the upper third of the right thigh.
  On the 6th of April:  21 drops  early in the morning ; this dose
Avas repeated every day, sometimes once and sometimes twice, until
the 15th of the same month.  On the -6th he experienced a scraping
sensation in the throat, and the  capillaries looked injected ; tOAvards
evening he  felt  a tearing pain in  the right upper arm, extending
towards the  elbow-joint,  and  also in the thigh,  tOAvards the knee-
joint ; on the  7th he suddenly felt a tearing pain in  the left knee-
joint.  On  the 8th and 9th, he  complained of  a violent tearing  felt
alternately in the right and left thigh, in the  right knee-joint and
right fore-arm.  On the 9th, scraping in the  throat  and violent con-
gestion  about the uvula and right tonsil.
  On the 10th, an hour after taking the drug, as he walked out into
the open air, he Avas  attacked Avith violent palpitation of the heart
which continued for fifteen minutes.   The same attack was experi-
enced  after  the  evening potion  of  Aconite.  The tearing  in  the
extremities had left him.   On the 11th, the same paroxysms of pal-
pitation were  experienced,  but no  tearing in the extremities.  The
heart beat more rapidly and more vigorously than usual.  He slept
soundly and without  dreams as usual.   The  disappearance of the
tearing  pains in the limbs,  and the appearance of the palpitation of
the heart, which  evidently developed itself as a substitute  for the
pains, show that this  palpitation was of a rheumatic character, and
hence pointed to a rheumatic irritation of the heart.
  On the 12th, he felt a  violent tearing in the right arm as before,
and the beats of the heart had again become normal; the tonsils and
uvula looked inflamed, with scraping in the  throat.
  On the  13th, palpitation of the heart, for about  half an hour,
accompanied by a sensation as if the thorax was narrower than usual.
In the evening, between five and six  o'clock he felt a  tearing in the
left shoulder-joint.
  On the 11th, palpitation  of the heart, but no tearing pain.  The 
138
LECTURE IX.
bowels had been confined for  three days; after  the  lapse of this
period he had a hard stool.                     ^         -in
  The proving was  now discontinued  until the 17th of April.  On
the evening of this day our prover again took tAventy-four drops of
the tincture.  Two  hours after  taking the drug,  he experienced a
violent and rapid beating of the heart  for about half an hour.
  On the 18th and 19th he took twenty drops early in the morning.
On the 18th he experienced a tearing pain in the whole fore-arm ; on
the 19th the tearing disappeared, but a violent beating of the heart
set in in its place.
  On the 20th, in the forenoon, the palpitation of the heart was more
violent than ever, accompanied by great anxiety and impeded respi-
ration.   In spite of the intensity of these  symptoms he again took
twenty drops about  half-past twelve o'clock of the same day; the
beating abated afterwards, but continued the whole day and evening;
moreover he felt a  tearing and a  sensation of formication in the
right arm.
  On the next three succeeding days, he took twenty-four  drops
each day;  and  not perceiving any striking effects from these doses,
he  concluded to increase them, and  from the 23d to the 26th of
March he  took  forty drops every morning, and  for thirteen  days
following fifty drops of the tincture every day, with the following
result:
   On the 23d, in the evening, he complained of a tearing in the bend
of the arm.  On the 26th, violent tearing for half an hour.  On the
27th, a quarter of an hour after taking the drug,  confused formica-
tion along  the left  arm.   On the 28th, between  eleven and one in
the forenoon, he was attacked with violent palpitation of the heart;
short-lasting  coldness, a  sort of momentary shaking or  chill: this
was followed by heat and immediately after, sweat.  On the 29th,
tearing  in the bend  of the left arm for about ten minutes, and a sud-
den, although short, but violent and compressive pain in the upper
margin  of  the right  orbit.  On the 31st the same symptoms, as on
the 29th, but late in the evening; moreover pressure on the left eye-
ball as from a heavy Aveight.  The tearing in the orbital margin con-
tinued for several days.  On the 2d of April, on going out, violent
palpitation of the heart, without any further difficulty.  On the 3d,
in  the forenoon, he  felt the same tearing-pressing pain  in the left
orbit, and a sense of constriction as if the eyeballs should be pressed
out.  On the 5th and 6th these  symptoms  were again felt after hav-
ing intermitted during the whole of the 4th. On the 7th, early in the
morning, about quarter of an hour after taking the medicine, violent
palpitation of the heart continuing for about half an hour, Avith great
anxiety and dyspnoea;  the pain in the right orbit continued.  After
walking for an hour very slowly, the  muscular energy of the lower
extremities was exceedingly diminished, and  continued to decrease
after an afternoon walk.   During an interval of rest after the walk,
he was attacked with a chill which lasted for some ten minutes; this
was followed by intense, although short-lasting heat and profuse
sweat; accompanied by heaviness of  the head and a sense of dizzi-
ness and shaking of the head. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
139
   On the 9th of April, at 7 J in the morning, he took 70 drops of the
tincture.  In a quarter of an hour he felt violent palpitation of the
heart and great oppression on the chest; moreover  a sensation of
pressure in the right  orbit and  heaviness of the head; he felt like
one intoxicated and was utterly  unable to pursue his studies.
   On the 10th  of April, at 7| in the morning: 50 drops of the tinc-
ture.   Soon after, palpitation of the heart, with great oppression of
the chest; during the day, the head felt  heavy, dizzy; whizzing in
the head and  ears which was made worse  by reading some  light
piece;  he had to give up his reading and to rest;  he  staggers about
like one who is intoxicated.
   On the 11th:  50 drops.   Tearing in the right forearm Avhich was
more violent than ever, and lasted from 12| to 5 o'clock in the after-
noon;  the vertigo and staggering of the previous day continued.
   At 91 in the evening, the same dose.  The tearing comes on again
with the same intensity, and continues until midnight.
   On the 12th,  he took 100 drops, without experiencing any remark-
able effects.
   On the 13th: 120 drops of the strong tincture.  From 11 f to 5|
in the afternoon, he experienced an uninterrupted feeling of tearing
in the whole of the left fore-arm, and  in the left  hand and fingers.
The same symptom occurred about the same period on the day fol-
lowing with equal intensity, but only in the forearm, and only lasted
until 3 o'clock.   The  beats  of the heart were more  rapid and the
breathing labored.  There were no  morbid symptoms during the
day.  The difficulties  about the  heart and lungs were likewise ex-
perienced on the 16th in the forenoon. On the 17th, in the forenoon,
from 10  in the morning, he felt a painful pressure over the whole
skull as if the whole of it were uniformly compressed on all sides;
sometimes this  painful pressure was  felt most intensely in the left
orbit.  This pain continued until  1 o'clock in the afternoon, returned
on the  following day about the same hour with increased intensity,
decreased about 12 o'clock, and disappeared entirely about 1 o'clock
during  dinner,  and returned again at 3 in the afternoon with the
former intensity.  In the forenoon this pressure about the head was
accompanied by tearing in the fore-arm, great anxiety and dyspnoea;
the beats of the heart were not perceptibly increased.
   On the 19th,  20th and 21st there were no symptoms.
   After  irregular  intervals  of 3, 4, and 5 days he had  during the
day slight paroxysms of tearing in various parts, but most generally
in the left fore-arm, which gradually  decreased in intensity.  The
palpitations  which troubled him  every now and then, finally ceased
entirely. These tearing pains, of Avhich he had never experienced
the slightest trace previous to his proving, came on  occasionally
even weeks after the proving had been entirely discontinued.
   In this remarkable  proving, which bears evidence  of the  most
devoted enthusiasm for the cause of science, the alternate appearance
and disappearance of the  tearing pains  in the left arm and of the
palpitation of the heart is a  most interesting and instructive phe-
nomenon.  These tearing pains were evidently of a rheumatic char-
acter, and hence we conclude that the affection of the heart which,
V 
140
LECTURE IX.
whenever it set in, absorbed these pains as it were, must have like-
wise been of a  rheumatic character.  And hence again  we may
conclude that in
  Rheumatism of the Heart, whether acute or chronic, Aconite must
be a great, if not our greatest remedy.  But, Gentlemen, let me assure
you that, in acute rheumatism of the heart, you have to operate Avith
large doses.   Your safest plan is  to give  the Aconite in tincture'
form, one or tAvo drops in a  tumblerful  of water, and to continue
this prescription  until the disease is thoroughly banished  and all
danger of disorganization is gone.
  If these tearing  pains  in  the left  arm  and the palpitation are
accompanied by irregularity  and intermission  of  the pulse, sallow
complexion, sense of fright, depression of spirits, and so forth; and
if the stethoscope confirms our suspicion  that there is
  Organic disease of the heart, Aconite may  still prove a useful palli-
ative, together with Digitalis and other drugs. The painful pressure
over the cranium points to
  Rheumatism of the scalp, which Aconite will likewise cure.
  There are more provings of Aconite, but time will not permit me
to review them all.   Nor does this seem necessary.   From these few
cases of proving, and  from the cases  of poisoning  which I have
related to you, you  must have obtained a  pretty accurate knowledge
of the curative sphere  of  Aconite.  I have endeavored to impress
upon your minds the  remarkable fact that Aconite  is our great
antiphlogistic agent, that is:  our great  means of combating acute
inflammation.  We know from  actual experiment that Aconite  is
endowed with a specific capacity of inducing a spasmodic torpor of
the tissue of  the terminal capillaries.   The first effect of this spas-
modic torpor is to cause arterial  capillary engorgements.   We have
not yet succeeded, in spite of our  microscopic investigations, in de-
termining the true character of capillary circulation;  but it seems to
be generally admitted that the terminal capillaries  of the veins inos-
culate Avith the capillaries of the arteries,  and that  the circulation is
carried  on in this manner.  Now, if these capillaries are closed  or
only contracted, torpid or semi-paralyzed,  similar  to what we may
suppose might be the effect of cold, what must be the effect of such
capillary stagnations upon the general circulation ?  The necessary
and unavoidable consequence must  be to induce, as  I  have said
before, arterial engorgements.  The  arterial ramifications, as they
approach the capillaries, must necessarily SAvell up in consequence of
this afflux of blood, which is deprived of  its natural outlets, and we
have precisely such a condition as we term congestion or inflamma-
tion.  In proportion as this stagnation of the capillaries is more  or
less complete, we have as a symptom of reaction either a state of
simple passive plethora,  or of  more or  less acute  congestion  or
inflammation.
  And  you will understand,  Gentlemen,  that this  arterial engorge-
ment may exist in any part  of the system.  It may exist in the
special organs of sense, in any of the  internal viscera,  in the brain,
in  the  fibrous tissue, in  one Avord, it  may exist in any part of the
system which is provided with  capillaries.  This  accounts-for the 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
141
fact that, although there may not be among the provings of Aconite
the counterpart of every form of acute inflammation,  Aconite is
nevertheless specifically adapted to acute inflammation, no matter
what organ  it may have invaded.  Acute or true phlegmonous in-
flammation will always yield to Aconite more or less, and will, in
almost every case, become more manageable, even if other medicines
have afterwards to be resorted to.  If the part is SAVollen, hot, pain-
ful and red, and if the  constitutional symptoms of inflammatory
fever are present, give your Aconite.  If the  pulse is hard, bound-
ing and full, as it necessarily must be, do not think of bleeding your
patient;  give  your Aconite.  Do you not see  how easily we may
account for this  bounding  of  the pulse? Here is  this  capillary
torpor which the heart has to overcome by its vis a tergo, as it were.
The heart propels  the column of blood, or, at  all events, seeks to
propel it, with unabating energy.   Now, if the blood  cannot pass
through the engorged capillaries, and the undiminished column of
blood is propelled against them with the usual vigor of the central
regulator of the circulation, must not a  tumult ensue in the larger
vessels?   Must not the  pulse become full, hard and bounding?
Give your Aconite, and as soon as the medicine begins to act upon
the capillaries, they will recover their elasticity, the column of blood
will again pass through these delicate channels with its usual rhythm-
ical ease, the pulse "will come down, the  heart will be quieted, and
the cutaneous exhalations which had  been interrupted for the time
being, will not only be restored, but will be carried on much more
profusely than before, in  order to make up for past deficiencies.
   The same process will take place in all such congestions as Aconite
possesses  the  power of curing, more  especially rheumatic conges-
tions.  But you must not forget that these diseases generally run a
course; that they are characterized by periodical exacerbations Avhich
seem  inherent in  the remittent type  of all febrile conditions, and
that, on this account, you may have to continue  your Aconite, in
alternation, perhaps, with some other remedy Avhich is more specifi-
cally adapted  to the local affection, until the disease has reached its
termination.   AYhether it is pneumonia or orchitis, erysipelas or in-
flammatory rheumatism, you will give your Aconite, whenever and
wheresoever phlegmonous inflammation has set  up its dangerous
action in the organism, and  you will do your patient far more good
by this simple proceeding than by resorting to any of those devastat-
ing and murderous processes which an Old-School physician is com-
pelled to use.
   I have shown you so far, that Aconite  is our specific remedy for
acute or phlegmonous inflammation, no  matter what organ may be
the affected part.   I have shown you, moreover, that the phenomena
by which Ave recognise inflammation,  arise from a torpid or semi-
paralytic  condition of the terminal capillary tissue,  the necessary
consequence of Avhich must be arterial engorgements characterized
by such symptoms as these: sense of fulness or swelling in the part,
or actual swelling; increased temperature of the part;  pain in the
affected region, such as aching, stinging,  shooting, beating, burning
pain; redness of the  part and, accompanying these symptoms, gen- 
142
LECTURE IX.
  eral inflammatory fever ushered in by a more or less violent chill
  which is soon succeeded  by heat  and dryness of the skin, thirst, a
  hard, full  and bounding pulse and  whatever may  be the other
  symptoms characteristic of acute inflammation.
    I have likewise shown you, that this stagnation or torpor of the
  terminal capillaries may lead to acute congestion in the part where
  this derangement exists.   In simple congestion of the part there is
  less danger of the disease terminating  in disorganizations than there
  is in acute  inflammation;  and, in the hands of a thoroughly experi-
  enced practitioner, Aconite is often sufficient, in true rheumatic con-
  gestion, to  restore the normal condition of the part,  although it is
  perfectly legitimate and  may be necessary, in many _ cases, to use
.  some other drug beside Aconite, in such dangerous affections.
    And in passive plethora, which is generally a constitutional weak-
  ness of the capillary system, Aconite will likewise  prove useful.
  Passive plethora is a moderate arterial engorgement depending upon
  a natural inability of the terminal capillaries to expand and contract
  with appropriate regularity.  In  consequence of this weakness, a
  general and more or less permanent engorgement of the superficial
  arterial capillaries must necessarily take place.
    If you have well  understood the action of Aconite upon  the ter-
  minal  capillaries, which  is:  to cause a torpor of these delicate
  vessels, you will find it an easy business to account for a variety of
  morbid phenomena which might otherwise seem  obscure and even
  unintelligible.  How Avould you manage, for instance,  to account
  for and successfully to  treat, what is termed a rush of blood, if you
  were unacquainted with the action of Aconite upon the terminal
  capillaries ? This so-called rush of blood is not an actual rushing of
  the blood.  Suddenly, by some cause or other, the capillaries become
  torpid in a certain locality,  and  the immediate consequence of this
  capillary stagnation is an  engorgement of the  arterial ramifications
  through which the  blood courses  towards the affected part.  The
  suddenness of this phenomenon makes it appear as though the blood
  were actually rushing to the vessels, whereas the opposite is the
  case ; the blood,  so far from rushing,  is arrested  in its course, and
  this sudden arrest of the circulating fluid gives rise to a variety of
  phenomena which differ according  as one or the other locality is the
  seat of this weakness.
    A rush of blood  to the brain, may lead to  vertigo, dimness and
  even momentary loss of sight, buzzing in the ears, sense of fulness
  in the head, throbbing in the head, heat about the head, sensitive-
  ness of the  scalp to pressure, and other symptoms.
    If the heart is the seat of the  trouble, the  symptoms will  neces-
  sarily be: a sense of weight about  the heart, palpitation, and some-
  times a feeling of soreness, and,  accompanying these  symptoms,
  very often  a feeling of fright and  anxiety, despondency, and fore-
  bodings of  death.                                      -'
    A rush of blood to the lungs would be characterized by oppres-
  sion, a desire to take a deep breath and to expand the chest.
    A rush of blood to the stomach would induce a feeling of fulness 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
143
and  weight in the stomach, soreness or sensitiveness to  pressure,
nausea, inability to retain food.
  A rush of blood to the bladder might be characterized by soreness
in the region of the bladder, a feeling of warmth and fulness in this
organ,  continual  urging  to urinate,  sometimes with discharge of  a
clear, light-colored urine, although the urine may likewise be more
or less highly-colored and cloudy.
  The  phenomena by which a rush of blood to certain parts is
characterized, may easily be determined with a little reflection;
they are  necessarily depending upon the locality and functions of
the part.   But wheresoever this rush of blood may take place, it is
invariably treated with Aconite as its true specific remedy.  You
will  perceive,  Gentlemen, that a rush of brood, passive  plethora,
congestion  and inflammation are  analogous  conditions   and  that
there is prima facie evidence, as it were,  of the homoeopathicity of
Aconite to any of them.
  If Ave now succeed in accounting for the chill, in fever,  we shall
possess a pretty correct philosophy of the  action of Aconite upon
the living organism.  It is generally conceded that the oxygenation
of the venous blood serA^es as a  means to the vital force of  develop-
ing  and  preserving the  normal temperature  of the  body.  This
process of oxygenation is carried on in the capillaries of the lungs
and as  long  as it goes on harmoniously and Avithout any interruption,
the natural standard of animal heat is preserved.  But if, from some
cause or  other, the supply of venous blood  in the pulmonary capil-
laries should be suddenly checked or only diminished, a chill takes
place Avhich continues more or  less until the  arterial  re-action has
become fully established.
  The  supply of venous blood in the lungs may be interfered with
by an  embarrassment in  the capillary circulation being set up in
any locality.  Aconite affecting the  living  organism in just such  a
manner, by embarrassing  the capillary circulation, must be capable
of producing that whole  series of phenomena which characterize
inflammatory fever, and Ave have seen from our provings that it does
produce the chill, and the subsequent heat and sweat in regular suc-
cession.  The animal as well as the organic  sphere, may become
subject to the  action of  Aconite.   Wheresover the  cranial, the
spinal or the sympathetic nerves send their terminal fibres, there an
inflammatory action may be set up which may require to be com-
bated by Aconite.
  Our  last  provings haA^e even revealed to us the  interesting fact
that Aconite may be given in  chronic diseases.  In  one  case, the
rheumatic tearing pain in the arm, which the prover experienced,
continued even Aveeks after the proving had ceased.  As regards the
dose, I may offer you my own  opinion which  is,  of  course, based
more or less upon experience, without however expecting to settle
this question.   Aconite  may be given from the strong tincture up
to the 200th potency.  But let me assure you that, as a general rule,
it is far safer, in all acute diseases, to  give the lower than the higher
potencies of this agent.   In simple  catarrhal or  rheumatic  fever
you may get along Avith the  12th or even  18th  potency, but even in 
141
LECTURE IX.
these simplest  of  all inflammatory affections, you will  do  your
patient more good by treating him Avith the lower than with the
higher attenuations.
  In  all  inflammatory  diseases the  lower  attenuations  seem to
develop a normal reaction much more rapidly than the higher.
  In the  acute  local inflammations  for which Aconite is indicated
there is a tendency to exudations, adhesions,  enlargements, indura-
tions. Such terminations are far more certainly and promptly pre-
vented by the lower than by the higher potencies of Aconite.
  In some  acute affections, such as rheumatic endocarditis, articu-
lar rheumatism, congestions of vital organs, the lower preparations
are preferable to the higher.
  In  acute ophthalrAa, and more  particularly  in arthritic  or
scrofulous ophthalmia, and in all acute inflammatory affections of
the eyes,  iritis, conjunctivitis, etc., I should never  hesitate  to  give
the strong tincture in preference to  the attenuations.
  In acute  inflammations of the fauces, the tincture is preferable to
the potencies.
  In erysipelatous  inflammations I never hesitate to give the loAver
potencies.
  In  acute inflammations of the mucous membranes I pursue  the
same course.
  In acute  haemorrhage, I always give the strong tincture.
  In  paralysis  of  the motor or sentient system of nerves, and in
cerebral apoplexy, I prefer the tincture.
  In chest-affections you have to use Aconite more guardedly.  In
acute pneumonia  the tincture  may  generally be  given without
causing  any  unpleasant aggravations, but  in chronic pulmonary
affections, the attenuations from the 6th up to the 12th, are prefer-
able.  In chronic chest-affections  the tincture sometimes causes a
tightness and constriction, and the cough, instead of becoming looser,
becomes  more tearing.
  In neuralgia, both the lower and the higher preparations may be of
use ; if the larger nervous trunks are affected, the lower preparations
are  generally more  serviceable, and if the more delicate nervous
filaments are  attacked, the higher attenuations up to the twelfth may
be employed.
  In bilious neuralgia which is always characterized by a burning
pain,  the tincture is generally preferable to  the potencies.
  In  congestive or inflammatory conditions  induced by wounds,
sprains or contusions, the use  of the tincture is perfectly appropriate.
  You Avill not forget, that the tincture of the  root, if properly made,
is more powerful than a tincture made from  the leaves and flowers
of the Aconite  plant; it is  supposed to have six times the strength
of the ordinary tincture.
  In dropping  a drop of  a strong tincture  from  the root into a
tumblerful of water, you see an acrid resinous substance diffusing
itself over  the surface of the  water.   In the tincture from the leaves
this substance is not so apparent.   It is in this resinous principle
that the more active  powers of Aconite reside.
  An alkaloid  is obtained  from Aconite, termed Aconitine.   This 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.                  145
is supposed to be the active  principal of Aconite, and if suitably
prepared, is the most active poison known, hardly excepting hydro-
cyanic acid.  Mr. Morson's Aconitine is so poAverful that J0 of a grain
came very near destroying the life of an individual.  The effects of
Aconitine upon the skin are the same as those of the Aconite root;
if a small quantity of an Aconitine solution or ointment is rubbed
upon the skin, a violent burning and tingling are experienced, and
the part becomes numb ;  these symptoms continue for from twelve
to eighteen hours.
  In a case of poisoning by Aconite, the first thing to be done is to
remove the poison from the stomach by means of an emetic.  Stimu-
lants have to be resorted to, such as warm brandy and Avater, and a
powerful infusion of black  coffee.   Frictions  with hot oil  and
mustard may likewise be employed.
                   LECTUKE  X.

  In reviewing the pathological conditions  which correspond with
our Aconite symptoms, we shall find that their number is very large
indeed.   There is hardly an affection where Aconite is not required
more or less.  Its influence upon the nervous system is so universally
involved in almost every affection, that this universal  necessity for
the use of Aconite may easily be accounted for.  In studying the
recorded effects of Aconite upon the  healthy tissues Avith ever so
much critical care, we shall  find  that they were obtained as the
result of conscientious and fearless provings.  AVithout copying all
these symptoms, which it would be both unnecessary and perhaps
unprofitable to  do, I will point out for your further study the patho-
logical conditions Avhich the known symptoms of Aconite seem to
delineate as the therapeutic domain of this great agent.
  1. First, let  me ' again  call your  attention to  those conditions
Avhich I will designate as the

                 INFLAMMATOEY GROUP.

  You Avill recollect, Gentlemen, that Aconite produces true inflam-
matory fever.  This may exisit Avith or Avithout local inflammation. In
all acute diseases Avhich are ushered in by a true inflammatory stage,
Aconite is generally the first remedy indicated.  It makes no  differ-
ence in what  part this inflammatory process is located, whether in
the meningeal membranes, the organs of special sense,  the  muscles,
serous or mucous tissues, the glandular system or any of the internal
viscera.  Whenever the local disturbance is accompanied by a full,
hard and bounding pulse, dry and hot skin, coated and dry tongue,
restlessness, thirst, and if the patient had experienced a more or less
marked chill previous to the  supervention of the febrile  reaction,
Aconite is invariably in its place; if the local  affection should
require other remedies, besides the Aconite, it is perfectly proper to
                              10 
146                      LECTURE X.

use this drug in alternation"'with the more specifically  indicated
remedy, until the inflammatory symptoms are subdued.  AVhenever
in the course of the disease, the febrile reaction shows a tendency to
reappear, resume your Aconite.   Give it as scantily as the case will
permit, but let me assure you, that you w ill never do your patient any
harm by throAving in a dose of  Aconite every noAV and then during
the  course of  an  inflammatory disease.  There  is no viscus, no
structure, no membrane in the human body, an acute inflammation
Avhereof, may not require the use of  Aconite.  The object in using
Aconite is  to restore the capillary equilibrium, and to effect, either
unaided or assisted by other drugs, a resolution of the inflammatory
process.  You Avill  recollect,  that Aconite does not affect the cere-
brum, but that its primary action is  upon the cerebellum and upon
the terminal ramifications of the cranial, spinal and sympathetic
nerves  interwoven  in the  capillary tissue.  Hence in all diseases of
the cerebral substance, such  as  inflammation of the brain, typhus,
etc., Aconite is of little, if any, use.
  In all pure, synochal inflammations, Aconite "will proA~e useful and
in most cases a specific remedy.  Even if .the local inflammation
should not  be represented  among the provings, Aconite will never-
theless be found adapted to it, because this agent possesses a sort of
specific control  over any inflammation resulting  from a primary
depression  or torpor of the arterial capillaries.
  In Orchitis, for instance, Avhether of a  purely phlegmonous char-
acter, or arising from the suppression  of gonorrhoea, Aconite will
prove an invaluable aid to mitigate the burning and lancing pains,
and the acute soreness  of which the patient complains.
  In Metritis, Vagiyiitis and Vulvitis, Aconite may be depended upon
as a powerful and indispensable auxiliary to Belladonna or any other
agent that may seem more specifically indicated.  No agent will more
speedily relieve  the burning, stinging and shooting pains, and the
discharge of purulent mucus and blood from the vagina than Aconite,
provided it is given in  tincture-form, and its use is persevered in.
  In Ovaritis, whether  acute  or semi-acute, Aconite will be  found
serviceable in conjunction with some other more specifically acting
agent, such as Iodine, Pulsatilla,  etc.  It is indicated by soreness, an
aching, dragging, heavy pain in the region of the ovary, aggravated
by  movement.   In  ovaritis,  the fourth  or sixth  attenuation will
sometimes prove more efficient than the tincture.
  AVhat better remedy  could we  use in [njlammatory Dysentery than
Aconite ?   To be sure, there is no well marked group of symptoms
among the pathogenesis of Aconite which points to acute dystentery  ;
but have Ave not a right  to  infer from the general imflammatory
action  which we know by positive  experiments  that Aconite is
capable of setting up in the organism, that the curative action of this
great drug  will likewise extend to inflammatory dysentery ?  But
let me entreat you, Gentlemen, not to dilly-dally with oOth or 200th
potencies in a disease of this kind, at such a remote point from the
great centres of life, and in a part that seems naturally slow to react
against disease.  There may be  cases Avhere you may get alono- with
such infinitesimal quantities, but it would be exceedingly unsafe to 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
147
rely upon them as a general rule in the treatment of dysentery ;  the
loAver  potencies not only  hasten the reaction, but they sustain  it
more vigorously than the higher, and lead the disease to a favorable
termination Avithout any of those distressing and dangerous sloughing
processes which so often set in, in dysentery treated Avith the higher
potencies or by allceopathic physicians.
  Do not forget Aconite in acute affections of the respiratory organs:
Laryngitis, Bronchitis, and Pneumonia.  Of pneumonia I have spoken
before. In Membranous Laryngitis or Croup, Aconite is often sufficient
to arrest the inflammatory process  Avhich  is going on in the  lining
membrane of the  larynx, and either to prevent the effusion of coagu-
lable lymph or to promote its absorption.  More than one symptom
among the symptoms of  Aconite points to its use in croup as a spe-
cific remedy.  Among the Aconite-symptoms we have; hoarseness ;
croaking voice; feeble voice ; complete loss of voice; sensitiveness
of the  larynx to the  inspired air as if the mucous  membrane Avere
deprived of the epithelium;  sensation as if the sides of the larynx
were pressed together.  These and similar symptoms,  together Avith
the dry,  hard and tearing cough which Aconite excites, and the raw
feeling in the larynx during the paroxysm of cough, are strikingly
characteristic indications for the use of  Aconite in croup:
  In Acute Bronchitis no better remedy can be used than  Aconite.
What are the pathognomonic signs of acute bronchitis ?  Beside the
inflammatory fever which is  present in all acute inflammations, avc
have paroxysms of a  dry and tearing cough Avhich sometimes seems
to start from some definite point behind the sternum, from the point
Avhere  the trachea bifurcates or from the  terminal ramifications of
the bronchi in the thorax.  Sometimes the cough excites a sensation
in the air-passages as if knives Avere plunged through them;  at other
times the patient complains of a burning  in these tubes.  There is
great difficulty of breathing;  the passage of the air through the air-
passages causes a feeling of rawness and a tickling sensation in the
larynx Avhich excites a constant desire to cough.   At first the patient
hawks up a little frothy mucus which is sometimes tinged Avith blood,
but at a later period of the disease  a purulent matter, which often
resembles green bile, is discharged.  The chest feels sore, the respi-
ratory muscles feel sore, as  if they had been violently strained, and
the patient complains of aching pains in various parts of the chest,
often penetrating  the thorax from the anterior to the posterior wall.
Noav, all these symptoms  are  almost  literally reproduced in our
Aconite-provings.  Even the constitutional symptoms in bronchitis.
the nausea and vomiting during a paroxysm of  cough, the frontal
headache, the coated  tongue,  loss of  appetite and constipation, and
the general prostration  of  strength, have their  exact  counterpart
among the  symptoms of  Aconite.   I need  only mention such
symptoms as these : hoarseness ; croaking voice ; short and dry cough
arising from a tickling in the larynx, with constant inclination to
cough, especially at night when the paroxysms set in every half hour ;
pressure  and burning pains  along the trachea, doAvn to  the pit of the
stomach;  roughness extending along the trachea and inducing fre-
quent coughing, cough which is occasioned by an irritation in the 
148                       LECTURE X.
larynx, and is accompained Avith expectoration of a gelatinous mucus;
when coughing, the chest feels sore and the larynx raw ; cough with
a fluid, frothy expectoration ; rattling and vibratory trembling of the
trachea;  sense of weight behind the sternum, preventing a deep
inspiration;  mucous rale, which can be heard at a distance.
   And do not the chest-symptoms of Aconite delineate Pneumonia ?
The dry and tearing cough, the dyspnoea,  and  orthopnoea which
Aconite excites ;  the stitches in the chest, especially during an in-
spiration and Avhen coughing, accompanied by a plaintive and whin-
ing mood, anguish and ill-humor and  by oppression of breathing;
the sense of weight and feeling of fulness in the chest, with sensation
as if the lungs Avould not expand  sufficiently, obliging the prover
to frequently take a long breath ;  the painful pressure from  the
sternum to the vertebral column; the feeling of Aveight in the chest,
accompained  by a number of fine but violent stitches in the  left
half of the thorax ; the feeling of burning heat in the lungs, as if some
hot fluid would rise into the mouth ; the soreness behind the sternum
as if the  parts had been bruised, and a similar  sore  and bruising
feeling in  the muscular coverings of the thorax; do not these and a
variety of other similar symptoms justify the doctrine that Aconite
is homoeopathic to pneumonia ?   If Ave add to these symptoms  the
post-mortem appearances of an Aconite poisoning in the lungs, viz.:
excessive vascular engorgement, Avith exceedingly diminished crepi-
tations, we certainly have a right to expect great  results from  the
exhibition of Aconite in the first stage of pneumonia.
   And why should we not look upon Aconite as a sovereign remedy
in Acute Pleurisy ?  "Stitches of various degrees of intensity in  the
chest and sides  of the chest, especially during an inspiration and
when coughing, frequently accompained with a plaintive and whin-
ning mood, anguish and ill-humor, or with oppression of breathing?"
If these symptoms are accompained by inflammatory fever, bloody
cough, headache,  have we not'a well defined group of  symptoms of
pleuritis ?  Aconite will  effect a  speedy change in these symptoms.
Nor is it necessary to give massive doses of this drug.  I have seen
the 30th potency  even act Avith wonderful poAver.   In the case of a
poAverful man, but sensitive to the action of medicine, I effected a
cure of acute pleurisy in three days, by means of the 30th potency.
I saw him in the evening, and found him in great distress.  His
pulse was up to  140, full and hard; he  complained of distressing
headache, especially in the frontal region, vomiting of  bile, acute
stitches in the left side, near the apex of the heart, and rendering
it impossible for the patient to expand his chest;  he had a racking
cough, and expectorated blood and mucus.   This Avas  a fully devel-
oped case of acute pleurisy.  I put the patient on Aconite 30th, and
on the third day after this treatment commenced, he was out, attend-
ing to his business, without  the least  cough, pain or difficulty of
any kind remaining.   Such an extraordinary result  is undoubtedly
of  rare occurrence, but  it shows  the  power of reasonably high
potencies of Aconite to effect a speedy and  thorough  cure in acute
inflammations of  the pleura.
   In Bilious Pleurisy, as it is termed, characterized by a violent stick- 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
149
ing pain, racking cough, but only moderate, if any, constitutional
fever, and an absence of bloody expectoration,  Aconite is likewise
indicated, but in lower doses.
  Even in protracted cases of Pleurisy, which had been under allceo-
pathic treatment, and Avhere  effusion and partial  adhesions have
already taken place, Aconite is still chiefly to be depended upon at
the commencement of  our  treatment.  And, Gentleman, I would.
extend this remark to all cases of acute  inflammation which pass
into your hands out of the  hands of allceopathic practitioners.  If
the patient had been bled a  great deal,  give  your Aconite high,
lest the re-action should be too violent.  A single dose of Aconite.
opportunely  given, may bring  you a number of new patients.  I
once treated  a  patient for pleuro-pneumonia who had been in the
hands of botanic practitioners for nearly six weeks.  Having been
given up by his physicians, who told the  family that he could  not
live until morning, I was requested to take charge of  this case.  I
found the patient speechless, in a state of sopor; his breathing was
exceedingly  superficial, the pulse  about 140, empty and compres-
sible, and a constant hacking cough with expectoration of blood and
pus;  the  skin  felt clammy and hot  about the thorax, the loAver
extremities were icy-cold.   I gave the patient  the 18th  potency of
Aconite.  AYhen  I called  the next morning,  my patient met me
with a smile.  He Avas able to sit up in bed, his pulse Avas doAvn to
75; they had been obliged  to change his soaking linen some six
times that  night, whereas the  other doctors  had not been able to
make him perspire once.  The cough was loose, the bloody expecto-
ration and the acute stitches in the lungs had  entirely ceased, and,
although of a consumptive habit, he was entirely restored in a fort-
night after I  first  saw him.   In another case of pleuro-pneumonia
the patient had been bled ten times, and the physician threatened to
bleed him again for  the sore,  aching, sticking pains in the chest of
Avhich the poor patient was  still complaining.  His cough likewise
continued troublesome.   The  eighteenth  potency  of  Aconite re-
stored him to perfect health  in about a week.   Never, Gentlemen,
give the tincture of Aconite to patients Avho had been frequently
bled for pneumonia or pleurisy, and who pass into your hands in
this stage of extreme debility, with an  empty, fluttering  pulse, a
cold and clammy skin, depression of spirits and other signs of ataxia.
The violence of the re-action may frighten your patient aAvay from you
and destroy his last hope, and  indeed his last chances of recovery.
  In inflammation of the abdominal organs, Aconite is of an inestima-
ble value.  In that form of Gastritis, where Aconite is indicated, the
pulse is hard, jerking, hurried; the patient complains of a burning
pain  in the  stomach, with excessive soreness  in the  epigastrium,
vomiting of the ingesta, mucus, bile and even blood, excessive thirst,
although every  drop of liquid is ejected again as soon as it gets into
the stomach.  Aconite may be of  great use in  this disease, and is
undoubtedly  a specific remedy if the muscular coat of  the stomach
is the seat of the trouble; but in mucous  gastritis, or inflammations
of the mucous coat of the stomach, you may have to resort to Arsenic
at the very onset of the disease. 
150
LECTURE X.
   The same remarks apply to Mucous Enteritis, where beside Aconite,
 Colocynthis, Arsenic and a feAV other drugs, will prove capital reme-
 dies.  The homoeopathicity of Aconite to  inflammations of the ab-
 dominal viscera Avill become apparent, if you consider the symptoms
 Avhich characterize the action of  Aconite upon these organs:  vomit-
 ing of mucus, bile and blood ; burning, tearing, drawing pains in the
. bowels ; excessive sensitiveness of the abdomen to the touch ; tume-
 faction of the bowels; scanty and loose stools, with tenesmus ; watery
 diarrhoea, white stools, Avith red urine ; discharge of black, fetid, faecal
 matter.  These and other similar symptoms indicate Aconite as a
 great remedy in abdominal inflammations.
   In acute Peritoneal Inflammation, which  is characterized by tym-
 panitic distension and excessive painfulness of the abdomen, costal
 breathing, flexion of the thighs upon the abdomen, heat and dryness
 of the skin, small, hard, jerking and quick pulse,  Aconite may  be
 administered in tolerably large  doses during the first stage of the
 disease, from five to ten drops of the first or  second attenuation,
 or one drop of the tincture of the root in  a tumblerful of water.
 Jn incipient Puerperal  Peritonitis, Avhen  the secretion  of milk is
 arrested, the pulse hard, full and hurried, and the fever is sometimes
 so intense that the heat of the skin amounts to a stinging as with
 nettles, a good dose  of Aconite will sometimes prevent the complete
 outbreak of  this dreadful disease.  You may safely give one or two
 drops of the tincture in a tumblerful of water, in tablespoonful doses
 every half hour or hour, until the secretion of milk  is established.
   On this occasion let me not forget to recommend Aconite in
   Strangulated Hernia ; if the constricted portion is inflamed, painful,
 hot, and constitutional fever has developed itself, give your Aconite.
 Let me recall to your mind the extraordinary property which Aco-
 nite possesses,  of exciting spasms; Aconite and Nux vomica more
 perhaps than any other medicines, will  prove able to remove  the
 stricture and to pave the Avay for an easy and natural reduction of
 the hernial sac.

   AVno Avould not think of Aconite in
   Hepatitis ?   Our provings  and toxicological  records  show most
 conclusively that Aconite exercises a specific action upon the func-
 tions and tissue of the liver.  Aconite  causes jaundice, one of the
 pathognomonic signs of hepatitis, if existing in conjunction with
 acute fever.  Aconite likewise  causes  bilious vomiting and a foul
 bilious coating upon the tongue: other symptoms of hepatitis.  Aco-
 nite causes a variety of symptoms which point to  inflammation of the
 liver, among which we notice the following:
   Painful feeling of swelling in the pit of the stomach, accompanied
 with want of appetite, and paroxysms of shortness  of breath.
   Violent constriction,  tightness, pressure, fullness and weight in the
 hypochondria.
   Tensive, painful swelling under the ribs.
   Shocks and  pressure  in the region of the liver, with oppression
 and arrest of breathing.
   Prickings in the liver and bowels. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
151
  Constrictive pain in the region of the gall-bladder, arresting the
breathing.
  The abdomen is distended and swollen as in dropsy.
  These indications might be increased by a number of other symp-
toms, taken from the group of the urinary and alvine secretions;
but  this seems  unnecessary;  the homoeopathicity of Aconite to
acute hepatitis is sufficiently established by the foregoing extracts
from our provings.
  Even in Chronic Hepatitis, or liver complaint, Aconite  may be of
great service to us,  more particularly in chronic hepatitis arising from
a mismanaged acute inflammation.  The liver may be enlarged ; the
patient complains  of  paroxysms of acute  aching, or even shooting
pains; these paroxysms may set in after exposure to damp weather,
a draught of air, and similar causes.  The liver feels sore, the breath-
ing is more or less interfered with.  We have again and again pre-
scribed for patients Avho were troubled with liver-complaint, more
particularly with paroxysms of spasmodic constricting pain  in the
region of the liver, patients, too, Avho had been in the hands of half
a dozen homoeopathic physicians, and Avho finally found relief from
using the first or second attenuation of the tincture of Aconite-root
during a paroxysm of pain.
  Chronic liver complaint may sometimes take an acute form, which
may terminate in
  Abscess of the Liver.  If this abscess should be seated on the exter-
nal surface of the  liver, it can easily be recognized.  A rather cir-
cumscribed tumor is distinctly felt in the region of the liver, hard
at first, and afterwards fluctuating, hot, exceedingly painful  to con-
tact or pressure, and materially interfering with the process of breath-
ing.   If such an abscess forms on the inner surface of the liver, the
discharge of pus into the peritoneal cavity may endanger the life of
the patient.  The most important object, under such circumstances,
is to prevent or arrest the process of suppuration, or to effect the
absorption of the pus, if this should have already formed.   We have
never been able to accomplish this result more speedily and success-
fully than by means of the tincture of Aconite, giving five drops of
the German tincture, or a  couple of drops  of the tincture of the root
in tAvelve tablespoonfuls of  water, a  tablespoonful every hour, and
gradually increasing the intervals to two or three hours.

  There are some forms of inflammation which require special men-
tion ; they  are erysipelatous,  rheumatic, neuralgic or  arthritic, scrofu-
lous  and diphtheritic inflammations.
  Erysipelatous inflammation, or inflammatory erysipelas, may affect
the skin and serous membranes generally in any part of the body.
This form of inflammation, when developed upon  the skin, is cha-
racterized by redness and shining appearance of this organ, tume-
faction, sense of tension and pain.   If affecting the internal serous
membranes, lancinating stitches as with knives are  experienced by
the patient, and if  the meningeal membranes are invaded, as  is A*ery
apt to take  place in erysipelas of the  face, the pain  is most agoniz-
ing, more particularly if the inflammation spreads  along the inner 
152
LECTURE X.
ear or eye.  The burning sensation  in the brain, and the sensation
as if the brain Avere cut up with knives ;  the agonizing throbbing in
the head, the excessive soreness of the  scalp, the sensitiveness to
noise, the stupid condition of the patient except when roused by a
paroxysm of intense suffering, and the frightful and  disfiguring
SAvelling of the Avhole head, present a most Avoeful picture of distress.
Such forms of erysipelatous inflammation, even Avhen presenting this
high degree of intensity, have often been cured with Aconite with-
out the use of any other agent.   In common inflammatory or phleg-
monous erysipelas, as it is termed, homoeopathic  practitioners often
resort to 1thus toxicodendron; if I  use  this agent, as I often do, I
always use it in alternation with Aconite.
   In rheumatic inflammations, Aconite exhibits most striking thera-
peutic poAvers.
   Inflammatory Rheumatism is a well-known form of inflammation,
against which Aconite has proved a true specific.  No agent  in our
Materia Medica is more adapted to the treatment of pure, uncompli-
cated rheumatism of the  joints than Aconite.  Eheumatism of  the
muscles  and muscular sheaths, when characterized by tearing  or
stitching pains,  heat, redness  and  swelling, finds  its  remedy  in
Aconite.  Tearing, drawing, aching, stitching, laming, bruising and
burning pains are characteristic of the action of Aconite upon  the
extremities.  Eheumatic inflammations of the extremities and of the
muscular tissue generally, are known by such pains, and it is more
particularly in the joints that Aconite develops such symptoms.
   Among the symptoms of Aconite Ave meet with many symptoms
like these : Pain in the shoulder and hip  joints as if contused ; pain
in the shoulder as if it would drop off; tearing and laming-drawing
pain in the shoulder, elbow and wrist-joints; drawing, tearing pain
in the knee-joints;  unsteadiness of the  knees, so  that  he staggers
when walking; stitches in the knee, and a variety of other symptoms,
all of Avhich point to inflammatory rheumatism of the articulations.
   Among these rheumatic symptoms of  Aconite there is one Avhich
requires  particular notice; it is this: swelling of the deltoid muscle,
which, when touched,  feels  painful as if bruised.  This symptom
points to
   Acute Rheumatism of this part. Aconite seems to be in some specific
relation to this muscle.  I once treated a middle-aged lady for acute
rheumatism of the deltoid muscle;  it Avas very much SAVollen, sore,
red, and the arm was perfectly immovable.   As she had never taken
homoeopathic medicines, I gave her the 30th potency of Aconite, and
the inflammation disappeared entirely in the space of three days.
   Inflammatory rheumatism may affect any of the internal organs,
the meningeal membranes, the lungs, heart, liver, stomach, boAvels,
urinary and sexual organs,   There is a difference betAveen rheumatic
and true phlegmonous or synochal inflammation, as it is termed.   In
rheumatic inflammation the  fever is not  as high as in synochal in-
flammation, nor is the danger of a fatal termination  as imminent in
rheumatism as in the last named disease.  The symptoms  are  not
generally as violent, nor is the  pain as  severe in rheumatic as in
synochal inflammation. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
153
  In rheumatic inflammation of the meningeal membranes, for instance,
the pulse may be up to  90 or 95, the skin may be moderately hot
and dry.  The fever is preceded by a  sense of coldness, creeping,
shivering  or chill.  The patient complains of a violent, stupefying
headache,  and, may be, of a violent pressure on the head, dizziness,
etc.  Sometimes the eyes or ears are involved  in  the inflammatory
process.  All these symptoms may likeAvise exist  in true meningi-
tis, except that they are far more violent, and the constitutional dis-
turbance is far more marked and general.  In the  rheumatic variety
of meningitis,  Aconite is often sufficient to cure the disease; in true
meningitis, Aconite would be of little  use;  Belladonna,  or some
other similarly-acting drug would have to be employed.
  In Rheumatic Pneumonia, the patient complains of dyspnoea, a tear-
ing cough ; aching and burning, and even stinging-sore pains in the
chest;  but the essential  characteristics of true pneumonia are want-
ing.  In rheumatic pneumonia, the patient may perhaps  cough up
pure blood, although he generally raises a frothy  mucus,  but the
rusty sputa Avhich is one of the pathognomonic signs of true  pneu-
monia, is wanting in the rheumatic form.  If the character  of rheu-
matic inflammation is once impressed upon  your  minds, you wi 11
never confound  it with ordinary acute  inflammation.   Eheumatic
pains are generally sticking, aching, tearing, laming, burning;  if the
mucous membrane is affected, the pains  are generally of a  burning-
character ; if the fibrous tissue is the seat of the  disease, the pains
are tearing and aching;  and if serous membranes are involved, there
are sticking or sore and stinging pains.
  In Rheumatic  Inflammation of the Bladder we have stinging sore-
ness, heat and a sense of swelling in the region of the bladder, or this
region may be actually  distended and sore to contact.   Of course
there is inability to void the urine, except perhaps a small quantity
which passes off with difficulty.  In Acute Cystitis these  symptoms
are far more intense;  the burning, the shooting pains, the agonizing
dysuria or rather ischuria (a complete retention of urine),  and the
inflammatory fever often drive the patient to despair.  A beginning
practitioner is apt to be confounded by the symptoms before him.  If
he is Avell  posted up in the use of his drugs, he will always feel at
home in the presence of the enemy.   Never forget, Gentlemen, that
Aconite will act upon any inflammatory group of symptoms, no mat-
ter in what organ or tissue they may present themselves. In Urethritis,
for instance, not every physician Avould think of giving Aconite.
But if he recollects that Aconite causes "a burning sensation in the
urethra, from one orifice to the other; shooting stitches in the urethra,
when  Avalking; burning urine Avhich deposits a bloody-looking or
brick-dust sediment;  and various other symptoms characteristic of
acute urethritis, he "will find it indispensable to exhibit Aconite in
this disease.
  We have  seen that Aconite is homoeopathic to  rheumatic inflam-
mations, and that they embrace a very wide scope.  Besides  being
in homoeopathic rapport Avith rheumatic inflammation of the internal
viscera, it  is likewise adapted, as has already been shown, to 
154
LECTURE X.
   Acute Rheumatism of the Joints:  Avhich may be inferred froin the
manner in Avhich Aconite affects these parts.  It causes
   Pain in the shoulder, as if it should drop off;
   Drawing-tearing pain in the shoulder-joint;
   Drawing pain in the elbow-joints;
   Prickings in the joints of the fore-arm ;
   Tearing and laming-draAving pain in the Avrist-joints;
   AVlien bending the fingers, violent stitches dart through the wrist-
joint to the elbow -joint;
   Unsteadiness of the knees, they totter and give Avay when walking ;
   Pain in  the tarsal joints, attended Avith despairing thoughts, and
the dread of  death ;
   Drawing pains in the'loAver extremities, especially in the joints;
   Drawing-tearing pain in the knee-joint;
   Stitches in the left knee ;
   Icy-coldness of the knees,  alternating with shooting stitches;
   These effects of Aconites how distinctly that it has a special action
upon  the joints of the extremities,  which is  characterized by such
pains as occur in inflammatory or chronic rheumatism.
   But not only in the joints is the  homoepathicity of Aconite  to
rheumatic affections visible ; this agent is likewise in curatiA^e adap-
tation with rheumatic affections of the muscular and fibrous tissue of
the extremities and trunk.  Look at the varied effects of Aconite in
this direction :
   Upper Extremities: The arms feel  chilly and insensible ;
   Tearing in the arm from the shoulder to the Avrist-joint and fingers,
scarcely ever felt except during movement, Avith blueness of the
hands  during the paroxysm  of pain  ;
   Pain as if contused in the shoulder-joint, only felt  during  move-
ment;
   Stitches in the shoulder and upper arm ;
   Pain in the fore-arm as after a violent bloAv;
   DraAving-tearing and stitching pain, in  the  fore-arms and  their
bones, the pain is excited by motion;
   Feeling of  lameness in the right fore-arm and hand, going off bv
moving the limb briskly ;
   Crampy, contractive  pain in  the hand  and fingers, sometimes
accompanied  by stitches;
   Swelling of the hands, with  frequent  paroxysms  of cough, and
good appetite;
   Drawing-jerking  pains in thumbs; pain  in the thumbs as  if
sprained and  lame;
 _  Acute pain in the right fore-arm, along  the  tendon of the  flexor
digiti minimi, increased by emotion.
   Lomer Extremities: The pains are in all respects similar  to those
which  the Aconite-provers have experienced in the upper extremi-
ties, affecting the same tissues and characterized by the same  sensa-
tions.
   In the Back and Sacral Region we may notice a few pains which
furnish useful indications  for the employment of Aconite in several 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
155
more or less important and troublesome rheumatic affections of these
parts.  AVe have the folioAving records :
  Pains in the loins;
  Pains, in the loins like labor pains, when walking ;
  Aching pain in the left side of the small of the back;
  Paralytic pressure in the sacral region, relieved by movement and
by stooping forAvard.
  These symptoms indicate Aconite in
  Rheumatic Backache, and likewise in
  Lumbago, with excessive soreness, lameness, rigidity, aching pain
in the small of the back.

  Other symptoms are:
  Soreness, feeling of stiffness and as if bruised between the scapulas
or in other parts of the back ;
  Sensitiveness of the lumbar region when stepping;
  Sensitiveness of the region of the kidneys ;
  Numbness of the small of the back, extending as far as the lower
limbs;
  Prickling in the sacrum ;
  Formication over the back, upper arms and thighs ;
  Feeling of stiffness and as if bruised in the left side of the neck,
extending beyond the left shoulder-joint, and a portion of the dorsal
muscles, worse when  lying down, less during motion.
  AVhen moving the neck, single muscles of the posterior region
feel Aveak  and as if bruised, especially in the evening and at night.
  Among these  symptoms some refer to
  Rheumatism of the Muscles of the back, both of the  congestive and
neuralgic  order; others to
  Rheumatism of the  Posterior  Cervical Muscles or crick in the neck;
others again  to
  Rheumatism of Lateral Muscles of the Neck, among which we may
include
  Rheumatism of  the Sterno-cleido-mastoideus muscle or wry  neck,
Torticollis  ; the muscle becomes stiff, hard, swollen and inflamed, the
neck inclining to  the affected  side  in order to avoid pain by the
extension of  the muscle.  Under allceopathic treatment, this muscle
may remain  permanently contracted.   For  such contractions it  is
perfectly  proper to  use  Aconite,  from the third to  the twelfth
potency.   Belladonna may likewise prove useful.

  There is a spasmodic form of torticollis which it is important  to
mention.   It may arise from an irritation of the pneumo-gastric or
spinal accessory nerve, fibres of Avhich dip into the substance of the
sterno-cleido-mastoideus muscle.   I treated a very interesting case
of this kind  some time ago.  A little  girl  had had a fall on the
back of the head from a height of some three or four feet.  A few
days after this fall  the head  began to incline towards the right
shoulder,  and was resting upon  the shoulder when the child  was
brought to me.  AA^e diagnosed irritation of the cranial nerves, either
the spinal accessory  or pneumo-gastric, or  both, in consquence  of 
156
LECTURE X.
the concussion experienced by the fall, and treated the child persis-
tently  with  the  tincture of Aconite,  interpolating every noAV and
then a dose of Iodine.  AYe may state moreover, that the least attempt
to raise the child's head Avas attended  with excruciating pain Avithin
the cranium, in  the region of the  base of  the skull.  Under the
treatment adopted, the little patient recovered  very gradually, but
Steadily, and Avas completely restored  within six Aveeks.

   In Rheumatism of the Abdominal Muscles,  Aconite is  not Avithout
great curative poAver.   It causes: " sensitiveness of the abdominal
Avails," Avhich may result from rheumatic congestion of  these parts.
The first or  second attenuation is sufficient to a cure.

   I have alluded on a former occasion.to Rheumatism of the Scalp,
characterized by a sensation as if the  scalp were drawn tightly over
the head, tearing, lancinating and burning pains, stupefying head-
ache ; all these symptoms are covered by corresponding symptoms
among the provings of Aconite.
   In Rheumatism of the Heart,  or Rheumatic Endocarditis  as it  is
termed, Aconite  will prove an invaluable agent.  In one of our last
provings the symptoms of rheumatic endocarditis Avere developed
with tolerable accuracy : violent  palpitation of  the heart,  dyspnoea,
sense of suffocation, anxiety,  irregularity and intermission of the
beats of the heart, and  corresponding rheumatic tearing pains
in the  limbs.   In this  affection Aconite  will   always   prove  a
reliable friend,  even in cases  of organic  malformations which are
so apt to remain behind  under Old-School treatment.  I  would
recommend  the  use of the lower potencies in this affection.  You
need not even hesitate to use the tincture.  Under the use of the
higher potencies rheumatism of the heart may undoubtedly disap-
pear, but it is not at all  certain in my mind Avhether  fibrinous
concretions in the cavity of the heart, or enlargement of its  substance
can be as effectually prevented  by the higher as they can by the
loAver potencies or by the tincture of Aconite.
   Speaking of endocarditis, I may  as well  mention another acute
affection of  the  heart Avhich may require the use of Aconite at the
outset  of the disease ; I mean
   Pericarditis, or inflammation of the serous membrane that  envelopes
the heart like a sac.  It  is not only difficult,  but  sometimes im-
possible  to  distinguish the symptoms of acute pericarditis from
those of acute  endocarditis,  and in  most cases  these tAvo inflam-
mations  exist simultaneously.  In acute pericarditis we have  as
leading symptoms: acute, stitching, tearing  pain which, after some-
times shifting from one part of the chest to another, finally becomes
fixed  behind  the sternum,  extending  to the  epigastrium  and
sometimes posteriorly between  the shoulders; paroxysms  of dys-
pnoea : spasmodic constriction in the region of the heart • a dull
barking, hacking cough, Avhich distresses the patient a great deal!
but is  unaccompanied by such  expectoration; dull, circumscribed
beating of the heart, or in some cases a tumultuous palpitation which
is perceived over a large surface; more or less irregularity in the 
AC0NTTUM NAPELLUS.
157
rhythm, volume and quality of the pulse.  These symptoms  have
all been experienced with more or less intensity by the provers of
Aconite, and therefore point to Aconite as one of our great remedial
agents in the acute form of this disease.
  Speaking of the heart, we may take this opportunity of mention-
ing several morbid conditions  of the arteries and  veins, to which
Aconite is  homoeopathic.  It is homoeopathic to
  Aneurism of  the larger Arteries.  This necessarily follows from the
fact that Aconite affects the  tissue of the vessels similarly to  what
Ave  know  it to be affected in aneurism.  The primary effect of a
massive dose of Aconite is to cause a spasmodic rigidity of this
tissue, more particularly of the capillary vessels; during the organic
reaction which  should  be looked upon  as the indirect effect of the
drug, the tissue becomes weakened and relaxed.   The continued use
of small doses of Aconite would produce the same effect.  Hence we
say that Aconite must be homoeopathic to precisely such a condition
of the arterial tissue, as we know exists in some forms of aneurism,
viz.: dilatation in consequence of the weakened or relaxed condition
of its fibres.  You may give Aconite in alternation with Digitalis;
but if you wish to secure for your patient the  greatest possible chance
of recovery, give these medicines in the lower potencies, a few drops
of the first potency, or  even a drop of the concentrated tincture in a
tumblerful of water.
  For similar reasons Aconite is an indispensable agent in
   Cyanosis, if arising from  the non-closure of  the foramen ovale.
This malformation may be the result of a permanent rigidity of the
septum or  the fibres may be  deficient in irritability ; in either case
Aconite will prove of great advantage to  the patient, and if it does
not cure the disease, will at least relieve the  sufferer.   If cyanosis is
the result of fright, Aconite should be depended upon as a restorer
of the normal  irritability and  contractility  of the venous capillary
tissue.
  The simple form of Purpura hemorrhagica, or Morbus Maculosus
Simplex, is another morbid condition of the capillaries  to Avhich
Aconite is homoeopathic.  The pathological  character of this disease
is in  many instances  a weakness or  abnormal relaxation,  Avith
deficient irritability, of the capillary tissue, in consequence of which
exudation  takes place from  the mouths of the  capillaries, and  con-
sequent infiltration of  the subcutaneous cellular tissue.   Hence the
purple spots, petechias  or ecchymoses Avhich characterize this de-
rangement.  If  I recommend  Aconite as a remedy for it, you at
once  perceive  that  my recommendation is based upon the  well-
known manner in Avhich Aconite affects the capillary tissue.  In a
disease of this  kind Aconite has to be given  for  a considerable
period in  conjunction  with any other medicine that may suit the
constitutional predispositions of the patient.  The second and first
attenuations, and the German tincture  may be employed.  This
simple form may be the result of exposure.
  Need I direct your attention to Hemorrhage?  AYhat admirable
healing properties does Aconite possess in this disease !   AVe  have
many medicines for haemorrhage; Squills, Millefoil, Ipecacuanha, 
153
LECTURE X.
Arsenic and other agents, will respectively arrest haemorrhage from
various organs of the body.  A characteristic sign of haemorrhage
for Avhich Aconite is indicated is the tumultuous condition of the
arterial vessels.   The pulse is full, hard, bounding;  the patient's
countenance looks flushed, the skin is  dry and hot, and there may
even be partial loss of consciousness.  These  symptoms occur more
particularly during pulmonary haemorrhage.   The  blood sometimes
issues from the mouth in copious quantities, fluid blood mixed with
coagula.
  In Epislaxis or nose-bleed, Pneumorrhagia  or pulmonary haemor-
rhage,  Hematuria or haemorrhage  from the uretha,  etc., Aconite
will prove sufficient to arrest the flow of blood, provided the consti-
tutional symptoms correspond  Avith the general physiological action
of Aconite upon the circulation.  The  haemorrhage must either  be
accompanied by marked symptoms of vascular excitement, or by the
opposite condition of vascular depression, small, Aveak, even filiform
pulse;  coldness of the extremities, collapse of  features, expression of
anxiety, etc.
  We  may single out a form of haemorrhage where Aconite is of
paramount importance ; it is
  Metrorrhagia, more particularly during pregnancy.  In females of
a bilious and plethoric habit, many a time miscarriage has been pre-
vented by the  timely administration of the tincture of Aconite, one
or two drops in a tumblerful of water.  If blood begins to show
itself in the vagina; if the  patient complains of  sickness at  the
stomach, dizziness, frontal headache, throbbing in the  head, palpi-
tation  of the  heart, creeping  chills, folloAved by  flashes of  heat;
flushed face, rising of the pulse, coldness of the extremities, violent
dragging  and bearing-down  pains ;  giA^e your Aconite at once,
without losing a moment's time; keep your patient perfectly quiet,
repeat  the medicine every ten or fifteen minutes, in dessertspoonful
doses, and you, may often  be able to avert the danger, and save a
human life.  In Menstrual Metrorrhagia, and in metrorrhagia setting
in after miscarriage, or parturition at full term, Aconite  may like-
wise be the best therapeutic agent.
  A most important and  dangerous disease, to Avhich Aconite is
homoeopathic, is
  Phlebitis or Inflammation of Veins.  The pathognomonic signs of
this disease  indicate  Aconite.  The  patient experiences a burning
pain along the course of the  vein ; the part is SAvollen, dark, red,
inflamed (provided of course it is a cutaneous  vein); abnormal infil-
trations take place in  the subcutaneous cellular tissue and mucous
membrane.  These symptoms of inflammation are  always accompa-
nied by signs of bilious derangement, which  are the more marked
the nearer the inflamed A-ein is to the liver:  the right hypochondrium
is distended and painful; the tongue is coated, the taste in the mouth
bitter, the patient complains of sickness at the stomach and vomitino-.
If the inflamed vein is above the diaphragm and near the heart, the
right ventricle shoAVS signs of inflammation : there is violent palpita-
tion  under the ensiform cartilage, apnoea, great  restlessness, dispo-
sition to fainting,  great prostration.  The accompanving fever is of 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
159
a typhoid character, Avhich seems to be OAAung to the fact that a puru-
lent secretion from the inner coat of the vein becomes mixed up with
the general circulation, thus occasioning a poisoning of the  blood
which older pathologists were in the habit of characterizing as putrid
fever.  In this disease Aconite is eminently proper.   AYe also re-
commend Hamamelis, and  perhaps Arsenic, and one or two other
drugs, but Aconite occupies a prominent rank in the group, provided
it is not given in too high doses.
  Phlegmasia  alba dolens is a form of phlebitis, which  is  very suc-
cessfully treated Avith Aconite.   Use the tincture a few drops in  a
tumblerful of water.  Gentlemen, never mind the croaking of igno-
rant practitioners regarding the use of Aconite in  this disease.  If
my advice is of any value to you, depend upon Aconite in this dis-
ease.  If you think it best, you  may use Hamamelis along Avith it, or
you may put in an occasional dose of Belladonna, but it is only igno-
rant and over-bearing dogmatists Avho can decry the use of Aconite
in this distressing and dangerous malady.
                  LECTURE    XI.

  In all inflammations of serous and fibrous membranes, Aconite is
undoubtedly a capital remedy.
  In Periostitis, for instance, when occasioned by exposure to a keen
wind, retrocession of SAveat, or by standing upon  damp ground or
cold stones,  Aconite is often sufficient to effect a radical cure.  The
pains are of a tearing character, accompanied by a sensation of burn-
ing.   These pains were experienced by several of our Aconite
provers, and clinical experience has abundantly shown that inflam-
mation of the  periosteum may be controlled by Aconite, and that,
even  in cases Avhere an exudation had taken place betAveen the
periosteum and the substance of the bone,  Aconite will effect  an
absorption of the fluid and restore the normal condition of the parts.
In this disease, the third up  to the sixth potency of Aconite is
generally preferable both to  the tincture and to the higher potencies.
  Even in Ostitis, Avhen the  substance of the bone or the marrow has
become invaded by the inflammation, you may depend upon Aconite
as a great  curative agent.   If the bone itself or the  marrow is
inflamed, the symptoms differ from those Avhich indicate the perios-
teum  or fibrous  covering of the osseous tissue as the seat of the
disease. In  the former case the pains are boring, throbbing, aching,
and more or less circumscribed to a particular region ;  the patient
may likeAvise complain of a sensation as if the limb Avere sAvelling
up."  Among the physiological effects of Aconite upon the bones,
these  boring, gnaAving, craAvling, pecking or beating, aching and
burning pains occupy a prominent rank.
  Gentlemen, Aconite occupies the same rank in our Materia Medica
that the heart occupies in the human body.  AYithout Aconite, the 
160
LECTURE XL
sphere of our usefulness  would be limited indeed;  our kingdom
would be desolate.  What immense advantages does the use of this
one agent afford to the homoeopathic practitioner over his allceopathic
brother who seems somewhat disposed just now to steal his enemy's
thunder instead of using it openly and honorably with appropriate
acknowledgments.  See hoAV readily such distressing inflammations
as Ophthalmia (acute  inflammation of the eye), Otitis (acute inflam-
mation of the ear), Glossitis (acute inflammation of the tongue), Nasitis
(acute inflammation of the nose), and acute inflammations of the face
in general, will yield to Aconite.  In any of these inflammations the
tincture or lower potencies will, as a general rule, be of more use to
you than the higher attenuations.
   A case of  Nasitis, Avhere the inflammation was intense, the nose
swelled up to the size of a child's fist, and a phagedenic ulcer had
developed itself  at the tip  of the nose which discharged a quantity of
fetid green pus, yielded to  the tincture of Aconite completely, inflam-
mation, sAvelling, ulcer and all, in  one week.   The curative  virtue
of Aconite in
   Iritis was fully tested in a case which I treated with Dr. Dixon, a
distinguished oculist in New York. The doctor had couched a cata-
ract for one of my patients.  Our agreement was that, in case iritis
should set in, and my treatment should not produce a favorable im-
pression upon the disease within six hours, the patient was to be bled
and put upon the use of calomel.   The operation was performed in
the afternoon, and next morning we  visited our patient at an early
hour.  Iritis was fully developed.  We found the pupil considerably
elongated, with uneven edges.   The frontal headache was agonizing.
I put the patient upon the tincture of Aconite, five drops of a rather
weak tincture of the leaves in a tumblerful of water.  AVithin three
days every trace of inflammation had disappeared, and the pupil Avas
restored to its natural dimensions.  The doctor admitted that he had
never seen a  case of  iritis  cured in this off-hand Avay.
   Neurcdgic Rheumatism frequently yields to Aconite alone, although
other drugs have often to be given in alternation Avith it, or in its
stead.  Aconite affects the tissues as we see them affected in neural-
gic rheumatism.  It causes tingling, formicating pains, or a feeling
of painful numbness in the parts, also pinching or tearing pains as
if the muscular fibre were pinched  or torn; it causes soreness of
parts, burning-prickling pains  in the fingers and toes, sensation as if
a  tight bandage were drawn  around the ankles, and a  variety of
other symptoms  which shoAv that Aconite may be of great use to us
in the treatment of
   Arthritic and Neuralgic  Rheumatism, or in acute and chronic
   Arthritis or Gout with soreness, tenderness, heat  and SAvellino- of
the parts, stitching and throbbing pains, etc.  Give first  to sixth
potency.
   Adenitis, or Acute Inflammation of  Glands,  finds its remedy in
Aconite.  Even in chronic adenitis, when the gland is hard, painful
and  hot interiorly, Aconite will often effect a resolution of the dis-
organizing process.  But  you  have to  use it in massive doses, one 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
161
or two drops of the first attenuation or even the ticture in a tumbler-
ful of water, a spoonful every tAvo or three hours.
   In scrofulous subjects inflammation of the glands occurs quite fre-
quently, so much so  that a tendency to this  sort of inflammation is
generally regarded as a symptom of  constitutional scrofula.   There
is one form  of scrofulous glandular inflammation which it may be
appropriate  to notice in connection Avith adenitis ; I allude to
   Inflammation of the  Mesenteric Glands or Mesenteric Ganglionitis.
Gentlemen, let me urge you to depend upon Aconite in this devasta-
ting affection as one  of your staunchest friends.  You may deem it
advisable to use Balladonna, Mercurius, Iodine, Arsenic, Calcarea,
Hepar sulphuris;  I  care  not what medicine you use besides, but
never lose sight  of the power which Aconite possesses more perhaps
than any other drug in our Materia Medica, to restore the process of
animalization  if it has been interrupted  by some  cause or  other.
The mesenteric glands seem to be the chief means by which this pro-
cess is carried  on  in childhood.  In every stage  of this disease
Aconite is in its place.  Not only pathological considerations, but the
symptomatic condition of the patient lead us to recommend Aconite
in this disease.   The febrile dryness  of the skin and the fever  which
is more or less constant, the diarrhoea or the alternate diarrhoea and
constipation, the abdominal enlargement, the alternate loss of appe-
tite and  canine  hunger, the fitful mood of the little patient,  or his
habitual fretting  and ■ his depression  of  spirits, his  peculiar rest-
lessness at night and the nightly exacerbation of the symptoms; all
these signs indicate Aconite as a proper remedy in this disease.  But,
Gentlemen, you  must not be afraid of using the lower preparations
and even the  tincture of this drug.  I care not how long homoe-
opathic physicians may overlook the great fact that Aconite is  one of
our most efficient remedies for Tuberculosis; the time will come when
the retro-formative virtues of Aconite, by which I mean the  poAver
Avhich Aconite possesses, to stimulate the absorbent vessels, and, by
this means, not only to remove  the  tuberculous infiltration but to
restore the normal tissue whether parenchymatous, serous, muscular
or any other, will  be acknowledged and  made  use  of in practice.
But do not tell me that you have used Aconite in the 200th or 2000th
potency and found it wanting.  There are cases where the higher
potencies of Aconite are perfectly applicable ; but tuberculosis is not
one of them.  I  have uniformly got along far better with the  lower
potencies and Avith the tincture.  As I said before, you may use the
Aconite  in  alternation  with other  drugs such  as Iodine,  Kali
hydriodicum, Belladonna, Calcarea, Hepar sulphuris, Mercurius and
others, but your safest  plan, in all tubercular diseases, will always be
to give an occasional dose of Aconite, no matter what other  medi-
cine you may resort  to  along with it.   Never give  more medicine
than is  necessary  to cure your patient, but do not  give any less
either.   It is your privilege  to  use  the tincture up to the merest
breath  of a drug.  I am no advocate  of massive doses; I have taken
and shall take every  opportunity of recommending the higher poten-
cies to your  careful consideration, but I believe, and  I Avould urge
you to believe, that it is no more a  lower homoeopathy to use low 
162
LECTURE XL
 doses  than  the  use of high potencies constitutes a higher homoe-
 opathy.  Some physicians have been pleased to designate the use of
 the higher potencies as a species of higher homoeopathy.   Gentle-
 men, this is  doing great injustice to a vast majority of the practi-
 tioners of our School.   The homoeopathicity of a drug to a disease
 depends  upon the qualitative, not upon the quantitative, relation  of
 these two elements, and ten  drops of the tincture of one drug may-
 be far more homoeopathic than ten pellets of the ten thousandth
 potency of another.
  I  have alluded to Neuralgic and Scrofulous Inflammations.   In
 neuralgic inflammation, which is generally of a rheumatic character,
 the fever may be exceedingly moderate, and at times almost wanting,
 although the pain is most severe, often excruciating: the affected
 region is swollen, tender, sometimes  hotter than the  surrounding
 parts, and the pain which is felt in  the interior of the tissues, is  of
 various kinds : burning, stitching, aching, throbbing, tearing, wrench-
 ing.   This neuralgic rheumatism may affect the joints, muscular
 tissue, the neurilemma,  the  periosteum, or  some  internal viscus.
 Aconite is a very efficient remedy, but you  must give the  middle
 potencies from the 6th to the 12th;  the tincture generally produces
 severe aggravations of  the  symptoms.   Nevertheless cases may
 occur where the low potencies may  seem preferable.  Neuralgic,
 scrofulous or arthritic  inflammations probably  all belong to  the
 same family of diseases.  If these inflammations are accompanied
 by high fever, you will get along better with the lower than with
 the higher or middle potencies.
  In Scrofulous Ophthalmia, Avith a rose-colored inflammation of the
 conjunctiva, profuse discharge  of acrid tears, swelling of the lids
 and excessive photophobia, the lower potencies and even the tinc-
 ture  of Aconite are uniformly preferable.  You will recollect, Gen-
 tlemen, that in one of our cases of poisoning, scrofulous ophthalmia
was a marked effect of the drug.
  In  Rheumatic Contraction of the  Tendons Avhich may be  looked
 upon as a species of neuralgic rheumatism, the loAver  potencies of
 Aconite are  generally to be preferred.  Dr. Arneth produced this
 symptom in his proving of Aconite.
  There  is a most important form of inflammation which it is proper
 to class in the category of nervous or neuralgic  inflammations; I
 allude to
  Inflammation of the  Spinal Marrow or Myelitis.   The effects of
 Aconite upon this important organ, which have  been  obtained by
 several of our provers, shadow forth this disease in  sufficiently dis-
 tinct outlines to permit us to recommend Aconite as a specific remedy
 for its cure.
  The symptoms of this disease  shoAV themselves  more  in  the
 extremities and other organs of the  body than in the spinal marrow
 itself;  but all these symptoms correspond most perfectly with  our
 Aconite-provings.
  If the whole spine is affected, all the organic functions are more or
 less impaired; in the upper part of the body we have paralysis of the
 upper extremities, dyspnoea, orthopnoea, excessive irregularities in the 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
163
heart's action; in the middle portion we have: numbness and paraly-
sis of the abdominal walls, diarrhoea or constipation, symptoms of en-
teritis ;  and if the lower portion of the spine is affected, we have all
sorts of derangements in the abdominal functions, retention of urine or
else inability to hold it; uterine derangements, paralysis of the rectum
and of the lower extremities.  All  these symptoms, together with
the constitutional fever, the violent flushes in the face, the pain in
the head, dizziness, and  the peculiar pains along the spine, shocks
of paralytic pain, boring and tearing pains, and the like, indicate
Aconite as a great remedy for this disorder.
   In Chronic Myelitis or Spjinal drritation, the same remedy may be
used; the functional disturbances which characterize spinal irritar
tion, find their counterpart  in  the  physiological  action of Aconite
upon the  healthy organism.
   Among the recorded provings of Aconite, the folloAving symptoms
point more or less to irritation of the different portions of the spinal
column:
   Burning-gnawing pains near the dorsal vertebrae;
   Yiolent sticking, digging pain all along the spine,  aggravated by
an inspiration;
   Boring pain in the sacral region, left side ;
   Crawling sensation in the spine;
   Feeling of weakness in  the nape of the neck, with sensation as
if the flesh were loose, and stinging  in the nape of the neck, when
moving the head;
   Stitches in both sides of the nape of the neck.
   Accompanying these symptoms, Ave have soreness in the Avhole or
in parts of the spinal column ;  soreness of the vertebral processes;
soreness of the spinal marrow which may only be felt when making
pressure with the finger.
   Spinal  irritation gives rise to a number of constitutional symp-
toms, such as drawing and tearing pains in the extremities;  violent
rush of blood, headache ; oppression on the chest, palpitation, cough;
soreness and spasmodic pains in the bowels, constipation or diarrhoea;
numbness, deadness, coldness or heat of single parts; stitches through
the joints, and  many  others Avhich will  be  all found  enumerated
among the provings of Aconite.
  Among fche symptoms of Aconite there is one of great pathological
importance; it is this:  "Aveakness in the region of the head of the
femur, and inability to  Avalk, owing to an  indescribable, intolerable
pain, as if the head of the femur had  been crushed, particularly after
lying down and  sleeping."   This symptom shows that Aconite may
be depended upon as a most useful agent in various important affec-
tions of the hip-joint; it shows us that Aconite may  be used in
  Acute or Chronic Rheumatism of the Hip-joint, and in that danger-
ous disease:
  Scrofulous Inflammation  of the Hip-joint or Coxarthrocace which
is s< > insidiously inclined  to terminate in suppuration and destruction
of the joint.   Give from the 3d to the 12th potency.
   Carbunculous  Inflammation should be treated with the lower poten-
cies or with the tincture of Aconite.   The inflammation involves the 
161
LECTURE XI
 muscular tissue, Avhich is hot, red and sore and, after a while, sloughs
 off. Aconite will not only diminish the constitutional fever, but bring
 this painful process to a speedy termination.
   Some time ago I had an opportunity of witnessing  the curative
 powers  of Aconite in  acute  carbunculous inflammation.  It com-
 menced Avith a black point in the  upper part of the thigh, Avhence
 the disease spread with astonishing rapidity.   In twenty-four hours
 a large portion of the  thigh Avas hard, excessively painful, and ex-
 hibited  a shining  redness.  The fever was very high.  I put the
 patient on the tincture of Aconite.  The inflammatory process Avas
 speedily arrested, the fever subdued, the inflamed parts  sloughed off,
 and the patient was restored in ten days.
   In Gangrenous Whitlow, of Avhich you may read a description in
 Cooper's Dictionary, you  will find Aconite an invaluable remedv.
 In some cases of poisoning, Aconite has been knoAvn to cause gan-
 grene.   I treated one case of this disease  in a family where it Avas
 hereditary.   The grand-father, father and  a brother  had died with
 it.  A sister was attacked  with it.   It commenced in a black point
 in the  palm of the hand,  gradually travelling upAvards  along the
 arm.  The hand and fore-arm were black as ink.   The patient Avas
 entirely restored by means of poultices  and the internal use of
 Aconite and Arsenic.
   In Acute Stomacace, with heat in the mouth and sloughing of the
 lining membrane, no better remedy can be  used than Aconite.  The
 so-called  diptheritic inflammation of the mouth and throat, Avhen the
 throat is studded with numberless little ulcers of the size of a pin's
 head, excessively stinging  and painful, with hard, inflamed borders
 and secreting a whitish, cheesy matter, Aconite is a true specific in
 eA^ery case where the disease has a rheumatic origin and the consti-
 tutional fever is more or less developed.
   What I have said of  inflammation, likewise applies to Acute Con-
 gestions.  Every acute congestion is ushered in Avith a chill, followed
 by inflammatory fever.   The Avell managed use of Aconite, in con-
junction Avith other remedies more or less specifically adapted to the
 part, will conquer these serious disorders.
   Passive Congestion may  frequently find  its  remedy  in  Aconite.
 This condition is characterized by many symptoms which correspond
 very strictly Avith the effects of Aconite,  These are  a  sensation of
 fulness and swelling, and a feeling of soreness in the parts Avhere this
 sensation of fulness and SAvelling is experienced.   A feeling of heat
may likewise be complained of in these parts.
   The symptoms of passive congestion of course vary according as
one or the other organ is the seat of the trouble.
   Passive Congestion of the Boicels, for instance, is characterized by a
sense of fulness and weight in the  bowels, a dragging  sensation in
the bowels, soreness, constipation or frequent  urging to stool, with
discharge of  small quantities of  mucus or else frequent ineffectual
attempts to relieve the boAArels,
  Passive Congestion of the Lungs is characterized by symptoms like
the following: sensation as if the  chest were empty ; this feeling may
be succeeded by a sensation of fulness in the chest, Avith desire to 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
165
draAv a long breath every now and then ;  occasional turns of slight
hacking cough as if for the purpose of clearing the chest, and re-
moAang some obstruction.
  Passive Congestion of the  Heart, may manifest itself by a feeling of
weight in the region of the heart, occasionally amounting to suffo-
cation, and accompanied  every now and then with palpitation, and
Avith a feeling of anxiety and even dyspnoea.
  Passive Congestion of the Liver may likeAvise occur, and is generally
indicated by a sense of fulness in the region of the liver; by pressing
upon this region, the patient is able to bring up a quantity of wind.
At times the  region of the liver feels sore, and the patient may even
complain of an undue sensation of warmth in that part.
  Even the stomach, and more particularly the pyloric region, may
become the seat of passive congestion, with fulness and heaviness in
this  region, and raising of a quantity of wind off the stomach on
making pressure upon the epigastrium.  These passive congestions
of the liver, stomach and boAvels are frequently alluded to as infrac-
tions by the older pathologists.


                 CEREBRO-SPINAL. GROUP.

  It seems needless to dwell upon the cerebral and nervous affections
with which Aconite is in curative rapport.   You recollect  that by
virtue of the manner in which it affects the brain, this agent must be a
great remedy in Cerebral Apoplexy and in Congestive Headaches.  In
order to render the indications in these affections still more definite,
Ave Avill point out to the student of Homoeopathy the most important
symptoms bearing upon these conditions which have been developed
by our provings.
  The symptoms Avhich point to Sanguineous  Apoplexy, are varied.
  We have:
  Stupefaction of the senses and giddiness as if  intoxicated.
  Crampy  sensation in the  forehead or above the root of the nose,
with a feeling as if  one should lose one's reason.
  Rush of  blood to the head, with heat and redness of the face.
  Throbbing of the temporal arteries; swelling of the jugular veins.
  These are some of the more prominent head-symptoms  indicating
Aconite in sanguineous apoplexy.  Among the folloAving headache-
symptoms we shall discover several Avhich likewise point to Aconite
in'this affection.
   Congestive Headache comprises  a   group  of symptoms like the
following, to be found among the positive provings:
  Fulness and weight in the forehead, with sensation as if the brain
and eyes Avould start out, or as if the brain were pushed against the
forehead.
  The head feels tight and  constricted.
  Crampy sensation behind the orbits, or as if in the bones, or over
the  root  of the nose, with sensation  as if  one should  lose one's
reason. 
166
LECTURE XI.
   Shooting, throbbing or shooting-throbbing headache, particularly
 when Avalking, abating Avhen sitting doAvn.
   Distress as if the brain were moving up  and down; it  is aggra-
 vated by movement, or by talking.
   Pain as if the head were compressed with equal force on all sides.
   These forms of congestive or apoplectic headache may sometimes
 be so violent as  to deprive the patient of consciousness.  The ex-
 tremities feel cold, the pulse is small and  often scarcely perceptible ;
 the features denote anguish and suffering;  the face exhits a death-
 like pallor, or  else  looks bloated, mottled or dark-red.   In some of
 these headaches,  Aconite will act even in  a  highly potentized form;
 in other cases the strong tincture has to be used.

   Bilious or Bilious Congestive headaches are characterized by many
 of the symptoms which we  have enumerated in  the previous para-
 graph.   In addition to these, we may mention a few others, such as :
   Burning distress in  the head, as if the  brain were  moved by
 boiling water.
   Headache as if the head were encircled with a  red-hot iron.
   Stupefying pain on the top, or in one side  of the head, with exces-
 sive sensitiveness of the seal}), throbbing and stinging pain in  the
 head, as if needles were stuck through the brain.
   In bilious  and congestive headache, the  patient  is generally
 exceedingly sensitive to noise  and light.   In bilious headache, the
 lower potencies of Aconite, or the tincture itself,  are preferable.

   Hysteric Headache, with sensation as if a ball Avere ascending in the
 brain, spreading a coolness through the brain ; dizziness, obscuration
 of sight, stinging, aching and throbbing pain in one side of the head,
 in the temples,  forehead or  on the top of the head :  finds its remedy
 in Aconite, from the 3d to the 12th potency.

   Rheumatic and Catarrhal Headaches,-with, tight feeling in the head,
 sensitiveness of the  scalp or of one particular spot in the scalp ;  heat
 in the head, soreness of the  eyes,  lachrymation, sneezing fits, chilli-
 ness, etc., may readily yield to Aconite.

  A  Gastric  Headache caused by  indigestible food, may require
 Aconite.
  Nervous Headaches, coming on in consequence of nightly watching
 a sudden and  violent  emotion, or paroxysmally every  week,  fort-
night or month, may have to be treated with Aconite, from the 3d
to the 12th potency.  The symptoms generally are a violent aching
pain in  one half, or  all over, the head.
  In a  common  sick headache, one half  of the  head is generally
affected.  The head feels sore, hot, Avith excessive  aching pain, sting-
ing and throbbing, sensitiveness to noise and light; sometimes  the
eye of the affected side is irritated, swollen, red, and discharo-ino-  a
profuse quantity of tears.   The middle potencies  are generalfy pre-
ferable in this form  of headache. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
167
   A headache may arise from the sudden suppression of an habitual
 discharge, such  as the menses, piles, or even chronic coryza.  Such
 headaches generally  require  Aconite,  the  lower potencies or the
 strong tincture.   Aconite not only removes the distress, but restores
 the discharges.

   You need not be reminded of the fact that Aconite possesses vast
 curative powers in paralysis, both of the motor and sentient spheres.
 The spasm-exciting action of Aconite, &c,  will lead  you in many
 cases of  spasmodic or convulsive conditions to the use of this great
 agent.

   We may as well allude in  this  place to the wonderfu]^ poAvers
 which Aconite possesses, of curing
   Neuralgia.  Aconite is not a panacea for neuralgia ; but if properly
 used; sometimes internally, and at  other times both internally and
 externally, it may prove a most wonderful deliverer from this most
 distressing malady.   If you look at the symptoms of  Aconite, you
 will find that burning, boring, stinging, jerking, screAving, aching,
 lancinating, wrenching and other pains, constitute so many thera-
 peutic indications for the use of this great drug.
   Neuralgic pains  may occur  in  any part of  the  human body,
 although they are met with in some parts more frequently than in
 other.    The face,  scalp,  liver, womb, bowels, and  rectum are  most
 generally invaded by this kind of suffering.
   Neuralgia of  the Face, or prosopalgia, is generally characterized by
 boring, wrenching,  stitching, burning, shooting and lancing pains.
   Neuralgia of  the Liver, or Hepatalgia, is characterized by  hard
 aching, burning, constricting, dragging pains.
   Neuralgia of the womb or Hysteralgia, by gnawing, burning and
 hard aching, or screwing pains ; and
   Neuralgia of the Rectum, or Proctalgia, by hard aching, dragging
 or burning pains.
   If I recommend Aconite for neuralgia, I do not recommend it as
 a panacea, but as a remedy which deserves far more attention than
 is generally devoted  to it by homoeopathic physicians.  In all the
 forms of neuralgia where our  provings indicate it, I have seen the
 most brilliant effects produced by its use in various degrees  of
 strength.

  Before concluding this chapter, we  will again advert to the great
 curative  powers  of Aconite in
  Paralysis, where the symptoms obtained by our  provers most
pointedly indicate its  use.  Aconite causes
  Numbness of  the small of the back, extending to the loAver limbs ;
  Formication over the back, upper arms and thighs ;
  Numbness in the shoulders;
  Numbness and lameness of the left arm Avhich scarcely permits
one to move the  hand ;
  AVeight and debility of the fore-arms which feel as if gone to sleep
Avhen taking hold of any thing ; 
168
LECTURE XII.
   Numbness, icy coldness and insensibility of one hand ;
   Tingling pain in the fingers, even Avhile AA'riting;
   Stinging and prickling in the arms and fingers;
   Hot prickings in the tips of the fingers;
   Similiar symptoms are experienced in the loAver extremities.   All
 these symptoms  are  more  or less  characteristic  of an attack of
 paralysis.  These  symptoms, in conjunction Avith the toxicological
 effects of  Aconite which have been fully described  on  previous
 pages, show that this remarkable  agent must be of eminent use in
 paralysis.

   Another affection to which the provings of Aconite point, is
   Nervo%s  Tremor, which may beta!  persons who have worked  too
 hard, especially females whose constitutions are not very robust, and
 Avhose nervous energy has been exhausted by excessive muscular
 exertions nightly Avatching and the like.  Aconite causes symptoms
 like these :
   Trembling of the arms and hands;
   Trembling of the lower extremities ;
   The loAver extremities totter, they are in constant motion.
   This trembling is described by some pathologists as
   Chorea Minor or Muscularis; it may sometimes occur as a symptom
 of hysteria.

   In Cataleptic Spasms, Aconite may not be overlooked.  This agent
seems to be possessed  of  a  power to affect the  nervous influence
similarly to what we know it to be affected in catalepsy.  Without
extinguishing the  consciousness, it seems to neutralize the  faculty
of manifesting it by external acts.
                 LECTURE  XII.

                     ORBITAL GROUP.

  The curative virtues of Aconite in ophthalmia have been abund-
antly explained, page 131.  Aconite is one of those drugs Avhich is
in therapeutic rapport with every form of this  disease.  Conjuncti-
vitis, Sclerotitis, Iritis, Retinitis, may yield to Aconite either partially
or completely.  Or, if we prefer, Ave may apportion Aconite to the
different forms of ophthalmia, as established by pathognomonic dif-
ferences, catarrhal, rheumatic, arthritic, scrofulous.  Even purulent
and  syphilitic  ophthalmia may be  advantageously treated  Avith
Aconite.  You will  not forget that Aconite  is adapted to the most
acute forms of these  different kinds of ophthalmia, even when  the
brain seems very much irritated, as may be inferred'from co-existin^
delirium and  agonizing distress in the forehead, more particularly
immediately over the eyebroAvs.  In such a case it may be well to
alternate Belladonna with Aconite, unless there should be no doubt 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
169
concerning the exclusive homoeopathicity of Aconite to the existing
disease.
  The fever which accompanies acute ophthalmia in all cases where
Aconite is indicated, is generally very intense, although not neces-
sarily so in the milder forms of conjunctiAritis.  In acute sclerotitis
the fever runs high ;  this is particularly the case in acute iritis and
retinitis.
  It may not be improper  to  remark that if, under  the  action of
Aconite, a reaction should have been established, characterized by
profuse perspiration, it is of the utmost importance not to cheek this
cutaneous action by exposure to  a draught of air or by any cause
whatever.  Such an accident might be followed by a return of the
acute distress in  the  orbital region, which indeed might be much
worse than before.  If such a suppression should take place, we have
to resort to every possible means of restoring the cutaneous exhala-
tions as speedily  as possible.   The Aconite should be repeated at
shorter intervals,  and  the patient may be enveloped in hot  blankets
on the bare skin; we  have found this one of the  most efficient and
speedy means of  re-exciting suppressed perspiration.
  In Traumatic Ophthalmia, Aconite supersedes the necessity of bleed-
ing from a vein or by the application of leeches.   AYe have shown
before, that it will even cure iritis.  The milder forms of inflamma-
tion resulting from the irritating  presence of a foreign body in the
eye, sand, dust, etc.;  or inflammation caused by wounding the eye
with a pin, nail,  lime, red-hot  cinders,  etc., may  be and most fre-
quently should be treated with Aconite.
  Our provings  inform us  that Aconite causes yelloAvness  of the
sclerotica.  This  symptom indicates the twofold use of Aconite in
jaundice, and likewise in acute irritation of the eyes, or
  Sub-acute Ophthalmia, when complicated with, or  in a  measure
arising from hepatic derangement.  Persons who are  troubled with
torpor of the liver, are likewise frequently subject to
   Weak  or Sore Eyes, with  burning and smarting of the  eyes and
lids, sensitiveness to  the light, inability to  use  the eyes without
fatiguing or irritating them ;  the eyes frequently assume a jaundiced
appearance.  Aconite, first to third potency, may be given.

  Blepharophthalmia is distinctly delineated by our provings.  We
have
  Soreness and itching of the eyelids.
  Painfully-tensive, red, hard swelling of the lids, especially early
in the  morning.
   Pricking and smarting in the eyelids as when a cold is setting in.

  AA^e have stated, page 126, that Aconite is in homoeopathic rapport
with amaurosis.  Among the  symptoms of  Aconite, a number of
symptoms may be found all pointing to this disease.   AVe quote the
following:
  Obscuration of sight.
  Complete blindness.
  She sees as through a gauze. 
170
LECTURE XII.
  Warm and undulating feeling in the eyes, with sensations as if
there Avere not light enough to read by.
  He sees sparks and mist.
  He sees flashes and scintillations.
  These symptoms are  present in complete or partial  loss of sight,
  Amaurosis or Amblyopia.

  Two among the eye-symptoms of Aconite distinctly indicate its
use as a remedy for
  Strabismus, where it may, however, be  available only in recent
cases originating in  rheumatic exposure, or consequent  upon an
operation, or arising spontaneously.  These symptoms are:
  Distortion of the eyes, and
  Squinting of the eyes upwards.
  In cases of this  kind, it may be necessary to resort to the lower
potencies and even to the tincture of Aconite root.

                    AURICULAR GROUP.

  We  have already shoAvn, on  page 125, that Aconite will cure
rheumatic deafness.  In partial  deafness or hardness  of hearing, it
may likewise prove useful.  It is indicated by the following symp-
toms to be found among the recorded provings:
  Tingling and roaring in the ears.
  The  ears feel stopped up, with sensation as if the vibrations of the
air were prevented from impinging upon the tympanum.
  Aconite likewise causes and will therefore cure
  Earache, Otalgia, to which the folioAving symptoms  point among
the recorded provings: .
  Tearing in the ears, or tickling  as from a little worm  craAvling
about in the right ear.
  Burning in the left ear.
  Earache which is  removable by Aconite, may be occasioned by a
variety of causes, such as: exposure to  a keen Avind ; sudden check-
ing  of the perspiration, retrocession of a rash upon or behind  the
external ear, or drying up of  an habitual dampness behind the ears
in the case of scrofulous children.  The earache may be accompanied
with a good deal of beating in the interior of the ear.  Excessive
sensitiveness  to  noise may likeAvise be present.  This symptom is
covered by the  following symptoms among our  provings:  " The
hearing is excessively sensitive;  every  noise is intolerable."
  Among persons who are subject  to earache, the paroxyms  are
often characterized by swelling of the  parts surrounding  the  ear.
Blood is very frequently discharged from the ear.  Scrofulous chil-
dren are very frequently troubled by this distress.  Aconite, and in
some cases Belladonna, will relieve this earache.
  Among scrofulous children earache may occur in consequence of
the suppression of an habitual  discharge from the ear; and on the
other hand, such a discharge may constitute the natural termination
of an attack of acute earache.  For this kind of
   Olorrhcea we recommend Aconite, a drop of the tincture of the root 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
171
in a tumblerful of Avater.  The discharge looks yellowish and has a
very offensive  smell.  Otorrhoea Avhich  will yield to Aconite, is
always accompanied more or less Avith twinges of pain, at  times
aching, at other times tearing, stitching or burning.  In some  states
of the system the patient may be entirely free from pain.
  In Chronic Otorrhoea, where acute  paroxysms such as we have
described, occur every now and  then, a dose of Sulphur twelfth to
eighteenth potency, may be advantageously interpolated once a week.

  Although it may be supposed  from what we have said under the
head of inflammatory group, that Aconite is specifically adapted as
a curative agent to
  Otitis, acute inflammation of the ear, yet we Avill specify more fully
the symptoms  requiring the use of this  agent.  AYe  deem this so
much more necessary as  many homoeopathic physicians are in the
habit of considering Pulsatilla a sort of panacea for this affection.
  Aconite is more particularly adapted to rheumatic otitis, especially
among individuals who are somewhat tainted with scrofula, subject to
eruptions or soreness upon or behind the ear, rush of blood to the head,
earache.  Both  the internal and external ear may be inflamed.  The
patient complains of a distress as if the ear should be torn out  of the
head ; a violent throbbing, burning, lancinating, dragging pain; exces-
sive soreness, sensitiveness to noise;  the ear-passage looks swollen,
red, shining.  If the inner ear is much inflamed, the  brain may be
disturbed; the  patient may complain of violent throbbing or shoot-
ing pain in the head, dizziness;  he may  even  be out  of his senses.
Blood and a thin watery fluid may be discharged out of the ear.  The
parts around the ear may either be swollen or else feel so.  Acute
inflammation of the ear is always attended with fever ushered in
with a chill or chilly creepings along the back  and extremities.
  In this disease we prescribe a few drops of the German tincture in
twelve tablespoonfuls of water, a teaspoonful every half hour until an
improvement takes place; or else a drop or two of the first attenua-
tion of the tincture of the root in a similar manner.

                      FACIAL GROUP.

  The  changes Avhich Aconite effects in the  color of the face, are
characteristic of its power to affect the nervous system and the capil-
lary circulation.  Among the recorded provings we notice the fol-
lowing symptoms:
  Bloating of the face, or sensation as if the face had grown larger,
with redness and heat of  both cheeks.
  Hot face, Avith coldness of the  hands and feet.
  Redness of one cheek,  and simultaneous paleness of the other.
  Sweat on  the forehead and  upon the cheek, upon which one is
lying.
  These sj^mptoms occur in simple irritative, catarrhal, or rheumatic
fever, or in any  form of inflammatory fever where Aconite is required
as a specific homoeopathic agent.
  Other symptoms show  the deep influence which Aconite exercises 
172
LECTURE XII.
upon that portion of the nervous system which  constitutes the con-
necting link between the mind and the face.  This agent causes an
  Expression of terror and imbecility in the countenance.
  Hippocratic countenance, and alteration of the features generally.
  These symptoms refer to mental disorders, or they may imply the
existence  of  utter prostrations in acute attacks  such as Cholera,
spasmodic or inflammatory Colic, etc.

  Other symptoms show that Aconite  has a local action upon the
trigeminus, and may therefore prove of service in pathological con-
ditions to which the face is specially liable.  These symptoms are:
  Tingling pain in the cheeks, and sensation as if they were swollen.
  Ulcerative pain in the region of the malar bones.
  Sensation as if the face were swollen and hot.
  These symptoms, in connection with the general fever-symptoms,
which Aconite excites, point to this agent as a remedy for
  Rheumatic Inflammation and sAvelling of the face, to which sensi-
tive individuals of a plethoric habit and with a scrofulous diathesis,
or who are afflicted Avith  bad teeth, are more or less liable unless
they have the means of avoiding exposure.  Use the German  tinc-
ture or the lower attenuations of the root.

  It may be proper to record here the following symptom expressive
of the peculiar action of Aconite upon the  olfactory nerve :   " The
sense of smell is very sensitive ; disagreeable odors affect him a great
deal."
  This symptom may indicate Aconite for an abnormal sensitiveness
of the olfactory nerve generally, and for
  Hysteria in particular, in which affection  this peculiar sensitive-
ness to odors sometimes constitutes a prominent symptom.


                      DENTAL GROUP.

  Aconite affects the teeth and jaws Avith more or less intensity.  It
causes  symptoms like the following :
  Pain in the articulation of the jaws Avhen chewing.
  Sudden shocks of a burning, tingling and lancinating  pain in the
lower jaw.
  Penetrating pain in the loAver jaw as if it should drop.
  Sticking and drawing pain in the left upper and loAver jaw.
  The  lower jaw is involuntarily pressed against the upper.
  Rigidity of the jaws.
  Lockjaw.
  These symptoms point to Aconite as a remedy for
  Rheumatism of the Jaws, where these laming, drawing stitchinc
and tearing pains occur.  They also show that Aconite is°one of our
great agents in
  Trismus, whether idiopathic or traumatic.   I  am not  aware that
Aconite is used much by homoeopathic physicians in this affection,
but allow me to impress its efficacy upon your minds if you have to 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
173
combat trismus resulting from rheumatic exposure, or from a shock
of the nervous system in consequence of an injury.

  In Toothache, Aconite is a most useful agent.  It causes in persons
in health a
  Sensation as if the  teeth Avere loose, Avith a burning and tingling
sensation in the jaws and tongue.
  Stinging in the teeth.
  Pressure in the upper teeth.
  The teeth are sensitive to the air.
  The teeth are set on edge.
  These symptoms show that Aconite may be of great use in tooth-
ache caused by exposure to a current of air, a keen wind, or by any
rheumatic exposure whatsoever.
  Toothache curable by Aconite, is of the congestive kind, Avith
throbbing, stinging pain, or a hard aching,  pressing pain as if the
tooth should be shattered to pieces;  inflammation of the gums, rush
of blood to the head, headache, chilliness, sensitiveness to the open
air, nervousness and restlessness.  Aconite is particularly suitable to
sensitive females, persons with a plethoric  habit of body, high  livers,
individuals addicted to the use of spirits, or leading a sedentary life,
taxing their brain, having a good deal of mental anxiety, grief.
  The symptomatic provings likewise show that in
  Rheumatic Inflammation of the Gums, Aconite may prove a valu-
able remedy.  The gums look swollen, dark-red, inflamed; they are
exceedingly tender to the touch, bleed readily; the patient complains
of a burning, creeping pain in the gums.   In scrofulous individuals,
this form of inflammation may very speedily adopt a scorbutic char-
acter.  Fever-symptoms, chilliness followed by, or mingled with
heat and  dryness of the skin,  headache, dizziness, are generally
present.   Salivation may likeAvise exist.
  In this affection we prefer the loAver preparations of Aconite, from
the first potency to one  drop  of the tincture of the root in tAvelve
tablespoonfuls  of water.


                      BUCCAL  GROUP.

  Aconite causes  a variety of symptoms in the lining membrane
and nervous tissue of the mouth which render it a valuable agent in
several harassing affections.  It causes
  Sensation of dryness or actual dryness of the mouth and tongue.
  Stinging and burning of the dorsum of the tongue; the tongue
feels sAvollen.
  Paralysis of the tongue, Avhich lasts only a short time.
  Soreness of the orifices of the salivary ducts, as if corroded.
  Pt\ alism, with stitches in the tongue.
  Coldness of the tongue.
  The lips are burning and feel SAvollen.
  Burning of the tip of the tongue.
  Numbness of the tongue. 
171
LECTURE XII.
  The tonsrue feels like leather.
  Inability to speak.
  Spasmodic sensation in the region of the root of the tongue.
  A'esicles on the tongue which burn a good deal.

  To any one Avho has studied the character of the affections to
which the mouth is liable, these symptoms must  prove highly sug-
gestive.  Some of these symptoms refer to the state of the mouth
and  tongue  such as it may exist in some forms of acute remittent
fever, more particularly in Gastric and Bilious  Fever.
  The burning on the tongue, and the soreness and smarting at the
tip of the tongue may occur in Acute Dyspepsia.
  Paralysis  of the Tongue, with numbness and inability to speak, has
been alluded to in previous paragraphs.  We must  not forget in
this  connection,  to refer to  the transitory paralysis of the tongue
occasioned by abuse of spirituous beverages.  After or during  a
drunken fit,  the tongue often feels thick, as the  phrase goes, causing
an utter inability to articulate, although the consciousness may not
be much disturbed.  This form  of paralysis yields to the tincture
of Aconite  more readily than to any  other drug,  except perhaps
Nux vomica, which is generally considered by homoeopathic physi-
cians as a panacea for paralytic conditions brought  on by alcoholic
poisoning.
  Aconite is a remedy for rheumatic
  Stomatitis, characterized by soreness of the inner mouth, ptyalism,
stitches  in the tongue, swelling and stinging-burning pains in the
gums.  AYe  have again and  again removed this condition by means
of the tincture of Aconite.
  There are two  forms of stomatitis, where Aconite is indispensable;
we allude to.
  Nursing Sore Mouth and Cancrum oris.  In these affections, Aconite
is not a panacea, but it may prove specifically adapted to some cases
of either of these affections, when the following symptoms constitute
characteristic indications:  The mouth  is studded  with  aphthous
ulcerations causing much stinging and burning pain;  they are sur-
rounded Avith inflamed borders, or the AA'hole   of the mucous mem-
brane may look  inflamed, with patches of whitish disorganizations
spread about here and there.  Ptyalism  is a   prominent symptom.
This condition of the mouth is frequently met with among nursing
females of a scrofulous or scorbutic diathesis.   It should be treated
with the tincture of Aconite, more particularly if the Avhole mouth
feels hot, very sore, and  the patient's Strength  is much reduced, the
appetite is impaired and the bowels incline to diarrhoea.
  In Cancrum oris, Avhere the disorganizing process emanates from
rheumatic inflammation of  the gums or lining membrane  of the
cheeks,  with intense stinging  and burning pain,  hot mouth, secre-
tion  of  ichorous, bloody pus, ptyalism, dark redness  of the parts,
Aconite will be  found eminently useful, if given  in doses of from
one to two drops of the tincture in twelve tablespoonfuls of water, a
spoonful every hour or two hours after an improvement once begins
to be perceived. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
175
  There are  some forms of Cancrum oris which  have to be treated
with Arsenicum, Mercurius and perhaps other drugs.  AYe  shall
speak of them in due time; for  the present let  me urge upon you
the importance of Aconite in  all cases  of this distressing affection
where  a purely rheumatic inflammation has given rise to  it, and
where the disorganizing process  is not characterized by the destruc-
tive sloughing  and the fetid ptyalism which  generally  indicate
Mercury.

   Coldness of the Tongue occurs in Asiatic Cholera, and in a feAV
other affections.

  The  burning and sensation  of swelling in the lips may be inter-
preted  as referring to a swelling  and inflammation of the upper lip
which we sometimes meet with in scrofulous subjects, more particu-
larly as the result of rheumatic exposure.  The upper lip is SAvollen,
rigid, looks red and  inflamed, feels sore,  and  may break  out  in
blisters.   A few drops of the first attenuation of the root, or a drop
of the  tincture in twelve tablespoonfuls of water, may prove the
most appropriate preparation.

  Numbness and rigidity of the tongue, or sensation as if the tongue
were like sole-leather, is a symptom which I have frequently met
with in simple Typhoid Fever.

  Glossitis or acute inflammation  of the tongue is distinctly indi-
cated by the above mentioned symptoms.   The tongue is swollen,
excessively sensitive, has a dark-red appearance, inclines to bleed;
the patient complains of a burning heat in the tongue, stinging and
shooting pains are likewise experienced in  it;  if the inflammation
is badly managed, it is apt to assume a dangerous character, and is
always attended with a high fever. Of a mixture of one drop of the
tincture of Aconite in ten tablespoonfuls of water, a tablespoonful
may be given every hour, until the patient feels  relieved.

                   PHARYNGEAL GROUP.

  In both acute and chronic affections of the throat, Aconite proves
a most efficient remedy.  Among the symptoms  recorded  by the
provers of Aconite, the following are the most note-worthy:
  Scraping in the throat, with difficulty of swallowing.
  Stinging  and  choky  feeling  in  the  throat,  especially when
swallowing or talking.
  Burning and stinging in the fauces.
  The  throat feels swollen and full.
  Sensation as of a body with sharp edges  and points being lodged
in the throat.
  Prickling burning  in the palate, throat, and along the trunk of
the Eustachian tube, with increased secretion of  saliva.
  The  saliva Avhich he spits up,  is mixed Avith clear blood, accom-
pained with sweetish taste in the mouth. 
176
LECTURE XII.
   These symptoms are of high therapeutic import to a homoeopathic
practitioner.   The burning and stinging distress, and the sense of
fulness indicate Aconite as a remedy for
   Acute Angina Faucium, Avhen the throat, (the velum, fauces, uvula
and tonsils) looks dark-red, Avith almost complete  inability to
SAvallow, heat and dryness of the throat Avhich feels very sore as if
raw;  the tonsils looks swollen like lumps of ra\v flesh; the patient
complains of stitches flying through the throat, sometimes along the
Eustachian tube to the ear.  This form of angina is always attended
with fever, creeping chills followed by heat and dryness of the skin.
Throbbing headache, dizziness,  and rheumatic pains in  the extremi-
ties, soreness of the muscles, etc, may likewise be jDresent.   In acute
angina the patient may  hawk up some blood.
   Aconite  is  adapted to acute inflammation  of  any part of the
throat; hence we may prescribe it in
   Angina Uvularis, Pharyngea, Tonsillaris, etc.   In angina tonsillaris
or tonsilitis, the rational use of Aconite  may save the patient a good
deal of suffering.  Under the  common treatment of Old School
physicians, this inflammation generally terminates in  suppuration,
causing excessive distress to the patient until  the abscess is lanced
or  discharges  spontaneously.   This  difficulty is avoided  by the
timely use  of Aconite which  scatters the  engorgements,  either
unaided or in alternation with Belladonna.   In most cases of uncomT
plicated quincy  sore throat, if  caused by rheumatic  exposure,
Aconite will be found sufficient.  In most cases the first or second
attenuation of the tincture of the root will be found sufficient; in
other cases a few  drops  of the German  tincture in a tumblerful of
water may have to be used.

   Even  in chronic Sore Throat, Aconite  may prove  exceedingly
useful  as one of the medicines to  be  employed in the case.  The
following symptoms recorded by our provers, seem to imply the
homoeopathicity of Aconite to this affection :  " Burning, and feeling
of dryness of the  soft palate and fauces, not even passing off after
a meal, and frequently inducing empty deglutition."
   In  cases of  Sore Throat, where  the patient  complains of  much
dryness and heat in the throat, wants  to moisten the  throat very
frequently, and seeks relief by continually hawking and swallowing
saliva, Aconite may prove very useful, if given every now and then,
in conjunction Avith other medicines.
   In the first stage of  Diphtheria, before plastic exudation has taken
place, if the fever runs  high, and  the inflammation of the throat
either  presents an equally diffused  appearance, or  occurs in erysipe-
latous  patches irregularly traversed by streaks of  a deeper  redness,
some  homoeopathic physicians prescribe Aconite, first or  second
attenuation; if no improvement sets in  very speedily after the use
of Aconite, Belladonna  had better  be given alone or in alternation
with the former agent.

  The inflammation, instead of being located in the pharynx may
involve the esophagus, producing oesophagitis.  The  pain may be 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
177
 felt under the sternum  or under the  riphoid cartilage, or near the
 cardia, etc., according as one or the other portion of the oesophagus
 is  inflamed.  It is an aching,  burning and shooting pain with a
 sensation of rawness when the food passes over the inflamed surface.
 on  which account emollient  drinks  should be principally used.
 Aconite should be given as in Angina of the throat.


                   CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

   Not all homoeopathic physicians seem to be aware of the compre-
 hensive range of action  peculiar to Aconite in this direction.   Few
 drugs in our Materia Medica affect the liver  as characteristically as
 Aconite ; hence feAV drugs have it in  their power to develope such
 marked changes in the condition of the chylo-poietic organs as this
 extraordinary agent.
   The  effects of Aconite upon these  organs may be conveniently
 grouped under the following heads:
   1. Taste;
   2. Appetite:
   3. Abnormal gastric secretions ;
   4. Nausea and vomiting ;
   5. Abnormal sensations during or after a meal;
   6. Abnormal sensations Avithout reference to the use of food or
 drink ;
   7. Pains in the bowels ;
   8. Alvine evacuations; exudations from the anus ; haemorrhoids:
 worms.

                            1.  Taste.

   Aconite alters the taste in various  Avays; it causes a bitter taste.
 or else a putrid taste; also a flat taste,  or a taste as of fish or rotten
 eggs.  The taste in some instances is a nauseous taste causing a feel-
 ing  of loathing; it disappears somewhat while eating, but reappears
 shortly after.   Aconite causes a smarting sensation on the tongue,
 and hence a taste as of pepper in the mouth.
   These alterations of the taste may be of great use to us in various
 fevers, and gastric derangements, to Avhich particular reference will
 be made in subsequent paragraphs.

                           2. Appetite.

   Aconite  causes loss of  appetite, also Avith a  sour  taste in  the
 mouth.  This symptom  may be present in certain forms  of Dys-
pepsia, where we have often had occasion to combat it with the first,
 second or third potency of Aconite, especially in the case of  nervous
 females of a nervous-bilious temperament.
  Aconite  likewise causes  a  form of nervous  irritation  of  the
 stomach characterized by canine hunger; the  recorded symptom is:
 "Intense feeling of hunger Avhich continues even after a meal."
 This symptom indicates Aconite in
                               12 
178
LECTURE XII.
  Bulimia, a constant  and insatiable craving for food, in spite of
which the patient may grow thin.
  This  bulimia sometimes  amounts to a  simple hungry gnawing
Avhich troubles one either more or less continually or in paroxysms,
a condition of the stomach for  Avhich the  French  use  the  very
expressive and pointed term "' agacemenV   The middle  potencies
from the sixth to the tAvelfth will relieve it.

  Aconite also causes a burning, unquenchable thirst.  This symp-
tom  may occur in  many acute affections,  where  this  agent is
indicated.

                 3.  Abnormal Gastric Secretions.

  Among these we distinguish the following characteristic effects of
Aconite:
  Sensation as if the whole mouth became filled with air and rotten
eggs. _
  Rising of sweetish  water to the  mouth, like waterbrash, some-
times accompanied with nausea.
  Scraping sensation from the pit of the stomach to the throat, with
nausea, qualmishness, and a sensation as if water Avould rise.
  Empty eructations, or ineffectual desire to eructate.
  Burning sensation  from the stomach to the mouth, through the
entire tract of the  oesophagus.
  Heartburn.
  These symptoms show how useful Aconite  may be in
  Heartburn, when characterized by the rising of sweetish Avater to
the mouth, a burning sensation along the oesophagus, and a  feeling
of qualmishness at the stomach.  This affection has already been
alluded  to, page 100.   Homoeopathic physicians  are very  much in
the habit of associating  Arsenic with burning  pains,  Both the
provings and the toxicological effects of Aconite show that a burn-
ing sensation, or the rising of a burning fluid in the oesophagus may
constitute a characteristic indication for Aconite.

  We may here mention an affection Avhich is sometimes met  with
in the case of females who are troubled with  bilious derangements.
We mean a
  Bad or Foul Taste in the pharynx, which is generally accompanied
Avith a qualmish feeling at  the stomach.   Patients complain  of a
taste as of foul flesh in the throat.  The affection seems to be patho-
logically represented by engorgement of the  capillaries, and conse-
quent secretion of foul, disorganized mucus.   It is always traceable
to, or connected with, abnormal conditions of  the bilious secretions.
No medicine will  relieve this exceedingly annoying  derangement
more  speedily than Aconite, first  attenuation of the'tincture'of the
root.

                    1. Nausea and Vomiting.

  Aconite causes
  Loathing, qualmishness, nausea and inclination to vomit, especially 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
179
in the pit of the stomach; afterwards this nausea and inclination to
vomit are sometimes experienced in the region of the sternum, and
in the throat, sometimes while walking in the open air; sometimes
these sensations are worse when sitting still, and abate again during
a walk.
   Nausea Avhich is relieved by eating.
   Inclination to vomit as after eating anything sAveet or fat.
   Yomiting,  with nausea, thirst, general heat, profuse sweat and
enuresis.
 '  Yomiting of a greenish-gray, watery liquid.
   Yomiting of green bile.
   Yomiting of blood and mucus.
   Yomiting of blood.
   Yomiting of lumbrici.
   Yomiting accompanied  by anxiety.
   These symptoms are of the utmost importance as therapeutic indi
cations, and may be turned to excellent  account  by an intelligent
homoeopathic practitioner,
   Who does not see that Aconite may prove an admirable remedy for
   Nervous Nausea of this  uncertain,  wandering order, which is pic-
tured by these provings?  At times  it is  felt under the sternum, at
other times in the throat, Avandering  about according as one or the
other set of capillary vessels  may  become irritated and congested.
For  this nausea depends upon capillary engorgement, which may
itself be traceable to an irritation of some nervous filaments of the
great sympathetic.  It  may be  caused by some sudden emotion, a
violent surprise, fright, or  by  any sudden  shock or cause whatsoever
which tends to disturb the nervous equilibrium.  One of these causes
may be pregnancy.
   Nausea, of Pregnant Females is very frequently relieved by Aconite,
especially among hysteric females, when attended with dizziness,
rush of blood, palpitation of the heart, rising of sweetish water, vom-
iting of bile.  The first six potencies will be found the most useful.
   Nausea may be a symptom of biliousness, and hence Ave shall find
that  in
   Bilious Nausea, Aconite is one of our most reliable remedial agents,
It is  particularly in the spring of the j^ear that some  persons are
liable to this kind of derangement.   They complain of loss of appe-
tite,  they feel heavy, weak, the head feels dull and dizzy, the bowels
full  and distended; the taste in the mouth is  altered, the tongue
looks coated ;  they feel sick at the stomach, are troubled Avith Avater-
brash, and even vomiting of bile.  The sallow complexion and the
dull  look indicate a bilious state of the system.   This whole group
of symptoms,pertains to Aconite more than to any other drug; hence
it will yield  to this agent.
   Amounting of bile may occur in bilious  fever, jaundice or in other
violent derangement of  the biliary  secretions.
   Vomiting of Blood or Hxmatemesis, may be arrested  by Aconite.
It may occur in consequence  of a strain or blow upon the stomach,
in Avhich case Arnica  may be  required. But if the  discharge of
blood should be attended Avith much anxietAr, palpitation of the heart, 
ISO
LECTURE XII.
soreness of the epigastric region, dizziness, paleness or violent head-
ache, Aconite may prove preferable to Arnica, or else  these two
medicines may be given in alternation.
  Yomiting of large quantities of dark red, coagulated  blood  has
been arrested by  Aconite.
  Vomiting of arterial blood, Avith  SAveetish taste in the mouth,
SAvelling of the region of  the stomach, bubbling sensation and sore-
ness in this region, prsecordial anxiety,  coldness of the extremities,
small,  hurried pulse, pale face,  requires Aconite.  A  drop of the
tincture or a few drops of the first attenuation in a  tumblerful  bf
water may be given, a tablespoonful every five or ten  minutes, until
reaction is established, the pulse bounds up, the skin becomes warm,
and the face  looks red; after Avhich Aconite  may be  continued  at
longer intervals.
  Among the  symptoms of Aconite  there  is one Avhich bears upon
this condition very characteristically; it is this:  "Sensation as of a
cold stone lying in the stomach, notwithstanding repeated vomitings
and frequent stools."  This symptom very  often precedes an attack
of baematemesis.   After the yomiting of blood has once commenced,
the coldness may  give place to a burning sensation in the  epigastric
region.

         5. Abnormal Sensations During or After a Meal.

  In this respect  the action of Aconite upon the digestive organs is
characterized  by some  exceedingly interesting symptoms, among
Avhich Ave distinguish the following:
  While eating, the  prover experiences a violent pressure in the
stomach, as if he  had eaten something indigestible, accompanied by
a feeling of warmth and sensitiveness in the pit of the stomach.
  Singultus, especially  in the  morning,   or  else  after  eating  or
drinking.
  These symptoms may characterize a peculiar form of
  Dyspepsia, with Avhich Aconite will be found in curative homoe-
opathic adaptation ; a feeling of  weight  and fullness at the stomach,
a sensation of warmth, and sensitiveness  to pressure in the  epigastric
region, raising of Avind,  and such symptoms of gastric  derangement
as have been indicated under the previous  heading.
  Many of the symptoms of  gastric derangement to which Aconite
is homoeopathic, are relieved  for a period  by eating  or  drinkino-;
they return  again one or tAvo hours  after.  This peculiar change
may be considered as characteristic to some extent of the homoeopa-
thicity of Aconite to these gastric affections.

  In Acute Indigestion,  Aconite will prove indispensable.  A few
drops of the first  attenuation  made of the tincture of the root, should
be  mixed in ten tablespoonfuls of  Avater, of which  mixture the
patient  may take a  small tablespoonful every half  hour.   Acute
indigestion is attended with a good deal of  vascular engorgement  of
the inner coats of the  stomach, and hard, aching, burning pains,
great soreness to contact, violent nausea, generally resulting  in 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
181
vomiting and hard straining  to  vomit.   All this distress is most
readily and permanently relieved by a few doses of Aconite.


7. Abnormal Sensations Without Reference to the  Use of Food or Drink.

  Aconite causes a series of abnormal sensations in the region of the
stomach, among which we distinguish the following:
  Pn-s'-ure in the stomach and pit of the stomach as from a load or
stone, with a feeling of repletion; this pressure is sometimes increased
to asthma, or it shifts to the back, occasioning a crampy sensation in
that part, and accompanied with a feeling of stiffness as one experi-
ences after having raised too heavy a  load.
  This symptom is significative of congestion which majT first affect
the stomach and then shift to the back, or even crowd upwards to-
wards the lungs.   A\re sometimes meet with  organisms where these
engorgements or congestions of the capillary system occur as habi-
tual constitutional conditions.   The congestion may shift to various
tissues or organs:  to the back, causing a sensation as if the muscles
were strained;  to the legs, causing a feeling of Aveariness and sore-
ness ; to the soles of the feet,  causing a velvety feeling or a  sensa-
tion as if one were walking on pins; and to  internal organs.  These
congestions are specifically acted upon by Aconite. Individuals of
a paralytic constitution  are very frequently troubled with them.
  This passive  congestion of the stomach, which is the peculiar form
with which Ave  have to deal here, manifests itself by  a variety of
sensations, such as:
  A feeling of  roughmess in the stomach.  This very unusual sensa-
tion is generally attended  with  symptoms of bilious  derangement,
sallow or even jaundiced complexion,  coated tongue, foul taste, loss
of appetite, weariness.   Mix one or two drops of the  German tine
ture or a drop of the first attenuation of the  tincture of the root in
twelve tablespoonsful of water, and give the patient a  tablespoonful
every two or three hours.   This feeling of roughness may be accom-
panied by a feeling of  fullness and oppression, and likewise by a
sensation as  if  the stomach were generating a quantity of  Avind;
hence for
   Wind or Flatulence  on the stomach,  Aconite may have to be given
as before.   Sometimes the wind is rolled off unceasingly; the least
pressure on the region of the  stomach will bring  up  quantities of
wind.
  This flatulent congestion of  the stomach may be distinguished by
paroxysms as if the stomach Avere swelling up and sinking again;
this sensation may be  accompanied by shortness of breath, dizziness,
as may be inferred from this symptom  recorded by the  provers of
Aconite: " Painful feeling of  savoiling in the pit of the stomach,
accompanied with Avant of appetite and paroxysms of shortness of
breath."
  Another important symptom among the Aconite-provings is the
folloAving:  "Sensation  as  of a cold  stone lying in the stomach."
This sensation may characterize a peculiar condition of 
182
LECTURE XII.
   Weakness of the stomach, and it may likeAvise be the precursor of
vomiting of blood.
   Another symptom is:  Contraction  of the  stomach as by astrin-
gents ; and
   Feeling of Aveight in the stomach, with  constriction in the throat
and nausea.  Hence Ave use Aconite in
   Cardialgia, when the stomach feels spasmodically contracted, with
hard pressure as from  a stone, excessive hard  aching pain, soreness;
relief is  had by belching up a quantity of wind; nausea and  even
retching and vomiting of mucus and bile may be present.  Use the
German  tincture or the first attenuation of the root.
   In some forms of Dyspepsia, the sensations of weight, fullness, flat-
ulent distension, raising of Avind, or the sensation as if the stomach
were  swelling up, constitute characteristic features.   These symp-
toms are more particularly experienced after eating or drinking.

                      7. Pains in the Bowels.

   Aconite is specifically adapted to the treatment of certain forms of
Bilious Colic.  In this form of  colic the bowels feel as if tAvisted  up
in a knot; they feel extremely  sore, the patient complains of a burn-
ing, tearing distress in the bowels, with nausea, vomiting  of bile,
dizziness, coldness  of  the extremities,  chilliness, quick  and small
pulse, succeeded by heat and dryness of the skin, dark flushes on the
cheeks, full  and bounding pulse,  meteorism, constipation, dark, foul
and turbid urine.  All these symptoms characterize the action  of
toxicological or medicinal doses of Aconite.   This agent is likewise
adapted  to
   Spasmodic or Inflammatory Colic, Avith drawing pains in the bowels,
or pinching, griping and tearing pains;  or  also cutting and  burning
pains, soreness of the integuments, hot flatulence, rumbling and fer-
mentation in the bowels.   The alvine  evacuations are more or less
interfered Avith, dysenteric urging or constipation and distention of
the bowels.  The first  attenuation of the tincture  of the root may be
resorted  to.
   A peculiar form of this colic is a  colic which might be termed.
   Umbilical Colic, consisting in a most painful sensation as if the
navel Vere drawn in.  This kind of colic is very pointedly hinted
at in the following  symptoms: "Retraction of the umbilicus, espe-
cially early in the morning before breakfast,"   An affection of this
kind is not common, but it does occur  occasionally.

                      8.  Alvine Evacuations.

   We have seen on page  130, that Aconite causes and is there-
fore in curative  rapport with bilious diarrhoea and dysentery,  even
when the discharges consist of black  and  fetid  stools, for Aconite
causes '■' black, fetid stools."  This agent is also useful in
   Common Catarrhal Diarrhoea, when the stools have a Avatery con-
sistence ; the discharges may either be painless or accompanied with
more  or less pinching or griping pain.   In  this sort of diarrhoea 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
183
the bowels may feel weak, as they do after taking a cathartic.  If
the first attenuation is not sufficient, a  drop of the tincture in a
tumblerful of water may be given.
  In Rheumatic Diarrhoea, with  frequent  scanty  and loose stools
and a good deal of straining or  urging, Aconite may prove indis-
pensable.   It is likewise adapted  to
  Nervous  Diarrhoea or Cholerine, with  nausea and sweet, either
before  or after the  evacuation.  This kind of diarrhoea may even
occur after an emotion, fright, chagrin.
  Aconite causes Avhite stools, Avith red urine; hence in
  Diarrhoea with deficiency  of the bilious pigment, such as may
occur when indurations of the liver  are  present, or during chronic
jaundice, Aconite may prove indispensable.
  Aconite causes diarrhoea with enuresis and colic;  hence in
  J)iarrhuia caused by worms,  or in
  Diarrhoea such as may trouble hysteric  females, Aconite may be
depended upon as one of our most reliable  agents.
  AYe should not forget Aconite in
   Cholera infantum or the common Summer-complaint of children.
The character of the discharges, the accompanying pains,  the fever,
all these symptoms point to Aconite as one of the few agents Avhich
prove specifically curative in this disease.  In  this connection  let
us not forget the
  Diarrhoea which may occur during or in  consequence of dentition,
where  Aconite may likewise prove  indispensable, if  the children
strain a good deal, the anus becomes  excoriated,  and  the  little
patients feel feverish, Avith flushed cheeks, heat about the head.
  In Diarrhoea from indigestion, when the  discharges correspond Avith
the character  of the Aconite discharges, Aconite may be an indis-
pensable remedy.   The discharges may be  watery; or they may
consist  of an  admixture  of  mucous and  faecal matter, having  an
offensive smell, of a yellow or even dark, blackish color.
  In Chronic Diarrhoea, Aconite is a most useful agent, more par-
ticularly if the diarrhoea is symptomatic  of chronic gastro-enteritis.
The patient experiences frequent urging,  passes mucus, faecal matter,
and occasionally a little blood ; the bowels  may feel sore, the patient
complains of a feeling of Avarmth in the bowels,  with drawing, tear-
ing and cutting pains;  these symptoms may be  present in parts or
all together in different degress of intensity.
  AVe need not repeat the indications for Aconite in Cholera-morbus
and the first stage of Asiatic Cholera.  For  these indication we refer
the reader to pages 130 and 131.

  Aconite has caused vomiting of lumbrici.  This symptom, together
with other symptoms characteristic of worms, indicate Aconite as a
remedy in
   Worm-affections, more particularly when  the folloAving symptoms
prevail: Feverishness, flow of water from the mouth, nausea, sensa-
tion as of something crawling up  the oesophagus; ravenous hunger,
itching  at the nose  and anus; burning  and smarting sensation at
the anus; frequent desire to urinate, nocturnal enuresis; tympanitic 
131
LECTURE XII.
distention  of the bowels;  alternate constipation  and  diarrhoea;
involuntary passage of faeces.   Given from the first  to  the  sixth
potency.

   Aconite causes " momentary paralysis of the anus,  and stinging
and pressure in the anus."   These symptoms may lead to
   Prolapsus  of the  Anus, Avhich may be Arery successfully treated
Avith Aconite.
   This condition may occur during an attack of dysentery, especially
in the case of children, in consequence of the violent straining which
may induce a sudden and violent eversion of the anus.  Under these
circumstances the anus may be seen forced out, and engorged with
blood, looking like a sacculated pouch  of bloody membrane and
muscular fibre.   Mix a drop of the tincture bf the root in ten table-
spoonfuls of water, of which a  small tablespoonful may be given
every hour until the prolapsus ceases,
   Aconite causes "painful  contractions around the  anus."  This
symptom leads us to use this agent in
   Stricture of the Anus, where Aconite may perhaps compete with
Nux, Mercurius corrosivis, and other drugs.
   Aconite causes the following symptoms pointing to its use in
   Haemorrhoids or Piles: " burning or sensation of heat in the haemor-
rhoidal vessels;"  "sensation as of a warm liquid being discharged
from the anus;" flow of white mucus from the anus, with itching;
" flowing piles."
   For this burning sensation in the haemorrhoidal vessels, homoeo-
pathic physicians generally  prescribe Arsenic or Carbo vegetabilis.
In this they follow a blind routine.   Charcoal has nothing whatsoever
to do with it.  We have known the first attenuation of the tincture
of the root of Aconite  to relieve this burning distress,  Avhen the
patient Avas almost made frantic by the horrid and most  agonizing
suffering.
   A discharge of blood from the haemorrhoidal vessels, when attended
with weakness, or even fainting,  in consequence of the pain and loss
of blood, is arrested by Aconite  more frequently than  by any other
agent.   Give from the first to the sixth potency.
   Our provings show that even the so called
   White Piles, or a continual discharge of white mucus from the anus,
may be removed by means of Aconite.

   Aconite may  be indispensable to counteract the consequences
of a
   Sudden Suppression of Piles, such as headache, backache, palpitation
of the heart, violent colic, dyspnoea. • In this connection Ave may
likeAvise allude to Aconite as the most appropriate remedy for the
consequences of
  Suppression of  Diarrhoea,  which may take place either in conse-
quence of a sudden violent emotion, a fright, for instance, or as the
effect of  an opiate, an astringent, such as  Opium, Lead,  etc.  This
suppression may  be characterized by dangerous congestions about
the brain, heart, lungs, which Aconite will remove. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
185
  Aconite will also heal
  Soreness and Excoriations around the anus, with stinging, smarting
and burning pains, exudation of serum, even when of a sanguineous
character.  The  bowels are  generally constipated, and  the parts
around the anus may even be studded with little boils, or inflamed
tumors.
  Few homoeopathic practitioners are aware that Aconite is a remedy
for
  Constipation; yet among the symptoms of Aconite Ave have "hard
stool passed with hard pressing;" and as one of the curative effects
of Aconite we  have this record in Jahr's Symptomen- Codex: retention
of stool in acute  affections.
  In a case of  acute catarrhal or rheumatic fever, either diarrhoea or
constipation may be present.  This may depend upon peculiar con-
stitutional  tendencies, or  upon the peculiar  manner  in Avhich the
functions of the  liver are  involved.   Aconite may be indicated  by
either condition.   Do not imitate the idle manoeuvre of many physi-
cians who,  under these circumstances, consider themselves bound to
associate with Aconite  the purely  symptomatic use  of  Pulsatilla,
Bryonia, Nux or some  other medicine supposed to  be adapted to
the diarrhoea or constipation existing in the case. If constipation is
present during an inflammatory fever to Avhich  Aconite is homoeo-
pathic, this agent will sufficiently restore the irritability of the intes-
tinal fibre to induce regular contractions and consequent evacuations.
  A single dose of Aconite, first to sixth potency, is sometimes
sufficient to induce a discharge  from the boAvels, after rhubarb, jalap,
calomel had failed.   AYe  once  were called to such a case, Avhere a
Avoman who had  a common rheumatic fever,  had taken a Avhole  lot
of cathartics and drastics for the purpose of procuring stool.  These
drugs had remained inoperative.  AVe found  the bowels enormously
distended and utterly torpid; not the remotest disposition to  have a
discharge.   A single dose of Aconite excited the peristaltic  motion
and procured  complete relief, besides  inducing copious perspiration
and effecting a perfect cure of the fever.
  Under the allceopathic  treatment of acute rheumatic fevers, the
bowels are very apt to remain torpid.  AAre once cured a constipation
of this kind, where the  patient, a lady of 75 years, had  not had a
passage from  the bowels for tAventy-one  days. A single drop of
Aconite,  18th  potency, was sufficient to move them; she discharged
a hard, dry substance which looked like burnt peat,  The  boAvels
remained  regular after this one evacuation.   The character of such
a black-looking discharge corresponds with the folloAving Aconite-
symptom:  "Discharge of  black, fetid faecal matter, Avhich may  be
either soft, diarrhoeic, or hard and burnt like coal."
  In  some  forms of spinal  irritation,  when that  portion  of the
column Avhich supplies nerves to the liver, is the seat of the trouble,
the bowels are very torpid, and Avhat passes the bowels looks  dark
and burnt  like coal.  Aconite is the proper remedy for this sort of
torpor.
  Aconite  may likewise be necessary every now and then, Avhen the
constipation depends upon a form of liver-complaint to Avhich Aconite 
186                      LECTURE XIII.

is homoeopathic; the stools have a dark-brown, dry appearance, and
are pressed out with great difficulty.

  Aconite may likeAvise be useful in some cases of constipation in-
duced by abuse of cathartics;  it may help to restore the weakened
contractile energies of the intestinal fibre.
                 LECTURE  XIII.

                     URINARY GROUP.

  AYe have shown in former paragraphs the  homoeopathicity of
Aconite to Cystitis and Urethritis.  Among the provings of Aconite
we read the folloAving symptoms which unequivocally point to such
affections:
  Retention of urine, with pressure in the bladder, or stitches in the
region of the kidneys;
  Burnino- and tenesmus of the neck of the  bladder,  between the
acts of micturition;
  Single shooting stitches in the urethra, Avhen walking;
  Burning in the urethra from one orifice  to the other, during mic-
turition ;
  BroAvn, burning urine, with brick-colored sediment.
  Cystitis may occur in consequence of rheumatic exposure, or of an
injury to the  bladder;  urethritis may  take  place  from the same
causes.
  In  Dysuria  or even Ischuria, Aconite  may  prove  a  sovereign
remed}'.  A cold on the bladder may induce this affection ;  there is
a constant and most  painful urging to urinate, with discharge of a
drop of urine every uoav  and then, or an utter inability to urinate.
Besides the above-mentioned symptoms, the following symptom like-
Avise indicates Aconite in this affection: " Difficult and scanty emis-
sion of urine, with frequent urging,  and  sometimes  accompanied
with pinching around the umbilicus."

  Aconite causes : " Momentary paralysis of the bladder, with invol-
untary emission of urine."  This symptom speaks for itself.  A para-
lytic condition of this kind may occur among old people, or as the
effect of a cold, or as a symptom of constitutional weakness.  Aconite
is a capital remedy in this  affection ;  even in chronic  cases it may
be used every now and then as an intercurrent  remedy.   If paralysis
of the bladder should develop itself as the sequela of an  operation,
Aconite is the  very best remedy to restore the  contractility of the
sphincter.
  Aconite causes : " Enuresis, sometimes accompanied with profuse
sweat, or Avith diarrhoea and colic ; or likewise Avith distortion of the
eyes and contraction of the feet."
  This symptom justifies the use of Aconite in 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
187
  Enuresis, Avhen worm-symptoms are present;  or Avhen the weak-
ness was induced by a cold, a fright.  Also in the
  Nocturnal Enuresis of children, Aconite may do us great service.

  This symptom has likewise induced us to use  Aconite with good
effect in acute
  Albuminuria, during the first stage of the disease when the deposit
consists chiefly of glucose or grape-sugar, and the  urine looks watery.
Aconite diminishes the quantity of  urine and shows a decided tend-
ency to check the waste of sugar.

  Aconite  produces  symptoms which point to  this agent as  a
remedy in
  [rritable Bladder, especially of hysteric females; it causes:  " Painful,
anxious  urging to urinate, which is sometimes  excited by merely
touching the abdomen, and at times results in the frequent discharge
of a watery urine.
  Shaking  sensation in the region of the bladder, during urination.
  The  bladder feels painful, Avhen Avalking.
  All these symptoms exist with more or less intensity in the case
of females who are troubled with hysteria.
  Aconite may likewise be used in a case of
  Renal Calculus, for the purpose of relieving the spasm excited by
the passage of the calculus through the ureter or urethra.
  Let us not overlook the eminent use of Aconite in
  Acute Gonorrhoea, with burning pains which cause the patient to
faint, inability to urinate,  discharge  of  blood  from the urethra;
Aconite, given in one or two drops of the tincture in a tumblerful
of water, will  afford great relief.  It is more particularly indicated,
if the sudden arrest of the  discharge in consequence of exposure to
catarrhal or rheumatic  causes, should  lead  to  agonizing  distress,
haemorrhage from the urethra.
  Dr. Helmuth, of St. Louis, has mentioned a case of gonorrhceal
urethritis where the discharge being suddenly arrested, a most ago-
nizing  burning pain was experienced by the patient.   This pain was
attended Avith  haemorrhage from the urethra.  After trying Canthar-
ides and other medicines without any result, the tincture of Aconite-
root was given in drop-doses, a few doses being sufficient not only to
quiet the pain and arrest the haemorrhage, but to remove the  Avhole
trouble.                                           ,
  In the January number  of  the Liverpool  Medico-Chirurgical
RevieAV, 1858, the folioAving interesting cases of Stricture are reported,
evincing the sedative properties of Aconite in spasm and inflamma-
tion in a most satisfactory manner:
  " I had  recently under' my  care, at the  Infirmary," says  Air.
Long, "at the same time, three cases of irritable and  almost imperme-
able stricture of the urethra; in all of which it was  impossible to
make any  progress  by dilatation,  in  consequence  of  the  severe
rigors Avhich ensued after each attempt to pass the catheter.   Find-
ing that the ordinary appliances did not prevent the occurrence of
the  rigors, and that the introduction of the instrument could not be 
188
LECTURE XIII.
attempted oftener than three or four times in a fortnight, in consequence
of the severe local and constitutional irritation which followed  its
use, I adopted the following plan: I gave two  minims of Fleming's
tincture of Aconite,  in an  ounce of Avater, immediately  after the
introduction of the instrument.  The result was as folloAVs:  In one
case the tincture was given Avithout any omission, after every intro
duction of the instrument; no  rigors occurred, and the treatment
progressed without any interruption to a favorable termination.  In
the second, the same  result occurred.  On one  occasion, the tincture
was omitted as an experiment, and a rigor occurred, folloAved by  its
usual consequences.  The tincture Avas resumed, and no rigor again
occurred, though the instrument was allowed to remain in the stric-
ture for half an  hour or longer.  This case did Avell, but the man
left the Infirmary before the dilatation Avas fully completed.
  In the third case,  which Avas the most  severe, no rigor occurred
Avhilst the tincture Avas given, and the case was progressing favor-
ably.   The Aconite Avas, as in the second case, omitted, for the sake
of experiment, and two introductions of the instrument Avere effected
Avithout the  occurrence of rigor.  On the third occasion, however, so
severe a rigor, and such untoward local and constitutional symptoms
were  experienced, that up to the present moment no further use of
the instrument could be attempted.   I conclude that in  the above
cases, the tincture of Aconite, by its direct sedative power, exerted a
powerful influence in preventing the occurrence of rigors, and that
in similar cases it may become a valuable addition to the means
usually employed."
   The sedative power of Aconite here alluded to, depends upon its
spasm and inflammation-exciting  properties.   AVe know that  large
doses of Aconite will excite spasms and inflammation in the healthy,
and we therefore infer—and  experience justifies this inference—
that these symptoms Avhen occurring as signs of a natural malady,
will disappear under the use of the same agent.

   In a case  of Urethritis Avhich I treated some time ago, I had strik-    *
ing evidence of the necessity of conducting the medical treatment
of a case in accordance with the dictates of a sound  pathology, and
not by the delusive light  of purely symptomatic  indications.  The
patient, a man of about fifty, had been exposed to a violent draught
of air, the consequence of which Avas an acute inflammation of the
mucous lining of the  uretha.  A profuse discharge of purulent
mucus soon set in, Avhich Avas considered as an  indication for Canna-
bis, and other medicines among the symptoms -of which " discharge
of pus or mucus from  the urethra" may be found.  Of course, such
treatment was utterly unavailing, and after having been trifled Avith
for weeks, his recovery did not take  place until, by my advice, he
put himself on the use of Aconite.   This  Avas the  remedy  in the
case.   The purulent discharge Avas the inevitable consequence of the
vascular engorgements in the  urethra, which furnished an exorbi-
tant supply to the secretory action of the  lining  membrane.  And,
reasoning a  little further, we readily perceive that the  secreted mucus
must be thick and  purulent, just as water  which  is deprived  of
motion, will become  foul,  muddy and offensive. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
189
                      SEXUAL  GROUP.

  In many derangements to which the  sexual organs are subject,
Aconite is an  eminently useful  and indeed indispensable agent.
Many of these  derangements have already been pointed out; we
will now complete the list, and endeavor to establish the homoeo-
pathicity of Aconite to these affections  by referring  them to the
physiological effects which this drug has developed by provings.
  Aconite causes a few symptoms denoting  inflammatory  irritation,
such as:
  Itching of the prepuce; stinging and pinching in the glans when
urinating.  These symptoms may occur in
  Balanitis, especially when arising from a cold.

  Aconite causes a pain in the scrotum as if contused.   This symp-
tom may point to the use of this  agent in Orchitis, or inflammatory
conditions of the scrotum, such as may develop themselves in conse-
quence of retrocession  of  gonorrhoea,  contusions,  rheumatic in-
flammation.

  Aconite affects the sexual instinct as well as the sexual power.  It
causes amorous paroxysms, or else a diminution of the sexual desire,
or an increase of the  sexual desire, alternating Avith  sudden relaxa-
tion of the penis.  It also causes a drawing up of the scrotum, and
frequent involuntary nocturnal emissions.
  Here we have a series of effects showing that Aconite affects the
nervous life of  the sexual organs as it is affected by
  Self abuse or  excessive sexual  intercourse.  Young men who are
addicted to this vice,  often  complain of a weakness of the  sexual
organs characterized by spasmodic but speedily-exhausted  erections,
ending in sudden relaxation of the penis and  sometimes attended
Avith spasmodic retraction of the scrotum.
  Involuntary Emissions arising from such a cause, are advantageously
treated Avith Aconite.  There is a constant tendency  to vascular
engorgements of the sexual organs Avhich result in these extremely
Aveakening losses.

  A remarkable symptom of Aconite is the following; Auolent itch-
ing of the  scrotum obliging one to scratch the part  until it bleeds.
We have frequently met  with this,
  Itching of the Scrotum, in the case of nervous and bilious persons
of a cachectic, scrofulous  constitution ; it is attended Avith a burning
distress about the scrotum, and is almost  maddening.   Aconite may
afford relief in  some cases.

  It is especially in the case of females that Aconite affects the
sexual life  Avith a peculiar intensity and varied poAver.  It causes  a
profuse discharge of the menstrual fluid amounting even to haemor-
rhage ; hence avc find Aconite specifically adapted to
  Metrorrhagia, Avhen the blood is bright-red, and a certain order of
constitutional symptoms is present, such as: dizziness, rush of blood 
190
LECTURE XIII.
to the head, palpitation of the heart, feeble and nerA'ous pulse, with
coldness of the extremities, sickness at the stomach, bearing-down
pain or Aveight in the uterine region.  EA'en in simple
   Excessive Menstruation, when similar symptoms are present, more
particularly in the case of nervous, sensitive, plethoric females, Aco-
nite will be found eminently  useful.   From the first to  the sixth
potency may be sufficient.
   Amenorrhea or menstrual suppression in consequence of exposure
to Avet, or  similar rheumatic  causes,  may yield  to  Aconite.  The
patients may feel weary and heavy, the bowels may feel sore and dis-
turbed, and troublesome  symptoms of congestion about the heady
lungs, heart, liver, or small of  the back, may show themselves.
   AVe have explained, on previous occasions, how it is that the same
medicine may be  in homoeopathic  rapport with two  apparently an-
tagonistic conditions.   Large doses of  Aconite may induce  uterine
haemorrhage, small doses would bring about menstrual suppression,
although moderate doses of Aconite repeated for a sufficient length
of time, may develop a congested and relaxed condition of the uterine
vessels which must inevitably  lead to abnormal discharges of blood.

   Aconite  not only causes profuse menstruation, but the  flow may
be accompanied with spasmodic pains in the boAvels ;  violent drag-
ging pains in the uterine region, nausea,  headache, paleness of the
face; hence in
   Dysmenorrhcea where these symptoms are present, Aconite proves
a very useful agent.   We have often relieved in a very short space
of time the most intense distress, more particularly  when given in
alternation with Cocculus, Avhere  Cocculus alone seemed insufficient.

   Aconite  causes a copious, tenacious, yelloAvish
   Leucorrhcea, which may sometimes exist in the place of, or after
the termination of a menstrual discharge, more  particularly in the
case of plethoric individuals.  A few drops of the German tincture
or of the first three  attenuations of the root are  appropriate doses
in these affections.

   Aconite  causes "frenzy on the  appearance  of the catamenia."
May we not avail ourselves of this symptom as an indication for
Aconite in
  Puerperal Mania and Convulsions? It is more especially, if symp-
toms had occurred during pregnancy to  Avhich Aconite is homoeo-
pathic, that this agent will prove useful in those  dreadful disorders.
Among these symptoms Ave distinguish:  apprehensions of death;
frequent congestions about the head;  fitful mood, alternate  depres-
sion of spirits and extreme mirthfulness.  An attack of this kind
may likeAvise set in in consequence of a sudden fright, with suppres-
sion of the lochial discharge or milky secretion.

  Aconite  causes: " Increase of milk in the mammae."  This symp-
tom indicates the  use of Aconite in
   Galactorrhcea, in the case of  plethoric females,  Avith highly sensi- 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
191
tive constitutions and nervous temperaments.   Per contra, Ave may
use Aconite for the purpose of stimulating the secretion of milk in
  Agalactia, or deficient secretion of milk, especially in the case of
anaemic girls who are habitually cold, or  in  the  case  of nervous,
delicate females  whose lochial  discharges are excessive.   It  will
likewise promote the flow of milk in the case of plethoric females
whose breasts are turgid Avith milk, but where the  irritability of the
galactiferous vessels seems inadequate to the business of excreting
the fluid.
                   CATARRHAL GROUP.

  In this range Aconite proves a most important agent.  Its action
upon the Schneiderian membrane is characterized by the following-
symptoms :
  Violent sneezing, with pain in the abdomen, or in the region of
the left ribs;
  Coryza, headache, humming in the ears and colic;
  Complete dryness of the nose ;
  Discharge of a clear liquid from the nose.
  Aconite  also causes : a stupefying pressure over the root of the
nose, and bleeding from the nose.
  Here  we have  a group of exceedingly characteristic symptoms
which point to an irritation of the  Schneiderian membrane such as
may occur in a common
   Cold in the Head, Catarrh, Influenza, especially if this pressure over
the root of the nose  is  present, or a weight in the  frontal  region,
indicating  engorgement of the frontal sinuses  which is sometimes
relieved by nose-bleed.  It is strange that homoeopathic physicians
are so generally inclined to overlook the homoeopathicity of Aconite
to catarrhal irritation of the Schneiderian membrane.  AVhat is the
use of  our provings, if, instead of being guided  by this  kind of
experience in the application of our drugs, we  keep folloAving the
dark and brutalizing  banner of empirical routine ?  If, in the first
stage of a cold in the head, there  is violent  sneezing, discharge of
water from the  nose and eyes, frontal headache, or simply a dullness
and tightness in the frontal region, with coldness or chilliness of the
body, Aconite will prove one of our most reliable remedies if given
in the lower potencies.
   A catarrhal affection of this kind may come to us after it has been
neglected either by a  complete absence of treatment or by treatment
of a Avrong kind.  A  thick, purulent mucus is discharged from the
nose; the nose  may feel painful even up  the cribriform plate; the
suppurative  process  and  consequent soreness may even   extend
throughout the whole tract of the frontal sinuses, causing  a great
deal of  distress, stupefying dullness and  heaviness in the forehead,
inability to think clearly  and coherently, and  even constitutional
disturbances  of a more or less marked character.  Again and again
have we ^ecn such difficulties yield to the steady use of the tincture
of  Aconite in  tablespoonful doses  of  a  solution of one drop in a 
192
LECTURE XIII.
 tumblerful  of water.  Many a chronic catarrh is entailed upon a
 patient Avhich might have been prevented by the use of Aconite. It
 is generally in catarrhal irritations of the Schneiderian membranes
 where Aconite is indicated and  not used, that a chronic catarrh is
 the consequence of this most reprehensible neglect.  In
   Ciironic Catarrh, where the nose seemed stopped up, and Avhere
 the patient  is frequently troubled Avith discharges of pus and blood,
 or even thick mucus from the nose, having an offensive smell,  and
 culminating every noAV and then in acute paroxysms, with tight
 feeling in the frontal region, aching pains in the forehead, sense of
 swelling in the nose, sneezing and  other  symptoms of an  acute
 catarrh, Aconite is an indispensable agent both  for the purpose of
 controlling  the paroxysm, and  as a neutralizer of the chronic taint.
 In this business  the Aconite may have to be  associated  Avith  the
 Bichromate of Potash, Sulphur, and other antipsorics.  Aconite is
 homoeopathic, as our provings shoAV us, to
   Dry Catarrh, an affection which may befal both full-grown persons
 and children, and is sometimes very anoying, especially to infants
 at the breast and to larger children.   The nose seems stopped up, a
 difficulty  which is more particularly apparent when  children  are
 asleep; they have to breathe with their  mouths  wide open.  The
 following symptom  among the provings  points  to this condition:
 "The breathing through the nose is interrupted especially when
 asleep."
   We have often relieved paroxysms of this kind with a few doses
 of Aconite internally and a weak solution rubbed at the same time
 upon the nose.

   The violent sneezing which Aconite causes, points to the use of
 this agent in the
   Spasmodic Sneezing to Avhich some individuals are subject.  The
 spasmodic irritation  of the Schneiderian membrane is sometimes so
 violent that the patient seeks relief by artificial means.  The anti-
 spasmodic virtues of Aconite point to this  agent as one of the means
 of quieting  the spasm, especially if the sneezing is attended Avith a
 sensation as though the head Should  fly to pieces, or if it jars the
 abdomen  causing  painfulness of the abdominal integuments and
 internal tissues.

  The peculiar action of Aconite upon the Avindpipe and bronchial
 passages is characteristic of catarrhal irritation of various forms and
 degrees of intensity.  Aconite causes, among other symptoms, the
 folioAving series of more or less important therapeutic indications:
  Attacks of catarrh and coryza, sometimes accompanied with head-
 ache, colic, humming in the ears and  coryza.
  Hoarseness early in the morning.
  Croaking  voice.
  Sensitiveness of the larynx to the inspired air, as if the mucous
membrane were deprived of its epithelium.
  Feeble sound of the voice.
  Sensation  as if the sides of the larynx Avere pressed too-cther. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
193
   Pressure and burning pains along the trachea, down to the pit of
the stomach.
   Roughness  extending along the trachea, and  inducing frequent
coughing fits.
   Sensation as if the trachea had gone to sleep.

   The first symptom of this series indicates Aconite in
   Common Influenza, where a sense  of chilliness, soreness  of the
flesh, weariness, etc., are likewise present.   The  first six potencies
may be used.
   The next symptom: Hoarseness and croaking voice, or feeble
sound of the voice, shoAvs that Aconite may enable us to restore the
use of the voice, if it should have become weakened or lost in con-
sequence  of some cause or  other, exposure to rheumatic influences,
excessive exertions while talking or singing, or a mechanical injury
of the larynx, a fall, for instance, upon this organ.
   Catarrhal Hoarseness may yield  quite readily to Aconite, if the
patient complains of much dryness in  the throat, or a feeling  of
roughness, warmth, fullness or  a choky sensation.  This kind  of
hoarseness, provided Aconite  is in homoeopathic rapport Avith it, is
never Avithout some alteration of the  pulse and temperature of the
skin ;  the pulse is somewhat accelerated, rising perhaps from  75  to
^5 beats;  and a certain degree of fe\rerishness is necessarily present,
some chilliness or a sense of coldness at first, folloAved by a feeling
of Avarmth and some moisture.
   Hoarseness  may arise from a mechanical injury of the larynx,
more particularly from a blow or fall upon this organ.  An injury
of this kind may lead to complete
  Aphonia or loss of voice Avhich may terminate in laryngeal phthisis.
No medicine seems to be possessed  of as much power as Aconite,  to
remove the consequences of such  an  accident.  It neutralizes the
effects of such a violent shock  upon the nervous system, and dis-
perses the capillary engorgement Avhich Avill necessarily set in in the
injured part, leading to suppuration, ulceration and fatal  phthisis.
The lower potencies and even the tincture may be used.

  There is a species of hoarseness which comes on more particularly  «
towards evening, a sort of
   Chronic evening-hoarseness, most generally the result of a neglected
or mismanaged catarrh, and A^ery frequently accompanied by a feel-
ing of weakness in the bronchial passages, a sense of oppression or
even some aching pain or soreness in the chest.  For this form  of
chronic hoarseness the  loA\rer potencies of Aconite  may prove emi-
nently useful.

  Hoarseness may be the beginning of
  Chronic Bronchitis. The patient complains of soreness in the larynx
and trachea, raises a SAveetish mucus; he experiences some heat in
the parts, an aching pain and even a  little soreness when making
pressure externally.  Even a little blood  may be hawked up.   Here
Aconite will often succeed, if a cure is  at  all possible, in arresting
                               13 
191
LECTURE XIII.
the development of the bronchitis, and finally restoring the patient's
health.  In an affection of this kind, Avhere the pathological character
of the disease remains the same,  notAvithstanding  apparent symp-
tomatic changes, it would be  absurd  to adopt the plan which is so
frequently pursued by  superficial symptomists, namely, to change
the remedy Avith  every  change in the apparent symptoms.   The
leading remedy which  will  quicken the sinking innervation, and
restore the physiological harmony of the suffering tissues, is Aconite,
Avhich may be associated Avith one or tAvo appropriate  antipsorics,
without going the  round of the Materia  Medica.

  There are other  symptoms  in  the  aboA'e mentioned series which
point to chronic bronchitis.   One is  the sensation as if the  trachea
had gone to sleep.   We have met with this symptom in the incipient
stage of this disease.
  Other symptoms are the pressure  and burning pains along the
trachea, down to the pit of the stomach, and likeAvise  the sensation
of roughness down the trachea, inducing frequent coughing.
  The '"sensitiveness of the larynx  to the inspired air, as if the
mucous membrane Avere deprived of its epithelium," is a distinct
indication for Aconite in deep-seated inflammatory affections of the
larynx, Avhich, if of a chronic character, are likely to terminate in dis-
organization of the lining membrane, more particularly in
  Laryngeal Phthisis ; or Ave  diagnose from this symptom
  Laryngitis, either acute or chronic, Avhich may prove  a curable
malady.   If 1 recommend Aconite is this affection, you at once per-
ceive that my recommendation is based upon the results of positive
experimentation.   Nor Avill it be necessary to resort  to the tincture ;
the first six potencies Avill be found amply sufficient to effect curative
results.  In
   Croup, Aconite is likeAvise indicated by this symptom.   If used in
time,  it may prevent the formation of a false membrane.   The symp-
toms which characterize the inflammatory stage of croup, inflamma-
tory fever, hoarseness, shrill and cracking sound of the voice, redness
of the fauces and velum extending doAvn the throat  as far as we can
see, with signs of incipient exudation on the inflamed parts, corres-
pond  with the physiological action of Aconite upon  the throat and
larynx.

  Among the symptoms of Aconite there is one Avhich deserves par-
ticular mention; it is this:   " Paralytic  Aveakness of the  epiglottis,
causing the ready  passage of  food and drink into the larynx during
deglutition, which  induces a suffocative sensation, Avith cough."
  This weakness may occur as an  actual morbid condition, and is
generally represented pathologically by congestion and consequent
tumefaction of the epiglottis.   A change of this kind mav likeAvise
constitute a prominent feature in
  Laryngismus stridulus or Asthma Millari, in Avhich affection Aco
nite is eminently specific; the affection is characterized  by violent
paroxysms of suffocative breathing which often rouse the  child from
its slumber Avith a  shrill cry;  the pulse becomes small and hurried, 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.                  195
the face looks congested, purplish, the lips are blue, swollen, the eyes
express agonizing distress.   Give Aconite, first potency.

  The action of Aconite upon the air-passages is characterized by
   Cough which has a catarrhal or rheumatic character.  According
to our recorded provings, Aconite causes a
  Dry and hard cough;
  Violent, dry cough, with spasmodic constriction of the anus;
  Short and dry cough arising from a titillation in the larynx; the
cough is  particularly excited by smoking, or after  drinking, or at
night;
  Cough which is worse at night, when the paroxysms set in even-
half hour;
  Cough, with a fluid, frothy expectoration;
  When coughing, the chest feels sore, and the larynx raw.
  These different forms of  cough occur more  particularly in conse-
quence of a cold on the chest.  Cough to Avhich Aconite is homoe-
opathic, has a more or less  spasmodic character.  It  is a fatiguing,
wearing cough, as if the chest should be torn to pieces or  as if the
brain should be shattered by the concussion.   The cough may seem
to proceed from  a  sore  spot  in the air-passages, or even from the
larynx, the bifurcation  of the trachea.   This kind of  cough may
occur in a chronic form,  when a dose of Aconite may still be indis-
pensable every now and then.  Pulmonary engorgements are always
present in cough which requires Aconite for its remedial agent; a
certain order of pains corresponds with these engorgements, such as
aching, sore,  shooting, sticking pains.   Several of  these  Aconite
symptoms point very clearly at
  Pleuro-pneumonia or Pleurisy; they are " stitches of various degrees
of intensity, in the chest and sides of the chest, especially during an
inspiration and when coughing, frequently accompanied with a plain-
tive and whining mood, with anguish and ill-humor, or with oppres-
sion of breathing."   Another sjmiptom reads :
  " Lancinations in the region of the heart, apparently in the pleura
costalis, hindering respiration and the erect posture, with sensitive-
ness to pressure in this portion of the thorax.

  The congestion which Aconite excites in the lungs, is  marked by
a series of peculiar pains and  abnormal sensations generally.   AVe
have
  Aching, oppressive and constrictive pain in the chest or side of the
chest;
  Pain in the  chest as if the sides of the chest were drawn tOAvards
each other;
  Feeling of Aveight in the chest as if it were compressed on all sides:
  Sobbing inspirations owing to a retarded circulation of the blood,
and  a distinctly-felt congestion of blood in the lungs;
  AVeight and a feeling of fulness in the chest, Avith  sensation as if
the lungs would not expand sufficiently, which frequently obliges one
to draAv a long breath;
  Oppression  of the chest, increased by a deep inspiration; 
196
LECTURE XIII.
  Aching pain in the upper and left region of the chest;  the place
is painful Avhen touched ;
  Feeling of weight behind the sternum, preventing deep inspiration;
  Painful pressure from the sternum to the vertebral column;
  Weight in the chest, accompanied by a number of fine, but violent
stitches in the left breast, from without inwards;
  ATiolent darting stitches in the chest;
  Soreness behind the sternum as if the parts were bruised ;
  Feeling of  heat in the lungs;
  Burning sensation  in the lungs as if some hot  fluid would  rise
into the mouth.
  These very characteristic effects of Aconite upon the respiratory
apparatus occur more or less in disease of the  lungs and bronchial
tubes Avhich are characterized by acute or chronic congestion.  When
these  symptoms  occur, cough  is generally present.  This cough is
very frequently of a tearing character, spasmodic and paroxysmal. It
is peculiar to  affections with which Aconite is in therapeutic rap-
port, to be exacerbated in the evening and forepart of the night. This
characteristic  peculiarity likewise occurs among  the  provings of
Aconite,  Avhere we  find the following record.  " In the evening, all
the  chest-symptoms  are  aggravated."  The expectoration which
accompanies the cough, is of various kinds, frothy, fluid like Avater,
albuminous, purulent and even bloody as we shall  see by and by.

  Some of the  symptoms which the provings  of Aconite have
yielded, show its relation to a state of passive congestion or
  Anosmia of  the lungs ; among these symptoms we distinguish for
instance the following:
  " Creeping and crawling  in the chest as of beetles; sobbing inspi-
rations ;  feeling of fullness and Aveight in the chest; the chest feels
Aveary and exhausted."
  This creeping and  crawling sensation in the  lungs we have often
known to occur in the case of individuals whose lungs feel exhausted,
emptied out as it were; in the case of females for instance whose
chests have become Avorn out by excessive nursing.  Aconite, third or
sixth potency, Avill re-excite the process of innervation, and this stim-
ulating effect of the drug is generally marked by a creeping or crawl-
ing sensation through the lungs. Most homoeopathic physicians who
are simply guided in the use of drugs by the reminiscences of the
past,  consider Aconite homoeopathic  only to states  of hyperemia,
such  as occur in acute congestions or inflammations.   It is only the
new and progessive minds of  our School who  seem to be aware of
the fact that Aconite is likeAvise homoeopathic to the opposite states
of  ansemia, more   particularly Avhen  induced  by such  draining
processes as bleeding, nursing, or even when  merely symptomatic
of a chlorotic diathesis, or  of tuberculosis resulting from a chlorotic
condition of  the system.  If losses of the vital fluids  are the cause
of anaemia, Aconite should be  administered in small doses, hardly
ever below the sixth potency, lest the subsequent reaction should be
too violent.  If a  chlorotic or tubercular diathesis is the constitu-
tional cause or rather the determining condition of anaemia, Aconite 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
197
may very frequently be  given in much larger doses; even  the
tincture of the root may be admissible in some cases.  In  making
this assertion, we of course speak from our own experience, which
we are prepared to substantiate by a number of facts.

  Among these  chest-symptoms of  Aconite, there is  one which
deserves particular mention ;  it is this : " Mucous rattling which can
be heard at a distance."
  I desire to  invite your attention to this symptom.  Your may hear
this rattling,  as if the air-passages were full of loose  mucus, in
  Catarrhus senilis,  or the bronchial catarrh of old people which is
so apt to terminate in paralysis.  We also hear  it in the catarrh of
children who seem  to be choked by this rattling mucus without
being able to hawk it up.  We are here reminded by our provings
that, if this symptom should occur in catarrh which  has assumed  a
predominant  nervous form, Aconite is one of the medicines which
is in hooeopathic rapport with the disease.

  We have  to  single  out  another symptom which we have  met
with in
  Mucous Phthisis ;  it is this: " when breathing, the air-passages feel
distended, so that the air passes  with extreme facility in and out."
When occurring as a natural symptom, it seems to imply a thinness
of the mucuous lining in consequence of the excessive  waste, and
must therefore be looked upon as an unfavorable indication. In the
course  of mucous phthisis, Aconite may be resorted to  every now
and then, but it should not be administered in too low a dose.

   The symptom: " Rattling and vibratory trembling of the trachea,"
which we find  recorded among the  provings, has been known to
occur in the  course of
   Tracheal Phthisis ; it evidences  greatly impaired innervation of
the affected  part, and therefore calls for the occasional exhibition
of a dose of  Aconite.

   The  spasm-exciting  properties possessed  by Aconite render  it
valuable in
   Whooping-cough, especially during the first stage, when the cough
is dry, spasmodic, attended with a good deal of  wheezing,  fever,
burning pain in the larynx  and trachea, vomiting after  the  par-
oxysm.  Give third to twelfth potency.
   For the Spasmodic Cough which sometimes remains after measles,
with  soreness in the chest, titillation in the larynx, expectoration of
a frothy or a glassy mucus, Aconite is one of the remedies Avhich
may have to be given every now and then.

   Aconite has caused cough, with expectoration  of blood ;  hence in
   Haemoptysis, or bloody cough, we shall find Aconite not only use-
ful but in many cases an indispensable specific.  AVe have already
alluded to this fact when speaking of haemorrhage.  This kind of
cough  may occur in consequence of various  causes, a strain, a  con-
cussion of the chest, an habitual disposition to pulmonary  plethora,
a neglected  catarrh, tuberculosis, suppression of the menstrual or 
198
LECTURE XIII.
haemorrhoidal discharge.  In one case the patient Avas a pregnant
female;  there was no pain, but nightly anguish, constant moaning
and lamenting, tendency to start, redness of the face, improvement
in a recumbent posture.
  A very common cause of haemoptysis is pulmonary tuberculosis.
In consequence of a  cold, a  tuberculous  portion  of lung  may
become  irritated, the tubercles may become  softened, and a cough
may ensue attended Avith discharge of the softened tuberculous mass
and a greater or less quantity of blood.  This form of haemoptysis
is very often the beginning of consumption.  The patient complains
of a sore aching pain at a certain place in the chest, more particu-
larly  in the  upper lobes, from which the  paroxysms  of cough
emanate.   The  cough  is of a  spasmodic  character,  exhausting,
generally worse at night.  For an acute cough of this  kind we can
safely recommend Aconite as one of our  most reliable therapeutic
agents.   In many of these cases the potencies may be sufficient, but
hardly ever above the third.  We have frequently found it neces-
sary to use the tincture, one or two drops in twelve tablespoonfuls
of water
  Our distinguished countryman Benjamin  Rush regarded blood-
letting as the chief remedy for pulmonary phthisis.  At the same
time he stated it  as his belief that, if there were a medicine in
nature capable of superseding  the use of  the lancet,  he should
accept this medicine as a remedy for pulmonary phthisis.   If Dr.
Rush had been acquainted Avith the physiological action of Aconite,
he would probably have recommended this agent as a substitute for
blood-letting in phthisis pulmonalis.   Although not a panacea, yet
it is undoubtedly one  of our  most efficient ^and therefore most
important remedies in this disease.

  Judging by the physiological effects of Aconite upon the  respira-
tory organs, we may recommend this drug for
  Asthma of  various degrees of intensity.  We find it indicated in
asthma with a spasmodic contractive sensation across the chest, and
a feeling of oppressive anxiety.   Also in
  Asthmatic  Complaints of sensitive plethoric young females who
lead a sedentary life, or when the attack is brought on by the least
excitement.
  Asthmatic  Complaints of full-groAvn people, especially  when the
attack is  brought on by  the spontaneous retrocession  or violent
suppression of an  acute rash upon the neck or chest, or when it is
accompanied by violent congestion of blood to the head, vertigo, a
full and strong pulse, or even haemoptysis.
  AVe shall find Aconite eminently useful in
  Angina Pectoris, for  it  causes "paroxysms of  suffocation, Avith
anxiety."
  The action of Aconite upon the heart is  very marked, pointing
to the use of this agent in  various  important affections to which
allusion  has  already  been made  in  previous paragraphs,  more
particularly on page 110.   Among the heart-symptoms of Aconite
we may  distinguish the following: 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
199
  Compression of the chest in the region of the heart;
  Slow shocks in the region of the heart, from within outward;
  Palpitation of the heart, Avith great anguish.
  In three pulsations the apex of the heart beat only once against
the wall of the chest;  the beats of the left ventricle are isochronous
with the pulse; the right auricle appeared  to be permanently con-
vulsed ; the movements of this auricle were quick, irregular, and
not proportionate to the beats of the ventricles.
  The beats of the heart are  distinctly perceptible, taking place  in
rapid  succession,  the  pulse  being slow and intermittent and the
patient having a momentary attack of debility.
  Oppressive aching pains in the region of the heart.
  Sensation in the region of  the heart as if a heavy body Avere
lying in its place; this sensation changes to an oppressive burning,
accompanied with a flash of heat over the back.
  Here we have a group of symptoms characteristic of
  Congestion of the Heart, whether purely rheumatic or bilious; the
congestion may affect the various parts, auricles, ventricles or coro-
nary arteries.  It may be more or less temporary or permanent,
Avith  hypertrophy  of  the auricles  or  ventricles  resulting from
rheumatic inflammation or valvular disease. For more extensive
remarks bearing  upon this  subject, we  refer the  reader  to the
Thoracic Group of Arsenic.
  Our provings show the great use of Aconite in
  Palpitation  of the Heart which  may be  a symptom of a purel\T
nervous irritation of this organ. It may characterise a paroxysm of
hysteria.  Aconite, first to sixth potency, will quiet the heart.
  Spasms of  the Heart come within the curative range of Aconite.
The provings show that Aconite convulses the heart.  This spasm
may be characterized  by a sense of  suffocation in the region of the
heart, sensation as if the heart had ceased to beat, excessive anxiety
as if death were impending, coldness of the extremities, collapse of
pulse,  deathly pallor  of  the  face.   I mix  a drop  of the  strong
tincture in ten tablespoonfuls of Avater, of which solution I give the
patient a small teaspoonful every few minutes, until perfect relief is
obtained.

  These sudden congestions of blood about the heart are frequently
attended with
  Syncope or fainting, with collapse of pulse, paleness of the face,
staring look.   If this attack occurs as a symptom of hysteria, it may
be sufficient to hold  a viol of hartshorn, or the spirits of  camphor
under  the patient's nose. If  treatment should  be required, a few
doses of Aconite, first or second potency, at a few minutes interval,
may be sufficient to stimulate the heart's action.

  Among the  chest-symptoms of Aconite, we notice this record :
"Fetid breath."
  Fetor of the breath is very often  owing to a morbid condition  of
the  pulmonary secretions.  We have often  known it  to  exist  in
individuals of a decidedly phthisicky habit, with  a narrow chest and 
200
LECTURE XIII.
wing-shaped shoulder-blades, in whom the pulmonary circulation is
necessarily imperfect and the process of oxygenation deficient.
Fetor of the breath may and frequently does arise  from such a
cause;  no medicine is  better calculated than Aconite to stimulate
the stagnant capillary current in the lungs, and thus to remove the
impurities Avhich send forth the foul gaseous emanations.

                       FEYER-GROUP.

  We  have shown on previous pages that Aconite  is  in specific
curative rapport Avith simple
  Inflammatory fever, no  matter by what cause it  may be imme-
diately excited. These causes may be exceedingly varied :  a wound
may occasion it; dentition, a fright, worms, an indigestion, exposure
to a draught of air, wet feet, retrocession  of the perspiration, may
constitute so many exciting causes  of fever.
  Inflammatory fever may be  symptomatic of other acute diseases,
eruptions, local inflammations.  In such cases Aconite is  likewise
to be administered; the middle or higher  potencies up to  the 30th
will very frequently be found sufficient to effect a radical change in
the pulse and even to scatter the local congestion or inflammation.
  Aconite may not only be homoeopathic to the pure synocha, when
the pulse is hard, full, rapid and bounding; but likewise to a state
of vascular erethism termed synochus, when the pulse is moderately
excited, the temperature  of  the skin slightly raised, and even the
cutaneous exhalation not entirely suppressed.
  In some acute eruptions, a few doses of Aconite may be sufficient
to control the fever and to remove the eruption at the  same time.
Acute  nettlerash, measles, purple-rash, eczema  and other  eruptive
disorders may come under this head.
  It is not only in inflammatory fever, characterized by  the full
vigor of constitutional reaction, but likewise in
  Adynamic fevers, with cold and clammy skin and depressed or even
collapsed pulse that Aconite may be of essential benefit.  Our prov-
ings indicate "small and feeble pulse," or likewise "gradual collapse
of pulse," and " cold sweats, or night-sweats."   A condition of this
kind may occur as the result  of previous inflammation, more par-
ticularly under allceopathic  treatment, in  consequence of  frequent
venesections.   Or  it may occur as the natural development  of an
acute fever for which no  treatment had been instituted.   Aconite
may rekindle the depressed temperature of the body, raise the pulse
and generally restore the condition  of things which existed as to the
general features during the period  of the previous organic reaction.
If the  adynamic condition was caused by previous loss of blood,
the  middle or higher potencies may  suit the  patient best;  if the
natural result of neglect or inadequate treatment, the lower prepara-
tions and even the tincture may be required.
  We have seen that Aconite  may be required in various
  Remittent fevers, with predominant derangement  of the mucous,
gastric  or  bilious functions.  In other  words,  we recommend
Aconite in 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
201
   Gastric fever, with Avhitish,  gray or yellowish coating upon  the
tongue, foul taste, hawking up of  mucous, nausea, soft bowels, con-
stipation or occasional diarrhceic discharges from the bowels, con-
sisting of foul-smelling mucus and ill-digested food.
   Bilious fever, Avith symptoms similar to those of gastric fever,  ex-
cept that the bilious symptoms predominate ;  the patient complains
of a foul taste in the mouth, yellow or brown coating on the tongue,
thirst,  nausea and vomiting  of bile, headache,  stitches  shooting
through the head,  tympanitic distension of the boAvels, constipation
or occasional discharge of bile from the bowels.
   Mucous fever, where the pulse is rather full, bounding and hurried,
the tongue looks inflamed along the edges and at the tip, and has a
Avhitish or grayish coating upon it;  the  patient hawks up a great
deal of foul mucus, especially early in the morning and after taking
a  nap.   The inflammation may invade the whole of the  mucous
membrane, affecting even the bladder and sexual  organs.  Aconite
may be one of the main  remedies  in this disease, where such medi-
cines as Mercury, and  even Belladonna and Arsenic,  if  typhoid
symptoms should threaten, may likewise be required.
   In simple rheumatic fever Aconite may pave the way for Bryonia
or some similar drug.
   AVe should not forget  the use of Aconite in simple
   Typhoid fever, when the irritation seems to  affect chiefly the peri-
pheral nerves; the tongue is thickly furred, taste in the mouth  un-
pleasant, foul; the patient  feels thirsty, complains of heavy, aching
pain in the head,  heavy or sore pains in  other parts of the bowels,
constipation, experiences evening-exacerbations of  his symptoms;
the urine looks dark, has a foul smell; the patient is  very restless,
feels depressed in spirits, is alternately wakeful and droAvsy, troubled
with heavy dreams, etc.  This species of acute irritation of the spinal,
cranial or  ganglionic nerves  is  very  appropriately  treated with
Aconite, from the  first to the sixth potency.
   AVe Avish to direct your  attention to  the fact that Aconite causes
a  profuse secretion of moisture upon the skin,  and  that it may there-
fore be eminently  adapted  to feverish conditions where profuse per-
spiration is a leading symptom.  In certain
   Lentescent or hectic fevers, with profuse and weakening night-sweats,
Aconite may prove an excellent remedy provided these  fevers are
not symptomatic of some incurable disorganization.
    We lnave arrested the so-called
   Sweating fever Avith Aconite.  An interesting case of this disease
occurred some time ago in our dispensary.  A Avoman of fifty  had
taken  cold, the consequence of which was that  the subcutaneous
adipose tissue seemed to melt away in unceasing perspiration, which
gave the skin an  appearance as if it were covered with  liquid fat.
The pulse Avas feeble and slightly irritated.  Aconite Avas our main
reliance in this case, and is in all  similar cases, if the disease has a
purely rheumatic  origin.

   The homoeopathicity of  Aconite to
    Yellow fever, even  in the stage of black vomit, has  been shown
before.  In the violent bilious 
202
LECTURE XIII.
   Congestive fevers, Avith agonizing distress in the head, vomiting of
bile, extreme heat and dryness of the skin, full, bounding and rapid
pulse, paroxysmal exacerbations at certain hours of the day, Aconite
may be one of  the means of cure.   In  all these violent fevers the
lower potencies are generally required.

   AAre shall find Aconite sometimes indicated in
   Scorbutic fevers, or acute scurvy.  AVre know from cases of poison-
ing that Aconite  may produce changes in the blood similar to those
which exist in scurvy.  In many  cases of  this disease the blood
assumes a  blackish appearance; according to the statement of An-
son's surgeons, it may even look black as ink.  The first effect of
large doses of Aconite is to interfere Avith the oxygenation of the
blood;  in one fatal case, the patient's body exhibited a  black  hue.
Moderate doses of Aconite produce an  opposite effect  by exciting
the organic reaction;  the process of arterialization is heightened;
the blood assumes an inflammatory character, the quantity of fibrin
is increased.
   Both these conditions may prevail in scurvy, the former adynamic
condition corresponding with the primary effects of  poisonous doses
of Aconite upon the blood, the latter inflammatory condition with
the secondary action or rather with the organic reaction excited by
moderate  doses of this agent.  If undue vascular activity  occurs
during an attack  of scurvy, Old-School practitioners do not hesitate
to take  blood.  This treatment is in perfect accord with sound path-
ology from the allceopathic stand-point.  Instead of bleeding,  Ave
resort to Aconite.

                 EXANTHEMATOUS  GROUP.

   The action of Aconite upon the  skin, and its therapeutic virtues
in acute eruptive diseases are very characteristic.  In Measles, .Pur-
ple and  Scarlet-rash, Rubeola, acute Eczema and Impetigo, acute Zona,
and in any other  eruptive disease which sets in with synochal fever,
Aconite may always be resorted to for the purpose of moderating
the fever and facilitating the appearance and full  development  of
the eruption.  The various kinds of acute rash, nettlerash, purple unci
scarlet rash, measles, eczema and other  eruptions very  frequently
disappear Avith  the fever under the use of Aconite.  In all the un-
complicated cases of these eruptions I advise you to give a dose of
Aconite every uoav and then until the eruption has fairly run its course.
   Aconite may help us in
   Prurigo, for it  causes a burning-itching of  the whole body.
   In Scarlet Efflorescence induced by a cold, we have seen Aconite
dissipate the whole  difficulty  in the course  of a couple  of days.
Sometimes this efflorescence has an haemorrhagic appearance Avithout
any actual effusion having taken place.
   In Hives, with which children are so frequently troubled, Aconite
is an excellent remedy for the purpose of allaying  the itching and
burning.  Give from third to twelfth potency.

   Dengue may perhaps be properly classed among the eruptive fevers. 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
203
We find this disease fully described in Professor Dickson's Practice
of Medicine.   According to this  author the name dengue is a cor-
ruption of the English word dandy, the disease being named dandy-
fever by the English negroes of the  island  of St. Thomas on account
of the stiff and affected gait of the persons  who are laboring under it.
   The disease was ushered in with febrile symptoms of an inflam-
matory character, accompanied by pain in the joints and muscles.
   In the course of this fever gastric symptoms appeared, and on the
sixth day minute red papulae, slightly elevated  and distributed in
irregular patches, broke out upon the skin, first upon the face and
trunk  and gradually invading the  extremities.  The full develop-
ment of the eruption wras accompanied by severe arthritic and mus-
cular pains;  the eruption itself terminated in a few days in descfua-
mation of the cuticle.
   A disease of this kind would undoubtedly require Aconite; which
might  be alternated  with, or succeeded by Bryonia.

   Aconite might prove not only  useful but indispensable  in inflam-
matory sores, with a good  deal  of itching,  stinging and burning
pain.  Among these sores we may  rank the acute
   Scrofulous  Ulcer when it developes itself suddenly from a  small
pimple or vesicle; the bottom of the sore is lined  with  a  grayish
mucus, the edges  look  angry, inflamed, bleed readily; the ulcer is
surrounded with an  indurated border, and inflamed pimples start up
in  its  neighborhood, forming the nuclei of ulcerative  processes
which gradually  coalesce  in one large sore.  The burning, sting-
ing and itching are  sometimes intolerable.  Aconite is one of the
most efficient agents  to strike down the inflammatory action; Sulphur
may after Avards  be required to extinguish or hush up the scrofulous
taint.

   I must not forget  to point out to  your attention the importance of
Aconite in the treatment of injuries, fractures, dislocations, sprains.
Aconite will check the traumatic fever, and control the inflamma-
tion which may develop itself in  the dislocated joint.
   In Sprains, homoeopathic physicians generally use Arnica, although
Aconite is most frequently required in  order to scatter the san-
guineous congestion consequent  upon a sprain.  For this purpose,
Aconite may be used both internally and  externally; internally in
the attenuated form, and externally from twenty-five to thirty drops
of  the strong tincture in eight tablespoonfuls of  water.

   AYe have shown  in a former  paragraph the  homoeopathicity of
Aconite to Jaundice,  and likewise to Dropsy. There are several symp-
toms among the provings of Aconite Avhich indicate very clearly its
specific character as a curative agent in the last named disease. They
are the following:
   Sensation in the skin as if the epidermis were separated from the
cutis by some intermediate substance, a sort of erratic creeping over
the Avhole body, accompanied with an unpleasant feeling of shivering.
   A sensation in the Avhole body, and especially in the left side as if 
204
LECTURE XIII.
SAvelling up; this sensation gradually changes to a feeling of numb-
ness, and is attended with a  pain in the muscles as if bruised, and a
sense of weariness in the bones.
  Sensation in many parts of the body as if they Avere swelling up,
generally accompanied with  shivering, coldness or  chilliness.
  The pathological condition corresponding with these symptoms is a
plethora of the capillary vessels which may very soon lead to exuda-
tions and fully developed anasarca.   We can affirm from abundant
experience that these symptoms occur in practice.  In one case a
lady Avho had  exposed herself to  a draught  Avhile the skin was
covered with moisture, complained of a sensation of swelling up like
a balloon. These symptoms are generally accompanied by gnawing,
pinching, stinging sensations in the skin, or even by numbness of the
skin, all of Avhich constitute  symptoms Avhich have  been reproduced
by the provers of Aconite ; we may mention
  Pinching,  pressing and gnawing in the skin, here or there, as if
occasioned by a powerful electro-magnetic battery.
  Numb feeling extending from the face over the Avhole body.
  Stitches in various parts of the body as if electrical  sparks were
drawn  from the forehead, back, sides of the chest, fingers, dorsum
of the hand,  and from various other parts of the body.
  Stinging or stinging-burning pains in  several parts  of the skin,
sometimes accompanied  with a  feeling of weight, numbness  or
swelling.

                            SLEEP.

  Aconite causes  a restless sleep  which  is  moreover  disturbed
by dreams of an anxious or terror-inspiring nature.
  The  prover talks a good deal in his dreams and is in constant
motion during his sleep.
  Anxious dreams, with oppression of breathing, as if he had  the
night-mare;  he wakes with a start as if in affright.
  Constant droAVsiness, even in the day-time.
  Some of these symptoms occur during  the course of an ordinary
fever to which Aconite is homoeopathic.  One  of them shows that
Aconite may prove curative in
  Night-mare, if persons are  habitually subject to it.
  Habitual Drowsiness may  depend upon a certain torpor of the
cerebral nerves or upon deficient action of the  liver.  Our provings
point to Aconite as  one  of  the remedies for this  condition.   This
droAVsiness may sometimes  be insurmountable;  it may  attack  a
person even in the midst  of  a conversation, and is generally accom-
panied with a  feeling of  heaviness and weariness,  especially  in the
loAver extremities, and Avith a frequent inclination to yawn  and
stretch one's limbs.

  Aconite also causes sleeplessness, Avhich  seems to be owing to
pain; hence  we have in this  agent a  specific substitute for Morphine
in many cases of
  Sleeplessness which results  from pain.  Aconite will procure sleep 
ACONITUM NAPELLUS.
205
by mitigating the pain.  You will understand that this result can
only be obtained in cases where Aconite  is in curative adaptation
to the nature of the pain.

  Some of these symptoms show that  Aconite may prove useful in
certain
  Monomaniacal States of the mind ; we may refer to the following:
  He has a dream about one and the same thing which clings to
his mind like a fixed idea even after waking.

                      MENTAL GROUP

  Aconite is adapted  to  a variety  of mental derangements both in
the sphere of perception  and volition.  We have seen that  Aconite
is homoeopathically adapted  to certain forms of
  Fitful Mania,  with varied exhibitions  of  temper, singing  and
weeping, whistling and moaning.
  Aconite causes vehemence, headstrongness, quarrelsomeness, great
sensitiveness to  the least joke.  This effect  renders it  a valuable
as:ent in
  o
  Mania, characterized  by a tendency  to fight, dispute,  or  'take
offence at the least provocation or fancied provocation.
  Aconite is distinguished  by the  peculiar property it possesses of
exciting a foreboding state of the mind, with apprehensions of death
or fear of one's recovery.  Hoav often do we meet Avith this state of
the mind among pregnant  or  hysteric females!   AVe therefore
recommend Aconite in
  Monomaniacal Hypochondria or  Hysteria, where these fears  and
sad forebodings are constantly uppermost in the patient's mind.
  Aconite has an exalting effect upon the fancy, and hence may be
recommended in abnormal  states of
  Ecstasis or rather Ecstatic Hallucinations of the mind; we  infer
this from such symptoms as these :
  He exclaims that his  beloved has this moment sung the difficult
passage which he had just executed himself.
  When wide awake, his mind and  fancy Avander even so as to
make him start out of bed.
  He has a dream Avhich explains  to him a thing that seemed inex-
plicable in the waking state.

  Aconite deranges the intellectual faculties; it causes weakness of
memory, more particularly an inability to remember dates.  It  like-
wise causes an extreme  absence of mind, a complete vanishing of
ideas.
  This sort of weakness  may be the result of, or it may be accom-
panied  by an habitual congestion of  the  cerebral  sinuses, aching
pains in the region of these sinuses, more particularly in the region
of the frontal sinuses and likewise on the top of the head Avhere a
sensation of pressure is experienced.   A condition of this kind may
occur after  a sunstroke, or in consequence of an habitual rush of
blood to the head, constitutional headaches.  The general hygienic 
206
LECTURE XIII.
means adopted in such cases may be assisted in their operation  by
an occasional dose of Aconite, sixth to twelfth potency.

  Among the effects of Aconite upon the mind we notice the follow-
ing symptoms :
  " He acts foolishly like a crazy person;  he performs a variety of
things with extreme haste and without reflection, and runs  about
the house."
  This symptom shows us that Aconite has power to disorganize the
normal operations of the mind, and that it may be of use in certain
forms of
  Craziness characterized by unsteadiness of purpose, inability to
logically connect cause and effect, nervous restlessness.

  Let me not forget to point out the  curative relation of Aconite to
the consequences of a  sudden fright, or even of other depressing
emotions such as care and anger.   Under such influences the  capil-
laries may  become affected as they are when acted upon by Aconite,
and  similar pathological conditions may result, such as:  fever,
prostration, nervousness, wakefulness, loss  of appetite and  other
derangements for which Aconite has been recommended  as their
typical simile in previous lectures.

  Gentlemen, this concludes my  remarks  on Aconite.  If I have
succeeded in imparting to you a knowledge of the curative range of
this  remarkable agent, we have  made a fair beginning towards a
sound comprehension of our Materia Medica.  It is only by study-
ing the physiological effects of our drugs with constant reference to
the  pathological conditions Avith which they are in therapeutic rap-
port, that we shall  Aveave a golden thread  which  like  Ariadne's
thread of old, will lead us through the dark maze of symptomato-
logy into the bright sunshine of therapeutic truth.
  On looking at this plant Avith the skilled eye of a therapeutist, Avhat
beautiful lessons  are we taught  of  the goodness and  wisdom  of
Providence.  Our heavenly father has seen fit to create  our organ-
isms with inherent tendencies to  disease.  If this Avere not so, how
should we ever succeed in discovering the true conditions of health ?
This is part of our destiny, and the consciousness that Ave  are
realizing this destiny by our OAvn  endeavors, is the sweet reward for
the  struggles Avhich we are  undergoing.   In the  mean Avhile, if
under circumstances favorable to  the  development of disease, these
tendencies  become  manifest  derangements of  the  physiological
functions and tissues, God does not abandon us to an inevitable fate
of misery and  suffering.  No, at the same  time that He  permits
disease to  exist,  He has  created  the means to  subdue  it.   The
tendencies to disease which are from Creation inherent in the human
organism, are likewise inherent  in the great organism of nature.
In the human organism these tendencies develope diseases; in the
organism of nature they develope the means for their extinction.
These  means are remedial agents, drugs.   It being the office  of
drugs to cure diseases, they must necessarily correspond with the 
ANTIMONIUM  CRUDUM.
207
diseases which God  permits to exist.  If this were  not so, there
would be no unity in his system of government.  If drugs generally
correspond with  diseases, each particular  drug must  necessarily
correspond with some particular disease, some particular pathologi-
cal disturbance.  To  the mind of a thoughtful therapeutist  each
drug  speaks its  own particular  language, and  reveals its  own
specific sphere of usefulness.  Thus it is that the Aconite plant with
its blue flowers, its glassy, dark-green, deeply-incised leaves, claims
his attention as a powerful agent in combating disorders of the cir-
culatory apparatus, bilious derangements, and nervous diseases, all of
which make up a vast majority of human ailments.  And it is thus
that the students of Homoeopathy looks at every drug not merely as
an object of natural  history, but as a means of relieving suffering
man from  the functional or organic  disorders which  this drug
represents in nature.   This representative character of drugs is the
deep idea which underlies the great fabric of Homoeopathy.  Every
drug constitutes the visible image, in a material form, of the disease
Avith Avhich  it  is in specific therapeutic rapport.   We prove drugs
in order to discover, by this approximative process, the specific
diseases  with  which  they respectively harmonize as therapeutic
agents.  He who has a clear perception of these fundamental truths,
has entered the holy of  holiest of  our great science, nor can  her
spirit ever depart from him.
                 LECTURE  XIV.

           THE ANTIMOAIAL PREPARATIONS.

  Antimony is the basis of several important medicinal preparations.
Metallic antimony, formerly knoAvn under the name of Stibium, is
no longer  used in  medicine.  The antimonial preparations which
homoeopathic physicians make use  of, are : the black  sulphuret of
antimony, also termed crystallized tersulphuret of antimony, or crude
antimony; antimonial  tvine  and tariarized antimony.   In order to
distinguish the metallic antimony from the tersulphuret, the term
"regulus antimonii" has been applied to the former.
  The black sulphuret of Antimony Avas known in the most ancient
times.  It  Avas used by the Asiatic and Greek ladies as  a pigment
for the eyebroAvs.   The pigment Avas composed of the black sulphu-
ret, lead and zinc, and Avas used for the purpose of giving prominence
and expression to  the Avhites of the  eyes.  The term Stibium is
derived from the Greek verb siibo, which means " to crush."  The
name of the pigment was platuophthalmon, literally large-eyed, (an
ointment for the eyelids.)   The  practice of using this pigment for
such purposes, is alluded to in the 23d chapter of Ezekiel, 10th verse;
and likewise in 2d Kings, 9th chapter and 30th verse, where the
expression :  ''and she painted her face/' is sIioavii by the celebrated 
208
LECTURE XIV.
Oriental  scholar Gesenius to refer to  the  practice of painting the
eyebroAvs and lashes.
  In former ages the  Sulphuret of Antimony was only used exter-
nally for sore eyes, ulcers, etc.; physicians dared not use it internally
on account of its supposed poisonous qualities.   Basil A^alentine  is
supposed to be the first Avho gave it internally.   Experiments upon
animals led him to  believe that it acted favorably upon the repro-
ductive system, and he therefore administered it to the monks of his
cloister as  a stimulant of the digestive functions, in  cases of weak
digestion or dyspepsia.   Paracelsus and his disciples spread the use
of antimonial preparations in a  manner Avhich led to great abuses of
this agent and induced the parliament of France to forbid its employ-
ment as a therapeutic agent  during a period of one hundred years.
In the year 1666 this edict was revoked at the request of the Medical
Faculty of Paris, one hundred and two members of Avhich gave their
assent to the use of antimonial preparations.   The name of antimony
dates from the period Avhen  the abuse  of this drug led to so many
disastrous consequences among the people and the inmates of clois-
ters.  Antimony is a  compound of anti, against, and monachas a
monk,  an agent used against monks.  The black  sulphuret of Anti-
mony or the tersulphuret is found  native in various parts of the
Avorld,  more particularly in Hungary,  Germany, France, England
and likeAvise on  the island of Borneo, from Avhich quantities of the
crude ore are imported as ballast.  According to Pereira, from six
to eight hundred tons have been imported in  the course of a single
year.
  The  tersulphuret  is separated from its siliceous gangue by melting
it in iron crucibles or pots, the bottoms of Avhich are  perforated by
a number of holes, and which are placed over other receiving vessels
in holes dug in the ground.  The liquid sulphuret runs into the in-
ferior vessel, and the unmolten silicate remains behind.  This process
of separating the sulphuret from the gangue is slightly modified in
different  countries.
  The  sulphuret thus obtained is found in commerce in large loaves
or cakes, consisting of shining, lead-colored  crystals agglomerated
into  roundish masses.   The native sulphuret is generally found
adulterated with small quantities of lead, copper,  iron and arsenic;
hence,  for homoeopathic purposes it is best to prepare it  one's  self.
For this purpose we reduce thirteen parts of pure metallic Antimony
to a fine  poAvder, and mix it  carefully with five parts  of the washed
flowers of sulphur; we insert this  mass  by degrees  into a  red-hot
crucible, and melt  it by adding half  a part of dried  salt.   After
being kept liquid for half an hour, we alloAV the mass to  cool, sepa-
rate the portion Avhich adheres  to  the bottom of  the crucible by a
stroke  of the hammer—this portion being found to be pure metallic
antimony—and  reduce the remainder to an impalpable  powder,
which  is to be  washed  with distilled  water, and to be used for
triturations.

                Physiological Action of Antimony.
  Antimony seems  to affect principally the gastro-intestinal mucous 
ANTIMONIUM CRUUUM.
209
membrane, and the mucous  membrane  of  the urinary bladder.
According to the statement of Trousseau and Pidoux the effects of
antimony as observed on the hospital-patients under their care, are
most  strikingly perceived in  the pulse, the respiration and  the
urinarj'' secretions.  They state that, under the use of large doses of
antimony, Avhen given to patients affected with non-febrile affections,
such  as  sciatica, chronic rheumatism, chronic  catarrh,  nocturnal
bone-pains, etc., the pulse went doAvn from seventy-two to forty-four
beats in the minute; in many cases the first effect of antimony upon
the circulation was to  cause  an extraordinary  irregularity  in  the
beats of the pulse, without any diminution in their frequency;  this
irregularity sometimes preceded the previously-mentioned decrease
in the number of beats.
  The number of inspirations was likewise considerably diminished.
From sixteen, twenty and even twenty-four inspirations, the number
went  doAvn to six;  this extraordinary decrease would have justified
the most serious apprehensions concerning the safety  of the patients,
if their whole appearance, their unimpaired physical and intellectual
energies, had not indicated  a state of Avell-being.  From  these re-
markable  effects  Ave may certainly infer that, although  antimony
possesses the power of depressing the action of the heart and  lungs,
two great  centres of organic life, yet it does not  seem to make  any
great inroads upon  the cerebral centres;  for, if it did, this remark-
able depression of the  pulse and the respiratory movements,  would
undoubtedly be accompanied  by symptoms of great constitutional
derangement.
   A striking effect of the antimonial preparations is  to increase the
urinary secretions.  This effect is more particularly perceived, if the
drug excites neither diarrhoea nor vomiting.   The urine is watery ;
after  giving the golden or yellow sulphuret  of  antimony (another
antimonial preparation), a thin, gold-colored urine Avas secreted Avhich
deposited  a scarcely-perceptible cloud.  In one  case, the  urine se-
creted by a healthy person, deposited twenty-four hours  after  the
emission,  small, red, hard little corpuscles.  This symptom  might
lead us to infer  that Antimony may prove useful  in gravel  and
urinary calculi.

  In  endeavoring to define the therapeutic sphere of antimony, we
shall  find  it impossible to solve this problem by  such symptoms as
we find recorded in Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases, where Antimony
occupies a position  as  an antipsoric.   In reading over the patho-
genesis of Antimony, the fact  seems to impress itself upon  our
minds, that, in order to do justice to this interesting  agent, we have
to grasp the totality of the impression Avhich Antimony makes upon
the tissues.   The long-continued  use of Antimony causes  an in-
flammatory irritation of the intestinal mucous membrane, similar to
what  appears upon  the skin when antimonial washes and ointments
are applied to it.   It is likeAvise to be observed that  the  symptoms
of gastric derangements which Antimony causes, incline to  be in-
veterate, and  that a continued tendency to looseness of the  boAvels is
very frequently the result of antimonial action.   Keeping this  dis-
                               11 
210
LECTURE XIV.
organizing or disintegrating action of Antimony upon the intestinal
membrane, in our mind's eye, and considering  moreover that indi-
viduals of a cachectic habit of  body are especially subject  to diar-
rhoeic discharges, Ave may consider this coincidence as prima facie
evidence of the affinity existing between antimonial action  and this
habitual tendency to looseness of the bowels in persons whose repro-
ductive system is tainted with  decay.   Hence, if we  see a  patient
with a sallow and haggard countenance, dull and sunken eyes, dirty-
grayish coating on the tongue,  unpleasant, foul, pappy taste in the
mouth, fetid odor from the mouth, dryness of the mouth and throat,
thirst, or constant secretion of unpleasant, tenacious phlegm in the
throat, rising of foul, sweetish or insipid  Avater from  the stomach;
loss of appetite; want of tone in the stomach;  bloating of  the sto-
mach after eating; fulness  and distention of the boAvels; frequent
tendency to emission of foul-smelling flatulence; tendency  to diar-
rhoea, the evacuations consisting of foul-smelling mucus, or alternate
tendency to diarrhoea and constipation ; constant feeling of weakness
in the bowels;  frequent desire to urinate, the urine being  in most
instances turbid, and having a foul odor; and perhaps Aveak and re-
tarded or short breathing and corresponding weakness of the circu-
lation ; if these  and  similar  symptoms  present themselves to our
view, they at once convey to  our minds the general impression that
we have an antimonial group of symptoms to deal Avith.

   The intestinal mucous lining  seems to be  that portion of the
mucous expanse which perceives the action of Antimony Avith most
readiness and intensity.   Hence it is in affections of this membrane,
when characterized  by symptoms of debility  and decay, that Anti-
mony may render good service.  AVe may avail ourselves of this
agent in
   Chronic diarrhoea, of a watery  consistence, or of a grayish, decom-
posed, rather foul-smelling mucus; the stools may be mixed Avith
undigested food; a feeling of weakness is felt in the boAvels such as
is induced by the action of a cathartic ;  and this feeling of Aveakness
may be accompanied by a sensation of heat which is diffused  through
the bowels, pinching pains in the small intestines, distention and
hardness of the abdomen, emission of moist and fetid flatulence.
   A diarrhoeic condition of this kind must inevitably be accompa-
nied by dyspeptic symptoms.   Patients whose bowels exhibit these
signs of weakness are suffering Avith anorexia or loss of appetite ; the
lining membrane of the mouth is dry, hence they complain of thirst;
after eating, the stomach feels oppressed and distended ; the epigas-
tric  region may feel sore;  the  patient  may complain of foul and
bitter risings from the stomach  ; the food regurgitates after eating;
the taste in the mouth is altered, aiid the tongue is covered with a
thick, grayish slime or mucus.  These symptoms denote a condition
which former pathologists  were in the  habit of designating by the
term ''gaslricism," or saburral derangements of the primae viae.  The
doctrine was that  the  delicate  vessels  in the canals  in which the
functions of nutrition are supposed to be carried on, were filled with
impurities termed saburrae,  and it was  therefore a matter of impor- 
ANTIMONIUM CRUDUM.
211
tance to the patient that the organism should be cleansed  of these
crudities by cathartics or drastics. Antimony was often administered
for such symptoms, but in  such massive  doses, or  in combination
with so many other ingredients, Opium and so forth,  that the good
effects of the drug were either interfered Avith by the presence of
these heterogeneous  elements, or else that the medicinal effects of
the drug were amalgamated Avith the natural disturbance, thus be-
getting a  monstrous compound which required other direct  and
antidotal treatment and often entailed incurable infirmities upon the
sufferer.   Under  homoeopathic treatment the third,  sixth and even
tAvelfth potency of the sulphuret will often prove of great benefit to
a patient afflicted with this peculiar form of gastric derangements.
   It is not necessary  that  diarrhoea,  or  a tendency to diarrhoea.
should always  be present in  this gastric  condition; the opposite
condition, viz.: constipation, with heat in the bowels and a deep-
seated soreness throughout the mucous expanse of the small intestines
may take the place of the diarrhoeic element.  We know that a large
dose of Antimony may cause vomiting and  purging, with decided
symptoms  of gastro-enteritis; hence the symptoms of the organic
reaction which would  follow  the continued use of comparatively
small doses of the drug, must necessarily assume the opposite form,
viz.:  constipation, with distention of the abdominal walls, engorge-
ment and  consequently heat and  dryness  of  the mucous lining of
the boAvels.  In the gastric group which I have  endeavored to deli-
neate, constipation, with heat, deep-seated soreness and distention of
the bowels, is therefore just as much an indication for Antimony as
the opposite diarrhoeic  condition.

   Having alluded to the general effects of a massive dose of Anti-
mony upon the intestinal mucous lining, we may take this opportu-
nity  of recommending  it for a form of
   Gastro-enteritis characterized by similar symptoms.   It is not such
a form of  gastro-enteritis as would  indicate Aconite.   In the form
Avhere Antimony  is indicated, the skin  shoAvs  a tendency to become
cold  and to cover itself with a  clammy perspiration; the pulse,
instead of assuming the full, hard, quick and  bounding character of
an inflammatory  type, becomes weaker and emptier; the patient
discharges mucus mixed with blood, and complains of griping and
cutting pains in the small intestines.  The third trituration and even
the sixth potency in repeated doses, giving a small poAvder dry on
the tongue every three  or four hours, or a tablespoonful of a solution
of a  few drops of the sixth potency in a tumblerful of water every
two or three hours, will prove adapted  to the case.

  It  is well known that the intestinal mucous lining of children is
liable to  characteristic derangements.   If  this  great focus of  the
reproductive system exhibits  such symptoms of decay as I have
depicted, and if these symptoms of decay are accompanied by irreg-
ular appetite, alternate  anorexia (loss of appetite), and bulimia (inor-
dinate craving  of food), and by frequent  emissions of urine, more
particularly during sleep, at night, Ave  have in Antimony an excel 
212
LECTURE XIV.
lent remedy for a diseased  condition of the  intestinal lining which
frequently leads to the formation of those troublesome  parasites,
Avorms.  The third up to the sixth potency may be used in all such
forms of helminthiasis or worm-disease.  If decided fever-symptoms
are present,  Antimony may be given in alternation with Aconite.

  Considering that the intestinal mucous lining is so powerfully in-
fluenced by the action  of  Antimony, it stands  to reason  that the
skin, an organ that is in such close dependence upon the condition
of the assimilative sphere, must likeAvise be subject to the disturbing
action of this agent. Indeed, even if we did not know it by our prov-
ings, yet we have  a  right to infer that in all cutaneous disorders
Avhich purely and simply result  from such diseased  conditions of the
intestinal mucous  membrane as Antimony is  homoeopathic to, this
medicine will exercise a curative influence.  Such disorders are not
measles, scarlatina, purple-rash and the like, but a variety of vesicu-
lar, papulous and herpetic eruptions, some of which  it may not  be
inappropriate to mention :

                    1.  Papulous eruptions,

Little pimples or  blotches,  and  sometimes scurfs, with an  inflamed
base, leaving brownish spots.
  Strophulus, white gum, milk-spots, dental rash, red gum or gown
of  children which sometimes  becomes  very troublesome  during
teething, consisting of red or sometimes whitish pimples surrounded
by a reddish halo, on the face, neck, and arms;
  Strophulus volaticus, an eruption consisting of  burning, red spots
gradually peeling off and changing to a brown color; the Germans
designate this eruption by the term of  wild fire, a fiery redness prin-
cipally affecting parts of the face, head, neck.

                    2. Herpetic Eruptions.

  Lichen  simplex,  consisting  of red pimples on the  face  or arms,
thence spreading all over ;
  Lichen agrius composed of clusters of pimples, surrounded  by a
red halo; the cuticle gradually  groAvs  hard and thick, and  cracks.
  Lichen lividus, in which form the papulae or little blotches  look
dark-red or livid, without any fever.
  Lichen  urticatus, consisting of blotches and wheals like nettle-
rash, and accompanied by fever.
  Beside these forms of lichen we have  a species of urticaria under
the skin, generally caused by poisonous  crabs and oysters.

          3. Yesicular and  Pustulous Eruptions,
such as:
  Scabies purulenta or humida, of an inveterate character, particularly
in scrofulous and arthritic individuals •
  Pustules on the hairy scalp, terminating in the formation of yel-
lowish crusts; 
                     ANTIMONIUM CRUDUM.                  213
                     »
  Psydracia or spurious itch, a form of itch consisting of small, irreg-
ular pustules pouring out a thin, watery fluid and forming laminated
crusts;
 . Ecthymatous eruptions, especially a form of ecthyma termed "ecthy-
ma cachecticum," a pustulous eruption shoAving itself on persons
whose reproductive system has suffered a great deal from want and
care, may require the use of antimony.
  Lastly, we may give this drug in certain


                  4.  Tuberculoid Eruptions,
such as:
  Boils of an unhealthy  character,  secreting an  unhealthy,  thin,
offensive pus;
  Molluscum,  a  cutaneous disease consisting of numerous tumors
from the size of a pea  to that of a pigeon's egg.  Some of these
tumors are attached to pedicles.  They contain a pap-like or athero-
matous liquid, and seem to emanate from the substance of the derma.
  Acne rosacea, Gutta rosacea, copper-nose, bottle-nose, grog-blossoms,
an  eruption consisting of  suppurating tubercles Avith  shining red-
ness, imparting a rough and irregular appearance to the skin.  The
eruption generally first breaks out at the tip of the nose, whence it
spreads over the sides of the nose and cheeks.
  Sycosis menti, mentagra or barber's itch, an eruption on the bearded
portion of the face and scalp, and consisting, according to Bateman,
of inflamed,  but not very hard  tubercles, and usually clustering
together in irregular patches, may likewise be advantageously treated
with Antimony.

  In general, Antimony is adapted to cutaneous disorders in indi-
viduals of impoverished constitutions, whose skin is cold, unhealthy-
looking, deficient in elasticity and subject to the  breaking out of
sores that secrete an unhealthy, thin, badly  smelling pus.  This con-
dition of the skin is accompanied with universal signs of decline in
the vegetative sphere. The abdominal mucous surfaces show signs
of decay such as we have endeavored to picture in previous para-
graphs.  We may here remark that, because a cutaneous disorder is
accompanied by symptoms of gastric derangement, this coincidence
is not necessarily an indication for Antimony.  In order that Anti-
mony may meet the case, the gastric derangement must not only be
characterized by such phenomena as I have described, but the cuta-
neous disorder must  be incidental to the morbid  condition of the
vegetative  system. In many eruptions, whether vesicular, papulous,
pustulous, etc., the gastric  symptoms are incidental to the cutaneous
disorder.   In  many forms  of strophulus, lichen, eczema,  ecthyma,
herpes, and tubercles, the accompanying febrile excitement may re-
quire the use of Aconite which Avill often calm  the gastric disorder
and effect a drying up and scaling off of the eruption.

  A case of Leprosy  is  reported  in the  British Journal, where no
treatment seemed  of  any  avail.   The physician finally prescribed 
214
LECTURE XIV.
ass's milk, pro forma, and the patient got well. The paddock where
the animal was kept was examined;  but nothing was found in the
excrements of the animal.  When the physician cleansed his cane
in the trough from which the animal drank, he discovered a lump
of the sulphuret of Antimony, which had been placed there to cure
some dogs of the mange.
  It should be recollected, however, that a little  Arsenic is  very
often found combined with this sulphuret.   May not some Arsenic
have been  present  in this case, the  dynamic virtues of which, as
eliminated by the vital organism of the animal, effected a cure ?

  Soreness of  the  Eyelids of a chronic,  scrofulous character, espe-
cially  when accompanied  by  general abnormal symptoms  of the
vegetative system, may require the use of Antimony.

  Soreness of the Ears, external as well as deep-seated, when in rela-
tion with gastric  symptoms,  especially in scrofulous  and arthritic
individuals, may likewise be benefited by the use of Antimony.

  Tinea capitis, when depending  upon or  accompanied  by  such
symptoms of gastric derangement as indicate Antimony, should be
treated with this agent.  This species of tinea generally forms thick,
coherent, dirty-looking crusts, or isolated crusts covering unhealthy-
looking sores. ■

  This agent  furnishes many illustrations of the teachings of hu-
moral pathology.   The doctrine of humoral pathologists is, that the
primae viae, that is  the delicate channels where the process of as-
similation is essentially conducted  and perfected, among which the
lymphatics and lacteals occupy a prominent rank, are obstructed
by  impure humors, which  have to  be removed by appropriate
means; if too thick, they have to be thinned, for which purpose a
class of remedial agents is imagined especially entrusted  Avith this
business: the  so-called diluents; if too  thin, too fluid, lacking the
normal consistence, they have to be thickened, for Avhich purpose
inviscants, incrassants  or  thickening remedies are used.  Or the
humors may have to be treated as downright impurities, fit only to
be expelled altogether. For this purpose Ave use evacuantia, evacuat-
ing agents, among which Antimony occupies a most important posi-
tion.  In order to attain this supposed end, Antimony had often to
be given in large doses, which would  not simply purge  the bowels,
but  set up a  dangerous state of hypercatharsis, which it was im-
portant to modify, and, if  possible, to prevent.  Hence another set
of agents was called into  play, the so-called corrigentia, a class of
agents Avhose especial mission it was  to correct the excessive action
of other drugs.  In order  to modify  or  prevent the hypercathartic
action of Antimony, Opium was frequently associated Avith it.  Well
may Ave exclaim,  on reading of such  proceedings:  What a waste of
power, and what an absurd  system which is condemned to neutra-
lize its own excesses, excesses not accidental, unforeseen, attributable
to the exceptional sensitiveness of a  patient, but predetermined by 
ANTIMONIUM CRUDUM.
215
the exacting routine of the School, and afterwards to be removed by
this other insane  routine, the addition  of corrigentia or correctino-
agents.  Truly a curious system, ever occupied in undoing the next
day what it had  been doing the day before, or in neutralizing its
OAvn intentions; a system personated by the very mythological Sysi-
phus of old, who, being  condemned by a  merciless fate to roll a
heavy boulder to  the top of a mountain, had  to  behold his boulder
rolling back into  the  precipice below whenever he seemed  on the
point of reaching the  summit;  or even by the poor laborer whom
our immortal fellow-citizen Stephen Girard  saw standing idle in
front of his mansion.  Being asked by the poor man to give him
work, Girard told him to remove a pile of bricks from one corner of
his yard to another.  The job having been  done, and more work
being asked for, the man was told to carry that same pile of bricks
to another corner, and then to another, then back again to the first
corner.   Having  been occupied in this way for a time,  the poor
laborer went to the merchant-prince, asking: Have you any other
work  to  do?  Being  answered  in the negative; "Then," said he,
" get somebody else to make a fool of, for I will  no longer be hum-
bugged in this way."
   This poor laborer seems to have had more sense than many a learned
humoral  pathologist who spends his time in first opening the bowels
by a dose  of Jalap, and then closing  them up again by a dose of
Opium;  or in first irritating the skin  by a blister  and aftenvards
healing the sore by an ointment; or in first poisoning the organism
by Calomel and afterwards undertaking to clear it out again by a
dose of Castor-oil.  Moreover, the addition  of  Opium  Avould fre-
quently fail of its object;  for,  as  the  learned Dierbach very cor-
rectly remarks, the gastric effects of Antimony might have been
masked by Opium for a time, but they Avould break forth all the
more violently afterwards.
   We have stated that large doses of Antimony will cause vomiting
and diarrhoea, or will increase  the urinary secretions  in  case the
emetic or cathartic action does not develope itself.  It is by massive
doses of  a drug that its primary effects upon  the tissues are deter-
mined ; small doses indicate more fully and accurately the manner in
which the  organism reacts  against the drug.  We have  seen, for
instance,  that a massive dose of Aconite will  depress the pulse and
animal temperature; this maybe considered as  the primary effect
of the  poison, which,  if eventually overcome by the organic vital
force, will be replaced by an opposite  condition, heat and dryness
of the skin, and increased  frequency,  fullness and strength of the
pulse. Under the effects of a massive dose of the poison, the organic
reaction sets in slowly, at a late period, if at all; under the effects
of a comparatiArely small dose  of the poison, the organic reaction
may set  in speedily,  sometimes so  rapidly that  the primary effects
of the  drug are  hardly perceived.  Comparatively small  doses of
Aconite,  for instance,  may at once develop the symptoms of organic
reaction,  heat and dryness of the skin, and fullness and  rapidity of
the pulse, without any marked previous diminution of the  tempera-
ture, or of the volume and frequency of the pulse.  In  applying 
216                      LECTURE XIV.
this doctrine to Antimony, we shall find that comparatively small
closes of this drug may develop symptoms of  organic reaction Avith-
out any previous symptoms of primary reaction.  Instead of diar-
rhoea we shall have more or less constipation, accompanied perhaps
by bloating of the bowels, and instead  of vomiting Ave may have a
loss of tone in the stomach, giving rise to loss of appetite, or even
complete anorexia, a perfect indifference to food.  The other symp-
toms of gastric derangement may remain the same.  We may add
that the urine and circulation would likewise  be found correspond-
ingly altered ;  instead of a thin, watery urine Ave might have a urine
evincing slight symptoms  of a feverish condition of the system,
darker in  color, of a more  offensive odor, and perhaps depositing
some sediment.  The pulse would, most  probably, be slightly irri-
tated.
  Formerly it was believed that the action of Antimonials depended
upon their solubility in the fluids of the stomach.  This doctrine is
now emphatically exploded.   Metallic Antimony, which is insoluble
in the stomach, acts as energetically as the soluble antimonial salt,
tarter emetic.  Trousseau and Pidoux have determined  by direct
experiment that "Antimonial preparations, if injected into the rec-
tum, veins, or subjected to absorption in any part of the system, will
excite vomiting more certainly than they do if introduced directly
into the stomach;" which proves, according to the opinion of these
observers, that "vomiting is the effect of some special modification
of the nervous system rather than of the local irritation produced
by the drug."   Homoeopathic  practitioners may well rejoice at this
more enlightened and refined mode of accounting for the action of
drugs, a poAverful rebuke to Liebig and his followers, Avho have
undertaken the hopeless task of explaining the phenomena of vital
action and reaction  by the laAvs which govern inorganic matter.
  After these brief explanations it may be interesting to study the
effects of  Antimony as determined by the inhalation of antimonial
vapors  in smelting  buts.   Dr. Lohmeyer, physician to  a large
smelting  establishment in  Germany, has described  the  poisonous
effects of antimonial vapors in a very graphic manner.
  One of the workmen was  attacked as follows : after having been
exposed to the  vapors  for  a long time, oppression on the chest
and slight headache;  the oppression gradually increased to  violent
stitches across the chest, darting tOAvards the shoulders and back;
these were accompanied by a dry, painful, shriU'cough.  The head-
ache  likewise increased to a stitching  and burning "distress in the
occiput and nape of the neck.  AArhen  coughing, the patient raised
with  difficulty ; a rattling and Avheezing  in  the  air-passages were
heard during the respiration.  At night the patient  was distressed
by a painful uneasiness which soon increased to complete  loss of
sleep.  An occasional short nap was  invariably interrupted by a
most  distressing  sweat  which was always folloAved by great  ex-
haustion.   A complete prostration of the organism was  a marked
symptom of the effects of the poison.  The appetite was impaired,
the abdomen distended, and the patient was troubled with frequent
attacks of a  pinching diarrhoea,  especially after eating, when  the 
ANTIMONIUM CRUDUM.
217
food would  pass  off  undigested.  The patient had  difficulty in
passing urine, which was attended with urging and pain at the neck
of the  bladder and a painful burning in the urethra, from which a
few drops  of a  liquid mucus Avere occasionally discharged.   The
urine had a dark,  orange or  reddish  color.   A few pustules broke
out on the  scrotum, resembling small-pox pustules ; pains Avere felt
in the scrotum, the  sexual  instinct was weakened  and gradually
became extinct even to complete impotence;  seminal discharges and
erections had entirely ceased.  Incipient atrophy of the penis and
testicles accompanied this loss of power.
   This group  of  symptoms illustrates in  a very characteristic
manner the disorganizing action of Antimony upon what  physio-
logists designate as the  vegetative  or reproductive sphere.  First,
in this  group of symptoms  Ave have  the acute bronchial irritation
and colliquative sweats Avith the sticking-burning pain in the head,
and more especially in the occiput; next, we notice the impaired
appetite and the diarrhoea and lienteria; thirdl}', observe the urinary
difficulties, the  urging and pain at the neck of the bladder, and the
burning in the  urethra with discharges of mucus from this canal;
next the small-pox-shaped pustules on the  scrotum, and lastly the
impotence  and atrophy of the sexual  organs.
   In another case  the same symptoms Avere observed, together with
rheumatic  tearing pains  in  the  limbs, and  the  pustulous eruption
first breaking out  on the neck, afterwards on the  trunk and very
characteristically on the  sexual organs.
   In a number of  other  cases Antimony produced the same effects.
In one case the patient complained of stitches darting tOAvards the
occiput, Avith pain in the forehead and in the region of the root of
the nose; he likeAvise complained of a violent distress in the small
of the back; the  other  symptoms Avere the same  as  in  the other
cases.
   The important facts which are  communicated to us in these cases,
lead us to  some exceedingly interesting applications of Antimony
as a therapeutic agent.   AYe are undoubtedly entitled to its use in
   1. Chronic Headaches,  of the character delineated in these groups
of toxicological symptoms; the patient complains of stitches flying
through the head, or  of a  burning  distress  in  the region  of the
cerebellum ;  such  headaches are always complicated Avith profound
gastric disturbances, loss of appetite,  diarrhoea and a general pros-
tration of  the vital  reaction, they may have a mercurial-syphilitic
origin.   Antimony  has  been used by Old-School  physicians  for
syphilitic bone-pains in the skull, syphilitic  nodes about  the skull,
and h}rpertrophy of  the  pericranium ; in all these  affections mas-
sive, alterative  doses were resorted to.  If  the drug is indicated in
these  syphilitic affections by  the  constitutional symptoms, com-
paratively small doses will be sufficient.
   2. In Diarrhwa and Lienteria, to which Ihave already directed your
attention;  I  mean the diarrhoea of cachectic individuals, with dis-
charges of foul slime, bile and undigested food, an  impaired appe-
tite, eoated tongue.
   Plenck asserts that  Antimony, Avhen inconsiderately taken,  may 
218
LECTURE XIV.
produce vomiting, copious stools, intolerable griping pains, anxiety,
agitation,  haemorrhage from the bowels, convulsions, inflammation
of the stomach and intestines, erosions, gangrene, death.
  AYe knoAV moreover that Antimony will induce copious and fetid
ptyalism, foul taste, coated tongue, foul risings  from the stomach,
anorexia,  oppression  after  eating, emission  of fetid flatulence,
enuresis.  Hence Ave may recommend Antimony in
   Gastro-enteritis ; in
  Saburral Derangements or Gastricism;
   Weakness of the Bowels and Digestive System ;
   Worm Affections.
  These derangements of the gastric functions may be more or less
accompanied by febrile  symptoms; hence it may be  necessary to
resort to  Antimony in some chronic forms of gastric or mucous
fever of an erethic type.  In the inflammatory type of  these fevers
Antimony would be out of place.
  If Antimony is possessed of the poAver of depressing the Aregeta-
tive  functions of the organism by  disorganizing  the  intestinal
mucous tissue and the  lymphatic system, we may reasonably infer
that  it may prove useful in certain forms of
  Marasmus, characterized by such signs of derangement in the
digestive system as we have indicated.  The unhealthy state of the
skin, tendency to sores, depression of cutaneous temperature and a
sensation of heat diffused over  the inner surfaces;  anorexia, diar-
rhoeic discharges consisting of disorganized lymph and mucous, or
alternate diarrhoea  and  constipation, and  other signs of vegetatiATe
decay, must of course legitimate the use of this agent.
  3.  In Dysuria, with urging and  pain at  the  neck of the bladder.
In recommending Antimony for this affection,  you must not lose
sight of the general determining  condition  for its use, Avhich is a
more or less  universal  decay or sinking of the lymphatic system,
this first and  most important laboratory of the reproductive energies
of the organism.
  4.  In Catarrh of the  Bladder,  with  burning in the urethra,  dis-
charges of mucus; it may arise  as a spontaneous symptom of defi-
cient innervation in the lymphatics of the urinary organs.
  5.  In Chronic or  even Acute  Gonorrhoea, Avith  similar symptoms.
In this  disease  Antimony may  prove useful  in many cases, more
especially  if  the  gastric condition of the patient justifies its  use.
Allceopathic surgeons use alterative doses in this disease.
  6.  In Impotence and Atrophy of the Testicles as a symptom of gen-
eral  prostration of the  reproductive  sphere, Avith loss of appetite.
diarrhoea,  night-sweats, rheumatic or arthritic pains.
  7.  In Bronchial Irritation or actual Bronchitis of a chronic form,
with  stitches  flying through  the  air-passages, oppression, racking
cough with scanty and difficult  expectoration, violent  headache in
the occiput or forehead.
  Even in Ulcerous Pldhisis, where these symptoms occur, Antimony
may be of use.  Stahl, of celebrated memory, employed  it in  this
affection with success.  It should not be forgotten, however, that
Stahl employed the vapors of antimony, which he caused to be  in- 
ANTIMONII ET POTASS^E TARTRAS.
219
haled.   His commentator, Huldericus Pelargus,  declares however
that he does not by any means feel  inclined to resort to the vapors
of Antimony in ulcerous phthisis, either in his own case or in that
of other patients.  In this  he was perfectly correct 'from  his OAvn
point of view;  for  not  being acquainted with the fact that  anti-
monial  vapors  may cure a pulmonary condition bordering upon
phthisis, for the simple reason that they are capable of producing a
similar derangement in healthy persons, he must necessarily have
condemned the use of such  agents  in pulmonary diseases as  dan-
gerous and absurd.
  8. We find that Antimony will prove homoeopathic to  Small-pox,
for it causes not only a similar eruption, but a similar disease.  It
causes the distressing headache, the pain in the small of the back,
the' rheumatic-tearing pains  in  the joints, and the gastric derange-
ments which exist in small-pox.
  Lastly, let me remark  that Antimony has been used by Old-School
practitioners for arthritic rheumatism.  If  they have  succeeded in
effecting cures in this disease by means of large doses of Antimony,
it is not so much upon the revulsive action of the drug as upon its
homoeopathicity to this  disease, that its  curative  effects  depended.
We have seen that  Antimony causes  arthritic-tearing pains in the
joints; if these pains are complicated with deep-seated  gastric dis-
turbances, with prostration and debilitating sweats, Ave may prescribe
Antimony  with a well grounded  hope of affording relief to the
patient.
  The inflammatory sphere of this  drug generally is very limited;
we may use it, as we said before, in some cases of chronic  arthritis
and rheumatism, provided  the  accompanying  gastric disturbances
justify its employment;  when concretions have formed in the joints,
it may favor their  absorption.  Understand me  Avell, Gentlemen,
Antimony is not a  remedy  for gouty concretions; the co-existence
of  gastric symptoms has to justify its use; it Avill  prove of little
avail, unless the gouty diathesis is symptomatic of deep-seated gas-
tric irritation, Avith tendency to prostration and debilitating sweats.


           ANTIMONII ET POTASSiS  TARTRAS.

         {Tartrate of Antimony and Potash, Tartar Emetic)

  The term Stibium  is more  especially applied to  this  salt by
homoeopathic physicians.   We  obtain it by boiling equal equiva-
lents of cream  of tartar and teroxyde  of  antimony in four times
their weight of water.
  This salt is sold in the shops in a crystalline form.  The crystals
should be Avell formed, perfectly white, transparent  or opaque, having
a slightly astringent, metallic taste.  When dropped into  a solution
of hydrosulphuric acid,  they have an orange-colored deposit formed
on them ;  Avith  hydrosulphuret  of ammonia, a  solution of the pure
crystals gives a copious golden-colored precipitate.
  Tartar emetic was first accurately described by the Dutch Chemist 
220
LECTURE XIV.
Hadrian de Mynsicht in the year 1631.  Old-School physicians have
always regarded it as one of their most valuable sedatives, and more
recently it has been lauded to the skies by Easori and his folloAvers
as a most powerful antiphlogistic.
  One of the most energetic experimentizers with Tartar Emetic is
Magendie.  Dogs AArithout  number have  been  sacrificed by this
remarkable  man  for the purpose of ascertaining  the  effects  of
poisons upon the animal economy.
  Magendie.infers from his experiments, that  Tartar Emetic  occa-
sions death when  SAvallowed, not by inflaming  the stomach, but by
means of a general  inflammatory state of the  Avhole system subse-
quent to its  absorption.   In one  case  six or eight grains  were
dissolved in Avater, and injected into the vein of a dog; the animal
Avas attacked with vomiting and purging, and  died within an hour.
Post-mortem appearances: redness of the Avhole villous coat of the
stomach and intestines; also the  lungs were  of an orange-red, or
violet-color throughout, destitute of crepitation, gorged Avith blood,
dense like the spleen, and here and there even  hepatized.
  Eayer and Bonnet  killed rabbits with Tartar Emetic, without
being able to discover any inflammatory  symptoms after death.
They have observed the symptoms of inflammation in the tract of
the intestinal mucous membrane, and e\ren these were found entirely
wanting  in all cases where  the  poison destroyed  life  suddenly.
Doctor Champbell of Edinburgh likewise found no traces of inflam-
mation in the lungs.   He killed a cat by  applying five grains of
Tartar Emetic to a Avound made for that purpose, and discovered no
signs of inflammation in the pulmonary tissue.   It is barely possible,
as Trousseau and Pidoux suggests, that Magendie may have mistaken
a purely mechanical stagnation of the blood in the vessels for actual
inflammation. The specific power which Magendie supposed Tartar
Emetic to possess of causing pulmonary engorgements, is doubted
by most, and denied by many leading physiological therapeutists.
So far as I know, there is not a single fact on record going to show
that Tartar Emetic is endowed with any specific power of inflaming
the lungs in  the human  subject.   Pereira very justly argues  that
" in cases of poisoning by this substance, no  mention is made  of
difficulty of breathing, cough, pain, or other symptom which could
lead to the suspicion that the lungs were suffering."

  Tartar  Emetic acts both as an irritant and a narcotic poison.
As an irritant poison it may induce symptoms of inflammation  in
the gastro-intestinal mucous lining;  as a narcotic poison it affects
the nervous system, causing  violent  pains,   cramps, convulsions,
delirium and death.  Dr. Eecamier, chief physician to  the Hotel-
Dieu of Paris, reports a fatal case of poisoning Avith tartar emetic,
Avhere the narcotic effects of the poison are distinctly seen.  A man
took forty grains of the poison for the purpose of destroying himself.
He had been nearly tAvo days ill Avith vomiting, purging and convul-
sions when Dr. Eecamier saw him.  On the third day he  had great
pain and tension in the region of the stomach, and appeared like a
man in a state of  intoxication.  In the  course  of the day the whole 
ANTIMONII ET POTASS.E TARTRAS.
221
belly became swollen, and at night delirium supervened, which soon
became furious and the patient died in convulsions.
  In this case the thoracic viscera remained sound.  A case of this
kind simulates a sudden attack of gastro enteritis  or even cholera;
in violent attacks of this kind, where the capillary network ramified
over the intestinal mucous lining is intensely irritated by the poison,
and the cerebro-spinal axis receives a violent counter  shock in con-
sequence, Tartar Emetic may prove an invaluable curative agent.  It
has  even  been administered with great success in cases of  furious
delirium tremens where such symptoms as this case exhibits consti-
tute  characteristic indications.

  Another case is reported by Orfila where the narcotic effects of
the poison are distinctly seen :
  A patient swallowed by mistake a  scruple of Tartar Emetic  for
cream  of tartar.  A feAV moments afterwards he complained of pain
in the  stomach, then of a tendency to  faint, and at length was seized
with violent bilious  vomiting.   Soon after, he felt colicky pains,
extending through the bowels, accompanied ere  long by profuse
and unceasing diarrhoea.   The pulse at the time was small and con-
tracted, and his strength failed completely ; but the symptom Avhich
distressed him most was frequent rending  cramps  in the legs.   He
remained  in this state for  about six hours, and  then recovered
gradually under the use  of Chinchona  and Opium; but for some
time afterwards he was liable  to weakness of digestion.
   In this case the symptoms seem to  be the result of a deep inroad
upon the nervous system.   AVe infer this from the great prostration
of the  patient, from the cramps in the calves, and from the peculiar
alteration in the pulse.  This case again shows that in attacks simu-
lating  gastro-enteritis and cholera, Tartar  Emetic  may be  homoeo-
pathically indicated, even if the nervous character of  the attack is
a prominent feature in the case before us.

  There are cases where a group  of cholera symptoms is produced
by a very small dose of Tartar Emetic.  In  the London Lancet a
case of pneumonia  is reported  Avhere the patient, a  delicate  and
strumous man, after having been bled, Avas put on  the use of Tartar
Emetic, one third of a grain every four hours.  About half an hour
after the first dose the patient became restless, cold and faint, then
purged and vomited, the symptoms  continuing violently  Avithout
cessation.   There was extreme prostration, the pulse was small,  the
surface cold, and the legs were cramped.   The pain in the chest was
not felt during these symptoms.   Opiates and brandy restored him.
  A case of this kind is not altogether a fair illustration of the effects
of a small dose of Tartar Emetic; for it may be presumed  that the
reactive energies of the organism must have been generally prostrated;
nevertheless it may afford us an approximate proof that small doses
of a drug, in highly sensitive  organisms, may produce great effects
generally, and that small doses of Tartar Emetic may do so in par-
ticular. 
222
LECTURE XIV.
   Another  case  is reported in the London  Lancet, where a still
 smaller dose was administered to a stout, active, well-built man for
 a cold.   He took 15 drops of antimonial wine at bed-time in order
 to  perspire.  The  nausea  which ensued was  excessive, and  the
 prostration  extreme ;  the patient was unable  to leave his room for
 three or four days ; there was no purging, but colicky pain, griping,
 faintness and general  exhaustion.
   These symptoms do not point to cholera  or gastro-enteritis; but
 they lead us to infer that Tartar Emetic may be an eminently useful
 agent in
   Gastrodynia,  Hahnemann once effected a marvellous cure of this
 dreadful disorder by administering Areratrum ; it may be your good
 fortune to derive similar brilliant results from  the use  of  Tartar
 Emetic.

   In Frank's Magazine another case of poisoning by Tartar Emetic
 is reported Avhere the  symptoms resemble gastro-enteritis  of a vio-
 lent kind.  Twenty to twenty-five  grains  of Tartar  Emetic were
 taken by mistake ;  in a feAV minutes there Avas insufferable feeling
 of Avarmth  in the epigastrium, then violent pains  in the  forehead
 like clavus  hystericus and some dizziness; in  half an hour moisture
 on the  forehead  and nape of the neck;  vomiting for 20 or 30
 minutes; the headache,  dizziness and redness  of  face  increased;
 after taking a dose of Castor-oil, the burning feeling in the stomach
 and small intestines increased to such a degree that  he became very
 restless; the pulse Aveak, 80, tongue white, throat dry, taste unplea-
 sant ; inclination  to sleep; next day, his  mouth Avas very sensitive,
 the gums bled, Avith a slight spongy appearance like scurvy, lasting
 two days.
   This is a  most interesting case which reveals therapeutic poAvers
 of a peculiar order.  The symptoms in this case resemble those of
 the fatal  case reported by Eecamier.  They shoAV that Tartar Emetic
 may serve us in gastrodynia, in cholera-morbus and gastro-enteritis
 when the nervous symptoms, prostration,  dizziness,  pain in the
 head, are prominent indications.   Even in nervous headache, with
 the sensation as if a nail were sticking in the brain, Tartar Emetic
 may be found indicated, provided the constitutional symptoms, more
 particularly the symptoms of  gastric  disturbance, and the general
 prostration correspond.
  From this case Ave likewise learn that Tartar Emetic is adapted to
  Stomacace Avith bleeding and sponginess of the  gums.   Consider-
 ing that Tartar Emetic causes  profuse salivation, we may consider
 this agent as exceedingly qualified to arrest mercurial ptyalism.
  Beside these toxicological effects Ave have  provings by Dr. Janko-
 vicli of Buda, Hungary.   He  prepared a solution  of 12  grains of
 Tartar Emetic in three ounces of Avater, of which he took a spoon-
ful every hour.  After the first spoonful  he was attacked Avith diz-
 ziness and nausea; after the second dose he experienced a shudder-
 dering over  the whole body, cold sweat, nausea, retching, disposition
to vomit; after the third dose violent  praecordial anguish; two
paroxysms of vomiting of quantities of mucus and bile,  rumbling 
ANTIMONII ET POTASS.E TARTRAS.
223  '
 in the bowels Avithout pain or discharge; the skin was continually
 covered Avith profuse sweat;  there was a copious flow of saliva; the
 prover felt somewhat thirsty, and  had to  drink small  quantities  of
 Avater.   He felt so weak that he was unable to rise from the sofa.
 After the fourth spoonful he had frequent attacks  of nausea, vomit-
 ing, and a discharge from the bowels.   The fifth dose was followed
 by such a perfect listlessness and indifference to everything  that
 death itself seemed an indifferent event at this period.  The pulse
 Avas considerably retarded.  He had now taken one fourth of the
 medicine, 1 grains, but was seized with such an aversion to the drug
 that he was unable to continue his provings.  He  took some broth;
 the  nausea, rumbling in the  bowels, apathy and  sweat  continued
 all night, but in the morning he was quite well again.
   These provings would  seeem to show that the  nerves of the
 stomach experience  the first shock of the  poison, especially when
 administered in moderately small doses, and that the alvine derange-
 ments set in subsequently to the nausea and vomiting.  Yery large
 doses may at once develop cathartic effects without any symptoms
 of nausea.  Years ago, when travelling in Texas, I once swallowed,
 inadvertently,  a teaspoonful of Tartar Emetic, it could not  have
 been less than  20 grains.   The effect was tremendous;  no nausea or
 vomiting, but watery discharges from the bowels  which seemed to
 be propelled or expelled with a tremendous force taking their point
vof departure from the pharynx, and continuing Avith a rolling noise
 down the oesophagus and  through the  whole  intestinal tract, as  if
 the bowels would  be torn out.   These discharges  lasted off and on
 for  a Avhole day.  The probability is that  the  Tartar Emetic was
 adulterated with Magnesia, else the effect might have  proved more
 obstinate and lasting.
   The characteristic effects of the drug may likewise be elicited by
 means  of endermic  applications.  These  endermic effects are  pro-
 cured Avith more  certainty  by first boiling the  emetic in Avater
 and precipitating it by the addition of alcohol, after Avhich it may
 be  combined with lard  into  an ointment.   If the  Tartar  Emetic
 is rubbed up Avith the lard without having been  previously boiled
 in Avater and afterwards precipitated from  the watery solution by
 means  of alcohol, the vomiting and diarrhoea  may not take place,
 and the irritating action of the poison may be  confined to the  epi-
 dermis, where pustules make their appearance which resemble in all
 respects the ordinary small-pox pustules.
   The application of Tartar  Emetic ointment to the epidermis has
 A'ery frequently occasioned disastrous consequences.
   In the case  of a  little  girl, of 6 years,  Avho Avas  afflicted  Avith
 whooping cough, the  ointment Avas rubbed on the vertex and breast,
 after which the characteristic  pustules  made their  appearance.
 Ulceration Avith discharge  of profuse quantities of pus was the re-
 sult.   This  suppurative process continued  to spread in spite of all
 antidotal treatment Avith quinine, chlore, etc., until the  child died.
  A  young man  Avho used the ointment  against a  catarrh,  Avas
 attacked Avith a cartilaginous groAvth upon the  chest.  In extent
 and form it resembled the  spread hand of a stout man, had a  uni- 
* 224
LECTURE XIV.
 form thickness of from 8 to 10 lines, and irregular  margins. (It
 extended from the  middle of the sternum laterally as far  as the
 costal cartilages, Avith which it seemed closely united.   The surface
 of the  cartilaginous formation was shining, and  had  the general
 appearance of a cicatrix of several months' standing.  It was a dense,
 firm, cartilaginous tissue, causing a good deal  of itching when the
 body was heated, but  otherwise  painless when rubbed  or pressed
 upon.  Subcutaneous vessels might  be seen traversing the mass.
 The cartilaginous degeneration arose from the use of the ointment
 having been continued even after the well-known  pustules  had
 made their appearance.  The severe inflammation and swelling which
 ensued rendered the further use of the ointment impossible.   No
 means being used to combat these alarming symptoms, the  conse-
 quence was the cartilaginous degeneration alluded to.
   Dr. Krebs has frequently seen  urinary difficulties  arise from the
 use of the ointment  in whooping cough.
   A scrofulous child, of 2 years,  had  the ointment appMed to  the
 scalp, in consequence of Avhich the occipital portion of the scalp was
 transformed  into  a  black, fetid, gangrened  mass.   The  gangrened
 portion of the  scalp gradually sloughed off, and the child recovered.
   A young lady was attacked with intense praecordial  anguish  and
 utter inability  to  move in consequence of the application of the
 ointment to the epigastric region.  The first effect of the ointment
 was a syncope of two  hours' duration, which was followed  by an
 anguish in the  praecordia lasting six hours.
   Dr. Bertini relates that, twenty hours after the application of a
 Tartar Emetic plaster to the abdomen  the patient was attacked Avith
 violent chills, intense pains in the bowels, attended with serious
 diarrhoea, tenesmus,  and  a  violent fever lasting tAvo  days.   The
 symptoms were subdued by emollient injections and poultices.   A
 pustulous eruption on the abdomen had likewise broken out.

   We have abundant testimony to prove that Tartar  Emetic is
 homoeopathic to
   Smallpox, by which we mean that it develops an eruption Avhich
 resembles the small-pox pustule.  In the London Lancet, the case of
 an Essex farmer is reported Avho took Tartar Emetic in  half grain
 doses every three hours, Avhile suffering  under acute pneumonia.
 A pustular eruption made its appearance over the Avhole body, Avhich
 was mistaken by his  friends for small-pox.

   Frank, m his magazine, reports the case of a man  suffering Avith
 pneumonia, Avho took ten grains  of Tartar  Emetic in solution in
 thirty-four hours; about twenty-four  hours after the last dose  an
 eruption appeared  which resembled in the closest particulars that
 produced  by Tartar  Emetic ointment; it consisted of pimples and
 vesicles which increased rapidly in  size and filled with pus in two
 days; they were surrounded with a red base and resembled closely
 mature pustules of small-pox or smaller pustules of cow-pox.  They
 were exceedingly painful, but most of them dried up in a feAV days,
and formed crusts; a few became larger than the others, and then 
AXTTIMONII ET POTASS^E TARTRAS.
225
resembled the pustules of ecthyma.  The eruption commenced on
the inner surface of the right fore-arm, then spread over the whole
back, where the pustules Avere both isolated, grouped and confluent.
Neither vomiting, purging, nor perspiration Avas caused by the drug.
The pneumonia Avas rapidly cured, together with a fever and ague,
and consequent dropsy with which the patient was also troubled.

  Is Tartar Emetic homoeopathic to small-pox?  We know  that
it produces an eruption which resembles the small-pox pustule: but
is  this similarity of the Tartar Emetic eruption to the small-pox
pustule sufficient to establish the homoeopathicity of Tartar Emetic
to  the small-pox disease?  I think not,  unless  the Avhole  physio-
logical  process of Avhich the Tartar Emetic pustule is the ultimate
termination, is analogous  in its  essence to the pathological  process
of Avhich  the  small-pox  pustule is the ultimate boundary.   The
mere  external resemblance of one eruption to the other might de-
ceive us as regards  the internal or real homoeopathicity of the drug
to  the disease. Does Tartar Emetic  deA^elop  its pustules in the same
order as small-pox develops its eruption ?   If  it does not, Tartar
Emetic cannot be  said  to  be  homoeopathic to small-pox.  This
remark applies with equal force to  the  use of Pulsatilla in measles,
Belladonna in scarlatina  laevigata,  Sulphur in scabies,  Aconite in
purpura miliaris.  Furthermore, if Tartar  Emetic is homoeopathic to
small-pox in the same sense as  the vaccine  virus is known to be, it
should not only be possessed of curative, but likewise of prophylactic
virtues in this disease.  We have  testimony to offer showing  that
Tartar Emetic is a preventive of small-pox, and possesses the poAver
of neutralizing, to some extent at least, the malignant character of
this disease, and more particularly of protecting vital organs  and the
inner mucous lining from the disorganizing action of the small-pox
virus.   Heretofore  the  only knoAvn agent Avhich is truly  homoeo-
pathic to small-pox, or, in other  words, which is capable of develop-
ing in the organism a morbid process analogous to that of small-
pox, was supposed to be the vaccine virus;  hence the vaccine virus,
or vaccinine was looked upon not only as a prophylactic, but  also
as  a true specific curative agent  in small-pox.
  The later experiments of Dr.  Lichtenstein of BrunsAvick  in Ger-
many seem to show that  the course of the Tartar Emetic  pustule
is  in  all respects analogous to  that of the small-pox pustule; he
infers this from thirty-one cases of patients Avho Avere vaccinated and
revaccinated  Avith the lymph of the  Tartar Emetic pustule,  and
where the same eruption was reproduced by means of this process of
inoculation.
  Dr. Liedbeck of Stockholm states that he has never seen a case of
small-pox terminate fatally when treated Avith  Tartar  Emetic in
small doses. He gives it in doses of one-half to one grain, dissolved
in  a pint of Avater, administered  in tablespoonful doses every fourth
hour.  Dr. Liedbeck likeAvise suggests the propriety of substituting
Tartar Emetic for the cow-pox virus. Froriep, in his Notices, states
that tartarized Antimony in large doses has produced dryness,  heat
and redness in the throat, as also an internal eruption;  large  pus-
                               15 
226
LECTURE XIV.
tules, Avith depressions in their centres, Avere found  in the mouth,
throat, larynx and trachea.

  Tartar Emetic may prove very successful in certain forms of
  Angina.  Tartar Emetic is known to have caused  continual spit-
ting, aphthous ulceration of the tongue, pseudo-membranous depo-
sitions upon the bucco-pharyngeal mucous membrane, erythematous
or sometimes pustulous inflammation of the throat; these symptoms
are sometimes induced by comparatively small doses of Tartar
Emetic.  In affections of the mouth and throat, where the symptoms
occur, such  as in  diphtheritic angina, mercurial ptyalism and  scor-
butic affections of the mouth, Tartar Emetic  may prove eminently
useful.
  Trousseau and  Pidoux and other  therapeutists assert that  these
effects of Tartar Emetic upon the lining membrane of the throat, are
the result of a local irritation of the  poison.  This agent should un-
doubtedly not be  depended upon in an affection of this kind, unless
the general constitutional symptoms point to its use.

  AYe have  already alluded to the powerful effects of Tartar Emetic
upon the nervous system, and to  its homoeopathicity to certain
forms of
  Delirium tremens.   One  of our practitioners, Dr. Moore of Liver-
pool, recommends it very strongly as one of our powerful antidotes
to delirium tremens; prominent indications are  nausea, vomiting
and purging, trembling and cold perspiration ; furious delirium may
be succeeded by prostration.

  In my judgment the signs  of cerebral  irritation do not indicate
Tartar Emetic, unless they can  be  traced to some deep-seated, pri-
mary irritation of the  nervous plexuses upon Avhich the functions of
the stomach and  small intestines depend.  According to Dierbach
and  other observers, Tartar Emetic,  when  introduced  into  the
stomach, first acts upon the coeliac  plexus through the mucous lin-
ing of the stomach, Avhence the  impression is  communicated to the
cardiac plexus, to the pneumogastric nerves, and  to the ganglionic
system  generally, which is depressed and semi-paralyzed by the
action of the poison.  According to this theory it would  seem that
the signs of cerebral irritation emanate secondarily or sympatheti-
cally from the ganglionic centers, and that in primary diseases of
the brain, Tartar Emetic is not in its  place as a homoeopathic agent.
If, therefore, Dr. Gray of New York recommends Tartar Emetic in
  Apoplectic Headache, with ineffectual retching, collapse of pulse,
coldness of the extremities, these indications can only be deemed
reliable in case the comatose condition of the patient can be traced
to a primary irritation of the coeliac plexus through the mucous
lining of the stomach.
  It is fair, moreover, to observe that in the fatal case reported by
Dr. Eecamier, the  brain exhibited decided symptoms of disorganiza-
tion.  The dura mater Avas found ossified  about an inch and a half
in diameter; the  arachnoid membrane was found thicker and uni- 
ANTIMONII ET POTASS^E TARTRAS.
227
 formly red ; signs of recent inflammation Avere found on that portion
 of the  membrane which covers the anterior  lobes  of  the brain:
 exiv lation of a serous liquid tinged red, particularly at  the base of
 the skull; the substance of the brain Avas softer than usual;  the left
 ventricle contained four or five spoonfuls of a transparent and color-
 less serum; the right ventricle contained less of a similar fluid.
   It seems improbable that this disorganized condition of the brain
 and its membranes can have been exclusively the result of the Tartar
 emetic;  there must have been previous disease and a condition  of
 cerebral weakness induced by previous inflammation or injuries  of
 some kind.  Under these circumstances it  seems impossible to de-
 cide how far the existing symptoms revealed  by the  post-mortem
 examination, were the result of primary or sympathetic poisoning.

   If Tartar Emetic is capable of causing spasms and convulsions, Ave
 may find it indicated in spasmodic affections of  the nervous system.
   In Frank's Magazine Ave find some very fine cures of
   Chorea effected Avith Tartar Emetic.
   A girl, aged fourteen, had suffered for five Aveeks with chorea in
 an extreme degree, which had resisted all the usual narcotic reme-
 dies ; she was emaciated to a skeleton, and suffered the most frightful
 tonic, but more especially clonic cramps, which  persisted  night  and
 day, almost without cessation. Tartar Emetic Avas given in half-grain
 doses every three hours; not the least nausea or vomiting was caused,
 but obstinate constipation Avas relieved;  in twenty-four  hours  the
 cramps were lessened, and ceased entirely in two days;  the remedy
 Avas continued for ten days, when the patient Avas perfectly well and
 blooming.

   A boy, aged eight,  had suffered with chorea for six weeks; he was
 not even free from it  during sleep ; he had just had chicken-pox and
 had taken cold;  Tartar Emetic ointment applied to the spine cured
 him quickly.

   A girl, aged twelve, Avho had groAvn very rapidly, and  had been
 subject every autumn for five years to an eruption  on the face and
 forehead, was attacked with St. Vitus' dance after the eruption was
 suppressed;  she  had  already suffered for seven months, and  almost
 every remedy had been tried without success.  Tartar emetic oint-
 ment was then rubbed upon the nape and upon the inside of both
 arms; improvement commenced within eight days after the  Tarter
 Emetic pustules appeared, and she Avas quite well in four weeks;  the
 cure was still permanent at the end of one year and a half.

  A boy, aged twelve, Avho  had suffered  for a long time with St.
Vitus' dance, and the most Avonderful convulsions occurring every
morning  at nine  o'clock, was cured by  the application  of  Tartar
Emetic ointment to the pit of the stomach, where he always felt pre-
monitions of the approaching attacks.
  There is no reason to suppose that, if Tartar emetic  had been
administered internally in these cases, a cure would not have been 
228
LECTURE XIV.
 effected equally as well and as permanently.  At first blush it would
 appear as though the drug had been used in tAvo of these cases upon
 principles of revulsion or counter-irritation.  This may have been in
 the mind of the practitioner,  but the nature of the cases would have
 justified the use of Tartar Emetic in accordance with the law "similia
 similibus"

   In Bilious and Gastric fevers, with nausea, vomiting of bile, white-
 coated  and moist tongue, metallic  taste,  headache,  lassitude and
 debility, it is recommended  by Dr. Leon as excellent.  Dr. Gray
 recommends it  in  the malarious  bilious  remittent  fevers  of our
 country.  Dr. Leon (of New Orleans) prescribes  it in
   Yellow fever for: nausea, vomiting, sense of sinking at the stomach
 as if the patient would  die,  prostration, white  fur on the tongue,
 profuse cold  perspiration, rapid and weak pulse,  drowsiness and dis-
 position to go to stool.  Dose :  one grain of first trituration in six
 ounces  of water, in desert-spoonful doses.
   By contrasting the pathogenetic  effects of Tartar Emetic with cor-
 responding pathological .conditions, we obtain the following thera-
 peutic tableau which we will consider under our usual categories.

                    1. CEPHALIC GEOUP.

   Delirium tremens, as  shown by Dr. Moore.
   Apoplectic  conditions of the brain, Avith  retching,  for which Dr.
 Gray recommends Tartar Emetic in doses of one-sixtieth of a grain.
   Clavus hystericus, as  shown by Frank's case.
   Metastatic Hydrocephalus, where it is recommended  by Noack and
 Trinks both internally, and externally as an ointment applied to the
 head.  Success can only be expected in  this treatment in case the
 hydrocephalus arises from the spontaneous suppression of small-pox.
 The ointment may be rubbed upon the  scalp, which  has to be pre-
 viously shaved, and internally 'the hundredth part of a grain may be
 given in twelve tablespoonfuls of water, a tablespoonful every hour
 or even more frequently.

                    2. NEEVOUS GEOUP.

   Lockjaw.  Doctor Carron, a French physician, reports a case of
 poisoning with Tartar Emetic, in the Journal General de Medecine,
 1811, where a woman who had taken tAventy grains of Tartar emetic,
 was  attacked with dreadful  pains, incessant vomitings, spasmodic
 locking of the jaws and convulsions.  A very  strong infusion of
 bark with opium appeased  the vomiting; but she preserved a state
 of irritability of the stomach which never ceased  entirely, and could
 only be moderated by  the habitual use  of  milk  and mucilaginous
 substances.
  An attack of this kind may occur in consequence of some violent
irritation of the  stomach or small intestines by indigestible food,
bile, worms.  I would commend Tartar Emetic to your attention in
the case of children who are  frequently exposed to  paroxysms of 
ANTIMONII ET POTASS^ TARTRAS.
229
this kind.   If the drug cannot be given internally, it is perfectly
proper to rub a weak solution or ointment upon the epigastric region.
   Chorea.   As an antispasmodic agent, we may use  Tartar  Emetic
in  chorea, especially when the attacks originated  in suppressed
chicken-pox or ecthyma, or commence with premonitory symptoms in
the epigastric region.   You will find  several cases  of this  disease
reported in my materia medica, where a cure was effected by rub-
bing the Tartar Emetic ointment either upon the spine or upon the
epigastrium.
   It is  perfectly proper to administer the homoeopathic agent by
the skin, if it should  seem most  conducive to the  end intended.
This  does  not justify  the indiscriminate application  of salves  or
washes  to sores or eruptions, for the purpose of drying them up or
driving  them in.   No reasonable  practitioner will  make himself
guilty of the insane proceeding of arresting a  discharge or  drying
up a chronic sore,  that had become necessary to the preservation of
health or even life.  Even in these cases an agent which is truly
homoeopathic  to the cutaneous disorder may be applied  externally
at the same time as we administer it internally.  Hahnemann him-
self has set us an example of such treatment.  He has cured chronic
syphilitic and  scrofulous sores by the external use of corrosive sub-
limate washes; we have cured glandular swellings, goitres and poly-
puses by applying to  them the iodide of mercury; we apply the
tincture of  iodine to buboes, condylomata;  we treat  vesicular sca-
bies Avith the sulphur ointment.  All such external applications are
perfectly justifiable  in homoeopathic  practice,  as long as we are
satisfied that the remedial agent is in true homoeopathic rapport
with the disease.  In many cases the external use of the drug may
not only be advantageous, but  absolutely necessary  to a cure.  In
the cases of chorea which I have extracted from Frank's Magazine,
it is more than probable that the  ointment was applied as a revul-
sive or counter-irritant agent, but it is  likewise certain to my mind
that its  admirable curative  effects depended  in reality  upon its
homoeopathicity to the  existing disease.
  Spasmodic Dysphagia may yield to Tartar Emetic which is capable
of producing a similar  condition.   In Orfila's toxicology the  case of
a man is reported,  who, after having swallowed  a large dose of Tar-
tar Emetic, was attacked with dreadful vomiting, and-a gradual clos-
ing of the oesophagus,  so  that not  a drop of liquid could be swal-
lowed.  The muscles of the neck were involved in the spasm.  The
face and eyes looked red,  and  every attempt to raise the  head, re-
sulted in violent vertigo, so that the patient had to replace his head
upon the pilloAv.   He was relieved  by leeching the neck, frictions of
opium on the neck, warm baths and other means.  A spasm of this
kind may be attended with acute pain in the  oesophagus.
  Similar symptoms were observed in the case  of a child ten years
old, to whom one grain of Tartar Emetic had been given.  Half an
hour after taking the drug, the child experienced  a spasmodic diffi-
culty of swalloAving, and severe  pain in the throat.  Leeches calmed
the spasm; vomiting had to be  arrested by means of  twenty grains
of ipecacuanha. 
230
LECTURE XIV
  We therefore recommend Tartar Emetic in Paroxysmal Dysphagia
characterized by inability to A'omit, spasmodic constriction of the
oesophagus and throat, pain in the throat, congestion of the cervical
and cerebral vessels.

                   Buccal and Facial Groups.

  Among the poisoning effects of Tartar Emetic, Ave distinguish very
frequently a profuse flow of saliva Avhich  is sometimes fetid and
ichorous.  Hence Ave are prompted to sometime prescribe this drug
for
  }[ercurial Ptyalism, to which it is rendered  still  more homoeo-
pathic by the sponginess and bleeding of the gums, which likeAvise
constitute symptoms of Tartar Emetic action.  These effects j ustify
the use of Tartar Emetic in the
  Stomacace, which may befall cachectic or strumous children or full-
grown people.  This stomacace or scorbutic inflammation may some-
times assume the form  of a fully-developed
  Angina Diphtherica, with  ptyalism, sAvelling  and redness of the
soft palate and pharynx which are studded with vesicles, and lined
with a tenacious mucus.  An  angina of  this  kind may meet  its
homoeopathic type in  Tartar Emetic, if the gastric symptoms like-
Avise point to its use.  The voice may be somewhat altered, in some
cases weaker and rougher than in its normal state.   Trouseau and
Pidoux  attribute the  angina occasioned by  Tartar  Emetic to  its
mechanical action upon the lining membrane of the throat.  If this
supposition be correct, Tartar Emetic may not prove a very efficient
agent in  angina, except perhaps  in the  angina  of cachectic  or
scorbutic  individuals, where  it develops  itself  as a  condition
incidental to such a state of gastricism as  I have described before.
In such forms of stomacace or angina as point to Tartar Emetic as
their homoeopathic simile or type, we may find it  useful to gargle
the throat with a weak solution  of Tartar Emetic.  In the
  Purulent Ophthalmia arising from the development of small-pox
pustules in the eye, Tartar Emetic may be of great use to us.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC GEOUP.

  Tartar Emetic  makes deep inroads  upon the digesti\-e system.
Poisonous  doses  sometimes  entail  upon  the patient  permanent
weakness of the  stomach,  which  may be characterized  by an
inability to retain  anything  upon  the stomach except  milk and
mucilaginous drinks.  This was the case with Dr. Carron's patient,
to which allusion  has been made previously.  Hence  we may
prescribe Tartar Emetic in
  Irritability of the Stomach Avhich may be  induced by over-eating
or over-stimulation by strong drinks.
  In Chronic  Gastritis characterized by pricking pains in the region
of the stomach, as if the stomach were pricked with needles, Tartar
Emetic may prove very valuable.  These pricking pains have been
experienced by persons who had been poisoned with Tartar Emetic, 
ANTIMONII  ET POTASS^ TARTRAS.
231
months after the poisonous symptoms had been subdued.  They may
indicate a purely nervous irritation of the stomach, and may there-
fore be considered as a case of
   Gastrodynia or likewise of  Nervous Dyspepsia.   Irritable stomach
or complete anorexia may co-exist with such pains.
  Acute paroxysms of Gastrodynia  to which  Tartar Emetic is
homoeopathic, are characterized by extreme prostration, cold sweats,
feeble pulse, colicky pains in the bowels, or crampy, burning distress
in the stomach and duodenum, retching and  nausea.
   In  Gastritis, Tartar Emetic will sometimes prove available.  In
fatal cases of poisoning by Tartar  Emetic,  the  stomach has  been
found filled Avith a thick bloody mucus; the mucous membrane of
the  stomach has  been found  intensely inflamed,  and corroded
throughout its whole extent, especially at the fundus of the stomach ;
at the same time it looked  spongy and  might be readily detached
from the muscular coat.  The duodenum has been found similarly
affected.  The lining membrane of the  remainder of the intestinal
tract had a grayish appearance and was found more or less spongy.
A patient attacked with this severe form of gastritis  would exhibit
symptoms like the following :  severe retching and vomiting, crampy,
burning distress, bloating in  the epigastrium Avith excessive sensi-
tiveness to contact, violent thirst, coldness of the  skin, with  cold
sweat, and thin,  hurried pulse, expression of agony in the  features.
Tartar Emetic may be  administered every half hour in doses of one
hundredth of a  grain.
   A severe form of gastritis maybe superinduced by the metastatic
transfer of the  small-pox  eruption to the coats of the stomach.
Both Arsenic and Tartar Emetic may be required in such a case.
   Gastro enteritis does not properly come within  the curative range
of Tartar  Emetic.  This  agent causes violent  pinching,  crampy
pains, and violent  discharges from the bowels, sometimes  attended
Avith distressing tenesmus.  These symptoms undoubtedly point to
a  violent  irritation of the  intestinal  lining membrane, but the
co-existing coldness of the  skin and the exhausting sweats do not
justify  the inference  that  this irritation  is of an  inflammatory
character.  In fatal cases of poisoning by Tartar Emetic, the mucous
lining of  the stomach has indeed been found  inflamed, but the
lining of the lesser intestines had  a  grayish appearance  and Avas
found more or less spongy.   These alterations  are  described with
much accuracy by Dr.  Engel of Vienna.
   According to  his observations, fatal doses of Tartar Emetic cause
hypertrophy  of the  intestinal follicles, and change the  mucous
membrane to a pale, dry, pultaceous mass.   It is therefore  evident
that in true inflammatory conditions of the intestinal mucous mem-
brane, Tartar Emetic is not applicable as a  homoeopathic agent, but
that it  may prove of decided  advantage in degenerations of this
organ which  set in with violent  diarrhoea, consisting of  watery and
mucous discharges, attended Avith extreme prostration, depression of
the pulse and vital heat.
   In  Cholera M^orbus or Asiatic Cholera  Tartar Emetic  may prove
serviceable.  AVe have seen that a poisonous dose of Tartar Emetic 
232
LECTURE XIV.
 may  induce  vomiting and  diarrhoea, cramps and  burning at the
 stomach, cramps in the calves, collapse of pulse, prostration and
 coldness of the skin.  These symptoms undoubtedly determine  a
 certain degree of homoeopathicity of Tartar Emetic to  cholera.
 HoAvever, it  may be proper to modify this teaching.  If cholera
 morbus  is the  result  of rheumatic  exposure,  or of miasmatic
 influences, Tartar Emetic may  not  be indicated;  Aconite and
 Arsenic may be required.  The determining cause of an  attack of
 cholera to which Tartar  Emetic is homoeopathic, may be a  fit of
 indigestion arising  from  the use of improper, indigestible  food.
 Hence in miasmatic, endemic or epidemic cholera, Tartar Emetic may
 fail us; Aconite, Arsenic, Veratrum may be required.

                     UEINAEY GEOUP.

  We have seen that an ointment may induce dysuria, perhaps only
 in cachectic individuals.

                      SEXUAL GEOUP.

  We have seen that Antimony  causes  pustules  on the sexual
 organs hence Tartar Emetic has been supposed to  be useful for
  Pustules on  the Vulva; these indications, hoAvever, should be
received  with a great deal of caution.   According to the testimony
of eminent observers, these eruptions on the  sexual  organs  may
not be the result of absorption,  nor of the dynamic action of the
poison through the ganglionic system;  but they may be caused by
the inadvertent application of the Tartar Emetic ointment to  these
parts.  If this should be  the case, it would be absurd to  hope for
much success in the treatment of these eruptions by  means of the
internal use of this agent.
  In Leucorrhcea, of a sanious or watery character, especially in the
case of females Avith impoverished constitutions, Tartar Emetic may
prove useful.

                 7.  CATAEEHAL  GEOUP.

  Under this head we may remark that Tartar Emetic is  used by
homoeopathic physicians for
  Influenza and  Croup.  Dr. Gray of New  York  recommends this
agent very strongly for influenza.  But  the use of this drug, as re-
commended by Dr.  Gray, is altogether empirical;  the  symptoms
of influenza do not furnish any indications for the  employment of
Tartar Emetic in influenza as a homoeopathic agent; its use  can only
be predicated upon the basis of revulsion and crude empiricism.
  Influenza is essentially a disorder of the delicate capillaries  rami-
fied over the mucous surfaces. The character of this disorder is tor-
por.   The attack sets in, to quote Dr. Gray's very accurate descrip-
tion, with "chilly feelings, headache, pasty tongue, inflammation of
the throat (tonsils, arches  of the palate or pharynx), short  turns of
nausea, aching in the bones, especially of the lower extremities', yel- 
ANTIMONII ET POTASS^ TARTRAS.
233
lowness of the skin, slight hoarseness, more or less fever-heat and
sweats."   These  symptoms do  not  indicate  Tartar  Emetic, but
Aconite.  Aconite is the chief remedy in our Materia Medica Avhich
affects the mucous lining of the respiratory and chylo-poietic sj^stems,
as we know it to be affected during the first  stage of influenza.
There is no sort of necessity of giving five or six drugs in a case of
this disease.  At the outset  Aconite is  not only required  by the
symptomatic indications,  but also  by the  pathology  of  the  case.
Tartar Emetic acts as a  revulsive agent in influenza, a mode of
practice Avhich homoeopathic  physicians should not countenance in
case Avhere strict  homoeopathic treatment is not only possible, but
infinitely superior.
  However, the specific homoeopathic rapport of Tartar Emetic to
influenza  alone determines its  curative  influence in this disease.
Herschel  gives the following group of symptoms as characteristics
of the epidemic influenza of 1831, in Germany :
  Eheumatic pains in the limbs and extremities;  stitches in the
chest; oppression on the chest, relieved by expectoration; irritation
inducing cough, with moist serous-albuminous expectoration; rack-
ing cough, especially at night, causing frontal headache and racking
the chest; aphthae around the mouth; thick, white or bilious coat-
ing of the tongue, with hawking up of mucus; nausea, vomiting,
pasty  or bitter taste, anorexia, not much thirst, empty feeling in the
stomach;  pressure, stitches, bloating of the hypochondria, especially
of the region of the liver;  diarrhoeic stools consisting of mucus, not
copious;  oppressive frontal  headache,  with vertigo, stupefaction,
dullness of the head, slight delirium, weary feeling as from Avant of
sleep,  yet there was no sleep; apathy  alternating  with  nocturnal
restlessness; exhausted  feeling in the limbs, as if proceeding from
the back; stiff neck;  pulse small, nervous; chilly  creepings  Avith
copious sweats.   Tartar Emetic often sufficed alone.

  In  Croup, Tartar  Emetic has been administered  in this country
and in Europe for mauy years  in combination with  squills and
senega.  This compound has acquired a world-wide reputation under
the name of Coxe's hive  syrup, or mel scillae compositum. It is
given at the commencement of croup and Avhooping-cough, and acts
as an  expectorant and emetic.  In these diseases Tartar Emetic is
administered upon the principle of revulsion and  counter-irritation;
hence Ave have no use for it in croup Avhere Aconite, Spongia, Iodine,
and other preparations act with far more directness and certainty in
conformity with the homoeopathic law.

                   PULMONAEY GEOUP.

  In Inflammation of the lungs, various antimonial preparations, and
more  particularly Tartar  Emetic,  are  considered  by Old-School
physicians as their main reliance  in dispersing the  engorgement of
the pulmonary tissue.  The use of Tartar Emetic in pneumonia has
been carried by the Italian physician Easori  to an extent Avhich
almost borders upon criminal recklessness.  Easori is known as the 
231
LECTURE XIV.
chief advocate  of  the  contra-stimulating method of treatment, by
means  of which a  cure is supposed to be effected by exciting an
artificial and more powerful stimulation in the tissues adjoining the
affected organ, or in the organ itself, or in the  organism generally.
I have stated that large doses of Antimony diminish the  beats  of
the heart and the number of inspirations; hence  Old-School physi-
cians employ it in  pneumonia as a  sedative, although it, at the same
time, holds the  first rank among the counter-irritants.  In order  to
enable the drug to spend its full force on the lungs, Easori contrived
the method of giving Tartar Emetic until the stomach tolerated, as it
was termed, large doses of the poison without  any of the ordinary
symptoms of nausea and vomiting.   He gave it in enormous doses,
as may be seen from the folloAving cases:
   "A young man was received in the Clinique  of Easori, April 5th,
1809, who had labored for four days under symptoms  of pneumonia,
for which he had  been bled and cupped on the side; pulse hard
and wiry; cough, with pain in the right side  of the  thorax {Bled,
Tartar Emetic 21  grs.,) 6th  inst., vomited twice {Tartar Emetic 48
grs.)   Evening.   Great augmentation  of  cough  and pain; ex-
pectoration tinged with blood; pulse vibrating; six alvine evacua-
tions {Tartar Emetic 48 grs.)   7th inst., in the morning  {Tartar
Emetic 72 grs.)   Evening.   Exacerbation of fever, of  cough and  of
pain; frequent  vomiting; six dejections.  {Tartar Emetic 72 grs.,
blood-letting).  8th day : Same symptoms. {Tartar Emetic 111 grs.,
bleeding).  Evening.  Vomiting, with increase of symptoms.   {Tar-
tar Emetic 141 grs., bleeding). 9th day :  Frequent vomiting, respira-
tion a little difficult; pain moderated ; feeling of oppression referred
to the  epigastrium; great muscular weakness; skin  dry and hot;
tongue dry.  {Tartar Emetic 72 grs., blood-letting).  Evening.  Ee-
peated vomiting/  {Tartar Emetic 36  grs., blood-letting).  10th day:
Vomiting less frequent; the  other symptoms continued.  {Tartar
Emetic 36 grs., blood-letting).   11th day:  Eespiration  calm, no pain,
but little cough; the patient could take a full inspiration, but could
scarcely speak;  pulse  small, compressible, unequal;  skin dry and
hot; tongue dry; frequent  vomiting, Avith intense thirst.  (Tartar
Emetic  36  grs., blood-letting).   Evening.  {Tartar Emetic 36 grs.)
12th day: {Tartar Emetic 36 grs.,  blood-letting).  The patient died
the following night.  Upon  examining the body, some hepatization
was found in the right lung.  Every  thing  else was  in a state  of
integrity."

   " Another person, aged twenty-seven years, who had been com-
plaining for three clays of cough, spitting of blood and  difficult respi-
ration, was admitted into Easori's Clinique on the 5th of April, 1809.
From the 5th to the 11th, in the space of six days, he was bled ten
times and  took eight   hundred and tAventy-six grains of Tartar
Emetic. _ On the sixth  day he died."  It seems  needless to add that
these patients were destroyed by this murderous treatment.
   See,  Gentlemen, upon what  a frail basis  the  counter-stimulant
treatment of pneumonia, which is still  advocated by a majority  of
the leading practitioners of  the dominant school, rests.  Magendie 
ANTIMONII ET POTASS^) TARTRAS.
235
showing that Tartar Emetic possesses the specific power of causing
pulmonary engorgements;  other experimenters equally skilled and
conscientious denying this doctrine.  If Tartar Emetic causes pul-
monary engorgements, upon what  principle is  it administered in
pneumonia ?   Upon the principle that  the engorgement caused by
Tartar Emetic will absorb  the natural disease.  But can it be sup-
posed that a lung which has been prostrated by disease, will  have
sufficient reactive energy left to free itself from the poisonous effects
of a thousand grains of Tartar Emetic ?  Let common sense, let a
common feeling of pity for a poor, helpless sufferer answer.
  Dance, in a work Avhere the action of Tartar Emetic in pneumonia
is rigorously but conscientiously inquired into, comes to the conclu-
sion that Tartar Emetic, if  it has not done posi#ve  injury, has not
done any good in the cases which  this agent is reported  to have
cured ; he argues that the cure was  OAving to bleeding.  Yet Tartar
Emetic is given even by those who deny its  specific  relation to the
pulmonary tissue, upon the principle of revulsion, derivation  or
counter-irritation.  They physic Avith it the boAvels and the stomach,
with a view of carrying off or counter-acting the pulmonary irritation.
This is Broussais' and Chomel's theory.
  Trousseau and  Pidoux  again  reject this  hypothesis,  and  give
Antimony antipathically as a depressor of the pulse.

  Is Tartar Emetic of any use to  a  homoeopathic physician in the
treatment of pneumonia ?   I have already told you  that the action
of Antimony upon the lungs is deficient in those characteristic signs
which inevitably mark the  existence of sanguineous  engorgements.
The symptoms obtained by our provings are too vague to yield any
definite indications for the use of Tartar Emetic in  pulmonary dis-
eases.  It might perhaps be used with advantage in some cases of
pneumonia during the stage of resolution, in  order to facilitate ex-
pectoration ;  but  I am inclined to think that, as we shall become
more thoroughly skilled in the use of Aconite, Phosphorus, Arsenic
and other agents, the use of Tartar  Emetic in pneumonia will  be
restricted more and more even by Old-School practitioners.
  Even Pereira remarks, that " in cases of poisoning by this sub-
stance, no mention is made  of difficulty of breathing, cough, pain or
other symptoms Avhich could lead to the suspicion  that  the  lungs
were  suffering."
  We have  used  Tartar Emetic with  apparently favorable results
in cases of Cough, induced in accordance with Virchow's hypothesis,
by  the detachment and  deposition, through the  general current of
the circulation, of little clots of purulent matter, inducing secondary
irritation, inflammation and suppuration of the mucous surfaces.  In
a case of scrofulous periostitis, Avhere  the  whole substance of the
thigh seemed converted into one abscess, the lungs became involved
either by nervous  agency or in accordance with VirchoAv's theory;
the patient Avas continually troubled  Avith a hacking cough, and
frequently raised  pus  and blood.  The  cough was  exceedingly
painful.   Tartar Emetic controlled these symptoms very speedily. 
236
LECTURE XIV.
                       FEVEE-GEOUP.

  AVe have seen that Dr. Leon recommends Tartar Emetic in a
certain stage and for certain forms of yellow fever.  In
  Malarious Bilious remittent fevers, and in
  Gastric and Mucous fevers, with tendency to prostration, anorexia,
styptic taste in  the mouth, dryness of the throat, nausea, retching,
spasmodic vomiting, watery and slimy discharges, or costiveness with
soreness and heat in the small intestines, compressible and rather
hurried pulse, cold and  clammy skin, Tartar Emetic may prove of
great use.

                E^ANTHEMATOUS GEOUP.

  Small-pox and Ecthyma.  Ecthyma  may sometimes result  from
simple inflammation of  the  subcutaneous tissues,  in which case
Aconite may often suffice to effect a cure.

                     MENTAL GEOUP.

  Tartar Emetic may induce  excessive  apathy and  praecordial
anguish; hence these conditions may be regarded as additional indi-
cations for its use.

  In regard to the antidotal treatment in a case  of poisoning, the
first thing we have to do is to procure, if possible, the evacuation of
the poison.   To this end the patient may drink tepid water or a few
tablespoonfuls of warmed sweet oil.   The poison is antidoted  by
Peruvian bark, tincture of galls, green tea, coffee, or any substance
which contains  a good deal of tannin.   Tannin forms with Tartar
Emetic an insoluble tannate.

  Another  antimonial preparation which we use in our practice,  is

                     Antimonial Wine,

 _ This is prepared by dissolving 40 grains  of  Tartar  Emetic in
eight ounces of Avarm distilled Avater, and afterwards adding as much
pure madeira to the solution.   Instead  of Avine, alcohol had better
be used.  The tannin which is sometimes contained in the wine,
neutralizes  to some extent the virtues of the solution.  It may be
used  in cases of Avhooping-cough and  spasmodic cough generally
when there is profuse expectoration of tenacious phlegm.

  Other antimonial preparations, such as Antimonial Glass, Kermes
mineral and the golden Sulphuret of Antimony are not used by homoe-
opathic physicians.  The effect of all  antimonial preparations being
the  same, except somewhat different  in degree, we  can  get along
with the three which I have described, by graduating them accord-
ing to our well-known rules of potentization.
  We may mention, however, the 
ARNICA MONTANA.
237  "
                     Muriate of Antimony,

Also termed Antimonial Butter.   This is a caustic solution, having
poisonous properties.  A boy swallowed  a teaspoonful of it, and was
immediately seized with retching and ineffectual attempts to vomit,
loss of voice.  Dr. Houghton, who reports the case, found  the face
pale and collapsed, eyes sunken, pupils dilated and immovable; skin
pale and cold; tongue clean;  mouth  filled with a tenacious,  trans-
parent mucus;  nausea;  vomiting;   pulse  small, 80;  breathing
labored ; drowsiness ; burning pain in the stomach.  It is used as an
escharotic in a case of figwarts and callous ulcers.  We may apply
it to figwarts around  the anus.
                 LECTURE  XV.

                   ARNICA  MONTANA,

              {Mountain Arnica, Mountain Tobacco)

  Professor Thomas D. Mitchell  of Jefferson College, says of this
interesting  and  highly useful  agent:  " AVe  have  many  articles
equally safe, and decidedly superior,  and hence the discredit into
which it has fallen.  It is one of the  many things that will  do no
harm, in moderate portions."   He also says:  " The advocates  of
Homoeopathy often speak  of Arnica as one of their remedies; not
aware  of its antiquity, some  of them make a hobby of this old
novelty."
  The  good  Professor who seems to have constituted himself a
knight-errant in the childish crusade  which some pertinacious con-
servatives of the dominant school  are still waging  against Homoeo-
pathy, is mistaken at all points.  It is not true that there exists a
single agent in nature which  is endowed to the  same extent  as
Arnica Avitht he  property of  restoring the contused  or lacerated
muscular fibre to a normal condition; it  is not true that homoeo-
paths claim Arnica as one of their remedies: they simply claim the
honor of having  rescued from unmerited oblivion this highly useful
drug, and of having introduced it into every well-organized pharmacy
in Christendom ;  and  lastly it is not true that this agent has fallen
into disuse, for it may be found in every intelligent family in city
and country, both in  families  where allceopathic  and  in families
where homoeopathic physicians are employed.

  Arnica montana belongs to the natural family of the Radiatse.  It
is a perennial plant which flowers in the months of July and August.
The  root consists of a cylindrical  Avoody  rhizoma,  terminating
abruptly, from which many fibres or radicles arise.  It is  brown
externally, has a disagreeable, yet  aromatic odor, and an  acrid 
238
LECTURE XV.
 nauseous, astringent  taste.  The leaves and flowers  have the same
 smell as the root.
   The floAver stalk is about a foot  high, except in  alpine situations
 Avhere it often only attains  a  height of six inches.   It is  a simple,
 hardy stem, obscurely angular, leaves entire and ovate.   The leaA'es
 arising from the flower-peduncles, are of  a  glossy green color,
 darker on the upper surface than on the dorsal side.  The corolla is
 composed of  about sixteen or eighteen single  florets, of a bright-
 yellow color, striated and  three-toothed.  The calyx is composed
 of rough, hairy scales.  There are twelve species of Arnica, of which
 Ave only use the  Arnica montana Avhich is found, as the name indi-
 cates, on eleArated slopes and meadoAVS in the cooler  parts of Europe.
 Teste informs us that some varieties of this species are found in
 the  plains of the North of France; they are distinguished by the
 large size of their leaves, the height of the stems, etc.   According
 to Nuttall, it is also found in  the Northern regions of our country,
 west of the  Mississippi.
   The parts used in  medicine are the flowers and roots.  We may
 make an  infusion or an alcoholic  tincture.  To make  an infusion
 we digest half an ounce of the flowers with one pound of Avater.
 The tincture  is prepared  by macerating one and  a half ounces of
 the floAvers  in one pound  of rectified alcohol.  To make a concen-
 trated tincture of the root, we macerate one pound of the root in a
 quart of alcohol.
   The root  which we use for  medicinal purposes, should be of the
 size of a  quill;  externally it  is striated, black or reddish-brown;
 internally it  is yellowish-white.  The strong aromatic taste of the
 root grows stronger after drying; however if the root is kept too long
 exposed to the open air, its medicinal properties become weaker and
 comparatively inefficient.   If  possible,  a tincture should be made
 from the fresh flowers; the root however is  the most important part.
 The saturated tincture has a broAvn-yellow  color and a highly pene-
 trating, aromatic odor.  The root may be ordered from Germany in
 well-stopped bottles, having been well dried in a sand-bath and then
 pulverized.
  The flowers of this- plant are liable to being  visited by an  insect
 which the Germans call the Arnica-fly and which has to be carefully
 removed before using them.   No blossoms should be used Avhich
 are not perfectly  uninjured by this parasite.

  The use  of Arnica montana has  become so universal  at  the
 present  period, that some caution  has to be used in purchasing the
 plant from  druggists.  The spurious  Arnica-root  yields a light
 yellowish  tincture,  Avithout  any  marked,  characteristic odor;
 whereas  the  genuine root yields  a  brownish,   yelloAvish-green
 tincture having a strong, pungent, aromatic odor which completely
masks the odor of the alcohol that is distinctly perceived Avhen the
root is derived from a spurious species.

  Hahnemann introduces  the  pathogonesis of this  important drug
with the following remarks:  " Notwithstanding all  its carefully- 
ARNICA MONTANA.
239
constructed dogmas, its scholastic definitions and subtle distinctions,
the established  system of medicine  has never succeeded  in dis-
covering the specific properties of this plant, nor in finding any
certain remedy for that general affection, (often very serious,) which
results from severe  falls, shock,  blows, contusions,  etc., or  from
straining or tearing the solid parts of the human frame.  At length,
after  innumerable attempts and  trials, the people discovered for
themselves the desired remedy in  Arnica.   Two hundred years ago,
a physician named Fehr, communicated to his  brethren, for the first
time, the discovery of this domestic remedy; since when Arnica has
been called Panacea lapsorum. The case has been similar with regard
to all other  specifics; the art of medicine owes the  knowledge of
them to domestic practice, and has never made a  single discovery
for itself, because those Avho practice it, have  not taken the trouble
to try the pure effect of natural substances on persons in health.

  Chevallier  and Lassaigne have obtained from Arnica a yellow
ethereal oil having the odor of Arnica,  and an acrid nauseous sub-
stance similar to that which has been discovered in the seeds of the
Cytisus-Laburnum, and hence named Cytisin.

  Dr. Collin, of Arienna, used  Arnica  extensively  in the  Pazman
Hospital  of that city for four years from 1771  to 1774, in intermit
tent  and putrid fevers and  also  in malignant dysentery.  Murray
states that, when the medicine was given in too  large a dose, it
occasioned vomiting, anxiety, sweats,  an aggravation of the  pain
around injured parts, (which, however, never lasted  long,) sensitive-
ness of the abdomen, weakness of the  senses  and nerves, tingling,
shooting and burning pains, or shocks  resembling  those produced
by the electric fluid, great anxiety, even dangerous  hemorrhages,
vomiting, vertigo,  and coma.   Hence Arnica  Avas  supposed to be
contra-indicated by the presence of fever, a predisposition to haemor-
rhages and internal congestions.
   The sternutatory properties of the blossoms of Arnica were knoAvn
at an early period.  Hence its name Ptarmica montana  instead of
Arnica, from the Greek verb " ptairo" to sneeze.

   There is no doubt  that Arnica is possessed of very acrid proper-
ties, and that it may likeAvise  induce  a state of narcosis.  Experi-
ments have been made both with the flowers and the root, justifying
the conclusion that  Arnica acts poAverfully  upon the vegetative
sphere, and that it stimulates the absorbent powers of the capillaries,
particularly in cases  Avhere they have  been Aveakened or suspended
even by external injuries. Hence Ave see that  the primary action of
Arnica upon  the absorbents must  be to depress their activity and to
induce precisely such derangements  as will  naturally  Aoav  from
functional torpor of the vegetative or reproductive sphere.   In this
respect Arnica acts similarly to Peruvian bark, as we shall perceive
at a later period of our course.

  The therapeutic range of Arnica has been very philosophically 
240
LECTURE XV.
and  very comprehensively defined by Professor Altschuhl of the
University of Prague.   "According to  the  observations  of  Old-
School physicians, the vegetative nervous system is the focus of the
physiological action of Arnica.  In  the lower vegetative tissues,
where the activity of the lymphatic vessels and veins predominates,
Arnica  excites the  irritability  and  sensibility of the fibre without
causing any general exaltation or quickening of the animal functions.
It acts  more particularly upon  the capillary system, where the
capillary vessels coalesce in inmost union with  the terminal ramifi-
cations  of the nervous system; it  acts  upon the dermoid system,
especially among the membranous and fibrous tissues (among which
we range the  aponeurosis, the  ligaments, the synovial membranes,
the periosteum, pleura and peritoneum;) it invigorates the vegetative
life of the organism, and counteracts a tendency to colliquation and
putrescence.  It stimulates the activity  of the absorbent  vessels,
especially of the cutaneous, pulmonary and renal absorbents, whence
its well  known curative virtues in extravasations.  This stimulating
action is secondarily perceived by the cerebro-spinal axis, especially
by the  motor  nerves; hence  we use Arnica  Avith advantage in
paralytic conditions depending upon spinal irritations.  In massive
doses it affects the  digestive system, causes dyspeptic complaints,
nausea,  opppression at  the stomach, colicky pains, Avatery or slimy
discharges from the bowels, having  a  fetid  smell and  accompanied
with a good deal of flatulence."  Hence  we are authorized by the
terms of our law, to use it in torpid inflammatory conditions Avhere
a typhoid character of the symptoms threatens to set in.

  The   members of Dr.  Jcerg's celebrated  Provers' Union  have
subjected Arnica to several interesting experiments upon themselves.
  Dr. Assmann took an infusion of seven grains  of the floAvers in
two ounces of water;  he  experienced  a scratching sensation in the
mouth   and oesophagus, and soon afterwards a contracting pain in
the stomach, lasting one hour and then gradually subsiding; these
symptoms were succeeded by a sense of confusion in the head, and
dull  pressing pains below the parietal bones and in the region of the
lachrymal fossae; after perspiring in the  night, these pains disap-
peared ; on the  day following he complained of general lassitude,
heaviness of the head and inability to work continuously or earnestly.
  Five  days after, he took an infusion of  twenty-two grains in  four
ounces  of water; in addition to all the  above sensations,  he  was
attacked with diarrhoeic stools and some cutting pains in the bowels.
  This proving shows that Arnica first acts upon the nervous tissue
of the alimentary canal, before the brain perceives the effects of the
drug.   By this I mean that the functional  disturbances caused in
the mucous surfaces of the alimentary canal preceded  the cerebral
engorgement.  It would seem, from the character of these effects of
Arnica,  that they were superinduced by a primary irritation of the
capillary nervous network ramified over the mucous expanse of the
alimentary canal.  Hence we infer that Arnica  may prove adapted
to derangements of the gastric functions characterized by a sensation
of roughness in the  oesophagus and throat,  crampy pains in the 
ARNICA MONTANA.
211
 stomach, cutting pains in the bowels, and diarrhoea.   Headache
 accompanies the attack,  which finally terminates in perspiration.
 In Cardialgia and Gastrodynia, Avhere these symptoms occur, Arnica
 will prove valuable.

   Another prover, Engler, took an infusion of seven grains of the
 flowers  in four ounces of Avater.   In  an hour after, his pulse became
 irregular and accelerated: his sleep  Avas  restless and disturbed by
 dreams.   Two days  after  he took  the  same close with the same
 results, but preceded by a scraping  sensation in  the mouth, about
 the root of the tongue, and in the oesophagus, lasting for half an hour.
 Fifteen grains in eight ounces of Avater produced the same sensations;
 fifteen grains in four ounces  of water were followed immediately by
 burning and scraping  in the  mouth and oesophagus, frequent eructa-
 tions, and irregular pulse in the evening; the following night Avas
 disturbed, and on the next morning he had a peculiar painful sensa-
 tion down the spine, as  if produced by long-continued stooping.   A
 repetition of the same dose produced the same scraping in the throat,
 followed by an aching but superficial pain betAveen the shoulders:
 his night was restless.   The same dose on the next day Avas followed
 by less irritation in the throat, while the  dull aching muscular or
 tendinous pains were felt more under the  right shoulder blade ; the
 pulse Avas quick and irregular.  The same results Avere obtained from
 twenty grains two and five days afterwards.  Thirty grains, taken
 two days later, produced very violent scraping in the throat, folloAved
 in ten minutes by a painful pressure apparently in the posterior Avail
 of the  stomach, and extending between the shoulder blades to the
 dorsal vertebrae.
   During these experiments he expectorated much bright, transpa-
 rent, glassy mucus, punctated with black spots, and his stools seemed
 harder and less frequent.
   This proving yields important results.   The action of the  drug
 Avas particularly perceived in the region of the spine, in the gastric
 sphere and in the pulse.  The peculiar pains down the spjne show
 that in irritation  of the spinal  nerves such as may be induced by
 rheumatic  exposure, Arnica may prove valuable:  a form of rheu-
 matism Avhere the muscular and tendinous tissues may receive the
 first counter-shock of the nervous irritation.
   The gastric symptoms lead us to infer  Venous  Congestion of the
 stomach superinduced  by an irritation of the spinal nerves.  Eheu-
 matism, a strain, a  concussion of the  middle portion  of the spinal
 chord might give rise to such symptoms.   AAre likewise meet Avith
 functional derangements  of  the gastric sphere, where these  hard
 aching pains in the region of the stomach, hawking up of glassy,
 black-dotted mucus, and irregularity of the pulse are characteristic
 symptoms.  If the characteristic roughness in the oesophagus is
 present, together  with hard stool,  or  in other cases,  loose, Avatery
 stool with cutting pains in the boAvels, Ave may depend upon Arnica
 as a remedy in the case.  Such a group of symptoms Ave might desig-
nate as Nervous Dyspepsia.
                              16 
242
LECTURE XV.
   Heisterbugk took fifteen grains in eight ounces of luke-warm Avater,
followed in ten minutes by a gradually increasing pain in the stomach,
as if the walls of the stomach were spasmodically contracted;  it lasted
an hour, and was then relieA'ed by eating.  He also noticed increased
activity of the skin, and a pricking pain in the chest and internal
surfaces of the arms, such as occur after a sudden OA'erheating; pulse
seArenty-five to eighty.  Four days after, he took the same dose Avith
slighter results and no pricking;  fifteen grains in four ounces only
produced  a slight sensation in the stomach; the same dose, tAvo days
after, produced  in a feAV minutes a  considerable distention of the
abdomen,  lasting for one hour; the same dose, two days after, pro-
duced  the same bloating of the abdomen, folloAved by moderate
heaviness  and confusion of the head, lasting for tAvo  hours; thirty
and forty  grains in six ounces  of water, only produced the swelling
of the abdomen  and confusion  of the head.
  This proving  confirms  the  specific  action of Arnica upon, the
nerves of the stomach.  Here we have a well-marked group of Car-
dialgia.  If I were called to a case where the patient complained of
contracting  spasmodic pains in the  stomach, Avith  bloating of the
boAvels, confusion of the head,  and slightly irritated pulse,  I should
prescribe  Arnica.   The pricking Avhich this prover  experienced,
would afford additional proof of the homoeopathicity of Arnica in a
given case of  gastric  disturbance; in cardialgia or gastralgia. this
symptom may be present.   It may likewise be present in rheumatic
affections of the tendons and muscles.  In rheumatism of these parts,
if pricking pains are present, together with the pre\dously-mentioned
aching pains, Arnica will be found useful.

  Kneschke took fifteen grains of the flowers; half an hour after taking
the drug,  he experienced  a peculiar scraping and  burning in the
throat and oesophagus, folioAved in a few minutes by a troublesome
aching in the stomach, lasting for a full hour.  Twenty-two grains in
four ounces of water caused a scraping in the throat immediately,
and violent  aching  in  the stomach, lasting for one  hour; he had a
good night, but  awoke Avith violent piercing pains in the forehead
and occiput, lasting the AA'hole  day, attended with loss of appetite,
constipation and depression of spirits;  he did not recover until the
fifth day.  Another trial Avith the same dose yielded nearly the same
results, except that the piercing pains in the forehead came on sooner
and passed off over night.
  This proving reveals the  depressing effects of Arnica upon the
nerves of the stomach, followed by a violent irritation of the cerebral
nerves and dejection of spirits.  Hence we may consider  Arnica in-
dicated in  Hypochondria depending upon gastric derangements  or
dyspepsia, attended  with frontal headache.
  Stroefer experienced, from seven grains of the floAvers; a burning-
scraping in the throat, nausea, increased secretion of saliva, boring,
unpleasant movements in the stomach, followed by a painful pressure
in the forehead for tAvo hours: twenty-two grains caused a remark-
able increase of all these symptoms, especially the salivary secretions
and the pain in the head.  The pulse was fuller and quicker. 
ARNICA MONTANA.                    243
  These symptoms again indicate  the use of Arnica in Cardialgia
and Gastrodynia.

  A most interesting proving is that of Winkler, who took fifteen
grains of the flowers in four ounces of water.  Immediately after
taking the drug he experienced a violent burning in the throat,
gradually descending the oesophagus down to the stomach, lasting
for three-quarters of an hour, and followed by griping and aching
in the stomach, which extended to the small intestines where a great
deal of rumbling and frequent uneasy contractions were experienced,
followed by an almost tympanitic distention of the abdomen ; at  the
end of tAvo hours almost all these effects had passed away, but there
was a sensation of gnawing canine hunger without the least appetite ;
he awoke the next morning with violent headache, which lasted for
four hours and  was so severe at eight o'clock that he  almost  fell
down from pain and vertigo;  the nausea and the sense of prostration
lasted till noon. Seven grains in two ounces  of  Avater  caused a
scraping in the throat and oesophagus, with a sensation as if the walls
of the pharynx were swollen ; this  feeling only lasted one-fourth of
an hour, and Avas followed by heaviness and aching in  the stomach
for half an hour. These experiments Avere repeated with large and
small doses, with three, five, seven, ten, fifteen and  tAventy grain doses,
always with the same results; the smaller doses seemed to affect him
as powerfully as the larger ones.
  The pathological  character of these  symptoms is  the same as in
the former provings.   Gastrodynia  is  strikingly delineated  by  the
results of this proving.  Griping and pressing pains in the stomach  ;
uneasiness and  spasmodic contractions in the small intestines ; tjmi-
panitic distension of the bowels and afterwards a sensation of craving
hunger  like  bulimia, constitute a  group  of  symptoms eminently
characteristic of peculiar forms of Gastrodynia.

  Eleven other experimentersniade trials with  an infusion of Arnica
and obtained more or less similar  results.  The first effect of  the
drug is perceived in the throat and oesophagus, Avhere  it causes a
scraping and burning  sensation; these symptoms are  followed by
nausea, increased secretion of a Avatery saliva, loss of appetite, crampy
pains in the  stomach, and lastly headache, the pain being mostly
experienced in  the right half of the .occiput, Avhence it shifts to  the
right half of the forehead.  The nausea caused by Arnica  may be
accompanied by shuddering  folloAved  by  warmth  over the Avhole
body  and breaking out of a Avarm sweat, with full and quick pulse,
folloAved in two hours by a sudden violent urging to stool, with scanty
and natural faeces as if the muscular coat only of the bowels had been
excited.  In  one case the prover experienced  crampy pains in  the
stomach and  colicky pains in the boAvels, Avith a  sensation as if  the
stomach had been over-loaded ; as the cramps in the bowels lessened,
the Avhole abdomen became swollen, Avith frequent emissions of urine
and urging to stool;  this symptom Avas folloAved  by an aching pain
in the right half of the vertex, and  easy expectoration of bronchial
and pulmonary mucus. 
244
LECTURE XV.
  In some provers the pressure and  pain  in  the epigastric region
were accompanied with a feeling of anxiety.
  Bleeding from the nose likewise occurred in some cases.

  The symptoms obtained with a tincture of the root, are exceedingly
characteristic of the action of Arnica.  Some  experimenters  took
from six to fifty drops Avithout experiencing any perceptible effects
except eructations, a little  confusion  of the head and  emission of
flatulence.  In one prover, however, six drops excited distention of
the abdomen, cutting pains in the boAvels and discharges of much
offensive flatulence without  relief.  Seventy-two drops caused a feel-
ing as if the  xiphoid  process were  pressed Anolently inwards, AA'ith
piercing pain under the sternum, vertigo, aching pain  in the tem-
poral bones and  orbits, palpitation of the heart, quick pulse and
disturbed  sleep at night;  the bowels Avere rather constipated, the
sense of hunger increased, but the appetite considerably lessened.
  This is a remarkable group of symptoms, shoAving  that Arnica
may prove useful in Pulmonary Congestions.  These symptoms may
be present in haemoptysis.  The  sensation as if the sternum Avere
pressed in, the piercing pain under the sternum, and the consensual
symptoms of palpitation, full and quick pulse, vertigo and pain in
the head, may constitute a precursory group in haemoptysis caused
by a blow or sprain, or even by rheumatic exposure.
  The other symptoms which were elicited by these provings with
the root, may be  generalized as folloAVs:  Aching pains along the
spine, and in the region of the stomach and liver, such as are felt
Avhen suddenly raising one's self from a stooping position. Crampy
pains in the stomach ;  also (in the female provers) a feeling of empti-
ness in the stomach, with canine hunger, but entire loss  of appetite,
loathing of food;  sometimes a sensation  of repletion  Avas experi-
enced, although the stomach was empty.
  Having obtained from these exceedingly interesting provings a
preliminary knoAvledge of the physiological character of Arnica, of
its  specific relation to the nerves  of the  alimentary canal to the
capillary vessels, and  more particularly of its  poAver to excite en-
gorgement of the' capillaries, and consequent  effusion and hemor-
rhage, we are now prepared to present the symptomatology of this
drug under general categories.
  First, then, the
                 CEEEBEO-SPINAL GEOUP.

   The provings Avhich I have reported so far shoAv that Arnica may
induce Vertigo  and Headache.  But these  conditions seem  to  arise
subsequently to gastric derangements.  In order therefore that Arnica
may be homoeopathic to  headache, and cure it, the headache  must
be symptomatic of deep-seated gastric disturbances, Avhich,  through
the influence of the sympathetic sj-stem of nerves, will react  upon
the brain.  The pain in the brain is a pressure Avhich may either be
felt in the forehead and temples, where it may be very sharp and 
ARNICA MONTANA.
245
piercing;  or it may be first felt in the right side of the occiput,
Avhence it shifts to the right side of the forehead.
  This whole group of symptoms,  the functional derangements of
the gastric sphere in conjunction with the pains in the head, or the
pains in  the head in conjunction  with  the  gastric derangement^,
afford room for various interesting therapeutic considerations.  Gen-
tlemen,
   Concussion of the Stomach by a blow or fall, or
   Compression of the Stomach by violent mechanical causes, may in-
duce just such gastric and cerebral symptoms as are here recorded.
Nausea with tendency  to  faint; vomiting, dizziness,  cerebral en-
gorgements characterized by painful oppression of the forehead and
temples, and perhaps haematemesis or vomiting of blood, may char-
acterize such an accident, and  imperatively call for  the internal
exhibition of Arnica, a few drops of the first attenuation in about
ten tablespoonfuls of water, of which a  small spoonful may be given
every few minutes, until the condition  of  the patient  is decidedly
improved.
   On the other hand,
   Concussion of the Brain induced by a blow or fall may be charac-
terized by those aching pains which Arnica  seems to be peculiarly
fit to occasion; and the concomitant gastric symptoms may be such
as  to require Arnica.  It  must not be supposed, however,  that
Arnica can always prevent the consequences of cerebral concussion.
One of these consequences may be inflammation of the  brain, which
cannot be treated with Arnica, but requires Belladonna, Hyoscv-
amus, Opium and other drugs.  A  blow upon the head may induce
obstinate congestion of the cerebral sinuses with  chilliness and Ioav
fever, drowsiness,  dull, heavy pain in the head, nightly exacerba-
tion of the symptoms.   Under these circumstances it would be use
less to depend upon Arnica alone ;  Aconite and perhaps Belladonna
will have  to be administered in more or less persistent doses.

  Arnica has been used in various
  Apoplectic  Attacks with success.  Several cases are  reported by
Eiickert.   In one case the patient complained of  dizziness followed
by loss of  consciousness, depression of  the lower jaAv, insensibility
and paralysis of the extremities of the left side ;  incoherent talking,
inability to articulate ; he often raised his right arm, pointing to the
head; his pulse  was very full and  intermitted  every seventh beat:
his face was red.  Under the use of Arnica he gradually recovered
in a feAV days.
  I am not altogether satisfied with the apoplectic character of this
case.  The record does not state Avhat caused the attack; but I am
inclined to  regard these symptoms as  denoting a violent rush of
blood Avhich might have been relieved  by simple palliative means,
such as a warm foot-bath and the application of  a little cold Avater
to the head, equally as Avell.   I should not depend upon Arnica in
idiopathic  apoplexy.  If the attack can be traced to such gastric
irritations as point to Arnica as their true homoeopathic agent, Ave
need not hesitate to use this drug.  We may use it in alternation 
216
LECTURE XV.
with Aconite, provided the symptomatic indications justify the use
of this agent, as they would have done in the previously mentioned
case.   Depression of the pulse does not point to Arnica.  It is irri-
tation of the pulse characterized by increased frequency, fulness and
sometimes irregularity that indicates Arnica.

   Another case is reported by Eiickert, where a man of fifty-three
years, with short, thick neck, rather addicted to brandy, was taken
with an apoplectic fit, for which he was bled.   A few days after, a
homoeopathic  physician found him Avith  the following symptoms:
frequent awaking during  the  night,  Avith attack  of hiccough and
gulping up of fluid, folloAved byan attack of shuddering and stretch-
ing every half hour, Avithout being conscious of it.   During the day
he felt a pressure in the forehead, with buzzing in the ears, vertigo,
sparks before the eyes, illusions of sight, general malaise, coldness of
the extremities, shiverings through the body; pulse 60, tolerably
strong, irregular, Avith burning itching of the  skin.   Two  drops of
Arnica 3, repeated the second day, cured him in three days.  After
a  laps of five  months  he had several  similar  attacks, and was
relieved  each time by Arnica.

   In some forms of
   Acute  Hydrocephalus, Arnica has  been given with good effect.
Eiickert reports the case of a little boy of two years and a half, Avho
five Aveeks subsequent to an attack of measles, was found in the fol-
lowing condition; violent  headache, squinting, is  afraid as though
he would fall, and actually does fall backwards occasionally; vomits;
twitching of the arms and  hands; screams; Avill only lie on his back;
is at times unconscious;  can  only be roused with  difficulty;  his
head is hot, pupils dilated and breathing oppressed; urine  scanty,
of a reddish tint; pulse quick and small.
   Aconite and Belladonna did not seem to do any good.  Arnica 3d,
and an occasional dose of Alerc. 2d restored him in a  fortnight.
   In cases of hydrocephalus, Avhere the effusion is a termination of
previous inflammation of the meninges or substance of the brain,
Arnica is not indicated. It is  only in symptomatic hydrocephalus,
Avhen the effusion occurs as a consequence of a low, typhoid state of
the  organism, that Arnica will prove of avail.  The pulse may be
slightly irritated, not of the inflammatory type; the skin is dry and
husky, rather cool, the feet may be Avarm, the face flushed and burning,
the pupils contracted, tongue thickly  coated Avith a foul mucus, the
bowels are either bloated, hard and bound, or else they are soft and
discharge foul smelling mucus Avith a good deal of rumbling, the
urine is  saturated and has a foul smell; if these or similar symptoms,
together with the comatose condition of the patient, the apparent loss
of consciousness, the convulsive tAvitchings of the extremities,  the
spasmodic gritting  of the  teeth, lead us  to infer  the process  of a
fluid in  the ventricles  of  the brain, Ave may prescribe Arnica Avith
the confident hope that, if relief is at all possible, this agent will
afford it.  There is  no doubt that Arnica is possessed of specific
powers to disorganize the functional activity of the lymphatic system 
ARNICA MONTANA.
247
and to alter the normal constitution of the blood by its tendency to
decompose this fluid and separate  its aqueous from its  coagulable
ingredients.  We may infer this from the extraordinary powers of
absorption Avhich Arnica manifests Avhen made to act upon sanguin-
eous extravastions.

  There is a peculiar form of irritation of the cerebral nerves Avhich
Marcus Herz describes under the appellation of
  Spurious Vertigo.  A tall and rather cachectic man, aged forty-nine,
who had been in the habit of taking ten or tAvelve drinks a da}r, Avas
attacked with weakness of the arms and legs, glimmering before the
eyes and noises in the ears.  During the last week the debility had
increased so much that he could scarcely walk;  his sleep was dis-
turbed Avith phantasies and formications,  and he Avas attacked with
the following paroxysms of vertigo, sometimes several in one hour;
Avithout any warning, and in any situation, all objects Avould seem to
move Avith a shaking motion either towards him, or from side to side,-
or they would seem to fall over; he would  soon begin to  stagger
about  Avith them, unless he  seized  hold of something  ; in a feAV
minutes he recovered  himself, his illusions of sight disappeared, but
he felt as if intoxicated; all his functions were normal, but  his face
was red, his eyes were injected, pupils dilated, but his sight Avas good.
He Avas restored by taking an infusion of Arnica in increasing doses
for six weeks.
  If the alcohol  had anything to do Avith  these symptoms, Nux
vomica might probably have been used with advantage.

  The pathogenesis of Arnica as furnished by Hahnemann contains
several symptoms showing that Arnica  may be useful  in cerebral
derangements of  a  rheumatic nature. One marked symptom is " a
burning in the brain, though  the rest of the  body  remained cool."
This symptom may occur in
  Rheumatosis or Rheumatic Irritation of the Brain; it may also set
in  as an element in  the train of symptoms which often  develop
themselves after cerebral concussions.

  Another prominent symptom is "a painful pressure above the
eyes in the direction  of the temples, Avith sensation  as if the frontal
integuments were spasmodically constricted."   This symptom ma}r
likewise be characteristic of a rheumatic affection of  the head with
engorgement of the frontal sinus, and probable irritation of the peri-
cranium and muscular coverings of the forehead.

  Stitching and tearing pains in the head, and formicating pains in
the forehead are also frequently met Avith among the head-symptoms
of Arnica.  These pains likewise point to Arnica as a most important
agent in
  Arthritic and Rheumatic Headache.

                      OEBTTAL GEOUP.

  Among the eye-symptoms.of Arnica in Hahnemann's pathogenesis 
243
LECTURE XV.
 there are many which reveal the curative virtues  of this agent in
 inflammatory conditions  of  the  eyeball and  lids in unmistakable
 characters.   Itching, stinging and burning pains in the eyes ; painful
 feeling of dryness under the lids ;  secretion of burning tears; protru-
 sion of the eyeball from the socket; these symptoms distinctly show
 that Arnica is homoeopathic to inflammatory conditions of the eyes,
 more particularly if they arise from external injuries.
   Wounds of the Eye which, under other treatment might lead to
 loss of sight, or at  any rate to partial disorganization of the organ,
 are healed quite -readily, and  without any  disfiguring loss of sub-
 stance, by means  of the internal  and external use of Arnica.  Our
 works are filled with cases illustrating the healing virtues of Arnica
 in contusions and Avounds.  In applying Arnica to a wounded eye,
 a  strong  watery  infusion is  sometimes preferable to the alcoholic
 tincture in consequence of the smarting and excoriating sensation
 which is sometimes caused by the alcoholic  ingredient.

   In Duncan's Medical Commentaries nine cases of
   Amaurosis are reported Avhich Avere  successfully treated  Avith
 Arnica after all  other remedies  had failed.  Scarpa,  the eminent
 Italian  oculist and  pathologist, thinks that Arnica can only be de-
 pended upon in  amaurosis resulting from gastric  irritation.   A
 characteristic indication for the  use of Arnica in  this affection is
 " contraction of the pupil."

   Neumann reports a case of fully developed
   Catecract which Avas completely cured by means  of the internal
 and  external use of Arnica.   The probability is that this cataract
 was caused by contusion of the eyeball.

            AUEICULAE AND FACIAL GEOUPS.

   Among Hahnemann's provings  of Arnica there  are several symp-
toms which lead  us to infer  that in contusions of the  ears and
nose, and  in inflammations resulting from such contusions, Arnica
must be an excellent  remedy.  One prover reports the symptom:
 " Contusive pain in the cartilages of the left ear,  interiorly."  A
similar symptom  was experienced  in the nose: " Pain in the nose,
from above downwards, as from a  violent fall."   Besides these symp-
toms, other symptoms  are recorded such as are generally present
when muscular and cartilaginous tissues have  been contused  by a
fall or blow.   Such symptoms are: stitches shooting through the
ears; swelling of  the part (among other provings Ave find "swelling
of the  nose;" " swelling of the cheek with throbbing and twitching
pains,  SAvollen  lips and  heat  in the head;" also  "hard, tensive,
shining-red swelling of the left cheek.")   The  lips likewise seem to
be affected by Arnica as they would be from a blow; we have  such
symptoms as these:  "cracked  lips," " swelling of the lips;" "burning
heat in  both lips;" "formication in the lips as if they Avould go to
sleep."
   One  prover observed frequent bleeding from the nose as one of the 
ARNICA MONTANA.
249
effects of Arnica; another proof of the  homoeopathicity of Arnica
to the consequences of a blow or fall upon the face.

  Another prover, Dr. Gross, experienced a peculiar abnormal sen-
sation  of craAvling by the side  of the nose.  The symptom  as
recorded,  reads: " Sensation  as if an insect were  crawling  by the
side of the  nose;  this sensation  cannot be removed by • wiping."
Another prover, Dr.  Wislicenus,  experienced a similar sensation
except that in his case it yielded to rubbing Avith the finger.   I have
quoted these two symptoms simply for the purpose of showing that
Arnica deranges the functional harmony of the sentient nerves in a
very delicate and yet  characteristic manner.    These abnormal sen-
sations may likeAvise be present during,  or precede epistaxis.
  Deafness has likeAvise been cured by Arnica.   This drug causes
buzzing, whizzing and ringing in the ears, with decrease of hearing.
Frank reports  several  highly interesting  cases of deafness in his
Magazine, all of which were cured with an infusion of Arnica used
internally, and likewise externally with  injecting it into the ears.

                       DENTAL GEOUP.

  Arnica is not without decided therapeutic poAvers in cases  of
toothache.  It causes "formicating sensation in the gums as if they
would go  to sleep, and a pain  m the  teeth as if  their roots were
being s&raped with a knife."   In
  Arthritic Toothache, when the pains are tearing and  stitching, and
the face burns and looks swollen, Arnica will afford relief.
  Eiickert reports the case of a lady whose gums Avere inflamed and
swollen; she complained of a drawing and  stitching pain in the
teeth of the right upper jaw, extending  up to the ear; her face was
red and  burning-hot, cheek SAvollen;  the pain Avas worse in the air
and when warm fomentations were applied.   She  had had two
teeth plugged  a feAV clays ago.  Arnica 30th relieved her very
speedily.
  When there is a good deal of throbbing and pressing or lancing
pain, sometimes involving the whole jaw; attended with swelling
and heat of the cheek and  SAvelling of the  submaxillary gland,
Arnica may be given  provided  there are no signs of inflammatory
fever.   In this case Aconite and Belladonna may be required.
  An infusion of Arnica is an excellent soothing wash after extrac-
tion of the teeth.   It is likewise useful in arresting the bleeding
Avhich sometimes sets in after such an operation.

                  CHYCLO-POIETIC  GEOUP.

  AYe have  already  become acquainted with several  important
morbid conditions to  which Arnica is eminently homoeopathic.
   Cardialgia or  Gastrodynia, Avhen  characterized by  spasmodic-
contracting pains  in  the region,  roughness and  qualmishness,
mounting of heat to the face, and slight febrile irritation which  is
sometimes accompanied Avith formication  and pricking about the
chest, face and arms, belonging to the therapeutic domain of Arnica. 
250
LECTURE XAr.
  The symptoms which have been obtained by Hahnemann and his
friends in their provings of Arnica, point to a number of interesting
pathological  conditions  to Avhich  xVrnica  Avould seem eminently
homoeopathic.
  One symptom clearly indicates the homoeopathicity of Arnica to
  Dysphagia; it is this: "The act of deglutition is  impeded by a
sort of nausea as if the food Avould not go down."

  The taste in the mouth and  the quality and natural intensity of
the appetite, are considerably altered by the action of Arnica.  This
drug seems to cause a bitter, foul taste in the mouth; bitter and foul
eructations; it also causes loss of appetite, nausea,  disposition to
vomit, heartburn.  This  desire to vomit sometimes.amounts to vio-
lent retching, vomiting, even vomiting of coagulated  blood.  These
symptoms, in  connection with other effects of Arnica, constitute an
interesting and important pathological tableau.  The effects to which
I allude are the feeling of nauseous repletion Avhich some provers haAre
experienced in a marked degree.  A lady-prover complained of a
sensation as if the pit of the stomach was filled up with a lump; this
feeling Avas accompanied with ineffectual retching. Another prover
complained of a similar sensation of pressure in  the  pit of the sto-
mach ; this was followed by qualmishness, retching, rising of water
to the  mouth; this sensation passed off Avhen lying down, after which
the pressure shifted to the  bowels.   Another  prover  complained of
a digging pain in the pit of the stomach, as if the parts were tAvisting
themselves into a ball.
  Gentlemen, these symptoms are important indications for the  use
of Arnica in
  Dyspepsia, with foul and bitter taste in the mouth, eructations of
a similar character, loss of appetite, a qualmish feeling  of repletion
after eating;
  Waterbrash, more particularly in the case of hysteric females who
complain of the globus hystericus ;
  Cardialgia or  Gastrodynia, with twisting  and digging pain in the.
epigastric region.

  The_ sense of fulness after  eating, especially when  attended with
qualmishness,  is eminently characteristic of Arnica in  dyspepsia and
cardialgia, especially in the case of nervous, hysteric females; in one
of the  lady-provers this feeling of repletion was  accompanied by a
keenly-painful pressure behind  the os pubis (apparently in the region
of the  bladder),  especially Avhen  standing,  and inducing a  constant
desire  to urinate.
  This sense of fulness is characteristic in other respects.  AVe have
seen that Arnica causes vomiting of coagulated blood.   It moreover
causes all the other symptoms Avhich precede or accompany -vomiting
of blood, such as :  a sensation of oppression, weight and repletion in
the  region of the stomach, throbbing in this region, bitter and very
frequently sour  eructations, heartburn, tympanitic distention of the
pit  of the stomach, and various consensual symptoms such as:  op- 
ARNICA MONTANA.                    251
  pressive  pain  in the frontal  region, vertigo, obscuration of sight.
  Hence avc conclude that Arnica may be a most important remedy for
    Hoematemesis, brought on by a blow on the stomach, or occasioned
  in consequence of a peculiar dyspeptic dyscrasia by over-eating, or
  by a strain, by the excessive action  of emetics, etc.  In cases of
  haematemesis where Arnica is indicated, the febrile  excitement is
  rather slight: at first a burning sensation  may be felt in the face:
  but if the vomiting is violent, the face will  soon  look  pale, pinched
  up, and it will feel cold; the  extremities may likewise be icy-cold.
    If  the  inflammatory type  prevails,  with full, strong,  rapid  and
  bounding pulse, glistening eyes, flushed face, Aconite may have to
  be given instead of Arnica
    In Hirschel's Archive a case is reported,  Avhere a servant-girl Avas
  attacked  Avith haematemesis  in  consequence of ill-treatment;  she
  complained of general malaise and a feeling of soreness through her
  whole body, with almost constant nausea, pain in the stomach, and
  vomiting of every thing she took into the stomach: the ejected sub-
  stance Avas ahvays mingled Avith blood.  After having been  treated
  alloeopathically for six weeks without deriving the least benefit from
  the treatment, she Avas cured in four days perfectly by means of
  Arnica, sixth trituration, through the agency of Dr. H. B. Harris.

    Arnica may likewise relieve the pains and soreness which some-
  times remain in consequence of the violent straining of the muscular
  tissue of  the stomach  and abdominal walls.  It may be  used both
  internally and externally.

    Sjdenetic  Stitches come  within the  curative province of Arnica.
  These stitches have been experienced by several  provers, in some
  cases  accompanied with a feeling of pressure, and  arresting the
  breathing.   These stitches are sometimes  induced by Avalking too
  fast, or by long running,

    The effect of Arnica upon the boAvels is  decidedly  characteristic.
  One prover experienced colic  as in dysentery; a digging sensation in
  the hypogastric region on  each side, close to the  hips,  attended with
  nausea and drowsiness.
    Hahnemann experienced flatulent distention of the abdomen after
* supper, especially of the lower part, with dull pressure  in this  region;
  the limbs felt hot; emission of flatulence afforded no relief.
    Another  characteristic symptom experienced  by Hahnemann is
  " hardness and distention of the right side of the  abdomen ;"  the dis-
  tended part was painful  inside  as if there had  been a sore; when
  coughing, bloAving  the nose or stepping, the part  felt as if  torn or
  cut; this pain was even felt externally on making the  least pressure.
    Another  symptom shoAving the influence of Arnica upon the abdo-
  minal ganglionic system is : "violent shooting pain striking from the
  abdomen to the vertex like an electric shock."  Similar sharp shocks
  were experienced by another prover from one side  of the abdomen
  to the other.
    Retraction of the Umbilicus and burning-stinging  pains  in the epi-
  gastric region Avere observed  by Dr. Collin. 
252                       LECTURE XV.
   Fine tearing pains Avere observed by Dr. AVislicenus in the abdo-
minal muscles.
   Noav, Gentlemen, look at these striking effects of our drug, and see
whether you may not derive important advantages from its use in
   Enteralgia, Colicodynia, neuralgic and rheumatic affections of the
bowels and abdominal integuments.  The symptoms experienced by
Hahnemann, more particularly the distention, pressure and soreness
in the  right side, may characterize an attack of colicodynia or abdo-
minal neuralgia, where- you might fail in effecting a cure unless you
give your patient Arnica.  Of course, the other gastric symptoms,
appetite, taste in the mouth, eructations, flatulence, stools,  and more
particularly constipation, and the condition of the circulatory appa-
ratus have to correspond with the known effects of Arnica.
   Neuralgia, or Neuralgic Rheumatism of the  abdominal walls is
indicated by the  fine tearing pains  experienced  by one of the
provers.

   How does Arnica affect the alvine  evacuations ?  Its  effects in
this direction are likewise of the utmost importance.  It causes:
" Fetid flatulence ;" " frequent urging to stool;" " papescent stool, and
even discharges of blood and pus;'  it causes "frequent evacuations
consisting  of  mucus," "painful pressure  in  the rectum,"  also
" tenesmus of the rectum and  anus."  In some cases the discharges
have been watery and mixed  with undigested food.  One prover
reports: "passage of stool during sleep without knowing it."
   These indications not only reveal the use of Arnica in specific
bowel-disease, but they likeAvise enlighten us concerning the use of
Arnica in gastric disorders of a general character, such as Ioav gastric
fevers, sabural derangements with foul tongue, bad  taste In the
mouth, foul breath.  In
   Chronic Diarrhoea, with watery discharges, or discharges of mucus,
pus_ and blood, having a fetid smell and attended with slight febrile
excitement,  soreness  and  tympanitic  distention  of  the boAvels,
borborygmi  and  emission of  fetid  flatulence, Arnica will  prove
beneficial.  If this condition of the bowels should be accompanied
with frequent urging  to urinate, discharge of watery  and at other
times saturated, brown or deep-yellow  urine, (Arnica  causes these
alterations in the urinary secretions), we may depend upon the cura-
tive virtues of Arnica in all such cases Avith so much more certainty.

   A superficial perusal of these symptoms shows that Arnica may
afford  decided and permanent relief, not only in chronic diarrhoea,
but also in
   Dysentery,  especially when the discharges are slimy and purulent,
with distressing tenesmus in the rectum and anus, cutting and sore
pains in the  bowels, and even tenesmus of the urinary bladder (in
several cases of proving, Arnica has been known to have this effect.)
It may be administered in doses of from six to ten drops in eight
tablespoonfuls of water, a tablespoonful every half hour or hour. 
ARNICA MONTANA.                    253
                   THE UEINAEY  GEOUP.

has already been alluded to.  Arnica may cause both frequent dis-
charges and also retention of urine.  In
  Paralysis of the Neck of the Bladder, Avith inability to discharge the
urine, Arnica  has been found  eminently useful in the  case of old
people.   If this weakness should have arisen from concussion of the
spine, Arnica will be found serviceable.
  Professor Gross, in his work on "Diseases of the Urinary Organs,"
recommends Arnica for paralysis of the bladder consequent upon low
typhoid fevers, onanism and other  debilitating causes.  He gives
from forty to fifty drops three times a day, cautioning however
against the medicinal effects which such heroic doses may produce,
such as: vertigo,  headache,  purging,  vomiting, spasmodic  twitch-
ings, etc.   It would seem more reasonable if the medicine is at all
indicated, to give a smaller dose in order to  avoid the undue action
of the drug.  In
  Hematuria, caused by a blow, fall  or other  mechanical  injury,
Arnica  in  infusion or tincture-form may  not  only  prove useful,
but indispensable.

                      SEXUAL GEOUP.

  Arnica seems to excite  the  sexual  organs.   It causes erections,
involuntary nocturnal  emissions; in the case  of a young girl of
twenty years who  had not menstruated for a year past, it  caused
immediately the discharge of a coagulum from the vagina, attended
with nausea.  Arnica  also causes stitches  through  the testicles,
hence Ave give it in
  Orchitis,  with hardness, pain and swelling of the  testicle, Avhen
this affection is the result of a blow or fall.  In  Eiickert's Clinique
it is stated that a man of thirty-six years received a severe bloAv on
the right testicle.  The scrotum was very much  relaxed ; the right
testicle enlarged about three or four times its natural size, hard, hot,
very painful during motion and  when touching it;  during rest a
sharp pain Avas experienced all the time along  the  chord as far as
the inguinal region; the chord Avas SAvollen  and very painful; con-
sensual symptoms were:  stitching pain in the forehead;  bitter taste
in the mouth; tongue coated white;  frequent shuddering over the
body ; pulse sluggish and small.  The scrotum was supported by a
suspensory bandage; Arnica sixth  was given  internally, and the
tincture applied externally; the patient was  cured in a week.

  In Abrasions of the prepuce caused by sexual intercourse a lotion
of Arnica will speedily restore the integrity  of the parts.

  Arnica being endowed with specific  powers to excite the menses,
it must be  a useful remedy in
  Metrorrhagia,  Avhen  masses  of dark, coagulated blood are  dis-
charged ; also when mechanical injuries such as a blow, fall or strain
are  the' cause of the accident.  In 
254
LECTURE XV.
  Amenorrhea, resulting  from  over-exertion,  a cold, etc.,  Avhen
symptoms  of abdominal  plethora are  superinduced,  Arnica may
prove the best means of restoring the discharge.  The third or sixth
attenuation may be used.  In many cases of this kind  Aconite and
Pulsatilla may be required.
  Griesselich  informs  us  that Arnica has been  used to  produce
miscarriage;  hence we may use it as a preventive of
  Miscarriage, especially in cases of accidents; it may be used alter-
nately with Aconite.
  Dierbach informs us that French women  use Arnica for  the
disturbances,  abnormal  conditions  of the nervous and  sanguineous
system incidental to the critical age.

  Arnica may prove eminently useful in cases of
  Severe  Labor.  An infusion of Arnica applied to the pudendum
will facilitate the restoration of  this organ to  a normal condition;
the internal use of Arnica after parturition may likeAvise prevent
severe after-pains.  An Arnica-lotion applied  to the  head of the
infant will  favor  the absorption of extravasations  that may haAre
taken place under the scalp in consequence of the pressure made
upon the head during its passage into the vagina.
  Sore nipples, in consequence of nursing, may sometimes be success-
fully treated with Arnica.  A lotion of Arnica may be applied Avhich
has to be washed  off previous to nursing.   The use of Arnica in
this affection will however fail in many cases, and the physician will
have to resort to other means of  relief.

       CATAEEHAL  AND EESPIEATOEY GEOUPS.

  Arnica causes a train of symptoms in  the air-passages which ren-
der it eminently  useful in many catarrhal  affections.  It causes:
"Dry hacking cough, every morning after, rising, as if caused by
tickling in  the larynx."   It also causes: "cough at night, during
sleep."  It  also causes hoarseness, sneezing and catarrhal symptoms
in the head.  Taking all these indications together, we may say that
Arnica is indicated in
  Cough, with tickling in the larynx.  There are many symptoms
Avhich  characterize this cough,  such as: "foul-smelling  breath;"
" sensation  during an expiration,  of painful coolness in the trachea,
as if the walls were too thin;" " stitches in the sides of the chest, and
in the sternum, when coughing (this symptom has been experienced
by a number of provers)."  Here then Ave have a number of symptoms
such as may be developed  in consequence of a cold.   If these symp-
toms are not accompanied by inflammatory fever, and the patient
exhibits signs of a gastric dyscrasia and depressed  activity of the
vegetative  sphere, we may give Arnica Avith the confident hope of
affording relief.  This drug has likewise caused
  Hsemoptysis ; among the provings Ave notice most of the character-
istic symptoms which accompany bloody cough.   It causes "Cough
Avith sensation as if all the ribs  Avere bruised;" "short, panting
breathing;" "anxiety and pain in the chest;" "excessive dyspnoea;" 
ARNICA MONTANA.
255
"frequent and long inspirations, with oppression under the chest;"
" aching-stitching pains in the region of the sternum, especially when
walking;" "his chest feels like raw, he spits up blood with the saliva,
especially when  walking."   Some provers  have experienced  an
" oppression, on waking in the morning, as  if the lungs were very
much engorged with blood," and in others this anxious  oppression
was accompanied with nausea, as it is very apt to be previous to an
attack of haemoptysis.   Tensions across the chest, and great soreness
in the region of the costal articulations, especially during a coughing
fit, are  likewise  characteristic  symptoms among the provings of
Arnica.  Dierbach even informs us that Arnica  causesa  reddish-
looking perspiration on the chest, probably  a sanguineous exuda-
tion.  All these symptoms  may arise from a blow or fall upon the
chest, Avith haemorrhage from  the  lungs, in which case the internal
and external use of Arnica would become indispensable.

   Even the  action of Arnica upon the heart shoAVS that it influences
the circulation, causing congestions and  irregularities.   This effect
of Arnica is proved by such  symptoms as these:  " Sensation as if
the heart were compressed, or  as if it received a shock;" the beat-
ing of the heart is more like a jerking;"  " the beating of the heart
is  at first very rapid, and then all at once very  sIoav."  These and
similar  symptoms may precede  or accompany an  attack of haemo-
ptysis, more particularly Avhen the disease has  assumed a chronic
form.
   We have many reports of cures of haemoptysis.   In many of these
cases Arnica has been used  alone ; in other cases it has been used in
alternation with Aconite. In haemoptysis with considerable vascular
excitement during the attack, palpitation of the  heart, flushed  face,
oppression and soreness on the chest, sense of Avarmth and bubbling
sensation, or pricking and throbbing in the chest, violent tickling in
the throat-pit, Aconite may be found preferable to Arnica, or may
be exhibited in alternation Avith the latter agent.

   Pleurodynia is an affection characterized by stitching pain in the side.
It resembles pleurisy, but is not pleurisy, and is sometimes designated
as False or Spurious Pleurisy.   The pain is seated in  the  intercostal
muscles, and is attended with soreness of the affected region.  It may
be caused by rheumatic exposure,  by strain  in consequence of lift-
ing a heavy weight, by running, etc.  The fibres of  the intercostal
muscles being alternately relaxed and put upon the stretch during
the act of respiration, the  pain is necessarily increased when the
thorax is expanded.  The affection may be accompanied with slight
signs of vascular irritation.
  Among the symptoms of Hahnemann's provings  of Arnica, Ave
find several  which seem to indicate Arnica as a good  remedy in this
affection.  " Stiches and prickings in the side," Avere experienced  by
several  provers.    One prover experienced  " hurried and  difficult
inspirations, and  slow expirations."  Arnica may  be used both inter-
nally and externally.

  Arnica is  recommended by some homoeopathic physicians in 
256
LECTURE XV.
   Pneumonia.  It is never indicated in the acute stage of idiopathic
pneumonia.  In some forms of chronic pneumonia, arising orginally
from 'rheumatic exposure, Avith rheumatic irritation of the muscular
covering of the chest, soreness of the lungs, stitches darting through
the lungs or seated sticking pain in the chest, Avith foul breath, frothy
and bloody sputa, hectic flushes on the cheeks, slight creeping chills
followed by increase of Avarmth and corresponding Avascular excite-
ment ;  gastric  derangements such as nausea, loss of appetite, foul
tongue, bloating of the boAvels and constipation, dark urine:  Arnica
may prove eminently useful.  In Traumatic pneumonia characterized
by similar symptoms, great good may be expected from the use of
this agent.
   Tessier, in his collection of cases of pneumonia, reports a case of
true pneumonia caused by a strain.  The treatment was conducted
to a successful termination with Aconite and other agents generally
used in pneumonia.  Do not fall into the grievous error of associating
particular  drugs with particular morbid conditions  as belonging
together  by an inevitable fatalistic necessity.   There  is no fatalism
in medicine save the fatalism of specific Homoeopathy.  A drug, in
order to be a remedial agent in a given case, must be the exact coun-
terpart, in its action upon the normal tissues, of the dynamic patho-
logical disturbance for which Ave prescribe it.  Do not say: Arnica
is a remedy for strains; but say: Arnica is  generally adapted to
conditions  resulting from a strain.  These conditions may sometimes
require the use of other agents as being far more homoeopathic to
the character of the existing lesion;  one of these agents is Aconite,
another Ehus.

   If this definition of  specific Homoeopathy be  true—and, Gentle-
men, it constitutes the very spirit of our doctrine—you will not fail
in putting a proper construction upon  the following remark of Dr.
AVurm, physician in chief to the homoeopathic hospital in A'ienna  :
"Arnica  being one of the few remedies Avhich cause resorption, it is
a pity that it is so often overlooked by physicians in cases of pleurisy;
although Arnica appears to act more speedily when the exudation
consists of plastic lymph, it is nevertheless very efficacious in serous
exudations."
   Arnica will never remove an effused fluid from the pleural cavity,
unless the essential character of the lesion of AA-hich this exudation
constitutes  a terminal stage, is exactly met by the essential action of
the drug.  Unless the spirit of the drug hugs the spirit of the disease
as its prototype, no absorption of the  effused fluid can take place
under the influence of  Arnica.
                 INFLAMMATOEY  GEOUP.

  We have seen that. Arnica causes slight symptoms of inflammatory
action, when taken by persons in health.  Under the influence of
Arnica the pulse becomes rather more irritable, the temperature of
the skin is slightly raised, the patient may even  experience a sting- 
ARNICA MONTANA.                    257
ing sensation in the skin ; the face may likeAvise become hot and
flushed.
  Arnica does not seem homoeopathic to inflammations of an acute
character;  but in inflammation of a chronic type, whether arthritic
or rheumatic, Ave may derive benefit from its use.  In these affections
its sphere of action seems to be the muscular and tendinous tissues.
 . You will recollect that several of our Arnica-provers experienced
pains doAvn the back, along the spinal column ;  others felt pains  in
the region  of the stomach and liver similar to what we feel  Avhen
suddenly rising  from a stooping  position.  The  character of these
pains is rheumatic.  These rheumatic pains in the back,  along the
spinal column, might be  mistaken for  spinal irritation.   You may
establish the absence of irritation by  pressing Avith the point of the
finger betAveen the vertebrae.  Characteristic constitutional symptoms
are likewise Avanting.  In this species of chronic
  Rheumatism of the muscular and tendinous tissues of the back and
other parts,  it is proper to use Arnica internally and  externally; in-
ternally a feAV drops of the lower attenuations or even of the tincture
in a tumblerful of Avater, and externally a lotion  of 30 or 40  drops
to half a pint of water.
   The characteristic pains of Arnica are generally present in rheu-
matic irritations of the muscular and tendinous tissues.   These pains
are : sore and aching pains ; pains as if bruiseds\.\id sprained; pricking
pains as if  pricked with needles ;  crampy pains ; sharp tearing and
lastly formicating pains.   If these pains are present in rheumatism,
Ave may prescribe Arnica with success, even if the part is SAvollen. In
   Chronic Arthritis, when similar pains occur, Arnica may likewise
help; Vogt recommends it even after exudations and effusions have
occurred.
   In this connection we may recommend Arnica for
   Rheumatic Paralysis,  Avhen the brain is in no wise  disturbed,
except perhaps a little frontal or lateral headache, with formicating,
aching, stinging or tearing pains in the paralyzed extremity, creeping
chills in this part folioAved by occasional flashes of heat, nausea, loss
of appetite, foul tongue, repletion after eating, constipation or foul-
smelling mucous diarrhoea.

  In  Traumatic Inflammations of muscular tissues, Arnica is specifi-
cally appropriate ; although, in inflammations.of an acute  character,
this agent may be used in alternation Avith Aconite.  If you consider
the specific manner in which Arnica  depresses the capillary vessels
and the absorbent system, you have the proof of its homoeopathicity
to  bruises, contusions, Avounds  and sanguineous  extravasations.
Arnica  relaxes the  contractility  of the capillary vessels, hence it
favors effusion from  the  capillaries into the  surrounding cellular
tissue; at the same time the action of the absorbents is checked by
Arnica;  hence  the effused blood forms a  more  or less permanent
extravasation; and hence the homoeopathicity of Arnica to the con-
sequences  of external injuries.  Contusions and lacerations of the
muscular fibre seem to constitute the chief sphere for the therapeutic
action of Arnica  in traumatic diseases.  In wounds of tendinous,
                              IT 
258
LECTURE XV.
ligamentous, fibrous and  serous  tissues, Arnica  alone Avill not be
found sufficient. You will haA*e to associate it Avith Aconite or Ehus
toxicodendron.

  You Avill find Arnica recommended by most writers for
  Sprains and Dislocations.  Gentlemen, never depend upon Arnica
alone in these affections.   The violent strain which the nervous
system, or a portion of it, undergoes in these accidents, superinduces
inflammatory conditions which inevitably require to be treated with
Aconite. You may use this agent internally, and Arnica externally;
by this means you will disperse the capillary engorgement, and like-
wise act upon the  contusions and lacerations of the muscular fibre.
In dislocations the use of Aconite keeps doAvn the feA'er, and pre-
vents the exudation of coagulable lymph.
  In  Traumatic Fever consequent upon violent injuries or opera-
tions, you must never depend upon'Arnica; Aconite is your main
remedy.
  Speaking of feArer let us glance at the

                       FEVEE-GEOUP

of Arnica.
  In truly inflammatory fevers, by  AAmich  I mean fiwers charac-
terized by  heat  and  dryness of the  skin, full, hard and  bounding
pulse and the other symptoms generally inherent in an inflammatory
type, Arnica is not indicated.  But it is indicated in so-called
  Asthenic  Fevers,  by  which we mean loAAr, torpid fevers with little
inflammatory action.  The character of these fevers is typhoid.   In
  Typhoid  Fevers  to Avhich  Arnica is  homoeopathic, the signs  of
deep-seated gastric derangement are  predominant characteristic in-
dications : thick and  foul coating on the tongue, slimy or mucous;
tympanitic distention  of the  abdomen, with rumbling and perhaps a
dull soreness, or else  the opposite condition of  diarrhoeic  stools
having a foul  smell,  attended Avith  tenesmus and softness of the
abdominal  Avails.  Other symptoms of gastric derangement, nausea,
vomiting of an acrid or foul fluid, eA^en Aromiting of blood may  be
present.  Arnica is generally homoeopathic  to a low  type of fever
with the character of dissolution.  It has eAren been used in miasmatic
  Intermittent Fevers where this typhoid type in the gastric functions
prevailed, and A\rhere the general character of the fever Avas that of
torpor.  It is very doubtful, however, whether Arnica will prove of
any benefit in the intermittent fever epidemics of our own country.

              THE EXANTHEMATOUS  GEOUP

of Arnica is very simple. It has produced an eruption consisting of
small boil-shaped tumors; hence Ave consider it homoeopathic to this
condition.  Teste reports the case of a man  of thirty  years, of san-
guine temperament who had been for several years >subject to boils
in the face  on the neck and shoulders;  aftenvards they disappeared
and  gave place to an intense angina of the throat.   Arnica cured 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
250
the angina, and the boils did not show any disposition to return.  I
have seen similar results obtained with Aconite.
  After applying Arnica to the skin, it has often caused a vesicular
miliary eruption, excessive itching and burning, and in some cases
attended with swelling and redness of the part; after the eruption
subsides, the redness remains  for some  time, after Avhich the skin
which  is hard as leather, becomes covered with little scales.  It is
therefore homoeopathic to diseases where the skin becomes similarly
affected,  and where  the other symptoms,  more  particularly  the
gastric symptoms, correspond.   There are bastard forms of
  Varioloid and of typhoid scarlatina, where the eruption may take
this form, and where Arnica may prove useful.

                        ANTIDOTAL.

  Hahnemann recommends vinegar as an antidote to the effects of
large doses of Arnica.  Camphor is also recommended.
                 LECTURE  XVI.


                   ARSENICUM  ALBUM.

      {Oxide of Arsenic, ivhite oxide of Arsenic, Arsenious acid).

   This is the only arsenical preparation which has been so far used
 by homoeopathic physicians.  Metallic Arsenic has been  experi-
 mented with to some extent upon the healthy organism, but we are
 not as yet in possession  of  much  clinical experience regarding the
 therapeutic virtues of this agent.
   Arsenic combines naturally Avith oxygen and sulphur.  AVe have
 two  natural compounds of Arsenic with oxygen, viz.:  arsenious
 acid and arsenic acid.   The latter is met with in combination with
 bases, such as arseniate of silver, soda, iron, lime, etc.
   There are tAvo native  compounds of Arsenic Avith sulphur, one
 termed orpiment, the other realgar.
   Orpiment, also termed King's yelloAV, is the French name for auri-
 pigmentum or gold-paint. It was so  named on account of its yellow
 color, and also because it Avas supposed  to contain gold.  Orpiment
 is  used  as an ingredient of the  so-called  "poudre subtile," Avhich is
 extensively advertised in our newspapers as  a beautifying depila-
 tory agent.
  Realgar, red Arsenic or the red sulphuret of Arsenic,  was used
by the Greeks, Romans and Arabians, and named sandaraka, sanda-
rach.  This preparation  is  no longer used in medicine, but is em-
ployed by pyrotechnists and as a dye-stuff.
  In the arts, Arsenic  has been employed in the earliest ages. 
260
LECTURE XVI.
Herodotus informs us that the pinnacles of a portion of the walls of
Ecbatana, the capital of the Medes, Avere painted Avith sandarach.
  In the Avork  "on Ulcers," attributed to  Hippocrates, Arsenic is
mentioned as a  therapeutic agent.  Dioscorides, hoAvever, is the first
author who makes use of the term "Arsenikon."
  In the following extract the therapeutic properties of Arsenic are
thus described  by this author:  "Arsenic (by which  he seems  to
mean the yellow sulphuret or orpiment),  has  an antiseptic, styptic
and escharotic  power, causing a violent smarting and burning;  at
the same time it has constringent properties, and takes off the hair.
Sandarach has  the same  virtues;  moreover  an  ointment  of red
arsenic  and  pitch  cures baldness and leprosy, and, if mixed Avith
oil, it cures phthiriasis. In  combination Avith the oil of  roses, it is
useful  for ulcers of the nostrils  and mouth, and for  exanthemata
and condylomata.   It  is also given  (internally) in the shape of an
emulsion for suppuration of the lungs.  It  is also inhaled, in addition
Avith resin, for inveterate cough, the vapor being draAvn in through
a tube  inserted in the mouth.  Prepared with honey it  clears the
voice, and is given to asthmatic patients in the shape of a drink, in
combination with resin."
  Plinius, Celsus, Scribonius Largus, and afterwards the followers of
Galen acknoAvledge similar properties of Arsenic.
  The  Arabian physicians Avho were the first  to mention the white
oxide,  particularly Ehazes,  Mesne, Serapion,  Avicenna, state  that
" all the arsenical preparations are heating and burning.   They are
a cure  for the itch, putrid ulcers, ulcerous lepra, spreading  herpes,
lice, and likeAvise asthma; we use them  either in the shape of an
ointment,  or inhale the vapors."  This is the doctrine of Ehazes;
Avicenna teaches the  same thing.  One fact may seem exceedingly
interesting to an homoeopathic physician; it is this: that Arsenic,
according to the statement  of these ancient  Greek and Arabian
authors, clears the skin of all superfluous hair, and yet cures bald-
ness.   It may be argued  that the depilatory action of  Arsenic is
owing  to its escharotic property ;  but Ave shall afterwards learn, that
baldness is a dynamic  effect  of poisonous closes of Arsenic, and that
a cure of  baldness by means of Arsenic takes place in virtue of the
great laAV " Similia similibus curantur." •
  Van I^elmont recommended Arsenic as an external application to
ulcers, but he positively opposed the internal use of this drug.
  Lemery and Wepfer, author of an interesting treatise on hemlock,
opposed the internal use of Arsenic, especially in intermittent fever,
with all their might.   Many pamphlets  appeared  in the 18th cen-
tury in favor  of using Arsenic in  intermittent fever, but this
doctrine was most violently opposed by Stcerck  Avho had  himself
introduced the use of a number of vegetable poisons with passionate
eagerness.
  In consequence of this violent opposition on the part of  Stcerck
and others,  Arsenic sank  into  discredit, until Fowler  and  other
English physicians restored  it to a suitable rank among therapeutic
agents at the close of the last century.
  In 1811 Harless published his interesting memoir on Arsenic in 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.                   261
Nuremberg, Germany.  He advocates the claims of this agent as
eloquently as they were denied by Dierbach and Hufeland Avith un-
compromising hostility.
  It is indeed true that Arsenic seems to poison the very fountain
of life;  but may it not be made serviceable as »a therapeutic agent
even in  proportion to the intensity of its deleterious poAvers ?  Vogt,
in his great work on Pharmaco-dynamics, recommends Arsenic as a
strengthening agent which promotes digestion, assimilation and secre-
tion and stimulates nervous and muscular activity.   This recommen-
dation is based upon the supposed stimulating effect of small doses of
Arsenic on the living tissues.  Trousseau and Pidoux experimented
upon themselves with one-eighth of a grain doses.  They experienced
a general  stimulation such as is sometimes caused by strong coffee.
Another striking effect of small doses of Arsenic was to produce a
remarkable feeling of vigor in the loAver limbs, enabling them to take
long walks Avithout feeling tired.   The same effect Avas experienced
by Masselot, and described by him in these  terms: Remarkable
ability to walk.

   It is said that there exists in some parts of the Austrian  Empire,
and more particularly in Styria, a  class of men who eat Arsenic for
the purpose of giving themselves a finer appearance, and increasing
their fleshiness.
   It is likeAvise affirmed that the use of Arsenic facilitates the process
of respiration during a long Avalk  up the mountains.
   At first these toxicophagi are said to eat a little less than half a
grain, two or three times a week, swalloAving this dose in the morning
before breakfast.   This quantity is increased very gradually in pro-
portion as the smaller dose  loses its effect.
   It does  not appear that symptoms  of an arsenical  cachexia  are
perceived in those who know hoAV to proportion the quantity of  the
poison to their constitution and degree of tolerance.  History records
the case of Mithridates, the old King of the Parthians, Avho had so
accustomed himself to the use of Arsenic that this poison had lost
all effect upon him.   He had contracted the habit of Arsenic-eating
as a protection against the poison in case it should be administered to
him from  evil designs.
   It is stated that Arsenic-eaters are affected by the discontinuance
of the use of Arsenic similarly to Avhat opium-eaters are, if they are
deprived  of their stimulant, or topers if they do  not imbibe their
accustomed potion.  After the Arsenic is discontinued, symptoms of
an arsenical cachexia become apparent, Avhich Trousseau and  Pidoux
sum up in these words: " Great indifference for all their surroundings,
anxiety for their own.persons, gastric derangements, anorexia, sense
of repletion in the stomach, vomiting of glairy mucous early in the
morning,  with  pytalism;  pyrosis, spasmodic  constriction  of  the
pharynx,  difficulty of breathing.   These effects can only be removed
by resuming the habit of eating the poison."
   It is  likeAvise  stated that Arsenic is given to horses and  hogs in
order to make them appear fat  and healthy before offering them for
sale. 
262
LECTURE XVI.
   Doctor Koepel, in a communication  to  the  Medical Society of
 Brussels concerning a memoir  of Doctor Tschudi on the Arsenic-
 eaters of Styria  and Lower Austria, relates the following curious
 fact:
   " A servant in a noble  family Avanted to get rid of a rather rigid
 overseeress.  In order to accomplish this object he mixed for a long
 time small  doses of Arsenic in the food of the lady, fancying that
 the sIoav effects of the poison Avould prevent all suspicion.  To  his
 amazement  he noticed for several months that this lady gained in
 flesh, and looked bright and cheerful.  Seeing that the small doses
 produced an opposite effect from what he had desired, he mixed a much
 larger quantity of Arsenic in a chicken fricasee.  The poison acted
 Avith so much intensity that the cause of the  trouble was soon
 discovered.   (Eelated by Trousseau  and  Pidoux.")
   Some critics, and more particularly Christison, Kesteren and others,
 doubt the authenticity of the statements  made Avith reference to  the
 Arsenicophagi of the Austrian Empire. Their doubts are based upon
 the absence of all positive, irrefutable documentary eAddence con-
 cerning the  subject.  One, to me, very important reason for consider-
 ing these statements about the vice of Arsenic-eating exaggerated, is
 the strictness of the police-regulations, by means of Avhich the indis-
 criminate use of such a powerful poison  as Arsenic is known to  be,
 is rendered  impossible in countries  like Austria, where  the police
 holds supreme sAvay, and where no poison can be sold by a druggist
 Avithout an order duly signed by a physician.
   If, however, the practice of arsenic-eating does actually prevail,
 and is attended with such a general  exaltation  of the vital powers
 as we have  stated,  this effect can  only be accounted for upon
 grounds such as Ave  have endeavored to  explain in  former  lectures.
 The primary effect  of poisonous doses of arsenic  is an universal
 prdstration of the vital energies, the  specific character of which  we
 shall delineate in a series of cases of poisoning; the effect of very
 small doses may therefore be a seeming exaltation of the  vital func-
 tions, in consequence of the organic reaction overcoming the specific
 disturbing action of the poison, before it has had time to  develop its
 inherent effects;  indeed  the original quantity was  too small to
 accomplish such a result.   It stands  to reason  that in the case of a
 confirmed Arsenic-eater,  as in  the  case  of an Opium-chewer,  an
inveterate smoker or toper, the signs  of an  artificial  poisonous
 dycrasia will make  their appearance.   I am  astonished that Mr.
 Kestern  should  have overlooked  the physiological laAV of which
 Opium-eating and tobacco-chewing furnish such  universal and
striking illustrations, so far as to predicate his doubt of the actuality
of Arsenic-eating upon the alleged fact, that the Styrian peasants who
are said to be addicted to this vice exhibit symptoms of poisoning
after the discontinuance of  the stimulant, which have to  be  hushed
up by resuming its  use.   The  same results, as we  said  before, are
observed  from other stimulants,  such  as: Opium,  Brandy and
Tobacco.

   Pereira gives  a very accurate and complete description of the 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
263
process of obtaining arsenious acid on a large scale from arsenical
iron.   This  process is resorted to  at Altenburg, in Silesia, where
this ore is obtained. It consists of a series of very simple operations:
  1. Eeducing the ore to powder.
  2. Roasting this powdered ore in a muffled  furnace.
  3. Conveying tke resulting  vapors of arsenious acid into a con-
densing chamber, where the vapors are deposited in a pulverulent
form.  These  vapors  of arsenious acid are called by  the German
miners flowers of arsenic or smelting house smoke (Huttenrauch), the
condensed vapors are named poison-flour (Giftmehl).
  4. Eefining the rough acid by sublimation.  The glassy mass thus
collected on the sides of the iron vessels in which the refining pro-
cess is conducted, is termed white arsenic glass, weisse Arsenik-glass ;
this is sometimes purified by a second and even  a third sublimation.
  In  some  parts of Saxony, Arsenic is obtained as  a secondary
product in the roasting of cobalt ores, arseniurets of cobalt.   It is
deposited in long horizontal flues, so-called poison flues (67iftfdngen),
and is purified by sublimation.
  Arsenious acid is also manufactured in Cornwall, from the white
mundic or mispickel found with the  tin-ore. Mispickel is the name
Avhich the German miners give to arsenical iron.
  Arsenious acid occurs both in the shape of regular crystals and
in an amorphous condition.  The crystals are  either octohedrons or
tetrahedrons.   In the amorphous condition, arsenious acid occurs in
large,  glassy,  colorless  or  yellowish, transparent cakes {vitreous or
glacial arsenious acid).   These masses soon lose  their transparency,
the opacity gradually extending towards the centre ;  in some cases,
the acid becomes friable  and  pulverulent.  Krueger ascribes this
change to the  absorption of Avater, from  the  atmosphere ; he  says
that such a change only takes place in moist air, and that the Aveight
of the arsenious mass increases in consequence  of this transformation.
Pereira mentions a fact which seems to confirm this theory ; he had
arsenious acid enclosed in a glass tube heremetically sealed Avithout
its transparency being affected in the least; the tube was subsequently
cracked, and the acid soon became opaque.
  Arsenious acidls soluble in 80 parts of water at a temperature of
59°, or in 7.72 parts of boiling Avater.  Do not forget that arsenious
acid is readily soluble in warm water.  A physician Avho is ignorant
or forgetful of this fact, might order warm water in a case of poison-
ing Avith Arsenic, for the purpose  of  promoting vomiting.  The
effect of such treatment would inevitably be to effect the solution of
the poison and to increase its virulence to a fatal degree of intensity.
  Arsenious acid is also soluble in alcohol.  An alcoholic solution
of this acid  is used by some homoeopathic practitioners.
  Arsenious acid has little or no taste, as Plenck, Addison and
Christian have remarked.  Simon, hoAvever,  has  discovered  a
sweetish taste to the acid.   Both the solid and  liquid arsenious  acid
is inodorous.
  A description  of the  characteristic  of arsenious  acid  in its
different forms, solid, pure, liquid, and in organic mixtures, belongs
to the domain of toxicology.  The solid acid is  distinguished 
261
LECTURE XVI.
  1. By its volatility.  Heated on the point of a pen-knife in  the
flame of a spirit lamp, arsenious acid produces a white smoke which
speedily disappears.
  2. Its garlic odor.  If arsenious acid be burnt on red-hot charcoal
placed in a saucer, metallic arsenic is evolved in the form of vapor,
havino- a garlic odor.  At the distance of an inch or two from  the
embers, this scarcely-perceptible vapor is converted into  a dense,
white, odorless smoke.
  The garlic odor is not peculiar to  arsenic ; for Orfila has shown
that a compound of albumen and fat exhales this odor when heated.
  3. Formation of a metallic crust.   If arsenious acid be mixed with
recently-ignited charcoal that has, hoAvever, been allowed to cool
and  to Avhich some carbonate of soda may be  added ; and if this
mixture he heated in the bulb of one of  Berzelius' reduction tubes,
the  deoxidized  acid  is  sublimated, and the condensed  vapor is
deposited  in a cooler portion of the tube  in the shape of a crust
which is metallic Arsenic and  is distinguishable by its brilliancy
externally, by its crystalline  appearance and grayish-white color
whithin, by its volatility and by the results it yields when treated
Avith the various and well-knoAvn tests for Arsenic.  These tests are
described  in  works  on chemistry, and will be fu'ly shoAvn and
explained by the Chemical Chair.
  For homoeopathic purposes Ave never use the  so-called flowers of
Arsenic to which allusion has been  made  previously, for they  are
frequently found adulterated by admixture Avith other  substances ;
we use the solid Arsenic, of which we make triturations in  the
proportion of one to ninety-nine, or one to ten.

  The physiologico-therapeutical range of Arsenic is only rivalled
by the wonderful health-disturbing, and  therefore health-restoring
properties  of Aconite.   To the careful  observer the symptomatic
resemblances of Aconite and Arsenic must seem striking.   The part
which Aconite seems to play on the surface  of the organic functions,
is enacted  by Arsenic  in the inmost  recesses  of A-itality.  The
Aconite-fever  is evanescent, a  chill,  or some chilly creepings or
shiverings along the back, followed by  a moderate degree of heat
and moisture corresponding in quantity with the intensity of the
previous rise of temperature.  The  Arsenic-chill, on the  contrary,
seems to freeze the vital blood in the very  laboratory of the heart;
the subsequent  heat is like a consuming fire burning up the A'ital
moisture  of the  pores, until a soaking, debilitating perspiration is
supplied by the reactive forces of the organism as a  restorer of their
disturbed harmony.
   AVe may mention typhoid fever as another lesion  strikingly illus-
trative of  the  differences of action  betAveen Aconite and Arsenic.
Either of these agents may be adapted to a pathological lesion Avhich
we may designate  as typhoid fever.   And  yet how much more in-
tensely is the vitality of the  organism prostrated in typhoid fever
for which Arsenic is required than in typhoid feArer which may be
controlled with Aconite.  The latter form of typhoid fever may not
seem much Avorse than a severe attack of influenza, with mild exacer- 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
265
bations of the fever every evening or afternoon, Avhich are followed
by more or less copious perspiration.  Other symptoms of a typhoid
condition  of the  system may be:  dizziness  and dull pain "in the
head;  soreness and  inflammation of the  edges of the tongue, with
dryness, and dirty-looking gray or brownish coating of this organ;
unnatural dryness of the skin; soreness and  dull expression of the
eyes,  lachrymation,  great  nervousness,  tendency to start, uneasy
sleep, debility.
  In typhoid  fever, to which Arsenic is homoeopathic, all  these
symptoms would be  much more marked; the chill is more racking,
the _ subsequent fever-heat  more  burning, and the sAveats  more
debilitating.   The vital  fluids are  much more deeply affected by
the mprbid process;  the signs of  decomposition  more evident;
there is a more  manifest tendency to the formation of sores and
petechiae ; the bowels are either more tympanitic and torpid, or else
the diarrhoea  is  more offensive  and  prostrating;  in the Arsenic
typhoid fever  the urine is dark-brown,  foul  and  scanty; in the
Aconite form of this fever,  the urine may  simply  have a deeper
color and some sediment, Avithout the quantity  being altered.
  AVe  may draAv a similar parallel  in every disease to Avhich -both
Aconite and Arsenic are homoeopathic.  Take  a case of cholera.   A
simple'attack, with a moderate degree of coldness, debility, cramps
in  the calves,  vomiting of  bile and  mucus,  alvine discharges  of
serum and mucus,  sinking  pulse,  may often be controlled Avith
Aconite;  but  Avould  Aconite be  sufficient to  control  an  attack
characterized  by intense burning in the pyloric region, precordial
anguish, excessive  retching  and  vomiting,  copious and frequent
alvine evacuations folloAved  by sudden and excessive prostration,
and attended  Avith marble coldness of the skin, collapse of pulse,
unquenchable thirst, most violent  and distressing  cramps in the
extremities ?  No indeed, Arsenic Avould have  to be exhibited.
  It seems  needless to continue the  contrast  any further for the
purpose of impressing upon your minds the extraordinary poAver of
Arsenic to  penetrate to the  inmost fountain  of organic life and
poison the \~cry  emanations of vitality  as they diffuse  themselves
through the tissues.   KnoAving these deleterious effects  of Arsenic,
we cannot Avonder that this  heroic  agent should  haA'e  been pro-
scribed by  Lemercy, Hufeland, and a host  of lesser lights.   The
Avish has  frequently been expressed before judicial tribunals, that
the use of Arsenic, being a dangerous rather than  an useful agent,
might  be altogether discontinued in  medicine.   Hufeland condemns
the use of Arsenic in this extraordinary language : "It is my maxim
never  to  make use of Arsenic  in intermittent fever, because  its
destructive effects, even in  the smallest doses, of  one-tenth of a
grain for instance, are incalculable;  a cure effected Avith such doses,
is therefore a mere suppression, a pathological  death.
  One-tenth of a grain is the smallest dose that occurs to the mind
of such a  Areteran practitioner as Hufeland.   This  good man Avas
like his brethren, tainted Avith the pernicious notion that a medicine
cannot be depended upon as a therapeutic agent, unless it is  given
in doses large enough to produce medicinal effects.   If this doctrine 
266
LECTURE XVI.
be true,  it may necessarily follow that Arsenic may have to be
given in sufficient quantity to act not only as a medicine, but like-
wise as a poison.  I have shown that this doctrine is essentially false,
and that a cure is not effected by means of an artificial malady being
set up in the tissues,  but in virtue of the laAV that there exists a higher
degree of affinity between the morbific essence and the  remedial agent,
ivhich is Us material type, than between  the morbific  essence and the
organic tissues.   A  remedial  agent  selected  and administered in
accordance Avith this law, may be given in a  very  small dose, so
small that this infinitesimal close may excite  the risibility of such
silly poetasters as Holmes & Co.
  Gentlemen, if you ever feel tempted to try the  highest potencies,
select Arsenic  for  your first experiment.   If your medicine is
perfectly homoeopathic  to  the case,  you may see beautiful effects
even from the tAvo hundredth  potency.   In  a case of malignant
impetigo,  Arsenic effected  a most Avonderful cure.   A baby  had
been vaccinated with bad lymph.  A black pustule  formed, of the
size of a small walnut, filled Avith the most destructive ichor. AAmere-
ever the ichor touched the sound skin, it formed a phagedenic ulcer.
In the space of three days, the whole arm of the baby, the forehead,
face, neck, and a portion of the chest and  scalp Avere covered Avith
the most loathsome and dangerous eruption.  The eyes were closed.
The face looked like one hideous sore.  The mother too had caught
the disease.   Two globules of Arsenic 200 were given  dry on the
tongue.   Twenty-four hours after the medicine had been taken, the
eruption had dried up, and in three  days  the crusts fell off, leav-
ing a sound  skin behind.   It is not  necessary, howeArer;  to  be
frightened, if we should have to give a  larger dose;   one-tenth  and
even one-fifth of a grain  may  be given Avithout causing any un-
toward symptoms.

  There  are  few agents in Medicine the effects of Avhich  upon the
healthy body are as well knoAvn as those of Arsenic.  Unfortunately
this knowledge has been obtained through great sacrifice  of human
life and  an incalculable  amount of tortures.   In  the  history of
poisoning, Arsenic stands recorded as the most  common, and the
most effectual means of murder and self-destruction. Pope Alex-
ander VI. committed most of his murders with  Arsenic.    The
principal ingredient of the famous Aqua toffaria or of the Cantarella, a
popular name for the fatal poison Avhich destroyed hundreds of the first
lives of Italy during the reign of Alexander VI., Avas arsenious acid.
  In a legal point of view,  it is important to know hoAV small a dose
may produce poisonous effects, and hoAV long a period of time may
elapse before the poison manifests its deleterious effects.
  In regard to the first point, there are many facts going to shoAV
that a very small dose is sometimes sufficient to produce poisonous
symptoms and even to  destroy life.   Fodere has seen a case Avhere
half  a grain  of arsenious acid caused violent griping pains in the
stomach, colic and dysentery; these symptoms continued until the
eighth day.  Christison states that five  persons were attacked with
very serious  symptoms from one  grain of Arsenic  Avhich each of 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
267
them took in wine.   In a case mentioned by Taylor, a child of six
months took one third of a grain of arsenious acid; a woman  took
one grain and a half, and  her husband two grains and a half.   All
experienced vomiting and violent prostration.  The man remained
sick for several days.
  Lach&ze  of Angers,  a French physiologist, has seen death result
from two grains of Arsenic.  This quantity was taken in four doses,
and Avithin the space of two days.  One person died in seven, and
another person in ten weeks.   Both  Christison and  Hahnemann
affirm that  two grains, and even  one, are sufficient to cause death
in a few days.  Dr. Alfred Taylor likeAvise affirms that from t\vo to
three grains may be regarded as a fatal dose.
  On the other hand,  very large quantities of Arsenic have  been
swallowed without causing death.  Pereira states that on one occa-
sion he opened the body of a man who had destroyed himself Avith
Arsenic.   The doctor was informed by the friends of the dead  man
that a fortnight ago he had  made a  fruitless attempt at suicide by
SAvallowing half an ounce of Arsenic.   The poison Avas taken imme-
diately after dinner,  and the only  effect  produced  was violent
vomiting.
  Arsenic  may be taken  for a long time without producing  fatal
consequences.   Eenault and Orfila report the case of a servant-girl
Avho AAras  poisoned by her jealous companion.   Everyday she mixed
a little Arsenic in her enemy's dinner.   A feAV minutes after eating
her dinner, it was throAvn up again before the poison had time to act.
This continued for six weeks.  The  symptoms gradually became
Avorse; violent  colicky pains set in, the patient wasted aAvay, the
least exposure  to a  current of air caused spasms and convulsions.
She went into the country and gradually recovered her health.  The
criminal attempt Avas discovered.
  In regard to the time which has to elapse before the poison mani-
fests its effects a good deal depends upon the quantity of the dose;
upon the condition of the stomach, whether full or empty ;  upon the
degree of solubility and perhaps upon peculiar idiosyncracies of the
patient.  The effects of a large dose  may be almost instantaneous.
A smaller dose of several grains may not exhibit its poisonous effects
until several hours after the administration of the poison.  In the
case of a  French lady, Madame Gerard, who had arsenical ointment
applied to a scarified tumor of the breast, the first symptoms of poi-
soning Avere not perceived.until about ten hours after the application
of the drug.  In this case the poison acted by absorption.

  Arsenic exercises its poisonous effects  not only on man, but  like-
Avise on plants.  Ja'ger whose experiments are communicated in an
inaugural thesis published at Tubingen in  1808, states that seeds
which have been soaked for some time in  arsenious acid, are  inca-
pable of germinating, and  that buds Avhich have been plunged  in it,
are no longer capable of expanding.
  Chatin poured upon the denuded roots of a plant a few quarts of
a watery solution of Arsenic ; in a few days, the plant turned yellow
from below upAvards.  If  only a small quantity of the solution Avas 
268
LECTURE XVI.
used; or if the plant, after the first symptoms of poisoning had made
their appearance, Avas transplanted  into fresh soil it soon recovered
its health.  The application of warmth likeA\rise affected the restora-
tion of the plant.  A chemical analysis of the different parts of the
plant showed that the poison had been absorbed, but that it Avasnot
uniformly distributed through every part of the plant.
  According to Ja'ger's experiments, infusoria  are  destroyed in an
arsenical solution. The extensive investigations of this experimenter
show that all animals are liable to the poisonous  action of Arsenic.
In  all of them it convulses the stomach and  irritates the mucous
lining of the intestines, causing vomiting and increased alvine evacu-
ations.  The power of voluntary motion, Avith the irritability of the
muscular fibre, is destroyed by Arsenic; after the death of the ani-
mals  which Jaeger experimented upon with Arsenic, the muscles
soon ceased to be influenced  by the galvanic battery.   In animals
Avhich breathe by lungs, respiration became difficult and laborious;
and in Avarm-blooded animals great thirst AAras experienced.
  It is well to note these effects of Arsenic upon the respiratory
system and upon the mucous lining of the alimentary canal, as we
shall afterAvards see that in diseases of the organs of respiration and
digestion Arsenic constitutes one of our main remedies.
  It appears that horses can bear enormous quantities of arsenious
acid without any injurious effects.  Pereira states  that  Berthe, a
French Veterinary Surgeon, gave tAvo and afterAvards three drachms
to a mare for the cure  of an obstinate  skin-disease, Avithout any
injurious effects.  It appears from  experiments by Beissenhirz and
Dalemonde that it takes from one to two ounces of Arsenic dissolved
in water to destroy a horse.
  On the  subject of poisoning with Arsenic, Hahnemann  is recog-
nized as an authority even by Old-School physicians.  He is fre-
quently quoted  by Christison, Taylor, Flandin  and  other  toxicolo-
gists.  In his Essay on Arsenic he quotes a host of medical Avriters,
which makes this highly interesting volume one of the most valuable
contributions to the vast domain of toxicology.  In the  November
number, 1858, of the North American Journal of Homoeopathy, Ave
find an abstract of the contents of this Avork, for Avhich Ave are in-
debted to the indefatigable industry of Dr. Peters, one of the Editors
of this instructive periodical.  AVe will transfer this abstract to our
pages, Avith some slight modifications.
  Hahnemann distinguishes three degrees of poisoning:
  The first degree is, Avhere a large  quantity is taken under circum-
stances favoring its full  effect; viz.: on an empty stomach, or with
heating liquors, in persons Avith irritable nerves and choleric temper-
aments, subject to spasmodic and inflammatory affections, or shattered
by  anger,  grief, jealousy or  fear,  overloaded  Avith acrid  bile, or
affected Avith chronic disease.
  The poisoned person first experiences a cold  shuddering which
seems to  pervade  the Avhole body; while an inexpressible anxiety,
or nausea, Avhich seems to oppress  the chest as well as the stomach,
a cold deathlike sweat, and a general trembling of the limbs, alter-
nate Avith one another in frequent paroxysms. 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
269
  Second, the hands, feet and tip of the nose become cold: blue
circles form  around the eyes, while  the  oppressed pulse gains in
hardness and quickness.
  Third, follow violent  attempts  at vomiting, Avhich, although very
forcible, are fruitless at first, and finally become almost ineffectual
from spasmodic closure of the cardiac orifice, and emptiness of the
stomach of everything but Arsenic which is tenaciously plastered
on its walls.  The patient complains of burning and tearing pains in
his throat, oesophagus and stomach, and knoAvs not Avhat to do Avith
himself.
  Fourth, the Arsenic continues to ravage and  destroy the stomach
without compelling it to full and relief-affording vomiting; it clings
fast to the villi of the mucous membrane, and contracts it as boiling
water would.  The whole nervous system trembles and struggles.
  Fifth, the fruitless  retchings,  the fever, the  frightful  chills, the
anxiety,  the internal heat and  unquenchable thirst increase; the
breathing becomes quicker and hotter, more spasmodic and violent;
and the glistening eyes project from their sockets.  The inexpressible
anxiety,  and the  burning, rending and overpowering pain in the
epigastrium, torture the patient more and more as they progressively
increase.
  Sixth, at  first  the  abdomen  is contracted;  afterwards, Avhen
inflammation and  irritation of the stomach, liA*er and spleen occur,
it becomes hot and distended;  the  attempt at vomiting  becomes
irresistible and incessant;  the panting and  gasping lungs, the dry
and parched tongue, the gaping mouth seek refreshment from cool
air and water.  The stools and urine are suppressed; the substances
ejected from the stomach have a disgusting smell and color, and may
be mixed  Avith  blood.   Cutting and griping pains in the bowels
ensue, especially  around the navel;  the patient  is beside himself, so
that he neither  hears nor sees  correctly, Avhile his  expression  is
frightfully anxious and fearful.
  Seventh, we now see the evidences of the  ascendancy of the cor-
rosive destroyer,  which persists in its internal  ravages Avithout
check or mercy, in the livid, frothy lips, the  SAvollen and trembling-
tongue, the agonizing  expression of the bloated  face, the  viscid
sweat on the cold forehead, and the lead-colored circles around the
staring eyes.
   Eighth,  the miserable sufferer no  longer  looks like himself, but
seems a  Avretched and  tortured stranger  from another sphere; he
screams  frightfully, or whimpers despairingly  in broken or angry
words for help from agony, fire and death; then turns and struggles
violently.
  Ninth, soon after this Ave  see  signs of  loss of feeling and sensa-
tion ;  he becomes more quiet; his heart heaves less frequently; the
vomiting ceases; his black parched lips tremble, his pulse becomes
extinguished, and involuntary putrid stools of a most offensive smell
and appearance occur.
   Tenth, the pupils dilate; the death-rattle is heard in the throat of
the dying and unconscious sufferer; jerks and  spasms convulse his
stiffening limbs  and his icy-cold  face;  his stertorous  breathing 
270
LECTURE XVI.
  becomes  fearfully  slower and slower, and finally, with a last spas-
  modic gasp a ghastly corpse alone is left, the staring eyes and gaping
  mouth of which fill us with horror.
    This graphic description of the effects of poisoning with a fatal
  dose of Arsenic is so characteristic  of an acute attack of Asiatic
  Cholera,  that Ave may already at this stage direct your attention to
  the extraordinary  therapeutic powers of  Arsenic in this dreadful
  scourge.
    In Hahnemann's second degree of poisoning with Arsenic, life may
  persist for several days; this  degree requires more than four grains
  to produce it;  it is most  apt  to occur in not very impressible, fully
  grown and not unhealthy persons, especially those who  have much
  mucous in their stomach, or have taken food just before or with the
  Arsenic,  or have drank freely of simple  diluent drinks, and have
  not been harassed with aggravating  mental  troubles.   The phe-
  nomena of  this degree are similar to those of  the first degree, only
  they occur less rapidly, have various less violent episodes, and
  intercurrent remissions.   The cutting, gnaAving and burning sensa-
  tions of the first degree, are more intermixed with twisting, aching,
  colicky,  griping and  gnawing pains;  the face SAvells  more; the
  abdomen is harder, and aphthous vesicles arise in the mouth.
    This second degree is characterized by more frequent, offensive
  and bloody discharges from  the  boAvels, Avith gradually increasing
  gripings  and less frequent vomitings.   The strength of the patient
  fails more gradually, and his consciousness  remains until the last,
  when convulsions may occur, and incessant hiccough which  admits
  of no palliation or relief.  This degree has peculiar agonies  Avhich
  are sometimes  wanting in the first.  As the pains are less severe and
  constant,  there is more opportunity for the occurrence of remorse,
  despair, grief,  contrition and  other mental emotions  which harass
  the soul.   The strange admixture of bodily pain and mental agony
  often finishes Avhat  the poison alone Avas too Aveak to accomplish, and
  the more stealthy approaches of death are aided by regret for the
  past and  hopelessness for the future.
    Gentlemen, there is no toxicological agent that I am acquainted
  with, Avhich is  possessed of the poAver of plunging the mind into a
  state of hopeless despair in the same extraordinary degree as Arsenic.
  You may therefore note the fact, even at this stage  of our patho-
  genetic tableau, that Arsenic  may be employed Avith' signal advan-
  tage in mental derangements  of a religious character  characterized
  by apprehensions for  one's future fate, despair of salvation.
    Hahnemann's  third degree  of poisoning Avith arsenic  may arise
  from the  second degree in consequence of insufficient treatment.  In
  this degree the patient may remain alive, but a long-lasting chronic
  disorder  may  ensue.   Remitting, but oft-recurring  cramps  occur
  in the limbs, but especially in the feet; repeated paroxysms of fever
  set  in, attended with colicky pains,  spasmodic  contraction of the
  abdomen, intermingled with  headache, heat and thirst.   After one
' of these feverish attacks, in which both vomiting and diarrhoea are apt
  to recur,  the Avhole remaining force of the poison is apt to be throAvn
  upon the  limbs; they become paralyzed, or so much contracted that 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
271
the patient  cannot extend them, at least  not the legs.   If proper
evacuations are neglected, the irregular attacks of fever occur more
frequently, the pulse becomes intermittent, the eyes become dim  or
fixed and sallow, the mouth bitter, the headache and oppression of
the heart and  chest insupportable, and the  contracted  limbs are
visited  with burning, itching-neuralgic pains somewhat  similar to
those of gout, but not folloAved by alleviation of the other symptoms.
These may be succeeded by a A'ery violent attack of fever, and a mili-
ary eruption over the whole body, the vesicles of Avhich often become
confluent and contain an exceedingly acrid fluid.  At times the whole
affection is terminated happily by one of those critical fever&and erup-
tions, but more frequently it  is not,  and the whole aggregate of
sufferings is increased,  because the remains of the unanticloted  or
unremoved  poison are  still  considerable.   In the latter case,  the
contraction of the limbs are followed by absolute paralysis; the gout-
like pains still rage violently, but the eruption dries up, and the skin
peels off; the surface remains tender for a longtime; the limbs, espe-'
cially the feet swell; the irregular attacks of fever still recur, and are
attended  with stomach-ache and  colic; palpitations are not  un-
common ; and  opisthotonos, or the Eclampsia of  Sauvage, in Avhich
there is violent bending of the body  backwards, with convulsions
and retention of consciousness, may occur. The patient may recover
from this, but remain feeble, cachectic, with irregular febrile chills,
oppression of the stomach from the slightest food or  drink, or Avith
attacks of vomiting directly after  meals, bitter  unpleasant taste in the
mouth, pains in the head, dryness of the skin and eyes, painful and
irregular discharges from the bowels, restlessness, dejection of spirits,
dropsical swellings, night-sweats, etc.  All these  symptoms point to
the scaling off of eschars and consequent suppurating patches in the
stomach or bowels. If these corrosions were not very deep they may
heal over and the patient may finally recover.
   This third degree of  poisoning exhibits  the disorganizing poAvers
of Arsenic in a variety  of forms.   In this last degree of the Arsenic
disease, Avhen this agent acts as a slow poison, contaminating life in
its inmost principles as it Avere, the functions  of the nervous system
are  most unmercifully disturbed by the dire destroyer. Contractions
and paralysis, fierce neuralgic pains, opisthotonic spasms, mark the
presence of the poison; deep-seated gastric  derangements,  such as
have been grouped by pathologists under the names of  dyspepsia,
gastralgia, colico-dynia, chronic gastritis or gastro-enteritis, chronic
diarrhoea and dysentery, are permanently entailed upon  the organ-
ism ; emaciation and an utter prostration of strength, chronic jaundice,
dropsy, hypochondria, hectic fever, night-SAveats, etc., are the constant
companions of the miserable victim.
   Hahnemann graphically sums up the effect of slow poisoning by
Arsenic as a gradual  sinking of the poAvers of life, without any
violent symptoms; a nameless feeling of illness, failure of the strength,
an aversion to  food and drink, and all the other enjoyments of life.
   According to Pereira, the symptoms of long-continued small doses
of Arsenic may be summed up as follows : disorder of the digestive
functions characterized by flatulence, sensation of Avarmth, or actual 
272
LECTURE XVI.
pain, in the stomach and bowels; loss of appetite; thirst, nausea and
vomiting, purging, or at least a relaxed condition of the bowels, and
griping;  furred tongue, Avith dryness and tightness of the mouth and
throat, or Avith salivation.  Quick, small  and sometimes irregular
pulse ;  oppressed respiration, with  a dry cough.  The body wastes ;
the stomach is often so irritable that no food can be retained in it.
Headache, giddiness and want of sleep are frequently observed.  The
limbs become painful,  feeble,  trembling, subject  to convulsions;
occasionally  benumbed  and ultimately paralyzed.  An eruption
makes its appearance upon the skin, and now and then the hair and
nails fall of.  SAvelling of the feet  and face is not unfrequent;  and
the patient gradually sinks, in some cases retaining his consciousness
to the last,  but at other times delirium and stupor supervening.
   Of the acute form of  poisoning both Christison  and Pereira dis-
tinguish  three varieties, of which  Pereira furnishes the following
description:
   First form Avith acute symptoms of gastro-enteritis: there  is burning
pain in the throat and stomach, which soon extends over the Avhole
abdomen.  Pain  and vomiting are not  invariably present.   The
matters vomited are sometimes bilious, sometimes tinged Avith blood.
Frequently there is a sense of heat, dryness, tightness and constric-
tion of the throat, accompanied Avith incessant thirst, and occasionally
Avith an  almost hydrophobic difficulty of swalloAving.  The lower
part of the intestinal  canal soon becomes affected, as indicated by the
burning  pain Avhich is increased on pressure,  by the hard and tense
condition of the abdomen, by the diarrhoea which is sometimes bloody,
by the tenesmus, and by the occasional heat and excoriation of the
anus.  There may be difficulty in passing water, Avith burning pain
in the genital organs.  The urine is  frequently  diminished  and
sometimes  suppressed.   The  pulse  is quick,  small, feeble  and
irregular ; cold, clammy sweat; irregular action of the heart, giving
rise to palpitation;  breathing  short, laborious and  often painful;
tongue dry and  furred ;  the membrane lining the air-passages feels
hot, and oftentimes painful.   Although  the  symptoms of gastro-
enteritis  predominate, yet we have symptoms of nervous disorder,
sometimes in the form  of tremblings and cramps of the limbs, or
delirium, and  even in the last stage,  insensibility; occasionally
eruptions ;  death in tAventy-four hours.
   From  among numberless cases of this kind, Ave  may select the
folloAving as illustrative of the irritating action of Arsenic upon the
intestinal mucus  lining.   The case is extracted  from Frank's Phy-
siological Magazine.
   " A man put two ounces of Arsenic in his wife's soup.   She took
but little of it as it tasted badly.  Half an hour after, she was attacked
with violent burning in the throat,  and severe pains in the abdomen ;
the evening  and night were passed  in great agony, with violent
vomitings  and burning  thirst.  She  was left until the third  day
without medical advice, and was then found exceedingly exhausted,
with blue circles around her eyes, her tongue and mouth dry and
inflamed ; she had burning thirst, was excessively fearful, had pains
and tremblings in all her limbs, tearing pains in the  stomach and 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
273
bowels, frequent attacks of ineffectual retching, violent paroxysms of
vomiting and incessant  diarrhoea;  the alvine discharges consisted
of mucous and greenish  substances.   She died on the sixth day.   A
post-mortem examination revealed the following symptoms:
  " Tongue lined with a dirty, yellow coating; the anus gaped open
and a greenish substance flowed from it;  the  blood in every part of
the body was black and fluid ; the peritoneum was reddened through-
out its whole extent; the inner surface of the stomach was  almost
black, and as if swollen  and thickened; the internal surface of the
duodenum and upper part of the jejunum were dark-red.  Portions
of the larynx and oesophagus were almost black. The stomach con-
tained a yelloAvish-red fluid; the small intestines a moderate quantity
of a yellowish substance, and an  unnaturally. prof use secretion of
yellowish intestinal mucus; in the cavity  of the pleura at least eight
ounces of reddish water, and there Avas a spot on  the pleura' three
inches in diameter, covered Avith a gelatinous recent false membrane,
into which vessels had  already  commenced to project,  although
it was so loosely attached to the  pleura  that it  could easily be
removed."
  This case exhibits all the signs  of a  malignant  form of  gastro-
enteritis, with tendency  to gangrenous disorganization.
  Second form: Acute poisoning with collapse or narcotism: faintness
or actual syncope, frequently convulsions  or paralysis, and some-
times  insensibility  or delirium.  The dose  of Arsenic is half an
ounce or more.
   Pereira informs us that he has  seen  one  case  of this form of
poisoning.   The individual (a gentleman of  about tAventy years of
age) coarsely pounded  a lump of arsenious acid and  swalloAved it.
At a rough calculation it Avas supposed  that he took about six or
eight drachms of the Arsenic.  The symptoms were pain, vomiting,
great weakness, with extreme depression  of the circulation, faintness,
collapse, and death in about  four hours.  His intellect Avas clear
until a very short time before death, when he sank into a doze.
There were neither convulsions nor paralysis.   Every attempt was
made to remove the poison from the stomach; copious vomiting
took  place;  large draughts  of  water were  administered, and the
stomach-pump applied.   Notwithstanding these circumstances, more
than four drachms of solid arsenious acid in the form of lumps were
found in the stomach  after  death.  Their weight  had apparently
prevented their removal during life.
  In the following two cases the  narcotic action  of the poison is
strikingly manifest.  The first of these two cases is reported by
Christison;  the second is  extracted from  Rankin's Half-yearly
Abstract:
  "A young woman was  caught  in the act of sAvalloAving little
fragments of Arsenic, and it afterwards appeared that  she had been
employed most of the day in literally cracking and chewing lumps
of it.  AVhen the physician first saw her, the countenance expressed
chagrin and melancholy, but not  suffering.   After being forced to
drink, she vomited a good deal, but without uneasiness.   Two hours
afterward, her countenance was anxious,  but  she did not make any
                              18 
274
LECTURE XVI.
complaint, and very soon  resumed  her tranquility.  Five hours
after the last portions of the poison were taken, she became drowsy,
then remained perfectly quiet for four hours more, and at length, on
trying to sit  up in bed, complained of slight pain in the stomach,
and expired without agon}'-."
  The second case is equally remarkable as  far as  the apparent
absence of all signs of acute inflammation is concerned.
  " A heavy,  stupid-looking girl had taken a teaspoonful of white
Arsenic.  The physician found her sitting in her chair, more asleep
than aAvake;  on arousing her she reeled about the room in such a
manner that   poisoning  by  some narcotic  was suspected.   She
acknowledged having swallowed white mercury, which was recog-
nized by the aid of a pocket-lens to be arsenious acid.  She vomited
once after dinner, but there were no further symptoms until half an
hour before she died, at noon the following day.  She had no pain,
no sickness, no acrid eructations,  no burning taste in the mouth; her
face was very pale, and  she was  faint and giddy.  The sulphate of
zinc, with mucilaginous  drinks, was given her, and  soon produced
copious vomiting  which was kept  up for half an  hour.   The
hydrated peroxide of iron  was then  administered  in large doses.
At nine o'clock at  night she had experienced no pain, no unpleasant
symptoms whatsoever.   She was disposed to sleep quietly.  At ten
o'clock the next morning, her aunt came to  say that she was  quite
well, and wanted permission to go a-gleaning, but at half past eleven
o'clock, while in a  more than ordinarily cheerful mood, and engaged
in preparing  dinner, she suddenly complained of an excrutiating
pain in the body, with great prostration of strength.  She went to
her bed-room to lie down, and at twelve was found dead.
  Upon examining the dead body, the stomach Avas found to contain
half a pint of thin, dirty, green fluid;  the mucous  coat much cor-
rugated, having a fungous appearance, very soft and so fragile that
a touch of the finger tore it  away.   Three or four large  reddish-
brown patches Avere  observed, extending into  the intestines consid-
erably beyond the duodenum.  The peritoneal coat  of the stomach
and  hoAvels  was   not inflamed.   The  lungs and the heart were
healthy; the head was not inspected.   Arsenic was contained in the
stomach-fluids.
  The third form is an acute poisoning, with symptoms of gastro-enteri-
tis, followed by an affection of the cerebrospinal system.  The symp-
toms of gastro-enteritis are first developed.  If the patient  recovers
from  these, the cerebro-spinal symptoms sometimes come on; the
chief symptom is coma ; and the most trifling: a peculiar imperfect
palsy of the  arms or legs: between these extremities have been
observed epileptic fits, or tetanus, or an affection resembling hys-
teria or madness.
  A  number of  interesting  cases referable  to this  category are
reported in Frank's Magazine; one of them will  suffice for an illus-
tration.
  " Three servant-girls took Arsenic by mistake.  The usual gastric
symptoms were present: vomiting of blood and discharge of  blood
 rom the anus; they had a  good deal of fever,  which Avas followed 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
275
 by profuse  sweats and  pains in the teeth;  their chests and necks
 were covered Avith purple spots.  After a lull of the symptoms they
 all had returns of vomiting, purging, excessive pains in the stomach,
 inflammation and swelling about the root of the tongue ; tAvo of them
 Avere unable to speak  or swallow, and in twenty-four hours were
 seized with trismus and convulsions of the Avhole body, in forty hours
 one of them was in an apoplectic state, breathing with difficultv.
 Avith general convulsions, lock-jaw,  pale  and repulsive face, pulse
 ninety and weak; when aroused she complained of violent headache,
 with burning  and  pain in the  throat;  both the others became
 speechless, and were unable to swallow; Avith convulsive cramps of
 the body, locked jaws, frequent spasmodic smiling, bloating of the face,
 pulse one hundred and  six, and strong.   The next day two of them
 were attacked  almost simultaneously with headache, followed by
 violent delirium and loss of consciousness;  these  symptoms  were
 removed by cold affusions.
   Having  given a  full description  of the symptoms exhibited  in
 cases of poisoning, we may as well subjoin in  this  place a descrip-
 tion of the

                  Post-mortem appearances,

 which Pereira  sums up in the following concise and exceedingly
 impressive manner:
   When arsenious acid  kills by its narcotic operation, no morbid
 appearances are observable  after death.   The  morbid appearances
 which are  observed  in  cases of poisoning, may be  arranged under
 the following heads:
   a. Morbid  appearances  of the alimentary canal:   Symptoms  of
 inflammation, redness and sometimes extravasations of blood into
 the tissue of the canal; ulceration  is frequently observed, some-
 times softening  of the mucous coat, effusion of lymph or blood, and
 occasionally even gangrenous spots.
   b. Morbid appearances of the vascular system:  The blood is some-
 times, though not invariably, fluid after death, and dark-colored;
 heart flabby; it is asserted that  on its inner surface (particularly the
 columnae carneae and the valves) is observed redness, sometimes dif-
 fused, sometimes  in the  form  of  spots,  which  penetrate  a line in
 depth into  the  substance of the heart.   The pericardium usually
 contains serum.
   c. Morbid appearances  of the respiratory system: Principally redness
 of the pleura, effusion of lymph  or serum into the  cavity of the
 pleura, red spots, and occasional  congestion of the lungs, and redness
 of the membrane lining the air-tubes.
   d. Other morbid appearances:  In some cases inflammation and even
 gangrene of the genital  organs; the  conjunctiva is  sometimes very
 vascular, and cutaneous alterations are often observed;  rednesss,
extravasation of blood and effusion of serum are said  to have been
seen in the brain. In conclusion, we have to advert to the
  Antiseptic properties of Arsenic:  Dr. Christison informs us that he
has kept a bit of  the stomach of an ox for four years in a solution 
276                      LECTURE  XVI.
of Arsenic, and, except a slight shrivelling and whitening, he could
not observe any change produced in it.
  Another remarkable property of Arsenic is to convert bodies into
adipocere, a sort of mummy-like  substance;  these emit a garlick
odor characteristic of Arsenic.   Christison believes in this property;
others deny it.

                 ANTIDOTAL TREATMENT.

  In a case  of poisoning, we  use the stomach-pump, and give an
emetic of sulphate of zinc, tickle the throat with a feather, and pro-
mote  vomiting by demulcent  and  diluent liquids, such as milk, a
solution of the white of eggs and water, flour and water, gruel, sugared
water, oil and  lime-water; the liquid serves to promote vomiting,
the demulcents invest the poisonous  particles, and the lime-water
diminishes the solubility of the arsenious acid.   To expel arsenious
acid from the intestines, use castor-oil.
  2. We use mechanical and chemical antidotes:  The Cornish miners
use olive-oil with confidence.
  Charcoal, magnesia, and any inert powder may be used to envelope
the Arsenic, and prevent its contact with the gastric surfaces.
  The principal chemical antidotes are:  the hydrated sesquioxide of
iron, or brown iron-stone, magnesia and lime-water.  If the hydrated
oxyde be not at hand, give the common  red oxide of iron rust with
water.  According to Pereira, these agents only act as mechanical
antidotes. We give a tablespoonful to adults, and a dessertspoonful
to children every five or ten  minutes, until the  poisonous symptoms
are subdued.   This acts well  in cases where the poison was  taken
in solution;  it  then  precipitates the Arsenic as a neutral arsenite
of iron.
  For the constitutional symptoms we may have to resort to dynamic
remedies, such as Aconite, Cinchona, Ipecacuanha, etc.   Stimulants
may be required for the  depression.  Castor-oil and  Opium may
likewise be required, together with the continued use of antidotes.

  In regard to the physiological action of Arsenic, we may  safely
assert that there is hardly an organ in. the bod}'' which  does  not
perceive the action of Arsenic, more or less.  HoAvever, we may
generalize this statement in a more specific manner by stating that
the chief influence of this drug seems to bear upon the intestinal
canal, the chylo-poietic organs, the heart and  the  nervous system;
also upon  the lungs, skin, salivary glands,  urinary and  sexual
organs, upon the  ears and eyes. 
I
ARSENICUM ALBUM.                   277
                LECTURE XVII.

  Let  us  now proceed  to study the action  of Arsenic  under the
categories  which we have adopted for other drugs.

                   1.  CEPHALIC GROUP.

  From numberless cases of poisoning as well as from Hahnemann's
very systematic provings,  we learn that Arsenic  exercises a very
powerful influence  upon the  brain.  Many of our provers  have
experienced a dull, heavy, aching, stupefying pain in the  head as
one of the effects  of Arsenic.  These different headaches may be
classed as  follows:
  Dull pains in the head, as from  a cold, Avith inability to collect
one's thoughts, ill-humor;
  Heavy pain, as if the brain were oppressed by a load, -with buz-
zing in the ears; this form of headache  might likeAvise result from
a cold, from some violent nervous or bilious derangement;
  Throbbing headache, the beating being felt immediately above the
root of the nose, or in one side of the head;
  Tensive  pain, or  a painful tightness of the head, such as  might
result  from rheumatic exposure, or from a  derangement of the
biliary secretions;
  Hemicrania, or semi-lateral headache, is one of those distressing
affections to which  Arsenic is eminently adapted as a curative agent.
In this affection the pains  are throbbing, heavy and stupefying,
tensive; the scalp may feel excessively sore, tender to the least con-
tact.  Contact may make the pain worse.  Light and noise may be
intolerable.  The paroxysms recur at more or less  regular intervals.
These periodical paroxysms of hemicrania  may be accompanied
Avith an indescribable feeling of nausea, retching and vomiting of
bile, and a most distressing dizziness or vertigo.  If these headaches
should be  traceable to a suppression of intermittent fever paroxysms
with large doses of Quinine, we may regard this circumstance as an
additional indication for Arsenic.

  In general we say that the Arsenic-hemicrania is depending upon
deep-seated derangements of the biliary functions.  The brain expe-
riences the  effects of this derangement;  the liver, Avhich is the
instrument or organ by means of Avhich the brain carries on the
secretory functions of this important gland, may be comparatively
free from pain.
  Such a case of headache occurred in  my own practice.  A lady
of about fifty years had been attended by me for several years for
the most distressing attacks of headache Avithout any benefit.  TKe
attacks came on every fortnight or sometimes every month.  During
the attack she was  almost stupid, senseless, unable to speak.  Noise
and  light  Avere intolerable.  She  vomited yellow and green bile.
Her complexion was very salloAV, and during the vomiting it deepened 
278
LECTURE XVII.
 to a cherry-broAvn.  No medical  treatment afforded the least relief.
 Nothing seemed to  ease her but a  tablespoonful of a mixture of
 Aloes which she kept for that purpose. As soon as the bowels began
 to be moved, the pains gradually  abated, leaving her completely
 prostrated.  This lady never  complained of any pain  any\vhere
 except in the head.
  Last  year the  patient died in this city of cancer.  It Avas one of
 the most remarkable cases of cancerous dyscrasia that could well be
 seen.  The breast, the inguinal glands, the mesenteric glands, the
 spleen, lungs and liver Avere all involved in the cancerous degenera-
 tion. The liver  especially was most remarkably diseased, studded
 Avith scirrus degenerations  having a grayish-greenish  appearance,
 here and there interspersed with a black-looking and brownish-red
 substance.   The whole  organ was much  paler than in its  natural
 condition, except around the  sores, which were  surrounded with
 rose-colored borders. This cancerous disease had undoubtedly been
 creeping on for years, and was the cause of her agonizing headaches.
 These headaches left her after the disease had passed into the ulcera-
 tive stage.
  If you should ask  me: why should the brain be made to suffer in
 this way from a  disease which seems  to  involve  the  liver ?   The
 answer  is very  simple.   We know that there  exists a system of
 mutual responsibility, as it were,  betAveen the brain and the organs
 which are depending upon it for the energy required in the perform-
 ance of  their functions.  The liver is one of these organs.  In the
 case of this lady, the cancerous miasm which the brain was unable
 to expel or neutralize, reacted  upon the central organ of life, thus
 making it  share the burthen  of the non-performance of its OAvn
 mission  of supreme preserver and provider of vitality.

  In Rheumatie or Arthritic  Hemicrania, where similar phenomena
 of distress  in  the head, vertigo and vomiting occur, Arsenic may
 likewise prove useful.   You Avill not forget, Gentlemen, that consti-
 pation is no counter-indication to Arsenic.  Remember the extraor-
dinary powers which Arsenic possesses, of prostrating the functions
of the liver and of depriving the intestinal  muscular fibres  of the
 required stimulus to perform the peristaltic motion.

  Another distressing affection where  Arsenic  exercises wonderful
healing powers, is,
  Delirium Tremens.  If your patient  looks sallow, livid, the skin
feels dry, inclining tfe coldness, the pulse is small, irritated,  irregu-
 lar, and  the patient requests you to remove the vermin that are crawl-
 ing on his bed, or is  troubled with ugly phantoms, dogs, cats, mice,
and the  like, you will find a  chief remedy in Arsenic.
  There are cases of poisoning, where  Arsenic has induced  all the
symptoms of intoxication.
  In one case, reported  by Christison, there was at first some vomit-
ing,  afterwards little else  but faintness, sickness at the stomach, a
sullen expression, and a general appearance which led those around
him to believe him intoxicated. 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
279
  Add to these symptoms the peculiar weakness and irregularity of
the pulse, and  the visual phantasmata, and  Ave have  a tolerably
accurate description of the Arsenic-delirium tremens.

  From the symptoms AArhich Arsenic has developed in a few cases
of poisoning, we have a right to infer that this agent may affect the
brain fatally, through the intermediate agency of  the  ganglionic
system:  A case is t reported  in Rankin's Half-Yearly  Abstract,
strongly  confirmatory of  the  specific  relation  of Arsenic to the
central nervous mass, the brain.
  Harriet T., aged  nineteen, a robust and healthy girl, took  on
Tuesday night,  Sept. 1st, about tAvo ounces of fly-Avater, containing
two and a-half  grains of Arsenic.   It rendered her restless during
the night, producing watchfulness and  slight  pain in the stomach.
Next morning she became sick and very thirsty, and the tenderness
and pain in the stomach had increased.  In  the course of the day
the sickness became worse, she was repeatedly purged,  her counte-
nance looked pinched, and the extremities became cold.   On AVed-
nesday night she rallied and became more comfortable and cheerful,
but was still thirsty.  On Thursday morning she was  worse, cold
and drowsy, and she Avas sent to  the London Hospital;  her counte-
nance was then pale and anxious,  extremities cold and bedewed with
a cold, clammy sweat; pulse hardly perceptible, and she lay in a
state of incipient coma.  She then  sank, and  died in about thirty-
six hours after the administration  of the poison.   The  body was
examined twenty-one  hours after death, and  from the appearances
present, Dr. Letheby was led to conclude that  death resulted purely
from coma, as neither the symptoms during life, nor  the state of the
stomach after death, would allow  him to attribute it to the effects of
gastro-enteritis.
  A post-mortem examination showed that  the  brain  was much
congested, and  the several  ventricles  filled  with  half-coagulated
blood.  The lungs looked natural; the heart was flabby, and dis-
tended Avith dark, jelly-like blood ;  haemorrhagic spots were seen on
the endocardial  membrane, especially Avhere it covers the auriculo-
ventricular valves.  The abdominal and pelvic viscera were con-
gested ; the stomach was pale and empty, and along the pylorus it
had assumed a gamboge tint; Arsenic was found in its tissues.

  This case is looked upon as a proof that patients under the effects
of a poisonous dose of Arsenic, may die of coma.  The  case  before
us, if viewed as an aggregate of symptoms,  may undoubtedly  be
looked upon as a case of
  Cerebral Apoplexy.   Both the symptoms exhibited  during the life-
time of the  patient, and the  post-mortem appearances justify this
view of the case.   There seems no doubt that  the post-mortem
changes in this case were the result of a direct or sympathetic action
of Arsenic upon the brain.  The stomach in the  present case Avas
found pale and empty.   May  not the  cerebral haemorrhage have
been occasioned by the fact that the vascular life of the stomach had
been destroyed by the poison ?  The brain, in its capacity of supreme 
230
LECTURE XVII.
preserver of life, and  supreme distributor of the  \dtal fluid among
the different organs and tissues, each according to its measure, sends
blood to the stomach,  but the vessels refuse to receive and circulate
this fluid; hence it returns to the brain, as it Avere, reacts upon the
brain, causes plethora, coma, apoplexy, death.  In a case of cerebral
apoplexy I should  not consider Arsenic indicated, unless symptoms
of severe gastric irritation had preceded the attack; symptoms justi-
fying the belief that the nervous  life of the ^tomach had become
extinct previous to the symptoms of apoplexy setting in.

                    2.  NERVOUS GROUP.

   Among the effects of Arsenic upon the nervous system, one of the
principal symptoms is
   Debility, excessive Prostration, Fainting or Syncope.
   Many patients who  have poisoned themselves with Arsenic have
scarcely experienced any other pain than prostration.
   A girl fourteen years  of age, took about ninety grains of arsenious
acid, and died  in  five hours, having  vomited once  or twice;  she
complained of some little pain in the belly,  and Avas affected towards
the close  with great  faintness and weakness.  The stomach and
intestines were  healthy.
   A stout middle-aged man sAvallowed a large quantity of Arsenic
in fragments, and died in a few hours; he experienced nothing  but
feebleness and great tendency to fainting.  The stomach and intes-
tines were not  in  the slightest degree affected during life, and no
morbid appearance could be discovered in them after death.

   In cases of Debility, more particularly when accompanied by ema-
ciation, Avhich is another  characteristic effect of Arsenic, neuralgic
pains in the limbs, loss of appetite, coldness and dryness of the skin,
irregularity, smallness and increased frequency of the pulse, Arsenic
will prove one of our  main therapeutic resources.  AVe might desig-
nate such a group  of symptoms as a state of
   Marasmus, Wasting of the fatty tissue, Nervous Consumption.
   We have historical proofs that Arsenic produces a condition of
the body resembling marasmus.   AVe find the folioAving case, reported
by Eenaut, in Orfila's General Toxicology.
   Two  chambermaids were  living Avith the same master; one of
them conceived such  an inveterate jealousy against the other, that
she resolved on her destruction.  She determined to use Arsenic for
this purpose, of which she put every  day a small quantity into her
broth.  A few moments after dinner the food and the poison were
both  vomited, before  the latter  had sufficient time to act upon the
stomach, so as to produce any serious accidents.   Nevertheless, as the
same thing Avas repeated  every day for the space of six weeks, the
stomach, in the end, acquired an excessive degree of sensibility ; she
felt severe pains in the  bowels, and wasted to an extreme  degree of
 leanness ; a spitting of blood  succeeded ;  the general sensitiveness of
the system increased  to such a degree that a simple current of air
Avas sufficient to produce spasms and convulsions.  At length, when 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
281
       her stomach could no longer bear  any thing,  she  went into the
       country, Avhere her health Avas gradually restored.  Another attempt
       at poisoning was afterwards made upon her, which led to the dis-
       covery of the crime.

          AVe are sometimes called upon to prescribe for a form of
          Dyspepsia which might likewise be designated as chronic  gastro-
       enteritis, and  one of the most prominent symptoms of which is
       general emaciation.  The stomach in such cases is very irritable  ;
       the patient is unable to retain any food on his stomach; the  boAvels
       incline to be loose, with more or less frequent urging to stool; the
       pulse is feeble, accelerated, inclining to  irregularity in the number
       of the beats;  the skin may be dry and abnormally cool, although
       fever-flashes preceded by creeping chills or shiverings may trouble
       the patient.  For such  a group of symptoms,  Arsenic  is a main
       remedy.

          Marasmus may be the result of rheumatic exposure.   It may be
       characterized  by slight symptoms  of* hectic fever which manifest
       themselves towards evening or in the night.   The patient complains
       of excessive prostration, asthmatic  oppression,  palpitation  of the
       heart, lowness of spirits, and very often of paroxysms  of acute pain
       in the limbs.  The middle or higher attenuations  of Arsenic are
►       eminently adapted to this condition; they may be given in alterna-
       tion with Aconite from the third to  the twelfth.

          Marasmus senilis, if not an incurable malady, may find in Arsenic
       its chief remedy.  In this disease, the tissues of the stomach dwindle
       away, and it is the atrophied condition of this  organ that gives rise
       to the general wasting of the body.  We  know of no agent that
       exercises the specific  power of affecting the vegetative life of the
       stomach in the manner in which it  is affected  in marasmus  senilis,
       as certainly and  thoroughly as  Arsenic.  Hence we  depend upon
       this agent as our main stay in this affection.  In

          Marasmus or Atrophy of Children, Arsenic is likewise a principal
       curative agent.  Children at the breast are liable to this affection.
       They lose their appetite, they vomit up every thing that is taken
       into the stomach; they dwindle down to mere skeletons, look old;
       the skin assumes  a sallow, dingy appearance, is  dry as parchment;
       slimy diarrhoea sets in, hectic fever Avith regular evening-exacerba-
       tions creeps along, the inside of the  hands and the soles of the feet
       become burning hot Avhile the rest  of the body remains cold, the
       little  patient gradually sinks into  a soporous condition, the pulse
       becomes filiform and so rapid that it  can no longer be counted, and
       death finally closes the scene.  AVhat would Ave be able to accomplish
       in this disease without  Arsenic ?   Give it from the  sixth  to the
       twelfth potency, and you may be  able to  save a life which under any
       other treatment might be sacrificed.

         In Atrophia  nervosa, tabes nervosa,  or nervous  consumption, Arsenic
       will do capital service.  The derangements  of  the  chylo-poietic 
282
LECTURE XVII.
system which characterize this disease, especially during  the  first
stage point to Arsenic.  What are these  derangements ?  Loss of
appetite, a feeling of malaise and oppression after  eating, nausea
and vomiting  of  food, mucus  and  bile.   The  boAvels  become
irregular, Avith alternate diarrhoea  and constipation.  The  patients
emaciate, lose their strength,  become irritable and feel unrefreshed
by sleep.   The subsequent development of the disease still points
to Arsenic; the evening fever, the burning heat in  the  hands and
on the soles of the feet, the  increased frequency of the pulse, the
partial s\veats, the scanty  secretion of a red-looking urine with a
thin and opalescent layer of fat diffused over its surface: all these
abnormal conditions point to  Arsenic.
   In nervous consumption, patients often complain  of  weariness,
aching and sore pains, and  contractive rigidity of the joints.  . A case
is reported in  the first volume of Frank's  Magazine,  where the
poisonous  effects  of  Arsenic continued for months,  developing a
condition of the system closely bordering upon nen^ous consumption.
   A man, aged fifty-five years, of robust constitution, took five or six
spoonfuls of gruel in which six grains of  Arsenic had been mixed
for homicidal purposes.  In  a feAV minutes he Avas attacked  with
violent burning in the fauces and oesophagus  down to the stomach, and
violent vomiting of the ingesta, about forty  times in five hours.   He
drank two quarts  of sweet milk, but continued for a  Aveek to suffer
with violent burning pains in the  stomach and bowels, nausea and
vomiting.   He obtained relief  by drinking copious quantities of cold
water and milk; but he suffered ever since ivith acidity of the  stomach,
and vomiting even  after light meals.  He felt  better for a  while, but
on the first of November, about four months after the first attack,
he was suddenly seized without any perceptible cause with shivering
heat, increased thirst, headache at irregular periods, generally  at night,
emaciation, sinking of strength;  after more than ordinary exertions
his feet felt weak, he complained of pains in the joints, trembling of
the hands and weak eyes,  The temperature of the skin  was rather
increased, the tongue clean, pulse accelerated,  the region of the stomach
painful to pressure, the muscles  of the extremities sensitive, the
general functions of the reproductive system not materially impaired.
   This case of poisoning portrays a group  of symptoms delineating
nervous marasmus.  The middle  potencies of Arsenic  may prove
useful in such a case.

   The distressing affection which is so well known under the name of
   Atrophy of the  Spinal Marrow, or Dorsal  Consumption, likeAvise
pertains in a measure to the therapeutic domain of Arsenic.  Path-
ologists distinguish three stages of this disease, the stages of irrita-
tion, that of paralysis, and lastly the  stage where the symptoms of
hectic  fever are fully developed.  The symptoms which characterize
these three stages  respectively, indicate Arsenic as one of the cura-
tive agents in this disease.
   In the irritative stage, debility and a feeling of exhaustion  after
the least bodily effort, are prominent symptoms.  Another prominent
symptom in this  stage is  the excessive irritability  of  the sexual 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
283
organs and a corresponding desire for gratification.  Unnatural self-
gratifications and sexual excesses  generally constitute one of the
chief causes of  this disease.  The patients experience a sensation as
if hot Avater were poured down their backs; they also complain of
a feeling  as  if ants were crawling over their backs.  The lower
extremities become emaciated, and the spinous processes of the ver-
tebrae are  distinctly seen.
  In the second stage, the symptoms of palsy become more apparent;
the urinary bladder is  paralyzed; the  bowels are either bound in
consequence  of paralysis of  the rectifm, or else the  faeces  pass off
involuntarily.  The  emaciation increases, the  functions  of the
special senses become impaired; the sense  of vision often becomes
extinct.
  In the third  stage, the symptoms of hectic fever are fully estab-
lished, with  colliquative  sweats, bedsores which  speedily  become
gangrenous, complete paralysis of the lower extremities.
  Arsenic may not  be able to cure this malady, but it may do much
to retard its development and to mitigate the dreadful sufferings of
the patient.  Other medicines, and more particularly Aconite and
Cinchona  or Quinine may prove indispensable  in connection Avith
Arsenic.

  We  may range in this category a disease to which children are
liable, I mean
  Atrophia meseraica,  or Mesenteric  Ganglionitis, Mesenteric  Con-
sumption.
  In this disease the mesenteric glands seem to constitute the battle-
ground where the vital forces  and the forces of disease meet in fierce
conflict.   We  might look upon the  so-called  infantile remittent
fever as an acute form  of mesenteric ganglionitis.   In this acute
form which, under suitable treatment, may run a course of from tAvo
to three weeks,  the  inflammation of the mesenteric glands is recog-
nized by a stinging, sometimes colicky, evanescent pain deep in the
abdominal cavity.  This pain is accompanied by fever, first slight
chills towards  evening,  and afterAvards heat,  with circumscribed
redness of the  cheeks, irritated  pulse, violent thirst, and compara-
tively clean tongue.  In this acute form of the disease Arsenic is
not indicated at the outset, but may have to be used  in proportion
as the sjmiptoms of gastric derangement, the loss of appetite, diar-
rhoea, and the febrile symptoms become more fully established.
  In the chronic  form of mesenteric ganglionitis, Arsenic is indis-
pensable in  connection with Aconite, Iodine,  Mercury and other
agents.  It is  more particularly indicated by complete   loss of
appetite, tympanitic distention  of the  abdomen, alternate constipa-
tion and diarrhoea, discharges of  a frothy  or yellowish substance
looking like stirred eggs and  excoriating the anus. The evacuations
may vary in  character, and may, in the same individual, assume a
variety of forms.   The muscles  become flabby, the emaciation goes
on increasingly, the eyes  lose their brilliancy, they look dull, are
surrounded Avith blue margins, the skin feels dry and cold, especially
on the extremities, the  pulse  becomes small, filiform, empty.  Here 
284
LECTURE XVII.
Arsenic is in  its place, even if the glands have  already begun to
suppurate and the  signs of hectic fever are fully established.  In
this disease I prefer the third up to the sixth potency of this agent.

  For the
  Marasmus of drunkards, Arsenic in conjunction with Nux vomica,
may be prescribed Avith tolerable confidence.

  Among the  other nervous affections, to which Arsenic is homoeo-
pathic, we distinguish
  Tremors or Trembling of the limbs.  In  some cases of poisoning
Arsenic first develops symptoms of gastro-enteritis, and afterwards
marked symptoms of nervous disturbance, particularly trembling of
the limbs.  For this trembling, when accompanied by signs of acute
gastric irritation, or when succeeding severe inflammation of the
intestines, Arsenic will prove useful.
  Mercurial Tremors,  attended with salivation, sallow complexion,
constipation,  emaciation,  night-sweats,  loss  of appetite, may  be
treated with the low triturations of Arsenic.

   Chorea has been successfully treated with Arsenic.  If Arsenic is
possessed of such extraordinary powers of causing tremors, twitch-
ings, spasms and convulsions, Ave may surely expect good  effects
from its use in chorea.   In a disease of this kind, Arsenic should not
be prescribed unless  the  accompanying constitutional symptoms,
such as gastric irritations, irregular bowels, loss of  appetite, salloAV
complexion, dry and cold skin,  irregular, irritated, feeble  pulse,
hypochondriac depression of spirits j ustify the use of this agent.

  The curative virtues  of Arsenic in certain forms of chorea may
be inferred from the folloAving highly interesting  case of poisoning
which  occurred in England some time ago.
  The family  in which the fatal accident occurred, consisted of  six
individuals  and a maid servant, the mother, three  boys and two
girls.  The manufacture of certain mineral colors was carried on at
their premises.'  Arsenic was employed as one of the  ingredients.
Both the factory and the dwelling-house were  supplied with water
from the same well.  It appears that Arsenic, a quantity of which
had been thrown into the  drain of the  factory, had become mixed
up through some derangement in the pipes, with the water in the
well, and that the poisoning had been occasioned  by the use of this
water.
  Mr.  Bickersteth, the surgeon,  was first  called to AVest Derby,
where the family resided, on Monday, February 16th, and found  the
mother in a dying state; unconscious, surface cold ; the arms being
in continued motion about her head.  She died in a few hours, but
before death  consciousness returned for a short time.   He Avas told
that the youngest son had died a week previous, as it was supposed,
from hydrocephalus.  The symptoms, however, of both mother and
child,  appeared to  have been bilious vomiting and purging, with
great thirst and head-affections.  On this visit the rest of the family 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
285
looked rather ill, but did not make any complaint.   Two days after,
Febr. 18th, Mr. Bickersteth was again sent for.  The eldest son and
one of the daughters were then suffering from bilious vomiting and
purging, with  great thirst, not, however, accompanied by  pains or
tenderness in any part.  The daughter felt some curious sensations
in her lower limbs; in both  the pulse was very quiet.
  Upon analyzing the water from the well, it was found to contain
four-tenths of a grain of Arsenic to the pint.
  The following day, February 19th, the eldest son was better, and
so was his uncle, who had only been  there one day, and was seized
after taking tea in the house.  The two daughters, and the youngest
son were now suffering.   There was great restlessness, indisposition
to answer questions, numbness of the lower extremities, whilst the arms
were in continual motion in the air, as if picking at something above the
head; the skin was hot, but not dry, and  did not  exhibit any dis-
coloration ; the tongue was dry and brown, and there was great thirst;
the throat seemed dry, and the breathing was quick  and audible; the
pulse was very quick, 125 or 130, but not hard.   The girls did not
complain of pain on pressing the abdomen, but the youngest son
slightly moved when this was done, though he said it gave him no
pain.  They had all uncomfortable  feelings which they could not
describe, but were at this time conscious.
  On the following day they were much worse.  The breathing and
pulse very rapid; the tongue and lips dry, cracked,  and covered with
blood and sordes.   The eldest  girl was  unconscious, throwing her
arms, legs and body about in every manner.  The other tAvo exhibited
the same symptoms as yesterday in an increased degree.  Conscious-
ness was fast departing.
   On Saturday, 21st, the youngest boy died, the peculiar movement
of the arms continuing up to the time of his death.  The tAvo girls
died likewise.   One of the servant-girls was likewise taken sick, but
recovered after having exhibited symptoms of  a  purely nervous
character.  The workmen, with one exception, were not sufferers.
  A post-mortem examination of the youngest son, twenty-four hours
after death, revealed the following appearances:
   There were no peculiar appearances noticed on the  skin, and the
muscles of the trunk were of their usual color.
   The lungs were adherent  on both sides by old adhesions poste-
riorly ;  both were conjested  with bloody serum, especially the right.
The bronchi were red and injected, and covered with red mucus.
   The heart and pericardium were both healthy-looking; the blood
in the body was dark and fluid generally, though there were coagula
in the heart.
   The trachea and epiglottis presented marks of inflammation.
   The  liver was slightly  enlarged,  presented exteriorly many
yellowish-green patches,  and was internally of a uniform slate or
ash-color.  Its  consistence  was normal; and the bile in  the gall-
bladder was copious and dark.
   The oesophagus was healthy-looking.  The stomach was contracted,
contained some greenish fluid and mucus, but with the exception of
punctiform and ramified redness at the splenic and pyloric ends, pre- 
286
LECTURE XVII.
 sented no unusual appearance.  The rugae were  red  and vascular;
 the mucous membrane was not softened or ulcerated.
   The commencement of the duodenum Avas red like the stomach.
 A few patches of redness existed in the jejunum, and the lower
 part of the ileum was discolored for about twelve inches, Avhere the
 solitary glands appeared unusually large and numerous.
   The coecum was dark-colored and congested.   The rectum and
 colon  were also discolored here and there, but no ulceration or soften-
 ing had  occurred.   The  intestines  contained a large amount of
 faeces.  Spleen and kidneys were healthy.
   Head:  sinuses and veins  congested;  about a tablespoonful of
 serum existed at the base of the  brain, and the  same  quantity in
 the  ventricles; no softening or formation of false membrane  was
 observed.
   This case is reported in full in the North-American Homoeopathic
 Journal.  The post-mortem appearances are important, inasmuch as
 they illustrate the power of Arsenic, to induce  inflammatory condi-
 tions in the respiratory organs, and in the intestinal mucous membrane.
 The peculiar movements of  the  arms may lead us to prescribe
 Arsenic in chorea, accompanied by, or depending upon cerebral or
 deep-seated pulmonary disease.  In idiopathic  chorea, not  induced
 by a sympathetic irritation transmitted from the  diseased respiratory
 or cerebral organs, Arsenic may prove unavailing.

   In Epilepsy, Arsenic may prove very useful.   Christison reports
 the case of five  individuals who  partook of a dish poisoned Avith
 Arsenic, and they were all violently seized with  the  usual inflam-
 matory symptoms.  But, farther, one had an epileptic fit on  the first
 day, which recurred on the second; and he had  besides frequent
 twitches of the muscles of the trunk, a feeling  of numbness in one
 side, and  heat and tingling of the feet and hands.  Another had
 tremors of the right arm  and legs on the first  day, and several
 epileptic fits in the course of the  night.   During the next fifteen
 days he had a paroxysm every evening about the same hour; Avhich
 returned after an intermission of  eight  days,  and frequently  for
 several months afterwards.

   We  would recommend Arsenic  in  Ganglionic Epilepsy, as some
 pathologists term it, depending upon irritation of some one of the
 abdominal ganglia, more particularly of  the superior and  inferior
 meseraic plexuses.  In this form of epilepsy the patients complain
 from time to time of a  mixed pain,  at times gnaAving, at others con-
 strictive, burning or stitching.   This pain precedes the paroxysms
for a longer or less period of time.   Evanescent symptoms of jaun-
dice sometimes shoAV themselves  during the paroxysm.  Accessory
symptoms will of course facilitate the choice of a  remedial agent.   A
leading indication for Arsenic is the periodicity of the paroxysms.
Accompanying systems of mental  derangement, particularly hypo-
chondria, idiocy or imbecility,  likeAvise indicate  Arsenic.

  In  Cerebral  Epilepsy,  when  the  paroxysms  occur  suddenly, 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
287
     Avithout any premonitory signs showing that the irritation was trans-
     mitted to  the brain from some point in the peripheral nervous
     system, Arsenic may likewise be useful.   If the paroxysms depend
     upon, or are accompanied by cerebral disorganizations, suppuration,
     exostosis,  adhesions of  meningeal membranes, etc., no curative
     treatment can be instituted; all we can expect to do is, to palliate
     the symptoms, for which purpose Arsenic  may prove useful.

       Ganglionic epilepsy is a curable disease, and is fortunately the
     most common form of this distressing malady.  Dr. Schrcen reports
     the following case, where Arsenic effected a cure, and where the
     paroxysms came on at irregular periods.
       A robust man of thirty-four years had been subject for two years
     past to paroxysms of a burning pain in the  stomach, accompanied by
     pressure in the spine, ascending like warm air behind the ears and
     to the face.  He felt dizzy, fell down unconscious, in which condition
     he remained for ten  to fifteen minutes, when the pain left him, but
     stupor remained.  Between the  paroxysms he  had no pain in the
I    head except in the  occiput, and  frequent attacks of burning pain in
     the spine; in the morning he complained  of a sweetish taste in the
     mouth; he had  burning in the  stomach after eating heavy  food;
     there Avas  burning at the anus, and in  the urethra Avhen  urinating.
     He had frequent cramps in the calves.  He had had an itch sup-
     pressed by ointment.  He took  eight doses of  Arsenic 6, and was
     cured.

       May we expect good effects from Arsenic in
       Convulsions?  In the cases of poisoning where Arsenic has caused
     convulsions, we find that they are depending,  as it were, upon some
     previous violent irritation of the stomach and bowels.  In Frank's
     Physiological Magazine the  following cure is related, a  report of
     which Ave extract from the North American Homoeopathic Journal,
     as aptly illustrating our doctrine:
       "A melancholic lad, aged eighteen, swalloAved a large quantity of
     Arsenic, and was  soon  attacked with  great  anxiety and a  cold
     sweat;  these disappeared in a quarter of hour, and he remained well
     all day.  In the evening, a similar attack occurred  and disappeared
     as quickly.  During the night  he  was seized with severe colicky
     pains, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea; he had violent  pains
     about the navel, his face was pale, sunken  and covered with a cold
     sweat; pulse contracted, frequent and irregular, convulsions and other
     nervous symptoms ensued; he  gradually  recovered, but  for  more
     than a  year he suffered with spasms, which seemed  to commence in
     the  abdomen;  with attacks of idiocy and  melancholy, and various
     other nervous affections."
       In this case the convulsions and spasms seem to have depended upon
     the previous gastric irritation.  It should likewise be observed that
     the convulsions Avere preceded  by the breaking  out of a cold SAveat,
     paleness, and collapse of the features, and a contracted, frequent and
     irregular pulse.

       In another case, likeAvise to be found in Frank's Magazine,  Avhere 
288
LECTURE XVII.
 two boys of thirteen and ten, and a girl of fourteen years had been
 poisoned, two of the children  were likewise  seized with the most
 violent spasms, and lay exhausted, stiff) and with their bodies bent
 backwards.  Their hands and faces cold,  and covered with cold
 sweats before the convulsions set in; the little patients were attacked
 with the most excruciating pains in  the stomach.
   AVe infer from these and similar cases, that the convulsions which
 Arsenic is capable of curing, must be depending  upon some intes-
 tinal irritation. They may either be symptomatic of acute pain in the
 bowels  caused by some irritating substance,  such as  bile or even
 worms, and more especially tape-worm; or they may result  sympa-
 thetically, in consequence of the violent  irritation which a violent
 attack of acute and perhaps malignant form of gastro-enteritis may
 transmit to the brain.  The condition of the pulse, the general state
 of collapse, the cold and clammy skin, must, of course, justify  the
 use of Arsenic.

  Paralysis is curable by Arsenic.   In many cases of poisoning,  the
 extremities  have  become totally paralyzed.*  In other cases,  the
 paralysis is partial, the hands, arms, or only the forearms, have been
 affected.
  In most of the cases of paralysis caused  by Arsenic, the paralyzed
 limb experienced painful cramps previous  to the paralysis setting in.
  Charles  Wilson, a Swedish  sailor,  had  poisoned  himself  with
 Arsenic by mistake.  The poison was promptly counteracted, and
 for seven days he felt perfectly well.  He was then attacked at night
 with a violent cramp in the index-finger of the right hand, successively
 invading the other fingers, and  lastly the thumb, then attacking the
 other hand in the same manner, and  finally the feet, the pain in the
 hand subsiding as the feet became affected.  After a sound sleep he
 awoke with the affected parts  perfectly paralyzed.   This  paralysis
 was  accompanied with a feeling of  heat  and  numbness, which
 invaded the upper extremities from the tips of  the fingers to  a point
 about three inches below the elbow, and the legs from  the toes to a
 point a little below the knee.  He also had  lancinating pains in these
 parts, regularly commencing about  five o'clock in  the afternoon,
 and continuing until midnight.
  The patient was unable  to feed himself  or stand alone.  He was
 treated  in the N. Y. Hospital during a period of seven months and
 a half with the Sulphate of Quinine,  Strychnine and  Electricity,
 when he began to improve.  He had had no pain for some time save
 on the approach of stormy weather, when peculiar painful sensations
 were perceived in the fingers.

  Doctor  H. P. Perkins  accidentally  poisoned himself with 127
 grains  of Arsenic  on July 24th,  1852.    After  having suffered
 severely from cramps, constipation and gastritis until May, 1854, he
lost the  entire use of his feet, legs, arms and hands. He experienced
severe neuralgic pains in  the paralyzed parts, which continued for
two years and  a  half.   The neuralgic pains were confined to the
arms, below the elbows,  and to  the legs, below the hips.  They were 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
239
never darting in their character, but always steadily increasing  to
their climax and then  gradually decreasing.   Cold  air or Avater
would  always bring them on;  they were worst between half-past
nine in the morninsr and eight o'clock at night.
  The paralysis Avas of both motion and sensation, but he remained
acutely sensitive in the paralyzed parts to cold.
  In his case, sensation was not entirely destroyed.  Boiling water
poured on the parts that were paralyzed, could not be felt, but ice-
water gave him great  pain, particularly when neuralgic  pains were
present.
  There was also a remarkable chilliness down the spine.
  No fever at any time, no chills, but cold sweats, with excessive
thirst; chronic cold sweats about the legs and arms for six weeks;
would wet the sheets with the SAveats.
  Excessive sensitiveness to cold ; when asleep, the slightest draught
of air,  even over his face, Avould Avake him; the opening and shut-
ting of the door would chill him disagreeably.
  The cramps were worst in the calves of the legs and in the thighs,
but slight in the arms and hands;  the  muscles could be  seen
working;  the pains of the cramps Avere so  severe that he could not
help screaming out.   The cramps were most severe from six until
nine in the  morning;  then every half hour or hour  during the
afternoon;  from  eight in the evening to next morning he would
have no cramps.
  The neuralgia did not come  on until the cramps ceased; it was
most severe in the same muscles in which the cramps had been.
  The paralysis did not set in, until just before  the cramps left him.
  The neuralgic pains did not leave him, until  the paralysis began
to leave him.
  Under the use of the galvanic battery the pains would leave him
one hour earlier, and commence one hour later; he could bear the
shock so strong that it would knock a boy down.
  The feet were  entirely  paralyzed,  also  the legs and hands;  he
could move some of the muscles of the thighs and hips; the upper
arms could be moved ; he could not feel a pin run into  the flesh to
the bone; but the slightest cold application could be felt.

  AVe learn from these and a number of similar cases, that paralysis
caused by Arsenic, is distinguished by the  following characteristic
features:
  1. It always commences at the extremities;
  2. It may be confined to the feet, to the hands, or even to the       j
fingers;
  3. It has been known to creep  progressively from the hand over
the whole arm;
  4. It appears to attack more frequently the nerves of motion than
those of sensation. Both these forms are sometimes found associated.
Anaesthesia may alone be present.
  5. The paralysis is preceded by cramps in the paralyzed part; ^
  6. The paralyzed part may be affected with aching or lancinating
neuralgic pains.
                               19 
290
LECTURE XVII.
  Paralysis of this kind may occur as a natural disease in conse-
quence of over-Avork or rheumatic exposure.
  The arsenical-paralysis may be accompanied by contraction of the
paralyzed  limbs or rigidity of the joints.   Christison informs us
that instead of being  palsied, the limbs  may be  rigidly bent, and
cannot be extended.  In a case related by Berndt, arising from the
Arseniate of Potash, the paralytic affection  consisted in the loss _ of
sensation  and motion  in the hands, loss of motion in the feet, with
contraction of the knee joints.
  This  symptom is well  worthy of your notice.    Paralysis with
contraction may arise from rheumatic exposure, or from the retroces-
sion of some psoric eruption either  in  consequence of impaired
innervation or after the use of some astringent Avash or ointment.
  In a case of this kind, some physicians  may feel disposed to give
high potencies; others may prefer the largest  doses of  the lower
preparations  that it may  be safe to administer.  Cases  may occur
Avhere either method may be justifiable.
  According to Hahnemann, the pains in the paralyzed part may be
of a burning character  ; these pains may exist Avithout the paralysis,
and, although exhibiting a preference for  the extremities, they may
also invade the spinal column.

  Neuralgic Pains  may yield to Arsenic.  The cases of poisoning
which I have related,  inform us that these  pains  may be of a lan-
cinating, aching and burning kind.  These  pains are particularly
felt in the extremities,  except the burning pains which may also be
felt in the region of the  spine.   These  pains  may be  caused by
exposure, in which case  they are not necessarily accompanied by
the ordinary signs of rheumatic inflammation.   There may also be
numbness and formication during a paroxysm of the pains.  Eemem-
ber that periodicity in the paroxysms is  a characteristic  indication
for  Arsenic.  Excessive sensitiveness to a draught of air is likeAvise
characteristic  of Arsenic. •  In  a case  of poisoning  Avhich I have
related  to you, this sensitiveness was so excessive that the least
exposure to  a  current of air would throw the patient into spasms.
The breaking out of cold  sweat on the affected part toAvard the close
of a paroxysm would constitute additional proof for the homoeopa-
thicity  of Arsenic.  You recollect that in the case of Dr. Perkins
these cold sweats broke  out for about six weeks on the legs and
arms in such profusion that the sheets  became wet with the sAveats.

  Neuralgia of the Face may yield to Arsenic. In a case of poisoning
reported by Christison, the patient complained of acute pains in the
muscles of the face.  There Avas occasional loss of  sense.  The  con-
junctiva Avas injected.  In  neuralgia  of  the face depending upon
carious teeth, or caused by rheumatic exposure attended with sore
throat, swelling of the  sublingual and submaxillary glands, soreness
of the nose, oedema of  the face and head,  and consensual  symptoms
fo  gastric irritation, nausea, retching or vomiting, Arsenic may do
good service.
   In these nervous affections,  the presence of an  uncontrolable 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
291
 restlessness in the  affected  part is  an  additional indication  for
 Arsenic ; it may be accompanied by anxiety and by apprehensions
 of a vague  character.

    These  pains may occur at  night, in regular paroxysms in the
 extremities as well  as in the back.  They seem to be seated in the
 bones, hard, aching, laming pains—so called bone pains, or dolores
 osteocopi, attended with excessive nervousness and restlessness. These
 pains may  occur during the progress of syphilitic disease, in which
 case the mercurial preparations and the mercurial iodides are capital
 remedies.   If  these should fail, Arsenic may be given in low doses.
 This agent  may also prove useful, if these bone-pains are the result
 of mercurial poisoning.

   Old-School  physicians  have been  in the  habit of employing
 Arsenic for neuralgia.   Dierbach relates  an interesting case man-
 aged  by Dr. Hanselman, where a man of fifty-nine years, who had
 been reduced to a skeleton by unceasing tortures especially at night,
 was freed from his sufferings and regained constitutional vigor by
 the use of Arsenic.   Every time he had an attack of neuralgia, the
 Arsenic was resorted to with success; nothing else seemed of any
 avail.
   In Bouchardat's Annuaire a case  is related by Boudin, Avhere a
 soldier who had been  wounded in the cheek and forehead, took
 twelve grains of Arsenic in the  space of three months.   At first the
 pains  were  intermitting; afterwards they  became  continuous  and
 intolerable.   The  least emotion, a change of weather made them
 worse. His teeth and hair fell out, his visual power became affected,
 he lost his  sleep, he became emaciated.  The patient,  after having
 been treated in vain by the first physicians of  Paris,  finally took
 Arsenic in  doses of  one-fifteenth of  a  grain three times a day, for
 three months more or less.  He Avas entirely cured and  continued to
 enjoy perfect health when the case was reported, about a year after.
 It is very probable that a cure might have been affected in this  and
 similar cases by means of much smaller doses.

   In some  forms  of Spinal Irritation Arsenic  may effect a cure.
 The following case of cure illustrates in a very striking manner the
 law of specific  homoeopathy in general, and the curative virtues of
 Arsenic in the cases to which it is specifically adapted.
   A robust farmer  Avho  had been sick for four  years and a half,
 consulted Dr. Schubert on the 12th of January, 1821.  He Avas sub-
ject to paroxysms Avhich came on every three or four days, and were
 characterized by the following  symptoms: Loss of appetite, qual-
 mishness and nausea ; periodical pressure in the stomach, increasing
 as the paroxysms became more  violent; always coming on after
eating, and sometimes when the stomach is empty; little sleep;  this
lasted two days; on the third day he felt a pressure near the ver-
tebral  column, on the right side, a feAV inches below the scapula;
a qualmish feeling and pressure in the stomach;  on  the fourth day
this sensation rose to a point betAveen  the apex of scapula and the 
292
LECTURE XVIII.
column, where it changed to a burning  pain  as from a hot coal,
made worse by the least contact and moderated by gentle exercise ;
he  had frequent startings  during sleep; the  parts from the left
hypochondrium  across the stomach were  numb;  immediately after
rising he experienced frequent urging to stool preceded by pinching
in the bowels, and followed by burning and  sore pain in the anus. The
discharges were  yellowish and watery, and then became slimy and
scanty.  Excessive prostration, depression of spirits, fretfulness. The
attack was caused by a cold.  On a summer's evening  he had been
sitting on a cold stone;  the same evening he felt  drawing and ten-
sive pains in the small of the back, and next evening  a paroxysm
such as described  came  on.  One dose  of Arsenic stopped it;  in
three months there was a slight return ;  another dose cured him.
               LECTURE  XVIII.


                 INFLAMMATOEY GEOUP.

  The inflammatory action of Arsenic  upon the tissues  is exceed-
ingly marked, and may lead to the most disastrous consequences.
On the other hand, the sad results of arsenical poisoning  in this
direction yield to the  homoeopathic  physician, and indeed to any
physician who intelligently interprets and correctly applies  the
therapeutic laws of Nature, precious means of relieving suffering
and of saving life.
  We may consider  this Group under four sub-divisions, a. simple
acute, b. erysipelatous, c. gangrenous and d. cancerous inflammation.

                a. Simple acute inflammation.

  The inflammatory conditions which  Arsenic excites  along  the
tract of the intestinal tube, are marked by evidences of a  deeply
penetrating nervous disorder.  These inflammations have a malig-
nant character, tending to disorganization, and  generally attended
with cramps, spasmodic tAvitches or convulsions.
  The following case reported by Brodie in the Philosophical Trans-
actions of the year 1812, gives a very fair view of the inflammatory
action of Arsenic upon  the abdominal viscera.
  Surgeon  Tonnelier was called to the house  of Mrs. L., to give
assistance to her daughter, aged nineteen years, who was reported to
be in a distressing situation.  He found her extremely faint, kneeling
down on the floor of her room, with her head resting on the arms of
her brother, being unable to support herself.  Her face was unequally
red,  and covered Avith sweat; her eyes were  half open, red, and
suffused with tears;  round  her eylids Avas a border of a bright-red;
her voice was nearly gone;  her breathing short,  frequent  and plain-
tive ; she experienced horrible pains in the stomach, as if the stomach 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
293
were consumed  by fire;  she  made  efforts to  vomit,  which were
extremely distressing.  This condition of things  had lasted four
hours when the physician  arrived.   The patient had  taken  the
Arsenic about 11 o'clock.   No symptom of a very distressing nature
had made its appearance until the evening: during the day she had
been observed often to change color  in the face, and shoAved some
other signs of suffering and anxiety ;  but she was obliged to conceal
her pain.  She ate a good dinner at tAvo o'clock.  At  seven in the
evening the vomiting  came on with great violence; at eight she had
a slight  convulsion which lasted several minutes, after  which  the
vomitings returned  with the same violence as before.  As she had
refused to drink, the matter vomited  amounted to very little: it was
composed of a part of her dinner, of a viscous matter,  sometimes
colorless, sometimes of a pale-yelloAV; together with  some frothy
saliva streaked with blood.  The patient Avas put to bed.  Her pulse
was small, unequal, irregular and very frequent.   The epigastrium
was  excessively sensible, and  she  felt excruciating pains in  the
intestinal canal.  Deglutition was already extremely difficult; never-
theless they succeeded in making her drink  copiously.  By this
means she vomited more easily and without interruption for an hour.
The  vomitings then Ceased for about ten minutes.   The patient
rested herself upon her pillow, and appeared to sleep; she Avas eATen
heard to  snore.  In a  short  time the vomitings came on  again, and
continued until two o'clock.
  At a quarter past two,  she slept again for eight  minutes; stertor,
the respiration was slower, then hiccough, vomiting for a quarter of
an hour,  coldness of the face, hands and forearms;  she uttered cries
from time to time; her agitation was extreme, all her limbs were
contorted; an involuntary evacuation from the bowels took place
for the second time  since the first manifestation of the symptoms.
  At three o'clock, she was a little  calmer: she begged of the atten-
dants not to speak of her misfortune.   The breathing became still
slower, the vomiting increased; there Avere fresh signs of agitation,
frightful  dreams; the  pulse became imperceptible.  At four o'clock
she opened her eyes, and complained  of being  unable to see the light;
she lamented her fate: her arms became dead.   At five o'clock, her
countenance was like ice, her nose and lips of a  violet color, the
beating of her heart could  scarcely be  felt;  these symptoms were
succeeded by a rattling in her throat, and finally death.

                   Appearances on Dissection.

  Externally;  contraction  of the muscles of the face, insurmountable
stiffness of the limbs;  a violent color, more or less  deep, over  the
legs,  thighs, loins and back; countenance pale, lips violet; a very
sensible heat of the body tAventy-six hours after death.
  Internally: the lungs were extraordinarily distended Avith blood,
through  two-thirds of their bulk, and especially in their posterior
part.  The incisions made into  the  lungs, showed a compact and
tolerably firm  texture;  on the slightest pressure, blood  oozed out
without any appearance of air-bubbles, from a multitude  of minute 
294
LECTURE XVIII.
points on the cut surfaces.  The anterior part of the lungs was red
on the surface, and for the rest, tolerably elastic and filled with air.
   Both ventricles of the heart contained very black blood.  The left
ventricle contained more than the other.
   The stomach Avas greatly distended by the fluid with which it was
filled; on its external  surface was seen an infinity of small vessels
injected with blood.  The intestinal canal exhibited the same appear-
ance as A\rell on its external as internal surface, in some parts of its
extent.   The liver  and spleen were likewise very much engorged
with blood.
   The stomach, having been emptied, and laid  open throughout its
whole extent, presented a surface apparently grained, which appear-
ance was caused by the increased bulk  of the  mucous glands, the
color of which was blackish; whilst the stomach itself Avas  red,
more or less dark, and sprinkled here and there, especially towards
the pyloric orifice, Avith extremely black spots.
   The epithelium of the mucous membrane was entirely removed.
   There was found in the fluid taken out  of the  stomach a cyst,
formed, according to  Professor Dupuytren, by  an expansion  of the
mucous membrane  of the stomach, in which some vestiges  of the
vessels could still be perceived.  It was about an inch  and  a-half
long,  eight lines in diameter, and its sides were about half a line in
thickness.  From the interior surface  of this cyst, were given out
very thin partitions of a cellular texture;  and  which contained, in
separate  cells, unequal fragments of  a  crystalline matter,  which
being submitted to  several experiments by Dupuytren and Van-
quelin, presented  all the characteristics of  Arsenic.  This girl  had
attempted to poison herself on two previous occasions, and Dupuy-
tren is of opinion that the production of this cyst belongs to these
two  anterior  poisonings.   This opinion appeared to  him  to be
strongly supported by the  circumstances that the patient complained
of continual pains in that  part of the stomach corresponding to  that
where the cyst was  found.

   In all cases of
   Gastro-enteritis,  to which Arsenic is  homoeopathic, we shall  find
nausea, retching and vomiting of mucus, bile and blood;  burning
pain in the region of the stomach and bowels, with excessive tender-
ness to contact or pressure; tympanitic distention of the bowels or
else diarrhoeic discharges consisting of water, flocks of mucus, slime,
blood, attended with more or less distressing tenesmus and agoniz-
ing pain in the _ bowels.  The mouth  and throat are  parched, the
patient craves drink of which the least quantity excites the vomiting.
The tongue looks parched, like raw and scorched hide covered Avith
a thick, yellow coating.  The respiration is hurried, the countenance
expresses anxiety and distress;  gradually  the features assume the
pinched and sunken appearance which pathologists designate  as the
hippocratic countenance.  The pulse is frequent, small and irregular,
the extremities are cold, and may become more  or less convulsed as
the pain augments in intensity.
   In this disease it  may be necessary to  give Arsenic in low  doses, 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
205
from one hundredth to one ten thousandth of a grain, and to repeat
the latter  dose every half hour until a decided improvement in the
symptoms becomes manifest.
  In Chronic  Gastro-enteritis, Arsenic is  likeAvise eminently useful.
It is indicated by irritability of the stomach, occasional vomiting of
food, a sensation of oppression after eating, aching and sore pains
in the epigastric region, paroxysms of tympanitic distension of the
bowels or flabbiness of the abdominal walls, alternate constipation
and diarrhoea, the  discharges consisting  of loose, yelloAV stools, or
slimy, fatty, purulent  matters, with more or less tenesmus, sense of
excoriation at the  anus, debility, loss of flesh, more or less vascular
excitement, sallow complexion with occasional feverish flashes, dull
and heavy pains about the head.  The tongue may exhibit a Avhitish
or yelloAvish coating, the tip and edges  look inflamed, the mouth
and pharynx feel dry, which.induces a frequent craving for drink.
Patients who are suffering Avith an affection of this  kind, are  dis-
posed to long for  stimulants and tonics, such as Avine or  a little
brandy.
  Arsenic from the third to the twelfth  potency may reach such a
case.

   Gastritis is a disease to which  Arsenic may prove  homoeopathic.
Among the organs to Avhich Arsenic seems to  hold some  specific
relation, the stomach  occupies a prominent rank.  AVe know that
Arsenic may cause inflammation of the stomach even when adminis-
tered  by the skin.  Schulze reports five cases in Hecker's Critical
Annals of Legal Medicine,* where Arsenic was sprinkled upon the
hair by mistake for hair-powder. One  of the patients died;  two
were  attacked with  more or  less dangerous  symptoms, and the
remaining two had a  violent inflammation of the pericranium.   In
the fatal case, death did not occur until the twenty-second day after
the accident occurred.  The  hairy scalp  Avas found gangrened  and
infiltrated Avith  fluid blood.    The stomach was also  very much
inflamed.  In the two persons who suffered most, erysipelas of the
pericranium did not make its appearance  until six days after the use
of the powder.
  The retching and vomiting of mucus, bile and blood; the exces-
sive sensitiveness of the precordial region ; the burning pain in the
region of the stomach as if this organ were consumed by fire; the
agonizing thirst with inability to swallow the least  drop without
causing distressing vomiting;  the inflamed  redness of the tongue;
the heated breath, the expression of  agony in the features, the icy-
coldness  of  the extremities  and the excessively rapid,  irregular,
feeble and tremulous pulse: all these symptoms are so many indica-
tions for Arsenic which  is capable  of reproducing them  all in the
tissues in health.

  It might be interesting to inquire whether Arsenic causes gastritis
by its direct, irritating action upon  the coats of the  stomach.   AVe

     * Hecker's Kritsche Annalen der Staatsarzneitcunde Vol. I , p. 143-159. 
296
LECTURE XVIII.
have shown that it may develop gastritis by absorption.  There are
many cases of poisoning on record where Arsenic in substance was
found in the stomach Avithout the least symptom of organic lesion
being present.
  Chaussier reports  the  case  of  a robust middle-aged man  Avho
SAvallowed  a quantity of  arsenious acid in large lumps and died
Avithout showing any other symptoms than slight syncope.  On open-
ing the stomach, it Avas found to contain the arsenious acid almost in
the state in which it had been swallowed.  It was impossible to dis-
cover the slightest erosion or inflammation in the alimentary tube.

  Etmuller, in  his Ephemerides of Natural Curiosities, speaks of
a young girl poisoned by Arsenic, in Avhom neither the stomach nor
intestines presented any signs of inflammation or gangrene;  never-
theless the Arsenic was found in this viscus.

  Other cases of a similar character might be mentioned.
  In these cases Arsenic destroyed life by its action upon the cere-
bro-spinal axis.  Hence we infer that unless the stomach is endowed
with a certain amount of reactive vitality, the poison cannot exhibit
its irritating effects upon this organ.  It would seem, therefore, that
Arsenic does not corrode the stomach solely as a chemical agent, but
that a principle of dynamic vital resistance seems involved  in  the
post-mortem  phenomena  of disorganization observed  in  cases of
poisoning by Arsenic.  Hence we have a right to recommend Arse-
nic as a remedy for gastritis upon the ground of its dynamic homoeo-
pathicity to this disease.

  Stomacace is  another inflammatory  disease to which Arsenic is
homoeopathic.  Arsenic  causes inflammation of the mouth, tongue
and fauces.  In the case of Dr. Perkins, one of the first symptoms
of the poisonous action of Arsenic was a crimson line on the gums,
which has  likewise  been  remarked in other persons.  A bloody,
fetid, ichorous saliva may be secreted.  The mucous membrane
exhibits Avhitish patches,  as if  the epithelium were destroyed ; or it
has a livid  appearance: in some cases of poisoning, the buccal cavity
has exhibited a bluish-red color.  A burning  heat and dryness and
a foul taste are complained of.   Arsenic  may likewise cause  the
teeth to fall out.
  AVhat are the leading pathognomonic signs of Stomacace?  First,
the gums begin to swell, they look dark-red, livid ; they feel dry and
burning-hot, and show a disposition to bleed.   Gradually the gums,
along the upper edge, become pulpy, with a yellowish,  blacxish
appearance;  the subjacent mucous membrane looks red and bleeds
readily.  In consequence of the destruction of the alveolar border of
the gums, the teeth may fall out.  The sublingual glands are swollen,
secreting a  corrosive fluid.
  All these symptoms correspond with the action of Arsenic upon
the gums, sublingual glands, and the lining membrane of the mouth.
 _ The constitutional symptoms accompanying the buccal disorganiza-
tion, likewise point to Arsenic.  The patient's face  looks  pale, the 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
297
eyes retreat into their sockets, they are surrounded with blue mar-
gins.  The bowels may become tympanitically distended ; diarrhoeic
discharges take place having a sour smell and looking like stirred
eggs.  Shreds of mucus are mixed up with the stools.  The mucous
membrane of the rectum is corroded by the ichorous matter from
the mouth, and tenesmus sets in.
  The breath of patients affected with stomacace, has a penetrating,
pungent, foul odor.  Their pulse is jerking and  hurried,  the skin
hot and dry;  in the last stage the extremities become  cold, and the
face becomes pinched and remarkably pale.
  Contrasting these  symptoms of the disease  with the effects  of
Arsenic, Ave shall find that  this agent occupies a prominent rank
among the few remedies which are adapted to Stomacace.
  Even in Mercurial Stomacace, Arsenic may prove useful.

               b. Erysipelatous Inflammation.

  AVe know from several  cases of  poisoning with Arsenic  that this
agent is capable of causing erysipelatous inflammation.
  AVibmer relates a case where the  powdered Arsenic was applied to
the scalp by mistake for hair-poAvder.  The poison caused  a violent
swelling of the head and face, followed by erysipelas of the face, neck
and abdomen, and a pustulous eruption on the hands.
  Belloc relates the following case in his " Cours de Medecine Legale,"
page 121 :  A woman of fifty-six years, of good health, but  of a deli-
cate and very irritable constitution, washed  her whole body with a
solution of Arsenic, obtained by boiling the poison in common water.
She was affected with an itch, against which the ordinary  means of
cure proved unavailing.   She swelled up enormously, and became
covered with a general erysipelas.   For several days she  felt as if
consumed  by fire.  The  itch  disappeared,  but  this unfortunate
Avoman  was taken with trembling in all her limbs, and finally died
after dragging a miserable existence for two years after using the wash.

  The erysipelatous inflammations to which Arsenic is homoeopathic,
are of a more or less malignant nature.  They may be accompanied
by  enormous swelling of the inflamed part, and excessive burning
with tendency to gangrenous disorganization.  The curative virtues
of Arsenic in this form of erysipelas are beautifully  illustrated  in
the following case, reported  by Dr. Schreter:
  " A farmer's wife, aged 50 years, was attacked with inflammation
of the arm, which, after the lapse of eight days, terminated in gan-
grene.  Two of her relatives had  died Avith the same disease.  Dr.
Schreter, who was consulted on the twelfth of June, 1828, found her
with the following symptoms: Her left  arm  was swollen, densely
covered Avith black pustules which emitted a fetid odor; some parts
looked like a gelatinous grayish-white mass;  alvine discharges of a
dark-green mucus; pulse quick and small; prostration.  A cure Avas
achieved in tAvelve days Avith Arsenic 30.

  Erysipelatous Inflammation of the Scrotum, of a malignant nature, 
298
LECTURE XVIII.
with swelling of the testicles, may be cured with Arsenic.   Alberti
mentions a case where the internal use of Arsenic caused swelling of
the testicles.   (See  his Jurisprud. Medica, vol. I., p. 107.)   Another
case is related by Dierbach, Mat. Med. vol. III., p. 756.  The scrotum
was SAvollen,  inflamed, covered  with gangrenous bullae; the patient
recovered.

                c.  Gangrenous Inflammation.

   We know  that Arsenic will cause gangrene.  It may cause gan-
grene  by its  direct action  upon the tissue with Avhich it comes in
contact, and by absorption.
   Flandin reports the following  case of poisoning where Arsenic
caused a disorganization of the stomach which seems to have been
of a gangrenous character.
   I am aAvare that Christison doubts the gangrenous nature of the
disorganizations discovered in the stomach in this case.  Flandin
who reports  the case in full in Dr. James' OAvn words, makes  no
comments upon his  statements, and seems, on the contrary, to accept
them as correct.  Taylor, AVibmer and other toxicologists, mention
sphacelus of the  stomach  as one  of the occasional, although rare
effects  of arsenical poisoning.  Here is an abstract of  fh<e case:
   Soufflard, a man  condemned to  death, swallowed nearly three
hundred grains of Arsenic.  After  drinking  water  he was imme-
diately seized  with  violent vomiting.   When  first  seen  by the
physician his features looked horribly altered.  His lower lip looked
as if it had  been  cauterized; the mucous  membrane  was  white,
cracked and exceedingly painful when touched ever so little.  The
tongue was swollen and looked grayish.  The patient complained of
a horrid taste in the mouth and throat.  The pulse at the wrist Avas
scarcely  perceptible, small,  wiry, irregular; the  skin was cold  as
marble; it was covered with a clammy sAveat, especially on the fore-
head and temples.   From  time to time the patient  stretched his
limbs,  and after  having  left them  straightened out  for  a feAV
moments, he let them sink into a state of complete relaxation.  He
complained of  a horrible  pain in  the stomach as if burnt by fire.
Two hours after having taken the poison the patient Avas seized with
a violent  chill and chattering of the teeth; at  the same time the
muscles of the face  were frightfully  contorted.   The bowels Avere
moved involuntarily, the discharge had a yelloAV appearance.  The
respiration became moaning and hurried ; the skin Avas icy cold and
the face  showed a death-like pallor.  The pulse had disappeared.
Vomitings and alvine discharges of a  yelloAvish substance took place.
There was an excessive urging, but inability to urinate.  The patient
was exceedingly restless and suffered horrible tearing  pain in the
boAvels.  Towards the last, the abdominal walls were  very much
contracted and drawn towards the spinal column.
  A post-mortem examination revealed the following facts: bright
redness of the gums, the inner surface of the cheeks, the curtain  of
the palate, the uvula; considerable swelling  of the tongue; grayish
and sanguinolent patches scattered  over the  inner surface of the 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
299
pharynx and oesophagus.  The stomach was found completely disor-
ganized. The mucous coat was transformed into a blackish, glutinous
pulp Avhich it was quite easy to detach.  Underneath this  pulp a
bleeding, granular surface might be seen, resembling  sores that are
covered with gangrenous vegetations.   In some portions  of  the
stomach, the serous coat seemed to be  alone left; near the pylorus,
a grayish spot about three fingers in width was seen, Avhich looked
as if tanned.  The mucous membrane in this region looked as if it
had been cauterized with an acid.  The vena porta was found enor-
mously distended.
   In this state of dreadful suffering the patient retained his conscious-
ness to the last  moment.

   This  case of poisoning gives us  a  fair vieAV  of the  functional
phenomena which are observed in  gangrenous inflammation of the
mucous coat  of the stomach, violent chill,  burning  pain  in the
stomach as if consumed by fire, excessive sensitiveness to pressure of
the epigastric region and the region of the  stomach in  particular,
constant retching and occasional vomiting of foul mucus, bile and
blood ; an unquenchable thirst, vomiting being provoked by the least
portion of  liquid introduced into the stomach, inflammatory redness
of the tongue which may be slightly coated; coldness of the extremi-
ties, excessively hurried, feeble,  filiform, irregular pulse; pallor of
the countenance, expression of distress and agony in the features;
these are some  of the distinguishing features of this dreadful and so
often and speedily fatal malady.
   In this disease the second trituration and even the first  centesimal
may be given Avithout hesitation in half-grain doses every half hour
until the disease seems checked in its fearful progress.

   Arsenic  has  caused gangrene of other parts, such as
   Gangrene of  the Penis and Vulva.  In one case, reported by Pfann,
the glans  penis assumed a livid appearance, became swollen  and
cracked.   In another case, reported by Degner, in his '*' Acta Natu-
ralia," the  penis  became swollen, inflamed and  gangrenous, Avith
horrible pain.   Stahl, in his treatise  on "Medical  Chemistry  and
Physiology,"  reports a case of sudden gangrene of  the penis  by
Arsenic.
   In a case of gonorrhoea, with phimosis, the  prepuce and  anterior
half of the  penis became suddenly attacked Avith gangrene ; the pains
were frightful;  fetid and foul blood Avas discharged from the urethra.
After Arsenic  30,  the upper portion  of  the  prepuce came off in
twenty-four hours; the gonorrhoea ceased likeAvise.

   Gangrene of  the Tongue has  been caused by Arsenic, as Ave may
infer from  the case reported by Baylies, where the lips and  tongue
exhibited a bluish appearance.
   Malignant  glossitis may terminate  in  gangrene.    If gangrene
threatens to set in, the constitutional symptoms which show them-
selves in every  other form of gangrene, will become manifest, such
as: coldness of the extremities, sinking, irregularity and  extraordi- 
300
LECTURE XVIII.
nary frequency of the pulse, expression  of agonizing  distress  and
livid pallor of the countenance.  A flow of ichorous, sanguinolent
saliva ;  a cadaverous odor from the mouth, and the sloughing off of
shreds or patches of lining membrane  and parenchymatous tissue,
mark the presence of a fell and destructive disease.
  Arsenic  from the  third to the sixth or even eighteenth potency
may be most appropriate.

  In Diphtheria, Arsenic is resorted to if the  pathological process
threatens to terminate in gangrene.

  Gangrene of the Extremities is  supposed to  have been  caused by
Arsenic.  The case was originally published by Dr.' Forget of Stras-
burg, and transferred to the columns of the North American Homoeo-
pathic  Journal by Dr. Marcy.
  A man, sixty-three yeai?s of age, took two ounces of  Arsenic: an
hour afterwards, vomiting came on, accompanied by colic and frequent
alvine  evacuations.  Nine hours after the ingestion of the poison, the
face was pale  and haggard, the extremities cold, as well as the nose
and ears;  the  pulse small  and quick, the tongue moist and icy, and
the weakness very great.  There was much pain in the abdomen, the
stools were very fluid, but the intelligence was clear, and the ansAvers
slow.
  The patient  took the sesquioxide of iron, and ether, and  had sinap-
isms applied to the arms and legs.  After this, vomiting recurred, and
in two hours reaction was established; the extremities became warmer,
and the face was less pinched and  more animated.  The reaction
increased for a little while, the symptoms became less  marked, and
two days afterwards  the effects of the poison had  entirely disap-
peared.  Severe pain in  the left leg was,  however, complained of, and
that limb was somewhat cold and  tender on  pressure.  This  pain
went on increasing ;  the pulsations of the femoral artery became gradu-
ally weaker, and mortification set in.   Amputation was performed ten
days after the  Arsenic had been taken, but the patient rapidly sank ;
sphacelus occurred in the stump, and he died twenty days after taking
the Arsenic, and ten days after the amputation.
  It may be doubted whether the Arsenic caused the gangrene in
this case ; but this would not invalidate the curative adaptation of
Arsenic to this disease.  In  the  present case, the patient may  have
been predisposed to  gangraena  senilis, and the poison  may  have
given  the  disease a  preternatural development.   But even taking
this vieAv of the case, the power of Arsenic to develop gangrene of
the extremities, is not disproved thereby.   For, it is  questionable
whether the disease Avould have been  thus prematurely developed
under  the influence of other poisons.

  In Humid Gangrene,  when the parts look livid, with scaling  off of
the epidermis and effusion of a turbid  fluid in  the  subcutaneous
tissues, Arsenic is one of the most important constitutional remedies.

  t Gangrene of Hospitals, or Hospital Gangrene has to be treated Avith 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
301
Arsenic. In hospitals where the air becomes vitiated by the crowded
state  of the  wards,  ulcers often assume a malignant  aspect and
become  gangrenous.  The secretion of  pus is interrupted, and
the sore becomes covered with a grayish and tenacious sanies.  The
gangrenous process extends from the centre of the sore towards the
edges which  become inflamed, SAvollen and everted.   The constitu-
tional signs of this destructive malady gradually and  rapidly mani-
fest themselves.  The middle potencies of Arsenic from the sixth to
the eighteenth are adapted to this disease.

   Gangrene of the  Lungs, or Necro-pneumonia, is  another affection
Avhere Arsenic  may palliate the symptoms, if a cure  should be im-
possible.  The only pathognomonic symptom of this disease, accord-
ing to Dr. Stokes, is the extraordinary and disgusting odor of the
breath and expectoration, which is generally constant.  This  symp-
tom is sometimes so prominent that no one is willing to go  near the
patient.  The gangrened portion of the lungs is of a purple, greenish
or blackish  tint externally.   On cutting  into the parenchyma, it
may be  found  engorged with a bloody serum, or  a fluid may run
out of it which has been compared to a mixture of soot and  water.
Two interesting cases of this disease are reported in  the American
Medical  Intelligencer  of August  1st, 1838, and  Oct. 15th,  1839.
Arsenic is one of the few remedies, and perhaps the only  one that
may prove useful in this disease.  We prefer the  middle potencies
from the fourth to the twelfth.

   In  Gangrene of the Bronchia Arsenic may be depended upon as an
energetic remedial agent.  Under the name of malignant bronchitis,
Schoenlein gives the following characteristic  description of this
disease: " Towards evening the patients are attacked  with a violent
burning pain, particularly under the manubrium sterni;  this pain is
accompanied by a peculiar oppression of breathing; the  chest of
the patient feels as if constricted; respiration is carried  on with
the abdominal muscles. If the patient  attempts to expand the chest,
the burning  sensation under the sternum increases.  Even  now a
peculiar rattling is heard, arising from the mucus Avhich fills up the
bronchia up  to the point of  bifurcation.   This  accumulation of
mucus  in the bronchia excites paroxysms of cough,  during  which
the patients breathe with their necks stretched forward and the face
assumes a livid hue; the patients raise a little greenish-yellow mucus
which is sometimes tinged with blood.   The pulse becomes very
rapid, though not hard or jerking;  the skin is burning hot and the
patient is tormented by a violent thirst.  This disease may terminate
the patient's  life quite suddenly."
.   A post-mortem examination  shows that the mucous lining  of the
bronchial tubes is dark-red, often even of a cherry-brown, bluish or
violet color.  In the  smaller bronchial  ramifications it  assumes a
still darker hue, until finally it looks almost black.
   It is evident that Arsenic is homoeopathic to these symptoms.  It
may be given from the fourth to the twelfth potency. 
302
LECTURE XVIII.
   Angina gangrenosa may be advantageously treated with Arsenic.
 In this disease the tonsils  become covered Avith  a yelloAvish exuda-
 tion which soon changes  to  a grayish-yellow color.  This layer of
 exuded mucus frequently  spreads over the back part of the pharynx,
 the inner surface of the cheeks and  even the lips.  It may even
 involve the larynx, causing paroxysms of choking  and cough Avith
 expectoration of lumps of purulent mucus.   The breath has a cada-
 verous odor.  There is violent fever, dulness of the head, a frequent
 pulse  which  it  is  sometimes impossible to  count.  The skin  is
 burning hot.  Towards evening the patient becomes delirious.  The
 delirium is at times furibond, at others bland.

   This disease is most frequently met with during epidemic scarlet-
 fever.   It  may occur before, during or after the fever.

   There are very few drugs that share with Arsenic the extraordi-
 nary power to produce gangrenous disorganizations of the mucous
 lining.  In one case the upper portion of the larynx and oesophagus
 were almost  black.  Arsenic causes dryness and burning of the
 throat,  with excessive pain when swallowing, and inability to do so.
 It causes great thirst and a constant craving  for cooling  drinks.  It
 likewise develops all the croupy symptoms which may characterize
 this disease in  its last stage: bluish  color of the lips and  face,
 bloating of the lips and face, expression of distress and agony in the
 features, hoarseness and even  loss of voice, excessive wheezing and
 agony  of  breathing.  The feeble,  tremulous, galloping pulse and
 the icy-coldness of the extremities indicate Arsenic.

   The symptoms which characterize
   Putrescence  of  the Uterus,  indicate the use of Arsenic in this
 disease.  The creeping chills,  the hot and dry skin, the hurried and
 filiform pulse, the peculiar alteration of the features, the restlessness
 and anguish, the  unquenchable thirst, and, at a later period of the
 disease, the offensive, colliquative  diarrhoea  and the retention  of
 urine, point to Arsenic as  one of the remedies in this  distressing
 and dangerous affection.

  Anthrax or Pustula m.aligna is another gangrenous disorganization
 Avith a short description of which we will close the chapter on this
 class of diseases.
  First, a dark-looking, slightly raised papula is seen upon a hard
 base, the indurated sub-cutaneous cellular tissue.   After the lapse
 of twenty-four or thirty-six hours, a small vesicle or bulla starts up
 at the summit of  the papula, having a lead-colored appearance, and
 filled with a  reddish,  serous fluid.  The accompanying  fever  is-
 violent, at first inflammatory,  erethic, and afterwards running  into
the typhoid type.  The patient looks pale, the pulse is small, quick,
feeble.   After the vesicle breaks or collapses Avithout breaking, a
 dark-gray,  black,  generally compact scurf forms, surrounded  by a
rose-colored areola.  The affected part may swell up, having a livid,
bluish appearance.   Among the medicines which may be required 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
303
for the cure of this disorder, Arsenic may be mentioned as occupying
a prominent rank.  If the fever is high, Aconite may be given in
alternation Avith, or previous to, Arsenic.  In

  Anthrax of horses  or cattle, or Contagious  Carbuncle, Glanders,
Arsenic will be found useful.   The fourth up to the twelfth potency
may be most useful.  It is well knoAvn that this disease is not only
contagious, but that the contagion may remain so permanently and
tenaciously fixed that even the tanned hide of  a glandered  beast
may still infect persons in a suitable state of receptivity.

                      d.  Cancerous Form.

  For years  past, Arsenic has been looked upon,  and  has  been
extensively used as a remedy  for cancer.   There is no doubt that
Arsenic  is capable of  exercising a powerful  modifying influence
over cancerous ulceration. Several interesting cases of cure of this
disease with large and small  doses of Arsenic  are on record in the
archives of homoeopathic  literature.  AVe will  only relate the two
following; the first being  a case of cancer of the lips reported by Dr.
Attomyr:
   A little girl six years old, lost  the left half of  the upper lip and
the soft parts of the face as far as the malar bone, and  laterally a
good portion around the  left  corner of the mouth, by a cancerous
ulceration.  Arsenic  6, a dose every eight days, affected a cure
within six weeks.

   Another case of cancerous ulceration is reported by Dr. Lobethal,
who treated a woman of  seventy-one years for a cancerous  ulcer in
the face with Arsenic  30 internally,  and  an ointment made of
hog's lard and Arsenic 30 externally;  the carcinomatous character
of the ulcer disappeared,  and the ulcer healed doAvn to the base;
the cure was complete by  giving Silicea.

   The other case is  a  case of Cancerous Ulceration of the  Tongue,
reported by Charles Lane  in his " Collection of Select Cases."
   A  man, twenty-three years old, applied for  help  in  June 1813.
He had a very unclean ulcer under the tongue.  Some time ago he
had a similar ulcer on the tongue, but it  had been healed.  Upon
examining the tongue, I discovered  in  the  place Avhere  the healed
ulcer had been, a deep irregular fissure, with  raised, shaggy, hard
edges, Avhich  communicated  Avith the  ulcer below.   Upon intro-
ducing a probe, it penetrated through  the substance of the tongue
into a deep-seated ulcer at the  root of the tongue, and  thence  into
the pharynx.   The sore looked most  hideous, and  Avas evidently
cancerous.  Deglutition was exceedingly painful, and he complained
that the pain had  extended  of late behind the  ears as far as the
occiput and nape of  the neck.   He had  been  put on mercurial
treatment Avhich had made the  matter Avorse.  The general health of
the patient had been very much shattered, his  pulse was small and
tremulous; the least exertion  exhausted him;  his hands Avere cold 
304
LECTURE XIX.
and clammy, and his strength prostrated.   This frightful disease
was cured by a solution of Arsenic used internally and externally,
(probably Fowler's solution.)

   Cancer of the Chimney-sweep may be treated with Arsenic third to
sixth, or higher.  In this  affection the ulcerous process proceeds
from the lower part of the scrotum, where a superficial, painful ulcer,
with hard and elevated edges first develops itself.
  It would be absurd  to recommend  Arsenic  as a  panacea for
cancer;  but we know from experience that it may afford relief even
in cases where no cure is possible.  The external  use of Arsenic
in cancerous  affections  may  be  advisable, provided  the utmost
caution is used as  regards the dose.  A physician in Paris uses a
secret wash in cancer of the womb, the application of which to the
cancerous sore affords great relief from the horrible burning and
lancinating pains which characterize carcinoma of the uterus.
  Arsenic, if applied to an external sore  in too large a quantity, may
induce fatal consequences.   An arsenical paste applied  to ulcerated
breasts, or  fly-powder to a sore head, has resulted in  gangrene of
the parts, inflammation of the stomach and bowels, convulsions and
death.
                 LECTURE  XIX.

                      SPECIAL SENSES.

  Among the toxicological effects  of Arsenic upon  the eyes, Ave
notice  a well marked group  of symptoms  corresponding with the
pathological process designated as ophthalmia.  Arsenic causes in-
flammation and swelling of the lids, secretion of acrid tears, inflam-
mation of the conjunctiva, sensitiveness to the eyes; hence Ave may
derive great benefit  from it in ophthalmia characterized  by similar
symptoms.  In
  Scrofulous  Ophthalmia, we shall  find  Arsenic a great remedy,
especially when
  Leucoma has begun to develop  itself.  Arsenic will  act as an ab-
sorbent against these lymphatic exudations between the layers of the
cornea.  In
  Blepharophalmitis of scrofulous  individuals,  especially in  the
granular forms of this disease, we  may derive great benefit from the
use of Arsenic.   The
 _ Arcus senilis of old people, a  fatty degeneration-of the cornea,
likewise requires the use of Arsenic.

  We have effected  some beautiful cures of  ophthalmia by means of
Arsenic.   Dr. Hermann relates the following very interesting case:
"A  girl of six years had been tormented for six years with period- 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
305
ical attacks of ophthalmia.  Under allceopathic treatment, with blis-
ters and cathartics, they generally lasted several  months at a time.
Latterly, the eyes, even after the attack had passed off, remained so
irritable that the least exposure caused photophobia and more or less
inflammation either of  one or both  eyes, so that the child had to
wear a green screen all the time.  When placed under homoeopathic
treatment, the  lids were swollen, with red margins, the few remain-
ing lashes were glued together Avith pus;  upon separating the lids,
there was a profuse discharge of acrid tears which caused a fine rash
on the cheeks;  the  conjunctiva was traversed by  little blood-vessels,
and the cornea of both  eyes showed  little ulcers and the cicatrices
of old ones.  The patient complained  of smarting  and stinging burn-
ing pains which became much worse by looking  in the light;  hence
the patient dreaded the light and she saAv things as if through a
gauze.   Dr. Hermann removed  the  affection totally by means of
Arsenic 30, in from eight to ten days.  When the report of the case Avas
sent in for publication, the little girl had been ten months Avithout a
sign of her former trouble,  and without having  used  her screen
once."
  Dr. Stapf relates the following case: " A book-binder, twenty-eight
years old, of delicate, tender and cachetic constitution, was attacked on
the 25th of September, 1839, by the following affection of the eyes:
The conjunctiva shoAved  signs of redness, accompanied by violent
pressure in the eye-ball, especially early in the morning after wak-
ing, with violent pain when touching the  eye.  For five days (until
September  30th), the right eye was  perceptibly redder and more
sensitive than  the left; after  that, the left  eye suddenly became  af-
fected and the right eye was almost well.  The left eye showed the
following symptoms: Early  in the morning,  he is hardly able to
open his eye; the sclerotica is quite red;  there is continual, violent,
painful pressure on  the eyeball, with great photophobia.  On the 2d
of October he applied for help; the  Doctor gave him Aconite and
Belladonna, but Avithout much relief.
  Every other day  the symptoms seemed to be decidedly  Avorse.
After  a tolerable night's rest, a most violent pressure was experienced
in the eyeball,  and a pulsating throbbing; the eye looked red.  The
throbbing was felt within  a quarter of an inch all around the eye.
It was like the beating of a pulse, about 100 a minute, and exceed-
ingly  painful.   The eyeball  which was very red,  had lost  all  its
brilliancy, looked pale and dull;  the sight Avas much  Aveakened;  he
was not able to discern even  large objects  beyond a distance of ten
paces; small objects Avere not seen at all.  These symptoms increased
from five in the morning until noon, when they reached their acme,
after which the pains diminished and  disappeared entirely about ten
o'clock at night.   On the day following, the eyeball Avas simply red,
there Avas pressure on the  eye and weakness of sight, but no further
pain;  every third day the paroxysms broke out fully.  The general
health of the patient Avas  fair;  during the paroxysms the pulse Avas
slightly  irritated, hurried,  and the appetite somcAvhat decreased.
  On  the 9th of October  the Doctor gave the patient six pellets of
Arsenic 30.  On the following day, when the paroxysm should have
                               20 
306
LECTURE XIX.
broken out, the  symptoms were all improved, and  on the 12th of
October, the eyes were as clear and sound as those of any man.

  Deafness  of scrofulous  persons is  either cured  or relieved by
Arsenic.  The ear is  dry, large and seems pressed  flat against the
head.  They complain of annoying buzzing in the ears.  The  attack
may haAre been caused by  exposure to a damp and chilly wind, or it
may be of a chronic nature.  The middle potencies are sufficient.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

  We may recommend Arsenic  as an  antidote to mercury  in its
disorganizing action  upon the salivary glands and gums.  Arsenic
has caused a falling out of the teeth, secretion of fetid, bloody ichor
from the salivary glands, swelling, bleeding and pultaceous softening
of the gums.   Hence it may be useful in some cases of
  Mercurial Stomatitis, where these symptoms occur.

  The effects of Arsenic upon the gastric functions are exceedingly
varied and deep-seated.  Upon a careful  review of the symptoms
obtained by systematic provings, we shall find  that Arsenic causes
an
  Alteration of the taste, a foul,  bitter, or  even sour taste;
  Nausea, also with trembling and shivering; retching and vomiting;
  Oppression in the pit of the stomach, sometime after eating; also
a feeling of repletion;
  Burning pain,  and,  in one prover, sense of chilliness in the epi-
gastric region and chest;
  Gnawing and fine beating pain in the pit of the stomach;
  Anxiety and  crampy pain in the pit of the stomach ;
  Waterbrash and sour eructations.
  The symptoms of  gastric irritation  which poisonous  doses of
Arsenic have developed, not only confirm the pathogenetic symp-
toms recorded by our provers, but point to the affections with Avhich
Arsenic is in therapeutic rapport, with even more positiveness and
clearness than the pathogenetic symptoms.

  A man  took a few spoonfuls of a soup in which six grains of
Arsenic had been mixed;  he vomited  about forty times in four or
five hours, took  two  quarts  of sweet milk, and  suffered for a  Aveek
with violent burning pains in  the stomach and boAvels; for a long
time after, he had much acidity of the stomach,  and vomited easily
after light meals. Hence we may recommend Arsenic in
  Pyrosis  or heartburn, with  acidity of  the stomach, sour,  acrid
eructations, burning in the oesophagus and larynx.

  Arsenic causes moreover a spasmodic constriction  of the pharynx
and oesophagus, as was observed in many cases of poisoning; it also
causes convulsive hiccough.  Hence in
  Singultus, when characterizing a  dyspeptic weakness of the
stomach, when occurring after eating, accompanied by eructations, 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
307
or if the  hiccough amounts to  a convulsive spasm, Arsenic may
prove useful.

  Dyspepsia may yield to  Arsenic, when  characterized  by such
symptoms as Arsenic is capable of causing.   The leading symptoms
of this  group are :  oppression after eating;  excessive irritability of
the stomach causing a continual spitting up of food;  sensation of
repletion  in the  stomach  as if  the stomach should be violently
pressed asunder; paroxysms of nausea, retching and vomiting;  loss
of appetite, even amounting to a  loathing of food; altered taste  in
the mouth, foul or sour; or bitter taste in  the mouth after eating.
The patient may also complain of burning pain in the stomach, or a
sensation  as if the food were gliding over a raw surface.

  Not only in simple dyspepsia, but also in
   Gastralgia or Gastrodynia, will Arsenic be found useful.

  Arsenic causes vomiting and agonizing retching, vomiting of bile,
mucus and blood; a violent and painful  pressure in the epigastric
region; sensation of distention in the stomach as if the coats of the
stomach  should  be  torn;  sensation as  of a  pressing load in  the
stomach;  sensation as if the patient were tormented by flatulence in
the region of the stomach,  momentarily relieved by vomiting and
diarrhoea, but getting worse afterAvards; burning  and oppression in
the stomach and chest;  gnawing pains in the stomach, accompanied
by thirst and violent anxiety.  This picture of an Arsenic-gastralgia
corresponds Avith the effects  of Arsenic obtained by means of smaller
doses of the drug.

  In Cardialgia characterized by burning pain, soreness  to pressure,
spasmodic constriction,  retching, oppressive anxiety,  trembling,
coldness of the extremities, expression  of distress in the features,
small and frequent or  even irregular  pulse, Arsenic  may prove
indispensable.

  One or  two cases  of cure may illustrate in a convincing manner
the curative virtues of Arsenic in gastric affections.  An old lady
who  had  frequently been  attacked Avith cardialgia, had constant
pain in the pit of the stomach  through to the back.  These pains
gradually increased in intensity.   The patient vomited several times
a day; she spit up her food, and  vomited even when the stomach
Avas empty.  She became very thin.  AVeakness and pain confined
her to her bed.   The pain Avas constrictive, burning; the pit of the
stomach  was  distended, painful  to pressure; the abdomen was
sunken, bowels confined, tongue clean, mouth dry;  she complained
of thirst and sleeplessness.   A. few doses of Arsenic 30 checked the
further progress of this distressing disease Avhich seemed to forebode
some incurable degeneration.
  Here is  another case, Avhere the curative  poAvers  of  Arsenic  in
gastric derangements are beautifully shown.
  An apothecary, twenty years old, Avho had always enjoyed the best 
308
LECTURE XIX.
of health, of quiet and serious, but placid temperament, and tolerably
robust constitution, undertook a journey on foot  in the month  of
July, 1807.  Overheated and fatigued, he sat down  by a brook in the
cool shade, and sought to quench his burning thirst by eating a little
bread soaked  in  water,  lie fell asleep.   Upon Avaking, he expe-
rienced violent pains in the stomach, vomited, and next night felt
very sick.  Constant nausea and  pressure  at the  stomach  induced
him to take an emetic. This acted so powerfully upon the stomach and
boAvels that he remained unconscious for twenty-four hours.  A fever
Avhich befell him  afterwards, almost brought him to the brink of the
grave.  He slowly recovered  from the fever,  since Avhich he  had
frequent attacks  of exhausting  vomiting  and diarrhoea.    These
paroxysms returned year after year with  increasing violence  and
frequency and lasted longer.  By the  advice of several physicians
he took Assafoetida, Bismuth, bitters, Cinchona, extract of coffee, etc.,
all in vain.  Fifteen years after his first attack, in  August,  1822, he
consulted Stapf.  His symptoms were as follows : Excessive nausea,
droAVsiness in the day-time ;  after eating, or at night and early in the
morning, the patient is attacked with violent vomiting of the ingesta,
followed by the vomiting of bile  and an acrid acid.  The vomiting
is accompained by great straining, and causes great distress in the
region of the stomach.  It is followed by a violent  pain in the pit of
the stomach down to the umbillicus;  it is a most distressing  burning,
as if a red-hot coal were lodged there,  with excessive sensitiveness
in these parts; rumbling  in  the bowels;  stoppage of flatulence;
stitches under the ribs.  Immediately after the vomiting, he is unable
to cough or laugh without experiencing  a  distressing pain as if the
bowels were stretched and sore.  These symptoms  are accompanied
by frequent discharges of green mucus, accompanied by frequent and
distressing tenesmus, and distressing, burning pains  at the anus.  The
burning pain in the pit  of the stomach is particularly felt Avhen lying
down and falling  asleep, and is especially tormenting at night.  After
sleeping for half an hour, the pain wakes him ; it is followed by vio-
lent anxiety in the chest, sleeplessness,  excessive restlessness especi-
ally after midnight, between three and four in the  morning.  If he
does fall asleep he wakes as if in a fright, and tormented by horrid
dreams.  Continual and excessive coryza, Avith bleeding at  the nose,
and a violent pressure above the eye-brows ; loss of appetite ; all food
is tasteless;  eructations with  rising of an acrid fluid; during the
paroxysms his spirits  are depressed, and he feels anxious  and
disposed to weep. His strength is almost gone ; he  is not disposed  to
do  anything,  is tormented by restlessness ; his face is pale, livid
and bloated ; he suffers  with praecordial anguish and forebodings  of
death.  The patient took one drop of the 30th of  Arsenic,  with the
following result: on the second and third clay  after taking the
medicine the  patient thought  he should  have  an  attack, his spirits
were much depressed.  This feeling soon disappeared, he improved
from day to day, and up to the time when this case was  reported,
he enjoyed uninterrupted good health.

  In the Gastralgia of drunkards Arsenic may be indispensable  in
conjunction with Nux vomica. 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
309
  The symptoms:  "Sensation in the oesophagus and  stomach as
though a ball were twisting  or  rolling itself upwards," points to a
form of
  Nervous  Dyspepsia to which hysteric females and nervous indi-
viduals generally are subject.   Among  the  medicines Avhich  Ave
recommend for this form of
  Globus hystericus, Arsenic occupies a prominent rank.

  Gastromalacia or softening of the stomach, as another of the so
frequently  fatal diseases which may yield to Arsenic.   Children at
the breast  are  more frequently attacked  by this disease, although
old people may likewise show symptoms of it.   The food which is
taken into the stomach, is  vomited  up again, the ejected  matters
having a sour or foul smell; the region of the stomach is distended,
feels hot;  the  features become altered, the little patients  become
emaciated;  diarrhoeic discharges resembling  stirred egg,  trouble
them quite frequently, until finally  the  extremities become cold,
the patients sink into a soporous condition and die.
  This  disease has  been  designated  as a softening of the stomach,
because the coats of the stomach, after death, are found transformed
into a gelatinous, pultaceous mass which is frequently transparent.
  The cul-de-sac of the stomach adjoining the spleen is frequently
found perforated ;  hence the  disease has also been described as
  Perforation of the Stomach by  some  pathologists.

  Schirrus of the Stomach may be arrested in its development by the
timely use of Arsenic.  If the patient is much troubled  with acid
risings, spittings up of food, spasmodic retchings, constrictions of the
oesophagus, and the complexion looks shallow and livid, the skin is
dry, the pulse small, rather hurried and inclining to be irregular,  and
the patient wastes away : Arsenic may be of great use, if given from
the sixth to the twelfth potency.

  In Chronic Haematemesis, Arsenic  may prove indispensable.   If
the attacks are accompanied by chilliness,  coldness and trembling of
the  extremities, small and  frequent  pulse, loss of adipose tissue,
expression of suffering in the features, want of desire for food with
a feeling of repletion and as of a load  after eating; Arsenic 6 to 18
may remove the trouble.

  Arsenic  will also help in
  Enteralgia or Colic if the pains are  cutting, tearing, and burning ;
the bowels are tympanitically distended, sensitive to pressure, Avith
icy-coldness of the extremities, and sometimes urging to stool Avith
tenesmus and some discharge of mucus and blood.

  Diarrhoea is  a derangement of the  bowels  which often meets its
specific in Arsenic.  The  Arsenic diarrhoea is characterized by  the
following symptoms:  a watery, mucus and often bloody discharge,
attended Avith prostration  and a feeling of soreness and excoriation
at the anus.   In cases of poisoning with Arsenic the patients have 
310
LECTURE XIX.
 also been known to discharge fatty and  slimy masses.  The  dis-
 charges have a foul smell, and may look blackish, broAvn, green or
 yellowish, resembling stirred eggs.  There  is often more or  less
 tenesmus present during or previous to the evacuation.
   A gentleman having a slight cold, ate a hearty supper Avith a
 friend.  Half an hour  after, he was attacked with diarrhoea.   The
 evacuations consisted of foul-smelling slime, mucus and blood, and
 Avere accompanied with slight tenesmus and excessive soreness and
 excoriation at the anus.   Great and increasing prostration.   The
 discharges took place  every ten or fifteen minutes.   He  had had
 some  twenty discharges,  when Arsenic 18  was given  eA'ery five
 minutes.  Three poAvders arrested the disease.   The worst forms of
   Dysentery have been arrested by Arsenic, Avhere the medicine Avas
 specifically adapted to the disease.  Instead of describing symptoms,
 we will relate a few cases illustrative of the homoeopathicity of this
 great agent to dysentery of a malignant type.

   A boy, two years old, was attacked with diarahcea  on the after-
 noon of January 15th, 1826;  it became worse  from day to day,
 especially at night;  with violent  tenesmus, thirst, vomiting of the
 ingesta, anus red and excoriated.  On the 18th Dr.  Hermann found
 the boy like a corpse, lips and tongue parched, eyes sunken  and
 dull, hippocratic countenance, body  covered  with cold, clammy,
 sweat,  pulse tremulous and almost collapsed; for the last tAvo hours
 the vomiting had given place to incessant retching; the child seemed
 insensible.   Took Arsenic 40th.  Next  morning found  the boy sit-
 ting in his mother's lap, eating bread  and milk;  the diarrhoea  had
 ceased; in a  few days he was well.

   A soldier, twenty-three  years old, was attacked on August 29th,
 1826, with frightful  cutting colic  and  frequent  thin evacuations;
 about noon, when he undertook to attend to some orders, he fainted;
 the whole body was covered with cold sweat.  Dr. Seidel found the
 patient doubled  up in bed, complaining as follows: dullness of the
 head, bluish  lips;  painful distortion of the facial muscles;  loss of
 appetite; nausea^ especially when moving about;  violent tearing
 and cutting pain in the epigastric region ; the abdomen is distended,
 soft, but painful when touched ; scanty discharges of mucus from
the rectum, almost every minute,  with increase of  pains in  the
bowels and tenesmus ; excessive thirst, dry, white-coated  tongue;
 anxiety and  moaning; coldness of the extremities and face, with
 sweat in the face ; pulse 88.   The patient took one dose of Arsenic
30, had one more discharge, fell asleep, and woke perfectly well.

   A man, forty years old, was treated by a doctor for fever and con-
 stipation ; the patient was in great distress and often cried out so
frightfully that his family thought he would lose his senses.   On
January 3d, 1829, Dr. Schroen  was sent for.   The  symptoms were
 as follows : wild and staring look; the patient rolled his eyes very
rapidly ; he spoke Avith vehemence, and lay at one time at the foot,
 and at  other times at the head end of the bed. Constant eructations; 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
311
hard and  distended  abdomen, rumbling;  he had upwards of fifty
evacuations from the bowels in twenty-four hours ;  at each evacua-
tion  he discharged a teaspoonful of mucus, with violent burnino- at
the anus Avhich continued until another evacuation took place; little
urine;  parched and brown tongue ; excessive thirst; in twenty-four
hours he would drink  from six to eight  quarts of water.   Upon
getting out of bed, he would fall down on  account of his weakness ;
occasional attacks of dyspnoea.  He had lost his appetite and sleep,
complained of frightful anguish and was despairing.  Took Arsenic
36 ;  next night the  patient slept a little, the evacuations were less
frequent, there was no burning; next twenty-four hours he had three
good stools without  burning; on the  12th  (in nine days) he Avas
perfectly well.

  With Cholera Infantum, Arsenic is in therapeutic rapport.   If the
children look  pale, emaciated, have no  appetite, the discharges look
brown, mixed with blood, have a foul smell and are attended with a
good deal  of urging, and perhaps  oedema of the extremities and
face, the sixth or  twelfth potency of  Arsenic  may bring about a
favorable reaction. In
   Cholera morbus, Arsenic is required, when the patients complain
of a  great deal of burning in the epigastric  region, vomiting, tormina
in the bowels with copious watery, foul-smelling discharges from the
bowels, which excoriate the anus and cause great prostration.. The
patient complains of cramps in the calves; the pulse is  small, hur-
ried, irregular.  In an attack of this kind, the patient is tormented
by an unquenchable thirst, bad taste in the mouth, and a thickly-
coated  tongue.  It is proper to give Arsenic from the first  to the
sixth potency.
  Asiatic Cholera can hardly ever be treated without Arsenic. The
symptoms are someAvhat similar to those of cholera morbus,  except
that  the prostration may be greater, the cramps are generally more
distressing, and the  patient's countenance is expressive of intense
suffering and anguish.   In this affection we may give from the first
up to the sixth potency.  In
  Cholera diarrhceica, where the most prominent symptom is the loss
of strength and animal tissue in consequence of the enormous and
frequent alvine discharges, having a foul  smell, of a  dark appear-
ance, slimy or yellowish and looking like stirred eggs, Arsenic first
to third potency is a capital remedy.

  Constipation often requires the use of Arsenic.  This condition of
the boAvels is  attended with torpor of the liver; the faeces have a
dark, brown, greenish or blackish appearance.  The abdomen may
feel  hard and distended, with a feeling of  warmth, aching and sore
pain  in the bowels, exceedingly dry skin, with entire absence of all
cutaneous exhalation, scanty, deep-colored and offensively smelling
urine, dullness about the head, sallow complexion, feeling of lan-
guor and hypochondriac depression of mind.   The middle potencies
may  be sufficient.
  No medicine promises more  curative aid than Arsenic in 
312
LECTURE XIX
  Phthisis intestinalis, especially during the suppurative and ulcera-
tive stage, Avhen  the  patient  complains  of  burning  pain in the
bowels, Avith excoriations at the anus  and violent  and distressing
tenesmus.  The middle and higher potencies are to be preferred.
In the suppurative stage of
  Phthisis meseraica or Tabes meseraica, Arsenic is likeAvise an excel-
lent remedy.   Arsenic may likewise  prove  homoeopathic to the
first or irritative stage of mesenteric ganglionitis, characterized  by
the symptoms of enteritic inflammation, alternate constipation and
diarrhoea, loss of appetite or the opposite  condition, voraciousness
or bulimy; grayish  discharges.from the bowels,  vomiting of glairy
mucus, emaciation,  puffiness and  paleness of the face, tympanitic
distention  of  the  abdomen, evening-fever.   In  the second stage,
when the gaglionic tumors can be distinctly felt, when oedema of the
lower extremities  shows itself, hectic fever is  fully developed,  with,
perhaps, signs of serous exudation in the peritoneal  cavity: the
Iodide of Arsenic may be preferable to Arsenic. It is likeAvise useful
in  some cases, to  alternate these  tAvo  agents.   Of  the Iodide the
second or third trituration may be given.

  Haemorrhoidal Tumors sometimes cause  a great deal of burning
distress;  burning stitches are experienced  in the tumors as if red-
hot needles Avere  stuck through them.   Arsenic causes a  similar
train of symptoms, and Avill  therefore relieve them.

  Ascarides often cause  a great deal of burning  and itching in the
rectum and  vagina.   In order to destroy them, Trousseau  and
Pidoux recommend  a  solution of one-fifth of  a grain of Arsenic  in
four ounces of water, which they inject into the rectum.  The irrita-
ting action of the Arsenic upon the lining membrane is sufficient to
destroy these entozoa.   It may be  necessary to repeat the injection
several times in  order to  remove the remaining sporules.   It is
doubtful Avhether  the  internal use  of Arsenic would  be alone
sufficient to effect this object.

  Cases of poisoning have revealed to us the fact that Arsenic  is in
marked  relation  Avith the  liver.   In  a  case reported by Orfila,
Arsenic Avas found in the stomach, spleen, heart and in other organs,
but the largest quantity Avas found in the liver.   AVe may therefore
infer that Arsenic will be of use in affections  peculiar to the liver.
In  a  case  reported  by Wolff; Arsenic  has caused jaundice.   It is
doubtful, hoAvever, Avhether Arsenic will be of much use in
  Jaundice or Icterus, unless the disease  depends upon some  dis-
organization of the liver, or  in those severe forms of jaundice where
the bile  becomes  foul and  decomposed,  and speedily poisons the
tissues.
  Gerbezius informs us that a man  who was afflicted with jaundice,
took the yelloAV Sulphuret of Arsenic, soon after which he experi-
enced  a  burning and  gnawing  distress in the  stomach,  frequent
vomiting and purging ; but the jaundice was cured. The presence of
these symptoms in jaundice, would constitute an additional indica-
tion for Arsenic.   In ordinary 
ARSENICUM  ALBUM.
313
  Acute jaundice, we think Aconite much more frequently indicated
than Arsenic; in some cases Mercurius or Digitalis, the latter more
particularly in chronic cases.
  Mercurial Jaundice, arising from poisonous doses of Mercury, may
have  to be  treated Avith Arsenic;  this  is  a dangerous  form of
jaundice.
  Jaundice originating in fever and ague by a process of metasche-
matismus, may require Arsenic.  In these two forms of jaundice,
the liver  is most always organically diseased, indurated, inclining
to suppurate or to develop incurable constitutional affections.
  Dyspeptic  Conditions remaining after  the imperfect allceopathic
treatment of jaundice, such as:  oppression of the stomach  after
eating, eructations, flatulence, alternate constipation and diarrhoea,
may often be removed by the use of the middle and higher potencies
of Arsenic.

  We may find Arsenic indicated in
  Icterus senilis, also termed Icterus melas or black jaundice, a  form
of jaundice  which only  befalls  persons of a more advanced age.
The patients experience  shooting pains in the stomach after eating,
accompanied  by vomiting of the ingesta and a ropy mucus.  The
taste in the mouth is sour or bitter;  the faeces are lumpy and  as if
burnt, of a gray color, like  clay;  the bowels are costive, except  an
attack of diarrhoea Avhich takes place occasionally and does not show
any signs of bilious pigment.  The skin has a greenish-blackish hue.
In the course of the disease, hectic fever sets in, with evening chills
followed by heat  and an irritated, hurried pulse.  This  form of
jaundice  is  generally depending  upon  slowly-progressing disor-
ganizations of the liver; if Arsenic does not effect a cure, it may at
least afford relief.

  In Cirrhosis of the liver, Arsenic may  afford relief.  The Germans
term this disease "nutmeg liver," on account of the appearance which
the liver assumes in this disease.  The liver looks as if composed of
granulations of various sizes, from the size of shot to that of a cherry.
These granulations may have various colprs, red, brown, and yellow,
sometimes even of a beautiful canary-yelloAV.   The disease occurs
most frequently among drunkards, and is supposed, by many patho-
logists to arise from a sub-acute or chronic inflammatory affection of
the capsule of Glisson or the dense areolar tissue surrounding the
vena porta and its ramifications in the substance of the liver.
  The following case of Cirrhosis of the liver is reported by Professor
Dunglison in his "Treatise on Special Pathology and Therapeutics."
It affords a very clear illustration of the  nature of this disease and of
the  pathological  degenerations  which  it  develops  and to Avhich
Arsenic is evidently adapted as a curative agent.
  "AAvoman, aged sixty-five  years, was  admitted into the Phila-
delphia Hospital on the  31st of July, 1838.   She had been in the
habit of Avorking in the open air, at gardening, and had been subject
for three years, to palpitation and severe attacks of dyspnoea, which
continued for fifteen minutes.  She had also cough, attended  with 
314
LECTURE XIX.
expectoration  in the morning, and profuse sweating at night, for a
long period.  Her appetite was bad, and her habits were very intem-
perate.  A month previous to her entrance  into the hospital, she
had  an attack of pleurisy of the left side, for Avhich  she was bled
and  purged.   An attack of inflammation of  the uterus supervened
on the pleuritis, followed by extensive infiltration of the upper and
lower  extremities, and  effusion  into the thoracic  and  abdominal
cavities.   The effusion into the thorax was so extensive, that, accor-
ding to the voluntary account of the patient, when  she suddenly
moved or rose from bed, she was sensible of a body of water rush-
ing from one part of the chest to  another.  The day after her recep-
tion into the hospital, she was laboring under excessive dyspnoea,
which obliged her  to assume a  semi-recumbent posture;  the  lips
Avere pallid ; the skin was of a deep-yellow hue, and the conjunctiva
was of the same color.  There Avas extensive infiltration of the upper
and  lower extremities;  the  abdomen Avas distended, and presented
very evident fluctuation; and the lower portions  of both pleurae
were dull on percussion.  Soon after her admission, she was attacked
with delirium  tremens and sank under her complication of  diseases
on the 6th of August.
  On examining  the abdomen, the liver was  found much enlarged,
weighing about  ten pounds; granulated, the surface  raised into a
number of round, mammillated protuberances,  of a tawny  color,
closely resembling beeswax, none of  them larger than a pin's head;
the substance of these granulations was compact, and when divided
they presented a smooth, flat, even surface.  The consistence of the
liver was very firm, admitting the finger Avith much difficulty;  semi-
cartilaginous,  and evidently greasing the scalpel  when cut  into.
The whole organ  presented  an excellent example of cirrhosis com-
bined Avith hypertrophy.   The gall-bladder contained a dark-colored
bile.   The stomach presented, along its great' curvature, a highly
injected state of vessels;  and the mucous membrane could be readily
detached.

  In  Fatty Degeneration of  the Liver, Arsenic may be  an  efficient
agent in arresting this morbid process.  According  to Addison, the
skin, in this disease, has a velvety feel, and looks bloodless, almost
semi-transparent  and waxy.  Louis  says that this affection is most
commonly observed in  phthisicky individuals.   Arsenic is one of
the main remedies for this disease.  Aconite and China should be
associated with it.  Arsenic  seems to  be possessed of specific powers
to counteract the formation of fat in the living organism, it causes
emaciation, and yet, if given in small quantities, it is Avell knoAvn to
promote  the rotundity and  glossy appearance of the  frame.   It is
needless  to observe that this is  not  a natural, but a  pathological
development.  The sixth, twelfth or eighteenth is probably the most
appropriate potency.

  Whether  Arsenic is indicated in  other organic diseases of the
liver, such as: Scirrhus, Softening or Induration, Atrophy or Hyper-
trophy, depends upon the accompanying constitutional symptoms. 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
315
In scirrhus of the liver, the patient may sometimes be troubled with
frightful headaches, depriving him  almost of consciousness charac-
terized by excessive sallowness of the complexion, excessive vomit-
ing of bile, constipation.  These  disorganizations of the liver may
remain  extremely obscure, until  secondary constitutional  diseases,
such as dropsy, marasmus, are fully developed and nothing can be
done except affording palliating relief, if possible.

  In conclusion, we may allude to one disease of the liver,  Avhere
treatment may be of some use, if  resorted to in time:  we mean
  Tuberculosis of the Liver.  During the incipient stage of this dis-
ease, the patient exhibits symptoms of dyspepsia, oppression after
eating, flatulent distention of the stomach, lancinating stitches in
the region of the liver.  Vomiting of bile may likewise trouble him.
The skin exhibits a dingy hue.  The face  looks  bloated, and the
liver gradually enlarges in size, extending beyond  the lower border
of the false ribs, where the organ presents an unusual, hypertrophied,
knotty and painful edge.  Gradually, as the enlarged mass presses
upon  the biliary duct, the symptoms of jaundice manifest themselves,
and the  patient gradually dies  of  debility, marasmus, dropsy or
diarrhoea.  It is evident that Arsenic may be of use in this affection.
In the first stage  of the disease, Aconite and Bryonia may be the
most important remedies.
                 LECTURE    XX.

                     UEINAEY GEOUP.

  Arsenic seems to affect the urinary  organs  sympathetically as
well as idiopatnically.  Arsenic causes retention of urine.  Hence, in
diseases Avhere this symptom is prominent, it constitutes a character-
istic indication for Arsenic.  Eetention of urine may occur in Anas-
arca, in  Asiatic Cholera, in Dorsal Consumption; it may be a symp-
tom of general  nervous debility, or of paralysis of the bladder.  In
all  these cases, the existence  of such a symptom  would  point to
Arsenic.

  Retention of Urine, or Ischuria, with  great urging to urinate, and
burning  in  the  urethra  during micturition,  especially if other
Arsenic-symptoms are  present, may require the  use of this agent.
Such  symptoms may be:  great anxiety, trembling, coldness  of the
extremities, small and  very frequent pulse, cold  perspiration.  An
attack of this kind may befall old people.

  Hxmaturia or bloody urine, may yield to  Arsenic, if symptoms
like those mentioned under Eetention of urine  are present.   The
discharge of blood may be symptomatic of some pathological lesion
in the kidneys. 
316
LECTURE XX.
  In Bright's Disease of the Kidneys, or Albuminuria, Arsenic may
be of great advantage, Avere it only as a palliative remedy.  In a
case of chronic poisoning reported by Dr. Jackson of  Edinburgh,
Arsenic seems  to  have developed a renal degeneration resembling
albuminuria.   Beside the constitutional symptoms Avhich were pre-
sent in this case, and likeAvise prevail to some extent in albuminuria,
the character of the urinary secretions strongly reminded one of this
disease.   The  urine  Avas scanty,  high-colored, dense, albuminous,
depositing blood-disks and casts of uriniferous  tubes of kidney.
  If the  pathological degenerations which generally result  from
albuminuria, such  as: ascites,  anasarca, phthisis  pulmonalis,  haAre
developed themsehres, Arsenic can only act as a palliative.   In
  Diabetes mellitus, Arsenic is, to  some extent,  indicated  by the
symptoms; it is problematical, hoAvever, Avhether this homoeopath-
icity extends to the essential character of the pathological  process
that is going  on in the organism.   In  this respect we Avill offer the
following suggestions:  The process of nutrition  in  this disease  is
defective  in  a specific direction.   The nutritive principles which
should repair the waste of tissues,  are abnormally eliminated by the
kidneys as saccharine matter.  The carbo-hydrates, of Avhich sugar
is one, do not constitute the basis  of tissue, but sugar  is a most im-
portant agent in the metamorphosis of animal matter.  It is belie\Ted
that the  sugar which is found in  the  liver, owes its origin to the
decomposition  of  albuminates, and more especially to fibrin.  This
fact, which was  first discovered  by  Bernard, and  afterAvards  by
Frerichs,  has  been substantiated  by numerous analyses  made  by
Lehmann of the blood of both the portal and  hepatic veins.  Leh-
mann  likewise suggests that the  tendency  of albuminates  to pass
into the butyric fermentation—a tendency which is more particularly
seen in the case of fibrin and casein—may possibly be accounted for
by the presence of a carbo-hydrate, sugar.   Hence sugar, not only
that Avhich is introduced into the  system in  the form of starch, but
also the sugar which  is manufactured in the organism, is essential  to
the process of assimilation.  Arsenic seems to  strike down this pro-
cess of assimilation in  its very beginning.   The  action of Arsenic
upon the  system is characterized by all those symptoms which  mark
the morbid elimination of sugar by the urine; hence we have a right
to entertain great  hopes from the use of Arsenic in diabetes mellitus.
It may counteract that condition  of the nervous  system which per-
mits the abnormally  excessive formation of sugar in the organism,
and the consequent deficiency in the reproduction of tissue.
   The conversion of  bodies that had been poisoned by large quanti-
ties of Arsenic into adipocere, seems to  show that  Arsenic must hold
some specific relation to the metamorphosis of animal tissues into
fat.  Lehmann has shown very conclusively that  the fats are poAver-
ful auxiliaries in the formation of cells and  tissues, and that, on the
other  hand, sugar is  essential to the formation of fat.  During the
conversion of  bodies into adipocere, every  trace of Arsenic disap-
pears.  Is it irrational to suppose that Arsenic  may be in specific
relation Avith the  inimical principle which, in  the living  organism,
paralyzes the  assimilative nerve-force in a specific  direction, and 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
317
causes the abnormal elimination—in the form of sugar—of the pri-
mary principles essential to the process of reproduction ?
  Yogt claims for Arsenic a higher power to influence  the metamor-
phosis of the tissues, than  is possessed by any vegetable drug.  In
this  respect it  surpasses even most  metals in  penetrating power.
This  may seem more  or less theoretical,  but  the long-continued
effects of Arsenic upon the living tissues evince a power of disorga-
nization which  no other agent can claim to the same  extent.  It is
therefore rational to conclude  that this power may be made use of
for the purpose of extinguishing or neutralizing a pathological pro-
cess which results in such organic disorders as Arsenic is capable of
producing.   Guided by the terms of our law, we  have a right  to
claim this power for Arsenic.   It  is a misfortune that the physical
changes which large doses  of drugs effect  in the  character of the
urinary secretions, have not as yet  been studied by positive experi-
mentation, except in a limited number of cases.   AVhether Arsenic
will, under favorable circumstances, effect the abnormal elimination
of sugar by the urine, remains to be determined by subsequent experi-
mentation.   Barring this uncertainty, Arsenic causes all the consti-
tutional symptoms which supervene in the course of  diabetes mel-
litus, such as: increased flow  of urine, and dryness of the skin  (a
symptom observed by Langhammer and Trousseau); the skin becomes
dry, brittle,  and desquamates; the patient complains of dryness in
the mouth, fauces and trachea;  the thirst becomes unquenchable, the
appetite disappears, the boAvels become costive.   Among the diag-
nostic signs of this disease, Schoenlein mentions a burning extending
from the coeliac plexus along the  oesophagus as far as the mouth.
The patient dwindles  down to a  skeleton, and loses  his  strength,
and very often his teeth.
  All these pathognomonic signs of the disease likewise characterize
the action  of Arseni^  upon the tissues.  Future observation may
determine whether the urine, under  the influence of  Arsenic, Avill
exhibit the modifications which are peculiar to this fluid in diabetes
mellitus, such as:  a tendency  to become opalescent, a  greenish tint,
diminution and gradual disappearance of urea and uric acid, insipid
taste which  gradually  changes to a sAveetish taste  in proportion as
the deposition of sugar increases.   It is possible that  Arsenic may
only be able to palliate this disease.  AVe have treated  diabetes mel-
litus successfully as far as Ave know, but have never depended upon
Arsenic alone.   If the  disease has a rheumatic origin, we have found
it necessary to use  Aconite and Mercurius, either alone or in con-
junction with Arsenic  at suitable intervals.  Arsenic may be used
from the third up to the twelfth potency; of Mercurius we prefer the
third or sixth, and of  Aconite we never use less than fiAre drops of
the German tincture in about twelve table-spoonfuls of Avater.
  In his " Grundgesetze der Physiologic, Pathologie und Homozopa-
thischen Iherapie" Grauvogl mentions the curative virtues of Arsenic
.in diabetes  mellitus, in the folioAving  paragraph,  page  576, of  his
interesting work: "It is not long since complaints Avere heard about
the neglect of Hahnemann and his personal disciples, of not having
examined the urine while  proAung their  drugs;  it was said that 
318
LECTURE XX.
owing to this neglect we had remained ignorant of the fact whether
the urine which was secreted during these provings, contained sugar,
the presence of Avhich in the urinary secretions would enable us to
determine the homoeopathicity of certain drugs to diabetes mellitus.
However, as early as 1852, it is stated  in the  February number of
Heller's Archive for Chemistry and Microscopy, that sugar is found
in the urine after inhaling any sort of anaesthetic vapors; after the
use of agents Avhich depress the oxidizing process in the blood, more
particularly after Arsenic, Lead, Antimony, mercurial salts, Quinine,
Opium, etc.   The valuable effects of large quantities of strong Avines
in the case of diabetic  patients now became perfectly clear to me,
and this explanation came so much more opportunely as I happened
to have  charge of a very obstinate case of diabetes  at  that  very
moment.
   " The buccal cavity of my patient was already as dry as his skin;
he was  absolutely unable to moisten  the least mouthful of bread
with any saliva, and so swallow it.  Tormented by the hallucination
that somebody by his side  was imitating all his bodily functions,
washing, eating, etc.; tortured  by an uuquenchable thirst, he had
become so emaciated that I believed the remainder of his days was
reduced to a few short  hours.   I now  resorted  to Arsenic, which
was indicated by these symptoms.  My patient  was 48  years old,
and had ruined his constitution  by dissipation.  Nevertheless, after
a  treatment of three months, I was enabled  to  restore him to his
position in society.   This case shows how important it is for homoeo-
pathic physicians not to confine themselves to the literature of their
own school, and to appropriate to their OAvn use the experience of
outside practitioners with conscientious care and discretion."

                       SEXUAL GEOUP.
                                           4
   We have already adverted to  the fact  that  Arsenic may cause
swelling, inflammation,  and gangrene of the sexual organs of the
male.  Alberti,  in  his  Jurisprudence  Medicale, Arol. I., page  167,
reports a case where the internal use of  Arsenic caused swelling  of
the testicles.   AVe may  find Arsenic useful in cases of
   Chronic Orchitis, and CEdema of the Scrotum, resulting from, or cha-
racterizing a cachectic state  of the organism, such as  may  gradually
develop itself under the influence of a  scrofulous or  syphilitic
dyscrasia.

   It is well to note the fact that Arsenic seems to be possessed of a
tendency to increase the sexual passion and to promote the secretion
of the seminal fluid in the male and of  the menstrual blood in the
female.   Arsenic causes a  pressure and  profuse secretion of the
menstrual blood.  We may avail ourselves of this symptom in  con-
ditions of general nervous debility, as an indication of Arsenic.

   This agent may likewise prove available in
   Leucorrhoza  of  a corrosive, ichorous character, in females of a
marked scrofulous diathesis, or where the discharge proceeds from 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.                   319
malignant ulceration of the neck of the womb.  In some cases, the
lower, in others the middle and higher preparations may be required.
It may likeAvise be advisable  to  apply a solution of the third or
fourth  potency, centesimal scale, locally.

                    CATAEEHAL GEOUP.

  Arsenic develops a train of symptoms Avhich lead us to infer that
it may be useful in catarrhal  affections of the head and air-passages.
On looking at the pathogenesis of Arsenic, we find that  it causes
excessive coryza or coryza of an acrid nature, hoarseness, tenacious
mucus on the  chest, cough Avith blood-streaked expectoration, or dis-
tressing  and fatiguing cough accompanied with a variety of  other
symptoms which it seems needless to enumerate in this place.
  AVe  may find  Arsenic indicated  in
   Coryza, or Catarrhal Irritation of the Schneiderian membrane, with
redness and swelling,  and discharge of a quantity of thin, acrid,
ichorous fluid.   Also in common
   Cold in the Head, with a good deal of sneezing and acrid discharge
from the nose; the head feels dull and tight, the patient complains
of coldness, creeping chills, feels Aveak, looks  pale, is indisposed to
move about or to attend to business.  In catarrhal affections of the
head, where Arsenic is indicated, Ave shall find, as a  general rule,
that they are symptomatic of
  Influenza, more particularly, if this disease prevails in a community
extensively in consequence of  atmospheric irregularities, or as an
epidemic miasmatic disease.   The  patient feels  very much  pros-
trated ; the  above  mentioned  catarrhal symptoms  are  present in a
more or  less marked degree; the  patient complains of bad taste in
the mouth, feels thirsty, chilly and feverish, he craves cooling drinks,
is sick  at the stomach, feels sore all over, looks sallow and distressed,
is disposed  to sleep, low spirited, tremulous. The respiratory organs
may be more or  less  involved, and Ave may have as other prominent
indications
  Hoarseness, amounting even to complete
  Aphonia, resulting from excessive weakness of the organs of voice,
as if they Avere paralyzed. This condition may be accompanied by
   Cough. The character of the  cough to Avhich Arsenic is in homce-
opathic-specfic  rapport, is delineated in the recorded provings of
this drug.  AVe find  that it is a dry, exhausting cough, or a cough
attended with haAvking up of blood-streaked mucous,  cough Avhich
is particularly violent at night or where the paroxysm is excited by
drinking cold water: the chest feels sore, as if excoriated internally;
the breathing is  oppressed, and the heart  may beat violently.   The
pulse inclines  to be feeble, rather hurried  and irregular;  the tem-
perature of the skin  may be depressed beloAV the  normal standard.
This remark  applies to cough in  connection  Avith influenza, or
catarrhal cough  generally.

                    THOEACIC GEOUP.

  Arsenic affects the nervous ramifications and the mucous lining 
320
LECTURE XX.
 of the respiratory organs, of the lungs as well  as of the bronchial
 tubes.  The various forms of cough, the  suffocating dyspnoea, the
 constrictive oppression, the burning distress in the chest, the Avheezing
 murmur Avhich Arsenic causes, substantiate this doctrine.
   Arsenic seems therefore  eminently homoeopathic to a most  dan-
 gerous affection of the respiratory organs  which some pathologists
 describe under the name of
   Pneumonia notha, and others as Catarrhal Bronchitis, or Bronchitis
 asthenica, Bronchitis senilis.
   Schoenlein describes this affection  as Suffocative Catarrh, to which
 persons of more advanced years are subject.  It is  an exceedingly
 dangerous affection which may terminate  fatally after a very rapid
 course by paralysis of the mucous membrane of the respiratory
 organs.  The  main symptoms in this affection are: a burning distress
 in the chest,  principally behind the sternum; dyspnoea,  violent
 rattling of mucus in the air-passages, fatiguing cough, expectoration
 of semi-transparent, gray, ball-shaped mucus which may float  in a
 quantity of serous fluid. The affection may commence with chilliness
 which may continue for a few days,  during which period it may be
 interrupted by occasional flashes of heat until the heat becomes
 permanent.  The tongue is comparatively clean, there  is a great
 deal of thirst, pulse from one hundred to one hundred and twenty,
 sometimes rather full.  Symptoms of venous congestion, such as:
 bluish lips and  venous  engorgement  of the   cheeks, soon show
 themselves.
  Among the  medicines which are eminently adapted to this condi-
 tion Arsenic is one.   We have  shown on  a  previous occasion  that
 Aconite  is likewise a  leading remedy for  this  dangerous affection.
 We prefer the middle potencies from the sixth to the twelfth.

  Haemoptysis or Bloody  Cough, will yield  to  Arsenic.   Sudden
 attack of suffocative cough, with tickling in the throat-pit; soreness
 either at a seated spot or shifting from one portion of the chest to
 another; excessive oppression; trembling and chilliness, with cold-
 ness of the skin, and a feeble hurried and almost compressible pulse;
 pinched-up features, expression of anxiety  and distress in the coun-
 tenance, sallow, or dingy-brown complexion: these are the leading
 symptoms Avhich  indicate  the use of  Arsenic in haemoptysis.   The
 blood may be  spit up  in various quantities, from a spoonful to  half
 a pintful; it has a bright-red color.
  In pulmonary haemorrhage, where Arsenic is indicated, the symp-
 toms are  often traceable to derangements in the functions of the liver,
 such as  gnawing in the stomach, and unnatural craving for food;
 dryness in the  mouth, frequent  desire for cold drinks, soreness  and
 burning  in  the region of the liver; pain at the shoulder, etc.   All
these symptoms point to Arsenic.

  Phthisis Pulmonalis has been treated with Arsenic, by some Avith
apparent success, and by  others  with no  success at all.   Arsenic
undoubtedly affects the lungs in a specific manner.  Dr. Marcy refers
to a case  of chronic poisoning by Arsenic, to which we have referred 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
321
 on a former occasion, where the symptoms indicate in a most marked
 manner the disorganizing action  of Arsenic  upon the respiratory
 organs.  The  case  was originally reported  in  the London Lancet.
 The prominent symptoms in this case of poisoning were:
   " Sickly look; small, frequent pulse; frequent slight tickling cough,
 or rather hawking without expectoration;  occasional discharge of
 mucus from the bowels, often tinged with blood ; tenesmus and
 griping of  some days' standing; flatulence ;  redness  of the eye-lids
 and lining  membrane of the nostrils; loss of appetite and failure of
 strength; restlessness at night; increasing weakness; dryness  or
 tightness of throat; hoarse voice; later, the stools assume a fatty
 appearance, owing to the presence of pus, as proved by microscopical
 examination ;  tongue red  and fiery, mouth  and lips excoriated,
 anxiety and restlessness very great; percussion reveals tubercular
 infiltration at the summit of both  lungs, most  in the right, indolent
 in both, symptoms resembling tuberculosis of the abdomen and chest;
 conjunctiva much injected;  anus excoriated  ; hiccough, restlessness,
 and  general distress; pulse  130, and  feeble;  urine scanty, high-
 colored,  dense,  albuminous,  depositing blood-disks and  casts  of
 uriniferous tubes of kidneys.  Died with tetanic spasms, with mental
 faculties perfect."

   "The arsenical vapors," says Mahon, in his Medicine Legale, "when
 drawn into the lungs  in great  quantity, render the mouth and  throat
 dry, parched and inflamed;  they first produce  sneezing, then suffo-
 cation, asthma, dry  cough, anxiety, vomiting,-vertigo, pains of the
 head and limbs, tremblings;  and when they do not produce death,
 they lead to Phthisis Pulmonalis."

  Hufeland repudiated the use of Arsenic, because he found that it
 gave rise to phthisis pulmonalis.

  Pachenius informs us,  in his "Hippocrates  Chemicus"  that the
 vapors of Arsenic caused in him dyspnoea, colic, convulsions, bloody
 urine, paralysis of the limbs; milk and oil  moderated the symptoms,
 but Cough and Hectic fever troubled him for a long time.
  Henkel, in his treatise on the "Diseases Incidental to Smelting and
 Mining," says that the vapors of Arsenic cause cough, ulceration of
 the lungs and rapid death.
  In this terrible malady, the arsenical preparations may be of use
 in many cases: but it  would be very unsafe to expect curative effects
from Arsenic in all  cases and forms of phthisis.  It may afford pal-
 liative relief in many, and it may effect a cure  in other cases.   The
choice of Arsenic in  cases of  phthisis where it may possibly be of
use, will depend in a great measure upon the perceptible symptoms,
upon the nature of  the  cough the  character of the  expectoration,
the peculiar kind of distress that the patient experiences in the chest,
and even upon isolated symptoms peculiar to Arsenic.   Auscultation
and percussion may be  resorted to for the purpose of determining
the character and extent of the pathological process that is going on
in the chest; they may inform us that a vomica exists in one locality:
                              21 
322
LECTURE XX.
that it is either empty or filled with pus ;  that the pulmonary pleura
is adhering to the sides of the thorax; where and to what an extent
the pulmonary tissue is infiltrated with blood and purulent matter;
whether a bronchial tube  opens into a vomica ; whether another tube
is dilated.  Auscultation and percussion may develop a very accurate
picture of the physical condition of the lungs.   But this is all that
an examination of the chest by the stethoscope can reveal  to us.  The
physical signs do not enlighten us  concerning the remedial agents
which will counteract and hush up the disorganizing process that is
slowly but surely leading the patient to his grave.

  KnoAving that Arsenic excites in the respiratory organs a process
similar to phthisis, we determine its applicability in particular cases
by the character of the symptomatic  indications.  If these are not
sufficiently precise and definite, we shall not be  able to derive much
benefit from Arsenic or from any other drug.  Among the symptoms
which Avill haA'e to guide us in our  choice, we distinguish the follow-
ing, all of which characterize the action of Arsenic upon the normal
tissues:
  Hoarseness;
  Oppression on the chest;
  Short and laborious respiration, which is often painful;
  Sensation of  rawness and soreness in the chest;
  Titillation in the  wind-pipe, continually,  exciting a cough;  the
titillation is felt even when the patient does not draw in air;
  Dry,  hacking cough, also with  expectoration of blood-streaked
mucus;
  Burning distress in the  chest;
  The cough is excited by swallowing cold  liquids, water, etc.
  Chilliness in  the Interior of the Chest, also after supper.
  In  phthisis  pulmonalis,  especially in the  tubercular form  of
phthisis, the Iodide of Arsenic, second or  third trituration, may be
substituted for Arsenious acid, giving it in  half grain doses every two
or three hours.

  Arsenic may be adapted to.
  Phthisis Mucosa or Pituitosa, if the patient should be troubled with
dyspnoea and constrictive, suffocative paroxysms on the chest; or if
an exhausting, offensive diarrhoea  should set in, or if debilitating
night-sweats preceded by  creeping  chills  and fever, should become
very troublesome.  In this condition  of the system,  China might be
used in alternation with Arsenic.   The middle  potencies may per-
haps be the most serviceable.

  In the last stage of Tubercular Phthisis, Arsenic may  relieve  the
burning and dyspnoea which often distresses  the patient.   In
  Bronchitis, Arsenic may be of service, if the  ulcerative stage has
begun to set in.  There may be great tickling in the throat-pit, and
excessive soreness in the terminal ramifications  of the air-passages.
The racking  cough and the expectoration of bloody pus having  a
sweetish, sickening, offensive taste,  together with the constitutional 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
323
symptoms such as: trembling, debility, loss  of appetite  and flesh,
etc., point to Arsenic, from the eighteenth to the thirtieth potency.
In the stage of
  Pneumonia, which  we  term  the stage of white  hepatization,
Arsenic may be of use to the patient.  The lungs have a grayish
appearance in consequence of the parenchyma being infiltrated with
exuded  lymph, which  is traversed here and there by streaks of
the remaining pulmonary tissue.  When  this stage of the disease
sets in, the face becomes pale and disfigured, the 'breathing anxious
and panting, the pulse small and feeble, the forehead is covered with
a clammy sweat.  Give Arsenic twelfth to eighteenth potency.
  Arsenic may likewise be in homoeopathic rapport with pneumonia
in the stage of red hepatization.  In cases of poisoning, inflammation
of the lungs has frequently occurred.  Christison mentions a number
of such instances.  " Dr. Campbell tAvice found great congestion of
blood in the lungs of animals poisoned by the application of Arsenic
outwardly.  Sproegel  likewise found the  pleura, pericardium, and
whole lungs deeply inflamed in animals.
   "A distinct example of advanced pneumonia in man is related in
Pyl's Magazine: the patient died  after vomiting and purging inces-
santly for eight days; on dissection, the lungs were  found  in  the
highest  state of inflammation, and so  congested  as to resemble a
lymph of clotted blood.  A distinct case of the same nature is related
in Henke's Journal; this patient had obvious pneumonia symptoms
during life ; and in the dead body the  lungs were found so gorged
that, on being cut into, nothing could be seen but clotted blood in
their cellular structure.  In Eoux's case, where Arsenic was applied
externally to a scirrhous ulcer, excessive  congestion  was found in
the lungs, both lungs being completely gorged with blood and pre-
senting all the characters of pulmonary apoplexy."
   These post-mortem appearances'do  not, strictly speaking, consti-
tute therapeutic indications; they are of no immediate avail to us
in the selection of a drug.  The  subjective phenomena  occurring
during  life  may be  rendered clearer  to us  in fatal  cases by  the
existing post-mortem  changes;   but  in all subsequent cases of a
similar order, the selection of the drug to be administered  in  -the
case Avill necessarily depend upon the character of the subjective
phenomena and  upon the physical signs.  In pneumonia Arsenic
may be indicated by a peculiar order of symptoms, excessive oppres-
sion, violent  chills succeeded by a burning fever and rapid, hard
and bounding  pulse; dark flushes in the  face  which exhibits a
sallow, jaundiced tint as its ground color;  the patient  complains of
paroxysms of tearing,  racking cough  with expectoration of pure
blood and blood-streaked mucus;  palpitation of  the  heart, intense
soreness in  the chest,  burning  and  stinging pains  in  the  chest.
Nausea and Amounting of bile and mucus may not be wanting.  Give
the sixth to the twelfth potency,  sometimes loAver.

   The effects of Arsenic upon the  respiratory organs shoAv that it
must be in curatiAre relations Avith
   Asthma.   On reading OA'erthe symptoms obtained by proving, we 
324
LECTURE XX.
shall find that Arsenic causes: Constriction  of the chest, dyspnoea,
asthma, oppression and anxiety, anxious  and moaning respiration,
suffocative feeling.
  Buchner informs  us in his  Eepertory  for Pharmacy, that Waltl
had inhaled during the  day the vapors of six  grains of arsenious
acid, which he had thrown  upon red-hot charcoal, and that he had
not experienced any bad effects from  it except an offensive odor.
After having slept for two hours in the evening, he suddenly awoke
with a feeling of oppressive anxiety, gasped for  air, the Avindpipe
felt as if constricted, and he fancied he should  suffocate; his pulse
was irregular and hurried;  he  had violent headache.  After  the
vapors had been permitted to escape through the open window, he
laid down very faint; a profuse sweat broke out; next morning he
only felt a little headache.   One of his companions fared still worse.
  AVe therefore have a  right to  recommend Arsenic  in  asthma,
especially if the attacks come  on  at  night;  for this nightly super-
vention or exacerbation of the symptoms is characteristic of Arsenic.
The paroxysms of asthma to  which Arsenic is homoeopathic,  are
characterized  by a  feeling  of suffocative  constriction and  anxiety
in the chest, paleness  of the  face, feeble, hurried and sometimes
irregular pulse.  The  paroxysm  may gradually terminate  in heat
and dryness  of the skin, gradual breaking out of perspiration and
loose  cough.

  Asthma has frequently been cured with Arsenic.
  Dr. Attomyr treated a wine-merchant who had  been  suffering for
•eight years with spasms in the chest every evening; asthma, wheez-
ing expirations; had to sit up bent forward; gradually the orthopnoea
increased, the expiration had  a fine wheezing  sound.   Agonizing
anguish and sweat all over.  The paroxysm lasted from three to four
hours; after the paroxysm, the patient felt a burning, sore pain in the
chest.   Going into the cellar caused the attack.   After  Arsenic 30,
the patient had no more attacks, and was  able to bear the cellar.

  Dr. Gaspary relates the following case: A cloth  weaver thirty-two
years old, tall and slender, had been suffering for  a year as  follows:
weakness of memory, dull feeling in the head,  pressure in the forehead
and right temple; right eye red  and inflamed, with pressure, pain
and drawing.  Dim sight; sees things as through gauze ; nightly pain
in the teeth and malar bone of right side, a throbbing, eased by warm
fomentations.  The teeth feel elongated ; mouth full of mucus, wants
.to spit all the time; no  appetite;  constant cough, with tenacious
mucus on the chest; cough with asthma after lying down; he has to
sit up.   Stitches through the head when  coughing.  Flow of water
from the mouth when coughing;  the mucus is yellowish-white, tena-
cious.  Sensation as if the chest had too  little air, especially in the
pit of the  stomach; at every movement he loses his  breath, feels
anxious and prostrated, as if he should die; sleeplessness; depression
of the spirits; his limbs feel sore and painful.  One dose of Arsenic
cured him in four weeks.
  Angina  Pectoris is another affection  which Arsenic may cure. 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
325
Arsenic causes a similar affection.   According to Myrrhen, Arsenic
causes " a sudden nocturnal paroxysm of suffocative catarrh."  The
paroxysm as described by Myrrhen, constitutes the disease which
modern  pathologists describe as  angina pectoris.   Hahnemann
informs us in a foot-note to Arsenic that he cured himself of such an
attack, which came on every evening after lying down, and finally
brought  him to the brink  of the grave, by means  of  a very small
dose of Arsenic.
  Alexander informs us that he cured a most formidable case of
angina pectoris by means of five drops of Fowler's solution taken
three times a day.

  Arsenic will prove of great benefit in affections of the heart.
  AVibmer thus sums up the  action of  this poison upon the heart?
" The heart  is generally relaxed, not engorged with blood; in the
interior of the heart, and especially on the columnae carneae and  on
the valves of the  ventricles,  particularly those  of the left,  we fre-
quently perceive a redness spread over a greater or less extent; in
most cases Ave see small, red spots  penetrating into the fleshy sub-
stance to the depth of one or more lines.   The pericardium generally
contains  a little serum.  The blood in most cases has a dark color,
is blackish and viscid, coagulated."
  These  post-mortem changes  contain those which Orfila describes
as having occurred irf*a case of poisoning examined judiciously at
Paris by this learned man.  The case having been brought before
the Imperial Academy of Medicine, it was distinctly shown by many
members that the redness seen on the inner surface of  the heart, so
far from  being the result of inflammation, was produced by sangui-
neous extravasations.   Christison,  Flandin and other toxicologists,
deny the correctness of Orfila's conclusions that Arsenic may induce
endocarditis.
  Be this, however, as it may, the  symptoms observed during life,
show that Arsenic must be an important agent in affections of the
heart.  The symptomatic indications which point to Arsenic in affec-
tions of  the heart, are various:  Dyspnoea,  feeling  of constriction
across the chest, palpitation of the heart; anxiety, sense of suffocation;
irregularity and intermission of the pulse, which is moreover jerking
and  rather hard;  burning distress in the chest and region of the
heart; dry, barking, fatiguing cough;  immediately after coughing,
the breath becomes very short as if the chest  were constricted.

  In  Pericarditis,  these symptoms  occur in a measure.   In this
disease Arsenic should not be forgotten.  In idiopathic pericarditis
arising from exposure to a draught of air or generally of a rheumatic
character, Arsenic  may  be unavailing; Aconite, Pulsatilla, etc., may
be indicated in such cases.  But in pericarditis, developing itself by
a process of metaschematismus, or as  a sequela of  scarlet-fever,
under  the influence  of some constitutional dyscrasia, Arsenic may
prove eminently useful.

  In Hydro-pericarditis, or Dropsy of the Pericardium, if arising under 
326
LECTURE XX.
circumstances like the foregoing, Arsenic is in its place.  In  acute
pericarditis arising from the sudden suppression of an acute inflam-
matory eruption such as measles or scarlatina, it may be  advisable
to give Arsenic in alternation with the tincture of Aconite.  Dropsy
of the pericardium may likewise develop itself suddenly in conse-
quence of the sudden suppression of the menstrual discharge.  In
such a case Arsenic may have to be used in conjunction with Aconite
and Pulsatilla.  But when arising from causes similar to those which
have been mentioned under pericarditis, Arsenic and Digitalis may
have chiefly to be depended upon.  In acute or sub-acute cases, and
in the  case of children, we prefer the lower preparations; in the case
of older persons, or in slow, chronic cases, the middle.

  In  Carditis Serosa, or inflammation of the serous membrane  re-
flected over the heart, Arsenic may be useful in the progress of the
disease, if the pulse becomes feeble and contracted, the coldness of
the extremities increases, and  the countenance of the patient ex-
presses anxiety and restlessness.  If exudation takes place*, so that
the beats of the heart become imperceptible, or are felt  posteriorly,
in the  region of the shoulder blade, Arsenic is often  the only agent
capable of counteracting the morbid process, especially in impover-
ished, cachectic constitutions.
  In the acute form of the  disease, where it  has developed itself
from inflammation of the pleura, or in consequence of rheumatic
exposure, or of menstrual suppression through fright, etc., it is indis-
pensable to commence  the treatment  with the  lower potencies of
Aconite.
  From the  post-mortem symptoms reported  by Orfila, we Avould
seem to have  a right to infer that Arsenic may be useful in inflam-
mations of the internal membrane of the heart, which may result in
exudations and polypus formations of the ventricles; whence this
form of carditis is very  aptly designated as
   Carditis Polyposa.   The disease may be of rheumatic origin, or it
may have been caused by a fright.  In such a case, Aconite is indis-
pensable at the outset of the treatment.  The symptoms are exceed-
ingly marked: excessive  restlessness and anxiety, violent contrac-
tions and palpitations of the heart; rigors, burning heat and dryness
of the skin, violent thirst.  Aconite should be given in tincture-form
or from five  to ten drops of the first decimal  attenuation in ten
table-spoonfuls of water; but if the dyspnoea increases to orthopnoea;
if the   rigors occur  in  the  midst of the burning heat; or if the
extremities become cold, and a cold  clammy sweat begins to  show
itself upon the forehead: Arsenic has to be given, or even before,
if after repeated doses of Aconite the patient experiences no relief.  In
   Carditis Scorbutica, scorbutic inflammation of the heart, where the
attacks set in with livid color in the face, dirty-yellow appearance
around the mouth, symptoms of scorbutic disorganization, enlarge-
ment of the liver, etc., Arsenic is probably the only  medicine that
can do any good.

  In Fatty Degeneration of the Heart, Arsenic may prove useful.  We 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
3l7
know of no agent that is possessed, to a greater extent than Arsenic,
of the power of effecting a morbid deposition of adipose matter in
the tissues.   AVe know that in slow cases of poisoning by Arsenic,
this species of abnormal metamorphosis has taken place in the pul-
monary parenchyma, in the kidneys, and in the intestinal canal.  In
a case reported in Frank's Magazine, a young man discharged fatty
masses from  the bowels.   In a  case reported by  Morgagni, and
quoted by Hahnemann,  the patient passed a ball-shaped clot which
seemed  to  be composed of tallow  mixed with  tendinous matters.
This  took  place  eight days  after  poisoning.  We need  hardly
remind  the reader of the remarkable property possessed by Arsenic
of converting dead animal tissue into adipocere.
   The symptoms which are present during this abnormal metamor-
phosis, likeAvise point to Quinine: slow and  feeble  pulse, fainting
turns, neuralgic pains in the chest, dyspnoea.   The arcus senilis, by
which we  understand a fatty degeneration of  the  cornea  of old
people,  is usually accompanied with fatty degeneration of the heart.

   In  Hydrothorax, Arsenic may afford relief.  This disease may  be
symptomatic of organic disease of the heart, or lungs, in which case
a cure is impossible.   Idiopathic hydrothorax  may  yield to treat-
ment.  If the patients are of an impoverished constitution, subject
to fainting turns, oppressed by anguish, suffering with great dysp-
noea,  feeling  worse in the night, extremities inclining to be  cold,
face bloated  and  clammy, expression of suffering and dread in the
features, small, feeble, hurried and somewhat irregular pulse, thirst,
inability to drink cold  water without coughing: we  may prescribe.
Arsenic.
                 LECTURE  XXI.

                       FEVEE GEOUP.

  Arsenic is a valuable remedy in various fevers which we find
clearly delineated among the effects of Arsenic  upon the  healthy
tissues.  In
  Bilious  Remittent fever, Arsenic is an invaluable remedy.   The
symptoms which indicate Arsenic  in  this  disease, are:  Nightly
exacerbations, which constitute a characteristic  peculiarity of the
action of Arsenic.   The fever sets in with  a severe chill, followed
by burning heat and excessive dryness of the skin, and  afterwards
profuse  and debilitating sweat.  During the fever, the patient  is
attacked with a racking headache as if the skull would fly to pieces;
he vomits quantities- of green  and yellow bile, with excessive
retching, looks sallow,  is tormented  by thirst, and yet the water
he drinks excites  the  vomiting.  The tongue  looks exceedingly
foul,  the taste in the mouth is  very unpleasant; the bowels are 
328
LECTURE XXI.
either costive and feel bloated, or else they are loose, the discharges
being slimy, liquid, bilious, blackish and  having an  exceedingly
fetid  smell.  The urine looks very dark, almost black, has  a very
foul smell and throws  down a very thick, dark-looking sediment
Avhich adheres to the sides of the vessel.   The patient groAvs weaker
from  day to day, loses  flesh, feels low-spirited, and looks the very
picture of suffering and despair.  Arsenic from  the 3d to the 6th
may prove most serviceable.

   Gastric and  Mucous  fevers may likeAvise require Arsenic.  In
gastric fever the patient's complexion, except the fever-flushes on
his cheeks, is  of a  dirty-sallow; the tongue has a  thick  slimy
grayish-looking coating upon it;  the patient complains of nausea,
foul taste,  thirst, loathing of food, dry and hot  skin, constipation,
bloating  of  the bowels which, however, may not  be hard, dark and
foul smelling urine.
  In  Mucous fever, the  tongue  has a  thick  coating of a tenacious
grayish-yellow  mucus  upon  it;  the mouth  is  dry,  the • patient
complains of much thirst, feels nauseated  after drinking, is restless,
low-spirited, has a very foul taste in the mouth, spits up a  good deal
of watery mucus having a foul  taste;  the breath is offensive, appe-
tite gone, urinary secretions very scanty, the urine  having a red or
deep yellow appearance ; alternate diarrhoea and constipation;  irreg-
ular chills,  heat  and dryness  of the  skin,  profuse  prespiration
preceded by anxiety; flushed face with burning pain  in the head,
extreme debility.  In cases of poisoning,  the autopsy has often re-
vealed an universal inflammation of the mucous lining, showing that
in inflammatory conditions of this membrane, Arsenic  must  be of
great use.
  In these fevers, the third to  sixth potency  may be  found most
suitable.

  In Rheumatic fever, Arsenic may be valuable. The symptoms may
be, in a measure, similar to those which have been  indicated under
Gastric and Mucous fevers, modified in so far as they originated in
purely rheumatic exposure, and  hence complicated with rheumatic
phenomena, such as:  swelling, pain and rigidity of the joints and
muscles of the arms and legs; inflammatory symptoms in the region
of the bladder, liver, bowels, the  patient  complaining  of soreness,
stitches in various parts, burning  pains in the head, region of  the
liver, bladder, etc.; excessive derangement  of the  biliary, urinary
and alvine secretions, as indicated by foul tongue, sickness  at  the
stomach, difficult urination, diarrhoea, followed by a paralytic ina-
bility of the bowels to move, loathing of food, excessive  restlessness,
internal chills followed by the breaking out of profuse and debili-
tating perspiration, and  accompanied by a feeling of anxiety.
  Homoeopathic physicians are too much in the habit of overlooking
the property inherent in Arsenic, of exciting inflammatory action.
They generally associate with Arsenic the idea of asthenia, weakness.
There is  no doubt that prostration of strength is  one  of  the most
prominent effects of Arsenic upon the healthy organism; but it is 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
329
an equally well established fact, that Arsenic will irritate and inflame
the mucous membranes, and that the irritative fever caused by this
agent may be characterized by an inflammatory type, although a
tendency to asthenia, to deep nervous derangements, soon becomes
manifest.

   The cure of
  Intermittent fevers is one of the great triumphs of Arsenic.  Even
allceopathic physicians regard Arsenic as a sort of panacea for this
class of fevers.  One of the principal experimenters with Arsenic,
among the allceopathic fraternity, is Boudin, physician-in-chief to the
military hospital du Eoule, in Paris.  His mode of using Arsenic in
marsh-intermittents, and the results which he has  obtained, are con-
tained in a  publication, entitled: " Treatise on intermittent and  con-
tagious fevers of marsh  districts, followed by investigations  regarding
the therapeutic employment of arsenical preparations."  The number of
fever  and ague patients which Boudin has treated with Arsenic, in
the hospitals  of Marseilles, Arersailles and Paris, where  he was suc-
cessively stationed, amounts to upAvards of four thousand.  Boudin
affirms, that since the year lb43, he has never given a single dose of
Quinine for fever and ague.
  In his treatise, Boudin quotes Hahnemann, not only approvingly,
but respectfully.  He administers  the arsenious acid in the Ilahne-
mannian fashion, by triturating one-fifth of a grain of this agent Avith
twenty grains of sugar of milk.   This triturated mass is divided into
twenty powders, each powder containing the one hundreth part  of a
grain.  The powder may be dissolved in water, the solution to be
taken about six hours previous to the paroxysm.  As far as the dose
is  concerned, this may  be  considered a  strictly homoeopathic pre-
scription.   Out of 266 fever and ague patients whom Boudin treated
in 1852, 118  were cured with Arsenic alone ;  57 were cured with
Arsenic, after having previously taken  Quinine without effect; 13
Avere cured with  Quinine, upon whom Arsenic had  no effect, and 8
remained uncured both under Quinine  and  Arsenic.  This would
seem to show that neither the one nor the other is a specific for fever
and ague, and that there must be other agents suitable to those eight
remaining cases.  We might, however, reserve to ourselves the pri-
vilege of ascribing the imperfect success of the Arsenic and Quinine
in these  eight cases to the imperfect manner of exhibiting these
agents.  Boudin's present mode of exhibiting the arsenious acid, in
fever  and ague, is expressed in the following three rules, which we
find stated  in the first volume of Trousseau and Pidoux' Materia
Medica :
  " Rule 1st.   Commence the treatment with an emetic (Ipecacuanha
20 grains, or Tartar  Emetic two grains,) if the fever is accompanied
with symptoms of gastric disturbance, suppression or simple decrease
of appetite.
  " After the fever has been arrested, give another emetic, provided
the appetite is not entirely restored : so  that the patient may use as
soon as possible a generous diet.
  " Rule 2d.   Give arsenious  acid in fractional doses, that is,  one 
330
LECTURE XXI.
dose divided into several, the last dose to be given at least two hours
before the time when the paroxysm is expected to come on ; propor-
tion the close according to the  character of  the fever, which  varies
according to locality, season, and the individuality of the patient.
  "Give the arsenious acid until tolerance is  reached, so as gradually
to arrive at the largest possible dose, giving eyery quarter of an hour
the one-fiftieth or only the one-hundredth part of  a grain.
  "As  the  patient bears less  of the  Arsenic, diminish  the dose
gradually, and continue to administer the drug in fractional doses ;
if necessary, give it by the rectum.
  "Give  the  drug both  during the  paroxysms and during the
apyrexia.
  " Continue it during an interval proportionate  to the duration of
the disease, and  to its resistance to  other and previously instituted
modes of treatment.   In a first attack of fever and ague, the  drug
should be continued at least for a week after the last paroxysm.
  " Rule 3d  Use a substantial and abundant diet, to be limited by
the appetite and the digestive  powers of the patient.  The diet to
consist  principally of beef, roast mutton; a generous  wine  to be
ordered, in  quantities proportionate to the weakened state  of the
constitution of the patient; watery beverages to be avoided as much
as possible."
  The fractional doses of Arsenic  were undoubtedly suggested to
Boudin's mind by Hahnemann.  One fiftieth of a grain may seem a
large dose to some  of us, but there are  cases of fever and ague
where it may not be  large enough, and where one fifth of a grain
may be  required.  Some  homoeopathic physicians profess to cure
fever and ague with the two hundredth potency of Arsenic.
  Boudin believes—and some homoeopathic  writers with him—that
fever-and-ague is caused, not by the effluvia of stagnant water, or by
the emanations of decayed vegetable matter, but by the emanations
arising from living plants.  Teste avows his adherence to this doctrine,
and, with a full  reliance in its  soundness, goes on to mention several
plants as the  primary causes of marsh intermittents.   " Such are,
among others, the chara vulgaris, the riziphorus, the calamus, and the
anthoxanthum odoratum; and,  according  to Humboldt, the roots of
the mangrove tree, and of the  mancamilla, which,  when not covered
by  Avater, are  supposed by the inhabitants of India to be productive
of fever."
  This doctrine, plausible as it may seem, mistakes an effect for the
cause.   If  these  plants   occasion  the  marsh-intermittents, they
certainly must be our very best, yea our specific means of curing
them.   The terms of  our law Avould lead us to believe this.  If this
be so, where is the use of seeking  a remedy for  fever and ague in
the forests of  Huanco or in the bowels of the earth ?  Those  living
plants, if they have any relation to the  marsh-intermittent miasm,
are an effect, not the cause  of this principle.

  Our provings of Arsenic show that this'heroic agent must be
eminently adapted to  the cure of fever and ague.  They embrace all
the  pathognomonic signs of fever and ague.  There  is a marked 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
331
periodicity in  the  fever-paroxysms caused  by Arsenic.  Arsenic
causes  all the  secondary  pains, the  gastric  derangements, the
prostration and the mental depression which  generally characterize
an attack of fever and ague.   Thirst occurs more particularly during
the hot stage.   The symptoms of congestion are more marked during
paroxysms requiring. China, the  symptoms of bilious derangement
during  the paroxysms  controlled  by Arsenic.   This is  to  be
understood in a relative sense, for these two orders of phenomena
exist to some  extent in either  form of the disease.  According to
Boudin, Arsenic cures fever and ague by setting up an action in the
organism which  extinguishes  the  natural  disease.   This is the
common doctrine of  counter-irritation, no more  nor less.   Is this
true ?  Is there not some supreme condition required, some peculiar
adaption of the drug to the disease, in order that a cure may be
secured?  If  Arsenic had  power  to  extinguish  the intermittent-
miasm in an absolute sense, would  not every curable case of this
disease yield to the influence of  that powerful agent?   There are
cases which remain uncured in spite of the most powerful doses of
Arsenic.   Others  remain uncured in spite of Quinine.  Does not
this show that, unless Arsenic  is given in cases to which  it has a
peculiar, specific adaptation, it  cannot  cure fever  and ague?   This
cure depends upon the presence of a principle, in Arsenic, that shall
affect  the nervous system, as nearly as may be, like the essential
principle  which  constitutes the deleterious property of marsh-
intermittents.   If there be an  agent in nature which embodies a
similar or identical principle more  fully  than Arsenic, that  agent
will supersede Arsenic in  all cases where this  superior affinity
prevails.

  In cases of fever and ague, to  which Arsenic is in homoeopathic
adaptation, this agent will likewise cure the disorders  which may
result from the fever, such as
   Oedema of the feet, face and hands;
  Anasarca and Ascites, and
   Enlargement of the Liver and Spleen.   In these affections, if result-
ing from the  cause mentioned,  Arsenic is indispensable, though it
may not be sufficient in all cases.

  In Typhus, Arsenic is often an invaluable agent, more particularly
in those forms of typhus which are marked by a deeply-rooted disor-
ganization of the vital fluids.   In the case of poisoning reported in the
British Journal, to which allusion has been made previously, Arsenic
speedily developed  symptoms of  typhus, viz.: dryness of the tongue
and lips, which were moreover cracked and covered with blood and sordes.

  Arsenic causes  Patechial and Miliary Eruptions, another symptom
of typhus.

  Arsenic causes dryness and coldness of the skin, or clammy sweat;
tremulous,  hurried  and feeble  pulse;  general trembling;  scanty
secretion or retention of urine, dark and foul-smelling urine ; cadav- 
332
LECTURE XXI.
erous stools;  thick brown, blackish coating of the tongue;  vomiting
of bile and  dark  blood,  emaciation, paralytic  Aveakness  of the
extremities;  deep-seated pain in the head, stupefaction, muttering
delirium, sense of fright as if some  dreadful  accident or  danger
were impending; sinking  of  the features,  Avith an expression of
terror and distress in the countenance.

  In Typhus Petechialis,  Typhus of the Bowels and Liver, Arsenic
will prove eminently useful.

  Our  literature abounds in beautiful cases of this disease, where
Arsenic was the only remedy used.
  In one case the patient had been given up  by his homoeopathic
attendants.   Our advice  was requested.    We found the  patient
stupid and delirious, though at times his consciousuess would return;
petechiae from  which blood  oozed  in various parts of the body;
teeth  and  tongue  covered with black  sordes;  gums  bleeding;
haemorrhage from the nose, conjunctiva and from under the finger-
nails ;  abdomen soft, but A^ery sensitive in the ileo-ccecal region;
stools involuntary and cadaverous;  urine  very dark and foul;  skin
cold and  clammy,  pulse  hurried, small,  tremulous, 120; counte-
nance sunken, sallow, general emaciation.   He was attended by two
homoeopathic physicians, but  had never had  Arsenic/ which,  how-
ever, was the only  remedy indicated.  We gave him Arsenic 18,
and in  one  fortnight thereafter, the patient was able to attend to his
business.

  In another case the  patient complained of  a black  cloud which
seemed hovering in the very centre of his brain;  tongue  darkly
coated and dry as leather ; bowels constipated  and  tympanitic; an
injection brought away dark and foul masses;  urine dark, foul and
very thick, skin dry and hot, at times cold and clammy; pulse about
120,  soft, undulating, feeble;  stupefying  headache, etc.   Arsenic
alone effected a perfect cure.

  In another case we found the  patient sitting on the  edge of the
bed, with his elbows resting on  his  knees, trembling all over  like
an aspen-leaf; pulse 140, full and jerking; tongue thickly coated
with a  grayish-yellow slime;  skin dry as  parchment and burning;
agonizing thirst, excessive distress under the right  shoulder-blade;
expression of intense distress  and  terror  in the  features, constant
retching and vomiting.  In this incipient typhus  hepaticus Arsenic
1st at once effected a radical change  in the  symptons, arrested the
convulsive trembling so that the patient Avas able to lie quietly in
his bed, and finally restored his health in one fortnight from the day
when we first saw him.   In all these cases Arsenic acted as a specific
for no other reason  than because it  has poAVer to develop precisely
such symptoms as we have to contend against.

  In Puerperal Typhus, Arsenic  is indicated in the  last stage, when
involuntary discharges of foul, cadaverously-smelling disorganized 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.                    333
blood and mucus sets in, miliaria or  petechiae break  out, the pulse
becomes filiform, hurried;  the skin is cold and dry, covered with a
muddy, clammy sweat, etc.

  Let us not forget Arsenic in Infantile Remittent Fever, or Mesenteric
Ganglionitis, when the disease  has entered upon the second  stage,
the stage  of  suppuration of  the mesenteric glands.   The fever
assumes the hectic type, with distinct  evening-exacerbations and
night-sweats, emaciation, foul diarrhoeic discharges from the bowels.
A more complete statement may be found on  page 283.

  In Hectic fever generally, Arsenic is only indicated in so far as it
is required for the treatment of the general affection.

  In certain forms of the scorbutic diathesis or in
  Scorbutic fever, as we have designated  this pathological condition
when describing the Fever group of Aconite,  Arsenic may be indis-
pensable.   It  seems to poison the blood similarly to the scurvy -
miasm, causing petechial exudations on the skin, haemorrhagic effu-
sions in internal organs, fetor of the mouth, sponginess and bleeding
of the gums, black sordes on the teeth,  excessive prostration, ema-
ciation, etc.  We may therefore  recommend  Arsenic as  eminently
useful in
  Purpura Hemorrhagica Werlhofii, where the tendency to  disor-
ganization of the blood, effusions from  the capillaries, prostration,
constitute characteristic signs of  the disease.  In the simple form of
this disease, where the capillary  haemorrhage seems to result from
deficient irritability  of  the capillary tissue rather than from  an
impaired vitality and consequent disorganization of the blood,—a
form of purpura which may supervene in consequence of a sudden
cause,  fright, rheumatic exposure,—Aconite may be not only useful
but necessary  and sufficient for a cure; but in the malignant form
of this disease, where the blood is poisoned and the irritability of
the capillary tissue becomes extinct in  consequence of the altered
vitality of  the blood,  such remedies  as Arsenic, Hyoscyamus,
Ammonium  carbonicum,  become indispensable.  Of Arsenic, the
middle and  higher  potencies will  be found most  useful  in this
disorder.

                 EXANTIIEMATOUS GEOUP.

  Arsenic develops petechiae,  miliaria,  pustulous,  tuberculoid and
ulcerous disorganization of the skin.  Hence we may find Arsenic
indicated in
  Pemphigus, with distressing burning in the bullae.
   Blotches, red, fiery, burning and itching, hard and scaly.
   Scarlatina miliaris, Avhen the eruption assumes a malignant char-
acter, the vesicles collapse, the skin,  from  burning  hot  changes to
cold, the pulse collapses, the boAvels discharge involuntarily a foul
and slimy, watery substance, etc.
   Variola and Varioloid, under similar  circumstances as  in miliary 
334
.LECTURE XXI.
scarlatina, with collapse of the pustules, coldness of the skin, sinking
and extreme rapidity of the pulse, stupor, foul  and involuntary dis-
charges from the bowels;
   Malignant pustulous  Erysipelas to which your attention has been
directed on previous occasions.
   Anthrax, for which we refer the reader to page 302.
   Chronic Urticaria or nettle-rash, with furious burning and itching,
and praecordial anxiety, oppression,  restlessness and trembling.
   Crusta  serpiginosa, with rapid  spreading of the crusty eruption,
and oozing of corrosive ichor from under the crusts.
   Psoriasis  diffusa, with cracking of the  skin, rhagades, oozing of
blood and serum, furious burning and itching;
   Tinea capitis maligna, with formation of thick, dark crusts secre-
tion of an ichorous bloody, fetid pus, matting the hair and causing it
to fall out.
   Ichthyosis,  a  disease, where the epidermis becomes harsh, dry and
scaly, like the scales of fishes; this  disorganization is designated by
the term Ichthyosis, from the Greek name ichthus, a fish.
   Elephantiasis, the skin becoming thick, rugose, tuberculoid and
insensible.  The legs may become enormously swollen like the legs
of an elephant; hence the name of the disease.  AAre have also the
   Elephantiasis of Cayenne or mal rouge de Cayenne, with red and
yellow spots on  the forehead,  ears, nose,  hands,  loins,  etc.; these
gradually spread further, becoming  scaly, and resulting in disorgan-
ization, rhagades, ulceration and caries of the affected parts.
   Other forms of this loathsome disease, such as the
   Elephantiasis of Java, characterized  by large white tumors of a
scrofulous nature,  and gradually ulcerating and destroying both the
soft and osseous tissues, likewise require the use of Arsenic.
   Lepra  or  Leprosy cannot be treated without Arsenic.  In this
disease the skin may be covered with scales, crusts or tubercles.  In
some forms of lepra the scales are whitish, in others livid.  Elephan-
tiasis is a species of lepra.  Pellagra, a disease that  seems to have
been endemic in the district of Milan, Italy, is likeAvise a species of
lepra.
  It has  been very  commonly  observed that the sexual passion
becomes  powerfully roused in lepra.  This furnishes an additional
indication for the use of Arsenic.

  Arsenic is  of the utmost importance in the treatment of
  Malignant  Ulcers, secreting a  thin, ichorous, offensive pus,  Avith
distressing burning, destruction of the soft parts, bleeding.
  We have alluded to cancerous ulceration on a former page.

  Lupus,  a  phagedenic ulcer, so named because  it eats away the
soft and cartilaginous parts, requires Arsenic.   It  may be  necessary
to apply this agent even externally; this should be done cautiously,
so as to prevent poisonous effects Avhich are so common  under Old-
School treatment.   The third  or  sixth  potency, applied  externally
may facilitate  the action of a  similar  or  higher  potency used in-
ternally. 
ARSENICUM  ALBUM.                    335
  Arsenic is also useful in
  Prurigo, for it causes a burning itching of the whole body, and in
  Pityriasis, or desquamation of the skin, which  comes off in small
bran-shaped scales, and particularly in
  Alopecia or Baldness, when resulting from excessive dryness of the
scalp, with scaling off of the epidermis.  This may be an idiopathic
condition of the scalp, and also a symptom of general marasmus.
  Falling off of the Nails, may be a result of a diseased condition of
the nails, and also a symptom of marasmus.

  In the treatment of acute eruptions to which Arsenic is specifically
homoeopathic, very small doses of this agent are sometimes  able to
effect a speedy and permanent cure.
  A case of Crusta serpiginosa arising from bad vaccine and spread-
ing in thirty-six hours over the whole of the upper arm, face, neck
and part  of the  thorax, forming horrid,  thick,  green and brown-
looking crusts, with discharge of a most  corrosive ichor, burning
and itching, was completely cured in three days by a single globule
of Arsenic 200.  The  Arsenic was given  at night,  the  crusts were
perfectly dry next morning, and fell off in three days thereafter.

  A robust man of forty-three years  had his face, chest, neck, fore-
arms and  hands covered with ichorous, burning ulcers;  at first red
pimples broke out, which soon discharged a yellowish pus, forming
crusts and  sores;  the patient had moreover chills, yellow diarrhoea;
tongue coated dirty yellow;  yellow urine; spirits depressed. Arsenic
30th cured him at once.

  Dr. Kretzschmar treated a young student for a red looking, burn-
ing herpes between  the shoulder-blades; at night the burning Avas
horrible; the parts were covered Avith vesicles; in fiA*e days a similar
herpes broke out in the pit of stomach, as  if he had been burnt by
sulphuric acid; Arsenic 30 cured him in  one day.

  Arsenic has  caused dropsical effusions and oedema; hence we may
prescribe it in

  Anasarca, more particularly after fever  and ague, or as a conse-
quence of retrocession of some acute eruption ;
  Ascites, when resulting from disease of the liver and kidneys ; the
skin feels  cold and dry, and the  urinary secretions  are  very much
diminished. In
  Ascites saccatus or saccidated Dropsy, (hydatids), Arsenic  is emi-
nently useful, when resorted to in time.  In
  Hydrothorax and Dropsy of the Pericardium, the  use of Arsenic
has already been alluded to.
  Partial  Dropsy, of the face, hands, feet, may be  advantageously
treated Avith Arsenic.  The general condition of  the patient should
of course correspond with  the general action  of  the drug, more
particularly debility, feeble  and   someAvhat  accelerated   pulse,
tremulousness,  loss  of appetite,  tendency to  emaciation.   This
appearance of dropsy may  constitute a marked 
336
LECTURE XXI.
   (Edema of the parts, without any effusion having as yet set in
Arsenic causes this condition of the system.

                      MENTAL  GEOUP.

   Arsenic causes depression  of spirits, melancholia, hypochondria,
praecordial anxiety, a feeling as if one had  committed great crimes.
Hence Arsenic may be a most valuable remedy in the treatment of
certain forms of  mental derangement, more particularly when char-
acterized by deep melancholia, anxiety  for one's future welfare, a
feeling of remorse as if one had committed a crime.
   In the following case of
   Melancholia, a  beautiful cure was affected by Arsenic.
   A gentleman,  thirty-two years old, of robust frame, consulted Dr.
Weber for periodical paroxysms of melancholia ; he had no rest at
night, perspired all over, was tormented by frightful anguish as if he
had committed a dreadful crime ; it drove him about from place to
place; cried that he was  not conscious of any wrong, and yet he
would beg every body's pardon ; violent heat in  the face and about
the head; pulse eighty, rather feeble; paroxysms every three or four
weeks, they continued  for six or seven days  and had existed  for
years.  Arsenic  30 cured him speedily and permanently.

   In Marcus1 Ephemerides  a very curious effect of Arsenic is men-
tioned.   A barber had cured  himself of fever and ague by taking
a  solution of  Arsenic.  The drug  caused a peculiar monomania.
Every time the  barber shaved a customer, he was seized Avith an
almost irrepressible desire to cut that person's throat.  He frequently
had to throw away his razor arid to run out of the room in order to
shield himself against this mania.   The patient had a fixed look, and
tremulous motions.  He was restored by large doses of the  sulphuret
of potash.
   For the dreadful Monomania of Murder, Arsenic may therefore
prove useful.

                           SLEEP.                             y

   Arsenic causes excessive restlessness especially at night, when .
the effects of Arsenic are generally more marked than in  the day-  \
time; the patient is  utterly unable to  keep quiet, he has to move ^
and toss about continually.   Arsenic also causes nightly attacks of
dreadful anxiety and oppression during sleep, which suddenly rouse
him as if he  should suffocate.  Anxious dreams, or dreams about
revolting  vermin, animals,  constitute  another  effect of  Arsenic.
These symptoms, if occurring as elements of other, more general
groups, are so many characteristic  indications for the use of this
great agent.
   Dose : From one-fifth of a  grain to the two-hundredth potency.

   This ends our  Arsenic-chapter.   No agent in our Materia Medica,
save one, has produced more  extensive ravages  among the human 
ARSENICUM ALBUM.                   337
 family than Arsenic.   That one is Mercury.  And yet, in the hands
 of a homoeopathic physician, Arsenic becomes a mild, gentle, life-
 saving, health-restoring power.  Hoav beautifully is the glorious
 prophecy fulfilled by Homoeopathy, that " the lion and the  lamb shall
 lie down together, and a little child shall lead them"   Yes,  the fierce,
 life-destroying poison Avhich entails nameless suffering upon  a  con-
 fiding  world,  A\dien  administered by our .brethren of the opposite
 side, is transformed into  an angel of mercy by the beautiful little
 child sent  to  us  by the Almighty Father of our race through the
 illumined brain of Hahnemann.  It is the law " similia similibus,"
 this untainted offspring of a heavenly inspiration that transforms the
 roaring lion into the gentle lamb, and unites them in the bonds of
 harmony.  The roaring lion is the fierce essence which, like a  hellish
 fury, ravages  the tissues, scattering  havoc and pain along its path.
 The  lamb  is  the  homoeopathic  agent which typifies the spiritual
 essence  in material nature,  its very product  or substratum, its
 physical form or embodiment.  The little child is the attractive force,
 which with gentle but irresistible power, draAvs the spiritual essence
 to its  material representative, the gentle lamb, the  little globule
 Avhich is harmless for  evil, but most ppwerful in the good work of
 redemption from disease.
   How differently  is  disease viewed  by the philosophical  homoe-
 opath from what it is by a practitioner after the old routine.  This
 one  looks  at the disturbed tissue ;  he beholds a suppurating or
 ulcerated surface, and he  calls this  morbid process  a disease.   To
 the Old-School pathologists disease is a material thing; he does not
 wish to be  looked upon as a materialist, and yet all his practices are
 suggested by  materialism.  He bleeds in order to free the organism
vfrom the vitiated blood;  he physics the bowels in order to  sweep
 out effete matter, or to drain the organism of some morbid irritation
 that has accumulated about the head, liver or stomach.
  * The homoeopathic physician looks at a diseased surface, and Avhat
 does he behold?   A spiritual  or dynamico-morbific force which is
 disorganizing the tissues.   This is the real disease, and it is this force
 or essence  that has to be removed from the organism.   No  cuie is
 possible, unless  this removal  is effected.  Hoav is it accomplished ?
 Why,  we accomplish  it, as Celsus advised, cito, tute, et jucundl, by
. applying the great law of attractive affinity, attractive similarity to the
 morbific, disease-creating  essence.  AVe act upon it b}' means of an
 agent which is its material form in Nature.  It is by this simple pro-
 cess that we accomplish a great fact, the restoration of order in  the
 . tissues by  inducing the morbific esssence to unite itself of its oavu
 accord, by  its  own free choice, with  the remedial agent, and  to free
 the organic tissues from its destructive presence.
   The organic alterations are not the disease; this the homoeopathic
 physician is fully aware  of; they are the effect or  product  of the
 morbific essence  acting upon  the tissues.  AVe may compare  the
 series of morbid  phenomena which we are in the habit of designat-
 ing as the  disease, to an accident on some railway.  The accident
 happens at a particular point, but the news of it is flashed along the
 wires to every part of the inhabited globe, and is received by every
 nation in its own language.   In a similar manner, an accident  that
                                 22 
338
LECTURE XXI.
 happens at some point in the human organism, is flashed across the
 delicate telegraphic wires which we call  nerves, to the  different
 organs and tissues.   He who is unable to decipher the symbolic
 signs in which these symptomatic messages are written,  will not be
 able to understand the nature  of the accident that  requires to be
 remedied.  He who  knows how to decipher the messages  that are
 flashed across the ganglionic wires, perceives the unity of these abnor-
 mal sensations and functional derangements, and, tracing them to the
 point  whence they emanate, he  applies his remedial agent to  this
 point of departure, this fountain-head of the symptomatic indications.
 The homoeopathic physician has no difficulty in comprehending that
 a small dose, an infinitesimal globule even, may reach this  starting-
 point  of the disease in the organic  tissues.  A short time ago, we
 read  in the papers that Madame Moet, who oaviis a portion of the
 valuable and  interesting region  that produces the delicious cham-
 pagne, was stung by a mosquito which probably had fed upon car-
 rion.   Very soon after the bite was inflicted, a principle  of gangren-
 ous disorganization spread from  this scarcely perceptible point, and
 destroyed life in forty-eight hours, under the most excruciating
 torments.
  If we knew how to meet the disorganizing morbific agent  at its
 very starting-point, every trace of its presence would  soon be wiped
 out.  To the homoeopathic  physician who is fully impressed with
 the fact that  Homoeopathy is the science of medicine as developed
 and felt by the inner reason which is m communion with the eternal
 and infinite truth of heaven; whereas, Allceopathy is the delusive and
 material science, cherished,  propagated and  applied by the deceitful,
 gross and degrading understanding of the senses; to such a follower of
 the good and wise Hahnemann, the difference between a globule of the
 two hundredth potency of Arsenic and a powder of the third  tritu-
 ration cannot  be  so  overwhelmingly great.   He certainly does not
 consider himself justified in  looking upon a globule of the higher
 potency with supercilious contempt for no other reason than  because
 a powder of the first trituration has been useful and necessary to him
 in some cases.   Paganini elicited sounds of sweet harmony from one
 string alone, but when playing upon all the strings of his violin, the
 harmony was far richer and soul-stirring.
 _ Gentlemen, do not suffer  your minds to be tied down by empiri-
 cism and routine.  Do  not  come to me with  preconceived ideas.
 Let me find  in you receptivity and a determination to think  for
 yourselves.  You are the salt of the earth.  If you come to hear my
 teachings, you must expect to hear new ideas, new definitions, new
 applications of the homoeopathic law. New?  Yes, and God grant,
 more scientific, more rational, more satisfactory and more fruitful in
 good results than the  practice of mere symptom-mongers and rou-
 tinists.  Homoeopathy is not the  system of a day, nor the theory of
 a man;  she is the handiwork of the great Architect of Nature, and
 unless you study her as a divine science, a Christian science, a science
 intended for the universal good,  and not for mere individual  lucre
 and glory, you cannot possibly do justice to her high behests, you
cannot possibly be what the  Creator designed you should become:
 workmen in His vineyard. 
ATR0PA BELLADONNA.
339
               LECTURE   XXII.


                       BELLADONNA,  '

                      {Deadly Night-shade)

  Airopa Belladonna.—Nat. Orel.  Solanae.—A native of the South
of Europe, Avhere it groAvs in mountainous regions, on eminences
cevered with forests,  also in  damp and shady places.   The  plant
growing in mountain-forests is much more vigorous than the artifi-
cially reared, or that  Avhich grows in damp  or shady places.   It
was probably knoAvn to the Greeks;  hence the name Atropja, from
atropos .(inexorable);  hence  it Avas  also termed Solanum lethale.
Belladonna is the Italian for  "beautiful Lady;" the Italian ladies
used the distilled Avater of belladonna-leaves as a means of beautifying
their complexion ; hence the name " Solanum Cosmeticum."
  In Plutarch's history of Antonius, he states that the  Eomans, on
their retreat from the  Parthians, cooked this plant as a vegetable;
Plutarch describes the effect  as follows:  "Those  Avho sought  for
herbs and pot-herbs, found but few, and tasting unknown herbs, they
found one which brought on madness and death.  He that had eaten
it, immediately lost all memory and knowledge, but at the same time
would busy himself in turning and moving every stone he met Avith,
as if he were upon some very important pursuit.   The camp was
full of unhappy men bending to the ground, and thus digging up or
removing stones, till at last they Avere carried off by bilious vomiting,
Avhen Avine, the only remedy, was not to be found.
  In Buchanan's history of the Scots,  you will find it stated, that the
Danes, under SAveno, were defeated by Macbeth, and that many were
destroyed by the Scots who poisoned the bread and wine, which they
were bound by agreement to send to their enemies during the truce,
with a mixture of Belladonna; hence  Shakespeare calls it " insane
root."
  Belladonna seems to act primarily upon the cerebro-spinal system
of nerves, and to affect the vascular system  secondarily.   The most
characteristic symptoms of poisonous  doses of Belladonna  are : dry-
ness of the mouth and fauces,  difficulty of swalloAving,  constrictive
spasms of the fauces, inflammation of  the fauces, dilatation of the
pupils (mydriasis), presbyopia or long-sightedness, with obscurity of
vision,  or amaurosis;   optical  illusions (phantasms),  suffused  eyes,
singing  in  the ears, numbness of the  face, giddiness, delirium and
intoxication, sopor, scarlet-eruption on the skin.
  One hundred and fifty soldiers were poisoned with  Belladonna
near Pirna in  Saxony.  They exhibited the following symptoms:
"Dilatation and immobility of the pupil; almost complete insensi-
bility of the eve to the presence of external objects, or at  least con-
fused vision ; injection of the conjunctiva Avith a bluish blood; pro-
trusion of the eyes Avhich in some appeared as if dull,'and in others
ardent and furious; dryness of the lips, tongue, palate and  throat; 
340
LECTURE XXII.
deglutition difficult or even  impossible:  nausea not folloAved  by
vomiting; feeling of weakness, lipothymia, syncope; difficulty or
impossibility of standing; frequent bending forward of the trunk ;
continual motion of the  hands and  fingers;  gay delirium, Avith a
vacant smile; aphonia or else confused sounds uttered Avith pain:
probably ineffectual desires of going  to stool; gradual restoration to
health and reason, without any recollection of the preceding state."
  Dr. Pereira reports seven cases of poisoning Avith Belladonna, two
of which proved fatal;  they occurred in the London hospital.  The
following symptoms attracted the Doctor's special attention:
  1. Dryness of the fauces, causing excessive difficulty of swallowing
and alteration of the voice.
  2. Scarlet-eruption on the arms and legs.
  3. Mydriasis and Presbyopia.   According  to  Dr.  Pereira  the
amaurotic weakness which Belladonna is said to produce, is chiefly
owing to presbyopia.
  4. Delirium, Phantasms.—The  delirium was of the  cheerful or
Avild sort, amounting in some cases to actual frenzy.  In  some of the
patients it subsided  into a sort of sleep attended with pleasant dreams
which provoked laughter.  The delirium was attended with phantasms,
and, in this respect, resembled that caused by alcohol; but the mind
did not  run on cats, rats, and mice, as in the case of drunkards.
Sometimes the phantasms appeared to be in the air, and various
attempts were made to catch them or chase them with the hands; at
other times they Avere supposed to be  on the bed.  One patient (a
Avoman) fancied the sheets were covered with cucumbers.
  5.  Convulsions; Paralysis; Sopor or Coma.  In most of the cases,
the poAver of the will  over the muscles was so far disordered, that
the muscular movements  Avere  someAvhat irregular, causing a kind
of staggering or jerkings ; but actual convulsions were not general.
There was sopor which terminated in coma, with a weakened or
paralytic condition  of the muscles.
  These remarkable effects of  Belladonna suggest the use of  this
drug in a variety of important affections.
   The symptoms of No.  1, point to aphonia and catarrhal irritation
of the throat, angina faucium.
   The symptoms of No.  2 reveal the specific homoeopathic relation
of  Belladonna  to  scarlatina  laevigata,  the  old-fashioned  smooth
Sydenhamian scarlatina.
   No. 3  indicates diseases of the eyes where the pupil is abnormally
dilated.
   No. 4 suggests typhus of the brain,  delirium tremens, various
forms of craziness.
   The symptoms of No. 5 indicate chorea, apoplexy and paralysis.
   M filler of Vienna gives an interesting  description of five persons
in one family Avho had eaten of the berries of Belladonna.   Two of
the children (boys), having  eaten a good quantity of  the berries,
were attacked with the following symptoms: They attempted to get
from  their  beds  and were with  difficulty restrained;  continual
motion of their hands and fingers, and desire to lay  hold of the
 coverlets or other objects within reach; thrusting the fingers up the 
                     ATR0PA  BELLADONNA.                  341

nostrils;  acute delirium;  vision nearly gone, but both patients  at
the same  time fancied they saw a number of objects;  great dilata-
tion and insensibility of the pupils;  eyeballs alternately fixed and
rolling; spasmodic action of the  muscles of  the face;  grating  of
the teeth ; yawning, etc.;  voice hoarse and weak; slight swelling  of
the left side of the throat, and burning sensation in the oesophagus ;
decided aversion to  all liquids;  and spasmodic attacks whenever
they were forced to swallow anything.
  In this case we have some symptoms pointing at typhus, such as:
desire to lay hold of the coverlets and bedclothes; seeing a number
of objects ; eyeballs alternately fixed and  rolling.
  Other symptoms point to Hydrocephalus, such as: thrusting the
fingers up the nostrils; dilatation and  insensibility of the  pupils;
eyeballs  alternately fixed and rolling;  spasmodic action of the
muscles of the face ;  grating of the teeth.
  Other symptoms point to Hydrophobia: aversion to all liquids, and
spasmodic  attacks  whenever  they  were  forced to swallow  any
thing.
  One symptom points to Catarrhal Irritation of the Air-passages and
larynx: voice hoarse and weak.

  The following case of poisoning by Belladonna has been extracted
from Orfila:   A child, of four years of age, of feeble constitution
but otherAvise well, ate at eleven o'clock a quantity of the berries of
Belladonna.   The following symptoms  soon set in: Avant of  appe-
tite ; nausea,  vomiting, symptoms of intoxication, slight delirium
and inextinguishable thirst; afterwards tumefaction and redness of
the face and lips; raising of the  eyelids; dilatation of the  pupils;
insensibility of the eyes  to light; convulsive  closing of the jaws
and contraction of the muscles of the face and extremities ; delirium;
very feeble pulse and irregular respiration. Next day: increase  of
convulsive movements, Avith redness of the face, and profuse perspi-
ration; the pupils remained dilated;  there was great rigidity doAvn
the spine ; tumefaction of the  abdomen which  was very tender  to
the touch; constipation and weak pulse.  On the  third day these
symptoms continued, but  in a less degree; the  child complained  of
great pain in his teeth.  On the  31st, all  the  symptoms  had disap-
peared.  An emetic was given followed by vinegar and honey.
  In  this  case  the power of Belladonna  of causing and therefore
curing Tetanic Spasms, is evident; the convulsive closing of the jaws
and contraction of the muscles of the face and extremities, and the
rigidity down the spine, point to this affection;  the spasm should  be
characterized  by swelling and redness of the face and comatose con-
dition, feeble pulse and irregular  breathing.
  Some children ate in a  garden  some of  the berries of Belladonna;
they soon were attacked Avith violent fever, accompanied  by convul-
sions and  strong palpitation of  the heart;  they lost their senses and
became very delirious.  One died the next day.   One of the children
ate four, the  other  six berries of Belladonna; an hour  after, both
of them were so extravagant in their manners that they astonished
their mother.   Their pupils were dilated ;  their vision was altered; 
342
LECTURE XXII.
and a gay delirium, accompanied Avith fever, set in.   The physician
who Avas called  in, found them  in a state of great agitation;  talk-
ing at random ; running and leaping about;  laughing sardonically ;
with purple faces and rapid pulse.   An emetic was  administered,
the berries Avere thrown up,  and the symptoms gradually disap-
peared.
  This case shadoAVS forth a group of Typhus cerebralis and Hysteria.
  By studying a few more cases of poisoning by Belladonna, we
shall find it exceedingly easy to  obtain a comprehensive and correct
knowledge of  the  general  therapeutic  range of this poAverful and
exceedingly important agent.

  A boy of six  years swallowed a few berries of Belladonna, and
was attacked  with violent colic; he jumped out of bed, became
delirious, broke out into loud laughter, and lost his senses so entirely
that he did not even recognize his own parents.   Pulse slow and full;
head and face  neither red nor  hot;  pupils exceedingly dilated and
insensible to the light; abdomen  somewhat distended.  After drink-
ing water and  vinegar, he vomited black, slimy masses.
  This case illustrates the power of Belladonna to disturb the brain.
The delirium was characterized  by loud laughter and loss of sense.

  Six individuals, the mother,  four children and a servant, ate a few
berries of Belladonna at supper.   The mother and servant each ate
about six.  They were attacked with nausea,  diplopia, constrictive
sensation in the throat, vertigo and drowsiness.  Next morning the
servant-girl, who had vomited  previously, only had headache, with
languor, dilatation of the  pupils,  redness of the face, pulse somewhat
accelerated.  A  girl of four and  one of eight years, staggered about
the room as if intoxicated, were delirious; face red, eyes protruded,
pupils dilated, with staring look, increased heat of the  skin, pulse
very  much accelerated.   The mother spent a restless  night, and
towards morning became  a perfect maniac, trying to  bile and strike
her attendants; the delirium was at times interrupted by  loud laugh-
ter and grating of the teeth: her head was hot, face red, look wild
and staring, tongue dry, abdomen somewhat distended, pulse small
and very frequent.   Two children, one of two years and a half, and
the other of six, who had eaten the largest quantity of the berries,
were soporous,  with violent  spasms of the extremities; head hot, face
red, eyes protruded, pupils very  much dilated, look staring, tongue
dry, abdomen distended  and  very hard, pulse very frequent and
small, grating  of the teeth and croupy cough.
  An emetic of  the  sulphate of copper was  given, three and five
grains;  cathartics were employed, water and vinegar as  a beverage,
cold fomentations to the head, leeches to the temples, and mustard-
poultices to the feet and legs.  All were saved.
  This case shows that Belladonna is capable of producing rage.
  The soporous condition of the children reveals the power of causing
violent  sanguineous engorgements of the brain, and  of  developing
spasms in consequence  of this excessive  pressure upon this central
nervous mass.   The spasms may also  be accounted  for upon the 
ATR0PA BELLADONNA.                 343
ground that  the  irritation induced in the brain, AA'as successively
communicated to the ganglionic system.
  The cerebral symptoms exhibited by the children, likewise deli-
neate in a most marked and characteristic manner a  pathological
process in all respects analogous to hydrocephalus.  The sopor, the
grating of the teeth and the convulsions  of the extremities charac-
terize the transition from the inflammatory stage to that of effusion.

  These few cases of poisoning evidence  the great power possessed
by  Belladonna over the functions of the cerebrospinal axis,  and
testify to the therapeutic virtues which Belladonna must evince in
some of the most formidable cerebral diseases.  It is not only from
cases of poisoning,  however, that these  virtues are inferred ;  they
have likewise been made apparent by systematic provings upon the
healthy.  Let us now proceed to consider  the physiological action of
Belladonna  under the usual categories,  introducing characteristic
effects of poisonous doses according as they may aid us in completing
th^ parallel between the series of pathological and that of pathogen-
etic phenomena.

                     CEPHALIC  GEOUP.

  In looking at the symptoms which  Hahnemann has recorded as
the result of the action of moderate doses of Belladonna upon the
brain, we  shall find that  various forms  of headache are distinctly
delineated by these symptoms.   Some of the most characteristic are :
  Pressure in the brain, with sopor and vomiting;
  Headache, especially in the  forepart of the head, worse during
motion and  when stooping ;
  Continuous and forcible dilatation of the Avhole brain:
  Sensation as if the sutures of the skull should be pressed asunder ;
feeling in the head as if a lever were applied for the purpose of
breaking it asunder.
  Headache above the orbits as though the brain should be pressed
out, obliging him to keep his eyes closed, with contraction of the
pupils ;
  Pressure in the head, extending over a large surface ;
  Sensation in the forehead as though the brain were ascending and
descending;
  Pain as if the head were screwed together from side to side ;
  Violent throbbing pain in the forehead, as if the bone  should be
raised;
  Throbbing from  before  backwards,  externally  the  throbbing
terminates in stitches.
  These symptoms indicate the use of Belladonna in
   Congestive Headache,  which may result from a variety of causes,
rheumatic exposure, sudden suppression  of diarrhoea, of the menses,.
or  of hasmorrhoids, etc.
  Belladonna may also cause tearing, boring, lancinating and jerking
Jains in the head.  Hence we may find this drug indicated in
  Rheumatic and Nervous Headaches or Hemicrania, Avhere symptoms
of cerebral engorgement will hoAvever not be wanting. 
344
LECTURE XXII.
  If Belladonna is specifically indicated in a  case  of headache, a
cure may be affected in a very short  period.  A man had been
complaining for four weeks of a very  disagreeable heaviness and
fulness  in  the  Avhole  forepart of the  head, with  sensation  as if
thousands of ants were crawling under the  parietal bones,  and a
feeling, when stooping, as if the brain would fall forwards.  He took
a feAV spoonfuls  of a solution of one drop of the tincture of  Bella-
donna in a tumblerful of water, and  Avas permanently and radically
cured.

  The few  cases of poisoning which we have related  previously,
suggest the use of Belladonna in
   Vertigo ;
  Apoplexy ;
   Congestion of the brain ;
  Phrenitis, inflammation of the brain ;
  Mania -a-potu ;                                               J
  Typhus ;
  Dementia, Mania, Rage.

                           Vertigo.

  The patient  wants to turn about in a circle as sheep do when
afflicted with the disease known as Vertigo.  Orfila produced this
symptom in his experiments  with Belladonna. The derangement
may be functional, or it may result from some  disorganization.  In
Froriep's Notices, we read of a woman aged 55 years, Avlio was  first
attacked with vertigo and afterwards  with convulsions, attended
with  an irresistible desire to turn from  right to left.   If the patient
happened to be sitting during the paroxysm, she would turn about
with her chair.  At first the paroxysms  occurred seldom, but after-
wards every 15 or 20 minutes,   Between the  paroxysms she was
conscious, but during the paroxysms she barked liked a dog.  She
died  suddenly.   A post-mortem examination  showed two  osseous
excrescences along the basilar margin of the skull,  compressing the
anterior crura  of the  medulla oblongata.   The origin of the fifth
pair of nerves was softened.  Other  cases of this form of vertigo are
recorded.  If merely a symptom of functional disorder, Belladonna
will relieve it.

                          Apoplexy.

   In some cases of poisoning Belladonna has caused great slowness
 and fullness of the pulse, or else a contracted, hurried and intermit-
 ting pulse; some patients have lost their consciousness, with sudden
 falling down, and paralysis of the lower extremities.  An old farmer
 who had  eaten a considerable  quantity of the berries, was seized
 with profound coma and obstinate constipation.  Belladonna causes
 dilatation and  insensibility  of  the pupils;  bloating and glowing
 redness of the face, purple spots in the  face, protrusion and injected
 condition of the  eyeballs;   deep,  stertorous, rattling breathing; 
ATR0PA BELLADONNA.
345
burning heat of the skin ;  in short a group of symptoms which are
eminently characteristic of apoplexy.

                  Congestion  of the  brain.

  All the prominent symptoms in a case of poisoning by Belladonna
show, that sanguineous engorgement of the cerebral vessels is one
of the most marked effects of this drug.   The face looks  bloated,
red; the  carotids  throb violently; the jugulars are swollen; the
skin is burning and  dry;  the  patient lies in a  state of sopor,  from
which he wakes every noAV and then with a start; the  eyes  look
blood-shot and seem to  protrude from their sockets; the pupils are
excessively contracted, or  this excessive contraction may alternate
with extreme dilatation.  No agent corresponds with such a group
of symptoms more accurately than Belladonna.  We do not hesitate
to give it in  tablespoonful doses of a  solution of one drop of the
ordinary tincture, or five  drops  of the first decimal attenuation in
about ten tablespoonfuls of water.

Phrenitis,  Meningitis,  Encephalitis,  Inflammation  of   the
                             Brain.

  In  this disease, Belladonna is one of the main  supports of the
homoeopathic physician.  It is indicated
   a. by the pains,  tearing, lancinating, throbbing and deep-seated
aching pains;
   b. by the  signs of vascular engorgement, SAvelling of the head and
face, burning redness of the face, protrusion and congested appear-
ance of the eyes; purple spots in the face, heat of the head, throbbing
of the carotids and temporal arteries;
   c. by the fever, pulse full, hard and tense; skin burning  and dry,
excessive thirst during the moments of consciousness.
   d. by the  delirium, which  is  generally of the violent kind; the
patients  howl, kick, tear  and strike about with an extraordinary
power of resistance.
   e. by the condition of the pupils: they are contracted and exceed-
ingly sensitive to the light;
  /. by the consensual phenomena and phenomena of the ganglionic
system, such as:  deafness and blindness, or excessive  sensitiveness
to noise ;  sudden changes  of color in the face from red to pale ;  start-
ing of the extremities and subsultus tendinum,  sopor;  and lastly
   g. by the character of the secretions; the urine looks red and the
bowels are bound.
   Belladonna  affects the  brain and nervous system generally in a
precisely similar  manner;  hence the remarkable control Avhich
Belladonna has over inflammation of the brain in all curable  cases
Avhere these phenomena constitute characteristic indications.
   Belladonna is even homoeopathic to
   Hydrocephalus or Dropsy of the Brain; Avhen resulting from pre-
vious in (lamination.   Belladonna has   all  the symptoms which
generally mark the setting in  of effusion into the ventricles, grating 
316
LECTURE XXII.
 of the teeth, frequent changes of color, sudden and extraordinary
 dilatation of the pupils, tetanic convulsions,  coldness of the skin,
 slowness and sinking of the  pulse, which  gradually changes  to  a
 quick, small and compressible pulse, and at times  even involuntary
 discharge of stool and urine. Belladonna is useful  in hydrocephalus
 only in cases that had been treated allceopathically, and Avhere this
 agent was originally indicated.  If effusion.sets in in inflammation
 of the brain,  under the use  of Belladonna, we cannot expect much
 of this agent, and some other medicine, such as Sulphur, Helleborus,
 Digitalis or Mercurius, will  have to be resorted to.
    In  Chronic or Congenital Hydrocephalus, Belladonna may possibly
 be of use, together with Sulphur, Digitalis, etc.
    In  Tubercular Meningitis, the effusion at the base of the  skull
 where the tubercles  are  more generally formed,  may perhaps be
 prevented by the timely use of Belladonna.   But whether a resolu-
 tion and absorption of the tubercular deposit can be effected by any
 treatment, is  still undecided.  The prognosis in all such cases is so
 far exceedingly unfavorable.

    In  Encephalomacia  or Softening of the Brain, Belladonna is, as. far
 as we  know,  an agent that  may prove of importance.  The symp-
 toms  which  characterize  this disease, point to a condition of the
 brain  such as  may develop itself under the  paralyzing action of
 Belladonna.  Loss of memory, depression of the sensorial functions,
 vertigo, blackness of  sight,  hardness of hearing, deep-seated aching
 pain  in  the  head, difficulty  of articulating,  dragging  gait,  until
 paralysis finally sets  in.  During such an  attack, the patients do
 not altogether  lose their  consciousness; they look pale and their
 features  are  disfigured;  the pulse  is  small,  feeble, filiform; the
 brain seems anaemic rather  than engorged with blood.
    Nevertheless a post-mortem examination in the  earlier period of
 the disease, shows the brain dotted with a numberless multitude of
 bloody points, probably effusions  from  the mouths of the capillary
 vessels.  At  a later stage, the  brain is found reduced to a soft ulcer-
 ous pulp which is sometimes  so little coherent that under the least
 pressure it will diffuse itself like a liquid mass. Wibmer mentions
^the case  of a man of  62 years who  Avas poisoned by the berries of
 Belladonna, and whose brain seems to have  undergone a similar
 change of putrid softening.

                          Mania-a-potu.

    The homoeopathicity of Belladonna to some  forms of this disease
 is self-evident.   The  patients fancy themselves assailed by robbers,
 or threatened by mice, rats, cats  and other forms of animals from
 which they endeavor to escape.  The delirium is of a furious kind ;
 pulse full, hard and bounding; face bloated and red, or with purple
 spots  ; eyes glistening and staring, at times gorged with blood.  Such
 patients  are troubled  with all sorts of  hallucinations; they imagine
 that somebody  is calling  them.   Trembling of the extremities is a
 common symptom ; the urine looks red, the faeces have a dark and 
ATR0PA  BELLADONNA.
317
burnt appearance, and the skin, although Avarm, yet maybe drenched
with sweat.
  The principal indications for Belladonna in  this disease are the
character of the delirium, and the signs of cerebral congestion which
are undoubtedly present in mania-a-potu.
  According to Schoenlein, the absence of all signs of cerebral con-
gestions and of fever, constitutes a diagnostic sign of this disease as
contrasted with inflammation of the brain.  This is true in delirium
tremens; but  in mania-a-potu which may be regarded as the first
or inflammatory stage of this disease, a Avell marked inflammatory
fever is present, where the existence of cerebral congestions is unmis-
takeable.

                            Typhus.

  The homoeopathicity of Belladonna to typhus is substantiated by
a number  of symptoms  characterizing the  action of  Belladonna
upon the cerebral tissues.  In all forms of typhus  to which  Bella-
donna is homoeopathic, the cerebral symptoms are most marked.
No matter  in Avhat organ  or  tissue the  inflammatory process first
manifested  itself, Belladonna may be used in any form of typhus
Avhere the delirium and the typhoid symptoms generally are strictly
analogous to those which Belladonna is capable of causing.  These
are :
  Pains in the head such as may be occasioned  by Belladonna, par-
ticularly a violent  beating in the head ; distress as if the skull-cap
would fly off; feeling of heat in the head ;
  Expression of distress and suffering in the countenance ;
   Glistening and staring, also  blood-shot eyes, also Avith spasmodic
rolling of the eyeballs upAvards  or laterally, and alternate contrac-
tion and dilatation of the pupils;
  Thickness and heaviness of  the tongue, almost amounting to para-
lysis, so that the patient is only able to utter inarticulate sounds;
the tongue  looks and feels like scorched leather, is covered  with a
thick, glazed, brown or blackish  looking coating;
   Unquenchable thirst, sometimes  attended Avith spasmodic constric-
tion of the throat and intense burning in the fauces so that the least
attempt to swallow a drop of liquid causes suffocating spasms of the
throat and general tetantic convulsions;
  Typhomania, alternate coma and delirium which is at times  bland,
at others furious;  the patient can hardly be held on  his bed, he
wants to get away, strikes about, uses profane language, etc.
  Optical phantasms and hallucinations, which will be described in
the optical  group.
  Picking at the bed-clothes and catching at flocks ;
  In the first stage of typhus the pulse may be  undulating and soft,
but  somewhat  accelerated.  As the disease progresses, the pulse
increases in  frequency, becomes smaller and  more  compressible.
When the paralytic stage is approaching, the contents of the bowels
and bladder pass off' involuntarily, and the skin  becomes covered
with a clammy sweat.  Belladonna may be indicated  even in this 
348
LECTURE XXII.
stage, for our provings and the effects of poisonous doses show, that
this agent causes a paralytic relaxation of the  sphincters, dryness,
brittleness and increased warmth  of the skin, with partial clammy
sweats, and a hurried, feeble, vibratory pulse.
  A case of poisoning is reported in Frank's Magazine Avhich shows
conclusively that Belladonna is capable of causing paralysis, and may
therefore be of use in the paralytic stage of typhus.   The paralytic
symptoms were induced by an injection consisting of a decoction of
three drachms of the leaves of Belladonna in three quarts of Avater.
  The eyeballs Avere considerably protruded, immovable, sometimes
bathed in tears ; the pupils enormously dilated. Froth at the mouth ;
tongue paralyzed, dry,  cracked;  loss of speech, difficulty of swal-
lowing ; face sunken, covered with a cold, clammy sweat.   Stupor ;
trembling of the arms  when attempting  the  least motion ;  pulse
small, contracted, it cannot be counted, cold sweat on the extremi-
ties ;  breathing apparently unimpeded, but Avith frequent moanings;
the abdomen drawn in rather than distended ; a watery and inodorous
urine was  discharged continually without consciousness;  bowels
entirely bound;  the lower extremities were not exactly paralyzed,
but cold and half rigid.

                   Mania,  Dementia, Eage.

  In the " Mental Group" we shall range a number of phenomena
which indicate Belladonna as a great remedy for  different forms of
mental alienation, more particularly for
  Mania, both acute and chronic:
  Monomania, or partial mania;  and for
  Dementia, or craziness.

                     NEEVOUS GEOUP.

  The action of  Belladonna upon the ganglionic system is marked
by the most extraordinary phenomena.   We may  consider it under
the different heads of
  Neuralgia.
  Rheumatism.
  Spasms and Convulsions, and
  Paralysis.

                        a.  Neuralgia.

  Many of the  symptoms obtained by the provers of Belladonna
point to its power of causing neuralgia of various nervous centres or
ramifications.  In neuralgia of the  nerves  of the face, Belladonna
has proved an eminently useful agent.  We find the action of Bella-
donna upon the nerves  of the face  characterized by a variety  of
sensations and abnormal appearances such as may occur in neuralgia.
AVe have swelling and inflammation of one side of, or of the Avhole
face;  burning, creeping,  cutting,  tearing, drawing, lancinating and
stinging pains in the face;  these  pains  may  be accompanied by
irritation and inflammation of the eyeballs, headache, etc. 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
349
  Even in the hands of Old-School  physicians  Belladonna has
proved of infinite value in  the treatment of neuralgia.  We will
relate a few cases of cure which we find related in Frank's Magazine,
and which we have every right to claim for our law:  " Similia simi-
libus curantur."
  A gardener, twenty-seven years  old, of robust  constitution and
sanguine temperament, who was bled several times a year for violent
headache, was attacked with exceedingly violent pains in the right
frontal region, involving at the same time the right eye.  This hap-
pened on a cold December morning, after he had been  working for
a long time in the open air.  The pains came  on at five o'clock  in
the morning,  and continued till nine or ten o'clock in the evening.
The paroxysms commenced with a prickling sensation, folloAved by
lancinating pains, redness of  the  eye-ball, with lachrymation and
excessive sensitiveness to the light: the pupils were exceedingly
contracted, and the distress was truly  agonizing.   The pulse and
other bodily functions were perfectly natural.  After the violence
of the pains had subsided, a feeling  of  dulness  and  stupefaction
remained.  The temples and the parts adjoining the base of the orbit
were fomented with a solution of one drachm of the extract of Bel-
ladonna  in an ounce of distilled water; on the third day all his
sufferings  were  ended.  For three  months subsequently, Avhen the
case was reported, he had  been perfectly free from pain.  In this
case, if the medicine had been given internally as well as externally,
of  course in appropriate doses, the  cure would most probably  have
been achieved in a still shorter period.

   A lady was suffering with intense, lancinating pains in the right
 eye, which materially interfered Avith the sight.  There Avere no signs
 of inflammation.  The extract of Belladonna was  used in the same
 way as in  the foregoing case, and on the following  morning the pain
 had completely  ceased.
   Lisfranc is  of the opinion that Belladonna has a  specific action on
 the fifth pair of nerves ; he infers this from Magendie's numerous
 experiments with this substance upon animals.
   In a case of neuralgia of  the  infra-orbital nerve, where a number
 of remedies  had been  used  in vain, the affection was promptly
 and permanently cured by rubbing the extract of Belladonna under
 the eye.  The attack had originally been induced  by a contusion.

   In Baldinger's Magazine the following beautiful  cure of rheumatic
 prosopalgia is reported, Avhich we find quoted in Frank's Magazine.
 A plethoric  girl of twenty-four years was attacked one evening,
 without any  apparent cause, with spasms of various kinds, convul-
 sions, tetanus, opisthotonos, emphrosthotonos, trismus.   Bleeding
 relieved her at the time.  A relapse took place six  Aveeks afterwards,
 after which she had a paroxysm every feAV weeks  for a whole year.
 In the month of August she Avas attacked Avith rheumatic prosopal-
 gia, after  which the spasms  ceased.   The  pain  Avas seated in the
 right  zygomatic process near the temporal bone, became  more
 intense from day to day, and became more violent from five o'clock 
350
LECTURE XXII.
  in the afternoon until  midnight.  She took seven grains of the
  powdered leaves of  Belladonna in  the  evening before bedtime.
  This dose  caused a burning in  the throat, some  nausea  and slight
  stupefaction.  Three doses sufficed  to perfect a cure.  Between the
  closes of Belladonna  the patient  took-a dose of Ehubarb to act on
  the boAvels.
    A smaller dose of Belladonna Avould  have been amply sufficient
  to effect a cure;  the rhubarb was given for the purpose of counter-
  acting any possible excess of Belladonna-action.  A smaller dose of
  this  agent  Avould have  rendered the  rhubarb unnecessary.  How
  long Avill it be before allceopathic physicians become aware of the
  fact that a curative end can be reached without first  poisoning the
  patient and afterAvards  counteracting the poison by  an antidote.
  The  curative or dynamic effects of a drug can be reached without
  poisonous effects being developed at the same time.  Homteopathy
  teaches the method of accomplishing this end.

    Another interesting case of neuralgia Avas relieved by means of an
  injection of Belladonna.  The patient  Avas a lady of sixty-six years.
  She was attacked every two, three or four Aveeks, without any appa-
  rent cause, with violent tensive-tearing pains in the ileo-coecal region,
  during which the abdomen was  distended but soft, pulse normal, the
  emission of urine scanty; at the same  time she experienced a sensa-
  tion  of icy-coldness in the  back, and a feeling of numbness and
  lameness in the right thigh.  She belched up wind, sometimes had a
  passage immediately previous to the attack ;  one or two  days after
  the attack, she passed  dry little  lumps  of burnt faeces.   Itching of
  the anus and pudendum supervened afterwards, with heat and burn-
  ing at the anus and in the urethra ; the pain in the ileo-coecal region
  sometimes extended to the stomach.   The paroxysms set in with a
  creeping sensation in the ileo-coecal region, and very soon the pain
  increased to a very high degree  of intensity.  Hard pressure upon
  the affected region caused great pain.   An injection of  forty-four
  grains of the poAvdered leaves of Belladonna in four ounces of water
  gradually caused an entire subsidence of the pain.  For six months
  she remained free from all pain, and  gained in flesh and strength.
  A slight paroxysm occurred  during  winter, and another during fall
  and spring, which were readily controlled  by the application of
  warm clothes.
    We will add that this dose caused the following medicinal symp-
  toms: feeling of  warmth and well-being in  the bowels, sensation of
•  warmth ascending from  the  stomach to the throat and  head;  bitter
  taste in the mouth; feeling of heat and fulness in the head  especially
  above the eyebrows ; dilatation of the pupils; feeling of dryness in the
  fauces; redness and bloating of the face; measle-shaped spots in the
  face and on the neck ; dark redness of the whole of the buccal cavity ;
  pulse 115, 120, full and hard; vision of fiery men; afterwards cloudi-
  ness, drowsiness and difficulty of swallowing.
    A  much  smaller dose might have  cured this neuralgia without
  superinducing any medicinal symptoms.
    In similar cases of  neuralgia  Colocynth  may prove  a specific
  remedy.   We refer the reader to this drug. 
ATR0PA BELLADONNA.
351
                         Rheumatism.

  The rheumatic pains which Belladonna is capable of exciting are
of various kinds, such as :
  Painful swelling and stiffness in the nape of the neck;
  Lameness of the  upper limbs, or lameness and pressure of the
arms, with weakness;
  Creeping along the  extremities, as from a fly crawling over them,
also with innumerable stitches;
  Cutting pains along  the bones in the extremities, also with tingling;
  Pain in the long bones as if bruised, and as  if they would crumble
like decaying Avood; the pain is a fine stinging and gnaAving pain in
the long bones, and sometimes accompanied  by  violent tearing in
the joints;
  DraAving, cutting, tearing and lancing pains, either in the joints or
along the long bones or phalangeal bones.
  /
  In a case of poisoning, related  in Frank's  Magazine, the patient
complained of pain in all his joints, and of a painful  sensation of
chilliness in the parts  down to the ends of  the toes and fingers.
  This last-mentioned symptom shows that  Belladonna  may be a
specific remedy in certain forms of
  Articular Rheumatism, especially when  accompanied with chilly
creepings in the limbs and symptoms of incipient paralysis.

  Belladonna being in marked and  specific rapport with  the brain,
it may be  specifically  indicated in articular rheumatism with super-
vention of typhoid symptoms.  In these forms of rheumatic inflam-
mation, we must never  expect to find the  pulse full,  hard  and
bounding  as it is in cases where Aconite is indicated.  The pulse
is accelerated and somewhat fuller and larger than in the normal
condition, but not hard or resisting.
  In a case of Neuralgic Rheumatism of the right upper extremity,
Avith lancinating pain  from the top of the shoulder to the wrist when
attempting to make the least motion; intensely distressing, crawling
sensation in the humerus, and sensation as if the bone would crumble
to atoms:  a drop of the tincture of Belladonna in a  tumblerful of
water effected a prompt and radical cure.

                  Spasms and Convulsions.

  The spasms which Belladonna is capable of exciting, are various.
  In one case  of poisoning, the patient sat in his bed, expressing
great anxiety and  restlessness, and turning his head continually to
ami fro;
  In other cases the muscles of one side of the face were convulsively
agitated;
  In one case it is stated that the  patient indulged in  the strongest
gesticulations,  and performed  the movements  of  the  body with the
greatest agility.   This  effect of  Belladonna  shows that it  may be a
remedy for 
352
LECTURE XXII.
  Chorea.—Another boy swallowed  some of  the berries of Bella-
donna Avhich caused him to perform  the strangest, convulsive mo-
tions as though he Avere affected Avith chorea.
  In another case, the poAver of Belladonna  to excite chorea, was
strikingly evidenced.  A boy of four years, who had eaten  several
berries of Belladonna, was  seized soon after with sardonic laughter.
After a while the child  commenced  to turn about in a circle, and,
after several gyrations, would  undoubtedly have fallen unless sup-
ported by others.  He was seized with spasms ; fever supervened;
the extensor, flexor and  pronator muscles of the upper  and lower
extremities, and, indeed, the muscles of the whole body were by
turns, agitated without interruption by spasmodic contractions caus-
ing frightful contortions.  The convulsions of  the obicularis oris, of
the muscles of the eye and face caused horrid grimaces.  The pulse
was small, contracted, hurried, intermittent and jerking.
  In chorea, where Belladonna is indicated, we may find  symptoms
of  cerebral congestion, or of  cerebral  disease, impaired  mental
power even amounting to imbecility.
  An excessiAre  uneasiness  in  the extremities  may  likewise  induce
chorea-like movements of the parts.   In one case, this uneasiness in
the arms and legs, especially in the  hands and feet, and  also in the
head, obliged the patient to move these parts continually, and even
to shake the head convulsively to and fro.

  A very interesting case of chorea  minor, or muscular  uneasiness,
Inquietudo muscular is, is reported in the Vierteljahrsschrift, (Homceop.
Quarterly Journal,) where Belladonna effected a speedy and perma-
nent cure.  A girl of nineteen years had been  laboring for  some
time under severe mental affliction in consequence of which she was
attacked with  spasmodic  twitchings of a  number  of  muscular
bundles, except the muscles of the face.   Pressure upon the abdo-
men induced opisthotonos.   No  convulsions during sleep.  Fauces
very much inflamed, and  covered here and there  with  a layer of
mucus.  Pulse accelerated, full; skin inclined to  perspire.   The
patient had been put on the use of Ignatia—a most uncalled-for pre-
scription, and determined  by that single  symptom, spasm, without
any reference whatever  to the character of the pathological process.
Of course, this drug proved of no  use  whatever; Belladonna 6,
effected a perfect cure in a  few days.

   The  convulsions which  Belladonna excites, may be  of various
kinds, and may suggest the use of this agent in
  Irregular Convulsive Paroxysms,
   Tetanic convulsions,
  EpAleptic convulsions,
  Hysteric convulsions,
  Puerperal convulsions,
  Dental convulsions.
   The belladonna convulsions are generally accompanied by pecu-
liar distinguishing  phenomena,  as may be seen  from  the following
series: 
                     ATR0PA BELLADONNA.                 353

  Convulsions Avhich made the patient run up the wall;
  Convulsions  which are renewed by the least contact, with hic-
cough, Aveariness and anxiety;
  Convulsions,  with screams and loss of consciousness;
  Convulsions,  with delirium and laughter;
  Convulsions,  with rolling of the eyeballs;
  Convulsions,  with startings of the hands and feet, with insensi-
bility and rattling breathing;
  Convulsions alternating with complete immobility;
  Tetanic spasms, opisthotonos, spasmodic inclination of the head
and body to the left side;
  Hysteric convulsions, Avith  risus  sardonicus,  heat  of the head,
sudden changes of color in the face;
  Convulsions of the abdominal muscles in hysteria;
  Paroxysms of  rigidity  and immobility of all  the limbs or of a
single limb only, sometimes  accompanied with insensibility, disten-
tion  of the cutaneous veins,  red  and puffed face, full and  quick
pulse, and profuse sweat;
  Epileptic spasms;
  Convulsions from teething, with grating of the teeth ;

  In Pxierperal Convulsions, Belladonna may prove eminently useful
if the existence of cerebral congestions, bloating  and redness of the
face,  protrusion  and suffusion  of the  eye-balls;  dilatation and
insensibility of the pupils,  sometimes  alternating with  extreme
contraction, coldness  of the  hands and  feet, and a small, jerking
hurried and perhaps intermitting pulse, justify the use of the drug.

  Belladonna has always been considerad a sort of specific for
  Hydrophobia.   We know that  no known drug has  the  power of
simulating hydrophobia to the same extent  as Belladonna.  In  a
case  reported  in  the  " Oestreichischen Jahrblichern"  (Austrian
Annals  of Medicine), two little boys who had been poisoned with
the berries of Belladonna, exhibited,  among  other  symptoms,  a
remarkable aversion to liquids; as soon as a spoon or a  glass contain-
ing a liquid was put to their  lips, the boys  cried out vehemently,
clenched their teeth spasmodically, and the liquid had  to be forced
down their throats,  after which they were seized with spasms.
  Belladonna is said to  have cured many cases  of genuine  hydro-
phobia.   In other cases it  is said to have prevented  an outbreak of
this frightful disease.  Murray, in his "Apparatus  medicaminum,"
reports a n umber 'of successful trials which were made with Bella-
donna in this disease.  Other  successful  cases of hydrophobia  are
reported by Hufeland.  Trousseau and  Pidoux deny that  hydro-
phobia was ever cured by  Belladonna,  and they are disposed  to
reject the evidence of Munch  and  his  sons, quoted by Murray.
Bayle, on the contrary, in his " Bibliotheque de  Therapeutique,"
reasons  in this  wise concerning Munch's cases:  Belladonna was
given to one hundred and  eighty-two patients, all of whom had been
bitten by mad dogs.  One hundred and seventy-six  of this number
had been bitten recently, and showed no symptoms of hydrophobia;
                              23 
354
LECTURE XXII.
in the remaining six the diseases had fairly broken out;  one of these
was attacked with aversion to water, convulsions and other cerebral
symptoms.  Here  are the results  of the treatment: The one hun-
dred and seventy-six,  recently bitten, Avere preserved (Munch and
his sons); of the six attacked with the disease, four Avere cured, and
two  died (Munch,  Bucholz, Neimecke).  AVe may of course enter-
tain doubts concerning the correctness of all these trials;  we may
object that the madness of the dogs was not proven; but, unless we
take it for granted  that Munch was an imposter, I should say that
one must be woefully given to scepticism in order to reject all the
results stated by this author.  AVhy, then, it may be asked, has not
this mode of treatment been  adopted ?  For a very simple reason ;
it  is this:  Of the  physicians who were  called upon to treat the
patients that had been bitten by mad  dogs, not  one has instituted
consistent experiments with Belladonna, either because he was igno-
rant of  Munch's labors, or because he Avas carried away by the
spirit of system, and rejected beforehand  every thing  that might
seem contrary to his preconceived theory."
   AVe may here add that Munch was a Protestant minister of good
standing in his own country;  his sons were respectable physicians,
and the names of Bucholz and Neimecke enjoy an  enviable distinc-
tion in the literature of Medicine.

   A remarkable case of hydrophobia is related in llufeland's Journal,
which we find quoted in that most useful and instructive publication,
Frank's Physiological Magazine.
   A man attacked with hydrophobia,.bit several individuals, some
of Avhom died with the disease.  Two of these patients were treated
with Belladonna, and both of them recovered.
   A robust woman, of not very sensitive disposition, had just lost a
child, eleven years old, with hydrophobia.   The disease broke out
one hundred  and six days after the child had been bitten.  Another
child, a boy  of  five years, was bitten by the same dog, and was
attacked forty-one days after the  bite.  When  her daughter died,
the woman conceived the thought  that she too  would be attacked
with hydrophobia,  for she had been bitten by an apparently rabid
dog prior to her daughter.  The paroxysm broke out tAvo days after
her daughter's death, which  took place on the  13th of December.
On the 15th of December, at three o'clock in the morning, after  a
restless night, the mother was  attacked with tightness and anxiety
on the chest,  a feeling of fright, sudden starting from sleep, shrill
screams,  dryness in the throat, tight feeling in the head, especially in
the forehead, disposition to vomit, etc.  These phenomena increased
in intensity.  At six o'clock the patient attempted to go to church,
but had to return home again on account of sickness at the stomach.
Dr. Sauter saw her first at seven o'clock.   The face  was somewhat
reddish, her expression frightful, intense, Avild; eyes suffused, keen,
restless;  pupils  contracted;  tongue dry  and clean, neck  bloated.
All the muscles  of the body were constantly twitching, the breathing
hurried and  suffocating, the chest heaved violently, the abdomen had
the natural size.  She pulled everything that she could lay hold of, 
ATR0PA BELLADONNA.                 355
 towards  her;  was  still  rational, but  attempted  to  escape.  She
 frequently jumped out of her bed suddenly, her voice was hoarse and
 she found it difficult to articulate ; pulse, small, rather hard and con-
 tracted.  The  spot  on the  hand where she had been  bitten, and
 where  only a  small,  elongated cicatrix  had  been observed, was
 bluish, somewhat swollen and painful.  A few  days  previous she
 had said that, ever since she was bitten, she had experienced a pecu-
 liar prickling, stinging sensation in the part, which sometimes looked
 blue and at other  times  red, and for some time back had been
 Avithout any feeling.   Her arm felt as if torpid :  she complained of
 dizziness, great dryness in the throat without actual thirst; she was
 still able to drink water, but with difficulty.   At eight o'clock the
 patient Avas given eight grains of the powdered leaves of Belladonna
 at one dose. Half an hour after, the dryness in  the throat became
 more  violent  and afterwards  increased  every  fifteen  minutes.
 Towards  noon the bitten hand looked  bluish-red, and  was painful.
 In the Avhole arm she experienced a  feeling of constriction and
 violent stitches which seemed to dart  from the  wound.   The face
 became bloated, purple, and the skin of the face looked thick as if
 an eruption would break out.   The skin of the whole body itched,
 and about noon red spots made their appearance.  The pupils Avhich
 had been  contracted heretofore, dilated from hour to'hour, until the
 patient saw all objects indistinctly and  multiplied.  The  dryness  of
 the throat increased, however she was able to swallow a quantity  of
 water in order to quench her thirst.   The pulse became fuller, larger,
 and towards evening, violently throbbing.  She passed a good deal
 of urine.  Her restlessness Avas very great, her gestures looked wild
 and frightful.  Every muscle  seemed  to  be  in  continual motion,
 partly voluntary contortions  and  partly involuntary  spasms.  Every
 instant the patient attempted to jump out of bed, tore the bed-clothes,
 attempted to bite, spit, and grasped violently at every thing near her,
 then started  back in great  fear, uttered unintelligible sounds, was
 delirious,  though she seemed to recognize  some persons and objects.
 In the meaiiAvhile the  bitten hand became blood  red and burning.
 At four in the afternoon, a copious perspiration broke  out over the
 whole body which continued until midnight.   During this time the
 constriction  and anxiety on the chest  gradually decreased.  After
 midnight,  the redness  of the face  and hand became less, the head
 was less embarrassed, and the patient fell into a sound sleep.  Next
 day she was tolerably quiet, the bitten hand was no longer red, only
 swollen; this swelling disappeared tOAvards evening.  After one
 o'clock  in the night, another paroxysm of rage  broke  out.  Ten
 grains of the root of Belladonna Avere noAV given ; the same pheno-
 mena that Avere observed after the first dose manifested themselves,
 except Avith  more intensity.  On the 19th of December,  a  third
 paroxysm set in which  Avas much less violent than either of the two
 former; she took twelve grains  of Belladonna, and the  paroxysm
terminated like the preceding ones, in general perspiration.  This
completed the cure.

  Another woman Avho had been bitten about a month after the 
oOO
LECTURE XXII.
former patient, showed similar or  rather  identical  symptoms, but
rather less intense.  She Avas treated with Belladonna, Avith the same
happy results.
  We regard this as a case of genuine hydrophobia.   The period of
incubation might have lasted a little longer than it did, but for the
shock which the poor  mother received on beholding the frightful
agony of her child.   The case  Avas  treated with  Belladonna,  in
accordance with the law, " Similia similibus curantur."  In Frank's
Magazine, the object of which is not to spread Homoeopathy, but to
record the facts of practical Medicine and Ph}Tsiology generally, this
case is emphatically claimed for Homoeopathy.
  Though the specific remedy Avas administered in very large doses,
yet the treatment was  eminently  homoeopathic.   In the year  1801,
Avhen these cases  occurred, the  theory of small  doses was still
undeveloped, and the doctrine Avas still current that  a cure can only
be affected by creating  an artificial disease that should overpower
the natural malady by its greater intensity.  Hence  the large  dose;
hence the numerous symptoms of poisoning with which the natural
disease became unnecessarily mixed up.  AVe knovv perfectly at the
present period that the pathological process is not the disease, but
the  effect of a morbific  force acting  upon, and pervading certain
tissues.  We  likewise  know that the medicine may hush  up this
pathological process Avithout first creating a similar, but more intense
derangement.  We knoAV that a cure may be affected by simply
neutralizing, through  the universally-operating law  of  attractive
affinity,  the  immaterial,  dynamic  force,  and that  this process  of
neutralization is specifically accomplished by bringing the molecules
of  an agent constituting the substratum  or material  type of the
morbific force, to bear upon this force  in such numbers and in such
a state of preparation as  shall secure full play for the gradual union
or amalgamation of the dynamico-immaterial forces of disease with
 the  material, or as  the case may be, semi-spiritualized molecules of
the  drug.  The determination of the quantitative and  qualitative
 conditions of the remedial agent, in Avhich this  neutralizing play of
 affinities will operate surely and safely, is the province of art; where
 ever it does operate rightly, so-called medicinal aggravations either
 remain unperceived or else they are so slight  that they cannot be
 deemed  of much importance.

   The following case is reported in Eust's Magazine.  Four weeks
 ago, a  woman had been bitten  by a mad dog.  The wound  not
 bleeding, and the epidermis being only a little  scratched, no atten-
 tion was paid to this  accident.  After the lapse of four weeks, the
 Avoman suddenly lost her appetite, she became restless, spent a sleep-
 less night, absorbed in anxious reveries, felt still more anxious and
 restless during the next day, and was moreover attacked with vertigo
 and constriction of the fauces.  After these dangerous symptoms had
 developed themselves, she received five grains of the powdered leaves
 of Belladonna at a dose.  After taking two grains, the symptoms had
 entirely disappeared.   A few more doses were giAren, and the patient
 remained well.   The profuse perspiration and the swelling of the in- 
ATR0PA BELLADONNA.
357
jured part, which generally follow the use of Belladonna, were  not
observed in this case.
   In Teste's New System of Materia Medica, Ave find the following
letter from  a Russian Counsellor of State, Alexander Stcherbinine,
furnishing strong presumptive evidence of the prophylactic virtues
of Belladonna.  Munch's cases, previously alluded to,  where  the
paroxysms were prevented  in  one  hundred  and seventy-six cases,
will be remembered on this occasion.
   "At your  request," (the letter is  addressed  to Dr. Teste,) "I send
you the  folloAving detailed  account of a case which shows conclu-
sively, as it seems to me, the prophylactic virtues of Belladonna in
hydrophobia. ■
   "I spent the summer of  1850 at Oranienbaum, a country-seat
which is  situated about ten miles  from St. Petersburg.   On a fine
morning, I took  a walk with my wife in the pine-grove adjoining
the village of Oranienbaum.  AVe were accompanied by our dog, a
female of the King-Charles breed.   Leaving the foot-path, she met
a  sickly-looking dog  coming  from the village, and running in a
straight line, Avith his head and tail hanging doAvn.  She was bitten
by this dog,  who continued  on his  course Avithout  the least change
in his features.  I conceived the most serious apprehensions, for the
dog seemed  to exhibit all  the signs of incipient hydrophobia.   A
few minutes  after, having returned  home, I  gave our dog a drop of
the third  attenuation of Belladonna.  Six weeks after, the dog who"
was lying quietly at the feet of my wife, rose precipitately, and  ran
about the room; soon after she stumbled on  flower-pots, and swal-
lowed a few flowers, especially reseda.  AVe tried to catch her;  but
she escaped into the garden, and ran about in every direction, tear-
ing out and eating grass.  This paroxysm lasted about five minutes,
after which she returned to the room and  remained quiet.  This
happened towards the end  of August.  At the commencement of
October, after our return to the city, the same paroxysm took place
in closed rooms.  The dog  ran  through all of them,  panting as
during the first paroxysm;  she again threw herself on  the flower-
pots, and  swallowed all  the reseda  she  could lay hold of.  In vain
we tried  to catch  her; she Avould jump  on chairs and window-sills.
In four or  five minutes she became quiet, and has remained Avell
CA'er since.
  "It seems to me that these two  paroxysms each of which took
place in  the morning at the very hour when  the dog  had been
bitten, were symptoms of incipient  hydrophobia, the breaking  out
of which was prevented by the reactive power of the medicine.   It
behooves professional men to test the prophylactic virtues of Bella-
donna in hydrophobia, and set this hypothesis at rest."

  In Epileptic Convulsions, Belladonna has proved useful, especially
in those forms of epilepsy which Schcenlein designates as  peripheral,
testieular and hysteric epilepsy; also in the  so-called idiopathic or
cerebral, where the preliminary and the conAmlsivc stages coincide,
and where the aura, the globus or spark remains unperceived by  the
patient. 
358
LECTURE XXII.
   In the Peripheral form, the attack is apt to commence with a crawl-
 ing sensation under the skin; this symptom is particularly character-
 istic of Belladonna.
   In Epilepsia testicular is, where the preliminary irritation is first
 perceived in the testicles, Avith violent sexual excitement, involuntary
 emission of semen, and in
   Epilepsia hysterica, where the irritation seems to proceed from the
 womb, and is perceived like a ball ascending towards the brain, more
 particularly in the case of plethoric Avomen.  Belladonna may prove
 one of the useful remedies to be employed.   It has afforded relief in
 various  cases of
   Idiopathic epilepsy, complicated with symptoms of mental derange-
 ment,  imbecility or idiocy.  Belladonna has been used in very small
 and also in comparatively large doses, of half  a grain of the leaves
 and even ten and  more grains each, Avith equally good effect.  We
 prefer from the second to the sixth potency in this disease.

                           Paralysis.

   We knoAV from numerous cases of poisoning that Balladonna may
 cause paralysis of the lower extremities.  The paralysis may be com-
 plicated  with  excessive trembling of the limb; or the  patient may
 complain of a feeling of chilliness in  the limb, Avith sharp pains in
"the affected part; or the limb may feel numb, cold and the pulse may
 be weak, empty, hurried and intermitting.
   In a case quoted by Frank, in his Magazine,  a boy Avho had eaten
 five berries of Belladonna in the evening, found himself on the fol-
 lowing morning, with his lower extremities paralyzed.
   In another  case of poisoning, where an enema of Belladonna had
 been administered,  the extremities, upper and loAver, were  in a con-
 stant state of trembling and otherwise utterly paralyzed; if the arms
 were attempted to be raised, they would drop doAvn again imme-
 diately^   The skin  of the neck and extremities seemed to  have lost
 its sensibility.  Pulse irritated and accelerated.  Symptoms of cere-
 bral congestions, flushed and glowing face, staring and dilated pupils,
 suffused  conjunctiva.
   We have clinical Old-School experience showing that large doses
 of Belladonna may cause apoplexy and that afterwards paralysis may
 ensue.   In a case of gastric typhus two injections of the root of Bel-
 ladonna  were  administered of fifteen  grains each, in consequence of
 Avhich  the patient  became  apoplectic, saffron-colored, and  in a few
 days died of paralysis.
   AAre may therefore find Belladonna indicated in
   Paralysis after Apoplexy, either of one side  or  both  sides of the
 body, or
   Partial Paralysis of one extremity or of one  side of the face, or of
the organs of speech.   The pulse which indicates Belladonna in this
disease may be slow and full, but not hard or bounding; generally
it will be found small, hurried, Aveak or perhaps somewhat jerking
and inclining to intermit.  The paralysis may  be  complicated with
symptoms of cerebral  derangement, vertigo as if  the patient were 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.                 359
turning in a circle, appearance of fright and imbecility, paralysis or
paralytic weakness of the sphincters, with involuntary discharge of
urine and faeces, dilatation or alternate dilatation and contraction of
the pupils.

  Rheumatic Paralysis of the Tongue yields to Belladonna, if the symp-
toms indicate this drug.  A  lady of thirty-four years had just recov-
ered from typhus when she took cold, and became paralyzed.   The
paralysis yielded to treatment, except the loss of speech Avhich con-
tinued in spite of all treatment.  She took a  single dose of five
grains  of the powdered root of  Belladonna, and next  morning had
recovered her speech perfectly.
  A much smaller dose  would have been sufficient.  Belladonna
was most probably the remedy for the typhus that this young  lady
had been attacked with.

  We  have several times adverted to the power possessed by Bella-
donna  of curing
  Paralysis of the Sphincters of the Bladder and Anus,  Avith involun-
tary and unperceived  discharge of urine and faeces.  These paralytic
conditions may be caused by rheumatic exposure, and may also be
entailed upon a patient  as  the consequence of some mismanaged
acute disease, such as typhus.

  Paralysis of the Optic and Auditory Nerves from similar causes may
likeAvise yield to Belladonna, provided  the affection is curable.
               LECTURE  XXIII.

                 INFLAMMATOEY GEOUP.

  Aconite  produces inflammation by depressing  the functional
power of the capillary ramifications of  the  ganglionic nerves, leav-
ing the brain undisturbed except in  so  far as it suffers from the
effects of the functional derangement of any portion of the nervous
system.   Belladonna causes inflammation by  first depressing the
brain, after  which the functional poAver  of the ganglionic system
becomes  similarly but secondarily affected.  Belladonna acts pre-
cisely in a reverse  order.  It affects  the brain primarily and the
ganglionic system incidentally, whereas Aconite affects primarily the
ganglionic system and incidentally the brain.  The first  effect of
Belladonna  upon the brain is to depress or unhinge its functional
power and incidentally the functional poAver of the ganglionic sys-
tem ; the stage of organic reaction is characterized, as in the case of
Aconite,  by  capillary engorgements,  a full,  rapid  and bounding
pulse, glowing redness of the face, protrusion and suffusion of the
eyes,'heat of the skin,  etc.  But in the case of Belladonna, the 
360
LECTURE XXIII.
antagonism  seems to be between the capillaries and  the central
point of the nervous system,  the  brain;  whereas,  in  the  case  of
Aconite, the antagonism is  betAveen the capillaries and the terminal
ramifications of the ganglionic system.  Hence, in the case of Bella-
donna, the antagonism  is  marked  by more obstinate, more  deep-
seated and more dangerous symptoms than in the case of Aconite.
If, in a case of inflammation, the capillaries, under the stimulating
effects of Aconite, persist  in  remaining engorged;  if the redness,
swelling and heat  continue; if the  cutaneous exhalations show no
signs of  return ; if the  brain  continues to feel  dull, weary, torpid,
we may rest assured that the primary seat of the inflammatory pro-
cess  is not in the ganglionic system, but in the brain itself.  We do
not  know of a single affection that, under ordinary circumstances,
requires Aconite, for which Belladonna might not likeAvise be indi-
cated, if the origin of the disorder is traceable to an invasion of the
functional powers of the brain itself, instead of depending upon a
simple depression or, to use  Bichat's language,  irritation, of the
ganglionic system.   All the congestions, inflammations, nervous and
cutaneous disorders,  to Avhich  Aconite is specifically adapted, may
require Belladonna,  whenever the starting-point of the  affection, or
the primary perception  thereof by the sentinent organism, has to be
sought in the immediate province of the brain  itself.   We have
known whole families where the  cerebral fibre was  so  much more
sensitive, even to the commonest catarrhal irritations than the gang-
lionic fibre, that the least catarrhal  affection, the slightest  fever,
which under similar circumstances and  in ordinarily normal con-
ditions of the system, would have yielded to a single dose of Aconite,
at once assumed the form of an obstinate, intense and deeply-searching
disease, starting from a primary depression or irritation of the cerebral
fibre, and requiring Belladonna as its specific  remedy  from the
commencement.
   Cases may occur where the  primary depression of the ganglionic
system may gradually communicate itself to the  brain, and where it
may become necessary to wind up  the treatment Avith  Belladonna,
although it  seemed  necessary to  commence Avith Aconite.  It may
even become necessary, on account of this simultaneousness of cerebral
and  ganglionic irritation, each of which may, to some extent,  be
looked  upon  as an independent or  at  least co-relative affection,
helping to support and develop the other, to institute  an alternate
use of Aconite and Belladonna in appropriate doses and at suitable
intervals.
   We would  call attention to the wise provision of Nature that
affections, where Belladonna is required, occur much less frequently
than similar affections that  require Aconite.  The brain, in its capa-
city  of supreme preserver and  regulator of all the organic  functions,
is guarded from injury by an inherent superiority of resisting power
without which the life of the organism would be in constant jeopardy.
   We might perhaps content ourselves with this general explanation
of the physiologico-therapeutic range of Belladonna, referring the
reader for a detailed account of the special congestive and inflamma-
tory conditions where Belladonna may be required, to the chapter 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
361
on Aconite.  But the subject is too important to be dismissed after
this general introduction, and we shall therefore indicate more in
detail some of the leading congestions and inflammations, Avhere the
great powers of Belladonna have to be appealed to as restorers of the
prostrated functions.
  The inflammatory action of Belladonna  may develop different
forms of inflammation, phlegmonous, erysipelatous, rheumatic, gan-
grenous, etc.

                a. Phlegmonous Inflammation.

  Some of the most important organs are  liable  to attacks of acute
inflammation.  Inflammation of  the  brain  (phrenitis,  meningitis,
encephalitis) has already been considered under the head of " Cephalic
Group."  We  will here add that Belladonna may be  in therapeutic
rapport with  inflammation of any  part of the brain.   It may  be
homoeopathic to
  Meningitis, or  Inflammation of the Dura Mater, setting in with a
chill and afterwards characterized by burning fever, sopor, excessive
dizziness, heat of the head, dry and brown-looking tongue, costive-
ness, and retention of urine, dark urine and contraction of the pupils
with sensitiveness to the light; or to
  Arachnoiditis, or Inflammation of the Arachnoid Membrane, so termed
from the Greek name " arachne," spider—cobweb—membrane.  Here
the pains are more deep-seated, extending  over the whole head, of a
tearing and lancinating  kind, aggravated  by  moving  the  head,
accompanied by violent congestions with  throbbing of the carotids
and  temporal arteries,  heat  and flushed  appearance of the  head.
This inflammation is attended with bland, muttering delirium.  The
pulse is hurried  and excited, but not hard  and bounding, rather soft.
Among  the gastric  symptoms  Ave  distinguish  white or yellowish
coating of the  tongue, retention of stool, but no characteristic changes
in the  urine.
  Encephalitis, Phrenitis, to which Ave have alluded when speaking
of the  Cephalic Group.  AVe may here mention
  Encephalitis caused  by exposure to  the sun's rays, Insolation, Sun-
stroke.   The patients are seized Avith violent  dizziness, so that they
fall doAvn  unless supported.   In violent  cases  they  are suddenly
deprived of consciousness and fall down as if struck by apoplexy.
Other  symptoms are: violent  stupefying  pain in the head, nausea
and even vomiting, white-coated  and dry tongue, loss of sight  and
hearing, stupor  and even coma.   Pulse  accelerated,  not  hard.
Diminished secretion of faeces and urine.
  Mania-a-potu  constituting a peculiar phase of Encephalitis pota-
torum  or Delirium tremens, has been referred to among the affections
of the Cephalic  Group.  In a case of delirium  tremens quoted in
Hirschel's Archives, a little Belladonna ointment was rubbed  under
the eye  in order to produce dilatation of the  pupils which Avere
exceedingly contracted.  The dilatation was accomplished, and with
it disappeared the annoying  phantasms by which the patient  was
continually haunted. 
362
lecture xxiii.
   Encephalitis induced  by concussion of  the  brain, or  functional
derangement of the brain characterized by sopor, muttering or raving
delirium of the kind which  Belladonna occasions, may be required
to be treated with this agent.
   In Myelitis, especially in  some forms of this  disease,, it Avill  be
impossible to  do without Belladonna.  In the acute form, arising
suddenly in consequence of exposure to  a draught of air, sudden
suppression of the perspiration, Aconite may prove our main remedy;
but in the chronic form, Avhether grafted upon  a scrofulous diathesis
or caused by the  retrocession of the itch ;  and more particularly if
the bones begin to decay by  ulceration or caries, symptoms of maras-
mus become apparent, and the  brain is  becoming exhausted in  its
endeavors to maintain the integrity of the vital  functions, its own
energies being bound to some extent by the miasm that is under-
mining the general structure of the organism; Belladonna  is indis-
pensable. How far it may be justifiable to use this agent externally
as well as internally, will have to be determined by the character of
each particular case.

   If there beany truth in our law of cure, Belladonna  must  prove
an agent of great curative value in
   Carditis, when the patient complains of a feeling of agonizing dis-
tress in the  region of the  left ventricle, as from a red-hot coal; the
heart thumps violently against the walls of the thorax.  The pulse
is small,  contracted, jerking,  inclining to intermit.   Extremities
cold, face burning and red;  pupils staring and dilated; extremities
trembling and almost paralyzed ;  respiration panting.
   Post-mortem examinations have  shown  that Belladonna  causes
inflammation of the heart.  The symptoms existing during the life-
time of the patient, confirm  this result.

   In Pneumonia. Belladonna may become an indispensable agent, if
the brain seems to be exhausted by its  efforts to supply resisting
power to the lungs.  The patient becomes drowsy, the tongue looks
dry and brown, the lips become parched, the skin feels husky and
hot, the pulse becomes small, frequent, compressible and even inter-
mitting.   These  symptoms shoAv  that the so-called nervous  stage,
where the  inflammatory symptoms are   over-shadoAved  by the
symptoms of cerebral prostration, is imminent and should be Avarded
off by the timely aid Avhich Belladonna is so well calculated, under
these circumstances, to render to the  brain.

  Belladonna  seems to  possess  a specific adaption to  the sexual
system of the female.  In
  Metritis, we  shall find this agent invaluable, more particularly if
the inflammation develop itself after confinement or during  preg-
nancy.  In rheumatic metritis, Aconite may have to be given  In
alternation with Belladonna.  We here allude more particularly  to
that form of the disease where Belladonna becomes the main remedy.
This form of metritis* may set in in  consequence of menstrual sup-
pression.  The patients  complain  of burning pains high  up in the 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
363
vagina, and if the peritoneal covering is involved, the  hypogastric
region is painful and someAvhat distended.  The patients are troubled
with frequent urging  to urinate, although they find it  difficult to
pass any urine.   The tongue is  first coated white, and  nausea and
vomiting may be present.  The  spirits are generally depressed, the
brain soon shows symptoms of prostration, the patients feel drowsy,
begin  to wander, start and  manifest  other  symptoms  ef nervous
disharmony.  In a case of this kind, resulting from, or accompanied
by menstrual  suppression,  Avith well marked  predominance  of
nervous symptoms, excessive fetor from the uterus, and  an exceed-
ingly slight oozing of  foul blackish and very fluid  blood, a single
drop of Belladonna in  a tumblerful of water, restored the menstrual
discharge and gradually effected a cure.
   Congestion of the uterus, with violent pressing, bearing-down pains,
sense of weight  in the  region  of the uterus, discharge  of white
mucus from the vagina, may require Belladonna.  In a case of acute
congestion,  resulting from sudden  exposure, and setting in Avith a
violent chill, followed by high fever,  full bounding and  rapid pulse,
Aconite should be given first, and afterwards Belladonna and Aconite
in alternation.

   Peritonitis may require Belladonna.  The patient  experiences a
burning-tearing crampy pain at  a certain spot, most frequently  near
the naval, whence it speedily flashes over the whole abdomen.   The
abdomen is distended,  very painful to the touch, pulse full, hard and
tense, from 100 to 110 beats in the minute ; tongue coated white, urine
hot and excoriating, bowels costive, face flushed.   These symptoms
may undoubtedly indicate Aconite ; but, if the cerebral congestions
are very marked, the face is flushed and  glowing, the pupils show
a disposition to contract, the patient  becomes absorbed  in reveries
or is absent-minded, the tongue  and lips look dry, or if  a tendency
to diarrhoea or involuntary  escape of faeces develop itself, Bella-
donna  should not be forgotten.
   In Puerperal Peritonitis, Belladonna is indicated in various stages
or forms of the disease.   It is indicated in  Avhat Schcenlein describes
as,
   a. The erethic form,  Avith lancinating-burning pains flashing from
the umbilical region over the whole abdomen, distention of the abdo-
men and excessive sensitiveness to the least touch, creeping chills
folloAved by heat and  dryness  of the skin, irritated and hurried
pulse, reddish urine ; morning-remission of the symptoms.
   b. In the  inflammatory form, Avith  meteorism  of the abdominal
walls,  and  excessive sensitiveness  to contact, turgescence of the
sexual organs, violent  chill  followed  by intense stinging heat  and
dryness of  the skin,  full  hard and  rapid  pulse,  burning  urine,
costiveness.   In this form Aconite is indispensable.
   c. In the erysipelatous or gastric-bilious form, Avhere the distended
abdomen is rather soft, and  not uniformly painful.  Symptoms  of
ervsipelas frequently show  themselves on the mammae and loAver
extremities.  Gastric symptoms, bitter taste, vomiting, bilious stools,
thick and ammoniacal urine, irritated and hurried, but soft, full and 
364
LECTURE XXIII.
undulating pulse, from 130 to 140 beats.   Here Bryonia and  Pulsa-
tilla may be necessary with Belladonna.
  d. In the typhoid form, Avith tympanitic distention of the abdo-
men, stupor, muttering delirium, burning heat of the skin, excessive
contraction  or alternate contraction and dilatation of the pupils,
flabbiness and shrivelled appearance  of the mammae  and  vulva,
complete cessation  of the  secretion  of  milk  and  of  the lochial
discharge, except perhaps an oozing of foul blood in case the disease
should  be complicated with putrescence  of the  uterus,   In this
condition, Belladonna may pave  the way  for  Hyoscyamus  and
Arsenic.
  Puerperal peritonitis being not unfrequently allied to
  Putrescence of the  Womb, we will take this opportunity of directing
the reader's attention to Belladonna as one of the remedies for this
disease in conjunction with Arsenicum, and,  as we shall afterwards
see, Secale cornutum.

  In inflammation of other abdominal viscera,
  Enteritis, Pancreatitis, Inflammation of the Omentum, Belladonna may
be indispensable, if the vital reaction  of the brain seems very much
excited or, at  a  later stage  depressed.   In the former case the face
looks flushed, the arteries of the neck and  temples throb with con-
siderable vehemence;  and the radial pulse partakes of the  vascular
erethism, its frequency is increased, it seems irritated, jerking, tense.
In the latter case, the face looks pale,  sunken, even hippocratic; the
extremities are cold, the pulse small, hurried, contracted, and finally
collapsing altogether.
  In  this disease Ave have  to  distinguish  an inflammation  of the
serous, and an inflammation of the mucous coat of the intestines.
In serous enteritis, the boAvels are constipated ;  in the mucous form,
brown mucous discharges mixed with faecal matter, and shreds of
intestinal mucous membrane  take  place.  Belladonna  may  be re-
quired in  either of these forms; this will depend upon the degree
and character of the  sympathy which the brain displays.   If the
accompanying fever has the synochal type, as evidenced by the full,
bounding and rapid pulse, it seems needless to remark that Aconite
should be given prior to Belladonna.
  Both constipation and diarrhoeic  discharges  may indicate Bella-
donna.  Small doses  of Belladonna possess the power of retarding
the secretions.  Of  a concentrated solution of the extract, Professor
Purkinge of Breslau took  twenty  drops on sugar.  Half  an hour
afterwards he experienced  a feeling  of  dryness in the  mouth and
fauces, when  attempting to swallow.   The external surface of the
eyes felt uncomfortably dry, so did the nasal cavity, even the palms
of the hands.  The urine was more scanty and the bowels torpid.
  On the other hand, Ave know from numerous cases of poisoning
that large doses of Belladonna will speedily excite a frequent urging
to  stool, with burning, lancinating, pinching pains in  the bowels,
and that the discharges may even become diarrhoeic, and take place
quite  frequently in  consequence of the  great  relaxation of the
sphincter.  Let it be emphatically understood, however, that unless 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
365
the symptoms of cerebral engorgement and  subsequent prostration
justify the selection of Belladonna, we cannot expect any decided
advantages from the use of this agent.

   Belladonna has been found of eminent use in the treatment of
   Colonitis, inflammation of the colon.  If the inflammation is acute,
the pains violently-tearing along the tract of the colon, and the
pulse is of the  usual  inflammatory  type, full, bounding and ac-
celerated, we invariably commence the treatment Avith Aconite.  If,
after the inflammatory symptoms have been subdued, the colon still
remains swollen, hard  and sore, and the boAvels seem inclined to
become torpid,  Avhereas frequent but  scanty  discharges  of  Avhat
might have been  regarded as intestinal mucous lining had existed
previously : Belladonna is in its place, from 1st to 6th potency.  In
an attack of this kind  the cerebral symptoms should not be over-
looked  in deciding for or against the use of Belladonna.

   In simple CEsophagilis, not communicated by caries of the vertebrae,
 or by ulceration of the trachea,  Belladonna may afford  help, pro-
 vided the  characteristic  synochal  fever  does not  first  point to
 Aconite.   The stinging-burning  pain Avhich is present in the  acute
 form, especially behind the bifurcation of the trachea, indicates this
 last named agent.
   If the inflammation is of a very intense and malignant character,
 where gangrene and perforation of the oesophagus may be the result,
 and the spasmodic difficulty of swallowing causes agonizing distress
 Avhen the least attempt at sAvallowing is made : Belladonna may be
 preferable to  any other drug.
   In Traumatic and Chemical (Esophagitis, Belladonna may likeAvise
 be required to  relieve the spasmodic dysphagia Avhich may  result
 from the wound or the poisoning.
   In Chronic (Esophagitis, where the  pains are  aching and the neck
 is stiff, Belladona is very useful.

    Angina Faucium is readily cured by Belladonna if the symptoms
 of the  disease correspond exactly with the peculiar action of  Bella-
 donna  upon the throat.
    On perusing the symptomatology of Belladonna, Ave shall^find
 that the' angina which this agent is capable of causing, is charac-
 terized by a variety of prominent and  unmistakable phenomena,
 such as:
    Intense redness of the throat;
    Excessive dryness and heat;
    Stinging, lancinating pains Avhen SAvallowing ;
    Swelling of the  internal parts, uvula, tonsils, back part  of the
 tongue;
    Sensation as if the fauces were constricted, and as if the passage of
 even a drop of liquid would be impossible;
    Feelings of excoriation in the throat;
    The tongue  looks inflamed, and  is lined Avith a thick, yellowish,
 brown coating, feels dry;
    Discharge  of a thick viscid, ropy phlegm from the mouth; 
366
LECTURE XXIII.
   Haemorrhage from the throat;
   Foid taste in the mouth ;
   Swelling of the neck, with throbbing of the carotids;
   These marked symptoms of inflammation are necessarily  accom-
 panied by symptoms of  constitutional derangement, creeping chills
 followed  by heat and dryness of the skin, irritated, hard, hurried
 pulse, dizziness and violent pain  in the frontal region or temples,
 red urine, constipation.  Belladonna may be given from the  1st to
 the 6th potency.

   In the  so-called  Putrid Sore Throat, or Bretonneau's Diphtheritic
 Inflammation of the Pharynx, Belladonna proves specially efficient.
 This form of angina frequently rages as an epidemic disease, and
 often proves exceedingly destructive to human life if improperly
 managed.
   This inflammation is ushered in by a feeling of heat and dryness
 in the throat, after which the glands, submaxillary and parotid,, begin
 to  swell,  and the motion of the  neck, which is likewise slightly
 swollen, is difficult.  The pharynx looks red and  the  tonsils  are
 likewise inflamed and swollen.  After a while the different parts of
 the throat, the velum, uvula, tonsils and  pharynx are seen covered
 with small, whitish,  or yellowish patches, looking like lard or curd.
 These patches, at first disconnected, gradually coalesce, covering the
 whole of the throat with an artificial membrane  that sometimes
 stretches  into the nasal  cavity and. doAvn wards as  far as the air-
 passages.   The exuded  pellicles being detached, a slight oozing  of
 blood may take place, commingling with the saliva.   The inflamed
 lining of the throat sometimes shines through the exudation Avhere
 it is not very thick, giving the throat the appearance of being studded
 with small ulcers.  The  discharge  of fetid  sanious ichor from the
 mouth and nostrils, which occurs in this disease, is peculiarly char-
 acteristic of it.
  In contrasting the pathognomonic signs of this disease Avith the
 physiological effects of Belladonna upon the throat, Ave shall find
 that the admirable curative  poAvers of this agent in putrid sore
 throat are altogether due to the faculty it possesses of producing a
 simijar pathological  process.
  Schneller, of the imperial Provers' Union of A'ienna, instituted
 two  experiments with the extract  of Belladonna, for a period of
 several weeks, taking in  all nine grains and  three-quarters during
the first, and about twenty grains during the second experiment.
  Among  the many interesting symptoms which this prover has
recorded of the action of  Belladonna, we note the follovving as bear-
ing upon our case:
  Pappy taste, with white coating of the tongue;
  Dryness of the mouth and  fauces, with excessive thirst, causing
him to pant for liquids;
  Eedness and burning heat in the fauces;
  Tongue cleaving to the palate;
  Exudation of a white, tenacious, viscid mucus  in the buccal cavity
with frequent spitting; 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
367
   Fetid odor from the mouth.
   We know of no drug which reproduces the pathological process
designated as Putrid Sore Throat, in all its essential features as per-
fectly as Belladonna.  Hence its extraordinary power to change this
process from a malignant and most destructive ulceration to a simple
angina, and to effect a speedy and radical cure in most cases.

   In Diphtheria, Belladonna is indispensable in the  inflammatory
stage,  especially if a  few  doses  of Aconite produce  no  favorable
change.  The redness is  either  equally diffused, or scattered in
erysipelatous patches.

   In Angina Tonsillaris  or  Quinsy  Sore  Throat,  Belladonna is
eminently indicated.   In one of Greding's cases, Belladonna caused
inflammation of the  tonsils, terminating in suppuration after the
lapse of four days.   In some cases, where the tonsils look like lumps
of raAV flesh, with throbbing pains, and violent determination of
blood fo the head, chills and afterwards fever with full, hard, quick
and  bounding pulse, Aconite may be preferable to Belladonna.   Use
from 1st to 3d potency.

   Adenitis, inflammation of glands, requires Belladonna. Glands
become inflamed suddenly, in consequence of exposure to a draught,
and  other catarrhal or rheumatic  causes.  If they look red, and the
patient complains of burning and throbbing pains in the glands, and
exhibits symptoms of constitutional feverishness, be it erethism or
synocha, Aconite is paramount.  But if Aconite should prove insuffi-
cient to restore the irritability of the capillaries, and by their rhyth-
mical contractions and expansions to remove the sanguineous engorge-
ment, Ave then  depend upon Belladonna for aid.  If  the capillary
engorgement threatens to  become habitual, owing to a deficiency of
reactive power on the  part of the brain, Belladonna becomes indis-
pensable.   This rule  applies to all  glandular bodies thus affected.
Inflammatory swellings of  the parotid, sub-maxillary, inguinal and
other glands,  may require Belladonna under such  circumstances.
Parotitis of years' standing has been cured by a few doses of Bella-
donna  6, or even higher.

  Mastitis, inflammation of the mammae, comes under this rule.   An
inflammation of this kind is very  apt to happen during confinement.
If purely inflammatory, with fever and synochal pulse, we may get
along  with Aconite exclusively.   But if the breasts threaten to
remain  permanently hard,  looking  shining and  rose-colored;  or, if
the  inflammation  assumes  an  erysipelatous  character,  Ave prefer
Belladonna Avhich it may sometimes be well to give in alternation
Avith Aconite.

  Myenteric Ganglionitis may be mentioned  in this connection.  If
the bowels are  hard, and  distended; the glands are  swollen  and
sensitive to pressure; the  patient complains of cutting or pinching
pain  in the bowels; the boAvels are either bound or foul-smelling, 
368
LECTURE XXIII.
 mucus,  dark-looking discharges take  place, Avith  an  occasional
 admixture of faecal matter; if the children look sickly, the muscles
 are flabby, the skin feels dry and feverish, Belladonna may prove
 very serviceable in the case.

   It seems unnecessary to review in detail the different congestions
 which  may  require  Belladonna.   For  practical  purposes  it will
 suffice to distinguish them into two forms, acute and chronic.
   The acute congestions to which Belladonna is homoeopathic, are
 generally distinguished by paroxysms recurring at certain intervals;
 Ave might designate them as paroxysmal exacerbations  of the pains
 and other characteristic phenomena.
   Of Congestion of the Brain, mention has already been made when
 describing the Cephalic Group.
   Congestion of the Lungs, with paroxysms of dyspnoea, soreness and
 aching  pains, heat in the chest, spasmodic cough, coldness of the
 extremities, jerking but not very full, accelerated pulse.
   Congestion of the Air-passages, Avith sore and aching, burning feeling,
 tightness and oppression, weakness, temperature of the extremities
 and pulse as in the preceding paragraph.
   Congestion of  the Bowels, with aching  pains, soreness, distention,
 dragging and heavy sensation in the bowels, stitches and  heat, con-
 stipation or ineffectual straining.
   Congestion of  the Spleen and Liver  characterized by feelings  of
 soreness, heat, fullness and weight.
   Congestion of the Uterus has been referred to on page 363.

   Acute congestion of any organ, when resulting from catarrhal or
 rheumatic exposure, or from mechanical injuries, requires Aconite
 whenever  the symptoms of synochal  fever  are characteristically
 present.  In congestions requiring Belladonna, the fever-type is the
 erethic form; the pulse is accelerated and may be rather  hard, but
 it is seldom bounding.  If the congestions have become  more or less
 chronic, the  pulse may be soft, large, undulating, and quicker than
 in the normal condition, but it is  not jerking or resisting.   Acute
 congestions that  have become chronic, or  are said to have passed
 into  the second,  erethic  or  nervous stage, are very properly and
 very often successfully treated with Belladonna.  In all such forms
 of congestion, however, it will be found indispensable to every now
 and then return to a few doses of Aconite.

               b. Erysipelatous Inflammation.

   The action of Belladonna upon the skin is so remarkable and
 distinguished by  such characteristic  phenomena that even Old-
 School physicians are obliged  to admit the correctness of Hahne-
mann's observations in this respect. We shall be able to substantiate
this  assertion when  we come to speak  of scarlet-fever.  For our
present purpose it is sufficien't to observe that  Belladonna  causes an
inflammatory redness of the  skin which  renders it a most valuable
agent in  several dangerous affections which it would frequently be
impossible to cure without it.  One of them is 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
369
   Phlegmonous Erysipelas of various parts, face, chest, bowels, etc.
 The skin is  intensely red, thick,  hot  and painful;  the parts are
 swollen, pulse  large  and rather accelerated, but soft, undulating.
 The patient feels  drowsy, thirsty, tongue coated yellowish or white,
 with unpleasant taste in the mouth.  The hands and feet, or  only
 the feet may  be cold,
   The Belladonna-erysipelas  is disposed to strike  in, as it is termed,
 and to invade an  inner tissue. Erysipelas of the face is apt to spread
 to the brain ; erysipelas of the abdomen to invade the bowels.  We
 also have erysipelatous  inflammation of the mammae, of the  peri-
 toneal membrane. The last-named inflammation has already  been
 alluded to under the designation of peritonitis.  In  this disease, it
 may often be necessary  to give a drop of the tincture  in twelve
 tablespoonfuls of water,  although in many cases the attenuations,
 from the first to the sixth, may be sufficient.

                 c. Rheumatic Inflammation.

   In the Nervous Group, we have already alluded somewhat exten-
 sively to the power inherent in Belladonna, of curing rheumatism.
 It remains for us to  record  the fact that Belladonna will cure a
 peculiar form of rheumatism  described in the books as
   Rheumalismus  vagus, or Avandering rheumatism.   According to
 Dierbach, Dr. Osborn,  in Haeser's Eepertory, recommends Belladonna
 for wandering rheumatic pains, which disappear as by magic under
 the  influence of  Belladonna, whereas  seated rheumatic  pains re-
 mained unaffected by it.  It is in pains which follow the track of
 muscles that seem to be most astonishingly  controlled by Belladonna.
   This  seems OAving to the homoeopathic relation existing between
 Belladonna  and  such wandering, vague, uncertain  pains.   Such
 pains are apt to trouble  the patient   for a feAV days,  after the
 poisonous effects of large doses of Belladonna have been subdued.

                 d. Scrofulous  Inflammation.

   We refer the reader to "Adenitis," in the Inflammatory Group ;
 to "Scrofulous Ophthalmia," in the Orbital Group, etc.

                         e. Gangrene.

  Gangrene, where Belladonna is applicable, is a termination of an
 inflammatory process,  and is, therefore, not  strictly speaking curable.
 The inflammatory process Avhich, unless arrested, would  terminate
 in gangrene, may perhaps be cured. Inflammation of the oesophagus,
 bowels, uterus, peritoneum, etc., and even  of muscular tissue, may
 terminate  in  gangrene.   If gangrene threatens to supervene, the
 extremities become cold,  the pulse becomes small, feeble, vibratory,
 compressible; the features collapse, the  skin becomes covered with
 a clammy sweat.  Gangrene of the inner  organs is more particularly
 characterized by such symptom^.   If gangrene supervene in a  case
 of inflammation where Belladonna had been given, Ave cannot hope
for much good from this drug; Arsenicum, Secale, etc., will have to
be resorted to.  If no Belladonna had  been previously  used, yet
                              24 
370
lecture xxiii.
seemed indicated by the original symptoms, it may prove an efficient
means of arresting the gangrenous disorganization.
  AVe may take this opportunity of indicating the use of Belladonna
in
               /.  Cancerous Disorganizations.

  In  scirrhus of the breasts, Belladonna  has manifested curative
powers.  We are not prepared to  assert that  it will effect the reso-
lution of scirrhous  indurations,  if given  in very  high potencies.
Nodous indurations that had  resulted from stagnant milk or from
contusions of the  mammae, have  been removed by small doses of
Belladonna and other agents.  Among Old-School  records, we find
cures of genuine scirrhus effected with very large  doses of Bella-
donna.
  A Avoman of  63 years was afflicted  with scirrhus of the breast,
that was on the point of breaking.   She  received an infusion of
Belladonna, of which she took two cupfuls  a day, at the rate of two
grains of the leaves to  a cup.  This treatment  was continued for
eight days.  The lancinating pains, heat  and swelling  had much
decreased.  She now drank three cupfulls a day. This caused dry-
ness of the month for which  she  took  a solution of gum, mulberry
syrup, etc.
  Three weeks after  this period, the gnaAving pain in the  breast had
entirely disappeared, and the  swelling seemed softer and flatter; the
urine was hot and excoriating.
  Three months after this, the tumor had gone down one-third, and
had separated into a  number of glandular bodies.
  In  six months, the tumor had dwindled down two-thirds, and nine
months after the beginning of the treatment, it had almost entirely
disappeared.  The infusion Avas continued three months longer, three
cupfuls every other day.  At the termination of twelve months, every
trace of the scirrhus was completely removed, and  two years after
the cure, the  patient's health continued perfect.
  We may add that, when the  bowels  were constipated, the patient
loosened them  by taking a little rhubarb.
  In scirrhus in the neck of the womb, used both externally and
internally, Belladonna has been of great use.
  Other similar cases are on record.   The power of Belladonna, to
disperse glandular swellings  of the mesentery, is admitted by Hufe-
land.  Blackett testifies  to its usefulness in scirrhous indurations of
glands;  Dr. Schuler  cured a  case of what seemed  a scirrhous ulcer
of  the lip, with small doses of Belladonna.  It  is of importance to
 test the resolvent virtues of Belladonna in scirrhous disorganizations
 of  glands, without even overlooking the brilliant results  which Old-
 School physicians profess to have achieved in  this direction, with
 very large doses.

                       FACIAL GROUP.

   The action of Belladonna upon the face is in many respects symp-
 tomatic of other more  deep-seated derangements, particularly of 
ATROPA  BELLADONNA.
371
 cerebral congestion.  But the face may also be affected specially, or
 idiopathically,  as it  were, although a close examination  of these
 affections will  invariably show that the condition of the brain  is
 more or less, were it ever so slightly, affected by the condition of the
 face.
   Belladonna causes heat, redness and  swelling of the face, which  is
 sometimes hard.  It  also causes a bluish and  purple  swelling ema-
 nating from one  spot and gradually spreading over the whole face.
 Hence we may find Belladonna indicated in
   Inflammation and Swelling of the Face, of a catarrhal, erysipelatous,
 and more or less malignant nature.  Even if caused by exposure to
 intense cold or keen cutting winds, Belladonna may prove of benefit.

   Belladonna likewise causes a burning redness  of the tip of nose;
 hence in
   Nasitis, or inflammation of the nose, this  great  agent may be of
 use, especially in the case of drunkards,  scrofulous individuals, and
 persons having a delicate, sensitive and irritable skin.  If the inflam-
 mation is attended with extreme sensitiveness of the smell  and ting-
 ling in the tip  of  the nose, (effects  of Belladonna,) this agent is so
 much the more specifically indicated.

   Belladonna causes a smell as of rotten eggs; hence we may employ
 this agent as a remedy in
   Morbid Alterations of the sense of smell, characterized by a foul or
 unpleasant ordor in the nose, and sometimes occurring as a symptom
 of hysteria.

                      OEBITAL GEOUP.

   The remarkable effects of  Belladonna upon  the eye may be con-
 sidered under  three different heads,  inflammation, amaurosis  and
 phantasms.

                       A. Inflammation.

   In perusing the symptomatology of Belladonna, we shall find that
 it is in homoeopathic, and hence in specific therapeutic  rapport with
 every known form of ophthalmia.  AVe find Belladonna indicated in
   Conjunctivitis or inflammation of the conjunctiva, both of the bulb
 of the eye and of the lids. The conjunctiva is traversed by a netAVork
 of engorged capillaries, causing an appearance of  redness, with heat,
 secretion of mucus, stinging pain, sensation as if the eyes were full of
 sand, sensitiveness to the  light.
  All these symptoms have  been produced by Belladonna when
 taken  by persons in health.
  Belladonna is also indicated in
  Sclerotitis, with bright redness of the  globe of the eye. The vessels
of the sclerotic coat, advancing tOAvards the  cornea, cluster around
the edges of this membrane passing it  to the extent of about half
a line, but no farther.  The pain is severe, especially during night- 
372
LECTURE XXIII.
time, stinging, darting, tearing.   The symptoms Avhich usually char-
acterize acute ophthalmia, are also present in this form, photophobia,
lachrymation, and very frequently pains in the forehead and cheek.
The inflammation may be confined to one eye; it is rheumatic  in
character.
  Belladonna  causes  the tearing,  darting and stinging  pains, the
burning  and secretion of tears which are peculiar to  this form  of
inflammation.   In
  Corneitis, inflammation  of the cornea, Belladonna may be required.
The symptomatic indications are similar to those mentioned in the
two preceding forms of inflammation.   Inflammation of the conjunc-
tiva and cornea frequently occur together.
  In ordinary cases of catarrhal  and rheumatic ophthalmia, with in-
tense  pain, fever, full, rapid and bounding pulse, Aconite may be
sufficient to control the inflammatory process, and restore the normal
condition of the  organ.   But, if the brain seem severely tried, the
pains in the inflamed  organ are peculiarly intense, maddening; the
sensitiA^eness to the light  so great that the pupil is contracted to the
smallest dimensions, and  that the least ray of light causes agonizing
distress, w# cannot get along Avithout Belladonna.
  Upon what  principle such a man as Lisfranc employs Belladonna
in the severer forms  of  ophthalmia, is a mystery to me.   Does not
Belladonna produce the very symptoms for which Lisfranc prescribes
it ?   In inflammations of the eye, where the redness is not very great
but where the sensitiveness to the light is a prominent symptom, he
causes the extract of Belladonna  to be rubbed around the orbit.  He
says that in inflammations where all the ordinary means  remained
ineffectual, this simple proceeding would  effect a radical cure in tAvo
or three days.
  Iritis, inflammation  of the iris,  in its acute form, may  require
Belladonna.  This agent is indicated  by  the excessive photophobia,
frontal headache, and the vascular appearance of the sclerotica whose
vessels are seen running  towards the cornea, forming a kind of zone
around this membrane.   Even  after effusion  of lymph, adhesions
between the papillary margin of  the iris and the capsule  of the
crystalline lens, Belladonna may still be useful.  In
  Retinitis, inflammation of the  retina, Belladonna is indispensable.
It is  indicated by deep-seated pain in the socket, excessive photo-
phobia, optical phantasms, contraction of the pupil, impaired vision,
intense sensitiveness of the eyeball to motion or contact. Agonizing
pain in the region of  the eyebroAvs, and  intense aching and throb-
bing pains in the front part of the head may also be present.

  Inflammations  of the   different  membranes of  the eye do not
always occur in  practice as disconnectedly as we ha\^e described
them here.  Inflammation  of the  conjunctiva scarcely ever exists
without  the sclerotica being more or less involved; and, on the
other hand, an inflammation of  the sclerotic coat will more or less
extend to the conjunctiva. Corneitis and a certain degree of inflam-
mation of the conjunctiva seem almost inseparable.
  For practical purposes, inflammation of the  cornea, sclerotica and 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
373
conjunctiva may be considered as one and the same affection, for the
treatment is  wholly the same.   We  select  our remedies not with
reference  to the different tissues of the  eye, but with reference to
the character of the pathological process and to the peculiar pains
and other abnormal sensations experienced by the patient.
  Schneller has obtained:  redness of the conjunctiva of the bulb of
the eye and of  the lids.
  Hahnemann and  his  provers  have obtained: engorgement of the
vessels  of the conjunctiva, with  stinging pains  and  lachrymation.
Also :  inflammatory redness, engorgement of the vessels of the sclerotica.
  These several symptoms imply the homoeopathicity of Belladonna
to  Conjunctivitis and Sclerotitis.  In  some  cases of  poisoning  we
observe a bluish appearance of the  conjunctiva.  This may lead us.
to infer the adaptation of Belladonna to the treatment of
   Choroiditis, inflammation of the choroid coat where a bluish zone
around the cornea, and the subsequent protusion of small dark-bluish
tumors constitute some of the earlier manifestations of the disease.
However, the symptom as we find it recorded in two cases of poison-
ing reported in the  " Journal Universel," is too vague to be of posi-
tive Aralue in this direction, and can only serve to complete a group
of other more decided symptoms.
   Corneitis may be  indicated by the  symptom. " feeling of heat in
the eyes, sensation as if the eyeball were enveloped in a hot vapor."

   The action of Belladonna upon the pupil and retina, as evidenced
by dilatation,  alternate contraction and  dilatation, photophobia,
optical spectra, etc., shows most conclusively that in
   Iritis and Retinitis, where  similar phenomena occur, Belladonna
must be capable of manifesting great curative poAvers.
   Chemosis, Pannus, Staphyloma, if symptomatic of, or resulting from
inflammation, have to be treated by such medicines as are or were
indicated by the general affection;  Belladonna is one of them.

   In selecting drugs Avith reference to the pathological character of
the inflammation, we shall find Belladonna indicated in
   Catarrhal, Rheumatic, Arthritic, Scrofulous, Syphilitic and Purulent
Ophthalmia.  Catarrhal ophthalmia generally corresponds with con-
junctivitis; rheumatic and arthritic ophthalmia Avith sclerotitis.
   In scrofulous ophthalmia, the cornea and conjunctiva seem to be
principally involved among the external membranes of the eye.  In
this form  of ophthalmia, Dupuytren depended  upon  Belladonna as
his chief  resource.   He gives it in doses of from three to tAvelve
grains of  the poAvdered  leaves, or from one to three grains  of the
extract made into six pills of Avhich one is  taken every two  hours.
In  order to prevent  general or local narcotism, he associates.with
the internal  use of Belladonna  the use  of  artificial  Seltzer water.
Henning asks Avith  much propriety: "Why not give smaller doses?
Experience has taught me  that much smaller doses accomplish their
object  perfectly without causing any narcotism or any other disturb-
ing primary symptoms; of course every thing depends upon  the
quality of the extract." 
374
LECTURE XXIII.
  Henning was not only a skillful operator, but a Avise and humane
physician.   AVhy will not our allceopathic brethren deem it Avorth
their while to try the curative virtues  of the first, second, or third
potency of Belladonna in inflammations of the eye,  where this drug
is applicable ?  Let it be well understood that the medicine must be
in specific  homoeopathic rapport with  the pathological process.
Mind this, my allceopathic colleague.  If, in a case of ophthalmia
Avhere Aconite should be given—in a case, for instance, where the
inflammation has the true synochal type,  with intense fever, heat
and dryness of the skin, full, rapid and bounding pulse, etc.,—you per-
sist in giving Belladonna at the  onset, without first hushing up the
violence of  the storm, you will fail in your endeavor to control the
inflammatory process; but then, be just and do not  charge the fault
of your failure upon your homoeopathic brother or  his art.

  AVe are not prepared to bestow any extraordinary commendations
upon  the curative virtues of Belladonna in syphilitic ophthalmia.
Nevertheless, if the photophobia is excessive and the tendency to
purulent disorganization indicates the use of Nitric acid, or one of
the mercurial preparations, we may alternate them with Belladonna
until a favorable change in  the  symptoms will admit of a corres-
ponding change in the treatment.
  In  Purulent  Ophthalmia  of  new-born children,  Belladonna will
prove indispensable as  a stimulator  of  the vital  energies of the
brain.  It should be given  by all means if the eye discharges  a
good deal of foul looking pus, the eyelids look swollen, with inflamed
edges, and excessive photophobia.
  The second order of phenomena appertaining to  this group, may
be ranged under the head of

                        B.   Amaurosis.

  The paralyzing  action of Belladonna upon the  optic nerve and
retina is substantiated by a number  of  cases  of  poisoning.  The
first effect of large doses of Belladonna upon the pupil is to dilate
it and diminish its  sensitiveness to light.  Oculists avail  them-
selves of this property for the purpose of obtaining a fuller and more
correct vieAvs of the interior  of the eye, and likewise for the purpose
of facilitating the operation for keratonyxis.  Dimness of sight and
even complete blindness have been occasioned in  connection with
dilatation and  insensibility of  the  pupil.   Hence we  prescribe
Belladonna  for
  Amaurosis, many cases of which  have  been cured with both
small and large doses of the  drug.   By amaurosis  we generally
understand blindness, which may be complete or partial.  This affec-
tion may be occasioned  by various causes, deficient innervation,
rheumatic exposure, injuries, etc.  The sensitiveness  of the eye to
external  stimuli need not be destroyed.   On the contrary it is
sometimes abnormally increased.  Heat and dryness of the eyeball,
muscse volitantes, spectra of various kinds, lancinating, boring pains
in the eyeball and  distressing, aching pains in the head may trouble
the patient.   These symptoms strongly indicate Belladonna. 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
375
  Amblyopia, or Amaurotic Dimness of Vision, may require Bella-
donna.  Our provings show that dimness of vision, is one of the most
characteristic effects of Belladonna.

  In consequence of suppression of scarlatina, a boy of four years
had almost lost his sight; the pupils were continually dilated.   Four
years after, he was placed under homoeopathic treatment, took a
dose of Belladonna 6, and, three days afterwards, was attacked with
a scarlet-like eruption over the whole body which disappeared again
after having remained upon the skin for three days.  His sight began
to improve and was completely restored within one month.
  Another case of Amaurosis is reported in the Allgemeine Homoeo-
pathische Zeitung, vol. 46, No. 7, (Universal Homoeopathic Gazette,)
where  a perfect cure  was affected in four weeks with  Belladonna
200, and a few  doses of Belladonna 30.  A  servant-girl of tAventy-
three  years  had  lost  her  sight  in  consequence  of  exposure.
Symptoms: vertigo, heavy feeling in the forehead, aching pain and
feeling of fullness in the eye, muscae volitantes, cobwebs before the
eyes, increased roundness of the eyeballs, engorgements of the veins
of the conjunctiva.
  Partial amaurosis will yield to Belladonna.
  Hemeralopia and Nyctalopia come  under this head.  The former,
where  the  patient is blind from  sunset to sunrise, has often  been
relieved by Belladonna.  Valette's case is quoted in Frank's Maga-
zine, who cured numbers of soldiers afflicted with hemeralopia,  by
dropping a few drops of a solution of the extract of Belladonna in the
eye.  The internal use might perhaps have proved equally effectual.
  Pereira and  other observers state that the obscuration of vision
produced by Belladonna is the effect of its  modifying action  upon
the shape of the lens which it is supposed to flatten out, thereby
causing  a  dimness and indistinctness of vision such  as  persons
affected with presbyopia, are  troubled  with.
  Purkinge controverts this doctrine.  He  attributes the peculiar
effects of Belladonna upon the visual poAver to its influence upon the
pupil, although he admits that a contraction of the iris may involve
that of the ciliary body whose spongy  structure is endowed Avith an
apparently similar irritability as the iris, and that the capsule of the
lens and the lens itself may be affected in consequence.
  Purkinge accounts for the chromatic effects of Belladonna upon
physical principles.  He shows that after the pupil has been dilated,
the rays are divided  by the flat margins of the lens  which act like
two prismatic segments joined together by their bases.
  The muscae volitantes he regards as blood-disks floating about in
the aqueous humor.  He accounts for the photophobia by an excess
of light penetrating through the dilated pupil into the interior of the
eye.  Belladonna is supposed to reproduce in the highest degree a
condition of the eye similar to what is  occasioned by excessive con-
traction of  the  pupil following, as it  generally does,  after excessive
dilatation.

  Blepharophthalmia, inflammation of the lids, may find its remedy 
376
LECTURE XXIV.
in Belladonna.  Our provings show that inflammatory redness and
swelling, Avith suppuration, are effects peculiar to Belladonna.
  Blepharospasmus will yield to Belladonna, for this substance causes
constant and painful twitching of the lids, a sort of spasm.
  It remains for us now to consider.

                  C.  Spectra  or Phantasms

as the  third order of phenomena  produced by Belladonna  in the
visual range. These spectra are of various kinds: sparks, (scotopsia);
colors,  (chromatopsia, rays, (photopsia).  Some of the more promi-
nent optical illusions occasioned  by Belladonna, some of  which
denote the  approach of, or characterize the presence of amaurosis,
are:
  AVhen  reading the letters look  like black rings surrounded by
white margins.
  Eings around the flame of a candle ;
  Seeing sparks resembling the sparks from an electric battery;
  He sees a Avhite star at the ceiling, or silvery clouds hovering in
the air;
  Seeing things upside down or double.
  This last  symptom shows that Belladonna produces and therefore
cures
  Diplopia, a symptom which sometimes occurs in amaurotic con-
ditions of the eyes, or is preliminary thereto.               ,

  Some of the symptoms enumerated among the series of symptoms
obtained  by poisonous medicinal  doses of Belladonna, are  only
valuable as  elements of a higher group.  For instance  the staring
and sparkling of the eyes; the spasmodic rolling  and squinting of
the eyeballs; their protrusion and redness, may characterize typhus,
meningitis,  mania, etc.
  Haemorrhage from the eyes, a sort of oozing of blood,  is cured by
Belladonna. Hartmann has reported a case of this kind in Stapf's
Archiv., vol. VI., p. 40; the patient was a child, three weeks old; the
eyelids were agglutinated, and whenever an attempt was  made to
open them,  blood oozed out of the eyeball.   The oozing Avas greatest
Avhen the child cried.  Belladonna 30, arrested the difficulty in two
days.
  In Fungus Medullaris, Belladonna maybe used to arrest the progress
of the disease;  whether it can be cured by this or any other agent is
doubtful.
               LECTURE  XXIV.

                   AUEICULAE GEOUP.
  Belladonna causes symptoms suggesting its use in various inflam-
matory conditions of the organ of hearing.  It causes sounding and
buzzing noises in  the ears, shooting stitches through  the ear, sensi- 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
377
 tiveness to sounds, tearing pain in the inner and outer ears, purulent
 discharge from the ear.  Hence we recommend Belladonna for
   Otitis, Inflammation of the Ear, especially if the brain is involved,
 as seen by distress in  the head, dizziness, signs  of cerebral  conges-
 tion, flushed face, noises  in  the  head;  the ears look  dark-red,
 swollen, discharges pus and blood.   The first attenuation and even
 a drop of the tincture in twelve tablespoonsfuls of water may be
 required.
   Otalgia, Earache, yields to Belladonna, if the symptoms correspond
 with those obtained by the proving of this drug, such as:  sensation
 as if the ear  would be pulled out; paroxysms of sharp, crampy pain
 in the inner ear;  boring pressure in the  meatus, as if by a finger.
 In a case of otalgia, Avhere the inner and outer ear looked  dark-red,
 swollen, with discharge of blood and pus from the ear, pain as if the
 ear  would be.torn out of the head, intense aching pain in the ear,
 Belladonna effected a perfect cure over  night.  The patient had not
 had  a wink  of sleep for three nights on account of the  pain.
  If an affection of this kind should  remain after the scarlatina or
 measles, Belladonna is undoubtedly indicated.
  Dysecoia, deafness, hardness of  hearing,  may require Belladonna,
 especially if caused by suppression of  an  acute scarlet or measle-
 eruption.  The patient complains of buzzing, wind  rushing out of
 the ears, loud reports in the ears as from a gun.
  In Otorrhoea we may find Belladonna indicated, for this drug has
 causfid "discharge of  a puriform liquid for tAventy days."  The dis-
 charge may likewise consist of fetid mucus and blood.

                       DENTAL GEOUP.

  Among the symptoms of this group we distinguish several of
 importance in a therapeutic aspect.  Belladonna  causes an
  " Inability to open the jaws on account of a painful rigidity in the
 muscles of mastication."
  This symptom indicates Belladonna in
  Rheumatic Lock-jaw when  the rheumatic irritation affects the
 muscles which control the motion of the jaws.
  Belladonna causes various kinds of rheumatic pains in the teeth
 and  gums, such as: tearing, drawing and digging pains in the teeth;
 ulcerative pains in the gums and roots of the teeth as if they would
 break off; itching and throbbing in the gums.  AVe therefore pre-
 scribe Belladonna  with success in
  Toothache characterized by similar symptoms, rheumatic, throbbing,
 tearing  and  lancinating toothache, more particularly if the pain is
 attended Avith symptoms of cerebral congestion, redness and  heat of
 the  face, heat, redness  and  SAvelling of  the gums, which, moreover,
 incline to bleed, beating in the head.  If such a toothache occurs in
 pregnant females, it may yield to Belladonna.

                      BUCCAL GEOUP.

  Many of the symptoms Avhich distinguish the action of Belladonna
upon the tongue,  lining membrane and secretions of  the  mouth 
373
LECTURE XXIV.
occur in the course of functional disturbances of a  high order.
Belladonna causes a
  Sensation on the surface of the tongue as if it had  gone to sleep,
as if it were dead, like fur or cotton;
  The tongue has a white coating upon it, or it is covered with a
quantity of  yellowish-white, tenacious mucus.
  The papillae are bright-red, inflamed and swollen;
  The tongue is sore and painful to the touch;
  Bad smell from the mouth, early in the morning on waking ;
  The mouth feels  parched, as if the skin had  been  destroyed by
something acrid or corrosive; he is  almost unable to  swallow on
account of the dryness of the mouth, nose and fauces.
  These symptoms may occur in fever, more particularly in
  Typhoid and Mucous fevers.  Some of these may likeAvise occur in
  Putrid Sore Throat or Diphtheritic Angina, to which the symptoms
mentioned in the next paragraph may likewise refer.
  Belladonna causes the secretion of a quantity  of tenacious mucus
in the mouth.  It also causes profuse pytalism, soreness  of the inner
side of the  cheek, especially in the region of the orifice of  the  sali-
vary duct, which  feels as if  corroded.  Under the action of Bella-
donna the mouth becomes filled in  the morning with a  quantity of
putrid saliva; the saliva which is secreted  by Belladonna is thick,
tenacious, white and  sticking to the tongue like  glue; it may some-
times be seen hanging out at the mouth in long strings.
  These various  symptoms  may  likewise  occur in fever, more
particularly in
  Typhoid fever, with predominance of gastric, mucous  and bilious
symptoms ;  as well as in common
  Angina Faucium, and in
  Angina Diphtheritica or putrid sore throat.
  The pytalism and soreness  of the mouth justify the antidotal iise
of Belladonna in
  Mercurial Pytalism and in rheumatic as well as scrofulous
  Stomatitis, even in that form of the disease  which is generally
described under the  name of
  Cancrum oris, gangrenous inflammation of the mouth.
  Belladonna exercises a remarkable influence over the powers of
speech.  It has the following symptoms in this direction :
  Stammering weakness of the organs of speech, with unimpaired
consciousness and dilatation of the pupils ;
  Paralytic  weakness of the organs of speech;
  Speechlessness,  he does not utter a sound;
  He has great difficulty in talking; his voice is a whistling  and
nasal voice.
  These symptoms commend  Belladonna to our  attention in
  Paralysis of the Tongue, whether occurring idiopathically or  as a
sequela  of  some cerebral lesion, apoplexy or typhus.  Belladonna
likewise causes a swelling  of the  tongue,  a  symptom  which  may
characterize a case of paralysis to which Belladonna is  homoeopathic.

  In  Glossitis, or  rather Glossoncus, Belladonna may be  of use, if 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
379
the affection is more of a chronic nature.  Belladonna causes swell-
ing, redness and  soreness of the  tongue, such  as  may occur after
mercurial poisoning,  or as a  consequence of previous acute in-
flammation.

                   PHAEYNGEAL GEOUP.

  We  have already alluded to the curative relation of Belladonna
to acute inflammation  of the throat and to its power of exciting
hydrophobic spasms.  It remains for us to state that this agent is
likewise eminently useful in
  Chronic Sore Throat, when the throat feels as if excoriated;  it is
dry and the patient may even complain of a burning sensation  in
the throat; the throat feels as if contracted, the tonsils seem enlarged.
This kind of sore throat may remain after measles, scarlatina, or it
may occur in consequence of a mismanaged angina, or as a symptom
of constitutional scrofula.  A chronic
  Swelling of the Tonsils may constitute a prominent symptom  of
sore throat.   Belladonna  causes  swelling of  the tonsils, and  is
therefore depended  upon as a remedy in this affection.


                  CHYLO-POIETIC  GEOUP.

  The  action of  Belladonna upon  this order of functions may be
considered under various heads:

                    a.  Taste, Appetite,  Thirst.

  Belladonna causes loss of taste; insipid and also foul taste in the
mouth ; slimy taste in the mouth;  it may also cause a flat sweetish
taste.  This alteration of the  taste may occur in fevers to which
Belladonna is homoeopathic.
  Belladonna affects the taste of food and drink.  Bread, for instance,
tastes  and  smells sour.   The smell of milk is  repulsive to her; it
has a somewhat bitter and sour taste which disappears after drinking
a little more of the milk.   In the  evening bread  and  butter  taste
very sour  to  him;  this is generally  followed  by heartburn  con
tinuing for two hours.   Belladonna causes a complete aversion to
all sorts of nourishment or drink.   Aversion to coffee, beer, meat,
acids.
  These indications render  it valuable as a remedy in
  Typhoid  fevers and Gastric Derangements where such  symptoms
occur.   They likewise point to Belladonna as a remedy for
  Hysteria, which is very frequently characterized by such capricious
alterations  of the  taste as Belladonna seems capable of occasioning.

  Belladonna  causes  dryness of the mouth, violent, burning, suffo-
cative, unquenchable  thirst, with inability to swallow the least drop,
or Avith great aversion  to drink.  This aversion seems to  arise in
some measure  from  the sense  of  suffocation which  the  patient
experiences Avhen swallowing liquids. 
380
LECTURE XXIV.
  Belladonna may likeAvise cause a complete absence o'f thirst or
  Adipsia,  occasioned  by a  paralytic torpor  of the  secreting
membrane.
  This dryness of the mouth and fauces may sometimes be so violent
as to render deglutition impossible.  Hence in
  Dysphagia, from such a cause, Ave may rely upon Belladonna as
one of our chief remedies.

        b. Abnormal sensations before, during or after a meal.

  Belladonna causes putrid, or also burning eructations;  acrid, sour
fluid rising to the mouth, with a kind of choking, heartburn.  These
symptoms may occur in
  Typhoid and Gastric fevers, or severe gastric derangements.
  Belladonna likewise  causes spasmodic  hiccough, or  spasmodic
eructations resembling  hiccough, or hiccough succeeded by violent
thirst, redness and  heat of the head.   Hence we recommend  this
agent for
  Spasmodic Singultus whether symptomatic of nervous irritation of
the  oesophagus or stomach, or if occurring from some other cause, as
a symptom of organic or functional disease of the stomach.
  Belladonna causes nausea and vomiting.  This vomiting may be a
vomiting of bile and mucus; or it may be a mere retching which is
so violent that the  face turns blue, and may be attended with the
breaking out of sweat as from anguish.
  This violent irritation of the nerves of the stomach may occur
idiopathically as a symptom of
  Acute Indigestion, or it may exist as  a sympathetic affection devel-
oping itself in consequence of some primary lesion of a central vital
organ, such as the brain or womb.

  Among these Belladonna-symptoms we have this record: Frequent
attacks  of nausea in the  forenoon.   This  symptom  may indicate
Belladonna in the common
   Morning sickness of  pregnant  females.   The vomiting  may be
attended with vertigo and  flashes of heat.

  Guided by this symptom, we have recommended Belladonna for
morning-sickness before we were aware that Trousseau and Breton-
neau attach a high value to the curative virtues  of this agent in the
same  affection.   They  recommend the external  application of a
watery  solution  of the  extract of  Belladonna  to  the hypogastric
region; it may be  rubbed upon the skin or applied by means  of a
compress.  If the  nausea  is simply owing to impregnation  of the
uterus, the results of this treatment are pronounced by these gentlemen
as eminently satisfactory.

  Among these  gastric symptoms of Belladonna,  the following is
deserving of particular mention:  Nausea and inclination to vomit
as if  proceeding from the throat, with  occasional bitter eructations,
in the evening,   This peculiar form of nausea may occur as a symp-
tom of 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
381
   Hysteria, or in the course of pregnancy, in consequence of some
incipient degeneration of the pharyngeal mucous membrane.

                            c.  Pains.

   Belladonna causes  a certain order of pains in the stomach which
may render it useful in certain forms of
   Cardialgia; it causes for instance a  hard and painful pressure in
the region of the stomach;  or a spasm  of the stomach which ahvavs
occurs during a meal; it also causes burning and lancinating pains in
the region of the stomach.  The burning which Belladonna causes
may amount  to actual
   Gastritis, which is accompanied by nervous  symptoms, redness
and bloating of the  face, gradually changing to the opposite condi-
tion, pale and hippocratic countenance, vomiting and horrid retching,
thirst, foul taste, inflamed and thickly-coated tongue, small and quick
pulse, cold extremities, and most frequently muttering delirium.

   Belladonna causes and will therefore cure
   Colic, more particularly Spasmodic, Flatulent, Congestive. The symp-
toms which indicate Belladonna in that affection, are the following:
   Colic, with constipation, enuresis, eructations and  inclination to
vomit;
   Colic, with spasmodic tension from the chest to the abdomen, so
violent that he  is unable to move his body.
   Cramp-like, constrictive  pain in the  lower intestines, alternating
with dull stitches or jerks in the direction of the perineum;
   Constriction of the abdomen around  the umbilicus,  as if a ball or
lump Avould form;
   Colic as if a spot in the abdomen were seized Avith nails, a griping
clutching distress;
   Violent contractive, griping pain in the right side of the abdomen
Avhen walking, accompanied by sharp stitches darting from that side
through the right side of the chest and the axilla;
   Pinching colic; he is obliged  to sit with his body bent double,
with unsuccessful inclination to diarrhoea and subsequent vomiting;
   These  pains  may occur  more or less paroxysmally, at intervals,
characterizing  a nervous affection of  the  bowels which might be
designated as
   Colicodynia, to Avhich the following symptoms may likeAvise refer:
   Violent lancinations betAveen the right hip and the  umbilicus, as
if a dull knife were thrust in;
   Heat, with anxiety, in  the abdomen,  chest and face, with obstruc-
tion of the nose:
   Heat  from beloAV  upwards, with SAveat as from anguish; after-
Avards nausea with horrid anguish, the nausea descending more and
more in the abdominal cavity;
   Long-lasting  painfulness of the Avhole abdomen, as  if it were all
sore and  raw.
   Humbling and pinching in the abdomen. 
382
LECTURE XXIV.
                      d.  Alvine Secretions.

  Small doses of Belladonna  cause constipation, with distention _ of
the bowels, heat of the head; large doses cause diarrhoeic stools with
more or less tenesmus, or even paralysis of the sphincters.   Among
the Belladonna-symptoms  belonging to this group, we notice  the
following:
  Desire for stool, with sensation in the  abdomen as if diarrhoea
would come on, accompanied  by heat in the abdomen;
  Papescent stool mixed with mucus;
  Heat in the head alternating with diarrhoea;
  Diarhcea with inclination to vomit and pressure in the stomach;
  Several watery stools, immediately after profuse sweat;
  Small  diarrhoeic  evacuations  accompanied  and  succeeded  by
tenesmus;
  The tenesmus which Belladonna excites, may be accompanied by
colic and succeeded by vomiting;
  Tenesmus, with constant pressing  and bearing down towards the
anus and genital organs, alternating with painful contraction of  the
anus;
  Contractive  pain  in  the rectum, followed by soreness  in  the
epigastrium, sudden  diarrhoeic stool and lastly tenesmus.
  These few symptoms point  to Belladonna as a remedy for  certain
forms of
  Diarrhoea, Dysenteric Diarrhoea, where this agent may be required
both when the disorder  occurs as an idiopathic affection or as a
symptom of some more deep-seated derangement, enteritis,  perito-
nitis, typhus.

  We may not overlook the fact that Belladonna is useful in
  Proctalgia,  where  it is  indicated by the  following  symptoms:
Pressure in the rectum, towards  the orifice;  and likewise: sudden
lancinations in the rectum, during motion.

  The provings likewise  show that Belladonna  causes and may
therefore cure
  Stricture of the Anus, the record being " violent itching  and con-
strictive sensation at the anus."
  A most interesting case of  fissure  and spasmodic stricture of the
anus is reported in Vol. 110 of the Ee'cueil Periodique of the Socie'te'
Gallicane, from which Dr. Frank  has transferred  it to the pages of
his Magazine.
  A young woman who was on the point  of  being confined for the
first time, complained about  a month previous to her confinement,
that she passed a little blood with the stool, and that the discharge
from the bowels caused some pain  at the anus as if the parts were
ulcerated.  After her confinement, which took place on the  14th of
September, 1825, there was no favorable change; she was frequently
constipated nine days in succession; the alvine discharges consisted
in a few blood-streaked balls of the size  of chestnuts and hard as
pebbles.  On the 2d of October, and on the  four subsequent days, 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
383
she suffered such horrid pains after an  evacuation, that she rolled
upon the  floor.   An  examination disclosed in the neighborhood of
the anus a whitish slimy matter, secreted from a fissure in the com-
missure of the perineum.   The  sphincter ani was spasmodically
constricted.  An ointment of Belladonna consisting of one  drachm
of the extract and half an ounce of cerate, was introduced into the
rectum by means of a little lint.   This afforded the patient  a relief
of which she had been deprived for a long time.  After an injection
which was administered with comparative  ease, the patient had a
much  less painful evacuation from the  boAvels than  before.  The
ointment was continued without any intermission.  On the 21st, the
patient was able to introduce her finger into the rectum Avithout any
difficulty, and the evacuations took place very easily.  For six weeks
the patient took  an  injection of bran-water; the fissure healed, the
alvine discharges became normal, and  the patient remained perma-
nently cured.
   It does not appear that in this case the Belladonna-ointment pro-
duced a single unpleasant symptom,  This and similar cases afford
us the instructive lesson:  that the external use of Belladonna  may
be attended with the most  beneficial results.
  Paralysis of the Sphincters  of the Rectum and Anus, which is indi-
cated in the following record, " Involuntary  discharge of faeces, from
paralysis of the sphincter ani," may likewise yield to Belladonna.

   The spasm-exciting virtues of Belladonna render it a valuable
and efficient agent in
  Ileus and Strangulated Hernia.  In  Frank's Physiological Maga-
zine a number of case are  reported  where Belladonna effected a
cure after every other  means had failed.   Under  the influence of
Belladonna the bowels act  again, the  vomiting of faecal  matter
ceases, the protruded bowel is easily replaced by the taxis,  or very
frequently returns spontaneously, and not a single untoward accident
remains.   Belladonna may be given internally, and may at the same
time be applied externally.   A belladonna-injection is often resorted
to by Old-School  practitioners with the happiest results.  Internally
the first to the third  potency may be given; externally we may use
from twenty-five to thirty drops in a cupful of water as a fomentation;
an injection may contain the  same quantity of the drug.
  Belladonna is  not  applicable  in every case of ileus; it  is  more
particularly useful in inflammatory ileus, with heat in the  bowels,
tenderness to pressure, flushed and hot face, obstinate constipation.
The  trouble arises in consequence of  ill-digestible food, rheumatic
exposure; or, in the case of hernia, in consequence of a badly adjusted
truss, violent efforts, and other causes.
  The curative results of Belladonna in this affection are not due to
its narcotic properties, but to its purely dynamic action upon the
nervous derangement.  In many of the  cases reported in Frank's
Magazine,  violent symptoms of poisoning Avere developed  by the
drug;  in  other cases no perceptible  medicinal symptoms became
apparent.
  Belladonna should  not be  lost sight of in  scrofulous affections of 
384
LECTURE XXIV.
 the  glandular system generally, and of the mesenteric ganglia in
 particular.  In a case of scrofulous
   Ascites, with general enlargement of glands, Belladonna effected a
 complete cure.  The patient Avas a boy of two years  and a half,
 atrophied, had fever, and was scarcely able to pass any urine; bowels
 constipated, skin dry, canine hunger and constant thirst; the abdomen
 was enormously distended, hard, the fluctuations were unmistakable;
 the umbilicus was distended even unto bursting.  After  the fruitless
 employment of a number of medicines, Belladonna was finally resorted
 to in doses of one eighth of a grain every three or four hours.  In a few
 days the child began to improve, he looked brighter, his  complexion
 became clearer, the eyes ceased  to have an unpleasant,  unmeaning,
 watery expression, the  pulse became fuller and stronger, the skin
 moist and warm, the  urine was  secreted  more abundantly and the
 child had every day from six to seven  fetid, slimy,  cadaverous
 evacuations.   The abdomen became softer, less  distended, the urinary
 secretions became more and more profuse, and the bowels continued
 to be  moved  four  or five times a day until the child's health was
 completely  restored.   In this  case  the  first  two doses,  with the
 exception of a little dizziness, caused no other unpleasant sensations,
 leaving the throat and sensorium entirely undisturbed.

                      UEINAEY GEOUP.

   Belladonna, if administered in large doses,  seems to increase the
 urinary  secretion, which is  most probably owing to  a paralytic
 debility of the sphincter of the bladder.  Small doses of  Belladonna
 seem to retard the secretion of this fluid ;  the provers of  Belladonna
 report: suppression of stool and urine, accompanied  by profuse
 sweat.
   Belladonna  alters the color of the urine;  it may be  of a gold-
 yellow or red  color; it may likewise be pale and watery, a condition
 Avhich commends Belladonna to our attention in spasmodic diseases,
 more especially when of the  character of
   Hysteria, hysteric spasms or convulsions for which Belladonna has
 been recommended in a previous paragraph.
   The reddish color of the urine may occur in such inflammatory
 diseases as may require Belladonna; a reddish sediment is sometimes
 thrown down by it.
   In Paralysis of the Sphincters, Belladonna may be indicated;  a
 condition of this  kind may occur in the course of typhus or as a
 rheumatic or hysteric affection.
  Retention of Urine, to which Belladonna is homoeopathic, does not
 often occur  as an idiopathic affection; it may be symptomatic  of
 some  cerebral disease, of inflammatory  fevers, more particularly
typhoid and mucous fevers.  In prescribing Belladonna  for this one
 symptom, the general character of the existing constitutional disorder
must justify its use.
  Eetention of urine may arise  from spasmodic  constriction  of
the sphincter.   If this difficulty has  a  purely rheumatic origin,
 Aconite may be the most suitable remedy for it;  but if it should 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
385
 develop itself as a symptom of hysteria, or if persons, more particu-
 larly females, are habitually subject to it, Belladonna may be indis-
 pensable to a final cure.

   We cannot close this chapter without alluding to the benefit which
 we may derive from Belladonna in the treatment of
   Nephritic Colic when caused by the passage of a calculus through
 the ureters.  Belladonna may relieve the spasmodic irritation of the
 walls of the ureters, particularly if the presence of violent cerebral
 congestions, flushed and jaundiced face, nausea and vomiting, indicate
 its use.  The third to the sixth potency may be sufficient.

                      SEXUAL GEOUP.

   The  action of moderate doses of Belladonna upon the  sexual
 organs seems to be characterized by spasm and congestion.   It causes :
   Eepeated paroxysms of a tearing  pain in the left spermatic cord,
 in the evening while in bed, previous to falling asleep;
   Eetraction of the prepuce behind the glans, causing a disagreeable
 sensation in the denuded glans;
   Lancination along the urethra, from thebulbus to the orifice, when
 walking;
   Drawing in the spermatic cord, when urinating;
   Lancinations in the testicle, it is drawn up;
   Violent  pressing towards the sexual  organs, worse when  sitting
 bent forward, relieved by straightening himself.
   These symptoms indicate the use of Belladonna in congestive and
 spasmodic  affections  of  the male  organs, among  which we may
 single out
   Phimosis, where it may be necessary to use Belladonna both ex-
 ternally and internally.
   Urethritis, more particularly if the bulbus of the urethra is inflamed.
   Spasmodic Irritation of the Spermatic Cord, with tearing and draw-
 ing pains.
   Orchitis,  with  lanciifg  pains in the testicle, it is hard and  drawn
 up.  Belladonna is  more particularly indicated in the congestive or
 sub-acute form, with tendency to permanent enlargement and indura-
 tion;  the cord may  be involved.

  Belladonna weakens the sexual powers, and depresses the  desire
 for sexual intercourse.  It causes
  Nocturnal emissions, Avhile the penis remains relaxed;
  Discharge of the prostatic fluid, without erection;
  The sexual appetite seems to be completely extinguished.
  In accordance with these symptoms we may recommend  Bella-
donna for
  Nocturnal Emission, discharge of the prostatic fluid and perhaps
  Spermatorrhoea Avhen arising from Aveakness of the seminal vesicles,
with sweating of the parts, pressing and lancing pains in the parts.

  The  female organs are  likewise powerfully acted  upon by  Bella-
                              25 
386
LECTURE XXIV.
donna.  Here too this agent seems to induce spasm and congestion.
Moderate  doses  seem to induce  marked signs  of organic reaction,
larger  doses depress and  disorganize the  sexual functions of the
female,  retard and alter the  quantity of the menstrual discharge,
arrest the  Aoav of milk, and weaken the uterine vitality generally.
  One of the female provers of Belladonna reports the folloAving
symptom:  "Distention of the abdomen,  Avith pressing  toAvards the
pudendum, followed by discharge of Avhite mucus from the vagina."
  This symptom, in connection with  the fact that Belladonna retards
the appearance  of  the menstrual secretion,  may render this agent
useful in
  Amenorrhea or Dysmenorrhea, where the catamenia are either pre-
ceded or superseded by a leucorrhoeal discharge, bearing-down pains,
flushed countenance, symptoms of cerebral irritation, phantasms, scin-
tillations, etc.
  In Dysmenorrhea to which Balladonna is homoeopathic, rheumatic
symptoms may develop themselves; Greding reports among his cases:
nightly  yaAvning and creeping chills over the back during the cata-
menia;  and Hahnemann's  provers  report:  crampy  tearing,  at one
time in the back and at other times in the arms.

  Evers, in his  Berlin Collections, reports "fetid  metrorrhagia"  as
one of the effects of Belladonna.  This symptom may suggest the use
of Belladonna in affections where the sanguineous secretions of the
uterus are correspondingly  altered.
  The Lochial Discharge, if  foul and fetid, may be corrected by Bella-
donna.
  The Menstrual Discharge, if consisting of dark, foul blood, may be
improved  by Belladonna if  the other  symptoms justify its exhibition.
AVe have administered Belladonna Avith success in
  Amenorrhea of a typhoid character, Avith heat and a sensation of
crawling in the uterine  region,  dry and furred tongue, foul taste,
drowsiness, depression of spirits, and  noAV and then oozing of a little
fetid, bloody Avater.

  The poAver which Belladonna possesses  of disorganizing the uterine
secretions, arresting  the flow of milk and disturbing the functional
power  of  the  brain, renders it valuable in diseases arising from, or,
at any rate, co-existing with suppression of milk after  parturition.
We may mention
  Puerperal fever,  during the congestive stage, with determination of
blood to the brain, throbbing headache,  stitches through the brain,
flushed  and bloated countenance, glistening and staring eyes, dizzi-
ness, occasional delirium, nausea and vomiting, furred tongue, dry and
sticky mouth, foul  taste,  soft, quick pulse, diarrhoea or constipation,
red urine.   The first potency may be most suitable.
  Puerperal Mania may likeAvise  occur, and require the use of Bella-
donna if the mania is of the furious, ludicrous or muttering order.
AVhether this  agent is required in
  Nymphomania, depends  upon  the accompanying  cerebral symp-
toms, the  character of the delirium, the general condition of the 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
387
uterine functions, and the determining causes of this affection in the
case before us.

  In treating the diseases which may arise from suppression of milk,
we  of course treat this difficulty itself.  In
  Agalactia or Suppression of Milk, Belladonna may afford us great
aid. We know that Belladonna, if applied to the breast, Avill suppress
the secretion of  milk; hence, if this suppression should occur as a
natural disorder, in the case of  delicate, sensitive, scrofulous females,
with tendency to cerebral congestions, Ave may expect much from the
curative action of Belladonna.
  On the other hand, small doses of Belladonna may cause an in-
creased flow of milk,  a species of
   Galactirrhea,  for which  small  doses of Belladonna may be given
with good effect, even when occurring in females who are not preg-
nant.

   A partial or total suppression  of the milky secretion may lead to
the formation of nodosities in the breast, for Avhich Belladonna is
sometimes given with good effect.  It may often be adA isable to give
the drug both internally and externally.   In
   Mastitis, inflammation of the mammae, when associated Avith sup-
pression of milk, Belladonna may often afford aid; it may have to be
used in connection with Aconite.

   The tendency to sanguineous engorgement which characterizes the
action of Belladonna upon the  womb, may be accompanied by
   Prolapsus or Falling of the  Womb, or  Avith a  sensation as  if the
 Avomb had descended, although there may not  be any actual descen-
sion.  The patient experiences a dragging, heavy pain in the uterine
region, which generally disappears when lying down.   Give from
the third to the sixth potency.
   Another result of these uterine engorgements may be
    Ulceration of  the Neck of the  Womb with consequent  discharges
from the vagina.   The neck of the womb is swollen, sensitive, with
an increased temperature of the  part.
   Swelling and  Induration of the Neck of the Womb may require the
internal and external use of Belladonna.  The induration may even
be of a scirrhous nature, with  lancinations in the indurated portion
of the uterus.

   Belladonna seems to have  a marked effect upon constriction of
orifices, and has likeAvise been used Avith success in
   Stricture of the Os  Uteri, more particularly when occurring during
labor.  A case is reported in Siebold's Journal for Female Diseases,
where these anti-spasmodic virtues of Belladonna were strikingly
manifested.  A robust, middle-aged Avoman had been in labor for
twelve  hours.   The  pelvis had  the normal dimensions; it  Avas a
transverse presentation.  The  os uteri was  only dilated to the  size
of  a twenty-five cent piece, and otherwise perfectly rigid, not being
in the least affected by the increasing pains.  The pulverized root of 
388
LECTURE XXIV.
Belladonna was given in half-grain doses, and some of the ointment
of Belladonna Avas  applied to the os uteri  directly, although very
imperfectly.  In an hour and a half the os uteri  was sufficiently
dilated to enable the accoucheur to introduce his hand and turn. In
another case of stricture of the os uteri, Belladonna  was used in a
similar manner and with the same success.
  There is no reason why this agent should  not be used with bene-
fit in
  Hour-glass contractions of the Uterus, where Secale may likewise be
very efficient.

  In conclusion, I desire to call your attention to an affection which
is sometimes very troublesome to young women in their first preg-
nancy :
  Prurigo of the Vagina, the mucous lining of which looks irritated,
somewhat inflamed, studded with fine vesicles which discharge an
excoriating,  smarting, itching and  burning  moisture.  Belladonna
1st and 3d potency  may relieve this exceedingly annoying affection.

                    CATAEEHAL  GEOUP.

  Belladonna affects the lining membrane of the  nose  and of the
bronchial passages in a more  or less marked manner. Among the
recorded symptoms we distinguish the folloAving:
  Fluent Coryza of  one nostril, with smell as of herring-brine;
  Rough and hoarse, or shrill sound of the voice, with wheezing.
  Aphonia, with sensation of weakness in the larynx.
   Violent Cough, about noon, several  days in  sucession, with  dis-
charge of a large quantity of tenacious mucus.
  Violent dry cough in the forenoon as if a foreign  body had got
into the larynx.
  Itching Titillation in the back part of the  larynx, in the evening
when in bed, causing an irresistible dry cough;
  Sensation as if a Dry Catarrh had  become settled in the chest,
which continually excites a dry cough.
  Dry  Cough, day  and night, excited by a titillation in  the throat-
pit, with headache and redness of the  face.
   Cough, with discharge of a purulent substance from the upper  part
of the trachea, resembling old catarrhal mucus, early in the morning.
   Cough with a bloody taste in the mouth.
   Expectoration of  bloody mucus,- early in  the morning Avhen
coughing
   Cough preceded by weeping.
   Cough with shooting stitches in the side,  under the left rib.
  Violent cough, with pressure in the nape of the neck as though it
should break.
  These physiological effects  of Belladonna  enable us to prescribe
this agent in neglected
   Catarrh of the nose, if the secretions of the Schneiderian membrane
have become vitiated, and smell and taste like brine.  In an affection
of this  kind, the irritation will  most probably invade the mucous 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
389
lining  of the  respiratory organs, causing a cough of the character
above described.   In
  Hysteria, this alteration of the nasal secretions may likewise occur.
  Aphgnia will yield to Belladonna, if it is symptomatic of a chronic
irritation of the lining membrane of the larynx, or
   Chronic Laryngitis, with sensitiveness of the larynx to pressure,
paroxysms of dry cough, determination of blood to the head.  In a
case of this kind, it may be necessary to associate the use of Aconite
with Belladonna.
  In Pthisicky Cough, with wheezing, weakness of voice, expecto-
ration  of bloody  mucus, particularly early  in the  morning,  Bella-
donna may afford much relief, more especially if the cough comes in
paroxysms and is of a spasmodic character.
  In  Whooping-cough,  this  agent has  been  used  by  Old-School
physicians Avith considerable success during  the spasmodic  stage.
They give it  in doses  of from one-eighth  to one-half of a grain
morning and night.   A few doses  are sufficient  in many cases to
check  the violence of  the paroxysms or even to arrest them alto-
gether.  Belladonna  is  undoubtedly in homoeopathic rapport with
this cough,  and with spasmodic cough  generally,  and may effect
curative results even when given in  much smaller doses.
  In these different varieties of cough, Belladonna  is frequently
administered by inhalation, not only by allceopathic, but likewise by
homoeopathic physicians.

                     THOEACIC  GEOUP.

  Belladonna  causes a variety of stinging  pains in  the lungs; it
also causes oppression and irregular breathing.
  Its action upon the heart is likewise marked;  it causes a tremor
of the heart, with anguish.  It also causes pressure  in the region of
the heart, with anguish  and short breathing.
  These symptoms may occur in
  Hysteria, during a  paroxysm of hysteric spasms affecting particu-
larly the heart and lungs.
  In Congestion of the lungs and heart they may likeAvise be present
more or less.

                       FEVEE GEOUP.

  Belladonna may be adapted to fevers of an intermittent as well
as of a remittent type.   General indications for Belladonna in fever
are: cerebral  congestions, flushed  and  puffed  face,  sparkling  or
staring eyes, headache, restlessness, drowsiness, starting of the limbs,
nausea, dry and sticky mouth, sensitiveness to light  and noise, etc.
  Belladonna may be indicated in
  Simple  Catarrhal Fever, with tendency to  drowsiness, dry and
coated  tongue, inflamed urine, dark  flushes  on the cheeks, frontal
headache, dizziness, nausea, constipation.  The first attenuation may
be suitable.
  In Typhus, this agent manifests great curative powers. Of cerebral 
390
LECTURE XXIV.
typhus we have already spoken, page 317.  In typhus of the liver,
lungs, boAvels, Belladonna may likewise be indicated.  The character
of the  cerebral symptoms, the delirium, the nature of the optical
spectra, determine the employment  of this agent.  The delirium is
of the  furious or muttering  kind ;  the patients  are quarrelsome,
indulge in insulting language, see dogs  and Avild beasts, catch  at
flocks,  pick at the bed-clothes, complain of distressing pain  in the
head;  the pulse is soft and hurried, the skin dry, the bowels bound,
except when symptoms of paralysis  show themselves, in which case
involuntary  diarrhoeic discharges may take place.  Drowsiness  is
very apt to be present in the  first stage of the disease.  In typhus,
the third to the tAvelfth potency may be sufficient, although a lower
attenuation may  sometimes be  more useful,  more particularly  in
typhus complicated  with convulsions.
  In Petechial Typhus, Belladonna may be the best remedy in some
cases;  the petechiae  may be of a violet color, or gangrenous pete-
chiae of a blackish-brown color.  The existence of haemorrhage from
various orifices of the body,  from the nose, mouth, urethra, anus,
may afford an additional indication for Belladonna in typhus and
typhoid fevers.
  In Typhoid fever, whether the gastric, bilious, mucous or rheumatic
symptoms predominate, Belladonna may be an indispensable agent.
The typhoid character of the fever is  determined by the extent to
which the brain participates in the pathological process.
  In Gastric Typhus, the tongue may be lined with a thick, grayish
coating, rather loose and moist at  first, until the typhoid process  is
fully developed.
  In Bilious Typhus, the coating has a dark-brown appearance, until
the tongue finally looks like scorched leather.
  In Mucous Typhus, the tongue may at first be  lined Avith a thick,
tenacious Avhitish  fur; the mouth is dry, although it may be con-
tinually filled Avith tenacious saliva.
  In Rheumatic Typhus, the joints may be inflamed at first, and the
patient may complain of rheumatic tearing and lancing pains in the
periosteum of the long bones.  Under ordinary circumstances these
signs of inflammation  might yield to Aconite and Bryonia: but a
typhoid character supervening, a  medicine may have to be chosen
in affinity Avith the inimical principle of typhus.  Belladonna may
be such an agent.
  We may mention two other forms of typhus  of frequent  occur-
rence:  Typhus Pulmonalis, and Typhus Abdominal is.  In pulmonary
typhus the inflammatory process  is located in the lungs; in the
latter form it is located in the lining membrane  of the ilium.  The
symptoms which  indicate Belladonna  in these  affections' are the
same  which characterize  typhus generally,  and have been fully
described  above  and  on pages 347 and 318.  In  one case of pul-
monary typhus Avhich has come  under our notice, the symptoms of
hydrophobia constituted prominent indications throughout the course
of the  disease.
  In all fevers to  which Belladonna  is homoeopathic, a typhoid type
is threatening, although the patient  may recover before the  symp- 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.                  391
 toms of typhus have become fully developed, as we have described
 them on  page 347,  in the  paragraph  on cerebral typhus.  The
 homoeopathicity of Belladonna  to fever depends upon" a variety of
 circumstances,
   a. Upon the condition of the brain: pain, dizziness, sopor, delirium ;
   b. Upon the appearance of the face:  bloated, flushed face, glisten-
 ing or staring eyes, expression of distress and agony in the features;
   c. Upon  the condition  of the tongue  and mouth:  thickly-furred
 tongue, grayish, brown, blackish coating upon the tongue ; soreness
 of the edges and tip  of the tongue; profuse secretion of tenacious,
 stringy saliva in the mouth; foul  taste, absence of taste;  thirst  on
 account of dryness of the mouth and tongue;
   d.  Urinary; and alvine  secretions : yellow-colored or red  urine, re-
 tention of urine or inability to retain it; diarrhoea or constipation,
 the boAvels being soft, with pinching, spasmodic pains in the bowels,
 ulcerative pain in the ileo-coecal region at a later stage of the fever;
 the discharges have a foul smell;
   e.  Upon the pulse: soft, rather full and hurried ;
   f. Upon the temperature of the skin: dry  and Avarm, or  irregular
 temperature, cold feet and knees while the rest of the body is A\°arm;
 chilly creepings or internal  chilliness with Avarmth of the skin, or
 paroxysms of profuse sweat preceded  by excessive restlessness and
 anxiety;
   g.  Upon  the general condition of the nervous system:  startings,
 spasmodic tAvitchings, sopor or  stupor, wakefulness, horrid dreams,
 rapid loss of strength, emaciation.

   In Dentition-fever, Belladonna  may have to be  associated  Avith
 Aconite, if cerebral congestions are present and convulsions threaten.
   The homoeopathicity of Belladonna to Puerperal fever  has  been
 fully shoAvn in the chapter headed "Sexual Group."
   The  haemorrhagic tendencies of Belladonna may render it an
 useful agent in feArcrs of a scorbutic  nature, among which we may
 class
   Purpura  Hemorrhagica,  or Morbus Maculosus Werlhnfii.  In the
 simple form of this disease, the  Purpura simplex, Aconite may be of
 great use.  But in the decidedly scorbutic  form, where the vitality
 of the blood is undermined by a poisonous principle, Belladonna
 may have to be resorted to as one of its neutralizers.

   In  Congestive Fevers, where violent cerebral congestions charac-
 terize the paroxysmal exacerbation of the symptoms, Belladonna,
 from  first to sixth potency, may be  required;  do  not,  however,
 suffer yourselves to be beguiled  into the use  of Belladonna for no
 other reasons than .because cerebral congestions are present.  Such
 congestions may likewise  indicate Aconite, Arsenic, Mercury.  The
 dynamic condition which  is pathologically represented by the  con-
 gested conditions of the vessels,  must correspond Avith the  dynamic
action of Belladonna in order that this agent may afford relief in the
case.  This  dynamic homoeopathicity  may  be indicated or rather
characterized by such symptoms as these : bright redness and bloat- 
392
LECTURE XXIV.
 ing of the face; glistening and protrusion of the blood-shot eyeballs;
 contraction of the pupil; extreme sensitiveness of the eyes to light:
 throbbing and lancinating  pains in the'forehead and sides of the
 head; stitches darting through the head ; optical spectra, flashes of
 light or scintillations, sopor betAveen the paroxysms or else extreme
 wakefulness in consequence of the  excited  condition of the senso-
 rium:  these  are  some of the leading cerebral  symptoms  Avhich
 should decide us in our selection of  Belladonna, added to which the
 remainder of the constitutional  symptoms of the case should consti-
 tute a perfect tableau of Belladonna-action.

   In Rheumatic fever, Belladonna may be a very useful agent.   The
 fever is of a remittent type, with evening-exacerbations.   The pulse
 is  not  hard or bounding, soft,  somewhat fuller and quicker than
 usual.  The fever is attended with rheumatic pains in various parts
 of the body, in the extremities, nape  or sides of the neck, joints ; the
 pains may be tearing or drawing, lancing and creeping;  the patient
 may complain of stitches shooting  through the  affected parts, or
 darting through internal organs, even  the head.  The affected parts
 may become cedematous, without sometimes any apparent signs of
 inflammation; the hands, ankle-joints, and even larger joints such
 as the knee-joints, may become  thus affected.  The  muscles of the
 nape of the neck and  the  sterno-cleido-mastoideus  muscle may be
 the seat of the local inflammation.   We may therefore recommend
 Belladonna for a
   Crick in the neck ; also for
   Wry neck or Torticollis ;  for
   Rheumatic Swelling  of the hands, ankle-joints, knees,  etc., where
 this agent may be of great  advantage, if the pains and inflammation
 seem deeply seated, Avearing, depressing the nervous energy, inclining
 to a torpid type.
   These rheumatic inflammations may leave the external parts and,
 by a process of metastasis, attack internal organs, the brain, lungs,
 heart, stomach, bowels, liver, bladder.   If Belladonna was originally
 indicated, it may still be required by the internal disease although
 we may associate with  it  some other medicine more specifically
 adapted to the nature and functions of the invaded organ: Cantha-
 rides and Pulsatilla in case the bladder  is invaded ;  Actaea racemosa,
 Spigelia, Arsenicum, Digitalis for the  heart;  Byronia, Arsenicum
 and  other drugs, for the bowels; Bryonia and  Phosphorus for the
 lungs, etc.
   For metastatic diseases of this character, I should prefer the lower
 potencies from the third to the sixth, or even still lower.
   In Eruptive Fevers, Belladonna occupies a  prominent  rank  as a
 remedial agent.  It causes  measle-shaped eruptions,  and may there-
fore  be useful in
   Measles, if the brain has to be assisted in bringing the eruption out.
AVe may infer the existence of this necessity from various symptoms:
sopor or even stupor,  convulsive  startings, flushes  in the face  or
 changes of color in the face, hurried and irregular pulse.  The first
three potencies may be the  most appropriate. 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
393
    Balladonna likewise causes scarlet-spots or a scarlet-redness in the
 face, on the neck, chest, abdomen, hands,  sometimes accompanied
 with  hot swelling of the parts, small and quick pulse, asthmatic
 dyspnoea, violent cough, delirium,  rubbing of the nose, dilatation of
 the pupils.  This effect of Balladonna upon the skin has led to its
 use in
    Scarlatina^ laevigata, or the smooth Sydenhamian scarlet-fever, as a
 sort of specific for this very formidable malady.  Even allceopathic
 practitioners recommend its curative virtues in this disease.  In an
 essay on the prophylactic virtues of Belladonna in scarlet-fever, Dr.
 (Ehler of Grimmitschau, Saxony, expresses himself as follows:
    "_ In anginae of scarlet-fever, whether at the onset, acme  or termi-
 nation of the malady, I know of no remedy,  not even  excepting
 calomel, leeches and liniments, which affords relief and effects a cure
 as speedily as Belladonna.  I prescribe it in accordance with the age
 of the patient and the intensity of the disease, every two, three  or
 four hours, giving either the recently-pulverized root, or a reliably-
 prepared extract, in doses of from one-twelfth to one-half of a grain.
 So far from having witnessed any ill  effects from this  treatment, I
 have generally and with  but feAV exceptions,  seen  all dangerous
 symptoms subside, in which case  the medicine was  given less fre-
 quently and very soon after, omitted entirely.   Already Hufeland has
 directed attention to the peculiarity of scarlatina-angina ; Belladonna
 is endowed with the power of producing a similar affection of the
 throat; although this may sound rather homoeopathically, let us not
 reject Belladonna on this account Avith  testing its  merits in this
 disease."
   Dierbach informs us, page 836 of his Materia Medica,  that "Dr.
 Bucig of Guben, Germany, employed the pulverized  root of Bella-
 donna in three cases of scarlet-fever, the children being respectively
 from eight to fifteen years old ; no  other  medicine was used in any
 case.  He speaks of the effect of Belladonna as surprisingly striking.
 After taking one fourth of a grain, the burning  of the skin became
 less and the angina abated, so that the disease  ran its course without
 any violent symptoms.   A boy of eight years, who was frequently
 delirious, was treated to a second dose, after Avhich he became more
 quiet; after the third dose, the head was entirely disembarrassed, the
 angina was removed, the skin became moist and all danger Avas over."

   Much has been said concerning the prophylactic virtues of Bella-
 donna in scarlatina.  Men of eminence in the medical profession may
 be found among the  advocates as Avell as among the opponents of
 this doctrine.  Upon Hahnemann's recommendation, Hufeland, after
 having tested the poAver of Belladonna as a prophylactic, became one
 of its Avarmest champions, and induced the most distinguished men
 of the profession to experiment in the same direction.  The ultimate
 result  has been that some commend, others, on the contrary, repu-
 diate  the prophylactic virtues of  Belladonna as a chimera.  The
 statistics on either side  are  so numerous that it Avould require  a
 number of pages to record them all.  Upon the Avhole, the prepon-
derance seems to be on the side of those Avho argue in favor of 
394
LECTURE XXIV.
Belladonna as a preArcntive of epidemic  scarlatina.  If Belladonna
is to be used for any such purpose, it is of  importance, as Professor
Mitchell of Jefferson College justly remarks, that the article should
be reliable.  If the powdered root is  used, it should be as fresh as it
can possibly be had.  Homoeopathic physicians use the first or third
potency for preventive purposes.   Old-School  practitioners use a
much larger quantity, from one-eighth to one-fifth of a grain of the
poAvdered root once or twice a day during the course of an epidemic.
The exhibition of Belladonna as a preventive of scarlatina need not
be attended Avith any unpleasant consequences;  on the contrary, it
may prove efficacious.  Then, Avhy not resort to  it, were it only in a
single family ?  I should consider it my duty to do so on every occa-
sion, where children are exposed, in a community or even in a single
household, to the contagious influences of the scarlatina-miasm.

                EXANTHEMATOUS  GEOUP.

  Belladonna  acts with  a  peculiar power  upon  chronic inflamma-
tions and  indurations of glands, more particularly  in persons  of a
scrofulous diathesis.  Among the records of provers we see it stated
that this agent has caused inflammation and swelling of the parotid,
submaxillary, axillary, cervical and inguinal glands.  We may there-
fore commend Belladonna for
   Chronic Glandxdar Swellings,  especially when of a scrofulous cha-
racter, and when  resulting  from a  previous inflammation of the
glands.  In
  Parotitis, whether occurring as the result of an epidemic miasm,
or as an isolated case of rheumatic inflammation,  Belladonna may be
indispensable,  especially when the affection is of a chronic,  torpid
character.
  Even in Scirrhous Indurations of glands, Belladonna has been
employed with advantage.  In
  Scirrhous Indurations of the mammae, of  the lower lip, uterus, and
of glands, this  agent may be required.   The  internal use may have
to be associated with the external application of the tincture.

  In Ulcers of a scrofulous or mercurial nature, readily bleeding and
covered Avith a blackish crust, Belladonna shows  remarkable healing
powers.   The  lower potencies,  and even the tincture may have to
be used.

  In Fungus Medullar is andHematodes, Belladonna may be an useful
agent, if the fungus is not too far progressed. In medullary fungus of
the optic nerve especially, Belladonna  may be serviceable, although
no cure may ever be possible in disorganizations of this kind.   The
middle and higher potencies should be  preferred.

                            SLEEP.

  Belladonna causes drowsiness and even stupor.
  Persons who are poisoned with Belladonna, often lie in a state of 
ATROPA BELLADONNA.
395
stupor;  their breathing is stertorous, they lie motionless;  at times
they raise their eyes, stare, look around Avildly; while in this state
of stupor, the tendons twitch, the face looks pale; the face and hands
are cold, the pulse is hard, quick and small; on Avaking the mouth
is dry, the tongue cleaves to the palate, the breath has a foul odor.
  Instead of stupor the opposite condition may set  in, excessive
wakefulness, utter inability to sleep in consequence of excitement of
the fancy, all sorts of  visions and hallucinations croAvding upon the
mind.
  The sleep is interrupted by frequent startings, screams, moans as
if the person were in great distress, frightful dreams about robbers,
ghosts, fire.
  The sleep is not refreshing; on waking one feels exhausted, weary,
sick all over.
  These various characteristics  may  occur in fevers and mental dis-
eases to Avhich Belladonna is specifically adapted, and constitute so
many confirmatory evidences of the  homoeopathicity of Belladonna
to the case before us.

                       MENTAL GEOUP.

  The effects of Belladonna upon the mind are very striking.   This
drug causes a variety of mental derangements.
   1. Anxiety in the region of the heart, apparently of a purely
nervous  kind, accompanied by redness  of the face (precordial
anxiety.)
  2. Delirium  of various kinds: muttering, loquacious;  lascivious
talk, insulting language;
  3. Craziness, she  feels of those around her, acts  as  if she were
counting money;
  4. In another case, the persons undressed themselves, ran through
the  streets,  gesticulating in a strange manner,  dancing, laughing
aloud, and uttering and demanding foolish things;
   5. Other  patients would  clap their hands, with tenacious mucus
hanging out at the corners of their mouths;
   6.  Another patient  Avould put her tongue out to its full length,
smack it, after which she was tormented with retching and vomiting;
   7.  Other  patients uttered horrible shrieks, Avith trembling  of the
hands and feet;
   8. Some  patients are averse to company; they cannot bear the
least contradiction; they howl  and shriek if refused anything;
   9.  Some are attacked with rage, they tear their clothes, kick, bite,
attempt to jump out of bed, run aAvay;
   10. Others are troubled with phantasms, ghosts, beasts (dogs, bats,
wild beasts); one patient fancied his nose was transparent;
   11. Complete loss of memory, stupor, loss of consciousness, may
befall many ;
   12. Some become  shy, serious, melancholy, of a changing mood.
   These effects of Belladonna upon the  mind and censorium may
occur as abnormal  states in
   Typhoid fevers, and in 
396
LECTURE XXIV.
   Mania, Craziness, no matter from what cause the mental disorder
may emanate.  In certain specific cases, specific remedies may be
applicable, for instance if the disorder arises from the violent sup-
pression of an  eruption  to  which  some  peculiar  medicine  was
adapted;  in  cases of  syphilitic metastasis; nevertheless, even in
such cases it  may be wise to associate Belladonna with the  former
drug.

                             DOSE.

   In the course  of these lectures on Belladonna  we have furnished
a good  many hints concerning the most appropriate dose to be used
in the various maladies where Belladonna may  be required.   We
will add a few more general suggestions.
   As a general rule, we think that the middle  potencies of Bella-
donna, from the  third to the twelfth, will be found adequate to acute
as well  as to  chronic cases.  In very few cases it may be necessary
to go below the  third,  and even to resort to the tincture.  These
exceptions have been indicated in every  case.   On the other hand,
higher potencies, even  up to the two hundredth, may not only prove
efficacious but appropriate in the case of highly organized, sensitive
individuals, more especially females and children.  The dose  may be
repeated every two or six hours, and in chronic  cases once or twice
a day.

                 ANTIDOTAL TEEATMENT.

   In a case of poisoning we first withdraw the poison by  means of
an emetic, for which purpose from  tAventy to thirty grains of the
Sulphate  of Zinc may be administered;  after which Ave  resort to
such antidotes as strong lemonade, strong  black coffee, cold affusions,
mustard-draughts to the feet and stomach, etc.

   From this agent we obtain an alkaloid Atropine which is supposed
to be the active  principle of the drug.  It is exceedingly poisonous.
From the  one  hundredth part of a grain we have witnessed  the
folloAving effects in the case of a lady thirty years old:
   Weariness  of  the head; inability to raise the head after stooping;
   Eedness and heat of the face ;
   Confused vision, the colors look blurred; presbyopia, weakness
of sight even three days after taking the drug;
   Tongue rigid  like leather;
   Gums and fauces dry ;
   Limbs Aveak and heavy ; she is unable to stand or Avalk ; she feels
like fainting  after making the least effort;
   Palpitation of the heart;
   Trembling  of  the hands when attempting to hold anything.

   Another interesting  case of poisoning  by Atropine is published
in the forty-second number of the Deutsche  Klinik by  Dr.  Droste.
A girl  swallowed by  mistake a solution of Atropine  containing 
BRYONIA ALBA.
397
about two-thirds of a grain of this alkaloid.  She  complained of
burning in the throat; weakness of sight;  complete  aphonia.   Co-
pious draughts of milk excited vomiting.  Soon after the following
symptoms developed themselves: dilatation  of the pupils, injected
appearance of the eyes; convulsive movements of the  face; small
and frequent  pulse (130 beats in the minute); extreme restlessness;
indifference to Avhat was passing around her.  The burning in the
throat had increased,  and  had  extended over  the  epigastrium.
Sulphate of zinc excited more vomiting; after it had  ceased the
patient felt very drowsy.  The sopor was sought to be counteracted
by two drops of Croton oil, cold water to the head, Avarm fomenta-
tions to the feet, diffusible stimulants.   This  condition lasted forty-
eight hours, and was followed by trembling of the limbs, excessive ner-
vousness like that in delirium tremens, lasting two days and nights ;
after which the patient gradually recovered in the course of four days.
                LECTURE   XXV.

                     BRYONIA  ALBA.

                       (White Bryony?)

  This plant belongs to the Natural Order Cucurbitaceae.  It derives
its name from the Greek verb " bruo" to germinate, expressive of the
vigorous and rapid growth of its annual stems from the perennial
root.  The leaves are cordate, five-lobed, dentate.  FloAvers :  racemes
and corymbae ; calyx and corolla of equal length.  The plant bears
black berries.  It  is distinguished by herbaceous  climbers,  with
simple tendrils.  Leaves stalked and  alternate.  The large root is
perennial, of a  bitter taste,  containing  a  good  deal of  starch,
branched and tuberculous.
  There  are many species  of bryony, the white bryony being the
only species which is used by homoeopathic physicians.
  AVe make an alcoholic tincture of the root, of a deep-yellow color
and very bitter.
  Bryonia is an  acrid poison.   In  one case of poisoning, the whole
of the mucous lining of the rectum had come aAvay.  In another
case the patient  Avas attacked by tormina and purging Avhich could
not be stopped, and finally caused his death.
  Orfila has made  several experiments upon dogs.   In one of them
no  symptoms  of poisoning could be found.   In another  dog the
stomach was found inflamed, and the lungs but slightly.   Another
dog Avas killed by SAvallowing three ounces of Avater that had been
standing for two hours on four drachms of the root.
  Bryonia, if injected into the pleural cavity, causes true  pleurisy
and effusion of fibrin.
  In a case of poisoning we administer an  infusion  of galls which
precipitates an insoluble tannate of the active principles of  Bryonia. 
398
LECTURE XXV.
  Although we number Bryonia among the polychrests, yet its ther-
apeutic range is comparatively limited  as regards the diversity of
the disorders  with which it is in curative rapport.   It derives  its
importance from the fact that it is homoeopathic to affections of fre-
quent  and universal  occurrence, more  particularly rheumatic and
nervous and inflammatory diseases.
  Noack and Trinks define the physiological range of Bryonia in the
following concise statements : " Bryonia excites both the peripheral
nerves and capillary vessels, thus giving rise to symptoms intermediate
betAveen inflammation and nervous irritation.  Bryonia has striking
relations Avith the secretory organs of the bile and with the uterus,
likewise  Avith the  serous membranes, and  is especially suitable  in
hyperaemia of the latter.  Bryonia is especially indicated in affections
where  resorption is required, in typhoid infiltrations, serous infusions,
and sanguineous exudations.  It is especially efficacious in affections
Avhere  the  catarrhal, pituitous, or rheumatic character prevails, or
where  synochal symptoms pass into the nervous stage."  AVe shall
have occasion to elucidate  these  teachings as we proceed  Avith our
usual categories of symptoms under their respective heads.

                     CEPHALIC GEOUP.
  Bryonia may be of advantage in
  Hemicrania of a rheumatic, arthritic or nervous character.  Our
recorded provings  sIioav that the headaches  to which Bryonia is
homoeopathic, are characterized by congestive symptoms.  This may
be inferred from such  records as these :
  Rush of blood to the head, after which the head feels compressed
from temple to temple ;
  Violent headache, the head feeling very  heavy, Avith pressure in
the brain from within  outwards, and great desire to lie down;
  Headache, when stooping, as if the brain would press out at the
forehead;
  Headache as if the skull should be pressed asunder;
  Congestion of blood to the head, Avith heat in the head.
  According to our records, it seems characteristic of the  byronia-
headache to set in principally in the morning on Avaking, and  to
become aggravated by  movement, particularly by opening and
moving the eyes.
  The scalp  likewise presents some characteristic symptoms; it is
painful to the  touch as if sore ; burning pain at a spot on the top of
the head; the head is  covered with a warm perspiration; sensation
as if the hair were pulled at.
  Guided by these symptoms we may recommend Bryonia for
  Rheumatic congestive headaches, and for
  Rheumatism of the  scalp, where, however,  Byonia seems to play
an inferior part.   It is principally in congestive affections of the
head with predominance of nervous symptoms that  Bryonia seems
efficacious.
  The  foregoing symptoms  may be present in  Bilious-congestive
headaches, or in Rheumatic headaches, which are almost always com-
plicated with bilious symptoms. 
BRYONIA ALBA.                     399
                     NERVOUS GROUP.

  Bryonia is not much used in  purely nervous affections.   It  has
been employed in
  Traumatic Tetanus,  apparently with some success, and is  recom-
mended by Noack and Trinks in                        j
  Hysteric Tetanus, more in accordance with a theory, as it seems to
me, than with the actual effects of the drug upon the healthy organism.
It may also be more or less adapted to
  Paralysis of the Extremities,  when of a rheumatic nature, or Avhen
caused by the retrocession of an acute rash for which Bryonia should
have been prescribed.
  Regarding the dose in the  various  nervous  affections which Ave
have named, including  the  different forms of hemicrania to which
Bryonia is homoeopathic, we would recommend the middle potencies,
from the sixth to the eighteenth,  in preference to the lower or to the
tincture.  In purely nervous  or inflammatory  conditions we have
never seen any good  effects of a striking character from a strong
tincture.

                  INFLAMMATORY GROUP.

  Bryonia seems to be particularly adapted to rheumatic inflamma-
tions and to phlegmonous inflammations that have passed into the
second stage, a stage characterized by phenomena denoting effusions
into cavities or infiltrations  into  parenchymatous tissue. In pneu-
monia,  hepatitis, peritonitis, meningitis, pleuritis, enteritis,  and in
bronchitis, Bryonia is not indicated at the  outset of these affections;
but when exudations into the cerebral, pleural or peritoneal cavities,
or into the parenchyma of the lungs  or liver, threaten  or have ac-
tually taken place.  Such exudations occur in the second stage of
these  diseases,  and are  always  accompanied by  a more marked
development of  the nervous symptoms.  The pulse becomes more
hurried, feebler, less resisting to the touch.   Muttering delirium may
set in; spasmodic twitchings and even convulsions may mark  the
beginning  of the exudative process.  The consciousness becomes
disturbed ; the breathing is more oppressed  and superficial, especially
if the respiratory organs are the  seat of the effusion. If the  exuda-
tion takes place into cavities, the  region of the  cavity is often dis-
tended externally.  This may be the case in the region of the pleural
and peritoneal cavities, and even the head may swell up under the
pressure of the effused fluid.   In prescribing Bryonia in the  second
stage  of acute inflammations, Aconite or Belladonna  which may
have been your choice in the first  stage, need not be lost sight of.
It may be proper and even necessary to continue the use of either
of these agents in alternation with Bryonia, either at times or more
or less continually. After having said thus much, it seems  almost
needless to add that in acute inflammations of serous and parenchy-
matous tissue, Bryonia meets its principal sphere of action, and that
for this  reason this agent must be capable of rendering eminent ser-
vices in the second or exudative stage of pneumonia, hepatitis, pleu-
ritis and peritonitis. 
400                     LECTURE XXV.
  In the exudative stage of these diseases the pulse becomes more
hurried, more jerking and contracted, and unless absorption of the
effused fluid is effected, the pulse becomes gradually Aveaker, emptier
and compressible.   In the exudative stage of pneumonia the dyspnoea
becomes much  more  intense, .and  the characteristic rusty  sputa
supersedes the expectoration of tenacious phlegm or blood-streaked
mucus.   In the exudative stage of peritoneal hepatitis, the sAvelling
in the region of the liver increases ;  the soreness, stinging pains and
the inability to draw a long breath, are much greater; in the exuda-
tive  stage of peritonitis,  the bowels  become  tympanitic,  more
sensitive to pressure;  and lastly, in the exudative stage of pleurisy,
the side swells up, the soreness and  stinging pains and the difficulty
of breathing are much worse,  and the cough is  more Avearing and
exhausting.

  In Encephalitis, this agent  is recommended by Hartmann, when
the inflammation threatens to pass  into the exudative  stage; the
patients grate their teeth, and symptoms of lockjaAV shoAv themselves.

  In Diaphragmitis, with  inability to expand  the chest,  violent
burning and shooting pains in the region of the diaphragm, Bryonia
may prove useful, after or in conjunction with Aconite.   The lower
potencies may be preferred.

  In Hepatitis,  more  particularly  when of a chronic form, Avith
stinging, tensive and burning pains in the region of the liver, Avhich
is moreover,  hard and  swollen, sore,  Bryonia may be  of service,
more especially if the inflammation is of a rheumatic character, or
if the peritoneal  covering seems principally affected.
  Bryonia may even be found  useful, if the disorder is of a chronic
nature at the onset, of the character of
  Hepalalgia, a nervous irritation of the organ.  The middle potencies
will be found sufficient.

  In Peritonitis, particularly when of a rheumatic type, with stinging
and  burning  pains, sensitiveness of  the abdomen to the touch,
constipation, or even the opposite condition: tendency to diarrhoeic
discharges, consisting of mucus and blood, with tenesmus and griping
or shooting pains, Bryonia will  materially aid the process of recovery.
  It  is  particularly in inflammatory affections of the respiratory
organs, the lungs and their enveloping membrane, that Bryonia has
been found eminently useful;  not however  in  the first invasion of
the  disease,  but after  the synochal form  has been subdued by
Aconite.  We shall find Bryonia particularly useful in
  Pleuro-pneumonia, characterized by stiching pains or in
  Parenchymatous pneumonia, with sero-sanguineous infiltration, dry
and racking cough  without much expectoration unless it is some
rusty sputa.   In these affections the middle potencies will be found
to answer the purpose.
  In Typhoid pneumonia, Byronia is recommended by Wurm, if the
following group  of symptoms prevail:  Moderate  vascular erethism, 
BRYONIA ALBA.                    401
 the fever being mingled with chills at the onset of the attack; there
 is a good deal of heat in the head, the membranes of the brain beino1
 sometimes affected, with consequent inclination to sopor and delirium:
 bloated countenance, dryness  of the tongue,  difficult speech, rather
 hard and full pulse, oppression of the chest with tolerably easy respi-
 ration :  in older persons the pains are rather of  a burning  nature,
 and are excited by cough rather than by the act of breathing; loose
 expectoration of a yellow, blood-streaked mucus.
   AVurm likewise recommends Bryonia in
   Pneumonia, Avhen occurring as a complication of typhus abdomi-
 nalis^Avith red hepatization  of one of the lobes of the lungs, and
 especially if the pleuritic symptoms are prominent.
   In Bilious Pneumonia, Avith rheumatic  pains in  the extremities,
 gastric symptoms, burning  distress in the  lungs,  tearing  cough,
 expectoration of a tenacious,  bloody,  greenish or yellowish matter,
 sallow and even jaundiced complexion, Bryonia,  3d to 6th potency,
 will be found an useful remedy.
   In Neglected Pneumonia, AA'hich had been mismanaged with copious
 venesections, small doses of Bryonia in alternation with similar doses
 of Aconite may bring about a most favorable change.
   l'lcuritis is A*ery favorably acted  upon by  Bryonia.  This agent
 may effect  a favorable change,  Avhether  the  costal or pulmonary
 pleura is the seat of the inflammation.  In the synochal stage of the
 inflammation, Aconite is indispensable.  If it should be insufficient.
 and effusion should threaten to set in, or should be actually present,
 Bryonia will have to be resorted to.  Even in mismanaged cases,
 where, in spite of blisters and bleeding, effusion into the pleural sac
 had not been prevented, Byronia, with an occasional dose of Aconite,
 may be found the most efficient means of effecting the absorption  of
 the effused fluid.
   AA^e certainly may commend B}~ronia to your attention in
   Bronchitis,  both acute and chronic.  The patient  complains  of
 stinging and burning pains in the air-passages; he is troubled with
 paroxysms of a tearing and very fatiguing cough, Avith expectoration
 of a frothy mucus which may be streaked with blood and afterAvards
 assume a yellow color and puriform character. The cough may be
 excited by a  titillation in the throat-pit or bronchia, and the breath-
 ing may be  very much oppressed.  Use the middle potencies.   If
 the fever is high, Aconite may precede the employment of Bryonia.
   In Enteritis, Ave shall find Bryonia an useful means of cure, if the
 patient complains of griping and cutting pains in the bowels, and a
 serous diarrhoea is likeAvise present.  Bryonia seems to affect Avith a
 peculiarly destructive power  the mucous lining of the larger bowels :
 if the inflammation is located in these organs, with violent spasmodic
 and lancinating tormina, discharges of blood and mucus, Byronia will
 be found indispensable.

  Bryonia causes an inflammatory tearing pain in the region  of the
psoas-muscle ; hence we may find this agent useful in
  Psoitis, inflammation of the psoas muscle,  where it should, how
ever, be associated Avith Aconite.
                              2G 
102
LECTURE XXV.
  In  Rheumatic Inflammations Bryonia proves a great remedy.   In
rheumatic inflammations of the diaphragm, of the psoas-muscle, of
the bronchia and lungs, of serous, fibrous and muscular  tissue, and
of the articulations, we find Bryonia useful.  In these inflammations
it is indicated by rigidity, and soreness of the parts.
  In  Articular Rheumatism, acute or chronic, it is especially indicated
after  effusion into the articular cavity has set in.  Sometimes this
effusion announces itself by distinctly-perceptible  fluctuation.  The
joints are  swollen, hard, red  and very painful to pressure.  The
soreness may extend throughout  the articular cavity, and may  be
accompanied by stinging or rather lancinating pains.  If muscular
and fibrous tissues are invaded by the  rheumatic  inflammation, the
pains are tearing, sticking, burning and \rery frequently the patient
complains of a keen soreness in the inflamed parts.
  In  Neuralgic Rheumatism,  Avith stinging,  creeping  and burning
pains, Bryonia may be indicated.
  In  Arthritic Swellings of Joints, especially of the knee and tarsal
or metatarsal joints, or of single phalangeal articulations, Brj-onia
may be of  great use.   SAvellings  of this kind may partake of the
character of ffidema.   It is  also in pale, tense,  hot swelling of the
limbs that Bryonia may be found useful.
  AVe find  that in Scrofulous  Inflammation  of the Knee-joint and
White Swelling of the Knee ; and in Scrofulous  Inflammation of the
Hip-joint,  {Claudicatio Spontanea,   Coxarthrocace,)   especially  Avhen
induced by  rheumatic exposure, Bryonia may prove very useful  in
the progress of the disease Avhen  exudation into the cavity of the
joint  threatens.  If rheumatic inflammation  of the joints assumes
the form of erysipelas, Bryonia may still be useful.
  Rheumatic Inflammations may invade  the eyes,  ears; jaws, spine,
nape  of the neck, shoulders, and the various A'iscera of the abdominal
cavity, such as the bladder and bowels.  The pains to Avhich Biyonia
will be found homoeopathic  in  these affections,  are stinging, shoot-
ing, tearing and burning pains, which may be attended Avith great
soreness of the affected parts.  If the eyes and ears are the seat  of
the disease,  there may be muco-purulent or bloody discharges,  and
the functional poAver of the affected organ  is more or less interfered
Avith.  Sensitiveness to the light, buzzing or Avhizzing  noises may
trouble the patient.  If the bladder is invaded, there will be more  or
less painful and ineffectual urging to urinate.
  Should the bronchial tubes be the seat of this rheumatic irritation,
the patient w'A\ be troubled with a more or less Avearing and tearing
cough, attended Avith a frothy and subsequently a muco purulent and
more or less blood-streaked expectoration.

  In  Rheumatic Peritonitis, with, stinging and  burning pains in the
region  of the peritoneum,  meteorism,  violent chills followed by
burning fever, flushed face, headache, dizziness, constipation, Bryonia
will afford much relief.

  In rheumatic affections to which Bryonia is homoeopathic, the pain
is generally made worse by  motion.  This is readily accounted 
BRYONIA ALBA.
403
for by the fact that Bryonia excites inflammatory  action,  which is
necessarily increased by moving the affected part.

   Old-school physicians haA'e used Bryonia in rheumatic inflam-
mations, as may be seen from the following cases taken from Frank's
Magazine.
   A man of twenty-five years, whose general health was good, had
been  suffering  for some time, especially in  spring and  fall. Avith
herpesfurfuraceus  Avhich came out principals  on the arms, tibee.
andthiehs; at the approach  of.  or after  a  change  of Aveather, he
experienced periodical attacks of rheumatalgia, tearing pains in the
head, and violent pains in decayed and • sometimes in sound teeth.
During a spell of rainy weather, he had been hunting and fishing a
Avhole day, and had been resting with his right  knee for  some time
upon a Avet and cold  stone.  Tavo days after this exposure,  he
experienced, towards eArening. a slight  drawing pain in the right
knee radiating towards the thigh, increasing periodically and exacer-
bating at night.   ToAvards  morning the knee exhibited a shining and
red appearance, and Avas painful during motion Avhich Avas someAvhat
impeded.   Being obliged on the same day to  walk about, the patient
had to lie down in the evening, when the pain increased considerably
in spite of frictions Avith a hare's skin, camphor-liniments, etc.  The
patient took the tincture of Bryonia, fiVe  drops every ^three hours.
After midnight he had a quiet sleep, and toAA'ard  morning the pain
and swelling were much less ; on the third morning he was entirely
well, but he continued the medicine for a feAvdays longer as a matter
of precaution.

   Another interesting case of rheumatism is that of a man of twenty-
eight years, of good health  generally. Avho had  become drenched in
the rain during  a  mornincr-Avalk, and had remained the Avhole day
Avith his wet clothes on. Towards eA'ening he experienced a laming
sort of lassitude and soreness in the left loAver limb.  The pai-n Avas
aggravated by the least motion.   On the day folloAving. motion Avas
exeeedingfy painful and difficult; the pain Avas principally felt in
the thigh and hip-joint: in the evening, the pains became  stitching,
and periodicallv aggravated ;  they continued  eA'en during rest. The
patient had not taken an}' medicine for three days, when, on the third
morning he took two  drops of the tincture of Bryonia every three
hours.  ToAvards eA'ening of the same day, the  patient was able to
moA'e his foot Avithout pain: he only felt exhausted and Aveary : next
morning he Avas quite Avell.
   These two cases, together with  another case of apparently rheu-
matic inflammation of the knee, are reported in Bernhardi and Loef-
fler's Zeitsehrift  fur Erfahrungsheilkunde, (Journal for the Medicine
of Experience,) an Old-School publication.  From  these and similar
eases, Ave not only learn the interesting fact that the medicines Avhich
Hahnemann has been the first to subject to the crucible of physio-
logical experimentation, begin to be used and appreciated by observers
ofthe other side, but that these medicines may effect  beautiful cures
even if administered in large  doses.  It is questionable in my mind 
404
LECTURE XXV.
whether these patients would have got well equally fast under the
operation of smaller doses.  And if they should not get well as fast
Avith small as they sometimes do with large doses, would it be right
to sacrifice a patient to a theory, an abstraction, or to the inveterate
and unyielding habits of routine ?  God forbid!

                      ORBITAL GROUP.

  Bryonia is an agent of secondary importance only  in affections of
the eyes.   It causes a burning, smarting and itching of the eyes;
it also causes redness and inflammation  of the lids, Avith swelling,
pressure, heat and nightly agglutination.
  These symptoms indicate the use of Bryonia in
  Rheumatic and Arthritic Ophthalmia,  where,  however,  Bryonia
enjoys a second-rate reputation as a curative agent; and in
  Blep>harophthalmia, especially in the case of scrofulous and arthritic
individuals.  It may likewise be adapted to the dispersion of
  Inflammatory  Tumors, little Boils  which may sometimes  develop
themselves upon the lids.

                   AURICULAR  GROUP.

  Bryonia causes a  buzzing, burning and stinging pain in the ears;
tumors in front and behind the ear, ulceration of the concha, hard-
ness of hearing.   Hence we may use it in
  Otitis, of a scrofulous character, chronic rather than acute, and in
  Dysecoia, hardness of hearing; exposure to damp weather, a cur-
rent of air, etc., may occasion this difficulty.

                      DENTAL GROUP.

  Bryonia causes a tearing  pain in the teeth, which is worse in
warmth; the tooth feels elongated;  contact causes the pain to  shift
from one tooth to another.  A fine flashing pain through the teeth
is characteristic  of Bryonia.  In .
  Rheumatic Odontalgia of this nature, especially when accompanied
with otalgia, we shall find Bryonia sixth to twelfth potency useful.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC  GROUP.

  The action of Bryonia in this direction may be considered under
the following heads;

                      a.  Taste and Appetite.

  Bryonia causes a  flat, sweetish,  sickly, nauseons taste; also a foul
taste; the food tastes bitter or is entirely tasteless.  Before breakfast
or even after a meal, the taste in the mouth is bitter.
  Loss  of appetite,  violent  thirst, desire for many things which
cannot be eaten.
  The changes of taste should be considered as symptomatic of some 
BRYONIA ALBA.                     405
 more general  gastric  derangement;  the fitful or  strange desire for
 articles which are not eatable may exist in
   Hysteria or during pregnancy.

               b. Eructations, nausea and vomiting.

   Sour and bitter eructations ;
   Nausea with ptyalism;
   Empty retching, with spitting up of water and mucus, coldness
 of the body;
   Vomiting of the ingesta;
   Bitter vomiting of bile and Avater;
   Bloody vomiting.
   These symptoms are characteristic of gastric derangements gene-
 rally, and may likewise occur in gastric and bilious fevers.

        c. Abnormal sensations before, during or after a meal.

   Pressure in the stomach after  eating;
   Contractive pain in the stomach after eating;
   Cutting as with knives in the  pit of the stomach;
   The least pressure on the  pit of the stomach is unpleasant ;
   Sensation of swelling in the pit of the stomach ;
   Pressure in the stomach when walking, after supper, with pressure
 on the bladder and perineum ; the pressure disappears Avhen sitting
 down;
   Darting stitch in the pit of the stomach when  stepping, particu-
 larly when making a false step.
   These symptoms indicate the use of Bryonia in
   Dyspepsia, with oppression of  the stomach after eating, impaired
 appetite, bad taste or absence of taste in the mouth, nausea, retching,
 vomiting of mucus, and spitting  up of the food.  Give Bryonia third
 to sixth potency.
   Cardialgia, with contractive pain in the stomach, flashes of heat,
 vomiting of the  ingesta, swelling  and soreness  of  the epigastric
 region.
   Hahnemann relates a case of Gastrodynia which AA^as characterised
 by the last-mentioned symptom,  " Darting stitch  in the pit of  the
 stomach when making a Avrong step."  The  patient was a washer-
 woman, and had become utterly  incapacitated  from  work in conse-
 quence of the pain.   She had been suffering for several weeks Avhen
 she applied to Hahnemann  for relief.  One drop of the strong tinc-
ture of Bryonia cured her at once and permanently.

                           d. Pains.

  Bryonia causes tearing, lancinating  and spasmodic pains in  the
boAvels.   These pains are sometimes folloAved by an  evacuation.
We may find Bryonia indicated  in some cases  of
   Colic, of a spasmodic or inflammatory nature. In the
   Colic of Pregnant Females and  in
  Spasmodic Hysteric Colic, Bryonia may prove serviceable. 
406
LECTURE XXV.
  Bryonia causes sickening pains in the bowels, and a feeling-as if
they had  been operated on by a cathartic.   It  causes rumbling in
the boAvels.
  These pains may occur in a case of
  Enterodynia of a rheumatic  character; the attack may be accom-
panied by pressure upon the rectum, a  sensation as if a lump Avere
lying in the boAvels, and  it may terminate in a discharge from the
bowels.  The 1st to the 0th potency may suffice.  In
   Weakness of the Boiuels induced by abuse of drastics, and  charac-
terized  by constipation Avith  urging, but inability to relieve the
boAvels, Bryonia may be found useful.

                      e. Alvine Evacucdions.

  Small doses of Bryonia have a tendency to constipate the  boAvels.
Hence in
y Constipation, if the stools are hard, of large size, and deficient in
intestinal mucus, Bryonia, if administered in small doses,  may be of
great use to the patient.  In a more general group of symptoms  to
Avhich Bryonia is homoeopathic, the existence of constipation may
afford additional  evidence regarding the curative adaption  of this
agent to the case before us.  Let us not forget that a  large  dose of
Bryonia may act as a cathartic or drastic agent,  and  that the acrid
principle of this drug may cause bloody and mucous discharges from
the  bowels, attended Avith cutting and burning pains and with more
or less urging in the loAver bowels.  These symptoms  may indicate
Bryonia in
  Diarrhcea preceded by burning pains in the rectum;
  Diarrhea which it is almost impossible to retain;
  Bloody diarrhea, watery ; or
  Diarrhoea preceded by  hard stool, and accompanied by fermenta-
tion in the bowels.
  In Dysenteric Diarrhea, with sickening feeling in the bowels, lan-
cinating and tearing pain in the  larger boAvels, discharge  of mucus
and blood, Bryonia 3d to 6th potency may afford relief.
  These symptoms may likewise indicate the use of Bryonia  in
  Cholera-infantum, if the children vomit and gag a great deal, Avith
burning and soreness at the anus.

                     URINARY GROUP.

  Small doses of Bryonia cause a sensation as if the urethra were too
narrow ; large doses cause a violent desire to urinate, with sensation,
after  urinating,  as if the bladder had not  been entirely emptied.
This feeling of Aveakness may occur in
  Paralytic-rheumatic Affections of the Bladder, especially in the case
of old persons and hysteric females.  It may likewise  be  an  accom-
panying symptom in rheumatic irritations of the bowels  with ten-
dency to diarrlicea.
  This weakness of the bladder may exist in gastric and rheumatic
fevers, with red and scalding urine, or frequent discharge of a  watery
urine during the period of convalescence. 
BRYONIA ALBA.
407
                       SEXUAL  GROUP.

   Large doses of Bryonia cause profuse and premature menstruation,
 even metrorrhagia, Avith discharge of dark blood, pain in the small
 of the back and headache.   Hence we employ Bryonia in affections
 where this condition of the uterine  secretions prevails.  In
   Metrorrhagia, whether symptomatic or idiopathic, and in
   Premature and Profuse menstruation, {Menorrhagia) Bryonia may
 afford much relief, if the discharges  consist of dark blood, and the
 patient complains of pressing and  cutting pains in the bowels and
 pain in the small of the back.
   This condition may characterize a case of
   Hysteria; or it may precede a state of
   Amcrnia, with oedema of the extremities and bowels, preliminary
 to ascites or anasarca. »

   "We find that Bryonia has  caused a swelling of the labia majora,
 with a black, hard pimple on the SAvollen part. This may arise from
 an excessive determination of blood to the pudendum, and may more
 particularly occur in
   Amenorrhea, Avhen induced by rheumatic exposure.  In this form
 of amenorrhcea the patient may complain of pinching and uneasiness
 in the boAvels, Avith more or less sAvelling of the hypogastric region.
 Or the patient may complain of cutting, burning and crampy pains
 in the bowels, sickness at the stomach  and determination of blood
 to the head.

   In Mastitis, when the breasts are  gorged with milk,  Bryonia may
 do much good;  the secretion of milk is arrested, and the mammae
 become hard and nodous.
   ()ur provings state  that, under the action of Bryonia, an indurated
 nipple became soft as formerly; stitches similar to  the  sensation
 created by electric  sparks, were experienced in the nipple after the
 drug began to act.  Hence in
   Induration of the nipples, this agent may be of service.

                    CATARRHAL GROUP.

   Bryonia may be useful in
   Influenza (with pleuritic or pleuro-pneumonic symptoms), swelling
 of the nose,  nose-bleed.  It causes and may therefore cure
   Cough with hoarseness, soreness and aching pains, tickling in the
 larnyx;
   Dry cough, also Avith vomiting of food;
   Spasmodic cough,  also Avith suffocation, oppression, expectoration
 of blood and mucus.

                     THORACIC  GROUP.

   AVe have  said that Bryonia is useful in pneumonia, in pulmonary
congestions with oppression, soreness, stinging pains or  tearing pains 
408
LECTURE XXV.
when coughing; expectoration of froth, blood, serum.   It has also
been employed with excellent effect in
  Hydrothorax, with oedema  of the feet (from repercussion of  an
eruption); likeAvise in
  Palpitation of the heart Avith anxiety; in carditis it is a subordinate
remedy.

                EXANTHEMATOUS  GROUP.

  Bryonia causes and may therefore cure a
  Rash like the rash with  which  lying-in women and  nursing
infants are sometimes afflicted.  It also causes a species of
  Herpes furfuraceus, Avith burning and itching ; likeAvise
  An eruption resembling measles, which is brought out by rubbing
and scratching the part.
  In a case of measles,  Bryonia may help to bring out the eruption
upon  the  chest,  if it should  seem to have  settled  upon the lungs
causing an inflammatory irritation of this organ which may speedily
lead to effusion and paralysis.
  Bryonia causes and may therefore cure
  Erysipelas of the  joints, even Avhen   attended  Avith vesicular
eruptions.

  Bryonia seems to act upon
  Scrofulous Ulcers,  which smart and sting  under the action  of
Bryonia ;  the ichor from the ulcer stains the linen black; the ulcer
feels cold and becomes  painful as  from the contact Avith cold air.
  Bryonia may likewise cause and has been used with more or less
advantage in
  Ascites and Anasarca, when arising from retrocession of the per-
spiration,  of an acute  rash, from  liver-complaint metastasis  of
inflammatory rheumatic action.   Give Bryonia from the 3d to the
6th potency.

  Bryonia causes a yellow color of the skin.  Guided by this symp-
tom, we may administer it in
  Jaundice,  where it may be found useful if the attack Avas caused
by a fit of angry passion, disappointment; or if the attack seems to
arise from liver-complaint, partial induration, chronic hepatitis, with
soreness, heat, stinging pains  and  swelling in the region of the liver.
The gastric  symptoms should likeAvise correspond Avith the physio-
logical action of this drug.  Give from the 3d to the 12th potency.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

  Upon examining the symptoms which characterize the action of
Bryonia as  a  fever-exciting agent, Ave shall discover an absence of
those  signs which characterize  the action of Aconite.  There is no
violent  chill,  only some chilly  creepings, coldness of the skin,
followed by irregular flashes of heat: the heat is either felt internally
or externally, or both  at the same time; it is generally a burning 
BRYONIA ALBA.
409
and  dry heat, with  thirst, and  discharge of a red-looking  urine
burning heat in the blood-vessels;  heat in the loAver limbs as if they
were plunged in hot Avater, heat in the  head and on the face, with
redness of the cheeks; the heat is  folloAved by SAveat, attended wifrh
anxiety; or profuse  SAveat, particularly in the morning or at night.
  The character of these phenomena seems to preclude the propriety
of administering Bryonia in simple inflammatory fevers of a  purely
synochal character,  or in all  simple fevers  AArhere the phenomena
Avhich make up the typical paroxysm, succeed each other in regular
order.  It is in sthenic  fevers where the nervous system  shoAVS a
tendency to become profoundly shaken, Avhere the paroxysms  incline
to irregularity and a sort of torpor characterizes the vital  reaction,
that  Bryonia is more especially applicable, provided the symptoms
generally justify its use.   AVith these preliminary explanations  we
may recommend this agent in
  Gastric fevers, where symptoms of gastric derangement constitute
predominant indications, a foul gray coating  on the tongue: un-
pleasant taste in the mouth, thirst, anorexia,  flushed cheeks,  consti-
pation,  heat  in the  boAvels, sensation as if the bowels Avere acted
upon by cathartic medicine, highly-colored urine.
  Bilious fever, with yellow or brown coating on the tongue, nausea,
vomiting of bile, sensitiveness and bloating of the epigastric region,
distention of the boAvels, constipation, sallow  complexion, throbbing
pain  and heat in the head, occasional flashes of heat preceded by
chilliness.
  Mucous fevers, with whitish-yelloAV and tenacious coating on the
tongue, stitches  darting through the body, chilliness followed  by
burning heat, flushed face, soreness of the flesh, or
  Rheumatic fevers, with tearing and draAving pains in the joints,
swelling of joints or muscles, Aveariness,  creeping  chills,  whitish
coating on the  tongue, constipation, deep-colored urine.   In these
fevers the 3d to the 6th potency may be  administered.
  In Typhus, Bryonia has been given  with distinguished effect  by
homoeopathic physicians.
  In the destructive hospital-typhus Avhich  prevailed in the year
1814, Hahnemann employed with never-failing success Bryonia and
Rhus toxicodendron, giving sometimes one and at times the other
remedy accordingly  as a change in f>he symptoms indicated the neces-
sity of changing the  remedy.  If the  patient complained  of dizzi-
ness,  shooting or jerking-tearing  pains  in the head, throat, chest,
abdomen, etc; Avhich were felt particularly on moving the part, in
addition to the other symptoms, the haemorrhages, the vomiting, the
heat, the thirst, the nocturnal restlessness, etc., Bryonia Avas exhibited.
But if the shooting  pains increased in violence, were particularly
felt during rest, if the prostration and anorexia became more intense,
if the patient was troubled Avith a harassing cough, or such a debility
as to threaten paralysis, Ehus  tox.  Avas given instead of Bryonia.
  In  Typhus versatilis, Avith  headache,  unsteady and wild  looks,
indistinct speech, violent  delirium, desire to escape, sleeplessness,
violent fever, quick and soft pulse, viscid sweats, tremor of the hands,
difficulty of swallowing, Bryonia has been found useful.  This agent 
410
LECTURE XXV.
Avill be found particularly adapted to typhus  haA'ing a rheumatic
character, epidemic typhus of the nature  described by Hahnemann,
and abdominal typhus with predominance of gastric symptoms, very
ftful and sore tongue,  purulent diarrhoea folloAved or preceded by
constipation and tympanitic distention of the bowels, miliaria.  We
would recommend  the  middle potencies as the  most efficient for
curative purposes  in these different forms • of typhus.  Nor is it
necessary to repeat the  dose  oftener than  o»ce every four or six
hours.

   In the first stage of
   Puerperal fever, Avhen the bowels  are  constipated and distended,
the patient complains  of  great soreness and shooting stitches and
prickings in the region of the peritoneum;  the face is suffused with
redness,  glowing;   slight  chills  folloAved by,  or  -alternating  with
violent flashes of heat through the  body;  sensitiveness to pressure
in  the region  of  the  ovaries; loathing  of food, thick,  yellowish
coating on the tongue ;  cessation of the lochial discharge, scanty and
foul-smelling urine: Bryonia  should not  be  lost  sight of.
   The appearance  of miliaria or petechial effusions does not counter-
indicate Bryonia in malignant typhoid fever.

   Byronia may likewise develop petechiae such as may be seen in
   Purpura Hemorrhagica; it  may  therefore be  employed in this
disease Avith some chances  of success, provided the  accompanying
vascular, gastric and nerArous symptoms justify its use.

                           SLEEP.

   Bryonia disturbs the sleep  by exciting  annoying dreams about
one's affairs ; dreams full of quarrel; startings during sleep, visions
of frightful scenes and objects crowding  upon the fancy while the
body is hot and covered with SAveat.
   These symptoms show that in conditions of the system where the
vascular and nervous functions are  poAverfully irritated by disease,'
particularly in the  various inflammatory fevers to which Bryonia is
homoeopathic, this agent must often be capable of affording help.
                              •
                      MENTAL GEOUP.

   Bryonia depresses the spirits, causes irritability of temper, van-
ishing of ideas,  delirious talk,  Avith  desire  to get away from bed,
hurried speech; he fancies that he is among strangers and wants to
get home.
   These symptoms are not  very  important in themselves; but they
may complete a group of phenomena such as may occur in various
fevers, and other derangements for which Bryonia has been recom-
mended.   An irritable temper, and  a gloomy, hypochondriac de-
pression of spirits, are characteristic of Bryonia and  of  a few other
dru^s. 
MATRICARIA CIIAMOMILLA.
411
               LECTURE  XXVI.


               MATRICARIA  CIIAMOMILLA,

                      {Chamomile Flower)

  The name of this floAver is derived from the Greek word chamai
(Ioav), and from the Latin word  matrix (Avomb.)  It  belongs  to the
Natural Order: Synanthereae.  It acts principally upon the biliary
system and upon the uterine apparatus.   This drug seems particu-
larly suitable to children, to whom it is  given, in Germany at least,
without rhyme or reason.
  This substance is not a poisonous agent, and we will therefore  at
once proceed to describe the various categories of symptoms which
careful proAangs have established as the therapeutic range of this drug.
Before doing so, however, it may not be amiss to relate one  or t\vo
of the more modern provings of Chamomile, where the physiological
action of this drug is depicted in striking and very accurate characters.

  Five members of the Vienna Provers' Union took the extract  of
Chamomilla in doses of from tAvo to twenty-four grains daily, begin-
ning with t\vo grains and increasing by two grains every day, until
the number of grains amounted to twenty-four.  Most of the provers
experienced the folloAving symptoms:  Bitter,  aromatic  taste, eruc-
tations, oppression of the  stomach, nausea, loathing, desire to vomit,
pinching in the bowels, diminished appetite, costiveness, flatulence,
yaAvning, hiccough, coated tongue, accelerated pulse, palpitation  of
the heart, increased  feeling  of warmth, thirst,  dullness of  the head,
rush of blood to the head, headache, languor, irritable temper, rest-
less sleep.

  Dr. Schneller took one hundred and  fifty-six grains of the extract
of Chamomilla in tAvelve days, in the month of September,  1814.
  Not till he  took from eight to fourteen grains at a dose,  did he
experience the folloAving  symptoms: Nauseous taste;  slight palpi-
tation of the heart, soon after taking the drug; in the evening, evan-
escent stitches in the region of tl ie fifth rib, on the right side  in
front, lasting  a  short  time and  worse during a deep inspiration.
After taking twelve grains, he felt slight stitches in the precordial region,
decrease of appetite, vxvrmth and dullness about the head.  After taking
from  sixteen to tAventy grains, these symptoms were overshadowed
by the symptoms  of disturbed digestion, such as: oppression of the
stomach, emission of flatulence upwards and downwards ; yellowish coat-
ing of the tongue;  diminished appetite; accelerated pulse: increase of
warmth throughout the body, gloomy, irritable disposition.  The last two
doses of tAventy-two and twenty-four grains respectiArely again caused:
shooting stitches in the precordial region, the stitches darting at times
tOAvards the right, at others tOAvards the left  side, doAvn the loAver
extremities, as far as the dorsum of the foot and the tarsal joint, then 
412
LECTURE XXVI.
shifting upwards to the right shoulder or hip, or to the left half of
the head like a stiching or drawing pain.  The symptoms of digestive
derangement increased; loathing, retention of stool, palpitation of the
heart, accelerated pulse, and irritable  disposition.  These symptoms
continued even a few days after he had discontinued taking the drug.
   According to  Sehneller these symptoms seem to show "that Cha-
momilla affects  primarily the nervous  system.   The symptoms of
gastric  derangement show that it affects the pneumogastric nerve;
the pain in the region of the shoulder points to the sentient branches
of the axillary plexus as its chief focus of action; the pain in the  hip
and doAvn the tibia seems to shoAV that the sciatic and tibial nerves
are irritated by this drug.   The frontal nerve likewise is involved in
the present group of symptoms."
   The increased action of the heart might be accounted for upon  the
ground  of sympathetic irritation; but we shall  presently see that
Chamomilla irritates the pneumo-gastric nerve in  its whole extent,
not only the gastric, but also the pulmonary branch, causing con-
striction of the  lungs, soreness,  tearing and stitching pains in  the
lungs, oppression and a violent, racking cough.   The cardiac branch
of the pneumo-gastric nerve does not escape the depressing action of
Chamomile, against which the heart reacts by increased palpitation.
  It is  doubtful Avhether, in a case Avhere Chamomilla is indicated,
these symptoms ever  exist separately  from  bilious derangement.
The sensation of increased warmth which accompanies these symp-
toms, the acceleration of the pulse, the flushes and heat of the face
and head, seem to depend upon a disturbed condition of the secretory
organs of the biliary apparatus, and it does not seem improbable that
the general constitutional symptoms,  pains and congestions Avhich
Chamomilla is capable of exciting,  depend, to some extent at  least,
upon a derangement of the biliary secretions.

                      CEPHALIC  GEOUP.

  According to  Schoenlein, Chamomile causes a peculiar form of
rheumatalgia resembling rheumatic cephalalgia; hence Ave may use
it for
  Rheumatic Hemicrania, with tearing, dragging, maddening pains,
for these pains characterize the action  of Chamomilla.  AVe may also
employ  it in
  Bilious headaches when the pain is an oppressive, stupefying, stitch-
ing and burning distress, with yomiting of bile,  salloAV complexion,
heavy load and anxiety in the  pit of the stomach.
  Nervous headaches, with violent throbbing in one side of the head,
flashes of heat, irritable mood, stinging  pains as  though the  eyes
should fall  out, the brain feels  sore as if bruised.
  In these different forms of headache, the best dose is from the 6th
to the 12th potency.              *'

                      NERVOUS GROUP.

  Chamomilla has been used with success as a remedy for 
MATRICARIA CHAMOMILLA.
413
   Convulsions, more particularly the con\'ulsions of children, when
arising from teething, anger,  pain in the boAvels.  It is only  in
sympathetic convulsions of this character that Chamomilla is of any
use.   In
  Neuralgic affections, when the pains are of a tearing, dragging and
lancing character, Chamomilla may likewise  be  of great service.
These pains may be  excited by rheumatic  exposure.   The  sensi-
bility of the affected part is generally altered.   Flahnemann remarks
that  the  Chamomilla-pains are very frequently characterized by a
sense of numbness, more especially, however,  after  the violence of
the pain begins to subside.
  In Ischias nervosa, these pains may be present.   The sciatic nerve
is not unfrequently subject to this kind of suffering.

                     ORBITAL GEOUP.

  Chamomilla affects the sense of vision sympathetically rather than
by its direct action upon the organ of vision.  The  primary action
of Chamomilla seems to be upon the functions of the biliary apparatus,
its irritating action upon the eyes constitutes a secondary or sympa-
thetic disturbance resulting from that primary derangement of the
biliary functions.  This vieAV explains  to us  very readily the fact
that Chamomilla causes  amaurotic symptoms such as:
  Sensation of fire and heat flashing out of the eyes;
  Luminous vibrations before the eyes ;
  Obscuration of sight;
  A ray  of light is seen from the candle to the eye.
  If these  symptoms occur as natural conditions,  Ave shall most
probably find them associated with, or rather depending upon biliary
derangements Avhich  likeAvise  require Chamomile as their specific
remedy.

  Chamomile has caused, and will therefore cure,
  Hemorrhage from  the eyes  of little children in  consequence of
violent crying (weeping.)
  Bhpharospasmus, tAvitching or spasms of the eyelids, may yield to
Chamomilla, if accompanied by the previously-mentioned symptoms
of irritation of the retina.
  Homoeopathic physicians frequently recommend this agent for the
   Catarrhal conjunctivitis of neAV-born  children, Avith photophobia,
redness, agglutination of the lids,  irritable temper.

                    AUEICULAE GEOUP.

  Chamomilla causes dragging and tearing  pains in the ears, and
may therefore be recommended for
  Otalgia, Avhere these pains prevail, with buzzing  and ringing in
the ears,  especially in the case  o£scrofulous children.

                       FACIAL GEOUP.

  Chamomilla causes a scurfy  ulceration of the lips; cracks in the
middle of the loAver lip;  ulceration of the loAver nostrils. 
414                     LECTURE XXVI.
        These symptoms may occur in the case of scrofulous children, in
      consequence of a cold,  teething,  etc.   AVe may designate  this con-
      dition as a form of
        Coryza and Rhagades, of a catarrhal, ulcerous nature.  The middle
      potencies of Chamomile may remove it.

                            DENTAL  GEOUP.

        Chamomilla causes and will therefore cure a
        Rheumatic  Toothache, the pain being tearing,  stitching and boring,
      with SAvelling of the cheeks; the teeth feel as if elongated ;  the pain
      is much Avorse at night, which is characteristic of the pains caused
      by Chamomile.  It also causes
        Toothache as if the nerve Avere  scraped.
        AVe employ Chamomile as an excellent remedy in
        Difficult dentition, when one of the cheeks is red and hot, the gums
      are swollen, very sensitive, the child is very irritable and threatened
      with convulsions.

                        CHYLO-POIETIC GEOUP.

        Chamomilla  causes  a variety  of characteristic sensations in the
      chylo-poietic organs, more particularly  in  the  organs which seem
      more immediately concerned  in the process of chylification.  It
      affects  the  taste, appetite, the character of the  gastric secretion,
      develops a  variety of pains, and alters the color, smell  and consis-
      tence of the  alvine  secretions.  Among these signs of abnormal
      action  Ave may enumerate more particularly  the following symp-
      toms:
        Foul, bitter, slimy, sour taste;
*       Loss of appetite ;  empty eructations and regurgitation of food ;
        Nausea after eating ; nausea with confluence of saliva ;
        Sour vomiting;
        Distressing nausea with sense of fulness of the abdomen, followed
      by vomiting;
        Flatulent distention after eating;
        Tensive pain under the ribs,  with tension in the head and dry
      catarrh on the chest;
        Cutting-burning pains  from the stomach to  the umbilicus, with
      shortness of breath and pale face.
        Let us consider the value of these symptoms from the  stand-point
      of pathology.
        The marked alterations of the taste caused by Chamomilla may
      occur in bilious fever to Avhich we shall call your attention by  and
      by;  in  bilious  attacks  caused  by anger  or exposure;  in  various
      forms of
        Dyspepsia and Gastralgia; a sensation of agonizing pressure in the ,
      epigastric region, Avith sudden stitches flashing through  this region,
      hard and burning distress, sallow complexion,  yelloAV coating on the
      tongue, dry and foul taste in the mouth, nausea and perhaps vomit-
      ing of bile, characterize this condition, if Chamomile is  homoeopa-
      thic to it. 
MATRICARIA CHAMOMILLA.
415
  The sensation as if the bowels would press through the inguinal
rings, may lead us to use Chamomile in the
  Inguinal Hernia of children, more especially if it is caused by
violent and incessant crying and fretting.

  An affection which is vulgarly designated by the term
  Liver-grown, and which is in reality a
  Subacute Congestion of the liver, may be  benefited by Chamomilla
if a fit of anger is the cause of it.  The region of the liver is bloated,
very sensitive to pressure, the children are feverish,  cry and fret a
good  deal, the bowels are bound and they have great  difficulty in
passing urine.  Although Chamomilla is very  commonly adminis-
tered  for this affection, yet we infinitely prefer Aconite, especially if
the trouble arises from rheumatic exposure as it most generally does.

  In Flatulent and Bilious Colic Chamomilla is a great remedy, if
the pain is a spasmodic, pinching and  twisting pain,  the patient
looks sallow, the bowels are distended, feel excessively sore, and are
constipated;  the patient complains of nausea,  retching, foul taste
and yellow-coated tongue. Even the middle potencies of the medicine
may afford prompt relief.

  Chamomilla is eminently useful in the
  Diarrhea of children,  when resulting from a cold or from teething,
be it
  Catarrhal or Bilious, Avhen the discharges are preceded by pinch-
ing or cutting pains in the  bowels ; watery, slimy, green or yellow,
having a foul smell and excoriating the anus; the 3d to 6th potency
may be given.  In the bilious diarrhoea of children,  when the dis-
charges have a sour smell, Chamomilla is excellent.

   In  Constipation this agent may prove useful, if the  accompanying
symptoms indicate its use.   The bowels are distended, the mouth is
sticky, dry, with foul taste and  bilious coating on the tongue.  The
constipation may have been preceded by bilious diarrhoea, or it may
be symptomatic of bilious fever.

                     UEINAEY GEOUP.

  Chamomilla causes emission of urine Avith anxiety; involuntary
emission of urine ; stinging pains in the neck of the bladder between
the acts of urinating; burning at the neck of the bladder.
  These  symptoms may be present as component parts of a group
denoting bilious derangement.
  Involuntary emission of urine is very apt to occur in the case of
children  who are troubled with irritation  at the anus or in the rec-
tum, and who are subject to sudden and  uncontrollable urgings to
urinate.  These involuntary discharges generally take place at night,
during sleep ; Ave designate them technically as
  Enuresis nocturna,  the urine looking straw-colored,  Avatery.
  If  children fret previous  to the act of urinating, if they seem
uneasy and anxious,  affected Avith a species of
/ 
416
LECTURE XXVI.
  Dysuria, we may give Chamomilla, and if this medicine seems
insufficient, Aconite.

                      SEXUAL  GEOUP.

  The action of Chamomilla upon the sexual  organs of the male is
not characterized by any very marked symptoms.
  Chamomilla seems to excite the sexual instinct, causing nocturnal
emissions.  In a case of
  Nocturnal Emissions, with sexual excitement, frequent desire to
urinate, this agent may prove of service.
  Its action upon the female  sexual system is much more marked.
In this direction we may note the following symptoms which Ave
find recorded among our provings :
  Pressing tOAvards the uterus like labor-pains, Avith frequent urg-
ing to urinate;
  Labor-pains with discharge of black coagula, tearing pains in the
veins of the legs;
  Griping pains  in the uterus, Avith discharge of coagula;
  Suppression of the menses, with sAvellingof the pit of stomach, and
painful pressure  in this region, dropsical distention of the abdomen,
labor-like pains;
  Cutting pains  previous to the menses;
  Metrorrhagic discharge of blood.
  These physiological effects of Chamomile lead us to use it in
  Amenorrhea, Avith swelling and pressure in  the epigastric region,
distention  of the bowels,  pressing  tOAvards  the uterus,  as  if the
menses Avould make their  appearance.  This suppression may be
consequent upon a fit of anger or it may result from a cold.
  In Dysmenorrhea, with discharge of coagula, griping pains in the
uterus preceding  the  expulsion  of the  coagula,  sickness  at the
stomach or even vomiting and retching, Chamomilla may be useful.
  This agent is even used with occasional advantage in
  Metrorrhagia, the blood looking dark and ha\ring a strong, offensive
odor, Avith violent pressing pains in the hypogastric region.

  A healthy, sensitive, pregnant Avoman of rigid fibre, took five drops
of Oleum ethereum Chamomille.   They caused: confusion of mind,
passing twitchings  of the limbs, eyelids, etc.; pains resembling labor-
pains, but more troublesome and continuing for seA'eral days, and a
sort of hysteric  movement  above the umbilicus, together Avith in-
creased cramps in the calves.
  This effect  of  Chomomile upon  the impregnated womb may sug-
gest the use of this agent in
  Spurious or Spasmodic Labor-j)ains which may occur during preg-
nancy, and are  sometimes  exceedingly annoying and exhausting;
they may be  accompanied AA'ith  cramp-pains in the calves, frequent
urging to urinate.  A very small dose should be given.
  The cramps in the calves  may suggest the use of Chamomile as a
means of relief in
   Cramps from  Varicose Veins and cramps in  the calves, to  Avhich
pregnant females are frequently subject. 
MATRICARIA CHAMOMILLA.
417
       CATARRHAL AND EESPIEATOEY  GROUPS.

  Chamomilla affects the respiratory mucous lining in a variety of
ways.  Among the symptoms Avhich constitute prominent indications
in this direction, the folloAving deserve special attention:
  Cough with titillation,  also Avith phlegm in the air-passages: at
night it becomes suffocative;
  Sudden stitches in the pit of the stomach, arresting the breathing;
  Constriction across  the  chest, soreness and cough;  sometimes the
oppressive constriction affects  the stomach like heartburn, and  then
shifts to the back and then terminates as a burning pain:
  Stitches darting from  the abdomen  to the chest, as if caused by
flatulence.

  Guided by these symptoms Ave find Chamomile useful in
  Coi-y?:a, dry or fluent, with sore eyes, discharge  of mucus from the
nose and soreness of the nostrils.
  Catarrhal Hoarser/ess, with  a good deal, of phlegm  in  the throat,
tickling in the throat-pit, tendency to suffocative cough.
  Cough, Avhich  comes in  paroxysms,  Avith suffocative constriction
across the chest; the cough is excited by tickling in the air-passages
and  deprives one of breath.   These paroxysms of suffocative cough
may occur after  measles, during teething or during the first stage of
whooping-cough.  AVe would therefore  commend Chamomilla to
your attention in the spasmodic stage of
  Whooping-cough, or in any form of spasmodic cough of an epidemic
nature, more particularly when it  seen is evident  that the spasmodic
stricture of the  chest  is owing  to the irritating agency of bile, as
evidenced by accompanying derangements of the biliary system.  The
stricture may shift to the epigastric-region in the sli:t}fo of a burning
pressure and distress.

                        FEVER-GROUP.

  The fever which Chamomilla is capable of exciting, is character-
ized  by  nightly exacerbations, chilliness increased by  raising the
cover; partial sweats, redness of one cheek.
  The symptoms may occur in
  Catarrhal and  Rheumatic Fevers,  more particularly in the latter
class, where rheumatic pains  are  present, such as: pressure in the
ligaments and periosteum, resembling  a draAving and  tearing pain;
laming pains Avith  numbness of the parts, soreness  of the joints, exces-
sive weariness, nightly exacerbation of the pains.
  In Bilious Fcrers,  Chamomilla  is indispensable, if the  attack is
brought  on by  a  violent  fit  of anger;  the symptoms constitute a
bilious attack rather than a paroxysm  of fever.  Hahnemann sums
them up  as  folloAVs in a  foot-note: heat in the  face, unquenchable
thirst, bilious taste  in the mouth, sick stomach, anxiety,  restless-
ness,  etc.
  In Milk-fever,  Chamomilla may  be useful, if the secretion of  milk
had  been interfered with by a fit of anger, or if the quantity of the
milk had been altered by a similar cause.
                               27 
418
LECTURE XXVI.
   In Dentition-fever, Chamomile may be useful, if the children fret a
good deal, are restless, one cheek  is burning-hot while the other is
cold.

                 EXANTHEMATOUS  GROUP.

   Among  the recorded provings  of Chamomile we may note the
fol 11 > w i 11g symptom:
   "Hardness of the mammary glands."
   This symptom may indicate Chamomile as a remedy for
   Smelling, Induration and Ulceration of the nipples of infants; for
   Hardness of the breasts, when caused by an exuberant secretion of
re ilk in the case of lying-in Avomen, and insufficient secretion of this
fluid, Chamomilla may likewise prove useful.

   Another symptom  of importance is the  following: "Labor-like
pains, with frequent discharge of coagula, and tearing pains  in the
veins of the legs."
   This symptom suggests the use of Chamomile, as has already been
stated in  a  previous paragraph, for
   Varicose Veins, when the patient suffers a good deal with tearing,
crampy pains in these vessels.
   Chamomile has likewise been  used with advantage in the rash of
children which is  apt to break out in the face, a species of
   Miliaria, when  accompanied  by watery, greenish  diarrhoea,  or
appearing  and disappearing in  alternation with  this  derangement.
Aconite should not be lost sight of in this affection.
   Purpura miliaris, when the eruption is slow in coming out, and
the children feel anxious, toss about.
   Intertrigo infantum, cracking of  the epidermis, inflammatory red
ncss underneath, with oozing out of a yellowish serum.
   Ulcers, Avith burning and stinging pains; they are very sensitive.
   Ulcers secreting a bad pus, scrofulous, phagedenic, scorbutic.

   Frank's Magazine gives us the reports of several cases, where the
curative  virtues of Chamomile in the treatment of ulcers are strik-
ingly exhibited.   If Ave remember  that Chamomile interferes with
the bilious secretions, causing  a stagnation and accumulation of the
yellow constituents of the bile  in various parts, we cannot fail  to
understand that, if these bilious  stagnations take place  in exposed
parts, where the atmospheric oxygen can  act upon them, ulceration
must be the unavoidable consequence.   These ulcers have a bilious
appearance and secrete a bilious-looking pus.
   Chamomile cures these  ulcers by restoring the regularity of the
secretory functions of the  liver.   We may even  go a step further
and  say  that it  effects  this restoration by neutralizing or .extin-
guishing  the  morbific principle  which  embarrasses the  supply  of
functional  power  upon which the normal  elimination of the bilious
constituents depends.
   Chamomile has even been used by Old-School  physicians for the
 reatment of ulcers.  They have used it in much larger doses than 
MATRICARIA CHAMOMILLA.
419
homoeopathic physicians would do ;  but the homoeopathicity of the
drug to the pathological condition is none the less true.  ATe extract
the following interesting cases from Frank's Magazine.

                      Scirrhus Ulceration.

  A Avoman of twenty-two years was attacked with ulcers of the
breast arising from indurated milk.   Close to the nipple, there were
three openings with raised, callous edges, which bled from the least
contact.  The thin ichor was mixed with blood, acrid, fetid and cor-
roding the sound  skin.  Three hard nodes might  be distinctly felt
in the breast which had the appearance of being excavated or hol-
lowed out.  Moreover her whole body a^,s covered with an erup-
tion, which gave  to  the  other mamma the  appearance of  being
covered with a thick crust.   From  beneath  this  crust a corrosive
ichor was constantly oozing out.  The patient had hectic fever, fre-
quent attacks of distressing  headache, flashes of heat, loss of appe-
tite, red but not coated tongue, restless sleep, morning-sweats.  This
condition had been  going on for six  months.   After the  internal
and  external use of Chamomile, a complete change for the better
soon set in.  To act upon the eruption, Sulphur and Antimonium
crudum were resorted to.  The cure was completed in fiAre weeks.

                         Inveterate Ulcer.

  A man of sixty years,  had been afflicted for  more than six years
with an open ulcer on the inside of the right  foot, beloAV  the calf,
for  which  all  sorts of remedies had been employed in vain.  At
times it  increased, at others  it  diminished in  size.  When it was
first seen by Dr. Collenbusch Avho  reports this case, it was four
inches long, by one inch and  three quarters wide;  it secreted a pro-
fuse quantity of an  acrid, fetid ichor; the edges  and base of the
ulcer were  Avhitish, the surrounding parts looked dark-red, as did
nearly the whole foot.  The patient was much relieved by a simple
roller bandage, but as soon  as it Avas left off, the ulcer  resumed its
former appearance.  He took two drachms of the extract of Chamo-
mile internally every clay.   After  using this  medicine for a fort-
night, the patient felt invigorated, and more Avarmth in the formerly
cold foot; the ichorous secretion changed to a mild, glutinous  pus;
the dark color of the surrounding parts became brighter, and finally
assumed  a rose-colored appearance.  The bandage was now left oft;
instead of which a compress  moistened with  the same Chamomile-
solution was applied.
  After  continuing  this  treatment for eight  AA'eeks, the sore  had
dwindled clown to the size of half an inch; the patient looked like
a new man. Some gelatinous granulations had groAvn up along the
edges ;  under an antiphlogistic regimen the  cure Avas completed
within twenty-six days after this period.

                   Ulcus glandulosum putridu.m.

  Another interesting cure is reported by Dr. Conrad.  A woman
of sixty-eight had an inflammatory  tumor in the  groin.  After 
420
LECTURE XXVI.
 poulticing it for two days, tAvo openings formed, one of which Avas
 three inches long and one inch wide, extending beneath Poupart's
 ligament;  and the  other about the size of a man's hand  from the
 linea alba  to the spinous  process of the ischium.  The abscess was
 undoubtedly seated upon  the peritoneum;  a number of indurated
 and suppurating inguinal glands  might be seen;  in  the former
 opening the large blood-vessels AA'ere  all exposed, and  a  probe
 might be  inserted  very far upAvards into  the abdominal  cavity.
 The interior of the ulcer had an  ash-gray color, and  secreted  a
 greenish, grayish ichor;  it seemed  to be filled Avith a  number of
 detached  shreds and spread an  abominable odor.   The ulcer Avas
 washed out  with a watery infusion of Chamomile, and  a  compress
 moistened  with the  same %as applied  externally.  The patient was
 unwilling to take anything internally.  She  had a violent fever, a
.very small, rapid and feeble  pulse,  and  Avas very much  reduced in
 strength.   She very speedily began to improve, and in five weeks
 the  ulcer  was entirely healed.   The constitutional symptoms all
 disappeared, and at the time when this case was reported, a year
 after the cure, the patient continued to enjoy perfect health.

   Among  the positive provings of Chamomile there is one  symptom
 which shows that this agent  tends to develop an ulcerative process
 upon the  skin.  The record is as follows:  "The  skin becomes
 unhealthy; every injury develops a sore, an ulcer."

                            SLEEP.

   Small doses of Chamomile  cause droAVsiness;  the more intense or
 violent action of this drug induces a sort of wakefulness at night,
 with paroxysms of anxiety, visions, incoherent talking; moaning and
 starting up during sleep, with anxious and quarrelsome dreams.
   These effects of the drug may be observed during an attack of fever,
 or they may occur as elements of a more general pathological group
 with which Chamomile is in homoeopathic curative relations.

                      MENTAL GROUP.

   Chamomilla causes restlessness, irritability of temper, anxiety which
 maybe accompanied with flashes of heat and  occasional attacks of
 palpitation of the heart.
   These symptoms  are only of importance in so far as their presence
 may confirm or complete  the homoeopathicity of Chamomile to the
 various pathological disorders which we have enumerated in previous
 paragraphs.

                             DOSE.
   I have  given you  sufficient hints  concerning the most suitable
 dose of Chamomile in the various-affections to which it is homoeo-
 pathic, to be allo\ved the privilege of brevity in  this paragraph.
 As  a  general rule  you will find the 6th to the 18th potency of
 Chamomile  sufficient for all practical purposes, even  in  acute  at-
 tacks ; _ my experience  has uniformly taught  me that  the middle
 potencies of this drug are superior to the lower.  Exceptions may
 nevertheless occur. 
CIXCHOXA OFFICIXALIS.
421
               LECTURE  XXVII.


                 CINCHONA OFFICINALIS,

                     {China, Peruvian Bark)

   This celebrated plant belongs to the natural order of the Rubiaceae.
Up to the middle of the seventeenth century, the medicinal properties
of this plant seem to have remained unknown.  The name Cinchona
is derived from that  of the Countess El-Chinchon, Avife of the then .
vice-King of Peru.  This lady is said to have had an attack of fever
and ague, and was cured by taking bark.  She gave it to the Jesuits
Avho distributed it among the poor afflicted with the fever.  Hence it
Avas named pulvis patrum, powder of the fathers.   It was also named
powder of the Countess, in honor of the Countess El-Chinchon.   The
Jesuits of Peru sent some of the powder to Cardinal Lugo, the General
of their Order.  Hence it derived  the name of Cardinal's poAvder.
   Trousseau  and Pidoux furnish  an  interesting historical sketch of
the gradual incorporation of China into the Materia Medica of the
Old-School.  We are informed in  this sketch that Joseph cle Jussieu,
brother of Anthony and  Bernard, was  sent to America in the year
1635, for the  purpose  of studying the  natural history of this conti-
nent and sending American plants to the Royal Botanical Garden.
He found that the Indians in the neighborhood of the village of
Malacotos Avere acquainted with the febrifuge properties of the bark..
They called it Yara-Chucchu, Cava-Chucchu, Yara meaning tree, and
Cava bark; Chucchu means: shuddering, shivering, as if they had
intended to convey the idea:  Intermittent fever-tree, bitter bark.  In
1660, bark Avas extensively knoAvn in England and  strongly recom-
mended by Sydenham. In 1679, an English empiric Talbot (his name
is also spelt Talpor or Talboth) cured Louis NIAr. of fever and ague
by means of  a secret  remedy Avhich  proved to be bark.   The king
purchased his secret  for sixteen  hundred pound  sterling, and an
annual pension of eighty pounds.   At that period, bark was sold at
the rate of five pound  sterling an ounce.
  The bark is found in Peru, BoliA'ia, in the neighborhood of Loxa,
in the forest  of Iluanco,  near Santa  Fe cle Bogota. The trees are
first cut doAvn and afterAvards stripped.  Great care is used in drying
the bark, in order to preserve the internal brightness and  the lichens
attached to the epidermis.
  Of the croAvn or Loxa bark A'ery little is noAV in the market.  This
bark always  comes to us in quills distinguished  by tints of grey
inclining to liver-broAvn,  and marked by longitudinal  furrows  and
transverse fissures.  The  lichens Avhich are attached to it, give it the
appearance of silver filagree.  The vcIIoav bark or Calisaya Avhich is
the variety now principally used,  comes to us partly in quills and
partly in flat  pieces. 
422
LECTURE XXVII.
  AVe obtain three alkaloids from the bark:  Quina, Quinodina and
Cinchonia.   From  these alkaloids we obtain salts by combining
them with acids.  AVe have sulphates, tannates, ferrocyanates, phos-
phates, valerianates,  etc., and also  an arsenite  of quina.  The salt
Avhich  is  chiefly used  in medicine,  is the  Sulphate  of Quina  or
Quinine.

  We prepare an alcoholic tincture from the bark, having  a bitter
taste and a fine deep-red blood-color.   AVe also use a watery decoc-
tion of the bark.  In order to make this as  energetic as possible, it
is best to  add a little dilute sulphuric acid which dissolves the other-
wise insoluble cinchona, and, together with the Quinine, forms a very
powerful salt.  In the course of these lectures on China, we shall
relate several cases of cure, where the decoction Avas used.

  According to Old-School experience, bark is a tonic;  it is one of
the leading amara  or bitter medicines, and this bitter principle is
supposed  to be endowed with tonic properties.  Sundelin, one of the
great lights of the allceopathic school,  now shining as  a star of the
first magnitude, describes the strengthening virtues of Peruvian bark,
in the following words:  (I translate from  his exceedingly brilliant
manual of special therapeutics): " The general operation of Cinchona
bark consists in the increase and exaltation of the tone of the irritable
fibres and of the fibres of the vessels ; hence by its use the pulse
becomes  fuller,  stronger and  regular, and  the  muscular poAver
increased ; also in the general augmentation of  the  cohesion of the
organic mass; hence it counteracts a tendency to liquefaction and
disintegration, diminishes profuse  secretions which proceed from
atony of the extremities of the vessels and of the  secreting  surfaces
and organs, and it improves generally the crasis or combination of
the vital constituents in the tissues or blood; and lastly it consists in
the augmentation of the vital energy of the sensible system.   By the
last mentioned property it restores sensibility, Avhen defective  or
abnormally increased, and  it restores the  reactive faculty of  the
nervous system to its normal condition, and  augments the influence
of this system on the muscular fibre and on the reproductive system."
   This statement expresses the opinions entertained by Old-School
pathologists concerning the therapeutic power of Cinchona bark, Avith
comprehensive and  graphic accuracy.  Can we, as homoeopathic
physicians, accept such a  definition ?  Can  we unhesitatingly and
unqualifiedly subscribe to the sweeping generalization that Cinchona
bark is a tonic ?  Bark is undoubtedly a tonic in a certain sense; it
is possessed of stimulating  properties Avhich a physician may avail
himself of for  the  purpose of rousing the sinking reaction of the
vital forces; but it is utterly false  to assert in  an indiscriminate
manner that Cinchona bark is a tonic under all circumstances.  It
acts as a tonic upon the organism Avhen the vital power had been
impaired by excessive loss of animal fluids, loss of blood, of mSlk, of
the seminal fluid.  Give a small dose of Cinchona, say a drop of the
 12th or 18th potency, to organisms that had been thus drained, and
 you will  impart a new impetus to the prostrated vitality of the system. 
CINCHONA OFFICINALIS.                 423
Why is this ?   Simply because excessive depletions, excessive nurs-
ing, flooding, give rise to conditions that are exactly similar to such
alterations of the vital fluids as Cinchona bark is capable of devel-
oping.  In order that  Cinchona bark may exercise its  beneficial
effects as a curative agent, it must be homoeopathic to the affection
for which it is given.  If it produces such brilliant results in the
treatment of fever and ague, it is because it is capable of affecting
the animal economy, while in  a normal  state, in a similar  manner.
The curative virtues of Quinine in fever and ague have been a puzzle
to Old-School therapeutists, even to the most distinguished among
them.  Pereira designates  the relation  existing between Cinchona
bark and ague as mysterious and incomprehensible.  After mention-
ing a number of conditions where Cinchona  may  be administered
Avith  advantage, he continues: " Hitherto I have referred  to those
indications only which have an obvious relation to the knoAvn physi-
ological effects  of Cinchona.  But the diseases in Avhich this remedy
manifests the greatest therapeutic power, are those which assume an
intermittent or periodical type.  Now, in such, the method us medendi
is quite inexplicable;  and, therefore, the remedy has been called a
specific, an antiperiodic, a febrifuge.  But the more intimately  avc
become acquainted with the pathology of disease, and the operation
of medicines, the less  evidence, have  we of the specific influence of
particular medicines over particular maladies.  Some diseases, how-
ever, are exceedingly obscure; their seat or nature, and the condi-
tion of system under which they occur, or the cause of their occurrence
being little knoA\m.  There are  also many medicines, the precise
action of which is  imperfectly understood,  but  which evidently
exercises a most important, though to us quite inexplicable, influence
over the system.   Now, it sometimes happens that imperfectly known
diseases are most remarkably influenced by remedies, the agency of
which Ave cannot comprehend ; in other Avords we can trace no known
relation betAveen  the physiological effects of  the remedy and its
therapeutic influences. This incomprehensible relation exists between
Arsenic and lepra, between the Cinchona-bark and ague. But, though
this connection is to us mysterious (for I do not admit the various
hypotheses which have been formed to  account for it), we are not to
conclude that it is necessarily more intimate  than that Avhich exi.-tj
in ordinary cases."

   Gentlemen, I do not envy the feelings of a man  like Pereira who,
after years  of patient labor  in amassing a boundless wealth of
pharmacological science, comes to the saddening conclusion that this
very wealth simply begets a conviction in the mind that our efforts
to establish some definite relation betAveen medicine and disease are
utterly hopeless.  AVe peruse  his  elaborate  treatise on Materia
Medica and Therapeutics, and, in the midst of an almost inexhausti-
ble mine of toxicological, pharmaco-dynamic and physiological facts
we do not meet with a single  principle to guide us in the elaboration
of these crude materials,  and in their scientific  adaptation to the
treatment  of disease.  The most  desolating empiricism seems to be
the  banner under which  Pereira marshals his battalions of oint- 
424
LECTURE XXVII.
ments, extracts,  and decoctions.  The only doctrine which might
have furnished a solid and indestructible  basis to his therapeutic
edifice, is declared by him the offspring of a wild and absurd fancy.
I do not wonder that  on his  death-bed  this distinguished author
declared him a wise man  Avho should discard all medicine and leave
the business of curing to Nature alone.

  Is it true that there is no definite relation between medicine and
disease ?  Is it to be supposed that in the living harmony of things,
the nature and  uses of drugs should be governed by chance and
unphilosophical  routine ?  The stars  speak  to us  of harmony ; the
phenomena  of chemistry depend upon  definite  laAvs;  the move-
ments and instincts of the brute creation are regulated in a most
orderly manner, and the  physiological  functions  of  the human
organism constitute an harmonious play of beautifully co-ordinated
forces;  but woe  unto man, if sickness strikes him  down; then he
steps  out  of this marvellous system of light and beauty into the
nisdit of chaos and  chance;  then man is  no longer made in the
image and likeness of his Maker who is himself the supreme type of
order; then, when he is most in need of help, God casts him  aAvay
upon the dreary and desolate  shores of empiricism and chance, a
victim to  the  proud, and  pitiless dogmatism  of the  therapeutic
theory which happens to  be for the time being, the idol of a besotted
crowd.  Can this be  so, friends ?  If our children are sick, do  we
not nurse them all the more tenderly ?  And Avhy should not our
heavenly Father do  the  same to us ?  " Consider the  ravens;  for
they neither sow nor reap ;  Avhich  neither have store-house nor
barn; and God feedeth them.  How  much  more are ye better than
the fowls?"
  And  again: " Consider the lilies how they grow : they toil not,
neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his
glory Avas not  arrayed like one of these."
  " If then God  so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the field and
to-morroAV is cast into the oven ; how much more will he clothe you,
oh  ye of little faith?"
  We are taught in these heavenly accents that man is most emphati-
cally the particular object of. God's providence.  If this be so, hoAV
utterly destructiAre of the very idea of providence  would be the fact
that the treatment of disease is not regulated by positive and unerring
laws !   Does not reason,  do not  the very instincts of the heart force
upon us the belief that the treatment of disease cannot  possibly be
depending upon chance, but that it ought to be conducted in the same
manner in which God conducts the business of Flis universe and of
the humanity Avhich  he had created for his glory ?  If God has pro-
vided for this humanity,  he must have provided for the Avants of the
sick man  in a manner commensurate  with his supreme love and
Avisdom.  The treatment of diseases must therefore depend upon laws
that are just as fixed and just  as accessible to the inquiring reason
as the laws which govern the growth of cotton'or the movements of
the stars. 
CINCHONA OFFICINALIS.
425
  As far as we know, all  things in Nature exist for specific  uses.
Every thing in Nature exists according to its own law of order, and
fulfils its own particular destiny.  Every drug  is likewise an indi-
vidual thing, endowed with distinctive properties  and capable of
affecting the human organism in a definitive manner.  Is it so very
difficult  to understand this simple  suggestion of  unprejudiced
common sense ?   Then,  let us inquire- hoAV do drugs affect the
human organism ?   Then let us institute regular provings in order to
find out Avhether and hoAV Belladonna affects the brain; whether and
hoAV Arsenic irritates the intestinal canal;  whether and hoAV Aconite
affects the  circulatory apparatus.  And if we find that  Belladonna
produces in the brain a train of symptoms exactly similar to the
symptoms  which  characterize  typhus-fever, is it not natural for us
to conclude that there must be an intimate and peculiar relation
between Belladonna and this cerebral disease ?  Pereira designates
this relation as mysterious and  incomprehensible,  and  it  must
necessarily appear so to  a  man whose mind is incapable of eleva-
ting himself above the disgusting  materialism of  an allceopathic
drug-shop.  But it  is  neither  mysterious nor incomprehensible
to  the  careful  beholder.  The Belladonna plant and the  cerebral
typhus, the symptoms of which resemble  the effects of Belladonna
upon the  brain,  are  products of  the same  cause; the  inmost
principle of Belladonna  and the morbific essence  Avhich, acting
upon the  tissues  of the living brain, develops  the  Belladonna
typhus, are the same thing, so much so that no two principles, forces
or  conditions  in  nature  are  more  nearly related to each  other
than  this  typhus  and  yonder  Belladonna principle.   The only
difference  is that by acting upon the tissues of Nature, this inmost
force, this  germ-force develops the Belladonna  plant, and by acting
upon the tissues of the living organism, it develops the  Belladonna
typhus.  How  natural it is to conclude  that,  if it  is true in the
abstract that it is the business and particular object of drugs to cure
diseases, they will more particularly cure the diseases to Avhich they
have some special  affinity.  The drug extinguishes the pathological
condition to Avhich it is homoeopathic.  Experiments to this  effect
have been  instituted by thousands of careful observers with results
which can  only be  gainsayed or doubted by the infatuated adherents
of alloeopathic  conservatism.

   AVhen we say that a drug is homoeopathic to a certain pathological
condition Ave mean by this, that it is capable of affecting the healthy
organism in a precisely similar manner.   It is in this sense only that
we*understand the term specific.  A true  homoeopathic  remedy can
only be homoeopathic to one pathological condition ;  in other Avords,
it can be in specific adaption to only one  condition.  Some homoe-
opathic practitioners have established degrees  of homoeopathicity,
designating the true homoeopathic  agent as the simillimum, and
the other remedies Avhich  come nearest to this as similia. I have not
much confidence in this sort of classification; it leads to confusion,
arbitrary selection of drugs and uncertainty in  determining the pro-
per dose.  To one who has a clear perception of the origin, meaning 
426
LECTURE XXVII.
and application  of the homoeopathic laAV, all  these accommodating
interpretations and applications of this great principle seem puerile
and unworthy.
  To the homoeopathic physician China has a more particular interest.
It was in  translating  the article China  in  Cullen's Materia Medica
that Hahnemann's mind was led to the discovery of the great thera-
peutic truth Avhich it is our most cherished endeavor to expound to
mankind for their benefit.  Cullen's allusion to the specific poAver of
Quinine to cure intermittent fever, excited  in  Hahnemann's mind a
suspicion  that this specific power consisted  in  the  virtue  Avhich
Quinine possesses, of exciting fever and ague  in the healthy organ-
ism.   Accordingly, he at once went  to work instituting an experi-
ment, and the result confirmed his previous belief.  Let us keep this
interesting fact before our mental  vision.  It is to this one flash of
genius that humanity is indebted for the discovery of Homoeopathy.
It will not do for the Mitchells and their compeers to propound ex-
cathedra the remarkable no\relty that Homoeopathy has existed long
before Hahnemann; so it did, undoubtedly;  it  existed in the Divine
Mind, and in the mysterious harmony of Nature; but the man who
told you that it did exist there, that man was Hahnemann.   Gentle-
men, mere man-worship is unbecoming the dignity of human reason;
we do not worship Hahnemann; we  are no blind folloAvers of  his;
we are keenly alive to the weaknesses of his OAvn imperfect develop-
ments and applications of the great natural laAV of cure; but on the
other  hand, we cannot afford to see Hahnemann's name traduced by
unprincipled. men who wear the blood-stained  purple of false medi-
cine ;  we cannot afford to see Hahnemann  shorn  of his well-earned
laurels by unAvorthy enemies; we cannot afford to see Hahnemann's
endeavor to be just to all, and to avail himself of  the isolated obser-
vations of his predecessors as corroborative evidences of the correct-
ness  of his  great discovery; Ave cannot afford, I say, to see  this
endeavor of a magnanimous genius construed into an admission  that
the discovery of the true law of therapeutics Avas not his work. AVhen
the very names of these allceopathic pigmies shall have A'anished  into
the nothingness of oblivion, the name of Hahnemann will glide down
upon the tide of immortality to future generations as their deliverer
from the martyrdom of the lancet, the leech, the destroyer-Calomel,
and that legion of disgusting compounds which have entailed more
misery upon the world than war and pestilence.

  In looking at the symptoms of China, you will find that the action
of this drug upon the living organism is analogous to the action of
Arsenic.   Both China and Arsenic have a tendency to disintegrate
the cohesion of vital constituents.  Arsenic acts more suddenly and
destructively; but China exhibits  the same tendency as Arsenic to
taint the  very fountains of life.  It affects more particularly  that
portion of the ganglionic system of nerves Avhich presides over the
functions  of the  vegetative sphere;  hence the semilunar  ganglion
seems  to  be the  chief focus for the action of Peruvian bark.  It
is a misnomer to  call bark  a tonic.  The first  effect of bark may be
more or less stimulating; it causes a sort of vascular erethism char- 
V
                     CINCHONA OFFICINALIS.                 427

acterized by an increase of warmth, muscular power, flushed face;
but this effect is not permanent.  You will  find that it is soon fol-
lowed by an opposite condition of the organism, pale and bloated
face, sunken eyes, expression of suffering in the features.  Add to
this the marked symptoms of deep-seated gastric derangement: slimy
coating of the tongue, bad taste of the food, eructations Avith nausea,
or bitter eructations after eating; oppression and anxiety after eating,
worse while sitting and passing off on rising from a seat;  flatulent
distention of the boAvels, diarrhoea as if mixed Avith undigested food,
or bilious, blackish-looking diarrhoea;  if Ave consider moreover that
it  causes lassitude, a bruising sensation in the muscles, stitches in
the chest accompanied by  asthmatic  dyspnoea, palpitation of  the
heart, rush of blood to the  head, and  a variety of tearing, stitching
and lancing pains; and if we consider lastly  that Cinchona deranges
the action of the ganglionic system by establishing, periodical fever-
paroxysms  in the organism  similar to fever and ague, Ave haAre an
undoubted right to  assert that, so far  from being a tonic, Cinchona-
bark  exercises a disturbing and disintegrating influence upon the
animal tissues.

   It may not be superfluous to  mention in this place the affections
for Avhich Hahnemann recommends Cinchona-bark:
   1.  Cinchona-bark  having for its  first  consequence an  aperient
effect, will be found for that reason very useful in  certain cases of
diarrhoea, provided the patient has no other  symptoms indicating
some other remedy.
   2. Hahnemann has sometimes seen pains which a mere  touch or
the least movement increased to intensity, and which, as described by
the sufferer, greatly resembled those  caused by bark, yield at once
and permanently to a small dose of the attenuated tincture, although
the attacks had often recurred; the evil was  cured homoeopathically
and health restored as by enchantment.
   3. Bark is seldom effectual unless it disturbs the rest of the patient
at night, as it does that of persons in health who make a trial of this
drug; it causes frightful dreams which rouse the patient Avhen he is
on the point of falling asleep, and are often accompanied by oppres-
sion and anxiety.
   4.  There are some cases of suppuration in the lungs, principally
such  as are accompanied by shooting  pains in the breast, excited or
increased by external  pressure,  that  have been  cured  by  bark; a
characteristic indication for the use of bark is a burning pressure on
the chest, hectic fever, colliquative night-sweats  and profuse expecto-
ration of pus,  which  may  be streaked with  blood.   In  cases  of
genuine phthisis  it is not probable that China can do  more than
to palliate  the symptoms.   The palliating effects of China in this
disease are  beautifully shown in a case quoted in Frank's Alagazine.
The  patient was a brick-mason, thirty-three years old, and born _ of
healthy parents.   Three months ago, he had been attacked Avith
pneumonia, since which time he had been sick, expectorating every
day a pint' of fetid  pus.  His breathing Avas rattling, voice hoarse,
pulse one hundred and twenty to  one hundred and thirty, urine 
428
LECTURE XXVII.
 reddish, turbid,  depositing a copious sediment;  feet swollen; he
 had night-SAveats, Avas sleepless, had fever with delirium during the
 paroxysm, and, in spite of his appetite, became emaciated and weak.
 He took every day one drachm of pulverized China in Avater acidu-
 lated Avith a little sulphuric acid.  lie went on improving from day
 to day, until he had taken  one ounce and a half of the  bark.   He
 looked and felt quite well,  except a little cough in the morning.

   To these remarks I avouIcI  add that the intermittents to which
 Cinchona-bark is homoeopathic, are  characterized by a variety of
 peculiar sjmiptoms.  They often set in Avith the accompaniment of
 numerous accessory symptoms, violent congestion, more particularly
 about the head, causing severe headache; or about the heart, causing
 severe palpitation and  stitching pains  in  that  region;  or on the
 chest, causing oppression,  cough,  and severe stitching pains Avith
 tearing and racking cough; or in the bowels, causing distention, and
 spasmodic tearing, stitching and colicky pains; or in the back, nape
 of the neck or small of the back, causing a distressing aching and
 cramp-pains.   The  attack is  moreover  ushered in by  stretching,
 chattering of the teeth, paleness, a shaking chill, thirst  and after-
 wards hot fever and profuse perspiration.  Sometimes the thirst sets
 in before the chill and  sometimes after; the tongue is thickly coated
 and the  patient often complains of nausea and even vomiting.  Be-
 tween the paroxysms  the  patient looks salloAV, feels rather weak,
 has little appetite, although at other times  the appetite is ravenous.
 He wants to be covered up or to sit near the fire.

  In  regard to the dose in  fever and ague, opinions  differ.  Some
 practitioners  use the middle and higher, others the loAver potencies.
 I have seen beautiful cures with the 30th of China, and equally fine
 cures with five drops of the  tincture, and even ten grains of Quinine.
  Once I was  called to see  a man whom I  found in  the following
 condition: Comatose,  extremities icy-cold, bluish,  no  pulse, face
 bluish like that of a person Avho had been choked.  Just  before my
 arrival he had had a tremendous chill.   It was an attack of fever
 and ague.  I dissolved one globule of China 30 in a  tumblerful of
 Avater, and gave the patient  a tablespoonful every fifteen minutes. A
 few minutes after the first  dose  he  became  conscious, warmed  up,
 perspired, and never had another  chill.  This happened in a mias-
 matic fever district.
  Wasthis idiosyncratic, or was it the natural effect  of the drug?
 You might try the same treatment in a hundred other cases Avithout
 success.
  Dr. AVard,  the late  Professor  of Obstetrics in this institution,
 stated at the last meeting  of  the  American Institute, that he now
always gives the tincture of China in five drop doses.
  Other physicians use the  first trituration  of  Quinine or the crude
Quinine in half or one grain doses every two or three hours.
 _ There are cases of intermittent fever, especially in the miasmatic
districts  of our country, where the paroxysms cannot be arrested
without the use of  Quinine. It may be  necessary to give as many 
CINCHONA OFFICINALIS.
429
as ten grains from one paroxysm to the other.   It is best to give this
quantity in half  a  pint of Avater, dissolving it previously in a little
dilute sulphuric acid.

  In Physconia  lienis or enlargement of the spleen, China is recom-
mended even by allceopathic  authorities as a specific remedy upon
the principle of  homoeopathicity.   Dr. AVeitenweber relates a case
of cure  of this disease  in an Austrian Medical Journal, Avhere the
validity of the law  "Similia similibus" is emphatically admitted.
  A journeyman confectioner of cachectic appearance had been suf-
fering Avith fever and ague for ten weeks Avithout doing any thing
for it,_except drinking  Chamomile tea and aromatic bitters.  His
digestion  broke down, and he experienced  a sense of heaviness and
fulness in the left hypochondrium.   His skin assumed a dingy, sallow
tint, the sclerotica  had  a lead-colored appearance, and the region  of
the spleen was considerably enlarged.  He took pulverized China, a
powder of eight  grains every three hours.  The spleen decreased  in
size from  day to day, and the patient Avas perfectly restored in twenty-
four days.
  Dr. WeitenAveber admits in reporting this case, that China cures
enlargement of the spleen and liver by virtue of its poAver to cause
similar  morbid  conditions in the healthy.  He furthermore asserts
that cures of this kind have been effected Avhere the antagonistic  or
self-styled rational system of treatment had  proved utterly powerless.

  AVe may likewise recommend Cinchona  for
  Neuralgic and Rheumatic Affections, characterized by stitching, tear-
ing and drawing pains in the head or extremities, especially Avhen
the pains  are made worse by contact,  and are accompanied by slight
vascular erethism, occasional creepings and flashes of heat about the
head, and excessive restlessness, nervousness, Avakefulness.
  Our records show a number of interesting cases of neuralgic affec-
tions, and of rheumatic affections of a neuralgic or arthritic character,
where China and its alkaloid  Quinine, have effected beautiful cures.
A leading indication for China in these affections was the periodicity
of the paroxysms.   Here is a case of

  Ischias  Intermittens.  A lady of thirty, who is frequently suffering
with rheumatic pains, especially in the face, Avas attacked at the com-
mencement of December,- Avith an extremely  violent pain  in the
lumbar region; the paroxysm set in regularly  every afternoon and
continued until late at night.  After several  sleepless nights, the
patient  became  so  excited that, with her  eyes Avide  open, she Avas
haunted by alarming phantasms and came very near being attacked
Avith delirium.  These paroxysms had  been  continuing for eight days,
when a few doses of China stopped them immediately.
  Another interesting case of
  Ischiadic Neuralgia is reported in the "Journal Universcl de Mi'de-
cine et de Chirurgie Pratique."  An officer, tAventy-six years old,  of
extremely sanguine temperament, and Avho inhabited a very damp
dwelling,  was attacked on the 9th of December, 1817, with a violent 
430
LECTURE XXVII.
 pain extending from the ischiatic notch down to the external mal-
 leolus.  Liniments and the application of forty leeches increased the
 pain to such an extent  that the patient Avas unable to keep the limb
 quiet, or to move it without aggravating his suffering.   There were
 no constitutional symptoms, except a slight acceleration of the pulse.
 For the last three nights he had  not had any sleep.   He noAV took
 one ounce of  the red powdered bark in eight pill's, a pill every two
 hours.  After  the first dose, he had three stools and experienced some
 nausea.  In the evening he took  a  second pill.   Next morning the
 patient felt bright and  only complained of a little numbness  in the
 limb, and a deep-seated  pain in the small of the back.  That same
 night he had  had tAvo evacuations, a refreshing sleep, and had felt an
 agreeable warmth without  SAveat.  He took a few more pills, but
 much less  in quantity, and his health was completely restored in all
 respects.
   In this case the dose Avas large, and it is possible that a cure might
 have been  effected  Avith smaller  quantities  of the  bark.  The pre-
 scription was ordered  by  an  allceopathic physican,  but China  is
 eminently  homoeopathic to neuralgic paroxysms where symptoms of
 congestion are prominent Avithout  any corresponding vascular excite-
 ment, but  great nervous restlessness, general agitation, wakefulness,
 and a delirious sort  of cerebral irritation.
   These cures of neuralgia by means of China are very interesting
 and instructive to homoeopathic students, and I will therefore relate
 one more,  and then close this chapter.  Here is a case of

   "Neuralgia  Supra-orbitalis, from the same publication.
   A French officer  of thirty years, of vigorous constitution, but an
 exceedingly irritable temperament,  and who had been exposed to
 the miasmatic emanations of a  low and damp region of country, in
 the  North  of  France, was  transferred to Paris.  On his  journey to
 Paris, he was  attacked with neuralgia.  The paroxysms set in every
 morning at seven o'clock, and continued for five hours.  At first the
 pain was slight, like moderate prickings,  but gradually the pain
 increased to a tearing,  intolerable, deeply smarting distress around
 the left orbit,  and especially violent in the region of the superciliary
 arch.  There  Avere sympathetic, but not entirely involuntary con-
 tractions of the  facial muscles  of  the  left side;  at the height of the
 paroxysm,  the eyes were red, weeping, with lancinating pain in the
 eyeballs; the  forehead was  burning-hot, the nose  dry, the pulse at
 first contracted,  afterwards full and accelerated, the tongue  a little
 coated Avhite, all the other functions normal.  During the intermis-
 sions the patient felt quite well.   Previous  to the paroxysm, the
 patient took  an  ounce  of powdered  bark in water.  Considerable
 improvement manifested itself  soon  after;  on the third day all  signs
 of gastric irritation had disappeared, and on the  sixth the patient's
 health was completely restored.

   Without stretching the imagination, it  seems  as  though  these
 periodical paroxysms of neuralgia  might be looked upon as resulting
from a, process of metaschematismus.  The inmost character of these 
CINCHONA OFFICINALIS.
431
 neuralgic affections may be the fever and ague principle, which has
 assumed this characteristic neuralgic form.   Hence  it is that these
 affections sometimes  bear  and even require enormous doses of the
 specific remedy for their cure.  In most cases this  remedy may be
 China or Quinine, in  other cases Arsenic.

   E\-en  in  other affections, the intermittent type of the paroxATsms
 may be regarded as a prominent indication  for China.   Paroxysms
 of asthma, of bloody urine  and of rheumatism of the abdomen, have
 been successfully treated with China, Avhere  the principal indication
 was the periodicity of the attacks.
   A beautiful case of
   Intermittent Headache is  reported in Hufeland's Journal, where a
 girl of fifteen years was attacked with periodical pains  in the head,
 Avhich came on shortly after  rising, and continued  until the after-
 noon.  The  paroxysms were accompanied  by dizziness, and very
 often violent vomiting.  In the evening the patient Avas free from
 pain.   The  girl became pale, lost her appetite and strength, and
 wanted to be lying down all the time.  The urine deposited a brick-
 dust sediment.  China restored her in a very short period.
   China is  not  always indicated, in  cases of intermittent headache.
 I  may substantiate this assertion by alluding to  a case which I
 treated in New York.  The patient was a young merchant, of good
 constitution who had been for three years  subject to an attack of
 headache every forenoon.   The pain was  a heavy, tearing, stupe-
 fying, lancinating distress above the eyebrows.  After the paroxysm
 he felt prostrated; he had lost 'his appetite, became thin, and was
 unable to attend to business.  He  had spent the last six months in
 the country without any benefit.  The young man had been addicted
 to self-abuse.  He had been for six months treated by  some of  the
 first homoeopathic physicians of the  city, without experiencing any
 benefit from their  treatment.  I put  him on the use of the tincture
 of Aconite,  commencing with two drops in a tumblerful of water
 every day, and gradually increasing  the dose to five  drops.   In one
 month the young man was  entirely well and remained so.

   Hahnemann tells us that, "in studying cases of          _  -
   Moist Gangrene, one may perceive, in the general habit of the
 patient, morbid symptoms  resembling those of bark, which explains
 why Peruvian bark is so  valuable under such circumstances."
   The records of the  Old-School contain many a cure of gangrene
 achieved by means of bark. Several of these cases have been trans-
 ferred by Frank to the pages of his valuable Magazine, whence we
 translate them for our own  columns.
   Gangrene of the Scrotum.  A young man who had been successfully
 treated for inflammatory  fever, was attacked  with  gangrene of the
 scrotum.   He was  found  pulseless,  Avith livid face, Avithout con-
 sciousness and all his muscles convulsively twitching.   Almost the
whole of the scrotum  was sphacelated.  He took every four hours a
 drachm of pulverized China.  Arery soon his pulse came up, a slight
moisture  began to make its appearance upon the skin,  the scrotum 
432
LECTURE • XXVII.
 began to suppurate and  in about a month from the time he was
 taken the wound had become cicatrized.
   Gangrene of the Vulva  and Mucous  Lining of  lite Vagina.  This
 accident  occurred in  consequence of a quick confinement.   The
 mucous lining protruded  from the vulva;  it has  a livid, gangrened
 appearance and was without sensibility. The nymphae were likeAvise
 gangrened,  and the labia majora looked  livid.  Slight delirium,
 pulse small, frequent and  irregular.  The patient took one drachm
 of pulv. China every three hours for three days; after this period
 night and morning.  In twenty-four hours suppuration took place,
 the gangrened parts sloughed off, and the patient soon recovered.
   Gangrene of the Arm.   A man of thirty years was  attacked Avith
 phlegmonous  erysipelas which was repelled (by lead-washes I sup-
 pose).   The consequence was that the whole arm became gangrened.
 It Avas cold  and livid, the  hand Avas swollen, the fingers immovable,
 pulse small; constant fainting turns  ; the  patient did not even feel
 deep incisions.  He took two drachms of a decoction of China every
 three hours.   The same decoction was applied externally in combi-
 nation with brandy.  Next morning the  pulse rose,  the  warmth
 returned,  suppuration took place, and  in  one month the patient's
 health was perfectly restored.
  One other short case may close this chapter.
  A Avound of considerable size on the right  leg, which had been
 neglected for a long time,  began to look black and  emitted a cada-
 verous odor.  Diarrhoea set in.  The patient  took a small glassful
 of the decoction of China morning and evening, and applied it like-
 wise externally.  Two  days after, considerable improvement set in;
 in a  few days more, a large scurf sloughed off) and the patient was
 entirely well three weeks thereafter.

  If Ulcers should  break  out in consequence of the general decay
 of the reproductive  system ;  in cachectic  individuals, of a  sallow,
jaundiced appearance, cold or dry or clammy skin, China may be
 appropriate  for  the purpose of stimulating the reproductive func-
 tions of the organism.  Under the influence of China, the  ulcer may
 gradually be made to secrete  a more healthy pus, and may finally
 heal up.
 ■ In ulcers  arising by a process of metaschematismus, in fever and
 ague, China may  be in its place.   In  either of these two cases,
 Arsenic may have to be used sometimes.
  In connection with this subject we  may here mention the fact that
 Dropsy may develope itself after mismanaged  or neglected intermit-
tent  fever.  China may prove a specific  remedy for this form of
dropsy.
  A farmer, forty years old, was attacked with bilious fever, which
was succeeded by a tertian intermittent.  This had already termi-
nated in anasarca and ascites, Avhen the patient sought the assistance
of a  physician.  The use of China  cured him completely in a fort-
night.
  The fact that bark stimulates vital action after the excessive loss
of animal fluids, will not  be forgotten; hence patients who have 
CINCHONA OFFICINALIS.
433
become weakened  by bleeding, by venereal excesses, by diarrhoea
and the  like, may  be benefited by China.  In the case of women
who have become enfeebled by nursing, China is often indispensable:
   In Ilufeland's  Journal a case is reported where a young man was
attacked with a sort of muscular jerking  and twitching or
   Muscular  Tremor,  apparently in consequence of  mental labor.
The paroxysms increased in severity.   Every night he suffered with
agonizing pains in the chest, and horrible phantasms.   After having
been treated for  five or six weeks Avith  antispasmodics, he was no
longer able to articulate ;  the least provocation caused him to break
out in rage, and  almost rendered  him crazy.  He was put on a de-
coction of  China, and his health was fully restored in one fortnight.
   In cases  of
   Emaciation and Gradual Prostration induced  by chronic vomiting,
China may prove useful. A lady of tolerably good constitution Avho
was in the  sixth month of her pregnancy, vomited every  day what-
ever she  put into her stomach.  She  became so reduced that  fears
were entertained  for her life.   No treatment was of any avail.   She
finally took the extract of China in a  spoonful of soup.  This treat-
ment Avas continued for eight  days, at the end  of which period she
had recovered perfect health.  The precise dose is not stated, but it
may have been about ten drops of the tincture  at a dose.

   Bark seems to  have a marked effect upon the liver and spleen; in
patients  Avho had taken bark  for a long  period these organs  have
been found considerably enlarged.  Hence the good  effects of Cin-
chona in some forms of
   Jaundice, characterized by sallow, dirty-yelloAV complexion, spas-
modic-stitching pains in the liver,  a crawling sensation, Avith stitches
and enlargement in the region of the spleen, slimy, bilious taste,
vomiting of bitter bile, loss of appetite, stitches and  SAvelling in the
pit of the stomach.
   Before Ave close this chapter on China,  let us  briefly glance at the
relation which this drug holds to the functions of the intestinal canal
and the digestive system generally.   China may be of great use in
Dyspepsia and Gastralgia.
   Upon looking at our provings we shall find that it causes abnormal
changes in the taste, such  as  slimy and  bitter, or insipid taste;  it
causes drowsiness and oppression  after eating;  qualmishness in the
stomach,  a  shuddering after drinking, fetid flatulence.
   The secondary effect (organic reaction) of small doses of China
seems to be to bind the bowels ; this costiveness is accompanied with
vascular erethism, flushed  face, fulness in the head, headache, palpi-
tation of the heart.   China is therefore homoeopathic  to
   Constipation accompanied by these symptoms.  The primary effect
of massive doses  seems to be to loosen the bowels; hence China is
homoeopathic to
  Diarrhea,  Avhere  the discharges  are  slimy, bilious, sometimes
blackish, or mixed with undigested food, and of a very  offensive
smell. Scrofulous  children, with large  abdomens,^are subject to
attacks of this kind,
                               28 
434
LECTURE XXVII.
  We find that China causes a creeping and itching sensation at the
anus and in the rectum.  It is therefore homoeopathic to a condition
of the intestinal lining membrane which may result in the formation
of Ascarides and Worms.

  The urinary secretions  are likewise affected by China. The urine
becomes scanty and turbid under  the influence of China.  Some-
times it deposits a Avhitish,  and at other times a brick-dust sediment.
This condition of the urine may confirm our selection  of China  in
various arthritic and gastric conditions.

  China acts as a  stimulant to the sexual organs.  It causes in-
creased erections, and involuntary nocturnal emissions; in the
female it  causes  excessive secretion of the menstrual blood, with
discharge of dark coagula.   Hence  we may use it for
  Menorrhagia, and likewise for
  Excessive  secretions of the seminal fluid, when arising from
weakness  with over-excitement  of  the sexual  instinct.  AVe may
find China more specifically indicated in excessive
  Nocturnal Emissions and in Spermatorrhea, especially if the pa-
tient becomes weak and low-spirited, and is troubled with costive-
ness, dyspeptic derangement.

  China is seldom indicated in affections of the air-passages; neA'er-
theless if  there should be  difficult respiration, with Avheezing:  or
Avith sensation as if the  voice Avere deeper and rough, or as  if the
larynx were filled with phlegm, causing a suffocative sensation,  or
if the patient coughs up  blood, especially towards  evening, on
waking from sleep;  bark may be prescribed with advantage.   These
symptoms may occur in
  Asthmatic Conditions of the air-passages ; in chronic
   Catarrhal Irritation of  these organs, and in the suppurative stage
of Chronic Bronchitis or Chronic Hemoptysis.

  _ After long  treatment,  in which  large doses of bark have been
given, many  inconveniences often remain  which  require  to be
counteracted by Ipecacuanha, Arnica,  Belladonna  or Veratrum.
Veratrum is indicated by chilliness  of the  body, Avith  cold sweats.

  Let us briefly recapitulate the affections for which China has been
recommended:

                    CEPHALIC GEOUP.

  Intermittent cephalalgia, p. 431;

                      NERVOUS  GROUP.

  Neuralgic and rheumatic affections, p. 420 ;
  Neuralgia supra-orbitalis, p. 130 ;
  Ischias intermittens, p. 429 ;
  Debility from loss of animal fluids, p. 433;
  Tremor of jjie muscles from excessive mental exertion, p. 433 ;
  Nightmare, p. 427, No. 3. 
                   CHININUM  SULPIIUTJCTAI.               435

                 INTERMITTENT GROUP.

  Intermittent fever, p. 427 ;
  Intermittent asthma, p. 431 ;
  Intermittent ischias, p. 429 ;
  Intermittent haematuria, p. 431;
  Intermittent rheumatism of the abdomen, p. 431;
  Intermittent cephalalgia, p. 431 ;

                 CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

  Vomiting of pregnant females, p. 433 ;
  Dyspepsia, p. 433;
  Gastralgia, p. 433;
  Constipation, p. 433;
  Diarrhoea, p. 433 ;
  Ascarides, p. 434;
  Jaundice, p. 433;
  Physconia (enlargement of spleen and liver), p. 429.

                     URINARY GROUP.

  Sedimentous urine, white or brick-dust sediment (in arthritic and
gastric affections), p. 434;

                     SEXUAL GROUP.

  Menorrhagia, p. 434;
  Spermatorrhoea, p. 434;
  Nocturnal emissions, p. 434;

                  RESPIRATORY GROUP.

  Phthisis pulmonalis, p. 427, No. 4;
  Asthma, p. 434;
  Bronchial catarrh, p. 434;
  Chronic bronchitis or Haemoptysis, p. 434 ;

                EXANTHEMATOUS GROUP.

  Gangrene (of scrotum, vulva  and  vagina, arm), p. 432 ;
  Ulcers, p. 432;
  AVounds, p. 432.


       CHININUM SULPHURICUM, OE QUININE,

  Is a most important alkaloid of China Avhich fulfils therapeutic
offices of a high order.
  Several remarkable cases of poisoning with Quinine are related
by  Trousseau and Pidoux. A soldier  took forty-eight grains  of
Sulph. Q. for  spasmodic asthma, which returned daily at a  certain
hour.  Four hours  after taking it he experienced buzzing in the
ears diminished sensibility, giddiness, and violent vomitings. Seven 
436
LECTURE XXVII.
 hours after taking the Quinia, he was blind and deaf, delirious, in-
 capable of walking on  account of the giddiness, and vomited bile
 copiously.  He was intoxicated with Quinine.  These  effects sub-
 sided in the course of the night.
   •Recamier prescribed for a patient affected with acute rheumatism,
 forty-six grains  of Sulph.  Q,  in tAvelve  powders,  one  every hour.
 Next day the quantity was increased to  seventy-seven grains  simi-
 larly divided, to be taken every hour as before.  AVhen the patient
 had  taken  fifty-three grains, he Avas suddenly seized Avith  violent
 agitation, followed by furious delirium, and death in a feAV hours.
   Guided by these symptoms we might perhaps prescribe Quinine
 for furious
   Delirium tremens, or for  the sequelae of severe cerebral diseases,
 more particularly typhus cerebralis and hydrocephalus, where
   Paralysis of the special senses, especially of sight and hearing, is
 sometimes entailed upon the patient after the  original malady had
 left him.

   It is evident, from the many facts which have been gathered con-
 cerning the action of  Quinine upon the brain, that this agent causes
 severe irritations of the  cerebral nerves, which lead to congestions
 of the cerebral vessels, and  are  characterized by other remarkable
 symptoms, such as violent buzzing in the ears, loss of hearing and
 vision, and violent gastric irritations which may either  be consen-
 sual or the effect of a  direct irritation of the lining membrane of the
 stomach.
   Briquet's experiments in France have shoAvn that Quinine is pos-
 sessed of narcotic powers. Large doses of Quinine depress the pulse,
 rendering the "heart's  action not  only sloAver, but feebler.  In cases
 of violent cerebral irritation, where Quinine  may  have  to be em-
 ployed, these disturbances of the special senses, and the depression
 of the vascular system constitute important indications for its use.
   It is evident that these signs of depression may not be present, if
 Quinine is given in doses Avhich are not large enough to overpower
the organic reaction.   Moderate doses of Quinine, but  sufficiently
 large to affect the organism medicinally, may cause vascular erethism
 and a congested condition of the cerebral vessels characterized by
 severe pain in the head, and a disordered condition of the sensorium
 as manifested by flightiness, phantasms,  excessive  activity of the
 sensorial  functions.  Considering the effects of large as  well as  of
 smaller doses of Quinine in their totality, Ave feel justified  in  con-
 cluding that  it must  be capable of effecting curative  results  in
 various cerebral  affections, besides those to which Ave have already
 directed your attention.  Indeed this agent has been found useful in
   Mania of an intermittent type.  A lady avIio had taken an emetic on
 account of some gastric derangement, about a Aveek after her confine-
ment, was tormented a Aveek later by frightful  praecordial anguish;
her look  was   unsteady, and  showed symptoms of an  approach-
ing delirium.   In spite of her efforts to keep quiet,  she jumped out
of bed all the time in order to  run away from home; she loathed
the sight of her husband and  child, and  threatened  to destroy  her- 
CHININUM SULPHURICUM.                 437
self.  She had violent palpitation of the heart, irritated but not very
much accelerated pulse.   A subsequent paroxysm terminated in
profuse perspiration.  A few doses of Quinine during the perspira-
tion cured her completely.
   Sanguineous Apoplexy  of an intermittent  type, may likewise
require the  exhibition of  Quinine.   A lady of thirty years, of a
plethoric  habit  of body, was attacked on the first of September,
Avith flushed face, loss of consciousness, immobility, deep and ster-
torous breathing, large, very slow and strong pulse.   She fell into
the  hands of an  alloeopath, and was bled.  In the evening she was
quite well.   On the third of September, at the same hour, she Avas
attacked in the  same way, was bled, and as  soon as the paroxj-sm
had subsided, Avas put upon Quinine, of Avhich she took a single dose
of tAventy-four grains.  On the  sixth, about the same hour,  she felt
a  slight  chill, followed by moderate heat  and  sweat;  she  took
another but smaller dose of Quinine,  and had no further trouble
   If we should have a case of  this kind to prescribe for, we would
give Aconite during the  paroxysm, and afterwards Quinine in
reasonable doses.   Some, as I said above, might give the triturated
drug, and others the Quinine in substance.   In
   Periodical  Ccp>lialea, Quinine will prove useful.  Kopp relates a
case in the  second volume of his " Homoeopathic Memorabilia,"
Avhere a lady who had been disposed to headache, menstruated very
profusely after  her forty-eighth year.   After each turn she  was
attacked with severe  pain in the head, nausea, disposition to vomit,
chilliness, cold feet and debility.  She took six doses of Quinine of
one-sixth of a grain each, and  remained perfectly Avell ever after.
   In Hemicrania  of a paroxysmal character, where the attacks come
on every day or every other day, Quinine has often proved a remedy.
These attacks are generally characterized by an absence of gastric
symptoms, although there may be diarrhoea.  The  symptoms of
congestion  and   nervous  irritability prevail.  The pains may be
various: tearing, lancinating, hard  aching and burning pains.
   Cerebral Congestions, Avhere the disease is paroxysmal, and the par-
oxysms are worse every other day, will often yield to Quinine.  Par-
oxysmal congestions of this character  may affect other organs beside
the brain, such as the spleen or heart.  During the  paroxysm we
resort to the tincture or low attenuations of Aconite, and between the
paroxysms we give Quinine.  A case is  reported Avhere the follow-
ing symptoms occurred :   A robust and plethoric boy, three years
old, was  attacked with congestion of the spleen.  This yielded to
treatment.  On the third day, congestion of  the heart set in,  with
the following symptoms:  disfigured countenance;  expression of
intense suffering,  anxiety and oppression; tumultuous palpitation of
the heart, intense burning distress in the region of the heart, fainting
turns, irregular pulse.  The attack had set in Avithout any premoni-
tory symptom's.   After the violence of the paroxysm had  been
controlled by treatment, the child took Quinine in two-grain doses,
twenty-four grains in  all, and remained perfectly Avell.
  The allceopathic attendant reports this case as a case of inflammation
of the spleen and heart.  If an  homoeopathic physician were guilty 
438                     LECTURE  XXVII.
of such a blunder, he Avould be laughed at.   It was a simple case of
plethora, plethoric congestion, or  rush of blood where Aconite Avas
indicated during the paroxysm and Quinine during the apyrexia.

  In  Neuralgia Intermittens,  Quinine has effected beautiful cures.
These affections are regarded by some as masked fever and ague.
The attacks are most frequently ushered in with  a  slight chill,
followed by an increase .of temperature generally,  some vascular
excitement and generally perspiration.  The local pains vary accord-
ing as one or the other portion of the nervous system is  the seat
of the affection.  There  may be  gastric  derangement, though not
necessarily.
  An interesting case of neuralgia of the ^meningeal membranes is
quoted  in  Frank's Magazine, where the patient was in, the fourth
month of pregnancy.  Every morning, after taking her breakfast,
she was attacked with a violent tearing pain in the back part of the
head, " as though the  membranes were pulled asunder."  The attack
was accompanied  by a chilliness, she looked pale, the bowels were
constipated, she felt low-spirited, irritable, inclined to Aveep, and had
to keep her bed. Towards noon the pain became less, she Avarmed up,
and in'the  evening she felt quite well.   She took half a  grain of
Quinine every  hour during the interval, and had no more trouble.
  In  Neuralgia of the Celiac Plexus,  of the frontal nerve, of the
trigeminus, Quinine has proved a valuable agent.   In some of these
attacks, sopor  and delirious fancies are characteristic symptoms.
Excessive sensitiveness to light and noise may likewise be present.
  An interesting case of Neuralgia of the Womb, is reported in  a
French  Periodical, the " Archives Generales," where a lady had
been exerting herself more than usual in moving from one  house to
another.  The  paroxysms  set in  with a  chill, dragging, labor-like
pains from the lumbar region  down the thigh, and invading Avith
marked violence the hypogastric region.  During the  violence of
the attack, large clots of a thick, ropy and slightly-tinged mucus
Avere discharged from the vagina.  In the afternoon the pains ceased
entirely.  When a physician was sent for, he found her with her
thighs flexed upon the abdomen, expression of deep suffering in the
face, warm and somewhat moist skin, coated  tongue, anorexia, very
little thirst and pulse normal:  sense of weight in the pelvis, con-
stant urging to stool, sensitiveness and  tension in the hypogastric
region; the least pressure causes pain.  The vagina Avas burning-
hot, and the neck of the womb so sensitive that the least  pressure
exhorted a loud cry.   She Avas  put on the  use of Quinine  in  eight
grain doses, of which she took three during the apyrexia.  The next
attack was scarcely perceptible.  Another dose of Quinine restored
her permanently.

   The periodical intermissions of  nervous and congestive paroxysms
point to Quinine in a variety of other affections.   This periodicity
has been observed in trismus, in  paraplegia,  in ophthalmia, in pul-
monary haemorrhage, and in all these cases Quinine effected  a speedy
and permanent cure. 
CHININUM SULPHURICUM.
133
  An old lady was attacked with
  Trismus every third day, accelerated pulse, headache, thirst but
inability to drink.  Quinine cured her.
  Another patient was attacked with
  Paralysis of the lower extremities, incontinence of urine and stool;
fever and ague prevailed  at the time: the  paroxysms in his case
set in every other day.   Quinine restored him.
  A literary man was attacked with
  Ophthalmia, which  was exacerbated every evening like a fever-
and-ague paroxysm.  Quinine removed the difficulty very soon.
  A man of feeble constitution was attacked  with
  Hemorrhage from the lungs and bowels, face  sunken, pulse very
feeble, stertorous  breathing, the skin covered with cold,  viscid
sweat, yawning, expulsion of black coagula from the mouth.   The
attack Avas followed by copious warm SAveat.  It proved paroxysmal
and was entirely arrested by ten doses of Quinine, two grains each.
  I might mention a number  of interesting cures achieved  by
Quinine, of various affections where a leading indication for its use
Avas the periodicity of the attacks.   A few more may suffice.
  In a case  of
  Retention  of the Placenta  it finally came aAvay of itself in the fourth
week.   Ever since then the patient had an attack of the most frightful
congestive headache  every evening.  A  single dose of  Quinine
stopped the  paroxysms permanently.
  A young girl Avas attacked with violent
  Spasm of the Neck and Chest Avhich  extorted the most piteous cries.
Gradually the paroxysms  set  in  every other day  very regularly.
After the paroxysm she  passed a quantity of watery urine.  A few
doses of Quinine, tAvo grains each,  arrested the disease  permanently.

  In Frank's Magazine, the following case of
  Intermittent Dysentery  is  quoted  from the "Medizinischen Corres-
pondenzblatt."  A child was attacked every afternoon at four o'clock
Avith violent  pains  in the abdomen, folloAved by heat and from six
to eight bloody evacuations,  after which it fell asleep exhausted
and in profuse perspiration.  The  intermittent character of the par-
oxysms induced the medical attendant to  prescribe Quinine, Avhich
was  administered  endermically,  the child  refusing to take  the
medicine by  the mouth.  The attacks ceased at once.
  Intermittent  Chronic Rheumatism.  A chlorotic girl of  eighteen
years Avas attacked with  rheumatic pains in the legs which was at
first  continual, but afterwards became periodical.   The attack set
in every day at ten o'clock in the evening, and continued all night.
Sleep was entirely banished  by the pain.   She took four powders
of Quinine of tAvo grains  each,  after Avhich the next attack Avas
much milder, and the attacks ceased entirely after the second night.

  Even in Epilepsy, the periodicity of the attacks may constitute an
indication for Quinine.   A boy of thirteen years old had been sub-
ject to epileptic attacks.  The boy fell clown, Avith loss of conscious-
ness, without uttering a cry ; there Avas no sign of convulsions except 
440
LECTURE XXVII.
a spasmodic clenching of the fists.  The paroxysms recurred regu-
larly every seventh day.  The means used remained unavailable,
until Quinine was given; this arrested the paroxysms permanently.
The dose is not stated;  it may  have been from five to ten grains
from one paroxysm to the next following.

  While speaking of China, I haAne taken occasion to allude to the
use of Quinine in
  Intermittent  Fever.  There  Avas a time  when  Quinine was  con-
sidered the inevitable specific for this disease.  AVe now know that
Quinine is one of the, but not by any means the, specific for inter-
mittent fever.  Arsenic is another powerful remedy in this  disease.
The indications for Quinine are the same as those Avhich I  have given
for  China, page 428.
  At one time, Hahnemann seemed disposed to oppose the use of
alkaloids by homoeopathic physicians.   These times have gone by.
There are alkaloids without which it is impossible to either  cure or
palliate suffering.  Morphine  is one of them, Quinine another.   The
cure of certain  forms of fever and  ague and of  other periodical
paroxysms of  a nervous congestive character without Quinine is an
impossible  thing.  In some forms of  miasmatic  intermittents  the
cerebral congestions  are so violent that it seems of the utmost im-
portance  to arrest the paroxysms as speedily as possible, lest the
cerebral  vessels should  rupture and fatal haemorrhage  ensue.  In
these  dangerous forms of Intermittents which  some of the older
pathologists designate as febris  perniciosa or apoplectica, we may give
Aconite alone, or Aconite and Belladonna in alternation  duringthe
chill; but Quinine in substance will  have to be given during the
apyrexia.
  In Intermittent Fever with typhoid symptoms, Quinine in substance
may sometimes be preferable to the triturations.   A blacksmith was
attacked Avith delirium, dryness of the  skin, hot tongue, etc.   Cold
applications to the head and other treatment Avere resorted to.  Next
morning  there was a remarkable  remission of all these  symptoms.
On  the third night he Avas attacked in the same way; the attacks
set in with a chill, and it Avas only  with great  difficulty that the
patient could  be retained in his  bed. The intermittent character
of the paroxysms having become apparent, Quinine Avas resorted to;
tliere Avas another paroxysm in a modified form, after Avhich they
ceased altogether.
  The purists of the Homoeopathic School at one time  repudiated
the  use of Quinine as if it were so  much  dust  from the infernal
regions.  The  great  cry has  been that Quinine only suppresses the
fever and ague  paroxysm.   If this  paroxysm is characterized by
the  symptoms which I have endeaA^ored to portray to you on previous
pages, Quinine does not suppress the  paroxysm, but meets it as its
true curative agent.   AVe should not forget, however, that the fever
and ague miasma is of a very coarse nature, perhaps  semi-material,
occupying  a sort of intermediate position between  the spiritual-
dynamic  and  the material forces which have power to subvert  the
harmonious mechanism of the tissues.   The fever and ague miasm 
CHININUM SULPHURICUM.
441
 may therefore act both as a dynamico-immaterial, and as a chemico-
 physical  poison, and may at times have to be counteracted or neu-
 tralized by  larger doses than are generally required in ordinary
 cases.   But  in  no case  will an excessive dose of Quinine be re-
 quired, provided the character of  the  fever  is of  an analogous
 quality to that of the Quinine-principle.  If the character of the fever
 is analogous to the inmost principle of Arsenic, Quinine can never
 meet it.  Under such  circumstances  we  may  effect  a temporary
 hushing up  of the fever and ague  paroxysm by keeping the gan-
 glionic system spell-bound, as it were,  by means of enormous doses
 of Quinine ;  but this hushing up would  only be a temporary sup-
 pression ; it is not a cure.
   Hypertrophy of the spleen is one of the permanent changes re-
 sulting from a series of fever and ague paroxysms.  This effect has
 been observed by thousands in numberless cases.  During the chill
 the blood seems to recede from the splenetic vessels.  A diminution
 of the size  of this organ  seems to be the primary effect, or rather
 the accompaniment of the chill.  The  subsequent  enlargement sets
 in with the  supervention of the hot  stage, when the blood is re-
 turned  to the spleen Avith increased  force as  it were.  This san-
 guineous  engorgement may result in permanent hypertrophy of the
 parenchyma  of the spleen.
   Peruvian bark and its alkaloid Quinine act in this  respect  simi-
 larly to fever and ague.   The first effect of large doses of Quinine
 upon the  spleen is to diminish the size of this organ by cutting off
 the  supply of blood ; the secondary effect, or the effect of organic
 reaction is to increase the size of the spleen by an  excessive supply
 of the vital fluid.   An acquaintance with this fact  leads us to pre-
 scribe both the bark and Quinine for
   Hypertrophy of the Spleen, Avhether resulting from fever and  ague
 paroxysms, or from simple sanguineous engorgement in consequence
 of exposure, dyscrasia, etc. The Quinine should not be given in too
 small doses, nor higher than  the second or third trituration.  In
   Splenetalgia or Neuralgia of the Spleen, Avhich sometimes accom-
 panies or  precedes enlargement of this organ, Quinine will likeAvise
 prove useful.  In cases, however, Avhere these tvvo  last named affec-
 tions do not arise from the influence of the marsh-miasm,  but are
 due  to rheumatic causes, it may be necessary to resort to some other
 agent, such as Aconite or Belladonna.
  Anasarca, if traceable to hypertrophy of the spleen, Avould simply
 constitute a symptom of  this  disorganization, and yield to the same
 treatment that is instituted for the  latter affection.  Quinine may
 remove the whole difficulty in some cases.  Piorry who has furnished
 an interesting monograph on  the use of Quinine in  Affections of the
 Spleen in  connection Avith Fever and Ague, relates  several cures of
this affection Avhere nothing but Quinine A\ras used.
  AVe have so far considered the admirable therapeutic properties of
 Quinine in various paroxysmal affections, such as : mania, apoplexy,
cephalalgia,  congestions, various neuralgic  affections,  and diseases
of an intermittent  charaeter. epilepsy, dysentry, asthmatic parox-
ysms, rheumatism,  etc.  AVe have shoAvn  the admirable curative 
442
LECTURE XXVII.
properties of Quinine in fever and ague, and Ave have dwelt Avith as
much force as the subject seems to deserve,  upon the  fact that the
curative action of Quinine extends even to affections Avhich are desig-
nated  a,febris intermittens larvata or masked or disguised fever and
ague, bv which we understand affections that  really or  essentially
constitute fever and ague paroxysms, but where the fever assumes
the form or mask of some other disease.  For  these masked fever
and ague paroxysms, whatever be their apparent character, lumbago,
haemorrhage, intestinal irregularities, gastric disturbances, spasmodic
or neuralgic distress, Quinine will prove just as effectual as for the
genuine intermittent disease.

   On this occasion it behooves me to caution you against two serious
blunders to which an inexperienced young practitioner may be liable;
the first  is: not to mistake the phenomena of congestion  Avhich
sometimes precede or accompany a fever and ague paroxysm, for some
other pathological process, pulmonary congestion,  carditis, enteritis
and the like ; the second is: not to mistake for fever and ague what
is only a symptom of a far different pathological process. Gentlemen,
it has happened  that physicians have mistaken the chill which super-
venes in pulmonary and other affections Avhere the pathological pro-
cess is apt to terminate in the effusion of pus, for intermittent fever,
and to treat the  patient accordingly.   And it happens to this  day
that physicians will mistake the chilly creepings which occur during
an attack  of influenza, or  Avhich supervene every noAV and then
during the course of a bronchial catarrh, for an attack of fever and
ague.  Such are the lamentable results of the habitual and systematic
disregard of pathology which many of the earlier practitioners of our
School have rendered themselves guilty of.  And if finally, com-
pelled by the irresistible onward progress of the age, they consent to
make a few desperate attempts at pathology, they mistake a catarrhal
chill, or the chill of purulent effusion, for a paroxysm of fever and
ague. Let not this be your fate ; let the symptoms be to you what
they really are in Nature, manifestations of a pathological process, a
correct knowledge of Avhich is indispensable to judicious and suc-
cessful treatment, and distinguishes the scientific physician  from
the symptomatic routinist and the uneducated  quack.

   Before closing our  chapter of Quinine, I desire to advert to the
fact that Quinine causes
   Deafness,  accompanied by buzzing in the ears, disagreeable noises
in the head and vertigo.  Scrofulous individuals,  and persons of a
cachectic habit of body, are sometimes suffering in this Avay.  They
are deaf, complain of a distressing buzzing  and ringing  in the ears
and head;  their ears are dry, and they sometimes have the appear-
ance of being imbecile  or absent-minded.   Arsenic is of immense
use under such  circumstances :  let us not forget Quinine.
   We should not overlook this great agent in cases of
   Vertigo, accompanied with sickness at the stomach, slow and feeble
pulse, sinking of the temperature of the body.   Attacks of this kind
may result from deficient  innervation, excessive exertions, expo- 
CHININUM SULPHURICUSL
443
 sure to damp and chilly air.  If violent, the attack may be attended
 with loss of sight, and confusion of sense which may even amount
 to an actual loss of consciousness.  A solution of Quinine in a little
 dilute Sulphuric acid may prove eminently adapted to the emergency.
   The power of Quinine to derange the bowels, has been alluded to
 before.  Quinine causes a train of gastric disturbances that make it
 a most valuable agent in some forms of
   Dyspepsia and  Cardialgia, where the patient complains of nausea,
 loathing of food, bitter eructations, bitter taste in the mouth, vomit-
 ing of bile, oppression of the stomach, heartburn, or a burning sen-
 sation in the stomach and oesophagus, or  a feeling of constriction and
 a pulling sensation in the stomach.
   We knoAV that Quinine has occasioned a similar train of symptoms
 by applying it endermically to the epigastric region.
   Quinine  affects the  bowels similarly to Bark.  Large doses cause
 diarrhoea, small  doses  bind  the bowels.  The  diarrhoea may  be
 watery, slimy, dark or even blackish, having an offensive smell.
   Costiveness is attended  with symptoms of  congestion,  fullness
 about the head,  increased  warmth in the  head and body, flushed
 face, oppression.

   If Quinine is to be used in substance, it is best to first dissolve it
 in dilute sulphuric acid, in the proportion  of ten grains to thirty drops
 of the acid.p The- dissolved drug acts more promply than the powder.
 After dissolving it,  Ave may afterwards mix it with any quantity of
 water that  may be'required.
   The baneful effects of Quinine may be counteracted by Ipecacuanha
 and Arsenic.

 Synoptical tableau of the affections for which we recommend Quinine:

                     CEPHALIC  GROUP.

 Delirium tremens, p. 436;
 Apoplexia  intermittens, p. 437 ;
 Mania intermittens,  p. 436 ;
 Vertigo, p. 112;
 Cephalalgia intermittens, p. 437.

                      SPECIAL SENSES.

 Paralysis of special senses after typhus, encephalitis, p. 437 ;
 Deafness of scrofulous and cachectic individuals, p. 442.

                     NERA'OUS GROUP.

Neuralgia (intermittent^, p. 438 ;
Spasms  of the neck and chest, p. 439;
Trismus (intermittent), p. 439 ;
Epilepsy, p. 439 ;
Splenetalgia, p. 141;
Paraplegia  (intermittent), p. 438. 
444
LECTURE  XXVIII.
                 CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

Hypertrophy of the spleen and liver, p. 441;
Dyspepsia, p. 443 ;
Cardialgia, p. 443 ;
Diarrhoea, p. 443;
Dysentery (intermittent), p. 439 ;
Constipation, p. 443.

                 INTERMITTENT GROUP.

Mania, p. 436;
Apoplexy, p. 437;
Cephalalgia, p. 437;
Congestions of the brain, spleen and heart, p. 437 ;
Neuralgia of meningeal membranes, p. 438;
Neuralgia of coeliac plexus, p. 438 ;
Neuralgia of womb, p. 438 ;
Neuralgia of spleen, p. 441;
Trismus, p. p. 439 ;
Ophthalmia, p. 439 ;
Paraplegia, p. 439 ;
Haemorrhage, p. 438;
Headache, with retention of the placenta, p. 439 ;
Spasm of the  neck and chest, p. 439;
Dysentery,  p.  439 ;
Chronic Rheumatism, p. 439 ;
Epilepsy, p. 439;
Fever, p. 440;
Febris larvata, p. 442.

                 EXANTHEMATIC GROUP.

Anasarca, 441.
             LECTURE  XXV'llI.

                   C0L0CYATTIIIS,

        {Bitter Cucumber.—Nat. Order :—Cucurbitace^e.)

  This is a trailing plant, Avith a white, annual, branched root, which
strikes deep  into the ground.  The stem  is herbaceous, angular,
branched, covered with rOugh hairs, and trails along the ground; in
its appearance resembling the common cucumber.  Leaves triangu-
lar, obtuse, sinuated, hairy, of a  fine green on the upper surface,
rough  and whitish  underneath.   Flowers yelloAV, with greenish
yeins, solitarjr, axillary.  Fruit about the size of an orange, with a
 
C0L0CYNTHIS.
445
thin but solid  rind.  It  comes to us freed  from the outer yelloAV
rind; it contains a loose, spongy, whitish,  inodorous pulp, bitter-
contains many seeds; we make a straw-colored tincture from the pulp.
  Colocynthis (Greek Kolokynthe), means a round gourd.   This is
supposed to be  the fruit which the servant of Elisha gathered in the
field near (jilgal, during the famine; after it had been gathered and
boiled, and the  men had begun to eat of it, they cried out:  Oh thou
man of God, there is death in the pot.  Hence the names: Cucurbita
prophetae Elisaei, and mors in olla.
  This plant is  found in many regions of country, in Spain, Turkey,
upon the islands of the Greek Archipelago, in Nubia, Japan, on the
coast of Coromandel.  In East-India Ave have a species of spurious
Colocynth,  which is oblong, not round like  the genuine.
  According to Captain Lyon, the seeds of  Colocynth are eaten by
the people  of North-Africa; these seeds are not poisonous like the
pulp ; they  contain a quantity of mucilaginous matter like the seeds
of quince.  But the black seeds are poisonous: the people of Elisha
may have boiled Colocynth  with black seeds.

  Colocynth has been employed by the oldest physicians, Hippocrates,
Dioscorides, Appolonius, Asclepiades, Andromachus, Plinius.  Syd-
enham, Hufeland and other great physicians used Colocynth.  Bayers
and Schenck used it to extract teeth without pain; they scarified the
gums, caused the patient to hold a decoction of Colocynth in vinegar
in his mouth, and then pulled out the tooth Avith their fingers.

  It is a remarkable fact that some of the most distinguished practi-
tioners have been the enthusiastic advocates of  Colocynth, whereas
other equally distinguished physicians have condemned its use in the
most emphatic language.  Thus  Triller in his Thesaurus of medicine
calls the  Colocynth " an  infamous drug, a thankless, evil-breeding,
suspicious,  dubious, violent medicine, having exceedingly poisonous
properties  and  hence to be proscribed from the domain of medicine."
Charles Hoffmann, on the contrary, says of Colocynth that Colocynth
is to severe maladies what a sledge-hammer is to massive iron ; lions
are not caught in a mouse-trap, and many a chronic malady remains
uncured, because  physicians dread the  employment of  heroic
medicines.
  But times are changing, and allceopathic physicians are beginning
to learn that small closes are often sufficient  to effect brilliant cures.
Thus Stifft, one of the most violent  opponents  of Homoeopathy in
Austria, says:  Great things  can be achieved by  means of Colocynth,
if given in small doses.  And Van Swieten  says that one-eighth of
a grain of  Colocynth is sufficient to restore  the menses.
  In his preface to the provings of Colocynth Hahnemann expresses
his astonishment that practitioners, instead of employing all sorts of
corri^entia  to  counteract or Aveaken the excessive action of drugs,
and if  they did not succeed in this, instead of condemning drugs as
dangerous  and therefore unfit for use, did not  hit upon the very
simple and very natural  expedient of reducing  the close by  making
alcoholic attenuations, or triturations Avith sugar of milk. The very 
446
LECTURE XXVIII.
 fact that these apparently simple processes of comminuting the crude
 drug Avere never thought  of, shows that it required more  genius
 than was possessed by Hahnemann's predecessors, to invent them.
 After Columbus had discovered America a Spanish Grandee taunted
 him on a certain occasion that any body might have knoAvn that, by
 sailing Avestward, land must be discovered some time or other.  By
 Avay of reply, Columbus took  an egg and requested any gentleman
 present to make it stand  upon  the point.  Nobody knew  how to
 accomplish such a feat.  Thereupon Columbus took the egg, dashed
 the point upon the table, and the egg stood erect.  Any body might
 have done this, and yet nobody thought of it;  it took a genius like
 Columbus to make an egg stand upon its point, and it took a genius
 like Hahnemann to invent the process of making small doses.
   A distinguished  practitioner of the fifteenth century, Scribonius
 Largus, seems to have had a glimpse of the  homoeopathic laAV.   He
 alludes to the  curative virtues of Colocynth in these remarkable
 words : "It seems  past  all doubt that it  is particularly suitable to
 those  who are afflicted Avith diseases of the stomach, since it pos-
 sesses an exceedingly  virulent action  upon the  stomach."  But
 instead of being led to conclude  that Colocynth must therefore  be
 capable of curing by means  of  small doses of the drug, the very
 diseases which large doses were capable of causing, this feeble ray
 of light, so  far from illuminating his soul, left it as dark as a tomb,
 and he contented himself with the simple remark: " In things of
 this kind, custom is more powerful than reason."

   In regard to the physiological effects of Colocynth, we are pos-
 sessed of  exceedingly interesting facts derived from cases of poison-
 ing, and  from experiments upon animals.   Orfila made several
 experiments on dogs; but the  only prominent  effects  of Colocynth
 upon these animals were: fluid, blackish stools, disposition to vomit
 and vertigo ; there were no convulsions before the animals died.  A
 post-mortem  examination revealed symptoms of entero-peritonitis
 in all cases.  The lungs, stomach, duodenum and the small  intes-
 tines showed no perceptible alterations;  but the mucous membrane
 of the rectum exhibited a large number of  fiery-red spots.  From
 these facts Orfila concludes that  the effects of Colocynth depends
 more particularly  upon the local action of  the drug, and upon a
 sympathetic irritation of the nervous system; he further concludes
 that Colocynth is absorbed into the current  of the circulation, and,
 by this means, affects  the  nervous system and the  rectum by its
 direct action; and lastly that it affects both men and  animals alike.
 This conclusion is not  borne  out by the statement of the traveler
 Thunberg, who tells us that the natives as well as the colonists  of
 the Cape of Good Hope eat the salted fruits of the Colocynth-gourd
 without any injury.  This  apparent harmlessness of this violent
 drastic may perhaps be OAving to the salting process it is made  to
 undergo, or it may be that the  poisonous principle is not developed
 in the  unripe fruit; for it is the unripe fruit Avhich is eaten.   But
 Ave  shall presently find, in  reading' over a few cases of poisoning,
that Orfila's conclusions are incorrect. 
COLOCYNTHIS.
447
  Dioscorides already had  observed that Colocynth, if introduced
into the rectum, produced a discharge of blood.
  In ] s23, a coroner's inquest was held in London on the body of a
woman avIio died in tAventy-four hours with incessant vomiting and
purging, in consequence of having swallowed by mistake a teaspoon-
ful  and a half of Colocynth poAvder.
  Tulpius, in his Avork entitled Observ. Medic, notices the case of
a man Avho Avas nearly carried off by profuse  bloody  diarrhoea, in
consequence  of taking a decoction of three Colocynth apples.

  In  Orfila's General  Toxicology, we read  the  following case of
poisoning : A man  swallowed three ounces of Colocynth in the hope
of getting rid of a gonorrhoea which he had had for some days.  In
a short time,  violent pains in the epigastrium, with excessive vomit-
ing ; in about two  hours there Avere copious alvine dejections; the
sight Avas obscured; he heard with difficulty; slight delirium came
on,  folioAved by vertigo.  After some slight treatment, the symptoms
gradually subsided.
  These few  cases  give us an inkling of the  powerful  drastic pro-
perties possessed by Colocynth ; and the last case likewise shows us
that it affects some of the cerebral nerves, or that portion of the
brain from which some of these nerves,  more particularly the audi-
tory and the  optic  nerve, are  given out.

  Stalapaart van der Wiel, in his " Obserationes," relates the follow-
ing case of poisoning: A jovial young  inn-keeper at the Hague in
Holland, desirous  of purging himself,  bought a  colocynth-gourd,
pounded and swallowed it.   Soon  after  he was attacked with the
most horrible pains in the bowels; he had bloody  evacuations ; at
the same time he had the most violent spasms, so that he  doubled
himself up like a  porcupine.  It was with great  difficulty  that his
life could be saved.
  The symptoms, in this case, were agonizing spasms in the bowels,
with bloody  stools.

  Hoyer, in his Ephemerides, mentions the case of a young man of
seArenteen years, Avho took an infusion of Colocynth.  Soon after, he
was attacked Avith bloody stools,  excessive  anguish and fainting;
his strength soon failed him and the patient died.

  Another case is reported by Tulpius:  A  poor man who was
suffering with constitutional constipation, swallowed  a decoction
prepared of three colocynth-gourds;  he Avas attacked with agonizing
colic, and excessive discharges of blood from the anus.  Drinking
quantities of oil and injections of oil saAred his life.

  Plater relates two cases of poisoning with Coloc3rnth.  One is the
case of a young prince who AA'as given  by his physician pills to
purge the  boAvels.  The pills not operating, the doctor  enveloped
them Avith a  little  pulverized Colocynth.   After swalloAving these,
the prince was attacked  Avith bloody evacuations, and  horrible
eolie.  The doctor got so scared that he ran aAvay. 
448
LECTURE XXVIII.
   The second case terminated fatally.  A man aaIio Avas in the habit
 of purging himself, usually macerated for this purpose a colocynth-
 gourd in a bottle of wine over  night, and drank it next  morning;
 he had done this a number of times without any bad results; but
 finally it destroyed his life by causing an attack of acute dysentery,
   B}^ dysentery are most probably meant in this  case the bloody
 discharges and the cutting pains which are peculiar to Colocynth.
 In true dysentery the rectum seems to  be the real seat of the inflam-
 matory process which characterizes this disease; but we shall after-
 wards see that Colocynth does not seem to have any marked action
 upon the rectum, and that it cannot therefore, be truly homoeopathic
 to common dysentery.  It has been recommended for this disease by
 one homoeopathic practitioner after another, the one  making  it a
 rule to copy from his predecessor.  But Colocynth is really homoeo-
 pathic to enteritis characterized by bloody stools  and cutting and
 spasmodic pains in the  bowels;  this is not dysentery as commonly
 understood, which refers to an inflammatory process going on in the
 lining membrane of the rectum.

   According  to  Riedlinus, who  published a  work  in 1696,  two
 grains of pulverized Colocjmth, given to a robust servant girl, caused
 vomiting.  According  to  Bcekler, in  Hartmann's  Materia  Med.,
 published in 1745, the same effect Avas experienced by persons whose
 business it was to handle Colocynth-gourds for some time.  A^omi-
 ting has even  been excited  by applying Colocynth to the  stomach.
   According to Michaelis, Colocynth, if applied to the epigastrium,
 after the epidermis had  been  removed, has been known to  excite
 diarrhoea.
   According to Chretien, applications of Colocynth to the abdomen,
 caused increased stool and urine.
   Fordyce, in  his Fragments of Surgery and Medicine, mentions the
 case of a woman who  was a prey to colic for thirty years, from haA'-
 ing taken an infusion of the pulp  of  Colocynth mixed Avith some
 beer.  This shows that Colocynth must be exceedingly useful  in the
 treatment, of chronic diseases.

  Frederick Hoffmann tells us, that after using Colocynth in ascites,
 he has often seen it cause fatal gangrene of the bowels.
  Another distinguished practitioner, John Moritz Hoffmann, relates
the following  interesting case of poisoning with  Colocynth:   A
noble lady took some  wine in which Colocynth had  been macerated
over night.  Soon after she was  seized with violent cardialgia,  fre-
quent vomiting, horrible and cutting colic Avith  discharges from the
bowels which were at first muco-serous, soon after bilious, and finally
bloody;  other symptoms were:   a parching thirst, muscular sub-
sultus and spasms of the superior and  inferior  extremities, violent
fever, fainting, coldness of the extremities.  At this stage the doctor
arrived, and saved her life by the copious  use of oily and  mucila-
ginous preparations.

  Orfila, in his General Toxicology, relates the folloAving interesting 
COLOCYNTHIS.
449
 case : A man of tAventy-eight years, who was afflicted with dyspepsia,
 drank two glasses of a decoction of Colocynth.  Soon after, he was
 attacked with violent discharges from the bowels, colic, great heat
 in the bowels, dryness of the fauces, and unquenchable thirst. AVhen
 Dr. Carron arrived, he found the  patient with a small and hurried
 pulse, red tongue, distended abdomen and very sensitive to contacT,
 retention  of stool and urine, retraction  of the testicles, priapism!
 Antiphlogistic treatment was resorted to, but the patient died.  The
 doctor had been purposely left  uninformed of the cause of his sick-
 ness.  A  post-mortem examination  revealed the following symp-
 toms :  _ The whole of the intestines were filled with a whitish fluid,
 containing a quantity of flocks of the same color; the villous coat
 of the stomach was ulcerated here and there; the bowels were red,
 dotted with black spots, and adhering to each other by membranous
 exudations ; liver, kidneys and bladder  showed no sign of inflam-
 mation.
   There is no mention  made,  in  this case, of fiery redness of the
 mucous membrane of  the rectum, which Orfila observed in every
 experiment instituted  upon dogs.   The  absence  of this symptom
 shows that Colocynth  is not homoeopathic  to  dysentery properly
 speaking ; and it likewise shows that the  action of a poisonous drug
 upon animals is not ahvavs a criterion for  the homoeopathicity of this
 drug to  the disease to which man is subject.  This case presents a
 complete group of symptoms delineating the most frightful form of
 enteritis complicated Avith peritoneal inflammation, and it shows,
 moreover,  that Colocynth  must have  a remarkable influence  upon
 the sexual and urinary organs, inasmuch as it  caused retention of
 urine, retraction of. the testes and priapism. The  symptoms of sexual
 and urinary irritation seem to have been subordinate  or  incidental
 in this case to the inflammatory action of the drug upon the intes-
 tines.  AVe judge from  this, and other cases of poisoning that the
 primary action of  Colocynth is upon the coeliac plexus and its rami-
 fications over  the  intestinal walls.   In this case  the nerA'ous energy
 was so completely  struck down that all organic reaction, which mani-
 fested itself in other cases  of poisoning  by  bloody stools,  became
 extinct, and a progressive decomposition  of the tissues was set up
 from the outset, terminating in dissolution  of the mucous lining, and
 gangrene of the peritoneum.

  In  all these cases of poisoning with Colocynth, the remarkable
 action which this poison has upon the small intestines, is a most pro-
 minent symptom.   Duvergie and Ratier (in their Universal Lexicon
 of Practic d Medicine and Surgery) relate another interesting case.
 A man of  fifty-five years, of robust constitution, had  been afflicted
 for  a long time Avith a steatoma on the right knee.  He applied to a
 woman Avho resided in the neighborhood  of Paris near the Military
 School, and Avho enjoyed  the reputation  of being able to cure all
 sorts of incurable maladies.  After  having tried in A'ain all sorts of
 cataplasms, he took a small portion of a  liquor which this woman
 had  prepared  for  him.   Shortly after  taking this  dose, he was at-
tacked Avith nausea and vomitimr,  accompanied by a  sensation of
                               29 
450
LECTURE XXVIII.
heat and burning in the epigastric region.  Rejoicing that the medi-
cine acted, he took  a second  and even a third dose.   Hereupon he
was attacked Avith copious evacuations, intolerable pains throughout
the whole abdomen, which finally increased to such horrible tormina
that the patient leaped out of his bed, rolled upon the floor, blessing
in his blindness the hand that had administered  to him this poison.
Soon after the patient was seized with convulsions and he died.   In
his experiments upon animals, Orfila never observed this symptom.
  This horrible death  excited the suspicions of the public authori-
ties, and Drs. Duvergie and Ratier were requested to  make a post-
mortem  examination.  The results  of  their investigation  Avere as
follow:
  The meningeal membranes Avere white and somewhat thicker than
usual; the  cerebral substance was neither  dotted with  red points,
nor injected; but on taking out  the brain, a feAV spoonfuls of a rose-
colored serum were found in its cavity.  The lungs Avere  perfectly
sound.   The stomach and duodenum had a blue-red appearance ex-
ternally, and the  ileum looked rose-colored; the mucous membrane
of  the stomach  and of  the  duodenum exhibited a vivid  redness,
traversed by erosions  and interstitially distended, so  that it might
be  pulled off and torn without any trouble; these abnormal changes
were less marked in the lower half of the small intestine;  the color
of the colon seemed but little altered either internally or externally.
These results deviate considerably from the results obtained by Orfila
upon animals.  In his six experiments upon  dogs, Avhich we find
related  in  his General Toxicology, the mucous  membrane of  the
rectum  and the inferior portion of  the colon, exhibited a  fiery, or
purple red appearance.  This would seem to sIioav that the manner
in Avhich drugs affect animals is no safe criterion for the application
of  drugs in the treatment of diseases of the  human species.  Even
among animals Colocynth affects one species differently from another.
Thus we are told by Viborg,, Bourgelat and  Mairond that a small
horse swallowed  four  drachms  of Colocynth AA'ithout experiencing
any marked effects from it.  Experiments upon animals are cloubt-
le -is of  great use; they shoAV us, at  any rate, hoAV these dumb crea-
tures are affected by them, and  in Avhat diseases  drugs may be used
with a comparative certainty of  relief.  But it is only by the effects
which drugs produce  in the human organism, Avhile in a state of
health, that we can learn with positive accuracy the extent and char-
acter of their therapeutic uses.

   Colocynth was first proved by Hahnemann,  and  afterAvards  re-
proved by Dr. ATatzke of Vienna, assisted by a number of intelligent
physicians and lay persons.  The provings Avere instituted with mas-
sive doses as Avell as with attenuations.   It would lead us  too far to
relate all these instances of  persevering devotion and self-sacrifice.
Suffice  it to say that, thanks to the efforts of Dr. AVatzke and  his
friends, we  have acquired a knoAvledge of the  therapeutic uses of
Colocynth which n ay be said to be next to perfect. In order to show
you, however, how true provers proceed in their explorations of the 
COLOCYNTHIS.
451
therapeutic  character of a drug, I will relate a few of the shorter,
though by no means uninteresting provings.                      "
  One of the provers was Dr. Charles Weinke, thirty years old, of
sanguine temperament,  vigorous constitution, and  enjoying perfect
health except that he had sweaty feet summer and winter and Avas
disposed to catarrh.
  On the 19th of November, 1842, at  half past ten in the forenoon,
after exercising  in the open air for  an hour and a half, he took 12
drops of the tincture of Colocynth in Avater.  One  hour after, while
writing, he experienced in the dorsum of the right foot, on the left
side in the  direction of the  big toe, a painful pressure with slight
numbness of the right leg, as if it would go to sleep ; Avhen Avulking.
these symptoms  were not very troublesome, and they disappeared of
themselves in fifteen minutes.
  On the same  forenoon,  at  a  quarter past eleven o'clock, AVeinke
took  again 15 drops.  At three o'clock in the afternoon  he had a
papescent stool, followed by slight shifting pinchings, and a catarrhal
feeling in the region  of the umbilicus, and rumbling in the bowels.
Afterwards  he experienced  shooting stitches  in the left half of the
thorax, and moderate flatulence.  At  seven o'clock in the evening,
he had a semi-fluid stool, the passage of Avhich Avas accompanied by
considerable flatulence.  The catarrhal feeling in the umbilical region
as if diarrhoea Avould set in, continued  the Avhole afternoon.
  On the 23d of November,  at  half past eleven in the forenoon, he
took 20 drops of the tincture;  half an hour after, he experienced a
rumbling in  the abdomen, a  sensation  in  the  abdomen  as if he had
taken  cold, folloAved  by two  semi-liquid evacuations.   In the after-
noon he felt weary, nevertheless the sexual instinct Avas very much
excited.
  On the 30th, at half past eleven in the forenoon, he took 60 drops
of the tincture in half a  tumblerful of Avater.
  Shortly after taking  the drug, the  prover  experienced shooting
stitches in the left half of the thorax; catarrhal  sensation in the
abdomen, and slight rumbling.  At  a  quarter past  tAvelve, he felt a
slight pressure in the dorsum of the  right foot, more on the left side
in the direction of  the big  toe.  At  noon, enormous appetite at
dinner.  At tAvo in the afternoon, sudden urging to  stool; soon after,
copious papescent evacuation, folloAved by pinching and a sensation
in the bowels as from a cold  (a sort of  catarrhal feeling,) droAVsiness,
want of disposition to  study.   At four o'clock, another diarrhoeic
stool;  afterwards considerable flatulence and a disagreeable feeling
of lassitude.
  The drug  affected  the  loAver extremities in such an unpleasant
manner that the prover had to discontinue the use of the drug.  The
symptoms Avhich he experienced during the last three Aveeks, avc re
as follow:
  Heavy sleep, full of dreams;  laziness in the morning on Avaking
at a late  hour, and no desire to get up ; heaA'iness of the lower ex-
tremities ; bloating of both feet, so that his boots felt too tight at the
instep; on the dorsum of the right foot, at the navicular and cunei-
form bones of the tarsus, a constant dull crampy pain Avith pressure, 
452
LECTURE XXVIII.
apparently in the periosteum  of  these bones;  the skin over the
painful part  had the natural color, elasticity and softness;  on the
right side  of the tarsus,  a pale, painless, distinctly circumscribed
tumor of the size of  a  pigeon-egg,  and resembling  a common
lymphatic tumor.  In the left foot the same pains were experienced
as in the right foot, in  the same places, except  less intensely, nor
was there any swelling.
   These symptoms were somewhat alleviated by walking, but they
still existed  in  the evening after taking a  good deal  of exercise
during the day, and were  then accompanied by excessive weariness
of the lower extremities.  AVhilst these symptoms lasted, the bowels
moved slowly, every other day, although the faeces Avere not particu-
larly hard; the  flatulence continued all the  time;  the secretion of
urine seemed somewhat  diminished.  These effects of  Colocynth
were not. impaired by coffee.  The circumscribed tumor  on the
tarsus continued even after the lapse of six months.

   These provings  are exceedingly interesting and  instructive.
Among the twenty and more provings of  Colocynth which  were
instituted by this band  of devoted explorers of  the therapeutic
virtues of drugs, I will  select one or two more as good illustrations
of the manner in which the business of proving drugs  should  be
conducted.
   Dr. Wachtel, thirty years old, of a choleric-melancholy tempera-
ment, robust frame,  and  having enjoyed for years uninterrupted
health, began his experiments on the 16th of  November, 1842.  He
took one drop of the tincture in half a tumblerful of water, an hour
after eating his breakfast, which consisted of milk and bread.  This
dose produced no perceptible change.
   On the 17th, he took 2 drops;  shortly after  he felt a dullness
about the head which lasted for an hour.
   On the 18th, he took  3 drops, without any perceptible change.
   On the 19th, 4 drops were taken.  These caused for a fe\v minutes
a pinching in the umbilical region.
   On the 20th, 5  drops; in the afternoon he  felt a twitching about
the anus, and soon after two ordinary evacuations.
   On the 21st, he took again 5 drops, which caused a more copious
secretion of urine, but were othenvise unattended Avith any impor-
tant results.
   On the 22d, 23d and  24th, he took 10 drops each day.  On the
22d, soon after taking the drug, he experienced a sensation of pres-
sure in the orbits, tOAvards  the root of the nose.  In the afternoon he
felt a sensation of heat in the nape of the neck,  burning and twitching
in the rectum and at the anus; soon after, three  liquid, slimy, but
painless stools.  On the 23d, he experienced an embarrassment  in
the cervical  muscles Avhen moving  the neck; after dinner he com-
plained of shooting stitches in the region of the liver and  in the
iliac bone; in the evening: feeling of dryness in the eyes.  On the
24th, in the forenoon ; urging to urinate, with discharge of a quantity
of watery urine,  recurring every hour more  or less.  In  the after-
noon : dullness of the head, with pressure in the orbits; sensation of 
COLOCYNTHIS.
453
coldness through the whole body, especially in the knees (although
the room Avas sufficiently warm); afterwards pressing towards the
rectum, without stool, followed soon after by itching at the anus and
orifice of the urethra.  In the  evening:  an uncomfortable and weak
feeling in the Avhole body, especially in the lower extremities ; canine
hunger, with particular desire  for bread and beer.
  On the 25th of November, the Doctor took 15 drops, increasing the
dose by five drops every clay until the 29th.  These doses produced
the folloAving  effects: dullness of the head, scraping  in the throat,
rumbling in the bowels, constriction in the umbilical region, disten-
tion of the  abdomen,  sensation  of emptiness and  soreness in the
bowels; papescent  stools with burning at the anus;  itching of the
body here  and  there,  obliging him to scratch the parts; shooting
stitches in the region of the liver, in the iliac bone, on the dorsum
of the right foot, in the metatarsal articulation and in the big toe-
joint of the left foot.
  After having experimented  with the tincture, AArachtel concluded
the experiment with the triturated  drug.  These triturations were
made  in the  proportion of 10 grains of  the drug to 90 grains of
sugar of milk.  The effects obtained with the triturations, were far
more instructive and characteristic than those observed after using
the tincture.
  From the 20th to the 28th of December, he took 10 grains of this
first trituration every morning.
  On  the 21st he experienced a pressure in the forehead; on the
22d, increased secretion  of urine and tOAvards evening: dullness of
the head; on  the 23d, fleeting, draAving stitches in the periosteum
of both radii; on the 21th, scraping in the throat, in the region of the
uvula.  On the  25th, the throat looked  red, and  deglutition was
impeded."  On the  26th, a real angina had developed itself which
became so violent  that  the  prover deemed  it necessary to take
Belladonna  and  Lachesis to  counteract it.  (This angina Avas like-
Avise felt by two other provers, Arneth and Rothansi.)
  From the  3d of January to the 15th, he took 10  grains of the
same trituration every day.
  On the 3d, frequent urging to stool, without any evacuation.  On
the 4th, the  taste of the  Colocynth  seemed particularly bitter and
nauseous, and continued all day.   In the evening: stitching-drawing
along the left tibia down  to the tarsal bones, accompanied by a burn-
ing pressure in the  left eye;  these  pains  continued  for about five
minutes.  Afterwards, Arery hard stool, like stones.  On the 5th, pres-
sure in.the temples; itching of the skin here and there, causing un-
ceasing restlessness, so that he was scarcely able to keep  still.  At
noon he drank some beer Avhich seemed to have an exceedingly
bitter taste.   In the evening, during a walk, he felt as  if his strength
was entirely leaA'ing him; he experienced a sensation of emptiness
in the stomach and soon  after, canine hunger.  (You will recollect
that this same prover experienced a similar  sensation on the 24th
of November from taking ten drops of  the tincture.)  No stool on
this day.  On the 6th, about noon, he experienced a violent cutting
pain which darted  through the whole abdomen down to the  anus 
454
LECTURE XXVIII.
like an electric shock.  Soon afterwards: urging to stool, without an
evacuation, which took place an hour after, and was composed of
fragments hard as stone.  In the afternoon:  shooting stitches in the
right half of the  chest (from before backwards.)  The Avhole of this
day, the prover  experienced a sensation on the back  part of the
tongue as if it had been scalded ; this symptom was made worse by
acidulated food,  The angina which this prover experienced, was of
a similar character, a pain as if the throat had been scalded.
  On the  7th,  about three in the afternoon, the feeling of AA'eakness
in the  whole  body returned,  but without any subsequent canine
hunger.   Towards evening, a fleeting drawing in the upper and
lower extremities; single prickings under the  left  pectoral muscle.
No stool.  On the 8th the above described scalding sensation on the
tongue was again felt, but  less  intensely.   On the 9th,  a draAving1
pain with pressure in the left foot.   At noon, excessive drowsiness.
After dinner,  a stitching-cutting pain in the right foot as if pierced
by a nail.   On the 10th, feeling of soreness in  the  upper  portion of
the pericranium  as if the hair Avere continually pulled upAvard.   On
the 11th, the same sensation was experienced  as if the  hair Avere
pulled  upward, and  it was moreover accompanied by a draAving-
pressing  pain  in the occiput.  These  tAvo symptoms  disappeared
toward evening.
  On the  13th, draAving-stitching pain in both tarsal joints, continu-
ing for about  a  minute, recurring frequently,  not  interfering with
walking.  After taking coffee and Avine, these  pains become aggra-
vated, and the prover experienced moreover  boring  pains in the
bones of the loAver extremities.  On the 1.4th,  the  same pains  con-
tinued  the whole day with unimportant remissions, but Avith less
intensity.   In  the afternoon, the  upper  extremities were affected  in
a similar manner.  On the 15th, he felt an aching  pain in the iliac
bone which decreased during motion.
  On the  16th, the stitching and boring pains were  more intense
than before, at times in the joints and at other times in the long
bones of the  upper  and  lower  extremities.  In  the afternoon, a
draAving-aching pain was experienced in both  shoulders; this pain
was a  seated  pain.   On the 17th,  the pains  continued, and Avere
moreover  complicated by heat in the head  and palpitation of the
heart; on  the 18th, these pains were only felt now and then, and on
the 19th,  they discontinued entirely.  On the 20th, the  following
symptoms developed  themselves  in the forenoon:  feeling of reple-
tion in the region of  the stomach;  rumbling in the abdomen Avith
considerable distension of the same ; violent colicky pains, continuing
for about  an hour,  and disappearing entirely after two stools which
followed each other in rapid succession.   In the night of the  22d,
he was tormented  by shooting stitches in the region of the liver.
The next day,  he experienced constant pains in the knee joint which
impeded walking.  The arthritic and rheumatic pains in the joints
and long bones of the upper and loAver extremities  continued until
the 1st of February with more or less intensity.
  I might perhaps interest you by a relation of the heroic provings
of Wurm, Gerstel, Arneth  and such men, with one hundred drop 
COLOCYNTHIS.
155
doses of the strong tincture of Colcocynth; but time will not permit
me to  dwell  upon these details any longer; I  will not,  however,
deprive you of the satisfaction of listening to the provings of two
young  ladies with the 3d attenuation of Colocynth; the prowrs
were exceedingly sensitive to the action of this drug, and  although
the doses which they took were small, the effects Avere  nevertheless
interesting and exceedingly instructive.
  One, a young  lady of twenty-two years old, a delicate brunette,
took, on the 29th of April, 1813, two globules moistened with the
third attenuation.  Soon after taking the Colocynth, the prover was
attacked Avith inodorous eructations and unusual emissions of flatu-
lence ;  afterwards drawing-tearing pains in the whole abdomen and
in the finger-joints of the left hand.
  On the 1st of  Aiay, after taking three  globules, she experienced
frequent inodorous eructations, drawing pains  in the  nape of the
neck and in the muscles of the back.
  On the 3d of May, after  taking three  globules,  she  felt the
following symptoms : pain in the small of the back, tearing-drawing
in both thighs and in the left arm  as far as the phalangeal articu-
lations.
  On the 5th, after taking four globules: tearing pain in the left calf
down to the heel.
  On the 9th, after taking six globules : deeply-penetrating stitches
in the abdomen ;  tearing  in the joints of the left hand,  These dif-
ferent pains generally continued from nine to ten hours, and Avere
first felt six or seven hours after the medicine had been taken.  She
continued  her experiments until the 6th of June, but always Avith
the same results.
   Her  sister Caroline, tAventy-four years old, of a lively disposition,
robust constitution, having  auburn hair and gray eyes, took the
same number of globules as her sister,  and at the same periods.
She experienced the same effects as her sister, and felt moreover
deeply-penetrating stitches in  both groins, as if a  needle had been
plunged into the ovaries.
                LECTURE  XXIX.

  Guided by the effects which have been observed from Colocynth,
we may recommend  this drug for affections of various important
nervous centers.  Colocynth seems to act more  particularly  upon
the sentient nerves, especially upon those which go  to make up the
plexus coeliacus.  It likewise acts upon the trigeminus or  fifth pair,
upon  the sacral plexus, upon the lumbar and crural nerves, and
upon the mucous and fibrous tissues over  Avhich these nerves are
ramified.  In affecting the coeliac plexus, it may give rise  to inflam-
matory symptoms in the bowels, and in  affecting the crural nerve,
its action may gradually lead to paralysis of the extremity. Its
action upon the trigeminus is manifested by various neuralgic affec- 
456                     LECTURE  XXIX.
tions of the face, eyes and head.  It may likewise cause sympathetic
irritations in the- lungs and heart by its action upon  the peripheral
extremities  of the pneumo-gastric  nerve through the  connection
existing betAveen this nerve and  the solar plexus by means of the
great  sympathetic.
  Ranging our symptoms according to the usual fashion, we obtain
the following categories:

                    CEPHALIC  GROUP.

  One of Dr. Watzke's provers experienced :
  " Dullness of the left side of the head,  with burning pressure in
the left orbit, temple and  in the nose, on the dorsum of the nose, and
in the upper roAV of teeth."
  Another prover complained of:
  " Aching pain in  the temples, Avith  troublesome twitching of the
upper lid of the right eye."
  " Headache towards evening, with inability to attend to any  kind
of business."
  Another prover:

  "Dulness of the head, with pressure in the  orbits, and a feeling of
coldness in the Avhole body, especially in  the knees."
  Another:
  " Drawing in the scalp  ;"
  " Painfulness of  the  whole head and of the eyes, increased by
stooping;"
  " Sensation as if the whole head were compressed, especially  from
temple to  temple, and in  the front part of the head, with painfulness
of the eyeballs, Avorse when stooping."
  These symptoms seem to show a connection between the cerebral
and opthalmic affections.  Dr. Watzke connects these two affections
as cause and effect, the opthalmic affection being  depending upon
the cerebral disturbance.  According to this theory, Colocynthis
never affects the eyes primarily, and hence will not  be capable of
curing an idiopathic inflammatory affection of the eyes.

   An interesting case of cure is  related by Dr.* Schiller  in the
" Practical Commun. of Homoeopathic Physicians, etc."  It is a case
of opthalmia complicated with encephalalgia.  The patient had been
afflicted for a considerable period with an almost permanently exist-
ing headache, after Avhich the eye became inflamed.  When Dr. S.
was called, the patient  had already lost his sight in consequence of
allceopathic treatment.  In the right eye,  the sight of which Avas still
preserved, the patient  complained of burning-cutting pains.   Con-
gestion of blood to the head, and discharge of acrid tears from  both
eyes troubled the patient.  Two drops of the tincture of Colocynth
every three hours removed the headache in  tAventy-four hours and
effected a considerable abatement of the pains in the eyes.  The con-
tinued use of Colocynth restored the sight of both eyes completely
in eight days, and effected a perfect cure.
   In this case, according to Watzke, the encephalic  affection  was
primary, and the opthalmic disease incidental to the  former, super- 
C0L0CYNTHIS.
457
induced by a sympathetic irritation of the opthalmic branch of the
fifth pair of nerves.

  Colocynth seems to be particularly adapted to
  Arthritic and Neuralgic Hemicrania, when the pains are screwing,
as if the head  were in a vice; or the pains are stitching, tearing
and digging and the eye is sympathetically irritated.
  A pretty cure is reported  by Dr. Attomyr  in  his  "Letters  on
Homoeopathy."  A boy of thirteen years had been complaining for
four days past of violent stitches in the forehead and eyes, darting
from Avithout iiiAvards.  The pain continued day and night, abating
only  momentarily and  returning all the more violently after  an
abatement.  The boy had fever, a bitter taste in the mouth, complete
loss of appetite, and constipation.   Six hours after  one dose of Colo-
cynth 30, the pain disappeared, and on the day following the patient
left his bed.
  One of AYatzke's provers  experienced a sensation as if the hair
Avere  pulled  up, accompanied  by a draAving-pressing pain in the
occiput.  This sensation might lead us to recommend Colocynth for
  Rheumatism of the Scalp, where this peculiar sensation may  occur.

                      NERVOUS GROUP.

  Under this head Ave may note the various rheumatic and arthritic
pains Avhich Colocynth produces: tearing, drawing and stitching pains
in the joints and bones; also  boring pains in the bones; neuralgia
and hyperesthesia of the fifth pair,  neuralgia  of the coeliac plexus
and its ramifications ; and lastly neuralgia of the lumbar and  crural
nerves and their branches.
  The literature of our School is exceedingly rich in brilliant cures
of a variety  of nervous disorders.  AAre  have already mentioned
several cures of neuralgia of the fifth pair under the head of  Ceph-
alic Group.  AAre will here mention a few cures of
  Ischialgia and Neuralgia of the Crural Nerve, and  defer the relation
of several  beautiful cures of irritation of the abdominal  plexuses
until  avc come  to indicate the therapeutic range  of Colocynth in
affections of the abdominal organs generally.
  A young gentleman of about twenty years, had  been suffering
with neuralgia of the sciatic nerve for several Aveeks.  The pains
were of a lancinating character, flashing along the track of the nerve
Avhenever an  attempt  Avas made to raise  the limb.   Movement
ameliorated the pain.  A drop of the tincture of Colocynth in Avater
effected a prompt and permanent cure.

  One of the  most  splendid cures on record in the Avorks  of the
Homoeopathic as  well  as  those  in the  Allceopathic School, was
achieved by Dr. Aegidi.  A lady, twenty-one years old, received a
violent blow against the symphysis pubis in the month of August,
1824, which  resulted  in displacement of the  pelvic bones.   This
difficulty was speedily removed, but was  folloAved  by inflammation
of the kidneys, with discharge of purulent  urine.   The usual anti- 
158
LECTURE XXIX.
phlogistic means of the Old School improved her condition so far
that, towards  the  end of Alarch, 1825, she  only complained  of a
feeling of numbness and lameness from the small of the back down
the thigh, violent and long-lasting pains in the region of the  sym-
physis pubis, which were excited by the least contact, distention of
of the abdomen and periodical attacks of colic.
  In January, 1826, excessive exercise indueed considerable aggra-
vation of her trouble.   The patient was only able to sit on the right
lower limb.  The affected left limb was stretched, with the toes turned
inward.   From time to time,  about ten or tAvelve times a day, she
Avas tormented by distressing pains darting from the region of the
left kidney down the limb as far as  the external malleolus, attended
with bearing-down, constrictive, colicky pains, extorting  tears and
cries.   In the region of the sacro-iliac symphysis and of the symphysis
pubis, osseous swellings developed themselves with burning pain when
touched.  Tympanitic distention  of the abdomen with pain Avhen
touched; tenesmus of the bladder, with copious discharge of urine;
during  the  paroxysms of pain the urine Avas  clear, between the
paroxysms it was reddish, depositing a sandy-looking sediment of
Avhite flocks.  Stool irregular; at times the boAvels Avere  bound, at
others she had  frequent, tenacious and  slimy stools.  Occasionally
she complained of a burning pain in the anus during stool, followed
soon after by a feeling of weakness and lameness in the anus.   Ap-
petite poorly.    Periodical attacks  of pain in the left side of the
chest, and still  more violent  in  the left side of the head.  Great
prostration of strength; disposition to fainting spells; restless sleep;
frightening dreams;  alternate  attacks of chilliness and heat; irrita-
ble mood ; expression of suffering in the features ; extreme aversion
to conversation ; disposition to weep ; irregular menses.
  Leeches, Hyoscyamus, Aqua laurocerasi, Opium Avere  employed
for several weeks Avithout  affording the least relief.   The homoeo-
pathic treatment with Cocculus, Sulphur, Nux, Capsicum, Aurum,
Mercurius solubilis and Conium, likeAvise proved  utterly ineffectual.
  On the 5th of June the red cautery Avas resorted to.  The pains
were alleviated  in consequence of the  suppuration that took place,
but the relief only lasted a feAV weeks.  As soon as the wound began
to close the patient was much worse than she ever had been previous to
the use of the cautery.  The general health  had suffered a great deal;
the patient looked  pale and holloAv-eyed ; a hacking  cough set in,
with hectic  fever  characterized by distinct evening-exacerbations.
The wound  was closed up, the patient was put on nourishing diet,
China, Iceland  moss, Polygala Senega, barley-gruel, etc.  In a few
weeks her strength returned and the fever disappeared.  The original
affection was unchanged.  AVarm baths, spirits of hart's horn and the
muriate of gold were employed for a feAV  Aveeks,  but in vain.
  Under these circumstances, Homoeopathy  was again resorted to.
On the eighth Of September,  at nine o'clock in the morning, the
patient was given a drop of the sixth attenuation of Colocynth in a
teaspoonful of distilled Avater.
  Ou the evening of the  same day, the  distress of the patient in-
creased to a fearful  height.  She had.no rest in any position, and 
COLOCVNTHIS.
459
was on the brink of despair.  A violent tearing pain raged through-
out the whole brain, and was especially aggravated by moving the
upper eyelids.  In  the right eyeball she experienced a pain  as  if
knives had darted through it;  the pain reached as far as the root
of the nose. _ She was moreover troubled  with empty eructations
causing^palpitation of the heart, spasm of the fauces and continual
inclination to vomit; periodical attacks of frightful cutting pain in
the bowels emanating from the region  of the  left  kidney, drawing
up spasmodically the left lower limb  close to the abdomen, and
obliging her to keep the trunk  bent forward as much as possible.
   Aegidi, attributing this paroxysm to the  excessive action of the
drug, gave her from time to time a teaspoonful of  black coffee, and
caused her to smell of camphor.  In a few hours the pains subsided,
the patient fell into a profound sleep, slept all night without waking and
awoke restored, to health.  " A peculiar, indescribable feeling of well-
being animates my  Avhole body," said  she, on waking.   She Avas
able to stretch and to bend the  diseased limb, to step upon it and to
walk without crutches.
   On  the following morning,  she  walked to her  deliverer's office,
assured him  that she had felt perfectly well on walking, and that
finding that she was again able to Avalk, she had been unwilling  to
deprive herself of  the exquisite pleasure  of being the bearer  of
such  joyful tidings.  AVhile uttering these words, she raised her
formerly sound limb, and swung herself upon  the other limb all
around in a circle.   Without taking any more medicine the patient
improved from day to day; even the osseous swellings disappeared,
and her health remained perfect.

   Weariness of the loAver limbs is an effect of Colocynth.  AVe have
seen  that this drug likewise causes arthritic and  rheumatic pains,
stitching pains in the toe, and tarsal articulations;  hence Ave recom-
mend Colocynth for
  Arthritis and Arthritic Rheumatism,, if the pains are  stitching,
lancinating, boring;  the parts where the pains are  felt may become
cedematous.

                 INFLAMMATORY  GROUP.

  Three of Watzeke's prover experienced an angina as if the throat
had  been scalded.   This sensation extended to  the  root  of the
tongue.  In
  Angina faucium, when  resulting  from arthritic  metastasis,  with
sensation as if  the throat had  been scalded, Colocynth may prove
useful.
  AVe have seen that Colycynth may cause and will therefore cure
  Enteritis, with  frightful tormina,  cutting  pains as if the boAvels
would be cut to pieces;  discharges of blood  and .mucus from the
bowels, coldness of the extremities, feeble and hurried pulse.   The
inflammatory process may likewise affect the peritoneum, causing
  Peritonitis, not  puerperal, but of an arthritic or rheumatic nature,
Avith  stinging, lancinating, •burning pains,  tympanitis, coldness  of 
460
LECTURE XXIX.
the extremities, hurried and  small pulse, violent and  distressing
straining at stool Avhich may also be present in enteritis.  The lower
potencies in these diseases are preferable.

                      ORBITAL  GROUP.

  The symptoms which Colocynth occasions in this range seem to
arise  principally from a  sympathetic irritation  of  the  organs of
vision, in connection with hemicrania, or as a consequence or ulterior
development  of some  neuralgic affection.  These symptoms _ are :
cutting and burning pains in the  eye-ball; obscuration of vision,
vibrations before the eyes, sensation  as if the  eye-ball were harder
than usual.

           AURICULAR AND  FACIAL GROUP.

   Colocynth causes
   Buzzing in the ears.
   Throbbing pain in the nose, from  the middle to the root of the
nose.
   Digging-burning pain in the facial muscles.   Gaspari  cured a
case of
   Prosopalgia,  with the  following  symptoms:   Violent  tearing-
stitching pain in the whole left side of the face, setting in periodi-
cally,  aggravated  by  warmth  and  motion, and  accompanied by
headache and toothache.  A single dose of Colocynth cured it.

                      DENTAL  GROUP.

   Colocynth  causes a drawing-tearing pain in all  the  teeth, with
sensation as if the roots of the teeth were swollen;  also a pain in
the lower roAV of teeth, as if the nerve were scraped and  put upon
the stretch.  Dr. Wurstel who was  habitually suffering with arthritic
and rheumatic  toothache and diarrhoea, remained free from these ail-
ments ever since his provings.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

   The  symptoms  which Colocynth produces  in  this direction are
not only varied, but  penetrating, comprehensive  and sometimes
attended with agonizing suffering.
   Colocynth causes
   Craving hunger, and afterwards  anorexia ;
   Empty eructations;
   Bitter taste;
   Excessive vomiting;
   Pressure in the stomach as from a stone.  Hence we recommend
 Colocynth in
   Dyspepsia characterized by oppression of the stomach after eating,
 variable appetite, at one time  a violent and unnatural craving for
 food, and at other times a complete indifference to,  and even aversion 
COLOCYNTHIS.
461
 to food.  This species of abnormal action of the nerves of the
 stomach may be peculiar  to hysteric females, and  also to pregnant
 women.
   Bulimia, as a primary derangement of the stomach, an unnatural
 and continual craving for food, may  also yield to Colocynth.
   Cardialgia may require Colocynth.  Dr. Shroen cured  a case
 characterized  by a  burning pain  in the pit of the stomach, which
 did not bear the least pressure and set  in with vomiting of the in-
 gesta, quick  and small pulse, and agonizing tossing about in the
 bed.   One drop of Colocynth  30 sufficed to stop the pain per-
 manently.

   Colocynth  also causes  cutting and  tearing colicky pains, Avith
 stitches in  the ovaries.  It also causes stitches in the liver.  Hence
 we may prescribe Colocynth in cases of
   Spasmodic, Neuralgic and Bilious  Colic.
   A stout carpenter, of choleric temperament and fifty years of
 age, was attacked with colic without any apparent cause.  The pains
 set in  about ten in the forenoon, and continued  with  longer or
 shorter remissions until midnight.   The patient was hot and thirsty,
 vomited up his food and  had not had any evacuation from  the
 bowels for  six days.   A fortnight's use  of cathartics and anodynes
 had done him  no good.  A single dose of Colocynth 21 arrested
 the trouble speedily and permanently.
                      •
   A young man  had taken cold, in  consequence of which he was
 attacked Avith  such violent pains in  the bowels that he almost  lost
 his senses.  He called for help continually;  he felt as if his boAvels
 were cut up Avith knives.  The pains intermitted but returned  again
 more fiercely than ever.  The patient had been suffering in this way
 a whole  night.  Bitter  drops, Hoffmann's anodyne, etc., had been
 used without effect.   Dr. Nenning gave the patient half a drop of the
 tincture of  Colocynth, and  in half an hour the pains had left him
 entirely.

  A remarkable cure of chronic tympanites with periodical attacks
 of colic,  is related in the  fifth volume of the Archiv.  A young
 woman had been ailing since her last confinement Avhen she had lost
 a good deal of blood.  Her abdomen was exceedingly hard and dis-
 tended.   She had frequent attacks of colic, and had lost her strength.
 Alkeopathic treatment of tAvo years' duration had done her no good.
 On the 29th of November, 1823, Dr. H----,  one of her former
 allceopathic attendants, who had become a convert to Homoeopathy,
 Avas called to see her.  He found her Avith  the following symptoms :
 The most violent pains in the abdomen as if the bowels Avould be
 crushed betAveen stones; she has to bend double Avhile lying down;
tympanitic  distention  of the abdomen;  face pale, sunken, distorted;
frequent  retching; fainting turns;  inexpressible anguish; consti-
 pation.
  One drop of the twelfth attenuation caused a  momentary aggrava-
tion of the  pain, which soon yielderl  to  a  sleep from which the pa- 
462
LECTURE  XXIX.
tient did not wake until morning.  The colic and tympanites ceased
permanently.

  Dr. Hering informs us in the thirteenth volume of the Archiv. that
he has cured the  West-India Colic in the period of three or four days
by the alternate use of a globule of Colocynth and black coffee.
  Hering says that these cures first shoAved  him the necessity of re-
peating a remedy in alternation Avith its antidote.   " AVe confess,"
Avrites Dr. Watzke in reply to this doctrine, "that we do not think
much of such an alternation of drugs, and that the necessity of such
a'n alternation  does not at all seem evident from  Bering's  alleged
cures.   The truth is that these cures do not afford the least evidence in
favor of Colocynth.  The aggravation Avhich sooner or later folloAved
the exhibition  of a globule of Colocynth may be explained by the
natural development of the paroxysm, Avhich rose to a certain height
and  then became moderated.   The black coffee, which avc do not by
any  means look upon as a remedy in  this kind  of  colic, kept  the
extreme violence of the paroxysms in check, until a  new paroxysm
broke out, not as a consequence of the globule of  Colocynth,  but
because the narcotic  effects of the coffee had become exhausted."
  What physician of common  sense will refuse his assent to this
condemnation of silly  doctrines  that have  been contaminating  the
pages of homoeopathic literature for the last tAventy years ?  In what
does this doctrine of giving a drug in  alternation with its antidote,
differ from the good old doctrines of Corrigentia ?  In order to pre-
vent the excessive effects of Digitalis, a little Opium is added.  How
much more reasonable it would seem to give a smaller dose of Digit-
alis, instead of poisoning the organism with both Digitalis and Opium!
If your dose of Colocynth acts too powerfully, give a smaller dose
instead of poisoning the patient  first, and afterwards antidoting  the
poisonous  effects of the drug.  But the truth Avas, as  Dr. Watzke
justly observes, that  Colocynth had  nothing whatsoever to do Avith
the cure.  There was no  cure;  the dose Avas too small, taking it of
course for granted that  Colocynth was the remedy.

  Colocynth may prove an admirable remedy in certain cases of
   Worm-colic, when  the symptoms lead us to diagnose an irritation
of the coeliac plexus, of which the worm-symptoms constit ute simply
a feature, a characteristic element.

  An old  maiden-lady had been  suffering for a fortnight past with
periodical attacks of colic, headache, nausea  and violent throbbing in
the region of the spleen.  The throbbing set in towards evening, and
lasted from three to four hours.   After the fruitless employment of a
quantity of allceopathic mixtures, she took some Colocynth-brandy.
After having tasted  of  it four times, she had an attack of colic and
diarrhoea, during Avhich she passed seven lumbrici.  After this,  she
felt perfectly Avell.
   Watzke asks Avith reference to this case:  "Does not the periodicity
of the paroxysms reveal the neurotic character of this affection ?  Is
this throbbing of the splenetic artery necessarily the  consequence of 
C0L0CYNTHIS.
463
helminthic irritation ?  On the contrary, docs not the Avhole affection,
together Avith the Avorms, seem to result from an abnormal influence
of the coeliac plexus upon the organs of digestion ?   Should not the
headache be regarded as the reflex upon the central extremity of the
sympathetic?  Why were not the worms expelled after using the other
cathartics, rhubarb for instance ?  AVhat is it that determines the selec-
tion of a vermifuge in a case of Avorms?  AVould, in the foregoing ease,
the headache, the abdominal pulsation and the lumbrici have yielded
to Oina, to Sabadilla or to Spigelia?"
  Cruveilhier states  in his "Dictionnaire Universe! " etc., that he is
acquainted with a domestic remedy for lumbrici, which  is particu-
larly useful to  persons  upwards  of fourteen  years  old.   This  is
Colocynth  which was held  in  high  estimation even among the
ancients.  He states that, in the  case of tAvo  persons  he had used
Colocynth-brandy internally, and  an ointment composed of half a
drachm  of poAvdered Colocynth  and half  an ounce of  lard to be
rubbed  upon the abdomen.  After the use of Colocynth, both pa-
tients passed a large quantity of lumbrici.   All the morbid symp-
toms which,  but for their periodicity, might have  been regarded
as inflammation of  the  heart or  of the large Aressels, disappeared
shortly after.
  Homoeopathic physicians should never lose sight of the  fact that
intestinal entozoa are the product of an  abnormal influence Avhich,
instead of  organizing normal tissues, disorganizes them,  developing
disease-breeding parasites in their stead.   Worms therefore consti-
tute  a prominent characteristic symptom of a  pathological process
going on in the internal organism. Unless this process is  specifically
met by some appropriate remedy, worms Avill continue to form even
after their expulsion.

  One of AVatzke's female provers experienced cutting and tearing
colicky pains, with  stitches in the ovaries.  Upon this symptom we
may base  the exhibition  of Colocynth in
  Menstrual  (olic, several cases of Avhich are reported in the homoeo-
pathic journals.
  A woman, thirty-three years old, of lively disposition, and leading
a sedentary mode of life, had been attacked for several months past
Avith violent cutting pains a feAV days previous to the  appearance of
the menses.  From the umbilicus the pains spread to the groin and
the internal sexual organs, intermitting half an hour or more every
noAV and then, disappearing in the warmth of the bed, and accom-
panied with cold feet.  Stool papescent, two evacuations every day,
which  were attended  with pinching.   The  colic was relieved by
drawing the lower limbs up close to the abdomen.  One drop of the
first attenuation of  Colocynth removed the pain completely in less
than one  hour, and  the  menses made  their appearance  during the
night without any further trouble.

   The stitches in the liver Avhich Colocynth produces,  may show us
its poAver in functional derangements of this organ.   In
   Liver Complaint, Avith stitches in the lh^er, costiveness and frequent 
464
LECTURE XXIX.
straining, Avith expulsion of hard little  balls, tympanitic distention
of the abdomen,  Colocynth may prove of great advantage.

  Chronic Diarrhea,  with slimy stools, or soft faecal  stools, with
distention of the bowels, tenesmus, sedimentous urine, may find its
remedy in Colocynth.
  In Dysentery, Colocynth  has  been used with advantage.   By our
provings, however, we do not find Colocynth indicated in dysentery
where the pathological process is going on in the walls of the rectum.
The lining membrane of the smaller intestines seems  to be  more
particularly liable to the inflammatory action of Colocynth.  Hence
we  find this agent indicated in dysentery, with discharges of blood
and mucus  from the lesser intestines, violent cutting  and  tearing
pains in these parts, tympanitic  distention of the boAvels and painful-
ness to pressure, tenesmus, chilliness, occasional flashes of heat or
heat of the skin  Avith coldness of the hands and feet.

  Costiveness may likewise be  relieved by Colocynth, if the  faeces
consist of hard  balls, and  the  evacuation is preceded by a cutting
pain flashing through the bowels.   Costiveness of this kind may be
an idiopathic affection, symptomatic of torpid irritation of the coeliac
plexus; or it may occur as a  consequence of diarrhoea, or it may
characterize  a certain form of liver-complaint, to which Colocynth
may prove homoeopathic.
  Colocynth being  homoeopathic to this form of constipation, we
may use it advantageously for the removal  of
  Scybala, or hard impacted masses of faeces.  An impaction of this
kind may take place in the cul-de-sac of the rectum,  and in old and
large hernial protrusions.   Under  these circumstances it may  be
necessary to  content one's self with the palliative effect of the drug,
giving  a dose large enough to effect a  softening  of the impacted
masses, after Avhich the boAvels will be able to contract and expel
their contents.

                     URINARY  GROUP.

  Large doses of Colocynth cause  retention of urine; small closes,
on the  contrary,  cause frequent  discharges of urine Avhich, according
to the statement  of the prover, has the appearance of urine such as
is passed during an  attack of dropsy after scarlet fever.  Colocynth
might possibly be of use in
  Albuminuria.   In Hirschel's Archive, several cases of this disease
are  alluded to, where a cure seems to have  been  effected with large
doses of an infusion of Colocynth, in the proportion often grains to
a pint of boiling water, the whole to be taken in the forenoon within
four hours.   The result was from ten to  fifteen watery stools a day.
The patients in whose case this treatment was employed were afflicted
with albuminuria and consequent  dropsy.  They were addicted to
drinking and had taken cold. After eight or ten days the use of the
drug was discontinued for four or eight  days, after-which period the
treatment was resumed   as before,  for  some days,  and afterwards 
COLOCVNTHIS.
465
discontinued entirely, although the cure was not yet perfect and the
condition of  the  patients had  only been  considerably  improved.
Within four weeks, the albumen and what remained of the dropsical
effusion, disappeared of themselves.
  AVe are not by any means prepared to  endorse this  treatment.
The curative effects of Colocynth, in these cases, seem to have resulted
from  its derivative  action; we  cannot regard them as the  logical
consequence of a  specific homoeopathic relation of the drug to the
disease.  The alteration of the urine mentioned by Watzke, does not
accord Avith the alterations of the urine existing in Bright's disease.
Watzke's record is: " Since the 24:th of November (1842), I perspire
profusely all over every night towards morning, and the urine which I
discharge, resembles in  appearance  the urine secreted  during dropsy
consequent upon scarlatina.  It lias slightly the color of ran: flesh, throws
down  a  light  brown, flocculent, irregtdar, transparent sediment, and
deposits small,  reddish, hard and firm crystals so  tenaciously adhering
to the  glass that they cannot readily be washed off by water."
  Watzke looks  upon the appearance of this  kind of urine  as  a
critical symptom or lysis.  AVhen this sweat and urine made their
appearance, the pains in the umbilical region and the distress in the
head,  disappeared. This quality of the urine might lead us to regard
Colocynth as  a valuable remedy in various arthritic, gastric and
calculous affections, but it does not suggest its use in albuminuria.

                      SEXUAL  GROUP.

  Colocynth excites the sexual  instinct and causes nocturnal emis-
sions  in the male, and a copious menstrual  discharge in the female.
  Several provers of  Colocynth found,  that this agent  causes  a
retraction of the prepuce behind the corona  glandis ; hence we may
find Colocynth indicated in
  Paraphimosis, Avith spasmodic constriction of  the prepuce behind
the glans.  In one case Colocynth caused a spasmodic retraction of
the testicles with priapism.  This  seems to have been the  result of
a purely sympathetic  irritation, the primary shock having been
received by the coeliac plexus, and  resulting in fatal  enteritis and
peritonitis.  Nevertheless, in
  Priapism, Avith  retraction of the testicles,  Colocynth may be
thought of.  This drug may pro\re useful in

  Menorrhagia, with  spasmodic  pressing  and constrictive pains in
the hypogastric region, and irritation  of the bowels and urinary
organs, manifested by tendency to loose discharges Avith  straining,
and frequent urination  likeAvise attended with more or less tenesmus.
  In former times  Colocynth, and indeed  most of the drastics, were
used as emmenagogues or menses-restoring drugs.

                EXANTHEMATOUS GROUP.

  Colocynth has caused
  Prurigo, followed by sweat.
  Boils, Avith continual burning pain.
                               30 
466
LECTURE XXIX.
  A Lymphatic Tumor near the tarsus.   Lymphatic tumors of the
extremities, especially when grafted upon an arthritic or strumous
diathesis, may require Colocynth.

                      FEARER-GROUP.

  Colocynth is not applicable in fever, strictly speaking; but it may
prove useful in feverish  conditions incidental to bilious, arthritic
and  gastric derangements, where its use is determined by the pre-
sence of such symptoms as we have recorded under the respective
headings of Chylo-poietic and Nervous Groups.

                     MENTAL  GROUP.

  Colocynth seems to possess the power of disturbing the  logical
cohesion of ideas; it seems to depress  the consciousness of one's
own identity.  Wurm  fancied  himself  in  some strange room, not
his own, (after taking twenty grains of the first trituration.)   Colo-
cynth may therefore be useful in the milder forms of
  Dementia, more particularly when accompanied by derangements
in the chylo-poietic system.  Sobernheim, Abernethy, Chrestien and
others have employed in affections of the mental sphere an ointment
composed of tAventy grains of powdered Colocynth, or sixteen drops
of the tincture and, a suitable quantity of lard, to be rubbed upon
the abdomen.  In  three cases of dementia Chrestien effected a cure
by means of from twelve to sixteen frictions which resulted in an
increased secretion of urine.

                            SLEEP

Full  of fancies and troubled by voluptuous dreams.   This would
constitute an  additional  indication for  the  use of Colocynth  in
affections of the sexual sphere.

                  Dose and Mode of Preparation.

   From two or three drops  of the tincture to the  twelfth or even
thirtieth potency in a small tumblerful of water may be considered
appropriate in most cases.  If  my experience is at all reliable, I
would recommend the first six potencies to your especial considera-
tion.  In very many cases you will find the tincture of this drug
preferable to the attenuations.
   We make a tincture of this drug, by macerating the pulp of the
gourd according  to the  rules laid down  in my fifth lecture.  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. 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.
467
                LECTURE  XXX.


                 DIGITALIS  PURPUREA,

        {Purple fox-glove.—Nat. Order :—Scrophularle.)

  Stem from three to five feet high, upright, leafy, roundish, pubes-
cent or downy.  Leaves alternate, betAveen egg-shaped and  spear
shaped, crenate, downy, veiny, of a dull-green above and whitish
underneath ; floAvers large and handsome, in long terminal spikes or
clusters, pendulous  and leaning  all one way; corolla of one petal,
purple, sometimes white, marked on the inside with  blood-colored
spots and hair.
  In Homoeopathy Ave use the leaves of the second year, Avhich are
gathered previous to the period  of floAvering.
  It is  commonly found  in pastures, woods and on banks, in  a
gravelly or sandy soil.   From the leaves we prepare a tincture of a
dark brown-green color, nauseous, slightly acrid.
  According to Noack  and Trinks, Digitalis affects principally the
sympathetic nerAre  and the  cardiac  plexus.  AVe obtain from it an
alkaloid; Digitaline.
  It is a well-knoAvnfact that Digitalis affects the  pulse in a remark-
able manner.  According to some it depresses, according to others
it stimulates the pulse ; it  likewise  causes an intermission in the
beats of the pulse.   After relating some of the most characteristic
effects  of Digitalis, I will  endeavor to  account  for  this apparent
antagonism.

  Baron Stcerck, one  of  the  most  energetic   and  distinguished
explorers of  the  medicinal virtues of drugs, Avho taught at the
University  of Vienna in the latter half  of the eighteenth century,
found  that two grains of Digitalis produced in  himself nausea,
headache, a small, soft and quick pulse, dryness  of the gums and
throat, giddiness, weakness  of the limbs and increased secretion of
saliva ;  some hours after, he observed sparks before  his eyes ; his
vision became dim, and  he experienced a sensation of pressure on
the eye-balls.

  The primary action of Digitalis upon the organism is best studied
from a few  cases of poisoning.
  In the Edinburgh Medical  and Surgical Journal, Vol. 8, p. 148,
the folloAving interesting case is reported  by Dr. Henry.  Dr. AV.
Henry Avas  called, in October, 1809, to assist a female, an out-patient
of the Manchester Infirmary, laboring under dropsy, Avho had  taken
an over-dose of a decoction of fox-glo\re.  It Avas prepared by boil-
ing two handfuls of the leaves in a quart of water, and then  press-
ing the  mass so as to  expel the Avhole of  the liquor.  Of this she 
468
LECTURE XXX.
 drank two teacupfuls at seven o'clock in the morning, amounting in
 the Avhole  to not  less than  ten ounces by measure.  Before eight,
 she began to be  sick, and  vomited part of the contents of her
 stomach.   Enough, however, was retained, to  excite vomiting and
 retching throughout the whole of that and the following day, during
 which every thing that was taken was instantly rejected.  In the
 intervals of sickness, she Avas  excessively faint, and  her skin was
 covered with a cold sweat.  The tongue and the lips swelled, and
 there was a continual flow of viscid  saliva from the mouth.   Yery
 little  urine was voided on the day she took the Digitalis, and on the
 following days the action of the kidneys was entirely suspended.
 When Dr.  Henry saw her, which Avas forty-eight hours after she had
 taken the  poison, the tongue  was  white, the  ptyalism continued,
 though in  a less degree, and the breath was fetid.  The pulse was
 low, irregular (not exceeding 40,) and  after every third or fourth
 pulsation,  an intermission occurred for some  seconds.   She  com-
 plained also of general pains in the  limbs, and cramps  in the legs.
 By the use of effervescent draughts, and ether, with  ammonia, she
 gradually recovered her imperfect  health.  This  patient had not
 taken any mercury, so that the ptyalism was  entirely attributable
 to Digitalis.
   In  this case the principal effects of Digitalis were :
   1. Sickness at the stomach, folloAved  by vomiting of  the ingesta,
 retching;  this continued the whole of the next  day.
   2. Faint feeling, and cold  SAveat betAveen the paroxysms of  sick-
 ness.
   3. Swelling of the tongue and lips, with continual flow of viscid
 saliva from the mouth.
   4. Diminution and finally  suppression of urine.
   5. White coating of the tongue.
   6. Fetid breath.
   7. Pulse Ioav,  and intermittent after every third or fourth pulsa-
 tion.
   8. General pains in the limbs and  cramps in the legs.
   These effects of Digitalis  bear strong evidence of the acrid and
 narcotizing virtues of this  drug.  Its  irritating action upon the
 digestive organs is evidenced by the  SAvelling of the tongue, and the
 vomiting, by the white coating on  the tongue, the flow of saliva,
 and the fetid  breath.   Its depressing action  upon the ganglionic
 system by the faint feeling, and the pains in the limbs and cramps
 in the legs. Its paralyzing action  upon the heart by the slow and
 intermittent pulse; and its remarkable action upon the  urinary
 organs by  the entire suppression of their habitual secretions.   All
 these  symptoms  constitute   precious  indications for the use of
 Digitalis in several important disorders.

   In another case,  six ounces of a strong decoction were taken as a
 laxative early in the morning.  Vomiting, colic and purging were
the first symptoms ; in the  afternoon lethargy supervened ; about
 midnight, the colic and purging returned;  afterwards general con-
 vulsions made their appearance. At an early hour of the succeed- 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.
469
mg morning, the patient was found violently convulsed, with the
pupils dilated, and insensible, and the pulse slow, feeble and irregu-
lar ;  coma  gradually succeeded, and  death took place twenty-two
hours after the poison was swallowed.  The post-mortem appearances
are very imperfectly recorded in this case.
   This case, which  has been extracted from  Christison's work on
Poisons, shows the  acrid and narcotizing  virtues of Digitalis in a
most  marked manner ; the principal symptoms in this case being:
A'-omiting,  colic and purging;  convulsions, with dilatation of the
pupils, insensibility, slow, feeble  and irregular pulse,  and gradual
supervention of coma.

   In two other cases reported by Christison, death took place from
gradual collapse  or paralysis of the heart's  action.   The leading
symptoms were debility, vomiting and fainting fits.
   Another interesting case is recorded in a French medical journal
by Dr. Bidault de Villiers.   A Pole, fifty-five  years of  age, afflicted
with humid asthma, took about one drachm of Digitalis by mistake,
instead of a grain of the powdered leaves. An  hour  after, he ate
some soup, which he immediately vomited.   The vomitings con-
tinued, accompanied with vertigo, so that he could not stand upright
nor distinguish objects.   The .whole day he had violent bilious and
mucous vomitings, accompanied Avith great depression and abdominal
pains,  which were diminished by two  emollient injections.  These
symptoms  continued the whole of the next  day and night.   The
patient was still further depressed ; the  pulse was sIoav and intermit-
tent : and this symptom continued with but little alteration to the
ninth day,  when it disappeared.   At this time, the vision was  still
confused, the fire appeared to him of a blue color; and on the four-
teenth day this symptom ceased.   The  cough  and asthma left him.
   In  this case we  again distinguish, as in the  former  cases, the
remarkable effects of Digitalis upon the brain, the bilious and diges-
tive functions, upon the pulse, and likeAvise upon the sense of vision.
We have bilious and mucous vomitings, and abdominal pains; ver-
tigo, prostration of  strength, slowness and intermission of the pulse,
confusion of sight, blue color of the fire.

   Dr. Bidault de Villiers himself took a pretty good pinch  of the
powder of  the leaves of Digitalis, which he had prepared with great
care, and the following symptoms were elicited: An extreme bitter-
ness  in the mouth, which increased the secretion of saliva to a con-
siderable extent, and  which continued after he had got rid of the
Digitalis from the  mouth;   after the  sensation of bitterness  had
entirely disappeared, he perceived a slight acridity in his throat. _ It
also caused a sort of desire to vomit, and likewise a slight palpitation
of the heart, with dryness in the mouth.
   In  this case Ave  have bitter taste, acrid sensation in the throat,
slight palpitation of the heart, and dryness in the mouth.
   In  AVilson's Medical  Gazette, vol.  31,  page 659, the following
interesting case of poisoning by Digitalis is recorded :—A healthy,
robust young man, affected with sore throat, was advised to take 
470
LECTURE XXX.
 throatwort tea.  Having filled a quart pitcher Avith the fresh leaves
 of the Digitalis purpurea, he poured upon them  as  much boiling
 water as the pitcher would hold.   Of this strong infusion he took a
 teacupful on going to bed, Avhich caused him to sleep soundly.  In
 the  morning  he took a second  cupful (the infusion being much
 stronger), and he then went to his work.   He  soon  felt dizzy and
 heavy, began  to stagger, lost his consciousness, and  at length fell
 down in a state of syncope.   On  being conveyed home, he vomited
 severely, and suffered extreme pain in the abdomen.   When visited,
 he was conscious; complained of great pain in the  head ;  the pupils
 were dilated, and the surface cold, pallid, and covered Avith copious
 perspiration.  The pulse was low, about forty  a  minute,  three or
 four feeble pulsations being succeeded by a complete intermission of
 several seconds, and each stroke, though weak, was  given with a
 peculiar explosive shock.   There  was still great pain in the abdo-
 men, with incessant and violent vomiting, no diarrhoea, suppression
 of urine, and  an abundant  flow  of saliva.  Brandy and ammonia,
 with warmth,  were employed, and after the reaction had fairly com-
 menced, purgatives were administered.  The man slowly recovered,
 but the pulse presented its peculiar rhythm  and weakness for several
 days; during  this  time the man  could not  bear  the  upright
 position.
  In this case the effects of Digitalis upon the brain, the heart's
 action, the abdominal organs, and more particularly upon the boAvels
 and   urinary  organs  are  unmistakeable.  They  resemble  in  all
 respects the effects witnessed in former cases, and bear testimony to
 the acrid and narcotic character of the drug.
  The symptoms  in this case, are:  dizziness, staggering, loss of
 consciousness, vomiting, syncope,  severe pain in the abdomen, great
 pain in the head, dilatation of the  pupils, and the surface of the body
 cold,  pallid,  and covered with copious perspiration; depression and
 intermission of the pulse, suppression of urine and an abundant Aoav
 of saliva.

  Blackall, in  his "Observations on the Nature and Cure of Dropsies,"
 reports the following case of poisoning Avith Digitalis:  a man, sixty
 years old, Avas subject to irregular gout and dyspepsia, considerable
 dyspnoea, legs cedematous and spotted Avith a few petechiae.  Half
 an ounce of the tincture of Digitalis was given daily for some time,
 and then in lesser quantities. During the use of no more  than t\vo
 drachms of the infusion daily, a pain came over one  of his eyes.
 He complained of  great disturbance of his  brain, which he himself
 referred to the draughts, and Avithin twenty-four hours this symptom
 was followed by a watery, exhausting diarrhoea and  low delirium.
 General convulsions speedily ensued, in which there was complete
 insensibility, and foaming at the mouth, with an almost total  cessa-
 tion  of the action of the heart.  From this state he was recovered by
 an opiate injection. .Similar paroxysms returned two or three times
 during the next three weeks. In the intervals, he became forgetful,
 delirious, and  felt much pain in his head.   The anasarca totally dis-
appeared, discovering the most excessive emaciation; his posture in 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.                  171
bed  became  nearly  natural, and in one  of these convulsions he
expired.
  In this case, Digitalis developed more intense effects in the brain
for the reason, probably, that the general vitality of the patient Avas
at a  low ebb.   The complete  absence   of  nerATous reaction  is
exhibited by the almost total cessation of the beats of the heart, by
the  exhausting, watery diarrhoea; by the  low delirium;  and it  is
moreover evident, in this case, that Digitalis produces its constitu-
tional effects by acting upon the brain, so  much so that the patient
himself was conscious of this circumstance.

  The last case of poisoning which I shall relate to you, is from the
London Medical Gazette, Vol. XXXI., p. 270.   A man, aged  fifty,
took the  tincture in medicinal doses,  that is: in doses of from 40 to
50 drops of the strong tincture, daily for twenty  days, which pro-
duced the following symptoms: the pulse which during the former
use of the medicine, had lessened by ten or fifteen beats in a minute,
sank to  almost half its usual number.  The patient was  tormented
by .the most painful disquietude, so that even in the night he left the
bed at every moment; could not sleep, and, with his eyes open, con-
versed with  persons who were not present.   At  the  same time the
pupils Avere  dilated, the conjunctiva both of the eye and the lids was
red.   He had but little appetite, with great nausea, violent thirst,
and  dryness of the  mouth.  The alvine evacuations Avere scanty,
secretion of  urine increased; these phenomena disappeared in about
six days.
  In this case Ave see it stated that Digitalis causes  excessive rest-
lessness ; that it  disturbs  the imaginative  faculty, develops an in-
flammatory  condition of the  eyes, and causes an increased secretion
of urine. In the former  cases this  secretion was  suppressed; here
we meet  Avith an opposite statement.   AVe shall be able to reconcile
this apparent paradox.

  Joerg,  the late able and industrious Professor of Materia  Medica
in the University of Leipsic, has subjected  the fox-glove to a series
of interesting experiments.   He was assisted in his experiments by
seven male  members and one  female member  of his Provers' So-
ciety.  In all of them, the drug affected the brain, causing a vertigo
somewhat resembling intoxication, a feeling of dullness, a  sort  of
stupefaction  of a milder form,  and  in most of them a headache in
the region of the occiput, vertex, forehead and temples.  In some of
them this headache  Avas very distressing and lasted for several days.
In one case the pain amounted to a stitching.
  Another remarkable effect of the poAvdered leaves was a peculiar
alteration in the pulse.  The pulse Avas not sIoav  and intermittent,
but rather accelerated and  small; only in the  case of one of the
provers who seemed to be exceedingly sensitive to the action of the
drug, the frequency of the pulse was temporarily diminished.   The
experiments were conducted  Avith one, two and three-grain doses of
the  poAvdered leaves.  Small quantities of the drug do not seem to
develop  its  primary action  upon the  pulse, which  consists in de- 
472                      LECTURE  XXX.
pressing the  heart's action;  this effect can only be reached by mas-
sive doses of from thirty to fifty grains, except in very sensitive
individuals.  Hence, so far as the pulse can yield therapeutic indi-
cations, Digitalis is indicated either by a slow, undulating, intermit-
tent, or by an accelerated, small and rather unequal pulse.

  Hervieux found that Digitalinum, the active principle of Digitalis,
affects the pulse in a remarkable manner.  If the pulse is regular, it
causes irregularity of the pulse.  If the pulse is irregular, it removes
the irregularity,  substituting  regularity in  its stead.   And if the
pulse intermits irregularly, at one time intermitting after the sixth,
at another after the eighth, and then again after the fifteenth beat, it
regulates the intermissions, causing them to take place at fixed  in-
tervals.  Is not this a beautiful confirmation of the homoeopathic
laAv: that drugs will cure the morbid  conditions which they are
capable of exciting?   Hoav strange that this simple law of Nature
should not excite the attention of alloeopathic experimenters!  Un-
fortunately they conduct their experiments  under the bias of pre-
conceived theories; hence their blindness.

  Another remarkable  effect  of  Digitalis  developed by Joerg's
provers, was an increased secretion of urine.   In almost all of them
the quantity of urine secreted in a given time exceeded considerably
the normal standard.   In some the bladder ahvays felt full, a sensa-
tion that would  persist  even after an emission.   The urine was
watery and  light-colored, except  in the  case of one prover, where
the urine looked darker and deposited a red sediment the nature
of which is not indicated.  In the case of the female, this profuse
flow of the urine was attended with a stitching pain in the region
of the kidneys.
  Another very remarkable effect of the drug was to cause an extra-
ordinary excitement of the  sexual organs which was accompanied
in one case with itching of the glans penis and distressing erections.
This sexual excitement became so troublesome to one of the provers
that he had to discontinue the trial for a few days.

  The gastric  functions were likewise effected.   In one case, the
drug caused thin diarrhoeic stools;  in several provers the craving
for food was abnormally increased; in one, whose extraordinary sen-
sitiveness to the action of Digitalis  I have already alluded to, it
caused loss of appetite, complete anorexia which constitutes one of
the primary effects of foxglove.  Eructations, rumbling in the bowels
and colicky  pains were likewise  complained of.   Burning  in  the
oesophagus, sometimes emanating  from the stomach, was a common
symptom.  In some of the  provers, this burning was accompanied
by a scraping sensation. Joerg experienced a  sensation as if  the
upper part of the pharynx were SAvollen, or pressed upon the tonsils.
He felt this burning in the oesophagus very keenly; in  his case this
burning and scraping  invaded even the air-passages.

   Lastly, we have to allude to the remarkable manner in which Digi- 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.
473
talis affected the sense of vision.  In all of them, it caused a dimness,
objects looked blurred.   Some experienced a sensation as if objects
were not seen in the right light.  Others saw sparks flying through
the air.   Diplopia or doublesightedness was likeAvise developed.  A
very common effect of Digitalis upon the retina is to cause a sensation
of dazzling similar to what is experienced when  suddenly looking
out of a dark room into bright  daylight.  This sensation was felt by
one of the provers.

  Upon analyzing the effects of Digitalis as far  as they have been
presented, both from large and small  doses, we cannot fail to be
struck by the fact that  they all seem more or less  connected, and
traceable to a common origin.  Where is the fountain-head of these
diversified phenomena ?  Where is it that the  action of foxglove
upon the organism is first perceived by the sensorium ?  We will
answer this question.  Digitalis first acts upon the organism Avhere
the brain, in its inmost principles  of quickening vitality,  connects
itself Avith the ganglionic system of nerves. We notice a remarkable
similarity between the action of Digitalis and that of Aconite.   Both
Digitalis and Aconite depress the pulse, irritate the  urinary organs
or arrest the flow of urine, cause cerebral congestions, disturb the
intestinal  secretions, the functions of the liver.  Yet there  is a vast
difference between these  two  agents.  Aconite  affects the organs
directly through the ganglionic system;  Digitalis  reaches  them
from a more remote, as  it were, though deeper, more interior point.
Aconite acts from some point in the  periphery of the organism ; Digi-
talis from some point near the centre of the vital forces.   Hence it is
that the action of Digitalis  is more permanent, because more search-
ing,  than that of Aconite.   Hence again, the signs of reaction, in the
case of Aconite, are more violent, for the  time being, than those of
Digitalis; they are seen on the surface, and soon spend their force.
Aconite depresses the pulse, and even disturbs its rhythm, causing
irregularities and intermissions: so does Digitalis.  But during the
reaction, the Aconite-pulse becomes full, strong, rapid and bounding,
Avhereas  the Digitalis-pulse simply increases  in frequency,  but
remains weak and unequal.  Aconite  never destroys life suddenly,
Digitalis may strike down a man predisposed by disease, with the
suddenness of a flash of lightning.  Afore than  once  has a patient
afflicted with hypertrophy of the heart, been  deprived of the little
flicker of cerebral reaction of which  he may still have been possessed,
by an enormous dose of Digitalis.   He fancies  himself improved,
swallows another dose of the poison, and soon after falls doAvn annihi-
lated, as it were, Avithout any sign being discoverable in the body that
could satisfactorily account for such a catastrophy.  The functional
power of the brain itself had been extinguished, as you might extin-
guish the dimly-flickering  flame with  a single breath ; the gangli-
onic system, its OAvn supplies of vitality being cut off, perishes at
once together Avith those beautiful combinations of tissues and organs
Avhich, a  moment  ago, had still presented to the mind's vieAv a
mechanism of living harmony.
  You perceive noAV, Gentlemen, why in common cases of rheumatic 
474                      LECTURE  XXX.
endocarditis, Digitalis would not be a proper  remedy, and why we
should  give the  preference to  Aconite.  It is, so to say;  a local
disease where that portion of the ganglionic system Avhich regulates
the functions of the heart, is alone involved.   This  is the  cardiac
plexus of nerves.   We give our Aconite, and we shall soon succeed
in hushing up the disease.   Of course the cardiac  plexus has to be
assisted by the brain in its endeavor to restore the functional harmony
of the heart. If  we were to give  Digitalis at the  onset, we should
reach beyond the locality where the accident has happened.
   But suppose the brain itself should flag; suppose this sinking of the
cerebral reaction  should become manifest by feebleness, irregularity
and intermission  of the pulse;  supposing it  should have become
evident by such unmistakable signs that the brain, in its efforts to
prevent disorganization of the heart's substance or valves, should
have exhausted its energies without accomplishing its purpose ;  we
should  then come to the rescue by Digitalis, stimulate the reactive
power of the brain, and, by this means, enkindle  a new metamor-
phosis in the diseased tissues, or  preserve at least what is left of
organic life.

   There is  scarcely a medicinal agent that has been more exten-
sively applied for the cure of diseases than Digitalis.   To those who
were in the habit of swearing by the contra-stimulism  of  Rasori,
Digitalis proved quite a God-send. Its remarkable property of taking
down the pulse,  secured for it in the school of Rasori one of the
highest ranks among the hyposthenisants, or inflammation-combating
drugs.  Wherever the Rasorians snuffed  irritation or inflammation,
Digitalis, Calomel, Tartar emetic were depended upon to quiet the
storm.  Modern practitioners are  more reasonable concerning the
use of Digitalis.  Trousseau and Pidoux even  go  so far as to posi-
tively declare that the use of Digitalis should be restricted to organic
and functional  disorders of the heart and to  dropsical affections.
Placing ourselves upon the ground of positive  experimentation,
where Hahnemann and Joerg have obtained beautiful results, and
where even the dark facts of toxicology proclaim in startling accents
the tremendous energies of our drug, we shall have no difficulty in
presenting a tolerably  correct and  complete view  of the  affections
where Digitalis may either achieve a cure, or at least afford relief to
the sufferer.

                     CEPHALIC GROUP.

   Our provings show that Digitalis is capable  of causing
   Headache.  In one case the headache was first felt in the occipital
region, Avhence  it  spread to the vertex. Another prover felt a severe
stitching pain in the head.  Headaches to which Digitalis is homoeo-
pathic, are generally attended with some alteration in the character
of the pulse: it is either slow and inclining to  intermissions, or else
small, unequal and accelerated.  The headache may be accompanied
with symptoms of gastric disturbance, nausea, inclination to vomit,
flow of saliva, or  even  profuse and abnormally  frequent urination.
We may consider Digitalis indicated in 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.                  475
   Gastric, Arthritic and Hysteric Headaches.
  The symptom, as if the brain Ave re full of water, seems to point to
the use of Digitalis in
  Hydrocephalus.  If effusion of serum takes place into the ventricles
in a case of encephalitis, the pulse is apt to go doAAm very suddenly;
it becomes heavy and  slow.  This change would seem  to indicate
Digitalis.   AVe have an abundance of clinical evidence to  substan-
tiate the curative virtues of Digitalis  in this disease.   Allceopathic
physicians have effected cures by means of very large doses, some
thirty drops of the tincture two or three times a day,  without occa-
sioning any untoward symptoms, and homoeopathic physicians have
obtained similar favorable results by using small  doses,  one or two
drops of the first or second attenuation  in a tumblerful of water, in
tablespoonful doses.

   Vertigo may yield to  Digitalis, if the pulse is slow and intermitting.
This species of vertigo may arise from, or be attended  with incipient
cerebral disorganization.  It may come  on in paroxysms, resulting
in momentary loss of consciousness.  The face and  head may feel
hot.

  Fainting Turns are caused by Digitalis and may therefore afford a
therapeutic indication for its use in affections of the heart or larger
vessels, in which case they  will always be accompanied by the char-
acteristic slow and intermittent, or rather accelerated, unequal and
small pulse.
  The Convulsions which Digitalis occasions, are symptomatic of some
other cerebral disease,  such as effusion or  softening; they are not
idiopathic conditions of the nervous sj^stem.
  Restlessness is another symptom which is of value only in so far
as it  may render the indications for Digitalis  in  other important
affections of the brain or heart all the more certain.

                      SPECIAL SENSES.

  The action  of Digitalis  upon the  sense of vision is exceedingly
marked and varied.  We  may consider  the  effects of Digitalis in
this direction under two heads, inflammatory and nervous.  Among
these effects we see it stated that Digitalis causes " an inflammation
of the Meibomian glands."  We might recommend Digitalis for
   Granular Ophthalmia, also with smarting lachrymation and painful
pressure in the eyeballs.
  The inflammatory  action of Digitalis upon the eye is compara-
tively unimportant;  the alterations Avhich this agent  causes  in the
functions of the retina, are far more interesting.
  The members of Jcerg's  Provers'  Society were all more or less
affected by the fox-glove in this direction;  they experienced
  Dimness of sight;
  Sensation as if objects were not seen in their right light;
  Sensation as if sparks were flying through the air;
  Diplopia; 
476                      LECTURE XXX.
  Dazzling, as when suddenly looking out  of darkness into bright
light.
  Hahnemann  has recorded a number  of  remarkable symptoms
shoAving that Digitalis poAverfully affects the sense of vision.
  In several cases Digitalis has caused
  Amaurosis, Avith excessive dilatation of the pupils.  This symp-
tom is more particularly valuable in cerebral affections where Digi-
talis  may seem indicated, such as dropsy of the brain.
  Dimness of sight or  Amblyopia, is a common effect of Digitalis.
Objects look misty, as if seen through a cloud.
  Musce  volitantes,  an amaurotic symptom, constitute one of the
effects of Digitalis.
  Optical phantasms and illusions of  color or Chromatopsia are like-
wise common.  On waking  in the morning, he fancies that every
thing is covered with snow.  Objects look green, red or yellow ; this
symptom  is even  perceived  in the  twilight.  The faces  of people
look pale  like those of dead  persons.
  Luminous bodies are  seen dancing before the eyes when covering
them with one's hands.  All these symptoms are valuable as char-
acteristic features in amaurotic conditions of the eyes.  It is doubt-
ful whether in cases where Digitalis  may  be  required,  they will
ever be found to exist without some  strikingly  corroborative alter-
ation in the pulse.
  Patients who are treated with large doses  of Digitalis, frequently
complain of luminous vibrations in the field of  vision.  In order to
verify this fact, Purkinge instituted experiments Avith Digitalis upon
himself, commencing with  three grains  of the watery  extract of the
drug.  This small dose very soon caused feeble vibrations before the
left eye.  The sensation was like a tremulous motion of the  crystal-
line lens Avhenever he undertook  to look at  any thing.  Purkinge,
suspecting that these vibratory, tremulous motions might depend upon
some irritation  of the pulmonary  and   cardiac branches  of the
pneumogastric nerve, instituted another more energetic experiment
which led to very  interesting results.  An hour  after his  breakfast,
which was moderate, he swalloAved a concentrated decoction of the
leaves of  Digitalis, two drachms  of the  leaves boiled for  half an
hour in half a quart  of water.  About ten  o'clock he experienced
nausea, the pulse went down to fifty-four, with intermissions; every
intermission was accompanied by a feeling of oppression as if the
heart were slightly grasped with the hand.  About eight and a half in
the evening, he had an attack of  cardialgia with intermittent pulse
and congestions of the head, especially the occiput, with disposition to
vomit.  Next morning he vomited a quantity of the decoction, after
which he perceived the vibratory tremors in the left eye, accompanied
by loathing, oppression about the heart, trembling in the muscles
and  debility.   These symptoms  continued  all  day.   About noon,
the same tremors were  perceived in the right eye.   The eyes were
very sensitive to light.  On the third day the calves of the legs felt
very weary, he was attacked with a  slight diarrhoea, the urine was
red and burning,  and  on the cornea of  the right  eye, tOAvards the
canthus, a pustule made  its appearance after a previous burning 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.
477
feeling  in  the eye, surrounded by  a circle  of  injected vessels.
These disturbances of the organ of vision continued about a fort-
night.   Purkinge likens the appearance  in  which the vibratory
tremors in the eye seemed to culminate, to a rose; hence he desig-
nates this peculiar optical phenomenon by the appellation of Flim-
merrose  or vibrating rose.
  Purkinge experienced  another peculiar sensation, a sort of optical
phosphorescence, as  when lines are drawn with Phosphorus in the
dark, which are vibrating towards each  other and increasing or
decreasing at  intervals  as regards  intensity.   The experimenter
argues  that these phenomena  are sympathetic in their nature, and
should  be attributed to  a primary irritation of the pneumogastric
nerve.
  In a therapeutic point of view it is of the highest importance thus
to determine with the utmost possible accuracy the value of isolated
phenomena.  If the derangements of the organ of vision, to Avhich
Digitalis gives  rise, are sympathetic results, not idiopathic affections
of  the  retina,  Digitalis  can only remove them in so far as it is
adapted to the  primary affection upon Avhich these sympathetic con-
ditions  depend.  According to Purkinge, this primary affection  is
an irritation of the  pneumogastric nerve, characterized by marked
disturbances in the functions of the heart and  lungs.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.
   Digitalis  exercises a remarkable  influence over the organs con
cerned  in the process of digestion.  We  have seen that Digitalis
powerfully irritates  the salivary glands and causes a burning sensa-
tion in the  stomach and .oesophagus.  Hence Ave may give it in
cases of
   Heartburn or Pyrosis, where these symptoms occur.   A lady who
was under treatment for epilepsy, but otherAvise enjoyed  tolerable
health,  drank  an infusion of forty  grains of the  pulverized leaves
of  Digitalis in thirty-eight ounces of boiling water, Avhich produced
extraordinary  changes in the frequency, regularity and intensity  of
the beats of the heart and a spasmodic contraction from the  cardia  to
the middle of the oesophagus, preventing even the passage of liquids
beyond this point.   The passage of liquids from the mouth to this
point in the oesophagus was accompanied  by a sensation of coldness
in those parts.  The liquids were not rejected, but they gradually
glided down into the stomach imperceptibly to the patient.
   This  contraction of the oesophageal tube has been experienced by
other patients and also by provers.  You recollect that Jcerg  expe-
rienced a sensation in the upper part of the pharynx as if the walls
of  the  pharynx  were swollen, or as if the pharynx Avere pressed
upon by the tonsils.  And  in  Henry's case of poisoning Digitalis
caused a swelling of the  tongue and lips.   These effects of  the drug
seem to be  of the  same order, emanating from the  action of the
acrid principle of this poison  upon the  lining  membrane,  which
seems to be characterized by SAvelling, burning and a corresponding
feeling  of contraction.   AVe might  therefore recommend  Digitalis
for 
478
LECTURE XXX.
  Dysphagia, when the phenomena which we have described justify
the use of the drug.
  It would  seem as though Digitalis might  subserve  useful pur-
poses in

  Mercuricd Pytalism, with discharge of ropy  saliva,  swelling of
the tongue, fetor of the mouth, etc.
  ATe knoAV that Digitalis causes a remarkable train of gastric dis-
turbances, such as:  Nausea, vomiting of bile, and other derange-
ments which are found recorded among the provings.
  In  a fatal case  of poisoning related  in the Edinburgh Medical
Comment., a woman  who had swalloAved  twelve  leaves of Digitalis
in six doses, vomited  for  six days in succession, and finally died.
The ileum was found inflamed, and  an exudation had taken place,
which caused adhesions of the bowels  here and there.  This case
shows that Digitalis may cause enteritis.
  In  gastric affections  Avhere  Digitalis  is indicated, Ave shall find
them as a general rule associated with symptoms denoting an irrita-
tion of the urinary or circulatory apparatus.   These symptoms may
co-exist or  they may manifest themselves with a certain alternate
regularity.   You recollect that some of Joerg's provers experienced
a gnawing hunger;  I haA'e often  seen this symptom co-exist Avith
palpitation of the  heart, another effect of Digitalis.  The  primary
effect of this  drug upon the nerves of  the  stomach is to depress
their functional power.   Digitalis causes loss of appetite, an indif-
ference to food, an  abnormal sensation of warmth in the stomach, a
whitish coating on the tongue.   These symptoms may co-exist Avith
a slow and somewhat intermittent or irregular pulse.  The homoe-
opathicity of Digitalis to gastric derangements does not seem to be
complete without such an alteration of the pulse as is characteristic
of this drug.  In
  Enteritis,  Colic, Diarrhea, Digitalis could not be used with advan-
tage unless  this peculiar alteration of the  pulse was present.   In
these very severe irritations or inflammations of the intestinal canal,
the urinary secretions are either deficient or suppressed.
  It will be recollected that,  in some of Joerg's provers, Digitalis
excited an unnatural craving for food ; hence in
  Bulimia, this drug may prove serviceable to some patients.
  Whether Ave prescribe the fox-glove in
  Dyspepsia or Cardialgia, with abnormal craving for food, or com-
plete anorexia ; crampy or  pulling pains  in the stomach; heat in the
stomach; sensation of weight in the stomach alternating with faint
feeling; or sensation as if the stomach were utterly prostrated and
life itself should become extinct; vomiting of green bile, with general
prostration;  or for

  Diarrhea where gastric derangements such as  we have described
are generally present, sinkings at the  stomach, white-coated tongue,
pinching pains in the boAvels ;  or for

  Enteritis, with excessive tormina,  discharges of mucus and blood, 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.                  479
and violent tenesmus;  we shall always find the pulse altered in the
manner which we have pointed out, feeble, small, unequal and soft,
or full but soft, intermittent, irregular and slow.
  Jaundice is one of the remarkable effects of the peculiar action of
Digitalis upon the liver. The stools look ash-colored and may either
be perfectly dry like the excrements of dogs, or liquid and papescent.
In jaundice Avhere Digitalis is indicated, Ave shall again find that the
pulse shows  symptoms of intermission and  abnormal frequency.
The  patient  complains of a bitter taste  in  the mouth, headache,
dizziness,  nausea;  the urine is thick and has a brownish appearance.

                      URINARY GROUP.

   Digitalis is always regarded by Old-School practitioners as a diu-
retic.  It undoubtedly promotes the urinary secretions, but it does so
only if the  dose was not too large to  overpower  the brain.   We
have seen from our cases of poisoning that Digitalis causes suppres-
sion of the  urinary secretions.   This may be accounted for either
upon the ground that small doses only permit the organic reaction,
a symptom of which, in the case of fox-glove, is to increase both the
quantity and the frequency of the urinary secretions.  Or, it may be
accounted for upon the ground that Digitalis is both a narcotic and
an acrid  substance.  If administered in large doses, the  narcotic
element ranges supremely,  binding the brain  and consequently
clogging the organic faunctions ;  if given in small doses, the acrid
element sways the tissues, the narcotic element holding a secondary
rank, though not altogether inoperative,   Under the influence of
the acrid  element the bladder may discharge urine as frequently as
it collects in this  organ.   In the case  of Digitalis these increased
discharges of urine constitute  sympathetic or critical evacuations.
In dropsy, Digitalis will effect such critical derivations of the effused
fluid.   If Digitalis should be indicated in
   Enuresis,  we shall find that the brain is suffering, and that either
gastric or cardiac derangements  such as we have pointed out previ-
ously, are present.
   Monro  mentions a case of

   Inflammation of the Neck of the Bladder caused by Digitalis.  In
such a  case, the medicine is indicated by stranguTy, burning urine,
Avhich is moreover scanty, turbid, depositing a thick blood-red sedi-
ment; constant and distressing urging,  etc.

                    THE  SEXUAL GROUP

is not Avithout importance.  You recollect that small  doses of Digi-
talis cause A'iolent sexual excitement.   The female  sexual system is
similarly affected.  Large  doses depress the  sexual power.  In  a
case of
   AmenorrJuva, Avhere the other symptoms correspond with the gene-
ral action of this drug; Digitalis  may therefore restore the menses.
   A girl  had a fright, in consequence of which her courses stopped. 
480
LECTURE XXX.
She began to cough and groAV thin.  This  continued for two years.
Her cough increased upon her, and she was very much reduced in
flesh.   Her skin was  dry and wrinkled, she had night-sweats and
hectic fever, diarrhoea, was constantly  troubled  with paroxysms of
rush  of blood  and anxiety;  her feet  and legs were much swollen,
and often became  painful and erysipelatous.   She took an infusion
of Digitalis,  two drachms of the  leaves to a pound and  a half of
water, a tablespoonful every three hours, and Avas soon restored.

                  THE THORACIC GROUP.

  By the older physicians, Digitalis has always been considered as a
sort of panacea for pneumopthisis.  Our provings of this agent cer-
tainly bespeak for it curative powers in affections of the respiratory
organs.  Hahnemann himself reports
  Hoarseness ;
  Bloody cough;
  Feeling of rawness and stitches in the chest;
  Painful, suffocative  constriction of the chest, as if the internal
parts  were all adhering.
  You recollect that Professor Joerg experienced a
  Roughness and smarting sensation in the trachea.
  Other  observers have noted, with much uniformity, a
  Painful shortness of breath;
  Contractive pains in the region of the sternum, etc.
  These  physiological results do  not by any means vindicate the
high curative virtues which Digitalis once was supposed to possess
in phthisis.  Many of the best modern  therapeutists deny its poAvers
in this respect altogether.  Trousseau and Pidoux decline mentioning
it at all in connection with phthisis; and Pereira dismisses the sub-
ject in the folloAving brief paragraph:  " Digitalis has been declared
capable of curing pulmonary consumption, and numerous cases of
supposed cures have been published.   Bayle has collected from the
Avritings  of Sanders,  FoAvler, Beddoes, Drake,  etc., reports  of one
hundred  and fifty-one cases treated by fox-glove.   Of these, eighty-
three  are said to  have been cured, and thirty-five relieved.  But a
more  accurate and extended  experience has fully proved  that this
medicine possesses no curative and very slightly palliative poAvers in
genuine phthisis; it is totally incapable of preventing or of causing the
removal  of tubercular deposits, and has little if any influence, in re-
tarding the progress of consumption.   Its poAver of diminishing the
rapidity of the circulation cannot be doubted, but this effect is, as Dr.
Holland  justly  remarks, of less real moment than is generally sup-
posed."   .
  It would therefore seem that in
   Cough, AArith expectoration  of blood  and tubercular  pus, Digitalis
can, at most, only afford palliation, not  real help.  Of the many con-
tradictory chapters in allceopathic therapeutics, there is hardly one
that is more filled with  contradictory statements than the treatment
of pneumophthisis with Digitalis.  One professes to have cured any
number of cases, another denies the possibility of curing this disease 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.
481
with such a drug.   The probability is that the pretended cures were
cases of simple catarrhal irritations of the bronchial lining membrane
which may assume the mask of phthisis to the superficial observer,
but not to the well trained auscultator.
  A carpenter, thirty-one years old, Avho  had been  laid up Avith
rheumatism for eight months in succession at the age of fifteen, had
been coughing more or less ever since.  Five months ago, the cough
having  increased  upon him,  he coughed up  some blood-streaked
mucus.   He had fever every evening.   On the 23d of November,
1833, he was admitted into the hospital la Pitie.   He complained of
headache, buzzing  in the ears, pains in the larynx; pulse seventy-
six, twenty-four inspirations;  deep, costal breathing; he had never
been troubled Avith palpitation of the  heart; the expectoration Avas
scanty,  somewhat  streaked, and  consisting  of opaque little  lumps   •
separated by a more or less transparent liquid.  Coughing caused a
pain between the shoulder-blades; percussion yielded normal sounds;
there was slight mucous rale in some parts of the chest; the appetite
Avas natural, tongue coated white and rather pale, stool  normal and
abdomen without pain.  He was bled and put upon tAvelve and fifteen
grains  of the leaves of Digitalis in infusion.  For several days his
pulse went down to forty-eight, forty-four, forty-three.   The  cough
left him permanently.  For aught I can see, this was a tolerably fair
homoeopathic prescription.  The case which Ave extract from Frank's
Magazine, and which was orginally reported in Archives Generales,
is recorded  as  a case  of  tuberculosis.  I think it  hardly fair to see
tubercles m a case  like this.  If time permitted, I might relate a few
cases showing  the use of Digitalis after the fashion of Rasori, in
enormous contra-stimulant or hyposthenisant doses.   It seems un-
profitable, hoAvever, to perpetuate such abuses, and  as far as I am
concerned, I will apply to all such extravagances the Avords  of the
Saviour: "Let the dead bury the dead, follow thou me!"
  A much more important office is filled by Digitalis in the treat-
ment of

  Affections of the  Heart.  We have stated already that, in acute
rheumatic endocarditis, Digitalis would  be out of place,  and that
Aconite  will control this  affection much more effectually in most
cases.  Digitalis is more adapted to the removal of the consequences
of endocarditis.  These consequences, so  far as they effect the heart,
may be summed up under the general appellation of "heart-disease."
It is not our  purpose to give a description of the different forms of
heart-disease which we  are called upon to relieve.  It is sufficient for
us to state, in a general manner, that rheumatic endocarditis is one
of the most common causes of organic alterations of the parenchyma
or valves of the heart.  Hypertrophy, or enlargement of the heart,
is probably the most  common  of  these disorganizations.   It may
occur along Avith dilatation, diminution, or the natural condition of
the  cavities.   "These puerile  distinctions,"  observes Rostan,  "have
fixed, in a singular manner, the attention of persons  who see feAV
patients; but they  attract  little  attention from those Avho  cultiA'ate
medicine in a vast field of observations."   This remark may seem
                               31 
432
LECTURE XXX.
rather harsh and out of place when applied to such men as Laennec,
Skoda, Rokitansky; but,  so far as the medical treatment of these
affections  is concerned, it  is Aconite and Digitalis in  one case, and
Digitalis and  Aconite  in another.  There  are  but few medicines,
beside  Aconite and Digitalis,  that  are of any use  in heart-disease;
Arsenic, Spigelia, Pulsatilla and Belladonna:  if this group does not
cure, we  may  as well close our chapter,  and content ourselves with
relieving our patient the best way we may.
  Strictly speaking, there  is no remedy for the fibrinous concretions
which  may be deposited upon the  internal surfaces of the heart or
upon the valves;  there is no  remedy for the  destruction which the
valvular apparatus  may have  suffered in consequence of rheumatic
inflammation.   If we have satisfied ourselves that these disorganiza-
tions exist, we  can hardly hope for more than palliative results.   And
so far as Digitalis can be  of any use in  palliating the sufferings of
the patient, we may be guided by the character of the pulse.  If the
pulse inclines to intermit, to become feeble and accelerated,  irregular
as regards volume  and frequency, and if these irregularities  even
extend to  the harmonious rhythm which should exist between the
heart's action and the radial pulse, we may find a means of relief in
Digitalis.
  If the beating of the heart is  hard, jerking, accompanied  with
anxiety,  faint  feelings, cerebral  congestions,  occasional spasmodic
contractions, as if the beating  had entirely ceased, Ave may find  Aco-
nite our best means of easing  the patient.
   In  simple Hypertrophy, with regular, but full, jerking and some-
what accelerated  pulse, Aconite is  our best remedy.  Under sound
homoeopathic  treatment,  these  disorganizations  need hardly  ever
occur.
   The action of our drugs has not been investigated with reference
to the physical signs which serve as diagnostic marks in the various
organic disorders of the heart.  In hypertrophy of the heart, the  beats
of the heart are much more tumultuous  than  they are in the normal
condition  of the  organ.  If the left ventricle is hypertrophied, the
pulse becomes strong, full and hard; the heart bounds  against the
walls of the thorax with  redoubled force.  Symptoms  of cerebral
congestion, headache, vertigo,  nosebleed,  are often present  in severe
cases, and the patient may die apoplectic.             •
   This group  of symptoms indicates Aconite for its main remedy.
   Hypertrophy of the right ventricle gives rise to  a peculiar train of
symptoms. If the walls of the ventricle  are thicker than usual, Avith
diminution of the  cavity, the contractions of the ventricle may be
more violent than in a normal state, and yet the radial pulse may
become thinner,  in consequence of the  deficiency in  the  supply of
blood flowing through the pulmonary veins.   This same change in
the pulse must take place, if  the walls of the ventricle are too thin
to permit of sufficiently powerful  contractions to propel the blood
. through the pulmonary artery.  In such a case, both the beats of the
 ventricle and the radial pulse will be feeble.   An ultimate result of
 this  impoverished  condition of  the  lungs  must  be anaemia, and
 finally hydrothorax. 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.
483
  Digitalis and Arsenic are suitable remedies under these circum-
stances.  In hypertrophy where there is pain, Dr. Hope recommends
the extract of Aconite;  Bouilland the pulverized leaves of Digitalis.
AVe have furnished a few indications for the last-named remedy;  we
shall furnish a few more as we proceed.
  Hypertrophy of the ventricles may arise from contraction of the
valvular orifices, preventing a full column of blood from being sent
into the aorta or  pulmonary artery.  Or it may arise from insuffi-
ciency of the valves, permitting  a regurgitation of the blood.  In
either of these cases the pulse would be small, although it might be
jerking and accelerated.  Gradually, as the functional power of the
heart becomes Aveaker, the pulse will  likewise show signs of  pros-
tration, it will become emptier, intermittent and irregular.  Digitalis
Avill prove  an  excellent  palliative, if the affection is no longer
curable.  Aconite may be resorted to  in certain conditions of the
system.
  Long-continued hypertrophy may give rise to  dilatation of the
ventricles Avith thinness of the walls.   In such cases the impulse of
the heart will necessarily be feeble; the heart being deficient in con-
tractile power.  The radial  pulse will  necessarily feel the effects of
the reduced strength of the heart's action ;  it Avill be weak, empty,
irregular, intermittent, and all harmony betAveen the contractions of
the heart and the radial pulsations may gradually cease, and give
place to continual irregularities.   A knowledge of the anatomical
structure of the heart and its physiological functions Avill enable any
intelligent  student of medicine to  determine  for himself what the
effect of hypertrophy and dilatation upon the  pulse and the general
reproduction of tissue must be as these disorganizations continue.
As regards the physical signs of heart-disease, we refer the student
to the works of Hope, Pennock and others who have done a great
deal to clear up this obscure chapter Avithout unfortunately doing
near as much tOAvards perfecting the treatment.
   As  regards Valvular Disease, we most frequently find  the  aortic
and the mitral valves involved.  Dr. Corrigan observes "that the
pulse  in aortic regurgitation,  may sometimes be seen beating in
various parts of the body."  Dr. Williams  likewise  considers this
phenomenon as eminently characteristic of these valves.  Drs. Hope
and Pennock have laid down  rules for the diagnosis of valvular
disease Avhich are  as precise and comprehensive as  such a naturally
obscure subject Avill permit.  The signs most  observable in disease
of the valves, are the bellows' murmur and the purring tremor.  These
sounds vary someAvhat according as  one  or the other valve  is
affected.  The  pulmonary and tricuspid valves  are  very seldom
diseased, much less frequently than the aortic  and mitral.
   An  investigation of  these physical phenomena is exceedingly
interesting, and may gradually lead us to a more perfect use of the
curative means at our command.   In the present state of our knoAv-
ledge,  we have to depend in a great measure upon  the pulse, and
upon  the feelings  of the patient.   AVe have sufficiently dwelt upon
the pulse ;  Ave will here point out a feAV symptoms which may serve
*
« 
484
LECTURE XXX.
as diagnostic landmarks to the' therapeutist between Digitalis and
other drugs.
  The  following symptom: " The  beats of the heart are scarcely
felt," would seem to indicate dilatation with thinness of the walls,
requiring Digitalis.
  The  next symptom:  " The power of the heart becomes so dimin-
nished in some cases that fatal syncope was produced in consequence
of the  patient suddenly changing his position,"  may characterize  a
similar condition,  dilatation with thinness  of  the walls requiring
Digitalis.

  In the Journal Universel, the case of a lady is reported who was
under  treatment for epilepsy,  and who took  several pints of an
infusion of Digitalis.  Among other symptoms the medicine caused :
a feeling of embarrassment behind the sternum gradually increasing
to an oppression that became more  and more distressing; vertigo,
inability to continue a conversation that had been begun;  blackness
of sight;  beats of the heart large, full,  energetic, shaking the chest,
slower  than usual; or else the beats became suddenly more frequent and
in this  case less violent than before.   Dyspnoea constantly increasing,
excessive paleness of the face, feeling of coldness and numbness in
the  extremities, uncontrollable desire to  inhale fresh  air.   The
patient complained neither of nausea nor thirst.   In a few hours after
taking the drug, the patient Avas able to indicate the number of the
heart's contractions within  a given time.  For five  or ten minutes
the heart beat forty or forty-two, and then again  one hundred and
twenty or one hundred  and tAventy-five times a minute ; the inspi-
rations amounted to forty or forty-eight in the minute.   The pupils
were  dilated,  but  their  contractility  Avas  not impaired.   The
respiratory murmur was uni\'ersally feeble and incomplete, reson-
nance  of the  chest normal, sounds of the  heart  audible OA'er the
whole  region.  The patient was only able to lie on her  back with
her head very much raised, violent headache, but her understanding
perfectly clear.  In the epigastric region the patient felt very large
and  strong pulsations, probably emanating from the coeliac artery ;
tAvo  inches below the region where these pulsations were felt, they
seemed much weaker, but they increased in volume and strength in
proportion as the beats of the heart  became slower and stronger.
Her desire for  open air became more and more urgent.  A few
hours  after, her breathing was very short, more frequent, all the
inspiratory muscles were laboring tumultuously (the patient stated
afterAvards, it had seemed to her as if the quantity of air that entered
the lungs was not sufficient and that she should not be able to live
if this  condition continued.) The beats of the  heart became alter-
nately sloAvand frequent; the dyspnoea continued;  she obtained most
relief from fanning.
   Here we have a train of  symptoms which leads us to recommend
Digitalis for several affections  of the heart and resulting disorgani-
zations.  By these symptoms we find Digitalis indicated in
   Hypertrophy with dilatation,  the  hypertrophy predominating; in 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.
485
  Dilatation  with  hypertrophy,  the hypertrophy  being secondary;
and lastly in
  Hydrothorax whether idiopathic or resulting from cardiac disease.

  A lady of twenty-eight years Avas under treatment for  pneumo-
phthisis. She took considerable quantities of Digitalis, and one morn-
ing exhibited the folioAving symptoms which were distinctly attribu-
table to the drug:  sensitiveness of the stomach, especially to external
pressure;  frequent nausea and one turn of vomiting; sensation of
pressure and draAving arising  from the pit of the stomach towards
the throat;  change of color in the face almost every second, from
deathlike  paleness to rose-color; the tip of the nose, forearms, hands
and fingers were quite cold; respiration remarkably slow and occasion-
ally intermingled with deep moans;  the expired air-seemed quite cool;
no cough; pulse 30, and exceedingly irregular, sometimes intermitting
and then again bounding, jerking, sometimes filiform, but always soft.
  These symptoms teach us an instructive lesson  concerning the use
of Digitalis in diseases where these changes occur.  Similar changes
may be witnessed  in dilatation of the left ventricle, but principally in
functional derangement of the heart characterized by paroxysms of
plethora  of  this  organ.   Such  changes may sometimes indicate
Aconite, except that the Aconite-pulse never has those extraordi-
nary irregularities and intermissions which characterize  the  pulse
of Digitalis.  Moreover this drug has generally a soft pulse, whether
the volume of the pulse be  otherwise  large or small; Avhereas  the
Aconite-pulse is generally hard, strong, rapid, or heavy and slow, or
hard, thin, jerking and quick.  It is seldom intermittent, though it
may be irregular, especially in the case of old people.   AVe shall
find Digitalis indicated in
  Plethora of the Heart, paroxysms of sudden congestion which may
occur among individuals liable to palpitation, sinking feeling in the
region of  the heart; crampy feelings, feeling of compression in this
region. Dr. Purkinge" experienced a sensation as if the heart were
grasped with the hand, a  sensation Avhich was  only felt during  the
intermissions of the pulse.

  AVe have  a number of other symptoms  obtained by proving  and
derived from cases of poisoning,'shoAving  the use of Digitalis in
affections  of  the heart and aorta.
   "Strong, almost audible beats of the heart, Avith anxiety and con-
tractive pains under the sternum."
   " AVhen raising the body, he feels a tension in the left side of the
chest, as if these parts were contracted."
  Digitalis causes the pains and dyspnoea Avhich  are ahvays present
in affections  of the heart and valves.   We may regard the two  last
quoted effects of  Digitalis as pointing to such diseases.  They may
exist in a case of  hypertrophy Avith contraction of the ventricles.

  Aneurism  of the Aorta may require Digitalis.  It causes, as far as
Ave knoAV, many of the symptoms AA'hich denote the presence of  this
disease, abnormal murmurs, blowing and sawing sounds, pulsations 
486                      LECTURE XXX.
 and pains in various parts of the chest, constrictive sensation across
 the chest, dizziness.  A  remarkable symptom which, together with
 the other symptoms, might confirm our  diagnosis of aneurism is
 the following:  "SAvelling of  the right  hand  together with  the
 fingers; this SAvelling lasted three hours."
   Aneurisms of the Arteries may likewise require  Digitalis; the pulse
 and the constitutional symptoms must of course  correspond.
   Digitalis may prove a valuable palliative in
    Cyanosis or blue disease, when the patient complains of anguish,
 orthopnoea, the lips, eyelids, tongue exhibit a blue color.  This blue
 color  is likewise seen under- the nails; the patient spits blood, the
 action of the heart is increased; hoarseness and  dry cough are pre-
 sent.  The 6th to 12th potency will be found the most suitable.

   We have already alluded  to the fact that Digitalis is a capital
 remedy for
   Hydrothorax, if not of  an incurable character.   Hydrothorax de-
 pending upon valvular disease, disorganizations of the internal coat
 of the aorta, hypertrophy, contraction of the orifices of the heart, etc.,
 may be pronounced incurable.  Nevertheless relief may be afforded
 to the sufferer by the use of Digitalis.
   Professor Fritze of the  University of Berlin, died of hydrothorax
 and anasarca,  a sequela  of enlargement  o£ the heart.   Hufeland
 informs us that  Digitalis  was the  only remedy  that afforded him
 any relief.

   An officer of forty years who had been attacked Avith palpitation
 of the  heart, and unequal, intermittent pulse some years previous,
 indulged in excessive eating and drinking, in consequence of which
 hydrothorax set in.   He  was put  on a decoction  of Digitalis, one
 ounce of the leaves to eight ounces of water strained and  combined
 with half an ounce of spirits of wine.  Of this decoction he took a
 tablespoonful every two hours, and Avas soon restored.
   If Digitalis is indicated in dropsy, its curative  action is generally
 characterized by profuse discharge  of urine.   In  order to promote
 this end, alloeopathic physicians are in the habit  of combining it
 with some  other  diuretic,  such as  Parsley, Squills;  but this  is
 unnecessary.

   Anasarca yields to Digitalis, which has  caused this disease.   A
 man of forty-six years, who had led  an irregular life and had been
 fond of tippling, became dropsical; he had to be in a sitting posture,
 inclining forward, and suffered with the most violent asthma.  His
 face was blue  and bloated, eyes sunken, arms and chest thin and
 emaciated,  abdomen  enormously  tympanitic,  feet  swollen  and
 shining,  scrotum and penis very much swollen.   The urine was
 secreted in very small quantities and was discharged drop by drop;
the bowels had been bound for some time,  the faeces were hard and
expelled with much difficulty.  This condition of things had lasted
for upwards of four months.  He was put upon a decoction of two
drachms of the leaves of Digitalis in eight ounces  of water, half a 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA.
487
tablespoonful morning and evening.  His chest was liberated, the
SAvelling gradually disappeared, and recovery took place.

  According to Dr. Withering aa'IiO has treated upwards of a hun-
dred cases of anasarca with Digitalis, " it seldom succeeds in men of
great natural strength, of tense fibre, of warm skin, of  florid com-
plexion, or in those Avith a tight and cordy pulse; on the contrary,
if the pulse be feeble or intermitting, the countenance pale, the lips
livid, the skin cold, the swollen belly soft  and fluctuating, or  the
anasarcous limbs readily  pitting under the  pressure of  the finger,
Ave  may expect the  diuretic effects to folloAV in a kindly manner."
These are pretty good homoeopathic indications for an alloeopathic
authority.

  In  Ascites, Digitalis is  a most excellent  remedy in many cases
more particularly if the disease depends upon, or is associated Avith,
vascular derangements such as menstrual irregularities, pain and
palpitation of the heart, spitting of blood, etc.
  In the case of a  lady, where  the disease had  reached a very high
degree of development, of four  months' standing, the abdomen being
enormously swollen,  with oedema of the lower extremities, pulse
very thin and rapid, (about one hundred and twenty in the minute,)
discharge of a sanguinolent serum every few weeks from the vagina,
a radical cure was effected within  three  weeks by giving her five
drops of the tincture of Digitalis in twenty-four hours, and gradually
increasing this quantity to fifteen drops.  The  menstrual discharge
became perfectly regular and the dropsy disappeared permanently.

  Hydropericardia or Dropsy of the Pericardium may be successfully
treated  Avith Digitalis.  The physical signs are:  dullness over a
large  surface, SAvelling of the praecordial region, diminution of  the
respiratory murmur.   The pulse is small, feeble, irregular; the face
and lips look livid, the patient is very much distressed forbreath, is
unable to lie on the back, and is harassed by a  deep, barking cough
without expectoration arising  from  compression of the pulmonary
parenchyma by the effused fluid.  Digitalis and Arsenic are the pro-
minent  remedies.  This disease is  sometimes  a sequela of scarlet-
fever.   It may also come on in  consequence of  cardiac disease.

  Asthma is another disease that has yielded to  Digitalis.   It causes
excessive dyspnoea, even orthopnoea,  dry and husky cough, wheezing
in the air-passages, sensation as  if  the lungs  Avere adhering, and
various other symptoms strongly pointing to asthma.
  In the Edinburgh Medical Journal, the following case of asthma
is reported, where  Digitalis effected a perfect cure.  A schoolmaster
who was afflicted with asthma to such an extent that he AA-as deprived
of rest day and night, took a whole ounce of the tincture of Digitalis
in the hope of obtaining relief during a dreadful paroxysm.  He im-
mediately after fell into a quiet sleep -until half-past eleven  o'clock.
At this  hour he vomited copiously, and had a good stool.  His pulse
became sloio,  irregular and intermittent.  No other symptoms are 
488
LECTURE XXXI.
mentioned.  The asthma and accompanying symptoms disappeared
permanently.

  Regarding the dose, Digitalis'may be required in tolerably large
quantities in dropsical effusions, even in doses of frbm two to three
grains of the poAvdered leaves twice a day ; or in tablespoonful doses
of a watery infusion, or in  doses of from five to ten drops of the tinc-
ture three or four  times a day.   German  homoeopathic physicians
use it sometimes in such large doses.   The second or first trituration
may be  sufficient in some cases.  In purely functional derangements
the middle potencies may be sufficient.
  In  a  case of poisoning,  we first give an emetic, and  afterwards
stimulate the patient with  sufficient doses of  Avine, brandy, or even
ammonia.  Strong black coffee may remove the lesser effects.
  From this drug we obtain an alkaloid,  Digitaline, which has  not
yet been tried  by homoeopathic physicians;  as far as Ave 'know it acts
similarly to  Digitalis.
              LECTURE   XXXI.


                          FERRUM.

                             {Iron)

  Iron is found in the three kingdoms of Nature, seldom pure;
generally oxydized ; in the so-called aquae martiales (steel-springs);
iron is found  in  combination  Avith  oxygen and carbonic acid;
iron is also found in the ashes of many plants {ex. gr.: Digitalis,
Helleb. niger, etc.);  in tea, Avhere it Avas first discovered by Mulder ;
it is one of the chief constituents of the blood where, according to
Rose, it exists as an oxide, and according to Berzelius as a pure
metal.  The best iron-ores are said to be found in Sweden, Norway
and Russia.  In medicine we use the purest  kind of iron,  the
so-called ferrum cusum or Avelded iron.
  Iron unites with all simple, non-metallic bodies, except hydrogen,
and it dissolves in almost any acid, forming various  precipitates,
according as the protoxyde, peroxyde, or deuteroxyde  had been
dissolved.
  In homoeopathic practice we use
  1. Ferrum mettallicum ;
  2. Ferrum aceticum;
  3. Ferrum carbonicum;
  4. Ferrum iodatum;
  5. Ferrum muriaticum ;
  6. Ferrum sulphuricum.
  The metallic iron is obtained in the shape of a fine powder;  it is
perfectly free from  rust.  AAre  make triturations, taking care  that 
FERRUM.
489
during this process the iron does not become oxydized.   Previous
to making these  triturations the sugar of milk, mortar and pestle
should be  Avarmed in  ordef to  remove  every possible  trace  of
moisture.
  The acetate of  iron  is obtained by dissolving the pure oxyde of
iron in concentrated vinegar, taking four parts of the iron and seven
parts of vinegar ;  we shake them avcII together in a bottle, until only
a small part of the iron remains undissolved.  AVe filter the liquid,
and to this filtered liquid  Ave add  one part and a  half  of dilute
alcohol, making the tincture of  the acetate of iron, (tinctura  ferri
acetici),  or  Ave carefully evaporate the liquid in a vapor-bath, and
preserve the dry residue in vials  provided Avith glass-stoppers,  from
which  we  afterwards  obtain  triturations.   The tincture may  be
potenized, the first potency being made with  distilled water and
alcohol, and the subsequent potencies with strong alcohol.
  Carbonate of iron :  a solution  of seventeen  parts of crystallized
carbonate of soda  Avith four  times as much Avater, to be  strained
through linen, and heated to boiling in a cast-iron boiler.  Then add
by degrees ten parts  of pure  crystallized sulphate  of iron to the
boiling  solution,  waiting  each  time  until  the mixture ceases to
effervesce.   A Avhite or greenish-white precipitate is thrown doAvn;
this is the proto-carbonate of iron.   Put this into a filtering bag and
speedily Avash it Avith boiling Avater.   After the water is entirely run
off through the bag, squeeze the bag with the hands in order to  press
out as nearly as may be the Avater adhering to  the salt, and after-
wards subject the poAvder to the action of a  screw-press.  The moist
powder is filled into a well-cleaned bladder  which is to be carefully
tied up, and to be exposed to a temperature of about sixty or seventy
degrees Fahrenheit for drying.
  In this manner Ave  obtain the  proto-carbonate of iron as free as
possible from the oxide, of a green-broAvnish color.  This carbonate
has to be made fresh every year, as the quantity of  carbonic acid
decreases in time.  Triturations should  be made with  very dry
sugar of milk and in a perfectly  dry room.
  The iodide of iron is  prepared according to the United States
Pharmacopcea, as follo\vs:
  "Take Iodine two ounces; iron filings an ounce;  distilled water
a pint and a half.   Mix the iodine Avith a pint  of the distilled Avater
in a porcelain or glass vessel, and  gradually add the iron filings,
stirring  constantly.   Heat the  mixture gently* imtil the liquid
acquires a slight  greenish color ;  then filter, and after the liquid has
passed,  pour  upon the filter the remainder of the distilled Avater
boiling hot.   AVhen this has passed, evaporate the filtered liquor at
a temperature not exceeding two hundred and twelve degrees, in an
iron A'essel, to  dryness.  Keep the dry iodide  in a  closely stopped
bottle.   The iodine of iron is soluble in Avater forming a greenish
solution,"  AVe may also make triturations of this substance.
  Tincture of muriate of iron:  Take subcarbonate  of iron a half
pound;  muriatic acid a pint;  alcohol three pints.   Pour  the acid
upon the subcarbonate in a glass or  porcelain vessel.  Mix them,
and Avhen effervescence has ceased, apply a gentle heat, and continue 
490
LECTURE XXXI.
it until the carbon is dissolved; then  filter the solution and mix it
with the alcohol.
  Sulphate of iron :  dissolve in common sulphuric acid, diluted with
four times its weight of water, as much of iron filings as is required
to saturate the acid, even  Avhen heated.  Filter the liquid and add a
little more sulphuric acid; evaporate in a porcelain dish to the point
of crystallization.  The  green crystals are  collected upon a filter,
washed with a little cold Avater, and afterAvards dried by exposure to
gentle warmth.  Preserve them in well-stopped vessels, and prepare
a watery solution from them, which can only be used as long as no
sediment is deposited in it;  preserve the crystals from the light.
  The leading preparation  of iron which we use in  our practice, is
the acetate.  It is this preparation which Hahnemann employed in
his provings.
  According to Old-School physicians iron is a nervous tonic.   This
is, like many others,  one of those superficial statements  of which
Old-School treatises  on Materia Medica abound.  So far from iron
being a tonic, it has on the contrary a debilitating and disintegrating
effect upon the system.   It is no more  a tonic than Arsenic or China.
The first effect of iron may be to cause an apparent stimulation of
the vital functions;  but  the physical condition  of  those who  live
near iron springs, might  have sufficed to enlighten physicians con-
cerning the ultimate debilitating effect of iron.  AVe find these people
tainted with chronic  diseases more than almost  any other class  of
men,  even when their mode of life is  otherAvise unexceptionable.
A general or partial debility bordering on paralysis, certain violent
pains in the extremities, various affections of the abdominal viscera,
vomiting of food day and night, pulmonary phthisis, bloody cough,
want of animal heat, menstrual suppression, miscarriage, impotence,
sterility, jaundice, and other symptoms  of cachexia  prevail among
them.
  Iron is, as I  stated before, a constituent of the blood, where it
exists, according to Berzelius, in a metallic  state, and according to
Rose  and others,  as an oxyde.  The existence of iron in the blood
does not account, however, for the red color of  the blood.  On  the
contrary,  Brande, Vauquelin and Berzelius have shown that this
red color of the blood does not depend upon the immediate presence
of iron, but upon  the presence of a coloring principle Avhich these
chemists have termed haematochroin.   Recent investigations have
shown that this coloring principle does not  really  exist, and  that
haematosin, haematochroin, etc., are either impure or  altered ingredi-
dients of the blood, or that they are altogether imaginary principles.
  Considering these various contradictions, it seems  to  be difficult
to determine the various uses of iron in the blood,  and it seems to
be equally difficult to show the manner in Avhich iron, when given
as a remedial agent, affects  the abnormally-constituted blood, more
particularly in the well-known disease termed chlorosis.
  It is a well-known fact that in chlorosis or green sickness, iron is
one of our  principal remedies.  Both Old  and New-School physi-
cians depend upon its use  in chlorosis as their chief support.   By
examining the physiological effects of iron upon the living organism, 
FERRUM.
491
and contrasting them with  the  pathological alterations deA'eloped
in the organisms  of chlorotic individuals,  we shall  find  that the
curative virtues of iron in chlorosis depend upon its homoeopathicity
to the latter disease.
   Let us inquire into this fact more closely.
   The peculiar action of iron upon the spleen was knoAvn even to
the physicians  of antiquity.  Celsus states  that animals Avho were
in the habit of drinking the water  in  which blacksmiths cool the
red-hot iron, have a very small spleen; hence patients who were
troubled  with infarctions of the spleen, were made to drink of this
water after a repast.  Pereira likewise states that in animals Avho are
fed on iron  for a time, the volume of the spleen decreases more and
more, until the organ becomes almost atrophied.  Hence small doses
of iron have been uniformly recommended by the most experienced
practitioners of the Old-School as a remedy  for enlargement  of the
spleen.  Cruveilhier calls iron a specific for hypertrophy and chronic
inflammation of the spleen.
   Now it so happens that one of the most characteristic terminations
of chlorosis  is atrophy of the spleen and dilatation of the ventricles
of the heart.  This fact at once accounts to us for  the specific cura-
tive virtues possessed by iron in this distressing malady.  Large
doses of iron cause atrophy of the spleen, and a  determination of
blood to the heart  and lungs; hence small doses of iron must have
the power of arresting these morbid conditions Avhen occurring as a
natural disease.
   It is a  well-known fact that the spleen plays an important part as
an auxiliary to the circulation in the stomach and  intestinal  canal;
it seems even to act as a supporter of the circulation.  In  the case
of persons who died of asphyxia, the spleen was found enlarged and
swollen ;  and in the case of a man who died  from the bursting of an
aneurism of the abdominal  aorta, the spleen was  found  small and
relaxed.  The influence which the spleen has upon the circulation,
has been clearly shown  by Tiedemann and  Gmelin.  In dissecting
a large turtle, where the absorbents of the small  intestines could be
distinctly seen going to  the spleen, it was observed by these physio-
logists that a coagulable fluid was secreted in the spleen out  of the
arterial blood; that this fluid Avas received  into the absorbents of
the spleen, and that, through them, it was conducted to the thoracic
duct to aid in the process of sanguification.   If the spleen  becomes
atrophied, it is of course unable to render  its functional support to
the process of sanguification, and such quantitative as well as quali-
tative changes  in the blood  take place, as  pathologists are in the
habit of designating by the terms of anaemia or hydraemia.  These
are the very conditions which prevail in chlorosis  (anaemia—priva-
tion of blood ;  hydraemia—watery blood).
   These developments show that the curative influence of iron  in
chlorosis  does not  depend upon  its  imparting more  redness  to the
blood,  upon its developing a higher process of  oxidation in the
blood—such coarsely-chemical explanations are rejected by all truly
enlightened  physiological pathologists—but  upon the fact that small
doses of iron possess the peculiar power of arresting and preventing 
492
LECTURE XXXI.
atrophy of the spleen, and stimulating the  sinking  energies of this
important organ into a healthy tone.
  We are indebted for this ingenious vindication of the homoeopath-
icity  of  iron  to chlorosis to Dr. Altschuhl of the  University of
Prague.   Chemistry itself which was in the habit of regarding chlo-
rosis as the great triumph of its materialistic  theories of life and
disease, is  fast demolishing its oavu arguments.  The existence of
iron in the blood is not only admitted but demonstrated by chemical
analysis.  Reveil has moreover shoAvn that all the iron which  the
blood contains is to be found in the  globules, and  that the mass of
iron is not affected by a diminution or an increase  of the globules.
The mass of iron  which was found in the globules of chlorotic
patients, remained unaltered after these patients had recovered their
health under the use of ferruginous preparations.
  Professor Bernard, the distinguished physiologist of the Univer-
sity of Paris, argues with much force, that "the question is  not so
much to knoAV Avhether iron cures chlorosis, but whether chlorosis is
due to the absence of iron in the blood, and whether iron, if admin-
istered in  substance, will supply the want, by taking the place of
the natural constituent."
  Hoav strange that such a  simple  question should be so curiously
and indeed stupidly mystified by learned men! Might not common
sense inform every man, whether  educated or not in the sciences,
that there  is a difference between the vital iron elaborated  in  the
invisible and immaterial crucibles of the vital forces,  and the mate-
rial iron obtained by the fire and material re-agents of the chemist?
Has any one ever seen iron in the blood in its  natural form ?   Has
the most powerful microscope ever discovered material iron in the
blood ? In order to discover the constituents of the blood ; in other
words, in order  to determine  out of Avhat  elements the vital forces
manufacture this precious carrier of living tissue, the chemist  has.
first to destroy the  life-principle which, by virtue  of a most  myste-
rious metamorphosis, has transformed a certain class of elementary
principles into blood;  he has  to remove all traces of this wonderful
transformation  of matter into  livinsr tissue, and then, if, after having
killed the blood ; after having reduced the living  fluid back again
to its original elements, he discovers a small quantity of iron among
a number of other constituents, he exclaims " Eureka," I have found
iron  in the blood, forgetting all  the Avhile that he found it in his
crucible, but not in the vital current.  There is no harm in availing
ourselves  of a  chemical analysis of the blood for the  purpose of
building  up a  rational  hypothesis concerning the treatment of
chlorosis.   AVe may suppose, for  instance,  that  iron may be  the
very  best agent out of which the vital forces  may most effectually
elaborate the vital representative of iron in the living blood; but it
is foolish to assert that the iron is returned to the blood by a process
of  mechanical absorption, and amalgamated  with it by virtue of
some gross process of  chemical combination.   Let us suppose Avith
Professor  Bernard that  there are  about  one  hundred and twenty
grains of iron in the Avhole mass  of blood, and that about half of
this quantity is  lost in chlorosis.  How easily it would be to replace 
FERRUM.
493
this small quantity by absorption !  But there are chlorotic patients
who have swallowed pounds of iron without being cured of their
chlorosis.
  Chlorosis, therefore, is a pathological  process that has to be acted
upon like all other pathological processes, by  dynamic forces. Iron
is one of the chief depositories  of the forces that Avill  effectually
control this troublesome and very often dangerous disease.

  In  Frank's Physiological Magazine,  we find  a record of several
valuable provings of the acetate of iron, the  tincture of which was
used  for this purpose.   These  provings were originally published
in Bernhardi's Periodical for Experimental Medicine.
  One of the provers, Petruschky, a young man of vigorous  consti-
tution, SAvallowed four times a day from four  to twenty-four  drops,
commencing  with four-drop doses and gradually increasing to twenty-
four.
  Previous to his taking the iron, his blood was bright red, contain-
ing an inconsiderable number of small, colorless blood-corpuscles.
After swallowing the iron, the blood was dark-red, the blood-corpus-
cles were deeply colored and had sharp edges; the blood  coagulated
less readily than before the proving, and the serum was of a more
deep yellow color.
  This prover was exceedingly sensitive to the action  of iron;  it
developed the following interesting symptoms :
  Heaviness in the head, Avant of freedom in the frontal  region and
pressure in the temples.
  Sensation of excessive fulness in the head ;
  Uncommonly serious disposition;  the  patient feels disposed  to
attach much  importance to small things.
  Tickling in the urethra, with urging to urinate ; the tickling grad-
ually extended from the navicular fossa to the neck of the bladder.
  Extraordinary feeling of strength and buoyancy of spirits.
  Oppression on  the  chest, increasing with desire  to draw a long
breath, slight stitches in the lungs and  a tightness  in the region  of
the heart.  Pulse sixty-one, tense.
  Feeling of  warmth in the stomach.
  Sense of weariness in  the limbs.
  Pressure at the stomach after eating, which  finally increased to a
drawing.
  The bright redness of his face had considerably diminished  ; pulse
doAvn to fifty-five, full and tense.
  On waking, painful sensation in the  larynx inducing a hacking
and hawking, aggravated by pressure upon  the larynx, and shifting
to a point behind the upper third of the sternum.  He haAvked up
a vesicular, tenacious mucus which Avas streaked Avith black  blood.
Mucous rale  was  heard  behind the upper  portion  of the sternum,
and the impulse was someAvhat jerking.
  Depression of spirits  and bodily strength.
  Tongue coated, pappy taste, little appetite, costiveness, paroxysms
of a drawing pain through the boAvels.
  Violent nosebleed which relieved  the head ; copious, slimy sedi- 
494
LECTURE XXXI.
ment in the urine.  In the course of a few da}^s the symptoms gra-
dually disappeared; his strength returned, the alvine evacuations
again  became soft and regular, pulse  seventy-five as before  the
proving.
   In the case of this prover the first small doses of iron developed
the secondary effects of the drug or symptoms  of organic reaction,
a  feeling of mental and physical  energy, craving  appetite.   The
subsequent doses developed the  primary effects of the drug, cere-
bral and  pulmonary  congestions, loss  of  appetite,  coated tongue,
irritation in the  urethra, depression of spirits, debility, sinking  of
the pulse.
   The second  prover, Loeffler, a  robust man  and enjoying good
health except a disposition to bronchial  catarrh, commenced  his
experiments with ten drops three times a day, gradually increasing
to fifteen, and lastly "to thirty drops, and afterwards adding one drop
to each dose.
   The changes in  the  blood were similar to those experienced by
the first prover.   The first  effect  of small  doses was to increase his
appetite and to induce a remarkable feeling  of  strength.  This  did
not last long, the primary symptoms soon made their appearance.
The pulse went down  from seventy-five  to fifty-four beats.  The
impulse of the heart Avas jerking, the pulse was likewise tense, not
soft  as it  generally is in  hot weather, when these provings Avere
instituted.
   The gastric symptoms were quite marked: pinching and rumbling
in the boAvels Avhich felt full and distended; pappy taste, Avith AArhite-
coated tongue; uncomfortable feeling after eating ;  lassitude, want  of
desire to attend to either bodily or mental labor.
   This prover likewise felt this disagreeable tickling in the urethra,
Avith unusual  urging to urinate, a violent tenesmus  of the bladder
which was soon after accompanied by a distressing tenesmus  of the
rectum.  The faeces consisted of small, hard fragments.
   The urine deposited a slimy sediment.
   The affection of the urethra seemed to assume the form of  a neu-
ralgic affection.  Between  eight and nine o'clock in the morning,
and between six and seven in the evening, the prover suddenly felt
a  tickling  and warmth in the glans;  soon after this sensation Avas
accompanied by an irresistible urging  to urinate;  as soon  as the
urine reached the glans, it caused an exceedingly troublesome pain
in this part, which continued even for some minutes after an emission
of urine, and was accompanied by a continually increasing urging to
urinate.  The distress might be eased by drinking a quantity of cold
water, and by compressing the glans with the fingers.
   The third prover experienced the same distressing tickling in the
urethra, with frequent urging to urinate, the same changes  in the
pulse, constipation Avith frequent tenesmus of the rectum, and oppres-
sion of the bowels and stomach after eating:.

   The other provers did not develop any new symptoms.  In all, the
pulse became slower, fuller  and more jerking, and the oppression and
feeling of tension in the region of the stomach shoAved themselves. 
FERRUM.
495
  Let us now review the effects  of this  drug, Avith reference to the
diseases with which it seems to be in homoeopathic rapport.

                     CEPHALIC GROUP.

  AVe haA'c seen that iron causes cerebral congestions, characterized
by pinching in the temples, and a dull feeling in the head.  Accord-
ing to Hahnemann's provings, it also  causes dizziness as if intoxi-
cated.  AVe may therefore recommend iron for
   Congestive Headaches, where these symptoms occur.   Upon exami-
nation, we shall find  that these headaches are sympathetic rather
than primary affections, resulting from, or at any rate accompanied
by costiveness, Avith frequent urging to  stool, rush of blood to the
head, palpitation of the heart, or rather  hard jerking of this organ;
the pulse, may be  sloAver than in a normal state of the organism.
There  may  be gastric difficulties, nausea,  coated tongue, pressure
after eating,  Aveakness; and this whole train of symptoms may more
particularly occur in chlorotic patients.

                      NERVOUS GROUP.

  We  have  seen that iron  causes weariness, a feeling of languor,
depression of strength, a want of aptitude to apply one's self to  busi-
ness or study.  This condition of the body or mind, provided iron
is to remedy it, must be symptomatic of other more general derange-
ments, more particularly of  a chlorotic or gastric character.
   Iron may likewise induce neuralgic pains, but they will likewise
be found to be symptomatic of chlorosis; idiopathic neuralgia is not
relieved by iron.
   According to Hahnemann's provings, Ferrum causes symptoms of
chronic arthritic and rheumatic affections in the extremities,  such as
tearing and stitching pains, lameness and numbness, and cedematous
SAvelling of  the knee-joints, feet and  hands.  AVe may recommend
iron in affections of this kind, Avhen the patients are of a leucophleg-
matic constitution;  individuals of a  rigid fibre and  a bilious tem-
perament would hardly be amenable  to the good effects  of  iron in
such conditions of the system.
   Anemia from excessive  losses, or  as symptomatic of a  general
cachexia, may require iron.

                   CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

   AVe have seen that iron deranges the gastric  functions in  various
ways.   It causes. oppression  and fulness of the bowels, and  more
particularly  of the stomach, after eating;  pappy taste in the mouth,
white  and yellow coating on the tongue; .costiveness, the faeces being
expelled  in  the shape of hard  and very  dark balls, Avith  painful
tenesmus of the rectum ; nausea, vomiting of  food, crampA' pains in
the stomach, may likewise be  developed by the abuse of iron.
   Guided by these effects of our drugs, avc may prescribe iron  in
   Dyspepsia and  Cardialgia, Avhere similar symptoms  occur,  more 
496
LECTURE XXXI.
particularly in the case  of chlorotic, leuco-phlegmatic females, with
torpid constitutions.  It may also be of great use in the  case  of
pregnant females who are troubled with similar symptoms; the dis-
tressing
   Vomiting, to which they are sometimes subject, may yield to iron,
provided the accompanying constitutional symptoms correspond.
   Nursing Sore Mouth may sometimes require the iron-preparations;
we may use  the  acetate internally, from three to  five drops three
times a day, and at the same time rinse the mouth with a solution of
the same substance, about twenty-five drops in half a tumblerful  of
water, three or four times a day.  It  is particularly suitable to scro-
fulous and spongy constitutions.
   This condition of the mouth is generally attended with such gastric
derangements as indicate iron, such as
   Diarrhea.   We know that large  doses  of iron  may cause slimy
and bloody stools, with tenesmus.   In  the case  of cachectic  and
leuco-phlegmatic individuals,  where this  kind of  diarrhoea occurs,
great good may be accomplished by the persevering use of iron.  In
all such cases, Ave should never prescribe for one  symptom merely,
were it ever so prominent, but likewise look at the general constitu-
tional  state of the patient, the gastric symptoms, appearance of the
tongue, state of the appetite and condition of the stomach and bowels,
condition  of  the  pulse, complexion, degree of strength.   Not only
full-grown persons, but also  children, may  be benefitted  by the
use of iron, if their boAvels are habitually loose, slimy, bloody, dark-
colored and  offensive, with a good  deal  of urging.   The  general
appearance of the patient should  correspond with the  picture that
Ave have drawn.  Let it be distinctly understood, that in affections of
this kind,  where the vegetative system, by which we understand that
series of ganglia and corresponding tissues which are more particu-
larly concerned in  the  reproduction  of  organic fibre,  is  so deeply
prostrated, decaying as it were: the lower potencies of iron, from the
first to the third trituration, or the tincture, are  preferable to the
higher.
   Children of a cachectic habit of body, a combination of the stru-
mous and scrofulous diathesis, who are troubled with  this kind  of
diarrhoea,  may likewise be liable to another distressing affection,
   Ascarides ; iron has been known to favor the development of these
parasites;  hence we may recommend it as a means for their gradual
extirpation, by bringing about a normal action  of the  intestinal
mucous surfaces.
   Undigested food is very often  mixed up Avith the  diarrhoea of such
cachectic individuals.   Hence  in
   Lienteria, iron may prove beneficial.
   The Colliquative Diarrhea of consumptive persons, with scrofulous
constitutions, may be favorably modified by iron.

   Costiveness  may require iron, if cerebral congestions,  dullness and
fullness about the head, pains in the temples, dizziness, oppression on
the chest, distention and fullness in the boAvels, slow, full and jerking
pulse, are  present. 
FERRUM.
497
   Persons who use the water of chalybeate springs have been known
 to become affected with fluent piles;  hence we recommend iron for
   Fluent Piles, with much pressing in the rectum,  and a general
 cachectic, debilitated appearance of the patient, full and hard, jerking,
 rather sIoav pulse, constipation alternating with diarrhoea.

                       URINARY GROUP.

   You recollect the remarkable effects which iron produced in most
 of the provers who subjected themselves to the action of this agent:
 tickling in  the urethra,  violent  and constant urging  to urinate,
 throbbing in the external  terminal  portion of the  urethra, slimy
 Sediment in the urine.  We  shall find iron indicated  in what is
 termed
   Catarrh of the bladder or blennorrhcea of the bladder, in the case of
 scrofulous, spongy individuals.  Even in
   Gleet, iron may prove useful to patients with such torpid, spongy
 constitutions.
   Phthisis or Colliquation of the urinary mucous  membrane, Avhere
 the patient Avastes away under the purulent  drain constantly going
 on from an ulcer situated in the urethra, with tickling and constant
 urging to urine, may require iron.
   AVe shall find iron useful in
   Enuresis of scrofulous and debilitated individuals.   Also in
   Enuresis  nocturna of children with  scrofulous, leucophlegmatic
 constitutions, Avho are  troubled with  worms, large bowels, etc.  In
 such  affections we shall find iron  particularly useful  in  the case of
 girls.
                       SEXUAL  GROUP.

   In  this range, iron has been considered an invaluable agent by
 physicians of all ages and nations.  The primary effect of large doses
 of iron upon the sexual organs seems to be to cause a sort  of plethora
 in these parts, characterized by erections and nocturnal emissions.
 This surexcitation of the sexual organs may become so troublesome
 as to require medical treatment, more particularly in the case of con-
 stitutionally  feeble,  cachectic  individuals.  In  the case  of strong,
 plethoric individuals, this condition   might  require  Aconite.   We
 therefore recommend iron for
   Nocturnal Emissions with violent erections, in the case of constitu-
 tionally feeble individuals.
   But iron may likewise be indicated in debility of the sexual organs,
 to which the continued  use of  small doses of iron leads.   Hence we
 use iron in cases of
   Impotence and Spermatorrhea, when induced by abuse of the sexual
 organs, especially in the case of weakly scrofulous individuals.

  The primary effect of iron upon the  sexual organs of the female is
an increased and premature secretion of the menstrual blood, hence
we find iron indicated in
  Metrorrhagia,  more particularly when the blood is  dark colored,
viscid, forming a thick,  elastic crassamentum after coagulation.
                                '62 
498
LECTURE XXXI.
   Miscarriage may be  prevented by iron, if the totality of the
symptoms indicates this drug; violent congestions of the brain and
chest, dizziness, throbbing headache, palpitation  of the heart, fever-
flashes, violent pressing pains in the small of  the back and boAvels,
generally characterize cases where  iron  is indicated.  A  case  is
reported where a lady who had miscarried five  times in succession
in her eighth month, went through the two subsequent' pregnancies
Avithout any accident, after taking the tincture of iron  in  15  drop
doses three times a day, commencing about the middle of the fifth
month, and increasing the dose every day by  three drops until she
took about 10 drops each  time.  A larger dose caused anxiety, pal-
pitation and vertigo.

   It is a well-known fact that  females who are continually exposed
to the influence of chalybeate springs, may lose the power of repro-
duction ; hence we give iron sucessfully for
   Sterility, especially  in the case of chlorotic females, or females
who are subject to profuse and premature menstruation.
   Amenorrhea may yield  to  iron.  If menorrhagia constitutes  a
primary effect of iron, we  may be sure that menstrual suppression
will take place as a symptom of  organic  reaction.  Small  doses of
iron will meet this condition, especially  in the case of chlorotic
females.
   Dysmenorrhea, with discharge of small quantities of a Avatery
blood,  dragging  pain in  the  small of the  back and hypogastric
region,  may be met by iron, especially  in the case  of chlorotic
females.

   Under the influence of iron  existing leucorrhceal discharges  have
become painful.   Hence in
   Leucorrhea, with soreness of the  vagina, unnatural heat in the
vagina, discharge of a serous,  offensive fluid, mixed with flocks of
mucus, iron may prove of use.

  In one of the female provers of iron who was pregnant, the vagina
became prolapsed.  We find iron indicated in
   Prolapsus of the Vagina during pregnancy.   These  affections of
the sexual  organs of the female,  are particularly amenable to the
curative influence of iron in the case of chlorotic females.  In
   Chlorosis, we depend upon  iron as  one of  our main remedies.
This pathological condition is very improperly termed " green-sick-
ness."   The French designates it by the term "pales couleurs," and
the Germans by the term "Bleichsucht" both terms meaning "pale
colors."  Trousseau and Pidoux generalize  the symptoms of chlorosis
in the following comprehensive list of morbid  phenomena:
   " General discoloration of the skin and of the mucous membranes;
slight emaciation, bloating of the face and  loAver  extremities.
   " Nervousness,  hysteria, melancholy, fitful mood, weakness of the
muscles.
   " Neuralgic pains which generally come on in irregular paroxysms.
   "Increase or decrease of the volume of  the heart; the impulse of 
FERRUM.
499
the heart is at times  stronger, at other times weaker than in the
natural condition; gentle blowing murmur  accompanying the first
sound of the heart;  the second sound of the heart is sometimes very
loud; blowing murmurs in the  large arterial trunks, especially in
the carotids, subclavians, etc., also in the jugular veins.
  " Pulse more frequent  than in the normal state, feverishness, dry
skin, thirst.
  " Loss  of breath  after  the slightest exercise, palpitation of the
heart.
  "Dyspepsia, pyrosis,  depraved  appetite,  gastralgia,  occasional
vomiting, habitual  constipation, diarrhoea  after the  sickness has
lasted for some time.
  " Painful, irregular, scanty, pale menses, or complete suppression,
leucorrhcea, menorrhagia, sterility."
  Chlorosis is very often a mask for tubercular phthisis.  The affec-
tion may seem cured, but it is  only hushed to be  replaced  by a
tubercular  disease of the lungs that will inevitably terminate fatally.
In such cases we frequently find tubercles of the lungs and liver go
hand in hand.  AVherever you have reason to suspect the existence
of tubercles in chlorosis, I advise you most urgently, not to depend
upon iron alone; then is the time to call to your aid the tincture of
the root of Aconite, which you may associate with the.iodide of iron.
I know of no two drugs that are endoAved Avith such eminent powers
to check  and resolve the tubercular process in its incipient stage of
irritation as Aconite and the Iodide of Iron.
  Iron will act  powerfully against many of the  consequences  of
chlorosis.
  Dropsy, for instance, may yield to iron,  if resulting from an im-
poverished and watery condition of the blood, or, to use the language
of modern  pathology, from a state of anaemia or hydraemia of the
system.  Profuse depletions or frequent haemorrhages may lead to
such results.

         CATARRHAL AND THORACIC GROUPS.

  The  action of iron upon the respiratory organs is exceedingly
remarkable:
  Tickling in the larynx, with constant desire to cough ;
  Spasmodic cough, with expectoration of mucus;
  Sensation as if hot air were rising in the wind-pipe ;
  Dyspnoea, worse by walking;
  Determination of  blood to the chest;
  Haemoptysis;
  Discharge of greenish pus on waking.
  These symptoms show that iron may be useful in
  Asthma,  and in                                    1:
  Phthisis of the Larynx, Trachea and Lungs.  In laryngeal phthisis
we have: fixed pain in the larynx, cough Avith  purulent expectora-
tion, hoarseness,  emaciation, consumptive fever and colliquation,
rattling of phlegm in the bronchia.  In phthisis florida: cough  with
fetid, greenish, bloody pus, hectic fever, night-sweats. 
500
LECTURE XXXI.
  Iron may also prove useful in ulceration of the larynx when pro-
duced by syphilitic metastasis.
  Dupasquier recommends the iodide of iron for phthisis pulmonalis
with expectoration of pus and blood, cough, oppression, debilitating
sweats, fever,  even vomicae.
  Pneumorrhagia, especially in atonic, leuco-phlegmatic subjects may
yield to the acetate of iron, or to the malate of iron.

                EXANTHEMATOUS GROUP.

  Sores  in  cachectic,  leuco-phlegmatic  subjects,  with  deficient
reaction, want of tone in the muscular fibre, want of cohesion, may
be benefitted  by the internal use of  iron.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

  Several homoeopathic physicians have employed iron in obstinate
quartan fevers, when China proved ineffectual (in chlorotic subjects.)
Arsenic might perhaps be  more reliable in such cases.

                      MENTAL GROUP.

  Hysteria and hypochondria, especially in  chlorotic  subjects,  or
after profuse loss of blood, sexual excesses, etc., are favorably acted
upon by iron.

                         ANTIDOTAL.

  According  to Hahnemann, the  excessive effects of iron may  be
counteracted  by China  and Pulsatilla.  Iron antidotes China and
Mercury (in slow mercurial poisoning.)   Navier recommends iron
filings in poisoning with acetate of copper; the iron unites with the
acid and precipitates the copper in an inert metallic state (in poisoning
with copper, albumen is the best antidote.) Hydrated sesqui-oxyde of
iron is an antidote to Arsenic.  In Buchner's Toxicology we find it
stated  that the workmen  in  English needle-factories become asth-
matic between  the years of twenty-five and thirty-five; to prevent
this, they wear magnetic screens, also magnetic bandages around the
mouth and neck; these attract the iron-dust, thus protecting the chest.
  Of the  particular  preparations  of iron,  we will here remark that
the
                      Carbonate  of Iron
Is one  of the mildest preparations  of this agent, and has generally
been preferred by allceopathic physicians.  Several interesting cases
of neuralgia and chorea are reported as  having been cured with this
preparation.  It is doubtful whether the curative virtues of this
agent  in neuralgia can be depended upon unless the neuralgia is
symptomatic of a general  chlorotic  condition of the system.

                    The Muriate of Iron
Acts powerfully upon  the urinary organs, depositing crystals  of 
HELLEBORUS  NIGER.
501
a bright-red color in the urine.  It is also a powerful irritant of the
bowels.  In affections, to which iron is homoeopathic, and where the
symptoms  of urinary and intestinal  irritation predominate, this
preparation may be of use.   It is sometimes applied externally to
bleeding vessels on account of its styptic properties.

                   The  Sulphate of Iron
Is not used by homoeopathic physicians internally;  on account of
its powerful astringent properties, it is sometimes used as an injection
in cases of gleet.  I do not recommend such a practice.

                     The Iodide  of Iron
Is used in the suppurative stage of scrofulous consumption ;  in the
advanced stage of tuberculosis; in  chlorosis  when grafted upon a
decidedly scrofulous dyscrasia, and in scrofulous affections generally,
where we wish at the same time to combat or* eradicate the  conse-
quences of an impoverished cachectic state of the  system.
   In this connection Ave may mention the double-salt

                Citrate  of Iron and Quinine,
Which is  likewise  used instead  of iron in anaemic states of the
system, in the case  of scrofulous  individuals, anaemic and cachetic
females who are afflicted Avith inveterate leucorrhcea, or oedematous
swelling in consequence of frequent losses of blood, miscarriages, etc.

   Lastly, I will mention another preparation  of iron Avhich is still
used by allceopathic physicians, I mean  the red cautery.  Think of
it, scorching a man's back with a red-hot iron is resorted to by these
Avise men as a means of  relief.   If the  joke  were not  so horribly
cruel, one  might  feel  tempted to laugh at  it as one of the curious
antics of the  Evil One.   Thank  God, the age is  fast approaching
Avhen humanity will be  freed from such  practices and practitioners.
The "spirit of Hahnemann is over-shadoAving the Medical Schools of
the world, and the age  of medical brutality and martydom must
yield before the gentle counsels and sweetly conquering globules of
Homoeopathy.



               LECTURE   XXXII.


                   HELLEBORUS NIGER,
         {Black Hellebore).—Nat. Order:—Ranunculace^e.

   This is a perennial plant, flowering from  December till March,
hence its name " Christmas Rose."  Few plants are more elegant;
the large, concave  flowers,  white, Avith  a tinge of blush-color, are
finely contrasted  with the ample, dark, shining foliage.  The roots
are perennial, creeping, very black externally, with numerous long,
simple, perpendicular fibres.
   It grows on rocky and Avoody mountains. 
502
LECTURE XXXII.
   Hahnemann has endeavored to  show in his inaugural thesis  enti-
 tled :  De helleborismo veterum, that  the black Hellebore  of  the
 ancients and the black Hellebore which  grows on the  European
 mountains, are identical.  But, according to Tournefort, the Helle-
 borus niger of the Old Greeks and the Helleborus niger of the Alps
 and Pyrenees  are different varieties of the same  species.  In his
 Alateria Medica Pura, Hahnemann speaks of the black Hellebore of
 the ancients as a plant very closely resembling our  own.   The root
 of this plant, as well as the root of the white Hellebore or Areratrum
 album were used by the  ancients in the treatment of a  variety of
 disorders, principally mania, hypochondria and oth&r  derangements.
 The treatment  instituted with  these roots, was a stereotyped sort of
 treatment, designated by historians as the helleborism of the ancients.
 The treatment Avas principally carried on on the island of Antecira,
 and to take a voyage to Antecira was synonymous in those times to
 our  modern " going to the springs or to some water-cure  establish-
 ment."                                      *
   In looking at the beautiful flower you Avill find that the calyx is
 composed of five large, roundish, concave sepals, at  first white, with
 a blush of a pale rose-color  deepening by age and finally assuming
 a greenish tint, after the impregnation of the  seed.   Petals tubular
 and two-lipped; filaments  numerous and supporting yellow anthers.
 Leaves pedate, large, composed of  five, six or more leaflets, of a
 deep-green color, smooth;—leaflets ovatedanceolate, smooth, shining,
 coriaceous, with the distal  half of each slightly serrated,—floAverstalk
 a scape, six or  eight inches  in length, erect, round,  variegated with
 red,  and supporting one or two flowers.  Root blackish with numer-
 ous fibres.
   From this root we obtain a brownish straw-yellow tincture.
   How does this root act.upon the  human system?   This is best
 ascertained from one or two cases of poisoning, and from Hahne-
 mann's provings.
   The following case is related in Ferrari's Journal Universel:
   Two persons took a decoction of this root in cider; three quarters
 of an hour after taking it,  alarming symptoms were developed, Avith-
 out exciting suspicion of the real cause.   One of the men,  therefore,
 took another dose, when  vomiting, delirium,  horrible convulsions,
 accompanied with immediate coldness supervened, and  death at last
 ensued.  On dissection, sixteen hours afterwards, the appearances in
 each were found precisely similar,  except that in the one who took
 the largest quantity,  they were more strongly marked; the  lungs
 Avere gorged with blood; the mucous membrane of the stomach Avas
 considerably inflamed, of a blackish-broAvn color, and reduced almost
 to a  gangrenous state; the oesophagus and intestines were natural.
   This case shows that black Hellebore is an acrid poison,  excessive
 doses of which cause vomiting, and inflame the lining membrane of
the stomach.
   Another case of poisoning is reported by Morgagni: A  man who
 appeared to be  nearly fifty years old, being in the hospital on account
of melancholia, was about  to depart, when  he  took  some extract of
black Hellebore by  which he was  considerably purged.  In the 
HELLEBORUS  NIGER.
503
 beginning of the night, seven or eight  hours after  taking the drug,
 he was attacked by vomiting and pains in the abdomen, Avhich avc re
 allayed by warm broth;  about the fifth hour  of the  night those
 symptoms returned, and Avere again relieved.  He lay down an hour
 afterAvards, having vomited tAvo or three spoonfuls of a greenish
 matter.  So quietly did he rest that none of the patients in. the nearest
 beds heard him;  but  at the eighth hour they were attracted to his
 bedside by a peculiar noise  from his  mouth, and found him dead.
 He had  taken about forty drops of the extract, a quantity which
 had been  administered to others with impunity.   He had, however,
 neglected to drink copiously of whey, a precaution which it was  cus-
 tomary to recommend. After  death the extremities were relaxed,
 muscles flabby;  the stomach, oesophagus  and intestines were found
 inflamed,  though not  violently  in any part; the Avhole  of the cere-
 brum was found softened and shrivelled.
   In  this case purging Avas  the  first effect of Hellebore; this  was
 followed by vomiting and  pains of the abdomen/again folloAved by
 vomiting  of two or three spoonfuls of a greenish matter.   The whole
 of the intestinal canal was found inflamed, except the larger boAvels.
 The cerebral changes cannot be considered reliable, since the man
 was under treatment for melancholia, and the brain may have been
 previously diseased.
   According to this case, smaller doses  of Hellebore first act as  a
 drastic medicine; the  vomiting seems to follow next.

   Another interesting case is  reported by Fahrenhorst in Rust's
 Magazine. A young  man of nineteen years swallowed a tablespoon-
 ful of the powdered  Hellebore by mistake.   Soon after he  was
 attacked with copious  vomiting.  Two hours after, when the  Doctor
 was called, the patient had vomited sixty times, the Avhole body  Avas
 covered with a cold, clammy sweat, the face was pale,  and the  fea-
 tures looked distorted, the pulse was small and tremulous, the abdo-
 men distended, but not very painful when touched. The patient  had
 frequent tAvitchings of the muscles of the legs, and complained par-
 ticularly of a violent  burning in the stomach and fauces, which he
 compared to the burning caused by a streak of fire. After drinking
 copious quantities of milk and an infusion of althea with opium,  and
 after applying mustard-poultices to the abdomen, he soon recovered
 from the effects of the poison.
   This case reveals to some extent curative powers that may be of
 use to us in sudden attacks of cholera, Avhere the inflammatory  and
 nervous symptoms, such as violent  vomiting and burning pains in
 the epigastric  region,  diarrhoea, twitchings of the muscles, sinking
 of the pulse, coldness  of the skin and clammy sweat, manifest them-
 selves conjointly.  This case may likewise suggest the propriety of
 using the black Hellebore in violent forms of gastrodynia or neurosis
 of the stomach,  where precisely such a group  of symptoms may
 occur.

   The Christmas  Rose is not a polychrest strictly speaking. I have
assigned it a place here, because it is a very useful drug in several 
504
LECTURE XXXII.
important disorders  to which the human organism is  liable,  and
because it is  a  drug of great historical renown, and  occupies a
prominent position in Hahnemann's writings.

                     CEPHALIC GROUP.

  According to Hahnemann, Hellebore depresses the sensorium, so
that, Avith perfectly sound eyes, the patient  sees imperfectly ;  Avith
sound hearing, the patient hears  imperfectly; with a sound organ
of taste,  he has no taste or appetite for any thing; he recollects
past things imperfectly, seems to be absent-minded, has no refreshing
sleep, Avants  to  Avork without  having the ability to do so.  This
impaired state of cerebral innervation may  be  of use to us in the
application of Hellebore to  various diseases to which the brain is
liable.
  AVe notice among the symptoms of Hellebore which Hahnemann
and his disciples  have recorded for us, a  sense of stupefaction with
dizziness;  stupifying headache, as  if the membranes of the brain
were draAvn tightly around this organ.
  Another prover experienced a feeling of  soreness throughout the
brain.
  As far as we may infer from the provings which have been insti-
tuted thus far, and from the  effects of large doses which have been
swallowed inadvertently now and then, Helleborus niger affects the
brain in a very marked manner, inducing engorgement  of the  cere-
bral vessels, and depressing the vital energies of the serous mem-
branes of the brain in a manner that may lead to effusions into the
ventricles.
  The question  occurs : Does this drug affect the brain directly,
or indirectly ?   And if the latter  be true, by what indirect channel
does Hellebore  reach the cerebral tissues?  We are prepared to
ansAver this question.
  Upon examining the color and  quality of  the blood contained in
the engorged cerebral vessels, we find it  to  be black and thick like
the blood that the vena porta carries to  the liver to be purified in
this organ and afterwards returned to the organism  in its purified
form through the hepatic veins.  We infer from this abnormal con-
dition of the cerebral blood that the secretory poAvers  of the liver
have been Aveakened and in a measure paralyzed by the poison.  The
paralyzing action of  Hellebore upon the functional power of the
liver, to purify the  portal blood  from its acrid and  unassimilable
principles, is one of the effects of this poison but not the only one.
  It is one  of  the offices  of serous membranes to  excrete  effete
serum from the capillary blood, after this fluid has yielded up Avhat
nutrient elements it contains, to the tissues.   As the portal blood is
conducted to the liver for purposes of purification, so is the serum
excreted for similar  purposes.  The acrid  principles of the portal
blood are collected in the gall-bladder in the shape of bile ;  those of
the serum are excreted in the shape of urine.  As the black Helle-
bore strikes down the functional poAver of the liver to separate effete
principles from  the  portal blood, so does it strike down the func- 
HELLEBORUS  NIGER.
505
tional power of serous membranes to separate effete principles from
the serum.  What must be the consequences of a functional derange-
ment of this kind ?   AVhere is the effete serum which, in the natural
course of things, should  be excreted by the serous  membranes, to
go, if the serous  membranes are deprived of the necessary poAver to
fulfil their functional mission ?  Why, naturally enough, it will col-
lect somewhere  else, in some cavity, or in loose tissue.   Hence the
various forms of dropsy, dropsy of the brain, thorax, pericardium,
bowels, cellular  tissue.
   This is one of* the last, most destructive effects of the poison.  It
may not come to this; we may have simple oedema, a puffing up of
particular parts, of the face, hands or feet.  The  pulmonary  paren-
chyma may likewise be attacked.
   GMema and dropsical effusions are not the only result of a re-ab-
sorption of effete serum.   The skin loses its turgescence, it becomes
inanimate, dry, sallow, and, if the acrid principles of the serum are
permitted to  remain in the capillaries, heat and fever cannot  fail to
show themselves.   Thirst is an inevitable  accompaniment  of this
condition of things.  The urine must necessarily be scanty and dark-
colored.  The bowels, as a general rule, will be loose, slimy ;  this
will depend upon the degree of serous exudation that may take place
into the intestinal  canal.
   Is it not natural that the action of the effete serum upon the mucous
membranes should lead  to  the formation of sores, that the  tongue
should become  aphthous, that the corners of the mouth should be-
come  ulcerated, that the conjunctiva should  become ulcerated, that
ulcerations should  break out wherever the atmospheric oxygen has
a chance to  combine with the devitalized constituents of the effete
serum ?
   And again, can we wonder that the dermoid -tissue itself  should
become  diseased Avhen infiltrated,  as it were, by disorganized ele-
ments?  Can we wonder that herpetic eruptions of various kinds
should develop themselves, even of an obstinate and inveterate char-
acter ?  Can Ave wonder  that the skin should become a dead mem-
brane and  peel  off in  large patches?   AAre see it even  stated in the
Oxford Alagazine of 1779 that various individuals who had eaten of
the Helleborus fetidus, or  the stinking Hellebore, a species endowed
with powers analogous to those of the black Hellebore, lost not only
the epidermis, but their hair and nails besides.
   Having given you this brief, but I trust comprehensive and  logical,
sketch of the physiological action of Hellebore in its complex, we are
noAV prepared to account for the remarkable derangement which the
sensorium suffers from the action of Hellebore.
   How is it  that Hellebore, as Hahnemann informs us, depresses the
 sensorium ?  How is it  that, with  perfectly sound eye^, the  patient
sees imperfectly; Avith a sound sense of hearing, he hears imperfectly;
recollects past things imperfectly, etc.
   This disordered condition of the sensorium undoubtedly arises from
 the presence of  effete serum in the cerebral tissues.  The functional
 power of the brain is undisturbed, but the seeing brain has to see
 through a turbid medium, and the hearing brain perceives sounds 
506
LECTURE XXXII.
through a medium filled with opposing heterogeneous particles.   In
certain forms of
  Hydrocephalus, Hellebore proves a capital remedy.  Not in hydro-
cephalus which is one of the natural terminations of inflammation of
the brain;  but in  dropsy arising  from a diseased  condition of the
serous membranes.  In children where the reproductive system is
constitutionally low, of a lax fibre, morbidly irritable skin, weak pulse,
of an impoverished, cachectic appearance, breaking out of the corners
of the mouth, sore margins of the tongue, etc., this species of dropsy of
the brain may develop itself as a continuation of  some acute inflam-
mation of  a  serous membrane,  the pleura,  for instance, or it  may
break out  as a  sequela  to some dcute eruptive  disease,  such as
scarlatina.
  In such a case we shall find the effusion marked  by general signs
of decay of the vegetative sphere, bleareyedness,  phlyctaenae in the
mouth and along the margins of the tongue,  ulceration of the corners
of the mouth.  The patient may be comatose, but  convulsions do not
occur as they do in encephalitis when effusion is  setting in.  In the
belladonna-dropsy, effusion  takes  place more  suddenly, and is  gen-
erally marked by convulsions and a sinking  and retarded  pulse—
provided always the effusion is a termination of acute inflammation;—
in the Hellebore-dropsy the effusiom may develop itself so gradually
that the existence of spasms may remain unnoticed, and the  cerebral
symptoms may be limited to pain in the head, drowsiness, stupefac-
tion, coma.
  The tongue, in hydrocephalus to which Hellebore is homoeopathic,
may not only be  ulcerated,  but also stiff, swollen, paralyzed as it
were.  Hellebore likewise renders the tongue insensible and rigid.
  The face looks pale, sallow, even cadaverous;  a symptom which
likewise points to Hellebore.
  Hydrocephalus may set in as a metastatic  disease in the case of
strumous children, where a subacute irritation may  shift to the brain
from some  point outside of this organ, developing an effusion into its
ventricles.

                      FACIAL GROUP.

  Hellebore causes spasmodic sneezing.  Hildanus informs us that
a woman who had just been confined,  took some Hellebore, had a
little diarrhoea, vomited mucus, and finally died sneezing.
  We may therefore recommend Hellebore for a spasm of the Schnei-
derian membrane which is characterized by
  Paroxysms of Sneezing.

                   CHYLO-POIETIC  GROUP.

  We have seen that Hellebore may effect powerful disturbances in
the stomach and bowels.  It causes:
  Bitter taste in the throat;
  Dry and slimy taste in  the mouth, with violent thirst;
  Confluence of watery saliva in the mouth; 
HELLEBORUS  NIGER.
507
   Nausea, vomiting of green bile and purging, with great pain;
   Burning as from a hot iron in the stomach and oesophagus;
   White, jelly-like discharges from the bowels several times a day;
 also
   Hard and scanty stool with violent cutting in the rectum.
   We have seen that these symptoms justify the use of Hellebore in
   Gastrodynia and the milder forms of
   Cholera Asiatica, with excessive restlessness and anxiety.

                      URINARY GROUP.

   The first effect of large doses of Hellebore is to suppress the urinary
 secretions, the secondary effect, or the symptom of organic reaction
 is emission of increased  quantities of watery urine.  This symptom
 is valuable in dropsy, where the urinary secretions  are very  much
 diminished.

                       SEXUAL  GROUP.

   Hellebore depresses  or extinguishes the sexual instinct, a valuable
 indication in disorders where Hellebore is indicated.
   In the female it may cause menstrual suppression, and is therefore
 indicated  in amenorrhoea with oedema or ascites.

                      THORACIC GROUP.

   Hellebore causes a good many of the symptoms which characterize
   Hydrothorax, and (Edema of the Lungs.  AVe have
   Hurried breathing:
   Slow and deep breathing;
   Contraction of the chest;  he had to gasp for  air with his mouth
 wide open, unable to breathe.
   We might refer these symptoms to a
   Spasm of the Lungs:  Hellebore is particularly useful in dropsy of
 the chest,  and perhaps of the pericardium, if the disease is an after-
 disease developing itself in  the wake of measles or scarlatina.  In
 hydrothorax of this kind, the patient may soon become cedematous in
 various parts of his body; he may be troubled with dry and racking
 cough, orthopnoea, diminished secretion of urine,  etc.

                EXANTHEMATOUS  GROUP.

   Here let us again allude to the fact that Hellebore is homoeopathic
 to the various forms of dropsy, when not resulting from organic dis-
 ease of the liver and kidneys, but from a  deficiency or prostration of
 the functional power of the serous membranes.  It may develop itself
 more particularly  in scrofulous, tuberculous, strumous  individuals,
 after measles, scarlatina, or as a continuation of some acute inflamma-
tion of serous membranes; it may affect various localities,  the brain,
thorax, bowels, sexual organs,  cellular tissues, etc.
   Dropsy may set in as a sequela  of scarlet  fever, in  the bowels,
sexual organs, pericardium;  Hellebore is one of  the remedies for it. 
508
LECTURE XXXIII.
Dropsy may likeAvise result from menstrual suppression, in the form
of Ascites, peritoneal dropsy.
  Hellebore has caused vesicles in the finger-joints, discharging a
moisture;
  Herpes, yellowish, discharging a fluid when scratched.
  Hellebore has been recommended by Willan for
  Lepra and Plica Polonica.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

  Hartmann recommends Hellebore for
  Lentescent Typhus, Avith internal burning heat at night, chilliness
and cold hands, stupefying sensation in the head, drowsiness, numb-
ness of the extremities, small pulse.
  Hellebore has also been recommended for
  Intermittent Quartan, with obstinate swelling of the spleen and liver.
Here I think Arsenic preferable to Hellebore.

                          MENTAL.

  Hellebore is the great remedy which the ancients were in the habit
of using for various mental derangements, more particularly for
  Puerperal Mania, and mania from menstrual suppression.
  A case is reported in Hufeland's  Journal where a girl become
deranged in consequence of menstrual suppression, jumping over
chairs and tables; she Avas speedily restorer! by the internal  use of
Hellebore.
  In olden times, about the year 1400 before Christ, there reigned a
good and generous king Proctus, whose daughters Avere insane in con-
sequence of menstrual suppression or some other abnormal condition
of the sexual sphere.  The poor girls ran  about the  forests, naked
like beasts, and imitating the sounds of animals. Proctus offered half
his kingdom to any one Avho should cure his daughters.  This tempted
the good Doctor Melampus to try the cure.  Fie accomplished it with
black Hellebore, obtained half a kingdom, and he and his two brothers
became the king's sons-in-law.
             LECTURE   XXXIII.

                  HYOSCYAMUS  NIGER.

           {Black Henbane.—Nat. Order:—Solane^l)

  This name is derived from the Greek huos, hog, and kuamos, bean.
Hogs are said to eat the fruit of Hyoscyamus, which bears some
resemblance to a bean.—Biennial, flowers from June to  August.—
Root spindle-shaped;  stem one to  four  feet high, upright, round,
tough, branched, wooly  towards the top, \ery leafy;  leaves alter-
nate, sessile, somewhat ovate, sinuate,  with  short lobes, downy and 
HYOSCYAMUS NIGER.
509
viscid, exhaling a powerful and oppressive odor; flowers numerous,
from the bosoms of the crowded upper leaves, almost entirely ses-
sile.   Corolla  of  a pale  yellowish-brown, beautifully netted with
purple  veins,  and a dark purple eye or base; filaments white;
anthers  and style  of a fine deep purple.
  The plant, in the first year, has no stem; the leaves are all radical,
each having a footstalk or pedicle.  The leaves are wooly, but pos-
sess  little of  the  odor  of  the mature plant.  The leaves of  the
second year are large, long, and deeply inverse, sessile, and nearly
embrace the stem,  and  having decurrent lobes which are of a more
delicate texture than the blade of the leaf.  These lobes are impor-
tant  points to observe in  examining a specimen.  The leaves  are
very clammy and fetid, having an odor very similar to that of the
black currant; these are  the true  medicinal leaves, and they should
be gathered as soon as  the floAvers are blown.  It is found in Europe,
Asia and  North America; on road-sides, amidst rubbish, and on
hill-slopes Avhere  the rubbish collects.  We prepare  a dark-green
tincture from  the whole  plant, or a brownish-red  tincture from  the
seeds alone.
  Goats and swine eat this herb with impunity : horses bear large
doses of it.
  This  is a most  important drug in the treatment of various inter-
esting maladies.  A few cases of poisoning will make }rou acquainted
with the  manner  in  which this drug affects the human  system
generally.
  Boerhaave tells us that he experienced a sensation  of trembling
and drunkenness whilst preparing a plaster of henbane.
  Wepfer relates that several monks feasted on the roots of  the
Avild endive, among Avhich were mixed by mistake two roots of hen-
bane.   In a few hours  some experienced vertigo, others  a burning
of the tongue, lips and  throat; severe pains Avere  also felt in the
iliac region and in all the joints.   The intellectual faculties and the
organs  of vision  were perverted, and they gave  themselves up to
ludicrous and crazy actions.
  From this case we infer that Hyoscyamus affects powerfully  the
brain, and through the brain the nervous system generally. You
will observe that it caused
  1. Vertigo;
  2. Burning of the tongue, lips and throat;
  3. Severe pains in the  iliac region and in all the joints;
  4. Perversion of the intellectual faculties and organ of vision,
they committed crazy and ludicrous actions.
  Most of these  symptoms  show that  Hyoscyamus must be an
excellent remedy in some cerebral diseases, more particularly typhus
cerebralis, meningitis, and  some forms of insanity.
  Two symptoms among this series are of importance as therapeutic
indications.  The  severe pains in the joints  may foreshadow an
approaching inflammation of the brain.  It is well known that men-
ingitis is often preceded for a day or more by rheumatic pains of the
joints and muscles.  The  perversion  of the intellect and sense of
vision indicates Hyoscyamus as a remedy for craziness. 
510
LECTURE XXXIII.
   Two soldiers of the French army before  Cadiz ate the young
 shoots  of the plant dressed in olive-oil.  They presently became
 giddy and stupid, the ground seemed to  give  way under their feet,
 they lost their speech, and had a dull, haggard look.  The pupils
 were excessively dilated, and the eyes so insensible that the eyelids
 did not Avink when the cornea was touched; the pulse was small and
 intermitting;  breathing difficult, jaws locked, and  the mouth dis-
 torted by risis sarclonicus.  Sensibility was extinct, the limbs  were
 cold and the lower extremities palsied, the  arms convulsed, and
 there was that singular union of delirium and  coma usually termed
 typhomania.  One of them was exceedingly delirious, and attempted
 to escape.
   Here we have an important series of symptoms:
   1. Giddiness and stupefaction;
   2. Sensation as if the ground were giving way under their feet;
   3. Loss of speech ;
   4. Dull and haggard expression of the countenance ;
   5. Excessive dilatation of the pupils, and insensibility of the eyes;
   6. Small and intermittent pulse ;
   7. Difficulty of  breathing;
   8. Lockjaw and risus sardonicus ;
   9. Loss of sensibility;
   10. Coldness of the limbs, paralysis of the  lower extremities,
 convulsion of the  arms;
   11. Typhomania or an union of delirium and coma.
   12. Attempts to escape.
   Both were saved by means of an emetic of  stibium,  drastic  pur-
 gatives and frictions with vinegar.
   These symptoms point most signally to various cerebral affections,
 more particularly to
   Meningitis, even in the stage of coma—(the fifth symptom indi-
 cates this affection).
   Typhus of the brain, as indicated by the typhomania, the  appear-
 ance of the countenance, and the desire to  escape which is eminently
 characteristic of Hyoscyamus; and
 _ Hysteria cerebralis, or hysteric Convulsions, as  manifested by the
 risus sardonicus and the lockjaw.

  Dr. Patouillat, of Toucy, in France, saw nine  persons who were
 poisoned by this root; some were speechless and convulsed, others
 occasionally howled; in all there was protrusion of the eyes,  con-
 tortion of the mouth like risus sardonicus, and  delirium.
  This case  shows that  Hyoscyamus  affects the brain, and that it
 may be of great use in Mania and Rage.

  It is related in the London Lancet that a tailor, under the influence
of this plant, could not thread his needle; his needle seemed  to have
three points.  This shows the disturbing action of Hyoscyamus upon
the organ of vision.

  Kahleis reports the case of a young girl in whom the  seeds of 
HYOSCYAMUS NIGER.
511
Hyoscyamus caused distortion of the mouth (risis sardonicus), con-
stipation,  desire to vomit, afterwards convulsive movements like
chorea, loss  of sight and  hearing, dilatation of the pupils, and  an
exceedingly small pulse.   In this case the effect of Hyoscyamus
upon the special senses is to be noticed: loss of vision and hearing.

  According to Vicat, a man and his wife ate the  root, and were
attacked with difficulty of swallowing, inflammation of the brain and
stupefaction.  In meningitis where  Hyoscyamus is indicated,  the
patient is  generally more or less stupid, and at times shows symp-
toms of furious delirium.
  From three injections of Hyoscyamus, Berignon  observed apo-
plectic symptoms, loss of sight, brown color and bloating of the
face, vertigo and delirium.

  Rueff states a case  where a man, who used the vapors of Hyos-
cyamus for toothache, was attacked with complete impotence.
  Gmelin reports a case of  a little  girl who took one scruple of a
decoction of the seeds; she was attacked  with  epilepsy, rolling of
the  eyes,  foam  at the  mouth, grating  of the  teeth, stupor and
insensibility.
  In Frank's Magazine a  case is reported, where a woman, from
eating the root of Hyoscyamus in the place of parsnip, was attacked
with gradually increasing  stupefaction, vibrations before the eyes,
sparkling of the eyes, diplopia, dilatation of the pupils, obscuration
of sight,  vertigo,  dryness  in  the mouth,  trembling of the limbs,
staggering gait,  small, scarcely perceptible, frequently intermitting
and moderately slow pulse.
  In this case we observe particularly the effect of Hyoscyamus
upon the eyes, the luminous vibrations, the sparkling of the eye-
balls, the diplopia and the obscuration of sight.

  A little girl of four  years  who had eaten  some of the seeds of
Hyoscyamus, was attacked with the folloAving symptoms:
  Small, white vesicles on the lips;
  Bright  redness of the face and of the conjunctiva;
  Excessive dilatation of the pupils so that only a very narrow
border of the iris remained visible ;
  Perfect insensibility of the pupil, even when exposed  to  the
brightest  light;
  Slimy coating on the back part of the tongue;
  Small pulse, but tumultuous and irregular beating of the heart;
  Complete loss of sense;
  Frequent  moaning and  catching at something with the  fingers
spread out;
  Frightful grating of the teeth;
  Continual unintelligible muttering.
  An emetic, vinegar and water internally, and cold  affusions to  the
head saved  the child's life.
  AVe cannot fail to notice in this case the wonderful power possessed
by  Hyoscyamus, of producing amaurosis.  From the accompanying 
512
LECTURE XXX III.
symptoms we infer that  the amaurosis occasioned by Hyoscyamus,
is  not  an idiopathic disease of the optic nerve and retina, but a
symptom or sequela of some more general cerebral disorder, such as
typhus or inflammation.  The grating of the teeth and the comatose
condition  of the  child,  would justify  the use of Hyoscyamus in
encephalitis with effusion into the ventricles.

   In a case of poisoning reported in the Journal de Medecine, the
symptoms were those of furious delirium tremens and typhus.  The
patient had swallowed three ounces of the seeds of Hyoscyamus as a
remedy for pains in the rectum.   His face became bluish ;  the  eyes
looked red, wild, sparkling; the veins of the neck, extremities  and
more particularly those  of the face were very much distended; the
whole  body was  convulsed ; frequent subsultus tendinum, and a
furious delirium,  so that he  became uncontrollable.  During the
periods of  remission, he was engaged in catching at flocks in the
air, or  at pulling at the bed-clothes; he uttered but few inarticulate
sounds.  When he became quiet, he seemed very much exhausted
and snored deeply, until the convulsions recommenced.  His pulse
was small,  quick,  contracted and intermittent, and easily compressi-
ble ; hypogastric region  distended and sensitive;  scanty secretion of
urine.   The patient was tormented by itching which obliged him to
scratch himself until bleeding ; he manifested an irresistible aversion
to every kind of beverage.
   These -symptoms may represent a group of  typhus cerebralis and
likewise of meningitis.
   In several other cases of poisoning, where  the  patients were
children, one talked and laughed most merrily, a peculiar sort of
delirium; others  resisted by scratching, pinching and  biting if an
attempt was made to  control them, or  to take things out of their
hands; the eyes  were  glistening, unsteady, rolling about in their
sockets.  We therefore find Hyoscyamus indicated  in
   Rage and merry Craziness.

   These few cases of poisoning and Orfila's experiments upon ani-
mals show:
   1. That  Hjroscyamus is a powerful poison  capable of intensely
disturbing the action of the brain, of the cerebral, spinal  and  gan-
glionic nerves ;
   2. That the plant acts with more  intensity in the fall, when fully
matured, than at any previous period;
   3. That  the root is more efficacious than the leaves, and
   4. That the seeds are more efficacious than either.
   The  active  principle of this  drug is its alkaloid Hyoscyamine
which affects the organism either by its direct action upon the brain
or through the blood.   Orfila's experiments upon animals  have led
him to conclude  that the poison  acts most poAverfully when intro-
duced into the circulation.

   Upon examining the  action of Hyoscyamus upon the brain, you
will discover a very great analogy between the effects of Hyoscyamus 
HYOSCYAMUS NIGER.
513
 and those of Belladonna.  Both these agents induce a similar kind
 of delirium, marked symptoms of congestion, derange the intellec-
 tual faculties and the  special senses in a similar manner, and may
 therefore be indicated  in the same range of cerebral diseases, more
 especially in phrenitis, typhus, apoplexy,  convulsions.  Neverthe-
 less there is a marked  difference between the action of Belladonna
 and that of Hyoscyamus in this, that Belladonna acts upon that prin-
 ciple in the  brain which presides over the phenomena of the arterial,
 and Hyoscyamus over that principle in the brain Avhich presides
 over the phenomena of the venous system.  Hyoscyamus cannot
 possibly be  indicated in the uncomplicated scarlet-fever of Syden-
 ham, because it is incapable of inducing a congestion of the arterial
 capillaries such as Ave knoAV exists in scarlet-fever.  Keeping this
 leading difference in view  that the  phenomena of congestion which
 characterize the action of Hyoscyamus, refer more to the venous,
 and the phenomena of congestion which characterize the action of
 Belladonna, refer more to the arterial system, Ave shall be prepared
 to discriminate in practical cases between the requisite therapeutic
 properties of these two drugs.
   Hahnemann has furnished us more interesting provings of Hyos-
 cyamus, which we will subject to a closer examination in connection
 with the toxicological  symptoms of the drug.

                     CEPHALIC  GROUP.

   The action of Hyoscyamus upon the brain is most remarkable,
 and shows that this drug must be one of our chief remedial agents
 in diseases of this organ.  Among the symptoms which characterize
 the action of Hyoscyamus upon the brain, we may distinguish the
 following:
  Vertigo (of a fortnight's standing);
  Vertigo with obscuration of sight;
  Vertigo as if intoxicated ;
  Loss  of sensibility; he may be pinched without  his taking the
 least notice  of it;
  Stupefaction ;
  Loss of sense;
  Heaviness of the head, and violent headache;
  Stupefying headache, sometimes with stinging and tearing pains;
  Headache, with unnatural heat in the head ;
  Undulating sensation in the head, like a violent beating of the
 arteries; with pressure in the forehead.
  These are  the peculiar pains which  Hyoscyamus excites in the
 head ; they alone would not be sufficiently characteristic indications
to recommend Hyoscyamus as a remedy of great power or compre-
hensive range. But these are not the only indications of the  manner
in Avhich Hyoscyamus affects the brain.   Its action upon the brain
as manifested  by its action upon the special senses, shoAvs that the
therapeutic virtues of this drug in various  cerebral diseases are of
the highest  order.  Look,  for instance, at the manner in Avhich it
                              33 
511
LECTURE XXXIII.
affects the sense of vision.  Among those who have poisoned them-
selves with Hyoscyamus, some have been attacked Avith
  Temporary amaurosis; others  Avith
  Jdimness or obscurity of sight; others with
  Illusions of sight;  things  looked red as fire, or had a golden-
    yellow appearance;
  Things that were very small looked as if they Avere large, for in-
    stance a lark seemed a goose; a blade of grass looked like a beam,
    a drop like a lake ;  when reading, the letters seemed to move
    about, and looked as if ants had been craAvling about;
  One imagined that the needle  had three points, he was unable to
    thread it;
  Another fancied that pictures on the wall were hanging crooked,
    and would fall;
  Sparkling and red eyes.
  And now look at the manner in which Hyoscyamus affects the
sensorium, the intellectual faculties and the  nervous  system gene-
rally ; it causes:
  Stupor;
  Constant desire to sleep ; .
  Excessive prostration;
  Delirium of various kinds, loquacious, furious, muttering  inco-
    herent, full of improper  words, insulting, profane ;
  Silly demeanor;
  Grasping at flocks;
  Picking at the bed-clothes ;
  Constant desire to escape.
  Taking all these symptoms together, you will find that they make
up  several groups corresponding with Phrenitis, Typhus  Cerebralis
and Delirium Tremens.

  In order to complete these  groups, it will  be necessary to add to
the morbid phenomena here described, the symptoms  expressive of
the appearance of the countenance, the marked changes Avhich Hyos-
cyamus  occasions in the sphere of the special senses, particularly
hearing and sight, in  the ganglionic system  of nerves, and in the
sensorial range ; these morbid phenomena, more especially the deli-
rium, constitute  essential elements of a group of symptoms  repre-
senting phrenitis or  typhus  cerebralis.  We  shall describe  these
particular  phenomena in their  order, and, in  the  meanwhile, will
here premise an  outline of the characteristic pathognomonic  signs
of phrenitis, in order to  enable us  to make good our assertion that
Hyoscyamus is  in eminently homoeopathic rapport with this most
violent snd dangerous disease.
  Phrenitis, according to Schcenlein, is distinguished by violent con-
gestions of the head, throbbing of the carotids, red and bloated face,
injected appearance  of the eyeballs, furious delirium, which often
manifests itself in the form of violent cries accompanied by resistance
to  the  least  opposition.  Optical  phantasms, hardness of hearing,
trouble the patient.   In some cases, the sensitiveness of the pupil to
 ight may be so  greatly increased, that it will contract to the smallest 
HYOSCYAMUS NIGER.
515
dimensions.  The pulse  is full, hard and tense ; skin hot and dry ;
the bowels are bound, the urine is red and scanty.   If the patient is
conscious, he complains of thirst.

  In Typhus Cerebralis, where Hyoscyamus is indicated, we may have
violent  pains in  the head, apparently of a rheumatic nature, with
symptoms  of congestion;  very soon the features convey an expres-
sion of  deep suffering; the face looks haggard, the tongue becomes
dry, with a brown, glazed coating, the taste is altered, foul,'the teeth
become covered  with  sordes, delirium sets in, of a muttering or
furious  kind, the patient  is  troubled with optical illusions,  sees
double,  thinks  that objects will fall  over,  indulges in coarse and
obscene language, etc.

  In Delirium Tremens, Hyoscyamus is seldom  indicated, except
perhaps in the case of old, worn-out topers, where  the delirium is of
a muttering kind, the pulse small, quick, compressible, the skin cold
and clammy; or it may possibly be of use in this disease, if persons
of an irritable temperament become furious under the exciting effects
of liquor, with  glistening eyes, bloated face, and a full, hard, rapid
pulse.   Here Hyoscyamus may compete with Belladonna and Opium,
though  this last-named agent will be found a most admirable counter-
poison under these circumstances.

   AVe should not forget that
   Apoplexy may be successfully treated with  Hyoscyamus, if the
symptoms of the paroxysm correspond with those of the drug.   We
have seen that Hyoscyamus causes a bluish  and bloated appearance
of the face, violent cerebral pains and congestions, redness, protru-
sion and sparkling of the eyeballs, excessive dilatation and  insensi-
bility of the pupils, stertorous breathing, stupor and coma, small,
rapid and intermitting pulse, with tumultuous beating of the heart,
or else full, hard, somewhat accelerated pulse;  the  extremities may
feel numb, and  even insensible; or a prickling sensation may be felt
in them, and they may be covered with a clammy sweat.  These
symptoms may characterize an attack  of apoplexy, and will be fully
met by  Hyoscyamus.

  Let us now consider the symptoms belonging  more properly to the

                     NERVOUS GROUP.

   We may range them under three leading sub-divisions, Adz.:

                           a. Pains.
  Such  as: pains in the joints; rheumatic pains, also in the extrem-
ities and loins;  numbness of the extremities.
  These pains may exist in the preliminary stages of phrenitis and
tvphus  of  the  brain,  Avhen these  diseases  originate in  rheumatic
exposure.   And they may also exist  as  rheumatic affections, inde-
pendently  of cerebral disease.  In Old-School  practice, local rheu- 
I
516                    LECTURE XXXIII.

matic pains have been frequently treated with Hyoscyamus poultices,
which seem to have afforded relief in more than one case; though 1
am disposed to look upon the relief afforded by Hyoscyamus in
rheumatic  affections as a palliation of the  pain, rather than  as  a
radical cure.

                   b. Weakness and Paralysis.

■  Viz.: fainting, weariness; the lower extremities are so weak  that
he is  unable to  support  himself; prostration and trembling of the
whole body;  hemiplegia.
  These symptoms have no value except  in  so far as they charac-
terize affections of the brain, where Hyoscyamus is  indicated as  the
particular remedy.
  Hemiplegia may set in during the course of cerebral typhus, or it
may remain as a consequence of some acute cerebral disorder.  Hyos-
cyamus may benefit this condition of things, especially if the hemi-
plegia has been entailed upon the patient by severe antiphlogistic
treatment, and Hyoscyamus was required by the original malady.

                   c. Spasms and Convulsions.

  Which we may distinguish into :
  a. Simple Spasmodic affections, such as:
  Chorea,
  Subsultus tendinum,
  Spasms, with watery diarrhoea and enuresis,
  Spasm of the neck which was twisted to one side.
  b. Epileptic Convulsions, in one instance caused by fomentations of
Hyoscyamus to the head; the patient fell doAvn suddenly, convulsed,
uttering a cry, with the thumbs clenched and  froth at the mouth.
  c. Hysteric  Convulsions, with risus sardonicus, frequent changes of
color in the face, congestions of the head;  in this disease Belladonna
competes with Hyoscyamus.
  d. General Tetanic Convulsions, viz.:
  Alternate convulsions of the upper and lower extremities.
  Convulsions  during which  the  patient  stamps  his feet  on  the
ground, first one foot and then the other.
  In one case the convulsions lasted five days.
  Convulsions with contraction of the extremities, and tossing of the
body upAvards.
  Many and probably most of these phenomena occur as manifes-
tations incidental to some deep-seated  cerebral  disease, phrenitis or
typhus.  The subsultus tendinum for instance, and  even the  tetanic
convulsions of  Hyoscyamus will, upon a  closer  examination, be
found to constitute prominent symptoms of a nervous disorder where
the functional harmony of the cerebro-spinal  axis is disturbed to its
very centre.
  Speaking of the convulsions that may indicate the use of Hyoscya-
mus,  we cannot  omit, in this place, the  mention of that frightful
class of convulsions to which parturient females are liable, we mean
  Puerperal  Convulsions  or Eclampsia.    Among the  medicines 
                       HYOSCYAMUS  NIGER.                   517

 which are required under these circumstances, Hyoscyamus holds a
 prominent rank.  The paroxysms set in suddenly, without  hardly
 any premonitory signs; the patients froth at the mouth, shake con-
 vulsively from head to foot, are tossed up in the air as it were, the
 extremities become rigid, this  rigidity is followed by frightful
 twitching of the tendons, the functional power of the senses seems
 almost extinct.  These are diseases which we treat far more success-
 fully than Old-School  physicians; but if  you hear homoeopathic
 physicians boast of curing all such cases, I advise you  to apply to
 the members  of our  profession  who  may  be disposed thus to
 exaggerate their exploits, the beautiful  precept which Louis XII.,
 the good  Saint  Louis of  France, had  laid down  for  himself in
 regard to erring sinners generally: "If I should catch an angel of
 the Lord doing  wrong, I should cOver him with my royal cloak
 and say: I have seen nothing,"—you may think what you please, but
 hear nothing.

   In Frank's Magazine, a case is  quoted from Bernhardi's Journal,
 where the curative virtues of Hoscyamusin hysteric convulsions are
 strikingly shown.  A young lady of twenty years, who had not mens-
 truated for some time, had  overheated  herself at  a ball, and was
 attacked with oppression of breathing, which gradually increased to
 a state of stupefaction.  Her face was much heated, cheeks gloAving,
 she Avas, without any consciousness, tossed  about, pulse  full, hard ;
 superficial and hurried  breathing.  She was treated by an  allceo-
 pathic physician with the usual antiphlogistic means.   Her menses
 returned and she seemed much better, when about four or five days
 after the return of the menses,  she  was  taken with convulsions.
 Some of these  paroxysms set in with a  general  tetantic spasm,
 rigidity of the extremities and bending backwards of the head, pro-
 trusion of the tongue, twitching  of the  auricular muscles, followed
 by alternate violent convulsions of single muscles and of the whole
 body; other paroxysms set in with sopor  and  subsultus tendinum,
 terminating in delirium.  Half a  grain of the extract of Hyoscya-
 mus, rubbed up  with sugar, was given morning and night;  under
 this treatment a complete cure was effected in one fortnight.
   The prescription emanated from an allceopathic physician, but is
 eminently a fact legitimately belonging to the domain of Homoeo-
 pathy.

                     ORBITAL  GROUP.

  Upon examining the symptoms  of this group, you will again find
that they do not  constitute idiopathic  affections, but that they are
incidental to some more general cerebral disease, phrenitis or typhus.
  We may range the eye-symptoms of Hyoscyamus  under various
heads:

                       a.  Inflammation.
Red and inflamed eyes ; 
518
LECTURE XXXIII.
                            b. Spasm.

   Distorted eyes; convulsive rolling of the eyeballs;
   Blepharospasmus, with inability to open the lids.

                     c.  Altered visual power.

   Obscuration of  sight, even complete  amaurosis ; staring eyes ;
 sparkling eyes; excessive dilatation of the  pupil, with presbyopia
 or complete insensibility to light or contact.
   In one case the presbyopia with dilatation of the pupils  existed
 as a chronic affection.

                      d. Optical phantasms.
   Viz:
   Nine persons  saw objects as if scarlet-red; others:  red as fire;
 others: yellow as gold,
   A lark seemed like a goose, a blade of grass seemed  like a beam,
 a drop of water like a lake;  print seemed very large;
   A needle had three points; hanging pictures seemed to fall.

   Amaurosis, to which Hyoscyamus is homoeopathic, is most prob-
 ably a sequela of phrenitis or typhus cerebralis.  Such sequelae are
 very apt to remain under the antagonistic or antiphlogistic treatment
 of the Old School.
   Amaurosis induced  by sunstroke or by  apoplexy, may require
 Hyoscyamus, if the original disease indicated this drug.
   The symptoms  expressing the various optical illusions excited by
 the action of Hyoscyamus upon the brain  and retina, denote pecu-
 liar forms of craziness, and may likeAvise characterize typhus of the
 brain.
   Redness of the eyeballs is characteristic of phrenitis and apoplexy.
   Chromatopsia or seeing colors, is a morbid  condition of  the retina
 that may require  Hyoscyamus.

                      FACIAL  GROUP.

   Here we have to note:
   Nosebleed (from large  doses);
   Red and bloated, bluish face ;
   Distorted clay-colored face, with gaping mouth;
   Brown-red and  bloated face.
   The nosebleed may occur as a critical symptom in violent cere-
bral congestions, such as exist in typhus, phrenitis, apoplexy.
   The brown-red, bluish and bloated face points to apoplexy ;  the
clay-colored and haggard face to typhus in the second or third stage,
or to delirium tremens of old, cachectic topers.

         BUCCAL AND PHARYNGEAL GROUPS.

   In this direction the symptoms again point to  some one of  the
above-mentioned disorders.  We have the following symptoms :
   Clean and parched tongue; 
HYOSCYAMUS NIGER.
519
   Burning dryness of the tongue and lips which look  like scorched
 leather;
   Numbness of the tongue ;
   Dumb, impeded speech, with loss of sense;
   Stinging dryness of the fauces, with spasmodic contraction, as if a
 drop of tea would choke him ;
   Convulsions after drinking;
   Foul-smelling breath.
   This peculiar change in the appearance and  sensibility of the
 tongue may occur in typhus.  In this disease the tongue may look
 and. feel like scorched leather, and it may be  paralyzed so that the
 patient is only able to utter inarticulate sounds.
   The dryness and spasmodic contraction of the throat when swal-
 lowing liquids, with aversion to liquids, may indicate Hyosycamus in
   Hydrophobia, where it competes with Belladonna, though the latter
 drug is undoubtedly possessed  of curative powers in this disease
 superior to the former.

                   CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

   Hyoscyamus has been proved by several  members of the Imperial
 Provers' Union  of Vienna in doses of from  one-fourth of a grain to
 five grains and a quarter.  One prover took in all fifty-seven grains
 and three-quarters.
   The symptoms developed by these comparatively small doses of
 Hyoscyamus were analogous to the symptoms caused  by poisonous
 doses, except inferior to  those  in intensity.   Among the gastric
 disturbances occasioned by these small doses, we  distinguish more
 particularly the  following phenomena :
   Nausea with loathing;
   Nauseous taste;
   Yellow coating of the tongue ;
   Sour erucations.
   Another prover who  took in  all eighty-seven grains and three-
 quarters, developed the  following symptoms of gastric derangement:.
   White coating on the tongue ;
   Furred tongue;
   Insipid taste, with aversion to food and fetid odor from the mouth ;
   Empty eructations;
   Oppression after eating;
   Foul taste;
   The teeth and the whole inner cavity of the  mouth are lined with
a yellow viscid phlegm.
   Hahnemann has  likewise recorded some interesting symptoms
obtained both from  small and  large  doses of  hyoscyamus.  The
principal of these symptoms are :
   Bitter taste;
   AVatery vomiting, Avith vertigo ;
   Hiccough, with spasms and rumbling in the  boAvels;
   Hiccough, two midnights in succession, Avith involuntary mictu-
rition and froth at the mouth ; 
520
LECTURE XXXIII.
  Burning pain in the stomach, amounting to inflammation ;
  Colic, as if his abdomen would burst;
  Tympanitic distention of the abdomen, painful to the touch;
  Rumbling with violent diarrhoea ;
  Watery, slimy diarrhoea, more or less involuntary.

  These symptoms are important as  indications for Hyoscamus in
several severe diseases.  It  is very doubtful whether any of these
symptoms, Avhen developed as purely gastric disturbances, will be
reached by Hyosycamus.   But as conditions incidental to typhus or
hysteria, they may serve as confirmatory evidence that Hyoscyamus
is adapted to the case.
  The horrid taste which Hyoscyamus excites in the mouth, and the
fetid odor, are very apt to occur in Typhus.
  The sordes on the teeth is  another symptom  developing itself in
Typhus.
  Hysteria may sometimes develop some of the other symptoms of
gastric  derangement, more  particularly  the Spasmodic Singultus,
with eructations, or attended with burning pain in the stomach.

  A case of spasmodic eructations is mentioned in Frank's Magazine,
which were  speedily arrested in  Hyoscyamus.  The patient was a
girl of fourteen years who had not yet menstruated.  The air was
expelled from the stomach with a violent spasmodic  movement of
the pharynx, causing a loud, ringing, very deep sound;  this spasm
Avas followed by several feebler eructations.  The paroxysms lasted
two  minutes and returned every fifteen minutes.   The  eructations
Avere so painful that the patient cried when she first  perceived their
approach.  A variety of  means were tried to remove the difficulty,
but in vain.  The extract of Hyoscyamus administered in small, but
increasing doses, arrested the difficulty permanently in a feAV days.

  Tympanitic distention  of the abdomen, with  pain when touched,
is  another symptom  of hysteria Avhich will undoubtedly yield to
Hyoscyamus, when presenting itself as an element of such a group.

  Whether Diarrhea will yield to  Hyoscyamus, except when occur-
ring as a symptom of hysteria, or typhus (in the last-mentioned affec-
tion the discharges  are  generally involuntary), is  questionable.
Among hysteric females, and  especially young girls whose bowels
are apt  to bloat, and who are subject to attacks of diarrhoea with
colicky pains, and frequent urging to stool,  or where the sphincters
are weak, causing great difficulty in retaining the faeces; and where
the least excitement, the  least mental trouble, provokes  the attack,
Hyoscyamus may prove of great value.  Under these circumstances
it  may be well  to use the  alkaloid Hyoscyamine, which dissolves
very readily in water, in the proportion of one-fiftieth or one-hun-
dredth of a grain to four ounces of water.
  Small doses of Hyoscyamus may cause urging to stool, with  cos-
tiveness and distention of the bowels.  In hysteria this condition may
occur.  AVe therefore recommend Hyoscyamus for 
HYOSCYAMUS NIGER.                  521
  Cositiveness with urging in the case of hysteric females.
  Pam lysis of the Sphincters, more particularly among patients who
are liable to functional nervous disorders of the character of hysteria,
may yield to Hyoscyamus.  If resulting from mismanaged dysentery,
as a consequence of tlio  antagonistic  treatment, our best remedy is
Aconite.

                     URINARY GROUP.

  Hyoscyamus causes frequent urging to urinate with  inability to
expel the urine.  This is the primary effect of the drug.  During
the stage of organic reaction, the urine may  flow very copiously.
  Either of these conditions is symptomatic of other more general
affections, hysteria or typhus.  In hysteria there may be profuse
enuresis, or constant urging with scanty secretion;  in  typhus the
urinary secretion may be entirely  suppressed.

                      SEXUAL GROUP.

  Hyoscyamus affects the  sexual  sphere very powerfully.   In one
case, the emanations from the leaves of the plant caused
  Impotence, continuing for two months.
  Hyoscyamus causes profuse menstruation, accompanied or pre-
ceded by a variety of nervous affections.
  In one case, for instance, the appearance of the menses Avas preceded
by immoderate laughter.
  In another case the  appearance  of  the menses was accompanied
by profuse prespiration,  nausea and enuresis.
  In another case again, the menstrual flow was accompanied by
violent convulsive trembling of the hands and feet as if from rage.
  In one case, the flow Avas accompanied by delirium.
  These various abnormal phenomena show that Hyoscyamus must
be a most important agent in cases of
  Metrorrhagia  and Menorrhagia  Avhen  accompanied by abnormal
conditions  such as Ave have  alluded  to.   You will find this great
agent  particularly useful in  the  case of  hysteric females whose
menstrual functions are marked by such irregularities.
  Small doses of Hyoscyamus excite  the sexual instinct both in the
male and female.   This symptom,  in connection Avith the numerous
abnormal nervous phenomena Avhich may shoAV themselves during
the  menstrual period, point  to Hyoscyamus as an useful agent in
some of the most terrible disorders that females may be subject to.
  One  of these disorders is
  Nymphomania, to the different  stages of which Hyoscyamus is
adapted.  Hahnemann has left us the description of an interesting
case of nymphomania where Hyoscyamus was employed as the chief
curative agent.  A girl of fourteen years had  been  sleeping in  the
sun, in consequence of which she  was attacked with the following
symptoms: lour days after sleeping  in  the sun the frightful idea
took possession of her that she saw a wolf,  and  six days thereafter
she felt as if she had received a blow on the head.  She now spoke 
522
LECTURE XXXIII.
irrationally, became as if mad, wept much, experienced paroxysms
of difficulty in breathing, spat white mucus,  Avas unable to explain
any of her troubles.  The eyes were very much injected.
  A feAV day later, the first symptoms of nymphomania showed
themselves.  She wanted to kiss persons, and gradually became very
lascivious in her actions and words, endeavoring to expose her per-
son and to commit improprieties with those near her.  Her skin and
sexual organs itched very much.
  She was speedily cured by Hyoscyamus 30, and lastly one dose
of Sulphur.

  Another dreadful disease of the sexual sphere of the female is
  Pxerperal Mania; here, too,  Hyoscyamus  is one of our  main
remedies.
  A case of this disease is  reported  in Frank's Magazine,  where
Hyoscyamus  evinced great  curative  powers.  A lady of sanguin-
choleric temperament, aged thirty years, had  been confined without
any  untoward accident.  Shortly after her  confinement, she took
cold, one of her breast became inflamed, and the flow of milk and
the lochial discharge were  very much diminished.  Her medical
attendant found her with the following symptoms: Breathing short,
pulse feeble and contracted, one hundred and twenty; tongue sorne-
Avhat coated, urine dark yellow, stool regular, great heat; no appe-
tite or  sweat; head  red and bloated; eyes unsteady, conjunctiva
injected, the right breast very much inflamed, red and hard.  Sud-
denly she would jump  out of her bed, crying: " I cannot sleep, I
shall die any hoAV."  She knew every body present, but Avas enraged,
attempted to bite, uttered  the most piercing cries, and  manifested
superhuman strength so that it took seven persons to hold her.
  She took the  extract of Hyoscyamus in one-grain doses every
hour;  the paroxysms yielded in a short period, and at the end of
twelve days the  patient was again able to attend to her domestic
duties.

  In Puerperal Typhus or Puerperal Peritonitis, Hyoscyamus is one
of our most trustworthy remedies in certain forms of this disease.
In the purely erethic and inflammatory form, Hyoscyamus  is not
indicated.  In this form, where  the sensorium is not yet  disturbed
the lochial discharge and  the secretion of  milk still  continue, and
the fever either  shows the erethic or inflammatory type, Avith dis-
tinct remissions towards morning, Aconite and Belladonna  may be
required.
  Bryonia is adapted to the erysipelatous or gastric-bilious form of
this dreadful disease, when the abdomen is distended but soft, and
not uniformly painful; the pains are  of a colicky nature, not con-
tinual, but characterized by distinct remissions and even intermis-
sions ;  symptoms of erysipelatous inflammation show themselves on
the mammae and sometimes  on the  lower  extremities;  the patient
complains of a violent aching in the frontal  region, the tongue exhib-
its a  dirty-gray,  yellowish coating;  bitter  taste in the mouth, eruc-
tations, inclination to vomit and  even  vomiting;  in some cases the 
HYOSCYAMUS NIGER.
523
bowels become loose, and the patient has from three to four diarrhoeic
bilious evacuations; the urine is strongly ammoniacal  and turbid,
gradually depositing a brick-dust sediment. Pulse quick and  soft,
full, undulating, from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and
forty beats.
  In this form, Rhus tox. may compete with Bryonia.
  We have been thus explicit in indicating the relation  of  Aconite,
Belladonna, Bryonia and Rhus tox. to puerperal peritonitis, for the
purpose of cautioning you  against the  mistaken notion  of  associat-
ing Hyoscyamus with this disease as its inevitable specific under all
circumstances.  Hyoscyamus is homoeopathically indicated in puer-
peral peritonitis, when the disease has assumed the form of
  Puerperal Typhus, in  the strict sense of the term.  Typhus may
either have developed itself out of the erysipelatous form, or it may
at once set in as  an idiopathic primary affection.   In this  disease,
Hyoscyamus  is indicated by the  symptoms which it  is capable of
exciting in the healthy,  viz.: tympanitic distention of  the abdomen,
stupor, muttering delirium, burning heat of the skin which  is either
dry and cracks (usually  with petechiae), or else covered with profuse
watery sweat  smelling  like mouldy straw (generally  with white
miliaria, a vesicular eruption, filled with a watery, albuminous fluid);
pulse  small,  weak, filiform, increasing  in frequency;  the  tongue
exhibits a broAvnish coating, and is dry;  diarrhoeic stools haA'ing a
cadaverous smell, and finally coming off involuntarily.
  At this stage Arsenic becomes an inevitable adjunct of Hyoscyamus.

                   RESPIRATORY GROUP.

  Hyoscyamus, and more   particularly the akaloid Hyoscyamine,
causes  dryness of  the  fauces and air-passages; a dry, spasmodic
cough, without cessation and Avorse at night;  oppression of breathing.
We may therefore find Hyoscyamus useful in
  Whooping-cough, with spasmodic paroxysms  which are  particu-
larly violent at night, and accompanied with great distress for breath,
as if the patient would suffocate, with blueness of the face and pro-
trusion of the eyeballs.

                EXANTHEMATOUS GROUP.

  Hyoscyamus has caused
  Groups  of large pustules from above the hips down  to the  knees,
like confluent small-pox, desquamation taking place in four  days;
  BroAvn spots on the whole body, going and coming;
  Herpetic spots on the  nape of the neck;
  Obstinate anasarca.
  These appearances are in a measure indicative of a critical  termi-
nation of some pathological process going  on in the interior  of the
organism.
  I have knoAvn a case of menstrual suppression in a sensitive  and
nervous girl,  where these spots seemed to  come and go as vicarious
developments of the menstrual process. 
524
LECTURE XXXIII.
                      MENTAL  GROUP.

   The mental derangements caused by Hyoscyamus, may be  con-
 sidered under various heads;

                         a.  Craziness.

 Where we have
   Loss of recollection; he does not know his own family;
   He sits immovable like a statue;
   Excessive loquacity;
   Singing obscene songs;
   Shyness;
   He prepares for a wedding;
   He feels of his head, face, nose;
   He acts as if he were cracking nuts;
   He acts as if he were chasing foAvl;
   He puts on a priestly gown and wants to preach;
   He puts his arms around the stove, and wants to climb  up to the
 top;
   They cried out that things would fall, and grasped at them;
   Running against every thing, with open, wild, staring eyes.

                           b. Rage.
   Indomitable rage, he wants to stab people;
   Dread of being bitten by animals;
   Horrible anxiety;
   Fie wants to kill himself in despair;
   Many of these symptoms may occur in  typhus, more particularly
 the shyness, loquacity, and the singing of  obscene songs.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

   Hyoscyamus is one of the most powerful agents in
   Typhus Cerebralis, or in any form of typhus, where the cerebral symp-
 toms pointedly and unmistakeably indicate this drug.   These symp-
 toms have been abundantly indicated in previous paragraphs.  It may
 be homoeopathic to any stage of typhus, but more particularly to the
 congestive stage, with strong symptoms of cerebral engorgement, hot
 skin, full, hard, quick pulse.  In the paralytic stage, it may be neces-
 sary to resort to the mineral acids  first, before Hyoscyamus can be
 employed with advantage.   This, however, must not be considered
 as a binding rule.  The reader  may consult my remarks on Typhus
in the Fever-Group of Belladonna.

                           SLEEP.

  Hyoscyamus deranges this  condition of the organism very deeply.
It causes
  Sopor and stupor;
  Sleeplessness;
  Stertorous snoring during sleep; 
IGNATIA AMARA.
525
  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 females, and may
require Hyoscyamus.
  In regard to the
  Dose, I may observe that Hyoscyamus  has been given with advan-
tage from the tincture up to the 30th potency; even much higher
potencies have been used.
  In a case of poisoning, we first give an emetic for the purpose of
evacuating the poison.   Afterwards we overcome the narcotic effects
by resorting to cold affusions, and  occasional  sponging with warm
water; strong black coffee is likewise an excellent antidote.
              LECTURE  XXXIV.

                     IGNATIA. AMARA.

          (St. Ignatius' bean)—Nat. Order:—ApocYNEiE.

  The beautiful tree, from which this bean is obtained, grows on the
Philippine Islands in the East Indies ;  it has large, ovate leaves;  its
flowers are long, drooping, white.  The fruit is of the size and shape
of a middling pear; the seeds, of which there are about twenty in the
fruit, are an inch long,  bitter; they are horny, of a blackish gray
outside, and whitish internally; we cut them in thin slices, dry them
by a moderate heat, pulverize them, and make a pale, straw-colored
tincture, which is very bitter.  In the  cold the tincture precipitates
crystals which dissolve again in warmth.
  This drug was first  introduced in European medicine by Camilli,
a Jesuit, in the year 1699, and in honor of the founder of  his order,
the bean has been named St. Ignatius' bean.   It is supposed by some
authorities that this bean  was known long before this period, and
that it is probably the substance which, in the Latin translation of the
Arabian Serapion, is denominated Nux vomica.  The active principle
of this bean is Strychnine, the same alkaloid which we find in Nux
vomica.  Hence these  two drugs act similarly, although the action of
each is characterized by peculiar symptoms.
  Orfila's  experiments upon animals with this drug, show that  its
primary action is upon the medulla oblongata,  and  that it destroys
life by producing tetanic convulsions.  Half an ounce of the powder
of Ignatia was given to a dog.  In about five minutes he commenced
to pant; fifteen minutes afterwards, symptoms of  convulsions  ap-
peared; and  in about half an  hour he fell down  in an attack of
tetanus, the intellectual faculties being unimpaired. The animal died 
526
LECTURE XXXIV.
asphyxiated in about  twenty minutes after the tetanic  symptoms
came on.
  In another experiment six grains sufficed to kill a large-sized dog.
  According to Orfila's statement, the extract of Ignatia injected into
the veins, or applied externally, acts in the same manner as the Upas
or the Nux vomica.
  In the 21st volume of the Philosophical Transactions, Camilli (the
Jesuit who first described the fruit to European  physicians), relates
the following case of poisoning by Ignatia.  A man suffering from
dyspepsia, being attacked with vomiting and diarrhoea, took a scruple
of the poAvder of Ignatia.  He was soon seized with excessive irrita-
tion  and severe convulsive movements;  his jaws Avere closed;  the
muscles of the face were drawn in different directions, as  if he had
been convulsed with laughter.
  In this case the effects of Ignatia were lockjaw and risus sardonicus.

  In Hahnemann's  Lesser Writings another  case  of  poisoning is
described:  A youth of twenty years took an over-dose of Ignatia.
He was attacked with paralytic rigidity and involuntary twitchings
of the  lower limbs, great  anxiety, coldness' of the whole body ;  the
pupils were  dilatable and the head free;  he was completely restored
by drinking eight ounces  of vinegar in the course of half an hour.
  A man, forty years old, took, after tertian fever, half a  bean  of
Ignatia  in brandy.  He had  numbness of  his extremities, violent,
general, convulsive cramps, with profuse  perspiration.

  Professor Jcerg of the University of Leipsic in Saxony, has made
some interesting experiments  with Ignatia.  Twelve  of his pupils
assisted him in his task.  One ounce of the powder was macerated
in eight ounces of alcohol.  From 10 to  80 and  even 200 drops of
this tincture were taken at one dose.
  Experiments with the pulverized substance of  the bean were
likewise instituted by  these provers in doses of from one to four
grains, and it was found that the effects obtained from this prepara-
tion, were far more striking than those obtained with the tincture.
Combining the symptoms furnished by Joerg, with the splendid
provings of Hahnemann,  we may range the  pathogenesis of this
interesting drug under the following general categories.

                    CEPHALIC GROUP.

  Joerg and  his provers found that Ignatia causes a painful pressure,
an aching in various parts of  the  head.   Most of the provers expe-
rienced  this aching or painful pressure  in the forehead  over the
eyebrows; others in the occiput, whence it would  shift to the fore-
head ; some felt this aching all over the head, and some again at
one time in one, and at other times in other parts of the head, the
pressure shifting about from one locality to another.
  This shifting of the aching pain from one part to another was not
the only peculiarity observed by the provers.  Another was the
intermitting character of the pain. After the pain had lasted during 
IGNATIA AMARA.
527
the forenoon, it would intermit until evening, when it would be felt
again violently for  a  time.  In one case  the  paroxysms came on
regularly every half hour.
  These symptoms  suggest the use of Ignatia in
   Cephalalgia, distinguished by aching in one p>art of the head or in
the whole head.   The cephalalgia to which Ignatia is homoeopathic
may be accompanied by  symptoms of gastric  derangement of  a
peculiar character.
  One of our provers experienced a qualmish feeling in the stomach
previous to the headache;  the qualmishness  was followed by an
aching pain in the forehead, thence extending all over the head, and
succeeded by a sense of  lassitude.  This symptom shows that in
headaches originating in gastric irritation, Ignatia may be of great
use.

  We find the doctrine  that Ignatia may be of great use in
   Gastric Nervous Headaches, confirmed by a remarkable symptom
obtained by Professor Joerg himself, from the powdered substance.
He experienced, from three grains of the pulverized bean, a " seated
pressure in the region of the stomach, folioAved by a painful pressure
or an aching in the forehead, shifting to different parts of the head
and even cheeks; urging to stool, with several natural  evacuations,
weariness;  the appetite was  not  materially  disturbed,  but  there
was a speedy feeling of  repletion after eating."
  The remarkable  connection between the brain and the gastric
functions, in the case of Ignatia, is further evidenced by the follow-
ing symptom, elicited from forty drops of the tincture  mixed in an
ounce of water : " Vertigo soon after swallowing the drug, so that
the prover staggered and found it difficult to stand  erect.  Single
stitches darted through  his head, he felt a buzzing in the  ears and
objects before him seemed to waver.  The prover was unable  to fix
his mind upon a  single idea.   The vertigo continued  until late in
the evening.  These  symptoms Avere accompanied by a  feeling of
loathing, flow of saliva, loss of appetite.  Next day a headache set
in,  which Avas made worse by eating, and continued off and on for
several days."
  Upon a farther examination of the symptoms, we shall find that
Ignatia is homoeopathic to

  Hemicrania, a sort of semi-lateral nervous headache.  Several of
Joerg's  provers  have experienced  an  aching pain, or  a painful
pressure, according to the literal text, in one side of the head, with
pain in the  right eyeball, aggravated by motion, and accompanied
by sensitiveness to  the light.
  Professor Joerg himself elicited  this remarkable symptom:  "A
painful pressure in  the head, with burning in the  eyes, lachrymation,
swelling of  the lids, and a feeling of pressure  in the right eye, as if
it should be pressed out of the head; this pain was accompanied by
cutting-contractive  pains in  the lower bowels,  and copious secretion
of a frothy mucus."
   These few but exceedingly interesting symptoms show most con- 
528
LECTURE XXXIV.
 clusively that Ignatia is  one of our most useful agents in that dis-
 tressing class of headaches termed
   Nervous Headaches, Megrim, Hemicrania, especially when the eyes
 are involved, more generally one eye, Avith burning and lachryma-
 tion, pressure in the eye  from within outAvards, swelling and suppu-
 ration of the lids, photophobia.  The  pain  in the head may be an
 aching or stitching pain, darting stitches flying through the head.
   Joerg's provings confirm the symptoms obtained by Hahnemann
 in all  essential particulars.  Hahnemann's  provers  likewise expe-
 rienced this  aching pain in the forehead, and in other parts of the
 head ;  the pain was relieved by inclining the head forwar'(//and resting
 it upon the table ; an aggravation of the pain was occasioned by intense
 mental labor.
   One of Hahnemann's provers describes his headache in these
 terms: "Aching in the forehead,  above the root of the nose, obliging
 him to incline his head  forward ;  it   is followed by a feeling of
 qualmishness at the stomach."
   Another prover has this symptom :   " Headache on waking,  as if
 the brain were smashed; after rising, the headache passes off, and
 gives place to a similar pain in a tooth ;  theme this pain shifts to the
 small of the back.  The headache is renewed by thinking."
   Ignatia has been employed by homoeopathic practitioners for the
 peculiar form of hemicrania termed
   Clavus ; there is a symptom in the knoAvn pathogenetic  series of
 this drug, which warrants its employment in clavus upon homoeopa-
 thic  principles.   The characteristic pains of Ignatia in the brain,
 which  we have learnt to kno\v so far, are:
   Pressure as from too much blood  in the brain.
   Stitches darting through the head.  And the accompanying pains
 are, " burning and pressure in the eyes, with lachrymation  and  pho-
 tophobia," and gastric derangements, qualmishness, anorexia, cutting
 and spasmodic pains in the bowels,  etc.
   The symptom which suggests the use of Ignatia in clavus is the
 following, recorded by Hahnemann:
   " Constrictive sensation in the hypochondria,  as when the bowels
 are constipated, accompanied Avith semi-lateral headache as if a nail
 were pressed into the brain, early in the morning."
   Hahnemann remarks in a foot-note to this symptom, that the sen-
 sation, as if  a sharp, pointed body were pressed in, is characteristic
 of Ignatia.   This pressure as by a sticking  body is also experienced
 in the  rectum, in  the region of the sternum, in the region of the
 cervical vertebrae, and in other  parts.

  We  must  not close this chapter without directing your  attention
to the fact that Ignatia may prove a valuable remedy in
   Catarrhal  Headcehes, its homoeopathicity to which is substantiated
by the following  symptom of Hahnemann's:  " Sensation  as if the
head were too full of blood ;  the inner nose is very sensitive to the
outer air, as  may be the case when the nose  is going to bleed."
  A similar sensation was  experienced by  one  of Joerg's provers,
Mr. Otto, from three grains of the powder.   One hour after taking 
IGNATIA AMARA.
529
the drug, the prover complained of a dull heavy pressure in the
forehead, extending downwards into the nasal fossa, where it caused
for about ten minutes a sensation as if a violent  catarrh  Avas im-
pending.  Thence the pressure  moved to other parts of the  head,
shifting in this manner to and fro for several hours.

                    NERVOUS  GROUP.

   Our cases of poisoning have  shown us that Ignatia  may  cause
lockjaw, risus sardonicus, and paralytic  stiffness and numbness of
the lower  extremities.  It  has also caused  twitchings  of  these
parts.
   Hahnemann recommends Ignatia in recent cases of
   Epilepsy, especially  when  occurring among children, in conse-
quence of a sudden fright.  In some of  these cases it may prove
efficient, but in many others it may fail.
   We may expect good effects from Ignatia in the treatment of
   Spasms and Convulsions, even tetanic convulsions, if they seem to
depend upon gastric irritations, caused  by indigestible food, the
presence of worms, or  in convulsions of an hysteric nature.  In
   Hysteric Convulsions, caused by a sudden fright, with sudden sup-
pression of the menses, Ignatia may compete with Aconite.

   We shall find Ignatia indicated in cases of
   Spasmodic  Tremors  of recent  date, caused by fright  or  when
sympathetically induced by a sudden derangement of the uterine
functions, or as a symptom of acute hysteria.
   Ignatia has produced some very delicate, but interesting nervons
effects among Hahnemann's provers.  In  some of them, for instance,
it seems to have affected the joints in a peculiar manner, causing a
feeling of lameness, a sensation as if the joints had been wrenched or
bruised, without any perceptible symptoms of inflammation or irri-
tation.
   In others it has caused crampy pains, a sense of rigidity, heaviness
in the lower limbs;
   Others have experienced stitches in the larger joints, shoulder, hip,
and knee-joints, and in the heels;
   Others have complained of stingings, as by insects, in various parts
of the skin;
   Itching shifting from one place to another after scratching;
   Acute pain at a small spot, here and there,  only  when  touching
the part.
   These and other similar abnormal sensations show that Ignatia is
possessed of a remarkable power of  deranging the harmony of the
sentient system, and that we therefore may find it of  great  use in
   Spinal irritation, Avhen the medulla oblongata is the seat of the
trouble, and in
   JI//steria, where th^se Protean forms  of abnormal nervous  sensi-
bility are very apt to occur.   It is possible that in
   Globus hystericus, with flow of water from the mouth, Ignatia may
prove of use.
                              34 
530
LECTURE XXXIV.
                     ORBITAL  GROUP.

   You recollect that Professor Jon-g's proving resulted in a species
 of
   Ophthalmia,  with burning  pain,  pressure in  the eyeball as if
 pressed out of the socket, swelling of the eyelids and profuse lachry-
 mation, suppuration and photophobia.   Let us  not forget, however,
 that this condition came on in the train of a peculiar  cephalalgia.
 Hence we infer that  the ophthalmia  caused  by  Ignatia is of a
 sympathetic nature rather than an idiopathic affection.  It  is  pro-
 bable,  however, that in some forms of a purely nervous irritation of
 the retina and iris, Ignatia may prove useful.  According to  Hahne-
 mann's provings, it causes
   Photophobia of a purely nervous character, without any apparent
 signs of inflammation;
   A circle of luminous zigzag vibrations out of the line of vision; the
 print upon which  the eye happens to be  fixed, becomes invisible,
 whereas the print  by the side of it is more distinct.  This is some-
 what like
   Spurious  Vertigo, a  paroxysmal affection  described by Herz under
 this name.

             DENTAL AND BUCCAL  GROUPS.

   When speaking of  headache, I  stated that a  crushing pain in the
 brain was experienced by one prover, and  that this pain afterwards
 shifted to  a tooth.  Hence we may recommend Ignatia for
   Odontalgia, as if the  tooth  were  crushed or smashed into frag-
 ments.  Ignatia also causes a digging pain  in the molar teeth, and a
 soreness in the teeth;  they also become loose.
  Ignatia causes some interesting symptoms in the mouth and fauces.
 We have  seen previously that  it causes
  A feeling of soreness in the mouth, under  the tongue, and
  Secretion of & frothy saliva, also profuse ptya lism.
  Hahnemann has experienced:
  Stitches darting from the throat to the inner ear, especially between
 the acts of deglutition; also
  Sensation as if a lump had  lodged in the throat.
   Crawling or tingling sensation in the fauces, and
  Aching  pain in the submaxillary glands.

  These symptoms are not very important; nevertheless  they may
 indicate Ignatia in various nervous affections.  The lump  in the
 throat, for instance, may be a symptom of
  Hysteria ;■ hysteric females may be troubled with this symptom.
 Ignatia may also be useful in certain forms  of
  Angina faucium, where the patient  is troubled  with stitches
 between the acts of deglutition.  In angina where  an inflammatory
character is decidedly  prominent, Ignatia will never be of much use.
The character of an Ignatia-angina is, as the symptoms show, of a
nervous type, an acute  nervous  irritation,  the inflammatory  symp-
toms being secondary. 
IGNATIA  AMARA.
531
                   CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

   The action of Ignatia upon the nerves of the stomach  and small
 intestines is characterized by a number of characteristic and impor-
 tant symptoms.  Let us briefly consider them under the heads of:
 taste, abnormal nervous  sensations, pains and changes in  the alvine
 secretions.

   Taste, and  gastric  symptoms:  Ignatia causes a flat, chalky  and
 also a sour taste.  It  also causes a loathing of food, aversion to milk
 and warm food  in particular.   These few symptoms are  of impor-
 tance only as elements of a more general group.
   Nausea, with uneasiness and anxiety.
   In the case of Professor Joerg,  Ignatia caused an
   Insipid, chalky taste, restless sleep and a feeling of warmth in the
 interior  of the body.
   Musty eructations.

   Nervous sensations • Under this head we have to record a number
 of interesting symptoms, more especially the following:
   Hiccough after eating;
   Feeling of weakness in the epigastrium;
   Sensation in the stomach  as if one had been fasting too long, as if
 the stomach were empty, with flat taste and languor in the limbs.
   Among  the nervous symptoms recorded by Professor Joerg, we
 distinguish two similar  symptoms: " Canine hunger, with  qualmish-
 ness, followed by straining towards the rectum, pressure in the region
 of the vertex, thence  shifting to the forehead, attended with burning
 in the  eyes and lachrymation, swelling of the lids, secretion of mucus
 from the Meibomian glands; the  hunger was appeased immediately
 after commencing to eat."
   The other symptom is recorded in the following terms:
   "Drawing in the stomach, as  if the walls  of the stomach were
 pulled;  with  alternate feeling of fullness and emptiness, the latter
 sensation accompanied  by a feeling of canine hunger;  afterwards
 stitches in the pit of the  stomach  and  burning in the region  of the
 spleen."
   A portion of this last symptom has likewise  been  recorded  by
 Hahnemann.  It afforded me the opportunity of making a beautiful
 little cure.   The record is as follows :
   "Fine  prickings in the  epigastric  region,  with  a  sensation  of
 emptiness."
   An old lady of sixty years had been grieving for years  about her
 son's duath.  For fifteen years  past  she  had been troubled with a
 feeling of emptiness or  goneness  as she termed it, in the  epigastric
 region, accompanied  by a  sensation  as  if a  number  of  pins were
 pricking  her in this part.  It Avas a most disagreeable  feeling, and
 had brought on a state of the most deep-seated hypochondria.  One
globule of Ignatia 200, for the first time in fifteen years, afforded her
relief.  For some three months she remained free from her trouble.
After this period she had another  but much feebler attack,  for Avhich 
532                     LECTURE XXXIV.

I tried the tincture of Ignatia.  It made her sick; Ignatia 200 again
relieved her perfectly.  Under the use of Ignatia 200 she had perfect
control of this distressing trouble, a
   Gastrodynia of a remarkable, but well developed type.
  Pains: Among the pains Ave may record the following :
  Pain in the umbilical region, with bloating of this region.
  Pressure in the region of the spleen and large curvature or cul-de-
sac of the stomach,  coming and going every half hour.
  A very interesting  group  of symptoms elicited by Professor
Joerg in  his own person by means of three grains of pulverized
Ignatia is the following:
  Pressing pains in the epigastrium, especially in the region of the
spleen, posteriorly near the spine, as if the abdominal walls were
pressed outwards and the diaphragm upwards;  in  the  evening the
pain  sometimes  ascended  towards the  chest, changing there  to  a
painful burning, Avith  alleviating eructations; afterwards, sensation
as if sweat would break  out all over; a frothy mucus was secreted
by the salivary glands all the time; the mouth felt  sore.

  Alvine Secretions.  Ignatia  has caused cutting  and  contractive
pains in the bowels, followed by liquid stools.
  Small doses of Ignatia seem to have a tendency to cause  a weak-
ness  of the rectum, with inability to expel stool, a species of
  Paralytic  Costiveness.  In the case of one of  Joerg's provers, who
was constitutionally inclined to costiveness, it increased this habit
very much.

  Diarrhea of a watery kind can  only be arrested by Ignatia, if
preoeded by cutting and spasmodic pains, and generally  attended
Avith headache and gastric derangements.
  Ignatia causes a straining or  pressing towards  the  rectum and
anus;  this  symptom,  together with the Aveakness of  the  rectum,
suggests the use of  this drug in

  Prolapsus of the Anus,  especially in the case of children.
  Ignatia also  causes a stitch from the  anus  upwards along the
rectum; a contractive, sore pain in the rectum  after stool, and also
a pressure as by a  sharp, sticking body in  the  rectum, after stool.
These sensations justify the use of Ignatia in
  Proctalgia, or neuralgia of the rectum.
   The following symptom elicited by Joeerg:
  '' Creeping and burning at the anus, and also in the urethra during
urination, with increased discharge of urine,"
  Seems to  indicate the use of Ignatia in
   Ascarides, where these symptoms often constitute characteristic
indications,  in conditions of the mucous membrane  which are apt to
lead to the formation of  such parasites.

                      URINARY GROUP.

  Ignatia causes the discharge  of a  good deal of watery urine, an
additional recommendation for its use in
  Hysteria and  nervous  spasmodic affections generally. 
IGNATIA AMARA.
533
                      SEXUAL  GROUP.

  Ignatia causes weakness of the sexual parts; in
  Impotence, with libidinous fancies, this drug may be useful.  Large
doses of Ignatia cause this condition; small doses seem to excite the
erectile powers of the male organs and to excite the sexual instinct.

  In the female, large doses seem to  increase the menstrual dis-
charge and to bring it about prematurely.   In females
  Metrorrhagia or Menorrhagia, among  a group of other symptoms,
would  constitute an indication for Ignatia.

                    CATARRHAL GROUP.

  We  have seen that Ignatia may cause a sensation in the nose as if
a catarrh would  come on, with aching in the forehead;  hence in
  Incipient Catarrh, or cold in the head, a few smart doses of Ignatia
may suppress its development.
  Ignatia causes a constant irritation in the throat-pit, as if one had
to cough; coughing does not relieve it, but  the symptom may be
voluntarily suppressed. This  sensation sometimes amounts  to an
irritation as if dust had lodged there, and is made worse by coughing.
  It also causes a constrictive sensation in the throat-pit, exciting a
cough  as from the vapors of Sulphur.
  Upon the strength of these symptoms we recommend  Ignatia for
the Nervous Cough of some persons, females in particular,  and also
for  the
  Bronchial Catarrh  of old people where  spasm  is  a prominent
symptom.

                EXANTHEMATOUS  GROUP.

  Ignatia causes itching all over; hence we give it in
  Prurigo, when the itching shifts from place to place after scratch-
ing the parts.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

  Ignatia has been recommended for
  Intermittent fever,  when the  patient  is very much depressed in
spirits, and the thirst is felt only during the chill.

                      MENTAL  GROUP.

  Ignatia is eminently useful in
  Hysteria, and also in
  Hypochondria, when accompanied by, or perhaps arising from, such
gastric affections as we have found  Ignatia  homoeopathic to.  In
general, Ignatia has been found an admirable remedy for the conse-
quences of  a gnawing, deep-seated grief. 
534                    LECTURE  XXXV.
                        ANTIDOTAL.

   In cases of poisoning we give  an emetic  and use acids, such as
 vinegar, lemon-juice, etc.

                            DOSE.

   We may use from the first to the two hundredth attenuation.

   From his experiments, Orfila draws the broad conclusions that the
 extract  of Ignatia acts in the same manner as  the  Upas  or  Nux
 vomica.  Such sweeping conclusions afford  evidence to a homoeo-
 pathic observer  that the statements  of  old-fashioned toxicologists
 have to be read with caution.   These gentlemen observe phenomena
 in the gross.  The delicate shades of action by which each drug is
 intrinsically distinguished from every other drug, seem to escape the
 hurried or careless glance of an old-fashioned toxicological  experi-
 menter.  The physiological chemist is liable .to the same fallacious
 mode of reasoning as the toxicologist.  He discovers the same alka-
 loid in Ignatia as in Nux vomica, and hence he concludes that these
 two substances act alike and may .be substituted one for the other.
 Or discovering Veratrine in the Mexican  Cebadilla, as well as in the
 White Hellebore, he at once jumps at the conclusion that these two
 drugs have the same action, and may eventually represent each other.
 Fallacious argument, which  our experiments upon the living organ-
 ism have enabled us to refute by incontrovertible facts.  Look at the
 effects of Ignatia upon the active, living, nervous system and contrast
them with the effects of  Nux vomica.   Their living  evidences  of
 action are the sign-posts which should direct  the therapeutist in the
application  of drugs to diseases.  And in the case of Ignatia  they
teach him in  language which cannot be misunderstood that Ignatia
and Nux vomica have each a peculiar sphere of usefulness as thera-
peutic agents.
              LECTURE  XXXV.

      IPECACUANHA, CEPHAELIS IPECACUANHA.

          (Cephaelis emetica—Nat. Order:—Rubiace^e.)

  We obtain this  drug from the  provinces of Rio Janeiro, Bahia
and Pernambuco.  It was first  made known by Piso in the  year
1684.   In 1686 it had  a high reputation in Paris as a remedy for
dysentery.  A French merchant, Grenier or Gamier, being sick, Avas
treated by the celebrated Helvetius (then  a young man), and his
preceptor Afforti.  After Garnier recovered from his illness, he  gave
part of the root to Afforti as a mark of gratitude.  Afforti, not
knowing what to do with it, gave it to Helvetius who experimented 
CEPHAELIS IPECACUANHA.
535
with it on the sick, and  afterwards sold it as a secret  remedy for
diarrhoea and dysentery.  The Dauphin of France, the king's brother,
being attacked with  this disease, the king  sent his own physician
d'  Aquin, and his Confessor Father de la  Chaise, to Helvetius, to
arrange with him for the publication of his drug.  He obtained one
thousand  pounds, and was  afterwards  crowned with the highest
medical honors.
  Leibnitz and Sir Hans Sloane  favored  its introduction.  They
preferred the powdered Ipecacuanha to the decoction, of  which they
gave as much as two drachms at a  dose.
  Gohl  in  England first employed it for diarrhoea and dysentery,
which  he professed  to cure by causing vomiting.  Gianella gave
small doses in  intermittent fevers.  Nicholas Dalbery gave  still
smaller doses in  haemorrhage and affections of the chest.  Dover in
England combined Ipecacuanha with Opium, using this compound
both as an anti-spasmodic  and a sudorific.  Akenside attributed to
Ipecacuanha a tranquillizing virtue, and recommended the root for
spasmodic asthma.
  Pereira informs us that great confusion existed for a long time
respecting the plant yielding Ipecacuanha.  In  1800,  Dr.  Gomez
brought with him the plant from the Brazils, on which he published
a dissertation.  Hence it is also termed  the  Brazilian or  Lisbon
Ipecacuanha.
  According to some authors, the name Ipecacuanha is derived from
the Indian words "lpecaa" creeping plant, and "cuene," to spit.
  Ipecacuanha is imported  from Rio Janeiro in bales, barrels, bags.
The stem of the  plant from  which  this root is obtained,  is from two
to thj-ee feet high, and has rarely more than four or six leaves.   The
roots are gathered at all seasons of the year, though more frequently
from  January to March, inclusive.  The farmers, residing in the
neighborhood  of  the villages where it grows, and  Indians carry on
considerable trade with this plant.  The root is also denominated
annulated Ipecacuanha,  to  distinguish it from  other roots of the
same species.
  The root of  Cephaelis  Ipecacuanha occurs in pieces  of three or
four inches long, and about the size of a small goose-quill, variously
bent and contorted, simple and branched.   It seems to be composed
of rings strung upon a central  ligneous cord.  This arrangement
gives it a knotty appearance, the knots being still rendered more
prominent by circular fissures penetrating the bark to about a line
in depth.
  For medicinal purposes the dark brownish looking root should be
chosen.   It has an acrid, aromatic, slightly bitter taste, and a some-
what nauseous and peculiar  odor.  From this root we obtain a, deep-
yellow tincture.
  The  active  principle of this root is  emetine, which was obtained
by Pelletier and Caventou in 1820; this is an alkaloid of a white
color, powder form, not affected by exposure to the air, little soluble
in water, and  forming salts in combination with  acids; it forms a
greyish-white  precipitate Avith an infusion of galls (tannate of erne- 
536
LECTURE XXXV.
tine, an inert substance);  hence galls are an antidote  to poisonous
doses of emetine.
   Magendie has prepared another alkaloid, the colored emetine, bit-
ter, soluble in water and  not crystallizable, nor as powerful  as the
pure emetine, to which it ranks in the  proportion of three to one
(one grain of impure emetine is equivalent to ten grains of the root).
   Ipecacuanha seems to affect primarily the solar plexus and the
pneumogastric nerve ;  it irritates these centres spasmodically ; inci-
dental to this irritation is vascular erethism; hence it  is useful for
haemorrhage, for inflammatory irritation of the bronchial tubes.  All
of Magendie's animals exhibited signs of inflammation in the air-
tubes.  It  is suitable for feeble, slender  persons with  sensitive
temperaments.   According to Sachs who  ridicules  Homoeopathy,
Ipecacuanha  possesses a  specific medicinal  relation  to  periodical
diseases, if the paroxysms occur in the night.  It is  only one ac-
quainted Avith this property of Ipecacuanha, who is capable of doing
justice to the great virtues of this drug.  Years before Sachs, Hahne-
mann taught this doctrine, when he recommended Ipecacuanha as a
remedy for paroxysmal asthma.
   Its action  upon the pneumogastric nerve is remarkable.  " How
singular it is," says Dr. Marshall Hall, "that Ipecacuanha,  taken
into the bronchia, should excite asthma,  and taken into the stomach,
should induce another affection of the respiratory system, vomiting."
But there is nothing singular in all this.   Ipecacuanha acts upon the
various ramifications of the pneumogastric nerve, and upon all of
them  it acts alike; upon all of them it acts as a spasmodic irritant,
and the effect  of this  spasmodic  irritation in  the air-passages is
asthma, and  vomiting in the stomach.   This might be termed the
functional effect;  the  pathological appearances are  capillary en-
gorgement, redness, as if the internal surfaces were inflamed.
   Some persons are wonderfully sensitive to the action of Ipecacu-
anha.  The merest atom of dust will interfere with their breathing.
Dr. Roberts,  of Dudley, in Scotland, writes in a communication to
Pereira: " If I remain in  a room where  the preparation of Ipecacu-
anha is going on—for  instance, making  the pulvis Ipecacuanhe com-
positus, 1 am sure to have a regular attack of asthma.  In  a few
seconds  dyspnoea comes  on  in  a violent degree, attended  Avith
wheezing and great weight and anxiety  about the  praecordia.  The
attack generally remains about an  hour, but I obtain no relief until
a copious expectoration  takes  place, which is  invariably the case.
After the attack is over, I suffer no further inconvenience.  I have
alwa}^ considered that the attack proceeds from the minute particles
of the Ipecacuanha floating in the atmosphere  acting as an irritant
on the mucous membrane of the trachea and the bronchial tubes."
To this communication Pereira adds this important remark that, in
some cases "the  mere odor of the root seems  sufficient  to  excite
difficulty of breathing, Avith a feeling of suffocation."
   A druggist's assistant, while engaged  in the process of powdering
Ipecacuanha, was poisoned by the  incautious inhalation of the dust.
This  case is  mentioned by Dr. Priegher in Rust's Magazine.  The
patient who Avas suffering from  catarrh and  cough, inhaled during 
CEPHAELIS  IPECACUANHA.
537
three hours the dust from the root; in consequence of which, vomit-
ing came on, followed by a tightness  on the chest.  An hour after
this, he complained of a most violent sense of suffocation and con-
striction of the trachea and throat;  his face looked cadaverous; he
had the most frightful paroxysms of oppression and  anxiety.  The
physician who  was called  in, bled him, and gave Asafcetida and
Belladonna Avith temporary relief;  but in five  hours a fresh attack
came on, with the most imminent  danger of  suffocation. A strong
decoction of Uva ursi, with the extract of Rhatany, was administered
with almost immediate relief, and in an hour his breathing was much
freer.   He was  able to leave the house in  two days, but  suffered
several days with difficulty of breathing.
  These few cases show the immense power possessed by Ipecacuanha,
of spasmodically  irritating  the ramifications of the  pneumogastric
nerves, and causing  a variety of conditions of the respiratory and
gastric organs,  which  find in Ipecacuanha a sure and energetic
remedy.  Let us  subject the therapeutic powers of this drug to a
more special analysis.

                     CEPHALIC GROUP.

  The provings of Ipecacuanha, which Hahnemann has bequeathed
to us, are short but exceedingly characteristic and instructive.  We
find that Ipecacuanha causes
  A fine stinging pain in the head and forehead, excited and aggra-
vated by contact.
  Headache, as if the brain and skull had been bruised, with nausea.
  These  kinds of pain may characterize
  Rheumatic  and  bilious headaches,  caused by exposure, over-eat-
ing, etc.
  In hemicrania,  with stinging pain  and soreness, nausea,  Ipecacu-
anha Avill be found useful, especially in paroxysmal hemicrania.

                      FACIAL  GROUP.

  Ipecacuanha  causes spasmodic sneezing, and  bleeding at the nose.
In a case of
  Hemorrhage  from  the nose, Ipecacuanha arrested the bleeding at
once.   The patient was a lady of about sixty years.  All sorts of
appliances  had been resorted to, to stop the bleeding, but in vain.
The patient was almost dying from loss of blood. Half a grain of the
powder of Ipecacuanha arrested the haemorrhage promptly  and per-
manently.  As  we go along, we shall find that  in haemorrhage from
various organs, Ipecacuanha is a most admirable remedy.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC  GROUP.

  Ipecacuanha  causes
  Flat taste in  the mouth;
  Nausea and vomiting;
   Flow of Avatery saliva; 
538                     LECTURE XXXV.
  Feeling of  qualmishness, emptiness,  and  flabbiness about  the
stomach;
  Feeling of excessive distention in the abdomen.
  These few symptoms are important.  They teach us that Ipecacu-
anha may be  a useful agent in gastric conditions characterized by
nausea and vomiting, flow of water from the mouth, want of tone in
the stomach.   We shall find Ipecacuanha useful in the
   Vomiting of pregnant females, where the middle potencies, from the
6th to the 18th will be found most useful.
  I stated previously that Ipecacuanha was particularly indicated in
affections  characterized by periodical  paroxysms, especially if they
occur at night.  Hence we shall  find this agent specifically adapted
for paroxysms of
  Nocturnal Vomiting, where even a very high potency may effect a
cure.   An old lady was suddenly attacked, without any  apparent
cause,  by vomiting.  At two in the morning she experienced dis-
tressing nausea, followed by spasmodic vomiting, with expulsion of
large  quantities  of tenacious white  mucus.  The paroxysms lasted
two hours. During the vomiting she was cold, turned pale and suf-
fered a good deal of oppression and anguish, with palpitation of the
heart.  She had  had five paroxysms of this kind in  five successive
nights, each succeeding paroxysm becoming more violent and more
obstinate,  when my aid was requested.  I gave the lady one globule
of Ipecacuanha 200, after which she slept soundly the following night,
and never again had even the shadow of an attack.
  Ipecacuanha may even excite vomiting of blood, hence in

  Haematemesis, when the vomiting  is attended with  nausea, strain-
ing, and the blood is perhaps mixed with mucus and bile, Ipecacu-
anha will  prove a capital remedy.
  In Dyspepsia, with anorexia, oppression after eating, flow of watery
saliva, qualmishness, want  of tone in the stomach, Ipecacuanha is
useful.  In

  Spasmodic Cardialgia, especially if accompanied by retching and
vomiting of tenacious mucus, Ipecacuanha may prove indispensable.
A case is reported, where these paroxysms occurred during the chilly
stage of fever  and ague, in a most frightful degree.  Large doses of
Opium were unable to afford the least relief.  Very small doses of
Ipecacuanha arrested the trouble  at once.
  Among the gastric symptoms of Ipecacuanha, recorded by Hahne-
mann, we find this remarkable symptom: "A tearing-pinching in the
abdomen,  as if the bowels were grasped with the hands, so that the
fingers spread  apart, make  a sharp impression into the bowels;  the
pain is moderated during rest, but intensely aggravated by the least
movement."
  This remarkable spasm has occurred  as a natural disease. A young
lady of twelve years  had been afflicted with this peculiar spasm for
several years.  The most distinguished practitioners of the Old-School
had been  consulted, and eminent homoeopathic physicians had been
consulted  without avail.   When I  first saw the child,  the spasms 
CEPHAELIS IPECACUANHA.
539
came on as soon as she awoke, and pursued her through the day
until she laid  down at night.  Suffering and agony were depicted in
her countenance.  This one symptom was the great feature in her case.
One globule of Ipecacuanha 200, arrested the spasm completely and,
so far as I know, permanently.
  Ipecacuanha also causes a cutting pain in the umbilical region, with
shuddering.  We may therefore recommend Ipecacuanha for

  Bilious and Neuralgic Colic, when  the  distress is of this pinching
and cutting nature.
  Ipecacuanha affects the alvine secretions.  It causes
  Diarrheic stools as if fermented;
  Bloody stools;
  Liquid stools, with a feeling of qualmishness in the bowels;
   Green stools;
  Foul-smelling stools.
  These symptoms show that Ipecacuanha may  be of use in

  Bilious and Catarrhal diarrhoea, more especially, if the discharges
are liquid, serous, bloody, green, foul-smelling, and if other symptoms
of gastric derangement Such as indicate Ipecacuanha, are present, such
as: qualmishness in the stomach and bowels, flow of Avater from the
mouth, loss of appetite, white-coated tongue, etc.
  It has also been used in Asiatic Cholera, if the vomiting was exces-
sive and spasmodic; in this disease  it only acts symptomatically, it
does not meet the essence of the pathological process.
  Ipecacuanha has been used in Dysentery, but here it only moderates
the bloody discharges; it does not act upon the  tenesmus.
  In other forms of
  Hemorrhage from the bowels,  in profuse bleeding from the haemor-
rhoidal vessels, and even from the capillaries of the smaller intestines,
Ipecacuanha will afford relief and may be sufficient in some cases to
effect a cure.
  Ipecacuanha also causes  a creeping sensation  at the anus, and may
therefore prove useful to children who are troubled with

  Ascarides, provided the condition  of the alvine secretions, gene-
rally, justifies the use of this drug.
  Let us not forget Ipecacuanha in

  Ileus and in Strangulated Hernia.   In a case of ileus of twelve
days' standing, where the patient  had already commenced to vomit
up  faecal matter,  and where nothing  seemed  able to remove the
spasm or afford the least relief,  small  doses of Ipecacuanha at once
arrested the vomiting, and a mild cathartic produced an evacuation.
  In a case  of strangulated hernia,  quoted  in Frank's  Magazine,
where  faecal  vomiting  had  already set in,  Ipecacuanha  at once
arrested the spasm, and the patient  was able to replace  the  bowel
Avithout even the aid of a physician.

                      URINARY GROUP.
Ipecacuanha causes a sort of 
540
LECTURE XXXV.
  Dysuria, and bloody urine ; hence Ave give it in
  Hematuria  or  haemorrhage  from the urethra, especially when
accompanied with urging to urinate, and difficulty of passing any
urine, a sort  of spasmodic retention.  In a case of this kind, the
haemorrhage may be accompanied  by a sort of  qualmishness and
nausea in the region of the bowels and stomach.

                      SEXUAL GROUP.

  Ipecacuanha causes hemorrhage  from the womb and a pressing
towards this organ;  hence we find it useful in
  Metrorrhagia, and  also in Menorrhagia or excessive menstruation.
  Haemorrhage from the womb may  occur  after  confinement.
Ipecacuanha may be of immense use to  us in this dangerous acci-
dent, especially if sickness at the stomach is present at the same
time.
  Miscarriage may sometimes be prevented by Ipecacuanha.  If the
patient complains of pressing towards the uterus, sickness at the
stomach, dizziness, headache, feels cold and looks pale in the face,
Ipecacuanha may be more appropriate than any other drug.

                   RESPIRATORY  GROUP.

  In affections of the respiratory organs,  Ipecacuanha is  a most
important remedy.  Look at the pathogenesis of this drug as given
by Hahnemann, and we  shall find  that it must  be a  most  capital
remedy in
   Whooping-cough, especially during the spasmodic stage, with suffo-
cation, blue face, rattling breathing.
  Or in Spasmodic Cough generally, especially if the paroxysms set
in at night, with spasmodic titillation in the larynx, retching, vomit-
ing of food and mucus; paroxysms of this kind of cough characterize
that dangerous form of bronchitis described by some pathologists as
   Capillary Bronchitis, to which little children are more particularly
subject.
  Cough with pain in the umbilical region, as if the navel should be
torn out;
  Cough with pressure  on the bladder, but  inability to pass any
urine.
  Cough with expectoration of blood, or hemoptysis.
  In a case of haemoptysis or haemoptoe, which had been occasioned
by bad treatment, Ipecacuanha  arrested the  bleeding permanently,
after all other revulsive and antiphlogistic  means had  been tried
in vain.
  Ipecacuanha, if given in very small doses, from the sixth to the
eighteenth potency,  may act as a palliative in sudden  haemorrhage
from the lungs when incidental to phthisis.
  It was stated at the commencement of this lecture, that Ipecacu-
anha causes an asthmatic constriction of the chest.  Hence  we find
Ipecacuanha useful  in

  Spasmodic Asthma, as if the patient would  suffocate, with anguish, 
CEPHAELIS  IPECACUANHA.
541
deathly paleness, dread of death; the inspirations are accompanied
with a crowing noise.

  Angor  Nocturnus is a peculiar form of spasm of the lungs, a sort of
spasmodic asthma coming on in nightly paroxysms quite suddenly,
and characterized by similar phenomena, cold extremities, sinking
pulse,  cadaverous paleness  or  bluish color of the face, excessive
dyspnoea, etc.  Ipecacuanha relieves such paroxysms.

                       FEVER  GROUP.

  Ipecacuanha is useful in
  Intermittent Fever, if  the  gastric symptoms are very marked, the
tongue is coated with a thick, grayish slime, loss of appetite, scanty
and loose stool, nausea and vomiting, the patient feels chilly although
the skin  is not very cold to the touch, thirst moderate.  In other
fevers Ipecacuanha  is not indicated, though  it  may  be used in
feverish  conditions arising from  rheumatic exposure, and from
bilious conditions of the system.  The  patient may complain of
pain in the bones as if the flesh were  bruised,  coated tongue, foul
taste, flow of water in the mouth.   A condition of this kind is some-
times designated by the term
   Gastricism, or Saburrae, Avith predominance of gastric and bilious
symptoms.

               EXANTHEMATOUS  GROUP.    •

  Ipecacuanha causes
  Pricking pains here and there, terminating in burning pains.
  This symptom may be a valuable indication in other affections to
which Ipecacuanha  is homoeopathic;  in  gastric derangements, for
instance,  this symptom may occur.

                     MENTAL  GROUP.

  Ipecacuanha causes apathy of mind, impatience, fretfulness. These
symptoms are only valuable as indications for the use of Ipecacuanha
in other affections, such as gastric derangements,  headache, fever, etc.

                            DOSE.

  Ipecacuanha, as we have shown, may be used in large and small
doses from the first  to  the  200th potency; the tincture is seldom
required, unless we wish to produce emesis, when from two to four
grains of the powder are required, or 30, 40 or even 60 drops of the
tincture.
  Ipecacuanha is an antidote  to  some of  the  dynamic effects of
Arsenic and China.

  Hahnemann's observations on the physiological action  and the
therapeutic virtues of Ipecacuanha are sufficiently interesting to be
quoted on this occasion;  they constitute the introduction to his
exceedingly interesting provings of this drug : 
542
LECTURE XXXV.
  " Although," writes Hahnemann, "the following  table of symp-
toms is not complete, it suffices to show that this  powerful plant
was not created solely as an emetic, but that it serves much higher
and  more  important purposes.  It  was originally  brought into
Europe as  a remedy for  autumnal  dysenteries.  A  hundred and
thirty years since, Leibnitz recommended it in those affections, and
it was improperly used, according to  the fallacious notion that,
because it will cure certain cases of diarrhoea, it is therefore adapted
to dysentery, although these  diseases are widely opposite  to each
other.
  " FIoAvever, this usage has somewhat  declined, experience having
repeatedly  shoAvn that it  is Avholly  unsuited to  dysentery.  The
multitude of unfortunate attempts, which have cost so many lives,
might have been avoided by studying the pure and  peculiar effects
of Ipecacuanha;  what morbid conditions  it  has the  power  of
inducing in persons in health, and by analogy, what  cases of natural
disease it is able to cure.  It  would then have appeared that it is
only of use in diminishing the excess of blood and some  kinds
of abdominal  pains in  dysentery, but does not affect  the  other
symptoms.   (
  " On the other hand, the study of Ipecacuanha  shows that, as it
cures the disposition to vomiting analogous to that which it excites, it
has also a  specific  efficacy, principally in haemorrhages,  in spas-
modic asthma that comes on in paroxysms,  in suffocating  spasms,
and in some.kinds of tetanus,  always  supposing  that  the  other
symptoms of the disease coincide with  it.  Ipecacuanha is  also the
proper remedy for certain  kinds of intermittent fevers, provided it
has greater homoeopathic affinity with them than any other medicine.
If it is not perfectly similar, it  usually leaves the fever in a con-
dition  in  which  Arnica,  China, Ignatia  or  Cocculus  should be
given.
  "Effects occasioned by  giving  Arsenic  improperly, or by an
excess  of China, also yield to Ipecacuanha.  In all cases in which it
is administered homoeopathically, it should be in very small doses.
Hitherto I have  given  one drop  of the  tincture,  containing the
millionth part of a drop of the  essence of the root, and  its effects
have appeared too powerful.
  " It is only in cases of poisoning by too large a dose of opium, that
it is necessary to give a large dose of Ipecacuanha, that is to  say, 30,
40 or 60 drops of the strong tincture, unless circumstances  indicate
strong  coffee or camphor in preference."
  This was written about the year 1820.  By way of contrast I beg
the privilege of referring to Hahnemann's observations concerning
this same agent contained in his admirable  essay  entitled, " Sug-
gestions for ascertaining the curative poAvers of drugs."  This essay
was originally published in the  year 1796, in  Hufeland's Journal of
Practical Medicine."  "Ipecacuanha,"  writes  Hahnemann in this
essay, is used  with  advantage  in  affections against which Nature
herself makes some efforts, but  is too powerless to effect the desired
object.   In these affections, Ipecacuanha presents  to the  nerves  of
the upper orifice of the stomach, the most sensitive part of the organ 
CEPHAELIS IPECACUANHA.
543
of vitality, a substance that produces a most  incongenial disgust,
nausea, anxiety,  thus acting in a similar manner to  the morbid
material that is to be removed.  Against this double attack, Nature
exerts antagonistically her powers with still  greater energy, and
thus, by means of this increased exertion, the morbid matter  is the
more easily removed.  Thus fevers are brought to a  crisis;  stop-
pages in the viscera of the abdomen and of the chest, and in the womb,
are put in motion; miasmata of contagious diseases expelled by the
skin ; cramp relieved by  the cramp that Ipecacuanha itself produces,
their tension and freedom restored to vessels disposed to haemorrhage
from relaxation,  • or  from  the  irritation  of  an  acrid substance
deposited in them, etc. But most distinctly does it act as a similarly
acting remedy to the  disease sought to be cured, in  cases of chronic
disposition  to vomit without bringing any thing  away.  Here it
should  be  given in  very small doses, in order to  excite frequent
nausea, and the tendency to vomit goes off more and more perma-
nently at each dose than it would Avith any palliative remedy."
  Independently of the  tendency to humoralism which underlies
this paragragh, and which, in those  times, constituted the  medical
philosophy  of the age, it is interesting to observe that the great
truth of the dynamization of drugs developed itself slowly and gra-
dually in Hahnemann's  mind.  Every inch  of ground which that
noble mind traveled over in working out a doctrine that will prove
a doctrine of life  to future generations, is resplendent with the halo
of truth, and bears the footprint of a consecrated revealer.  In the
massive dose of the pathological materialist as well as in the delicate
atom of the metaphysical hyper-dynamist, there is practical and
useful sense.  Homoeopathy is  adapted to all organisms and  to all
curable diseases.   But not all organisms are equally susceptible to
medicinal influences; they  are endowed Avith  different degrees of
sensitiveness, of irritability,  of receptivity.   And the diseases them-
selves are not alike in quality.  Is not there  a difference between
the semi-material miasm of  a western prairie that strikes one  down
heavily, grossly as it  were, without affecting the centres of vitality,
and the immaterial  semi-spiritual poison Avhich develops typhus?
There is a difference,  and a  difference that tells  upon the treatment.
As a general rule, you may treat a  case of typhus with a higher
potency  of  the appropriate remedy; but  as  a general rule you
will find that a  western intermittent requires a  larger dose  of the
remedy which is homoeopathically indicated.  If we Avould persist in
enforcing the use of high potencies as a necessary,  logical develop-
ment of Homoeopathy, as a truth universally and exclusively applic-
able at all times and in all places, we  should not only damage our
patients, but Ave might sink the great cause to Avhich we are devoted,
in irretreivable ruin until a second  Hahnemann should again dis-
cover it as  one of the lost arts.
  The truth in Homoeopathy will never perish.   I hold that the
principle of  small doses, as understood in the  broadest sense by
homoeopathic practitioners of all shades and opinions, is one of the
truths of the homoeopathic system of cure. I look upon the principle
of small doses as a vital seed that shall grow to a tree, in the shade 
544
LECTURE XXXV.
of whose  magnificent foliage health will find a secure and perma-
nent resting place.
  It is well that the  student of Homoeopathy should  identify him-
self  Avith  the  gradual unfolding of this science in Hahnemann's
mind.  This will enable him to discriminate betAveen the essential
and the accidental in the structure which the world now looks upon
as Homoeopathy.
  Not every thing which  has become an integral  portion of  the
homoeopathic  edifice, is equally entitled to the claims which  the
fundamental  law of Homoeopathy has upon our  confidence and
regard.  The doctrine of doses is one of those features in homoeo-
pathic practice  which, having  been put prominently  forward  by
Hahnemann as the distinguishing badge of homoeopathic practi-
tioners, was invested by  his immediate disciples with  a dignity
which threatened to  completely subvert the natural relation of  the
essential and the accidental facts of  Homoeopathy.
  A retrospective glance at the development of Homoeopathy will
show that the  opposition to our practice has been, to  some extent,
provoked by the subversive exclusivism which gradually crept into
the Homoeopathic School, regarding symptoms and doses.
  The foolish  stubbornness with which  homoeopathic  practitioners
sought to define  Pathology as a mere science of symptoms, and to
set up the infinitesimal globule as the genuine representative of
Homoeopathy, led to equally silly, and very frequently unjustifiable
misapprehensions and mis-statements of homoeopathic  doctrines  by
our opponents.
  We may excuse Hahnemann for having swept away the patholo-
gical rubbish and the mammoth practice of his time.  Yet Pathology
is neither  a nonsense nor a fiction, nor is there any thing absolutely
or inherently wrong in a massive dose of the appropriate drug.
  What is Pathology and what is a  proper dose ?
  Pathology is that great science which  teaches a knowledge 'of all
that  which is abnormal in the functions of the living  organism.
Does not this knowledge imply a cycle of inquiries worthy of man's
most exalted reason ?  For this knowledge  implies an inquiry into
the causes which produce disease.   And here again we have
  1.  Proximate Causes, and Cosmic Forces or Principles which  are
more immediately, more directly instrumental in developing diseases
in the living tissues, and
  2.  Remote Causes, or rather  accidental conditions in which  the
former are enabled to act.
  This knowledge next implies an observation and logical classifica-
tion of the phenomena by which the pathological process manifests
itself to the observing reason.  And here Ave distinguish
  1.  Subjective Phenomena,  mere abnormal sensations, generally of a
painful _ nature, but  in which category we include every sensation,
moral, intellectual and physical, which deviates from the normal
type; and
  2.  Objective  Phenomena,  or changes  of tissue, some of which  are
seen  or otherwise known  during the lifetime of the patients, but
which  are  more particularly studied after  death, and  constitute a 
CEPHAELIS IPECACUANHA.                 545
special branch of pathological science, the science of  Pathological
Anatomy.
  This grand cycle of studies, a study of the causative forces and
determining  conditions  of disease,  of the subjective phenomena
which characterize the pathological process and  of the alterations
which this process develops in the living tissues; this grand cycle of
studies constitutes the legitimate domain of Pathology, a science Avhich
I consider it the mission and privilege of Homoeopathy to reconstruct
upon the incontrovertible basis of Nature.
  And now the dose.  Is not that the proper dose which cures the
disease most promptly, safely and radically ?  What has this  to do
with the size of the dose except in so far as experience  has led  us to
establish certain unimpeachable rules concerning  it ?   In regard to
this  point, a homoeopathic physician is entitled to  the experiences of
the Avhole past of  Medicine.  The prompt, radical and safe cure of
ileus by means of one, two, three or ten grains of Opium in the hands
of an allceopathic physician,  is an experience to which a homoeo-
path is entitled just as much as to the cure of a similar disease by
means of an infinitesimal globule.  Alas, alas, how the  natural rela-
tion  of facts has been subverted by the blind, unreasoning, infatuated
dogmatists of the Homoeopathic School!   The accidental  has  been
made the essential; the transientvhas been made the permanent; the
purely human has  been  proclaimed an  eternal, an unalterable, a
divine fact.  Yet, the interests of the  living Man tower far above
the rigidities of system;  in the words of  Paul these three:  " Faith,
Hope and Charity, but the greatest of all is Charity."
  I have already stated that an alkaloid has been found in Ipecacu-
anha, to which the name  Emetine has been applied (from emeo, to
vomit).   Emetine is no substitute for the root.  Its  therapeutic vir-
tues seem even inferior to those of the root.
  The discovery of the alkaloids is a  contribution  to Materia Medica
of inestimable value.   The  alkaloid  is supposed to be the active
principle of the drug.   It may be one of its active principles, but it
is not the active principle wherein the integral power of the drug is
concentrated as in a focus of intensity.   The great  discoverer of
Homoeopathy was set against alkaloids.  " Modern chemists," says
he,  in his  introduction to Opium, "have taken immense pains to
analyze Opium into its constituent principles; morphine, narcotine,
meconic acid,  extractive matter, caoutchouc, fatty  oil, etc.  Homoeo-
pathy deals with  the integral, inseparable  substance as it exists in
nature, and  employs a mode of preparation that shall secure an uni-
form and universal unfolding of  the medicinal poAvers  of the drug;
she aims at healing, not at destroying men; hence she does not, like
modern pharmacy, covet the honor  of  effecting the conversion of
Opium into a  poison capable of destroying life as speedily as possi-
ble, and hence again, true to her character as a saving and life-restor-
ing art, she  may dispense  with the dangerous products of modern
chemistry."
  Gentlemen,  the time  Avhen these teachings of a cherished master
were heeded with all the reverence of faith-inspired souls, has  gone
by.  We do use Morphia, Quinia, Strychnia or any other alkaloid
                                 35 
546
LECTURE XXXV.
 the physiological action of which is know to us.  What homoeopathic
 physician Avould Avish to do without them !   How often has it been
 my good fortune,  and how often will  it be your good fortune, to
 afford relief, by a  timely dose of Morphine!   There  lies your con-
 sumptive patient exhausting his last remnant of strength by parox-
 ysms of a racking cough.   You know that your art is powerless in
 his case and that he looks upon  a little Morphine as his trustiest
 friend.   Would you sacrifice him, the liA'ing,  suffering child of God,
 to a  rigid,  pitiless theory?  I  remember the time  Avhen  a  strict
 Hahnemannian would not have dared to cast even a longing  side-
 glance at Quinine.  I do not wonder that the  German square-head of
 Hahnemann which, like an old-fashioned battering-ram, had to strike
 down the ramparts of false medicine, fortified  by age, consecrated
 by the  superstition of stultified crowds, and  watched by the proud
 sophistry and interested  love  of the high-priests of science, should
 have  attempted to erect an almost insurpassable  barrier betAveen the
 new Truth and the old  Falsehood; but let us be thankful  that the
 progressive and liberal spirit of the age has  over-leaped  every bar-
 rier of man's own  making;  let us  be  thankful that a  homoeopathic
 physician is no longer ostracised among his own flock, if he should deem
 it his duty to comfort an incurable sufferer with a dose of Morphine.
 Hoav  often have homoeopathic physicians made fruitless attempts to
 combat with an  orthodox  dose of China or Nux vomica  an enemy
 whom the alkaloids would have struck down with Herculean power!
  I fancy I have  a  distinct perception of the movement which is
 going on in the Old as well as in the New School.   Both Schools are
 endeavoring to develop the inmost forces  of  drugs, the Old School
 by the slow  and tedious road of experimental science, the New School
 by the processes of trituration and succussion.   These processes of
 trituration and succussion have been carried so far that Ave have not
 even  the shadow of experimental science to  fall  back upon as cor-
 roborative testimony  for the logical legitimacy of our reasonings.
 According to Hahnemann's doctrine the inmost force Avhich is hidden
 in the structural organization of the drug, is  set free  as it were, by
this process  of infinite breaking up of the crude particles, and is thus
enabled to act with more suddenness and intensity.  The discovery
of the alkaloids is an approach to the small, spiritualized dose of
Homoeopathy. Why should it not be given to the analytical chemist
to discover experimentally the existence, if not of these inmost forces
themselves, but of the fact that they exist, and that they constitute
the genuine factors in every well-authenticated case of cure ?  Let us
rejoice that  these plodding men, who constitute the hewers of wood
and the  drawers of water in this age of rudimentary science,  are
willing to prepare and gather up materials of which the true follower
of Flahnemann may avail himself for the purpose of constructing his
Homoeopathy of faith and abstract reason upon the incontrovertible
basis of Inductive Science. 
J0DIUM.
547
               LECTURE   XXXVI.

                           JODIUM,

                             {Iodine)

   This agent was discovered  in 1811 by Courtoir, a saltpetre-manu-
facturer of Paris.  It is so named from  iodes  (violet-colored), on
account of the color of its vapor.  It exists in the mineral and vege-
table kingdoms;—iodide of silver, and  iodide of mercury are found
in  nature;  it is  found  in  sea-water;  in  salt or brine-springs  (in
England, Germany, etc.); in the algae (sea-weeds, kelp).
   Iodine is a crystallizable solid, usually met with in micacious, soft,
friable scales, having a grayish-black color, a metallic lustre, an acrid,
hot taste,  and a disagreeable odor, somewhat similar to that of chlo-
rine.  Iodine vapor has a beautiful violet-color and a specific gravity
of  8-716.   It solves readily in alcohol  and ether.   AVith  starch it
forms a blue compound,  Iodide of starch.  According to Stromeyer,
water which only contains ^roW of its weight of iodine, acquires a
perceptibly blue tinge on the addition of starch.
   The Iodine of commerce is contaminated with variable proportions
of  water.  An ounce, if very moist, may contain a  drachm, or per-
haps  even a drachm and a half of water.  This fraud is detected  De-
compressing the  Iodine between folds of blotting-paper.  In this
moist state it is unfit for  making  pharmaceutic preparations  of fixed
and uniform strength; hence, before using it, we have to dry it in
this way: place the Iodine  in a  shallow earthen vessel in a narrow
and confined space, side  by  side with a shallow vessel holding fresh-
burnt lime twelve times the weight of the Iodine; the lime will absorb
the moisture.  Any matter which is given out as Iodine, and is not
perfectly soluble  in alcohol, or vaporizable by heat, may be looked
upon as an adulteration.
  Coindet was the first who instituted inquiries concerning the cura-
tive virtues of Iodine.   He found that the efficacy of the ashes of
fucus vesiculosus (an alga) and of Spongia  in the treatment of goitre
is due to the presence of Iodine  in those substances.  He observed
moreover that large  doses  of Iodine will cause in some  persons
acceleration of the  pulse, palpitation of the heart, dry cough, sleep-
lessness, emaciation, loss of strength, swelling of the lower extremities,
trembling, dwindling of the  mammae, increase of appetite, and a sen-
sation of pain in  the  goitre  (among  such as were afflicted with this
disease.)
  Other observers have noticed anxiety, depression of spirits, emaci-
ation, cholera Avhich sometimes threatened to become fatal, and a sort
of trembling resembling chorea.
  Orfila took two grains of Iodine, Avhich caused a horrible taste and
loathing;  next day, after taking four grains, he experienced, imme-
diately after taking the drug, a constriction and  heat in the fauces 
548
LECTURE XXXVI.
for a quarter of an hour, followed by vomiting of a yellowish liquid
containing Iodine and  by a slight tightness about the chest.  Six
grains caused immediately heat, contraction of the fauces, nausea
and loathing, eructations, ptyalism, pain  in the  stomach,  and, ten
minutes after, a bilious vomiting  and slight colic; the pulse rose to
eighty-five and  even  ninety beats;  at times  the  breathing felt
oppressed, the temperature of the skin Avas somewhat increased and
the urine  a little darker.
  Reichenau reports the case of a woman of twenty-six  years who
lost her breasts entirely after using Iodine for six months.
  According to Hugol, the vapors of Iodine causes intoxication and
cerebral congestion.
  Schmid has seen Iodine cause miscarriage.
  Jahn remarks that Iodine causes liquefaction of the adipose matter,
in consequence of which process the skin becomes  clammy  and
assumes a dirty color,  a pellicle of fat is formed  on the urine, the
stools are yellower than usual, and the menses  more profuse, the
blood is  more fluid, the digestion  is weakened and the muscular
system is more  irritable.  If the use of the drug is continued still
longer, fever sets in, the glands dwindle away and nervous atrophy
is developed.
  After the excessive use of Iodine, Zink observed restlessness, ex-
cessive heat, palpitation of the heart, frequent pulse, violent and con-
tinual erections, excessive diarrhoea, unquenchable thirst, trembling,
emaciation, fainting fits and death.  In another fatal case he found
the bowels distended, portions of them very much inflamed, almost
as if  sphacelated, the internal walls of the stomach were red, exco-
riated over a space of two inches, the serous coat Avas thickened and
of a looser consistence, the liver was enlarged and paler than usual.
  According to some observers, Iodine causes atrophy of the testes
and sterility.
  Several cases of poisoning by Iodine are recorded in the Journal
of Medical Chemistry, 4th vol., by Drs. Dessaignes and  Moncourrier.
In one of them the sufferer swallowed two and a half drachms of the
tincture of Iodine, which caused heat and dryness from the faucus to
the epigastrium, followed by tearing pains in the stomach, ineffectual
efforts to  vomit, and an hour later, small and contracted pulse, horrid
pains in the stomach, and disposition to convulsions.
  Iodine  has even caused gangrene.  A Avoman took the tincture of
Iodine to remove her obesity, 6 drops three times  a  day, and after-
wards 30 drops daily for eight weeks, in all two ounces of the tinc-
ture.   First she was  attacked Avith a large furuncle  betAveen the
scapulae  and considerable inflammation of the surrounding parts
(with  loss  of appetite and sleeplessness);  the furuncle detached
itself from the skin after the application of warm poultices, in the
shape of hard, knotty bodies, leaving deep and painless ulcers which
refused to heal; afterwards she suddenly experienced a violent pain
in the big toe of the right foot, increasing  in violence and passing
to the other toes on the day following;  the toe which had been first
affected became less sensitive, then cold, lastly  black, with sudden
supervention of a typhoid fever, the gangrene rising up to the thigh 
jodium.                  *      549
with horrid pains, the leg becoming black as pitch and icy-cold,
until finally the tibia and fibula broke while the woman attempted
to turn herself in bed, the Avhole limb dropping  off; every  spot
which had been  scratched became dark-brown, and the  ulcerated
places, remaining after the furuncles,  became likewise gangrenous.
  These diversified effects of Iodine upon  the  organism afford dis-
tinct evidence of its relation to the glandular  and  mucous tissues.
It impairs and even destroys the reproductive powers of these tis-
sues even to the extent of causing atrophy and gangrene.   Iodine is
one of those agents which Old-School practitioners permit themselves
to use empirically to an almost unlimited extent.  It is even recom-
mended as a specific  remedy in many  diseases where its curative
virtues depend entirely upon its being homoeopathic to the malady.
Thus it is recommended for marasmus, and  yet we know that  it
causes emaciation.  It is recommended for mercurial ptyalism, and
yet we know that it causes an excessive secretion of saliva.  It causes
dyspnoea, cough, spitting of blood, and yet it is recommended by a
number of authors for these very affections.  Guided by  the toxi-
cological effects of Iodine, and by the  symptoms obtained through
systematic provings,  we may draw the following parallel betAveen
the symptoms of this drug and the diseases to which it is homoeopathic.

                    CEPHALIC GROUP.
  It was asserted by  a French physician, Dr. Laffore, that Iodine
is a remedy for tubercular meningitis; but when invited to repeat
his experiments at the hospital of the children in Paris, he utterly
failed in performing a single cure ; it is therefore  to be presumed
that his diagnosis in the first place  was  incorrect.  Nevertheless,
according to some homoeopathic authors, Iodine may be  useful in
dropsical affections of the brain, if not depending upon tubercular
disorganization ;  I do not see, however, why Iodine should not like-
Avise be tried  in cases of tubercular meningitis;  this disease has
been found incurable with the remedial agents usually employed
against it.
  Iodine has caused
  Headache ivith  vertigo, and also frontal headache  with stitches in
the eyes and ears,

  Professor  Joerg and his disciples have furnished  a few extremely
interesting provings of Iodine, among which a painful pressure in
the forehead and occiput  deserves to be noticed ; the pressure  gene-
rally terminated  in confusion of the head, and seems to have been in
rapport with the digestive system ; for after  the frontal  headache
had passed off, the provers would experience a sensation of gnawing
hunger, and a discharge  of loose  faeces would take place, contrary
to habit.
  In Frank's Physiological Magazine a case is alluded to where this
sympathetic relation between  the brain and stomach is strikingly
illustrated.
  A man of twenty-five years who had enjoyed the best health, took
ten  drops of the tincture of iodine twice after which he was attacked 
550
LECTURE XXXVI.
 with the following symptoms: Paleness of the  face, cold sweat,
 trembling of the limbs, constriction  of the chest, desire to vomit,
 anxiety,  headache, and  lastly fainting.  Ever since, his digestion
 became ruined.  Every other day, after eating the least quantity of
 food, he was attacked with indigestion, and a maddening headache.
 In the course of years he obtained some relief from these sufferings,
 but he was never able to drink water at dinner; sweet milk always
 proved absolutely incompatible with his stomach.
   From this case of poisoning Ave may derive a useful lesson, in the
 treatment of
   Chronic Nervous Headaches depending upon gastric derangements.
 When we come to speak of the Chylo-poietic Group, the influence of
 Iodine upon  the nerves of the stomach will be pointed out more
 fully to your attention.

                     NERVOUS  GROUP.

   The action of Iodine upon the nervous energy of the reproductive
 system is exceedingly depressing;  if the Iodine is  continued in suf-
 ficient quantity and for  a length of time, an universal emaciation
 seems to be a very common result.  The breast, testicles, the cellu-
 lar tissue and the parenchyma of organs have been knoAvn to dwindle
 away under the action of Iodine.   We may avail  ourselves  of this
 indication in the treatment of
   Marasmus or Atrophy, especially when the emaciation is attended
 with another characteristic effect of Iodine ; Ave mean
   Trembling or Tremor of the limbs.   Gairdner observes that  Iodine
 causes: Trembling of the limbs, resembling chorea and sometimes
 lasting a long time.

   In Frank's Magazine, a case of poisoning is reported, where these
 effects of Iodine upon the nervous system and upon the cellular
 tissue are announced in a very marked manner.  A girl of twenty-
 four years took the tincture of Iodine for goitre.  In a few days she
 experienced the following symptoms: palpitation of the heart, ver-
 tigo, twitching of the muscles, prostration, constant urging to urin-
 ate, alternate chills and heat, loss of appetite and sleep, emaciation.
   In  the  Marasmus of children, of hysteric females, of drunkards
 even, Iodine may render  us eminent service, if the  patient trembles
from attempting the least muscular effort, with hectic  fever, slight
chills followed by heat  and dryness  of the skin,  loss of appetite,
dizziness,  headache.
   Marasmus as a form of Hydrargyrosis, if the previously described
symptoms are present, will  find in Iodine one of its powerful anti-
dotes  We read that the  abuse  of Iodine has caused a general
trembling of the extremities and muscles of the back. The trembling
commences with slight tremor of the hands, gradually invading the
larger muscles of the arms and back; the gait is unsteady ; the hand
trembles to and  fro, when carried to the mouth; the movements of
the body are painful; the patient is able to hold the trembling limb
quiet if he does not attempt to move it   These symptoms point to the
use of Iodine in 
JODIUM.
551
   Mercurial Tremor, which very much resembles the Iodine-trembling
in many essential features.

   We see it stated that a man who used  Iodine for impotence, Avas
attacked with paralysis of the lower extremities.
   Wallace informs us that Iodine, after first causing headache and
indigestion, then affected the muscular equilibrium, causing tremb-
ling and afterwards paraplegia.
   Effects like these may lead us to employ Iodine in
   Paralysis of the  Extremities, one or more, if the affection is the
natural consequence of deficient  innervation, a gradual sinking of
the reproductive energies in consequence of care, povery, exposure.

   In Hufeland's Journal several  cases of paralysis are described
which were  cured with  Iodine.  One is a  case of a poor woman
who had lost the use of her lower limbs in consequence of care, hard
work and exposure.  The lower extremities  had become atrophied
and contracted to such an extent that the soles of the feet almost
touched the glutei muscles.   She  suffered great pains in the limbs
which seemed to proceed from a belt-shaped region in the abdomen,
whence the pain spread to  the legs  and feet.   Under  the use  of
Iodine, three times a day, a teaspoonful of a solution of  five grains
in two ounces of water, the patient gradually recovered  the perfect
use of her limbs.
   A  case of this kind shows that  Iodine possesses the power  of
restoring the reproductive energies of the ganglionic system. Allceo-
pathic physicians must find  it extremely  hard to account  for these
wonderful  results of  the action of Iodine in the organism.  Some
go so far as to assert that Iodine is food for the tissues.  They forget
that, if it is no longer convenient to fall back upon such an explana-
tion, they do not hesitate to adopt the opposite theory; that Iodine
impoverishes the tissues, diminishes and even destroys their assimi-
lative power.   It is upon this theory that the curative  virtues of
Iodine in the treatment  of  goitre are predicated.   Homoeopathic
physicians account for the cure of atrophy by means of Iodine in a
much  more rational manner.  Iodine has a specific affinity for the
morbific  principle which gives rise to, develops and maintains the
atrophied condition of the limb.  Be  this principle scorbutic, scrofu-
lous, psoric, syphilitic or mercurial;  Iodine has power to neutralize
it, and it is upon this neutralization  or absorption  of the  morbific
element that the cure of atrophy depends.
  In  the cure of goitre, Iodine  may seem to act differently, but it
does not in reality.  According to Chatin, the immediate cause  of
goitre is the absence of a normal proportion of Iodine in the food
and water, Avhich the inhabitants of districts where goitre is  endemic,
consume.  This  explanation,  plausible and brilliant as it  may seem,
is  not sufficient.  If it were, Avhy  should not the absence of Iodine
result in the development of other diseases for which Iodine is given
with success ?   AVith Iodine we cure glandular swellings of a scro-
fulous and syphilitic nature  generally; yet Ave are not aAvare that
the inhabitants of districts Avhere goitre and  cretinism are  endemic, 
552
LECTURE XXXVI.
are, on that account any the more afflicted with the general symp-
toms of scrofulosis for which Iodine is universally and successfully
used as one of the most reliable remedies.  On the contrary, Doctor
Grange of  Geneva is of opinion that there is no sort of connection
betAveen  scrofula and goitre.  According to  his observations,  in
regions of country where  goitre is most frequent, scrofula  is.  an
exceedingly rare disease.   The  region  of the Pyrenees may  be
instanced as an illustration of this fact.
  Admitting the truth of the assertion that Iodine is a normal con-
stituent of  the organic tissues, we do not admit the justness of the
inference that the absence of Iodine in the fluids  and solids Avhich
individuals oppropriate to  themselves as food, leads to the develop-
ment  of  goitre and  cretinism.   There is a difference betAveen the
absence of good and the presence of positive evil.  Small-pox is both
the absence of a good, and the presence of a positive evil; so  is
syphilis; so is  fever and  ague; so  is erysipelas;  so are goitre and
cretinism.  Diseases are states of evil, depending  upon the presence
of morbific principles.  A morbific agent or force  may have sup-
planted the power of normal reproduction in the thyroid body; we
can understand and accept such a doctrine; we can understand that
this inimical influence may act  as a  parasite upon the  tissues of the
gland, appropriating to itself its physiological growth, and develop-
ing it into an  hypertrophied  monstrum.  It  is upon  this inimical
agent that the Iodine acts;  by neutralizing it, the normal reproduc-
tive energy of the gland is restored, and a gradual  removal of the
adventitious mass is the consequence.

                  INFLAMMATORY  GROUP.

  Poisonous  doses of Iodine produce inflammation, ulceration and
even  gangrene of the intestinal mucous membrane.
  A  lady of twenty-six years  undertook to kill  herself with tAvo
drachms of the tincture of Iodine.   She experienced a burning and
dryness from the throat to the stomach, with tearing pains in the
epigastrium and fruitless attempts to vomit.   Tier face was flushed,
her eyes Aveeping; pulse contracted, small; she complained of violent
pains in the stomach that were made much Avorse by pressure.  After
having obtained relief by antidotal treatment, the pain shifted to the
bowels along the tract of the colon.
  These symptoms denote  inflammation of the mucous lining of the
digestive tube.  It is only in few cases that Iodine may be available in
   Gastro-enteritis; in rheumatic inflammation of scrofulous children,
for instance, it would be  perfectly justifiable to use Aconite and
Iodine in alternation; this treatment might likeAvise  be pursued in a
case of inflammation induced by abuse of alcoholic stimulants.
  In  Horn's Archives we read of a case of poisoning by Iodine which
shadows forth the homoeopathicity of this agent to an acute attack of

   Typhoid Enteritis; the symptoms in this case were: colic, vomiting,
bloody diarrhoea, cadaverous paleness, coldness and trembling of the
limbs, anxiety, vibratory motions before the eyes, profuse SAveat  on
the forehead, irritated pulse. 
JODIUM.
553
  I designate this group of symptoms as a case of typhoid enteritis,
because the mucous lining of the  small  intestines was evidently in-
flamed, and the attendant nervous symptoms  bear witness that the
ganglionic system of nerves was very deeply involved in this patho-
logical disturbance.  An acute attack of this kind may be the result
of some suddenly-acting cause of a rheumatic or arthritic nature.

  Scrofulous  Inflammation of  Joints, knee, hip,  elbow, and other
joints,  may require  Iodine for their cure.   The joint  is swollen,
looks red, more particularly of a dark-red color;  effusion may have
taken place.  The patient complains of great pain, an aching, throb-
bing, sore pain.  The inflammation is of a torpid character, the fever
moderate.  It may be best to give Aconite and Iodine in alternation,
using the tincture of each, one  drop  in  about tAvelve tablespoonfuls
of water.

  Wallace informs us that in three cases he has seen pleurisy occa-
sioned by the continued use of Iodine.  Dr. Wurm, of  the Vienna
Homoeopathic Hospital, informs us that, in cases of chronic pleurisy
with effusion, he depends upon Sulphur 30th, as his  principal re-
sorbent of the effused fluid.  He also  suggests Arnica  as a useful
agent in such cases.  We think that in protracted cases of
  Pleurisy, if the patients have a scrofulous  or scorbutic diathesis,
and  more  particularly if effusion  into the pleural cavity seems  to
have taken place, Iodine will prove superior to Sulphur or Arnica.
It may be alternated with Aconite or Bryonia. Squills may be useful
in some cases.

                      ORBITAL GROUP.

  Iodine affects the sense of vision with considerable power.
  AVallace has observed:  trembling  and oscillatory vibrations in the
eyes.
  In Frank's  Magazine we read of  a lady of thirty-two years who
took Iodine for goitre.   She Avas  attacked Avith excessive sensitive-
ness of the retina, photophobia; objects appeared in  a flaming, fiery
and dazzling light; the candle-light was painful to the eyes.
  Another observation  by Wallace  is  that of a captain Avho, while
under the  effects of Iodine, saAV nothing but the Avhite paper while
reading print; after he  had got to the end of a phrase, the com-
mencement of it would become visible.
  Here Ave have delineations of peculiar forms of
  Amaurosis which may occur as symptoms of scrofulosis, or as the
development  of some other constitutional, perhaps arthritic diathesis,
and  which may yield to Iodine as their  typical representative.

                        NASAL  GROUP.

  According to Jahr the vapors of Iodine exercise an inflammatory
action upon the Schneiderian membrane, and  upon the lining mem-
brane of the  mouth  and larynx, Avith violent  coryza and  cough,
stupefaction, vertigo, ringing in the ears, sparks, headache. 
554
LECTURE XXXVI.
  This group of symptoms may represent a sort of acute
  Catarrh  of the  Schneiderian membrane for  which Iodine  may
prove a curative.
  Iodine is useful in
  Ozena whether of a scrofulous or syphilitic nature.  In
  Fetor of the Nose, arising from putrid ulceration of the Schneiderian
membrane, in scrofulous subjects, Iodine is eminently curative.  In
the case of a  girl of eleven years, who had been afflicted with a  most
abominable odor from  the nose for  about tAvo years,  and  loss of
smell, small doses of the tincture of Iodine  effected a perfect cure.

                       BUCCAL GROUP.

  Iodine causes ptyalism which differs from mercurial  ptyalism in
this, that it neither causes  stomatitis, nor the fetor which is charac-
teristic of mercurial salivation.   It is a remarkable fact that, in  spite
of its acknowledged faculty to excite ptyalism, Iodine is recommended
and used by allceopathic practitioners as one of their m.ost efficient
antidotes to
  Mercurial Ptyalism and Stomacace.  In Hufeland's Journal and in
other publications a number of cases are reported, where the internal
use of the tincture of Iodine in various doses, from  two to five and
more  drops three or four times a day, effected a perfect cure; in one
case the gums were entirely disorganized, transformed into a Avhitish
pultaceous  mass, covered with  ulcers, teeth loose, copious ptyalism
and very offensive fetor; the patient  looked sickly, emaciated,  with
a quick and small pulse.   Six  grains of  the pure Iodine Avere made
into pills by Avorking them with  a  little gum,  three of  which the
patient  took, four  times a day.  He  was completely restored  after
having taken tAventy-four grains of Iodine in all.
  In Hufeland's Journal, a Berlin  physician recommends Iodine for

  Sea-scurvy and likewise for
  Purpura Hemorrhagica which is regarded as a development of the
scorbutic diathesis by many pathologists.   The most celebrated anti-
scorbutic agents contain a good deal of Iodine.  The flesh of the
turtle, for instance, which is recommended as excellent anti-scorbutic
nourishment, is rich  in Iodine.  The Greenlanders  use for scurvy
sea-algae which they prefer to scurvy-grass or cochlearia.

                   PHARYNGEAL GROUP.
  *
  Joerg and  his provers found that  Iodine causes  a scraping and
burning sensation in the fauces, extending even down the oesophagus.
Orfila experienced constriction of the fauces.   We may avail our-
selves of this indication in certain forms of
  Chronic Sore Throat, with incipient chronic bronchitis.   AAre  shall
afterwards  see that in inflammatory irritations of the lining membrane
of the air-passages Iodine is a valuable agent.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

  Orfila, when experimenting with two and four-grain doses of Iodine, 
JODIUM.
555
experienced a horrid taste in the mouth, and vomiting of a yellowish
fluid containing Iodine.
  Joerg and his disciples have furnished some valuable hints regard-
ing the use of Iodine in gastric affections.
  One of the permanent effects of small doses of Iodine was in the
case of every prover a sort of unnatural canine hunger.   Guided by
this symptom we may prescribe Iodine in
  Bulimy, especially when accompanied by emaciation.  This con-
dition is  a peculiar species of marasmus which may find  its remedy
in Iodine.
  Other  prominent symptoms in the case of Joerg and  his provers
were: Saltish taste in the mouth, musty eructations and a remarkable
sympathetic relation between the head and stomach and bowels.
  One of the provers, for instance, experienced first an aching pain
in the forehead; after it had disappeared, the canine hunger set in
followed by discharge of thin faeces.
  In another prover, the action of Iodine upon  the  digestive appa-
ratus took  this development: tension  in the stomach  and bowels,
slight oppression on the chest; large and full pulse and lastly cerebral
congestions.
  Joerg himself experienced from half-grain doses: frequent attacks
of headache after dinner; he also  experienced cutting  pains in the
umbilical region, with papescent stools and succeeded by a feeling of
embarrassment in the back ascending along the nape of the neck to
the head.
  These  groups of symptoms present indications for the use of Iodine
in various forms of chronic

  Indigestion or Dyspepsia characterized by similar paroxysms. The
nature of these paroxysms  seems to be venous congestion, and a
peculiar irritability  of the absorbent  or lymphatic system resulting
in a sensation of morbid hunger and diarrhoeic stools.
  A very remarkable symptom experienced by Professor Joerg in
his own person, in the following:  " Trembling in the region of the
stomach which thence  seemed to spread to the  periphery where it
engendered a sensation as if sweat would break out; it Avas attended
with a burning sensation, especially in the stomach,  pressure in the
region of the heart, and heaviness on the chest; pulse eighty two to
eighty-six."
  I Avas once called upon to prescribe for a man  who had been sub-
ject for five years past to paroxysms somewhat similar to this group
of Iodine-symptoms. In mid-summer, while heated and covered with
perspiration, he had been partaking of a quantity of iced-milk, the
effect  of  Avhich was to do  aAvay with  the faculty  of feeling either
hungry or thirsty.  He might be from breakfast to supper without
thinking of his meals;  he took  small quantities of nourishment
simply because he thought it necessary to do so for the preservation
of life.  Sometimes he would attempt to swallow a little cold Avater,
the effect of Avhich upon the stomach Avas very remarkable.   Imme-
diately after swalloAving  the water, he would be  seized with a sense
of trembling in the region  of the stomach; thence this sensation 
556
LECTURE XXXVI.
spread to the periphery causing a sensation  as  if the body were
swelling up like a balloon; the sensation was accompanied with diz-
ziness, loss of sense, and finally the starting out of a moisture all
over his body, which ended the paroxysm.
  This paroxysm seemed to me to resemble,  as nearly as possible,
the paroxysm developed by Professor Joerg in his provings of Iodine;
I therefore prescribed this agent with tolerable certainty of success.
But the Iodine left me in the  lurch, and the case unaltered.  I was
throAvn back  upon my own resources.  The only medicine the knoAvn
effects of  which seemed  to come any ways near this paroxysm, is
Aconite.   Upon looking at the symptoms of Aconite, you will find
that it causes a sensation as if the stomach were swelling up.  This
symptom seemed to bear somewhat upon my case.  It causes a sen-
sation as if the body would swell up like a balloon.   This symptom
seemed homoeopathic to the case.  It causes a sensation as if drops
of moisture were deposited upon the  skin.  This symptom seems
to cover  the  fact that  the  appearance of moisture, terminated the
paroxysm. Aconite causes anxiety, dizziness, loss of sense.   Taking
these symptoms together, I considered the symptomatic resemblance
sufficiently perfect to justify me in trying Aconite in this case.  The
pathology, it  seemed to me, spoke for itself.  What little irritability
in the nervous tissue of the stomach had been left by the incautious
use of iced-milk, was momentarily suspended by the contact  of cold
water. The vital energy at once went  to work to free the stomach
from this hostile principle; the absorbents took it up, and gradually
removing  it  to the  periphery,  it was discharged by the cutaneous
exhalants  in the shape of a universal moisture.
  No medicine in  our Materia Medica seems to be  possessed Avith
such a specific power of restoring the irritability of the capillaries as
Aconite, especially if this irritability had been impaired by rheu-
matic exposure.  I therefore prescribed the Aconite, both in  accord-
ance with  the symptomatology and pathology of the case, and  had
the satisfaction of making a perfect cure.  I  commenced with one
drop  of the  German tincture  in the course of twenty-four  hours,
gradually increasing to five drops.  The cure was completed within
six weeks.

  Most of Joerg's  provers have  experienced  diarrhoeic discharges
from the use  of small doses of Iodine.
  One of the  provers records this symptom: rumbling in the  bowels,
hunger and discharge of thin stool.
  Another: frequent pressing and liquid stool.
  Joerg records: fetid flatulence, and papescent stools, with burning
at the anus.
  In the Diarrhea of Scrofulous Children, with thin fetid discharges,
distention of the bowels, pinching, and cutting pains, Iodine has been
used with advantage.
  Let me  recall to your attention, the fact that the provers of Iodine
have established the dependence  of certain  abnormal conditions of
the digestive tube upon certain  abnormal conditions of the brain.
Frontal headache, equivalent to venous engorgement, was succeeded 
JODIUM.
557
by pains in the bowels and  liquid stools, equivalent to abdominal
venous congestion.  AVe have availed ourselves of this sympathetic
action as a valuable indication for Iodine in certain forms of cholera
infantum, described by pathologists as
  Cholera Encephalitica which speedily leads to marasmus and death
from cerebral exhaustion.  The discharges may  be thin, fetid,  or
even bloody and purulent, accompanied with pains and pressing,
and symptoms of cerebral derangement, boring of the head into the
pillow, rolling of the head, comatose drowsiness interrupted by sudden
screams. A few drops of the tincture of Iodine in a small tumblerful
of water may be administered in dessertspoonful doses.  In
  Chronic Diarrhea  depending upon a  diseased condition  of the
mesenteric ganglia, Iodine may render us important service.

                     URINARY ORGANS.

  According to Joerg, small doses of Iodine cause an increased secre-
tion of thin, watery urine, or frequent discharge of small quantities
of urine.   From larger doses the urine assumed  a  dark, greenish-
yellow color.
  The effect of massive doses seems to be to diminish the secretion
of urine.   These few symptoms do not  afford any very satisfactory
therapeutic indications, unless they should  present themselves  as
symptoms of-a more comprehensive characteristic group.  In a case
of stricture or hydrocele, for instance, the above mentioned change
in the quantity and quality of the urinary secretions might become
of some importance.   In some cases of
  Chronic Stricture of the Urethra, Iodine has been  employed with
excellent effect, in conjunction with the bougie.

                       SEXUAL GROUP.

  Iodine has caused impotence with atrophy of the testes.  Hence in
  Impotence with Atrophy of the Testes, Iodine may prove of great use.
  Small doses of Iodine cause violent and continued  erections.  We
may therefore find this agent useful in
  Chordee-like Erections when caused by mercurial poisoning.
  Induration of the Testicle, as a symptom of a general scrofulous
habit, may yield to the use of Iodine.
  A man  of sixty years,  asthmatic, was attacked with swelling  of
the parotids and other glands, mesenteric, inguinal, etc., whenever
he took cold.  After perspiring profusely, he got well again.  On
one occasion, this critical perspiration did not take place, instead of
which the right testicle became inflamed and  swollen.  The inflam-
mation  subsided, but the testicle remained permanently indurated.
The  patient who kept his bed most of the time, Avas put upon the
use of the tincture of Iodine, 8 drops four times a day.  After the
lapse of eleven days, the  patient had  one  morning  profuse  fetid
sweat which continued  for several hours and Avas attended Avith  an
intolerable itching and burning in the diseased testicle.  After the
sweating  ceased, the  testicle  had  become soft, and in a feAV  days
recovered its normal condition. 
 558                     LECTURE XXXVI.

   It is an admitted fact that Iodine hastens and increases the secre-
 tion of the menstrual blood.  In the case of a plethoric female of
 twenty-four years, it caused uterine haemorrhage lasting four weeks.
   AVe shall therefore find Iodine indicated in cases of premature and
   Profuse  Menstruation, accompanied  by prostration, colicky pains,
 dizziness resembling intoxication, frontal headache.

   In  Dysmenorrhea  attended with  colicky pains and violent head-
 ache, Iodine has been found useful.  It  had a tendency to remove
 the pain and to increase the discharge to a normal quantity.
   In one case of dysmenorrhcea, the menses were preceded by rising
 of heat to the head, palpitation of the heart, tension and bloating of
 the neck.
   We should not forget the great use which Aconite affords in cases
 of monorrhagia and dysmenorrhcea attended with spasmodic colicky
 pains in the bowels  and symptoms of violent  cerebral congestion.
 If both  Aconite  and Iodine seem indicated, these two medicines may
 be used in alternation.

   Amenorrhea, as a sign of general  scrofulosis, may be remedied by
 Iodine.   It  is particularly in the case of lymphatic females, afflicted
 Avith bad digestion, costiveness,  distention of the bowels, oppression
 of breathing,  palpitation  of the heart, dizziness  and headache, that
 Iodine will prove useful.   Pulsatilla, Aconite  and Ferrum should
 not be forgotten in such cases.

   The remarkable action of Iodine upon the female organs of gene-
 ration has  led to its use in several important  disorders, particularly
 in metritis, chronic vaginitis and leucorrhcea.
   Metritis.  In Horn's Archives we find several cases recorded, Avhere
 symptoms of congestion of the uterus, bordering upon inflammation,
 shoAved themselves on the second and third day after confinement.
 The pain in the region of the uterus was intense, the abdomen very
 sensitive, with continual urging to urinate, heat and dryness of the
 vagina,  suppression of the lochial discharge.  Iodine  removed the
 pain at once,  restored the lochial discharge,  and freed the patient
 from all danger.
   Chronic  Vaginitis,  especially  in  the case of scrofulous females.
 The mucous lining feels hot and sore, occasionally with  stinging
 pains, a sense  of fulness in the vagina, and yellowish, thick, and per-
 haps fetid  leucorrhoeal discharge.  Give  the Iodine internally in
 doses of one or two drops of the tincture in a tumblerful of water,'
 a tablespoonful every four hours; at the same time a watery solu-
tion, containing  five drops of the tincture to  a pint of water, may
at times be injected into the vagina.  If the vaginitis is traceable to
rheumatic exposure, we may give Aconite and Iodine in alternation.
  Leucorrhcea, especially in the case  of scrofulous females, generally
afflicted with signs of scrofulosis.
  Trousseau and Pidoux are astonished  that Brdra,  Grimelle and
others should recommend Iodine for leucorrhcea,  an affection  so
frequently resulting from capillary engorgement of  the vaginal and 
JODIUM.
559
uterine mucous membrane, which Iodine is so apt to occasion.   To
me, the use of Iodine in this  affection seems as transparent as  the
light of day.  Iodine is in affinity with morbific  principles which,
in certain states of receptivity of the organism, may develop patho-
logical processes of a specific nature, and  removable or curable by
Iodine.  Engorgement of the vaginal lining membrane, and leucor-
rhcea  are some of these processes.  Hence Iodine Avill cure them.
Or, in order to express the same fact in the technical language of
Homoeopathy, it will cure leucorrhoea of a certain specific character,
because it is capable of exciting a similar  morbid condition in  the
healthy tissue.
   The property which seems inherent in Iodine of resolving glandular
indurations, has been successfully brought to bear upon the treat-
ment of scirrhous indurations  of  the  neck of the  uterus. In a
Bavarian medical  journal, we find a case of this kind reported.  A
married female, aged forty-five years, was afflicted Avith irregular
menstruation, violent pains in the abdomen, constipation,  spasms,
fits of anxiety and lowness of spirits.  She  was treated by a number
of physicians without any success.  When  she was first seen by Dr.
Zimmermann, who reports this case, she was emaciated, had hectic
fever, thirst, was unable to leave her bed, had lost  her appetite, was
without sleep, low-spirited, complained of a feeling of aveight deep
in the cavity of the pelvis, which was sometimes accompanied with
a gnawing pain, and was  troubled with a fetid discharge from the
vagina.  Upon examination, the os and neck  of  the uterus were
found involved in a scirrhous induration.   She was put upon the
use of twenty grains of the hydriodate  of  potash,  and eight grains
of Iodine dissolved in an ounce of water, of which solution she took
three times a day from six to eighteen drops in a spoonful of water
sweetened with sugar.  At the same time an ointment composed
of thirty grains of the hydriodate of potash and one ounce of hog's
lard Avas rubbed in the perineum, groin, and gently in the indurated
portion of the uterus, mucilaginous  injections into the vagina being
likewise resorted to.  After continuing this treatment for two months,
the indurations gradually  disappeared, became cicatrized, and  all
the consensual bodily and mental sufferings were removed.

  Another important affection which may befal the female sexual
system, is
   Galactirrhea, or flow of milk.   Such a flow may arise from abnor-
mal  innervation of  the lymphatics  of  the breasts.  The  lymph,
instead of being appropriated or assimilated by the tissues for their
support, is wasted  in consequence of  the continual dribbling from
the nipple, a Aveakness which may lead to  complete  marasmus.   A
case  of this kind occurred  in  the practice  of Dr. Kauser, a practi-
tioner in Germany.
  A  young  woman, Avho did not  nurse,  had been afflicted with
galactirrhoea for  several  years.  She  had  dwindled doAvn to a
skeleton. Dr. Ivauser gave her Iodine internally and likewise applied
it externally; in three weeks she was radically cured.
  I am unable to say upon what principle Dr. Kauser administered 
560
LECTURE XXXVI.
 the Iodine in this case.   Certainly not in accordancee with the prin-
 ciple " Contraria contrariis,"  for  Iodine produces  atrophy of  the
 breasts and of the tissues generally.  No, indeed ; Iodine affects all
 these great cures in accordance Avith the law "Similia similibus."
 AVhy this abnormal Aoav of milk in the present  case ?   The mam-
 mary gland, true to its instinctive destiny, secretes milk out of the
 chyle manufactured by the stomach and pancreas. But the assimi-
 lative  or reproductive power of the lymphatic capillaries is pros-
 trated.   The secreted milk, instead of being converted into organic
 tissue, is permitted to escape.  We may go farther  and trace  the
 difficulty to the brain.  That element or principle in the brain which
 presides over  the assimilative  sphere, is deficient in power.  Some
 influence, inimical  to it, keeps down, interferes with, its functional
 activity.  It is with this inimical influence, whatever be its essential
 nature, that Iodine is in relations of affinity.  Hence Iodine  affects
 the organism in  a similar manner, and hence again, by virtue of this
 very affinity, or homoeopathic relationship, Iodine frees the organism
 from this very influence, if permitted to act upon it with sufficient
 poAver and for a  sufficient length of time.

                    CATARRHAL GROUP.

   Joerg and his provers have developed some interesting symptoms
 by their experiments with Iodine.
   In one of the provers, Iodine caused a more copious secretion of
 mucus in the larynx.
   In another  prover, it caused a roughness in the  larynx, also a
 painful pressure and stitching in the larynx.
   It has also caused: pressure in the larynx and  pharynx, as if
 swollen.
   We  may infer from these symptoms, that Iodine  has a striking
 effect upon the laryngeal mucous membrane, and that it may prove
 useful in affections of this tissue characterized by congestion  and
 inflammation.  Hence we use Iodine with great advantage in

   Croup, especially in that stage of croup Avhere the  exuded lymph
 begins to become consolidated as an organized artificial membrane,
 with suffocative wheezing and a fully developed croupy sound during
 the inspirations.   A new method of administering the Iodine in this
 disease  has been resorted to with  success by Dr. AVin. Arnold, of
 Heidelberg.  His method of using the vapors is of sufficient impor-
 tance to induce us to transfer a description of it to our pages.  The
 three children, in whose cases  the  Iodine vapors were applied, not
 only remained alive, but recovered entirely, without any subsequent
 disease of the respiratory or other organs.
   The  iodine-inhalations may be administered as follows:  From
twenty to thirty  drops of the  first attenuation should be poured into
a small saucer full of hot water, the heat being maintained by a
spirit-lamp, and  the saucer placed  in such a position as to make it
necessary for the child to inhale the vapors.  This may be continued
until the respiration becomes moist and rattling. 
JODIUM.
561
   In one of Dr. Arnold's cases the inflammation was confined to the
 larynx;  in the other two cases the bronchi Avere manifestly affected.
 For the balance of the report, Ave will avail ourselves of Dr. Hoffen-
 dahl's translation in the North American Journal.
   The effects  of the Iodine-vapors were  first  to make this cough
 more moist;  then mucus was expectorated, which was soon mixed
 Avith fragments of membrane, and accompanied by a certain degree
 of amelioration.  On reneAving the inhalation, the children expecto-
 rated a tough mucus, and fragments and stripes of membrane of
 various sizes ; the expectoration being accompanied by violent cough
 and inclination to vomit.  After a frequent repetition and a continu-
 ance of  the expectoration, the anxiety and dyspnoea of the little
 patients visibly decreased.  They enjoyed spells of quiet sleep, which '
 gradually increased in length after  every attack of cough.  In this
 manner  one  of the  cases Avas out of danger in  sixteen hours, the
 other tAvo in forty and forty-eight hours.
   The evident and visible effects of the Iodine-vapors were looseness
 of the cough, separation of the  membrane, and consequent greater
 facility of respiration.  The mode of preparation Avas simply to pour
 a few drops of the strong tincture, or about twenty drops of the first
 attenuation, into a shallow vessel filled with boiling water.   The child
 was made to inhale the vapor by holding its head over the vessel, or
 in its  immediate neighborhood.   The  preparation  of the vapors
 was renewed more or less  frequently, as it Avas needed, from every
 two to every six hours.  At  first the vapors appeared to  be agree-
 able to the children, since they endeavored to approach the steaming
 vessel.   Subsequently the effect seemed to be unpleasant, for two of
 the children resisted the application, after the more  violent  attacks
 had been relieved.

   In Chronic Laryngitis, with hoarseness, aching and sore pains in
 the  larynx, and even  occasional paroxysms  of spasmodic  cough
 emanating from the larynx,  with discharge of lumps of hardened
 mucus, Iodine may prove useful.  Even in
   Laryngeal Phthisis if  the  previously described symptoms exist,
 accompanied with burning distress and expectoration of bloody and
 purulent mucus, Iodine may still prove useful, especially in the case
 of scrofulous and syphilitic  individuals.
  In Chronic Bronchitis, with paroxysms of tearing, suffocating cough,
 violent tickling in the throat-pit, spasmodic constriction, burning sen-
 sation in the air-passages, Avheezing breathing, expectoration of frothy,
 blood-streaked, or even purulent mucus, Iodine may do much good
 as long as no decided hectic fever has appeared.  The first attenua-
 tion may be  used in connection with occasional doses  of the  first
 attenuation of Aconite.

                     THORACIC  GROUP.

  According to Jcerg and his provers, Iodine causes tightness, pres-
 sure and  burning in the middle of the thorax, also in  one side of the
thorax, Avith  dry cough, and rheumatic pains  in the arms, in the
region of the neck and trunk.
                               36 
562
LECTURE  XXXVI.
  It also causes hoarseness, stitching pains in the chest, with frequent
paroxysms of deep and dry cough.
  In the case of Orfila, two, four and six-grain doses of Iodine caused
asthmatic  oppression, a more violent and rapid beating of  the heart,
increased frequency of the  pulse.
  In the case of other persons, Iodine has caused a violent beating
of the heart, with fainting; relief being obtained by resorting  to a
horizontal position.
  Another effect of Iodine is recorded as a sensation as if the heart
were squeezed.
  The action of Iodine upon the heart is  simply indicative of  con-
gestion either  of the ventricles or of the coronary arteries;  the
squeezing sensation  may be ascribed to congestion of these vessels.
Palpitation  of the heart  may be an  accompaniment of pulmonary
phthisis.
  The effects of Iodine upon the lungs are of more immediate im-
portance ; they seem  to correspond with such pains as characterize
the irritative stage of Pulmonary Tuberculosis. In this affection Iodine
is of great use to us; it  may perhaps be advisable to prescribe it in
alternation Avith the  tincture of the root of Aconite, or the  first
attenuation thereof.
  We know that  the development of tubercular phthisis sometimes
goes hand in hand Avith the disappearance of goitre, whence we infer
that Iodine may develop, and, therefore, in certain conditions, act as
a curative agent in tubercular phthisis.
  A  girl of twenty-four years had  been afflicted  with glandular
swellings  for some years,  AArithout  manifesting  a trace of phthisis;
she took Iodine internally for some months and  the swelling  disap-
peared ; but in  their places a dry cough set in which increased grad-
ually and was accompanied with a feeling of heaviness and tightness
in the chest and a sometimes blood-streaked expectoration: the pulse
was rapid,  feverish,  and the patient speedily  died  of pulmonary
phthisis.  This case  is reported in  Frank's  Magazine, where  the
phthisis is alluded to as an effect of Iodine.
  In  another case, the disappearance of goitre under the action of
Iodine seems to have developed
  Taberculosis of the Liver.  A girl  of twenty years  Avas cured of
goitre; but stitching and aching pains in the liver supervened in its
place; her appetite became less, she  grew thin, the  menses became
irregular,  and she died Avith the symptoms of hepatitis, the character
of which,  it seems to me, must have been tubercular.

  A  favorite mode of administering Iodine in tubercular phthisis,
and in affections of the respiratory organs generally has been by in-
halation.   Various instruments have been contrived for this purpose.
One of them has already been  alluded to in the beginning  of my
lecture.  It has  been designed by  Dr.  Fullgraf, a  homoeopathic
physician of the  city of New York.  You may have read  in the
New  York papers of the great success Avhich  Dr. Walker,  an  adver-
tising exploiteur of the inhaling method, is said  to have in the treat-
ment of bronchial and  pulmonary affections.   I happen to know 
JODIUM.
563
that, among his medicines, the  tincture of the root of Aconite, the
Iodine preparations, and some of the narcotics such as Balladonna,
Hyoscyamus, Conium maculatum, occupy a prominent rank.
  Piorry in France, Maddock in England,  and a number of German
physicians  have reported  cures of fully developed phthisis pulmo-
nalis by means of Iodine  inhalations.  Tubercular disorganizations
such as have always been considered incurable  heretofore, are said
to have yielded to the action of Iodine vapors.  Inhalations  have
become so fashionable, and the results obtained by this method seem
to have been so satisfactory in many cases, that it would be Avrong to
overlook or repudiate it.  An intelligent homoeopathic physician is
constitutionally a man of liberal and progressive mind, whose natural
impulses will lead him to examine every  improvement in medicine
with the eye of an impartial observer.

  In Phthisis Meseraica, Iodine has done much in many cases.  Even
if the mesenteric ganglions are very much enlarged, the patient is
emaciated, the reproductive functions are utterly deranged, vomiting
and diarrhoea, prostration  and irritative fever have become prevalent
symptoms,  Iodine  may still effect a  cure,  if circumstances and the
constitutional reaction are  favorable.

  Alloeopathic physicians  are very anxious to put forward fever and
inflammation as counter-indications  to  the  employment  of Iodine.
Sundelin,  Professor  in the University of Berlin,  teaches in his
interesting  " Manual of Special Therapeutics," that " active fever or
feArer of any kind, inflammatory conditions, vascular and nervous
erethism, disposition to haemorrhage,  more  particularly haemorrhage
from the lungs and uterus, pregnancy, phthisicky habit, or fully de-
veloped phthisis, constitute important counter-indications to Iodine."
  Homoeopathic physicians are not  frightened by the presence of
such morbid phenomena.   On the contrary, they hail them as signs
that the morbific force which generates them, will yield itself up to
Iodine as its natural neutralizer.

                       FEATER-GROUP.
  A lady of thirty-four years, after the moderate use of Iodine, was
attacked Avith  a fever, dryness of the skin which was cold rather
than warm; soft and hurried pulse, delirium, subsultus  tendinum,
grasping at flocks.  The Iodine being discontinued, the fever gradu-
ally ceased; in a few weeks the Iodine was resumed, and the fever
returned.
  Iodine is not properly speaking a remedy for fever.  The fever to
which Iodine is homoeopathic, is of a symptomatic character; it is a
fever incident  to  other  pathological  conditions such as phthisis,
marasmus,  rheumatism,  etc.   It  may subserve its purpose as a
symptomatic indication, but in Iodine-affections it holds a secondary
rank.
                  EXANTHEMATIC GROUP.

  The curative virtues of  Iodine in
  Goitre, Bronchoccle or Derbyshire-neck, are Avell knoAvn.  It  is in 
564
LECTURE XXXVI.
simple hypertrophies, simple oedematous enlargements of the thyroid
gland that Iodine proves efficient.  In scirrhous, tubercular, osseous,
cartilaginous degenerations of the thyroid body, the cure is of course
much more protracted,  and very often unsatisfactory.  You will
recollect that, when  the  Iodide  of Mercury was  spoken of,  it was
commended to your  attention  as superior to Iodine in many cases of
this distressing affection.
   Glandular Tumors, indurated, may yield to the  continued internal
and external  use  of Iodine, especially if  other  medicines, such as
Belladonna, Conium, Aconite, etc., prove insufficient.
   Enlargement of the Liver, with stitching and  aching pains  in  the
region of this gland, in scrofulous subjects, and more particularly if
this enlargement is a symptom of a generally developed scrofulous
diathesis, may be advantageously treated with Iodine.
   Ganglia may be removed by the continued  external application
of Iodine.  In the same manner
   Ranula may be treated  with success.  Apply  the  tincture  of
Iodine externally several times a day.
   Iodine is one of our great remedies for
   Scrofulous Swellings.  There was a time when Iodine was generally
lauded as a veritable panacea for all scrofulous diseases.   Lugal,
physician in chief to  the hospital St. Louis  in the city of Paris, did
more perhaps than any of his contemporaries towards popularizing
the employment of  Iodine  in scrofulous disorders.  From  simple
glandular inflammations  to  caries of bones and  tubercular  degen-
eration of the mesenteric ganglia : Iodine has been regarded as the
specific panacea for  all  affections of a  scrofulous type.   In  this
respect, physicians have undoubtedly gone too far ; although it is a
fact substantiated by abundant experience  that Iodine is one of our
sovereign remedies for all affections emanating from disordered con-
ditions of the lymphatic system, and even, as Trousseau and Pidoux
justly observe, for  the scrofulous diathesis itself.
   In  the case  of  Lymphatic Swellings which are not tuberculous,
resolution is effected, after  the inflammatory  stage  is passed,  by
Iodine more rapidly than perhaps by any other drug.

   In his Manual of Therapeutics, Sundelin mentions a most interest-
ing case of scrofula,  where Iodine effected a beautiful cure.   It was
the case of a boy four years old.  All the external lymphatic glands
were swollen, the abdomen was distended and the skin, especially on
the extremities, was covered Avith sores.  The joints Avere consider-
ably involved, the knee and elbow-joints were  almost immoveable,
so that the little patient Avas unable either to walk or stand.   He was
considerably emaciated, but had no  fever.  He took  from three  to
five drops of the tincture of Iodine tAvice a  day.   In three weeks, all
the glandular swellings had disappeared, the abdomen had become
soft, the  ulcers secreted  a laudable  pus and in a short time  healed
entirely.  The appetite improved very  soon,  and the boy  gained
flesh.  His health  was entirely restored in  about  six weeks, and  at
this moment the boy looks hale and hearty.
   Dr. Patterson, of Dublin, relates reveral cases of vertebral disease 
JODIUM.
565
in the Journal des Connaisances Medicates et Chirurgicales, which were
successfully treated with Iodine.   One was a case of
   Caries with curvature, the patient being a boy of fourteen years,
who was completely cured in two  months Avith  five drop doses of
the tincture  of Iodine  three times a day. The  second case was a
case of
   Curvature of the lumbar vertebre, with abscess in the groin result-
ing from congestion, hectic fever, etc.   The patient was a woman of
twenty six years, who took ten drops of the tincture three times a
day, and was cured in three months.  The third case Avas that of a
young lady Avho had  been afflicted  for  several  years with spinal
curvature and numbness of the  lower limbs.   She was cured in a
few months.
   In the treatment of

   Hydrocele  and Ovarian  Cysts,  Iodine has been used with  great
success.   It  should be used  both internally  and  externally.   In
hydrocele, Ricord begins with  a  solution of moderate strength, say
eighty drops of  the  tincture in three ounces of distilled water with
which he saturates bandages that are firmly applied to the  tumor.
The solution is made stronger until the patient experiences a feeling
of heat.  If he complains  of pain, the treatment is suspended for a
few days.  It generally takes a month to effect a  cure.
   Velpeau has substituted the tincture of Iodine for wine in injecting
the  tunica vaginalis testis in  hydrocele.  Cysts and  other closed
cavities may likewise be injected with Iodine.   These  iodine injec-
tions have been adopted  by the most  distinguished  surgeons of
France, Germany and other countries.
   Even in synovial cavities these injections have been resorted to
with perfect success.  In dropsy  of the knee-joint, Iodine-injections
into the cavity of the joint have  effected the absorption of the fluid
and the restoration  of  the articular surfaces.  At first it was sup-
posed that Iodine effected  a cure by producing adhesive inflamma-
tion ; but more recent observations have  shown  that this is not the
case.  A  cure takes  place by virtue  of the restorative  influence
which the Iodine exercises over the secreting surfaces of the joint.
   In Ovarian Cysts, these injections have  been practised with great
success.  The Iodine has  even  been injected into the peritoneal
cavity for the purpose of curing ascites.  This seems to me an abuse
of the great therapeutic powers of this agent, although  it is asserted
that the peritoneum is in no wise injured by such a proceeding.
The dropsy must be the result  of a simple exudation  arising as  an
idiopathic disease, as the consequence of chronic inflammation of the
peritoneum, or in consequence of some constitutional dyscrasia.  If
the effusion depends upon organic disease of the heart or liver, it
cannot be removed by Iodine-injections.   I allude to this method of
treatment simply as an historical fact;  I cannot recommend  it as
a proceeding worthy of imitation.  If Iodine  is indicated in ascites
and anasarca in the case of leuco-phlegmatic individuals for instance,
it should be given internally.
  Iodine-injections have also been resorted to in the case of 
566
LECTURE  XXXVI.
   Abscesses arising from previous congestion ; in the case of deep-
 seated fistulae, and eA'en of hernial sacs.  A number of cures of these
 affections have already been recorded; in the case of abscesses and
 buboes Iodine-injections have certainly proved curative, if adminis-
 tered under appropriate  conditions of success.  Iodine seems  to be
 possessed of remarkable anti-septic  properties; it neutralizes the
 element Avhich keeps up the inflammatory and suppurative  process.
 The experiments  of Liebig and Magendie, and more recently those
 of Duroy, a  pharmaceutist in the city of Paris, have demonstrated
 this fact beyond all doubt.

   In  Hygroma of the Knee, which is an encysted tumor of frequent
 occurrence among persons whose  business requires them to  kneel a
 good deal, a  cure is readily effected  by applying compresses soaked
 with a solution of half Iodine and water.   I may  add that I have
 seen such tumors disappear very readily under the  alternate  internal
 use of Aconite and Arnica.

  In persons tainted with a scrofulous dyscrasia, bones, in cases of
 fractures,  sometimes do  not unite readily.  Doctor Buchanan  has
 found Iodine useful in-counteracting this difficulty.  In all such cases
 it checks or neutralizes the scrofulous element.

  In Syphilitic Diseases we make use of the tincture  of  Iodine less
 frequently than  of other  Iodine-preparations, such as the iodide of
 mercury or the  iodide of  potassium.  Nevertheless we do  use  the
 tincture with success  for  the  purpose of  arresting  a  phagedenic
 chancre.  We pencil the surrounding parts and even  the ulcerated
 surface with the tincture.   This proceeding has the  effect of. prevent-
 ing the further spread of the chancre, and of diminishing and even
 neutralizing the angry character of the sore.
  A bubo may be pencilled  over in the same way, and a gradual
absorption _ of the  swelling be effected, especially  if  the iodide  of
potassium is used at the same time internally.
  Hoarseness  and Ulceration of the Velum arising from metastasis of
the syphilitic virus, have been  cured by means of the tincture  of
Iodine.

  You  recollect  that  Iodine  causes gangrene.  We may derive
advantage from the use of  Iodine in
   Gangrene of the extremities, especially in  rickety subjects, in the
case of injuries, if the gangrene arises from want of care, or in per-
sons tainted with a gangrenous  dyscrasia.   In the  gangrene of old
people, technically termed
  Gangrena senilis, we may be able to use Iodine with good effect.

  Lastly I may mention the good effect which Iodine  has produced
in the treatment of certain affections  of the scalp, more particularly
  Phtheiriasis or the lice-malady, with which scrofulous children, who
are not kept  perfectly clean, are sometimes  attacked.  The internal
use of the tincture of Iodine, in conjunction with  cleanliness, will
cure this loathesome affection. 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
567
                      MENTAL GROUP.

  Doctor Gairdner  says that he has  seen Iodine cause great and
lasting anxiety of a peculiar character, referring to the present rather
than to the future.   Hence we may find Iodine useful in certain
forms of
  Hypochondria, where these forebodings prevail.

                 ANTIDOTAL TREATMENT.

  Iodine antidotes Strychnia, forming the ioduret of Strychnia.
  With starch, Avhich-is an antidote to Iodine, this agent forms the
iodide of starch.  In a case of  poisoning we use emetics, afterwards
tepid demulcent liquids, especially such as" contain  amylaceous mat-
ter:  starch, wheaten flour, potatoes,  sago, arrow-root which should
be boiled in water and exhibited freely.  Opiates have  been found
useful.

             MODE OF EXHIBITING  IODINE.

  We have already  alluded to the inhaling method.   Iodine may be
given in tincture-form, one or more drops in a tumblerful of water,
or the solid Iodine made  into pills by means of gum, giving from
one-tenth to one-hundredth of a grain at a dose.  Alcoholic attenua-
tions may be made.
  In Paris and in German capitals, she-asses, goats and cows are fed
on Iodine which is readily absorbed by the milk to  a considerable
extent.  This milk is given to children and  other patients in whose
cases the Iodine is expected to exercise a curative influence.
             LECTURE   XXXVII.

                        MERCURIUS.

  This famous metal  is well  known to  you all.  In the books of
medicine it is generally termed  hydrargyrum, a  name which is
derived from two Greek words : udor (water,) and arguros (silver).
It is also termed quicksilver;  the  name  Mercury has been given to
it in honor  of Mercurius, the messenger of the gods, whose fleetness
and volatile character Mercury is supposed to symbolize.
  Mercury  is seldom found in a pure metallic state;  in such a case
it is either found in the form of globules in the cavity of other ores,
or combined Avith  silver, silver-amalgam.  The  most important of
quicksil vcr ores  is the sulphuret  of Mercury or native Cinnabar;
most of the Mercury of the shops is obtained from this source.  The
mines of Spain, Austria, South-America and East-India  are exceed-
ingly productive ; those of California are now said to be the richest
mines in the Avorld. 
568
LECTURE XXXVII.
  No mention is made in the Old Testament of quicksilver.   AVe
are told by d'Herbelot, author of a work entitled : Oriental Library,
that the ancient magicians of Egypt,  in their attempts to imitate the
miracles of Moses, employed wands and cords containing Mercury
which, under the influence of  the heat of the sun, imitated  the
motion of serpents.  Aristotle informs us that Daedalus, Avho lived
about 1300 years before Christ, communicated a power of motion to
a wooden Venus by pouring quicksilver into it.  Pliny and Diosco-
rides also speak of Mercury;  Dioscorides describes even the method
of obtaining it from  Cinnabar.  Dioscorides  and  Plinius believed
that Mercury destroyed the inner tissues by its Aveight.   Galen  too
considered it a dangerous poison.           ,..
  The Arabian physicians Rhazes, Avicenna and Aben Mesun,
were  acquainted with the  red precipitate and corrosive  sublimate.
European physicians  objected  to  the  use  of Mercury until  the
Crusades brought them  in  closer contact with the Arabian physi-
cians.  It was  first employed for the  itch  and other  cutaneous
affections.
  In 1493 Mercury was first  used  externally for syphilis.  Barba-
rossa, a famous pirate  of Tunis and Algiers, was the first  to hazard
the internal use of Mercury in syphilis.  He contracted this disease
several times, and cured himself with pills  of quicksil\Ter ground
down with flour and turpentine.
  Barbarossa communicated his  receipt  to  Francis  L, king  of
France, who was likewise affected with the disease.
  To Paracelsus we are indebted for the more systematic internal
use of Mercurius in the treatment of diseases.  Mathiolus,  whose
name I have already mentioned in my lectures on Aconite, used  the
red precipitate internally for syphilis, and AVieseman used corrosive
sublimate in the  same  manner and  for the same disease in  1667.
After this period Mercury was  likewise  recommended for  other
diseases.   Van Helmont, a disciple of Paracelsus, whose  name has
acquired great celebrity as a speculative thinker, sought to prove
the anthelmintic virtues of Mercurius.
  Bertini used mercury as a remedy for inflammatory diseases and
for small-pox.  In this  Avay  Mercury gradually became a sort of
universal  remedy, and  such  a  favorite with  the   profession  that
so-called quack medicines even are accepted by the highest authori-
ties, provided Mercury is one of their ingredients.  I have heard Dr.
Mott recommend Swaim's  Panacea,  ex  cathedra, and it is a well
ascertained fact—thanks to the  analytical researches of Professor
Hare—that this famous compound  contains corrosive sublimate.
  Mercury has had enthusiastic  friends and bitter  enemies among
the profession.  No drug has proved such a friend to man as Mer-
cury;  no drug has scattered such Avide-spread devastation on  its
path as Mercury.  Why should not such a powerful agent prove a
blessing in every instance ?   AVhy should beauty fade aAvay by its
deleterious  virus?   Why  should  man's noble  energies  become
blasted under its influence ?  This need not  be; turn away from
your miserable empiricism, and listen to the teachings of him whose •-»
heroic devotion to medical truth has  converted the deadliest poisons 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.                    569
into harmless and yet all-powerful restorers of health.  Hahnemann's
provings of Mercury, which were all conducted with massive doses,
constitute  one of  the brightest, if not the  brightest page  in his
Materia Aiedica Pura.  They teach us with an unerring certainty in
what diseases  we may depend upon Mercury as a curative  agent.
No man Avho will take the  trouble of studying these provings, in
connection with the toxicological effects of the drug, will ever be at
a loss  how and where to  give  Mercury to the greatest  possible
advantage of the sufferer.  These  most comprehensive experiments
of the  great discoverer  of the homoeopathic healing art inform us
that  the therapeutic action of Mercury is as comprehensive as its
effects  upon the animal tissues are inveterate and intense.
  Mercury affects more or  less every tissue in the human body; it
affects
  The  nervous tissue,
  The  serous membranes,
  The  mucous membranes,
  The  osseous system,
  The  fibrous tissue,
  The  dermoid tissue,
  The  glandular system.
  And how does it affect these different tissues and systems?  How
does the  destroyer  "Mercury"  attack the living economy?  Its
poisonous  action  commences at  the  inmost  centres of  vitality,
whence it mercilessly progresses step by step tainting and  enfeebling
every organ.   Its presence is  said to have even been traced to the
diploe  of the bones of the skull.  The  poAver to disintegrate the
animal tissues, to decompose the Arital fluids, to  destroy  the  plasti-
city of the blood, to prostrate the reproductive functions  and to de-
velop a universal dyscrasia which  may very properly be  designated
as a scorbutic condition, seems to constitute the chief property which,
in times gone by, has marked MerGury as  a fell destroyer,  and which,
through  the instrumentality of the homoeopathic  law, will convert
this great agent into a blessing to future generations.
  The  affections to which Mercury is more or less homoeopathic,
might be conveniently ranged under the following heads:
  1.  Catarrhal and  rheumatic diseases,  common colds, influenza,
fevers,  etc.;
  2.  Inflammatory conditions, especially such as are worse at night,
and not relieved by perspiration ;
  3.  Dropsical conditions;
  4.  Worm-diseases;
  5.  Gastric and bilious  derangements, including gastric and bilious
fevers,  jaundice;
  6.  Syphilitic diseases;
  7.  Swelling and  suppuration of glands;
  8.  Rhachitis, caries and inflammation of bones;
  9.  Haemorrhage;
 10.  Diarrhoea and dysentery;
 11.  Constipation;
 12.  Eruptive diseases, eczema, herpes, tinea. 
570
LECTURE XXXVII.
   The provings which we possess  of Mercury, were obtained from
Mercurius Hahnemanni  solubilis;  but they are likewise applicable
to Mercurius ahvus.   I will endeavor to make you acquainted with
the physiological effects  and the corresponding therapeutic uses of
these two mercurial preparations, after Avhich we shall have no trouble
in completing the study of Mercury, by adding the different salts of
this drug to the general groups.  The general action of all mercurial
preparations is more or less alike, though the characteristic effects of
Mercury are more strikingly developed  by some, than they are by
other preparations of this agent.  The effects of poisonous doses are
so remarkable, that it will undoubtedly facilitate the study and recol-
lection of the pathogenesis of Mercury, if the toxicological action of
this agent is fully described before giving an account of the results
of our systematic provings.

   In Dieterich's treatise,  entitled  "Mercurial Diseases," we find the
poisonous effects of Mercury described in a  systematic manner; they
are:
   1. Mercurial Fever.  Dieterich  distinguishes  tAvo kinds, the com-
mon erethic fever or fever of salivation, characterized by quick pulse,
hot and dry skin, red gums, swollen tongue, salivation, loss of appe-
tite, restlessness, headache, etc.; this fever may continue as long as
the poisonous effects  of Mercury continue  in the  system, for weeks
and even months.  Another kind of fever is the adynamic mercurial
fever, characterized by depression  of strength, praecordial anxiety,
frequent sighing, partial or universal trembling, a small, quick pulse,
a pinched-up and cadaverous countenance,  a sense of coldness;  the
tongue is seldom furred; a sudden and violent exertion may some-
times prove fatal.
   2. Excessive Salivation, mercurial ptyalism or stomatitis.  Accord-
ing to Pereira, "the first symptoms of this affection are slight tender-
ness and tumefaction of the gums, which acquire a  pale rose-color,
except at the edges surrounding the teeth,  where they are deep-red.
Gradually the mouth becomes exceedingly sore, and the tongue much
swollen;  a coppery  taste is perceived,  and the  breath acquires a
remarkable fetidness.   The salivary glands  soon become tender and
swollen; the saliva and mucous of the mouth flow abundantly, some-
times to the extent of several pints in the twenty-four hours.  During
this state the  fat is rapidly absorbed, and  the  patient becomes  ex-
ceedingly emaciated.  The blood, when drawn from a vein, puts on
the same appearance as it does in inflammatory diseases."
  It sometimes happens,  either from the inordinate  employment of
Mercury, or from some idiosyncratic affinity of the  constitution to
the action of Mercury, that the mouth  becomes violently affected;
the gums are tumefied and ulcerated; the tongue is swollen to such
an extent that  it hangs out of the mouth, incapacitating the patient
from either  eating or speaking;  the salivary glands are enlarged,
painful, inflamed, and the saliva flows out in  an uninterrupted stream ;
quarts of it are sometimes secreted in the course of twenty-four hours.
In some cases, the gums slough, the teeth loosen and drop out, and
necrosis of the alveolar process takes place.  The system becomes 
                       MERCURIUS  VIVUS.                    571

exceedingly debilitated and emaciated.  The sloughing may extend
to every portion of the buccal cavity, the inner walls of the cheeks,
tongue, gums, throat even;  the  saliva assumes the form of a viscid
ichor, and the fetor from the mouth is intolerable.
   A very  frequent consequence of excessive  mercurial  salivation,
and the attendant ulceration and  sloughing,  is  contraction of the
mucous membrane of the anterior arches of the palate, whereby the
patient is prevented from opening the mouth except to a very slight
extent.  Pereira mentions tAvo cases  of this kind.   In one case, that
of a female, it followed the use  of a few grains of blue pill, admin-
istered for the liver complaint.   This patient remains unable to open
her mouth wider than half an inch.  Several  operations have been
performed  by different surgeons, and  the contracted  parts  freely
divided,  but the relief was only temporary.  In another instance,
that of a child four years of age, it was produced by a few grains of
calomel.  Though several  years have elapsed since, the patient is
obliged to suck his food through the spaces left between the jaws by
the loss of the alveolar process.
   You will recollect, from  my  previous  lectures,  that many other
drugs  cause  ptyalism.  Iodine,  hydriodate of potash, digitalis, arse-
nic, tartar emetic, ^and several other substances, may induce ptyalism.
It may likewise result spontaneously, in consequence of paralysis of
the nervous filaments which are given off to the sublingual gland
from the lingual nerves, or  in consequence of paralysis of the ner-
vous filaments which  go to  the  parotid gland from the  facial nerve
and from the cervical  plexus.  In  common sore throat  or angina
faucium, ptyalism may occur as a symptom of the general inflam-
matory irritation.  Ptyalism may likewise result from the irritating
influence of  decayed  teeth.  Pregnancy may deA'elop ptyalism.   It
is sometimes very difficult to distinguish mercurial from non-mercu-
rial ptyalism. All the essential  symptoms of mercurial salivation:
tumefaction and inflammation of the  saliA'ary glands; sponginess,
swelling and inflammation  of the gums; copious  secretion  and  ex-
cretion of saliva; fetid breath ; brassy taste ;  swelling of the tongue;
ulceration and sloughing of the internal parts of the mouth;—may
occur even if no Mercury had been  taken.  In cancrum oris, Avhich
usually occurs in children, and consists  of  ulceration and gangrene
of the inside of the cheeks  or lips,  a quantity of fetid saliva is
secreted, and the ulcerative and sloughing process which is going on
in this disease may closely resemble the disorganizing effects of
Mercury.   Pereira relates the following remarkable case of gangrene
of the mouth, which occurred in an  adult,  and closely simulates the
effects of Mercury.
   " A  man affected with rheumatism, sent to a surgeon for  advice,
who, without seeing him, prescribed  some  pills, one of which Avas to
be taken thrice daily.   At the end of the Aveek, his rheumatism  not
being relieved, he sent  his wife  again  to the surgeon, who  ordered
the pills to be repeated.  Another week  elapsed,  when the patient
requested Mr. Coward, another  surgeon, to see him.  Air.  CoAvard
found his patient Avith the following  symptoms: fever, great  prostra-
tion  of strength, sore throat, rheumatic pains  in  the Avrist, profuse 
572
LECTURE XXXVII.
ptyalism, more than a pint of saliva being discharged per hour, with
the breath having the mercurial  odor;  and on the inner surface of
the right cheek a foul ulcer.   He ascribed his present condition to
the pills as he had no sore mouth until after taking them.  On cut-
ting one of the pills, it Avas observed to  have a light-brown  color,
and the odor of opium: hence it was supposed that they were com-
posed of calomel and opium.  Purgatives, tonics and gargles of the
chloride of soda Avere used without avail; and, after some days, Dr.
Pereira was requested to see the  patient.   He found him in the  fol-
lowing condition: right side of the  face swollen  and slightly red;
gums swollen, red and ulcerated; breath horribly  offensive, its odor
not distinguishable from that called mercurial.  On the inner side of
the cheek, near the orifice of the parotid duct, there was a slough
about the size of a six-penny piece; salivation most profuse—in fact,
the saliva flowed in  a continued stream  from his  mouth; over his
body were  observed  a few petechiae.  Notwithstanding the  means
employed, the man became worse, the sloughing gradually increased
until the whole of the right cheek became involved, and he died in
about a week after Dr. Pereira had commenced visiting him.   It was
ascertained from the  surgeon who had prescribed the pills, that they
contained Dover's powder, and not an atom of any mercurial prepa-
tion."
   What  would  be our treatment, if such a  group  of symptoms
occurred as a natural disease ?  Mercury might prove a successful
remedy;  another drug which is homoeopathic to such a combination
of disorganizations is Aconite.   I have treated several  cases of can-
crum oris with two or three drop-doses  of the tincture of Aconite
in a tumblerful of water, giving a tablespoonful  of such a solution
every  hour.   You have to  use a tincture made  of the  root;  the
tincture of the leaves may not prove sufficiently penetrating.   Few
drugs in  our Materia  Medica are more capable of developing such a
universal gangrenous dyscrasia of the blood than Aconite. In a case
of this kind, where Aconite is required, you will  invariably find a
quick and rather hard, jerking, though small pulse, and the inflamed
parts will present a deep, dark-red appearance.  If Mercury is indi-
cated, the pulse may be quick, but it is small and  soft, rather undu-
lating, not  hard or jerking.  Nor are the parts dark-red, but of a
livid, dark-brown color.  If gangrenous  petechiae have broken  out
over the body, you  may  drop Mercurius as a useless agent.  The
better treatment in such a case would be to  give  Aconite and the
first trituration of Arsenic in alternate doses.
   3. Mercurial Purging (mercurial diarrhoea).  This purging  is fre-
quently  attended with  griping  and discharge of blood.  In some
cases there is fulness of the left  hypochondrium, burning pain  and
tenderness  of the region  of the pancreas, and the evacuations  are
frothy, whitish, tough and often greenish, at least in the commence-
ment.  These symptoms may fairly be referred to an affection of the
pancreas analogous to that of the salivary glands.  Dieterich  terms
it pancreatic mercurial ptyalism, or abdominal ptyalism.
   4.  Urorrhea Mercurialis, or excessive  secretion of urine.  This is
a rare disease, but we  shall afterwards  find, when avc come  to  our 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
573
systematic provings, that the action of Alercury upon the bladder is
to cause a profuse  flow of urine, and that on this account Mercury
may be useful in diabetes.
  5. Hydros is Mercurialis, or profuse sweating. This is another effect
of Mercury.  The  sweat is preceded by flushes, anxiety, heat of the
skin, quick and soft pulse.   Mercurial  sweat is clammy, and has a
strong, fetid and often sourish smell.
  6. Skin-diseases.   Among the cutaneous diseases which have been
regarded as part of the ill-effects of Mercury, we find  the following
diseases recorded:
  a. Mercurial Eczema, also termed mercurial erythema, or mercurial
lepra.  This  eruption consists of innumerable, minute and  pellucid
vesicles, giving the appearance of a diffused redness to the skin, and
a sensation of roughness to the touch.  Sometimes the eruption is
preceded and attended by febrile disorder.  In two or three  days the
vesicles attain the  size  of ^a pin's  head, and the serum which they
contain, becomes opaque and milky.  It soon extends over the body,
and is accompanied by tumefaction, tenderness  and  itching.  It
usually terminates by desquamation; but in some cases a copious
discharge takes place from the excoriated and tender surfaces; and
when this ceases, the epidermis comes  off in large flakes;  in some
instances the  hair and nails fall off, and the eyes and eyebrows become
entirely denuded.  There is usually some affection of the respiratory
organs indicated by dry cough and tightness of the praecordia. This
eruption is often accompanied by dryness of the nose and fauces, and
occasionally by more or less inflammatory irritation of these parts.
The eruption first breaks out in the bends of the knees, on the inner
surface of the thighs, on the scrotum, in the groin and in the  axillae.
In a few days, the uncovered  parts of the body become  likewise
invaded, the recently-formed vesicles containing a transparent fluid,
whereas the fluid contained in the older vesicles becomes milky and
turbid.  On the fourth day, the vesicles break, discharging a tena-
cious and rather badly-smelling fluid which stiffens the linen.  The
patient feels  most  comfortable with his knees bent  and raised; the
pulse is weak, and the tongue someAvhat coated.
   b. Miliaria Mercurialis: The appearance of this rash is preceded
by marked irritation  of the nervous  system  and a  slow,  almost
torpid febrile paroxysm.  The  exanthem first makes its appearance
upon the chest, after which the anxiety and the restlessness of the
patient abate.  Next day the rash appears  on the back and loins,
preceded by  the same symptoms.  In this Avay the rash breaks out
in patches, until it has completed its course. The vesicles  are close
together and Avhite.   After the rash  is  fully out, a rise of fever
occurs every evening.   Nervous symptoms, sleeplessness, slight deli-
rium and convulsions  supervene.  The pulse is  small, soft, easily
compressible, not very quick, the skin is drenched Avith SAveat which
has a flat smell.   The  typhoid  phenomena gradually increase, the
pulse intermits, the rash recedes under the skin which becomes dry,
and the patient dies comatose.
   c. Herpes Preputialis: a diffused redness makes its appearance at
one spot on the inner surface of the prepuce, with a  good deal of 
571
LECTURE XXXVII.
itching.  Next day several  transparent vesicles start up, of a pale-
red color, with a Avhitish tinge ; on the third day they break, forming
roundish ulcers with a slightly-elevated border, secreting a great deal
of pus and finally assuming  a whitish appearance ;  the itching burn-
ing increases by washing the penis in cold water.  Pereira observes
that this herpes has likewise  been seen in the case  of persons who
had not taken any Mercury.
  d. Psydracia Mercurialis (mercurial itch).  This eruption is com-
posed of pustules from the  size of a millet seed  to that of a pea.
On the  fifth day, the tips  of these pustules become filled Avith pus.
They .are never seen in groups, but are scattered, as it were, over
the extremities.   These pustules terminate in the formation of light-
broAvn scurf which scale off.
  e. Impetigo Mercurialis.   This eruption consists of dark-red spots
of various sizes, which first  break out in the region of the sexual
organs and afterwards  on the chest.   They itch a good  deal. ■  In a
few months the color of these spots becomes somewhat browner, and
vesicles start up in the centre of the spots which cave in on the
fifth, and scale off on the ninth day.  At first, the vesicles are seen
on the sternum, after which  they spread over the whole chest, arms,
calves and inner surface  of the thighs. At  times  some of  these
vesicles break, discharging a brownish-yellow tenacious  and viscid
pus which dries up into a crust beneath which the  suppurative pro-
cess continues. The upper portion of the scurf gradually assumes a
whitish-gray appearance and scales off.  The scaling off and re form-
ing of the scurf goes on continually until the whole of the skin has
become invaded.   The skin  becomes dry, rough, parched, depositing
small, bran-like scales.   These scales  accumulate more particularly
on the hairy parts of the skin, on the hairy scalp,  in the region of
the whiskers, eyebrows; they frequently fall off in patches together
with the hair.  The complexion  changes  to a  shallow or earthy
appearance,  if it was formerly white and red, and to  an olive-green
appearance  around the eyes,  if it was formerly broAvn-red.   The
patients are  easily drenched with sweat;  the exhalations have an
offensive smell and the alvine evacuations are either  retained or
watery.  The appetite  is either gone, or else it  becomes voracious.
The gums are livid, detached from the teeth, of a dirty-black color ;
the smell from the mouth is disagreeable, the mucous membrane of
the fauces  is bluish,  spongy,  traversed by injected vessels, Avith
tearing  pains in the  limbs,  and other constitutional  symptoms.
According  to Pereira,  these two eruptions, mercurial itch and mer-
curial impetigo, are doubtful results of mercurial action, and should
be ascribed to some other  cause.
   7. Inflammatory Conditions,   a. Mercurial  Conjunctivitis;  this in-
flammation has been described by  Van Amnion; it is characterized
by a peculiar lilac tint around the cornea and a  pressure in the eye,
and generally passes off as soon as ptyalism sets  in.  Pereira doubts
the correctness of the statement that a conjunctivitis of this sort is
attributable to mercury.
   Another  form] of mercurial  conjunctivitis  has  the  following
appearances ;  the conjunctiva  of the ball of the  eye  and of  the lids 
MERCURIUS  VIVUS.
575
is inflamed; the eyelids are swollen, red ; the canthi feel as if exco-
riated, with  smarting pain  in  them, the margins of  the lids are
burning  and itching, agglutinated in  the  morning; they  secrete a
quantity of pus ;  frequently the patient is not able to open his eyes,'
until the pus has been washed  off with tepid water.   The  patient
complains of a pressure and sense of friction in the eyes.   The eyes
are sensitive to light.  A quantity of thin, white mucus is secreted
from the nose ;  the nostrils and upper lip are sore.
  b. Iritis Mercurialis; this manifests itself either as a venous inflam-
mation of the membrane of  Descemet, or as a venous inflammation
of the parenchyma of the iris.
  c. Retinitis Mercurialis: a  burning-aching pain  in the bottom  of
the socket, considerable photophobia, constant lachrymation, a variety
of bright colors,  sparks, fiery rings before  the  eyes, etc.  Pereira
thinks that these inflammatory conditions of the eyes are not legiti-
mate effects of mercury, but should be attributed to some other cause.
  d. Chronic Mercurial Angina faucium.   This is the result of long-
continued mercurial treatment;  it is characterized  by dryness of the
throat which comes dn  tOAvards  evening, in the open  air, or after
talking and smoking.   The patients swallow saliva all the  time  in
order to obtain relief.  After a  while the  patients complain of a
drawing and aching pain in the posterior part of the fauces, and great
dryness in the nose inducing continual attempts to expel air through
the nose.  In the morning, the  patients  hawk up a tenacious, glassy
mucous.  The tonsils, curtain, uvula, and particularly the  back part
of the fauces, exhibit a redness which varies from dark-red  to bluish-
red.  Darker spots are  seen  here and there, with yellowish eleva-
tions of the size of a half pea  in those spots; these elevations are
slightly-swollen mucous glands.   The other parts  of the mouth are
traversed by single vessels of a violet-bluish color, and surrounded
by clusters of other varicose vessels.   On  the mucous membrane of
the cheeks and on the inner side of the lips vesicles of a pale yellow
color are seen which discharge  a clear,  tasteless  lymph, after which
the sore heals very rapidly.
   e. Mercurial Periostitis.  We  distinguish external  and internal
periostitis.  The external periostitis develops itself in this manner:
At some spots in those  bones Avhich are  covered only by  cellular
tissue  and integuments, in the  tibia,  ulna, sternum, radius, frontal
bone, claAdcle, the patient experiences after sunset a  slight tension
and drawing Avhich does not prevent a quiet sleep.  This slight pain
recurs tAvo or three evenings.  On the fourth or fifth, the pain becomes
gnawing, at one spot  only in the affected periosteum.   This symp-
tom increases on the following days, depriving the patient of rest
and sleep, until tOAvards morning.  On making pressure on this spot,
the patient utters a slight moan  as from  pain.  The pain is partly
sticking, partly aching.  This group of symptoms constitutes the first
stage of mercurial periostitis.  The second stage  develops  the fol-
loAving morbid conditions: the periosteum  becomes spongy, it exudes
an albuminous substance in  the  region Avhere the gnaAving pain is
experienced.  This  exudation increases gradually, produces adhe-
sions betAveen the periosteum and the cellular tissue,  and converts 
576
LECTURE XXXVII.
both  into  a grayish white, homogenous, somewhat  doughy,  but
rather hard-feeling substance.   The  swelling thus formed, varies
in size from that of a hazelnut to that of a hen's-egg.  In some cases
the swelling spreads along the whole  of the periosteum.   Such
swellings have heretofore been termed gummata.   The color of the
skin on the outside  remains unchanged.  As soon as the swelling
commences to form, the pains increase in intensity; the intermissions
become shorter and  finally disappear entirely.  The nervous system
suffers a good  deal, owing  to the pains and sleepless nights;  the
patients lose their appetite, hectic fever frequently supervenes, and
symptoms of the mercurial disease are perceived in  other tissues and
systems.
  In  internal periostitis the patients complain of  a draAving pain
wandering about  in  the inmost  parts of the long bones.  After the
lapse of gome days, the pain shows a tendency to become seated at
one spot,  increases in violence,  becomes gnaAving  and boring, and
occasions  indescribable sufferings.   The  patients  are deprived  of
sleep.  After some weeks have  elapsed, the  bone  begins to SAvell;
the swelling does not arise from the whole extent of the bone at once,
but from the upper and lower extremities, following the shaft of  the
bone  and  giving  it the appearance as if it were SAvollen all around.
The swelling feels  hard and bony, whence Ave may infer that  the
substance of the bone has become enlarged and spongy.  Simulta-
neously with the appearance or increase of this SAvelling, the pains
increase to a frightful degree of violence. The pains are characterized
by intermissions, are aggravated by the warmth of the  bed, decrease
in a cooler temperature, and are most violent when  the Aveather, and
more particularly the wind changes.   The intermissions gradually
shorten, until the pains become permanent.  Graves states that peri-
ostitis attacked such patients as  had  taken a  great deal of Mercury,
even if they never had been affected Avith syphilis, as  often as they
took cold.   Pereira thinks that "the disease is rarely or never seen
after the use of this metal, except in cases Avhere it had  been given
for the cure  of a venereal affection, to which, in fact, it  ought with
more propriety to be referred."
  8.  Hypertrophies:  Enlargements  of the inguinal,  axillary,  and
mesenteric glands, as well as of some of the secreting glands, viz.:  the
parotid glands, the pancreas, the testicles and  liver, and condylomata
and ganglia have been  ascribed by some to the use of Mercury;  in
this respect it is  likeAvise Dr. Pereira's  opinion that these effects of
Mercury are not sufficiently  made out.  In cases, where  patients have
died from  the effects of large doses of Mercury, the liver has been
found engorged with blood, even if no other lesions of the abdominal
viscera could be discovered.  Hence we have a right to infer that the
liver  is specifically  acted upon  by Mercury,  and that this specific
action is characterized by vascular engorgement.
  9.  Ulceration and Sloughing: Ulceration of the  mouth is a well
known  effect of Mercury to which allusion has already been made
in the paragraph on ptyalism. Ulceration of the throat may likewise
occur.  Sloughing of the same  parts may be induced.   In a case of
sloughing which I witnessed, the whole face Avas black and swollen 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
577
so that  the  eyes were tightly closed, the tongue was swollen, of a
black-brown color, and pieces of it would slough off every now and
then; this sloughing extended to the throat, the inner wall  of the
cheeks, and  was accompanied  by the most distressing ptyalism; in
the course of twelve hours the patient would discharge half a pailful
of thin, ichorous, fetid saliva.
  Mercury causes phagedenic, spongy, bluish, readily-bleeding ulcers.
Completely cicatrized ulcers break open again and become gangrenous.
This effect was witnessed on board the English man-of-war " Triumph."
In 1610 this  man-of-war received on board several tons of quicksilver
saved from the  Avreck of a vessel near Cadiz.  In consequence of the
rotting of the bags the Mercury escaped, and the whole of the crew
became  more or less affected.  In the space of three weeks two hun-
dred men were salivated, two died, and all the animals, cats, dogs,
sheep, foAvls, a canary-bird, nay even the rats, mice and cock-roaches
were destroyed.
  This case  affords a fine illustration of the extraordinary effects of
the vapors of Mercury.  Dr. Christison thinks that the activity of the
emanations arises from the oxydation of the metal before it is inhaled.
Buchner, Orfila and others, however, maintain, that metallic Mercury,
in the finely-divided state in which  it must exist as a vapor, is itself
poisonous.
   The Simple Mercurial  Ulcer, or Ulcus Mercuriale Simplex, is thus
described by Dieterich:  the mucous membrane assumes a bluish-
red appearance in one or more places, and becomes spongy; next day
these spots become whitish, and the dissolution of the mucous mem-
brane becomes  evident.  In a few hours the whitish-gray substance
changes to a fetid ichor, flows off, and exhibits an irregular, shaggy,
flat ulcer, with  an almost spongy base, and sharply-indented  edges.
The ichor is discharged in  profuse quantity, the ulcer spreads
rapidly  in extent, Avithout  penetrating  into  the flesh, and is very
painful.  If  the use of the metal be continued, and the ulcers left to
themselves,  they assume a dirty, foul appearance and become rapidly
phagedenic.   Blood is now  discharged from the ulcers, not actively,
but  oozing  out as from a  sponge, and evincing a state of great
debility.  The  bottom of these ulcers often present unequal  eleva-
tions and depressions, as if it had been  corroded by insects:  The
breaking out of these sores is often  accompanied by an irregular and
quick pulse, sleeplessness, restlessness,  profuse night-sweats, great
nervousness and impatience from the slightest cause.
  Another mercurial ulcer  is  termed by Dieterich the Mixed Mer-
curial Ulcer. This is a chancre which has assumed a sloughing dis-
position in consequence of the improper use of  Mercury.   Chancres
termed phagedenic, are particularly liable to this degeneration. The
base of  the chancre Avhich had a lardaceous appearance previously,
and discharged  a  thickish pus, noAV looks  dirty and shaggy, and
discharges a thin,  acrid fluid.   Granulations which were previously
red and healthy, assume  a dirty yelloAV-brown  appearance.   Blood
is discharged from the ulcer, it spreads rapidly in depth and  cir-
cumference,  destroying the adjacent soft parts.
                               3? 
578
LECTURE XXXVII.
  Ulceration of the  fibrous tissue and of the absorbent glands has
likeAvise been ascribed to the use of Mercury.
  10. Mercurial Neuroses, or nervous derangements.   The  nervous
system is visited in a variety of ways by the baneful influences  of
Mercury.   AA^e  distinguish  more  particularly  the .following con-
ditions :
  a. Mercurial Rheumatism,  affecting  the knee  and shoulder-joints,
rarely the hip, arm and wrist-joints; sometimes the  rheumatism is
acute, and, if left to itself, results in dropsy and suppuration of the
joints; the pains are tearing, or heavy dull pains.  Dr. Stokes has
seen darting and pricking pains in various parts of the body pro-
duced by  Mercury.  Sometimes the rheumatic pains  are  at first
wandering, and afterAvards become seated and penetrating.
  b. Mercurial Neuralgia.  Along the track of a motor nerve the
patient experiences  a  drawing, tearing pain.   The  pain may be
seated, but more frequently it shifts from one place to another along
different portions of the affected nerve.  The pain may ultimately
affect different parts of the  nervous system.   It has distinct, but
irregular intermissions, and is excited by an exertion, a current  of
air, or by  getting heated.  Such patients cannot bear wet Aveather.
They feel comfortable even if the weather is ever so hot.   The
nights are generally quiet.  These tearing  pains sometimes proceed
from the teeth, extending to the parietal bone and the frontal region,
and depriving the patient of sleep.
   c.  Tremor Mercurialis,  mercurial trembling.   This trembling is
sometimes so violent that the  patients are unable to talk, Avalk  or
eat; they have  to be  fed and  dressed  by others.  This trembling
may affect single muscles, or AArhole limbs, even the head and back;
it sometimes increases to convulsions.   Thackrah, in his work  on
Arts,  Trades,  etc.,  relates  a few interesting  cases of  mercurial
trembling.
   " Peter Cataneo, an Italian, had  worked for five years at the busi-
ness of silvering  mirrors, and was frequently  compelled to  desist
from the employment until the  effects of Mercury  subsided.  At
length his tremors  became general; gums sore, spirits depressed,
bitter taste in the mouth, tongue white, pulse  quick and  small, but
 difficult  to be felt on account of the constant tremor; cough and
 tightness of the chest; heat of the skin above  the natural standard.
 He took  Sulphur as practised  at  the  mercurial mines with some
 little benefit;  a grain of Opium at bed-time;  and  for diet milk,
 gruel, fish and porter: for his sore mouth an  acid  gargle Avas  em-
 ploy ed.   The  ptyalism abated, the  tremors  subsided, and in the
 course of a  fortnight nearly disappeared,  leaving,  hoAvever, a sad
 feeling of weakness which was successfully managed by generous
 diet and  bark."
    " Another case is detailed in Avhich the speech Avas greatly im-
 peded, the limbs tottered, and  the man, though young, moved  like
 one far advanced in years.   He could not convey any liquid  to  his
 mouth in consequence of the severity and constancy of the tremors.
 His appetite fell off, his sleep was greatly disturbed, his body wasted,
 and the lungs drLadfully oppressed.  So  great Avas the violence of 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
579
the trembling of his whole frame that he was nearly thrown out of
a bath by it.   Much of the water was  driven over the sides of the
tub, and it required the force of two men to prevent him from being
actually ejected."
  Another remarkable case of mercurial trembling is related by Dr.
Stokes in  his Clinical Lectures at the University of Dublin.
  A man  of forty-six years was admitted into  the hospital in the
month of  October, 1833.  Since his  eighth  year he had  been em-
ployed in  a looking-glass factory, where he had been devoted to the
business of silvering looking-glasses.  In doing this, the  workman
dips his right  hand into a vessel filled with mercury, while with his
left he is holding the plate upon which the metal is to be rubbed.
Mouth and nose are in general covered with a veil.  The patient had
never resorted to this veil, because he fancied  that those Avho did
resort to it were not in  any better health than  he was.  For  thirty
years he had enjoyed good health, except that at times he had been
attacked with bleeding from the gums and with  stinging, pinching
pains in various parts of the body; he complained moreover of more
or less weakness in his hands, which was however relieved by the
use of spirituous drinks.  He had been several times attacked with
ptyalism,  and  on his arrival at the hospital all his teeth were gone.
A short time previous to his  reception in the hospital he had felt
tolerably well, except that his right  eye  had grown weaker, and his
memory was so far gone that he had  forgotten the names of his most
familiar acquaintances.  The doctor was at a loss how to classify the
condition  of the patient.  He saw that the character of this affection
was spasmodic, but it neither resembled tetanus nor hydrophobia,
nor hysteria; it rather partook of the  character of St. Vitus' dance.
Head, arms and fingers, especially those  of the left side, were in con-
tinual  spasmodic motion.   The  corners of the mouth were drawn
back, the eyebrows wrinkled, the nostrils dilated.  The sterno-cleido-
mastoideus muscle, the trapezius and the abdominal muscles were
spasmodically affected.  In consequence of the  continual hiccough-
ing which was in a measure owing to the spasm of the diaphragm,
and in  consequence  of the continual trembling of the tongue, the
patient's speech had become interrupted and indistinct.  At times he
seemed free from spasms, but  as soon as he undertook to move any
part of his  body,  the trembling commenced.   If he attempted to
raise his foot, it commenced  to tremble, and sank again;  Avhen at-
tempting  to drink, the glass was  involuntarily carried  to the ear,
nose or forehead, so that  his  companions observed laughingly that
he Avas unable to find his mouth.  If somebody else held the tum-
bler for him, he drank quite easily. A cold draught of air, the contact
of a cold hand, and the unexpected entrance of  a person into the room,
caused the spasms to break out.  The  muscles of the left hand and
side were  more affected  than  those of the right side.  The activity
of the  brain was not impaired; the  patient was perfectly  conscious
and Avas anxious to communicate the  most unimportant details of his
sickness.  On making pressure on the fourth and fifth vertebrae, the
patient felt a  little pain;  the  rest of the vertebral column seemed 
580
LECTURE XXXVII.
perfectly sound.  The skin was cold and dry, the pulse hurried, soft and
small, the boicels constipated.
  The folloAving treatment was instituted: Leeches were applied to
the sensitive  part of the vertebral column, and the patient Avas put
into a Avarm bath ;  afterAvards a cathartic Avas given, folloAved  by an
opiate.   In a feAV days the patient felt someAvhat better.  On the left
side the spasms continued,  but less; on  the right side  they had
ceased.   By making frictions along  the vertebral column with the
extract of  Belladonna, the spasms Avere arrested, and the patient left
the hospital entirely cured.
  Instead of applying leeches, our practice would have been to rub
the tincture of the root of Aconite upon the sensitive vertebrae.  The
frictions Avith Belladonna, and  occasionally a mild cathartic would
likeAvise have been resorted to by a homoeopathic physician.
  d. Psellismus Mercurialis, or mercurial stammering;  a peculiar
form of mercurial tremor.
  e. Mercurial Paralysis; the tremor to Avhich allusion was made
just now, sometimes terminates in general palsy or in paralysis of
the extremities.
  f. Epilepsy and  also Apoplexy from  softening of the  brain are
mentioned by Dieterich as effects of mercury.
  g. Asthma has  likewise  been caused .by the  fumes of  Mercury.
Dieterich knows of only one case of this disease; the patient was not
able to walk or move without danger of suffocation.
  h. Amaurosis is likeAvise said to have been caused by Mercury.
  i. Hypochondriasis, imbecility, loss  of memory.
  11. Mercurial Cachexia  or Hydrargyrosis.  The milder grades of
this disease are characterized by more copious  secretions  from the
intestinal canal, liver and  skin; the  urine is turbid, the alvine  evac-
uations are darker and thinner, greenish,  the cutaneous exhalations
are clammy, smell disagreeably, the epidermis becomes relaxed and
withered.  There  is a disagreeable odor from the mouth,  a general
feeling of malaise, the pulse is irritated, the patient feels languid and
weary.  The body and face are bloated, the face looks sallow and the
milk in the breasts becomes hurtful to the child.
  In the higher grades of hydrargyrosis the patient becomes emaciated,
the  digestive functions are ruined, there is alternate diarrhoea and
constipation.   The hair becomes dry and  falls out; the eye loses its
brilliancy, the  face  looks  pale, sunken, salloAV; the nose is pinched,
the wings of the nose looks greenish or bluish, the lips  are shrivelled
and bluish, the gums recede from the teeth, and look bluish-red; the
teeth lose their enamel, turn black and drop out.  The mucous mem-
brane of the fauces and mouth looks pale, bluish, dingy, the breath
is offensive, the skin feels cold and  clammy, and the cutaneous ex-
halations haAre a fetid smell; the patient is troubled Avith  watery
stools, he is apathetic, loses his memory and senses, and frequently
lapses into a state of imbecility.   Death finally takes place, either by
gradual dissolution and hectic fever, or, after a rapid increase  of all
the symptoms, by the destruction of all the organic  tissues, or by
paralysis of the brain and heart. 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
581
          LECTURE   XXXVIII.

  How does  mercury produce these distressing results ?  On this
head a variety of opinions have been spun out by Old-School patho-
logists, some  of which  I will briefly relate  to you and  afterwards
contrast the mercurial treatment suggested and necessitated by the
derivative and counter-stimulant method of the Old-School, Avith the
benign and health-restoring use of Mercury in the  hands of homoeo-
pathic physicians.
  The leading pathologists among  Old-School practitioners incline
to the belief that Mercury acts by absorption.  Mercury has been
detected in the blood where it appears to exist in such intimate com-
bination with this vital fluid that  it cannot- be recognized by the
ordinary tests. -Destructive distillation, has in  most cases  to be
resorted to for its detection.
  Mercury has also  been found in the secretions, viz.: in the per-
spiration, the saliva, the gastro-intestinal secretions, in the bile,  urine,
and in the fluid secreted by ulcers.
  Solid Mercury has been*found in the organic solids, viz.: in the
bones, brain, synovial capsules, the pleura,  the humors  of the eye,
the cellular tissue, the lungs.   It is not known hoAV and where the
vital forces effect the reduction of the mercurial salts.
   But admitting that Mercury is absorbed into  the  system,  as it
undoubtedly is, this absorption does not account  for the manner in
which Mercury exercises its curative influence in disease.  In this
respect three different  opinions  prevail among Old-School practi-
tioners, the mechanical, chemical and dynamical hypothesis.
   Astruc and Barry, two champions of the mechanical  hypothesis,
fancy that mercury acts by its weight, its divisibility,  and its  mobi-
lity ; and thus getting into the blood, separates its globules, renders
it more fluid and fit for  secretion, makes  the lymph thinner and
overcomes any existing obstructions.
   In accordance with these notions concerning the  mechanical action
of  Mercury,  pound doses were formerly  resorted to to overcome
obstinate constipation.
   Another curious illustration of  the supposed mechanical  action
of  Mercury  is afforded by  the ladies  of the court  of  Charles II.
Mercury  was employed by them  as  a means of increasing  their
agility in terpsichorean evolutions.  They took  a  teaspoonful night
and morning, for some time previous to a splendid fete, Avhen they.
Avould have a fine opportunity for display.   After  a reiterated danc-
ing exercise  in the great saloon, lit up resplendently Avith a thousand
burners, it Avas observed that numberless mercurial gems Avere spark-
ling on the floor in every direction, having dropped from the boAvels
of the fair ones during  the  agitation of their persons.   On the fol-
lowing morning the  servants  made it their first business to gather
up  the  globules, which, after being carefully Avashed, Avere sold  to
other customers Avho used them on  like occasions. 
582
LECTURE XXXVIII.
  The chemical hypothesis which was resorted to at one time in order
to account for  the specific action  of Mercury in syphilis, has been
exploded.  It was supposed that Mercury acted chemically upon the
syphilitic virus as acids act upon alkalies.  This cannot be true, for
Mercury often envenoms the syphilitic sore instead of healing it.
  The adherents of the chemical theory have made great efforts to
prove the modus operandi of metallic salts, and likeAvise of mercurial
salts upon chemical principles.   Attempts have been made to show
that these salts without any previous decomposition, unite with  the
organic constituents of the gastric juice,  more particularly Avith
pepsin, with Avhich they are supposed to form combinations of more
or less easy or difficult solution, the so-called pepsinates.  It is more
especially the hydrochlorates of Mercury which, according to Pap-
penheim, are supposed to furnish pepsinates that are soluble in dilute
muriatic acid.  Attempts have likewise been made to show that most
of the metallic salts combine with  the albumine  of the gastric juice,
forming soluble albuminates which, Avhen solved, may  be absorbed
into the general current of the circulation.   It is supposed that  in
this way they exercise their constitutional  action, and that, having
been decomposed in the general current or in the excretory organs,
more particularly the kidneys, they are eliminated in other combina-
tions.  Compounds which are  not  soluble in the  gastric juice, are
supposed to be  removed from the organism by the intestinal canal.
  The learned Dierbach demurs to this doctrine by calling attention
to  the fact that  Mercurius dulcis or Calomel,  which  is entirely
insoluble in the gastric juice, is nevertheless endowed with an  extra-
ordinary power of manifesting great effects.   Trousseau and Pidoux
are  perfectly correct in concluding that the efficacy of mercurial
preparations  does not exclusively depend upon  their  solubility.
The metallic mercury, calomel, the red precipitate and the iodides
of mercury are  all of them  insoluble.  Nevertheless some of them
manifest extraordinary effects, and the corrosive  sublimate  which
is perfectly soluble,  is surpassed  in efficacy by the biniodide  of
mercury Avhich is an insoluble compound.  These  gentlemen are
therefore of opinion  that  the mercurial preparations are endoAved
with a specific poAver of action Avhich chemistry will never be unable
to account for.
  Those Avho adhere to the dynamic hypothesis, either class Mercury
among the stimulants or excitants, or  else they class it  among the
weakening or sedative agents.   This classification is evidently incor-
rect, for Mercury is not a universal stimulant in the same sense  as
brandy, nor is it a universal sedative in the same sense  as Opium.
We shall see by and by that it acts either as a stimulant or as a
sedative according as it is homoeopathic to conditions characterized
by  depression, or to  conditions characterized  by nervous  or vascular
erethrism.
  AVhichever of these different hypotheses was adhered to, a massive
dose of the drug had to  be given to secure either a mechanical,
chemical, stimulating or sedative effect. Pound-doses of quicksilver,
and ounce-doses of calomel have been administered by the heartless
salivators of the human race, -under  whatever flag the battle of 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.                    583
Mercury was fought.  "The horrid spectacle," writes Dr. Ileustis of
Alabama, in the American Journal of Medical  Sciences, vol. II., p.
42, " the horrid spectacles frequently to be seen  as the consequences
of the mercurial treatment are shocking to humanity and disgrace-
ful to the profession.  Even Avere Mercury the only alternative, that
life is dearly purchased which is bought at  the sacrifice of every
thing that  renders life desirable, the constitution broken and  de-
stroyed, the person maimed  and disfigured, so that it is scarcely
recognized by the unfortunate sufferer himself, who is an object of
pity  and horror to his friends.  Deprived  of their  teeth, perhaps of
their jaws,  we sometimes  see these pitiable objects with distorted
features, the  cheeks and palate partly destroyed  by mortification,
and the remaining portion cicatrized into an unsightly knot, with
the mouth  twisted from its natural position, drawn obliquely to the
ear, and the lips and cheeks consolidated with the  gums."
  In another number of the Journal,  vol.  XIX., the same writer
observes:  " I have known an artificial disease produced and  kept up
by the daily exhibition  of  calomel; and  because  a flow of saliva
was  not excited, it was concluded that the medicine had not exerted
its specific  effect, or had  not  been given in sufficient quantity.  It
was  therefore pushed further, and sloughing and mortification of the
gums, cheeks and fauces, and death itself  folloAving in the train."
  The distinguished Liston avowed his  belief that  no man ever lost
the bones of his head or face by syphilis alone, and that this result
was  caused chiefly by Mercury.
  It was reserved for the genius of Hahnemann to convert this de-
structive agent into a  beneficent harbinger  of health.  Thanks to
the humanizing influences, of Homoeopathy, even those Avho ridicule
the minuteness of her doses, have abandoned  the  mammoth-doses
of Mercury.  . Some of  them have even gone further;  they have
repudiated calomel altogether, and have substituted the sulphate of
quinine in  its place. Dr.  Monette avers, in the New-Orleans Medical
and  Surgical Journal for  October, 1811, that the only case  of fever
he lost in a given season, was a man to whom a  pupil gave a dose of
calomel without his knowledge.   He cures the  fevers there without
calomel, and others do the same thing, alleging that bilious evacua-
tions can be  secured without the use of calomel.
  It would appear from  this that the curing of bilious congestive
fevers  depends upon obtaining bilious evacuations.  Such a course
of reasoning shows the utter want of scientific precision in the allceo-
pathic  treatment of diseases. If it is  necessary to obtain bilious
evacuations,  it is certain  that one drug will  effect  this result differ-
ently from another, for the simple reason that every drug affects the
organism in  its OAvn, peculiar, specific  manner, and that it  is there-
fore  utterly absurd and of course impossible to use one drug for
another in  endeavoring to obtain some definite result.  The result
may be the  same, but it is arrived at in a manner which is specifi-
cally peculiar to each drug, and  this specific peculiarity of  the gen-
eral  action of the drug must be in some  specific  rapport Avith the
character of the  existing disturbance.  This vieAV of the character
of drugs and their relation to diseases is suggested by common sense, 
581                    LECTURE XXXVIII.
not by homoeopathic  transcendentalism as the short-sighted oppo-
nents of  our doctrines might seem disposed to think.  Every drug
is an individual,  has an individual sphere of action, determines
specific changes in the organic tissues and holds specific relations to
those tissues in disease.  What nonsense to suppose that one drug
can take  the place of  another, and accomplish a given result under
circumstances to which it is not adapted!  To a clear and logical
mind such allceopathic treatment in the gross must seem eminently
absurd, independently of the positive law of cure  by Avhich Ave are
enabled to determine  the value of the different methods adopted by
alloeopathic  practitioners, Avith undeniable accuracy.   Not knowing
how to use the means  which God has put at their disposal, alloeopa-
thic  wiseacres discard them altogether as useless superfluities or
even as dangerous poisons.  Let us bless  the  memory of him Avho
has enabled  us to repudiate the mechanical, chemical and even the
dynamic  hypotheses of Old-School pathologists without injuring the
cause of  medical truth.  But  if we reject  all these  various hypo-
theses, how does Mercury effect its great results as  a remedial agent
in the hands of homoeopathic practitioners ?  This question we will
noAV undertake to  answer.
   We have shown that the opinions entertained by Old-School
physicians concerning the action of Mercury are either one-sided or
entirely erroneous. The mechanical hypothesis cannot be accepted
because it leads to the exhibition of Mercury in  enormous doses
which, by their mere  weight, may cause  rupture of  the bowels at
some tender spot, and thus prove destructive to life.   The chemical
hypothesis has  been exploded because it is well known that  Mer-
cury, so  far from  curing chancre in every instance,  will often, if
improperly administered, irritate the ulcer and increase its malig-
nant character.   The dynamic or physiological hypothesis assumes
that  Mercury  either stimulates or quiets  the  tone of the system.
Neither of these views is based upon actual experimentation, but is
derived from the empirical use of this drug.  Thus  Bishop will term
Mercury a sedative, because he discovered empirically that "small
doses of  calomel  and  laudanum will  arrest vomiting and  purging
in cholera infantum as if by a charm" (See London  Lancet, January,
1850).  Another calls it an antiphlogistic, because it dissolves fibrin
and plastic exudations, thus  performing the office  of a sedative  by
hushing up,  according to the theory, the tumult in the blood-vessels.
And for similar reasons Mercury has obtained a distinguished place
among stimulating or  exciting agents.  It has been ascertained by
chance that Mercury will cause bilious stools;  hence an  inference
has been draAvn that it stimulates the bilious secretions.
   These crude general notions concerning the physiological action
of Mercury have been as crudely applied to the treatment of disease.
If circumstances led one to infer that there was an insufficient secre-
tion of bile, Afercury  was applied  to, to  promote  the  secretion of
this fluid; or if an excess of fibrin was  discovered  in  the blood,
Mercury  had to perform  the process of defibrination.  Aledicines
have been given to remove effects, not causes. For,  it is evident
that an excess of fibrin is not the cause, but the effect of a disturb- 
MERCURIUS  VIVUS.
585
ance of the vital forces.   Who does not see that constipation is not
a cause but a result of disease ?   To be sure, constipation may cause
secondary ailments, fulness  or tightness about the head,  a  general
sense of malaise, restless  sleep, heavy dreams; these  symptoms Avill
all disappear of themselves  as soon as the constipation is removed,
and the main point is undoubtedly to cure this abnormal condition
of the bowels.  But supposing this retention of stool arises from a
deficient secretion of bile, or from deficient exhalation of the  mucous
lining, or from atony  of  the  muscular fibre, is it  not evident that
these different  causes  have to be  acted  upon, each  in accordance
with its specific nature ?   But is it proper to regard them as  causes ?
These conditions are not causes;  they too are effects.   No abnormal
condition can produce itself.  Analyze a whole series of abnormal
conditions, all depending  one upon the other in regular order, and
after you arrive at the first in the series, you will find that it did not
produce itself, and  that there must be some causative principle  or
force back of it.  In  common language we are apt to allude to this
causative force in  phrases like these: catching cold  by sitting in a
draught of  air  or  getting  the feet Avet.   But it is  evident that a
draught of air or Avet feet are not the real cause of the disease; for
if they were,  the  removal of  the  cause  would  undoubtedly be
folloAved by the restoration of health. But we knoAV that no  cold
can be cured by getting  out of the draught or getting  the feet dry
again.  Hence these conditions have been very properly termed by
Old-School  pathologists  cause   occasionales,  causes  which  simply
furnish an  occasion  for the real cause  to  invade  the  organism.
Gentlemen,  there must be  forces  of  disease, unless  we prefer the
doctrine that disease  can produce  itself.   Nor is the physiological
disturbance  of any organ capable  of developing itself  Avithout the
action of these morbific forces.   AVe believe  in the  reality  of vital
forces;  Ave are not acquainted with their  nature;  Ave simply knoAV
that they exist from the fact that man is a living being, and that the
atmospheric forces, although  necessary to  the existence of vitality,
do  not generate it.   If they  did, the body Avould not perish, nor
would atmespheric air decompose it.  We do  not know what the
nature of these morbific forces is, any more than Ave knoAV the nature
of the vital  forces; but Ave do knoAV that, if no effect can exist Avith-
out a cause, no disease can exist  Avithout a corresponding cause pro-
ductive of this particular  disease.  This seems to me plain reasoning,
and, if we are desirous of curing the disease, it is this cause that we
have to remove: "cessante causa, cessat effectus,'1 if the cause ceases,
the effect will cease likewise.  This cause is not a material principle,
in the common meaning  of the term; Hahnemann speaks of it as a
spiritually-dynamic principle  or  force, a force Avhich  is analogous to
the vital force, in  other words of the same order as  the vital force,
although opposed to it in its mode  of action or results.  It is then to
this force that the remedial  agent addresses  itself.  How is the re-
moval of this force out of the invaded tissues effected?  An ansAver
to this question involves the whole doctrine of Homoeopathy.  To
remove these forces we  have remedial agents.  These visible and
tangible agents are the  material products, the substrata of  internal 
586
LECTURE XXXVIII.
principles or forces embodied in their structure.  These forces are
the very forces that produce disease.  As a proof thereof, all Ave have
to do is to  SAvalloAV a sufficient quantity of any drug and we shall
obtain the same symptoms which characterize a disturbance effected
by the direct action of the morbific force upon the organism.  A drug
whose internal or dynamic force affects the living tissues similarly to
the morbific force, is homoeopathic to the disease which this force
develops in  the organism.  It therefore acts upon  this disease more
directly, more thoroughly, more permanently, in one  Avord more
specifically than any  other drug could do.  And  the result of this
action is the hushing up of the natural disease, not by a process of
revulsion or counter-irritation, but by virtue of an elective affinity
existing betAveen the  drug-force and the  morbific  principle  and re-
sulting  in the  natural absorption, neutralization or equilibration of
this principle, an absorption which manifests  itself  by a  gradual
diminution  of the morbid phenomena and a corresponding return of
the blissful feeling of health.  It stands to reason that the qualitative
relation of the drug to the  disease is not the only factor concerned in
the treatment, and that the quantitative relation is likeAvise a point
of the  utmost importance.   We cannot offer any  absolute rules on
this head; all we can say is that the quantity of the dose must neces-
sarily depend upon the character of the disease, upon the sensitive-
ness of the tissue, upon idiosyncrasy and upon a variety  of other
considerations suggested by the individuality of the case.   I have
throAvn out  numerous hints in reference  to  this subject, and I shall
take every opportunity hereafter of elucidating this mooted point by
general reasonings and by practical illustrations.
   Where, at what point, in what tissue, does the mercurial  remedial
agent meet  the morbific force?  Where dose the remedial action of
Mercury  commence in the sick organism?  These are  questions of
vital importance to the full comprehension of the vast therapeutic
scope of this great agent.
   It is  not the business of my chair to teach  anatomy or physiology;
but how is  it  possible to  obtain a correct knowledge of the thera-
peutic range of drugs and their specific mode of action, without first
understanding, to some  extent at least, the  nature and  order of the
functions upon Avhich the preservation of  the  organism depends?
As regards  Mercury,  its great uses as a remedial  agent can only be
correctly apprehended by those who have a clear and full perception
of the  disorders which it  inflicts upon the  living economy, and of
the course it takes in thus undermining the constitution.
   After the food has  been duly prepared for the purpose of nutrition
by mastication, impregnation with  saliva, and finally solution in the
fluids of the  stomach,  what is the next stage in the mysterious
mechanism  of life ?   After  the teeth, the salivary glands,  and the
stomach have performed their part and the process of chylification has
been duly initiated, what set of vessels then comes into play to con-
tinue the operations  of vitality ?   AVhat are these  vessels  and what
their functions ?
   It is the great lymphatic system which is entrusted with the deli-
cate mission  of absorbing food, in a suitable state of adaptation, for 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
587
the renovation of the worn-out tissues.   Although I may take it for
granted that you  are  fully acquainted with the origin, course  and
termination of the lymphatics, yet it may not be superfluous to offer
a feAV general statements concerning these interesting points as this
will enable me to present my explanations regarding the physio-
logical and therapeutic action of Mercury with so much more force
and clearness.
  The chyliferous tubes in the small intestines are generally desig-
nated as lacteals; but there is  no difference between these lacteals
and lymphatic vessels ■ properly speaking,  since  their anatomical
structure is entirely the same."
  Lymphatics like the great venous system to Avhich the lymphatic
system  bears a very close resemblance, are distributed throughout
every portion of the animal economy.  They arise by a network of
such delicate structure that, Avhen injected with Mercury, the Avhole
surface appears changed into a metallic layer.  AArith these netAvorks
the lymphatic vessels communicate ;  in other words these  netAvorks
are said to constitute the closed extremities by which all the lym-
phatics of free surfaces, such as the mucous, serous, and synovial
membranes, the skin  and the  lining membranes of  arteries  and
veins, arise.
  It is in these lymphatic vessels that the chyle and lymph circulate,
and are gradually conducted to their common reservoirs, the right
and left thoracic ducts Avhich discharge their contents into the right
and left subclavian veins.
   How is the circulation of the fluids in the lymphatic vessels main-
tained?  This circulation is evidently independent of the heart's
action, and, so far as Ave know, is carried on through the contractility
with which the coats of the lymphatics are endoAved.
  For a long time it has been a mooted point whether the great
lymphatic ducts in the right and left side of the thorax are the only
channels of communication  between the lymphatic and the venous
systems; or whether  the  lymphatics communicate with  the veins
directly.  Mascagni taught  the  former doctrine;  Magendie, on the
contrary, maintained that the veins likeAvise perform the function of
absorption.
  The vieAvs  to Avhich Messrs. Fohmann and Lauth were led by their
researches seem to me the most plausible.  They belieAre that beside
the termination of the thoracic ducts in the  subclavian veins, there
are two other modes of communication between the lymphatic and
the venous systems : first, a communication of the lymphatic radicles
with the radicles of the veins, which is supposed to take place in the
substance  of  organs;  and secondly,  a  communication betAveen the
lymphatics and veins in the body of the lymphatic glands.   These
vieAvs, although backed by ingenious experiments and reasonings,
are more or less theoretical.   Indeed, considering the inadequacy of
the instruments with Avhich Ave  have  to  make  our investigations of
the phenomena, structure  and relations of the capillary system, Ave
have as yet to content ourselves in many instances Avith arguments
in the place of facts.
  Whatever,  however, may  be  the exact character of the bond of 
588
LECTURE XXXVIII.
union between the  lymphatics and veins, one thing we know : that
the functions of the lymphatic system are  preliminary to those of
the veins.  It is in the lymphatics that the living organism begins
the great process of nutrition and prepares suitable material for the
tissues.
  A\re  have now arrived at the  point Avhere our doctrine  of the
physiological action and the therapeutic uses of Mercury becomes
an intelligible formula, invested with logical consistency and fraught
with important and beautiful  results.  It  is the lymphatic  system
Avhich Mercury chooses for its point of attack in the living organism,
and it  is in the lymphatic system that Mercury meets the inimical
morbid force when called upon to combat and subdue it.
  Mercury acts upon  the lymphatic capillaries, as Aconite  does
upon the capillaries of the venous system.   It diminishes, prostrates,
paralyzes their irritability, producing a series of phenomena in the
lymphatic system exactly similar  to the phenomena Avhich Aconite
causes  in the circulatory apparatus.   These are phenomena of con-
gestion  attended with symptoms of vascular excitement similar to,
and yet different from, the phenomena of vascular erethism charac-
terizing true congestions of the sanguineous capillaries.
  If we knew the exact relation betAveen the lymphatic and venous
systems, we might perhaps account for the phenomena of lymphatic
erethism in a very accurate manner.   But, as it is, our explanation
of these phenomena cannot possibly be perfect.  Nevertheless it may
be  rendered  intelligible  and sufficiently accurate for all practical
purposes.
  It is from the lymphatic system that the veins derive in a measure
their poAver of manifesting vital  phenomena.  If the  lymphatics
become clogged,  or, to  use a more classical term, congested or
engorged, must not the torpor of  the lymphatic radicles react upon
the radicles of the venous'system?   AVhat the venous system is to
the arterial, that the lymphatic system is in a measure to the veins.
Torpor of the sanguineous capillaries may lead to acute congestions
or inflammations.  If this engorgement reaches the  venous capilla-
ries through the lymphatic system, the phenomena of congestion or
inflammation are of a  milder type, the accompanying fever  is less
acute, and the pulse instead of being full, hard, bounding and rapid,
as it always is in true inflammation, preserves a certain softness and
only becomes moderately accelerated.
  Considering that the lymphatics are distributed throughout every
tissue and organ of the animal economy, is it difficult to  understand
that torpor and engorgements of these vessels may lead to an almost
interminable series of disorders?  The character of these disorders
will of course depend more or less upon the acute or chronic nature
of the lymphatic engorgements.
  Enlargement and induration of glands, effusions into the cellular
tissue, suppurations and ulcerations of every tissue through  which
lymphatic vessels are distributed, and finally a universal decay of
every organic structure may be the ultimate consequences of lym-
phatic weakness and obstructions.
  Whatever derangements arise from such a condition of the lym- 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
589
phatic system, whether this condition  is  superinduced  by sudden
exposure to catarrhal or rheumatic influences or by the sudden out-
break of a hitherto latent  dyscrasia, or, may be, by the syphilitic
poison, Mercury will  generally prove a match  for such disorders.
Here is  the little  chancre-vesicle harboring  destructive poison
within its delicate envelope.  The lymphatics, true* to  their instinct
of absorption, take  up the poisonous principle; inflammation and
ulceration are the consequence, and as one series of absorbents after
another becomes infected, the little ulcer becomes converted into a
phagedenic sore.
  Now bring your Mercury to bear upon  this plague.   It too will
penetrate the lymphatic capillaries, where it will meet the inimical
destroyer as one of  its own kindred, and by virtue of an  irresistible
affinity betAveen  the mercurial principle and  the  syphilitic miasm,
hush up, absorb as  it were, its enmity,  and reduce the phagedenic
ulcer to the proportions of a simple sore  which the re-awakened
energies of the vital forces will find it easy to heal.
  When I think how much good  might have been  done by the
judicious use of Mercury,  my heart sickens at the awful  amount of
destruction which it has scattered broadcast throughout  the length
and breadth of our  land!   Under  the  banner of delusive theories
Mercury has been used as  a great solvent for all the obstructions in
the delicate vessels  of the organism.  Solve the thickened juices;
Thin the blood !   Yes, thin the blood,  and poison it!  Impoverish
this noble fluid!   Eender it useless for the  great purposes of nutri-
tion !  AVhat foul  magic  has  been perpetrated by the Calomel-
worshippers of the Schools?   If  they had been permitted, they
would  have converted Humanity  into a  bleeding  carcass full of
sores and wretchedness.  But God be  praised ; the death-knell of
Calomel-poisoning and Calomel-poisoners  has sounded;  Humanity
is beginning to hear the  great blast which has proclaimed the
advent of a neAv medical Era; may the God of Truth have mercy
upon those who persecute  His cause!
              LECTUKE   XXXIX.

  In determining the therapeutic uses of Mercury, we  may  avail
ourselves, to  some extent, of the experience of Old-School practi-
tioners; but we shall find that, in  the  matter of Mercury, the less
we follow the beaten track, and the more Ave depend upon our own
light, the more closely shall  Ave adhere  to the laAvs of nature, and
the more blessings shall Ave shed upon the paths of the sick.
  Indeed, of what possible use can it be to us to knoAV the use that
Mercury has been put to in the treatment of inflammations, fevers,
eruptive diseases ?   If there is a chaos anywhere in the Old School,
it is in the use of Mercury as a remedial agent.  One lauds it to the
skies, another condemns it as a mischievous agent.  One  sees perni- 
590
LECTURE XXXIX.
cious effects from a few grain-doses of the drug;  another proposes
to avoid the ill-effects of Calomel by prescribing it in doses of one
hundred  or one  hundred and fifty grains.   Empiricism, arbitrary,
reckless caprice, seem to have been the presiding geniuses of medi-
cine in the sick-chambers where the Calomel-doctors offered up their
holocausts to the demon of Destruction.
   To the credit of humanity and  common  sense  be it mentioned,
hoAvever,  that a few of the more considerate class of practitioners
have repudiated the murderous doses of Calomel.   Dietl, physician-
in-chief to one of the public hospitals of Arienna, and Avho is known
as one of  the champions of the  Expectant  Method, gave Calomel
with good effect in doses of one-eighth of a grain in abdominal
typhus, Avhere other physicians had deemed it necessary  to adminis-
ter the poison in teaspoonful doses.  And even where it was desired
to produce salivation, the alterative effect of Calomel most ordinarily
resorted to, some of the best  practitioners of the  Old School  have
been wise enough to get along  with  small doses.  Doctor Law
divides a  grain of  Calomel into twelve powders, giving a powder
every hour.  The irritating effects of Calomel upon the gums and
salivary glands show themselves after a  dozen or two of these poAV-
ders have been taken.   Messrs. Trousseau and  Pidoux  pursue the
same course, dividing one grain of Calomel into twenty-four powders,
of which a powder, containing only the  twenty-fourth of a grain, is
taken every hour.   " This method," say these gentlemen,  " has the
precious  advantage of not being in any Avay  disagreeable  to the
patient, of producing the mercurial infection more rapidly than the
most abundant frictions with the Neapolitan ointment could do, and
finally of almost  always remaining within the limits that one desires
to reach."
   It is true that, next  door as it  were  to  where  these accents of
moderation and regard for the comfort of patients have been uttered,
these same patients were besmeared with the mercurial ointment by
Velpeau and Dubois, in quantities of from a quarter  to  a  pound
and a half a day.
   Even in syphilis, a class of diseases Avhere years of experience in
every town and village of Christendom might have led to the estab-
lishment of some universally-recognized method of mercurial treat-
ment, the manner of using this drug depends in  a great measure
upon empiricism and routine.  Some, like Dr. Carmichael of Dublin,
repudiate the use of Mercury in primary syphilis;  others, and their
host is legion, drug the patient internally and externally Avith Aler-
cury; some cauterize the syphilitic ulcer, others condemn this pro-
ceeding as  dangerous to the  constitution   of  the patient.  Some,
again, insist upon one form of Mercury, others  give the preference
to some other mercurial preparation.  The legend of Babel enacted
on a smaller scale; confusion of tongues, antagonism.   AVhat posi-
tive good there is in  the history of Mercury  Ave have a right to
appropriate to our  use;  let us shun the evils  of the past, and, in
using this great agent,  inaugurate for our sick brother a new era of
life-saving, health-giving therapeutics. 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
591
  The mercurial preparations  of which homoeopathic physicians
make use in their practice, are:
  1. Mercurius vivus, or the pure native quicksilver.
  2. The Black Oxide of Mercury, known under the name of Mer-
curius solubilis Hahnemanni, or Mercurius oxydulatus niger.
  3. The Red Sulphuret of Mercury, or Cinnabaris.
  4. The Red Precipitate, or Mercurius praecipitatus ruber.
  5. The White Precipitate, or the Mercurius praecipitatus albus.
  6. The Protochloride of Mercury, or Calomel.
  7. The Bichloride or deuto-chloride of Mercury, Corrosive Sublimate,
or Mercurius corrosivus.
  8. The Protiodide of Mercury, or the  yellow iodide of Mercury,
Mercurius jodatus flavus.
  9. The Biniodide of Mercury, or the red iodide of Mercury, Mer-
curius jodatus ruber; and
  10. The Bromide of Mercury, Mercurius bromatus.
  AVe also use, under  certain circumstances, a mercurial ointment
composed of quicksilver and lard rubbed together into a homogene-
ous grayish mass.   The ointment  may be made of  the protoxide of
Mercury instead of the original metallic quicksilver.  It is generally
kept ready-made in pharmaceutical establishments.
  The Germans have used a so-called mercurial water, obtained by
boiling metallic Mercury in water, and afterwards filtering the liquid.
This preparation has been used as an anthelmintic  with undoubted
success.  The keen-witted Professor of  Materia Medica in Jefferson
College  calls this preparation a  German affair,  because, after  the
boiling, the Mercury was found to  have lost  none of its  weight.
This learned man  is evidently ignorant  of the fact that drugs act by
their dynamical principles, not by virtue of their material  bulk, and
that these dynamical principles can be weighed  no more than  the
pestilential or marsh-intermittent fever-miasm Avhich nevertheless is
productive of death-dealing disease.
   The terms "blue-mass and blue-pill" refer to a mercurial prepara-
tion obtained  by  rubbing together one part of  the  protoxide of
Mercury with three parts of honey or  the conserve of roses.  AVe
do not use this  preparation  in  our  practice; instead of it, but for
different curative  ends, Ave use the ordinary triturations and attenu-
ations of Mercurius vivus and solubilis.
   I shall no\v give you the pathogenetic or,  as Ave  have been in the
habit of designating it, the physiological range and the correspond-
ing pathological uses of Mercurius vivus and Mercurius solubilis
Hahnemanni; these two preparations may be used more or less in-
discriminately, with this difference, that the soluble Alercury is pre-
ferred in affections of a syphilitic origin, whereas the  crude quick-
silver is used in any other  affections of a catarrhal, rheumatic  and
scrofulous character.
   AVe may likeAvise state that the black oxide of Alercury 0AAres its
origin to Hahnemann.  It is common quicksilver dissolved  in nitric
acid  and  afterwards precipitated  from  the  solution  by caustic
ammonia.
   All the mercurial preparations should be kept in darkened bottles
provided Avith glass stoppers except the middle and higher attenua- 
592
LECTURE XXXIX.
tions upon which the light no longer acts injuriously.  AVe  make
triturations in the proportion of 1 : 10 or of 1 : 100, up to the third,
or better still up to the sixth, after  which the potentizing process
may be continued by means of alcohol in the usual manner.

                    CEPHALIC GEOUP.

  Among the symptoms which Hahnemann has obtained in proving
this drug vertigo occupies a prominent j-ank.  Alercury is therefore
homoeopathic to
   Vertigo ; but upon examination we shall find that this vertigo is
symptomatic of bilious derangement; it does not  arise  from any
primary irritation of the cerebral nerA^es.  AVe shall therefore find
it accompanied  by such symptoms  of bilious derangement as gen-
erally  characterize this condition:  sallow complexion, dryness of
the mouth, coated tongue, chilly creepings followed  by flashes of
heat, want of appetite,  flow of Avater from the mouth, etc.
  Headache, to  which Mercury is homoeopathic, is principally of a
catarrhal, rheumatic and bilious order.  Mercury causes a number
of symptoms Avhich maybe said to constitute a group resembling
  Catarrhal Headache, such as: tight  feeling in the head as if some-
thing Avere tied round the  head very firmly.  Pressing in the region
of the temporal bones, from Avithin outAvards. Headache close under
the skull, as if the head were too heavy and tight.  These and other
catarrhal symptoms are accompanied by signs of  mucous irritation
in the nose, eyes,' such  as: sneezing, discharge  of water from  the
nose, lachrymation, a feeling of chilliness.
  A Rheumatic Headache is distinguished by similar symptoms as a
common catarrhal headache, in addition to which the rheumatic
symptoms are more marked, among  which Ave distinguish such as
these:  tearing pains in the bones of the skull and in the scalp, the
parts feeling  moreover bruised ; boring and stitching pains in the
forehead, digging pains in the anterior parts of the head.
  Rheumatic headaches are likewise  accompanied by general chilli-
ness, cold hands and heat of the cheeks;  one of the provers of Aler-
cury has recorded such a combination of symptoms.
  Lachrymation is likewise present in catarrhal and rheumatic head-
aches, as may be seen  from this symptom: " contractive headache,
the head feels as if in a vice, at times  the fore part,  at others the back
part of the head ; Avith  discharge of water from the eyes."
  By a rheumatic headache we may  sometimes understand
  Rheumatism of the Scalp, Avith shivering over the scalp, a sensation
as if the scalp Avere  drawn  tightly over the skull,  soreness of the
scalp, sensation as if the hair were standing on end.  This  group of
symptoms sometimes requires Aconite, especially if the chill is very
marked, and fever, with a  hard, jerking, hurried, but not full pulse,
follows  after the chill. Mercurius will be found indicated, if the
pulse is quicker than usual, but not very resisting, the patient looks
sallow and Avants to be  near the fire.

  Mercury causes a train of symptoms which distinctly point to 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.                    593
  Bilious and  Bilious Congestive Headache.  AVe distinguish  such
symptoms as tlxcse: "The head feels full, as if it should be dashed to
pieces.  Burning pain in the whole head.   Headache as if the head
were encircled by a tight band.  Sensitiveness of the head to noise,
even to loud talking."
  These symptoms characterize bilious congestive headache.  In its
worst form, this headache may be characterized by a pain as if the
brain were on fire, Avith excessive sensitiveness to noise and light.
During the height of the paroxysm, the face may look red and the
eyes congested, Avith  excessive thirst, and vomiting of  bile.  In the
slighter forms of bilious headache, to which Mercurius is homoeo-
pathic, the patient may feel a violent aching pain in the whole head,
with a feeling as if the brain were sore ; this pain is  accompanied by
a copious floAv of water from the mouth, nausea, vomiting of green
and yellow bile, sallow complexion.   Mercury, from the third to the
sixth potency, may be given, though a lower trituration may some-
times be more adapted to the case.   In these headaches, the bowels,
as a general rule, are constipated, though bilious diarrhoea may like-
wise be present.
  There is one form  of headache to which Alercury  is eminently
adapted as a specific homoeopathic agent;  it is
  Syphilitic Nocturnal Headache, with nocturnal paroxysms, Avhich
often increase to a frightful degree of intensity; hard, maddening
bone-pains, as if the bones of  the skull should be dashed to pieces-
the patient is driven about  the room by  the violence of the  pain.
Mercurius solubilis, first or second trituration, or even higher in some
cases, may be the best remedy for it, but some other mercurial pre-
paration may have to be employed in some cases.
  AVe may perhaps  derive  some advantage from the use of Aler-
cury in

  Hydrocephalus, dropsy  of the brain.  In a case of chronic mercu-
rial  poisoning,  reported in the third  volume of  "Kopp's  DenJc-
wurdigkeiten," (Memorabilia), and which terminated fatally, a  post-
mortem examination revealed  effusion into the ventricles, Avith  soft-
ening of the cerebral substance.
  The mercurial cachexia, to which  this patient fell a victim,  had
been gradually induced by exposure to the fumes of mercury, Avhile
gilding silver.   The  symptoms are so remarkable that  I Avili briefly
narrate them.
  Tdie first effect of  the mercurial fumes was trembling of the hands
and feet, so that the patient, a corpulent man of fifty-five years, with
a delicate skin, was  unable to write.  This Avas in the year 1623.
In the Avinter of 1824, he complained of pains in the  extremities and
abdominal muscles, rose with  a headache every morning, Avas low-
spirited, looked  pale  and  lost  his appetite.   He Avas attacked  Avith
fever, sweats  and a loose cough, which  finally Avas accompanied by
such acute pain in the chest that leeches were  applied in  order to
relieve it.  The  leech-bites  bled for upwards of twenty-four hours,
and the blood seemed very thin.  I may here remark, that it is one
of the common effects of Mercury to thin and impoverish the blood.
                               38 
594
LECTURE XXXIX.
In spite of treatment, the decay of the bodily and mental  powers
went  on increasingly, he lost his memory, occasionally  his mind
seemed to wander, the pulse became full, tremulous, frequent;  he
evinced a constant disposition to lie  doAvn, inclined to sopor, coma;
muttering delirium set in, the breath and Avhole body smelled foul,
the faeces passed  off involuntarily, and he  finally died Avith symp-
toms of apoplexy, one side and the tongue being paralyzed.
  Both hemispheres of the brain, especially  on the left side, poste-
riorly, were found infiltrated with blood and streaks of coagulated
lymph, as are seen in blood drawn in sub-acute diseases.  This soft-
ening of the cerebral substance extended as far as the tentorium and
even  beyond it.  In  the left ventricle, a considerable quantity of
water was found.
  This case of poisoning is instructive to us, not only as an illustra-
tion of the deeply penetrating effects of Mercury, but we learn from
it two important therapeutic facts : first, that Mercury may be useful
in hydrocephalus; and secondly, in softening of the brain, or ence-
phalomacia.
  It is doubtful whether  Mercury will accomplish any good in
hydrocephalus,  if the patients are endowed with a highly organized
sanguineous system, of a plethoric  habit of body and a nervous-
bilious  temperament.   Mercurius seems to be  more adapted  to chil-
dren of a  bilious constitution, with spongy flesh, sensitive but yield-
ing temper, easily depressed spirits, and irritable mucous membranes,
that are liable to derangements from the least exposure to a draught
of air, to dampness, unfavorable changes in the weather, etc.   In
hydrocephalus where the effusion, in the course of an inflammatory
condition of the brain, sets in gradually, not suddenly, and Avith a
paroxysm  of convulsions,  but as a  consequence  of a gradually
increasing impoverishment of the sanguineous  fluid in the cerebral
vessels, Mercury may be found useful.  Nor is  it in such cases neces-
sary to go beloAV the middle potencies.
   Encephalomacia, or softening of the brain, may possibly be favor-
ably modified  by Mercury  in slow, chronic  cases,  resulting from
continued exposure, constitutional tendency to  cerebral congestions
in impoverished, cachectic constitutions, venereal excesses, etc. The
cerebral degeneration is attended with imbecility, fits of wandering,
dull and staring expression  of the eyes, salloAv complexion, haggard
features, tremulous, feeble, hurried pulse, desire to lie down, sopor.

                     NERVOUS GROUP.

   We have seen that Mercury is capable of causing neuralgic pains
in the extremities;  the pains are fine, pricking pains apparently in
the bone; also  wandering pains which afterwards become  seated in
the knee and other joints.
   The neuralgic  pains  to which Alercury is homoeopathic,  will  be
found to be of  a rheumatic character, a species of
   Neuralgic Rheumatism or  Rheumatic. Neuralgia.   In  rheumatic
affections to which Mercury is homoeopathic, symptoms of inflamma- 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.                    595
tion may be present, especially in the smaller joints.  They may be
slightly swollen, inflamed, having a pale rose-colored appearance.
  The rheumatic pains to which Mercury is homoeopathic, may be
generalized as follows:
  Bone-pains or Dolores Osteocopi, hard-aching  pains which are felt
in the long bones, especially in bones which  are only covered by
cellular tissue and integuments. These  pains are worse in the night,
when they sometimes become so intense as to  drive the patient to
despair.   The feeling sometimes is as if the bones were crushed to
atoms.  These pains have their origin in the syphilitic miasm, and
may be regarded as a symptom of constitutional syphilitic disease.
If we have reason to suspect a complication of syphilitic and mer-
curial poisoning,  the hydriodate of  potash may be preferable to
Mercury.
  Stitches in the extremities when moving them;
  Soreness and bruising  sensation in the parts;
  The limbs feel  heavy ;
  Jerking and twitching in the joints;
  Tearing pains from the foot to the  hip-joint;
  Sensation as if the soles of the feet were in  cold water, and yet a
burning is felt in  them;
  Swelling of single parts, such as the dorsa of the feet, the region
around the ankles, heels, knee-joints,  etc.   These swellings are not of
an inflammatory character, though they may feel tender to pressure,
occasionally with a tearing pain, and a burning and ulcerative sensa-
tion in the swollen parts.
  Among  the rheumatic symptoms recorded by the provers of
Mercury, there are three which I desire to point  out to your attention :
  Spasmodic contraction  of the calf of one  leg, resulting in the
formation of knotty tumors;
  One of  the calves is very  much elongated ;
  Oblong furrows in the calves.
  I have  met with a case where rheumatic exposure in the field
developed these symptoms, for  which Alercurius was of course the
remedy; the patient was a colonel in the American army.

  Rheumatic affections to which Mercury is homoeopathic, are gen-
erally attended with a sense of coldness or chilliness; patients like
to be near the fire, they  feel  thirsty, the mouth and tongue feel dry,
cold water is exceedingly palatable to  them.  The palms of the
hands generally feel dry and warmer than usual.

  In the hands of Old-School physicians, Alercury has always served
the  purpose of an  alterative agent, particularly in rheumatic and
erysipelatous affections.  By alteratives Old-School pathologists under-
stand drugs which, by their  peculiar medicinal action upon certain
tissues or organs, are supposed to alter the character of a pathological
process going on in the same or some other remote tissue or organ.
It is more particularly in public hospitals, and especially in military
hospitals, that experiments are  instituted regarding the efficacy of
certain modes of treatment, such as the Calomel, Opium, Tartar 
596
LECTURE XXXIX.
emetic and blood-letting treatment of pneumonia, rheumatism, and
other inflammatory diseases.  Frank gives us a synopsis  of the
treatment of acute rheumatism as conducted by Dr. Faure in one of
the military hospitals of France.  With  a  view of contrasting the
beautiful  simplicity and efficacy of our own  treatment  Avith the
complicated and expensive machinery of the treatment of diseases
as carried on  by the humane and philosophical Dr. Faure and his
brethren, let me parade before you in a summary manner the dif-
ferent divisions of the  grand army entrusted with the business of
conquering the enemy  "Rheumatism."
   This army is in the first place divided into three corps: 1, General;
2, Local;  and 3, Empirical Aieans.
   The first corps, the  General Means, is again marshalled  to the
attack in  seven  grand  divisions, viz.: 1, Venesection ; 2,  Emetics;
3, Purgatives; 1, Sudorifics; 5, Diuretics; 6, Excitants and Tonics;
7, Narcotics.
   The second corps is composed  of bodies that  are to  operate upon
special points of attack, and perform  all sorts  of flank-manoeuvres
for the purpose of harassing and  diverting the attention  of the
enemy.  These  bodies  are respectively  designated as: 1, Topical
bleedings; 2, Emollient Cataplasms;  3, Repercussiva,  by which are
meant drugs  that are to keep the enemy down, prevent him  from
showing  himself;  4, Compression by means of circular  bandages
and  forced marching, probably in imitation of the  provost's office
who ties up refractory  members  and makes them walk the plank
nolens volens; 5, Discutient Liniments (acetic  and nitric ether); 6,
Sedatives, such  as Opium, Belladonna, Hyoscyamus, Camphor, the
cyanuret of potassium  in the shape of a liniment,  or cataplasms ob-
tained by boiling narcotic herbs and afterAvards sprinkling them with
Opium ; 7, Excitants, such as : dry, spirituous and aromatic frictions.
Among these excitants Dr. Faure numbers mustard-plasters, fly-
blisters, tartar-emetic ointment blisters, the cautery, setons, electric-
ity,  acupuncture,  etc.   These constitute his sharp-shooters whose
business it is to pick  off some  stray symptom, a stitch,  a  pain, a
lameness,  or some other daring fellow  that has  got to become  a
troublesome  customer.
   Lastly we have the third grand corps-d'armed,  which acts as the
 Reserve, and where we find : 1, the Antimonials,  including the sul-
phuret of Antimony, the Kermes mineral, tartar emetic ; 2, Iodine;
3, Turpentine ;  and 4, the Mercurials, corrosive  sublimate internally
and in the shape of baths, the red precipitate,  cinnabar, or the red
sulphuret of Mercury  (Avhich  is also  used  in the shape of fumiga-
tions), the protiodide of Mercury, etc.,  and mercurial frictions ac-
cording to Bouchet's, Recamier's and Rust's plan.
   This is the vast array of forces which  Dr. Faure requires in order
to subdue an enemy against Avhom a homoeopathic physician  oper-
 ates with a few  doses of Aconite in one case ; in another with a little
 Bryonia ;  in a third with Mercury; in a fourth with a little Iodine;
 in a fifth with  a feAV  poAvders of Guajacum or  Belladonna.  The
 Doctor, it is true, fights long and  fiercely, and finally retires from
 the  field covered with the  dead and dying. 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
597
   You recollect that Mercury causes a trembling of the limbs. We
 may recommend Alercury for
   Tremors, if resulting from exposure and a sudden suppression of
 perspiration; excessive muscular exertion, want  of proper food for
 a length of time, or a  constitutional dyscrasia may be the cause of
 this affection.  The skin of the trembling limb feels dry, cold, the
 pulse is hurried, small, soft, perhaps irregular, or tremulous.

   Paralysis is another nervous affection which may require Mercury.
 It is OAving to similar causes as the trembling, continued exposure to
 dampness or cold, sudden retrocession of the perspiration; the limb
 feels cold, the adipose tissue dwindles away, the skin is dry, shrinks
 and peels off; the parts feel dead and numb.
   Mercury also  causes stammering, a  species  of tremor of  the
 tongue which we have already mentioned under the name of

   Psellismus Mercurialis, or mercurial stammering.  An affection of
 this kind could probably not be reached by Mercury except under
 peculiar circumstances.  If this stammering is a symptom of  rheu-
 matic  paralysis of the tongue, attended with ptyalism, or if the
 stammering should have resulted from the suppression, by artificial
 means, of a process of ulceration in the mouth, or of an irritation of
 the salivary glands which should  have been treated Avith Alercury,
 then Mercury will undoubtedly prove an efficacious remedy for this
 weakness.  As regards the dose in these different classes of nervous
 affections, you may have to select  from the 2d  to the 30th potency.
 It will hardly ever be necessary to go above the 6th.
   Syphilitic Epilepsy yields to mercurial treatment.
   A shoemaker, thirty-six years old, of good constitution and lead-
 ing  a sober mode of  life, had been subject for three years past  to
 epileptic fits  which were supposed to have been caused  by two or
 three attacks of syphilis.  He had gonorrhoea Avhich was speedily
 suppressed, and was subsequently attacked with a bubo. Six months
 thereafter he was taken with a general feeling of malaise, derange-
 ment of the digestive faculties, restless motions during sleep which
 gradually increased to convulsions and  real epilepsy.  At first the
 paroxysms lasted a quarter of an hour and set in every four weeks ;
 afterwards they came on every ten  days or a fortnight.  The patient
 was  treated in Cullerier's hospital with  mercurial frictions, at the
 rate  of half a drachm each.   After twenty-eight frictions in the space
 of sixty days, he was completely freed from his affliction.   After the
 second friction he had a slight paroxysm ; after the eighth friction,
 he experienced a slight  chill without any convulsive motions and
 without losing his consciousness.  For  a year  subsequently, the
 patient reported himself every month in the best possible state of
 health.

   Messrs. Trousseau and Pidoux relate another interesting cure of
syphilitic epilepsy with Mercury.
   "A young English diplomate had been several times infected with
syphilis.  lie fancied  himself cured  when he began to experience 
598
LECTURE XXXIX.
epileptic vertigo, followed soon after by real epileptic convulsions.
Having been treated without the least benefit by the first physicians
of Paris and London, he conceived the project  of destroying him-
self.  Fie sought our advice.   There Avas not a single appearance of
syphilitic disease; but he had  been treated for  syphilis at  different
periods without Mercury.  This induced us to believe that the syph-
ilitic virus might possibly be the cause of the nervous disorders
which had supervened in his case.  AVe therefore subjected him to
a systematic mercurial treatment, and for the last sixteen years our
patient has never been troubled in the least with  even a sign of
epileptic paroxysms. Last year we treated a Spanish gentleman who
was afflicted with syphilitic epilepsy, with equal success.  The attacks
came on every day."
  In relating these cures, Trousseau and Pidoux observe that they
do not wish to be understood as  holding the  doctrine that Mercury
cures epilepsy;  they simply wish to state that  epilepsy may some-
times be owing to exostosis of the skull, to vegetations of the dura
mater, or to some either appreciable or inappreciable lesion of the
nervous system  depending upon  the venereal infection, and that it
 s in such cases that Mercury will cure  epilepsy not  by its anti-
epileptic but by its anti-syphilitic virtues;  in the same way it may
cure mania and paralysis, if these affections depend upon the syphi-
litic poison.  Paraplegia, hemiplegia, amaurosis and deafness  have
been cured  by Mercury in cases where their syphilitic  origin was
unmistakeable.
  In affections of this kind the mercurial ointment  may be rubbed
in along the spine, and in the region of the medulla oblongata. But
before using the ointment, we would urge upon you the  propriety of
using the mercurial preparations  internally.  If mercury had  been
used  previously by allceopathic  attendants, and we have reason to
suppose that the case before us is the result of a compound poisoning
by  mercury and syphilis, we may use the  hydriodate of potash,
giving  about two grains of the salt every day, of course suitably
dissolved and divided  into two  or three doses.  If this treatment
seems insufficient, we have to resort to other agents  which affect the
syphilitic virus in its secondary and tertiary manifestations, and at
the same time antagonize the excessive action of Alercury;  such
agents are:  Asafetida, the Ifuriate of gold.   It  may be appropriate
in some cases to try the middle potencies of Mercury.

  A very remarkable effect of Mercury, and to which we have already
alluded on several occasions, is liquefaction of the blood.  This altera-
tion of the blood seems  connected with a general decay of the nerv-
ous functions, and we therefore range this effect of the mercurial
preparations in the category of Nervous Disorders.
  The  blood  becomes  more  fluid and is of a lighter  color.  The
eyelids, face, lower extremities become oedematous, and symptoms
of a general anasarca supervene.  Palpitation of the  heart and short-
ness of breath,  the necessary consequences  of this  liquefaction of
the blood, of course supervene more  or less according to the con- 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
599
stitutional tenacity  of resistance with which the patient  may  be
endowed,
  This increased fluidity of the blood begets a tendency to so-called
passive haemorrhages.   Under the influence of Mercury old leech-
bites will be reopened, and a haemorrhage may ensue which it may
be next to impossible to arrest.  A similar haemorrhage may take
place from the cicatrices of wounds which had long been closed.
  There  are  morbid conditions, where this  tendency to passive
haemorrhages may be made available as an indication for Mercury.
We may mention.

  Purpura Hemorrhagica, where the sanguineous effusion from the
capillaries may be owing to precisely such a condition as Mercury
is capable of exciting.

   Chlorosis may be  another  condition of this kind.  In a case of
menstrual suppression, with oedema, a tendencj7" to haemorrhage from
the lungs, stomach, nose or gums, or effusion into the cellular tissue,
may be advantageously treated with Mercury.  Of course, in select-
ing your drug, you will always have to consider  the totality of the
symptoms before you, and not prescribe in accordance with a mere
pathological notion or theory.

  States of Debility generally, characterized by passive haemorrhage
from orifices or tissues, bloating, weariness of the  lower extremities,
dryness of the skin or unpleasant, sour night-sweats, especially Avhen
resulting from exposure to rheumatic influences in bilious climates,
may require the internal use of Mercury.
  You will have to regard  these broad  outlines of the action of
Mercury, as the prominent figure in  the  back-ground of a picture
where the particular groups will have to  be supplied by your own
judgment in the course of your professional career.
                 LECTURE   XL.

                 INFLAMMATORY GROUP.

  Although Mercury is exhibited in diseases of an inflammatory
character, yet it  cannot  be  said to rank Avith Aconite in the treat-
ment of acute inflammations.  The inflammatory diseases to Avhich
Mercury is homoeopathic are seldom, if ever, characterized by that
full, bounding and rapid pulse which characterize acute inflamma-
tions requiring Aconite or Belladonna as their specific remedy;
except  perhaps in violent bilious congestive fevers or violent cases
of congestive dysentery; these  may require Mercury, and^ yet the
pulse may sometimes be full,  hard,  bounding and considerably
accelerated.
  Let me recall to your  attention  the fact that the first or primary
shock of Alercury is received by the lymphatics, and is consequently 
600
LECTURE XL.
first perceived by that portion of the sensorium which presides over
the functions of the lymphatic system.   You  are aware that these
functions consist in eliminating and furnishing a proper supply of
lymph to the veins. Alercury depresses the power of the lymphatics,
and, as a necessary consequence, occasions engorgements and obstruc-
tions  in the lymphatic current.  These  engorgements and obstruc-
tions finally react upon the pulse, increasing its frequency, expand-
ing its volume, rendering it more resisting to  pressure Avith  the
finger, and generally imparting to it the characteristics of an erethic,
not of a synochal  pulse.   We say then  that Mercury cannot really
be said to be homoeopathic to inflammation, and that the  phenomena
which characterize the inflammatory process  to which  Alercury is
homoeopathic, are phenomena denoting congestion, not inflammation.
  Remember then, Gentlemen, that Mercury primarily depresses the
lymphatic  system, and that the immediate consequence of this de-
pression is a corresponding sluggishness or depression of the venous
system which receives from the lymphatic system in a great measure
its power of manifesting vital phenomena.
  Necessarily, if the venous capillaries become clogged or engorged,
as we term it, the arterial capillaries reacting  against the veins,
must  become similarly affected, and a state of congestion is indirectly
brought about where  fever is present, but of  a  different character
from  the pure  synocha, with full, rapid and  bounding pulse.  In
conditions  of hyperaemia,  where Mercury is indicated, we shall find
the pulse fuller than in its normal  state, but not bounding; it is a
somewhat accelerated, undulating, soft and rather full pulse.  The
symptoms  which  generally characterize  an  attack  of sanguineous
congestion, are likewise present, viz.: a chill  corresponding in in-
tensity with the functional importance of the organ, and followed by
heat and dryness  of the  skin; thirst, coated tongue, dizziness and
headache, restlessness, constipation, deep-yellow urine Avhich has an
offensive ammoniacal smell, and at times has the odor of burnt sugar.
This last symptom is particularly  marked, if the hepatic  system, the
liver and its appendages, are  congested.
  Considering that the lymphatic system is distributed, as far as we
know, throughout every organ and tissue, we may readily see that
in every part of the organism a state of  congestion may  arise which
may require Mercury as its remedy.  A congestion of this kind may
be  either  acute or chronic.   Chronic congestions are pathological
conditions which we are in the habit of designating by particular
names, referring  more  especially to some  leading symptom.  A
chronic congestion of the  head, for instance, we may designate as a
"Chronic Headache"   Chronic congestion of the lungs  may be de-
scribed as  a "Cough."  Chronic  congestion of  the bowels as "a
derangement of the  bowels," constipation at one time, and diarrhoea at
another.   Chronic congestion of the liver may pass  under the name
of "Liver- Complaint.  These chronic congestions of organs and tissues
will be indicated  by their  specific names as distinct groups of symp-
toms  under their respective categories.
   Acute Congestions of  organs may be as numerous as there  are
organs in  the body  which  are liable to such  a derangement. 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
601
 From the  brain  to the most external  tissue, congestion may take
 place, and  Mercury may be required for its  removal.  Some of the
 more important forms of this derangement may be mentioned more
 in detail.  One feature in acute congestions  to which Mercury  is
 homoeopathic, should  not be lost sight of; it is this: that these con-
 gestions generally exacerbate in the evening or forepart of the night.
 They may  consist of  a series of paroxysms as it Avere, a paroxysm
 occurring  once in the twenty-four hours, and separated from the
 succeeding paroxysm by a distinct remission of the pains and fever.
 Generally  every paroxysmal exacerbation is ushered in by a slight
 chill, shiverings, chilly creepings, which are speedily succeeded  by
 fever, heat and dryness of the skin, dryness  of the  mouth, thirst,
 restlessness, and prominence of the pains and  uncomfortable sensa-
 tions that  characterize this peculiar congestion.  It seems hardly
 necessary to observe  that the chill is proportionate to the intensity
 of the congestion and to the importance of  the  congested  organ.
 In  congestion of the brain, for  instance,  the chill is much more
 severe than in congestion of the bowels.
  The character of the congestion likewise influences the nature of
 the  chill.  The  chill  which marks bilious congestion, is far more
 searching  than the chill which  characterizes a simple rheumatic
 congestion.
  The violence of the chill may likewise depend upon the more or
 less  complete character of the intermissions.   These intermissions
 may be so  perfect as to simulate the fever and ague type, and yet
 the  pathological  process before us may be an acute congestion of
 some organ, Avhich may require Mercury for its specific remedy.
 Nice powers of discriminations may be required in order not to con-
 found intermittent congestions to which  Mercury is homoeopathic,
 with paroxysms  of fever  and ague.   It is  more particularly in
 congestions of a bilious character that these misapprehensions may
 occur.
  Nevertheless, no careful observer will find it a difficult matter to
 discriminate between bilious congestions of an intermittent character
 and  paroxysms  of  intermittent fever.  The  fever-chill is more
 violent, lasts much longer  and is followed by a more intense fever
 than the chill of simple congestion.  Moreover, the signs of con-
 gestion are much more localized in simple congestion than they are
 in fever and ague, where they may be scattered through a number
 of organs, affecting the heart, lungs, brain, back, bowels, whereas in
 simple congestion the signs of this pathological  condition are cir-
 cumscribed, and limited by the boundaries of  the affected organ, be
 this organ the brain, lungs, liver, heart,  bowels or any other viscus
 or tissue.   AVe may likewise add that in fever and ague the inter-
 missions maybe more or less complete, whereas in acute congestions
 of organs the intermissions are still characterized by marked  symp-
toms of  derangement, such as loss of  appetite, prostration,  feeble
and  somewhat accelerated  pulse, and abnormal  sensations  in  the
congested organ; in the brain for instance: a feeling of heaviness,
constriction,  dizziness;  in the lungs: oppression, irritation, tight-
ness, desire to cough  Avith occasional paroxysms  of a hacking  or 
602
LECTURE XL.
spasmodic  cough; in the liver: a  feeling of fullness, weight, heat
and aching pain; in the bowels: a  sensation of soreness, fullness,
heaviness, and dragging and bearing-doAvn sensation, with consti-
pation, or a feeling as if diarahoea should set in; in the muscular
tissue: a feeling of heaviness, lameness, and  a sensation as if the
parts had been bruised.  There cannot, therefore, be any difficulty,
to an accurate  observer, in distinguishing the  acute congestions,
with regular intermissions betAveen the paroxysms, from intermittent
fever.
  Let me remind you of the fact that Aconite is eminently homoeo-
pathic  to acute  congestions of organs and tissues  generally,  and
Belladonna to congestions of the brain, womb, lungs, heart, larger
bowels and perhaps other organs.   As far as  my experience bears
me out, I am inclined to assert that  the intermissions in  acute con-
gestions to which Aconite or Belladonna is homoeopathic, are never
as perfect as  they are in the case of mercurial congestions ; in the
case of Aconite and Belladonna, the intermissions are simple remis-
sions of the paroxysmal exacerbations of the symptoms.
  I have spoken of rheumatic and  bilious congestions.  Mercury
may apply to either class, although the symptoms Avhich characterize
them, are not the same.
  In Rheumatic  Congestions of the bowels for instance, the bowels
may feel sore and as if bruised, full sometimes even as if full of little
pebbles: the least jar is painful to the muscular integuments, and
motion causes a  dragging, heavy feeling in  the bowels.   In bilious
congestion, these  feelings  may exist, but perhaps more intensely; the
bowels  may  feel as if ulcerated,  with uncomfortable heat  in the
boAvels, Avith stitches,  pinching pains,  sensation  as if  the bowels
were hanging together loosely, a sort of cathartic feeling; bilious
diarrhoea may be present.
  In Rheumatic Congestion of the liver, the patient may complain of
heaviness and fullness, hard, aching and tearing pains in the  region
of the liver;  in  bilious congestion, the liver feels very sore, hot, Avith
stitches darting  through the organs; the accompanying gastric
symptoms  are likewise more  marked, the  tongue is more thickly
lined Avith a yellow and grayish coating, the taste is  foul, the appe-
tite  entirely suppressed.
  In Rheumatic Congestion of the  lungs, the patient complains  of
oppression and a feeling of constriction across  the chest;  aching and
tearing pains,  soreness, especially when coughing ; the cough comes
in paroxysms, which are generally excited by  an intolerable tickling
in the air-pass%ges  or  by a desire  to remove  obstructions from the
lungs, mucus  or feather dust  that  seems to fill the  bronchia in the
interior of the pulmonary parenchyma.  In bilious congestion of the
lungs, the pains  are more acute; the  oppression and anxiety more
violent;  the cough is more spasmodic ; the bilious symptoms are
more prominent; stitches flying through the lungs ;  the patient may
complain of  a burning  distress;  he looks jaundiced, the tongue
shows a thick, bilious coating.
   Finally, in Rheumatic Congestion of the brain, the pains may consist
of a feeling of constriction in the head, a sensation of pressure on the 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
603
brain, aching pains in a portion or in the whole of the brain.  In
bilious congestion the brain feels constricted, and a burning (distress
may characterize this  derangement, with intense aching and throb-
bing pains, and extreme sensitiveness to noise.
  In a case of bilious  congestion of the cerebellum, a very beautiful
cure was achieved  by means of the middle potencies of Mercurius.
Deep in  the  cerebellum' the patient  was attacked with a pain as if
that portion  of the  brain were spasmodically constricted.  The
paroxysm set in about nine o'clock in the evening and lasted until
towards morning.  It was ushered in by a severe chill so that the
patient, although the thermometer was up to ninety degrees, had to
have a fire made.  The pain was so  agonizing that it almost made
him frantic, causing  him to howl and  rave, and pull his hair out.
The pillow felt hard  as a stone.  The chill lasted from fifteen to
twenty minutes, when  the fever set in.  The accompanying constitu-
tional symptoms were those usually characterizing  severe bilious
derangements, such as: sallow complexion, dull and jaundiced eyes;
foul coating on  the tongue; complete loss of appetite, dry skin, ex-
treme debility, emaciation and complete torpor of the bowels.  The
case was a desperate one, and several physicians were in attendance
on the patient who, at one time, was reported dead.   He was treated
exclusively with Mercurius vivus, 12th to 18th potency, and was
fully restored within about a fortnight.
  In these acute congestions, we may sometimes find  it necessary to
use the lower preparations of Alercury, but in most cases we shall
be able to get along with from the 6th to the 12th.
  Beside these congestions of some of the principal organs, Mercury
is in homoeopathic  rapport with a number of inflammatory conges-
tions of special parts  which will be  mentioned in  their respective
categories.

                      ORBITAL GROUP.
  Among the poisonous  symptoms of  Mercurius,  conjunctivitis
occupies a prominent  rank.  Hence in
  Catarrhal Conjunctivitis, we shall find Mercury a  capital remedy,
The symptoms of this natural disease are as nearly as possible those
which characterize the mercurial affection: injected appearance or
suffused redness of the conjunctiva;  smarting and burning in  the
canthi, with secretion  of eye-gum and  agglutination  of the lids in
the  morning ; sensation as if sand had got between the lids, or as if
some sharp body Avere wounding and  irritating the eyeball; the lids
may be swollen; a flood of tears may sometimes gusji from the eye.
The pulse is slightly irritated, though soft, about 85 or 90.
  This catarrhal irritation of the conjunctiva may become a chronic
affection  in consequence of mismanagement or neglect; or it may
assume a chronic form at the outset, and constitute what we term
  Sore Eyes, where Alercury may be an indispensable remedy, sup-
ported, perhaps, by Sulphur, Lodine,  Arsenic  or Phosphorus,  all of
which belong to the class of antipsorics.                  ■*
  You will not forget that the mercurial preparations are eminently
adapted to 
604
LECTURE XL.
  Syphilitic Ophthalmia, especially the soluble black oxide.  This is
a most destructive inflammation, where the membranes and humors
of the eye are very speedily disorganized by ulceration and purulent
degeneration, unless the poison is soon neutralized.
  AVe have seen that Alercury is capable of producing inflammation
of the iris  and retina;  this is denied by Pereira, though strongly
insisted upon by some of the most experienced  oculists in Europe.
We therefore suggest the use of Mercury in

  Iritis and Retinitis,  more  especially of the  mercurial  salts, the
corrosive sublimate or Calomel.  In these affections, the mercurial
salts have always been used by alloeopathic practitioners in. alternate
doses, upon the principle that salivation was necessary in order to
carry off the morbid humors or counteract the  existing  inflamma-
tion by  a counter-stimulant irritation of the gums and lining mem-
brane of the mouth.  If Mercury is specifically adapted to these
inflammations, it will cure them without resorting to this  round-
about method of treatment.
  Iritis and Retinitis may result from the secondary action of the
syphilitic virus; in all such cases, Mercurius solubilis, or one of the
mercurial salts or iodides will be found indispensable.
  We have a number  of symptoms  among our provings showing
that Mercury affects the visual power of the eye.  Some of these
symptoms are:
  Musce volitantes;
  Complete vanishing of sight every half hour for five minutes;
  Mistiness of sight;
  Sensation as of a blade of grass being suspended before both eyes;
  Sensitiveness of the eyes to the glare of the fire.
  These symptoms show that Mercury may be useful in

  Amaurotic Conditions, or in
  Amblyopia, where the mercurial oxides and salts are particularly
useful.   If these affections  flow from a  scrofulous or  syphilitic
source,  these preparations may be so much more indicated.  There
are several cases of cure of amaurosis reported in our books, espe-
cially cases Avhere the patient's vision is disturbed by black points
hovering before his eyes.  In

  Scrofulous Ophthalmia, with granular enlargements of the Meibo-
mian glands, ulceration of the lids, profuse lachrymation and intense
photophobia, Calomel or the corrosive  sublimate may be eminently
useful.  It is sometimes possible to facilitate the curative action of
the internal use of the remedy by applying a very thin layer of the
mercurial ointment to the lids, or using  instead of the ointment a
mild wash of corrosive sublimate, of which a grain may be dissolved
in two ounces of water. This solution  may be applied several times
a day with a very soft camel's hair pencil.
  On this occasion I need not remind  you of the fact that the Mer-
curial preparations are no panacea  for  scrofulous  ophthalmia, for
which we have already recommended  Aconite,  Belladonna, Arseni-
cum, and other drugs. 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
605
  In  Granular Ophthalnaa we shall  often obtain good effects from
Mercury.  In the acute form, Aconite and Belladonna should not
be forgotten.  In the chronic form the red precipitate has effected a
beautiful cure in the case of Dr. Eiselt, an Austrian physician who
has given us a splendid, though short proving of  this agent.  He
took in all thirty-four grains, and one of the  results of his experi-
ments which will be communicated to you Avhen we come to speak
of this article, was the complete disappearance of a  chronic inflam-
mation and SAvelling of the Meibomian glands.
  AVe likewise  may recommend Mercury for

  Blepharospasms, spasm of the eyelids.   Among the eye-symptoms
of Mercury  we  find several symptoms like the following:
  "Involuntary, spasmodic closing of the lids; or  forcible closing
of the lids, as from want of sleep."
  A spasm of this kind may be the result of catarrhal exposure, a
sort of vicarious substitute for inflammation.

                    AURICULAR GROUP.

  The effects of Mercury upon the organ of hearing, and  more par-
ticularly upon the internal ear, are exceedingly remarkable.  We
may consider them under  four distinct  heads, a. inflammation; b.
pains ; c. discharges, and d. abnormal noises.
  Under the head of inflammation, we may range  such symptoms
as these:
  " The left ear  is painful as if inflamed; the meatus is likewise
painful as if inflamed."
  " Internally both ears feel sore and as if excoriated, the right ear
being worse."
  " Stitches in the inner ear, when stooping."
  Hence we may recommend Mercury in
   Otitis, inflammation of the ear, where Mercury is not  only indi-
cated by the particular pains, but likeAvise by the accompanying
discharges, such as: discharge of pus from the ear, or discharge of
pus and blood;  and by  the  abnormal noises  which the patient
fancies he  hears, such as:  buzzing,  fluttering and  so forth.  You
Avill find all  these symptoms recorded  among the provings of
Mercury.

  In Otitis, to which  Mercury  is homoeopathic, the petrous and
mastoid portions of the temporal bone, and even the  maxilla may
be  involved in  the inflammatory process.  The bones seem swollen,
and the boring and tearing pains characterizing this  inflammation
are most agonizing, especially at night, Avhen the  mercurial pains
are generally worse.  In a case of otitis, Avhere the patient Avas a
scrofulous  girl of fourteen, and Avhere the inflammation  had been
going on for a week, Avith pale rose-colored appearance of the inner
ear, sense of fullness  in the ear, discharge of fetid yelloAvish pus,
SAvelling of the mastoid process and the ascending ramus of the
inferior maxilla, agonizing aching and sore pains in the  inner ear, 
606
LECTURE XL.
 aggravation of the pains at night, more particularly Avhen resting the
 head upon a feather-pillow, buzzing and blowing noises in  the ear:
 a cure of this distressing affection Avas effected by means of a single
 dose of the 16th potency of Mercury which the patient  took in the
 evening.
   Otalgia or Earache, more particularly when resulting  from rheu-
 matic exposure, with tearing pain in the ear, sensation as if the ear
 should be pulled out, discharge of fetid Avater or pus from  the ear,
 nocturnal aggravation of the symptoms, may require Alercury.
   A congestion  of  the lining membrane of the inner ear such
 as Mercury may occasion, may cause

   Partial Deafness or Dysecoia, with a good deal of noise  in the ears,
 buzzing and Avhizzing.   Exposure  to  keen wind or intense cold is
 most frequently the cause of this  affection.  Mercury may  be its
 specific remedy.   Even in  chronic cases, Alercury may be of use,
 and even necessary.   In all such cases, the mercurial oxides or salts
 are indispensable if syphilitic complications exist.
   In Casper's Journal, a case of deafness originating in  syphilis, is
 reported,  Avhere  the  red precipitate  effected  a perfect cure.  A
 woman of thirty-eight years was suffering Avith syphilitic ulceration
 of the fauces, and ozaena.  She was treated with corrosive sublimate,
 and  was apparently cured.  Six months after  this period  she Avas
 attacked with  deafness  which grew upon her,  and  after having
 lasted some  six  months, became  complicated with  buzzing and
 pains in the ears.  An  examination did  not  show any abnormal
 changes in the  external  or internal parts of the  ears.  The ulcers
 and  the ozaena had not reappeared; but on the loAver lid of the left
 eye  a small pustule  had shown itself, which was  covered Avith a
 scurf beneath which the secretion of pus was continually going on.
 This pustule was apparently of a syphilitic character.   She Avas put
 upon the  use of  Mercurius ruber in doses of one-fourth  of  a  grain
 morning and night.  After having taken  four grains of the  drug,
 the  gums became affected and a large, superficial ulcer  developed
 itself on the palate.  The drug was discontinued  for a few days,
 when it was resumed without causing any further unpleasant effects.
 In three weeks  the ulcer was healed, the  pustule  had dried  up, and
 the hearing was completely restored.
  There was no necessity of prescribing the red precipitate  in this
 case in such large doses; one-tenth of a grain at a dose Avould have
proved sufficient.  It may not be out of  place  on this occasion to
state that the red  precipitate is admirably adapted to the treatment
of syphilitic blotches, scurfy pimples, torpid chancres.  In a case of
recent syphilitic infection, where some half a  dozen  blotches and
incipient chancres Avith callous edges and  surrounded  by hard, in-
flamed borders, had  broken out on the lips of the vulva, the red
precipitate  in doses of one-tenth of a grain effected a speedy cure.
In this case the medicine produced a number of the characteristic
mercurial symptoms, copious ptyalism, severe gastric derangements,
tormina, fever.  The prescription Avas ordered by myself, and  I am
confident that a perfect cure might  have been  effected with much 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
607
smaller doses, say one-hundredth or one ten-thousandth of a grain,
without inflicting any artificial suffering upon the patient.

                       NASAL  GROUP.

  Among the provings we  find a number of symptoms denoting
inflammation.   One symptom, for instance, reads as folloAVs:
  " The whole of the nose, especially the left  side, is swollen, red,
shining, attended with itching, especially on the inside of the alae."
  Another symptom reads:
  " The tip of the nose is swollen, red, itching."
  Another symptom reads as follows :
  " Swelling and cracking of the septum."
  Again we read:
  " Swelling  of  the  left wing of the nose, as  during an attack of
violent catarrh."
  We also have:
  "Nose-bleed at different periods, and of various degrees of in-
tensity."
  And lastly:
  " Scurfs in  the nose, with nose-bleed."
  All these  symptoms are  eminently  characteristic of catarrhal
inflammatory affections of the nose.   In
  Swelling and  Inflammation  of  the Nose,  with congestion of  the
Schneiderian membrane terminating in suppuration and ulceration ;
inflammation and ulceration of the septum, formation of scurfs and
crusts in the nostrils, bleeding from the nose, discharge of foul-smell-
ing, yellowish pus, we shall find  Mercury a most valuable remedy,
if an  affection of this kind has a catarrhal origin.
  Even if an acute attack of this kind is grafted upon  a scrofulous
condition of the  organism, we may find Mercury  indispensable,
although it may be  necessary, under such circumstances, to inter-
pose a few doses of Sulphur.
  Let us not  forget that Mercury may be useful and indeed  indis-
pensable in certain forms of

  Ozena, especially in scrofulous subjects.  In
  Syphilitic Ozena, Avith discharge of bloody, fetid ichor and destruc-
tion of the septum and turbinated bones, Alercury is indispensable.

                      BUCCAL  GROUP.

  The poisonous action of Mercury upon the  lymphatics of  the
mouth has been described in previous lectures.  AVe have shown
you that this action results in  SAvelling and inflammatory softening
of the gums, suppuration and ulceration of the lining membrane of
the cheeks,  ptyalism,  swelling, congestion, and  ulceration of  the
salivary  glands.  In vieAv of these marked symptoms of mercurial
action, we may recommend Alercury for the different forms of

  Stomatitis or Stomacace, or inflammation of the mucous membrane
of the mouth.  AVe find Mercury indicated in 
608                      LECTURE  XL.

  Aphthe of children, also termed thrush, an inflammation charac-
terized by exudations having the appearance  of curd and coalescing
into  irregular patches which, in severe cases, may give the Avhole
mouth the  appearance as if  it Avere lined  Avith  flour.   Alercury  is
particularly adapted to this affection, if it works its Avay down the
oesophagus, involving the stomach and boAvels, and giving rise to
serious derangements  of the digestive system, such as colicky pains
and diarrhoea.
  In Pseudo-membranous Stomatitis, or the diphtheritic inflammation
of Bretonneau, where the inflammatory process is of a more malig-
nant nature, often terminating in gangrene, Mercury may be found
an admirable curative agent.  In large hospitals where a number of
children are crowded  together:  in  foundling  hospitals, for instance,
this form  of stomacace often proves a  terrible  scourge.  Of  one
hundred and ninety-three cases observed by Dr. Valleix, one hundred
and fifty-three terminated fatally.  This Avould not be the case, if the
disease Avere treated with specific remedies, in homoeopathic rapport
with the nature of this pathological process.  A simple comparison
of the symptoms of mercurial  stomatitis with the  pathognomonic
signs of this disease shoAvs that Mercury must  be specifically adapted
to it as a curative agent.  In  this  disease the mouth feels hot, the
breath becomes fetid,  and copious streams of an ichorous saliva flow
from the mouth;  the flushed  and swollen face and the swelling  and
painfulness of the submaxillary glands all point to  Mercury as the
material type or representative of this most distressing affection.
  Another form of stomatitis is described by authors as
  Follicular Stomatitis, where the disease commences with the start-
ing up of  a vesicular  rash which gradually terminates in the forma-
tion of innumerable little ulcers  with slightly tumefied and inflamed
edges and secreting a  Avhitish lymph.   The ulcers cause a good deal
of stinging pain.
  This affection may become  very  troublesome to nursing females,
and is often designated as
   Nursing Sore Mouth.  The severer grades  of this disease may be
accompanied with frontal headache, acute pains in the  stomach and
bowels, diarrhoea, typanitic distention of  the  abdomen and gradual
supervention of typhoid symptoms.
  In this affection Alercury may not do much, if any, good, unless
the appearance of the gums,  and the  flow of fetid, ichorous saliva.
are present.  If  these symptoms are either absent, or at least not
prominently present, and the  mouth looks generally inflamed, of a
deep-red color, studded with whitish, ulcerous exudations, the patient
complaining of excessive heat, dryness and soreness : we have found
one or  two drops of the tincture of  the root of Aconite in about
twelve tablespoonfuls of Avater, to be given in tablespoonful doses at
suitable intervals, an excellent remedy for this distressing trouble.
  We have finally  a form of  stomacace well-known as
   Cancrum  Oris  or Gangrenous Inflammation of the mouth.  This
sometimes  terrific  affection may resemble mercurial ptyalism  and
sloughing so closely that it is frequently mistaken for the latter con-
dition.  The sloughing may commence on the inner cheeks,  whence 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
609
it may spread with astonishing rapidity, sometimes involving in the
course of a few days the cheeks, lips, nose, tongue, palate and ton-
sils ;  or the disorganization may proceed from the periosteum of the
alveolar processes Avhen it  is first seen at the edges of the gums
opposite the lower incisors.  Here the gums present  all the appear-
ances of mercurial  poisoning; they become ulcerated, the teeth fall
out, the inside of the cheeks, the lips and tongue are invaded^by the
sloughing process; fetid ptyalism is  present,  and the  gangrenous
disorganization even shows  traces of its existence on the outside of
the cheeks in the  shape of gangrenous blisters which break  and
discharge a dark-colored fluid, followed by the  formation of sloughs.
  Here we have a condition of  things to which Mercury is  so emi-
nently adapted  on  account of  the homoeopathicity of mercurial
action to the gangrenous process that even Dr.  Duncan, physician to
Dun's Hospital in Dublin, has to admit the great curative A'irtues of
Mercury.  In one of his articles on the subject, the Doctor attempts
to shoAV that Mercury may be advantageously used in this affection,
Avhich is so exceedingly analogous to mercurial sloughing.  Nothing
is more corroborative of the appropriateness of Alercury in cancrum
oris, according to the Doctor's  experience, than the fact that the
sloughing, so far from getting worse under the  use  of Alercury, is
actually controlled by this agent.  "If Alercury," argues the Doctor,
"were inimical to this disease, the sloughing ought to  be made Avorse
even  by the smallest dose of this drug unless  we choose to account
for such an aggravation by the same arguments that the adherents of
similia similibus resort to."
  The doctor is no homoeopath and he has evidently read something
about homoeopathic aggravations.  HoAvever, he has remained igno-
rant of the  fact that these  old-fashioned aggravations, so far from
being essential characteristics of the successful Avorking of homoeo-
pathic remedial  agents, are, on  the contrary,  adventitious  circum-
stances frequently holding no sort of logical relation  to the homoeo-
pathic therapeutic process.

  In  Syphilitic Stomatitis, the therapeutic uses of Alercury  should
not be forgotten.   In this affection the ulcerative process generally
proceeds from behind forAvards, involving first the tonsils, the isthmus
and edges of the  tongue.  We know that even the cartilages of the
larynx may be destroyed by it.   According to Ricord, this circum-
stance distinguishes syphilitic from mercurial stomatitis, with Avhich
it might otherAvise be confounded. In mercurial stomatitis the ulcera-
tion spreads from the gums  backwards.  In the syphilitic form the
fetor which is characteristic  of mercurial sloughing, is Avanting.   If,
in a case of syphilis, the mouth was perfectly sound previously to the
Mercury being administered; and if, after  the  use of the Alercury,
the gums become irritated, spongy, bleeding, and the breath acquires a
fetid, metallic odor, we may  look upon these symptoms as diagnostic
signs of mercurial poisoning.
  AToreover  the  mercurial  ulcerative process spreads  rapidly; it
constitutes a symptom of acute hydrargyria or  mercurial poisoning;
syphilitic ulcerations of the mouth  are essentially chronic in their 
610
LECTURE XL.
 character, involving the destruction of the palatine bones and  nasal
 cartilages, Avhereas Mercury destroys the alveolar processes and very
 frequently even the maxillae.
   In cases of stomatitis Avhere  the  mercurial and syphilitic poisons
 together maintain  the  disorganizing process, we may have to  re-
 sort to the  hydriodate of potash,  the muriate  of gold  or to  some
 agent that shall antidote the combined forces of the enemy.  Under
 homoeopathic treatment, these  monstrous developments  need never
 occur.
   In simple salivation, Alercury may prove a remedial agent.  We
 may use it in
   Catarrhal or Rheumatic Ptyalism, induced by exposure to damp-
 ness, a draught of air, and similar circumstances.  Even allceopathic
 physicians  may have to use their favorite calomel in this affection,
 as may be seen from the following case reported in Hufeland's Jour-
 nal:  "A prisoner in  the penitentiary, about thirty years old, lost
 every day a considerable quantity of  watery saliva.   The parts  in
■the neighborhood of the submaxillary  glands were tumefied, but not
 painful.  He had a very cachectic appearance.   This trouble was
 caused by his sleeping close to  a damp wall.  All the means used in
 his case remained  fruitless;  a  few small  doses of Calomel restored
 him speedily and permanently.  Mercury was the homoeopathic remedy
 in the case.

   Mercu|ry  affects the  tongue in a very remarkable  manner.  The
 symptoms of ulceration and sloughing which we have  already al-
 luded to Avhen  describing the poisonous effects of Afereury, have
 been developed more analytically as it  were, by systematic provings.
 Among these provings Ave find  such records as these:
   " The tongue is very much swollen;"
   " Stinging pains in  the longitudinal depression or furrow of the
 tongue;"
   " Burning pain in the tongue, and as if it were cracked;"
   " The  edges of the tongue are soft, indented by the teeth, ulcer-
 ated;"
   "The anterior half of the tongue is so hard that  when striking
 against it with the knuckle, a sound is heard as when striking against
 wood."
   In Swelling and Ulceration of the  tongue, especially when owing to
 catarrhal causes, with ptyalism, we shall find Mercury useful.
   Swelling  and Induration of the Tongue may yield to Alercury.  The
 tongue may exhibit a  number of such hardened little tumors.   A
 case is reported in the  Edinburgh  Medical Journal, Avhere swelling
 and indurated tubercles in the substance of the tongue, one of which
 was of considerable size, were completely cured with mercury.  The
 patient, a lady of forty-seven years, complained of lancinating pains
 in their indurations.  The whole surface of the tongue was cracked.
 Occasionally  some of the tubercles became ulcerated.   The drug
 was of course given in salivating  doses.  The affection might un-
 doubtedly have been removed  without the gratuitous infliction  of
 ptyalism. 
                       MERCURIUS VIVUS.                   611

  In Glossitis or inflammation of the tongue, Avith  high fever and
full, rapid and bounding pulse, Ave should of course give Aconite;
but in glossitis Avhere the tongue is simply swollen, sore, with burn-
ing pain, and slight symptoms of fever, the pulse being simply some-
what accelerated and fulier than usual, but  soft, Mercury will be
found an adequate remedy.   A condition of this kind  may some-
times be induced by wounding the tongue.
  A chronic SAvelling of the tongue is often described  in the books
under the names of

  Glossoncus  or  Exoncosis, from the  Greek " Glossa" (tongue), and
" onkos" (a tumor or SAvelling). In alloeopathic practice this affection
is treated by  compression  and the application of astringents and
narcotics.  The mercurial preparations are specifically curative in
such cases.

  In Ranula, from the Latin " rana," a frog, so called from  its  re-
semblance to the shape of a frog, Mercury has been used with good
effect.   Ranula is a small, fluctuating, semi-transparent tumor under
the tongue, arising from the  accumulation of saliva in Wharton's
duct, the  excretory duct of the  submaxillary gland.   Of course,
Mercury is only applicable in cases where the swelling is primarily
oAving to a dynamic affection, a depression or deficient  irritability
of the lymphatic capillaries ; if resulting from mechanical  obstruc-
tion of the duct, surgical treatment will have to be instituted.

                      DENTAL GROUP.

  We know that Mercury affects  the gums and teeth.  The gums
become spongy, inflamed, bleed readily ; hence in
  Scurvy of the gums we may recommend Mercury as a good remedy.
AVhat we have' said of the different forms of Stomacace applies
equally to Scurvy, Avhich is in  reality another name for a certain
form of this disorganizing process.
  We find Mercury indicated in rheumatic and scrofulous affections
of the teeth, more particularly in
  Odontalgia, when the teeth are or feel loose, elongated, sore as if
ulcerated; the pains are throbbing, stitching and jerking, sometimes
felt in the teeth and at other times in their roots.   These pains are
Avorse at night.  The gums  are swollen, sensitive and bleed readily.
Gumboils may form.  The pain is  sometimes as if the roots of the
teeth were ulcerated.  There may be ptyalism, rheumatic tearing,
lancing  pains in the jaws.
  On reading the provings  of Mercury, you will find these  symp-
toms recorded among the list.
  AVe may likewise have to use Mercury  in
  Rheumatic Paralysis of the jaws, with excessive pain in the affected
parts when trying to use them.  The symptoms Avhich lead us to the
use of Alercury in  this affection, are:
  " Almost complete immobility of the jaAvs; he is  hardly able to
open them Avithout violent pain." 
612
LECTURE XL.
  We may as well here allude to the symptom.:
  " Cracks, rhagades in the corners of the mouth."  An affection of
this kind, if it  becomes  habitual, is very troublesome.   AVe meet
with it among scrofulous  children;  a cold may cause these rhagades
to break out.° They are sometimes very painful, bleed a good deal,
and give rise to ulcerations.  Alercury will be found, among other
drugs, eminently adapted to such an affection.

                   PHARYNGEAL  GROUP.

  In affections of the fauces,  Alercury serves us many a good  pur-
pose.   It is principally in  inflammatory affections of the different
parts of the throat that Alercury finds a splendid  range for its vast
therapeutic powers.  Let me  first  give you some _ of the  leading
symptoms of Alercury as recorded among  our provings, and after-
Avards interpret them Avith reference to their corresponding patholo-
gical conditions.
  Pain in the throat as if the core  of  an apple or some such sharp
body were sticking there, exciting a desire to swallow, as if it had
to be swallowed down.   This  symptom is eminently characteristic
of certain forms of angina faucium;
  Difficulty oLswallowing; he had  to press hard to get  any thing
doAvn;
  Sensation as if hot vapor were ascending in the throat;
  The throat feels very dry;  he feels an aching pain back in the
throat, when swallowing; nevertheless he  had to  keep swalloAving
because a quantity of Avater was continually collecting in the mouth;
  Stitches in the  back part  of the throat Avhich dart even to the
ears;
  Elongation and swelling of  the uvula.
  Here we have a group of symptoms corresponding very accurately
with
  Angina faucium, Inflammation of the throat, sore throat.  Angina
faucium, to which Mercury is homoeopathic, has the  difficulty of
swallowing in consequence of the aching  pain; a sensation as if a
pointed body were sticking in the throat that one is  anxious to get
rid of  by making repeated attempts at swalloAving; excessive  dry-
ness of the throat, with flow of tenacious,  ropy saliva from the
mouth ; the back part of the throat seems lined Avith a glassy mucus;
deglutition of soft food is less painful than sAvalloAving mere saliva.
•The velum and back part of the throat look rose-colored, and por-
tions have a dingy yellowish  and injected  appearance; the uvula is
elongated, looks shining  and  of a pale-red color.  The sensation as
if a hot vapor Avere arising in the  throat, is  a  symptom which we
have very frequently met Avith in cases of  angina  faucium.
  In common Sore Throat, or chronic angina faucium, where these
symptoms occur more or  less, Mercury may likewise prove beneficial.

  Mercur}T is eminently useful in some forms of
  Angina tonsillaris or Quinsy sore throcU, with sAArelling and inflam-
mation of the tonsils, or  of only one tonsil;  the patient may expe- 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
G13
rience stitches in the inflamed tonsils which often  dart  along  the
Eustachian tube to the ear, sometimes  attended with  itching and
creeping in the inflamed side.  It is Avell known to you that an acute
inflammation of the tonsils frequently terminates in suppuration and
ulceration.
  The symptoms which indicate Mercury in this affection,  are these:
  Ulceration of the tonsils, with acute stinging pains in  the fauces
when swallowing;"
  " Stitching pain  in the tonsils, during deglutition."

  Mercury is likewise indicated in
  Chronic Oesophagitis, where soreness and aching pain in  the poste-
rior regions of the throat beloAV the larynx are prominent symptoms.
In this affection Mercury is indicated by the following record:
  "Aching  pain  in the oesophagus, in the region of the larynx,
aggravated by eating  and causing a sensation as if the  food were
gliding  over an  excoriated  surface, with  burning pains in that
region."

  Kopp, a distinguished physician, and one of the earliest friends of
Homoeopathy, mentions in his Memorabilia a number of cases of
angina faucium and tonsillaris that were cured in a very short period
of time Avith very  small doses of Mercury, Avhere the revulsive and
antiphlogistic means usually resorted to by alloeopathic physicians,
would have kept the patient on the sick-list for ten, tAvelve and even
more days.

  The glands which discharge the salivary fluid into the mouth,
viz.: the parotid, submaxillary and sublingual glands, are subject to
affections  to which Alercury is homoeopathically adapted.  The}?- may
become inflamed, swollen and indurated.  Among the  provings we
find the folloAving  symptoms recorded:
  " Painful swelling of the submaxillary and parotid glands, so that
it is impossible to  open the jaws without suffering much pain;"
  " Swelling of the parotid gland, with burning-aching pain in  the
gland, passing off  in the cold and returning in warmth."
  Swelling  and inflammation of these glands, may take place in
consequence of exposure to a draught of air, keen wind,  dampness.
  Adenitis, under which name an inflammatory swelling of glands is
described  in the books, may be attended with inflammatory fever;
in this case Aconite may have to be prescribed first.  If Alercury is
the homoeopathic  agent, we  shall find the gland of a  pale rose-
colored  appearance, with a feeling of soreness and heat through  the
gland, and a mild  form of erethic fever, the pulse being  somewhat
accelerated,  but soft  and  undulating.   Ptyalism may be  present.
The irritation may extend along the excretory duct, causing inflam-
mation and ulceration of the orifices of these ducts in the mouth.
In neglected cases
  Cirronic Indurations of the salivary glands may remain, for Avhich
Alercury has of course to  be given.
  AVe may mention one form of swelling and subacute inflammation
of the parotid gland Avhich is commonly known by the  name of 
614
LECTURE XLI.
  Mumps, or more classically speaking Parotitis, a subacute swelling
of the parotid gland which sometimes prevails as an epidemic disease
among children and adolescent youths of both sexes.   The SAvelling
is of an oedematous character, sometimes  involving  the neck and
side of the face.  In many cases of mumps we  get  along  Avithout
any treatment;  in other  cases we have to give  Aconite, and there
are  cases Avhere Mercury  is eminently useful.

  Regarding the dose in all acute mercurial affections of a catarrhal
and rheumatic character,  you will sometimes be  enabled to effect  a
splendid cure with the middle and even  higher potencies;  in many
cases, however, the lower potencies will be required.   In syphilitic
affections we have found  the lowest potencies  generally preferable.
                 LECTURE   XLI.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC  GROUP.

  Mercury causes considerable alterations of the taste in the mouth.
It causes, according to our provings, a brassy taste;  bitter and foul
taste, especially early in the morning;  a saltish  taste of, every thing
he eats; a sweetish taste.   Mercury also causes a whitish coating on
the tongue, and a good deal of slime in  the mouth.
  In regard to appetite, we find that Alercury causes a loathing of
meat and a loss of appetite.  The thirst is increased.
  These symptoms are only important in so far as they form elements
of higher groups.
  Alercury causes a peculiar kind of Pyrosis, characterized by rising
of an acrid, sweetish  fluid from the stomach upwards; the tongue
looks coated, the breath may be more or less affected, the appetite is
impaired, there is no proper craving for food; the sweetish or acrid
rising may even be accompanied by nausea and a sense of shivering.
  We shall find Alercury indicated in

   Waterbrash, especially when the attacks come on in the night, more
or less periodically.  The symptom which points to Mercury in this
affection, is the following  record  among Hahnemann's  provings:
"At one o'clock  in the night,  a quantity of water collects  in her
mouth; this is accompanied by nausea;  it wakes  her and causes
vomiting; a good deal of bitter stuff is  thrown off the stomach."
  Alercury causes peculiar feelings  of pain and malaise in the region
of the stomach which  may render it a valuable agent in

  Dyspepsia and Cardialgia.  Alercury causes a burning in the region
of the stomach, and especially in the pit of the stomach; after taking
the least quantity of food, the  stomach feels full, and  as if draAvn
down; the patient complains of soreness in the pit of the stomach as 
                       mercurius vivus.                    615

if an ulcer would form in this region;  oppression as from a stone,
even after the smallest quantity of food.
  A dyspepsia to which Mercury is homoeopathic, is generally at-
tended with symptoms of liver-complaint, constipation, offensive urine
depositing a broAvnish sediment.
  The  ulcerative and burning distress in  the  epigastric region is a
symptom to which I  may direct your attention even uoav as a charac-
teristic indication for Mercury in jaundice.

  The  subject  of jaundice naturally leads us to inquire  into the
action  of Mercury upon the hepatic system.  We have endeavored
to shoAv that Mercury exercises its deleterious action upon the tissues
by breaking down the vital energies of the lymphatic system, and we
shall now quote Wibmer in order to show that the lymphatics of the
liver seem to be peculiarly liable  to the action of this agent.
  " In  the  bodies of those," says Wibmer, " who  have  been treated
Avith mercurial frictions, we discover extreme emaciation; the muscles
are atrophied, pale;  the lymphatic glands, especially in the region
where  the  ointment  was rubbed  in, enlarged;  the pancreas hyper-
trophied and frequently of a reddish  color; the liver enlarged, soft,
of a black brown color; the bile thin  and copious; the veins of the
abdomen turgid with a thin, dark blood."
  These toxicological post-mortem symptoms show that  Alercury
disorganizes the parenchyma of the liver, and  must therefore be an
agent of great power in affections of the liver with which its peculiar
action  is in rapport  of affinity.   The  symptoms- which we have ob-
tained  by our provings, confirm to some extent the specific relation of
Mercury to the liver; although it is but just to say that these symptoms
are very inadequately described.  One of our provers has this symp-
tom : " Painful pressure in the right side of the abdomen, even early
in the morning, in bed." Another record reads as follows: " Pressing
pain in the region of  the liver, from within outwards."  Again we read:
"He is unable to lie  on his right side, for his  bowels feel sore as if
they were compressed."
  The probability is that "right side and bowels" in these  three
symptoms, refer to the region of the liver.  The record of symptoms,
in Hahnemann's  provings,  is sometimes  furnished  by lay-provers
who were in  the habit of  taking extensive liberties with anatomy in
describing  their feelings,  even as lay  people do in our own country,
when they extend the boundaries of their stomachs from the epigas-
tric region down to the symphysis pubis.  Referring these pains to
the region  of the liver, we judge from their peculiar character that
they are traceable to engorgements of the hepatic  parenchyma.
  We  have already alluded to acute  congestions of the liver where
the use of  Alercury may become  necessary.  AAre have said that in
such affections the region  of the liver feels full, oppressed, sore; the
patient complains of aching and pressing pains in the region of the
liver, with  a feeling  of uncomfortable heat, embarrassed breathing;
the liver may be swollen, and the patient is unable to lie on the
right side.
  We have already shown that in true hepatitis,  Avhether the serous 
616                      LECTURE XLI.
covering or the parenchyma of the liver is the seat of the affection,
Mercury is never indicated.
  In  Chronic Enlargement of the Liver, Alercury will prove useful
provided the dynamic power of the drug harmonizes with the morbific
principle of this hypertrophy.  In order that it may be benefited by
Mercury, the hypertrophy should result from some  previous con-
gestion for which Alercury was the specific remedy.

  In  true hepatitis,  whether the serous covering or  the substance
of the liver is  the seat of the morbid  process, Alercury will  never
reach  the  case.  Here Aconite must  initiate the treatment.  In
inflammation of the peritoneal covering of the liver, the  indications
for Aconite are so self-evident that  it is hardly possible  to mistake
them.   The intense soreness  in the  right  side; the  stinging and
lancinating pain, the burning distress, the increased temperature of
the skin in the region of the liver, the  utter inability to lie on the
right side, the  intense  fever  and the  full,  hard and rapid  pulse
sufficiently enlighten us concerning the necessity of using Aconite
in this affection.  It is only when the inflammatory process Is  going
on  in the substance of the liver,  that it might possibly  become
difficult to discriminate between Aconite and Mercury.
  Nevertheless, whenever acute inflammation is present, we  shall
find Aconite emphatically indicated by  the character of the existing
fever.  If it  is chronic hepatitis that  you  have to  deal Avith, the
totality and nature of the existing phenomena, and a history of their
gradual development from the origin of the disease down to its present
stage, will have to guide you in deciding either in favor  of Aconite
or Alercury.  You may facilitate your choice by making particular
inquiries into the nature of the paroxysms Avhich may occur in the
course of chronic hepatitis, on various occasions, during  changes  in
the Aveather, or  in consequence of  exposure,  a  cold.  In  these
paroxysmal exacerbations of the disease the symptoms become more
distinct, and their essential character reveals itself more prominently
and more forcibly to the observing reason.  If the patient complains
of great soreness in the right side, with stinging or shooting  pains,
or spasmodic constricting pains in the  substance of  the liver, and
more particularly if this condition of things has been superinduced
by the allceopathic treatment of a previous acute inflammation  of the
liver, we should not hesitate to give Aconite in the first or second
attenuation of the root.
   But if the patient  complains of dull aching pains in the right side,
or pressing pains, pushing pains in the liver, or seated sticking pains
in certain definite and limited  localities in  the  region of the  liver,
with  a feeling of soreness as if ulceration might be going on in those
parts, Ave should give the preference to  Alercury.
   The accompanying symptoms of bilious  derangement may like-
Avise  help  us in fixing our  choice  of a  remedy.   If  Aconite is
indicated,  we may  find the edges of  the tongue  sore  and rather
inflamed, the patient may complain of flashes of heat in the face and
burning distress in the forehead or  head; the alvine  secretions are
dry and of a dark-brown, blackish color.   If Alercury is required, 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
617
the tongue will look pale, and  may exhibit  a  slimy, grayish-yel-
lowish coating ;  the alvine discharges are either greenish, or brown,
frequently  dry  and Avithout a  normal  admixture  of  the  bilious
pigment; or  the action of the  boAvels may be  irregular, at times
very torpid and at other times resulting in  the discharge of soft or
even liquid bright-yellow bilious stools.

  AVe stated that Mercury causes an ulcerative and burning distress
in the episgastric region, and that the presence of this symptom in
an attack of jaundice affords an indication for Mercury.  Alercury is
never indicated in an attack of acute jaundice, with high fever, dis-
tressing headache, excessive vomiting of bile, dark yelloAV color of
the face  and skin, black  and foul-smelling urine;  here Aconite is
emphatically in its place.   It is  in
   Chronic Jaundice, with moderate vascular excitement oreven with
feeble and  slightly accelerated pulse, yelloAvness of the conjunctiva,
and of the face and skin generally, Avith slightly coated tongue, con-
stipation, pale  color  and dryness of the faeces,  deep-yellow  urine,
moderate or even unimpaired appetite, that  Mercury will prove a
specific remedy.
   We are told in Graefe's Journal that a man  who was  using  large
doses of Calomel for a chancre, was attacked with jaundice.   The
attending physician seemed puzzled to account for the fact that Calo-
mel could produce jaundice and yet be such a great remedy for liver-
complaint.  The law " Similia  similibus"  sufficiently accounts for
this apparent antagonism.

   Our provings of Mercury show that it must be a specific remedy
in certain forms of
   Bilious Colic. • We find that Mercury causes
   "Pinching in the bowels, accompanied by chilliness and shivering."
   " Cutting pains in the boAvels, or  intolerable pains which can only
be relieved by lying  down."
   "Distention and hardness of the abdomen."
   The bilious colic to which Alercury is homoeopathically adapted,
may  set in in sudden paroxysms.  The patient feels a horrid pinch-
ing pain at a spot in the bowels; the hands become icy-cold, the pulse
is very feeble and accelerated r  the pain may be so violent that the
patient almost loses his senses.   The attack may terminate in a dis-
charge of bile from the bowels.   An attack of this kind may also be
designated as
   Flatulent Colic; in such a case  the  attack will  pass off by the
 emission of flatulence.  Either  form of colic  is traceable to an ab-
 normal action  of the liver.

   Mercury alters the alvine secretions in regard to frequency, com-
 position, color and smell.  You recollect that among the poisonous
 effects of Alercury purging was put prominently forward.  Dieterich
 terms it "pancreatic ptyalism," because this  purging  seems to be
 induced by what superficial reasoners would term an excessive action
 of the pancreas,  but which  more careful observers Avho are not 
618                      LECTURE  XLI.                  .

carried away by a mere illusion of the senses, Avould consider as a
weakness of this gland.  The gland is too weak to retain the fluid
which the lymphatics, true to their functional instinct, furnish it for
the purpose  of perfecting the process of chylification;  hence the
fluid escapes in proportion as a sufficient quantity of it is elaborated,
giving rise to  those liquid stools which Dieterich has very aptly
designated as pancreatic ptyalism and which must necessarily result
in the impoverishment of the adipose and other tissues.
  Nevertheless, although this species of ptyalism  is a symptom of
decided weakness of the pancreas, on the other hand there is a truth
embodied in the statement that the secretion of the pancreatic juice
goes on increasingly, but not by virtue of some primary  stimulation
of the functional power of the pancreas, in the sense in  which Old-
School physiologists seem to have understood this doctrine. It is the
brain, thisrgreat regulator of the functional harmonies of the  organ-
ism, that taxes itself in order to repair the waste which  is going on
in the pancreatic gland.  The vital forces are no reasoning poAvers.
They are instinctive forces, obeying the law which the God of Life
has impressed upon them without ever reasoning  about  it.  In this
beautiful System of Forces the brain acts like a central Reservoir
from which every organ  derives its power to manifest the vital phe-
nomena  characteristic of its inherent functional activity.  If there
is a deficiency anyAvhere, the brain is called upon to supply it; true to
its instinct, it supplies the deficiency inordinately, thus impoverishing
itself and adding to the general waste.  How foolish to designate as
stimulation what is in truth an impoverishment of the brain and must ■
lead  to an increase of the universal prostration of the functions.
  Mercury not only increases the frequency of the  alvine discharges,
but it alters their composition, color and smell.   It causes:
  Bloody discharges;
  Green, excoriating discharges;
  Discharges of bloody mucus;
  Bright-yellow and reddish discharges;
  Dark-brown discharges.
  These  discharges may  be  watery, papescent, or. of the  consistence
of cow-dung.   Their smell  varies; there may be  very little  smell,
and at other times  the smell may be very offensive.
  In  view of these well-ascertained effects  of Alercury, we may
recommend it for

   Catarrhal Diarrhea, with  sensation as if the bowels were shaking,
loosely united.  One  of the provers has  recorded  this  symptom:
"Sensation as if the bowels  were too loose and relaxed;  they seem
to shake during a walk."  This symptom expresses an effect such as
a catarrh might have upon  the  boAvels.  The  diarrhoea may  be
watery,  Avith sense  of  heat in the bowels, distention,  flatulence,
pinching pain.
  In Bilious Diarrhea, Mercury is eminently useful.  The discharges
are of the character we have described, green, dark-brown, reddish,
excoriating;  they  may be preceded by spasmodic pinching pains;
the bowels may feel very sore, distended. 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
619
   In acute attacks of diarrhoea, some fever, preceded by chilliness,
may be present.   The patient  may feel  thirsty, and the appetite is
generally impaired.  Other catarrhal  and bilious symptoms, head-
ache, foul taste, debility, heaviness of the lower extremities, slight
ptyalism, waterbrash, etc., may of course be present.
   Mercury is eminently adapted to certain forms of

   Dysentery, especially when the discharges consist of a mixture of
blood and mucus.   The records show that Alercury causes  all the
symptoms characteristic of this disease:  frequent  urging, tenesmus,
and the accompanying fever-symptoms, chilliness folloAved by flashes
of heat.  In inflammatory dysentery we should never lose sight of
Aconite, but in bilious or  congestive dysentery,  consisting  of fre-
quent discharges of small quantities of blood and mucus, or mucus
without blood, without much  if any fever, except perhaps coldness,
desire to be near the fire, although in other cases the skin may be
hot and dry and the pulse full  and bounding, we shall find Alercury
indicated.  An additional indication for Mercury is a frequent desire
to urinate, with copious chalk-like sediment in the urine.
   A sort of tenesmus is very apt to be present in diarrhoea, to which
Alercury is homoeopathic; it is an involuntary  pressing, or a desire
to bear down, rather than tenesmus.

   Among the discharges caused by Mercury, we find this record:
   " Whitish-gray stools."   If  this  symptom occurs  in jaundice or
•liver-complaint, and the existing  symptoms point to Alercury, this
peculiar alteration of the alvine evacuations would of course furnish
an additional indication for Mercury.
                                                                0
  It is evident  that a drug which  has such a powerful  effect upon
the alvine secretions must be useful in
   Cholera Infantum, or the  common summer complaint of children.
Of course, in order that Mercury should  be effective in this disease,
the character of the morbid action must correspond Avith the nature
of the drug-force.   At the outset of cholera infantum, the symptoms
frequently indicate  an inflammatory type requiring Aconite.  If the
stools  are green, the bowels seem griped, the  hands of the  little
patients feel cold, except the palms, which may feel warmer than
usual,  and we  discover signs  of chilliness, Mercury may be found
indispensable.
  In Hufeland's Journal, we find the curative virtues of  Calomel in
diarrhoea  illustrated  by the following  case:  A  girl  of eighteen
months had been  suffering  for some time with  atrophy  and  Avatery
diarrhoea.  Various means had been employed  to stop it, but with-
out effect. Calomel was given in doses of one-eighth of a grain every
three hours.  Very soon  the child,  who previously had been crying
and moaning night and day, became quiet, slept soundly, her appe-
tite improved,  and her health was perfectly restored.   For  a few
months she was afterwards fed  on  cod-liver oil.  Dr. Amelung, who
reports this case, informs us that, since he treated this case,  he has
used Calomel in  doses of one-eighth or even one-sixth  of a grain, 
620
LECTURE XLI.
every two, three hours, or less frequently, in acute as well as chronic
diarrhoea of children, Avith perfect success in every case.
   The doctor has the  frankness to admit that he is indebted for a
knoAvledge of this use of Calomel to Dr. Kopp, one  of the earliest
inquirers and advocates of our system.  True to his blind instincts
of an empiric, he repudiates of course all connection betAveen this
use of Calomel and HomoeopafhAr.
   Kopp states, in his  Memorabilia,  that he  uses  Calomel with  the
best results in the diarrhoea of nursing infants, accompanied Avith
restlessness, sleeplessness  and continual crying.   If the  discharges
are green, if the  little patients express their  distress by crying, Cal-
omel, which is itself capable of causing green stools, acts so  much
•more speedily; but, even if the stools are not green, not bilious, but
light-colored, whitish, looking like stirred eggs,  or if the stools  are
quite watery, Calomel has never failed  him. He rubs doAvn one-
sixth of a grain with three grains of sugar of milk, and divides  the
mass into three poAvders, one of which he gives three times a day,
making one-eighteenth of a grain at a dose.  Kopp likewise admin-
isters Calomel, if the diarrhoea is accompanied with vomiting.
   If nursing  infants are  very restless, troubled with flatulence; if
they cry a good deal, and seem to  suffer a good deal  of pain Avhile
nursing;  if they let go of the nipple, cry a  spell and then resume
operations; if their sleep is restless, they wake frequently and cry;
and if they do not lose flesh, but gain rather, and the  stools are not
diarrhoeic, but rather hard and green, a dose of Calomel, one-sixth
of a grain, given at night, has a wonderfully quieting  effect.  Kopp-
knows  of no remedy superior to Calomel under such circumstances.

   This leads us to the use of Alercury in
   Constipation, Avhere Alercury will be found  useless, unless this con-
dition is depending upon, or connected with, torpor of the liver or
of the pancreatic gland.  Constipation may be a sequel  of previous
bilious or  pancreatic  diarrhoea.   In such  a case, Mercury is in
homoeopathic rapport with it.  The bowels may not be moved more
than  once or twice a week; the faeces have  a dark-broAvn or green
color; they are discharged in lumpy masses or balls loosely hanging
together  and covered  with  intestinal  mucus.   The  cul-de-sac, or
pouch of the rectum, sometimes becomes a receptacle for these lumpy
masses, where they agglomerate in one compact ball, the passage of
Avhich through the  rectum sometimes causes a great deal of acute
pain, and  may even be attended with slight haemorrhage.   Some-
times the constipation is interrupted by an occasional attack of
bilious diarrhoea.
   Alercury causes
   Soreness and Excoriation at the anus;  hence we recommend it for
this trouble which is sometimes very annoying.   The anus feels sore,
 or as if sharp points were sticking in the parts, with continual ooz-
 ing of  a serous  fluid  having a strong  and rather offensive smell.
 The frequent application of cold water is sometimes sufficient to cure
 this  affection, but  we may have  to  resort to medical treatment.
 Mercury is one of the remedies for this trouble. 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
621
   In Piles, Alercury may prove useful, not bleeding piles, but dis-
 charges of mucus and serum, with swellings of the mucous mem-
 brane, feeling of excoriation at the anus, stitches through the anus.

  _ Mercury is adapted to a state of the intestinal mucous lining Avhich
 gives rise to  the formation of those annoying entozoa termed
   Ascarides and Lumbrici.  In selecting Alercury for this trouble, we
 have of course to be guided by the totality of the patient's,,con-
 dition, not by isolated symptoms.   The formation of these parasites
 may be  symptomatic of a  general cachexia to Avhich Alercury is
 homoeopathic.

   Alercury has the same effect upon the inguinal glands that it has
 upon the salivary glands.  It causes
   Swelling and Inflammation of these glands.  Several of our provers
 have witnessed this  effect of Mercury upon  their  persons.  If this
 affection arises from simple catarrhal exposure, the  internal use  of
 Mercurius vivus may soon  scatter the SAvelling.  If this  swelling
 springs from a scrofulous dyscrasia or constitutes a
   Syphilitic Bubo, the biniodide of Alercury may be found preferable
 to any of the mercurial oxides or salts.  If much Alercury had
 already been taken without affecting the swelling,  the hydriodate of
 potash may be most suitable.

                     URINARY GROUP.

   Among the poisonous effects of Alercury, Ave have noticed enure-
 sis.  Mercury, if administered  in  large doses, causes an increased
 secretion of urine.  The symptoms of Alercury in the urinary range,
 as developed by our  provings,  are exceedingly  remarkable.   Aler-
 cury not only causes  an increased  and almost irrepressible desire  to
 urinate, but  it  occasions the deposition of sediments  Avhich may
 yield very important therapeutic indications.  According to the
 statement of our provers, the urine, under the influence of Alercury,
 deposits a whitish, flocculent sediment.
   One record reads thus :
   " Shreds and flocks of whitish mucus are passed after urination ;"
   Another prover records this symptom :
   " The urine is at  first clear, but afterwards  looks whitish  as  if
 mixed with chalk."
   Another record:
   " The urine looks as if stirred with flour, depositing a thick sedi-
 ment."
   These symptoms, coupled Avith the fact that Alercury causes the
 secretion of increased quantities of a Avatery urine, far surpassing in
 quantity the amount of  beverage  drank, might  lead us to employ
 Mercury in that distressing malady.

  Diabetes mellitis or Albuminuria.  It is unfortunate that no chem-
ical analysis was made of these sediments, and that avc are therefore
left to guess Avhether  the sediments Avere of a mucous or albuminous 
622
LECTURE XLI.
 character.   As far as we are able to determine from existing symp-
 toms, we have a perfect right to use Alercury in this affection, Avith
 the hope of succeeding in some cases at any rate.
   Mercury has been recommended for a form of albuminuria known as
   Bright''s Disease.   Concerning the use of Alercury in this affection,
 Trousseau and Pidoux hold the following language:
   " Some years ago, Alartin Solon published a most interesting Avork
 on Albuminuria,  Avhere he recommended mercurial frictions and the
 internal use of fractional doses  of Calomel Avith a vieAV of modifying
 the chronic  phlegmasia which should be looked upon as the  cause of
 the renal degeneration that results in the  secretion of albumen."
 Trousseau and Pidoux are  not near as sanguine regarding  the suc-
 cessful treatment of albuminuria;  " Avhile we should honor,"  they
 say, "every therapeutist  who, in such a serious affection, proposes
 means of cure, we  should not  forget that respectable practitioners
 have not been more successful in treating this disease with mercurial
 preparations than in treating it with any other medicine.  AVe, too,
 both in private  and hospital-practice, have  had to moan over the
 almost invariably fatal issue of a malady concerning the reality and
 we might add, incurability of  which, modern investigations have
 removed all doubt.  Our remarks apply of course only to the chronic
 form."

   Alercury causes a burning and smarting in the urethra; the urine
 looks as if mixed with blood.  This symptom may constitute a A'alu-
 able indication in various  fevers  to which  your  attention  will be
 directed when Ave come to speak of this group.
   In Blennorrhea or mucous discharges from the urethra, gonorrhoea
 and. in
   Catarrh of the Bladder, this burning may be present, accompanied
 with a rather frequent desire to urinate, and discharge of mucus from
 the urethra.

                      SEXUAL GROUP.

   Mercury causes effects in the sexual system which make it.a valu-
 able remedial agent in a variety of  affections. Let us first examine
 the action of Mercury upon the  male sexual organs.
   Mercury causes an itching of  the  glans, prepuce and orifice of the
urethra;
   Swelling and inflammation of the  prepuce;
   Edematous swelling of the prepuce as if it were  filled with water;
   Reddish-looking vesicles on the  glans, under the prepuce; they
discharge a whitish-yellow, strong-smelling matter,  and ulcerate; the
larger ulcers bleed, and, when touched, caused a  pain which  seemed
to affect the  whole body;  the ulcers  were round, Avith inverted edges
which looked like raw flesh; the bottom of the ulcers was lined Avith
a cheesy matter.
   Here Ave have the description of  an  ulcer  produced by Alercury
AA-hich simulates as nearly as may be the

   Syphilitic  Chancre,  for which Mercury has for  years  past  been 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
623
universally recognized as a specific remedy.  The soluble Alercury
of 1 lahnemann has cured hundreds and thousands of these primary
chancres; in other cases the iodide of Mercury, the red precipitate
or the sulphuret of Mercury may have to be used.  It  is a univer-
sally acknowledged fact  that the mercurial preparations are  speci-
fically adapted to the nature of the  syphilitic poison.  It is this
miasm which they neutralize or extinguish as it Avere, thus convert-
ing the malignant chancre into a common sore which the disembar-
rassed vital force of the organism will speedily heal.
  In  treating these local syphilitic ulcers,  you should never lose
sight  of the general constitution.  Some organisms are  exceedingly
sensitive to the action of the syphilitic  poison which is readily  taken
up by the absorbent system and made the basis of an almost inter-
minable series of most treacherous and deeply penetrating disorders.
In scrofulous constitutions a combination of the syphilitic and scrofu ■
lous  miasms  may  lead  to monstrous  disorganizations unless we
endeavor  to  protect the  constitution  at the outset against such  a
calamity.  This is sometimes best accomplished  by the iodides, such
as the iodide of Alercury, or by that admirable combination of potash
arid iodine, the hydriodate of potash.  It is perfectly proper to use
this preparation at the same time as  we prescribe a more locally
acting agent, the soluble  mercury or the mercurial  iodide.

  In Phimosis or Paraphimosis when arising from a syphilitic prin-
ciple,  the black oxide or the mercurial salts may prove useful  in
controlling the syphilitic virus,  in addition to  which Aconite and
Belladonna may be resorted to for the  purpose of relaxing the spas-
modic constriction.   We need scarcely recall to your minds the fact
that Mercury causes SAvelling and  inflammation  of the prepuce, and
that it must therefore be  possessed of great curative powers in affec-
tions  of this organ.
  Mercury causes swelling of the  penis,  especially at  night,  often
accompanied with painful erections.  Hence in
  (Edema of the Penis, if occurring as a natural affection, or  as the
result of the gonorrhceal virus, Mercury may prove useful,  If Mer-
cury caused the weakness, we  shall  have  to antidote the poison by
such  remedies  as the  case may require, the hydriodate of potash,
iodine and other drugs.

  Among the symptoms  of Cinnabar we find this record:
  "Condylomata  on the prepuce, readily bleeding when touched;"
hence in
  Sycosis or figwarts, Mercury may prove indispensable.

  We also see it stated  by the  provers of Alercury that this _ drug
causes an exudation of  pus behind the  corona glandis, having  a
nauseous, sweetish smell.  Hence in
  Balanitis  or Balannrrhea, especially  if arising from syphilitic
poisoning, the mercurial preparations  will have to be  used.   This
may sometimes become a most distressing and even dangerous affec-
tion.  The inflammatory process which is going  on between the pre- 
624
LECTURE XLI.
puce and the glans penis, may lead to deeply-penetrating  fistulous
ulcers, with profuse discharge of fetid pus accompanied by symptoms
of constitutional irritation.
  Mercury causes painful erections.   This symptom may occur in-
cidentally to some inflammatory or ulcerous affection of the penis for
Avhich Alercury is indicated.
  Alercury has caused coldness and shrinking  of the glans penis;
also a sensation of coldness  in the testicles.   Mercury also causes a
Aveakness of the penis, with  imperfect erections. _ We may therefore
find Alercury indicated in
  Impotence when caused by abuse of the sexual organs.
  AVe also  find that Mercury causes involuntary  emissions;  this
effect of the drug is quite prominent among the symptoms obtained
by proving.  We may therefore associate Mercury Avith
  Spermatorrhea as one of the remedial  agents Avhich may be used
in this affection.

  The female sexual organs are likeAvise acted upon by Alercury
with considerable energy. It causes                 _          ^
   "Discharge of flocks of mucus and pus from the vagina."
   This symptom sometimes occurs in consequence of impure coition,
as a sign of
   Gonorrhea;  it may also exist as a symptom of  scrofulosis.

   Mercury likewise causes purulent and corrosive leucorrhea.
   It also causes inflammatory swelling of the vaginal mucous mem-
brane, as if the vagina were raAv and  excoriated.  Hence in
   Chronic Vaginitis we shall find Mercury a valuable remedy.
   Alercury  causes Prolapsus of the  vagina, in Avhich disease  this
agent has therefore been employed Avith success by Dr. Hartmann.

   Mercury causes tubercles  on  the lips of the vulva.  Hence in
   Tubercles, blotches and  condylomata of the vulva,  Alercury  will
undoubtedly be useful, more particularly if the eruption is OAving
to the syphilitic virus.
   Mercury also causes profuse menstruation, and even metrorrhagia.
We have seen  in previous lectures that Mercury  causes a tendency
to haemorrhage generally ;  it  liquifies  the blood, diminishes  and
finally destroys its plasticity, by which we understand the faculty of
being assimilated to the organic tissues.   If profuse menstruation or
metrorrhagia to which Mercury is specifically adapted  occurs, it will
occur as a symptom  of general weakness and marasmus which will
be found to similate such a cachexia as Mercury is capable of occa-
sioning,  a cachexia characterized by oedema of the extremities, cold-
ness, disappearance of the fatty matter, paleness of the face, expres-
sion of suffering in the features,4^hortness of breath, swelling of the
abdomen.   Mercury  destroys  the power of reproduction in  the
uterine sphere; hence the foetus in the womb is apt to perish under
the poisonous effects of this drug, and miscarriage is the inevitable
consequence.   Women Avho have taken quantities of Mercury, gene-
rally  bear rickety children.  Experiments  have  been made  again, 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
625
and again by Alagendie and others, showing that the emanations of
Alercury destroy the germ in the eggs of animals.  No embryo can
live when exposed to the  deleterious influences of Alercury.  This
condition of decay, as an  element  of general marasmus, may be an
important indication for  Alercury among a group of symptoms to
which Mercury is generally homoeopathic.
  One of the provers of Mercury has recorded the following symp-
toms:
  " Pain in both breasts;"
  " Excessive swelling of  the  mammae, especially of the nipples,
Avhich were harder than usual;"
  " Periodical pain in the  mammae as if they would ulcerate."
  In accordance with these symptoms, Mercury has been employed
by homoeopathic physicians in cases of

  Sore Breasts, where it is said to have effected a speedy resolution
of the swelling.
                LECTURE   XLII.

                   CATARRHAL  GROUP.

   In catarrhal affections, Mercury has been  found an  excellent
 remedy.   Its remarkable power to affect the action of the mucous
 membranes, eminently fits it for  the  useful purpose of altering the
 action of these membranes in disease.  Alercury causes:  sneezing,
 discharge of water, and foul-smelling pus  from the nose, swelling
 and inflammation of the nose.  Hence we shall find it useful in
   Cold in the Head,-where the following symptoms prevail:  sneezing,
 discharge of Avater from the nose, or discharge of a  yellowish, foul
 pus; watering of the eyes, tightness of the head; slight chilliness.
   Mercury causes hoarseness; you will recollect that among  the
 poisonous effects of Alercury, we have described the chronic mercu-
 rial angina, a characteristic symptom of which is hoarseness, which
 is especially towards evening, after reading or when the patient is
 exposed to dampness.   In
   Hoarseness, sometimes even amounting to
   Aphonia or loss of voice, mercury will be found indicated. It is
 worse in the evening; it may not  be painful; the mucous membrane
 of the throat and larynx feels dry.  The affection may be developed
 suddenly, in consequence of exposure to a draught of air or similar
causes.
   Alercurv affects the lining membrane of the air-passages: hence it
causes cough characterized by various kinds of pain, expectoration.
 It causes
  A Dry, Hacking Cough, the paroxysms of which are excited by a
tickling in the upper part of  the air-passages, somewhere in  the
                             40 
626
LECTURE XLII.
region of the bifurcation of the trachea; the cough is of a spasmodic
nature, sometimes so  incessant that it may cause a loss of breath;
drinking quantities of cold Avater or water and sugar may ease the
paroxysm for the time being.  It also causes
  A cough with expectoration of sweetish or saltish  mucus.
  A tearing cough, which seems to proceed from the chest, causing
a feeling as if the chest Avould  fly to pieces, with  great soreness,
aching pains especially in the region whence the paroxysms seem to
emanate.  These paroxysms are  generally worse at  night.  During
the attack  the chest  feels  tight and  dry, as if lubrication  of the
mucous lining would ease the  cough.   Alercury has caused
  Hemoptysis  or Bloody Cough.  As much as  a pound of blood has
been coughed up by persons under the poisonous effects of Alercury.
This fact shows that Mercury may prove useful in
  Chronic Cough of a  consumptive character, where the patient raises
blood, complains of soreness, aching and stitching pains when cough-
ing,  raises  sweetish or saltish mucus or even  pus.  The morbid
process may be going on in the mucous lining of the bronchial
tubes.   Hence we might designate the affection as a case of
  Chronic Bronchitis.   Upon looking at our provings,  we find that
Mercury causes a burning in the air passages ;  raising of sweetish or
saltish mucus  and blood; paroxysms of cough, especially at night,
with coldness during the paroxysm, distress for breath;  soreness and
ulcerative pain in the  air-passages, especially during the cough; the
cough may give rise to nausea, and actual vomiting.
  Under the effects of Alercury, provers have been unable to swallow
liquids;  the liquid would be  discharged by the nose after it had
reached the region of  the larynx on its downward passage.
  This symptom frequently occurs in
  Phthisis  of  the  Larynx, in which  disease Mercury may be  very
useful, more particularly if the affection is distinctly traceable to the
syphilitic virus.  The mercurial oxides, salts or iodides will have to
be used.  In scrofulous laryngeal phthisis, these mercurial prepara-
tions may likewise be eminently useful.
  In affections of the  air-passages, if of a chronic nature, the sixth
up to the twelfth potency of Mercury may prove sufficient; if acute,
you  may have to resort to the third, second and even first centesimal
trituration.  In syphilitic affections of this nature the lower prepara-
tions are most generally preferable to the higher.

                     THORACIC GROUP.

  We have already alluded to the use of Mercury in bloody cough
and  chronic bronchitis.  The  property Avhich Alercury possesses, of
causing haemorrhage from the lungs, cough with expectoration of pus,
and  ulcerative pains in the chest, leads us to advise this agent in
   Ulcerous  Phthisis,  or Phthisis Pulmonalis commonly termed.
This affection  may arise in consequence of syphilitic metastasis, after
the violent suppression of a chancre.  In such a  case Alercury is
eminently required both internally and externally.  Internally the
corrosive sublimate may prove the best adapted to  the case; beside 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
627
which the mercurial ointment should be rubbed upon the chest in
adequate  quantities, not  less than one drachm' a day.  Syphilitic
ulceration of the lungs is a most  destructive disease;  unless  the
virus is counteracted by  speedy and energetic treatment, of course
sanctioned and  dictated by reason, you cannot hope to save  the
patient's life.

  Mercury  causes dyspnoea, fits  of violent oppression, suffocation.
These  symptoms,  in connection Avith the fact that it renders  the
blood watery, favoring exudations and oedema, lead us to prescribe
Alercury in
  Hydrothorax, especially in scrofulous, cachectic individuals.  Some
homoeopathic physicians have used Alercury successfully in hydro-
thorax arising after scarlet-fever.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

   Mercury  develops symptoms which,  in  their  totality, simulate
various forms of fever.  It distinctly simulates
   Catarrhal fever, the patient feels  chilly, wants to  be  near the fire;
the palms of the hands feel warm; the head aches, feels tight;  the
patient likes to stretch  himself;  the bowels are either costive, or a
watery diarrhoea may exist.

   Rheumatic fever, with  soreness  of the flesh, tired feeling, coated
tongue, bad taste  in the mouth, loss  of  appetite, thirst, salloAV com-
plexion ;  the fever has  a remittent type, with  regular exacerbations
of the symptoms at night.
   In rheumatic fevers,  local rheumatic inflammations are frequently
present.  Muscles and  joints may be the seat of the  inflammation.
A very characteristic  indication for Mercury in such fevers with
 local rheumatic inflammations is the breaking out of perspiration on
 the inflamed part Avithout any diminution of the pain  or SAvelling.

   Gastric fever,  with  foul, grayish  slimy  coating on the tongue,
 sallow complexion, entire loss of appetite, nausea, bad taste in  the
 mouth, constipation, although the bowels feel soft; the  urine deposits
 a reddish sediment.  In

   Bilious fever, Mercury is indicated by the yellowish, gray slimy
 coating on the  tongue; thirst, foul taste in the mouth, nausea  and
 vomiting of bile, constipation and distention of the boAvels, dark  and
 turbid urine having a foul smell headache, exacerbation of  the
 symptoms at night.   The                   ^
   Congestive bilious fever of warm climates, with burning pains in
 the forehead, excessive sensitiveness to noise and light, often finds
 its remedy in Mercury.  The paroxysms set in in the morning after
 the sun rises, and abate as the sun goes down.  In

   Hectic or lentescent fever, Mercury will be found  useful, if the pa-
 tient wastes away, the fever is worse at night, and toward morning
 a clammy perspiration breaks out, having a fetid, sour smell. 
628
LECTURE XLII.
    In Mucous fever, Mercury plays  an important part.   This must
  necessarily be so, considering the important influence which Mercury
  exercises over the functional activity of the mucous membrane.  In
  mucous fever to which Mercury is homoeopathic, Ave shall find the
  tongue coated with a thick, gray or yellowish foul mucus ;  the taste
  in the mouth is unpleasant, the mouth is sticky, dry; the patient
  wants to moisten his mouth quite frequently; the appetite is gone;
  bowels inclining to bloat; they are either  bound, or with occasional
  discharges of slimy,  foul  mucus;  strong-smelling, dark urine;
  nightly exacerbation, with unpleasant sour sweats.

   In these various fevers  the pulse is rather  full and accelerated,
 but not hard or jerking.  In this  respect the Aconite-pulse is dis-
 tinguished from the pulse indicating  Mercury.  The Aconite-pulse
 is at the outset full, hard, bounding and rapid; under the effects of
 Aconite it is softened down and its speed is considerably slackened,
 though even after this change has been effected, the general character
 of the symptoms may still indicate  Aconite.  The mercurial pulse,
 on the contrary, is never hard and jerking, even at the outset of the
 treatment, except in the bilious congestive fever of southern regions,
 where the pulse may become rather hard and  resisting during the
 height of the fever-paroxysm.  In such cases, however, the Aconite
 pulse would be exceedingly jerking and bounding, and the relative
 degrees of intensity distinguishing the mercurial from the  Aconite
 pulse, would still be maintained.
   As regards potencies, we may use the 6th to the 12th;  in violent
 cases the  2d or 3d.

       EXANTHEMATOUS  OR  ERUPTIVE  GROUP.

   In describing the poisonous effects of Mercury, we have  become
 acquainted with the several eruptions which Mercury causes, viz.:
 Eczema^ miliaria, herpes of the  prepuce, impetigo,  itch, ulcers, etc.
 These different eruptions of the character of erythema, papulae, vesi-
 cles and pustules, enable us to use Mercury with admirable effect in
 diseases characterized by similar appearances.
   First and foremost we have the various eruptions incidental to

   Secondary  Syphilis, pimples, blotches, spots  or maculae, herpes.
 In all cutaneous affections which can be distinctly traced to a syphi-
 litic origin, the mercurial oxides or salts will have to be employed.
  But also in non-syphilitic eruptions, Mercury may prove useful.
 We may specifically resort to it in

  Furfuraceous Herpes, with itching and burning, especially at night;
  Herpes Preputialis, even when  no syphilitic  origin need  be sus-
pected ;
  Impetiginous Spots, with inflamed base, and covered with a whitish
scurfy substance, exuding from the  almost imperceptible vesicles
which start up on the surface of the inflamed skin;
  Psoriasis of the Hands, with bleeding, itching rhagades; 
MERCURIUS VIVUS.
629
   Tinea Capitis, with crusty ulceration of the scalp, secretion of a
 fetid, purulent ichor;
   Vesicular Scabies, with  formation  of nasty looking sores which
 cause a most distressing itching, especially at night;  the sores may
 not only form between the fingers, but  they may likeAvise cover the
 breast, abdomen and extremities.  In a case of this kind, where two
 fine young girls had  contracted  the disease in a most loathsome
 form by contact with other children at school, Mercurius 6th effected
 a speedy cure.
   We have a perfect right to recommend Mercurius vivus for

   Small-pox, to which the  eruption which Mercury excites upon the
 skin, is eminently similar.   In Frank's  Magazine a number of cases
 are reported, clearly showing  the homoeopathicity  of Mercury to
 small-pox.  It is stated in these cases that  the skin is swollen and
 inflamed;  that red stigmata break out  all over the body,  covering
 the face, chest, abdomen and extremities ; that, after a Avhile, vesicles
 spring up, that these vesicles become gradually filled with a yellow-
 ish serum; that this exudation  is characterized by a peculiarly fetid
 odor, and  that the patient is moreover tormented by an intolerable
 stinging itching.   After the eruption dries up, an universal desqua-
 mation of  the epidermis takes place.
   Even the preliminary symptoms correspond with the precursory
 stage of small-pox.  The eruption is  preceded by a chill, headache,
 nausea, excessive debility and rheumatic  pains in the small of the
 back and  extremities.   The  accompanying fever is very violent.
 Fetid ptyalism may be present, as it  often is in small-pox, and the
 tongue, in  some of these cases,  looks swollen, coated, and  inflamed
 at the edges and tip.
   Is not this a tolerably faithful  picture of the small-pox-disease ?
 We have seen that tartar emetic may be regarded as a great specific
 for this loathsome disorder; we have another excellent remedy in
 Mercury.   Homoeopathic physicians do not  resort to Alercury  in
 this disease until the  pocks  are fully  formed and filled with the
 characteristic pus.  We would suggest  the propriety  of using Aler-
 cury at the very onset.   We  have shoAvn that Alercury is homoeo-
 pathic to this disease in all its stages, and it is therefore unnecessary
 and injudicious to delay the use of Alercury until the horrid disfigu-
 ration of the skin reveals the universal and thorough impregnation
 of the organism by the small-pox virus.   Give Mercury in one-grain
 doses of the first or second centesimal trituration, repeating the dose
 every three or four hours; it may be useful and  important to you
 as intelligent reformers of  the healing art, to  institute experiments
 of this kind which tend to consolidate the treatment of diseases upon
 a sure and  universally-acknowledged basis.

  In Affections of Bones, whether of a scrofulous or  syphilitic nature,
 Alercury is a most useful  remedial agent.   In chronic swellings,
 Nodes or Gummata, Caries of bones, especially when symptomatic of
tertiary syphilis, Mercury may prove invaluable.  Wheresoever the
syphilitic virus may have set up  an ulcerative process, in the osseous 
630                      LECTURE XLII.
system, in cartilaginous structures, we may depend upon the mercu-
rial preparations as reliable  antidotes,  unless  the  syphilitic  and
mercurial poisons had  combined in developing  the existing disor-
ganizations.  In all such cases, remedies have  to be chosen,  that
counteract both the syphilitic virus and the mercurial disease.
  Even in exceedingly protracted  and chronic cases, Mercury may
still be an efficacious means of cure. Trousseau and Pidoux furnish
two illustrations of  the  curative virtues of Mercury in affections of
the bones, which I will briefly relate to you.
  " A  man  of fifty-two  years: was received  at  the  Hotel-Dieu in
Paris in 1834. For  several months past he had been paralytic.  His
legs, bladder, rectum and arms were completely paralyzed.^ He only
complained  of a seated pain in the  hand, Avhich he considered as
rheumatic.   In exploring the cervical region, we discovered a  uni-
form swelling of the five last cervical  vertebrae.
  " Was this swelling due to rheumatism or to syphilis ? Our patient
had never  had a severe attack of rheumatism.  Thirty-five years
ago he had contracted syphilis of which he had been cured by Mer-
cury.   We treated him  with baths of  corrosive sublimate, and with
the protiodide of Mercury taken internally, and restored him  per-
fectly in three months."
  It seems probable that this  affection was of a syphilitic  nature
and that on this account it yielded so thoroughly to mercurial treat-
ment.  If a swelling of this kind should occur as the result of a
scrofulous diathesis, the mercurial treatment may prove inadequate
to a thorough cure.   Trousseau  and Pidoux relate a case of  this
kind.   A young girl of eighteen years, afflicted with paralysis,  was
received at the FIotel-Dieu.  She had  a scrofulous appearance.  An
osseous swelling was observed in the region of the second, third and
fourth cervical vertebrae.  She  was  a perfectly pure girl,  having
never had any improper intercourse with the other sex.   Under the
use of sublimate baths  she  improved very rapidly; she  also took
the iodide  of Mercury internally. Her  paralysis and the  osseous
swelling improved, but after four months' treatment  she  left us im-
perfectly cured.
  Mercury acts upon the synovial lining of the larger joints, where
it may occasion congestion, suppuration and ulceration.   We there-
fore have given Mercury Avith good effect in

   Coxarthrocace, or Morbus Coxarius, or a similar ulcerative  process
affecting the knee-joints.   Mercury should be given when the disease
is first suspected;  the lower triturations  should not be  employed;
from the 6th to the 12th seem to be the most available range.

   Mercury  causes dropsical swelling  of the lower extremities,  In
anasarca, Old-School physicians have been in the  habit of prescribing
Calomel  in alterative doses;  sometimes the suppression  of  the
watery deposit would be followed by the breaking out of  foul ulcers
on the legs.   If the accompanying symptoms correspond, Mercury
is undoubtedly a remedy for
   Anasarca of the  extremities, and also for 
-MERCURIUS VIVUS.
631
  Ascites or dropsy of the bowels, especially if the disease is con-
nected with, or depending upon some affection of the liver.   If this
affection is organic, the dropsical affection may have to be removed
by  an operation;  if it is simply functional, the dropsy is curable
by treatment.  Ascites where Mercury is specifically curative, is gen-
erally complicated  with symptoms of jaundice,  a sallow, greenish-
yellowish hue, cold skin, feeble, slightly hurried pulse, scanty emission
of a thick, foul-smelling  urine, and constipation,  with occasional
passage of dry, light-colored faeces.

  We have described the mercurial ulcer as a flat, spreading sore,
with a spongy bottom from which blood oozes as from a sponge. In
  Scrofulous Ulcers of this description,  Mercury will be found emi-
nently useful.  Sometimes the scrofulous and syphilitic miasms com-
bine, giving rise to a most hideous and destructive sore, essentially
phagedenic in  its character, secreting a fetid ichor and so irritable
that the least friction or even  mere contact will cause it to bleed.
Mercury is  indispensable in  such cases.  It may not always be pos-
sible to get along without the external use of this agent.
  An old  Colonel, writes Father  Hahnemann in his lesser writings,
" with fair round belly," and apparently fond of the pleasures of the
table, had  suffered for the  last forty years from ulcers all over his
legs.  His food consisted of the strongest and most nutritive mate-
rials, he drank a good deal of spirits, and, for several years past, he
had been in the habit of taking a  monthly purge. Otherwise he was
vigorous.  I made him keep his  legs rolled up in a narrow flannel
bandage, and  immerse them daily a few minutes in cold water, and
afterwards dress them with a weak solution of corrosive sublimate.
I made not the slightest alteration in his diet; I even did not forbid
the monthly purge, as he had been so constantly in the habit of taking
it.  In the course of a year, his legs gradually healed, and his vigor
rather increased than diminished  in this his seventy-third year.   I
watched him for two years, during which he remained perfectly well,
and I have since had good accounts of his health.  The legs have
continued completely healed.

  Mercury causes ulceration of the nails.   Hence in
   Whitlow and  scrofulous or syphilitic ulceration of the nails, Mer-
cury will be found useful.
  Mercury also causes baldness.   In scrofulosis or in diseases of the
scalp,
  Baldness may constitute an indication for Alercury.

                            SLEEP.

  In diseases to Avhich Alercury is homoeopathic, the symptoms gen-
erally exacerbate in the night.  Nocturnal aggravations of the symp-
toms constitute an indication for Alercury.
  Alercury  causes drowsiness in the- day-time, and wakefulness at
night, Avith restlessness, heat, disturbing  dreams.  This  group of
symptoms is therefore an indication for  Mercury. 
632
LECTURE XLII.
                      MENTAL GROUP.

  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,  hallucinations.  We
therefore may find Mercury useful in
  Mania,  Craziness and Imbecility as symptoms of a general cachexia
of the tissues and the nervous system.

  Mercury is another of those heroic agents which the discovery of the
homoeopathic law has changed from a  destructive poison to a life-
saving, health-restoring, and withal harmless instrument of the heal-
ing art.  Simply by proclaiming the great doctrine that drugs typify
diseases, that every true drug in the three kingdoms of Nature sym-
bolizes or  represents a corresponding disease, and that this corres-
pondence or specific relation between drugs and their corresponding
diseases has to be  determined approximatively by provings  upon
healthy persons, of different sexes and ages, this universal and radical
transformation  of violent and poisonous drugs to gentle, harmless,
and yet most powerful  restorers of health  has been effected.   The
great  Law of Order which is penetrating more and more into every
province of human thought and activity, I mean the Law of At-
tractive Affinity,  is likewise  working out the  regeneration of the
Healing Art. If it is not  as yet universally recognized as the Divine
Law of Therapeutics, it is because the minds of men are not yet pre-
pared for  this glorious baptism; it  is because we too have not yet
succeeded in presenting the law to  our  opposing brethren in all its
majestic comprehensiveness and infallibility.
  Are we the true and worthy representatives of our Cause?  Is the
love of this glorious truth burning in our  hearts ?   Is a clear and
full comprehension  of this  truth written upon our minds?  Do we
exert  ourselves, to  the full extent of our ability, in behalf of our
Cause ?  Are we impressed, as earnest and good men should be, with
the responsibility of our  mission as the  apostles of a great reform ?
Friends, let not the fleeting  hours  of youth pass away without  a
deep,  earnest, _ solemn consideration of these  questions.   My duty to
you and to the Spirit of  Truth is not discharged by simply laying
the facts of Homoeopathy before you; I must ask you, and I now do
ask you to identify your  hearts and minds more and more with the
great  principles of our Science, universal as Nature and glorious and
eternal as Heaven, a  Science Avhich knows no  South, no North, no
East, no West;  and which, if studied with love, and apprehended in
the light of Reason, will prove to  be the  means, in  the hands of
Providence, for  the building up of a better and wiser Humanity. 
MERCUR1CS JODATUS.
633
             LECTURE    XLIII.


                  MERCURIUS JODATUS,

                      {Iodide of Mercury)

  To the exposition of the therapeutic range of Mercurius vivus
and solubilis, which we have presented in our previous lectures on
Alercury, we will now  add a few remarks explanatory of the more
specific sphere of the other mercurial preparations.
  We have two combinations of Iodine and Mercury,  one of which
contains one element of Iodine and one of Alercury, the protiodide of
Mercury or Mercurius protojodatus, or  also  designated as  the yellow
iodide  of  Mercury, Mercurius jodatus flavus ;  and  the  other, tAvo
elements of Iodine and one of Mercury, the biniodide of Mercury, or
Mercurius bijodatus, or also designated as the red iodide of Mercury
or Mercurius jodatus ruber.
  This preparation is used in scrofulous, and also in syphilitic
affections of a primary, secondary and tertiary form.   The biniodide
is more frequently used  than  the protiodide.   In many cases of
primary chancre where the soluble Alercury fails, the  iodide effects
a cure.  It prevents the suppuration  of a bubo by a speedy dis-
persion of  the swelling.   Allceopathic physicians frequently apply
an ointment of the iodide of Mercury externally.   Homoeopathic
practitioners do the same  thing, resorting at the same time to the
internal use of the drug.   The ointment may consist of one grain of
the  pure  iodide  rubbed  together with one drachm of lard.   A
quantity of ointment as big as a pea may be rubbed in morning and
night. The external use, however, may be dispensed with, unless
traces of inflammation  should make their appearance in the swollen
gland in spite of the internal use of the drug.  If the inflammation
and swelling persist  after the ointment has been applied for a few
days we  may rest assured that  the drug is not in  specific homoeo-
pathic rapport with  the  disease and  that  some other preparation
will have to achieve the cure.
  The mercurial iodide is  eminently adapted to the eradication of
the secondary disorders which the violent suppression  of a primary
chancre or bubo sometimes entails upon a patient.
  A man of forty years, apparently in the enjoyment of good health,
had a breaking out on  the forehead, hairy scalp, on certain  parts of
the trunk, and  on the  extremities.   The eruption  consisted  of
numerous, copper-colored  elevations of the size  of  small peas and
slightly covered with scaly scurfs.  The patient had likewise parox-
ysms of violent pains in the limbs which disturbed his sleep and
caused  a  sort of  rigidity, accompanied  with  partial impotence,
exciting  apprehensions of  paralysis  in  the patient's mind.   He
applied to Dr. Gibert for relief, who declared the eruption syphilitic.
The patient admitted that nineteen years ago he had had a chancre ; 
631
LECTURE XLIII.
    that he  had been treated with mercurial frictions, after which sali-
    vation had set in and the chancre had  disappeared.  Since then-he
    had been subject to  slight  but transient excoriations  on the inner
 '   surface  of  the  prepuce.  Three years after the cure he had got
    married,  and himself, wife and child had always enjoyed good
    health, until the year 1845, eighteen years after the original infec-
    tion, when  he  was attacked Avith violent,  obstinate headache  and
    irregular febrile motions which were attributed to a violent catarrh
    of the  brain,   This attack  was treated with venesections,  after
    which the  present eruption showed itself.  The  patient's wife was
    attacked in a similar manner.   Both were treated with a syrup of
    the iodide of Mercury, and their health was entirely restored in one
    fortnight.

      The late Dr. Cook, of New York, who has written an interesting
    paragraph on the iodide of Mercury, recommends  its use in scrofu-
    lous irritations of the air-passages, more particularly in
       Chronic Bronchitis of scrofulous individuals, with heat, tickling,
    soreness and cough attended with expectoration of a purulent mucus,
    moderate fever.
      Kopp informs us that he  has cured

      Polypus of the Nose with the iodide mercurial ointment.  A man
    of sixty had been affected with polypus of the nose for many years.
  ■  His breathing was  considerably interfered with,  for  the polypus
    began to protrude from the nostrils,   About the size of a pin's head
    of the ointment was applied to the polypus morning and evening by
    means of a camel's hair pencil.  In eight weeks  the  polypus had
    entirely disappeared and the obstruction of the nose was completely
    removed.

      In Goitre the mercurial iodide has likewise been used with good
    effect.  In  a case reported  by Kopp the  ointment was rubbed in
    morning and night, about the size of a pea each time; the cure was
    completed in a very short time.
      In another case  of long standing, a  double  goitre, impeding the
    breathing and  materially interfering with the circulation, a portion
    of the ointment  of the size of a small pea was rubbed in morning
    and night.   In a very short time the goitre had dwindled down to
    such a small size that  all treatment was  discontinued, the patient
f   being no longer incommoded  by it.   Other similar cases are like-
    wise reported.
      AVhenever the scrofulous and  syphilitic miasms are  conjointly
    at work undermining the constitution, the iodide of Mercury may
    prove a most valuable agent  in  counteracting  their deleterious
    influence.
      In scrofulous affections of the glands,
       Chronic Swelling and Induration of  Glands, even as  a sequela of
    scarlet-fever, the iodide of Mercury has been used with good effect.
      In scrofulous affections of the lymphatic system, more particu-
    larly in 
    MERCURIUS ACETATUS.   MERCURIUS PRJECIPITATUS RUBER.  635

  Mesenteric Ganglionitis, when the lymphatic glands are swollen
and hard, and the patients are frequently troubled with diarrhoea,
the iodide of Mercury may afford much relief.
  This agent occupies a conspicuous place among the remedies which
homoeopathic physicians resort to in their treatment of Diphtheria.
Dr. H. D. Paine, of Albany,  in an  interesting essay on Diphtheria,
published in the sixteenth number of the Transactions of the Ameri-
can Institute, furnishes the following indications for its use :
  " As soon as the least  appearance of membranous deposit was
observed, or there was  any SAvelling of the glands of the neck, the
Iodide of Alercury was freely administered and generally continued
until  there was a complete  obliteration of those symptoms.  We
have given it mostly in  doses of the first trituration, and the effect
in arresting and detaching  the  false membranous  formation has
been in many cases most gratifying."


                  MERCURIUS  ACETATUS.

                      {Acetate of Mercury.)

  This is a solution of the deutoxide or  sub-carbonate of  Alercury
in acetic acid, the salt being precipitated from the solution by crys-
talization.
  This preparation is not much used by homoeopathic physicians.
  AVe have a few provings of this agent which are in  all respects
similar to corresponding portions of the much more extensive  patho-
genesis of  Mercurius vivus and solubilis.  What  few symptoms
there  are, seem to show  a marked relation between the acetate and
the urinary and sexual organs.  It has been used with success in a
case of tinea capitis and impetigo.  AVe make triturations.


          MERCURIUS  PR^CIPITATUS  RUBER.

                        {Red Precipitate)

  This is an oxide of A[ercury, obtained by dissolving quicksilver
in nitric acid, from which  solution the red powder  is obtained by
evaporation. This powder is triturated  together with a little more
pure quicksilver into a  homogeneous mass which is  dried by expo-
sure to gentle heat, and  kept for use in blackened bottles.
  On A'arious occasions, in the course of these  lectures on the mer-
curial preparations, I have alluded to the red  precipitate as emi-
nently adapted to the treatment of  secondary syphilitic affections,
torpid chancres, eruptions.   I  will relate a few additional cases
illustrative of the remarkable  curative virtues of this agent.
  A girl of twenty years was affected with condylomata at the anus
and chancrous ulcers at the labia, on the lips and in the fauces, of
which she was cured in  five Aveeks by means of corrosive sublimate.
Subsequently she was attacked with dry, itching, venereal tetter on 
636
LECTURE XLIII.
the hairy scalp, forehead and on the left nates, which showed a ten-
dency to spread, and seemed very obstinate.  She was put on  the
use of the red precipitate in doses of one-fourth of a grain morning
and evening, and an ointment of the same preparation was applied
externally to the eruption.  After having used ten grains of the red
precipitate,  the  eruption  disappeared entirely  and  permanently.
The gums became slightly affected.
  Another interesting case is  that of a girl of fourteen years, born
of a syphilitic mother.   For seven years past she had  been affected
with fetid otorrhoea, hardness of hearing, swelling of the tibia and a
fetid ulcer in the nose.   When she was first placed  under medical
treatment, we found the soft and cartilaginous portions of the nose,
the roof of the mouth, the upper jaw and alveolar processes as  far
as the rami, destroyed ; the tongue was exposed ;  a fetid  ichor was
discharged from the ears;  the bodily and mental development very
much retarded ;  symptoms of general cachexia; the animal functions
normal.  She was put on the use of the red  precipitate in doses of
one-sixteenth of a grain once, and afterwards twice, a day; in three
weeks she was cured perfectly, and the hearing was likewise restored.
  These tAvo cases were extracted from Hufeland's Journal. Another
case is related by Kopp.  A woman of forty-nine years  had been
afflicted for seven years past with a seated pain in the region of  the
malleolus; the leg from the malleolus upwards was very much
swollen and the lower portion  of  it stiff.   During  all  this time
the patient had been  troubled with an eruption on the  left arm.
All this trouble had been inflicted upon her by her  syphilitic hus-
band.   The red precipitate in doses of one-eighth of a grain cured
her entirely and permanently.  Kopp saw her five years after, when
she still enjoyed the best of health.

  In the fifty fifth volume of Hufeland's Journal, we find  the  fol-
lowing  case of poisoning of a female in the seventh month of preg-
nancy, who, by mistake, had taken as much of the red oxyde as would
cover the point of a knife: Nausea, vomiting, oppression of the chest,
pains in the stomach and whole abdomen: afterwards violent vomit-
ing of blood, with subsequent fainting; after this, the patient was
attacked with a copious diarrhoea and intolerable pains in the abdo-
men, with burning in the mouth and  throat, and unquenchable thirst.
On the  third day: trembling  of the whole  body, excessive redness
of the whole face and eyes, staring  and wild  looks, and  ptyalism,
with a specific and intolerable smell.  She vomited twice a quantity
of blackish blood ; the gums were swollen and inflamed, the tongue
was so big that it filled the whole cavity of  the mouth and seemed
perforated in several places; the buccal cavity itself looked as if
covered with the outer crust of  decayed cheese.  The larynx was
swollen as much as the mouth, and was  even inflamed externally;
the pulse was quick, small and rather hard.  The abdomen (other-
wise distended by pregnancy) was  swollen  unto  bursting, and so
sensitive that the patient was unable to bear the least touch.  The
patient  did  not feel  the  movements of the fetus  the Avhole day.
Stomacace of the highest degree of  intensity ;  there were  two holes 
MERCURIUS PRAECIPITATUS ALBUS.
637
  in the  tongue, into which a finger  might be inserted.  The teeth
  were scarcely visible on account of  the swelling of the gums and
  sordes.
    By administering suitable antidotes, more particularly the sulphuret
  of potassium, of which an ounce was boiled in half a quart of water, to
  be given in cupful doses every half hour; and by the use of mucilagi-
  nous drinks and  antiphlogistic means, the patient was restored, and
  was afterwards delivered of a healthy child.

    These symptoms of poisoning resemble the symptoms caused by
  the black oxide and the common quicksilver, except that they may
  surpass the latter  in  intensity.  We may infer from  this and other
  cases of poisoning by the red precipitate, that in
    Stomacace of a malignant and very foul character, this agent may
  be very useful.
   In Colic, bilious and inflammatory, characterized by  vomiting  of
  bile  and blood, horrid tormina, internal trembling, spasms, cold sweat,
  dreadful tympanites,  unquenchable thirst, the red precipitate may
  prove an admirable remedy.

   On a previous  occasion I have alluded to the provings of Mer-
  curius ruber, which have been instituted by Dr. Eiselt.   I stated  at
  that time that an inflammation of the Meibomian glands, with which
  the Doctor had been afflicted for several years, had disappeared under
  the effects of this agent.
   Another remarkable symptom elicited by the Doctor, is "painful
  colic accompanied with  constant urging  to stool which went  on
  increasing in violence, spread through the whole  of  the intestines,
  and  especially in the anus, caused a sensation as  if a  red-hot iron
N  were pushed up and down.  In spite  of the violent tenesmus, only a
  little reddish blood was passed with cutting burning.  Nausea and
  burning distress in the stomach supervened likewise.
   This group of symptoms shows that in

   Bilious Dysentery, the red precipitate may prove a specific remedy.
   In the treatment of old

    Ulcers with hard, callous edges, secretion of fetid ichor and forma-
  tion  of bloody crusts, the red precipitate has effected fine cures.  In
  Graefe's  Journal several cases are reported, where such ulcers which
  had  arisen from injuries, were speedily cured, even  after they had
  existed  for years, by the application of thin layers of the red pre-
  cipitate  ointment  spread on  soft lint.  If these ulcers are seated
 on the leg, it  may be indispensable to keep the leg quiet and in a
  horizontal position.


           MERCURIUS  PRAECIPITATUS ALBUS,

                        ( White precipitate)

   This salt is obtained by dissolving corrosive sublimate,  from which
 solution the salt is  precipitated by the addition of liquid ammonia. 
638
LECTURE XLIII.
  This preparation has very irritating  properties.   It is sometimes
used for the purpose of irritating a very torpid chancre, after Avhich
the ulcer becomes more susceptible of the curative influence of Mer-
cury administered internally.
  A case of poisoning by this salt is reported in Frank's Magazine,
which terminated fatally.  Forty grains  of the white  precipitate were
swalloAved  by mistake for Magnesia.  Beside the usual symptoms of
poisoning by  corrosive mercurial  salts, such as:  vomiting, purging,
burning in the oesophagus, and horrid thirst, the patient Avas attacked
with contraction of the muscles, especially of the lower  extremities,
down  to the toes; contraction of the hands and fingers;  excessive
dryness of the skin in the palms of the hands and solos  of the feet;
increasing paralysis of the muscles and gradual death about a Aveek
after the poisoning took place.


                        CIMABARIS,

                   {Red sulphuret of Mercury)

  We obtain this preparation artificially by subliming together six
parts of pure Alercury and one part of refined Sulphur.  The native
cinnabar is not sufficiently pure for homoeopathic use.
  The middle potencies of Cinnabar have been  used  in
  Chronic Gonorrhea, and the loAver triturations in cases  of
  Chancre of the  Glans.


                    MERCURIUS DULCIS,

    {Proto-chloride of Mercury, Calomel, submuriate of Mercury)

  This preparation is obtained  by making a solution of nitrate of
Alercury in sixteen parts of water, and precipitating the chloride
from  this solution by gradually adding  a solution of one part of
common salt in nine parts of water.
  This mercurial salt has  been most commonly used by alloeopathic
physicians  as  an  alterative agent.   It has  been used as  a means of
exciting salivation or diarrhoea, and thus diverting the morbid pro-
cess that was going on in other tissues.  In  the course of these lec-
tures I have dAvelt so extensively upon the destructive results of the
abuse of calomel  in the hands of Old-School physicians that I need
not, on this occasion, still further  darken  this  mournful picture of
human ignorance and recklessness.
  The idea of "alterative action" is a good one.   AVe see this idea
illustrated in  disease, when  nature sets up a diarrhoea with evident
relief of an irritation in the throat  or head; or  develops  a rash with
relief of pain in the extremities, or oppression on the chest.  Altera-
tive action may take place the other way: A rash may strike in, and
develop effusion in the cerebral ventricles, spasmodic asthma, para-
lysis.   Alloeopathic physicians have undertaken  to  copy nature by 
                       MERCURIUS DULCIS.                   639

setting up  the  alterative  system of treatment.  Unfortunately they
copy most  bunglingly.  It is undeniable  that in simple, uncompli-
cated cases, artificial alterative action may sometimes afford perma-
nent relief.  Who does not know that bilious feelings in the head ;
a fullness and heaviness of the head, dull  aching  pains  in the head,
have been  relieved by a dose of salts acting upon the bowels ?   Who
does not knoAV that the irritation which a mustard-plaster excites in
the epigastric  region, has relieved  the pain and irritation  in the
stomach, incident to a fit of  indigestion ?
  The great sin, of  which  allceopathic physicians  have rendered
themselves guilty from time immemorial  is to  erect a  compact
system of treatment upon such a fallacious basis.
  Your friend had been keeping late hours, tasted a little more
champagne than usual, and  awakes  in the morning Avith his head
feeling rather dull and tight.   He sends for you, complains of his
distress and informs  you that he used to  relieve himself of such
a trouble by drinking a glass  of Seltzerwater, but that now, since
he got to be a homceopathist, he is all afloat and ignorant of what
course he ought to pursue.   AVould you put him through a regular
course of Nux for the honor of the institution, or would you not rather
advise him to  pursue his  accustomed method of clearing the head
by imbibing a little carbonic acid gas ?   AVhere is  the harm ?   Is
truth injured by such a proceeding?   Is the dignity of Homoeopathy
tarnished by it ?   A case of this kind is hardly a case for medical
therapeutics.
  Far different would be your course in a case of chronic sick head-
ache.  Here the use of alterative palliatives would be improper, for
they would not only not remove the trouble, but they might likewise
weaken the amount of constitutional sensitiveness to proper treat-
ment, and besides inflict some artificial medicinal derangements upon
the organism.  Where  has   the  consistent  abuse of the alterative
method led the infatuated practitioner ?   To the most outrageous
violations of Nature's laws.   For the  ostensible purpose of relieving
pain, he blisters and burns the  living  tissues, converting the healing
art into a satanic mockery.
  The sialogogue and  cathartic properties  of calomel have been
more particularly resorted to for the purpose of altering the  course
and nature of the morbid process.  In a case of dropsy, for instance,
salivation  is excited  for  the purpose of  carrying off the effused
fluid.  This is what is meant by alterative action.  One pathological
process is substituted for the original morbid condition.  The dis-
ease is not cured, the pathological  process is simply altered in its
character, an artificial, medicinal irritation being substituted  in the
place of the original malady.   What a  vague, uncertain and fre-
quently dangerous proceeding !   How often does the original malady
remain unaltered, and  is moreover  complicated Avith an artificial
disease!  And how often does  this artificial malady prove a  devas-
tating scourge Avhich  remains entailed upon the constitution until
death Avipes out all traces of this unpardonable destruction of human
poAver and  happiness.   Calomel must alter the pathological process.
If five grains will not do it, ten must, and if ten will not it, Ave will 
640                     LECTURE  XLIII.

try fifty or an hundred.  This is the law, not the law of nature, but
the law of human pride and professional infatuation.  In the Latin
of old Juvenal: "Sic volo, sic jubeo, stet pro ratione voluntas!"  Thus
I will try it, this is my command, let my will stand in the place of
common  sense!
  As examples of the alterative action  of calomel in the hands of
Old-School physicians, we may mention the use of Calomel.
  1.  In hydrocephalus, which disappeared and was speedily fol-
lowed by enteritis terminating in gangrene;
  2.  In croup;  a boy of fifteen  months was given nine grains of
calomel in three days ; no membrane was formed; there  was simply
expectoration of a  puriform, tenacious substance;  bilious diarrhoea
set in for eight days; in the second week the mesenteric glands
became hard and swollen, so that they could be distinguished  one
from the  other ;  several weeks after, the  child died of  tabes  mese-
raica ;
  3.  In dropsy, which disappeared; in its place foul sores broke out
upon the legs.
  In the  hands of a homoeopathic physician, calomel is an excellent
mercurial preparation.   We may make triturations of it, in the
decimal  or  centesimal scale, and we  may use it in syphilitic  and
scrofulous affections.   It is especially in derangements depending
upon functional or organic disorders of the liver that this  agent
may prove useful;  such as:
  Ascites ;
  Mucous, Watery and Bloody Stools, with tenesmus and piles ;
   Cholera infantum, colic and restlessness of nursing infants.
   Constipation, the discharges being  dark-green, or brown, or lumpy,
or faecal masses composed of a number of little balls slightly coher-
ing by means of intestinal mucus;  or
  Partial Constipation, the  first  part of the  discharge being  solid,
and the latter half thin, watery.
  In this form of constipation  a discharge is apt  to be preceded by
spasmodic, griping, twisting, bilious pains.
  Kopp recommends Calomel  for the  colic and restlessness of chil-
dren when the discharges are preceded by crampy, cutting pains; the
stools may be watery, or bilious,  greenish,  or the  bowels  may be
constipated.
  In Hufeland's Journal, vol. 91, the use of calomel in the Diarrhea
of children, is strongly recommended by Dr. Amelung.   In the case
of an atrophied little  girl  of eighteen months, who was suffering
with watery diarrhoea which  had  been fruitlessly treated with a
number of remedies, one-eighth of a grain  of Calomel was finally
given every three hours. The child who heretofore had cried and
moaned  day and night, became  quiet, slept, her  appetite returned,
and  she  became a blooming  little  girl.  Since then Amelung has
employed the drug  in numberless cases of watery, and greenish
bilious diarrhoea with perfect success.
  He has the candor to admit that  he is indebted for  this use of
Calomel to Kopp, although  he repudiates Homoeopathy,  and thinks
that  Kopp may have accidentally stumbled  upon this use of Calo- 
MERCURIUS DULCIS.
641
 mel.  Yet Amelung, and all other alloeopathic physicians who use
 Calomel for this diarrhoea of children, know perfectly well that it
 produces this very condition in children or full grown persons in a
 state  of  health.   Amicus  Pluto, amicus Aristoteles, sed magis
 arnica Veritas 1  Calomel may prove useful in
   Angina Putrida or- Putrid  Sore Throat, with  livid ulcers, foul
 smell and bleeding from the mouth, scraping, burning pain in the
 throat, hoarseness.  Also in
   Glandular Swellings which Calomel has caused in many cases.
   In Salivation, in the common Stomatitis of children (thrush), it may
 be used in preference to other mercurial preparations.  In Hufe-
 land's Journal we find the following pretty cure of a case of ptyalism
 recorded  by an alloeopathic  physician: A man  of thirty years had
 been sleeping against  a damp wall.  The consequence was that his
 face, especially in the region of the submaxillary  glands became
 oedematous, and he lost every day a large quantity of watery saliva.
 All  the remedies employed were without effect.  A few grains of
 Calomel a day cured him in  a few days.   Yet Calomel causes swell-
 ing  of the submaxillary glan4s and ptyalism.   The first and second
 trituration might have been  sufficient to effect this cure.

   We will not close this chapter on  Calomel without instituting an
 inquiry into the validity of its claims as a stimulator of the liver.
   In Old-School  therapeutics,  Calomel  has held this position for
 years without its claims to it having ever been questioned.  Gentle-
 men, let me here repeat to you what I have said in different ways
 on many other occasions.  What is it that distinguishes the Homoeo-
 pathic from the Alloeopathic School as far as  a  perception of the
 nature of drugs is concerned ?   It is the distinction  which Homoeo-
 paths draw between drugs and  aliments.  This distinction has been
 overlooked by alloeopathic physicians.  It may seem strange to you
 to hear me assert such an  apparent 'absurdity;  for certainly no
 allceopathic physician, if questioned about it, would not be willing
 to admit that there is a vital  difference between  Calomel and bread
 and  butter.   If alloeopathic physicians could only be made to  per-
 ceive the fact, they would be horrified at  their  own monstrosities.
 But  with seeing eyes they see not and with hearing  ears  they hear
 not.   Alas,  they know not what they are doing.   They apply to
 deleterious principles the language and philosophy which legitimately
 applies to the principles of  life.  They  call drugs  stimulants and
 tonics, meaning by this, that  there are drugs which have the faculty
 of imparting strength  to  a  sinking vitality and stimulating the
 organic functions.
  Gentlemen, it is time that this monstrous fallacy should  be scat-
 tered by the rays of truthw hich have shone upon the Avorld through
 Hahnemann's brain.  No drug stimulates or imparts strength. Every
 drug is inimical to the organic tissues.  Every drug, as soon as it
 comes  in contact with  the organic tissues, and exercises  an action
 upon them, manifests its presence in the organism by sensations of
pain.  Drugs represent or embody principles of death, not of  life.
Aliments  embody principles of life,  not of death.   The inmost
                               41 
612
LECTURE XLIII.
germs, the cell-life of an organ, are stimulated into a spontaneous,
harmonious  growth  by the  aliments which the bounteous Creator
has designed as the  natural food of the organism.  If the organ is
invaded by  a morbific principle,  a rapport is  established betAveen
this principle and the drug which is its  typical representative in
Nature.  If the liver is invaded by a morbific principle AArhich con-
stitutes the drug,  or dynamic force of Calomel, it is with this  prin-
ciple that  the molecules of Calomel unite;  they absorb it, neutralize
it, materialize  it,  remove it from the  inmost cells  where the  vital
forces  spin  the thread  of life, disembarrass, emancipate them as it
were, and enable them to manifest their  activity  with  increased
intensity.  Let us never lose sight of the fact that drugs are only in
rapport with the  forces of disease, not with the forces of life.   Here
is the great mistake which has been committed  by allceopathic phy-
sicians and which is perpetuated by all the thoughtless practitioners
of our  own Schools.   They represent the drug-action in disease as a
physiological process.  The drug is assimilated by the tissues. What
madness!  How can a drug be assimilated by tissues which it pos-
sesses an  inherent tendency to destroy!  Drugs combine with the
morbific forces which they represent or embody  in their tissues;
aliments stimulate the cell-germs of organs by furnishing assimilable
material to the forces which  weave the framework of the organism.


                MERCURIUS CORROSIVUS.

  {Corrosive Sublimate, the Deuto-chloride  or Bichloride  of Mercury)

  We  may obtain this salt by first distilling to dryness three parts
of metallic mercury dissolved in five parts of concentrated sulphuric
acid, and  afterwards triturating the resulting  salt with equal parts
of common salt.  The triturated  mass is then sublimed in a sand-
bath.   This is  the dry way  of obtaining the salt.  The wet way
consists in dissolving red precipitate in hydrochloric acid, and after-
wards  evaporating the  solution to dryness, or  allowing the salt to
crystallize.
  This is  the most poisonous and  corrosive of all  mercurial salts.
A number of  cases  of poisoning  by  this  salt are  reported in the
works  on toxicology.  The poison seems  to  act with destructive
force upon the mucous lining of the mouth, oesophagus and stomach,
causing softening and  gangrenous disorganization of this mem-
brane.
  In swallowing an acrid poison, pain need not necessarily be pre-
sent.   Mackintosh, in his Practice of Physic, mentions the case of a
soldier, who  died  in eight or ten days after swallowing two drachms
of corrosive sublimate; there were  no  local pains, though  the
stomach was found ulcerated, and the great intestines Avere studded
with large, gangrenous ulcers, and the mucous membrane was hang-
ing loose in  shreds.
  The  following case of poisoning reported by  Devergie illustrates
very fully the destructive action of the poison: 
                    MERCURIUS CORROSIVUS.                 613

  A woman swallowed a quantity of corrosive sublimate about six
o'clock in the evening.  Her husband found her shortly after, very
restless, vomiting continually and tormented  by constant urging to
stool.  A physician was  sent for who  found her at 11  o'clock at
night extended on her bed, without control  over her  limbs; skin
cold and dripping Avith perspiration; face pale, colorless; eyes dull
and  dim  and  expressive of agony; lips and  tongue  whitish and
shrunk ;  thirst intense ;  deglutition so difficult and painful  that the
least attempt  to swallow  a drop of liquid  caused spasms of the
oesophagus and stomach, with vomiting of whitish, slimy, tenacious
masses which  became mixed with bile if the vomiting continued
any length of time.  Pressure on the throat was painful; the patient
experienced a sensation of warmth and burning along  the whole of
the oesophagus;  the skin on the abdomen was cold; the epigastrium
was  painful even from the least pressure.  Alvine evacuations and
frequent  and  violent urging with tenesmus and violent burning.
She  complained of  violent burning and  horrid  distress in the
stomach; the beats of the heart seemed remote and slow;  pulse
small, filiform, scarcely perceptible; respiration slow.   In  spite of
treatment the patient died next day.
   A post-mortem examination showed a congested condition of the
cerebral vessels, effusion of red serum in the  lateral  ventricles at
the  base of the brain; the larynx  slightly violet-colored, and the
inside of the  trachea and  bronchi lined with  a vascular network.
The stomach was covered with violet and reddish-brown spots; the
mucous  coat  was of the color  of bricks.   The lining membrane
of the bowels was  slightly red.   The liver was  of a  normal size,
colorless, and  having the appearance and consistence of fatty liver.
The uterus was  completely clogged with albuminous mucous.
   Masselot instituted on his own person  comparative  experiments
with arsenic and corrosive sublimate, with  a view  of determining
the relative degree of intensity of the action of these poisons.  He
commenced with one-thirteenth  of a  grain  of arsenic  daily, and
gradually increased the dose until, after the lapse of twelve days, he
took two-fifths of a grain every day which  he swallowed  in four
parts of one-tenth of a grain each, at intervals of four hours. He
took this quantity for six days  without experiencing  any  other
results than an increased appetite, a more rapid and  easier diges-
tion, a  slight  increase  of  the urinary secretions,  great ease and
readiness in walking, and a slight degree of sexual excitement, but
not the least febrile heat.
   Corrosive sublimate produced quite different  results.  Already
after swallowing the second portion of three-sixteenths  of  a  grain
he experienced a feeling of obstruction and anxiety in the praecordia
and  'epigastric region,  folloAved  by slight  palpitations;  after the
third dose: a general feeling of malaise, some  pain  in the stomach,
passing colic, feeling of weakness and shivering in the limbs, palpi-
tation;  after  the fourth dose:  painful  pinching in the stomach,
lassitude in the limbs and trembling when standing up and Avithout
moving;  increased anxiety, more  frequent  palpitations, creeping
chills, sensation  of coldness, paleness of the face, attacks of nausea, 
644                     LECTURE XLIII.

bloated bowels, borborygmi, colic and tenesmus, and six discharges
during  the  night.  On the following day the experimenter only
experienced some malaise  and a  little less  appetite  than  usual.
Three days after the experiment was repeated in the  same  order,
and  the same effects were  experienced, only more intensely; the
anxiety, paleness, disposition to chilliness,  lassitude and tenesmus
especially were more marked.  He had moreover several attacks of
vertigo, and twice he experienced  a spasmodic vomiting of a serous
substance, without any previous nausea.  The effects of the poison
continued more or less for two days.
  These experiments show  that corrosive  sublimate affects power-
fully the vegetative system, and that poisonous doses may readily
destroy Its vitality.
   The poisonous effects and corresponding curative range of Cor-
rosive Mercury may be comprehended under the folloAving  cate-
gories :  •

                    CEPHALIC GEOUP.

  Frightful paroxysms of
  Hemicrania every evening and night.

                     SPECIAL  SENSES.

  Rheumatic, Scrofulous, and Syphilitic Ophthalmia, especially when
the sensitiveness to light is very great.
  In Retinitis and Iritis, the sublimate has done good service, especi-
ally  when of a scrofulous or syphilitic nature, or after operations.

                      BUCCAL  GEOUP.

 _ Stomacace, with complete softening or gangrene of the mucous
lining ; it looks whitish or  greenish, bloody.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC GEOUP.

  Mucous  Gastritis, with vomiting of  blood and mucus, burning in
the  stomach, unquenchable thirst, vomiting when attempting to
swallow the  least liquid.
  Gastromalacia  of children, pain, swelling of region of stomach,
soreness, vomiting, diarrhoea.
  Dysentery, frightful tenesmus, discharge  of blood and mucus, re-
tention of urine.
   Ulceration of the bowels, with watery diarrhoea, also bloody;  with
cutting and  burning pains in the bowels, tenesmus.
  Paralytic  weakness and  .paralysis  of lower limbs, inarticulate
speech,  distortion  of facial muscles;  irregular, small, contracted
pulse, also quick and jerking, not full pulse.  The paralyzed limb is
cold, the skin dry.  You recollect that a similar effect was witnessed
from the acetate of Mercury.

                    THOEACIC GEOUP.
  In Scrofulous and Syphilitic ulceration of the lungs, the sublimate 
MERCURIUS BROMATUS.
645
is highly spoken of.   The sudden suppression of a chancre or of a
syphilitic eruption by external means may lead to ulcerous phthisis
which  corrosive Mercury may be alone able to cure.  The  same
remarks  apply to  headaches which sometimes  appear years  after
such suppression.

                       FEVEE-GEOUP.

  Slow, Hectic fevers  springing from a syphilitic source, yield to the
corrosive sublimate.   The patients complain of extreme prostration
and fetid sweats.
  In  Typhoid Enteritis, with foul, bloody stools; burning in the
bowels, tympanitic distention of the bowels, soreness to pressure,
this agent may prove very useful.

                EXANTHEA1ATOUS GEOUP.

  Corrosive sublimate is eminently useful in  syphilitic  eruptive
diseases  of a secondary  character; in Lepra, Psoriasis,  Herpes,
Macule, Papule, Ulcers. If these eruptions can be traced to a scrofu-
lous diathesis, this agent has likewise been employed with success.
A case of  Leprosy, for instance, is reported in  Hufeland's Journal
characterized  by  thick,  white  crusts over  the whole body, with
bleeding rhagades, where the sublimate  effected a cure.
  In syphilitic diseases of bones,
  Nodes, Caries, Corrosive Mercury may prove eminently useful,
and may compete with the iodide of Mercury, and the hydriodate of
potash.
  Syphilitic Eruptions with furious itching and burning require the
sublimate.  Many allceopathic physicians use the sublimate baths on
such occasions, dissolving from one to four hundred  grains of sub-
limate in a tubful of tepid water.  If  these baths  are used, the
patient should be kept in an uniform temperature until the cure is
completed.
  We use  the sublimate in  solution, dissolving  one part of it  in
twenty parts of water. This makes the strong or concentrated solu-
tion, of Avhich one drop may be mixed  in twelve tablespoonfuls of
water.  The second attenuation is made from this solution by means
of dilute alcohol in the proportion of 1 : 10 ;  all subsequent attenu-
ations are made with strong alcohol.
  In a case of poisoning by this salt, we give an emetic of sulphate
of zinc, if we have time; or at once resort to large quantities of the
white  of eggs, milk, sugar and water, mucilaginous drinks.  The
sulphuret of potassium, oleaginous beverages, and liquids containing
a good deal of tannin, are likewise good antidotes.


                 MERCURIUS  BROMATUS.

  The Bromide of Mercury has a powerful action upon the organ-
ism.   Half a grain causes slight pressure and pain in the bowels.
One  grain  causes  an increased secretion  of urine, colicky pains,
9 
\
646                     LECTURE XLIII.

several  papescent stools.   One  grain  and a-half cause loathing,
vomiturition, increased secretion of urine, and afterwards violent,
painful vomiting.
  From a quarter of a grain Hoering  experienced  a  disagreeable
sensation in the fauces, slight pinching in the bowels.   After taking
half a grain, these symptoms became  more fully developed, with
pressure in the stomach, papescent stool, increased secretion of mu-
cus.  One grain caused a  nauseous taste, a rough and scraping sen-
sation in the throat which obliged him to cough. The pressure at the
stomach was felt at once, followed soon after by several watery stools.
During  this time he was  attacked by the most violent colic and
painful tenesmus, he felt debilitated, his pulse  was slow, small;  he
had to vomit twice, with great straining.  The  abdomen was drawn
in tOAvards  the  vertebral  column, very sensitive to contact, with
increased secretion of urine and saliva.   During the violence of the
pain the body was covered Avith sweat.

  The Bromide of Mercury acts similarly to Corrosive Sublimate,
and has been employed with some success in diseases where the sub-
limate seems specifically indicated, particularly in
  Secondary Syphilitic Eruptions, Corona Veneris, ulcerations on the
scrotum, ulcers of the fauces, herpes and rhagades on the body and
at the anus.

  Our provings show that this agent may be of eminent  use in cer-
tain forms of
  Dysentery with violent tormina, spasmodic retraction of the abdo-
minal walls as in lead-colic, tenesmus, discharge of blood and mucus,
and urging to urinate.  The third to the sixth potency may be suffi-
cient.

  The Bromide of Mercury is antidoted by the white of eggs.

  GENEEAL ANTIDOTAL  TEEATMENT  IN  CASES  OF
                 MEECUEIAL POISONING.

  Among the poisonous effects of Mercury, the most formidable are:
  Salivation. We combat this disorder with gargles of lukewarm
water, acidulated with nitric acid; a strong infusion of  alum is like-
wise serviceable;  sage-tea may be  resorted to.   If the gums are
simply affected, powdered  alum may be rubbed upon them three or
four times a day.  If the salivation is accompanied with a good deal
of pain, the mouth may be rinsed with  a solution of Opium, in the
proportion of one hundred drops to a cupful of water.
  Another admirable remedy for mercurial ptyalism is the chloride
of potash, of which from five to ten grains in solution may be given
internally three or four times a day, using it at the  same time as a
gargle in the proportion of one hundred grains to a cupful of Avater.
  Eczema.  This distressing eruption may be accompanied Avith high
fever, in which case we should give Aconite, a  drop of the tincture
in a tumblerful of Avater.   Trousseau and Pidoux advise the use of
* 
MERCURIUS BROMATUS.
647
emollient and gelatinous baths and  general  embrocations with  a
soapy compound of one pound of lime-water and three, four or five
ounces of almond-oil.  Baths in which from half a pound to two
pounds of the acetate of lead have  been dissolved, are likewise
recommended by these gentlemen.   With our Aconite perseveringly
applied, the acute mercurial eczema loses a good deal of its danger,
and its annoying character is more  readily controlled.   In chronic
mercurial eruptions and ulcers, Hepar Sulphuris is very efficient.
   Trembling or Tremor, Mania, Epilepsy and other Nervous Disorders.
We relieve them by  the use of opiates,  principally  Belladonna,
Hyoscyamus and Opium.  These medicines may be given internally,
a few drops of the tincture in a tumblerful of water, and an ointment
of the same drugs may be rubbed upon the spine, more particularly
in the region of  the medulla oblongata and the  upper  and middle
portion of the spinal column.  If the lower limbs are much affected,
the ointment may be applied to the whole of the vertebral column.
Nux vomica may likewise prove useful for mercurial tremor and
paralysis.  Hahnemann recommends electricity for mercurial tremor,
neuralgia and paralysis.
   Mercurial Cachexia or  Hydrargyria.  The great remedy in this
affection is the hydriodate of potash;  in torpid scrofulous constitu-
tions the iodide  of iron has been found eminently useful. According
to Dieterich, gold and  the muriate of  gold are the most efficacious
antidotes in chronic mercurial poisoning.   Dieterich considers the
use of iron dangerous, if  the mercurial symptoms are  complicated
with syphilis.  Eicord, on the contrary, thinks iron  highly advan-
tageous,  even Avhen syphilitic symptoms are present.
   In mercurial Bone-diseases, gold and the muriate of gold are recom-
mended by Dieterich, especially if the nasal cartilages are involved.
For mercurial periostitis, he recommends phosphoric acid and  Phos-
phorus.
  In mercurial Caries, Asafcetida, Silicea and the hydriodate of pot-
ash prove the best means  of cure.
  Belladonna, Iodine and the  hydriodate  of potash for glandular
swellings.
  If Gangrene threatens, pulverized charcoal may be administered;
Arsenic may likewise prove useful.
  For mercurial Rheumatism we give  Guajacum and Aconite.
  For mercurial Purging  the acetate of lead.
  For mercurial Neuralgia and spasms the sulphate of zinc may
likewise prove useful.
  For mercurial  Hemorrhage, Arnica and iron are indicated.
  For Debility and slow torpid fever we give China, Veratrum and
Arsenic,  also Iodine.
  Lastly we may commend to your  attention the fact that one set of
mercurial preparations has been successfully used by eminent prac-
titioners in counteracting the poisonous effects of other mercurials. 
648
LECTURE XLIV.
               LECTURE   XLIY.


                       NUX VOMICA,

        {Slrychnos Nux Vomica.—Nat. Ord.:—Apocyne^:.)

  Seed of the fruit of Strychnos Nux vomica, a middling sized tree;
leaves  spear-shaped; berry round and smooth  covered by a shell
containing a pulp which is eaten by birds;  seed button-shaped.  The
bark termed "Angustura spuria" was at first believed to be the bark
of the brucea antidysenterica, a native of Abyssinia; but it was after-
wards found to be the bark of the  Strychnos nux voinica.
  This tree is a native of the East-Indies.  The bark is poisonous to
animals and men.  Emmert reports a case of poisoning by this bark
where a bo}r, five years and a half old, Avas given  three tablespoonfuls
of a decoction of five ounces of the bark boiled down to five fluid
ounces.  The principal  symptoms in this  case  of poisoning were:
tremor which soon increased to  spasms ; the least touch brought on
tetanic spasm; lockjaw with protrusion and immobility of the eyes;
the breathing, after the paroxysm, was excessively labored, stertorous,
face and forehead  covered Avith  sweat;  blueness of  the  lips and
cheeks; the spasms were excited by  drinking a little lukewarm
water,  by the least noise or contact; previous  to death, the Avhole
body became relaxed and the eyes extinct, with  a few convulsive in-
spirations at long intervals;  death took place one hour after taking
the poison, and half an hour after death, the body was quite rigid.
A post-mortem examination showed that the blood was cherry brown
and fluid.  The right  lung was externally pale and bloated, inter-
nally gorged with  blood; the  left lung was externally blue, and
when cut into, it looked blackish and was gorged with  blood.
  The action of Nux vomica on man is so graphically described by
Pereira that I beg the privilege of quoting his remarks on this point,
with some slight but necessary comments.
  According to Pereira,  three degrees of the operation of Nux
vomica on man may be admitted.
   "First degree: Tonic  and diuretic effects.—In  very small and re-
peated doses, Nux vomica usually promotes the appetite, assists the
digestive process,  increases  the secretion of urine, and renders the
excretion of the fluid more frequent.  In some cases it acts slightly
on  the bowels, and occasionally  produces a sudorific effect.  The
pulse is usually unaffected.  In somewhat larger doses, the stomach
not unfrequently becomes disordered, and the appetite  impaired."
   Pereira, educated in the old mental  habits of the School, assigns
to small  doses of Nux the power of producing tonic or  strengthening
effects in the healthy stomach.  No intelligent  homoeopathic physi-
cian, no  homoeopathic  practitioner who has  habituated his mind to
reflection and philosophical reasoning, will ever be guilty of perpetuat-
ing the balderdash of Old-School therapeutics. Drugs are poisons. It 
STRYCHNOS NUX  VOMICA.
649
is in their very nature to be  poisonous  to the organism.  They are
poisonous whether  taken in small or large doses.  Wherein then
does this pretended tonic effect of Nux consist?   As soon  as  the
poison comes in contact with the stomach, and begins to exercise its
deleterious action, the brain, in its capacity of chief supervisor of the
functional activities of the organism, comes to  the support  of the
threatened  organ,  administering to it,  lending  to  it from its  own
abundance, an additional power to manifest  the vital phenomena
inherent in its organic destiny.  The brain is no  reasoning manager.
It obeys an instinctive law of order.  If the  organic power  of the
stomach is threatened,  the brain seeks to restore the equilibrium of
the functions by supplying additional power to the invaded  viscus.
Is this increase of power real or only apparent ?  Common sense at
once informs us that it is only apparent.  It is power borrowed from
the brain.  As long as the brain has any power left to lead to the
stomach, it will do it;  it will impoverish itself; but  when the  period
for  restitution has arrived, as it assuredly will; when the brain shall
be obliged  to call in  all its outstanding funds for its own preserva-
tion and support:  then the funds will be found  exhausted;  the
organs cannot repay what they had borrowed from the brain, their
common reservoir of vitality; the brain is drained  of its resources,
the organs will soon  find themselves reduced  to  the condition of
empty pouches and worn-out tissues, and universal prostration and
decay will be the consequence.
  "Seconddegree: Rigidity and convulsive contraction of the muscles.—
In larger doses, the effects of Nux  vomica manifest themsehres by a
disordered  state of the muscular system.  A  feeling of Aveight and
weakness in the limbs, and increased sensibility to  external impres-
sions  (of light, sound, touch, and  variations  of temperature) with
depression  of spirits and anxiety, are usually the precursory symp-
toms.  The limbs  tremble, and a  slight rigidity or stiffness is  ex-
perienced when an attempt is made to  put  the  muscles into  action.
The patient experiences a difficulty in keeping the erect posture, and,
in walking, frequently staggers.  If, Avhen this effect is beginning to
be  observed, he be tapped  suddenly on the ham Avhile  standing, a
slight convulsive paroxysm is frequently brought on, so that  he will
have  some  difficulty to prevent himself from  falling.  I have often
in this way been able to recognize  the effect of  Nux vomica on the
muscular system, before the patient had experienced any particular
symptoms.
  If  the use of the medicine be  still persevered  in, these effects
increase in  intensity,  and  the ■ voluntary muscles  are throAvn  into
a convulsed  state  by  very slight  causes.  Thus, when the  patient
inspires more deeply  than usual,  or attempts to Avalk,  or even to
turn  in bed, a convulsive paroxysm is brought on.   The  sudden
contact of  external bodies also acts  like an electric shock on  him.
The further employment, of  Nux vomica increases the  severity of
the symptoms; the paroxysms now occur without the agency of any
evident exciting cause, and affect him  even when lying perfectly
quiet and still in bed.  The muscular fibres of the  pharynx, larynx,
oesophagus, and bladder, also become affected ;  and Trousseau and 
650
LECTURE XLIV.
Pidoux say those of the penis are likewise inflamed, and the noctur-
nal and diurnal erections become inconvenient even in those who,
for some time before, had lost somewhat of their virility.  I am
acquainted Avith two cases  of paralysis, in which the use of Nux
vomica caused almost constant nocturnal erections.  Females also,
say Trousseau  and  Pidoux, experience  more  energetic venereal
desires; and we have, they add, received confidential information on
this point which cannot be doubted.
   " The pulse does not appear to be uniformly affected ; for the most
part it  is slightly increased  in frequency betAveen the convulsive
attacks, but Trousseau says he has found it calm  even Avhen the dose
of the medicine was sufficient to cause general  muscular rigidity.
Previous to the production of the  affection of the muscles, various
painful sensations are oftentimes  experienced  in the  skin, which
patients have compared to the creeping of insects (formication,) or
to the passage of  an electric shock; occasionally an eruption makes
its appearance.
   " It  is remarkable that, in paralysis, the effects of Nux vomica
are principally observed in the paralyzed parts.   I have seen, says
Magendie, the affected side covered with an  anomalous  eruption,
while the opposite side was free from it.   One  side of the tongue is
sometimes sensible of a very bitter taste, which is not perceptible to
the other side."
   "Third degree: tetanus, asphyxia, death.—To illustrate this third
and most violent degree  of operation, I  think I cannot do  better
than relate a case of poisoning by Nux vomica reported by Air.
Oilier:
   "A young woman swallowed between three and four drachms of
this substance in  powder, and in half  an hour was seen by Dr.
Oilier.  She was sitting by the fire, quite collected and tranquil; her
pulse  about eighty, and regular. He left her for about ten minutes
to procure an emetic, and on his return found  that she had thrown
herself back in her chair, and that her legs were extended and con-
siderably separated.  She  was perfectly sensible, and without pain;
but seemed in alarm, laid hold of her husband's  coat and entreated
him not to leave her. A perspiration had broken out on her skin,
her pulse had become faint and much quicker, and she called fre-
quently for drink.  She then had a slight and  transient conA'ulsion.
Eecov'ering from that she Avas in great trepidation, kept fast hold of
her husband, and refused to  let him go, even for the alleged purpose
of getting her drink.  In a few minutes  after,  she  had another and
a more violent .attack, and shortly  afterwards a third; the duration
of these was from a minute and a half to two minutes.   In them she
retained her grasp; her whole body was straightened and stiffened,
the legs pushed out and forced apart.   I could not (says Air. Oilier,)
perceive either pulse or respiration; the face and hands Avere livid;
the muscles of the former, especially of the lips, violently agitated;
and she made constantly a moaning chattering noise.  She Avas not
unlike one in an  epileptic fit, but  did not struggle, though,  as she
was forced  out it was difficult to keep  her from falling on the floor.
  " In the  short interval  of these attacks, she was quite  sensible; 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
651
 was tormented with excessive thirst; perspired;  had a very quick
 and faint pulse ; complained of being sick and made many attempts
 to  vomit.   (I  should state she had swallowed some Ipecacuanha
 poAvder, to evacuate the poison).   She continued to refuse to let her
 husband move, and to the question whether she was in pain replied:
 No, no, no!
   "A fourth and most vehement attack soon followed, in which the
 whole body was extended  to the  utmost; and  she Avas  rigidly stiff
 from head to foot, insomuch that,  with all the force of the surgeon,
 he could not bend  her thighs on the pelvis to replace her in her
 seat. From this she never recovered; she fell into a state of asphyxia
 and never breathed again.  She  now relaxed  her grasp; her dis-
 colored hands dropped  upon her knees; her face, too, was livid : the
 brows contracted ; the  lips wide  apart, showing the whole  of the
 closed teeth ; and  a salivary foam issued plentifully from the corners
 of the mouth.  The expression of the whole countenance was at this
 time very frightful.  On removal of the body, it was discovered
 that the urine had been discharged.   She died in about one hour after
 taking the poison.   Five hours  afterwards she was still as straight
 and stiff as  a statue; if you lifted one of her hands, the whole body
 moved with it; but the face had become pale in comparison, and its
 expression more placid."
   "Post-mortem  appearances:  In  the case just  related the  body
 was observed to be rigid after death, but in the lower animals the
 reverse  is generally noticed.  As  in other  cases where death takes
 place from  obstructed  respiration, venous congestion is observed.
 Occasionally there is redness or  inflammation of the alimentary
 canal, and now and then softening of the brain  or spinal cord."

   Nux vomica affects primarily the spinal column, motor and sentient
 nerves;  it also affects the  brain;  we infer  this from the  injurious
 action of Nux vomica upon the brain in patients Avho are attacked
 with apoplexy attended  Avith softening of the brain;  we infer it from
 the fact  that it has caused stupor, vertigo, buzzing in the ears, sleep-
 lessness and turgescence of the capillaries of the face.
  According to  Flourens, Nux vomica  acts upon the medulla ob-
 longata ; this fact is disproved by Orfila Avho never found the medulla
 altered, contrary to Flourens who teaches that the specific or exclusive
 action of every poison on  some special organ,  always leaves, after
 death, traces of its action sufficient to distinguish  the affected from
 other organs.  It Avould seem that Nux affects the cerebrum as well
 as the. cerebellum, or both, more particularly the cerebellum, have
 been found softened  after death.
  Death either takes place from exhaustion or in  consequence of
 the spasmodic condition of  the respiratory muscles.  Jules Cloquet
 describes a case in the  Nouveau  Journal  de Medicine, where the
patient seems to have died of the excessive exhaustion produced by
the long-continued and violent spasms.  The tetanic fits lasted about
twenty-four hours, the sensibility in the intervals being acute.  Slight
signs of irritation of the  stomach succeeded, and death ensued on the
fourth morning. 
652
LECTURE XLIV.
  In the nineteenth volume of the London Aledical Eepository a case
is reported where a young woman swalloAved purposely a drachm of
Nux vomica mixed in a glass of wine.  In fifteen minutes she was
seized with heat and pain  in  the stomach, burning in the gullet, a
sense of Aveariness in the limbs, succeeded by  stiffness in the joints,
convulsive tremors, tottering in her  gait, and  at  length violent and
frequent attacks of  tetanus.   Milk given after the  tetanus  began,
excited vomiting. She was further affected Avith redness of the gums,
inflammation of the tongue, burning thirst, and pain in the stomach;
the pulse also became quick,  and the  skin  hot.  Next day, though
the fits  had ceased, the muscles were  very sore, especially during
motion;  the tongue and palate were inflamed, and there was thirst,
pain in the stomach, vomiting, colic, and diarrhoea.  The symptoms,
hoAvever,  abated, and on the  fourth day disappeared, leaving her
exceedingly weak.
  Orfila states that a person swallowed, in the  morning, a scruple of
Nux vomica in powder, and drank afterwards a few glasses of cold
water, in order to diminish the bitterness occasioned by this substance.
Half an hour after, he appeared to be drunk; his limbs, especially
his knees, were tense and stiff: his Avalk was staggering and he was
afraid of falling.  He took some food,  and the symptoms soon after-
wards disappeared.
  As regards the quantity, sufficient  to produce a  fatal effect, Dr.
Basedow of Merseburg in Prussia, mentions the case of a young lady
who swallowed, by mistake, a  tablespoonful  of the powder; she was
almost instantly deprived of the power of walking, and fell down,
but did not lose her recollection; she recovered.
  A case  occurred  in London in  1839, where fifty grains  of the
poAvder of Nux,  equal to one-quarter grain of Strychnine proved
fatal; in another case fifteen grains destroyed life; this is the smallest
fatal dose on record.
  From this Ave obtain the well known alkaloid Strychnine, a white,
odorless, intensely-bitter, crystalline substance.  It is almost insoluble
in water.  Two hundred grains of powdered Nux are about equal to
one grain of Strychnine.  Strychnine is. a most powerful poison.
From y^-th of a grain Andral has observed slight trismus and incipient
rigidity of the  muscles.  In some cases much larger doses are re-
quired to develop medicinal symptoms, even 1J grains (according to
Pereira).   This is a most dangerous dose, since Strychnine does not
always develop its effects at once, but  they seem to cumulate in the
system for a long time until they suddenly break forth Avith uncon-
trollable fury.  An  instance of this cumulative effect of  Strychnine
is afforded by the following case which  occurred on board the Dread-
nought  Hospital-Ship, and  is  reported by Dr. Cooper the attending
surgeon:
  "A Swede, aged  fifty to sixty years,  was admitted about the year
1833 with general  paralysis, one side being more affected  than the
other; he was also  in some degree idiotic.   Strychnia was  given, at
first in  the dose of one-eighth of a  grain three  times a  day, which
was continued  for several weeks, without apparent effect.  The dose
was then  increased to one-quarter  of a grain three times  a day, 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
653
which  was also continued for some time, and not producing  any
perceptible effect, the quantity was increased to half a grain twice or
three times a day, and this dose was taken for many days before any
influence of  Strychnia  was manifested.   But one morning, about
nine o'clock,  the apothecary was suddenly summoned by a message
that the man was in a fit.   When  seen, he Avas  insensible;  face and
chest of a deep purple color; respiration  had ceased, and the pulsa-
tion of the heart nearly so.  The whole body, (trunk and limbs) was
in a state of tetanic spasm.  Trunk extended and shoulders thrown
back;  muscles of chest and abdomen  hard and rigid.  In a short
time, the rigidity became  less; the ribs  could be  compressed;  and
artificial respiration was kept  up imperfectly by compression of the
thorax. Circulation was restored in some degree, and the deep  pur-
ple color of the surface went off.  Spontaneous respiration returned.
The man  sighed, and  became apparently sensible;  all spasm  had
ceased for a minute or two ; but as  soon as circulation and conscious-
ness were in  some degree restored, the spasm recurred with extreme
violence, again  locking up the respiratory muscles.   Eespiration
ceased; the surface  again became purple; circulation went  on, how-
ever, some time after respiration had  ceased.  Artificial respiration
was kept up  when  the  relaxation  of the  muscles would allow of it,
but was this  time ineffectual.   The heart soon ceased to beat; the
deep purple color was instantaneously replaced by the pallor of death;
life was extinct.
   " The quick passing off of the purple color of the surface was very
remarkable; the change appeared to commence in the face, and passed
downwards like the passing of the shadow of a cloud."
   Strychnia  forms  salts Avith various  acids,  tannic acid, gallic acid,
muriatic acid.  In  a case of poisoning,  we  first give an emetic of
sulphate of zinc, twenty grains; after this we administer an infusion
of gall, brandy.   With  tannin, strychnia  forms an insoluble tannate.
A student who had swallowed a button, saved his life by taking five
drop doses of Ammonia.  Coffee and Opium are also antidotes.
   Homeopathic doses.—Hahnemann recommends the 30th  potency.
In many cases this  and  even higher potencies will undoubtedly suf-
fice ; in other cases  the tincture may have to be resorted to.
   I was once called to a servant-girl who had stuffed herself with
codfish and apple-dumplings.   She Avas seized with spasmodic vom-
iting and had been  in this condition for six hours when I Avas called.
I found her  lying on the floor, half unconscious, and retching most
horridly.   I  dissolved a globule of Nux  30th in six tablespoonfuls
of water, and gave  her a tablespooful  of this solution.  The retch-
ing  stopped  completely after the second dose administered at an
interval of five minutes ; she was put to  bed, perspired a little, and
next morning was able to resume her work.
   On the other hand I was called  to a drunkard who had imbibed
thirty-five  glasses of brandy during a night's debauch.  I found  him
numb  all over; the man Avas in his senses and  said  he should  die.
The pulse Avas feeble and hurried.  Skin exceedingly dry and cold.
I tried Nux  30th Avithout the least effect. I then  mixed five drops
of the  concentrated tincture in a tumblerful of water,  and gave him a 
654
LECTURE XLIV.
small tablespoonful every five minutes.  After the  second close  he
Avarmed up, the pulse became fuller and  perspiration broke out.
The sweat smelled like alcohol.   He  had to be  changed  six times
in the course of the day.   Next morning he went about his business.
Here a material poison had to be acted upon; the higher potencies
proved inadequate to such a task.

   For years Hahnemann considered himself justified in using large
doses of a drug.  The following cure of asthma was effected with
four grain doses of Nux, frequently repeated. I extract  this case
from Hahnemann's Essay, entitled: " Are the obstacles to  certainty
and simplicity in practical medicine insurmountable ?"  "
   " A young man, twenty years  of age, the son  of an  oil manufac-
turer, thin and weakly, had been from his childhood  subject to a
spasmodic asthma, which used always  to increase  from the com-
mencement  of autumn until the depth of winter, and gradually
decline  from that period until the mild weather in spring.  Every
year he had grown worse, and this autumn he hoped might be  his
last.  Already the attack commenced more violently than the last
year at this time.  The probable issue was eA'ident.   Last year, and
for years  past, every fall of the  barometer,  every south-Avest, and
more particularly north wind, every approaching fall of snow, every
gale of  wind, had brought on an asthmatic paroxysm lasting hours
and days ; he would not unfrequently pass the night with both hands
grasping the table, exerting  all  his strength to  draw  the smallest
quantity of breath, and every moment  in dread of suffocation.  The
intervals between such fits were occupied by slighter attacks, brought
on by a draught of  air, the vapor from the  heated oil-cakes,  dust, a
cold room or  smoke.  He told  me  of these symptoms  with the
utmost difficulty of utterance, elevating his  shoulders to draw a
scanty breath, and  this at a season of the year, when his condition
was as yet pretty tolerable."
   This case occurred in Hahnemann's practice at the beginning  of
his professional career as  a homoeopathic reformer.  The remedies
which are usually recommended for asthma in allceopathic practice,
had been tried in vain, a medicine was procured which could pro-
duce anxiety and diminish the easy action of the bowels.  The choice
fell on Nux vomica.  Four grains, given twice daily, removed  gradu-
ally, but perceptibly, the constriction ©f the chest; he remained free
from  the  spasmodic  asthmatic attacks, even  in the worst  autumn-
weather, even  in winter, in  all winds, all storms, all states  of the
barometer, all humidity of the atmosphere, during his now increased
domestic, manufacturing and travelling business, in the  midst of the
oil vapor, and that without any important change in his diet,  or any
change in his place of abode.
  He now slept comfortably at  night, whereas  formerly he had
passed the whole night in an arm-chair, bent fonvards, or leaning
against the Avail, or  coughing without  intermission.   During this
season, which had  threatened to be so dangerous to him, he gained
strength, agility, cheerfulness, and capacity of resisting inclement 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
655
weather.  It was  only severe attacks  of. cold that could cause the
slightest return of asthma, and these he speedily got rid of.
  In another case Hahnemann prescribed as many as seventeen grains
of pulverized  Nux at one dose.   The patient, an industrious and
thoughtful mechanic, had been subject for years to paroxysms like
the following: Tension in the stomach followed by a sudden attack
of vertigo, so  as to  make him fall, that  left  behind  it a kind  of
confusion of the understanding, with frightful hypochondriacal ideas,
anxiety and exhaustion.  In the morning  he was pretty lively, and
not exhausted, but in the afternoon, about two o'clock, the attack
commenced.  Considering Nux homoeopathic  to these symptoms,
Hahnemann prescribed  it in increasing doses, one dose daily, and
the patient improved.  In reference to the homoeopathicity of Nux
to these symptoms, Hahnemann expresses himself as follows: Since
it excites,  besides vertigo, anxiety and febrile rigor, a  kind of deli-
rium, consisting of vivid, sometimes frightful visions, and  a  tension
in the stomach; it at once quickly subdued a fever (Hahnemann  so
designates this disease)  which was characterized  by just  such  a
paroxysm as we  have described ; at the fourth dose of Nux which
contained  seventeen grains, there occurred great anxiety, immobility,
and  stiffness  of the limbs ending in  a profuse perspiration.   The
fever and all the nervous symptoms disappeared and never returned,
although for many years previously, he had been subject, from time
to time, to such attacks  suddenly occurring* yet unaccompanied by
fever.
  These massive doses  were given in strict accordance with the
homoeopathic law; cases of this kind show that the homoeopathicity
of a drug  to a disease does not depend upon the quantity of the dose,
but upon  the  inmost relation existing between the drug and the
disease.  Homoeopathic  to a disease is any drug which, among the
drugs existing in nature, is more than any other drug capable  of
developing in  the health}^ organism a condition which shall be,  as
nearly as possible, similar to the natural malady.  It is at all times
unnecessary and often  injudicious and even dangerous to give a
patient more medicine than is absolutely required for the  cure  of
his disease; but why, in the name of common  sense, repudiate the
Homoeopathy of the past which seems to have  borne such brilliant
fruit, in  order  to worship at the exclusive shrine  of the high
potencies ?
  In Afonro's Chemico-Pharmaceutical Materia Medica which was
translated  from the Latin by Hahnemann, and published with his
additions,  we read the folloAving statement concerning his method  of
prescribing Aconite in chronic rheumatism: " I found that a dose
of from four to five grains of a Avell-prepared extract of Aconite,
acted very powerfully even in the  case of a full-grown person ;  it
often caused oppressive anxiety, confusion of  the senses, and  cold
sweat.   I generally  commenced  with one grain  and gradually
increased  the  dose to four grains, adding  one grain every day.  I
ordered a  dose to be taken every day at bed-time.  It rarely took me
more than four days to  cure obstinate chronic rheumatisms, provi-
ded they were curable.  This extract is prepared not by boiling the 
656
LECTURE XLIV.
plant, but by simply inspissating the juice of the plant in water." A
preparation of this kind is of course more or less uncertain, and not
near as powerful as the alcoholic tincture, nevertheless  the  dose
which Hahnemann prescribed for chronic rheumatism, is of sufficient
magnitude to show that, what we  might term  a very large dose is
not in itself  inconsistent Avith the laAV " similia  similibus."   It must
be our endeavor, Gentlemen, to build the homoeopathic edifice upon
a basis that shall be broad enough for every legitimate experience in
the bosom of our School.  Let it never be said of the Homoeopathic
College of Pennsylvania, that it is the cradle of one-sided, illiberal,
exclusive dogmatism ; we recognize no potency but that which cures
our patient;  no similia but that which is engraved upon the tablets
of Nature;  and no limits to its applications, but the infinite boun-
daries of truth.

  The provings which we possess of  this drug have been  obtained
by means of large doses, and constitute one of the  most brilliant
pages in Hahnemann's Materia Medica.   Guided  by these indica-
tions, and by the toxicological effects of Nux, we  recommend this
agent, and have successfully used it in a variety of affections.
  The physiological action of Nux upon  the organism shoAvs that
this agent is  an excellent remedy for various typical and intermittent
disorders; for tonic spasms, and more particularly for tetanus and
opisthotonos ; for gastric and bilious derangements ; for constipation
arising from torpor or paralysis of the peristaltic motion ; for stran-
gulated hernia with  or  without  faecal vomiting;  for  acute and
chronic diseases of the spinal marrow.  You will find it  stated in
the books that it is more adapted  to the male than to the female
sex; I doubt the correctness of this statement which  I accept only
in so far as the diseases to which Nux is homoeopathic, occur more
frequently among men than they do  among women.   For the same
reason it is more suitable to the bilious nervous than  to the phleg-
matic temperament, and more to those who are subject to  piles and
troubled with constipation than to those whose  bowels are habitu-
ally loose.  It is homoeopathic to many aliments arising from seden-
tary habits and excessive mental exertions. It is likewise an antidote
to the injurious effects of coffee and alcoholic stimulants.  On the
other hand, alcohol in excess neutralizes in a measure the  effects of
Nux. It is reported in the London Medical Gazette, that a drunken
fellow, in a moment of high intoxication, took a drachm of Strych-
nine dissolved in spirits.   All the usual  spasmodic effects Avere
induced.  He took an emetic and recovered. There can be no doubt
that the intoxication prevented the fatal operations of the poison.

                     CEPHALIC  GEOUP.

  Nux  is a capital remedy in several forms of headache.   AVe shall
find it useful in
  Headaches caused by over eating, abuse  of coffee, spirits, exces-
sive mental  labor.  The  head feels  as if  it would split, aching; a
sort of  painful pressure with sticking pain.
   Catarrhal Headache; the brain feels heavy and aching, as if bruised. 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
657
  Rheumatic Headache ; a tearing pain after eating, with sensation
of heat in the cheeks and a chilly feeling over the body, or only in
the hands; also, with throbbing in the forehead; or a crampy pain in
the head, with soreness and sensitiveness of the scalp.
   Gastric Hectdache; from overloading the stomach, or worse after
eating, with nausea, sour vomiting, also darting pains in one side of
the head.
  Bilious Headache, similar to gastric headache, with sensation as if
the head would  split, tearing and burning  pain in  the head and
forehead, vomiting of bitter and sour phlegm.
  Hysteric Headache, with pressing in the head as if the brain should
be pressed asunder;  accompanied with heat in the brain; the head-
ache is relieved by compressing the head with the hands.
   Congestive Headache  with violent throbbing and aching pain, as if
the head would split;  the  headache may be excited by abuse of
wine, coffee, by a violent mental excitement, suppression of hemor-
rhoids.
   Periodical Hemicrania, with sticking, sore pain in one side of the
head ; also drawing pain in one side,  or pain  as if one side of the
brain should be rent asunder.
   Nux having such a  powerful  specific  action upon the cerebrum
and cerebellum, it will be found available in some very important
and dangerous conditions of the brain.   We shall find it useful in
   Vertigo, especially when arising from excessive use  of alcoholic
liquors, coffee, or when the brain is overtasked and there is danger
of softening;  the pulse during the attack is small, irregular; or the
patient vomits, is troubled with dyspepsia; the vertigo seems to  be
in some sort of sympathetic connection with the gastric irritation.
   Apoplexy of a peculiar type comes within the therapeutic range of
Nux.  It is doubtful whether Nux will ever  be found available in
apoplexy which is  not connected with, or depending  upon  some
primary derangement of the stomach, especially inflammation of the
mucous coat.
   A perfectly healthy and rather fleshy servant girl swallowed 120
grains of pulverized Nux in order to destroy herself.  In half an
hour she complained of violent colic which  soon increased to an
intolerable degree of intensity. She sAvallowed the  poison about
ten  o'clock in the  morning, and at  eleven o'clock the physician
found her dreadfully convulsed;  in one minute she had  several
attacks of opisthotonos.  The face Avas  very much distended with
blood, scarlet red,  the eyes fixed  and  glistening, the  hands cold,
pulse  entirely collapsed ; her consciousness Avas undisturbed.  She
died about noon.
   The whole of the right side was of a blue-red color, the abdomen
horridly distended,  the hands convulsively closed, face pale and col-
lapsed, the mouth tightly closed, with blue lips and traces of blood
oozing from the mouth; stomach inflamed throughout and almost
gangrenous in the region of the pylorus; the inflammation spread
even to the middle  of  the ileum.  The larger bowels were m a nor-
mal condition.

                               42 
658
LECTURE XLIV.
  Another female took six grains of the powdered Nux at one dose.
She was attacked with extreme weakness of the limbs, so that she
was unable to stand;  general trembling, vertigo, stupefaction of the
head, anxiety, small and intermittent pulse.
  Symptoms like these show that the brain, under the influence of
large doses of Nux, becomes violently congested, and that a con-
dition may ensue AArhich may very easily result in apoplexy.  Post-
mortem examinations have shown the cerebral substance infiltrated
with a bloody serum, or sanguineous effusions from  the  capillaries
have taken place, marking the brain with a number of bloody points
throughout its substance.   Softening of the cerebrum and cerebellum
is likeAvise one of the effects of  poisonous doses of Nux.   Hence in
  Encephalomacia, this agent will prove very useful, especially if the
disease results from the excessive enjoyment  of wine, rich food, or
even from excessive mental labor.

  We shall  find  Nux admirably adapted  to the consequences
resulting from the excessive use of spirits, among which we may
range
  Cerebral  Congestions, with violent  throbbing and aching pains  in
the head, dizziness, stupefaction, protrusion and redness of the eye-
balls, stuttering  or  inarticulate speech, paralytic weakness of  the
extremities, full  and  bounding pulse, or feeble and rather accelera-
ted pulse, with coldness of  the extremities; in such a case Aconite
and Nux, and in some cases Belladonna and Nux may be given in
alternation.
  Nux will likewise be found indicated under these circumstances
if the patient's brain is clear, but the sensibility seems  to be almost
extinct; the skin feels dead; he is apprehensive of having a paralytic
stroke;  the pulse is rather  feeble and compressible,  inclining to be
irregular.
  In regard to the dose in  these affections, of the brain,  the 3d  to
the 30th potency will be found sufficient;  except in cases of debauch
where a material poison has to be removed from the organism; here
it may be necessary to resort to  the strong tincture.

                     NEEVOUS   GEOUP.

  In  some of the cases of poisoning  which I have related, Nux
caused a sudden falling, as  if the patient were struck down; it pro-
duces this effect  by its primary  action upon the cerebro-spinal axis,
and more particularly upon the  ganglionic system of nerves.
  The action of Nux upon this system is characterized by loss of
strength, pain, spasm.  The  leading  effects  of the drug may be
expressed in the following summary generalizations:
  Sudden failing of strength;
  Weariness after the least exercise;
  Heaviness  of the upper and lower limbs so that  the  patient is
scarcely able to raise them ;
  Pain in all the joints as if bruised, particularly during motion;
  Violent pain in the muscles at every moment;
  Trembling of  the limbs (as in the case of drunkards;) 
STRYCHNOS  NUX  VOMICA.
659
   Tetanic convulsions, excited by contact, noise or any external
 stimulus, Avith frequent and fluttering pulse during the attack, and
 general sweat;
   Opisthotonos, with feeble beating  of the heart, pulse  small and
 scarcely perceptible;
   Spasms in the muscles of mastication, the patient bites every thing
 which is held near his mouth;
   These spasms may affect every muscle in the body, and are fre-
 quently preceded  by violent chills and shudderings, after which the
 patients experience,  along the track of the nerves in the  limbs, for-
 mications and painful sensations resembling the  passage  of electric
 sparks; not only the external muscles, but also the muscles of the
 pharynx, oesophagus,  erectores, penis muscles,  and other internal
 muscles are liable to similar spasms;
   The tetanic  convulsions  sometimes alternate with asphyxia  and
 relaxation of the parts ;
   The consciousness, during the spasms, does not seem to be affected.

   Strychnia is extensively used in our Hospitals in the treatment of
 tetanic spasms.  In  reference to this subject, my colleague  in Jef-
 ferson College, Professor Thomas D. Mitchell, offers the folloAving
 naive statement: " It is probably the  knoAvn  effect  of strychnia in
 paralytic  patients, viz.: its  induction of tetanic  spasms—led to its
 employment in tetanus.  Dr. Fell reports several cases of traumatic
 tetanus, cured  by doses of  one-sixteenth and  one-fourth of a grain,
 continued so as  to induce decided tAvitching.  These cases are
 reported in the New York  Journal  of Medicine and Surgery, for
 November, 1846.  In the January number of  1847, an article  may
 be found, the design of which is to proA'e the  efficacy of  Strychnia
 in idiopathic tetanus."
   Thus far Dr. Alitchell.   Now, gentlemen, we  occupy a position
 that enables us to enlighten the doctor  regarding the true reason
 why Strychnia cures tetanus; it is simply because it has power to
 produce this very identical disease in the healthy body; in other
 words, it affects the cerebro-spinal axis in the  same manner as that
 unseen, immaterial, impalpable cause Avhich, by its action upon  the
 cerebro-spinal axis, leads to the production of tetanic spasms.
   There are men so blind that they do not even see light in the day-
 time.  The idea of " contrarium" must be preserved, Avere it only
 for the honor of the  School. Hence  Strychnine only affects para-
 lytic patients Avith  tetanic  spasms.   The  broad  and universally
 admitted  fact, that Strychnia causes  tetanic spasms in persons in
 health;  that  the production of tetanic spasms is its most essential,
 most characteristic property, is overlooked, ignored, we almost feel
 disposed to say maliciously ignored, lest the admission of such a fact
 should involve the cunning Professor into an admission no lens volens
 of the fact that Nux cures tetanus because  of its homoeopathic
 specific relation to this affection.

  In Frank's Magazine, the folloAving case  of poisoning  is related,
which shows that the tetanic spasms, where Nux may be expected 
I
660                     LECTURE XLIV.

to exhibit a curative influence, are accompanied with violent symp-
toms of cerebral congestion:
  A lady of fifty years took by mistake a teaspoonful of a mixture
of one hundred and twenty  drops  of the tincture of Nux in two
ounces of Avater.  Immediately after taking the dose, she was seized
with a chill and had to vomit.   The patient drank a few glasses of
water; her condition got worse from minute to minute, and her life
seemed in imminent danger.  Her face, which was habitually pale
and livid, assumed a bright-red color, her cheeks  gloAved, her  eyes
stared and Avere frequently rolled  upwards, so that the contracted
pupils could not be seen.  ,The features Avere distorted, the  mouth
tightly closed, with grating of  the  teeth; accelerated, moaning and
sometimes interrupted breathing, anxiety, violent  palpitation of the
heart, and  involuntary, loud  screams.  During these  involuntary
screams,  her head  was  drawn  backwards, after which  her  mouth
was  opened Avide,  and  her face  had a most frightful  expression.
The  tongue was  protruded, and was frequently injured in  conse-
quence of the spasmodic closing of the jaAvs.  She found it almost
impossible to SAvallow liquids.   Her whole body trembled ; she was
unable to sit still, she was forced  as by some electric  shock to rise
and  to stagger about the room.   Her speech was interrupted by
sobs,  her voice feeble, she spoke  in  monosyllables  and mostly
uttered inarticulate sounds, so that one had  to guess  what  she
wished.  Pulse hard, small and accelerated. She took from twenty
to thirty drops of liquid ammonia in a teaspoonful of water and
sugar, first every  five and afterwards  every ten  to fifteen minutes;
in three  hours all the dangerous  symptoms had disappeared.  A
rash broke out over the whole body.

   The treatment of tetanus by Old-School  physicians has ever been
a stereotyped illustration of human impotence, until Strychnine was
resorted  to.  The ounce-doses of Opium  and the gallons of port-
Avine have ever proved unable to combat this  dreadful disease;
Strychnine, which stimulates this  disease in all its horrible details,
proves its most powerful neutralizer.
   A girl of thirteen years, of feeble but otherwise sound constitu-
tion, had been complaining  of frontal  headache, and more particu-
larly of a painful pressure in the  epigastric region, after which she
was attacked with convulsions. In the first two days the convulsions
returned three or five  times daily, and were preceded  by anxiety
and extension of  the limbs in a recumbent  posture; 'these symptoms
were followed  by an almost complete  vanishing of the senses, and
by shocks which forced the body out, jerking the head upwards,
with the arms crossed on the breast, the legs stretched downwards,
and the abdomen, which was somewhat drawn in, jerked up.  These
jerking shocks recurred as many  as fifty times in one minute; with
every jerk the patient uttered  an anxious moaning sound.  The least
movement, the slightest contact, was followed by several jerks.  She
took one-twentieth of a grain of pulverized Nux every two hours;
in three  days she was entirely restored.  The  last attack  had been
the most formidable. 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
661
  It would seem as though an agent that has such a powerful effect
upon the ganglionic system, must be possessed of curative virtues in
  Ejnlepsy.   In many attacks of epilepsy, the shocks or jerks, which
are so eminently characteristic of the action of Nux upon the gan-
glionic  centres, constitute prominent symptoms.   The  annals of
medicine can show the records of several cases of epilepsy Avhich
were cured by the systematic use of Nux.
  A woman of forty  years  was attacked with epilepsy in conse-
quence of a violent fit of anger.  The paroxysms had been continu-
ing off and on for  two  years.   She took  half a grain  of powdered
Nux.  A quarter  of an  hour after taking the drug, she had some
headache, vertigo and obscuration of sight.  Next morning she felt
as usual.  She took nineteen such poAvders, and remained free from
her attacks for three years.  Another violent fit of anger brought
the attacks on again, but Nux was resumed, and she finally remained
perfectly cured.
  A young man of twenty years had  been epileptic ever since  his
childhood.   The  attacks were  preceded  by vertigo, and  itching in
the face, followed  by violent jerks in the arms,  after which the
patient lost his consciousness.  For a few days after the  attack he
seemed in  a  state of imbecility.  He  took in all one hundred and
fifteen grains of pulverized Nux, and  was completely restored.

  This itching and crawling in the face seems  to  be characteristic
of  Nux.  We find  this  symptom recorded among Hahnemann's
provings : " Itching and  crawling in the face, as if ants Avere crawl-
ing over it."
  A man  of an irritable constitution had taken eight grains of
powdered Nux at once.  Soon after he had.to sit down. His mouth
was convulsively drawn back, the jaws were tightly closed.   After
the paroxysm had ceased, the  patient  explained that  he  had been
perfectly conscious all the time, but that he had  felt as  though
millions  of ants had been crawling over his  face; he stated that
objects had been seen in  a much brighter light than usual.  He did
not complain of any pain.
  Ne may regard this crawling itching as a characteristic indication
for Nux, especially if it is felt in the face.  Nux vomica seems to
affect the trigeminus in a very marked manner.

  Even in Chorea, Nux may prove useful, more particularly if the
paroxysms are more or less analogous to, or mingled with, tetanic
symptoms.   In the London Lancet, for September, 1815, Dr. Eoss
reports the following cures of chorea by means of Strychnine : " The
first occasion on Avhich I made trial of the remedy in this  disease,
was in the beginning of 1839, in the case of a delicate girl of tAvelve
or thirteen years of age, who came under my care as a hospital-
patient.  From having been  very expert with her needle, she was
rendered incapable of  using it, and her attempts to thread it were
almost ludicrous.  I prescribed for her the one-eighth or one-tenth of
a grain of the alkaloid, to be taken twice a day.  On the second or
third day of the treatment, through a mistake of the nurse, she had 
662
LECTURE XLIV.
 an over-dose of the medicine, which produced more violent effects
 than I intended, viz.:  convulsive twitches, Avhich, however,  quickly
 subsided on the medicine being intermitted, and with them all symp-
 toms of the disease.   In a day or two after this, I saw her thread a
 fine needle with a hand perfectly steady, and she was dismissed cured
 at the-end of a week.   I  saw her more than a year afterwards; she
 Avas quite Avell, much  improved in appearance, considerably groAvn,
 and had had no return of chorea.  I ought to mention that she first
 came under  my care after having been already some weeks in the
 hospital,  under the care  of my esteemed predecessor, Dr.  Bayne,
 whose treatment of her was continued, without any improvement in
 her symptoms, until she commenced the use of the strychnia."

   In Paralysis, Strychnine  has  effected  brilliant  cures.   In the
 paralysis of the hands of  drunkards, Nux is  a capital remedy. In
 paralysis not accompanied by inflammatory or congestive sj'mptoms,
 Nux vomica may prove an invaluable remedy.  According to  Alagen-
 die, a  paralysis to which  Nux vomica is  homoeopathic, is more or
 less accompanied by, or resulting from softening of that portion of
 the cerebro-spinal axis which sends off nerves  to. the paralyzed limb.
 The temperature of the  part is moreover diminished, it may be
 liable  to  prespire and the pulse is reduced in volume, quicker and
 more or less irregular.  In paralysis accompanied by engorgement
 of the nervous  centres, where the limb feels  heavy, full, enlarged,
 hot, the pulse is heavy and irregular, or small, quick and irregular,
 the sensibility  is altered, the patient complains of a pricking and
 formicating sensation in the part, Aconite  is the sovereign remedy.
 Hence  in paralysis  consequent upon  sanguineous  apoplexy, Nux
 vomica is of no use ; Aconite will have to be employed in most cases.
 ^ In  Rheumatic Paralysis of the extremities, without much fever,
 Nux may effect a complete cure.
   AVe read in Frank's  Physiological A!agazine that a farmer  of per-
 fectly sound constitution had exposed himself to a sudden change of
 temperature, in consequence of which  he was  attacked Avith paraly-
 sis of the  whole of the  right side and partial paralysis of the tongue.
 The attack set in at once without any premonitory symptoms.   He
 was treated Avith a number of remedies without  the  least benefit.
 Three grains of the spirituous extract of Nux were now dissolved in
 an ounce of alcohol, of which he took twenty drops at night, increa-
 sing the dose by one drop every day.   On the third day, his  condi-
 tion was  considerably improved; on the ninth, the paralysis was
 almost entirely  removed.  After finishing  the solution, the patient
 had the full use of his  limbs, was able to  articulate distinctly, and
 had remained perfectly well the last five years.

   In Tic  Douloureux, Nux vomica is sometimes a valuable  agent.
In the  17th volume of  Braithwaite's Eetrospect, page 289, we read
the following interesting case of the cure of tic douloureux by grain
doses of Strychnine.   The patient had been  accustomed to large
doses of the muriate  of Alorphia for the relief of his sufferings, and
took, one  day, three  and a half grains  of a powder just purchased 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
663
 for the same end, and went out upon his ordinary business.  This
 powder was Strychnine.  In a very little while, he felt a disagreeable
 numbness  in his legs, increasing rapidly, so as almost to disable
 him.   On reaching home, he felt better and  went to bed, about five
 hours after he took the medicine.   Just as he was going to bed, in
 the hope of getting a good night's rest, he took a second dose -of the
 same powder as that SAvallowed early in the  day.  In  less  than  ten
 minutes, violent  tetanic spasms came  on,  affecting  the  legs and
 respiratory muscles almost to suffocation.  The spasms followed in
 close succession and with increasing severity.  The man continued
 perfectly conscious, although his senses seemed to be invested with
 unwonted sensibility.  After awhile the paroxysms began to dimin-
 ish in violence and number; and  when it was  imagined that  the
 case was about to terminate, the symptoms were  suddenly renewed
 with  great violence.  In a short time, however, the aspect changed
 for the better, and  at the end of thirteen hours  all the symptoms
 had disappeared.   The  most remarkable feature in  the history of
 this case is that the man, after this disaster never had an attack of
 his tic douloureux.

   Nux is generally useful when the pains are tingling, hard-aching,
 sticking pains, aggravated or excited by motion or contact.
   In  Neuralgic Affections of the spinal marrow, Nux is a very useful
 remedy; the pains may be burning, sticking, laming,  tensive or
 heavy-aching pains.  In chronic inflammation of the lower portion
 of the spinal marrow involving paralysis of the lower extremities
 and derangement of the abdominal viscera, Nux may prove of benefit.

                  INFLAMMATORY  GEOUP.

   Nux vomica cannot be said to cause inflammation of a phlegmon-
 ous character, Avith full, bounding and rapid pulse.  Nux has caused
 inflammation of the stomach and small  intestines, but this sort of
 inflammation seems to be incidental to a complete disorganization of
 the nervous life of the organ rather  than the result of a temporary
 depression  of the nervous energy.  Inflammations of this kind seem
 always to be attended with convulsive paroxysms.
   By our provings we know that Nux causes a burning and itching
 in the finger and  toe-joints, such as  patients  experience from chil-
 blains.  Hence in
   Chilblains, this agent may prove serviceable, if they itch and burn
 a great deal, especially when entering a warm room or getting into
 bed.
   Among the provings of Nux we find a number of symptoms re-
 corded, pointing  to arthritic  and  rheumatic affections,  such  as:
 SAvelling of joints,  drawing,  tearing, laming  pains, and pains, as if
 bruised, in  the muscles of the nape  of the neck, abdomen, extremi-
ties ; crampy pains, and  contractive pains as if the tendons were too
short in the joints,  are likeAvise complained of by the provers.  The
parts may feel numb and heavy, but there are scarcely any outward
symptoms of inflammation.  It is principally in arthritic rheumatism
of the muscles that Nux is most serviceable. # 
664
LECTURE XLIV.
   A delicate lady of forty, was attacked, probably in consequence of
 having taken cold, with very painful rheumatism of the muscles of
 the back, impeding motion and deep inspirations. Her complexion
 was rather sallow.  She was  put on five-drop doses of the tincture
 of Nux every hour.  From the first dose she improved, and in two
 days, she was quite restored.  This dose must appear large to a
 homoeopathic physician;  a much smaller dose  might perhaps be
 sufficient; but as  a general rule I think that in rheumatic-arthritic
 affections of this character a large dose of Nux will seem preferable.
   Pale Arthritic Swellings of the toes, balls of the toes;  arthritic-
 rheumatic swelling of the knee-joint, of the abdominal muscles, with
 gastric symptoms,  without,  and even  with, moderate fever,  have
 yielded to Nux.
   Muscular Pains, aching, boring and twitching pains may find a
 remedy in Nux.

                      OEBITAL GEOUP.

   Nux does not cause any acute symptoms of inflammation of the
 eyes; it causes a condition which might be termed weakness of the
 eyes.   The provers of Nux have complained of soreness of the lids,
 soreness of the canthi, with discharge of pus; smarting and burnino-
 tingling or pricking in the eyes; also profuse secretion  of tears. It is
 undoubtedly proper, in view of these effects of Nux, to employ it for
   Sore  Eyes, when the weakness is  of an  arthritic or scrofulous
 character.   If this weakness or soreness of the  eyes is  accompanied
 by Aveak  digestion, for  which Nux seems  indicated, we shall find
 this agent so much more efficient in  the treatment of the  former
 affection.
   If this weakness arises from abuse of alcoholic stimulants, over-
 feeding, excessive  use of coffee,  straining  of the eyes by nightly
 mental labor, Nux may prove a most useful agent.
   Nux  also causes painless sanguineous effusions in the  sclerotic
 coat.  Hence in

   Painless Ecchymoses, with  which some individuals are  troubled,
 Nux may be required, especially if the above-mentioned causes have
 been instrumental in producing the trouble.
   Nux, or rather its alkaloid, Strychnine, has cured
   Strabismus, if  a report  in the  AVestern  Lancet may be  credited.
 The case may be found  in  the January number of 1847.  It was a
 case of _ twelve years' standing.  A solution-  of  twelve grains  of
 Strychnia in tAvo ounces of alcohol Avas applied to the eyebrows and
 temples in the space of seven days, after whi'ch period the patient was
 perfectly cured.

  You recollect  that the  effect of Strychnia upon the optic nerve,
is to make objects appear in a brighter light.   The provers of Nux
have also been troubled Avith luminous  vibrations outside of the line
of vision.   This  symptom occurs in what pathologists have desig-
nated as

  Spurious Vertigo, an affection, where these luminous vibrations are 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.                665
perceived, after Avhich objects  seem to waver until the patient loses
the power of supporting himself, and falls down.

                      DENTAL GEOUP.

  Nux causes  a swelling and soreness of the gums.  In
  Stomacace or scurvy of the gums arising from abuse of coffee,
alcoholic stimulants, or bad digestion, Nux may prove very useful.
  Nux cures various kinds of pains in the teeth; the most charac-
teristic pains to  which Nux is  specifically adapted, are:  sticking,
drawing, tearing, digging, burning and jerking pains.  The stitching
pains seem to be particularly indicative of Nux.  AVe shall find this
kind of

  Odontalgia prevailing in the case of arthritic individuals; persons
addicted to the use of strong drinks, coffee; men and women of san-
guine-bilious temperament, with impaired digestion; scrofulous and
arthritic individuals who are frequently exposed to the night air, to
damp Aveather, draughts of air.
  Nux may be indicated,  if the pain affects several teeth at once, or
if the precise tooth cannot be  pointed out.
  For the Toothache of  Pregnant Females, Nux is recommended as a
remedy.

                   PHARYNGEAL GEOUP.

  Nux seems to cause a feeling of soreness and fullness in the throat,
as if a lump Avere lodged there.  Some homoeopathic physicians pro-
fess to have used Nux in
  Angina, or Chronic Sore Throat.  Very little reliance can be placed
upon Nux in this affection, unless it should happen to be in rapport
with a peculiar state of gastric derangement to which Nux is homceo
pathic.

  Nux has caused spasmodic twitchings of the pharynx; hence
  In Spasmodic Singultus  it may prove useful; likeAvise in
  Dysphagia of a spasmodic character.
  In these affections Nux 3d to 6th potency may prove sufficient.
                 LECTURE   XLV.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC GEOUP.

  Very feAV drugs in our Materia Aiedica can boast of as extensive
a range of action upon the chylo-poietic organs as Nux vomica. Our
cases of poisoning have acquainted us with the fact that large doses
of Nux cause gastro-enteritis.  The symptoms  which have been
elicited by systematic provings, enabled us to determine the precise
character of the changes which Nux effects in the condition of the
chylo-poietic organs. 
6QQ
LECTURE XLV.
  Let us examine these effects under the respective heads of
  1. Taste and appetite;
  2. Secretions;
  3. Sensations experienced during and after eating;
  4. Eructations, nausea and vomiting;
  5. Pain;
  6. Alvine evacuations.

                       Taste and Appetite.
  Nux causes a sour taste ; food leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
  Nux also causes a, foul,  musty  and bitter taste  in the mouth, not of
the food.
  Nux causes loss  of appetite, an aversion to  the food which the
prover usually consumes.
  It also causes a sensation  of hunger, but the appetite is immedi-
ately satisfied after eating ever so little.  Or it  may cause a  sensa-
tion of hunger, and yet the patient  may experience an aversion to
food.

                           Secretions.
  Nux causes a copious flow of saliva;
  Spitting up of a blackish, almost  coagulated  blood at  two in the
morning and tAvo in the afternoon ;
  Heartburn as after eating rancid grease ;
  Scraping sensation in the pharynx as after heartburn;
  Eising of a sour and bitter fluid off the stomach.

           Sensations  experienced during and after eating.
  After eating, the prover experiences an oppression of the stomach
and epigastric region, with metallic taste in the  mouth;
  Chilliness and  heat of the face; the heat seems to come from the
abdomen;
  Qualmishness, nausea and fainting spell;
  Depression of spirits and ill-humor.

               Eructations, Nausea  and Vomiting.
  Nux causes nausea, even early in the morning, vomiting of sour
mucus and blood.

                             Pain.
  Nux causes continual and violent distress in  the stomach;
  Pressure as from a stone in the epigastric region;
  Tension in the  epigastrium, followed by pain in the abdomen as
if the inside were sore and raw;
  Contractive, crampy pain in  the  bowels, sometimes followed  by
watery diarrhoea;
  Distention  of the epigastrium  which is painful when touched ;
  Throbbing in the epigastric region as if an abscess were forming;
  Burning distress in the  epigastrium;
  Flatulent distention after eating or drinkino1,;
  Painful prickings in the abdomen ; 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
667
   Cutting pain as if a cutting instrument were pressing upon the
bladder, neck of the bladder, perineum, rectum and anus; a sensa-
tion asif cutting flatulence had become incarcerated in these parts;
   Cutting, also burning cutting distress, with nausea;
   Pinching in the bowels as  if diarrhoea would set in;
   Pressing, bearing-down pain in the bowels;
   Feeling of weakness in the inguinal ring as if a hernial sac would
protrude ;
   The abdominal muscles feel sore and bruised,  especially during
motion.
 _  Before considering the sixth subdivision, viz.: the alvine evacua-
tions, let  us first examine these  physiological effects of Nux with
reference to their corresponding pathological conditions.  Agreeably
to these effects we shall find  Nux indicated in the following affec-
tions :
   Heartburn or Pyrosis, characterized by the gulping-up of a sour,
acrid or bitter fluid.
   Chronic Vomiting and Retching, especially after eating, Avith op-
pression and distention of  the bowels, swelling of the epigastrium,
soreness and throbbing of  the epigastric region.
   Vomiting of Blood or Haematemesis ; the blood looks and tastes
foul, mixed Avith food and  mucus.
   Vomiting of Pregnant Females, where it may sometimes be neces-
sary to give larger closes than  usual, I mean the tincture instead of the
attenuations.  In Kopp's Memorabilia, and in other works, a number
of such cases are related where  the middle and  higher potencies
proved  ineffectual,  and where a  few drops of the tincture or the
lower triturations effected a permanent and speedy cure.  Oppression
of the stomach and bowels, retching expulsion of bitter or sour
mucus, headache, are some of the characteristic indications.
   Sptasmodic Vomiting and retching after a fit of indigestion, in con-
sequence of over-eating or eating indigestible food.
   Dyspepsia, with burning distress in the region of the pylorus, with
oppression after eating, sudden feeling of repletion after swallowing
a small quantity of food, in spite of a previous sensation of hunger.
   Cardialgia, Gastrodynia.  In this affection, Nux has been employed
by some of the best alloeopathic practitioners, but ahvays in doses of
sufficient size to produce spasmodic symptoms.  There is no earthly
necessity for such a proceeding.  Let the dose be large enough to
effect a cure, but avoid all unnecessary  medicinal complications.
  The cardialgia to which Nux is homoeopathic, may correspond
with an inflammatory pathological process in the stomach and small
intestines, and likewise with a pathological process  going on in the
hepatic system.  We mean by this that in the one case, the cardialgia
is, sensually speaking, an inflammatory irritation of the stomach and
duodenum, or of parts thereof; and in the other case, a pathological
process  going on in the stomach and duodenum, but developed out
of certain primary disturbances of the hepatic system.   In either
case, Nux may be applicable, though the symptoms may  differ very
greatly.
  In a case of poisoning reported by Orfila, the patient experienced 
668
LECTURE XLV.
an intense pain and throbbing in the epigastric region, with dryness
and  heat of the skin, frequent pulse, redness of the edges of the
tongue, extreme depression of spirits, prostration, alteration of the
features.  In this  case, an examination after death revealed inflam-
mation of the stomach, duodenum and upper portion of the ileum.
  Such a group of symptoms  might occur without a fatal termina-
tion ; we infer from the character of the symptoms that an  inflam-
matory action is going on in the lining membrane of the stomach,
which is evidenced by the inflamed edges  of the tongue, the heat
and dryness of the skin, and the intense pain, which may amount to
a burning  distress, in  the epigastric region.  In all such cases of
inflammatory gastralgia, Nux is a capital remedy.  In some forms of
  Dyspepsia, this redness and soreness of the edges of the tongue,
and even of the tongue itself, are present.  The tongue looks as if
peeled off.  Nux may be very useful in such a case.
  We read in Griesselich's Hygea, that Dr. Eichard Eowland, phy-
sician to the City-Dispensary of London, has used Nux vomica Avith
distinguished effect in  gastralgia characterized by  the  following
symptoms: The pain comes in paroxysms; it is  at times stitching,
at others tearing, and again a burning distress in the region of the
stomach, frequently extending to the integuments of the thorax and
to the back.  At times the pain is very slight, at  others exceedingly
violent, lasting at times a few minutes, at other times several hours.
The  attacks frequently terminate in rising of air, accompanied with
a watery, insipid  or sour fluid, or  without  any.  In spite  of this
distress, the food  may  be digested  properly,  the  tongue may be
clean, the appetite good, even craving.  The  bowels are generally
bound.  The pain is  frequently  relieved by eating.  There is no
thirst, no vascular excitement, the patient may retain an appearance
of perfect health.   In this form of gastralgia Eowland has given the
extract of Nux in doses of one-fourth of a grain, three or four times
a day, with uniform success.

  We have already stated that Nux vomica may produce
  Gastro-enteritis.  In the chronic form  of this  affection, Nux may
do good service.  In a  case  reported by Orfila,  three grains of the
alcoholic extract of Nux proved fatal.  The stomach was found
inflamed, bowels violet, as if gangrened.  In another case,  a man
destroyed himself by drinking a quantity of the  powdered  Nux in
beer.   The region of the cardiac orifice was found inflamed.
  In the chronic form of this affection, Avith burning distress in  the
epigastrium, redness and soreness of the tongue, constipation, or
small mucous stools with frequent  urging, sallow complexion, loss
of appetite, distention  and pain after eating,  we  shall  find Nux
indicated.

  For the Dyspepsia and cardialgia of drunkards, or of inveterate
coffee-drinkers, Nux has been found a great remedy.

  In the various forms of
  Colic, Nux will be found  eminently  useful.   In colic from  the 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.                669
passage of biliary calculi through  the cystic and  choledoch ducts
also described as
  Hepatic  Colic, hepatalgia,  a colic  characterized by the sudden
invasion of a most excruciating pain in the  epigastrium and right
hypochondrium, nausea and vomiting, spasmodic contractions of the
abdominal muscles, coldness of the  extremities, profuse cold perspi-
ration.  Jaundice may be present, although this is not necessarily a
pathognomonic  sign.  You  may have  to  give large doses in  this
affection.   I  should  not hesitate to give the strong tincture in five
drop doses, or the pulverized Nux in  doses of half a grain each,
repeating  every half hour, until some three  or four doses had been
given.  In this respect no positive rule  can be laid doAvn.   A philo-
sophical view of the nature of the case  will assist us  in making up
our minds as to what will be an adequate dose in the case before us.
The irritation caused by the friction of the calculus against the sides
of the duct, induces spasmodic contractions which resist the passage
of the concretion and render the  irritation  so much 'more  excru-
ciatingly painful.  It is this  spasm that we have to relieve.  How
much medicine  does it take to accomplish this?   Any more than is
required in order to relax the spasm in strangulated hernia?  AVe
relieve this spasm by means  of the 3d,  6th and even higher poten-
cies.  Then why not relieve  the spasm  of the gall-ducts by similar
treatment ? Undoubtedly this may be accomplished, and if I recom-
mend large doses, it is with  the implied understanding that, if the
smaller doses fail us, and we should still consider  the drug indicated,
the larger doses are not contrary to the law which we recognize as
our fundamental generalization.
   Nephritic Colic, caused by the passage of a calculus through the
ureters.   Symptoms similar to those characterizing hepatic colic,
may arise in this case ;  excruciating tearing  pain, with coldness  of
the extremities, clammy perspiration, ever fainting turns.  Nux may
relieve the spasmodic irritation of  the uterus.
   Hemorrhoidal Colic, with  horrid tearing, pressing pains in the
small of the back and lower bowels, attended with flushes  in the
face,  and  consensual symptoms, such  as sickness at the  stomach,
vomiting, rush of blood to the head, dizziness, headache.
   Menstrual  Colic, Avith contractive crampy pains in the loAver bow-
els, followed by the occasional passages of bloody coagula from the
vagina.
   Colic of Pregnant Females, with griping, crampy, sickening pain
in the boAvels, nausea, headache.
   Flatulent Colic, as if  the  bowels,  bladder, rectum were pressed
upon Avith a  cutting instrument.
   Sqmsmodic Colic, the  bowels  feeling as if twisted together, sore
with  obstinate constipation.

   As regards the dose in these various complaints, we shall find that
the strong tincture is  often used  with perfect  success, Avhere the
attenuation leaves us in  the lurch.   This may be seen from the fol-
lowing cases reported by Kopp in his Alemorabilia.
   A man of  fifty-eight years who had to lead a  sedentary life, was 
670                      LECTURE  XLV.
attacked with the following symptoms in consequence of this change
in his habits:  bad digestion, costiveness, flatulent  distention, palpi-
tation  of  the  heart, dulness of the head, irritable temper.   The
attenuated Nux afforded  relief, but not entirely; one  drop of the
strong tincture every night  at  bedtime, continued for a number of
days, achieved a perfect bure.

   Another man of fifty-one years Avho had to lead a sedentary life,
had been complaining for a long time of uneasiness and irritability
in the boAvels.  Nux  18 and 24 was of no use ;  a drop of the tinc-
ture every few hours afforded him marked relief.

   A worker in  metal, fifty-six years old, complained of a violent,
painful pressure in the head,  with distress in the stomach and boAV-
els, coated tongue, anorexia,  constipation.  Eepeated doses  of the
first attenuation of Nux  had no effect; clrop-doses of the  tincture
every few hours cured him speedily and radically.

   A man  who had formerly been addicted to drinking, and was
troubled with vomiting, pains in the bowels,  arthritic pains in the
joints, was speedily cured by taking one-twelfth of a grain of the
powdered Nux every tAvo hours, without experiencing any sign of
homoeopathic aggravation.

   A carpenter, sixty years old,  who had been addicted to abuse of
brandy and cider, was attacked  by weak eyes and vomiting.   Nux
12 or 18 stopped the vomiting, except when he ate meat; the tongue
remained coated and the other derangements of the digestive organs
continued.  He now took four  times a day half a grain of pulver-
ized Nux,  and  was  perfectly relieved without experiencing any
medicinal symptom.

   A lady  who was affected with oppression of the  stomach, costive-
ness and headache, took Nux 24 without any  relief; one-fourth of a
grain of pulverized Nux morning and night cured her perfectly.

   Kopp states that he has cured hundreds of  such  cases of derange-
ment of the digestive organs,  Avhether resulting  from piles, lead-
poisoning or other causes, by  means of  the spirituous extract of
Nux, in doses of one-sixteenth, one-fourth, and  even one-half of a
grain, two or three times  a day.

   We have seen that  Nux causes a feeling of weakness in the in-
guinal  rings, as  if hernia would protrude;  hence Ave  may find it
useful  in
   Recent  Hernia of children, pregnant females or laborers;  Nux
may restore the contractile poAver of the  tissues, and prevent the
protrusion of the bowel.
   In Strangulated Hernia, we give Nux, if there  is no inflammation,
or very little of  it; simple strangulation, nausea or even vomiting;
if inflammation is present Ave give Aconite, Belladonna.   It may be
advisable  to give Nux in alternation Avith  these agents. 
STRYCHNOS NUX  VOMICA.
671
  In l'Union Afe"dicale for 1840, Dr. nomolle reports success in the
reduction of strangulated hernia, with exceedingly minute doses
of Strychnia.   He supposes  it acts as it does in constipation from
paralysis, by  augmenting  the peristaltic action or by correcting
irregular action.
  In regard to this matter the fact is right enough, but the expla-
nation is faulty. It is not paralysis that we have to contend against
in strangulated hernia, but spasm.  Strychnine cures  strangulated
hernia by virtue of its property to excite spasm.   The explanation
that Strychnine cures strangulated hernia  by correcting irregular
action, is as transparent as a fog on a Avintry morning.   All drugs
cure by correcting irregular action.   The idea that drugs cure dis-
eases which they are capable of producing, stares  our brethren of
the other side in the face at every turn of the way ; they cannot get
rid of  it, no matter how they twist the argument.  But we must be
patient and abide our time.   I for one am willing to be patient, and
if I give our opponents  a  scorching every now and  then. I trust
that, upon examination, it will be found to be kindly meant, even
in the spirit of the  wise man of old: Amat qui castigat, he who
loves, chastises.

  Nux affects the alvine secretions very powerfully. An apothecary,
while preparing the  extract of Nux, inhaled the vapors.  ToAvards
evening he was seized with pinching in the abdomen, ate little, went
to bed, and was awakened at ten o'clock by the most violent vomit-
ing and purging, which continued until six o'clock in the morning.
The whole of  next day  he felt sick at the stomach, ate nothing and
was very thirsty.
  This interesting case  exhibits a picture of
   Cholera Morbus, of which we may avail ourselves in practice.  A
case of cholera morbus, characterized by such symptoms, and caused
by a cold, by eating  heavy or indigestible food, will most probably
yield to Nux.
  Nux causes small discharges of mucus, with  pressing or even
some tenesmus; hence in
  Dysenteric Diarrhea, where these characteristic evacuations  pre-
vail, Nux will be found a curative agent.
  According  to our provings, Nux  does  not, properly speaking,
cause  diarrhoea,  except  under  certain  circumstances.   Nux, for
instance, causes
  Diarrheic Stools followed by expulsion of hard faeces.  This con-
dition  of the bowels, alternate diarrhoeic and solid stools, especially
when connected with liver-complaint, is an indication for Nux.
  Nux causes discharges of green mucus excoriating the anus; the
stools in general may cause a burning at the anus.   Hence in
  Bilious Diarrhea, Nux may be useful, especially if the evacua-
tions are preceded by a pinching pain; the discharges  may also be
accompanied by a good deal of flatulence.
  Nux has cured
  Diarrhea, with cutting pain in the  lower  bowels, shooting down
the thighs. 
672
LECTURE XLV.
   In Horn's Archives, a fine cure of
   Chronic Diarrhea is reported.  A  middle-aged man had  been
affected for months past with watery diarrhoea.  The discharges had
a bilious appearance, and took place six or eight times in the twenty-
four hours.  Gradually anasarca had developed itself to a conside-
rable extent.  The appetite was less; thirst increased;  the  patient
never perspired ;  the skin had a sallow, cachectic tinge. Nux  vomica
was given in pills, some six to  eight grains daily.  Gradually the
diarrhoea ceased,  the urinary secretions increased, the anasarca dis-
appeared, and, after having been under treatment for five weeks, the
patient was completely cured.  No other medicine was given during
the whole of the  treatment but  Nux.
   In reading the  report of this case, the question presented itself to
my mind : Shall we repudiate such experience as this, simply because
a large dose was  employed ?  Far  be  this from  us; we desire to
knoAV the truth, and nothing but the truth.  Chronic diarrhoea is
sometimes an obstinate complaint, and it may be well for  us to know
that we sometimes fail in curing this  affection, because we  do not
administer the specific drug in proper quantitative proportions.
   This case  may  teach us another great lesson.  It teaches  us the
propriet}7 and  even the necessity of adhering to  a drug which is
specifically homoeopathic to a case.   AVhen we read reports of cases
where a dozen medicines were experimented with, agreeably to the
good old dogma, "Experimenta  facere  in  anima  vili,"  experiment
upon vile souls—yes,  a dozen  medicines in a case that remained
essentially the same from the beginning to the end  of the cure—we
are seized with a  feeling of pity at so much ignorance and reckless-
ness.  Why give a dozen medicines, if the  essential nature of the
case remains unchanged ?  Here it  is where Old-School  physicians
may teach us a lesson fraught with useful results.   The idea  of spe-
cific relation has been abused by Old-School practitioners.  An  Old-
School practitioner reads of a cure of epilepsy by Nux;  he at  once
jumps at the conclusion that Nux  will cure epilepsy, and  all his
epileptic patients  are treated to a mess of Nux.   He prescribes, not
for a disease, but  for the name thereof.   Some patients may recover
under this empirical mode of prescribing; others may improve; but
there will be many whose cases are not reached by the drug.   Woe
unto these poor unfortunates, if their physician should happen to be
endowed with an  unusal organ of firmness and adhesiveness.  These
patients must get well  with Nux,  and if they do  not,  he poisons
them half to death.  This is empirical specific treatment,  with Avhich
homoeopathic specific treatment  has  nothing to do.  Specific homoeo-
pathic treatment is based upon the idea that a drug represents sen-
sually or materially the immaterial  morbific essence which excites
abnormal pathological processes in  the organism;  this drug alone
can wipe out a pathological  process by removing from the organic
tissues the morbific essence of which it constitutes the visible  type
in nature.  As  long as the morbific essence  remains the same, the
drug  should not  be changed ; we may administer it in larger or
smaller quantities, in high  or low  potencies, at longer  or shorter
intervals; but we are only justified  in substituting some  other drug 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
673
in its place, if the morbific essence has 3rielded up its place to some
other analogous morbific principle.  A mere apparent change in the
symptoms does not  justify a change of medicine.   This  change is
only sanctioned by  a change in the inmost  nature of the  pathologi-
cal process, indicating  some other drug as its typical representative
or symbol.
   How are Ave to know whether such a change is real or only appa-
rent?  In other words, how are Ave  to learn to distinguish  between
essential and apparent  truth ?   With a view to ansAver this question,
let me invite you to look around into Nature and Society. Appear-
ances  surround your senses; it is  only to the inmost reason that
truth is revealed.  All nature deceives us ;  the stars deceive us ;  the
very sun that quickens our inmost vitality,  deceives us; the glisten-
ing forms, the set formulas, the rigid conventionalities, the stereotyped
prayers of Society deceive us.  So do the symptomatic appearances
of disease.  You must learn to interpret them.  The study of drugs
and of pathology in connection with the physiology of the normal
functions, is one great avenue of knoAvledge.  But you must acquire
this knowledge thoughtfully, understanding^, not after the fashion
of boyhood, but after that of Paul:  " AVhen I was a child,  I spoke as
a child ;  but  now I  have become a man, and I have put avvay childish
things."  No man can  become a physician  in the sight of Heaven
Avho is not  endowed with the heart and soul of a good man, and Avith
the brains of an honest and enlightened philosopher; without this
endowment he may manage to be a tolerably successful tinkerer in
therapeutics,  and, with a certain amount of cunning, smoothness and
measured respectability, he may elevate himself to a deaconship in
the Church, or he may transform himself into a walking money-bag
in Wall  street; but in the book where the Angel of the Eternal
Father records the name of every good and true physician his place
will be a blank.

   Aloderate doses of Nux cause  a torpor of  the  bowels; hence
homoeopathic physicians employ Nux in
   Constipation, when this condition is characterized by the following
symptoms:
   Constipation as if the bowels were not sufficient!j' active;
   Constipation as if the bowels were constricted ;
   Constipation with rush of blood to the head;
   Constipation with insufficient passage of  faeces; sensation as if
more had to be expelled, which had been retained on account of the
constriction of the rectum.
  The constipation  which Nux  will relieAre, seems to be  connected
with derangement of the  liver, deficient secretion of bile  through
the ductus choledochus.   Hence  deficiency of  peristalic action,
lumpy agglomeration and  pale color of the faecal mass.
  Constipation attended with a good deal of ineffectual and frequently
repeated  straining ;  or  constipation caused by abuse of coffee, spirits,
or arising from sedentary  habits, may yield to Nux.
   Constipation arising from spinal irritation, often yields  to Nux
vomica.
                              43 
674
LECTURE XLV.
  We find that Nux  causes a sharp  and painful pressure in the
rectum after stool, or in the night, or at other periods; hence in
  Proctalgia, Nux ma}' be found  useful.

  AVe are also informed that Nux causes constriction of the rectum
and anus ;  hence in
  Stricture of these parts, Nux may be necessary.

  In Paralysis  of the Rectum. Nux may be found the best means of
restoring the irritability of the muscular fibre.   This paralysis may
exist by itself or as a symptom of general paraplegia.   It may like-
Avise result from a  concussion of the  lower portion of the spinal
marrow.   It  may be necessary to resort to the  strong  tincture of
Nux, or to its alkaloid Strychnine.

  Nux being possessed of a power to weaken the contractile energy
of the muscular fibre,
  Prolapsus of  the Anus may result; Nux  has cured this affection.
Dr. Koch cured a case by using injections  of  cold water,  mixing
Avith every injection from  six to eight drops of a solution of twelve
drops of the strong tincture of Nux in two drachms of dilute  alcohol.

  Nux causes haemorrhage from  the anus, pressing in  the  rectum,
burning, stitching, and other symptoms such as are frequently present
during an attack of piles; hence  in
  Fluent Piles,  with pressing in the boAvels, rigidity in the small of
the back, headache, rush of blood to the head, Nux may prove very
useful.

  In conclusion let us not. forget that  Nux  affects the abdominal
integuments and the liver.
  In the abdominal muscles it  causes a twitching, soreness, numb-
ness and tingling, a sort of rheumatism of these  integuments.
  A butcher had heated himself by Avalking, and while perspiring
profusely, he exposed himself to a draught of air and drank a quan-
tity of cold beer.  He  Avas taken  with soreness, numbness and ting-
ling of the abdominal integuments.  A drop of the tincture of Nux
in a tumblerful of Avater cured him at once.

  In the region  of the  liver Nux  causes the folloAving symptoms:
  Throbbing pain in the region of the liver as from an ulcer;
  Fine, stinging pain in the region of the liver;
  Creeping chills in the region of  the liver ;
  These symptoms justify the use of Nux in
 _ Liver-complaint, chronic hepatitis, induration  of the  liver, Avhere
similar symptoms exist.

  Nux has also  this symptom:
  " Jaundice, Avith aversion to food and short fainting-turns;  after-
wards  he feels weak and sick."
  This symptom tells us that in
  Chronic Jaundice, Nux may be  available; also in liver-complaint,
if jaundice is a  characteristic symptom. 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
675
                      URINARY GROUP.

   In the case of poisoning related by Oilier and quoted by Pereira,
 we were told that the urine had passed off involuntarily.
   For Incontinence of urine, Nux has been  administered Avith  the
 best effect by eminent practitioners of both Schools, it may depend
 upon paralysis of  the  sphincters.  For the
   Nocturnal Enuresis of  children,  Nux has likewise been used with
 good effect.
   Nux causes  painful, ineffectual  urging to urinate;  it  also causes
 a pressing in the neck of the bladder after urinating.   Hence in
   Strangury, we shall find Nux indicated, especially if the stran-
 gury depends  upon chronic irritation of the loAver portion of the
 spine.
   Nux causes this symptom : painless discharge of a tenacious mucus
 from the bladder, when urinating.   This symptom indicates the use
 of Nux in
   Catarrh of the bladder; it may be accompanied by weakness  and
 pain in the small of the  back, burning and itching in the urethra; a
 feeling of irritation in the region of the bladder.  A condition of
 this kind may also arise  from suppressed piles.

   Another  symptom  which Nux  causes, may, perhaps, lead  to  the
 use of Nux in
   Diabetes Mellitus; it is this symptom:  "A  pale-colored  urine is
 emitted,  folloAved  by  the discharge of  a thick,  whitish, puriform
 matter, attended with  burning pain.  Unfortunately,  this secretion
 has not been subjected by Hahnemann to the  action of appropriate
 reagents; we are therefore unable to decide concerning the presence
 of saccharine matter in this secretion ; but in view of the remarkable
 action which Nux has upon the  fnnctions of the liver, we may cer-
 tainly feel justified in recommending Nux in diabetes mellitus.

   In Paralytic Retention of urine, Nux will be found available, more
 particularly if the  torpor of the muscular fibres can be traced to
 irritation of the lower portion of the spine.

                      SEXUAL  GROUP.

  Nux vomica acts very powerfully upon the sexual organs of both
 the male and female.
  Moderate doses of Nux seem  to cause  an increased  irritability of
 the sexual organs, manifested by involuntary emissions and frequent
 erections.  We shall therefore find Nux indicated in
  Nocturnal Emissions, if they characterize a general  abnormal ex-
 citability and plethora of the sexual organs.
  On the  other hand, the provings of Nux distinctly show that it
 depresses the sexual energies;  for it causes, according  to the reeord:
 "Nocturnal emissions Avithout erections,  followed by weakness  and
relaxation of the parts."  It also causes:  " Sudden relaxation of the
parts during sexual intercourse, a state of impotence." It would
seem therefore that Nux  may prove useful in 
676
LECTURE XLV.
  Impotence, where Trousseau and Pidoux have employed Strychnia
Avith success. • Nux or its alkaloid  is particularly useful  in impo-
tence caused by self-abuse, or abuse of spirits, coffee, or by sedentary
habits and mental exertion.
  Nux  causes  a  constrictive pain  in the  testes; with  heat and
stitches in the testes ;  Ave have cured with it
  Spasmodic Pains in the  spermatic cord, SAvelling, hardness and
draAving up  of the testes.  The consequences of
  Self-abuse, involuntary emissions, impotence, involuntary discharge,
of prostatic fluid, perhaps Avith retraction and  swelling  of the tes-
ticle, may require Nux vomica.

  The action of Nux upon  the female organs of generation is like-
Avise indicative  of its use in several abnormal conditions.  AVe find
that Nux causes premature menstruation: the menses are generally
more scanty than usual and attended Avith cramps in the  bowels.
  The appearance of the menses is accompanied with other charac-
teristic  symptoms, such as:  Nausea, chilliness and fainting turns;
theN chilliness may be succeeded by internal  heat, dryness  of the
lips; it  is attended Avith a most distressing headache as though the
eyes should  be pressed out of their sockets.
  In accordance Avith  this record, Ave recommend Nux in
  Dysmennorrhea, with premature   discharge,  rather  scanty  and
characterized by the symptoms of cerebral congestion and attending
chilliness to which we have alluded.
  One record reads as folloAVs : " Contractive, crampy pains in the
lower bowels, folloAved by discharge of bloody coagula."   Hence in
  Dysmennorrhea, where the appearance of the menstrual blood is
ushered in by such pains, and where the blood is expelled  in the
form of coagula, Nux  may be of eminent use.
  These distresses attendant upon   premature menstruation, may
likewise exist if the menses appear after the regular period.  Nux
may be of use even in this case; for we see it  stated that Nux has
actually retarded the appearance of the menstrual discharge.
  Again the menstrual discharge may seem scanty, but it may  be
of too long  duration, weakening, sickening; Nux  may correct this
condition of things, which we might designate as a peculiar form of
  Menorrhagia, a continual dribbling of the menses.

  Nux  may prove of service in
  Amennorrhea, when depending upon irritation of the lower portion
of the spine; or when accompanied by spasmodic rigidity of the
uterine fibres.   In such cases  the  consensual symptoms of  con-
gestion of the gastric organs and of the head, nausea, violent frontal
or  general  headache, with  burning and swelling  of the eyeballs,
chilliness, and  perhaps distention  of the abdomen and dragging,
bearing-down pains in the  small of the back, may afford us import-
ant indications.
  Nux  has also been used by homoeopathic physicians for
  Prolapsus of the  Womb  and Vagina;  it removes the sense of
weight and bearing-down which often gives rise to the suspicion that 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
677
prolapsus  exists;  it is  particularly afficacious, if  these  symptoms
occur among a group of uterine disorders to which Nux is generally
homoeopathic.   It may undoubtedly be possesssed of a poAver to
restore the contractility of the relaxed ligaments.

  Nux  has  caused:  "Swelling  of the internal pudendum,  with
burning  pain which .rendered contact  unpleasant."  And likeAvise:
" Discharge of yellow mucus from the vagina which sometimes has
a bad smell."
  In accordance with these indications, we may recommend  Nux
for
  Leucorrhea, a discharge of yellowish mucus from the A'agina,  with
SAvelling and soreness of the internal lining  membrane.   A leucor-
rhcea of  this kind may set in very copiously  in place of the menses,
or as a continuation of the menstrual discharge.
  In these menstrual  disorders we have  found Nux from the 3d to
the 30th the most available potencies; the 2d or even 1st, may be
required in some cases.


                    CATARRHAL GROUP.

  This drug has been employed by homoeopathic physicians in
   Catarrhal Irritation of the Schneiderian  membrane, Avith or Avith-
out  discharge from the nose;  or with discharge of blood, tinglino-
and itching in the nose ;  also in
  Old Catarrh, with discharge of  foul blood and mucus, bad smell in
the nose.

  The provers of Nux have recorded as one of the effects of this drug a
   Cough of a spasmodic nature, dry and  racking, causing  a soreness
in the throat-pit, or in the pit of the stomach; also a cough as if the
head should split,  or a cough exciting vomiting.
  Some  homoeopathic physicians profess to  have seen good effects
from Nux in the treatment of cough which seemed to be  in sympa-.
thetic relation Avith certain gastric derangements.  I  haA'e not been
so fortunate; nevertheless it is well not to overlook this statement.
  We may perhaps be able in some cases  to trace  a catarrhal  irri-
tation  of the lining membrane  of the lungs to  some lingering
derangement of the liver.  Under these  circumstances, the peculiar
sallow or jaundiced appearance of the patient, and the soreness in
the epigastrium  and region of the liver,  Avhich may not  be experi-
enced by the patient until hard pressure is  made in  those parts, will
undoubtedly determine our diagnosis.

  In Bernhardi's Journal a case  is reported illustrating in a very
characteristic manner the connection betAveen the lungs and liver,
or,  if you  please, the dependence of a  catarrhal irritation of the
pulmonary lining membrane upon HYer-complaint.
  A young blacksmith had been  subject for  years to paroxysms of
couo-h attended Avith dull pain deep in the thorax, AArith more or less 
678
LECTURE XLV.
copious expectoration of slimy sputa, dyspnoea,  general  debility,
night-sweats, emaciation, accelerated pulse,  mucous rale along the
larger bronchial  ramifications.  The patient  had  gradually sunk
into a condition which his friends  looked upon as the beginning of
phthisis.  His father had died of this disease.  The patient looked
jaundiced.   He was put upon the  use of  the ordinary alcoholic
tincture of Nux, and in tvvo  Aveeks he was completely cured Avithout
rhe supervention of any critical or medicinal symptoms.

                     THORACIC GROUP.

  You recollect the splendid cure of asthma to which I alluded  in
my first lecture on Nux.  The patient Avas constantly exposed  to
the vapors of oil-cakes, to damp weather and other irritating causes.
Hahnemann cured him  with  the  pulverized Nux given in  grain-
doses.
  The provings of Nux show that  this  agent causes:
  Shortness of breath;
  Asthmatic constriction across the chest when walking or  going
up  stairs;
  Dyspnoea and anxiety increasing from  hour to hour, until sweat
breaks out;
  The constriction is accompanied by a severe aching pain;
  Feeling  of warmth in the chest, causing  anxiety, uneasiness and
sleeplessness;
  Soreness of  the sternum ;
  Throbbing and stitching pains in the chest;
  Shocks in the region of the heart, with palpitation.
  These effects of Nux show most conclusively that it must be useful in
  Spasmodic Asthma, if the  muscles of the chest become rigid and
hard  during the attack, the  patient is  oppressed Avith anxiety as if
he  should  suffocate, Avheezing breathing,  a cold SAveat starting out
upon  his brow.  The attack  may seem  to proceed from a deep-
seated aching pain under the sternum, and, after the attack, the patient
may complain of soreness under the sternum;  the soreness may be
only felt all along the breast-bone, or it may extend from the breast-
bone  laterally toward the shoulder.  Copious vomiting  of phlegm
eases  the paroxysm.

  Nux  causes shocks and palpitation  of the heart.   These symptoms
may occur during a paroxysm of asthma, or in  consequence of a
peculiar idiopathic irritability  of the heart, a sort of
  Spasm of the Heart, Avhich  may be excited by some sudden, violent
irritating emotion, anger, disappointment.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

  Nux is not adapted to acute fever; but in some chronic forms  of
fever, it may prove a most useful agent.  We find it indicated in
   Gastric fevers, with  foul taste, slimy,  yellowish or grayish coating
on  the  tongue, chilliness followed by  heat, flushed and warm face, 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA.
679
 headache, nausea, dark-yelloAV urine with whitish or broAvn sediment,
 constipation, prostration, pulse  slightly irritated.   In some forms of
   Intermittent fever, Nux may  prove very efficient, especially if the
 paroxysms  set in every day, Avith  chilliness folloAved by heat all
 over, flushed  face, coated tongue, loss of appetite, Aveariness, dark
 urine, depositing a Avhitish cloud; the thirst is only felt during the
 heat.  During the fever the patient  may complain of oppression on
 the chest, anxiety, palpitation  of the heart, all of Avhich symptoms
 are relieved as soon as the sweat breaks out;  the SAveat may  haA'e a
 strong and even fetid smell.
   In fevers of a  typhoid character, Nux is not indicated  by the
 knoAvn effects of this drug.   In
   Rheumatic or Arthritic fevers of a chronic type, with gastric symp-
 toms, loss of appetite, soreness  of the flesh,  costiveness, weakness of
 the joints, oppression, chilly feeling  at night, followed by heat and
 sweat, weakness and  aching, laming pains in the back, Nux may be
 a good remedy.   The prevailing type or genius of disease, although
 assuming a  variety of forms  in different cases, may find in Nux its
 most universal representative.  The doctrine of a typical genius of
 disease may be of great  use  to us  in  practice.  In one epidemic it
 may be Arsenic; in another Nux, in another Aconite or Alercury.
 In  epidemics  of a rheumatic or  arthritic character, Nux  may  un-
 doubtedly be one  of the typical representatives or correspondences
 of the disease.

                  EXANTHEMATOUS GROUP.

   Nux does not seem to be distinguished as a remedy for eruptive
 diseases.   It causes however furious itching  and formication.  In
   Prurigo, attended with irritation  of the  gastric organs, to which
 Nux seems  homoeopathic, we may find this agent eminently  useful.
 Path'logically the prurigo may be represented by a
   Rash, fine, red  little stigmata;  we find this itching  and burning
 rash described by some provers.

   In Dicrbach's great work  on Afateria Medica and Therapeutics,
 the  following interesting case is described, where, under the  action
 of Nux, a remarkable eruption made its appearance.
   A young man, aged tAventy years, whose left arm Avas completely,
 and Avhose right arm Avas partially paralyzed, was put on the use of
 pills composed of equal parts  of the extract and powder  of Nux,
 and weighing  two grains each.  Gradually  increasing the  dose, he
 finally took  six pills morning and evening.   On the twelfth day he
 was attacked Avith  a raging pain  and shuddering  of the right arm,
 Avith violent redness and swelling of the limb and breaking out of
 Pus tides  which seemed to form an  almost  confluent eruption  and
 gradually spread over the Avhole body.  The\paralysis improved in
 proportion.  Six days after the eruption hadN appeared, it dried up
 and  fell off" in large whitish scales.  The patient continued his pills,
 and  the eruption  broke out a second time, preceded by rigidity of
' the limb.   From sixteen pills daily which the patient had taken, he 
680
LECTURE XLVI.
now came down to eight;  the sixteen pills had caused shocks and
tetanic rigidity; the eight  pills caused heaviness of the tongue and
a hurriedness in all  his  motions.  Gradually he only took one pill
a day; the eruption broke out twice more, but only in the shape of
small vesicles, which dried up, and left the patient perfectly cured

                           SLEEP.

  Nux causes heat and restlessness at night, frightful  dreams.   AVe
may prescribe it for the
  Sleeplessness of drunkards, and also for
  Night-mare, when arising from bad digestion, abuse of spirits.

                     MENTAL GROUP.

  Nux is eminently adapted to
  Hypochondria, Avhen arising from, or accompanied  by liver-com-
plaint.  Even Avhen the  hypochondria increases to
  Suicidal Mania, Nux may still  be an efficient  remedy.  Irritable
temper is characteristic of  Nux.
               LECTURE   XLVI.


                         OPIUM.

   {Papaver somniferum, poppy.—Nat. Order:—Papaverace.e.)

  This is one of the most  anciently known plants.   Homer speaks
of the poppy (mecon) growing in gardens;  it  was employed by
Hippocrates, and is mentioned by Theophrastus, Dioscorides and
Pliny.  The Avord Opium is  derived from the Greek Opos (juice),
the juice par excellence, as the flower  of rosemary has been called
anthos, and the cortex  cinchonae, the bark.
  Opium is derived from the poppy.  A\re have the black and white
poppy; the seeds of the black variety are black and the leaves red-
dish ;  those of the white variety have white seeds and Avhite petals.      V
  The flower is annual, the stems from three to four feet high, leafy,
smooth,  glaucous; leaves alternate,  large,  irregular, lobed, deeply
serrated; flowers large, petals of a purplish-white, Avith a large A'iolet
spot at the  base of each;  the whole plant  is glaucous and smooth,
except that the flower  stalks sometimes bear a few scattered, bristly
hairs.
  Papaver  somniferum is a native  of the East,  extensively culti-
vated in Turkey, Persia, and India, and other warm climates ; it has
become  naturalized in a great many European countries and  in
some States of the Union.
  The method of obtaining Opium is sufficiently simple. Mr. Charles
Tenier thus describes  the process of obtaining Opium followed  in ' 
OPIUM.
681
 Asia Alinor, "A few days after the flower has fallen, men and women
 repair to the fields and  cut the heads of the  poppies horizontally,
 taking care that the incisions do not penetrate the internal cavity of
 the shell  A white substance immediately flows out, and collects in
 tears on  the  edges of the cuts.  In this state the field is left for
 twenty-four hours, aud, on the folioAving day, the Opium is collected
 by large blunt knives.   Each head furnishes Opium once only, and
 that to an extent of a few grains. The first sophistication it receives
 is that practiced by the peasants  who  collect  it, and who lightly
 scrape the epidermis from the shell to  augment the weight.  This
 operation adds  about ,'2  of foreign matters.  Thus  collected, Opium
 has the form  of a glutinous and granular jelly.  It is deposited in
 small earthen vessels, and beat up AA'ith saliva.   When asked why
 Avater was not employed in place of saliva, the answer  was that
 water caused it to spoil.  It is afterAvards enveloped in dry leaves,
 and in this state it is sold.  The seeds of those  poppies Avhich have
 yielded  Opium, are equally good for sowing the folloAving year."
   In commerce several varieties of Opium are known:
   1. Smyrna Opium ; this is the Turkey or Levant  Opium of com-
 merce, Avhich comes in rounded, flattened cakes  covered  Avith  the
 leaves of rumex.  This is  considered the best commercial Opium,
 although sometimes found largely adulterated with stone and gravel.
 It yields more morphia and meconic acid  than either Constantino-
 politan or Egyptian Opium.
   2. Constantinopolitan Opium; this is of  unequal  quality, but
 generally considered inferior to the Smyrna variety.
   3. Egyptian Opium, inferior to either of the former; it  does  not
 blacken by keeping.
   4. Trebizond Opium,  or Persian Opium.  This comes in the form
 of cylindrical sticks enveloped in a smooth, slimy paper, and tied
 Avith cotton;  said to be very inferior.
   5. Indian Opium.
   6. Native  European and American Opium.  Excellent Opium is
 groAvn in Germany, France and England, and likeAvise in Ohio and
 Georgia.   The late Dr. Anthony of Georgia, made excellent Opium,
 and in considerable quantity, during the  last war with Great Britain.
 Opium thus groAvn, is of course more reliable in one respect at least
 than the Opium of our commerce: it is not adulterated.  The com-
 mercial  Opium  is  often very much adulterated.  An inspector of
 drugs for the  port of New York announced officially that from July,
 1848, to May, 1849, he had  rejected 3300 pounds of Opium as spu-
 rious ; Opium, too, which had been imported from Smyrna, Alar-
 seillcs and London.
   AVhen a lump of Opium is broken, the interior should present a
 pretty uniform,  broAvn color, and have a  strong opiate smell as well
 as the marked  opiate taste.   It should look like a homogeneous
 mass.  If the interior shows dirt, small pebbles, pieces of leaves and
 sticks, having also a burnt  odor, the  inference is unavoidable that
 the article is not pure.
   Besides these foreign matters, the masses of Opium Avhich are
'sent to us, sometimes contain leaden balls in the centre, by means of 
682
LECTURE XLVI.
Avhich the weight is increased.  These leaden  balls are sometimes
added to Opium of valuable quality, but are also found in the most
defective samples.  These and similar adulterations show how neces-
sary  it is  that those Avho purchase raw Opium  should carefully
examine the article before using it.  A fine outside is no guarantee
that the interior is perfectly pure.
   From this drug Ave obtain both triturations and an alcoholic tinc-
ture.  The tincture  of  Opium is  generally termed  laudanum,  or
thebaic tincture, or liquid laudanum.  Laudanum may  be made by
taking an ounce of the best Opium, bruise it well, and digest it Avith
a pint of the best brandy.  Each fluid  ounce contains thirty grains
of Opium.
   A preparation Avhich is frequently employed by alloeopathic phy-
sicians, is black drop, also termed  Quaker's drop.  This is an acetic
tincture of Opium.   Homoeopathic practitioners do not make use of
this preparation.   It is generally made  by boiling half  a pound  of
Opium in slices, in four pounds of vinegar, and afterwards  adding
one-fourth of a pound of sugar and two tablespoonfuls of yeast.  The
mixture has to be put in a Avarm place  to  ferment for the space  of
six weeks.  Then decant, filter and bottle, adding a little sugar  to
each bottle.  The opiate strength of this preparation is  three times
greater than that of common laudanum.
   The most common constituents of Opium are : morphia, narcotina,
codein, meconic acid, a caoutchouc-like substance, and  a variety of
other less-important substances.
   From Alorphia avc obtain salts, the acetate and sulphate of morphia.
The sulphate is most commonly used ;  it looks like quinine.  If we
do not know  Avhich of these  substances Ave have before us, put a
little of each salt on a Avater-crystal, and add a  drop of nitric acid
to it; the Alorphia Avill become deep red, and  the quinine  yellow.
AVe cannot distinguish  them by the taste, both salts being bitter.
A dose of  Alorphia, in alloeopathic  practice, is  from one-quarter to
one-eighth of a grain, equivalent to thirty or sixty drops of lauda-
num.
   From time immemorial Opium has been  used as an  anodyne, a
sedative, an antiphlogistic, a soporific, an antispasmodic  agent;  in
order to attain these various ends,  the drug has often to  be adminis-
tered in enormous doses.  The largest  medicinal dose of Opium on
record, for any purpose, is, I believe, forty  grains.   This dose Avas
given by Dr. Binns of Liverpool, in 1798, in a case of insanity.   In
four hours after,  a scruple Avas given  with the effect of complete
restoration.
   Concerning the  native Opium, different  opinions have prevailed
regarding  its  capability of yielding Alorphia.  According to the
statement of Dublanc and other chemists who haAre made this sub-
ject a point of special inquiry, Alorphina is found in native  poppy-
heads in variable quantities.  Be this as it may, the dangerous and,
indeed, poisonous properties of native poppy-heads have been shown
by the incontrovertible testimony of experience.
   Dr. Profterio, for instance, took an injection consisting of the juice
of green poppy-heads, and was  immediately attacked with burning 
                             opium.                         683

in the bowels and a most violent colic.  The  general  opinion has
been that Opium does not cause pain, but hushes it up.  AVe shall
hereafter offer additional testimony to show that this sweeping gene-
ralization is incorrect.         ,
   Professor Wendt of Copenhagen, mentions the case of a child six
months  old Avho had  been fed with a milk-soup in which twenty
poppy-heads had been boiled.  Next morning the child Avay lying
in deep sopor, with its eyes half open and distorted, and the extremi-
ties  cold.  His life was saved by the internal use of vinegar, vinegar-
fomentations and injections.
   Another child, after eating the seeds of a feAV unripe poppy-heads,
was  attacked with drowsiness, violent headache, difficulty of breath-
ing and  vomiting of a grayish mucus mixed with poppy-seed.  The
drowsiness soon increased to continued  and deep sopor, moaning
and  occasional twitching of the body.   The  child Avas  restored by
cold affusions.
   I  may j^et mention  the case of a little boy, four years old, Avho
after eating the seeds of a few unripe poppy-heads, was attacked
with immobility and apparent insensibility, slow and deep breathing,
paleness of the face, extreme mobility and depression  of the lower
jaw, and dilatation and insensibility of  the pupils.   The pulse was
very small and slow, the skin of the extremities cold as marble, the
muscles  relaxed and deglutition difficult.  Ipecac, induced frequent
vomiting of a  green, tenacious, sour-smelling  mucus,  mixed Avith
fragments  and seeds of peppy-heads ; this, together with injections
of vinegar saved his life.
   An  interesting  case of poisoning by poppy-heads, and the last
Avhich I  shall mention, occurred on a farm in the Duchy of Hessen.
A number of cattle were  fed one evening on distillery-swill mixed
Avith poppy-heads from Avhich the  seeds had been removed.  That
night, and on the morning folloAving, the  cattle Avere  attacked with
a restlessness which almost bordered  on rage, and with obstinate
constipation.  The milk likeAvise ceased to flow.  They Avere speedily
restored  by means of the sulphate of soda which moved their bowels,
and  by injections of vinegar, soap and oil.
   Poppy-heads constitute an article of the officinal pharmacopoeias
of most countries.   AVe prepare a watery extract by maceration and
evaporation, and likewise an  alcoholic tincture from the ripe and
dry poppies Avhich is supposed to contain about half the strength  of
pure Opium.
   These feAV cases of poisoning by the green seeds  of poppy-heads
may give you  an  idea of the  powerful narcotic properties of this
poison.   Before describing the toxicological effects of this agent, let
me first  advert to the abuse Avhich Oriental nations make of this
drug for the purpose of intoxicating their degraded fancy and intel-
lect.   Smoking is very frequently resorted to for this purpose.
  Lord Jocelyn, Secretary to  the Diplomatic Aiission to China  in
1841, has furnished some  interesting details concerning this subject.
" In  Singapore," writes the Secretary, " I took the  opportunity  of
visiting the opium-smokers in their homes.  It is an offensive spec-
tacle, though, at first,  not  as repulsive as the sight of an intoxicated 
684
LECTURE XLVI.
drunkard Avhom vice has degraded to the level of a beast.   Never-
theless the stupid smile  and the lethargic  apathy of the  opium-
smoker are more horribly frightful than  the  beastly condition of a
drunkard.   Every other  feeling yjelds to pity on  beholding the
colorless cheeks  and the vacant and staring eyes of the  opium-
smoker.
  "A street, situated in the middle of the city, is lined with shops
Avhich are arranged for the sale of Opium.  In the evening, after the
close of business, a number of miserable  Chinese  assemble in these
shops for the purpose of gratifying their passion.  In a feAV days
eA-en, after commencing this viie practice, the  face begins to look
sickly and the eyes  stare.   In a feAV Aveeks  or  months, the  opium-
smoker, even  if at first  robust and  healthy, is reduced to a state of
imbecility and emaciation.  About nine o'clock in the evening the
effects of opium-smoking  may be witnessed in  these shops.  Those
Avho have only smoked  one pipe indulge in a senseless talking and
laughing;  others, Avho  haA^e  poisoned themselves more intensely,
are lying about on the  sofas, motionless, and  Avith a stupid smile in
their features,  unconscious  of what  is passing around them, and
entirely absorbed in their infernal  delight.   The  last scene  of this
drama has to  be witnessed in a separate  apartment, a real charnel-
house.   There those who have  reached a condition  of ecstasis, are
extended with cadaveric rigidity, a symbol of death which speedily
overtakes them."
  Dr. Thompson, who has written an interesting treatise on Opium-
poisoning and its antidotal treatment, says that the opium-eaters of
Constantinople meet every day at the bazaar, a sort of exchange,
where  they indulge  their deadly habits.  They SAvallow the  Opium
made into pills, in a  glass of water.  After the  lapse of about forty
minutes, they are transported Avith a sort of delight.  The previously
pale face is suffused  with  redness, the eyes glisten, the expression of
the countenance becomes Avild and unnatural, and they are extremely
talkative.  This condition  is only temporary, and the consequences
are truly heart-rending; emaciation, trembling of  the limbs,  violent
pains,  insatiable desire  for sexual intercourse Avith  inability  to
gratify it, shrinking  of the gums, falling out of  the teeth, and para-
lysis are the ultimate consequences of this dreadful vice of Opium-
eating, Avhich, if begun  at the age of twenty, generally destroys life
at the age of thirty-six.
  The vice of Opium-eating blunts the susceptibility of the  system
to such an extent that enormous quantities of  Opium can be taken
into the stomach without  producing any other than ordinary stimu-
lating  effects.   The  author of "Confessions of  an Opium-eater"
states that he took one hundred and thirty grains of Opium per day,
not by accident or mistake, but as a habit.  Professor Alitchell tells
of a literary man Avho Avas at the same time a physician and  author
of renoAA-n, and took one hundred  and sixty grains a day without
being  satisfied by such a  dose.  Russel  tells  even of a Turk in
Smyrna who was in  the habit of SAvalloAving daily one hundred and
eighty grains, and  even  increased the dose.   In  diseases such as
cancer, Avhere Opium is habitually resorted to  as a palliative, patients 
opium.                         685
finally acquire the faculty of consuming as much as three pints of
laudanum daily, besides solid Opium taken at intervals.  The con-
tinual use of the poison gradually begets a longing for it, and  this
accounts in  a measure for the fact  that such enormous doses are
used, which are certainly  not required for purposes of palliation.
Dr. Christen, in his history of chemical and pharmaceutical inven-
tions, mentions the well-known  fact, that the  celebrated author of
the Brunonian system, in propounding his theory to his pupils, was
in the habit of taking forty or fifty drops of laudanum in a glass of
rum before and during his lecture. A distinguished pupil of BroAvn,
on calling upon his preceptor one morning at  an  early hour, was
surprised, as he entered the master's  study, to hear him in the act of
giving this order to his daughter: "Eppie* my dear, gie me the mode-
rate stimulus o' one hundred and fifty drops of laudanum in a glass
o' whisky."
  Brown succeeded in fastening the  idea of the  stimulating proper-
ties of Opium  upon the professional mind.  Ranging all vital phe-
nomena  under the one universal formula of  " Instability," he re-
garded diseases as abnormal states of incitability, be it either more
or less.  Food, Avine, bark and Opium Ave re his great stimulants in
disease. Aside from the physiological absurdity of ranging food and
medicine in the same category, it is not true, I repeat  most emphati-
cally, it is not true, that  Opium is a stimulant.  In  regard to the
action  of drugs, Old-School therapeutists still find themselves where
the astronomical public stood three hundred years ago, Avhen Coper-
nicus first discovered the true law of astronomy.  They are governed
by appearances, not by the realities of nature  and reason.  Thus it
is that the most baseless doctrines have perpetuated  themselves as
medical creeds.  There is  no harm in calling a drug a stimulant  pro-
vided Ave ascribe a proper understanding  to the term ; the Avrong
consists in supposing that a drug stimulates  by furnishing food to
the normal tissues.  The case stands thus:  If a  drug stimulates, the
stimulating  effect is not derived  from the drug, but from the brain.
The drug depresses  the functional activitj-, but  the brain sends in-
stantaneous  assistance to  the  assailed organ  or tissue.   And  this
assistance is more  than proportionate to the assault.   Hence the ap-
pearance of stimulation, of increased  vitality Avhich is sooner or later
followed by corresponding exhaustion.
   AVith these explanations before our mind's eye, Ave shall be  able
to read  understandingly  Pereira's  classification of  the effects of
Opium on the human system.   He  distinguishes three degrees of
operation.
  " First degree. In small doses, as from a  quarter of a grain to one
grain, Opium generally acts as a stimulant, though in this respect
the symptoms are  not uniform. Usually the vascular system is some-
what excited, and  a sensation  of fullness is experienced about the
head.  Dr. Crumpe took one grain of Opium Avhen  his pulse Avas at
seventy; it  first rose to seventy-six and then went  back again to
seventy.
  " The excitement in  the  cerebral A-ascular system is accompanied
by alterations in the condition of the nervous functions.   The mind 
686
LECTURE XLVI.
 is usually exhilarated;  the ideas flow more quickly;  a pleasurable
 or comfortable condition of the whole system is experienced, difficult
 to describe; there is a capability of greater  exertion than  usual.
 The  symptoms are followed by a diminution of muscular power,
 and of susceptibility to the impression of external objects;  a  desire
 of repose  is experienced with a tendency to  sleep.  AVhile  these
 effects are taking place, the mouth and throat become dry, and hunger
 is diminished, though the thirst is increased, and slight constipation
 usually  follows.   Such are the ordinary effects  of  a small dose of
 Opium on persons unaccustomed to its use.  By repetition, however,
 its influence becomes considerably diminished ; and those, therefore,
 Avho resort to it for the purpose of producing  a  pleasurable excite-
 ment, are obliged to augment the dose to keep up an equal effect."
   " Second degree.  Given  in a full medicinal  dose, as  from two to
 four grains, the stage of excitement is soon followed by that of de-
 pression.  The pulse, which  at first is increased in fullness and fre-
 quency,  is afterwards reduced below the natural standard.  The skin
 becomes hot; the mouth and throat dry ;  the appetite dimished;
 the thirst increased; and frequently nausea, or even vomiting is in-
 duced.   The symptoms of excitement soon pass away, and a state of
 torpor succeeds;  the  individual seems indisposed to exertion;  the
 muscular system  appears  enfeebled; the force of external impres-
 sions on the organs of the senses is diminished ; .and the ideas become
 confused.  This state is folloAved by an almost irresistible desire of
 sleep, Avhich is frequently attended by dreams, sometimes of a pleas-
 ing, at others of a frightful nature.  These effects are  usually suc-
 ceeded  by constipation  (Avhich may continue for several  days), by
 nausea, furred tongue, headache and listlessness.
   "Third degree; poisonous effects of  Opium.  Dr. Christison  sums
 them up as follows: 'The symptoms of Opium, when it is adminis-
 tered at  once in a dangerous dose, begin with giddiness and stupor,
 generally without any previous stimulus.  The stupor rapidly in-
 creasing, the person becomes  motionless and insensible to external
 impressions; the breathing is very slow, the patient generally lies
 quite still, with his eyes shut  and the pupils  contracted; and the
 whole expression of the countenance is that of a deep and perfect
 repose.   As the poisoning  advances, the features become ghastly,
 the pulse feeble and imperceptible, the muscles exceedingly relaxed,
 and, unless assistance is speedily procured, death ensues.  If the
 person recovers, the sopor  is  succeeded  by prolonged sleep, which
 commonly ends in twenty four or thirty-six hours, and is folloAved
 by nausea, vomiting, giddiness and loathing of food.' "
  After these interesting statements, let us hear what our own  great
 teacher has to say in reference to this subject; his remarks consti-
tute the introduction to his  Provings of Opium, in the second volume
of the Alateria  Medica Pura.   I find  a correct  translation of  these
remarks  in the English  " Flora Homceopathica," a portion  of which
I will take the liberty of reading to you, in order to show, first, the
fallacious manner in Avhich Opium is used by alloeopathic physicians,
and secondly, in order to correct a feAV misapprehensions in Hahne-
mann's own statements. 
OPIUM.
687
  " The primary result  of weak and  moderate doses appears to be
to excite for a short time the irritability and activity of the muscles
subject  to its  action, to excite  the imagination and the  courage, to
relieve suffering.   It is  this property  which has induced physicians
to employ it so largely:  a  source of numberless  evils.  If "the use
of Opium in  disease were as beneficial as  it is frequent,  no other
medicine would make so many cures; but exactly the  reverse takes
place.
  " In all kinds of cough, diarrhoea, vomiting,  sleeplessness,  melan-
choly, spasms, nervous  affections,  and,  above all,  in severe pain,
Opium is indiscriminately given, on  the ground that it  is the best
remedy in such  cases.   But its innumerable evil results  do  not
appear among the primitive effects of Opium, which are  exactly the
reverse.
  "If Opium has been found to cure cough, diarrhoea, sickness,
spams, etc., in a few cases, it is only when these symptoms first show
themselves in persons previously in good health, and are but slight.
In such cases, as for instance in a trifling cough caused  by a recent
chill, the trembling arising from terror, etc., Opium will sometimes
restore  the patient quickly  to health; because, if these symptoms
are at once destroyed, the body is restored  to  its  former condition,
and the tendency to their return is suppressed.
  " But because this palliative action upon slight and recent affec-
tions succeeds in a few instances, it does not  follow that Opium really
possesses the power of curing them permanently in all cases.
  " Opium has been abused  by giving it in all kinds of pain, how-
ever deep-seated and  of however long-standing.   But Opium  does
not, strictly speaking, belong to the class  of remedies that soothe
and cure pain. It is almost the only medicine that does not excite
a single pain during its primitive action.   Other medicines elicit
their own  peculiar symptoms, and are therefore capable of curing
homoeopathically the  symptoms resembling them.  But  Opium has
not  the poAver of effectually curing any kind of pain Avhatever,
because, instead of exciting pain during its first action,  it extin-
guishes the sense of it, the inevitable reaction of which causes greater
sensitiveness than before, and consequently increases suffering.
  "Therefore, all kinds of pain, soothed for the moment  by Opium,
return after a short time, when the stupefying  effect is past, -as bad
as before, and very often still more intense;  so  that at last they will
only yield to stronger and larger doses."

  Beautiful, interesting, and eminently practical  as these remarks
arc.  they contain a few more or less  important errors.  According
to Hahnemann, " Opium has not the power of effectually curing any
kind of pain whatever,  because, instead of exciting pain during  its
first action, it  extinguishes the  sense of it, the inevitable  reaction of
which causes greater sensitiveness than  before, and  consequently
increases suffering."
  It is  undoubtedly true that chronic pains cannot be cured by
Opium; they  may be palliated, but they cannot be cured by Opium.
And even the palliative effects of Opium in chronic and inveterate 
688                     LECTURE XLVI.
pains, cannot be sustained beyond a certain period ; the susceptibili-
ties of the tissues become so thoroughly blunted that Opium ceases
to affect them, unless it is  given in enormous and really poisonous
doses.   But there  are pains to Avhich Opium is generally homoeo-
pathic.  In the Journal Universe! de Afedicine, a French publication,
we read of a case of poisoning by Opium, where a soldier took tAvo
drachms of the solid  drug, and died  in  six hours and a  half, after
being affected with lockjaAV and  dreadful spasms.  For some time
after swallowing the poison, the soldier had acute pain in the stomach.
In another case of poisoning the accession of somnolency was attended
Avith excruciating colicky pains of tAvo days' duration.  These cases
shoAv that Opium will sometimes act as an irritant poison.  Another
and more  singular anomaly is the spontaneous occurrence of vomit-
ing.   Now, if we should be called upon to prescribe for a group of
symptoms  such  as  might  occur in   delirium  tremens, Avhere the
violent  cerebral irritation, the furious delirium, the excessive con-
traction of the pupils, or the comatose condition of the patient, with
dilated pupils, deeply flushed cheeks, dark, livid complexion, parched
and brown tongue  and lips, should constitute prominent indications
for the exhibition of  (ipium, vomiting and pain in the bowels, and
even diarrhoea Avould not be  a sufficient counter-indication to the
use of this agent;  for, it is a well-knoAvn fact, that, OAving probably
to some peculiar and inexplicable idiosyncracy, Opium  will  even
cause diarrhoea  in  some individuals  as  a primary symptom of its
action  upon the intestinal  canal.  Even neuralgic affections of the
nerves of  sensation and  of the Splanchnic nerves have been cured
by the sole use of Opium;  for it is undeniable that neuralgic pains
are among the legitimate effects of the continued  use of Opium.
  I have  to  advert to another  point in this  introductory chapter
which  leads to confusion.   "Opium," says  Hahnemann,  "has  this
distinguishing property, that in irritable persons who are unaccus-
tomed to it, especially in large doses, it causes a reaction, beginning
very remarkably, which is very rapid and often instantaneous, but
which, either by its briefness, its rare  occurrence, or its nature, must
not be confounded  Avith. the principal and primitive effects of Opium.
This reaction, rare  and momentary, perfectly resembles the reaction
of the human organism upon Opium,  and may be called its shadow.
The symptoms are: a deathlike paleness, coldness of the limbs and
whole body, cold perspiration, anxiety,  trembling, trepidation, but
very seldom any degree of  pain."
  In this paragraph, Hahnemann distinguishes betAveen the natural
reaction of the organism and the reaction of the  drug.   This  dis-
tinction seems to me fanciful, not real.  The heat and dryness of the
skin and the throbbing of the pulse, which succeed the chill and the
vascular depression caused by Aconite, are not signs of a reactionary
influence of the drug, but  of the living organism.  A distinction
between the reaction of the drug  and that of the organism seems
to be a metaphysical subtlety which  not only leads to no practical
results,  but is altogether hypothetical and indeed rejected by the
intelligent minds of our School.   What is the stimulating effect of a
small dose of Opium?  It is not the  direct effect of the drug, but a 
OPIUM.
689
 symptom of the organic reaction.   The drug may be taken  in such
 a large dose that the organic reaction may be entirely wanting.  The
 symptoms which Hahnemann describes as those of medicinal reac-
 tion, are really signs of organic reaction.  The deathlike paleness,
 the coldness of the limbs and whole body, the cold perspiration, the
 anxiety, the trembling and trepidation alluded to in the previous
 paragraph, denote the feeble, although unsuccessful endeavor of the
 organism to regain its normal condition.
   Another point to which I desire to call your attention, is the fact that
 Hahnemann does not reject the use of palliative means in that unquali-
 fied manner which some homoeopathists have deemed it essential to
 the dignity of homoeopathy to assume.  " If Opium," says Hahnemann
 in his introductory chapter to Opium, " if Opium has been found to
 cure cough, diarrhoea, sickness, spasms, etc., in a few cases, it is only
 Avhen these symptoms first show themselves in persons previously in
 good  health, and are but slight.  In  such case, as for instance in a
 trifling  cough  caused  by a recent chill, trembling  arising from
 terror, etc., Opium  will sometimes restore the patient  quickly to
 health, because, if these symptoms are at once destroyed, the body
 is restored to  its former condition, and the tendency to their return
 is suppressed."
   Here the use of palliatives is admitted, the legitimate use of course.
 The wrong would be to elevate to the rank of curative agents means
 which should  only be used for purposes of palliation. It is perfectly
 consistent  Avith the  homoeopathic  laAV,  and with the dignity  and
 reasonableness of our practice to arrest a simple diarrhoea or a slight
 attack of colic with a little brandy.   Who Avould refuse  a  helpless
 sufferer who is afflicted Avith an incurable malady and has to spend
 sleepless nights in perpetual agony and distress, a feAV drops of Mor-
 phine, if his pains can  be quieted thereby, were it only for a short
 period, and if a few hours' sleep  can be procured for the poor
 invalid ?  I have  heard a homoeopathic purist exclaim that, under
 these circumstances, Ave should stand idly by and do nothing; and
 again Ave have heard another homoeopathic purist who died of acute
 gangrene, exclaim in his agony of pain:  Give me laudanum!
   Gentlemen, we practice Homoeopathy not only because it is in itself
 true and conformable to nature, though  this would be a sufficient
 motive for our adoption of this method of cure; we practice Homoeo-
 pathy not only because this method of cure is a natural truth, but
 because it accomplishes the  object it has in vieAv, far more speedily,
 more pleasantly and more thoroughly than any other known  system
 of treatment is capable  of doing.   Homoeopathy, in our hands is a
 means, not  its  own end.  The end is the restoration of health, the
 means is the application of remedial agents in  conformity with the
 law " similia similibus."  If any other law could secure the achieve-
 ment of this noble end more adequately than the homoeopathic law.
 we should be bound, by the spirit of our humane calling, to forsake
 the one and to adopt the other. Palliation of suffering is not opposed
 to, but may be a legitimate and  highly  useful accompaniment  of
curative medication.   Thev  constitute distinct orders of therapeutic
                              44 
690
LECTURE XLVII.
means.  It behooves a wise practitioner to be fully acquainted with
the rights and boundaries of each.
  One point I beg leave to advert to before parting with my subject;
it is the use of opiates and other palliative means for the purpose of
quieting children.   The opiate  preparation which is generally used
for such purposes, is paregoric.  This is Opium digested in brandy,
to which  Camphor and  the flowers of benzoin are added.   One
hundred and  sixty drops of this tincture  are equal to  twenty of
common laudanum, or one grain of Opium.  Gentlemen,  in  your
battles with the prejudices and confirmed habits of your patients, you
Avill find it impossible to turn  the waters  of  the Aiississippi  back
towards their source.   But let me entreat you ever to set your faces
against the deleterious practice  of poisoning poor,  helpless infants
with an opiate.  AVe have more than one effectual means in our
practice to relieve their distress.  Our rhubarb,  jalap, Chamomilla,
Coffea and Aconite will prove far more potential in  arresting  their
cries  and  banishing their wakeful hours  than paregoric or catnep-
tea.   Still, the paregoric-affection is deep-rooted and Avide-spread,
and you will have to tax all your discretion and firmness in waging
Avar against it.  The catnep-epidemic is of a much milder sort; but
although  neither as dangerous  or as  injurious as the paregoric-
mania, it  is sometimes equally  inconvenient, and embarrassing to a
homoeopathic  practitioner. Let us  ever  endeavor  to extirpate all
such excrescences, root and branch, but let  us  ever act Avith humane
forethought and kindness.
               LECTURE   XLVII.

  Professor Dierbach, of Heidelberg, ranges the effects of poisonous
doses of Opium in the following categories.  The first category or
series of symptoms  comprises the  following: nausea, occasional
vomiting, sopor, insensibility to external impressions, slow breath-
ing, closing of the eyes with disposition to lie on the back, contrac-
tion of the pupils.
  In the second stage we have the following symptoms: redness of
the face, profuse perspiration, sopor,  stertorous  breathing,  although
as a general rule the breathing is quiet and scarcely perceptible;
there is an expression of anxiety and occasionally of rage in the fea-
tures ; the pupils are generally contracted to the smallest point; the
patient  sinks into a deep sopor from ivhich he can only be roused
for a moment  by means  of cold affusions; the  pulse is hurried,
feeble, contracted, imperceptible or irregular, and constantly tending
to collapse.
   The third stage is characterized by a pale, cadaverous,  ghostlike
expression of the countenance, relaxation of all  the muscles, (except
an occasional paroxysm of convulsions, or even lockjaw, especially
among children), cold sweats, irregular, panting breathing, which is
very speedily followed by death. 
OPIUM.
691
   The bodies of those who are poisoned  by Opium, have a  livid
 appearance, and are rapidly decomposed.   The cerebral vessels are
 turgid with blood, the arachnoid membrane is injected, the eyeballs
 protruded  and red, the pharynx looks inflamed, the lungs are dis-
 tended  and filled  with  a fluid blood;  the ventricles frequently
 contain bloody coagula, the vessels of the  stomach and boAvels are
 engorged, the kidneys  are distended with  blood and  the bladder
 with urine.
   In a case of poisoning, we first  remove  the poison  by means of
 the stomach-pump  or an  emetic, sulphate of zinc.  The narcotism
 may be combated  with vegetable  acids, especially vinegar, which
 may be given by the mouth if possible, and  in the form  of injections.
 Strong coffee is likewise a powerful  antidote either Avay; cold affu-
 sions, stimulants, artificial respiration.
   Chronic  effects of poisoning by Opium, such as:  headache, consti-
 pation, dryness of the tongue, want of sensibility of the  pupils to the
 light, may  be combated by means of Belladonna, Aconite and black
 coffee.

   There is perhaps no drug concerning  the  action of  which upon
 the living organism so many contradictory  opinions have been pro-
 mulgated, as Opium.  This want of unity,  or rather this confusion
 is OAving to the cardinal mistake of confounding the primary action
 of the drug and the signs of organic reaction as effects of the same
 order.  A  confusion of this kind can only be prevented by keeping
 in one's mind's eye the rule, that the effect of small quantities of a
 drug  is speedily followed  by opposite phenomena of reaction, and
 that the true primary action can only be ascertained  by means of
 quantities large enough to overcome the organic reaction at least for
 a time.
   In  Brown's  System,  Opium  is  a stimulant.   Pereira likewise
 speaks of the stimulating property of small doses of Opium.   It is
 admitted,  however, by all unprejudiced  allceopathic therapeutists,
 that these stimulating effects are very soon succeeded by the opposite
 symptoms of depression; the excited condition of  the  brain is fol-
 loAved by dullness of the sensorium; the vividness of thought and
, fancy by drowsiness and  stupid  dreams; the serenity of mind and
 the  feeling  of ecstatic delight by a gloomy depression of spirits and
 an  utter listlessness, an  indifference, a perfect apathy; the vital
 turgescence and increased exhalations of the skin by an unpleasant
 dryness and coldness of this organ; the powerfully excited sexual
 instinct by a total indifference to sexual  enjoyments and even by
 impotence.
   It is evident that these pretended stimulating effects of Opium are
 altogether illusory, and attributable to the smallness  of  the dose
 which is unable to make a  permanent impression upon the living
 organism,  and  is,  for a  time at least, overcome  by  the reactive
 energies of the brain.  I regard this doctrine of the primary action
 of drugs, and of the secondary action or reaction of the vital forces
 as a cardinal tenet among the doctrines of the  Homoeopathic School.
 It is a doctrine  fraught with vital consequences both to the patient 
692
LECTURE XLVII.
 and to the practitioner.   The homoeopathicity of a drug to a disease
 is not complete unless the primary action of the drug  corresponds
 with the primary manifestations of the disease, and the  signs  of
 organic reaction excited by the drug, correspond with the pheno-
 mena of organic reaction excited  by the disease.  In  the  case  of
 Opium, for example, sopor constitutes a symptom of the  primary
 action of this agent; wakefulness of the brain or cerebral exaltation,
 vividness of fancy and resulting wakefulness constitute symptoms
 of an organic reaction determined by the primary action of the dru<r.
 If, in  a given case, the question should occur: Is Opium  homoeo-
 pathic  to sopor?   This question could  only be  ansAvered in the
 affirmative, in case a milder grade of the existing cerebral irritation
 should be characterized by the opposite condition of extreme wake-
 fulness, talkativeness or even very active, busy, loquacious delirium.
 Such a condition might  occur in cerebral  typhus, or in a  simple
 form of cerebral irritation.
 _ You see  at once, how important  it is that a homoeopathic  phy-
 sician should be acquainted with pathology, if he means to determine
 the homoeopathicity of a drug Avith scientific precision.  A know-
 ledge of the primary stage of  a  disease and  of the symptoms which
 characterize the organic reaction called forth by this primary in-
 vasion, are not a matter of theory or speculation, but of actual study
 and observation at the sick bed.   The example Avhich I have chosen
 to _ illustrate this compound homoeopathicity of Opium,  shows that
 this  agent  may be  homoeopathic to  Avakefulness, if Ave knoA\r, from
 previous observation, that it is a species of Avakefulness Avhich can be
 looked upon as the natural sequel or reaction of a previous state of
 sopor or stupor; and that it is,  on the other hand, homoeopathic to
 sopor or stupor, if we know from experience that this kind of sopor
 would, after a while, terminate in a state of wakefulness of the brain.
 Typhus, puerperal mania and convulsions may set in Avith this char-
 acteristic sopor  or  with this  vivid,  loquacious  delirium; in either
 case Opium would be homoeopathic to the existing disturbance.
  With a view of  elucidating this principle still farther, let us select
 another illustration.  Opium is homoeopathic to satyriasis as well as
 to complete indifference to sexual enjoyments.  In the case of a man
 whose fancy dwells wildly and lasciviously upon sexual things, and .
 who, by long continued abuse, finally becomes totally indifferent to
 sexual enjoyments, and is moreover  afflicted with physical inability,
 Opium may prove homoeopathic both to the former as well as to the
 latter condition.  AVe  knoAV that Opium-eaters or Opium-smokers
 pass through a similar series of abnormal sensations.
  The action of Nux upon the  sexual  organs, may likeAvise be re-
 ferred  to as illustrating the principle of compound homoeopathicity.
 Sexual  abuse, be  it the destructive vice of onanism or excessive
sexual intercourse, may at first induce an  increase of excitability in
the  sexual  organs, the  erections  occur more rapidly, more spasmodi-
cally as it were, and an increased sensation of warmth and fulness
may be experienced in the parts.  This abnormal plethora may be
 accompanied by hyperemia of the nervous  centres which  preside
over the functional poAver of the sexual system, more especially 
OPIUM.
693
hyperaemia of the lower portion of the cord, giving rise to a burning
sensation and a sense, of fulness in that region.
  What  transformations would these phenomena  undergo, if the
sexual excesses should  continue?   Gradually the erectile power
Avould decrease, the erections would become shorter and feebler, and
would finally cease altogether.   The  nervous power has almost be-
come extinct, and the hyperaemia of the cord may have led to exuda-
tions into its tissue, which  may finally give rise to  incurable  dis-
organizations,  such as: partial softening, atrophy, and  consequent
paralysis of parts Avhich depend upon the lower portion of the cord
for a supply of functional power.
  Nux may affect the  sexual organs and the nervous centres Avhich
supply them Avith functional poAver, in a similar manner, first setting-
up a condition of hyperaemia, which may gradually terminate in
complete impotence.  Hence Ave infer that Nux  is homoeopathic to
an abnormal irritability and plethora  of the sexual organs as well as
to the opposite condition of weakness arising from previous abnormal
excitement, such as sexual  abuse, or  the excessive use of coffee or
ardent spirits may occasion.
  Aconite may frequently be substituted for Nux in similar condi-
tions of the sexual system, especially in the case of highly organized,
sensitive  individuals,  with  a  plethoric  constitutional  habit, or  a
nervous-bilious temperament.  We shall  find  it equally homoeo-
pathic to all the phenomena Avhich characterize a condition of spasm
and hyperaemia, such as: quick, spasmodic erections;  a sense of ful-
ness  and unnatural Avarmth in the parts;  sexual fancies, nocturnal
emissions and  erections;  as well as to the phenomena characterizing
an opposite condition  of Aveakness,  such  as: imperfect erections,
coldness  of the  parts  Avith  frequent  losses of the prostatic fluid;
nocturnal emissions from the relaxed parts, Avithout sensation.
  These inquiries into the  compound homoeopathicity of drugs are
not only interesting,  but of great importance to  a homoeopathic
practitioner; for they lead  us to establish a true homoeopathic rela-
tion  Avhere  positive provings have as  yet been insufficient to  accom-
plish this result.   These inquiries lead us, for instance, to establish
the homoeopathicity of Secale cornutum to spasmodic contraction, as
well  as to relaxation  of the uterine fibres, and to the dangerous
haemorrhages Avhich often result from  such relaxations after delivery.
Or the homoeopathicity of Alercury to Avatery or bilious discharges
from the boAvels, preceded  or  accompanied by pinching  pains  and
chilliness, as well as to constipation,  with a sensation of unnatural
heat, fulness, or heavy  aching pains in the boAvels.  Or the homceo-
pathicity of Ipecacuanha to an excessive irritability of the stomachy
with spasmodic retching and vomiting, as well as to perfect atony of
this organ,  with a qualmish feeling in the region of the stomach, a
sense of swelling and fulness, complete indifference to food.  Or the
hoinoeopathicitv of Nux  to both spasm and paralysis; the homoeo-
pathicity of Cantharides  to both ischuria,  a spasmodic  inability to
void the urine, and to a  paralytic inability to  retain it.   Or the
homoeopathicity of Belladonna to excessive as well as to deficient 
694
LECTURE XLVII.
irritability, excessive contraction  as well as abnormal dilatation of
the pupils.
   This principle of compound homoeopathicity shows us that Aconite
is not only homoeopathic to the chill, but likeAvise to the inflammatory
stage of a common catharrhal or rheumatic fever.
   Thoughtless practitioners, and their number is larger than it should
be, content themselves with saying that  Aconite is homoeopathic to
inflammatory fever, and, in order to determine this homoeopathicity,
they invariably look for a full, rapid and bounding pulse, a dry and
hot skin, flushed face, etc.  An educated pathologist knows that this
is a stage of  organic reaction determined by a primary stage, char-
acterized  by opposite symptoms.  In the case of fever, the primary
invasion is characterized by chilliness and coldness of the  skin, a
pale and  sunken  countenance,  a small, feeble and someAvhat ac-
celerated  pulse.  Now it so  happens that  the  primary action of
Aconite is characterized by  these \rery symptoms,  and hence we
have a perfect right to say that Aconite  is homoeopathic to the first
as well as to  the second stage of the fever, the former corresponding
with the primary action of Aconite, the latter Avith the organic reac-
tion determined by the primary action of the drug.  This primary
stage is of very short  duration, and it is very seldom the case that
we are called to a patient at this period.  But if,  in a case of fever,
Avhere Aconite is the homoeopathic agent, we should be called during
the chill, the  homoeopathicity of Aconite for this chill would be just
as true as its homoeopathicity to the subsequent inflammatory stage
of the disease.
   Supposing a person has been  poisoned with Aconite, and, under
proper antidotal treatment, the coldness  of the skin and the feeble
and thin pulse haAre yielded to the opposite condition of fever, with
heat and dryness of the skin and a full, rapid, hard  and bounding
pulse : there  occurs another series of phenomena which requires our
attention.  The inflammatory stage having  run its course, it is suc-
ceeded by a remarkable activity of the cutaneous exhalants resulting
in profuse perspiration, during Avhich the pulse becomes softer, some-
times even Aveaker than in the natural condition of the system, and
the patient still feels more or less enfeebled.
   In  the  natural course of an  inflammatory disease, for instance
pleuro-pneumonia, a similar series of phenomena may occur, espe-
cially under the expectant treatment or under the allceopathic treat-
ment  by means of depletion and of large doses of Tartar  Emetic.
The  inflammatory or sthenic  phenomena may apparently subside,
and give  place to a state of asthenia, characterized by a cold and
clammy skin, a feeble and hurried pulse, prostration, and a continu-
ance of the local difficulty in a modified or aggravated form.  Here
it is where a  careless practitioner may do his patient great injustice
by losing  sight of the  pathological identity of these three forms of
homoeopathicity of one and  the same  agent to the different develop-
ments of a pathological condition Avhich is identically the same from
beginning to  end.  AVe have determined the  homoeopathicity  of
Aconite to the chill, next to the  inflammatory, and  lastly  to  the
asthenic stage. 
OPIUM.
695
  It is of the utmost practical importance not to overlook the con-
tinuousness of a pathological process, the different stages of which
are only distinguished in appearance, and, in spite of these apparent
changes in  the symptoms,  may  still require the same treatment.
Phrenitis,  for instance, may indicate Belladonna from the first in-
vasion to the  ultimate termination of the disease.  The effusion
which sets in towards the last does not constitute a qualitatiA'e, but
simply a quantitative alteration of the morbid process.   The blood
becoming more and  more devitalized, a mechanical separation of its
constituent elements finally occurs, in consequence of which the serum
escapes into and collects in the ventricles.  This hydrocephalic stage
of phrenitis is not a disease  distinct from the original malady, differ-
ing from it in essential principles; it is simply a continuous develop-
ment of the first attack, which may require a change of dose, but not
of remedy.   Hence it is that  phrenitis and  hydrocephalus are  used
by many pathologists as synonymous or equivalent terms.
  Ah inflammatory irritation of the cerebrum or of the cerebellum
may terminate, by a process  of  continuous  development, in some
organic alteration Avhich, if  at  all susceptible  of  treatment, requires
the same remedy that was indicated by the original disease.  Soften-
ing is one of these pathological alterations.  Hence it is that an in-
flammatory irritation of the brain or cerebritis, and encephalomacia
or softening of this  organ, are sometimes described as pathological
conditions resulting  from the  action of one and  the same identical
morbific force.
  In the same sense  gastromalacia and perforation of the stomach
may be considered as pathological alterations of  the same nature in
essence, though not in form.
  Or swelling, inflammation  and suppuration of a gland, or glandular
abscess, being identically similar  pathological conditions, may have
to be treated with the same remedy or remedies, from the beginning
to the end of the morbid process.
  Congestion and inflammation of the psoas-muscle may, by a simple
process  of continuous development,  terminate  in suppuration or
abscess, without any change of remedies being called for by this ap-
parent change  in the symptoms; Aconite, Belladonna or  Bryonia,
may be specifically indicated by the abscess as well as by the original
rheumatic congestion or inflammation.
  When we say " abscess of the liver,"  we may  designate by this
name a pathological condition  of  which suppuration is the last, and
sanguineous congestion the  first  stage, the pathological  process re-
maining  identically  or  essentially the same,  and varying only in
appearance.  First you may see a tumor somewhere in the region of
the liver, provided the abscess is seated on the surface of this organ;
the tumor may have an inflamed  appearance, it may_ be very sore to
the touch, and  fluctuation may only be vaguely or indistinctly per-
ceptible ; fever may be present.  A tumor of this kind  may either
be scattered by the persistent  use of the tincture of Aconite or by
Mercury;  or the  neglect of  this treatment may permit the suppura-
tive process to go on towards the  completion of the abscess.  If the
homoeopathic treatment should commence at this stage of the rheu- 
696
LECTURE XLVII.
matic congestion, the tincture of Aconite or Alercury, provided these
remedies Avere indicated at the outset, would still be the best means to
effect the absorption of the pus, and the dispersion of the sanguineous
engorgement.
  All these are instances of pathological conditions, where the morbid
process remains essentially or identically the same, and where the
changes which are going  on, are only apparent or symptomatic.
Such instances might  be greatly multiplied.  It is important that a
practitioner should discriminate between the continuous development,
through several stages, of a morbid process Avhich remains essentially
or identically the same,  and a morbid process where the different
stages constitute so  many essentially distinct pathological changes.
  The dropsical effusion into the pericardium or cellular tissue which
may set in after  scarlet-fever, is not a continuous development of
scarlet-fever, but an essentially distinct pathological condition Avhich
requires a treatment of its OAvn.   The scarlet-fever may have been
sucessfully managed with Aconite  or Belladonna; the dropsy  may
require Digitalis or  Cannabinum.
  Again: the small-pox pustules may suddenly  collapse, and the
morbid irritation may become transferred to the lining membrane of
the intestine or to the brain.  The foul, blackish, offensive discharges,
the prostration and  cold  and clammy skin  in the former metastasis
may have to  be met by Arsenic;  the comatose stupor, the delirium
and  the convulsions or spasms which characterize the latter change,
may require Opium, Belladonna, Stramonium.  None of these reme-
dies are, properly speaking, homoeopathic to small-pox.
  The different stages of typhus, of pneumonia or  of other inflamma-
tory  diseases  may  require  corresponding changes of drugs.   In
typhus, for instance, AA'e may commence the treatment  Avith  Bella-
donna, which, in the progress of the disease, may have  to yield to
Opium or to the mineral acids.   On the other hand, there are manv
cases of typhus, where Belladonna, or Hyoscyamus, or Arsenic,  may
have to be used exclusively from the commencement to the end of
the cure.  The same doctrine applies to pneumonia, to meningitis, to
peritonitis, to rheumatism, and to almost any other acute inflamma-
tion, or even to chronic diseases.
  In dAvelling upon this doctrine of compound homoeopathicity, and
upon the various points of practice which seem to be  more or less
logically connected with it, I have desired to attain several important
ends.  My object has been to caution you against the unseasonable
and unwarrantable changes of remedies to which many homoeopathic
physicians are unfortunately addicted; to impress you with the im-
portance of coupling a comprehensive view of Pathology and Phy-
siology with the study of the therapeutic powers of drugs;  to throw
out hints and  suggestions concerning the identity of morbific forces
in diseases, and concerning the importance of not being misled by
apparent or purely symptomatic changes;  and lastly to contribute
an additional stone to the foundations of the great science Avhich we
are all engaged in building up, the true science of Therapeutics as
written upon Nature's page by the hand of Infinite Wisdom. 
opium.                         697
              LECTURE  XLVIII.


  We may consider the physiological action  of Opium  upon the
tissues under the following general categories :
  1. Its action upon the cerebro-spinal system of nerves;
  2. Upon the digestive system;
  3. Upon the urinary system;
  4. Upon the sexual system;
  5. Upon the respiratory system;
  6. Upon the vascular system;
  7. Upon the dermoid system.
  8. Upon the mind, and
  9. Its action regarding sleep.

                    1. Cerebro-spinal System.

  AVe have seen that small doses of Opium cause an appearance of
stimulation in the brain, and that large doses manifest the inherent
stupefying or narcotizing effect of this agent.  The opium-sopor is
generally accompanied by a diminished power  of motion sometimes
amounting to actual  paralysis  of the muscular  fibre;  at  times,
instead of paralysis, Ave have convulsions, and in the place of coma,
delirium. The pupil is usually very much contracted.  The general
action of Opium upon the brain  is characterized by signs of violent
congestion.  Beside the effects which we have already mentioned,
it causes furious delirium, or a sort of delirious talk about ghosts,
devils and masks Avhich assemble around the bed for the  purpose of
torturing the patient.   It causes, as has been stated before, violent
intoxication Avith stupefaction.  It also causes a species of vertigo,
as if everything were turning round Avith one, and as if the patient
were hovering in the air.
  As regards the head, Opium causes a pain in the head as if the
brain Avere torn, accompanied with a sensation in the  body as if
every part in the body Avould be twisted Avrong side up.   The head
totters to and fro.  The head and face are swollen, the eyes inflamed
and protruded, the lips look bloated and have a reddish blue tinge.
The expression of the eyes  is often peculiar;  the eyes glisten and
sparkle;  at times they look  glassy and are immovable like those of
a dying man.  The pupils are insensible to the light; at first they
are  very  much contracted, but afterwards they dilate considerably;
the  lids  may be half closed, and water  sometimes runs out of the
eyes.  If the patient is conscious, he complains of loss of sight, and
humming in the ears.
  The face is likewise  considerably  altered  by  the irritating or
paralyzing action of Opium upon the brain.  The face  may look
pale and  sunken, or it may be alternately red and pale, bluish, dark-
red, of a cherry  brown, bloated; sometimes  the facial muscles are 
698
LECTURE XLVIII.
•relaxed, giving the  face an expression of stupidity; the loA\'er lip
 inclines to drop, and it is only with great difficulty that the patient
 is able  to raise the upper eyelid.   Instead of being paralyzed, the
 facial muscles are sometimes  spasmodically agitated, they tremble ;
 so  do the lips and  tongue, and the mouth is  distorted.  AVe have
 stated already that the jaws may either be locked or the lower jaw
 is paralyzed, hanging down and permits the saliva to run out at the
 corners in long ropy threads.
   If Ave add to these  various effects of Opium the  appearances in
 the brain which post-mortem examinations have revealed to us in
 cases of poisoning by Opium, Ave shall find that the physiologico-
 pathological action of  Opium upon the cerebral tissues  renders this
 drug eminently homoeopathic to several important cerebral diseases.
 In  one case, the veins of the neck Avere found turgid with black blood.
 In  other cases the sinuses and all the cerebral vessels were found dis-
 tended  with blood ;  the two ventricles contained a teaspoonful of  a
 bright-red fluid, the choroid  plexuses Avere very much distended.
 In  other cases  blood has been found  extravasated  in  the brain.—
 Leroux found the pia-mater injected and thicker than usual; at the
 base of the brain he discovered about a teaspoonful of a bright red
 fluid, and the choroid  vessels very much distended;  clots of coagu-
 lated blood  have been found  in the  substance of  the  brain  by
 other pathologists.   In the case of an infant  seven weeks old, Avho
 was killed  by taking  10 grains of Dover's powders, the sinuses  of
 the dura mater were  filled with dark  coagula, the surface of the
 brain was covered by  a net-work of distended vessels, containing a
 bright-red blood;  there was a slight extravasation of blood on the
 surface  of the posterior  lobes, and all the internal vessels of the
 brain were turgid with blood.
   Considering all these effects  of Opium  in their totality, may we
 not infer  that  Opium is homoeopathic to apoplexy,  to delirium
 tremens, to typhus  cerebralis and to  such conditions  of  cerebral
 irritation generally as  are characterized by phenomena similar to
 the derangements caused by Opium ?   Opium  may prove homoeo-
 pathic to typhoid conditions setting in during  measles, scarlet-fever,
 small-pox or some other acute eruption.  Whenever the sympto-
 matic and pathological character of the cerebral irritation is strictly
 similar  to the irritation which Opium causes in the cerebral tissues,
 this agent  should  be exhibited,  no  matter  what  the immediate
 cause of the natural disease may be.   An intense and suppressed
 mortification of one's feelings may cause a  cerebral irritation to
 which Opium is homoeopathic.  A gentleman, fifty years old, and
 of  sensitive disposition, had his feelings deeply hurt; he restrained
 his anger and suppressed his grief, and the consequence was a serious
 attack of cerebral irritation.  He went home, laid down, and soon
 was oppressed with irresistible sopor.   I found him with his cheeks
 flushed,  tongue white as if covered with powdered chalk, pupils
 contracted, pulse quick and irritated, skin feverish and dry', and the
 sopor so overpowering that it was Avith the greatest difficulty that
 he  could be roused long enough to answer one or two questions.  I
 made him a few poAvders of Opium 18, and in  a few hours the sopor 
OPIUM.
699
 gave place to a natural sleep, and the symptoms of gastric  and
 vascular irritation yielded very speedily after that.

   Professor Joerg and his disciples have given us a few interesting
 provings of Opium, obtained from the tincture and from the crude
 substance.   The tincture was proved in doses of from one to thirty
 drops, and the crude substance in doses of from one-twelfth of a grain
 to two grains.  The principal effects of Opium obtained by these
 provers were manifested in the brain, boAvels, respiratory organs and
 nervous system generally.
   One prover observed the  following symptoms which constitute a
 very characteristic  group of headache  symptoms.  An aching pain
 all over the head as from congestion, warmth in the face and  on the
 hairy scalp;  these signs of congestion were soon after followed  by
 diarrhoea.   At one time the  pain in the head would  streak down to
 the tip of the nose where it terminated in a sort of griping.
   From twelve drops of the tincture,  the pain in the head  would
 become stupefying, with heaviness of the head, tightness around the
 neck, heat and sweat in the face.  Horrid and frightful dreams  would
 likewise torture the prover.
   In the case of other provers, these signs of congestion were still
 characterized by additional symptoms, such as: loss of ideas, violent
 vertigo, obscuration of sight, internal restlessness.
   In the person of  Professor Joerg, the  stupefying pain in the head
 seemed principally located in the frontal eminences, streaking down
 to the tip of the nose; in the case  of another prover, it was accom-
 panied  by dryness of the eyes, and sensation  as if they were full of
 sand, inability to keep the lids from closing.
   A very  common  paroxysm experienced by Joerg's provers was
 the following: Stupefying pain all over the head, followed by cut-
 ting in the bowels and diarrhoea.
   Dullness of the head, with stitching pain from the forehead  to the
 occiput, drowsiness,  ineffectual urging to stool, constituted  another
 paroxysm of pains.
   The pains in the head, which were generally characterized by a
 feeling  of oppression, heaviness, stupefaction and constriction, were
 in very many provers accompanied by  a sense of oppression on the
 chest, with stitches in the chest, and  even a hacking cough. Extreme
 lassitude, sometimes amounting to  perfect exhaustion  and inability
 to stand, vertigo and loss of ideas  either preceded or accompanied
 the distress in the head.
   The pulse, during  these attacks  of headache, was either feebler
 and  more rapid than usual, or in  some cases, stronger, fuller, with
 increased warmth of the skin.
   Professor Boecker  of Heidelberg has made  a number of experi-
 ments with Opium for the purpose of determining its influence upon
 the  blood  and  upon the urinary  secretions.   These  experiments,
 which'were made upon perfectly healthy individuals Avith increasing
 quantities of Opium, which was taken  every day in doses of from
 one-half of a grain to  one  grain and a quarter of the crude drug,
yielded the general conclusion that Opium interferes with the reno- 
700
LECTURE XLVIII.
vating processes of the vital organism.   It is found that under the
action of Opium the effete matters which  should be excreted through
the urine, skin and boAvels, are retained in the system, and that con-
sequently Opium is possessed of the power of vitiating the organic
products Avhich it is the business of the reproductive forces of life to
manufacture for the physiological Avants  of the organism  out of the
regularly furnished supplies  of nourishment.  These results Avere
demonstrated by repeated analyses of the blood and urine of the
Opium-provers during the period  of these interesting experiments.
Although the Avhole  quantity of  the urine  and  perspiration was
found to be increased  by Opium, yet the solid ingredients which are
normally  contained in the urinary and  cutaneous  secretions, Avere
diminished.   A burning  skin, drenched in  a Avatery perspiration,
may constitute a prominent indication  for Opium  in various dis-
eases, for instance in delirium tremens.
  According to Boecker,  Opium first acts  upon the plasma of the
blood.  In this respect his views differ  from those of Pereira, who
teaches that the action of Opium is first perceived by the respiratory
element in the blood,  \riz.: the blood-clisks.   According to Boecker,
the primary action of Opium is exerted upon  the plasma, the assimi-
lative element in the blood. It vitiates and may gradually extinguish
the life-principle of the plasma. The phenomena Avhich Opium de-
velops in the respiratory range, are, according to Boecker,  incidental
to its disorganizing action in the assimilative sphere, to which the
plasma of the blood is more especially related.
  In fatal cases of poisoning by Opium  the vessels of the brain are
found distended with  black blood; the ventricles of the heart like-
wise contain  black coagulated blood.  These post-mortem changes
afford eAudence that the plastic power of the blood is destroyed by
Opium.   Professor Boecker, and the humoral pathologists generally,
of whom  he is one, trace  the  pernicious  effects of Opium to its dis-
organizing action upon the plasma, from which point of departure
the nervous centres are gradually  invaded.   The  vitalists, on  the
contrary, teach  that Opium first acts upon that element in the brain
which regulates the  renovation of the.' blood;  by  impairing,  and
gradually paralyzing this renovating poAver, the quantity of the blood
as a life-quickening fluid  is diminished,  until it becomes unable to
supply neAv material to the languishing and vitiated tissues.
  The persons  whom Boecker employed for his  experiments,  ex-
perienced from  one  grain and a  half,  and  one grain and three-
quarters, a number of interesting symptoms, most  of which were
likewise complained of by Joerg's provers, such as:  dizziness, sensa-
tion of intoxication, headache, trembling of the lower extremities and
weariness in the knee-joints.  Sometimes this trembling would affect
the whole body. The  gastric symptoms Avere  likewise marked; they
complained of nausea, retching, a bitter taste in the mouth, constipa-
tion, pinching pain in the  bowels with spasmodic closing of the anus
during the paroxysm  of pain.
  Dysuria was likewise complained of.
  A painful crawling  in the lower limbs  Avas  likeAvise a troublesome
symptom. 
OPIUM.
701
  The experiments which Crumpe instituted upon himself Avith one
grain of Opium, showed that under the action of Opium the pulse
may first rise above the ordinary  number  of beats,  after Avhich it
becomes depressed below the normal standard.

  After  these  statements  concerning the  toxicological  and  phy-
siological action of Opium upon the healthy organism, we  shall have
no difficulty in determining its homoeopathicity to several important
affections of the cerebro-spinal system.  We find it indicated in
  Congestive  Headache, with a sensation as if the brain  were con-
stricted ; a stupefying pain, attended with dizziness, tendency to sopor,
obscuration of sight.  This distress may be attended with  gastric
symptoms, white coated tongue, retching, oppression in the epigastric
region.  A condition of this kind may result from abuse of  liquor,
from an intense mortification of one's feelings, or it might possibly
be the commencement of a more protracted  cerebral disease, such as
typhus.  The probability is that constipation, lassitude and a feeble
and hurried  pulse will, generally speaking, accompany such symp-
toms of cerebral irritation.

  We may find Opium indicated in
  Apoplexy, although we should not prescribe Opium too eagerly.
Aconite and Belladonna  deserve  your first  attention in cases of
apoplexy, but  I have generally found that in cases of apoplexy to
which these  two drugs are homoeopathic,  it is  possible to  obtain
some slight sign of recognition or consciousness from the patient;
but if the  consciousness should be entirely gone—if the patient is
profoundly comatose, the pupils are either intensely contracted or
widely dilated and insensible, the  face  has a  dark-red  or cherry-
brown appearance; the pulse is either rapid, feeble and irregular, or
else full and  labored;  if the breathing is  either imperceptible or
stertorous, we may give Opium with tolerable certainty that it meets
the exigencies of the case.
  If, after the  symptoms  of apoplexy have subsided, a stupid ap-
pearance should remain, AA'ith tendency to sopor and with hemiplegia,
Opium, or  its alkaloid  Alorphine, may prove useful for the cure of
this paralysis, especially if the patient complains of pain and formica-
tion in the  paralyzed limb.  Morphine, may be given in doses  of one-
hundredth  of a grain three times a day.

  In Mania-a-potu and  Delirium Tremens, the furious delirium, the
expression of  terror  in the countenance,  the'Constant talk  about
demons and frightful masks bent upon  tormenting the patient, the
flushed face, the inflamed and protruded eyes, the red and parched
tongue, the dry and  hot skin, the full, hard  and throbbing pulse, the
vomiting of bile, the retention of stool and urine: these are some of
the characteristic indications  of Opium in this  sometimes terrible
malady.  Do not hesitate to give a few drops of the tincture in ten
or twelve tablespoonfuls of  water in tablespoonful doses every hour
until a decided reaction is obtained.  Fetid  sweats, Avith  coldness of
the skin, sallow complexion, uncontrollable restlessness,  phantasms,
bland delirium, likewise point at Opium. 
702
LECTURE XLVIII.
  In Cerebral Typhus, Opium is indicated in the paralytic stage, by
sopor, with Ioav, muttering delirium, accompanied with symptoms of
paralysis, such as depression of the lower jaAV and upper lip and
eyelid, dilatation of the pupils, hot and dry or clammy skin, small,
rapid and jerking pulse, sunken and livid or even cadaverous coun-
tenance ; or in the congestive stage, where the symptoms of violent
congestion and erethism prevail instead of those of  general prostra-
tion of the vital forces.  The pulse may be full, irritated and throb-
bing, the skin hot and dry, the face deeply-flushed, the tongue parched
and covered with a thick,  glazed, brownish coating;  the  patient
wants to drink all the time, unless he should be so comatose that he
is no longer conscious of his natural wants.

  Opium may induce convulsions and may be used as a true homoe-
opathic agent  in such an attack. * These convulsions are symptomatic
of a violent irritation of the brain, with accompanying congestion
of the cerebral vessels and pressure upon the cerebral mass.   The
convulsions excited by Opium differ from those  caused by Strych-
nine in this, that during the Strychnine convulsions the conscious-
ness of the patient  remains unimpaired; the attack proceeds  from
the spinal  cord and cerebellum;  whereas the Opium convulsions
arise secondarily or by reflex-action, from a primary irritation of the
cerebral centres.  During the attack the features assume an expres-
sion of terror and the complexion is of a dark cherry-brown, or even
blackish color, with contraction of the pupils or alternate contraction
and dilatation.  The action  of Opium upon the  pupil varies; the
pupil may contract or dilate, or else it  may remain unaffected by
the drug.  In an attack of convulsions, to which Opium is homoeo-
pathic, the pupil may likewise be variously affected, either contracting
to the smallest dimensions or else dilating to a  size which leaves
only a narrow ring of the iris visible.   The consciousness is  sus-
pended  by the stupor or  coma which seizes  upon  the sensorium.
Froth oozes  out at the mouth; the jaAvs are tightly locked, the
breathing is stertorous and the whole  body is frequently jerked up
by the violent shock.
  If, after confinement, the  patient should show signs of sopor or
stupor and complain of a violent distress in  the head, with a heavy,
full pulse, coldness  of the  extremities,  and dark  flushes  on the
cheeks, it may be well to be prepared for  an attack  of convulsions
and to at once administer Opium, of which five drops of the tincture
may be  mixed in half a tumblerful of water, to be  given in  half
tablespoonful doses.

  In Puerperal Convulsions or Eclampsia, Opium  is  undoubtedly a
most valuable agent.
  A very interesting case of this dreadful disease is recorded in Frank's
Magazine: A lady, 30 years old, had been confined Avithout difficulty.
She was going on finely, when one morning, six  days  after her
confinement, she seemed unnaturally merry.   A few hours after, she
was seized Avith violent convulsions.  The physician arrived  after
the  third paroxysm, and found the  patient in deep  sopor, with her 
OPIUM.
703
face flushed.  Pulse large,  full, rather frequent.  Opium was ad-
ministered after the fifth paroxysm ; but the sopor was so profound
that she was unable to swallow and allowed the solution to escape
at the corners of the  mouth.  After the seventh paroxysm, which
was more violent than any  of the preceding, the twitchings of the
extremities and of the muscles became frightful; the respiration
stopped for a whole minute, after Avhich the breathing became ster-
torous, with oozing of froth and vesicular sputa from  the mouth.
The face had assumed a  blue, and even blackish hue.  After the
seventh paroxysm, the face, neck, and upper portion of the  chest,
exhibited  this change  of  color.   After  the  eighth paroxysm,  a
marked  change took place.  The  patient fell  into a quiet  sleep,
and the face, neck and chest again  assumed a natural color.   Tavo
hours after, she sat up in her bed, unconsciously performing with
her  hands  a variety  of motions ;  she uttered inarticulate sounds.
She took her medicine  easily,  but without consciousness.   This
gradually returned.  Next  morning the patient felt tolerably com-
fortable, except a  peculiar sadness and depression  of spirits, which
yielded to the use  of  Camphor in about a week.   When the case
Avas reported, the patient had been twenty-two years Avithout having
had a return of any kind of nervous disorder.
   In this case Opium was  undoubtedly the specific  homoeopathic
remedy.  Though administered by an alloeopathic physician at the
rate of five drops every tAvo hours, yet we have a  perfect right to
claim the successful treatment  of this case for  Homoeopathy.  In
reporting the case, Dr. Loweg expressly states that venesection
Avould doubtless have resulted in fatal apoplexy.
   Sometime ago we had a dreadful  case of eclampsia  in our neigh-
borhood.   Immediately after confinement, the lady complained of
violent headache,  with full  and sIoav  pulse, and some drowsiness,
but perfect possession of her senses.  A little Aconite Avas given in
a tumblerful of water.  Tavo hours after, Ave were summoned in great
haste to the patient.  She had just gone through a most frightful
convulsion ;  she Avas partially conscious ; her face looked very red,
and her eyes somewhat  suffused.   She  was unable  to articulate.
Pulse rather accelerated, full and soft.  AVe prescribed Belladonna,
one drop of  a weak tincture in a tumblerful of water of Avhich  a
tablespoonful Avas  given  every fifteen  minutes.  We  staid by  her
two  hours  and left her  perfectly  quiet, breathing naturally, and
apparently  in a sweet slumber.  Half  an hour after, we were  again
summoned to the  patient.  The convulsions had returned, a fresh
convulsion breaking  out  every fi^e minutes.   After trying Hyos-
cyamus and Cuprum aceticum Avithout the least  change in  the
paroxysms, we gave Opium, two drops of the tincture  in a spoonful
of water at one dose.  The drug was indicated by the comatose sopor
after a paroxysm, the  stertorous breathing, the bluish-red color and
bloating of the face, the full, hard, slow and thumping pulse, and  a
burning heat and dryness of the-skin.  The urinary secretions and
the lochial discharge had stopped.  After taking the Opium,  the
paroxysms ceased entirely;  the patient remained perfectly quiet for
three hours, was conscious, able to  articulate; she ansAvered  ques- 
704
LECTURE XLVIII.
 tions and seemed to feel generally easier.  We thought the change
 Avould prove permanent, when the convulsions all at once broke out
 again, without ceasing.  Opium was  still indicated.   AVe adminis-
 tered ten drops of  the  tincture in two doses, and arrested the con-
 vulsions at once.   But effusion on the  brain had taken place, and
 the patient gradually  sank about three days after the  last  dose.
 Consciousness and  speech never returned after the last attack.
   Would this patient have recovered if Opium had been given  at
 the outset ?  I think not, although there is no doubt that this  medi-
 cine Avas indicated  at the very commencement of the  attack.   The
 favorable change Avhich occurred after  the first dose of Opium,
 would undoubtedly have maintained itself,  if the vitality of the
 brain  had  not been prostrated in its  fundamental principles.   It
 Avas not Avithin the  power of medicine to save  this life; but let me
 improve this opportunity, of commending the curative virtues  of
 Opium in puerperal convulsions  to your most respectful attention.
 If your patient complains of stupefying headache,  seems drowsy,
 the pulse is  full, thumping, rather slow, and the face  looks  dark-
 flushed,  eyes suffused,  give  Opium,  from the tincture to the  3d
 potency.

   In Puerperal Mcmia, with paroxysms of excessive mirthfulness, or
 daring rage, exhibition  of supernatural strength, flushed face,  glist-
 ening eyes,  full, excited, hard pulse, and occasionally sopor and ster-
 torous  breathing, Opium will be found a poAverful remedy.  In
 puerperal mania which is  distinguished by  paroxysms of  rage,
 tendency to acts of violence,  flushed countenance, glistening eyes
 and subsequent sopor and slow, stertorous breathing, Opium  may
 likewise prove valuable.

   The first  effect of Opium upon  the sentient nerves is to diminish
 sensibility ;  hence, if numbness or  diminished sensibility are present
 among a group  of symptoms to which Opium seems homoeopathic,
 this may be regarded as an additional indication for  the use of this
 agent.

   In Traumatic or Idiopathic Tetanus, Opium has been administered
 by Old-School physicians in  enormous doses.  A feAV cures of this
 disease are recorded, Avhere Opium was used by the pint; but  as  a
 general rule, Opium has been  dethroned in tetanus by Strychnine.
 This is the  manner in  Old-School practice, even at "this day. A
 medicine is  prescribed for a nai%e, not for a pathological condition
 with inherent symptoms which distinguish it from other similar
 conditions, or which individualize it.  Cases of Tetanus may occur
where Opium may prove a valuable remedy ; in other eases Aconite
has  effected  a  cure;  many  cases require  Strychnine.   Specific
homoeopathy consists in giving the remedy which meets  an existing
group  of symptoms more directly, more immediately, more posi-
tively than any other known remedy could do; a remedy which  is
to the disease what the right answer is to a question, or  the correct
solution  to a problem ;  there  is but  one remedy which  perfectly 
opium.                         705
fulfils these various conditions of adaptation or corresponding rela-
tionship ; and it is this remedy and no other to which we apply the
name of " Specific."
  The tetanic convulsions which  Opium excites, are  not  primary
manifestations of the irritating action of the drug, like the tetanic
spasms excited by Nux  vomica.  These opium-spasms  are symp-
tomatic of  a  primary irritation  of the cerebral  fibre.  Hence they
are invariably preceded  by manifest symptoms  of violent  cerebral
congestion.  The face flushes up, the eyes become unsteady, the
facial muscles and the lips  begin to quiver; the convulsive parox-
ysm results from the mediate irritation transmitted to the  ganglionic
system from the cerebral centers.  It is only to such mediate or
secondary  spasms that opium is at all in  curative adaptation; never
to idiopathic  tetanus where the spasm  has its  origin or takes its
starting point from the spinal  marrow, or from the nervous centres
immediately  connected  with  it.  In this form of tetanus, Opium
may be given by the pint,  without manifesting any curative action.
The Opium-spasms are sometimes accompanied by general tremor
and a sensation as if the nerves should be pulled to pieces.

           2.  Effects of Opium upon the Digestive System.

  According to Pereira the usual effects  of Opium upon  the organs
of digestion are the following: It diminishes secretion and exhala-
tion from the whole  canal;  thus it causes dryness  of the  mouth and
throat, and diminishes the liquidity of the  stools; it  excites thirst,
lessens hunger,  checks the  digestive  process, (for in  some animals
poisoned by Opium, food which they had taken previously,  has been
found in the stomach unchanged; and in  some cases it excites vomit-
ing.  Kerr, in his Medical Observations and  Enquiries, tells us that
in the famine which  prevailed in the  East-Indies,  in the year 1770,
Opium Avas purchased by  the unhappy sufferers, at  extraordinary
prices, to allay the cravings of  hunger, and to banish the dreadful
prospect of death.   The Tartar couriers, who travel immense dis-
tances in a  short period of time, take Opium only during the journey,
to support  them.  It diminishes the  sensibility and contractility of
the digestive organs;  hence the  difficulty, in severe cases of poison-
ing, of producing vomiting.  The constipation which follows the use
of Opium,  depends partly on the same cause, and in part also on the
diminished secretion  of  bile, and  a diminished secretion from the
gastro-intestinal mucous membrane.   Sprcegel  found the ductus
choledochus of animals to Avhich Opium had been  given, filled with
bile; vet it had not passed into the  intestines,  for the faeces were
scarcely tinged by it, but  had the appearance which we observe them
to have in jaundiced patients.
  The digestive functions of Opium-eaters, are entirely ruined; they
eat  by fits and starts, or have no desire for food Avhatsoever.  Opium
may cause  nausea and vomiting, e\er\  vomiting  of blood; it also
causes an indescribable distress in the pit of the stomach; but these
are  exceptional cases and cannot be  considered  as regular  effects of
Opium.  These effects of the action of Opium may suggest its use in 
706
LECTURE XLVIII.
  Acute Cardialgia, with distress in the pit of the stomach, vomiting
of blood and mucus, attended with symptoms of cerebral congestion,
flushed face, protruded and suffused eyes, or  else  paleness,  sopor,
cold skin, and thin, hurried  pulse.
  In Atony  of the Stomach, induced by the excessive use  of ardent
spirits, with variable appetite, or complete anorexia,  Opium may
restore the irritability of the lining membrane.
  In Vomiting, the sour vomiting of children for instance,  or vomit-
ing of drunkards, accompanied or followed by sopor or stupor, flushed
face, cold  extremities, Opium is useful.

  Diarrhoea even has been  caused  by Opium in its primary  action
upon the  boAvels.  In the case of a  lady avIio was  in  the habit of
using Opium  for toothache, a watery diarrhoea came on,  Avhenever
she used  this drug  for such a purpose.   This  may haA'e been the
result of a peculiar idiosyncrasy.   In the case of this patient,  if she
had been  attacked  by watery diarrhoea, in consequence of exposure
for  instance, Opium  might have proved a true remedial agent.  A
middle potency might have been sufficient under such circumstances.
Many of Joerg's provers were attacked Avith diarrhoea  preceded  by
cutting pains in the bowels.
  As a general rule the primary effect of Opium upon the  bowels is,
to diminish  the  alvine secretions.   This, however, does not militate
against the use of Opium in certain forms of
  Diarrhea, where the stools are slimy or Avatery, and of an exceed-
ingly foul smell.  In diarrhoea, to which Opium is homoeopathic,
unmistakeable signs of cerebral congestion are generally present,
such as violent  headache,  drowsiness, vertigo, flushed face;  even
typhoid  symptoms,  a dry,  bro\vn and  parched  tongue,  excessive
prostration,  dry heat of the skin,  unquenchable  thirst, small, rapid
and rather jerking pulse, may characterize such an attack of diar-
rhoea.   For the  purpose of  illustrating my remarks, I Avill read the
following case from the Archives Generalts, a French medical pub-
lication.
  A sailor,  aged forty years, of good constitution, but impoverished
in consequence of miserable fare, Avas brought to the hospital in the
following condition: Pale face; eyes sunken; sullen expression of
the countenance, with alteration of the features expressive  of distress
in  the bowels;  pulse small, feeble, hurried and  irregular;-scanty
secretion  of urine;  but frequent, or rather unceasing discharges of
yellow, watery, fetid stools.  After the ineffectual employment of a
variety of means, the patient became much Avorse.   On the third day
after his  reception in the hospital,  the  stools  Avere passed Avithout
consciousness; the patient  had groAvn thin; the  tongue Avas  rather
dry, the abdomen tympanitic, the head confused, features elongated;
oppression on the chest, and rattling breathing.  He was put on the
extract of Opium, in half  grain doses,  of Avhich he took fourteen
grains in the space of six  days.  The diarrhoea ceased without any
symptoms of narcosis having made their appearance, and Avith proper
nourishing  diet, his strength returned and his health was completely
restored. 
OPIUM.
707
  Another case, from the same publication, is that of an elderly man
of broken-down constitution, who was sent to the hospital with the
following symptoms: Features elongated, Avith an expression of dis-
tress ; consciousness very  much impaired;  frequent,  involuntarv,
fetid and very liquid stools.  The patient grew very thin, became
delirious, the diarrhoeic discharges took place incessantly, the tongue
was dry, the urine reddish  and the skin cold and clammy.  Under
the use of the extract of Opium, of which he took thirteen grains in
the space of a week, he was completely restored at the close of this
period.
  Would it have been proper for a homoeopathic physician to treat
these cases with Opium ?  Gentlemen, I have no hesitation in saying
that  during the last ten years I have arrested  hundreds of cases of
diarrhoea, when the discharges were watery, greenish, brown or even
blackish, and  of a foul smell, Avith accelerated, rather hard, at times
thin  and at other times full pulse, feverish skin, or cold and clammy
skin, with dizziness, impaired intellection, by administering a few
drops of the tincture of the root of Aconite in a small tumblerful of
water.   It is especially if the diarrhoea had  arisen  from continued
exposure and poor  living,  that Aconite  proved useful.  In other
cases of this kind, Arsenic may be required.  But supposing Acon-
ite and  Arsenic should  fail you, the case may be one of  those few
where  the diarrhoea may be traceable to just such an irritation in
the cerebral tissues as may specifically correspond with the action of
Opium  upon  the brain.   Some cerebral  symptoms, congestive or
typhoid, Avill undoubtedly stand out as prominent indications for the
use of  this agent.
  The Old-School mode of  using Opium in diarrhoea, is  sometimes
productive of dangerous and even fatal cerebral congestions.   The
sudden checking  of the diarrhoea which is very frequently a natural
relief to abdominal congestion, forces the congestion back upon the
brain.   The diarrhoea is a curative effort instituted  by  the brain for
the  purpose of relieving abdominal congestion.  A large  dose of
Opium  paralyzes the curative action of the brain in this direction,
and  transfers  the pathological process to the  central  organ of all
vital activity, where the  first perception of every disease which in-
vades the organism, must necessarily take place.  Hence dangerous
cerebral congestions, paralysis and even apoplexy may be the  con-
sequences of such a supremely silly  and destructive treatment.  In
a case of cerebral congestion arising  from

  Sudden Suppression of Diarrhea by Opium, or even by other causes
such as a sudden fright, you will find the  tincture of Aconite one
of your most valuable remedies, far superior to Belladonna or Hyos-
cyamus or any other drug.  The exceptions to this rule are very
few indeed.

  In Lead-Colic, or painter's colic, Opium is one of the most valuable
remedies.  It restores the action of  the mucous exhalants,  moves
the bowels and arrests the spasmodic pains.  It may have to be
given in doses of from one to five drops every hour. 
708
LECTURE XLVIII.
  In common  Constipation  arising  from a deficient flow of  bile
through the ductus choledochus, and from consequent deficiency of
peristaltic  action, Opium is a most useful remedy; the faeces may
consist of small, hard balls, and either look blackish or discolored.
  Kopp, in his Afemorabilia, speaks of an old hypochondriac Count,
Avho had been obliged for years to swallow a lew pills of Aloes in
order to have  his boAvels moved.   One day he  was attacked AArith an
irritation on the chest for Avhich the Doctor prescribed Opium.   This
led to the accidental discovery that, as long as the Count took Opium,
his boAvels  moved naturally.
  A lady had been troubled with  the piles for years.  Every week
she had to  take a cathartic, in order to  have a passage.  Whenever
she used Opium, she had a natural passage.

  In Symptomatic  Constipation, which may occur as a feature in the
marasmus of drunkards, among  a group of symptoms where a cold
and dry skin, sallow complexion, loss  of appetite, trembling  and
weakness,  dullness of intellect, emaciation, constitute  characteristic
indications, Opium may be indispensable.
  A remarkable illustration of the curative power of Opium in
  Ileus or  Volvulus, is found in Frank's Physiological Magazine. A
lady, in  the fifth  month of pregnancy,  had taken some Cina for
worms.   She  passed a few worms, but  the bowels became costive.
The abdomen was distended, painless;  she  had little appetite, not
much thirst, nor Avas there any fever.   The constipation defied all
cathartics; the abdomen became painful; vomiting set in, first vom-
iting of mucus and  afterwards  of faeces.  Emollient  fomentations,
even injections. of tobacco,  remained  fruitless.  Gangrene of  the
bowels was considered inevitable. The extremities had become cold,
and covered with a clammy SAveat.   Singultus had set in, with fre-
quent discharges of copious  quantities of a watery  urine.   This  fact
led the attending physician to diagnose spasmodic  ileus, and with a
trembling  hand he gave the patient  a grain of Opium.  That same
night, a discharge of white mucus took place, and when  the physi-
cian reached  the house, several vessels had been filled  with both
liquid and  hard faeces, mingled with lumbrici.  The emaciated patient
soon reco\Tered, and gave birth to a healthy  child.

  Opium has been given with success in
  Incarcerated Hernia, in variable doses, from  the middle potencies
down to the tincture and first, second or third decimal triturations.
Soon after  Opium begins to act, the  constipation yields, and by
means of gentle manipulations the bowel slips back into the abdomi-
nal cavity  Avith a gurgling sound.   Opium may even prove curative
after faecal vomiting has set in,  and the constricted parts assume a
purple color.

            3. Effects of Opium upon the  Urinary System.

   The general action of Opium  upon the ureters and bladder seems
to be to diminish the sensibility or the contractility, or both, of the 
OPIUM.
709
bladder  and ureters.  Alloeopathic physicians avail themselves of
this knowledge for the purpose of palliating the pain caused by the
passage of a calculus through the ureter.  They give  Opium in a
palliative dose, from twenty to thirty drops or more, as the case may
be.  Strictly speaking, this need not be considered as an infraction
of the homoeopathic law.  The  healing law has nothing to do with
a case like this.  AVe are summoned to afford relief from pain; Ave
have to diminish the spasmodic irritability of the fibre and at the
same time depress the sensibility of  the  tissues.  We frequently
accomplish this result with very small doses of Aconite, Belladonna,
Chamomilla or Nux vomica   The most appropriate means of relief,
in some cases, may be a palliative dose of Opium.  If  a homoeopa-
thic practitioner  should,  under such circumstances,  sacrifice his
patient to  the  dogmatic application of an essentially humane and
all-providing law, he would become recreant to the duties Avhich he
owes to common humanity, and he would  not only stultify himself
in the  eyes of all enlightened  homoeopathists, but  expose the sacred
and life-saving art of Homoeopathy to disgrace and derision.
   In some cases of poisoning  by Opium, the bladder has been found
quite full, although no urine was voided; hence in
   Retention of Urine, caused  by deficient irritability of the fibres of
the bladder, Opium Avould be a true homoeopathic agent.  This con-
dition  may occur as a symptom in cerebral affections to Avhich Opium
is homoeopathic, such as delirium tremens, typhus.  It may occur as
an habitual condition in the case of  old topers, in which case it may
be associated Avith habitual constipation and depression of the cerebral
reaction  as characterized by imbecilit}', loss or decrease of memory,
droAVsiness, anorexia.  If Opium causes paralysis of the' sphincter,
as it sometimes  does, an  involuntary discharge  of  urine ensues;
hence an

   Involuntary Flow of Urine, caused by paralysis of the sphincter,
would be relieved by Opium, unless some other medicine should be
more specifically indicated. These peculiar conditions  of the blad-
der  may co-exist with  other  symptoms in more general derange-
ments, to which Opium  is  homoeopathic, such as: Delirium tremens,
typhus, mania; such secondary conditions, if met  by  the drug, con-
stitute  additional confirmations of its homoeopathicity to the general
disease.
   In spasmodic conditions Avhere Opium is indicated, the involuntary
discharge of watery urine Avould not counter-indicate this agent.

         1. The Action of Opium upon the Sexual  Organs

Deserves our especial consideration.  The first effect of Opium is to
cause an increase of the sexual desire and poAver.  This, hoAvever,
may be followed by the opposite condition of impotence.  Hence we
prescribe Opium both for
  Abnormal Sexual Excitements, manifested  by libidinous  fancies,
violent erections, dreams, nocturnal emissions,  and for
  Impotence, Avithout desire, occasioned  by previous abuse, or by
abuse of spirits, coffee. 
710
LECTURE XLVIII.
  In affections of the female sexual system Opium may be of great
use; its curative powers in
  Nymphomania, especially in the last stage of this dreadful disease,
when the organic powers of the system seem threatened with para-
lysis, the lower jaw is depressed, and  a ropy saliva is hanging out at
the corners of the mouth ; the skin is cold and clammy, the patient is
emaciated, the  pulse hurried and empty, the alvine  evacuations take
place involuntarily, and what little  power  of the  brain  is left, is
directed towards sexual things, as evidenced  by the  character  of the
muttering delirium, provided the power to articulate  is not altogether
extinct; in this condition Opium may still prove useful.
  In the case of parturient females, if the labor-pains are of a spas-
modic and distressingly-painful nature, Opium is one of the remedies
which relieves these pains.

         5. Action of Opium upon the Respiratory System.

  Opium causes dryness in the larynx, hoarseness,  a dry and spas-
modic cough, with  blueness  of the face, and subsequent sopor and
cold SAveat.  It has also caused spitting of blood, and may therefore
be useful during the spasmodic stage of
   Whooping'-cough,  and in some forms of
  Hemoptysis.  You recollect  that the provers of  Professor Joerg
experienced oppression on the chest, aching and stitching  pains in
the chest striking from the fore to the back part of the chest, burning
distress in the chest, hacking cough.
  The breathing ist likeAvise powerfully affected by Opium.   It is
sometimes stertorous, at others  so superficial  that it  is scarcely per-
ceptible.  It is likewise irregular, and may even intermit  at times for
"a feAV minutes.
  In  cases of  poisoning with  Opium,  the lungs have  been  found
inflamed, and  turgescent Avith air and a black, frothy blood.  These
various symptomatic and  pathological  manifestations  convey the
impression that in certain forms of
  Pulmonary  Congestion, characterized by such  pains  as  we have
described, oppressive and stitching pains, burning distress,  with the
cerebral symptoms  characteristic of the action of Opium  upon the
brain, spasmodic cough, expectoration of a black, thick  blood, Opium
may prove a most useful remedy.
  In  consumptive patients,  an  attack of haemoptysis may often  be
relieved by Opium even if the original disease is incurable.
  The haemoptysis of drunkards often yields  to Opium.

  Opium may cause a burning distress in the region of the heart, as
from red-hot coal.  In cases of  poisoning the ventricles of the heart,
particularly the right, have been found to contain a quantity of black,
coagulated blood, the auricles being empty and  relaxed.   These
symptoms and post-mortem  appearances  show the  great use  which
Opium may afford in certain forms of

  Congestion of the Heart, Avith burning distress, such as drunkards 
OPIUM.
711
may complain of, or as is sometimes experienced in consequence of
violent grief, mortification or disappointment.

           6. Action of Opium upon the Vascular System.

   Small  doses  of Opium raise, and large doses depress the pulse.
During a paroxysm of convulsions caused  by Opium, the pulse is
generally hurried;  during sopor or coma, it  is' generally slower and
weaker than natural.  There are exceptions to this rule.  In  some
cases of poisoning we  find the pulse quicker than in its normal con-
dition.  These differences may in a great measure depend upon pre-
existing constitutional peculiarities, and upon peculiar idiosyncratic
relations betAveen the brain and the poison.  Under any circumstances,
the pulse is no criterium for the selection of Opium.  The homoeo-
pathicity  of Opium to a given disease, depends upon the cerebral
symptoms more than  upon  any other.  In view of these symptoms,
Ave find Opium  indicated in  the  cerebral diseases which we  have
mentioned in our first category or division entitled : Action of Opium
upon the  Cerebro-Spinal Axis.

                 7.  Action of Opium upon the Skin.

   Opium diminishes the sensitiveness of the skin, but it  promotes
cutaneous perspiration. This is true, however, only of massive doses;
small doses seem to have a tendency to diminish the cutaneous action.
We mean by this  that the  primary action of Opium, which  is to
promote the cutaneous secretions, is met by the opposing  action or
reaction of the organism, and that this reaction is characterized by
heat  and dryness  of  the skin.   Hence,  in  typhus-fever, delirium
tremens, or any  other  disease to which Opium is  homoeopathic, heat
and dryness of the skin and a moderately excited pulse would con-
stitute additional indications for the use of this agent.  In such cases,
Opium should  be  giA'en in small doses.  On the other hand, the
symptoms of organic  reaction in a sinking condition, as  it were,
might be  a cold and clammy  skin, feeble and irregular pulse, sopor,
incipient paralysis of the brain.  Under these circumstances Opium
might still be homoeopathic  to the symptoms.  But you would  have
to give a larger dose.  Aly rule is, and I think it is founded in reason
and experience:  During the first stage of organic reaction I give
small doses, during the latter stages of reaction I give comparatively
larger doses.  If, in a case of cerebral typhus,  Opium should be
specifically  indicated  during  the first stage of  reaction,  with the
symptoms of congestion fully developed, a full, bounding pulse, hot
and dry skin, flushed  face, glistening eyes, a moderate dose of this
agent, say the 6th or even 12th potency may be sufficient to enable
the vital  reaction to triumph ; but if Opium should be indicated in
this disease during the latter stages  of reaction, with.the  signs of
paralysis impending over the brain, depression of the lower jaAV and
eyelids, clammy skin, feeble, quick, irregular pulse, vacant and extinct
look, cadaverous countenance, fetid and involuntary discharges from
the bowels, I should deem it necessary to use a larger dose, from the 
712
LECTURE XLVIII.
third down to the first potency or even a drop of the tincture  in  a
tumblerful of water.
   We may here add that the dryness of the skin caused by Opium,
is often accompanied by  itching and stinging.

   Opium is not much used in eruptive diseases.  Its action upon the
skin  is simply to cause a redness and itching of the skin, Avith  the
appearance of blotches after scratching.  Nevertheless, it  may fulfil
important uses in exanthematous diseases.   If an acute eruption, for
instance, should manifest a tendency to strike in, the brain becomes
prostrated, symptoms of  coma or paralysis supervene, Avith cold and
clammy skin, feeble, hurried, irregular pulse, and perhaps involun-
tary diarrhoea : Opium may prove one of our most valuable agents
to free the brain from the dangerous  prostration into which it has
been plunged by the action  of an inimical miasm.  We therefore
commend opium to your careful attention in
   Sudden Retrocession of  Acute Eruptions.  A boy, for instance, Avho
had confluent small-pox,  suddenly showed symptoms of paralysis of
the brain.  The  pulse became hurried and small,  the patient  was
taken with diarrhoeic stools  and  the pustules suddenly collapsed ;
some of them assuming a blackish appearance, and the rest contain-
ing a thin,  watery pus.   One  drop of the tincture  of Opium every
two hours, and lastly three drops every three  hours, removed the
danger and effected a radical  improvement.
   Another child,  a girl of eight years, was attacked with small-pox.
The stigmata had  already broken  out, Avhen  they  suddenly disap-
peared.  A train  of dangerous  nervous symptoms developed them-
selves, such as: convulsions,  epileptic  paroxysms, burning heat of
the skin, involuntary stools, etc.  Next day the patient became very
restless; breathing  short and moaning; chin depressed, face  and
extremities cold, forehead and abdomen burning hot, eyes half closed
with the eyeballs rolled  upwards, inability to swallow, collapse of
pulse, hippocratic countenance.  Five drops of the tincture of Opium
were  administered  at one  dose.   Half an hour after,  the  patient
became quiet, a profuse sweat broke out, the exanthem reappeared
and the patient recovered.
   In  all such cases, the small-pox miasm, or the measle or scarlet-
fever  miasm, or the  miasm  of any other  exanthematous  disease
threatens the life of the  brain, and it is  here in the inmost fibres
of this  central organ  of  vitality that the inimical principle is  met
by the specific drug-force which, if successful, compels the exanthem
to pursue its  normal course of development.  We  have a number
of agents which  act  in  this  direction, Opium,  Camphor, Arsenic
and others.

   In the successful treatment of
   Polypus, the tincture  of  Opium has  proved very  useful.   In
several German Journals, in Hufeland's Journal, in  Froriep's Noti-
zen, and in other publications, cases have been published showing
that polypus  can be removed by touching  it with  the tincture of
Opium.  Polypus of the  nose has been  successfully treated in this 
OPIUM.
713
 way.  A case is reported in Hufeland's Journal, where a nasal poly-
 pus was extirpated twice by an operation, but  grew again and was
 finally touched with  Opium.   Gradually it shrank to a  withered
 little sac Avhich was readily pinched off.
   Even  Uterine Polypus has been gradually removed by means of
 Opium.   A polypus protruded to the length of two  inches between
 the labia majora of an unmarried female of forty-three years, through
 a small aperture of the hymen which had  not been ruptured and
 was  very  firm.  The polypus bled readily at the least contact.
 Twice a day  it was  penciled pretty thoroughly with Opium.  In
 twenty days it had retreated behind the hymen.  The operation was
 continued by means of a canula to which a  camel's hair pencil was
 attached.  Within seven weeks the excrescence was entirely  de-
 stroyed.

   In Gangrena Senilis, Avhen a cure cannot possibly be  expected,
 we may afford  relief from the pain by palliative doses  of Opium.
 Even the further spread of the mortification has been prevented by
 this means.

   In the Acne Rosacea of drunkards, the burning and itching of the
 eruption  may sometimes be palliated by the internal  use of small
 doses of opium, and the simultaneous application of a mild Opium-
 wash.

                        FEVER GROUP.

   We have already pointed  out  the  specific homoeopathicity of
 Opium to
   Cerebral Typhus in the different stages of this disease.  It may
 likewise be of great  value in those dangerous forms of
   Intermittent Fever Avhere apoplexy may set in after the second or
 third attack; a fever described by Hufeland and others as
   Febris Intermittens Perniciosa, and by others as
   Apoplectic Intermittent Fever.   From three to  five drops in a tum-
 blerful of water may be given  in  tablespoonful doses every ten or
 fifteen minutes, until the dangerous comatose symptoms are effectu-
 ally controlled.

                8. Action of Opium upon the Mind.

   Opium stupefies the  mind ; it causes imbecility and stupid  indif-
 ference to pain or pleasure.  It causes complete loss of memory, or
 a  crowding of ideas upon the  mind, or of  elevated and profound
 meditations.  De Quincy informs  us that Opium would exalt his
imagination and call up the sublimest and most ecstatic fancies. In
others it  excites  frightful visions of ghosts,  demons and horrid
beasts.  It causes furious delirium  and mania with redness and
bloating of the face, or  stupor with  signs of cerebral  paralysis,
inarticulate speech, low muttering delirium.   These symptoms sug-
gest Opium as one of our mightiest agents in Typhus, Delirium tre-
mens, Mania, Imbecility and other cerebral derangements  to which
your attention has been directed before. 
711
LECTURE XLVIII.
                            SLEEP.

  AVe need hardly allude to the soporific poAvers of Opium.  Large
doses cause sopor and stupor, small doses may  excite a state of
wakefulness.   Hence, although sopor and stupor constitute  striking
indications for the use of Opium, so does on the other hand, wake-
fulness.  In some forms of hysteria ; in typhus, in delirium tremens,
or mania, where sleeplessness is a prominent symptom, it may indi-
cate Opium provided the other symptoms of the group correspond.

                          MORPIIIUM.

   }Forphium and its  salts, the Acetate and Sulphate  of Morphia, seem
to  represent the narcotizing principle  or the  active principle of
Opium  more  nearly than any other constituent of Opium.  It acts
almost  like Opium except  that its action is more concentrated, and
that therefore much smaller quantities  are required in  order to
manifest its physiological  effects.  Its  action upon  the  digestive
apparatus is more marked than that of Opium.
   In Wibmer's Toxicology a number of experiments with the pure
Morphium and likewise with its salts, the  acetate and sulphate of
Morphia 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 great agent.  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
Morphia 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 SAveat 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-tAvo minutes he felt a pain in the region of
 the bladder; his countenance 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, heaviness
 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 afterwards
 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  is more violent and stupefying, the  eyes sparkle, the face
 looks red and becomes covered with drops of sweat, the tongue looks 
MORPHIUM.
715
inflamed at the tip and edges;  the pain in the region of the stomach,
umbilicus and bladder is very marked.
  In Charvet's Essay " On the Effects of Opium," we find the follow-
ing case of poisoning by the acetate of Morphia 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 con-
tracted, afterwards fuller, the  patient being somewhat stupefied and
slightly convulsed.  Twenty-four  hours after, he was unconscious,
the head  draAvn backwards, the breathing  labored, the  face had a
bluish tint;  some phlegm in the mouth; the upper parts of the  body
were covered with a viscid  mucus, the  loAver extremities  cold and
jerked convulsively.  On the third morning  the body looked  blue,
the breathing became stertorous and slow, the pulse collapsed, the
pupils were very much contracted; gradually the face became cada-
verous and  death ensued.  The sinuses and veins of the brain were
found  turgid with blood, the A^entricles of the brain and the pleural
cavities filled "with a bloody serum, the coats of the stomach ecchy-
mosed.

   Orfila relates a short but exceedingly interesting, and instructive
case, with which we will close the physiologico-pathological history
of this remarkable agent.
   A young physician ordered twenty-four grains of the  acetate of
Morphia  in an ounce and  a  half of water.   In  ten minutes, the
patient experienced a violent  burning in the  back part of the head
and pit of the stomach, whence a formicating sensation spread along
the linea alba to the bends of the knees. Some time after, a similar
sensation was experienced in the upper extremities Avhich, 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 tongue,  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.
   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 Morphia in this affection are the violent aching pains in the
extremities  as if they should  be  crushed  to  atoms, coldness of the
extremities, formicating sensation in the upper and lower limbs, and
symptoms of violent cerebral  congestion, such as redness and bloat- 
716
LECTURE XLIX.
ing of the  face,  stupor, throbbing of the  carotids, obscuration of
sight.  Morphine may be given in doses  of from one-hundredth
down to one-tenth of a grain.  One-tenth of a grain is not a poisonous
dose,  although it may produce marked medicinal symptoms.  It
should not be given more than once or twice a day.
               LECTURE   XLIX.


                       PHOSPHORUS

Was discovered in 1669 by Brandt, a chemist in the city of Ham-
burgh, in the urine.   Phosphorus is  obtained  from the ashes of
bones which have to be burnt in the open air, and to which sulphuric
acid, Avater, and charcoal are gradually added.  The name is derived
from the Greek phos (light) and phoreo (I carry); it is also obtained
in native  phosphates, such as phosphate of lime, iron, etc.  It  is a
constituent of bones, urine;  it is said to  exist in the brain, but in
what  form is not known.  Phosphorus  should  be preserved  in a
stoppered vessel filled with water, and kept  in the dark.  It has a
garlic-like odor, shines in the dark, and  is flexible; a solution  may
be made of it, by dissolving pieces of Phosphorus in hot water,  and
shaking the solution with strong alcohol, for a fortnight, every day.
The Phosphorus will thus  be  divided into an infinite number of
globules.  The tincture  is colorless;  it should be preserved in
blackened glasses;  but  has  a strong  odor of Phosphorus,   and
vapors of Phosphorus are  formed by pouring the  tincture upon
the hand or upon water.   This tincture should not be kept too long.
Triturations may  be  made of Phosphorus  by cutting  a grain of
it into twelve or more pieces and kneading them together with a
paste  of one  hundred grains of sugar of milk and fifteen drops of
water.

  Small  doses of Phosphorus, from one-tenth to one-eighth  of a
grain, cause a sense of increased  and  agreeable vitality, increased
action of the  pulse,  increase of the cutaneous secretions, secretions
from the lungs and  kidneys.  One grain causes all these symptoms
and moreover great  sexual  excitement.  A feAV grains will induce
burning in the oesophagus and stomach, belching up of wind, nausea,
vomiting,  thirst and fever.   Poisonous  doses cause inflammation,
gangrene  and perforation of the  stomach, gangrenous petechiae on
various parts of the  body, death.
  According to Dumas, pure  Phosphorus is flexible; a  stick of it
may be bent seven or eight times ;  but  the addition of  one-three-
hundredth part of Sulphur renders it brittle.
  AVorkmen  exposed to  the fumes  of  Phosphorus, are  occasion-
ally attacked with necrosis  of the jaw-bones.  The disorganization
commences with inflammation of the  gums,  after which the teeth 
PHOSPHORUS.
717
become loose and fall out.  From the empty sockets and around the
roots of the remaining teeth a copious fetid ichor is discharged.  The
whole of the lower jaAV, from one articulation to the other, sometimes
forms, together with the soft  parts  which are attached to it, one
apparently homogeneous,  hypertrophied, osseous mass, having  a
livid appearance and perforated along the margin by small fistulous
openings overgrown with fungoid granulations.   In some cases the
teeth look black, covered with a thick layer of a firmly adhering,
viscid,  dingy substance.  This disorganization is accompanied  with
a general decay of the vital functions.  The inspired air is poisoned
by the fetor emanating from the ichorous secretion which becomes
moreover mingled with the saliva, with the food and drink,  thus
ruining both respiration and digestion.
  Considerable diversity of opinion prevails regarding the manner
in which this disorganization develops itself.  Some think  that it is
exclusively produced by the direct action of the fumes of Phospho-
rus upon the jaws.  Others, on the contrary, like Professor Wood of
this city, attribute it to the absorption of the  poison by the blood.
It may however be presumed, as Dr. Pereira very justly  observes,
that if this were the origin of the disease, other bones would likewise
show some signs of decay.  So far as we know, however, the upper
and loAver maxillae, and the frontal bone are the only bones which
have been attacked.   It is true, as Dr. Lorinser, one of the adherents
'of the absorption-theory remarks, that  individuals under the influ-
ence of Phosphorus, have  a peculiar salloAv complexion, combined
with a dull expression of the eye and gastric derangement.  But
even if our explanation of this constitutional cachexia were insuffi-
cient, there is no reason why we should not adopt both theories, that
of local disorganizing action, and of the constitutional derangement
produced by absorption.
   These distressing results may be prevented by cleanliness and a
perfect system of ventilation.  In the London factories, the dippers
wear sponges before their mouths;  and all the work-people employ
a solution of soda for washing their hands.


   Phosphorus has been very little used by allceopathic practitioners.
In some of the standard works on Materia Medica and Therapeutics,
the name of this invaluable agent is not even mentioned. Trousseau
and Pidoux, for instance; Dierbach and  others seem to ignore the
existence of this substance as a therapeutic agent.

   Phosphorus seems to be  in relation with that element or principle
in the brain which regulates  the renovation of the nervous tissue.
Physiological chemistry has determined the presence of Phosphorus
in the nervous substance, as it has the presence of iron in the blood.
As iron plays an important part in diseases of the blood, so  does
Phosphorus in affections of the  nervous  system.  If  the reproduc-
tion or supply of nervous tissue  is deficient or abnormally altered
by some cause or other, Phosphorus is, under certain circumstances,
the great power Avhich enables us to repair the damage. 
718
LECTURE XLIX.
  In order to obtain a broad and, at the same time, lucid and reliable
knowledge of the action of Phosphorus, we shall find it advantageous
to examine a few cases of poisoning by this agent, Avhich will afford
us an opportunity of  becoming acquainted with  its therapeutic
powers  in  all  their  fundamental characteristics.  A few  provings
by Sundelin, Holcombe, Bouttaz  and others will afterwards complete
our study of this eminently useful and important drug.

  Worbe relates the following case in a memoir read to the Soeiete
medicate d1 Emulation.
  A man,  twenty-eight  years  of age,  swallowed  half a grain of
Phosphorus in some hot water.  Experiencing no effect he swal-
loAved three days afterwards a grain and a half in the same vehicle.
Towards evening he complained of violent pain in the stomach and
bowels,  attended with unceasing painful vomiting and  diarrhoea.
Dr. Worbe saAV him  on the seventh day after the poisoning.  The
epigastric region was painful, the abdomen distended; he  was very
weak, could only lie on his back, and articulated slowly and with
great difficulty.   His features had a sort of fixity which impressed
upon his physiognomy a singular air of sadness, languor and wan-
dering  of mind.  The tongue and lining membrane of the mouth
looked natural:  the  lips  and skin presented a livid shade, the con-
junctiva had  a  deep yelloAV tint.   The  pulse Avas a little hard,
respiration natural, urinary secretion  normal.  Since the first day
of the poisoning, the alvine evacuations had stopped.
  In spite of an antiphlogistic treatment, the application of leeches
to the  epigastric region, baths, fomentations, cataplasms,  emollient
injections, gum-Avater, the patient grew worse,  recognized no  one,
tore off with violence everything placed  on his abdomen,   lie Avas
convulsively agitated.   The abdomen  was  contracted.   Pressure
excited plaintive cries and irregular movements.  The mouth was
tightly  closed ; after bleeding him at the instep, the stomach became
meteorized. The urinary and alvine discharges became involuntary,
respiration slow and easy; the beats of the heart regular and deep.
On the  eighth  day of the  poisoning, towards evening, the pulse at
the wrist disappeared; the Avhole body  was intensely yellow and
covered Avith a cold sweat.  He died  early next morning.
  Post-mortem  appearances:  Physiognomy unchanged;  the limbs
were not as rigid as usual.  The skin was yellow, the subcutaneous
veins of the abdomen and the upper part of the thigh very promi-
nent and arborescent; the scrotum had a bluish tint.  The  thorax
contained a quantity of blackish  serum;  the lungs were gorged
with blood, the flaccid heart contained but a small quantity of blood.
The mucous coat of the stomach was the only inflamed membrane;
the other coats  as well as the duodenum Avere pale  and flabby, the
sub-mucous cellular tissue of these viscera Avas distended by gases;
at both  extremities  of the stomach, at the cardiac orifice as well as
at the pylorus, black or rather slate-colored spots were seen, Avhich
were genuine ecchymoses.  The intestines were distended  with gas,
containing very little  fluid.  The bladder  looked healthy;  the
brain was not  examined. 
PHOSPHORUS.
719
  It is unfortunate that two of the main organs which were evidently
powerfully acted upon in this case, were not examined after death;
we  mean  the brain  and liver.  The  symptoms of jaundice which
existed in this  case  almost  from the commencement, justify the
supposition  that both functional and organic  changes had  taken
place in the liver under the action  of Phosphorus.  We find this
case commented on by Dr. Holcombe of Waterproof, La., one of the
best educated  and most interesting writers of our school.  " There
is no nice distinction recorded to show whether the  tenderness on
pressure involved also  the  hepatic region; but as the duodenum
was found healthy, we may safely infer that there was no extension
by  continuity of the gastric  inflammation to the liver.  Whatever
morbid impression that viscus may have received, Avas certainly due
to the absorption of the Phosphorus into the circulation."  We shall
afterwards learn from other cases of poisoning that Phosphorus has a
decided action upon the liver, and that it produces derangements in
the functions and structure  of this  organ which justify its use in
various affections of the liver characterized  by a jaundiced appear-
ance of the patient.

  We are informed that the stomach was found inflamed after death.
The symptoms which the patient  manifested during life, the distres-
sing and continued vomitings, the excessive distress in the epigastric
region, the  meteorism of the stomach, the expression  of fixity and
sadness in his  features, the  languor  and wandering of mind:  these
symptoms sufficiently show that the  nerve-force of  the stomach Avas
prostrated by an inimical power and threatened with utter extinction.
Let us then remember that in certain forms of gastritis Phosphorus
may prove of immense use to us.
  We are informed that  the lungs were  gorged with  blood.  We
simply point out this fact  to your attention, as introductory to Avhat
we may have to say regarding the specific action of Phosphorus upon
the respiratory organs.

  'Another  marked  feature  in this case is the state of venous con-
gestion which Phosphorus induced, and which Avas distinctly percep-
tible in the subcutaneous veins of the abdomen, thigh, and  in the
capillaries of the scrotum.  These signs of congestion most probably
arose  from  the  fact that  the liver Avas no longer able to  send the
blood which was poured into it through the vena porta, fonvard in
a purified state into the general circulation.  To sum up,  this case
teaches us that Phosphorus acts upon the stomach, liver, and primarily
upon the  nervous energy which the brain, through the great sympa-
thetic, imparts to these organs in order to enable them to fulfil their
functional destiny.

   Our next case is taken from an article on Poisoning by Phospho-
retted Materials, by  Professor Leudet of Rouen,  published  in  the
Archives  Generates de Medxcine, Alarch, 1857.  AVe find a translation
of  this case in the North-American Journal of Homoeopathy by Dr.
Holcombe, from which we make the following extract. 
720
LECTURE XLIX.
   June 3rd, 1856, at six o'clock in the evening, J. V., swallowed, to
 accomplish suicide, the inflammable material of four boxes of lucifer
 matches,  scraped off into a  wine-glassful  of brandy.   He had first
 taken a repast of solid food; the SAvallowing of the poison occasioned
 no pain in the mouth or pharynx.  In about fifteen minutes be ex-
 perienced a slight burning and pricking in the stomach, accompanied
 by eructations of Avhitish vapors through the mouth and nose.  At
 eleven in the  evening, five  hours after taking the poison,  he was
 taken with  severe pains, colic and diarrhoea; vomiting supervened,
 and at the same time excessive thirst.  He drank during the night
 six quarts of water.  The Aromiting lasted all night; in the morning,
 the patient experienced vertigo and some pain in  the kidneys,  none
 in the nape of the neck.
   The vomitings continued  during the fourth; magnesia, mucilagi-
 nous drinks and ice-water, were administered, after which the vomit-
 ing ceased entirely.
   On the fifth, a little yellowish tint appeared  in  both conjunctivae,
 especially at the internal angles.  The patient had experienced all
 night severe pain in both the upper and lower limbs.   These pains
 which he compared to cramps, persisted all the time, but underwent
 occasional exacerbations, during Avhich the muscles were stiffly con-
 tracted.   The intelligence remained perfect;  epigastric pains slight,
 but  there Avas  sensibility to pressure  in  the  epigastrium and right
 hypochondrium.  The patient took no notice of things which  Avere
 passing around him, but  his  responses were  ahvays correct.  The
 icteric coloration of the eyes  became more and more manifest, and
 extended  also to the face and extremities.
   On the  sixth of June, the jaundiced hue was very evident all  over
 the body.  He complained of lancinating darts through  the forehead
 at intervals.  About six in the evening, violent delirium supervened;
 the patient became restless, wished to get out of bed, and at last had
 to be tied.  Towards morning, delirium gave place to coma, and he
 died after a short agony.
   Post-mortem appearances:  The brain was found  healthy.  Ecchv-
 moses of extravasated blood were found under the  serous membrane
 of the lungs, and in the substance of the lungs, not amounting how-
 ever to sanguine infiltration or apoplectic effusion.  The pericardium
 and  endocardium also exhibited ecchymotic spots  underneath their
 tissues.
  The white parts, the bones, cartilages and the internal coat of the
 arteries all presented a strong icteric coloration.
  The stomach was found slightly reddened along  the lesser curva-
 ture, the general tint a little yellow. The bowels were healthy except
the lower  third of the small intestine which Avas found  distended by
a bloody  matter, mixed with faeces.  Throughout the seat  of this
bloody effusion, the mucous membrane was reddish in tint and a
little softened.
  The liver was a little more voluminous than natural, and presented
a clear yellow color, almost uniform, comparable to that of fatty liver.
It did not, however, offer any actual traces of fatty  degeneration. 
PHOSPHORUS.
721
   In this  case the  toxical influence  shows a specific tendency to
 affect the biliary apparatus, which confirms our previous deductions
 relative to the therapeutic powers of Phosphorus in affections of the
 liver, characterized by appearances of jaundice.
   Another group of symptoms to which our attention is called in
 this case, is the gastro-enteritis affecting the lower third of the small
 intestine.  We  can readily understand why the stomach  and the
 upper tAvo-thirds of the intestines showed  no traces of inflammation
 in  this case.  The patient  had eaten  a full repast immediately pre-
 vious to swallowing the poison.  The presence of the food prevented
 the irritating action of the poison until it had  become sufficiently
 freed from this mass of material to come in contact with the mucous
 lining.   This could  not well take place  except at some point in the
 loAver portion of the small intestines.   In the meanwhile a sufficient
 quantity of the poison had been absorbed to produce  constitutional
 symptoms, which were partly manifested in the  brain,  and partly in
 the extremities,  the central  focus  of the operations  of the poison
 being the  liver.  Here we  have a  trinitary cycle of phenomena
 which frequently meets us in important affections of the  liver: the
 disease  of the  liver occupying the centre, and  the distress in the
 brain and extremities the terminal  points  of  this series.  In the
 present case the brain manifested its involvement in the hepatic dis-
 ease by lancinating pains in the forehead,  and a loss of power to
 notice things;  and  the  extremities evidencing  their  sympathy by
 severe crampy pains.

   The third case is taken from the same source as the second, and
 illustrates  in a very marked manner  the specific power inherent in
 Phosphorus to derange  the hepatic functions. We find a translation
 of this case in the North American  Journal of Homoeopathy, by our
 esteemed co-laborer, Dr. Holcombe, from which we will make a few
 short extracts.
   On the  5th of June, at eight o'clock in  the  evening,  Maria Le-
 blanc, six hours after having  eaten, swallowed the combustible
 matter of a box of matches,  dissolved in a cup  of coffee.  Immedi-
 ately after  its ingestion, she had frequent eructations, and declares
 that there  issued from her mouth fumes of  a strong  garlicky taste
 which Avere luminous in  the dark.   In about three-quarters of an
 hour, she felt severe pain in the throat, a sense of swelling in the
 tongue,  and a pricking in the epigastrium.   The pain was paroxys-
 mal, at  intervals of five  minutes.  The woman  experienced great
 sense of fatigue, and there was a peculiar insensibility of the skin of
 the extremities.
  June  6th.—Nausea without vomiting; numbness of the extremi-
 ties ; formication ; sensibility so much diminished that she could not
 pick up a pin between her fingers.  In the evening she was brought
 to the hospital, pale, features  slightly changed;  had  lively thirst;
 epigastric pains more marked;  skin dry; pulse normal.
  June 7th.—Commencing jaundice;  chills;  intelligence intact.
  June 8th.—Decided jaundice, with bad taste in the mouth, somno-
lence ; the liver  is sensitive to pressure, projects  a very little beyond
                               46 
722
LECTURE XLIX.
the false ribs; more chills; fever more severe.   Pulse down to fifty
or  sixty.  Red spots are seen  on the  arms which disappear  on
pressure.
  The pain in the liver and the enlargement is increased; delirium
suddenly supervened, followed by a comatose  state interrupted  by
occasional screams.   Delirium,  coma,  dyspnoea,  yawning, loss of
intelligence, difficulty of articulation, cries, trismus terminated the
scene.
  Post-mortem  appearances:  Bloody serum in the  cavity of the
pleura and of  the pericardium; ecchymoses on the costal pleura.
Pulmonary engorgement;  heart small,  collapsed,  containing  no
blood.
  Ecchymoses under the  peritoneum; bloody  serum in its cavity.
Stomach and upper half of small intestines full of bloody mucus.
Liver larger than natural, of deep broAvn color and softened.  Spleen
also enlarged and softened, ecchymoses under its serous coat.   Blad-
der contained a large quantity  of  bloody urine and many ecchy-
moses under its mucous membrane. Ecch}'moses under the peritoneal
coat of the uterus and its appendages.
  This case again illustrates the marked specific action of Phosporus
upon the liver.  The liver was enlarged, in a condition  resembling
hepatitis, with the jaundiced tint which always accompanies this
disease.   The parenchyma of the liver was found softened.   The
transformation apparently took  place in  this way: First, the nerve-
force of  the organ was struck  down by the absorbed poison;  the
pulse went down to fifty.  The  organ became  congested, enlarged,
and gradually softened, with  the accompanying chills and burning
fever which are always present during the final dissolution of a vital
organ.
  "This case," as Dr. Holcombe justly observes, "remarkably illus-
trates the  power of Phosphorus to produce those blood-metamor-
phoses or those  modifications of the capillary system, perhaps both
at once, which result in  haemorrhages either by ecchymosis into the
tissues or by exudation into the cavities."
  The red  petechiae upon  the arms  deserve  our notice.   According
to Orfila, the petechiae caused by Phosphorus are red, containing a
somewhat bright-red, fluid-blood; whilst those  caused  by Arsenic
are black or blue.
  The numbness of the  extremities, the formication and the final
complete loss of sensation, in this case, will not have escaped your
notice.  We shall  show you, by and by, that Phosporus  may prove
eminently useful in paralysis resulting from spinal weakness.

  A man of orderly habits,  thirty-nine  years of age, had been pre-
paring for the last three years locofoco-matches in his own apartment,
where he likewise  kept the materials and the manufactured supply.
A year ago, a quantity of Phosphorus  and locofoco-matches took
fire with  a violent  explosion  and the rising of a quantity  of
phosphorated  vapor,  which he  inhaled, in consequence  of which
he  experienced a  feeling  of suffocation and  fainted.   After this
he complained  of  a feeling of weakness  in the back,  as  if crushed, 
PHOSPHORUS.
723
folloAved  by  weakness  of  the extremities  and trembling  after
the  least  exertion; lastly he  was  seized  with  a   creeping  and
twitching sensation under the skin.  At first he was tormented by
great desire for sexual  intercouse; this, however, disappeared  at a
later period, and, for the last six months, all  erectile power had left
him.  In other respects he enjoyed good health, had good appetite,
the  bowels moved  naturally, the respiration was normal, and the
functional activity of the brain seemed unimpaired.  AVhen admitted
into the hospital, both the lower limbs were so feeble that the patient
was only able to stagger for a moment or two Avith a  trembling step.
AVhen attempting to stand, his knees shook and gave way;  his hands
and arms trembled when he attempted to use them; while in a state
of rest, the muscles of the whole body, but especially those  of the ex-
tremities, seemed  to be  twitching to and fro, though they were not
painful; different'muscles or bundles of muscles twitched at different
periods.  At times the twitching stopped, but it was easily excited
by contact.  In the left arm he experienced a continual sensation of
formication under the skin; the skin all over the body had a natural
feeling, the spine was not sensitive or painful, but so feeble that the
patient was neither able to raise himself nor to remain in a sitting
posture.  His mental faculties, sensual functions, his lungs,  heart and
digestive organs, were all in a normal  condition; but he stuttered,
when  endeavoring  to articulate.  All  efforts to help  this  patient
were fruitless;  he  continued  to live  three  or  four years  longer,
although the paralysis went on increasingly.  The intelligence re-
mained perfect.
   This case is taken from a Swedish Avork by Huss, entitled "Chronic
Alcoholism," where the effects of various poisons are described.  The
chronic effects of alcohol may be considered as typical of the chronic
effects of many other poisons.
   What strikes  us above all things, in this case, is the disorganizing
action  of Phosphorus  upon  the  spinal marroAv.  According to
Arnold, Phosphorus produces  degeneration  and  deliquescence of
the spinal cord.   The effects of the deleterious action  of  Phosphorus
upon the cord, showed themselves in this case by the complete pros-
tration  of all  muscular  poAver.   The sentient as well as the motor
nervous poAver  was thoroughly assailed by the poison.   A know-
ledge of this fact may yield precious means of cure in cases of
  Paralysis of the Spinal Cord, as may be seen  from the  following
case, reported in Hufeland's Journal, and quoted in Frank's Physio-
logical Alagazine: A girl of sixteen years, with a broken-down con-
stitution, and having never yet menstruated, had been confined for
three years Avith paralysis of the spinal marrow.   She was  unable to
turn about in bed or to sit up, and sank down utterly poAverless if an
attempt was made to raise her.   The paralysis had come on and had
developed  itself  gradually;  in other respects the patient did  not
complain much.   For the last two years  she had been attended by a
physician without experiencing any benefit from  his treatment.   Dr.
Frank, who reports this case, finally put her on the use  of Phos-
phorus  dissolved in ether, of which  solution she took  twenty-five
drops four times a day.  The strength of the  solution is not stated, 
724
LECTURE XLIX.
but it was very probably two grains of Phosphorus in  an ounce of
ether.  Two months after  this treatment had been commenced, the
patient was able, for the first time in three years and a half, to leave
her bed and walk on t\vo crutches; gradually she only required a
cane for her support, and  some time after, the menses made their
appearance.   The Phosphorus Avas continued, together Avith baths in
which some sulphuret of potash was  dissolved.   Some six  weeks
after the first menstrual period, the patient was able to  walk  half a
mile without an effort, and without using a cane.  The improvement
proved permanent.

  A most interesting and instructive  case of  poisoning  by  Phos-
phorus is contained in the January number of the American Journal
of Medical Sciences.  A soldier, twenty-one years of age, sAvalloAved
the ends of six ordinary packets of locofoco-matches in  order to de-
stroy himself.  Three hours afterwards, he was  seized with frequent
attacks of vomiting, in consequence of which a large quantity  of the
matches Ayas expelled.   Flis pulse was frequent, tongue coated, head
hot; he complained of headache.
  An emetic was given;  cold applications were made to the head, and
Magnesia milk administered in considerable quantities.  A greenish
fluid was vomited  up, with undigested  food, mucus, and some ends
of the matches; the fluid did not emit any odor of Phosphorus.  The
remainder of the  report Ave take from  the North American Journal
of Homoeopathy, to whose pages Dr. Peters has transferred it in an
abbreviated form.
   The next  day after using the emetic,  the headache was less seA^ere,
pulse ninety-tAVo;  stomach but slightly sensitive to pressure, but
there were pains in each hypochondrium.
   In the afternoon, the turgescence of the face had increased, as had
also the hypochondriac pains; there was burning  thirst,  Avith  dry-
ness of the mouth; the headache had  completely disappeared;  the
urine was highly colored  and  frothy;  its specific gravity increased,
and it Avas found to contain albumen and exudation cells; this state
of the urine continued during the whole course of the disease.
   Three days after the  Phosphorus had been taken, the  thirst and
dryness of the month, with the hypochondriac pains, had  increased,
and there were, moreover, darting pains in the chest.  The tinge of
the face, was heightened, the sensibility of the epigastric  region more
marked, and the  tympanitic percussion-sound of the stomach more
extensive.   Leeches and ice were applied to the epigastric region;
ice was given internally,  with  the view of assuaging the intense
thirst; the Magnesia was also continued.
   The above symptoms  persisted, and the face assumed a remarkable
bluish-red color, except a colorless band of about an inch in breadth,
which extended  from the  highest point of the forehead  down to the
median line of the chin, and was sharply defined, giving to the face
a most peculiar appearance.
   On the fourth day, the pains in the hypochondrium had someAvhat
abated,  but  those of the breast  had  become intolerable, Avithout there
being any physical signs  of disease of the chest.  The  bluish-red 
PHOSPHORUS.
725
color of the face had  changed into a perfectly cyanotic hue, the
median line of the face continuing free from all color.  The epigas-
tric pain had ceased.  The patient SAveated profusely, and the vapor
arising from the body gave out an intensely phosphoric odor.
  A peculiar symptom now showed itself: depiivation of sight.   The
patient, who retained perfect consciousness, stated that in the hori-
zontal position he-could perceive a feeble ray of light, but that when
he sat up he could not see at all;  the pupils were so dilated that only
a narrow ring  of the iris was visible;  they were influenced by the
light.  He now complained of darting pains in the eyeballs.   The
pulse was one hundred, but moderately full and strong; in the after-
noon it rose to one hundred and forty, and was small  and weak.
The sense of hearing was lost, the extremities were cool, and the
second sound of the heart was no longer audible.
  The patient, who was still perfectly conscious, died tranquilly.
  Post-mortem appearances: The brain was pale, bloodless, and  softer
than natural;  the ventricles contained a trace of serum; the sinuses
were distended with dark, fluid blood.
  The lungs were of a dark-red color;  in the right lung were  many
patches of extravasated blood ; the sub-pleural cellular tissue had
numerous ecchymoses;  the pleura contained much bloody serum.
  The pericardium contained a little reddish serum; the heart Avas
soft, the left ventricle empty; the right ventricle and the great veins
contained much  blood, partly in a  state of loose coagulation and
partly fluid.
  The liver was to some extent enlarged, fatty and perfectly blood-
less.  The spleen was bloodless.
  The cortical substance of the  kidneys was granular.  The Afalpi-
ghian corpuscles resembled red points.  On a microscopic  examina-
tion, the uriniferous tubuli were found  blocked  up Avith exudation-
matter.
  The reporter of this case, Dr. Nitsche,  remarks,  with respect to
the existence of albumen in the urine, and the signs of commencing
Bright's disease, it is not likely that  this condition was present be-
fore the reception of Phosphorus,  for the patient's  previous health
was excellent.  It is much more probable that the lesion of the kid-
ney was produced directly by the Phosphorus, for the same has been
observed  in  instances  of poisoning by  other  agents.   Aloreover,
argues the Doctor, it should be remembered  how much the kidneys
are exposed to  injurious  influences in the  separation of noxious
materials from the system.

  A good deal of valuable and important information may be de-
rived from this case  regarding the treatment of pulmonary, hepatic
and renal diseases.
  According to Dr. Peters, the renal degeneration suggests the use
of Phosphorus in Bright's disease of the  kidneys.   He  infers this
from the fact that the urine contained  albumen and  exudation-cells
during the life of the patient, and that the  cortical substance of the
kidneys was granular.
  This writer, it seems to me, has put a rather liberal interpretation 
726
LECTURE XLIX.
upon these phenomena.   They seem to  me  to indicate simple des-
quamative congestion  of  the kidneys, unless we  choose to consider
every state of inflammatory irritation of the kidneys resulting in
the secretion of albumen and exudation-cells in the urine, as a form
of Bright's disease.  In Bright's  disease, after  coagulation  of  the
albumen, the specific gravity of the filtered fluid, according to Chris-
tison, is found to fall  four, five or  even seven units, especially at a
later stage of the disease.  In the case before us, the specific gravity
of the urine had increased.   It was high-colored and frothy, showing
that the renal affection Avas of an inflammatory character.
  There is  great danger in determining the homoeopathicity of a
drug to a given disease by the post-mortem appearances in a  case of
poisoning.  Here Avas exudation  in the uriniferous  tubes, and  a
granular appearance  of  the cortical substance.   But  the cortical
substance of the kidneys is constitutionally granular, "a soft, reddish,
sometimes yellow layer of a granular appearance,"* which appear-
ance may have become more distinct in consequence of the general
inflammatory irritation pervading the tissues of the organ. "Bright's
disease," says Lehmann, one of the  great physiological chemists of
the age, " is, as is well known, a term of very wide significance ; but
if we limit it as much as possible, and merely include under the term
a degeneration of the tissue  of the  kidney, more especially of  the
cortical substance,  whether of a  fatty or  other  character, we may
regard the presence of albumen in the urine as  a constant symptom
of this disease.  But in transitory renal catarrh, such for instance as
occurs in erysipelas nearly as frequently as after scarlatina, albumen,
together with the well known epithelial cylinders of Bellini's ducts,
is found as constantly in the urine as in inflammatory affections  of
the kidneys, where it is associated with the fibrinous  plugs  of the
same ducts, and as in true Bright's disease.   It is almost unnecessary
to observe that the presence of pus or blood  in the urine necessitates
that of albumen, but  it is  worthy of notice that  a little albumen,
together Avith  mucus-corpuscles, is  always found in uncomplicated
severe catarrhs of the mucous membrane of the bladder."
  My object in expatiating upon this theme is to caution you against
prescribing for mere  names.  If you find albumen and exudation-
casts in the urine, you are not only at liberty, but it behooves  the
dignity of  your  profession to  determine,  by all  the  perceptible
phenomena of fhe  disease, the exact character of the  functional or
structural  derangement which you are desired  to  remedy. You
may call the form of albuminuria which presents itself to your care,
Bright'' disease of the kidneys, or desquamative  catarrh of the kid-
neys, or congestion of the cortical and  tubular substance of the
kidneys;  the main point will be to satisfy your mind  that Phospho-
rus is the right  remedy in the case;  that the curative force repre-
sented  by  Phosphorus, corresponds with  the  morbific  principle
which is developing the pathological process before us; facts should
undoubtedly guide you in determining this  point, but you may not
always be  able to get along without some sort of intuitive illumina-
tion in wandering through the labyrinth of  structural pathology.
                        * Cruveilhier, p. 437. 
PHOSPHORUS.
727
  If a case of albuminuria is complicated with symptoms of hepatic
and  pulmonary derangement indicating Phosphorus, our choice  of
this agent Avould of course be confirmed by the presence  of these
affections.   Granular liver and  pulmonary tuberculosis  may be
ranked among this number.

  The condition of the lungs in this case next requires our attention.
We are informed that ' 'the lungs were of a dark-red color; in the
right lung were many patches of extravasated blood."  The patient
complained  of intolerable distress in the chest, which continued to the
last moment of his life.
  Here are sure indications that Phosphorus affects most deeply the
nervous life of the lungs bringing about its gradual extinction and
marking the process of dissolution with signs of engorgement, bloody
infiltration, ecchymoses, effusion of bloody serum in the pleural caA'i-
ties.   Hence we shall find Phosphorus indicated in
  Pneumonia, especially when sanguineous infiltration of the paren-
chyma has  taken place, in  the stage of red hepatization, and like-
Avise in
  Apoplexy  of the Lungs, the face being very livid like  that of per-
sons Avho die of suffocation.   In
  Pleuro-pneumonia, with effusion of bloody serum  in  the pleural
cavity, Phosphorus may prove curative, especially in  the case  of
strumous individuals Avhose blood is  constitutionally impoverished
and  is very readily decomposed and consequently prone to lead to
exudations.

  AVe are told that the liver was found enlarged, fatty and perfectly
bloodless.   Here then we have another proof of the  specific action
of Phosphorus upon the liver as a disorganizing agent.   In a former
case of poisoning we pointed out the homoeopathicity of Phosphorus
to cirrhosis  of the liver, also described as granular, inammillated or
hob-nail  liver;  the present case shoAVS us that Phosphorus may be a
valuable agent in
  Fatty Degeneration of the Liver,  in which disease, according to Dr.
Addison,  the skin of the face and even of the whole body, acquires a
remarkably bloodless, almost semi-transparent and Avaxy appearance,
sometimes like polished ivory, and, in  other  cases,  with a saltow
tinge, resembling a common wax model.

  The appearances in the stomach  claim our  attention.  The sensi-
tiveness in the epigastric region led to the inference that the poison
had developed inflammation of the stomach, and yet  the only disor-
ganizations  revealed by a  post-mortem  examination,  were some
hyperaemia of the fundus  of the stomach, and a quantity of mucus
adhering  to the mucous membrane of the stomach.   We judge
therefore that the large dose of the poison  at  once  so  completely
prostrated the vital reaction as to prevent the development of signs
of inflammation.  In the  experiments made by Orfila, Giulio and
other physiologists upon animals,  Phosphorus  seems to have uni-
formly produced signs of inflammation in the  stomach, oesophagus
or small  intestines. 
r
 728                     LECTURE  XLIX.

   It appears from this case, however, that Phosphorus not only acts
 as an irritating poison, producing inflammation of the mucous mem-
 brane, wherever it comes in contact Avith  this tissue for a sufficient
 length of time ; but that it  likeAvise extinguishes the nervous life of
 organs, not through primary lesions inflicted upon the brain, but by
 its direct action upon the ganglionic system.  This is  evident from
 the progressive extinction of all organic life in the present case, the
 patient preserving his consciousuess to the last.   The last sign of this
 extinction of innervation was the complete  loss of sight.
  Amaurosis, especially when sitting up, in which position the sink-
 ing heart was no longer able to send a sufficient supply of blood to
 the brain to feed its last flicker of organic vitality.
  A great lesson is here taught us.  We are taught that Phosphorus
 may aid us in restoring the  organic  life of the eye.  In impaired
 vision or even incipient amaurosis arising from deficient innervation,
 Phosphorus may be of use to us.  The eyeball is threatened with
 marasmus.  Deep-seated aching pains, lancinations through the eye,
 an abnormal bluish appearance of the cornea, a diffused redness as if
 the blood had lost its plasticity, are some of the signs of this organic
 decay, which may even extend to other special senses, the sense of
 hearing, or even  to the  teeth.  Phosphorus impairs  innervation,
 impoverishes the blood, destroys its  plasticity, renders it unfit for
 purposes of reproduction.  The  question  may  be raised, and  has
 been raised: Is the  toxication of the blood transmitted  from this
 fluid to  the nervous system, or does this  system receive the first
 shock of the poison ?  To me it  seems  reasonable to suppose that
 both the nerve-force and the blood-life are assailed. The nerve-force
 which maintains the vitality of the blood, is extinguished by the
 poison; hence the universal torpor and  clogging in the venous sys-
 tem, and the tendency to haemorrhagic effusions in the arterial capil-
 laries ; physiological facts which render Phosphorus invaluable to a
 homoeopathic practitioner in the treatment of various dangerous dis-
 eases which will be pointed out in the subsequent pages.

                    CEPHALIC  GROUP.

  AVe should think that the partisans of the doctrine of dyscrasias
 must  be delighted  with  the introduction  of Phosphorus in the
 Materia  Aiedica.   Phosphorus emphatically corresponds with  the
 arthritic dyscrasia, a disease-breeding element of force, which Avhen
 excited into action  by adequate  circumstances, may develop  disor-
 ganizing processes in various organs, causing inflammation, swelling
 and intense painfulness of the affected part.   In Frank's Alagazine,
 the following interesting case of
  Arthritic Hemicrania illustrates  the curative virtues of Phosphorus
 in this affection, whenever it is in homoeopathic rapport with it.  A
 physician had an attack of rheumatic arthritis of which  he was cured
 after the lapse of  six  weeks.  Since then he was troubled with
 attacks of headache which lasted sometimes a day or more, came on
Avithout any apparent cause, and invaded at one time the forehead, at
 another the occiput, etc.   The part where the pain  was  most violent, 
PHOSPHORUS.
729
swelled, causing the most  excrutiating pain when touched  ever so
lightly.  The patient became utterly incapacitated from performing
the least mental labor.   The left eye had  become so weak  that he
was no longer able to  distinguish objects clearly.  There  was no
visible change in the appearance of the eye.   In spite of the most
careful and abstemious mode of life, the patient had an attack every
other day which lasted from two to three days without interruption.
The attacks were accompanied with an anxious  choking and retching,
lassitude in the limbs, an empty and  confused  feeling in the head,
peevishness, depression of spirits; falling out of the hair, and violent
pains in the small of the back  after the attacks; the pulse Avas ex-
tremely slow, about forty-five in the minute;  urine  pale,  watery,
having  a  sickening, sweetish  taste;  appetite  undisturbed  except
during the paroxysms when he loathed all food, felt very  thirsty,
and Avas tormented by so much uneasiness  and anxiety that  he Avas
unable to contain himself.  After having tried  a number of remedies
without benefit, he now took Phosphorus,  four grains dissolved in
half an ounce of Sulphuric ether, from twenty to twenty-five drops
every two  hours.  Already after the  third dose, he felt a pleasant
warmth over the whole body, with frequent urination, cheerfulness,
even mirthfulness; the pulse was raised; the horrid aching pain had
become transformed into a dull pain;  the patient felt disposed to be
quiet.  He transpired  over the whole body,  perspired  about the
head, slept quietly  all  night  and felt very much refreshed  next
morning ; pain and weariness had disappeared, the appetite  had re-
turned.   He  now took twenty-five drops every three hours. Next
day the improvement continued.   He felt  cheerful, and a pleasant
warmth over his whole body.   The headache had entirely left him.
  Six Aveeks after, he took a violent cold, which commenced Avith a
chill.  The headache returned with great violence.   He resumed the
Phosphorus in thirty-drop doses.   After the first dose he felt a sen-
sation of pleasant warmth all over his body; after the second dose
he  had  a quiet and refreshing sleep for five hours.  On Avaking, a
profuse perspiration had broken out;  the headache had left, he felt
well and had regained his appetite.  The urine, which hud a fiery-red
color, deposited a thick, white, slimy sediment two hours after stand-
ing. The medicine was continued for one fortnight, twenty-five drops
every two hours.   "This was,"  in the patient's  OAvn language, "the
last attack  of this prostrating headache."
  AVould a smaller dose have been sufficient in this case ?  Perhaps
so.   Five drops of this solution  every three  or four hours might have
effected all the good that a larger dose evidently did effect  in this
case.  A case like  this teaches us wisdom.  There  is no inherent
wrong in a large dose.   The wrong is in giving either too little ot
too much medicine. There is  no Avrong in curing  a patient Avith
what Ave might consider a large dose from our standing point, pro-
vided we do not inflict medicinal  suffering  upon him.  Nor  is there
any Avrong in curing a  patient Avith a very small dose, provided Aye
cure him as speedily and thoroughly as the nature of the case will
admit.  I  take frequent  opportunities of dwelling upon this point,
because it is my desire to emancipate your  minds from the thraldom 
730
LECTURE XLIX.
of a dogmatic posology.   A dogmatic  adherence to infinitesimal
doses in one quarter, or to gross material doses in other quarters, is
crushing out the spirit of free inquiry and the hope of progress in
our school.  Let us prove all things and hold fast that Avhich is good.

  Sorge's experiments upon animals, and a number of post-mortem
examinations of  the human  subject seem  to justify the use of Phos-
phorus in
  Hyperemia and consequent (Edema of  the brain;  the indications
for Phosphorus  in these  affections  are: a dull, sometimes semi-
lateral headache, extending to the upper eyelids, also  attended Avith
a feeling of  stoppage  in the nose, and generally accompanied with
dullness of the head, incapacity for mental occupations, vacuity of
mind, hypochondriac or irritable mood, feeling of extreme lassitude;
the headache is relieved by sleeping, eating or drinking a little Avine,
by exposure to the open air or Avashing the face  in  cold water, the
temperature of the head and the color of the face  are little or not at
all heightened; the pulse, if altered, is small, the  sleep restless, dis-
turbed by dreams of an obscene character, or else the sleep inclines
to sopor.  (See Sorge's admirable treatise on Phosphorus, pages 192
and 193.)
  The special senses  are  likewise  disturbed, more especially the
sense of vision, the patient being tormented by an excessive sensi-
tiveness to light.

                      NERVOUS GROUP.

  We have seen that  Phosphorus is  possessed of eminent curative
powers in
  Paralysis of the Spinal Cord, Avith the loss of sentient and motor
poAver incident to  such a  fundamental  functional  derangement.
In all
  Paralytic Conditions depending upon organic or functional diseases
of the cord, Phosphorus should be thought of as an agent that may
be of use to us.
  Phosphorus has been advantageously employed in
  Hemiplegia, even when consequent upon apoplexy, particularly in
old people, with  a  delicate, silken, shining skin, and of a  scrofulous
habit; formication in the paralyzed limb, and a thick turbid urine,
are additional indications.
  In Epilepsy, Phosphorus has been useful.  A girl of sixteen years,
Avho had exhausted her constitution by all sorts of irregular habits,
Avas troubled with abnormal menstruation.  From the slightest cause
she was moreover attacked Avith frightful  cramps in the stomach and
boAvels Avhich generally ended in  fainting.  Afterwards these par-
oxysms  gave place to epilepsy.  The precursory symptoms of an
attack were: yawning, excessive dryness of the mouth, and an aura
proceeding from the feet upwards  towards the brain.   Two grains of
Phosphorus  were  dissolved in olive  oil in which some leaves of
Hyoscyamus had been digested;  the  patient took a moderate dose
of this preparation for tAvo months  in succession every few hours, 
PHOSPHORUS.
731
and was  radically cured.  A solution of Phosphorus  in sulphuric
ether Avould have produced the same result.
  We should state that Handel, the attending physician, was induced
to prescribe Phosphorus, in consequence of the following accidental
discovery:  The patient, impelled by a sort of instinctive anxiety, as
soon as the well-known  preliminary  symptoms  of  an attack  had
shown themselves, swalloAved a tumblerful of water in which  two
drachms  of Phosphorus had been placed ; she drank about an ounce
of the  liquid, having previously taken out the  Phosphorus.   The
attack was  entirely suppressed by this means.
  In this connection it is important to remind you of  the great use
of Phosphorus in
  Affections arising from Sexual Abuse of any kind, onanism, venereal
excesses, etc.  Among these affections we number
  Dorsal Consumption, Marasmus, Trembling, Imbecility, Mania,  epi-
leptic fits and impaired digestion.

                 INFLAA1MATORY GROUP.

  There are certain specific forms of inflammation where Phosphorus
may be of eminent service.  These are
  1.  Gastritis  and  Gastro-enteritis.  In  all  the  experiments upon
animals,  Avhere Phosphorus was introduced into the  stomach, the
mucous  lining of the viscus has been found more or less inflamed.
In some  cases the coats of the stomach have been found perforated.
In a case of poisoning reported in Frank's Alagazine, Avhere from six
to nine grains of Phosphorus had been swallowed, two gangrenous
ulcers Avere found near the pyloric orifice, and a perforating ulcer of
the size of a dime at the cul-de-sac. The appearance of the stomach
in many cases is that of
   Gangrenous Inflammation, with the  mucous membrane sometimes
in a state of complete softening; the  patients vomit up  foul, dark,
greenish and even bloody masses; feel weak, trembling, have a livid,
cadaverous appearance; they complain of- horrid burning  pains in
the stomach; the extremities feel cold, the pulse is hurried, small,
the finger-nails may look bluish.  Delirium may be present.   The
patients  are exceedingly restless.

  Professor Brera gave to a paralytic patient one grain of Phosphorus
in two doses.  Towards evening of the same day she  felt consider-
ably better, Avith formication in the paralyzed limbs;  but she like-
wise complained  of a feeling of weight in the stomach.  Next  day,
a repetition of the  dose  was folloAved by the faculty of using the
limb; she walked about her room,  but complained of oppression
and burning in the stomach, formication in the paralyzed arm, and
frequent pulse.   After an interval of three days, she took a double
dose in the shape of an injection.  That day she had several attacks
of vomiting, pains in the abdomen, violent burning in the stomach
and bowels, considerable prostration,  feeble pulse, paleness of the
face, and she finally perished in spite of all antidotal treatment. .
  A post-mortem examination revealed the following symptoms: 
732
LECTURE XLIX.
The stomach and intestinal canal Avere very much distended, con-
taining  a  good deal of  combustible  gas  in the  form of a  Avhite
vapor, having an alliacious odor; there Avas no trace of inflamma-
tion in the stomach; a few red spots were discovered in the small
intestines; in the larger bowels the phosphorus-injection was found
unaltered.
  This case shows that the burning pain in the stomach, in a case
of poisoning by Phosphorus, may arise from the action of the vapors
of Phosphorus upon the  mucous lining,  unaccompanied  by any
perceptible signs of inflammation.  These signs exist in the majority
of cases, as in the following :

  A woman of  fifty-two  years, who  was afflicted  with paralytic
weakness  and pains in the extremities, took one-fourth  of  a  grain
of Phosphorus morning and evening, and  on the  fourth day, three
times. Shortly after, she vomited tasteless water, and complained of
very violent pains in the stomach.  The pains gradually spread over
the whole abdomen, but were most violent in  the stomach.   The
patient  expelled a greenish and  finally a blackish substance; the
alvine evacuations were of the same color.  The  abdomen  became
meteorized and  exceedingly sensitive; the fever which  had set in
with the pains in the stomach, was accompanied with a small, hard
and very frequent pulse.   The patient died within three days.
  Post-mortem examination: The external surface of the stomach did
not seem altered,  but the smaller  intestines were livid on the outer
surface, and even black ; the mesentery was very much inflamed. The
internal surface of the oesophagus inflamed; the internal surface of
the stomach and lesser intestines, which were all—stomach and intes-
tines—filled with a  black fluid, were dark-red, the cardiac region was
dotted Avith a large number of points (gangrened); the large  intes-
tines were not altered.

  Mucous Enteritis may yield to Phosphorus. In cases of poisoning
by  Phosphorus, the ileum has been  found filled Avith blood and
mucus; in other cases the mucous lining looked dark-red as it does
in inflammation, thickened though not ulcerated.  In forms of enter-
itis, to which Phosphorus is homoeopathic, the ganglionic system is
threatened Avith prostration, and  the cerebral action may be corre-
spondingly  impaired.   A typhoid condition, dry heat of the skin,
sallow, cadaverous countenance, coldness of the extremities, small,
hurried pulse, excessive prostration, may develop  themselves.
  Phosphorus has been employed in some forms of

  Phlebitis, especially in inflammations of the larger veins, the vena
cava ascendens, for instance, the  patient complaining of a burning
pain along the track of this vein; with sallow, jaundiced appearance,
coated tongue, prostration, constipation, dark urine.

  Pneumonia has been very successfully treated  with Phosphorus.
Fleischmann of Vienna regards it as specific in this disease.   It is
homoeopathic to the second stage of pneumonia,  when the pulmo-
nary parenchyma has become hepatized, the percussion-sound is very 
PHOSPHORUS.
733
dull, and the phenomenon of bronchophony or bronchial respiration
is fully established.   Phosphorus is indicated from the commence-
ment of  the parenchymatous solidification, even to the acme of this
metamorphosis, when the crepitating murmur has entirely ceased.
 _ Both the results of poisoning and of physiological experimenta-
tion show that Phosphorus has a specific action upon the lungs.  In
a case of poisoning reported in  Frank's Magazine, the  lower lobes
of the lungs Avere found solidified, and turgid  with venous blood.  In
experimenting upon animals, Alagendie found the  lungs exhibiting
several blue spots, of a dense and slightly crepitating tissue, the re-
maining  portion of the lungs rose-colored; he concludes from these
phenomena that Phosphorus causes hepatization.
   In  Typhoid Pneumonia, Phosphorus may  save  human life.   A
married  female of thirty-eight years, with Aveak chest, was attacked
with pneumonia which soon assumed a typhoid form. On the second
day after the attack, the patient became stupid, the pleuritic stitches
became very violent, the tongue dry, the skin dry and burning;  on
the fourth day she seemed to be in a dying  condition: dysphagia,
singultus, cold sweats set in. Phosphorus dissolved  in ether was
now given, eight  drops every half hour.  In  three hours, the  con ■
sciousness had entirely returned, the tongue  became moist, the ex-
tremities warmed up, a  warm sweat broke  out.  Phosphorus was
continued until the patient had entirely recovered.
   A very interesting case of typhoid pneumonia is that of a man of
forty-five years, several of whose brothers and sisters had died  of
consumption.  He took cold, in consequence of Avhich he had  an
attack of pneumonia.   I saw him first late in the evening, and found
him with a high fever, a severe stiching pain  in the left lung, and a
continual hacking cough, with a feeling of irritation pervading the
whole lungs.  Next  morning the symptoms looked  worse; the
patient expectorated a heavy, greenish, sanguinolent pus Avhich came
from the spot where he had  experienced the stitching pain the night
before.   The space occupied by the abscess which had evidently
formed, was about the size of a dollar.  The  pain  on  pressure was
exceedingly keen.   Typhoid symptoms Avere rapidly  developing
themselves.  The tongue looked dry,  glazed, lined  with  a dark-
broAvn coating.   The complexion was of a deep sallow, even chestnut-
brown ; skin dry and brittle.  The  patient Avanted to sleep all the
time; delirium began to set in;  he became visibly more and more
emaciated, and his  friends  confidently expected  his  death.  His
brothers  and sisters  had died in a similar manner Avith Avhat had
been considered galloping consumption.  .
  Phosphorus, third trituration, was given in  grain doses every two
hours, and in one fortnight from the beginning of the treatment, the
patient was again able to attend to business.   This agent may help
  In Chronic Pneumonia, with tearing, irritating cough, causing sore-
ness, with expectoration  of  mucus, pus and blood, especially Avhen
such a condition remains after mismanaged acute pneumonia.

  A rose-colored  Gouty Inflammation of  the ankle-joint  has yielded
to Phosphorus. 
734                     LECTURE XLIX.
  In Arthritis Nodosa, and in arthritic pains generallj', Phosphorus is
said to have done much good.
  In a case of arthritic pains reported in Frank's Alagazine, Phos-
phorus is said to have shown curative effects.  The  patient Avas a
girl of nineneen  years, of good constitution and sanguine tempera-
ment.  After bathing  in the river, she Avas  attacked by Avandering
arthritic pains, at times in one, and at other times in another limb or
articulation, with rigidity and  swelling of the affected parts.   For
six weeks she was  treated without any perceptible  benefit.   The
pains continued to shift from one part to another.  Three grains of
Phosphorus dissolved in half a drachm of Sulphuric ether were iioav
administered in eight-drop doses three times a day.  After the third
dose, the patient experienced  an  agreeable warmth in the affected
parts, perspired a good deal overnight, and felt considerably relieved
the next morning.  The medicine Avas continued in  smaller doses
for a few days longer, after which period the patient had entirely
recovered except some weakness, which speedily yielded to a strength-
ening diet.

                     ORBITAL  GROUP.

  Observation has revealed the irritating action of Phosphorus upon
the conjunctiva.   In
   Chronic Conjunctivitis, with  inflammatory irritation of the canthi
and palpebral conjunctiva, secretion of gum, agglutination of the lids,
slight  vascularity of  the conjunctiva, itching and smarting of the
eye, we shall find Phosphorus of use.  .
  In Amaurosis,  this agent may prove useful, if the eyeball is threat-
ened  with  marasmus; the patient complains of lancinating pains
through the balls, a deep-seated distress at the bottom of the  orbit;
the blindness may come in paroxysms, it  is worse when the patient
sits up erect, than it is when he is lying down; muscae volitantes,
and a  gray mist interfere Avith the vision; there is intense photo-
phobia.

                    AURICULAR  GROUP.

  Phosphorus corresponds with the deafness to which strumous indi-
viduals are sometimes subject; there may be considerable humming
and whizzing in the ear, with dryness, and occasional oozing of a
greenish mucus.

                       NASAL  GROUP.

  In Chronic Catarrh, Avith discharge of green mucus, Phosphorus
may prove useful, especially if the nose is more or less inflamed.
  Polypus of the nose has been reduced in size, and even  removed
by touching it with a solution of Phosphorus.

                      FACIAL GROUP.

  Phosphorus causes a pale and sickly appearance of the counte-
nance ; under the effects of Phosphorus  the face  looks salloAV  and 
PHOSPHORUS.
735
bloated, and finally assumes the hippocratic expression of the fea-
tures.  This group of symptoms is only of use to us as  belonging
to a more comprehensive group of phenomena, such  as  typhus  or
cholera.

                      DENTAL GROUP.

  We have seen that Phosphorus causes necrosis or an osteo-sarco-
matous degeneration of the maxillary bones.  It is important for us
to know  whether this destruction is  the result of a purely local or
chemical action of Phosphorus, or whether it is consequent upon an
absorption of Phosphorus into the general circulation, and may be
looked upon to some  extent  as a  constitutional disease.  In the
latter event, we may feel justified in recommending a trial of Phos-
phorus in
  Osteosarcoma, a disorganization for Avhich the knife seems to have
been the only desperate, and very frequently unsuccessful, remedy
heretofore.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC  GROUP.

  Phosphorus  affects  the  digestive apparatus in a very marked
manner,  which  enables us to avail ourselves of  this agent in the
treatment of several more or less important disorders.  It causes a
white coating on the tongue, and a parched and cracked  tongue, or
a tongue  covered with a blackish or  dark-colored glazed coating.
We may avail ourselves of this  symptom  in some forms of typhus,
especially abdominal typhus.
  Phosphorus also causes a slimy taste, and a loss of taste.
  It also causes excessi\re  hunger.   Bouttaz dissolved four grains
in half an ounce of sulphuric ether,  of Avhich he  took, for purposes
of experimentation, twenty drops every two hours.   After the first
dose, he  experienced nausea, which  passed off after  drinking cold
water.  After the second dose: ravenous appetite, the  pulse and
warmth of the body being  slightly raised; throughout his body he
experienced a  feeling  of  ease.  This apparent exaltation of  func-
tional action was accompanied  by  an excessive  desire  for sexual
intercourse.
  Evidently this group of symptoms denotes an abnormal functional
excitement, such as may initiate a state of prostration of the repro-
ductive energies of the organism. Hence we may recommend Phos-
phorus in
  Bulimia, when symptomatic of marasmus or  nervous consump-
tion.

  Phosphorus causes risings of air, and paroxysms like  the follow-
ing : nausea and vomiting,  also sour and bilious vomiting, preceded
by vertigo and nausea; at the same  time the hands and feet become
numb and cold, a cold sweat breaks  out on the forehead; after sev-
eral attacks of  vomiting, tAvo natural evacuations  from the boAvels
occur.
  This group of symptoms may represent a case of 
736
LECTURE XLIX.
   Gastrodynia: as may likewise be said of the following symptoms,
 developed by one-eighth of a grain of Phosphorus taken by an epi-
 leptic young man: Twenty-five minutes after swallowing the medi-
 cine, he was seized with a burning in the stomach, followed by violent
 thirst,  anxiety,  quivering  of the facial muscles, violent chill with
 coldness of the extremities.  His eyes became shining as if trans-
 figured, his lips ash-colored, pulse small;  his strength sank and he
 died.
   In this case there may have been some inflammatory irritation of
 the mucous lining of the stomach, but the nervous character of this
 group  of symptoms is  so  strikingly  marked, that we  may clearly
 interpret these symptoms as a group representing gastrodynia.

   Phosphorus may likewise prove useful in
   Scirrhous Indurations of  the stomach.  Flufeland informs us that
 he has known several  persons who had taken Phosphorus from a
 quack, and Avho afterwards suffered with  cardialgia,  bad digestion,
 chronic vomiting, constipation, and other troubles ; lastly marasmus
 and hectic fever set in; scirrhous indurations were found in their
 stomachs after death.

   Our cases of poisoning have shown us that Phosphorus may prove
 serviceable in
   Fatty Degeneration of  the Liver, and likewise in
   Cirrhosis or the so-called nutmeg-liver which sometimes is the re-
 sult of hard and continued  drinking.

   Even in the lighter forms of gastric derangement,  Phosphorus
 may prove serviceable.  The nausea and sour vomiting which Phos-
 phorus produces may render it valuable in
   Dyspepsia, characterized  by a sense  of pressure in the  stomach
 after eating, as from a load, accompanied with sour eructations and
 sour vomiting.

   We may recommend Phosphorus in
   Colicodynia, with sensations as if the bowels were cut with knives,   *
 followed by violent, copious evacuations and pressure at the stomach.
 These' symptoms have been developed by medicinal doses of Phos-
 phorus.

   In cases of poisoning by Phosphorus, patients have vomited  up
 a blackish substance resembling foul blood  and bile, and the stomach
 has been  found  filled with a blackish fluid.  AVe may therefore
 recommend Phosphorus  in cases of
   Melena, or black vomit, Avhen occurring as an idiopathic affection,
 especially when accompanied by an intense burning distress in the
 stomach.  Phosphorus may likewise be remembered in
  Black Vomit of yellow fever; we know that Phosphorus has a
remarkable action upon the liver;  hence we may expect some good
from Phosphorus in that disease.

  AVe have seen that Phosphorus will cause cramps in the extremi- 
PHOSPHORUS.
►-07
 ties, coldness, sinking pulse, serous diarrhoea, vomiting, burning in
 the epigastrium, and other  symptoms which may be regarded as a
 group representing
   Cholera of a milder type, more particularly
   Cholera morbus, to which the effects of Phosphorus  developed by
 Professor Sundelin likewise point.
   Sundelin informs us, in his Manual of Therapeutics, that he SAval-
 lowed one quarter of a grain of Phosphorus dissolved in oil, for the
 purpose of  ascertaining the effects of this agent upon the healthy
 organism.  It excited a feeling of intense heat in the  stomach, and
 afterwards  in the  whole abdomen.  Half  an hour after, violent
 vomiting and diarrhoea took place, accompanied  by distinct febrile
 motions.  After eating a thick  farinaceous soup boiled Avith  milk,
 the pains in the  abdomen soon abated, but the  stomach remained
 sensitive for several days, and was only able to digest light food.

   In Chronic Diarrhea, when the discharges are watery, purulent,
 colliquative, such as may occur  during phthisis, among children as
 well  as among  full-grown  persons, Phosphorus may prove very
 useful.

                      URINARY GROUP.

   We have shoAvn you that Phosphorus may be eminently useful in
   Albuminuria, even in that form of albuminuria Avhich is desig-
 nated as Bright's disease.
   The urine, under the effects of Phosphorus, frequently assumes an
 opalescent appearance, from the fact that fatty pellicles  or oily glo-
 bules float on the liquid.  This  symptom may be of value to  us as
 an indication for Phosphorus in the treatment of"phthisis.
   A  thick, turbid and scanty urine or a copious  watery urine, is
 characteristic of Phosphorus, the former especially in  low typhoid
 diseases, the latter in nervous conditions with which Phosphorus is
 in homoeopathic rapport.

                       SEXUAL GROUP.

   Phosphorus causes an irresistible  desire for sexual  intercourse.
 This  is one  of the  most marked effects of Phosphorus upon the
 sexual organs of the male.  Alphonse  le Roy, Bouttaz and  other
 provers of Phosphorus have noticed this remarkable symptom.  In
. cases of paralysis, where Phosphorus was given in  medicinal doses,
 it has had this effect.  In the experiments made upon animals, this
 effect has  likewise  been observed  in  a most remarkable  degree.
 This  effect  may be  associated with increased redness of the urine.
 We may perhaps avail ourselves of this experience  in  the treat-
 ment of
   Satyriasis, especially when this derangement is accompanied with
 wild  cerebral excitement, flushed face and  glistening  eyes.  Phos-
 phorus and  Cantharides may prove tAvo of the most efficient agents
 in controlling this dreadful affection.
                               47 
738
LECTURE XLIX.
  This abnormal excitement of the sexual functions would in the
end result in sexual weakness, an opposite condition to Avhich Phos-
phorus is likewise homoeopathic.  In
  Impotence or sexual weakness arising from previous abuse, Ave may
find this drug a valuable agent.

  Phosphorus has a tendency to bring on the menses and to pro-
mote conception.   It  has therefore been  frequently  used by Old-
School physicians as a  palliative means  of restoring the menstrual
discharge, if it happened to  have been interrupted by  a  suddenly
operating cause, a cold for instance.  In females of a naturally sound
and vigorous constitution this palliative  treatment has sometimes
been found sufficient.
  Phosphorus, in the hands of a homoeopathic physician, fulfils far
higher and more rational therapeutic uses.  He may avail himself
of this agent in cases of
  Profuse Menstruation, attended with sexual  excitement, tendency
of the blood to the head, abnormal, excessive sensitiveness of feeling
and mental excitement.
  On the other hand, Phosphorus may be useful in an opposite con-
dition,
  Menostasia, with absence of sexual desire, general Aveakness, pale
and sallow complexion, dry and smooth, transparent, waxy skin, and
a condition generally bordering upon
   Chlorosis, especially in young  Avomen of a strumous habit, who
have undergone hardship, exposure, Avant.  In
  Mastitis, Phosphorus has  been found useful, especially after an
abscess had commenced to form, or fistulous openings had been
established in the gland by the ulcerative process.

                    CATARRHAL GROUP.

  In various cases of  poisoning by Phosphorus, the mucous mem-
brane of the trachea and its ramifications has been found very red.
In other cases the air-tubes have been found gorged with mucus and
blood.
  In a case of paraplegia, Avhere the patient enjoyed otherAvise good
health and  was perfectly free  from all pulmonary symptoms, the
gradual employment of one grain of Phosphorus, Avithin  the space of
a few days, produced the following symptoms:  feverish pulse, coated
tongue, throbbing of the carotids, several attacks of bilious vomiting,
disagreeable tension and dryness of the chest, cough and expectora-
tion of mucus.
  These symptoms all  point to  Phosphorus as an excellent remedy in
  Bronchial Catarrh, Avith dry,  titillating cough, burning and  irrita-
tion in the air-passages, expectoration of frothy mucus.
   Chronic Bronchitis, with expectoration of bloody mucus, soreness
of the air-passages, expectoration of froth and blood, or even pus
and blood, tearing and racking cough.
  In a case of dry, titillating Cough, if the patient  feels  an irritation
throughout the chest;  he coughs all the time, a short, hacking, ex- 
phosphorus.                      739
haustive cough as if emanating from every part of the lungs, Phos-
phorus will prove eminently useful even when administered in the
middle  potencies.  In a cough  of this kind,  the  lungs feel  as if
croAvded full of blood, the  patient complains of a feeling of tension
across the chest;  the expectoration consists of a little frothy mucus.

  In some cases  of poisoning, the larynx has  been found  red, and
apparently inflamed.  AVe  may therefore recommend Phosphorus in
  Laryngitis, especially chronic, with heat and dryness of the larynx,
laryngeal cough with expectoration of  mucus, streaks of blood.  In
  Croup, Phosphorus has likewise been tried, with  apparently good
effect in a  few cases.  In this  affection it may  be given in doses  of
one or tAvo drops dissolved in ether, in the proportion of one grain
to a drachm. If  Aconite, Spongia, Iodine, should fail you, and the
patient is affected Avith a Avell-marked strumous diathesis, Phosphorus
may be resorted to as a last chance of saving the patient's life.
  AVe should not be unmindful of the  eminent services which Phos-
phorus may render us in the treatment of
  Tubercular Phthisis, more particularly in the first  stages of this
disease.
  Dr. Holcombe informs us in his short, but exceedingly interesting
proving of Phosphorus instituted with  large doses of the strong tinc-
ture, that the drug had a marked action upon the lungs, characterized
by the following  significant symptoms:
  Sensation of heat in the lungs;
  Disposition to take deep  inspirations, with discomfort on doing so;
  Shooting pains in  the right side of the chest;
  Occasional sneezing which aggravates the unpleasant and stuffed
feeling of the breast;
  Severe pain in the posterior part of the left lung, sometimes aggra-
vated upon inspiration,  sometimes not;
  Some hacking, tickling cough;
  Considerable mucous accumulation in the trachea, with hoarseness.
  The doctor states that the fugitive thoracic pains which the Phos-
phorus  excited,  annoyed him with  apprehensions of a tubercular
diathesis.   They  disappeared  entirely  after the proving had been
discontinued.

                        FEVER-GROUP.

  Phosphorus has been advantageously employed in
  Typhus, Avhen symptoms of paralysis seemed  impending, with loss
of consciousness, muttering delirium, singultus, petechiae, involuntary
discharges from the boAvels, hurried, small,  even filiform pulse, cold-
ness and parchment-like dryness of the skin, paralytic inability to
pass urine.
  Professor Mitchell informs us in his Manual of Therapeutics that
as early as the year 1793, Dr. AVolff, an English Physician, employed
Phosphorus dissolved in ether in cases of low typhoid  fevers, with
feeble pulse, petechiae, etc.  He gave five drops of a solution of two
grains of Phosphorus in half an ounce of  ether, every three hours. 
740
LECTURE XLIX.
The  pulse  improved after  a few doses  had been taken; a uniform
heat pervaded the system, a pleasant moisture covered the skin, and
the delirium subsided.  Much testimony of a similar  nature  could
be adduced.  All Avell-informed alloeopathic physicians admit that
the exhibition of Phosphorus in typhoid fevers by judicious practi-
tioners may be attended with salutary results.
  In the class of Ioav typhoid fevers which some pathologists have
been in the habit of describing under the name of
  Adynamic fevers, Phosphorus has been eminently useful.   For the
purpose of illustrating the good  effects of Phosphorus in this class
of 'fevers, Ave -transfer  the following case from Frank's Alagazine to
our pages:
  A man of seventy-one years had sunk into the folloAving condition
in consequence of  catarrh: Prostration,  singultus, difficult}' of SAval-
loAving, the liquids rolled doA\m audibly;  sopor, rattling breathing,
Avithout power to  expectorate,  debility and emaciation, quick and
small pulse; cold  extremities, cold and clammy sweat in the face;
dull eyes, with blear-eyedness, red, smooth and dry tongue.  He took
Phosphorus, dissolved in sulphuric ether, ten drops every feAV hours.
In six hours the singultus and the rumbling of the liquid subsided;
the skin became moist, the patient was able to expectorate a tenacious
mucus, and very soon recovered.

  In  Purpura Hemorrhagica, also  described as morbus maculosus
AVerlhofii, Phosphorus may be of service;  the petechial exudations
should have a reddish appearance.

  Phosphorus may prove adapted to certain forms of
  Jaundice, especially of the chronic kind, in cases AA'here the liver
may be suspected of being invaded by organic disease.  In a case of
paralysis Avhere the patient seemed  otherwise quite well, had a good
appetite and slept well, and Avas finally completely cured  by means
of Rhus tox., Phosphorus  given internally by Dr. Buehheim, pro-
duced in a few days complete jaundice, loss of appetite and  fever.
This would seem to shoAV that even in acute jaundice Phosphorus
may prove serviceable.  Of course, a symptomatic similarity is  not
sufficient; the character  of the natural  disease must be in essential
homoeopathic rapport with the character of the drug-disease.

                 EXANTHEMATOUS GROUP.

   Phosphorus is homoeopathic to inflamed
   Chilblains, if they break, and discharge a watery, fetid secretion.
   It has been advantageously employed for the dispersion of
   Old Glandular Swellings, especially in the case of old, cachectic
individuals;  in  such cases it may likeAvise be employed externally,
one grain in an ounce of olive-oil.
   Some physicians have used this agent in the case of recent
   Burns and Panaritia,  applying a solution of Phosphorus in ether
externally.   It is useful  in
   Herpes consisting in round spots all over the body.  In dry 
ANEMONE PULSATILLA.
711
  Scaly Scald.head, Phosphorus has proved useful.   LikeAvise in
  Fistulous Ulcers, or ulcers with callous edges, or difficult to heal,
secreting a thin and foul pus, with fever.   In
  Caries of bones, whether mercurial or scrofulous, Phosphorus has
proAred useful.

                      MENTAL GROUP.

  The primary action of Phosphorus upon the mind seems to be a
stimulation of the Adtal spirits; the secondary action is characterized
by depression of spirits.  In morbid conditions, fevers and other de-
rangements Avhere Phosphorus seems indicated, a state of mental ex-
cdtation, intense excitement of the affectional and imaginative sphere
as well as a state of melancholy, quiet lowness of spirits, is addition-
ally characteristic of Phosphorus.

                            SLEEP.

  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 Avithout any
therapeutic value.

                 ANTIDOTAL  TREATA1ENT.

  In a case of poisoning we first give an emetic of sulphate of zinc,
from  twenty  to forty grains, after Avhich Magnesia  and milk arc
recommended as  antidotes to the poison.  Mild  demulcent liquids
should be resorted to for the purpose of enveloping the Phosphorus.
In cases of burns, the parts may be Avashed with  a weak alkaline
solution.  A  lime liniment will  prove  a  very excellent application
under such circumstances.   Limewater may be shaken with sAveet  or
linseed oil until a soap is formed. The liniment may be preserved
for a  long time in a bottle provided Avith a glass-stopper.  It may
be applied to the burn or ulcer, if such should exist, by means of a
camel's hair pencil, or it may be spread on a piece  of soft linen.
  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.
                    LECTURE   L.

                 AXEMONE PULSATILLA,

Pulsatilla nigricans, wind-flower.  Nat. Order:—(Ranuxculace^;.)

  This is a perennial flower which blossoms in May, and the second
time in August and September.  It has a short and thick root; the
flower-stalk°is smooth, beset with soft hairs, from six to eight inches 
742
LECTURE L.
high, and terminating at the top in a lanSnated involucrum.  Leaves
radical, bipinnate;  no calix;  six petals, oblong, hairy, of a blackish-
purple color; with their apices turned backwards;  numerous fila-
ments.  The floAver is called nigricans on account of the dark color
of its petals. We make a tincture from the whole plant Avithout the
root, of a greenish-broAvn color and haA'ing an acrid taste.
  The plant, even Avhen dry, has an extremely smarting action upon
the tongue  and fauces.  The name "wind-flower,"  is given to  it
because it is generally found in exposed situations.
  This plant was knoA\rn to Dioscorides who describes three  species
of it.   Pliny recommends it for headaches and  inflammation of the
eyes.
  Cullen, Avriting of Pulsatilla nigricans, says: This  is one  of the
remedies which we OAve to the benevolent industry of Baron Stcerck :
but he has ascribed to it so  many wonderful effects that his credit  is
hurt with  many persons, and has made many neglect to  give this
remedy a frequent and fair  trial.
  It was upon the authority of Baron Stcerck that this plant, with
several others of great activity, has been received into medical use.
He  recommends it as an effectual remedy for most of the chronic
diseases affecting the eyes,  particularly for amaurosis,  cataract, and
opacity of the cornea from various causes.   The baron himself Avho
had for two years suffered much from a violent contusion of one eye,
took this remedy, which he soon found occasioned  a severe lancina-
ting pain  in the part  affected;  this he considered as a  favorable
omen  in the specific action of the  plant, an opinion  which was after-
Avards confirmed in a great  number of patients.  Tavo cases of amau-
rosis, three of cataract, and seven cases of affection of the  cornea
Avere either  entirely cured or generally benefited by the exhibition
of this remedy.  Other phj^sicians have used it with success in the
same affections; others again have not been successful, doubtless for
no  other reason than  because the drug was used in  affections to
Avhich it is not homoeopathic.
  A certain species of anemone sylvestris, if eaten by animals, causes
inflammation of the bowels, dysentery and haematuria.

  The active principle of  Anemone is an alkaloid,  "Anemonine,"
somewhat analogous to Camphor; it crystallizes  in white  flakes,
is easily pulverizable, inodorous except when  evaporated;  it then
emits a pungent and penetrating odor which excites tears ; when dry,
the alkaloid is tasteless; when in a state of fusion,  it is biting and
corrosive,  causes insensibility of the tongue and Avhite blisters: in a
common temperature it is  not volatile; when exposed  to  heat  it
melts, and burns Avith a bright flame.  It is very little soluble in
water,  but dissolves readily in boiling alcohol or in ethereal oils.
The boring and cutting pains Avhich Pulsatilla causes in the ner-
vous tissue of the eye, proceeds from the action of this alkaloid.
  Pulsatilla seems to  act  principally upon  the skin, the mucous
membrane, and more particularly upon the  mucous lining  of the
eyes, stomach and small intestines, urinary and sexual organs.
  It seems to  be principally  adapted to sub-acute irritations of a 
ANEMONE PULSATILLA.
713
catarrhal, rheumatic and gastric character and  having a remittent
type._  Itis  particularly suitable to persons of  a quiet, gentle dis-
position, inclining to sadness and melancholy.   Females seem to be
more favorably acted upon by Pulsatilla than males.
   Small doses of this drug  are antidoted by Arsenic and China;
large doses by vinegar.

                      CEPHALIC GROUP.

   Pulsatilla causes vertigo as if intoxicated, with heat in the head
and pale face, especially in the evening.  Also vertigo when looking
up ;or heaviness and  a  gloomy feeling  in the  head, with a painful
feeling in the eyes  It is useful in the
   False or spurious Vertigo  of  Herz, to which I have frequently
alluded.   The attack  proceds from one of  the external canthi, a
feeling of tension is experienced in the upper lid; the rays impinging
upon this part, seem vibrating as if the objects were  seen through
agitated  water; this sensation  is accompanied by  luminous vibra-
tions, sometimes circular, or serpentine, or like flashes of lightning.
   A cure of this very annoying disorder is reported in Hufeland's
Journal, which I will briefly relate.  A gentleman  of thirty-four
years,  of feeble constitution  and sanguine  temperament,  Avho had
-been addicted  to sexual  excesses from his boyhood, had ruined his
nervous system by his irregularities and by spending his nights in
studying.  His eyes and digestive apparatus were  very weak.  At
the age of seventeen, he was attacked with the so-called  spurious
vertigo, the attacks being generally accompanied with vomiting of a
sour fluid, and a  violent  hemicrania which sometimes lasted tAventy-
four hours.   In consequence of a change in  his mode  of living, the
vertigo left him in about two years, without resorting to any special
treatment; but returned  again a  few years after, after a night's
carousal with  his friends.  The paroxysms recurred at irregular
intervals, and with increasing violence.   The eyes, head and diges-
tive organs were  principally  affected. A number of celebrated phy-
sicians were consulted, who  exhausted  their skill  and knowledge
during six years  without doing him any good.  The most fashion-
able springs were  likewise resorted to,  and a  distinguished mag-
netizer tried his  poAvers upon  him, all without the least  favorable
change  in the condition of the  patient.   The disorder grew upon
him, the  paroxysms came  on every other day, and  even slight con-
vulsions made their appearance during the attack.   Dr. Lowenhardt
who reports the case, finally  prescribed the extract of Pulsatilla in
doses of two-thirds of a  grain, morning  and evening, for  four days
in succession.  From the very first day of the treatment, the attacks
ceased as if by magic, and the patient now is satisfied with his health.
He has never had another attack, and all he did afterwards was to
take some bitters, in accordance with the general prevailing notion
that bitters stimulate the digestive apparatus and nervous system.

  The pains which Pulsatilla causes in the head, are jerking, tearing
and stitching, worse in the evening.   The Pulsatilla-pains are prin-
cipally felt in the vertex and forehead. 
711
LECTURE L.
   In Gastiic Headaches, Pulsatilla is very efficient, if over-eating is
the cause, especially after eating pork, fat, iced fruit or other rich,
heavy, indigestible food.   The  headache may  be  accompanied  by
nausea, vomiting, greasy taste in the mouth, acrid risings  from the
stomach.
   In Bilious Headaclw, Pulsatilla will afford help,  if the patient
complains of a stupid feeling in the head, and a sensation in the fore-
head as if the brain had been bruised.
   In the so-called Sick or Nervous Headaches, or Hemicrania, Pulsa-
tilla is very efficient, especially  in the case of hysteric females with
disposition to sadness, delicate digestive organs.  Symptomatically,
Pulsatilla may be indicated in these  headaches by a tight feeling in
the brain and a boring pain in the vertex; or by a deep-seated pain
in the orbits, as if the brain Avould fall out at the forehead:  the skull
feels as if too thin.   These nervous headaches may be induced by
nightly Avatching.
   Mnstrual I Lad.aches may yield to  Pulsatilla, if a suppression of
the menstrual discharge or a too scanty discharge seems to cause the
trouble.  It is in delicate females, with a tender, silken skin, a trans-
parent complexion and an habitually plethoric condition of the brain,
that Pulsatilla seems to act most favorably.  If such headaches arise
from a sudden suppression occasioned by a cold, exposure to wet, or
by a sudden fright, and  the cerebral congestions are considerable,
with excessive fullness and heaviness about the head, soreness of the
scalp and brain, excessiA'e sensitiveness of the  brain, nerA'ous  rest-
lessness, or a sense of stupor, and other signs of distressing and even
dangerous plethora of the brain, Aconite should invariably be admin-
istered to the patient.
   As regards the  dose, most practitioners  agree that in headache,
Pulsatilla acts most favorably from the 6th to the 18th potency.

                      NERVOUS GROUP.

   Baron Stcerck, the first prover of this drug, proposed it for
   Epilepsy, and, by his request,  experiments were made in the pub-
lic hospitals  of  Vienna, upon a number of epileptic  patients, but
without the least benefit.  Nevertheless, Ave may remember Pulsa-
tilla in epilepsy arising from disturbances of the uterine system, or
iu those  forms  of epilepsy which Schcenlein  describes as *" Uterine
Ein'lepsy."
   Baron  Stcerck has likeAvise employed Pulsatilla in
   Atrophy of the upper extremities, arising from rheumatism.  In
the case of a woman of thirty-five years, the left arm had  been im-
movable, rigid and emaciated for five years and  a half.  After using
the drug for a few weeks, the patient began to experience Avandering,
lancinating pains in the limb, and at night an excessive itching. She
was completely restored in three months.   The medicine was used
in much larger doses than Ave  are  in  the  habit of doing; it was
moreover applied externally in the shape of a wash.
   Regarding these large doses of drugs which are in specific homoeo-
pathic adaptation to a case, I am satisfied that our existing observa- 
ANEMONE PULSATILLA.                  715
tions are not sufficient to meet all the demands of the sick chamber.
It is a pity that homoeopathic physicians will not divest themselves
of dogmatism regarding doses; that the high-potency men will persist
in ostracising their low-minded brethren, and that on the other hand
the low-potency men still deride their high-spirited opponents as the
partisans of a baseless faith and fancy.  To my mind, Jacob's ladder
represents most beautifully the scale of potencies which a physician
may use, the angels wandering up and doAvn  from earth to  heaven,
eyen as the physician may Avander up and doAvn in the scale of poten-
Ses, measuring out relief, not in accordance with a creed or doctrine,
but agreeably to the actual requirements of the case.  One fact, how-
ever, seems well established,  viz., that no medicinal symptoms need
ever  be occasioned except accidentally.  Critical pains or  evacua-
tions must not  be confounded with medicinal aggravations.   The
return of sensibility in a paralyzed limb may be accompanied by
pain; cerebral  congestions may terminate in  evacuations from the
boAvels; pulmonary irritations in the appearance of a troublesome
rash; a distressing pain in the back may • be relieved by a  haemor-
rhoidal discharge.  If a medicine is instrumental in bringing about
such critical appearances,  it acts as a true curative agent, not as a
medicinal aggravator of the disease.

   Stoerck likewise reports a case of
   Paralysis of the Lower Extremities, attended with violent backache,
which was cured by means of large doses of Pulsatilla.  The medi-
cine at first  caused  colic and diarrhoea; in  three Aveeks:  wander-
ing, lancinating and  burning pains from the  toes to the hip-joints,
and lastly a haemorrhoidal discharge, after which the  pain in the
back ceased, and the paralysis likewise disappeared in a feAV weeks.
   Cases of atrophy and paralysis, where Pulsatilla may prove of
advantage, are  very rare ;  in the generality of such cases,  arthritic
rheumatism,  habitual  exposure, care,  may have  been  the  exciting
causes; and in  the case of females, menstrual disorders, suppression
or scanty and painful discharges may complicate the trouble.
   The pains Avhich very frequently indicate Pulsatilla, are of the
folloAving order:
  Shifting pains, also Avith  redness and swelling of the joints;
   Pains as if bruised  or as  if the parts were ulcerated ;
   Pains and  ailments on one side of the body;
   Pains accompanied  by chilliness, dyspnoea, paleness of the face,
trembling of the limbs ;
   The pains are generally worse every other evening;
   The pains in the muscles of the extremities are tearing, drawing
or jerking pains, worse at night or in the evening Avhen lying in bed.
   Pulsatilla has cured
  Ischias nervosa, with violent stitching and tearing pain down to the
knee, the patient had to limp all the time.
  In Hysteria, when complicated with menstrual suppression, Pulsa-
tilla may prove very useful, especially  in the  case of  quiet females,
of a brooding  mood, leuco-phlegmatic habit; they look pale and
bloated, seem to be dreaming, like to sit alone, are averse to  conver-
sation, weep  Avithout any apparent cause. 
746
LECTURE L.
                  INFLAAIA1AT0RY  GROUP.

   Pulsatilla is principally adapted to sub-acute irritations, but it may
 likewise prove useful in acute inflammations, especially in
   Gonitis, inflammation of the knee-joint, more particularly in the
 case  of scrofulous  individuals; the inflammation develops  itself
 suddenly,  the  knee-joint savSIs  up, is  exceedingly painful to  the
 touch, and the patient complains of great soreness and lancinating
 pains in the joint; the joint has a pale rose-colored appearance, and
 fluctuation is very soon perceived in the parts round the patella. In
 all such cases of acute gonitis, fever is invariably present.  It may be
 best to  give Pulsatilla in  alternation with Aconite.  There are many
 cases reported in our journals Avhere the tincture  of Pulsatilla  has
 been employed, with signal advantage, effecting a cure in a  few days;
 in other cases the attenuations have been equally efficient.
   In Chronic Swelling of the knee-joint, remaining after acute inflam-
 mation, in the case of scrofulous individuals, Pulsatilla may likewise
 be resorted to
   Even in While Stvelling, coming on gradually as the result of a
 scrofulous dyscrasia,  Pulsatilla may  be used  as  an  intermediate
 remedy, to control pain, soreness, and to promote  the action of  the
 absorbent  vessels.

   Pulsatilla causes  rheumatism  of  the  foot; hence Ave use it with
 advantage in
   Rheumatism of the Dorsun of the Foot, when the muscular covering
 is swollen, inflamed, and the pain keeps increasing until it becomes
 agonizing, especially at night.  I have seen an inflammation of this
 kind yield to the twelfth potency of  Pulsatilla in the space of thirty-
 six hours,  without a trace of it remaining visible.
   It is  scrofulous and arthritic individuals, of a leuco-phlegmatic
 habit, who are especially  benefitted  by Pulsatilla in acute rheuma-
 tism, which is generally in the character of
   Arthritic Rheumatism;  the feet, for instance, are  red, hot, SAvollen,
 Avith a tensive and burning pain which increases to a stiching pain
 by standing.
   The  rheumatic and  arthritic  pains  which Pulsatilla  generally
 causes, may be generalized as folloAvs: Sticking pains in the shoulder-
joint and nape  of  the neck, especially when moving the parts.  The
joints and long bones seem to be  principally acted upon by  this
 drug.   The pains which Pulsatilla causes in the joints  are sticking,
 tearing  and tensive pains,  and  pains as if the joints had been bruised
 and sprained, they feel sore.   The shoulder, elbow,  knee, and t-arsal-
joints seem to be the chief localities, where  the Pulsatilla-principle
 delights to manifest its disturbing agency.

  Pulsatilla also causes drawing pains in the  muscles of the thigh,
 obliging the patient  to move the part  constantly  in order  to find
 relief.
  The tearing  and drawing pains may  likewise be felt along the 
ANEMONE PULSATILLA.
747
bones, showing that the fibrous covreing of the bones  may become
involved in the Pulsatilla-rheumatism.   Hence we may recommend
Pulsatilla in
   Rheumatic Periostitis, and likewise in
   Rheumatism or Gout of the heel, for this drug causes cutting and
boring  pains in the heel, and a pricking and sore pain in the soles of
the feet.

   Pulsatilla causes a burning-pricking pain in the ball of the little
toe, accompanied by itching as in frozen limbs;  the pain is much
aggravated by the  warmth of the bed.   Hence we find Pulsatilla
useful in
   Chilblains, when these pains occur, as they frequently do.

                      ORBITAL  GROUP.

   The  action  of Pulsatilla upon the eyes deserves our attention.
The provers of this drug have experienced  a pressure  in the  eyes,
as if they should be pressed out of the head, with discharge of tears.
Also a pressure as if the eyes were full  of sand.  Baron Stcerck
experienced cutting and boring pains in the eyes.
   Bergius informs us that a child which happened to be exposed to
the vapors of Pulsatilla, while the extract was being prepared, Avas
attacked with inflammation and swelling of the eyelids, and obscu-
ration of sight.  Orfila states in his Toxicology, that an apothecary,
while pounding the  dry leaves of Pulsatilla, was attacked Avith colic,
vomiting, and with itching of the eyelids.
   In accordance with these indications we have used Pulsatilla in
   Conjunctivitis,  with  profuse  lachrymation, burning, stinging and
itching pain, when caused by a cold.
   Blepharophthitis, or inflammation and swelling of the  lids,  of  a
catarrhal character,  especially in scrofulous individuals, with much
itching and secretion of purulent gum, scurfy desiccation.  Also in
chronic cases, Pulsatilla may still be useful.

   Styes, especially in the case of  scrofulous children, with pale, rose-
colored inflammation, furious itching, sensitiveness to light, may
readily yield to Pulsatilla; if recurring  frequently, as the result of
a scrofulous diathesis, Sulphur, the iodide of Mercury and other drugs,
will have to be used for the purpose of eradicating the causative
principle.

   In  Scrofulous  Ophthalmia of  the  milder type, especially when
inclining to become chronic, with occasional paroxysms of inflamma-
tion, the conjunctiva having a rose-colored appearance, with  much
itching, burning and secretion of tears and purulent gum, Pulsatilla
may prove very serviceable.

  In Arthritic Ophthalmia, with cutting and boring pains in the eye-
ball, Pulsatilla  is eminently useful; in this affection a pain may be
experienced as  if the eyeball were being scraped with a knife. 
748
LECTURE L.
  In Ophthalmia remaining after Measles, an occasional dose of Pul-
satilla may be necessary.

  Baron Stcerck relates a case  of  ophthalmia which came on  after
the cure of syphilitic ulcers of the velum and palate.  The sight of
the right eye was not entirely destroyed, but on the left eye the cornea
had become leucomatous, and therefore entirely impermeable to the
rays of  light.  The parotid gland was at the same time enlarged and
of  a scirrhous hardness.   After  using  Pulsatilla  for about three
months  and a half, in tolerably large doses, the  young man's sight
Avas entirely restored, and the  scirrhous induration of the parotid
gland had likewise completely  disappeared.

  Pulsatilla causes a dimness of sight,  as if something Avere hanging
over the cornea that can be wiped off.  It also causes fiery circles
and obscuration of sight.   Hence we may  find Pulsatilla useful in
  Amaurosis of scrofulous individuals, when caused  by excessive
use of the  eyes  during nightly mental labor, or Avhen  coming on
gradually in consequence of a progressive development of the scrofu-
lous dyscrasia.  If co-existing with menstrual  suppression, in im-
poverished conditions of the system, Pulsatilla may prove so much
the more useful.  Baron Stcerck relates a case of this disorder Avhich
was so far cured as to enable the eye to see objects and to distinguish
colors.

  In Weak Eyes, with sensitiveness, pain in the eyeballs, and redness
when using them, Pulsatilla  internally, and  externally in  the  form
of a wash,  has proved  an  efficient means of relief  in  the  hands of
Kopp.

                    AURICULAR GROUP.

  Pulsatilla causes a group  of symptoms in the organ  of hearing
which resembles very closely
   Otitis or inflammation  of the ear.  It  causes acute  lancinating
pains in the ear, excessive  sensitiveness to  noise,  discharge of pus
and blood from the ear, noises in the ear, swelling and inflammatory
redness of  the ear.  The pain  often causes delirium and agonizing
distress in the head. If the fever is intense, alternate Pulsatilla with
Aconite.  The 1st to the  6th potency is probably the  most service-
able in  a case of otitis. If  accompanied  by, or arising  from,  men-
strual suppression, Pulsatilla is so much more specifically indicated.
   In Otalgia, Pulsatilla may effect much good, if the patient  is scro-
fulous, of a delicate constitution, the pain comes on at every change
of  the Aveather, a hard aching pain as if  the ear should be pulled
out.  The patient cannot bear noise.
   In Chronic Otorrhea, with discharge  of a fetid, yellowish pus,
especially when coming on  after  measles, or in delicate girls of a
scrofulous  habit, who  have not yet menstruated, Pulsatilla is  often
indicated.   So it is in
   Deafness, if resulting from exposure to a keen wind, or from water
getting into the ear, with  various noises, blowing, chirping, etc. 
ANEMONE PULSATILLA.
749
                       NASAL GROUP.

  Pulsatilla will be found useful in
  Catarrhal Discharges from the nose, green and fetid, the more so,
if the borders of the nostrils are ulcerated.  Remember that the pre-
sence of the scrofulous  element in such cases constitutes a charac-
teristic indication.

                       DENTAL GROUP.

  Pulsatilla causes stinging pains in the gums, and a
  Toothache as if the nerve of the tooth were suddenly put upon the
stretch, and then let loose again.
  The Pulsatilla-toothache is  excited by warmth, and relieved by
cool air.   It is also excited  by eating.  The  toothache of pregnant
females may likewise be relieved by this agent.

                   CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

  The action of Pulsatilla upon the chylo-poietic sj^stem constitutes
this drug one of our most valuable agents in the treatment of gastric
derangements.   Among the effects of Pulsatilla in this direction we
distinguish the folioAving:
  Bad smell from the mouth ;
  Tongue lined with tenacious mucus;
  Bitter taste;
  Pungent taste;
  Taste as of foul flesh;
  Loss of appetite (anorexia);
  Loss of thirst (adipsia);
  Waterbrash;
   Vomiting of bile;
   Vomiting of saltish or sour  mucus, in the evening  or at night;
   Eructations tasting of the ingesta ;
   Bitter, bilious eructations;.
   Sour eructations;
   Nausea while eating;
   Eructations tasting of rancid* tallow.
   Many of these symptoms may occur in a case of bad digestion, a
 sort of
   Indigestion or Dyspepsia, of which Hahnemann himself has left  us
 the folloAving interesting example.  A weakly man, aged forty-two
 years, of pale complexion, gentle and  quiet disposition and whose
 business  was of  a sedentary  nature, had  been very sick for five
 days.  On the first evening,"he began  to feel sick at the stomach
 and dizzy Avithout any apparent cause.   In  the following night  he
 was attacked with sour vomiting.  The next two nights he had violent
 eructations.  This last night he had had eructations  of a fetid and
 sourish taste.  He felt as if the food were lying raAv and undigested
 in   his stomach.   Sensation as if the  head  felt  enlarged, hollow,
 gloomy, Avith sensitiveness of the brain to the least noise. 
750
LECTURE L.
  Pulsatilla being homoeopathic to all these symptoms, the patient
took a single drop of the 12th  potency before  bed-time and' awok,e
in perfect health on the folloAving morning.  In regard to this case
it should be remembered that many other drugs have isolated symp-
toms belonging to this  group, but that Pulsatilla is the only medi-
cine Avhich develops all these symptoms in  their totality and mutual
relation.

  The pains which Pulsatilla causes in the stomach, shoAV that it
may be eminently useful in
  Cardialgia.  It causes a draAving pain in the stomach, Avith a feel-
ing of pressure, a throbbing in the region of the stomach, Avith a
crampy and contractive sensation.  Pulsatilla is especially indicated,
if the cardialgia is excited by eating fat pork.
  In  Colicodynia, Pulsatilla  may be  of great use; it causes cutting
and pinching pains in the boAvels, and a painful sensitiveness of the
abdominal walls.  The  bowels may be either bound or loose, Avith
discharge of blood and mucus.

  Small doses of Pulsatilla  cause  constipation, larger doses irritate
the intestinal mucous lining, causing a condition resembling
  Gastro-enteritis, with  discharges of mucus Avhich is sometimes
mixed with blood, or watery discharges with cutting in the boAvels.
Properly  speaking, Pulsatilla does not  cause gastro-enteritis,  but
rather a  catarrhal irritation of the lining  membrane  the principal
symptom of which is
  Diarrhea, the discharges consisting of soft faecal matter and mucus,
or a  yellowish-white  mucus  mixed Avith  blood, or white  mucus
without any admixture of blood.  A characteristic indication for
Pulsatilla is
  Nocturnal Diarrhea, when the discharges consist of  green  mucus
or are of  a watery consistency.
  The Pulsatilla-diarrhcea may be characterized  by chilliness after
the discharge, and by a  cutting pain in the  bowels preceding or suc-
ceeding the evacuation.  Frequent urging to stool is likewise a fre-
quent indication.

  Pulsatilla causes soreness of the rectum and anus, with blind piles,
haemorrhoidal tumors.   Hence in  *
  Suppressed Piles, with stiffness of the back, and abdominal  and
cerebral  congestions incident  to such a condition,  Pulsatilla  may
prove very efficient.   A concomitant of this derangement may be
  Constipation, or the constipation  may exist as an element in some
other group of symptoms, especially in a case of  hysteria or in con-
nection with menstrual  suppression.   The boAvels may feel distended
and the patient may be troubled Avith frequent urging and, at most,
discharge a spoonful  of white  mucus.  Pulsatilla may relieve  this
condition, if the lower potencies are given.

                     URINARY  GROUP.

  Pulsatilla causes frequent, but ineffectual urging to urinate.   This
difficulty may occur in the  case of pregnant females, a species of 
ANEMONE PULSATILLA.
751
  Dysuria,  during pregnancy, which may require medical  inter-
ference.  The 3d to the 6th potency may be sufficient.  Pulsatilla
also causes  the secretion of a Avatery urine, which may indicate its
use in
  Hysteric  Affections, where copious  and frequent discharges of a
watery urine are of frequent occurrence.  Pulsatilla also causes an
inflamed-looking  urine, depositing  a  jelly-like  sediment.   This
symptom may indicate Pulsatilla in
  Chronic Cystitis, where a dark-colored urine may be secreted, Avith
deposition of a slimy or brick-dust sediment, and frequent but some-
times ineffectual desire to urinate.  Or this group of symptoms may
be designated as
  Catarrh of the Bladder Avhich may  occur spontaneously  in indi-
viduals afflicted with a scrofulous dyscrasia, or as the  effect of
chronic rheumatism  of the bladder;  it  may also  occur among
individuals  addicted to high living, abuse of stimulating beverages.
Pulsatilla likewise  causes  a discharge  of blood from the urethra;
hence in
  Hematuria, especially when of  a  chronic  nature, it  may  prove
useful.  Pulsatilla causes a thin stream, as if the urethra were con-
tracted.  AVe may therefore recommend it in
  Chronic Stricture or swelling of the mucous  lining of the  urethra,
whether arising  from  scrofulous  irritation,  or in  consequence of
neglected or mismanaged  gonorrhoea.  Pulsatilla causes a whitish
and slimy discharge from the urethra, with burning after urinating.
Hence in chronic                             %
  Gonorrhea, Pulsatilla may serve  us a good  turn, especially if the
discharge is complicated with symptoms of scrofula.

                      SEXUAL  GROUP.

  Pulsatilla affects both the male  and  female sexual   organs.  It
causes tearing pains in the testicles.   It also causes drawing, and
drawing-tensive pains from the  abdomen  through  the spermatic
cord into the testicles Avhich are very much relaxed.  These  symp-
toms may lead us to prescribe Pulsatilla in
  Atrophy  of the  Testicles, a condition which may occur in  conse-
quence of onanism.   Pulsatilla also causes frequent erections with
increased sexual desire and emissions; hence it may prove useful in
  Nocturnal  Emissions,  with  excited  sexual  appetite, erections,
amorous fancies.  In
  Orchitis, especially when arising from suppression of  gonorrhoea,
Pulsatilla may afford relief.
  Pulsatilla causes this symptom: "the right testicle is draAvn up
and swollen,  the  spermatic cord  is swollen, Avith tensive  pain,
whereas the left testicle is hanging down."
  This  retraction and swelling of one testicle  is not an  uncommon
symptom.  The patient experiences a pain in  the testicle; this con-
dition may have been caused by self-abuse, or by a strain.
Pulsatilla causes and may therefore relieve 
752
LECTURE L.
  Amenorrhea, with nausea, coldness, trembling, chilliness of the
feet, more especially in the case of delicate, sensitive, leucophlegmatic
females.
  Ailments arising from  sudden suppression, headache, palpitation
of the heart, swelling of the bowels, spitting of blood, etc., may }rield
to Pulsatilla, especially in conjunction with Aconite.
  The presence of burning and stinging pains  in  the vagina  and
labia may be looked upon as an additional indication for Pulsatilla
in amenorrhcea.

  Pulsatilla causes and therefore relieves
   Uterine Colic, with cutting and bearing-doAvn  pains in the Ioavct
bowels.   This pain may precede or  accompany the discharge  of a
thick  and black blood from the womb, constituting a case of
  Dysmenorrhea  or painful  menstruation,  also with waterbrash,
obscuration of sight, stitches in the chest, before and during men-
struation.  A
  Milky  Leucorrheal Discharge will yield to the drug, especially when
scrofulous females are  afflicted with it, and the patient complains of
burning stinging pains in  the vagina and labia.

  Pulsatilla causes pressing, cutting and contracting pains in  the
uterine region; in accordance with these indications, we have used
this agent for the purpose of relieving
  Spasmodic Labor-pains during parturition.  We also use it in
  Deficient ContracWons during labor, for the purpose of stimulating
them; this may be necessary in the case of delicate, scrofulous
females who  have become exhausted by a succession  of violent
pains  or whose constitutional  feebleness  prevents  the  access of
expulsive pains.

  Pulsatilla causes a swelling and painful tension of the breasts, as
if they were gorged with milk.   This symptom Avas experienced by
one of the female  provers of Pulsatilla while she was nursing  her
infant. We may avail ourselves of this symptom for the purpose of
regulating an excessive secretion of milkin the case of nursing females.
  On the other hand, Pulsatilla may  be usefully  employed  in cases
of
  Agalactia or suppression of milk,  in the case of nursing  females,
when the breasts become  hard, but the  infant seems  unable to
obtain a  sufficient supply.

                    CATARRHAL  GROUP.

  Pulsatilla causes a catarrhal  irritation of the Schneiderian mem-
brane, sometimes Avith ulceration of the nostrils and loss of smell
and taste ; hence in
   Catarrh,  Avith stoppage of the nose, loss of smell and taste, Pulsa-
tilla may be of some  service,  especially if  the  gastric  symptoms
Avhich accompany the catarrhal irritation, likeAvise indicate Pulsatilla.
t 
ANEMONE PULSATILLA.
753
   # Pulsatilla causes a scraping and dryness in the throat, and various
 kinds of cough, such as
   Dry nightly cough which is relieved by sitting up ;
   Cough wi^h expectoration of yellow mucus, and also of lumps of
 dark, coagulated blood;
   Cough,  with stitches in the back while coughing.
   It may  seem therefore as though Pulsatilla might be of use to us
 in the treatment of catarrhal affections of the air-passages.   As a
 general rule, however, these indications are  secondary, and  are of
 value only when  constituting  elementary parts of a higher, more
 comprehensive  pathological process.  In measles, chicken-pox, hys-
 teria, and  other eruptive or nervous disorders to which Pulsatilla is
 homoeopathic, these catarrhal symptoms may prove valuable acces-
 sory indications.

                      THORACIC GROUP.

   Pulsatilla affects the respiratory process in a variety of ways.  It
 causes an  asthmatic constriction of the chest,  especially in the even-
 ing,  with  cough, suffocation, retching, cold feet, cold sweat  in the.
 face.  This group  of symptoms justifies  the use of Pulsatilla in
   Asthma, coming on in nightly  paroxysms,  with  a  feeling of con-
 striction across the chest,  as  if  the  lungs could not  be  inflated,
 dreadful feeling of suffocation, wheezing, coldness of the  extremities,
 cold sweat on the forehead ; the attack terminates in cough,  expecto-
 ration of mucus. If it arises from menstrual suppression, the indica-
 tion for Pulsatilla is so much more marked.
   Pulsatilla causes ulcerative pains in the region of  the sternum, it
 feels sore  to  the touch.   These ulcerative pains are  peculiar to
 Pulsatilla.
   In catarrhal  affections of the lungs,  with  great soreness  of the
 sternum, Pulsatilla may afford much relief.  In
   Ulceration of the sternum, Pulsatilla may prove of great value to us.

   Pulsatilla affects the heart more or less.  It causes rush of blood
 to the chest, with oppression and  bad dreams, such as about being
 immured alive.
   It causes palpitation of the heart, Avifh obscuration of sight.
   It causes stitches in the region of the heart.
   These symptoms show that Pulsatilla may prove serviceable in
   Venous  Congestion of the heart, even when amounting to hyper-
 trophy  of the right ventricle, whether this affection  is traceable to
 rheumatism or to suppression of the menses.

                 EXANTHEMATOUS GROUP.

  Pulsatilla causes an itching and burning of the  skin, which may
constitute  a valuable  indication in various nervous or menstrual
disorders.
  It produces a measle-shaped eruption, in consequence of which Ave
may use Pulsatilla  in a case of
                               48 
754
LECTURE L.
   Mnsles, if the eruption is too slow in making its appearance, and
the catarrhal and gastric symptoms are very troublesome.
   Pulsatilla produces an eruption like Chicken-pox; hence we may
use it in this disease in order to relieve the itching, and^to favor the
development of the eruption.
   The burning-stinging pains which patients sometimes experience in
   Varicose Ulcers, are often relieved by Pulsatilla.  Araricose, readily-
bleeding ulcers, have been healed by Pulsatilla.   Its power to pro-
duce venous congestion, renders it valuable in the treatment of such
sores.  Hence in
   Varicose Veins, with Avhich females are so often troubled in conse-
quence of frequent pregnancies, Pulsatilla proves useful; it may be
used both internally and externally.
   By applying the  bruised  root to a rheumatic limb, Pulsatilla has
caused inflammation and gangrene  of the parts.  It seems to pos-
sess a peculiar power  of disorganizing veins and embarrassing the
venous circulation.   In
   Gangrena senilis, with coldness of the limbs, and partial suspension
of the venous circulation, we therefore give Pulsatilla  with  occa-
sional advantage.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

   Pulsatilla induces a derangement of the circulation characterized
by venous congestion.   The venous circulation is embarrassed by
this drug; hence chilliness must be  a predominant symptom in
derangements of the circulation  occasioned  by Pulsatilla.  In ac-
cordance with these indications we give Pulsatilla in
   Intermittent fevers, where the  chill  predominates;  there is little or
no thirst, but vertigo, stupefaction and headache during the chill;
symptoms of mucous derangement, such as furred tongue and vom-
iting of mucus are present.
   Pulsatilla is said to be eminently suitable for
   Acute Swelling of joints caused by the suppression of intermittents.
   In Puerperal fever and Typhus abdominalis, Pulsatilla  is used by
some  homoeopathic  physicians as a  palliative for the  purpose of
modifying the gastric symptoms.  It does  not seem in reality to be
in specific homoeopathic rapport with either of these morbid  con-
ditions.
   Pulsatilla^ is not  homoeopathic to  gastric and bilious fevers, pro-
perly speaking; but it may be of great use in certain bilious and
gastric derangements, designated by  pathologists as
   Status  gastricus et biliosus, and characterized by foul tongue, fetid
or  sour and  bitter  eructations, fetid flatulence, discharges of foul-
smelling  mucus, headache, slight feverishness.

                      MENTAL GROUP.

   Pulsatilla causes depression of spirits, hypochondriac anxiety, sad-
ness, disposition to weep.  Hence we may use Pulsatilla  in
   Hysteria, especially when  caused by suppression of the menses or
milk; or in 
RHUS TOXICODENDRON.                 755
  Melancholia or mania when arising from similar causes, with taci-
turn, brooding mood.  In
  Hypochondria of delicate, nervous females, when arising from, or
complicated with such gastric derangements as Pulsatilla is homoeo-
pathic to, this agent may be of use.

                            SLEEP.

  Pulsatilla causes wakefulness, restlessness  during sleep, disturbing
dreams, nightly heat and dryness of the skin. These symptoms con-
sidered isolatedly, do not furnish any special therapeutic indica-
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
indications for the use of our drug.

                            DOSE:

  In addition to the numerous suggestions which we have offered in
the course of this lecture,  we may sum up  what may relate to this
subject in the following general statement:  In acute affections, Pul-
satilla has been  administered from the tincture up  to  the  30th
potency.  I commend  to your  attention  the first  six potencies,
although the tincture is said to have proved very efficient in gonitis.
The middle potencies are more adapted to chronic affections.
                  LECTURE   LI.

                 RHUS TOXICODENDRON,

     {Sumach, poison-oalc.  Natural Order:—Terebintace^).)

  This is a self-supporting shrub, from two to three feet in height,
leaflets toothed or lobed at the margin, pubescent; each leaf com-
posed of three dark-green, shining leaflets; leaflets of an ovate shape,
flowers simple, axillary, racemes.  Rhus radicans is a trailing vine,
with an immense number of dark reddish-brown radicles or root-like
fibres, which enable it to adhere to trees and  other objects, and  be
thus supported like a kind of vine.  If not supported, the radicans
is about  six feet  high,  and  the  branches recumbent; the stunted
radicans might be mistaken for a toxicodendron, if it were not for
the  stem which is crooked.  Sometimes both varieties may grow up
from the same stock.  Professor Bigelow states: "Among the plants
which grow abundantly around Boston, I have frequently observed
individual shoots from the same stalk having  the character of both
varieties
  This plant was first described by Cornatus in his history of Cana-
dian plants, and was first introduced to the notice of the profession 
756
LECTURE LI.
in 1798 by Dr. Dufresnoy, a physician at Valenciennes in the north
of France.   His attention was directed to it by the case of a young
man who had been cured of an herpetic eruption on his Avrist, of six
years' standing, by being accidentally poisoned  by this plant.  The
doctor reports seven cases of obstinate herpes as having been cured
with Rhus.  He also gave it in palsy, and cured some cases of this
disease.  Dr. Alderson, of Hull, in his essay on Rhus toxicodendron,
gives several cases of  recovery from  paralysis effected by means of
the dried leaves, in doses of from half a grain to a grain three times
a day,  and  he says that  the first feeling of amendment Avas  a sensa-
tion of tingling and  tAvitching in the affected limb.  Noack and
Trinks report several  cases of paralysis of the feet which Avere cured
by Rhus  toxicodendron.  One is a case of painless paralysis of the
feet; the patient was a man whom Hahnemann  had treated unsuc-
cessfully  for three years; he took the tincture of Rhus in increasing
doses, in  all, four ounces of the drug, until his cure Avas completed,
without experiencing  any bad effects whatsoever from the medicine.
In another case both feet were paralyzed, with complete inability to
move them, to  Avalk or stand;  the patient was a girl of fourteen
years, and was entirely cured by consuming two ounces of the tinc-
ture in increasing doses; she had remained  perfectly Avell  for the
last tAvo years when the  case Avas reported. Paralysis of the feet has
likewise  yielded to Rhus, when the infirmity was occasioned by a
fall on the back.
   In the  28th volume of the " All. Med. Annalen," Buchheim re-
ports the following case of paralysis Avhich yielded to Rhus tox.:
A man, twenty  years old, of robust body, was admitted to the Hos-
pital.  His appetite and sleep were good, but the muscular poAver of
the hands and feet Avas very feeble, and the al\rine evacuations some-
times were involuntary.   He finally became perfectly helpless; his
feet, hands, and  even  his fingers, become motionless, and he  lay in
his bed like a log.  After  many drugs  had been used  in  vain, he
was left without any medicine for some time,  and grew quite stout,
but the paralysis remained the same.  He Avas uoav put on  the  use
of the tincture of Rhus  tox., ten drops morning and night;  in eight
days he began to move  his fingers,  in  four weeks he Avas able to
move his arms and feet, and in two  months  he was completely re-
stored.
   Another variety of Rhus is the Rhus vernix  or poison-ash.  The
effects of this variety seem to be extremely virulent.   They  are thus
described by Jacob Bigelow: "The most formidable cases in persons
subject to this poison usually commence within twenty-four hours
after exposure,  sometimes longer, more frequently shorter.  The
symptoms generally begin by itching and tumefaction in the hands
and face, the swelling gradually spreading over different parts of the
body like erysipelas^  The inflamed parts become elevated, of a livid
redness,  with a burning sensation; they  contain a transparent fluid,
which by degrees becomes yellow, and then assumes a purulent ap-
pearance.  A discharge takes place from the vesicles, giving rise to
a yellowish incrustation, Avhich afterAvards becomes brown.   An in-
supportable itching and burning is felt; the parts become excessively 
RHUS TOXICODENDRON.
757
 swollen ; not  unfrequently the eyes  are  closed, and the face has a
 cadaverous appearance like that in malignant small-pox.  It usually
 reaches its height the fourth or sixth day, after which  the skin and
 incrustations  begin  to  separate from the  diseased parts, and the
 symptoms  gradually subside ;  no scars or permanent traces usually
 remain.   I never knew  of  an authentic  case of  its terminating
 fatally.
   " In October, 1814, Dr. A. L. Pierson accompanied me to  collect
 the juice of the Rhus vernix.  He  had always  supposed himself
 exempt from liability to the poison.   The day was warm; the  efflu-
 vium  from the incisions  we  made in the trees Avas very powerful;
 we were exposed an hour, he less than myself.  His own account of
 the symptoms is as follows:  ' I felt no unpleasant effects for six or
 seven  hours, when I perceived the backs  of" my hands were swollen
 and puffy,  Avithout pain or itching; my forehead and upper lip were
 soon in the same state.  The following morning the tumefaction had
 increased, and other  parts were infected ;  the backs of my hands and
 wrists  began to show small, watery vesicles.  No  applications  were
 made till about noon; I then applied clothes dipped in lead-water to
 one hand and wrist, and a spirituous  solution of corrosive muriate of
 mercury to the other. From this and subsequent trials I prefer lead.
 The parts began to itch ; the tumefaction increased; vesication be-
 gan to take place on the swollen surface;  small pustules formed and
 ran into each  other, and  at last some were as large  as nutmegs.
 Next day my eyes were nearly closed, from the swelling of my fore-
 head, eyebrows and cheeks.   The contents of the  vesicles were per-
 fectly limpid ; inoculation from them to other parts  had no effect,
 nor at any other stage.  The next evening  the inflammation  was at
 its height;  the burning and itching intolerable.  The following day
 the pustules began to appear a little  milky, and by night the inflam-
 mation was evidently on the  decline.  This day I applied stramo-
 nium ointment.   In a fortnight I Avas able to leave my chamber, and
 had a new  cuticle from  the roots of my hair on the forehead to my
 breast, and on the arms and inside the thighs.  During the first five
 days, the  pulse  was increased from ten to tAventy strokes.  The
 poison seemed  to have a considerable effect in relieving me  from
 dyspeptic  symptoms, and also benefited  a  chronic inflammation of
 my eyes.' "
   In regard to the poisonous action of  Rhus vernix, Dr. Bigelow
 offers the following remarks:
   "The folloAving circumstances  have  considerable  influence  in
 varying in the same  person the  aptitude  to the reception  of the
 poison:
   " First: A warm or cold climate ;  in Southern more active than in
 Northern.  Second: Different seasons  of the  year.  The Rhus vernix
 never affects me in the smallest degree, except on very hot days  in
 summer.  Third: Infancy or manhood; children  are more readily
poisoned than adults.   Fourth: Exposure before or after a  meal.
 Dr. Barton, in his edition of (Miens  Materia Aiedica, states that the
plants  more readily poison immediately after than  before a full meal.
Fifth:  The presence  of  moisture.   Country people generally believe 
LECTURE LI.
that the effluvia  of plants when  combined with  moisture, are most
apt to produce the eruption. Fontana, in his work on Poisons, states
that, in order to  investigate the use of the leaves of Rhus toxicoden-
dron, as he knew that he was easily poisoned, he caused them to be
got ready by another person, but he touched a  few of the leaves Avhen
under water. In four days his face and eyes  swelled and other
poisonous effects showed themselves.  Sixth:  A state of increased
perspiration, at the time of exposure, has a most powerful  influence
in favoring the eruption ; if my skin was perfectly dry, while  col-
lecting the juice  of the Rhus vernix, it had not the least effect upon
me."

   The  poison of Rhus radicans seems to produce effects analogous
to those of Rhus toxicodendron.
   Horsfield, in his Dissertation on the Effects of Rhus radicans, which
was published in Philadelphia in the year 1798,  gives the following
as the effects of the leaves of this plant:
   "A slight degree of itching or sensation of  heat, which gradually
increases, followed by redness or inflammation of the skin;  in some
very extensive;  in others, confined to round circumscribed  spots, or
to longitudinal streaks.   The inflamed parts  become elevated and
tumefied; small  vesicles appear on the surface, containing a  pellucid
fluid, which gradually increase in size; the fluid soon becomes yel-
low, and, after some time, takes on the color and  consistence of pus.
After the vesications are completely distended, they break, and some
of the pus being discharged, by drying on the surface, forms a yel-
low incrustation, which gradually becomes brown.  The itching and
vesications which take place in the incipient state, frequently disap-
pear and return several times successively.
   " The poison appears to have a peculiar capricious disposition to
attack  particular parts.   In  most cases the  eyes are  specifically
affected; in some the legs and thighs.   A peculiar and  distressing
itching of the scrotum and prepuce is one of the most general and
characteristic symptoms of the disease.   In some it causes erections,
and the labia pudendi are affected.  Its peculiar  tendency to  affect
the eyes, is most strikingly observed in persons who by  reading
much, become susceptible of the eruption; in most of these, if its
progress is not stopped, blindness of a shorter or longer continuance
is the certain consequeuce.
   "It has  been  observed that the  eruption,  when it is re-excited,
has a peculiar tendency to affect the parts which Avere previously
affected."
   In the above-mentioned Dissertation  by Horsfield, the following
interesting case of poisoning  by Rhus radicans  is described:—" In
the summer of 1797, a boy of about twelve years of age,  and pos-
sessing a very high degree of what is termed  the melancholic tem-
perament, was exposed to the action of Rhus  radicans.   He Avas
attacked AArith the folloAving symptoms: redness and SAvelling of the
hands  and face, followed by fever, unusual drowsiness, thirst, and
great constipation; the eruption gradually extended over the whole
body,  much resembling the progress of inoculated smallpox ;  a 
RHUS  TOXICODENDRON.
759
swelling  and very troublesome itchiness accompanied the eruption
through the whole of its course.
  " One of the most singular, and at the same time one of the most
universal concomitants of the eruption, when it exists  in a violent
degree, is a sympathetic erethism  of the arterial system, and this
occurs in a more or less degree in every case.  The general symp-
toms, when this fever comes on, are a quick, frequent, full and tense
pulse; loss of appetite, and sickness at the  stomach;  white-coated
tongue;  burning  of the palms  of  the hands and soles of the feet;
headache, throbbing of the temporal  arteries, and delirium.  The
eruption is not unfrequently succeeded by a great number of small
boils, swelling of  the tongue, ulceration of the mouth, and swelling
of the lymphatic glands."

  These  few cases^ of poisoning show what an important office Rhus
radicans and vernix  must be capable of performing in the treatment
of vesicular erysipelas.
  Concerning the Rhus toxicodendron, Christison  has  this remark,
which seems to be based upon a speculative notion rather than upon
actual experience: " The active part of this plant is extremely vola-
tile, and the tincture of the fresh  leaves or  an extract of the same
ought to be prepared in vacuo."  It is also most important to be re-
membered that the leaves of this plant should always be gathered at
night, and never exposed to the rays of the sun.  Exposure  to light
and sun  causes them to become almost entirely innocuous.

  Orfila made six experiments on dogs with the extract  of this plant.
In the first two no effect was produced; in  the others  it exerted a
stupefying action on the  nervous  system, with local irritation and
more or  less intense  inflammation,  Avith vertigo, and dilated  pupils.
After death, the blood  was found fluid, of a very dark purple color,
in the cavities of  the heart; the lungs were red and very crepitant.
Lavini made the same experiments on guinea pigs and birds, Avith
the same effects.  His experiments are described in the Journal  de
Chimie Medicale, a French publication, June number, 1825.

  Fontana states  in  his celebrated treatise on Poisons  that, having
touched  the leaves of the Rhus tox. at different times and  at inter-
vals of several days, in four to  six days  after, the eyelids and the
extremities  of the ears and many other parts of  his face  became
tumefied, and appeared filled with  an aqueous fluid.  The intervals
between the fingers became red and covered with little vesicles full
of pellucid humor, and the epidermis fell off in small scales.  Violent
smarting of the skin continued for fifteen days, and the pulse was
inordinately agitated.

  Lavini applied the juice of Rhus tox. to the index-finger, and left
it there for two minutes: in about an hour  it produced two small
dark-colored spots.  TAventy-five days afterwards, he was suddenly
seized with the following symptoms: great heat in the mouth and
throat; rapid swelling of the left cheek, of  the upper lip and eye- 
760
LECTURE LI.
 lids;  the following night SAvelling of both forearms to double their
 natural size, with coriaceous skin, insupportable itching and violent
 heat.   Four days after, there appeared  on the hands and forearms
 pustules like those of the itch ; some of them, on bursting, discharged
 a  limpid humor.  Upon inoculating the forearm with this liquid,
 fresh  pustules were  produced.   The places on the finger, to Avhich
 the juice had  been applied, presented two small  tumors, about the
 size of peas, which  afterwards diappeared  without opening them.
 After eight days, the forearms were covered with squamous scales;
 the itching lasted several days. These symptoms at last disappeared
 after the application of ice.

   It is asserted by von Mons and others, that the active principle of
 this plant is a hydrocarburetted gas, mixed with an acrid vapor,
 which acts  most powerfully upon certain organs.  Some individuals
 are exceedingly sensitive to the action of this principle.   In the
 January number of the Vienna Zeitschrift of the year  1811, Ave read
 of a Creole  Avith an  excessively delicate skin and irritable nerves,
 who was made sick and attacked Avith erysipelas, whenever he came
 in the remotest degree in  contact with  the exhalations of the poi-
 sonous  sumach.  At the distance of even a mile he began to be
 affected with the emanations proceeding from this plant, and at the
 distance of two hundred paces he became stupefied and fainted away.
 If a person carried a twig of the sumach tree past him, even without
 his knowing any thing about it, he was attacked with convulsions,
 and the skin of the whole body became inflamed, with itching and
 tumefaction.

  If small  doses of  Rhus tox. are taken  internally, the cutaneous
 and urinary secretions become more abundant, the action of the
 intestinal canal is stimulated, and in paralyzed parts a  return of sen-
 sitiveness and motor power is perceived,  accompanied by a sensatfon
 of burning and stinging.  Large doses cause pain in the stomach,
 nausea, vomiting, vertigo,  dullness and stupefaction  of the head,
 general loss of strength  in  the extremities, spasmodic twitchings,
 feverish symptoms, numbness and inflammatory SAvelling of para-
 lyzed  parts.

  From the provings which Hahnemann has instituted with this
 drug,  we infer that it affects the cerebro-spinal system of nerves,
including the  cerebral, sentient and motor nerves;  it affects the
 ganglionic nerves, the serous and  mucous membranes, the skin, the
arterial and venous  apparatus.  The organism is affected by this
plant both materially and dynamically. Dynamically the rhus-poison
tends to produce depression and even paralysis;  materially its action
results in the decomposition and dissolution of tissues.  According
to  Hahnemann, Rhus acts most  powerfully Avhile the body is in a
state of rest, whereas the  effects of Bryonia become aggravated by
motion.  This  is quite natural.  The affections to Avhich Bryonia is
generally homoeopathic are  principally characterized  by inflamma-
tory irritation:  hence the pains  which  Bryonia excites in a  part 
RHUS TOXICODENDRON.
761
must necessarily be aggravated by motion.  Rhus, on the contrary,
has a laming, stupefying action upon the tissues; hence these effects
of Rhus are necessarily diminished by motion.
  The provings which  Hahnemann  has instituted with Rhus, and
toxicological experience show that Rhus is homoeopathic to a variety
of affections, which are best studied under the following categories:

                     CEPHALIC GROUP.

  Nervous Vertigo and arthritic Hem icrania, when the brain feels as
if it were shaking in the skull, with burning pains either in the fore-
head or occiput, also with swelling of the head and even face, may
yield to Rhus.

                     NERVOUS GROUP.

  We need hardly repeat that Rhus  has been successfully used  in
the treatment of                   k
  Painless and cold Paralysis of the extremities, or in
  Paralysis depending upon  concussion or organic disease  of the
spinal marrow; or in
  Rheumatic Paralysis,  with heaviness, tearing, drawing and be-
numbing pains in the paralyzed limb.

  Rhus causes coxalgia with tearing and stitching  in the hip-joint
down to the bend of the knee, with heaviness of the  legs, paralysis
of the legs and feet, feeling of numbness in the feet.  The symptoms
recommend Rhus as an excellent remedy in
   Violent Rheumatic and Arthritic Affections.  It has  likewise been
employed in
  Ischias Nervosa.   Rhus is most useful in rheumatism characterized
by stiffness and lameness of the joints, and stinging pains in the ten-
dons and muscles,  also tingling  and feeling of soreness, or as if
bruised.   The pains are generally Avorse on first moving the part;
they abate after moving about a little.

                     ORBITAL GROUP.

  Rhus has undoubtedly a marked effect upon the eyes.
  Scrofulous Ophthalmia has  frequently been cured by means  of
Rhus ; the symptoms are: burning in the eyes, lachrymation, pho-
tophobia, swelling and  inflammation of the lids, inflammation of the
canthi, smarting sensation and pressure in the eyes.   The first who
recommended Rhus for scrofulous  ophthalmia, was a homoeopathic
physician in Arienna, Dr. Ritter von Lichtenfels; since  then, it has
been  extensively used  by allceopathic physicians, even  by von
Amnion.
  In Scrofulous Blepharophthalmia, inflammation of  the lids, even
when chronic, with redness, swelling and scurfy formations  of the
lids, dryness of the eyes, itching and burning of the lids, Rhus may
be of great service. 
762
LECTURE LI.
                   AURICULAR GROUP.

  Rhus may prove useful in
  Otalgia, Avith throbbing pains in the ear, and swelling, inflamma-
tion and desquamation of the external ear.  Alsd, in
  Parotitis after  scarlet  fever,  if the gland is hard as stone;  or in
chronic induration of the  parotid gland;  or in epidemic parotitis
(mumps).

                      FACIAL  GROUP.

  We  have seen that swelling and inflammation of the face, with
effusion of serum under the epidermis, are a common effect of Rhus.
All the signs of
  Vesicular Erysipelas are distinctly developed by Rhus.  AVe have
likewise used this agent in
  Crusta Lactea and in
  Acne Rosacea, with more or less success, but more particularly in
the chronic variety of these eruptions.

          DENTAL AND  PHARYNGEAL  GROUP.

  Rhus has been recommended in some forms of
  Arthritic and Rheumatic Toothache, with fine prickling pains in
the tooth as if a pin were stuck in ; also for a tingling pain in the
teeth, which is felt from  time to time, as if they would go to  sleep.
  This agent has  been  successfully used  by Dr.  Paine of Albany,
in the  inflammatory stage  of Diphtheria,  "if the" inflammation was
of a dark-red, or if there were  dark crimson patches scattered over
the inflamed surface."

                 CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

  The  gastric symptoms of Rhus are  not of a common  order.  It
causes  a flow of water from the mouth, and dryness of the tongue;
it causes  a bitter taste  in the  mouth; food likewise  tastes bitter.
The  appetite is  either gone, or disappears after partaking of the
smallest quantity of food; it causes a pressure  in the pit of the
stomach as if swollen.
  These symptoms may  indicate the use of Rhus in some forms of
  Dyspepsia, characterized by flow of  water, dryness in the  mouth,
little or no appetite, or a capricious appetite which is satisfied  after
partaking of the smallest quantity of food, with pressure in the epi-
gastric region as if the parts were swollen.

  Rhus causes a continual urging  to  stool, with nausea, also with
tearing in the intestines; the urging sometimes results in a watery
discharge.  Rhus also causes bloody stools, or red and yellow stools,
mixed  with mucus, of a jelly like and  fluid consistence. The stools
sometimes are involuntary.  It may therefore be  used with  advan-
tage in 
RHUS TOXICODENDRON.                 763
   Diarrhea of a dysenteric character, accompanied by discharge of
 blood and cutting pain.  In
   Typhoid Inflammation of the Bowels and Peritoneum, Rhus seems to
 possess specific powers to  arrest or favorably to modify the disor-
 ganizing  process which is going on in the  mucous surface of the
 intestines, in  the  blood, and in the peritoneal exhalations.  Dr.
 Miiller professes to have used it with success for the typhoid inflam-
 matory symptoms and the tympanitis developed during an attack of
   Incarcerated Hernia.

                      URINARY  GROUP.

   Rhus causes an increased secretion of urine, and even incontinence
 of urine.   Hence it has been given  with success for
   Paralysis of the Sphincter of the Bladder in the case of old people
 and scrofulous or hysteric  females, and even for paralysis vesicae et
 ani combined.  In
   Nocturnal Enuresis of feeble, rickety, strumous children, who are
 likewise troubled with weak bowels, Rhus proves very useful.

                      SEXUAL  GROUP.

   The action of Rhus upon the  sexual organs  is very marked.  It
 causes swelling of the parts and a  furious itching of the scrotum,
 with a distressing  breaking out on  the parts ; also violent erections
 and, in the female, violent labor-pains as if the menses would make
 their  appearance.  Hence we may recommend Rhus for
   Erysipelas of the Scrotum in new born infants; for
   Violent Itching of the Scrotum, with which many persons are some-
 times afflicted; for
   Menstrual Suppression when arising from wet feet, and the sup-
 pression is attended with violent pressing pains in the uterine region,
 and perhaps for
   Puerperal fever in some cases.

          CATARRHAL  AND THORACIC GROUPS.

   In  affections of the chest, Rhus is not to be despised.  It causes
 spasmodic sneezing, hoarseness and roughness  in the throat, cough
 with titillation in the bronchial  tubes, generally of a dry character,
 and sometimes Avith the taste of blood in the mouth.  It causes like-
 wise acute stitches flying through  the chest, at night, waking the
 patient out of  her  sleep ; shortness of breath and dyspnoea.   Hence
 we have used Rhus with some advantage in
   Typhoid Pneumonia, with  dry, glazed  tongue,_ bland  delirium,
 cough with stitches and foul or bloody expectoration.

                EXANTHEA1ATOUS GROUP.

   In  Vesicular Erysipelas Rhus seems indispensable.   In some
   Herpetic Eruptions, Avith burning and itching, and exudation of a
serous fluid, Rhus  may prove invaluable.  In 
764
LECTURE LI.
   Herpetic Eruptions on the Scrotum and Prepuce, Avith SAvelling of the
parts, exudation of serum, furious itching and smarting, Rhus is a
capital remedy.   Do not neglect Rhus in
   Tinea  Capitis, with exudation of fetid and yelloAvish matter under
the scabs, itching, burning and inflammatory redness of the scalp.

   In a case of poisoning  by Rhus, related by Dr. Neidhard of this
city, vesicular tubercles caused a great deal of annoyance to the
patient.  The eruption developed itself in the following manner.
   First day: Small vesicular tubercles resembling bites of insects,
showed  themselves in the joints of the hands,  feet,  particularly
around the inside of the ankles.
   In the evening, excessive, almost intolerable itching at the same
time, with  a kind of voluptuous feeling in the skin, followed  by a
burning, after the skin has been scratched to bleeding.  Scratching
aggravates the itching and burning.
   Second to fifth day:  Swelling and redness of the upper and loAver
lids  of the right eye and all  around it to such an extent that the
patient could only  see Avith difficulty.  A similar swelling around
the left eye, but to a less extent. Tubercles appeared in different
parts of the  body;  they appeared  also  on the knees,  hip  and
shoulder joint; this action  on  the joints  was a  characteristic
symptom.
   On the inside of  the ankles, where the itching  was most severe,
dark-brown marks have remained to this day, now five years.
   In this case the poisonous action of Rhus seemed to  communicate
itself to  several persons who  were in contact with the patient.  A
decoction of Sassafras relieved the itching; the greatest  relief  was
experienced  from small doses of  Afercurius praecipitatus ruber used
externally  as vArell as internally.  In

   Papular eruptions of this character; in papular itch or herpes,
Rhus will prove eminently useful.
   Rhus vernix has caused blotches, tubercles, and welts such as are
raised upon the  skin by the stroke of a whip or switch; also groups
of vesicles containing a serous fluid, Avith burning, on the fingers,
behind the ears  and on  other  parts of the body ; hence Ave may use
it in
   Urticaria and Pemphigus, where these blotches and vesicles occur.
   Rhus should not be forgotten in
   Puslula  maligna  or Anthrax, and in
   Purpura Hemorrhagica, especially, if the patients have a sallow,
cachectic  appearance, with  great  debility,  tendency  to paralytic
weakness of the bladder and  bowels, foul discharges; loss of appe-
tite, appearance  as if the blood would turn to Avater.

  Rhus causes pains as if sprained or bruised, and as if the flesh had
been detached from the  bones by  blows; hence it is frequently
resorted to in sprains both internally and externally; but it proves
useful only in  lesions  of the tendinous and  ligamentous tissues
when resulting from blows or strains.  If symptoms of true inflam- 
RHUS TOXICODENDRON.
765
mation develop themselves, Rhus should be used in alternation with
Aconite.
  In hard and cold  Glandular Swellings, more particularly of the
parotid  and  sub-maxillary  gland,  Rhus  has  been  found  emi-
nently useful.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

  Rhus is eminently adapted to typhoid conditions of the blood and
other vital fluids; hence it will commend itself to your attention in
acute eruptive diseases, such as
  Measles,  Scarlet-fever, Small-pox,  if  a  process of  decomposition
should appear, as indicated by foul discharges from the bowels, livid
colour of  the skin,  fading  away and unhealthy character of the
eruption.
  In Typhoid Inflammations of the bowels and peritoneum;  or in
   Abdominal  Typhus, as it is termed by pathologists, or in
  Bilious  or  Gastric  Typhus,  Rhus may  prove a  most valuable
remedy.
    In these forms of typhus the symptoms are more  or less: the
usual pain in the region of the ileo-coecal valve, sensitiveness or
perhaps numbness of the abdominal walls,  symptoms of general de-
composition of the vital fluids, discharge of foul urine, fetid, Avatery
and bloody,  sometimes  involuntary discharges from  the  boAvels,
 clammy and  husky  skin,  empty and rapid pulse; foul taste  in the
 mouth, tongue thickly coated Avith a blackish-brown mucus, thirst,
 epistaxis, bleeding of the gums, petechiae.
   In the epidemic typhus of 1813,  where thousands  of soldiers fell
 victims to the disease, Hahnemann did not  lose a single patient
 out of  one hundred and eighty-three whom  he treated in Leip-
 zic with  alternate  doses of Rhus and Bryonia.   This naturally
 excited  great astonishment among  the officers of the Russian gov-
 ernment  whose troops occupied Leipzic at that  period,  but was
 taken no  notice of by the  medical authorities.  This  fever  had
 two  principal stages.  During the first stage the  patient  was af-
 fected with an intolerable bad humor, sensation of heat in the body
 and especially in the head, dry feeling or actual  dryness  in the
 mouth, causing  constant thirst, bruised feeling in the limbs, rest-
 lessness, etc., but in the second  period the  patient did not complain
 of any of these symptoms; he was  hot, did not desire to drink, he
 knew not whether to take this thing or that; he did not know those
 about him, or he abused them, he  gave irrelevant ansAvers, talked
 nonsense with his eyes open, did foolish things, Avished to run away,
 cried aloud or moaned without being able  to say why he  did so, had
 a rattling  in the throat, the countenance was distorted,  the eyes
 squinting, he played with his hands, behaved like a madman, passed
 faeces and urine without consciousness, etc.   To these groups  of
 symptoms Bryonia  and Rhus proved homoeopathic.
   But there sometimes occurred a third  state, a sort of lethargy,  or
 semi-paralysis of the mental organs.  The patient remained indo-
 lently lyino- on his  back without sleeping or speaking;  he scarcely 
766                     LECTURE LII.
 ever answered any questions ; he appeared to hear without under-
 standing what was said;  he only whispered a few words which had
 no bearing upon the question; he appeared to  be almost without the
 power of motion or sensation, without being entirely paralyzed.
   In this case the sweet spirits of nitre were administered.  The
 nitre should be so old, or so thoroughly sweetened that the cork of
 the bottle is no longer reddened by it.
   One  drop  of this was shaken Avith an ounce of water, and con-
 sumed  within twenty-four hours.  In the course of a few days, this
 paralytic prostration was followed by recovery.

                      MENTAL GROUP.

   Rhus affects the mind more or less; it causes anxiety, a feeling of
 fright, oppression, and even delirium.

                 ANTIDOTAL TREATMENT.

   Fomentations of warm milk and sweet oil on the swollen and in-
 flamed  parts are very useful.  If the sexual parts are swollen and
 inflamed, they may be. bathed in a decoction of Sassafras.   Aconite
 and Belladonna may be given internally.  The internal and external
 use of Lobelia inflata  has been found efficient by some practioners.
 The Mercurius praecipitatus ruber internally, and externally  in the
 shape of a mild  ointment, likewise affords great relief.  A  wash of
 the spirits of Camphor mixed  in water, may likewise be used.
   The Creole to whom allusion has been made in this lecture, was
 cured when attacked, by the powder of Rhus  grandiflora, a species
 of the genus  Rhus. Excessive effects of large doses of a drug are
 very often counteracted in our practice  by highly potentized  doses
 of the same drug, or by preparations  obtained from different species
of the same genus.
  In regard to the dose, opinions differ.  Old  School physicians
have exhibited the drug in doses of  from one  to two  hundred and
fifty grains daily.  Hahnemann advises the 12th up to the 30th
potency.  In  cases of paralysis, Trinks recommends the tincture,
which is prepared from the leaves, and is of a dark-yellow color.
           "   LECTURE   LII.

                       STRAMONIUM,
           {Thorn-apple.—Natural Order:—Solane^:.)
  A well  known  bush, from one to three feet high, stem smooth,
branched, forked, spreading, leafy; leaves broad towards the base,
pointed  at  the extremities,  variously and sharply sinuated  and 
STRAMONIUMj
767
toothed,  of a dark-green color:  flowers large, axillary, upright,
white : fruit prickly, of the size of a walnut;  seeds kidney-shaped,
black.
  It grows in waste places, on heaps of rubbish, in this country and
in Europe.  A yellowish tincture of the  seeds  is the best prepara-
tion.  A tincture made of the leaves, has a dark-green color.
  This is a powerful narcotic agent.  Pereira ranges the effects of
Stramonium  on man into three classes:  In  small, but  gradually
increased doses,  it diminishes  sensibilty, and  thereby frequently
alleviates pain.  It does not usually affect the pulse; it slightly and
temporarily affects the pupil, and has no tendency to cause constipa-
tion,  but rather relaxation.  Though it  allays pain,  it  does  not
usually produce sleep.   In larger doses, it causes thirst, dryness of
the throat, nausea, giddiness, nervous agitation, dilatation of the
pupil, obscurity  of vision, headache, disturbance of the cerebral
functions, perspiration, occasional relaxation of the bowels, and in
some cases diuresis.  It has no direct  tendency to induce sleep, and
hence it cannot  be called  soporific;  but indirectly, by alleviating
pain, and thereby producing  serenity and ease, it  often disposes to
sleep.  In fatal doses,  the leading symptoms  are  flushed counten-
ance, delirium (usually maniacal), dilatation of the  pupil, dryness of
the throat, loss of voice, difficulty of deglutition, convulsions and, in
some cases, palsy.
   These very vague statements convey a general knowledge of the
physiological action of Stramonium, but are of  little practical value
to us, inasmuch as they do not delineate  a single disease with suffi-
cient clearness to  serve us as guides in practice.  Baron Stcerck,
who  may be looked upon as a precursor to Hahnemann, recom-
mended it internally in mania and epilepsy. His reasoning in refer-
ence to this point is very remarkable.  " If," says this distinguished
experimenter, " Stramonium  produces symptoms  of madness in _ a
 healthy person, would  it not be desirable to make experiments, in
 order to ascertain whether this plant, by its effects on the brain in
 changing the ideas and the state of the  sensorium {i. e. of the part,
 whatever it may be, which is the centre of action of the nerves upon
 the body), should we not, I say, try whether  this plant  would not
 restore to a healthy state, those who are suffering from alienation of
 mind ?  And if, by the change which Stramonium would cause in
 those who suffer from convulsions, by putting them into a contrary
 state to that in which they were, would it not cause their cure I
   It was a beautiful  and brilliant thought of Baron  Stcerck  and
 one  fraught with most useful results, to suppose that a medicine
 which  possesses the  power of  exciting a certain disease ma given
 organism, must likewise be  capable  of neutralizing this_ disease, it
 occurring as a natural malady, by virtue of its antagonizing action.
 It Avas his belief that the drug-disease was diametrically  opposed to
 the natural malady, although similar to, or rather identical with, this
 natural malady, in form and appearance.  He instituted his provings
 of dru-s with a view of ascertaining  how, and upon what organ or
 tissue, they acted during health, and it is by these means that he Avas
 enabled to prescribe Aconite, Belladonna, Comum, Pulsatilla, and a 
768
LECTURE LII.
number of other drugs, in  a hitherto unheard-of manner, and Avith
a success alike brilliant and encouraging.  Behold how the great
truth of Homoeopathy has gradually dawned upon humanity. Fore-
shadowed by Hippocrates in one or tAvo axioms, evanescent flashes
of genius; again pressed forward by Paracelsus, who looked upon
disease as a state of medicinal poisoning that ought to be neutralized
by its antidote; held up to the attention of the scientific world  by
one of the few noble men Avho, although occupying an official chair
in the most distinguished medical  school of that period, dared to
proclaim the necessity of stepping beyond the boundaries of medical
science as taught and practiced by his cotemporaries;  of ascertain-
ing the action of drugs upon the living tissues Avhile  in a state of
health, and  thus learning from nature herself the diseases against
Avhich drugs may be administered as  their direct and positive anti-
dotes.  All  these  varied views and suggestions Avere so many pre-
paratory stages in the gradual advent  of the Law of Cure which we
have inscribed upon the portals of our College.
  AVhat  is  it that underlies these reasonings of Paraceslus  and
Stcerck ?  Is it not the  idea that  a drug, in order to become a true
remedial agent, must hold  some specific relation to the disease for
which it is to be used?  According to Paracelsus, this  specific rela-
tion consists in the fact that the disease is a state of poisoning Avhich
has to be neutralized by its antidote; according to Baron Stcerck,
the specific relation consists in this, that a drug, in order to cure a
disease, must be capable of affecting the same tissues Avhich are the
seat of the natural malady, and that this capability implies a power
inherent  in the drug, of directly antagonizing and extinguishing the
morbid process. And now appears upon the stage of medical reform
Hahnemann, who sums up  all these  scattered  fragments  of truth
under one universal generalization, teaching the doctrine that the
curative  power of a drug, in a given case, depends upon its capability
of reproducing the symptoms of the morbid process in their totality.
  Paracelsus and Baron Stcerck stood  on the threshold of the temple
of truth; Hahnemann  entered the  sanctuary, not perhaps the holy
of holies, where the causes  of things are revealed  to man.   "I care
nothing about the reason why a disease will  yield  to a drug which
is capable of reproducing the symptoms  of the  disease  in their
totality.  The fact that the disease will disappear under  the influence
of such a drug, is undeniable, and this  is all I contend for. Further-
more, in  order that you may know the symptoms which a drug is
capable of developing  in the tissues while in  a state of health,  you
must institute systematic provings  upon yourselves."  Hahnemann
never cared to go much farther; he never undertook to account for
the inmost reasonableness of the  homoeopathic  Lt\v.  The only ex-
planation he gives of the remarkable phenomenon of a cure in ac-
cordance with the principle "similia similibus," is this,  that the
drug-disease being stronger than the  natural  malady,  this latter is
absorbed and neutralized by the former.  The superficial reading of
this explanation has made it  appear  imperfect  and unsatisfactory;
for how can we understand that a poor sufferer, who is already over-
shadowed by  death, can be freed from  the  embraces  of the grim 
STRAMONIUM.
769
destroyer by being assailed by another still more violent disease than
the natural malady ?
 ^ This unfortunate misapprehension of Hahnemann's explanation of
his doctrine, has furnished arms to his enemies whereAvith they might
assail the  inherent  reasonableness  of Homoeopathy.   Such men as
Trousseau and Pidoux have made the most of this argument in their
refutation of Hahnemann's teachings.  I have  shown  again and
again how this doctrine, that  the artificial drug-disease is superior
to  the natural malady, must have been  understood by Hahnemann.
I have  shown that this  superiority  of the drug-disease  over  the
natural malady depends upon  the superior affinity existing betAveen
these two conditions.   The drug-disease absorbs and neutralizes the
natural  malady by virtue of  this superior affinity, superior to  the
affinity existing between  the natural malady and the physiological
life of the organism.   This affinity  only exists between morbid con-
ditions resulting  from the same cause;  the morbific force embodied
in the drug, and developing  the drug-disease, being identical Avith
the morbific principle which develops an  analogous pathological
process  in the tissues.  Here we have the whole  secret of Homoeo-
pathy which,  if  properly presented to the thinking minds of this
generation, will make Homoeopathy the therapeutic Science of this
and all future Ages.
  It may seem immaterial whether the phenomenon of a homoeo-
pathic cure is  correctly or incorrectly  accounted for; but, if you
consider that an  imperfect understanding of Hahnemann's explana-
tion has led to important practical  errors, such as the sAveeping doc-
trine of medicinal aggravations, and this other one-sided  and often
mischievous doctrine, that none but high potencies should be used
by a true  follower of Hahnemann,  we  cannot  remain  indifferent
towards a philosophical interpretation of the true law of cure.  Come
up higher!  is still the precept which sounds like angles' music to the
spirit of all free and noble-minded  worshippers of truth.   Come
up  higher!   AVhat! in an age when  all the energies of scientific
minds are bent upon investigating first principles;  when the micro-
scope, the crucible  and the ethereal forces of nature are constantly
called upon for aid in the great struggle of darkness against light, of
intelligent Reason against unintelligent Creeds and hereditary Opin-
ions ; are  we to  chain our minds by empirical routine ?  are Ave to
prescribe Aconite for fever because  Ave were so taught, or because we
understand and feel in our very souls that it is in obedience to a law,
of which we have a clear and  logical perception ?   Let us not forget,
that Ave OAve it to our professional opponents, to our great cause, to
the sacred interests of humanity, that we should stand  before  the
Avorld armed not only Avith the brilliant results of our practice, but
with the irresistible might of  that high Common  Sense which is the
prerogative of men who  have freed themselves from all  hereditary
opinions;  who, worshipping truth rather than human authority, hold
themselves accountable to their consciences and to humanity for the
neAV principles Avith which they undertake to subvert favorite forms
of belief and established interests.  Hahnemann  himself, in spite of
his fierce denunciation of theories,  yielded to the irresistible claims
                               49 
770
LECTURE LII.
of that ever-active power in the soul which impels man omvard in
his investigation of causes; the great reformer himself, when he pub-
lished his work on the treatment of chronic diseases, astonished the
world by an unheard-of theory of chronic miasms which  swamped
more effectually than arguments could do, his opposition to the in-
vestigation of the first causes of disease.  Gentlemen, a homoeopathic
physician who deliberately abjures the privilege  of thinking for him-
self; who is enslaved by hereditary opinions and  interests; whose
mind is not, like the eagle's eye, constantly looking up to the sun of
truth as the source of all wisdom  in  the  practical interests of life,
and of the sick-room in particular;  may be a fashionable practitioner,
he may amass a fortune, he may be at the head of a church-organiza-
tion ; he may be accompanied to his last resting-place by a numerous
cortege  of fashionable acquaintances; but in the temple  of humanity
his niche will remain desolate, and  in  the balance of  history he will
be found wanting, and his very name will be scattered by the whirl-
wind of eternal progress.

  The  numerous cases  of poisoning  by Stramonium  which  have
been recorded by toxicologists, go to show that Stramonium pro-
duces its remarkable effects  upon the  organism by virtue of its
peculiar  specific action upon  the  brain.  The  active  principle of
Stramonium is an alkaloid which its discoverer,  Brande, has termed
Daturia or Daturine.

  Dr. Fowler, in his Medical Commentaries, mentions the  case of a
little girl who took a drachm and a half of the seeds.  In about two
hours furious maniacal delirium set in, with spectral illusions. These
symptoms continued for several hours : she recoA^ered.
  Dr. Burton mentions  the case of two British soldiers  who ate
Stramonium  by mistake for the Chenopodium album.  One became
furious and ran about like a madman;  the other  died with the symp-
toms of genuine tetanus.

  Albert Corvisart, in the 23d volume of the Journal de Aledicine,
relates  three cases of children who were poisoned by Stramonium:
the symptoms were delirium, restlessness, constant incoherent talking,
dancing and singing, fever, and flushed face.

 _ Boerhaave relates the case  of a  young  girl who had  the powder
given her in some coffee, for an unlawful purpose.   The symptoms
were:  redness  of the  features, delirium, nymphomania, loss  of
speech;  then staring at one point, tremors, convulsions  and coma;
afterwards tetanic spasm, and  slow  respiration, Avith the coma.  She
recovered.

  In another case, related  in Professor Rust's Aragazine, the leading
symptoms were: spasmodic closing of the eyelids and jaws, spasms
of the back, complete coma,  and excessive dilatation and insensi-
bility of the pupil.

  Hahnemann reports the following cases in his  Lesser Writings: A 
STRAMONIUM.
771
woman  rather advanced in  life, took two grains of the extract of
Stramonium in two doses within eight hours; she was attacked with
stupefaction, anxiety, convulsions of the limbs, and involuntary Aveep-
ing; these symptoms  were  frightfully  increased by partaking of
coffee; they rapidly disappeared after swallowing a few ounces of
strong  vinegar.   In relating this case, Hahnemann remarks that
Stramonium causes extraordinary waking dreams, unconsciousness
of what is going on, loud delirious talking like a person speaking in
sleep, with mistakes respecting personal identity.   A similar kind
of mania it cures specifically.   It excites very specific convulsions,
and has thus often proved useful in epilepsy; both properties render
it serviceable in cases of persons possessed, Its power of extinguish-
ing recollection should induce us to try it in cases of weak memory.
It  is most useful when  there is great mobility of fibre, because its
direct action,  in  large  doses, is  increased muscular mobility.  It
causes  heat and dilatation of the  pupil, a kind  of dread of water,
swelling and redness of the face, twitching of the muscles of the
eyes, retarded stool, difficult breathing; small doses cause perspira-
tion and sleep.

   Mr. Marsh of Northampton, relates the following case: A woman,
aged thirty-six, took two teacupfuls of an infusion of Stramonium by
mistake for Senna.   In ten  minutes she was seized with dimness of
sight, giddiness and fainting; in two hours she was quite insensible,
pupils fixed and dilated, all  the muscles of the body convulsed, the
countenance flushed, and the  pulse full and slow.  The stomach-
pump was applied, and in a few hours she recovered, suffering, how-
ever, from indistinctness of vision and vertigo.

   In the Boston Aledical and Surgical Journal we read a description
of the case of three females  who had swallowed an infusion of Stra-
monium-leaves (half an ounce  to a pint of water), in mistake for
hoarhound. They were found lying in bed, stupid, unable to articulate,
with a certain peculiar wildness  of countenance, and flushed face;
pupils dilated and insensible, conjunctiva highly injected;  lips and
tongue  parched; no vomiting;  breathing at times  stertorous  and
labored ; hands cold, with a trembling and slightly convulsive move-
ment ;  great rigidity of the muscles of the neck and back;  at times
active efforts at utterance.  Two of the patients recovered, the third
died.
   The following case  of  poisoning by Stramonium illustrates the
action of this poison in a remarkable manner.  The case is that  of a
child belonging to Air. Duffin, England, and is reported in the April
number of the London Lancet, 1845.  His little daughter, aged  two
years and a half, swallowed, without the knowledge of her parents,
upwards of one hundred of the seeds.  The  first  symptoms were
great irritability of temper, accompanied by general itching  over
the whole surface of the body, more especially of the face, and con-
duct as.if intoxicated.  To these succeeded flushed countenance,
wildness of manner, suffused eyes, maniacal expression, ineffectual
efforts to vomit, incoherent and rapid utterance, screaming, catching 
772
LECTURE LII.
at imaginary  objects  in the air, or  rather  striking at them;  it
was evident that these  spectra were of a frightful nature, for there
was an expression of horror in her face;  she  screamed violently
and hid her face; her eye would, to appearance, follow the imagi-
nary object for a moment or t\vo before she  made an effort to escape
from its supposed approach; she rapidly became furiously delirous,
struck at, pinched,  or  attempted to  bite every person who came
near her, or any object that was offered to  her.  In two hours the
child  had lost all power of utterance and of voice;  she could only
utter  a hoarse, croaking sound,  alternated with  a sonorous, crampy,
barking cough, and was unable to swallow in  consequence of the
violent spasm which affected the muscles of deglutition when she
made the effort.;  the pupils were dilated, had been so from the first:
the voluntary power of the extremities was gone, and the limbs Avere
violently agitated by spasmodic tAvitching and tossing (not by regular
convulsions), alternating with short paroxysms of opisthotonic spasms.
The pulse was almost imperceptible from the first;  coma came on
in five hours; a  tympanitic state of the abdomen, with paralysis  of
the bladder; and death ensued  tAventy-four hours after SAvallowing
the seeds.
  The blood was found to be semi-fluid throughout the body.  The
few coagula met with in the auricles of the heart and large veins,
Avere very fully formed and easily broken down.  A slight unusual
blush pervaded  the pharynx and oesophagus to about one-third  of
its extent; the  larynx was similarly injected.  The rima glottidis
was thickened  and very turgid; the stomach  and  intestines pre-
sented an  extremely healthy appearance throughout.

  The following cases likeAvise show the  extraordinary action  of
Stramonium upon the brain in a most instructive manner.
  A man  of sixty and his wife had  swalloAved a tablespoonful  of
the seeds of Stramonium.  In half an hour they were attacked with
vertigo, stupefaction, sopor and spasms. A physician found them
unconscious, with stertorous breathing, depression of the loAver jaw,
twitching of the hands and feet, rolling of the eyes, dilatation of the
pupils, grasping  at the nose, ears, head, difficulty  of deglutition
pulse somewhat accelerated and inclining to intermit; the skin was
cool.  During the night the consciousness returned somewhat. They
complained of burning in the bowels, deglutition was exceedingly
difficult and  painful, the voice became croaking and inarticulate.
The woman died; the. man was  saved by taking castor oil.

   A girl of four years ate a feAV seeds of Stramonium, while  playing
in a garden in  the afternoon.   Towards evening the child began to
complain  of stitches in the ears. She became delirious and com-
menced to sing.  Her eyes glistened, the  pupils Avere dilated and
partially insensible  to  the light.  She caught at  things in  the air,
and picked at  the bedclothes.  She was unable to stand, her knees
gave  way, she acted like one intoxicated.   Large quantities of milk
induced  vomiting of the seeds, by  means of  which her  life was
saved. 
STRAMONIUM.                     773
  This case affords eAddence of the homceopathicity of Stramonium
to typhus, where this grasping at flocks and the picking at the bed-
clothes frequently occur.

  Another interesting case  is that of a robust little boy of three
years.   He ate of the seeds.  Soon after he complained of scraping
in the throat, bored with the head into the pillow, his_ hands and
feet trembled.  In half an hour the child was unconscious and in
spasms.  The head was hot, face dark-red, the extremities redder
than usual, the  pupils very much dilated, and there was  profuse
salivation; the child grit his teeth,  trembled violently,  was very
much  convulsed, showed  symptoms  of violent anguish,  and  con-
tinually uncovered his private parts.  The child was  saved by
means of emetics (sulphate of zinc), and cathartic injections.  After
he commenced to improve, he seemed very much excited, and  sang
and screamed continually until he  fell into a sound sleep, from
which he woke quite  well.
   This case  shows the great similarity which exists between the
action of Balladonna and that of Stramonium, and renders it evi-
dent that these two great agents must evince curative powers in the
same class of cerebral diseases.
   A  remarkable effect of Stramonium  in this case is the tendency
manifested by the little patient to uncover his private parts.  AVe
infer from this symptom that Stramonium may prove valuable as a
remedy for Nymphomania and affections of the sexual system char-
acterized by violent sexual  excitement.
   This effect was witnessed in the case of  a chlorotic female, twenty
 years old, who had swallowed a number of the seeds.  Her face was
 hot and red, pupils very much dilated, eyes injected; she was de-
 lirious, complained of vertigo, ringing  in the ears, dryness of the
 lips and tongue, which was very red, subsultus tendinum, twitching
 of the extremities, sensitiveness of the stomach to pressure, accele-
 rated and full pulse.   A marked effect of the poison was an excite-
 ment in the sexual sphere, which might be inferred from her actions
 and from the expressions she used in her delirium.

   In  another case four full grown persons ate a  quantity of Stra-
 monium leaves, which, by mistake,  had been mixed among  other
 vegetables;  they  became  crazy,  indulged  in  ludicrous gesticula-
 tions, seemed intoxicated;  the abdomen was very much distended.
 A case of this kind shoAVS the curative  virtues of Stramonium in
 mania.

   Other cases of poisoning have revealed  the curative virtues  of
 Stramonium in tetanic convulsions.  A robust  woman, who had
 pleuSsy, prepared a decoction of the leaves and seeds of Stramonium,
 of whichPshe swallowed three cupfuls.   Soon after she Avas taken
 with sickness at the  stomach, anxiety, her eyes became  closed and
 he  jaws were locked and immovable; the pulse beat violently and
 the extremities twitched. She was bled two pounds, after which she
 opened her eyes,  looked about wildly, with her pupils dilated and 
771
LECTURE LII.
 insensible to light  or  contact.  She  opened her  mouth, but  the
 tongue was immovable and she was unable to utter a sound.  She
 Avas  attacked  with opisthotonos.   Stimulants  and  injections  re-
 stored her.

   The homoeopathicity of Stramonium to amaurosis is evidenced by
 the case of a girl three  years  old, who, after eating a considerable
 quantity of the seeds, was attacked with convulsive twitchings  of
 the  arms, paralysis of  the  lower extremities, protrusion of the
 tongue, staring of the eyes, dilatation of the pupils, muttering de-
 lirium, loss of senses.  After recovering her consciousness, she com-
 plained that the room was very dark and she desired a candle to be
 lighted.   She passed bloody stools and recovered.

   A  man, who was  afflicted with  violent rheumatism  of the  head,
 took from tAventy to twenty-five drops of the tincture of Stramonium
 every few hours.  The rheumatism disappeared, but the patient was
 attacked with the symptoms which  usually  characterize the  toxi-
 cological action  of this  drug,  such  as:  delirium, staggering gait,
 dryness  of the  mouth and throat, hard and full pulse; he voided
 moreover a watery urine.
   It is to this symptom that I  desire to  direct your attention.  In
 hysteric  spasms, this symptom may be present.  In hysteric spasms,
 characterized by the sardonic smile,  sexual excitement and the
 emission of watery urine, Stramonium may do us great good.
   Another indication for Stramonium in hysteric spasms is the
 globus hystericus or hysteric  ball,  which has  likewise been oc-
 casioned by Stramonium.  In a case reported in the Magazine of
 Therapeutics (a German periodical), a mother and her three children
 complained of a burning pain  in  the  throat, and a distress as if a
 ball were incarcerated there.

   Stramonium  causes paroxysms of rage.   In this respect it acts
 similarly to Belladonna.  A little boy who had swallowed the seeds,
 and showed the usual symptoms of  poisoning, redness of the  face,
 glistening eyes, dilatation and  insensibility of the pupils, shrill and
 crowing sound of the voice, was likewise attacked with paroxysms
 of rage;  he attempted to  bite the people who were in the room.

   A case of poisoning is reported in Hufeland's Journal, where the
patients,  about a fortnight after the poisonous symptoms had disap-
peared, were attacked with a pustulous eruption which covered the
whole of the left leg.  The pustules were small and caused a good
deal of burning and inflammatory redness;  they were filled  with an
acrid fluid.

   A case is reported in a German Aledical Journal, where a girl of
four years Avas attacked with a fiery redness of the whole body, with
squinting of the eyelids, trembling of the extremities, opisthotonic
spasms and difficulty of deglutition.

   In another ease reported in the Journal Universel (a French  pub- 
STRAMONIUM.
775
lication), the  patient, a little girl of two years and a half, ate a
quantity of the seeds,  after which  she  was attacked Avith extra-
ordinary mirthfulness.  She alternately laughed, screamed and sang,
changing with Avonderful rapidity from one to the other.  Her face
exhibited an intense scarlet-redness, the skin was likewise of a shin-
ing red as  in scarlet-fever, and very dry; her face, neck and chest
were  covered with small, shining, star-shaped petechiae.  The poi-
sonous symptoms Avere speedily subdued, but the petechiae remained
about a week after the poisoning occurred.
  This  case  shows  that in typhoid fevers, where  such petechiae
occur, Stramonium may prove very valuable.  Some  years ago a
typhoid  fever occurred in some parts of the State of New York as
an  epidemic  disease.  It Avas  characterized by an eruption resem-
bling flea-bites, and yielded very readily to Stramonium, the action of
which was  specifically homoeopathic to it.

  These cases of poisoning show that Stramonium acts principally
upon the brain and spinal cord ; in fatal cases death takes place by
paralysis of these nervous centres.  The iris and the loAver extremi-
ties seem to be most speedily and constantly affected by the poison.
Functional derangements of the  abdominal organs  seem to result
from  a sympathetic irritation rather than from the direct action of
the poison.
  After  death  the vessels  of the brain, the ventricles  of the heart
and the pulmonary parenchyma  are found gorged with a black,
fluid blood.  The  stomach and bowels show signs of inflammation ;
their  vessels are partially injected.

  In  the case  of  Stramonium  the law of primary  and secondary
action to which frequent allusions have been made in these lectures,
is likewise  beautifully and strikingly illustrated.  The first effect of
the poison  may be an apparent stimulation, an increased frequency
and volume of  the pulse; the skin becomes redder and hotter; the
patient  seems dizzy, acts as if he were  intoxicated, laughs, sings,
screams, manifests an increased  excitement of the  sexual sphere.
Spasms and opisthotonic convulsions may be numbered among the
signs of primary stimulation.
  These symptoms  do not last,  and are gradually superseded  by
sopor, stupefaction, loss of consciousness,  paralysis of the lower
extremities.                                           V
  In  some cases, where the patients manifest very little power to
react  against  the effects of the poison, the signs of stimulation .are
either short-lasting or do not occur.  The patient is at once plunged
into stupor, seems paralyzed, insensible.
  In  regard  to the iris, the primary effect  of the poison seems to
occur in every  case; the pupil is  very much dilated, and the patient
is partially or totally blinded.  After the blindness is removed, the
patient may complain for a time of photophobia.
  Let us now  proceed to  review the effects of Stramonium Avith
reference to their corresponding pathological affections.  The cerebral
and mental diseases may be very conveniently ranged in the same
category. 
776
LECTURE LII.
                 CEREBRO-SPINAL GROUP.

  Stramonium causes, and therefore proves admirably adapted as a
curative agent to, various forms of
  Mania, mania ferox, where the patient manifests a desire to strike,
bite, and otherAvise injure persons.
  Mania saltatoria, or a jumping, singing and dancing mania.
  Mania ecsiatica, or ecstasis, Avith exaltation of the fancy and sensi-
bility, generally Avith cerebral congestions.
  Mania errabunda, or rather a sort  of melancholy, impelling the
patient to wander about.
  Mania Avith excessive talking, even to absent persons;
  Mania with hallucinations, he fancies he is all alone in the world,
in a wilderness;
  Mania with frightful visions, shrieks, flushed face, feverish  heat,
slow pulse.
  Fitful mania, a remarkable instance  of which  is narrated by
Hahnemann in his Lesser AVritings.  It is the case of Klockenbring,
a man of high education  and  holding an eminent station under the
Hanoverian government.  Political  slander  deprived him of his
sanity.  His mania was of the fitful kind.   At times he indulged in
the  most ludicrous whims and gesticulations, reciting Dante  most
pathetically; at  other times  he would enact some ludicrous farce,
say his praj^ers, paint his face.  One morning, during one of his fits,
he asked for ink and paper, and wrote a prescription.   It was Stra-
monium. The drug was administered, and the patient had no sooner
begun to take the medicine when he recovered.

  Stramonium causes vertigo and intoxication.  It has been found
useful in paroxysms of
  Vertigo, with staggering, inability to collect one's thoughts, stupe-
faction ; these attacks of  vertigo may co-exist with gastric derange-
ments, such as sour vomiting, diarrhoea.
  In Mania-a-potu, characterized by fits of rage, frightful phantasms,
hallucinations (such as one-half of the body being cut off), desire to
escape, glistening eyes, staring look, dilatation of the pupils, we shall
find Stramonium eminently useful.
  Phrenitis comes within the curative range of Stramonium. Many
of tire symptoms which  Ave  have indicated  so far, may occur in
phrenitis.   All our cases  of poisoning by Stramonium show that the
cerebral vessels are engorged Avith blood under the action of Stra-
monium. • The symptomatic indications likewise point to Stramonium.
The glistening eyes, the  flushed face, the expression  of terror and
pain in the features, the peculiar delirium, generally of the maniacal
character, justify the use  of Stramonium in this disease.
  In Cerebral  Congestions  and in Inflammation of  the Brain arising
from certain  causes, Stramonium may be  useful.  Among  such
causes  we  may number  the sudden  retrocession  or the imperfect
development of an acute  rash, dentition, gastric irritation, a peculiar
miasmatic condition of the  atmosphere.  A phrenitis of this  kind
may be characterized by the  toxicological  effects of Stramonium, 
STRAMONIUM.
777
 such as:  glistening of the  eyes, with dilatation of the  pupils,  red-
 ness of the face, boring vrith the head into the pillow, muttering or
 furious delirium, stupor, burning pain in the brain, etc.
   These and similar symptoms might characterize a case of
   Cerebral_ Typhus, to which Stramonium is  homoeopathic ;  in addi-
 tion to which we may have carpolagia, dry and parched tongue and
 lips, petechiae, offensive discharges from the bowels.  You  recollect
 the epidemic typhoid  fever to which allusion was  made in a  pre-
 vious paragraph.

   AVe have seen that Stramonium causes convulsions, trembling of
 the extremities, paralysis.   Hence we recommend it in

   Tetanic  Convulsions,  especially when  excited  by the sight  of a
 sparkling object, water, a looking-glass, candle.  Striking symptoms
 of cerebral congestion are ahvays present during the paroxysm.   In

   Traumatic Tetanus, Stramonium may be used;  convulsions have
 been  induced  by introducing  Stramonium  into  the  circulation
 through a wound.

   In  Chorea,  Stramonium may effect a cure,  especially in recent
 cases  where the attack was induced by a fright, by  the  sudden
 checking of the perspiration, self-abuse.

   In Epilepsy, Stramonium has effected many beautiful cures.   The
 following case, among many, may serve to substantiate this fact: A
 poor woman, of forty-five years, had been afflicted with epilepsy for
 years, in consequence  of a fright.  At  first, the  attacks were  pre-
 ceded by a feeling of anxiety and oppression in  the  region of the
 stomach;  but very soon they set in without any premonitory symp-
 toms four or six times a day, with loss of consciousness;  the patient
 uttered a shriek, fell down, and  became  convulsed; the attack  left
 the patient stupid, and with a feeling of aching pain and oppression
 in the region of the stomach.  Her mind Avas not affected.  After a
 good deal of fruitless treatment with Valerian, flowers of Zinc, Cop-
 per,  etc., she was  put on the use of the  extract of Stramonium, of
 which she  gradually took twelve grains, and was entirely  cured of
 her disease.  After having remained perfectly free from her disease
 for seven weeks, she had a violent fright, the consequence of which
 was a renewal of the attack.   Stramonium again cured her, and she
 had been well for several years when the case Avas  reported. Epi-
 leptic  spasms  may set in in  consequence of onanism, fright, retro-
 cession of a rash, etc.
  I have already alluded to the fact that  Stramonium  may cure

  Hysteric Spasms, when characterized by the globus  hystericus,
sardonic smiles, discharge of watery urine.

  Hydrophobic  Convulsions have been successfully treated with Stra-
monium.   This  poison causes  a  spasmodic constriction  of  the 
778
LECTURE LII.
fauces so that not even water can be SAvallowed.  Buckner informs
us in his Toxicology, that he once macerated, over night, tAvo grains
of the seeds of Stramonium in a glass of beer which he swallowed
next morning before breakfast.  He was attacked with vertigo, and
dryness and constriction of the  throat, so that he was unable to
swallow his own saliva.  In  violent cases, the attempt  to SAvallow
liquids has resulted in hydrophobic convulsions.  Hence in
  Spurious Hydrophobia and perhaps in genuine hydrophobia, Stra-
monium may prove useful.
  Stramonium has caused, and may therefore cure,

  Paralysis, especially when  occurring  in  an acute form.  In  one
case, two grains of the extract caused  paralysis of the  extremities
of the left side, which were covered with cold sweat; at the same
time the extremities of the right side and  the lower jaAV were vio-
lently convulsed.  The intellectual  faculties were  disturbed,  the
power to articulate impaired ;  other symptoms were : weeping, diffi-
culty of  swallowing, increased sensibility of the abdominal Avails,
frequent and small pulse, hurried respiration.
  You will have observed that paralysis and convulsions co-exist in
this  group of symptoms.  In another  case of poisoning the same
fact has occurred :  convulsions of the arms, with simultaneous par-
alysis of the lower limbs, protrusion of  the tongue, dilatation of the
pupils, muttering, loss of sense, and subsequently loss of vision, Avith
bloody stools.  These symptoms lead us to use Stramonium in cer-
tain forms of
  Paralysis, partial or complete, when accompanied by, or remain-
ing after, convulsions.  Disturbances of the  special  senses, and of
the intellectual functions, are very generally present in paralysis to
which Stramonium is homoeopathic.  This kind  of paralysis may
occur  in consequence of a sudden mental  or moral  shock, sudden
retrocession of an acute rash, sudden checking of the perspiration.
In a case reported in Frank's Magazine, the patient became para-
lyzed  and lost his voice  in consequence of the sudden suppression
of a diarrhoea by opium; Stramonium restored him very speedily.

  These acute cerebral and nervous affections to which Stramonium
is homoeopathic, are  very generally accompanied by redness and
bloating of the face, staring of the eyes, a blanched  appearance of
the Avings of the nose and the region around the mouth, and a hectic
spot on each cheek.

                     ORBITAL GROUP.

  The action of Stramonium upon the sense of vision is very re-
markable.  It causes
  Dilatation of the pupils;
  Glistening eyes;
  Staring eyes;
  SAvelling and redness of the eyes, also with sensitiveness to light;
 ^ Diplopia, the patient sees objects double, but in an  oblique direc-
tion one from the other; 
STRAMONIUM.
779
   Black objects look grey;
   He sees objects which are not present;
   He sees a reddish-grey border around white objects, such as paper;
   Letters seem to move, look blurred, objects are seen obliquely;
 in one case,
   Amaurosis set in for six hours; in other cases
   Paralysis of the upper lid took place.
  _ These_ symptoms  generally  co-exist with cerebral  affections, or
 violent irritations of the  ganglionic system.  Some of these phe-
 nomena may remain as sequelae  of acute cerebral  diseases;  more
 particularly
   Amaurosis, amblyopia, paralysis of the upper lids, and the various
 optical illusions which may characterize a general amaurotic condi-
 tion of the eye.
   In Inflammation and Ulceration of the lids, Stramonium may be of
 great use.  In  the previously mentioned nervous affections of the
 eyes, Stramonium may be tried, whether they exist as consequences
 of cerebral diseases or from any other source.

                      BUCCAL  GROUP.

   The symptoms which are to be recorded here, do  not exist  inde-
 pendently of the cerebral  symptoms ;  in this range we have
   Dryness of the mouth;
   Screaming until the patient is hoarse;
   Stammering, uttering inarticulate sounds;
   Loss of speech, he expresses his wishes  by signs;  sometimes the
 loss of speech is accompanied by furious delirium;
   Swelling of the tongue,  it hangs out at  the mouth;
   Bloody froth;
   Ptyalism,  discharge of tenacious saliva;
   Constriction of the throat.
   All these symptoms occur incidentally  to more general affections
 of the brain  or nervous system, in phrenitis, typhus, convulsions, and
 so forth.
   This remark is likewise  applicable to the symptoms of the

                  CHYLO-POIETIC  GROUP.

  Here we have to make the following record:
  Food tastes like straAv;
  Vomiting of  sour mucus;
  Feeling of anxiety in the pit of the stomach;
  Burning distress in the stomach;
  Tympanitis;
  Rumbling in the bowels;
  Blackish diarrhoea;
  Diarrhoea  having a cadaverous smell;
  Discharge of coagulated blood from the anus.
  All these  symptoms constitute so many elements of more  com-
prehensive pathological groups.  In the various cerebral affections, 
780
LECTURE LII.
and in the various typhoid inflammations and nervous irritations, to
which Stramonium is  homoeopathic, these symptoms-  may  occur.
The vomiting, for instance, may occur  as  a sympathetic result of
cerebral congestion.  The burning and tympanitic distention  of the
bowels, and  the  blackish and  cadaverous  diarrhoea, may occur in
certain forms of typhus, or as a  consequence of  a repelled  malig-
nant eruption, scarlet-rash or small-pox.

                     URINARY  GROUP.

  Stramonium causes retention of urine; in one case this was accom-
panied by a sensation as if a cylindrical ball Avere pushed  through
the urethra.
  This symptom reminds us of the  hysterical  ball as a  symptom of
hysteria,   It confirms the use of Stramonium in
  Hysteria, especially when the difficulty gradually terminates, as it
often does, in the secretion of copious quantities  of a watery urine,
a kind of urine Avhich is generally designated by the term "spastic"
  This retention of urine may likeAvise occur as a mere symptom in
paralysis, typhus, etc.

                      SEXUAL GROUP.

  Stramonium causes  a violent, unnatural irritation of the sexual
organs of the female, enabling us to  use Stramonium in that dreadful
form of mania,
  Nymphomania, Avhere Stramonium is particularly indicated  by co-
existing cerebral congestions or even paroxysms of convulsions, Avith
loss of consciousness, hot head, dark-red face, dilated pupils, copious
ptyalism, gritting of the teeth, trembling feeling of anguish.
  Constipation and signs of abdominal plethora constitute indica-
tions in other cases. This disease has been successfully treated with
Stramonium.

  Stramonium also causes  metrorrhagia and a discharge of black
blood from the womb.  These symptoms may occur in
  Puerperal Mania, the paroxysm setting in with symptoms of un-
natural mirthfulness;  the patient becomes uncontrollable, wants to
bite, the face looks flushed and the  eyes glisten.   In
  Puerperal Convulsions, Stramonium may be indicated by similar
cerebral congestions.
  In  Typhoid Conditions of the womb, with discharge of foul  blood,
Stramonium may compete with Belladonna, Hyoscyamus and other
drugs.

                  RESPIRATORY GROUP.

  The shrill, hoarse and croAving  sound  of the voice, which Stra-
monium causes, may indicate its use in certain forms of convulsions.
They may also occur in
  Dyspnea or Asthma, where Stramonium has frequently exhibited
curative effects, especially in asthma caused by the retrocession of an 
STRAMONIUM.
781
acute rash, with spasmodic constriction across the chest, and expec-
toration of small quantities of mucus.  A fashionable method of
using Stramonium in this disease, has been to smoke it like tabacco,
one or two pipes a day.

  Stramonium causes a spasmodic cough, especially in the evening;
hence it has been  used Avith more or  less advantage in dangerous
forms of
   Whooping-cough, when the attack results  in Amounting, discharge
of blood from the nose, and the little patient becomes emaciated and
prostrated under, the disease. In
  Hemoptysis, with spasmodic coughing fits, Stramonium has like-
wise proved useful.

                EXANTHEA1ATOUS GROUP.

  Stramonium  has caused a fiery redness of the whole body and a
petechial rash on the chest  and back, and likewise  upon the lower
extremities.  Observation seems to bear out the doctrine that there
exists a deep relation between such a rash and the functional power
of the brain.  We avail ourselves of this knowledge for the pur-
pose of promoting the  development of  cutaneous eruptions,  such as
measles, scarlatina, or even small-pox, if the brain seems to  become
exhausted  by its efforts to free itself from the depressing influences
of the eruptive disease.
  The existence of a petechial rash in typhoid diseases, where exud •
ation of a  sanguineous fluid is  taking place, affords  confirmatory
evidence of the homoeopathicity of Stramonium  to  the  existing
disease.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

  AVe have seen that Stramonium is used  by homoeopathic physi-
cians in
  Acute Eruptive Diseases, if the eruption does not come out fairly,
and  the brain seems to be  unsuccessful  in  its  endeavor to relieve
itself.  The patient may be in a state of sopor, from which he starts
up every now and  then with a sudden  cry.   The face looks flushed
and bloated, the skin feels dry and hot, except the extremities, which
may be cold.  The patient is frightened  by visions, rats, mice, furious
animals, from which the children endeavor to hide themselves.
  These symptoms may partially occur in
   Typhus of the Brain  or Bowels,  where the delirium is generally of
the furious kind, also alternating with singing and whistling, the
patient wants to jump out of bed, has frightful visions, petechiae may
show themselves.

                            SLEEP.

  The patient may sleep awhile, after which he wakes Avith a solemn
look.  Or he sleeps as  if he Avere dead, Avith imperceptible  respira-
tion.  The sleep is occasionally interrupted by screams. 
782
LECTURE LII.
                             DOSE.

   As a general rule, the higher potencies  of Stramonium have not
been found as satisfactory in these various diseases as the lower.  I
prefer the tincture up to the sixth potency.

   This agent yields  an alkaloid Daturine, concerning which  the
experimenters of the Physiological School have promulgated  the
most baseless theories in the garb of science.   Comparative experi-
ments, which Schroff, who fills the  chair  of Pharmacology in  the
University of Vienna, has  instituted with Daturine  and Atropine,
have led him to assert that Atropine is the sole and exclusive carrier
of the active properties  of Balladonna, and that Atropine and Datu-
rine are identical, except that the latter acts  twice as powerfully as
the former.   Planta having shown that the chemical composition of
these two substances is alike, the conclusion is at once jumped at by
physiological therapeutists that their action upon the living organism
is the same.  This identity of action  is determined by numbers, and
the numbers are determined  by purely mechanical means. The num-
ber of the radial pulsations, Capeller's thermometer applied to  the
tongue, and the dimensions of the pupil yield the standard of measure-
ment.  The volume, softness or hardness of the pulse, the tempera-
ture of the skin, the temperament and idiosyncratic peculiarities of
the experimenter, the inherent sensibility,  irritability and  assimila-
tive power of the living organism,  seem  to be of no consequence
whatsoever.  The inference from these pretended experiments, which
reduce man to a mere piece of mathematical mechanism, is that Datu-
rine, being much more  expensive than Atropine, may be dispensed
with, and that Stramonium is an unnecessary superfluity in the drug-
world.  " How much vain talk," writes Falk, in the preface  to the
fourth number of his Materia Medica, " how much vain talk has been
perpetrated relating to  the difference between the action of Bella-
donna and that of Stramonium, until von Planta showed that Daturine
and Atropine are identical, and that the same active principle exists
in both!"  Kissel takes the identity of  these two agents for granted,
for, on page 262 of his Materia Medica, he says: "Daturine is identical
with Atropine."  CEsterlen writes, page 730, Daturine is " chemically
perhaps identical with Atropine; and  Schroff' expresses himself as
follows:  " Careful physiological  experiments with Stramonium and
its preparations have  led me to  the conviction that the group of
symptoms produced by Daturine, is identical, in  point of quality,
with the group produced by Atropine;  quantitatively they differ in
this, that Daturine acts with  twice as  much force as Atropine."
  An intelligent physician need  not  be told that these experiments
lead to false science, and that Stramonium and  Belladonna, in spite
of the  isomeric composition of their alkaloids, are totally distinct
substances, that each affects the living organism in its own peculiar
manner,  and  fulfills therapeutic uses of a specific and distinctive
order.  Such doctrines as Schroff and  other physiological experi-
menters propound regarding the identity of Daturine and Atropine,
must seem monstrous to a homoeopathic physician,  and yet, if  we 
STRAMONIUM.                      783
would but dare to examine the doctrines of most of our writers on
Homoeopathy, we should find that their definitions and  disquisitions
are as destructive of the truth of homoeopathic science as the state-
ments of physiological  experiments are destructive  of Nature  and
Common Sense.
  The very idea which these writers entertain of Homoeopathy, is
false, mischievous and  destructive of order.  Their conception of
similarity is a purely subjective offspring of the understanding; with
them, similarity is a mere word, a sound, a shadowy phantom, not a
living fact, not depending upon this or that man's fiat  or creed, but
determined by the unerring, fixed  and  universal Order of Nature.
If there are two drugs  in nature which act similarly to each other,
they are Stramonium and Belladonna; a chemical analysis of their
alkaloids yields the  same results, and their toxicological effects are
so  similar that in many respects they may be said to be identical.
Nevertheless they cannot be substituted one for the other; the thera-
peutic range of Stramonium cannot be reached  by Belladonna, nor
can the therapeutic functions of Belladonna be replaced by those of
Stramonium.   AVhy is  this?  Because  similarity is not  a delusive
thing of sense, of sight, taste, sound, touch;  but  a living  fact set up
before our mental  vision in the endless  and immutable Series of
Nature.
   Here we have a case of cerebral disease, the symptoms of which
resemble the  effects of Stramonium and Belladonna so^ completely
that we are at a loss to  decide which of these two agents is similar to
it in the  sense determined  by the  homoeopathic law.  In  order to
secure a favorable  result we give both remedies in alternation. If
Belladonna was the true homoeopathic  agent, Stramonium  alone
would  not have touched the case; and vice versa, if Stramonium
effected the cure in  this case, Belladonna would  not have produced
the least modification in the symptoms.  AVhat careful  homoeopathic
observer  has  not witnessed  similar results  and disappointments!
Yet if a mechanical similarity were the chief requirement of a cure,
why should not Belladonna, in vieAV of its extraordinary resemblance
to  the symptoms of  our case, effect tAVO-thirds or seven-eighths of  a
cure ?  We have supposed  a case to which Stramonium and Bella-
donna seemed equally homoeopathic,  and yet Stramonium alone was
capable of effecting a perfect cure, Avhereas Belladonna proved utterly
powerless in spite of its apparent similarity.
   The doctrine of Succedanea, which has been repudiated by Hahne-
mann, and which is utterly meaningless when viewed in  the light of
 Reason, is continually practiced  by the thoughtless  scribblers on
 Homoeopathy.  A disease requires to be treated with its own remedy,
 not with a thing which is substituted for it upon the basis of a symp-
 tomatic similarity.   The great doctrine which Hahnemann sought to
 perpetuate by his formula, "Similia similibus  curantur,  is that  a
 Di^FiSE  Cures Itself, and the Itself  of  a disease  is its typical
 symbol in Nature.   No man can claim to practice Homoeopathy or
 to  be a homoeopath, into whose mind this great truth  has not shone
 with the effulgent brightness of a noon-day sun.   Similia similibus
 has been set up by Hahnemann as a sign-post pointing  to the wished- 
784
LECTURE LIU.
for haven, but its language is not subject to the fitful caprices of sub-
jective interpretations.  In the domain of Homoeopathy a drug either
is or is not in remedial relations with a given disease; all the talk
about degrees of homoeopathic similarity is  childish tAvaddle and
shows how far all such writers are removed from the Holy of Holiest
of our Science.



                LECTURE    LIII.


                          SULPHUR.

   In the year 1828, Hahnemann published his remarkable work on
the Chronic Diseases, their nature and homoeopathic treatment.  This
work consists of five volumes, the  first volume  containing Hahne-
mann's views of the origin and nature of Chronic Diseases and of their
homoeopathic treatment, including  a  number of highly interesting
and important remarks concerning the repetition and  strength of
the medicines to be employed in the treatment of chronic affections;
and the remaining volumes giving the  pathogenetic effects of these
medicines, and as a consequence showing the abnormal pathological
conditions where they will act as curative agents.
   Hahnemann looks upon the views which he unfolds to the world
in the first volume of this celebrated work, as the crowning glory of
his great discovery.  "Ever  since  the  years 1816 and  17," writes
the great Reformer, " I had been employed day and night in trying
to discover the reason why the homoeopathic  remedies which  were
then knoAvn, did  not effect a true cure of the above-named  chronic
diseases.   I tried to obtain a more correct idea of the true nature of
thousands of chronic  ailments which remained uncured in spite of
the incontrovertible truth of the  homoeopathic  doctrine;  Avhen
behold ! the giver of all good permitted me, about that time to solve
the sublime problem  for the benefit of mankind, after  unceasing
meditation, indefatigable research, careful observations and the most
accurate experiments."
  Until the  nature and treatment of  chronic  diseases was  thus
reduced to scientific principles, the treatment of diseases in accordance
with the homoeopathic law, was not  only incomplete, but also unsa-
tisfactory.  To be sure, an immense progress had been  made  over
the established methods.  In acute diseases, as Avell as in epidemics
and in sporadic fevers, Homoeopathy had shown her superiority over
the ancient systems of medicine in an incontestible manner.   \Tene-
real diseases were likewise treated more  safely, more thoroughly and
more expeditiously  by  homoeopathic  means; secondary syphilitic
diseases were unknoAvn under homoeopathic treatment which removed
the external local symptom  by curing the internal constitutional
disease by means of specific remedial agents.
  " But there remained the chronic diseases, the number of which
continued to be immensely large."
  But even in regard to these diseases, the homoeopathic treatment, 
SULPHUR.
785
 with the means then known, although inadequate, was far superior
 to the received method  of treatment by the usual violent alloeopa-
 thic means.
    " The manner, in which those diseases were treated by alloeopathic
 physicians," writes Hahnemann, " only served to increase the suffer-
 ings of such patients.   By employing a  quantity  of  disgusting
 mixtures, compounded  by the apothecary out  of large doses  of
 violent medicinal substances whose separate effects were  unknown,
 or by using all sorts of baths,  violent diaphoretics or  expectorants,
 pretended anodynes and sedatives, injections, ointments, fomenta-
 tions, fumigations, vesicatories, cauteries, issues, and  especially
 those ever-lasting purgatives, leeches, blood-lettings, and methods of
 starvation, and the various other ^fashionable medicinal torments, the
 disease was  either made worse, and the vital energies, despite of the
 intermediate use of pretended  tonics, were  more and more dimin-
 ished ;  or else, in case a striking change had been obtained,  another
 nameless medicinal disease, much worse and much more difficult to
 cure than the original natural  disease, was substituted in the place
 of the  primitive derangement; whilst  the  physician  consoled the
 patient by saying that ' the old disease had been happily removed;
 that  unfortunately a new disease had indeed made its appearance,
 but that  he was  confident he could  conquer this new  disease
 as successfully  as  he did  the  former.'   And  in this  way nothing
 was done except to modify the forms of the same disease, to increase
 it by the additional sufferings consequent upon the use of improper
 and noxious medicines, until  the  complaints of the  poor  patient
 ceased with his last breath, and the relatives were consoled by the
 delusive excuse, 'that every known remedy had  been employed in
.the case of the deceased.' "
   " How different," exclaims the discoverer  of similia similibus, " is
 God's great gift, Homoeopathy! "
   " In the cases of chronic diseases,  to which I have just alluded, and
 provided the patients had not  been too  much  ruined  by the alloeo-
 pathic practice, the homoeopathic practitioners, by carrying out the
 precepts contained in the writings which I had then published, and
 by following the advice which I had given  on  former  occasions,
 both in lectures and conversations, did infinitely more  good by their
 treatment than all the previously known so-called methods of cure
 had been able to accomplish.
   " By pursuing the method which  I had recommended, and Avhich
 is much more conformable to nature, the homoeopathic practitioners,
 having in the first place inquired into and noted down all the per-
 ceptible symptoms of the disease, were able to remove it by means
of the smallest dose of a remedy which had  been carefully selected
among the most appropriate homoeopathic drugs, whose genuine and
true action had been ascertained up to that moment.   The  improve-
ment Avhich was obtained by the homoeopathic practitioner, exceeded
all that allceopathic doctors had ever been able to  accomplish by
some lucky inroad upon their medicine-chests;  for the cure was
often accomplished in a very short time, the  patient never was  de-
                              50 
786
LECTURE LIII.
  prived of his strength, as is  ahvays the case by the  allceopathic
  method of cure, and he was again enabled to enjoy his life.
    "The disease yielded in a great measure  to a very small dose of
  the drug which had been found capable of producing upon a healthy
« person the existing series of morbid symptoms; and, if the  disease
  was not too old, and had not  been too extensively mismanaged by
  allceopathic treatment,  the improvement often lasted a  good while ;
  so that mankind might deem themselves  fortunate  on account of
  the relief thus obtained.   Patients who had been thus treated, might
  have considered themselves almost cured, and generally did so after
  duly weighing the difficulties of their condition previous to homoeo-
  pathic treatment, and  comparing them with the  improved state of
  health which they now enjoyed."   .
    Still Hahnemann was not satisfied  with these results.  He  found
  that the chronic disease was not extirpated  by this treatment  which
  he regarded as a palliative relief rather than as a radical cure.  A
  momentary paroxysm of  the disease might be hushed  up, but the
  fountain from which the many-headed hydra derived nourishment
  at the expense of the constitution, remained  unsealed.   Every now
  and then, during an unfavorable state of the weather, after a parox-
  ysm of emotions, or from some slight irregularity of diet, the chronic
  malady would break forth, inviting renewed attempts at a radical
  cure.  "This result," writes Hahnemann, "occurred in the treatment
  of all great, chronic, non-syphilitic maladies, even when it appeared
  to be conducted according to the  precepts of Homoeopathy, as far as
  this science was then known.  First, the treatment was satisfactory ;
  then it became less favorable, and finally hopeless."
    Let us endeavor to  identify ourselves with the mind of the great
  Reformer at this interesting period of the history of Homoeopathy.
  He felt that he had been laying  the foundation of a great work; a
  work which, in the language of the classic poet, would be more
  durable than brass, "monumentum aere  perennius;" but the  super-
  structure was not yet completed; the internal cohesion of the work
  required the additional cement of a more  deeply-penetrating and
  more comprehensive science.
    To cure chronic maladies safely, thoroughly and  permanently,
  this was the great  problem which Hahnemann sought to solve Avith
  all the might of his gigantic intellect.
    By observing the symptoms of a chronic malady, he found that
  they generally developed themselves in successive order, and that
  this development often extended over a considerable period.  Hence
  he concluded that these multifarious and  successively appearing
  symptoms all  referred  to some hydra-headed monster lying hidden
  in the inmost recesses of the organism, and  that this primitive
  disease of which the whole series of chronic ailments in the same in-
  dividual constituted so many external phenomena or manifestations,
  originated in some chronic miasm.
    Guided by the thought which thus flashed upon his mind, he soon
 .came to the conclusion that the  itch-vesicle was the most universal
  external representative sign of this internal chronic miasm.
    "I had reached this point," writes Hahnemann, "Avhen my  inves- 
SULPHUR.
737
 tigations and observations upon non-venereal, chronic patients led
 me at once to perceive that a previously-existing itch, which they
 often confessed to have had, was the cause why many diseases that
 appeared to be separate and original maladies, could not be cured by
 homoeopathic treatment.   All the subsequent sufferings were daterl
 from the period  when the psoric eruption had manifested itself. In
 many of these chronic patients, who were unAvilling to confess having
 had  the itch, or had been too careless to heed it,  or had no recollec-
 tion  of it, I often discovered, by careful inquiries,  that vestiges of the
 itch  had shown themselves upon their bodies  from time  to time, in
 the shape of small pustules or tetter, as so many infallible signs of
 the chronic contagion."
   "These circumstances, coupled with the fact, that psoric eruptions
 Avhich  had been removed  by evil practices or  by some other cause,
 were evidently followed in otherwise  healthy persons by chronic
 ailments having the same or similar symptoms, as had been observed
 by other physicians as well as by myself, in an  infinite number of
 cases, left no  doubt concerning the internal enemy which I  had to
 combat in my medical treatment."
   Gentlemen, the conclusion at  which Hahneman arrived, appears
 no baseless fancy, no hypothetical reasoning, but seems the result of
 logic as lucid  and straight-for ward as was ever manufactured by
 metaphysicians.  The original eruption, in which the internal disease
 had,  according to an inevitable law  of order, terminated upon the
 skin, having been violently suppressed: the internal disease, in obe-
 dience to that same law of order, again sought to establish  a vica-
 rious representative upon the skin, in order that the internal organs
 might be protected against the disorganizing agency of the  miasmatic
 virus lurking in their inmost tissues.
   "This internal enemy," continues Hahnemann, " I shall designate
 by the general term psora.  It is an internal disease—a sort of internal
 itch,—and may exist either with or  Avithout an  eruption upon the
 skin.  Little by little, I discovered more adequate remedies against
 this internal disease, from  which sprang so many sufferings.   From
 the relief which I obtained by their employment in cases  Avhere the
 patient had no recollection of the itch, I inferred  that these resulted
 from  a  psora  Avhich had been communicated to the patient in the
 cradle, or in some other Avay, of which he had  no knowledge. By
 carefully inquiring of the parents or old relatives, I discovered that
 my suspicion was well founded."
   It was against this internal psoric disease that Hahnemann sought
 to discover efficient remedies, to which he gave the general name of
 anti-psoric medicines, and  as he proceeded to experiment with the
 anti-psorics which had  already been discovered, and to investigate
 their  therapeutic  virtues  with greater  accuracy, the conviction
 became more than ever firmly rooted in  his mind, "that the milder
 as Avell as the more extensive and even the most  inveterate chronic
 diseases, owe their existence to the psoric  miasm."
   There is hardly a chronic disease the origin of which Hahnemann
does not trace to this psoric miasm.   Alost cutaneous eruptions; dis-
organizations,  from the common Avart to the largest sarcomatous 
788
LECTURE LIII.
tumour, from deformed nails to ramollissement of bones and curva-
tures of the spine; nose-bleed, varices, haemorrhoids, haemorrhages,
menstrual disorders ; night-sweats, chronic diarrhoea or constipation,
neuralgia ; chronic ulcers and  inflammations; marasmus; abnormal
conditions  of the sexual instinct; mental  derangements; hysteria,
hypochondria, and even great epidemics, such as the epidemic typhus
of 1813, are nothing but "partial manifestations  of one primitive
psoric miasm', in which  they all  originate, and whose  innumerable
symptoms form but one  integral  disease, and ought therefore to be
regarded and treated as part  of  one and  the same derangement."
"A few homoeopathic remedies," writes Hahnemann, " will cure even
an epidemic typhus like that of 1813, in every patient infected with
the disease, though each patient may exhibit different symptoms, and
may seem to be afflicted with a different malady."
  It is well-known that in  the epidemic hospital-typhus of 1813,
Bryonia and Rhus tox. were the specific remedies for all patients.
  According to Hahnemann,  therefore, psora  is  the  oldest,  most
universal  and most pernicious chronic miasm, the common  mother
of most chronic diseases.  It is just as tedious as syphilis and sycosis,
and  is, moreover, hydra-headed.  Unless it is thoroughly cured, it
lasts until  the last breath  of the longest  life;  not even the  most
robust constitution, by its own unaided efforts, is able to annihilate
and to extinguish this enemy.
  On the twenty-fifth page of the first volume of the Chronic Diseases,
Hahnemann furnishes a short historical  sketch of the psoric disease.
"According to the most ancient historical writings which Ave possess,
psora existed almost fully developed in the  earliest  ages of mankind.
Several varieties of psora have been described by Moses three thou-
sand four  hundred years ago.   At  that  time,  however, and ever
afterwards, among the Israelites, psora appears to have especially in-
fected the external parts of the body.  This Avas also the case among
the Greek barbarians, afterwards among the Arabs,  and finally in the
uncivilized Europe of the Middle-Ages.  It  is not my object to relate
here the different names by Avhich the various nations have designated
the more or less malignant forms of leprosy (external  symptoms of
psora) by which the external parts of the body became variously dis-
figured.  Names are of no consequence here, since the essence of this
miasmic itch is every Avhere the same.
   "In the Aliddle-Ages Europe was visited for several centuries, by
the frightful psora of the occidental countries, in the shape of a ma-
lignant erysipelas, called St. Anthony's fire.  In the thirteenth century
it again assumed the form of leprosy.   The crusaders brought this
latter disease along with them.  By  this means leprosy spread in
Europe more than it ever had  done  before, for in the year  1226
there, were in France about two thousand houses for the reception of
leprous patients.   Nevertheless, psora spreading farther and farther
in the form of a horrible eruption upon  the skin, found at least some
external alleviation in those means of cleanliness  which the crusaders
had brought along with them from the East, such  as cotton or linen
shirts which had been unknown  in Europe heretofore, and  the fre-
quent use of warm baths. These  means, together with an increasing 
SULPHUR.
789
refinement and more select nourishment, succeeded in  a  couple  of
centuries, in diminishing the disgusting appearance of psora so  as
to reduce the disease, towards the end of the fifteenth century, to an
ordinary eruption, the common itch.  This milder form of psora in-
fected a far greater  number than the  leprous patients were able to
do, whose frightful appearance caused them to be carefully avoided
by every body.  The itch-vesicles do scarcely appear, and may be
kept easily concealed; but being constantly scratched  open in con-
sequence of the intolerable itching, and the fluid being spread over
the skin  and those things which had been touched by such patients,
the infection, being concealed, takes place the more readily and cer-
tainly, and affects a larger number. In this way psora has become the
most contagious and the most universal of the chronic miasms."
   So  far  we have followed Hahnemann with the most scrupulous
exactitude, and here we have his own statement that  the modern
itch is the legitimate offspring, in direct line, of the ancient leprosy,
both the itch and leprosy being the external or symbolic  manifesta-
tions  of an internal, pre-existing  psoric miasm.  Hahnemann in-
veighs in  the most positive  language  against the suppression, by
purely external means,  of  the  itch-vesicle which  he  regards as a
substitute for the internal disease.   " It  may be said," writes Hahne-
mann, " that at least seven-eighths of the presently existing chronic
maladies originate in the reckless suppression of this chief external
symptom of the internal psoric disease."   After mentioning a vast
number of diseases, extracted from as  many different authors, illus-
trative of the pernicious consequences of the purely external removal
of the itch, Hahnemann condemns this  practice in the following
emphatic language:  "After reading the above cases, no reasonable
and inquiring physician will dare to assert that the itch, tinea, herpes,
etc., are  mere cutaneous  diseases which may be unhesitatingly re-
moved from the skin by external applications, because the organism
is not affected by them.  This kind of treatment is the  most per-
nicious, the most infamous  and the most unpardonable malpractice
that alloeopathic  physicians  have made themselves guilty of.  He
who is blind against the wisdom which the above quoted examples
teach, wilfully prepares the ruin of mankind."
   The internal miasmatic disease and its external symbol are indis-
solubly united,  This is  the doctrine of Hahnemann.  The external
symbol cannot be safely and effectually  removed from the skin
except by previously extinguishing the internal disease.  The con-
tagium may act from without, but if the organism  is tainted  at all,
it is tainted throughout  to its innermost depths in the twinkling of
an eye.   The whole  nervous system becomes infected  in  a moment,
and if the infection  has once taken place, ablutions,  cauterization
and even amputation of the  part infected  are of no avail, and are
utterly unable to annihilate  the disease, or even to arrest its progress
in the internal organism.  This is not only true regarding the psoric
miasm, but likewise regarding the other two chronic miasms, syphilis
and sycosis.  In corroboration of this doctrine, Hahnemann instances
the case of Petit, the great French surgeon, who cut off a  portion of
the labia as soon as the first vestige of the syphilitic disease Avas per- 
790
LECTURE LIII.
 ceived, in spite of which  constitutional syphilis broke out.  Hahne-
 mann likewise  fortifies  himself  with John Hunter's  opinion as
 expressed in his Avork on A^enereal Diseases: " Not one patient in
 fifteen will  escape  syphilis, if the  chancre is removed  merely by
 local treatment; and in another part  of the same work, where this
 great surgeon assures us, that "the local  removal of the chancre,
 were it  even accomplished ever so speedily, is always followed by
 an outbreak of the internal syphilitic disease."
   Hahnemann has  no idea that the psoric miasm ever disappears of
 itself.  On  the contrary,  he teaches  most emphatically that "the
 most robust constitution  is incapable of annihilating it by its own
 unaided efforts, and unless it is extinguished by the aid  of art, it
 will  last to the end of life."  And  in  order to exterminate  this
 hydra-headed monster, a carefully selected  antipsoric remedy has to
 be relied upon in this most difficult undertaking.
   There is hardly an organism existing at the present period which
 has remained entirely free from the infection of the psoric miasm.
 It  is the presence  of this miasm which so  often baffles  our best
 directed efforts  in  the treatment of disease.   As long as the psoric
 miasm is not excited into an active state of development by one
 cause or another, Hahnemann terms it latent psora, the existence of
 which, in the hnman organism may, however, be recognized by cer-
 tain  palpable signs.   The itch-vesicle is,  of course, the chief and
 most characteristic  sign of the existence of  psora.   But there are
 other indications by which the psoric miasm  denotes its presence in
 the organism. Some of these indications are: frequent discharge of
 ascarides and lumbrici; alternate paroxysms of insatiable hunger
 and loss of  appetite; paleness of the face ; sore eyes ;  frequent nose-
 bleed ; cold and sweaty hands ; frequent numbness of the  extremi-
 ties without any apparent  cause; frequent paroxysms of dry coryza
 and stoppage of the nose;  soreness of the nose;  frequent attacks of
 asthma;  dryness and falling off of the hair; tendency to erysipelas;
 menstrual irregularities;  quantity of phlegm in the throat; bad
 smell from the mouth; nausea in the  morning;  constipation ; vari-
 ces of the rectum;  itching of the  anus; chillblains; peeling off of
 the  skin; frequent boils  upon the  skin,  and a variety  of other
 symptoms.
  How does this latent  psora act ?  Let us, with Hahnemann, sup-
 pose the case of a young woman who had inherited the psoric miasm
 from her parents.  To all appearances,  she  enjoys good health.   In
 the third month of her pregnancy she  has the misfortune of being
 upset with her carriage.  The consequence of this accident, beside a
 slight external injury and fright, is miscarriage, accompanied by
 considerable haemorrhage  which exhausts her strength.  In a few
weeks she has almost recovered her former strength and health, Avhen
the news of  a dangerous illness of her beloved and absent sister puts
her back in her recovery, and adds to her former disease a multitude
of nervous complaints and spasms, which make her really sick.   In
a little while she receives better news of her sister; at last the sister,
perfectly cured, pays her  a visit.   But the young woman  remains
sick in spite of these agreeable influences;  and, though she may 
SULPHUR.
791
appear to do better for eight days  or  a fortnight, nevertheless her
ailments return without any visible cause. Every subsequent labor,
be it ever so easy ; every stormy winter, adds new complaints to her
former troubles, or these appear to be superseded by other more
inconvenient ailments.  In  this way  the patient becomes  affected
with an inveterate chronic disease, and it is impossible for us to com-
prehend why the full vigor of youth,  under favorable external cir-
cumstances, should not have succeeded in  soon extinguishing the
consequences of that miscarriage;  still less do we comprehend why
the evil effects of that sad news should not have become dissipated
by the news of the sister's restoration to health, or, at any rate, by
the presence of the sister.  If it be true that the cause is constantly
proportionate to its effects, as is ahvays the case in nature, it is diffi-
cult to understand how, in the case of this young woman, the subse-
quent ailments should not have disappeared as soon  as the cause had
ceased to act.   The  continuance of these ailments  show that  they
must have emanated from a much more deep-seated morbific princi-
ple, which had remained latent in the system until  the  above-men-
tioned contrary events (the miscarriage and the disagreeable neAVs)
had excited its action and had roused it into a  development hostile
to the organism.
  Gentlemen,  this imaginary case may serve as an illustration  to
many similar  cases  which  you will often be  called upon to  take
charge of during your professional career.   Account for it  as you
may, you will often find that some trifling cause, a slight jar, a fright,
a disappointment in business, will develop some  deep-seated and
perhaps incurable malady.  How often have I  been bitterly disap-
pointed, when I first entered upon the practice of our profession, in
prescribing for what seemed a simple  cold on the chest  or a simple
sore throat, promising, in  the first  flush  of enthusiastic  hope, a
speedy  recovery; ah,  there  was the  psoric enemy lurking in the
background,  rushing through the narrow gate which had  been
opened to its  treacherous forces, and developing  a train of deep-
seated and distressing complaints which it required all  my patience
and skill to overcome.  If the internal  psora,  which had been kept
in bounds  by a robust constitution  and favorable  circumstances, is
roused from its latent state and assumes its secondary forrn of de-
velopment, all of the above-mentioned symptoms, by which the
internal miasm manifests its existence, become more  distinct and
violent; they vary in different individuals according to constitution,
hereditary disposition,  education,  habit, mode  of life, diet, occupa-
tion, mental and moral tendencies.
  The secondary diseases which Hahnemann enumerates as the  re-
sult of the actively-developed internal psoric miasm, comprise almost
every chronic affection that human flesh is  heir to, except venereal
and sycosic diseases.  The syphilitic and the sycosic miasms consti-
tute the other chronic miasms which, together with the psoric miasm,
make up the formidable trio, from which all chronic diseases eman-
ate as from their fountain-head.  These miasms may exist isolatedly
or unitedly in a human organism.  If  existing together, Hahnemann
advise* to  first  neutralize  the psoric miasm by some  appropriate 
792
LECTURE L1II.
anti-psoric remedy, and afterAvards to combat the other members of
the group.  In his whole professional career only two instances have
occurred to him, according to his  own statement, where these three
miasms existed combinedly in the same organism.
  Hahnemann's doctrine of chronic diseases has had ardent partisans
and bitter opponents  in  the homoeopathic  ranks.    His general
classification of the chronic miasms under three distinct heads has
been assailed by some of the most enlightened practitioners of  our
School  as untenable  and unscientific.  The  fact of his having set
apart a whole  list of particular drugs as exclusively destined, as it
Avere, to perform the office of extinguishers of the psoric miasm, has
likewise excited uncompromising  opposition  in many minds.
  Nobody denies the existence of chronic diseases.  What is denied
is, that carcinoma emanates from the same source as tubercular
phthisis.  AVhy should tinea capitis depend upon the same cause as
leucorrhcea ; or why should  chronic diarrhoea result from the same
miasm  that causes palpitation of the heart?  All  these  varied
diseases constitute, according to Hahnemann, manifestations of  one
and the same internal psoric malady.  This it is that has seemed
fanciful to many of our best thinkers.  And  yet, if we consider  this
point with unprejudiced eyes, what matters it whether we adopt one
or ten thousand chronic miasms?   Flahnemann's general definition
of the psoric miasmatic disease may not be strictly scientific, and yet
his general  reasoning concerning the inmost nature of the  psoric
miasm may be as correct as it is possible in the present condition of
human development to be. You must have noticed that Hahnemann
accepts the internal psoric miasm  as a pre-existing disease. He does
not inquire  into its origin;  he simply infers its existence from its
actual phenomenal manifestations  in the tissues.  Is such an inference
logical, or is it simply a blind, speculative hypothesis ?   I  cannot
admit this.  I look around me, and what do I see ?  An harmonious
humanity ?  A brotherhood of beings made in the image and like-
ness of their Alaker ? or what do I  see ?  Throughout society, all
over the globe, we perceive traces that  man is not living in unison
with those high aspirations of goodness and beauty which move the
nobler  spirits of our race  to great exertions in the cause of man.
How is it possible that this  universal antagonism of interests;  this
fierce conflict of opinions  and desires; this crushing load of cares
which weighs down millions; this insufficiency of means; this uni-
versal exposure to the  inclemencies  of  the  weather;  these many
sources of  dissatisfaction with one's business or position  in the
world ; how is it possible that these and many similar causes should
not have developed in the inmost tissues of the human economy a
principle, representative of the disorder existing all around us in the
physical,  as well as in the intellectual and moral world ?   If such a
principle  exist, it must be  an internal miasm which  may  remain
latent until called into activity by some adequate exciting influence.
Hahnemann looks upon the psoric miasm as  a principle more or less
analogous to the vital principle;  he terms it a semi-vital miasm. If
we consider that this miasm is co-eval, as it Avere, with man's exist-
ence upon earth, and that it has perpetuated  itself for  thousands of 
SULPHUR.
793
years in the universal human organism, is it strange that it should
have assumed a variety of forms which are designated as so many
different dyscrasias in the more fashionable  language of modern
pathology ?   But as I stated  before, whether Hahnemann's magnifi-
cent generalization of the psoric miasm is scientifically accurate or
not; whether tuberculosis, arthritis, carcinoma, are so many distinct
and independent dyscrasias, or different forms of one and the same
primitive chronic miasm : the general aspect of the question remains
unchanged ;  which is this: that man being originally intended for
a life of spontaneous harmony of all the bodily, intellectual and
spiritual powers of his being, has not yet reached this high destiny,
and that the difference between  the imperfect actual and the perfect ideal
is represented in the physical body by a principle  or agent termed by
Hahnemann the psoric  miasm, which may perpetuate itself through
successive  millions of organisms, without its existence  being sus-
pected ; but which, on the other hand, has entailed upon mankind a
host of organic disorders which may likewise, and actually do per-
petuate themselves from generation to generation, and are described
by pathologists as so many distinct and independent diseases.
   This miasm may, in certain conditions of the atmosphere, or under
the influence of powerful social causes, such as war and famine, break
forth every now and then into some universal epidemic disease, as
it did in 1813, in  the form of typhus, or more recently in the form
of epidemic cholera; in Avhich case some of the more speedily acting
drugs, such as Aconite, Veratrum, Bryonia, and so forth, may have
to be employed as remedial agents; but against the chronic results
of  the  psoric miasm,  tubercles, scrofula, dropsy, chronic  catarrh,
blennorrhcea, haemorrhages, cutaneous diseases and a host of other
disorders, we resort to the antipsorics as our chief remedies, although
it is perfectly proper every now and then to use one of the non-anti-
psoric remedies as an intermediate agent, if the complexion of the
case should render such a proceeding necessary.
   Hahnemann speaks of his discovery of the antipsorics as though
henceforth the era of therapeutic infallibility had been inaugurated.
I am satisfied that the power of these antipsoric remedies has been
overrated by the  illustrious Reformer.   Their physiological action
upon the healthy  organism is but imperfectly known; the provings
which we  possess of them, are exceedingly unreliable.   Neverthe-
less,  it is my belief that a great truth Avas shadowed _ forth_ when
Flahnemann proclaimed the  existence of  a  psoric miasm m the
inmost recesses of the organism, and the necessity of  exterminating
it by specifically appropriate agents.   It was natural  that the noble
old man, in whose soul the  fire of genius burnt to the last hour of
his triumphal career, should think highly  of this his last glorious
toil-  but we, who enjoy the fruit  of his labors, may enjoy it with
the discriminating wisdom of  men who love their teacher well, but
cherish truth no less.
   Gentlemen, the antipsorics will often disappoint you, they may as
often secure for you a brilliant triumph.  In a few moments I shall
introduce to you the chief of the series, one which has almost been
idolized by homoeopathic  physicians.  Would that I could join in 
794
LECTURE LIV.
Hahnemann's "Eureka."  I cannot altogether.  As it is through
man's deviation from the conditions of an harmonious life of good-
ness and wisdom that the psoric miasm has been introduced into the
world, so it will have to be expelled again by his return to a life of
wisdom and spontaneous innocence.  Until this millennial age dawns
upon the world, we may relieve suffering, and we may even diminish
the virulence and prevent the further actualization of many chronic
derangements; but the  sunshine of spotless health must  remain a
beautiful vision of the poet!
                 LECTURE    LIV.

  We have seen that Hahnemann adopts three Chronic Miasms, viz.:
psora, syphilis and sycosis, the psoric miasm being represented upon
the skin by the itch-pustule as its chief symbol; the syphilitic miasm
by the bubo and chancre, and the sycosic miasm by the cauliflower-
condylomata.  We have likewise seen that in speaking of the treat-
ment of these chronic  miasms, Hahnemann objects in the most em-
phatic language to the violent  suppression of the cutaneous sign of
these miasms, and that he attributes to  this  suppression, and more
particularly to the suppression of the itch-vesicle, that host of chronic
maladies under which  mankind are now groaning.  In a therapeutic
point  of view it is immaterial whether we agree  or disagree with
Hahnemann in his views  concerning the   origin  and nature of
chronic  diseases.   For, if we desire to perform a  cure, we have to
select a remedy that has power to develop a condition in the organ-
ism similar to the one which we are called  upon to remove.   As
regards  the  possibility of  extirpating  the psoric miasm, if such a
miasm exist at all, it cannot be done by  artificial means;  this must
be the result of that progressive refinement, that increase of clean-
liness, of universal comfort, peace and genuine  liberty, from the
cradle up to old age, which it is man's divine  birthright to enjoy.
  The subject of immediate importance to us  all is, to knoAV whether
Hahnemann's doctrine of the itch-vesicle being the external or rather
the vicarious symbol of an internal disease,  is correct.  If this be
correct, then all removal of the psoric eruption by artificial means
becomes  not only an unjustifiable,  but even a criminal proceeding ;
if it be not correct, then it is our sacred duty not only to repudiate,
but to utterly blot out such a doctrine from the records of  our
School.
  From time immemorial  Sulphur has  been considered a specific
remedy for the itch.  Celsus proposes several kinds of ointment by
means of which he imagines the itch may be cured.  One of these
ointments consists of Sulphur mixed with tar;  others contain copper.
The oldest physicians already used  warm sulphur-baths against the
itch, as is the custom now.   The eruption generally disappeared by
these means. But  subsequent ailments showed already then that the
patients did not  always recover.   An Athenian,  for instance,  was
attacked  with anasarca on  account  of having removed  his itch  by 
SULPHUR.
795
 using the warm sulphur-baths upon the island of Melos (now Milo).
 He died of this disease three  hundred years before Celsus, as is re-
 ported by the author of the fifth book Epidemion, which is attributed
 to Hippocrates.
   Modern physicians  employ Sulphur against the  itch in  the same
 manner as it was used by the  physicians of olden times.  One of the
 most common ointments against the itch is the  ointment of Jasser,
 consisting of sulphur, olive-oil and the sulphate of zinc; fumigations
 of sulphur are likewise resorted to as a favorite means of removing
 the  eruption.  You may have  heard of the  method  employed by
 Autenrieth; he dissolves a portion of the sulphuret  of potash  in
 eight, twelve, or twenty parts of water, and he Avashes the patient
 with this solution by means of a sponge, which had been previously
 dipped in warm water.
   This mode of treating the  itch was based  upon the supposition
 that it is a purely external disease ;  the doctrine of repelled itch was
 either unknown or ignored previous to the time of Lewis Christian
 Juncker, who published in  the year 1750, in the  Sty of  Halle,  in
 Germany, his treatise on " the injuries resulting from repelled itch."
 Hahnemann quotes this experienced and candid observer  as one  of
 his  authorities  against the propriety of suppressing  the  external
 psoric eruption by artificial means.  Autenrieth, although advising
 the wash with a solution of the sulphuret of potash, likewise con-
 demns the  violent suppression of the itch  as a most mischievous
 expedient.  He employed this wash not as a means of suppressing
 the eruption, but as an aid to a suitably-conducted internal treat-
 ment.
   In the middle  of the sixteenth century, an Italian,  Redi, started
 the doctrine that the itch was  caused by a little insect termed the
 acarus psoricus or sarcoptes hominis.  His view and representation
 of the insect were  admitted  until modern  times,  when attentive
 observation showed that this  acarus  is a morbid  product, not the
 cause of the disease.  Hebra, of the University of Vienna, maintains
 most strenuously that the acarus is the cause  of the eruption; but
 other great  observers take a totally opposite ground, and show, by
 what seems to them a  conclusive demonstration, that the itch is an
 internal  disease.   According to Schcenlein, the existence of the
 acarus in the itch-pustule is  problematical to this very hour. Alibert
 failed in demonstrating his acarus of which he exhibited a represen-
 tation  We know that acari occur  in the itch-pustules of  animals,
 dogs, sheep, swine ; but their existence in the human itch-pustule  is
 doubted  by many distinguished observers.  Some have mistaken
 the acari of cheese for  the sarcoptes  hominis.  Adams and others
 believe the pretended acarus  to be indurated secretion.  Rayer, in
 his treatise on Diseases of the  Skin, observes that it is indubitable
 that  the number of these insects bear no proportion to that of the
 vesicles.   " It is further," he adds, " rare to discover these insects on
 the abdomen and  on the groins, where the eruption   of scabies  is
nevertheless very common and very apparent; moreover, scabies  is
known to  continue when no more  acari are to  be  discovered."
Adams states that " the late Mr. Hunter, in his lectures and conver- 
796
LECTURE LIV.
sations, always acknowledged that he could never discover the itch-
insect, and went so far as to suspect that the  opinion concerning its
existence Avas derived from a preconceived theory, and supported by
credulity."
  But let us accept the existence of the acarus as  a  demonstrated
fact.  In this case, the question arises: Is this animal  the  cause,
the effect or a mere accompaniment of the itch ?   It  is either the
cause or an effect of the disease.  Let us examine this subject, not
with the microscope of sense merely,  but with the microscope of
common sense, and what do we find ?  We find that, as we ascend
in the past life of humanity to its very  beginning, we  come to a
period Avhen man led a pure and holy life.  Sin had not yet tainted
his organism, and  the itch or the itch-insect was unknown.  He
certainly was created with a  capacity  for disease, which circum-
stances might develop into an active condition of the organism; but
as long as man lived in accordance with the divine commandment,
he enjoyed  perfect health; disease did  not become a manifest, ob-
servable state of the human organism, until man violated  the laws
of Divine order; then it was that disease became one of  the conse-
quences of his transgressions.   Now,  then, if disease  originally
existed as a potential  principle,  not as an actual condition, there
could not have existed any perceptible phenomena of disease; hence
the acarus could not  have been, unless we choose  to  believe that
the Creator had hidden it in some mysterious crypt in the human
hide, or in  some secret nook  of paradise, subject to His almighty
command to jump forth and inflict  the itch  upon man  at some
remote period of his history, as a punishment for sin.  Gentlemen,
let us not abjure  common sense in our endeavours to discover the
causes of disease.  The microscope has revealed  to us the existence
of the itch-mite, but no  microscope can reveal to  us the relation
which this parasite holds to the eruption.  This relation has to be
established  by sense and reason.  I can very well understand that
the acarus should  be a morbid product, and  I can  admit that this
acarus should, in its turn, become the carrier,  as it were, of the itch-
miasm; but there is a  principle or force back of all  these visible
manifestations  of  disease; these supra-sensual or,  as  Hahnemann
terms  them, semi-vital principles  or forces of disease will escape
microscopic observation as long as our organ  of vision remains sub-
ject to the common laws of optics.
  If the acarus were the primary cause of the itch, why should this
disease develop itself in such a uniformly characteristic manner ?  I
am speaking of the common vesicular  or lymphatic scabies.  The
itch vesicles are first seen on the fingers, in the joints of the hands
and at the anus.  The eruption frequently remains confined to these
parts for weeks, before it spreads over the trunk.  The face is never
invaded by this eruption, though the whole body should be covered
with it.  This  certainly would seem to show that  the acarus  has
some regard for the seat of man's glory, or else that it looks upon
the human phiz as too contemptible a thing to select it as the theatre
of its operations.
  In another form of scabies, the scabies papulosa, the eruption does 
SULPHUR.
797
not touch the hands at all in a large  number of cases;  it is mostly
seen on the back, upper arms, thighs and abdomen.  I am not pre-
pared to assert that the acarus has been seen in this form of the itch;
if it has not, the absence of the acarus  in papulous scabies would
certainly be calculated to excite our suspicions in regard to the little
monster's identity  in  vesicular scabies.  The  truth is, the  more
closely I examine the doctrine of the itch-mite, the more thoroughly
am I convinced that this parasite, if it exist at all,  is a mere morbid
product which may, in its turn, become a carrier of the itch, but
which cannot  be regarded as the primary cause of this loathsome
eruption.
  Regarding it as an established fact that  the  acarus transmits the
itch from one individual to another, it is on the other hand equally
certain that this transmission would be impossible but for the con-
stitutional receptivity implanted in the human organism from crea-
tion. It is this receptivity, this potential disease which is fecondated
or actualized as it  were, by the acarus,  and which is made manifest
to the understanding in the loathsome form in which it noAV appears
to  us.   We can understand that the  acarus, being the original
morbid product of  the itch-force, may excite the disease, just as the
Belladonna-plant, being the natural product of the  Belladonna-force,
may excite the Belladonna-disease.  If these diseases are roused into
actual forms, it is in consequence of  the action which an inseminat-
ing principle, such as the acarus in the case of the itch,  exerts upon
the latent constitutional tendency or predisposition.
  This relation between an  external factor—the active, inciting, in-
seminating  or male principle—and  a corresponding internal state,
tendency or potency—the passive or female principle as it were—is
very significantly alluded to in the following paragraphs contained
in the Introduction to Trousseau and Pidoux' treatise of Therapeu-
tics and Materia Medica. Expounding the absurdities of therapeutic
eclecticism, they conclude their brilliant criticism with the following
deeply-philosophical argumentation:
  " To impress the  living organism, is not  to be understood in the
same sense as when we press a seal  upon wax Avhich passively re-
ceives the impression; by impressing the living organism we under-
stand that, in some part thereof, phenomena are excited which, in a
superior range or order of  action, are representative of the pheno-
mena inherent in  the special  object that excites the impression.
Thus the image which is physically impressed upon the retina, does
not constitute vision, but the exciting cause thereof.   This image or
impression excites in the nervous substance corresponding inherent
properties, but of a superior order, capable by virtue of an inherent,
essential, spontaneous power, of seeing themselves as it A\'ere.  AVhen
we see an object, do we see  it in itself?  No indeed.  What we do
see, is  ourselves, our own nervous  organism modified, excited by
this object.  Such is the essence of every vital property.
  " What we have said regarding vision, is equally applicable  to
every other external or internal sense, the senses of taste and diges-
tion as well as those of sight and hearing. Our remarks  are likeAvise
applicable to the senses of nutrition, sanguification, to the chemical 
798
LECTURE LIV.
as well as physical  senses, or, in other words, to  the  organs spon-
taneously percipient of the chemical, as well as to the organs spon-
taneously percipient  of the physical properties of the external world.
  " These external properties, by acting upon corresponding internal,
inherent states of vitality, excite them into analogous manifestations.
Such is the relation of the macrocosm to the microcosm, which has
been dimly foreshadowed rather than clearly defined by Paracelsus
and the philosophers of antiquity."
  How strange that  the men who  have penned these paragraphs,
should not'have a full  perception of the doctrines of  the Homoeo-
pathic School! Do not the statements contained in these paragraphs
simply imply that the disease which has been made manifest to the
observing sense, is primarily a state, a tendency, an inherent predis-
position, a formless potency?  Do they not imply that this potency,
this inherent, essential receptivity, can only be made  manifest to
itself by being acted  upon by  a  principle  analogous to its  own
nature?   This principle is  a  morbific  force which may exert its
influence  either directly from within as an  immaterial, dynamico-
spiritual agent, or indirectly from without, through the instrumen-
tality of a drug, its material embodiment.   In the case of the itch,
the acarus  acting as a carrier of the itch-miasm or itch-force, excites
the internal disease into a corresponding outward form.
  If Trousseau and Pidoux have perceived the bearing of their  own
argument,  and if our own mode of reasoning is correct, we  assert,
in the face of the materialistic views  now prevalent concerning the
itch, that this disease is an internal malady, and that the destruction
of the acarus is not necessarily succeeded by the  disappearance of
the constitutional disease, any more, on  the other hand, than the re-
moval of the eruption by means of the sulphur-ointment or  the
sulphuret of  potash  is  necessarily followed  by the development of
some secondary constitutional malady.
  Let us examine this subject more fully.
  We have shown that the itch is  an internal malady.  There  is,
however,  this difference  between  the itch  viewed as  an  internal
malady, and other internal maladies: that the itch  results from the
indirect action of the itch-force, through the acarus, upon the inter-
nal inherent potency, or receptivity, whereas other internal diseases
are the offspring of the direct action of specific morbific forces upon
corresponding internal  states of the organism.  Taking this view of
the development  of the itch, this malady is both internal and exter-
nal; either element may predominate, according as  the  internal
receptivity is greater or less.  It is the keen eye of a judicious  ob-
server which _ has to  determine  this difference.   If  the  internal
receptivity is inconsiderable, and the infection has moreover taken
place so recently that the reciprocal  relation betAveen the external
disease and the internal receptivity is but slight, and easily severed,
it is more than probable that the removal  of the  eruption by local
means may be tantamount to reducing the itch-disease back again
to a state of passive potency.  On  the contrary, if the internal  re-
ceptivity is sufficiently intense to become transformed into a consti-
tutional disease, the external eruption cannot  possibly be removed 
SULPHUR.
799
by local means without developing a secondary morbid process in
some other organ or tissue, of more vital importance, in the place of
the original eruption.
  Schcenlein, the distinguished professor of clinical medicine in the
University of Berlin, than whom no man in Europe enjoys a higher
reputation as an acute observer, a  thorough  diagnostician  and a
comprehensive reasoner, informs us in his published lectures that, if
papulous  scabies is repelled by ointments, Avashes, or by  any other
cause:  asthma, nervous  apoplexy,  dropsy,  generally  ascites or
chronic hydrocephalus, set in as the  consequences of such suppres-
sion ; " such secondary affections." says he, " are  always  difficult to
cure ; for we scarcely ever succeed in restoring the eruption upon
the skin."
  Speaking of vesicular scabies, he likewise alludes to the extreme
danger of suppressing the eruption in such cases.  "If the eruption
is repelled,1' writes the distinguished  Professor, " secondary affections
set in.  In the case of young people, at the age  of pubescence, the
violent suppression of the eruption is particularly dangerous.   This
danger is so much greater, if the disease had developed itself spon-
taneously, not as the result of external infection."  (I may here ob-
serve that in districts where  the people eat quantities of sour cheese,
in high situations, such as parts of Switzerland and Tyrol, the itch
is much more common than among people who indulge  in  a more
rational diet, or who live  in marshy or  level districts.)  Among the
secondary ailments  which develop  themselves as the result of an
unnatural suppression  of the itch, Schcenlein enumerates vertigo,
rheumatism, amaurosis, paralysis, neuralgia of the extremities and
abdominal nerves,  epilepsy, chlorosis,  mania,  inflammation  of the
joints, more  particularly  of the hip and  knee-joint, tuberculosis of
the lungs and stomach.
   Speaking of the treatment of the itch, Schcenlein continues:  " Re-
garding the treatment of  this disease, the greatest antagonism seems
to prevail among doctors. In modern times, the notion that the itch
is nothing but a local  disease, and  that  the removal of this  local
symptom is identical with the cure of the disease, has transgressed
all bounds.  Unfortunately this  theory has not been confirmed _ by
experience.   There are cases where the itch can be suppressed with-
out injury to  the  patient; but  as yet we  have no criterion when
this may be done  safely; hence any violent  suppression must be
considered dangerous, unless we are positively certain that the dis-
ease has only lasted a short time and is the result of external infec-

   These are the teachings of one of the most  distinguished  Profes-
sors of Europe, whose range and powers of observation are at least
equal to those of any  man living.  Schcenlein is looked upon by
the homoeopathic physicians of Europe as a sort of mediator between
the Old and New Schools ; it is certainly true that there is no medi-
cal author living whose works can be  read with more pleasure and
profit than those of this eminent teacher.
   Schoenlein o-iyes the preference to Autenneth's method;  he con-
siders it perfectly safe.  It does not aim at a violent suppression of 
800
LECTURE LIV.
the eruption, but it meets the twofold condition  of a  cure, that  of
destroying the acarus and neutralizing  the  internal disease.  AVe
accomplish the former by washing the patient with a solution of the
sulphuret of Potash, and the latter by giving Sulphur internally.
   There are other diseases which develop animalculae as morbid
products.  In tinea capitis,  pediculi are very often generated  to
excess.  Visceral entozoa are morbid products.   Taenia is a morbid
product.

   We are told that the itch never gets  well of itself.  Schcenlein,
Hahnemann, Autenrieth, and other  observers, inform us that this
disease may last to the end of life unless met by adequate treatment.
It may seem to disappear for a while, but it will break out again
under favorable circumstances.   If  this  be so, how do we account
for the cure of the itch, in our practice, by means of the 30th potency
of Sulphur ?  Unless we choose to give  the  lie to those who have
reported such cures, we must believe them. I have never succeeded
in curing the itch with the 30th potency of Sulphur;  but I have
cured it again and again Avith nothing but Sulphur used internally.
In one family of seven persons, the disease was caught from a young
woman who had just arrived from ship-board. It was a sort of tuber-
cular scabies.  The finger and toe-joints, and the elbow and knee-
joints, were  swollen, rigid, of a fiery-red, and thickly studded with
vesicles and here and  there larger pustules.   The burning itching
was intense.  I prepared  an infusion of  Sulphur, one ounce of the
pure Sulphur to a quart of water, of which they took a tablespoon-
ful morning and evening, sweetened with sugar, the children only
half the quantity.  In a few weeks they were  perfectly restored. Of
course the usual precautionary means, as regards cleanliness, con-
stant change of linen, ablutions and careful diet, have to be observed
in every case.  In this case, and in all similar cases, the acarus,  if
there  was any, must have been destroyed by the  dynamic action of
Sulphur, or  rather the acarus being a mere product of  the disease,
it necessarily became extinct with the disappearance of the internal
malady.
  Again, we have any number of cases among our records, where a
patient had been treated with Sulphur-ointment and fumigations of
Sulphur for months without being cured, and Avhere a few globules
of Carbo vegetabilis, Sepia, or even  of highly-potentized Sulphur,
would afterwards effect a speedy and thorough cure.
  And it is a fact which has been demonstrated beyond  the shadow
of a doubt, that the destruction of the acarus is not necessarily fol-
lowed by the disappearance of the itch-disease.  Caustic potash, for
instance, will v estroy the acarus, but it may not cure the disease.
  The most distressing cases of vesicular scabies have  been cured
by nothing but the internal use of Alercury.  I have already alluded
to the case of two  young ladies Avho were infected at  school, and
who were covered with the most loathsome itch-sores.  The internal
use of the 6th potency of Alercury cured them thoroughly and per-
manently.
  To sum up, I believe that it is the opinion of all intelligent and 
SULPHUR.
801
carefully observing homoeopathic physicians of the present day,
that
  1. The itch is an internal disease ;
  2. That the external eruption is not merely a local symptom, but
the representative manifestation of an internal malady ;
  3. That the destruction  of the acarus alone does not necessarily
imply the* cure of scabies;
  4. That a cure of the disease is host effected, in all recent cases, by
the proper use of both external and internal means :
  5. That the external means  should simply aim at a destruction of
the parasite, not at a violent suppression of the eruption, and  that
the cure of  the real malady, and the  consequent  removal  of the
eruption, is  accomplished by the use  of internal means ; and that
  6. The  violent suppression  of the eruption may- be folioAved by
distressing, dangerous, inveterate and even incurable secondary ail-
ments.

  Behr, the  greatest oculist of the past century, who was Professor
of ophthalmic surgery in the Medical School of Auenna, this hot-bed
of modern materialism, relates a case of amaurosis which came on
in consequence of a Auolent suppression of  the itch.   He treated the
patient Avith Sulphur internally, in doses of one-sixteenth of a grain,
and the man's  sight Avas  perfectly  restored.  I am unable  to  say
whether the eruption Avas brought out again;  but I  think  it was.
  Hahnemann  scouted the very thought  of external applications
Avhen he first developed his doctrine  of Chronic Diseases.   At a later
period, he permitted the external use of  a homoeopathically indicated
remedy on parts Avhich had remained free from  the eruption.   Let
us proceed cautiously in introducing changes or pretended improve-
ments  in  our mode of treating diseases.  Of Hahnemann's original
rules of treatment hardly one is followed  by modern  practitioners.
AVho treats  a case of syphilis now by giving a single globule of the
30th potency of Mercurius  solubilis. and no more, as Hahnemann ad-
vises?  or  who treats a case of scabies Avith a single globule of the
30th potency of Sulphur, as he again advises us to do ?   We have
learned by abundant experience that  Ave can do better in many cases,
and that unless we sometimes acted differently, we should  not be
able to cure our patients.   But in spite of this incompleteness in the
teachings of Hahnemann, there is a great deal in his doctrine of the
psoric  miasm that is suggestive to a religious and philosophical mind.
The human  mind will' naturally inquire into the causes of things :
and our men of science fancy that the  microscope and the crucible
will reveal to them the " ultima thule" of all  knowledge.   Let them
go on, they will come to a dead halt just as surely as the atmospheric
air  is a vehicle, but not a principle of vitality.  Against this tendency
to a materialistic view of things, Hahnemann was opposed with all
the force  of his genius.   Hahnemann  was an eminently spiritual
thinker.   Our modern men of science are not.  Materialism is  the
order of the day.  The Creator has been dethroned; man is the  £od
of Nature.   He has made himself a microscope  through which he
tries to have a  peep at the omnipotent Spirit  as  he  weaves with his 
802
LECTURE LIV.
invisible threads the glorious tissues of Creation; and he expects to
inform the Eternal Weaver some time or other that his Universe is
all gas; that modern science has revealed Him as the leading Chemist
of the Age, and that the acarus is the cause of the itch.
  Gentlemen, disease does not affect the inmost soul; it invades the
material tissues, without, however, being a material  thing.  This
material view of disease is rejected by Hahnemann and by till rational
thinkers.  You may not accept his doctrine of the psoric miasm.;
but there is something deeply suggestive in the  thought that the dis-
order which underlies the whole mechanism of society and taints
more or less every manifestation of the varied forces of life, is repre-
sented in the human organism by a potential principle of disease or
rather by a capacity for disease which may  remain undeveloped in
millions of organisms, but may, in millions  of other organisms lead
to the development  of positive suffering.  Let me offer a suggestion.
If Hahnemann is so entirely wrong, how will  you understand the fact
that a globule of Aconite can effect as mighty a  change in the tissues
as we know it often does ?  There must, in the  first place, pre-exist
in the human  organism a receptivity for  the action of Aconite.
Chemical  analysis or microscopic observation  may not reveal this
immaterial fitness in the tissues to be impressed by an infinitesimal
globule  of the Aconite-poison ; but it exists, and if this susceptibility
is roused into an actual condition of suffering, this condition will be
found characterized by  the very symptoms  which the  Aconite-poi-
son as embodied in the Aconite-plant, is capable of producing in the
healthy  body.   From the notes with  which Hahnemann's  Avritings
are  interspersed, I infer that he believed in the existence of morbific
forces which, acting upon corresponding  states  of receptivity in the
human organism, develop these states into actual conditions of suf-
fering, which conditions are characterized by symptoms analogous
to the effects developed by drugs in the healthy organism.   I have
explained in previous lectures that I look upon drugs as products
of the same forces which, by their action  upon  receptive organisms,
develop the abnormal conditions which we term diseases.  By what
process  these agents effect  the neutralization of diseases, it  is the
business of further observation to determine  Avith scientific accuracy.
For the present I am inclined to believe, as I  have endeavored to
explain, that a  principle of attractive affinity will account for this
methodus medendi.
  Gentlemen, if I have explained myself clearly, you  are now in
possession of every definition that bears, in my o\vn mind, upon the
theory of Homoeopathy.  I cherish no effort more dearly than to
read Homoeopathy in Nature and to construct the homoeopathic doc-
trine out of the living fountain of man's own untrammelled reason.
I would ask you to  follow this example.  In  the domain of medicine
you have an unknown world of new ideas before you.   Explore it
fearlessly, but cautiously and humbly.  Be  on  your guard against
the fascinating materialism of the day; have every reverence for the
re^nt achievements of material Science;  but shun  her materialistic
vieAV of the causes of things.  AVhen our scientific men draw conclu-
sions and beget theories  having for their object an explanation of the 
SULPHUR.
803
phenomena of life by means of material laws, they seem to me like
wire-puppets upon the stage, playing pranks in the presence of Eter-
nal Reason.   Let us avoid  fanatical exclusivism as well as all mere-
tricious affiliations  with  the idols of material science, and just as
surely as truth is the ground-work of Nature, just so surely may we
hope that our men of science will  sooner or later worship in the very
temple where we have found the means of well-doing.
                   LECTURE   LV.

  In  my last lecture I have endeavored to set Hahnemann right
before you in regard to his celebrated  doctrine of psora.  I have
endeavored to sIioav that psora, in Hahnemann's mind,  typifies an
hereditary condition, the existence of which, in the human organism,
is coeval, as far as historical  records bear us out, with the existence
of the human race.  I have endeavored to show that this hereditary
condition represents, in  man's physical body, the difference between
the sinfulness of the actual, and the holiness of the  ideal life which
it must have been the  original design of the  Creator, man should
lead;  I have endeavored to show that  psora  exists, in man, as  a
potential principle of disease which may  remain latent in millions of
organisms, but which, in many other millions, may be  excited, by
the operation of  particular  causes, into actual  manifestation in  the
shape of numberless chronic ailments; I have  endeavored to show
that epidemic  diseases, typhus,  cholera, small-pox, and so  forth,
constitute so many acute  paroxysms of development  of this  in-
herent potential  principle of disease; that this principle constitutes
a germinal fitness, a predisposing taint which, through the operation
of specific forces acting like  so  many  inseminating principles in
certain abnormal  conditions of atmosphere, of mode  of life, exposure,
mental or moral  excitement, may become an actual disease, as  the
seed slumbering under ground, is quiekened into life by the vivify-
ing sunbeam in suitable conditions of soil, air  and  moisture.  And
finally I  have endeavored  to vindicate Hahnemann, this discoverer
of a universal law, the  effect of which, upon, man's  progression to-
wards a life of stainless beauty, few of us suspect and still fewer are
able to predetermine in their own minds: I repeat, I have  endeavored
to vindicate  Hahnemann from the childish  imputation  that he re-
gards the suppression of the  itch-vesicle  as the immediate source of
most  chronic diseases.  Those  who state his great  doctrine in this
petty, technical manner, overlook the universality of the principle
involved; they reduce the fruitful and comprehensive conception of
a gigantic intellect to the contracted matter-of-fact perception of an
ordinary pill-vender.  Seal  up all  such  defaming lips by referring
the idle  gossips to first principles; teach them  that Hahnemanns
psora means  first, an inherent  receptivity for  disease, which no Pro-
fessor of natural  Theology could deny  without stultifying himself
before an intelligent audience; or it may be said  to represent  the 
804
LECTURE LV.
female principle in the process of generation, which has to be acted
upon by a male or seminal principle, in order to produce an actual
disease; nor  can  this production of diseases be effected;  in  other
words, the female  principle cannot be fecoudated, except in favorable
conditions, favorable  to the growth of  evil, but abnormal Avith re-
spect to the physiological laws of the organism. These seminal princi-
ples constitute disease-begetting forces which the cosmic psoric miasm
represents in their totality as it were, as  their common mother or
central focus from which the specific  principles or forces of disease
emanate as so many distinct manifestations, each represented in the
drug-world, by one of those agents Avhich  Hahnemann has  designa-
ted by the term "anti-psorics."
  If I have  been at  all  able to cast a glance into  Hahnemann's
mind, I would say  that this is the proper construction to be put
upon his great doctrine of the psoric miasm.  It involves  no  more
nor less than an investigation of the primary causes of disease.  Ac-
cidental errors in the details of his doctrine do not invalidate its
general correctness.   The psora-doctrine of  Hahnemann has  been
assailed on all sides  by  thoughtless men  as well as by men  well
versed in the material sciences.  But little is as yet  known of the
world of causes.  It  is owing to this scantiness of knowledge that
Homoeopathy has remained  an empirical science, and that  our pro-
gress is due more to our successful treatment of diseases than to the
inherent  superiority of our  principles.  But a knowledge of the
causes of things is being  revealed to us more and more; and, when
this revelation shall be complete,  the inspirations  of Reason  will
be confirmed by the evidence of Fact.
  To return  to Sulphur.   This agent being considered as the chief
antidote to the psoric miasm, there was  a time when no case of
chronic or even sub-acute disease Avas treated without a dose of Sul-
phur being put in, every now and then,  for the purpose of annihila-
ting the supposed psora.  This Avas an abuse of Avhich homoeopathic
physicians  are no longer  guilty; Ave  gi\Te Sulphur now, in accor-
dance with our great laAV of cure, in cases to which its homoeopathi-
city is avcII established.  Hence, if Ave give Sulphur for the itch, it is
because it develops in the dermoid tissues a process similar to the
morbid process which is going on in this disease.
  Alloeopathic  physicians  very generally employ a  Sulphur-oint-
ment in the treatment of all recent cases of the itch, for the purpose
of destroying the acarus,  after which, if any sores remain, they will
readily heal under appropriate treatment as any other common sores.
Very many homoeopathic  physicians advocate and pursue the  same
course, giving at the same time Sulphur internally.  '
  Hahnemann proposed to treat the itch Avith a single globule of the
thirtieth potency  of Sulphur.  He insists that every case of scabies
will yield to this treatment.  I doubt Avhether there is a homoeopathic
physician living who  contents himself with this scanty medication.
As a general rule I believe it to  be an established fact that in all
recent cases  of the common  or vesicular scabies, large  doses of
Sulphur are far more  certain to cure this loathsome disease  speedily 
SULPHUR.
805
and radically than small doses.  In this respect we should drop all
prejudices, all dogmatic adherence to theories; much mischief has
been clone by such conduct.
  Some physicians cure the itch by scattering an ounce of the flowers
of Sulphur  in the patient's  bed every evening.  By this means the
eruption may be removed in from three to four weeks.
  If you deem it proper to resort to the ointment, it is of the utmost
importance  to the success of the treatment to first cleanse the skin
of all impurities by washing the patient all over with soap-suds two
or three times.  This may  be done in the afternoon and evening,
and next morning the folloAving ointment may be rubbed upon every
part of the body, except, of course, the face, which is never invaded
by  the disease:  sublimed Sulphur, one part in weight: carbonate
of potash, half this quantity, and  common hog's lard four  parts.
Some of this ointment may be rubbed in, in a tolerably Avarm  room,
every  six hours. In the evening the soap-suds may  be resorted to.
By pursuing this course for a few days, and giving  Sulphur  at the
same time internally, there  is hardly a case of genuine scabies that
does not yield to this treatment.  Internally,  the Sulphur may be
administered in combination Avith common loaf-sugar. I take one
part of purified  sulphur and five parts of the best loaf-sugar in
weight, and  rub them together for  half an hour or more, until  a
homogeneous mass is obtained, of which I administer five grains
three times a day.

  In the  Paris hospitals the use of  the Sulphur-ointment is very
generally resorted to  in the treatment of the itch.   Dr.  Trousseau,
who is Clinical Professor in  the  University of  Paris,  and  who seems
to observe and  class  morbid phenomena  from the same point of
vision  with  Professor  Schcenlein of Berlin, has  been so  frequently
mentioned in the course  of these  lectures  as  a liberal-minded and
eminently philosophical thinker, that it may not be uninteresting to
homoeopathic physicians to  be acquainted Avith his views regarding
the treatment of scabies.  I extract the following statements from his
treatise of Materia Medica and Therapeutics :
  "Sulphur  has  enjoyed a somewhat extravagant  and  unmerited
reputation in the treatment of divers tetters.   AVe do not mean to
deny the therapeutic poAvers of this agent altogether; -but  experience
has demonstrated that Sulphur is really useful only in a small num-
ber of chronic cutaneous diseases.  Several kinds of Sulphur-oint-
ment have sometimes rendered good service in the treatment of moist
tetter;  but in dry tetter these preparations  scarcely  ever effect any
good result.  There exists,  hoAvever, one cutaneous  disorder  which
yields to no drug better than to Sulphur.
  " The probability is that the curative virtues of Sulphur were first
suspected when Avorkmen who Avere employed  in extracting or puri-
fying Sulphur, or in reducing metals, the ores of Avhich contained a
quantity of Sulphur, were speedily  cured of the itch, if they had this
malady before engaging in this business, and that they remained free
from the disease after handling Sulphur-ores.  Simple Sulphur-oint-
ment suffices in most cases to  cure the itch.   Chaussier, and his 
806
LECTURE LV.
imitator  Brachet of Lyons, substitute for the ointment  the simple
flowers of Sulphur with which  they strew the bed of the patient
every evening just before bed time.  By this means a cure is effected
in three or four weeks.  It is more particularly alkaline sulphurets
that are employed in treating the itch, whether these sulphurets are
used in the shape of baths  for two  or three weeks, or whether the
liniment of Pihorel is  rubbed  upon  the palms of the hands, or
whether  we employ the much  more  expeditious method which is
now generally resorted to  in the Hospital  St. Louis, and in  the
Children's Hospital of Paris.  This method is the following, and is
claimed by several physicians as their own suggestion.
   " Hebra of Vienna, Bazin of the Hospital St. Louis,  and  Drs. Le-
grand and Millot of Mello, in France, have insisted upon the particular
method of employing Sulphur  as  a  remedy for the itch.   Legrand
and Millot take half a pound of lard,  an ounce of the flowers of Sul-
phur and a quarter of an  ounce of sea-salt.   The day previous, the
patient takes an alkaline bath, and  on the day following the patient
rubs himself with one-fourth of the above mentioned ointment.  This
friction has to be made over the whole body.   On  the  morning fol-
lowing, the patient takes a bath, and  his  clothes are put in an oven
in order to destroy the acari and their eggs, in case any should have
remained adhering to the clothes.  A single day is sufficient to com-
plete the treatment.
   " Bazin's treatment  differs from that of Drs. Legrand and Millot
only by  the nature of the ointment which they  employ.  Bazin's
ointment is composed as follows:
   " Sesquicarbonate of potassa, one part;
   " Flowers of Sulphur, two parts;
   " Lard, eight parts.
   "In  the  Children's Hospital  of Paris we have  pursued Bazin's
method with complete success;  the general friction Avas practiced
two  days in succession; the third day a Sulphur-bath was admin-
istered, and on the fourth day we sent the patients home again, after
having administered to them previously a second Sulphur-bath. - By
way of precaution we gave them 30 scruples  of the flowers of Sul-
phur to take home, of which they were to scatter a dessertspoonful
in their beds every evening before retiring.
   " Dr. Hardy has happily modified the treatment of the physicians
whom we have named.  As soon as the  patient is received in the
hospital, he is washed all over with brown soap.   This rubbing lasts
from twenty to thirty minutes; after which he is placed in  an alka-
line bath for about an hour.  On leaving the bath, the whole body
is rubbed with Bazin's ointment, known as Helmerich's; this com-
pletes the treatment; that is, the acarus is destroyed, and the remain-
ing ulcerations, papulae or pustules are treated like any other ordinary
non-infectious cutaneous malady.
   " Some physicians only give Sulphur internally, in order to  avoid
a sudden suppression of the eruption. In  such a case, Sulphur is
given in very large quantities.   This exclusive  internal use of Sul-
phur does  not seem to  us judicious, but may be  advantageously
associated with external  applications. 
SULPHUR.
807
   "However much we  dread the too sudden disappearance of an
 eruption which is evidently the expression of a constitutional affec-
 tion, we do not, on the other hand, hesitate to employ  the most
 energetic local applications in cutaneous affections which are net
 connected with the  general health, and only result from some local
 irritation or external contagion.   But if, in such a case, the disorder
 has become habitual; if the constitution seems to have accommodated
 itself to it; if the  general  health had improved  since the develop-
 ment of the cutaneous affection, a rigid caution should be exercised
 in treating the eruption ;  the disorder should  be treated slowly, and
 purgatives,  issues  and a suitable regime  should likewise  be  em-
 ployed."
   The practical wisdom  with which these last paragraphs are replete,
 will not be  lost upon homoeopathic physicians.  The purgatives and
 issues are obligatory adjuncts of treatment, without Avhich no revul-
 sive bill of fare in an allceopathic cook-shop could possibly be ar-
 ranged according to the  rules of Art.  They may be dispensed with.

   The Vienna Provers' Union has instituted reprovings of Sulphur,
 which may  be said to constitute one of the most brilliant and instruc-
 tive pages  in  our  Alateria  Medica.   These provings Avere instituted
 Avith massive  doses of one hundred to  two hundred grains of the
 crude substance, and likewise with  the  attenuations.   Among the
 effects  obtained, the following point most  unmistakeably to the
 homoeopathicity of Sulphur to vesicular scabies.
   "Itching  from the hips  to the toes  after getting warm  in  bed,
 especially in the bends of the  knees, with a pleasurable feeling after
 rubbing; on the parts rubbed small  pimples  started  up which dis-
 charged a fluid from their tips, whereupon the itching ceased, but
 returned the following night."
   " Eruption in the bends of the elbows and on the wrists, which the
 prover feared might be the  itch."
   "Itching  in the  bend of the right elbow; a moisture is  exuded
 from the scratched parts."
   "Pimples between the left  thumb and  index, burning like fire
 when scratched."
   " Itching  vesicle between  the index and middle fingers, resembling
 in all respects an itch-vesicle."
  These symptoms evidently refer to  vesicular scabies.  Sulphur is
 likewise in  homoeopathic rapport Avith papulous and  tuberculous
 scabies, where the joints  may SAvell, become indurated,  burn and itch
 a great deal.  In a family of seven  persons every member  of the
 family became infected with this sort of itch through a servant girl.
 The toe-joints were swollen  and ulcerated; the finger joints likewise,
 and the Avrists, forearms and elboAV-joints looked fiery-red, were hard
 and SAvollen, itched and burned furiously and seemed dotted with an
 innumerable multitude of fine vesicles.  The patients were radically
 cured with Sulphur-water, obtained by shaking a pint of water three
 times a  day  Avith half an ounce of the flowers of Sulphur.  A table-
 spoonful of  this water, properly SAveetened, Avas giA-en three times a
 day, taking  care to  allow the Sulphur to settle before a dose of water
was administered." 
£0$
LECTURE LV.
  Sulphur having  such a specific action  upon  the  skin, we may
naturally expect to find a number of cutaneous eruptions represented
among the Sulphur-symptoms.
  Sulphur causes pimples, vesicles, blotches, scaling off of the epi-
dermis, erythematous patches upon the skin, spots, boils, aphthae, in
various parts of the body, on the  forehead, in the  face, on the lips,
upon the extremities.
  Sulphur is likewise distinguished for causing an itching and burn-
ing on various parts of the body, upper arms, legs, back.
  Sulphur has  caused tinea  capitis,  ulceration of the nails and
thumb.
  Sulphur has likewise caused scirrhous tubercles, swelling of glands,
ulcers.
  Hence we prescribe Sulphur in various herpetic eruptions, such as:
  Herpes Humidus over the whole face;
  Herpes Squamosus on the forehead;
  Dry Herpes over the whole body ;
  Herpes Crustaceus, with thick, yellow, greenish crusts;
  Herpes Furfuraceus;
  Herpes Phagedenicus, with emaciation and evening-fe\Ter;
  Herpes Phlyctenodes, clusters of small vesicles filled Avith a serous
fluid, upon an inflamed base, increasing to the size of a dollar, form-
ing irregular, circumscribed spots, separated from each other by sound
skm; they appear principally on the extremities, itch and burn, and
either discharge a fluid, or else become covered with thin, white scales.

  We also prescribe Sulphur in
  Tinea Capitis, scaldhead, both  humid and  dry, but more particu-
larly the dry form.  Professor Zlatarovich, Avhile pro\ung Sulphur in
massive doses of one  hundred grains of the crude substance, was
freed for a long time from the  scaly scald-head with A\rhich  he was
afflicted.  Another prover was cured of
  Psoriasis Discolor, a disease of the epiclermis which peeled off in
the form of yellowish scales. This most annoying affection likewise
disappeared Avhile the Sulphur was being proved in massive doses.

  Sulphur has been  advantageously employed in
  Scrofidous Indurations of the submaxillary glands, and in
   Chronic  erysipelatous inflammation of the  skin on  the arms, legs,
and in the face, characterized by burning, itching and  desquamation
of the epidermis.
  In Acne Rosacea, Sulphur may be useful; likewise in
  Mentagra or the barber's itch.
  Hepatic  or liver-spots, may frequently be favorably acted upon by
Sulphur.

  Sulphur should not  be forgotten in the soreness of children,  or
  Intertrigo infantum, especially in  inveterate cases, if a scrofulous
diathesis is evident.
  Sulphur has developed tubercles of a scirrhous hardness, in the
lower  lip  and  tongue; hence it is eminently proper, to  prescribe
Sulphur in 
SULPHUR.
809
  Scirrhus of the lower lip and tongue.   In the treatment of
   Ulcers which bleed readily, secrete a fetid pus, and burn and itch
a good deal, Sulphur proves very valuable, especially if the breaking
out of these sores can be distinctly traced to the presence of scrofu-
losis.  In other words it is in
  Scrofulous Ulcers, and likeAvise in
   Varicose Ulcers that Sulphur  manifests fine curative powers.  We
shall see  shortly that Sulphur  acts specifically upon the veins, em-
barrassing or clogging  the venous circulation.  Hence in the treat-
ment of
   Varicose Veins, Sulphur cannot possibly play an unimportant part;
consequently in varicose ulcers, it  must exercise healing poAvers by
removing the torpor of the vessels and restoring  the  irritability of
the capillary tissue.

  The Osseous Disorganizations  to which the  scrofulous element fre-
quently leads, even
  Rliachitis,  almost  invariably require a dose of Sulphur every now
and then.  This agent has likewise been given Avith good effect in
  Anasarca,  as the sequela of acute eruptions.

  There is hardly a chronic non-syphilitic eruption, where Sulphur
is not employed more or less.  AVe may mention one other chronic
disease of this character, excessively annoying to children; it is
   Crusta Serpiginosa, which is  regarded by many pathologists as  a
form of the itch-disease.  The eruption  first shoAvs itself behind the
ear, consisting of groups of small vesicles filled with a limpid fluid,
itching a  great  deal and  forming thin,  dark-brown  crusts.   This
eruption  might possibly be confounded with crusta lactea; never-
theless  the characteristic  differences  are well  marked.  In crusta
lactea, for instance, the forehead  and  cheeks  are first invaded, in
crusta serpiginosa the ear;  in  crusta  lactea, the eruption consists of
large purulent sores Avhich do not itch, whereas, in crusta serpigi-
,nosa, the itching is a  characteristic symptom, especially at night;
crusta lactea forms thick, yellowish-white crusts which gradually
fall  off Avithout any treatment, whereas crusta serpiginosa never gets
well without treatment, on  the  contrary, keeps  spreading, gradually
invading the face,  eyes, neck,  chest,  and giving rise  to dangerous
ophthalmic diseases.

   In the treatment of  Onychia, or AvhitloA\r, and common ulceration
of nails, Sulphur may be useful.   And  lastly in
   Corns,  Warts and Boils, especially  when they incline to become
inflamed  and painful, Sulphur  may'bring  about the gradual eradi-
cation of these annoying  excrescences.   In regard to the  tendency
to boils  in scrofulous persons,  and to a tendency to fester as it is
termed, Sulphur does  a great deal  to moderate this morbid  dis-
position.
   Regarding the dose,  we may affirm in truth that we, in common
with other enlightened homoeopathic  physicians, have seen  most
brilliant results  from the middle  and  higher  as well as  from the 
810
LECTURE LV.
 lower preparations.  In all recent cases of vesicular itch, we believe
 that the more massive preparations of Sulphur act more speedily
 and certainly than the higher potencies.  But in chronic affections
 of bones, in  chronic ulcerations, and in many chronic eruptions of
 various kinds, the middle and higher potencies  of Sulphur seem to
 be more adapted to a safe, radical and speedy cure.


                     CEPHALIC  GROUP.

  Sulphur is not  Avithout a  poAverful action upon the brain.  It is
 not quite satisfactorily proven—so say the physiological pathologists
 of  the  Old-School—whether  Sulphur  affects the  nervous system;
 but it is universally admitted, and our  own experiments place this
 beyond all  doubt, that Sulphur acts specifically upon  the venous
 system,  and that here the theatre of its operations is that system of
 delicate, microscopic vessels where the functions of vitality are really
 carried  on, we  mean the venous  capillaries.  As Aconite acts upon
 the terminal capillaries of the arterial  system, so does Sulphur act
 upon the terminal capillaries  of  the venous system.  This essential
 difference it is  that adapts Aconite to acute, and  Sulphur to chronic
 inflammations.   Trace out the consequences  of stagnations in the
 venous  capillaries, and you may very readily understand the symp-
 toms  of chronic congestion, exudation  and suppuration of internal
 organs,  and the various eruptions, vesicles, pustules, boils, ulcers and
 so forth, with which Sulphur  is, in  so eminent a degree, in curative
 adaptation.
  It is  evident, to my mind,  that Sulphur cannot thus clog the cir-
 culation of the venous capillaries, impairing the  irritability of their
 tissue, and thus materially interfering with a vital property, Avithout
 at the same time  affecting the nervous power which regulates  and
 maintains this  important function.   Hence the  ganglionic system,
 and indirectly the brain,  must be acted  upon, or  if you  please, irri-
 tated, by the action of Sulphur.                                   *
  The venous capillaries  being distributed throughout every tissue,
 it is to engorgements of these capillaries in  the brain and  its inves-
 ting membranes that the functional derangements caused by the
 action of Sulphur  upon the head, have to be traced.

  Among the head-symptoms  obtained by provers, we  distinguish
 the following:
  Drawing-burning pain  at the top of the head;
 ^ Dull aching_ pain in the whole of the  right half of the brain, with
 dimness of vision, Aveakness of the eyes,  innumerable, confused, dark
spots  floating before the eyes; this was followed by giddiness  and
confusion of the whole head;
  Frontal headache, alternating with pain in the joints;  the pain
may be  a dull drawing pain;
  Dull headache, deep in the left orbit, sometimes increasing to a
drawing throbbing;
  Aching pain  in the left side of the  forehead, with slight vertigo; 
SULPHUR.
811
   Headache, with burning  and redness of the eyes; or burning-
aching  pain in the  occiput, also with aching pain over the whole
head.
   These symptoms point more especially to the different forms  of
headache Avhich Sulphur may be capable of curing, and which will
be generally found to be of a chronic character. The signs of derange-
ment of the venous  capillaries in the brain, may likewise manifest
themselves in sudden paroxysms, embarrassing and disturbing more-
over the sensorial sphere of this central organ.
   Among the  provings we find, for example, the following records:
   Absence of mind;
   Sensation as if  a hair were pulled (in the case of a prover who
is bald);
   Sudden vertigo;
   Confusion of the head, with involuntary discharge from the bowels,
followed by perspiration all  over, especially on the forehead, which
relieved the confusion;
   Rush of blood to the head, with roaring in the ears, burning and
creeping in the face.   A  similar symptom was obtained by a prover
during an experiment with the high potencies:
   Violent rush of blood to the head, beating of all the arteries in the
head, confusion in the head, roaring in the ears.

   Another symptom of the same character as these two, is the follow-
ing :  Heat and confusion in  the head, with  noise like the boiling of
water, rushing out of both ears.
   Regarding the curative powers of Sulphur in  these head-affections,
let me impress upon your minds what I believe to be a great truth:
that it is only in chronic conditions where these head-symptoms occur
as incidental groups, that Sulphur will manifest its power as a great
remedial agent. In
   Chronic  Headaches, for instance, where  the particular  paroxysms
are constituted as I  have described  them; or in chronic  nervous
derangements,  Hysteria,  Avhere  these violent rushes  of  blood and
attacks  of vertigo occur paroxysmally, in consequence of peculiar
exciting causes, Sulphur may, and often will prove, a great  remedy.
AVith these explanations  we recommend Sulphur for
   Paroxysms of Absence of Mind;
   Chronic Vertigo;
   Chronic Headache ;
   Rush of Blood; and for affections of the  head that have  resulted
from the retrocession of the itch, such as:
   Trembling of the Head,  and even
   Chronic Hydrocephalus; in the latter disease, Sulphur  is likewise
eminently necessary, if a  scrofulous taint is the determining cause,  or
in congenital hydrocephalus.
  Regarding the dose, I  Avould advise you  to rely upon  the middle
potencies of Sulphur in these chronic head-affections rather than
upon the lower. 
812
LECTURE LV.
                      NERVOUS GROUP.

   In order to  fully comprehend the various pains and  abnormal
nervous  conditions which Sulphur excites, it  is of the utmost im-
portance to keep in view its physiological action  upon the normal
organism.  Remember that  it is  the venous capillary system Avhich
receives the primary shock of this mighty agent, together with that
portion of the ganglionic system of nerves which  is immediately
connected,  or interwoven  with the capillary tissue.   If you  remem-
ber that under the depressing action of Sulphur, the venous capilla-
ries  become congested, the ■• blood becomes  more  or less stagnant,
resisting the arterial current which seeks to  drive  it onward, you
cannot have any difficulty in understanding  the  various drawing,
tearing, crampy,  boring,  laming, stitching and  other pains which
Sulphur is capable of exciting.
   Sulphur occasions a variety of pains which point to it as a great
agent in
   Rheumatic and Arthritic Affections.  With  a view of facilitating
the study of these various pains, we will classify them in accordance
with their peculiar nature. We may distinguish
   Drawing and tearing pains, which may be felt in various parts of
the body, especially in the fingers, long  bones, back, muscles of the
neck;  these pains may come on suddenly; they may be followed by
creeping or lancing pains in the same parts. Respecting these drawing
pains, Dr. Hausmann, the  prover, who was more especially annoyed
by this symptom, remarks: "Even after all the other symptoms had
disappeared, this one would frequently announce its presence; I am
inclined to attach a  great value to it, and I recommend it particularly
to the attention of my colleagues.  It' had this peculiarity that  it
generally commenced at the dorsal side of the limbs in the neighbor-
hood of the joints, penetrated deeply, but without penetrating through
to the palmar aspect."
   Boring pain in the ankle-joints.
   Crampy  and  contractive pains in the lumbar and sacral vertebrae,
and  in the joints where they alternate with crampy pains in the mus-
cles, especially  during motion.
   Another group of pains consists of a feeling  of painfid pressure or
aching, accompanied with  a sensation of tension.  This pain has been
experienced in the small of the back and pelvic region, as if the bones
of the pelvis should be pressed asunder;  or in  the muscles causing a
sensation as if the  muscles were  too  short; or in the small of the
back and hip, followed by a sharp cutting pain through  the  right
knee, and afterwards through the elbow-joint,  from the bend of the
joint to the apex.   The character of these pains most pointedly indi-
cates engorgement  of the venous capillaries, such  as may occur in
rheumatic conditions of these parts.
   A feeling of  heaviness in the bones of  the arms and legs, or a feel-
ing of  weight and burning in the feet is another symptom pointing
to a  rheumatic or arthritic condition of the parts.
   Sulphur  causes flying pains, and sensitiveness and  soreness in the
wrist and finger-joints such as may be experienced in chronic rheu-
matism. 
SULPHUR.
813
  Sulphur occasions shooting pains.  These pains have been experi-
enced in the abdominal muscles, the hip-joints and  doAvn the thigh,
and may be regarded as rheumatic or neuralgic pains.   These pains
Avere obtained by means of globules moistened with the tincture of
Sulphur.
  Regarding these shooting pains, the prover, a student of medicine,
makes the following remarks:
  " For three weeks, I may have taken three times daily, five  glo-
bules moistened with the tincture of Sulphur, when I experienced a
shooting pain here and there in the abdominal parietes, especially in
the inguinal region, at one time in the left, at another time in the
right side; this pain sometimes lasted a short time, sometimes longer,
but regularly went off in the warmth of bed.  As I did not believe
that these wandering pains were caused by the Sulphur, I continued
to take it.  About a week  after the first appearance of the shooting
pains, there occurred, after the slightest  exercise,  a very trouble-
some feeling of fatigue.  The shooting pains now gradually declined,
but in their stead occurred contractive pains, especially in the mus-
cles of the thighs, which often proved a serious obstacle to my walk-
ing.   In four days,  these contractive pains were felt deeper, as if in
the bones, especially in the femora and right tibia.   The head of the
right tibia became  very painful, and could not bear the  slightest
touch, and after  the slightest exercise I  had to go and lie down.
Now, almost convinced that these  symptoms must be  the effect of
the Sulphur, I intended to leave it off, but  as I had a few more
globules I took them all.   The consequence of this was that  the
pains attained such  a  degree of intensity as  almost to render walking
impossible.  The very next day, when I took no more globules, the
pains became less intense, and in  three days were all gone.   I have
gained the conviction that medicines, even in very small doses, are
capable of producing the most violent effects."

  This group of symptoms is interesting to us in a particular point
of view.  It teaches us that Sulphur is endowed with specific powers
to affect the head  of the tibia, and that it may therefore be of immense
value to us in rheumatic diseases  of this part complicated with the
scrofulous diathesis.  In
   Chronic Inflammation of the head of the tibia and in disorganiza-
tions resulting from it, such as
  Pedarthrocace or scrofulous ulceration of this bone, Sulphur will
be one of our most  valuable agents, if given in the middle or higher
potencies, from the  12th to the 30th.   This may likewise be said of

  1 Lip-disease, Morbus Coxarius, Coxarthrocace, Avhere Sulphur must be
eminently useful,  if the effects of Sulphur upon the hip-joint can be
depended upon as curative indications.

  The symptom: "Numbness and warmth in the  knee," obtained
by a  prover, shoAvs  that in nervous inflammatory affections of the
knee-joint, or, to use the modern technical language of pathology, in
neuroses of the kuee-joint, Sulphur  may be of great use. 
814
LECTURE LV.
  Sulphur affects the  process  of innervation by  depressing the
feeling of normal vital heat in a  part.  It causes a sensation as  if
cold air were  blowing over the thighs, or a sensation of coldness in
the upper arms.  This  depression of the vital  temperature may be
accompanied by, or give rise to,  a feeling of paralysis in the affected
extremity;  hence we  find among the  provings the  symptom;
" Paralytic feeling in the  upper arms."  This sensation is likeAvise
strikingly announced by another prover in these words : " Drawing
in the right fore-arm, near the elbow, like a current of air or a breath
passing over the part, and causing a feeling of  paralysis."  In fully
developed paralysis,  Sulphur may, nevertheless, prove inadequate to
a cure.  In
  Semi-paralytic conditions, where the sensation of a normal  tempera-
ture of the part is disturbed either by a sensation as if the part were
colder than usual, as if a  current of cold air were passing  over the
part, or by a  feeling of burning heat, accompanied by a sense  of
heaviness in the part: Sulphur may  do good service.

  Among the provings of Sulphur, many symptoms  point to the
great use of this agent in arthritic affections of the feet, whether the
common
   Gout, or Arthritic Rheumatism.  These pains  are: pains as  if
sprained; boring pains; tensive pains in the joints and muscles.

  The action of Sulphur  upon the nervous  tissue  and the venous
capillary system of  the back,  is characterized by several marked
symptoms. One prover experienced " long  pulsative and undulating
stitches  below  the  left  scapula."  Another  has this  symptom:
"Burning  feeling over the whole  back, especially  between the
scapulae, changing to a  sore pain after scratching, with perceptible
throbbing of the arteries beneath the skin."
  This symptom may point to what Schcenlein terms
  Hysteria Spinalis; the burning sensation sometimes  is felt  like  a
hot flash over  the back, down the spinal column.
  The use of Sulphur in  hysteria or nervous irritation, is likewise
indicated  by this symptom: "Icy-cold feet, with  burning  of the
face and hands,"
  To sum up,  the nervous affections where Sulphur may be of use
as a curatiAre agent, are
   Chronic Rheumatic and Arthritic Affections ;
  Diseases of joints, Hip-disease,  Chronic Inflammation  of the  knee-
joint.
  Paralytic Conditions;
  Hysteria Spinalis;
  Nervous Irritation, and occasionally cases of spinal irritation, if the
patient complains of shooting, stitching, bruising and burning pains
in the back.
  A chronic disposition to Cramp in the calves, and to
  Numbness of the legs from the least pressure as if they would go
to sleep, likewise yield to Sulphur among other medicines. 
SULPHUR.
815
         Nervous Complaints, arising from repelled itch, such as: Neuralgia,
       trembling, paralytic weakness, rigidity of joints, and other ailments.
         Another interesting  class of pains are the shooting pains which
       should invariably be treated with Sulphur, perhaps  in conjunction
       with other remedies.

                             ORBITAL GROUP.

         Sulphur affects the eyes  in a very marked  manner.  Among the
*      recorded provings we distinguish the following symptoms:
         Quivering and luminous appearances before the right eye;
         Lightning-flashes before the eyes at night;
         Dimness of the  cornea;
         Dimness of vision,  diplopia;
        _ Dull aching and feeling of weight in both eye-balls, with loss of
       vision as if a thick veil were before the eyes.

         These few symptoms indicate the faculty inherent  in Sulphur, of
       affecting  the  visual  power.  Other symptoms show that  Sulphur
       may irritate and inflame the eye.   Among these symptoms we may
       record the following:
         Redness and inflammation of the canthi, with slight adhesions and
       exudations; this irritation is accompanied by some irritation of the
       Schneiderian membrane;
         Itching, burning and redness of the edges of the lids;
         Fine burning, like  sparks, on the skin of the right upper lid;
         Painful dryness of the eyes, or dry feeling under the lids;
         Shooting pain through the pupil.

         These symptoms have led to the use of Sulphur in common
         Catarrhal Conjunctivitis,  especially where the palpebral portion of
       the conjunctiva is involved.  In
         Arthritic  and Scrofulous  Ophthalmia, with hypertrophy of the
       lining membrane of the lids; in chronic
         Sore Eyes; with inflammation and swelling of the lids, itching and
       smarting, dryness  of  the eyes or else exudation of a purulent gum
       from the canthi; in
         Amaurotic  Conditions, with aching pain and dryness of the eye-
       balls, dimness of vision, as if  objects were seen through dust, and
       more particularly if the amaurotic weakness resulted from repelled
       itch : Sulphur will be found a valuable remedy.
         In Chronic Disorganizations of the Cornea, Leucoma, Phlyctene, and
       so forth, in consequence of previous scrofulous inflammation, Sulphur
       may  be of great use to us; even in
         Cataract from repelled itch, Sulphur is said to have effected a cure.

                           AURICULAR  GROUP.

         Sulphur causes a roaring in the ears.   It has caused a deafness in
       the left ear, together with an aching pain in the left eye.  AVe like-
       wise  notice
         "Sweating and frequent itching in the left meatus." 
816
LECTURE LVI.
  Boring pains in the external meatus.
  These few symptoms point to the use of Sulphur in
  Otalgia  of a boring character, especially in scrofulous  subjects;
and likewise to
  Otorrhea,  the  discharge being  confined to a  simple oozing of
dampness, with itching, from the external meatus.
  Deafness, with  roaring in the ears, itching and dampness of the
ear, may be  favorably treated Avith Sulphur, especially if a chronic
eruption which would have required Sulphur, had been repelled or
retroceded spontaneously.
                 LECTURE   LYI.

                      NASAL GROUP.

  Sulphur affects the external  nose  in an unusual manner.  It
causes
  An inflamed spot on the nose;
  Thickening and swelling of the nasal bones;
  Aching pains in the nasal bones;
  Tickling in the right nostril, followed by discharge of thick blood;
  Painful inflammation of the right wing of  the nose, and of the
septum, going off in branlike scales;
  Shining, red swelling of the tip of the nose; the left nostril feels
thick, hard, painful to the touch, forming a hardened, transparent,
bright-yellow mass.
  Sensation as if he smelled the  perfume of a flower, though there
was not any.
  Sensation as if he were smelling soap-suds.
  These symptoms show that Sulphur may prove of great value in
  Scrofulous Swelling and Inflammation of the  Nose, septum and
cartilages, and likewise in                           *
  Illusions of Smell of the character indicated by the provings;  they
may occur in hysteria.

             FACIAL AND BUCCAL GROUPS.

  Sulphur causes  swelling and hardness of the root of the tongue;
hence it may prove useful in
  Hydrargyria,  especially chronic, with SAvelling and rigidity of the
tongue.
  Sulphur has  also caused a hard tubercle on  the  border  of the
tongue.  Hence we may recommeud Sulphur as a remedy for
  Painful Swelling, Induration and tubercular excrescences of the
tongue.

 m Upon the face, Sulphur has acted  in a marked manner.  We dis-
tinguish the following symptoms: 
SULPHUR.
817
  Raw pain in the left commissure of the mouth;
  Sensation as if the upper lip were swollen.'
  Burning on the right cheek as from drops of hot fluid;
  Roughness on both cheeks, with heat and burning in the cheeks
as from exposure to cold, followed by branlike desquamation.
  A group of small painless vesicles close together, near the right
commissure of the mouth, bursting  and ulcerating; they have a
lardaceous appearance.
  Itching of the left eye and cheek;
  Tension of the skin of the face, as if it were swelling;
  A crack in the upper lip, which is very painful.
  Whitish aphthae  on  the  inside of the lips, and in one instance a
warty  excrescence.

  These  symptoms very clearly teach us that Sulphur may prove
useful  in the  treatment of several annoying affections of the  face,
particularly
   Chronic Inflammation or inflammatory irritation of the skin; the
skin feels rough, itches and  burns a good deal, looks red and  in-
flamed.
  Scrofdous Swelling and Inflammation of the Lips, with rhagades in
the lip, bleeding and aphthous ulceration of the lips.
  Soreness of  the Corners of the  Mouth, to which children and full-
grown persons of a scrofulous habit are sometimes subject.
   Warty Excrescences on the lower lip.


                       DENTAL GROUP.

  The action of Sulphur upon the teeth is not marked by any very
characteristic symptoms. It has caused
  Digging pains in  sound teeth; also
  Drawing pains in the upper teeth,  Avith a feeling of swelling and
ulceration in  the left gums.   Hence we may derive curative effects
from Sulphur  in
  Toothache characterized by similar pains.


                  CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

  The effects of Sulphur in the chylo-poietic range are varied and
exceedingly interesting.  It alters the taste, causing
  A sour taste in the mouth, also a bitter and insipid taste, with white
coating on the tongue ;  and finally
  A clammy taste, with yelloAV coating on the tongue.
  Sulphur also causes  heartburn, flow of water in  the mouth and
various abnormal sensations in the stomach Avhich make it a most
valuable agent in chronic derangements of this organ.  It causes a
feeling of
  Weight at the stomach, with fluid stools;
  A twisting  and  turning  sensation  in the region of the stomach,
accompanied with vertigo. 
818
LECTURE LVI.
     AVeariness after eating.  These few symptoms indicate Sulphur as
  an useful agent in
     Chronic Dyspepsia, when the food sits heavily upon the stomach,
  and  the  patient experiences a tendency to diarrhoeic stool after a
  meal.  The appetite need not be much impaired, although the taste
  in the mouth is altered, generally sour or insipid, clammy;  the
  tongue has a  whitish or  yellowish  coating upon it, and  the mouth
  may feel dry.

     Other symptoms point to the use  of Sulphur in
     Cardialgia; especially the following: '
     Pressure in the umbilical region,  followed  by pressure in the left
  hypochondrium, soft, quick pulse (one hundred and sixty), and palpi-
  tation of the heart;
     Constrictive pain in the pit of the stomach,  and feeling of sick-
  ness, pressing in the left hypochondrium, accompanied by a chilly
  feeling from  the lumbar vertebrae  to the  abdomen and the ex-
  tremities ;
     Alternate constrictive burning pain in  the stomach ; as  this pain
  went off, the abdominal parieties became sensitive, pulse quick, hard
  and full.

     As a regulator of the action of the bowels, Sulphur is one of our
  most efficient agents.  Small doses of Sulphur bind the bowels, and
  make the faeces hard and their expulsion  difficult.  Hence in
     Chronic Constipation, Sulphur is depended upon by homoeopathic
  physicians as a gradual restorer of the regular action  of the  bowels.
  The  stools look hard, dark and dry, and are expelled with great
  straining, even to such an extent that blood  is discharged.  If the
  individual is  afflicted with haemorrhoids,  Sulphur proves especially
  useful.
     Large  doses  of  Sulphur cause liquid  stools, characterized  by a
  variety of symptoms, such as:
     Soft stools, with itching of the perinaeum;
     Diarrhoeic stools, with burning and tenesmus:
     Stools consisting of faecal matter and mucus;
     Discharge oKetid liquid stools, accompanied with fetid flatulence;
     Stools attended with cutting pains in the rectum;
t     Rumbling in the bowels, followed by copious papescent, yellowish-
  green, fetid stools;
     Stools attended with an inclination to vomit;
     Loose fetid stool, followed by straining, ulcerative pain in the anus
  when touching it, and sensation as if more diarrhoea Avould come.
    # These effects of  Sulphur distinctly indicate the different forms of
  diarrhoea where this remarkable agent will manifest its therapeutic
  powers.  It is more particularly in the
     Fetid, watery Diarrhea of scrofulous children, or
     Diarrhea as if the bowels were too weak to retain their contents,
  or even in
     Involuntary Diarrhea of scrofulous, lively, nervous children, that
  Sulphur will  prove useful.   In 
SULPHUR.
819
   Chronic Diarrhea, or dysenteric diarrhoea AA'ith much straining,
discharge of mucus and faecal matter, Sulphur will prove useful. In
   Diarrhea or Alternate Diarrhea and Constipation depending upon
enlargement of the mesenteric ganglia, we shall often  find Sulphur
indicated.

   We must not overlook the peculiar effects which characterize the
action of Sulphur upon the lower portions of the intestinal canal, the
rectum and anus.   In  this direction the following symptoms have
been recorded by our provers:
   Burning at the anus, accompanied with tenesmus ;
   Burning at the anus, accompanied with burning at the orifice of
the urethra;
   Cutting pain darting up the rectum,  immediately before an evacu-
ation from the bowels;
   Sensitiveness of the anus, with stitches darting through the anus,
accompanied with chilly feelings in the legs;
   Itching, soreness and discharge of acrid fluid from the anus;
   Bearing-down  sensation and feeling  of fulness in the rectum.
   Soreness of the raphe of the perinaeum.
   These symptoms are interesting in two respects; they may consti-
tute elements of a more general group  of derangements of the intes-
tinal canal, in diarrhoea, constipation, piles, worm-diseases; or they
may exist as independent, separate affections in scrofulous children
or even full-grown persons, where
   Soreness,  Excoriations, Itching  cind Exudations of the  Anus  and
Rectum are not at all unfrequent.

'   These affections are  frequently present in
   Hemorrhoids, for which Sulphur has always been regarded as one
of the chief remedial agents.
   If you remember that  it is the natural, tendency of Sulphur to
cause venous engorgements, it cannot appear strange that it should
cause engorgements of the haemorrhoidal vessels.  The provers of
Sulphur have shown that  this agent causes in healthy  persons
   Bleeding from the anus; which may indicate the use of Sulphur in
   Chronic Hemorrhage from the Boicels.  Sulphur has caused
   Involuntary discharge of clots of blood from the anus;
   Haemorrhoidal tumors with hard stool, and tenesmus.
   Sulphur likewise affects the small of the back, as we know it to
be frequently affected  in haemorrhoids.  It causes
   A violent bearing-down pain in  the small of the back in the direc-
tion of the anus;  it also causes                        .
   A painful rigidity in the  small of the back and a pam as if the
parts had been bruised.  We therefore  use  Sulphur with great

   Piles or Hemorrhoids, either blind or fluid, when the discharges
consist of dark venous blood, and are characterized by such pains
and complications as we have described.

   Alloeopathic physicians have been in the habit of accounting for 
820
LECTURE LVI.
    the curative action of Sulphur in piles by its cathartic effects.  But
    Atogt, Avhose work on  pharmaco-dynamics has been  regarded as
    classical authority by our allceopathic brethren, informs them very
    emphatically that this explanation is erroneous, and that Sulphur
    cures piles by virtue of its general dynamic action upon the venous
    system and upon the cutaneous exhalations.  Alloeopathic physicians
    likeAvise use the Sulphur-ointment externally.  In  obstinate piles,
    where large tumors protrude, with tendency to ulceration, the appli-
    cation of the ointment in conjunction with the internal  use of Sul-
    phur, would  not be contrary to the laAV similia, similibus, but I doubt
    whether it is necessary,  or Avhether a cure is  expedited thereby.
    Sulphur may be used from the 1st to the  30th and even to a much
    higher potency in this affection.
      In affections resulting  from suppression of piles where Sulphur
    would have been the specific curative agent, this drug will help us
    out;  such affections are
      Hemo rrhoida I Co lie;
      Backache ;
      Palpitation of the Heart;
      Cerebral Congestions ;
      Pulmonary Congestions and congestions  of the stomach;
      Vertigo,  etc.

      In ordinary colic, Sulphur is not much  used.  Among the prov-
    ings we read:
      Colicky pains and an increased flow of urine every night;  and
      Violent  pains in the umbilical region.
      These symptoms may point to Sulphur  as a remedy for
      Worm-colic, when the presence of lumbrici can hardly be doubted..
    In such cases the general condition of the alvine secretions, and of
    the digestive functions will undoubtedly shed additional light on the
    homoeopathicity of this agent to the nature of the paroxysms.

    _ Lastly, we find that  Sulphur causes shooting  pains through the
    liver.   This symptom shows  that  Sulphur  is not  without some
    influence upon this gland, and that it may therefore prove of use in
    chronic
      Liver-complaint, where these shooting pains constitute character-
,    istic indications.   In such cases, the general condition of the  chylo-
    poietic system is always to be  considered.

                         URINARY GROUP.

      The primary effect  of large doses  of Sulphur upon the urinary
    organs, is to induce a  more copious and  more  frequent desire to
    urinate.  This increased secretion  of urine may be accompanied  by
    a variety of ailments or pains,  which indicate Sulphur as a valuable
    agent in several morbid conditions of the urinary apparatus.
      Among the effects of Sulphur upon the urinary  organs Ave distin-
    guish the following:
      Involuntary discharge of urine, a symptom which seems to indicate
    Sulphur in 
SULPHUR.
821
  Enuresis Nocturna, especially in the case of  children who are
troubled with worms, or even in
  Incontinence of Urine generally, the patient experiencing a desire
to urinate every half hour or hour.  In a case of this kind, Avhere
the patient, a boy of fourteen  years, had been tr rubied Avith this
complaint for five years, passing urine every hour during the day,
and Avetting his bed every night, the first, and  second trituration of
Sulphur effected a perfect cure  in a week.   Other symptoms are
  Frequent urination with Avarmth in the urethra;
  Urging to urinate, with cutting pain over the symphisis pubis, as
in strangury;
  Weight and fullness in the hypogastrium, as if pressure were made
upon the bladder;
  Frequent urging to urinate,  with  a feeling  of  obstruction in the
region of the sphincters, although the pressure upon the bladder is
very great;
  AVeak and slow stream of urine;
  Fine stitches in the region of the neck of the bladder, also passing-
through the anus;
  Itching at the orifice of the urethra;
  Intolerable burning in the urethra;
  Darting through the urethra  at  night, during urination, attended
with a chill.
  Discharge  of mucus  from  the urethra;  and lastly, cloudy urine
having a penetrating odor.

  These symptoms establish the homoeopathicity of  Sulphur to the
following affections of the urinary apparatus:
  Dysuria, Avith difficulty of passing the urine, frequent and painful
urging, also designated  as
  Irritable Bladder, sometimes characterized by a spasmodic reten-
tion of urine and constant and  painful urging.
  Paralytic Weakness of the Bladder, as indicated by the slow and
thin stream.  Old people may be affected in this manner.
  Chronic Gonorrhea, with shooting and burning pains in the urethra,
tickling at the orifice, discharge  of mucus. These symptoms may also
represent a common
  Catarrh of the Bladder, or chronic cystitis, consequent upon acute
inflammation, or  developing itself spontaneously  as  a result of the
scrofulous diathesis.

                       SEXUAL GROUP.

  The action of Sulphur upon  the male sexual organs is character-
ized by several interesting symptoms, such as:
  Itching and burning, with desquamation of the penis and pre-
puce ;
  Fetid smegma betAveen the prepuce and glans;
  Itching of the scrotum and thighs, with sweating of the parts;
  Suppurating Ulcers upon the glans and prepuce;
  Swelling of the testicles, with dampness of the scrotum. 
g22                      LECTURE LVI.
  These symptoms occur principally among individuals whose con-
stitution is tainted with a scrofulous  diathesis; among  rickety chil-
dren, or perhaps among  persons in whom the vital fluids^have been
deteriorated by exposure, bad food, want of cleanliness, insufficient
ventilation.                                            .      .
  The provers of Sulphur uniformly testify to the weakening action
of large doses of Sulphur upon the sexual instinct and power.  In
  Weakness of the Sexual Organs, or even in Impotence, as a symptom
of constitutional cachexia, in scrofulous individuals who have been
addicted to abuse, Sulphur  may be  one of the means which may
restore the lost power.

  Sulphur causes and therefore tends to regulate
  Profuse Menstruation, with discharge of black, clotted, sticky blood,
and bearing-down pain in the sexual organs.
  The excessive discharge of blood may also be accompanied with
flashes of heat, a sense of fullness  in the hypogastrium.
  Small doses of Sulphur exhibit  a tendency of interfering Avith the
regular menstrual secretion,  causing
  Amenorrhea,  especially among  females  afflicted with anaemia:
chlorotic persons who are liable to leucorrhoeal discharges attended
Avith furious itching of the parts.   The suppression may be accom-
panied with cerebral congestions,  aching pains  in the head, flashes
of heat and redness in the face, dizziness, buzzing in the ears.

  Sulphur causes leucorrhoeal discharges, and has been found use-
ful in
  Slimy, yellowish, corrosive Leucorrhea, which it  either arrests en-
tirely, or changes to a simple discharge of mucus.

  The  tendency inherent  in Sulphur,  of causing venous engorge-
ments of the uterus, renders it valuable as a means of  correcting a
constitutional tendency to
  Miscarriage, especially in scrofulous individuals in whom a general
disposition to venous congestions is manifest. It  has also been em-
ployed for the purpose of  counteracting the tendency to,  and hence
curing
  Prolapsus of the Womb, where Sulphur will prove of use provided
the general constitutional  condition of the patient suggests  the pro-
priety of resorting to this agent.  If these Aveaknesses can be traced
to the presence of the scrofulous element in the female  constitution,
Sulphur is eminently adapted to the  business of exciting a  curative
reaction.  Among these weaknesses  we may lastly number an ha-
bitual tendency to
  Suppuration and  Ulceration of the Breasts in  confinement,  com-
monly termed Sore Breasts.  Even among the male provers.  Sulphur
has caused soreness  and inflammation of the nipples.   AVe would
therefore commend Sulphur  to your attention in cases of
  Sore Breasts and Sore Nipples, more particularly  if other symptoms
afford unmistakeable evidence regarding the existence of an actively-
developed scrofulous dyscrasia. 
SULPHUR.
823
                    CATARRHAL GROUP.

  Sulphur affects the lining membrane of the respiratory organs in
various Ayays, causing symptoms of irritation which may enable us
to use this agent in various chronic catarrhal affections.   The most
marked among these symptoms are the following :
  Catarrh, with confusion of the head, loss of appetite, weariness
and feeling of prostration in the limbs ;
  Severe pain in the nose, with discharge of an acrid fluid from the
right nostril;
  Dryness of the nose ;
  Sneezing with discharge of fluid mucus from the left nostril;
  Cold in the head, with sneezing and drowsiness.
  In one of the provers, the Schneiderian membrane Avas affected as
follows :  Discharge of an acrid fluid from the nose, after Avhich the
membrane became dry and stiff' as parchment; next a tough mucus
Avas  discharged, and  lastly the dryness recurred again.

  These few symptoms  point to Sulphur as a useful remedy in
   Chronic Catarrh of the Head and Nose, or likewise a disposition to
chronic catarrh, with acute paroxysms from  the least exposure to a
change of weather, dampness, etc.   There is a great deal of sneezing,
discharge of acrid Avater or mucus from one or both nostrils ; sore-
ness of the nose, tight feeling about the head, sore and Aveeping eyes.

  These  catarrhal symptoms of the head-and nose maybe asso-
ciated Avith  other symptoms constituting  a group Avhich resembles
very closely an attack of
  Influenza, especially Avhen this affection prevails as  an epidemic
disease.   Among the provings we find this record :
   Chilliness over the back and limbs;
  Chilly feelings followed by heat, in the forenoon and afternoon;
   Chilliness not removable by the heat of the stove, with blue nails,
paleness of the face,  dizziness, heaviness of the head, sensation in the
bones  of the upper arms as if  they would break:
  Chill Avith blue nails and  goose flesh, along the arms and down
the  back, also on the  abdomen;  accompained by pains as  if the
bones Avould break.
  Here we have all the symptoms characterizing an attack  of
  Epidemic Influenza, especially if  the irritation  existing in the
lining membrane of the throat and air-passages, corresponds with
that generally prevalent in this disease.   In this direction  Sulphur
has the following leading symptoms:
   Scraping sensation in the  throat, with hoarseness,  cough and
expectoration of little lumps of a bluish mucus;
  Roughness in the  throat, and shooting pains on swalloAving;
   Hoarseness, with tightness of the chest, and inclination to vomit;
   Hoarseness,  with  sensation  as  if mucus were  sticking in the
glottis;
   Dryness and feeling of Avarmth in the throat;
   Tickling in the larynx and bronchial tubes; 
821
LECTURE LVI.
   Severe cough, with  expectoration of white mucus;
   Cough, with raAV feeling in the  trachea, expectoration of thick
 phlegm;
   Cough, with sore pain in the chest;
   Paroxysms of dry cough, with shooting pain in the left chest.
   These various kinds of cough maybe present in epidemic influenza,
 or they may exist as independent forms of bronchial irritation.   We
 may therefore use Sulphur in
   Chronic Cough, coming on in paroxysms, at night or  in the day-
 time, Avith expectoration of thick phlegm, or purulent mucus;  the
 paroxysms may be ushered in by  titillation in the larynx.  This
 sort of cough may  have a catarrhal origin, or it may come on after
 measles.  In prescribing Sulphur for a chronic cough,  you  will of
 course have to first make a survey  of  the ground where this agent
 is to operate ; it must be able to cover the Avhole ground, or  else
 it will prove inadequate to a successful fight against the common
 enemy.
   The use of Sulphur in affections of the respiratory organs will
 still further appear, by studying its effects upon the lungs, under the
 head of

                     THORACIC  GROUP.

   Sulphur causes
   Oppression and anxiety in the chest;
   Dull pressing pain in the left side of  the chest;
   Raging pain in the middle of the sternum ;
   Aching, sore spots in the chest; the pain is increased by inspiration;
   Dull stitches in the lower part of  the chest, right side;
   Weight and pressure in the  chest, increasing from day to day, and
 finally terminating  in  shooting pains  when bending  forward, or
 taking a long breath ;
   Fulness in the chest, with tickling in the throat, sweetish taste in
 the mouth, spitting up of a watery,  slimy fluid,  mixed with bright-
 red blood ;
   Burning sensation in the chest.

   These  symptoms, if considered in connection with the fact that
 Sulphur causes engorgements  of the venous capillary system, con-
 stitute important therapeutic indications.  See Avhat these engorge-
 ments may lead to:  exudations, suppurations and ulcerations*of  the
 lining membrane and pulmonary tissue may result from them. Hence
 Sulphur becomes an important agent in
  Scrofulous Consumption, or phthisis  pulmonalis, even in the advanced
 stages of this disease, with copious purulent expectoration, cavernous
disorganizations, colliquative diarrhoea and night-sweats.  Dr. Clotar
Muller regards the following symptoms  as characteristic for Sulphur
in this disease: "Dryness and burning in the throat, the expired  air
feels glowmg-hot; dry  food remains sticking in the  throat and has
to be coughed up again ; loss of voice;  exhausting cough, especially
at night, generally dry, it is only after long and violent coughing 
SULPHUR.
825
that quantities of pus are raised ; occasional rattling in the windpipe
and chest; frequent stoppage of breath, especially after a short nap,
from which the patient is roused by a feeling of suffocation; copious
sweat, even during sleep ;  rash over the whole skin, feeling of heat;
small hurried pulse ; occasional and violent rushing of the blood to
the head, with throbbing of the arteries, palpitation of the heart; at
such  times the  face which is generally pale, becomes flushed  and
looks mottled."
  In  Chronic Pneumonia, with cough, soreness,  expectoration of
blood and pus, Sulphur may prove v#ry useful; so it may in
   Chronic Hemoptysis, in the case  of phthisicky persons.
  In Pleuritis Plastica, with exudations in the pleura, Sulphur may
be given in alternation with Aconite and Bryonia.

  Sulphur likewise acts upon the heart and aorta. It causes palpi-
tation of the  heart, and the following rather remarkable symptom :
  Increased pulsation of the aorta, from the heart to the clavicle,
with a purring noise; when lying on  the  back, the  pulsations are
felt in the abdominal aorta.
  This symptom may indicate Sulphur in
  Abnormal Irritability of the Heart, palpitation, hysteria, and even in
  Incipient Aneurism of the Aorta, as a symptom of scrofulosis.
  We hardly need again  advert  to the fact  that Sulphur is  pre-
eminently indicated, if these affections of the  thoracic organs can
be traced to suppression of scabies or haemorrhoids.

                       FEVER GROUP.

  AVe have already pointed out the value of Sulphur in influenza. In
  Hectic fever, with sour or fetid night-sweats, or profuse sweating of
the legs only, and consequent exhaustion, this agent may prove an
excellent palliative.

                            SLEEP.

  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.

                      A1ENTAL  GROUP.

  Sulphur may prove useful in                          #
  Hysteria and Hypochondria, especially when complicated with liver-
complaint, or when arising from suppression of piles.  In
  Mania, caused by the violent suppression of scabies, Sulphur may
act as a curative agent. 
826
LECTURE LVI.
                            DOSE.

  If my own experience and that of the most intelligent observers
of our School is of any value to you, you may depend upon obtain-
ing curative results by means  of the  lowest as well as thehighest
potencies of Sulphur.  I have  said enough bearing upon this point,
to enable you to decide for yourselves in particular cases.  I will
here simply observe  that in chronic pulmonary affections you will
find the middle and higher potencies of Sulphur preferable to  the
loAver, although this rule may^iot be without exceptions.
  AAfhat!  exclaims my sagacious colleague of  Jefferson College;
look at this mass of corruption, do you mean to remove all this by
your infinitesimal globule ?   Yes, indeed, but  let  us  understand
each other.  What you suppose  to be the disease, and what you
triumphantly point at as the disease, we simply regard as a patholo-
gical process instituted or  caused by the action of an inimical prin-
ciple upon the pulmonary tissue.   This inimical principle we have
agreed to denominate scrofula.  It is this scrofulous element which
the infinitesimal globule takes  hold of, Avhich it neutralizes by \urtue
of its oavu inherent dynamical force.  In many ca,ses of disease this
curative result can only be accomplished by means of massive doses.
In dropsy, for instance, the morbific element cannot always be neu-
tralized without the continued use of massive  doses  of Digitalis.
But in scrofulous  ulceration of the lungs, an infinitesimal globule
of Sulphur is a far more efficient and safe neutralizer of the poison
than your ounce doses of the crude drug.  This question will have to
be decided by experiment.  Some minds are constitutionally unfit
to perceive the inherent reasonableness of oUr doctrines ; from such
persons we may expect derision and petty assaults, no accession to
our ranks; but there are many  honest-minded, enlightened  men
among  our opponents whom  we may induce,  by  a philosophical
exposition  of  our doctrines, to investigate and, may-be,  to apply
them in simple cases.  The people come to us, because they love
the gentle sweetness, and have confidence in the  efficiency of  our
practice ; but if you would conquer the great  mind of the profes-
sion, then let me urge you to ever think of Homoeopathy with hearts
full of  reverence  for the  consistency and universality of her teach-
ings, as a  doctrine  of life, a heavenly truth which Avill not fail, if
properly understood and universally  applied,  to   link earth  and
heaven  in one great  cycle  of sensual refinement,  intellectual beauty
and social and religious harmony. 
VERATRUM ALBUM.
827
                 LECTURE   LVII.


                     VERATRUM  ALBUM,

            (White Hellebore.—Natural Order:—Junci.)

   This  plant is  supposed to  be the Helleborus leukos of ancient
 writers,  such as Theophrastus, Dioscorides, etc.  Dr. Francis Adams,
 in his appendix to  Dunbar's Greek and English Lexicon, and one
 of our best  authorities on the  history of the  plants used by the
 ancients, considers Veratrum album identical with the white Helle-
 bore of  the ancients.   Sprengel, in his Annotations to Dioscorides,
 comes to the same conclusion.  Among the ancients, Hellebore was
 much celebrated for the  cure of hydrophobia.  Some thirty years
 ago,  the Cevadilla veratrum,  a  species of Alexican Hellebore, was
 cried out as a specific for hydrophobia.
   According to AVibmer,  author of a highly and justly celebrated
 treatise  on poisons, Veratrum is one of  the oldest poisons, and sup-
 posed to have  been used by the Gauls and other  nations in their
 warfare  against the Romans.
   Hahnemann  has left us  a celebrated Inaugural Dissertation on the
 white Hellebore of the ancients.  In this dissertation, which he wrote
 on the occasion of his receiving the diploma as Doctor of Aledicine,
 he states that it occupies the first rank among the medicines of the
 ancients. He also proves that the Veratrum  album of the ancients
 and that of the moderns are identical, by comparing the symptoms
 produced by each.  "In the face of such a remarkable resemblance
 of the symptoms caused by these two plants, who can deny that the
 very same plant which now grows in our gardens, was that used by
 the ancients for the production of helleborism?  Where, I ask, can
 another  plant be found Avhich shall shoAV these same peculiar effects
 on the human body that are produced by the white Hellebore of the
 ancients  and  our Veratrum  album ?   The external character of the
 plant resembles that described by the ancients ; the name is the same
 as that given to it by the Romans; it has the same properties uoav as
 formerly ; there is the same danger attending its use now as formerly;
 it is undoubtedly the same plant."
   This plant is a hardy perennial, flowering from June to August.
 Stem from tAvo  to five feet high, erect, simple, and  hairy.   FloAvers
 greenish-white,  forming a large doAvny panicle.  Leaves large, ellip-
 tical,  entire,  ovate  oblong, striated, of a fine green color.  It is a
 native of the  mountainous districts of Europe;  it is found in great
 abundance on the Alps of Switzerland.  AVe have a Veratrum viride
 in our country,  Avhich is used as a depressor of  the pulse.   AVe use
the root  of  this plant,  a  single,  double or many-headed  rhizoma
havino- the form of a cylinder, or truncated cone ; from tAvo to four
inches long, about one. inch in diameter, rough, wrinkled, greyish
or blackish-broAvn  externally, Avhitish  internally.   At the  upper 
828
LECTURE LVII.
extremity of the rhizoma we frequently  observe the cut edges of
numerous concentric, woody or  membranous  scales ; they are por-
tions of the dried leaf-sheaths.  When cut transversely, the rhizoma
presents a large central  portion which  varies in its qualities, being
Avoody,  farinaceous, or spongy, in different specimens.  The odor of
the dried  rhizoma is feeble,  the taste at first bitter, then acrid ; by
keeping the rhizoma it is apt to become mouldy.
  From this root we obtain a deep brown-red tincture, of which, the
three first potencies may be  used  in acute, and the middle potencies
in chronic affections.
  The  physiological effects of  Areratrum are very  marked.  Dr.
Schabel states that, from his own experience, and from that of Wepfer,
Courten, Viborg,  Orfila  and  others, he finds that Areratrum album is
poisonous to all  classes of animals.  It produces in every instance
symptoms of irritation of the alimentary canal; it  is very active ;
three grains of the extract applied to the nostrils of a cat, killed it in
sixteen  hours.
  On man it acts as a violent, acrid irritant, causing violent sneezing
when applied to the nose, and  sometimes epistaxis.  In Germany
the powdered root is often  used  to procure  a good sneezing fit,
when the head is stopped in  catarrh.
  I will relate a feAV short cases of poisoning which  exhibit the
action of the drug very  characteristically.

  In Rust's Magazine for Medicine and  the collateral Sciences, an
account is given of the poisoning of eight people by this drug. The
powder of the root had been put into some bread instead of cumin-
seed, of which the family who were very  poor  people, partook for a
Aveek; they were attacked by violent pains  in the abdomen,  a sen-
sation as if  the intestines were  tied up  in  a knot,  swelling  of the
tongue,  soreness  of the mouth, and giddiness.  They all recovered
after the use of laxatives.
  From this case we learn that Areratrum  affects very poAverfully
the mucous lining of the intestinal canal in consequence of a pri-
mary depression  of the nervous  centers.  The symptoms point to
Veratrum as a great agent in Colicodynia.

  Horn, in his Archive of Practical Aledicine, relates  the poisoning
of three people who took the root by mistake.  The symptoms were :
in about  an  hour,  burning  in  the  throat,  gullet  and stomach,
folloAved by nausea, dysuria  and vomiting ;  weakness and stiffness
of the limbs; giddiness, blindness, and dilated pupils ;  great faint-
ness, convulsive breathing, and small pulse.  In  the case of  one of
the poisoned people, the pulse became  imperceptible, the  breathing
stertorous, and a  total  insensibility set in, even to  ammonia when
held under her nose.  Next  day this person became lethargic ; she
complained of headache, and had an eruption similar to flea bites.
They all recovered.
  Here  we have  a  group of symptoms which indicates an almost
universal  irritation of the ganglionic system,- such as may occur in
Asiatic  cholera.   The symptoms  of the upper portion of the intes- 
VERATRUM ALBUM.
829
tinal canal:  burning in the throat, gullet and stomach, nausea and
vomiting; the  symptoms developed in the pulmonary apparatus;
convulsive and stertorous breathing;  the  condition of the pulse:
imperceptible or collapsed; the  urinary difficulties:  dysuria, and
finally the prostrated innervation:  faintness, insensibility to exter-
nal stimuli,  and finally a lethargy; these varied effects constitute a
group  of  symptoms which frequently meets our eyes in the last
stage of epidemic cholera.

  Bernt, in  his contributions  to  the History of Aledicine, quotes a
fatal case : a man took  twice as much as could be put on the point
of a knife.   He was attacked Avith a violent and incessant  vomiting,
and  lived only twelve hours.   The gullet, stomach and colon Avere
found inflamed in patches.

  Hahnemann  relates the following case of poisoning in  his lesser
writings:  I  had the greatest difficulty in restoring two children, the
one a year and three-quarters old, the other five years  old, Avho had
both taken white Hellebore by mistake, the former four grains, the
latter seven  grains.   But few  minutes elapsed, before the greatest
changes were observable in both children.  They became quite cold,
fell down, their eyes projecting like those of a person in a  state of
suffocation, the saliva ran continually from their  mouths, and they
seemed devoid of consciousness.  I saw them half an hour after the
accident.  The parents  had tried to incite vomiting by means of a
feather, but  without success.  Milk administered by the boAvels, and
poured down the throat in large quantities, had had no effect except
the production of  scanty vomiting which did no good,  but only
increased the faintness.
  " When I arrived, both seemed at the point of death:  distorted,
projecting  eyes; disfigured cold countenance;  relaxed  muscles;
closed jaws ; imperceptible respiration.  The infant was  the worst.
The impending death by apoplexy, the failing irritability,  at once
induced me to  combat the symptoms, if possible, Avith strong coffee.
I introduced, as far as  the clenched jaAvs Avould allow me, Avarm
coffee into the  mouth, but I chiefly sought to give it in large quan-
tities by means of an enema ; in the course of an hour all the clanger
was gone, and the natural temperature, consciousness and respiration
had returned."

  Buchner relates the following experiment Avith  Areratrum  : AValtl
macerated 40 grains of  the root of  Areratrum  in an ounce of Avater,
of Avhich he took a teaspoonful without experiencing any  effect.  A
tablespoonful of the solution, caused in three hours a  burning heat
in the whole body Avhich  lasted half an hour, after Avhich  a  copious
perspiration broke out for five hours.   Six hours after swallowing
the drug,  the room  seemed darkened; he was unable to bear the
liolit of day or to hold his head erect, Avhich he had to press against
his chest, otherwise he experienced a A'iolent headache and an intol-
erable distress  in the occiput;  the  pulse was accelerated; at  times
he felt cold, and at other times hot; his strength was very much re- 
830                     LECTURE LYII.
duced; finally,  he vomited ten times, had a number of discharges
from the bowels;  the face was sunken, pale, altered, covered with a
cold sweat.  Next day he was Avell again.

  These few cases of poisoning show that Areratrum is capable of
producing a very speedy collapse of the vital reaction, character-
ized by coldness, collapse of pulse, involuntary discharges from the
bowels, vomiting, violent cerebral  congestions,  asphyxiated  con-
dition of the lungs.
  If giAren in small doses, Veratrum promotes the mucous secretion.
I stated that it favors the discharge from the nose, from the salivary
glands, kidneys and uterus, and the cutaneous exhalation.
  In larger doses it causes vomiting, purging, colic, even tenesmus
and bloody stools with prostration.
  In still  larger doses,  symptoms of gastro-enteritis will appear;
lethargy (as in the case I mentioned) and a  cutaneous eruption like
flea-bites ;  the pulse becomes irregular.
  Poisonous doses causes violent burning in the mouth, oesophagus
and stomach; rigidity of the tongue, even complete aphonia, pains
in the abdomen, violent retching and vomiting,  frequent purging,
and even  bloody evacuations with tenesmus; dysuria, haematuria,
oppressiAre anguish, small, and frequently intermitting pulse, spasms
and convulsions of the extremities, tetanic  spasms, coldness of the
body and extremities, paralysis and finally death.
  •These symptoms point to Veratrum as one of our mightiest agents
in Gastrodynia and Asiatic cholera.
  The experiments which have been instituted with this drug, show
that it exerts a  powerful action upon the cerebro-spinal axis, upon
the ganglionic or sympathetic  system, upon  the special senses, and
very strikingly upon the pneumo-gastric nerve.
  Considered under  their  respective categories, the physiological
effects of Veratrum yield the folioAving results:

                 CEREBRO-SPINAL GROUP.

  Veratrum causes dizziness, with obscuration of sight; the patient
is only conscious of himself as in a dream.
  A brandy-distiller had treated  himself and his friends to an in-
fusion of  brandy on  Veratrum-root.   They all  became violently
intoxicated,  were attacked with dizziness, vomiting, diarrhoea.  The
brandy-distiller who happened to be in his  cart, drove through the
village like a crazy man.  An old seamstress Avho had tasted of the
infusion, had to be led home supported by two persons ; on her way
home, Avatery stools passed from her involuntarily.
  This case shows us  the great use we may derive from Areratrum
in the treatment  of mania, and  cerebral irritations setting in  sud-
denly/Avhere symptoms of intoxication and vertigo constitute promi-
nent indications.  The physiological condition of the brain in  such
affections is  a sudden sinking of  innervation, as may occur and has
occurred in Cholera asphyxia, Avhere the attack  frequently sets in
with a sudden loss of power to control one's movements; the patient 
VERATRUM ALBUM.                    831
feels dizzy, staggers about, his vision becomes obscured, the pulse is
depressed, and a complete extinction of nervous power is going on
at a fearful rate.  It is with such sudden paroxysms of a sinking of
cerebral innervation  that Veratrum is in homoeopathic  rapport.
Not in common cases of
   Vertigo, but in vertigo characterized by obscuration of vision, col-
lapse of pulse, fainting,  prostration.  Confirmed  brandy-drinkers,
opium-eaters, persons who use tobacco to excess, or who  exhaust
their cerebal energies by sexual abuse, may become constitutionally
liable to such attacks.  Miasmatic atmospheric influences,  in times
of prevailing epidemics, may beget a predisposition for such attacks.
   In certain forms of
   Apoplexy, we shall find  Veratrum-an indispensable agent. During
the attack  the extremities  become cold,  the  pulse collapses, the
breathing becomes stertorous, the  face has a bluish, hippocratic ap-
pearance, the lips look blue, the pupil is dilated, violent retching
may exist at the  commencement of the attack, resulting in the ex-
pulsion of small quantities of white, tenacious phlegm.  Persons who
have ruined their stomachs by the abuse of brandy, are exposed to
the danger of such attacks.
   AVe may  find Veratrum adapted to certain forms of
   Hemicrania, with nausea, violent  and ineffectual retching, or re-
sulting in the bringing up of a little tough mucus.
   In  Hydrocephalus, Veratrum is  indicated by a  peculiar train of
symptoms:  the child lies in a  state of sopor, cries out suddenly,
bores its head into the pillow, the pupils  are contracted; the head
feels hot, while the rest  of the body is cool;  the least attempt to
raise the head causes the little patient to gag and vomit.
   Atoratrum may be prescribed in
   Fainting Fits, Trembling, and even in Convidsions, where these con-
ditions occur incidentally to such depressions of the  cerebral inner-
vation as we have alluded to.  In all such cases the general aspect
of the case  will always appear the same, cold  extremities, collapse
of pulse, hippocratic countenance, loss of vision, partial insensibility
to external  stimuli.   The convulsions may be symptomatic of a pri-
mary derangement of the abdominal nervous centres, more particu-
larly of the  coeliac plexus, and will always be accompanied with the
previously described  signs of cerebral irritation, and paroxysmsof
violent retching, vomiting of tenacious mucus, or even of green bile
and blood.

                       ORBITAL GROUP.

   Veratrum causes loss of  vision, but we have seen  that this effect
is subordinate to a more deep-seated, more universal depression of
the ganglionic system and of the cerebral system of nerves.  In pre-
scribing Veratrum for                        #
   Amaurosis, it will therefore be  important to inquire whether the
co-existing  symptoms of cerebral irritation justify  its use.   With
these reservations we may commend Areratrum to your attention in
   Partial amaurosis,  Hemeralopia and Nyctalopia, and m 
832
LECTURE LVII.
  Paralytic Conditions of the motor power of the lids and recti mus-
cles, particularly in
  Blepharoptosis, or falling of the lids, and in
  Strabismus or squinting, attended with weakness of the eyes, after
an operation.  Even for
   Weak and Sore eyes, with heat in the eyes, and SAvelling of the lids,
Areratrum has been found  useful.  Here it is particularly adapted to
persons Avith impoverished or rickety constitutions, who are habitu-
ally cold and generally deficient in vital reaction, with a thin pulse
and impaired digestion.

  Areratrum affects the ears, nose and face in a marked manner, but
not independently of its  more, general action upon the brain or
ganglionic system.  It causes deafness, alternate feelings of heat and
coldness in the  ears.  This group of symptoms may occur in hydro-
cephalus and cholera.
  It causes icy  coldness of the nose, excessive irritation and flow of
water from the nose, soreness and  ulceration of the nose.  These
symptoms  may occur as incidental to deep-seated irritations or de-
praved conditions of the intestinal mucous lining, occasioned by, or
resulting in the formation  of worms.
  It causes a pale, cold and collapsed face, with a pinched-up, bluish
nose, dry and  cracked  lips,  lock-jaw, gritting of the teeth.  All
these symptoms may occur, some in cholera, others in hydrocephalus
and worm-diseases.

                      BUCCAL GROUP.

  We have seen that  Veratrum  causes ptyalism, soreness of the
mouth, swelling of the tongue; it has also been known to cause
coldness of the tongue, a  croaking voice and  even a complete loss
of voice.
  This group of symptoms indicates the employment of Veratrum
in the milder forms of
  Mercurial Ptyalism, and in Asiatic cholera, where a cold tongue,
a croaking voice, and even a complete loss of voice occur in the last
stage of the disease.

                  CHYLO-POIETIC  GROUP.

  The action of Veratrum upon the chylo-poietic organs is distin-
guished by a variety of characteristic and highly remarkable effects.
It causes a
  Suffocative Constriction of the fauces, with a dry and cold feeling
in the throat;
  Loss of taste;
  Unquenchable desire for cold drinks;
  Nausea, retching* and vomiting of mucus, bile and blood;
  Vomiting, attended with fainting and prostration;
  Vomiting accompanied  with diarrhoea and burning in  the epigas-
tric region; 
VERATRUM  ALBUM.
S33
   Singultus;
   A feeling of oppression and burning in the epigastrium;
   Painfulness of the abdominal walls ;
   Burning in the bowels as from hot coal;
   Flatulent colic, with rumbling in the bowels •
   Diarrhoea, also involuntary, bloody stools and watery discharges.
   Applying these symptoms in the order in which we have ranged
 them here,  we find Veratrum indicated in
   Spasmodic Dysphagia, with retching, and a flow of water from the
 mouth;  in
  _ Dyspepsia, with oppression of the stomach  after  eating,  burning
 distress m the stomach, gagging and vomiting of mucus; in
   Chronic Vomiting of mucus, bile and blood, to which topers become
 subject, or which may  set in in consequence of over-eating, or of
 miasmatic influences.  Even the vomiting of pregnant females may
 sometimes be relieved by Veratrum.  In
  _ Cardialgia, with violent straining,  burning distress in the epigas-
 trium, violent thirst, vomiting, sensitiveness to pressure, Veratrum
 may prove  very efficient.   In
   Colicodynia, Veratrum may manifest great curative powers.   In
 one of our cases of poisoning I stated that the patients complained
 of  a distress as  though the bowels were tied up in a knot.  This
 symptom constitutes an important curative indication.
   Hahnemann effected a splendid cure of this disease in the earlier
 years of his professional career.   The patient Avas a printer who had
 been afflicted for several years.  The attacks set in with a feeling of
 constriction in the bowels as if flatulence had become incarcerated;
 the bowels swelled up and  became  excessively painful, cold SAveat
 broke  out and the patient became nearly stupefied and exhausted,
 with his face swollen and  his eyes protruded.  You may find this
 case fully described in Hahnemann's Lesser AVritings.  The patient
 was completely cured with four doses of Veratrum, each consisting
 of four grains of the  pulverized root.  This dose Avas enormous,
 producing unnecessary medicinal complications; but the cure was
 complete and lasting, and created a sensation at the time it was first
 reported in  Hufeland's Journal.
  In these cases of colicodynia, when the paroxysms occur  periodi-
 cally, as they did in Hahnemann's case, with dull pain and soreness
 remaining between  the paroxysms, the  pathological  appearances  in
 the bowels  are those of sub-acute torpid  inflammation    In this
 respect Veratrum is likewise in  homoeopathic  rapport with such a
 disease, for post-mortem investigations in cases of poisoning have
 revealed an inflammatory condition of the colon.
  In Spasmodic Colic, with a sensation as if the bowels were tied up
 in a knot, attended with nausea and vomiting, or ineffectual straining
to vomit, tympanitic distension  and sensitiveness of  the  bowels,
Veratrum may afford help; the first six potencies may be chosen.

  We have seen that Veratrum causes involuntary serous discharges
from the bowels ; hence in
  Involuntary Diarrluea, where  the contents of the bowels  are dis-
                              53 
834
LECTURE LVII.
 charged Avithout the patient being conscious of such a fact, OAving to
 a paralytic condition of the sphincters and an impaired sensibility
 of the part, Veratrum may aid us in restoring the vital irritability.

  Areratrum  has obtained  its most distinguished reputation  as a
 therapeutic  agent in consequence of the great  good it has accom-
 plished in the treatment of
  Asiatic  Cholera, especially in the last stage of the disease, when
 symptoms of paralysis and asphyxia begin  to  predominate.  The
 skin has a shrivelled appearance, the tongue feels cold and looks
 pale ; the face has that peculiar cadaverous and pinched appearance
 Avhich has been designated as the cholera-face, facies choleraica  ; the
 pulse is collapsed, and a cj'anotic color of the extremities and  face
 indicates the utter prostration of the process of arterialization. Here
 it is where Areratrum quickens the sunken vitality into a new flicker
 of reaction.   The tincture as well as the first three and even higher
 potencies have effected cures in this disease.

                     URINARY  GROUP.

  Veratrum causes dysuria, and also involuntary discharges of urine.
 as from paralysis of the sphincters.  Both these conditions are symp-
 tomatic, the dysuria occurring in a group  of cholera-symptoms, the
 enuresis in consequence of intestinal irritations such as might be
 caused by worms.

                      SEXUAL  GROUP.

  Veratrum causes marked irritations in the female sexual organs.
 which,  in their highest  degree, resemble that  dreadful disease,
 nymphomania.  We therefore commend Areratrum in
  Nymphomania, especially Avhen  arising from mental  causes,  a
 violent  craving  for love, or an  unsatisfied  passion.  A  case is
 reported in Frank's  Physiological  Alagazine,  of  an unmarried
 female, aged twenty-six years, who conceived a violent passion for
 a man which could not be gratified, and who  became demented in
 consequence.  She  sang  and  laughed  all the  time, and fancied
 herself pregnant.  She was radically and permanently cured of her
 mania by the use of Veratrum.
  In Puerperal Mania and likeAvise in Puerperal Convirtsions, Vera-
 trum may act  a  good part.  The  mania may be characterized by
wild shrieks, excessive mirthfulness, bloated face and protrusion of
 the  eyeballs;  the convulsions are accompanied by violent cerebral
congestions,  bluish  and bloated face, protruded eyes, coldness of
the  extremities, collapse of pulse, expression  of  fright and anxiety
in the features, heavy stertorous breathing. In these nervous affec-
tions the first six attenuations may prove the most useful.

  Veratrum affects the menses.  It has caused a menstrual condition
like the following:  Premature and profuse menstruation  preceded
and even accompanied  by headache,  nose-bleed, nausea, buzzing in 
                      VERATRUM ALBUM.                   835

the ears, pains in the limbs, and finally gritting of the teeth, bluish
face, delirious talk.
  This group of symptoms shows that in abnormal conditions of the
female sexual system, where this species of metrorrhagia constitutes
a prominent symptom, Veratrum may be of great use.
  If these abnormal nervous conditions, erotomania, nymphomania,
should result from a sudden and violent suppression of the menstrual
discharge, Veratrum may succeed in restoring the discharge and
removing the mental disorder.

                  RESPIRATORY GROUP.

  The action of  Veratrum upon the respiratory organs is in the
main characterized by the folloAving  symptoms.  It  produces these
symptoms by its irritating action upon the pneumo-gastric nerve.
  Aphonia, loss of voice ;
  Titillation in the throat-pit, with dry cough;
  Spasmodic cough, with blue face, suffocation, retching, a group of
symptoms which  commend Veratrum to our regard in
   1 Vhooping-cough ;
  Spasmodic constriction of the chest,  with suffocative breathing,
and excessive praecordial anguish.
  These  symptoms suggest the use of Veratrum in
   Spasmodic  Asthma,  with dreadful  paroxysms  of suffocation,
especially when this disease was caused by the violent suppression
of an inflammatory eruption upon the chest or neck, an acute rash,
for instance ; and in
   Angina Pectoris, Avith dreadful anguish and  oppression  in  the
region of the heart.

                 EXANTHEA1ATOUS GROUP.

   We have seen that  Veratrum causes an  eruption  of red  spots.
This is purely symptomatic and may simply confirm the  use  of
Veratrum in other more universal affections.

                       FEVER-GROUP.

   Veratrum is particularly indicated in
   Remittent Fevers, with a tendency to  the  typhoid form,  internal
heat and  coldness externally, a good  deal of thirst,  sore mouth,
burning  heat  in  the  epigastrium and bowels,  oppression on  the
chest, congestion  about the head, diarrhoea or else costiveness with
distension of the  bowels, prostration, sopor.

   In Yellow Fever, Areratrum may be of use in  the last  stage, the
stao-e of  black vomit, with spasmodic vomiting and retching, agoni-
zing burning distress in the pit of the stomach.   AVe give from the
1st to the 6th potency.  Previous to this  stage, our mam-stay may
probably be Arsenic with  the following  symptomatic indications:
"The skin is burning  and dry, yellow; the eyes have  a yellow 
 836                     LECTURE  LVII.

 tinge and look glassy;  the vomiting returns and causes great dis-
 tress ;  the substance which is thrown up is darker, and  the burning
 in the epigastric region sometimes is most agonizing, and is accom-
 panied with great tenderness to the touch; the thirst is constant and
 unquenchable; the patient begins to wander, and the pulse,  which
 is generally strong and bounding in the inflammatory stage, becomes
 quicker and softer.
   These symptoms are  described as the second or typhoid  stage of
 the fever, which may last for some hours or even several  days,
 Then it is that black vomit sets in, when Arsenic 6th to 12th, and
 Veratrum may be given in alternation.

                      MENTAL GROUP.

   Veratrum causes excessive anguish, rage or craziness.   It causes a
   Hypochondriac depression  of spirits, with  costiveness, weeping
 mood;
  Furious mania; the patient attempts to tear and bite; he chews
 his own shoes, does not know his own relatives. It also causes
  Craziness, she claps her hands, runs about, her chest full of phlegm.
  She  screams and runs about, her face being dark blue.
  These few symptoms  point out the different forms of
  Mental  Derangement,  where Veratrum may prove  of  service.
 Those  which arise from menstrual irregularities, and  to  which Ver-
 atrum  is specifically adapted, have been pointed out before.
  The ancients have employed this drug with a sort of barbarous
 consistency in the treatment  of mental derangements.   The white
 and black Hellebore are supposed to have been used indiscriminately
 for such purposes.   The treatment which is historically known as
 the helleborism of the ancients, was chiefly conducted on the island
of Anticyra in the Greek Archipelago, upon the principle of kill
 or cure, consisting of a course of evacuations by the mouth, bowels
and skin, which either drove all the devils out of the poor possessed,
or else consigned him to the land of Stygian shadows. 
 
 
 
 
 
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