5l. Fever. – Dry, hot skin, especially in morning lasting until middle of day (ALLEY, N. Am. Journ. of Hom., vii, 385.)
6a. Dr. MINTON made tincture of flowers, leaves, and bark, and took drop doses every hours for 12 hours, when confusion and pain in head were so severe that he was forced to discontinue proving.
6b. A week later he took 2 drops every 2 hours, on 1st day from 8.1/4 a.m. to 10.1/4 p.m., on 2nd day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. In 20 m. after 1st dose slight headache with nausea and giddiness; in 30 m., severe darting pain through temples and occiput, with confusion of ideas. After 2nd dose, thick, heavy feeling also in head; figures and letters look blurred; in making up some accounts found it almost impossible to add up a column correctly. No appetite for dinner, everything tasting flat and insipid. In 20 m. after 3rd dose pain and tightness of chest; in 2 hours irritability of throat with hawking of mucus. In 36 m. after 4th dose numbness of left arm and sensation as if fingers were asleep. In 1/2 hours after 5th dose oppression of breathing. In 1/2 hour after 6th dose soreness in internal chest with pain and aching in lungs, which increased later, and were accompanied by severe pains in head with chills, followed by flushes of heat. Sleep disturbed and unrefreshing; on waking, tingling sensation of left arm and hand, dull headache, no appetite for breakfast, tongue coated, pasty taste in mouth. After 1st dose this day headache set in immediately with some confusion of intellect. In 1/2 hours after 2nd dose nausea and sickness at stomach, with sour eructations. Loathing of food at mid-day; and soreness of glands of neck, with pains under left scapula. After 4th dose constant sharp pain through small of back and hips. After 5th pain in back, head, and neck, with numbness of arm, still continue. After 6th numbness of left leg also, with tingling, prickling pain in feet and toes.
After discontinuing drug, head, throat, and chest symptoms lasted for about 24 hours, when they gradually died away. The numbness of arm and leg, with pain in shoulders, back, and hips, lasted 4 or 5 day (North Amer. Journ. of Hom., x, 358.)
7a. A young man (aged 28), of sanguine temperament, on June 6th, at 5 p.m., took 5 drops of the above tincture. In 1/2 hours fulness and somewhat of intoxicated feeling in brain; also fulness in throat, with desire to hawk up something. At 8.1/4 p.m. took 5 drops and in 15 m. felt above head symptoms return.
7b. June 12th. – At 8.1/2 a.m. took 3 drops. In 1/2 hours fulness and burning in brain; sensation of cold about eyes; and a gnawing in chest. At 9.1/4 took 3 more drops. In 2 hours dull heavy headache, with heavy feeling in sternal region. Between 1 and 2 a heavy frontal headache came on again, with drowsiness; went to sleep and slept two h. Severe pain through temples on waking. General feeling of fulness in system, much soreness, irritability, and prickling or tingling sensation in skin. Heavy sleep during night. (Ibid.)
8. Another young man, aged 21, began by taking 1 drop every hours for 8 doses, without effect save a slight headache. He then took a teaspoonful at once. In about 1/2 hours began to feel queer and somewhat frightened; sensation of giddiness, with nausea and sickness at stomach, came over him; cold perspiration stood out on skin; fingers, and indeed while body, began to tingle and prick; limbs felt as if asleep; figures at which he was working danced up and down; he staggered back, and fell into his chair, almost unconscious. Bourbon whisky was administered, and he soon began to vomit and purge, which continued and numbness of left arm. (Ibid.)
9a. Dr. TRUE tasted of some freshly-dug ailanthus root, and had repeated vomiting, unaccompanied by straining and retching, but with death-like sickness. b. Same made infusion of Ziv of bark to Oj of water, and took two tablespoonfuls at 1:40, 2:15, and 3:40, and three at 4:40 p.m. At 5:20 noticed heavy ache through head just behind ears; feeling about articulations of jaws like mumps; and slight nausea. At 6:50 took six tablespoonfuls, throwing up dose as soon as swallowed; at 7:15 nausea, general relaxation, indisposition to exercise, difficulty to keeping attention fixed. AT 8:35 symptoms were abating, and at 9 they had gone.
8c. Next day made infusion of Zij of bark to Oj of hot water, evaporated to Zviij, and took whole at once. Only effect was slight nausea, and feeling of tension through head just behind ears, as after large dose of quinine. At other times took Zij of saturated tincture, and are bark and roots with but little effect. (HEMPEL, Mat. Medorrhinum, 3rd ed., sub voce).
Poisonings
1. Two young girls amused themselves one evening by stripping the outside bark from the young and tender shoots of the ailanthus, and then, after writing letters on the stalks with the point of a pin, these were moistened with saliva by means of the end of the finger. This was many times repeated, so that some quantity of the juice of the stalks must have been conveyed to the mouth. Both were made ill, with similar symptoms, but one the much more severely. On rising she felt slightly ill; and on coming to breakfast the sight of food made her feel so much worse that she left the table and wet to her room. She was seized suddenly with violent vomiting; severe headache; intolerance of light; dizziness; hot, red face; inability to sit up; rapid small pulse; drowsiness, with at same time restlessness; and great anxiety. Two hours after first attack drowsiness had become insensibility, with constant muttering delirium; she did not recognise members of family; and was covered, in patches, with a miliary rash, of dark, almost livid colour, on a dull, dingy, opaque ground, more profuse on forehead and face than elsewhere. Pulse was now small, and so rapid as hardly to be counted; surface had become cold and dry; livid colour of skin, when pressed out by finger, returned very slowly. In about 3 hours from first appearance of eruption livid colour began to lose something of its dark hue; restlessness and anxiety diminished; pulse became more distinct and less frequent; consciousness partially returned; eruption became a brighter red. A series of rigors, followed by burning fever, now set in, and continued at intervals for a fortnight. Chill was always preceded by a miliary eruption, most copiously developed in forehead and face. During chill there was great hunger with distressing sense of general emptiness; any food taken was speedily vomited; intolerable pain was felt in nucha, upper back, and right hip-joint. During hot stage there was urgent thirst with delirium, and strong desire for brandy. Each year since this poisoning patient has been attacked by a similar miliary rush at season of blossoming of ailanthus, and is more or less ill with it. (P. P. WELLS, Amer. Hom. Review, iv, 385, and Monthly Hom. Review., xi, 289.)
2. Dr. WELLS himself experiences annually, on the blossoming of the tree, a peculiar dull, heavy, pressing pain in forehead, of no great severity, but indisposing to or even incapacitating for all exertion, especially mental. He describes also, as common to many others with himself, a feeling at this time of “uncertainty” in the bowels, as if they might be attacked with looseness any minute. (Amer. Hom. Rev., vi, 268.)
3. Dr DE WOLF noticed, for many years effects of aroma of blossoms on self and others, and enumerates them as – nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and spasmodic abdominal pains. (Philad. Journ. of Hom., ii, 576.)
4. M. DECAISNE reports that the gardeners employed in trimming ailanthus trees suffer from nausea, and sometimes from vomiting, with prostration. (GIRAUD, op. cit.)
5. Dr. ALLEY noticed effects of aroma in two persons. 5a. In a woman, throat was dry, rough, and scrappy, more so in morning; there was hawking up of greenish, puruloid matter; fauces and tonsils were inflamed, with spots of incipient ulceration; thirst for cold drinks, heavy dull headache, with great oppression of bronchiae; violent fits of coughing before retiring an on rising, lasting till expectoration becomes free (comfortable during day.) 5b. A man always experienced occipital headache, vertigo, squeezing pain in forehead, and swelling of left cheek; soreness and pain on left side of nose, puffed erysipelatous face; nausea at intervals, sleepiness and heaviness. (U. S. Journ. of Hom., i, 285.) 6. Mrs. K -, then in her climaxis, and for many years a sufferer from gastric derangement, called Dr. MESCHTER, compelling of symptoms which she referred to her dyspepsia. She had pale colour of face, dry skin, coated tongue, pains in hypogastrium and hips, jaundice and tenderness over hepatic region, constipation, difficult micturition, and an accelerated pulse. Next day patient was no better, and the doctor found her youngest daughter sick in bed with same symptoms. Both got worse from day to day, vomited repeatedly, and complained of constant violent increasing pain in stomach. The second daughter then became ill, and presented identical symptoms. The father, who was away at work at day, was at last affected precisely like the others. The doctor suspected poison, and at length learned that the brook water used by the family tasted badly. On examination, the roots of an ailanthus were fond extending into it; and the flavour was such as impregnation with its bark would produce. On discontinuing use of water family became and remained well. (Philad. Medorrhinum and Surg. Rep., Feb., 1872.)
Hughes was a great writer and a scholar. He actively cooperated with Dr. T.F. Allen to compile his 'Encyclopedia' and rendered immeasurable aid to Dr. Dudgeon in translating Hahnemann's 'Materia Medica Pura' into English. In 1889 he was appointed an Editor of the 'British Homoeopathic Journal' and continued in that capacity until his demise. In 1876, Dr. Hughes was appointed as the Permanent Secretary of the Organization of the International Congress of Homoeopathy Physicians in Philadelphia. He also presided over the International Congress in London.