9. While I was attending Scholein’s clinical lectures in the hospital at Wurzburg, I induced a fellow-student to make an experiment with triturated gold, which, he said, was absolutely inert. A few d. after he was obliged to keep his room, having an awfully swollen red nose, exactly confirming Hahnemann’s observation. (HERING, Metcalf’s Hom. Provings, p. 215.)
10. Dr. J. C. BURNETT. -“Jan. 27th, 1879, 12:15 p.m. took 4 grs. of A. foliatum, 1x trit., dry on the tongue. At 3 p.m., intolerable itching in right groin at inner third. At 4, inspection of itching surface showed a wheal, which had disappeared by 5, though part remained tender. 28th. -Sensation in joints and muscles like one has after unwonted exercise. Feel very strong, with plenty of go in me. Going upstairs I involuntarily take two steps at a time, and run in and out of patient’s houses instead of walking. 29th. -E., no action of bowels last 24 hours; urine decreased very much in quantity. Feel well. 30th. -Normal. At 11:30 a.m. repeated dose. In evening very wakeful; well up to work; great mental activity; testes a little swelled and hard. 31st. -Last n. erotic dreams; early in m. in bed weary pain in right tarsal bones, shooting up towards knees. Pains in bones of skull, soon passing off. Astringent metallic taste in mouth; tongue slightly covered with brownish fur. Feb. 4th. -In groove between nose and cheek a cutaneous lump of size of a split pea; it irritates, gets picked, scabs over, and persists. Feel not up to the mark, very depressed and low spirited, nothing seems worth while. Last 2 n. I have dreamed a great deal of death. At 2 p.m. repeated dose. E., an unusually wakeful; am told I look pale. 5th. -Dreamy towards m.; am repeatedly told I look pale and worn; have dazed feeling in head. 6th. -Feel ill; look pale; have pain at lower part of spine; have had bad n., dreaming of the dead and of corpses. Repeated dose. E., feel fagged, but yet not able to sleep. Feel quite out of sorts. For many d. great activity of uro-poetic system. Sleep does not refresh. 7th. -Look and feel ill, and although weary, no inclination for either rest or sleep.
“March 25th. -Still have some pain at the bottom of the spine; the last week or two my memory has been very bad indeed, and I am low-spirited, -while taking the drug memory was preternaturally sharp. April 16th. -Memory a little less clouded; still a pain at the bottom of back occasionally. 30th. -Memory getting good again. Two teeth began to decay during the proving, and were rapidly and completely destroyed, which the prover attributed to the drug.” (Gold as a Remedy in Disease, 1879.)
11. A young man, who took gr. iij of 1x trit. of A. met., 4 times a day, had sense of deafness; burning sensation in stomach, with hot risings; huskiness of a voice, as if he had a cold; difficulty of raising phlegm. (ROBINSON, Brit. Journ. of Hom., xxv, 321.).
Poisonings
1. Some years ago a gentleman came to me in deep distress. Said he “My brain is softening; I am losing my mind, going crazy, becoming hopelessly imbecile, or something of that sort, I hardly know what.” He was the picture of despair; and I really thought from his appearance that something serious was the matter. “I never thought a man could be so utterly desolate and melancholy,” he continued, “I feel like putting an end to the whole business by jumping into the river, or blowing out my brains, that is, if I have any left.” And then my visitor went on to tell me in still stronger language how imbecile he seemed to have become. Everything irritated him; he seemed to have as little control over himself as a child. Ambition and energy were utterly gone, trifling annoyances affected him even to tears. Memory was impaired, and he was unfitted for business. A little inquiry brought out the fact that he was suffering from secondary symptoms of syphilis, for which he had repaired to popular health resort and was even now taking medicine which his physician there had prescribed. He feared that the disease had not been eradicated, and fancied that it had attacked the throat and bones of the nose, as he had a terribly offensive watery discharge from nostrils and posterior nares, and gnawing pains in bridge of nose, all of which he said came on during the preceding three weeks.
I asked to see the medicine he was taking. He pulled out a box of pills, and remarked upon their expensive character, a chief ingredient being gold. I examined one, and with the naked eye small particles of shining gold-leaf could be readily seen. A crude trituration of A. metallicum had been made up into pill form, and the patient had already taken about two dozen of them in the course of three weeks…. He was directed to stop the pills; and in a fortnight the whole train of distressing symptoms, melancholy, terrible forebodings, thoughts of suicide, headache, catarrh, nervous prostration, loss of appetite, &c., had disappeared. (Dr. LUCIUS MORSE, Hahn. Monthly, xii, 506.)
2. A. muriaticum, taken to extent of gr. 1/10th daily, occasions a specific fever, more or less violent. “This excitation I consider indispensable for the cure of the disease”- syphilis, scrofula, &c. -“against which I administer gold: restrained within proper limits, it is never accompanied by any remarkable or even sensible disorder of functions. The mouth is natural, the tongue moist, the appetite continues, the bowels are not disordered, and there is ordinarily only increase of urine and of perspiration. If carried too far, however, we incur the risk of inducing general erethism, with inflammation of this or that organ according to the predisposition of the patient, which will not only check the treatment, but may even induce a new disease, often more troublesome than the original one. The suspension or modification of the remedy should be determined by the unusual and sustained heat of the skin.” (CHRESTIEN, De la methode iatroleptique, &c., Paris, 1811. C. asserts that finely divided metallic gold produces the same constitutional effects, but in milder degree, with little or no irritation.)
3. Cullerier, the nephew, has seen gr. 1/15th of A. m. excite, at the second dose, gastric irritation, dryness of tongue, redness of throat, colic and diarrhea. Magendie has seen violent gastritis, accompanied by agitation, cramps and pain in limbs, and afterwards great heat of skin, obstinate sleeplessness, and fatiguing erections. (MAGENDIE, Formulaire, 8th ed., p. 305, quoted by Pereira.)
4. The chloride of gold and sodium causes, even in doses below the established maximal limit, headache, sleeplessness, dryness in mouth, oppression in region of stomach, and diarrhea. (WIBMER, op. cit.)
5. Salivation has been commonly described as a result of gold, and is said to occur after a longer period, and with less marked stomatitis, than when produced by mercury. Martini met with it only after the long-continued use of small doses of A. m., and found that the double chloride of gold and sodium could be taken for many months without injurious effect; only in one case did ptyalism occur, and then 1/3rd of an oz. had been taken. (PHILLIPS, op. cit.)
6. Constipation is usually produced by the medicinal use of the preparations of gold, and this notwithstanding an increased secretion of intestinal glandular apparatus is one of the results of their administration. (BARTHOLOW, Mat. Medorrhinum, sub voce.)
7. Legrand (De l’Or, &c.) says that gold is an excitant, seeming to act principally upon the arterial, venous, and lymphatic systems. The patients feel an indescribable sense of well-being, they feel themselves lighter (as they express it); the intellectual faculties are more active. It has been known to cause frequent erotic salacity going on to painful priapism. It leads sooner or later to evacuation of secretions, preceded by a slight febrile state: the temperature is raised, the pulse is more frequent, and then follows profuse and long-lasting perspiration, or a great flow of urine, or (inodorous) salivation, or diarrhoea. The perspirations have been known so severe that the matters was wet through; they have at times an alkaline odour, at times they are very fetid; they are followed by a gentle moisture of the skin, that at times lasts a month. The urine is usually thick, cloudy, and very fetid. (BURNETT, op. cit.)
8. According to Gozzi (Sopra l’uso di alcuni remedii curifici nelle malattie Veneree, Bologna, 1817.), the perspiration are decidedly worse at n. Moreover, an excessive dose of gold renders it a debilitant and depressant; thus Gozzi has observed suppression of urine and of perspiration, exacerbation of the disease, the patients complaining of malaise and of unusual heat. Gozzi also asserts that dry warm weather favours the action of gold, and, on the contrary, its use is apt to cause inconvenience in cold weather, especially cold and wet. Sometimes, he adds, the drug causes slight inflammation of the tongue, of the gums, and of the fauces; also, in two cases, inflammation of the cheeks. (Ibid.).
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.