Introduction
Carbo animalis. Animal charcoal, prepared from ox-hide in Hahnemann’s provings.
Provings.
1. HAHNEMANN, Mat. Medorrhinum pura, vol. vi. of original (2nd ed.), vol. i of translation. Contains 188 symptoms from self and one associate, and 3 from an author (see 1,3).
2. IBID, Chronic Diseases, Part 3 of original, vol. of translation. Contains 728 symptoms, additions being mainly from Whale and from an anonymous pathogenesis in vol. iii of Hartlaub and Trinks’ Arzneimittellehre.
3. WEISSE used animal charcoal made from meat. He states that healthy people who took it got painful lumps in breasts, induration and swelling of parotid glands, and coppery eruptions on the face, which gradually go off when drug is discontinued. Gumpert, of Posen, is cited as having made experiments confirmatory of Weisse’s observations.[*Dr. Hempel writes:-“From 4 gr. of the drug taken 4 times a d., gradually rising to 24 gr. 3 times a d., Dr. Duplan and others observed a copper-coloured eruption over the whole body, more particularly in the face. Small furuncles, of the size of peas, likewise broke out, smelling like burnt meat when discharging; the excrements spread a similar odour.” We are unable to trace this observation, for which no reference is given; so it must stand quantum valeat.- EDS.*](Rust’s Magaz., xxii, 1, 198. 1826.)
4. Some of WIBMER’s students took large doses, without other result than the production of softer and more frequent stools. In two of them, however (who had also taken vegetable charcoal and graphites respectively), there supervened, some time after, loss of appetite and other gastric derangements, for which laxatives were required. ( Opium cit., sub voce.).
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.