In September, on a business journey, he had an attack of intermittent fever with pulmonary haemorrhage. Treated by a homoeopathic physician with Ipecac. Quinine and Aconite the patient returned home without loss of strength. Nux. and Nat, sulph. to be taken again for eight days and omitted for eight days, and so on.
After January, 1863 no further medicine was given since auscultation and percussion could not detect the slightest abnormality; the patient felt well in every respect and began to grow corpulent.
On June 6th, after a cold taken during a profuse sweat on a hot summer evening, he had a chill. He slept well, however, through the night, but woke in the morning with violent febrile heat, with headache, stitching pains behind the fifth rib where the stitches had also been observed during the attacks of bleeding. Every breath, and still more every cough, although he coughed seldom, caused a severe stitch in the place, and the patient hence expected every moment a fresh haemorrhage. Thus I found him in the morning, bathed in sweat; with face reddened; pulse 120; respirations 40; tongue with a heavy yellowish-white coating; much thirst; disgust for all food; was only able to take milk as everything else was vomited up again; sputa consisting of foamy blood; crepitating rattling on the seat of the pain; the percussion note scarcely perceptibly muffled.
The previous attacks of haemorrhage had clearly arisen from a hydrogenoid soil; hence I did not not hesitate a moment to give Iodium3 every half-hour till the stitching pains remitted and after that every hour.
Up to the next morning there had been no change at all. This striking negative result and the anxiety of the patient to keep himself thoroughly covered since a chill crept over his whole body on the slightest movement, though the room was warm-this in connection with the increased difficulty of breathing, induced me to give Phosphorus 3. every hour.
Up to the third day, contrary to all expectation there was hardly a perceptible improvement. The cough has assumed even a dry spasmodic character, which I had to ascribe to the influence of the Phosphorus The sputa were rust-coloured, containing air bubbles of large size, and were scanty. Pulse, respiration, temperature of the skin and perspiration and the results of auscultation and percussion were as on the first day.
To be frank, I did not know any longer what to think of the case, so I gave Sacch. lact, in order to gain an undisturbed observation. And I opened the windows since the patient very earnestly longed for fresh air.
June 11th. The same state of affairs and sensible emaciation and wasting of strength. The sputa had become yellow, but certainly not coloured with “bile-pigment” (!) China 3 every two hours was ordered.
June 13th. Less pain, at least, but permanent fever. The patient spoken confusedly and did not know his wife; slept no more; when he talked his speech was broken and he gasped for breath after every word. Phosphorus acid 6 every two hours given.
June 15th. The fine crepitant rale became coarse and extended higher. Sputa puriform.
June 19th. Some relief as the cough was less frequent and the respiration more quiet. The sensorium became free again. Up to this time milk and sugar water only were desired. To the former Seltzer water was now added.
The effect of medical treatment amounted to just about nothing; nevertheless the Phosphorus ac. was continued.
June 21st. The appetite was somewhat improved and now and then mucilaginous broth was taken. The urine constantly presented the usual sediment of uric acid, and the stools occurred at first daily; later not so often, though nothing was given on that account. The strength seemed to increase. No further remedies.
June 25th. Irresistible inclination to get out of bed and sit by the open window. Now in the armchair-now in bed again. The coarse crepitant rale, the puriform expectoration, the cough, the fever, the pain on the side were still present though in a less degree.
June 2d7th. In addition to the other symptoms he was still hoarse. On the other hand he was able to remain somewhat longer out of bed, though it was impossible for him to walk without holding on to something with both hands; he was altogether too weak to stand erect. Every time he sat by the window he felt much refreshed.
June 30th. The fever is sensibly consuming his strength; his tongue has a yellowish-white coat, although he has more appetite; the urine full of uric acid; pains in the calves often torment him the whole night, and during the day he is constantly tormented with formication in the arms and legs. The pains in the left side of the chest still continue, only they are somewhat deeper and are not any longer increased by coughing; oedema of both feet. My fear that I should lose this patient by reason of his hectic fever seemed justified; yet I auscultated him again and found that the coarse crepitant rale was limited to the same spot behind the fifth rib, but above, was more extensive, while the pain now was pointed out as corresponding to the sixth rib, which also was painful on being pressed upon as far as towards the spinal column.
I should have been very happy if I could have obtained an anchor, a compass and a helm from the physiological school, since this patient had become a convert to homoeopathy under my treatment. But the physiological school had neither for this case, nor for an infinitude of other cases, any pilot.
I had nearly lost this man from disregarding the change which had taken place in the state of his body by reason of the treatment followed for so long a time. First, the circumstance that the pains in the side now correspond to the sixth rib and no longer to the fifth; that the patient now, on being questioned, declared the present pain to be quite different from what it was at first; moreover, his longing for fresh air, which was never so marked before, the indifference to moist or damp weather, observable even before his last illness; his corpulence which of late had sensibly increased again. All these went to prove that the hydroscopic condition of his blood was removed; that, on the contrary, its oxidation, even before this last illness was depressed, and during the illness so sank that the spinal cord began to suffer under it, which condition was clearly connected with this intercostal neuralgia, the cramp in the calves, and the formication.
Argent. nit 2x was now given every two hours and the course of the disease after its exhibition is extremely interesting and to the patient himself appeared really mysterious.
Although I never allow a remedy to be taken during the night, very rare cases excepted, and did not in this case, yet the patient declared on the very next day that the pains about the sixth rib, which had affected him so seriously, had become so trifling that they hardly troubled him at all; also that he had not for many weeks slept so long so quietly, and had more appetite again. But the most remarkable thing was the daily decreasing crepitant rale and the corresponding decrease of the cough and the purulent expectoration. The patient took a new lease of life, and after taking the remedy for seven days the pulse had sunk to 80 and Argent. nit, was laid aside.
The convalescence from this all-but-fatal illness progressed with great strides, and by the end of August this man was perfectly cured. He had regained his previous fresh complexion, his good spirits and his mental and bodily strength, returned to his occupation and remained well.
CASE IX.
Enuresis with Rapid Pulse. Quick Pulse and Need of Air.-Argentum nit.
A young man, 18, of sound parents, had suffered from his youth with incontinence of urine, and after all sorts of tortures had to leave the institution in which he had been a pupil for four years, being declared incurable. In his childhood he had often had swollen glands. Now he is large, powerfully built and I observed nothing abnormal about him except that his pupils were large and that the beat of the heart was somewhat more frequent than normal and rather weak. He had never suffered from worms and there was nothing peculiar about the constituents of the urine.
Was the indication in this case to direct the patient to retain his urine during the day as long as possible? Or, should I rather give him Belladonna, Pulsatilla, China, Causticum, Sepia or Sulphur, and on what grounds?
I gave him instead Argent. nit 2x, night and morning, for six days, and then stopped it. from the first day of taking the medicine he did not wet the bed for a period of six weeks. He had then resumed his studies and was obliged to pass the entire day within four walls. It was certainly an unexpected event that after this day he should wet the bed again. Argentum nit. was again ordered and the patient was directed to walk in the open air at least an hour every day, whatever the weather might be. After ten days the incontinence ceased and returned no more.
CASE X. Malarial-ataxy.-Argentum nit
