The warmth of the body soon returned, and for the first time the menses waited for the full four weeks, but was more abundant and of a red colour. It is a pity that in other cases, the Aranea diadema produces very violent haemorrhage, especially from the lungs, which fact calls for caution in the use of this great remedy.
After two weeks the patient noticed a marked relief of the headaches which had returned; and after eight days this headache entirely ceased for some days. The cataleptic attacks had already entirely disappeared for about a fortnight and have not returned since. But it was not till the 13th of September that the patient finally assured me that, in the most striking manner, just as if she had been delivered from a bad habit, she had not had the slightest sensation of a headache for four days.
Nor has it ever returned again after the lapse of six years.
After another fortnight, during which time the patient pad personally superintended the removal from her summer residence to the city, a thing which before was not to be thought of, she called my attention to the fact that after having been in the city three days she had experienced increased palpitation of the heart again, as had been the case every year after this change. Now I gave her Pulsatilla 30, since the constitutional conditions for the previous ailments were all removed. As the favourable effects of the 30th began to wear off in a few days I gave Pulsatilla 3. This had the desired effect within six days and the heart’s action became regular and remained so.
I now gave her finally Magnes. sulph. 6, after which even her leucorrhoea diminished, and now disappeared entirely, not to return.
Thus, at the end of November of this year this woman was perfectly free from all her sufferings of years standing. She went into society again and renewed her youth.
From the above rule and a large experience I know that neither Pulsatilla nor Magnes. sulph. would have afforded relief so readily had not the constitutional treatment preceded.
NOTE ON Aranea diadema.
In addition to the already known symptoms of Aranea and the above quoted symptoms as regards haemorrhages, the following have been obtained from a proving on a healthy woman:
At night, immediately after lying down, sudden violent pains in the teeth of the upper and lower jaw.
Periods eight days too early, too strong and too copious.
Numbness and formication formication of ring and little fingers of both hands.
CASE II.
Hydrogenoid Intermittent. Aranea diadema.
A pupil of the Academy of Arts, 23, sent for me because he could no longer pursue his art with love and pleasure; he felt himself so constantly oppressed in the chest that a walk across the room even put him out of breath. He attributed his trouble to an intermittent fever acquired in a university city some months before, which was removed by very large doses of Quinine, of which he often had to take 20 grains at once. Since that time an enlargement of the spleen had remained which reached to the space between third and fourth ribs. At that place a dark line made on the skin with Nitrate of Silver by the professor of the City Hospital to mark the outlines of the enormous swelling of the spleen was still visible. Below the first line there were others reddish marks, the traces of similar outlines which had indicated the gradual swelling and ascent of the spleen. The heart was pushed to the right and beat feebly, 98 to the minute. The respiration was very short, raised the right side of the thorax only, 30 times to the minute, and audible only at the very apex of the right lung.
The appearance of this young man of course indicated disease of the spleen. The upper edge was found again between the third and fourth ribs, though in consequence of earlier improvement, it must previously have stood lower.
As soon as I entered the house where he resided and which stood close to the water, I observed that all the walls were very damp. I was now convinced that I should find a disease-form arising from a hydrogenoid constitution, for such a house, especially when it is but little or not at all exposed to the sun, is very sure to harbour disease-forms of the most varied kinds, but which ought not to be treated according to their names as they are set down in the text-books of special Pathology and Therapeutics in which their treatment is struck off after one and the same model.
Here, however, the disease was a relapse induced by the damp dwelling. On being questioned the patient said that he was chilly day and night, although it was midsummer, and as often as it rained he had always felt worse. He also acknowledged that especially during the past four weeks, during which time he had lived in this room, he had felt worse than ever.
On constitutional grounds, as well as on the strength of the indication of the law of similars, there was no doubt that the remedy indicated was Aranea diadema. He was ordered it in the 2x, four or five drops in a spoonful of water every two hours.
After eight days the upper border of the spleen was behind the fifth rib and fell within six weeks to the seventh. The heart returned to its place; and in the part of the lung which had been compressed the respiratory murmur was again distinctly heard, and the patient felt himself well again. Nevertheless I advised him to continue the remedy some time longer. Some days after, however, he complained of acute pains in the teeth of the upper and lower jaws which had occurred for two days when he retired at night and lasted an hour.
In this case it was a fortunate chance that I had already learned this symptom of Aranea from provings. Yet this case serves again as an example of the diagnosis of the so-called Homoeopathic aggravation; of a diagnosis which is always justified on the basis of drug-provings. Not a single adherent of the physiological school possesses that acquaintance with the effects of his remedies which could explain to him similar aggravations. Even this important condition for the frequent elimination of the accidental at the sick-bed is utterly unknown to the physiological school and is one of the causes of a host of mistakes.
The physiological school facts regarding the relations of the water in the atmosphere to that of the organism, but it does not know of what good they might be for its Therapy, for it lacks the knowledge of how to find remedies against diseases arising from a surplus of hydrogen in the organism. Thus Hemming in his “Doctrine of the Causes of Disease” says:
“The lungs exhale an air saturated with hydrogen gas of a temperature of 37 1/2 degree C., 30 degree R. [99.4degree F.]. If the surrounding air, at a temperature of 37 1/2 degree C. were saturated with hydrogen gas, then as much hydrogen gas would be offered to the organism through the lungs as is given off. But since this is not the case the blood in the lungs gives off to the dry atmosphere determinate quantities of water.
“Still greater is the interchange through the skin and the excretion of water by the kidneys. The exhalation of water through the lungs amounts on the average in 24 hours to 354 grammes; by the skin to 720: and through the kidneys to 1,369.3 grammes.
“The mean proportion of water in the healthy organism in 79 per cent, while there are large numbers of individuals whose blood contains more water and others whose blood is richer in solid constituents. The cause of Chlorosis is scanty excretion of water from the organism, together with a mode of living which allows of the formation of few solid constituents in the blood. The scanty excretion of water is caused by living in an air relatively damp, by too little bodily exercise and by deficient expansion of the lungs.
” The swelling of the spleen has developed before the outbreak of the intermittent and is the cause and not the effect of the febrile attacks; the enormous perspiration produced by the paroxysm is the attempt of nature to remove the fundamental cause of the watery character of the blood and the swelling of the spongy body of the spleen therefrom arising.”
All the above are very good indications for practice, which Homoeopaths alone know how to make use of. Could flemming have found the remedy for this case? Certainly not, since the Physiological Materia Medica makes no mention of Aranea diadema.
[Commenting on the above case Dr. Jousset remarked that the “swollen spleen” was possibly a big pleuritic effusion. But this makes no different to the fact of the Hydrogenic cure.]
CASE III.
Sycotic Neuralgia. Natrum sulph.
For many years I have known a vigorous young man of herculean musculature and form, with most blooming countenance and cheerful temper. After a few years I saw him, quite as powerful as ever, it is true, but labouring now under mental depression. As I fear nothing so much as to appear obtrusive, I could not ask him and further questions, especially as he had assured me in reply to the usual enquiries that he was very well. A few years later again he came to consult me about certain attacks which alarmed him very much although he had already consulted on this account several of the most eminent physicians and had received from them the same assurance that these attacks had all the less importance as they always disappeared of themselves very rapidly and completely, in short, that they were no objects of medical treatment.
