You will all recognize this as a case calling for Phosphoric acid, whose deepseated and profound depressing effect on the nervous life of the heart made it the specific remedy in this case. A few drops of the third attenuation in water, three times a day, removed all the physical symptoms in a few weeks, and even the mental condition became more hopeful. After the medicine had nearly restored her, her recreant lover returned and furnished the cure.
I ought to mention another class of remedial agents whose action appears to be soothing and calming to both sets of nerves above mentioned. They are Ambra, Castoreum, Asafoetida, Cocoa, Scutellaria, Guarana, Cypripedium, Valerian, and Zincum met.
STRENGTH OF THE HEART.
Before we pass to the hygienic treatment of the disorders herein mentioned, we may as well try and answer the pertinent question, Why is it that the heart is affected abnormally by the emotions? The heart, in its normal state, should have the same relative strength possessed by the general muscular system. It is the systematic use, and not the irritation, of a muscle, that gives it strength and endurance. That great muscle constituting the heart can, under proper use, become one of the strongest in the human body. But it requires, to make it strong, plenty of fresh air, free from carbonic acid; regular, active exercise; at least eight hours of good sleep, and the avoidance of alcoholic stimulants, impure tea and coffee, tobacco, narcotics, an abuse of the passions, all the depressing emotions, and even an excess of those which are exhilarating. How many American men and women in this year of Our Lord live up to these requirements?
Generally the foundation for cardiac debility is laid early. Beginning in infancy the young child is improperly dressed and improperly fed. Itis allowed unnatural condiments and food before it should be weaned from milk and bread. It is placed in schools, and its tender brain crammed with the rubbish of dead languages, when it ought to be in the fields or gardens gathering flowers; or romping in untrammelled freedom. Of all persons
THE WOMEN OF THIS COUNTRY
grow up with the weakest muscular structure, and consequently the weakest hearts. Place your finger on the pulse of the average school girl attending a fashionable seminary or academy, or the ordinary woman of fashion, you will find her pulse small, soft (or wiry) and very unequal. Her heart beats in the same manner, unless she is under the influence of some abnormal excitement. Her extremities are cold and blue, and a general languor pervades the whole body. What has brought all this about? From childhood she has lived in hot, close rooms, in an atmosphere containing a large percentage of carbonic acid. She eats but little meat, milk or bread, but largely of cake, preserves, confectionery, and other improper nicknacks. She reads trashy novels, every page of which calls up emotions and passions which excite her mind and brain. The heart becomes weak and irritable, and in time it acts unfavourably upon the brain, rendering it excitable and susceptible to the very emotions most injurious to its integrity and vitality.
Compare this picture with that of the robust and healthy school girl in the country or village, or a woman in any position in life, whose physical training has had in it some element of common-sense. Or, we will say, some servant-girl of Irish, Scotch, or English descent, or an American farmer’s daughter who is not too proud to work. How firmly the pulse of such a person beats under the finger! It seems to lift and throb with a strong vitality, and its rhythm is like the steady step of a trained soldier. We know that the heart which thus sends the blood into the arteries is strong, enduring, and full of vitality.
The above pictures are applicable to men and women of all ages and conditions in life. The former class are susceptible to the malign influence of emotions which would not affect the latter abnormally. The healthy heart, strong and steady, is not affected unpleasantly, or provoked to disordered or painful action any more than the trained pedestrian is affected unpleasantly by a walk of a few squares.
In conclusion, allow me to assert that we ought to teach that the heart, as well as the brain, or the muscular system in general, requires regular systematic exercise and training, in order that it may have ordinary immunity from abnormal emotional influences.
ON THE RELATION OF SUDDEN DEATH TO CARDIAC DISEASES.
POPULAR fallacies are not confined to the public. Certain fallacious ideas concerning special subjects become popular with and gain advantage in the various professions.
For example, there are certain popular medical fallacies which cling to the medical profession as well as to the people; and although the best authorities on medical topics announce repeatedly the erroneousness of such belief, they retain their hold on the popular and professional mind with a singular pertinacity. For this state of things a portion of the medical profession is to blame. Some physicians are prone to ponder to popular and vulgar beliefs, however groundless they may be. We all know how dangerous it is for the young physician, or one who has not gained for himself a position as an authority, to set up his opinion against that of the masses, or even the dictum of an ignorant but dogmatic nurse. For these, and many other reasons, certain opinions relating to sudden death, not supported by absolute proof, are very prevalent, much to the detriment of true science.
It is my purpose in this paper to allude to but one of these popular fallacies, and solely for the purpose of disabusing the popular mind of its supposed truth. I refer to the prevalent idea that sudden death is generally caused by some form of disease of the heart.
It is the habit of the public, when a case of sudden death occurs, not directly traceable to some acute disease, and when the immediate cause is not perceptible to the senses, to ascribe such sudden dissolution to disease of the heart. In the popular mind but few other causes are sufficiently potent to produce rapid dissolution of life in a man in apparent health, or even
during the progress of known chronic disease. With physicians, who should be peculiarly careful as to an opinion in such grave cases, the same habit of ascribing to cardiac disease all sudden deaths which they cannot immediately account for is altogether too prevalent.
In fact, heart disease is too often made the scapegoat upon which is loaded the results of ignorance and insufficient investigation. Let a man fall dead in the crowded street, or at his own table, or be found dead in his bed, and the physician who is called in seems to have no hesitation, in the majority of cases, to ascribe the cause of this sudden death to heart disease. The alleged cause is then proclaimed in the papers, and as such it is reported to the Board of Health, and thus placed upon the records.
What grounds had the physician for giving such an opinion? Was he conversant with the history of the deceased? Did he make a post-mortem examination.
In the great majority of instances no adequate inquiry is made concerning the history of the patient, and in but very few cases is any post-mortem examination made. The opinion is given because it is the easiest made, is the most plausible, and one wit h which the family are best satisfied. I do not hesitate to say that such an opinion, unless based on positive knowledge, is a subterfuge of ignorance and indolence, and a disgrace and reproach to the medical profession.
And it is more than this. It is a positive injury to the health and happiness of the people, especially those who are connected with the victims of sudden death; and actually endangering the lives of those who suffer from cardiac diseases.
To the former class the dread of a similar unheralded and sudden death becomes a nameless horror which haunts them all through life, and nothing is more difficult for the physician than to treat that class of sufferers. A slight illness is sure to be accompanied by mental depression, attended by such a dread as to render their lives miserable in the extreme.
I propose, in order to establish the above assertions, to take up and consider briefly the principal diseases of the heart, and their liability to cause the accident of sudden death.
Beginning with the inflammatory diseases, let us inquire into the circumstances under which death occurs. Is it sudden? On the contrary, dissolution is usually attended by prolonged suffering, a gradual failure of the heart’s vitality, and an unmistakable struggle. Only in rare instances, and those readily avoidable, does a sudden death carry off the patient.
In pericarditis, paralysis of the heart may sometimes occur suddenly, and to a certain extent, unexpectedly, as when the patient, through carelessness of orders, or the inattention of attendants, makes some violent and sudden motion.
In endocarditis, the danger of sudden death is still less, indeed, it rarely occurs, unless the muscular structure is involved, when cardiac syncope, with sudden arrest of circulation, may occur from imprudent exertion or ineffectual treatment.
Hale wrote Lectures On Diseases Of The Heart, Materia medica and special therapeutics of the new remedies Volume 1, Materia Medica And Special Therapeutics Of The New Remedies Volume 2, Saw Palmetto: (Sabal Serrulata. Serenoa Serrulata), The Medical, Surgical, and Hygienic Treatment of Diseases of Women, New Remedies: Their Pathogenetic Effects and Therapeutic Application, Ilex Cassine : the aboriginal North American tea, Repertory to the New Remedies with Charles Porter Hart, The Characteristics of the New Remedies, Materia Medica and Special Therapeutics of the New Remedies, The Practice of Medicine, Homoeopathic Materia Medica of the New Remedies: Their Botanical Description etc.