General Symptoms.– Objective.
Very decided emaciation during the proving.
General excitement of the arterial system, similar to that produced by strong wine. Pandiculation and frequent yawning (twentieth day). Trembling. An internal trembling, wherewith the face became pale, with some urging to urinate, followed by pale urine (second evening). Tremors (68 grains). Twitchings, in the evening (thirtieth day). Convulsions.
General physical power seems to be increased. General quietness, indolence, and relaxed condition during the whole day (fifty day). Woke in the morning feeling inert; dull feeling in head. Hard to get up (fifteenth day). Weakness (tenth day). Weakness and fatigue (after forty-five minutes).
Weakness and dulness on waking from the afternoon nap (twentieth day). Weakness and trembling of the limbs, especially the knees (seventh day). General weakness, indolence. General weakness, especially of the feet, so that she was unable to walk (after half an hour). Great weakness (eighth day). Symptoms accompanied by great weakness. Great weakness of the body, so that he could scarcely remain up (fourth day).-Standing long in the evening produced much of an habitual weakness of the left side of the body, contracted by riding a rough horse in army life; relieved when recumbent, but requiring many turnings, in the morning, in bed, pressing up the left abdomen, etc., to get ready for my day’s work; always worse by sitting up very late at night (thirteenth day). Sinking of strength. Great loss of power, and weakness throughout the proving. Disturbance of nervous system and of the heart’s action, producing general prostration and feebleness of the cardiac movements. Exhaustion, as from hunger, a sensation of fasting in the stomach, with loss of appetite, so that the lunch in the middle of the day remained untouched (twentieth day) Faintness. Attacks of fainting, now and then. – Often unable to stand, and several times fell suddenly when in the street (a scruple four times daily). Fell to the earth senseless (after two hours). Restlessness.
Extreme restlessness. Night restless. Very restless at night. After taking the dose at bedtime, passed a very restless night. After writing a letter, recurred the “nervous mobility,” in the forenoon (thirty-first day). Uneasiness. Uneasy, cold sensation in the whole body, at 5 P.M. (second day). Sensibility. Excessive general sensitiveness of the body, during the whole proving. Late this afternoon, in a street-car, down in a valley, felt that peculiar sensitiveness of mind and body, which sometimes precedes febrile diseases; as if a little more of the same would make me chilly. Have often experienced the same in Illinois, when laboring under malarial influences, and riding into valleys. It was like a sudden aura or magnetism, felt particularly about the neck and throat and face, and Pulsatilla then seemed remedial. It is the same feeling today, and disappears in the clear upper strata of air, where the opposite conditions of light, with dry warm atmosphere prevail (thirteenth day). Subjective. During the day felt rather old and “wooden”; motions and speech unusually deliberate (sixteenth day). – Heaviness and disinclination to work during the whole day (eighth day). Felt heavy and drowsy, in the forenoon (seventeenth day). While walking muscular system felt inert, the will also; stooped forward, that gravitation might supplement this inertia, in the forenoon (seventeenth day). Felt weary in the morning (seventeenth day). Felt utterly weary; had lost some sleep the past week; only left the house under the physician’s “must”; slept and lounged about nearly all day (fortieth day). Great weariness (fourth day). Felt less weariness than usual on rising in the morning (second day). The several shifting neuralgic pains in the localities most frequently mentioned, have recurred at other times in slight degree, in addition to those here recorded.
Also, once or twice in the ball of the right thumb, in the evening (twentieth day). Frequently I find sudden motions cause catching dull or spraining pains, e. g., in outer fibres of deltoid tendons, when raising arms; in tendons in front of left ankle, when flexing the joint suddenly. Prior to proving had a sprained feeling in last articulation of right little finger, especially when shaking hands with others; it seems worse of late, especially after the doses (seventeenth day). Internal quivering sensation through the body, at middle, followed by slight eructation, in the afternoon (twenty-fifth day). At various times since proving began, little shocks or pricks like neuralgia or rheumatism in divers places, as left supraorbital nerve, right ear, right elbow, right knuckle, etc.
(sixteenth day). During the afternoon and evening, spent mostly in street-car, on walking, or visits, had a rapid succession of transient, and principally slight symptoms, shifting locality, dull, sharp, crampy, etc. as crampy feeling in left hypochondrium in a small spot, probably in left rectus muscle; sticking in the right axillary folds (twenty-fifth day). (The interest of the symptoms seems to lie largely in their frequent shifting and recurrence in all parts of the body, in localities new and old, many such being necessarily here omitted) (twenty-sixth day).
This morning, symptoms all seem wanting, for the first time. My impression is that my system, under the influence of the last dose, has established a “tolerance” of the drug, which I take to be another phrase, a synonym, for the incipiency of that vital resistance or “reaction” which characterizes Hahnemann’s “secondary effects,” in the “resolution” of its “primary” pathogenetic action, i. e. of return to health; the phenomena being alternately and periodically, both primary, and secondary, probably in all cases, the former waning, the latter increasing up to full health; these thence ought to be easily distinguished (twenty-first day).
Skin.– Objective.
Skin soft, in the forenoon (nineteenth day). Skin of fingers, knuckles, etc. when pinched up, retains the fold; color normal, in the morning (second day). After three or four days the oedema and the rash subsided, but the skin of the face scaled off, and there was peeling of the hands and feet, as after scarlatina. Eruptions, Dry. Rash all over the body, vivid as scarlatina, and attended with intolerable and incessant itching. The rash and irritation were persistent for several days, and then slowly and gradually subsided, followed by universal exfoliation of the cuticle. Scarlatina-like eruption, with extremely violent itching over the whole body, followed by desquamation, lasting fully three months. Sore pimple, left of bridge of nose, lasting two days (forty- seventh day). Erythema of the face and limbs, with marked swelling of the right arm. Eruption on the lower lip, first on the left, afterwards on the right side (first and second months).
For some days have had a sore pimple, like a small boil, concealed by the beard, on right upper part of chin; culminating yesterday, pressed it, watery discharge; it is much reduced (nineteenth day). Large wheals with local redness over neck, chest and arms. Eruptions, Moist. Vesicular exanthema, with much itching and inflammatory redness and swelling of the skin; appears first on the genitals and thighs, then on the face, hands, and arms; it is a little moist, but it usually dries with a fine crust, sometimes causing cracks and ending with a desquamation of thick scales; with this the general condition is only slightly disturbed, sometimes with slight febrile symptoms and gastric disturbances; its usual course is of one or two weeks. (* It attacks only those workmen who are employed in precipitating, by means of milk of lime, and filtrating the crude Chinin from the acidulated solution. *) Colorless eruption on dorsal of hands, forming patches of flat lymph papules, itching but slightly, most at radial side of hands. Eruptions, Pustular. With some, the pimples degenerate into pustules, which do not suppurate, but take on the appearance of an itch like crust, exceedingly repulsive. With some, pimples appear over the whole body, accompanied with an intolerable itching, and which eventually discharge a matter somewhat thicker than serum, though not exactly of the consistence of pus; having reached the suppurative stage, the eruption gives place to squamous scabs.
Long continued offensive suppuration (two cases). In some cases, the eruption declares itself upon the genital organs, and occasions acute suffering. Subjective. Intolerable pricking in the skin, followed by sweat, especially of the face (third and fourth nights). Sudden, long, pricking stitches, as with needles, in the skin of the chest, back, and thighs, followed by moderate sweat on the chest and back, in the evening, while walking slowly in the open air (seventh day). (The soreness of the little finger joint is concerned with persistent itching in right ear, and scratching it; also, in the first place, with carrying medicine-case by handle); the itching is old, but the soreness is new. Itching of anterior wall of left concha of ear; scratching it yields whitish scales, and allays itching; in the evening (twenty-fourth day).
Born in 1837in Westminster, Vermont. . He was an orthodox doctor who converted to homeopathy
Dr. Allen compiled the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica over the course of 10 years.
In 1881 Allen published A Critical Revision of the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica.