Introduction
Potassium bromide. Preparation: Triturations.
Mind
EMOTIONAL. Delirium. General delirium, with hallucinations; delusions about persecution and violence. Decidedly insane; had delusions that lewd women had got into his mother’s house; that he was pursued by the police; that his life was threatened by members of the family; that he had thousands of dollars in gold sewed up in his clothing, etc.; his appearance and manner were very similar to those of a drunken man, except that his face was exceedingly pale; his pulse, which was normally about 80, had fallen to 60; skin cool; pupils contracted; his manner was excited and rambling, and his hands constantly busy, either in fumbling in his pockets, tying his shoes, picking threads from his clothing, or in searching for the gold which he believed was concealed in the lining of his coat; his character also had undergone a radical change, from having been very frank and brave, he had become excessively timid, and suspicious of every trifling circumstance; it was ascertained that he had secreted large quantities of the Bromide in various out of the way places about the house; several times he attempted to throw himself from a window and battered down a door with an axe, in order to escape from some imaginary danger; he was removed to a lunatic asylum, were the symptoms gradually disappear, and in a month he returned to his home well. He imagined that he had been specially singled out for divine vengeance, and he spent the greater part of the evening in loudly deploring his sad fate, falling suddenly asleep at intervals of a few minutes; towards 12 o’ clock he became quiet, and passed the rest of the night in sound sleep (1st day); he was walking his room, groaning and wringing his hands; he informed me that he had been accused of robbing a friend, and that the officers were in search of him (2nd day); slept from about 6 p. m. till 5 am, when he was quiet, composed, and altogether in his right mind (3rd morning). She had the erroneous idea that she was deserted by all her friends, and as a consequence she passed all here waking moments, which were not many, in tears; another delusions, that her child was dead, had taken fixed possession of her mind; she declared that she saw it dead before her, and when it was brought to her, she refused to acknowledge that it was hers, or had any resemblance to the one she imagined was dead (8th day). Very soon she began to manifest symptoms of melancholy, attained with delusions; she was taken to Long Branch, and while there continued to be insane; she fancied that a boarders in the hotel insulted her and imagined that the weekly bills of the landlord were evidences of a conspiracy which had been got up against her father;on the way up from Long Branch to this city, while standing on the guards of the boat, she suddenly gave a loud shriek, and declared she had seen her brother fall overboard; the administration of the Bromide was stopped, and in a few days her mind became sane, and has since remained so; throughout the whole progress of this case, there was profound depression of spirits, and all her delusions were of a melancholy character. The mind was more composed, and much less excitable than usual (while taking the drug). When the drug acts favorably, a sense of buoyancy, comfort, and relief, rather than depression, accompanies it exhibitions. Frequently she would burst in tears for no cause whatever (after three days). Depression of spirits for two months, then gradually disappearing. Depression of mind, during which he experienced the most gloomy ideas relative to his present and future conditions, if an opinion could be formed from the signs of distress such as weeping, moaning, and wringing his hands, which he continued to manifest; two hours after this he fell asleep, and when he awoke eight hours afterwards was perfectly sane (4th day). Mental depression. Marked mental depression (after a month). Great mental depression, a feeling of approaching death. Fearfully depressed, and frequently shed tears. A consciousness that the currents or sources of psychical force are hampered sometimes makes an intellectual patient, who is moderately bromized, reason himself into depression, but spontaneous depression is rare. Very absent-minded, low- spirited, and childish, giving way to her feeling. No inclination to mental excitement of amusement; rather sad and indifferent to things, lasting for five days (6th day). Painful sadness, profound indifference, and almost disgust for life (after 1 to 2 hours). Profound melancholy with delusions. Such intends melancholy and weakness that I was obliged to reduce the quantity to 20 grains. The immediate effect was the production of the most intense melancholy, attended with fits of uncontrollable weeping; these symptoms lasted three or four days, and were then accompanied with periods of positive delusions; gradually they disappeared, although the doses of medicines were not reduced. Feeling of anxiety, depression, etc. The patient, who has been violently excited, glorying in his imaginary power of body and mind, becomes desponding, sullen, melancholic, and frequently lachrymose, often even despairing. At times he cried most bitterly, yet 12 hours previously he was singing and dancing, saying he was ” the happiest man alive”. Listless, apathetic. INTELLECTUAL. Intellect and will unimpaired and active. Intellect and emotion may seem sluggish, but when roused they act normally. Mind calm, not worried and fretful as usual; have been rather disinclined to use the mind at all (fifth day). The patient was torpid mentally. Intellect clouded; mind confused; unable to concentrate the thoughts; slowness of perception; questions have to be asked several times before their meaning is understood and answer can be obtained. Dullness, stupefaction. Dull, depressed, irregular in his gait, in the morning;in the afternoon completely helpless. After awaking, the will power seems lost, and thought and self-consciousness cannot be regained; one feels plunged in dullness and torpor (after one to two hours). Mental habitude (after large and continued doses). Slowness of comprehension. Decided weakness of intellect. Enfeebling of mental power; a little page in my accounts, which I should usually have prepared and balanced in half an hour, took me two or three evenings work; but the worst tendency to talk “Mrs. Malaprop “English substituting one word ending in ” tion” for another in a most provoking and yet ludicrous way; I had once to write some letters reminding people that their subscriptions were due, and I had the misfortune of having my letters (I think one or two of them) brought back to me by the clerk, who pointed to me that I had written “contraction” or some such word instead of “subscription”. Difficulty of collecting ideas. Inability to express oneself. Remarkable slowness of speech, and difficulty of collecting the ideas and expressing them. In such confused state that I could not get on with my work (second morning). Incoherent, full of delusions of no fixed character, and remarkably depressed in spirits (seventh day ). Feel as if everything that I feel, see, or think, had been experienced before, as in the dream;this delusion is so strong that I could swear I dreamt it all (six hours and a half after second dose). The effect upon the mind was quite marked and uncontrollable state of mind. The mental and bodily impressions received during the different stages of the medicinal action are very clearly retained in memory. Memory impaired. The memory and thinking faculty were impaired. Sometimes temporary impairment of the memory (after continued doses). Failure of memory. Loss of the memory for the two months, then gradually reappearing. Loss of the memory to such an extent that he forgot how to talk; for instance when asked why he took such large a dose, he was fully endeavoring to frame reply, and was then obliged to give up the attempt with the remark, “I can’t,” in fact, there was well-marked amnesic aphasia, for there was no difficulty in coordinating the movement of the tongue so as to articulate distinctly any word he has told to pronounce (fourth day). Memory was absolutely destroyed; she could not recollect the simplest things, and even forgot her own name and that of her husband, though reminded of both an instant before (after three days). On waking in the morning I could not remember anything which had happened to me night before, and asked y brother what day it was, the month of the year etc. What he writes is almost intelligible, from the omission of the words, or the parts of words; words are often repeated or misplaced. A hospital patient, who while subjected to the continued influence of Bromide of potassium, forgot certain syllables or parts of certain words and when writing or speaking did not write or utter these; thus he called quelques, q’ques and sometimes he duplicated one or two syllables of a word. In some individuals the memory is oddly affected; single words are forgotten, or one syllable is constantly dropped out of a word whenever that word is spoken by the patient, or two words are invariably interchanged; thus a lady twenty-eight or twenty-nine years of age, suffering from chronic ovarian disease, to whom I gave about 12 grains three times a day, making a continued dose of nearly 40 grains of the Bromide of potassium, began after she had taken it 2 or 3 weeks, to exchange two words for each other; she called buckwheat cake a comb and a comb a buckwheat cake; at hour of her morning toilet she would direct a maid to bring her a buckwheat cake and arrange her hair; at breakfast, if there were buckwheat cakes on the table, she asked for a comb to eat; once during the existence of this peculiarity, I undertook to convince to her that she had transposed these words, and that a comb was a spoken sign of the comb and not of the cake; the effort was unsuccessful; she never transposed or confused the ideas of cake and comb, only the words or signs. Weakness of the mind, a kind of stupor, especially in well-educated and actively engaged persons (after long use). Habitude, with the inability to think; a kind of stupor, resembling that of the first typhoid fever. Stupor. Moderately deep coma.
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.