Respiratory Organs
Coughed incessantly the whole night from tickling in the larynx and windpipe (first night). Respiration rapid sighing. Breathing quick and catching (second day). Rattling respiration.
Chest
Symptoms of paralysis of the lungs, so that artificial respiration had to be resorted to in order to save the life of the patient.
Heart and Pulse
Pulse quick and feeble (first day); rapid (second day). Lowering of the pulse (in two cases). At 9 P.M., the pulse on the left side was gone, thready and soft in right radial artery (second day).
Extremities
Spasm of the extremities. Twitching of the hands and feet.
Upper Limbs
Convulsive jerking of the upper extremities.
Lower Limbs
Gait unsteady and tottering. Staggered, when walking.
Generalities
Most violent convulsions, with loss of consciousness; head hot, face flushed, purplish. Violent convulsions (after a quarter of an hour). Violent spasm, beginning in the face and extending to the extremities, affecting respiration; apparently the third to the seventh nerves were the seat of the irritation; pupils dilated. Convulsions (after eight hours). General convulsions, with loss of consciousness, with staring eyes, with red, hot face, dilated pupils (the right more dilated than the left), insensible to light; pulse rapid, weak, and irregular; extremities in constant convulsive movements, so also the muscles of the face. After midnight;severe convulsions set in, more like tetanus, throwing the head back, eyes rolling about, countenance distorted, body sometimes nearly curved, with legs turned back; in the interval grasping at everything; gnawing of fingers; she thus had four convulsive attacks, and died about 2 A.M. (second night). Without any previous warning sudden clonic convulsive spasms set in, commencing at the left angle of the mouth, and thence spreading over the left side of the face; these were succeeded by similar spasms in the right arm, beginning in the fingers (after ten hours); a quarter of an hour after, a tonic spasm invaded the left side of the face and left arm, then rapidly disappeared, leaving a fibrillary twitching of the muscles of the left angle of the mouth and left eyelid, which soon afterwards ceased quite suddenly; two more convulsive attacks occurred on the same evening, and in one the respiratory movements threatened to come to a standstill, although the heart was beating quite strongly, and the pulse was normal. Two or three similar fits occurred daily at intervals for the next four or five days, after which the child was as well as before.
Convulsive movements of the limbs and of the muscles of the face.
In about five days the child was partially paralyzed on one side, the hand assuming the appearance of induration of the cellular tissue of the head of an infant; the whole side presenting a blue appearance, which increased till death closed the scene.
Collapsed state (next morning). As soon as she lay down, the child got restless (first night); threw herself about with her whole body from one side to the other (second day). Great restlessness. Great prostration. Lassitude, prostration (in nine cases). Great weakness. Weakness (second day). Weariness.
Abnormal feeling and pains in the head (in eight cases).
Skin
Skin blue. Urticaria (like that produced by Bals. copaiva) with oedema of the skin of the nose, lips, and eyelids. Severe rash, described as urticaria, covering the greater parts of the body, accompanied the vomiting (after one dose); almost directly after the second dose, a white wheal appeared on the nose, surrounded by a red erythematous blush, and a similar eruption rapidly covered the body; the swelling attained such a height that within a quarter of an hour the child’s face was disfigured to such an extent as to make her almost unrecognizable; the lips from which some viscid saliva was still issuing, were swollen to an enormous size, glistening form the oedematous distension; the nose, at other times delicate feature in a sweet little face, was enlarged to the size of a Negro’s and the eyes were almost closed by the some condition of the lids. I at once placed the child in a warm bath, which soothed her; and within an hour the oedema and rash had for the most part disappeared.
Sleep
Sleepy, tired. Sleep restless. Sleep was generally disturbed, and I usually woke unrefreshed, with sickness, frontal headache, and deficient appetite (after 5 grains).
Fever
Chilliness. Whole body icy cold. The whole body became cold, the lips and ears blue, the face as white as snow. Extremities rather cold (next morning); in spite of assiduous hot applications the icy-clammy coldness crept steadily upwards (second day). Cold feet. Heat. Violent fever, with very rapid pulse, burning heat of the skin, face puffy, eyes red, brilliant, fixed. Fever, all the afternoon (first day). Hot head. Heat about the head, increased every afternoon and evening. Sweat. Cold sweats. Hot perspiration on the occiput, more clammy in front (second 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.