Convulsions; she uttered cries and vomited small quantities of an apparently alcoholic fluid; severe tremors; the convulsive movements continued, especially on touching her. Her muscles were rigid, and her body stiffened; she appeared to be in a “spasmodic fit,” as he termed; there was twitching in the muscles of her shoulders; her arms, hands, and legs, as well as her body, were stiff, and her head was thrown back; he could not raise her, so he waited till the spasm had passed (after three minutes, as supposed); in a few moments the muscles relaxed; after an interval of about five minutes she went into another spasm; the teeth closed tightly, the breath forced through with considerable exertion, and she groaned as if her sufferings were intense; then came another intermission which lasted about ten minutes, when she had a third spasm, not quite so hard as the others, though similar; water was thrown in her face, which seemed to convulse her, but slightly. Her limbs were rigid, her hands half clenched, and she was frothing at the mouth; this last spasm was most severe of all; it lasted till her death, which took place in about five minutes from the commencement of the last spasm, and thirty minutes from the first attack. Lying on her back on the floor, quite sensible; arms and legs stretched out to their fullest extent; hands clenched; toes flexed legs close together; body in a state of opisthotonos; countenance livid and anxious; eyes starting from their sockets and fixed, pupils widely dilated, conjunctiva highly injected, teeth firmly clenched, breathing irregular, and at times almost ceasing; skin hot, bathed in perspiration, and steaming; pulse rapid and scarcely perceptible; the spasms relaxed at times, but did not entirely cease for one minute, and on the slightest touch of the body or legs, or on attempting to give her anything to drink, she would immediately cry out, “My legs! my legs! hold me! hold me!” and then utter a shriek; the head would then become drawn back, arms and legs extended, hands clenched, and the body in a state of opisthotonos; face and head a deep purple; foaming at the mouth; teeth clenched; eyes protruding and fixed; heart palpitating violently, and the breathing is irregular, and as if drawn through a reed. No action of the bowels or bladder took place. Convulsed; pupils dilated, pulse full and rapid; he could not swallow the mustard; the convulsions became more rapid, they were of a peculiar character; the back and body became arched and rigid; the head was bent backward, and I believe he rested on his head and heels; the slightest touch of his person brought on the on the spasms. He frequently cried out, “Hold my legs, lift the clothes off.” At length he had a severe convulsive attack, the whole body became rigid and arched, the color of the face became dusky and almost blue; this attack lasted about a minute; during the spasm he had a sardonic grin, the teeth were exposed, the muscles of the face drawn, and in that condition he died in about twenty minutes after he took the medicine. Every three or six minutes a paroxysm of horrible convulsions of the whole body, catalepsy, with opisthotonos, contraction of the abdominal muscles, loss of consciousness, the limbs cold and muscles hard, face of a cherry color, respiration impeded, and convulsive motion of the facial muscles; these paroxysms would last a minute, after which the limbs would regain their flexibility, and respiration would proceed normally (after second powder).
Immediately everything seemed to turn green, and he suddenly fell to the floor, with inability to move his limbs, while his whole muscular system was in a state of tremor. He remained unable to move for about five hours, when he succeeded in reaching the nearest house in the course of two hours by walking and crawling between the spasms, which were of frequent occurrence. Violent spasms occurred at intervals of about half an hour, and about four thrills per minute passing through the system (after twelve hours). In fifteen minutes lying on back, convulsed constantly with the severest form of tetanic spasms. At times his whole muscular system was rigid, and he lay in the opisthotonos position, resting upon his head and heels, with the body raised from the floor in the form of an arch. Several of these terrible spasms occurred in the space of a minute; his jaws were firmly locked, and the approach of anything toward the mouth caused a recurrence of the spasms. Spasms of the lower limbs, afterwards he was seized with a violent attack of convulsions, during which the face was pallid and assumed a tetanoid expression, and it was impossible to move, or even touch him, without exiting horrible convulsions, which shook, not only the bed, but the room. At the height of the paroxysm the body was raised off the bed, as in opisthotonos, and then fell heavily. These effects were produced even by the act of feeling of the pulse, or moving the bedclothes. The arms were thrown above the head by the first attacks of spasms, but subsequently they were thrown violently forward across the body, and greatly agitated. The eyes, during the spasms, were open, not turned up or congested. The pulse became exceedingly quick, and the respirations were 44 in the minute. The thorax heaved much, and some urine was voided during the fits. Partially conscious, but unable to answer questions intelligibly; in a very few minutes he seemed to be entirely unconscious and would say nothing; he straightened out and became quite stiff. During the hour and a half that followed, the spasms of the patient were so severe that it took three, and often four persons to keep him on the bed; he would throw himself about, snap at a hand that touched him, strike, and kick; suddenly his body would curve backward and rest on the head and heels; with the elbows on the bed at the sides; the muscles would continue to contract, drawing the head farther and farther back, until the occiput almost touched the spine, and the face was buried in the pillow; occasionally he would extend his arms at the side, with the fingers straight and separated, and rising to the sitting posture would state wildly about the room, as if fearing some danger. As the symptoms grew worse he would take a long breath, straighten out and remain quite rigid, and it would seem as if that was to be his last breath. The intervals between the spasms were very short, and much of the time there was an almost constant repetition of the above mentioned features. On touching him, great agitation and jerking, immediately followed by a loud, sharp scream, increased suffusion and redness of the face, mouth open and stretched laterally, lips livid, eyes staring an much suffused, pupils dilated, head thrown back, spine and neck bowed, arms and legs rigid and cold. The fingers were straight, but bent at their metacarpal articulations, so that their points almost touched the palms of his hands, and the toes were also straight, but bent at their metatarsal articulations towards the sole, which was very much incurved. The muscular contractions were especially noticeable in the stump of the left leg, which had been amputated some years before, almost conveying the impression that the cicatrix would burst open. The attempts to respire were attended with great distress, and suffocation seemed imminent.
The length of time between the fits varied, but during the time I watched him the intervals could seldom have exceeded five minutes. A medical student, who took careful observations and notes of the case, state that “the spasms occurred in groups of two or three, followed each other at intervals of about two minutes,” then there was a longer interval, then another group, and so on. During the intervals the patient was perfectly sensible, in fact, his senses were preternaturally acute, and the slightest noise in the room, the play of children on a green some yards from the house, were all noticed as exciting causes in the production of spasms. During the spasms excruciating pain, with a feeling “as if his heart was coming into his throat,” and accompanied by a sensation which he compared to “plunging through a wave when bathing.” When I saw her she was lying with limbs extended, and somewhat rigid; feet everted, head thrown slightly back, neck stiff, countenance pale and anxious, eyes wide open, pupils large, eyeballs oscillating at short intervals, skin moist an d cool, pulse 84, full and soft. On touching her wrist to feel the pulse, she was thrown into a severe tetanic spasm of the voluntary muscles, worse in the arm touched, and in the muscles of the back of the neck. After two doses of Tannic acid the spasms became more violent; there was trismus, the jaws closing tightly on the cup whenever she attempted to take anything; general spasms, accompanied by opisthotonos and asphyxia followed. Convulsions; the paroxysms came on every three of four minutes; he was conscious of their approach, and entreated us to hold him, to raise him up, or to lift him out of bed till his body became fixed, his head drawn back, and articulation impossible. In this condition of complete opisthotonos he remained for about a minute, his face livid, and death apparently inevitable. Tetanoid convulsions affecting the muscles of the trunk and spine; a rigid and tetanoid state of the muscles of the lower and upper extremities; the limbs extended, and the feet and hands drawn powerfully inwards, the patient seeming to touch the floor only with the head and heels. In the course of five minutes I began to feel slight cramps in the calves of my legs. The cramps increased in intensity and extended to the feet and thighs, causing the most intense pain. I attempted to rise from the chair, but fell to the floor with convulsions in the lower extremities, which became violent on the least attempt to move, and the feet were drawn in toward each other, becoming stiff and immovable, save as the occasional convulsions shook them. Unsuccessful attempts were made to bathe them in hot water, each effort to raise me bringing on a violent paroxysm, in the last one of which I thought my jaws had become unhinged. I was now perfectly paralyzed from the hips down, and suffering the most exquisite pains, which began to extend upward, the muscles of the shoulders and neck soon being considerably convulsed, the forearms still being free from pain. I now bade my wife “good-bye,” and prepared for the final struggle, which I knew must be near at hand, as I had now become rigid from the neck down (save the forearms); the convulsions of the muscles were becoming fearful, and the torture a awful to endure. And now came on a tremendous convulsion. My hands were drawn into my sides, with the fingers drawn apart and slightly bowed, and the jaws became rigid. I felt myself raised as if by some mighty power, and fixed immovably, with only my feet and head touching anything. I heart some one say, “It is all over with him,” and felt something like a black pall settling down upon my brain, when I became unconscious of everything except my own agony, which was now beyond all description. I could feel my heart fluttering like a wounded bird, and my brain beating and throbbing with an irregular motion, as though at every beat it would burst from its confinement. Every joint was locked, and every drop of blood seemed stagnated. I remember thinking that it could not last long thus, when I must have lost consciousness.
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.