REMEDIES- The chief are Belladonna, Stramonium and Scutellaria Lateriflora, Cantharis, Lachesis and Fagus Sylvatica. These medicines are on no account to supersede the local means just pointed out, but are to be used as additional preventives or as palliatives.
Belladonna- According to Hahnemann, this is the most sure preventive; and certainly no other drug has the power of simulating Hydrophobia to the same extent. Several very interesting cases of genuine Rabies, said to have been cured by this drug, are quoted in Hempel’s Materia Medica.
Scutellaria- In the New Remedies Dr. Hale proves that this drug has caused nervous derangements similar to those of Hydrophobia, and cites cases of cure of the disease by this remedy.
Dr. Massy suggests the Turkish Bath at 140 degree to 170 degree with drop doses of Naja Trip. 2. Dr. Buisson recommends the vapour bath.
Dr. Aitken shows that after experimenting with nearly two hundred different drugs; in massive doses, scientific medicine has signally and totally failed, and adds, All that remains is to mention the most leading experiments, with the hope that, as they have not been successful, they may not be wantonly repeated. In all probability no prophylactic medicine exists in nature, and the administration of any potent substance by way of prevention is worse than useless.
It is refreshing to contrast the above with Hughes’s remarks in his Manual of Homoeopathic Therapeutics. After referring to the cases cured by Belladonna, he says, I think you will feel inclined, if any one whose life you value has been bitten by a suspected dog, to keep such a one under the influence of Belladonna until the utmost limit of incubation has been reached. And if Belladonna has cured a single case, it has done more than all the resources of traditional medicine have been able to accomplish.
PRECAUTION.- After a person has been bitten by a suspected dog, the animal should be secured but not killed, for after all it may turn out that it is not really mad. By shutting it up and allowing it to live, the non-malignant character of the affection may be ascertained, and the patient’s mind relieved of a most harassing fear that might otherwise have tormented him for months or years.
49. Mumps (Parotitis).
DEFINITION- An epidemic and contagious affection of the parotid and other salivary glands, more prone to attack children than adults, and seldom recurring in the same person.
SYMPTOMS- Swelling, heat, stiffness and soreness in one or both parotid regions, at the angle of the lower jaw, preceded by febrile symptoms. Sometimes one side, sometimes both sides, are affected; there is often considerable deformity, with difficulty and pain in moving the jaws. On or about the fourth day, in favourable cases, the inflammation and swelling reach their height, and by about the night or tenth day all trace of the complaint disappear. In Mumps the glands rarely suppurate.
METASTASIS. In some cases, as the swelling of the neck and throat subsides, the testicles in the male, and the mammae in the female, become tender and swollen. The transference of the disease from the part first implicated to the testicle, or mamma, is most likely to supervene from exposure to cold, or from cold applications.
CAUSE. – A specific organism, which spreads by contagion. Incubation lasts a fortnight to three weeks or even more. Cold and damp favour its appearance. The disease is also liable to occur during the course of severe fever, in Cholera, and after large doses of Iodine or Mercury.
EPITOME OF TREATMENT.
1. Swollen glands; difficult mastication. Mercurius Cor., or in tubercular patients, Mercurius Iodium a dose every six hours is usually sufficient. Phyto is also valuable.
2. Feverish disturbance. Aconite two or three doses sufficient.
3. Metastasis. Belladonna, Pulsatilla (testicles and mammae).
ACCESSORY MEASURES. Exposure to cold or cold or damp during thee progress of the disease should should be avoided; also cold local applications, for thy favour the tendency to metastasis. Warm fomentations are beneficial, thee parts being covered in the intervals with a silk handkerchief, or with one or two thicknesses of flannel – roller. In mild cases a flannel – roller is the only local application necessary. Complete rest, both physical and mental, and liquid food, favour recovery. All excitement should be avoided.
50.-INFLUENZA DEFINITION. An infectious disease, generally attended with catarrhal symptoms, headache, loaded tongue, and high temperature, and inducing and leaving behind it great vital depression. It i variously named Russian Influenza, Siberian Influenza, Epidemic Influenza. It has been called by the French La Grippe.
Epidemics of the disease have visited Europe and the rest of the world at intervals for many centuries, and they have always appeared to originate in Russia or Siberia. After an interval of a good many years, the disease re-appeared in I889, and has remained endemic every since.
SYMPTOMS. There is no doubt that the disease spreads by bacillary infection from person to person; but it often requires some lowering influence, such as a chill or fatigue, to determine the outbreak of an attack. And when once an epidemic has taken hold the practical impossibility of isolation renders the distribution of the infection so universal that it is almost useless to attempt to guard against. it. The best defensive measure is to avoid as far as possible anything that would lower the general health. One attack of the disease has no prolonged effect in protecting against a second.
Influenza may take almost any form and simulate any disease. It will sometimes merely intensify any disease. It will sometimes merely intensify some malady already present. There is no one symptom that is always to be found, no even raised temperature, which some think essential to the make up of an attack.
The classical type of the disease is marked by severe pains all over, especially in the back head, and frequently setting in quite suddenly. Repeated chills are followed by high fever, with increase of the pains. The eyes are bleary, the intellect dulled, and a sleepy, heavy condition induced. There is generally, but by no means always, a heavy nasal catarrh, which persists long after the acute symptoms have passed off. The tongue is foul; appetite lost. The throat is generally inflamed, and with all there is great prostration and mental depression. The pulse is as often slow as frequent, and does not correspond to the temperature. The attack may last from one to several days.
But though this may be regarded as the type the departures from it and the complications attending it are innumerable. The respiratory organs are perhaps most commonly attacked; laryngitis, bronchitis, heart complications, and even sudden failure of the heart is not uncommon. The brain and its membranes are sometimes inflamed. Abdominal attacks almost choleraic in intensity have been observed. Haemorrhages are common, from the rectum, form the nose, etc. A common symptom is haemorrhage into the skin, causing the appearance of bruises where there has been nothing to cause them. The neuralgic pains, backache, sciatica, etc., are sometime left behind as a chronic legacy. And it must not be forgotten that the mind itself may become temporarily or permanently deranged. The mental depression which almost invariably accompanies and attack may become intensified to the point of insanity.
DIAGNOSIS. There is some confusion in the terminology of the disease which it will be well to clear up. Epidemic Influenza is the original disease to which the name was given by the Italians, who ascribed it to the influence of the stars. The severer forms of ordinary colds were called influenza cold, as they approached the type of the epidemic influenza. Finally, a severe cold came to be called simply influenza, that is, during the long intervals between the visitations. Hence many people who had only experience of influenza colds could not understand how the epidemic came to have the same name.
As mentioned above, there is not single sign by which influenza may be known, but the prevalence of an epidemic, and the general combination of symptoms, leave little room for doubt. The chill, fever, and perspiration often approach the malarial type; and, indeed, the symptoms of Influenza seem to be intermediate between true malaria and zymotic disease. When an epidemic is prevalent, it often happens that any other malady, acute or chronic, that a patient may have, becomes intensifies and aggravated by the poison, without any of the ordinary influenza symptoms being produced. The bone pains, headache, backache, dull appearance, catarrhal symptom, high fever, and not correspondingly high pulse, will serve to put most cases beyond doubt. The complications will have to be diagnosed as if they occurred independently. (See Homoeopathic World, vol. xxx. pp. 10,50, 152, etc.; vol.xxx. pp.97,147.)
TREATMENT. The three main measures to be secured in a pronounced attack of influenza are; rest, warmth, nourishment. Easily assimilated diet must be given frequently, till the acute symptoms are over The sick room must be well ventilated, but See Homoeopathic world, vol, XXV. PP. IO, 50, 152, etc. Vol xxx.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."