SEQUELAE.– Acute diseases may be rendered sources of danger immediately, by the pressing symptoms they call into play, and remotely, by establishing chronic diseases (Sequelae). Acute maladies may become starting-points for defective nutrition by inducing chronic derangement of the digestive functions, or interrupting the nutritive processes by some unexplained influence over the nervous system,, or by developing a pre- existing dormant tendency to disease. In our opinion, the latter — a latent diathetic predisposition– is the most frequent cause of sequelae. The diseases most often followed by troublesome and chronic affections are — Measles, Scarlet-fever, Whooping-cough, Diphtheria, Small-pox, and Enteric fever. In these, and in other acute affections, it is not therefore enough to endeavour to meet the urgent symptoms of the attack; the patient must be guarded and watched till the health becomes completely restored and confirmed, lest the defective nutrition should be converted into a chronic condition.
Measles is especially liable to be succeeded by sequelae, which are more difficult to treat, and sometimes more dangerous, than the complaint itself; but, except in tuberculous children, they are generally the result of irrational treatment; under homoeopathic treatment, and good management, patients usually recover rapidly and perfectly. If, after the decline of the eruption, the patient retains a temperature above 100*, some complicating disturbance may be suspected. The following are the diseases most liable to occur, with leading remedies–
Inflammatory affections of the eyelids (chronic Ophthalmia).– Mercurius-Cor., Sulphur, Aconite, Belladonna
Purulent discharge from the ear, or deafness.– Puls, Sulphur, Silicea, Mercurius, H. Sulph.
Swelling of the glands.– Mercurius-Iodium, Calcarea carb., Lycopodium
Chronic Cough, Hoarseness, or other affections of the chest.– Phosphorus, Hepar S., K.-Bich., Spongia, Arsenicum, Causticum, Carbo. Veg., Sulphur
Cutaneous eruptions.– Sulph., Iodium, Arsenicum
MEASLES AND CONSUMPTION.– A more emphatic reference may be made to tubercular disease of the lungs, or, more often, of the bowels, which is not an infrequent sequel in patients of a delicate constitution. Cases of this nature are often under our care, and from long observation we have reason to believe that such a connection is far from uncommon. Whenever, then, a child makes but a slow or imperfect recovery from an attack of Measles, more particularly if there is tenderness, pain, or enlargement of the abdomen, Diarrhoea or irregular action of the bowels, and a high temperature, a grave constitutional disease may be suspected, and no time should be lost in obtaining the best homoeopathic advice.
ACCESSORY MEASURES.– Cold water, etc. No stimulants should be given. As the fever abates, milk-diet, gradually returning to ordinary kinds of food. In this, as in other eruptive fevers, the Wet-pack, described on pp.85, 86, if well done, is of essential service. If the patient be packed imperfectly serious results may follow. He should be kept in bed, and the room sufficiently darkened to protect the eyes but the proper and constant circulation of pure air must by no means be interrupted. The temperature of the patient’s room should be about 60* F., and guarded against rapid changes. Except during the very height of summer, a fire should be kept burning in the room. Tepid sponging, followed by careful drying, is necessary several times a day, also a frequent change of linen. If the eyelids become glued together by the increased secretion of the meibomian glands, they should be carefully sponged with tepid water, and smeared with a little Zinc ointment, especially at bed-time. After the disease, the patient should be warmly clad, and taken into the open air frequently, when the weather is fine. He must not, however, go out too soon, or be in any way exposed to cold, in consequence of the excessive susceptibility to Bronchitis, Pneumonia, etc.
PREVENTIVE TREATMENT.– This is of little consequence as the danger under our treatment is trifling. But it may be prevented or modified by giving children who have not had Measles, a dose of Pulsatilla, every morning, and one of Aconitum every evening, for a week or ten days, during its prevalence. Pulsatilla has undoubtedly great influence, being to Measles just what Belladonna is to simple Scarlatina.
38.– Scarlet Fever– Scarlatina.
(A popular idea exists that when the disease is severe it is termed Scarlet Fever, but when mild, Scarlatina; the terms, however, are strictly synonymous.)
Like Measles, Scarlet fever is infectious and contagious, but it is much more to be dreaded. It chiefly affects children, and usually occurs but once in the same person. During the epidemic in London (1869-70), however, instances were comparatively numerous in which the disease occurred a second time in the same person. The second, third, fourth, and fifth years of life are those in which it is most prevalent; after the tenth year its frequency rapidly declines. The opinion that the disease does not attack children under two years of age is erroneous, for in 1887 the deaths from this disease in England and Wales were 7,859; and out of this number 5,111 were children under five years of age, 435 of these being under twelve months old. in 1910 the deaths were 2,370, and above 2,000 of these were in patients under six years of age. Infancy, then, offers no exemption from severe attacks of Scarlatina; but the most fatal age is generally between five and six.
As in Measles and in Small-pox, Homoeopathic treatment has been highly successful. All Homoeopathic practitioners have loudly demanded pure air and plenty of it, pure water and careful drainage; and as these matters have been gradually acceded, so has disease abated. Even as it is, the number of deaths is nearly twice as large as need be. Looking back at the Registrar- General’s Reports, there is much to be thankful for. We no longer see the number of deaths given as 30,000, 29,000, 30,000, as in former years; the deaths were 14,275, in 1881, in 1895, 4,532, and in 1916, 1,381. In the year 1886 not more than 5,986 were registered, and 6,974 in 1890. In the year 1863 an excessively high rate of mortality prevailed in London, Manchester, Leeds, and many other large towns during that year, ranging from 100 to 120 deaths a week for many weeks, and in the autumn of 1870 the rate of mortality from this disease ion London alone was 108 per week. This high mortality led Professor Huxley, in his address to the british Association for the Advancement of Science, in September, 1870, to remark– Looking back no further than ten years, it is possible to select three (1863, ’64, and ’69) in which the total number of deaths from Scarlet fever alone amounted to ninety thousand. This is the return of the killed, the maimed and disabled being left out of sight. Without doubt, the nature and cause of this courage will one day be well understood, and the long-suffered massacre of our innocents come to an end; and thus mankind will have one more admonition that the people perish for lack of knowledge.’. The drop to a rate of 2,370 in 1910 with a larger population speaks well for the work of the Public Health officers since 1870.
VARIETIES.– There are three varieties, or, more properly speaking, degrees of intensity. it is important to remember that though it be convenient to speak of S. simplex, S. anginosa, and S. maligna, they are not different diseases, but one disease, developing itself more or less perfectly, with greater or less intensity, according to the constitutional condition of its victim and the amount of resistance which the constitution possesses. The nervous system, the skin, the mucous lining of the throat, stomach, bowels, and kidneys, and the function of the circulation, exhibit disturbance in every case, although the degree of that disturbance may vary widely. Again, exposure to the contagion of S. simplex may give rise to an attack of S. anginosa, or S. maligna; and the contrary. Finally, in proof of the identify of the different modes of the fever, the same sequelae are observable after each degree of the disease. It is convenient, however, to describe the fever according to the different degrees of its intensity, viz.– I. S. simplex.- A scarlet rash, with redness of the throat, but without ulceration. It may be expected to terminate quite favourable under proper treatment. 2. S. anginosa.– a more severe form of the disease, with redness and ulceration of the throat, and a tendency to the formation of abscesses on the neck. The temperature is high and the disturbance of the circulatory system great. This has many points of danger, and in several ways may jeopardize the patient’s life. The throat complication is more likely to be more severe and fatal in winter than in summer. 3. S. maligna– extreme depression of the vital strength, and great cerebral disturbance, are superadded to the affection of the throat and skin, the fever soon assuming a malignant character. The tongue is brown; there is low delirium; the throat is dark, livid, or even sloughy; the eruption comes out imperfectly or irregularly, or alternately appears and disappears, and is dark rather than scarlet. This from of the disease is always one of extreme danger.
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."