NYMPHOMANIA. INFLAMMATIONS. CUTANEOUS AFFECTIONS. TUMORS. VARICES HERNIA NEURALGIA PARASITES.
IN describing the forms of disease which attack the external genitals of the female, as well as in pointing out the remedies which may be required in their treatment, it will be seen that we do not attempt to give all the symptoms. And this is true also of all the forms of disease, and of all the remedies mentioned in this work. And since in some instances remedies are mentioned with scarcely more than a single indication for their use, it seems important at the outset to guard against the serious error of supposing that we recommend a medicine from a single symptom,-a practice especially deprecated by Hahnemann. And it might be sufficient to state here, that in all cases where remedies are introduced,- whether with one symptomatic indication or with many, they are so introduced as remedies which should be studied in connection with the class of disorders under consideration. Not as remedies which should be given one after another, till the patient is relieved by death or otherwise.
But some other considerations and explanations need to be introduced here. In the different forms of structural or organic disease, some of which have no direct counterpart, as yet, in the pathogenesis of our remedies,-we are compelled to look for the great characteristic, constitutional symptoms, the most prominent and peculiar of the cases, even apart, if necessary, from functional derangements, and from structural disorganization. Such symptoms which are purely constitutional, just the reverse of local, since they may appear in connection with any form of disease,-become the peculiar characteristics, the key-notes of their respective cases. Such symptoms must be prominently contained in whatever remedy is suited to the case. And we believe that each case, especially each chronic case, has its head symptoms, which leads all the rest, its keynote, from which all the others take their cue. And we believe also that the remedy which contains this head-symptom with equal prominence; – that is in which it constitutes a key-note will invariably be found to cover and contain all the other symptoms; and that this clue will thus afford us the means of extending the curative action and sphere of the medicine, far beyond what it had reached, or could be expected to reach by direct pathogenesis.
These distinguishing characteristics, these key-notes, which form the individual and constitutional symptoms of the patient, are sensational symptoms, rather than functional derangements or structural disorganizations. And the method we pursue in relying upon these, in the absence of other indications, and of attaching very great importance to them even where other symptoms are not wanting, is sustained by two substantial reasons. First in many cases we can do not better, since as already stated, few if any of our remedies either have or can even be expected to have direct pathogenetic symptoms to correspond to the innumerable ultimate forms of structural disease which we are often called upon to treat. Second, this method has been found reliable by much experience. The purely constitutional symptoms, such as those of periodicity and the conditions of aggravation and amelioration,- strictly sensational symptoms, being found to constitute infallible indications in the choice of the remedy, where all other guides are wanting.
Of course under such circumstances it would be alike useless and impossible to repeat with the particular remedies, under the different forms of disease in which they may be useful, a long detail of pathogenetic symptoms. Where the characteristic symptoms are present and recognized, they will suggest the corresponding remedies for more particular examination.
So on the other hand we cannot attempt to give all the symptoms which may occur under the particular forms of disease described. The symptoms which may and even do arise under some of these forms of disease, such as hysteria, hysteralgia, would fill volumes. for nearly every part of the female system will be found to sympathize with the more purely local sufferings connected with uterine difficulties; every possible kind of distress, every imaginable morbid sensation, and even the simulated appearances of every form of disease, may arise in connection with nervous disorders of the uterus.
Nor indeed is there any such necessity for thus fully describing his patients case in advance to the Homoeopathic physician, even if such a thing were possible. If he but have in his own mind the image of the great constitutional symptoms of the medicines, and some good knowledge of the principal functional and structural derangements which belong to them, his cases will suggest their own remedies. And this individual mode of prescribing is absolutely essential to success. For even the self-same form of disease may very differently affect different persons; so Lycopodium may be required in one person, for a difficulty similar in many respects to that which is cured by Lachesis in another.
The reaction in the system against some injurious influence, which we call disease,-may be local, or constitutional, or both. If we attend principally to the local symptoms, diarrhoea for instance, in what is termed cholera, -we are immediately led into the contraria contrariis method of treatment, and this is Allopathy. But if we attend also to the constitutional symptoms, such as the nature of the (burning pains,-or the coldness of the perspiration,-we in reality leave off fighting a particular form of disease, but set ourselves at work to cure our patient.
Nor yet let us be misunderstood as recommending a method of generalizing, by advising to pay particular attention to the constitutional symptoms, such for instance as aggravation at three o’clock in the morning. That is indeed a very general indication, and a very common symptom in a particular remedy. But in the individual case of our patient, it is the very particular form of her system’s individual case of our patient, it is the very particular form of her system’s vital and constitutional re-action against a special morbific. influence. The local symptom are the more common, and are those which are alike common to many individual and to many medicines; but the constitutional symptoms, as they are most remote, are also more especially the characteristic and individual symptoms, since they are confessedly the indications of the profound reaction of the individual system itself. These constitutional symptoms, while thus reflecting the profoundest reaction of the system against the morbid influences,- and so establishing their claims to be considered as of the very first importance,-will also be found to carry with them, as it were, all the more important local symptoms. Thus the remedy which is found to answer best to such a form of periodic aggravation as has just been mentioned,-at three in the morning,-will also be found to cover the other symptoms sufficiently. And if we do not find in our pathogenesis all such symptoms, it is because the pathogenesis itself is necessarily incomplete. This is well illustrated by a case which came under my observation many years ago. A young physician had charge of a case of miscarriage, in which the subsequent hemorrhage proved very intractable. The miscarriage was at three months, in a tolerably healthy young woman, and was brought on by running to reach a ferry-boat. Every remedy known to the young physician, was tried in vain. At last he resorted to the tampon, in the latter part of the evening, in hope to save his patient’s life; and remained during the night to watch its effect. This means proved effectual for some hours, and he began to hope the danger was passed. But at three in the morning the hemorrhage returned, with such violence as almost to expel the tampon. The remarkable character of the aggravation led him to give Nux vomica which was followed by immediate and permanent relief.
The labia, vulva and other organs belonging to the external genitals of the female, are liable to several forms of disease, either from morbid influences to which they are directly exposed, or from the extension to them of disorders from the internal parts. We give a brief notice of each of the principal of these forms of disease, with reference to their causes, most important symptoms, and natural termination.
NYMPHOMANIA.
This formidable may be properly reckoned as one of the disorders of the external parts, since its principal seat is in the vulva, nymphae and clitoris, although these organs may only be thus affected in consequence of some morbid condition of those more interior. Nymphomania consists in an uncontrollable passion for sexual intercourse, which overcomes all the restrains of modesty, propriety and decency, and amounts to an actual insanity or monomania on this single subject of sexual intercourse. Taking its rise in functional disorders of the sexual system, or in more general morbid constitutional influences, which are thus ultimated upon the external generative organs, this disease changes the entire moral character from the most attractive modesty to the most shameless and repulsive profligacy; and it may lead to paroxysms whose violence rapidly exhausts the vital energies, and which terminate only in death.
