PYROGENIUM influenza patients usually run a fairly high temperature. Typically, they are flushed, hot, sweaty and somewhat congested-looking. They very often complain of a sensation of burning heat, and feel horribly oppressed by it.
Most of the Pyrogenium influenza patients that I have seen have been over-active mentally. They tend to be very loquacious and chatter away readily, and become definitely excited in the evening may be even delirious.
They are very much troubled with sleeplessness, due again to excessive mental activity; if they become toxic, they may get a slight degree of delirium with a sensation of uncertainty as to where they are. They quite frequently wake up bright and clear and describe unpleasant dreams of having to try and collect themselves from all over the bed-but that is more in their sleep than when they are awake.
A constant Pyrogenium indication is that, though the patients feel so very hot and uncomfortable, they are sensitive to any draught. It makes them shiver at once-very much as in Mercurius- and they quite frequently get little shivers, almost little rigors, intermingled with their feeling of intense heat. Very often the patient feels chilly for a moment, gets a little shiver, turns horribly hot and then breaks out into a definite sweat. As a rule, the sweat in Pyrogenium is definitely offensive.
Always, in influenza, they complain of intense, generalised aching pains; they ache from head to foot, and are very uncomfortable with it; they are sensitive to pressure, and often move restlessly about in order to ease the painful part.
they suffer from very violent congestive headaches; either severe occipital headaches or, much more commonly, intense throbbing headaches in the temples with a sensation of heat and pressure in the head and often, a damp hot sweat. These congestive headaches are definitely relieved by pressure.
A dry mouth is always found in a Pyrogenium case, with a good deal of thirst for small quantities of cold water. The tongue tends to become dry, the mouth offensive.
There are two types of tongue in Pyrogenium patients, Much the most common is a dry tongue with a somewhat brown coating. Occasionally-less commonly in influenza than in some of their conditions- the tongue has no coating at all; it is deep red and dry, very sensitive, painful and hot, and it tends to crack. This tongue is found more in the frankly septic fevers of Pyrogenium than in the catarrhal influenza states.
These patients tend to have very violent attacks of sneezing, which are brought on by any cold draught. Uncovering them for examination is enough to start them sneezing; sometimes they actually sneeze if they put a hand out of bed-it is cold that always sets them going.
As a rule, the nasal discharge in Pyrogenium is thick and gluey, which is difficult to expel. Patients complain that first one side of the nose and then the other gets blocked up; they have great difficulty in clearing it. The right side is blocked more commonly than the left, but it does tend to alternate.
The typical appearance of the Pyrogenium throat is relaxed and unhealthy-looking, probably with a certain amount of superficial ulceration of the tonsils and a good deal of offensive gluey postnasal discharge.
In Pyrogenium influenzas there is liable to be involvement of the larynx, with a feeling of intense rawness and burning, and an accumulation of the same kind of glairy, sticky mucus which they have difficulty in expelling. There is a very troublesome cough and a good deal of mucus to clear away; the patients cough up sticky, yellowish- coloured mucus.
Most Pyrogenium influenza patients have intense ringing in the ears. With a feeling of obstruction, marked tenderness behind the ears, and a severe pressing sensation as if the ears were going to burst. The right ear is much more commonly affected than the left.
Associated with the ear condition is a very similar sensation in the accessory nasal cavities. There is a feeling that the frontal sinuses are blocked, and an intense pressing pain just above the eyes-more commonly above the right eye.
There is also likely to be a similar sensation in the upper jaw from involvement of the antrum, with the same pressing pain. The antrum pains are liable to go from one side to the other, or to spread right across.
While the condition is acute, the pains are very much aggravated by cold or any active movement of the patient. coughing, too, increases the pains; the forehead feels as though it would burst, and there is often intense throbbing in the affected area.
There is liable to be an extension further back in the accessory sinuses, very often accompanied by an intense pressing pain deep in the skull. It would seem to be an involvement of the sphenoidal cells. The patients very often complain, at this time, of very severe, distressing headache.
These patients have a certain amount of pain and tenderness in the eyes, very often tenderness on pressure. It is usually accompanied by acute photophobia. In fact, there is often photophobia without any acute inflammatory condition in the eyes: the patient seems to be disturbed by light quite apart from the local condition. As a rule the eyes are gummy and sticky rather than showing profuse lachrymation.
Pyrogenium patients always complain of an unpleasant taste- just a feeling of flatness or lack of taste, or a definite putrid taste. They very often say that a lot of stuff accumulates at the back of their throats and, when they spit it out, it has a foul taste. This gives them complete aversion to food, they have no appetite at all. And their very offensive and rather profuse throat makes it difficult for them to swallow.
Pyrogenium influenza patients are liable to acute digestive disturbances_enteritis rather than gastritis. They have quite acute abdominal pains accompanied by very violent diarrhoea, always a very offensive and rather profuse watery stool.
Useful for diagnosis is the point that this stinking profuse diarrhoea is not accompanied by a great deal of urging; there is no marked degree of tenesmus. But there is marked abdominal pain, very often in the caecal region, on the right side of the abdomen, and the pain is very much aggravated by motion. The abdomen is sensitive to touch and the patient rather more comfortable lying on the right side.
There are two other indications for Pyrogenium that should be mentioned. Firstly, before the patients develop any signs of cold at all, they are conscious of extreme pains starting in the legs and spreading gradually upwards. Secondly, there is always a marked discrepancy between the pulse rate and the temperature of a Pyrogenium patient.
The discrepancy can go either way : rapid pulse and comparatively low temperature of high temperature and comparatively slow pulse.
The typical Pyrogenium influenza is quite a serious case. However, the patients do respond astonishingly quickly.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.