of chewing a disease at its onset must be its best preventive, ” belladonna was the remedy that he had found capable of curing scarlet fever in its early stage-the case of accidental preservation from scarlet-fever in a child who had been taking belladonna for an articular disease occurred to his memory, and from these slight data he rightly inferred that belladonna from these delight data he rightly inferred that belladonna was the prophylactic of scarlatina. He accordingly administered his new- found preservative to the five remaining children of the family in which the disease had broken out virulently, and to his satisfaction he found that they were all completely protected from the disease, though constantly exposed to the admonitions proceeding from the affected children.
In my introductory lecture, I showed you the strange plan adopted by hahnemann for getting his prophylactic tested by his medical brethren; but it is of more importance to consider in. this place the testimony of other sin favour of the preservative powers of belladonna in scarlet-fever. I shall bring forward as witness only such as cannot be suspected of having a bias in favour of Homoeopathy, namely, partisans of the allopathic school.
Bloch (Rust’s Mag., xvii.39) gave belladonna to 270 children during the prevalence of a very malignant form of the epidemic, and he remarked that when it was continued for two or twelve days the children were completely protected from the disease. Cramer (Ibid., xxv. pt.3.) gave it to ninety children, none of whom were attacked. Gelnecki (Hufeland’s journal 1825, 11, 7) gave it to ninety-four children, seventy-six of them escaped the disease. Hufeland (Ibid., xlii, 2 lxi 5) himself certifies on various occasions to the efficacy of this prophylactic, and in 1826 he wrote a special treatise on the subject, (On the Prophylactic power of Belladonna in scarlet-fever. Berlin, 1826.) where in he collected all the evidence that had been published up to that time in favour of the prophylactic virtue of belladonna in scarlet fever. Wolf (Horn’s Archiv, 1822, pt. 6 490.) gave it to 120 children, eighty-one of these remained free from infection for a quarter of a year; those affected had the disease very slightly, only four of them died, and then only during the period of desquamation from dropsy Ibrelisle, (Bull. de la Soc. d’Emat., Ap., 1823, p. 201) brelisle,. Metz, saw twelve children preserved from scarlet-fever by belladonna, whereas 206 children among whom they lived were attacked by the disease.
Velsen (Horn’s Archive, 1827, pt.2, 200) gave belladonna to 247 children, thirteen only of whom contracted the disease. Berndt (Bem ub Scharlachf., 1827) gave belladonna to 122 children, eighty two of these were exempt from the disease, eleven got it up to the third day of using the prophylactic, nine got it between the sixth and eighth days, five got it later, and fifteen got it after leaving of the use of the prophylactic. Schenk (Hufeland’s Journal, xliii.St.2) gave belladonna, which he obtained from Hahnemann himself during a very fatal epidemic, to 525 persons, 522 escaped the disease. The three who were attacked had only taken the preventive four times. Behr (Ibid., Ivii. St.2, p.3.) gave it to forty-seven persons, forty-one of these escaped the disease, and only six were attacked and that very slightly. Zeuch, (physician to a foundling hospital in the Tyrol, relates that out of eighty-four children in the establishment twenty-three were attacked by scarlet fever; he gave belladonna to the remaining sixty-one and only one of these got the disease. In another children’s establishment where he was physician, he gave the prophylactic to seventy, and only three of these were attacked.
I might easily multiply instances front the writings of allopathic authors to show the enormous mass of evidence in favour of the real protective power of belladonna. In the few allopathic experiments which give a contrary results, and seem to indicate little or no protective power of the part of belladonna the failure may, I am convinced, in many cases be accounted for by the doses of belladonna having been extravagantly large, administered at improper intervals, combined with other drugs, or not preserved with sufficiently long, and by the epidemic in which the prophylactic was employed, in some cases it may be in proper doses, not having been the true smooth scarlet-fever of Sydenham, for which alone, as Hahnemann always insisted, was belladonna the prophylactic.
But I have said enough on this subject let us now turn to the other prophylactic medicines recommended by Hahnemann.
In the same essay in which she announced belladonna to be the prophylactic of scarlet fever, he suggested (Lesser Writings,
p. 439.) that it might also be the preventive of measles; but as he does not repeat this pinion in after years, we may conclude that he abandoned it.
The only other disease for which he attempted to discover a prophylactic was that most sudden and fatal of epidemics the Asiatic cholera. At first (Ibid p 848 ) be recommend a dose of cuprum 30, taken once a week during the prevalence of the epidemic. Latterly (Ibid, p 848 note) he advised veratrum and cuprum alternately, week about, for the same purpose, and he speaks very favorably of the preservative power of a plate of copper worn next the skin. Dr. Roth of Munich is also an advocate for this method of protecting from cholera by means of copper worn next the skin; and the reality of the protective, influence of this metal and its alloys has lately received most striking corroboration by the researches of Dr. Burq of Paris, o (Mentallotherapie, p.26.) who has brought forward an immense body of evidence to show that copper miners and persons engaged in the manufacture of copper and brass instrument were almost completely protected from the cholera that devastated the population around them.
Another epidemic disease for which a prophylactic has been recommended is measles, for which pulsatilla and aconite have been variously advised. I have tried them both in families which have been invaded by the measles, but hitherto without success, unless a very mild form of the disease, which has occurred in every instance after the administration of these two remedies, may be considered as indicating a partial success. Arnold recommends sulphur as the prophylactic of measles; I cannot speak from experience of its value.
Dr. Hearing, in 1830, suggested (Arch., z. 2, 27) that the preventives of many diseases might be fond in their own morbid products; that, for example, the saliva of the rabid dog might be the prophylactic of hydrophobia variolous matter preserve from small-pox; epidemic and miasmatic disease, find their prophylactic in their own seeds; the plague, the malignant pustule, the itch, each provide its own preventive. He does not, however, seem to have put his views to the test of experiment.
Dr. Crosier (Journ. de la Medorrhinum hom i 213) proposes, as a preservative against infection with gonorrhoea, mercurius 30, three globules taken on two or three successive nights after the suspicious connection. He says this practice has always succeeded with him, and that he was guided to the choice of mercers as the prophylactic from the homoeopathic analogy of tits pathogenetic effects with the symptoms of gonorrhoea. It is evident that it would require an immense number of cases to prove that there was any preservative property in this medicines against a disease like gonorrhoea, and as Dr. Croserio does to give us the slightest information as to the number of individuals over whom his observations extended we cannot attach much value to his sweeping assertion as to the invariable efficacy of his preservative.
At one of the meetings of the Hahnemann Medical Society, Dr. Cronin gave an interesting account of a severe disease that attacks all strangers who came to reside in certain parts of the Levant; it is called the Aleppo pustule, its chief characteristic being a large carbuncle or boil, that runs a very slow, tedious, and painful course, extending altogether over a year, Led by the consideration of small-pox and its modifications by inoculation, he treated a newly arrived stranger by inoculating him with the pus from one of these boils, and he was gratified to find that the disease which occurred from inoculation was comparatively slight, short, and painless. This may be considered as a case of prophylaxis by inducing artificially a milder disease.
Dr. Winter, in a learned essay on prophylaxis, (Hyg., xxi. 122.) whilst he denies the existence of special prophylactics, as vaccine for variola, belladonna for scarlet-fever, aconite for measles, contents, on the other hand, that there are general prophylactics. He says that those chiefly liable to epidemic, miasmatic, and contagious disease are such as are not in a good relative state of health, there is something wrong with their vegetative system to which these disease have a particular affinity; and he further states, that if we are able to act on the vegetative system in such a way as to eradicate its faults, we shall put those persons in a condition to resist these disease, or at least to have them very mildly. In order to effect this change in a condition to resist these disease, or at least to have them very mildly. In order to effect this change in the vegetative system, he proposes to give successive doses of the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd dilution of trituration on mercurius, followed by sulphur, calcarea, lycopodium, graphites, arsenicum, etc.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon practiced at the London Homeopathic Hospital and specialised in Optics.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon wrote Pathogenetic Cyclopaedia 1839, Cure of Pannus by Innoculation, London and Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science 1844, Hahnemann’s Organon, 1849, Lectures on the Theory & Practice of Homeopathy, 1853, Homeopathic Treatment and Prevention of Asiatic Cholera 1847, Hahnemann’s Therapeutic Hints 1847, On Subaqueous Vision, Philosophical Magazine, 1871, The Influence of Homeopathy on General Medical Practice Since the Death of Hahnemann 1874, Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica, 2 vols 1878-81, The Human Eye Its Optical Construction, 1878, Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, 1880, The Sphygmograph, 1882, Materia Medica: Physiological and Applied 1884, Hahnemann the Founder of Scientific Therapeutics 1882, Hahnemann’s Organon 1893 5th Edition, Prolongation of Life 1900, Hahnemann’s Lesser Writing.