ALCOHOLUS


ALCOHOLUS symptoms from Manual of the Homeopathic Practice by Charles Julius Hempel. What are the uses of the homeopathy remedy ALCOHOLUS…


ACUTE EFFECTS.

According to Christison and authors who have treated of the actions of alcoholic and spirituous liquors on man, have distinguished three degrees in its immediate effects:

1. When the dose is small, much excitement and little subsequent depression are produced.

2. In the second degree, the symptoms are more violent; excitement, flushed face, confusion of thought, delirium, and various mental affections, varying with individual character. The majority of intoxicated persons become jovial, sympathetic, and even indiscreet many things which otherwise would remain a profound secret are allowed to escape (in vino veritas); others become sentimental and affectionate; some speak with incomprehensible suavity about learned subjects, politics, country; in some cases, the coward becomes a hero in his own imagination; others are always ready to quarrel or fight, and either comfort themselves as pugilists, or become almost murderous in their ferocity; but, fortunately, there are generally others not less drunk who are not only peaceable, but anxious to preserve the peace. Another class of drunkards always become depressed in spirits, sit quietly in a corner, are much absorbed in themselves, and bust into tears and complaints over the most trivial occurrences. The perceptions are disturbed and often confused; the harmony between the intellect and will is broken up; the higher intellectual functions, and even the common processes of the understanding become more and more difficult, while the imagination and the lower impulses predominate. These symptoms are followed by dozing and gradually increasing somnolency, which may, at length, become so deep as not easily to be broken. After the state of somnolency has continued several hours, it ceases gradually, but is followed by giddiness, weakness, stupidity, headache, sickness, and vomiting. This degree of injury from Alcohol may prove fatal, either in itself, by the coma becoming deeper and deeper, or from the previous excited state of the circulation causing diseases of the brain in a predisposed habit. There is a singular variety in the principal symptoms in this form of intoxication, even when completely formed: thus, when the stage of stupor is fully formed, the person is sometimes capable of being roused, sometimes immovably comatose for a long time; the pulse is sometimes imperceptible or very feeble, sometimes distinct, or even full, generally slow or natural, seldom frequent, very seldom firm; the pupils are occasionally contracted, much more generally dilated, and, in a few instances, alternating between one state and the other; the countenance is commonly pale, sometimes turgid and flushed; the breathing is for the most part slow, and also soft, yet not unfrequently laborious, but very rarely stertorous. Convulsions are rare, having been observed twice only in twenty-six cases. Neither do any of the special symptoms seem to bear a marked relations to ultimate event; for many cases get well when the pupils are much dilated, the coma profound, and the pulse imperceptible. It usually happens that, if the stage of stupor be completely overcome, recovery speedily ensues, without any particular symptoms except headache, giddiness, sickness, and the customary consequences of a debauch.

But, on some occasions, the comatose stage is succeeded by one which indicates much cerebral excitement-by flushed face, injected eyes, restlessness, a febrile state of the system, and delirium, even of the violent kind. In other cases, this affection puts on very much the characters of a slight attack of typhoid fever. In another variety of this second degree of intoxication, an apoplectic disposition is called into action by the excited state of the circulating system, and death ensues form apoplexy, or some other disease of the brain, rather than from simple drunkenness. Thus, in some instances, extravasation of blood is found within the head a after death; but, as this is a rare effect of intoxication, it must be considered as the result of poisoning with spirits, exciting sanguineous apoplexy in a predisposed constitution. In other cases, the stupor of intoxication, after putting on all the characters of apoplexy for two days and upwards, terminates fatally without extravasation; here the poison operates by developing a constitutional tendency to congestive apoplexy. In some cases, an interval of returning health occurs between the immediate narcotic effects of the poison and the ultimate apoplectic coma which is the occasion of death. – J.C.P.

Case. A lad, aged sixteen swallowed sixteen ounces of whiskey in the course of ten minutes, and, pursuant to the terms of a wager, walked up and down a room for half an hour. He then went into the open air, apparently not at all the worse for his feet; but, in a very few minutes, while in the act of putting his hand into his pocket to take out some money, he became so suddenly senseless as to forget to withdraw his hand, and so insensible that his companions could not rouse him. He died in sixteen hours. – J.C.P.

3. The third degree of poisoning is not so often witnessed, because, in order to produce it, a greater quantity of spirits must be swallowed, pure and at once, than is usually taken, except by persons who have made foolish wagers on their prowess in drinking. Then there is seldom much preliminary excitement; coma approaches in a few minutes, and soon becomes profound, as in apoplexy; the face is sometimes livid, more generally ghastly pale; the breathing stertorous, and the breath having a spirituous odor; the pupils sometimes much contracted, more commonly dilated and insensible; and, if relief is not speedily procured, death takes place, generally in a few hours, and sometimes immediately. The patient recovers if the iris remains contractile; but, if it is dilated and motionless on the approach of sight, recovery is very improbable. These cases generally die with the symptoms of pure coma; convulsions are not common, but occasional cases do occur in which the coma is accompanied with alternating opisthotonos and emprosthotonos. – J.C.P.

Occasionally Alcohol acts an an irritant; after its ordinary narcotic action passes off another set of symptoms occasionally appear, which indicate inflammation of the alimentary canal.

Case.

A young man has been drinking brandy immoderately for several days, when at length he was attacked with shivering, nausea, feverishness, pain in the stomach, vomiting of everything he swallowed except cold water, thirst, and at last hiccough, delirium, jaundice, and convulsions. Death took place on the ninth day. The stomach was found gangrenous over the whole villous coat; the colon was much inflamed, and all the small intestines red.

ON ANIMALS. Huss and Dahlstrom administered daily to three dogs, of various ages but of nearly equal size, six ounces of Swedish brandy. Intoxication, canine appetite, and intense thirst were occasioned by each dose during the first three months; but the dogs continued fat and apparently well. In the fourth month the bark of the animals became hoarse, they had a hoarse, dry hiccough and cough, the eyes were staring and full of tears, hearing was much diminished, and their sleep became restless, with frequent subsultus and jerking of the limbs. After the completion of the fourth month the dogs trembled when they attempted to stand; their walk was shuffling, and there was evident weakness of the extremities, especially in the hind-legs, so that they often remained sitting posture while taking food. Cramps and convulsive movements and subsultus next appeared in the limbs and trunk, both during sleep and when the animals were awake and lying on their sides. The sight of other dogs, however, roused them at all times from their apathetic condition, and they endeavored, even in their weakened state, to attack and bite them. Their strength diminished more and more, the sensibility of the skin, especially of the ears, was remarkably lessened, the appetite feel off rapidly, but the irritability towards other dogs continued unabated to the last. The deposit of fat rather increased. They all died in the eighth month.

PATHOLOGY.

The appearances were the same in all three: the stomach was contracted, its mucous membrane lead-colored and oedematous; the intestinal canal coated with a tough bad-smelling mucus; the liver considerably enlarged, softened, and dark; the bile dark and so tough that it could be drawn out in threads, nasal, tracheal, and bronchial mucous membrane slightly inflamed; vessels of the brain and its membranes much congested, with effusion of clear serum between the arachnoid and dura-mater; a clear, gelatinous, semi-coagulated fluid between the same membranes of the spinal cord, especially near the fourth and sixth dorsal vertebrae; muscles pale, relaxed, and soft; fat soft.

GENERAL EFFECTS ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.

Alcohol has been generally believed, since the experiments of Sir B. Brodie, to act on the brain through the medium of the nerves, and to do so without entering the blood. But we agree with Christison, who says this may be doubted, as it does not act so swiftly, but that absorption may easily take place before its operation begins. It is probable that Alcohol exerts a similar action upon many of the nerves to that which it does upon the brain; congestion, serous effusion, and induration of the nerves are not improbable effects. – J.C.P.

Charles Julius Hempel
Charles Julius Hempel (5 September 1811 Solingen, Prussia - 25 September 1879 Grand Rapids, Michigan) was a German-born translator and homeopathic physician who worked in the United States. While attending medical lectures at the University of New York, where he graduated in 1845, he became associated with several eminent homeopathic practitioners, and soon after his graduation he began to translate some of the more important works relating to homeopathy. He was appointed professor of materia medica and therapeutics in the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in 1857.