Tuberculosis. Fever and Agues. Health
Water 798.021 746.19 791.378
Fibrin 2.776 2.14 2.952
Fat 1.554 16 3.240
Albumen 88.144 200.01 127.426
Hence it is evident that fever and ague diminishes the quantity of fat and albumen, and increases that of the blood-globules. Hence a residence in fever and anguish atmosphere, in order to cure tuberculosis, must be assisted by fatty food, Cod-liver oil, Alcohol, Iron and the Chlorides of Soda and Potassa. – J.C.P.
HEART AND ARTERIES.
In strong, but not excessive doses, a feeling of warmth and comfort spreads from the epigastrium over the whole body; the pulse becomes raised, more powerful, and quicker; all the muscular movements take place with more ease, power, and endurance; the tone of the nervous system is raised, especially in the brain, followed by greater vivacity, excitement of the feelings and courage, and more general and astute powers of thought. The metamorphosis of the tissues takes place more rapidly, followed by increased secretions, especially from the skin and kidneys. In a few hours this state is followed by relaxation and exhaustion, lassitude, inclination to repose and sleep.
In Ogston’s cases, the walls of the heart were loaded with fat in eleven cases, coincident with general obesity in three cases. There was general enlargement or hypertrophy in eleven cases, coincident with abundant fat on its walls in five cases. Hypertrophy of the left ventricle in five cases; dilatation and attenuation of the right ventricle in nine cases. The tricuspid valve was diseased in four cases, the mitral in eight, and the aortic in two. There was dilatation or the aorta in four cases; bony plates and atheroma in four cases. There were abnormal appearances in the pericardium, heart, and aorta in thirty cases out of seventy-three, or in forty-one per cent. The changes in the heart and arteries, to be met with in drunkards in such numbers are attributed, by Dr. Carpenter, partly to the gouty and rheumatic diathesis generated in such persons by alcoholic fluids, and in part to the direct action of the poison introduced into the blood; but, more particularly, with the exception of the increase of fat about the heart, by the exposure to inclement weather from which drunkards so frequently suffer. – J.C.P.
Alcohol is homoeopathic to a fatty state of heart and adiposis in general. Chambers has been in the habit of forbidding tea, coffee, and alcohol to obese persons, with striking advantage; and he thinks that good effects have followed their disuse in cases of thickened heart in muscular subjects. It is also homoeopathic to many of the symptoms of typhoid fever; and Tweedie gives the following summary of cases or stages of fever in which stimulants prove beneficial: 1. It is sometimes observed that when a patient in fever has been going on favorably, the pulse becomes suddenly soft and compressible the skin cool and damp, accompanied by a feeling of considerable exhaustion. With these symptoms there need be little hesitation in allowing six or eight ounces of wine in twenty-four hours, at proper intervals.
2. When the symptoms denoting sensorial disturbance, languor, low muttering delirium, tremor, or subsultus progressively increase, if, at the same time, the patient lose his strength from day to day, the pulse be soft and the skin cool, Wine may be safely prescribed.
3. When the fever assumes the petechial character, more especially if the spots be large, and of a dark or livid hue, Wine is indicated.
4. In cases of sudden and unexpected collapse.
5. Dr. Graves considers that Wine and Opium may be sometimes advantageously prescribed in the advanced stages of fever, even when particular symptoms apparently render their propriety doubtful. Thus, when the tongue is coated with dry brown fur, the teeth covered with sordes, when there is suffusion of the eyes, dry and hot skin, heat of the scalp and flushing of the face, a low form of delirium, sense of weight or pain in the head, not of an acute or throbbing character, and the pulse small, rapid, and thrilling, Wine may be given with advantage. – J.C.P.
HEAD.
Hallucinations and congestion of the head occur as a matter of course; they do not require explanation. Melancholy with inclination to suicide (monomanie suicide ebrieuse) is not an uncommon effect of chronic alcoholismus; also mania with inclination to commit murder (monomanie homicide ebrieuse); mania with inclination to incendiarism (monomanie incendiaire, pyromanie ebrieuse); mania with excessive inclination to drink (monomanie d’ivresse); polydipsia (omomania), this is not a fault, but a disease, and must be guarded against as sedulously. Stupidity, (stupidite ebrieuse); maniacal or drunken ferocity (manie, ou ferocite ebrieuse), this is most common in those of hasty and passionate temperaments; dementia (demence ebrieuse).
In the bodies of nearly seventy drunkards, examined by Drs. Peters, Middleton Goldsmith, and Moses, in 1842 and 1843, there was invariably more or less congestion of the scalp, and of the members of the brain, with considerable serous effusion under the arachnoid. The substance of the brain was unusually white and firm, as if it had lain in Alcohol for an hour or two. The ventricles were generally nearly or quite empty. In not more than eight or ten cases were there more red spots on the cut surface of the brain than are usually found. The peculiar firmness of the brain was noticed several times, even when decomposition of the rest of the body had made considerable advance; typhus fever is the only disease, save induration of the brain, in which a like firmness is often observed. Occasionally a few drachms of colorless or reddish turbid serum were found in the ventricles of the brain. – J.C.P.
In ten cases of fatal delirium tremens, the membranes of the brain were congested in four; an excess of fluid was found under the arachnoid in eight; an excess of fluid in the ventricles in six; and in the majority of cases the substance of the brain was “wet.” In seventy three cases, examined by Dr. Ogston, the dura- mater was adherent to the calvarium in eleven; highly injected in four; much thickened (leathery) in one; serum between it and skull cap in one. The arachnoid was thickened in thirty-one cases; serum under it and over the cerebral hemispheres in forty (coincident with arachnoid thickening in thirty); serum at the base of the skull in seventeen; between the dura-mater and arachnoid in two; in the cerebral ventricles in twenty-four; viz., in some quantity in fourteen, and limited to these in four. The pia-mater was injected in twenty cases; very minutely in nineteen; limited to the base of the brain in two. The surface was figured in one; coincident with ventricular effusion in fourteen; with effusion at the base of the brain in nine; a quantity of serum under the pia-mater in one case. The brain was hypertrophied in two cases; indurated in twenty-six, very much so in ten; indurated coincidently with sub-arachnoid serum in twenty-one; with abundant ventricular serum in five; with lymph on portions of the brain in three; with softened fornix in one. The brain was softened in four cases. There was oedema at its base in five, coincident with injection of the pia-mater. The cerebellum was softened in six cases; coincident with softened cerebrum in three; with indurated brain in one. The cerebellum was indurated in eight cases; coincidently with induration of the brain in all. The medulla-oblongata and spinal cord were indurated in one case, coincidently with induration of the brain and cerebellum. The choroid plexuses had vesicles upon them in fourteen cases. The cerebral arteries were in a state of fatty degeneration in one case. There were abnormal appearances in the brain and appendages in eighty-nine per cent. – J.C.P.
Alcohol is homoeopathic to many forms of congestion of the brain, insanity, dropsy of the brain, especially hydrocephaloid disease, induration of the brain, In many cases of typhoid fevers, and other maladies characterized by cerebral disturbance and depression of nervous energy, Alcohol is a specific remedy of great value. How often do we meet with groups of symptoms, during the course of scarlatina, typhoid, and other fevers which simulate those of alcoholic intoxication. Like Opium, it impresses specifically the brain (Tubercula quadrigemina particularly) and nervous system; and the phenomena which arise from its use bear a close resemblance to those of this drug.
EYES.
A blood-shot condition or congestion of the eyes, with a bilious condition of these organs, are among the most common effects of even moderate quantities of Alcohol. Hallucinations of sight are common, both in simple intoxication, delirium tremens, and alcoholismus-chronicus. The patient sees double, or thinks he sees a variety of objects, men, animals, good or bad spirits, angels or demons. Optical illusions are among the most uniform and singular effects of the abuse of Alcohol. This probably arises from the fact that the most marked action of this stimulus is upon that portion of the brain which gives origin to the optic nerves.
