In intermittent fever its therapeutic powers are highly valued. In our region of country where intermittents are endemic, and where we cannot possibly get along with the use of Quinine we attach a good deal of importance to Gelseminum as an inter current remedy, or as a remedy that may be profitably used in alternation with Quinine. In an attack of true congestive chills we certainly should not depend upon Gelseminum alone to ward off the next attack.
ABSTRACT OF SYMPTOMS.
HEAD
Pain of the head, quite constant, dull, stupefying, and pressive; most frequently in the forehead and temples. Bruised pain above the back of the orbits. Tightness of the brain. Often more or less headache, with nausea. Giddiness is pretty constant: an intoxicated feeling, and tendency to stagger, often with dizziness and imperfection of vision, aggravated by smoking.
MENTAL SYMPTOMS
Irritable and impatient mood; incapacity to think or fix the attention; confusion of mind; stupid, intoxicated feeling; dullness of all the mental faculties. In one case great mirthfulness.
EYES
Great heaviness of the lids; difficulty of opening the eyes or keeping them open; eyes close in spite of him, on looking steadily at an object; fullness and congestion of the lids; diplopia when inclining the head towards the shoulder, but vision single when holding the head erect. Dryness of the eyes; misty or glimmering appearance before the eyes; pain in the orbits, sometimes excessive.
NOSE
In a few cases watery discharge from the nose.
TASTE AND APPETITE
Thirst during the sweat. Mawkish taste in the mouth, clammy feverish taste; great hunger.
GASTRIC SYMPTOMS
Feeling of emptiness and weakness in the stomach and bowels; eructation; nausea; hiccough.
ABDOMEN.
Slight pain in the transverse colon. Gnawing pain in the transverse colon Slight pain in the left iliac region. After chills, headache, fever and prolonged sweating. Seventeen hours after taking the drug was awakened by severe gripings in the lower abdomen, soon followed by a very large and natural stool, but followed by no diminution of pain until another large deeply bilious discharge, followed by instant relief of pain.
URINE
Rather increased in quantity, clear and watery; frequent micturition.
LARYNX AND TRACHEA
Paroxysms of hoarseness, with dryness of throat, voice seems weak; stitching sensation in the region of the heart; constrictive pain around the part of the chest.
BACK
Pain in the back, as in the cold stage of ague (many cases).
EXTREMITIES
Coldness of the extremities, especially the feet, often severe; feet feel as if in cold water. Anguish feeling, with pain in the legs. Pain in popliteal space.
FEVER
Febrile chilliness; cold extremities; heat of head and face, with headache. Pulse uniformly depressed, and rendered less frequent. Pulse soon becomes very feeble in many cases; sometimes scarcely perceptible, with chilliness, cold feet, heat and pain of the head. In a majority of cases perspiration follows the fever. The pathogenesis of no drug represents so completely and so uniformly all the stages of the ordinary fevers of this country.
SLEEP
Disposition to yawn; a sort of stupor; cannot keep the eyes open; is obliged to lie down and sleep. Drowsiness and long sound sleep are very general symptoms.
SKIN
The Gelseminum produced a peculiar and very marked eruption in most of the cases. It appears on the face most frequently, but sometimes also upon the back, between the shoulders. It is papulous, very much the color of measles, which it closely resembles; but the papulae are more distant and distinct. Though very conspicuous, they are attended with little or no sensation the patient being unaware of any eruption until he happens to see himself. Persons have frequently been asked what was the matter, of it they had the measles, when they were not aware of the eruption. It generally appears the second or third day of the proving and continues one or two weeks.
GENERAL SYMPTOMS
Weakness and trembling throughout the whole system; listless and languid; great lassitude; feeling of tightness of the body; fear of falling or stumbling; easily fatigued; general feeling of illness, as in fever.
Most of the above symptoms were elicited from the tincture, in doses of one to five drops. A few were made with the third dilution, and in all of those the characteristic eruption was produced.
