Introduction
Anthrax Poison.
General symptoms
The alcoholic extract of the anthrax poison prepared from the spleen of cattle ill with the disease. A nosode rejected by the old school, and by the majority of the new, in spite of its being a remedy which bears out our theory, and one which has proved of the utmost use in practice. It has not yet been proved, but the frequent use made of it and the verification of the toxic symptoms by some of our best practitioners justifies its reception. The first preparation was made according to Hering’s propositions [laid down in Stapf’s Archives, 1830], by Dr. G. A. Weber, and applied with the most astonishing success in the cattle plague. He cured every case with it, and also cured men poisoned by the contagium. His report, a small treatise of 114 pages, was published in 1836, by Reclam, Leipzig. No notice was taken of it. Only the talented Dr. P. Dufresne the founder of the Bibliotheque Homoeopathique, of Geneva, used it and prevented the further murderous spread of the disease, in a flock of sheep [among which it is always more fatal than among other domestic animals], and cured the shepherds as well [Biblioth. Homoeop. de Geneve, January and February, 1837].
The discovery of the bacteria and their incredibly rapid propagation, seemed to be of much more importance than the cure of cattle, and the loss of millions of dollars by this disease. In 1842 France sustained a loss of over seven millions of francs and every year a small district of Germany had a loss of sixty thousand thalers, from the cattle plague; in Siberia, in 1785, 100, 000 horses died with it; in 1800, one small district lost 27,000 horses. Radiate heat, proposed scores of years ago, for other zymotic diseases, by Hering, was discovered, in a very ingenious way, by Pasteur, to prevent the increase of bacteria. Now the heat [as it has done in hydrophobia.], and the nosode may suffice to cure every case.
Doctor Kasemann had moral courage enough to introduce anthracin in gangrene and sphacelus, in 1852, and Doctor Raue has given it in carbuncles, since 1858 [see his pathology and Diagnosis.] and in gangrenic whitlow [see Journal of Clinics, 4, 142].
All symptoms produced by the poison on men are inserted, because the symptoms from the snake-bite and from the bee sting have been proved to be useful in numerous cases as well as the toxic symptoms of Arsenic, Opium and other drugs.
Dr. Hering says: “Homoeopathic practitioners of the greatest integrity, and trustworthy beyond a doubt, long ago cured splenic fever in cattle, flocks of sheep and their shepherds by Anthracin, and alcoholic tincture made from the blood of a bacteric spleen. Of course the alcohol killed the infusoria, but what remained dissolved therein cured the disease in animals and men.” This proves conclusively:
1. That the crude poison and its alcoholic solution must possess similar pathogenetic properties; hence to a proving of Anthracinum must be added all the symptoms of uncomplicated splenic fever; to those of Hydrophobinum, the symptoms of every case of pure hydrophobia; to those of Hydrophobinum, the symptoms of every case of pure hydrophobia; to those of Syphilinum all those of pure syphilis, etc., etc.
2. That bacteria are not the cause but the effect of the disease, a doctrine which we hold to be true with regard to all parasites connected with deranged health, and that therefore their destruction by local application is not equivalent to the cure of the disease itself.
Characteristics
In carbuncle, malignant ulcers and complaints with ulceration, sloughing and intolerable burning. Painful glandular swellings; cellular tissue indurated; anthrax quinsy.
When Arsenicum or the best selected remedy fails to relieve the burning pain of carbuncle or malignant ulceration, study Anthracinum.
Hemorrhage: blood oozes from mouth, nose, anus or sexual organs; black, thick, tar-like, rapidly decomposing [Crot..].
Septic fever, rapid loss of strength, sinking pulse, delirium and fainting [Pyrog.].
Gangrenous ulcers; felon, carbuncle; gangrenous erysipelas of a malignant type.
Felon; the worst cases, with sloughing and terrible burning pain [Arsenicum, Carb-ac., Euphrasia, Lachesis].
Malignant pustule; black or blue blisters; often fatal in twenty-four or forty-eight hours [Echi., Lachesis, Pyrog.].
Carbuncle: with horrible burning pains; discharge of ichorous offensive pus.
Furuncles and all forms of boils, large and small. Some forms of acne; successive crops of boils or carbuncles on any part of body to remove the tendency.
Dissecting wounds, especially if tendency is to become gangrenous; septic fever, marked prostration [Arsenicum, Echi., Pyrog.].
Suspicious insect stings. If the swelling changes color and red streaks from the wound map out the course of lymphatics [Echi., Lachesis, Pyrog.].
Septic inflammation from absorption of pus or other deleterious substances, with burning pain and great prostration [Arsenicum, Echi., Euphrasia, Pyrog.].
Epidemic spleen diseases of cattle, horses and sheep.
Bad effects from inhaling foul odors of putrid fever or dissecting-room; poisoning by foul breath [Echi., Pyrog.].
Hering says: “To call a carbuncle a surgical disease is the greatest absurdity. An incision is always injurious and often fatal. A case has never been lost under the right kind of treatment, and it should always be treated by internal medicine only.”.
Mind
Anxiety, particularly in precordia.
Delirium.
Loss of consciousness.
Depression, with debility, and chill.
Thinks she feels death approaching.
Animals howl, bite, run about, become greatly excited; followed by paralytic symptoms.
Disinclined to work.
Head
Dulness in head as from narcotics.
Confusion.
Dizziness.
Dizziness with pain in head.
Loss of consciousness.
Headache, as if a smoke with a heating pain was passing through the head [fume’e de douleur chaude.]; two shepherds who caught it from their flock.
Head is affected in an indescribable manner.
Uncomfortable feeling in head, slight chills, mild fever.
If fully conscious they complain of great pain in head.
Pain in head, dizziness; inner anthrax.
Here and there in all parts of brain small and large hemorrhages of embolic origin; after death from anthrax.
Membranes of brain exhibit circumscribed or symmetrically extended bloody infiltrations.
Headache with chill. Cerebral symptoms with carbuncle.
Flying gangrene.
Small swelling on temples and cheeks, extending through the orbital sutures and foramina to the dura and pia matter.
Carbuncles mostly on head, near the ears or temples.
Flying gangrene, head swollen [in swine.].
Swelling of the head [sheep.].
Eyes
Great dilatation of pupils; inner anthrax.
A pale yellowish or greenish swelling, if in the eyelids, of a half-translucent aspect.
A pale redness above the brows along the forehead.
Ears & Hearing
Ringing in the ears; inner anthrax.
Parotitis gangrenosa, after scarlatina.
Swelling extending backward over the angle of the right lower jaw, which could not be felt and up to near the ear.
Nose & Smell
Nose swollen and red, fetid smell from it.
Bloody suffusions on mucous membrane of nose.
Intense redness of the right half of nose, extending to the cheek.
Face
Erysipelatous, dark brown redness and swelling over the whole right side of face, the nose and part of left cheek; swelling very hard, redness does not disappear under the pressure of finger.
Extending to cheek, redness from nose.
Could not move the lower jaw as usual.
Could open the mouth only so far as to put the point of the tongue out.
Impossible to open the jaws in the least.
Tearing in the right lower jaw.
Beginning of swelling was in the region of the right submaxillary gland.
A stony swelling around the right lower maxilla, the inner space of the mandible filling up to half, reaches to nearly half the cheek, and disfiguring the face, extending backwards over the angle of the lower jaw; very little pain, not red, but sharply defined edges.
Swelling extending from the inner edge of the left lower jaw across the whole throat, in front and over the edge of the right lower jaw, and au niveau with the upper surface of the right lower molars.
A large stony, hard, pale swelling around the right lower jaw, nearly painless, disfiguring the face.
Gland under the chin painfully swollen.
Teeth and Gums
On making an incision near second molar a mass of stinking, brown ichor is discharged.
Taste, Tongue
Flabby taste.
Tongue often furred, with a thick brown coat; dry.
Mouth
Offensive odor from mouth.
Mouth could not be opened.
Saliva increased.
Continued bleeding from the mouth; the blood shows a lack of power to coagulate; with inner anthrax.
Dark red, bloody ecchymoses of mouth.
Bloody suffusions and hemorrhagic collections on the mucous membranes of canthi of mouth and nose; inner anthrax.
