Lyssin – Medicine


Lyssin – Medicine.

Introduction

      Hydrophob……


Introduction

      Hydrophobinum; saliva of a rabid dog.

General symptoms

      Introduced and proved by Hering in 1833, fifty years before the crude experiments of Pasteur with the serum.

The toxic or non-toxic property of animal saliva has long been a question of scientific discussion. Trevinarus found that the human saliva became red by the addition of tincture of iron; and Gmelin discovered that this color was caused by Sulpho- cyanate.

The question in dispute appeared to be that Cyanic acid being a poison, Sulpho-cyanate also must be one, and of course its combination with alkalies, and being poisons, they could not be in the saliva. Years before this discovery, Oken had declared that “saliva is poison.” But the discoveries of Liebig and other chemists have demonstrated that Sulpho-cyanic acid is to be found in sheep, dogs and many other animals.

The experiments of Bernard and others, in Virchow’s Archives, 1858, have decided that Sulpho-cyanate of Potash found in saliva of animals, acts as a poison under certain conditions. Bernard considered that it acted only by application to cellular tissue.

In this he was, no doubt, in error, being misled by the analogy of the snake poison. But, Weir Mitchell in his “Researches on the Venom of the Rattlesnake, ” page 34, says, he “could not discover any in the rattlesnake poison, notwithstanding repeated experiments.”

Livingston, the African explorer, has reported the bite of the lion as poisonous; and the same claim is made in the East Indies regarding the bite of the tiger. From time immemorial it has been known in every country village that the bite of an angry cat is poisonous, and the effects often severe, even fatal. This is also true with the bite of all other animals, human beings included, when in a fit of passion.

Hering reports a case taken from a French journal in which a healthy farmer, age 19, while holding a duck in his lap was bitten on the lip by the angry drake. The same day he felt sick, grew rapidly worse, and a few weeks after died. He also says, that “after the bite of a dog not rabid difficult healing ulcers will follow.” It is further known, that after the bite of a rabid dog not only the wounds made by the teeth heal in an unusually short time, but several physicians have observed that even the usual cauterizations are not inclined to inflame, rather more inclined to heal quickly. We may take this for a pathognomonic symptom of the slumbering poison of Lyssin; the same thing is true of leprosy before it breaks out.

Now comes the work of Pasteur, in 1878, 1879 and 1880: His experiments furnished evidence that the malignant disease, splenic fever, was caused by bacteria.

An animal inoculated with a few drops of a liquid containing this bacteria, develops the disease with astonishing rapidity and dies within one or two days. But, he claims that chickens are an exception to this rule, because when similarly inoculated they remain in perfect health. Pasteur’s explanation of this strange fact is based on a higher bodily temperature of birds than any other warm blooded animals. The temperature of animals most readily affected by splenic fever ranges from 33 to 35C., while the blood temperature of chickens is from 42 to 43C. degrees.

Now, by reducing the temperature of the chicken after inoculation, Pasteur found it had died of splenic fever, the same as any other animal. Further experiments by Pasteur convinced him that propagation of bacteria is arrested by a temperature of 44 or more degrees. These facts called Pasteur’s attention to radiate heat as the best local application to prevent the generation of bacteria. And the same principle has been applied in domestic practice for the cure of a snakebite by killing a chicken, cutting it open and applying the warm surface to the bitten limb, replacing it as soon as it became cold by another, and in this way it is claimed that on the plains of the West, where the bite of the rattlesnake is so common, that nearly every case has been cured; the 10 degrees of greater heat seemed to be sufficient in the bite of the rattlesnake as well as of the bacteria of splenic fever.

In June, 1831, Hering published a letter in Stapf’s Archives, Vol. 10, which was dated June 18th, 1830, in which he says: “The proving of snake poison might pave the way to the prevention of hydrophobia and variola by the proving of their respective morbific poisons.” And on page 30, of the same volume, he says: “Same is said of psora.”

It will be remembered that Hering’s immortal proving of Lachesis was begun in 1828, and experimented with for three years, when it was finally published; hence the experience which Hering obtained in the proving of the serpent poison was evidently the inspiration for his suggestion that the proving on the healthy of Lyssin, Variolinum, Psorinum and other nosodes would form valuable remedies in the treatment of many of our obstinate diseases. Hering no sooner became firmly convinced of the truth of his suggestion than he at once set to work to put it into execution.

But, the first thing to do was to find a mad dog. The opportunity occurred on the 27th of August, 1833, when a German baker invited him to come to his house to examine a dog. The following description of his capture of a rabid dog and obtaining the saliva for a proving is taken from a paper by Hering in the North American Journal of 1878: It was a middle-sized, chestnut- brown terrier, not more that two or three years old, a female, with puppies of two or three months old. It had been bitten ten days before (17th August) in the street by a running dog, which was biting all around, and had been killed soon afterwards as mad. The owner, in trying to save his terrier, had beaten the strange dog with a stick after it had killed one of the puppies, and had already taken hold of another. The mother, in defending her young ones, had received three bloody wounds. She carried the dead one in her mouth from the street into the home yard. Since that she was somewhat changed, but continued to nurse the remaining puppies, one of which had received a bite. She had been otherwise true to her nature until the previous day (Aug. 26th), when she had commenced snapping and biting her young. The master had then suspected her, and kept her in the yard, tied by a rope; and several times she had been biting and trying to loosen herself. She soon grew worse and commenced to bite at everything. Her voice was entirely altered. On the 26th of August, in the evening, she had commenced to howl in a peculiar way and to run against the doors. She shook her head a great deal, and scraped the ground with her fore feet; and afterwards turned her head in a strange way. She put her mouth into the water placed before her, as if she was trying to swallow but could not. When seen on August 27th she was furious; snapping and biting, had a wild look, injected red eyes, frothy saliva around the mouth, and seemed evidently to be in the last stage of the disease. An empty flour-barrel was, from behind, put over her; and, in order to make it possible to secure some of the saliva, the barrel was lifted on one side until the dog, in trying to escape, put out her head, between the edge of the barrel and the ground. She seemed to be in convulsive motions, as from anger or fury; but while a quill was used to get as much of the saliva as possible out of her mouth and from her teeth (part to be put into milk sugar and part into alcohol), the motions lessened and the dog lay quiet and exhausted, breathing quick and short, with eyes closed. While the quill was still held in her mouth and while the baker had hold of the barrel, the dog suddenly sprang up, snapping and trying to get on to its feet; but the owner prevented its escape. After enough had been collected, the dog was allowed to withdraw its head; and by a heavy weight was secured under the barrel. After a box had been prepared, the dog was brought into it by means of the rope, and thus transported, with both puppies, to my house.

Next morning the mother was dead, and no permission given by the inmates to make a post mortem. Both the young ones were returned to the master; and even the bitten one remained well. They were given to inhale in the evening some of the 6th centesimal potency, just prepared. Of course, a true Hahnemannian never draws his conclusions, as the slanderers have said: post hoc ergo propter hoc, nor even the equally foolish; it followed, but could not have been caused by it.

The saliva obtained in the aforesaid way was on the same day triturated; one drop with one hundred grains of milk sugar, and exactly according to Hahnemann’s method, carried to the 3D centesimal; and by the aid of some water and alcohol, further by alcohol alone, up to the 6th centesimal and later to the 30th.

From the tincture of the saliva put in alcohol, some weeks after, one drop was also potentized in the usual way for the purpose of comparative experiments. All the rest, collected on split pieces of quill for inoculation, was one night clandestinely taken by the lady of the house and thrown into the fire.

H. C. Allen
Dr. Henry C. Allen, M. D. - Born in Middlesex county, Ont., Oct. 2, 1836. He was Professor of Materia Medica and the Institutes of Medicine and Dean of the faculty of Hahnemann Medical College. He served as editor and publisher of the Medical Advance. He also authored Keynotes of Leading Remedies, Materia Medica of the Nosodes, Therapeutics of Fevers and Therapeutics of Intermittent Fever.