Introduction
A Product of Sepsis.
General symptoms
For sapremia or septicemia: puerperal or surgical; from ptomaine or sewer gas infection; during course of diphtheria, typhoid or typhus, when the best selected remedy fails to amel. or permanently improve.
The bed feels hard (Arnica); parts lain on feel sore and bruised (Baptisia); rapid decubitus (Carb-ac.).
Great restlessness; must move constantly to amel. the soreness of parts (Arnica, Bellis, Eup.).
Tongue: large, flabby; clean, smooth as if varnished; fiery red; dry, cracked, articulation difficult (Crot., Ter.).
Taste: sweetish; terribly fetid; pus-like; as from an abscess.
Vomiting: persistent; brownish; coffee-ground; offensive, stercoraceous; with impacted or obstructed bowels (Opium, Plb.) Diarrhea: horribly offensive (Psorinum); brown or black (Lep.); painless, involuntary; uncertain, when passing flatus (Aloe, Oleander).
Constipation: with complete inertia (Opium, Sanicula); obstinate from impaction, in fevers, stool, large, black, carrion like, small, black balls, like olives (Opium, Plb.).
Fetus: or secundines retained, decomposed; dead for day, black, horribly offensive discharge; ” never well since” septic fever, following abortion or confinement. To arouse vital activity of uterus.
Lochia; thin, acrid, brown, very fetid (nitricum acidum); suppressed, followed by chills, fever and profuse fetid perspiration.
Distinct consciousness of a heart; it feels tired; as if enlarged; purring, throbbing, pulsating, constant in ears, preventing sleep, cardiac asthenia from septic conditions.
Pulse abnormally rapid, out of all proportion to temperature (Lilium).
Skin: pale, cold of an ashy hue (Secale); obstinate, varicose, offensive ulcers of old persons (Psorinum).
Chill: begins on the back, between scapulae; severe, general, of bones and extremities; marking onset of septic fever; temperature 103 to 106; heat sudden, skin dry and burning; pulse rapid, small, wiry, 140 to 170; cold clammy sweat follows.
In septic fevers, especially puerperal, Pyrogen has demonstrated its great value as a homoeopathic dynamic antiseptic.
Generalities
Cannot lie more than few minutes in one position, amel. change.
Debility in morning, staggered on trying to walk (S).
Aching all over, bed feels hard.
Great muscular debility; rapid recovery in a few hours (dog).
Restlessness, turning in bed, groaning.
Pains in limbs and general uneasiness.
Soon after the initial rigor, pain and swelling of one or more joints occurs.
Peculiar sweet smell about the patient, as in diabetes.
A sudden attack of pleurisy occurring in any one with otorrhea.
Pyemia may be suspended.
General lassitude.
Nervousness.
Feebleness.
Malaria, pains in limbs, especially in legs and back, with headache, distress in stomach, like a heavy wad.
Restlessness, when beginning to move and during motion.
Restless and moaning, in persons dying, especially from scarlet fever or diphtheria, often enables them to recover.
Great nervousness and restlessness, wants to be covered or rocked.
Great aversion to being washed. Cries when washed.
Will not sleep in bed, but wants to be held in lap and kept in slight motion; wakes when the motion is stopped or on attempting to lay her down.
Cases
Miss. E. B., aged 14, complained of feeling weary, unable to go to school. Applying thermometer, found temperature 102, pulse 108, and her father sent for me. I found tongue abnormally red, thin, white fur at base. Had slight epistaxis in the morning which Bryonia amel., but failed to affect the fever. As there was absolutely no pain and very few symptoms, she was allowed to wait a few days on placebo. Sewer-gas was now discovered as the cause; Pyrogen, one dose, was given with rapid recovery.
Inclined to talk all the time at night during the fever; cold sweat over the body; pain in the small of the back; desires to urinate; it is scant; talks to herself; urging to vomit, with cold feet; restlessness amel. after sleeping; purple spots on the chest; cries out in her sleep that some one or a weight is lying on her; heart beats hard, has a laborious action; sensation as if the heart was too full of blood; it beats very loud, heart sounds can be heard some distance from the thorax, always can hear her heart beat; could not sleep last night for whizzing and purring of heart, when she did fall asleep was delirious. Sensation as if a cap were on her head. When she awakens and finds it there she known that she is all right, that she is not delirious; amel. after vomiting; whispers in her sleep; whispers to herself, if you ask her what she said does not answer; sensation as if she covered the whole bed; she knew that her head was on the pillow, but she could not tell where the rest of her body was.
She feels when lying on one side that she is one person and that when she turns to the other side she is another person; sensation as though the fever would not run in each alike, that is to say, she felt as though she was existing in a second person, or that there were two of her.
Coldness and chilliness all day that no fire would warm; sits by the fire and breathes the heat from the stove; chilly whenever leaving the fire; at night when the fever came on he had a sensation as if his lungs were on fire and that he must have fresh air, which soon brought relief.
Sensation as though he was crowded by his arms and legs; when turning over in bed they were still crowding him; as soon as the fever came on he commenced to urinate; he can tell every time when the fever is coming on because of this urgency to urinate.
The urine is clear as spring-water. Very severe pain in the right side; knife-like pains going through to the back; agg. from every motion, from coughing or talking or taking a long breath; amel. from lying on the affected side; groaning with every breath; redness of the face and also of the ears, it looked as if the blood would burst out of them. After the fever leaves he still has the hallucination that he is very wealthy and he has a very large sum of money in the bank, and this was the last to leave him – this idea that he had the money.
I can hardly mention Pyrogen without becoming enthusiastic, on account of the wonderful results that I have had from it in blood poisoning. In any kind of septic infection, either puerperal or traumatic, Pyrogen will do wonders, when the symptoms correspond.
It is similar to Anthracinum in some respects.
An old woman dying with gangrene inoculated one of her nurses; the nurse had chills, high fever and red streaks running up the arm following the course of the lymphatics. Pyrogen rapidly removed the whole process. – Boger.
The palmar surface of the left forearm was torn to the bone by a buzz-saw. It was dressed by adhesive plaster, which was put on so tightly that it had to be removed in 24 hours, replaced by another and a few stitches taken; but the whole hand began to swell, became very painful, gradually grew worse for eighteen days, during which patient had but few hours sleep. Whole hand and forearm were enormously swollen, almost black in color and mortification threatened. Amputation was now decided.
At this stage a homoeopathic physician found in addition to the symptoms above the patient delirious and excited; he could not lie down, for the bed was too hard, not could he rest the arm on anything, for everything on which it lay also seemed too hard.
Pyrogen 50M. In a few hours he was sleeping quietly, temperature reduced and pain lessened. Improvement was rapid and steady to complete recovery.
Slight elevation of temperature, severe rigor, followed by sweating. The rigors are usually severe, and they occasionally occur with the regularity of ague.
Pulse becomes weak and rapid.
Pulse felt in head and ears, painless throbbing.
Fever of the intermittent type, with the usual accompaniments of loss of appetite, restlessness, thirst.
Rigors cease after the first few days, but the temperature usually maintains a remittent character.
Puerperal fevers.
Typhoid fever.
Feverishness.
Pyemia.
Septicemia.
Burning in the face.
Blood was throbbing all through every part of head and body could feel it even in my fingers.
Chilly all night.
Cases.
Mrs. I., aged 35, mother of two children, swelling of calf of leg; vesication formed on top of left foot, followed by a large ulcer, which eventually covered the whole foot. As the diseased process extended up the leg, several abscesses formed in succession, the swelling continuing to spread to the hip. About three inches below the trochanter a large abscess burrowed in the soft tissues, discharging great quantities of pus when opened.
Restless, unable to lie in one position; motion caused great pain, but moving gave amel.; must be continually moved, every hour or two every night, which a dose of Rhus failed to amel. The feet ankles and abdomen very much swollen; urine scanty, with red sandy sediment; constant sensation of repletion; is very thirsty yet unable to drink; hungry, yet the least food causes repletion; very peevish, whines like a child. Swelling and pain still increasing; face and neck yellow, emaciated and wrinkled; temperature 103, pulse 120. After Arsenicum, Rhus, Lycopodium and Nux-v. failed to give any amel., Pyrogen CM., one dose, followed by placebo every hour; improvement began and continued for four days, when a copious, painless, watery, offensive diarrhea began; another dose of Pyrogen was given and the patient went on to a rapid recovery.
