Aurum.-Pustules on the face, neck and chest, with irritability and melancholy.
Bellad.-Pustules surrounded by a whitish areola. Burning and itching with great sensibility to touch.
Caladium.-White pustules with red areolae, sore to the touch and itching; better from sleep in the day time.
Calcarea carb.-Heat, thirst and loss of appetite accompany the eruption. Scrofulous children and during dentition.
Cantharis.-Tendency to ulceration and gangrene, after or with the exanthemata; debility and emaciation.
Cicuta.-Burning suppurating eruption about face, with yellowish crusts.
Croton tigl.-Confluent pustules with oozing and burning; greyish-brown crusts on the abdomen; pustules with scarlet redness of the skin; itching followed by painful burning; pains relieved after sleep; intense itching, but cannot bear to scratch on account of the pain it causes.
Cyclamen.-Pustules on the feet and toes.
Hepar.-Great sensitiveness of the pustules to the slightest touch; redness or little pimples around the ulceration.
Kali bichr.-Pustules all over the body, in the early stage having a small brown scab on the top; pustules at the root of the nails spreading over the hands; pustules, with violent itching which dry without bursting, forming scabs which sting and burn; pustules resembling small-pox, with a hair in the middle, leaving after the scab comes off a small dry ulcer, which heals in about a fortnight, leaving a colorless depressed cicatrix; eruption more in hot weather. Light-haired children inclined to grow fat.
Kali hyd.-The eruption is profuse, over the body. Great desire for the open air. Catarrhal fever with violent thirst.
Kreasotum.-Large fat greasy pustules, with violent itching towards evening; sensation in the skin as from ulceration, especially on face and chin.
Lachesis.-Eruption more on the arms and left side; constitutional taint; feels worse after sleeping.
Mercurius.-Suppurating pustules, which either run together, discharging an acrid humor, or which remain sore, become hollow, afterwards raised and cicatrized; pustules bleed easily and are painful to the touch; itching and burning from the warmth of the bed; sweats easily without relief.
Nitric acid.-Feeling as of a splinter sticking into the pustules when touching them.
Petroleum.-Itching and burning pustules, with great weakness on exertion; great lassitude; worse in fresh air.
Piper nigrum.-Large pustules leaving marks on the face.
Rhus tox.-Pustules seated upon a red base; black pustules, forming hard scabs, with burning and itching; worse at night and in cold and stormy weather.
Secale corn.-Cachectic females, with rough skin; pustules on the arms and legs, with tendency to gangrene.
Silicea.-Pustules all over the body, especially on the back part of the head, sluggish, and do not suppurate or dessicate; sensitive to contact; burning and soreness after scratching; aversion to warm food; worse in cold. Scrofulous diathesis.
Sulphur.-Dry, thick, yellowish scabs all over the body, especially on the scalp; always attended with great itching; painful to touch; aversion to washing.
Tabacum.-Eruption most on neck and upper limbs; weariness, languor and debility; death-like paleness, nausea worse on least motion. Tartar emet.-Eruption over the whole body. Pustules are full, large, round, burning and painful with red areolae, soon drying up and leaving deep malignant ulcers. Pale, livid, blackish, depressed pustules filled with blood or bloody serum collapsing on bursting and changing to broad, deep ulcers.
Thuja.-Suppurating pustules, especially on lower extremities,; worse from touch; relieved by gentle rubbing.
Furuncle.
A furuncle, or common boil needs little in the way of description, the features being so familiar to all. Pathologically considered, it may be described as an acute and painful localized inflammation, differing, however, from a simple abscess by the fact that in the furuncle we find a central core of necrosed cutaneous and connective tissue, around which the inflammation is developed. Modern investigation leads us to the supposition that a micro-organism, having gained an entrance into one of the follicular openings, set up changes which result in the death of the tissue in the immediate vicinity. This necrosed tissue acts as a foreign body and excites inflammation, as would a thorn, and after a few days the hard, painful, red tubercle exhibits a drop of pus at its summit, which gradually increases until the entire lesion softens, and finally breaks, with exit of pus together with the core referred to.
The pus which is discharged from a furuncle appears to be capable of exciting new lesions of a similar nature, and crops of boils may follow each other in an extremely persistent and disagreeable manner.
Abortive Treatment.-If a furuncle comes under the treatment at the beginning, there is little doubt but that it can be aborted; and one way to do this is to insert the sharp point of a Paquelin cautery, or a lance-shaped galvano-cautery. If neither be at hand, a pointed stick of nitrate of silver should be thoroughly bored in. This is painful at the moment, but it saves pain later on, and may be the means of preventing the formation of new boils. Another method recommended is to scrape the skin over the threatened seat of invasion with a scalpel until a drop or two of blood exudes on pressure. Another:
Rx. Hydrargyr. oxid., O.IO; lanolin, IO.O. S.To be well rubbed in three or four times daily. This will frequently be successful in aborting a boil.
Sen recommends the following abortive treatment for furuncles: I. Carbolic acid in hypodermic injections. 2. The acid must be used early before suppuration appears, in which case the furuncle will be aborted without any connective tissue necrosis. 3. In advanced cases the adoption of the same treatment will prevent serious scarring. 4. A three per cent solutions is of more value than a weaker one. 5. Patients can follow their usual occupations during the progress of treatment.
Furuncles should never be opened with a knife until they are “ripe” -that is, until the accumulation of pus has been sufficient to loosen the central core. When opened, however, the pus should be evacuated as thoroughly as possible, and the central core removed. The parts should then be thoroughly cleaned with mercurial solution, and an antiseptic dressing applied. The sulphide of calcium given internally, in doses of one quarter of a grain, hastens the maturation of the lesions.
When a boil is tense and hard, the best local treatment consists in applying hot, limited flax seed meal, or pulverized slippery elm, or tomato poultices. Poultices should not be continued after the boil opens, as if too long used they rather encourage the formation of new boils. Gelsemium or lappa cerate is a good after-dressing.
The appropriate internal remedy will usually be one of the following:
Absinthium.-Eruption of furuncles over the whole body.
Aethusa.-Painful boil on the small of the back; hepatic derangement; intolerance of milk; in children during dentition.
Ammon carb.-Boils on the cheeks and around the ears; in scrofulous children and in old people.
Antimon crud.-Boils on the perineum; burning pain for some distance around; gastric derangement.
Arctium lappa.-When crops of boils persistently occur; hordeolum and ulcerated eyelids.
Arnica.-Many small boils on the face; eructations bitter and like rotten eggs; general lassitude.
Apis.-Boils on the pubis; burning, stinging pains; great sensitiveness to touch and pressure.
Bellad.-In early stage, if boil is inflamed and painful; red, hot shining swelling; boils on the shoulders every spring; after measles.
Bellis per.-Boils beginning as slight pimples, and increasing to large dark colored swellings, with aching pain. Mostly on the neck and lower jaw.
Berberis vulg.-Hastens suppuration in boils, and prevents their recurrence.
Bromide of potassium causes an eruption of small boils, in successive crops, chiefly over the face and trunk, with troublesome itching.
Bromine.-Boils on the arms and face. In light-haired, blue- eyed persons.
Cadmium sulph.-Boils on the nose and buttocks.
Calcarea carb.-Boils on the forearms and hands, with lancinating pains; cramps in the arms; glandular swellings. In scrofulous persons.
Calcarea mur.-As a preventative.
Carbo animalis-Boils at the anus; burning, tearing pain. In scrofulous subjects.
Cina.-Boils on the head and face in children; child is very fretful; bores in the nose with the fingers; burning heat of the face with a glowing redness of the cheeks.
Cistus.-Boils beginning with a blister.
Gelsemium.-Large boils on the face and neck;great muscular prostration; sleeplessness from nervous irritation; dizziness and blurred vision; heat of face and head.
Hepar.-When boils mature slowly; violent throbbing gathering pain; stinging soreness; after injuries. Hepar low to promote suppuration, and high to prevent suppuration.
Kali-iod.-Papular eruption or other eruptions with strumous or syphilitic taint.
Kalmia lat.-Red inflamed spots like incipient boils.
