Hyoscyamus.-Where there is great restlessness, caused by excessive nervous excitement’ itching around the swelling in nervous and hysterical individuals.
Lachesis.-Bluish purplish looking carbuncles, with evidences of blood poisoning; nightly burning, obliging one to rise and wash parts in cold water; inability to bear any bandage around the neck; cerebral symptoms.
Muriatic acid.-Carbuncles in scorbutic individuals, with ulcers on the gums; frequent desire to urinate with profuse emission of clear urine.
NItric acid.-When there is a predisposition to anthrax.
Phytolacca.-Tendency to carbuncles, especially on the back and behind the ears.
Rhus tox.-Great restlessness; feels somewhat relieved of the violent pain as long as he is in motion; burning itching around the carbuncle, with vertigo; bloody, or serous, frothy, diarrhoea; typhoid symptoms.
Secale corn.-Carbuncles on the arms; aggravated by warm applications; gangrenous tendency.
Silicea.-During the process of ulceration, to promote healthy granulation.
Pustula Maligna, Malignant Pustules,
Also called Carbunculus contagiosus, is characterized by the appearance of an angry-looking pustule, associated with gangrenous destruction of the surrounding parts which owes its origin either to a direct inoculation of the poison from an animal affected with the disease called Anthrax, or Carbon, or to a transmission by flies of the poison or to inoculation of the poison from man to man, or to the eating of the flesh of diseased animals. It is therefore most frequently found among persons who have to do with diseased animals, or who work in manufacturing establishments, where the products of such animals (hide, horsehair, wool) are prepared for different uses. The infection takes place principally on the uncovered part of the body which are exposed to the entrance of the poison. The eating of diseased flesh first causes general malaise and intestinal troubles, after which, in about eight or ten days, anthrax carbuncles appear, by preference on the arm, forearm and head.
After an incubation of form a few hours to several days, there is at first felt on the spot where the poison took hold a slight burning and itching, as if from the bite of an insect, and one can see a little red speck with a black point in its centre. This soon becomes changed into an itching papule, capped with a small, generally reddish or bluish vesicle, which gradually enlarges. After bursting it discloses a dark red base, which becomes covered with a crust, while often, though not always secondary vesicles spring up around it, which contain a yellowish, reddish or blackish fluid. At the same time the surrounding parts swell oedematously over a considerable area, the cellular tissue underneath also becomes infiltrated, and in many cases discolored lines mark the course of the veins, or red stripes the course of the lymphatic vessels in the oedematous region; the corresponding lymphatic glands also swell. The general symptoms correspond with the severity of the local affection; there is fever, great weakness, delirium, excitement, confusion; sweating diarrhoea and pain in the extremities; in fatal cases collapse; in favorable cases after the dead masses have been removed by sloughing off, the wound gradually heals by healthy granulation.
The indications for internal remedies are few:
Lachesis.-Bluish color of the pustule and red streaks along the lymphatic vessels.
Anthracinum.-Blood poisoning.
Malandrinum.-Blackish diarrhoea; pain in back and limbs; pustule similar to a badly-looking vaccine pustule.
Compare the remedies given under Carbuncle.
