Sepia.-Chronic form. Red, lentil-sized blotches on the hands. Eruption breaks out in the open air and disappears in a warm room, especially on the face, arms, and thorax. After milk and pork.
Solanum oler.-Urticaria febrilis.
Spigelia.-Small elevations like hives on the lower extremities after scratching.
Stannum.-Small, itching hives below the waist through the day. Itching aggravated by rubbing. In patients with phthisis.
Sulphur.-Eruption, itching and burning over the whole body, with febrile symptoms, or when the indicated remedy does not act well. Itching aggravated by the warmth of the bed. Chronic cases.
Tetradymite.-Nettle-rash on face after eating crabs.
Triosteum perf.-Nettle-rash with gastric derangement.
Urtica urens.-Nettle-rash attending or preceding rheumatism. Itching swelling all over the fingers. Aggravated every year at the same time. Itching and burning of the skin, as if scorched; raised red blotches; fine stinging points; pale rash requiring constant rubbing; consequences of suppressed nettle-rash; eruption and itching disappear as soon as she lays down and re- appear immediately after rising.
Ustilago.-Terrible itching at night; menstrual irregularities from ovarian irritation. During the climaxis.
Veratrum alb.-Nettle-rash, about the joints only.
Zincum met.-Stinging itching in the skin with nettle-rash eruption after rubbing. Itching rash in hollows of the knees and bends of the elbows. After moderate wine drinking.
The following case, reported by Dr. Hoyne, is very instructive: Female, complained of itching all over the body, but especially bad upon the back. No eruption was to be seen, but writing a word upon her arm it stood out in blazing red a moment or two afterward, a certain diagnostic sign of urticaria. Her other symptoms were: Urine quite scanty but clear, and a good color; no appetite of consequence; meat does not agree with her; sour things disagree; drinks a large quantity of water daily; her limbs swell, principally about the ankles; dreams frequently and they are decidedly unpleasant; alternate constipation and diarrhoea; nearly every morning she has nausea and dizziness; shortness of breath when lying down, especially on her back. The urine, on examination, showed no disease of the kidney. She received Apis, and in three weeks was entirely relieved of all her symptoms.
Follicular Hyperaemia.
Hyperaemia of the follicles of the skin is often confounded with diseases which it complicates, and it is important that this accident common to many dissimilar diseases and its true significance should be distinctly understood in relation especially to the matter of general diagnosis.
Whenever the skin is much irritated, and particularly if scratching is practiced for the relief of itching, the follicles are apt to become congested. The result is that red hyperaemic papules are formed by erection and turgescence of the upper part of the follicular walls. If the hyperaemia persists long enough a certain amount of hypertrophous growth may take place as a consequence of the hyperaemia, and solid papules may then form at the hair follicles which may from being scratched become covered at the apex with scales of dried blood that has been effused from the excoriations; in fact, the papules become pruriginous. But this is only a secondary result, not a primary condition. This accident of follicular congestion is found in a variety of diseases, and must be carefully distinguished from primary mischief, though in itself it indicates an excessive irritation of the skin. It is, in fact, the sign of a “scratched skin,” and should be always recognized as such.
Medicinal Rashes, or Eruptions, The Direct Result of the Action Of Drugs.
It is important that the homoeopathic dermatologist should be fully acquainted with the eruptions of the skin produced by the administration of medicinal substances. Many of our remedies are capable of producing some form of an eruption upon the skin, and it is this fact, or rather a knowledge of the action of these different medicinal substances, that enables the homoeopathic physician to prescribe successfully for many cases that the old school relegate to hygiene and time for a cure.
As the therapeutic indications in the various lesions of the skin are but a history of the effects produced upon the healthy skin, in the prover, of the different medicines mentioned, no attempt will be made here to enumerate them. I shall, however, at the close of the volume, give the “skin symptoms” of some of the newer remedies, as all may not be so familiar with these as with the older remedies.
Occasionally we find a case that will not respond favorably to any one of our old-tried friends, and some one of the newer remedies will prove to be the more exact similimum, and prove a grateful blessing to our patient.
